[Feedback] Where X4 falls short compared to X3

[Ygdrad]

I initially thought X4 improved on X3 in every way, but after spending some time with it and my hype dying off, I can now clearly see a few places where it falls unfortunately short. This is not a post bashing the game but feedback for Egosoft and a way for people to figure out if they want the game. Here are some issues:

- Weapon variety is way down and nothing on offer is really geared towards capital ship use or feel special, it's only a few bland weapons, it's all basic fighter weaponry really. As far as I can see a gun is a gun, no size/class difference.

- The map is relatively small compared to even the first X3, which had 97 sectors if i'm not mistaken, X4 has 47(Edit: counted the big hexes only, it's 59). It doesn't help that the highway loop is extremely fast and everything is within 2 sectors of it, making it feel really small, nothing feels remote, it's like the xenons are living in your backyard. I think Egosoft leaned a little too far on the side of convenience here, they obviously haven't given up on X Rebirth's attempt to attract a more casual/mainstream crowd and it completely ruins the feeling of this being a big place that was present in X3.

- Different factions' ship equipment seem to have stat variations but you can't see any of the stats except the main one like shield hp.

- The encyclopedia lacks info for a lot of important stuff, a lot of entries are just blank.

- Missiles don't show up on the radar/map, can't be targeted, don't seem to run out of fuel and will chase you even if you switch to travel mode and eventually hit you if you don't leave the system, which is very annoying for small ships that can get 1-shotted and only hold one flare. Hopefully turrets can shoot them down but seeing how they have issues hitting a ship...

- The AI feels worse than in X3, it can't aim straight most of the time and is pretty terrible at managing distance/positioning. It's also way too enthusiastic about wasting all of its shields boosting away and then coming back to you before they've recharged.

- Auto traders are pretty bad at the moment, even losing you money at times instead of generating profit, definitely not worth investing in. This is likely to get patched, but for now the economic side of the game is pretty busted.

- You'll have to do all the exploration yourself or micromanage an AI ship since the exploration command is woefully inefficient and fails to get anything valuable done in a single sector in any sort of sane timeframe, even with the fastest ship.

- The player HQ is in the middle of Teladi space so if you want to play as a pirate you can forget about it unless you keep Teladi friendly.

- Haven't found or heard of any special or unique ships or variants yet so I'm pretty sure we're limited to only the 3 factions' designs.

- Can't match or control speed in travel mode which makes fleet formations iffy and interdicting traveling enemies annoying. Forget escorting anything in a sane fashion.

- Piracy is very limited not only due to the other issues I've mentioned, but also due to the absence of jump drives. If a ship drops its cargo(and I have yet to see any carry much value) you'll need a cargo ship to pick it up, but since you can't jump cargo ships in or out of the sector and they're slow, they're going to get intercepted by the sector's military.

- It might just be a bug some people have, but the radar makes no sense, you can't use it to line up targets, rolling the ship makes it rotate on two axis instead of one for some reason.

I'm still having fun and the UI is definitely so much better than X3's, but I definitely see just how much more work the game needs now that I've had time to get used to things. Hopefully extra content won't come as standalone expansions like they did with X3.

There's no doubt in my mind that if Egosoft gives X4 the same treatment they did their other games it will be a gem to be enjoyed for thousands of hours. This requires giving honest feedback though, which is what I'm doing.

[Shush]

This is great feedback and with my 20 or so hours of current play time completely agree with.

[ShaveIceBaby]

Couldn't agree more. The deeper I get into it the shallower and more unfinished it becomes. Still love it though and I'm sure it'll turn out great like x3. X4 looks to be amazing but obviously unfinished. I still have hope though

[StoneLegionYT]

Let's say there is maybe 47 systems, X3 systems were so small in my books a lot of them 1 single Sat covered the entire system. Where in this game you might need dozens. Stations spread out more there is even things outside the map I seen. So I can't totally agree with you there. Sure it's easy to get around but the maps feel much bigger to me overall.

Mind you I had pictures like 30+ More zones if not more that did not stay active (killing simulation) but would offer more outer colonies if the player wanted to make them or adventure out there with more pirates, etc. I thought the Player HQ was going be much further out in no mans land too.

[Paul McParland]

For me, the biggest draw back is no system mission board. I remember in rebirth that so many complaints were made that they put one in, now we are back to having to fly close to a station to even see if said station even has missions.

[Lyth]

I am loving X4, the things they have got right far outweigh any negatives for me, X4 is absolutely pointed in the right direction.
Whilst I cannot disagree with anything you posted, if I may offer possible solutions.

