The game needs to stop giving you things and actually let you earn something

[quadrapod]

I'm making a post because while the game has its bugs and its issues I can be fairly confident most of those will be fixed. This one though I'm less confident on, likewise I think it's easy to understate how much of an issue it is and I haven't heard anyone really talking about it.

Right now the game gives you so many large and easy rewards that it never really feels like you've built anything, and the things you have done just feel insignificant. Wealth in X4 comes predominately from a few lucky windfalls and means of constant wealth generation are so easily accessible that they feel meaningless. In x3 getting a universe trader set up was significant, it represented a real investment and those deposits it gave with each successful trade felt meaningful for it. Now, why would I feel invested in getting a ship that took me ten minutes to afford by repairing a few satellites. Especially when if I were to find the right pile of crystals sitting around I could just buy a fleet of them, even though the crystals have no value to the player economy whatsoever. Why save for anything when you can find random corvettes sitting in the middle of a sector waiting for you to come take them for a few million effortless credits? While I appreciate the possibility of there being some great rewards out there waiting to be found, right now you come across that kind of thing way too often.

Now why that's significant, why it's actually important and not just personal preference. You could argue that if you don't think those kinds of mechanics are fun to just not play with them. Ignore crystal mining, ignore free ships, don't take station building missions, and say no to everything that seems too easy. That perspective ignores where the core loop of an economic game is though, that being finding an efficient way to make money. Everything in the game comes back to its economy, the player experience is fundamentally tied to it. If I as a player want to explore some of the games content whether it be getting ships, building stations, completing missions, or just piracy. They all require you to invest some time in the economy first. In a real sense a question the game is constantly asking you is, "How should you best go about earning enough money to do x". When the most efficient answer to that question is to go dick around in an asteroid field for a few hours, something about your gameplay loop is broken. When trying to push the game just reveals that there's no point in doing so and when the biggest rewards in the game require no investment from the player, that is in some way the game saying it's not worth it to invest.

I know there are people out there who will argue that they like the higher rate of rewards and instant payoff because it lets them explore the game when they don't have much time for an epic experience. I can appreciate that perspective, but it comes at the expense in my eyes of making it a game whose systems state at every turn that it isn't worth investing time in anyway. This is not about any of the bugs, or how the economy might stall out right now either, this is just a consequence of giving the player everything on silver platter.

[snoopybiggs]

On the other side of the fence is Elite Dangerous where the devs take away all the earning potential. So im fine with this.

[radcapricorn]

Agreed 100%. And sadly, the majority of those willing to accept the "I just won't do that" stance would consist of the old player base, people that were having fun with X games since the start, or close to it, i.e. players that could do without those silly gimmicks in the first place. All the while the forums would be overflowing with "game me no ship give for plot" posts from the newer generation of players. Sadly still, it is that newer generation that Egosoft is targeting as audience. I dunno, maybe we just want a "hardcore" game start option ("Coming in X4: Albion Epilogue v. 10.3 in 2025" )...

[Sandalpocalypse]

bit weird that you started this off talking about x3 universe traders which are the epitome of run seta, read book, get money.

[tSpecR]

bit weird that you started this off talking about x3 universe traders which are the epitome of run seta, read book, get money.

That is true in a way, but it took me a hell of a long time to be able to get ships which would give me any decent profit without running seta for hours straight. I agree it is a little too easy to make money, but so far I'm still spending it faster than I make it. Im building a big defense platfrom FOB in HOP space ready to unleash my surprise attack and start war, I have no idea how long the platform will last lol but it sure will be fun. The crystals arent that bad, I can make similar money with a bunch of miners or just running missions and crystal mining I find tedious so I dont bother unless I really need some fast space buckeroos.

[Shy'la Nesthorn]

I kinda get this too. After just like 10 hours of playing I already had a frigate fully kitted out, something which would've been a few days in earlier X game.

And I don't even do trading, that was just running around shooting mines and repairing satalites while I was looking for combat (which there is none of)

[tSpecR]

Agreed 100%. And sadly, the majority of those willing to accept the "I just won't do that" stance would consist of the old player base, people that were having fun with X games since the start, or close to it, i.e. players that could do without those silly gimmicks in the first place. All the while the forums would be overflowing with "game me no ship give for plot" posts from the newer generation of players. Sadly still, it is that newer generation that Egosoft is targeting as audience. I dunno, maybe we just want a "hardcore" game start option ("Coming in X4: Albion Epilogue v. 10.3 in 2025" )...

I think eventually the less hardcore players will drop off anyway and go to the next easier space game that comes. For the moment I just avoid easy money unless I really want something quick and set my own goals that are usually expensive. One thing I have found is that they have kind of made autotraders a little too easy, I remember spending ages setting up my Universe traders to get them how I wanted them with blacklists etc. I kind of enjoyed that rather than just click and go

[malkuth1974]

I get it too. They will balance things but it’s bever going to fix it all. The days of just jumping in a freighter and doing 25 runs a night to make your first million is gone unless you give yourself some rules and limit yourself on the easy things.

