What is the incentive to play?

[five21]

I have a friend who asked a similar question to this, and the difference between him and I is pretty marked. I'm having an absolute blast, and love the emergent gameplay and exploration. He got frustrated with the lack of direction and end goal.

Not every game will be for every gamer. It isn't a flaw in the game, it's a sandbox style universe that gives you a ship, some credits and lets you do whatever you like really. Last night I accepted a guild mission and am now apparently at war with a whole faction and drastically outgunned. The universe is really what you make of it.

[JamesTheClarke]

After over 100h in X4 I have a similar problem as the OP and it's definitely not because of the sandbox nature of X games - I've never experienced fatigue or boredom in X2 or X3 this quickly.

The reason is not bugs or even the ship designs that bother me sometimes, but just the lack of content in comparison to every previous X release.

I don't mind finding my own fun in a sprawling sandbox filled to the brim with content, but right now I'm sitting in a sandbox where somebody threw in a bag of pebbles - they are shiny, great looking pebbles to be sure but I can't build a sand castle with them. In both X2 and X3 I've spent many, many weeks playing constantly, powering through all its buggy hurdles because the content was so vast and interesting. X4 feels rushed and unfinished, it can become a truly great game, but right now it is a functional shell that needs to be filled with content.

The game lacks half its main cast (aka three major factions), it lacks interesting diverse sub-factions and it lacks an expansive ship catalogue. All of those things were part of the initial offering of X2 and X3 at release and expansions did just that: they expanded upon that initial offering. The "expansions" for X4 will most likely be focused on re-adding what we had in previous games. I hope at least one future expansion will bring us a new major faction or several interesting minor factions to interact with.

For now I'm back to playing X3:AP with new mods, still gonna check out X4 after every patch but won't be sinking my free time into it beyond that until it offers more to play with.


TLDR: the game has vast potential, but potential doesn't keep me playing. Content does.

[ScandyNav]

The game lacks half its main cast (aka three major factions),

Please stop voting for that feature! Plus three (or six if they built by the same manner as current ones) more factions doesn't give any new gameplay. Even new ships doesn't give anything, if they will be balanced in the same scheme as those which are already in game: pale, not distinctive, useless.
They better polish what is already here, not adding more water.

[Grimmrog]

Oh, but I see the difference clearly. One is and has been working in 6 games, one does not and will never work. And can you imagine there are people who do not give a damn about wars? I do not want to fight Paranid, Argon, Teladi, (Split or Boron) just because someone made the whole economy based on this. Not when there are Xenon and Khaak to fight. Who, btw, do not need any of these missing resources...
And why should I find solutions for a broken economy? Is it my problem there are not ANY engine parts factories in Paranid space? Is it my problem that I have found only one such a factory in Argon prime that has about 1000 of them in stock while all stations I have found so far need about 5000? So, genius, what is the solution for a player who just started and wants to buy some new ship, but can not? What is really funny that such a problem was not in any prevous X games except, surprisingly, Rebirth.
What I really do not get are people who are happy to have a "foundation" with a hope that "it will be fixed sometime" Well, it will not. Especialy when anything depends on that stupid WAR system they came up with.

Adapt and overocme, if there is a station and none else, where do you make money? bring that station materials and it creates engine parts, deliver them and build a ship. later on even build your own engine parts and get rich when the entire universe needs it but NPC's don't hve many of them. Also, yes it obviously is your problem when the economy puts you short on this, but this is also an opportunaty. to make money.

[JamesTheClarke]

Please stop voting for that feature! Plus three (or six if they built by the same manner as current ones) more factions doesn't give any new gameplay. Even new ships doesn't give anything, if they will be balanced in the same scheme as those which are already in game: pale, not distinctive, useless.
They better polish what is already here, not adding more water.

I agree with the issues you raise regarding existing factions, so have I in several forum threads. But here's my question, shouldn't we expect and ask for both in our X games: a full cast AND distinct well-defined factions? Like we had in X2, X3 and from what I read even in XR?

[ScandyNav]

Please stop voting for that feature! Plus three (or six if they built by the same manner as current ones) more factions doesn't give any new gameplay. Even new ships doesn't give anything, if they will be balanced in the same scheme as those which are already in game: pale, not distinctive, useless.
They better polish what is already here, not adding more water.

I agree with the issues you raise regarding existing factions, so have I in several forum threads. But here's my question, shouldn't we expect and ask for both in our X games: a full cast AND distinct well-defined factions? Like we had in X2, X3 and from what I read even in XR?

I'm only saying that because if Egosoft guys are still building todo list for near future and they look at the forum, they may receive wrong assumption , that adding races is highly requested feature.

[JamesTheClarke]

I'm only saying that because if Egosoft guys are still building todo list for near future and they look at the forum, they may receive wrong assumption , that adding races is highly requested feature.

