Jump to content

NEW SCHEMATICS - Discussion Thread


NQ-Nyota

Recommended Posts

7 minutes ago, Grimscale said:

If there trying to limit the size of factories a single player can run, then ditch the schematics or leave them be and limit the amount of assembler's you can run. But not like the shambling mess the ore miners turned out to be. this game should be Fun NOT time wasting tedium.

 

If it wasn't for the fact that I can skip the silly little mini game to get my miners running by simply closing the interface after spending the charge. I would have stopped playing. 

 

Please don't turn this into some soft of click fest interface. 

 

Its as if almost the industry gameplay is kinda shit even before schematics.  Interesting gameplay could have been introduced like Power systems tied to cores. That make you pick and choose what you wanna run on your core.  Also having 2000 machines to produce all these batches of 10 screws and what not just seems tedius.  The whole thing needs a ground up rework....kinda like they did with mining....oh im starting to see a trend here.  They dont know what the fvck they doing and this game isnt gonna make it 12 months after release.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Forcing to spread industry between larger player-base does not solve server load issues.

 

Industry is self regulating. Why someone would run industry creating elements which nobody needs?

Indy units run only if there is demand for elements.

 

Demand is constant and increasing if new game-loops are introduced, or player base increases.

It makes no difference on server-load is elements crafted in mega-factories or in small ones.

Ming is so tedious that nobody wants to produce large quantities of elements and waste ore for that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, after giving this some thought and considering how NQ is clearly copying EVE once again, yet fails to grasp the basic concept of how the EVE system works, this is how the rework SHOULD (as I see it) work:

 

As NQ seems to not have any intention of letting players control the game and will continue to be the game master and provider of all things, let's go with that.

 

Basic setup:

  • Aphelia sells original blueprints. These are unlimited runs with basic efficiency and material requirements
  • Industry elements lose their time and material buffs through talents

 

From there several "career" opportunities exist:

 

Researcher

A new element is introduced to allow players to research both time and material buffs, these buffs come in 10 levels which will take an increasing amount of time to research per level and each level adds a same percentage to time reduction as well as material input and output stats

 

A high multiplier talent will allow to train reductions in time needed to research each level

 

This research element also allows players to make copies of their researched schematics, they can sell these or sell the researched original blueprints but only through barter/contract.

 

Industrialist

Will generally use researched originals or high run count copies, bought from researchers

 

DIY enthusiasts

Will generally either use unresearched originals bought from Aphelia or low run count copies bought from researchers

 

Schematic Bank
Schematics could be centralised. have a "schematic bank" which is linked to the construct core and in that way allow any relevant industry to access these schematics through Lua. If that would be possible, you can leave it to the game's coder base to quickly come up with some fancy industry management scripts while for the non-Lua types, you can just select any recipe from a schematic in the bank on the relevant Industry unit.

 

That way, you could even consider keeping the requirement for each item to be made to have a schematic as you'd only ever need one of them in the schematics bank for the construct.

 

 

There.. fixed the schematic system for you within the constraints of what DU allows.

 

@NQ-Entropy @NQ-Kyrios 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

25 minutes ago, Knight-Sevy said:

If a player with mega industry cost 20 times more than what they pay at NQ in subscription.

 

So maybe it's better for us that he quit the game.

Industry was never about server cost. Server cost is all about network bandwidth, and industry are fixed elements that require almost no server-client traffic to maintain (at least they should not if implemented correctly).

 

The big server drain bar none is transferring voxel data (constructs and terrain changes) between server and clients, and that is why mining was nerfed so that people would no longer have a incentive to dig tunnels everywhere.

 

And the big problem with many of the recent changes, is that the entire premise for DU is now questionable since it may turn out that a game like this cannot work with regard to server cost. At least not with the small player base we have now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have been saying that DU should be "Easy to understand, hard to master" for years. And if you look at the things that actually work in the game, like building, scripting (to a certain degree), piloting etc. they are exactly that.

