XR vs X4

[Assailer]

It's all logical, if you need new staff, you have to walk up and knock on every door in your town to find and persuade someone for job candidates.

Why isn't there a system wide job seeker database to browse from?

Ahh yes, it would be too easy and players would be forced to do more useful activities like combat/trade :/

I think the smalltalk would be OK and entertaining, if there would be like 1000+ dialogues to choose from, instead the same AI story.

X4 design should be looked from this perspective. A good looking game design sometimes goes bad if there is not enough content to support it.

[Nikola515]

XR smalltalk
.

If they want to keep small talk i think they should do mini game simular to Oblivion Elder Scroll... I always thought they did pretty good job with that

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

The game concept is basically to persuade someone else to give a reference for someone, not to persuade an individual to give us their own reference.

So if you are looking for a Captain, and you find one, you have to talk to him to persuade him to not give him his own skills, but to make him like you enough that he doesn't want the job so he can refer you to someone else? Yes, sounds logical in every way, NOT!

No, you don't...

Your looking for personnel (for example a Captain) so you hang around a station chatting to someone and after successfully building a rapport (Small Talk mini-game) they tell you where you can find a person of the type you are looking for (and notionally give you the details), you then go find the captain they told you about and confirm the provided details are theirs before you recruit them.

If you find a Captain, there is no way in Vanilla AFAIK to get them to give you their own details (you have to have got them from someone else first).

The misconception here is that you are persuading the individual in question to give you their own details which is not the case (at least IME).

@Assailer: Small talk with someone else is only required to discover their skills BEFORE you hire them in Vanilla. You can still find and hire personnel without knowing the skill details via the NPC lists in the UI.

I would tend to agree that it could have been done differently (and subjectively better), but there is at least one mod that does address this issue.

[RegisterMe]

I haven't read the entire thread, but one thing I'd like from any X4 is no smalltalk. If I want that kind of thing I can go play any number of RPGs that will do it better and more meaningfully (and most of them fail to be honest).

[Santi]

Regarding hiring NPCs, the norm is to check the skills against the price and decide what you can afford that will do the job. X Rebirth presents us with some problems, while you can get a list of NPCs, you cannot check their skills, you need to ask each one individually to find out the hiring price, and you do not know in what tangible and specific way their skills affect the game. I will move to a system where all the skills are displayed and instead of a one off payment, they have wages.

Ideally I would like a system as that of Jagged Alliance, voice overs included. The game lacks "quality" NPCs, police officers, merchants, CEOs, Admirals etc. The game could be so much better if more missions were tied up to NPCs and their stations, and the crews of your ships and stations had some kind of personality.

[Luanda]

Regarding hiring NPCs, the norm is to check the skills against the price and decide what you can afford that will do the job. X Rebirth presents us with some problems, while you can get a list of NPCs, you cannot check their skills, you need to ask each one individually to find out the hiring price, and you do not know in what tangible and specific way their skills affect the game. I will move to a system where all the skills are displayed and instead of a one off payment, they have wages.

Ideally I would like a system as that of Jagged Alliance, voice overs included. The game lacks "quality" NPCs, police officers, merchants, CEOs, Admirals etc. The game could be so much better if more missions were tied up to NPCs and their stations, and the crews of your ships and stations had some kind of personality.

completely agree with this but its a huge work for a space shooter. strange when a working AI or pathing, which can be done by a single guy, is too big job for a small team of devs like ego, a complex living environment is on the top of the "i want it features" start crying out loud for the basics being fixed and then there can be a place to build a living world

[Santi]

Regarding hiring NPCs, the norm is to check the skills against the price and decide what you can afford that will do the job. X Rebirth presents us with some problems, while you can get a list of NPCs, you cannot check their skills, you need to ask each one individually to find out the hiring price, and you do not know in what tangible and specific way their skills affect the game. I will move to a system where all the skills are displayed and instead of a one off payment, they have wages.

