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What it means to me when NQ reconfirms NPCS wont be in the game.


joaocordeiro

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Intruduction

 

In my opinion NPCs a hard requirement for this game to succeed for several reasons. Here are some:

 

Players don't have any obligation, and sometimes not even the skill to create good content.

NPCs are fundamental to create any kind of engaging content in the game.

 

With ships being so valuable and so hard to get, specially for new players, it is very unlikely that any battle will be a symmetric one.

NPCs a fundamental to give a chance for a new player to experience any kind of rewarding pvp instead of an instant rage-quit followed by a subscription cancellation.

 

Most players completely ignore other players not in their org.

NPCs are necessary for players to feel someone is around them on a station, or a base.
That they are not playing this game alone.

But most importantly.
For someone to win, someone has to lose.
Without NPCs to take the big losses, some players will be the losers. And who are those players that will be the losers?
New players of course. Being less organized, having less resources, knowing less information.
No new player will continue on the game if all their experience is loss after loss.
NPCs are fundamental for new players to train, get loot to compensate for their heavy losses and more importantly, to stabilize their happiness level.

NPCs in general are FUNDAMENTAL to keep the average level of happiness in positive levels. Instead of 2 or 3 big orgs having fun while everyone else cancels their subscriptions

 

Pain is stronger than joy.
PlayerA kills, and loots PlayerB

PlayerA gets 5 joy, PlayerB gets - 10 joy.
Avarage = -5

NPCS are needed to make it back to 0 avarage.

The development cost


I understand the cost of creating NPCs

 

NPCs able to navigate inside a dynamical created construct would be extremely hard to code and also extremely expensive.

But there are all kinds of NPCs. Not just those smart, walking ones.

 

The dispenser that gives new players their speeder parts could be a standing still NPC with 10 lines of dialog.
A standing still station that fires at everything that approaches, completely empty inside could be a NPC.
Some placeable standing still guy with dialog connected to some lua and configurable by players, could be a NPC.

Some standing still flower, spitting acid on passing by ppl could be a NPC

In time, with more budget, this dumb AI NPCs could become smarter.

But those don't have to be born smart.

It's not a choice between "completely empty universe" and "fully automated AI"

There is middle ground.

Conclusion

In my opinion, not being able to understand that a player only game will always have a negative average happiness level shows that this new management will not make this game succeed.

 

And while I feel sad to trow this "bash" at NQ, in return to their needed reply, I feel that this bash is needed. Because there won't be a 3rd chance for this project.

Its simple math.

PS:
For all pvpers that want their prey to be 100% human.
Your prey will not join or continue to play the game if they only experience loss by your hands.

Lions can only hunt zebras because zebras have plants to eat
You are the lions.

New players are the zebras.
NPCs are the plants.

 

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NPCs In my opinion, would be draining on a system like this, if they did NPCs im sure the subscribtion price would go up.

 

Players on One shard doing Countless Activities, then you add NPCs, thats alot of pressure in my opinion, im sure animals may be a future thing but only because Animals in some ways can be setup to be Dynamic Props, But an NPC would need Dialog and some sort of pattern

 

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1 minute ago, SyZoILLz said:

would be draining on a system like this, if they did NPCs im sure the subscribtion price would go up.


I'm quite sure they could process any NPC processing in the client's computer. Much like they process lua.

Most of this 1st iteration simple AIs could even be written in lua.

And given the right API, they could even ask current players to make those simple AI scripts for them.
Most of us, me included, would be happy to break our heads making a "hard to beat" AI script.

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We already have NPCs, and they suck the life out of the game. 

 

The market bots.

 

they buy ore at all planets and moons. What does this do, it artificially sets the ore price rather than let the market determine it.

 

they also stop a lot of transport. Why risk dragging ore in from the planets if you can get the same price on the planets and moons. 

 

Dont forget the schmatics, they are the biggest expense in the game for some of us, but we can’t produce them, they are a drain in the economy, rather than a point of trade!

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4 minutes ago, joaocordeiro said:

Thank you for your unrelated comment.

How is it unrelated?

 

an entity other than a player bringing or changing content in the game is pretty much a NPC. If market orders had names attached to them, then the bot orders would be NPC names. Seems related to me.

 

im just using the example that they already have NPCs and they suck.

