Did Egosoft miss what the fans wanted?

[Promethium]

Please read before voting, thanks!

I've been looking through the comments of the announcement trailer and it seems like a majority of people are really really unhappy and put off by the content shown in the trailer.

I've compiled a list of common/popular complaints:
- We don't need walking around.
- Why does it look so much like Rebirth?
- Graphics style seems off (see above question).
- The menu system looks like it's designed for consoles.
- What was wrong with the map system in X3?
- Poor character animations, again.
- Get rid of highways.
- Flight system looks the same as Rebirth, not as good as X3.

They really emphasized, "Hey guys we brought back multiple ships!!!" and we've yet to hear/see much of a response to all the other complaints about Rebirth. What I will say is that it looks like a low budget indie game more than it does X3: TC/AP.

I'm not taking a position, I just want to make the thread as medium for discussion and maybe a resource for Egosoft.

[Sandalpocalypse]

critiquing the map, seriously? it's what this series has needed since day 1. x3 map is garbage. XR is only better insofar as it shows objects direction and updates faster.

And the animations are literally missing for important actions. They arn't not final, theyre literally not there...

why on earth would you make a thread by this, with such odd complaints, expecting others to state their opinions without throwing your hat into the ring?

[Ragemaster9999]

Looks like their using the same engine as rebirth. Which is a good thing imo. One thing rebirth did really well was with the graphics.

[Ketraar]

The graphics engine will not be the same as in Rebirth though, as they said its going to be based on Vulkan, like in XRVR. Chances are graphics will be much better then in XR.

MFG

Ketraar

[MegaJohnny]

Did we watch the same video re: the UI?

[Mightysword]

The only thing I think they didn't mention is the end game. Will we have mission big enough to utilize whatever big fleet we may have. Other than that I think everything look goods so far, it's an X game, it doesn't need all the bell and whistle as long as the core experience is deliveried intact.

I think my only wish is that when the game is release, it will be "playable" out of the gate with as few bugs as possible. I hope they learnt from the Rebirth launch, IMO it's ok to have less features on release but make sure each working well, rather than having a dozens half finished one. If the games create a good first impression, there will be time, and even money to add more, I wouldn't mind paying for extra DLC if they further enhance what already is a good game.

Germany is notorious famous for good quality products, show us some Egosoft!

[The Cuban Nightmare]

I think the map looks quite decent. The problem with XR's map was that you could move it around to look at stuff, but issuing orders was quite difficult. I think this clicking and giving orders is exactly what was needed, but I saw it mostly in the context of trading. I just hope that it is sufficiently flexible to allow the player to move ship around if there isn't a predetermined action (i.e. moving a squad to a point in space before attacking a capital ship).

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

I'm not taking a position

Perhaps not intentionally but the question is leading, you didn't list positives, and if we take the following at face value, the reader could think the answer would be "yes" irrespective of what they felt. I don't think this poll is setup to create a balanced outcome.

it seems like a majority of people are really really unhappy and put off by the content shown in the trailer.

[Trooper1994]

I think its too soon to say yes or no as we need more info and more time for them to put more stuff together.

And i want some actual game play that is non scripted and is just showing the game off. I need to see what is possible.

Plus they need transparency right now to regain trust with people espically me as rebirth hurt me a lot during a bad time for me irl.

[kolimbo]

Please read before voting, thanks!

I've been looking through the comments of the announcement trailer and it seems like a majority of people are really really unhappy and put off by the content shown in the trailer.

I've compiled a list of common/popular complaints:
- We don't need walking around.
- Why does it look so much like Rebirth?
- Graphics style seems off (see above question).
- The menu system looks like it's designed for consoles.
- What was wrong with the map system in X3?
- Poor character animations, again.
- Get rid of highways.
- Flight system looks the same as Rebirth, not as good as X3.

