Rebirth 2: Suggestions thread. A brighter future.

[Lyth]

(Queue Saya Kho screaming Threadzilla!)

My thoughts on Rebirth after completing the plot and trying to continue the game afterwards first. If someone asks me what my favourite game is I always reply any of the X series. (pre-rebirth.) I've more hours spent on the X series than every other game played five or six times over.

I get it - you wanted a game that allowed the player to be free to fly around and fight without being bogged down having to micromanage anything with empire or trade management. You went for simplicity and succeeded.

I couldn't get beyond 52 hours with Rebirth, not because of bugs or because it wasn't fun, there was just nothing deeper, I had done everything to death and properly. I can sum up what is missing from the game in one word - Choices.

Your average action game has a life cycle of 20-40 hours of gameplay in it, you made 52 with me, not a bad accomplishment.

The X games though all had one thing in common, their was always something more underneath or another way of doing things, making use of information available in game or getting more, literally finding new ways to play the whole game differently. In making it simpler you removed that vital element because it wasn't needed for what you had, I get it.

It's not bugs, incomplete content or the things that will be added later, it's simply choices. Linear paths make up Rebirth from top to bottom. The depth, options and learning curve that so encapsulated previous X games literally doesn't exist in Rebirth.

What you have and why so many people are angry is because this is either an action game at best or a simulator game for children as only games for children have no choices or options on how to manage something, would rather not assume you think we are too stupid to understand how an economy works by hiding it all from us and making sure we cannot get at it.

This community is made up of Combat fighters, Trade Moguls, Empire Builders, RTS Admirals and every mix in between but this game only serves the smallest minority of Combat fighters.

You have said this ad-nauseum but no one ever listened. This is not, will not and cannot be an X game like it's predecessors. The ability to manage just is not there. This is an action game and not a strategy game.

The biggest gripe I have playing rebirth is that it is like having someone in the corner of the room saying "You must do it this way!". I know you think this is what the community wanted but I assure you, it's what only a small % of the community wanted who don't want anyone playing the game the way they want too only they way they think is the right way. It's a SP game, ask yourself what kind of person tries to dictate what another person should find fun or not or how to play their own game?

If I could sum up the entire problem with the development of Rebirth and suggestions from the community that have clearly been taken to heart in it creation, it would be that it has suffered from a bad case of misunderstanding: It's the classic CAG argument.

Non trader/empire players see someone that uses CAG's and think they are just clicking on something automated that they can forget all about without having to manage it because they are lazy or want something that is click and forget. What the average CAG player is actually doing though is spending 30 minutes configuring the thousands of options in the setup to have it working the way they want because they planned it all out which works in conjunction with another group or a myriad of other things - if they want too.

Choice and options. When designing Rebirth 2 please be sure to take a sample of all the types of X gamers so you don't get bit by the community you tried to help and deliver what it asked for. Simplicity is great for those that want it and clearly some do, just give us the choice please, we're all different and we like to play the game differently.

That said, Rebirth may have gone south abit but you still have some of the best space games ever created under your belt, 6 out of 7 is an awesome track record, Good fortune and happy bug hunting Rebirth and I will be looking forward to Rebirth 2.

As someone that does everything but has the most enjoyment in the Empire and RTS side here are just a few things that I would like to make Rebirth 2 playable for me long term based on the Rebirth Engine using Rebirth 1 as the template.



General Empire suggestions:

1. Give the player ship a small universal cargo space. Some of those small ships are dwarfed by the Skunk, makes no sense it has no cargo space.

2. Stations require a proper docking port for goods delivery, assuming you want "space cities" to be able to handle the trade load that old complex hubs used too then in practical terms it just isn't up to the job, if you have the only optics sell point under your control and have 20+ ships waiting to trade it fails spectacularly or takes over an hour when functioning properly for a dozen or so ships, the old hubs could mow through a few thousand ships in an hour and they had to dock aswell so whilst having a port for each ware is a nice idea on paper, the reality of what we have doesn't hold up. Am sure half the cargo drone bugs are due to this new way of handling it. Each section of a space city needs a proper docking area.*

3. All those info points on stations need to be effecting the efficiency of goods production, not the price. This is just common sense, for the player stations this would be solved by having an engineer conducting maintenance to keep things running smoothly.

