Difficulty levels

[LandogarX4]

Quite a few people have pointed out the lack of challenge in the end game for veteran players, but the issue is that the changes they propose would complicate things too much for the more casual player.

From what I have read on the forums and on reddit, there is a lot of heterogeneity in the perceived difficulty of X4, Some people complain about opposite factions (Xenon and HOP mainly) being way too strong, while others feel like the Xenon pose no real threat for a competent player. In my opinion, the only way around this issue are difficulty levels!

During my first playthrough, I felt challenged enough to enjoy the game. But now at my third playthrough, I as many others have the issue of not finding the end game challenging. Knowing all about things like autominers, defense stations, where Xenon and other factions tend to attack over time, what station modules to build where and when, having your own wharf etc. just make the game trivial. Some turn to mods to make the game more difficult, but a lot of players are not willing to go down that route due to the modified tag and not liking some of the many changes most well-made mods make. There's also the potential for bugs of course.

Let's say the current version of the game would be the standard difficulty. It would be very easy to introduce additional difficulties to be selected at game start that simply tweak a bunch of parameters such as maximum Xenon fleet strength, their production efficiency, aggressiveness, etc. Additionally, the factions other than the one belonging to the game start could be buffed. For example, if you choose the HOP game start, then the strength of HOP's opponents, Argon and Paranid would be buffed. Potentially, difficulty could also be increased by lowering the profit margin of player-owned shipyards, increasing the cost of defence platforms, etc. I'm sure there are other tweaks that people could come up with.

In terms of benefits of choosing a harder game start, the trade and fight ranks could increase more quickly. Or you get an achievement when you survive x days on the new difficulty.

To avoid frustration for newer players, a warning could be added to the higher difficulties that emphasizes that they are intended only for veteran players.

The new difficulty levels would require very little development time, but hugely add to the replayability and enjoyment for veteran players. I see no real downside and really hope the developers (re-)consider this idea.

[Raevyan]

There was a difficulty slider in Rebirth and I didn’t like it. Why? Because it just nerfed the dmg player did/buffed the hull of npc ships. That’s not more difficult, it’s just takes longer. Other games do also suffer from a difficulty slider that just turns out the game into a longer waiting game.

Attaching trade/fight ranks to difficulty is useless, because they do not have any effect in X4 and probably are just a leftover from previous games. Also new achievements does not incentivize not make it any more difficult.

I’m totally up for more challenge but the problem is, Egosoft would probably just be able to up the resource requirements for missions or make everything produce slower and buying things more expensive. In the end it’ll just be added time required. We want challenges and not waiting time and that I think ego will probably not pull off out of thin air.

[jlehtone]

Potentially, difficulty could also be increased by lowering the profit margin of player-owned shipyards, increasing the cost of defence platforms, etc.

Price of ship is based on the resources it takes?
Less resources, less price => less profit?
But, less price means cheaper ships at start. Easier for NPC factions to build their fleets (even without player).

Test your tweaks with a mod.

[CBJ]

The new difficulty levels would require very little development time...

Unfortunately, as I've explained before, this assumption is fundamentally flawed. Parameters that might seem "small" at first glance, such as production efficiency or Xenon strength can have a huge effect on the balancing of the game, leading to massive side effects, often in unexpected areas. Either one of these two examples could, for example, lead to a complete collapse of the in-game economy, or to one faction either completely overrunning the galaxy or vanishing from the game entirely within a few hours. This isn't just conjecture; we run regular tests in-house, and we've seen it happening. Far from requiring "very little development time", the amount of work involved to create a playable game with multiple combinations of such parameters, not to mention all the additional testing that would be required, would be very significant indeed.

[LandogarX4]

There was a difficulty slider in Rebirth and I didn’t like it. Why? Because it just nerfed the dmg player did/buffed the hull of npc ships. That’s not more difficult, it’s just takes longer. Other games do also suffer from a difficulty slider that just turns out the game into a longer waiting game.

Attaching trade/fight ranks to difficulty is useless, because they do not have any effect in X4 and probably are just a leftover from previous games. Also new achievements does not incentivize not make it any more difficult.

