What needs to happen with Demeter to make this game viable to do anything post patch.

[Warlander]

Territory Units:

• BTU: Base Territory Units (5 tax free tiles)
• RTU: Residential Territory Unit: (Building Tiles you cant put industry or mining elements on)
• ITU: Industrial Territory Unit (Tiles designated specifically for Industry)
• CTU: Commercial Territory Unit (for when player markets become a thing)
• MTU: Mining/Mineral Territory Unit (Ore production tiles

 

Each of these need a Distinction for Tax Purposes to still cater to the different playstyles within from Industrialist, Builder, Base tiles, commercial, or mining. Each of them deserves a different tax bracket

 

Taxe Systems:

• Market Tax: Buy/Sell at a market or player market
• Territory Tax: Owning a tile Currently @ 1mil per week/4miil per month

 

Other viable systems of resource sinks:

• Destructible Elements: With talents for how many times a person with the skills can repair a broken element before it actually breaks permanantly
• Maintenence: The more you use something it takes damage over time wether its Atmo parts, Space Parts, Machines, Doors, buttons, Scripts, etc it should all take HP from the element being used with its grade (S-E-XL) and rarity (Basic-Unique) playing a factor in how much HP is lost from 1-5HP/1-5hp with a max range of 2-10HP lost based on instant use or some kind of dot based off of SU's traveled.
• Environmental Factors: All planets inside the bubble should have optimal living conditions. Outside the bubble should be increasingly more hostile that has a dot that ticks every so often with outer planets being more brutal.

 

I bring up Alternate Systems of Resource Sinks since we now have Infinite Resources there are other ways to clear the excess from the system that requires repairing and replacing items off of Usage, Player Error, and Environmentals that makes this occure on a timely cycle instead of just flat out robbing you of your cash up front just to do anything in game when you cant build items, voxels, or travel because the Taxes dont allow you to do anything since NQ thinks its somehow going to push people to play more or they dont care as long as you keep subbing.

 

It should all be based on the more you do the more the upkeep/maintenence stings to larger orgs and letting other people build up to them organically based on the Grade (XS-XL-E) and Rarity (Basic-Unique) that dictates how much it stings when you have massice multi-core industries running 24/7 and massive fleets vs small orgs/new players.

 

Tax Rates:

• BTU's or Base Territory Units are Tax free with a limit of x5 BTU's. Mining should be allowed on a BTU in order to gain resources.
• RTU's or Residential TU's should be taxed perhaps 25K Quanta per week to keep them in check but at the same time restricting industrial machine elements and miners from being placed down on the tile to allow builders to build and keep up with taxes.
• ITU's or Industrial TU's should come with a Tax based on the number of Industrial Elements on the Tile itself. If you have machines, containers, transfer units, etc it should cost by grade (S-XL-E) and Rarity (Basic-Unique) playing a role in the cost of Tax being 10K+10K-50K+50K per element plugged into the machine so this Taxes effect those who need to be taxed more vs new players to set a distinction.
• CTU's or Commercial TU's should have a higher tax up front as not to bog down the system or to push people to still use the existing markets and district markets unless you can sell a high enough quanity of items to justfy having a market link with a Tax Rate of 2.5-5Mil per week.
• MTU's or Mining TU's should be based on number of Mining Units on a tile with no cap on Aquisition but instead the Tax Rates are based on Grade (S-XL-E) and Rarity (Basic-Unique) costing 10K+10K-50K+50K per Mining Unit as the number of Elements that are actually there since resources are infinite and there is no reason to have 100L+ per tile and requiring players to own 50-100+ Tiles Just to potentially get 1L containers worth of ore per day (if you have all the talents running at 70% effficiency and getting perfect rock spawns for 50kl every 35 hours).

 

There is no reason to incentivise mass land grabs if everyone is expected to get 50-100 tiles just to stay functional if for whatever reason you become deralect and are forced to sell what you produce if you can even get to other planets at that point to just keep up with the taxes and still somehow progress beyond being able to pay for 1 out of 50-100 tiles per week with the universal basic income given and make parts, voxels, gas, etc and expect to do anything.

 

The real problem being is they are aiming this at Mega Orgs and it is going to hit everyone else hard when these people have all the resources and Quanta and they are never reigned in with any realistic system to create some kind of balance when everyone below them is the real demographic being punished by NQ's decisions.

 

Taxes need to be based on the TU type and distinguished by what can be placed in a tile first and after that taxed by how large your industry, Commercial, or Mining opperations actually are and not some sort of superficial barrier number when it never hurts large orgs with trillions in Quanta and more Trillions in resources and Elements.

