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The most important thing for you in an X game

Posted: Thu, 19. Oct 17, 05:08
by Warnoise
I believe each one of us has that deal breaker which will either make him buy the game or prevent him from doing so.

As for me, my deal breaker is the AI. The X-rebirth AI was a trauma for me in the early versions, it was so sad seeing my sucellus never using his cannon, my balor ramming ships twice its size, my useless fighters that don't strafe/dodge slow incoming and not using long range missiles to destroy elements, and many, many other AI problems.

For me in a single player dynamic open world game, the AI is the most important element.

I sincerely hope X4 will have a better AI than X-rebirth (which still has a lot of issues despite the patches) and make different classes of ships behave differently depending on their weapon load-outs and not on their ship class.

Posted: Thu, 19. Oct 17, 06:57
by Lc4Hunter
AI development is a process that will be never finished (well, except they terminated us in some future scenario).

The Fight-AI (which is just a part of the whole AI thing) was never really great. The whole Fight-Part was never that amazing many players wanted it to be.
But i think ES is going to extend that part as good as they can and there will be some optimization. If X4 will be that game we all hope i think there will be enough good modders and scripters who will extend the Fight-AI-part as they did in the past with X3.

Posted: Thu, 19. Oct 17, 07:23
by Morkonan
Progression.

The most important thing for me in any sandbox game is experiencing the impact of my efforts in the game.

In X3TC, I went from starting with a dinky little piece-of-crap ship to having an empire with thousands of ships.

I started knowing nothing about to how to order ships around and get them to do things to being able to do anything at all I wanted to do in the game using its complex scripting system.

I started out not knowing anything about certain game mechanics, like OS vs IS combat to being able to fine tune ships for either role.

"Progression" comes in many forms, whether it's acquiring in-game assets, new abilities or using one's knowledge of the game in order to accomplish previously unattainable goals.

And, when you reach the point where you can't get the feeling of actually "progressing" anymore? You stop playing the game. If the game is really good, you may start a new session with it, starting over and setting some goals for yourself, using your experience of the game and your knowledge of what you find fun and interesting, to go beyond the limits of simple progression that the game has built within it.

In that way, a good sandbox game rewards its player with a true sense of progression and enough of an open format, with plenty of diversity, that the player can set their own goals to pursue.

If the sandbox game doesn't reward "progression" and doesn't allow the player to feel a sense of achievement, it's not a sandbox game worth playing.

Posted: Thu, 19. Oct 17, 10:31
by BigBANGtheory
Two things really:

1. Being able to realize my chosen space career whilst immersed in the environment and the journey being rewarded for early ventures, effort and smart decisions later in the game.

2. Having appropriate challenges, competition and adversaries along the way.

Based on what ES has shared so far I tend to agree that AI is the big unknown mainly because other elements are slotting into place nicely.

Posted: Thu, 19. Oct 17, 11:28
by Crimsonraziel
Nope, there is no single deal breaker for me. It's the game as a whole. As long as the rest is ok I can even live without Borons, though it still makes my heart bleed.

Posted: Thu, 19. Oct 17, 20:48
by thrangar
The absolutely most important thing for me is the very limiting and excrusciatingly boring plots that I am forced to play to get in game items (PHQ) that end being given to late to enjoy anyways(unless you are a war monger)

This will most certainly dictate , if I buy on release or on sale!

Posted: Thu, 19. Oct 17, 21:24
by Mavo Pi
Having the player follow the same rules as the AI, so not doing double damage or having double HP only because the player sits in the ship.

Posted: Thu, 19. Oct 17, 21:58
by Alan Phipps
For me the icing on the cake would be the wow-factor of exploring new areas and having the chance of finding something totally unexpected that actually impacts on your ongoing gameplay.

A good example: the Aran in X3 TC/AP.

Another good example: the Split lost colony in X Rebirth.

A not-so-good example: the uniquely named and modelled 'landmark' stations that turned out to be rather mundane in their use and impact in X Rebirth.

