Skill and training Feedback

[Cabrelbeuk]

Hey everyone,

So it seems like since the release, every pilot of your newly built ships will spawn at 1 stars (+- 1/4).

You can give seminar only one by one with 3 to 4 clicks. You need a fair amount of them to give just one star to your pilot.

I buy my trader by bench of minimum 8, usually 12, sometimes 16.

I am supposed to single traine every of them ? As they won't auto trade before, micro managing them for the 20 hours they need to reach the 3 stars is out of question.

And this, this is out of question too.

Can we put back at least the randomizer which let you have a 3 star pilot sometimes ?

I enjoyed 3.0 so much and was looking for the DLC but this... is just ruining my whole experience. It makes fleet building an extraordinarily tedious experience.

I still don't know why you can't buy an experimented commander for expensive price. This would be so much smoother. And it seems logic like rich company can hire experimented crew.

[Alan Phipps]

Please see this thread (bring popcorn). It could have been worse!

[radcapricorn]

Sector AutoMine and Explore are star-free and are a reasonably quick way to get to 2 stars average. Rotating crew between Service Crew and Captains is as well. But yes, crew rotation and speeding up with seminars is all a horrendous, clunky, slow and repetitive no-fun experience. They devised these seminars back in Rebirth and are still clinging to them seemingly without paying heed to players who keep repeating that this is a horrible way of pacing the game.

[Cabrelbeuk]

I really really hope for a mod to change this asap then. 'Cause honnestly i just don't feel like playing the game. I don't understand how they thought it was a good idea and good game design, especially when they got feedback about it.

It is really frustrating coz the game is really enjoyable besides this. They made an AWESOME work with this game. Except for this.

[CBJ]

I don't understand how they thought it was a good idea and good game design, especially when they got feedback about it.

The feedback was mixed. Many people understood, and agreed, that not everything in the game should happen quickly, or be tied to the amount of money you have. We will continue to iterate on this feature to try and strike the right balance between there being too little and too much work involved in building up the experience of your crews. Just don't expect easy linear progress from one star to five, or to be able to completely skip this progression just by having large amounts of cash, as this is completely contrary to how experience progression is intended to work, and indeed works in many, if not most, games.

[LameFox]

Having to spend too much time clicking on things is an ongoing problem in X games unfortunately. I had to take a break from X3 once because it was becoming physically painful.

Maybe in a few more patches they will start to simplify applying seminars as slowly happened with crew transfer? Although personally I'd like to be able to train them at buildings, like Marines in previous games. Even if it happened no faster, it's more elegant than having ships do things I don't care about so they may one day do what I actually got them for.

[mr.WHO]

I don't understand how they thought it was a good idea and good game design, especially when they got feedback about it.

The feedback was mixed. Many people understood, and agreed, that not everything in the game should happen quickly, or be tied to the amount of money you have. We will continue to iterate on this feature to try and strike the right balance between there being too little and too much work involved in building up the experience of your crews. Just don't expect easy linear progress from one star to five, or to be able to completely skip this progression just by having large amounts of cash, as this is completely contrary to how experience progression is intended to work, and indeed works in many, if not most, games.

Why not to bring X3 training barracks - not everyone like to micromanage and rotate every single crew member to simply have basic 3 star crew.

X4 desperately need macro solution to crew training!

[Cabrelbeuk]

I don't understand how they thought it was a good idea and good game design, especially when they got feedback about it.

The feedback was mixed. Many people understood, and agreed, that not everything in the game should happen quickly, or be tied to the amount of money you have. We will continue to iterate on this feature to try and strike the right balance between there being too little and too much work involved in building up the experience of your crews. Just don't expect easy linear progress from one star to five, or to be able to completely skip this progression just by having large amounts of cash, as this is completely contrary to how experience progression is intended to work, and indeed works in many, if not most, games.

I understand, but it lacks a mechanic for mid/end game to make it less tedious when you buy huge bundle of ships on regular basis. The personal (as in it is applied for 1 pilot at a time) is not adapted for those.

Mid/end game meant you already progressed in game, and the very nature of the game should allow those to go faster as your empire grow. You can't micro manage those forever. Hence why for me investing huge cash (for people in mid-end game) would have been a solution but seems like it not the one prefered .

Am sure there is other systems to try tho.

