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Advise: New Ship Rules: Keep Existing Ships


Hirnsausen

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Hi,

 

I got the idea to post this suggestion, when I saw someone's screens at one of the Alioth markets. An obviously very frustrated ship builder (but not me).

My advise to the glorious, tough, daring, hardcore programmers of Novaquark is, when the new ship rules go into effect, apply them to any and all NEW ships only. Existing ships, to avod player frustration, should not be affacted by disabled elements -after all, many ships are the pride of their developers. So, make a transition easy.

Old ships can be rapaired by the avatar or by a repair unit. But no blueprint of these old ships can create a new ship. So they cannot be multiplied anymore.

As a bonus to make teasier to build new ships, create some sort of new element that can be placed only inside new ships, maybe an engine booster module or cargo booster module.  This way, over time, old ships might get phased out without thousands of angry players.

A rule in gaming is, that any change has to be coming in a gentle way, to avoid frustration of too many players.

 

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The primary issue with this suggestion would be the ships that already exist with stacked elements. If people know that existing ships using an exploit will get to keep them after nobody else can build them, then it will strongly incentivize the deployment of as many such ships as possible before a patch prevents further such deployments, thus resulting in both exploiters still having their exploits, and non-exploiters thinking that NQ is just allowing exploits "for older players only". A new element that cant be deployed on the old ships would help some, but short of some massive advantages it isn't going to solve the problem.

 

Element Collision obviously needs work, and they are working on it, but people have known since before beta that element stacking and internal brakes weren't going to last. Having to adapt to new rules is part of playing a game before full release. Complaints and criticisms are needed because they tell NQ where improvements can be made, but everyone needs to be playing by the same set of rules, we can't start making exceptions just because someone refused to recognize that things would change and wants to throw a tantrum.

As for the "ugly elements" argument... It would be more practical to try for a realistic outcome, like trying to get skins and variant elements, with the understanding that the program will ultimately have some limitations somewhere and that players will need to work with those limits.

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I think, there are two ways of "stacking" we need to talk about:
- elements reaching out INTO another element
- elements bordering each other (surface touch)

I am getting warnings about a number of elements. But when looking at them, in all cases it is just the second case that applies: they do not go into any other element, but they are just direct neighbors.
 

And airbrakes are yet another issue, as it was been possible to place them behind voxels. Here, too, like in the second case, I would suggest to allow that for all ships that existed before these said new rules come into effect. From that moment on, any new ship must comply entirely wit the new rules, but "case 2" ships should have those elements to continue functioning though no new copies of these ships can be made, only repairs by hand or by repair units (that's the only exception blueprints of those ships still function).

As for "Case 1", those elements need to be disabled with inception of the new rules, of course.

This way, we can keep the pride of ship builders (each of us, actually, likes  the ships (s)he developed. We need to prevent that thousands of players are getting frustrated and angry again. And "Case 2" ihas never been any form of wilful or even unknowing cheating. I want to play DU in which a big player community exists, and not a small number of hardcore players - that would be the end of the Dual Universe project. I truly hope, I can reach the ears, eyes, and minds of our great developers.
Psychology needs to be applied to how to implement new game rules. Smooth, soft, gentle changes, that is always the best way, even in real life when new rules, like for cars and thir engines, come into effect.

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In so far as elements just touching, that is what I am referring to when I say NQ is working on it. Touching and stacking (clipping things in to each other) are two different things, I know that, you know that, NQ knows that, but the system to detect it is still imperfect, so NQ is still working on it. In the end it should only go off when things are inside one another.

 


As far as buried elements goes...

 

When NQ accidentally dropped the airbrake-patch on the pts, I was flying a ship that made use of internal-brakes. I liked that ship, I thought it had a good retro-look to it, but when I realized it wasn't going to work any more I took a print I could toss in a museum and built a new ship that did near just as well (or better) in all the same areas, and didn't make use of internal brakes. I like the new ship, I think it looks good, and if NQ drops a patch that makes it obsolete then I will toss it in a museum next to the old one and design another. 

 

The real issue is that NQ should have fixed it sooner, but I still stand by my statement. People have known certain elements would eventually need to be on the outside since before beta launched, we cant start making exceptions for old players, it would just get people to pre-emptively deploy stuff abusing old mechanics before it got patched and come across as letting old players continue to use exploits. This is a game where people know rules and requirements are still going to be added, when they change we will need to adapt our designs or come up with new ones. So long as the rules updates are reasonable and we are given fair warning of their impending implementation, we should have little issue admiring the old as stationary art while still producing new art to fly.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yes, many of my ships also have internal brakes. I play since a year, but only very recently heard about the brake situation. Was totally shocked.

I think, not all players know since long, a good many might get surprised coldly..

I do not have problems to use the changed rules when building new ships, but for the old ships I believe NQ should follow - in this as in many other cases - the psychology of "smooth, slow, gentle changes".

There are some more possibilities that would satisfy both sides, but I do not want to talk about those, yet. For now, I truly hope for what I suggested here in this thread.

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