[FEEDBACK] Existential Crisis

[fermiredshirt]

boso ta keeps saying xenon threat detected twice but no quest spawns. big xenon ship disappeared after a while and xenon crisis quest completed but boso ta still keeps comming about xenon threats.

[farrel]

Okay, I think I've just finished the crisis, at very least I've gotten the achievement for it.

I'll post a rather more full feedback after I've had a chance to mull it over a bit and hopefully put things in a constructive manner, but for now, here's the short version.

"Kill a ravager" achievement bugged - I have killed so many of those darned things... With a variety of weapons. I pretend I'm not salty

Anticlimactic ending - Long time players of the series will remember the deca, to anyone else, it's just a space tube. Unguarded, under-armed and with no escort. Can't destroy it, can't even wreck it, just drop it's hull a bit and problem solved. (I plan to try the ol' headquarters waffle stomp when I get a full charge on the high mass teleporter, but that's going to take a while.)

Unclear instructions - For much of the event, aside from trying to be there early in a sector invasion, it seemed very unclear as to how to move the plot along... Or even if it was possible to do so manually. Sure, there was an upset kha'ak ship amongst the spawning xenon, but I was never fast enough to swat it and survive to see if that does anything... and letting it escape never seemed to help. The final message from Boso ta alerting the player to the presence of the ship and the epilogue explained nothing of value... If it's not for the achievement, I wouldn't even know it was over.... Also, the deca is not shut down, it's still flying.

Inadequately explained - Was anything explained at all?

Too long by far - The first three or four sector invasions were fun, the first two were even exciting... I counted fifteen in total, however, by which point I had learned to manipulate where they spawn and I had become thoroughly tired of dealing with them... By the end, none of the ships involved evoked fear, I knew exactly how to deal with them and suffered minimal losses.

Felt far too personal - The attacks were obviously targeting sectors in which I had assets. If a lore reason for this is discovered, that could be pretty cool. As it is? It just feels like a lazy "Lets throw stuff at the player." Ironically, I think it would be more challenging, interesting and enjoyable to have the crisis happen in NPC sectors in which I had nothing personal at stake... I'd have had to scramble to provide assistance, and I would have... I'm sure other players would do so too, or smirk as one of their enemies gets a well deserved smite from the baddies.

Visible strings - It didn't take long to start to see the mechanics behind what's happening. Sectors are chosen because you have something valuable(ish) there... One Xenon capital wing spawns, about 90 seconds pass, and then a Kha'ak blob gets spawned on a random ship... repeat until bored... End event... This utterly ruined the suspension of disbelief, it didn't feel like the xenon or kha'ak were attacking, it felt like the developers were.

Highlighted poor in-sector AI - I can count on my fingers how many times I saw the main kha'ak ravager gun fire. I can count on one finger the number of times I saw it fire at something that wasn't my ship or a station. Similarly, it was pointless to bring AI ships against ravagers unless they had plasma turrets... The main guns never fired unless I was pulling the trigger personally.

RNG death is never fun - Fully half the times the ravager fired, it was firing at me... That's fine, sometimes I was careless, and at one point, it lead to a very epic conclusion to a fight... However, there was a disturbing number of times that my ship was selected as the target of a kha'ak blob spawn, and a ravager spawned behind my ship, aiming directly at me. This caused more than one game over... one of those was when I had been in travel drive. Honestly, that just should not happen. (Although I approve, that it is actually possible to survive this nightmare situation, An Asgard with extra turn speed had just enough hull and shield to live long enough to outlast the attack... I'll be modding the shield too next time.)

Overall? I get that it's a beta, but this does seem like a very crude version of the feature. The early stages were a lot of fun whilst I was still working out what to do about it... I had a fun chase where my support fleet was caught in the backwater families systems and the crisis kept forcing them further and further away from my combat fleet... I had a very fun early fight where what I consider to be my flagship got in a fight with five ravagers at once and survived with a tiny sliver of hull left... But this is not the 'existential crisis' I was hoping for... There's some potential for it to be good, but I would strongly advise against releasing in it's current state.

