Going through some negative feedback while planning the next 4.0 update

[Bernd]

Hi guys,

I was just using the relaxed days to collect some problems and negative feedback about the current state of X4 and thought I collect some answers I gave here in order for you all to know what is about to happen at egosoft in the next few months:

- Some people critizise us for working on DLCs when there are still bugs: We are always spending the majority of our time working on updates of the core game. The DLC is always about new assets like more ships, weapons and new systems and in some cases missions (while there are also lots of missions that go into the free update), but that is only one part of the team. There is always a larger fraction constantly working on improving the core game in the form of the next big updates (4.0 soon-ish and 5.0 already in the plans of course).

- Unfortunately I read a lot about NVidia driver related issues. Already since early november there are a number of issues that are a bit out of our hands. The most obvious one is that UI elements like the hull and shield bar might flicker or completely disappear, but also at least two driver related crashes (one limited to 30xx cards where actually the game just ends abruptly with a device lost). We are doing what we can to get support from NVidia to fix this ASAP. Please be patient if you suffer from any of these issues.

- Economy complaints: Some people complained about the economy producing either not enough with the symptom being that ultimately shipyards can not produce, or too much with the symptom being that you as a player can not make decent money with trading with NPCs. While we are always working on improving the high levels of the NPC economy (e.g decissions about what stations to build) and the next 4.0 beta will bring some big changes especially to the lower part of the economy (mining wil be less profitable), the described behaviour of "waves" which are very long (hours) is intentional. There is a long latency between NPCs detecting either over-demand or over-supply and them building stations in response. This is intentionally an opportunity for players.

- Compaints about AI: These are of course not new and we always work on improving AI. Just this statement or complaints like this are not quite fair though: First of all there are multiple very different layers of AI and inherently different problems related to them. Hence there are different solutions:

There is currently a number of problems with the autopilot of the playership. This is ultimately a threading issue related to how we try to make use of multiple cores. Sometimes the game does not finish certain calculations in time but the ship already calculated its course through the new sector. This is being worked on with high priority.

The above is not related to NPCs AI behaviours. That again is a system of multiple layers. That of near station path calculations and the actual AI script that implements "tactics" and commands if you will. Think of that last bit as the highest level. On that high level we are constantly making improvements and the current beta version of 4.0 for example has a whole new tactical command system to allow more coordinated battles with entire fleets. What this does is actually sending commands from the leader of a larger squad down to multiple levels depending on what type of group assignment you have made. Feedback on this and everything else beta 4.0 is bringing is very welcome.



Ok... enough rambling for now.

Thank you all for you patience and have a great 2021!

-Bernd

[Gavrushka]

Stop all that frivolous nonsense about AI thread calculations and dodgy drivers, and just give me somewhere to sit.

But thanks for the update. It's the way of things for people who offer negative feedback to be the most vocal.

[Artean]

Great to hear your input Berndt!

The support you are showing is second to none and it is a pure joy to see how X4 is improved upon with every update. I wish you a good 2021 as well.

[Bernd]

Another issue I forgot: Multithtreading!

People are complaining that their 10 core CPUs are not utilized fully and deduct that our engine is not multi threaded. Sorry but thats just not true. Our engine is designed to utilize multiple threads, but it is designed to work with 4 and more cores. Even if the engine would be designed to maximise performance on 10 core CPUs (ignoring the fact that in this case the game would work MUCH slower for 90% of our customers), there would still always be one thread / core which is the current limiting factor in any "low fps" situation. This is an inherent problem with parallelisation. That being said, we are always trying to improve performance and one way of doing this is to make better use of the most modern CPUs with 10 or even more cores. But this is a slow and very painful process.

[Bernd]

Wow.. I did an unintentional forum comparison here by posting this on reddit, steam and here on our own forum.
With a game as diverse as X4, that draws in such a wide range of audience, there will alwaye be a very wide range of feedback. What works great for one may be a negative point for someone else. Thats what makes it harder to develop X4 than a game with a clearer / simpler definition (say a jump and run ...

Anyway, I apprecite of course your nice words, and I really want to encourage those people who are unhappy for one reason or another to write to me. Email bernd (at) egosoft.com instead of negative reviews please.

-Bernd

[mr.WHO]

I'm somewhat mixed feeling of happy and dissapointed that none of Bernd points affect-bother me.

I rable from the day one about ship stats ballance (copy-paste stats, some ships making no use over other, balance of medium-turrets and missile weapons ballance) and this is the one crtical flaw left for me not adressed in 4.0.


