Something NQ really has to include asap for the new tile tax system

[Novean-32184]

 

DISCLAIMER: below are my thoughts, I am not telling NQ what to do or demanding anything, but I do think it makes sense and would benefit the game as a whole if it were adopted

 

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Following the latest VLOG we now know NQ intends/plans to allow one free tile outside fo Sanctuary at least. I think that is a good idea in principle and would take away a lot of potential pain points in the tax system but there needs to be some limitations to that idea:

 

1. The free claim requires a special TU much like the Sanctuary TU, it can't be crafted, only bought.
2. One of these TU is given as a reward following a tutorial where the importance of choosing location wisely is enforced. 
3. By making the tutorial available only after some prereqs are met, you can prevent players from making the wrong decision in choosing their location and it will mean they can only acquire the TU after having been in the game for a bit.
4. You can't pick up the TU again and move it, like the Sanctuary TU. If you pick it up, it either converts to a normal TU
5. You can only claim one free tile per planet/moon with a max of these TU being active at once (3 or 4)
6. Placing a second TU on the same planet or exceeding te quota, you can opt to place it as a "normal" TU and pay taxes. This would convert the TU into a normal one.
7. This special TU does not allow rights to be set for orgs. This would prevent large orgs having access to massive numbers of tiles for free through their members.

 

These conditions would remove quite a few loopholes and should really not be very hard to implement. They are vital to these free tiles not getting abused though and so must be in place at the same time these free tiles are implemented. This could be easily achieved if the idea of a special "free claim" TU would be adopted as you could design these so that they only allow player names to be added as actors

 

While this wil be controversial I know, beyond the initial one you'd get following a tutorial, I could see these TUs be for sale in the store for RL $$. In game it would be a sellable item so like DAC it could be used to convert RL $$ to quanta.

 

 

It would really be nice to hear what @NQ-Deckard has to say on this..

 

[Novean-32184]

 

So @NQ-Deckard posted something on Discord which really makes this situation worse

 

 

 

This post seems to indicate that his comments are placed out of turn, without proper knowledge of the facts and the actusal situation is still ill cvonceived and actually makes the problem worse.

 

Facts as we know them,

 

• Ore is now infinite
• Players get access to "HQ tiles"
• HQ tiles are different in that you wil not lose ownership when you do not pay taxes but they will mak ethe tile go inactive in that case

 

So, imagine this scenario:

• An org with 25 members..
• This org can agree that the HQ tile(s) for the individual members will have full access set for the org and gains control of what happens on the tile
• The incentive for this would be the org pays (part of) the tax
• The org can now gain access to any ore in unlimited quantity
• Taxes are paid depending on whether the ore on the tile is needed or not and the org can cycle tiles in and out as needed
• The org will be able to claim a massive area and opt to not pay taxes where the do not need mining or industry running but have structures

 

I could easily keep going with this but you get the idea, and I do not htink these are far fetched or unreasonable expecations of how this will play out.

Short term thinking in a long term strategy game like a sandbox MMO will not end well, NQ has had this happen to them numerous times over the past few years and it seems they have not learnt much, if anything along the way. It's all just rushed ideas and solution without much thought or consideration for the fall out. this only leads to more of the same.. Going to a live service game long before the game is ready probably was the biggest mistake they have made besides a severe lack of engagement and communication in general and it keeps showing.

[Gottchar]

So the org members claim hexes set as headquarters, sprinkled over the planets, so that they dont get adjacency bonus.

In order to have different ores available if needed - "coal is 2 quanta above baux, drop the baux miners, activate the coal hexes!"

Instead of making sure their own buildings are safe they rather reserve that safe slot for 3 mining units.

And due to those efforts, the org now has infinite ore.


Please open a window, make some tea and rethink if your issue is actually an issue.

[Novean-32184]

From your perspective as laid out I guess you could argue the way you do. It is just that though, your perspective. And I do understand why you'd argue this way. 

