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PANACEA UPDATE ADDED TO ROADMAP - discussion thread


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6 hours ago, NQ-Nyzaltar said:

Hi everyone!

As you were quite a few to wonder what was the reasons behind "it's more complex than it seems" regarding the tax rates, here is an explanation frome the Game Design team: 

"It's all about faucets and sinks. When implementing a major system like taxes (which should have been there from the beginning),  "more complex than it seems" refers indeed the interconnection of several systems: Tax rate/Upkeep of course, but also resources generation through Calibration and Asteroid Mining. Another important factor quite difficult to anticipate is "Player habits". When taking into account all these factors, it's extremely difficult to make it right on first try. When balance issues occur, the best way to find a long-term solution (and to be sure to have identified the right issues) is to analyze at least a few weeks (if not one or two months) of data. Fixing a balancing issue too hastily has a high risk to backfire, as it might generate other unbalance issues if not handled properly.


Now to explain a bit what was the original plan:
It was about to provide enough Tier 1 resources (through calibration and asteroid mining) to pay the taxes and have a comfortable margin of T1 resources for building.
Unfortunately it seems that players got a lot less Tier 1 resources than we expected, which generated this feeling of "struggling" for many of you. It was not intended.
The Game Design team is actively working on tweaking the balance of various systems (not just one) so the global player experience improves again. Still, we know that it will never satisfy everyone: some will find that it's still not enough, some others will think it's too generous. Just keep in mind that we will have to find an acceptable middleground for the majority."


Best Regards,

Nyzaltar.

Thank you Nyz! Don't take your foot off the forum replying pedal, NQ increasing their interactions and giving straight transparent answers like this will be a win for the company and community every time!

 

While on the subject I’ll give some quick personal thoughts in response to the design explanation. I hope the design team keeps in mind that the more ore injected the harder it will be to get the ore and element prices to start rising again. 
 

The majority of sinks should be coming from the loss of the game loop end products (elements) not from the very start (raw T1 ore) even tho this is a good strategy for new players to get a foot hold. 
 

NQ is still overlooking a valuable ore faucet because of its bad implementation so far. Surface rocks could be made to give players a reason to go out and explore the planets again in the hunt of ores. All NQ has to do is clean up the mess made by having these rocks scattered everywhere. it’s not really giving any worthwhile purpose to players and is just an eye sore.
 

Aside from Sanc moon make the surface ores spawn randomly over the planet in clusters kinda like the MU calibration rewards. Clusters should be from 5kl to 50kl in size. (50kl being more harder to find of course). Also add the more rare spawning T3-5 surface ores to the spawn list on their respective planets. If this happens I will look forward to finally having a reason to use a hover construct in the hunt for these ores and maybe I’ll accidentally run in to a NQ ship wreck with some sweet schematics in the cargo hold? 
 

In regards to calibrations, there will be no harm in increasing the time it take for MU to lose their calibration charges 2-4x if you just increase the time it takes players to gain calibration charges the same amount. Maybe keeping on top of calibrations will stop feeling like a daily chore and players can have more time to focus on other aspects. 
 

Finally I believe HQ tiles should not go to the inactive state while the owner has an active subscription. As soon as a tile becomes HQ it should just go to active with its tax cost set to zero. If a player is no longer subbed then a timer for the HQ status to expire should begin. 

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11 hours ago, NQ-Deckard said:

Quite a few of those are still out there undiscovered!

If they are under the ground and there's no reason to dig underground any more wouldn't you say that's fairly poorly implemented then? Maybe throw us a bone and let the scanners pick them up.  

 

Salvaging could be a nice addition if it was flushed out and the wrecked ships weren't a finite resource. Maybe let newer players be able to salvage elements that they can't build or are expensive for them. Lots of options available with tools already in game. We're getting bored here.

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I think the low ore prices are great at the moment, some could go down even further, since the products on the market can be offered much cheaper, at the same time the entry into the PvP area becomes more interesting, since a ship loss there is no longer an insurmountable disaster.

What is currently missing would be more market bots for T2-T5 ore purchase, they are set relatively low, but still allow an increase in value per tier level.

Just as positive, lower ore purchases also make it more interesting to fly missions, as the rewards now feel more meaningful compared to the time invested. 

What could be done about the tax, either drastically lower it or do away with it altogether and tie player and organization territories to an active subscription.

