Announcing X4: Split Vendetta and update 3.0

[Chris0132]

Contrariwise I find X3 to be slower than it really needs to be. I've been through the effort once to learn how to do it and make money but I've no desire to do it twice over, and frankly the older I get the less time I have to do it.

[adeine]

Or, you know, include/pick advanced game starts for people who want to get to late game quickly and play the game that way. It's not as if it's a binary choice between a slower or faster progression when the beginning of the curve isn't set in stone.

The problem is that right now there is no early game and a lot of the content in the game is more or less useless as a result. Like it or not, limited resources were a big part of the variety in earlier titles' gameplay and why 'start from nothing but an M5' game starts were so popular. Doing missions to upgrade your starter ship and/or build reputation -> Going through the tiers of M5/M4/M3 ships -> Managing multiple ships and traders -> Upgrading to M6/7 ships -> Getting your first capital ships -> Building fleets and stations -> Empire management were all very different stages from one another and kept the game fresh as you sunk a lot of time into it. In fact they play almost nothing alike.

In X4 you basically jump right in at the capital ship stage, and even stations aren't very far off, so you miss out on a lot of gameplay variety and what's worse, a lot of the content presently in the game is meaningless as it's never relevant to the player because there are always better affordable options.

Yes, some people like the later stages of the game and would like to get there more quickly or do not have much time to 'waste' on early game, so just put in a game start with enough cash/assets to skip to that stage?

[Ovni]

Everyone likes the feeling of progress so advanced game starts that basically skip content aren't the solution. Sliders for progress multipliers are what we need, with some slow/medium/fast presets so we're don't have to tweak them through trial and error.

Think Civ with it's settings like Epic game speed, and separate sliders for difficulty.

[Falcrack]

Everyone likes the feeling of progress so advanced game starts that basically skip content aren't the solution. Sliders for progress multipliers are what we need, with some slow/medium/fast presets so we're don't have to tweak them through trial and error.

Think Civ with it's settings like Epic game speed, and separate sliders for difficulty.

They could adjust the difficulty of the game, without severely limiting the AI or the economy, by decreasing payouts for crystals, inventory items, and missions. Without these paying huge amounts of credits, working your way to the top would be incredibly difficult. Making money through trade, especially at the start when you don't have that many credits to begin with, is a very slow process. The AI would not be adversely affected by such changes in difficulty, but the player sure would be.

[Ovni]

They could adjust the difficulty of the game, without severely limiting the AI or the economy, by decreasing payouts for crystals, inventory items, and missions. Without these paying huge amounts of credits, working your way to the top would be incredibly difficult. Making money through trade, especially at the start when you don't have that many credits to begin with, is a very slow process. The AI would not be adversely affected by such changes in difficulty, but the player sure would be.

As others pointed out, what you're proposing just makes endgame content unreachable for those who don't spend their every waking hour on the game. Which sucks both for Ego *and* those players. What we need is multipliers we can customize at any time, with some presets you can pick from. So, fictional example, I could pick the "casual" profile but then decrease the rewards from crystals mid-game because it feels like cheating but I'm happy with the progress rate in other areas.

[Vertigo 7]

or, you could just accept that the credits didn't roll as soon as you clicked "buy" on that carrier and continue to play. Up to you if you wanna call it quits there or not.

[adeine]

Everyone likes the feeling of progress so advanced game starts that basically skip content aren't the solution. Sliders for progress multipliers are what we need, with some slow/medium/fast presets so we're don't have to tweak them through trial and error.

Think Civ with it's settings like Epic game speed, and separate sliders for difficulty.

They could adjust the difficulty of the game, without severely limiting the AI or the economy, by decreasing payouts for crystals, inventory items, and missions. Without these paying huge amounts of credits, working your way to the top would be incredibly difficult. Making money through trade, especially at the start when you don't have that many credits to begin with, is a very slow process. The AI would not be adversely affected by such changes in difficulty, but the player sure would be.

