Split Vendetta DLC on Steam: why is there a price for it?

[BlackRain]

Is it really though? or is it just more of the same. Yeah it takes a huge chunk of development time but i can't see it adding much "Content" to the game.

So, let me get this right. To you, new ships, new stations (graphics in this case but maybe some new production stations, more sectors of space, more enemies (a few new enemy factions), probably a couple of new weapons to go with the split, none of this equals "Content" to you?

Nope not really, just more of the same to what we have just different skins and textures and a few backdrops for new sectors. I'm more looking forward to the new mission system than i am to the DLC.

The new ships and weapons might add a bit more flavour but i'm not a fan of the split ships from what i've seen so i doubt i'll have them in my fleet, might look pretty to blow up. The graphical and effects updates are free to everyone and we've already got them in 3.0 beta granted they look great but it's not content.

Wares, stations and production chains are just a means to an end unless they add specific stations for certain features e.g. research stations, Personnel training stations rather than stations that just feed a shipyard/wharf. The new pirate factions will probably be the best part of the dlc for me just for the fact i don't see any point in going to war with major factions and cutting my profits in half. I want to see some new scripts and wing commands i guess i would rather them just build upon whats already there i much rather the DLC contain new ship classes for the existing factions and more diversity for their purpose, atm they all pretty much perform the same role.

E.g. scouts/interceptors will chase targets without using supercruise and never catch anything to pull them out of supercruise so pointless, you might aswell use a decent fighter with high armor and shields and decent weapons to save your money, i want to see some real destroyers, missile frigates and bombers, personnel transports and corvettes.

i'll wait until i've played it to judge it properly but from the information we've received it feels pretty much copy/paste at the moment.

I understand those are the things you want, but that doesn't mean there isn't any content or that it isn't worth the money. I would love to see more ships types/roles for ships and other new stuff too. I think as time goes on, the game will definitely get more. It might take the next iteration though for a huge difference or the types of things you are hoping for. Like I previously said, it is all about time and money. Giving them both will get us much more in the end. They are a company that sees things through if they have the means.

I was just thinking that one cool new thing could be a software for a type of pulse that knocks ships out of travel drive. That would be a simple, but cool nice little thing.

[tomchk]

Yes, an interdictor that disables both travel drives and highway travel would be especially sweet if doable, at least for targeted ships.

[taztaz502]

So, let me get this right. To you, new ships, new stations (graphics in this case but maybe some new production stations, more sectors of space, more enemies (a few new enemy factions), probably a couple of new weapons to go with the split, none of this equals "Content" to you?

Nope not really, just more of the same to what we have just different skins and textures and a few backdrops for new sectors. I'm more looking forward to the new mission system than i am to the DLC.

The new ships and weapons might add a bit more flavour but i'm not a fan of the split ships from what i've seen so i doubt i'll have them in my fleet, might look pretty to blow up. The graphical and effects updates are free to everyone and we've already got them in 3.0 beta granted they look great but it's not content.

Wares, stations and production chains are just a means to an end unless they add specific stations for certain features e.g. research stations, Personnel training stations rather than stations that just feed a shipyard/wharf. The new pirate factions will probably be the best part of the dlc for me just for the fact i don't see any point in going to war with major factions and cutting my profits in half. I want to see some new scripts and wing commands i guess i would rather them just build upon whats already there i much rather the DLC contain new ship classes for the existing factions and more diversity for their purpose, atm they all pretty much perform the same role.

E.g. scouts/interceptors will chase targets without using supercruise and never catch anything to pull them out of supercruise so pointless, you might aswell use a decent fighter with high armor and shields and decent weapons to save your money, i want to see some real destroyers, missile frigates and bombers, personnel transports and corvettes.

i'll wait until i've played it to judge it properly but from the information we've received it feels pretty much copy/paste at the moment.

I understand those are the things you want, but that doesn't mean there isn't any content or that it isn't worth the money. I would love to see more ships types/roles for ships and other new stuff too. I think as time goes on, the game will definitely get more. It might take the next iteration though for a huge difference or the types of things you are hoping for. Like I previously said, it is all about time and money. Giving them both will get us much more in the end. They are a company that sees things through if they have the means.

