[FEEDBACK] Existential Crisis

[Starlight_Corporation]

Feedback on the delay option: Costs 10 mill & the delay lasts 20 hours (marked the start in my log to keep track). feel the delay is implemented well, gives you time to prepare & ramp up your military assets & protect your factories before the delay ends.
When the delay ends, you are given the 3 options again; 1) end the crisis: 500 mill - 2) Delay: 10 mill - 3) We will fight them: free

[LandogarX4]

The consensus feedback in this thread:

- Make the threat forces part of the simulation, backed by an economy, with clear source sectors (even if those sectors have a one-way connection)
- If you have to just lazily spawn them in (thereby breaking with Bernd's fundamental tenet for the game that everything should be simulated), then at least don't make it so blatant that the enemy spawns on top of player assets. Totally immersion-breaking and just turns the game into an arcade.

Given that in this thread only positive feedback is desired, I would encourage everyone to email Bernd (bernd (at) egosoft.com) directly to bring these concerns to his attention. His game is being hollowed out and is moving in the opposite direction of what he had announced about making it more strategic, more like "4X".

[aza502]

1. make it optional

2. dont make it spawn in fabricated waves on the player

3. Instead make it so xenon doubles/tripples in strength, and make the Xenon carrier the primary target that is surrounded by a large xenon fleet to avoid the player from cheating and sending a single asgard to one shot it

I think if you do all three of those things you'll make the players happy, 1 fixes the issue for players that dont want it at all they can just disable it if they dont want it. and 2 + 3 makes it a more simulated and fun "oh shhhii..." universe of having a serious threat

[aza502]

i should also mention, make khakk destoyers a rare spawn instead of a crisis, make it so they appear in heavily mined sectors instead. untill you add khakk sectors like in X3 the khakk race feel like a gimick anyway

[Axeface]

I'm going to give my feedback once I'm able to properly write it down, as i've now completed a full crisis - but I have one question about the feedback here - are we sure that the xenon ships are spawned? People keep saying it but has someone looked at the code? I ask because i'de like confirmation on that, it's possible that the xenon ships actually are built and then moved, much like the encounter system works.

Thinking about it more, they probably are just spawned because this crisis needs to work for people who have save games where the xenon are wiped out. I suppose there's no other option if this is the type of crisis they want to add.

[xant]

My latest piece of feedback on the crisis, now that we can delay it as of Beta 3:

It still feels pretty bad. You're presented with three terrible options: pay half a billion to remove the mechanic, pay ten million to delay it for a time, or suffer the game spawning ships on your assets, with no way to track your progress or knowing where you currently stand with it.

I can't even go and do other things between the waves, because after just a short while the event repeats. If I don't handle it personally, I'm bound to lose several ships, stations get attacked and damaged. It requires my personal intervenion, because low attention OOS combat really disfavors my ships. So, I have to defend my stuff, then there's a bit of downtime, before everything repeats after 30 mins. Since there are more than 10 of those waves, I'm tied up for hours by this event, mostly by having to wait for the next wave. I don't have time to do something deep and meaningful, but too much time to just sit and do nothing.

I mean, I can give into the blackmail and pay up to have my peace. But you have to know beforehand how annoying this entire crisis event is, because once you activate it, you can't go back and pay Boso to end it. It's really annoying the way it currently is.

My original criticism still stands: the game shouldn't spawn ships, it breaks the simulation the devs are so proud of, and which I greatly enjoy. Even if those ships are built and then merely moved, and not spawned, as Axeface here suggests, spawning/moving them into secure sectors, to target the player specifically, is a pretty cheap shot. Jumpdrives were removed from the game for a reason, the entire approach of "rules for thee, but not for me" is unnerving.

Since the crisis is a free feature coming with 7.00, if it stays the way it currently is, it cannot be avoided by anyone. Then you either pay, or you suffer. The alterantive is that you simply don't play the game, don't grow your assets, to stay below the crisis threshold. Is that the lesson you want us to learn? Don't play the game, don't acquire ships, otherwise the game will make your life harder?

