v4.3 plea: Xenon aggression/ship count customization options for both warlike and peaceful players (and end game ideas)

[flywlyx]

As I've explained on more than one occasion, you can't just "make a slider" to make Xenon more or less powerful, much less leave it up to the player where to set this slider. Even tiny changes to the aggressiveness or power of the Xenon can have huge and unexpected consequences. Slightly too powerful and they can end up destroying the NPC economy entirely; slightly too weak and they disappear from the game within a matter of hours.

In 4.0, if you start a war between ANT and TER, it will very likely result in ANT disappearing from the game within a matter of hours. I saw people complain TER is too strong, but I didn't see anyone complain they got this option. I think this is clear proof that nobody hates the ability to choose.

Even if we were able to find some magic value to tweak with a slider, if we were to do what you are asking then large numbers of players would move that slider and then wonder why their game was "broken". Needless to say, they would blame use for that, and many of them wouldn't know to, or bother to, come to the forum to find out why. So while I understand why you think this would help some players, as with most of the other cries of "make it optional", it isn't the magic bullet you think it is.

Nobody here asks dev to give a magic value that could solve all the problems, what the situation we have now is dev thinking they have found or at least they have the ability to find the magic value.
The plots give players the ability to tweak relations between factions which results in many situations I don't believe dev has been through all of them.
And I barely see anyone complaining that this plot system is so bad that messed up their "perfect" universe.
I am hoping dev could keep in the right direction to give players more freedom, plot system is great, and if we have the ability to change faction strength it will be better.

[flywlyx]

In my current game, I am doing everything so that the Xenons can capture most of the map.
But I worry that they will not create large fleets and their defenses will crumble like a house of cards

There is a genius on steam suggested to chock all the galaxy by occupying builders and shipyards of AI factions.
I tried it on my save, Xenon still stopped by TRI and TEL with only S/M ships and defence platform(Trading station in TEL's case, that is a monster).
But it significantly reduces the save size of my save, I think we should spread it as a diet solution. My uncompressed save is 600M after 12 days of play.

[capitalduty]

Making harder enemies as the game progress to late game +100h or more should be at least optional or even intentional....most players will have a complete economy and huge fleets that stands unopposed by this time. For me it's no only a matter of where to fight Xenon or some random enemy but that the universe dynamically adjust faction fleet numbers and composition based on a player "Fight score" maybe this could be based on number of fighting ships, sectors and defense stations and especially if factions are too weak to fight back a warmonger player. For me fighting it's the peak challenge and most fun aspect of the game, improving this will go a long way making even more interesting keeping things even in long savegames.

[grapedog]

I like the idea of a Xenon story-style mission set that could be used to increase or decrease Xenon aggressiveness. Essentially now is base-line perhaps... but if you want more aggressive Xenon, you complete these quests that amp up some aspect of the Xenon.

[CBJ]

Nobody here asks dev to give a magic value that could solve all the problems, what the situation we have now is dev thinking they have found or at least they have the ability to find the magic value.

You clearly didn't understand my post.

[Y-llian]

These discussions come round every so often on the Xenon. Apart from Imperial’s ‘dynamic’ difficulty scale (interesting) - much has been addressed before sadly. But for completeness, I’ll just add again that increasing jobs alone won’t necessarily help the Xenon. Their empire distribution means they are at a strategic disadvantage.

Moreover, despite their less complicated production chain the Xenon suffer from logistical challenges other empires can resolve easier whereas the Xenon struggle. Unless the logistics issue is resolved the Xenon will always suffer shortages no matter. One of the joys of the new cover system has been the ability to scan Xenon storage on their Wharfs and SYs and it’s not a happy situation.

[Bastelfred]

Even if we were able to find some magic value to tweak with a slider, if we were to do what you are asking then large numbers of players would move that slider and then wonder why their game was "broken".

How about a slider for the resources needed to build ships/stations? And how about a second slider for the construction time of the Xenon?

So most people would tweak the values and then complain that their game is broken? Ok that is really plausible.
But such a slider could be put in a custom gamestart. With a clear warning when touching.

What is simply ignored here... since version 1.0 many complain that their game is broken. For some it is too hard, for others too easy.

What is also ignored here, I want my game to be broken. I want to have a challenge. But X4 doesn't offer that. X4 offers a lot... but no challenge.

[flywlyx]

You clearly didn't understand my post.

Blaming others' understandability is the easiest way to dodge the issue.
If you have a better explanation, I am willing to hear.

[flywlyx]

Making harder enemies as the game progress to late game +100h or more should be at least optional or even intentional....most players will have a complete economy and huge fleets that stands unopposed by this time. For me it's no only a matter of where to fight Xenon or some random enemy but that the universe dynamically adjust faction fleet numbers and composition based on a player "Fight score" maybe this could be based on number of fighting ships, sectors and defense stations and especially if factions are too weak to fight back a warmonger player. For me fighting it's the peak challenge and most fun aspect of the game, improving this will go a long way making even more interesting keeping things even in long savegames.

If they could offer this automatic adjustability option will be even better, but what we saw is there are tens of MODs with thousands of downloads proving their success, and they are still saying "there is no such solution", "players will complain our game is broken".
I have no idea why they think asking players to tweak their game will make their game broken harder.

[jlehtone]

... some players are complaint their Xenon is distinct while some players are complaint their Xenon is taking the universe.
This is why the players should have their own purpose.

Right there the game does already offer a purpose. The player can play England.

Empires at Arms by Avalon Hill: every participant can win, if they do well, but England has another option too: If nobody wins, then England wins.

Making harder enemies as the game progress to late game +100h or more should be at least optional or even intentional.

That is: focus on the player; the player is important, the world rotates around the player.

That has two "issues":
* The economy simulation is not for making a Pulse Laser cost N minutes worth of profits both at start and after 1000 hours
* If you are decimated in 5 secs no matter how large your fleet is due to "matching enemy", then you get bored after a while