Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

This forum is the ideal place for all discussion relating to X4. You will also find additional information from developers here.

Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum

Buzz2005
Posts: 2184
Joined: Sat, 26. Feb 05, 01:47
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by Buzz2005 » Mon, 28. Nov 22, 20:15

rene6740 wrote:
Mon, 28. Nov 22, 19:46
This is not a promise that they will sign mods. They just stated that they look into it. Whether it actually happens or not is a totally different thing. Same with as to when it happens if it happens. Like we were supposed to get the multiverse Q2 of last year and still have no info about it :)
Just a matter of time when we will get it (ventures), and very much doubt after this info they will scrap the whole signing mods thing and we will never get any, probably depends on how well "new ventures" will be received, so if its a total fail and nobody is playing it why even bother with mod signing.
Fixed ships getting spawned away from ship configuration menu at resupply ships from automatically getting deployables.

User avatar
thegreybetween
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue, 6. Nov 18, 01:49
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by thegreybetween » Mon, 28. Nov 22, 21:39

Glad to see that "Free Exploration" had a material slice of the player base favorite aspects. This is definitely my favorite aspect of the game, especially when paired with the (still minimal but ever expanding) role-playing elements. The living universe of the X series is an amazing sandbox even for those of us who don't prefer to be empire-spanning tycoons or admirals.

Regarding expansions: I have purchased all of them. The main thing that attracts me to them is simply more content. I don't really care about more ships (though they are nice). What hooks me is more sectors, more factions with which to build relationships, more interesting things to explore/discover/unlock/craft. Also, the MUSIC! Alexei's work is honestly the best thing in the entire X Universe, and that is not at all an insult to the rest of the wonderful game. Absolutely brilliant score!

Regarding multiplayer: I'm in the "No" camp. The only thing I'd like from the Venture system is a way to get some of the paint skins again without hacks/mods. If multiplayer was implemented in a way that would satisfy the actual multiplayer market, it would completely transform X into something else and the existing fans would lose a lot more than we'd gain in the tradeoff. If multiplayer is implemented in a way that stays "true" to the X universe, then it is a review bomb-storm waiting to happen when the hypothetical promise of multiplayer draws in a swarm of folks wholly unprepared for the niche and idiosyncratic game they find and the effort and patience it requires. And given the dichotomy of the two, it seems that the simplest request of all - "Just let me play X4 as a co-op with a few friends" - is probably the tallest order with the biggest potential to upset current players and alienate future players unless implemented flawlessly (which, given X's diverse player base, is essentially impossible to satisfy for more than 1-2 segments of the audience). I hope that, whatever the multiverse ends up being, X remains a robust single-player game with zero "need" to dabble in multiplayer systems to enjoy all of the content.

Regarding mods: I'm probably the oddball, but I never use them. I'm always happy to see official patches and content, and if they originated in the modding community, great! Cheers to the modders who leveraged their creations into employment opportunities, and I look forward to more (official) content as X4 continually improves and expands.

Things I'd like to see in future expansions:
- More Betty! (I get the argument about freedom to change text without voiceover, but I really, really miss the full-Betty treatment of the encyclopedia)
- More space to explore, including great new unique features that differentiate sectors, like the Tide mechanism from ToA. I'm also always happy to have more interiors to walk around in.
- More factions to meet and build relationships with (and yeah, I'm in the "Borons please!" camp)
- More roleplaying fluff. I'd like to have more varied interactions with my crew (dialog options, behavior animations, etc) and other features that elevate the "living universe" into a "universe that I live in".

Anyway, thanks for the insights and the continued development and support of the game. I'm really looking forward to 6.0 and beyond!

lostboron
Posts: 43
Joined: Tue, 4. Jul 17, 19:33

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by lostboron » Tue, 29. Nov 22, 03:30

Thanks for posting some of Egosoft's key take aways of the survey. There are some I am not convinced about. Let me explain.
Which (gameplay) element of X4 do you enjoy the most?
33% · Trading / Economy
24% · Fighting / Battles
13% · Designing / Building stations
12% · Free exploration
11% · Missions / Storylines
It looks like the interpretation is that players who prefer a particular type in general would have voted for that, but that might not be the case. For instance, I love missions and storylines in games, and story quality is a key factor for me to choose a game, but I can't say I enjoyed that with X4. I am usually just wondering wtf is going on, and reading the mission summary to be able to continue (it didn't help that the dialogs were cut in half because of a bug). So, you could interpret that survey result as "what is best achieved in X4 vs what could be improved".
The same thought can be applied to this question:
Which type of controls do you use most often in X4?
83% · Mouse and keyboard
9% · HOTAS
5% · Gamepad / Controller
I tried HOTAS, but it felt hard to use in X4. Maybe it's because of the nature of X4, or maybe the default settings could be improved.

