[FEEDBACK]Agent mission complications (Mad People)

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errorname1002
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[FEEDBACK]Agent mission complications (Mad People)

Post by errorname1002 » Thu, 27. Jan 22, 20:11

The new agent missions are a great fetch side quest with a very interesting story line that I can see being very fun if balanced right, all of items needed spawn infinitely except for the Mad scientist AI parts.
The Mad scientist requires inventory items that are only dropped by Xenon, this is a very good idea, except that if players were to load into 5.0 beta with all Xenon in the galaxy already destroyed, they won't be able to finish that mission (like my case). Maybe adding these items to pirate traders and black marketeer sold wares would help solve this issue.

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Re: Agent mission complications

Post by Imperial Good » Fri, 28. Jan 22, 01:38

errorname1002 wrote:
Thu, 27. Jan 22, 20:11
The Mad scientist requires inventory items that are only dropped by Xenon, this is a very good idea, except that if players were to load into 5.0 beta with all Xenon in the galaxy already destroyed, they won't be able to finish that mission (like my case). Maybe adding these items to pirate traders and black marketeer sold wares would help solve this issue.
I think a better, more long term, solution would be having some way for the Xenon to respawn so there are always Xenon to fight, similar to how Khaak operate currently.

It is possible DLCs can add more Xenon sectors, so it might still be possible to complete these missions in existing saves without Xenon with the addition of new DLCs.

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Re: Agent mission complications

Post by flywlyx » Fri, 28. Jan 22, 06:11

Any idea how could this mission be triggered?

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Re: Agent mission complications

Post by errorname1002 » Fri, 28. Jan 22, 09:31

flywlyx wrote:
Fri, 28. Jan 22, 06:11
Any idea how could this mission be triggered?
with 5.00 beta 1 , 3 new permanent characters got added to the game, they spawn at 3 different locations. The mad scientist spawns in Profit Center Alpha in either the wharf or the shipyard. The mission will be on the map (like normal generic mission), you will need to complete 3 missions for each character to gain their trophy. It is infinitely repeatable and will get a bit harder with each cycle. Currently it has no ending but I suspect we will get more story for them in the future :D .

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Re: [FEEDBACK]Agent mission complications (Mad People)

Post by Ketraar » Fri, 28. Jan 22, 12:24

errorname1002 wrote:
Thu, 27. Jan 22, 20:11
The Mad scientist requires inventory items that are only dropped by Xenon, this is a very good idea, except that if players were to load into 5.0 beta with all Xenon in the galaxy already destroyed
The main purpose of these missions, especially the Mad Scientist, was to have a way for players to get rewards from killing Xenon, and here especially capital ships. It would be counter to the purpose of this to be able to just buy the wares, also it would counter what the "story" says, so that is a hard no I'm afraid. There are some (rare) traders though that buy the wares, but don't sell them.
Imperial Good wrote:
Fri, 28. Jan 22, 01:38
I think a better, more long term, solution would be having some way for the Xenon to respawn so there are always Xenon to fight, similar to how Khaak operate currently.
I'm sceptical about this approach tbh. Having all Xenon be wiped out can indeed be something that is counter to what players want, but also can be very much something some player have put effort into it and maybe they would not be happy if that effort just gets overwritten.

Still good feedback that needs at least think about it. Keep it coming (pinned this one so its easier for others to spot)

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Re: [FEEDBACK]Agent mission complications (Mad People)

Post by af_2017 » Fri, 28. Jan 22, 12:50

Ketraar wrote:
Fri, 28. Jan 22, 12:24
Imperial Good wrote:
Fri, 28. Jan 22, 01:38
I think a better, more long term, solution would be having some way for the Xenon to respawn so there are always Xenon to fight, similar to how Khaak operate currently.
I'm sceptical about this approach tbh. Having all Xenon be wiped out can indeed be something that is counter to what players want, but also can be very much something some player have put effort into it and maybe they would not be happy if that effort just gets overwritten.
This decision still keeps part of the players who want to have Xenon always unhappy.
I think Xenon existence should not be defined by production only.
It should be players choice.
Kind of a mission: vanish Xenon forever or keep them with a goal to destroy either specific station or something like that.
Without Xenon the game changes and might become not that satisfying as with them.
Someone can see Xenon as a threat and destroying them is their actual goal to play the game.
I understand that the game is about building stations and running economy related thingies but not every player find it interesting.
It is definitely another gameplay.
Well, ok. Someone can come with wonderful idea of babysitting Xenon and have a success with that. Right, that's fun and original. But that's still another gameplay.
X4 is not a destination. It's a journey. Unfortunately in a wrong direction.