 

 

Resource Limits:

• There should be no actual limit to how much ore you can pull put from one tile as what is the point of forcing people to own 100 tiles just to make 1 L containers worth of ore per day when you can tax by the number of units on a tile without requiring vast swaths of land boxing out new players?
• Prospecting Talents For Specific Ores Per Tier that allows a player to research output on every type of ore to increase yeild without having potentially hundreds of thousands of TUs, Cores, Mining Units, Containers, etc being added to the game for no real purpose other than reqiring everyone to have 100 tiles/TUs, Cores, 200+ Mining Units, 100Containers, Transfer Units, etc for no real reason since this was supposed to improve performance and clear up tedium by adding this madness for 1L Container of ore per day and potentially 50kl of rocks every 35 hours if your lucky running around and wasting more gas or forcing me to fly 4 mission runs per day to just cover the taxes on top of it to cover the taxes for 1 week for 1L Container per day?

 

In the new Q&A vid the devs sit there on their high horse acting like mining units will somehow make up for regular mining when me and my friend both pull at least 2-4 L containers worth of ore per day and just to pull 1 L container now just to keep opperations going will need 200 TUs, 200 Cores, 200L Containers, 200 Transfer Units, 400+ Mining Units just to make up for what one of us can do in 1 day and on tyop of it we will need to pony up 200mil per week and fly 8 round trip bubble runs on top of it just to break even not including 20kl of space gas per run or if we could even impossibly do 8 runs in a day its still going to cost a minimum of 160kl of space gas to do it. This does not even include running our industry, this does not include taking the "profits" we now need to devote to making 160kl worth of space gas per day, This does not include taking profits and making voxels to build anything with, and it certainly does not sound like fun.

 

Necessary Mining Changes:

• Harvesting needs to use mining talents since 20L rocks are a joke and it should take into account mining quantity talents into the equation as a base minimum.
• Harvestable Ground Rocks need to have 5 Sizes/tiers added to make the harvest range from 20-1000L with the time to harvest added to justify the amounts from 10 seconds to 1min and randomly spawn with a high chance of T1 Rocks and an increasingly rare chance of higher tier ground rocks to spawn.
• There needs to be a cloned tool of the dig tool that does not actually dig but just spawns dirt and with the alt function sifts the dirt and pulls out trace amounts of random T1-5 ores that generates 5-1L of ore per 100L of dirt.snow, sand as another source option to make up for onworld mining.
• I also propose taking essentially the grid of XS-XL cores and just making a glob of ore as a meteor to asteroid then spawning it randomly in the solar system and hurdling it at random planets using the auto pilot scripts with various stats generated as far as speed or roll and making missions to stop them from hitting or it could come down on tiles and dow damage as if it hits an un-owned tile it could just have some kind of hybrid teraforming tool in the shape of a huge doughnut and deposit ore on planets that way or just hit the ground as a dynamic construct and sit there. But if it hits an owned tile it could potentially damage or destroy elements or punch holes in voxels. So it creates a necessary mission or counter mission to keep people from mining it. And since it would have the mobility of a dynamic core with random speed or a roll it would make it harder to mine as it slowly heads towards a planet.

 

Scanning:

• All scans need to be rendered useless and require new fresh scans to be done.

 

You gotta love their sentiment of "we are daned if we do, damned if we dont". I say you are catering to your whales when you just keep feeding them to keep them playing while constantly knee capping and screwing over everyone else when it has been shown that these mega orgs can scan whole moons in a weekend and planets in a week. It is beyond unfair advantage when they will instantly know where all the prime tiles are and buy them all up. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just adding Mining Units does not make up for regular mining and there needs to be various means of onworld mining or "Harvesting" to make up for the gap it creates in potential ore aquisition. I mention sifting not actually digging since you dont want people to just redig all the holes or turn moons into sad potato shapes again and instead potentially just have a sifter require hydrogen/oxigen as water to sift resources as a form of gas in a sense to break apart what would have been dirt but does not actually require any dirt or dig holes.

 

As this patch stands its DU is not worth playing as it is an obivois rush to make the game feature complete while trimming the fat to make money while turning DU into a monthly sub just to break even as some kind of cash grab. Until something gives its neither fun nor a game as much as it becomes some kind of reverse job you have to pay them to work that has rediculous resource sinks, quanta barriers making the game impossible to have fun and still progress.

 

If NQ's goal is to actually some day have non one sided space wars that result in a mass exodus from this game they need to start aiming these sinks at mega orgs or they are just going to steamroll everyone off the server as soon as territory wars go live.

[RumRunnerI]

I appreciate your ideas and I did read through it though it's a bit long.