[Matthew94]

I just wish there was a notification if someone got a promotion.
I am not going to keep checking hundreds of crew just to see if some of them got promoted.
A list with newly promoted staff would be a good idea, with filters based on occupation e.g. miner, trader etc

Right now the UI is far too limited in terms of mass-commands.
When you have 10 sectors and dozens of stations and hundreds of ships it's absolutely ludicrous that we still have to command each one individually for things like trading and default behaviours.

[Rei Ayanami]

I just wish there was a notification if someone got a promotion.

Please not a voice/video message, that'd get really annoying once you have a lot of ships and stations.

[CBJ]

Mid/end game meant you already progressed in game, and the very nature of the game should allow those to go faster as your empire grow. You can't micro manage those forever. Hence why for me investing huge cash (for people in mid-end game) would have been a solution but seems like it not the one prefered .

The problem with using credits to solve micro- vs macro-management problems is that credits grow almost exponentially. Instead of it a linear progression or even one that gets harder as you progress further, it gets drastically easier and for advanced players means that everything is available at a click. What happens then is that people complain that there is nothing for advanced players to do! Unfortunately whenever this is pointed out, the answer from some players is always "ah yes, but THIS thing should be an exception because I don't like doing it manually", regardless of what game activity is being discussed.

As I said, we are aware that skill progression for crews will probably require further iteration, but we are not going to just make it something that becomes a non-activity for anyone with enough credits.

[birdtable]

Reading through the above the obvious solution (and most popular) appears to be a mix of seminar and trading/mining starting a new game then develop the ability to build training facilities as your empire develops ... maybe Ego should take a good step back and re-evaluate the whole progression system which is not based on clicky game play.

[chew-ie]

I just wish there was a notification if someone got a promotion.

That's a nice idea! In combination with the current implementation this would ease the process for those desparate to look for 3 star autotrader pilots. They hire a pilot, bring him to two stars by using seminars, then let him distribute wares (2 stars needed), then promote to autotrader on "level up".

That being said - I still don't see the need for dozens / hundreds of autotraders (the only important role which needs 3 stars). There are a lot of better ways to earn money. Stationtraders don't need the stars to start their job. Every other pilot (e.g. capital ship captains, fighter pilots) can just earn their stars by practising.

[Matthew94]

I just wish there was a notification if someone got a promotion.

That's a nice idea! In combination with the current implementation this would ease the process for those desparate to look for 3 star autotrader pilots. They hire a pilot, bring him to two stars by using seminars, then let him distribute wares (2 stars needed), then promote to autotrader on "level up".

That being said - I still don't see the need for dozens / hundreds of autotraders (the only important role which needs 3 stars). There are a lot of better ways to earn money. Stationtraders don't need the stars to start their job. Every other pilot (e.g. capital ship captains, fighter pilots) can just earn their stars by practising.

Generally I don't use that many autotraders due to my aforementioned complaints about the levelling system.
Generally I use autominers to earn some initial capital (as they can sector mine at any level) and then use the cash to build stations and move from there.
Given that station managers level up and seem to use their new skills automatically, I just leave autotrading to them.

I get what CBJ is saying about people wanting to use credits to essentially buy everything and skip all challenge in the game but often these discussions skirt close to sounding like the endless UI microing is a design choice.
If that's really the case then I have to say that limiting the UI is just an artificial form of difficulty.
I agree that credits shouldn't be a "I win" card but there are other solutions.

[LameFox]

Mid/end game meant you already progressed in game, and the very nature of the game should allow those to go faster as your empire grow. You can't micro manage those forever. Hence why for me investing huge cash (for people in mid-end game) would have been a solution but seems like it not the one prefered .

The problem with using credits to solve micro- vs macro-management problems is that credits grow almost exponentially. Instead of it a linear progression or even one that gets harder as you progress further, it gets drastically easier and for advanced players means that everything is available at a click. What happens then is that people complain that there is nothing for advanced players to do! Unfortunately whenever this is pointed out, the answer from some players is always "ah yes, but THIS thing should be an exception because I don't like doing it manually", regardless of what game activity is being discussed.

As I said, we are aware that skill progression for crews will probably require further iteration, but we are not going to just make it something that becomes a non-activity for anyone with enough credits.

