Anyone still think early game is just fine?

[radcapricorn]

Two minutes, that's so much grinding...

[mr.WHO]

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?

[radcapricorn]

No, but neither should I be able to make an M fighter bail with a starter Discoverer two minutes into the game and gain about half a million just from the consumables. Might as well then just have a gamestart with an M fighter and half a mill, no?

[Skeeter]

Too easy to get credits quick and it's no fun if u don't grind for ur first next ship or for upgrades.

[adeine]

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.

[Hairless-Ape]

It's horrible.

[Karmaticdamage]

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.

[SPiDER]

Balanced against the posts " I cant Buy a Ship the wharfs are all missing -( insert missing ware normally Engine Parts )- "

I myself would prefer if it was possible " Options/Sliders " and after the Hub Grind of X3 I'm OK with how things stand ...you are not forced to take shortest route to the money trees/Best Ships ..you dont have to build Wharfs/Yards its your choice to do so ...apply your own limits...IMO

[Stu Austin]

Hello all.
I myself am very satisfied with the game. Took me a while to get credits to start building. My starting Discoverer was pretty good ship. Now I'm in an Eclipse which is the only fighter I can fly in. At least with X4, its nice not have to drag for days or weeks just to get an upgrade like it was in X2 and X3.
stu

[adeine]

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.

Nerfing wharves (i.e. endgame income) does not really address the problem of there not being much of an early game.

Balanced against the posts " I cant Buy a Ship the wharfs are all missing -( insert missing ware normally Engine Parts )- "

I myself would prefer if it was possible " Options/Sliders " and after the Hub Grind of X3 I'm OK with how things stand ...you are not forced to take shortest route to the money trees/Best Ships ..you dont have to build Wharfs/Yards its your choice to do so ...apply your own limits...IMO

Hello all.
I myself am very satisfied with the game. Took me a while to get credits to start building. My starting Discoverer was pretty good ship. Now I'm in an Eclipse which is the only fighter I can fly in. At least with X4, its nice not have to drag for days or weeks just to get an upgrade like it was in X2 and X3.
stu

No need for options or sliders when you can have a balanced variety of game starts, which was always something X games offered. Want to start at the fleet building stage? Have a game start with a number of stations and the bankroll to fund it! Want to start with a couple ships/traders? Pick the trader start. Want to start working your way up from nothing? Pick the lone discoverer start.

I understand Egosoft wanting to make the game more approachable/less "grindy" to start with, but taking out a good chunk of the variety in gameplay was not right way of doing so; especially when you have less content in the first place and could have used game starts to achieve the same goal.

[AleksMain]

... At least with X4, its nice not have to drag for days or weeks just to get an upgrade like it was in X2 and X3.

In my recent X3:Albion Prelude (Poisoned Paranid start) vanilla game, I got two Cobras, Hyperion Vanguard, three different TLs (bought them to store weapons and equipment from the capped ships), Xenon I, 247 millions credits and 53 ready for boarding operations marines during 2 game days.

I don't think, that X4 has such possibility to play without any limits and restrictions.

[EmperorDragon]

Well, once the locked SCA relations is fixed, attacking them so early in the game will have consequences, every SCA pirate will see a target on your back. In fact, it may be better to avoid engagements with the SCA in the early game to avoid pissing them off too much.

Remember, at the moment the SCA is just fodder and free ships, ripe for exploit. You cannot judge early game progression on what is essentially a cheat.

[teleportationwars]

Well, once the locked SCA relations is fixed, attacking them so early in the game will have consequences, every SCA pirate will see a target on your back. In fact, it may be better to avoid engagements with the SCA in the early game to avoid pissing them off too much.

Remember, at the moment the SCA is just fodder and free ships, ripe for exploit. You cannot judge early game progression on what is essentially a cheat.

Where did they say they are changing relation?

[radcapricorn]

Well, once the locked SCA relations is fixed, attacking them so early in the game will have consequences, every SCA pirate will see a target on your back. In fact, it may be better to avoid engagements with the SCA in the early game to avoid pissing them off too much.

Remember, at the moment the SCA is just fodder and free ships, ripe for exploit. You cannot judge early game progression on what is essentially a cheat.

I'm not aware of any plans to enhance the SCA. But even if they were to be made like other factions, it wouldn't change a thing. Capturing M ships is reputation-free, so long as you don't kill anything in the process. I once captured a PAR Gorgon, took control of it, and proceeded to go get my +10 friend rewards with them. You'd think they wouldn't want to be friends after that. Hostile action by player isn't really punished all that much.

[Imperial Good]

Like X3 and XR, in X4 you can progress amazingly quickly if you know what you are doing. The issue and challenge is learning what to do, which itself can take many days of play time.

[csaba]

Even if they fix this issue by pirate M ships actually squatting you if you bug them you still have the free ships floating about, one of which is a destroyer.

And btw what is the point of small ships nowadays? Grinding your ass off with 20+ buggy missions to get a slightly better one? Fun?

