DLC? Are You Kidding Me? CONTENT PATCHES!

[mr.WHO]

First off... Most of the previous X-Games had more content at release and secondly:
"Dont like it - dont buy it" doesnt get you anywhere. You could never discuss anything if that's the answer you want to choose.

Enough content - buy
Not enough content - wait
still not enough content - don't like it, don't buy it!

There - we went from A to Z without pointless emotions.
You can be either a mature adult consumer or frustrated 9 years old kid (no shame - everyone was there at some point of their gaming life).

[Xenon_Slayer]

Most of the previous X-Games had more content at release:

The primary reason for that was that each X game in the original series built off of the next. X4 is our second game with this engine (the first being XR) and we did state openly what would be in the base game and what could be expected from DLC. As we have said in our roadmap announcement, we will be continuing to address not only bugs but general gameplay improvements in the base game (which may well include new content).

Anyway, keep it civil.

[Titan2k4]

You can be either a mature adult consumer or frustrated 9 years old kid (no shame - everyone was there at some point of their gaming life).

I am impressed! That's 100% disrespectful, arrogant and insulting in just one line. Very good. The way to go in a forum for sure.
You know what? I am very entitled to complain about things I am missing in the game and product I bought. What you're not entitled to do is tell me what I can and can not complain about. Got it? So you can either keep failing miserably at trolling or join the discussion or leave it. Up to you.

Any previous X game (except Rebirth) kept me busy for months while X4 with all its pretty graphics and potential couldnt even do that for one week. Why do I still go back to AP? Because this is where the content is. I can't find nearly enough stuff to experiment and play around with in X4 and combat just isn't working as well as it should. Have you tried to actually destroy a sector and their stations? Have fun with that...

And what I find sad is that Egosoft has spoken a few times in this thread and not once said anything like...
"Yeah, some more weapons, equipment or some of the end-content for capital ships didn't quite make it into the release. We're aware and more is coming." (not bound to a DLC of course)

No Mk2 and Mk3 engines for capital ships, same construction vessle for all races and only one main battery to play and have fun with controlling your massive destroyers you worked so hard for to get? I mean... Sorry but its very obvious that the time was not enough to implement the rest. So saying something like that above would go a long way.
But it seems you rather chose the opposite approach and take the stance of "Well, it was written in the Roadmap so...?" Very frustrating and disappointing.

"It may very well include new content..." Well, it better be. Because saying all intended content is in the game right now (except DLCs) cannot possibly be true.

[CBJ]

There have been two warnings in this thread to remain civil, and you have chosen to respond to one of the posts that a moderator had already dealt with by continuing to make it personal. This is therefore the final warning for this thread, and it applies to everyone.

[Shehriazad]

I would be TOTALLY fine with bi-yearly paid DLC and FREE core game updates inbetween for as long the game remains profitable to them that way.


Because let's be real here...in the MODERN world the old X3 approach is NO LONGER FINANCIALLY VIABLE.


How do you expect a game like X3:Reunion to not bankrupt a company in TODAYS gaming world?

They supported the game with patches for like a DECADE and never charged a thing for it.

This is AMAZING...but it brings financial ruin unless people keep buying the damn thing....but X is not Overwatch. Millions of people don't even KNOW what X is and there is no huge promotion budget to be used here. It is also SINGLEPLAYER (mostly)....so charging for DLCs is expected.

And about the broken release. YES I AGREE that it totally sucks, but Egosoft is very small compared to the big bois. Bethesda that still releases all their games broken as FEK has FOUR HUNDRED PEOPLE working on their games. Meanwhile Egosoft has like 20ish people. You HAVE to see the picture here. They COULD have released this game in 2 years when it's feature and content complete. But will they sell enough copies to be able to afford that? Definitely not. This doesnt mean they dont deserve it... it is just unlikely. (Let's not forget Cloud Imperium with their Star Citizen Tech demo that has hundreds of people working on them and they will need more than a decade to make a full game out of it)

Even a crowdfunding campaign is questionable as X is going to be in direct opposition to Star Citizen even though that is an entirely different beast. In a direct comparison a majority of people will favor SC as it is flashier and is way more edgy. You have to understand that the X series caters to a relatively small gaming minority.


