[Poll]Should Existential Crisis be optional?

[flywlyx]

If the EC (I did skip many parts of the thread) is like the insurance, then the "formal" opt-out and opt-in are whether the burn is the default or not. "Real" opt-in would have no salesman at your door, ever, unless you explicitly say "yes". Is that the "optional" that the OP asks? Optional, as in "buy and enable DLC" is an option that we can skip to keep the amount of game content manageable?

I add a little explanation to the 1st "yes" " if the player doesn't interact with the NPC, it won't activate, similar to how all other X4 plots operate."
From my point of view, Egosoft should uphold their promise of "Choose your own path at your own pace. The decisions are yours."
They have executed this effectively in the past, with all plots being optional. Players need to initiate them by speaking to an NPC, and there is no pressure to start the plot.
So it is a total opt-in.

Opting for a partial yes means players can opt-out, and everything stops once paid.

To me, payment for postponing still equates to a "no" because players will eventually have to confront it.

[Nanook]

You call it a ''plot", but is it really? I don't consider sitting and waiting for random attacks on my assets to be a plot. Plots are where the player is in charge of making things happen. The only player actions, other than defending their assets, is to initially talk to Boso Ta. Then the game does stuff to the player with no further player options. That's not the definition of a plot, IMO.

[Koizuki]

You call it a ''plot", but is it really? I don't consider sitting and waiting for random attacks on my assets to be a plot. Plots are where the player is in charge of making things happen. The only player actions, other than defending their assets, is to initially talk to Boso Ta. Then the game does stuff to the player with no further player options. That's not the definition of a plot, IMO.

I think the point is to turn it into a plot, as it appears the simple spawning-on-top-of-assets mechanic is very much annoying to players, and I think it would fit more with the aesthetic of the game anyway. I think I posted my suggestion on the very first page of this thread, actually.

Basically, have it mimic the Kingdom End plotline, because that was honestly a decently interesting way of opening up new and unknown areas. Have Boso start the plot by saying he's found some new gates that he might be able to reactivate like with the Heretic's End gate, upon which ALI or whoever can begin gathering again for another attempt. Do whatever other intermediate steps you want here, but the end result is that unlike with Heretic's End, once the gate is activated, everyone discovers the other side is decidedly hostile (Xenon strongholds.)

This allows lore to be added as necessary, and if done properly, would result in a galaxy-wide "crisis" that is more than simply spawning stuff on top of your stations: What if as a result of your player actions, you've now activated a previously-sealed-off Xenon cluster of sectors that have 2-3 or more routes into the heart of the Commonwealth Sectors, essentially having 2-3+ Hatikvah's Choice-like gates that have Xenon constantly pouring through them threatening everything in their way?

This turns the whole Existential Crisis thing into 1) an optional event, 2) something potentially interesting lore-wise, 3) an actual crisis, 4) a challenge for the militaristic players if the sectors are so built up that they need a big fleet to go through and reach whatever is needed to shut down the Xenon threat.
The KHK will need to be revisited though, as Destroyers with Plasma-level beams spawning on top of assets doesn't give a whole lot of time for the player, or anyone, to react.

[flywlyx]

You call it a ''plot", but is it really? I don't consider sitting and waiting for random attacks on my assets to be a plot. Plots are where the player is in charge of making things happen. The only player actions, other than defending their assets, is to initially talk to Boso Ta. Then the game does stuff to the player with no further player options. That's not the definition of a plot, IMO.

When I look at the definition of the plot in dictionary
It says:

a plan made in secret by a group of people to do something illegal or harmful.

Yeah, this is the most plot plot in X4.

Jokes aside, although lack of content, I would say this is still a plot, all X4 plots are liner, players don't have much choice anyway.

To me, whether it's considered a plot depends on whether I'm driving the story or if it's controlled by the developers.

[Nanook]

Except what's the story? I fail to detect one. Boso Ta says he sees something, and that's it? All the real plots have stories associated with them, and can be safely ignored by the player. While they may seem linear to you they aren't, really, since the player is given options on which way to proceed. Temporarily avoiding the whole issue by paying Boso Ta an exorbitant sum doesn't really count as an option, since the EC will still happen eventually.

[flywlyx]

Except what's the story? I fail to detect one. Boso Ta says he sees something, and that's it? All the real plots have stories associated with them, and can be safely ignored by the player. While they may seem linear to you they aren't, really, since the player is given options on which way to proceed. Temporarily avoiding the whole issue by paying Boso Ta an exorbitant sum doesn't really count as an option, since the EC will still happen eventually.