Alternatively, you could introduce a maximum number of unlockable areas in the skill tree, just like with constructs. 
 

For example: 
 

without skill: 3 tiles
per skill level (T1-T5) additional 2 tiles


____



 

What I would be much more interested in, though, is how should players behave in their building behavior from a developer perspective?

I have had several bases on Alioth, Thades and Madis, Jago, Talemei and Ion and have had to abandon them due to taxes and upcoming safezone changes on the outer planets.
I then moved everything to two bases on Alioth and was building there for a very long time because I like building. Created a mine and many "Borg style" buildings. In the meantime, however, these have also become less and less due to the construct number restrictions. So now I'm left with a space station, a smaller station on Alioth and the dead field on Sanctuary, where I don't like to fly to because of the atmosphere, I also don't like the enormous orange light ratio.

The area taxes have then ensured that even fewer of the areas are built on. So purely from the play style I have over the last changes very reduced and limited... 

What would interest me further, how do the developers see DualUniverse currently? Should it no longer be a sandbox building game? Do I have to be afraid that my space station will have to be deleted, too, because there might be space taxes soon or current safezones will be dropped? 

Ich liebe es zu bauen, ich interessiere mich im Moment nicht für PvP, weil mich die Implementierung von PvP in DualUniverse überhaupt nicht interessiert (ich stehe mehr auf PvP wie in ArcheAge oder WoW /Gw2), aber es verringert meine Lust zu bauen, wenn ich nicht abschätzen kann, was man wirklich mit DualUniverse und dem Gebäudeinhalt machen will und welche anderen Einschränkungen es gibt.


@NQ-Deckard

 

Not against asteroids themselves, for that I also fly through space much too rarely, since it is not interesting for me, who only wants to build, to fly through empty space. My teammates in the organization, however, have already experienced many near-collisions. Whereby it is probably also partly to blame that some simply go AFK during a 4-5 hour mission flight and watch a series or start cooking lunch during this time. This immediately raises the question - is such Afk game content really wanted by NQ? Having a game open for hours, burning power even though you're not even playing? in this day and age, that's honestly sickening behavior and I don't understand how you can encourage such things.

 

15 hours ago, NQ-Deckard said:

In short, I assume that this is possible. However, the probability of this happening is very, very low.
How many times have you accidentally collided with asteroids so far?
;)

Edited by Zarcata
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14 hours ago, NQ-Deckard said:

 

In short, I suppose this is possible. The chances of that happening however are very very small. 
How often have you accidentally collided with asteroids so far? ;)

 

 

Edited by StarWuz
Anything that can happen will happen ...
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My two cents to the mining, calibration and Taxes. In all these are to create a sink and to limit the players claiming everything and getting lazy.

 

What if we ditch the calibration completely and lower the tax to 250k or so.

Then make MU run on fuel, It would create a sink and stimulate fuel production and maybe even fuel trade. As a player you can setup fuel feeding system to your mining unit and go. The bigger your fuel feeding supply chain, the less visits you need.

 

B.t.w. Generic power needs would create a good sink as well ?

 

ps: make sure you can't mine and create fuel at the same time on a planet!

Edited by Verliezer
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Quote

As a first step, beginning January 12th, we will postpone the next territory upkeep pay period for two weeks. This will allow the Design team time to revisit the tax rate, which many community members said was too steep. The purpose and functions of the upkeep system go beyond limiting “landgrabbing” and are more complex than they may appear on the surface. Many factors and interdependencies need to be taken into consideration.

 

This now makes absolutely no sense at all after @NQ-Deckard shared in DUscord that the "suspension" is ONLY for existing active paid for territories and NOT for any new ones or for those that were inactive before this comes into effect.

image.png.f6d93db2342ded45c97548a3b7b77d04.png
 

 

So, how exactly does this help in "This will allow the Design team time to revisit the tax rate, which many community members said was too steep.", this actually contradict this very statement/excuse/reason entirely and just adds to the (usual) confusion and vagueness of what NQ is communicating.

Inquiring mind wants to know..

[EDIT/UPDATE FOLOWING THE ACTUAL PATCH]

As it turns out, what Deckard thought was the case is not so. Territory which was inactive prior to the  patch now is active despite not having made payment

[ANOTHER UPDATE]

To make thinsg less complicated, it seems that tiles that have been inactive with no taxes paid on them ever (HQ tiles) will remain inactive with this patch. It's also possible that tiles due tax yesterday were activated after all.. who knows.. It's all very .. vague..


