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Stellaris Dev Diary #185: Announcing Necroids

Hello everyone!

Today we bring you some exciting news about our upcoming Species Pack! We’re happy to announce that our next species pack will be themed around death and should allow you to live death to the fullest! Check out the trailer below:


Necroids will feature:
  • 15+1 new portraits (the +1 being machine)
  • 1 new Ship Set
  • 1 new City Set
  • 1 new Room background
  • 1 new Origin
  • 3 new Civics
  • 1 new pre-scripted Empire
  • 1 new Advisor Voice
We wanted to add ships that had a more sinister or evil appearance, and I’m very happy to say we’ve made something really great. We’ll go into more detail about the ships, and give you a peek into the art process, in a future dev diary.

True to the theme, we wanted the portraits to revolve around death, but not look outright undead or decaying. We never intended the Necroids to be specifically undead, but rather themed around death. Similar to the ships, we will be doing a dev diary in the future to give you a peek into the art process, and also reveal all the new portraits. Stay tuned!

Regarding the other features, we have already shown you some of them, such as the Death Cult Civic and the Memorialist Civic. The remaining features will be revealed over the next couple of weeks, and maybe you'll even get to learn about Jeff. But for now, let’s pass the Mishar Cabal into our memories.

---

General Donnten threw her bloodied axe next to Ostiir’s severed head. The others in the Leadership Council would remember this the next time they considered interrupting her in the Mishar Althing.

She pushed past the acolytes that were coming to deal with the corpse. They were annoyed - the rites were always harder if the head was removed - but they would just have to stitch it back together.

Smiling to herself, she left the arena. At least Ostiir would be an obedient little soldier now.


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you dont need to read everything, even just reading the first 3 pages is enough to tell you exactly what the rest of the 18 are about
yes, but if i'm an Artist, reading 3 sites of complinments and flaming about AI, what will i do? well, going back to my artwork and thats it, maybe telling someone who works on ai that, again, the players complain about problems...but just if i see one of them, but i ask you, where will an Artist meet someone who works on AI and talk about theese posts here?

i do not say that talking about theese problems is wrong, but it don't help if you do it at the wrong place, its like saying that the coffee has too much whater while you are talking to a group of children in the park, it doesn't changes the coffee...
 
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yes, but if i'm an Artist, reading 3 sites of complinments and flaming about AI, what will i do? well, going back to my artwork and thats it, maybe telling someone who works on ai that, again, the players complain about problems...but just if i see one of them, but i ask you, where will an Artist meet someone who works on AI and talk about theese posts here?

i do not say that talking about theese problems is wrong, but it don't help if you do it at the wrong place, its like saying that the coffee has too much whater while you are talking to a group of children in the park, it doesn't changes the coffee...

dev diaries are the only places left in this forum that ACTUALLY make developers look at the comments tho
like, quarantine threads literally are there to just dumb complaints so the devs dont have to look at them.

And see where that has gotten us to
 
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yes, but if i'm an Artist, reading 3 sites of complinments and flaming about AI, what will i do? well, going back to my artwork and thats it, maybe telling someone who works on ai that, again, the players complain about problems...but just if i see one of them, but i ask you, where will an Artist meet someone who works on AI and talk about theese posts here?

i do not say that talking about theese problems is wrong, but it don't help if you do it at the wrong place, its like saying that the coffee has too much whater while you are talking to a group of children in the park, it doesn't changes the coffee...

Except that grekulf is the lead designer of the game, not an artist (at least not professionally, I don't know if he dabbles)

So yeah this is actually 100% the correct place. Unless you'd like to suggest somewhere better?
 
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the whole "people complain on dev diaries about the game" thing started just recently, BECAUSE the forum is DEAD, and people realized that

again, something that has been explained multiple times already
 
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There are a bunch of things that we're working on, including some quality of life and micromanagement changes that are too big to go alongside a species pack. We'll start discussing those once they bake a little longer and I can give firmer information.

