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Call for Demeter-related questions


NQ-Pann

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5 hours ago, Doombad said:

Large ships stack them because so many atmo brakes are required.

 

Maybe you could point us to your ships so we can compare. Large ships may have 60+ atmo brakes. I am curious how you do that without stacking them.

 

Let’s also skip the “don’t make large ships argument.” This is a simpler problem for smaller ships.

 

Yeah, BISHA, my L-Core, which, oh the Irony, was just featured in NQs Community Showcase, has over 70 Large Air Brakes.
There is no way I can "redesign" the ship without making it effing UGLY and basically COMPLETELY COVER THE OUTSIDE of the ship with BRAKES ... Bye bye nice polished voxel body ...

Don't even get me started on my KOKRRA, SPHERE SHIP .... haha 

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For people who have been waiting to come back to this game, I think you have pretty much wrapped it up for them with the airbrakes and taxes.  These are things that should be done at a later time, not mashing in a bunch of changes all at once.  This many "shocker" changes at once is what led to so many leaving the game during the schematic debacle.

Mining unit idea is great, as it is on the roadmap and creates something new.  Work with that.

Voxel change... good, and I hope it works.  In theory, should reduce lag and improve performance.  Those two alone should keep your devs busy for months with the bugs likely to come about.  However, the taxes and airbrakes, will definitely reduce the lag as more players leave, and no way old players, like myself, will be returning.  Players are going to be busy enough having to dig out their structures as it is!  Having to rework or even scrap current ships due to the airbrake thing is not a way to keep players.  Implementing taxes on our territories on top of all of this?  Are you serious???

Please reconsider this.  Add things to do rather than penalties and nerfs.  Taxes on territories should be a release time "tweak", not a named patch feature.

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Honest feedback. Trust me this will work. 

 

1. Reduce taxes/maintenance costs. First territory minimal, scales thereafter as current system (individuals and org).  Alternatively have this 100% linked to income producing assets such as mining units. This would prevent community driven constructs and tiles from shutting shop. 

Yes you can circumvent with an alt army or by all org members pitching together but in all honesty you can with most things. This can create some really emergent game play like territory theft and encourage team work at risk if trying to dodge taxes. 

 

2 . Do NOT carry scans over to production. Doing so you will tip the scales against the little guy. Don't DU it. 

 

3. Simply make brakes smaller if no stacking available. 

 

4. Make tile resources infinite, or atleast renewable via some mechanic. Noone wants to be moving every x months. I see a pool value is still in, this may be a place holder UI. Can NQ please confirm? 

 

5. While the mini game and subsequent surface spawning is a token effort, make it a large chunk of specific material related to what's being extracted instead. This can be a significant portion linked to a timer and or event, which could encourage emergent gameplay in future builds.

 

Noone enjoys surface mining, there is a portion of population who enjoys mining chunks however. This would also satisfy industry blockages, which will likely occur. 

 

I think that's it.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, sHuRuLuNi said:

 

Yeah, BISHA, my L-Core, which, oh the Irony, was just featured in NQs Community Showcase, has over 70 Large Air Brakes.
There is no way I can "redesign" the ship without making it effing UGLY and basically COMPLETELY COVER THE OUTSIDE of the ship with BRAKES ... Bye bye nice polished voxel body ...

Don't even get me started on my KOKRRA, SPHERE SHIP .... haha 

Same, any ship I made has the air brakes hidden because you need a bazillion of them in anything larger than a small core and who wants an ugly ship ?   The damned wall of engines design is ugly enough, now we will have walls of brakes.

The Devs need to play their own game so they understand how it works, You can't make a medium or large core ship without dozens of brakes. 

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Well I guess it's back to Sanctuary. I play to build while learning Voxelmancy. Buy great ships and buildings of other to create my little world. I just started last week to go to other planets and claimed two tiles to make a home bases and MINE! I own three tiles that my current base is sitting right on the boarders of Alioth. They were mine and my two sons each because my sons were playing. Now they left. But this game is going in the wrong direction.