I'll post more detailed feedback and suggestions after I've had some time to think and collate my notes.

[rudi_pioneer]

When I go to isolated areas of space, like SCA HQ in Hewa Twin or Menelaus Oasis or Oort Cloud, I keep thinking how it would be perfect location for a hideout, either by obscurity, easy to defend entrance, or having to pass enough defenders to get to me.

That, I think, would be great way to do crisis - have enemy or faction pour from somewhere, and try to find and attack assets. I know this was mentioned many times, I’m just adding example above in case that helps.

[bufi]

Hi. My “Existential Crisis” took about ~10 minutes. and I had a message from Boso and I accidentally selected it '500 billion. cr to stop the invasion'... now what?
I'm afraid I turned off all the new stuff from 7.0, I mean new ships, new sectors, new missions?

Should I go back in the save or continue playing?

buf

[farrel]

Hi. My “Existential Crisis” took about ~10 minutes. and I had a message from Boso and I accidentally selected it '500 billion. cr to stop the invasion'... now what?
I'm afraid I turned off all the new stuff from 7.0, I mean new ships, new sectors, new missions?

Should I go back in the save or continue playing?

buf

As far as I'm aware, all you've turned off is the crisis event. The new ships and the other stuff will still be there.

[chew-ie]

Accidently payed 500 billion cr.

Sorry, I had to quote that

[Falcrack]

If there's one thing that needs to change with this crisis, it is that it needs to be fully initiated by the player. Not pay 500 million credits to prevent it from happening, but rather something the player actively does to initiate it, so that it is not punishing those players who do not want to take part in it.

[EGO_Aut]

If there's one thing that needs to change with this crisis, it is that it needs to be fully initiated by the player. Not pay 500 million credits to prevent it from happening, but rather something the player actively does to initiate it, so that it is not punishing those players who do not want to take part in it.

I think it should be an event that you can play more often. Not just once and then the end, but whenever I get bored.

[MadGoodman]

1 thing about crisis:

I havent end it atm so it repeats constantly - but it helps me to solve this "vigor" problem with hundreds of ships that have nothing to do

I dont want to end this event atm - so many sectors full with ships which heat up my pc for nothing - yep - crisis helps to reduce them.

Think about it - its atm the only way to get big fleets in sectors where NEVER enemys spottet reduced.


I hope this Khaak spawn will go on after crises event - random - to reduce old fleets ! May egosoft is able to spawn them into terran - vigor - boron sectors with too many ships often to help my pc running my main save in future.

[Paladin1]

Can someone tell me how long the crisis will last? So far I think I have successfully defended 6 sectors and currently 3 sectors at the same time in which the crisis is emerging.

And so far I have to say, as soon as the Xenon fleet of 1 I and 3 K is destroyed, the stations in the secters are actually safe. The Kha'ah Hunters have no chance against stations and neither do the Annihilators. Their strength is only defeating destroyers. I haven't seen multiple xenon fleets appear yet, but I would like to. That would make the whole thing more interesting. In one sector I had over 20 waves of Kha'ak and after I had stabilized my defense there I was able to almost ignore the sector. The first 5 waves there were still a challenge, and so was the Xenon fleet. But as soon as the reinforcements were there, it was over, except that it took forever. Well more loot for me, hehehehe.

[IratusAvis]

I can't complete the crisis because I don't get any waypoints to the unknown XEN ship.

I saw it once but it jumped away and now I'm stuck at "Await Intel update". Boso does not provide any new information.

See: viewtopic.php?f=192&t=460889&p=5223018#p5223018

[oddgit]

1 thing about crisis:

I havent end it atm so it repeats constantly - but it helps me to solve this "vigor" problem with hundreds of ships that have nothing to do

I dont want to end this event atm - so many sectors full with ships which heat up my pc for nothing - yep - crisis helps to reduce them.

