[Suggestion] Difficulty settings

[Alan Phipps]

We are rather getting off the topic of difficulty settings once we start to discuss the AI and ship travel.

[GCU Grey Area]

Suspect your game may be older, they may have tweaked the fleet numbers in 3.0b. HOP fleet was several times larger than what you mention (right from the start of the game) & included multiple carriers & resupply vessels.

That's good if they have increased the quota. Every faction should have a strong fleet as long as their eco isn't significantly crippled.
Haven't tried the beta yet.

This a big enough HOP fleet for you?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5bm246zdct225 ... 1.jpg?dl=0

[pref]

That really depends on opposition and what they do.
If they get stuck on a khaak godmode module or a lonely P while a couple PAR destroyers kill one of their stations and a foreign CV is building an admin module in HOP space or they just never get rebuilt after losses because HOP lost a station or two then it's not really enough.
I mean hack 5 or so smartchip fabs, takes a few clicks each, and you got rid of HOP and PAR military?

I remember HOP having 5+ destroyers before 2.0 so it's not such a big change.

[Sandalpocalypse]

it confuses me that the actual war events like mounting invasions or defenses et cetera do not seem to have missions associated with them... i never really messed with war missions until recently.

[GCU Grey Area]

I remember HOP having 5+ destroyers before 2.0 so it's not such a big change.

Not such a big change?
By my count that fleet consists of 5 carriers/resupply vessels, 33 destroyers, 41 gunboats/corvettes & 42 fighters (remember most of them are organised in wings - list was way too long to display them as individual ships). Got to ask, just how big should a fleet be before it constitutes a big change?
Incidentally that's not the only HOP fleet I've seen - that fleet's just the one guarding a defence platform near the south gate in Second Contact II. It's an important choke point, but it's not even on the frontline! They have other fleets for that.

[pref]

By my count that fleet consists of 5 carriers/resupply vessels, 33 destroyers, 41 gunboats/corvettes & 42 fighters (remember most of them are organised in wings - list was way too long to display them as individual ships). Got to ask, just how big should a fleet be before it constitutes a big change?

Thought it's nine, now i see the subordinate count. That's actually quite a lot - sounds even too much (not sure what FPS i would be getting if 2 of these 50 ship fleets started to murder eachother), but seeing how that argon CV flies right into HOP SY undisturbed it might still not be enough. Also it's just an early beta not a balanced RC. HOP having that amount of ships might be just a bug or a temporary state.

How many ships exactly a faction should have is more of a balancing issue, hope 3.0 will get that right at release.
Higher quotas are really welcome, but my issue is more with the too strict eco restrictions which can easily result in them not being able to rebuild lost ships, and also how they respond to events.
I'd be happy to see changes regarding these,
- some artificial help for maintaining at least a minimal fleet that can protect their sectors and
- being able to prioritise targets sensibly and intercept them.

You can cover these problems up to some extent with an extremely high number of starting ships, but that's not really the best solution.

[Alan Phipps]

Heh, what goes around comes around. X Rebirth was heavily criticised by some players because some ships were spawned on demand rather than races/factions always having to resource and build them or take them from other duties. Now X4 is getting (more mildly) criticised for doing more of what was requested.

[pref]

Yeah i know.
Never understood why, takes LOTs of effort and there is 0 gameplay benefit.

In X4 it makes factions feel harmless in the end, and with such small number of economic entities the whole system is so vulnerable.
Maybe it could have worked with X3's or higher station count, where big numbers have a chance to even out fluctuation caused by random events. Still where is the gain?

You just need a system where actions have consequences, not one which is perfectly closed.
Can't even fathom why people talked so much about it.

[eXalt!]

Keep thinking about Rep, it works a bit weird... tending to the easy side.
You can be a recognized member of a faction and still be in good terms with their enemies, or be a trading mogul who never shot a laser and be allowed to command a destroyer.

Citizenship: ON
Accepted rank 10+ with a faction →get -30 temporal Rep with the factions they are at war with

Skill based Rep: ON
Limits the purchase of advanced (rep based) combat/trading ships to character combat/trading rating.

