Jump to content

Thoughts on 0.24 (tl;dr not bad at all)


Madrummer

Recommended Posts

(basically a re-write of a comment I made, then saw I'd be making the same response to most of these topics and figured I'd just plop it here)
edit: (I start by being generous to the devs, and understanding to the people who aren't so happy, but I give my honest thoughts on it)

 

So, as someone who's done a lot of alpha and beta tests over the past couple decades (on both successful games and ones that deserve to burn in the fieriest regions of Hell), the full change log is actually decent considering the last patch came out about 3 months ago (I had to look that up, so the timeline is about right).  They did do a LOT of tweaking to under-the-hood stuff, which in a game that has so many interconnected elements is a big feat.

 

But then again, I just started back up like a week ago after over a year-and-a-half of being away and letting the turkey bake in the oven without checking it every ten minutes.  So, for me, I've seen a HUGE improvement from alpha, but I know for most of you that have been on this journey the whole time, you're just watching the scenery go by slowly and not really noticing the change as being as impactful as I did.  And after just being back for a week, I'm already seeing a patch go up that's making things look nicer, adds a new voxel object to edit with (and the cone will be fun to play with) and improving a couple tools.  Also, they are putting on some band-aids to the market and GUI showing that they know more needs to be done and are adding the foundation to further improve on it.  So, I'm hopeful, there.

But, as a cynical player, I also really am disappointed that the rotation tool didn't get any additional axes added to it.  And I was hoping that the missions would include a bit more "meat" to it.  Still though, I'm happy they did add a new basis for a major game mechanic (missions) that let you get away from just mining and selling stuff you build from mining, and that they show that they are aware of the issues with the market and building and clutter (gotta till the soil and plant seeds before your crops can grow).

 

So y'know...  I think it's alright.  And I think they're moving in the right direction, and are still very much so involved in trying to produce the product that we all want, even if they're on a shoestring budget.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For me, 

Texture changes = mostly a failure. The majority of changed textures look worse. The unpleasant patterning on metals like Iron and Aluminium, due to lighting, is worse than before, and the shininess on most metals is just too much. Under some lighting conditions they look like they are covered in a layer of water, or like wet paint. Galvanized Iron needs to be renamed to Shiny Iron, and the patterning on Galvanised Aluminium is so bad it might as well be Aluminium Pattern #2 ?

 

Matte Carbon Fiber was previously one of the best textures in the game before this update. Why couldn't they just add another Carbon Fiber option, rather than replacing the texture we had which worked great for things like ship interiors. The new texture is OK I guess, but now it's more patterned than matte and it doesn't work in the same places that the old one did. There is no subtlety-patterned alternative, so I guess it's plastic (too flat) or concrete (unrealistic) for light ship interior materials.

 

The one texture that does look slightly better is matte concrete, which doesn't seem to pattern up as much as it did before, and the shades seem to have been improved. 

 

 

Lighting. Supposedly the game is now brighter and prettier. It looks like all they did was crank up the gamma on light sources, so now instead of subtle light splashes on voxels we now have a completely blinding, over saturated mess. It doesn't look good. The general, un-lit lighting has not changed. You still can't see much at night when working with dark textures, and the Gamma setting in the graphics options still does absolutely nothing.

 

Also, I can't believe they said the game should look less grey, when many of the textures just look more grey.

 

I really don't understand updates like this. Maybe my eyes are defective or something ^^

 

But hey, trees look great, apparently ?

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They haven't added mission system at all though....  and the challenge system they added as an unannounced feature fell apart instantly with abuse. 

 

My biggest issue with it is they created a PTS server after they 'learned' and 'listened' to players after the 0.23 debacle to avoid pushing an update to live that caused major issues. Then not using it to test for issues XD

 

Where they added schematics that were 10x more expensive, and lowered them due to players pitchforks. Oh yeah, they also deleted all meganodes for like a week. Then they lowered they schematics, refunding people- THEN used bot ore buy orders(which deletes ore, and artificially inflates ore prices) to pay players that then deleted quanta by buying schematics for factories that were then nerfed/broken without telling players. Then after bot orders disappeared they added more, but also made schematics 100x cheaper for a short time, where players bought expensive schematics for cheap. wrecking the economy as NQ didn't roll back and has had players reselling the schematics for insane profits... the bot orders also caused players to purchase other players ore off the market and instantly sell to bots for a profit, deleting game resources and making it harder for players to procure ore from buy orders in the short term, and artificially inflating market prices on ore. NQ shut down in game help on the weekends, their busiest time- and have seemingly abandoned discord, forcing players to file a ticket that on average takes months to get a response to. 

 

Meanwhile players eager for a new game play loop and sold that missions were coming months ago get shiny rocks, and an org wallet. All while they backpeddled with the challenges, turning them off and also turning off the games new player tutorials. That's just the start. They also reintroduced bot orders, causing players to buy 'cheap' ore from other players and then sell it to bots for an instant profit, deleting a supply of ore from the markets for players to purchase....  which they did in 0.23 and repeated in 0.24. There is a nice list of more issues. 

 

That all said, even though I hate some of the nee textures, the game looks better and in general runs better, less frame drops, and higher overall FPS. And some of the new voxel tools are great, minus cone. That IMHO doesn't really fix the core game play issues, or the lack of transparent communication from NQ. 

 

As a player I know this is 'beta' but the amount of seeming incompetence on the dev team to push untested code to live and bypassing PTS...  thats just silly to put it mildly. I assume they did it as they know their player numbers are waning and getting anxious and had promised( to us, and probably management) 0.24 was to release in early Q1. 

 

To all the devs and staff at NQ, please take a deep look at other game developers. NQ as a whole has never released a finished product, DU Is the first. JC while passionate and arguably visionary, lacks experience in bringing a game to market. I hope you all take the past months, and years into consideration on how to proceed. I can tell a lot of work went into 0.24, though I hope going forward efforts are a bit more focused on creating better gameplay loops, and less time remaking the existing game (new textures, new launcher, recreated assets, recreating UI but somehow making it worse, looking at you UI team!)  I want to see this game pull a NMS and become the best version of itself, its unique and has a core that IMHO no other game has. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...