[Suggestion]The end-game crisis should become more difficult each time it is triggered.

[flywlyx]

In its current design, the end-game crisis is excessively long and hardly poses a real threat to late-game players—it’s more annoying than actually challenging.
The main issue is its lack of variation. The enemies always arrive in the same predictable patterns at the same pace, making the experience dull since players can easily anticipate what’s coming.
The excessively long duration only adds to the boredom. Compared to other tower defense games, the end-game crisis should be adjusted in the following ways:

1, Reduce the event length—20 waves are far too many; it should be much shorter, around 3 to 5 waves.
2, Make enemies progressively stronger with each wave by increasing their numbers and introducing more modified ships.
3, More modified ships will drop more modification parts, which can be seen as rewards for players.
4, The boss fight should be a real battle, not a game of hide-and-seek where players win just by locating the boss.

With these changes, the crisis will turn into a typical end-game grinding mechanic, still providing somewhat meaningful rewards even for late-game players.
It will also allow players to test their fleets and PCs by seeing how many waves they can withstand.

[Raptor34]

Isn't it a one and done?
Also rather than needing to grind through the lower levels to reach the higher ones, give a difficulty setting instead. But you know, lore-ify it.

[flywlyx]

Isn't it a one and done?
Also rather than needing to grind through the lower levels to reach the higher ones, give a difficulty setting instead. But you know, lore-ify it.

I suppose Egosoft intended this to be a one-and-done event, which explains its length.
An evaluation system makes sense, given how strong end-game players already are, but it ultimately depends on the difficulty scaling. If I could face 4I, 8K, and 4 Ravagers by the third wave with difficulty increasing exponentially, I’d probably be satisfied.

[Raptor34]

I mean more like you can select easy, medium, hard. But you know, pretty it up so it isn't that obviously a gamey system.

[flywlyx]

I mean more like you can select easy, medium, hard. But you know, pretty it up so it isn't that obviously a gamey system.

In most end-game challenges like this, difficulty selection is usually left to the players by allowing them to choose their preferred level.
A possible approach could be letting Boso adjust the sensor signal—either weakening it to lower the wave strength or strengthening it to increase the challenge.

[Baconnaise]

Why can't we customize the difficulty? I would think it would be standard to include controls to manage how many waves and the individual strength of the raids. I would've also thought that the player could assign a faction as the threat which would beef them up to universe threat. If that happened we wouldn't have the magical teleports on top of the player but rather players picking a big bad already in the game near where they have most of their eggs. If I start out in Terran areas I could assign pioneers or antigone as the bad.

[jlehtone]

One could say that we can affect the difficulty, since you can still choose whether you intercept the intruders with Elite or with Asgard. That is the only "difficulty selector" in the game.


PS. You can "declare war" with a push of button at any time. It drops relation with target faction to -25, where shooting at all assets is enabled. That does not help with "end-game desires", because by that time there are no big left to become bad.

[flywlyx]

Why can't we customize the difficulty? I would think it would be standard to include controls to manage how many waves and the individual strength of the raids. I would've also thought that the player could assign a faction as the threat which would beef them up to universe threat. If that happened we wouldn't have the magical teleports on top of the player but rather players picking a big bad already in the game near where they have most of their eggs. If I start out in Terran areas I could assign pioneers or antigone as the bad.

I think it should be, but it should work in a more immersive way rather than just using a slider.
The idea of a strong faction is solid—I’ve used various Xenon enhancement mods to turn them into a faction—but these mods are pretty demanding on performance. On the other hand, the "spam on face" solution removes all the ships not engaged in combat, making it more efficient for larger battles. I agree it does break immersion quite a bit, but I suppose that’s the trade-off for bigger combat.

[Baconnaise]

Why can't we customize the difficulty? I would think it would be standard to include controls to manage how many waves and the individual strength of the raids. I would've also thought that the player could assign a faction as the threat which would beef them up to universe threat. If that happened we wouldn't have the magical teleports on top of the player but rather players picking a big bad already in the game near where they have most of their eggs. If I start out in Terran areas I could assign pioneers or antigone as the bad.

I think it should be, but it should work in a more immersive way rather than just using a slider.
The idea of a strong faction is solid—I’ve used various Xenon enhancement mods to turn them into a faction—but these mods are pretty demanding on performance. On the other hand, the "spam on face" solution removes all the ships not engaged in combat, making it more efficient for larger battles. I agree it does break immersion quite a bit, but I suppose that’s the trade-off for bigger combat.

I've done the xenon beefing up in the past. Good times. The last year or two I've opted to plop trade stations in a custom start and just give a faction of my choosing all building resources. Deadair mods adjust the modules and ship caps. Boom done. Create my own big bad xeno threat. It works but requires mods.

[flywlyx]

I've done the xenon beefing up in the past. Good times. The last year or two I've opted to plop trade stations in a custom start and just give a faction of my choosing all building resources. Deadair mods adjust the modules and ship caps. Boom done. Create my own big bad xeno threat. It works but requires mods.

I rely heavily on Dynamic War and Faction Enhancer mods, but they're performance heavy. The End Game Crisis feature seemed like a more efficient alternative, but, predictably, Egosoft's initial implementation fell short. I'm hoping they'll dedicate more development time to refining it.