In a linear storyline, skipping steps isn't possible, and plot armor serves as a clear indicator of this type of plot structure.
In this crisis scenario, there's a narrative involving a Xenon being pursued by Khaak, but it ends with the involvement of the CPU ship. However, no additional details are provided regarding the reasons behind this occurrence.

[jlehtone]

I think the point is to turn it into a plot, as it appears the simple spawning-on-top-of-assets mechanic is very much annoying to players, and I think it would fit more with the aesthetic of the game anyway.

First, one primary idea in X4 has been: gather resources, assemble assets, and then cruise to death.
We can affect the gathering, the assembly, and the cruising to extent that nothing reaches "our home".

If there is a flood gate that opens and ample pre-gathered assets flow towards us, that is still following
the idea; even the present NPC do have "option" to send one ship per minute or 60 once per hour.

The spawn-on-top-of-assets does not follow that "law of economics"; there is not even the cruise
window of opportunity for us. Then again, the spawn-on-top-of-assets is something that many players
have no qualms about on using against everyone else. Who has not seen discussions about bombing
innocent NPC with stations? (E.g. PHQ mass teleport.) Do same players both get annoyed by and use
the technique?


---

Plots have been "optional". One does not need to start any of them. Not as long as we don't need the
changes that "stories" make. (PHQ is one example; if you don't want it, then you don't talk to Bozo --
or so it was before some DLC. Having a PHQ is a change created by "doing a plot".)

Some of the plots do have decision trees. At some step one has to choose between two (or more)
factions. Each made choice makes an irreversible change and leads to different "endgame".
If you want to reach every end, then you have to play the plot multiple times and choose differently.
Some may see that as "not linear".

---

Some players have called for "tax", "upkeep" costs. IMHO, Kha'ak on Miners (pre-7.0) and Pirates on traders are such.
Some amount of your assets are consumed regularly; the more you have, the more likely.
Is that a "plot"? There is clearly lore why they do, but that does not make a [good] story.

---

Does the "make it a plot" request boil down to turning inevitable event [to be suffered] into optional [bonus for those that want it]?

[Koizuki]

Who has not seen discussions about bombing
innocent NPC with stations? (E.g. PHQ mass teleport.) Do same players both get annoyed by and use
the technique?
---
Is that a "plot"? There is clearly lore why they do, but that does not make a [good] story.
---
Does the "make it a plot" request boil down to turning inevitable event [to be suffered] into optional [bonus for those that want it]?

To the first, I've seen discussions of it, but I've never used it myself because it seems cheesy. The option is there for people, but you do what you want. The problem is that the spawning-on-top-of-assets would occur to people who do not subscribe to that particular approach, and thus just ends up being annoying because of the lack of counterplay.

To the second, I always thought "plots" in this game were just this game's word for Quests/Missions in other games -- the noun form, rather than the verb form. In this case, while there are lore reasons for Pirate activity, there is still counterplay that can be used at least.
Pirates try to avoid Destroyers, so setting one cheap or even captured one to defend a station will largely prevent that station from being hacked. One can also set regular patrols along trade routes to defend any traders being targeted in-transit. One can also pick on the BUC to harvest lots of Exceptional Chassis mods, then equip all the traders with Mirage which will prevent them from being targeted by pirates entirely (this is what I've done in my game.)

Spawning a death squad on top of your miners has no real counterplay outside of sitting 2000 Destroyers in every sector your miners can possibly go to.

To the third, yes. This allows those players who simply want to relax in this game and run an empire peacefully to continue doing so. I'm personally all for fighting some Xenon fortresses, but I'm not the only one playing the game, after all.

Except what's the story? I fail to detect one. Boso Ta says he sees something, and that's it? All the real plots have stories associated with them, and can be safely ignored by the player. While they may seem linear to you they aren't, really, since the player is given options on which way to proceed. Temporarily avoiding the whole issue by paying Boso Ta an exorbitant sum doesn't really count as an option, since the EC will still happen eventually.

I'm not entirely sure if this was in reference to me or not, but just in case it was, I did bring up more specific suggestions earlier in this thread. I was simply trying condense it into a shorter sentence or two, since I doubt any devs would have time to read through overly long suggestions here; I had hoped it would be more of a pointer in a direction that they could then fill in with their much greater knowledge of the lore. That said, my rough guidelines were:

1) Xenon should be given a new, heavily fortified cluster (can repurpose the Pirate Alley sectors if necessary; By fortified, I mean multiple Wharves/Shipyards, several Defense Stations right at the gate to make even player assets suffer losses when attempting to enter without a fleet large enough for a "Final showdown")
2) These should be behind de-activated gates
3) Crisis plot should start via Boso at PHQ, similar to the Boron plot, activating and investigating these gates
4) "Oopsie" they've unleashed a torrent of new Xenon upon the galaxy; Xenon should not simply spawn out of thin air, but instead pour through those gates in greater numbers, thus affecting not just the player, but the galaxy as a whole
4a) Can implement the "pay 500 million here" for Boso to temporarily buy stuff from the factions to delay these gates once the player triggers the activation step (in case they stumbled into it accidentally.)