Karvat
Posts: 377
Joined: Wed, 31. Jan 18, 12:37
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by Karvat » Tue, 29. Nov 22, 13:18

How many times have you started a new game?

15% · More than 10 times
25% · 5 to 10 times
45% · 2 to 4 times
15% · Just once
Unfortunately, the reason why I restarted the game more than 20 times, is because I got extremely bored of the map being small and repetitive, and every time an update was coming out, without reading the notes, I jumped on a fresh start and explored from scratch hoping to find new active gates, or changed borders, or even a redesigned universe, and that's it. There's literally no other reason but exploration remains on the most disappointing aspects of the game unfortunately...

thomasbkdk
Posts: 123
Joined: Wed, 8. Jan 20, 07:34
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by thomasbkdk » Tue, 29. Nov 22, 14:46

One of my wishes for the game that is high on the list.
That is a relatively easy to use "mission wizard" that the community could use to create single, and chain, missions that could be shared via the steam workshop.
In this way the community could contribute a great deal to the enjoyment for the whole community and the benefit of the longevity of the game.

I understand this kind of "mission wizard" program is not an easy thing to create.
But it would be a very exciting addition to the game/modding community.
AMD 3700X|GSKILL 2x16GB 3600C17|MSI X570 UNIFY|MSI RX 6800|SAMSUNG NVME 990 PRO|RAZER TARTARUS PRO|AOC AGON AG273QX 2560x1440@165|STREAM DECK XL+PEDAL|CORSAIR K95 PLATINUM RGB

waadaa85
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue, 8. Feb 22, 01:14
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by waadaa85 » Tue, 29. Nov 22, 15:11

mr.WHO wrote:
Mon, 28. Nov 22, 11:18
I'm glad that you want to reinvigorate your comittment to modding and open the possibility of signed-mods / official bonus pack.
Having to choose between lackluster Ventures and mods was rather poor choice.
Having Shuul and Kuertee on team will be great addition - their mods are high quality and content rich.

Still not keen on idea to push for ventures, Multiverse and possible co-op - there is large and cutthroat competition in MP featured space games and having SP/MP hybrid will surely negatively impact SP experience, while still underperforming coparing to MP-focused competition.

SP and huge moddability was always X-games greatest advantage - sacrificing it for vague opportunity to get the overcrowded MP cake is recipe for disaster.

Even on survey it's barely 50% of people who would want ot try MP features.this doesn't even account that for absolute majority, it would be just a fad - like ok, I'll play it for a few hours and never return to it.
I fully agree with Mr WHO's comment on SP and moddability and very pleased that Egosoft is seeking to keep both aspects central to the X4 series :-)
When I completed the survey, I was a bit concerned for the potential outcomes over the game's future direction if the survey results would have been strongly pointing toward MMO. Glad to see that some Coop gameplay has been expressed as desirable by the X4 community.

With both Shuul and Kuertee now onboard with the dev team, they can definitely help Egosoft to improve/ease the gameplay mechanic from a player POV. And I like very much the "mod signing" approach where Egosoft would be able to preserve X4 game balance while authorizing use for Quality-of-life mods. I'm eager to get such features' bonus pack

Cheers all
Waa
WaaDaa

"Station Administration would like to remind you to keep the children away from the airlocks"

Arlan
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed, 1. Sep 21, 00:18
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by Arlan » Tue, 29. Nov 22, 18:10

shovelmonkey wrote:
Mon, 28. Nov 22, 18:58
mr.WHO wrote:
Mon, 28. Nov 22, 11:18

Still not keen on idea to push for ventures, Multiverse and possible co-op - there is large and cutthroat competition in MP featured space games and having SP/MP hybrid will surely negatively impact SP experience, while still underperforming coparing to MP-focused competition.