 

I hope they bring in more NPCs for different things, I’d love PvE combat as I have no interest in PvP combat. But I find them saying they don’t have NPCs as false as bots are pretty much NPCs as far as I’m concerned. Just as much as the unmanned platform which fires anybody who approached example given above. 

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Market bots are technically NPCs, yes but I don't think that is what most are referring to when they say "NPC".  I wouldn't mind letting it stand as an example of the wrong kind of NPC for this game. 

 

Given a level of design that NQ is not capable of this game might make it with no NPCs.  As is, the game will get NPCs or it will die.  The question is if this new management will realize this before it is too late.  I had no hope of this happening under JC but I will now watch and see. 

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I think NPC PvE combat would be good in two ways.

 

1. It would introduce players to the fun of combat, with it actually being fun and even. Give them time and opponents to build up theirs skills, their ships and get into the combat way of playing.

 

2. If people build up,and get into PvE, there is a chance more will enjoy and move up to PvP at some stage. 

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By NPCs, the OP was clearly (as in crystal) talking about interactive entities such like the upcoming Odyssey or the sprawling canvas that is NMS or Star Citizen (without the chair standing and T posing).

 

The OP was not talking about faceless NQ “bots” that are nothing more than ethereal, unfulfilled orders in a database table.

 

If they are NPCs, where is the “character” which the “C” stands for?  In fact, they are only even called bots in a colloquial, convenient sense: they are not really automated as such, don’t actually respond to the market and are not even randomized; they merely count.
 

They are as much a “bot” as my IRL shop’s  “door counter” that counts the number of times and when people come in or go out. 

NPCs can go a long way to fleshing out a scenario. And Good AI can provide entertainment in the form of adversaries or player pets/companions and offer gameplay such as ordering them to perform tasks, interacting and responding to their needs for profit/gain or obliterating them or being obliterated by them (police squads for crimes) in combat. 
 

 

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3 hours ago, GraXXoR said:

By NPCs, the OP was clearly (as in crystal) talking about interactive entities such like the upcoming Odyssey or the sprawling canvas that is NMS or Star Citizen (without the chair standing and T posing).

 

The OP was not talking about faceless NQ “bots” that are nothing more than ethereal, unfulfilled orders in a database table.

 

 

Wow, sorry if I offended you dude. I was just responding to the thread.

 

And as for what the OP was clearly meaning, lets take some of his quotes...

11 hours ago, joaocordeiro said:

The dispenser that gives new players their speeder parts could be a standing still NPC with 10 lines of dialog.
A standing still station that fires at everything that approaches, completely empty inside could be a NPC.
Some placeable standing still guy with dialog connected to some lua and configurable by players, could be a NPC.

Some standing still flower, spitting acid on passing by ppl could be a NPC

 

Dispenser NPC, not really interactive, just reading the same script the info button has. Maybe a tiny bit of character if given voice and gestures.

 

Station that fires at anything coming near it, yip interactive but still a faceless gun, definably no character there

 

guy connected to Lua, ok that could be cool; but still just an nicer looking presentation of a screen

 

flowers that shoot people who walk past, slightly interactive, some to consider when they develop AvA; but wouldn't call then having character.

 

These were the examples from the OP.

 

I'm not saying NPC bad, no NPC. I'm all for them. I just feel that then adding market bots is basically a type of NPC anyhow as they are interacting (at a not reactive basic level) in the player market making changes to the player driven market by influencing prices and whether people will travel from planets to sell mined ore.

 

Sorry if my belief that they are basically simple NPCs isn't the same as yours, but arguing about it is pulling away from the topic which was...

 

 

What it means to us that they are still saying no NPCs

 

to me it means they are painting themselves into a corner taking away a easy mechanic of adding a lot of content to the game, which they will have to get either very creative to introduce other ways, or just go back on there decision.

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2 hours ago, CoyoteNZ said:

 

Wow, sorry if I offended you dude. I was just responding to the thread.

 

And as for what the OP was clearly meaning, lets take some of his quotes...

 

Dispenser NPC, not really interactive, just reading the same script the info button has. Maybe a tiny bit of character if given voice and gestures.

 

Station that fires at anything coming near it, yip interactive but still a faceless gun, definably no character there

 

guy connected to Lua, ok that could be cool; but still just an nicer looking presentation of a screen

 

flowers that shoot people who walk past, slightly interactive, some to consider when they develop AvA; but wouldn't call then having character.