Meh they'll get my money regardless i bought everything for rebirth never reinstalled it after launch, i've got a lot of faith in egosoft just because X4 was actually in a playable state at launch and yeah it's called foundations for a reason and to be fair it is a great foundation to build upon i'm just hoping we get a few decent new "Features" along with the ships/stations etc

I just want the best for X4 i would love if the developers went back and played freelancer and took some inspiration from that game mainly the missions and the way you form up with your wings at the single click of a button and everything just flies in an aesthetically pleasing manor rather than the cluster mess we currently see.

Would also be nice to have more consumables like food/medical supplies in the form of luxury goods or perishables maybe add a workforce happiness meter that makes them perform better when you supply them with those goods, and make their performance lower/crime or something if a ton of smugglers are dumping your stations full of drugs, could also be a good tactic to use vs the enemy too if you can nerf their production by filling them with drugs and it would give you a reason to police your own sectors.

But for now i'm excited for the new mission system and see what they bring out next for ventures, plus the new weapons in the beta are awesomesauce so maybe we'll see more of those in the DLC.

[Misunderstood Wookie]

So, let me get this right. To you, new ships, new stations (graphics in this case but maybe some new production stations, more sectors of space, more enemies (a few new enemy factions), probably a couple of new weapons to go with the split, none of this equals "Content" to you?

I think it adds a good amount of content. But for a 30$ DLC, that's the bare minimum of what one could expect.

But it is only 15 dollars. 30 is a special edition or something

30 as listed on steam is for the Collectors Edition Upgrade for X4, the DLC is closer to as you suggested even tho steam does not have a price for the DLC yet if you look at the DLC directly it says N/A so I believe the 15 is not even officially the cost yet either. Some of the things I the other person wants I would have liked to see in the base game but so I get where they are coming from in regards to would rather see a smaller content pack which expands more of the same and fleshes those out which supports the development and continued development of the series.

Tho some things I think we need to get addressed before Beta ends are the simple quality of life things which should already exist such as separate Trade and Mining Fleet, Civ Grouping instead of just a Fleet doing Fleet combat things we need it to be smarter and organise our ships into Fleets based on role and task along with the addition to have the multi-unit select be useful such as mass give behaviour order by selecting a bunch of traders and then telling them all to Auto Trade with same set setup initially, then this forms a Trade Fleet and you can go adjust the ware basket yourself individually after this process.

On that line, a smart Trade would not go astray where the trader attempts to help move around low resource wares to boost the sector economy. In the end, it is all just time and frankly, modders have solved much of my gripes about vanilla myself included in this I solved a game start I wanted before many really existed.

Today we have mods which expand upon or overhaul just about every major aspect in ways better than vanilla has and that is both awesome but also a shame as it means Ego missed an opportunity to do better than play it safe and traditional, For example they went with the safe option of not allowing factions to move on and take over other sectors, not allow faction relations to change between what is initially locked at game start between AI factions over time and through player action, not allow player action such as doing a lot of things with an enemy faction to come back to bite you when you lose rep with your allies for doing so all of these things are solved and made by the community as of today.

There is one thing in the game still which never got fixed that was the LUA bug which prevents any UI modding working from the extension folder we even had to fix that ourselves thru the course of two mods the GLuaWorkaround mod and from the learnings of that SimpleMenuAPI and SimpleRightClickAPI were both born to accommodate adding new menu items to the hud or context menus along with ability to build new menu items if wanted.

[taztaz502]

Yes, an interdictor that disables both travel drives and highway travel would be especially sweet if doable, at least for targeted ships.

I think just make our current interceptors/scouts use their hyperdrive and actually chase things properly and give them a few interdiction missiles and anti-cruise missiles would work great, at the moment they don't engage their supercruise when given an attack order they just chase it in normal mode so everything just escapes.

