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DEVBLOG: REVISITING CONSTRUCT SLOT CHANGES - Discussion Thread


NQ-Deckard

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I would like to point out here purely for information from the Discord, in case not everyone reads along there and this information is missing here.

My question to NQ was:

 

Quote

 

So, now that the second proposal from NQ with the core limit changes is on the table, and they do look better than the first offer. It remains to be seen whether the offer will be left as it is or whether further negotiations will take place. I would very much like to have more private character slots to choose from, the 100 are simply too few for players who want to play the game over a very long period of time. Some already have well over that limit. Of course, one could now say that a player could also -again- create an org at the same time in order to get the other 100 slots, but that wouldn't solve the problem of players only creating organisations because of the slots.

I therefore ask NQ to drastically increase the number of private character slots so that the org slots do not have to be used for private cores. At the same time, attention should be paid to how intensive the talents are designed to be, so that they are worth the skilling and the points compared to an organisation. (Currently, many players are skilling an organisation and not the character slots, because the org is faster, cheaper and allows far more slots).

I also ask that NQ introduce a separate "builder subscription" due to the cost intensity, which offers far more free building core slots, but also costs 5,-€ more per month as an example.

 

 

The answer came from NQ-Deckard (Thanks Deckard, for the quick feedback).

 

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NQ-Deckard — heute um 11:58 Uhr
Today is my day off, but I'm keeping an eye on things a little bit. So I'm making this very brief before I join my partner for breakfast.
However, I want to be very clear that this isn't an offer. It's not something we are bartering with the community with a back and forth.
We heard you feedback, we've looked at what systems we can adjust to allow for a better spread that won't our hurt our construct collectors as much while also not biting into the health of the game further down the line as everyone accumulates more and more stuff and as such we've notified you of the changes that we will be making to better suit everyone.
I want to make it painfully clear that just because we listen to our community and we take your feedback on board, that its not some form of haggling procedure that is the norm.
This change ultimately will potentially have a worse outcome for the long term development of the game as the costs on our end our higher than the other option, but its what we feel we can commit to. In short, it won't be going beyond 100 personal constructs per player, and we won't be going beyond 100 org slots per player. If you really want to pay more to get more slots, we won't stop you by way of an alt as it helps by form of contribution to the costs of maintaining those slots. However what you're suggesting is a whole new interlinked system that we would need to build plus a whole new subscription type, plus a way of differentiating that doesn't exist currently. So that won't be here in the near future if we even decide to do that at all.

For all the people who are going to go nuts over this message as per usual perceiving this as some effort to make DU pay to win, that's not at all what we are doing or want to do...
No, we are not trying to incentivise the use of alts, no this isn't some kind of meta for us to make you all poor more money into the game than you already are.
It's to make sure that a players account doesn't end up costing more than what it contributes towards its running costs. Because if you really want to see Dual Universe be here for years to come, it needs a player to self support the operating costs of its existence. The previous "hard cap" per player was just below 1400 constructs. That's just simply not sustainable if everyone did that. So we have to find a balance that does work. A single organization can still support those numbers, but it needs other players to aid in its support. 

On that note, after writing that my darling partner has made me breakfast and I'll be joining her. So I wish you all a wonderful Sunday. 

 

 

https://discord.com/channels/184691218184273920/304455542162587649/937300647903109150

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Well its definite then, all my projects are now cancelled.

Poorest and lamest excuse again it makes me want to vomit every time I read it...

The "We listen to the community but its too expensive so we are sorry" excuse. Oh please stop it!

Im not going to let you use me anymore for your deceiving plans.

 

So my answer is: see you around! See if that helps anything for ya!

 

As for the "can I haz ur stuff" bit, nq provides this for you!

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After reading the dev-blog and most of the posts, only one question has remained. Has NQ a development goal ? What is your Vision for DU 1.0 and in which way the last decision helps to accomplish the target ?

 

First your decision to limit the number per player is right and needed. You discribe the problem correct and deliver a solution. It's a hard decision but one which is needed. DU cannot be a successful game even if it isn't a succesful technolgy or business. So in which way helps your second descision to reach the goal ? The game has a problem. You have a fix. But you doesn't use it, because some of your customers never have enough cake. And you know that this more cake is bad for your buisness.

 

The new "fix" with 100/100 cores is far to much. Your first attempt was maybe a bit low and we had discuss a increase by 10-20 cores. But this didsn't happend. You use the bazooka.