 

These were the examples from the OP.

 

I'm not saying NPC bad, no NPC. I'm all for them. I just feel that then adding market bots is basically a type of NPC anyhow as they are interacting (at a not reactive basic level) in the player market making changes to the player driven market by influencing prices and whether people will travel from planets to sell mined ore.

 

Sorry if my belief that they are basically simple NPCs isn't the same as yours, but arguing about it is pulling away from the topic which was...

 

 

What it means to us that they are still saying no NPCs

 

to me it means they are painting themselves into a corner taking away a easy mechanic of adding a lot of content to the game, which they will have to get either very creative to introduce other ways, or just go back on there decision.

I have no idea why you think I was offended in any way. I guess we live in a world where we just assume people get offended… or do get offended for little reason. 
 

you conveniently left out this tiny fragment of the OP’s first comment in your reply:

[quote]
In my opinion NPCs a hard requirement for this game to succeed for several reasons. Here are some:

 

Players don't have any obligation, and sometimes not even the skill to create good content.

NPCs are fundamental to create any kind of engaging content in the game.

 

With ships being so valuable and so hard to get, specially for new players, it is very unlikely that any battle will be a symmetric one.

NPCs a fundamental to give a chance for a new player to experience any kind of rewarding pvp instead of an instant rage-quit followed by a subscription cancellation.

 

Most players completely ignore other players not in their org.

NPCs are necessary for players to feel someone is around them on a station, or a base.
That they are not playing this game alone.

But most importantly.
For someone to win, someone has to lose.
Without NPCs to take the big losses, some players will be the losers. And who are those players that will be the losers?
New players of course. Being less organized, having less resources, knowing less information.
No new player will continue on the game if all their experience is loss after loss.
NPCs are fundamental for new players to train, get loot to compensate for their heavy losses and more importantly, to stabilize their happiness level.

NPCs in general are FUNDAMENTAL to keep the average level of happiness in positive levels. Instead of 2 or 3 bigorgs having fun while everyone else cancels their subscriptions

 

Pain is stronger than joy.
PlayerA kills, and loots PlayerB

PlayerA gets 5 joy, PlayerB gets - 10 joy.
Avarage = -5

NPCS are needed to make it back to 0 avarage.

The development cost


I understand the cost of creating NPCs

 

NPCs able to navigate inside a dynamical createdconstruct would be extremely hard to code and alsoextremely expensive.

But there are all kinds of NPCs. Not just those smart, walking ones.

[/quote]
 

 

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12 hours ago, GraXXoR said:

you conveniently left out this tiny fragment of the OP’s first comment in your reply:

 

He just wants to engage and win an internet fight. 

No one trying to get to a consensus would continue for so long on a baseless argument. 

 

Not worth replying because he knows what he is doing. 

 

 

 

I would like to focus on if you guys agree with the "happiness average" topic. And how to balance it in a player only world. 

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I think it is going to make combat hard if it is only PvP.

 

Without PvE to get your trainer wheels tested, you are going to go straight into a world of hurt. There are no ways to practice in a less deadly environment.

 

Hopefully you will find your way into one of the org run conflicts like the star wars event or the many xs core events. But since these are run by orgs it can be easy to miss them, and since they are not run or monitored by NQ, there is nothing stopping g the grief tears from showing up and ganking everybody if they find the location.

 

If they aren’t goi g to provide PvE elements, at least provide abilities for player orgs to run things and not have them ruined. 

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17 minutes ago, CoyoteNZ said:

I think it is going to make combat hard if it is only PvP.

 

 

 

Sure, thats common sense. 

But my point is that for every winner , there will be loser. 

And in this game, losing is weeks to months of setback. 

 

In my opinion, the frustration generated by the losses will not be compensated by the joy of the win. 

 

Specialy because the losses will be focused in the new players. Directly directing new players to subscription canceling.

 

For most of new players the following will happen:

Months of grinding in safezone.

Falling into holes other players left. Finding 20l of ore ppl left behind.

And when their ship becomes ready. They get killed by 5 ships, bigger and better then theirs, hunting in a pack. 

They never had a chance and they know it. 

Rage quit+cancel subscription+nasty comment or youtube review. 

