XR vs X4

General discussions about X Rebirth.

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Night Nord
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Post by Night Nord »

santi wrote: Exactly and you can be a pirate and steal goods and make billions that way, but then, you have to understand that other aspects of the game will be pointless in terms of a challenge because of those billions you made. Better to make a clean start and try your hand at trade, and when you make billions in that way, clear the slate and try for a mining start.
Isn't that three different non-related games then? Just packed into one box: pirate sim, trade sim, buliding sim, mining sim?

I don't get it, really. Why should I understand that "other aspects of the game will be pointless". Now they are pointless, sure. But I'm asking here to make them non-pointless. Because I want to play a game with all these aspects present at once, not all by one.

But you keep on "oh, you must understand current limitations". Thank you, I understand current limitations, really. What I don't understand - why should I deal with workarounding them instead of asking to fix them? That's kinda the topic here.
Trading was removed? Wow, this again.
Not the trade itself, but the player involvement in such.

Inventory trading is just printing money out of random generator - it's time consuming due to missing UI features, but utterly mechanic - no brain effort needed at all.

And capship trading only involvement is lack of complete auto-trading, so you have to order same things over and over again. Sure, it's less mechanical than inventory trading - there are risks to consider and such, but with proper UI it will be much easier and could be automated. So it's still kinda mechanical.

Trading is now more a tool of gaining money, not a front-end occupation. You can't be a 100%-devoted trader now, you'll die out of boredom once you've got all the trading agents setup. (Just to prevent quite obvious notation - selling goods found is space is not trading. That's "exploration" at best).

I never complained much about trading, mostly because I didn't care about it too much, but there are people who want their Euro Truck Simulator In Space back, you can't blame them for that. Just try to understand their opinion, even if it's somewhat concealed under express of frustration. That makes the world better, if everyone are trying to understand others opinions.
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Earth Ultimatum IV.
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Post by Earth Ultimatum IV. »

You can't be a 100%-devoted trader now, you'll die out of boredom once you've got all the trading agents setup.
Ever since trade agents were added, and you no longer had to move your ass to update trade offers.
With decent empire, on-going building OPs and a trio-quarteto of freighters, there's enough to keep me from getting bored for... Massive amount of time. Without moving my ship.

(Just to prevent quite obvious notation - selling goods found is space is not trading.
Agree. Neither is mining, producing, or loot-selling.
Though, I wouldn't call "scanning for loot" exploration either. A "useless feature" would fit more. :)
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Post by Slashman »

There just hasn't been near enough meaningful progress from X3 to X:R.

By that, I mean there has been new stuff added. There are some definite improvements to certain things (cap ship modular setup, graphics, specialization of ships, better boarding mechanics). But at the same time, there just isn't enough done to areas that desperately needed more work.

Sure, X:R is not X4. But at the same time it just isn't a very impressive game on its own either.

My fear is that we're doomed to the same cycle that was started with XBTF. Subsequent games layered with more stuff(more ships, more stations, more areas), but very little real advancement and reworking in the areas that have consistently suffered from before: Interface, NPC AI, dead universe, generic missions, stupid pirates, no endgame content, pointless factions.

I dearly wish to be proven wrong on this but I just have the same sinking feeling I had when Rebirth details started to come out.
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Night Nord
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Post by Night Nord »

Earth Ultimatum IV. wrote:
You can't be a 100%-devoted trader now, you'll die out of boredom once you've got all the trading agents setup.
With decent empire, on-going building OPs and a trio-quarteto of freighters, there's enough to keep me from getting bored for... Massive amount of time. Without moving my ship.
That's why I said "100%-devoted trader". You are building stations, doing other stuff, other than trading. If you've got all the agents and you are not willing to do anything else but trading, the only way to something all the time is to have like 100 trade ships, so you constantly need to update their orders. Should I tell you that that's not "trading" too? That's more like a "management hell simulator" here.
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Santi
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Post by Santi »

Night Nord wrote:
santi wrote: Exactly and you can be a pirate and steal goods and make billions that way, but then, you have to understand that other aspects of the game will be pointless in terms of a challenge because of those billions you made. Better to make a clean start and try your hand at trade, and when you make billions in that way, clear the slate and try for a mining start.
Isn't that three different non-related games then? Just packed into one box: pirate sim, trade sim, buliding sim, mining sim?

