Platforms, a distraction for Egosoft

[Mogglewump1]

Having seen both outings of this feature by Egosoft, I fail to see the point in any of the platform stuff; there's no actual game play there just tedious walking between points. The inclusion of travelators and teleporters are a workarounds but they still keep the need for you to land and sort these things out. I expect my passenger to be waiting on the dock for me when I land, I run a million credit enterprise why are you making me chase you round the place?

Waiting for your passenger's AI to bumble their way around a station to your ship is utterly pointless when you have a teleporter directly to the cockpit from game start.

The real issue here is that Egosoft will be spending serious resource making models and fixing bugs in an area which just doesn't add anything to the game itself, other than looking good when you see it the first time in a video. It added nothing to XR (I happily cut them a break since they were trying something new) and nothing to X4 so it might be worth considering cutting their losses and focusing on what made X2 and X3 great in the new engine.

[CBJ]

You may may not feel that they add anything to the game, but there are lots of people who do, especially people who are new to the X series and who compare it to other games whose name I don't need to mention. At this point in time not having this feature would have a serious impact on its appeal to a wider audience. While you might consider it a "distraction", you should perhaps bear in mind that having a broad enough appeal to bring in new people is what makes it possible for us to continue developing these games. Clearly there are elements of the experience that we could, and hopefully will, work on to make them appeal more to players like you, and maybe there are some game features that we can make also work remotely so that you don't have to walk around as much, but I'm afraid not having this feature at all really isn't an option any more.

[Studders]

I absolutely love walking around my ship and just the immersion it gives in general. Surely once you start making millions you wouldn't be doing the passenger missions anyway? Can't expect ES to predict how each individual will play the game. I love the early game and the kind of space trucking feel to it. The fact I can buy a ship and watch it be built on a landing pad is a really good feature too. It's a good platform (no pun intended) to build on to bring new features into the game.

[NightlinerSGS]

You may may not feel that they add anything to the game, but there are lots of people who do...

This so much. I spend the first hour in the game just walking around the dock and watching ships come and go. The immersion this gives is incredible.

Also, I'm still pissed at CCP for listening to the haters and just ditching their Walking on Stations feature completly. They should've kept working on it. But hey, now I have X4 to fill that gap.

[Kadatherion]

I will copy paste an excerpt from my (still overall positive) steam review to point out why, for me, the current platform exploring mechanic is actually *detrimental" to the overall experience.

X4, like Rebirth, indeed keeps shoehorning "immersive" features that often are no more than fluff which will never be able to compete with its core mechanics. For the simple reason Egosoft is a very small dev team with small budgets: you can make your space sim compete with AAA titles even with a small budget if you have a very smart concept and focus yourself, but if you go into several very different directions you are bound to have to cut corners and the difference between Egosoft and, let's say, Rockstar Games will show itself.
It's the case with the station walking feature, as another example. It's immensely better than it was in Rebirth, there's no doubt, but in X4 station interiors (and npcs) still look amateurish, have very little variety and functionality. It's, as said, a fluff feature that's interesting the first 2 or 3 times, during which you are keen to forgive the silly emptiness or genericness of them, then it just becomes a tedious obstacle between you and your objective. Which might be simply selling that trade ware, which will require you to waste minutes of your time to traverse the same walkway for the 100th time towards the same(y) trader with no distinctive feature or dialogue option. This becomes an obstacle between you and the actual fun: the money you are going to make and that shiny new ship you'll finally be able to buy with it.

