1.2 dynamic relations

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RegisterMe
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1.2 dynamic relations

Post by RegisterMe » Sat, 19. Jun 21, 18:37

Unmodded 1.2 game, Paranid Excellency start. I'd spent ages improving my rep with all factions, slightly favouring the Paranid and the Split. I just went from "positive three white two green" Argon rep, to "negative two white one red" Argon rep in one fell swoop. And I have no idea why. Some personal observations / feedback:-

1. Changes are (still) way too volatile.
2. The GUI is pretty, but not very functional. Ranks and percentages are boring to look at but much easier to understand.
3. It's too hard to tell what happened and why (I did try looking through the logs, but all of a sudden every Advanced Sat I had in Argon territory was spamming me with warnings about enemy ships).
4. In its current implementation I simply don't enjoy it.

I don't mind the abstract idea, in terms of having to work to maintain rep, and not being able to max relationships with all factions at the same time, but I don't think I will spend any more time on FL until and unless there is some fairly radical reworking of the whole system.

EDIT: I should add that I like pretty much everything else about FL :).
I can't breathe.

- George Floyd, 25th May 2020

Utsuho Reiuji
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Re: 1.2 dynamic relations

Post by Utsuho Reiuji » Sat, 19. Jun 21, 19:39

I think many people, like you, play this the wrong way. You can be friendly with all factions, but you are not supposed to. Choose one faction to align with, i.e. Split, and do missions for them only. Connect your hub such that it connects two Split regions with your sectors. Aligning with the Split also allows good relationships with the Paranid and Pirates (and Strong Arms), but poor relationships with the Boron and Argon. If you do missions for the Paranid, the Argons will soon recognise you as a thread.

Hwitvlf
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Re: 1.2 dynamic relations

Post by Hwitvlf » Sun, 20. Jun 21, 00:31

I don't think it's likely to get changed, but would like it much better if the points required to move up or down a level were even instead of steeply staggered. The extreme flipping near the neutral-center is not fun or useful in any way I can comprehend.

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Erqco
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Re: 1.2 dynamic relations

Post by Erqco » Sun, 20. Jun 21, 03:43

Hwitvlf wrote:
Sun, 20. Jun 21, 00:31
I don't think it's likely to get changed, but would like it much better if the points required to move up or down a level were even instead of steeply staggered. The extreme flipping near the neutral-center is not fun or useful in any way I can comprehend.
I think exactly the same, also when you are on the top it doesn't move. and like you said, I think that it will be this way with no changes, doesn't matter how many people think that this is a problem. Been a game from the x3 saga that have a lot of fans and been free it has reached only around 500 players.
Last edited by Erqco on Sun, 20. Jun 21, 19:53, edited 1 time in total.

Ramdat
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Re: 1.2 dynamic relations

Post by Ramdat » Sun, 20. Jun 21, 04:01

Erqco wrote:
Sun, 20. Jun 21, 03:43
Been a game from the x3 saga that have a lot of fans and been free it has reached only around 500 players.
SteamDB lists it's alltime peak at 849, and it's daily peaks around 300. It doesn't include GOG stats, but that doesn't bode well. :(

RegisterMe
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Re: 1.2 dynamic relations

Post by RegisterMe » Sun, 20. Jun 21, 12:50

Utsuho Reiuji wrote:
Sat, 19. Jun 21, 19:39
I think many people, like you, play this the wrong way. You can be friendly with all factions, but you are not supposed to. Choose one faction to align with, i.e. Split, and do missions for them only. Connect your hub such that it connects two Split regions with your sectors. Aligning with the Split also allows good relationships with the Paranid and Pirates (and Strong Arms), but poor relationships with the Boron and Argon. If you do missions for the Paranid, the Argons will soon recognise you as a thread.
You may be correct in that I am "playing it wrong", but if so I am not sure that I want to play it. Of course, opinions vary, and some people like it like that, which is fine by me :).

I can't code my way out of a wet paper bag, and haven't look at any of the code / scripts, but it feels like the following - any particular mission (and trade, and arbitrary kill?) has a rep "reward" of x. There's then a scaling factor applied dependent on your rank (with higher rank having a higher scaling factor). The resulting value is the "rep reward".

For the negative side of this there may be an adjustment, but I don't think it "downscales" it first, to match the rank of whichever race you're going to lose rep with, so you get the full whack of a neg hit on rank 1 when you do, say, a rank 8 mission If scaling has to be employed (why?), to my mind it should take the starting value of x and scale that for the neg hit, not use the final resulting positive reward value as the starting point for the calc.

I don't really understand why scaling is used at all. What does it provide?

I've no idea if the above is correct :).
I can't breathe.

- George Floyd, 25th May 2020

Godalmighty83
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Re: 1.2 dynamic relations

Post by Godalmighty83 » Sun, 20. Jun 21, 17:07

Ramdat wrote:
Sun, 20. Jun 21, 04:01
Erqco wrote:
Sun, 20. Jun 21, 03:43
Been a game from the x3 saga that have a lot of fans and been free it has reached only around 500 players.
SteamDB lists it's alltime peak at 849, and it's daily peaks around 300. It doesn't include GOG stats, but that doesn't bode well. :(
X games are semi-niche to begin with, and this is an expansion, to an expansion, of a base game that came out 16 years ago. It was never going to contend with the mass appeal of other genres.

