NQ, please stop breaking your player...

[Novean-61657]

Dear NQ,

 

Please stop breaking your players! I'm not talking about physically breaking your players or even breaking the Dual Universe game. I'm talking about breaking the spirits of your customers (aka. players), killing their motivation to play the game, and then shredding any future potential chance to return to the game at a later time (without loosing most of their work/assets). This is mostly done by piling on change upon change, often just eradicating an aspect of game-play that people enjoyed or even started playing the game for. Even one major change to the game can decimate the player-base (0.23 for example) and that was only ONE such a major change. The currently proposed changes to Demeter are multiple major changes. Doing away with mining outside asteroids (especially when asteroid mining is in such an abysmal state), doing away with permanent ownership of tiles outside of ground conquest, introducing taxes on land ownership, redesigning ore distribution in a major way.

 

Now let's talk about changes on PTS that aren't going to be in the Demeter patch: brakes. I can understand that sometime in the future NQ wants to overhaul how certain elements work, in this case the brakes. This of course needs to be tested before implementation. I absolutely understand! But who's bright idea was it to do it at the same time when NQ asked all players to come test Demeter when it goes in test on PTS? Does this person lack any insight and experience with regards to customer interaction, response, and retention? I have no experience in game-development, but 20 years of IT experience in customer support, (migration) projects, and changes. Rule #1 Do not pile a bunch of changes on customers without an absolute (technical) need. And never ever mix testing changes. If you disregard that and push it through anyway, chance are that your internal customers will rebel and the business will force you to roll back, say bye-bye to any promotion oppertunities. If you're dealing with external customers, you'll still have to roll back and they'll go shopping for a different IT provider (possibly even having grounds to break the contract in place).

 

Next thing: Communication consistency or lack thereof. If people are seeing unexpected changes on PTS and then notice that Space Cores can't run factories anymore, people will panic! When we're asked to give our feedback on the forum due to NQ reading that and Discord being a pain due to how it's structured (I agree), I expect NQ to also communicate via that same forum with us. You have pins on those sub boards, is a top posted pin with a list of known bugs on PTS to much to ask from NQ? Now there are luckily some posters that have other sources (Discord?) that are sharing that info. That is not our job, that's NQ's job. Why is that important? Because players who initially read that have (in most cases) a negative emotion associated with your product, that just doesn't disappear when someone yells "It's a bug!" later in the thread. This doesn't solve bugs, people's exposure to them or their initial bad reactions to them. But at least they aren't stuck with the feeling that they are posting their findings/opinions on a forum that NQ wants you to use, but doesn't use it themselves in any kind of proactive method. Now, maybe there is such a post somewhere on the forum by an NQ employee, but I couldn't find it! I do get alerts of achievements (first post, one year, etc.), but I prefer alerts on bugs (on PTS)...

 

When I first watched the "Inside Novaquark: Demeter Edition", I had this bad feeling, and I kept telling myself "Just wait and see the actual implementation...". I can see why mining on planets needs to go (from a cost perspective). I could life with that if another solution is found (I'll leave it for another thread my opinion if the in place solution is adequate, Spoiler: It isn't). But ontop of that major core game mechanic change, a couple of other core game-mechanic altering stuff is hitched, while imho those aren't necessary for the change.to happen, this makes the mining change feel far, far worse. But the participants of the video gave some hints for hope or at least just being so vague that I could file certain stuff under my misunderstanding the situation. No actual announcement of when the Demeter patch would go live on PTS was a concern, that concern became even greate when with very little notification Demeter went live on PTS, for less then three days... WTF! After all the pushing by NQ personnel to check the PTS test, how can it be live for less then three days with so little lead time? Another POSSIBLE test would be also less then three days... I wasn't able to test PTS yesterday, but I read the forums, more bad feelings. I was able to test today and the bad feelings keep getting worse, this killing the motivation to continue to play DU...