1. Walking around is irrelevant. They've said that it is kept to a minimum and pretty much limited to the hanger. This is fine, as long as they take out the pointless in-station wandering I will be happy.

2, 3. I could care less about graphics. X3 is an awful looking game even for its time, this is not the reason why the VAST majority of us play the game. We play it in spite of the graphics, not because of it.

4. I'm going to assume that it will be ported to consoles, so not surprised. This sucks, but it really is too early to tell if its going to stand in the way of gameplay. I hope they learned their lesson from the previous games.

5. Everything. The map system is *AWFUL*, same as every other element of the X-series's interface.

For military operations, the at a glance view is terrible if there are more than a dozen ships in system. It is even harder if you have carriers. There is also no easy way to direct your ships in the map screens and moving them across sectors. In x3,if you have more than 4-5 ships it is literally faster to stick all of the ships you want to move into a wing, then move the wing, then disband the wing. This is utterly unacceptable if you want to play at big empire building and moving around large fleets.

You also cannot micromanage any of the battle at all because the map does not allow you any fine control over the heading or direction of your ships in any easy way. This is the PRIMARY reason why fleet combat is GARBAGE in base x3tc/ap. LU tried to fix this by implementing the MLCC system, but all that really accomplishes is allow you to position your fleet easier by giving them point to point jumping. You can easily fix this by allowing some kind of one click move system on the map itself.

For economics/empire building, you have to click on each individual station to see if it needs resources etc. Even your own stations does not tell you WHICH resources it needs when you look at it in the sector map. You have to click into their properties. Trading is a massive pain because of how obtuse it is the operate the map (and why I almost never do trading outside of UTs)

6. Yeah. It sucks, but as long as you are not forced to be walking around too much I really don't care.

7. Agreed. Just give us a super-cruise ability that locks up weapons and shields.

8. I don't get this from the videos. I *like* the capital ship steering from the videos. I like the fact that you can now 'command' a capital ship rather than just drive it. I think this is one departure from the old x-series that is going towards the right direction. The fighter control didn't seem too different.

[Triaxx2]

1: Choice is always good. Always include more choices, not less. I can walk around, doesn't mean I have to, or will even want to. I wouldn't mind seeing some slight character customization, just a uniquely colored suit, so I can look from a third person view and see my unique pilot flying my ship.

2: X3's engine is going on twenty years old. I love it, but it needed re-doing. I won't fault them for not wanting to rewrite a second engine in the space of just a couple of years.

3: Early alpha, not everything is finalized and they're using a lot of XR assets as placeholders. He who's name I don't remember even said they're using XP placeholders in the stream.

4: There are only so many ways to do a menu system, and I suspect it's not yet totally finished. I don't know about consoles, but I'll guess it's keyboard navigable, which is always a good design choice. Somethings can be rapidly accomplished with the tap of a button, that a mouse just can't quite duplicated. Which is why shortcuts are a thing.

5: You did play X3 right? Between being sometimes hilariously uncooperative, other times down right antagonistic. Oh, you wanted to place the factory there? Here, let me center on this thing on the other side of the sector first! You want to pick a target from the map? Good luck not accidentally telling it to target the wrong thing because the list moved as you clicked on it. Oh, you want to see just sats? Too bad, scroll through the ships and all the civilian ships. And it's not quick scrolling so by the time you reach them, they might have moved as more ships entered the sector, or left it, and suddenly you've gone past what you were after. Also, trying to use a scroll bar was an absolute nightmare.

Trading is a nightmare, since you have to manually check the wares of each individual station, and there's no way to do that from the map, you have to open each station.

There's also no way to give easy group commands. Can't say hey, everyone head to the waypoint. I hope they add waypoints, but there aren't any now.

6: Early alpha. I'm sure it'll get better.