Utsuho Reiuji wrote:
Sat, 19. Jun 21, 19:39
I think many people, like you, play this the wrong way.
This is a sandbox game, you play it how you want and that's never a wrong way, you can play it in a sub-optimal way sure. But not wrong. The introduction of a system which makes people feel like they have done something wrong is, imho of course, a poor decision from the developers. But it is also a system which is very easy to mod out and in doing takes the game back to being the sandbox of players choice which past games have been, but with extra content.
Xtended Mod Player.
Boron Hammerhead Pilot.

Midnightknight
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Re: 1.2 dynamic relations

Post by Midnightknight » Sun, 20. Jun 21, 17:42

Godalmighty83 wrote:
Sun, 20. Jun 21, 17:07
Ramdat wrote:
Sun, 20. Jun 21, 04:01
Erqco wrote:
Sun, 20. Jun 21, 03:43
Been a game from the x3 saga that have a lot of fans and been free it has reached only around 500 players.
SteamDB lists it's alltime peak at 849, and it's daily peaks around 300. It doesn't include GOG stats, but that doesn't bode well. :(
X games are semi-niche to begin with, and this is an expansion, to an expansion, of a base game that came out 16 years ago. It was never going to contend with the mass appeal of other genres.

Utsuho Reiuji wrote:
Sat, 19. Jun 21, 19:39
I think many people, like you, play this the wrong way.
This is a sandbox game, you play it how you want and that's never a wrong way, you can play it in a sub-optimal way sure. But not wrong. The introduction of a system which makes people feel like they have done something wrong is, imho of course, a poor decision from the developers. But it is also a system which is very easy to mod out and in doing takes the game back to being the sandbox of players choice which past games have been, but with extra content.
Can't agree more with that.
I have many friends that weren't expecting a new Xgame soon and even less a X3, and they were pretty excited when i told them about FL. Then they asked me how the game was before they take a try at it. Of course i told them about the DR and Xenon spam, but also about the so many new improvements. In the end they all reacted the same way "Ok no, i will wait till they fix it" and they still haven't played it even if they say they would someday. This Dynamic relation is a huge turn off for almost all X3 players with a few exceptions and once again, it's not like i hear "People don't like change", people really minimize how it affect every aspect of the game and the very core of the fun, freedom. All my friends plays Avorion, Elite dangerous or even Eve (or played it) and enjoyed it, and all 3 games have a relation system (That they don't call dynamic cause that's not what it means) and it works fine and nobody complains about that anywhere. Here we have complains almost everyday about this and not by the same few players, but by a huge majority of people, they can't all be called old reactionaries.

FL is a niche version of a niche game. You can't expect having many people play it, the already small community is now divided by this controversial system. And i assume if the reviews aren't too hard against the game it's because almost all the players love X3 games, loves the modders that made FL and wants to give them a chance to fix this before reviewing.

Ramdat
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Re: 1.2 dynamic relations

Post by Ramdat » Sun, 20. Jun 21, 20:14

Godalmighty83 wrote:
Sun, 20. Jun 21, 17:07
X games are semi-niche to begin with, and this is an expansion, to an expansion, of a base game that came out 16 years ago. It was never going to contend with the mass appeal of other genres.
I didn't expect it to be hugely popular, especially compared to recent AAA games. I meant that since it's old, free, and only ~300 people play the game, it's disappointing albeit understandable why they've dropped support of it so soon. Before FL came out I bought X4 + all its DLC, but I had to refund it because I get motion sickness from it's very tight FOV. Unfortunately they still have not implemented an FOV slider.

I sincerely hope that the announcement about development concluding only refers to new content rather than bugfixes. Since, there is a serious bug with the complex expansion planner and custom game start. It essentially prevents me from playing the game considering that complexes are a large part of gameplay. They've done great work on the new features and bug fixes thus far. But, if they abandon the game without fixing this problem, I have to abandon the game as well, and thus all that great work feels wasted.
Midnightknight wrote:
Sun, 20. Jun 21, 17:42
Can't agree more with that.
I have many friends that weren't expecting a new Xgame soon and even less a X3, and they were pretty excited when i told them about FL. Then they asked me how the game was before they take a try at it. Of course i told them about the DR and Xenon spam, but also about the so many new improvements. In the end they all reacted the same way "Ok no, i will wait till they fix it" and they still haven't played it even if they say they would someday.
They could use mods to disable DR, but then it also disables Steam achievements. If achievements are the only reason, there are ways around the restriction.

I haven't had any problems with Xenon spam. If you are referring to them always invading the Hub, Xenon invasions have a jump range of 10 from their home sectors, so if the Hub is connected to any sector within 10 jumps of a Xenon sector, they can jump directly into the Hub. You can solve this problem by changing the gate connections. However, if you don't change it, the faction patrols usually clean it up eventually.

fireanddream
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Re: 1.2 dynamic relations

Post by fireanddream » Mon, 21. Jun 21, 13:56

Midnightknight wrote:
Sun, 20. Jun 21, 17:42

FL is a niche version of a niche game. You can't expect having many people play it, the already small community is now divided by this controversial system. And i assume if the reviews aren't too hard against the game it's because almost all the players love X3 games, loves the modders that made FL and wants to give them a chance to fix this before reviewing.
At this point I think the general experience is never going to too different from launch. At best we get an option to turn it off (please dear Jesus god), or at worst I need to kiss achievements goodbye.

Achievements for me is a nice way to keep me going, since it is a game without a defined goal and making up my own gets less and less attractive the more hours I put into the game, so that's a bummer. I won't let the system stop me from having fun, however.

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