Jump to content

Game concept works against itself


Xennial

Recommended Posts

I am going to try and articulated these thoughts as succinctly as possible but it's a broad concept.

 

Working with DU general vision of a gaggle of players all living in DU, building org's, fighting over resources and buzzing with activity.

 

The problem with this vision as it stand now is the game systems and dev direction work against it's success. Basic game theory premise: People play games for fun, the closer a game gets to a job or the higher the pain of loss, the fewer players will continue. Unlike the real world you can't 'force' players to accept excessive hardship. MMO's require a large player base to survive. 

 

Currently the dev direction continues to try and add 'value' to things in game. I assume this is under the idea that if people care about there stuff then they are more likely to covet it , care about their efforts in game giving them reason to stick around and value their acquisitions. There is also a general push to 'force' players into groups in order to not be locked out of game content. The primary issue with this current game approach is it violates the basic game theory. Every time they make the game 'harder', or more 'group or don't play', or grindy, they lose players.

 

Open PvP cannot exist for the vast majority of players in the game where Pain of Loss is as high as it is. Player are simply not going to spend a week or two building a ship and gathering the materials for it, only to have blown up in a couple minutes and accept that as a good game experience. No matter what the few orgs that dominate in this space think, every player they gank that leaves because the pain threshold is to high is one DU step closer to server shut down.

 

The general effort by NQ to 'force' people to play in groups is highly counter-productive. Working together should carry advantages that encourage people to want to group as their desire to scale their game experience grows. You cannot tell players 'join an org or quit', they will choose the latter. We are 'forced' into organizations we don't want to be part of IRL all the time and players don't want or need this replicated in the games they play.

 

Solution:

 

The core problem for DU is that pain of loss is far to high to sustain most players in the activities that would make the DU concept work. Ore acquisition is the primary culprit here, with industry gating being a secondary but more complex. MU's could have solved this issue by making ore readily accessible to everyone, but then they hard locked what a player can produce with this charges/calibration system. You WANT players to acquire lots of territory and produce a ton of cheap ore. If this is one dedicated player or an organization is not the problem.

 

The issue with this is the obvious lock down of vast amounts of territories by players that can never lose them so long as the bots make sure tiles are profitable. This would not be an issue if territories could actually be attacked. That would force players to defend said territories thus limiting their expansion in a more normalized way. The way to naturally curb such over acquisition as the game stands now is to remove ore bots and allow the natural ore market to make tiles unprofitable/profitable based on supply/demand. Normalize sanctuary ore distribution and remove tax for mining there to create a baseline ore production of T1 for all players. This helps to insulate newbies from being cut off from the T1 game experiences and allows players to always have some amount of ore availible for building for 'free'. You could also prevent omni factories on sanctuary by limiting industry machines to T1 level from being built on sanctuary. This would also require some level of fuel ores to be availible to sanctuary tiles since the core 3 planets T2 is so blindly rare now and would be monopolized in current form. 

 

The net-net effect has to be to make ore acquisition prolific and cheap at least for T1-T2, ore bots artificially prevent this and prevent any 'free' or ore baseline on sanctuary form being viable. This unlocks the ability for most players to participate in the game be it via building things, building basic ships and parts, and low-tier industry. If players can make and produce basic ships for dirt cheap, then their pain of loss in PvP would be significantly reduced. It is important to consider PvP will NEVER work if the loss of a ship causes the player to much pain of loss. We don't need most ships to be valuable to encourage warfare, the future TW's over outer planets higher tier resources will give people plenty of reason to fight or risk going out there. Simply adding a metric that the org owning the most tiles on an outer planet get a cut of the tile taxes would be enough reason for major wars. People won't risk going out there if a single combat wipes out weeks of in game effort. 

 

 The common argument that ore bots are a needed faucet are in-valid in a game world where you get daily cash and have missions to gain more. You need a baseline player experience where most player can access a lot of content, with the effort and value coming from grouping, logistics, fighting for control and generally interacting with other players.

 

Current dev game theory path is never going to reach critical mass. Pain of Loss HAS to be drastically reduced for most of DU's general concept to function. Solo players HAVE to have access to more of the game not less, and I don't mean the solo players that log in for many hours every day. If the game only ever caters to a hardcore organized group of a players thats all the game will ever have. NQ probably knows how many players they need to keep the game open, and I'm pretty sure what we have is not it, especially when NQ continues to take steps AWAY from the model that would make DU work we bleed more players.

