After playing 1000 hours and reviewing the Egosoft poll, how would you enjoy the late game more?

[alexthespaniard]

Good afternoon everyone, I would like to know what type of interaction and policies you would like to see in X4 Foundations. After playing close to 1000 hours of the game and seeing in the Egosoft survey which parts of the game people enjoy the most (mid game). My final conclusion is that there is a lack of empire management and how other factions perceive your "entity."


That's the reason why people enjoy the mid game more & not the late game?


What kind of interactions with other factions, policies, and empire management options would you like to see in the late game?

I suppose the quantity of entities and the difficulty of processing (for the PC) all the information is also a factor.

[Falcrack]

For me, late game is not as satisfying because there is no longer the same sense of struggle. The player, being free of any sorts of constraints, is allowed to expand almost infinitely, limited only by their time and computer processing power. The NPC factions don't stand a chance, nor do they adequately respond to the player that is attacking them.

I feel if there were genuine obstacles and limits to player progression, or a true existential crisis which really stretched me and which I might have a possibility of losing to (such as Xenon run amok across the galaxy), then I would enjoy the late game more.

It is not unusual in many long strategy games I enjoy (ie Stellaris, Civilization, Galactic Civilizations, etc.) that I quit games before they are finished because the game reached a point where it felt like my victory was a foregone conclusion.

[alexthespaniard]

For me, late game is not as satisfying because there is no longer the same sense of struggle. The player, being free of any sorts of constraints, is allowed to expand almost infinitely, limited only by their time and computer processing power. The NPC factions don't stand a chance, nor do they adequately respond to the player that is attacking them.

I feel if there were genuine obstacles and limits to player progression, or a true existential crisis which really stretched me and which I might have a possibility of losing to (such as Xenon run amok across the galaxy), then I would enjoy the late game more.

It is not unusual in many long strategy games I enjoy (ie Stellaris, Civilization, Galactic Civilizations, etc.) that I quit games before they are finished because the game reached a point where it felt like my victory was a foregone conclusion.

Do you think the cost and quantity of materials should be proportional to the total firepower of the factions? This could be balanced with a galaxy threat index, where the AI reacts more to you as you become more powerful. I have always thought that a diplomatic system of peace and war would help.

I believe that linking the cost and quantity of materials to the total firepower of the factions could be an interesting way to balance the game and increase immersion. A galaxy threat index could be a good way to implement this, where the increase of your power would provoke stronger reactions from the AI and other factions. Additionally, a diplomatic system that allows for establishing peace and war could add strategic depth and variety to the game, allowing players to influence relations between factions and the course of the galaxy.

[VTJagatai]

I agree with Falcrak.

Once you have your first few factories up and running and even a small fleet the game is essentially won.

Now you can put artificial limitations on yourself. Ex. never use an Asgard. Or personally go to war with several factions early in the game. But outside of that there is nothing the player cannot do (outside of terraforming) with low effort. And so at the mid-game you've essentially peaked. You can do anything you want. You know it. It's just a matter of watching the credits roll in and how much time do you invest in the save.

So I either restart with a new set of personal challenges. Or I wait for Egosoft to unleash the crisis!

I know some players hate the idea of a crisis (I hope they can opt out), but I really want the combat equivalent of terraforming. Something that I can legitimately lose. A true challenge of my fleet mastery.

[LameFox]

I would need more ways to avoid micromanaging at scale. Otherwise it just gets cumbersome after a while and I get tired of doing it.

[Alan Phipps]

I think the worst end-game aspect is that the Xenon can be all but removed as a faction by late-game. This is partly by RNG as to whether their supply ships can survive the transit from resources to where they want to build stations, partly by the player being pointed at their local extermination (Yaki plot optional mission), partly by the player just protecting their trade and assets, and partly by the Terrans having overpowering Intervention Corps anti-Xenon patrols that sanitise Xenon sectors. (I know that it's a fine balance between the Xenon overpowering the early games of new players and their disappearance in mid to late games for others.)

I know that the 7.0 update may offer a Xenon resurgence option, but I haven't experienced that as yet and it might not really fit in well with what has already happened in my long-term game(s). So, to answer the thread title - make the Xenon smarter about where they expand and how and where their supply ships travel from to get there.

[surferx]

For me, late game is not as satisfying because there is no longer the same sense of struggle. The player, being free of any sorts of constraints, is allowed to expand almost infinitely, limited only by their time and computer processing power. The NPC factions don't stand a chance, nor do they adequately respond to the player that is attacking them.

