Some feedback from a new player

[Waervyn]

Hi!

As a fan of X3, I really wanted to try out X-rebirth. Having read so much negative criticism I decided to try it out for myself and see if I could provide some useful feedback. I only played it for one hour (then it crashed), so my experience is limited, but I already gathered some points that might be of help. I guess my points are mostly about 'immersiveness' of the game, as I haven't gotten to try out many of the gameplay features yet. I found X3 very very immersive, and could get 'lost' in the game for hours on end, but there are already a couple of things that are preventing me from doing the same in X-rebirth.

- I somehow loved docking in X3. It was a bit of a slow process, but you could see everything happening. Now you just click dock, and Otani already moves away from the cockpit while Yisha asks for permission. I would like to have the ability to actually see my ship dock!
- The 'walking in station' parts: I don't want to sounds mean, as I know the developers have spent quite some time on this, but personally...I would scrap the entire thing. It did have the possibility to be immersive...HOWEVER...knowing that I'm NOT walking on that particular station, but just on some random rooms thrown together, completely breaks any immersion I could have. Furthermore the controls are a bit wonky, but that could be easily fixed of course.
- Stardust...it sounds really minor, but...there's these particles floating in space...that you can't see...except when you move. Furthermore, they already form a line if you travel really slowly! This doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Personally I don't need stardust telling me in which direction I'm flying. I guess this could (or might already have been) modded out, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.
- The highways...I know there is a lot of discussion about these. While I'm not a fan of them, I also don't mind them as much as some people. However...flying behind other ships to go faster? How does that work? In space? Which is 99.99999% empty? It just doesn't make any sense to me.
- searching for loot in stations is not very nice either. I want to be some kind of a trader king-pin, but at the same time I'm scavenging lockers to see if I can find anything interesting.

There are some other points that I personally don't like, but that's just because I love X3, and X-rebirth is not X4, so I know the design philosophy is way different. But, just to not leave it unmentioned. I'm 1h into the game...and I already have some kind of capital ship! In my current X3 playthrough...I'm 50h in, and I only have a couple of ships and freighters. Getting all the cool stuff at the beginning ruins any sense of 'accomplishment' in my opinion. But again, I know you guys wanted to design it that way, but I thought I'd mention it anyway


Hope it's of some help!

[Alan Phipps]

That is pretty good and constructive immersion comment based on your opinions of the early game. Well done! I do tend to agree somewhat.

[DaddyMonster]

A patch option to turn stardust on or off would, I imagine, be a fairly easy patch - most likely there's already a mod but I prefer vanilla. Be aware that without stardust it may be very hard to sense movement - you might end up turning it on again.

More generally I agree, immersion needs work.

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

We need a patch that gives us option to turn fake ships & stardust (little rocks too) on/off.

Seriously.



I mean, SERIOUSLY, we really need those options.

[Aken_Bosch]

- Stardust...it sounds really minor, but...there's these particles floating in space...that you can't see...except when you move. Furthermore, they already form a line if you travel really slowly! This doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Personally I don't need stardust telling me in which direction I'm flying. I guess this could (or might already have been) modded out, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.

Had the same minor gripe as you, I've found stardust to be a little too thick and obstructing..luckily, some good samaritan made a mod to remove it just as you guessed, and now for me it's like stardust never existed (sorry, I'm suffering from link laziness, you'll find it around here in the S&M forum or on the Nexus, anyway )

- The highways...I know there is a lot of discussion about these. While I'm not a fan of them, I also don't mind them as much as some people. However...flying behind other ships to go faster? How does that work? In space? Which is 99.99999% empty? It just doesn't make any sense to me.

Same as above, same gripe as you and almost same solution...I'm using a mod that remove the tail minigame, the fake traffic (only "real" traffic ships remains, and they are quite a few) and gives almost infinite booster in highways, now the thing for me is much more enjoyable...still, I'm wondering why they didn't make the minigame the opposite of what it is now...having the fastest ship in the lane, constantly gaining speed while trying to dodge the slower traffic, would have made much more sense to me...

- searching for loot in stations is not very nice either. I want to be some kind of a trader king-pin, but at the same time I'm scavenging lockers to see if I can find anything interesting.

Thought the same at the start, when I didn't even have the money to afford a couple rookie marines for boarding...then, after some hours of gameplay and with quite some money in my account, I simply stopped bothering about crates and lockers, as if they never existed

Anyway, congratulations, one hour of gameplay, and more constructive and spot on criticism than some people after a couple hundred hours

[birdtable]

Just imagine how constructive he would be after playing for a couple of hundred hours .... A little more forthright I think.

[Waervyn]

Just imagine how constructive he would be after playing for a couple of hundred hours .... A little more forthright I think.

Well, to be honest I'm not going to put 100s of hours in it, as I have problems with being 'immersed' into it at the moment.

I'll check out those mods though, see how it improves

[birdtable]

[Aken_Bosch]

But don't forget the most important of them all, the one and only mod that really changed the rules of the game for me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXv3P6PdtH8



(I'd like to say that I'm joking...but still...it's the little things that make a house a home ...)

[spacecoyote99]

Have you tried the freeplay game yet? I find it a lot more fun than the plot, exactly because of what you mentioned: the plot gives you too much stuff too quickly. It's meant as a tutorial but you end up with stations and ships that you're not really supposed to have until much later (imo.)

And in general I prefer these kinds of games to be as 'free' as possible

[Waervyn]

Haven't tried freeplay yet! Just installed the no-stardust mod (and some others) motherofgod...without the stardust the game looks way..waaay better (to me).

Can't figure out which controls I like best though. I have a nice Thrustamster T1600m, however, the problem is I can't assign strafing to the tophat switch somehow. And considering strafing is so extremely important (in highways for example), that's kind of annoying. With the Xbox360 controller I can strafe, but then I can't roll (manually)! Gah!

[birdtable]

@ Aken_Bosch ...... I'd like to say that I'm joking...but still...it's the little things that make a house a home

An accurate statement..... and the wrong little things ruin a home.


Just got that mod ...Now if I could just meet some seedy character to take on a shady dangerous mission ...

[Chobittsu]

Finally, someone who isn't just here to whine about refunds.
YOU THERE! Stick around! We need more people like you!

[Santi]

That is a very good opinion, not totally agree with all of them, prefer docking in X2 myself as you actually go into the station, there was secret containers inside as well. But agree that I would prefer a manual docking procedure than to the automatic thing we have now, if it was a quick procedure, ask for docking, door slides open, you go in.

Walking in stations is something that I see with great potential for new content, from own personalized stations for the player to extravehicular activity (EVA), I don't mind stardust but highways annoy me quite a bit.

One change that you noticed is that for the first time, we have two game modes, Campaign and Freeplay, where before both were integrated into one. Lets see how it pans out.

[Waervyn]

Walking in stations is something that I see with great potential for new content, from own personalized stations for the player to extravehicular activity (EVA), I don't mind stardust but highways annoy me quite a bit.
.

I agree that it has potential, but in my opinion ONLY if we actually walk on the station we boarded at, not some 'randomized' bunch of rooms. Would indeed be awesome if you added a part to your station and you could actually walk through that part. Of course the stations are humongeous, but for me that would add to the immersion (maybe some kind of horizontal elevators could make it quicker?).

Ah well, guess we have to see