Stellaris Dev Diary #376 - Announcing BioGenesis and Stellaris: Season 09

[Newbee53]

From what I understand of the Beta threads the problem is you're just mass producing the same Frankenstein, rather than having a fleet of divergent Frankensteins. IE your 'alloy worlds' are very nearly identical in look and feel as your 'Mineral worlds' or your 'Agri worlds' or your 'Factory' or 'Energy' Worlds. This on top of the fact that Energy is now...basically Food since Trade has taken over the use of Energy as the resource of market transition.

IE you're better off just making every colony the same since they're designation and planning will by writ of the zones/districts have to be the same since you're disallowed not building anything different more or less.

Having played the beta, I feel this isn't accurate. Most of my colonies are different, and while all the things aren't in, the only times they end up similar is if I need them to do similar things. Like if I want two factory worlds, they end up the same after a fashion. But factory worlds can be very different from everything else so long as you aren't deliberately building your factory and alloy worlds the same.

I've also found having a factory zone on your research world feels very different from having the two separated. and of course, you can always stack three copies of the same zone if you are feeling like extreme specialization.

But your basic resource worlds would obviously differ from your city worlds with the heavy infrastructure?

My basic resource worlds definitly end up different, as they tend to have fewer zones by a wide margen. There is an incentive to build at least a couple of basic resource districts on industrial worlds, to cut down on trade logistics if nothing else--so you often end up with a lot more restricted buildings set on resource worlds. I suspect that by the end of the game only my resource worlds with have urban districts, everything else will be filled with advanced resource zones of one type or another.

 

[Masked Ermine]

Having played the beta, I feel this isn't accurate. Most of my colonies are different, and while all the things aren't in, the only times they end up similar is if I need them to do similar things. Like if I want two factory worlds, they end up the same after a fashion. But factory worlds can be very different from everything else so long as you aren't deliberately building your factory and alloy worlds the same.

I've also found having a factory zone on your research world feels very different from having the two separated. and of course, you can always stack three copies of the same zone if you are feeling like extreme specialization.

Admittedly I have only been going by vibes from the beta test thread. I refuse to upload something so basically broken as it sounds like this was. Which is why I'm probably going to wait till September or later to even bother with 4.0 and DLC stuff...it's going to be a torrent of broken...

 

[Newbee53]

Admittedly I have only been going by vibes from the beta test thread. I refuse to upload something so basically broken as it sounds like this was. Which is why I'm probably going to wait till September or later to even bother with 4.0 and DLC stuff...it's going to be a torrent of broken...

see, I don't get this. Sure, balance is out of wack and there have been some serious bugs, but 'BETA' its supposed to have bugs and balance issues.

Right now, its actually fun to play. At least I have fun. And while not everything is in, I'm fine with it to begin with. I don't know. I can't see it being so broken on release that I am not enjoying myself. I just don't get this kind of thing. Maybe my tolerance for these things is higher than most people but...

 

[Ajacoba]

Yeah, the release in a little over a month will have a normal amount of bugs, purely because it's impossible to launch anything bug free

 

[Masked Ermine]

see, I don't get this. Sure, balance is out of wack and there have been some serious bugs, but 'BETA' its supposed to have bugs and balance issues.

Right now, its actually fun to play. At least I have fun. And while not everything is in, I'm fine with it to begin with. I don't know. I can't see it being so broken on release that I am not enjoying myself. I just don't get this kind of thing. Maybe my tolerance for these things is higher than most people but...

From what was being said in the Beta, people couldn't even tell what was broken and what was doing what it was supposed.

Even after all this....on May 5th there will still be tire fires all over the place, plus trying to retrain the players (again) to play this game... I get so tired of the devs uprooting stuff, refusing the fix stuff broken before, and thus creating forty million new broken systems....And that's before they decide in their infinite wisdom to, rather than give the player audience the opportunity to train themselves on a 'working' nonbeta version of the update...they are going to shoe horn in a whole DLC that will inevitably have even more brokenness involved as it disrupts whatever 4.0 will be. Every time they do this, they ultimately put the game back weeks or months which by the time they get around to fixing it is about the time they put out a new patch or DLC that breaks the game again...for weeks or months.

I've gotten in the habit of just rolling this stuff back. I'm frankly sick of the devs coming in every four months and breaking a game, usually not that long after they finally get the damn thing stabilized.

This in theory is going to be one the BIGGEST changes in gameplay and coding the game has gotten in years....Just getting this working should be the entire years effort, and any releases should just be superficial until they got the base code of the update functioning. Stop lighting more fires...and put out the ones you have first.

