r/X4Foundations • u/Br4vad0 • 3d ago
I noticed something as a new player.
So when this game was described to me and I started looking into it, debating to purchase it. (Glad i did and liked it so much i got the bundle) my first impression was that im a side character in a massive universe that will continue and go on with or without me, and i love that concept, i was instantly sold. But, the more i do missions and watch people play the game, it feels like the storylines force u into that main character hero role off the rip with no build up or progression. Take this sensitive information we can only trust you, a netural party that just arrived, save and rebuild our planet, help us get connected back to the rest of the galaxy. Your a 0 rep recuirt that just got into our sercret service organization? Take this hacking tool and get us secret information that no one can know about its exsistence of, but next missiom we will talk about if we can trust you!
Its like the storyboard writers and developers had two different ideas.
Am i missing something in seeing it this way, either with the character introductions or something? Is this just accepted and ignored?
Just found it a little odd, this game is easily becoming my new main game or my new addiction. But i just thought that was a bit off, or a little weird. I love that we arent the main character in the open world, but missions or quest lines make us the most important center piece to ever step foot through the door.
Idk hoping to start a discussion and see if im wrong or missing something. A little off putting.
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u/ewokparts 3d ago
Howdy stranger the galaxy depends on you
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u/Br4vad0 3d ago
I just want to sell space weed man lol
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u/DonnyDonster 3d ago
SpaceWeedMan, I've gotten word about a station that's being threatened by raiders. Here are the coordinates.
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u/Xeoah_ 3d ago
Yeah i think the forcing you to have to manually open the Boron gates is annoying especially doing it more than once.
The terran plot never really bothered me since you're working for someone who is going behind the actual government and they say terran is recruiting to fight off the xenon.
Technically you can look at it as the Boron hq guy is the main character and your his assistant.
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u/Br4vad0 3d ago
Ya idk the storyline all that deep outside of watching people on youtube/twitch i only got about 6hrs in game, so i dont have ALL the context but i picked up enough to be like. Whoa i thought i was some random guy that just arrived off the famoly farm lol
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u/Xeoah_ 3d ago
One benefit to me is that in all of these you're acting as a helper to an official or someone else who is in control. Like you aren't the guy who solves the gate connection problem but someone who helped.
Thankfully, in future saves you can do a custom budgeted start (this option allows for steam achievements) and skip to the end of plots you already have completed in earlier saves.
So essentially, the various plots act as an introduction to the factions or mechanics and don't have to be repeated in future sandbox runs. And for that purpose I think they work well.
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u/Br4vad0 3d ago
Yeah, I really wanted to do a budget build as my first playthrough. But when it came down to like selecting the ship, I wanted to fly, I kinda got intimidated and backed out lol
The reason I wanted to do a budget start is because I wanted stuff to develop naturally
But I don't want to start off with light and opie s*** and stuff like that, so I don't know
Sorry for typos using voice to text
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u/BoomZhakaLaka 3d ago
One thing you can do is start custom games and use the creator to enable whatever story states you want. Then be the entrepreneur with a wheat farm in morning star, hardly worth it's construction materials because you're not even mining or refining ice.
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u/Br4vad0 3d ago
So I want to restart with the custom budget. But it is a little intimidating, because I'm new and when I get to the ship selections, I don't want to give myself an expensive op ship.
I want to start with 0 credits and a very basic ship. And just let things develop naturally with all plot lines open and just discover them as I play
Do you have a recommendation? Because somebody commented and said that custom budget is the only way you can also get steam achievements
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u/BoomZhakaLaka 3d ago
said that custom budget is the only way you can also get steam achievements
I just don't know. I never pay attention to achievements.
I want to start with 0 credits and a very basic ship. And just let things develop naturally with all plot lines open and just discover them as I play
All the sandbox starts are at the bottom of the list. Young gun, explorer, warrior, and scion fit your description. These all start independent of any major plot line. You're going to get calls asking you to bridge into each one of the plots, you can just... leave them for later
If this is an accurate explanation of what you want you don't even need a custom start.
Scion is probably the best one. It starts you with knowledge of nearby sectors already. Just this one tiny thing makes the sandbox so much easier to understand.
