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Dual Universe Ore Balancing


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Ore

Currently Dual Universe has far to much ore. You can look at many reasons to as why this is the case such as lower population, large amount of alts, picking up and placing auto miners to obtain high tier ore to mine (nq really?). My thoughts are it's a combination of a few problems. Population, active vs passive game play & solo/safety vs team work.

 

Currently auto miners allow a single player to obtain far more resources then any average player would use, even if said player used all the ore which is simply unlikely the ore ends up in products which floods the market. Auto miners are further abused by alts which will exist as long as there is profit. The end result is either the profit is so low no one uses alts = Fail (due to tax) or Its so valuable people abuse alts and get an unfair advantage that cannot be taken away from them (lets be real, atmo pvp isn't coming any time soon) = also a fail.

 

My suggestion is to dice game play up unto tiers and giving different types of game play to obtain ore to encourage active game, team play and trading.

 

Auto miners

I would suggest that all t4/t5 is removed from auto miners all together, having unlimited safe access to the highest tier ore in the game makes no sense to begin with.

Every tile should offer a healthy amount of each t1 ore. Doing so allows new players to arrive on any planet and allow them to get t1 voxels, dabble in factory and play the casual play style solo style many people want to enjoy without being shafted by things happening in the universe. I believe t2 should be in healthy amounts mostly for space fuel with t3 having a lesser amount for warp cells but not an unlimited overflow as we're having right now (if every person warps every ship for any reason there's a problem)

 

Once a player has auto miners placed, they've dabbled in building, mined some safe zone asteroids (active game play!!!), factory, bought a warp drive and experienced most aspects of the game they have a decision to make. Join an org or stay solo. If a player decides they want to remain solo they can create/barter for any luxury items they want and continue to play without  changes to dual universe stopping their game play.

 

Lets move onto the section that every solo player aspiring to be the richest person in the universe is going to HATE.

 

T4/T5 & Asteroids

 

t1/t2 should be everywhere in bigger nodes/less popcorn nodes across all asteroids both in the safe zone and the PVP zone. This will allow new players to aim for the stars and use active game play to obtain resources faster then someone would passively (as it should be??). It's very important that players not only have an active aspect to mining but it must be extremely fast compared to auto miners to devalue alts and to encourage game play/getting people into space.

 

With the nerf to t3 from auto miners the t3 should be more easily obtainable from t2+ asteroids. While I do believe there should be some in the safe zone asteroids it should never come to the point in which people warp everything every time for obvious reasons. Warp cells should not be rare but nor should they be everywhere.

 

With t4/t5 being removed from auto miners the amount of t4/t5 asteroids needs to be increased as well as more ore being in each asteroids via more nodes and larger nodes. 

 

My logic If t4 is easily obtained people simply say rare elements are good enough and have no desire to obtain exotic items completely devaluing the hardest tier of ore to obtain as well as plasma which will effectively kill alien cores just as auto miners has done to asteroids. The assumption that the population will be larger post launch so the ore per person playing is lower is a valid argument but the argument that the difference between t4/t5 is so small there's no point to attacking alien cores must be considered. The cost % and power % increase between rares to exotics makes no sense, 1000% increase for a 10% increase at best? If you used the guns in pve for an unlimited amount of time making them extremely valuable I can see this work but in dual universe in which you are constantly risking elements to extremely unpredictable battles makes it far to costly. 

 

One could make the argument and say exotics should only be slightly better and more available, those people making this argument only care about getting cheap powerful elements and do not care about the org/alliance aspect of alien cores. A person may also make the argument that legion controls all the cores but this argument also falls flat on its face looking ahead to launch. If a single alliance controls every pvp point in the game that's a failure on nqs balancing side and has nothing to do with some elements being slightly better. 

 

End point. I believe auto miners should provide ample t1 and supplement t2/t3 instead supply all the ore in the game you need removing active game play. As with any other game the highest tiers of elements in the game (t4/t5) should require engagement in the community or have successful people trade for it.  

 

Edit : High tier asteroids must not spawn near the safe zone boarder!

 

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Amazing I agree on all your points and want to double down on the need to balance ores also that asteroids need huge nodes of ore it is very frustrating to have an ore on tracker and then it's just 400 L, or that you track T5 on an asteroid and the node is filled up with T1 on the inside. People loved to have mega nodes back then. For some to mine these it was therapy of sorts. I know many that ended playing DU because planetary mining was removed. On your final point, I found once an Exotic asteroid 2 su from Madis safe zone what it's a complete joke on the intend of it.

