Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

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Falcrack
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Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by Falcrack » Sat, 13. Apr 19, 14:42

Can Egosoft please remove this mechanic from the game, or at least make it optional? It is the one thing that I hate the most about X4, where I am just cruising along and enemies are randomly warped to points along my path. Constantly interrupting the nice, chill music with the crap, frantic combat music. Killing me when I investigate data vaults. Giving me combat opportunities when I want none. Seriously, if I want combat opportunities, I know where to go.

There is a mod that disables this game mechanic, and I find the game 1000% more enjoyable with it. But I am trying to be a good little boy and play the vanilla version of the game right now, so that I can post bug reports for the 2.5 beta, and also have access to ventures. I cannot understate how much I hate this particular feature of X4.
Last edited by Falcrack on Sat, 13. Apr 19, 15:47, edited 1 time in total.

Kadatherion
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Re: Encounters mechanism

Post by Kadatherion » Sat, 13. Apr 19, 14:55

Yeah, it's really annoying and hardly needed, plus it's pretty tacked on when you think how much emphasis they put on the "everything is built somewhere, flies somewhere, dies somewhere else". Those ships don't spawn, they are actually warped, but it still makes little sense and it's WAAAAAY too frequent.

It looks like it's a feature they thought while they also planned there would have been much more to explore (maybe behind those "soft" sector borders that are currently fairly pointless), then just scrapped the other planned features and just left this on but on steroids. I personally wouldn't mind a random (even really spawned from nothingness, gameplay > 100% accuracy) encounter once in a while, when you are in deep space (preferably from a set of a bit more... shaped prescripted/planned encounter templates rather than just those usual, anonymous and always samey pirates/traders), but once in a while doesn't mean one every goddamn minute. "Deep space" never feels "deep" space this way. And of course, as for myself, this is one of the first things that I modded out immediately, screw vanilla.

EmperorDragon
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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by EmperorDragon » Sat, 13. Apr 19, 17:11

Yup, MegaJohnny's No Random Encounters mod was pretty much a day one mod for me. I hated how enemies simply spawned right in the middle of a zone in Rebirth and, X4's random encounters is no different, no matter if ships are spawned or teleported.

The very reason I went with the removal of jumpdrives is because it allowed strategic gameplay like reinforcing transit sectors, guarding chokepoints, blockading gates etc. but this random encounter thing renders it all pointless. The AI basically have gateless jumpdrives now and the player has nothing.
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mr.WHO
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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by mr.WHO » Sat, 13. Apr 19, 17:40

Yeah, at some point they become more irritating that fun. I'm totally for option to switch them off.

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ei8htx
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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by ei8htx » Sat, 13. Apr 19, 17:53

+1 Turn it off.

The AI (factions) should be thinking intelligently about who's going where, and that includes pirates too.

Immersion is broken when you can fly in any random direction and find the same random ships.

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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by graphicboy » Sat, 13. Apr 19, 17:55

Falcrack wrote:
Sat, 13. Apr 19, 14:42
Can Egosoft please remove this mechanic from the game, or at least make it optional? It is the one thing that I hate the most about X4, where I am just cruising along and enemies are randomly warped to points along my path. Constantly interrupting the nice, chill music with the crap, frantic combat music. Killing me when I investigate data vaults. Giving me combat opportunities when I want none. Seriously, if I want combat opportunities, I know where to go.

There is a mod that disables this game mechanic, and I find the game 1000% more enjoyable with it. But I am trying to be a good little boy and play the vanilla version of the game right now, so that I can post bug reports for the 2.5 beta, and also have access to ventures. I cannot understate how much I hate this particular feature of X4.
+1

graphicboy
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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by graphicboy » Sat, 13. Apr 19, 17:57

And while you're at it (hijack), the whole SCA mechanic is irritating too. Unlock the standings, get rid of the marauders.

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Axeface
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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by Axeface » Sat, 13. Apr 19, 17:57

Yes this feature needs to be adjusted to happen much much less frequently, but not removed in my opinion. Deep space should be lonely and this feature completely removes that sense from the game entirely. Rebirth nailed this feeling, the lack of travel drive meant that getting to far out places took real time, and the lack of traffic there made it feel like you were really exploring.
I think coming across a ship in deep space should happen, but very rarely. I also think it shouldnt be scouts and fighters spawning most of the time. Ide expect to exclusively find larger ships out in deep space, perhaps with some escorts.

