[Guidelines] Public Test Server Feedback

[NQ-Nyzaltar]

Dear Noveans,

 

With the opening of the Public Test Server (PTS) available to all DU players come a few guidelines, if you want to give some feedback.
We wanted - for a long time - to give the opportunity to anyone among you to give your opinion on features before they hit the Live Server.

However, as the time window to give feedback on new features deployed on the PTS will be usually limited, it's important to get structured feedback to be taken into account by the Devs, in order to make possible changes before deploying the said features on the Live Server. Note: having a new or modified feature deployed on the PTS doesn't necessarily mean that the same will be deployed on the Live Server. Community feedback may change the Dev Team course of action.

 

In order to facilitate the follow-up of your feedback by the Dev Team, it's really important to talk about one topic/feature per forum thread.
Additionally it's highly advised to follow the template below when giving feedback on a specific topic/feature deployed on the PTS:

 

• Naming clearly the feature / game mechanics involved.
• Your feedback on the deployed feature (what you like / what you don't like about it (in this case, please give an explanation why you don't like it)).
• What kind of improvement you would see for such feature.

 

If your feedback is about a bug report, please follow this template:

 

• Subject: [BUG] <Issue name here>
• Current Version Number: <Can be seen when closing the client>
• Impact: <Game breaking / Crash / Corruption / Item/Data loss / Inconvenience / Cosmetic>
• Summary: <Short outline of the issue>
• Description: <Description of the issue>
• Reproduction: <Steps taken to make this bug happen>

 

Reminder: there will be no official support for the PTS.
This means you can report bugs you found/experienced on the PTS (preferably in this forum section).
It's encouraged to report bugs found on the PTS, to make sure they won't be replicated once the involved feature will be deployed on the Live Server.
However, do not send tickets to the Customer Support to fix issues you encountered on the PTS.

Why no support? The reason is quite simple: in their experimental state, things may be broken.
The Novaquark Team prefer to allocate 100% of the Customer Support resources to the Live Server, where the "real game" happens.

 

We hope you'll understand our stance on the matter.

 

Best Regards,
The Novaquark Team.

 

[Snapsis]

Excellent.  It is really good to see progress on this front as promised.

[iNFiDeL]

❤️ Glad to hear it very much appreciated NQ! Will the PTS be a duplicate of the current server? If not how will we get stuff to test with?

[Filokwarq]

Date for PTS?

[MopnexAndreyno]

Will we have free resources to properly test things?

Will there be full resets or synchronization with the live server in this case? If not, the only reason that will keep people from playing mainly on PTS is a low amount of CPUs allocated to it.

[vylqun]

Very important, give the players who join a full inventory with stuff. Not many will be able to afford the time to grind up to endgame content for pure testing purposes.

[PauMS0418]

3 minutes ago, vylqun said:

Very important, give the players who join a full inventory with stuff. Not many will be able to afford the time to grind up to endgame content for pure testing purposes.

At least a none grindy gameplay but if the feature is about grinding..

[AmpOnEveryDay]

Full testing would require access to all items that could possibly interact with intended changes introduced. Making some items the normal way may take longer than the public test periods. I would expect they've thought of this and have a plan in place. Otherwise unless all intended changes are based on the new player experience, the $ and time put toward opening up a server for the public to test new features is mostly waisted on an act first think later move with no foresight.

[NQ-Nyzaltar]

@iNFiDeL
@MopnexAndreyno
@vylqun
@PauMS0418

PTS starts with the live server database from a month ago.
If you started playing earlier than a month ago, you won't start from scratch.
The dev team may also give free resources when necessary, to test on a specific topic (more info in the official announcement below)

 

 

 

@Filokwarq2

PTS is currently opened and should stay open until tomorrow.
This is however a first load test, so the duration may be short for the first time and it will reopen later.

 

Best Regards,

Nyzaltar.

[copperlein]

One question because Reporting.

Should we also Report all buggs that are reported on the Live server when they are still ongoing on the PTS?

[TabYan]

DU PTS download  -- > OK

DU PTS loading in game --> OK without the usual loading crash I have in Live version

closing DU PTS and loading DU Beta Live --> OK, no problem

?

[AmpOnEveryDay]

Subject: [BUG]  Launcher sizing issue
Current Version Number:  PTS .24 launcher
Impact:  If not for my second monitor or finding the Ctrl+mwheel zoom, I wouldn't be able to click "update game".
Summary:  Launcher too big
Description:  The launcher is way too big for my monitor regardless of my screen resolution and with or without my second monitor enabled.

Tried to resolve:  Disabled second monitor. Cycled through various resolutions on my main monitor from tiny to 4k. I closed and reopened the launcher at every change to my resolution setting beyond the first. Restarted the pc with just the main monitor enabled and tried again. Used the maximize button at the top right. 