 

But that happens! You can't please everyone. People change, they might change their minds down the road, and come back to your game... But wait! That can't happen anymore due to tile taxes and people loosing the stuff they build on it, not to mention breaking most dynamic constructs due to continues construct breaking changes. We knew that the possibility of loosing your tiles outside of the core safe zone (Alioth/Madis/Thades) would eventually happen with the introduction of ground combat/conquest. Some of us took the long view and started making large infra in the safe zone and lesser infra on the outer worlds. No ground combat/conquest in sight, imho still years of. But we're loosing the ability to own the tiles we claimed everywhere (except the starter moon, which most of us haven't touched since we started over a year ago). So if I leave for six months or a year, I have almost zero motivation to go back because I either didn't build anything outside of the starter moon or I lost everything outside of the starter moon... If that's the case, many people will loose any motivation to play right now, because why start building when you're going to loose everything anyway to rent/taxes? It's not like in RL where you can't check out for a few months/years. The only way people check out of RL is permanently... We don't work for fun to pay rent/taxes, we do it to live, we play games to 'escape' RL to a different universe, and entertainment. We do not want another job to work in DU.

 

I currently run four characters in DU, not 'free' KS/promo accounts, but accounts I bought time for. Those accounts all run out at the end of the year, and with rumors abound these last couple of months I was wondering if I would extend my four characters for another year ($280). And currently, if those changes go live as is, that just isn't going to happen. Not even one account. I have many issues to a lesser or greater extend with the changes on PTS, but the one that breaks the camels back for me is the loss of tiles due to unpaid rent/taxes. I'm just not interested in playing DU for the next 15+ years on a continuous basis, there will be times when I loose interest (or hope in DU), but I expect to eventually return and resubscribe. We all know that a lot of inspiration was taken from EVE, a LOT of use played it or play it still. My main in EVE (same name as here) started in December 2005, over the years I've added many accounts and have taken many (long) breaks, but I always come back (you never quit EVE permanently). I was (until recently) convinced that DU was a similar game, you never quit DU permanently. But it seems I was wrong... Side-note: This year I've spent over $750 on EVE game-time and packs, because every time I come back to EVE I do not have to start from scratch...

 

NQ, please stop breaking your players, because after the Demeter patch, they'll never come back!

[blundertwink]

It seems to me like NQ's players are a lot more interested in DU than NQ itself.

 

They have a really dedicated, loyal player-base that has stuck around despite a lot of faults, even paying to test their alpha!

 

We articulate a lot of opinions -- it's usually hard to get players to actually provide feedback in beta (alpha) programs. Many have experience in dev and/or a shit ton of experience in gaming. 

 

There's a pattern, here.

 

NQ announces a change, players warn them it isn't going to work, but NQ doesn't seem to care. They bury their head in the sands and believe their players: "don't understand how hard it is", find exploits that make their jobs harder (even though that's the point of beta), don't "play the game right" (all things NQ has actually said). 

 

Demeter has good ideas behind it, but once again the implementation is bad and NQ doesn't care enough about their own game to engage with the community...or are so unforgivably arrogant they believe they don't need to, so they continue the march toward deployment. They won't read this post or the above, sadly. They will be surprised that the idea of re-subbing to this game is utterly obliterated. That it won't really help scale because everyone will be herded into Sanctuary. That it will only increase churn rates. 

 

I don't really see a future, here, sadly. 

 

NQ sucks at game design, they have struggled a lot with the core tech (powered by Unigen and AWS), they are beyond bad at communicating with players, and the worst part? They are too arrogant to actually change or improve. They both lack ability and humility and that's a recipe for disaster after disaster.

 

Like other updates, the player-base sees the disaster coming. Like past updates, NQ doesn't bother to read...doesn't believe their own players...and doesn't care. 

[FrozenFace]

We need atmo brakes changes, i hate this brake blocks inside ships near pilot. They said about brakes in PTS NEWS, just read them before join PTS.

[Novean-61657]

1 hour ago, blundertwink said:

NQ announces a change, players warn them it isn't going to work, but NQ doesn't seem to care.

In my experience, exclusively listening to users is also a road to disaster, especially IT and Devs, those are the worst backseat drivers! I'm not saying don't listen to them at all, but use their feedback. You can of course disregard their feedback, because your not pleasing them (specifically) but you are running a business, cutting customers might often be the more profitable thing to do. The customer is NOT always king, he just likes to think so! I totally understand that NQ has cost considerations that translate to tech and gameplay effects. I know all about keeping systems and users manageable, you sometimes make choices that are unpopular with certain users. The issue isn't so much that they are made, but how they are implemented and communicated. The only real issue I have is that NQ seems to be only looking at the short term and not the long. That could be a necessity when the short term is already in an untenable situation... EIther way, it's bad news for all of us, the players and NQ itself.

