It is about time Egosoft takes some ideas from other sandbox games

[radcapricorn]

1. Allow the player to create their own character and name. The name is not hard Val=Hawk (X=players name) this is simple coding that you could do when the game was a DOS platform.

You can rename your character after starting the game, in Player Info menu.

4. More Diversity in NPCs. Right now every human is black, no Hispanics, no whites, no Asians etc... I had a white female pilot, saved the game came back the next day and she became a black bald man. Same name though. I could care less of their color but more diverse universe. How about a Tel with an eye patch or one that wears clothes.

Eh? Most certainly not every human is black. And there are most certainly Teladi wearing clothes.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

That said, it's fun to speculate on what would be great to have in X4.

Well I actually disagree that the OP's suggestions would be good to have in X4.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

4. More Diversity in NPCs. Right now every human is black, no Hispanics, no whites, no Asians etc... I had a white female pilot, saved the game came back the next day and she became a black bald man. Same name though. I could care less of their color but more diverse universe. How about a Tel with an eye patch or one that wears clothes.

Eh? Most certainly not every human is black. And there are most certainly Teladi wearing clothes.

redcapricorn is right - there is already diversity in the NPC avatars.

There is/was plenty of diversity in the NPCs but in one of the recent patches Egosoft did make an attempt to address certain unintended combinations and if you loaded a game after this patch then certain NPCs may have changed their appearance. Normally, NPCs that you have hired will retain their appearance - at least IME.

IF you want greater diversity, perhaps you should find a mod for it. Currently the level of diversity in the Avatars is fairly broad and diverse - there are occasions where a station can seem to be populated with clones but that is on the most part unavoidable given greater variety in graphical assets puts a higher demand on graphics and computer memory.

[Sir Warwick]

I think the 2.0 didn't do much. The lack of late game challenge and ship/weapon variety kills the motivation for many players.

What killed this for me is how appallingly terrible the so called fleet management and 'AI' (artificial idiot script) is and how frustrating it is to have to fight with it to get ships to do what you want them to do.

Fix that before worrying about nice interesting features of other games.

[Nafensoriel]

It's funny a few years back other games were basically taking idea from Egosoft for their sandboxes.
Leave this kinda stuff for mods. Egosoft only has to build the foundation(sorry couldn't resist).

Side note.. why does everyone suddenly think AI is terrible? AI is always terrible. Its BEEN terrible since the 80s. The only time its ever "worked" was when you give it perfect aim so players actually have to duck.

[radcapricorn]

Egosoft only has to build the foundation(sorry couldn't resist).

So far that foundation is viscous. When it solidifies and stops splashing out outside at various places, then we can talk.

Side note.. why does everyone suddenly think AI is terrible? AI is always terrible. Its BEEN terrible since the 80s. The only time its ever "worked" was when you give it perfect aim so players actually have to duck.

Because there are limits even to artificial idiocy.

"I'm a Nova. My orders are to escort that corvette 500km away from me. Imma travel to it... Oooh, what's that? A Queen's Guard, a Hive guard and four Foragers? I better go kill 'em. So what they're 400km away from my command? So what I've no chance of winning this?.."

"We're Peregrines. We're torpedo boats. Our carrier is ordered to attack a station. We shall be shooting our torpedoes while sitting on the docking pads. So what they're hitting our own carrier? We shall not undock. Player is aboard the carrier. We might accidentally abandon them. We shall not undock. Boom, boom."

"I'm a Colossus. My orders are to attack targets in range of that station. Imma go kill that Security Vessel".

"I'm a pirate. Imma go harass player. Umm... no, I cannot shoot. I will only spew insults over comms. Yes, my ship has weapons. No, I cannot shoot. I cannot actually see that my ship has weapons. My weapon group 1 is empty. I cannot use any other."

"I'm a pirate. I'm a Discoverer. I see player has an energy cell in the hold of their Nemesis. Imma go kill 'em".