4. Allow the modification of the price of goods, this is essential. Flat out 100% essential.**

5. Make the small ships a full part of the economy***, now I could have sworn I saw small ships with the goods that I read can only be traded with by freighters and have seen small ships in the queues with freighters to sell wares, just let them trade with a small cargo space. Freighters will still be essential for big sales but atleast every ship will be a part of the economy. As it was, I had absolutely no idea what they were doing in the game.

6. Construction ships, either give the construction ship the ability to make multiple stations/defence platforms or just have the things removed after construction, architects belong on the station. Every city just needs a core building and allow us to build extensions of our choice after that. No more spoon feeding and hand holding here, freedom of choice is essential. Having a ship float around doing nothing is a waste on every level, its job could be done by a core structure where the architect would be, freeing up the ship to move on or become part of the core instead of becoming a fake asset or consigned to limbo once the "city" is finished.

7. Remove multiple docking ports for single sections of "space cities", playing hide and seek on stations is terrible or atleast add in software that allows the player to skip the need to land on every/any part of a station to find people. Player stations need only one dock type per section/extension. When the stations get fully built, many of them overlap poorly making any number of docking ports inaccessible.

8. Each station just needs a core section and the players choice of extensions which can support x type specific addons. If a player wants to make a manufacturing extension and an extension that can produce all the wares neccessary then let them. It is part of the Think process and why you would hire an architect instead of following a by the numbers schematic.

9. Give us a locked Trade screen with full information, don't just remove things from it assuming it is what is best for us, being able to see the big picture sector by sector if we wish it, is essential for business planning. Finding out after you have built something to sell a ware to a specific station that it actually was capable of building but just didn't have any for sale at said time with no other way of knowing just isn't funny.

10. Restricting the area of station management to a sector isn't enough, if you want players to be able to manage fuel allowance then this needs to be by zone as well.

11. Managers and stations need indepth changes so that each section can be controlled, tweaked and overseen, more info is badly needed but only if the ability to micromanage is with it.

12. Freedom of placement, saying where we can build stations isn't great.

13. Ability to build more stations, not just more build points is badly needed, having a limit on how much we can build makes the player feel like he is using up slots not free building the empire of their choice.

UI:
1. Keyboard shortcuts
2. Ability to fix/lock the target point so a joystick is functional rather than a novelty. Cockpit simulators use Joysticks not game pads.
3. If cockpits are to stay then they need to be interactive, the whole menu system could have been inbedded in the wasted bottom right monitor of the cockpit, been mouse/joystick activated and you would have had a smoother UI all around. If PC gamers wanted to use game pads they would buy consoles.
4. When selecting on a target or viewing assets - location, distance, sector/zone location, health and orders are vital pieces of information that need to be on top or in front.


Combat:
1. Radar. 100% essential.
2. Cycle targets/Cycle hardpoints.
3. If you are going for an action game you need more ships to fight and a reason.

Game Options:
1. Skip cutscenes.
2. SETA (If you use a seta like function during testing of the economy then those that just want to trade and not fight should have the same thing.)

Travel:
1. Playership Jumpdrives. X isn't meant to be a highway simulator game, I could fight the boredom using them for exploration of new zones but after that let me use a jumpdrive, highways make travelling a chore not a pleasure and fighting the menu system and having to dock to get a lift isn't much better.

Information:
1. More, more , more please. Would like to know top to bottom anything about everything.
2. Ability to rename assets for organisiation.

The ship:
1. Customisable should mean distinct setup advantages between a Fighter ship, Fast Interceptor ship, Defence ship, Drone specialist, hacking specialist, Exploration/Scanning ship, Fleet command ship or Trading ship.
2. I'm sure you have a lot of software upgrades planned for the ship so will just say more.

If I could ask for anything in Rebirth 2 it would be this as your Mantra.. choices, options, choices. Without this I don't think there is anything more to Rebirth as a game and I hope you will give my suggestions some thought.

-Would love to hear other people's suggestions for rebirth 2.