The beta started a month ago, and previous betas didn't last longer than 2-3 months. Since we're already around half-way through to release, I feel obliged to ask the devs for a statement on where they want to go with the crisis, how - and if at all - they want to change it from its current implementation. We're already on page 14 here, the feedback is overwhelmingly negative, yet we've heard nothing official on it so far. That is disheartening.

I can only speak for myself here, but to be entirely honest, this drains the fun out of the game. The Ravager is too unbalanced, the spawns annoying and simulation-breaking, being blackmailed under threat of getting attacked by spawned enemies leaves a bad taste. The desire to play the game is gone for me, and no amount of beautiful new Xenon ships can remedy that. I just don't want to load up my save of over 2k hours anymore. If the crisis remains even remotely as it is right now for the release version? Then I'll simply not update to 7.00, until there's a mod removing the crisis completely. That's how I feel about it, after a month and three iterations of 7.00b.

And needless to say, without updating to 7.00, I also wouldn't be able to get the new expansion. That's how much of a dealbreaker this is to me.

It's save to say on my part: if the crisis stay this way they'll keep me from playing the game.

I fully and unconditionally agree, this is how I currently feel.

[Monstrosity]

There is a pinned post specifically for the crisis feedback.

PS: it is optional

[Axeface]

Reading the other replies I feel like I'm playing another game. How can my experience of the difficulty be so different. I honestly dont even know if I want to post my feedback.

[Falcrack]

Paying money to avoid the crisis is not the ideal way to initiate or delay the crisis. There should be some action, undertaken directly by the player at a time of their choosing, to initiate the crisis. Not just pay ten million credits to avoid it starting. A player should merely have to do nothing at all if they do not want the crisis.

[SpaceCadet11864]

Reading the other replies I feel like I'm playing another game. How can my experience of the difficulty be so different. I honestly dont even know if I want to post my feedback.

Well NOW I'm CURIOUS!

I mean I've seen a lot of negative comments about it are around it being unfair and people losing all their stuff. I've lost a few stations, and I've lost some ships, and I just don't care. Do I like the crisis? no, do I think it should be mandatory? no. Do I think it actually ruins the game? no.

I read a lot of the posts about it before experiencing it myself, so I was prepared for a big let-down, and I guess I was actually impressed with it. It's kind of like when you go see a movie you expect to be boring but its actually just an okay movie but because you expected so much worse you end up liking it more. Hell I was expecting a ton of xenon and khaak to instantly spawn on top of my stuff and destroy it, and to start destroying all the stations, something similar to when you amplify the xenon and cause them to attack the terrans for the Yaki. That was crazy!! They actually destroyed 100% of terran forces, all their stations in Getsu fune, and all their stations in asteroid belt, and almost all of mars until I intervened. THat was intense!! This is a JOKE in comparison and people complaining about it being too hard must be playing a different game!!

I do not agree that it makes the game unplayable and it "ruins it", but I sorta get it though. I just don't care that much if I lose ships and stations, I really don't. In fact I play new games a lot too, so I guess if I was one of those "I only have one save with 5000 hours in it" types I'd probably hate it more. I just usually play the game until I have billions of credits and nothing to do and then take a break, only to pick it up again a few months later with a new start. HEll sometimes I play few starts, and try different things.


Anyway, it's NOT THAT BAD, but I still have some negative feedback of my own:

At least in my save, the xenon do not spawn "on top of my previous assets" they come from one of the corners of the map and then fly to a random station, or a gate. Then they loiter there, and after the station is destroyed they just sorta hang out and do nothing for a while, then another crisis event happens.

I have like 4 sectors with xenon in them in crisis because I've been ignoring them. I've lost a few ships and stations, but they are able to kill / suicide their attack force. I literally kited a ravager to a teladi antimatter factory only to watch it get obliterated in seconds by teladi plasma cannons.

Also my ships favor IS combat. I use a lot of bombers and fighters that juist handle IS combat much better, and with less losses, so if I really wanted to ace this crisis thing I'd have to be in multiple places at once. It all just feels very cheap.

I've read a ton of great suggestions. and I agree it should be an opt-in thing, preferably with a cool story, and it should involve the player similar to other quests in the game. IT can be a chance to reshape the universe and be a real challenge if done this way.

[Falcrack]

There is a pinned post specifically for the crisis feedback.