 

DU want to be a MMO-Game ? In a MMO it's totaly normal that a single player couldn't play all content alone. There should be content for single player, some things for a small team and the *holy shit* endgame content for a large group. It shouldn't possible that one player build a town or station with hundreds of cores. Thats a task for a team. DU needs limitations to function better as a MMO. Shrink the player in the right way and they must specialize and cooperate. This will help DU a lot and binds players for a longer time.

 

Stop beeing afraid of your own customers. Every decision NQ does will have advocates and opponents. That's normal. Follow your own vision (and buisness plan) for the game. Not every player want to see the greater good or the need to earn money.

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On 1/28/2022 at 6:51 PM, Briggenti said:

"Organization Construct Management

Organization Construct Management Specialization

Advanced Organization Construct Management Specialization

These talents will be buffed to collectively increase the maximum ceiling for the organization's construct limit to 1625."

 

I'm still confused on the mechanics of how we get can get to that number?

 

It would require a legate inside the organization to have trained the above mentioned talents all the way back to the maximum.
And it would also require sufficient slots from players (Members of the org or not, that doesn't matter) to be assigned to that organization. Which would mean that if every slot provider of the org had fully talented into their slot capactity, and dedicated all their slots to that organization. 17 large slot contributions could bring you above a construct capacity of 1625. Which is the hard limit beyond which a single organization cannot own more constructs.

 

On 1/28/2022 at 7:43 PM, Zeddrick said:

Will partial talent point refunds be done for partially trained org construct management skills during the upgrade?  So if I have Advanced Org Construct Management Specialization trained halfway to 5 will I get the 2 million TPs back for that?

 

Yes :)

 

On 1/29/2022 at 3:04 AM, DraphK said:

i like these numbers proposed. i think that cores donated to orgs should have a 14 day cooldown before the player can take it back

 

Actually its 30 days.

 

On 1/29/2022 at 4:01 AM, Taelessael said:

I do however echo the sentiments of several others on this thread in the belief that an org's super-legate should be able to view who is donating core slots, how many any particular individual is donating

 

This is the case already, take a close look at the screen shots in the first devblog and you'll see what information is available there. You can even extract a JSON from the UI and develop your own tools to keep track of these things for you if you wish.

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If you have already trained Advanced Organization Construct Management Specialization to level 5, by reinvesting the refunded talent points, we estimate that you will be able to reach at least a construct slot capacity total of 80. Further, given the grace period of at least 1 month following the Panacea release, we hope that those amongst our players who value their construct capacity can increase it to a comfortable level of approximately 125 construct slots before needing to make decisions on which constructs to keep.


@NQ-Deckard

I have a question of understanding.

So if I use the refunded points to get my back to core places, which ones exactly are you talking about in your example?
Are these 80 or 125 core places then the character places common or about the organisation slot? Or are the points just enough to get a mix of the two?

I only ask because I would then focus on the character slots and wonder how many of them I can unlock in time, so how many cores I have to delete now then.
I apologise if there are any misunderstandings due to the translations.

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3 minutes ago, Zarcata said:


@NQ-Deckard

I have a question of understanding.

So if I use the refunded points to get my back to core places, which ones exactly are you talking about in your example?
Are these 80 or 125 core places then the character places common or about the organisation slot? Or are the points just enough to get a mix of the two?

I only ask because I would then focus on the character slots and wonder how many of them I can unlock in time, so how many cores I have to delete now then.
I apologise if there are any misunderstandings due to the translations.

 

This would be a mixture following essentially the optimal spending of talents between your personal and organization.

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40 minutes ago, NQ-Deckard said:

 This is the case already, take a close look at the screen shots in the first devblog and you'll see what information is available there. You can even extract a JSON from the UI and develop your own tools to keep track of these things for you if you wish.

Which I guess is a great first tep towards an eventual proper API for these things.. ;)

 

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26 minutes ago, NQ-Deckard said:

 

This would be a mixture following essentially the optimal spending of talents between your personal and organization.

Thanks for the quick feedback.
I really don't want to be a nuisance, but I am concerned that players will create organisations again just because of these slots and the faster availability. Is this really the way it should be?

I would like to protect my buildings regardless of the talents of an organisation and limit myself to the talents of the character slots. How far would I get with this, i.e. how many core slots can I secure with this?

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6 minutes ago, Zarcata said:

I would like to protect my buildings regardless of the talents of an organisation and limit myself to the talents of the character slots. How far would I get with this, i.e. how many core slots can I secure with this?

100 slots max

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1 minute ago, blazemonger said:

100 slots max

That is not possible.
Deckard has already ruled it out purely in terms of time. Of course, if I continue to learn these talents after the release, they will be available to me "at some point", my question refers specifically to this change and the loss related to it, when I have reached the corresponding limits with the patch, the skill possibilities.
It is therefore not possible to save my cores with only character slots when it comes to at least 80 or 125 slots.

