My opinion on the current state of the game

Feedback
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Hello,

I’ve been playing PrUn for 2 month and this is my feedback on the game, based on my personal experience as well as on discussions with other players. To summarize:

  1. a very slow, and thus frustrating and boring early game,
  2. a fun and enjoyable mid-game,
  3. a late game somewhat lacking content.

1. Early game. The new player experience in PrUn is bad. The reason is that there isn’t much to do at the very start. There is no reason at all to connect to apex more than twice in a week. Most of the time one does not play the game, one waits the game. Essentially one waits for the very few production lines to produce enough goods so as to load them on a ship, send them to a CX, sell them and buy some materials needed to expand the base. Initially this process is very slow. The first 3 weeks in game are really frustrating. And this is a major issue for the game because this is where it loses potential new players. Not everyone is patient enough to go through this initial very boring phase.

2. Mid-game. The game actually gets much more interesting as one progresses and expands the base. More production lines means more stuff to manage and a yet faster further growth. If one subscribes a PRO license, it becomes even better since one can engage with the local market content. Getting into more advanced production, colonizing new planets and accumulating wealth, all this is very satisfactory.

3. Late game. I haven’t experienced the late game personally, but I had discussions with some veterans of PrUn. Some people that have 8+ bases and are into the very high end production complain about a lack of further goals to strive for. At this stage they essentially trivialized the game. Many also complained on the difficulty to get scientists through POPI. However, not all of them are satisfied with the new governor programs for immigration, as those are too … arcade.

Next are some suggestions.

The game really needs a more dynamic start if it wants to attract more players and broaden its player base. One option is to add more gameplay content with which the starting players can engage. This could be the an energy system (more stuff to manage) and the asteroid mining (provided that mining ships are given at the start). Both features are on the roadmap. An other option is to provide more generous starting packages for a faster start. The size of the starting package could also depend on the initial planet choice, more difficult planets getting larger starting packages. For instance, a larger package for those who start on Nike than for those who start on Phobos. This would also incentivize the beginners to be more adventurous and not all start on the same planets with agri and CX in the system.

A feature that I personally miss is a private contract system and a barter system. I would like to see the option to post ads aimed only at specific players or members of specific corporations, so as no one else could pick these ads. I would also like to have the possibility to exchange through contract some materials for some other materials, without credits involved (barter). There should also be the option to simply donate to some other player materials or credits, without anything in exchange. As of now, players just go around these limitations and post buy orders of 100+ BSE for 1 AIC or sell orders of 1 DW for 100K AIC.

Finally, more content is needed for the endgame. In my discussions, some veterans want to see a conflict system implemented (on the roadmap).

Prosperous Universe has a small core of very dedicated players. In my discussions it appeared that these players want to be more involved into the game development. Like the dev team taking more into account their opinion, as well as a broader access to the test server. As of now one needs a star level early access tier to be allowed on the test server. The general opinion is that this requirement should be lowered, for the better of the game. For instance, it is apparent the the recent Atlas update has not been tested properly. On the release day there were bugs which are very easy to detect (and some are still there).

I hope that the dev team will take note of this feedback and that it will be useful.

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Another big problem with late game is the amount to manage becomes overwhelming. The further you get the more there is to manage, and this never stops being the case. If you decide to stop growing at the stage where you’re happy with the amount of managing there is to do, well then there isn’t much left to do in the game.

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Some new endgame mechanics needed. Could a conflict system address the issue you pointed to?

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Your analysis of the game’s state is pretty spot on!

Early Game

It is true, the game does start out very slow and becomes more interesting over the course of a few weeks. We are aware of that and have thought of means to change that. One solution we have come up with are faction contracts. Fabian mentioned them in a recent devlog. The idea is to utilize the ships a player has to fulfill some contracts for the respective faction. That way the player gets to know APEX’s systems better, earns some money on the side and can interact with the game more frequently.

That is an option I will discuss with the team!

Thanks for the suggestions, we’ll look into it!

Mid Game

I agree, the mid game is fine for now. There is content players can engage with and it is fun to play. Of course we will add more content over the years, but early and late game are more lacking.