"We're a faction. We're at war. We have 4 factories producing Hull Parts, one module each. Our shipyard is starved. We're going to go build 4234235252 defense platforms in enemy territory. To do that we will need Hull Parts which we don't have. And so we will first build Construction Vessels on a starved Shipyard out of Hull Parts that we don't have."

"I'm a Xenon K. I'm strong and mean. Imma go solo wipe out that sector full of destroyers and defense platforms."

[Sgt Hawker]

1. Allow the player to create their own character and name. The name is not hard Val=Hawk (X=players name) this is simple coding that you could do when the game was a DOS platform.

You can rename your character after starting the game, in Player Info menu.
I am aware of this. I said create a character as well.

4. More Diversity in NPCs. Right now every human is black, no Hispanics, no whites, no Asians etc... I had a white female pilot, saved the game came back the next day and she became a black bald man. Same name though. I could care less of their color but more diverse universe. How about a Tel with an eye patch or one that wears clothes.

Eh? Most certainly not every human is black. And there are most certainly Teladi wearing clothes.

I have may have a broken game then as I said, they went from white female to black guy with the same name. A true mixed gender. Maybe she took her pilot salary and became a man idk. But I stand by more diversity. Heck most sci-fi shows and shorts have Chinese and Japanese signs in them.

[Sgt Hawker]

4. More Diversity in NPCs. Right now every human is black, no Hispanics, no whites, no Asians etc... I had a white female pilot, saved the game came back the next day and she became a black bald man. Same name though. I could care less of their color but more diverse universe. How about a Tel with an eye patch or one that wears clothes.

Eh? Most certainly not every human is black. And there are most certainly Teladi wearing clothes.

redcapricorn is right - there is already diversity in the NPC avatars.

As for this I forgot to mention in redcapricorn's there was a mod to change the color of humans to more diverse but was taken down.

There is/was plenty of diversity in the NPCs but in one of the recent patches Egosoft did make an attempt to address certain unintended combinations and if you loaded a game after this patch then certain NPCs may have changed their appearance. Normally, NPCs that you have hired will retain their appearance - at least IME.

IF you want greater diversity, perhaps you should find a mod for it. Currently the level of diversity in the Avatars is fairly broad and diverse - there are occasions where a station can seem to be populated with clones but that is on the most part unavoidable given greater variety in graphical assets puts a higher demand on graphics and computer memory.

This game is the least taxing of a AA title. I know I have a good machine. However, I can play this on my kids laptop with the settings on low. The starports seem empty in reality to their scale. I went to a Teladi habitat and saw not one NPC. Go to Security and not even a fat security guard there to stop me from hacking.

I went into game and checked my pilots I only have 7 human. All 7 are black bald guys this includes the one who got a sex and skin color change with her/his pilots salary. They ran out of money and could not pay to have their name changed. The only reason I caught/saw it was due to the name and she is one of my best pilots.

I maybe reading into the game to much or wanting to much idk, its just my opinion. As for the rest of what I said I believe and support modders, they are the ones who made the last game playable.

[radcapricorn]

But I stand by more diversity. Heck most sci-fi shows and shorts have Chinese and Japanese signs in them.

You seem to forget the setting. In fact, one could argue that Argon population should be of a single predominant "race". Remember that Argon are descendants of a relatively small group of people. Although, the brief reunion with actual Terran population could've brought back some of the racial diversity, but nowhere near what you would see today on Earth, and certainly not to a level you speak of.

As for Japanese signs, well, no need for sci-fi shows. To quote the X Encyclopedia:

The official language of the Argon Federation is a simplified of Japanese known as "Neo-Ancient Japanese"; it is also commonly used as a trading tongue by non-Argon members of the Federation. In addition, most Argon still speak English, many natively.

[Sgt Hawker]

But I stand by more diversity. Heck most sci-fi shows and shorts have Chinese and Japanese signs in them.