I don't get it, really. Why should I understand that "other aspects of the game will be pointless". Now they are pointless, sure. But I'm asking here to make them non-pointless. Because I want to play a game with all these aspects present at once, not all by one.

But you keep on "oh, you must understand current limitations". Thank you, I understand current limitations, really. What I don't understand - why should I deal with workarounding them instead of asking to fix them? That's kinda the topic here.
You can do whatever you want in the game, be it boarding, trading, mining, station building, the Universe is your oyster, so not sure what your complaint is all about. There is a difference starting a mining operation from scratch, and doing so with 40 million that you made from trading, or boarding. You can be an entrepreneur and create a business with just a few credits and lots of effort, or you can be a magnate that throws money to create a huge enterprise in no time.
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Night Nord
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Post by Night Nord »

santi wrote: You can do whatever you want in the game, be it boarding, trading, mining, station building, the Universe is your oyster, so not sure what your complaint is all about. There is a difference starting a mining operation from scratch, and doing so with 40 million that you made from trading, or boarding. You can be an entrepreneur and create a business with just a few credits and lots of effort, or you can be a magnate that throws money to create a huge enterprise in no time.
And you've just said that I can't go boarding and then trading/building, because I'll be floating deep in money and there will be no fun at all. Now you are telling me that nothing prevents me from doing that. Hm, maybe "no fun at all" part does?

Please, make at least some effort in understanding others opinions. Your point "you just don't know how to play, please don't touch my precious game" is a bit tiresome.

For you the game is just a framework you are building your own games from, by enforcing some additional rules on top of existing ones. So if you want to have lots of money and just be building, you just go boarding/mining nividium/other exploit and start building without thinking about all this financial problems. You've tired of building and want mining? Ok, fresh start, let's go mining... Want to be mining with big empire - get money, build empire, throw money away, go mining. It works for you, I'm happy for you.

And I don't need a game at all, I can imagine whole worlds and complex stories within. It was keeping me entertained for years. So I don't need game that gives me challenge. Something that works against me and I need to overcome it. And there is no fun in overcoming self-restricted challenges for me. Because I need not a reaction/muscle-memory based challenges, but a mind challenges.

And a mind challenge means that I've got a problem and I have a bunch of solutions with various pros and cons to solve it. And if I've just restricted myself out of all the solutions but one, because it would be "too easy", it all becomes kinda pointless. Because once I've found a solution I usually don't want to bother implementing it, especially if it's something very mechanical - I'd much better let AI do it and more forward to the next challenge.

Do you see now the problem here?
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Santi
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Post by Santi »

Night Nord wrote:Do you see now the problem here?
No I do not see any problem there. X Rebirth is a sandbox game, you can play anyway you want and while boarding is a bit unbalanced in terms or risk/rewards, other aspects like trading, mining, missions, combat, station building are quite challenging. On top of that you normally have several ways to accomplish tasks. Of course everything can be improved and tweaked, but in my opinion the Sandbox aspect of the game should be preserved.
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BigBANGtheory
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Re: XR vs X4

Post by BigBANGtheory »

Nikola515 wrote:With a new rumor about possibility of new game I just want to see what everyone thinks abut it. Also I want to see what people think about it and what would they want different form XR and what they want to keep.
ok so 100% on topic this time....

Specifically with XR I would keep the environment and assets not relating to human character models, the presence of cockpits, the music too. The two things that imho need to go completely are the human character models and most importantly the system that pretends to offer "fleet command by radial menu" they need a complete overhaul from the ground up.

What do I think should be done differently?

