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Availability of space combat and the markets


Dupont

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It seems to me that one of the underlying assumptions of the game design is that players are available 8 hours a day, every day.

Also, It is clear that there is a lack of demand in the markets, many items just sit there for weeks. The only way I can think of to get the markets moving again is to have a lot more space combat with something to fight for, not just for sport.

 

The idea of "combat on demand" is either limited to occasional weekend events or trying to steal from and murder some poor guy in a transport ship (which is not real combat).  So how to find more opportunities for real combat?

 

AI bots. Use the exact same PvP mechanics that are in the game and planned to be in the game, but controlled by some AI. This way I can get my fix of combat anytime I log on.  I don't want to be a pirate, but I do want to try out new tactics and combat ship designs when I have an hour or two to spare.

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5 hours ago, Dupont said:

It seems to me that one of the underlying assumptions of the game design is that players are available 8 hours a day, every day.

Also, It is clear that there is a lack of demand in the markets, many items just sit there for weeks. The only way I can think of to get the markets moving again is to have a lot more space combat with something to fight for, not just for sport.

 

The idea of "combat on demand" is either limited to occasional weekend events or trying to steal from and murder some poor guy in a transport ship (which is not real combat).  So how to find more opportunities for real combat?

 

AI bots. Use the exact same PvP mechanics that are in the game and planned to be in the game, but controlled by some AI. This way I can get my fix of combat anytime I log on.  I don't want to be a pirate, but I do want to try out new tactics and combat ship designs when I have an hour or two to spare.

And how would you be rewarded for the damage you are going to take from these AI bots? Ah yesss, loot right? So then we start the age old battle of loot vs player made things. If loot is something that won't impact the market, then players will just scream the loot is not worth the cost and damage sustained. We can slowly start the process then of just removing the whole player made , player run concept from the game because like every other game out there it will just come down to loot tables. 

 

No thanks. If territory wars, and the fighting over asteroids does not create enough roll over in the economy they can always just add wear and tear to elements so they simply must be replaced as they are used over X time.

 

Lets not dress up another call for "I need something to shoot to be entertained, and a simply kill X get Y game mechanic to be happy" as somehow improving market demand.

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8 hours ago, Dupont said:

Also, It is clear that there is a lack of demand in the markets, many items just sit there for weeks.

Its mostly because game population not only dropped overall drasticly, its also dropped disproportionaly -- 1st wave newbies/casauls (main buyers force, at least prior 0.23) took hardest hit, and all sorts of... of more hardcore and no life people (who are mostly producing force) retained interest better. Also most stuff overpriced to idiocy levels like there is no tomorrow.


To be honest, I even doubt, that wider PvP change something too fantasticly at this point -- whole game disign is deeply flawed.

 

 

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0.23 and after that the enormous gamechanging error that gave some players over billions just made even veteran players stop logging. well they log to keep talents active and daily quanta, for those without the bug that get nothing.

Tabula Rasa was more active then DU is and i think only a small hand of people here even remember it ever existed.

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5 hours ago, Xennial said:

... We can slowly start the process then of just removing the whole player made , player run concept from the game because like every other game out there it will just come down to loot tables. 

 

No thanks. If territory wars, and the fighting over asteroids does not create enough roll over in the economy they can always just add wear and tear to elements so they simply must be replaced as they are used over X time.

 

Lets not dress up another call for "I need something to shoot to be entertained, and a simply kill X get Y game mechanic to be happy" as somehow improving market demand.

I agree that if shooting AI ships was the only activity it wouldn't be that much fun. Where I was going was to have AI ships defend some of the great asteroid mining spots as a baseline. It would be as if a rival organization found those asteroids and is defending them.

The PvP aspect kicks in when one organization wants a particular mining spot held by other human players. The mining areas need to have a very wide dynamic range of desirability. A few of the areas need to have enough ore to warrant defending it for a month or more. The nomadic nature of surface tile mining won't work for PvP.  Not enough ore in any one tile to justify the cost of defending it, as it is much easier to get 5 people to come in a strip mine it for a few hours, then the tile is done.

 

I totally agree that human to human medium and large scale battles is the way to go, but we need a training ground and somewhere to practice between those rare battles.

 

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2 hours ago, Dupont said:

I agree that if shooting AI ships was the only activity it wouldn't be that much fun. Where I was going was to have AI ships defend some of the great asteroid mining spots as a baseline. It would be as if a rival organization found those asteroids and is defending them.

The PvP aspect kicks in when one organization wants a particular mining spot held by other human players. The mining areas need to have a very wide dynamic range of desirability. A few of the areas need to have enough ore to warrant defending it for a month or more. The nomadic nature of surface tile mining won't work for PvP.  Not enough ore in any one tile to justify the cost of defending it, as it is much easier to get 5 people to come in a strip mine it for a few hours, then the tile is done.

 

I totally agree that human to human medium and large scale battles is the way to go, but we need a training ground and somewhere to practice between those rare battles.

