4.30 Reduced icon clutter, feedback

[ajax34i]

Scanning a station isn't compelling gameplay; it doesn't add anything besides wasting time trying to find the pixel. Which is why there are several mods to bypass it, and they're popular, and have been since release.

With your reduced range for icons, now even with mods we can't see mission icons unless we fly up and down the length of your huge stations, like idiots, again looking for a pixel that most of the time isn't even there. You've pretty much disabled missions, which is a big part of the X games. Spacefly collection, Khaak collection, Ancients, are somewhat required for upgrades, and will now be impossible to find. Thanks for that.

The docking ports and trade offer terminals at least have protrusions / surface elements that make them visible from far away.

I get it that you're proud of your stations, and want us to get close to see them in all their glory, but they are SCENERY, like the buildings in GTA, they're not the focus of the gameplay. Stop trying to force us to get close.

A proper change to reduce the clutter would have been to reduce the distance just for the info nodes, but leave long distance for the missions, trade offers, and docking ports. But instead of doing it properly, you've shown that you're still the same Egosoft that made the decisions for the release-day X-Rebirth, and will make the same design decisions for X4.

You've re-ruined a part of X-Rebirth for me, and I'm not looking forward to X4 because of it.

[Koci]

What can I say... very well put.

With Best Regards!

Koci

[Alan Phipps]

I agree that info point searching can become pretty boring and exasperating gameplay if you let it, especially when after a while you know where the info point for a type of module should be but somebody has put a module junction or a display hoarding right over it.

However, in terms of roleplay, I don't see a contradiction with reduced visibility of icons. Ask yourself what their actual simulated purpose is. They indicate that you have been close enough and explored enough locally to pick up and analyse all the local e-chatter from the module about production cycles, storage, missions, trade offers and special deals.

In some cases the modules may have a bit more security for their information than others; then your scanner drone comes into play leading to more unusual gameplay at some minor risk - if you want it.

Personally I don't find the current process so very much harder than that of the previous versions, not once you have become passingly familiar with the modules at least.

[RAVEN.myst]

@Alan: I think the main complaint here is the fact that missions that are only offered via station icon and not on the bulletin board, are now more of a PitA to find. In the case of hacking and station scanning missions, perhaps that's not too bad (the latter in particular are just easy money), but when it comes to the unique item-collection missions, I think it may be problematic (I haven't played more than a half-hour or so since the update, so I can't really comment yet.)

I agree with you that as far as the actual station-scanning goes, I too don't see a problem (or at least, I don't see the problem's icon until I get closer ) - the first couple of times it's perhaps more difficult, but that's ok, as the first couple of times is the ideal time to showcase the stations' architecture etc. to new players, and then after that one learns where the infopoints are, and can head straight for them.

[Alan Phipps]

" .. missions that are only offered via station icon and not on the bulletin board, are now more of a PitA to find. ,,"

I agree with that, but until you do find and accept them, they will keep cropping up at different stations. I have recently restarted vanilla Rebirth freeplay and I have already found all the special missions long before I am in any position to go looking for all the parts. This is probably just RNG and a bit of perseverance at work though.

I think the introduction of the Bulletin Board has somewhat spoiled us and made us all a bit lazy about missions now. (Just kidding.)

[RAVEN.myst]

I agree with that, but until you do find and accept them, they will keep cropping up at different stations.

Indeed. I know some people are impatient, but personally when I play, I try to stretch out the experience as much as possible, to stave off the vacuous end-game as long as possible, so I for one don't have a problem with engaging tourist mode from time to time.

I think the introduction of the Bulletin Board has somewhat spoiled us and made us all a bit lazy about missions now. (Just kidding.)

Heheheh. Well, since I like to play largely mission-free (barring those unique missions and other unique missions such as the XJD, anomalies, and cartography and what-not, and sometimes a few very early-game station-scan jobs), my habits haven't changed much since its introduction.

[MrFiction]

I never understood why you need to scan a station anyway.

Wouldn't it be more beneficial to show all the wares and problems (missions) your station has to offer? I mean that's what I want when I build a station myself.