7: No? Like walking, there's no reason to have it, but there's also no reason not to have it. Yes, it's faster, but I fail to see how it makes it 'Arcade like' which is one of the complaints I've seen. I say this, after having played rather too much of Freelancer, and slowly puttering my way across the Terran sectors in a Pirate Galleon. Anything that makes massive sectors smaller if I choose, is a good thing. Hiding things off the beaten path is so much more rewarding, when there's a beaten path for things to be hidden off of. In X3, if you're looking for abandoned ships, you've usually got to go way away from the center of the sector. Most sectors are huge, but the size doesn't get used up. I wouldn't mind seeing X4's use some of the area.

8: Looks pretty similar to X3, as well as Freelancer. See my thought's on menus, but there's only a few ways to do it. Also it's a configurable option, so you can manually rotate slowly around the center of your ship if you're so inclined.

[Alan Phipps]

The problem lies with a poll based on cherry-picking just negative comments (and it would be the same for all positive comments too) from the response to the presentations.

Say somebody made a post with 3 positive comments but also 1 negative one that you have included in your poll; you are implicitly including them in your statement that:
' .. a majority of people are really really unhappy and put off by the content shown in the trailer.'

Sorry, but that just does not make sense nor reflect the overall response so far.

Were I to vote, it would certainly be to wait and see for now but I personally remain optimistic.

[Tamina]

The only people I have seen complaining are the ones who want to have X3 (or X2) all over again but better but the same but better, yet the same. You can see this with a lot of products, including Amazon ratings talking about how much better the fromer gen product is.

Nostalgia is not your friend.
I hope their publisher allows them early access, the only way we could legitimately judge the game before it is too late.

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

You wanted to fly all ships, there you have it. You wanted to destroy NPC factions and wanted them to expand and build, there you have it. You wanted modular weapon customisation of ships and free bluprint creation of stations, you got it. You wanted to pilot big ships, you got it. You wanted a RTS-style map for commanding property, you got it.

The game is just what the masses were asking for.

[Zetoss]

--I've been looking through the comments of the announcement trailer and it seems like a majority of people are really really unhappy and put off by the content shown in the trailer.--

You've seen the loud minority that has been shouting from the sidelines for so long that they are like static in the eyes and ears of ten times more players. I was absolutely overjoyed while watching the Twitch stream but didn't post a single comment, much like some thousand or so others.

- "No walking around" is because a significant percentage of players got very fed up with the extreme walking in XR, mee too but don't you dare stop me from stepping out of my ship and into the one parked next to it.
- Looks like XR? I don't get it, is this a complaint?
- The one major "off thing" absolutely worth noting is that the light, color balance and a million details are in alpha stage and WILL be adjusted long before release.
- Menu for consoles? Seriously? It looks like an efficient system accessible for players without 15 hours of training.
- Everything was wrong with the map in X3. X4 has the best map system I have seen in any game in my entire life.
- Yes the animations are unimpressive, but not worth a complete bashing.
- The highways are FANTASTIC. I'm absolutely sick and tired of the constant shouting from the extreme minority of people who want to get rid of them and most don't even have a good argument behind it. Please let me build my own highways so there are more of them instead.
- Flight system can be judged that well by looking at a video? Color me impressed, I certainly hope it's pretty identical to XR.

The complaints pile sky high all over all comment sections and forums everywhere for every game always, I've played 2000 hours XR and complained about several dozens of things while publicly praising not even a quarter that many despite having a good time. My only worry in the world for X4 is what the repair systems will be like because I hate doing manual repairs.

All in all I'll throw my money at anything that gives me X4 the second it's out, all info so far has pretty much met my wishes or exceeded them by miles.

[aquatica]

One thing I lack the understanding for is seeing how much bashing an early alpha (or even pre-alpha?) video seems to arise, here and elsewhere.
Like, literally, nothing is finished. I bet most of the things aren't even in the game -at all- yet.

