Skill and training Feedback

[dtpsprt]

Imagine how new comers to X4 or the X series as a whole feel about this though, for one most of them probably dont know this forum exists nevermind can be bothered to post about thier experience.

I am a new comer to X4 but have played X games for over a decade and thousands of hours i can say my first impressions were not great, i can see this game has potential its just lacking in content compared to X3 but hopefully that will be addressed through patches and dlc (that's why ive stuck with it so far) but the main thing that is making me want to shelve this game for another year is my pilots not gaining exp it is extremely frustrating to see xenon rampage the universe and be almost unable to help since i cant really help to supply npc war efforts very efficiently even though i have more than enough money and ships available it is competent pilots to fly said ships that is stopping me from providing the materials the npc's need to defend themselves (other than sitting on the map manually trading resources constantly).

Even if i build stations my own traders assigned to the station do very little selling (they just sit there searching for trades) while npc ship come to buy the resources produced but then those npc ships end up dead half the time before they get to deliver the goods or sit trying to escape or fight a xenon N which means while im making money its not really helping the npc factions much and i know hardly any resources are getting through to shipyards and wharfs because i literally have to manaully trade most of the resources to the wharf/shipyard for every ship i build or it sits there for half an hour not building

Ive seen people saying xenon are to strong imo this is not true the player can kill them very easily the problem is in my opinion bottlenecks in resources or resources actually getting to where they are needed (partially due to lack of player traders) thats stopping npc defending themselves early to mid game, i find i am unable to do many mission or plots because im constantly back and forth stopping xenon destroying wharfs,shipyards and equipment docks. i had to abandon a patrol earlier because xenon almost destoryed FRF equipment dock it literally had 3 modules left when id destoryed the 3 k's attacking it, im currently manually supplying build materials and gaurding the station while it repairs and building a defense platform to hopefully protect it in future but it is getting boring babysitting npc factions.

I suppose that you have missed X-Rebirth (GOOD FOR YOU!!!) but that game made the start for the "new" X Universe... You can't play (and enjoy) it without mods!!!
I suggest you get yourself some nice mods that address the experience problem, since the devs are not ready (at least for the coming 4 years) to admit that they bungled it up and fix it so we can enjoy our game in our much beloved X Universe.
I've given up on trying to find a "logic" for necessary skill advancement, it simply does not exist. The only thing you miss with the mods are the Ventures, so you will not get "fancy" paintjobs for your ships, some petty cash (I got 4 mil for a 60 h venture) and some ready modifications (if you are THAT lucky) to apply to your ships, which you can get them anyway by finishing the PHQ quest, along with the means to get ANY module blueprint you think of... The parts for them you just get clearing out battle fields in abundance, as long as you don't take sides (except against the Xenon and Khaak) so you move among the waring factions scooping up and they don't shoot you...

[mdlman]

Imagine how new comers to X4 or the X series as a whole feel about this though, for one most of them probably dont know this forum exists nevermind can be bothered to post about thier experience.

Imagine no more. My save has 2 days 4 hours 23 minutes on it. I have never played an X game before. The first ship I bought even before replacing my starter ship (young gun start) was a drill vanguard. The pilot of said ship has been sector mining non-stop for the duration of my save. I used seminars at the very start to get him to 2 stars so that I could get him to 3 stars and autotrade (I do my research before I play). He still has 2 stars. Not 3, not 2 1/3, 2. In 52ish play hours of constant sector mining/selling he has gained zero experience.

I have a trader that started at 2 stars (seminars again) and I have manually queued well over a hundred trades, mostly ferrying advanced electronics from grand exchange to eighteen billion. He also has gained zero experience. Not a smidge. I don't mean every once in a while I queue a trade, I mean I spend 75% of my game time standing in a ship being driven around or on my station. I've made millions upon millions of credits on this advanced electronic trade run, so it's not like I"m getting NO benefit, but it's certainly not training my pilot at all.

The fact that I see this very complaint going back years, and afaict never even a nod from a dev that maybe there's a problem.. well, it kind of sucks. This is the sort of thing one can test in a simulation with your leveling algorithm. i haven't found a singularity engine yet for seta, but when I do I'll just leave it running ovenight and see if that miner ever levels at all. I'm willing to bet that he won't go from 2 - 2 1/3 even if I leave it running SETA for a week straight.