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Re: [FEEDBACK]Agent mission complications (Mad People)

Post by errorname1002 » Fri, 28. Jan 22, 13:51

I have a couple of notes concerning all of the agents:

1-once we have completed a mission for an agent maybe we can get more information from them about thier projects (more dialogue options) ?

2-do they always have to fail in their projects ? why not have them succussed some times ?

-the mad scientist gives you an upgrade for betty (maybe betty becomes more dynamic ? commenting after the end of battels, trades, etc "more work for mrs Olivia ).
-the producer could give you guidance to some 5 star cheap manger friends of his (since they are free now and would like a higher position being a station manger instead of a project or something like that).
-the artist should start filling his room with his art. Maybe even gives you some art pieces other than the trophy to place in your office/research room (Boso needs some art too :boron: ).

3-You could link these agents with a bigger story line later on , maybe you would need all 3 of them to be satisfied or something like that.

4-maybe add the agents work places (such as workbench, console ,etc.) to their rooms (for the artists and producer, the scientist seem to have that already with all these tablets everywhere), since they never leave their rooms ,when do they do their work ? :P

5-They should use the message feature after your first delivery to tell you of new delivery (maybe only get the first mission from the map and the rest are offered through messages ? but this way the majority of the players will miss them cause they keep their messages unread all the time... ).

6-The mission offer they put out should not despawn when you leave the sector since well.. it is a unique mission and sometimes and it dosn't spawn in instantly for some reason.

7-The waiting time between each mission offer is 30 mins , I am not sure if this is too long or too short, but it did force me to do something else in offer downtime.

8-Why in the world dose the mad painter need +5 space fly caviar for ? and why is he only giving 500k credits for it when I can sell it for 5 M credits ?!?!?!?!?!?! what a rip off !

9-other balancing issues like note #8 are present, maybe a deeper look at the requirements and rewards is in order so we can have it be more logical to do.

10-when these missions are activated, the drop rate of the required materials should increase , (if you think that is going to make it too easy, you could make the increase about 5% or a tiny amount like that ).

Regarding my issue... is there something in the future that will allow me to get the required inventory wares for the mad scientist such as the (the terraform missions for Tharka's Cascade and emperor pride or maybe a new dlc xenon sector) ?

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Re: [FEEDBACK]Agent mission complications (Mad People)

Post by Waltz9 » Fri, 28. Jan 22, 13:55

I think it would be a great idea to have some sort of side mission so we could reintroduce xenon to the game.
The xenon already have a history to be created by men and escaped the detonation signal ...

What if we could use a terraform sidequest to reintroduce xenon so people can choose to have the xenon again and also complete this missions.
In that case nobody has to be scared that the hard work to eleminate the xenon would be overwritten because its the player choice to return them.

With this in mind, it could go a lot of directions and its fits the x4 storyline.

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Re: [FEEDBACK]Agent mission complications (Mad People)