 

Don't forget automated mining on surface tiles. That is likely to be implemented in the form that tiles have ore values they generate. Some will be more valuable then others. That alone is worth fighting over as it relates to reasons for conflicts in TW.

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Combat needs to be drastically improved before subjecting all players too it, but, yes, some NPC pirates, preferable in non-PVP areas would be fun once combat works right. 

 

But I don't think DU's design would allow it because the physics runs in the client and NPCs have no client. And NQ would need a much larger budget to build that game.

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For someone with a PHD in AI and robotics, JC (NQ) is mysteriously resistant to the concept of AI in DU.

 

There are many great applications for NPCs that would enhance the emergent possibilities and round out the lack of options with PVP....instead, the only AI we get is ore bots. 

 

"Everything must be run by players" isn't a real design, it's an arbitrary aspiration that wasn't really thought-out.

 

Even the most fundamental aspects of this aspiration were left on the drawing board (like how to inject fresh currency supply into a game with no NPCs). 

 

It also makes the game thematically dead. We all survived the death of earth....now we land on a planet with a bunch of identical cities linked together that have zero residents, but a home-depo-esque showcase of various materials and doors...? I know many people don't care at all about theme or lore -- but it does add dimension and immersion which DU lacks. 

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2 hours ago, Daphne Jones said:

Combat needs to be drastically improved before subjecting all players too it, but, yes, some NPC pirates, preferable in non-PVP areas would be fun once combat works right. 

 

But I don't think DU's design would allow it because the physics runs in the client and NPCs have no client. And NQ would need a much larger budget to build that game.

oh....yeah. That's a really good point. Hmm, where to get that  persistent compute power...

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9 hours ago, Aaron Cain said:

Tabula Rasa was more active then DU is and i think only a small hand of people here even remember it ever existed.

Now that is  a blast from the past.  Curious to see if DU fares better than that.  NC, NQ.  Shudder to even consider the parallels.  But J.C is no Lord British by any stretch of the imagination.  

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17 hours ago, Aaron Cain said:

0.23 and after that the enormous gamechanging error that gave some players over billions just made even veteran players stop logging. well they log to keep talents active and daily quanta, for those without the bug that get nothing.

Tabula Rasa was more active then DU is and i think only a small hand of people here even remember it ever existed.

What was Tabula Rasa? All I know is that it means white slate or metaphorically “starting over” but more importantly was the title of that episode of Buffy where Willow miscast a spell after arguing with Tara and everyone lost their memories. 

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3 hours ago, GraXXoR said:

What was Tabula Rasa? All I know is that it means white slate or metaphorically “starting over” but more importantly was the title of that episode of Buffy where Willow miscast a spell after arguing with Tara and everyone lost their memories. 

 

Us older lads have fond memories of these things ... :)

Tabula Rasa was also an MMORPG.

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Yeah, loved it at the Dutch dragons.

It was a fun game but NC killed it in favour for aion that they later gave away to gameforge who made it into goldsellers griever heaven. I led the Divine Order there for Years and Years, we had some nice PVP there. When talking about PvP here i always think this will never achieve the greatness of the PvP there where you walked every open map with caution, every fortress battle you went with hundreds of players is not more, and the spoils were not that great but the fun was. For both winner and loser.  The fun in PvP here i still fail to see as it is a one sighted fenomenon. Any good PvP should be fun for both sides or atleast not be game breaking for the loosing side.

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We need scarcity, or hell, greater delays in final production even, the list can just go on and on. SOMETHING needs to be there to drive us into killing eachother, I mean hell, most countries IRL would still be going at it if it weren't were for the N word looming over every leaders head. >:3

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We need a company who does what it tells it does, wo applies rules to all, and not just so it seems fit, that listens instead of placing post "we hear you", That is transparant in stead of Tells us they are transparent. That gives a damn about fixing errors and making the stuff work properly before adding another broken thing, that does not give out 200 billion gifts to some and say FU to others that already have bugs since start beta and are still totally ignored.

After that, lets discuss what DU needs, but frankly as it goes now i dont think any of the players are respected exept some that are to dangerous toignore for what they might post on facebook, YT, twitch or any other place. 

At the moment i know more people that have actually left DU then who stayed, including the regular forum posters, who frankly type here invain as only Discord is read, this forum is just so the people who want to vent do not do so on social media and gamer platforms.

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I can only hope NQ is doing something really cool behind closed doors, and we just haven't seen it yet. That's my only hope. If I was to consider the game as it is right now, I think I would cry for all the time I have invested.

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28 minutes ago, Dupont said:

I can only hope NQ is doing something really cool behind closed doors, and we just haven't seen it yet. That's my only hope. If I was to consider the game as it is right now, I think I would cry for all the time I have invested.

...you seem to be new, can that be?

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5 hours ago, SirJohn85 said:

...you seem to be new, can that be?

lol! , no been around since before alpha 2.0, just a closet optimist.  They did come through for mining UI and market UI improvements, but that was a while ago.

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