If you are looking for specifics on the lore, such as why Boso would be involved here, I can add some suggestions, but I have to admit that my only other experience with the X universe is about 230 hours I played in X3TC 10 years ago, so I'm not really sure of the exact lore of the game/universe beyond some broad strokes.

That said, Boso has demonstrated that he is very curious about whether or not he can do certain things, as well as a curiosity of what lies beyond the unknown. This is what appeared to drive him to teleporting the HQ, further refining the teleportation process, "fixing" terraforming, and of course investigating the Heretic's End gate with ALI (even if he had more personal reasons to do so.) There should be relatively easy ways for Boso to become involved in another/new expedition into a series of inactive gates that either suddenly show potential signs of activity, or simply to see if he can refine the gate activation process. (I'm aware a lot of this seems to reference the Kingdom End plotline which requires a DLC, but it doesn't necessarily have to actually reference it lore-wise, I'm just using it as an example because it's the closest analogue.)

The Xenon cluster should be somewhat centrally located, and ideally have multiple gates leading into Commonwealth space. For example, utilizing the newly-added Pirate Alley would grant 3 sectors, where two of them lead into PAR and TEL space, but anywhere else that can lead into multiple factions' territories would be fine. There should probably be objects/debris placed around the inactive gates on the Commonwealth side to prevent players from cheesing it by building defense stations right up against it; Pushing the buildable area back a bit should allow exiting Xenon a chance to slip through to actually threaten the Commonwealth.

If we want additional "plot points" related to this to make it feel more like an extended questline, we can add another reason here. First, I've not actually tried this yet, but I've seen mention of some kind of "CPU ship" related to the crisis. A scouting mission can be ordered for the player to discover this inside the Xenon cluster (using the aforementioned Pirate Alley, it could be inside Mi Ton's Refuge.) Then there could be an order to assemble a fleet large enough to go take it out, or capture it, or whatever. Furthermore, the various factions may want to claim these sectors after purging the Xenon from them. The sectors may have lore that claims they were initially owned by a particular faction who wants them back (sort of like Scale Plate Green, I guess?) or they could have been neutral and all the factions now want to claim it, and the player may end up making a decision as to who gets it, or if they want it for themselves, or keep the status quo and leave it neutral. Various rewards/rep changes and/or other faction hostilities could be tied to these decisions.

There's a good deal that could be done with this, I think, but again I'm not intimately familiar with the exact lore of the game so I'm not really able to get more specific on that front. I'm sure others who are more familiar with it can do so.

Even if this plan is unacceptable, I'm sure there could be something more interesting than just spawning stuff on top of you.

[Nanook]

...

Except what's the story? I fail to detect one. Boso Ta says he sees something, and that's it? All the real plots have stories associated with them, and can be safely ignored by the player. While they may seem linear to you they aren't, really, since the player is given options on which way to proceed. Temporarily avoiding the whole issue by paying Boso Ta an exorbitant sum doesn't really count as an option, since the EC will still happen eventually.

I'm not entirely sure if this was in reference to me or not...

It wasn't. It was directed to the post immediately preceding mine.

[Treycore]

As it stands, the crisis sort of breaks all the rules of X4 by just spawning stuff on top of you

Might as well have Boso create an amplifier to summon these and give the player some sort of reward for wanting to activate it

As it stands it’s just a nuisance to the player

The crisis should originate somewhere and affect the galaxy not just the player

It would be awesome to have a gate scene like with the heretics end gate where we’re opening a mysterious new gate but instead of friendlies, hordes of xenon or kha’ak come spilling out into the galaxy and overwhelm the science expedition leaving the player to escape and deal with the incursions or let them rampage

[jlehtone]

As it stands it’s just a nuisance to the player

So is the Tide, although one can choose to play a playthrough without ToA.
PHQ in Heretics sounds like a nuisance, but again, one can choose to start a playthrough without KE.


There are two topics:

• Is "crisis" part of what the X Universe is, or a treat that player can choose at "the opportune moment"[Capt. Sparrow] ?
• What is the nature of the nuisance?

Granted, they are not completely independent issues.