 

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6 hours ago, FatRillos said:

If they are under the ground and there's no reason to dig underground any more wouldn't you say that's fairly poorly implemented then? Maybe throw us a bone and let the scanners pick them up.  

 

Salvaging could be a nice addition if it was flushed out and the wrecked ships weren't a finite resource. Maybe let newer players be able to salvage elements that they can't build or are expensive for them. Lots of options available with tools already in game. We're getting bored here.


The vast majority of them can actually be spotted from the surface. But you need to be lucky enough to find them. And no, we won't be making them show up on radar and give them away that easily. ;)
 

 

5 hours ago, Zarcata said:

Not against asteroids themselves, for that I also fly through space much too rarely, since it is not interesting for me, who only wants to build, to fly through empty space. My teammates in the organization, however, have already experienced many near-collisions. Whereby it is probably also partly to blame that some simply go AFK during a 4-5 hour mission flight and watch a series or start cooking lunch during this time. This immediately raises the question - is such Afk game content really wanted by NQ? Having a game open for hours, burning power even though you're not even playing? in this day and age, that's honestly sickening behavior and I don't understand how you can encourage such things.


So on your first point, I'm going to suggest that the many near collisions are not actually with asteroids, and more likely other constructs which is possible as they do exist in space. The actually chance of crashing into an asteroid without looking for it is low. Astronomically low. Like if all asteroids happened to be at their minimum distance to the planet and you flew away from the planet in a random direction. We are talking around about... 1 in 126000000 chance of an accidental collision. Sure, it can happen, and probably will happen in rare occurrences. Statistically, you're far more likely to collide with another player in warp, or other and other constructs while in transit. Should we remove the possibility of that happening for that rare of an occurrence by making your ship "phase through it", no I personally don't believe we should as it creates potentially far more problems, exploits and bugs than it solves. 

In terms of travel times through space, we do offer warp drives to get their quicker! ;) 

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1 hour ago, blazemonger said:

 

This now makes absolutely no sense at all after @NQ-Deckard shared in DUscord that the "suspension" is ONLY for existing active paid for territories and NOT for any new ones or for those that were inactive before this comes into effect.

image.png.f6d93db2342ded45c97548a3b7b77d04.png
 

 

So, how exactly does this help in "This will allow the Design team time to revisit the tax rate, which many community members said was too steep.", this actually contradict this very statement/excuse/reason entirely and just adds to the (usual) confusion and vagueness of what NQ is communicating.

Inquiring mind wants to know..

Because I had plans to claim 100 territories for 2 weeks free mining, damn NQ decided to ruin it!

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37 minutes ago, NQ-Deckard said:

In terms of travel times through space, we do offer warp drives to get their quicker! ;) 

So will you be able to warp with the mission packs soon? That would make a lot of things easier, great.

Edited by Zarcata
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3 hours ago, Verliezer said:

My two cents to the mining, calibration and Taxes. In all these are to create a sink and to limit the players claiming everything and getting lazy.

 

What if we ditch the calibration completely and lower the tax to 250k or so.

Then make MU run on fuel, It would create a sink and stimulate fuel production and maybe even fuel trade. As a player you can setup fuel feeding system to your mining unit and go. The bigger your fuel feeding supply chain, the less visits you need.

 

B.t.w. Generic power needs would create a good sink as well ?

 

ps: make sure you can't mine and create fuel at the same time on a planet!

Won’t work because players can optimise the process to extreme levels. Whole point of calibration is to limit MU’s per character.

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4 hours ago, NQ-Deckard said:


The vast majority of them can actually be spotted from the surface. But you need to be lucky enough to find them. And no, we won't be making them show up on radar and give them away that easily. ;)

So there are ship wrecks under the ground. What your telling me is I'm gonna have to stumble upon them like Mr. Magoo because your render distance is so bad I would literally have to put on magnifying glasses and crawl across a planet on my belly to find one. The crap at my base barely renders in when I know where it is. So you would literally have to trip over one to find one.

 

I play like 40 hours a week, have flown around every planet for countless hours and have never found one. So what does that say for your implementation. How does it benefit the game if no one can find them?  It's been a damn year. There were only ever two pics posted of people actually finding them. 