[Imperial Good]

Never understood why, takes LOTs of effort and there is 0 gameplay benefit.

It makes it feel a lot less frustrating to play. In X3 and XR killing a battle fleet felt worthless and a waste of time because 1 - 2 hours later it would be replaced with magic and there was nothing you could do to stop that.

In X4 you can blockade their shipyard and that fleet will not be coming back.

You can be a recognized member of a faction and still be in good terms with their enemies, or be a trading mogul who never shot a laser and be allowed to command a destroyer.

Which is kind of realistic. Nothing stops a country selling weapons to both parties of a war. Countries like Switzerland and the USA did this in the past.

As mentioned in a previous post, the solution would be some sort of "suspicion" ratting. Trading or completing missions with a faction generates suspicion points towards you from all their direct enemies. A direct enemy is an enemy which shares a war front with the faction that was helped. If your suspicion ratting gets too high with a faction, the faction may start to make compensation/loyalty demands or threats which failure to complete or comply results in massive reputation loss. Suspicion decays when you trade or complete missions for the faction which has suspicion points against you. If you trade and work for both sides of a war equally both sides view you as a reliable and useful ally in the fight. If you heavily bias towards one side then they would suspect you are an undercover enemy. The higher your reputation, the more easily suspicion points decay allowing for larger asymmetry before suspicion becomes a problem.

[pref]

It makes it feel a lot less frustrating to play. In X3 and XR killing a battle fleet felt worthless and a waste of time because 1 - 2 hours later it would be replaced with magic and there was nothing you could do to stop that.

In X4 you can blockade their shipyard and that fleet will not be coming back.

You can just not spawn certain ships if a faction has no shipyard. The eco restrictions mentioned above are unnecessary for this. And hurt gameplay from way too many aspects.

[eXalt!]

You can be a recognized member of a faction and still be in good terms with their enemies, or be a trading mogul who never shot a laser and be allowed to command a destroyer.

Which is kind of realistic. Nothing stops a country selling weapons to both parties of a war. Countries like Switzerland and the USA did this in the past.

I agree with you for the case of just rising rep with several factions, for me that’s ok. But I was thinking about the moment the player goes to the faction leader and accepts officially a rank in that faction. Keeping good relations with both sides after that would be more like joining the allies in WW2 and keep trading weapons with the Axis.

[Imperial Good]

But I was thinking about the moment the player goes to the faction leader and accepts officially a rank in that faction. Keeping good relations with both sides after that would be more like joining the allies in WW2 and keep trading weapons with the Axis.

From what I can understand you are not officially joining the faction, rather they are recognizing you/your faction for the work they are doing. It is a matter of diplomacy rather than citizenship.

[Falcrack]

A possible way for "difficulty" would be advanced controls to alter how the NPCs work. For example one could increase Xenon aggression which makes them build larger fleets and faster with more economy (not cheating). Or do the same with HOP so they pose a significant threat. Or weaken TEL so XEN push them hard.

As Fazmaster pointed out in the original thread that the quote from me above was taken from, difficulty settings like this are not really an option because they result in changes to game balancing and the economy. It's hard enough to get the economy balanced with one economy setting. And as GCU Grey Area has experienced, the range of possible outcomes with only a single Xenon aggression level is already hard to predict. So once again, difficulty will come from from starting scenarios and any restrictions you place on your gameplay, not from us giving applying controls to how the economy or AI works.

There are things you could change which would affect the difficulty as regards the player, but have no bearing on the economy. Things like mission payout amount, prices for crystals and inventory items, chances of inventory drops, etc. None of these impact the AI or dynamic economy in any way, but would affect how easy it is for players to get credits early on.

[Imperial Good]

Things like mission payout amount, prices for crystals and inventory items, chances of inventory drops, etc. None of these impact the AI or dynamic economy in any way, but would affect how easy it is for players to get credits early on.

That is fake difficulty. Like in XR, it does not make playing harder, it just makes it more tedious.