I feel if there were genuine obstacles and limits to player progression, or a true existential crisis which really stretched me and which I might have a possibility of losing to (such as Xenon run amok across the galaxy), then I would enjoy the late game more.

It is not unusual in many long strategy games I enjoy (ie Stellaris, Civilization, Galactic Civilizations, etc.) that I quit games before they are finished because the game reached a point where it felt like my victory was a foregone conclusion.

Agree 100% on this. Although I don't play other long strategy (space) games, I'm sure I would lose interest when the challenge, or possibility of losing, is removed.

Now you can put artificial limitations on yourself. Ex. never use an Asgard.

I really don't want to not use an Asgard, as it's a nice goal to achieve but it is absurdly overpowered when player controlled.

I know some players hate the idea of a crisis (I hope they can opt out), but I really want the combat equivalent of terraforming. Something that I can legitimately lose. A true challenge of my fleet mastery.

Maybe a gate that is discovered and opened late game, and an unknown and powerful alien race is introduced. I know, it sounds crazy.

[Arisaya]

7.0 B 1 actually revitalized the tiny little xenon blob I was trying in vain to nurture back into an actual threat during 6.0+ - instead of just turtling in their systems and placing plots that they would never build in adjacent systems, they have started to expand, build, and attack again.
Combat in a more lightly shielded L or XL ship against their S & M size ships went from being 'meh, a swarm' to 'I hope there aren't too many Bs in that swarm' since they can actually wear down your shield. Ships with a 2XL or 3L shields tend to have enough regen and hp that they generally dont have to be too concerned about the swarms still.
Being careless around a xenon H can result in your ship losing its turrets, though its pretty squishy at the moment because its HP got nerfed in beta 2 and the shields appear to be bugged, stuck as mk1 shields instead of mk2 shields, so its sitting around where the barbarossa is when it appears that it was intended to be between the barbarossa and the odysseus - its still a miner-turned-carrier, not a direct fire destroyer after all.

It should be noted though that the xenon are still as vulnerable as ever to a small L plasma + point defense station 9km away from the gate, too far for them to do anything about it.

---

At any rate, I'm a fan of late mid-game when I'm able to take the fight to the xenon, but the problem in older versions at least is the xenon eventually just reached a point where they implode and stop fighting back. Hopefully thats changed now, but I haven't had a chance to do a proper full 7.0 beta playthough. I've been too busy testing on my old 6.0 save.

I do wish that the Xenon had some more options to combat mechanics that hurt their economy though:
* Improve the AI to not try sending S (or SE now) ships across the galaxy between clusters
* Give the xenon piers so that they can use the H in economy jobs too - yeah its less efficient than the SE on paper, but its way less vulnerable to the Kha'ak anti-mining mechanics, while the S is just pure fodder for the kha'ak. In fact the H is probably the most hands-free L miner in the game, full stop - the H doesn't need babysitting, its tough enough to fight off pretty much anything that would threaten it in an economy role - sure, if treated as an L miner it has the worst capacity, but it can offload its cargo very quickly and it can shred kha'ak that would otherwise basically force any other L miner to crawl around, unable to traveldrive anywhere (or in some cases, even kill them if the swarm gets big enough).
* Allow the xenon to get additional jobs for the I and K as the game progresses and the player and/or npc factions get stronger, so that the xenon can keep the pressure up.
* Increase the range on the seismic cannon and have a version of the I with them to be able to threaten small plasma cannon stations

Eventually a player can still reach the point of just printing out asgards as if they were fighters, and affording to simply use their internal economy to build defensive megastations that even an I with double-range seismic cannons is helpless against since it simply does so much DPS OOS that anything instantly dies in one tick of the simulation, all while also tackling terraforming projects - in a way, that IS the victory state, and everything after might as well be a post-game sandbox, which is ok, but right now (in 6.2 at least) you can 'win' against the xenon well before you actually reach that stage and then you have this gulf in gameplay that is basically just filled with the VIG fight and defending your ever increasing miners from ever increasing swarms of kha'ak who just teleport on top of them - I dont know if 7.0's xenon will fare better and pose a stiffer challenge in a fresh-from-start game, but its looking more promising than before (not factoring in the current version of the "crisis" which as I've already mentioned in the feedback thread needs a complete rework and is only superficially about the xenon so doesnt actually help them survive as a faction)

[LameFox]

It should be noted though that the xenon are still as vulnerable as ever to a small L plasma + point defense station 9km away from the gate, too far for them to do anything about it.