 

This is about as much constructive criticism as I can muster for DU. These changes could be implemented very quickly (minus the TW part), and would help to get players to return to the game or stick around. But it hinges on NQ being open minded enough to realize their current vision has to be adjusted. The more content is locked from most players without excessive effort, the more pain of loss exists, the less and less players DU will maintain.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Game mostly suffers from abysmal dynamics. Everything is slow, repetitive, afk-heavy and bordering second job.

 

So its not suprising that for 95% of former/potential players it was/will be obvious failure. Some middle aged guys with exessive ammount of free time still can enjoy it, playing with voxels, lua or hoarding virtual riches for no good reason. But there is just several hundreds of such diehard fans/fanbois. Its absolutly not enough.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, le_souriceau said:

Game mostly suffers from abysmal dynamics. Everything is slow, repetitive, afk-heavy and bordering second job.

 

So its not suprising that for 95% of former/potential players it was/will be obvious failure. Some middle aged guys with exessive ammount of free time still can enjoy it, playing with voxels, lua or hoarding virtual riches for no good reason. But there is just several hundreds of such diehard fans/fanbois. Its absolutly not enough.

 

It is certainly true that the game loops in DU are excessively time consuming. Ranges between planets non-warp are an example of excessive time sinks, weighting advantage more and more to the 'power gamer' that you describe. Building is another example where things are needless time sinks. Anyone who ever built a L core knows what I mean, tiny chunks at a time just to lay or pick up a floor. I generally assume this is a packet size issue. This system would have been WILDLY better if we had the client side design that you can just pop into the world in a single update. They even talked about such a system once apon a time.

 

But honestly thats more surface issues compared to the underlying fault of DU continuing to make pain of loss higher and trying to 'force' group play.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Xennial said:

 

 

But honestly thats more surface issues compared to the underlying fault of DU continuing to make pain of loss higher and trying to 'force' group play.

 

 

 

They were hell bent on doing core sizes, so if they could figure out how to make S cores and M core and elements the go to and not just always L it would help a lot with that pain of loss. Anyone who plays this game quickly realizes bigger is better and faster, even with hauling. That's gonna be an on going issues. L cores should have a role. But not be best at everything.  Defines roles is what we need.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, VandelayIndustries said:

 

They were hell bent on doing core sizes, so if they could figure out how to make S cores and M core and elements the go to and not just always L it would help a lot with that pain of loss. Anyone who plays this game quickly realizes bigger is better and faster, even with hauling. That's gonna be an on going issues. L cores should have a role. But not be best at everything.  Defines roles is what we need.

 

That still won't do it, as core size cost is relative to player progression curve. You might not think a S or M core is a big deal to lose, but to newer/smaller players that may have been a major time investment or monetary investment to build and operate. I agree that L core is always better is a fault, but even balancing in this regard is not going to change how valuable a ship loss is to a player. The base cost in time/effort for a player to build/operate a basic ship is just to high. The pain-of-loss extends even to travel times for example. If someone spends 2 hours slow boating just to get destroyed in a couple of minutes they have 'lost' 2 hours of their life. This particular issue goes to what le_souriceau was saying.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Xennial said:

 

That still won't do it, as core size cost is relative to player progression curve. You might not think a S or M core is a big deal to lose, but to newer/smaller players that may have been a major time investment or monetary investment to build and operate. I agree that L core is always better is a fault, but even balancing in this regard is not going to change how valuable a ship loss is to a player. The base cost in time/effort for a player to build/operate a basic ship is just to high. The pain-of-loss extends even to travel times for example. If someone spends 2 hours slow boating just to get destroyed in a couple of minutes they have 'lost' 2 hours of their life. This particular issue goes to what le_souriceau was saying.

 

not saying its the only thing, but it actually is a big deal.  And the 2 hour time thing can be anything, that shit happens in eve all the time.  people invest tons of time resources to get it blown up in pvp.  But what eve has is smaller ships that have defined meaningful roles.  DU does not have that.  Anyone who has played eve for even a short time, can buy literally hundreds of frigates and lose them over and over.  DU does not have that.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, VandelayIndustries said:

Anyone who has played eve for even a short time, can buy literally hundreds of frigates and lose them over and over.  DU does not have that.  