[radcapricorn]

Things like mission payout amount, prices for crystals and inventory items, chances of inventory drops, etc. None of these impact the AI or dynamic economy in any way, but would affect how easy it is for players to get credits early on.

That is fake difficulty. Like in XR, it does not make playing harder, it just makes it more tedious.

XR? You could literally live off of loot alone in XR when playing on the hardest difficulty: enemy ships spawned in droves, flew to a station and got destroyed, every few minutes, leaving behind millions worth of pickups. With some luck, you could fully upgrade the Skunk (maybe except the best trade computer) just minutes after starting a non-plot game (in plot games item availability was paced). Egg mining yielded items worth 20-25M, often several of these from just one asteroid.

In X4, where economy is supposed to be "real", skewed payouts for missions and inventory items destroy the impression. Where is the money paid for misc. items coming from? Every loot trader on every station seems to be a billionaire. Every hitchiker pays between 1/6 and 1/4 of what it costs to actually buy a ship. Satellite repair missions pay 5 to 10 times the cost of a new satellite. Station building missions... don't even want to talk about those. At the same time, it costs just a couple thousand credits to "hire" someone for life? That's just not how economies work.

If crystals and eggs are so valuable, where are marauders harassing miners? In fact, where are other prospector ships besides the player? (there are "Prospector" ships, but they don't seem to be doing anything).

Crystal/egg/SETA component buyers should be few and far between, with limited budgets. Station building market should be "taken" and hard to get into. High profit jobs must be high risk. Trivial jobs should pay trivial money. Hiring people for life shouldn't cost a week worth of food. This has nothing to do with "fake" difficulty, it's just common sense.

[Imperial Good]

XR? You could literally live off of loot alone in XR when playing on the hardest difficulty: enemy ships spawned in droves, flew to a station and got destroyed, every few minutes, leaving behind millions worth of pickups. With some luck, you could fully upgrade the Skunk (maybe except the best trade computer) just minutes after starting a non-plot game (in plot games item availability was paced). Egg mining yielded items worth 20-25M, often several of these from just one asteroid.

One needed multiple Nividium asteroids to get enough eggs to forge the collection to sell. Outside DLC this was quite tricky as Nividium asteroids were extremely rare.

The tedious part was if the player actually tried to do any sort of combat. Not only would a single cannon blast from a K nearly OH you, but killing surface components took forever due to all the damage reduction.

The only sensible part of the hardest difficulty was the larger enemy fleets. Too bad stations were so insanely defended that it just produced more free loot.

In X4, where economy is supposed to be "real", skewed payouts for missions and inventory items destroy the impression. Where is the money paid for misc. items coming from? Every loot trader on every station seems to be a billionaire. Every hitchiker pays between 1/6 and 1/4 of what it costs to actually buy a ship. Satellite repair missions pay 5 to 10 times the cost of a new satellite. Station building missions... don't even want to talk about those. At the same time, it costs just a couple thousand credits to "hire" someone for life? That's just not how economies work.

It is because collecting crystals and doing missions takes a lot of the player's time. If they paid practically nothing, there would be no reason for the player to do them.

Also such sources of money are the least of the issues currently. Yes one can make tens of millions of credits via mining over a few hours. Or one could own a warf+shipyard and make 400+ million per hour just to stand around.

Difficulty is not about making playing more tedious with taxes to your rewards, damage or durability. It is about making playing more challenging by adding new elements which require more game knowledge to be able to deal with. For example my previous suggestion of having start based difficulty where at expert mode you are forced into being enemies with certain factions from the start, preventing one from directly acquiring their ships and adding considerable threat to the universe.

[radcapricorn]

One needed multiple Nividium asteroids to get enough eggs to forge the collection to sell. Outside DLC this was quite tricky as Nividium asteroids were extremely rare.

No you didn't. As I said, usually one asteroid was enough for one collection, sometimes even two. Nor were they "extremely" rare. There are Nividium 'roids right near where the normal plot game starts. They weren't as common as X4 crystals though.