This kind of thing is probably largely addressable by behavioural changes (at least for a regular station, not particularly overbuilt). They make enough units to overwhelm something like that but they all trickle through to die piecemeal. With better fleet behaviour traversing gates in general and AI producing bigger fleets instead of (as far as I can tell) breaking their attacks into lots of tiny ones that then won't stick together, maybe they'd stand a chance with their current short ranged gear.

[Zaphias]

At any rate, I'm a fan of late mid-game when I'm able to take the fight to the xenon, but the problem in older versions at least is the xenon eventually just reached a point where they implode and stop fighting back. Hopefully thats changed now, but I haven't had a chance to do a proper full 7.0 beta playthough. I've been too busy testing on my old 6.0 save.

I started a Young Gun playthrough to check out 7.00 beta unbiased by any other starting mission, in the first 5 hours I saw that some K's were jumping on Hatikvah which were handled by the sector defenses, nothing new right? Then along came an "I" and the defenses were pretty strained from all those previous attacks. Luckily I had gone through the Torgus mission and had my Geo Owl ready to take down the turrets and surface elements. I did that and waited for the sector defense to mop up.
This came to me as a surprise to see an "I" so early in the game and the ARG/HAT defense in such a sorry shape at that point in time.

After doing the Terran mission and hopping up the ranks to get their capital ship licenses, constructed my own fleet to defend Hatikvah (we all know if that sector falls, pretty much everything else falls, at least economically), but hot dang, I'm constantly taking a beating and reinforcing it every so often. I think the enemy AI has definitely been upgraded to where it actually does go up against you, at least at the point I am now (middle-late game).

Right now just waiting on my shipyard to be constructed to make Asgards to see how the AI will react to the increase in firepower.

It is not unusual in many long strategy games I enjoy (ie Stellaris, Civilization, Galactic Civilizations, etc.) that I quit games before they are finished because the game reached a point where it felt like my victory was a foregone conclusion.

Same thing for me. I have not done a long enough playthrough that I completely annihilate the Xenon/Kha'ak, because after rolling down 3 sectors in one go with 3-4 fleets with at least 1 Asgard in each, kinda takes away from the struggle and simply stop playing on that save.

All in all, with my experience up until 6.3, the game would greatly benefit from an endgame crisis. But like previously mentioned, we are able to shell out Asgards and fleets on a moments notice when in late-game, so it all comes down to how strong that endgame crisis is or will it scale accordingly to the state of the gate network.

[ballti]

- Cargo moduls like/insted shilds and guns.
- Starting terraforming trigger big combat event
- Price of TER weapon, not sure good or bad thing
- Finished terraforming trigger new plot

[rusky]

As others have said, the endgame is usually when I stop playing (when I get a few billion net worth, have most wares producing internally and enough money to start making my own ships or just buy any I need).

This is because there's no real point to the late game. Sure I have big fleets, and can take on other factions or (if there's any left) the Xenon, but there's very little reason to do so beyond having a few big battles to enjoy the fireworks.

Would be nice to see the ability for a player faction to start off as a private corporation but potentially eventually evolve into a full fledged faction that can actually carry out diplomacy with other factions.
I'm not a huge fan of the current approach to changing the universe diplomatic state between factions via Dal Busta. Would rather see some more randomness and non-player driven interaction akin to the DynamicWars mod.

Would like to also see a more detailed civilian economy. Currently that's basically just meds/food for workforce on stations. But we should have various consumer good wares that can be sold at stations with large populations or in systems with large planetary populations.
This would allow a faction's economy to continue working even if they are not at war.

As for some more contentious opinions :

- Workforce and ship crew should have to be paid a salary.
- I'd like to see a limitation on the power of defensive stations. Perhaps by requiring workforce to operate, which in turn would cost credits to maintain.

