Stellaris Dev Diary #368 - 4.0 Changes: Part 2

[grommile]

Can't we just have 3 of each achievement, one for MP, one for SP, and one for SP Ironman? And if you unlock it for SP, it unlocks for MP, and if you unlock it for SP Ironman, it unlocks it for SP and Multiplayer?

Achievement bloat is... an acquired taste.

 

[Thiend]

Getting stuck with only corvettes and frigates by 2300 was a bit hairy today. I just *could not* find destroyers anywhere in the deck, despite floating around large groups of corvettes for all my military needs. That was... interesting to say the least.

I seem to get stuck on starholds pretty regularly, not to mention economic throughput techs. If you don't get those for a hundred years... it's kinda gnarly.

They haven't disclosed enough to be sure it fixes those problems, but I'm hoping it will.

 

[Kurohsi]

This focus thing ia nice i strugled 300 years as cosmogenesis and can't obtain gateway tech.. I hope this help next time when i play the game

 

[Voidian]

Honestly, the thing I want the most is not having to deal with that outliner and it's 60 max size fleets with no admirals because I'm at the limit, everything about the whole thing is terrible in the late game.

 

[klopkr]

This timeline is not what I expected. Pretty disappointing.

 

[JacktheSmack]

Achievement bloat is... an acquired taste.

I've played WoW so I'm used to tens of thousands of achievements.

 

[Eladrin]

You'll have people rerolling for the goal that unlocks the Cruiser tech or whatever.

Tasks do not provide direct rewards, so there is no task that provides Cruiser technology. All tasks of a given category are identical for progression purposes. (i.e. Every tier 1 Exploration task grants 10 Exploration progess.)

I find it a real stretch to imply this focus system is some kind of attempt to make a cookie clicker game in order to attract new people. The stated reasons for it are very believable: to address the common feedback among newer players that the game (particularly with all DLCs) can be overwhelming and to have the way your empire plays determine how it progresses. There's legitimate reasons to be wary that it might incentivise odd behaviour that goes against role play, or that the mechanics of refreshing are unduly punishing, or simply that it doesn't seem integrated with factions, governments, or anything else. But paradox players of many games have long complained about mana mechanics where you tick up some resource that lets you adjust your empire divorced from what you're actually doing. Unlocking more diplomatic options by being diplomatic, or more war options by being aggressive, makes sense and could totally add value.

I doubt this will chance your mind given how extreme your stance is, so only hope that you jump onto the beta so if you do find flaws with it you can feed them back in a helpful way to the devs.

We'll be looking very closely at the feedback from the Open Beta, because we are really trying to make it non-disruptive. However, the focus system honestly isn't primarily targeting anyone who would be participating in an Open Beta (you're generally the most experienced and skilled players).

I'm not 100% on the current names, which was why we mentioned "names subject to change" - but we do still want to encourage pacifists to consider building up their military even if they're Inwards Perfection.

The node you showed with "Build 20 Destroyers" implies this unlocks the guaranteed research option for getting Cruisers. I guess we could have the same task for Destroyers? So, assuming we start with 5 military tasks and not much is going on, there might be a task like "Build 20 Corvettes" that leads to a guaranteed Destroyer. If my assumption is correct, you could beeline to Cruisers—hell, even Battleships—if you focus on that.

It does not unlock the guaranteed research option for Cruisers on its own. It grants 25 points of progression on the path towards getting military related technologies as guaranteed research options.

Ideally, the focus progression rewards should act as a failsafe so a military focused empire will eventually get access to those military related technologies, and economically focused empires will get their capital upgrades and the like.

We're still balancing the progression tree, so I can't say "you must complete this many Conquest tasks to get Cruiser technology unlocked as a research option which you will then have to research".

If you focus exclusively on your military in the way you're suggesting, will you be able to have the scientific and economic development to take advantage of it? Or will the better balanced empire be in better shape overall? This is a gamble that fanatic purifiers and devouring swarms sometimes make.

Most people don't play "unmodded Stellaris on Ironman". They play with mods, or with Ironman disabled, or both.

This is correct. Most players play unmodded, non-Ironman.

That's it. That paragraph contained everything we know about this system. It could be badly implemented or it could be awesome or it could be useless or it could be overpowered. I hope it either will be good already or will become good after some time being tested (I assume this patch will have a beta testing phase, and I don't recall whether that was said either way).

I expect that we'll be making adjustments to the system over the year.

