X4 Version 2.0 Beta 4 is now available

[pref]

Forum Members - "Xenon are too easy! This whole game is too easy! Make em tougher!"

Also Forum Members - "Xenon are way too difficult! This isn't right!!"

Makes me laugh.

I agree it sounds like they were over-tuned, but it made me laugh hearing how much of a joke they were for the first month or two... and now they're not a joke at all. Just straight up murder machines...

Once the board xenon mod comes out you can laugh again then probably if it's really like what people say..

I think it's just sad if ES can't balance the game and oscillates between extremes instead.
Though i don't play the betas so it might be just the initial surprise until people find their way again.

[GCU Grey Area]

Definitely prefer Xenon capitals the way they are now - bloody scary, but can be killed relatively quickly with the right approach & appropriate tools.
For me that's a capital ship of my own (Condor V in current game) to do the heavy lifting, while I snipe at turrets in a nippy little M class (currently a heavily modified Peregrine V). Mildly terrifying to know that if the Xenon takes too much of interest in me I'll be toast, but that just adds spice to the encounter.
Anyway, if things get too intense there's always that Condor to hide behind (front of it even looks like a shield).
As far as I'm concerned they got the balance just about perfect.

[Karmaticdamage]

Gotta make the K deadly somehow. It still has that giant blind spot on its back, turrets easily destroyed, and can be sniped outside its range by destroyer main guns.

[Solus]

I wonder why the type-I didn't get the huge buff and the K just a little one? This is not Dark Souls - difficulty should be in the thinking parts of the game (making money and wares) rather than the shooty parts. If it's true that the danger comes only in sector and OOS the K is still easy then that's a mistake. Encourages players to spend all their game time looking at blue and red symbols rather than strapping into the pilot's seat and experiencing the action.

Also not a fan of "sledgehammer" adjustments to balancing anything to an existing game, discourages time investment in a game that could radically morph into something you don't like (is frustratingly difficult) on whim. Add incrementally and build on better AI or increase numbers of opponents. Just adding an arbitrary 700% (or whatever it is in beta 2) to damage dealt (and halving income from ware sales) is a bit fourth wall breaking.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

I think it's just sad if ES can't balance the game and oscillates between extremes instead.

I don't have time to participate in the Betas, but where it comes to balancing games in general it is a tricky business overall - especially with something like X where there are many different variables to consider.

In general, I think developers like Egosoft should ignore those that complain about things being too easy overall - especially in the context of games like the X-series. Some apparent balancing issues can be due to other bugs (e.g. AI) rather than weapon/shield balance. Try to change both at the same time and you would not know for sure which is the primary cause, this unfortunately is the main mistake most developers make when trying to appease those complaining. They should concentrate on the key control and AI issues then only look at shields/weapons if necessary AFTER those changes have been reviewed by those complaining.

[caltrop]

Gotta make the K deadly somehow. It still has that giant blind spot on its back, turrets easily destroyed, and can be sniped outside its range by destroyer main guns.

Exactly this - my experience with the new Ks is that it’s situational - get on the wrong side of them and too close and they are fatal.

Very quickly you learn not to do this at which point they become manageable. Their dual nature makes them a more interesting opponent imo ^_^

Reminds me of the old Khaak clusters...

[sh1pman]

I have no problem killing them OOS. Is how I do most of combat in X4.

[HBK]

I have no problem killing them OOS. Is how I do most of combat in X4.

Which is not how it should be. OOS combat should reflect in-sector combat, and vice-versa.

Edit:

I wonder why the type-I didn't get the huge buff and the K just a little one?

Xenon I have hard time hitting targets due to their insane turning rate and turret placement (the most glaring issue is that most of their turrets are often actually "moving" at a higher speed than their own turning rate can keep up, due to them being at the tip a this very long ship).

But get in range of one of their three-turrets batteries and you get insta-melted.

[Horux]

Definitely prefer Xenon capitals the way they are now - bloody scary, but can be killed relatively quickly with the right approach & appropriate tools.
For me that's a capital ship of my own (Condor V in current game) to do the heavy lifting, while I snipe at turrets in a nippy little M class (currently a heavily modified Peregrine V). Mildly terrifying to know that if the Xenon takes too much of interest in me I'll be toast, but that just adds spice to the encounter.
Anyway, if things get too intense there's always that Condor to hide behind (front of it even looks like a shield).
As far as I'm concerned they got the balance just about perfect.

I disagree, it is balanced if I put a K and a faction destroyer in a empty sector controlled by AI and it will end in a tie or one of them will hardly survive. But at the moment a K can just run through the faction space and kill everything, at least if you in sector. It will never be balanced if only the player can kill the enemy effective.

Also I have a problem with your description, if a K can kill an argon carry in 20s how is a teladi carry an effective hiding spot?

