What has bugged you the most about the X trilogy games?

[FlightJunkie]

Too Long, didn't read version

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Don't be lazy. you either read it or you beat it.

It has always seemed that gripes were part of these games.

Small or big here are they

NOTE: X Rebirth is not incuded

-Unnecessarily complicated mining
It has always been a chore hasn't it? I can swear that if I looked in the code I could find the AI that I had assigned to mining, cursing me for it. You have to go and find a proper ship that can mount a mining laser, find the mining laser, then find the mineral collector and the scanner and all that might not be available in a sector near you, but you have to look many sectors away, and if you want to automate the proccess, oh boy, then you had to look even more for the proper software(which is discussed further down). After all that, there is the act of mining itself. Go scan an eligible asteroid, shoot it with the laser until it brakes and then collect the rocks while re-opening the cargo bay after each piece(because it automatically closes) and avoid the other rocks. This could easily be avoided with a device called the syphoning mining laser. Buy that and you got all in one in a variation of sizes to fit on any ship. At the least have the mineral scanner telling you what mineral is in the asteroid and where to drill it. Then its just a case of shooting the beam on the asteroid which automatically syphons mineral into the cargo hold. How does it work? Well, its a bloody sci-fi game, figure something out.


-Unnecessarily "sold seperately" equipment
One would think that because its more than a thousand years in the future, the posession of certain types of technology would be arbitary and trivial. Well, he has to think twice. I can access prices of items in my phone in the middle of nowhere, but nope, you will still need to buy the best price locators to access info thats in the bottom of the tech chain 1000 years from now. We have things like the ecliptic projector which seems a fairly simple tech, and then we got the triplex/duplex scanners(fancy way of saying radar) which are not enough for a few dozen Km wide sector while a modern day missile destroyer has a range of a few hundred Km. Also some computer software seem fairly arbitary, like collect stuff, dock and trade remotely.


-Combat
I always felt that combat was a bit drab. Weapons have always lacked in feel, there is no damage to speak of and it doesn't feel particularly satisfying blowing an enemy up. Also, battles could drag on for quite a bit in early stages and with fast enemies. Perfect examples of satisphiyng combat would be starlancer and freespace.


-Ships Feel souless
Its quite a peculiar gripe and it also affects combat. Ships feel like empty 3D models with stats attached to them. After X2, cockpits were removed, damage never existed in the first place, there is complete absence of proper subsystems and subsystem management, you cant diver power, you can't target specific subsystems, and the way you damage a ship and looses speed, doesn't make much sense. Ships feel, shallow.


-Lousy upgrading/equiping system
But of course Its a good idea not to put an upgrading/equipment dedicated drag and drop menu which is radically different from the regular trading menu and not have upgrade compatibility info available on the fly. That would make too much sense, and too much sense is illigal now is it? Engine swap? What loser uses that?! here have a slider. Seriously, why not make seperate menus? why is there the same screen for everything? why cant I see if a weapon is compatible with my ship as I buy it? Questions, questions.


-Nightmare enducing CGI
Elena kho in X2, news host and Brennan in Reunion. Do I need to say more?


-Terrible, unpolished and poorly executed cutscenes and setpieces
In BTF and X2 things were better me thinks, but after from X3 onwards things deteriorated. Cliping, clanky and awkward scene transition, terrible models and animation and glitches are the main course. The trench run in X3R is unforgetably bad. The final stages where the terran fleet jumps in to save the day is underwhelming and much more can be said.


-Good lore, spoiled by the above three entries and the lack of it in game
Oh my. Learning about the characters and the lore from external sources makes you eager to try the game and play the story, but when you do you can't help but to feel that there is a lot missing in the games.


-The side missions and main missions do not take advantage of freedom and have no originality
Have you ever played Deus Ex? If you did you would have noticed that there is more than one way to tackle an objective. Unfortunately Such freedom is not taken advantage from the X-trilogy games you got the entirety of space, yet missions only got one linear solution that you can't divert from. In addition side missions are all the same thing and get old after a while.

Awful user interface
Menus in menus in menus in menus in menus. That could be the root of all Evil of the X-trilogy. Menuception! we have to go deeper!

[Zaknafein]

all those are good choices but i personally choose the crap-ui. with the years of playing i found a lot of workaround scripts that make controlling your assets and giving orders faster and simpler but they all are small improvements compared to the completely ****** ui

i´d like an option here to choose^^

[FlightJunkie]

all those are good choices but i personally choose the crap-ui. with the years of playing i found a lot of workaround scripts that make controlling your assets and giving orders faster and simpler but they all are small improvements compared to the completely ****** ui

i´d like an option here to choose^^

I knew I had forgoten something

[TTD]

Somehow I feel you have listed all the parts of the games that make it more challenging than the normal joystick trigger happy games out there.