The stated purpose appears to be to smooth gameplay pain-points where your intended progression is softlocked by not getting the appropriate techs. This is among the reasons I hope Ascension Theory will be part of this system, as it is in my experience the single most irritating way for the game to decide your gameplan isn't going forward - half of planetary ascension is locked behind that tech specifically, and there's virtually nothing you can do to try to improve the odds of it appearing.

It wasn't, but fits nicely into Development. Good idea.

Can't we just have 3 of each achievement, one for MP, one for SP, and one for SP Ironman? And if you unlock it for SP, it unlocks for MP, and if you unlock it for SP Ironman, it unlocks it for SP and Multiplayer?

We've actually hit some soft limits on our achievements on some platforms already. We wouldn't realistically be able to triple the number of them.

 

[Jekson20level]

IMO it doesn't differ that much from research; both are gameified abstractions mirroring some paths of scientific discovery.

Also, yet again I see the "predatory practices" being brought up in the comments, and it just makes me wonder if people really understand what makes the afformentioned practices predatory - it's not the "have to do the same thing again and agan" (which by itself seems rather wierd to me, as I imagine no task would be repeated, because that would defeat thier purpose); the predatory part of the "dailies" is that they keep the player logging-in every day. It's a retention-keeping mechanism that works because it offers minor persistent progress to make the player feel like they're missing out if they don't play daily, making it into a habit.

And again, as I said to the other person, it seems to me like you're misunderstanding the tasks: the only rewards they offer is three colors of "mana". And you get the rewards for collecting the "mana"; how one collects the "mana" is up to the player to chose from the available tasks (which even can be re-rolled if the particular offers are not up to the player's likeness).
I have seen alike systems in various games, and even in the "predatory mobile games" these have a negligable impact of playstyle, because you can always get the "mana" by doing what you wanted to do already.

The developers have confused me. They said it was a focuses, a missions. But they added three types of "mana" like in eu4. Although the developers of eu5 abandoned it. And now, when we collect enough mana, we will have new ideas.

If the focuses and rewards are related only by category, then it's terrible. Please, if we have a task, then the reward should be logically related to what we did. I don't want to get the technology of cruisers because I built 20 destroyers, hired an army, raised the fortress level, and destroyed the amoebas in that system. If this were done only with traditions, OK. But you can't add guaranteed technology as a reward for the mana you collect.
In fact, such processing is necessary for traditions. Playing for pacifists in the middle of the game, I take the tradition of Supremacy (I have to defend myself somehow). But where did the pacifist empire get its martial traditions from?

Opening access to tradition trees in at least three categories is already better than one. Therefore, it seems to me that it is better not to transfer the federation to the focus, but to block access to it until mana is set.

 

[Imp0815]

Tasks do not provide direct rewards, so there is no task that provides Cruiser technology. All tasks of a given category are identical for progression purposes. (i.e. Every tier 1 Exploration task grants 10 Exploration progess.)

We'll be looking very closely at the feedback from the Open Beta, because we are really trying to make it non-disruptive. However, the focus system honestly isn't primarily targeting anyone who would be participating in an Open Beta (you're generally the most experienced and skilled players).

It does not unlock the guaranteed research option for Cruisers on its own. It grants 25 points of progression on the path towards getting military related technologies as guaranteed research options.

Ideally, the focus progression rewards should act as a failsafe so a military focused empire will eventually get access to those military related technologies, and economically focused empires will get their capital upgrades and the like.

We're still balancing the progression tree, so I can't say "you must complete this many Conquest tasks to get Cruiser technology unlocked as a research option which you will then have to research".

If you focus exclusively on your military in the way you're suggesting, will you be able to have the scientific and economic development to take advantage of it? Or will the better balanced empire be in better shape overall? This is a gamble that fanatic purifiers and devouring swarms sometimes make.

Thanks for clarifying. Someone already pointed out that I did not understand this correctly.

On that note, what does this mean?

Is this just a tier of the task for the rewarded points, or is this some sort of "task series" that, when completed, has a determined follow-up task?

Also, what I do not understand is this: when the reward is behind one of the three gameplay tracks, how will it determine what we unlock? Is it a choice like in HoI, rollable like tasks, semi-RNG like techs, or just predefined progression like a tech tree? Will there be another UI that shows what we unlock?

 

[Critical Ethics]

I'm not 100% on the current names, which was why we mentioned "names subject to change" - but we do still want to encourage pacifists to consider building up their military even if they're Inwards Perfection.

I'd suggest splitting out from a single word and going for an evocative phrase. "Sword and Shield"* for example would cover both military aggression and building up your own defenses while I don't think there's an equivalent (non-euphemistic) dual use word in English. Even if there is there may not be an equivalent word in other languages, while your translators will probably find it much easier to construct an equivalent pithy phrase.