Gameplay could be made from the encounters too, missions. A lost/damaged ship in deep space that needs help? A completely disabled ship and the crew needs to be rescued and transferred to the nearest station? A science/exploration vessel under attack by khaak? Theres all sorts of things that could make this feature actually cool, but it needs to be rare.

adeine
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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by adeine » Sun, 14. Apr 19, 00:18

It should definitely be disabled for playable factions since there is no reason for ships to be out in the middle of nowhere (perhaps include the odd pirate encounter).

I do think it should be kept for Xenon/Khaak (since they could come out of deep space), although encounters should make more sense and have more variety. What I mean by that is that currently it's always exactly the same thing - a lone M or an M and a Khaak M3 fighting each other, something to that effect. It would make more sense if this mechanic was used to occasionally assemble small battle groups of ships with a purpose/small incursion (would make the Khaak in particular more interesting), could even scale somewhat with the player's rank or ingame time so the threat escalates as the game goes on.

As it is it gets stale very quickly, but if there was more variety and sense to encounters, it could definitely add to the experience of a universe that's dangerous at its fringes.

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MakerLinux
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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by MakerLinux » Sun, 14. Apr 19, 00:42

Axeface wrote:
Sat, 13. Apr 19, 17:57
Gameplay could be made from the encounters too, missions. A lost/damaged ship in deep space that needs help? A completely disabled ship and the crew needs to be rescued and transferred to the nearest station? A science/exploration vessel under attack by khaak? Theres all sorts of things that could make this feature actually cool, but it needs to be rare.
That would definitely be AWESOME. If Egosoft does not make it happen, I hope a modder implements that when I grow tired of Ventures.
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LameFox
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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by LameFox » Sun, 14. Apr 19, 02:42

The only mod I'm using so far is just to turn these off. I'm honestly baffled they took such a gimmicky route in the X game that finally tried to fully simulate its economy. If Egosoft wants ships to appear in far flung reaches of space, they should just teach them to fly through anomalies or something.
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werewolves?
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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by werewolves? » Sun, 14. Apr 19, 02:43

I support removing it: I like empty space.

Some of the encounters are just ridiculous too.

Kadatherion
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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by Kadatherion » Sun, 14. Apr 19, 10:11

Random encounters should really work like in certain old school CRPGs: they should be quite rare (both to not break the feeling of "deep space" and to postpone as much as possible the feeling of repetition) and have meaning and variety.

I don't think they should be limited to Xenon/Khaak only for that matter: a random encounter could be a stranded trader or explorer, could be a cap ship doing a scientific mission, but also so many other things. A battle going on in a special asteroid cluster with rare resources? A derelict special ship with some custom module built in? A new anomaly type that poses some challenge? The possibilities are limitless IF you accept making some scripted event templates and dedicate some real dev time to make the feature have some polish (not necessarily really "missions": it'd be cool, but it's not absolutely necessary to still have a result worth playing). Mix them with a few more generic ones, to increase the pool from which the RNG could choose, and you have a balanced system that feels rewarding and entertaining.

"Teaching" the AI to go into deep space in a sensible way is just impossible, when they are still struggling to make it do much more basic and critical tasks relative to the core game mechanics. Plus, even if they could, given how much "deep space" there can be, either you put hundreds of ships with deep space exploration tasks in the jobs file, severely impacting the whole game performance for a still marginal feature (and pretty much making "deep" space not feel that deep or empty at all, once again making the point itself moot), or you put only a few and we'd have almost no chances of really encountering anyone out there. Which might be realistic, sure, but again the concept that gameplay trumps realism works both way, to make a good game feature you have to find a good middle ground.
And, again, not much point in going through all this effort if what you can encounter out there then is just another generic NPC, with nothing different or unique to offer: it would be just the same background noise, just somewhere else too. Why should I care if the ship I encounter in deep space has been spawned or was given a job after being built somewhere else, if it has no gameplay value whatsoever than a thousand other ships already have everywhere around me haven't already?

The unfocused jumpdrive from X3 - while still offering definitely not enough variety imo - would be a decent comparison. Back then you would do many unfocused jumps as you knew you could find something interesting in the random generated sectors, rare minerals, some battles and even that super rare Aran you so desired. Indeed it got repetitive pretty quickly and a similar system would need much more variety (and, as stated, a few more... detailed, scripted/special encounters), but the basic idea pretty much works.