These are the shortcummings if open game world, your in control of your actions, if you can’t stop yourself than your really not in control.

[Thurgret]

It took me about 2 hours to get a UT up and running in AP, usually with the humble merchant start, after which point there was a steady flow of risk-free (jump drives, after all) money that snowballed into yet more money. By ten hours, I would have a substantial fleet. X4 has gone at about the same pace.

[Shy'la Nesthorn]

It took me about 2 hours to get a UT up and running in AP, usually with the humble merchant start, after which point there was a steady flow of risk-free (jump drives, after all) money that snowballed into yet more money. By ten hours, I would have a substantial fleet. X4 has gone at about the same pace.

That's if you take the easy route. Making any money any other way took much much longer. In X4 you can make a millions by doing literally anything. Makes the game feel super short when you can get the biggest ship available in less then 10 hours

[tSpecR]

It took me about 2 hours to get a UT up and running in AP, usually with the humble merchant start, after which point there was a steady flow of risk-free (jump drives, after all) money that snowballed into yet more money. By ten hours, I would have a substantial fleet. X4 has gone at about the same pace.

Yeah even in AP there were easy ways to make cash if you wanted to, a few quick space fuel runs in the starting sector and then snowballing, or just starting the Argon campaign and getting a Cerberus and an eclipse. They were both much stronger ships back then, especially the eclipse.

[Nexuscrawler]

I left the game running over night WITHOUT the SINZA and just bought a Colossus, which cost me 14 million Credits.
In X3 that same ship was 67,797,400 Credits and earning that money was a lot of work.
It definitly feels a lot easier.

[Barnardstar]

Fully agree with the op. I only have a few hours a week to play, so I haven't put a ton of time into the game, but already I've got a couple of frigates, a whole fleet of miners and universe traders, and a station. The main point is, I'm not super trying. I just fly around the galaxy, mapping systems and looking for missions to repair satellites and shoot mines. I'm already an Argon 'Hero of the federation', which is nice an all but... Really guys? You don't have any war heroes or philanthropists to honour? Just me, the space welder?

I remember in x3, the first time I scraped together the cash to buy a Centaur. It was awesome and a real achievement. It took a lot of thinking and planning. By the point where I was looking at buying capital ships, I had a huge trade fleet and a manufacturing empire with stations in every race's territory, which again... effort.

I think the main thing to fix this is to rebalance the payout from missions completely, they pay too much and require no effort. Repairing a station regularly nets me $150k, shooting mines can be up to $200k. This is a ton of money in this game and all I have to do is follow the waypoint, press the button, done. Manual trading can make a similar amount in the same time, but it takes planning and thinking. Combat makes less, 5k(?) for killing a fighter, and there's risk and costs involved. Trade missions would be well balanced in terms of effort to reward, but I always ignore them in favour of fixing a satellite since it pays more and I don't have to find the resources.

I also think ship prices should be upped. In x3 a Nova was 4x the price of a Buster, a centaur was 5x the price of a Nova, etc. The result was you spent more time on each 'level', planning how to upgrade your money engine to be able to afford the next upgrade. In this game, I had enough for a Cerberus (Centaur analogue) in a few hours of just messing about. Maybe x3 was a bit extreme, but x4 has gone too far the other way.

The game feels like it will be awesome someday, but at the moment it needs more challenge.

[ZombiePotatoSalad]

inb4 Cost Rebalance Mod?

[shealladh]

Agreed 100%. And sadly, the majority of those willing to accept the "I just won't do that" stance would consist of the old player base, people that were having fun with X games since the start, or close to it, i.e. players that could do without those silly gimmicks in the first place. All the while the forums would be overflowing with "game me no ship give for plot" posts from the newer generation of players. Sadly still, it is that newer generation that Egosoft is targeting as audience. I dunno, maybe we just want a "hardcore" game start option ("Coming in X4: Albion Epilogue v. 10.3 in 2025" )...

I think eventually the less hardcore players will drop off anyway and go to the next easier space game that comes. For the moment I just avoid easy money unless I really want something quick and set my own goals that are usually expensive. One thing I have found is that they have kind of made autotraders a little too easy, I remember spending ages setting up my Universe traders to get them how I wanted them with blacklists etc. I kind of enjoyed that rather than just click and go

Let us hope. I avoid drugs and easy grabs without something that is a risk. Yeah sure drug running you can get caught, if you're silly about it.
I too miss the expanded trading setups and how that worked.

I left the game running over night WITHOUT the SINZA and just bought a Colossus, which cost me 14 million Credits.
In X3 that same ship was 67,797,400 Credits and earning that money was a lot of work.
It definitly feels a lot easier.