Post by Ketraar » Fri, 28. Jan 22, 14:59

Waltz9 wrote:
Fri, 28. Jan 22, 13:55
I think it would be a great idea to have some sort of side mission so we could reintroduce xenon to the game.
The xenon already have a history to be created by men and escaped the detonation signal ...
Sorry but this is the wrong place for this, its not the scope of this forum to discuss new features but give feedback on the existing ones, in this we discuss this new generic mission chain, any feedback on that is appreciated.
errorname1002 wrote:
Fri, 28. Jan 22, 13:51
2-do they always have to fail in their projects ? why not have them succussed some times ?
Yes its in the nature of the mission design to be endless.
the producer could give you guidance to some 5 star cheap manger friends of his
The higher tier versions already give seminars as reward (up to 4 star seminar, highest), for both managers and pilots.
5-They should use the message feature after your first delivery to tell you of new delivery (maybe only get the first mission from the map and the rest are offered through messages ? but this way the majority of the players will miss them cause they keep their messages unread all the time... ).
This has been mentioned and noted, but may be out of scope for now.
6-The mission offer they put out should not despawn when you leave the sector since well.. it is a unique mission and sometimes and it dosn't spawn in instantly for some reason.
The NPC is permanent so the mission will always be there when you come back no?
7-The waiting time between each mission offer is 30 mins , I am not sure if this is too long or too short, but it did force me to do something else in offer downtime.
Well its intended as a "drop off point" ideally you do the thing first then come here to "drop off" things, so having to do stuff in between is part of the design.
8-Why in the world dose the mad painter need +5 space fly caviar for ? and why is he only giving 500k credits for it when I can sell it for 5 M credits ?!?!?!?!?!?! what a rip off !
This sounds like a bug, if that is the case confirmation would be needed (screenshot, save, etc)
9-other balancing issues like note #8 are present, maybe a deeper look at the requirements and rewards is in order so we can have it be more logical to do.
Any feedback on balance is appreciated but would have to be concrete.
10-when these missions are activated, the drop rate of the required materials should increase , (if you think that is going to make it too easy, you could make the increase about 5% or a tiny amount like that ).
this makes no logical sense, why would activating a mission have impact in what ships drop? Is it sending an update to Xenon so they now have more parts to lose? Not likely to change.

Thanks for the feedback.

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Re: [FEEDBACK]Agent mission complications (Mad People)

Post by Imperial Good » Fri, 28. Jan 22, 16:35

Where do I find these "mad" agent people to hand the items to?

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Re: [FEEDBACK]Agent mission complications (Mad People)

Post by errorname1002 » Fri, 28. Jan 22, 20:00

Imperial Good wrote:
Fri, 28. Jan 22, 16:35
Where do I find these "mad" agent people to hand the items to?
there are 3 of them
1-the mad producer spawns in black hole sun (at least for most of us he spawned there, I think he should spawn on a trading station for the ARG faction), if you go into the teleporter menu of the station , you will find a room called "common room"
2-the mad scientist spawns on a Teladi (TEL not MIN) warf/shipyard (so profit center alpha), room: private apartment
3-the mad artist spawns on paranid/TRI trading station ,room: private apartment
you can always track their locations (they don't despawn) through the map, you can see a golden person icon next to a station they use (just like boso and dal on the HQ and terran spy lady)

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Re: Agent mission complications

Post by flywlyx » Sat, 29. Jan 22, 05:47

errorname1002 wrote:
Fri, 28. Jan 22, 09:31
flywlyx wrote:
Fri, 28. Jan 22, 06:11
Any idea how could this mission be triggered?
with 5.00 beta 1 , 3 new permanent characters got added to the game, they spawn at 3 different locations. The mad scientist spawns in Profit Center Alpha in either the wharf or the shipyard. The mission will be on the map (like normal generic mission), you will need to complete 3 missions for each character to gain their trophy. It is infinitely repeatable and will get a bit harder with each cycle. Currently it has no ending but I suspect we will get more story for them in the future :D .
Yeah, I have met Corin King, but she didn't give me any mission. Is there any sequence to finish the mission?

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Re: [FEEDBACK]Agent mission complications (Mad People)

Post by Imperial Good » Sat, 29. Jan 22, 06:21

flywlyx wrote:
Sat, 29. Jan 22, 05:47
Yeah, I have met Corin King, but she didn't give me any mission. Is there any sequence to finish the mission?
It seems you need to check with them every few hours, at least from experimental testing of the chain.

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Re: [FEEDBACK]Agent mission complications (Mad People)

Post by ubuntufreakdragon » Sat, 29. Jan 22, 08:21

If Xenon would continue to place build plots after their removal the player could feed them if they so wish.
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Re: [FEEDBACK]Agent mission complications (Mad People)

Post by Gimbutz » Sat, 29. Jan 22, 11:18

ubuntufreakdragon wrote:
Sat, 29. Jan 22, 08:21
If Xenon would continue to place build plots after their removal the player could feed them if they so wish.
Don't they? The player isn't supposed to have the phenomenal cosmic power to eradicate a faction permanently, except for special situations in stories.