 

1 hour ago, FrozenFace said:

We need atmo brakes changes, i hate this brake blocks inside ships near pilot. They said about brakes in PTS NEWS, just read them before join PTS.

I'm not critiquing their communication in that regard (I was critiquing their known error communications). Regarding the breaks, I was critiquing that this is being done NOW at all, when every indication is that this is not going into the Demeter patch AND it breaks a bunch of ships in a highly spectacular fashion. If it is going into the Demeter patch, my rant highly articulated call to sanity is even more on point. Stop breaking your players by piling on a bunch of changes that are hugely impactful!

[FrozenFace]

They must add some big alert on screen that air brakes is low.

[blundertwink]

Quote

The issue isn't so much that they are made, but how they are implemented and communicated. The only real issue I have is that NQ seems to be only looking at the short term and not the long.

 

That's exactly what I'm saying -- most people don't actually disagree with the change, they disagree with the implementation. 

 

This is a sub-based product and players are articulating very clearly that they will stop paying. Churn rate is the ultimate foe of every sub-based business model. You don't have to keep customers 'happy', but you do need to keep them subbed.  

 

You don't have to treat customers as kings, but you do have to listen when they are complaining and understand if it is an "us" problem or a "them" problem.

 

They have already burned a lot of bridges with their most loyal players and alpha backers, it seems like they just don't care to me. 

[Novean-61657]

22 hours ago, blundertwink said:

You don't have to keep customers 'happy', but you do need to keep them subbed. 

While you are right to certain degree. #1 Sometimes it's cheaper to loose x amount of customers, then to service their wishes. #2 What a customer says and actually does, can be two very different things.

 

Let me take my own comments as an example. I've indicated that I would not renew my subscription if this goes live as is, but I might very well change my mind. Changing my mind might range from renewing all four accounts for another year, to just another three months, to just one account for three months... Or I might not change my mind at all and just let the subscriptions lapse. It all depends on the actual implementation on the live server, when, the bugs, when it goes live, how creative I am, how much time I have, my mood, etc.

 

But I'm seriously considering spending that $280 (four accounts for a year) on buying other games instead, Like Satisfactory, Minecraft (Dungeons), Space Engineers, Factorio, Rimworld, Per Aspera, Hardspace: Shipbreaker, Dyson Sphere Program, No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous (expansion), etc. Heck, if I do that during the Steam Christmas sale I'll even safe a ton of money... Many of these do what you can do in DU, but better implemented, they just don't combine them all into a single sandbox game...

[blundertwink]

40 minutes ago, Cergorach said:

But I'm seriously considering spending that $280 (four accounts for a year) on buying other games instead, Like Satisfactory, Minecraft (Dungeons), Space Engineers, Factorio, Rimworld, Per Aspera, Hardspace: Shipbreaker, Dyson Sphere Program, No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous (expansion), etc. Heck, if I do that during the Steam Christmas sale I'll even safe a ton of money... Many of these do what you can do in DU, but better implemented, they just don't combine them all into a single sandbox game...

 

Satisfactory is great. IDC if it's off topic. It really does a great job sucking you in and showing what factory automation gameplay can be. Definitely worth the price. 

 

it's a bit of an understatement to say Satisfactory is a "better implemented" factory automation concept...I'd say it is like night and day, but even that is too similar. It's like night and an apple? 

 

I get what you mean, I don't think NQ would cry at all about losing all their current customers to be honest....but it isn't great when their most loyal and financially invested alpha backers etc. evaporate over the years. If you can't convince them to stick around I don't have high hopes for general wider release. 

[Haunty]

I'd have to assume NQ will need to balance autominers and territory taxes some more, and maybe balance safe zone asteroid mining since that will be the only way to actively mine now, other than surface rocks.
It doesn't really make sense that every tile in the game has the exact same flat rate tax and no way to reduce it somehow (eg. adjacency discount).