 

Do you agree with this "negative happiness" average? 

If yes, how is the game viable? 

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I don't think PvE in DU would be like you want it to be, at least in the short term.

 

Making AI based opponents to fight against and be challenged by sounds like something which requires a significant amount of work to get right.  I don't think you could just knock up a fully functioning combat AI in a few weeks.  That alone puts it outside what we could have in the near term.

 

Even if you could make an AI, PvP combat in a game like DU will eventually follow some sort of meta, i.e. the best way to build ships and do fights, which evolves over time.  The PvE bots are unlikely to be following the meta, meaning that the PvE experience is likely to be different from PvP and won't really teach you how to PvP at all.

 

Also most combat ships at the moment need at least 2 if not 3 people to fly at a minimum -- one to fly, one to shoot and one to repair.  You might possibly be able to combine shooting and flying, but it seems like it would be pretty hard to have fun fights against NPCs solo at the moment.  Making the activity one which requires a group is going to take it out of the hands of new players unless they join a group and play with more experienced players.

 

I'm also not so sure about the 'net loss of joy' mentality.  While it's probably true for non-consenting PvP I don't think it's right when both players want a fight.  I've played other games as a PvP player for years and when I lost sometimes I cared but mostly I didn't really, but either way the joy was still there.  I think it's more a case of 'A wins +10 joy, B loses +5 joy'.  The real loss of joy was when I went out to PvP and nobody was there to fight against.  If DU can introduce fun PvP with inexpensive ships and get enough people back in the game I think people would go out and have fun doing it and even losing would be a net positive so long as people eventually win.

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Also you're forgetting the ganking element of PvP, where 10 players gang up on some unfortunate victim they managed to find:

A,B.C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J  -- + 5 joy *each*
K -- -20 joy

That's still a net positive and if you think about it.  So I really don't think PvP is net negative at all.

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12 minutes ago, Zeddrick said:

Also you're forgetting the ganking element of PvP, where 10 players gang up on some unfortunate victim they managed to find:

A,B.C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J  -- + 5 joy *each*
K -- -20 joy

That's still a net positive and if you think about it.  So I really don't think PvP is net negative at all.

Sure. But in that scenario the pray, the new players, will be very quickly exhausted. 

Because the more asymmetric the combat is the faster the target will cancel its subscription. 

 

So, although the net is positive. It will quickly lose "low rank" players. 

Efectively ending the game. 

 

Im my opinion NPCs are fundamental to keep a optimal number of prey in the game. 

In numbers large enough that a single player wont often have a major setback and when he does, he can reffill his joy and his resources, hunting npcs. 

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57 minutes ago, Zeddrick said:

I've played other games as a PvP player for years and when I lost sometimes I cared but mostly I didn't really, but either way the joy was still there

I know what you mean. But DU is kind of different because of the level of pain required to own anything... 

 

Look at PUBG, 50 players start, 4 win. If we were to blindly follow my logic, we would have 46 sad players and 4 happy. 

But that does not happen because there is no pain in playing the game. 

Weapons are free and you get them in 30 secs. 

So wining feels like wining the lottery with no cost at all. 

Ppl losing still feel good remembering their kills and joking about their noob partners. 

 

Look at dayz. 

Dayz is one of the worse in this aspect. 

Players play for hours and lose their loot, some times not even knowing what happened(headshots dont give any sound or clue, just black screen) 

Most fps players cant handle this. 

Yet the game still manages to keep its balance, because if pve.

Players spawn with nothing but 1 fruit and no weapon, in a world full of zombies. 

By the time most players get killed by others, they already managed to find food, survive several zombie attacks and get a weapon.

Maybe they already killed a cow with a perfect headshot. 

They already feel like a winner. 

 

But DU is different... 

Here you sufferd to mine, to transport, to craft, to build, to voxel... By the time you have a ship with any decent capability l you dont feel like a winner, you feel scarred and nervous. And hope you can do 2 or 3 runs before "they" get you. 

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3 hours ago, Zeddrick said:

Also you're forgetting the ganking element of PvP, where 10 players gang up on some unfortunate victim they managed to find:

A,B.C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J  -- + 5 joy *each*
K -- -20 joy

That's still a net positive and if you think about it.  So I really don't think PvP is net negative at all.