Immersion should never become an obstacle between the player and him having fun, it's a fundamental game design concept that Egosoft, unfortunately, has come to sorely forget. If you could make those sections almost as good as a Mass Effect station exploration, by all means, they would be fun per se, but if you can't - for obvious reasons - then it's better to scrap the concept, as suggestive as it might be on paper.
What do you have against mission bullettin boards Egosoft? What do you have against a simple, immediate interface to buy-sell everything you need once you've docked, as we had in X3, even though the UI was unfriendly back then too? They are staples of the genre: you want to depart from "gamey" staples and do something more in depth? Great! I agree! But only if you can afford it, and, I'm sorry Egosoft, unfortunately you can't, it's not your fault. You don't have the resources to satisfingly make such ambitious immersion features? Bring back things like the galaxy news for adding that bit of immersion, another staple of the genre, you just need some good writing and some scripting to match news with current events in the simulated space economy sim. Might not be ambitious, but we space sim players have liked it forever, it will do more than well enough as long as the actual core game is solid.

Long story short, it's obvious you can't expect AAA quality from such a marginal feature, and I agree with CBJ - at least to some extent - that it being in can cater to new players. However, as long as it's mandatory, it will also alienate a lot others (more? fewer? I can't tell). Knowing this, my approach would be, at least, to give choices. Let us be able to do everything we can do by exploring the station - or at least the most basic and common things, going to hack a computer to get discounts, as "fluffy" as it might be is fine as it is as it's going to be something only very seldomly people will do - also through the main interface once we are docked. Quite a few steps in this direction have already been made if you compare it with Rebirth, I believe some more should be taken. So that we are free to immerse ourselves in it when we so please (no matter how good or bad we think the actual rendition of those sections is), but also to quickly get done with what we are trying to do when we don't.

[Clownmug]

Egosoft should probably consider eliminating other distractions like graphics and audio too, just turn the whole game into an accounting spreadsheet.

[Alci]

I like it a lit. But has anyone found ANYTHING to do on platforms? In Rebirth there were lockers and things to find. But so far I haven't found anything usable so far besides shop/crafting console and "people" which I'm still unsure how to read the stat numbers (and eventually a mission item). But nothing to find/scan/repair/(clean? ) Is there anything?

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

I also like the platforms, I really enjoy being able to walk around ships and compare them. I currently own just the two, but having them side by side on a platform is great. I also like having the crafting table and other customisations available. Just wish I could see what recipes I have the components for, before I get to the table.

[Kadatherion]

I like it a lit. But has anyone found ANYTHING to do on platforms? In Rebirth there were lockers and things to find. But so far I haven't found anything usable so far besides shop/crafting console and "people" which I'm still unsure how to read the stat numbers (and eventually a mission item). But nothing to find/scan/repair/(clean? ) Is there anything?

Add the ability to hack computers (when you have the tools) to get some discounts, and that's more or less it, at least for now. Things like the ones from Rebirth you mentioned have been scrapped, I believe, to "streamline" the experience, as there were many complaints about it. Basically, they were: "if you can't really make it play good and with enough variety, don't even try", and they were true to an extent. The result is a station "exploration" that's indeed less annoying in a sense, but that it also shows how it's far from tapping all its potential. Can't please everyone, really, but I'd say there's still room for improvement until they find the best possible compromise.

[Cdaragorn]

@Kadetherion For that entire page long review you are making the same mistake the OP made and CBJ already responded to. You are trying desperately to elevate your personal dislike of it to some kind of state of fact in an attempt to make it sound far worse than it actually is and rather than what it actually is: your personal dislike of it.

The fact is there are many who very much enjoy it. I include myself among them. I find the immersion it adds in X4 to be beautiful but precisely not requiring very much of my time to do anything. I actually did hate it in Rebirth because it took forever to do what you needed to on the platform. Now it doesn't and most things can be easily done without ever getting out of your ship. Even the courier missions you mention only take an extra minute to go grab the person.

I also don't care that the models and voice acting aren't as good as other titles, but then that's because they aren't a significant focus of this game unlike those other titles. Here they are good enough to look ok and it fits nicely into a much more important point about the game because that isn't a significant part of it: Gameplay >>>>>>> Graphics.

[wizaerd]

I didn't think I was going to like the walking around parts, especially after Rebirth, but oddly enough I'm really digging it. It could certainly use some work though, better character models, better animations and more importantly give us more to do while actually on the station... But nothing mandatory, because it it were mandatory I probably wouldn't like it as much.