There are plenty of threads and user accounts on this forum that have been talking about the lack of main factions and sub-factions since launch. I'm not convinced though that it is anywhere near enough to make a substantial impact on the devs atm - they are still dealing with a lot of bug fixing and base mechanic issues, the shipyard issue being the latest one of the fix list.

If there is a lot of people talking about a feature or mechanic then the perception that customers want it is not wrong. It only has influence if enough people feel the same way then that's that, if not so be it, but telling people that they should not request something because one doesn't share the same view is a bit odd to me tbh.

[shealladh]

Oh, but I see the difference clearly. One is and has been working in 6 games, one does not and will never work. And can you imagine there are people who do not give a damn about wars? I do not want to fight Paranid, Argon, Teladi, (Split or Boron) just because someone made the whole economy based on this. Not when there are Xenon and Khaak to fight. Who, btw, do not need any of these missing resources...
And why should I find solutions for a broken economy? Is it my problem there are not ANY engine parts factories in Paranid space? Is it my problem that I have found only one such a factory in Argon prime that has about 1000 of them in stock while all stations I have found so far need about 5000? So, genius, what is the solution for a player who just started and wants to buy some new ship, but can not? What is really funny that such a problem was not in any prevous X games except, surprisingly, Rebirth.
What I really do not get are people who are happy to have a "foundation" with a hope that "it will be fixed sometime" Well, it will not. Especialy when anything depends on that stupid WAR system they came up with.

Adapt and overocme, if there is a station and none else, where do you make money? bring that station materials and it creates engine parts, deliver them and build a ship. later on even build your own engine parts and get rich when the entire universe needs it but NPC's don't hve many of them. Also, yes it obviously is your problem when the economy puts you short on this, but this is also an opportunaty. to make money.

Well said. Funny how this is the "story" of the opportunist

Please stop voting for that feature! Plus three (or six if they built by the same manner as current ones) more factions doesn't give any new gameplay. Even new ships doesn't give anything, if they will be balanced in the same scheme as those which are already in game: pale, not distinctive, useless.
They better polish what is already here, not adding more water.

I agree with the issues you raise regarding existing factions, so have I in several forum threads. But here's my question, shouldn't we expect and ask for both in our X games: a full cast AND distinct well-defined factions? Like we had in X2, X3 and from what I read even in XR?

I'm only saying that because if Egosoft guys are still building todo list for near future and they look at the forum, they may receive wrong assumption , that adding races is highly requested feature.

I think this comes down to, we miss All the Races and spread of choices for "different" ships. If the Devs read the meaning of what players want rather than a poll then, I think they'll get it right.

Maybe they designed it (Universe) to evolve over time, and to bring the big open space >bad pun< to grow with the player. It seems to be a little too easy to achieve all the goals atm and the Universe seems to be playing catchup. Given some time, I think that it will balance out. You don't want an expanding Universe that you feel swamped by the growth of everything and you're just small fry in the soup. On the other hand, we've in the former, where we're running out of those around us, like playing an MMO that everyone has left by the time we join.

[rabtherab]

Did you follow those suggestions the tutorial gave you? Raise your rep, join a war effort, etc, etc?

[Fazmaster]

I agree with the issues you raise regarding existing factions, so have I in several forum threads. But here's my question, shouldn't we expect and ask for both in our X games: a full cast AND distinct well-defined factions? Like we had in X2, X3 and from what I read even in XR?

I'm only saying that because if Egosoft guys are still building todo list for near future and they look at the forum, they may receive wrong assumption , that adding races is highly requested feature.

For balancing, depth and visuals (at least on par with X:R) I think they'll come as free updates over time.

For new races with ships, sectors and maybe some surprises (story plot?) i'm happily willing to share some of my hard earned profitsss!

(Wouldn't mind to see some ships and sectors from X:R recycled. Radiant Heaven is such a nice place to visit! )

[pref]

Why the drama?
Finally a flexible enough system built on the new engine which only needs expanding.
Some of X3's biggest issues have been taken care of, like the
UI hell,
no endgame goals,
no connection between economy and faction military power.

That whole game was a buildup to nothing, now you can conquer sectors, participate in large scale wars of your own choice - and do that only on economic level or with proper fighting taking the rep loss, or play full peaceful, and only help factions against xenon, trade and build to infinity or until you get bored or have enough ships to murder your CPU.