 

[Toby-wan_Strife]

Is it too late to ask for xenovores? I had an idea for a civic based off of C.M Koseman's book All Tomorrows wherein you could play as a xenophobic species with a fanatical mission to reshape the galaxy in their image. They would ONLY be able to put aliens into livestock slavery but would be locked into genetic ascension and would start with some partial progress towards gene tailoring and part of their pop groups would be a different species with some traits already added. Once they fully ascend, they could modify pops to be limbless, memory retainers, brutish, and many other traits that to other empires would be useless, at the cost of reducing happiness for the modified pops. For machine intelligences, this could be more like I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream. We could have anti rogue servitors that torture organic pops for their own amusement.

Perhaps we could have an origin like the "Most delicious" species event that already exists in game. This origin would be a challenging one that replaces your guaranteed habitable worlds with TWO advanced empires that already have pops on them of your species. You would also start with the delicious trait and this origin would put you down the path to confrontation with your predators, and from their either reconcile and learn to forgive, or become fanatical purifiers and ensure your species is never harmed again; in many ways mirroring the origin story for the Prikkiki-Ti on their homeworld of Gish.

 

[Masked Ermine]

Yeah, the release in a little over a month will have a normal amount of bugs, purely because it's impossible to launch anything bug free

The problem with Paradox's model is that it leaves the game in a perpetual 'broken' state, because nothing can ever get fully fixed before someone comes in reinvents the wheel...thus rebreaking everything again.

I STILL GET THE MARAUDER PATHING BUG! THAT'S BEEN AROUND SINCE MARAUDERS WERE RELEASED!

The emergency retreat into the battle bug...still exists.

We need less 'new content' and more fix it patches and updates. The kicker is I was damn well under the impression we were getting less DLC and more fix this stuff from one of the Dev diaries from earlier this year...but I guess...nope...just gonna continue to take a wrecking ball to everything every couple of months with the bonus of exploding bombs at it at the same time.

 

[WoodenP]

We need less 'new content' and more fix it patches and updates. The kicker is I was damn well under the impression we were getting less DLC and more fix this stuff from one of the Dev diaries from earlier this year...but I guess...nope.

It's funny because I thought that was the whole point of the custodians! QOL/Tidy up for the major releases. And here we are.

And yeah they definitely said last December before the break that this year would be less jam packed.

4.0 is shaping up to be great they just need to take the wonky bits off the table.

 

[Masked Ermine]

It's funny because I thought that was the whole point of the custodians! QOL/Tidy up for the major releases. And here we are.

And yeah they definitely said last December before the break that this year would be less jam packed.

4.0 is shaping up to be great they just need to take the wonky bits off the table.

Yes why the hell are the custodians being allocated to new stuff? I was under the impression that the custodians were meant primarily fixing things. I realize that part of that was providing new 'content' for 'old' DLCs but I'd rather they bug fix than bug create honestly.

 

[Masked Ermine]

4.0 is shaping up to be great they just need to take the wonky bits off the table.

The problem I see, is that it appears the 'wonky stuff' is the core of the intention. IE the stuff people are complaining about aren't bugs they're function.

 

[Newbee53]

From what was being said in the Beta, people couldn't even tell what was broken and what was doing what it was supposed.

Some stuff maybe? But that was fixed pretty quickly. There is to little information on pop growth with limits some bug hunting. But that's only one thing.

Even after all this....on May 5th there will still be tire fires all over the place, plus trying to retrain the players (again) to play this game... I get so tired of the devs uprooting stuff, refusing the fix stuff broken before, and thus creating forty million new broken systems....And that's before they decide in their infinite wisdom to, rather than give the player audience the opportunity to train themselves on a 'working' nonbeta version of the update...they are going to shoe horn in a whole DLC that will inevitably have even more brokenness involved as it disrupts whatever 4.0 will be. Every time they do this, they ultimately put the game back weeks or months which by the time they get around to fixing it is about the time they put out a new patch or DLC that breaks the game again...for weeks or months.

See, I like the constent influx of new stuff. it makes the game interseting, and I keep comming back. I'd kind of stopped playing not long after the last update, down two once every couple of weeks I'd poke around. but the beta has me excited again, and the biogenisis patch is looking exactly like what I need.

We need less 'new content' and more fix it patches and updates.

I'd probably stop laying then. I've never seen an actually unplayable build last more than a week or two, and I can still handle all the other bugs just fine.

The problem I see, is that it appears the 'wonky stuff' is the core of the intention. IE the stuff people are complaining about aren't bugs they're function.

I'm not complaining about the core of the intention. I in fact enjoy the core of the beta. And while I might agree with you if I didn't at least check it out, I think you and many people are overreacting.

personally, I never liked planetary management because it felt too freeform. What we have now is definitely shaping up to work quite well, lots of freedom but you can't max out every planet in everything. You can do generalist planets, specialist planets. But not everything can be maximized either way for ideal workings. It clearly seems like we are getting everything we need to make this work quite well.

 

[Masked Ermine]

I'd probably stop laying then. I've never seen an actually unplayable build last more than a week or two, and I can still handle all the other bugs just fine.