Think about it - its atm the only way to get big fleets in sectors where NEVER enemys spottet reduced.


I hope this Khaak spawn will go on after crises event - random - to reduce old fleets ! May egosoft is able to spawn them into terran - vigor - boron sectors with too many ships often to help my pc running my main save in future.

I agree, it shouldn't just focus on player assets. Other factions have healthy economies and large fleets. I dont mind sending fleets to help other factions, especially my close trade partners. Having the Xenon and KHK wreck up a busy shipping lane or grand exchange with all of it teladi miners would be very cool. Or one of the two parinid main factions, it would be fun to see them fight each other, the duke and some random xenon and khk.

[farrel]

At first I was going to give a long, rambling review of everything that happened, but I realized that wouldn't be helpful, so I'll try and keep this to bullet points.

First Impressions

• Started strong. I actually spotted Xenon in a sector they shouldn't be in before Boso Ta contacted me.
• The first encounter went well. A small taste of what's coming followed by a briefing with Boso Ta to confirm and to offer the opt-out.
• The first major battle was, largely good fun. Chaos in a busy system. It felt dramatic, even though the defending forces totally overpowered the attackers.
• One bad moment happened when a Kha'ak ravager spawned directly behind my ship, aiming at it off spawn and one shot it before I could turn around. That was BS and happened a few times.

The grind begins

• Early on things felt relatively fresh, sectors were being attacked, I deployed to defend them. As requested, I did this in person where I could.
• An early string of crisis attacks seemed to concentrate on my support fleet of carriers and support craft.
  - This fleet was separated from my main combat fleet and could only really retreat into peaceful sectors.
  Crisis event spawns seemed to chase this fleet further from my main combat fleet, which was bogged down in defending sectors.
  This felt epic, even though it was probably just good RNG... My support fleet was being backed into a corner further and further from the combat fleet.
• The novelty of the sector attacks wore off quickly... and things went on far too long.
  - The third cluster of attacks started to feel like 'the new normal'.
  I was already developing methods to handle the attack with minimal losses.
  The attack patterns were simple and easy to identify by now.
• Gaps between crisis waves felt like dead time.
  - Large mining and trade ships seemed to be targets, so leaving them out seemed risky.
  - The next attack wave would probably be within less than 20 minutes, so running quests or building fortifications seemed pointless.
  - Only viable strategy seemed to be to ground the trade fleet and wait in SETA for the next wave.
• By the final encounter I had mentally checked out of the experience.
  - Doing other activities seemed pointless, the crisis was time consuming.
  - Crisis response management was an annoying routine. It required personal attention, but otherwise business went on as normal.
• If there was a way to 'solve' the crisis it was not apparent. The only option was to endure and wait.
  - Finding the Xenon spawn and kha'ak in distress would prompt a message, but no other interaction seemed possible.
  - I was never able to get close enough to destroy the kha'ak before it escaped.
  - No further suggestions from Boso made it feel like there was nothing more to do.

The required strategy
With so many attacks, eventually a strategy was found to win with almost zero loss.

1. Build station defenses for every station - They will be attacked.
2. When a sector goes on alert. Immediately blacklist for both travel and activity. This will evacuate ships before the encounter.
3. Order fast scouts (I used Vanguard Pegasi) to deploy advanced sats and retreat. If they are quick, they will escape unharmed.
4. Initially enter sector with a single Asgard to reduce 'BS' spawns where a ravager jumps in facing a friendly ship, and immediately destroys it.
5. Take out the xenon capital ships first. These are the real danger to stations.
6. Focus on the Ravager spawns. Ignore other ships as much as possible.
7. Once the alert is cancelled, send in mop-up squads of medium and large combat ships.
8. cancel the blacklist.
9. Repeat

Sometimes a ravager would spawn at a station whilst I was on the other side of the sector, and I'd lose some station modules, but generally, ravagers were only a real threat to ships, rather than structures.

