Checking In - Have things improved since 0.23?

[Biblitz]

I've stopped playing/paying DU for a month or so now  and thought I'd just do a check in.

 

Have things gotten better since the 0.23 patch? Have players returned? Are the markets stable? Any plans to revert back to pre 0.23 factory schematic wise? Just curious, thanks!

[Xennial]

19 minutes ago, Biblitz said:

I've stopped playing/paying DU for a month or so now  and thought I'd just do a check in.

 

Have things gotten better since the 0.23 patch? Have players returned? Are the markets stable? Any plans to revert back to pre 0.23 factory schematic wise? Just curious, thanks!

Players never really left , the claims of game dead were exaggerated. Why would they revert back? 0.23 was a great patch.

[Haunty]

Schematics prices were reduced since the .23 patch, which is better to some people. 

I find markets a little less active than they were, but still active.

[Daphne Jones]

5 hours ago, Xennial said:

Players never really left , the claims of game dead were exaggerated. Why would they revert back? 0.23 was a great patch.

I was logging in every day to collect my welfare check, but I've even stopped doing that. The market is so crippled now that I can't make enough money to afford to fly my ship.

[SpiceRub]

still an online singleplayer game

[Warlander]

Id say let it simmer a little more and que up.

[JohnnyTazer]

2 hours ago, SpiceRub said:

still an online singleplayer game

This is DU's single biggest problem. More than any bug, schematic, anything.

[fiddlybits]

9 hours ago, Xennial said:

Players never really left , the claims of game dead were exaggerated. Why would they revert back? 0.23 was a great patch.

Do you have any data for user retention? From anecdotes (players talking about their org active members leaving) and secondary metrics like twitch tracker it appears the active user base has been consistently declining since beta launched. I don't know of any direct numbers though.

[Xennial]

8 hours ago, fiddlybits said:

Do you have any data for user retention? From anecdotes (players talking about their org active members leaving) and secondary metrics like twitch tracker it appears the active user base has been consistently declining since beta launched. I don't know of any direct numbers though.

 

No other data then anyone else. Our org has continued to see expansion and actually a rather dramatic increase in player activity since 0.23. I also can use the 'data' that people still buy the products we place on the market so someone is out there playing. Obviously some people quit playing over 0.23, but from what I can see in activity levels it's not some super high %.

 

Twitch numbers, A.I. player base estimators etc should be taken with a grain of salt imo. As it relates to twitch the game only has so much to show right now thats interesting to watch as entertainment. I actually watched a prominent streamer for DU before I decided to join last year, I'm pretty sure he was done with the game just dealing with the length of the tutorial. DU as it sits is not a game that lends itself well to streaming as there is soooo much tedium in anything you do in DU I feel like it would fall heavily on the streamer to retain viewers as the game is not going to provide a lot of 'wow' moments. DU I think is more akin to games like Satisfactory in that way that they lend themselves to youtuber videos' moreso then actual streaming. Thats just my feeling though and I can see a point in the future where that would be different with TW etc.

[Aaron Cain]

On the places i visit there is a steep decline in people Also i know of a fair number of would be industrials who left for now, not only due to the patch but everything combined.

[le_souriceau]

18 hours ago, fiddlybits said:

Do you have any data for user retention? 

Well, we have 2 decently informative metrics in open access.

 

1) Sanctuary claims, representing dynamics of new accounts (granted, not everyone claims with alts, but new players do). Growth is there, but pretty slow (likely not covering drain by quits currently).

 

2) Twich (more metric of overall "public interest"). Obvious decline.

https://twitchtracker.com/games/493826

 

Still, expected, because DU probably in its lowest Beta point currently -- very questionable 0.23, grind exaustion, lack of new features, 3 m subs end of first wave of subbers (who decided not to renew in december) -- all this contributed. It may go better, if NQ make asteroids and other stuff right.

[Hiturn]

In the last 4 days the market activity buy/sell has decreased considerably.

[Bazzy_505]

It's hard to say without any hard data, but from what i can tell from my perspective, all those i've played with at beginning of beta are gone. I myself haven't touched the DU in over a month and feel very little, if any urge to come back.

 

Dual Universe, had a very effective catchphrase of being a civilization building MMO.  Sadly after years of development, there's very little in game to back that mission statement. 

I did buy into closed alpha, and for the most part really enjoyed the ship building aspect of things. I've clocked, by my estimate, about 500 hours in game during alpha and public "beta"

and for the buy-in price i feel i've got my moneys worth. Having said that i'm fairly certaini will not be spending any more time or money on NQ's vision, which  in my eyes

is nothing but a pipe dream.

 

I was never too bothered by phletora of technical issue DU has had. I've always considered those a natural toll for playing an unfished product.

What soured the milk for me was realization (sometime around bueprint introduction) that NQ has absolute zero understanding of game theory, nor solid game design to solder through.

