Unbiased Poll about The Pride of Albion vs multiple ships - Part II

[Chris0132]

If you look at this picture of the player ship:

[ external image ]

Then you can see the little black window on the front.

That's your cockpit, presumably, as it has the wraparound window.

You can see in the videos how big that is in room size, and from the picture you can see how much of the ship that room takes up, more or less.

So, I don't see how there's any issue fitting that small room into the ship.

[Slashman]

Er, really? I mean there's a bit of a difference between a capship and an M4-M6 sort of class.

All the classes in skyrim are kind of comparable, you project some form of pain from either hand, there's some difference between precisely what kind of pain you project but only as much difference as there is between your standard FPS weaponry selection. Most of the detail lies in the fine tuning, which is pleasing certainly but there's not a particularly wide range, just a lot of stuff within that range. But it all boils down to shooting (or hitting) people with various different looking things, while being either noisy or stealthy. Much of the difference is fairly aesthetic in the vanilla game at least.

So when it suits you, you break a game down into basic actions and claim that there isn't much variety or choice in it. Then use that illustration to show how a game with less choices (and we're also talking aesthetics here btw.) is somehow better?

In skyrim, you don't really play any actual class, in fact you don't have any real lockouts at all. You can, eventually, max every skill to 100 and get all the perks ever (I think? Or does it stop giving you them for levels after a while? I don't think it does, it's just slow).

No you actually cannot. Which is why they introduced legendary classes with the last Dragonborn patch to allow a kind of de-leveling while being able to get more perks.

In any case, there is a point where you cannot get any more levels or perks. You cannot get everything.

Even without perks though you can still become, with enough patience, the ultimate magic dragon shouting ninja warhammer wielding pickpocket of ultimate throwing fireballs while being a master of the shadows and cutting people in half with your two swords at the same time as using your shield to block the demon you just summoned long enough to pull out your bow and shoot a dragon in the face from five miles away. If you have the patience for it.

Doesn't change the fact that you can choose your race and appearance. And none of the abilities in the game are cut off from you. As in, you don't have to use a hireling to be a mage. You can be a mage. You don't have to use a hireling to be an archer, you can be an archer.

Explicit branching paths is not the only way to do variety in a game. I would argue in fact that X3 didn't necessarily have branching paths as much as it had a class selector, but very little class progression.

No one said it was. I don't think people would even care about that if there were multiple ship choices. But the fact that the choice is taken away and then on top of that you get a linear unlock system for upgrades seems like a double hit to the groin.

As in: If you're telling me I can't make my ship look how I want, I can't fly anything else, and I'm stuck with that for the entire game, then at least provide some kind of upgrade system that is deep and meaningful and maybe doesn't rely on me completing a linear plot to access.

Personally I'm quite game to see if the Skyrim classless approach works better. If not I'm sure I can start demanding a return to the X3 format in the sequel.

I think I want to get my objections stated up front. I'm fine with people who like the single ship angle, it's just not what I'd prefer.

[Chris0132]

So when it suits you, you break a game down into basic actions and claim that there isn't much variety or choice in it. Then use that illustration to show how a game with less choices (and we're also talking aesthetics here btw.) is somehow better?

My point is that I think skyrim is quite fun, even though looking at it in those terms sort of suggests it doesn't have the biggest amount of variety in it, it's still fun, I think a lot of people probably find it fun, so a seeming absence of variety when described in simple terms would possibly not be a mark of a poor sandbox-style game?

Skyrim isn't especially good at variety, but what is there is good quality and in some ways, the lack of variety is a strength, it means the game has strong aesthetic and mechanical themes in it. The two handed thing for example is a quite good mechanic, it means every class just uses right and left click to attack, but it means that mechanic is a solid one which works well, if they threw in a different attack method for every class, I don't think any of them would work as well. Similarly in aesthetics, you have the draugr tomb tileset being used for a lot of the dungeons, which is possibly describable as lazy art direction, but I personally find it gives a sense of consistency to the locations and makes sense in-universe that people building tombs would probably build them kind of similarly. It also means that tileset is of good quality because rather than making many slapdash ones, they made this one really good one and used it a lot.