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How are we going to tell our current core limit and how many we have (in personal and in corp)?      Also can you walk us through with an example to do to reach the maximum corp talents?  I am talking about reaching over 1600.

 

Note if we have a way NOW to tell how many cores we have it would be useful for planning.

 

 

 

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Player:

Can train three talents to have 100 cores available to assign to orgs

 

Org legate:

can train three talents which will allow the org to have up to 1625 core slots available which would be filled using cores assigned by players.

 

So best case, org has 17 members, al lhave their org talent trained to max and legate has the org core talents trained to max.. 16 members assign 100 cores to the org, one assigns 25 ..

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I don't post often on forums (almost never) but this time I'd like to give my PoV on this whole core debate.

Personnal context :
- I'm the super legate of a micro-org, "Blue Star". We are basically 2 in it (+ few not active members). We are successful because of my builds and libraries that most of you have, at least, heard about.
- My only goal in this game is building. I'd like to PvP but for me it is too boring currently.
- I'm quite casual for now, I want to see if the game effectively release and survive before investing more time in it.
- We currently have an HQ + 3 mining outpost made. For a total of around 110 cores. Many of them are used to show the constructs/libraries we are selling. Aside from this, we have almost NOTHING. No big outpost, only few ships.

About this new patch :

I fully understand that a limit MUST be put in place. But be carefull. In a blog post you said that you based your number on the CURRENT medium amount of core owned by player. BUT keep in mind that this medium will rise over time.
In your latest blog post, you said :

Quote

 

"Following internal research, we determined that currently per active player there are approximately 25 constructs in the game at the present time.

Therefore we believed that having a total of 42 slots per player would have been enough to provide an overhead for the community to be able to distribute the available slots amongst each other and support each other's projects."

 

So basically you are saying :
"On average people have a home of 65m². So we decided that from now on, no one would have the right to exceed 80m²."
That is plain stupid. I hope that this is not the main reason behind your decision.

If in this beta stage (erhm, alpha), if you are already limiting too much the amount of construct, that means we will not be able to build more in the NEAR future. So basically it's a "game over".
Yes, we can ask for help from everyone to get some of those sweet "org core". But be honest, most people will keep them for themselves or their own org.

Everyone doesn't want to be member of a very large org. People who have many core are usually those who drives the game's community forward with big projects, social media presence, etc.
By limiting them, you will limit the capacity of your game to go viral and also reduce the fun of it. A "civilisation building" game ? Without big cities or space station ? How boring is that ? 

For my personnal case :
- 50 personnal cores + 50 org core (with the 2 players we are) > we stop the game NOW. We are already above this limit. So we can't do anything new in the future. No reason to play.
- 100 personnal cores + 100 org core > it's better, but we are still close to the limit. We will reach it quite soon. It is not motivating and we will probably also stop playing. With this limit Cities and big station projects are still in danger.
- 300 cores is starting to be okay for the long run.

To be honest, this limitation would be probably better received if there was many other gameplay loop aside from building. But currently, building is the only well-made enough gameplay loop available in this game. Limiting it now will be a disaster.

You are out of money and have no choice ? 
As a game developper myself, I will say : Ok, stops the studio NOW or find new investors.
It is useless to push update that will kill your player base more. You can only lose more money over time.

Sorry for the long post in my broken english. I hope it is useful for someone.

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Hi All 

 

For future development I propose two ideas.

 

On my tile I have a dozen ships that are useless ... why not create a virtual garage on his HQ tiles where we could store useless ships (like pocketable but in a virtual garage). We would spawn them when needed.

 

 I also, like many players, have 2 or 3 library voxel cores that could very well be in "Hide" mode when I'm not using it.

 

 

Thinking

 

Regards,

efchaos

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16 hours ago, Watanka said:

So basically you are saying :
"On average people have a home of 65m². So we decided that from now on, no one would have the right to exceed 80m²."

 

Not really, what they are saying is: you can have 80m2 of personal space and aid your company with 80m2 per employee, the office manager can allocate up to a total of 1500m2 using the office space provided by the employees.

 

Reads different already right?

 

 

16 hours ago, Watanka said:

For my personnal case :
- 50 personnal cores + 50 org core (with the 2 players we are) > we stop the game NOW. We are already above this limit. So we can't do anything new in the future. No reason to play.
- 100 personnal cores + 100 org core > it's better, but we are still close to the limit. We will reach it quite soon. It is not motivating and we will probably also stop playing. With this limit Cities and big station projects are still in danger.
- 300 cores is starting to be okay for the long run.