 

Take for example building. Anyone can easily build something in this game since it is easy and relatively straight forward. But making something that make heads turn and players open up their wallet, requires dedication, skills, know-how and creativity. And this is the type of game mechanics that is rewarding and makes players come back for more year after year.

 

But on the other hand there is running around like a headless chicken pressing the same buttons over and over again to complete some pointless task, that does not make players want to stick around.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you were really looking at player feedback and responding to it...this nonsense wouldn't have even been considered. Sorry, I just don't buy it. A research tree would have been infinitely better.

 

Research stuff, make copies of schematics from that research, use/sell schematics, but make it cost time (you don't need money for a digital thing, and if the machines aren't using digital schematics, then what's the point of calling it a futuristic game?) instead of quanta.

Yes, people can make zillions of alts to speed up the research and acquisition rate, BUT THEY DO THAT ALREADY FOR EVERYTHING ELSE, AND WILL DO THAT FOR THIS AS WELL, so think ahead, have an open dialogue where you can work with the community to get the best (i.e. the most widely supported after discussion) ideas, etc. Basically, don't just make something up at the last minute and say that it's because of community input. Because that's the vibe for this. No real thought put into it. Just checking a box in a hurry.

 

The more of these "we listened to the players and this is our response" posts that I see, the less interested I am in seeing the final product.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Dakanmer said:

The more of these "we listened to the players and this is our response" posts that I see, the less interested I am in seeing the final product.

 

The problem is NQ does not listen. They may "hear" us but so far have really very little to show for actually understanding any of it.

Their "solution here is overly complex and againmisses the point entirely. As I see it, the solution I posted above is far easier to implement, actualy drives gameplay options and opportunies for players and generally is probably far less expensive to implement.

 

But as I expect these changes are not open for discussion and are about to be put in place in a few hours.. here we are..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Jake Arver said:

But as I expect these changes are not open for discussion and are about to be put in place in a few hours.. here we are..

True.

It is already dome. And will drop "very soon"

Quote

The new schematics will come to Dual Universe very soon. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Niemand said:

 

you want players? make it easy and simple and never listen to some kickstarter grandpas.

You mean like new world? Easy and simple.  And they had almost a million concurrent players. Except it was so easy and simple that everyone "finished" the game and stopped playing. Du is a subscription based games, they need players playing long term, not a giant initial influx that dies down quickly.

 

And the .23 exodus was not because of schematics.  It was because of the way they introduced them.  Everyone was producing everything they wanted. And then the next day those nice factories they had no longer worked.  And it would have cost more quanta then they ever made to get back to the same production level.  

 

Had they phased them in, I don't think it would have been as much an issue. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello everyone, I join you to express the feelings on the next test on the schematics.

 

1) We never have the choice, I have the impression, so yes repay us for the schematics at the time of the changeover, the investment in time and quantas is colossal for those who stick to it.

 

2) It was already horrible all the back and forth for the missing schematic, because only 1 item produced by schematic/machine from the atypical, it hurt. So multiply that even if it will only be the assemblers, that totally scares me.

 

3) I honestly hope that you will take the time to see the effects in pts to forget this absurd idea of a quantum sponge.

Each novelty brings only that alas, to decrease the quantas gained by the players.

Hence my total rejection of a wipe under the pretext of helping newcomers, it only looks like a magic quantum sponge, when you are already in this principle of players caught at fault, you erase all of their earnings.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read my negative sentiment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You should not force people into orgs ,if one person dedicated can have factory let them . If they have lots of ore let them make all the parts and engines they want no reason to punish them . Shouldn't be about how many accounts or  how many DACs people have but about the effort someone puts in and has fun and rewarding. Seems like turning more  pay to win with more schematic copying along with more mining units or like before more mission alts .

 

If limit  industry units running at a time might as well limit number of shots in PVP from guns to 1 per minute just have them do damage over time , it is the same concept just no extra cost like on industry .