I guess I'm saying that 'lack of variety' is not universally a bad thing, it is sometimes a side effect of good things which make them game better overall.

No you actually cannot. Which is why they introduced legendary classes with the last Dragonborn patch to allow a kind of de-leveling while being able to get more perks.

In any case, there is a point where you cannot get any more levels or perks. You cannot get everything.

Ok, maybe not all the perks, but you can get all the skills and perks are generally just some form of +10% damage or whatever. They're not generally new abilites as much as stat buffs, they don't lock things out from you if you don't have them much.

Doesn't change the fact that you can choose your race and appearance. And none of the abilities in the game are cut off from you. As in, you don't have to use a hireling to be a mage. You can be a mage. You don't have to use a hireling to be an archer, you can be an archer.

Well like I said, those are all things in the same weight class, if you take my meaning. You can do anything as long as that thing is within the capabilities of a regular two legged six foot tall dude with a bit of money and the ability to decide 'hey maybe stealing all the gold from the zombies in that tomb over there is a good idea'.

Which is a decent amount of stuff, yes, but it's not THAT much stuff. Again, I compare this to the things available to ships in the M4-M6 weight class in X3. There's a fair amount of stuff you can do in there, but it's not an amazing amount of stuff, frankly a lot of the really interesting stuff in X that you don't find in other games of its type are not linked to what ship class you're flying at all, stuff like building stations and affecting the world around you.

You can choose your race and appearance, but that amounts to choosing your paint job in X. It's not necessarily what I'd call a game-defining feature, though I'm sure it'd be nice to maybe be able to repaint the ship and stick a few spoilers on it or something, maybe some running lights and a pair of fuzzy dice in the window. Count me in for support for ride pimping in X:R

No one said it was. I don't think people would even care about that if there were multiple ship choices. But the fact that the choice is taken away and then on top of that you get a linear unlock system for upgrades seems like a double hit to the groin.

As in: If you're telling me I can't make my ship look how I want, I can't fly anything else, and I'm stuck with that for the entire game, then at least provide some kind of upgrade system that is deep and meaningful and maybe doesn't rely on me completing a linear plot to access.

Define 'linear unlock system'.

Because again, skyrim kinda has a linear unlock system, you do the plot to unlock new locations and shouts, some shouts you can only get through the plot, a lot of the interesting weapons are plot-locked, most of the interesting houses are plot-locked, same with most of the interesting dungeons, also increasing your level is required for most of the high tier things to show up as the world is level scaled.

So what do you mean by linear unlock system? 'get levels to be able to buy better stuff' is kinda how skyrim does it, though you still have free choice in what you want to buy first. It's stated that X:R requires you to buy your upgrades after unlocking them, and you can eventually own everything, but like I said, that's technically true of skyrim too. You can own everything if you want, it'd just be really grindy to get to that point.

I think I want to get my objections stated up front. I'm fine with people who like the single ship angle, it's just not what I'd prefer.

Fair enough.

[Nikola515]

If you look at this picture of the player ship:

[ external image ]

Then you can see the little black window on the front.

That's your cockpit, presumably, as it has the wraparound window.

You can see in the videos how big that is in room size, and from the picture you can see how much of the ship that room takes up, more or less.

So, I don't see how there's any issue fitting that small room into the ship.

That ship also have weapon/shield generator, life support, room for fuel, storage for missile....Also engine reactor.... Another thing Skunk is more like cargo ship so hi need lots of room for cargo....And all of those drones.... So I see why someone thinks there is no room for it....

[EmperorJon]

Then again, cargo space in previous games never made much sense either, coming to think of it. A Mammoth had about 5x as much room as a Mistral Super Freighter in it, but must have been hundreds of times the volume. o_O

Also, cargo compression. Cargo bay extensions. I'd completely forgotten them. They made no sense!