As others pointed out, what you're proposing just makes endgame content unreachable for those who don't spend their every waking hour on the game. Which sucks both for Ego *and* those players. What we need is multipliers we can customize at any time, with some presets you can pick from. So, fictional example, I could pick the "casual" profile but then decrease the rewards from crystals mid-game because it feels like cheating but I'm happy with the progress rate in other areas.

Sliders and multipliers are a recipe for disaster - it's hard enough to balance the game for one set of variables, trying to do so around any number of them is well beyond Egosoft's capacity. X4 is not like Civ in that there are many parts to a functioning economy which vastly vary game to game and testing even just one configuration is a prohibitive amount of effort every time Egosoft change things up.

Liking the feeling of progress is exactly one of the reasons why a lot of people are asking for the early game back. You wouldn't lose anything by having advanced game starts that roughly mirror how you can basically start from M ships and empire building at the moment, all such a rebalance would do is bring back the early game of prior iterations for those who want it.

[Alith-Ahnar]

Everyone likes the feeling of progress so advanced game starts that basically skip content aren't the solution. Sliders for progress multipliers are what we need, with some slow/medium/fast presets so we're don't have to tweak them through trial and error.

Think Civ with it's settings like Epic game speed, and separate sliders for difficulty.

They could adjust the difficulty of the game, without severely limiting the AI or the economy, by decreasing payouts for crystals, inventory items, and missions. Without these paying huge amounts of credits, working your way to the top would be incredibly difficult. Making money through trade, especially at the start when you don't have that many credits to begin with, is a very slow process. The AI would not be adversely affected by such changes in difficulty, but the player sure would be.

As others pointed out, what you're proposing just makes endgame content unreachable for those who don't spend their every waking hour on the game. Which sucks both for Ego *and* those players. What we need is multipliers we can customize at any time, with some presets you can pick from. So, fictional example, I could pick the "casual" profile but then decrease the rewards from crystals mid-game because it feels like cheating but I'm happy with the progress rate in other areas.

Sliders and multipliers are a recipe for disaster - it's hard enough to balance the game for one set of variables, trying to do so around any number of them is well beyond Egosoft's capacity. X4 is not like Civ in that there are many parts to a functioning economy which vastly vary game to game and testing even just one configuration is a prohibitive amount of effort every time Egosoft change things up.

Liking the feeling of progress is exactly one of the reasons why a lot of people are asking for the early game back. You wouldn't lose anything by having advanced game starts that roughly mirror how you can basically start from M ships and empire building at the moment, all such a rebalance would do is bring back the early game of prior iterations for those who want it.

The thought to need a balanced game in the first place is imho the biggest problem.
Neither is X nor the previous games a competative Title nor is it even Multiplayer to begin with balanced in a classical sense it is not necessary.
I even would go as far and say it limits replay ability and role playing incentives.

The game would indeed benefit from pre game start variables that can be tweaked to change up the meta like for example poor mining grounds in core systems that would force miners into fringe systems from the get go or police presence high or low factory modifiers in regards to output and input or chances for disasters like famine and pandemics and such.

[AshesOfHegemony]

Woohooo i can't wait to be a star splitizen!

[vrod]

I also feel that X4 is way to easy versus X3.

I enjoyed working hard in X3, just to upgrade my engines or weapons. When I finally got a new ship, it felt like I really had something special there. It took months to get the trained marines, ship, and needed equipment to board other ships.

In X4, I can complete a couple missions, then upgrade to another ship. Maybe within 1 sitting. (Way to quick in my opinion)

I think some kind of sliders would be nice to have. Even if it was to raise or lower the prices of items. (and maybe get rid of the highways too)

[Ovni]

The thought to need a balanced game in the first place is imho the biggest problem.
Neither is X nor the previous games a competative Title nor is it even Multiplayer to begin with balanced in a classical sense it is not necessary.
I even would go as far and say it limits replay ability and role playing incentives.