Speaking of the ravager... I think it needs some adjustment. It's armaments seem to fit more into the battleship category, but it's size (and icon) seem to make it more a destroyer.

Perhaps one of these three options is worthy of consideration?

• Keep the destroyer designation, make all of it's weapons less powerful and spawn more of them.
• Make the model a bit larger, and reclassify it as a battleship.
• Do both. Make the destroyer form specialized in anti fighter capability, make the battleship specialized anti capital ship BUT WEAK TO FIGHTERS. (Slow tracking but powerful turrets)
  
  
  Anyhow...
  
  The Aftermath... Was it a Crisis?
  • Total damages:
    - Maybe a dozen medium trade ships before I could ground them all.
    - Maybe a dozen fighters before I realized that my moreya fighters were not a good match up for the swarm and grounded those too.
    - Three kurokami from the mop up patrol.
    - Two large mining vessels.
    - Eight station modules.
    - Three NPC stations. One of which I left to burn deliberately.
  • The ravager is not too dangerous if dealt with in person.
    Like all NPC large combat ships, it struggles to point it's main guns at a target. Hit it hard from the side, at range and it goes down relatively quickly.
    A decent destroyer is enough to take one down, and with an Asgard it's easy, even from the front.
  • The deca is an utter anticlimax.
    Oooh, big scary space macaroni... Floating alone, in an empty sector, unguarded, practically unarmed, and apparently unkillable.
    It seems like it's only purpose is to get shot without a fight and then turn off the crisis.
    ... I do still want to drop the HQ on it and see if that will insta-kill it, crash the game or do something interesting.
    • The critical point of failure for the Crisis, the lore and story line
      
      The crisis feels less like the Xenon and Kha'ak attacking and more like an attack from the developers.
      Up until this point, X4 has been excellent at hiding the hand of god. Ships are there for a reason, attacks happen for a reason. Everything has an in-universe explanation.
      The crisis feels like it breaks that, and we can clearly see the game quite literally dropping extra pieces onto the board.
      
      
      The Xenon do NOT have point to point jump drive and have (so far) never even had to-gate jump drive. (Was the loss of this tech ever mentioned?)
      
      You could work this out a few different ways.
      • The Deca could act as a mobile jump gate, projecting a jump gate field in front of it, allowing other ships in to the sector that way.
        The deca itself could have point jump capability... Causing Boso Ta to marvel / panic that this makes the xenon even more terrifying.
      • The Xenon hub could be involved, allowing the xenon to enter a sector from one of the gates... Personally I would love to see the inside of the hub again.
      • The Xenon could have reached Kha'ak space, and started adapting their technology, leading to interesting mixed design ships with point-jump capability.
      From a lore perspective this needs to be figured out.
      
      The Kha'ak blob spawn mechanic feels very cheap... But could be improved simply by spawning just outside of sensor range and having them fly into range themselves. This provides a few benefits.
      • It gives the victim a fighting chance to escape. Instant death isn't fun... The chase is important. The futile hope is important.
      • It helps hide if a ravager has spawned with the group... Making them a little more difficult to hunt down.
      • It gives the feeling that the kha'ak were there all along, just outside sensor range... and could still be out there.
      • That lingering feeling of dread after the alert ends... Are they all gone? Is there a hive in sector and I haven't found it? is it safe to bring the trade ships in?
        
        No reason for the crisis is ever given...
        
        Perhaps there doesn't need to be a reason, but at least have Boso actively comment about looking for a reason to it and eventually give up in frustration, stating that maybe we'll never know why it happened, if it will happen again or if we're truely safe.
        
        All we really know is that somehow Xenon are getting into each system and attacking a lone kha'ak small ship... and then it all goes to heck.
        
        Give the player something to do other than just fight the tide... Even if it just turns out to be a wild goose chase, and explicitly state what might move the story on... "try destroying the kha'ak" ... "That didn't work, try following the next one?" Etc.
        
