I believe the Devs have the wrong philosophy for a PvP-only game.

[Carnegie]

Hi Everyone, its been a while since I last played (since  a bit after the 0.23 debacle when schematics were introduced). Here is what I noticed.

 

1.  Population is dead.

      Very few people around - even massive spaceports with tens of thousands of hours of build time invested are abandoned.

 

2. Why?  Well the game hasn't been fun since the fall season of beta launch (introduction of schematics in 0.23).

 

    - I am  80% builder,  20% pvp.  For a game that refuses to have PvE, a critical mass of population is required. Its not happening.

    - PvP is about blowing stuff up. 

    - Everything is way too expensive in terms of my time and effort to blow it up.

   -  No point to building if I can't share it with anyone or use it to make cheap ships

 

 My recommendation:
 

   3.  don't worry about inflation. If there are too many ships around, then they will become cannon fodder and the game will become fun again.

 

   4.  don't worry about too many tiles per person. Right now if a person owns half a planet there is still room for growth.

        - lower the tile taxes so I don't spend so much my time feeding the tax machine

        -  the tax is making it not effective to mine on any but the most productive tiles

        - hunting for a workable tile is not the game I want to play --->  I want to blow stuff up, not spend endless hours waiting for my scanner to give results. Not fun.

        - you can make taxes on tiles adjustable

        - each planet has a tile claimed percentage, so use that number to set the tax per tile. Popular planets will be more expensive, tax-wise.

 

   5.   Taxes on a tile should be the same as the bonus for daily log-in. 

 

   6.  The Devs seem to want to shape the behavior of players to log in every few days.

        -  extend your expectations to the sweet spot of logging on once per week (on the weekends when we have time).

   7.  The maintenance on automated mining is too short. I want it automated so I don't have to log in constantly. Once a week is good and make it cheap so I can build lots of cheap ships to blow up.

       - I am not going to destroy my expensive Ferrari, but I would be willing to take my low cost beater design into war.

 

  8. The problem with schematics isn't the cost, its the explosion of logistics to manage the darned things. 

     - Don't require the schematic to be in the actual machine - pull it from a central library that I own so I don't have to constantly look to see where it is last time I used it. 

 

 9. Math:
     - Try to stay away from hard limits - they don't work well in dynamic systems. 
     - Use differently shaped opposing forces (for example : a linear curve minus an exponential curve will shape the sweet spot of something)

 

10. Don't worry about rich people.
    - They will either: 

       a) quit out of boredom

       b) become benevolent sponsors and help others to grow  

       c) become evil geniuses that others will have to group up on to take down (sounds like fun)

 

 Overall make it fun! 

      Devs have gotten too carried away with putting fixed limitations on players'  behavior.  Give the economy some freedom and use self-adjusting sinks.

     

     Too many ships? --> Encourage war, theft and vandalism.

     Not enough ships?    --> Encourage building with cheaper material production. (lower taxes, increase mine production)

     Too many owned tiles?  -->  Encourage fights between neighbors or pollutions that lower mining yields on densely packed areas.

     Not  enough owned tiles? --> Lower taxes and increase yields

     

    Too much griefing ?  --> Give escaping a bigger chance with a stealth burst,  ECM,  or lower detection distance (increase background detector noise)

    Not enough hunting ?  --> Increase radar detection radius (lower the local background radiation interference)

 

Finally - respond to these posts with actual thoughts - brainstorm with your customers, not just amongst yourselves - or you won't have any left.

 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2021 by Carnegie

[Novean-32184]

DU is not a "PVP only" game, It is a sandbox MMO with PVP combat as one of he game's components.

[Carnegie]

I meant in terms of PvP vs PvE.  I wasn't referring to sandbox part which I like very much.

[Sevian]

You seem to be forgetting this: DU is not a game.

 

It started as a software test, disguised as game, that is flopping because nobody wants either.

[blundertwink]

It didn't start as a "software test".

 

I really don't get why people insist DU is nothing more than a "tech demo". If that were true they'd have stopped years and years ago. 