 

Why put in a game mechanic that no one interacts with? Especially in a game where the players are screaming for more content. You already did the work. 

 

Just trying to get a mechanic implemented that actually is fun and not a waste of resources because you drop it and everyone just ignores it because you have to be "lucky" what a crock.

 

 

 

 

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15 minutes ago, FatRillos said:

So there are ship wrecks under the ground. What your telling me is I'm gonna have to stumble upon them like Mr. Magoo because your render distance is so bad I would literally have to put on magnifying glasses and crawl across a planet on my belly to find one. The crap at my base barely renders in when I know where it is. So you would literally have to trip over one to find one.

 

I play like 40 hours a week, have flown around every planet for countless hours and have never found one. So what does that say for your implementation. How does it benefit the game if no one can find them?  It's been a damn year. There were only ever two pics posted of people actually finding them. 

 

Why put in a game mechanic that no one interacts with? Especially in a game where the players are screaming for more content. You already did the work. 

 

Just trying to get a mechanic implemented that actually is fun and not a waste of resources because you drop it and everyone just ignores it because you have to be "lucky" what a crock.

 

 

 

 


I rather think that these wrecks are some kind of random candy, because searching for them separately would be much more effort and costly, out of reasonable proportion to the reward.
What's a shame currently is that you can't randomly stumble upon them anymore because you're collecting ores in the ground, since statistically it's much more likely to find something while digging and scanning areas than it is now. There is simply no reason to "explore" a planet. 

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36 minutes ago, Zarcata said:


I rather think that these wrecks are some kind of random candy, because searching for them separately would be much more effort and costly, out of reasonable proportion to the reward.
What's a shame currently is that you can't randomly stumble upon them anymore because you're collecting ores in the ground, since statistically it's much more likely to find something while digging and scanning areas than it is now. There is simply no reason to "explore" a planet. 

I found one and have salvaged from a couple of others.  The ones I've seen were at surface level, mostly but not completely underground.  You wouldn't find them through digging unless you got really close and looked through the ground.

 

Easiest way to find them was (and probably still is) with a remote pilot and repair tool to make them glow.  Also I believe you could (and probably still can) find them by diving at the ground and having them render before the ground detail did.

 

You are correct, though, that there wasn't really any value there given the effort (I got 2 million quanta for over 10 hours of searching) and really they're a curiosity for people to stumble on now.

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On the point of organizations and their constructs slots (did I get that right?).

I think you could delete a lot of organizations or players don't need their own organizations if the character itself had more construct slots, which would allow a player to build according to his ideas without reaching construction limits too quickly.

At the same time, the construct slots for organizations should be drastically reduced. I would go so far as to swap the skill trees of the characters with that of the organizations. For the organizations, there is then a passive bonus that allows 2-5 more cores per additional player.

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I would like to highlight an inherent issue with Asteroids right now, where a large chuck of the player base seems to think that because Asteroids spawn only once a week, if they aren't around during the spawn time there is no point to visit said Asteroids. This mainly applies to SZ roids.

I suggest a dynamic Asteroid spawning cycle, instead of 42 Asteroids every week, we can have 7 Asteroids spawn throughout a day. Not only would this make players feel that there is constantly a supply of fresh space ore to be mined in the SZ, it would also secure Asteroids as a proper alternative to Mining Units.

The real question is if that is feasible on a technical level... 

Otherwise, very exited for the new update (and the fact that NQ is replying to us in the forums)!

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6 minutes ago, Zeddrick said:

I found one and have salvaged from a couple of others.  The ones I've seen were at surface level, mostly but not completely underground.  You wouldn't find them through digging unless you got really close and looked through the ground.

 

Easiest way to find them was (and probably still is) with a remote pilot and repair tool to make them glow.  Also I believe you could (and probably still can) find them by diving at the ground and having them render before the ground detail did.

 

You are correct, though, that there wasn't really any value there given the effort (I got 2 million quanta for over 10 hours of searching) and really they're a curiosity for people to stumble on now.

Exactly. Implement it into a new gameplay loop. scanners and haulers and the whole thing. This game is sorely in need of more interesting things to do. As of right now the way they put the existing wrecks into the game gives me little hope for the new space wrecks. I'm afraid that it will be more of the same. A good idea that wasn't taken advantage of and ultimately forgotten about when it turns out to be a waste of time. When the time could be spent retaining players with new and interesting content and making more profit. 