I'm one of those that hate the micromanagement more than the broken AI, so I would definetly appreciate improvements in that area. It's a shame you're getting flak for the post.

However you'll be competing against the pre 2.2 version and with the economy system as it currently is I don't see that working out. The whole point seems to have been to create a balancing act mini game for the player. At some point the development of colonies needs to be "done".

And I really dislike any mechanic that prevents me from making "perfect" colonies that are stable. Crime? No fun factor, just an annoyance made to provoke the player into a reaction. Overpopulation? Nothing but a nuisance that requires the player to babysit the planet. Planet decisions that expire? ...

And the inclusion of strategic resources into the economy made the game more boring. System containing a resource? Yeah whatever.

There is no star system worth fighting for unless it's a choke point which is only relevant at the start. The system with megastructures are mildy interesting but you can build those yourself later anyway. And the wait for the tech to repair them can be so long they don't matter most of the game.

And I nearly forgot the pirate mechanic, yeah no thanks.

Anyway, here's hoping for the next DD to be more interesting.
 
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the whole "people complain on dev diaries about the game" thing started just recently, BECAUSE the forum is DEAD, and people realized that

again, something that has been explained multiple times already
well, than look at it from the point "why is the forum dead?"
howeverif it truly is like you say, than we are close to the point i sayed about Star Trek Online, and the fault is on both sides, the devs don't doing what the users want and the users using the forum "incorrectly"... so yah, what to do...? I would stop complaining here and go another way, if "working" with the creators is not possible, i will "work" with the modders who "cares more"... its not the way it sould be, but if ther is no other, why wasting time?
 
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well, than look at it from the point "why is the forum dead?"
howeverif it truly is like you say, than we are close to the point i sayed about Star Trek Online, and the fault is on both sides, the devs don't doing what the users want and the users using the forum "incorrectly"... so yah, what to do...? I would stop complaining here and go another way, if "working" with the creators is not possible, i will "work" with the modders who "cares more"... its not the way it sould be, but if ther is no other, why wasting time?


I mean the forum is dead because the only Comms we get from the Devs are cringey Dev diaries where they try and build hype for a product that nobody wants.

Most of the vitriol would disappear overnight if they just put out a statement saying "look, we know it's bad, but we've not been allowed the resources to fix it"

Because for all we know they are sat there patting each other on the back after another "job well done". That kind of mental gymnastics echo chamber crap is everything that is wrong with modern western society. Do you want spacetrump? Because attitudes like that are how you get spacetrump.

I'm done buying bells for a bike with square wheels.
 
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well, than look at it from the point "why is the forum dead?"
howeverif it truly is like you say, than we are close to the point i sayed about Star Trek Online, and the fault is on both sides, the devs don't doing what the users want and the users using the forum "incorrectly"... so yah, what to do...? I would stop complaining here and go another way, if "working" with the creators is not possible, i will "work" with the modders who "cares more"... its not the way it sould be, but if ther is no other, why wasting time?
I feel that I am going to get flamed but I would like to point out something again.

First, I agree with everyone complaining about AI: it should be better, a lot better. There is no doubt.

However, @The_Draco when you talk about "the users" who are you referring to exactly ? Because again, when we look at the Steam reviews, it appears that 90% of the users do enjoy the game. We can talk if this is normal, or if this is because they are not expecting as much as others, ect... but I feel this is a point a lot are missing here. Obviously, a positive steam review does not mean the game is perfect. And often, you will find positive review with constructive criticism (much like some negative review with same kind of criticism)

Which brings me to my other question for the crowd here: have you changed your review to negative (if it was positive before) ? have you stopped buying Stellaris DLC since some time ?

My point here, is I believe Stellaris Dev team are well aware of the AI issue that was brought for many years by many people. But:
1. They explained their plan about it - https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/stellaris-dev-diary-172-reworking-the-ai.1348837
2. They started to make some improvement about it - 2.6

Are some people fed up to wait longer ? Sure. And it is your right to complain loudly on forums. But as far as I see, a lot of users keep enjoying the game despite the flawed AI and obviously, this also impact the priorities of the dev team based on that.
 
