Stellaris Dev Diary #303 - Stellaris with a Twist Community Event!

[xeleth12]

Dear devs, why no single word to the leader cap??

They don't care.
Their replies/comments about it were quite transparent: Basically : "We know better, it fits -our- niche playstyle of barely playing the game and we don't care about you. Deal with it. Oh, and here's some sugar: [easier modding ways] so now you can fix it yourselves and be silent."
Yes, I exaggerate, but a certain one of them was bordeline insulting. The condescence was off the charts. Blizzard "don't you have phones" level if not worse. The silence that followed (in regards to the cap) after the reactions from those comments, while being able to talk/reply/joke about everything else under the sun is also telling.
The cap is here to stay and we have no choice but to comply. Hell, they even removed many to mitigate it with ascencions and traditions (XP).
Maybe, if a miracle happens and they adress it, it'll be months from now.

 

[Rafss]

Maybe, if a miracle happens and they adress it, it'll be months from now.

After the fancy 2023 Summer Experiments, on a fancy Dev Diary, and everyone will clap and cheer!

 

[PalmettoExplorer14]

Darn. I missed the deadline for the suggestions. I had misread it as being June 9 being the last day.

kicking myself now.

 

[Enfield_PDX]

They don't care.

Yes we do

The silence that followed (in regards to the cap) after the reactions from those comments, while being able to talk/reply/joke about everything else under the sun is also telling.

There's no real quick fix to address the complaints about the Leader cap, especially not ones we can implement in a post-release patch cycle. There's only so many times we can say "Working on it!".

 

[Panzerslothen]

They don't care.
Their replies/comments about it were quite transparent: Basically : "We know better, it fits -our- niche playstyle of barely playing the game and we don't care about you. Deal with it. Oh, and here's some sugar: [easier modding ways] so now you can fix it yourselves and be silent."

This comment has a kernel of truth to it, but spins it with such gross exaggeration that the kernel is lost and it moves towards 'malicious falsehood' territory.

Even IF the Devs were going down the "We've made this decision for the right reasons - we'll have to teach you, Playerbase, to get used to it" route, they're kind of in a position to do so. A very similar thing happened with the change to the Pop system, and while some people still lament (or rue) the day that change came in, most people have gotten used to it, moved on, and adapted to it. But they're not going down that route. They've given every indication that they're willing to meet those of you who hate everything about the new Leader system halfway.

Yes, I exaggerate, but a certain one of them was bordeline insulting. The condescence was off the charts. Blizzard "don't you have phones" level if not worse. The silence that followed (in regards to the cap) after the reactions from those comments, while being able to talk/reply/joke about everything else under the sun is also telling.
The cap is here to stay and we have no choice but to comply. Hell, they even removed many to mitigate it with ascencions and traditions (XP).
Maybe, if a miracle happens and they adress it, it'll be months from now.

The Devs have a legitimate justification in saying to the irate segment of the community "Hey, look, you don't NEED a Scientist on every Vessel, an Admiral on every single Fleet, and a Governor on every single planet now. The change affects all equally; maybe don't throw the baby out with the bathwater yet, aye?", which is my interpretation of their overall message. They quickly gave exploratory Admirals, Eager Leaders not taking up cap, and Cap-Free Paragons. That's at worst a start; in my view, it's most of a fix in its own right too.

If you really want to see additional ways of getting Leader Caps, then by all means keep the pressure on - but more politely and reasonably than you've done so there.

You're probably right about months away - the summer holiday season is nigh, don't expect anything big until September lol. But they've said they're working on it. What more do you want?

 

[Harkinian's Dinner]

Yes we do

There's no real quick fix to address the complaints about the Leader cap, especially not ones we can implement in a post-release patch cycle. There's only so many times we can say "Working on it!".

This is blatantly untrue. Plenty of quick-fix, bandaid solutions have been proposed.

You can just make the first leader of each category not count towards the cap, for example, which also fixes the problem of generals never being worth hiring.

You've even applied a bandaid yourselves already - a bad one that encourages firing leaders once they reach level 4.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

This is blatantly untrue. Plenty of quick-fix, bandaid solutions have been proposed.

You can just make the first leader of each category not count towards the cap, for example, which also fixes the problem of generals never being worth hiring.

You've even applied a bandaid yourselves already - a bad one that encourages firing leaders once they reach level 4.

Simplicity of describing a solution is not the same thing as simplicity of implementation. I suspect by "bandaid" they're looking for solutions that involve changing a number in an existing script (so they don't have to go through another QA cycle). So substantial new code is a "no".

For that change, they'd have to (at the very least) add new UI, change the script that calculates penalties, change the warning for hiring leaders over cap... And every bit of new UI or even just rephrased messages means it needs to go to translators, as well.

It would be better to leave the game severely unbalanced over the summer than to leave it literally broken (in the sense that it doesn't function or doesn't have translations for a crucial new mechanic).

 

[Harkinian's Dinner]

Simplicity of describing a solution is not the same thing as simplicity of implementation. I suspect by "bandaid" they're looking for solutions that involve changing a number in an existing script (so they don't have to go through another QA cycle). So substantial new code is a "no".

For that change, they'd have to (at the very least) add new UI, change the script that calculates penalties, change the warning for hiring leaders over cap... And every bit of new UI or even just rephrased messages means it needs to go to translators, as well.

It would be better to leave the game severely unbalanced over the summer than to leave it literally broken (in the sense that it doesn't function or doesn't have translations for a crucial new mechanic).