Ship copy paste stats - each size/class ships use same default stats for:
- missile holds
- drone holds
- S/M internal storage (except Raptor)
- deployables storage
- flare storage


Medium turrets ballance:
- no "racial bullets" difference (Large turrets have racial bullets, but medium don't) - this makes that only Argon turrets are a choice and teladi turrets sux badly.
- Split do not use their unique weapons for medium turrets (gathling, Tau, and the one that pierce shields)
- except Flak turrets, there in so race unique medium turret.

Missile weapon ballance:
- mk.2 launchers only gives pathetic +2 missile storage.
- Large Missile turrets are same as medium missile turrets except the additional missile storage

General missile ballance:
- dumbfire missiles are too weak - given how limited the missile storage is they are waste of missile storage.
- I still don't know what is the logical difference between smart missile and heat seeking missile.
- I still don't know if cluster missile actually has some kind of cluster/AoE effect.
- I kinda don't see much unique difference for Split missilles, other than fancy names.

[mr.WHO]

I'm also a "lawful combat" player, which means 90% the time my sole enemy are Xenons.
This means I'm knowing every single Xenon well and got bored with them.

3.0 Added Xenon T, but it's not only a scout, but also very RARE one.
I was hoping that 4.0 would add more Xenon variety like LX heavy fighter, J carrierand maybe a large freighter/miner (in my game, their medium miners are not only helpless but also a bottleneck of Xenon economy).

[Bernd]

I'm somewhat mixed feeling of happy and dissapointed that none of Bernd points affect-bother me.

I rable from the day one about ship stats ballance (copy-paste stats, some ships making no use over other, balance of medium-turrets and missile weapons ballance) and this is the one crtical flaw left for me not adressed in 4.0.


Ship copy paste stats - each size/class ships use same default stats for:
- missile holds
- drone holds
- S/M internal storage (except Raptor)
- deployables storage
- flare storage


Medium turrets ballance:
- no "racial bullets" difference (Large turrets have racial bullets, but medium don't) - this makes that only Argon turrets are a choice and teladi turrets sux badly.
- Split do not use their unique weapons for medium turrets (gathling, Tau, and the one that pierce shields)
- except Flak turrets, there in so race unique medium turret.

Missile weapon ballance:
- mk.2 launchers only gives pathetic +2 missile storage.
- Large Missile turrets are same as medium missile turrets except the additional missile storage

General missile ballance:
- dumbfire missiles are too weak - given how limited the missile storage is they are waste of missile storage.
- I still don't know what is the logical difference between smart missile and heat seeking missile.
- I still don't know if cluster missile actually has some kind of cluster/AoE effect.
- I kinda don't see much unique difference for Split missilles, other than fancy names.

For every major update, including 4.0, we do make balancing changes to ships and weapons, but we have to be careful and do not want to make too big a change. After all there are many players which already build their armadas and if suddenly the rules for ship loadouts change too drastically, they might be unhappy too.

That being said, I am always keen to hear good feedback on this and often can not follow the forums (unlike today)... So email bernd@egosoft.com please.
I will discuss your suggestions with our balancing gurus and see what we can do.

-Bernd

[Bernd]

I'm also a "lawful combat" player, which means 90% the time my sole enemy are Xenons.
This means I'm knowing every single Xenon well and got bored with them.

3.0 Added Xenon T, but it's not only a scout, but also very RARE one.
I was hoping that 4.0 would add more Xenon variety like LX heavy fighter, J carrierand maybe a large freighter/miner (in my game, their medium miners are not only helpless but also a bottleneck of Xenon economy).

4.0 among many things also cranks up the "Khaak threat" again

[Thecrippler]

I don't know what to say first of all happy new year 2021 it is nice and stunning to see a nice encourage words coming for you special on the forum the second please take your time to develop a nice beautiful space game this is the only game atm that i like and third please don't rush the game too fast same goes for the DLC cradle of humanity make it epic more ships

Again i wish you happy new year 2021 and to your comrades employers and kip up the good work can t wait to see what you all have on the table for 2021 +

[Max Bain]

Hi Bernd,

nice to hear you reading about player feedback and responding to it. Very much appreciated.

But I am a bit curious why you plan to reduce mining income while this was nearly never mentioned in the forum. People are complaining way more about shipyards and wharfs and that at the time you own your first wharf or shipyard, money becomes obsolete.
I made a little picture describing the actual in game situation:

https://i.imgur.com/ilXua2k.png

You also can set the cost slider for NPCs to 200% and they still will buy everything you have.

