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Dual Universe: What the bloody hell happened?


sHuRuLuNi

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1 minute ago, Kobayashi said:

Please define 'everyone'.......

[...] The interesting thing is, the majority of people I know who are 'happy' with the game, play the way we do.  Dont get me wrong, there is still a long way to go.

 

This is why it isn't as simple as "risk/reward" -- it's about conflict and engagement, which is more vague and varies wildly from person to person. Yet DU wanted to create a game for "everyone" to do "anything" -- without creating engagement for the wildly different expectations each player has. That's what makes it a bad design, because most people do require structure. 

 

Just now, joaocordeiro said:

I dont think conflict can become the main driver for this game. 

 

Conflict doesn't mean combat or PvP.

 

Conflict is "a condition in which a person experiences a clash of opposing wishes or needs" -- the desire to spend time mining vs. spending time exploring or building is a source of conflict. Conflict can be completely internal to one player, it doesn't have to be a clash between people or NPCs. 

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1 minute ago, blundertwink said:

Conflict doesn't mean combat or PvP.

 

Conflict is "a condition in which a person experiences a clash of opposing wishes or needs" -- the desire to spend time mining vs. spending time exploring or building is a source of conflict. Conflict can be completely internal to one player, it doesn't have to be a clash between people or NPCs. 

 

But for every part of that conflict there needs to be several viable options all with pros and cons, some luck, and some skill in handeling those options (not skill like a ingame skill but like a player knowing when to sell, when to fire, when to turn) 

 

If all conflict situations are resolved by a single and simple metric (profit margin, radar range, belonging to an alliance) then it becomes predictable and not interesting, just like paying taxes. 

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4 hours ago, joaocordeiro said:

I dont think conflict can become the main driver for this game. 

 

100% this. Conflict is something that should grow out of circumstance and then it should never just have one single solution in combat.

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11 hours ago, sHuRuLuNi said:

 

Sure, but what he is saying is that they actually are an organized lobby who DOESN'T CARE about the game. They only want to destroy stuff - so they bombard the Developers and push them to add more and more PVP features, but once the developer does this - they leave and go to the next game.
So, the point is: they do not care about any other feature of the game and they do not care that by pushing their agenda they are actually destroying the game for everyone else.

 

Really good video but posting stuff like this is killing your credibility to me. The DU PVP community has made a huge investment into this game and cares about its success just as much as the PVE community. 
 

In the end even if we have contradicting views we all want DU to succeed.

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I feel like I'm in high school English and have to explain that conflict doesn't mean "combat" -- conflict is when a person experiences a clash of ideas or wishes. That might be external with NPCs or other players, but in many games it isn't.

 

My point about conflict is that the OP's idea about risk/reward is just one facet of creating engaging gameplay. 

 

Mining no longer has any conflict (other than mining asteroids) -- the modality before wasn't perfect, but it did create conflict because players had to make choices about where/what to mine, how much cargo to support, making warp fuel, finding ore efficiently....this creates a conflict of ideas/wishes as player figure out how to balance their ships and their time. 

 

Tuning AMs isn't engaging because there's no real conflict, no choices or tradeoffs to make -- it's just busy work. 

 

All the best games (in the MMO space) make you choose how to invest your time very carefully because there's almost always more to do than there's time for. That itself drives internal conflict and makes the game engaging.  

 

DU doesn't do that -- skills are all passive. Mining is all passive. There's no engagement because there's no conflict; risk/reward is a big part of that, but not the whole picture IMO. A game can have very little "risk", but still have conflict and high levels of engagement (even without combat).

 

Unfortunately, DU doesn't really seem to understand game design basics and implements features based on what will save them money and what "seems cool" rather than approaching it as game design professionals. 

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Interesting take on what DU was meant to be. Though everyone is wearing an environment suit so the issue with water, and flying into space without a cockpit not really hitting home their.

 

Also its very easy to enjoy a game 'without risk' but DU certainly has risk each time you fly in and out of an atmosphere something, which your video seems to have ignored....

 

Also ships need fuel - kinda the food of the game.

 

Not sure I want to play a game, where I have to wait for my character to get 9 hours sleep each day but I suppose you could make it part of 'healthy life balance feature', to ensure people gets some sleep instead of living in the game like in ready player one.

 

I do agree it would be nice to have some special 'tech' or something for PVP rewards however, I am not sure that is needed in Beta, since you want to try out the core game and this game is still being developed.

 

Lore is a good idea, but we need books in game for us to be able read about it.

 

PVE sounds good but to be honest after a while PVE just becomes an in the way mechanic in most games. I find it quite refreshing its missing here in DU. I am sure you could probably add it in a way that makes PVP / outer planets more 'interesting' in forms of an invasion or something.

 

Personally I have really enjoyed the challenge of building my own ship that can transition between, atmosphere and space, then travel to planets without using the warp drive. Though I prefer to play games via the voyage of discovery, which I think makes them way more challenging, enjoyable and satisfying.

 

I have yet to try PVP probably due to how I like to play games but I am getting their, I just need to find my mining spots finish my asteroid finding ship and then its PVP time - Probably I'll die a lot time :D

 

(also I have been playing since Alpha - did not do a lot in alpha)

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18 hours ago, ADCOne said:

 

 

Also its very easy to enjoy a game 'without risk' but DU certainly has risk each time you fly in and out of an atmosphere something, which your video seems to have ignored....