[RAVEN.myst]

@MrFiction: It feels very contrived, doesn't it? I mean, there's all these "rationales" about finding "coolant leaks that might contaminate the ice-cream", so you get a discount on those sorbets, and what-not, but it always felt pretty thin to me. I agree: I also would think that there's marketing-related information that, as a supplier, one would WANT to advertise, not tucked away in the back of a disused lavatory in the basement at the bottom of a broken staircase, with a sign on the door reading "Beware of the tiger". On the other hand, stuff that is considered sensitive or private, would presumably not be made apparent just by driving closer to the external wall of the building... I remember in early versions of the game, when loitering around the stations would get you commed by nervous or irritated sounding station personnel who appeared to be suspicious about your activities and intentions (which makes some sense, if you think about it - authorized maintenance personnel only) - this appears to have since been removed, which is just as well, because what made no sense was having to do this in order to do basic, adequate research on one's prospective clients or suppliers, but doing so apparently bordered on the illegal...

[ajax34i]

Addressing the RP point of the icons: sure, "close enough to pick up chatter" if you're talking about info points, but the mission and trade icons are actually adverts, flags, "come see my deals and buy my stuff" or "please help I need this mission done now", and ideally the persons offering the sales or the missions would want their advert icon to be visible from as far away as possible.

But RP reasoning can be argued both ways.

Alan, you're comparing 4.30 vanilla vs. previous versions vanilla, and yes there is a great reduction in visual clutter when the icon visibility is reduced from 10km to 2 km, and no there isn't much difference in gameplay when the interaction distance remains the same point blank 500m - 750m.

But my point is that almost nobody is playing Egosoft's vanilla game, because vanilla has major annoyances that MUST be removed with mods. So, comparing the game with "5 km scan range" mod, that mod made it a lot more reasonable to scan station info points. Because 5 km is within the station perimeter, and the points are obscured by the station elements, so the player still has to fly around.

The 4.30 change removed the 5km visibility. It's not in the globals, as far as I can tell, it's a blanket change in the executable. Forced the mod to 2km scan range, which is annoying because in addition to the distance, again, the icons are also obscured by the station elements; you have to look from a certain angle.

So I switched from that mod to the "fly by scanning", which completely removes any possibility of making a game out of scanning stations. You just get in range, and boom 100%, bye.

Overkill.

That part of the game ruined.

Necessary, because Egosoft made an annoying decision.

They will never force me to play the game "their" way. It's a single player game, I will use mods, whatever's available (thanks to the great modding community that this game has). If they make another annoying change like this, and there's no mod to disable the annoyance, I will NOT play the damn game.

And instead of pre-ordering X4, I will first read all possible reviews to see what kind of annoying decisions Egosoft put into that game. Maybe wait until after patch 2.5. And this attitude isn't great for Egosoft having blockbuster sales on release day.

So that's what I wanted to convey with my feedback.

[RAVEN.myst]

And instead of pre-ordering X4, I will first read all possible reviews to see what kind of annoying decisions Egosoft put into that game.

Sadly, I must wholeheartedly +1 that sentiment. However, I see one problem with the approach (which, incidentally, will be the best-case scenario where I'm concerned, as already some deal-breaking decisions have been made that all but guarantee that I'll be sticking to pre-Rebirth Xs, thankyouverymuch) - if the majority of the community adopts this very sensible attitude, where will we all get those reviews from?

[Alan Phipps]

@ Ajax34i: "Alan, you're comparing 4.30 vanilla vs. previous versions vanilla ..." Well I would be wouldn't I? This is the vanilla gameplay forum after all.

".. because vanilla has major annoyances that MUST be removed with mods." Well I'm not seeing any major annoyances* in 4.30 vanilla. In fact I see most of the minor annoyances remaining as triggers for lateral thinking about new ways of doing things (workarounds and not cheesy exploits!) or perhaps for seeking role-playing reasons to rationalise why things are as they are. I guess I must be somewhat 'special' in that respect.

Don't take all this too seriously though, I certainly don't. I just want to relax and enjoy the game when I can.

* I don't count recent bugs introduced in the latest updates as those will probably soon be eliminated by the devs given useful feedback and the information for reliably reproducing the problems on the dev system.