 

The main thing in the game is building and manufacturing without it or limiting it to much would cripple the game play . The manufacturers are what keeps the game play flowing . If this is introduced into the game bad there will not be enough manufacturers to fill needs .

 

Element loss of life needs to be reintroduced back into game play it would help .

 

Introduce recycling of parts and elements back to ore like 70% of ore cost to make with new recycling talents at max .

 

This is time gating manufacturing with new mini game not good.This will make more people do their own Tier 1 and Tier 2 things equals less interactions between people less market activity and more machines over everyone's factories running at once .

A starting player , or i.e.  for all if server wipe , would be severely hampered . Time gated element making containers , engines , and ship parts . Transferring schematics every day would be a pain . Seems to many things are wrong with this , schematics are fine just maybe lower T3 thru T5 prices  a little bit .

 

Should not keep limiting game play if this is a do anything you want sand box game .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

44 minutes ago, Tekhamon said:

1) We never have the choice, I have the impression, so yes repay us for the schematics at the time of the changeover, the investment in time and quantas is colossal for those who stick to it.

 

The refund wil come in the form of the wipe. NQ will spin the change as a test and I expect the "release" cycle of devblogs will start soon-ish, part of which will be the outcome of their wipe "discussion".

I agree with the timeframe some here seem to have which will see NQ start their devblog cycle gearing up for a wipe and early start for backers and "beta key holder who bought a subscription now" in 5-6 weeks with official release september 1st.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Tekhamon said:

Hello everyone, I join you to express the feelings on the next test on the schematics.

 

1) We never have the choice, I have the impression, so yes repay us for the schematics at the time of the changeover, the investment in time and quantas is colossal for those who stick to it.

 

2) It was already horrible all the back and forth for the missing schematic, because only 1 item produced by schematic/machine from the atypical, it hurt. So multiply that even if it will only be the assemblers, that totally scares me.

 

3) I honestly hope that you will take the time to see the effects in pts to forget this absurd idea of a quantum sponge.

Each novelty brings only that alas, to decrease the quantas gained by the players.

Hence my total rejection of a wipe under the pretext of helping newcomers, it only looks like a magic quantum sponge, when you are already in this principle of players caught at fault, you erase all of their earnings.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read my negative sentiment.

 

What would have been best would have been to put schematics in DURING THE FVCKING ALPHA PHASE OF THE GAME. This is what you get when make people play during an alpha and make them pay. It doesn't matter if schematics were right or wrong, people made emotional decisions and that is to leave.  If you put schematics in during alpha when 5% of population was playing knowing full well a wipe comes, then when game is released your playerbase is none the wiser and would have grinder for them and built up factories over years and some would do collabs to get their faster.

 

Maybe one day developers will learn this. Doubtful tho NQ has always been strapped for cash and they needed to release asap. Same with Starbase. Now both communities are paying the price. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This means we as a small Swedish org have to team up with people who are not speaking Swedish if we want to continue our production, not really going to happen...
I really like the industrypart in the game and lowering prices for T3-T5 or T4-T5 would be the right way to go.

This needs to be tested a longer time before going active so people know how it affects the production.
Alos everything is vague, make a video or a real explanation on how it will work instead of "maybee it will work like this or like this, we do not know yet but you will see"
From the looks of it you do not yet know yourself what it will look like, so you get a load of comments where people think that it will work like this or this or that...
This creates a negative mindset with people, that could have been avoided!

For now i am negative and think it will ruin the fun of the game for me who is a almost pure industrialist.

Edited by Zcrewball
Added some more..
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm mostly upset that you all literally just released exotic engine schematics that I dropped a few billion quanta on, haven't even made but like 10-12 engines, and now you're taking that away from me.  Even for me, it is not easy or quick to make a few billion quanta.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for sharing this solution with us!

Ok, so now you want me to discuss the solution you presented. I've read your solution and I think I got a rather good grasp about how it would change the game play. I've also read the comments here and I think I could agree to most of them.

But there's one big problem!

