Egosoft: Never again

General discussions about the games by Egosoft including X-BTF, XT, X², X³: Reunion, X³: Terran Conflict and X³: Albion Prelude.

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eladan
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Post by eladan »

BillSheil wrote:In a couple of hours of play you the normal payout for combat missions is in the region of a billion credits per hour at which point money and rank have no further meaning and you are capable of taking on any threat that the universe can offer (and the game/system can handle) by sheer brute force.

How do you credibly combine that with any meaningful trading, building or thinking?
Good God. Don't you lot have any imagination?

The missions are giving you too much money? Become a philanthropist! Decide to donate all (or some %) of your earnings to charity! Suddenly, you're not swimming in cash any more.

You simply need to think outside the (sand)box. You are given extraordinary freedom to do what you want in this game, so do it to set your own difficulty level. Make up some story to justify it. As an example, take a look at the squiddy thread - he's made his own set of rules to make his game more of a challenge. Just because the game throws money at you doesn't mean that you have to do everything which pays hugely, and it doesn't mean that you have to use that money to buy the most humungous fleet you possibly can. Do some roleplaying to give yourself a reason to play.

There you go. There's your 'think' for you.
BillSheil
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Post by BillSheil »

Do some roleplaying to give yourself a reason to play.
Translation: don't play it the way you want to play it.
eladan
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Post by eladan »

BillSheil wrote:Translation: don't play it the way you want to play it.
No. You're still not understanding what I'm saying.

You're essentially saying that the large payouts you get from missions are ruining your game? Fine - what do you consider an acceptable payout? Make a decision to keep that amount, and chuck the rest of it. (You'll find a way.) You've still got everything you had before, plus a much more enjoyable game, because the excess cash isn't ruining it for you.
BillSheil
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Post by BillSheil »

You're essentially saying that the large payouts you get from missions are ruining your game? Fine - what do you consider an acceptable payout? Make a decision to keep that amount, and chuck the rest of it. (You'll find a way.) You've still got everything you had before, plus a much more enjoyable game, because the excess cash isn't ruining it for you.
I wonder if you could possibly believe this doesn't sound like the game has serious balance issues?
eladan
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Post by eladan »

BillSheil wrote:I wonder if you could possibly believe this doesn't sound like the game has serious balance issues?
Where have I said the game is perfectly balanced? :?

What I'm debunking is your lemming like behaviour to do everything the game has to offer at face value, without any thought about how your game might suffer as a consequence, when it is totally within your power to do something about it.

I'm not attacking or defending the missions as they are written. It's irrelevant to my point.
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Poobah
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Post by Poobah »

eladan wrote:Good God. Don't you lot have any imagination?
Isn't there a rule somewhere about making personal attacks...? It's also considered a bad way of validating an argument.

Yes you can do these things you describe but that would fly in the way of the "well that's how the devs intended it" argument for starters. I mean, it seems to be an admission on your part that the game isn't well blanced from the off and needs creative game play on the part of the player in order to balance it and make it fun to play.

Edit : I see that while I was posting you clarified that you weren't defending game balance as such, consider the above retracted.

Also it seems rather limiting too. I mean sure you can choose not pick up / use the Hyperion in X3:R, but the fact that it exists in the game is practically an imperative to use it. Its like playing X3:R with the cheat scripts installed, eventually you'll buckle and cheat, even if your intent was only to fix something or whatever. It's like giving me a choice between frost bolt and frozen orb; of course I'm going to take frozen orb!

Yes you (as a player) can fly around for the entire game in a 1% durability unshielded M5 if you like, and are welcomed by the universe to do so if you really want to. But there are other choices available, and unfortunately one of those choices is "end-game wealth and power". I love the ability in X games, especially since X2 to be able to achieve whatever you wish, with enough hard work.

I want to be able to work away at my empire, taking XI missions every time they are available to help raise money for my next complex. I want to have UTs, to have MORTS, to have stations and complexes and loops and all that jazz. I want to do combat missions for fun and a reasonable payoff, without doing so invalidating the entire rest of my gameplay. I want to slowly work that rep up with the races until I can get and equip the fleet I desire to display my wealth and power, and protect my property in a universe filled with the unexpected and the possibility of danger.

And having finally managed to do so after long hours of game play, to be able to sit back and look at what you've achieved is a hell of a feeling.