[Mopy]

4, 10 and 11 are important to me also. I miss that level of control. When my first station went up and set buying ecells to +20%, I scrambled for a while trying to fire whoever was in charge. That's my account he's being irresponsible with

[Ryuujin]

The whole purpose of having trading URV's seems completely missed IMO.

In X3:TC I had a mod that allowed me to rapidly load and unload my TL class ships via the use of cargo drones - the advantage to this method over docking was that I could scan the area for good trades and send shoals of drones out to grab the wares from one factory while checking the price of the next, send a shoal out there and so on and rapidly buy specific amounts of wares and bring them back to my TL from anywhere in the zone.

However, in X:R this is NOT how they implemented it, instead the ship adopts a position that is essentially just docking with a small gap between ship and station, and then uses the URV's to "jump the gap" when a simple docking arm would've sufficient and also prevented a whole slew of bugs.

[Lyth]

The whole purpose of having trading URV's seems completely missed IMO.

In X3:TC I had a mod that allowed me to rapidly load and unload my TL class ships via the use of cargo drones - the advantage to this method over docking was that I could scan the area for good trades and send shoals of drones out to grab the wares from one factory while checking the price of the next, send a shoal out there and so on and rapidly buy specific amounts of wares and bring them back to my TL from anywhere in the zone.

However, in X:R this is NOT how they implemented it, instead the ship adopts a position that is essentially just docking with a small gap between ship and station, and then uses the URV's to "jump the gap" when a simple docking arm would've sufficient and also prevented a whole slew of bugs.

Yeah, I never used cargo drones after that first ship and my economy/trades ran so much smoother in comparison.

[Llothlian]

When designing / redesigning the Skunk I'd like them to look at Eve and ask themselves why ships design is so fun, popular and challenging there. I can have the same ship as a shield tank, armour tank, fast tackler, slow tank, drone sniper, stealthy covops, stealthy bomber, a hacker, a scanner. And it's completely different play style in each configuration! The Skunk needs to be similar to a T3 Cruiser from Eve Online. Infinitely modifiable to fit the situation and your desires.

[LastChime]

I don't see why many of those things won't be added to rebirth eventually (aside from jdrive and seta) without a new title...They just punched it in the nose and threw it on the plate bloody so to speak, I'd wager they'll fix it. It's got near the depth of the previous titles, it's just hidden within this gangly UI and these clunky menus.

[Artean]

I don't see why many of those things won't be added to rebirth eventually (aside from jdrive and seta) without a new title...They just punched it in the nose and threw it on the plate bloody so to speak, I'd wager they'll fix it. It's got near the depth of the previous titles, it's just hidden within this gangly UI and these clunky menus.

Yup, agree. I believe there are plenty of 'depth' to unlock.

OP: Great many suggestions in that list!

[Lyth]

I don't see why many of those things won't be added to rebirth eventually (aside from jdrive and seta) without a new title...They just punched it in the nose and threw it on the plate bloody so to speak, I'd wager they'll fix it. It's got near the depth of the previous titles, it's just hidden within this gangly UI and these clunky menus.

Nope, sorry. Not saying it couldn't be done but that's not what Rebirth is. We cannot mod in the vast majority of these things as is. (I'd be busy making them instead of posting if I could.) The game would have to go back into development. This is not X4.

A function like SETA is already working in Rebirth, it's just not in the public release because "the community" did not want it in the vanilla game, which just goes back to choice but as it stands there is no vanilla game so...

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

Capital ship main bridges to walk into and be inside, capital ship hull shields, a "fly where I point on map" command (usable from the capital ship main bridge).

[Lyth]

Capital ship main bridges to walk into and be inside, capital ship hull shields, a "fly where I point on map" command (usable from the capital ship main bridge).

Yes, I think that is fully doable in the current game I think but a great idea and one I have seen repeated alot, having them actually sitting at stations would be a must though, capital ships should have engine rooms too for the engineer but would happily settle for a chief engineer post where they control the drones from.

I was looking at possibilities with Rebirth and would expand that to include full FPS combat allowing the boarding and capturing of stations and ships by the player supported by marine bots and defence systems.