Sure. Once or twice. But remember average is just that, an average and by its nature, it often takes in a time component. 
 

what happens when you run out of K and the A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J take to the forums to whine and whinge about lack of PvP.  -5 JOY *EACH TIME* they don’t find any Ks.  Soon becomes a net negative.
 

Elite dangerous has private groups (same server, different instances) JUST to avoid PvP. Two of which have over 10,000 players each and are very active.

 

The lengths players who don’t want PvP will go to to avoid PvP is far greater than the lengths PvPers will go to to find PvP.

 

 

 

 

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I think the game needs NPC, but not in a way most people here ask for.

I think NPC should be like decorations or dispensers. Like interactive, you press F and some text would pop-up or something. Or have them like (minimal animated) decorations, sitting on benches and seats. Or just standing around like guards, or people standing still and talking to each other.

Imagine the markets, as they are now. But instead of that machine we have to interact with, there are just NPC's sitting behind a counter or desk, we walk up to them and press F (like we do now with the machines). Same market/same way of doing things but at least now it looks more alive. 

 

I mean, NPC pirates? And how will this be managed with fuel/ammo? No, I dont see NPC living a life in this game, but we could sure use them as decorations to fill up our empty cities and bases

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On 4/20/2021 at 10:28 PM, SyZoILLz said:

if they did NPCs im sure the subscribtion price would go up.

 

Subscriptions going up in cost is not a matter of if, just when IMO. €7/mo is silly for a game this scale, even $10 is on the low end and I really expect to see the sub at release go back to the initially planned $15. 

 

Putting such a low cost on subs is IMO just another short term choice that works against you over time. Had NQ gone with $10 on "beta" the player number would not have been much different but the revenue from that would have been massively more. I doubt the difference would have been enough to prevent where we now are but it would have been more for sure.

 

Worst part of all of this will be that I expect the biggest loss will be for the early backers who see their pledge devalued by over 50%. NQ pitched and sold these packs on a cost of around $15 for a month of game time and have yet to even hint at how they plan to compensate for that as they will have to unless they push up the price to where it was originally intended to be.

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21 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

Worst part of all of this will be that I expect the biggest loss will be for the early backers who see their pledge devalued by over 50%.

 

I have been assuming an 100% loss for several months now. (game failing). So i have no issue with 50% devalue as long as the project survives. 

But then again, my part is only 7 dacs. 

I guess founders with 30 dacs may have a issue with that. 

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18 hours ago, Zeddrick said:

I've played other games as a PvP player for years and when I lost sometimes I cared but mostly I didn't really, but either way the joy was still there.  I think it's more a case of 'A wins +10 joy, B loses +5 joy'.  The real loss of joy was when

 

This is true when both players are into PvP, but if you follow a lot of the PvP requests; remove all safe zones, get rid of warp, only mine valuable stuff in PvP zones; they are not ideas to encourage people to PvP, they are all ideas to force people into it. This isn’t increasing the total fun value of PvP, it’s decreasing it. Ideas how to make PvP more fun so more people partake is what is required.

 

12 hours ago, Sabretooth said:

I mean, NPC pirates? And how will this be managed with fuel/ammo? No, I dont see NPC living a life in this game, but we could sure use them as decorations to fill up our empty cities and bases

 

I for one are happy to set up a supply base to sell elements, fuel and honeycomb to pirates. Industry needs more customers.

 

Of course we know PvP is generally a net loss, especially if the NPCs are set up to fail more than win to increase the game fun factor. So they won’t be able to afford it.

 

They will have to go down to the planet and pick up ore from their auto miners to sell to the market to fund their supplies. But that’s ok, once we get AvA, we are going to have people who want a PvE option for that, so now we have one, trying to catch pirate NPCs collecting ore and trying to sell it.

 

But some of those evil NPC pirates are going to try and cut me out of the supply chain. They think they can run a factory and make their own honeycomb, fuel and elements. I don’t think so. Once we get territorial warfare, we will have players wanting an PvE option there. And there we have it, I for one will help sponsor mercs hunting down and destroying those evil pirate factories.

 

Yes I realise every activity I mentioned can be done (or will be able to be done) via PvP. But we want to increase the fun value, and it’s more fun for PvE players if it is a fair fight by a balanced NPC, rather than a slaughter by a highly trained PC vs a player who isn’t experienced, and equipped in that department. 

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