Stellaris Dev Diary #94 - Ascension Perks & Surveying in Cherryh

[CocoCincinnati]

Sounds like solid and welcome changes to the new game, wish they could be made retroactive for Stellaris Classic as well.

 

[minke19104]

Where are the diplomatic and trade changes that was promised a long time ago? Most of these dont really add much to the game.

 

[Byamarro]

I wasnt ignoring it. From my understanding of what you wrote, it was the basis of your entire argument.
Also thanks for the insults always appreciate those.
As for the Terms of Service, thats a legal document. Not wheter a dlc policy is fair or not. So I dont see how it is relevant.

Did you read my previous posts? My entire point in this thread has not been about making a feuture free, I even pointed out it makes sense from a game design point for the future as it would solve the issue of certain ascension perks requiring 2 DLC like machine worlds. Which I also consider unfair.

My point is simple: People paid for something and now it is going to be released for free, thats is unfair.
There should be some compansation, a portrait or something. Doesnt have to be a whole lot(As those couple perks are not worth that much), but something.

If you want to call that irrational anger then fine call it, then I guess I am irrationally angry.

Look dude, the value of stuff changes. You might as well lose part of your wealth due to inflation. Life is not fair, and there's no reason for demanding attitude.

 

[Lamahorse]

@Wiz, will this change, massively cut down on the amount of anomalies discovered in the galaxy?

 

[anomanderus]

So what you're saying is I paid 20 dollars on release for Utopia and now you're going to make features which I had to pay for available to non-payers? I like how each dev diary adds another reason why I should never buy another DLC or game from PDX again.

Look dude, the value of stuff changes. You might as well lose part of your wealth due to inflation. Life is not fair, and there's no reason for demanding attitude.

When I buy a house the salesman doesn't come back later and tell me demand has gone up for the house so I have to give him another few thousand dollars. The inability of so many people on these forums to understand that this is a buyer-seller relationship not a "wow paradox is so nice to make stuff at all" kind of deal is shocking and the idea a company decides to charge 20 bucks with the Ascension perks calculated into that cost then later say "you paid 20 bucks but now we're making stuff you paid for available to everyone" would not fly in any other business.

 

[LeSingeAffame]

You're not losing anything

 

[anomanderus]

Look dude, the value of stuff changes. You might as well lose part of your wealth due to inflation. Life is not fair, and there's no reason for demanding attitude.

Like Wiz said, people misunderstand the current system

Anomalies are generated randomly, upon surveying, and are empire specific. When you conquer worlds and find anomalies there, you are not finding anomalies the AI left behind. You are just surveying a planet that's not within another empire's borders. And, as long as that specific planet hasn't had an anomaly found on it before, you can randomly generate a new one.

As I mentioned, it sort of doesn't make sense that territory actually gets better and better, the more owners its had, who could generate anomalies in it. These changes will prevent that.

But, unless they also prevent multiple empires from generating anomalies in neutral systems, it still doesn't completely make sense. As far as I know, this is currently possible, and I don't see anything mentioned here that would disallow it...




Glad somebody mentioned it, I was afraid I'd have to this was clarified in the dev diary that introduced starports.



I know there were a lot more posts about this after, but this is the one I clicked quote on.

Games and DLC go on sale, obviously. That's not a problem, and doesn't mean the game or DLC have "less value"... Because it's expected? Games and DLC also just drop in price as they get older. Now, that definitely means "less value" to me, even if it's expected. When they begin to sell the game for the same or lower price that you paid for it, with the DLC included, that's not less value either? No compensation needed? The only thing you gained, above any of these, by paying full price, is you got to play around with it earlier.

So, the problem is that the feature (not the whole DLC) actually became completely free? Other than needing the base game, but not a special DLC-inclusive version of the base game? That's the cutoff point, at which suddenly compensation is required for your loss of value?

Because you didn't expect it? Well, news flash: these days it's pretty common for paid features to become standard after a while. Or, in fact, whole games that people paid full price for, to become free. Sometimes, it's so the company can get more money, by introducing pay-to-win features that the new free players will buy, or drawing more customers in general. Sometimes, like now, it's to improve the overall state of the game, and open up how that feature can be used. Guess which one is better? Yah, I totally agree, I should be compensated for their efforts to make this game better!

Also, it's not the whole game becoming free, not even a whole DLC, but one mehanic and a fraction of varieties of that mechanic. Your loss of value is far less than you lose every time it goes on sale. And guess what? Just like any of those other value-shredding price changes, even if the entire DLC were made free (which I reiterate it was not), you still got the exact same extra value for buying it: got to play it earlier.

Synopsis - if anyone expects the money they spend on a video game or DLC or feature or what-have-you, whether paying full price vs sale, or full price vs depreciated price, or any price vs free, to buy them anything more than getting to experience it now vs later, I don't know where they've been for the last decade.

It doesn't matter at all if games go on sale because even the people who bought it on sale are getting screwed when the company decides to make a paid feature free for people who didn't buy. You don't seem to understand how any of this works.

You're not losing anything

Actually I lost money to paradox paying for what is now an overpriced product since the price of the product is determined by the features contained within.

 

[LeSingeAffame]

You did not lose it. You still have access to the content. You're just not the only one. You paid for the content, not for the exclusivity of it.