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Well, where to start, maybe with the definition of play:

 

Play is an activity that is performed without conscious purpose for pleasure, for relaxation, for the joy of itself and its result.

 

I chose Dual Universe as a game and not as a job.

 

Here was a text wall I spare you I tried to reduce it to a few points.

 

If Dementer Patch comes like it did on the PTS server, I will pack my things and go to the Sanctuary Moon.
I will not buy any more ships because I don't know if they will work tomorrow.
Also, I can't recommend the game or rather the working simulation at the moment.
I am annoyed that I invested the time and continued to play/work after the 0.23 patch to provide myself with schematics.
I will wait and see if the game survives.

 

Maybe NQ should hire someone who knows about game design.

 

To all others I wish a relaxing busy game.

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3 hours ago, xxAmonxx said:

 

2 . Do NOT carry scans over to production. Doing so you will tip the scales against the little guy. Don't DU it. 

 

Personally I feel carrying scans over is a compensation for hundreds of hours that I will loose when they delete the purpose of those scans.  And while you might say but you already got the benefit from the scans. Yea I got a bunch of supernodes. But those scans also game me territories that I would be able to harvest over the next couple years when supernodes ran out. 

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I completely agree take away the scans they are not accurate in the first place look close at the scans you have folks you have ore there with no L/h but then no ore there with L/h unless this is a bug then they are jacked anyway and all will have to be rescanned just start everyone on day one of this patch new player and old alike on the same footing then and only then may you maintain some of the older players but you might even pick up a few new ones. 

 

I do have to say though NQ may have shot themselves in the foot on this one, using the old demonrat tactics oooh mining units are coming but don't look over there those other things like ships working you don't need that stuff. I have to say in the vlog NQ-Decakrd was very excited that oh and we are copying the live server to the PTS so all your ships and recent constructs will be there to test. only it was from like a week and a half ago but hey at least its there right

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So, here are some questions. This time I even spent time on the PTS and watched the full video first :D

-Demeter fees will pull a lot of money "out of the system" and slow the inflation or even reverse it (deflation). The 1M per week fee is set now, at a time when it is equivalent to only 10kl or hematite, or one t2 engine L. Will you adjust the fee should the buying power of the quanta change significantly? The whole "player driven economy" is, by far, not really player driven anymore, and this patch is yet another step in that direction, the fixed rates for schematics, missions, other bot buy and sell orders, and now territory fees see to that.

-I generally like airbrakes now finally getting an obstruction zone, however the current direction indicated by the yellow arrows is not only unintuitive but would also just lead to players stacking them on the inside of the craft pointing outwards to the sides. On the current PTS it appears the obstruction is checked above the brakes (if placed on horizontal surface). What are the plans for the direction of the obstruction directions for the airbrakes?

 

-This is a nice reminder that plenty of items have obstruction zones which dictate a certain usage, which is often not visually pleasing, intuitive or, for better lack of word, "feels right". Any plans for an overall overhaul of obstruction mechanics and directions?

 

-To use mining units to their full potention, by at least never wasting charges because the charge pool is already full, you have to log in almost daily (every 30h with no talents, every 35h with full charge gain and pool talents). It feels rather tight. Do you think DU is a game for casuals, RP players, weekend warriors and others who are not playing in a regular profit oriented way? (So not like me :D  ).

 

-My first ever ship sale was to a player who just travels the planets and maintains a little base on almost every planet and moon. Quite serene and dreamy actually. He will now have to set up mining units and get into business, or collect rocks, or quit. He is not allowed to continue the way he is used to play. The fee is too high for that. Patch .23 stopped groups of people from having autonomous outposts and building civilisation away from alioth. Demeter now stops another group of players from playing their way. What is the intended and therefore likely future-proof way to play DU? 