Posted: Sat, 21. Oct 17, 01:16
by rulerofallcheese
Please! Don't delete our "dead is dead" saves when the game crashes to the desktop! Any game is bound to crash a few times after a thousand hours of play.

Seriously, I've gotten DAMN close to finished the hub like 3 times and each time I lost my "suicidal squid" dead-is-dead file due to a crash. It might not even be the games fault! If could just be a random Windows issue, but that shouldn't make me lose my progress.

And - NO - I can't just play on a different game start. I need to play in the hardest, most unforgiving universe possible. I can't help it even if it makes me cry sometimes... :cry:

Posted: Sat, 21. Oct 17, 16:16
by AL'42
rulerofallcheese wrote:And - NO - I can't just play on a different game start. I need to play in the hardest, most unforgiving universe possible. I can't help it even if it makes me cry sometimes... :cry:
You should try Khaak Start by Snowslip, lowest rep with everyone except pirates and other khaak of course.

What I'd like to see is X4 Khaak Apocalypse, a proper challenge for a change!

Posted: Sat, 21. Oct 17, 19:44
by Skeeter
Most important issue good epic story next would be the fun trying different ships and going from basic ship to fully equipped. Trading or station building holds little interest as did all that in x2 and that took so long I don't want to repeat it in anymore X games. Don't mind trading so much as it's overly done too much.

I'd like to say meeting and interacting with interesting characters but I don't think egosoft have done that since x2 which is a shame. Unless they had some in x3 but didn't play it long enough to find any.

Above all is scripted well made story missions. Which are few and far between.

Posted: Sun, 22. Oct 17, 17:21
by Kitty
What is important ? Most important ?

Flying a spaceship with non newtonian physics and using a big joystick like X52, X552 Pro or X56.

Having a great freedom, including a large choice of ships, hability to trade, to fight, to have missions, with and without challenge.

Being able to fly at high speed between the tubes of a station.

Being able to build an industrial empire.

Being allowed to love and/or to loathe any faction.

Having funny NPCs which say nice things like "Profitsss" or "Unholy". :D

Being able to imagine stories from details, like a girl named Suzie who lost her parents while looking at a fantastic nebulae.

Yes... let me dream... make me dream... without dream, an X game is nothing but a repetitive trivial missions replay game.

Posted: Sun, 22. Oct 17, 19:16
by Morkonan
Kitty wrote:...Being able to imagine stories from details, like a girl named Suzie who lost her parents while looking at a fantastic nebulae...
Poor Suzie... She probably got taken out by an M5 pilot on a bender who just couldn't manage to avoid painting the side of the station with his ship. (It's not like there isn't a lot of darn space ... in space...for him to have gone around the darn thing. :) )

Posted: Mon, 23. Oct 17, 00:48
by Monkeyfister
Honestly, it needs to not have ANYTHING, any feel, touch, mechanic, of Rebirth. At all. if it feels like Rebirth, I'm not going to buy it. Stupid "road tubes," I won't buy it. The wretched, horrible, repetitive inside space stations, and the ridiculous minigames-- deal breaker. Inside space stations? Egosoft just cannot get it right, and stations just suck.

All I want in an X game is a sorta fixed mechanics and a spiffed-up interface for the X3 Universe, with multicore support. Spiff up the graphics, fine, OK. Cockpits? Only if I can toggle them off. new craft and weapons, great. Easier Station building without having to count spacing to the millimeter? Fantastic!
New Missions-- Awesome!!! Not much to ask, really. But it seems an utterly impossible request from a company hellbent on shedding their old, reliable fan base.

From everything Egosoft has put out about "X4", I'm just going to keep playing X3, as Foundations seems built on the Rebirth model.

Posted: Mon, 23. Oct 17, 10:53
by Hassie
While some of my most important things have already been stated, I have an issue that not only Egosoft is guilty of, but basically every single ship based game is guilty of. I have a small issue with the way that almost every single game handles boarding and capturing vessels in these types of games.

