Crashing is so punishing and No warp during cargo missions

[tritan67]

So this is a gripe.... a rant.

But why are the developers making the cargo runs so slow? 1-4 hours of me just flying in a straight line, sometimes out of the safe zone. Then lets say you alt tab to do something else because your board out of your mind, you crash into another planet... you don't spawn there. you spawn back on Alioth. Now I have to go pay another player to get me to my ship in best case scenario.
 

Can we increase the max speed at least between planets and make space thrusters more powerful? JFC this is a game first and at most, a cargo mission should take an hour at most. Or just make warping allowed for NPC cargo missions.........

Or make respawn nodes on your ship, not die to crashes at high speed.
Or put respawn nodes on each planet.
Or add Space buses for all planets that are NPC based.
Or all of it?

make the game less punishing on things that are boring or make it less boring please.

[Namcigam]

Just now, tritan67 said:

So this is a gripe.... a rant.

But why are the developers making the cargo runs so slow? 1-4 hours of me just flying in a straight line, sometimes out of the safe zone. Then lets say you alt tab to do something else because your board out of your mind, you crash into another planet... you don't spawn there. you spawn back on Alioth. Now I have to go pay another player to get me to my ship in best case scenario.
 

Can we increase the max speed at least between planets and make space thrusters more powerful? JFC this is a game first and at most, a cargo mission should take an hour at most. Or just make warping allowed for NPC cargo missions.........

Or make respawn nodes on your ship, not die to crashes at high speed.
Or put respawn nodes on each planet.
Or add Space buses for all planets that are NPC based.
Or all of it?

make the game less punishing on things that are boring or make it less boring please.

 

I agree I mentioned how time consuming hauling missions are as well. I didn't mention the extreme fragility of the ships I do find that odd it's like the ship elements are made out of explosive glass and the surface is mad out of plastic explosives. I do think ship elements should be a lot more durable than they currently are. I would like to be able to make a "Really hard landing" like in Guardians of the Galaxies 2 for example. I think the idea was to promote the heavy use of repair scraps but its seems like a bit much. 

[blazemonger]

It's why I do not run them. They are simply not worth the time investment and I think running an alt pretty much AFK on a second account on Shadow or GFN is just a waste of effort anyway.

[GraXXoR]

Flying is character building! It’s Core Gameplay (TM). Much like finding that last voxel before you can pick up a static core or wandering around calibrating MUs by playing the gif animation mini game. 
Or holding your mouse button continuously for a quarter of an hour to pick up surface mats.
or opening, scrolling down and then clicking on a tiny drop down list that closes again 20 odd times to select the correct permissions in an RDMS ACL.

edited — Wtf was a “moisture button” lol. 

[Namcigam]

Yeah, I do agree with your point if it's too easy what's the point and that is true. Balancing a game isn't easy, The staff have a very tough job to do and I definitely recognize that.

[TildaW4]

8 hours ago, tritan67 said:

Or make respawn nodes on your ship, not die to crashes at high speed.
Or put respawn nodes on each planet.
Or add Space buses for all planets that are NPC based.
Or all of it?

 

You can do something about most of these items yourself.

• carry xs core with rez on back of primary vessel 
• use a clock and slow down before getting close to a planet
• use archehud with collision detection, have A LOT MORE brakes
• install an emergency control unit on your ship
• build small warp ship, go to all planets before hauling, and place a small space station with ressurection equipment and a small shuttle
• ask other players if you want / need to go to a planet and need help

[Namcigam]

4 minutes ago, TildaW4 said:

 

You can do something about most of these items yourself.

• carry xs core with rez on back of primary vessel 
• use a clock and slow down before getting close to a planet
• use archehud with collision detection, have A LOT MORE brakes
• install an emergency control unit on your ship
• build small warp ship, go to all planets before hauling, and place a small space station with ressurection equipment and a small shuttle
• ask other players if you want / need to go to a planet and need help

 

I've done all of those things but that's not the point I know how to circumnavigate what I see as short comings in the dynamics of flying that cause us to come up with a work around. It's like degrading the the performance of the ships to make flying more tedious/difficult? I guess that's why the ships are like that. Another example of this is that there is no dead space between raising and lowering the nose of the ship unless your using a Hud that levels things off it should just do that on its own without a Hud automation. If you don't use lua to keep you level you fly around like a sine wave and that seems a bit odd by design. There should be a dead space at zero degrees then level flying is intuitive. I don't think flying has to be a Apollo 13 experience, I don't think we need to constantly "have a problem" so to speak. Considering these are futuristic space ships they are awfully hap hazard.

[CptLoRes]

10 hours ago, Deleted said:

Flying is character building! It’s Core Gameplay (TM). Much like finding that last voxel before you can pick up a static core or wandering around calibrating MUs by playing the gif animation mini game. 
Or holding your mouse button continuously for a quarter of an hour to pick up surface mats.
or opening, scrolling down and then clicking on a tiny drop down list that closes again 20 odd times to select the correct permissions in an RDMS ACL.

edited — Wtf was a “moisture button” lol. 