I’m totally up for more challenge but the problem is, Egosoft would probably just be able to up the resource requirements for missions or make everything produce slower and buying things more expensive. In the end it’ll just be added time required. We want challenges and not waiting time and that I think ego will probably not pull off out of thin air.

Fair point. Nerfing player damage is probably a bad idea. But the difficulty of, say, the Xenon could also be changed by letting them simply wield more (capital) ships or by having them fly in large formations more often. If would not just take longer to kill an attacking Xenon force, you might actually lose the battle or lose more of your ships. Thus making it a struggle to keep outproducing your losses or to desperately try to hold a sector with large amounts of your station assets. Even in the end game.

The suggestions for how to reward higher difficulties are entirely optional, the reward of more challenging game play should suffice. But some would surely appreciate these minor rewards.

[Max Bain]

The new difficulty levels would require very little development time...

Unfortunately, as I've explained before, this assumption is fundamentally flawed. Parameters that might seem "small" at first glance, such as production efficiency or Xenon strength can have a huge effect on the balancing of the game, leading to massive side effects, often in unexpected areas. Either one of these two examples could, for example, lead to a complete collapse of the in-game economy, or to one faction either completely overrunning the galaxy or vanishing from the game entirely within a few hours. This isn't just conjecture; we run regular tests in-house, and we've seen it happening. Far from requiring "very little development time", the amount of work involved to create a playable game with multiple combinations of such parameters, not to mention all the additional testing that would be required, would be very significant indeed.

One thing that could maybe be done without effecting the AI is some kind of taxes because only the player has money. So the player could choose 0%, 25% or 50% taxes and this would lower his income when he would sell stuff to the AI or it would make stuff more expensive if he buys it. So the prices would be calculated like before but only a tax parameter will be multiplied to the end result. I very often read that money is too easy to earn in X4 and this could help to make the game harder (until the player has a full production line, but that would take significantly longer).

[Raevyan]

Potentially, difficulty could also be increased by lowering the profit margin of player-owned shipyards, increasing the cost of defence platforms, etc.

Price of ship is based on the resources it takes?
Less resources, less price => less profit?
But, less price means cheaper ships at start. Easier for NPC factions to build their fleets (even without player).

Test your tweaks with a mod.

Lowering the profit margin does not make anything more difficult. It just makes making money slower and wastes more time. Yes, making money in X4 is way too easy and you can pretty much skip early and mid game and end up with more money than you can ever spend. But the game will still be as easy as before.

As CBJ said, implementing real difficulty into the game that is not just “slow down money making for player or making everything more expensive for the player” while also balancing the universe so that it is somewhat stable isn’t something ego is able to pull off with little effort.

I mean look at what we got right now. HOP is steamrolling everything in most games (with no player intervention). Same applies to Xenon that steamroll ZYA because they only have 2 sectors where they have mineable resources. TEM, at least in my game, was gone before they even became a real party in PAR civil war...

[LandogarX4]

The new difficulty levels would require very little development time...

Unfortunately, as I've explained before, this assumption is fundamentally flawed. Parameters that might seem "small" at first glance, such as production efficiency or Xenon strength can have a huge effect on the balancing of the game, leading to massive side effects, often in unexpected areas. Either one of these two examples could, for example, lead to a complete collapse of the in-game economy, or to one faction either completely overrunning the galaxy or vanishing from the game entirely within a few hours. This isn't just conjecture; we run regular tests in-house, and we've seen it happening. Far from requiring "very little development time", the amount of work involved to create a playable game with multiple combinations of such parameters, not to mention all the additional testing that would be required, would be very significant indeed.

Sorry, I've missed the previous discussion. I can imagine that it would be hard to 'balance' the new difficulties. But I'm not sure they have to be balanced. The Xenon overrunning the entire galaxy and factions being wiped out actually sounds pretty appealing There could also be some safeguards be built in, where the Xenon strength starts at the normal level and then gets multiplied by a small factor every, say, 1 in-game day up to a maximum. This way the Xenon would grow in strength along with the player. Once the player has their own shipyard and huge production complexes, they can make sure that the factions they want to survive will do so. So the balancing in the late game should be less of an issue.

