X4 Timelines - Appreciation Topic

[alt3rn1ty]

I have seen a fair bit of negativity regarding Timelines ..

.. But it seems to be mostly from new adopters of the X4 game, who maybe do not appreciate the work that has gone into this game series over the years.

So this topic is a feedbck for Egosoft from people who appreciate the work that has gone into the DLC from those who like the sequence of events (having experienced a longer term play through).

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Personally, I am loving the Timelines DLC. But first I would like to note I have only just opened up Graph 4.

So far, it has elements that Egosoft are renowned for, using the game engine to create the THINK aspect of gameplay, which is highly appreciated. I love how Egosoft add moments/missions in the game that cleverly use the game engine to present the player with conundrums to be worked out.
Previously that has been in the form of multi-layered missions (end of X3 Reunion after the final developments were added, end of X3AP after the community talent was alowed to take part in further development, and in game moments in X4 trying to figure the sequence of switches in the Torus, whilst being restricted in a space suits manoeuverability).
In Timelines, I am getting a feeling for missions which occur later influence earlier missions which can be redone ..
.. Bravo!.

The race missions I have seen being dismised as rubber banding races, akin to Mario Kart .. Personally I love the fun you can have with these.
Previously I have seen Nyanas Hideout mission in X3, which for me was a bit frustrating.

But these "Take them as you want" mission races in Timelines are a lot better done. Loved in particular the third race (so far).

I have experienced a few big battles, which in the sandbox game (along with everything else going on) would not be so enjoyable, because with everything else going on in an end game scenario large battles turn into a less than perfect FPS hit which ruins the fluid feel of a dogfight with lots of bullets/beams/fighters flying around large ships.
Just did Brennans Trial, and the Xenon M0 .. Achieved 4 stars .. But more importantly it was an excellent battle which took me about 3 hours RL. Loved it.
Against the tide = 5 Stars
Attack on Antigone = 4 Stars

.. Any mission I have been on so far = Despite some less good results on some of them (Speed mining seem to be my bain) .. I can not find anything to be ascerbic about.

I love also that you changed the origial X4 Foundations (on GOG), into the X4 Discovery, which includes Timelines. So now aswell as the basic game, new users get introduced to Tutorials and extended tutorials in the form of Timelines which comes with X4 Discovery.
Then they advance with all the other DLC and the hidden discoveries which Timelines unlocks for them.
I wish I was starting this game series right now from scratch.

So from me, (accepted I am a major X series fan boy) - @Egosoft, thank you for yet another quality DLC.

Please dont run this into yet another negative feedback topic, this is purely intended to be a positive feedback topic.
If you haven't got anything encouraging/positive to say to the developers .. say it in another topic.
If you appreciate the effort and vision that has gone into the DLC, post it here.

[Witzzard]

I also appreciate Timelines, though i get the negativity to it. Timelines is quite cut off from the sandbox and doesn't allow to bring a bigger hammer to solve ones problems. The story focus is also not exactly what a lot of people might expect. Not to mention that the Racing (which reminded me of some X2 missions and the few racing courses in X3) isn't something that was lately advertised for X as a game. There's simply a huge population of players just wanting an improved sandbox and as your development time is limited it's always a bit of a competition, so that's also a problem for people. Not to mention how X4 is a collectors playground and having to jump to specific hoops sometimes riles people up as they see their ability to have a full collection vanish...

The story was something i really loved. It felt a lot more like the old X main stories, whereas X4 mostly feels as if there's not real protagonist, no real people involved. Yes we've got an always wunderfully voiced Boso Ta, but otherwise it has been a bit thin. It was wonderful getting to know more lore about the universe and feeling as if there's still something developing. And feeling as if there was a true personal involvment.

The missions themselves were somewhat of a mixed bag. And i'm not talking of the races, i found them to be okay. What bored me a bit was the trading and i mostly skipped the mining.
And i gotta praise you for allowing for that and not setting the goals to get stuff at 5 stars, or even somehigh average score.

Last but certainly not least, i love the new interiors, the new ship designs. And i really hope you'll make use of the "barracks" section of the station sometime in the future.

[fade7]

your mind is going to be blown by the ending of the story

i thought the story was great and their best plotline yet!

[mr.WHO]

Soundtrack is good
New ships are good (but I wish there were a few more, like Hyperion, Aran)
New weapons are good (too bad they are very limited to old Terran ships)
New sectors are nice as well (and I like that they are gradually unlocked, as you complete timelines missions)
MD droid voice acting is nice (i'd love to have MD voice and snarky comments as Betty alternative )
Combat missions were fun (unlike racing and minning )
I even enjoyed space suit repair maze mission on timer


I' still on graph 3 and plan to finish Timlines by this week, but overall I laready enjoyed it more than Tides of Avarice.

[dark7np]

I am also really enjoying it. We have a kid now, so time is limited. I don't really want to engage in the big sandbox at the moment, it's just too big for what I'm looking for. Timeline is great because it's smaller chunks that are still connected. There is a story yet no saving necessary really, no distractions. There is no "what did I want to do with my traders or my station the last time again". No "damn I'd like to play that quest again or try something else but then I'd need to redo 10 mins of empire management". I don't risk anything yet I can still play different game contents, and I can repeat it as I want.

I could easily see this expanded a bit into something like PVE event queues in Star Trek Online. As in: pause a sandbox game, do some timeline style mission, get rewards for the sandbox. Could even be multiplayer. Like a variation of the "mining internship" mission that starts a timelines mining thing and gives money depending on results? A faction offering someone to redo some battle in simulation to see what could have been made better that starts a fight mission? Could offer money or crafting things as rewards. Might bring some welcome variety to certain game stages?