Chipping away at the big fish was always worth the effort. Rather than the hold-your-hand approach of 99% of games now a days

[Socratatus]

The game needs to stop giving you things and actually let you earn something

I`ve had to buy every ship (spending all my money) except for 3, 2 which bailed after I shot at it and one found, the only freebie so far in many hours (near 2 weeks) of play.

But then again I try to avoid Let`s Plays or people who tell me how to find stuff and just search the universe by myself.

[ApoxNM]

I'm making a post because while the game has its bugs and its issues I can be fairly confident most of those will be fixed. This one though I'm less confident on, likewise I think it's easy to understate how much of an issue it is and I haven't heard anyone really talking about it.

Right now the game gives you so many large and easy rewards that it never really feels like you've built anything, and the things you have done just feel insignificant. Wealth in X4 comes predominately from a few lucky windfalls and means of constant wealth generation are so easily accessible that they feel meaningless. In x3 getting a universe trader set up was significant, it represented a real investment and those deposits it gave with each successful trade felt meaningful for it. Now, why would I feel invested in getting a ship that took me ten minutes to afford by repairing a few satellites. Especially when if I were to find the right pile of crystals sitting around I could just buy a fleet of them, even though the crystals have no value to the player economy whatsoever. Why save for anything when you can find random corvettes sitting in the middle of a sector waiting for you to come take them for a few million effortless credits? While I appreciate the possibility of there being some great rewards out there waiting to be found, right now you come across that kind of thing way too often.

Now why that's significant, why it's actually important and not just personal preference. You could argue that if you don't think those kinds of mechanics are fun to just not play with them. Ignore crystal mining, ignore free ships, don't take station building missions, and say no to everything that seems too easy. That perspective ignores where the core loop of an economic game is though, that being finding an efficient way to make money. Everything in the game comes back to its economy, the player experience is fundamentally tied to it. If I as a player want to explore some of the games content whether it be getting ships, building stations, completing missions, or just piracy. They all require you to invest some time in the economy first. In a real sense a question the game is constantly asking you is, "How should you best go about earning enough money to do x". When the most efficient answer to that question is to go dick around in an asteroid field for a few hours, something about your gameplay loop is broken. When trying to push the game just reveals that there's no point in doing so and when the biggest rewards in the game require no investment from the player, that is in some way the game saying it's not worth it to invest.

I know there are people out there who will argue that they like the higher rate of rewards and instant payoff because it lets them explore the game when they don't have much time for an epic experience. I can appreciate that perspective, but it comes at the expense in my eyes of making it a game whose systems state at every turn that it isn't worth investing time in anyway. This is not about any of the bugs, or how the economy might stall out right now either, this is just a consequence of giving the player everything on silver platter.

Your problems are easily fixed with mods. Just make a mod that changes all the prices and you are set.

[BrasatoAlBarolo]

The game needs to stop giving you things and actually let you earn something

I`ve had to buy every ship (spending all my money) except for 3, 2 which bailed after I shot at it and one found, the only freebie so far in many hours (near 2 weeks) of play.

But then again I try to avoid Let`s Plays or people who tell me how to find stuff and just search the universe by myself.

I have found four miners, two frigates and two bombers. A little too many abandoned ships, imho.

[Dreez]

I agree that starting out in X4 is WAAAAY too easy. First missions you can grab is 150-200k, run a few of those and you're
set with a new frigate. Back in X3 it was much much harder because your first missions would pay 5k here and 10k there,
it was a ladder you had to climb. There was a scale of your combat and traderank that directly influenced how much you were paid
and how demanding those missions were - hence increased payout.

I really hope that ES has plans for this to change more towards X3's hard work.

What we really miss are those ranks for combat and trading... i don't know why ES didn't put that into X4, because it's of a huge importance
to making the player work towards something other then "more ships more stations".

Some missions required certain ranks and standing with factions to start - plot missions ..

One of the things that really ruined the start of X4, was the access to crystals, they pretty much ruin things and makes
earning money a joke. Any new pilot can fly into an asteroid belt and earn millions in an hour of flying around.
In X3 it took days of hard work to earn millions, unless you knew the location of some derelics and got lucky with enemypilots bailing their ships
that you'd sell for a good profit.

It's not for nothing that i call X3TC ES's crownjewel. Let's hope we can get alot of it implemented into X4.

[ApoxNM]

The game needs to stop giving you things and actually let you earn something

I`ve had to buy every ship (spending all my money) except for 3, 2 which bailed after I shot at it and one found, the only freebie so far in many hours (near 2 weeks) of play.

But then again I try to avoid Let`s Plays or people who tell me how to find stuff and just search the universe by myself.

I have found four miners, two frigates and two bombers. A little too many abandoned ships, imho.

I have restrated three times. I played quite some time already and have not found a single ship. I keep reading abouti t, but I never found one.