Even if there is a risk, I think it would be worth a try to start with very few, select, changes (say to the Xenon only) and to let people test it out with a strong disclaimer that the difficulty level is experimental and might lead to broken plots. Possibly as part of a beta. But it also depends on how much demand there is for such a change, of course. I hope I'm not the only one who finds the prospect appealing.

[Max Bain]

Potentially, difficulty could also be increased by lowering the profit margin of player-owned shipyards, increasing the cost of defence platforms, etc.

Price of ship is based on the resources it takes?
Less resources, less price => less profit?
But, less price means cheaper ships at start. Easier for NPC factions to build their fleets (even without player).

Test your tweaks with a mod.

Lowering the profit margin does not make anything more difficult. It just makes making money slower and wastes more time. Yes, making money in X4 is way too easy and you can pretty much skip early and mid game and end up with more money than you can ever spend. But the game will still be as easy as before.

As CBJ said, implementing real difficulty into the game that is not just “slow down money making for player or making everything more expensive for the player” while also balancing the universe so that it is somewhat stable isn’t something ego is able to pull off with little effort.

I mean look at what we got right now. HOP is steamrolling everything in most games (with no player intervention). Same applies to Xenon that steamroll ZYA because they only have 2 sectors where they have mineable resources. TEM, at least in my game, was gone before they even became a real party in PAR civil war...

Why is it not more difficult? If you start with 1 billion credits at start for me that would be pretty easy game. I would instantly buy a fleet and rush the universe. If I start with 1 buck, life is way harder. Every loss counts and I have to replace it and have to earn the money for that.
Sure, with unlimited time, I still will win the game, but because this is a game with save and load this cant be solved at all.

Edit: Maybe we need to define whats difficulty for us. For me it defines how hard it is to win a game this includes the difficulty of earning money to buy the best equipment/best ships and to become stronger than the enemy. You can change that by many ways. One way for sure is to give the enemies more ships or make them smarter/stronger. But if you make the player weaker/slower in gaining strength, it will have a similar effect.

[CBJ]

But I'm not sure they have to be balanced.

Believe me, they do. If you missed the previous discussion of difficulty levels, you probably also missed the... we'll call it "strongly worded feedback"... from players unhappy with the balancing in the early versions of the game.

Even if there is a risk, I think it would be worth a try to start with very few, select, changes (say to the Xenon only) and to let people test it out with a strong disclaimer that the difficulty level is experimental and might lead to broken plots. Possibly as part of a beta. But it also depends on how much demand there is for such a change, of course.

It's not a risk, it's fact. And broken plots are another issue about which there are strong opinions! Anyway, my point was not to say "oh no, it's totally impossible", but to debunk the notion that it was somehow "easy" and would "require very little development time". Like everything else that takes time, it has to be balanced against all the other things that developer time could be used for. With regard to demand, while there have been a few people who have, like you, suggested it, our assessment based on overall feedback is that it's not a high priority for most players, at least when compared with other possible features and improvements.

[LandogarX4]

But I'm not sure they have to be balanced.

Believe me, they do. If you missed the previous discussion of difficulty levels, you probably also missed the... we'll call it "strongly worded feedback"... from players unhappy with the balancing in the early versions of the game.

Even if there is a risk, I think it would be worth a try to start with very few, select, changes (say to the Xenon only) and to let people test it out with a strong disclaimer that the difficulty level is experimental and might lead to broken plots. Possibly as part of a beta. But it also depends on how much demand there is for such a change, of course.

It's not a risk, it's fact. And broken plots are another issue about which there are strong opinions! Anyway, my point was not to say "oh no, it's totally impossible", but to debunk the notion that it was somehow "easy" and would "require very little development time". Like everything else that takes time, it has to be balanced against all the other things that developer time could be used for. With regard to demand, while there have been a few people who have, like you, suggested it, our assessment based on overall feedback is that it's not a high priority for most players, at least when compared with other possible features and improvements.