[Kadatherion]

@Kadetherion For that entire page long review you are making the same mistake the OP made and CBJ already responded to. You are trying desperately to elevate your personal dislike of it to some kind of state of fact in an attempt to make it sound far worse than it actually is and rather than what it actually is: your personal dislike of it.

The fact is there are many who very much enjoy it. I include myself among them. I find the immersion it adds in X4 to be beautiful but precisely not requiring very much of my time to do anything. I actually did hate it in Rebirth because it took forever to do what you needed to on the platform. Now it doesn't and most things can be easily done without ever getting out of your ship. Even the courier missions you mention only take an extra minute to go grab the person.

I also don't care that the models and voice acting aren't as good as other titles, but then that's because they aren't a significant focus of this game unlike those other titles. Here they are good enough to look ok and it fits nicely into a much more important point about the game because that isn't a significant part of it: Gameplay >>>>>>> Graphics.

And you actually have an issue since you are doing the supposedly same thing: believing the fact YOU like it is representative of any general consensus or objective evaluation. Yours isn't just as mine isn't, there are only two facts on the table: that many people like it and many other don't (and if you've read my post, you'll see I specified I'm not in any position to tell who's got more numbers). The only general consensus that can be taken from the overall mood, is that it's being received as much better than what was in Rebirth even by its detractors (obiously: as you correctly stated - and coincidentially I've already stated myself before - many steps in the direction of making that feature better and more streamlined have already been taken; which is curious, how is it legit for you to say you "hated" it in Rebirth and now you are fine with it because it's more streamlined, and me saying "I feel it needs yet more streamlining and/or alternatives" somehow isn't?), but still there are a lot of them.

The difference between me and you is I tried to tackle the issue from a game design standpoint: it's like when you critique art, a movie; I can despise a movie for its subject or content, and still know why it's objectively a well crafted work of art, and the opposite can happen as well, I can love Bruce Campbell's movies to death and yet be very well aware they are trashy B movies. I don't care if you like it even if it's a feature that clearly isn't at the same level of polish of the core game, and you shouldn't care if I don't like it for that very same reason: what me and you both should care about is the objective fact it's not at the same level of polish of the core game, and this brings objective issues to many more unforgiving than you players.
BTW, to reinforce this point: I absolutely LOVE the concept. And I'm thrilled to see they did indeed work into making it much better than it was in Rebirth, listening to many of the complaints from back then. These are my tastes. But when I try to objectively look at its current state, my own personal tastes as aside as possible, I feel it still needs to do more and differently to avoid its inevitable shortcomings. And if it cannot, then, as it currently is I believe it still is going to make the rest of the game look worse by association.

Then, the work of a developer, is trying to find the compromise between what can be desired and what's realistically possible to be made, as well as what two obviously different target audiences might ask for. It's like the same old debate: "causals" vs "purists" you always see inflame the gaming forums. Catering only to the so called "purists" would mean alienating those "casuals" that actually make the most sales of ANY game, but going too much towards the "casuals" ends up shortening the lifespan of your game for obvious reasons.

[nerdtron]

The thing that's always kept me away from Eve Online, despite trying to get into it multiple times, was that you were just a ship. Not a person flying in a ship, just a ship model. For me, being able to stand up and walk out of your ship and on the platform adds an extra layer of immersion that really makes the game "click". I think this is a great feature in XR and now X4 and is even done better in X4. With the teleporter and moving walkways, it makes it easier to get around while still adding the immersion that you're not just a ship model.

[Purplejvs]

I think the biggest problem with platforms is that they are about 20 times larger than is useful, with perhaps 4/5ths of my time spent wandering around looking to see if the station has what i want (so far, more often than not, it doesn't)

The useful parts of the station can and should be truncated to 3 rooms.

1) a bar where you hire crew.

2) an office where you talk to managers/representatives.