I expanded on this in another post, but I would really like to see a more interactive system for boarding. Doing something like making the player do quicktime events to either boost or hurt their chances would go a long way in giving the player a sense of immersion. Let the player feel like they are actually in the ship and trying to fight their way to the bridge to take the ship. I am not saying that is the best way, or even better than what has been used, but I want to feel immersed in the battles and the world of X4. We are given a 1st person view, but at no time is that 1st person view ever used for anything useful in X:Rebirth from what I recall. Obviously creating a 1st person shooter game would be beyond the guys over at Egosoft, but creating a mini-game that not only makes sense in game, but also feels useful to the point where if they choose to not do it, which should always be an option, the player feels like they are handicapping themselves, and shouldn't be done unless they know they are going to win the boarding action.

Posted: Mon, 23. Oct 17, 11:10
by Reprisal
The AI was why I gave up my playthrough in X3AP. I spent a long time building up a series of complexes to completely supply my fleet with everything they would need, shields, weaponry, missiles etc. and I was churning out destroyers.

When I finally had a huge fleet and decided to start wiping out sectors, they would refuse to even fire if I was in-system, they wouldn't move where told etc. and ultimately that was the last time I played X3.

Getting to that point was a lot of fun and there wasn't a lot of gameplay left as I'd pretty much done it all, but it would have been nice if the icing was as good as the cake.

Posted: Mon, 23. Oct 17, 11:36
by Rei Ayanami
The most important thing for me in a X game is that it should not feel static, which means that stations need to be destroyable and ships should not pop up out of nowhere on predetermined spawnpoints, but be built at a shipyard.

In X:R, the moment i noticed that stations are indestructable all tension was gone. Who cares if that Xenon K bombards a station, it's not making any long-lasting impact since the station will just repair itself, so unless i'm bored i won't care about any ships attacking stations. In older X titles on the other hand stations getting destroyed had actual consequences, especially when it were important stations like shipyards.

The same goes for ships having fixed spawnpoints instead of being produced at a shipyard : Every time i fly through Barren Heat i encounter the same amount of ships attacking the same station. What's the point of destroying enemy ships to "rescue" stations? 5 mins after you destroyed them they'll just pop up again right next to the station. No point in destroying them, no point in setting up zone patrols, no point in putting up blockades.
Even titles of the X3-trilogy made that mistake by having Xenons spawn in Xenon sectors out of nowhere instead of being produced at a Xenon shipyard and then being sent to wherever they're supposed to be, it made the whole thing feel kinda static and boring.
In X-tension on the other hand i was able to wipe out the two top right Xenon sectors, built up my empire there and set up blockades with Laser Turrets and capital ships, while the Xenon shipyard in the center Xenon sector constantly reproduced the ships that i wiped out and sent them up there, it was so much fun and felt way more dynamic.

Posted: Mon, 23. Oct 17, 17:05
by vl3000
The atmosphere...in a x game is quintessential

if the devs manage to implement in x4 the awsomness/atmosphere/epicness of x2 + the 'good' parts from x3s + new stuffs ( anything not related to x rebirth ) = gold !. :D

Posted: Mon, 23. Oct 17, 19:53
by Kitty
Rei Ayanami wrote:ships should not pop up out of nowhere on predetermined spawnpoints, but be built at a shipyard.
Then, your most important thing in X games is not in X games... hmm...
Why do you play ?

:lol:

Posted: Mon, 23. Oct 17, 20:18
by Killjaeden
Lc4Hunter wrote:AI development is a process that will be never finished
Game development is a process that never is finished if nobody calls a quit (and money is available)... AI doesnt need to be "finished". It needs to be sufficiently good.

And i totally agree with OP there. AI is a big deal breaker in sandbox game types. As soon as you see the obvious, simple and flawed patterns the AI uses, the "immersion" facade falls down and all you keep seeing is the rotten skeleton beneath.
The atmosphere...in a x game is quintessential
There are many things that can easily kill atmosphere. Bad AI (in space and especially NPC's), repetitive NPC's and station interiors, poor character animations... i'm highly skeptical in that department.