[UI] A Comprehensive Reflection and Idea/Suggestion

I have been a registered player since 7-19-2008. I have been here through the vast majority of changes in the game, and I can honestly say, I didn't expect so many drastic changes in the game. Disclaimer: Before reading on, please understand that I am not going to talk about literally everything about the game because that would take a very long time. I intend to touch on points that I think are monumental to the resurgence of this game. Please take this seriously (especially anyone who can pass on this post to the right people). If someone from the Dark Orbit team would like to talk with me or email/message me sometime, don't hesitate to ask. I am sure I might be unaware of similar posts to the one I am currently writing but please, if you will, hear me out.

I understand the predicament that Bigpoint is in.... Dark Orbit is on its last stages of death; however, there is a way to bring people back to the game (with them actually having fun) and bring back the profits that Bigpoint needs to continue to run this game.

First, we need to look at possible reasons for the departure of a lot of people. You have to start thinking of why people would start to leave the game even though DO was consistently putting out new stuff. The necessary thing that needs to be addressed is the failure to realize that the game progressively started to become harder for new players and non-paying players (specifically for PvP). For any Free-to-Play game, your main audience will never, or very minimally, pay for things in the game. I repeat: the majority of players that play free-to-play games do not pay at all or they pay very seldomly. Additionally, if these players feel that they can't get to their goals in the game without the need for paying, they will quit and move on to another game.

People also quit playing games because they don't have fun in the game. So what happened to the fun aspect? The answer seems to be, at least to me, related to the introduction of the Pilot Sheet, Advanced Ability Ships, LF4 Lasers, Apis/Zeus Drones, and Item Upgrading. Now... it isn't necessarily bad that these all were introduced; however, the ability to obtain them is extremely difficult for a non-paying player. For a non-paying player, not only would it take a long time (years) to get the uridium needed for these items, you became an easier target for enemies (too easy of a target). The players that were able to obtain these faster, i.e. paying players, began to take over severely. These components of the game made running away from enemies a thing of the past, swiftly. If you were halfway between portals, no chance of surviving an enemy attack. Even if you were FE Goliath, death was certain and happened very quickly... and for lower ships, death could happen in literally 1-2 seconds... or even instantly (depending on the person's ship of course). Players that were just recreational and wanted to have fun, got farmed. No one wants to just spawn and die repeatedly, with any game... they would get fed up and quit. Looks to me like that started to happen more rapidly after the enhancements took full effect. Pilot points were too much uridium for average and recreational players... so they gave up. They same goes with how to obtain the LF4 lasers and Apis/Zeus Drones. For a non-paying player, the amount of time needed get the necessary uridium for them is absolutely ridiculous.

If I spend a thousand hours on a game and I can put a scratch on the pilot bio and the apis drone, it doesn't seem to be worth it for the average player, and you have to take into account how good of a player they are to determine how much faster or slower it would take. Uridium from alien kills is low and could be raised higher to help out the distribution problem here. The sad part is, a lot of the quests that reward you with uridium and take about 20 minutes to complete (maybe even more) is worse than boxing for 5 minutes - its essentially a slap in the face to the gamer. This tells the players that whoever owns the game is putting their effort more in trying to coerce people to buy uridium than by earning it by playing the game.

What I think: The main problems with the game are the low distribution of uridium from alien kills, the price of things that cost uridium in relation to how much uridium is given out, and the ability of ships to deal massive damage.

Suggestions (Brief):
1. Get rid of the Pilot Sheet, LF4 Lasers, and the Apis/Zeus Drones.
2. If you don't get rid of the Pilot Sheet, then you must lower the price of the log-disks to at least 200u.
3. If you don't get rid of the LF4 Lasers, then you must make it more capable/probable for people to be able to earn them.
4. If you don't get rid of the Apis/Zeus Drones, then you must make it more capable/probable for people to receive the blueprints, and lower the cost of the green booty keys.
5. You should lower the prices for the item upgrades at least by 30%.
6. Quests that give out uridium should give out much more uridium.

- I have much more suggestions that I could mention but this post is already long so I am going to end it right there...

- Put your pride and wallet aside and look at your game from a non-paying player's point of view. The DO team is to blame for the downfall but this could be the moment that someone from the inside actually listens... maybe.




"RIP... Old Servers"

- Babycakes Lovin

 

I agree with everything you said and I as well would like, at least a server, without all the junk they added over the years and with the old graphics. The main problem is, besides the game itself, that most of the remaining players actually love the pay 2 bully aspect of this game. As you may see in the following comments they will deny that the game is pay2win "u just need to spend 10€" that new players being bashed is not the reason they are leaving "it's a pvp game" and finally that the reason players quit is "bots" despite all the evidence against. As for the team I highly doubt that they ever read this forums, if you want a slim chance to contact them it must be in DO's discord server.

 

Yes. I understand that some people will deny that the game is "pay2win" - it is quite unfortunate. There are only a few players currently that represent what the majority of the players felt throughout the years. Haha, when people say bots, that honestly makes me laugh. This is just all sad. I doubt the team would even listen if I got the chance.

 

http://www.bigpoint.com/darkorbit/board/threads/power-of-the-p-l-ayers.122906/

 

just make the game downloadable end of no bots no auto fare play to all end of