[GCU Grey Area]

Also I have a problem with your description, if a K can kill an argon carry in 20s how is a teladi carry an effective hiding spot?

Because it's lasting longer than 20 seconds, a lot longer. So far it's always won & has only encountered serious problems if it's outnumbered, or if attacked by a second K while it's shields are still recharging from the last one. Condor's loadout is 12xM Plasma & 1xL Beam (good for rapid subsystem destruction). Also has a set of 3 docked Pulse-turreted Osprey Sentinels providing anti-fighter defences, so the Condor's own turrets can be employed entirely for anti-capital work. Have lost a few of those Ospreys but it carries 3 spares in internal storage.

[EmperorDragon]

Also I have a problem with your description, if a K can kill an argon carry in 20s how is a teladi carry an effective hiding spot?

Because it's lasting longer than 20 seconds, a lot longer. So far it's always won & has only encountered serious problems if it's outnumbered, or if attacked by a second K while it's shields are still recharging from the last one. Condor's loadout is 12xM Plasma & 1xL Beam (good for rapid subsystem destruction). Also has a set of 3 docked Pulse-turreted Osprey Sentinels providing anti-fighter defences, so the Condor's own turrets can be employed entirely for anti-capital work.

If the Teladi carrier is that much stronger than an Argon carrier, then we have a serious balancing issue here. Argon carrier is destroyed in 20s but a Teladi carrier always wins? This warrants a bug report (if true).

The Xenon ships can do with more firepower but, simply buffing up their L turrets this much is not a solution. It has "band-aid fix" written all over it (especially considering the massive difference between IS and OOS efficiency). In fact, it does not provide actual challenge, it just feels like someone tried to make a badly balanced damage mod or applied a cheat to the incorrect weapon. It also makes the AI look more stupid because with such extreme L turrets at the front, it's imperative to approach it from the rear or top. The AI still just charge in head-on.

Xenon L turrets can indeed do with a bit of a buff but, what they really need to make them properly challenging is to add 2-3 additional L turrets, especially on the blind spots, and give all turrets some more hull strength so fighters don't destroy them as easily.

[GCU Grey Area]

If the Teladi carrier is that much stronger than an Argon carrier, then we have a serious balancing issue here. Argon carrier is destroyed in 20s but a Teladi carrier always wins? This warrants a bug report (if true).

Have not tried Colossus in 2.0 (started new Teladi game as soon as the 2.0 beta became available) so have no experience as to how they perform against 2.0 Xenon capitals. Though did have a lot of fun with one in my previous game. I am however sceptical about this 20 second claim, they're not all that much weaker than Condor with regard to hull & shield strength (Colossus in my previous game actually had ~10% stronger shields than my current Condor IIRC).

Guess a lot depends on loadout & whether the ship can kill Xenon capitals efficiently, without taking excessive damage in the process (longer battle = more damage and/or lost subsystems). Have noticed that the symmetrical placement of turrets on the Condor does allow a greater degree of coordination between turret groups - often a good 2/3 of the guns on Condor can be focused on a single target. Suspect that even though it's turrets are weaker than those on a K, it is often simply outgunning the K by sheer weight of numbers - from some angles (flanks etc) K can only bring a couple of it's L turrets to bear & those can be swiftly eliminated, either by myself, or Condor's L beam turret (seems to be quite efficient at that).

[Shehriazad]

If the Teladi carrier is that much stronger than an Argon carrier, then we have a serious balancing issue here. Argon carrier is destroyed in 20s but a Teladi carrier always wins? This warrants a bug report (if true).

Have not tried Colossus in 2.0 (started new Teladi game as soon as the 2.0 beta became available) so have no experience as to how they perform against 2.0 Xenon capitals. Though did have a lot of fun with one in my previous game. I am however sceptical about this 20 second claim, they're not all that much weaker than Condor with regard to hull & shield strength (Colossus in my previous game actually had ~10% stronger shields than my current Condor IIRC).

Guess a lot depends on loadout & whether the ship can kill Xenon capitals efficiently, without taking excessive damage in the process (longer battle = more damage and/or lost subsystems). Have noticed that the symmetrical placement of turrets on the Condor does allow a greater degree of coordination between turret groups - often a good 2/3 of the guns on Condor can be focused on a single target. Suspect that even though it's turrets are weaker than those on a K, it is often simply outgunning the K by sheer weight of numbers - from some angles (flanks etc) K can only bring a couple of it's L turrets to bear & those can be swiftly eliminated, either by myself, or Condor's L beam turret (seems to be quite efficient at that).

Yea 20 seconds is completely unbelievable(to me)...ESPECIALLY since the Colossus has 1 more shield slot than a Condor for some motherhugging reason even though the Teladi are supposedly the tankier faction of the 3 in the game atm.. Condor is HELLA weak compared to a Colossus (even though I love it the most).