 

Also the comment about giving us the wrecks by letting us scan them doesn't make a lot of sense. My time spend building or buying a scanner and the time spent searching for it wouldn't be a gimme it would be gameplay.

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17 minutes ago, FatRillos said:

Exactly. Implement it into a new gameplay loop. scanners and haulers and the whole thing. This game is sorely in need of more interesting things to do.

Exactly. If the current shipwrecks where successful and worth the time, then looking for them would be a thing more players would do.

But it is not, at that is really all the feedback NQ should need.

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1 hour ago, Koriandah said:

I suggest a dynamic Asteroid spawning cycle, instead of 42 Asteroids every week, we can have 7 Asteroids spawn throughout a day. Not only would this make players feel that there is constantly a supply of fresh space ore to be mined in the SZ, it would also secure Asteroids as a proper alternative to Mining Units.

This has been suggested and discussed many times by both the community and NQ, and the response from NQ has always been 'Most ppl play over the weekend, so it makes most sense to have asteroids spawn on Saturday. There is no intention to have asteroids spawn spread over the week.'

 

So much for listening to player feedback.....

Edited by Dracostan
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8 hours ago, NQ-Deckard said:

The vast majority of them can actually be spotted from the surface. But you need to be lucky enough to find them. And no, we won't be making them show up on radar and give them away that easily. ;)

 

So you do have the option to selectively not have constructs show on radar, I do seriously hope you apply the same to constructs once TW arrives..

And in all the hours I have spent on sevral planets I have never, not once found anything.  and I have actually tried specifically on a number of occasions.. 

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4 minutes ago, Dracostan said:

This has bee suggested and discussed many times by both the community and NQ, and the response from NQ has always been 'Most ppl play over the weekend, so it makes most sense to have asteroids spawn on Saturday. There is no intention to have asteroids spawn spread over the week.'

 

So much for listening to player feedback.....

Oh come on, we all love having to set a 4am alarm clock to fight 20 people for a few scraps of t4. That's emergent gameplay don't you know. Maybe they get a better server rate on the weekends. 

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On 1/11/2022 at 2:53 PM, CptLoRes said:

That is the current trend for this game. DU the voxel based open world building MMO, that doesn't want you to use voxels..

 

@NQ persistent 'unlimited' building in a MMO, or to use your own words rebuilding an civilization with large cities and asteroid sized space stations was arguably the main premise of this game during the Kickstarter. And if you can't deliver on that you need to be very clear on why, and more importantly tell us exactly what type of game we can expect going forward.

 

I know the "unlimited" building is far from reality, but the way things are currently limited and the plans for even more limitations compared to what they sold to everyone is just really making me lose my hopes for this game. Like sure, I still have some stuff I own that I'm not fond of leaving behind, but the moment NQ decides to wipe a game with so many restrictions I'll simply just give up on my subscription and go back into Space Engineers. Arguing that the game is an MMO doesn't change much to be honest, since most of the time I don't see anyone around, except when I go to markets and stuff, the game feels really dead and empty.

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20 minutes ago, Dracostan said:

This has bee suggested and discussed many times by both the community and NQ, and the response from NQ has always been 'Most ppl play over the weekend, so it makes most sense to have asteroids spawn on Saturday. There is no intention to have asteroids spawn spread over the week.'

 

So much for listening to player feedback.....

That just does not make any sense, and I have two intimidate thoughts from reading that response.

 

1. It sounds a lot like a self profiling proficy, where most people are playing weekends because that is when they are given a reason to do so.

2. Regardless of if most people are playing during weekends, should not NQ strive to provide content all the time to incentivize player interaction during week days also?

 

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14 minutes ago, FatRillos said:

Oh come on, we all love having to set a 4am alarm clock to fight 20 people for a few scraps of t4. That's emergent gameplay don't you know. Maybe they get a better server rate on the weekends. 

 

The question should be asked why the asteroids are not an integral part of the game, despawning once below a certain percentage of ore left and a new one spawning shortly after in the same general area. Why is it seemingly the case that a script needs to be run at a specific time to restart the cycle? Why is what NQ considers an important faucet for the game (and it could be) a bolted on event?

 

I'd actually go as far as to say that the majority of ore needed by players could be coming from asteroids, maybe even should be.

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