You seem to forget the setting. In fact, one could argue that Argon population should be of a single predominant "race". Remember that Argon are descendants of a relatively small group of people. Although, the brief reunion with actual Terran population could've brought back some of the racial diversity, but nowhere near what you would see today on Earth, and certainly not to a level you speak of.

As for Japanese signs, well, no need for sci-fi shows. To quote the X Encyclopedia:

The official language of the Argon Federation is a simplified of Japanese known as "Neo-Ancient Japanese"; it is also commonly used as a trading tongue by non-Argon members of the Federation. In addition, most Argon still speak English, many natively.

This I did not know. So thank you for the information. I still would argue for more diversity in Humans. jmho. I will let it die now.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

This game is the least taxing of a AA title. I know I have a good machine. However, I can play this on my kids laptop with the settings on low.

The game has a wide scope of activities but once you start building any station of significance or build up a fleet of ships of a substantial size you may start to see the performance take a hit. I know I do and I have a top-end machine. Yes you can play the game on lower end hardware on low settings but I think that is the point, increase variety too much and you put too great a demand on the hardware required to run the game. X4 is not primarily a FPS/FP-RPG where a higher degree of variety is perhaps justifiable.

The starports seem empty in reality to their scale. I went to a Teladi habitat and saw not one NPC. Go to Security and not even a fat security guard there to stop me from hacking.

There are various factors that seem to effect dock populations, sometimes I go to a station and it is busy but at other times the same station may be nearly empty. As for NPCs stopping you from hacking, there is no such FP interactions. The only obstruction to hacking AFAIK is in space since you will need to smuggle the inventory based equipment (or their components) required for hacking.

I went into game and checked my pilots I only have 7 human. All 7 are black bald guys this includes the one who got a sex and skin color change with her/his pilots salary. They ran out of money and could not pay to have their name changed. The only reason I caught/saw it was due to the name and she is one of my best pilots.

I have numerous pilots and crew (argon, split, paranid, and teladi) - there is more variety to the avatars than some like yourself seem to be implying. If you noted a hired NPC avatar change it's appearance then I would report the issue to Egosoft as a bug (especially if it involves a change of gender).

I maybe reading into the game to much or wanting to much idk, its just my opinion. As for the rest of what I said I believe and support modders, they are the ones who made the last game playable.

I disagree regarding the last game (X-Rebirth, or even X3) being "unplayable" without mods (which is the implication of what you are saying), but that is actually moot. Where X4 is concerned, there are LOTS of issues that need resolving and addressing but the variety of artistic content is not one of them.

[Sgt Hawker]

This game is the least taxing of a AA title. I know I have a good machine. However, I can play this on my kids laptop with the settings on low.

The game has a wide scope of activities but once you start building any station of significance or build up a fleet of ships of a substantial size you may start to see the performance take a hit. I know I do and I have a top-end machine. Yes you can play the game on lower end hardware on low settings but I think that is the point, increase variety too much and you put too great a demand on the hardware required to run the game. X4 is not primarily a FPS/FP-RPG where a higher degree of variety is perhaps justifiable.

Granted, but this was not a negative but a positive, that I was pointing out. But since metioned they could have made the landing bays smaller to make it appear to be active and not empty. I have no problem with where the game is going, meaning in X3 you could not get out of your ship in a starport, but in Rebirth you could although limited. I liked that idea, I even liked the loot boxes until they nerfed them. I liked climbing through vents to get to other areas.

The starports seem empty in reality to their scale. I went to a Teladi habitat and saw not one NPC. Go to Security and not even a fat security guard there to stop me from hacking.

There are various factors that seem to effect dock populations, sometimes I go to a station and it is busy but at other times the same station may be nearly empty. As for NPCs stopping you from hacking, there is no such FP interactions. The only obstruction to hacking AFAIK is in space since you will need to smuggle the inventory based equipment (or their components) required for hacking.
It was a joke. Hence the fat lazy security guy.