IMHO, something you that can deal with when you want, is not a crisis. Crisis is what nobody should want to deal with, if they can avoid it. We have desired for challenge. We get a crisis. Not the first time we get "what we did ask for".

(Have to praise Egosoft for that -- even devil's advocates should learn from them. )

[mediacenter]

As it stands it’s just a nuisance to the player

So is the Tide, although one can choose to play a playthrough without ToA.
PHQ in Heretics sounds like a nuisance, but again, one can choose to start a playthrough without KE.


There are two topics:

• Is "crisis" part of what the X Universe is, or a treat that player can choose at "the opportune moment"[Capt. Sparrow] ?
• What is the nature of the nuisance?

Granted, they are not completely independent issues.

IMHO, something you that can deal with when you want, is not a crisis. Crisis is what nobody should want to deal with, if they can avoid it. We have desired for challenge. We get a crisis. Not the first time we get "what we did ask for".

(Have to praise Egosoft for that -- even devil's advocates should learn from them. )

then this is not a crysis even now

becouse you know, i can not deal with it entirely by paying 500 milion credit, basically skipping content that MAYBE i want to do later but no, if you want to do it in the future you have to.....

pay 10 milion every now and then to the annoyng squid, oh this is soooo much fun to interrupt your gameplay to deal with this obnoxiuos character, have to teleport or god forbid fly to the hq (if you dont use teleport, like one of my previous run) and engage in conversation
so i do the crysis whatewer i want, is not a crysis , case closed
what boso do? i dont know, he is in contact with khaak mafia or the mysterious xenon ship that transform like a megazord with the other ship S H I T and make the crysis event come true

[chew-ie]

As it stands it’s just a nuisance to the player

So is the Tide, although one can choose to play a playthrough without ToA.
PHQ in Heretics sounds like a nuisance, but again, one can choose to start a playthrough without KE.


There are two topics:

• Is "crisis" part of what the X Universe is, or a treat that player can choose at "the opportune moment"[Capt. Sparrow] ?
• What is the nature of the nuisance?

Granted, they are not completely independent issues.

IMHO, something you that can deal with when you want, is not a crisis. Crisis is what nobody should want to deal with, if they can avoid it. We have desired for challenge. We get a crisis. Not the first time we get "what we did ask for".

(Have to praise Egosoft for that -- even devil's advocates should learn from them. )

I agree with your point "IMHO, something you that can deal with when you want, is not a crisis.". But what we have to do right now is damage control because Egosoft thought the idea of having a tower-defense with enemies spawning on player assets is fun. This has to be optional to not scare away people who dislike game mechanics like that.

A proper crisis design (be it a natural disaster, a stellar phenomenon or a good old escalation of a conflict) would have a proper structure - and it won't follow you around. It would be a challenge, an experience and after some preparation (by e.g. teaming up with others also harmed by the crisis) would have a nice solution. But that "thing" we have right now isn't even worth the time to "play through".

[Koizuki]

I feel like most people are equating a "crisis" with essentially a natural disaster that should happen unexpectedly, but a "crisis of your own making" is also a thing that exists, and is what can be used to justify turning this thing into an opt-in plotline.

As a player, or even as Boso, there's always a risk when venturing into the unknown that you'll encounter enemies (in this case, the Xenon and Kha'ak,) but you can choose to progress anyway in the hopes that you end up with something more meaningful. Sometimes you win (Heretic's End gate led to friendly sectors) but sometimes you would of course "lose" and end up with a crisis on your hands... which is what I was advocating for earlier in the thread.

[jlehtone]

I agree with your point "IMHO, something you that can deal with when you want, is not a crisis.". But what we have to do right now is damage control because Egosoft thought the idea of having a tower-defense with enemies spawning on player assets is fun. This has to be optional to not scare away people who dislike game mechanics like that.

So crisis is not the problem, but the implementation -- the "nature of the nuisance". The "spawn on from void" gimmick. A different nuisance would not need debate about necessity of opt-in.

One could as well have "IRS representative" drop in to PHQ occasionally. A character that would make Bozo and Dal look like "nice persons", and equally indestructible.

[GCU Grey Area]

So crisis is not the problem, but the implementation -- the "nature of the nuisance". The "spawn on from void" gimmick. A different nuisance would not need debate about necessity of opt-in.

That's certainly the case for me. A near unstoppable Xenon invasion fleet emerging from their sectors & flooding across the map steadily turning it red would probably be fine, fun even. It's just the current crisis implementation of them potentially jumping in near my 3k module HQ, & then having to fight them at a single digit frame rate, that's the issue as far as I'm concerned.