The game would indeed benefit from pre game start variables that can be tweaked to change up the meta like for example poor mining grounds in core systems that would force miners into fringe systems from the get go or police presence high or low factory modifiers in regards to output and input or chances for disasters like famine and pandemics and such.

Exactly. It's a sandbox, we should be able to customize our experience, that's where all the fun and replay value lies once you've seen everything. Egosoft should ensure that the Galaxy doesn't go completely bonkers on the default settings, but we should definitely be able to triple Xenon expansion rate if we feel like our life expectancy is too long. Ego can always put a big fat warning for players who don't realize they can break their game.

Personally I wouldn't mind a slower early game but I also realize that Ego can't make defaults that please everyone, so I'd rather ask for sliders.

Players should be able to share on the Workshop slider presets that lead to interesting games.

[Killjaeden]

Options menu is long overdue for X, but

Players should be able to share on the Workshop slider presets that lead to interesting games.

The game is very random, so sharing sliders would be barely useful in reproducing a "interesting game". You can just share your settings normally (screen) in forums after all...

[chrisco54]

This is the first big expansion for X4

yay

[h1ght]

is there a changelog/feature list of 3.0 stuff/improvements/changes?

i dont want to use a mod to build a station to supply wares to the builder or do it by hand .

never played x before, just couple of minutes and was lost. this time it makes some fun. but some things missing.

[IblisBane]

Well...finally.

Apart from a few days of play testing on release, I basically shelved this to a) wait for the Split expansion, (where's my Dragons and Mambas) and b) give the modders a chance to get their claws deeper into it.

With hundreds of hours in X3, I (like many others) still feel a bit let down by X4 (although not nearly as badly as Rebirth, which I stopped playing and never touched again once I realised I was locked into a single ship), but since I (out of faith) pre-ordered the collectors edition, and so get the DLC by default, I resolved to give it a fair go once the Split expansion came out.

Waiting with baited breath...but perhaps diminished expectations.

[mr.WHO]

I see that some weapons get FX rework/upgrade.

Any chance for rework/upgrade of Desptroyer main guns? For the biggest guns in X4 they are very dissapointing both graphical and sound wise.

[Felicitus Bigbeaver]

I would like to see automatic repair and ammo supplying to fleets with a supply ship or carrier attached - with a log entry and maybe a catagory for this. Fleet auto attacking the biggest threat, with fighters counting bombers as these. Fire rates and repair rates / shield charging improving with better crews.

and a large chocolate bunny from Bernt every easter.

[Felicitus Bigbeaver]

The destroyer main guns could do with a rework. Rather than being a version of a pulse laser, they could activate in a special combat mode which means they take 30 -45 seconds to charge but vapourise all but freighters and above. With matching visual effects and holes forming in the side of destroyers. Some extra sound files for survivors "What the F*** was that" etc

[Alith-Ahnar]

The destroyer main guns could do with a rework. Rather than being a version of a pulse laser, they could activate in a special combat mode which means they take 30 -45 seconds to charge but vapourise all but freighters and above. With matching visual effects and holes forming in the side of destroyers. Some extra sound files for survivors "What the F*** was that" etc

I don't see the Destroyer top of the food chain for combat vessel a weapon like this would remove some room upwards to expand into bigger capital ships like Cruiser and Battleships.

Take a closer look at the Trailer and pause at the scene with that weird gargantuan turret see notice any similarities to the Destroyer Main Gun this could be a indicator to what might come XL Turrets or just simple twin Destroyer guns in a turret.

[g04tn4d0]

The 3.0 update is of course free but is the DLC paid?

Correct. The Update 3.0 is free to anyone who owns X4: Foundations. For the DLC you have to pay, unless you already bought the Collector's Edition or the Collector's Edition Content DLC. In that case, the DLC is the first of the two mentioned expansions which are included. I'm afraid, I have no idea what the DLC will cost though.

Totally buying this expansion day one!