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I'd agree with pulling t5 off planets, but you'll need either t4 or more common/larger nodes of t1-3 on outer planets to help encourage people to leave the safe-bubble. As far as preventing perma-claims on the best tiles goes, you'd probably need to rotate the ore pools periodically on said outer worlds to stop that. 

 

As for warping... you seem very certain nobody slow-boats, and I'd have to disagree with you there. I'm also not sure what you're trying to accomplish by limiting the availability of warp, as it makes interplanetary travel more accessible to a lot of players that wouldn't nessicarily have the time otherwise, and slow-boating isn't what anyone would call active or engaging.

 

Asteroids definitely need some work (starting with something more interesting than a "follow the waypoints" game through an empty void). I know some people that go after them when they need a t4/5 they don't have, but others are more than content to find other ways to get what they need that don't involve spending tons of time pursuing relatively small amounts of ore through pvp space in what is one of the most boring mini-games anyone could think up.

 

As far as exotics go... well... NQ obviously needs to do something to get people to actually try for the alien cores now that Legion holds them (or whoever in the future), but making the difference in power match what the sellers have decided the current difference in price to be would be taking them from a bit better to absurdly overpowered. The relatively small separation in power ensures that people are not hopelessly outgunned by whoever manages to hold the alien cores long enough to make exotics, if the power difference was as significant as the current price-difference then it would probably kill pvp altogether.

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A disagree with the idea of having the only way to get high level stuff being pvp. 

I fully get the logic that higher reward should require higher effort or higher risk, and currently higher reward and higher risk means pvp. But I would rather love to see something, anything, in pve that also has some risk or effort required.

They already tried the "put anything of value into the pvp zone", and while t5 can still be gotten safe, it is pointless without the alien stuffs you need in addition. 

A lot of people do not want to do pvp in DU, end of story. Shifting the game more and more and more towards pvp gave it nothing in return. It is time to give pve some love. And by love and do not mean yet another "optimisation" which limits gameplay.

Over the past 2 years pvp was improved and pve was nerfed with almost every patch.

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This makes complete sense

T1 - T2 found majority in auto miner for early game

T3 found majority in safe roids for mid game


and t4 - t5 found only in pvp roids for end game 

 

you only need t4 / t5 for pvp in any case so this sort of division drives people to build up and explore and if they wish fight for the absolute best

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T4 and t5 should not be only in pvp space, a lot of ppl seem to believe that asteroid got abandoned because of auto miners but it is not the only reason. As of right now a lot of players abandoned asteroids because the good stuff is mostly in pvp space, it’s a lot simpler in this type of situation to make alts and use auto miners considering we have no risk to lose our ships, if you would have t4 and t5 ore in good amount inside the safe zone they would be a lot more popular.

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Almost all games put high stuff exclusively in the pvp zone to encourage participation. At worst those pvp orgs sell those materials to pay for their crazy pvp costs so the cycle can continue. This is a proven method to work in many games, No matter how many people complain if the rewards are there people figure it out.

 

No average solo player needs t4/t5, they're all pvp/luxury items. 

If you are a solo player and a major factory owner or something along those lines you can easily buy the ore.

I'm not saying smaller amounts of t4/t5 shouldn't come from some wrecks or what not but the majority of high tier stuff has to have conflict - Even nq is on board with this as they used the reasoning the auto miners work because we'll eventually be able to attack them. People were never meant to have high supply of high tier elements in complete safety. 

 

If there are not resources exclusive to activities then said activity will not be done.

A good example of this would be wrecks, Many do not do it because its not valuable, if wrecks had schematics people would be all over it.

If most if not all high tier resources came from the high tier asteroids people would achieve it by grouping up, buying it or taking minimal amount of risk to obtain valuable resources 

 

Asteroids double as a org growing ground & training in small skirmish's which simply needs to exist. We've tried the method of placing high tier materials in the safe zone and it hasn't worked. One look at discord in which people are very clearly agreeing that everyone can not own everything puts a lot of weight behind gates/progression.

 

At the end of the day there are a few ways nq can achieve this result be it through pve (doubtful), exploration, rng, pvp zone, or wrecks. Whatever the method used the auto miners must be nerfed into the ground, any afk method that is faster then the active method of asset gathering destroys the eco horribly. Missions have been hit and now its autominers turn one way or another 

 

I really hope people can stop looking at what they personally want (to be rich/have everything) and look at the overall health of the game. Active game play must prevail no matter the system used. #death to autominers

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5 hours ago, Gottchar said:

I would rather love to see something, anything, in pve that also has some risk or effort required.