The only annoying thing for me is when you save regularly, nothing seems to happen too often for which you are glad to have saved...but if you get absorbed in a certain scenario and forget to save, somethings always goes wrong when youi have a few hours of gameplay behind you.
Worst case is the game-over screen, which means you have lost all those hours and have to redo again or start a new game.

[Timsup2nothin]

My only complaint is that there is no way to lose. My other favorite economic simulator has costs. Factories have to have workers, and workers cost. Ships have to have crews, and crews cost. Plus there's maintenance.

In X3 if you build a factory and just ignore it you don't get any production out of it, but so what? In that game if you build a factory and don't see to its supply you have a sore slowly bleeding money and producing nothing.

In X3 if you are producing something no one wants, or not making sure it gets distributed, you end up with a warehouse full of product and the factory stops, but so what? Once it stops it doesn't consume any resources so it doesn't cost anything. In that game the factory is the aforementioned bleeding sore...plus the good workers running the factory will actually rent (very expensive) storage for you so they can keep producing whatever it is they aren't selling.

X3 could be so much more challenging. Great game, but lack of costs is a pretty big weak point in the economy.

[ancienthighway]

I don't know that I can participate in this lopsided poll. I mean, what makes you think everyone is "bugged" by the X Trilogy? What makes you think everything that bugs you bugs everyone else? A biased poll is a worthless poll.

[FlightJunkie]

I don't know that I can participate in this lopsided poll. I mean, what makes you think everyone is "bugged" by the X Trilogy? What makes you think everything that bugs you bugs everyone else? A biased poll is a worthless poll.

Wow, wow, man push the brakes! Its not like there is no one that atleast has a gripe with the things listed. And if nothing bugged you from the list then say what has actually bugged you. The poll is optional and suggestive.

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

My ships smashing into things.
Ship equipment problems.
Crappy mining.
TLs cannot be used for trading (well, they can, but it sucks hard).
Lack of multithreading. FPS drops every 10 seconds.
Some side missions lack logic (travel 76 sectors in 20 seconds, yay!)
Lack of cockpits.
Capital ships are actually just overgrown fighters.
Player-controlled capital ships have the advantage of charging weapons AND strafing.
Stations are absolutely meaningless, unless you have a self-sustaining complex.
Missile spam.
Missile frigates being OP as hell.
Boarding is too random.
Xenon HUB sucks hard (AND you cannot play 50% of the plots until you complete the hub).
Losing hull = instant reload.
Lack of weapon choices - IRE for M5, PAC for M4, HEPT for M3, CIG for M6, IBL for M7 and PPC/PSP for M2/M1/M0.
Manual trading is boring - same goes for remote trading.
Lack of ship/station crews - ships and stations feel like ghost metal pieces.
Lack of flinch when recieving hit (or screen effects)
Cheats and new ships are the only things that modders care about (hail cockpit mod, and hail bounce mod!)
SETA
lack of X Rebirth booster
marine training takes 100 hours of gameplay. 20 would be enough.




Oh, thats quite a long list. Still, X is the best thing I ever met. Including Rebirth.

[ancienthighway]

And if nothing bugged you from the list then say what has actually bugged you.

Really. You've decided that something has "bugged" me about the game. You continue to assume that because something bothers you, something bothers everyone. While there are things that I may like to see or wish was implemented differently, they aren't nagging pet peeves. If you want to complain about the game just complain about it. You don't need others to validate your feelings.

Just curious, what do you expect out of this poll? Will you be modding the things that are most bothersome for players that respond? Do you expect Egosoft to drop work on Rebirth to update any of the earlier games?

[FlightJunkie]

Really. You've decided that something has "bugged" me about the game. You continue to assume that because something bothers you, something bothers everyone. While there are things that I may like to see or wish was implemented differently, they aren't nagging pet peeves. If you want to complain about the game just complain about it. You don't need others to validate your feelings.

Just curious, what do you expect out of this poll? Will you be modding the things that are most bothersome for players that respond? Do you expect Egosoft to drop work on Rebirth to update any of the earlier games?

can I risk saying anything without you taking offence

since apparently that seems how its gonna be Im not going to say anything on the matter

have this instead.

http://hdwallphotos.com/wp-content/uplo ... wnload.jpg

[Honved]

Add the "mission opponents scale linearly to the player" thing, where over most of the game you can predict what you're up against to within a couple of M5s. There needs to be more in the way of missions above and below "normal" difficulty, and a bit more uncertainty. If it says "easy", then I know it's easy, but I should have to deal with the possibility that it may be anywhere from "cakewalk" to "average". If it says "hard", it should range from "average" to "uh oh!".