Understood, thanks for the explanation!

[Raevyan]

Price of ship is based on the resources it takes?
Less resources, less price => less profit?
But, less price means cheaper ships at start. Easier for NPC factions to build their fleets (even without player).

Test your tweaks with a mod.

Lowering the profit margin does not make anything more difficult. It just makes making money slower and wastes more time. Yes, making money in X4 is way too easy and you can pretty much skip early and mid game and end up with more money than you can ever spend. But the game will still be as easy as before.

As CBJ said, implementing real difficulty into the game that is not just “slow down money making for player or making everything more expensive for the player” while also balancing the universe so that it is somewhat stable isn’t something ego is able to pull off with little effort.

I mean look at what we got right now. HOP is steamrolling everything in most games (with no player intervention). Same applies to Xenon that steamroll ZYA because they only have 2 sectors where they have mineable resources. TEM, at least in my game, was gone before they even became a real party in PAR civil war...

Why is it not more difficult? If you start with 1 billion credits at start for me that would be pretty easy game. I would instantly buy a fleet and rush the universe. If I start with 1 buck, life is way harder. Every loss counts and I have to replace it and have to rean the money for that.
Sure, with unlimited time, I still will win the game, but because this is a game with save and load this cant be solved at all.

In my opinion it all comes down to the poor AI in the end. Right now you can grab a single destroyer, send it to Holy Vision and let it destroy station after station without a single HOP combat ship caring about defending assets (this applies to all factions And also to factions that attack other factions). There is basically no threat. If you got 30 rep with a faction you can even destroy 4 stations and still have 20+ rep.

[Alan Phipps]

My response to those that say 'cash is too easy to come by and quickly spoils the game' is that, as it's a single player game, you can decide how quickly you want to make cash or ramp up your assets. Many threads here will tell you how you can make your first million or billion really quickly, but you really don't have to do it in their timescales.

I play a fairly slow progression game with relatively modest income and assets in which every long-awaited in-game achievement or victory is hard-earned but is very satisfying. It isn't all just mindless cash/rep grinding, but it certainly isn't a mad sprint with a hectic timetable either. Sure, perhaps I risk some other faction ending up ruling the galaxy by not also being a powerful intervening faction by mid game, but that's life (X4 style).

[LandogarX4]

My response to those that say 'cash is too easy to come by and quickly spoils the game' is that, as it's a single player game, you can decide how quickly you want to make cash or ramp up your assets. Many threads here will tell you how you can make your first million or billion really quickly, but you really don't have to do it in their timescales.

I play a fairly slow progression game with relatively modest income and assets in which every long-awaited in-game achievement or victory is hard-earned but is very satisfying. It isn't all just mindless cash/rep grinding, but it certainly isn't a mad sprint with a hectic timetable either. Sure, perhaps I risk some other faction ending up ruling the galaxy by not also being a powerful intervening faction by mid game, but that's life (X4 style).

I just like to optimize things, and find it hard to ignore the more optimal choices right in front of me. So in the early game I will go for crystal mining into Nvidium mining, into automining fleet, into station building, while boarding capitals. In my first play through I didn't know about most of that, so the progression was slower. But even there I ended up in the end game where there was just no more point in optimizing production chains or setting up another shipyard plus supply elsewhere, since there is simply nothing I could use those resources and ships against. There is simply no need for any of that without a worthy opponent.

Sure, that point where you have outmatched the opponent is inevitable, but at least there could be some humps along the way, a real threat that grows along with you. Something like a late-game Xenon threat that requires you to churn out ships just to stem the flow. Some benefit to optimizing your late game economy.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Introduce changes that only effect the player.

• Easy Level: Carry on as now
  Normal Level: Small Random chance that any negative action can lead to a time limited attack on the player.
  Harder Level: Larger Random chance that any negative action leads to retaliation. For a longer time. So no trade and trade ships attack by the aggrieved faction.
  Hardest Level. As above, plus a random chance that the faction will just turn against the player. The player ship could experience failures during combat. Shields, hull, weapons randomly experience problems. Experienced crew can repair.