SP and huge moddability was always X-games greatest advantage - sacrificing it for vague opportunity to get the overcrowded MP cake is recipe for disaster.

Even on survey it's barely 50% of people who would want ot try MP features.this doesn't even account that for absolute majority, it would be just a fad - like ok, I'll play it for a few hours and never return to it.
As someone who also voted yes on multiplayer, my vision for multiplayer and what I'm hoping ego is poking around at, isn't "overcrowded" mmo style persistent universe. Merely 2-4 player co-op that could be hosted on a dedicated server or local session. This is quite abit different than the idea of an mmo, which I have no interest in.
I voted for multiplayer and that it exactly what I meant. I'd like for Egosoft either to create local server for 2-4 players where they can start together or allow for other player fleet invasions (after selecting right window in options). The invasions could work similar to ventures or Invaders in Darksouls. The whole SP world would be intact, it would just add second player fleet that could wreck havoc or/and have objectives to fulfill

waadaa85
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue, 8. Feb 22, 01:14
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by waadaa85 » Tue, 29. Nov 22, 18:37

Actually, without going down the MMO rabbit-hole, designing Coop gameplay mechanics may hold several opportunities to improve individual players game's performance on central aspects like trading, or other parts of the game that is the most CPU intensive. Just imagine if you can isolate the whole trading facette into a dedicated process or executable. Which in turn could be run on a dedicated CPU or better, another local machine.

Such modular design would greatly help breaks the current performance barrier currently experienced when X4 is run on a single machine. Thus help to pave the way toward a more dynamic limitless open-world.

Pushing little further the concept, it could be possible to assign a dedicated process/executable which can oversight some key sectors responsible to animate the local "trading+piracy+policing fauna", keeping updated locations/behaviour and micro-managing individual NPC ships without taxing the main workstation's resources (which should focus on 3D rendering). Such dedicated processes/executables could indeed be specialized in a more granular manner to manage specific game's aspects like:
  • overall/common trading mechanics functions and calculations,
  • universe's overall macro-economic dynamics evolution and behaviours,
    • could be event-influenced,
    • could be modulated by sectors,group of sectors/factions,
    • could be parameterized through a autonomous "mission creation tool" (see post below from memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=543922, etc.
  • in-sector economy along resources availability and variations+trends by sector and group of sectors owned by the same faction,
  • resources' prices evolution able to take into account the local conditions influencing each sector
    • is it War-torn? piracy-plagged? peaceful/terraforming? frontier-edge ?
    • "soft"/white collar criminality (hacking-embezzlement,etc.)
  • in-sector NPCs ships' behaviour & responses facing events or modulated by player's own behaviour
  • out-sectors NPCs ships' locations updates, NPCs flight-paths calculations - destination "reachness", pre-processing of NPCs ships' status and possible outcomes from Piracy, ongoing Xenon/factions war operations, police interdiction, event-driven effects (Leap of Waith access could be a good use-case along "Tide ridding" automation for NPCs in Avarice Sectors)
  • Specific sector authority behaviour (good example is VIC autority and policies enforcement in Windfall)
  • could also be to support internal functions likes preprocessing menus' lists associated with each "zoom levels", everything that could lower the charge over PC Resources
  • etc.
Game performance really need a bit of love at this point of the game life-cycle imho.

In my current vanilla game (v5 HF3) running on a 1yr-old high-end Workstation with Intel i7 unlocked multicore, Radeon RX6900XT 16GB DDR6 and 1TB SSD, at some point, simple actions like single-clicking and double-clicking on objects or give buy/sell orders using the prices sliding bars requires a careful sense of timing... (not too fast-not too slow) for the orders to be correctly registered by the system...

Food for thoughts :-)

Cheers,
Waa
WaaDaa

"Station Administration would like to remind you to keep the children away from the airlocks"

jlehtone
Posts: 21801
Joined: Sat, 23. Apr 05, 21:42
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by jlehtone » Tue, 29. Nov 22, 21:57

waadaa85 wrote:
Tue, 29. Nov 22, 18:37
Just imagine if you can isolate the whole trading facette into a dedicated process or executable. Which in turn could be run on a dedicated CPU or better, another local machine.
IF

(said the Spartans)
Goner Pancake Protector X
Insanity included at no extra charge.
There is no Box. I am the sand.

