Zones; what is good, what needs to be fixed before 4.0

[GN_Fighter]

The problem with that argument is what makes those 'special' worlds special now if they don't get special districts?

I would argue if there needed to be a full fledge rethink on planetary resources, it would've gone much more like you, give us more district types, make building amplifiers (which sounds like the core of what they did with this new system). The primary problem late game I think is A: populations and their individual calculations, and B: ships, ships and their individual animation and calculations unquestionably burn up resources to the point they can crash the game to desktop, especially if you're in a weird system that adds to resource draw.

What is going to make those special-world's special with the current rework? ... apart from them not having gotten the rework yet.. the answer is nothing.

realistically you have the same effect with the rework as if you had with an expansion of the old system. a special world with temple-districts or an ecu isn't special anymore because you can now have the corrosponding district's on every planet.. the only difference for worlds like ecunopolis and ring worlds in comparison is their size but no longer their special districts.


the district/zone-rework doesn't even adress the listed late-gameproblems. Of course its easy to think that, due to pop's being an intrinsic part of the economy that the pop-rework and the planetary-rework can not be dissociated from each other... but i and some other believe that this is a red herring and the planetary and pop-rework can be seperate from each other and the fleet-part isn't adressed.

As an example.. if we look at the change they did for reasearch-districts and buildings in todays beta-update... well.. this idea and implementation isn't even new.. before the planetary-designation a foundry/cs-factory actually shiftes the production of an industrial-district in either direction so even the building-changes would have been possible with the old system.

 

[Newbee53]

Tbh I feel like part of the problem is there’s a lot of emotions flying around. There’s not even an agreement on what the problems are. I can’t say I’m super sold on zones but I’m also not sold that the sky is falling, everyone hates them, and the devs are nefariously refusing to acknowledge an obvious fundamental problem.

At this point I’m happy to keep testing, providing feedback, and rolling with the knowledge it’s not going to arrive perfect (no major update has after all).

Other than I am sold on Zones, this basically sums up my feelings on the topic.

 

[Masked Ermine]

What is going to make those special-world's special with the current rework? ... apart from them not having gotten the rework yet.. the answer is nothing.

realistically you have the same effect with the rework as if you had with an expansion of the old system. a special world with temple-districts or an ecu isn't special anymore because you can now have the corrosponding district's on every planet.. the only difference for worlds like ecunopolis and ring worlds in comparison is their size but no longer their special districts.


the district/zone-rework doesn't even adress the listed late-gameproblems. Of course its easy to think that, due to pop's being an intrinsic part of the economy that the pop-rework and the planetary-rework can not be dissociated from each other... but i and some other believe that this is a red herring and the planetary and pop-rework can be seperate from each other and the fleet-part isn't adressed.

As an example.. if we look at the change they did for reasearch-districts and buildings in todays beta-update... well.. this idea and implementation isn't even new.. before the planetary-designation a foundry/cs-factory actually shiftes the production of an industrial-district in either direction so even the building-changes would have been possible with the old system.

I mean I don't disagree, I think this infrastructural rework is rebreaking the wheel for some kinda nebulous reasoning that doesn't affect the actual problems. Unless the old system intrinsically required individual pop calcs to work, and concurrent to that the devs didn't know how to reprogram said system to aggregate calcs.

I think the largest problems with this 'update' is what has been happening with Stellaris updates for a while, they are published 3/4s done and then rush to try and finish them after the fact, only to get the thing triaged just in time for them for a new update putting the fixes onto a backlog... Like we're getting this huge DLC release with new ascensions and units and probably jobs...and 4.0 isn't even fully compatible with the content it needs to be compatible with at launch and we only got what a month, 5 weeks to do that in? 4.0 Phoenix should have been the only thing released this year, period outside of some skins or possible new ship art. Give 4.0 the time to stabilize then they could do massive DLC stuff.

