Stellaris Dev Diary #302 - Leaders and 3.8.3 Balance Changes

[Workiwork]

However we balance around the default Galaxy Gen settings. Most folks aren't running 1000 stars for their games.

I do not run 1000 Star Galaxies because i cant. If i Could, i would run 10.000

A 600 Star Galaxy with 12 AI feels more like a Boardgame than a 4X. Still Fun but not Epic. I would like the Feeling of reaching the Endgame without even thinking of really impacting all the galaxy. But I Understand that that is not a good way to spend workhours.

Still I Hope for Stelaris 2 (yeah yeah i know...but i can wait to 2031) epic scale is more on the cards. with 100 AIs it would not be so bad if 1/3 is a vassal of someone else and so on.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Why,

Why not?

You're clearly not clearly happy being here, or where the game is going. If the game is going places that part ways with you, there's no reason to keep playing the modern form, or to stick around places where discussion is focused on current and future trends you won't be partaking in. Some people parted ways with the pop rework last year, and that's ok.

Unless, of course, you were being hyperbolic and the game doesn't actually put you off in its entirety, and these changes are not actually a deal breaker for you.

so the CK II/III players who never posted on this forum before can keep hyping this change, despite quite a few of them not even owning the game.

So you could spend your limited luxury-product money and recreation time playing and talking about something you find fun with people who share your views, obviously.

You have limited time in your life. Spending on something you claim to not like in its entirety seems like a waste. Hate-hobbies are a thing, but not a common or healthy thing.

Who are funnily also the ones to downvote folks here?

Are they? I wouldn't know. I can't say I've ever looked into people who downvote me and then checked their forum tags.

 

[Imp0815]

Neither, exactly. This is actually a case of the designers doing the right thing, albeit with unfortunate side effects.

Specifically, admirals (like all leaders) are much scarcer now, because of the leader cap. So the idea was, instead of having two fleets with old-school meh admirals, you'd have one fleet with a new Paragons-style admiral. Obviously, that requires increasing the fleet cap... and it's a good goal to have! It sucks that now most fleets don't have real admirals!

Their mistake was not looking at the purpose of the feature and finding a new way to achieve it. Instead of making fleet sizes scale with leader level, they should have just increased them across the board (by probably 50-100%). So on day 1 you have a fleet cap of 30 or 40, when you research Destroyers your cap goes to 45 or 60, when you research the techs that currently give +20 fleet cap each, they instead gives +30 or +40... straightforward, logical, dead simple to implement, and preserves the reasons for both the fleet cap existing in the first place and increasing with 3.8!

The fleet cap exists in the first place because there used to be a harder leader limit than now, which they got rid of because it sucked. The fleet cap, combined with a poorly-documented DPS bonus that smaller fleets get against larger ones, and eventually the presence of titan auras, served as a balancing factor where a small empire could field a fully-staffed high-quality navy while a larger empire with enormous piles of mineral income - alloys didn't exist yet - would have a greater quantity of individually inferior ships (plus some fully-led ones; it was still better to go big in nearly all cases).

It is not, and never was, in any way related to doomstacks. Doomstacking was and is still trivial and completely unaffected by fleet cap; just assign all of your fleets to follow the slowest one (until they accidentally broke fleet following between systems in 3.8 and didn't even address it for a while, somehow). 10 fleets all following the slowest one is exactly equivalent in terms of strategic maneuvering and number of ships in the battle to stuffing all of those ships into a single 10-times-as-large fleet. In fact, all else being equal, smaller fleets are better because you can't retreat only part of a big fleet (e.g. pull your torpedo ships out after killing all their large vessels, or your battleships out if the enemy is torpedo-heavy) but you can if you put each type of ship into its own fleet. The ability to further specialize those fleets via admirals - at least, until you run out of leader capacity - is icing on the cake.

Thank you for the explanation. Your reasoning seems logic but does not shine a good light on the decision anyway.

They wont raise the ships per fleet limits as they intent to reduce the number of ships per fleets in the future to have less clipping, re-balance the combat, again and have the performance improve as less models need to rendered. At least that is what i remember hearing and reading from Eldarin.