The UI is my biggest peeve, though. The game works, for the most part, and does most of what I expect, but getting it to happen takes way more menu clicks and hassles than one can reasonably expect. When you consider that 90% of the commands are done from the "Advanced" submenu, and then you've got to dig down a few levels from there, it needs help.

[Vesa]

None of the above.

What sucked the most gameplay-wise were the jumpgates missing from Terran sectors.

[OniGanon]

Mm, the UI I eventually got over. The story and lack of polish I got over. Most issues I can just learn to deal with it.

What I don't think I'll ever get past is the fact that, for every new personal ship I buy, I need to take a trip around the entire damn universe to equip it with all the necessary software, shields and weapons. Teladi for Best Buy/Sell and Trade Extension, Paranid for Docking Computer, Pirates for Cargo Life Support, Split for 25MJ shields, etc.

The software bugs me especially because I can't just stockpile it in a TL somewhere, as each ship can only hold 1 of each.

[ancienthighway]

There are mods though that let your equipment dock hold all the upgrades in one place. You still pay for it, but no more grand tours.

[Timsup2nothin]

The software bugs me especially because I can't just stockpile it in a TL somewhere, as each ship can only hold 1 of each.

Elephant with full load of cheap M5s. Fully kit the M5s with software, jump drives, etc. Load the Elephant with an armory that can equip whatever you might acquire. Still a pain because you have to manage the reloading of the M5s now and then, but at least you get to choose when to do it instead of having to do it when that must have ship happens across your path.

[Alche]

Having the devs change something every time a handful of players find something too easy, too hard, or suss out some lucrative exploit. It’s the assumption that all players are veterans, 100% informed, and know exactly what they’re doing. It's simply not professional, endlessly tinkering around with the game.

Case in point is the ever-changing boarding OPs. I didn’t get into boarding until last year, many years later after buying TC! Most of us don’t know how these things work, yet the devs constantly tinkered around with it because maybe 2% of players sussed out how to get rich quick in the early days.

[sMull]

-Unnecessarily complicated mining

-Unnecessarily "sold seperately" equipment

Things don't have to make sense in terms of OUR reality. It's a game. Play by its rules and enjoy. These two are made so that mining is not tooe asy, and so that getting new equipment requires some planning.

-Combat
I always felt that combat was a bit drab. Weapons have always lacked in feel, there is no damage to speak of and it doesn't feel particularly satisfying blowing an enemy up. Also, battles could drag on for quite a bit in early stages and with fast enemies. Perfect examples of satisphiyng combat would be starlancer and freespace.

And starlance and freespace have unsatisfying empire building. X games focus on empire building and manageming supply chains, not combat.

-Ships Feel souless
Its quite a peculiar gripe and it also affects combat. Ships feel like empty 3D models with stats attached to them. After X2, cockpits were removed, damage never existed in the first place, there is complete absence of proper subsystems and subsystem management, you cant diver power, you can't target specific subsystems, and the way you damage a ship and looses speed, doesn't make much sense. Ships feel, shallow.

Again, this is not a combat sim game. If you want subsystems, systems targeting, power manamenet, you can play something like Nexus (awesome game btw). I have enough to worry about with managing my trade fleet and stations, let alone managing my ship's power and what not.

-Lousy upgrading/equiping system
But of course Its a good idea not to put an upgrading/equipment dedicated drag and drop menu which is radically different from the regular trading menu and not have upgrade compatibility info available on the fly. That would make too much sense, and too much sense is illigal now is it? Engine swap? What loser uses that?! here have a slider. Seriously, why not make seperate menus? why is there the same screen for everything? why cant I see if a weapon is compatible with my ship as I buy it? Questions, questions.

Never had an issues with equipping. However more info like knowing right away if a weapon is compatilbe is a good idea.

-Nightmare enducing CGI

-Terrible, unpolished and poorly executed cutscenes and setpieces

True, egosoft should hire a good studio for their cutscenes. But thats a lot of extra $$$

-The side missions and main missions do not take advantage of freedom and have no originality
Have you ever played Deus Ex? If you did you would have noticed that there is more than one way to tackle an objective. Unfortunately Such freedom is not taken advantage from the X-trilogy games you got the entirety of space, yet missions only got one linear solution that you can't divert from. In addition side missions are all the same thing and get old after a while.

Side missions are there for you to earn more profit, and as an additional outlet to get rich. This is not an RPG where you need interesting missions.

Awful user interface
Menus in menus in menus in menus in menus. That could be the root of all Evil of the X-trilogy. Menuception! we have to go deeper!

I really got used to X1 and X2's menu system, so much so that i was kind of disappointed they reworked it for X3.