PS: it is optional

Paging 10 million credits to delay the start of the crisis for a certain number of hours is not the "optional" we are looking for.

[hajko2]

Hi,

I dont like the fact that the enemies spawn directly on my assets.

I'd rather have a crisis story where they attack from the new sectors and have to fight their way through the adjacent next sectors.

As it is now, I will pay the 500 million and ignore the crisis.

I wouldn't want to start a new game with the expectation that the crisis would start when the criteria for it were met.

[darakmaroo]

Feedback:

- Boso's voice was different, so I had no idea who or why this person was talking to me, so no idea Crisis was starting.
- Boso repeats the same lines after each wave, no new information is provided.
- No indication of number of waves, I have been spending hours each evening after work trying to reach the end of this feature. I haven't counted them, but must be close to 15-20 waves so far.
- Ravagers spawn in during large engagements behind my cap ships, they destroy an Asguard before it can turn. This removes any strategy options, this is simply spawn and delete.
- Some waves failed instantly, no time to react or move assets to target system.
- 5 billion to turn off the feature seems redundant, we should be able to turn it on when we want, and pause it when it becomes too much of a time sink.

Personal feelings on this experience, I liked it at first, but countless waves and three evenings wasted just fighting fires makes me dislike its implementation. I spent a few weeks building an empire so I can do other things, now all I can do is crisis, no way to stop it than to stop playing the game or revert to a save I don't have.

[geldonyetich]

I agree with some of these points.

Personally, my ideal solution looks something like this:

1. Make the existential crisis start the second the game is started, but the Xenon being spawned are so weak that it's inconsequential.
2. Tie the Xenon assault strength to the number of active non-Xenon production modules on the map.
3. After the assault fleet strength has reached sufficient power, a random production module is chosen from a list of all the active production modules on the map.
4. The entire assault fleet moves in unison to destroy the station that the chosen production module is on.
5. If they succeed, they then retreat back to Xenon space to rebuild the assault fleet. If they fail, that means the assault fleet was destroyed or ran out of time, and the Xenon begin constructing the assault fleet anew.
6. Go back to step #3 unless production modules reach a true existential crisis level, in which case the next step happens instead:
7. There's big bad boss enemies out defending major Xenon sectors. If the threshold in the previous step has been met, they join the crisis, kicking off the real "blowout party" events in the current existential crisis plan.
8. If the true existential crisis is destroyed, the Xenon assault fleets are disabled for a long period of time. Peace returns to the gate network, for a time...

Key differences:

• No artificiality to the existential crisis, it's not waiting around for a player to activate it, but rather a part of the living universe.
• The player is not singled out. If they don't want to attract Xenon ire, don't build megacomplexes. This is lore-friendly.
• The assault fleets are providing perpetual fluidity to happenings on the gate network, greatly increasing emergence.
• Solves the issue with "Weak" feeling Xenon.
• You still get your "blowout party" Existential Crisis plan. Everybody's happy.

[SpaceCadet11864]

ohhh kay. I get what people are saying now. I take back previous statements. The Xenon aren't really the problem for me, it's the Kha'ak spawning on top of my bases. I've just done 3 incursions in a row and yeah, I'm quite sick of it. The last encounter was about 2 hours long in duration, I must have dispatched a dozen ravagers by the end of it. They just kept coming and most of the time they were spawning on my stations.

So far I've done about 8 or 9 of these. The first 5 or so were pretty easy and I even ignored a few because they spawned on bases I really didn't care for. But then when they hit GX3 I have a major trading post there, and I was like... well, that thing has to survive. I didn't lose any ships but the teladi lost at least 4 stations and their trading post is mostly destroyed.

A lot of the previous incursions xenon would spawn and derp around a bit, detsroy a station or hang around a gate. They weren't much of a threat.

The Kha'ak, up until this last mission, were fairly easy to remove too.. usually one or two ravagers and they're easy to take down. But this time, there were several of the ravagers and they spawned on top of stations al around the sector. They damaged a couple of my stations and destroyed a few teladi stations. I couldn't be everywhere at once, and across the sector anywhere I wasn't things were not going so well.