Late Game

The late game features are very sparse at the moment, and we are aware of that too. Given that the dev resources are like gold dust at the moment and we focused on the new player experience early last year and on the mobile version later last year we didn’t manage to implement two major features that fall into the mid and end game categories: Politics and Infrastructure.

With the Politics update we want to simplify how a governor receives, manages and spends tax money by adding an governor accounting system. No need to found a corporation anymore just to do that. The governor will also not be alone anymore but having several (depending on the size of the planet) elected officials that all can file and vote on motions that will then turn into actions like taxation changes, changes in local rules and so on.

Hand in hand with the Politics update goes the Infrastructure update. We want to have more infrastructure in the game (think navigation beacons, space elevators, orbital ports, …) and that infrastructure needs to be built and maintained. Governors will be able to contract out the building and maintaining part to other players.

As you can see there is no lack of ideas for late game content. Before everyone gets too excited though here is the reason why it will take us a while to implement all of that. To be able to pay the bills we need a larger player base. Not astronomically larger, but larger. So the reasoning is, not to try to keep players engaged longer with the game through more content, but rather get more players on board. Steam seems to be our best option to do that. That makes Steam a primary goal for this year. Personally I’d rather implement new features than a Steam client (it is just more fun :slight_smile:), but the harsh reality is that we need to earn money to keep the game going.

That is an interesting point. I will bring it up in the next team meeting!

Thanks!

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5

This is all good stuff, but I would advocate for less generous starting packages, rather than more.

New players already get 2 or 3 production buildings, 40k credits, and two fully fueled ships. It seems like too much. I’d prefer that we only get 20k credits, and one 250t ship (with smaller fuel tanks) to start with - provided that ship trading is added with an NPC vendor so that we can trade in the starter ship for 500t ships later.

This way it would take slightly longer to get to the mid game stage, but if the proposed faction mission contracts are added then there would actually be more to do while waiting, so I think that would be fine.

Personally I find the initial struggle to grow the first base is the best part of the game, so any change which prolongs that, and therefore delays the onset of late game ennui, is a good thing.

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Yes please. I want to go back to my original corp and enjoy the HQ bonus, currently it feels like I am being punished for being a politician.

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This is a matter of taste. I prefer much more my current state in game, with my first base reaching its max size and preparing to open a second one, than my first weeks. My goal in PrUn is ultimately to build a large vertically integrated industrial empire, with many bases, and I like to see a daily progress in this direction. It’s totally fine if the journey to the ultimate goal is long, but it has to be eventful.

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Hello, molp. Thank you for your reply. Perhaps there was to much criticism in my post. Just want to assure you that I like the whole game concept and the game mechanics. But I started to feel that I enjoy PrUn only on my 4th week in game, once my base reached a critical size.

I totally agree that you should prioritize the early game over the late game, as the early game is what new players discover first and what their decision to stay or quit the game will be based upon.

The faction contracts are certainly a good idea. It’s a kind of early game mission running, isn’t it? This would provide the new players with something simple to do and also some much needed cash.

Politics and Infrastructure are great ideas indeed. I understand that it will take time to implement and that this is not your priority right now. Just a suggestion for the future when the game development will be at a more advanced stage. Ultimately one would need a system that creates demand for the high end products in a never ending cycle. Nothing is better to create demand for production than destruction. Have you seen this promotional video from EVE Online:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMOS6c-zd0M

The guy has this phrase: “When there is a big war going on somewhere in the universe, that always reflects on the markets, which makes people like me happy, because we are the one making money of it. I am the CEO of an industrial corporation…”

My point is that with a conflict system, ships, starbases and planetary defenses could get obliterated which would create demand for new production and this would never end since people can always find reasons for strife. Also, as of now, PrUn is too cooperative. Everybody cooperates with everybody to develop the planets, colonize and build infrastructure on new ones, and coordinates efforts. Personally I would like to see more competition, like, perhaps at some point in a distant future, conflicts over the control of profitable planets, etc.

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