 

 

 

No, I have not. I clearly said that apart from partial flight mechanics the rest seems nonsensical. That is also the sole reason I was able to hold on for so long, because I enjoyed building ships (unique, nice looking ships) and flying around in space. The "partial" comes into play when as I said there are flight mechanics, but other things related to them do not make much sense (like flying into space in an open cockpit, or the fact that you cannot use voxels to build wings/ailerons with functional lift, thus forcing you to use the boring looking elements which have remained the same SINCE PRE-ALPHA).

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On 12/2/2021 at 1:20 PM, enjeyy said:

One thing though, please leave out survival mechanics like the constant need for food and water. Enviromental hazards by all means, like the need for a proper underwater or space equpment, but not the constant need for grind.

 

Yeah, I am all for that as well. I was more thinking of a need for shelter (for example from weather conditions), thus a place to rest and refill the energy, which in turn can be boosted by some food or drinks. And then maybe medicine as well (say after you fall down some 10m and are injured), which in turn needs ingredients to produce, and so on - just as I said, it would then all tie together nicely ...

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7 minutes ago, sHuRuLuNi said:

 

Yeah, I am all for that as well. I was more thinking of a need for shelter (for example from weather conditions), thus a place to rest and refill the energy, which in turn can be boosted by some food or drinks. And then maybe medicine as well (say after you fall down some 10m and are injured), which in turn needs ingredients to produce, and so on - just as I said, it would then all tie together nicely ...

 

In those regards I try to look at what would be fun gameplay in the immersive world they trying to go for.  So boosts I like, but don't like that if I don't eat I could die or huge penalties.  I also like some element survival mechanics (need for different types of suits) or i do lik things that could kill our avatar outside being in a seat of a ship. Some sort of oxygen needed in a space game makes sense if done correctly and not tedious.  These types of challenges can he fun for groups even doing pve stuff like planning mining missions on a hostile planet.

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59 minutes ago, sHuRuLuNi said:

 

No, I have not. I clearly said that apart from partial flight mechanics the rest seems nonsensical. That is also the sole reason I was able to hold on for so long, because I enjoyed building ships (unique, nice looking ships) and flying around in space. The "partial" comes into play when as I said there are flight mechanics, but other things related to them do not make much sense (like flying into space in an open cockpit, or the fact that you cannot use voxels to build wings/ailerons with functional lift, thus forcing you to use the boring looking elements which have remained the same SINCE PRE-ALPHA).


You did not say it was a risk mechanic specifically you said something along the lines of, the flight mechanics were good. You did say a lot, a game without risk would not work though.

I was done with my points but you remind me about the structure mechanics you mentioned, I think these mechanics work great in Red faction - especially guerrilla - however, I think adding them to DU outright would make doing anything in a ship too difficult to allow for any real game play due to damage just bumping into things. So if it was confined to buildings I think it would be very exciting especially for territory battles. Which means that it could actually be a really good idea for the game.

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2 hours ago, sHuRuLuNi said:

thus forcing you to use the boring looking elements which have remained the same SINCE PRE-ALPHA)

I think you are missing the point. 

 

There is no problem what so ever to use an element for 10 years. 

 

The problem is when the game is soo boring in all other aspects, that you have too look for interesting things on the element that does its intended job for 10 years. 

 

You can find way simpler and way easier games that are very adictive. 

Instead of looking at those games and saying "we cant compare a MMO with tetrix" you should be thinking "why are forms, dropping from the top of a rectangle, fun while piloting a ship to Jago not fun" 

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13 minutes ago, joaocordeiro said:

I think you are missing the point. 

 

There is no problem what so ever to use an element for 10 years. 

 

The problem is when the game is soo boring in all other aspects, that you have too look for interesting things on the element that does its intended job for 10 years. 

 

You can find way simpler and way easier games that are very adictive. 

Instead of looking at those games and saying "we cant compare a MMO with tetrix" you should be thinking "why are forms, dropping from the top of a rectangle, fun while piloting a ship to Jago not fun" 

 

Its what happens when you develop grief loops over content to experience rather than chaining characters to the wall and not having a choice in what you want to do rather than having content forced upon you vs opening up or developing game systems to entertain people and keep their interest rather than structuring your game to monthly subs in a slow drip entertainment faucet just to run it down the dain in content sinks. They just got caught up in the game or just wanting to punish those who do.

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On 12/2/2021 at 4:27 PM, joaocordeiro said:

 

But for every part of that conflict there needs to be several viable options all with pros and cons, some luck, and some skill in handeling those options (not skill like a ingame skill but like a player knowing when to sell, when to fire, when to turn) 

 

If all conflict situations are resolved by a single and simple metric (profit margin, radar range, belonging to an alliance) then it becomes predictable and not interesting, just like paying taxes. 

Human nature being what it is, there will always be a "best meta" or min maxers. The only thing Devs can do to stop games from being stale is to artificially change things so there is some freshness until a new meta inevitably emerges.

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2 hours ago, Anopheles said:

Human nature being what it is, there will always be a "best meta" or min maxers. The only thing Devs can do to stop games from being stale is to artificially change things so there is some freshness until a new meta inevitably emerges.

That argument is true in the limit of imagination. But its often used to give up and dont even atart addressing the problems. 

 

Games with less variation are easier to be populated by meta. 

The more variation NQ can add the better. 

 

But NQ failed to understand that variation is about variation of solutions and not variation of problems. 

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On 12/2/2021 at 9:56 PM, blundertwink said:

 

Unfortunately, DU doesn't really seem to understand game design basics and implements features based on what will save them money and what "seems cool" rather than approaching it as game design professionals. 

 

Unfortunately, indeed.

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