I just didn't think now is the time to be adding more mini games to the mix, maybe in the future when things have settled down, it would be nice to add the options though which is one of the great things the new engine allows - aslong as the player has the choice to do it themselves or just send in the marines and manage it - being able to watch the boarding attempt on a camera would be a huge bonus.

Crews in general are an absolutely awesome new feature, we have always had crews but now we can get serious with them, navigators, comms officers and accountants are just a few of the possibilities off the top of my head. Specific pilot types would be nice - miner/prospector and trader/merchant for example.

- The fly where I point UI so you can actually command the bridge is nice, would settle for a better map so I could plot the course I want in a tactical style with overlays for fleet commands would be great.

[LastChime]

Capital ship main bridges to walk into and be inside, capital ship hull shields, a "fly where I point on map" command (usable from the capital ship main bridge).

Once they get the commands working from inside a ship or station.....In fact I'd love that, I get sick of the skunk after a while so just wandering around my factory with my tophat, monocle and cigar pointing my trade armada around would be great.....but no workie yet.

[gbjbaanb]

I think it can be summed up really easily - we want X3 game inside the X:R engine.

All the depth of gameplay and the conisstenty of how the world behaved was there in X3, it worked very well. So we just need all those options back, and all the ways the ships of old worked (ie you didn't *need* a cargo transport to move cargo, if you only have a small amount of high-worth goods, a fast courier would be better). The station production and economy worked much better - so keep it, the map and autopilot (as a way to go places without having to manually fly all the way, you could make it beep and cancel when you got close to something like real autopilots do), the old comms system, and so forth.

Now you improve upon it by using the new stuff in X:R that makes sense (no, not the minigames), things like the crew - that's an improvement, as are cargolifters - but it beats me why cargo ships need to dock at all - they should be able to un/load 'remotely' using their drones and never come near a station.

I'm not sure if I'd prefer the X3 menus though, but I definitely know the X:R UI is shit. So a new UI is absolutly needed. Hire a HCI expert egosoft.

So - X3 mechanics, X:R style with some improvements. Kicking it all out and starting from scratch is *always* a stupid and often arrogant way of doing things.

[Rath]

Looks like you like everything in a X game that i like as well.

No matter how clear you spell it out to people some just don't seem to grasp that none of these things will be added to rebirth, because that isn't what rebirth was ever meant to be.

Its a shame because i like this new look and general feel and it does a great job at pretending to be something its not....untill you finish the campaign and find out your done. Move along, nothing to see here.


And the strange thing?.....,,personally

Assassins creed 4, 45 hours twice. Doubt ill play it again.
GTAV 55 hours, might stick it on again at some point for another run through.
X:Rebirth 160 hours so far but i think ive had enough.

So for me personally, to egosoft this game HAS actually been a great success for what it is.

And who can argue?

[DaddyMonster]

Aside from the modelling, I'd like to see npcs who talk and trade with each other and have some sense of movement and purpose.

Real docking. Ideally, fly off from the platform.

Station hangers where craft land and npcs get off.

Much more to the player ships, turrets, npcs with roles and a living feeling crew.

Autopilot.

Fair more in the way of ship customisation and upgrades,

Stuff like that

[rpek32]

Suggestion: egosoft, You make game for PC, so forget about gamepad-oriented User Interface. For PC primary input device is keyboard + mouse (+joystick). and normal HUD.
and btw: where is hands of Ren Otani? and why the steering wheel not moving?

[St4n]

From your title I expected something dreaming about impossible features, but you have a well written post without dreams of super HD interiors of stations which are individual on each station filled with life like a city in an "AAA" RPG or something...

No, you pointed out what's essential for an X game and I fully agree.
Coice, choice, choice and another layer of choice topped with more choice!

Edit: My toughts about the game overwhelmed me, so I at least added spoiler tags.

Spoiler

Show

It's no X4.
It's no X4? Ok, fine. But people want an X4 and Egosoft fead them with false promises like customizable playership (I laugh about the level of customization), freely expandable stations (lol, upgrading without choice isn't "free") and argumentations implying things that arn't there...

