Stellaris Dev Diary #187 - Post-mortem

[Zagreb 887]

So how will Necrophage and Fanatic Purifiers interact? Will alien pops be allowed to convert, or are they auto-purged like always?

Hummm this smell like a good old juicy oversight, like the one with purifiers turning to synths and purging their own kind ^^

 

[Nerkos_The_Unbidden]

You can't be serious writing this and quoting the most elusive post on the topic of game improvement.

There is nothing in this post, just the mention that maybe one day devs will be working on some QOL, and this will eventualy go to beta.

What are they working about? How many months of silence should we wait until just you guys let us know the matter of those QOL improvements?

How many cosmetic DLC should we endure before having a real overhaul of the game?
I remind you it's for more than 2 Years that si so badly needed fixed are asked!
Please can we have some respect? Because when I read something like this, it just look like your marketing team think we are stupid, brainless fanboys just good for acclaming the least of your posts, and trowhing cash to buy anything you offer us.

No consideration, any crtic is seen as "toxicity" thread suppress or compressed in "megathread" all we have is merchandising DD and despitful silence.
You really are communication Master for sure...

My interpretation was that they are not wanting to mar the species pack with possibly controversial talk about 'fixes'. The post specifies that any dev diaries on that front will be after the Species pack release.

At least 4 of the recent dev diaries have hinted at things that they seem to be looking into.

I myself understand their caution in stating specifics. Most of the changes they have made over the years have been met with criticism (constructive and otherwise).

People look back on the tile system now with fondness, but I remember a great deal of people expressing displeasure about it and lauding the current changes. The dev team could probably fix most of the issues many have pointed out, and there would most likely still be those who would consider the game broken, Unbalanced, espoused other games as better, etc.


One man's trash is another man treasure(as the phrase goes) after all.

I do agree that there are parts of the game which could do with improvement, but the issues which do exist do not seem to prevent a portion of those who do play the game from enjoying it.

 

[Zagreb 887]

My interpretation was that they are not wanting to mar the species pack with possibly controversial talk about 'fixes'. The post specifies that any dev diaries on that front will be after the Species pack release.

At least 4 of the recent dev diaries have hinted at things that they seem to be looking into.

I myself understand their caution in stating specifics. Most of the changes they have made over the years have been met with criticism (constructive and otherwise).

People look back on the tile system now with fondness, but I remember a great deal of people expressing displeasure about it and lauding the current changes. The dev team could probably fix most of the issues many have pointed out, and there would most likely still be those who would consider the game broken, Unbalanced, espoused other games as better, etc.


One man's trash is another man treasure(as the phrase goes) after all.

I do agree that there are parts of the game which could do with improvement, but the issues which do exist do not seem to prevent a portion of those who do play the game from enjoying it.

Yeah, but regarding the on going shitstrom, how could it be worse to just let people know? People that spend money to make this company live BTW.

Imo, the one thing people ask, before even fixes and overhaul, is just communication and consideration. So may they let us know, it can only soften things.
The fact that some people contracted a "tile nostalgia" come from the total lack of future plan for fixing the game.

As you said, one man trash is another man treasure, and it's sad to see that a so disliked feature as tile became to be seen as "not so bad". For tile system to be a treasure, it mean that we are surrounded by very very dirty trash, I think.

 

[Hundar]

Yeah, but regarding the on going shitstrom, how could it be worse to just let people know? People that spend money to make this company live BTW.

Imo, the one thing people ask, before even fixes and overhaul, is just communication and consideration. So may they let us know, it can only soften things.
The fact that some people contracted a "tile nostalgia" come from the total lack of future plan for fixing the game.

As you said, one man trash is another man treasure, and it's sad to see that a so disliked feature as tile became to be seen as "not so bad". For tile system to be a treasure, it mean that we are surrounded by very very dirty trash, I think.

Basically i prefer a game with a functional albeit simple mechanic to a more complicate, broken and impossible for the ai to manage, one

 

[Janx14]

Imo, the one thing people ask, before even fixes and overhaul, is just communication and consideration. So may they let us know, it can only soften things.
The fact that some people contracted a "tile nostalgia" come from the total lack of future plan for fixing the game.

As you said, one man trash is another man treasure, and it's sad to see that a so disliked feature as tile became to be seen as "not so bad". For tile system to be a treasure, it mean that we are surrounded by very very dirty trash, I think.

Well, yes. The new system effectively has all the problems the tile system had, but worse. It meanwhile introduced a number of new issues that by comparison the tile system did pretty well.

The tile system wasn't the best, but it actually worked, and they had it at a place where a player could counteract most of the drawbacks of the system and the AI could soemwhat do it, at least in a way that wouldn't make it easy to deathspiral.

 

[Zagreb 887]

Basically i prefer a game with a functional albeit simple mechanic to a more complicate, broken and impossible for the ai to manage, one

I don't miss tile system, it was boring and tedious, but yes, indeed it at least worked.
The actual system seems to have some potential, but was so badly implemented it just turn into bug fest and micro hell.

But shit happens, errare humanum est, the real problem is that they never try to fix those core problems except for performance in a while, and just continuesly add DLC over DLC on top of a house of card.

They just contemplate money and news players coming and not paying attention for the major problems of the game, yeah its quite normal for a company, but another quite normal behavior for a company is to make sure their product work at least decently, or not?

 

[Ediros]

I don't miss tile system, it was boring and tedious, but yes, indeed it at least worked.
The actual system seems to have some potential, but was so badly implemented it just turn into bug fest and micro hell.

But shit happens, errare humanum est, the real problem is that they never try to fix those core problems except for performance in a while, and just continuesly add DLC over DLC on top of a house of card.

