What's left for the endgame? (Is it limited by design?)

Sean_Ashcroft

Hello everyone,
(Warning, there will be spoilers! - the title should indicate that though)

this is my first post here and i must say that i absolutely LOVE Everspace. I played it since early access and recommended it to many friends. There are just so many things to love about this game. And i'm so happy to see that you still apply patches to it (unfortunately that's far from being standard in today's video-gaming-industry)

But i'd actually like to discuss something else here: I'm not pretty much finished with the game (100% unlocked, all missions completed) but still enjoy going for a run on hard mode from time to time. However i made two observations which i cannot really understand yet:
1. Apparently the warships are gone? No matter how long i stay in a sector now, there will be many Occars but not a single warship
2. In sector 7 there is just....nothing? I was really expecting to repeat the final bossfight against Gorc here (which frankly was quite epic) or at least any other final challenge...but apparently it is not meant to be that way?

Now that makes me wonder of course:
- Why were these elements removed? Is it to more or less force the players to wipe their savegame after a given time? Or what else is the reason behind it? (I could somehow understand that being intentional for the Gorc-fight - even if i'd strongly disagree with that design-decision. But it just doesn't make any sense to me at all for the warships)
- Was anything else cut down which i didn't realize yet?
- Is there any workaround (maybe a config file) to remove these constraints?

Now i know there is hardcore mode (which i also played and quite enjoyed). But it's not the same for me. I'd just like to play with my fully upgraded (well-earnt) ships, make runs on hard difficulty, flee from battleships from time to time (as i'm used to) and at the end face an epic bossfight. For reasons which i currently do not understand Everspace somehow doesn't seem to include that right now

I'm very happy about any answers :-)

Best regards

ROCKFISH_Andi

Hi Sean, glad that you like the game!
To answer your questions (spoiler warning) - it's all by design and the reason why the warships are gone and the admiral is gone is that we took great care to explain the the whole rogue-lite mechanic. So while the locations are procedurally generated, this can simply be explained by taking another course to the destination. The destination in sector 7 however always stays the same. And every run takes place after the one before, so if Gorc is defeated he will remain defeated and can't ever show again. The same goes for all story and encounters events. The warships also disappear after Gorc has been defeated, because it was acutally Gorc who had been sending them after you all the time.

The rules are a little different in hardcore mode, which actually has no permanent progression and no story events - you could say that every hardcore run takes place at the exact same time, not one after the other. So it's possible to repeat the final showdown there.

Hope that answers your questions!

Sean_Ashcroft

Hi Andi,
thanks for your in-depth answer! Now I understand the reasoning behind it. After all, every single run is part of the storyline and they are all connected (including the Warships and of course Gorc). Still I must say, I still have big troubles to agree with this decision from a gameplay point of view. After all, the gameplay IS definitely limited after you’ve beaten the campaign and some of the most epic elements from Everspace are cut out. Unfortunately, that’s quite a bumper to my motivation to go for post-story-runs.

I actually opened a very similar topic like this one on reddit and I feel like I’m not alone with my dissatisfaction with the current state.

If I may make a suggestion in this matter: Maybe there could be a setting in the options menu to decide how the game shall behave after you’ve finished the story? (If this is too much work to implement in the game-menues, maybe even a “.ini” setting would be sufficient for most people? Like “keep warships = 0” and “keep bossfight = 0” as settings which are only valid after the story is finished. Players could set them as 1 and have the game as they like it. Or even some (unofficial) mod to freeze the story progression just before Gorc is defeated for good would totally satisfy me, but I cannot mod it myself, I’m afraid.) I would be so happy if you’d take this suggestion to your team. (I have no clue how difficult this would be to implement and if you even like the idea, of course)

Regarding Hardcore-mode: I finished this mode once and actually had a fight in sector 7 (one i never saw before), but it definitely was not Gorc or anything including capital ships. I assume it’s always the same fight? Or in other words, if I want to repeat this battle again, I currently have no other choice than wiping my whole savegame – correct?

Best regards,
Sean

ROCKFISH_Andi

Hi Sean,

yes, the only way to face Gorc again is to wipe your save game.

I get your point, not promising anything, but I agree that it might be useful to have several wipe options, e.g. "reset all", "reset story only"

Sean_Ashcroft

ROCKFISH_Andi said:

Hi Sean,

yes, the only way to face Gorc again is to wipe your save game.

