150 hours, FUBAR Noteriety System, Goodbye, Good Luck

[atroces]

How are agents got again...oh yes...limited missions that immediately lower half the universe to enemy...not ideal at all.

The missions are not limited. The chance to be offered an agent scales to how many you currently own. It is ideal to spend them as soon as possible so that you can easily acquire more. If you want to be very careful, you can only accept missions from Teladi until you use the agents earned from this to stablize relationships with other factions. However, it is mostly unnecessary as the relationship improvement gained from agent actions is enormous.

They are limited as one agent will not raise that half of the universe back to where your ranks were in the first place.
The more missions you run the more agents you need...and each agent you get from doing a mission lowers everything beyond what is acceptable.
The limitation also comes from who offers the mission as you can get mission from any race all over the place...if it's the wrong race you don't want then you can't take the mission for the agent offered.....limited.

Argo.

Teladi Agents.

[Argent Valcendre]

My experience with the reputation system is that there are massive swings in the very beginning of a game.

While doing missions for the factions, the reputation rapidly kind of freezes and I have stable good and bad relations with the different factions. Major factions tend to get all friendly and minor factions unfriendly. No direct contact is needed to get the bad relations with the minor factions, it‘is just happening as you do missions for all the major factions.

I‘m playing version 1.1. It just makes no sense to start the game with huge reputation swings after doing just one single mission. Then the game changes into long term frozen relations, just after doing a few dozens of missions.

The game ends up in a state where I barely notice any reputation changes even after dozens of missions.

I don‘t understand whats going on with the reputation, but frozen relations are very bad. Either the relations could be dynamic or could be more predictable - I‘m fine with both approaches - but the freeze I experience in my games is very annoying to say at the least.

[fireanddream]

In my opinion most people who like the system just wants to have stable friends and stable enemies, which we can already achieve in any older games by setting them as friend/foes on day 1.

I have NEVER met a single person who enjoys the rep DYNAMICALLY SWINGING. Why? Because we have satellites to replace, hostile ships to apologize to, stations to hack, and god know how many small trade/scout ships to replace.

People speak as if we hate the system because it's hard. Most of us have already logged hundreds of hours on AP or TC. It's absolutely not hard, but unstable and ungodly tedious.

This is not Mount & Blade where you go "lol whateves" when an empire declares war on you. Dipping into the red for one second will need hours of manual labors to bring things back to normal. Agents raise my rep yes, but do they replace my satellites? My trade ships? Do they calm down all the hostile laser towers?

Again, guys, you are enjoying a permanent friend/foe setting for each playthrough, which we can already do in all previous games. You are NOT enjoying a dynamically swinging reputation system. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Argent Valcendre]

Again, guys, you are enjoying a permanent friend/foe setting for each playthrough, which we can already do in all previous games. You are NOT enjoying a dynamically swinging reputation system. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I can‘t say anything as the reputation system seems broken. I‘d like to give it a try once it’s fixed.

[laux]

200MJ can't be bought by any mean by the "Other side" meaning you have to steal or you are screwed.

Have a look at CEOs Sprite. My HQ is full of 200MJ shilds i bought there.

Anyway, I've also decided to go with the Split. I still have a lot of fun after more than 100 hours in the current run. The only thing I needed so far from the "other side" were Cloth Rimes for production in HQ. But that has been a fairly easy problem to solve.

[phantomrock2]

wow did not think this would such a polarizing issue but as I see, it is
just have to maximize who you ca be friends with and not be friends with
I have 5 percent Hero of Sol and a couple of ranks from the highest one with the Teladi and after knocking out six or seven Teladi M2s in BT Delta the rank was at a all time low but after sending some agents I was able to get the rank back up so this gives me some wiggle room to leave the Sol System and do business with the Teladi and even do my rank with the Paranoid Argon Boron and Split and ugh the Yak are low I can still see all offering some very tempting credit rewards for doing missions. Does it seem limited? Yep? However, it gives the game an edge no like the other chapters.

[birdtable]

Not sure what "DYNAMICALLY SWINGING" reputation actually infers but I make full use of "SWINGERS" .. Based in Split territory and had no problem initially buying Cloth Rimes using barter/trade in Argon bordering sectors, eventually was lucky enough to get offered a Cloth Rimes factory blueprint, now have more Rimes than I could ever need but they sell well enough... Also finally got offered a Wheat Farm blueprint so that offered up a new income stream by enlarging it..... The only reason I ended up in Split Sectors was because of the initial excessive Xenon spawn and needed extra protection... Playing Terran Spy so my close association with the Split came back to bite me in the posterior later in game. The Devs are trying to introduce a more tactical and thinking aspect to the game so cut them a little slack..
As phantomrock2 said " It gives the game an edge " . ..."edge" is good.