 

[Nippleworthy]

It doesn't matter at all if games go on sale because even the people who bought it on sale are getting screwed when the company decides to make a paid feature free for people who didn't buy. You don't seem to understand how any of this works.



Actually I lost money to paradox paying for what is now an overpriced product since the price of the product is determined by the features contained within.

... but you can make life difficult for yourself.

 

[ragehavoc]

wont this greatly limit anomalies and modding for anomalies? I already knew you couldnt find anomalies in other empires and would wait as much as possible until I conquered an empire or area before sending a science ship for that very reason... I really do not see a point into having science ships at all if this is the case, just have triggered events for systems that require finding it only.

 

[ISitOnGnomes]

So what you're saying is I paid 20 dollars on release for Utopia and now you're going to make features which I had to pay for available to non-payers? I like how each dev diary adds another reason why I should never buy another DLC or game from PDX again.



When I buy a house the salesman doesn't come back later and tell me demand has gone up for the house so I have to give him another few thousand dollars. The inability of so many people on these forums to understand that this is a buyer-seller relationship not a "wow paradox is so nice to make stuff at all" kind of deal is shocking and the idea a company decides to charge 20 bucks with the Ascension perks calculated into that cost then later say "you paid 20 bucks but now we're making stuff you paid for available to everyone" would not fly in any other business.

They aren't coming on and demanding you pay them more to keep using the utopia features. Lets say I was selling houses, to use your example. The base house comes with no garage, but you can pay extra to get the garage. As a part of that a mudroom is added between the garage and house. Six months later I add the mudroom to the base model house and don't change the price. I think you would have a hard time arguing that I have now retroactively screwed you over.

 

[Melfice_Cyrum]

I think there's a rather egregious misunderstanding of just how much information is given away when communications are established. They only know:

A) The size of your empire
B) Stellar survey data (resource despots, rare resources)

Someone in this thread mention "fleet metrics" but that's not even remotely handed out. The other empire has no knowledge of anything beyond the two listed metrics.

As for the anomaly thing, this is just making clear a system that was unclear. Other empires were considered to have automatically 'surveyed' systems within their borders, so you could never generate anomalies (because that would alter the properties of planets they own). This is true whether you're in communication with an empire or not. And since surveying a system is required before you can claim it, this just closes the 'neutral system' anomaly loophole. Which is fine really.

EDIT: Also there's a misunderstanding in how the Communications Treaty works. Remember, an AI empire's territory is considered surveyed, whether you even know the empire exists or not, whether you've discovered them or not. A Comm Treaty just lets automatically establish communications with empires your Treaty partner finds and vice versa. It's no longer a trap.

 

[ISitOnGnomes]

I think there's a rather egregious misunderstanding of just how much information is given away when communications are established. They only know:

A) The size of your empire
B) Stellar survey data (resource despots, rare resources)

Someone in this thread mention "fleet metrics" but that's not even remotely handed out. The other empire has no knowledge of anything beyond the two listed metrics.

As for the anomaly thing, this is just making clear a system that was unclear. Other empires were considered to have automatically 'surveyed' systems within their borders, so you could never generate anomalies (because that would alter the properties of planets they own). This is true whether you're in communication with an empire or not. And since surveying a system is required before you can claim it, this just closes the 'neutral system' anomaly loophole. Which is fine really.

I thinks whats upsetting people os that you can currently game the mechanics by not surveying those systems until after you conquering them, thereby giving yourself a second chance at generating anomolies on the worlds with no resources. The fact that there is nothing advertising that this is the right behaviour to take, makes it a giant noob trap. This change is most likely to close that loophole and fix the trap, but to those that used that loophole it will feel as though they are losing content.

 

[Mastah Jedi]

1)"...the basic Ascension Perks such as Mastery of Nature, Defender of the Galaxy and so on free for everyone."
--What percentage of DLC did we pay for, will now be available for free?

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ NOT COOL PARADOX. NOT COOL.

 

[mindlace]

Dear gods. Features go from premium tier to base tier _all the time_ in almost every product sector. Electric windows used to be a premium feature in cars, now they’re often in the base model. For a short time, being able to drive two monitors independently was a feature of only higher end macs, now all macs can drive 2+ monitors independently. This is a normal part of making things.

 

[Mastah Jedi]

Respectfully Disagree all you want. I payed for this content. There is no reason, why it should be made free! That is plain wrong! If you want people to have some free Ascension Perks, fine, make some new free ones. Do not dilute the value of what we payed for. That said, entire Ascension thing, was a payed feature, so its just uncool thing to do, still.

 

[Nippleworthy]

Please Cherryh on - I don't want to play 1.83 any longer!

 

[Anthropophagic]

Respectfully Disagree all you want. I payed for this content. There is no reason, why it should be made free! That is plain wrong! If you want people to have some free Ascension Perks, fine, make some new free ones. Do not dilute the value of what we payed for. That said, entire Ascension thing, was a payed feature, so its just uncool thing to do, still.

You paid for access to the content. Content they created. They can do whatever they want with it. You didn't buy the entire rights to it.

 

[Mastah Jedi]

You paid for access to the content. Content they created. They can do whatever they want with it. You didn't buy the entire rights to it.

I did not say I did. However, such recklessness and disregard for paying customers, makes me question their integrity as a company.

 

[kgptzac]

What about unclaimed systems that has been surveyed by other empires? Do those systems generate or not generate anomalies for me if I am to survey them?