I have it always with me in my signature how i would imagine a greater rework of the military systems so i try to keep it limited to admirals for the sake of the subject:
Admirals should be used like Generals or Admirals in HoI. They get assigned to a new higher Organisation unit that is a "Fleet" or "Armada" and the current Units we call Fleets should be assign to that Armada. Currently this would just serve as a stat applying organisation and based on the admirals level he can have X number of Units in them. If the admiral dies the Units over cap, would just drop out of that Armada or reassign to the next empty slot of another Armada. No splitting or other annoying stuff. It would be neat if each "Unit" has a generated commodore and when an Admiral dies one of the them, out of the Armada, gets automatically promoted. And you can choose their starting trait out of 3, just like you would buy a new Admiral.
With the planned reduction of fleets per ship this would make a fine basis to further enhance the military system.

I often forget the fleet size disparity modifier as it is as you described, not really impact full.
I also think that the disengagement of smaller fleets is also trivial as the disengagement is already handled for each ship automatically and yes you could micro this but overall its not really a meaningful or engaging mechanic to watch and press a button.

All after all i'm here to always remember everyone that Doomstacks are still in the game making, as you perfectly summarized, the Combat trivial and boring - Stellaris needs a better system to handle combat and warfare to fit the otherwise fun and engaging experience of managing your Star Empire.

 

[-Marauder-]

Why not?

You're clearly not clearly happy being here, or where the game is going. If the game is going places that part ways with you, there's no reason to keep playing the modern form, or to stick around places where discussion is focused on current and future trends you won't be partaking in. Some people parted ways with the pop rework last year, and that's ok.

Unless, of course, you were being hyperbolic and the game doesn't actually put you off in its entirety, and these changes are not actually a deal breaker for you.



So you could spend your limited luxury-product money and recreation time playing and talking about something you find fun with people who share your views, obviously.

You have limited time in your life. Spending on something you claim to not like in its entirety seems like a waste. Hate-hobbies are a thing, but not a common or healthy thing.

Or, I very much dislike the change and want it to be changed. You know, which is a completely legitimate stance to have. "Just give up, because you disagree with me." is a disingenuous approach to discussing things. The same could've been said about all the people who wanted Stellaris to be a carbon copy of their other favourite Paradox title since day one.

Then again, this is getting rapidly off topic and personal.

 

[blahmaster6k]

-10% cost of Scientists/Admirals/Governors instead of +20% XP Gain?
Ouch, these perks are nefed to the ground! With the leader cap being as tight as it is, these perks are now among the worst of all and are largery inconsequential.

I think the idea was that these traditions all existed before Aptitude was added, and now they want Aptitude to be the main tradition that increases leader experience gain. It was a bit silly before that Discovery gave a bigger boost to leader experience than the tradition tree that was all about leaders.

With Aptitude being in the game, if you take it you still have more leader experience gain than you would have before 3.8, it's just not quite as strong as it was at release.

 

[julianjaynes222]

Very cool changes. Glad to see that admirals can now explore and the other leader changes. I still think the leader cap is too tight, which is why I am using mods, but I am glad to hear more changes are planned in the future.

 

[A2ch0n]

Mainly related to the ending part of the Origin

Would you maybe give us some spoilers?

There are especially two things i really would like to know:
1) Is the Luminary unbound from it's home world (golden throne) if we take one of the ascension path endings?
2) Will the Luminary get a third destiny trait, tailored to the ascension path we took?

 

[Ikael]

Thinking more about the biggest elephant in the room (that is, leaders and leader cap); I do wonder what would be the better course of action (the "eager" trait seems to me more like a temporal patch than a long-term solution, and yep, we are not going back to the old leader system either).

So, out of the options they are exploring:

- Leader cap scaling with map size is apparently way too complicated to implement from a programming point of view, so that's discarded I guess

- Institutions filling "void positions" (say, the Ministry of Defense being in charge of fleets without admirals) is an interesting thing. Perhaps having to choose between strong institutions (thus, small buffs to everything) VS strong leaders (big bonuses to the chosen few) might become a thing.

