I was thinking to myself today, while playing x4: "hummm,im pretty sure other player have the same opinion about this designing choice as i am cause it's soooo anoying and not fun!!" .... and i realised suddently that, maybe it's just me, and other people who play x4, just dont find that element of the game so bad.
I know that we all have our own opinion about this game, and that's fine. But i just wanted to know if i'm the only one, who believe that Egosoft lost their focus on the X serie and is slowly drifting away from what made this serie a classic?
First and foremost, this post is not to flame Egosoft in any way, and i humbly ask people who will post here to not flame them neither! If you have a comment, please write it so it is a constructive critisism instead of a direct attack to the dev.
All of the above sed, let's now get to the meat of the subject!
From my own perception and from a couple hundred hour played since the release, i could now have a clear and large picture of what's in "the product". Personally, i came from the very first game of the serie (yep! im an old fart!
) and i liked it. But it's just after the release of X-tension that i totally became a fan of the X game. I was until X3 Albion Prelude. Something changed in the core mentality of Egosoft between X3AP and X:R.I cannot tell what , but from my point of view, it just felt like an old grandpa, who think that he is not cool anymore, and decide to change his clothing, personnality, and attitude, to be like the young one, and be again the cool one ... but everybody who have known him, miss the sweet old grandpa that everybody loved and was known for.
That's how i perceive the serie from X:R. Yea, some cool thing where added that i loved like independent shield, turret and engine that are targetable and a more visually impressive map.... buuutt that's it! Since then, i was always like "aww man, give them time, they will add X or Y thing to the game, they always do..." but sadly, that never happened. They choosed to invest in a REAL economy simulation.... but personally, ive dont seen what was the benefit from it gameplay wise! In X3, i didnt care about the technical aspect of it, it just FELT like i was in the middle of a livable word. I didnt needed a real economy.... because i roleplayed it! That's what a GAME is and should be, that you FEEL like your part of it. I personally think that investing so much time in developpement of this system was a mistake, cause every other part of the whole is missing badly. But that.... it's my own personal opinion.
From all that, my opinion of what should be the no.1 priority for the developpement team to focus on is what their already have and should improve BEFORE anything else. There focusing right now on ADDING more and more content (more ship,race,sector...), and leave the rest bare and empty! Sure they add some little tiny weeiny piece here and there, but they just add more of the emptyness they created. Mission a boring and repetitive and doesnt really link with the dynamic universe at all (what i was expecting the most they do with their new dynamic universe). Like military mission of one faction should automaticly make you ennemy with their ennemy! Yea, im in the Argon navy and police, but im friend with HOP! doesnt make sense! Its ok if youre a trader, but not if your the combat style (hence the mission style!).
Everywhere i look, it seem that they made everything so that you cannot loose! Easy money, easy relation, easy exploration (is there such a thing anyway at all?). Look like the game was made exclusively for the "snowflake" who want all the easy way and hate to loose. Ok maybe im a bit judgemental here, but its my opinion, and i stand by it. I dont personally care if someone want to play this game easy. It's their own way to play the game and it's ok like that. What i dont like, its i dont have a choice to play my way. No option anywhere to crank up the difficulty level. It really feel that you where more of a person in the other X game... but now you are more of an organisation that a person.
I remember back in X3, the game at the beginning of a new game was hard as hell. You really where a little nothing in a vast and dangerous world... and the more you worked your ass off, and being carefull in your choice, the more you were gratified with new toy you dreamed having in the start. Even then, you looked a the faction big military behemoth of a ship and told yourself "damm! this is a loonng way to be able to command such a impressive death machine!" and when you where there, several real time week, you where so proud to have acomplished this, cause your work all the way to there, anndd the feeling of power with such vessel where literally impressive! This feeling is gone in X4! in two day, i was able to buy a capital ship, that is, by the way, no more special cause every faction have tons of them!!! in my optinion, they are supposed to be rare cause its freaking supposed to be a capital ship!! but i just think personally that they could be ok, if we had like 2 more level of ship even bigger thant that, like XXL ship and SuperXXL class.
But where i really have the hardest time in the game is with the bare basic!!! The quality of life in the game is reallllly detrimental of the immersion! Order of ai that dont listen to you or even that you dont have perfect choice for certain situation, fleet that spread appart and dont care about what the boss sed, stupid ai that choose to die instead of living, and many more!!! All of this break the immesion that you are supposed to be in charge of your whole empire. It's like having a brand new car, but the manufacturer decided that they will not install a brake or gas pedal the first year, and instead they have invested more on the shiny new candy coat paint that made the public go wow! They told you that they will install them eventually ,a couple of year after you bought it. And with all this, we are supposed to lead a empire/corporation/mercenary clan (etc!), with little to no managing windows of any sort. The one we have is really a bare basic. You want to simulate a real economy? then give us all the spreadsheet and managing tool we need to be able to do our job. What i mean you sed? Build 200 ship and just try to manage all this, with naming, profit done and combat made!!! way too much micromanaging for such big of a world!!
Another thing. It's supposed to have a dynamic war going on around us .... but i dont feel like anything like that at all. Sure we see battle in sector we are and are not... but where is the news? where is the governement of faction speaking about it? where are the info of the loss on each side and whatnot? i dont see it at all!!
For my taste, they could work on all the thing they ALREADY have and make it abseloutely immersive in every way. Its a shame that they sed somewhere in some post ive read somewhere else, that QoL content is faaarr in the todo list! Is this because money must pay the bill and they dont have time for the real work on their game cause they must stay afloat? or just because the direction they take now is really the way they think that what gamer want? Maybe thats what the market want right now and im a dinosaur of a gamer who live with a good memory of past game. I dont really know, and thats what this post is all about!
Sorry for this long post.... think that i was too much of a fanboy back then and im sad that my past love dont grow up the way i want to!