I feel like veteran players need these quick gain options anyway, it rewards their understanding of the game by letting them avoid the aimless wandering about of their first playthroughs.

It's not like that bad either, this income is enough to get you a boost in the early game, maybe a small station or mining fleet that get gives you passive income and rep while you go around and decided where to proceed. In XR you could board a trade ship 5 minutes into the game that has 100 of millions worth of cargo inside it, between zones so patrols wont even bug you. In X3 the stockmarket just gives you infinite money as well. Here you can dry up the SCA Minotaurs and Behemoths quite fast leaving you with 20-30 mill tops at which point hunting down the newly built ones takes more time than their worth.

[radcapricorn]

Like X3 and XR, in X4 you can progress amazingly quickly if you know what you are doing. The issue and challenge is learning what to do, which itself can take many days of play time.

And btw what is the point of small ships nowadays? Grinding your ass off with 20+ buggy missions to get a slightly better one? Fun?

I feel like you both didn't even look at the OP, or if you did, you misunderstood it. This has nothing to do with knowing what to do or grinding. This is a gaping hole in game's balance, design, or whatever else you want to call it. Yes, there are free ships, thank you very much; there were also free ships in X3. I'm not arguing that. But I'm sorry, being able to cap an M fighter using a starter S ship with lowest possible equipment within two minutes of starting new game is just mad. I mean, it's not like it's a singular occurrence, you can do it all day. So a reverse question is plausible: what exactly is the point of M ships if they give in to a lowly S without so much as at least pooping a mine in its face? Capping is just way too easy and doesn't even carry any penalties.

I feel like veteran players need these quick gain options anyway, it rewards their understanding of the game by letting them avoid the aimless wandering about of their first playthroughs.

This should be solved with advanced gamestarts, not broken cheesy game mechanics.

It's not like that bad either, this income is enough to get you a boost in the early game...

There are already enough cheesy "boosts" to income.

[teleportationwars]

Like X3 and XR, in X4 you can progress amazingly quickly if you know what you are doing. The issue and challenge is learning what to do, which itself can take many days of play time.

And btw what is the point of small ships nowadays? Grinding your ass off with 20+ buggy missions to get a slightly better one? Fun?

I feel like you both didn't even look at the OP, or if you did, you misunderstood it. This has nothing to do with knowing what to do or grinding. This is a gaping hole in game's balance, design, or whatever else you want to call it. Yes, there are free ships, thank you very much; there were also free ships in X3. I'm not arguing that. But I'm sorry, being able to cap an M fighter using a starter S ship with lowest possible equipment within two minutes of starting new game is just mad. I mean, it's not like it's a singular occurrence, you can do it all day. So a reverse question is plausible: what exactly is the point of M ships if they give in to a lowly S without so much as at least pooping a mine in its face? Capping is just way too easy and doesn't even carry any penalties.

I feel like veteran players need these quick gain options anyway, it rewards their understanding of the game by letting them avoid the aimless wandering about of their first playthroughs.

This should be solved with advanced gamestarts, not broken cheesy game mechanics.

It's not like that bad either, this income is enough to get you a boost in the early game...

There are already enough cheesy "boosts" to income.

How would you like it to work?

[Imperial Good]

I feel like you both didn't even look at the OP, or if you did, you misunderstood it. This has nothing to do with knowing what to do or grinding. This is a gaping hole in game's balance, design, or whatever else you want to call it. Yes, there are free ships, thank you very much; there were also free ships in X3. I'm not arguing that. But I'm sorry, being able to cap an M fighter using a starter S ship with lowest possible equipment within two minutes of starting new game is just mad. I mean, it's not like it's a singular occurrence, you can do it all day. So a reverse question is plausible: what exactly is the point of M ships if they give in to a lowly S without so much as at least pooping a mine in its face? Capping is just way too easy and doesn't even carry any penalties.

If you think making pirate M ships bail with the starting S ship is an issue. You clearly have much to learn about X4.

You can literally take your starting ship to a war zone and ask any S and M ship that meets the bail requirements to surrender. This performs a bail roll without penalty. This way you can get any S or M ship such as a Gorgon or Nemesis, complete with most loadout intact, right from the start. Your ship does not need a single gun or turret to do this. Unlike the Minotaur Raiders which are among the worst M fight ships due to their bad flying characteristics and fewer turrets, the Nemesis is the best M fight ship and can easily be used to solo pirate destroyers with a little loadout modification.

Part of the issue you are complaining about is the result of the totally nonsense pirate logic. Minotaur Raiders are very bad in combat as a lot of ships are faster than them. If their main guns are Plasma only their 2 turrets can hit an S ship and even then those might also be Plasma. They also do not call for help from each other and even when they try to flee they cannot due to how slow they are.

[radcapricorn]

If you think making pirate M ships bail with the starting S ship is an issue. You clearly have much to learn about X4.

I know, IG, I know...