[Buzz2005]

getting to a wharf will now be more difficult

[Max Bain]

getting to a wharf will now be more difficult

So it will feel even more unbalanced if everything brings you very little income except selling ships which will suddenly print you money... thats bad.

[Thecrippler]

I'm also a "lawful combat" player, which means 90% the time my sole enemy are Xenons.
This means I'm knowing every single Xenon well and got bored with them.

3.0 Added Xenon T, but it's not only a scout, but also very RARE one.
I was hoping that 4.0 would add more Xenon variety like LX heavy fighter, J carrierand maybe a large freighter/miner (in my game, their medium miners are not only helpless but also a bottleneck of Xenon economy).

love to see all old xenons LX (Xenon) P (Xenon) PX (Xenon) Q (Xenon) same goes for the the khaak and Pirates they can easy take them out of x3 to 4x first the xenons do t have cockpit or bridges is just a model secede they can be temporarily added same model in till devs find a way to make them like bugs ships

[GCU Grey Area]

at the time you own your first wharf or shipyard, money becomes obsolete.

That's by far the biggest problem for me with shipyards & wharves. These days I actively avoid building them, because there's no way to sell ships to NPC factions without almost instantly ruining the Trade side of the game in the process (becomes pointless due to the torrential flood of cash as soon as a shipyard sales are turned on). Think shipyards are simply far too profitable, even with ship prices set to minimum.

[Buzz2005]

getting to a wharf will now be more difficult

So it will feel even more unbalanced if everything brings you very little income except selling ships which will suddenly print you money... thats bad.

when you get to a wharf/shipyard its not about money anymore bc even if you lower it the ability to build your own ships makes you god anyway, I really dont have a problem with money then bc I cant even spend it on anything

[Bernd]

Hi Bernd,

nice to hear you reading about player feedback and responding to it. Very much appreciated.

But I am a bit curious why you plan to reduce mining income while this was nearly never mentioned in the forum. People are complaining way more about shipyards and wharfs and that at the time you own your first wharf or shipyard, money becomes obsolete.
I made a little picture describing the actual in game situation:

https://i.imgur.com/ilXua2k.png

You also can set the cost slider for NPCs to 200% and they still will buy everything you have.

Shipyards are indeed the OTHER big income balancing point we had lots of discussions about and which we are also adressing.
The difference is that the results are less dramatic.
Your picture is only true for a certain type of player. If you want to, you can get to a similar steep income curve also with just multiplying up mining operations early on.

Maybe I should go a bit into detail about the mining as well as the shipyard changes:

- Sector automine was too easy because the script saw much more than the player. You could make profit from any resource field which was in the same system even if you had not found it yet. This will change of course. At the same time 4.0 introduces loops, which makes some of the advantages that higher level mining scripts bring a bit obsolete as long as you do just a bit of manual control: i.e you can simply set up a loop to mine any area you found and sell manually to the best place then let that loop run for a longer time. What we did here is drastically reduce the replenishment of resources in some cases. NPCs will have to be more dynamic and search for good regions.

- Shipyards: We did consider for a while, to require players to have special contracts with factions in order to sell ships to a war faction and actively retaliate in case you would sell to two factions at once, but decided against it. Income per ship will still be reduced dramatically with the final version of 4.0.

-Bernd

[Thecrippler]

getting to a wharf will now be more difficult

So it will feel even more unbalanced if everything brings you very little income except selling ships which will suddenly print you money... thats bad.

when you get to a wharf/shipyard its not about money anymore bc even if you lower it the ability to build your own ships makes you god anyway, I really dont have a problem with money then bc I cant even spend it on anything

same here

[xant]

- Shipyards: We did consider for a while, to require players to have special contracts with factions in order to sell ships to a war faction and actively retaliate in case you would sell to two factions at once, but decided against it. Income per ship will still be reduced dramatically with the final version of 4.0.

Would it be possible to tell us what "dramatically" approximately means in numbers? Are we talking about a 5-10% reduction or more like 50%?

[Bernd]

- Shipyards: We did consider for a while, to require players to have special contracts with factions in order to sell ships to a war faction and actively retaliate in case you would sell to two factions at once, but decided against it. Income per ship will still be reduced dramatically with the final version of 4.0.

Would it be possible to tell us what "dramatically" approximately means in numbers? Are we talking about a 5-10% reduction or more like 50%?

Very likely more than 50%