Results: The launcher was oversized at every point.
Reproduction: Opened the launcher.

 

PSA: For anyone with the same issue and only one monitor. Since the entire top section can be used to click and drag the launcher, you can hold Ctrl and roll your mouse wheel to zoom until the top section is giant then drag the window up far enough to be able to click the button at the bottom right to update.

 

I also cannot access https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/forum/50-public-test-server-feedback/

 

Edit: Found the reason for the size issue. Windows 10 has a setting for scaling. Mine was at 150% I've never had it resize an entire window larger than my screen before but setting this down to 100% fixed the issue. This is however not a problem with Windows or the setting as this launcher is the only thing that I've ever seen this setting interact with in this way. Normally scaling of an app stops at the size of the display and things are resized within the window to make them easier to read from a distance since I'm playing on a big screen tv. Not everyone will be affected by this since not everyone uses this scaling setting but for those that are, it'd be nice to have a clamp on window size so as to still be able to use the scaling setting higher than 100% and view the launcher normally.

[Snapsis]

Can't access the Public Test Server feedback forum.
https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/forum/50-public-test-server-feedback/

 

 

[choxie]

Didnt expect to see this so soon but very very pleased. I'll do my bug hunting best

[Filokwarq]

All Skills at zero.... no Points to spend....... unable to test industry. Fell directly from the Sky above Ali with 21kt...... Its ok to crash, but I cant spawn anything to go get scrap etc.... darn....... Would love to test, but without skills I cant even use the elements for industry etc.

 

And still no T2+ Space Engines Schematics, and still no Skills on the T4+ Radars...  sigh

 

Edit: I just saw the Skills will be fixed, yeah!

[Fembot68]

After spending a while in the test server, I am very pleased with this patch.

 

reflection 

• The launcher is a bit big but overall a huge improvement 
• The lighting changes are good and planets look better overall.  
• Mission system was good although I would love to be able to make more than one mission a a time.  10 or 12 minimum. 
• The org wallet is good but we could have some more functionality in it like giving daily limits on what members can withdraw or use.  
•  Warping between planets i saw some more lag than usual and may result in players with lower bandwidth getting crashes 

 

Some things to consider in the future test servers  

1.  seed the markets with very low cost stuff in the test server so we can try things easier 

2.  no talent points make is hard to test things  you may want to allot some for us to assign in the future 

3. you can further reduce lag ion ships by giving us XL atmo engines and L wings as the computers don't have to do as many calculations for fewer elements.   This will make ship designers very happy as the backs of ships wont have to be a huge flat surface.  

[AmpOnEveryDay]

Removed prior bug report until I can get back on. I was having an internet connection issue that may have played in.

Edit: Yep this one (referring to the mission system) was on my end.

[copperlein]

is it possible to report Bugs from the PTS non "public" because they still exist in pts and live?

[ImInCidEr]

anyone know how to use the new "Cut Voxel Shape" ability? i.e. Copy Shape, but instead of paste... cut as stencil? said in release notes it is in this version

[Agentinus]

Please make it possible to buy all things at the markets and give everyone 1-3 Billion Quanta there.
If possible it would be very nice to have something like 30 million skillpoints to spent to the find all skilltree issues.

Thanks

    

[Ragnarok8]

The current Mission System is a good start I know it is still incomplete, but will this iteration of the mission system include Aphelia issued missions or will that be for a later date as I know most people are desiring some sort of mission system that is not only reliant on players for them to participate and make money. As far as how it is implemented currently the option to just transfer the money directly or even increase the amount of the original mission gives the opportunity for players to add bonuses should a player complete it in a timely manner. This also makes it so they never have to meet face to face, depending on the mission. The improvement of the Fauna variation and the texture improvement of the the terrain makes it much more pleasant to look at, especially the snow on Ion.

 

[DecoyGoatBomb]

Feedback:

• Claiming items to designate which wallet recieves dispenser payout. 
• The game  on the PTS sends the money to the core owner. I may have misread the devlog but I thought claiming an item in a dispenser storage and batch container would override dispenser payout designation. 
• If this is not planned to be how it works I would suggest some way to override the core ownership being the only way to designate dispenser payout. This makes setting up shops in a city setting and having shop tenants very difficult without opening up yourself for griefing as the player must own a core in the middle of your city/construct.

[Ragnarok8]

When viewing a planet occasionally the tiles will flash in and out or just disappear entirely. I am unable to transfer money whether it's as a player or organization as it keeps removing my entries for player to transfer to and amount of money to transfer.

 

 

[Mjrlun]

So here's my constructive criticism on the new update. I love it, don't get me wrong, but there's some things that would probably take between 30 minutes to 2 hours for a single dev to complete, and would completely overhaul the feel of the update, and graphics in general (written in the specified feedback format, here we go).
 