[TroubledRabbit]

I have already put some suggestions but there are my personal tiny change:

- there is no need for artificial crises but there is a need to seriously fleshing out the existing mechanics and worldbuilding, that means: *civilian economy* which not only would give meaning for a lot of existing features, quests etc. but also would be a real source of potential crises (what would happen if powerful earthquake made half of the Argon Prime populous starving? Planetary riots might paralyze any empire, terraforming would be a dramatic boost for local economy and also serious reshuffling of power, finally the 'races' would differ not only by models and 'accents' but also by their way of life and real needs etc. The possibilities are almost endless)

- exploration gives neverending opportunities even if you 'been everywhere, done everything', and there is practically no exploration in game, sadly

- maintenance and friction - generally as many other fantasies about 'capitalism' this is a simulation of frictionless economy, nothing breaks, nothing fluctuates, there is no need for maintenance. There however needs to be a reasonable middle ground between desire for complication and 'realism' and gameplay, it's a game it should not become a chore. So - station populations are already paid (the + effect should be red as efficiency 'netto', maybe it should be lower?) but crews are not and this is a serious omission. Ships should need a certain upkeep (maybe some % of value but not punishing too much especially for the beginning). Stations' upkeep is the case of stations' population, we are getting value netto, not gross one. There is no need to overburdening the player with accounting.

- small details like the dresscode for staff (I hate these ugly dresses, though I appreciate that there is no 'windows of opportunity' as it was in the case of Yshia's (XR) uniform), detailing the ships/stations etc and above all: make them living places. It is really sad when you are landing on supposedly center of some civilisation and shops are empty, you can met only a few sparsely spawning dudes etc. Stations feels empty, lifeless and generic. Adding some impostors in the inaccessible areas ('crowds of tourists') and such stuff might bring at least some illusion of life (and well made illusion is good enough).

#EDIT

- reputation and relations - and some point player becomes a Faction. The game does not recognize this at all, sadly. Diplomacy is a thing - and should need an investments (and ofc benefits) careful planning (you cannot be best buddy with anyone anymore, if the player is a small potato it does not matter) and maybe some malicious intent, too. The general reputation system also needs a rework - the player should not be able to become the Hero of Sol (or smth) just because it sold enough energy cells. Such titles and recognition should be 'paywalled' behind the quest and certain deeds. Maybe some which put the player at odds with someone else. Or maybe allowed to negotiate (as really powerful and significant figure now) a new deal between warrying factions - the Borons' questline has got some of the elements of that, though it emphasises too much the 'credits /ships and stations' part.
The magic of Dal has its limits - he is a political manipulator, not a diplomat and player. This kind of gameplay maybe would satisfy players looking for different type of 'Think', not just 'Build' (fleet/station/whatever for gazillion of credits) challenge.

***

Personally I actually (and this is the case of the whole series and other games of a kind) like the small-to-medium potato gameplay level. When you have only a few ships carefully and by hand and personally selected crews And you named and detailed them one by one because each one counts. When you fly a tiny courier to deliver some booze and recreational substances (playing the Firefly of sort ) etc. The moment when willing or not (the gameplay railoads into that) you become not a company, not even big corporation but effectivelly a faction able to challenge anyone (but nobody cares really until you stomp them to the ground) is the moment when I usually 'reroll'. That's ofc personal preference.

[alexthespaniard]

Thank you all for your responses, I think we can conclude that there is a lack of balance in the growing world. A containment that allows us to have the whole cake but prevents the cake from growing, as it's not functional for gameplay growing to the infinite. A more reactive AI!
We see different ways in which we have discussed making the AI more reactive to the player and their potential threat. We've all explained our different experiences, but I believe there are elements that are common when deciding whether to continue the game in the late game or not.

[castleberger]

I think it would be neat to have some kind of mission you do that unlocks a patch of new sectors that hold either a ton of Xenon or a mega hostile npc faction kinda like TRI with the right options. So mid/late game they try to invade the galaxy, probably from multiple points.

[geldonyetich]

I suspect it often comes down to building a wharf or shipyard along with the accompanying support structure. Once you've got those, you're basically printing ships for free, credits become next to meaningless, and you realize that there's nothing out there that can really stop you because you have effectively unlimited power.

[GCU Grey Area]

I suspect it often comes down to building a wharf or shipyard along with the accompanying support structure. Once you've got those, you're basically printing ships for free, credits become next to meaningless, and you realize that there's nothing out there that can really stop you because you have effectively unlimited power.

Had exactly that experience in my 3.0 game in which I built this monstrosity. Fun station to build, but it essentially ruined my enjoyment of the game when it started producing ships. Restarted the game shortly thereafter. Found that I enjoy the game far more if I don't build shipyards or wharves, at least not for personal use (I do sometimes build them for NPC factions). Keeps credits relevant for longer if I buy all of my ships. Also means trade with NPC factions remains of critical importance throughout the game, as does supporting them in their own wars. I also value my ships far more if I can't simply print a bunch of free replacements within minutes of taking losses. Makes fleet combat far more enjoyable if I know that any losses my fleet takes are going to sting a bit.