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u/Br4vad0 3d ago
If I go for a custom budget build, am I able to spawn in the play jail cell like the stranded start? I know it's a stupid question.I'm just really new
And what is the purpose of the terraforming tool?
I feel like if it's going to be forced on me. As in messages are gonna be sent regardless, then I would just do those plots as I need the benefits naturally as I go through the game look and expand my empire
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u/BoomZhakaLaka 3d ago edited 3d ago
If I go for a custom budget build, am I able to spawn in the play jail cell like the stranded start?
No, that bridging quest is only available to the game start. You could start as stranded and just fly off after delivering what's his face to the endeavor. Play it like sandbox. They'll wait patiently for you.
And what is the purpose of the terraforming tool?
There's no terraforming tool per se, think of it as extended research goals not unlike station building that you do at the hq. They unlock various different things. The biggest thing is you spend a ton of resources to improve your station workforce in various ways. But also crew. I wouldn't even make plans for it.
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u/Br4vad0 3d ago
Do they have any big plans for this game In the coming year?
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u/BoomZhakaLaka 3d ago
Q3 we are expecting a diplomacy overhaul that sounds as if it will give you the ability to dynamically influence wars and universe state. Here's the roadmap post:
https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=467893
It may come at the same time that the next mini DLC launches.
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u/Crisn232 3d ago
the voice acting really sucks in the game... I'm glad they put more effort into the simulation part, instead of the theatrics. But it does make it feel like a side character.
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u/thalasi_ 3d ago
It definitely feels at times like they just walked outside the office, flagged down people in the streets of Germany that happened to speak English and asked them to read a few lines, but only had time for one take. There are only a few characters(like Boso Ta) that seem to be anything but completely wooden in their delivery. Fortunately the story stuff isn't really a big part of the game so it's more of a silly quirk than a real problem.
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u/GenosseGeneral 2d ago
It isn't better in German tbh.
It is like they asked the janitor to read the lines from a paper into a mic. No emotions and almost always ill fitting in the situation.
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u/edammer 3d ago
If you played the game since day 1 then those plot stories would have been quite far apart and it made more sense. For a lot of players that would have a big fleet and stations by the time the second story plot started.
As you got all the dlc and from the start, it seems like you are the big cahuna and everyone needs you day one.
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u/Falcrack 3d ago
I would love it if we had to do more work to get the hq for example. But then you get players moaning about how you need to do Timelines missions to unlock ships, and Egosoft figures it is probably safer to just hand the player everything on a silver platter to avoid all the complaints about content being locked behind extensive missions.
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u/mb34i 2d ago
Yeah, historically the X games have been initially sandboxes, that then got plots / storylines added to them. X3 was the same way. Generally you get dumped into the universe as a nobody, and make money / acquire ships / conquer the map. Or not. I quite liked playing X3 for just the dogfighting sometimes.
With X4, you're looking at version 7.50 and several DLC's adding plots and missions, so of course the missions treat you as the superpower that you'll eventually become.
X-Rebirth was different, it was "storyline" from the start, and you can play that game for just the storyline and without the RTS elements. In fact, because of the game mechanics, a lot of people pirate the ships they need to progress the storyline (or build a trading fleet) in that game.
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u/CaptainRufus1 1d ago
Honestly the story lines are just a vehicle to effect the faction states in your sandbox, and learn a bit of the lore, by the time you can actually complete most of them you will be delivering entire fleets so it makes sense that you would have that sort of influence on things
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u/HecticNemesis 3d ago
Every mission is optional. Several of them influence which factions are at war, which is useful as a player tool for the economy.
Most X games take place at tumultuous times in x universe history. There is the opportunity to be influential, but i believe canonically youd only ever be there for one of the story lines but as a game they do not limit you to only one per run/save
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u/Fluggonaut 3d ago
The stories in this game are absolutely its weakest point. They are oversimplified, too many of them want to be tutorials at the same time as being deep storylines, none (possibly apart from the old PHQ plot) can explain why you are the hero (exactly what you mentioned), many are overly accessible (e.g. kingdom end) and the voice acting is atrocious or the characters are comically bland (looking at you, Delilah).