Two things really, firstly lets have some open discussions on some really key topics that seem to be persistently under valued across many product cycles. Above all put the user/player experience at the centre of things this time.

Secondly the game design imho should support a progression arc where by your advancement opens new game play options to support your new position and status in the sandbox. The player that has built an empire has different needs and ambitions to the player piloting a single ship, the game, the tools, the AI needs to keep pace with that to keep the game play fresh and interesting.

What I think about a new game is atm concern.
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Post by Playbahnosh »

If and when X4 finally happens, I want these:

- A working game! I know Egosoft is infamous for releasing completely broken stuff and fixing it up later, but how about breaking "tradition" and putting out a game that is not an unplayable, broken mess on release? Not feature complete or final, but just....functional.

- Let me fly other ships! This was and remains my main beef with Rebirth. I played R, TC and AP to death, and I got used to having....options. If I wanna fly a tiny interceptor, I wanna do that. If I wanna fly a fighter, a trader, or a corvette, wanna do that! I had an incredible amount of fun just equipping a M6 and mining asteroids for hours, listening to some chill tunes, watching the stars twinkle in the distance as my laser unearths precious minerals from the floating rocks. Or trudging along from one end of the universe to other with my trade ship, watching ships fly by, be scanned for contraband (which they'll never find thanks to my cargo shielding XD), the occasional quarrel with pirates.... But even if I only wanted to fight other ships, I had a huge selection of ships to do that with. I want that back! Period.

- Let me captain capital ships! This is a tricky one, and I understand most people hate this. I don't want to pilot those huge beasts myself either. BUT! I want to captain capital ships. Let me dock, sit in the captain's chair, give me a HUD with a map and necessary controls, and let me issue orders from on board, like a real captain! Red alert, all hands battlestations! :)

- FUNCTIONAL controls and HUD Can't emphasize this enough! I know the HUD, menus and controls of R and TC wasn't exactly easy to get used to, but no one expected that either. These are simulation games, and it's not only okay to have so many controls and menus upon menus, but it's kinda expected. One thing earlier games did right was the freely mappable controls, shortcuts and fast reaction times. With a few quick keypresses I could access EVERYTHING I wanted in a pinch, and didn't have to fight through a thousand radial menus and animations just to see my friggin cargo hold. Granted, I almost needed a second keyboard with all the mods installed, but that was part of the process and the....fun. Also, with today's monitors and resolutions, there is a HUGE amount of screen real-estate than can be utilized. Let me arrange my HUD as I want to, displays, gravidar, cargo screen, etc. It shouldn't be an unreachable goal by today's standards. Screw animated panels and eye-candy! When it comes to displaying information, I want that information to be instant, clear, concise and readily available, and I want to be able to issue commands by pressing keys or selecting from a list, and not wading through labyrinthine radial bullsh!ts. You can make all this look appealing, but for the love of everything, make it FUNCTIONAL first and don't make the eye candy actively hinder or obstruct everything else!

- FUNCTIONAL interaction and automation For me, one of the best features of the X games was the automation. Everything was run by softwares, and I could buy and upgrade said softwares to make a network of systems that did the menial tasks, freeing my time up to do other things, BUT left the option for me to do it myself if and when I so desired. It was complicated, yes, but it was also a robust and freely expandable system. One thing is mining mentioned above. With a couple of mods I could equip and set up a large mining operation that basically ran itself, but if I wanted, I could do it myself also. Same goes for trading (Trading Software MKIII), logistics (CA, CLS, etc) exploration and combat. With a few mods, I could set up entire automated fleets with carriers and supply chain that managed themselves and fought effectively on their own, but I could give orders to individual ships or fly them myself when I wanted. And NO TALKING TO NPCs! It was all software, as it is pretty much expected in a game taking place far in the future in space. Even the factories and complexes were automated, I just placed the stations, set all the sliders, knobs and gizmos to the right position, and it just worked. Didn't need to jump through thousands of hoops to land, search for, sweet talk, transport and promote NPCs to do it. Don't make me do that ever again. If I want to talk to NPCs, I wanna do that OVER THE FRIGGIN COMS! It was simply mind boggling how in Rebirth they flat out forgot the friggin phone existed.