Would also like an option to keep fighters attached to a carrier docked and only launch the fighters it needs to destroy a target rather than launching everything and then recalling everything is just a pain, with litcubes universe you could set up what you wanted to launch vs each ship class e.g. you could launch 2-3 M5s to chase an M4 etc.

The quality of life changes in 3.0 have been great so far even just little things like the faction colours make a HUGE difference to the game, but as black said i'm sure we'll see more improvements in the future once vendetta has launched.

[taztaz502]

In this case the interesting question from my point of view is rather why the price appears to be so high? At a guess, as the X4: Foundations CE Content is the only additional package which includes "Split Vendetta" the DLC is automatically assigned the price of the CE content. So both prices are displayed as being the same. I doubt that this intended though, but merely an error on the Steam store page.

Just quickly jumping in to confirm this. The displayed €29,99 is the price of the Collector's Edition Content, not the price of X4: Split Vendetta. As announced in August 2019, the price for X4: Split Vendetta will be €14.99 / $14.99 / £12.49.

He works for egosoft and has listed pretty specific prices so i'm sure they'll be exactly this or very near.

[Misunderstood Wookie]

Yes, an interdictor that disables both travel drives and highway travel would be especially sweet if doable, at least for targeted ships.

I think just make our current interceptors/scouts use their hyperdrive and actually chase things properly and give them a few interdiction missiles and anti-cruise missiles would work great, at the moment they don't engage their supercruise when given an attack order they just chase it in normal mode so everything just escapes.

Would also like an option to keep fighters attached to a carrier docked and only launch the fighters it needs to destroy a target rather than launching everything and then recalling everything is just a pain, with litcubes universe you could set up what you wanted to launch vs each ship class e.g. you could launch 2-3 M5s to chase an M4 etc.

The quality of life changes in 3.0 have been great so far even just little things like the faction colours make a HUGE difference to the game, but as black said i'm sure we'll see more improvements in the future once vendetta has launched.

Pop over the Discord and have a chat with Mysterial, he may include something like this in the faction fix pack for X4 3.x he already fixed a ton of the AI before ego did anything about it, the interceptor and such seems like a needed thing to do its job also chat with shuulo they may include it with VRO 2..0 I might ask him myself actually as I never understood this I also want to fix the Flee Behaviour which seems to run for abit then stop for the enemy to catch up like wtf are they doing get the the fk out of there and then resume operation

[taztaz502]

Yes, an interdictor that disables both travel drives and highway travel would be especially sweet if doable, at least for targeted ships.

I think just make our current interceptors/scouts use their hyperdrive and actually chase things properly and give them a few interdiction missiles and anti-cruise missiles would work great, at the moment they don't engage their supercruise when given an attack order they just chase it in normal mode so everything just escapes.

Would also like an option to keep fighters attached to a carrier docked and only launch the fighters it needs to destroy a target rather than launching everything and then recalling everything is just a pain, with litcubes universe you could set up what you wanted to launch vs each ship class e.g. you could launch 2-3 M5s to chase an M4 etc.

The quality of life changes in 3.0 have been great so far even just little things like the faction colours make a HUGE difference to the game, but as black said i'm sure we'll see more improvements in the future once vendetta has launched.

Pop over the Discord and have a chat with Mysterial, he may include something like this in the faction fix pack for X4 3.x he already fixed a ton of the AI before ego did anything about it, the interceptor and such seems like a needed thing to do its job also chat with shuulo they may include it with VRO 2..0 I might ask him myself actually as I never understood this I also want to fix the Flee Behaviour which seems to run for abit then stop for the enemy to catch up like wtf are they doing get the the fk out of there and then resume operation

Haha tell me about it, i'm running the beta version of the game atm i'll try out mods once egosoft slow down on the updates abit because i'm sure they'll get there in the end and its kinda cool seeing the game progress naturally, i just hope egosoft focus more on these things after vendetta has released it's small changes like this that will make the game feel completely different if things start to perform how you would expect with out a ton of micromanagement for simple tasks.

[Browser_ice]

Hi, I started this thread not because I wanted a debate on paying or not paying for X4 DLC. I just did not know and was, sort of, expecting DLCs to be free based on past X games.

