[Request/feedback] Early game balance

[radcapricorn]

Maybe each play-through is different enough, but I don't get this. I'm not really dialed into every nuance even now but I had heard about crystal mining and after running about in my starter ship doing missions and upgrading for a couple of nights I wanted to fight more and not be forced to run so I wanted a new ship. I started mining and it took me most of an evening to discover and mine enough to buy that ship without giving up my starter to get into a Nova with good weapons and shields and deployables and some credits left over to work with.

Off the top of my head, things to do to get 1-2MCr or more in first 10-15 minutes:

Spoiler

Show

1. Gimmick missions such as satellite repair, "shoot the mines", passenger transport. 3-4 of them and you've broken your first 1M.
2. Two-three of the above + follow initial stages of the plot (they gift you 225k).
3. Crystal mining, egg mining (they even flash a tip in your face that that is profitable). This one varies, but once you learn how and where, it's profits with almost zero downsides (literally zero for crystals).
4. Loot gathering.
5. Crafting.
6. Capturing any S ship, be it pirate or otherwise. With bail rates as they are right now it's a piece of cake. Even M is not reaching, although you'd probably want a stronger gun, but certainly doable with starter as well. No penalties whatsoever. Profits could easily exceed 500k from one capture.

Now, if that is your absolute first time starting the game, then sure, you're not likely to do it in literally 10-15 minutes after starting, I hope that's understood. There will be time spent learning controls, going through the, ahem, "tutorials", pissing pants in awe of the ability to dock nearly anywhere while making YouTube video about it, and the like. Most everyone goes through acclimatization in any new game they pick up.

Admittedly, I didn't go about this as 'serious business', I was a casual player just sort of exploring and looking at stations and other cool stuff. In no way was I in my next ship in 30 minutes.

And? Is that bad or good? I posit that's good, for the very first start.

I would not have enjoyed being forced to move at nothing other than cruise speed early on just to slow me down.

Indeed, that is why I disagree that S ships shouldn't have a travel drive at all. They should, just not installed by default (or maybe a starter version in some game starts). This just creates another goal: "I don't want to be slugging all the time".

This reminds me of the Skyrim people that wanted everyone forced to walk or ride everywhere because fast travel made it too easy. You want to walk, fine... walk. Don't want to go crystal mining, don't go. SETA and Autotrade bother you, don't SETA.

And if you don't like to play as is, don't play. I've heard this argument before, many times, for many games. As I said initially, the only way to not advance in X4 is to not do literally anything. So of course this argument "works". But I would like it, in this game, to be "make your own way using tools at hand" instead of "willfully discard gimmicks to make game interesting". I want to experience as much of the game as possible, without those experiences ruining the fun of it.

What would make the early game more interesting, is interesting things to do. Rescue a lost pilot that leads to more plot missions down the road. The need to fight, explore, trade or interact to gain the materials for our research, and things along this line. Just the research tree alone a huge skeleton that many plots could hang from. Making my ship slow so it takes longer to go from here to there is not in itself interesting even if it does extend the game. So many games use increased grind to substitute for depth that I actually enjoy the fact that the grind in this one is not that bad.

I absolutely agree. But don't forget that "interesting things to do" most certainly include applying one of the four so called corner stones of the series (the "Think"), to devising a plan for yourself for getting out of the rags. The game as is provides exactly zero inclination to do so, half the content is already served on a silver platter, you just need a bit of money; the other half is reached with no difficulty at all.

[surferx]

The way this game plays out now, you have easy access to riches but a suppressed super cheap economy. This defeats the immersion by being too unrealistic. Crystal mining would have the same effect on the game's economy as gold did in the early nineteenth century California where eggs were selling for $25 each. If you can mine a few crystals to buy a ship, either crystals would be very cheap or ship prices would be ten times higher.

[photomankc]

Maybe each play-through is different enough, but I don't get this. I'm not really dialed into every nuance even now but I had heard about crystal mining and after running about in my starter ship doing missions and upgrading for a couple of nights I wanted to fight more and not be forced to run so I wanted a new ship. I started mining and it took me most of an evening to discover and mine enough to buy that ship without giving up my starter to get into a Nova with good weapons and shields and deployables and some credits left over to work with.