- A living, breathing universe! I read a lot of comments regarding this, and many people want X4 to be a procedurally generated sandbox. Not me! I want a finite, well made, lived in universe, that feels alive! The problem with procedurally generated stuff is, that it feels bleak and empty. Don't get me wrong, I really like the excitement of exploration, but the X series is about stories, starring you, and your deeds in an existing universe. Therefore, I'd like a finite, but well made universe, where stuff happens. Nothing beats human touch when making a really good playground for stories, and X3's map was just that, a canvas for yet unwritten stories. I can even accept the old map that was divided into sectors (with significantly shorter loading times and much bigger sectors), or one big contiguous one (like in Evochron Mercenary). I want to see nice looking, well built places of interests, groups of stations, space phenomena, I wanna scour the universe for hidden stuff and bear witness to the universe going about it's business when I'm not actively intervening :)

- A working economy! The previous X games were really great space trading sims....that is until the space economy collapsed or ground to a halt for one reason or another, on it's own. I want GoD to be smart this time around, and keep the economy alive even during an intergalactic war! One beef I had with previous X games was that no matter how much I traded or how big of an empire I built, it made no difference to the in-game economy. The surplus just went into imaginary sinkholes, while GoD removed stations en masse regardless. I understand there were technical limitations that prevented a real simulation before, but that was 10 years ago. This time I want the economy to REALLY work. React to events, have shortages or abundance when appropriate and where it's appropriate, and let me fill these holes with my supply chain if and when I find them (or create them), and USE the supply chain instead of just creating stuff out of thin air or sending them down an imaginary sink. If I cut off a number of shipments to a faction's factories (or destroy them), I want to see them get weaker, or vice versa. If a large number of ships are destroyed in a war, I want those factories and shipyards to be like a beehive of freight haulers, scrambling to replace those lost ships, etc.

- Stations, not space hunks! Get rid of this "space city" BS, and continue the station/complex style from TC/AP, and let me build my stations wherever I damn well please! I really liked this system of expandable complexes and freely variable setups I could do, it was an X universe staple and it really suited the game. It was fun, challenging, the easy to do, hard to master golden rule. It was easy to plop down a station in the middle of nowhere, but it was a real challenge to build an actually balanced, self-sustained complex that produced a profit, along with the supply chain of freighters and defense wings. I really want that back!

- OPTIONAL: A good story campaign As much as I love great, immersive stories and characters, there is a time and place for those, and not necessarily in a simulation game. Don't get me wrong, I kind of enjoyed the story missions in the previous X games, but completing those was mostly just a means to an end, to unlock certain areas or earn rewards, like unique ships, the HUB, the PHQ or my own sector. While the stories were kind of interesting the first time around, it was only just a tedious chore to do them again whenever I ran a new start. Not to mention some of the missions in the chain were a nightmare to complete because of bugs and game mechanics going apesh!t. Having a "short and sweet" storyline to serve as a tutorial, to introduce different gameplay elements and backstory to the universe is great, but anything beyond that is unnecessary and could even be detrimental when it serves to lock away otherwise pretty important content. Challenges (like the HUB), short missions and optional side-quests are great, but shoehorning in a grandiose, quasi-mandatory storyline is unnecessary. I'd rather have the devs spend their time on polishing the universe itself.

- OPTIONAL: Multiplayer support And NO, I DO NOT mean MMO! Just the simple option to maybe play with friends. Either the option to run a dedicated server with a persistent universe, where we can ally to adventure together, build an empire together, or fight each other, etc. Or a P2P sort of "drop-in" style multiplayer, when we can visit each other's universes, help out with stuff, maybe fight it out, etc. I definitely don't want an MMO, there are many other games for that. I want X4 to be a personal sandbox where I can write my own story, just like before....but now maybe with friends :)
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Nikola515
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Re: Get a bunch of players in a room and they will disagree

Post by Nikola515 »

ZaphodBeeblebrox wrote: I want to keep inventory trading.

