Skill and training Feedback

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Axeface
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by Axeface »

Rakoczy84 wrote: Fri, 10. Apr 20, 16:31 .....No comment.....
I really dont see the problem with this. This guy is the macho alpha. Buying pilots like that should be for end game players, and end game players arnt going to even notice losing 264 million.

As a general comment about the 'training issue'.
I understand what you want to do egosoft, training up npcs should take a long time. But in my opinion they should be able to train up themselves to at least 3 stars for autotrade, while trading and should not require player seminar input. This can take a long time, but the 0.1% chance effectively means it never happens. We have loads of player reports saying it doesnt happen, certainly doesnt in my games.

How about %5 chance? %3? Anything but 0.1%. The quality and availability of high star hireable npcs seems like an overstep in the other direction.
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Falcrack
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by Falcrack »

I miss being able to find cheap, unskilled labor for ~1500 credits at stations! Almost all seem to be super expensive now, and sometimes I just need a body to fill the pilot seat.
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by tomchk »

Falcrack wrote: Fri, 10. Apr 20, 19:46 I miss being able to find cheap, unskilled labor for ~1500 credits at stations! Almost all seem to be super expensive now, and sometimes I just need a body to fill the pilot seat.
Yeah, we do need more of the cheap ones, while keeping the expensive ones. Both are important!
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by tomchk »

Maybe they should let us hire from NPC ships again and place the best crew there, BUT give us a rep hit when we do so. Thoughts?
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hourheroyes
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by hourheroyes »

tomchk wrote: Fri, 10. Apr 20, 19:47
Falcrack wrote: Fri, 10. Apr 20, 19:46 I miss being able to find cheap, unskilled labor for ~1500 credits at stations! Almost all seem to be super expensive now, and sometimes I just need a body to fill the pilot seat.
Yeah, we do need more of the cheap ones, while keeping the expensive ones. Both are important!
Can't you just hire via the Upgrade Ship option at wharfs? that tends to give me cheap bulk crew.
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by tomchk »

hourheroyes wrote: Fri, 10. Apr 20, 19:49 Can't you just hire via the Upgrade Ship option at wharfs? that tends to give me cheap bulk crew.
Yes, but sometimes it's very far to go just for a pilot, especially after you capture a new ship that is otherwise decent (and you don't want to fly it around yourself).
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M4lInX255
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by M4lInX255 »

I understand the path you guys at Egosoft want to follow. It's true that before, you could just spam auto traders and exponentially increase your income until the economy is saturated and you need to build stations. This also makes the player more involved in what their ships are doing. So pilots starting at zero star? Fine. A hundred hours in average for them to go from 2 to 3 stars? Not fine, completely crazy even. I know the main argument is "money cannot buy anything and everything, some things need time". Alright I get it, I even agree. But right now it's crazy.

There are several ways of keeping the same system while making the experience less frustrating.

1. The most obvious: raising the curve. It's not a good sign when it's so flat you can't read the actual percentage. To give some perspective, for a 0.1% chance to gain a level at each trade, a pilot would need 693 (!!!) trades to have a 50% chance of gaining a level. Even with 1% it's still 69 trades for a 50% chance to gain a third of a star.
2. Having an actual experience system. Pilots would need a given experience amount to gain one level, and would earn experience through trading (something like a flat amount + a multiple of the trade value per trade). Amounts of experience (more or less equivalent to time spent trading) needed can be easily adjusted.
3. Giving a way to efficiently train pilots ("efficiently" being the keyword, so something different than seminars...). Some kind of facility/station/training centre where their skill level would increase over time, like for the marines in X3. The limit could be 3 stars.
4. Giving the possibility to hire higher level pilots in the ship build/resupply menu, for a higher cost, of course.
5. Make the distribute wares command available at 1 star.

My go-to choice would be a combination of 2. and 3., since it's what is closest to real life. Pilots are taught how to auto trade, or just learn on the job (with manual trade or the distribute wares command) and after that they naturally earn experience over time (and get better at what they're doing). Regarding 1.,I would like to add that, to be honest, I don't understand the why of a '% chance' system, especially with percentages this low. It's neither realistic, nor rewarding for the player (like most things based on randomness). Option 4. goes against the "money not almighty" argument of course, but can still prevent players from exponentially increase their income (at least at the beginning) if the price for a skilled pilot is high enough. Option 5. would reduce the micro-management needed when having dozens of traders, and would make sense since the distribute wares command is a very basic one. Maybe limit at one or two wares for a one star pilot.

I am very much enjoying 3.0 at the moment, it's far from perfect but it's pretty good.This skill leveling system, however, is slowly killing the fun for me...
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by Ghatanathoa6 »

So, starting over with the advent of the expansion, I now have a net worth of close to 2 BILLION. I have a wharf and a shipyard and money is basically meaningless. I have achieved only one pilot with a third star (a scout).

:lol:

So I'm not sure what the point was? You may as well eliminate the auto-trading mechanic from the game. Because when it would have been useful, it's not available. It's still not really available, but if it was, I'm way past the point where one would even be useful. So what's the point?