 

Calling it a "software test" or "tech demo" is both giving NQ too much and too little credit....

 

It's giving them too little credit because it makes it sound like NQ never wanted to make a game...which doesn't align with all the evidence we have. They've spent a lot of money working on DU across two offices and a ton of employees. They've hired game design/development experts....sure, many of those experts haven't stuck around, but all the evidence we have suggests that yes, NQ has tried their best to make a game. For over 7 years. With over $20 million in investment.

 

Just because DU plays like a very unfinished prototype doesn't mean they haven't tried -- it's a classic case of Hanlon's Razor ("never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence"). There'd be no reason at all to "disguise" DU as a game, that makes no sense. 

 

It gives them too much credit because it makes it seem like NQ is working on some cutting-edge technology that's worth more than the game...which isn't remotely plausible. It makes it seem like this is all part of some grand plan to sell tech that doesn't work. I don't understand why people would believe this. It doesn't align with their history, with the product they have, or with the reality of the software industry. 

 

I think NQ deserves a lot of the criticism they get, but we can at least accept that they've tried to make a game without some conspiracy theory that DU was never supposed to be a game...because clearly they haven't spent 7+ years working on the underlying tech. 

 

DU is actually their honest, best attempt at making a game. 

[Aaron Cain]

To the OP, Good Points!!!!!

Nice post. keep it up! Nothing to add

 

[Shaman]

20 minutes ago, blundertwink said:

"never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence"

That absolutely NEEDS to be one of the quotes that pop up on the loading screen when logging on.

Would be a good message too, wayy too many new people think that this game is some sort of con-artist scheme by JC to steal all our money , if anything its just that the devs have no prior experience in making games and make bad gameplay decisions.

[le_souriceau]

8 hours ago, Carnegie said:

1.  Population is dead.

 

This makes all other stuff/concerns pretty much irrelevant. I see no realistic way for DU to recover commercialy viable population. While its not nice to say, its likely doomed just because of this.

 

In this regard I wonder why its still gets funding, what twisted game investor guy playing.

 

 

[Zarcata]

I'll just throw into the thread here as information.

https://www.novaquark.com/

[blundertwink]

2 hours ago, Zarcata said:

I'll just throw into the thread here as information.

https://www.novaquark.com/

 

Oh they redid their website....apparently to see how much they can use the word "metaverse".

 

NQ's arrogance is spectacular. To them, DU isn't just a game, it's a metaverse. Meanwhile, people that have actually played it...don't even think it's a game. 

 

Next they'll announce that DU will be implementing NFTs and you'll need DU coins to buy land. 

 

I feel like their website makes NQ less about DU and more about spamming the stupid 'metaverse' buzz word in the hopes that some idiot will be tempted to acquire them. The very idea that NQ is "building the metaverse" is hilariously sad and about what can be expected from the sort of people that buy into the "metaverse" concept blindly. 

 

Almost as sad as this gem: 

 

Quote

Dual Universe is currently in public beta and reaching the final stretch toward launch.

[CptLoRes]

Not that's a pivot if I have ever seen one.. And kinda explains why the VC money has not pulled the plug on DU yet.

 

But metaverse today with Facebook/Meta etc. implies fit for VR.

Imagine trying to make anything VR based (game, social, meta.. whatever) that require a lag free performance to not make players puke, work with the lackluster performance (I am being very generous here) of the DU voxels engine. It would fail spectacularly.

[le_souriceau]

On 12/22/2021 at 10:31 PM, CptLoRes said:

Not that's a pivot if I have ever seen one.. And kinda explains why the VC money has not pulled the plug on DU yet.

 

Actually, lately "metaverse/nft" companies started to go more agressive on MMO scene by not only making their own pseudo-game google map crap (this was going on for some time), but actually aquiring companies and even whole functioning "normal" games (granted, 2-3rd rate ones, but DU quite fits).