I bought a saw it has some bugs that occasionally chop off a finger but I got plenty of fingers so I can handle it...

No one NO ONE should accept substandard product, especially when said product inevitably comes to the tune of hundreds or thousands of dollars to get the full use of said product.

It's consumers that accept 'broken' as default that allows companies to continue to play this 'We'll fix it in post' game where things never truly get fixed...

 

[Newbee53]

I bought a saw it has some bugs that occasionally chop off a finger but I got plenty of fingers so I can handle it...

No one NO ONE should accept substandard product, especially when said product inevitably comes to the tune of hundreds or thousands of dollars to get the full use of said product.

It's consumers that accept 'broken' as default that allows companies to continue to play this 'We'll fix it in post' game where things never truly get fixed...

the game has been around for most of a decade and has been updated multiple times a year. A week or two with really bad bugs is expected. It be a miracle if it didn't happen once or twice.

Also, its a game. Its not that important.

 

[Masked Ermine]

the game has been around for most of a decade and has been updated multiple times a year. A week or two with really bad bugs is expected. It be a miracle if it didn't happen once or twice.

Also, its a game. Its not that important.

ONCE OR TWICE! It's been every time!

And part of my argument is that major updates shouldn't come about once or twice a year...because clearly they can't handle it.

And there are BUGS from most of a decade ago that STILL EXIST! Because they are constantly putting out new fires they create!

 

[Vlad123]

There's a civic for that and it interacts with the grand archive

Also an origin

This mean withouth war? Because i remember the casusbelli of "barbaric despoilers" and are useless,because...you do a war for plunder,when you can conquer.

 

[Ajacoba]

This mean withouth war? Because i remember the casusbelli of "barbaric despoilers" and are useless,because...you do a war for plunder,when you can conquer.

But you don't want to conquer? You wanted to plunder?

Which you can do with that casus belli

Raid their planets, bring home some slaves, steal their archive stuff and potentially even a proper relic (if they have those)

Should be especially fun in mid to late game when your borders are established and fortified and expending them any further would be a massive hassle

Also if you wanna do both you can do both, all your claims will be added to your territory regardless of war goal, assuming you win or at least defend your claims - so where's the issue with the casus belli?

 

[Newbee53]

ONCE OR TWICE! It's been every time!

And part of my argument is that major updates shouldn't come about once or twice a year...because clearly they can't handle it.

And there are BUGS from most of a decade ago that STILL EXIST! Because they are constantly putting out new fires they create!

no it hasn't. Really, I've plaid in the weeks and months following every update for the entire lifetime of stellaris. And while there are bugs that happened. I almost never felt like I had to wait for an update to fix it. again, once or twice at most.

Like, honestly. I haven't seen anything as broken as you seem to think it was. Maybe my tolerance is higher than yours, but I've enjoyed the ride.

Squishing every little bug isn't a valuable use of anyone's time. And while some of them are problematic, most of the long running ones are rare enough that the majority of players will see maybe one. I'm not even sure I've even seen one of these decade old bugs. If I have, it's not hurt my play experience.

 

[Taritu]

Releasing 4.0, which so far has pretty awful feedback from the beta testers, at the same time as a major DLC seems like a recipe for a complete mess. Major reworks usually take time to balance and fix.

I do hope I'm wrong, but I'm guessing the game may be borderline unplayable for a month or two after May 5.

This is a major update, like 2.0-2.2 and that made the game awful for ages before it worked.

With respect to the Custodian team they're doing this because it's a way of fixing population causing huge late game lag.

That aside, these look pretty damn awesome to me.

 

[Newbee53]

Releasing 4.0, which so far has pretty awful feedback from the beta testers, at the same time as a major DLC seems like a recipe for a complete mess. Major reworks usually take time to balance and fix.

I do hope I'm wrong, but I'm guessing the game may be borderline unplayable for a month or two after May 5.

This is a major update, like 2.0-2.2 and that made the game awful for ages before it worked.

With respect to the Custodian team they're doing this because it's a way of fixing population causing huge late game lag.

That aside, these look pretty damn awesome to me.

Every beta update has a survey, and we don't know what is on those surveys. But while some beta testers have had awful reviews, others like me love the direction its going in.

I'd argue that as people sitting here on our seats, we don't often know what is going on in the whole. More importantly, angry and upset people are always more vocal than neutral or happy people. So, I expect a dip in reviews because that's what always happens.

 

[Calvax]

Releasing 4.0, which so far has pretty awful feedback from the beta testers

As someone who’s played a few beta games (admittedly none to the end game) and filled out the forms I don’t think it’s fair to characterise all feedback as pretty awful. There have been issues sure but it’s already improving. Certainly there are some people who are quite unhappy and most are giving feedback constructively, but we don’t really know what the overall sentiment is.

It would be interesting to get some survey data.