I went into game and checked my pilots I only have 7 human. All 7 are black bald guys this includes the one who got a sex and skin color change with her/his pilots salary. They ran out of money and could not pay to have their name changed. The only reason I caught/saw it was due to the name and she is one of my best pilots.

I have numerous pilots and crew (argon, split, paranid, and teladi) - there is more variety to the avatars than some like yourself seem to be implying. If you noted a hired NPC avatar change it's appearance then I would report the issue to Egosoft as a bug (especially if it involves a change of gender).
I am not seeing the diversity everyone else is in my game(s) I also stated I would stop complaining about it as others do not have this problem. As for the bug if I had the save still, I would but I have already saved over it and the poor pilot that spent all of her money on the gender change operation has died. She will be long missed but when she refuses to take any action while being attacked will kill anyone.

I maybe reading into the game to much or wanting to much idk, its just my opinion. As for the rest of what I said I believe and support modders, they are the ones who made the last game playable.

I disagree regarding the last game (X-Rebirth, or even X3) being "unplayable" without mods (which is the implication of what you are saying), but that is actually moot. Where X4 is concerned, there are LOTS of issues that need resolving and addressing but the variety of artistic content is not one of them.

I did not say I modded X3. I said the opposite. Rebirth was modded to make it enjoyable/playable for me. I also said modders will make X4 the game we all can enjoy, and for the first timers it will be the one they remember as being the best. I still believe X4 is a true sandbox game. I enjoy X4 and like where it is going. I also know that if I want something else or different in the game it can be modded to suit my wants. My only gripe is the game feels empty in the starports but I can live with that, I am not there much anyways, as it is a space game not a starport game.

As for saying my opinion is moot, is wrong. This is my opinion. It would be like me telling all of the traders, who want better trading their point is not valid as it does not apply to me. Trading does not effect me as I do not do it, but I don't comment on that part of the game. Fleet issues are a valid point. Combat is a valid point. People wanting 120fps is a valid point, may not be mine but it is to them. So if I am implying something you or anyone else does not agree with that is fine, it does not effect you. 1 person believing there is a diversity issue will not impact the way this game goes forward. I mentioned it to see if anyone else had the same issue and it appears that only I am. But that does not mean my opinion is worthless or irrelevant.

This is only my opinion.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

This game is the least taxing of a AA title. I know I have a good machine. However, I can play this on my kids laptop with the settings on low.

The game has a wide scope of activities but once you start building any station of significance or build up a fleet of ships of a substantial size you may start to see the performance take a hit. I know I do and I have a top-end machine. Yes you can play the game on lower end hardware on low settings but I think that is the point, increase variety too much and you put too great a demand on the hardware required to run the game. X4 is not primarily a FPS/FP-RPG where a higher degree of variety is perhaps justifiable.

Granted, but this was not a negative but a positive, that I was pointing out. But since metioned they could have made the landing bays smaller to make it appear to be active and not empty. I have no problem with where the game is going, meaning in X3 you could not get out of your ship in a starport, but in Rebirth you could although limited. I liked that idea, I even liked the loot boxes until they nerfed them. I liked climbing through vents to get to other areas.

I am not exactly sure what your point is here, but while I also agree with the general premise of having the ability to climb through vents to explore star ports in general the wider audience seemingly did not. Egosoft copped a lot of (IMO unjustified) flack for their implementation of FP mode on stations and given various other factors I do not blame them for curtailing the FP focused aspects and moved more towards making the game more space oriented.

The larger landing bays are IMO a major improvement over X-Rebirth, it allows for the scale of things to be perceived fully and feels quite immersive. Even in real life, large ports and places of commerce have their quiet periods and can seem bewilderingly empty during them. In X4, any given dock seems to have both busy and quiet periods - I am not sure of the precise root factors in play but I disagree that docks in general should feel "busy" regardless of the circumstances.