 

-With planet based mining gone, yet another thing to actually do in the game is removed. For players who have time on saturdays there is still asteroid mining, for the rest there are AI missions, which consist of taking off and waiting for 5h to arrive, assuming you do one that actually pays something. Player made long distance haul missions can not compete with AI missions. Any plans on revisiting Apelia missions, their payout, or the fact that the long distance ones are overly profitable with multiple accounts or "car sharing" via VR?

 

-Related to above: Any plans to add anything to the game that is fun to do and at the same time brings an amount of resources?

-In order to find asteroids you need access to a DSAT which is t3. In order to mine t3 via units you also need t3 ore for the advanced autominer. Will it be impossible to get t3 ore without already existing t3 ore?

 

 

 

 

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11 hours ago, NQ-Pann said:

Since the Ares Q&A video seemed to be pretty popular, we're planning to do another to answer your questions related to the approaching Demeter update. Please drop them in this thread. 

SUPER IMPORTANT STUFF PLEASE READ EVEN IF YOU HATE READING (yes, even you): 

  • We politely yet strongly request that you wait until after you've explored the Demeter content on PTS a bit before posing questions. A lot of the information you seek may be discovered through your hands-on gameplay adventures. 
  • Likewise, you should watch the Demeter vlog before asking questions here. Many questions we've seen this week were accompanied by people admitting that they hadn't watched the video.  We know it's long and cannot compete with great videos like this and this, but it's really important stuff. Maybe watch in increments, taking a snack break here and there. (Protip: The segment with Deckard pairs well with cheesy poofs.)
  • We will only answer Demeter-related questions. 

 

Thanks in advance for your participation and what I'm sure will be superamazingbangerangadelic questions. 

 

@NQPann and & @NQDeckard:

 

The element collision changes modified the collision boxes of existing elements. This will cause ship builders who believed they were building ships that were "as nq intended" and sold ships as "not stacked" to have customers come to them reporting that the element list is showing stacked elements. Compounding the problem is that it only reports the type of element that is now "stacked" without giving any visual indicator as to which specific element is considered "stacked". You have told us it's your intention to disable elements considered stacked.

 

Additionally you are changing brakes so the tops have to be exposed to the outside of the ship (without actually changing the indicating visual that shows the leading edge as the impacted portion that needs to be exposed). This change will cause most ships in the game to become obsolete without major changes. 

 

These two changes are game breaking. Why are you pushing two game breaking changes while also fundamentally changing how resources are allocated, collected, and imposing a 1m per week tax per territory on every player in the game? This feels like the kind of upset I heard from my friends who no longer play the game before the .23 patch went live. Please explain why this is necessary and how you are going to keep this from becoming another exodus.

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This is the final nail in the lid for this game.   If they cant see that by now there is no hope.  

 

Another game comes to mind that is dead set on not paying attention to the majority of players and listens to the vocal minority. They have barley 400 people playing on weekends now.  They are using that as an example,  Good work NQ.  lol 

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I feel this update would work if the majority of the community returned to the game. But i fear the people that return, see how much the tax is, how much ore per hour they will earn as an org or solo player and become an idle miner.

A low tax rate at release would be a good way for people to get use to these changes and then increase if needed also doing the same with ore per hour... be generous to start with and reduce as needed. Also maybe all tiles in the safe zone bar sanctuary have a lower tax rate than outside so new players can afford to move/produce on alioth etc.

Alternatively, linking total "global" active miners to the L per hour would also ensure a constant flow of ore regardless of the player numbers. kinda like crypto mining difficulty algorithm the more people mining the harder the difficulty, but the same distribution. I'm just thinking if people fizzle out after weeks/months there will be such a tiny amount of ore being collected with this current system. Another thought maybe instead of "tile tax"  introduce a dynamic or static construct tax instead make it scale depending on core size if you don't pay 100k-1m per month per ship depending on size, it becomes abandoned and salvagers can make money still adding the "territory warfare" game loop and keeping player engaged having a auto clean up system run by players for players that no longer want to play and have not transferred/bp's and stored their "keepsakes" to Sanctuary

 

Thinking long term

 

Lee ;)

 

 

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4 minutes ago, LeeFall said:

I feel this update would work if the majority of the community returned to the game. But i fear the people that return, see how much the tax is, how much ore per hour they will earn as an org or solo player and become an idle miner.