I mean, all you need to do is manually trade with maybe two miners for Nividium while you play the station building game. Build some refined metal stations. Some silicon wafer stations. Ramp up to complexes that produce adv electronics, drone comps, weapons comps, and before you know it, you have a wharf and shipyard. So why is auto-trading such a big deal? You didn't slow me down. All you did was nuke an aspect of the game and make sure I don't touch it.
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by Falcrack »

Ghatanathoa6 wrote: Sat, 11. Apr 20, 00:20 So, starting over with the advent of the expansion, I now have a net worth of close to 2 BILLION. I have a wharf and a shipyard and money is basically meaningless. I have achieved only one pilot with a third star (a scout).

:lol:

So I'm not sure what the point was? You may as well eliminate the auto-trading mechanic from the game. Because when it would have been useful, it's not available. It's still not really available, but if it was, I'm way past the point where one would even be useful. So what's the point?

I mean, all you need to do is manually trade with maybe two miners for Nividium while you play the station building game. Build some refined metal stations. Some silicon wafer stations. Ramp up to complexes that produce adv electronics, drone comps, weapons comps, and before you know it, you have a wharf and shipyard. So why is auto-trading such a big deal? You didn't slow me down. All you did was nuke an aspect of the game and make sure I don't touch it.
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pref
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by pref »

Ghatanathoa6 wrote: Sat, 11. Apr 20, 00:20 I'm way past the point where one would even be useful. So what's the point?
If you like, you can run around stations getting more stars. Play the XR ghost, whisper show me your skills in an eerie voice in unsuspecting NPCs ears.

Was popular in XR as well!
TonyEvans
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by TonyEvans »

Ghatanathoa6 wrote: Sat, 11. Apr 20, 00:20 So, starting over with the advent of the expansion, I now have a net worth of close to 2 BILLION. I have a wharf and a shipyard and money is basically meaningless. I have achieved only one pilot with a third star (a scout).

:lol:

So I'm not sure what the point was? You may as well eliminate the auto-trading mechanic from the game. Because when it would have been useful, it's not available. It's still not really available, but if it was, I'm way past the point where one would even be useful. So what's the point?

I mean, all you need to do is manually trade with maybe two miners for Nividium while you play the station building game. Build some refined metal stations. Some silicon wafer stations. Ramp up to complexes that produce adv electronics, drone comps, weapons comps, and before you know it, you have a wharf and shipyard. So why is auto-trading such a big deal? You didn't slow me down. All you did was nuke an aspect of the game and make sure I don't touch it.
There's uses to Auto Trader. albeit admittedly limited ones. I'm not, and nowhere near, getting my own shipyards/wharfs.
My new SV Game has mostly been trying to keep ZYA alive against combined Argon and Xenon incursions. 3 of their sectors have fallen, would have been at least 5 if not for me. They've got some production issues that autotraders would have been able to otherwise fill in other sectors.
LameFox
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by LameFox »

That was one of my more amusing realisations about this game in an early playthrough... I'd been running traders manually in the hopes they'd skill up that way to do it automatically (if I only knew :roll: ) and quickly realized the AI had all the stations they needed already but their distribution of wares was awful, I was massively boosting the economy by just moving them around. Wars that had ground to a halt suddenly fired up again, and I could actually buy ships and have them be built that day.

Trading in this game, unlike X3, isn't even just 'print money' anymore, it actually serves a purpose to keep things running. Yet doing it is more tedious than ever. After getting tired of all those manually queued trades that never taught anyone to trade on their own I never did it again and just built my own economy with sector miners each subsequent playthrough.
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tomchk
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by tomchk »

If we ultimately need to do manual trades to train, a single screen trade menu like those you could buy in XR would help a ton! The map is great but trading a lot with it takes tons of clicks.
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dtpsprt
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by dtpsprt »

OK... there is a "loophole" in this piloting stars nightmare that we have been dropped into.
Exploring
The only way for pilots to get skills in a timely manner that will also keep auto-trading alive, the local economies alive and the shipyards/warfs able to provide us with the ships of our desires in a timely manner.
Come to think of it... I see 99% of posts both here and in Steam talking about wars, Empires, trillions of credits but we all forget the underlying reason that got (or will in real life get) people to the stars: the awe and wonder of the unknown.
NOW I get it... well done Egosoft... loved the hard lesson but PLEASE fix these annoying bugs eh? I'm sick and tired pressing F2 and back F1 anytime I do not land my ship but let the pilot do it.
Pares
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by Pares »

The current crew leveling system is incredibly bad and frustrating. I'm 25+ hours into my current game, and all of my pilots are stuck at 2 stars. I had to micromanage them to get to 2 stars, so they can start distributing wares, but since then they made no progress at all. There are no descriptions, no hints, no tooltips about how much more does it take for my pilots to gain another 1/3 of a star. If you expect me to micromanage each of my pilots individually for hours, then wait weeks or god knows how long for them to gain enough stars so I can finally start using the autotrader feature, then you are sadly mistaken. I'll just find another game. :rant:
Raevyan
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by Raevyan »

Fortunately we now only need 2 star pilots and get Universe traders with unlimited range (and also no control to limit the range) in form of Distribute Wares.Of course the hard part is still to get a 2 star pilot but it’s easier than 3 stars.

