Diplomacy related. Do players want something like the Washington Naval Treaty?

[vvvvvvvv]

If the player choses to react to the reduction they just need to make their empire more efficient (sell military ships for example).

Here's how it can work out in practie:

The player can simply max out reputation to the point where debuff won't matter.
If debuff is uncapped, then all factions will inevitably commit suicide by player and the player will inevitably kill everybody. A death spiral, and a fairly boring one.

The issue here is that X4 is not a turn based game. In turn based games, AI has a chance against humans, because human is controlling a restricted pawn which is very limited in what it can do. But in x4 the player pilots ships directly and it is the best pilot in the galaxy. The player is superior to the NPCs, is capable of ending the world with one powerful ship, and this is not something that can be addressed with debuffs. As such it is reasonable to expect that all attempts to make field level between player and NPCs will fail, and the player will always win.

With that in mind it can be reasonable to focus on sandbox experience instead of trying to replicate total war. Make a reactive world, and let the player wreck it. Which is where diplomacy update is going, in my opinion.

[flywlyx]

An "issue" is that player is not a state, not a faction proper. Neither is player a member of any faction.
I have not seen the beta, but I doubt that that would change.

Not really—players are given god-like power to manipulate relationships between factions, yet they’re still treated like nobodies.

[Axeface]

The player can simply max out reputation to the point where debuff won't matter.

No this would not be the case, there would be a limited amount of deals you can strike, it would be a balancing act.

If debuff is uncapped, then all factions will inevitably commit suicide by player and the player will inevitably kill everybody. A death spiral, and a fairly boring one.

The point is we would be given a reason to make our empires efficient (currently it is performance, with all the immersion breaking impact that has) and a reason to enter into war with the factions other than the xenon. SO few players go to war with the factions because it is immensely inconvenient, they only do it for roleplay reasons. There needs to be a reason imo. The point of my idea for this is to give a reason for both of these things while stacking the odds against them. Can the player 'just build' and make the factions 'death spiral' into us, yes, but we can currently do that by building a couple of defense stations at critical points that the AI literally cannot EVER destroy and then click the declare war button... With the mechanics I'm talking about those defence stations would have a large diplomatic impact and would see more resistance.

Look. Player power cannot be overcome (maybe soon), the point is to make an experience that makes sense. Me having 20 asgards that I stole from the terrans in terran space that they take no issue with is a huge problem. With the mechanics i'm talking about I could set the game to very hard, and the terrans, and everyone else, would take serious issue with some corporation having 20 asgards... and those that want to just play at 4 fps and paint the map green with a fleet of 400 of them can just turn the feature off and go about their business.

But I would like to point out that difficulty options are very popular, people playing 'challenge' runs or 'ironman' and other such things in games with difficulty set high is a common theme in gaming. X just doesnt have this, at all. Please egosoft can you do something.

[flywlyx]

Look. Player power cannot be overcome (maybe soon), the point is to make an experience that makes sense. Me having 20 asgards that I stole from the terrans in terran space that they take no issue with is a huge problem. With the mechanics i'm talking about I could set the game to very hard, and the terrans, and everyone else, would take serious issue with some corporation having 20 asgards... and those that want to just play at 4 fps and paint the map green with a fleet of 400 of them can just turn the feature off and go about their business.

But I would like to point out that difficulty options are very popular, people playing 'challenge' runs or 'ironman' and other such things in games with difficulty set high is a common theme in gaming. X just doesnt have this, at all. Please egosoft can you do something.

What X4 fundamentally lacks is a system where NPCs actively pursue and pressure the player, creating real struggle.
If that’s what you're hoping for, Egosoft has already tried something along those lines with the endgame crisis—which, as we’ve seen, didn’t work particularly well.

[LameFox]

tbh it doesn't sound like it would affect my playstyle at all, which is essentially to set up industry in a small defensible location, buy up all blueprints, then build production chains and fight everybody. It's as if it's designed to make people play like that.

[vvvvvvvv]

No this would not be the case, there would be a limited amount of deals you can strike, it would be a balancing act.

Rep goes up to +30. Are you proposing -60 debuffs?

The point is we would be given a reason to make our empires efficient (currently it is performance, with all the immersion breaking impact that has) and a reason to enter into war with the factions other than the xenon.

I'm not seeing it this way. Instead my impression is that this will railroad the game into all out war with everybody vs me, a war which I'll inevitably win. That kills the fun.

the point is to make an experience that makes sense.

A universe that is primed to inevitably attack me and die does not make much sense.

Also, in my opinion the solution you propose seems to be unrelated to the problem you describe.

The problem you describe is that terrans do not react to stolen asgards. But "factions should attack the player if he/she gets too strong" has nothing to do with this. It is also possible to play the game without ever stealing a single ship. Unlock through reputation, build your own asgards. Then apparently the faction that sold me blueprints would declare "You've built too many! Now you die!". What exactly did they think I'll be doing with blueprints?

runs or 'ironman' and other such things in games with difficulty set high is a common theme in gaming.

The issue here is that once you know how to play, it doesn't matter if it is ironman or challenge run, because you will inevitably win. Consider this: When was t he last time AI managed to kill your avatar? Not blow up a ship, but trigger gameover screen?