        Lastly, DO NOT JUST TARGET PLAYER SECTORS!
        
        That makes it obvious that this isn't about the Xenon, the Kha'ak and the galaxy... It's about the player and the devs trying to challenge them. At very least postpone the crisis until after both Xenon and Kha'ak have been all but wiped out... and then they blame you.
        
        A basic improvement would be to mix in some attacks on sectors with no player presence, but which might be critical to other races.
        
        Will the player be able to mobilize quickly enough to help?
        Will they revel in one of the rival factions getting attacked and ignore it?
        Will the damage to the galactic economy be more damaging than the loss of player ships?
        (Also note, Kha'ak attacking Terran stations get wiped out hilariously quickly)
        
        If you want something that feels more like a crisis... How about this?
        
        Pick a quiet sector. The fewer stations, the fewer ships and satellites the better. Put the Deca there.
        The initial attack should be overwhelming. Two battleship groups per station, and a few dozen on patrol. The sector should be made barren within minutes.
        The attacked faction then sends out a fleet to investigate and are met by xenon pouring out of the gate to the first sector... The Xenon migration has begun.
        Ships belonging to the migration fleet will slowly spread out between sectors, destroying stations and generally making people fear the Xenon as they should. The Xenon have had enough, it's time to deal with these organics.
        The player is only officially alerted to the presence after the expedition fleet meets and is destroyed by the xenon in the second sector and is called in to help if they can.
        Things seem straightforward until the Xenon find and destroy a kha'ak hive... Now the Kha'ak are panicking too, lashing out much more strongly everywhere in response to the attack.
        
        Kha'ak and Xenon attack independently Xenon slowly spreading out from their beach head sector, Kha'ak attacking their usual favorite grounds, attempting to secure sectors for more nests.
        
        If the player can get to and disable the deca, then the Xenon can't draw from their unlimited reinforcements... Otherwise, they will slowly march across the galaxy... Or get forced back by an even stronger player force if that's the approach they prefer.
        
        Wouldn't that feel more like a crisis?
        
        So yeah, over all, I'm not hugely impressed with the crisis as is. It has potential but needs work.
        
        If I'm honest, playing through the crisis has somewhat killed my desire to continue playing X4, hopefully this is only temporary.
        
        I think I'll take a break from X4 for a bit. I hope my thoughts prove to be helpful... I'm sorry if it's a bit of a mess, but right now I'm just too tired.
        
        Thanks for the beta! I hope I'll be back soon!

[farrel]

Ugh, broke the formatting again... Sorry!

At least it's more readable than the first draft!

[adeine]

The whole 'disabling the deca' aspect is another potential issue.

Aside from the fact that an unkillable ship doesn't make a lot of sense, it reminds me of when Kha'ak installations were similarly invulnerable and caused all sorts of problems with AI (ships getting permanently stuck/distracted). I suspect a similar thing could happen here.

[geldonyetich]

Personally I was hoping that the existential crisis was more of a neverending comeuppance for our runaway consumption.

Might be more interesting if all the ore and silicon dried up and players were forced to do the crisis for access to sectors with fresh ore and silicon reserves.

This would also put the salvage industry in an interesting place. Maybe have scrapyards dry up too but all destroyed ships that despawn add to their reserves.

[palm911]

i tried it.

1. does not feel like a crisis.
2. tasks too repetitive, to the point it becomes boring.
3. can understand why khaak and xenon attack together. (its either one or the other)
4. spawning on top of your assets is not welcomed.
5. lack of rewards... an unique ship should be given. (collectors items could be fine)
6. the overall experience feels crude, unfinished. and poorly implemented. it needs some variety , needs spicing, for instance a chance to get a unique ship, that you cant otherwise find. a unique resource that can be found by blowing up certain special target. a chance to get a recipe of one of those terraforming ships.

as it is right now i am more inclined to pay 500,000,000 just te get rid of it. and never seen it

(there should be an option for those who opted out ) to get back in, ... or to opt yourself out if you feel you are not prepared for it.