Off the top of my head, things to do to get 1-2MCr or more in first 10-15 minutes:

Spoiler

Show

1. Gimmick missions such as satellite repair, "shoot the mines", passenger transport. 3-4 of them and you've broken your first 1M.
2. Two-three of the above + follow initial stages of the plot (they gift you 225k).
3. Crystal mining, egg mining (they even flash a tip in your face that that is profitable). This one varies, but once you learn how and where, it's profits with almost zero downsides (literally zero for crystals).
4. Loot gathering.
5. Crafting.
6. Capturing any S ship, be it pirate or otherwise. With bail rates as they are right now it's a piece of cake. Even M is not reaching, although you'd probably want a stronger gun, but certainly doable with starter as well. No penalties whatsoever. Profits could easily exceed 500k from one capture.

Now, if that is your absolute first time starting the game, then sure, you're not likely to do it in literally 10-15 minutes after starting, I hope that's understood. There will be time spent learning controls, going through the, ahem, "tutorials", pissing pants in awe of the ability to dock nearly anywhere while making YouTube video about it, and the like. Most everyone goes through acclimatization in any new game they pick up.

Admittedly, I didn't go about this as 'serious business', I was a casual player just sort of exploring and looking at stations and other cool stuff. In no way was I in my next ship in 30 minutes.

And? Is that bad or good? I posit that's good, for the very first start.

I would not have enjoyed being forced to move at nothing other than cruise speed early on just to slow me down.

Indeed, that is why I disagree that S ships shouldn't have a travel drive at all. They should, just not installed by default (or maybe a starter version in some game starts). This just creates another goal: "I don't want to be slugging all the time".

This reminds me of the Skyrim people that wanted everyone forced to walk or ride everywhere because fast travel made it too easy. You want to walk, fine... walk. Don't want to go crystal mining, don't go. SETA and Autotrade bother you, don't SETA.

And if you don't like to play as is, don't play. I've heard this argument before, many times, for many games. As I said initially, the only way to not advance in X4 is to not do literally anything. So of course this argument "works". But I would like it, in this game, to be "make your own way using tools at hand" instead of "willfully discard gimmicks to make game interesting".

What would make the early game more interesting, is interesting things to do. Rescue a lost pilot that leads to more plot missions down the road. The need to fight, explore, trade or interact to gain the materials for our research, and things along this line. Just the research tree alone a huge skeleton that many plots could hang from. Making my ship slow so it takes longer to go from here to there is not in itself interesting even if it does extend the game. So many games use increased grind to substitute for depth that I actually enjoy the fact that the grind in this one is not that bad.

I absolutely agree. But don't forget that "interesting things to do" most certainly include applying one of the four so called corner stones of the series (the "Think"), to devising a plan for yourself for getting out of the rags. The game as is provides exactly zero inclination to do so, half the content is already served on a silver platter, you just need a bit of money; the other half is reached with no difficulty at all.

To much quote editing so I'll address separately:

On play-though - Point taken. First and third play-through are not going to be the same. I think I did agree that the crystal profit could be turned down a bit. Making a few hundred K for an evenings work would be a nice way to get into a mining ship to start pulling in regular income while exploring and doing missions. Same on the mission rewards. They are are now swung to the absurdly high reward end for early game and don't seem to scale from there so once you have 150M getting 3M profit for a station is not that exciting or much incentive. So mark me down in support of these.

Travel Drive - Going to continue to disagree here. Personally, I like it as-is maybe a compromise with some bigger steps between any Mk1 and Mk3 in the line for boost/travel speeds.