The background, yes, the nebula, as well as atmospheric scattering are the main topics that I want to have changed.

My opinion on the current background/nebula, is this. It ruins the ambient lighting, by having a persistent, ugly, turquoise tint to the entire night side of the environment. It removes all the depth of any structure or voxel, while also not even being dark, or night time. It's so bad that I'm forced to put an L vertical light above the ship im building just to get some decent lighting on it to not make it look flat, and drawn poorly. In addition, people, as sourced from the video where the nebula released, thought it would be a cool idea for stealth combat with having to make ships dark in some way to be able to not be seen from so far away, while also making headlights useful in space. On top of this, just to mention, the corners of the nebula are soooooooo clearly visible if you spend about 30 seconds looking, which completely ruins immersion further than just having poor lighting. Furthermore, a darker sky would better pronounce the incredibly beautiful atmospheric scattering, and generate some breathtaking screenshots.

The second aspect of this, the atmospheric scattering, is probably the more confusing side of this request (not that adding the nebula despite people on the video announcing it saying they didn't like it doesn't make it not confusing why it exists), is that the different planets used to have different atmosphere colors, yes? This is a server-side thing that was "changed" some time in the land of NDA, and thus the devs know when this was. All the different planets used to have cool unique atmospheres, not just "blue blue blue blue blue". The desert planets in the top right of the map had orange atmospheres (Sinnen's not supposed to have an atmosphere, but it has a bright, BLUE one!), as well as Thades having a nice orange atmosphere, and Madis having a nice unique purple acid-y atmosphere. In addition, all of these atmospheres have clouds, which makes 0 sense from a realism standpoint, as they are all white clouds, indicating each planet has sufficient enough water to generate a biosphere (not true, in a long shot).

And to wrap this up, they made Sanctuary have the only "unique" atmosphere, which did not need it at all. A bright orange one. Weren't we wanting those for the desert planets? To be frank, the Sanctuary moon should have some alteration of a nitrogen blue atmosphere (similar to Alioth), however, changed in a way to represent its biosphere. Something like a more oxygenated, or less oxygenated, would be a cool addition. For example, if the atmosphere of Sanctuary was made to be a nice green-tinted nitrogen blue, it would probably be as "cool and exotic" as the orange one, without making it look like an apocalypse is around the corner, and also ruining every screenshot in existence that involves nature. IMO, it takes the beauty of the nice, lush landscape, the beauty of the moon, and turns it into something I wish would not exist the way it is at all.

To wrap this up in a meaningful concise wants and desires, here's my list in sentence form. 

Remove the nebula, keep the stars. If you poke around in the files (of course not altering anything), you can see that they are deliberately separate files, as if it was a simple patch at some point that altered it. See images found from public sources where this was a thing. If there are any issues with doing so of course putting in the effort to fix such issues are quite important as well.

If you truly want, replace the nebula with some form of darker galaxy background, I don't really care, just not something that ruins the night sky so harshly. Take a note out of Elite Dangerous if you so have to. Find a cool nebula background by messing around in blender, or create a nice galaxy background which would have a similar effect.
Should this be the case, however, the ambient lighting should still be dark and black, and still maintain some amount of AO (and shadows preferably, but that's a task).

 

All images here are from earlier versions of the game, publicly found (click on the images)

 

Atmospheric scattering, background, and ambient lighting during night time

Shows the background plainly just there against the nice day time atmosphere, in general, very serene!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A cinematic cold morning or evening in the early days of DU engine infrastructure

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now just pure background and lighting!

 

Now for the atmospheric scatterings. All I request is to make them accurate to the map, and to their descriptions (should they have them, cough sanc cough). On the map, in case you all forgot, Sanctuary used to have an Alioth-style atmosphere.
If you prefer to go for a more engaging style, however, I'd highly recommend choosing something similar to what I suggested earlier for Sanctuary, but then apply this creative vision that seems to have been forgotten about on this topic to the other planets, which dearly need some love.

Demonstration that even in pre-alpha that this was possible, and just how breathtaking it is with a dark background!

[Squidrew_]

8 minutes ago, Mjrlun said:

So here's my constructive criticism on the new update. I love it, don't get me wrong, but there's some things that would probably take between 30 minutes to 2 hours for a single dev to complete, and would completely overhaul the feel of the update, and graphics in general (written in the specified feedback format, here we go).

I want to add to this idea that with the darker ambient lighting introduced in the 0.24 patch, the whole point of the nebula skybox (to add more light) is basically nullified. Assuming the nebula wasn't a purely stylistic addition, I think it'd be cool if the devs considered re-adding the older style skybox with a little ambient lighting so night isn't pitch black.

 

That alone would make me, a player primarily interested in exploring, soooo much more excited about DU.

 

Just my two cents.