We need a purely fix-it team and more fix it patches and fewer new content patches. IMO this is the primary problem I have with Paradox and Stellaris, the games are now increasingly published in perpetual broken conditions that never get fully patched. And I realize this is increasingly becoming a condition across the gaming (and software) industry, 'release it quick and broken fix it in post' only you know...Paradox never really gets around to fixing it in post, there are bugs in this game that existed when I started playing sometime around or just before Federations released. And rather than putting out those fires, Paradox swans in every 2-4 months with a battalion of flamethrowers to start more....

What Stellaris needs more than a sequel or anything else is time...a year or two of no new content only bug patches. Get 99% of everything working and then and only then should new content be considered.

 

[Kataclyszm]

We need a purely fix-it team

We HAVE a purely fix-it team. The Custodians. See the issue?

 

[Masked Ermine]

We HAVE a purely fix-it team. The Custodians. See the issue?

Custodians aren't purely fix it. They fix and they also create new content for old mechanics and DLCs.

IE Custodians' time is not focused on bug fixing, it split between bug fixing and updating old content with new content patches.

 

[Kataclyszm]

Custodians aren't purely fix it. They fix and they also create new content for old mechanics and DLCs.

IE Custodians' time is not focused on bug fixing, it split between bug fixing and updating old content with new content patches.

That's... my point. Unless I seriously misremember, the Custodians indeed started as fix-it, and then slowly evolved into the current state. What reason is there to believe another 'purely fix it' team wouldn't follow the same path?

 

[Masked Ermine]

That's... my point. Unless I seriously misremember, the Custodians indeed started as fix-it, and then slowly evolved into the current state. What reason is there to believe another 'purely fix it' team wouldn't follow the same path?

There is none, but the custodians focus needs reorientation or a new team needs to be put purely on maintenance. It's clear that Paradox will only respond to poor sales, or customer opt out. But then you get customers who are perfectly happy having a perpetually broken game....because 'well the bugs don't make it unplayable so its fine'....no...that's a mentality that only ensures the games' quality is going to go down as the company realizes they can ship out any trash with the promise of hotfixing it.....

Like I literally LOLed when they did their shpeal about preording.... I was like ...'I don't even on the day order...at best I post order when I get the feeling it's where it should've been when you published it'.

 

[Kataclyszm]

There is none, but the custodians focus needs reorientation or a new team needs to be put purely on maintenance. It's clear that Paradox will only respond to poor sales, or customer opt out. But then you get customers who are perfectly happy having a perpetually broken game....because 'well the bugs don't make it unplayable so its fine'....no...that's a mentality that only ensures the games' quality is going to go down as the company realizes they can ship out any trash with the promise of hotfixing it.....

Like I literally LOLed when they did their shpeal about preording.... I was like ...'I don't even on the day order...at best I post order when I get the feeling it's where it should've been when you published it'.

Oh no argument that they need that. I just think that's too much to hope for.

 

[NorseGod]

My biggest issue with the beta is that implementing Zones like this:

Is making Stellaris feel like this again:

But without the benefit of being able to swap buildings around.

I've been trying to figure a way to solve for this, without completely getting rid of Zones entirely. And the best I have come up with is: City Zones shouldn't have Building Slots in them. Instead, I see a system like this:

1) Make all buildings planet-unique to stop duplication spam.

2) Remove the building slots from City Zones, and leave building slots in a generic city space similar to the Government Zone.

3) Now City Zones (and maybe Planet Designation) add Specialist and Elite jobs, adjusted per city district.

4) Any buildings that add generic jobs change from "Add +X jobs" to "Add X% more jobs" (additive, not multiplicative). Example: if each level of Research Building adds 10% more jobs, all three adds 30% more jobs. Really unique buildings can do whatever you want. But you need to have a Zone (or other special way) of creating those jobs for the building to be useful.

5) Make City Districts provide Amenities or Amenity-Jobs by default, enough so City-Only planets cover their amenity needs and more, at least until Unemployment becomes an issue. Cities thematically are where Amenities are provided, and for energy/metal/food heavy planets, there are Amenity Zones and Buldings that will provide these. Mixed city/rural planets can then use someof the open building slots for Amenities, or a Zone if need be.