If you have thought out a solution that you think fits the best and then ask me to discuss that, you also need to present the problem that solution is supposed to solve.

In these comments I see a few problems mentioned and possible solutions to them. That's good, and I can relate to the problems and share my opinion if that is a good solution or not.

I do see a few problems myself and could find, or at least share my idea of, possible solutions to them. But there's a lot of facts I don't know about. Facts that are necessary to know to be able to boil down what the problem really is about. And then, when you know for sure what the problem really is, then you can start to discuss how to solve it.

So now I will patiently wait for you to present the problem. And then, I can share my thoughts how that could be solved.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I deleted a wall of text.

 

NQ you suck at communication and customer insights. @NQ-Nyota You're a community manager for *bleeps*sake, did you read the message before you posted it? Did you not see the issues a mile away? Why have you not send @NQ-Wanderer back to his corner and think about his many, many sins (looking at that April 14th post)?

 

This 'announcement' is way to vague, leading to interpretations by customers who'll blow their top. Creating more and more negativity. TIPS: Make the system directly available on the test server so people can see how it works themselves and test it. Create a YouTube video that shows how it works. And create a list with items that you are still working on and aren't final.

 

My initial reaction: NQ sure is good in making a game more and more unfun!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, Vargen said:

Thank you for sharing this solution with us!

Ok, so now you want me to discuss the solution you presented. I've read your solution and I think I got a rather good grasp about how it would change the game play. I've also read the comments here and I think I could agree to most of them.

But there's one big problem!

If you have thought out a solution that you think fits the best and then ask me to discuss that, you also need to present the problem that solution is supposed to solve.

In these comments I see a few problems mentioned and possible solutions to them. That's good, and I can relate to the problems and share my opinion if that is a good solution or not.

I do see a few problems myself and could find, or at least share my idea of, possible solutions to them. But there's a lot of facts I don't know about. Facts that are necessary to know to be able to boil down what the problem really is about. And then, when you know for sure what the problem really is, then you can start to discuss how to solve it.

So now I will patiently wait for you to present the problem. And then, I can share my thoughts how that could be solved.

 

Actually problem is described at top of latest Devblog post:

Quote

Over to NQ-Entropy:

 

When we released schematics in 0.23, it was to address a problem that had the potential to adversely affect Dual Universe as an MMO. Players were able to be fully self-sufficient with ‘build-it-all’ factories, reducing interaction between players in the game’s economy.

 

This is the only fact we know, everything else is pure speculation.

 

Before famous r0.23 game was alive and fun.

 

Implementation of schematics broke all industry and resulted wery bad feelings among players and big exodus, witch then killed fun out of the game.

 

It is not true that build-it-all’ factories, reducing interaction between players. They actually created more interactions, NQ Devs just didn't see that. I know because I was there playing actively and interacting a lot in our small org.

 

After r0.23 only 3 of us did stay, so no more factories and no more interactions. 2 of them left after territory taxes dropped.

 

This new proposal does not fix the real problem: 

Game is not fun anymore. So veteran players may newer return. Does DU gain new loyal players with these harsh limits, time, talent and quanta gates, I don't know...

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, CptLoRes said:

Industry was never about server cost. Server cost is all about network bandwidth, and industry are fixed elements that require almost no server-client traffic to maintain (at least they should not if implemented correctly).

 

Server cost can be driven from a huge variety of things -- bandwidth is one aspect, but CPU is a major factor, too.

 

Most auto-scaling systems scale by CPU by default, since typically CPU will be exhausted for an instance before bandwidth. 

 

Industry cycles could easily eat a lot of CPU server-side between the actual logic and whatever DB queries are required -- even if it was Dynamo, those Dynamo reads aren't free (I thought NQ even ditched Dynamo because it was so costly and that's one driver of recent performance issues). Even if CPU isn't an issue, DB usage can be a massive cost driver (especially Dynamo). 