What if it's not solely credits, but resources? A training facility could doubtless be made to use something material which is, if not actually finite, at least coming from somewhere less ethereal than credits. Then there is still some activity, but perhaps a more macro than micro activity, like with building ships.

[Matthew94]

What if it's not solely credits, but resources? A training facility could doubtless be made to use something material which is, if not actually finite, at least coming from somewhere less ethereal than credits. Then there is still some activity, but perhaps a more macro than micro activity, like with building ships.

They could adopt a similar system to Theme Hospital where you need instructors to teach and their maximum teaching level is limited by the instructor's level.
You could limit each instructor to a certain number of pilots at a time.
To prevent endless farming, the limit could be something like a 5-Star instructor can only train up to 3.5 stars, mandating some field experience if you want more 5-star pilots.

[Gavrushka]

I'd suggested a factory module with huge resource input, including ships, and an output of a very low number of skilled pilots, but I really think the solution is to have many (very limited) sources of pilots, from mission rewards to seminars, to training facilities, to 'apprenticeships.'

I don't want the return of spam-buying ships and syphoning off the ones with decent pilots, but I do want a few different and imaginative ways of finding pilots. - And I don't doubt there will be improvements coming in the future. Hell, you could even have enslaved / indentured captains, or even mercenary ones who come complete with their own ship / fleet.

[LameFox]

I'd suggested a factory module with huge resource input, including ships, and an output of a very low number of skilled pilots, but I really think the solution is to have many (very limited) sources of pilots, from mission rewards to seminars, to training facilities, to 'apprenticeships.'

I don't want the return of spam-buying ships and syphoning off the ones with decent pilots, but I do want a few different and imaginative ways of finding pilots. - And I don't doubt there will be improvements coming in the future. Hell, you could even have enslaved / indentured captains, or even mercenary ones who come complete with their own ship / fleet.

Reminds me of the X3 station that bought slaves and space fuel and produced mercenaries. Maybe we can produce pilots by scooping escape pods and send them off for ""re-education"".

[birdtable]

I will get all my whinges out in one go .. The problem started at launch of X4 when players set up the game in SETA ,, travel to the land of slumber to find on awakening they were billionaires ...then have the nerve to complain where was the game play. Ships / Stations are far to cheap ...Start a game, fly out attack a minotaur, get it to bail, jump out and repair, sell, buy a small fleet of miner/traders..... Claimed ships should be valued as scrap/salvage and new ships 10 to 20 times the cost ...whinge over.

[Rei Ayanami]

How about a "crew training" station module, which consumes lots of ressources, like food rations, water, medical supplies, advanced electronics, energy cells, drone components, to provide a training camp for hired personell? And the more people are getting trained, the more ressources it takes? It would provide an additional ware sink and it will take time to train them to a good level.

Land on station with a "crew training" module -> select new "crew training" option -> a checklist menu opens with a list of all crew members on board (important to make it a check list so the player does not have to do it for every single crew member over and over) -> mark all crew members that you want to train -> press ok -> selected crew members leave the ship and begin training.

As for other ways of obtaining high-level crew, here are a few ideas :
1)
I really liked it in X:Rebirth how you, for winning a speech mini game after giving a gift, could choose to get guidance to a high-level npc. How about offering guidance to a trained npc of choosable skill type as a possible reward for missions? "Hey you, destroy some mines. As a reward you can tell me what kind of competent worker you need and i'll send you information where to find that person". That would give these missions more importance even when we already have many ships and stations and don't need the credits from missions anymore.

2)
Have a npc in bars that you can give gifts, like in X:Rebirth. In return, the npc will give you guidance to a competent crew member -> makes players want to go to the bar

3)
You know how when a ship gets attacked they send an audio message "I need backup!"? If we rescue that ship by defeating the attacker, have the person who asked for help thank the player and have him have a decent chance of offering the player guidance to a competent crew member. -> gives random encounters more purpose.

4)
Hack station computers to get access to personell files "working on that station", aka has a decent chance to spawn competent crew member npcs on the same station and give the player guidance to these competent crew members -> gives hacking stations more meaning

5)
When a npc leaves their ship after you shot him a few times, have a decent chance to make him ask if he can come aboard and work for you (and if needed quietly raise skill level to a competent skill level before asking the question)