The reason why I was saying this was because inventory trading don't have much meaning late in game.... When you get best shields/weapons there is no need for that trader anymore... Also I don't even see point buying junk items because there is no use for them in the game like space suit for example(there is not a single mission that need some of them). We can sell them(for little credits) and that is it and there is no point of buying them at all. Same thing with other items too some of them can be use for crafting but whole system is useless. Those seminars and mini game is juts annoying and I wish they added level up system for our crew. Where they can actually level up by doing their jobs. I think they should build crafting system similar to Diablo.... As for traders I would do something like Borderlands where there is ton of different weapons that we can find/buy and it would make you want to check shops for weapons.... So I this point I find X3 item trading more useful/profitable than what we have in XR. But if they can add player and item trading form X3.... I wouldn't have problem with that ;)
It's not world hunger because we can't feed poor,it's because there will never be enough to feed the rich .....
Rngfoo
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Post by Rngfoo »

I would like - Save&Exit button.

Rip the Save and, "oh my Ship blows*fail" Load s**t.
No risk, no fun. :)

And Caps, I luve Caps.
pref
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Post by pref »

Well, after having spent another 'couple' hours in AP, all i want is X3 on XR engine, and a better UI for asset management. This will be the first time i get to finish all the plots (and probly im above 1k hours).

That is a real unpolished gem. With the new engine and UI improvements it could be just the game i need :D
It's so relaxing, fluent and versatile to play after XR, easily beats the loss of eyecandy (and i get spoiled by that very easily). There is not a single new feature i'd miss from XR.

Just hope ES won't get any more 'awesome' ideas about how the next game could be so 'popular' while keeping the 'depth' of gameplay, and will just stick to what they were good at already.
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Santi
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Post by Santi »

I agree there, be it X Rebirth or X4, the game needs better documentation, something already commented in other thread and several times in the past, and Egosoft really need to stop that clamming up regarding games features, all it does is frustrate people and make the game not enjoyable at all. We still do not know how stars affect the crew, nor we know when you can board a ship with no rep loss. I remember when they changed boarding, a over 10 pages thread of people trying to work out how it worked, and thank the community for still posting guides about it.
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Nikola515
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Post by Nikola515 »

pref wrote:Well, after having spent another 'couple' hours in AP, all i want is X3 on XR engine, and a better UI for asset management. This will be the first time i get to finish all the plots (and probly im above 1k hours).

That is a real unpolished gem. With the new engine and UI improvements it could be just the game i need :D
It's so relaxing, fluent and versatile to play after XR, easily beats the loss of eyecandy (and i get spoiled by that very easily). There is not a single new feature i'd miss from XR.

Just hope ES won't get any more 'awesome' ideas about how the next game could be so 'popular' while keeping the 'depth' of gameplay, and will just stick to what they were good at already.
Same here too... I started back with AP (XRM mod) and that was all I can think about. X3 games wore just amazing and I still cant understand how did they end up with XR and why did they think it was going to be huge success ???? After all there wore plenty one ship games and they didn't turn out good like Darkstar One....I know they are other things to do in game but they are either boring or not working. Like empire building where we cant build more than two stations without micromanaging every damn thing. Why did they even think it was going to be any different? If X3 was advertised on Steam at beginning I think they would have been better success than XR ;) I agree with you 100% and I hope they continue from where they left of (X3) :D Also I hope they look at ED and SC and add some similar features in to X4 (if there is any). Space travel would be one of them. Also they should look at SPG2 because they have pretty good exploration system there. I know Ego wants to stay original but at this point they are almost on bottom of the list and I know that they can do better than this :P

And another thing I want to add in X4 is :

1) Station windows where we can see outside. Same thing for ships too ;) (I know shadowing needs to be added in order for this to happen)....