I'd say a dozen of fairly unique encounters, mixed with a few generic ones, maybe with different % of triggering depending on their theme/possible rewards, limited to something like no more than 1 encounter per half an hour on average and only when the player is no less than X km away from any other static asset (AI stations etc, to ensure these encounters pretty much only really happen outside of the core simulated universe), seems to me a reasonable compromise between variety and developing efforts required. You'd still have a decent number of encounters during an average 100hrs playthrough, obviously more if you spend more time exploring the more remote corners of the universe and less if you stay inside the established civilized areas, as it should be, but you wouldn't be spammed with them, so it would take quite a lot of time to really suffer from the inevitable repetition.
It'd be a system that really adds more than just background noise to the experience, and that would encourage players to invest several hours into exploring it - and as such the currently underrewarding "open" sectors feature - without requiring an excessive, unreasonable amount of work by the devs.

Heh, if nothing else - Egosoft often is pretty stingy when it comes to implement things that they didn't really plan for in a certain way from the beginning - this would be a good starting idea for a mod.

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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by LameFox » Sun, 14. Apr 19, 13:17

I have doubts they'd attempt creating an RPG-like encounter system in a game that barely has even the smallest trace of story elements. These encounters seem more as if they are intended to just make space feel less empty by getting the AI off the direct paths between objectives, which I think would be better done by giving it alternate paths. Not necessarily a lot of them, or to have it wander off into space for no reason. Kind of like how in Freelancer the pirate factions tended to navigate via naturally occurring wormholes rather than the gates used by empires. A couple extra anomalies around the universe that are used by Xenon, Kha'ak, and pirate factions would allow for ships to occasionally choose alternate routes without being awkwardly flung at players in a way that feels so artificial.
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Karmaticdamage
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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by Karmaticdamage » Sun, 14. Apr 19, 19:17

Makes sense for the Khaak because point to point jumping without using the gates was their thing in the previous games, appearing out of nowhere and striking. Anything else though is annoying. Though I do find it funny that random miners belonging to the factions will get randomly warped to the player along with hostile ships.

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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by wwdragon » Sun, 14. Apr 19, 20:02

I think it would work best just to make them not happen inside populated systems entirely, as well as when doing missions and while next to a lockbox.
It would also be good to remove the Ka'ak from these entirely... ka'ak are supposed to be rarely seen.


I do hate it when I'm trying to do a mission in argon prime and a xenon m & a ka'ak hive guard pop up and wreck me in my disco. :-(
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ei8htx
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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by ei8htx » Sun, 14. Apr 19, 21:53

LameFox wrote:
Sun, 14. Apr 19, 13:17
I have doubts they'd attempt creating an RPG-like encounter system in a game that barely has even the smallest trace of story elements.
You clearly didn't read anything beyond the : colon in the first sentence.
Kadatherion wrote:
Sun, 14. Apr 19, 10:11
I'd say a dozen of fairly unique encounters, mixed with a few generic ones, maybe with different % of triggering depending on their theme/possible rewards, limited to something like no more than 1 encounter per half an hour on average and only when the player is no less than X km away from any other static asset (AI stations etc, to ensure these encounters pretty much only really happen outside of the core simulated universe), seems to me a reasonable compromise between variety and developing efforts required. You'd still have a decent number of encounters during an average 100hrs playthrough, obviously more if you spend more time exploring the more remote corners of the universe and less if you stay inside the established civilized areas
Good ideas. My only concern here is that you'll end up with a solution where doing 100km laps in SETA outside Argon Prime is the same as Scale Plate Green. But then how do you decide what sectors have what kinds of encounters?

Not a difficult problem, just a tedious one.

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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by LameFox » Mon, 15. Apr 19, 01:45

ei8htx wrote:
Sun, 14. Apr 19, 21:53
LameFox wrote:
Sun, 14. Apr 19, 13:17
I have doubts they'd attempt creating an RPG-like encounter system in a game that barely has even the smallest trace of story elements.
You clearly didn't read anything beyond the : colon in the first sentence.
It's not an accident that the current encounters are totally generic and use pre-existing ships, or that lead to almost every mission in the game becoming more generic and repeatable compared to previous games. A system of crafted encounters relies on Egosoft being willing to walk back on that design choice first.
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Kadatherion
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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by Kadatherion » Mon, 15. Apr 19, 12:51

LameFox wrote:
Mon, 15. Apr 19, 01:45
ei8htx wrote:
Sun, 14. Apr 19, 21:53
LameFox wrote:
Sun, 14. Apr 19, 13:17
I have doubts they'd attempt creating an RPG-like encounter system in a game that barely has even the smallest trace of story elements.
You clearly didn't read anything beyond the : colon in the first sentence.
It's not an accident that the current encounters are totally generic and use pre-existing ships, or that lead to almost every mission in the game becoming more generic and repeatable compared to previous games. A system of crafted encounters relies on Egosoft being willing to walk back on that design choice first.
You are both right. It's unlikely Egosoft would walk back on that design choice they applied even when detrimental to the gameplay experience, even when compared to their own previous titles, and yet indeed that feature - to have any meaning for the end user - would need to work in a different way.