[palm911]

how many times i have to protect the sector until this thing ends?

it feels like a chore , doing the exact same thing over and over and over again. (not fun)

[TroubledRabbit]

TBH -
regardless of the case that my hardware would not allow me to participate in any such 'slideshow event' (VIG swarms are enough for me, thanks, dammit - give them ship limit per sector... they may have gazzilions of fighters but there is no need to fly them all at once -.- ) I would be one of such players who either install the mod to disable this stuff completely or mod it out by myself. Not my cookie, not my playstyle.

That's not the best review of your - I suppose - substantial effort put into this.

Shorty:

- it's bad design - instaspawn over the stations (generally: the spawn mechanics - it is a regress to the X2/3 mechanics which at the time were necessary but even then not impressive)
- it's bad conceptually - it is not a 'crisis' in any way, it's just another chore for the player without the explanation, even remotely reasonable justification or at least: some sense within the world as it is. And it is forced on player regardless of one's playstyle.

You want to make a crisis? Do something which cannot be resolved by 'printing Asgards' as it is sometimes called or general sad X2/3/4 way of solving problems: 'throw enough money/resources at it, it will sort out itself'. It's bad enough that so much praised 'economy' in the game is so artificial with serious holes inside (but at least there is some 'economy').
Make an epidemic, natural disaster, catastrofic event damaging worlds (not the stations you can efortlessly rebuild) etc. Something which requires the 'T'hink part which is so dramatically absent from the game, sadly.

And do not take agency from the player in such a miserable way (either you pay the ransom or will have to micro for the next few hours as a punishment - I mean: 'reward').

There are players who enjoy such thing - make them able to enable this. There are players who will hate that - make this completely avoidable without the punishment.

[palm911]

TBH -
regardless of the case that my hardware would not allow me to participate in any such 'slideshow event' (VIG swarms are enough for me, thanks, dammit - give them ship limit per sector... they may have gazzilions of fighters but there is no need to fly them all at once -.- ) I would be one of such players who either install the mod to disable this stuff completely or mod it out by myself. Not my cookie, not my playstyle.

That's not the best review of your - I suppose - substantial effort put into this.

Shorty:

- it's bad design - instaspawn over the stations (generally: the spawn mechanics - it is a regress to the X2/3 mechanics which at the time were necessary but even then not impressive)
- it's bad conceptually - it is not a 'crisis' in any way, it's just another chore for the player without the explanation, even remotely reasonable justification or at least: some sense within the world as it is. And it is forced on player regardless of one's playstyle.

You want to make a crisis? Do something which cannot be resolved by 'printing Asgards' as it is sometimes called or general sad X2/3/4 way of solving problems: 'throw enough money/resources at it, it will sort out itself'. It's bad enough that so much praised 'economy' in the game is so artificial with serious holes inside (but at least there is some 'economy').
Make an epidemic, natural disaster, catastrofic event damaging worlds (not the stations you can efortlessly rebuild) etc. Something which requires the 'T'hink part which is so dramatically absent from the game, sadly.

And do not take agency from the player in such a miserable way (either you pay the ransom or will have to micro for the next few hours as a punishment - I mean: 'reward').

There are players who enjoy such thing - make them able to enable this. There are players who will hate that - make this completely avoidable without the punishment.

this crisis is suppossed to be aimed for the "fight" component, not the think part. an invasion force should start somehwere, take control of where it spawn and send massive fleets, i know a asgard fleet will most likely fix it, but remember not everyone plays the same way, some people like to keep the "challenge"

the current iteration of the crisis is just too repetitive, i am the one getting a crisis with how this "event" works, i have probably done more than 10 sectors defence from the crisis, and i see no ending. i dont even have time to do somehting else, since the time before one attack and the next is too short. so here i am stuck for hours doing the same chore over and over again..

terrible design.