The tedious part was if the player actually tried to do any sort of combat. Not only would a single cannon blast from a K nearly OH you, but killing surface components took forever due to all the damage reduction.

Ahem. The tedious part was dispatching huge swarms of fighters by your lonesome, and that's it. What are you even talking about? The only way for a K to hit you with that cannon was point blank and even then when you weren't paying attention. Dispatching of surface elements on Very Hard wasn't any more difficult than it is in X4, thanks to humongous blind spots, the nonsensical "gravity" magnet, and ridiculous missile capacities and capabilities of the Skunk in R and, well, most any fighting ship in 4.
The Taranis/OL ships beams posed way more of a threat to the Skunk due to their range and hitscan capability. But then XR had Novadrones and an AI that was oblivious to their threat.

In X4, where economy is supposed to be "real", skewed payouts for missions and inventory items destroy the impression. Where is the money paid for misc. items coming from? Every loot trader on every station seems to be a billionaire. Every hitchiker pays between 1/6 and 1/4 of what it costs to actually buy a ship. Satellite repair missions pay 5 to 10 times the cost of a new satellite. Station building missions... don't even want to talk about those. At the same time, it costs just a couple thousand credits to "hire" someone for life? That's just not how economies work.

It is because collecting crystals and doing missions takes a lot of the player's time. If they paid practically nothing, there would be no reason for the player to do them.

a) That's not true and b) That's not what I'm talking about (read the underlined parts). A lot of time? Which missions are those? The only ones with any sort of "length" to them are station building ones. Which don't actually take much of player's time at all: plan it, start it, shove it. Completes on its own. Paid out 5-10 times the worth of station. (Read: the customer didn't really need that station, they just don't know what to do with the money).

Also such sources of money are the least of the issues currently. Yes one can make tens of millions of credits via mining over a few hours. Or one could own a warf+shipyard and make 400+ million per hour just to stand around.

Exactly. Again, that's not how economies work. Meaning that all the effort of making the in-game economy functional without artificial help is severely undermined. And that economy was supposed to be one of the cornerstones of the game. You're able to make heaps of money because you're provided with infinite sources of money and trivial ways to leverage those sources. Which obviates the need of any economy simulation.

Difficulty is not about making playing more tedious with taxes to your rewards, damage or durability. It is about making playing more challenging by adding new elements which require more game knowledge to be able to deal with.

Yes. Like making you Trade your way into a guild. Or Fight your way to a fleet commander. Or Build yourself something worth protecting. And Think where to get the extra penny for that new big ship or station. Right now - don't have to do any of that. Most everything is just given to player on a silver platter, and that which isn't requires absolutely minimal effort.

For example my previous suggestion of having start based difficulty where at expert mode you are forced into being enemies with certain factions from the start, preventing one from directly acquiring their ships and adding considerable threat to the universe.

In the game as it is presently, that's a trivial obstacle. Ships are easily captured and boarded. Reputation is just too easy to come by. The AI is almost incapable of actually hunting and killing the player (with the exception of new unbalanced weaponry in the current Beta).

[Imperial Good]

As I said, usually one asteroid was enough for one collection, sometimes even two.

Usually they provided 1/3 to 1/2 of a collection each. It depends really on the size of the asteroid (how many pieces it can be repeatedly fragmented into) and RNG. Also finding those asteroids near the starting area was harder than it looked. I spent a good 1-2 hours tracking them down and in the end I needed 3 such asteroids for a single complete set.

Of course if you had the Teladi DLC you could just fly there and see dozens. Only issue earning money like this was how prone the asteroids fields were to performing very poorly, often hitting single digit FPS after smashing just a few.

What are you even talking about? The only way for a K to hit you with that cannon was point blank and even then when you weren't paying attention.

Or being near something it impacts since those guns had huge splash.

Dispatching of surface elements on Very Hard wasn't any more difficult than it is in X4, thanks to humongous blind spots, the nonsensical "gravity" magnet, and ridiculous missile capacities and capabilities of the Skunk in R and, well, most any fighting ship in 4.