 

Your tax system is elaborate but adding complexity should be done in careful consideration as players need to learn all the nuances which just makes it more tedious. I appreciate your ideas but I dont think it solves the true issues. The best thing they could do about demeter is to scrap it and now ae don't have to solve all the demeter issues. 

 

If NQ cant afford the server costs to keep track of millions of tunnels, then simply have a mechanic that back fills those holes once they are a week old. Perhaps an anti-collaspe item would be added so some tunnels could be left open with some restrictions of length per account. Problem solved. Millions of tunnels would be full of dirt again. Ore not respawning could be solved later.

 

Mining units could still he introduced and now progression is mining the surface, then mining underground, then auto miners with still the ability of manually mining. Wow content!

 

Taxes solves nothing. Constructs that have remained dormant by their owners could be sent to the local market as a BP with materials so you could deploy again in the future. Solved! Now the universe is cleaned up.

 

Tiles already had a steep price curve and I only owned a few and I'm sure there are still plenty of tiles left so let's not fix something that isnt broke. 

 

Solving problems smart is really hard. NQ's knee jerk reactions show a complete lack of understanding of engineering and problem solving skills. 

[Warlander]

People dont need to see or concern themselves with the raw data that the system tracks already with what exists in the game, where it is, and how many elements and voxels are tied to static cores bound to TUs across tiles you own personally or under an Org tab. The system does that already.

 

NQ just needs to add a monitary value to Grade (XS-XLE) and Rarity (Basic-Unique). It does not mattr what it is everything fits under those tags in the system.

 

Its not hard to comprehend that the more you put down into a tile the more value it adds and the higher tax you should be expected to pay compounded with the number of connected tiles under an org owns and the collective value of the area it makes up by the rings of tiles that makes up the 6x bonus for inner tiles.

 

Flat Taxes only hurt new players and small orgs since every sink they try to add is never aimed at those who already have everything in game or try to equalize or create balance to the game and all these content gates, resource sinks, money sinks keep empowering mega orgs until they drop Territory Warefare and the mega orgs finish killing the game when they roll over everyone and finish owning everything.

 

I get it NQ puts in Unlimited Resources and they scared, I get it. It might actually let people get a leg up if NQ actually reined in mega orgs and gave people enough resources to actually progress, build a base, build an industry, and still have enough resources to actually want to throw away hundreds of millions in a PvP ship. Flat Tax makes that discrepency even less likely if you need to own 100s of tiles just for a box of ore per day which you are going to need to sell just to keep going when the market gets slammed with hyper inflation when supply does not meet the demand of just common gameplay to even run missions/asteroids when daily gains dont allow for anything but just owning land since NQ wont to do what needs to be done.

 

The other thing that needs to change with taxes is it need to be bound to your personal quanta or Org Quant pool without having to put money into the TUs manually. If anything it should be as simple as do you want to pay the taxes on the tiles or let them rot and just automatically pull the funds without micromanaging taxes.

 

If you go on vactaion for more than 2 weeks, injered, etc you get kicked out of the game is dumb when it should just autopay that bs as long as you have money to pay it with rather than if you dont play for a month NQ kicks you out of the game and everything you earned over years is gone.

 

With how much NQ now seems to be worried about data costs and throwing in sinks, drip faucet ore, voxel complexity limits, and setting up Universal Basic ore per month for no gains while holding their hand out grabbing for more cash all while letting us do 75%+ less ore and 75%+ more cost for the privelide to now compete for asteroids or the soon escalating inflation of space gas to even do anything.

[RumRunnerI]

10 hours ago, Warlander said:

 

Its not hard to comprehend that the more you put down into a tile the more value it adds and the higher tax you should be expected to pay compounded with the number of connected tiles under an org owns and the collective value of the area it makes up by the rings of tiles that makes up the 6x bonus for inner tiles.

 

I can answer my own question here but i do wish that we answer the following question before we find complex and novel approaches to taxes and that is: What problem are we trying to solve with taxes?

 

I know what NQ would say but let's start with what problem we are solving rather than iterating on a bad solution. Once someone states the problem clearly which I can do too but next lets ask, is taxes the beat idea to fix that problem? Are there any alternatives? I think many will say no let's redirect attention to novel solutions because tweaking a horrible solution is still a horrible solution. 

[Eternal]

NQ wants to regulate the economy and now it wants to do the job of the IRS (CRA in Canada)! Are you trying to reinvent the f*cking wheel? These are unnecessary work for the developers!

 

All you got to do is look at conventional economic and monetary design that was already implemented in existing MMOs! Plain, simple, and equitable!  