So yeah, I have no idea how much room we're going to have in the Skunk.

[Nikola515]

Well Ego did say they want to make XR as realistic as possible

[EmperorJon]

Did they? Haha, if so a space combat/trading sim was not the way to go.

[Nikola515]

There might be some tweaks here and there to make things little interesting

[Tenlar Scarflame]

My favorite class to fly in TC was always the M6... lovely middle ground. The Pride dosen't seem to different from that.

I guess my feeling is, if the Pride can be upgraded a LOT and (perhaps more importantly) customized a LOT, I won't really miss having a lot of different ships to fly. I'd rather play Admiral than Helmsman as far as big ships go, and the Pride looks agile enough to do fightery stuff.

And as for looks, well... I'd call it Endearingly Ugly. Like the Millennium Falcon! And who doesn't like the Millennium Falcon.

[Geek]

I guess my feeling is, if the Pride can be upgraded a LOT and (perhaps more importantly) customized a LOT, I won't really miss having a lot of different ships to fly.

And what if nothing like that happens (as in reality, you know) ?

[vkerinav]

In Skyrim, you can't become a dragon because of in-universe laws.

In X-Rebirth, you can't fly another ship because...

No, I really don't see any difference.

[Ravenhurst]

I don't care. Plenty of room in expansions

[Chris0132]

In Skyrim, you can't become a dragon because of in-universe laws.

In X-Rebirth, you can't fly another ship because...

No, I really don't see any difference.

Because you aren't trained to pilot an aircraft carrier, also no one person can pilot an aircraft carrier.

And for other ships in your class, perhaps there is little point? Your ship may well be upgradeable into something significantly better than other ships. I'm thinking warhammer 40k archeotech sort of thing, some things that were built before the supernova are perhaps not entirely replaceable. Also even if you are trained with ships in that weight class, it would make sense that each individual ship works differently and that you would need a lot of practice to get to know your new ship properly, whereas when buying them for others to pilot, you simply hire someone who already knows how to fly that ship.

In universe explanations are quite easy to come up with.

[SmartBase]

I need to get more information on just how customisable (and unique) your ship is before I comment on whether or not it's what I want.

In a worst (or is it best?) case scenario you'll just have modders doing their thing to the game.

[Nickvr628]

I cant believe this went from an "unbiased" disscussion to a micro flame war about how dragons are/are not like capital ships. I find it hillarious myself. To the topic at hand...
In the release date video it SPECIFICALLY mentioned that X-Rebirth would have different game mechanics than the other games. When the dev was pirating that spaceship lane you saw how much damage that HEPT shot-laser did. So maybe there is no need to have 6+ weapons slots. Also I rather like the appearence of the ship. It looks functional! It looks like the boss Avatar dragon gunship too! And about the lack of turrets, the devs also mentioneed how instead of ships coming with turrets you would build them on the ship. I interpeted that as one of the upgrades you can give your ship. In a newer video it said that you cant fly your big capships, but you can land an walk around on them as they are flying, and look out a window and see the battle unfolding. That was my two cents on the questions asked here.

[vkerinav]

Because you aren't trained to pilot an aircraft carrier, also no one person can pilot an aircraft carrier.

And for other ships in your class, perhaps there is little point? Your ship may well be upgradeable into something significantly better than other ships. I'm thinking warhammer 40k archeotech sort of thing, some things that were built before the supernova are perhaps not entirely replaceable. Also even if you are trained with ships in that weight class, it would make sense that each individual ship works differently and that you would need a lot of practice to get to know your new ship properly, whereas when buying them for others to pilot, you simply hire someone who already knows how to fly that ship.

In universe explanations are quite easy to come up with.

And you can't learn to pilot one, because... you can't find the time? Good instructors are too expensive? The license fees are exorbitant?

It's still an artificial limit imposed upon this supposed sandbox that is the X universe. The argument, 'the Skunk is special', is no better.

Oh, and you've already got a copilot and crew helping you fly the Skunk, so I'm not sure where that argument came from.