X3:TC pretty much robs you of that long slow journey leading to the achievement which actually makes it worth while. Isn't this one of the quotations Ego like to use?
"It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end." - Ursula K. LeGuin
Lead me not into temptation,
For I can find the way myself!
Cycrow
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Post by Cycrow »

BillSheil wrote:
You're essentially saying that the large payouts you get from missions are ruining your game? Fine - what do you consider an acceptable payout? Make a decision to keep that amount, and chuck the rest of it. (You'll find a way.) You've still got everything you had before, plus a much more enjoyable game, because the excess cash isn't ruining it for you.
I wonder if you could possibly believe this doesn't sound like the game has serious balance issues?
the game would never be balanced. Everyones idea of balance is different.

if you balance it to someones ideals, someone else would complain that its not balanced.

it would be impossible to balance the game different for every person that plays it.

thats where scripting and modding can come in. If you dont like how its balanced, you can edit it yourself.

your just one of many ppl playing the game, and you shouldn't expect games to be made exactly to your ideals
BillSheil
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Post by BillSheil »

the game would never be balanced. Everyones idea of balance is different.
That's irrelevent. Eledan's argument is that, in the absence of challenge, practice self delusion, and call it role-playing.
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Poobah
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Post by Poobah »

Cycrow wrote:your just one of many ppl playing the game, and you shouldn't expect games to be made exactly to your ideals
I think it isnt that the game has been made not exactly according to the ideals of any one person that is the problem. More that it has been made according to ideals which are so drastically different to the previous X titles that people didn't get what they thought they were buying when they saw X on the cover.
Lead me not into temptation,
For I can find the way myself!
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Mars Mug
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Post by Mars Mug »

One of the crazy aspects of the Xenon patrol missions is where I have reached the distance trigger to end the mission and take my reward, still leaving half a Xenon fleet in sector. From that point instead of getting the 12 million for killing a J/K I am reduced to a reward of 10,000 each, a factor of over 1,000 difference. That makes sense :?
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euclid
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Post by euclid »

Mars Mug wrote: ......Yesterday I completed a Patrol and got 470 milllion, using a single Osaka. I think my rank is Battlemaster.
*Gulp* that's a lot of cash for such a mission. Even at that combat rank it just too much.

Cheers Euclid
"In any special doctrine of nature there can be only as much proper science as there is mathematics therein.”
- Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Metaphysical Foundations of the Science of Nature, 4:470, 1786
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BugMeister
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Post by BugMeister »

BillSheil wrote:
Do some roleplaying to give yourself a reason to play.
Translation: don't play it the way you want to play it.
- alternative translation: think outside the box.. :roll:
- the whole universe is running in BETA mode - we're working on it.. beep..!! :D :thumb_up:
dimstog
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Post by dimstog »

I really don't get what's the big deal with those partrol missions. I really don't understand why people can not simply avoid them if they believe they are game breaking.

Yes the game is not perfect, but self discipline and self restraint should be considered. A Ferrari can speed up to 250km/hour, but if you keep driving at that speed you are bound to crash and burn aka ruin your driving experience to say the least. Does that mean that the Ferraris in the world are "bugged" and "undriveable" ?

This is my first X game; being the obsessive compulsive I am, I read some hundred pages in the forums before even buying the game in order to be ready to play it. I've been playing for about 2 weeks, 2 to 4 hours a day average. I tried the patrol missions everyone is flustered about and then avoid them like hell if they are above average ? Why ? It's not like I don't need the money, but hey, most of them slow my computer to a crawl (which IS a bug, my quad CPU never goes over 70% in those cases) and they are pretty damn difficult if you use MARS for the AI as well.

The result ? I get to do everything else besides patrols, which is plenty, and believe you me, I am always in need of more cash - every so often I try a hard patrol out of greed and have to reload. And yesterday I finally got my Shrike to house my 4 Eclipses (had to sell everything I owned to get it though). How is that for a sense of acomplishment ?

What all this means to me is that you cannot expect from a game to cope with your human intuition and perseverance. If you can't accept that, then you are stealing yourself out of the game experience.