And in damage they are also pretty much EQUAL if you look at the target correctly.

For a Condor you want to do a broadside (which is what AI does now))..you on average get 8M and 1L to fire iif done correctly, sometimes maybe 9.
For a Colossuus you want to point your nose "below" the target so 8M and and 1L will always hit. Large targets can be pointed at horizontally and then even some lowerside turrets will hit.


I've yeete to lose a carrier to a 2.0 Xenon K...I take SOME damage for sure, but I simply tell my Condor with Swarm Missiles and L Laser turret to target the L Turrets that are pointing at me first...after that it's just a floating hunk of metal.

Only way I can explain it would be if the Colossus was fit with all laser weapons which is incredibly silly if you want to use the Carrier as an attack vessel.

[CBJ]

The damage for Xenon turrets has been toned down a little in the latest update, which is now available. It is still higher than in 1.60 but a little less extreme than in earlier 2.00 builds.

[HBK]

The damage for Xenon turrets has been toned down a little in the latest update, which is now available. It is still higher than in 1.60 but a little less extreme than in earlier 2.00 builds.

I might have been lucky with my testing run, but it feels way better now. You can take 11 behemoths and assault a shipyard and while you’ll suffer heavy losses, it’ll feel like a proper battle and not some weird Benny Hill sketch.

For the record, Xenon turrets still hurt a lot. But that’s it, they "hurt a lot", they don’t wtfpawnbbq everything within range.

Nice change

[pref]

In general, I think developers like Egosoft should ignore those that complain about things being too easy overall - especially in the context of games like the X-series. Some apparent balancing issues can be due to other bugs (e.g. AI) rather than weapon/shield balance. Try to change both at the same time and you would not know for sure which is the primary cause, this unfortunately is the main mistake most developers make when trying to appease those complaining. They should concentrate on the key control and AI issues then only look at shields/weapons if necessary AFTER those changes have been reviewed by those complaining.

True that you have to do everything step by step if each improvement is released in separate patches, as each change with even just slight effects on combat can change the balance considerably.

AI, turret targeting and dps/shield balance needs a change - the latter at least with Xen capitals. I tried a couple days back standing still in front of a K's L turrets and it took less then 50% of my shields in an M ship under the time i killed its 2 L and 1 M turret (all had me in LOS and were hitting me even).

But then there is the issue with missile defence not working, terrible hitrate of turrets in cases, AI boosting in combat in an ineffective way, OOS/IS balance, and terribly low DPS of some capship turrets compared to that of missile turrets and general ship hull strength.

If they do more of this in one pass that can reduce time spent on balancing drastically as they don't need to rebalance after each change individually.
I trust they will get it right, XR was extremely easy combat wise at start then i think they managed to have a better balance later on.
X3 was pretty nicely balanced all things considered by the time i started to play it, so can't say much about that.

Regarding income for big complexes i feel too that they make way too much money compared to costs we have in the game currently. My first bigger plex did 100m an hour or so even before it got finished, as soon as docks got built, without a single credit transfer to the manager. And there is no buy offers in quantity for the wares it produces.
I was expecting it making next to no profit as long as the storage modules are filled up a bit.
I really miss a report on what ware made how much profit/income as currently it's hard to guess having many intermediate prod modules.

[sh1pman]

Regarding income for big complexes i feel too that they make way too much money compared to costs we have in the game currently. My first bigger plex did 100m an hour or so even before it got finished, as soon as docks got built, without a single credit transfer to the manager. And there is no buy offers in quantity for the wares it produces.
I was expecting it making next to no profit as long as the storage modules are filled up a bit.
I really miss a report on what ware made how much profit/income as currently it's hard to guess having many intermediate prod modules.

Same, my mega-plex with 18 claytronics fabs and a bunch of other end products doesn’t really have much work, because everything is already saturated... I guess there’s not enough money in the universe to pay for my wares Which is a shame. Maybe resource cost for ships and stations should be increased, along with station storage capacity.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

If they do more of this in one pass that can reduce time spent on balancing drastically as they don't need to rebalance after each change individually.

The problem is that in the process they can make the game effectively unplayable for some - making lots of changes in a big hit is exactly the wrong way to do things when dealing with a live product, it flies in the face of best practices.

It may or may not take longer to do things in smaller steps, it depends on the end effect of the changes - either way you end up with less issues with overcompensating for potential/perceived issues unnecessarily which is the key risk with any big bang changes (and often is ultimately what happens).

[sintri]

Pretty sure building stations in enemy territory's gotten far more aggressive. Also nice on the clear logs button.

Also good time as any to remind that sector blacklists with 2.0 would be really helpful

Edit:
Seems the xenon outbreak isn't just me, would not suggest playing beta 3 atm.

[Thecrippler]

need to now was the performance improve in 2.0 beta 2