[Cycrow]

Any side can get access to all the stations, you just have to steal the blueprints and build them at your HQ.
The Argon side is also missing some stations to buy that are on the Spilt/Paranid side. The 5 and 25mj shield factories cant be bought from Argon/Boron, and the Beam weapon factories are only available to Split
You can use your agents and HQ to plug any holes

Other than the plot, i cant think of any unique ships that you cant acquire on either side. Everything thats buyable at shipyards can be found in the universe (either flying around or from missions), or blueprints from the Explorers Guild/Missions

How are agents got again...oh yes...limited missions that immediately lower half the universe to enemy...not ideal at all. make it way less.....akin to the grind to raise your rank.
Also, the killing of xenon pirate or khaak in any system should not count as a rep change for enemies of the folks that own that system you do it in, whether you gain in rank with the system owner or not.

I am trying real hard to play this game unmodified but you guys really haven't a breeze whats fair and what isn't.

Argo.

This is not true. It depends very much on who you do the mission for and what ranks you are currently at
If you are at low ranks with a race then it takes very few points to drop into an enemy. So if you were rank 9 with argon, and rank 2 with Paranid and split. Doing a single mission for Argon will drop you into enemy, but thats only because your rank is so low.

if however you did a mission with Split or Paranid instead, then your Argon rank would barely move.
you can of course also do Teladi missions which will only drop your with the Yaki

doing an average mission for Argon at rank 9 will give you about 3000 notoriety points. This will barely move you 1%.
but when you apply 30% to thier enemies which is 1000 points, this is enough to drop from rank 4 to -2, simply because there are only about 400 points between all those ranks
but a agent using 1000 influence will get a minimum of 2000 notoriety points which could take you from -3 to +5

you can also get Agents through the Explorers Guild, which has no notoriety change

[Midnightknight]

Agents raise my rep yes, but do they replace my satellites? My trade ships? Do they calm down all the hostile laser towers?

I stoped using my satellite network in the end. Being spammed each time one of the corporation trader fly around and trigger the "Hostile ship". At first i had the solution to put laser towers before my first gate, but since you get attacked sooner or later by the police for doing so, you are forced to endure the everlasting spam, and more and more as more corporations turns hostile what can't be helped.

doing an average mission for Argon at rank 9 will give you about 3000 notoriety points. This will barely move you 1%.
but when you apply 30% to thier enemies which is 1000 points, this is enough to drop from rank 4 to -2, simply because there are only about 400 points between all those ranks
but a agent using 1000 influence will get a minimum of 2000 notoriety points which could take you from -3 to +5

That's funny cause -Xenon- claims everywhere, using screenshots to prove it, that with 1000 influence of an agent you can jump from -3 to +10. So at some point i really wonder what is going on with this system.

[Cycrow]

going from negative ranks was bugged, but its fixed in 1.2, both using agents and doing missions.
also note, the amount of notoriety you gain via Agents is dependent on the rank you are currently at, the higher the rank, the more points you will gain. The same is true with the negative ranks, the lower you are, the more you will gain.
There is however a minimum amount, which is twice the influence, this is mainly for the neutral ranks that have smaller gaps, allowing you to move through a few ranks at a time at the low levels

[Midnightknight]

going from negative ranks was bugged, but its fixed in 1.2, both using agents and doing missions.
also note, the amount of notoriety you gain via Agents is dependent on the rank you are currently at, the higher the rank, the more points you will gain. The same is true with the negative ranks, the lower you are, the more you will gain.
There is however a minimum amount, which is twice the influence, this is mainly for the neutral ranks that have smaller gaps, allowing you to move through a few ranks at a time at the low levels

Ah thank you, so like i said they used a bug exploit lol. I was a bit tired being called an idiot by the two same people that had their agents works differently from the rest of the planet.

[piranhai aka Dragonslayer]

As an Veteran who plays since X-Btf I'm used to be able to grind up rep with all factions and live in peace. Now even If I can push all main factions to positive I still have to live with:
Strong Arms, Pirates, Yaki and Atreus hating me which is very annoying, especially with Strong Arms since they are in every Split sector with there weapon traders...

Balancing the rep all the time back just feels like additional time wasted. I would just remove the agents rep skills and leave the other stuff like stealing or trading blue prints.

Beside that I love all the other new features. For now just live with the rep system since I don't want to be modified.