The main reason why they went with this design is, I believe, also much less "noble" than advertised: when it works, the "simulation" lets them reduce to a minimum the developing effort required to create content for the game. It's not a "vision" as much as it was a direction clearly taken because they have less and less resources available to dedicate to custom shaping the game in its details. Scrapping the main plot was also part of this: something I don't mind at all and I actually believe really lets you save resources that can be better invested elsewhere in a game that really is supposed to be all about the sandbox, so I'm not really against it per se, but it's obvious that when taken to the extreme it can have negative effects in certain parts of the game, that end up being overly simplified, as the simulation itself can't be but much more simple than scripted events to work under any circumstance. The result, like in the case in topic, is sometimes so bad that totally removing a feature feels better for gameplay than having it in it its currently way too generic form.

Pretty much everything in X4 was simplified and made more generic and copypasted, down to the ships' design or weapon variety themselves, we've lost A LOT on the way. What we can hope is for Egosoft to stay afloat long enough to bring to acceptable stability and reliability the simulated "foundations" that X4 is in name and substance, for then being able to build something more dedicated on top of them in future games/expansions (a bit like Reunion --> TC --> AP did, perhaps).

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Re: Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

Post by CBJ » Mon, 15. Apr 19, 15:53

You've missed the mark there, Kadatherion, sorry. First let's address the issue of why these encounters happen at all.

People have told us many times that they want "exploration" gameplay, but nobody is going to explore unless there is something to find. There is a limit to how much we can place manually, and people will find those "fixed" things fairly quickly, after which there is a significant danger of them having no reason to leave known areas of space ever again. This is a game that people play for hundreds of hours, and in order to keep people exploring, there has to be some reason for them to head out into the unknown. Reasons can be anything, including resources (be they mined or looted), missions, or just something to fight.

The simplest solution, of course, is just to spawn things (missions, ships, whatever) as we did in the past. The problem with that, as people have pointed out to us many times over the years, is that such spawns come from nowhere and go nowhere, which works contrary to our aim to have a "living, breathing universe". In particular, they have no effect on the economy, and the economy has no effect on them. This means that the spawned ships don't use resources and their loss means nothing to the factions they belong to. For the Kha'ak, this game mechanic actually makes sense, but for the other races and factions it is not so good. Using existing ships for such encounters, even if they have to be relocated, means that those ships and whatever you do to/with them have a real effect on the factions to which they belong.

Obviously it would be nicer if the ships were just flying around randomly rather than being moved to ensure an encounter, but this presents a very real practical problem with the size of the game universe. The chances of you encountering something "flying around randomly" in a space the size of the game universe would be so tiny that you would barely see anyone in hours of gameplay. This isn't just a theoretical analysis; we tried it and it didn't work out; all that empty space was, well, too empty! We also tried increasing the number of ships "flying around randomly" to make it more likely that you'd encounter them, but then we ran into the problem that there were simply too many ships overall. The sheer number of ships required to make a difference is too great for the universe simulation to handle, even with the simplifications we apply when the player isn't around.

I've little expectation that everyone will suddenly agree with the design decision having read the explanation, but LameFox is right that we're not just going to reverse it, because there are good reasons for it. Clearly the system of moving ships around to be near the player is not perfect, but it's as close as we can get given that we have to balance the desire to go out and explore with the the relative emptiness of space. However, that doesn't mean that this topic is entirely closed, as there is definitely more that could be done to improve things.

What's not up for discussion?
  • Having nothing happen at all when you fly out into empty space, and just relying on random chance, would make exploration largely pointless, so we're not going to do that.
  • Making it all optional does not solve the problem (for reasons I have explained in detail before) so that's not likely to happen either.
  • Having things just spawn is possible, and will continue to happen for Kha'ak ships, for example, but not desirable in the majority of cases for the reasons set out above.
What points are very much worth discussing?
  • What kinds of encounters could occur that would make exploration more varied and interesting?
  • Have we got the frequency of such encounters right, and could we improve the locations and circumstances in which they do or don't happen?

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