Vent crawling (after a fashion) still exists apparently but in the form of space suit exploration of wrecks.

There are various factors that seem to effect dock populations, sometimes I go to a station and it is busy but at other times the same station may be nearly empty. As for NPCs stopping you from hacking, there is no such FP interactions. The only obstruction to hacking AFAIK is in space since you will need to smuggle the inventory based equipment (or their components) required for hacking.

It was a joke. Hence the fat lazy security guy.

I have numerous pilots and crew (argon, split, paranid, and teladi) - there is more variety to the avatars than some like yourself seem to be implying. If you noted a hired NPC avatar change it's appearance then I would report the issue to Egosoft as a bug (especially if it involves a change of gender).

I am not seeing the diversity everyone else is in my game(s) I also stated I would stop complaining about it as others do not have this problem. As for the bug if I had the save still, I would but I have already saved over it and the poor pilot that spent all of her money on the gender change operation has died. She will be long missed but when she refuses to take any action while being attacked will kill anyone.

If you only had one occurrence of this happening then it was probably a consequence of a patch fix rather than an actual bug - at least from the sounds of things. There has been at least one patch that addressed unintended Argon avatar appearances.

I disagree regarding the last game (X-Rebirth, or even X3) being "unplayable" without mods (which is the implication of what you are saying), but that is actually moot. Where X4 is concerned, there are LOTS of issues that need resolving and addressing but the variety of artistic content is not one of them.

I did not say I modded X3. I said the opposite. Rebirth was modded to make it enjoyable/playable for me. I also said modders will make X4 the game we all can enjoy, and for the first timers it will be the one they remember as being the best. I still believe X4 is a true sandbox game. I enjoy X4 and like where it is going. I also know that if I want something else or different in the game it can be modded to suit my wants. My only gripe is the game feels empty in the starports but I can live with that, I am not there much anyways, as it is a space game not a starport game.

I do not disagree that mods are the way for people to address different game desires regarding X4 but the context of this discussion is set by the OP of this thread. In that context, the OP seemingly seems resistant to using mods and fundamentally that creates a problem where threads like this are concerned since some seem to think the base game should be changed to suit them rather than accepting modding is part of the course where at least certain changes are concerned.

As for saying my opinion is moot, is wrong. This is my opinion. It would be like me telling all of the traders, who want better trading their point is not valid as it does not apply to me. Trading does not effect me as I do not do it, but I don't comment on that part of the game. Fleet issues are a valid point. Combat is a valid point. People wanting 120fps is a valid point, may not be mine but it is to them. So if I am implying something you or anyone else does not agree with that is fine, it does not effect you. 1 person believing there is a diversity issue will not impact the way this game goes forward. I mentioned it to see if anyone else had the same issue and it appears that only I am. But that does not mean my opinion is worthless or irrelevant.

This is only my opinion.

An opinion can be factually and demonstrably wrong (c/f the Flat Earthers).

One point of fact is that there is quite a bit of diversity in the game already. A relatively easy way to prove this would be (in Vanilla X4 2.20) to buy a fully crewed Builder ship (or more - crewing vessels at the shipyards is on the most part random) from either an ALI Shipyard or a Player-owned shipyard. Given a sufficiently large NPC population sample in X4 you should be able to observe the diversity that is there.

As for mods making a game "playable", context is everything - in a factual sense "playable" means one thing (can a player reliably interact with the game and access/use content as intended) and currently there are quite major failings of X4 that are clearly in areas Egosoft will have to fix themselves (e.g. UI mis-clicks, Station build planning clamping logic, entity selection issues, and other game engine related concerns). In the more subjective sense "playable" typically refers to individual perceptions about content and gameplay - this area is one which mods can address and in the context of the OP of this thread is the route I believe those not content with the vanilla experience should be pursuing.