Tyranos Strategos

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by Tyranos Strategos » Wed, 30. Nov 22, 00:28

I pray to all xenon gods if there will be next dlc we get more battleships or destroyers CoH dlc was absolutle example of good content. And paranind redesign was cool too if teladi would get facelift like paranid . Or just more big ships ..

Ormac
Posts: 1100
Joined: Mon, 14. Jan 08, 10:24
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by Ormac » Wed, 30. Nov 22, 01:56

I think I went with I like Split Vendetta, and It's the Soundtrack that tipped it over the edge.

I've already gone through the Terrans in Space experience via an Argon/Earthling proxy so when DLC 2 was more human "models" and fast ships, It was new audience material.
SV and CoH obviously very close on content and CoH benefits from what was learned from SV.
Both SV and CoH add sectors to Explore although I feel SV provided more "space" to do so not just sectors but headspace as well.

I was stunned when I got to the Multiplayer questions only thing Egosoft is asking the community about this time round. Forgot to fill in additional comments.

Given that there was the starting CE Bundle that was quickly updated to include ToA a few months after that was available.
I feel the X4:Foundation(base) + DLCs [optional] has heavily influenced their approach and the X-Universe has suffered for it.

Gregory
EGOSOFT
EGOSOFT
Posts: 743
Joined: Mon, 5. Aug 19, 06:17
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by Gregory » Wed, 30. Nov 22, 09:03

Ormac wrote:
Wed, 30. Nov 22, 01:56
Given that there was the starting CE Bundle that was quickly updated to include ToA a few months after that was available […]
That's not what happened, Tides of Avarice was not retroactively included in the Collector's Edition. We've replaced the old Collector's Edition package with a new bundle (different format, where Steam gives to the option to "complete" the bundle if you don't already own all it's individual pieces, at a discount). That new bundle (https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/2 ... 22_Bundle/) includes the base game, all expansions that have been released, as well as all X4 soundtracks that have been released.
All our channels in one convenient list :arrow: https://linktr.ee/egosoft

User avatar
mr.WHO
Posts: 8549
Joined: Thu, 12. Oct 06, 17:19
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by mr.WHO » Wed, 30. Nov 22, 09:14

If not that I already own all of this - the new bundle with -71% discount is a crazy bargain - so much content for less than present day AAA game.

Raptor34
Posts: 2475
Joined: Sat, 12. Jun 10, 04:43
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by Raptor34 » Wed, 30. Nov 22, 09:27

I'll support your takeaway that pretty ships is definitely a strong reason to buy a DLC. Even bought that Humanoid pack over in Stellaris because all the base game ships looked not that good.
Like for CoH the moment the Osaka was revealed I already knew it was a must buy.
Not so much for ToA. Disagree on the Erlking being a beauty though, maybe for X3 Teladi connoisseurs. And the Astrid despite looking good is also shit to fly so you should definitely not repeat that in future DLCs. Looks can carry you so far, but they must also feel good to use, which is why despite thinking that the Osaka looks superior to the Syn, the Syn has grown on me because of how damned comfy it is to fly with it's agility.
Like seriously, I don't know how anyone personally flew an Astrid and thought it was fine. Perhaps it should finally be allowed to upgrade it's thrusters to the Mk.3 version? Don't know why my "luxury" yacht is still stuck with cheap Mk.1 thrusters.

Karvat
Posts: 377
Joined: Wed, 31. Jan 18, 12:37
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by Karvat » Wed, 30. Nov 22, 15:09

I wonder if I am the only one who keeps buying DLCs to finance next Egosoft's projects, will it ever become a publicly traded company? :roll:

fallenwizard
Posts: 628
Joined: Tue, 13. Apr 10, 20:03
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by fallenwizard » Wed, 30. Nov 22, 15:39

🗨️ Nicer ships = higher approval rating?
The results of these survey questions lead us to assume that the popularity of expansions among players of X4 is driven primarily by the ships that we introduce in those expansions. In particular, we interpret this result to mean that the ships from X4: Cradle of Humanity are your favourites, resulting in it receiving the highest rating at 40%. Are we right in our assumptions, or are there other factors that led you to your answers? Feel free to let us know in the comments section for this article.
For me it wasn't really about the ships. I always end up using Split or Argon ships.