 

And you help to validate my point about a pain-of-loss here. In DU unlike in EVE we design our ships from scratch and choose all system etc in said ship. Also in DU the ship has to be functional in relation to flying on a planet. If making a ship in DU was nothing more then picking what was on a few hardpoints / upgrade slots then it would be a different animal. Balancing a freeform ship design system in any sort of PvP environment is a massive undertaking in and of itself that I don't see NQ ever really pulling off. At least if the cost to build/replace said ship was much lower people could focus less and picking up rocks, and more on using said ships, again here DU fails because gathering resources is basically the only activity besides building artwork.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Xennial said:

 

And you help to validate my point about a pain-of-loss here. In DU unlike in EVE we design our ships from scratch and choose all system etc in said ship. Also in DU the ship has to be functional in relation to flying on a planet. If making a ship in DU was nothing more then picking what was on a few hardpoints / upgrade slots then it would be a different animal. Balancing a freeform ship design system in any sort of PvP environment is a massive undertaking in and of itself that I don't see NQ ever really pulling off. At least if the cost to build/replace said ship was much lower people could focus less and picking up rocks, and more on using said ships, again here DU fails because gathering resources is basically the only activity besides building artwork.

 

sure there is difference i get that.  But the BP system alleviates that a lot.  And S cores with way less elements, and small sizes, and less voxels do make it easy to plop down another BP quickly once you did your inital time.  If there was no BP then ya id agree.  But with BP's its just the initial part.  And ive also spent HOURS upon hours fine tuning fits in eve for min/maxing pvp or C5 wormhole sites.  That time does factor in similar to the intial build phase.  And also not everyone is hell bent on making the best looking ships.  Some are ok making it look decent and functional.  So peoples mileage vary.  And someone like me i usually buy ships then build my own.  So that doesnt really effect me at all.  I buy tokens when i can, or if not BP's.  I absolutely hate the building in this game.  So i skip it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It just takes adding PvP cores for dynamic/static cores and forcing people who want weapons on ships or any military grade items to having to produce them or T5 crafting in a PvP static core along with any weapons/shields being put in a dyanic PvP core.  I would say that MUs should have to be put in PvP static cores.

 

They could have done that any time they wanted and there would have been atmo combat if all of it was flagged for PvP. It just takes cores and tags. 

 

I think if PvP were largely optional and if you want to make T4-5 parts you needed to put your industry and MUs on the line to generate ore and produce above common parts then having to protect those assets from other people who can sabatage, jam, or destroy competing military factories and weapons instalations to be able to make them. Where the size of your territory means you can add more defenses. I think the ground defense should use the NQ AA gun script for anyone entering your territory.

 

Where building towers or floating cores has strategic value in placement for space, atmo, and ground placement for defenses with limits per tile and by core sizes or lower approach. 

 

All they need to do is clone the dynamic/static core and turn on PvP and add restrictions for T5 or T4-5 parts, military grade or Tag based items like maneuvering/freight parts and industry machines needed to make them. You should go into top tier crafts with the understanding that it means you put it on the line if you want to play top tier gameplay but still lets people progress to T3 content to have parts needed for PvP ships in a civilian protection. If you want to fight people then you need a PvP core people can fight you and anti-pk people with retrobution.

 

Even if your military assets get destroyed you still have T4 or T3-4 industry to fall back on. The further out you go could also dictate what tier is allowed for a handicap to be able to keep fighting and of course its still FFA in space. So that way you still have means to continue to fight in some capacity. On distant planets it could or should be full FFA onworld for whoever can keep their mining opperations for T4-5 ore.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with the original post completely.. resources need to be plentiful for this game to work. I thought I would have more time and freedom to actually make this game more fun for myself and everyone else with automated mining units, but instead I'm stuck on my same 5 tiles, playing the same mini-game multiple times every day to just keep things running.. I'm much more interested in doing everything I can to change the current dynamics here on the forums than play the game any more.. I love what DU could be, but we need resources to be plentiful, and not taxed away into oblivion, for us to be willing to loose our creations in actual fun PVP gameplay.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...