I can find nothing from the devs saying what the expected rate of leveling is, how many trades, how many hundreds of cargo-loads of mining? All I see is speculation by players and a vague shadowy figure in the background laughing at us.

[zakaluka]

Imagine no more. My save has 2 days 4 hours 23 minutes on it. I have never played an X game before. The first ship I bought even before replacing my starter ship (young gun start) was a drill vanguard. The pilot of said ship has been sector mining non-stop for the duration of my save. I used seminars at the very start to get him to 2 stars so that I could get him to 3 stars and autotrade (I do my research before I play). He still has 2 stars. Not 3, not 2 1/3, 2. In 52ish play hours of constant sector mining/selling he has gained zero experience.

You wouldn't be expected to know, but there's a bug with miners in the live version that keeps them from gaining ranks in most situations that they should be capable of gaining ranks.

Should be fixed in 3.2 beta. But mining is still probably not going to get you to 3 stars anytime soon.

[mdlman]

Imagine no more. My save has 2 days 4 hours 23 minutes on it. I have never played an X game before. The first ship I bought even before replacing my starter ship (young gun start) was a drill vanguard. The pilot of said ship has been sector mining non-stop for the duration of my save. I used seminars at the very start to get him to 2 stars so that I could get him to 3 stars and autotrade (I do my research before I play). He still has 2 stars. Not 3, not 2 1/3, 2. In 52ish play hours of constant sector mining/selling he has gained zero experience.

You wouldn't be expected to know, but there's a bug with miners in the live version that keeps them from gaining ranks in most situations that they should be capable of gaining ranks.

Should be fixed in 3.2 beta. But mining is still probably not going to get you to 3 stars anytime soon.

And the traders? Does the bug also apply to them?

Further, how COULD I have known? I checked the (unfortunately very old) known issues thread and nothing there. I'm not a passive player, I check here, I check the subreddit, I google the issue. This is the first I've heard that this is a current bug being worked on. What is the communication method that I'm missing?

EDIT: Found it in the reddit thread: Fixed crews of mining ships not gaining experience when player not nearby during mining operations.

[zakaluka]

And the traders? Does the bug also apply to them?

Further, how COULD I have known?

How could you have known, well, you probably wouldn't. You can only keep track of bugs by frequenting the tech support forum (the indexing & search are lacking). Also it's in the patch notes for the beta.

No bug for traders, just a very low chance per action to gain a rank. If you start with a group of 10 traders the expected time for *the first one* to reach rank 3 is on the order of 200 hours. No joke. And that's if you absolutely min-max your rate of completing trades.

They want you to build a station. Your 2 star station manager can omni-trade, it can also sell what your miners bring home (after refining it, though). It's not as broad or efficient as expert autotrade / advanced automine, but this is the most efficient way through. Slap a storage and a dock together, set up orders, assign traders. For mining, storage, dock, refinery. That's it. Restrict supply from other factions, hit play & fill it to the brim with assigned miners.

Spoiler

Show

Here's the base layout I've been experimenting with for miners. I only assign 1 courier for trade just to keep stocked with e-cells. L solid storage, M container (important NOT to be L container at this stage). I've built 5 of these so far, one for each faction (not quite done). They cost around 2mil cr each and each one can employ up to around 10 medium miners. With a caveat.

https://i.imgur.com/fXG86op.png

They work remarkably well, and by that I mean, my goods are selling fast enough. You don't even need a satellite network. The only thing you get when you eventually assign dedicated traders: (1) you have to set up a sat network (2) you get a bump in sell price, from your sell order price to their buy order price, and (3) you can get it working at peak efficiency (before assigning traders you can't really keep 10 miners working). So, traders, even e-cell production, are optional. More miners / ie more stations is first.

[mdlman]

And the traders? Does the bug also apply to them?

Further, how COULD I have known?

How could you have known, well, you probably wouldn't. You can only keep track of bugs by frequenting the tech support forum (the indexing & search are lacking). Also it's in the patch notes for the beta.

No bug for traders, just a very low chance per action to gain a rank. If you start with a group of 10 traders the expected time for *the first one* to reach rank 3 is on the order of 200 hours. No joke. And that's if you absolutely min-max your rate of completing trades.