 

That was the general idea yes. Space is big, and traveling in it should take time (warp was not initially planned to be in the game at all).

And the original visions was that long distance ships would be large multicrew things where players wold have different roles and you could keep busy working the markets remotely, script LUA, build and improve the ship during travel or even make new smaller ships (and screw up the test flight, so that the mothership would have to turn around and pick you up) etc.

 

But as with many things NQ, a lot of the functionality for such things never materialized, and thing like for example LUA turned out to only be useful for cosmetics and a very, very limited subset of the game. In short NQ failed to execute their plan in a way that works for players.

 

And now all I can think about is what would a 'moisture button' do?

[GraXXoR]

6 minutes ago, CptLoRes said:

 

That was the general idea yes. Space is big, and traveling in it should take time (warp was not initially planned to be in the game at all).

And the original visions was that long distance ships would be large multicrew things where players wold have different roles and you could keep busy working the markets remotely, script LUA, build and improve the ship during travel or even make new smaller ships (and screw up the test flight, so that the mothership would have to turn around and pick you up) etc.

 

But as with many things NQ, a lot of the functionality for such things never materialized, and thing like for example LUA turned out to only be useful for cosmetics and a very, very limited subset of the game. In short NQ failed to execute their plan in a way that works for players.

 

And now all I can think about is what would a 'moisture button' do?

Ahhh.. don't make me tear up, Cpt.   I remember those days of dreams and yearning...  unfortunately, all we were left with was basically the five hours of flying.

[Physics]

Until warp holds far more risk than slow boat through pvp space there is zero chance of packages being warp enabled. 

[Knight-Sevy]

Soon if you crash you loose 1 life of all your stuff enjoy

[CptLoRes]

Crashing is part of the learning experience, except when most of them are caused by server/client problems.

[Koriandah]

What is punishing is the boring repair mechanic that NQ needs to change before the game releases. I think I speak for all of us when I say that standing still holding down LMB is boring asf.

For missions, if they were warpable, it would mean pirates have literally nobody to shoot at since everyone already warps as is... I think missions packadges are staying non-warpable and I support that.

You can use an autopilot to help with the calculation of speed etc. and as a tip - never aim directly at a planet. Alternatively, fly a half built ship so while you're in space you can work on it to pass the time. In general, missions are a "alt+tab and watch youtube" kind of activity.

[Namcigam]

Yeah, there's no need to drag out the repairs like that I agree

[CptLoRes]

This is a common problem you see all over this game. Needlessly long and repetitive processes that serve no purpose other then making players bored of the game.

[Namcigam]

Yes, I agree I've been giving them similar feedback as well. 

[blundertwink]

Slowboating is an antiquated mechanic that needs to go away. Space travel doesn't need to be instant, but any mechanic where players afk for hours is objectively horrible. 

 

Beside being an obviously bad game mechanic, it's a waste of energy.

 

Client and server both eating power to move a virtual ship slowly through space for hours (often as the player does something else) is not a wise use of electricity. 

 

The only justification I've heard for this underlying idea is "realism", which isn't a very good reason for game design. 

[tritan67]

Only thing I can think based on feed back from you guys, is make public warp beacons and make it so the warp drive can only warp 100 SU at a time before needing to Cool down. Then pirates could camp those and if you can survive for long enough to get your warp drive is back online... "ha, you pirates. I am out!"

Though, we would need to make warp beacons cheaper if we do that.

Edited February 4, 2022 by tritan67

[Knight-Sevy]

The warps should be cheaper but there should be countermeasures (anti warp bubble for pirates or nations with a PvP space zone).

The warp will be the quick but quite risky alternative.
The classic slow bot will become much safer but will be very long.

I think everyone will be able to find their account.

Once the spatial territories are activated, we can imagine that groups make networks of beacons available to make alternative pipes and avoid the traps of pirates on direct roads.

 

[blundertwink]

Any mechanic where the primary "engagement" is long periods of AFK is objectively bad. 

 

I get that this game already skews older, but if NQ were to embrace slowboating as a "default" mode of travel they sort of deserve to remain a highly niche product with a rapidly shrinking player-base. 

 

There's no game design rationale for such a concept. 

 

That would be like making a game about home decoration where you are expected to watch the paint dry because it's "realistic" that way. Or making the Oregon Trail, but you have to sit and watch the wagon move for hours between events. 

 

The idea that slow-boating is the only mechanic that provides risk is irrelevant -- there's infinite ways they could add elements of risk without this wasteful, antiquated concept. 

 

Does NQ not realize that people under 30 play a lot of video games and have a lot of disposable income...? 