[jlehtone]

... a real threat that grows along with you ...

That is ... tricky. How do we measure you?

In another thread one player said that you can get millions in minutes by claiming a "well known" abandoned ship.
Another player, after learning what sector to go to, responded that it is a suicide in starter ship.
Same game, same threats, but two players with quite different (perceived) difficulty (trivial vs suicidal).


Other games, X3 (TC or only AP?), had a "match mission spawned foes to player's fleet" system.
Such system can be "played": if it counts only the IS fleet, then take mission in one scout and call backup later.
If it counts your all assets, then you still take the mission in the scout and let NPC faction to deal with it
(because you actually wanted to attack the NPC faction with something, without "negative action" from yourself.)


Sure, if the "level" were a option set at start, then you would know what you will get when ticking that "not really hard" box.
Thing is, that if the "balance" is "broken", then the simulation will crash and burn unless you do the one thing that counters the "bad coefficients" (if that is even possible).

"You would know". Many players will undoutably pick that option without knowing, and then become very vocal (What was the term? "strongly worded feedback") about it. That is what we do.


As said "more of the same" is not necessarily more difficult, just more tedious.


Smarter AI. Could be good, particularly defensive AI. (But can it read Guevara's "Guerilla Warfare"?)

A modder made a test in one X3. Simple test: made NPC traders smart. Really efficient. Result: there were no trade opportunities for the player.
An endgame is trivially "difficult", if you can never (in feasible time) reach it?


There are many active "ideas for late game" threads right now.

[LandogarX4]

... a real threat that grows along with you ...

That is ... tricky. How do we measure you?

In another thread one player said that you can get millions in minutes by claiming a "well known" abandoned ship.
Another player, after learning what sector to go to, responded that it is a suicide in starter ship.
Same game, same threats, but two players with quite different (perceived) difficulty (trivial vs suicidal).


Other games, X3 (TC or only AP?), had a "match mission spawned foes to player's fleet" system.
Such system can be "played": if it counts only the IS fleet, then take mission in one scout and call backup later.
If it counts your all assets, then you still take the mission in the scout and let NPC faction to deal with it
(because you actually wanted to attack the NPC faction with something, without "negative action" from yourself.)


Sure, if the "level" were a option set at start, then you would know what you will get when ticking that "not really hard" box.
Thing is, that if the "balance" is "broken", then the simulation will crash and burn unless you do the one thing that counters the "bad coefficients" (if that is even possible).

"You would know". Many players will undoutably pick that option without knowing, and then become very vocal (What was the term? "strongly worded feedback") about it. That is what we do.


As said "more of the same" is not necessarily more difficult, just more tedious.


Smarter AI. Could be good, particularly defensive AI. (But can it read Guevara's "Guerilla Warfare"?)

A modder made a test in one X3. Simple test: made NPC traders smart. Really efficient. Result: there were no trade opportunities for the player.
An endgame is trivially "difficult", if you can never (in feasible time) reach it?


There are many active "ideas for late game" threads right now.

There is no need to measure the player. Instead, the idea is that the player would self-select into a difficulty that corresponds to their growth curve. As I said, most of the need for increased difficulty (~enemy fleet size) occurs in the late game. If someone plays on normal difficulty and notices that he/she is left with no challenges after in game day 3, then he/she would select a higher difficulty for the next game start. If the chosen difficulty is too high or low, he/she can adjust the difficulty for the next time.

Sure, such trial and error to find the right difficulty can be frustrating, but if there is a clear progression from one difficulty to the next, then it should be doable to find one's sweet spot. Also, if the differences between difficulties are clearly stated, then that will make it easier to choose, too.

For example. let's say the only change is Maximum Xenon fleet size (potentially with some buffs to their production efficiency to actually reach those targets), and that increase is time dependent. I.e. at t=0 (where t= # of in-game days) the fleet size multiplier equals one, at t=2 the multiplier is 1.2, at t=3 it's 1.4 etc. up to a maximum of, say, 2. Then I could roughly expect that where usually a sector would be attacked by one I and 2 Ks at day 6, I can now expect a fleet double that size. Similarly, I would have to expect to counter serious Xenon attacks on myself and allied factions earlier than in a standard game.