[Hwitvlf]

... Because we have satellites to replace, hostile ships to apologize to, stations to hack, and god know how many small trade/scout ships to replace. ... unstable and ungodly tedious. Agents raise my rep yes, but do they replace my satellites? My trade ships? Do they calm down all the hostile laser towers?

Again, guys, you are enjoying a permanent friend/foe setting for each playthrough, which we can already do in all previous games. You are NOT enjoying a dynamically swinging reputation system. Correct me if I'm wrong.

This is the first critical viewpoint that makes good sense to me. I think 'dynamic' is just a label. Relationships in X3 were always 'dynamic' as they changed based on your actions. FL's system is more properly what I would call a 'polarized' relation system. It may be technically possible to stay friends with everyone, but it's not really viable.

The fallout from switching sides is significant in loss of satellites, safe trade routes, and snowballing aggression from lingering hostiles targeting your ships. But this was always true in X3 so I don't look at it as being caused by FL's system. The main change I see from FL's system is that there is far more activity and viable targets in any given sector -a good thing.

[zamiel]

Dynamic reputation is Dynamic in the sense that you can change your mind and sides.

Which easily could be achieved with NAP/peace treaties/declaring war via diplomacy. No real need for this completely arbitary and foreign system.

Have a reputation cap without alliance with a faction and don't permit having alliances with enemy races of that faction. I think it would be a much less intrusive and rational system than this.

[Ramdat]

That's funny cause -Xenon- claims everywhere, using screenshots to prove it, that with 1000 influence of an agent you can jump from -3 to +10. So at some point i really wonder what is going on with this system.

He did not claim that.

He said that it is easy to gain notoriety by sending one agent to use all his tasks to gather influence, then another agent to spend all the influence on notoriety, and to repeat the process until you reach your goal. The key aspect is the repetition. He reinforces it by mentioning that you must farm new agents as you wait for the others to complete their tasks. You would not need to do this if it is a single agent.

The screenshot he posted was to prove that he balanced the reputations in the way he claimed is easy, not that a single agent achieved those results.

You can see the exact content of his claim here.

Perhaps the problem is a language barrier? I'm not sure where you are from.

going from negative ranks was bugged, but its fixed in 1.2, both using agents and doing missions.

What was the nature of this bug?

also note, the amount of notoriety you gain via Agents is dependent on the rank you are currently at, the higher the rank, the more points you will gain. The same is true with the negative ranks, the lower you are, the more you will gain.

Can you explain how it scales at different ranks?

[Ketraar]

First of all let me say, I like the debate about the feature and so far it has been interesting to read everyone's take on it. It was clear that this feature would be the one that would have the most "debate", but it sits at the very core of what X3FL is about, at least for me.

X3FL is indeed an X games and there is always the ones that dont really like change that much and I understand that, having some new bits but still be able to do your thing. Personally I find this is lacking, sometimes we should try new things or old ideas. Like this one. Some one wrote, make it optional (I'm sure CBJ is loving this) and we did, we made it so people can modify the system very easily, to either shut if off completely or adjust its impact as they like, Cycrow made sure of that.

Even though it was clear what the goal is, often many things only become apparent AFTER the fact and sure now with the added experience and feedback, there are many tweaks that could be made, even larger ones. But the overall function does pretty much what is expected and one of the things its supposed to do is not allow complacency. We dont need to agree, but I find it very illogical to sell a story of doom and loom and then nothing happens.

This was the first take at a new system, I'm sure the second iteration (whoever makes it) will be better, that is usually how things go. But you wont make omelettes without breaking a few eggs.

Still hope people find enjoyment with it and am looking for long and civil debates about it for months to come. For those that dislike it, I'm sure there are modified options.

MFG

Ketraar

[Ramdat]

X3FL is indeed an X games and there is always the ones that dont really like change that much and I understand that, having some new bits but still be able to do your thing. Personally I find this is lacking, sometimes we should try new things or old ideas.

Even though it was clear what the goal is, often many things only become apparent AFTER the fact and sure now with the added experience and feedback, there are many tweaks that could be made, even larger ones. But the overall function does pretty much what is expected and one of the things its supposed to do is not allow complacency. We dont need to agree, but I find it very illogical to sell a story of doom and loom and then nothing happens.

It was the right choice to try something new. You can't make progress if you always play it safe. The concept is good, it just has some rough edges.

This was the first take at a new system, I'm sure the second iteration (whoever makes it) will be better, that is usually how things go.

Did you make this iteration?

For those that dislike it, I'm sure there are modified options.

Some players cannot accept this implementation as it requires the game to be modified, which disables Steam achievements. These achievements are important to these players. This is presumably why players have suggested it be an official option in the settings, as mods already exist for the same purpose.