 

It seems you do not quite understand the concept here. 

 

EACH member of the org can assigne UPTO 100 cores to the org, the org legate can then train to be able to have upto 1625 slot cores available which can be filled using assigned cores by players.

So between the two of you, you can have 100 cores for yourself each AND assign 100 cores each to the org, which then has 200 cores to use.

If you get your inactive org members to come in and assign their org cores too you can increase that number further or you can ask friends or regular customers outside of the org to assign some of their org cores to your org, in exchange for discounts on ships for instance..

Org leadership will need to get creative and start marketing their org in this respect whcih frankly, is a good thing as it will in turn drive interaction between players..
 

 

 

  

14 hours ago, efchaos said:

On my tile I have a dozen ships that are useless ... why not create a virtual garage on his HQ tiles where we could store useless ships (like pocketable but in a virtual garage). We would spawn them when needed.

 

While in general the idea is not a bad one, a stored ship in such a meechanic still takes up the space on the servers, that does not change.

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After calming down for a while and reading the quick turn of the boat I think I cold give my 2 cents:

 

1) First of all it really doesn't matter what the artificial limit is, there are going to be power user groups that will (need to) work around them. 

 

I really feel for the people and groups who took the NQ dream of DU being player built cities and infrastructure into their hearts and are going to be paying for that. Which brings next couple of pointers.

 

2) We need tooling to determine which constructs which owner entity has and it's core limits, preferably yesterday so we can start preparing to the change what ever it's last form will be.

 

3) NQ pretty please consider Monument program for significant constructs that makes DU great. I mean projects such as "Hedronic Library" some of the facilities displaying all different honeycombs in shapes and forms etc. Point is we need a way to nominate great things that do make the game and the communities better to be preserved. On successful selection these "Monuments" should have their core slots sponsored by Aphelia and in case of the owner dismantling (org) or ending their subscription (player) these monuments should be inspected to be in the shape expected and frozen for everyone to still access. These Monument cores should also be protected from that "random" abandonment if their owning org runs low on core slots.

 

4) Lets be honest. Landscaping is crazy wasteful in the core usage and same time one of the biggest projects any base takes over. Think about paved runways, roadworks etc. Please give us tools to do accurate terraforming (I mean one does not make anything pretty with current terraforming tools that are accuracy of bucket wheel excavator) to get our parking lots and environment groomed and not spamming 100s of cores doing so. Like in real life once yo lay pavement down or pour concrete, you can't go month later to pick it up and use it somewhere else. Let us place honeycombs as part of terraforming directly on the ground, without core involved, but with the cost that the honeycomb becomes part of the environment and will be lost if replaced or modified.

 

I really think that the points 3 & 4 would be immense favor for the game, community and lessen the cores we all need to deal with.

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Hi everyone!

 

Just to let you know:

The reply to your feedback posted during the weekend and the past two days is taking a bit longer than expected (we're trying to reply to as many suggestions you made as possible), and should be released tomorrow or Thursday, February 3rd.

 

Best Regards,

Nyzaltar.

 

@Warlander

On 1/29/2022 at 6:05 PM, Warlander said:

@NQ I really hope that you guys can actually come to your senses and build a game as its not just DU on the line as much as all your careers at stake now. I know if I see any of you clowns on a project im gunning for you being fired and any studio can see this slow motion trainwreck and should steer clear if your inability to develop anything.

 

You've clearly crossed a line with this kind of statement here.
The fact that you may be frustrated about the current situation is understandable, but that doesn't excuse everything. 

There are forum rules, and you're clearly ignoring some of them. Inciting to devs harassment and/or see them fired? Not the kind of behavior accepted on this forum. Your forum posting rights are now revoked. You may appeal to this decision by reaching out to community@novaquark.com or the Customer Support, but unless you change drastically your mindset, don't expect any positive answer.

 

@LeeRoyINC

On 1/30/2022 at 6:00 AM, LeeRoyINC said:

Keep letting them hear it people. 
I have investors who are willing to buy NQ and flip this dev team. Fire the side that keeps calling for these horrible changes. 
(...)
My investor will buy the tech when NQ bankrupts itself in a few months. Redev the engine for a more expansive game, the one we were sold a year ago. If the source code isn't a pile of messy garbage that is. 
But DU is dieing and the devs are the reason. I gave them the benefit of the doubt with the hope their business end would figure it out. But this is proof they have no clue wtf theryre doing. 
We will pick up this tech for bottom dollar when it flops. 
EDIT: I got confirmation on the money issues through a internal NQ employee. They dont all agree with its direction. There's two sides inside NQ, one is extremely Toxic. 

