Anyone still think early game is just fine?

[csaba]

I did read the OP. I also said it's a balance issue when I said:

Even if they fix this issue by pirate M ships actually squatting you

Also you had a decent understanding how combat works, and you probably checked the loadout before committing to the capture.

In reality the pirate should have switched to shards as soon as it selected a small ships as it's target but alas such thing is not in the game.

There will always be quick money exploits in large complex games like X4, squatting them all is a fools errand. Just look at Skyrim there are at least a dozen ways to get infinite gold and it went through who knows how many iterations: It just works!

[999jefro]

Lucky event.
Or do you want to be artificially cockblocked, just because you want to grind 10 hours for your first corvette like in X2?

The point is that X4 has no early game whatsoever, rendering lower tier ships and equipment irrelevant. Which exacerbates X4's limited content problem.

In X2, there was an entire stage of gameplay where upgrading your ship and software mattered, which would then transition into being able to afford better and better ships, and eventually get into station building etc. If you wanted to skip "the grind", you could always pick an advanced game start, and presto.

Right now in X4, you can basically start with M ships and lower tier ships and equipment have very limited reason to exist. This is a big part of why it feels there is less variety in gameplay, since all the stages of early game and progression have been removed, and you're immediately thrown into fleet, empire and station building.

To me it is the story aspect which is really hampering X4 in its current state, the story of X2 and X3 was the early game, you would get sent out in your Disco with a clear set of objectives & progression up to a M6, this really framed the game & showed you the ropes in the best possible way, giving you a footing to explore the sandbox. I really am not a fan of the X4 ethos of just throwing you head first into the sandbox as I think it makes for a really rather dull early game experience & limits your exposure to the rich lore that the X universe has.

[RodentofDoom]

What early game. You mean that little bit of time before the infinite money machine "wharf" gets built? Nerf Wharf income, then nerf it again because one nerf isn't enough for this most overpowered thing in any X game ever. I thought the stock exchange in X3 was bad for taking out all the work.

I've done 2 wharf tests so far

All ANT/ARG S/M ship & equipment blueprints unlocked
It's okay money, but it's nowhere nearly as lucrative as the HOP/PAR alternative

The money to acquire all those blueprints is really easy to get from the build us this station please missions
15m reward for a 1/6 dock, 3 bridges, 6 shields and 12 turrets … it's slightly high

Another easy way to make money is just follow an npc miner and tape down your "O key" … whilst 2 of the 3 items you'll vacuum up for no effort are illegal police scans are really infrequent in the fringe sectors where miners often travel too.
But when you're crafting caviar in 10's at a time … the occasional police scan isn't much of an issue with how easy it is to escape them after they've said "drop those wares"