"If you don't like to play don't play" - I think that applies more to a sandbox open world type game than to others. I've also seen forums full of people that have one way they want to play and that is the only way it ought to be played. Often I find that I would have no interest in the game as they would like to see it made. I enjoy the current more casual grind as I said. I think if done right, a simple easy/moderate/hard setting should not be that difficult and could go a long way eliminate some of these gripes for those that have them.
-- Hard - Almost never bail, no crystals or crystals *only* in Xenon/Kha'ak space, ~30% mission rewards, ~30% ship resale value.
-- Moderate - Fewer pilot bails, lower yield of crystals and few fields outside Xenon and Kha'ak space, ~60% mission rewards, ~60% ship resale.
-- Easy - As is.

I get my casual space sim pew-pew, others get the harder grind they like. Frankly I'd probably like the moderate setting myself. Except bails, I have not experienced nearly as many as others here seem to. I have a grand total of maybe 4 S ships that have bailed and one M Cerberus. It's weird because in my game they all go down with the ship even while begging me to stop shooting. I've killed bucket loads of pirates too so it's not just a lack of shooting.


Think - I agree, there is little of this in the current game. So as I say, adding interesting content that requires that would be welcome in my book. So would thoughtful time limits on missions that makes them not a fore-drawn conclusion that they can be done even if you are driving a Teledi XL freighter slug. Some aspect of real danger would be nice too. Mines that can't be targeted and that come after you from greater range for example in those mine-clearing missions. I do like the current resource procurement missions because you may need to make some S transports and put them in sector for a while auto-trading to complete them, that took me some time to figure out how to approach well.

[mr.WHO]

You can artificially make game harder, but it will not fill this content hole in any way, it will only take you longer to realize how empty this game is.

Please stay constructive for this topic, I really don't want this thread to go "down there", there are already plenty of those.

Yeah, because it is constructive to arbitrary crank up the ranking/earning speed to your liking.

X4 is not faster/easier than for example X3:TC (and I remember people bitching how it's too fast and too easy to rank up and earn money in TC), but in TC you had tons of things to do when you reach the top and in mid game too.
I miss X3:TC generic missions, TC plots, hell I even miss X-Rebirth plot.
X4 is a good game, technically speaking, but it lack content to shine.

The only interesting end-game thing that X4 has is player shipyard, but you have nothing else to do with the moneys and ships it provide. NPC factions are at best 1 carrier, bunch of destroyers and frigates plus some fighters.
Currently I probably have bigger fleet than entire galaxy combined, so even total conquest will be boring.

[Kadatherion]

You can artificially make game harder, but it will not fill this content hole in any way, it will only take you longer to realize how empty this game is.

Please stay constructive for this topic, I really don't want this thread to go "down there", there are already plenty of those.

Yeah, because it is constructive to arbitrary crank up the ranking/earning speed to your liking.

X4 is not faster/easier than for example X3:TC (and I remember people bitching how it's too fast and too easy to rank up and earn money in TC), but in TC you had tons of things to do when you reach the top and in mid game too.
I miss X3:TC generic missions, TC plots, hell I even miss X-Rebirth plot.
X4 is a good game, technically speaking, but it lack content to shine.

The only interesting end-game thing that X4 has is player shipyard, but you have nothing else to do with the moneys and ships it provide. NPC factions are at best 1 carrier, bunch of destroyers and frigates plus some fighters.
Currently I probably have bigger fleet than entire galaxy combined, so even total conquest will be boring.

This is pretty much what I've said myself. Although X3 was built to have much more of a grind especially in the early game (the overpriced ship systems and harsh faction relation limits to buy wares and ships, mainly) it also had several ways to cheese it by repeating missions that would be extremely rewarding, exponentially more as you got up the ranks. The end result wasn't that different: the real difference was there was so many more things that would distract you (ship diversity, things to do, places to explore - remember 6 times the galaxy size...) that it would take a while before you felt "forced" to exploit the grind. In X4... there's not much else to do, because it lacks content. You have uncovered the whole map in 30 minutes, there's nothing to search for (no, the utterly stupid data vaults don't really count...), nothing else to do but immediately start grinding to buy trader ships to send around, and so on.

Some rebalance here and there to some mechanics would be fine and arguably a pretty good idea (boost HAS TO go, especially on bigger ships: try the mods that already do this, it's not just a matter of pacing, the AI fights MUCH better without being able to boost; travel drive has to have limitations: if every ship has it, then it's the same as NO ship having it, it's needed - among other things - to differentiate how different ship classes play), but it needs that content first and foremost, or we are going to just go into a loop without much to come out of it.