I'm not even trying to argue if the Skunk will be a good or bad thing; you engaged in fallacy of false equivalency. The restriction of a weapon--and yes, the skill to use it--is a much better metaphor.

[Chris0132]

*shrug* ships presumably take a while to learn to pilot, pilot training in real life tends to be fairly aircraft specific, at least for military aircraft, and takes years, so it seems like a reasonable excuse to me if you desperately need an in-universe excuse.

The actual reason is obviously 'because it'd take too long to make that many ships with interiors and animations and everything'.

Which is why all games have a limited feature set. Again, to use the elder scrolls example, in-universe rules change from game to game as the plot requires, but the reason say, you can't go to morrowind in skyrim even though you could in morrowind the game, is because it'd take too long to make.

All games have a finite feature set. If it's important to you then the in-universe explanations are easy to make up. Personally I don't overly see the point in them but you did bring it up.

You can't be a dragon in skyrim because the devs didn't think it was worth putting the time into making that work, because they had other stuff to do instead. If they'd wanted to they could have said the magic dragonborn can magically turn into a dragon because of magic, but they didn't.

Similarly, you can't fly other ships in rebirth because it'd take too long to make a decent set of ships with all the required features that are being put into the player ship. The limit is equally 'artificial' in both instances, you just seem to be more willing to make up and accept an in-universe justification for skyrim.

[Dungeoncrawler]

Are we going to be forced to do the plot if we want to upgrade the skunk?

[Jumee]

meh, I'm just worried that the whole "crew and walking around the ships" thing will get really boring really fast, even if I put only half the time I played AP into Rebirth which is still >200 hours I'll definitely not feel like listening to the same handful of "comments" or dialogues that the crew or Yisha or whoever has, I will also most likely not want to run around the same 100-200? square meters of my ship every time I want to tell my crew-members to do whatever is it they do

basically unless Egosoft have done some miraculous work crew will get boring or downright annoying after you here there dozen or so lines for a millionth time

and dont get me wrong I like most of the changes in Rebirth - the way stations and capitals are build, highways and etc, the only feature which I doubt is the crew and 1 ship thing, but hey time will tell I dont want to scream "it sucks!" before I actually played it, but that doesn't stop me from being sceptical

[Rabiator der II.]

meh, I'm just worried that the whole "crew and walking around the ships" thing will get really boring really fast, even if I put only half the time I played AP into Rebirth which is still >200 hours I'll definitely not feel like listening to the same handful of "comments" or dialogues that the crew or Yisha or whoever has, I will also most likely not want to run around the same 100-200? square meters of my ship every time I want to tell my crew-members to do whatever is it they do

basically unless Egosoft have done some miraculous work crew will get boring or downright annoying after you here there dozen or so lines for a millionth time

and dont get me wrong I like most of the changes in Rebirth - the way stations and capitals are build, highways and etc, the only feature which I doubt is the crew and 1 ship thing, but hey time will tell I dont want to scream "it sucks!" before I actually played it, but that doesn't stop me from being sceptical

This .

Unless you can do most things from your pilot seat, there is a great danger that walking around will become an annoying chore rather than an improvement. And if you can do most things from your pilot seat, walking on stations will be very underutilized after a while.

The one thing that could make the feature worthwhile are completely new game mechanics. To be fair to Egosoft, the trailer hinted at those with the scene where the player examined items that were lying around (trying to steal stuff?). But unless there is really valuable stuff in that, it will get old once you have a major source of income (stations or NPC traders working for you).

A bit off topic, Star citizen has promised FPS-style boarding of enemy ships. That could be a feature that stays interesting for quite a while .

But ending this post on a more positive note, it seems that a lot of groundwork for future improvement was laid with the new engine.

In X3 FPS-style boarding was so far away that it was not realistic to think about it.

In Rebirth, walking in the Skunk may lead to walking in all ships (and flying them) once the interiors are made. From walking in all ships, it is not so far to fighting in ships .