They want you to build a station. Your 2 star station manager can omni-trade, it can also sell what your miners bring home (after refining it, though). It's not as broad or efficient as expert autotrade / advanced automine, but this is the most efficient way through. Slap a storage and a dock together, set up orders, assign traders. For mining, storage, dock, refinery. That's it. Restrict supply from other factions, hit play & fill it to the brim with assigned miners.

Spoiler

Show

Here's the base layout I've been experimenting with for miners. I only assign 1 courier for trade just to keep stocked with e-cells. L solid storage, M container (important NOT to be L container at this stage). I've built 5 of these so far, one for each faction (not quite done). They cost around 2mil cr each and each one can employ up to around 10 medium miners. With a caveat.

https://i.imgur.com/fXG86op.png

They work remarkably well, and by that I mean, my goods are selling fast enough. You don't even need a satellite network. The only thing you get when you eventually assign dedicated traders: (1) you have to set up a sat network (2) you get a bump in sell price, from your sell order price to their buy order price, and (3) you can get it working at peak efficiency (before assigning traders you can't really keep 10 miners working). So, traders, even e-cell production, are optional. More miners / ie more stations is first.

Thank you for that station layout. That seems very easy to set up so I'll get to it. I guess the upside of pilots being trash is that I can treat them as expendable. I had been getting stuck in the mindset of someone running a business and wanting those under them to succeed. I need to instead think like an emperor and see everything as pawns to be sacrificed for my whim.

[lyubarskiy]

I don't understand how they thought it was a good idea and good game design, especially when they got feedback about it.

The feedback was mixed. Many people understood, and agreed, that not everything in the game should happen quickly, or be tied to the amount of money you have. We will continue to iterate on this feature to try and strike the right balance between there being too little and too much work involved in building up the experience of your crews. Just don't expect easy linear progress from one star to five, or to be able to completely skip this progression just by having large amounts of cash, as this is completely contrary to how experience progression is intended to work, and indeed works in many, if not most, games.

Hi CBJ, not to be rude but I completely disagree with you here. The game should not put artificial barriers to slow progression in this way. More importantly I feel like you have been so focused on thinking about how people need to play the game that you lost focus of what X series is about, it's freedom to enjoy the game the way you like it.
Think about the over all game. You start small and eventually grow to an empire lvl. Hunting for seminars and then initiating the conversation over and over again every time you want the pilot to gain exp is just bad UX. I literally dread the experience these UX designs are literally what caused me to put the game down. Why not let me put these pilots into a school and pay money to train them. It doesn't take away from experience of the game as in the beginning it is financially prohibitive but when I run my empire with hundreds of ships that go to war and die every second, I am NOT going to go through the nightmarish experience of finding seminars and making 1000 mouse clicks to just train a new fleet. My Mid / End game should not be focus on micro management, it should be focused on game play, growing fleets, expanding my economy and dominating the enemy. Why NOT let me get good pilots if I have the money?

This game suffers a lot from poor UX choices that make the game feel more like a choir rather than a fun game.
Some examples:
Crew training. Seminars should be removed all together and replaced with pilot schools.
Hunting for personal inventory to upgrade ships and create hacking modules. Everything in the game needs to be produced, sold and bought.
Sniffing stations for leaks. - Mini games DON"T ever improve a game and never worked for X series. Let me place a type of satellite that sniffs these things automatically and stop making me do it. It's NOT fun after the 100th time.
Inability to assign a behavior to a group of ships. - I buy 20 miners and then I need to go through the motion of assigning it a sector auto mine one by one. WHY?
Click, Click, Click, Click - WHY do basic functions require sooo many clicks. The whole UI needs a re design. There were some great examples of community concepts that just feel so much better. One example https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 1621228474
Why can't I click on a pilot in the list of all of my pilots? All I see is a name and then I have to go and hunt for it. I don't even know which specific ship they belong to.

AND MUCH MORE. Biggest issue with X4 is the focus on early game and artificial game pacing mechanics that turn the end game into a literal choir. PLEASE PLEASE do something about it. I really want to play this game but I just can't because I feel like I am going to work instead of enjoying the game.

[tomchk]

Agreed on batch behavior setting.

[Snafu_X3]

Crew training. Seminars should be removed all together and replaced with pilot schools.

How about introducing basic pilot training schools that are capable of training pilots to 2* pilot skill, while removing 'basic piloting' seminars from station shops & replacing them with (v rare, v expensive) 3* seminars?