Argumentations like: No complex building with lanes replacing transporters between stations, now you can build a base station and add modules.
Offcourse people think that you can build a energy and water production next to food and material production to finally support your high-tech production all in one station. Who the hell did build 8 times the same station in a sector and connected them all? (Which is basicly what you now can do with the fixed upgrades.)

Or...

Build capitals like stations. Whoaaaa, modular capships? What a nice feature! Different modules give a whole bunch of possibilities! Oh, they "meant" setting if you want full numbers on shields and turrets or less. (What a choice...) By the way, where is the "placement" of diffenrent substructures on the hull? As far as I can tell the turrets and shield positions are fixed... nevermind beeing able to choose from different types of shields and turrets...

They not only dumped this game down, they dumped it down AND promised MORE features than in the previous games!

*random insult* with "It's not X4." Most people didn't expect an X4. They expected the game you promised and with you (Egosoft) comparing it to past games talking about features that IMPROVE the game over older ones people expect that you only take out those outdated mechanics, not ALL mechanics.
I was not expecting X4. But I expected modular stations and capships and a workin economy. (Ever played a game like port royale?) An accesible "casual friendly" menunavigation and a lot of automation to complex features. But even that failed. Yeah, casuals like to remember strings like "enter-x-y-z" for the most basic commands. They never need "right click" or ringmenus which lock your cursor to their middle and you chose your choice by simply moving the mouse half a milimeter left to mark the left choice. Instead this ringmenus simply add buttons to the screen.
Oh, and casuals like to not be able to double click on anything. (Like clicking on the sector on the map instead of the button "sector" to switch to that map.

...Oh god, I drifted away.... Sorry I had so many stuff boiled in my head, but I don't want to open a whine thread but, but... It just happened...

Ok, back to the topic.

I basicly want only so much as was promised. I don't mind what they have "meant" with their arguments. I mind what they have said.
I don't tell people that I improved my "super chocolatecream cherry cake" with better stoneless cherry (because the old with stones give some people trouble) and then selling them a bread with some stoneless cherrys in it leaving all the super chocolatecream out.

[TinkerToy]

If Bernd is really serious about the fact that "this is the way it is and this is the way it shall always be", then Rebirth-2 will just be another exciting and action-packed episode in the "Saga of Ren and Yisha".


However, if Egosoft ever feel the urge to create another actual X-game in the "old tradition", I would strongly suggest that they remove any traces of the word "Rebirth" from the game title...

[Monkeyfister]

Only suggestion that I have for a "Rebirth 2," is DON'T MAKE IT!!!

Just forget Rebirth ever happened, period.

I eagerly await an X4 game, however.

[1138_4EB]

Aside from the modelling, I'd like to see npcs who talk and trade with each other and have some sense of movement and purpose.

It's a little ridiculous that I can happen to walk into a station that has 4-5 drone salesmen, same standing right beside each other, write down their prices, and then trade around their wares to make crazy amounts of money.
I've turned ~50k into several million in the space of a few minutes this way. It isn't fun, and it feels broken and feels like an exploit, but it's the natural way any person who can put two and two together to play the game!
How hard would it be to make all npcs on a station who sell the same wares to have the same prices? Would they not talk to each other?

[gbjbaanb]

Looks like you like everything in a X game that i like as well.

No matter how clear you spell it out to people some just don't seem to grasp that none of these things will be added to rebirth, because that isn't what rebirth was ever meant to be.

true, but Bernd kept telling us it was supposed to have all the depth of the previous games... I can;t see how you'd get that in a "fight, think, build, trade" game without having most of the features in the X3 game!

I think a lot of people think a X4 would be X3 with a few more mods added on, and I think that's what Bernd thinks too, but most of us want X:R with the actual depth of X3, we just happen to call that X4 for want of a better term, as we think the X3 features, options and commands are what makes the game, not pathetic concepts like crawling around looking for dropped change. We just want those features improved with more options - like crew for example, excellent idea and adds a lot to the game, if done properly and combined with all the other bits we used to have.

Maybe we should coin a new term for what we want - X4:Rebirth maybe, or X:R2 because frankly X:R just doesn't cut it.