2) Space walk in space suit just like in X3 (if possible Dead Space 3 style) ;)

3) Hacking mini games should be something similar to Bio Shock 1 (that was fun ).

4) Add exploration in game (I don't even call this exploring what we have right now )...

5) If we have ship interior crew should be assigned to their rooms. And they should be actually doing something in the game... They could get hurt in battle (if ship take too much damage) and that would reflect on their performance. Also we should have med bay and medic in our ships for crew/marines.... But all ships should have ability to hire all crew form the start.... And if we want to have best crew we need to look for them. Something like in FTL(jobs and mechanics)...

6) Our crew should be able to level up buy doing their job. No offence but that seminar crap is so annoying and I would rather go trough all that pain of editing save files than actually do those annoying small talk min games
:headbang:

7) Escape pods. If our ship blow up some of our crew might survive and we can pick them up especially if they are 5 star crew. Same thing with NPC crew and some of them might join you for free for saving their life.

8.) Crew should be hard to level up or to find good crew... But when you do you will become more attached to them.

9) Missions should not always reword money. There should be rewards like good crew member, used ship, items (1000 wheat or crystals), weapons, coordinate for systems or abandon ship.... etc. I find it boring sometimes just work for money. In X-Com they did pretty good job with rewards after missions...

10) A way to invest money in to the system and watch them grow. If I have a lot of money and I want to invest some of money to sectors like DV I should be able to do so. This way I can give money to NPC and it would build/expand more stations or shipyards in it's sector. So if I want to invest money in to food stations for NPC this would give me chance to build more water stations and I can make money in long run ;) Same thing for shipyards too...

11) Visible shields. I always liked game like Nexus Jupiter Incident where we can see actual bubble shields protecting ships. I think this is something that is needed for all X games. X games almost don't have any animations of this or they are pretty bad made. In XR they could have bubble shield and only way to take it down is capital weapons or special weapons like mass drivers that can cut right trough them. But if we want to take surface elements we could just fly right trough them in small ship and destroy them.

12) Capital ships should last much longer than what they already do. They should be powerful beasts that nobody don't want to mess with. There is no way M3 or M6 should be able to take out M2 or M1. Only other M2 or specialized ship like squad of M8 bombers or M7M.

13) Specialized boarding ships. I actually like boarding in XR. But there should be ship that can board ships and send boarding pods just like Skunk. I still don't understand how Skunk can fit 40 marines...

14) Station/ships building interior. I think ego should give us tools to build our own interiors for stations/ships. A way for us to make our own hallways, rooms .....etc.
It's not world hunger because we can't feed poor,it's because there will never be enough to feed the rich .....
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Post by BigBANGtheory »

Nikola515 wrote:I know Ego wants to stay original but at this point they are almost on bottom of the list and I know that they can do better than this
Well they do have an original angle in that you are allowed to build and own an empire, but for some bizzare reason it is not expolited and leveraged properly in the gameplay.

I also agree with the last few posts, and to me Nikola's 14 point list can simply be summarised as "user experience" i.e. you have some feature or content in the game and its not delivering a good expereince for said player.

To me it appears as though the game is developed on:

1st Simulation
2nd Build a game on the simulation
3rd Get the features functionally working
4th Release the game
5th Listen to the user expereince from players
6th Try to address small to medium issues with the experience along side bug fixes

To put all that into the context of this topic, what I believe should change (for everyone's benefit) is getting that user experience feedback earlier into the development cycle of the product. For the benefit of doubt that doesn't have to mean public alpha / early access or asking Egosoft to show/demonstrate the software it really could be as simple as a candid explanation of what is / is not going to be.