Going this way, you still get most of the benefits of the Zone system, but you aren't trapping Buildings in the Zone Slots. Instead, you tie those buildings to certain Zones, as they're (usually) the only source of the jobs those buildings modify. But you get rid of the build/demolish/build cycle that's going on now.

Did a mock-up of a version of the UI that could go with this:

What are the problems with this idea? Am I missing something completely?

 

[Calvax]

What are the problems with this idea? Am I missing something completely?

Could be just me but I don’t get what problem you’re trying to solve. Why is the visual appearance of the building slots attached to zones a problem?

 

[Newbee53]

Going this way, you still get most of the benefits of the Zone system, but you aren't trapping Buildings in the Zone Slots. Instead, you tie those buildings to certain Zones, as they're (usually) the only source of the jobs those buildings modify. But you get rid of the build/demolish/build cycle that's going on now.

The devs have stated they want to get read of cycle two, by auto-demolishing buildings that doesn't match the new zone and keeping those that do. So, I don't think this is a big problem.

4) Any buildings that add generic jobs change from "Add +X jobs" to "Add X% more jobs" (additive, not multiplicative). Example: if each level of Research Building adds 10% more jobs, all three adds 30% more jobs. Really unique buildings can do whatever you want. But you need to have a Zone (or other special way) of creating those jobs for the building to be useful.

Wouldn't this make buildings more important than zones again? If the research labs are providing more jobs than the zone they are tied to, I think you've got it backwards. Buildings should support--or alter--zones. not outshine them. Empire unique buildings may be an exception. but it shouldn't be the rule that buildings are more important than the zones.

Unless you are saying the research labs would add 10% per building, rather than per city. And that would just be back to having insane numbers of duplicate buildings again.

Depending on balance, I'd be ok with buildings adding +x jobs per city/food zones/mine zones or whatever. Or even +x +y per city. Where y is smaller than x.

What are the problems with this idea? Am I missing something completely?

The biggest problem I see that isn't adressed is that it seems like you've eliminated any choice from buildings yet again. No need to think 'do I want a temple on this planet, or a monument. Not doing a unity zone though.' which is kind of the best part of the current restrictions. And this would be a step backwards for me.

Random thing I noticed. Devs have said they want to eliminate the amenities zone entirely. So that one at least should be gone.

 

[NorseGod]

Could be just me but I don’t get what problem you’re trying to solve. Why is the visual appearance of the building slots attached to zones a problem?

It's not visual, as I stated in my comment. Zones will no longer provide building slots. They're not seperated visually, I'm saying we seperate them entirely.

 

[Calvax]

It's not visual, as I stated in my comment. Zones will no longer provide building slots. They're not seperated visually, I'm saying we seperate them entirely.

Ok, but why? Sorry I’m not getting what the point would be. Buildings modify all jobs produced by that zone type so it’s easy to see at a glance what they’re changing. I’m not sure what having them on a separate part of the UI is meant to achieve.

Edit: To clarify further I've read your post but other than tackling the issue of moving buildings (something the devs have said they're working on) the rest of your ideas seem potentially worse, or at least have no clear benefit. As this great post put it one of the great benefits of zones is that it limits the pool of what buildings are competing with what buildings. If you can build anything you like detached from zones we end up with a system similar to what we have now where you can just spam the same buildings.

If you add a new building it's now competing with every other building. That's a balancing nightmare. Zones add several benefits, including but not limited to:

1) Zones silo what a building is competing with. A science zone building isn't competing with an agriculture building. If Astral Research centers are only able to be placed into Science Zones that makes them much less spammable and makes investing into astral threads a much bigger consideration.

2) The ability to decide which zone(s) a building can go into adds a lot of design space. Bioreactors as energy zone buildings would be different to bioreactors as agricultural zone buildings would be different to bioreactors as planet limit 1 but able to go into either slot.

3) Zones themselves can be thought of as buildings++. Even within the siloing paradigm there may be things that are simply "too good" to be a building while maintaining the coolness they "should" have. A non-choice is not a choice, it's makework. Having the option to instead spawn a zone is, again, more design space and flexibility than "thing that slots into one of your 12 building slots".