Except it took tediously long since your damage was cut massively. Trying to kill a K with the Skunk alone would take anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes. During this time you would be holding down fire and cycling weapons as they overheated.

It usually was faster to call in a capital ship to kill if for you. Your capital ships were not subject to the damage reduction, so a Fulmakron or Olmekron could make very short work of a K, assuming it did not lose too many turrets from the HEDT splash.

The Taranis/OL ships beams posed way more of a threat to the Skunk due to their range and hitscan capability. But then XR had Novadrones and an AI that was oblivious to their threat.

One usually fired missiles. No need for nova drones. Again due to the tedious nature of the higher difficulties one had to spam more missiles per surface element due to the stupid damage reduction.

A lot of time? Which missions are those?

Most missions. Such as rescuing ships from mine fields. Flying ships away from mine fields. Clearing out mine fields. Taxing someone across the universe. Getting some trader to drop some special piece of cargo. Placing deployables. Placing satellites so as to cover the specified area. Opening locked boxes.

Sure some of them can be delegated to other ships the player owns, however it still requires player input to solve and complete. Even some of the trade ones such a supplying food to a sector require significant player input unless they have the infrastructure set up. If they paid you as good as nothing, it really would not be worth accepting them.

Exactly. Again, that's not how economies work. Meaning that all the effort of making the in-game economy functional without artificial help is severely undermined. And that economy was supposed to be one of the cornerstones of the game. You're able to make heaps of money because you're provided with infinite sources of money and trivial ways to leverage those sources. Which obviates the need of any economy simulation.

The economy simulation is to stop the game feeling like the AI was always cheating. It was not to try and make earning money more sensible. X games have never been about that since X3, XR and X4 all have easy money exploits/approaches.

In the game as it is presently, that's a trivial obstacle. Ships are easily captured and boarded. Reputation is just too easy to come by. The AI is almost incapable of actually hunting and killing the player (with the exception of new unbalanced weaponry in the current Beta).

Except the only source of such ships is capture and boarding, since the player would be unable to gain the blueprints. Like wise how easy reputation is to gain is meaningless since you are locked hostile with those factions due to the starting difficulty. The AI does not need to actively hunt the player, since the player is already at a huge handicap with what trades they can make, who to sell ships to and where they can fly safely.

It was also a small example of how difficulty could be implemented. Other ways include adding new obstacles, restrictions or missions that the player must do to progress. Instead of making the universe more tedious, it makes it actually require more skill and understanding.

[radcapricorn]

I really don't understand what is it that you're arguing.

No, it wasn't tedious to get money in Rebirth, no more tedious than it is in 4. Just like in 4, you were given money aplenty for very silly reasons. Yes, it was faster to kill a K with a capship. It is in 4 as well. So?..

5 minutes per mission is a lot of time? Barring station/ship building which have natural duration limitations, I don't see any mission taking longer than that, unless one actively procrastinates. Maybe the "bring me that caviar/fine meal" type mission would take more, if you don't happen to have items on hand. And you need to spend some time anyway while your stations are being built. Still, what I'm talking about is breaking the 4th wall for no other reason than just filling player's pockets, which is just silly in the early game. In late game monetary payouts from missions are simply dwarfed by income from stations anyway, because...

You seem to still be missing the point: the economy simulation didn't stop the game feeling like the AI was always cheating, because it is always cheating, as it has infinite money. Which it happily spends on your goods and ships, which turns your stations, shipyards especially, into money printing machines. That the game gives your even more infinite money in large amounts via missions and other low hanging fruit makes it that much worse.

Yes, maybe if you were to permanently lock relations to hostile with some factions that could spruce things up a little bit. Thing is, current activities already existing in the game is what should require skill and understanding. Right now they don't. There isn't a single thing that is difficult to do in this game at the moment. You can only die due to silly mistake or a bug. You can only incur significant losses due to silly mistake or a bug. It takes little effort to get things done. Most of the "difficulty" right now comes from clumsy and inconsistent UI and AI that's bent on doing everything except what you want from it.