A low tax rate at release would be a good way for people to get use to these changes and then increase if needed also doing the same with ore per hour... be generous to start with and reduce as needed. 

Alternatively, linking total "global" active miners to the L per hour would also ensure a constant flow of ore regardless of the player numbers. kinda like crypto mining difficulty algorithm the more people mining the harder the difficulty, but the same distribution.

 

Thinking long term

 

Lee ;)

 

 

I like this, the more units on a planet, the higher the rates. But only for income producing tiles. You could probably break this down to zones like proximity to markets etc. 

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57 minutes ago, Gottchar said:

So, here are some questions. This time I even spent time on the PTS and watched the full video first :D

-Demeter fees will pull a lot of money "out of the system" and slow the inflation or even reverse it (deflation). The 1M per week fee is set now, at a time when it is equivalent to only 10kl or hematite, or one t2 engine L. Will you adjust the fee should the buying power of the quanta change significantly? The whole "player driven economy" is, by far, not really player driven anymore, and this patch is yet another step in that direction, the fixed rates for schematics, missions, other bot buy and sell orders, and now territory fees see to that.

-I generally like airbrakes now finally getting an obstruction zone, however the current direction indicated by the yellow arrows is not only unintuitive but would also just lead to players stacking them on the inside of the craft pointing outwards to the sides. On the current PTS it appears the obstruction is checked above the brakes (if placed on horizontal surface). What are the plans for the direction of the obstruction directions for the airbrakes?

 

-This is a nice reminder that plenty of items have obstruction zones which dictate a certain usage, which is often not visually pleasing, intuitive or, for better lack of word, "feels right". Any plans for an overall overhaul of obstruction mechanics and directions?

 

-To use mining units to their full potention, by at least never wasting charges because the charge pool is already full, you have to log in almost daily (every 30h with no talents, every 35h with full charge gain and pool talents). It feels rather tight. Do you think DU is a game for casuals, RP players, weekend warriors and others who are not playing in a regular profit oriented way? (So not like me :D  ).

 

-My first ever ship sale was to a player who just travels the planets and maintains a little base on almost every planet and moon. Quite serene and dreamy actually. He will now have to set up mining units and get into business, or collect rocks, or quit. He is not allowed to continue the way he is used to play. The fee is too high for that. Patch .23 stopped groups of people from having autonomous outposts and building civilisation away from alioth. Demeter now stops another group of players from playing their way. What is the intended and therefore likely future-proof way to play DU? 

 

-With planet based mining gone, yet another thing to actually do in the game is removed. For players who have time on saturdays there is still asteroid mining, for the rest there are AI missions, which consist of taking off and waiting for 5h to arrive, assuming you do one that actually pays something. Player made long distance haul missions can not compete with AI missions. Any plans on revisiting Apelia missions, their payout, or the fact that the long distance ones are overly profitable with multiple accounts or "car sharing" via VR?

 

-Related to above: Any plans to add anything to the game that is fun to do and at the same time brings an amount of resources?

-In order to find asteroids you need access to a DSAT which is t3. In order to mine t3 via units you also need t3 ore for the advanced autominer. Will it be impossible to get t3 ore without already existing t3 ore?

 

 

 

 

Absolutely love everything said here very well put, to the point questions and not a foul word (I could not have refrained after the day I have had, long story) just plain awesome!! I hope we get some answers I am not going to hold my breath but there is always hope I guess. 

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6 minutes ago, xxAmonxx said:

I like this, the more units on a planet, the higher the rates. But only for income producing tiles. You could probably break this down to zones like proximity to markets etc. 

Would actually be, the more active mining units on a planet the lower the L per hr. 