But as majority of games do have DLCs that we have to pay for, I understand the principle of it. Some games I never subscribed to their bundle to automatically get all DLCs because I did not like those DLCs contents.

Speaking of Bundle (could be wrong on the naming convention), why not have something similar on X4. Once people pay for it, they get access to all DLCs? Otherwise, players could simply buy the DLC they want.

[Tamina]

Speaking of Bundle (could be wrong on the naming convention), why not have something similar on X4. Once people pay for it, they get access to all DLCs? Otherwise, players could simply buy the DLC they want.

This is exactly what the Collectors Edition is meant to be. It includes the first two DLCs, Split Vendetta being one of them.

[Buzz2005]

past X games had free extensions?

[tomchk]

Maybe he's thinking of free patches, which we are still getting?

[spankahontis]

Not sure why there charging for it as the game came out lacking content tbh. Could be cashgrab.

It technically is a "cashgrab" of sorts. You see as a company with employees who have families they kind of need consistent income to pay the bills. It has already been over a year since their last product, X4, launched and anyone who has already purchased the collectors edition has already paid for the DLC in advance.

X4 is not an open source project. Developing it costs money and they have put in considerable effort to developing it over the last year.

Previously they released new games each time. For example X3 Reunion, X3 Terran Conflict and X3 Albion Prelude. Instead now they are trying to shift towards a DLC model such as was used by X Rebirth where additional content expands an existing game engine which they constantly upgrade. This model is used by a lot of modern games to allow them to have longer life cycles.

If you like X4 and have invested hundreds of hours playing it, then the DLC is good value. Any more official content is good for a game you enjoyed so much and in the end it is pretty good value. If you do not think the value offered by the DLC is enough you can always keep playing the base game and buy the DLC later when it goes on sale.

The current price for the DLC is likely a placeholder, possibly made public by error during internal setup and preparation. Being Saturday and now Sunday they are not at work to make corrections. This will likely be correct next week.

On the plus side it does mean that the DLC is approaching launch. It could quite well tie in with a 3.00 launch window given how long the PTR has extended. Else it would almost certainly be 3.20 or such a patch.

I agree that as long as dlc has an expansion pack of detail that it adds to the base game, then yeah, it should be paid for.

If they go to Paradox level of dlc insanity and release under £300 worth of content on top of the base Stellaris game?
For me £300 is ALLOT of money; that's 2-3 months of spending money I have to save up.

Egosoft need to be careful, wont begrudge them some dlc revenue, they are a business.
But don't get greedy, a few dlc for me isn't breaking the bank, but there is a reason I don't buy Creative Assembly Games anymore, they got greedy and you risk making your base game undervalued like a worthless shell, selling us the complete game in pieces.
And many would argue, the Split was in X3, the Split was in X:Rebirth.
Feels like the Greek Factions Pack for Rome 2, factions that were in the previous Rome 1, sold back to us as dlc.
dlc fluff is fine, expansion packs are fine, but reintroducing key races and their ships stations Is a slippery slope.
As long as they keep the number of dlcs small and content rich then i'll buy them.
But they go Creative Assembly/Paradox route? Then i'm priced out the market and yet another game company I loved decieds to sell you the framework and then the content afterwards.. And that would be heartbreaking.

[Misunderstood Wookie]

Not sure why there charging for it as the game came out lacking content tbh. Could be cashgrab.

It technically is a "cashgrab" of sorts. You see as a company with employees who have families they kind of need consistent income to pay the bills. It has already been over a year since their last product, X4, launched and anyone who has already purchased the collectors edition has already paid for the DLC in advance.

X4 is not an open source project. Developing it costs money and they have put in considerable effort to developing it over the last year.

Previously they released new games each time. For example X3 Reunion, X3 Terran Conflict and X3 Albion Prelude. Instead now they are trying to shift towards a DLC model such as was used by X Rebirth where additional content expands an existing game engine which they constantly upgrade. This model is used by a lot of modern games to allow them to have longer life cycles.