They just contemplate money and news players coming and not paying attention for the major problems of the game, yeah its quite normal for a company, but another quite normal behavior for a company is to make sure their product work at least decently, or not?

As someone who went back to 1.9 as a test, Tile system is god sent compared to micromanagement hell that is 2.7.

Make no mistake, tile system is bad, it's simplistic and boring. However, it actually works. Colonizing planets is easy, making them into good planets even easier.

You pop a ship, get rid of blockers, put all the buildings you want and bam, you are done. Sector AI will upgrade buildings, no micro needed.

What tile system needed was tweaks, some depth added to it. Like amenities, crime, etc. Instead we got complete mess. Other features could have worked, but they decided to scrap them.

Ftl types? Gone because they couldn't fix problems of doomstacks (weak defenses, no snares, no way to know where enemy would go). They could have fixed those, but instead we got CK2 in space with trench warfare. Just look up the thread at the forum of 1.9 vs 2.7.

 

[Rosthun]

Old tile system was plain ol' walking, boring, but reliable.
New economy system is trying to move by doing backflips, looks cool and fancy except it takes a lot more effort, you don't really move all that well and eventually you break your neck.

 

[Jim Slickens]

I still think necrophages are a dumb idea but hey at least the portraits are cool.
I mean how would a species which require other intelligent species to reproduce ever survive long enough to reach the stars?

Eh, They had it in Stargate, and at this point I think the Stellaris team is just trying to cover every sci-fi trope.

 

[-Marauder-]

I don't miss tile system, it was boring and tedious, but yes, indeed it at least worked.
The actual system seems to have some potential, but was so badly implemented it just turn into bug fest and micro hell.

Here's the thing. The tile system? Never went away. It's still there. Now it's just hidden behind pop growth, has no adjacency bonuses anymore, and takes even longer. It's called building slots.

 

[sillyrobot]

Here's the thing. The tile system? Never went away. It's still there. Now it's just hidden behind pop growth, has no adjacency bonuses anymore, and takes even longer. It's called building slots.

and districts. Districts are the old tiles with resource markers. That are always available to build on, but you must respect the resource type. Some have multiple resource types you can choose between (where the district max build count is less than the sum of the individual types) . Buildings are tiles without resource markers. You cannot put the same resource utilization on them and they are locked until pop hits specific targets.

 

[Primarch Victus]

The good guys at Paradox should focus more in fixing the existent problems of the game before coming with new DLCs and Species Packs. I would love to buy and play a Stellaris: Conspiracies featuring things like espionage, sabotage, war propaganda, faction manipulation and political assassination, but I won't buy anything like that -- or any other DLC or Species Pack -- until they are able to solve all problems in the game.

 

[GeorgieBest]

The good guys at Paradox should focus more in fixing the existent problems of the game before coming with new DLCs and Species Packs. I would love to buy and play a Stellaris: Conspiracies featuring things like espionage, sabotage, war propaganda, faction manipulation and political assassination, but I won't buy anything like that -- or any other DLC or Species Pack -- until they are able to solve all problems in the game.

At this point I would love a DLC which just fixes all the current problems and empty content.

 

[Daimonin]

Why. Why? WHY WHY WHY!?

Why the fug would you restrict the necrophage origin to non-gestalt empires!?
Playing a gestalt consciousness that absorbs other species into it's hive, slowly transforming them into just more drones is something that sounds fun, and the LACK of such has been a complaint leveled at gestalt for YEARS. And now anyone BUT gestalt can do it. WTF?

 

[Primarch Victus]

Eeerr... did you ever heard about a Civic called Driven Assimilators for gestalt (machine) empires, Daimonin?

 

[sillyrobot]

Eeerr... did you ever heard about a Civic called Driven Assimilators for gestalt (machine) empires, Daimonin?

And he wants a similar thing for the biological version. It's a fairly common trope.

 

[Nerkos_The_Unbidden]

And he wants a similar thing for the biological version. It's a fairly common trope.

It can already happen, turning biological pops into Hive minds, I believe, albeit Necrophage is a different flavor of assimilation to be sure.

 

[Methone]

It can already happen, turning biological pops into Hive minds, I believe, albeit Necrophage is a different flavor of assimilation to be sure.

By that logic you may as well remove Devouring Swarms since every hive mind can decide to turn on Purge.

 

[Pale Blue]

Why is the new origin exclusive with xenophiles? Can't there be a nice symbiotic relationship between them and other species?

Also why isn't it exclusive with with fanatic purifiers? Your existence depends on other species, but also wants to exterminate them? That's some new way of self-hate.

 

[Bankipriel]

Yes, the 3 job limit on the Chamber of Elevation, which is a planetary unique building. It takes 102 months to grow 3 new pops without any modifiers. With a 10% growth penalty, which I believe is what you get for manually selecting what species grows, it takes 114 months to grow 3 pops. The Chamber of Elevation transforms 3 pops every 120 months, so the pool of potential Necrophytes should always increase as long as you don't select species with a penalty to their fertility.

I don't know how the math works in terms of growth weights for random population growth, but my guess is that where non-Necrophage pops are less than a third of the planetary population, they will be heavily likely to be selected for growth.

I think the necrophage origin will be awesome ... as soon as someone makes a mod that removes the micro and the arbitrary balance.

I'm soooooooo tired of every empire being balanced. I do my best with mods to make the game asymmetric, but at this point, the game is an empty shell that merely holds all the things (mods) that allow for an interesting grand strategy game. Which is great, from one perspective.

However, if a handful of modders ever decide to stop maintaining their mods, I would delete Stellaris and walk away without a second thought.

It seems like a pretty terrible & risky business model for the viability of one's product to hang *entirely* on the free maintenance being done by volunteers who could simply stop maintaining the game on any given day.