4) Zones are visible. If a planetary feature adds a cool zone then that zone is visible right on the building screen. "Dimensional Portal Research Zone" sitting right on the main screen seems a lot more fun than the dimensional research modifier sitting buried amongst the toxic algae.

Rampant speculation: I don't know if planet-specific zones are going to be additional zones or zone swaps, but assuming the latter adding a second zone to the agricultural zone would add (up to) three new building slots. Rather than the current setup where special planetary deposits eat up a building slot instead we'd have planetary resources adding planetary development space. This would open up a lot of design space, including things like making small planets more likely to get unique deposits (and therefore more building slots) vs large planets simply having a lot of room for districts.

 

[NorseGod]

The devs have stated they want to get read of cycle two, by auto-demolishing buildings that doesn't match the new zone and keeping those that do. So, I don't think this is a big problem.

Wouldn't this make buildings more important than zones again? If the research labs are providing more jobs than the zone they are tied to, I think you've got it backwards. Buildings should support--or alter--zones. not outshine them. Empire unique buildings may be an exception. but it shouldn't be the rule that buildings are more important than the zones.

Unless you are saying the research labs would add 10% per building, rather than per city. And that would just be back to having insane numbers of duplicate buildings again.

Depending on balance, I'd be ok with buildings adding +x jobs per city/food zones/mine zones or whatever. Or even +x +y per city. Where y is smaller than x.

The biggest problem I see that isn't adressed is that it seems like you've eliminated any choice from buildings yet again. No need to think 'do I want a temple on this planet, or a monument. Not doing a unity zone though.' which is kind of the best part of the current restrictions. And this would be a step backwards for me.

Random thing I noticed. Devs have said they want to eliminate the amenities zone entirely. So that one at least should be gone.

Perhaps I didn't explain it well. Buildings would NOT be providing more jobs than the Zone.

Research Zone: provides + X and + Y * (CityDistricts) = Z amount of research jobs. Example: 180 + 20 * (10 districts) = 380 researchers

Buildings: Z * (1+ Building 1 mod + Building 2 mod + Building 3 mod) = total research jobs. Example, If each level of research lab adds 10%: 380 * 1.3 = 494 researchers

 

[NorseGod]

Ok, but why? Sorry I’m not getting what the point would be. Buildings modify all jobs produced by that zone type so it’s easy to see at a glance what they’re changing. I’m not sure what having them on a separate part of the UI is meant to achieve.

Buldings being trapped inside City Zones cause a lot of Fiddliness in the game, similar to the way Pops on Tiles worked back in 1.0. I've played the game with 5x Habitable Planets to see what it's like when you get big empires, and it's a mess.

 

[Newbee53]

Perhaps I didn't explain it well. Buildings would NOT be providing more jobs than the Zone.

Research Zone: provides + X and + Y * (CityDistricts) = Z amount of research jobs. Example: 180 + 20 * (10 districts) = 380 researchers

Buildings: Z * (1+ Building 1 mod + Building 2 mod + Building 3 mod) = total research jobs. Example, If each level of research lab adds 10%: 380 * 1.3 = 494 researchers

I'm assuming each building is unique then. But that still leaves some limitations. Most notably, how to gauge the value of 10% more jobs. That's mainly a readability problem though, I'd just prefer flat jobs per city to some percentage increase. But it would be a preference choice there. Especially as i think flat job increases would be easier to figure out when you demolish a building.

 

[Calvax]

Perhaps I didn't explain it well. Buildings would NOT be providing more jobs than the Zone.

Research Zone: provides + X and + Y * (CityDistricts) = Z amount of research jobs. Example: 180 + 20 * (10 districts) = 380 researchers

Buildings: Z * (1+ Building 1 mod + Building 2 mod + Building 3 mod) = total research jobs. Example, If each level of research lab adds 10%: 380 * 1.3 = 494 researchers

I don't think this sounds as interesting as what 4.0 is aiming for. Having zones provide jobs and buildings modify the output of those jobs has a lot of potential to make different worlds with the same jobs feel different, increasing diversity. Having buildings and zones provide jobs makes it pointless to have both.