So to give my 2 cents of Promethium's list in the same order:

- We don't need other ships either. Yet we like them. If I don't have to stroll around stations aimlessly for 80% of the time I'm in game, I'm cool
- Ofc it looks like Rebirth. They used a lot of Rebirth stuff as placeholders to play around. There's pretty much nothing (afaik) finished...
- GFX is (and should be) somewhere down the road. First things first: the actual models to work, all the thingies to work (the core engine and stuff on that) etc. Then comes all the rest, like graphics
- The console-style menu system looks bad, imo. I hope it isn't such, but we'll se...
- Map in X3 was good. Until it became bad. When you have enough stuff in sector it's slow and bloated to use, targets moving away and being blown up faster than you can scroll through the list of hundreds of objects - that are in no particular order even (at least not in the right order)
- Yes. Animation is the first thing they do? No. If the game works, animations can be fixed. If the game is broken, you can't really care about animations...
- Why rid of highways? They are nice touch. It makes the place a little bit less... Walled. X3's sectors were just that; separate places with some gates and some stuff around and they never felt like part of something bigger. With highways it does, although they could be improved a lot

[hobblygobbly]

In my opinion no.

For one they made changes to economy simulation so it doesn't cheat, people have been asking for this for many years. This is #1 thing I wanted, so that everything is part of the chain, think like how it is in EVE but players involved in the entire process from mining minerals to end product being the AI instead. Whether it works out well we'll have to see when it releases.

Another, better UI. The UI is way better than X3, the map system is exactly what the game needs, it's way better than X3's map.

The game now gives you more detailed information on your fleets, assets, and what is happening in the space you have intel on, something X3 did very badly due to limited UI. Also it's easier and RTS-like to give orders to groups of ships, in X3 it was too tedious. Also in X3 trying to build any structure made you want to gauge your eyes out, not with modular system.

Also I do not know what you mean by UI is for console, the X3 UI was not very mouse driven either, and this one is, but also can be console/keyboard driven. The UI shows even more information in a concise way than it did in X3, X3 didn't show the info you always wanted and it was tedious to access. With the map system it is much better.

We also now have people involved like captains on your ships in the fleet you give orders to, we used to use mods for this in X3 to give flair of it not just being the ship remote-controlled by an AI and to have them have wages etc.

In terms of graphics that is subjective, the one thing I liked about X:R is better graphics rendering, so I like this in X4. Also now it conveys scale much better of distant objects and close up.

Of course they added all ships flyable again, and having walkable bridges etc is a nice touch.

The only thing I dislike is highways but gates still exist, honestly if they had to just rename it to "hyperlane" that is fine, I just don't like the name really, and as long as there is no minigame I have no problem.

The flight system in Rebirth is fine and is suited for smaller craft like with Elite: Dangerous, it's better than X3 in my opinion, there is no flight system you can do for big capital ships, they are generally slow in all science fiction and mostly stationary and something you use to jump around systems, so the flight system is basically irrelevant for large capital ships any ways. I always found flight system to be the weakest thing of X series, Rebirth made it better so small craft and fun to fly, capital ships are unaffected by the nature of their attributes like mass and velocity.

[aquatica]

Also in X3 trying to build any structure made you want to gauge your eyes out, not with modular system.

On this I agree heavily. It was very very frustrating at times - usually all the time.

Also I do not know what you mean by UI is for console, the X3 UI was not very mouse driven either, and this one is, but also can be console/keyboard driven.

I liked X2 UI. It was plain and keyboard only. That's what made it so bloody great. X3's UI I never liked for the very reason that it was tedious to use with keyboard-only...

[xenoncore123]

Seems like this topic is a rant disguised as trying to be useful, seems like the frequently asked questions are your own disapprovals of what you have seen.

Since the topic initiator has not replied or answered other peoples comments it seems like this is true. Probably felt the need to prioritise a symbol of protest and leaving the topic at hand.

I so far am enjoying the preview and eager.

[Jase555]

Happy to wait and see what develops. They have addressed some of my concerns but it's too early to tell. I'm hoping it's going to be great and finished.