The in-game achievement tracking is a nice addition, but it is not a replacement for Steam. Players on the forum and subreddit have stated that these restrictions are the only reason they have not yet changed the system to make it more fun for them. This includes me, as I have an issue with the current implementation of the HQ queue speed, but did not switch to modded because of these achievement restrictions. I have since found a way around the restriction, so I will switch to modded when 1.2 is stable. Though, it is unfortunate that it is necessary to circumvent restrictions for a singleplayer sandbox game.

However, it is commendable to allow variables such as the HQ speed and dynamic reputation system to be easily changed to suit the player.

[Erqco]

Like always, I love a lot of the changes (I am not afraid of changes) in this game, I will say everything but the notoriety system in this state. I am really grateful of the work done in this old engine that I love.

I think that the notoriety system could work if is possible to make a few changes that make less damaging for the player. Some ideas around are great.

I don't understand that kill Xenon can make any faction upset, It will give more freedom to kill Xenon without or with minimal consequences.

If this new notoriety system can somehow, keep a line with the real power of the player, I think that it could be better, when you start a new game you are nothing comparatively with other powers, those powers shouldn't take to much time thinking what you do or you don't do, at the other end when you become a real power, make them more respectful of the player... or more aggressive.

Somehow I think that the steps in notoriety for each rank could be softened a little, to make more difficult those swings when you are close to the middle and make the swings easier in the top. If you make a mission, been your rank in the middle negative and it give you 3000 points of notoriety, can make make you jump 7 ranks ( I am playing with the numbers, I don't know if they are real), when you are in the top those 3000 points do nothing. It is way too easy (In the middle of the ranks) to star a war for a simple taxi mission.
Also the opposite can work too, that the points for a mission are in a direct relation to the player power.

It is a game, a sand box one mostly, keeping options open for the player, I think that is good, adding limits, grinding, funneling the game in a direction will limit the way that it can be enjoyed for a larger number of players.


Thanks again.

[Snafu_X3]

I don't understand that kill Xenon can make any faction upset, It will give more freedom to kill Xenon without or with minimal consequences.

If this new notoriety system can somehow, keep a line with the real power of the player, I think that it could be better, when you start a new game you are nothing comparatively with other powers, those powers shouldn't take to much time thinking what you do or you don't do, at the other end when you become a real power, make them more respectful of the player... or more aggressive.

I agree v much with these points; hopefully they'll be possible for implementation/integration!

[ExE22]

I've debated the dynamic relations system a lot with a friend of mine since the game was released and while we disagree on the system (he thoroughly dislikes it) I can see why it doesn't suit some. An "official" option to turn it off might be a good solution but honestly I feel like those who'd use it would miss out on the "better" experience (subjective as that may be)

After about 180 hours I'd say I like this new approach to faction-relations a lot, it's made me play the game in a way I've never played X-series games before. I can't have maxed-out relationships with everyone so I need to plan ahead when building my infrastructure and fleets and it adds a whole different dimension to it that I've never been forced to consider before.

* Where do I build my infrastructure, if I plan on having stable relations with one faction then that's fine but if I plan on switching between them then I need to set up in unclaimed / pirate space?
* How do I get the blueprints necessary for the stations, do I have to steal them or can I dedicate some time to get friendly enough with a faction to buy the most probable blueprints from them?
* Can I use station-upgrades to reduce the strain on my HQ construction queues, build a single station and upgrade it instead of multiple stations?
* How do I get access to lasers/shields/missiles that I don't have the notoriety for, do I steal it with a cargo-bay hacker or set up my own production-lines to become self-sufficient on them?
* Where do I get the equipment I can't buy, do I steal or buy it with agents or capture ships to strip them for it?
* Do I have the basic-resources necessary to sustain myself if I can't buy them from a faction?
* Can I keep my fleets going through captured or reversed-engineered and home-made ships?
* Can I do X (missions, capture/attack ships etc.) without endangering my relations with the faction that currently hosts my infrastructure to the point where they'd start attacking it?

There are only a few things I miss at the moment that would make this system perfect for my tastes:
* A way to scale up ship/station production to suit the "self-sufficient" approach at the moment it's difficult to do more than the most limited production and cannot be a proper replacement for the loss of entire factions.
* A more proactive approach from the factions that dislike you instead of combat only occurring if you happen to cross paths with them. I'd like to see groups of hostile ships start going after you on your home-territory if your relations drop far enough, M7/M2 task forces complete with escorts jumping in to try and target your infrastructure etc. (might already be a thing for all I know but if so I have been spared it so far).