[radcapricorn]

Yeah, because it is constructive to arbitrary crank up the ranking/earning speed to your liking...

...but in TC you had tons of things to do when you reach the top and in mid game too...
...The only interesting end-game thing that X4 has is player shipyard...

This thread is about early game. Why do you keep plugging in mid/end game worries here? I'm not dismissing them, but this thread is not about them.

Also...

X4 is not faster/easier than for example X3:TC

That's just not true. The only way it can be true is if you do use gimmicks in X3. That said, if you actually actively pursue a goal, yes, you can play X3 reasonably fast. In X4, you hardly even need to bother.

[mr.WHO]

Yeah, because it is constructive to arbitrary crank up the ranking/earning speed to your liking...

...but in TC you had tons of things to do when you reach the top and in mid game too...
...The only interesting end-game thing that X4 has is player shipyard...

This thread is about early game. Why do you keep plugging in mid/end game worries here? I'm not dismissing them, but this thread is not about them.

Then I'm confused - the early game is the only solid phase of X4. I can complain about mid and late game all the time, but if I would like to point something that irritate me in early game then there is nothing in particular.
As I mentioned the rank/earning speed in similar to X3:TC, so I don't see anything bad with it - not too slow, not too fast - just right, for entire 0 to 20 reputation range (i don't care for 20+ as I see nothing useful there).

[radcapricorn]

Then I'm confused - the early game is the only solid phase of X4. I can complain about mid and late game all the time, but if I would like to point something that irritate me in early game then there is nothing in particular.
As I mentioned the rank/earning speed in similar to X3:TC, so I don't see anything bad with it - not too slow, not too fast - just right, for entire 0 to 20 reputation range (i don't care for 20+ as I see nothing useful there).

Would you go for Mk2 engine when Mk3 is two mission rewards (or any other easy pickings) away?
Would you go for Mk1 weapon when you already have the rep for Mk2, because you've completed three missions and shot three civilians?
Would you sit and decide whether it's worth putting "that" engine and "this" weapon on "this" ship?
Will you fight a group of KHK in your, perhaps slightly upgraded, starter ship?
Will you go exploring after you had your first 10 or so so called "encounters"?
Will you walk around every station after you visited your first 3?
Will you wonder why one of the loading tooltips advises you to crouch on stations?
Will you pass on attacking a wounded pirate?
Will you ever comply to pirate demands to drop cargo?
Will you ever comply to police demands to hold still and be scanned?
Will you think twice before taking on a mission that may be considered hostile?
Will you forego travel drive to get from point A to point B?

I could probably continue that list, but my point is - the answer to all those questions is "yes" exactly once - when they're posed to you for the very first time, and even then it's mostly out of sheer curiosity (which would not be rewarded). Afterwards, it's "no" all the way. Which means, even if it's your first playthrough, there is next to zero decision-making involved. Might as well use an advanced start/mod and skip that bleak "adventure". And that will lead you to the "wonderful" mid game of current X4.

[surferx]

Then I'm confused - the early game is the only solid phase of X4. I can complain about mid and late game all the time, but if I would like to point something that irritate me in early game then there is nothing in particular.
As I mentioned the rank/earning speed in similar to X3:TC, so I don't see anything bad with it - not too slow, not too fast - just right, for entire 0 to 20 reputation range (i don't care for 20+ as I see nothing useful there).

Would you go for Mk2 engine when Mk3 is two mission rewards (or any other easy pickings) away?
Would you go for Mk1 weapon when you already have the rep for Mk2, because you've completed three missions and shot three civilians?
Would you sit and decide whether it's worth putting "that" engine and "this" weapon on "this" ship?
Will you fight a group of KHK in your, perhaps slightly upgraded, starter ship?
Will you go exploring after you had your first 10 or so so called "encounters"?
Will you walk around every station after you visited your first 3?
Will you wonder why one of the loading tooltips advises you to crouch on stations?
Will you pass on attacking a wounded pirate?
Will you ever comply to pirate demands to drop cargo?
Will you ever comply to police demands to hold still and be scanned?
Will you think twice before taking on a mission that may be considered hostile?
Will you forego travel drive to get from point A to point B?

