NQ is Killing "Casual Gameplay"

[GraXXoR]

1 hour ago, Rokkur said:

Read my original post, I did the math to include the daily handout.

“I’ll get my coat” sometimes written as “I’ll get me coat” is a British euphemism for recognizing the futile / ironic nature of one’s own action or comment even while doing or making it.

 

popularized on UK TV in the 90s by “The Fast Show” and later online in the early noughties by the likes of majority-British tech site, “The Register” and certain choice message boards. 
 

TLDR it means  “tongue in cheek” or “in jest”… a joke. 
 

You can also use it as an alternative to “I effed up” or even “spoke at far too much length about something trivial and it’s likely that everyone is by now just staring at me as if that last line of Bolivian marching powder I snorted was a couple of inches too long.”

 

Ahem.. I’ll get me coat. 

[Rokkur]

2 hours ago, Jinxed said:

“I’ll get my coat” sometimes written as “I’ll get me coat” is a British euphemism for recognizing the futile / ironic nature of one’s own action or comment even while doing or making it.

 

popularized on UK TV in the 90s by “The Fast Show” and later online in the early noughties by the likes of majority-British tech site, “The Register” and certain choice message boards. 
 

TLDR it means  “tongue in cheek” or “in jest”… a joke. 
 

You can also use it as an alternative to “I effed up” or even “spoke at far too much length about something trivial and it’s likely that everyone is by now just staring at me as if that last line of Bolivian marching powder I snorted was a couple of inches too long.”

 

Ahem.. I’ll get me coat. 

Well thank you for educating me on my cultural ignorance.
I just don't know where I would be without at least one more person waiting for opportunity to talk at me so they could set me straight.

On these forums I think all of us could get our coats, and should have been wearing two or three layers of them since the beginning of beta.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Rokkur

[Rokkur]

2 hours ago, Wyndle said:

The economy is a vital component but it isn't the only component of the game that matters.  From my perspective, NQ is stuck in their own mini-game of knobs and levers without realizing the machine is spitting out metal fragments and sparks. It is the players that matter; the economy is just a tool to ease non-pvp interactions between said players.  If the brand-new day one player cannot play the game without being required to participate in a specific "optional" system then the design is a failure.  You can't call it a sandbox if there is only one viable means to participate.

 

If the situation were only the ore bots going away, with the community having been included in the plan, we could have weathered that without more than a few complaints.  If the situation were only adjusting the way MU provided ore, again with open communication about why it needs to be adjusted, we would adapt quickly with only a few complaints.  But in a dual wielded combo backstab?  And how can we see the misinformation provided by NQ as anything other in this case?  Even the sunk cost fallacy can only hold players in place for so long.  

This ^ and, when it only hurts a portion of players while others remain immune to the impacts, probably even laughing at everyone else for their misfortune all the way to the bank, or in this case should I say market.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Rokkur

[Wyndle]

Having recently re-read the letter from the creative director I want to come back to this topic.  I see a critical flaw in how the creative director is placing emphasis on analytics.  You can't ask a bean counter to quantify fun and it is an impossible task to figure out what the individual will react most to if they are already in a group.  This appears to be a bias in the data based on the results I've seen so far.  It also begs the question if they are giving alt accounts full weight in these analytics?

 

I am torn because I see a sliver of dimming hope with what has been described.  If they indeed bring in TW they will shed a portion of their community.  If they indeed bring in power systems they will shed many of the building community. 

 

They've already sacrificed their one shot at getting a massive influx of new players.  A small dedicated community has kept many other games open longer than expected but does that same effect work on an MMO?  

[Rokkur]

2 hours ago, Wyndle said:

Having recently re-read the letter from the creative director I want to come back to this topic.  I see a critical flaw in how the creative director is placing emphasis on analytics.  You can't ask a bean counter to quantify fun and it is an impossible task to figure out what the individual will react most to if they are already in a group.  This appears to be a bias in the data based on the results I've seen so far.  It also begs the question if they are giving alt accounts full weight in these analytics?

 

I am torn because I see a sliver of dimming hope with what has been described.  If they indeed bring in TW they will shed a portion of their community.  If they indeed bring in power systems they will shed many of the building community. 

 

They've already sacrificed their one shot at getting a massive influx of new players.  A small dedicated community has kept many other games open longer than expected but does that same effect work on an MMO?  

People who aren't receiving whale support are already shedding tiles. A lot of hauls are going origin Address Anywhere to all points Haven.
If they bring in TW or Power Systems in the first half of 2023, NQ will seal the tomb with Dual Universe inside of it, perma style.

Not sure where you are seeing a sliver of hope, elaborate?

[Novean-61657]

Serious question: Was there ever such a thing like casual gameplay in DU?

 

Because I remember the start of beta (without schematics) that you could do some very specific production loops that you could sell to NPC buy orders that got you oodles of quanta. That was when I got burned out btw. Scanning for Meganodes and claiming the tiles, eventually automining, and then missionrunning. Eventually you got so much quanta that you could do large scale trading, buying out markets, etc... It was always something until NQ nerfed x and then y became the dominant money maker and never were those casual.

 

Now, quanta is imho not the measure of getting in front or behind another player, talents are. Quanta is and will be you can easily catch up with, either by doing the flavor of the month activity and combining it with other moneymakers or just by throwing RL money at the issue, probably a combination of both... As those mission runner alts require a dedicated computer actually running that account, DU is heavy on the resources and power isn't cheap anymore. Mission runners are thus throwing RL money at the issue.

 

Is this another complained by players:

- That only want to play solo.

- Only want to do activity XYZ in exactly they want to do it?

 

This is a game you didn't make. So you have to conform to the gameplay loops that the developer makes. There are many ways to do that gameplay loop, but if you limit yourself to only wanting to do it your way and that is not one of the gameplay loops that it was designed for, you SOL!