Space-Neckbeards that don't want a full RTS (necessarily) but also don't want just another pew pew game. I feel like their only REAL mistake was trying to make the universe so large in scale at the start instead of putting more love into an even smaller universe and then gradually expand it which lead us to a universe that feels a lot more dead than X3 where development was a lot easier for "size" as textures/polygons/effects were all way more limited, anyway.


TL;DR -> I don't "LOVE" the changed approach from all for free once you buy to free content enriched by regular paid DLC, but their option is one of the least invase options they could have chosen. The alternative would be unnecessary online modes where microtransactions are forcefully pushed down your throat...or even worse make it go full multiplayer. I ignore lootboxes here as I can't see egosoft ever being that scummy.

[0epicurius0]

I want to thank the EgoSoft folks and Moderators who have replied on this thread. Makes me feel good you are watching.

I will buy your DLC. No questions asked. I buy the X universe to support you the developer. And to have access to a very great game universe.

Please keep up the great work.

[drhay53]

Posts 2 weeks ago: "OMG EGOSOFT DON'T COMMUNICATE AT ALL"
..... egosoft communicates like 2 years worth of long-term planning for X4 ......
Posts now: "OMG HOW CAN YOU EVEN BE TALKING ABOUT DLC WHILE THERE ARE STILL BUGS IN THE GAME???"

[Matterom]

Oh it's entirely reasonable, I'd of paid more money for a game like this if i could. The problem is people's value proposition for these kinds of games are disproportionately skewed towards more more more. rather than what's reasonable for the niche of the market space. I hate to mention the other 2 elephants in the room, But games like Elite and Star Citizen, when you think about it, costs a lot more for a full game play experience than X4 does, and arguably X4 has more content than both, SC now and ED on release. And even in ED's case when they released at full price had abysmal levels of "content" there was plenty to do, but not enough in each category for those unwilling to do everything.

[Shehriazad]

Oh it's entirely reasonable, I'd of paid more money for a game like this if i could. The problem is people's value proposition for these kinds of games are disproportionately skewed towards more more more. rather than what's reasonable for the niche of the market space. I hate to mention the other 2 elephants in the room, But games like Elite and Star Citizen, when you think about it, costs a lot more for a full game play experience than X4 does, and arguably X4 has more content than both, SC now and ED on release. And even in ED's case when they released at full price had abysmal levels of "content" there was plenty to do, but not enough in each category for those unwilling to do everything.

This is like the second game ever where I got the trading card sets on Steam because I know that devs always get a tiny cut from that as well and to me it was just selling off other cards to get these sets!

I know that I will be getting my moneys' worth for years to come...I already DID with hundreds of hours played.

There are just too many people who like to exaggerate a lot. I get their anger because they still have rose tinted glasses from X3 on...but it's time to take those off and look at the monster that Rebirth was. X4 is (personal opinion WEEEOOO WEEEOOO) in a way better state on release than X:R was....and I feel like critizicing the monetization is really uncalled for here and only done because people need something to rant about.

If you don't want to pay $10 or whatever for a DLC that might add hundreds of additional hours...then wait for a sale or don't buy it...but rest assured you will STILL receive some new ships and things to do. Plus I cannot know how it's handled...but if you can send Split ships on ventures, that means you will get access to them as non-DLC owner which would be a really cool touch tbh!

[lordmuck]

You are dreaming about selling additional DLCs, Egosoft? You have got to be kidding me...
We're missing at least 50% of the content that should have been in the intial 1.0 release. But of course you charged us for a full-price-title or almost.
And now you want to sell us the remaining 50%, again?

-Ridiculously low amount of sectors and universe-size
-Pathetic amounts of options with Shields & Engines - especially from L-size upwards. There aren't even Mk2 & Mk3 Engines, yet.
-The same old Main-Batteries for every race and their destroyers and no different weapon-options?
-The same old weapons in general on all races. Are you freakin' serious?

I cannot believe I am going to be a little positive to Ego. These bits are coming out I am sure you read the 2.0 the plan and things to come from them before the DLC stuff.
However I also understand your point in terms of the mass amounts of weapons we had from x3 we had so much to choose from and shield types loads of highly detailed and well made ship models and totally agree with you in the same old weapons and for all races. This was a big hit for me also

-The same Construction-Vessle on all Races. PHAHHAHAH!

Totally agree this was a cheap move, including the ships that all look the same, just stretched or flattened and a chunk cut out of them to look different to each other.