*I'm not saying use exactly this it's just the first thing that came to mind

 

[Critical Ethics]

The developers have confused me. They said it was a focuses, a missions. But they added three types of "mana" like in eu4. Although the developers of eu5 abandoned it. And now, when we collect enough mana, we will have new ideas.

If the focuses and rewards are related only by category, then it's terrible. Please, if we have a task, then the reward should be logically related to what we did. I don't want to get the technology of cruisers because I built 20 destroyers, hired an army, raised the fortress level, and destroyed the amoebas in that system. If this were done only with traditions, OK. But you can't add guaranteed technology as a reward for the mana you collect.

You don't get the cruisers technology, you just don't need to roll for it any more. You still need to research it, you just research it when you want to. And why not? Just using your examples, you built a bunch of ships, hired a bigger army, built a bigger fortress, and killed a bunch of scarily big space monsters. It's pretty logical that your scientists would look at all this and write "Build bigger ships?" on the whiteboard for later.

In fact, such processing is necessary for traditions. Playing for pacifists in the middle of the game, I take the tradition of Supremacy (I have to defend myself somehow). But where did the pacifist empire get its martial traditions from?

Opening access to tradition trees in at least three categories is already better than one. Therefore, it seems to me that it is better not to transfer the federation to the focus, but to block access to it until mana is set.

You are suggesting that certain tradition trees be locked behind focus amounts? That makes a certain amount of sense. It would limit early game traditions choices quite a lot though. I do think there should be feedback between the focuses and tradition trees. Maybe tradition trees should give focus points as well? This kind of brings Federations back into a tradition tree thing, since filling out the Diplomacy tree will give you 15 points or whatever toward ultimately getting Federations.

 

[Eladrin]

Is this just a tier of the task for the rewarded points, or is this some sort of "task series" that, when completed, has a determined follow-up task?

It's the tier of the task for the rewarded points. We can gate tasks on other tasks if desired, like we shouldn't give you "Become Galactic Custodian" if you haven't joined the Galactic Community, or "Defeat the End-Game Crisis" if it hasn't appeared, but they're generally not linear.

Also, what I do not understand is this: when the reward is behind one of the three gameplay tracks, how will it determine what we unlock? Is it a choice like in HoI, rollable like tasks, semi-RNG like techs, or just predefined progression like a tech tree? Will there be another UI that shows what we unlock?

The rewards are predefined, and there's a UI that lists them.

I didn't show it because it currently looks like this:

I'd suggest splitting out from a single word and going for an evocative phrase. "Sword and Shield"* for example would cover both military aggression and building up your own defenses while I don't think there's an equivalent (non-euphemistic) dual use word in English. Even if there is there may not be an equivalent word in other languages, while your translators will probably find it much easier to construct an equivalent pithy phrase.

*I'm not saying use exactly this it's just the first thing that came to mind

We've used a bunch of the best ones for this in Traditions.

Discovery was perfect!

 

[Critical Ethics]

We've used a bunch of the best ones for this in Traditions.

Discovery was perfect!

Sounds like a good reason to branch out into phrases! Then you can save three great words for three more traditions

 

[Imp0815]

It's the tier of the task for the rewarded points. We can gate tasks on other tasks if desired, like we shouldn't give you "Become Galactic Custodian" if you haven't joined the Galactic Community, or "Defeat the End-Game Crisis" if it hasn't appeared, but they're generally not linear.


The rewards are predefined, and there's a UI that lists them.

I didn't show it because it currently looks like this:
View attachment 1250520

Hey, thanks for sharing this! I'm seeing things much clearer now. Sorry if this sounds like a "gotcha," but the progression seems linear and looks like a contradiction to your opening statement on what tasks are for Stellaris and what Stellaris is:
"Stellaris is a dynamic game full of wonder and possibilities. Our sandbox nature means predefined and structured trees cannot work for us."

I guess since this is "optional," with the caveat of providing features like Federations and fallback access to key research in it, one could argue it's not such a big deal that the progression seems deterministic and structured.

Anyway, thanks again for being so open and transparent about this with us. I think I'm pretty hyped for the beta to see this in action. I'll try to curb my bias and view it from the perspective of a new player while also looking for possible exploits as a long-time player.

EDIT: Taking a third look and thinking about it: If this is predefined, does it mean ALL empires get the same tree? Isn't this highly detrimental to perceived gameplay diversity? Or will there be different unlocks based on empire setup?