The best thing about CoH was the music (Rise of the Protectorate is my favourite song in the entire game), the interesting (and amount) of sectors and the plots are far more fun to play though compared to the ToA ones.
Spoiler
Show
The throwback to older X games like the Torus mission were great and I really want to see more of those in future X4 expansions or X5.
Also Boso Ta was included far more in CoH then he was in ToA. I want to see more plots involving him.

Loltak
Posts: 246
Joined: Sat, 22. Aug 09, 08:43
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by Loltak » Wed, 30. Nov 22, 18:19

Hi all,

I would have thought that more players had responded. I'm glad to be one of them :wink: .
I just want to add some personal insight for some questions:

How many hours have you invested in your most advanced savegame so far?
For the moment only 200h but it's often by several dozen hours that I'm playing that I "need" to change game.
I spend almost 500h on X-rebirth (including a faire amount of hours during the beta) , so I will probably spend at least that amount of time.

- How many times have you started a new game
For now probably only 3 times and I don't think I will raise this number a lot; one at the launch and twice after a big patch launch. Playing X game is a long run and I don't like to start over and over with the risk to not see the end-game.
"Finishing" a game is not my talent :mrgreen: .
To be honest I had not check how the custom game work, I might try it after your description.

Which (gameplay) element of X4 do you enjoy the most?
A difficult one for me, I like all and I'm not sure we were able to put 20% in each category. Exploration become less important as go the playtime but I like it at the start.

Multiplayer questions
I'm not a multi-player at core even with few years of playing WOW.
If I had to imaging this kind of functionality it's the possibility to have a friend who join your mostly solo game, so it's more your coop kind that the Asynchronous Multiplayer kind. (Or both at the same time perhaps?)

Do you use game modifications (mods) when playing X4?
None at this time, but I'm not against as I run few ones on previous X games.
As I previously said I tend to play on the long run I would not be "blocked" the modified game status for the Multiverse but also because I think I'm still in the process of dicovering the game and so far I had no urge to load a mod to correct something I don't like.
To be more precise, with the years I tend to use less mod on my (all) games so If I do, it likely be a QOL mod.

That all for now guys and good playing time :)
X4: Fondations Vanilla all extension.
Casual ineffective player at slow pace

dreamer2008
Posts: 287
Joined: Sat, 24. Dec 11, 11:14
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by dreamer2008 » Wed, 30. Nov 22, 21:39

🗨️ Nicer ships = higher approval rating?
The results of these survey questions lead us to assume that the popularity of expansions among players of X4 is driven primarily by the ships that we introduce in those expansions. In particular, we interpret this result to mean that the ships from X4: Cradle of Humanity are your favourites, resulting in it receiving the highest rating at 40%. Are we right in our assumptions, or are there other factors that led you to your answers? Feel free to let us know in the comments section for this article.
I don't agree with this assumption at all. What I liked most about Cradle of Humanity was the Yaki plot, which was very good, fun to play, and leading to interesting looking npc's to recruit. Also the dlc had good looking sectors, good music, a strong faction that could alter the galaxy either by getting into big wars against existing factions, or helping out against Xenon. The ships were good too, but that was the least interesting aspect for me.

User avatar
argantonio
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu, 17. Sep 15, 19:32
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by argantonio » Wed, 30. Nov 22, 22:28

i will 100% go with a co-op gameplay mode, i don't wanna play mmo... i wanna play WITH and AGAINST my friend in the same world :) and to let you guys know similar game that i wanna play with and against (same friend we like this kind of games xD) is bannerlord... :P we both been years waiting to play this kind of games in co-op but man there's so little co-op games out there :/

adeine
Posts: 1089
Joined: Thu, 31. Aug 17, 17:34
x4

Re: Some takeaways from our 2022 player survey

Post by adeine » Thu, 1. Dec 22, 04:48

The problem with ToA is that a lot of it is kind of gimmicky (tide/protectyon) and does not integrate well with the main game.

Both SV and CoH feel like they should have been part of the game to start with in an ideal world which is a much better way to flesh out the game. I just wish CoH's Terran economy/tech tree wasn't as barebones as it is.

Post Reply

Return to “X4: Foundations”