 

There is enough benefit to be gained from orgs having unlimited access to the main ore, all (or most) of which can be found in the permanent safe zone if these HQ tiles are not implemented with limitations in this regard. Especially when you consider that from Demeter ore supply is indefinite so once claimed, the tile guarantees a limitless supply of ore, only to be paid for if and when needed without risk of losing ownership.

In addition, org infrastructure can now be places and used, including renting out space, at no or limited cost while orgs can occupy and use massive numbers of tiles, be it in one place or several.

[Warlander]

If they were smart they could just give you 5 free tiles and in the Territory management system just let the player decide which tiles they want to apply it to. Since I have no idea how it will work with existing tiles and they never said these tiles included industries or mining units being present on them so I would love to actually make my HQ tile(s) my HQ tiles but they just tried to gives a candybar because they felt bad for killing my puppy but the terms and condistions need to be spelled out for these TUs.

 

And honestly I really wish they would for once incentivise actually playing the game with some kind of loyalty system like most MMOs have these days with logging in you get some random perk like hers your usual 150k quanta but consequtive logings give like some kind of random element, voxel box, rations, skins if you play the whole month or somehow dependant on time played that month.

 

Then apply that to ore output from tiles for like 1L per hour across the board for consqutive logins with no upward limit and reset completely if you miss a day and not bind the system to some 24 hour timer but anytime during that day based on when the day actually starts.

 

This system wouldnt be bad if it got better over time with gains over time.

[Feriniya]

  

On 11/15/2021 at 1:12 AM, Warlander said:

If they were smart they could just give you 5 free tiles and in the Territory management system just let the player decide which tiles they want to apply it to. Since I have no idea how it will work with existing tiles and they never said these tiles included industries or mining units being present on them so I would love to actually make my HQ tile(s) my HQ tiles but they just tried to gives a candybar because they felt bad for killing my puppy but the terms and condistions need to be spelled out for these TUs.

 

And honestly I really wish they would for once incentivise actually playing the game with some kind of loyalty system like most MMOs have these days with logging in you get some random perk like hers your usual 150k quanta but consequtive logings give like some kind of random element, voxel box, rations, skins if you play the whole month or somehow dependant on time played that month.

 

Then apply that to ore output from tiles for like 1L per hour across the board for consqutive logins with no upward limit and reset completely if you miss a day and not bind the system to some 24 hour timer but anytime during that day based on when the day actually starts.

 

This system wouldnt be bad if it got better over time with gains over time.

Agree with this realisation.. need some things more than just 150 000 quanta. Can make you time in game more surprized little bit . 

[CoyoteNZ]

I want a pet if I log in every day for a month!

 

But on to the HQ hexs, I don’t think limiting them to one/planet is a good idea. A lot of people want to make big multi hex projects that they are going to put hundreds of hours into and don’t want to lose. These would be good for that.

 

one problem I see though is people making a one month account, claiming five will never be removed hexs, and then never coming back. This causes two problems,

1. We get the issue we already have on Alioth, hundreds of claimed hexs which will never be used again.

2. People/orgs/whales getting hundreds of these, handing all the rights over to an org, and all of a sudden the org has hundreds of non losable hexs to use. Easiest fix for this is two things, a. Make RDMS rights shut down as well as industry when tax isn’t paid, b. Make it that only the player can pay the tax, not Ann org. So at lease if they do this they have to keep paying a sub.

[CptLoRes]

4 hours ago, CoyoteNZ said:

I want a pet if I log in every day for a month!

NQ already owns me a pet from the kickstarter, two in fact (lv1 & lv2) and a shiny Alpha Team outfit.

 

But on a more serious side. The definition and solution for inactive tiles in DU is dead simple really.

As long as the player pays the subscription, then he and by extension his tiles should be considered active.

 

So if someone get a month sub, claims some tiles and never returns. Then NQ simply has to wait 1 month + some margin before releasing the tiles again.

 

And once the game is out of balpha and "released", this means that inactive kickstarter accounts will also eventually time out, after the DAC's (that we payed real money for) are spent.