 

... Except there isn't currently any financial issue in the company. The budget is tight but Novaquark is in no danger at the moment. The current limitations that are going to be implemented in game are meant for long term sustainability of the game (more info on that in the next reply from the dev team).
Due to the agressive tone, the intent to spread misleading information and blatant lies, and the lack of the most elementary respect for Novaquark staff, your forum posting rights are revoked. You may appeal to this decision by reaching out to community@novaquark.com or the Customer Support, but unless you change drastically your mindset, don't expect any positive answer. The fact that you may be frustrated about the current situation is understandable, but that doesn't excuse everything. 

 

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23 minutes ago, NQ-Nyzaltar said:

... Except there isn't currently any financial issue in the company. The budget is tight but Novaquark is in no danger at the moment. The current limitations that are going to be implemented in game are meant for long term sustainability of the game (more info on that in the next reply from the dev team).

 

Thank you for this, a clear and open answer that addresses some of the concerns some of us have head on.

 

I'm actually verry happy to see more of this now coming to the surface. If this is the start of what was diascussed in the Panacea devblog in tone and direct responses, I like it and it's appreciated.

 

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On 2/1/2022 at 6:05 PM, NQ-Nyzaltar said:

 

Except there isn't currently any financial issue in the company. The budget is tight but Novaquark is in no danger at the moment. The current limitations that are going to be implemented in game are meant for long term sustainability of the game (more info on that in the next reply from the dev team).

 

So you have the money but this is because of the long run?

So youve decided to destroy our builds, waste our time and take our money without a proper a decent warning. Just like that? Rapping about a vertex tool for many months but leave us in the dark about these new limits and trying to limit players with max 42 cores (because of protest its 200 now, your plan was 42!!)

I do not think thats decent of you, and I feel tricked by you guys. I think that you guys were afraid people would not extend their subs if you would warn us about this update, and that is correct! Therefore I think you tricked a lot of us by not being sincere. Since this is, by far, not a sudden decision at your side.

 

So ive started up an old *insert game* map of 4yrs ago, guess what? It is still there and working! Most games ADD stuff so in the future you can just expand old builds.

 

Ill be glad to help you with your server problems. As i have no desire to build in this game anymore.

Ill make a personal video of my builds in this game so i can at least look back at what ive achieved and wanted to contribute to this gsmeworld.

 

It was fun while it lasted

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Upkeep has always been on the table and "coming". Outside of your Sanctuary tile, nowhere is truly "safe" as far as your creations and posessions being secure. That hasbeen communicated often and clearly.

 

I can see an argument to be made IF dynamic constructs parked on your Sanctuary tile will be subject to removal if you end your subsciption. And then, if NQ were to remove the dynamic construct from your Sanctuary tile but put a magic blueprint in your pocket for when you get back, there is nothing you can argue against that anymore really.

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4 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

Upkeep has always been on the table and "coming". Outside of your Sanctuary tile, nowhere is truly "safe" as far as your creations and posessions being secure. That hasbeen communicated often and clearly.

 

I can see an argument to be made IF dynamic constructs parked on your Sanctuary tile will be subject to removal if you end your subsciption. And then, if NQ were to remove the dynamic construct from your Sanctuary tile but put a magic blueprint in your pocket for when you get back, there is nothing you can argue against that anymore really.

 

I think the nowhere is safe thing could work but that requires ship building to be cheap so people can afford to loose ships. I like the idea of peoples assets being turned in to a BP or compactification or something along those lines that way people can retain there assets uncase they decide to play again. That makes sense to me. 

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  • NQ-Nyzaltar changed the title to DEVBLOG: REVISITING CONSTRUCT SLOT CHAhttps://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/24304-devblog-revisiting-construct-slot-changes-discussion-thread/NGES - Discussion Thread
  • NQ-Deckard changed the title to DEVBLOG: REVISITING CONSTRUCT SLOT CHANGES - Discussion Thread
  • 2 weeks later...
On 2/1/2022 at 1:20 PM, blazemonger said:

 

 

While in general the idea is not a bad one, a stored ship in such a meechanic still takes up the space on the servers, that does not change.

 

when I talk about a virtual garage, it's the same as being able to put your ship in your pocket.... so it doesn't take more resources than a blue print. it also has the advantage of being able to continue a personal collection of ships and therefore to make the trade of ships work by the creators.
You can have thousands of ships but you spawn a limited number. it's just a "blue print" which also contains the parts of the ship.... you don't need a lot of resources for that.

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