I kept thinking it was going to be over.. but it took 2 hours and finally they just vanished. I took out like 12 of them.. Very much whack-a-mole, and another one is about to start xD

[SpaceCadet11864]

Just want to add that. I already don't enjoy the kha'ak. they're a chore to deal with because OOS they are much stronger. Installations are also a chore to find until you've explored the sectors well enough to use the "buy station" trick.

Now with the crisis. When you have 4 or 5 ravagers spawning all over a sector, and they make quick work of your destroyers OOS, You have to personally fly a destroyer over to a ravager, proceed to kill it, then fly the destroyer across the sector to the next one, kill it, fly the destroyer over to the next one, kill it. Then 3 more spawn in the sector, each one like 80km away from the other, and they're on top of a station. If it's a sector where you have a lot of assets, its going to be your station.

So you just have to... personally handle them doing the same exact task over and over again, which really requires little to no skill. Just open the map, target the next ravager, wait a few minutes to fly to it because destroyers are slow and its 80-100km away. Kill it.. oh wow 2 more spawned in, they're 100km away.. are these the last two? ... 2 hours of this..

[IratusAvis]

I'm going to give my feedback once I'm able to properly write it down, as i've now completed a full crisis - but I have one question about the feedback here - are we sure that the xenon ships are spawned? People keep saying it but has someone looked at the code? I ask because i'de like confirmation on that, it's possible that the xenon ships actually are built and then moved, much like the encounter system works.

Thinking about it more, they probably are just spawned because this crisis needs to work for people who have save games where the xenon are wiped out. I suppose there's no other option if this is the type of crisis they want to add.

In my game, the Xenon are completely wiped out and no longer have any shipyards. The ships are definitely spawned.

[Axeface]

To the people saying they want it to be optional, what is it you want exactly? I cant see how it isnt optional as it is? Albeit very 'gamey' and with little rhyme or reason for us to be able to pay our way out of it. What does Boso do? Talk the Kha'ak to death? I'm not saying I'm happy with how it has been done but I find it very curious that people are talking about this ruining their games when 10m and 500m is surely nothing to players that can trigger this?

In my game, the Xenon are completely wiped out and no longer have any shipyards. The ships are definitely spawned.

Ok thanks for the clarification.

[xant]

To the people saying they want it to be optional, what is it you want exactly? I cant see how it isnt optional as it is?

Optional means completely optional. In gameplay terms, that would be having you do something to begin it, fly to a physical location and start it on purpose, or talk to Boso and tell him to start the events leading to the crisis spawning. Like we have with opening the gate to the Provinces Adrift, like we have to map the path to the gate to Kingdom End, like we had to go there physically, before the Kha'ak spawned.

The same way Dal Busta offers all faction plot lines, but they all require us to go to him, talk to him, and he asks us "are you sure?", and we have to confirm. That kind of optional.

It's not optional, when the game throws the event in your face, begins it the moment you load your save, and then you have to cough up money, or else... that's blackmail, and I don't respond too kindly to that.

In real-life terms, it's the way it works with let's say a subscription of a magazine. Imagine they subscribe you automatically based on your income, and then you have to pay to cancel it. Would you call such a system "optional"? I wouldn't. I would call it what it is: a scam. It would make me angry.

[Axeface]

To the people saying they want it to be optional, what is it you want exactly? I cant see how it isnt optional as it is?

Optional means completely optional. In gameplay terms, that would be having you do something to begin it, fly to a physical location and start it on purpose, or talk to Boso and tell him to start the events leading to the crisis spawning. Like we have with opening the gate to the Provinces Adrift, like we have to map the path to the gate to Kingdom End, like we had to go there physically, before the Kha'ak spawned.

The same way Dal Busta offers all faction plot lines, but they all require us to go to him, talk to him, and he asks us "are you sure?", and we have to confirm. That kind of optional.

It's not optional, when the game throws the event in your face, begins it the moment you load your save, and then you have to cough up money, or else... that's blackmail, and I don't respond too kindly to that.

In real-life terms, it's the way it works with let's say a subscription of a magazine. Imagine they subscribe you automatically based on your income, and then you have to pay to cancel it. Would you call such a system "optional"? I wouldn't. I would call it what it is: a scam. It would make me angry.

Ok now I understand, and I agree too. But can we agree that saying its ruining our game is a bit of an exhaggeration?