- Zero-level leaders are also interesting, for they fulfill the "horror vacuii" problem of unfulfilled positions and might present the player with interesting choices about which one of our faceless bureaucrats will be promoted to become an actual leader, allowed to level up beyond that point (and thus, use the leader cap), but I feel that it should be a bit more fleshed out and developed before being implemented (say, zero-level leaders having different traits or personalities, so you would want this particular admiral to become a "true leader", instead of the other one. The fewer non-decisions, the better, I say).

- Class-specific leader limits might be the most balanced approach, even if it is a bit tad "gamey". The good thing about it though, is that it would solve the problem of every empire having the same leader composition in the early game (read: go all in on scientists), which is something that might remain even with a zero-level leader system (but perhaps both can be combined?)

 

[Abdulijubjub]

And the people who maintained that position well beyond the point the devs made clear a different direction were well served by leaving long ago.

I don't feel like this is productive either.

I will continue to make my preferences known (though hopefully not just by repeating myself).

The devs have stated the direction they'd like to take the game in. But the implementation is full of exploits, perverse incentives, and other balance issues, and the direction itself is designed for the dev's playstyle (never hire more than 4 scientists scientists on ships throughout the entire game, don't expand past a few hyperlanes unless you're conquering, don't play late game, etc.) to the exclusion of others. So I think it needs some serious refinement.

"Stop posting the same hyperbolic complaints over and over" is fair. "Stop complaining and go away entirely, the game is no longer for you after years of playing and one bad change that's still receiving major revisions" is not. I haven't played a serious game since the patch dropped either; that doesn't mean I just want to completely stop playing.

This patch just addressed a major issue using Eager leaders (though they have weird corner cases and are by no means perfect). And the devs want us to enjoy the game, it's not like they want to lock people out; this was just one style of play getting a bunch of cool stuff that had unfortunate side effects for another.

We're slowly moving a bit closer to a happy medium and sanding off the rough edges.

Edit: to be clear, by "never hire more than 4 scientists", I meant "no more than 4 science ships". So 7 scientists (3 researchers, 4 on ships) in 3.7, if you count the head researchers, not 3 head researchers and 1 surveyor. In hindsight, that was not well phrased at all, if not outright misleading. In the current patch, that's only 4 scientists, though (unless the ruler is also a scientist). I was referring to this (a very helpful post, especially for seeing where the miscommunication was coming from). My point was (supposed to be) that the devs seem to be basing their caps on hiring, total, for the entire game, what I consider a barely acceptable amount to hire in the first 10 years.

 

[DeanTheDull]

I don't feel like this is productive either.

I will continue to make my preferences known (though hopefully not just by repeating myself).

As you should, because you don't. You strive to do it in a healthy and productive way, without attacking posters who disagree with you as shills or insinuating malign motives on developers. In the days since the release, you separated your emotions from your analysis, took care to compose, and refined your points and the nature of counterpoints. You can make structured arguments on what you like and don't like, identify things you do and do not without claiming nothing of value, and most importantly have tried to shape discussion on ways that could plausibly move forwards without demanding a reversion of the entire premise.

Your arguments are better for it. The forum is better for it. Of all the people who really didn't like major parts of the change, I'd easily peg you as one of the best in form, and I say that as someone who regularly spars with you and respects you more for your ability to disagree and debate.

The devs have stated the direction they'd like to take the game in. But the implementation is full of exploits, perverse incentives, and other balance issues, and the direction itself is designed for the dev's playstyle (never hire more than 4 scientists throughout the entire game, don't expand past a few hyperlanes unless you're conquering, don't play late game, etc.) to the exclusion of others. So I think it needs some serious refinement.

And I agree. I think it misrepresents a bit ('never hire more than 4 scientists throughout a game'), but a key point is refinement, not tossing the principle out. You can (and have) made good cases on why the total-shared cap limit is rough, that the map baseline isn't enough, and more. These are good arguments. I encourage them, even when I disagree, and when I disagree it's as often in ways that will make you seem even more reasonable even if you 'lose', and thus make you more likely to win the overall goal (refining). When you step back from rhetorical overreach, you make better arguments.