Well EGO did say multiple times they don’t want to put a pay to win method in. Oh well what did we get after a 21 pager of rants? A Pay to win bandaid fix. I do understand why they put it in (calm down the rage) but I also hope that the next iteration of the crew system is a lot more sought after before you implement it in a release patch.
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Anchorshag
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by Anchorshag »

Whereas the X3 universe seemed to just trundle along happily with or without player interventon, the X4 universe seems to get chokeslammed by the Xenon unless the player takes an early and active role in supporting the economy. So making getting autotraders an enormous hurdle just restricts our ability to do that. Which is a bit frustrating!

Though maybe the Xenon kicking everyone's butts 10 hours into a playthrough isn't by intent!

Thinking about it a lot of similar games just tell us the evil bad space aliens are a terrible danger. But nothing really changes whether you do or don't help. Looking at you, Elite Dangerous.
At least the Xenon really are the huge threat they're made out to be!
dtpsprt
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by dtpsprt »

And the ranting on the skill system goes on... understandably since the players had it really easy in the first releases. Don't blame them Egosoft. After all it was your choice to "turn" away from the proven and tested X, X2, X3 Universe trying to attract younger people (your managers thought). Then you make the mistake (hope it's not deadly for the company) to REALLY simulate an economy. With an audience that has absolutely no idea how real economy works. "I want to save the Argons, I like them so much", "Can't have the infidel HOP trumple on the True Believers" and so on...
What has this to do with economy? Nothing whatsoever. Economy needs WAR to sustain itself, even better many localised ones. So they have to be left fighting or everything else halts.
Then there are the Xenon. They contribute nothing to the economy, except the factions are sacrifising many resources to fight them, BUT any sector they take over is a dead sector for everyone. So they have to be seriously contained, not eradicated of course.
Is the player the one to do it? NO!!! At least until he gets to a faction power level... even then...
What can be done?
Easy peasy...
1. Everybody shouts for Hull Parts... good... what is needed for Hull Parts? ORE. Put a miner or two (at most, you don't want it saturated) in the sectors of each faction that have Ore Refineries...
2. Everybody is shouting for Advanced Electronics... what is needed for Advanced Electronics? SILICON. Rinse and repeat as with Hull Parts (Ore that is).
3. Thanks to Newtons 3rd Thermodynamic Axiom Energy is everything and everywhere, that's why all starts allow you to built an Energy Cell plant (it does not even need personell, aka Habitat). Put a cheap price to it Build one for every faction, it's trader does not even have to be half a star.
There you have it. All the factions grow strong, No experienced pilots needed. Money is pouring in. Time to put 1 or 2 miners for Nividium for the "big Bucks".
Job done... let's play...

P.S, Ore miners HAVE to come before everything else cause of Hull Parts shortages... then the first faction that gets one working for them will provide the miners for the rest... Can't explain it more... really...
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Axeface
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by Axeface »

So a modder found a bug that prevented miners from leveling past 2 stars. Is it possible traders are similarly afflicted?

Is it possible that this bug has lead us all (including egosoft) down this viscous circle of drastic changes to the system? If our pilots had not had this bug and had been leveling past 2 stars the outcry to removing 3 star pilots from recruitment would have been drastically smaller. Time to be transparent and figure this out.

Today I was trying to get some pilot to 2 stars overall just for distribute wares, in order to do it I had to do missions to get get them that far. Recruited freighters can do NOTHING that is relevant to them until the player gets 2 star seminars because of the way overall star rating is calculated. Miners can at least mine right away, traders can do nothing!
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dtpsprt
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Re: Skill and training Feedback - Improved in 3.10 beta 1.

Post by dtpsprt »

Axeface wrote: Sun, 12. Apr 20, 03:33 So a modder found a bug that prevented miners from leveling past 2 stars. Is it possible traders are similarly afflicted?

Is it possible that this bug has lead us all (including egosoft) down this viscous circle of drastic changes to the system? If our pilots had not had this bug and had been leveling past 2 stars the outcry to removing 3 star pilots from recruitment would have been drastically smaller. Time to be transparent and figure this out.

Today I was trying to get some pilot to 2 stars overall just for distribute wares, in order to do it I had to do missions to get get them that far. Recruited freighters can do NOTHING that is relevant to them until the player gets 2 star seminars because of the way overall star rating is calculated. Miners can at least mine right away, traders can do nothing!
Just put a novice (1/3 of a star) pilot on explore for 3 hrs. He turns out 3 stars WITH the right morale. Does that answer any question? I leave it up to you to think what can be done with that pilot....
Playing on vanilla mind you... with DFSI skill improvement and JP Sector Explorer this becomes 1 hour...
Of course this does not mean that there is no bug...

As for miners can mine right away but traders can't trade, just have a look on my post on top of yours, about how the economy REALLY runs (both in X4 and RL) what trade can there ever be if there are no resources? Don't let Banks and Insurance companies mislead you by calling their accounts, loans and insurance policies "products". They are plain services period. Or Germany was THAT stupid that kept their industry when the Anglo Saxon world was turning into Banking? Who got out better from the Recession?

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