The player HQ in Teladi space:
The Teladi have always been pirate friendly, for flavour it could be solved by adding a privateer licence to the list, no upstanding Teladi is gonna quibble over how you earned your profitsss aslong as they are getting a slice of the pie. An anti-police licence like that would go along way.

Radar:
Possibly requires an additional Ctrl+M option that uses the old radar style or equivalent for the sole purpose of combat only which would include missile tracking and locking.

Encyclopedia:
A % counter to show the total amount of information about the universe the player has unlocked so the player doesn't feel like it is a worthless addition but when an entry is at 100% the player should have all available information on it and all known locations associated with it.

AI:
Pathing and Combat scripts are iffy, if they really want to make elite AI they could but then you have people complaining it is too difficult so there is no clear win situation here for them unless they add in difficulty modes. I hope they do or add in additional levels of ability, there are items and station functions which hint at this for future updates and expansions so happy to wait. That the AI never feels like it is trying to win a fight does effect immersion though, which is a key issue. If people want a greater challenge, the difficulty mode will go along way for this, Egosoft can add in a few additional lines on the scripts and give people fair warning these modes increase system use and offer them tissues when they complain they get missile spammed at the onset of every fight.

[StoneLegionYT]

For me, the biggest draw back is no system mission board. I remember in rebirth that so many complaints were made that they put one in, now we are back to having to fly close to a station to even see if said station even has missions.

It's there mate you just need to place sats in systems to keep updated.

[Paul McParland]

[quote="Kane Hart" post_id=4764264 time=1543812124 user_id=162032]
[quote="Paul McParland" post_id=4764246 time=1543811359 user_id=50107]
For me, the biggest draw back is no system mission board. I remember in rebirth that so many complaints were made that they put one in, now we are back to having to fly close to a station to even see if said station even has missions.
[/quote]

It's there mate you just need to place sats in systems to keep updated.

[img]https://iili.io/JFcRR.png[/img]
[/quote]

Have done this, doesn't seem to work for me. In Argon Prime for example, I had a sat right on top of the shipyard. Not just inside the green circle but in the actual clear space that they have. Would not show any missions. Did the same with the wharf and couple other sectors. The only time missions will show up is when I fly to said station. Once I get far enough from the station, even with the sat still there it disappears. I've even tested going back after it disappears right away. As soon as it gets into sensor/radar range of my ship same missions will pop back up. Again this is only my experience.

[LameFox]

Bugs aside, to me the AI is the worst issue. This game can never be immersive for me if all the ships near the player are forever crashing into and through things.

[Ygdrad]

Bugs aside, to me the AI is the worst issue. This game can never be immersive for me if all the ships near the player are forever crashing into and through things.

Movement is one thing but the combat AI... I once stood in my fighter and watched its AI pilot try to take out another fighter. 20 minutes later neither had ever put more than a small scratch on their shields except when they boosted. You really need to stand behind your pilot and watch it try to shoot other ships to see just how ungodly awful their aim is, it's painful to watch.

[LameFox]

Yeah... I know AI is hard to do well but I really hope they have plans to overhaul it once the major bugs are dealt with. Automation is a key part of X games and right now pretty much all automation works badly.

[Ygdrad]

Yeah... I know AI is hard to do well but I really hope they have plans to overhaul it once the major bugs are dealt with. Automation is a key part of X games and right now pretty much all automation works badly.

There's a case to be made for maneuvering/positioning AI potentially being hard, but aiming is very easy math for the AI. It's much harder to make an AI's shots the right amount of flawed in ways that aren't immediately obvious. My guess is there are bugs or issues in the aiming code, I'd guess maybe related to handling the gun's gimbal momentum and non-instant adjustments of them amongst other things. In space games like this you can potentially even get away with not going through the trouble and let the AI always go for the best shots since projectiles have travel time and standard game AI doesn't lead player position on a curve so flying in any sort of curved trajectory or changing direction is enough for them to miss.

[Grudd]

I agree with 100% of these things.

Great feedback.

Not stopping me from playing though!

[peanoot]

I agree on all of these points listed here, especially the weapons and the AI.

I do like the high way system in a faction's space (and with its allies), though the main loop sort of trivialises the faction conflicts going on, you would at least expect there to be a disconnect on the highway at some point due to the conflicting factions' disagreements. More lawless buffer zones between these conflicting factions would also make the scale of the game much nicer. Finally, there needs to be more exploration zones off the beaten path, possibly linked only by things like anomalies (except some pirate and trader NPCs might use them as well to travel to far flung stations in dangerous corners of the universe), the exploration element of Freelancer was greatly enhanced with systems like these so far from law or established civilisation.

[Admiral A-F]

Is there only some 50 system, I liked X3 with many systems and I hoped for 4-5 times more in this game around 400-500. Space is so BIG why make it so small?