I could probably continue that list, but my point is - the answer to all those questions is "yes" exactly once - when they're posed to you for the very first time, and even then it's mostly out of sheer curiosity (which would not be rewarded). Afterwards, it's "no" all the way. Which means, even if it's your first playthrough, there is next to zero decision-making involved. Might as well use an advanced start/mod and skip that bleak "adventure". And that will lead you to the "wonderful" mid game of current X4.

Hard pass to every question, only because rapid progression effectively removes options from the gameplay. Less options = less fun. People think they would get bored of gameplay if the advancement is too slow, but actually the oppisite happens because you are leap frogging over many decisions that are designed into the game. I would love to have to put off some quest because I have to detour around an enemy ship, or choose between buying a freighter or fighter. The way it is now you just check things off the list: build ships, build stations, build empire.....

In my game I've never crafted SETA, never crystal mined, I always forego "easy" missions yet the game progression is still not difficult.

[surferx]

I'm going against the grain for a bit. Difficulty levels would be preferable to a group of people that insists my sandbox space pew-pew game needs me to invest endless hours to do anything interesting.

I was a huge fan of X3 but the endless grinding for night after night to eek out a few thousand for this or that upgrade was not at all my favorite part. On the contrary it was the biggest roadblock to me ever trying another start. Yes I think X4 needs a middle-game badly, there is no depth right now, no quest lines and I miss that. However I'll be straight-up honest. Once I learned to give myself credits and ships in X3 I never looked back. I would always start out with two or three trade ships and a fighter and salvage insurance. More irritating than the grinding was losing 3 hours of work because I hadn't docked personally since dinner.

I don't have a lot of free time to just sink into the game and I really put in more than I should as it is. I wish crystals had a purpose beyond just credits and maybe nerf the values a bit, but I appreciated that avenue to some credits so that I could manage to at least hold my own in a fight much earlier than allowed in X3 default starts.


I agree to some extent with the weapon variety issues. Would be nice to see some real variations. I would strongly prefer they didn't turn into the alphabet soup of X3. Would make sense though if races kept maybe specialty L turrets for their ships only that made their L/XL ships stand out some. I especially do NOT AT ALL MISS spending hours and hours trying to locate anyone that has capitol weapons to sell. God I hated that with a passion.

This is a valid point of needing faster progression by players who don't have the time, or patience to grind thru early stages. This can be fixed by simply having a gamestart with a fully equipped ship, or freighter and X credits in the player account, and faction rep so the player can choose to skip the early progression.

[surferx]

I think you are really persistent with that difficulty thing, are you certain it's not your sensibility only? Although you had some responses with positive reinforcement of this idea, I also think the players who would be more upset or put off by your suggested changes aren't going to comment on this forum, and they can even be intimidated by looking like "noobs" for disagreeing with your difficulty increase. Maybe you could just use (or write) a difficulty mod for yourself and be happy with it?

Post a poll- Is rank progression Easy-Just Right-Hard.
I'm pretty sure where the votes would go.

[mr.WHO]

Then I'm confused - the early game is the only solid phase of X4. I can complain about mid and late game all the time, but if I would like to point something that irritate me in early game then there is nothing in particular.
As I mentioned the rank/earning speed in similar to X3:TC, so I don't see anything bad with it - not too slow, not too fast - just right, for entire 0 to 20 reputation range (i don't care for 20+ as I see nothing useful there).