You can do the same as in X3, start small with missions, lay your sat net, trade manually, then automate it, steal ships, build some complexes for profits, then the usual huge ones to supply an NPC shipyard and your own when 2.0 gets released.
Granted, not as many ship classes to switch between, less races, less plots and AI commands, but that will come in time.
Progress is less detailed, but in X3 you could skip that as well: just release 500 universe traders, then build a 10m/hour complex for example - all you needed was some UI grind and SETA, and this example doesn't even involve nvidium.
And huge parts of that progress, - like having to hoard 10 billion microchips, grind rep, train marines for days on SETA - wasn't what made X3 great, and in X4 you can take it slower as well if you want. You just need to find the path on your own for your tastes because it's not yet documented. And fight your way through the usual early bugs.
Trading and building is already way more interesting imo then in X3 - with the map that shows you best prices instantly, disguised pirates, police scanning your drug shipment, and the possibility to take over any ship via teleportation if the situation needs delicate actions. Production trees are way more detailed. Complex planner is lightyears better.
And UI in general is the best so far in the series without question - you can draw whole series of fleet actions on the map, queue commands on top of having a base behaviour, issue any command by just using the map, without having to go through 600 nested menus.

And why upset because shipyards lack some resources? In X3 you couldn't arm 2 capships as there weren't any weapons unless you built a huge weapons complex. Or go without proper complexes if you weren't quick enough to get some tractor beams before GoD despawned "the" fab producing it.
Or because it's easy? Just got raped by 6 or so Ps a K and the usual small ships as soon as i entered a xen sector in my brand new nemesis. Try that in an S class vessel - it's not like killing a few pirates in race sectors. Maybe increase fight rank, guess that works the same way as in X3 with combat difficulty - since there is no setting for that.
Or because there is nothing to do? There is plenty to do, its just not the same well known steps we had in X3. Maybe join the pirate faction? Perhaps that allows you to disguise as a race ship and play a true pirate? Weaken factions by supporting both in war then take over both? Settle in a xen sector? Build a DNA shaped megacomplex just for the looks? Rip off everyone by stockpiling and sabotaging all production of a ware?

And all that whining about price tag seems so pointless to me.
There is no game like this on the market, and no AAA studios are willing to take the risk to make one. Noone else will make an X game for us, and if ES needs 50eur to make it work, then that is the price we have to pay. Or just don't pay and be happy about how much more money you have.
Still at least 50+ of hours worth even on 1.0 if you want to find what's good in it and not focus on what is there to whine about. It's not like XR with its console limited worthless UI, and fully static universe without any real feeling of progress in exchange for a plot that wasn't worth much and never even got finished. Still that game had more to it then most tripleA titles if one modded out the painful parts.
And the way they went with X4 shows that they do listen to what people say on these forums.

Maybe wait a few patches and perhaps a DLC if you really cant find anything to occupy yourself with.
Unfortunately this level of detail in visuals and object complexity takes much more time to develop and they cannot afford X3 level graphics any more. What is missing compared to X3 is just more diversity in ships and plots, more balancing and polish, and more AI scripts - and that takes much less time then then rebuilding the whole concept and UI after XR.

[radcapricorn]

Sorry, pref, but I have to call you out on the, by you, "taken care of" UI hell.

Empire overview:
Important information LOGOS some other information
Yes, a huge list of logos in your face is the most important thing in your empire.

Mission tracking:
Mission briefing
EMPTY SPACE
Mission buttons
Yes, empty space is the most important thing in missions.

Relocating marines one-by-one was the pain of X3, but it was 1000% easier than what it is with relocating employees in X4 right now. It was actually rather efficient.
The old property menu in X3, hell, even in Rebirth, looks way better than the one in X4 at the moment. Maybe it feels better, I don't know, haven't played.
Turret commands? Where's UI for that? Eh? Only through cycling, for each turret??? And for lage ships? In 1.5 beta, and only a rudimentary one?!
Simple and effective UI to command all nearby ships? Nope, now you have to do a bunch of extra clicking.
Putting weapons fire and a context menu on the same mouse button is a terrible, terrible idea.
Category soup of the ship crew.
Tremendous performance loss when drawing the map UI.

I could go on, but I'll stop on obvious things that I've seen. Maybe could add more once I'm able to actually play. But it is obvious that the UI wasn't taken care of, not by a long shot.

EDIT: oh, yes, the "too many modules" thing. Yeah, X3 simply tanked performance on huge complexes. X4 just throws up the white flag with inaccessible UI.

[nameisunavailable]

Anyone who's talking about this gaming being released in an unfinished state and being surprised about it just baffles me. When has Ego ever put out more than just a "foundation" for a game at launch? They are literally known for doing exactly this and then sinking years of love into the game and building it off player feedback.

Yes, people have such high expectations of developers these days, its a shame but I guess its a sign of the times.

These days I'm not overly concerned with a game on its release, I just figure I'm participating in its final days 'before release'. My only concern is that developers continue support long afterwards, and in respect to that, I have no worry or concern whatsoever about Egosoft's dedication.

I look forward to see what they build on this 'foundation'.