-Entirely missing races like Split, Borons, maybe Terrans,
-Hundreds of Ship-System Extensions missing from the other X-Games. Not all of them would make sense or would be required in X4. But a lot of them would...
-Horrible Balancing... One single weapon of a s-sized Fighter does more damage than an L-sized Turret that is bigger than that entire fighter itself. Missiles being ridiculously overpowered, etc... (Although this has nothihg to do with content of course)

Before you even DREAM about selling any additonal DLCs you better first deliver the rest of the game for f's sake.
I have purchased nearly all X-Games ever released - some of them even twice and I have no doubt that X4 is going to be complete - one day. But don't you dare to even remotely consider selling release-content as additional DLCs!

I too believe that the weapon balancing and turret stuff should have been tweaked by now.
In regards to extensions, I miss numerous functions that we had from previous xgames. More so economy screens, moving marines, more options to give to wingmen and also more options in general to set up groups of ships. Not just Defend lead, this cannot work and does not work in all situations. We cannot have wingmen of the lead just wait until the lead is attacked before they chime in. They also do not look after each other in that wing and just the wing lead. There needs to be far more options to tackle most situations, defend ship to make wing does not make sense.

We cannot even issue a protect area to 20 ships at once all 20 are wingleaders of 5 other ships. You need to go through each winglead in the Info tab to make a protect area command. Very tedious, again functions are too poor and lacking. So even if this was or was not in a xgame, I am saying that we hardly have the basics of management in the base game. To which I am agreeing with the point of system extensions. There are plenty more that I can add

In regards to the last point, one would think that you need a stable base to add to it. Currently there are far too many isues to think about DLC, you cannot build a castle on sand. However I think we do have quite the time before they would release the DLC. (gee I am being so positive to Ego today)

So to the OP, you are right yet you also need to chill and wait and see what 2.0 brings, then just add your suggestions as we usually do and hope they dont go unnoticed like they have been already. Remember there are far too many diehard fans and one small word of "this could be done better" will lead to an all out 3 page nonsense where everyone feels that they are the only ones that are correct. So dont let it bug you. Bet you my right nut even this post will upset someone and they start quoting and posting crap how they are right and I just talked a load of sh*t.

[NoelSt]

I bought this game, 50 eur....

I paid more for a dinner that only lasted an hour. This game has given me days and days of enjoyment, despite bugs.

Please , let people work and be patient...im sure they won't dissapoint us.

[Tomonor]

I bought this game, 50 eur....

I paid more for a dinner that only lasted an hour. This game has given me days and days of enjoyment, despite bugs.

Now that I think about it, me too. Damn, that sushi was a rip-off.

[Titan2k4]

One thing I cannot agree with - that was stated here - was the need for microtransactions in todays games if you don't want to go Multiplayer and Season-passes. The development of games has not really become so much more expensive. This is what other companies want you to believe - apparently with some success. There is absolutely no reason why a great single player game with a one-off price can't bring in good money and be a decent quality production at the same time as God of War 2018 has shown. Of course the budget was greater but so was the reward, then. But why not do it - when everyone else does it?, right? Why not sell core-content like Split and Borons that belonged to X-games from the beginning in a separate DLC when apparently the world will accept it? And maybe I am just disappointed to see that Egosoft is showing signs of following that despicable trend.

When it comes to supporting Egosoft, I am usually in. Like I said. I got all their X Games, some of them double and I made some friends get them, too. I will also be buying the DLC. I know, I will. And maybe I won't feel too bad because it's Egosoft. But it still doesn't seem right to me. Neither does the current state of the game deserve names like 2.5 and 3.0 in my opinion. Can't we first make it a proper 1.1 please?

One thing the X-Games have always done perfectly in my opinion was next to Economy also Warfare. With so incredibly many different styles of combat, weapons and visuals... And X4 is when it comes to that - extremely pale and weak. Maybe you are right and I am seeing it through those purple glasses of X3. But do we really need to settle with THAT MUCH LESS? Not just a little less.

[pref]

The development of games has not really become so much more expensive.

Yes they have.
Better hardware, more detail, exponentially higher manhours.

[Graaf]

How do you expect a game like X3:Reunion to not bankrupt a company in TODAYS gaming world?

You sell almost the exact same game and call it Terran Conflict? And X3:Reunion in itself is just X2 patch 1.4 with a graphical engine upgrade.