[RugesV]

On 2/3/2022 at 2:09 PM, blundertwink said:

Slowboating is an antiquated mechanic that needs to go away. Space travel doesn't need to be instant, but any mechanic where players afk for hours is objectively horrible. 

 

Beside being an obviously bad game mechanic, it's a waste of energy.

 

Client and server both eating power to move a virtual ship slowly through space for hours (often as the player does something else) is not a wise use of electricity. 

 

The only justification I've heard for this underlying idea is "realism", which isn't a very good reason for game design. 

I always felt if I ever design a game it would have an I win button.  The player clicks it. and fireworks go off with a splash screen saying you won, and how great you are and how great a job you did then the credits would roll and the game over would come up. It would help that coddling that people seem to need these days. 

 

Slowboating serves a couple things.  First it gets players into PVP area's and creates PVP. Second it creates an alternative method that anyone can use with the minimum requirement being space flight, No expenses.  And finally it creates value in warping (warping costs money, slowboating cost time)

 

I would like to see a third travel option. I am thinking a gate network. Maybe 20SU out in the PVP zone. You still need to fly to it. but at the speed of warp you would fly to a gate 20 US in the PVP zone near the planet you want to fly to. Granted these choke points would be camped but it would add another element to the game. 

[blundertwink]

On 2/5/2022 at 1:42 PM, RugesV said:

I always felt if I ever design a game it would have an I win button.  The player clicks it. and fireworks go off with a splash screen saying you won, and how great you are and how great a job you did then the credits would roll and the game over would come up. It would help that coddling that people seem to need these days. 

 

Slowboating serves a couple things.  First it gets players into PVP area's and creates PVP. Second it creates an alternative method that anyone can use with the minimum requirement being space flight, No expenses.  And finally it creates value in warping (warping costs money, slowboating cost time)

 

This isn't about coddling or things being "too hard". It's about a mechanic that literally has players AFK for hours draining electricity...it's about a core feature of a game being the same as a screensaver both in engagement and functionality.

 

Besides, there's nothing remotely difficult about this mechanic where people would need coddling. This isn't about instant gratification or gamers being impatient. If anything, this is about slow-boating being too easy -- it's hours of gameplay where you sit and stare at the void. There's no easier gameplay than that, even Candy Crush is harder than that. 

 

Yes, slow-boating has a purpose in the game today. That's not really the point.

 

The point is that it is a horrible game design mechanic by any standard of engagement. That it gets people from A to B without warp cells is indisputable...but is hours of AFK an engaging, novel, or marketable mechanic? Not by any stretch of imagination. You judge a mechanic by engagement, not by its function. 

 

NQ is trying to make an MMO. You don't have to love it, but that means they must attain a level of commercial appeal or it will remain a niche product of older ex-Eve players only...which isn't exactly a growing demographic.

 

Crawling across the black for hours in real time might be immersive, but it doesn't make for a good game mechanic. 

[Namcigam]

That was well said, I'm not attacking PVP players Im attacking the implementation of PVP it really has nothing to do with the players.

[Walter]

On 2/3/2022 at 2:51 AM, tritan67 said:

So this is a gripe.... a rant.

But why are the developers making the cargo runs so slow? 1-4 hours of me just flying in a straight line,

And because still many people fly in a straight line they get cought.

And do not ruin missions for the ones that enjoy to fly afk for 4 hours and do something else like cleaning the House in the meantime while being productive in a mmo.

[blundertwink]

1 minute ago, Walter said:

And because still many people fly in a straight line they get cought.

And do not ruin missions for the ones that enjoy to fly afk for 4 hours and do something else like cleaning the House in the meantime while being productive in a mmo.

 

Those 4 hours are burning energy (client and server) for no purpose. Besides being a bad mechanic, it's extremely wasteful. 

 

If you're going to use the electricity to play a video game, at least you should be playing it instead of AFK (using more energy for other stuff in the meantime...)

 

I completely understand that some people have a lot of fun with this mechanic. That's why game design doesn't use "fun" as a term, because it's meaninglessly subjective. 

 

If slowboating must be a concept....at the very least players should be allowed to log out, shut down the client, and let the AI take over so that they aren't eating coal for their virtual ship to cross empty space. 

 

I don't know why people can't understand that this is an MMO in 2022 and NQ can't design this game like it's still 2001 -- if the only people interested are older ex-Eve players, this game will only face growing churn rates, because this is a demo that will never grow over time.

 

It's not about instant gratification or the culture of gaming among the young, it's about market viability and a design that's better suited to a simulation game (single player or small scale MP) versus a sub-based MMO that lives and dies on carefully engineered engagement. 

 

DU has enough "waiting" as part of the core game. Wait to travel. Wait to mine. Wait to train skills. At a certain point DU is more of a screensaver than a game and that is a big issue. Travel is just another symptom of this puzzling design philosophy.