Stellaris Dev Diary #298 - Renowned and Legendary Paragons

[Yurichenko]

several doubts: There are no human paragons? I see that one of the leaders that they decided to show us is a diplomat and another, although she is a general, is related to espionage. Will there finally be any relevance in the election of leaders in these aspects? Couldn't rulers function like any other council position, allowing the ruler to keep his initial profession even as the leader of the empire? It would be great to have admiral rulers or generals running military dictatorships or expansionist empires. On the other hand, it would be interesting to have the ruler himself as governor for your capital sector.

 

[Zoomy]

During the creation of the portraits, we wanted to elevate the art and storytelling aspects of the leaders, particularly for the Legendary Paragons. One way we have done this is by breaking up the static poses typically seen in the species portraits. Instead, we've incorporated dynamic poses, gestures, and expressions to make these characters truly stand out.

For the Legendary Paragons, we've moved away from the traditional three-quarter pose and experimented with more engaging and dramatic poses. This change not only helps to emphasize the importance of these characters but also makes their portraits visually striking.

The Renowned Paragons, on the other hand, maintain a pose closer to the original species portraits, but with added details and props that help convey their personal stories. Subtle elements such as hand gestures, smirks, scars, or unique clothing items help to give a glimpse into each character's background and personality.

Between the screencaps we've seen thusfar and this particular chunk of text, I'm starting to get concerned that the new DLC content might look too good. With respect to the UI designers past and present, the Stellaris UI has always prioritised functionality over looking the best (with mixed results) and now we're getting all these rad new Council screens and dynamically posing unique leaders and it all just doesn't sound congruent with what's come before.

Also Kai-Sha makes me wish Imperial rulers had mechanics where a King could go out and seek his Queen to rule the galaxy with.

 

[Snorro Soliman]

If there's not a Spiffing Brit Paragon I'm gonna be upset

Id love to see Spiff.

But if popular streamers are possible.
What if...<shudder>
They create a legendary Merchant who opens with

'Hey, hey people...'

My poor organs would not be safe!

 

[Primarch Victus]

What sort of bothers me here is that characters like Q'la-Minder set a sort of standard here that shouldn't exist. By making him a fixed, unchanging character that always has the same name and portrait in literally every playthrough ever after this patch comes out, you limit what the actual Aquatic portrait he's based on is.
Regardless of whether there is an empire in your game that uses Aquatic 11, that one member of that species will always exist, presumably just popping into existence out of thin air and in the middle of nowhere one day, and he'll always dictate what sort of naming convention will at least in part exist among the Aquatic portrait no. 11 species, regardless of what any lore of a player-made empire using that portrait would have, regardless of which Name List has been chosen for them. Should he still be called Q'la-Minder if every other man of his species goes by Steve or George, or Motile Organ 083?
That brings up another two things: Gestalts cannot use Paragons. What if the Aquatic 11 species is a Hive Mind, how come this guy is an independant individual? And would he still be a guy if someone made them all-female or genderless during Empire creation? If so, why?

Sure, you may not always encounter him. But he will always exist, there will always be the chance that just one Authoritarian Empire in your galaxy hires a leader from a species that either literally doesn't exist at all, or doesn't in the form that Q'la-Minder implies. He is basically bound to break immersion by merely existing.

The other Paragons suffer from a similar issue in that they are somehow members of unique species that you somehow encounter only a single member of, even if you have a fully upgraded Sentry Array set up that reveals that no, there isn't any more of them in the whole galaxy, with the notable exception of Borin and the salvagers, who at least have some precedent, as well as Azaryn, who is explicitly the last of her species and thus has an explanation for the absence of anyone like her.

2 types of Military leader still, but Envoys (Diplomats) remain the unwanted stepchild of the leader pool. Generals really serve no purpose and ground forces should be rolled into fleets and operated by Admirals.

Also this, and MSI, really start to make me worry about Stellaris turning into Endless Space - A fixed universe with nonsensical situations like sole members of species being these amazing figures you'll see time and time again, and strategies will start to metastatise around getting certain ones. It's a drift away from what I feel was the core appeal of Stellaris - A different galaxy every time, full of different species and emergent gameplay creating stories about the dynamically generated leaders. The direction of the game is wrong. Instead of making these Original Characters Donut Steel, you should've invested that effort into ways to dynamically elevate leaders that perform well into these 'paragons'

Hmm, I don't know if I like the fundamental idea behind this. On the one hand, Stellaris already has pregenerated species. The crisis is the biggest example. But having such rigid species portraits feels like it'd take away some of the randomness behind it; especially if you encounter a species that happens to share the leader's portrait.

Did you all stopped to think that not random leaders make far more easy for the devs to create interesting backstories/events for these Renowmed and Legendary leaders? Not everything in Stellaris needs to be annoyingly random! I would love to craft my very own galaxy/universe by deciding what empire would be a vassal of other or what kind of species would be part of this Federation (from the Common Ground Origin)/Hegemony (Hegemon Origin), but noooo! Everything in Stellaris needs to be random! I hate that!