Ideally I would like a system as that of Jagged Alliance, voice overs included. The game lacks "quality" NPCs, police officers, merchants, CEOs, Admirals etc. The game could be so much better if more missions were tied up to NPCs and their stations, and the crews of your ships and stations had some kind of personality.

completely agree with this but its a huge work for a space shooter. strange when a working AI or pathing, which can be done by a single guy, is too big job for a small team of devs like ego, a complex living environment is on the top of the "i want it features" start crying out loud for the basics being fixed and then there can be a place to build a living world

I am not asking for a "complex living environment", just for missions to be tied up with NPCs in the correct category, fighting missions with Military NPCs or Bounty Hunters guild and so on, and for the NPCs to have some dialogue, something like "yes I was an space pirate but then took a laser to the knee" kind of stuff.

Regarding AI or Pathing so far I do not have any issue with it mostly because I like to do things myself, micromanagement and all that. Quite happy to be floating in space while things get done.

[Nikola515]

I think Ego should check Rebel Galaxy and it's mechanics of exploring/traveling...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ONoMWqO1wU

It should be on Steam sometime 2015 and game looks pretty good (ill be getting it). Anyway they have some interesting mechanics and I think ego should check it out

[Slashman]

I think Ego should check Rebel Galaxy and it's mechanics of exploring/traveling...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ONoMWqO1wU

It should be on Steam sometime 2015 and game looks pretty good (ill be getting it). Anyway they have some interesting mechanics and I thing ego should check it out

While that looks like a great game (and one I might be interested in getting), it is also much closer to Starpoint Gemini than X games.

Having a 2D plane only to move in simplifies many things, but also severely limits other things. In terms of how missions and interactions are done though, it looks very smooth and definitely un-X in it's presentation.

[Nikola515]

I think Ego should check Rebel Galaxy and it's mechanics of exploring/traveling...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ONoMWqO1wU

It should be on Steam sometime 2015 and game looks pretty good (ill be getting it). Anyway they have some interesting mechanics and I thing ego should check it out

While that looks like a great game (and one I might be interested in getting), it is also much closer to Starpoint Gemini than X games.

Having a 2D plane only to move in simplifies many things, but also severely limits other things. In terms of how missions and interactions are done though, it looks very smooth and definitely un-X in it's presentation.

I agree but it is still better than those highways Also desstres beacons and whole exploration experience looks nice. Something like that would be nice in X games. Im not saying to make X4/XR look like that. But to add more details to uneverse and exportation
Map and those random events look amazing as well...

[BigBANGtheory]

The highways do serve another purpose, to route inter-sector traffic along a certain path thus giving the impression of life and population denisty, something X3 was critised for.

I have mixed feelings about their presence, if the presentation was better I'd probably be ok with them now they sensibly ditched the highway mini-game. I still think Babylon5 has the best solution wrt to intersellar travel I could see that system working well for X Universe with a lot of gameplay potential around using jump capable ships, wake jumping, jumppoint gates, beacons and of course navigation/events through hyperspace.

The ED frame shift drive looks and feels very impressive but it can get dull after a while and sometimes just takes too long to go from A to B when you just want to get there. So they haven't got it quite right either...

[Playbahnosh]

Why isn't there a system wide job seeker database to browse from?

^This.

It's ridiculous how in XR they seem to have forgotten the phone exists. Or really any type of telecommunication. Hell, the Internet is a thing even today. Being forced to land on stations and go through the same tedious minigame every time you wanna accomplish some HR task or trade deal is not only incredibly frustrating but also stupid and unnecessary.

Having the OPTION to land on stations and chat to space geezers to get some light discounts or extra options is neat, but being forced to do every related task like this is madness. THE COMMS! It's a thing, it's working, why not use it? Have a central personnel database (accessible from the ship) that is periodically updated with prospective crew members ranging from pretty good to godawful, and maybe have the top of top only available through the optional face to face fight with the dialogue tree. This way people can get a functional crew going with a few clicks and focus on other things they'd rather enjoy in the game, and those who wanna micromanage the carp out of their personnel and maximize their efficiency can also do so if they choose to. I know relegating the station landing and NPC interaction to be optional content defeats the purpose of having spent so much time and energy in putting it into the game, and I do understand EGO wants these features to be front and center seeing how important it is to them, but forcing the player to use it feels like if they are saying "LOOK AT THIS! We spent untold hours on making this station interior and NPC minigame, so you damn well gonna use it, a LOT, no matter how unrealistic and tedious it is!".