Would you go for Mk2 engine when Mk3 is two mission rewards (or any other easy pickings) away?
Would you go for Mk1 weapon when you already have the rep for Mk2, because you've completed three missions and shot three civilians?
Would you sit and decide whether it's worth putting "that" engine and "this" weapon on "this" ship?
Will you fight a group of KHK in your, perhaps slightly upgraded, starter ship?
Will you go exploring after you had your first 10 or so so called "encounters"?
Will you walk around every station after you visited your first 3?
Will you wonder why one of the loading tooltips advises you to crouch on stations?
Will you pass on attacking a wounded pirate?
Will you ever comply to pirate demands to drop cargo?
Will you ever comply to police demands to hold still and be scanned?
Will you think twice before taking on a mission that may be considered hostile?
Will you forego travel drive to get from point A to point B?

I could probably continue that list, but my point is - the answer to all those questions is "yes" exactly once - when they're posed to you for the very first time, and even then it's mostly out of sheer curiosity (which would not be rewarded). Afterwards, it's "no" all the way. Which means, even if it's your first playthrough, there is next to zero decision-making involved. Might as well use an advanced start/mod and skip that bleak "adventure". And that will lead you to the "wonderful" mid game of current X4.

You need to consider that mission rewards are singular. Yes I'd be happy to use mk.3 engine for my personal ship.
Yet when I need mass general purpose NPC controled fleet I still use mk.1 engines on everything, despite that I can use mk.2 and mk.3 in my personal shipyards.

None of above question are problematic at early game - depending on how I fare in early game all of them could be answered yes or no without pushing to one direction.
Again those question strike me negatively in much frequent and cosistent way in mid and late game.

[photomankc]

Would you go for Mk2 engine when Mk3 is two mission rewards (or any other easy pickings) away? - In most game starts yes, I have to do that for a while. Mid-game pilot ships get mid-grade stuff to keep cost down for multiples.
Would you go for Mk1 weapon when you already have the rep for Mk2 - See above, rank does not seem to progress for me as fast as you suggest. 3 civilian criminals gets me to +1.
Would you sit and decide whether it's worth putting "that" engine and "this" weapon on "this" ship? - Yes,
Will you fight a group of KHK in your, perhaps slightly upgraded, starter ship? - Not unless I can't get away
Will you go exploring after you had your first 10 or so so called "encounters"? - Yes, every time I restart or bump into a sector I forgot about I go exploring. I don't see a way around that?
Will you walk around every station after you visited your first 3? - Not every, but I do still walk to my ship sometimes because I enjoy the takeoffs and landings and visuals of doing it or to snatch up a crewman I need.
Will you wonder why one of the loading tooltips advises you to crouch on stations? - Yes, as well as jumping?
Will you pass on attacking a wounded pirate? - Sometimes... I'm busy.
Will you ever comply to pirate demands to drop cargo? - Only in the very beginning. It's poorly implemented anyway since they can scan you from forever away.
Will you ever comply to police demands to hold still and be scanned? - LOL, nope. Would need more dire consequences for that.
Will you think twice before taking on a mission that may be considered hostile? - Yes, until I'm in the upper-teens with rep I prefer to avoid those. Kicked of a few chain reaction deals that made problems for me at lower ranks.
Will you forego travel drive to get from point A to point B? - I do, when I need time to manage remote map issues and don't want to pause activity while I do that. Otherwise. Nope, travel drive is good.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Until Egosoft develop a proper system of difficulty levels I don't want to see the base game changed.

Every time a group turn up and shout loudly for something to change, we all get the same changes with no control for the players who did not shout for those changes in the first place.

If people want the game to be harder then there should be proper difficult levels. So normal could be the current settings. Harder would ...

Smaller payouts.
Less crystals with smaller rewards.
Fighting more difficult.
Boarding harder.
Enemy shields stronger.
Player weapons weaker.
AI Pilots better at fighting and hitting targets... The list of things in this game that could be tweaked to make the game harder to progress is large. Egosoft need to work to create a proper system.

PLEASE: -> Not the current method which is if we make Xenon weapons stronger and more accurate, then everybody gets the same changes.

The last set of lets make it harder changes meant that I can't personally take part in an attack on a Xenon station as my entire fleet ends up getting shredded.
The only real way to attack and take a Xenon sector is to do it remotely. I took part in my first Xenon sector attack, this was before the Xenon were "upgraded" for everybody.
Now I can't do that. This is really frustrating.