Yes, patrol missions (I insist, from hard and above difficulty) could have been toned down. But personally I don't see it as a broken game mechanic, I see it as a feature that allows me to have a chance to buy that shiny big ship I read about without having to play for 6 months and without having to use a cheat script. I would have mixed feelings about the patrol missions being toned down in the next patch exactly for this reason. And honestly, I don't see the reason in having to grind like crazy for hours and hours in order to get an M7 in a single player game. I personally would be very bored if I had to spend months of doing the same "balanced" missions over and over again to come up with the cash. Once I get to see all the ships I want and built all the complexes I want (of which I don't have a single factory built yet), then I'll choose maybe a very strict game like so many have done here.

I am not saying you should play like me, I am not saying there are no bugs. But you should play while keeping in mind that you are pitted against a machine that can only think in 0 and 1, and you can certainly outsmart it in every way, no matter how hard the developers program it.

Btw, all games are self delusional. Or did anyone really think that buying a box off a rack they would really become space pilots in a galaxy far far away ? I dare anyone here to take as many broken hard+ patrol missions they like but never reload when they die: isn't it self-delusional to say "oh, ok, I'll go for the 400mil and if I blow up, I'll just turn back time from the afterlife, if not, the mission is broken". Would you play real russian rulette for any price ?

Games, like movies, are an illusion and it's totaly up to you to immerse yourself in them.
Things are generally simple.
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Mars Mug
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Post by Mars Mug »

Like many threads of this nature the thrust of the argument meanders, it has covered how the game was developed / released, problems with different platforms, game balance, bugs, scripts, now its Xenon invasion missions.

As a solitary fighter with no wingmen and no factories I like the patrol missions. Getting a reward of 470 million is a bit much though don’t you think compared to the normal rewards for killing the various Xenon ships?

Being told to avoid those missions and do something else doesn’t work for me, and I’ve yet to work out how to dispose of hundreds of millions of credits as suggested. Basically like all X-games I’ve played the credits quickly become meaningless so I’m not too bothered about it, but a more realistically balanced reward would make me happier.
BillSheil
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Post by BillSheil »

- alternative translation: think outside the box..
No, because there's no thinking being suggested here, just pretending that you're playing a different game in the absence of actual challenge. :roll:
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Poobah
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Post by Poobah »

dimstog wrote:Yes, patrol missions (I insist, from hard and above difficulty) could have been toned down. But personally I don't see it as a broken game mechanic, I see it as a feature that allows me to have a chance to buy that shiny big ship I read about without having to play for 6 months and without having to use a cheat script.
It isn't impossible to make a few million credits with a bit of work, but they shouldn't be thrown at you either.

Think of it this way : making it as easy as it currently is to get money and bigships is like giving the player the BFG9000 and infinate ammo on the first level of Doom. Sure you're going to have fun blowing stuff up for a while, but it just isn't the same.
Lead me not into temptation,
For I can find the way myself!
TheJakal
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Post by TheJakal »

Or if you really liek the missions but hate the payout. Usde said payout to buy 20 unarmed M1s then self distruct them all and your back to square one witht he cash regards.

Cheers

TheJakal
phoenix-it
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Post by phoenix-it »

Orwellian Doublespeak?

Sausage Rolls?

This thread has everything but The Kung-Fu Grip! :D


Well, guess it has that now too...
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Carlo the Curious
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Post by Carlo the Curious »

phoenix-it wrote:Orwellian Doublespeak?

Sausage Rolls?

This thread has everything but The Kung-Fu Grip! :D


Well, guess it has that now too...
It already did - LV popped in on page 6!

Oh wait, that's force grip. :p
snyderm
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Post by snyderm »

I just can't believe anyone would defend the patrol missions the way they are. I can't believe it.

Hasn't anyone noticed that often times missions end for no reason in the middle of combat while half of the Invaders are still in the sector shooting at you? That would be a slight clue that these missions are not as the designers intended them to be. They are broken, and do not work properly. The sheer number of invaders that appear at the same time should be a hint that all is not well.

What about when so many ships jump into the sector they all stop moving? It looks like they are all borg, and their communication with the collective has stopped. Does this look normal to you? Is it fair that you just fly around and kill a bunch of defenseless capital ships for 6 million a pop?

There is plenty of evidence that whatever was intended with these missions, it isn't happening.

Sure, you can simply not take these missions. In fact, I don't. But it would be nice to have some fun patrol missions so I could get some cool uses for my warships that I buy.

Its a good thing that there aren't any frequent crash to desktops in this game. We would be here discussing how to role-play them.

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