IMO most complaints WRT pilot levelling (after reading the entire 40+ pages of this thread!) are not about rushing to max lvl pilot skill for roflstomp combat, but simply to get their basic mine/trade automation functions working in the beginning->mid-game, when they're needed the most

Inability to assign a behavior to a group of ships. - I buy 20 miners and then I need to go through the motion of assigning it a sector auto mine one by one. WHY? [...also...] Why can't I click on a pilot in the list of all of my pilots? All I see is a name and then I have to go and hunt for it. I don't even know which specific ship they belong to.

Agreed for the most part, altho there are some details that need clarification

[Old Drullo321]

This game suffers a lot from poor UX choices that make the game feel more like a choir rather than a fun game.
Some examples:
Crew training. Seminars should be removed all together and replaced with pilot schools.
Hunting for personal inventory to upgrade ships and create hacking modules. Everything in the game needs to be produced, sold and bought.
Sniffing stations for leaks. - Mini games DON"T ever improve a game and never worked for X series. Let me place a type of satellite that sniffs these things automatically and stop making me do it. It's NOT fun after the 100th time.
Inability to assign a behavior to a group of ships. - I buy 20 miners and then I need to go through the motion of assigning it a sector auto mine one by one. WHY?
[...]
AND MUCH MORE. Biggest issue with X4 is the focus on early game and artificial game pacing mechanics that turn the end game into a literal choir. PLEASE PLEASE do something about it. I really want to play this game but I just can't because I feel like I am going to work instead of enjoying the game.

That is 100% true. I reinstalled X4 yesterday after some hiatus, coming from <= v1.5. And guess what, it still feels like a choir. I read the changelog and was hyped but the essentials didn't change. Just bought 10 miners, intuitively selected all of them and wanted to give them the simple sector auto mine command. But it wasn't there. There isn't even a simple copy & paste text ability when I have to manually rename all my ships one by one. And going one step further, it would be so easy to implement an auto renaming setting like you give the text "MyMiningShip" and it automatically adds the numbers (e.g. 001, 002) up to the ship count you selected.

While the new Split DLC and its badass looking ship let me reinstall the game, those frustrating UI decisions let me pause it again...

[grapedog]

Hi CBJ,

...blah blah blah...

AND MUCH MORE. Biggest issue with X4 is the focus on early game and artificial game pacing mechanics that turn the end game into a literal choir. PLEASE PLEASE do something about it. I really want to play this game but I just can't because I feel like I am going to work instead of enjoying the game.

Just to be clear for Ego, you don't speak for everyone though on some of these "un-fun" tasks... some people enjoy what you consider un-fun, and removal of that might satisfy your whims, but it would take away from other peoples.

For example, I like looking for leaks... i've got like 50 billion credits, 2000 ships, 40+ stations... and I still fly around in my Nodan, looking for leaks, because I enjoy it.

Please don't generalize, make blanket statements, or assume what is un-fun for you is un-fun for others.

Though I'll agree the crew leveling things is broken.

[Ranix]

I meant what's wrong with manually queueing up trades to just trade as opposed to using it as a means to improve skill. Is it just tedious?

it's not just tedious, it's giving me carpal tunnel. Do you know how many clicks it takes to transfer 11k hull parts to a shipyard with L sized traders who can only hold 2900 hull parts? You should really try it, it sucks. A lot.

[Jeraal]

I meant what's wrong with manually queueing up trades to just trade as opposed to using it as a means to improve skill. Is it just tedious?

The phrase "mind numbing" seems applicable. Buy 10 new ships, set up trades, shave your two day beard growth.

[dtpsprt]

I meant what's wrong with manually queueing up trades to just trade as opposed to using it as a means to improve skill. Is it just tedious?

You really don't get it. The problem stands in early game when auto trading and auto mining are the ONLY income sources for the player, and IT IS LITERALLY PROHIBITED!!!
If there is to be a skill advancement it can not be 1 out of 10 every 200 hours. 200 hours is the end of the game!!!

Next, in keeping with the sandbox aspect of the game, which is something that made X Universe revered, not everybody wants to have and manage 20 stations and not everybody wants to conquer the Universe. I'm pretty sure many players would like to have a trade "empire" for their income and roam the Universe...