If you like X4 and have invested hundreds of hours playing it, then the DLC is good value. Any more official content is good for a game you enjoyed so much and in the end it is pretty good value. If you do not think the value offered by the DLC is enough you can always keep playing the base game and buy the DLC later when it goes on sale.

The current price for the DLC is likely a placeholder, possibly made public by error during internal setup and preparation. Being Saturday and now Sunday they are not at work to make corrections. This will likely be correct next week.

On the plus side it does mean that the DLC is approaching launch. It could quite well tie in with a 3.00 launch window given how long the PTR has extended. Else it would almost certainly be 3.20 or such a patch.

I agree that as long as dlc has an expansion pack of detail that it adds to the base game, then yeah, it should be paid for.

If they go to Paradox level of dlc insanity and release under £300 worth of content on top of the base Stellaris game?
For me £300 is ALLOT of money; that's 2-3 months of spending money I have to save up.

Egosoft need to be careful, wont begrudge them some dlc revenue, they are a business.
But don't get greedy, a few dlc for me isn't breaking the bank, but there is a reason I don't buy Creative Assembly Games anymore, they got greedy and you risk making your base game undervalued like a worthless shell, selling us the complete game in pieces.
And many would argue, the Split was in X3, the Split was in X:Rebirth.
Feels like the Greek Factions Pack for Rome 2, factions that were in the previous Rome 1, sold back to us as dlc.
dlc fluff is fine, expansion packs are fine, but reintroducing key races and their ships stations Is a slippery slope.
As long as they keep the number of dlcs small and content rich then i'll buy them.
But they go Creative Assembly/Paradox route? Then i'm priced out the market and yet another game company I loved decieds to sell you the framework and then the content afterwards.. And that would be heartbreaking.

Will have to see what happens they did call it "Foundations" maybe inside joke? It certainly launched with just the 'foundations' I feel Beta 3.0 so far has made the game more of a game the stable version is so very far behind in both feature set and gameplay I simply would never recommend it. Free Content to me would be like they finally giving races unique builder meshes, The player the proper Trade Station module or ring-type habitat like Teladi something about those I love I simply enjoy habitat rings and those Elite Dangerous style docking hubs that spin around. DLC I am happy to accept if it FULLY introduces new races not simply just add them but they have to add the entire fleet of ships and stations I don't want to really see them re-use things with skins over the top.

I sated previously I am not going to count sectors as content, sectors are easy, we have an entire universe modding tool which lets us create as many sectors as we like and move vanilla ones around to create the backbone of a whole new galaxy. So as a modder sector to me are not exciting and I won't pay for those themselves, I am not sure I like they are selling Races back to us however I stated I agree that income flow is important just I hope they get around to fully fleshing out the existing races after these first two DLC, Also I was hoping X4 would introduce new races into the series that would be cool.

[spankahontis]

Will have to see what happens they did call it "Foundations" maybe inside joke? It certainly launched with just the 'foundations' I feel Beta 3.0 so far has made the game more of a game the stable version is so very far behind in both feature set and gameplay I simply would never recommend it. Free Content to me would be like they finally giving races unique builder meshes, The player the proper Trade Station module or ring-type habitat like Teladi something about those I love I simply enjoy habitat rings and those Elite Dangerous style docking hubs that spin around. DLC I am happy to accept if it FULLY introduces new races not simply just add them but they have to add the entire fleet of ships and stations I don't want to really see them re-use things with skins over the top.

I sated previously I am not going to count sectors as content, sectors are easy, we have an entire universe modding tool which lets us create as many sectors as we like and move vanilla ones around to create the backbone of a whole new galaxy. So as a modder sector to me are not exciting and I won't pay for those themselves, I am not sure I like they are selling Races back to us however I stated I agree that income flow is important just I hope they get around to fully fleshing out the existing races after these first two DLC, Also I was hoping X4 would introduce new races into the series that would be cool.