 

Of course, designing for scale is one of the most fundamental and important aspects of software engineering, and NQ has failed over and over to do this between mining, industry, PvP, and building...leading to endless refactors and an inability to bring depth to the game. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, Distinct Mint said:

So why can't we trade mining unit calibrations as consumable items? A schematic training queue is otherwise the same mechanic as generating mining charges (except that it is auto-queued for you).

I think that would be a great idea too. A source of revenues for player that does not have much mining unit at the beggining of the game. Also it would also go toward the goal of having more trade.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Based on the explanation you have given so far of the changes, it appears that running a factory will involve running between machines, stuffing punch cards into them. This concept is laughable. We can access all of the industry machines on a core via lua, and see their status. The technology exists in both the game and the game lore. Why are we physically putting things into these machines?

 

If your goal is to reduce the number of industry players and factories, I do think you will be successful, but not due to clever design. This will so tedious that many people will want nothing to do with it.

 

Understand your product. What makes industry fun in the first place? I love designing the factory. Creating the layout, managing the connection limits, figuring out how to maintain a high throughput. These are all cerebral tasks. The people that are attracted to this style of gameplay don't want to put punch cards into machines. This is what automation in a factory is supposed to eliminate!

 

I am sure at this point the punch card design is too far into development to change. Could we at least have a way to interact with the entire factory (all industry on the core) and not deal with putting punch cards into individual machines? This would remove much of the tedium while also making it easier for multiple people to maintain a factory.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Short reply: Sounds tedious

 

A more nuanced reply: I get it that you want to:

  • Introduce and limit a new resource, let’s call them factory charges (a paid version of calibration charges)
  • Increase the number of alt’s and/or increase player recruitment/interactions for said charges

Now this is in itself not a bad thing, but the whole active buying, waiting and slotting them into machines seems way to tedious, adds useless time-sinks and is just not enjoyable.

 

Why not grant an player something like factory slots, comparable to core construct slots and allow these slots to be transferred/lent to an org who can run factories up to the number of these pooled slots. That way the work is done as before and you have your limiting factor that will force people to play together. Want a mega-factory? Get a group together and chip in.

 

Whether that is a good thing remains to be seen.

 

P.S. I do really like the per player limited resources (talents, construct slots, calibrations and now copied schematics) that gives worth to any player and levels the playing field.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi there! Thanks for the annoncement! And thank you for your continuous effort in making the game better!

 

In the annoncement, I would have loved if you would have explained a bit more what were the goals you were aiming at with this system. To me, the current schematics system kind of acheive this goal already (with some tweeks).

 

So from the annoucement, what you want to acheive with this new system is:

 

We wanted to make schematics more accessible and easier to use while retaining a portion of their limiting effect. We have made them more scalable across the board and made the system easier to balance and adjust from our end.

 

I do think that removing the need for schematics for basic items & part is a great improvement, and goes toward making the system more accessible. 

 

For the easier part, I am not sure. It seems harder to me & even add grinding to it, which is not fun. Already, IMHO, mining unit calibration is a pain in the butt. So having to feed all my industry with an extra item (consummable schematics), makes it way harder than before. I've read that you are considering a global pool for the whole factory. Which would be better than schematics per industry.

 

I like the idea of people being able to produce schematics & selling them on the market. That goes toward the MMO element, and is a good way for industrialists to trickled some money back to the new players. It adds to the industrialist burden tough. But having regular trip to markets is a great way to also add transport missions. 

 

For the scalability & balancing, yes I do agree that it gives NQ more control, but you still had this control with schematics. I would not see any problem with fluctuating schematic prices in game. But I guess thecontrol you are trying to introduce, is not on the factory inital setup, but on on its daily operation, which is understandable.

 

All in all, I think there is a lot of positive in that change, but please try to limit the grind for industrialists (other than the need to buy on markets). 

 

Also, if you guys are trying to limit the factory size for performance reasons, please open a thread, I have tons of suggestions on how to achieve that with smaller changes (being a big industrialist myself) - but I hope this change is NOT meant to achieve that goal. 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...