The problem is not paid DLC for additional content, we have had that for a while now. The problem is paying extra for basic X-game content.

The primary reason for that was that each X game in the original series built off of the next. X4 is our second game with this engine (the first being XR) and we did state openly what would be in the base game and what could be expected from DLC.

And Egosoft also told us that we would get a real X4, a successor to X3. But alas, as you say, we only got a successor to the previous game: Rebirth.

Maybe if you had not added this pointless walking we would have gotten more actual content in the base game.

[Titan2k4]

Yes they have.
Better hardware, more detail, exponentially higher manhours.

No they have NOT. lol
Making a new engine is very expensive and time consuming which was not the case with X4. And generally most games today utilize an existing engine.
High End Gaming PCs cost 2000€ a decade ago and they still do. Although you could argue that energy, fuel and inflation has made things somewhat more expensive which I agree with. I did not say there has not been any increase in cost. I said there wasn't THAT much of an increase to justify the nonsense EA is bla-bla'ing to enforce the lootboxes and microtransactions beyond sports-games and mobile games where they have been for many years but extending them into tripple-A Full-Price Games now. But maybe thats going too far off-topic now.

Anways...
I booted up X4 just now - after the update - hoping that "working combat" is actually a thing now... But nope...

http://prntscr.com/mehps4
http://prntscr.com/mehqx0 (Destroyer Glitching into the station)

Capital ships still glitching into the station. Destroyers still firing at the target for 10 seconds and then stupidly turning its main batteries away from it. All ships still firing on a dead module on the station instead of switching target to un-destroyed parts of it, making sector destruction and station destruction literally impossible. Its a mess. Its just a gigantic unplayable mess when you want to do High-End-Warfare. And this is supposed to be 1.6, everyone. I don't want to be rude but sorry.. To me that is more like a 0.8 hoping to get near 1.0 soon.

[TDQuasar]

OP has every right to complain and doesn't have to provide any constructive criticism if he/she doesn't wish to. We pay for the game to use it, we don't have to provide anything else for ES unless we want to. Let people release their frustration (but keep it civil).

Imagine how upset ES would be if there would be a way where a customer only paid 50% of the price, and the rest he/she would be paying in small installments every month, up to years. Sounds familiar? We paid for a complete game and it's arguably not a complete game yet. So people will be complaining about it, that's the least of the things ES should endure.

I'm saying all this as a returning customer of ES, who has already like 500 hours in X4 and preordered the CE.

[pref]

High End Gaming PCs cost 2000€ a decade ago and they still do. Although you could argue that energy, fuel and inflation has made things somewhat more expensive which I agree with. I did not say there has not been any increase in cost. I said there wasn't THAT much of an increase to justify the nonsense EA is bla-bla'ing to enforce the lootboxes and microtransactions beyond sports-games and mobile games where they have been for many years but extending them into tripple-A Full-Price Games now. But maybe thats going too far off-topic now.

I'm not talking about hardware prices or fuel.. no clue what this has to do with anything.
I'm talking about hardware capability, and the amount of work needed to utilise that hardware to keep up with AAA studios.
All the flashy useless stuff that will never make a game good, but without which a game will look more and more like cheap trash nowdays for the generic audience.

[Gosnell]

I'll be honest, I 've been playing since X-BF.O one of the reasons a lot of the more veteran Xplayers accept the poor quality releases from you guys at Egosoft, is that you have always provided constant updating etc for free. Inexplicably you made a design choice to remove core races from the latest games, to resell those races as paid for DLC, irritates me a great deal. Especially since the roadmap for the base X foundations is quite underwhelming.
Now don't get me wrong X foundations isn't terrible, but it's not in any way comparable to previous titles in terms of depth or customization. I can see why your business model may be changing following rebirths disastrous launch, I suspect Company finances are damaged, and the previous freedom to support titles post release for free may be untenable financially. But don't expect players(in particular veteran players)be completely happy or supportive. We the players didn't drop the ball on rebirth, you guys did.
I truly wish that X Foundation evolves into a classic game in the vein of X3 AP. However, I fear the glory days of the series may be at an end.

[pref]

I can see why your business model may be changing following rebirths disastrous launch, I suspect Company finances are damaged, and the previous freedom to support titles post release for free may be untenable financially.

I thought XR was their best selling game, even though it was the worst most likely.