I get your point, not promising anything, but I agree that it might be useful to have several wipe options, e.g. "reset all", "reset story only"

Thanks Andi! Now at least i understand what's going on and why :-)
The idea of (partial) story resetting without wiping the progresses sounds like a good idea to discuss! However i'm not quite sure if this hits my point to 100% - after all you would have to reset and reset and reset again (if you really keep playing for a long time) What would be perfect from my point of view is a permanent end-game state which is just not cut-down (as it is today, if you wanna formulate it that harsh) So maybe options like "Repeat final bossfight" and/or "Allow warships to jump in after story is finished" would do the trick for me. For what i care, those could be options somewhere in a config file - it could even disable steam achievements then if you want to keep them "pure".

But then again. If i could just reset the story to different milestones without losing my progress, this would already satisfy me to 99%

Giraffasaur

Sean_Ashcroft said:

So maybe options like "Repeat final bossfight" and/or "Allow warships to jump in after story is finished" would do the trick for me.

I love this idea, honestly.

Recently, a toggle option was added for completing Hardcore mode to enable Retro Graphics, which is one of the handicaps that you have to endure (though it's pretty cool to see, which is why it can now be selected if you complete Hardcore mode).

I think it would make sense to have a toggle option added for defeating Gorc: Toggle Warships.

AT THE SAME TIME, because Hardcore mode is separate from the story, Warships will always come after you in Hardcore for the added challenge. And since Hardcore mode is a challenge run itself, I might also recommend trying your hand at it for the late-game. It's where I've become a complete Everspace addict, myself.

PedalToTheMetal

To be honest, the Gorc fight is pretty much annoying. No, it is not bad or anything, in fact it is really interesting - just it isn't something I'd personally like to redo every single run (especially with the game sometimes generating some really fun events on it's own), also redoing it every time will kill off the feeling of some achievement of defeating him in the story mission. In fact I guess the only possible downside of completing the main story is a lack of any additional mission (which doesn't exactly make the game empty, but the presence of one would not be a bad idea). Guess it is time for another DLC then, probably something where you get an option to assist some fleet, effectively allowing you to participate in classic space-sim missions (as they are usually pretty similar in nature, like attack or defend something, patrol some path or escort a unit, they can even be generated in a semi-random way).

Sean_Ashcroft

Giraffasaur said:

AT THE SAME TIME, because Hardcore mode is separate from the story, Warships will always come after you in Hardcore for the added challenge. And since Hardcore mode is a challenge run itself, I might also recommend trying your hand at it for the late-game. It's where I've become a complete Everspace addict, myself.

I had no idea! Tried it yesterday, and actual saw the warships! (And was very satisfied about it) And i
'm also happy that hardcore mode has at least "something" in sector 7 as a final challenge. Honestly i only play hardcore mode currently, but it's also not a real endgame-substitution for me: All the tinkering with the glyphs and subroutines is removed, which was a big part of the game for me.

So i'm still missing a real endgame scenario here. No matter how you play, you're always leaving something out. I must say, I'd probably even pay for a real endgame-DLC, which is focussed around various challenges and to keep playing. That is, of course, if it includes all the content (routines, glyphs, bossfight and so on) and is designed to stay interesting. If i may take FTL as an example here....i've played it countless times, long after the story was finished and everything was unlocked. I probably wouldn't have played it half as much if they left out all alternate loadouts and the final boss. I understand that the comparison might be a bit lacking, but you get the idea.

Maybe we will see something being done about that in future patches. I'd be very very happy!

PedalToTheMetal

Well, an alternative ending sequence after the story is complete is a pretty tough decision, as, surprisingly, it has it's own downsides. First of all, any repetitive mission will eventually feel annoying in Everspace due to the contrast with the rest of the gameplay. The sequence seen in the alpha was pretty long - and after a few tries could get too much of simply repeating the well-learned tactics, the one in Hardcore mode is fun - yet, again, HC is a whole different thing where the goal is to become as much of a kill machine as you can. And this is the second problem of those ending missions: normally, after endgame you are free to experiment with various loadouts with a possibility of having a lower killcount as a price for a better survivability and resource inputs, even with an option of making something completely ridiculous that has one's strong and weak sides pushed to extremes. Of course, such loadouts will make some situations simply impossible to win, forcing your escape. Now the latter is barely possible in case of a fixed scenario at the end of the run at Sector 7, effectively forcing you to balance your builds, which isn't always that fun (as some glyphs and weapons are really fun to use, but are not very effective for many situations and tasks - so you will not really be able to use them).
So, instead I'd vote for the random semi-scripted missions like seen in the Encounters DLC which you can choose whether to do or to skip depending on what you want from each particular run - and preferably an option to select your goal before starting each run as well (in the other words, what you'd like S7 to be this time, sort of an explanation why did you decide to take off): a simple escape as it currently is, attacking a strong enemy, capturing an installation, escaping a battleship and so on. Now this will be ultimate as you can either relax and do silly things or start adapting for a task of your (or the game's) choice.