 

[Calvax]

Leaving out gestalt players is a big shame imo. Adding a machine and hive renowned paragon feels like a no brainer to me.

Agreed. I don't see why a gestalt couldn't recruit unique leaders. Especially for progenitor origin hives.

 

[Primarch Victus]

I don't want Azaryn to die.

I agree 100% with you. It should have a way to cure her and/or restore her species.

I’ll throw my hat on the soapbox and join the crowd saying I don’t like the whole pregenerated nature of the paragons, although I’ll be keeping my mind open, and see how it feels to play. With legendary paragons it makes sense, unique art, story, and voice lines require a fairly strict story. I just hope you won’t be getting 2-3 of them every game.

For the renowned paragons, while I do like the cool art, and especially how they are based on real species, I think it would be better to have some variation. Have them tie more into the actual galaxy. Like, is Vas the Guilded always from the Alyssum Magnetar Sisterhood? Why have we never heard of this empire before?

What I think would be better is if each character had random names, possibly a random trait (I do think at least two preset traits are needed to capture the character of the leader), and then pull a portrait from a few options. Give them labels like “rich”, “military”, “shady”, “mechanical”, “scoundrel”, etc. For example, Kai-Sha could fit for both shady and mechanical.

It would be a significant amount of more work, and I know it won’t happen, but it would hold much closer to the emergent storytelling that makes Stellaris what it is.

Did you stopped to think that maybe this "Alyssum Magnetar Sisterhod" is not an empire? By its name, it could very well be some sort of religious organization instead.

And we have enough of this blasted randomization in the game. I prefer to have a few fixed/unique content instead of more randomness.

 

[Methone]

Did you all stopped to think that not random leaders make far more easy for the devs to create interesting backstories/events for these Renowmed and Legendary leaders? Not everything in Stellaris needs to be irritating random! I would love to craft my very own galaxy/universe by deciding what empire would be a vassal of other or what kind of species would be part of this Federation (from the Common Ground Origin)/Hegemony (Hegemon Origin), but noooo! Everything in Stellaris needs to be random! I hate that!

I don't want to play the same game over and over and over. I don't want the same Curators over and over, I don't want the same FEs over and over. I want more Void Dwellers origins, not more Knights of the Toxic Gods origins, not more Fear of the Dark origins.

This is a perfectly valid concern. More and more Stellaris is become a fixed universe, and less emergent. I was excited for the leader rework but this dev diary made PDX lose my purchase of the dlc.

 

[Primarch Victus]

If you don't like of what you are seeing here, I'm pretty sure that you will find plenty of other, incredibly boring and completely non-random 4x games in the market.

You and the other two guys at the back of the room are the only ones here believing that Stellaris is at risk of becoming a fixed universe.

 

[Ixal]

Oh stfu. I don't want to play the same game over and over and over. I don't want the same Curators over and over, I don't want the same FEs over and over. I want more Void Dwellers origins, not more Knights of the Toxic Gods origins, not more Fear of the Dark origins.

This is a perfectly valid concern. More and more Stellaris is become a fixed universe, and less emergent. I was excited for the leader rework but this dev diary made PDX lose my purchase of the dlc.

"I dont want all those customization options and the possibilities for emergent storytelling they bring because 20 leaders are fixed!!!!!"

The new leader system does far more for emergent stories than the how much 20 fixed and optional leaders limit it.

 

[zZander56]

Will special council positions (such as the one granted by Beacon of Liberty) be mechanically distinct from other positions, or is it only a name change?

 

[Methone]

If you don't like of what you are seeing here, I'm pretty sure that you will find plenty of other, incredibly boring and completely non-random 4x games in the market.

You and the other two guys at the back of the room are the only ones here believing that Stellaris is becoming a fixed universe.

I cannot even begin to start describing how ridiculous your logic is. It's going to bother me but... holy hell. How do you function?

 

[Trithne]

Did you all stopped to think that not random leaders make far more easy for the devs to create interesting backstories/events for these Renowmed and Legendary leaders? Not everything in Stellaris needs to be annoyingly random! I would love to craft my very own galaxy/universe by deciding what empire would be a vassal of other or what kind of species would be part of this Federation (from the Common Ground Origin)/Hegemony (Hegemon Origin), but noooo! Everything in Stellaris needs to be random! I hate that!

I'm not here for Paradox's fixed stories that don't change from game to game. I'm here for the dynamic stories that emerge out of systems interacting. Events are just blocks of text with a paltry modifier on the end, and half the Origins added lately are basically just event packs. Origins that don't add meaningful gameplay divergences are just more of "Paradox's stories".

The power of games is the way that they can tell widely varied stories, different every time. Computers let us simulate all kinds of possibilities, but it seems we'd rather just use them to tell fancy picture books.

 

[SeraphAscending]

More and more Stellaris is become a fixed universe, and less emergent.