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Re: [FEEDBACK]Agent mission complications (Mad People)

Post by Tamina » Sat, 29. Jan 22, 13:39

I only got the Manager-Guy to offer me a mission at my second visit but it expired while I was reading the mission text - which takes some time. Now all of them tell me they have nothing to do right now. To me it isn't clear when they have something to do. Apparently some conditions need to be met.

I was disappointed when the mission offer expired while reading the text.

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Re: [FEEDBACK]Agent mission complications (Mad People)

Post by Newinger » Sat, 29. Jan 22, 14:56

Tamina wrote:
Sat, 29. Jan 22, 13:39
I only got the Manager-Guy to offer me a mission at my second visit but it expired while I was reading the mission text - which takes some time. Now all of them tell me they have nothing to do right now. To me it isn't clear when they have something to do. Apparently some conditions need to be met.

I was disappointed when the mission offer expired while reading the text.
Maybe related to the issue I reported here:

viewtopic.php?f=192&t=444441

But I was not able to provide a save.

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Re: [FEEDBACK]Agent mission complications (Mad People)

Post by loubert » Sat, 29. Jan 22, 19:13

Ketraar wrote:
Fri, 28. Jan 22, 12:24
Imperial Good wrote:
Fri, 28. Jan 22, 01:38
I think a better, more long term, solution would be having some way for the Xenon to respawn so there are always Xenon to fight, similar to how Khaak operate currently.
I'm sceptical about this approach tbh. Having all Xenon be wiped out can indeed be something that is counter to what players want, but also can be very much something some player have put effort into it and maybe they would not be happy if that effort just gets overwritten.
Just my two cents: if the player has reached a point of power where they're able to completely eliminate the Xenon, then they should be left with that power to choose. We already have a faction that spawns in randomly and inexplicably: the Khaak. The Xenon being eliminated then reappearing is - oh hey. I just thought of something.

There is a Xenon station in the vanilla universe that cannot be reached. I think it's in Eleventh hour? Holding position near the star there. It cannot be reached by players - some have tried, traveling for hours at 15k/s, only to discover a "death field" around the object to prevent players from actually reaching it.

If it was decided that X4 needs infinitely spawning Xenon, there's your answer: just have them appear in Eleventh Hour. In-universe explanation would be that the station is continuing to build and send Xenon. If the player wants the Xenon gone from the galaxy, all they have to do it contain them to that sector, destroying spawns when they happen.

I was going to say that respawning Xenon are not necessary or workable - but I think what I've said here would be an acceptable solution, no?

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Re: [FEEDBACK]Agent mission complications (Mad People)

Post by loubert » Sat, 29. Jan 22, 19:23

Or perhaps have it start spawning and sending them when the station "detects" that most/all of the Xenon in the galaxy have been eliminated (so it's not just constantly overrunning Eleventh Hour in every game).

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Re: [FEEDBACK]Agent mission complications (Mad People)

Post by alt3rn1ty » Sat, 29. Jan 22, 22:25

loubert wrote:
Sat, 29. Jan 22, 19:13
Just my two cents: if the player has reached a point of power where they're able to completely eliminate the Xenon..
.. Ages ago. In my game the Xenon keep trying to rebuild stations in Emperor's Pride IV, but the Paranid up there just keep squashing them out of existence again.
Which is fine by me :).

The last time the Xenon had any ships was when they had a couple of sectors in ZYA territory, I kept them supressed there for a while (intentionally trying to keep them around), but then ZYA started stomping those sectors. Since then the feeble attempts to rebuild in Emperors Pride always get squashed.

I found two of these mission givers, but cant really do anything with them apart from going to say Hello and having a mission I will never be able to do anything with.

In hindsight, would I keep the Xenon around just for these infinite mission givers? .. I doubt it. No big enough 'carrot on a stick' from the mission givers to warrant it (not that I know of anyway).
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