 

Why don't the NPC just buy your security/s and then sell them back for the same price? It eases and destroys the money in a conventional way without any regulation/intervention. It solves everything. The NPC will end up regulating the price for everything? Then let the NPC just buy/sell oxygen/hydrogen (which is fundamental material for crafting) and nothing else! The point of easing is for you to have liquidity to use for transactions.

 

This problem have already been solved, don't reinvent the wheel with these unconventional non-sense that are not even equitable! 

[Warlander]

42 minutes ago, RumRunner25 said:

I can answer my own question here but i do wish that we answer the following question before we find complex and novel approaches to taxes and that is: What problem are we trying to solve with taxes?

 

I know what NQ would say but let's start with what problem we are solving rather than iterating on a bad solution. Once someone states the problem clearly which I can do too but next lets ask, is taxes the beat idea to fix that problem? Are there any alternatives? I think many will say no let's redirect attention to novel solutions because tweaking a horrible solution is still a horrible solution. 

 Yeah they chose the most obvious solurion of flat taxes as a pivot to telling us mining is dead and there is nothing to replace the gains you were making as some kind of solution to mining when its not even scratching the surface of what we were making within 15km of our bases as some kind of solution to the main problem of this game which was and has always been slaving away for nothing and now we work and pay asub for even less than some kind of unieversal income.

 

Im no socialist  or sommunist but this is straight up bullshit. I dont care what is going on in Canada atm but this new normal is a lame escuse for somekind of gaming model for nothing more than the lamest of cash grabs ever ettempted for no real form of gameplay other than what you would expet from some kind of EEE studio trather than AAA. Well done NQ you have created the worst game ever developed in the history of MMOs. I thought that the last 5 years were bad but man you keep lowering expectations to the point of absolute unplayability for $7 a month. Bravo.

 

Maybe the rest of you except this shit. Maybe ive been privelidged by half decent to terrible games the last 25 years. Maybe I expected more from some mediocre stuio like the rest claiming some kind of next gen shitpile failure. Who really know what this game is about at this point. Idk do you?

[Creator]

Let's be honest Warlander, as well thought as your post is, there is no viable Demeter update going to happen. Same as the people in government won't ever fix climate change, in both instances we the people are simply screwed, just like this game. It is my favorite game, I love this game, and it is why I am so super passionately upset.

I did make a major mistake though, I loved it for what I thought it could be, accepted it at the time for what it was, not for the reality of what it will become at this point.

[RumRunnerI]

12 hours ago, Warlander said:

this new normal is a lame escuse for somekind of gaming model for nothing more than the lamest of cash grabs ever ettempted for no real form of gameplay other than what you would expet from some kind of EEE studio trather than AAA

Exactly. I do question why our "real world" framework and thinking, whether you agree with it or not, should be a template to follow in any game environment. Case in point....

"Well we have taxes on real life so we should have them in game!" I escape to the warm embrace of DU because I can travel the stars, design a spaceship and then fly it in the same day, scratch my industry and entrepreneur pitch and so many other things I want to do in space in RL. I want a sandbox game so I can do things I cant in RL, wouldn't making it the opposite of reality instead of a mirror make more sense? It shouldn't be a hard and fast rule but keeping things simple, it makes some sense. 

 

9 hours ago, Creator said:

I did make a major mistake though, I loved it for what I thought it could be, accepted it at the time for what it was, not for the reality of what it will become at this point.

 Beautifully said. I made this mistake and a bigger one, I still.love the game though havent played since 0.23 and I still cant let go. I wish I could buy a copy of the game before 0.23 and play that by myself and I may throw all my other games away. How can I move on? Lol

[Creator]

43 minutes ago, RumRunner25 said:

 Beautifully said. I made this mistake and a bigger one, I still.love the game though havent played since 0.23 and I still cant let go. I wish I could buy a copy of the game before 0.23 and play that by myself and I may throw all my other games away. How can I move on? Lol

 A lot like how Project Entropia was circa 2007, before it became Entropia Universe and they ripped the soul of it out with CryEngine and loot boxes etc.

[Novean-32184]

OP basically want to turn DU into Sim City it  seems

I feel he massively overcomplicates things which really is not needed. That said though, there is some merit in the idea.

 

A TU could be designed so that you can allocate taxes paid into several sections, on a claimed tile you can do anything the tile provides for but by allocating more funding in he TU to mining, you gain some buffs in that activity while others like Industry or construction might operate at more nominal levels.  Much simpler system which achieves mostly the same result.

 

And yes, I share the preference for a special TU for "free of tax" tiles as I explained in THIS post.