Last, but not least, the majority (not to say all) of the players want to enjoy space flight, you have made a fantastic job in the new technology of ray tracing (OK the stations are a bit dull and a lot of copy and paste but who cares?) and, in the bottom line the player CAN NOT ENJOY IT because he is stuck in the map giving orders all the time!!! Like I said in another comment are we flying spaceships or maps?

[Berhg]

Speed up pilot experience gain rate across the board please.

Just do it.

[grapedog]

You really don't get it. The problem stands in early game when auto trading and auto mining are the ONLY income sources for the player, and IT IS LITERALLY PROHIBITED!!!

Uh, there are TONS of income sources for the player. Automated traders and miners are the easiest way to make money using SETA... But there are a couple different ways that provide more cash if you're active, like capping and selling M and S ships... that's huge money. Even focusing on missions for a while can provide really good money.... but none of those can just be turned on overnight with SETA running, thankfully. Even crystals hunting, while mind numbingly boring, will provide more money than a few auto miners and traders in the early game.

[pjjohnstone]

You really don't get it. The problem stands in early game when auto trading and auto mining are the ONLY income sources for the player, and IT IS LITERALLY PROHIBITED!!!

Sector automine is available for rookie pilots right from the get go

[Gregorovitch]

Just going to post an update on my experiences of crew management/development so far (~130h into this save) here as it seems an appropriate thread for it:

1. Pilot school. This is not working at all after 18 hours now (see above for details of set up). 18 hours of intensive ecell deliveries around GE have triggered not one single 1/3* level up for six student pilots.

2. I have two DW and one Autotrader working in this game all for more than 100h and none of them have been awarded a single 1/3* increment on pilot skill.

3. Taking these two facts together I am now seriously questioning if the chances of a pilot level up from trading are in fact 0.0%, period.

4. I am having serious problems managing the leveled pilots I do have (via combat) because with 1500 odd staff now I cannot identify them. I URGENTLY need an update to the crew list on the empire tab and I URGENTLY need a pilot listing available for each fleet/wing, the critical information being current pilot skill, morale and ship condition. I mean a report listing, not individual ship tabs, this is about managing large numbers of ships and pilots. Specific issues are:

* With 100's of service crew (who's level I couldn't really care less about) I can't find my pilots on the simple crew list provided. I can't find individuals for re-allocation etc and I can't monitor pilot progress 'cos I can't see the wood for the trees. The immediate requirement is for a filter on this listing to restrict it to pilots only and to give the actual pilot skill AND morale level as well as overall * rating 'cos morale issue is as important as pilot skill.

* whether in strategic planning mode or in the heat of a mega-battle with the Xenon, what I crave above all is fleet/wing summary report tab that tells me at a glance the progress/value of each pilot in the wing/fleet (i.e. their pilot skill and morale level) and the current condition of their ships, specifically hull condition. I then want to issue orders from this report listing 'cos this is the information on which I often need to base my decisions.

[Barbosa]

Well, after a long time playing in the X Universe its the first time I felt so frustrated that I had to make a complain here.

With Rebirth and X4 I did a pre-order because I really liked what EGO was proposing for the X series and wanted to support that dream, and I was in that spirit until Vendetta launched exclusively because of the broken / sadistic / disappointing pilot skill system .

In the "What is X4: Foundations?" youtube videos, you guys say how we have the freedom to play like we desire, but how can we do that if one of the most crucial feature of "STRATEGY" and "TRADE" are broken? Or did the think group of X4 devs think that everything is fine after lots and lots of complains about this specific feature in the last months?

I think that the only thing I can do now is leave my desire to buy the DLC's for a future where I will not feel disappointed while I'm playing in the Tycoon style. And thanks for make the X series, because even with all the problems, it still the reference one in the genre

All the best,

Barbosa

(PS: I don't want to need mods to have a reasonable gameplay)

[dtpsprt]

Sector automine is available for rookie pilots right from the get go

And how is this going to help when you can't even get a miner cause local economy is missing in essential goods to produce ships? The first ship should be a trader to provide them (at least locally, even at loss, that's where the difficulty of 2 stars OVERALL performance for distributers makes it difficult) then you can have, so to speak, as many sectors miners as you like... then you'll face the problem of the refineries being filled with goods that there is NOBODY to move around...

No Mining and Trading go hand in hand...

P.S. Such an action will also help the factions fight against the Xenon, leaving you along to expand in peace whichever way you want, instead of ranting about "Xenon are too powerful!!! Nerf them" and so on...