 

[Critical Ethics]

Hey, thanks for sharing this! I'm seeing things much clearer now. Sorry if this sounds like a "gotcha," but the progression seems linear and looks like a contradiction to your opening statement on what tasks are for Stellaris and what Stellaris is:
"Stellaris is a dynamic game full of wonder and possibilities. Our sandbox nature means predefined and structured trees cannot work for us."

I guess since this is "optional," with the caveat of providing features like Federations and fallback access to key research in it, one could argue it's not such a big deal that the progression seems deterministic and structured.

Anyway, thanks again for being so open and transparent about this with us. I think I'm pretty hyped for the beta to see this in action. I'll try to curb my bias and view it from the perspective of a new player while also looking for possible exploits as a long-time player.

EDIT: Taking a third look and thinking about it: If this is predefined, does it mean ALL empires get the same tree? Isn't this highly detrimental to perceived gameplay diversity? Or will there be different unlocks based on empire setup?

It's not a predefined or structured tree because it's not a tree. None of the unlocks fork. Each reward is effectively an unrelated item with "unlock when <mana type> reaches <number>" displayed with a line drawn to the appropriate point on a number line. The rewards do not depend on previous rewards. This makes adding or removing habitat tech* for DLC owners easy** because adding or removing them from the line is just** a matter of adding a conditional in the habitats reward entry, and not adding them doesn't impact later parts of the line.

*they may not be dynamically adding DLC-specific items that but there's other reasons to do it this way, this was just the easiest to describe

**the UI component would be trickier.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

If the focuses and rewards are related only by category, then it's terrible. Please, if we have a task, then the reward should be logically related to what we did. I don't want to get the technology of cruisers because I built 20 destroyers, hired an army, raised the fortress level, and destroyed the amoebas in that system. If this were done only with traditions, OK. But you can't add guaranteed technology as a reward for the mana you collect.

"Hey, Admiral Xilis. I've been doing some virtual modelling concerning the performance of our destroyers, and I've found a niche for a heavier support vessel armed with more and bigger guns. My projections are that they'll be 10% more effective at killing amoebas when deployed alongside our current naval assets."
*Boom* a sensible reason to get cruisers falling out of the tech list as something the scientists have proposed - and thus is now a guaranteed research option when you come to direct them to pick a project from their list. They've done the preliminary sketches, even if they've not actually put any effort into it yet.

It is logically related to your previous actions here, since more effective/larger/specialised ship role does branch out from using existing ships and finding their limitations.

 

[Arc2442]

Regarding the galaxy generation settings, could we get a larger range of customization? I know elsewhere in the thread (or maybe I dreamt it up) someone mentioned a way to select what precursor you get, but could we also be able to choose what Fallen Empires spawn like how we can force saved empires to spawn?

I'm a Tiny Galaxy enjoyer since my laptop could fry an egg if I try to have a game past the endgame date on a Huge Galaxy, and I like to do all crises on a single galaxy and pass as much galactic legislation as I can. (Edit: On that note, can floor time and senate recess also be adjustable, either through generation settings or some new laws added to reduce floor/recess time so there's not a 6 year gap between new legislation? Tired of having to wait so long because a bunch of laws with minimal impact keep getting put on the floor then thrown out... no one wants Tiyanki Eradication, stop declaring it an emergency...) I've seen F. Xenophile and F. Spiritualists spawn in my tinies for a while now, and having a way to change that to have the Synth FE pop up without having to constantly reroll starts would be cool.

Could the limits on galaxy generation be expanded as well, perhaps at the acknowledged cost of less room for normal empires to expand or that FEs and Marauders just spawn with less systems? I could get up to a lot of shenanigans with 5 FEs and 3 Marauders in a Tiny Galaxy!

Finally, (this may already exist, the wording is a bit vague,) could the force empire spawns be random, but also adjustable - so if I have a limit of 14 random AI empires and I have 27 selected for forced spawn, I'll get 14 out of those 27... but also be able to override force a Payback or Broken Shackles empire to spawn, so I can also get MSI in on the fun?

Edit 2: I'm hesitant to also suggest adding options to choose which Guardians can spawn. It would be fun, and it'd make taking Genetic Ascension a lot more viable for the Leviathan Transgenesis traits, but it might lean itself towards only ever picking specific ones for a meta strategy. However, I do think the option to increase the amount of Guardians spawned would be nice - maybe not have *all* of them available on a Tiny Galaxy, but a bit more than the 4 that seem to spawn. The natural spawn distance between Guardians and FEs should also probably be increased for that, otherwise they'd wipe up most of them before the normal empires get to them if the galaxy is a tightly packed mess.