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Why isn't there a system wide job seeker database to browse from?

^This.

It's ridiculous how in XR they seem to have forgotten the phone exists. Or really any type of telecommunication. Hell, the Internet is a thing even today. Being forced to land on stations and go through the same tedious minigame every time you wanna accomplish some HR task or trade deal is not only incredibly frustrating but also stupid and unnecessary.

Having the OPTION to land on stations and chat to space geezers to get some light discounts or extra options is neat, but being forced to do every related task like this is madness.

Your information is out of date... since (I think) v2.0, there has been something akin to NESA as part of the Vanilla game.

In any given Zone you can see available traders and potential personnel from either the "from space" dock comms screen or the Zone wide NPC lists available from the side bar.

There is no Sector or System wide lists, but as I understand it the lists of (non-essential and not recruited) NPCs in any given zone do not necessarily persist after you leave a given zone.

[Assailer]

I would prefer paying a small fee to an agency to get a list on the system-wide available job candidates with their visible skill list (call it CV), or allow the player to build it as a station extension agency module.

There could be commercial station complex type with useful modules like that.

Player build hospital module, and when an important staff member gets sick you could tell your ship to dock there and get them cured.

Salvage module to disassemble ships to get some materials back.

Warehouses to stockpile excess produce, instead using ships to store them.

[spankahontis]

Regarding hiring NPCs, the norm is to check the skills against the price and decide what you can afford that will do the job. X Rebirth presents us with some problems, while you can get a list of NPCs, you cannot check their skills, you need to ask each one individually to find out the hiring price, and you do not know in what tangible and specific way their skills affect the game. I will move to a system where all the skills are displayed and instead of a one off payment, they have wages.

Ideally I would like a system as that of Jagged Alliance, voice overs included. The game lacks "quality" NPCs, police officers, merchants, CEOs, Admirals etc. The game could be so much better if more missions were tied up to NPCs and their stations, and the crews of your ships and stations had some kind of personality.

I mean even a Space Beggar sitting at a corridor begging for Credits would offer some immersion.
Might not serve a purpose in forwarding the game's mission, but it's the little things around you that enhance the games quality.

I always remembered the old X-Games radio announcements encouraging you not to give to beggars. That they're not there is strange, given the entire Universe economy has collapsed cause of the Great Gate Shutdown.

[Varek Raith]

Unless it's something like space poker or other gambling games, I DO NOT want minigames like the ones in XR.

[spankahontis]

Unless it's something like space poker or other gambling games, I DO NOT want minigames like the ones in XR.

That would be cool, Casino Ships.

[Varek Raith]

Unless it's something like space poker or other gambling games, I DO NOT want minigames like the ones in XR.

That would be cool, Casino Ships.

In X3 there are Casino Ship TLs flying around.
I hijacked one.
No pallets of money.
I was disappoint.

[Santi]

Those are small things that the game will benefit enormously, stations announcements, poker, space ship racing, booths for merchants, docking inside the station, you do not need several docking ports for a station, just one massive one, then create different levels (engineering, trade, bars etc.) and just "cheat" with an elevator that loads the level.

Accounts, please implement a monthly summary with your expenses and outgoings, something that has been missing in all games.

If you have a look around, you will see a lot of people creating their own Enterprises, Corporations, Companies and Conglomerates, I believe the game needs more stuff to reinforce that kind of gameplay, logos (like UniTrader mod), paint jobs, icons for NPCs, announcements saying "welcome aboard boss of bosses" and so on.

[Nikola515]

Another thing they should add is NPC's in player stations... What is point of having huge station (space city) if nobody lives in them