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I am hoping, like I think most of us, that the numbers like the tax and the ore yields are just placeholders and we're on the PTS purely to test the mechanics.

 

If not, my initial questions / comments (apologies if repeating much that also already been written):

 

1) Devs at NQ, if the PTS ore yields are similar to your plans for the actual game, can you help us understand how you came to those numbers? To me, they seem too low by a decent amount - please explain your logic / calculations. This is a building game after all - why risk constraining the life-blood of it? Higher ore yields also makes the notion of greater voxel destruction (e.g. pvp / player crashes / eventually territory warfare etc) more tolerable as the cost is less.

 

2) Tax - this issue has been done to death - can you confirm that the numbers on the PTS are just placeholders? (with one week covering both the PTS weekends, so the mechanics can be tested). If this isn't the case, why 1m, why 1 week, and why not a (more logical) progressive system that makes it more expensive for players / orgs to sustain sprawling empires? 

 

3) Scans - please think long and hard about the scan results. I have many many thousands, but agree that rolling the old scans in Demeter will further extend the inequality, and do so permanently. Yes, we've spent hundreds of hours gaining these scans, but we also got our rewards from these by getting the richest meganodes. Why compound the already-gotten advantage? Full scan wipe, please.

 

4) Add Scan randomness / ore distribution resets - for scans, why not add (considerable) imprecision in their results ... perhaps only give qualitative descriptions, not quantitative results, and also sometimes make them just plain wrong (just like mineral exploration in real life) - improved marginally with talent(s). Uncertainty and the chance of a major positive surprise could spice things up. It also allows you to dynamically tweak up and down the yield algorithm behind the scenes to ensure reasonable balance in the ore generation rates in the game. I'd also be an advocate of ore distribution resets once in a while (say, every 6 months - perhaps with a storyline linked to an new mining technology untapping new undiscovered resources blah, etc), that makes the whole territorial scene much more dynamic and less entrenched. Plus makes potentially today's low value tiles into next years high value tiles - shake-ups can be good.    

 

5) For the Mining Unit Mini-Game, make the potential payoffs massive if you get really lucky ... like spawning a full blown surface meganode if you ace it, not a measly couple of thousand litres, and not just the ores that are linked to the tile (i.e. getting higher tier ones that expected). A casino feel, perhaps, but creates much needed excitement, unpredictability and hope (as one goes about the perfunctory recalibration tasks).      

 

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Has anything been changed with demeter in terms of the distance at which constructs can be seen? I no longer recognise the full extent of my base on the pts, but only a partial radius compared to before.

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To be honest the only way I see the game taking off is going back to pre .23. Buffing engines or making them smaller.  finally  Stop the punish the player behavior!   It just makes people leave. 

This was the absolute best game since SWG  by a wide margin pre .23  The only thing it needed was more content. 

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When will you fix PVP?  

I thought you would fix this first so we can fight normally for the asteroids.  You just have to lock the target, then select this target for you to start having serious performance problems https://support.dualthegame.com/hc/en-us/requests/56517

 

 I think you have a very serious error in game code, because 2-3 months ago there was no such performance problem in PVP.  Why can players still dock ships with shields and resurrection nodes on their ships? it is for this reason that the destroyed ships retain their speed and do not stop after the destruction of the core unit.

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Question/Suggestion

 

I'm fine with the obstruction of elements, even Airbrakes. You have to think about where and how to place elements, to get the most efficency out of them. BUT: the amount of needed elements is to high, especially for bigger and heavier Ships. Isn't it possible to implement some new elements, like a additional powergenerator for engines, tuning elements for wings, brakes adjustors? Limited to the core size and one of a kind max on the core. And maybe different kind of tiers with different bonuses. That would give players the opportunity to keep their ships as they are right now and in future more possibilities for Ship builders.

 

I hope, it's all comprehensible. At all other points related to the Demeter Update I agree with the post from Hagbard, partly because his english is better then mine. ;)

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