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Except that grekulf is the lead designer of the game, not an artist (at least not professionally, I don't know if he dabbles)

So yeah this is actually 100% the correct place. Unless you'd like to suggest somewhere better?

No. Wherever you’re choosing to complain is the wrong place to complain. Always and forever.
 
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I feel that I am going to get flamed but I would like to point out something again.

First, I agree with everyone complaining about AI: it should be better, a lot better. There is no doubt.

However, @The_Draco when you talk about "the users" who are you referring to exactly ? Because again, when we look at the Steam reviews, it appears that 90% of the users do enjoy the game. We can talk if this is normal, or if this is because they are not expecting as much as others, ect... but I feel this is a point a lot are missing here. Obviously, a positive steam review does not mean the game is perfect. And often, you will find positive review with constructive criticism (much like some negative review with same kind of criticism)

Which brings me to my other question for the crowd here: have you changed your review to negative (if it was positive before) ? have you stopped buying Stellaris DLC since some time ?

My point here, is I believe Stellaris Dev team are well aware of the AI issue that was brought for many years by many people. But:
1. They explained their plan about it - https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/stellaris-dev-diary-172-reworking-the-ai.1348837
2. They started to make some improvement about it - 2.6

Are some people fed up to wait longer ? Sure. And it is your right to complain loudly on forums. But as far as I see, a lot of users keep enjoying the game despite the flawed AI and obviously, this also impact the priorities of the dev team based on that.

I changed my review to negative 3 months after 2.2 release. I own all DLCs pre Megacorp and none beyond that.

That was 2 years ago I suppose? I admire people still finding the strength to provide constructive criticism. I drop by the forum every quarter maybe and you can be dead sure it reads always the same: pathetic development direction, big waste of opportunity.
 
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My point here, is I believe Stellaris Dev team are well aware of the AI issue that was brought for many years by many people. But:
1. They explained their plan about it - https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/stellaris-dev-diary-172-reworking-the-ai.1348837
2. They started to make some improvement about it - 2.6

Are some people fed up to wait longer ? Sure. And it is your right to complain loudly on forums. But as far as I see, a lot of users keep enjoying the game despite the flawed AI and obviously, this also impact the priorities of the dev team based on that.

For me AI is not a big issue. Nowadays I mostly play MPs where AIs don't matter or SP with AI mods. More important for me is to get good tools for managing builds on my planets. I cannot get past mid-game tedium of constant babysitting my planets. When there are 20 or more planets, I get lost. Honestly, for me right now it would be enough just to be able to add some custom notes to every planet in order to remember what the hell did I plan for this place when I played last weekend. I actually use external text editor to do this.

I don't feel it's that much of a trouble to implement an additional text field, goddamit.
 
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at last i think a dev diary isn't for flaming pdx for its problems but for talking about what is postet, there are threats for the other themes, so flame there if you truly need to and leave the dds empty.
01. Any negative critique equals "flaming", right ? No, but actually Yes, right ? Last time I've checked, this place is still called a forum and not a marketing-platform.
02. What a coincidence that Paradox sets the theme ( "Necroids"-DLC ) in a thread like this ( dev-diary ) so that someone like you can write about topic-derailment whenever someone else addresses delicate themes like incompletions, bugs, performance-/ and balance-issues that Paradox itself avoids like the devil the holy water, especially in the respective threads you've mentioned. Such tricks get recognized and do just fuel what you've labeled as "flaming" and what's left that the respective threads follow always the same pattern that customers argue with or against other customers, but with no Paradox in sight. So, if you don't want to be bothered with that then the solution is pretty easy: Way more interaction on Paradox side on that front, either through way more own threads or through its participation in the respective threads.
 
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