These are not the arguments Marauder makes.

"Stop posting the same hyperbolic complaints over and over" is fair. "Stop complaining and go away entirely, the game is no longer for you after years of playing and one bad change that's still receiving major revisions" is not.

I disagree in the sense that the later is appropriate when the former is true. If one is going to post the same hyperbolic complaints over and over, they really shouldn't stay, no matter how many years they have.

It is 26 May. Paragons released on 9 May. It has not only been a bit over 2 weeks, and we've received our authoritative response in which developers have indicated which areas are subject to refinement, and which directions are not going to be reversed. Hyperbolic complaints either worked- in which case there is no need and this is the point for composed argument on 'how'- or they did not work- in which case there is no need, and they get in the way of those trying to work on the 'how.'

This is the point where toxicity separates from rhetorical tools.

 

[Brodosaurus]

Would you maybe give us some spoilers?

There are especially two things i really would like to know:
1) Is the Luminary unbound from it's home world (golden throne) if we take one of the ascension path endings?
2) Will the Luminary get a third destiny trait, tailored to the ascension path we took?

1. There are other options, based on ascension 2. yes. Although the whole ending-chain was changed a bit

 

[A2ch0n]

changed a bit

That are increadible news! Thank you for the answer can't wait for the patch.

 

[FleetingRain]

That includes you and the people in favour of the change.

Yeah man, which is why they said "us the average".

Just accept us 1000-star players are a minority. Devs may suck at their own game but that doesn't change the demographics.

 

[Zellith]

I'm not a fan of the leader system as it currently functions. You want them to be special, but at the same time you kinda make us want to use them everywhere. It would make more sense to me to give us a limited number of leader slots in our councils and then apply all their bonuses to all relevant places in the empire.

Hell, let's say your empire has 1000 worlds. Lets say 20 sectors. How can you possibly work out where to assign your leaders for the best bonuses? It's a bit much dont you think? I think that having special leaders is fine. But you need to stop trying to make us micro manage them.

 

[Genram]

I think my biggest issue is with the -100% EXP penalty you get for going a handful over the cap on leaders. I can go 1000 ships over my Fleet limit and what... pay some energy? I can go 20 over my Starbase limit and pay what? a little energy? But heavens forbid I go 7 over my leader limit and my ENTIRE Civilizations Leadership is crippled to -100% EXP?!

That would be like being 300 over my fleet limit and my entire Fleet of ships having a -100% damage penalty.

Why do Fleet and Starbase penalties feel like a slap on the wrist and are easily ignored by players, but Leader cap gets a Crippling Penalty?

 

[Aeroclub]

I think the idea was that these traditions all existed before Aptitude was added, and now they want Aptitude to be the main tradition that increases leader experience gain. It was a bit silly before that Discovery gave a bigger boost to leader experience than the tradition tree that was all about leaders.

With Aptitude being in the game, if you take it you still have more leader experience gain than you would have before 3.8, it's just not quite as strong as it was at release.

Well yeah, but the cost reduction also affects the leaders, you know? By that logic, it should also have been moved to Aptitude, and these perks replaced with something else.

As it stands, these perks are essentially placeholers. -10% leader cost when you only have 6-8 of them is literally nothing. It saves you like, what, 1-2 unity early game? Even when your leaders gain levels, the entire bonus of all these perks combined will be comparable to production of like one building (with all the boni). That makes them literally the weakest perks of them ALL.

 

[Rafss]

If Leader Cap followed the same logic as other soft caps, it would only apply increasing Unity Upkeep costs to leaders. Maybe even increase recruitment costs too.
I would like to know why the designers didn't want that, it was certainly considered at some point, it is an obvious route.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

I haven't played as much lately (Against the Storm instead), but from the games I have started (technically Won - no more AI empires, but I didn't wait for the Crisis) Stellaris doesn't actually feel playable, at least to me at the moment.