You sure spend a lot of time coming up with excuses for bad decisions by the developers! Reminder that they're not your friends - they are a business responsible for selling you a product, which should be expected to be in perfect working order considering the exorbiant price we've paid for all the DLC up to this point.

It does not take several months to make an extremely quick and simple change such as giving you one free leader per category. Your post is blatantly absurd and yet you proclaim it with such confidence. Almost Stockholm Syndrome-esque. Apparently people are falling for it, too.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

You sure spend a lot of time coming up with excuses for bad decisions by the developers! Reminder that they're not your friends - they are a business responsible for selling you a product, which should be expected to be in perfect working order considering the exorbiant price we've paid for all the DLC up to this point.

It does not take several months to make an extremely quick and simple change such as giving you one free leader per category. Your post is blatantly absurd and yet you proclaim it with such confidence. Almost Stockholm Syndrome-esque. Apparently people are falling for it, too.

You have incredibly short memory if you think I'm a fan of these changes. In general, I think I spend a lot of time doing the exact opposite of defending then.

I never made the claim that it takes several months. If you want it done from one hotfix to the other, it would have to be done in 3-4 weeks.

You are free to produce a mod which makes this change yourself, if you would like to demonstrate how quick and easy it is. Be sure have it translated into every language Paradox supports.

Be sure to post it to the forum so everyone looks at it. And remember you can't update it until September if you miss an edge case or make a minor, easy to fix mistake that leaves it non-functional. Gotta keep the comparison fair.

 

[Scorpio_Shirica]

It's fine to take a break or use mods while devs come up with a more permanent solution to things. The game has been around awhile and there's no reason to believe support will be pulled soon. Many of us are not happy with the current state of things, but it doesn't take a "white knight" to recognize that asking them to rush any of these suggested fixes would do much worse than the problems as they stand.

 

[SirBlackAxe]

It does not take several months to make an extremely quick and simple change such as giving you one free leader per category.

To the best of my knowledge, the game currently has no way to implement this. Base envoy count is controlled by the BASE_ENVOYS_REGULAR_EMPIRE define, and there's no similar global variable for other leader classes - they all share LEADER_CAPACITY_BASE.

The best you could do with a mod is using a triggered modifier that gives you +1 leader cap if you own and control a leader of a specific class, but you'd need to find somewhere to put it that's empire-unique, guaranteed, accepts triggered country modifiers (so not in authority, ethics, or tech), and isn't modified by something (so not in capital designations). This would still be a rather slapdash solution that doesn't quite do what you want, however - the +1 also extends the soft cap zone, won't be understood by AI empires, and won't be integrated into tooltips.

I do fully expect this to be added eventually - it's pretty much the only way to make generals see use without completely reworking the class or forcing it for specific civics via the council - but it's certainly not "extremely quick and simple".

 

[CocoCincinnati]

In my honest but possibly ignorant opinion, the quickest and easiest change seems to be to simply increase the leader cap to 12 or even 18. That still won't make everybody happy but it would at least be an acknowledgement that 6 was WAY too low.

I'll be honest, after the pushback by so many I expected 3.8.3 to give some kind of token increase to maybe 8 or even 10, but since that evidently wasn't even considered, I think we have to assume that a flat increase of that cap is not being considered at all. And now it seems paradox is investing a lot of time, energy and resources to find a way to make people who dislike the cap, happy without actually changing it. I have to admit, I am looking forward to see what kind of interesting out of the box ways the devs can find to place a size 20 square peg into a size 6 round hole.....and whether or not the anti-cap faction will still feel like they are being suppressed at that time.

 

[Eelectrica]

Making renowned paragons cap free would help a bit as well. If we’re supposed to use them, let use them.

 

[Panzerslothen]

Making renowned paragons cap free would help a bit as well. If we’re supposed to use them, let use them.

I thought this got added in 3.8.3?

 

[Abdulijubjub]

I thought this got added in 3.8.3?

Legendary, not renowned.

Renowned leaders are intentionally take-it-or-leave it: you even have a "we don't feel like hiring you" button in the initial dialogue. But legendaries are supposed to be a boon.

Of course, you could argue that "our system is so broken that even the legendary leaders with unique benefits and storylines sometimes aren't worth taking" deserves a stronger response than "make the legendary leaders free so there's no cost to taking them". Though, granted, not counting toward the cap is a nice feature.

Edit: sometimes. That was a key word. in general they're good.

 

[Panzerslothen]

Legendary, not renowned.

Renowned leaders are intentionally take-it-or-leave it: you even have a "we don't feel like hiring you" button in the initial dialogue. But legendaries are supposed to be a boon.

Of course, you could argue that "our system is so broken that even the legendary leaders with unique benefits and storylines aren't worth taking" deserves a stronger response than "make the legendary leaders free so there's no cost to taking them". Though, granted, not counting toward the cap is a nice feature.

Wait, what? Legendaries NOT worth taking? Fo srys?

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Wait, what? Legendaries NOT worth taking? Fo srys?

Depends on which ones you got, and when you got them. But yeah, that post was missing a very crucial word ("sometimes"). Keides was a boon when I found him, but I could easy see the monolith or Skrand just being dead weight, or burning through Azaryn as quickly as possible. I haven't gotten any of the others yet, though.

 

[Panzerslothen]

I haven't gotten any of the Legendaries themselves yet, so I don't know. But all of the Renowned's I've had were absolutely worthwhile, so I assume(d?) the Legendaries would be too.

 

[OnyxAbussos]

Yes we do

There's no real quick fix to address the complaints about the Leader cap, especially not ones we can implement in a post-release patch cycle. There's only so many times we can say "Working on it!".

THIS