 

[Jekson20level]

"Hey, Admiral Xilis. I've been doing some virtual modelling concerning the performance of our destroyers, and I've found a niche for a heavier support vessel armed with more and bigger guns. My projections are that they'll be 10% more effective at killing amoebas when deployed alongside our current naval assets."

This is exactly what happens when we pull technology from the pool according to the weighting factors. The likelihood is that someone had an idea how to overcome the physical limitations that made it difficult to design large ships at once.
And the fact that the empire built 20 destroyers, hired an army, raised the fortress level, and destroyed the amoebas in that system cannot guarantee the emergence of such ideas.

Even we can come up with a cruiser, engineers are needed to design a cruiser, and a discovery is needed to solve the problem of launching large-sized parts in space and assembling them in zero gravity. A discovery is not guaranteed to occur. The current technology system better reflects the probability of discovery.

Although I agree that some "technologies" can be a reward for a task (a guaranteed option). For example, if we build 20 destroyers, we are very likely to learn how to build them faster, and if we build 100 destroyers, we will learn how to build them cheaper. And it is better not to give a guaranteed technology, but to increase the weight factor (chance of drop).

 

[Jekson20level]

You don't get the cruisers technology, you just don't need to roll for it any more.

I meant a guaranteed option. We have a good technology system with weighting factors. There is no better offer yet. Discoveries cannot be guaranteed.

You are suggesting that certain tradition trees be locked behind focus amounts? That makes a certain amount of sense. It would limit early game traditions choices quite a lot though. I do think there should be feedback between the focuses and tradition trees. Maybe tradition trees should give focus points as well? This kind of brings Federations back into a tradition tree thing, since filling out the Diplomacy tree will give you 15 points or whatever toward ultimately getting Federations.

Discoveries cannot be guaranteed.
But we get traditions without conditions. And linking traditions with a system of focuses can be a good solution. In order not to limit the early stages of the game, ethics and civics can also unlock tradition trees. And not necessarily whole trees, but perhaps individual traditions.

 

[Star Heintinuse Dragon]

Tasks do not provide direct rewards, so there is no task that provides Cruiser technology. All tasks of a given category are identical for progression purposes. (i.e. Every tier 1 Exploration task grants 10 Exploration progess.)



We'll be looking very closely at the feedback from the Open Beta, because we are really trying to make it non-disruptive. However, the focus system honestly isn't primarily targeting anyone who would be participating in an Open Beta (you're generally the most experienced and skilled players).

I'm not 100% on the current names, which was why we mentioned "names subject to change" - but we do still want to encourage pacifists to consider building up their military even if they're Inwards Perfection.



It does not unlock the guaranteed research option for Cruisers on its own. It grants 25 points of progression on the path towards getting military related technologies as guaranteed research options.

Ideally, the focus progression rewards should act as a failsafe so a military focused empire will eventually get access to those military related technologies, and economically focused empires will get their capital upgrades and the like.

We're still balancing the progression tree, so I can't say "you must complete this many Conquest tasks to get Cruiser technology unlocked as a research option which you will then have to research".

If you focus exclusively on your military in the way you're suggesting, will you be able to have the scientific and economic development to take advantage of it? Or will the better balanced empire be in better shape overall? This is a gamble that fanatic purifiers and devouring swarms sometimes make.



This is correct. Most players play unmodded, non-Ironman.



I expect that we'll be making adjustments to the system over the year.



It wasn't, but fits nicely into Development. Good idea.



We've actually hit some soft limits on our achievements on some platforms already. We wouldn't realistically be able to triple the number of them.

Well if its minimum require to have a bit of military built then can you at least reward pacifist or good ethics empire more? It literally beat the notion of pacifist if I still have to get some some military, despite being anti social with inward perfection. Which some players have point out the game reward military industrial complex too much most of the events require you to at least kill sth.

Stellaris is a sandbox game so I still want to be able to play pacifist or a "true" god guy pls. I find it weird that no empire can survive with only trade, diplomacy and no military, despite human history said otherwise ( even when sometimes it end in a disaster because of a traitor that sell the whole country). Similar to how I want a crisis or a player crisis that does not harm players and give them benefits if players protect them long enough, but the crisis can only chose between good ethic or bad ethic to befriend so they got the anger of a collective of the side that was chosen. And can choose to be bad guy or not at the end.

Because if even inward perfection (they doesnt care about literally anything be it good-like diplomacy or bad-like killing) still require 1% of military then it still mean 0% of the game can be truly played as the "good guy" or "good ethic empire fully", this gives me some illusion of choices.