Egosoft have said several times that they will listen to feedback, and they have I'm sure some method for doing that. What I propose to do differently then is this:

Tell us what you have in mind for the next product and what the player will experience... and listen to the feedback well BEFORE the game is released whilst there is time to consider and potentially act on that feedback. Not listen to the feedback only after the event i.e. the public release of said product.

and Santi has rightly reminded us that X4 is not comitted to as yet, its an X4-like progression which cover quite a large potential scope
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Post by Luanda »

santi wrote:
Night Nord wrote:Do you see now the problem here?
No I do not see any problem there. X Rebirth is a sandbox game, you can play anyway you want and while boarding is a bit unbalanced in terms or risk/rewards, other aspects like trading, mining, missions, combat, station building are quite challenging. On top of that you normally have several ways to accomplish tasks. Of course everything can be improved and tweaked, but in my opinion the Sandbox aspect of the game should be preserved.
xr is everything but challenging. thats the biggest problem with it. first when you have only one crap gun and weak shields, the fight might be a little challenging, but as soon as you get a tier2 gun and t4 shields there is nothing challenging in this game. trading and stationbuilding is tedious at best but i cant see any challenging in doubleclick, build here, select station, give money. building done.... what should you build? you will know it after the first half hour in game when the economy first goes to halt :)
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Earth Ultimatum IV.
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Post by Earth Ultimatum IV. »

Luanda wrote:xr is everything but challenging.
Yet so many fail to understand the basic principles and methods.
Regularly seeing whining about difficulty and learning curve on forums, how people quit because they cannot get things done without constantly asking others for help.
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Post by pref »

OK maybe i'd also like an improved faction behaviour - each of them should expand/shrink as eco, military power and random events/AI decisions dictate.

For ex each could try to build up a complete supply chain for a shipyard (or for a few). They should also sell/self destruct any unused fabs to cut losses.

If X3 had something like this, late game would have been much better imo.
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Post by Luanda »

Earth Ultimatum IV. wrote:
Luanda wrote:xr is everything but challenging.
Yet so many fail to understand the basic principles and methods.
Regularly seeing whining about difficulty and learning curve on forums, how people quit because they cannot get things done without constantly asking others for help.
omfg, what you are talking about? to make the GAMEPLAY challenging, the enemy should take the fight, the other factions should be rivals in trading and empirebuilding etc... these would be challenges in term of PLAYing the game. finding out how it works just makes challenging using a software but it dont add to the buzz... it actually takes from it.
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Nikola515
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Joined: Fri, 4. May 12, 07:40
x4

Re: XR vs X4

Post by Nikola515 »

BigBANGtheory wrote:
What do I think should be done differently?

Two things really, firstly lets have some open discussions on some really key topics that seem to be persistently under valued across many product cycles. Above all put the user/player experience at the centre of things this time.

Secondly the game design imho should support a progression arc where by your advancement opens new game play options to support your new position and status in the sandbox. The player that has built an empire has different needs and ambitions to the player piloting a single ship, the game, the tools, the AI needs to keep pace with that to keep the game play fresh and interesting.

What I think about a new game is atm concern.
I definitely agree with you there. In order to build better game they need to engage with consumers to see what they want. After all we are the ones who are going to buy their software. If they keep guessing what we wont they will have same disaster just like XR. They do have conversation with community here and there and this is a good sign from them (as long as they keep it this way). But what they need to discus is major features.....

For example I wish if they asked players how do they want managers and station control set up. But they though it was best idea for manager to do everything and make all decisions... And look how that turned out to be :roll:

Another feature that they just added was those annoying seminars to level up our crew..... Not sure why the hell did they think this is going to be fun and why would people want to do this. Looking for all those items and doing smalltalk mini games get's annoying quick and whole feature becomes disaster without any real reward at the end :headbang:
What they could have done was ask people how would they want to level up their crew. I personally would want something where I don't need to micromanage a lot because I want to have empire with 50 stations....

So to get back to on topic ;) I do want EGO to get involved with community more if they are going to build X4 or expand XR. I know they want to make good game and make money. But we want to play good game and we are willing to pay for it if they are going to work with us :D
It's not world hunger because we can't feed poor,it's because there will never be enough to feed the rich .....

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