[Submarine]

I have 927 hrs with multiple starts and stopped playing.

Reason being I like the effort egosoft put into personnel management, voiced interactions with individuals, which creates the sense you are interacting with intelligent beings and building a community as a roleplay aspect. Of course we all know its single player but suspension of disbelief is a part of any game involving roleplay of any kind.

The piloting and capturing game leads to the squadron game the moment you have more than one ship in play, which egosoft also created by including player and AI piloted small and medium ships requiring crew allowing capture etc. Squad play reminds me a little of the 2004 title "Star Wolves", because you have a squadron or fleet but they are not expendable unless you disregard the above, which would be jarring dissonance, unlike say an RTS where you build robots and send them to battle and die without any concern because they represent automata not conscious beings.

I cannot play on with the squad game because the game does not give you the tools you need to manage the squad effectively and as I have mentioned many times the worst offender for creating micromanagement is the omission of a simple tool to control the use of boost in player owned craft in a combat context.

A lot of people who stick longer with the game do so because they are happy to focus on the station building and economic sim and or the grand admiral newbie strat of treating the pilots as manufactured product, which from my POV either breaks the roleplay or is roleplay of psychopathic indifference akin to Admiral Helena Cain (BSG Pegasus arc) which I dont fancy roleplaying due to the possible bad karma attached and because I like that wiley old but humane fox Adama better.

From a beta testing perspective X4 plays like several games kitbashed together, each engaging but none of them fully developed to satisfactory playability, including the factory/economic sim, the grand admiral strategy and the squad RPG phase of play. The controls are just not there for playing at scale.

Playing with one ship works fairly well for a while but you can play the one ship game only so long and restart so many times before the frustration that the game appears to offer scale like previous versions but fails to deliver, unlike previous versions, becomes a distraction and the other flaws including gameplay bugs and optimisation issues lead one to conclude it is not polished, despite the flow of DLCs which add content but no polish.

Will they do the right thing or chalk it up to fiduciary responsibility? Who can say? Okey-dokey!

[user1679]

I've never even made it to 'middle game" but I can say I would like to see more variety in ships and abilities. It seems a bit boring to buy the "best" L ship and put the "best" turrets on it so you have a fleet of identical ships. For example, in EvE Online you have command ships that give a bonus to fleets and each variety of command ship gives different bonus (shield regen, RoF, etc.). I would love to see specialized abilities for 5-star pilots such as this. Imagine having a couple M command ships that could temporarily jam the enemy's launchers for 2 to 3 seconds (on a 30 second timer).

I would also like to see a more budgeted approach to ship building. The ability to fit something else besides a turret on the hardpoint or maybe instead of 2 S ships in the hold I want to use the space for something else and have 1 S ship. For example you could put a "flux capacitor" in place of a S ship to increase the L ship's acceleration. Or maybe replace 2 or 3 turrets with a "shield extender" that increases regen.

I guess what I'm trying to describe is to move a way from "this must be a turret" to "this is a hardpoint". Then add things like jammers, EMP, etc. to make builds more interesting. NPCs could have these too so you never know what you're going to get when you attack that random Osprey. Of course this would require rebalancing so ships aren't too weak.

[TroubledRabbit]

1. exploration - a big screaming hole inside the game design as a whole.
2. I do 'late game' only once or maybe twice in the Xs. It's just boring. I have never had PHQ in the X3 because level of grind necessary for archiving it was annoying. My best memories from X3FL (I am often returning to this game thanks for the cycrow work) are these with small roaming flotilla (minicarriers and small armored Ts are awesome) which is not possible in X4 even with Guppy involved - it's still too big, besides fish-design is nice but not my style. Just as 'minning expeditions' are not possible also (X3 TL could pack a few miners and some fighters, jump into the rich sector, load a loads of ore, pack this back and return with the bounty - this is not possible in X4, besides: pointless - there is everything in abundance almost everywhere)

Ofc you can completely ignore everything and try to play X4 that way, including PHQ Boso and his antiques (if you do not care about the mods and 'research') but you hit the wall pretty quickly. Tiny ship rooster, repetitive designs etc. And this leads to the 'there is a mod for that' approach, but there are things which mods cannot do (or they breaks) ofc.