It would be if it wasn't stuff that was as benign as faction portraits. The Salvagers (as an example) having the same portrait over and over again is not inhibiting gameplay at all.
The are a fixed faction, they offer fixed services. Just like any other enclave. What portrait they have changes nothing.

The complaint you bring is functionally identical to the complaint that the pool of events is finite and most of us have seen most events already and they only have limited flexibility. They often runs similar, don't they?

These leaders are (from my understanding) primarily hooks for story events in combination with a special mix of traits that can't be generated randomly. Whether or not you have access to them is still random. The story events are still like any other pool of events in the game.

Sure, they are pre-generated and thus the same every run. But they are still random in the same way every other aspect of the game is random.
Will you start squished between two genocidals? Maybe an empty corner of the galaxy for you alone to exploit? Which crises will hit and when? Which perks will the other empires pick? Will there be random events or archeological sites that hamper your progress or give you exactly what you needed?

The whole game is a box of tons of pre-generated content. You just don't know which pre-generated stuff you'll see in your run. And every DLC fills that box with more stuff that you could potentially see.

Your complaint would only really be valid if there is an easy way to at least almost always get that one leader you want and thus taking the randomness aspect out of it. If that is not the case, then i don't really think you have a point.

 

[Foxosaur]

I’m seeing some inspiration from Padme Amidala! They do look great though.

Incase no one has asked, you have to, without much question, use a paragon to represent the Khan. Maybe he can be added to the free part of the game to entice players for the DLC - since the dialogue of him is very enigmatic, driven but also ruthless. A prime candidate me thinks. Please consider it .

 

[Zanotir]

When I read "We gathered everyone at Arctic and sat down to brainstorm..." I can't help but think "And those who didn't provide enough good ideas are left in the Arctic" (must be a traditional Swedish brainstorming method)

 

[Me_]

I like the unique portraits, but I wish they would use more portraits with non-humanoid body plan. E.g. arachnids.

 

[Cosmic Fishering Fleet]

So, Xenophobic Paragons.
Ur-Quan Kzer-Za? Spathi? AH! Dnyarri!

 

[Getty]

What sort of bothers me here is that characters like Q'la-Minder set a sort of standard here that shouldn't exist. By making him a fixed, unchanging character that always has the same name and portrait in literally every playthrough ever after this patch comes out, you limit what the actual Aquatic portrait he's based on is.
Regardless of whether there is an empire in your game that uses Aquatic 11, that one member of that species will always exist, presumably just popping into existence out of thin air and in the middle of nowhere one day, and he'll always dictate what sort of naming convention will at least in part exist among the Aquatic portrait no. 11 species, regardless of what any lore of a player-made empire using that portrait would have, regardless of which Name List has been chosen for them. Should he still be called Q'la-Minder if every other man of his species goes by Steve or George, or Motile Organ 083?
That brings up another two things: Gestalts cannot use Paragons. What if the Aquatic 11 species is a Hive Mind, how come this guy is an independant individual? And would he still be a guy if someone made them all-female or genderless during Empire creation? If so, why?

Sure, you may not always encounter him. But he will always exist, there will always be the chance that just one Authoritarian Empire in your galaxy hires a leader from a species that either literally doesn't exist at all, or doesn't in the form that Q'la-Minder implies. He is basically bound to break immersion by merely existing.

The other Paragons suffer from a similar issue in that they are somehow members of unique species that you somehow encounter only a single member of, even if you have a fully upgraded Sentry Array set up that reveals that no, there isn't any more of them in the whole galaxy, with the notable exception of Borin and the salvagers, who at least have some precedent, as well as Azaryn, who is explicitly the last of her species and thus has an explanation for the absence of anyone like her.

He is specifically a unique character, just use your imagination a lil bit.

If the species which uses his portrait is all female, maybe he changed his gender because he is an asshole tyrant who wants to be above others (especially those of his same species).

If the species is a gestalt, then he might be the result of some genetic mistake, a bizarre ruthless deviant drone that uses the ruthlessness that comes from his gestalt origins onto others for the sake of efficiency and domination.

Like, if you are a roleplaying player, just roleplay it. Interact with what is happening using your imagination.

Your complaint is especially bizarre because the bigger issue of creating your own "human race" but the United Nations of Earth or Commonwealth of Man spawning and not identifying you as human still happens. In fact you can get another species using your portrait as any species. That is a far bigger issue which should be solved by adding some button to make it so that only you will spawn with your species portrait.

 

[Dementor4]

Curious to see what the Xenophobe paragons are.

Yeah, kind of hard to imagine. One might be an AI whose algorithms lead them to conclude (correctly!) that your species is the very best one. But even that, frankly, is a stretch and will only please a minority of xenophobes. For best results it should, somehow, be a member of your own species.

 

[Cosmic Fishering Fleet]

Your complain is especially bizarre because the bigger issue of creating your own "human race" but the United Nations of Earth or Commonwealth of Man not identifying you as human still happens. In fact you can get another species using your portrait as any species.

Which might be realistic, honestly. Even on Sol III, we have some animals that look very similar but are very far away, genetically speaking.