It just reminds me of Creative Assembly, they sold factions new and old as added content which, when compared to Rome 1 was a slap in the face of Rome Total War Fans, then they did it again with Atilla, and again with the Chaos Faction, the MAIN villain Faction of Warhammer next to the Undead, Empire, Dwarves, they already made it and they were selling it back as Pre-Order dlc.
They try and give you free-lc to make up for all the dlc they flog you; but when you add it all together, were talking hundreds of pounds of content, content that should of been there on release or sold as a huge expansion and only then, the cosmetics that you can live without.
Makes me want to impulse buy, I hate being manipulated like that.

But look at Paradox, all the extras they added to Stellaris made it so buying the base game is just a husk without all the Expansions.. Apocalypse, Leviathans, Synthetic Dawn, Megacorp, Distant Stars, Utopia, Ascension, Ancient Relics and the Federations Pack coming soon. On top of that is all the cosmetic dlc that you could probably live without. But that's ALLOT of content that adds new scripts and mechanics to the base game, each selling around £10 to £25. I personally can't afford that, they should of crammed it all into a couple of huge expansions.
It pissed me off when Firaxis released Operation Slingshot and I had no idea there was dlc when I bought the base game and the Enemy Within expansion, releasing a complete edition. To this day I still refuse to buy Operation Slingshot and i'm waiting till Xcom 2 and all it's dlc to be released as a complete edition and drop down considerably in price at a Steam sale before I am tempted to buy it.

Just wish companies would stop playing these games with us, get us hyped and then sell us a "foundation" and sell us pieces of the game, dangle it over our Heads like bait to get a few extra quid out of us.
The Expansion Pack model worked fine, now we have to micro-manage all these little editions to see that they meet our budget.

[Falcrack]

But look at Paradox, all the extras they added to Stellaris made it so buying the base game is just a husk without all the Expansions.. Apocalypse, Leviathans, Synthetic Dawn, Megacorp, Distant Stars, Utopia, Ascension, Ancient Relics and the Federations Pack coming soon. On top of that is all the cosmetic dlc that you could probably live without. But that's ALLOT of content that adds new scripts and mechanics to the base game, each selling around £10 to £25. I personally can't afford that, they should of crammed it all into a couple of huge expansions.

I have just the base Stellaris game, and IMO it's a great game, it feels complete. It is only made to feel incomplete by the fact that they have made further developments to it over time.

[spankahontis]

But look at Paradox, all the extras they added to Stellaris made it so buying the base game is just a husk without all the Expansions.. Apocalypse, Leviathans, Synthetic Dawn, Megacorp, Distant Stars, Utopia, Ascension, Ancient Relics and the Federations Pack coming soon. On top of that is all the cosmetic dlc that you could probably live without. But that's ALLOT of content that adds new scripts and mechanics to the base game, each selling around £10 to £25. I personally can't afford that, they should of crammed it all into a couple of huge expansions.

I have just the base Stellaris game, and IMO it's a great game, it feels complete. It is only made to feel incomplete by the fact that they have made further developments to it over time.

I couldn't play it without all the dlc now, it just feels incomplete to me now.
It's the same with Crusader Kings 2, I just can't play it now, all the content is just overwhelming.
If I can't afford all the content then it just feels incomplete to me. I just like to own all the content, i'm a collector.

[Alan Phipps]

Please discuss other games and their merits and issues in Off Topic, thanks.

[Skeeter]

Maybe he's thinking of free patches, which we are still getting?

one dlc the teladi one in rebirth was free for a limit time to owners of rebirth then was about 5.99 after.

[taztaz502]

I own all DLC for stellaris hasn't cost me any where near £300 more like £30-50, you could happily play the base game without too much difference to be honest not the mention the fact owning just the base game is like getting a new game every year for how much it changes from update to update.

DLC are just part and parcel of gaming and they have been for a LONG time, just in the past we actually got our moneys worth for real expansions rather than a few skins.

Either way games like X games and paradox games just keep on giving and are worth every single penny to me because of the sheer number of hours i put into them so i don't mind buying DLC.

You could be paying £60 for the base game, and £60 for the season pass to play any EA games like call of duty which is just reskinned and reboxed every year so i think we're lucky.