I realize it's not that simple from a programming perspective, but you get the idea.

I don't think it's a good idea to limit AI improvements to specific difficulties. And changing the faction AI will create similar balancing issues as changes to fleet size and production parameters, I suppose. By the way, I think the AI is already capable: When you attack a Xenon core sector, then they coordinate their forces quite well and mobilize everything when a station gets attacked. Not quite the same for the other factions it seems though. In particular, factions do not pull their assets from more remote sectors when their core assets like shipyards get attacked.

Also, I'm aware of the other threads with ideas for the end game, but I thought it best to create a separate thread to keep the discussion focused.

[Falcrack]

Here's a few ideas to implement difficulty which I think are entirely reasonable and would satisfy a lot of the issues some players have.

A good way to implement difficulty would be to make changes that affect only the player. That would involve adjusting mission rewards, prices traders pay for inventory items such as crystals, spacefly eggs, programmable field arrays etc. Maybe this will also invlove a nerf to Nividium prices, or make it harder to find nividium

Another way to adjust difficulty would be changes in reputation, where if a player trades with the enemy of faction A for example, you get a rep hit with faction B which is enemies to faction A. Make this an optional checkbox in starting up the game. It would only affect player reputation.

Taxes for player owned stations in sectors would only affect the player, because as far as things stand now, the AI is not limited by credits in any way. Make this an option at game start.

Another way to increase difficulty would be to make it so that for player mining ships, they cannot find resources at all unless they have a player owned resource probe pointing them to where the resources are located.

It would also be possible to allow a slider to adjust Xenon aggressiveness, military output, and combat power. This would definitely affect the universe, but it would be an option the player could choose. Then the player would only have himself to blame for when Xenon start to overrun the galaxy. For some players, that would be a welcome change. For players who do not like such things and want a more peaceable galaxy, they could choose to tone down Xenon aggressiveness.

[Ormac]

A good way to implement difficulty would be to make changes that affect only the player. That would involve adjusting mission rewards, prices traders pay for inventory items such as crystals, spacefly eggs, programmable field arrays etc. Maybe this will also invlove a nerf to Nividium prices, or make it harder to find nividium

Well missions should be better scaled or balanced with request at the base level of the game before appplying a difficulty modifier to the payouts.

I had a resources required mission that needed 50% of storage to be filled. Medium Difficulty 3 hour to complete (usual deal).
Large Factory with an empty 4M cubic metres of solid storage.
Only had 1 large Miner at the so I increased that by 6-8 times.

With 30 minutes still to run on the mission I decided to abandon the mission it sacrificing the 600K payout. but I felt I had won mission by then with the expanded mining capacity.

Also I just let my inventory items collect so while some tweaking of prices through difficulty modifiers may effect some there are those where it will hove no impact.
If they ajust prices of inventory items maybe adjust the crafted item istead of say the availablity of the item.
Reminds me of the scrap metal adjustment from Rebirth, but that comparision probably closer to the crystal adjustment.

[jlehtone]

There is no need to measure the player. Instead, the idea is that the player would self-select into a difficulty that corresponds to their growth curve.

I was distracted by the "grows along with you".
A fixed curve has many options: is it linear, exponential, etc and all the parameters for each function type. Yes, that should give you plenty to play with. Do not forget, there are many evil factions to tune (for example, the next DLC adds the Terrans).

If the chosen difficulty is too high or low, he/she can adjust the difficulty for the next time.

Disclaimer: I'm probably in a minority (and separate minority from the rage-quite-and-delete-on-first-try population) for there will be no "next time" for me. I'll play this game through exactly once. I do already know that the "end game" will be far more challenging than the brief start phase. Not because it would be difficult, but because it is "easy". With that background it should be obvious why development resources diverted to "next starts" will not benefit me in any way. However, I'm not bovvered if Egosoft does allocate time for the majority's needs.