Here are my thoughts if anyone is interested:

Spoiler: Thoughts

Vassal diplomatic acceptance still making the AI act idiotically and begging to be subjects is my main pain-point, it ruins many games from both a balance and roleplay perspective. So most of my frustration isn't from the recent leader changes, but lingering from overlord:

Council and new positions - Amazing
Agendas - powerful and thematic
Leader traits - needs balancing work
Leader cap - needs a lot of work

Scaling caps aren't just about balancing map settings, that should be a side effect of making sure that mechanics work for both small and large empires, map settings just change how many empires and how big the biggest empire can get on each map. So I found almost all the Developer comments in this thread somewhat disconcerting.

Things that Scale with your empire (which in turn scales with galaxy size):
Titan cap, Starbase Cap, Empire size, Tech Tradition and Planetary Ascension costs, stockpiles, Naval Cap, Empire population etc.

Not scaling with empire size (or modified with galaxy settings):
Habitats and Unique systems (like trappist) do not scale with habitable planet settings (so there's always lots of colonies no matter what)
Juggernauts and Colossi do not scale with Naval Cap (not that Juggernauts are fun to use)
Minor Artifact stockpiles (for some reason)
Megastructures limits (hard caps)
And now Leaders not scaling in any way

I like playing small empires and maps, but all the things that do not scale with your empire and cannot be changed in the galaxy settings annoy me. Leader caps I like in theory and was happy to see being added, but after experiencing it I would like caps per leader type. Starting caps based on civics and traditions with scaling leader costs and caps based on relevant numbers e.g.

From buildings:
+1 Governor leader per x tier 2 capitals
Aim for a specific fraction of your empire to have governors
+1 General cap from military academy
So you can imagine where your leaders are being trained

Or using existing numbers like owned systems, empire size or naval cap
+1 Admiral leader per x naval cap, similar to titan cap (1 per 200)
Aim for late game multi-titan fleets to all have admirals

Or using planetary designations and ascensions
+1 Scientist leader per x research world designations (effect scales with planetary ascension tier)
Aim for a fraction of your research worlds to be able to have a leader assisting research

Or from jobs:
+1 Leader cap per x ruler jobs
Aim for leader cap to increase gradually with sources of ruler jobs (upgrading planet capitals, buildings unlocked by techs, merchants unlocked with traditions)

And I do hope we eventually have Spies+Envoys as full leaders... once the leader system has been improved so that players feel happy hiring all leader types

Oh and for Eager.
I think it would be intersting if the negative leader traits like Stubborn gave slightly increased leader capacity so it didn't feel terrible to have them.
Also a trait upgrade that converts the eager trait to -90% xp gain and +0.9 leader capacity may be interesting, otherwise the Agenda giving +1 level and +XP on completion will make me want to fire old leaders once eager stopped being useful... which feels wrong.)

So, while I have only had a few test games since the DLC dropped (stopping after hitting lots of old and still unfixed bugs, as well as massively unbalanced new stuff like the leader traits and -90% ship costs), all my games have been on the smallest maps and yet... I still was feeling constantly and overwhelmingly constrained by the leader cap and XP penalty. It dominated my thoughts at all points in the games, even if the actual impact of having extra leaders would have been relatively small.

Picking the XP penalty that I was comfortable with enduring was like deciding what percentage of my fingers I want to have splinters under the nail in return for money. (Money=having more leaders available to do stuff). I'm hoping that Stellaris feels a little less horrible after the next patch, but I expect it'll take a good few patches... maybe a few years before it's amazing. Will have to see how annoying hiring and firing eager leaders will be... I expect it to be frustrating but I hope for the best.

 

[The5lacker]

The only change I don't like is the removal of Leader-type XP bonuses for certain traditions, especially with Discovery inexplicably keeping its all-purpose Leader XP bonus for some reason.

 

[The5lacker]

If Leader Cap followed the same logic as other soft caps, it would apply increasing Unity Upkeep costs to leaders. Maybe even increase recruitment costs too.
I would like to know why the designers didn't want that, it was certainly considered at some point, it is an obvious route.

It does do that. It's not a hard cap.