 

Per example, Legends of Aria was taken over by such guys to be... metaversized (I think its even quote from statement).

 

So its not impossible DU will do some backflip on that too to much (or not) of surprise.

[Guest]

On 12/21/2021 at 4:28 PM, Carnegie said:

Hi Everyone, its been a while since I last played (since  a bit after the 0.23 debacle when schematics were introduced). Here is what I noticed.

 

1.  Population is dead.

      Very few people around - even massive spaceports with tens of thousands of hours of build time invested are abandoned.

 

2. Why?  Well the game hasn't been fun since the fall season of beta launch (introduction of schematics in 0.23).

 

    - I am  80% builder,  20% pvp.  For a game that refuses to have PvE, a critical mass of population is required. Its not happening.

    - PvP is about blowing stuff up. 

    - Everything is way too expensive in terms of my time and effort to blow it up.

   -  No point to building if I can't share it with anyone or use it to make cheap ships

 

 My recommendation:
 

   3.  don't worry about inflation. If there are too many ships around, then they will become cannon fodder and the game will become fun again.

 

   4.  don't worry about too many tiles per person. Right now if a person owns half a planet there is still room for growth.

        - lower the tile taxes so I don't spend so much my time feeding the tax machine

        -  the tax is making it not effective to mine on any but the most productive tiles

        - hunting for a workable tile is not the game I want to play --->  I want to blow stuff up, not spend endless hours waiting for my scanner to give results. Not fun.

        - you can make taxes on tiles adjustable

        - each planet has a tile claimed percentage, so use that number to set the tax per tile. Popular planets will be more expensive, tax-wise.

 

   5.   Taxes on a tile should be the same as the bonus for daily log-in. 

 

   6.  The Devs seem to want to shape the behavior of players to log in every few days.

        -  extend your expectations to the sweet spot of logging on once per week (on the weekends when we have time).

   7.  The maintenance on automated mining is too short. I want it automated so I don't have to log in constantly. Once a week is good and make it cheap so I can build lots of cheap ships to blow up.

       - I am not going to destroy my expensive Ferrari, but I would be willing to take my low cost beater design into war.

 

  8. The problem with schematics isn't the cost, its the explosion of logistics to manage the darned things. 

     - Don't require the schematic to be in the actual machine - pull it from a central library that I own so I don't have to constantly look to see where it is last time I used it. 

 

 9. Math:
     - Try to stay away from hard limits - they don't work well in dynamic systems. 
     - Use differently shaped opposing forces (for example : a linear curve minus an exponential curve will shape the sweet spot of something)

 

10. Don't worry about rich people.
    - They will either: 

       a) quit out of boredom

       b) become benevolent sponsors and help others to grow  

       c) become evil geniuses that others will have to group up on to take down (sounds like fun)

 

 Overall make it fun! 

      Devs have gotten too carried away with putting fixed limitations on players'  behavior.  Give the economy some freedom and use self-adjusting sinks.

     

     Too many ships? --> Encourage war, theft and vandalism.

     Not enough ships?    --> Encourage building with cheaper material production. (lower taxes, increase mine production)

     Too many owned tiles?  -->  Encourage fights between neighbors or pollutions that lower mining yields on densely packed areas.

     Not  enough owned tiles? --> Lower taxes and increase yields

     

    Too much griefing ?  --> Give escaping a bigger chance with a stealth burst,  ECM,  or lower detection distance (increase background detector noise)

    Not enough hunting ?  --> Increase radar detection radius (lower the local background radiation interference)

 

Finally - respond to these posts with actual thoughts - brainstorm with your customers, not just amongst yourselves - or you won't have any left.

 

 

 

You are absolutely right, there are much fewer people, everything is very long and difficult to produce, you have to make a choice - live in real life or in DU.  After they removed VR in aphelion missions, I hardly see the mission haulers, most of my friends simply do not complete missions, because it is extremely inconvenient, you need to be there physically to drive the mission to the carrier ship. Every week starting from April 2020, there are about 100 fewer people on the official Discord.