Personally, I have no issues with the subjective aspects of X4 but there are still substantial core issues that Egosoft need to address. When they have addressed these issues, I am going to be more inclined to start work on the major expansion mod for X4 that I have in mind. Details of that particular mod are not set in stone, but I think some of the concerns expressed in this thread regarding content may be addressed by it.

[Silla]

Well what I could imagine to work as late game crisis is something like a gate that is dead until it’s opening is triggered. Beyond the gate might be some new sectors all infested with extreamly strong Xenons. Deplomacy might work with such invent if it would be possible to initiate a peace until the problem is resolved. And after the threat is taken care of a war follows fighting over those sectors..

Yet I see the problem that this is somewhat predictable.

More than a crisis ... some sort of extendable goals might work too?

[ei8htx]

An opinion can be factually and demonstrably wrong (c/f the Flat Earthers).

So if you disagree with Roger here, you're wrong and a flat earther.

...Or maybe other people have other opinions. Sheesh, Roger, lighten up.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

So if you disagree with Roger here, you're wrong and a flat earther.

Try reading the entire post and digesting the content rather than quoting specific sentences out of context and using them for personal remarks/attacks.

I have spelled out how at least some of the assertions in this thread are factually and demonstrably flat wrong or at the very least misleading.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Well what I could imagine to work as late game crisis is something like a gate that is dead until it’s opening is triggered. Beyond the gate might be some new sectors all infested with extreamly strong Xenons. Deplomacy might work with such invent if it would be possible to initiate a peace until the problem is resolved. And after the threat is taken care of a war follows fighting over those sectors..

Yet I see the problem that this is somewhat predictable.

More than a crisis ... some sort of extendable goals might work too?

These ideas are better punted in the scripting and modding section - we know Egosoft have at least 2 major DLC planned, the first one being Split related apparently and the second one is of an undisclosed nature (Boron suspected by some in the community).

There have never been scripted late game crisis type scenarios in the Vanilla X-series games and I do not believe Egosoft should start introducing them either. It is notionally possible to engineer your own crisis of sorts in a late game via your own in-game choices but the best way to increase the level of challenge is via the use of appropriate mods.

[Warnoise]

Well what I could imagine to work as late game crisis is something like a gate that is dead until it’s opening is triggered. Beyond the gate might be some new sectors all infested with extreamly strong Xenons. Deplomacy might work with such invent if it would be possible to initiate a peace until the problem is resolved. And after the threat is taken care of a war follows fighting over those sectors..

Yet I see the problem that this is somewhat predictable.

More than a crisis ... some sort of extendable goals might work too?

Stellaris does it amazingly though. The events can be "within a timeframe" by that i mean they are not always triggered at exactly the same time/same place. They can be triggered for example between day 200 and day 300 (in-game days).

I think they add a goal to work towards (especially since the events before the crisis are random, thus not predictable).

Currently i see no reason why would anyone build a huge fleet...

[brekehan]

After playing Stellaris and Kenshi, I said to myself "Why didn't Egosoft implement this mechanism in their game?"

I got bored with both of those games within a week.

Stellaris was equivalent to playing whack-a-mole and required zero neurons to fire.

Kenshi was an an exercise in doing the same mundane tasks over and over and over again while waiting for a number to go up...which would of been OK, if those tasks weren't so mundane. I literally watched TV while my guys mined rocks. Boring.

At any rate, yea, I do hope they make X4 challenging and strategic. I really do need challenge.

[ei8htx]

So if you disagree with Roger here, you're wrong and a flat earther.

Try reading the entire post and digesting the content rather than quoting specific sentences out of context and using them for personal remarks/attacks.

I have spelled out how at least some of the assertions in this thread are factually and demonstrably flat wrong or at the very least misleading.

The problem here, Roger, is not that you disagree with ideas or opinions; you attack the individual. People are wrong, and you are right, always.

You're highly negative. Here in this thread and throughout the forums.

I'd suggest taking a step back and reading your post history. Perhaps then you'll see how you're coming across.