[Kurosawa]

5 minutes ago, Cergorach said:

Lots of letters ....

 

Once there was casual play, it was before .23 when you could logon and do what ever you wanted with out being pushed in to a second none paying job.

Based on your post you focus mainly on quanta or other means to compare your self to others, that is a mindset error where you always will struggle to catch up.

 

The casual mindset is to just logon and do what ever the f. you fancy at the moment. knowing full well some one is making billions mining that mega node or scamming the market.

Long and short term goals are still very much doable, there is just no rush to be on top and in front of every one.

 

 

 

[Kezzle]

2 hours ago, Rokkur said:

If they bring in TW or Power Systems in the first half of 2023, NQ will seal the tomb with Dual Universe inside of it, perma style.

 

Power systems done right would be an interesting new problem for builders to work with. Contstraints like that breed ingenuity... Unfortunately, I think the prospects of it being done "right" are very slender under NQ's current development paradigm. Slightly less chance than it being brought in at all.

 

TW is, as of the end of Beta, a very difficult problem. You can't introduce it on existing terrain that's already occupied, without shafting a high percentage of current players. You can't introduce it in some places not others, since there would be no point wasting resources on fighting for things you can get elsewhere. If you bring in something new to fight over, you risk further fragmentation into the "haves" and "have nots" as early adopters monopolise whatever new resource you introduce. If you geographically separate the TW and non-TW areas, you risk splitting the "community" into two, effectively separate games, each of which gets that bit closer to non-self-sustaining.

 

 

[Novean-61657]

4 minutes ago, Kurosawa said:

Once there was casual play, it was before .23 when you could logon and do what ever you wanted with out being pushed in to a second none paying job.

Oh.. How short a memory you have...

 

Let's look at pre .23 'casual' gameplay: I want to fly a space ship... I'll need to build it first myself or buy it from UEF or another player. Building yourself: Need to build factory, need ore for that. So it's either picking up ore or mining it manually, but mindnumbing activities for many. Then you're limited by how much you can build, how fast, especially when you're a new player that's still figuring out how everything works. Mine, build and wait.

 

So even pre .23 it wasn't doing whatever the F you wanted. You were just less timegated by things like schematics.

 

I measure my characters in talents. I measure how easily I can do something in quanta. I can pickup rocks to build a large space ship, that would just take a VERY long time to complete. I can get there a lot faster through other gameplay loops, that require and are measured in quanta. Yes that is disappointing, but whether that trading token is called a quanta, a liter of coal or warp cells. It is something that is valued by others and get you what you want, just like RL money.

 

The rush to be 'on top' is for me just a means to an end, I've seen that if you're 'on top' you can get faster to your short and long term goals. And as I've already done this starting gameplay loop (multiple times) during beta, I'm not really enjoying it as much as the first time... So doing it efficiently is important to me, but I notice that I'm just not as motivated as I should be. And I'm noticing that many others are at least acting the same, just not poring as much time/motivation into DU as the first time they did this... Mostly trying to catch up to where we were before the wipe...

[Maxim Kammerer]

17 hours ago, Jinxed said:

Just make it one mission package per ship limit and make it so you can’t dock a ship with a mission package, just like you can’t warp one. 
 

am I missing something?

 

I think you are missing carriers. Now it is sufficient to stack alts with packages on a ship. With your mechanics you would need to stack ships on a ship. That's bit more complicate but not enough to prevent exploits.

 

Maybe another solution would be changing the mission design. With a suitable time limit and several randomized pickup- and delivery locations in a row it would be almost impossible to stack missions.

[GraXXoR]

3 hours ago, Maxim Kammerer said:

 

I think you are missing carriers. Now it is sufficient to stack alts with packages on a ship. With your mechanics you would need to stack ships on a ship. That's bit more complicate but not enough to prevent exploits.

 

Maybe another solution would be changing the mission design. With a suitable time limit and several randomized pickup- and delivery locations in a row it would be almost impossible to stack missions.

Carriers? I’m not following?

[Rokkur]

30 minutes ago, Jinxed said:

Carriers? I’m not following?

Maybe they mean careers, since DU is already like an unpaid job. 🤣 Definitely feels accurate given the grind to reward ratio here compared to even other tedious games.
 

4 hours ago, Kezzle said:

 

Power systems done right would be an interesting...

 

 

If it was any other company other than NovaQuark, both Territory War and Power Systems would excite me. Based on NQ's past performance it is the stuff of nightmares atm.
 

4 hours ago, Kurosawa said:

... Long and short term goals are still very much doable, there is just no rush to be on top and in front of every one.

Never been one to usually care about where I am at vs. others, having the most currency isn't winning to me.
What does matter is NQ blaming their broken economy on casual players using mining units to make enough to sustain play,
whilst allowing whales to alt mission run billions!



I REMEMBER VERY SPECIFICALLY BEING TOLD IF YOU WANTED TO PLAY CASUAL
AND JUST BE A BUILDER STAY ON SANCTUARY AND USE THE MINING UNITS...

THIS IS WHEN THEY IMPLEMENTED TILE TAX TO "FIX THE ECONOMY"

So we do that and now after launch they are saying... we never intended for you just to login
and just enjoy building with the meager passive income from MUs!

I am sorry 112 million quanta a month isn't that much for playing every day to calibrate 5 tiles of MU compared to BILLIONS from alt mission runners.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Rokkur

[Rokkur]

Meanwhile Alt Mission runners in discord be defending themselves like:

[Maxim Kammerer]

1 hour ago, Jinxed said:

Carriers? I’m not following?

 

Sorry, my fold. I didn't realize that you excluded docking.