 

The whole vision seem to have devolved into "let's try to mix up random EVE elements, with space engineers online".

For the time being i'm splitting my time between EVE and Elite.

I'm still following the patch notes and read back discord from time to time,  but unless NQ pulls a rabbit out of the hat, i don't see myself comming back.

 

[rinks361]

I just came back today, but looking at MMO Population numbers, it states that there are currently 12,216 "active" players on DU with a total player value of 321,482 players. While in game the starting area was of course barren with tons of constructs laid about with no use as usual. Didn't come across one player after checking out a few districts. Chartered to the moon and again, no players around the area, but tons of constructs tossed around the place like a junk yard. Plenty of spaces have been claimed but haven't came across any that are actually being built on, just tons of speeders that either crashed or ran out of fuel or were left behind by players. I would be surprised if there were actually 3,000 active players in DU right now.

[SpiceRub]

myep, barren junkyard

[GraXXoR]

Have things improved since 0.23?

LOL. Oh you sweet summer child.


Until last week, I played more than 30 minutes a day or so to queue up my avatar and his four alts' security checks (takes about 5 minutes each avatar)... and am currenly hooked on CP2077 (have already over 100 hours play time in that game!)  

I came back for a couple of hours when I heard that they had reset the skill queues.

I tried to play a few hours this last week and flew around alioth... saw maybe one or two players per market place.
The org I play with has shrunk from 60 just after the NDA drop peak to its 5 original core players again, but that's merely anecdotal.

For me, I have the incidental fly bys and drop ins at our base (3km from a district) peter out to almost nothing. I'm now surprised if I even see another person at all..
Kinda like a sad, small version of Elite Dangerous.

I suspect people are waiting for the beta to drop.

[blazemonger]

On 1/11/2021 at 6:37 PM, Biblitz said:

Have things gotten better since the 0.23 patch?

 

NQ just crawled back to their den and keeps quiet, hoping the pain wil go away.

I've come across several builder who left the game, some streamers who were great and entertaining to watch ion Twitch have moved on from DU.

 

Generally the in-game cost of playing has increased quiet significantly, Unless you mass produce at quite a considerable level, there is no ROI  on industry unless you have spent all your training on getting high levels and then some levels actually work against you as NQ has a hardcoded limit on specifically batch runs time so talents to reduce running time in fact increase output while time remain constant. For several items it's actually  faster to use nanoformer and the runtime on nanoformer crafting does not actually reduce crafting time (with time being a constant), it make time go faster (time is a variable in DU nano crafting). Generally Industry operates at a loss for most players which I guess is what NQ wanted all along for whatever reason.

 

Generally talent implementation is a mess

 

So no, things have not gotten better. on the surface it may seem it OK-ish, but dig a little bit deeper and the level of inconsistent behavior and hacks to make things work are painfully obvious. And it's really only a matter of time before things go boom if you keep hacking around trying to keep the backend alive (which to me seems to be the main problem NQ has right now).

 

[CptLoRes]

I do a daily login for the quanta, and about once a week I fly the outside of the Alioth district ring to check out other peoples constructs. And excluding the markets I am lucky if I see maybe 10 players in total working on constructs etc. while completing the ring.

[le_souriceau]

1 hour ago, blazemonger said:

And it's really only a matter of time before things go boom if you keep hacking around trying to keep the backend alive (which to me seems to be the main problem NQ has right now).

I'm afraid asteroids will be another chapter of failure with exploits, bad balance and other typical cringe.

 

Like at fist they drop them totaly unbalanced or exploit ridden. Our usual suspects will grab millions of tonns of T4-T5. Then NQ --- oh, not how supposed to be. And they nerf asteroids to shit, but allow players who grabbed immense riches at begining to keep them. Or something like that. May be location of asteroids with expensive mega-nodes will be leaked. At this point nothing will suprise me. But I kinda expect nothing good from NQ, they literaly so far not implemented major feature from 1st try without major failure. Not even once.

[blazemonger]

That new features and mechanics come in with bugs and exploits is not abnormal and to be expected.

 

Besides the fact that NQ is advertising an early Alpha game as beta, because NQ has pretty much painted themselves into a corner on being able to really fix these, they will create damage that can't be repaired and NQ has not shown any willingness to get tough on these things. As usual, they will nerf and "fix" things around the issue to hide it or make it go away (for now), they would not actually fix the root cause.

[Aaron Cain]

13 minutes ago, le_souriceau said:

Like at fist they drop them totaly unbalanced or exploit ridden. Our usual suspects will grab millions of tonns of T4-T5.

I am very sorry to say but the results from the past not only tell us you are right but also that these people already know where the asteroids are gone be and what asteroid will have what ore. Who tells them? well, I guess a little bird.