Buldings being trapped inside City Zones cause a lot of Fiddliness in the game, similar to the way Pops on Tiles worked back in 1.0. I've played the game with 5x Habitable Planets to see what it's like when you get big empires, and it's a mess.

Tbf the game has never been balanced around extreme settings. If you're setting habitable worlds so high and not using automation (I realise that's not in the game yet but in principle) that's not a problem with the planetary system.

I'm not completely sold on zones as they're not finished but I have felt that they become less fiddly as you colonise more and have mostly specialised worlds. The worlds that aren't specialised feel more interesting though than 3.14.

 

[NorseGod]

I'm assuming each building is unique then. But that still leaves some limitations. Most notably, how to gauge the value of 10% more jobs. That's mainly a readability problem though, I'd just prefer flat jobs per city to some percentage increase. But it would be a preference choice there. Especially as i think flat job increases would be easier to figure out when you demolish a building.

Maybe read my comment, not just look at the pictures?

---------

1) Make all buildings planet-unique to stop duplication spam.

2) Remove the building slots from City Zones, and leave building slots in a generic city space similar to the Government Zone.

3) Now City Zones (and maybe Planet Designation) add Specialist and Elite jobs, adjusted per city district.

4) Any buildings that add generic jobs change from "Add +X jobs" to "Add X% more jobs" (additive, not multiplicative). Example: if each level of Research Building adds 10% more jobs, all three adds 30% more jobs. Really unique buildings can do whatever you want. But you need to have a Zone (or other special way) of creating those jobs for the building to be useful.

5) Make City Districts provide Amenities or Amenity-Jobs by default, enough so City-Only planets cover their amenity needs and more, at least until Unemployment becomes an issue. Cities thematically are where Amenities are provided, and for energy/metal/food heavy planets, there are Amenity Zones and Buldings that will provide these. Mixed city/rural planets can then use someof the open building slots for Amenities, or a Zone if need be.

 

[Thiend]

I'm not completely sold on zones as they're not finished but I have felt that they become less fiddly as you colonise more and have mostly specialised worlds. The worlds that aren't specialised feel more interesting though than 3.14.

What I've experienced so far is that specialized worlds work fine, and after a certain number of worlds (so that individual fluctuations are less significant) hybrid worlds work better than they used to. But the output of planets is wildly variable when they're hybridized, and the controls over that are very micro-intensive. I can solve the problem by closing the jobs, but I have to wait for the jobs to be opened so it adds an additional time I have to check planets after each district completes to fix it.

The improvements for hybrid planets are not trivial, and the system overall (with all unique buildings) is also much better to me for specialized ones. But if I only need more of one output from a hybrid planet I'm forced into drastically more micro to prevent economic issues.

 

[NorseGod]

I don't think this sounds as interesting as what 4.0 is aiming for. Having zones provide jobs and buildings modify the output of those jobs has a lot of potential to make different worlds with the same jobs feel different, increasing diversity. Having buildings and zones provide jobs makes it pointless to have both.



Tbf the game has never been balanced around extreme settings. If you're setting habitable worlds so high and not using automation (I realise that's not in the game yet but in principle) that's not a problem with the planetary system.

I'm not completely sold on zones as they're not finished but I have felt that they become less fiddly as you colonise more and have mostly specialised worlds. The worlds that aren't specialised feel more interesting though than 3.14.

You can still have buildings that modify jobs, adding more output or whatever. I'm just saying that buildings that only add +X jobs change how they work. The idea is that Zones and maybe Planet Designation are what provide those Specialist and Elite level jobs, and building's modify those jobs, either by adding more or modifying the jobs.

Playing with that many planets isn't that extreme. If you play a military expansionist, you get to 30-40 worlds in your empire pretty easily. I used 5x as a way to get to that more quickly, to see how the system works. Instead of playing 5x, I could just attack and gobble my neighbours, and run into the same problem.