3) a market where any vendors spawn and crafting tables are present.

and all of these 3 buildings should be within seconds walk of each other.

Put as many useless NPCs and flavour areas around as you want between these three adjacent areas so people can see that the place is alive or whatever. but keep the crew in the bar, the managers in the office, and the vendors in the market. i dont want to have to mouse over 100 NPCs to see if they are who i'm looking for. i want to go land, do my business, and leave. not stretch my legs for 20 minutes in empty and overlarge environments.

i also want to know if a station has what i want BEFORE i land. maybe it does already but the UI is labyrinthine and opaque, but this would be less of a problem if i could just land, check 3 places and leave.

[jasonbarron]

Though the stations are a bit on the bland side I generally like them for the immersion. I particularly enjoy the sense of scale from looking at arriving/departing vessels and the various views of space and planets. I'd like to see a tiny bit faster walking pace, and as the OP said npc's who've requested a ride would optimally be located a bit closer to the landing pad. I assume that they aren't because they aren't actually generated physically until you've taken the job, and they don't have any way of predicting where you're going to land in such a massive physical space as a hanger. If that's the trade-off, so be it. I'd rather have that physical space then not.

[Studders]

I cant wait to get a station set up with lots of ships coming & going just to watch them from the dock. The dream haha

[priestyy]

I enjoyed getting out of my cockpit the first time I landed on a station.... I like to see my ship have a look around.

Then I spoke to the station manager..... He had the same 3 interactions I could choose with any passing ship in space.... I was like..... OK fine this maybe a generic station manager who has nothing to offer.

5 stations and managers later....i get the feeling they are useless. They add literally nothing to the game. Why are they here? I can't engage with them. They don't give me anything. They don't sell anything. Why do they have there own sections of the station. Why has this office been created for me to speak to the station manager. Is there a ropleplay element I'm not aware of.

The same for the engineering department, they have the same options as the station manager.....ugh

They don't offer missions. To do that I have to scan red baubles in space.... Lucky its Christmas lol

I get the need to appeal to a larger audience but I can imagine if I was a new player to the series.... Which I am not I'd be wholly disappointed with this shallow addition of "gameplay". Give me a bulliten board to check at stations, npcs that give missions something.

I know this post may sound harsh but I'm struggling to see any enjoyment in this other than seeing your own shop

[jasonbarron]

I enjoyed getting out of my cockpit the first time I landed on a station.... I like to see my ship have a look around.

Then I spoke to the station manager..... He had the same 3 interactions I could choose with any passing ship in space.... I was like..... OK fine this maybe a generic station manager who has nothing to offer.

5 stations and managers later....i get the feeling they are useless. They add literally nothing to the game. Why are they here? I can't engage with them. They don't give me anything. They don't sell anything. Why do they have there own sections of the station. Why has this office been created for me to speak to the station manager. Is there a ropleplay element I'm not aware of.

The same for the engineering department, they have the same options as the station manager.....ugh

They don't offer missions. To do that I have to scan red baubles in space.... Lucky its Christmas lol

I get the need to appeal to a larger audience but I can imagine if I was a new player to the series.... Which I am not I'd be wholly disappointed with this shallow addition of "gameplay". Give me a bulliten board to check at stations, npcs that give missions something.

I know this post may sound harsh but I'm struggling to see any enjoyment in this other than seeing your own shop

It seems obvious that they are just placeholders at this point. I expect that they'll be fleshed out with more conversation paths and options in the future.

[A5PECT]

I like X4's platform gameplay. Being able to land, get out of your ship, and look at from the ground and take in the scale of it is excellent. It makes you really appreciate your first M ship, towering over you and your starter ship.

[Alewx]

I like X4's platform gameplay. Being able to land, get out of your ship, and look at from the ground and take in the scale of it is excellent. It makes you really appreciate your first M ship, towering over you and your starter ship.

For the first few times it is a nice gimmick but once you have a multi million credit empire with fleets and stations, it is just annoying. even for players where Foundations is the first X game.