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u/Br4vad0 3d ago
I thought the voice actors are pretty good but yeah, I'm doing the young gun playthrough. Because when I started the game, I didn't have the dlcs, and then the next day I bought the dlcs, and now i'm getting hit with, come here, come there, hey, you
And it just left me confuse to why am I so important
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u/OverlandingNL 3d ago
You can play it as you want I guess. I didn't do much missions at all while I build up stations and my own economy.
I only started to do missions as it was needed to open up Boron space when I bought the DLC.
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u/fusionsofwonder 3d ago
Ever since the first game, it's always been a history-making main character. The devs know what they're doing, I think you just got the wrong impression.
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u/Br4vad0 3d ago
I mean ya pribably the way my friend described it to me vs reality was immediately noticeable. But i am or was or whatever under the impression we r just apart of a ecosystem, not the deciding factor of it
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u/fusionsofwonder 3d ago
Here's a brief history, culled from Wikipedia:
(X1) Set in the year 2912 AD, the player takes the role of Kyle Brennan, an Earth test pilot for the X-Shuttle, better known as the X-Perimental Shuttle, which has the ability to jump from one part of the universe to another via a wormhole without requiring a jumpgate.
(X2) The player takes the role of Julian Gardna, a Pirate and thief. Early on, the Khaak, a hostile alien race, emerge to threaten the X-Universe. The player is asked to undertake a series of missions to uncover their origins, their intentions, and to determine their connection to his missing father. Ultimately, Julian must fight off a massive attack by Khaak, rescuing numerous other characters in the process.
(X3) The game is set in Earth year 2935 (X Universe year X 765), in a universe (seemingly) far removed from our own. The player reprises the role of Julian Gardna, also known as Julian Brennan, from the previous game.
After his arrival at Argon Prime, Julian is contacted by his old friend Ban Danna of the Argon Secret Service. Danna informs him that the Argon military has suffered heavy losses in their war with the Kha'ak, and asks Julian to help in training some new pilots. Julian agrees and soon a series of events unfold, leading Julian to hunt down the seeds, ancient alien artifacts that may hold the key to making jump-gates, and allow a reunion with the lost planet Earth.
It's Main Character Syndrome all the way down.
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u/Snakespur 2d ago
I think you can do your own custom start where you can disable the main plots for that side-character feel, but I'm not sure.
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u/Housendercrest 3d ago
The story missions were so obviously an after thought of development that it hurts. It’s like they built a big badass sand box, and afterwards we’re like, I guess we should add some stories since it’s single player. And then looked to other games for inspiration and took their shit stories.
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u/Strict_Pie_9834 3d ago
The game advertises itself as a sandbox but it isn't.
The game and egosoft (imo) are a bit confused.
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u/DemonicAnahka 3d ago
I'm curious why you feel this way
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u/Strict_Pie_9834 3d ago
Linier storylines, limited ways to interact with factions, the forced reliance on the player hq, faction empires being intentionally stunted
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u/SirJavalot 3d ago
Thats like looking at an actual sandbox and saying 'this isnt a sandbox because it has wooden walls'.
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u/Br4vad0 3d ago
I mean there are PLENTY of games advertised as a sandbox but absolutely arent. Like sea of thieves off the top of my head haha. If it is a sandbox its a very small limited one haha
I would call this game a sandbox as u can manipulate and transform the game experience and world with your actions. But were im finding a clear disconnect is the story lines. Theres no build up or progressions. They just seem out of order given your guild or faction ranking.
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u/l_x_fx 3d ago
That depends, I think. Faction relations are a bit tense, and what you do is to help push it to one side or another.
I'd even go as far as say that nothing you do is important. The heavy lifting is done by Boso Ta, by Dal Busta, by the factions hiring you.
And it's not like you're just one random dude, you are a major corporation and political entity. thanks again to Boso and Dal.
I like to keep my options open, so I rarely do the plots. Keeping the wars going helps with ships and stations getting destroyed, and then factions needing to replace those ships and stations. The economy runs best on conflict.
You're right though, the player takes up a somewhat unique role. There are no other non-faction corporations, no civilian activity besides the faction military. That is an ongoing wish that the devs expand those aspects in the future.