Might not be for everyone, I get that. It is very different content from the sandbox game - but I'm enjoying it greatly because of that. Thank you for experimenting and boldly trying things.

[PersonyPerson]

I thought the kind of thing Timelines was advertised as wasn't going to be for me, but I ended up really enjoying it to the point where I reset it and going through it again. It's a strange infusion of the X-Series and competitive speedrunning whilst reinforcing a lot of the game's lore.

It does have some limitations (many bugs relating to score) and is not thoroughly replayable after a couple of runs (this current one will probably be my last), but no way does it deserve 46% on Steam.

It probably helps if a player is well versed in the X-Universe lore as then you could get yourself immersed into all the scenarios when you read their description, which is probably why I liked it so much. But certainly a new player will not understand and will view all these scenarios as disconnected, so they're not going to have as much of an immersion factor.

[alt3rn1ty]

your mind is going to be blown by the ending of the story

i thought the story was great and their best plotline yet!

I just finished the majority of it, excellent stuff. I have a line in my signature declaring I am a Seeker, I put that there as a tease to see if Egosoft noticed and maybe implemented something along those lines in the future ..
.. Little did I know I have had their tech under my nose all the time.

I agree, the plotline is marvellous.

MOooaar!

[alt3rn1ty]

~ but no way does it deserve 46% on Steam. ~

Yes Egosoft mentioned they have increased the games popularity recently, that may well be a double edged sword.
But I think it may be a slow burner with regards to reviews, and will increase eventually.
"All those moments will be lost, in time, like tears in rain".

Edit: PS I caught site of your name in quite a few of the Timelines rankings, you had some awesome scores

[capitalduty]

I really enjoy it, it is some fresh air into the gameplay loop we know and love. I had really good times with some missions, especially those that involved scorting a target, defending a zone and fleet battles. Specially iconic ones. Also love the added new ships and sectors, i would love to have more ships into the baseline game too. For next DLC I am hoping Egosoft adds split Panther, Tiger and Python (they actually need these vessels to survive xenon, argon and boron onslaught). Hope to see more L carriers and new ship classes like cruisers. Would love to see Xenon Q and J too...new Xenon ships in timelines rocks!!

[fade7]

your mind is going to be blown by the ending of the story

i thought the story was great and their best plotline yet!

I just finished the majority of it, excellent stuff. I have a line in my signature declaring I am a Seeker, I put that there as a tease to see if Egosoft noticed and maybe implemented something along those lines in the future ..
.. Little did I know I have had their tech under my nose all the time.

I agree, the plotline is marvellous.

MOooaar!

Also since your now a seeker... if you start a new game with the custom budgeted start you can select an argon male/female that is wearing a Quennaught outfit in the character options. The suit is kinda cool looking... reminds me of the movie Tron kinda.

[PersonyPerson]

Edit: PS I caught site of your name in quite a few of the Timelines rankings, you had some awesome scores

Thank you.

Admittedly, In one scenario I found an exploit, which is why I have the top score. I reported it as soon as I discovered it, hopefully they remove my score and fix it before more players discover it to derail the leaderboard. Rest are legit though and am quite surprised that I've done as well as I have.

~ but no way does it deserve 46% on Steam. ~

Yes Egosoft mentioned they have increased the games popularity recently, that may well be a double edged sword.
But I think it may be a slow burner with regards to reviews, and will increase eventually.
"All those moments will be lost, in time, like tears in rain".

With fixes to the scores of multiple scenarios, then I'd agree. The anger of the "Sandbox-only and I don't care about the lore and stories, go away!" players will die down because they now know what it is. Timelines is a decent one-off DLC that fills a void that I think at the end of the day was needed. The X4 experience without having to grind through an Open Universe save in order to get it. It does that job decently enough.

[Codejnki]

I just wrapped up my Timelines play through and I don’t get the hate.

I think Egosoft set themselves a goal, and frankly they hit it.

There were two main goals here, create bite sized gameplay moments so that people who don’t have an 8 hour block of time can get in and have some fun. The second goal was to make the open sandbox more approachable to new players.

Let’s start with value. I streamed my play through so I know that I spent about 20 hours working through the missions. If we are sticking to a $1 per hour return on investment, this succeeds.

Veteran players who complain the missions are too hard thus blocking them from content. Translated, what you are saying is you are unwilling to put the barest minimum of effort. Sure, not knowing the win conditions up front may turn people off, but, this is by design. As veteran players we are going to start with our preferred strategy. Sometimes that’s exactly what was called for. But sometimes once you see the scoring parameters it forces you to find an alternative path to your goal.

The complaint that “some missions are unwinable”, the colony ship. Again this is by design. For a new player this reminds them that sometimes you are out matched and that there are forces out there far bigger than you, and this teaches you to recognize this.

Timelines succeeds in teasing late game content to new players to better focus themselves in the sandbox. Under normal circumstances it can take tens if not hundreds of hours to build up a fleet. With Timelines a new player gets a taste of this. When they move in to the sandbox a new player has a much better idea of what is waiting for them.

This is a very common trope in video games. Start the player out at a fairly high level and then slap them down to level one when you leave the prologue. The player is exposed to a lot of mechanics and gives them goals to work towards.

I think everyone who posted a negative review in the first days needs to do some soul searching. The only way Egosoft can continue to deliver major updates every year is by growing the player base. We should all encourage this.

We should encourage them to take the occasional big swings because sometimes they pay off.

After X: Rebirth, the idea of X4 probably felt like a gigantic gamble that might not pay off. But they crushed it.

Quit complaining that Timelines didn’t fit your version of fun.