I approve of pve ships exploding via random space-lightning... but something tells me that isn't what you are asking for. If NQ wants to add in random fields of damage near asteroids or along the pipes representing things like CME, meteorite-storms, or whatever other random hazard they think would occur in DU in space, then it would make things more interesting. They could even come up with missions that require retrieving something from the middle of such areas (please do this NQ, hauling missions are boring).

 

That said, pvp players need something to fight over. Let them have their t5/plasma, they'll sell it to you sooner or later anyways. Getting some kind of high-paying mission for flying in to a meteor-storm to recover a package from a wreck before it is completely destroyed, or having to quickly retrieve a large node of t4 from an asteroid before radiation collapses your shield and damages/destroys your ship both seem like some good pve that NQ could add in (assuming NQ is smart enough to ensure you can't circumvent all the hazards via jet-packing.

 

1 hour ago, Bachiir said:

T4 and t5 should not be only in pvp space, a lot of ppl seem to believe that asteroid got abandoned because of auto miners but it is not the only reason. As of right now a lot of players abandoned asteroids because the good stuff is mostly in pvp space, it’s a lot simpler in this type of situation to make alts and use auto miners considering we have no risk to lose our ships, if you would have t4 and t5 ore in good amount inside the safe zone they would be a lot more popular.

Asteroids aren't abandoned, I know guys that still go after them when they need the ore. The asteroid-system needs some developer-attention to be sure, but "making them safe" would run contrary to their purpose as late-game-mining content. There needs to be challenge/risk involved in going after the late game stuff, if it isn't pvp players, then it has to be something else.

 

36 minutes ago, VarietyMMOs said:

#death to autominers

 Auto-miners are supposed to be basic income for causals to fuel their stuff with. They lay them out, hop in mid-week to calibrate them, and come their weekend they have enough material to build/make fuel. They are also used to provide ore for the universe at large in a way that doesn't break NQ's bank (or the player's network connections) maintaining millions of miles of mining-tunnels, and pay for tile-taxes (which are needed). I'd agree they need a nerf, but they can't be removed entirely without adding in a comparable replacement.

 

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  • 1 month later...
On 7/29/2022 at 7:10 PM, Maliciouss1 said:

if they had any real content ingame other then a small amount missions...then many things could be made dangerous and highly profitable....remember the fiasco of the wreckage?


 

Definitely, you need an area, a sort of Bermuda triangle (of several dozen SU, with asteroids, areas of gas density, etc.) in which we know that wrecks appear randomly.

Put in these wrecks the new lootable schemas.

And here you have a dangerous zone in which to go and farm the schema.
Dangerous from a PvP point of view but also PvE thanks to certain piloting constraints.

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Any tier of ore that Auto-miners can mine, need to have bot orders to buy them up, and/or their ore output needs to be drastically reduced.  I get that they were intended to pay for tile taxes/give players some supplemental ore for their own needs, but right now, they give many times as much ore as could ever be used up, with the new schematics system limiting what ore can actually be used up in industry by the currently active player-base. Ironically, it only makes sense to auto-mine T1 now, because that is the only ore with actual demand, from bots. All the other tiers of ore have just been over mined to the point that they are basically worthless, and don't get traded around as much anymore.

 

 

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My ideas for ore asteroids are these:

Randomly, a very few spawned asteroids in Safe Space also contain T3 to T5 ore varieties, but only tiny amounts.  And not even each spawn day contains 1 or 2 of such lucky asteroids. This way, there is a tiny chance to get such ore even in Save Space, but it is not enough to run permanent industries with it. Those people still have to do mining in PVP space.  These occasional tiny amounts I suggest, are just there for the experience, and the lucky moment, and to encourage to go for more - into PVP space. Those amounts are just good to build 1 or 2 parts of whatever.  Only a few players will be lucky, but this would probably be a reason to drive again more players into the asteroid areas.

For some of the asteroids, for the adrenaline effect, I can imagine some not too big asteroids in their vicinity that adds to the challenge of avoiding collisions.
And I can also imagine bullet-fast micro asteroids that have just the same effect like small weapon damage, forcing ship owners to build a small Safe Room inside their ship to hold an XL container with scrap and themselves, in case their ship gets disabled, and to prevent the own death. Such micro asteroids come after the space radar issues a warning.

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