The Stellaris Curse strikes again

[Voidian]

Another awesome DLC.
Another great patch.

And the DLC reviews are getting ruined because of a ton of bugs that are going to be fixed within 2 wekks, while the negative reviews are most likely never getting updated.

I swear, Stellaris has many "mixed" awesome DLCs, some of paradox best works, and most of them are tainted by the exact same problem, they always come out with a new, radical patch that changes everything, creates a bunch of bugs, and people review the latest DLC negatively because of a free patch that had nothing to do with it.

 

[Eelectrica]

They should separate the releases. Release 4.0. Get that patched up, then release the DLC a couple of weeks later. I pretty much expected the 4.0 release would need a lot of post release work. I think most people did though.

 

[T5_k]

It is rather unfortunate this happens, and honestly I'm kinda confused as to why. Postponing the DLC/patch is one option. Releasing a public beta is another.

I honestly don't get it, is it some marketing people raving the launch must be immediate? Ceo types sticking to deadlines over everything else? I'd buy the argument "different hardware in infinite combinations" but hotfixes are rolling ot at lightspeed, we're on 4.0.3 already and it's been less than 48h since launch.

In addition, the bugs are not (only) some background calculation fuckups, there is clearly unpolished content - I always play machine intelligence (gestalt) and usually go with resource consolidation origin, and boy was I in for a doozie - build district button doesn't show what jobs you are getting, what expected output and upkeep they will have, there is no visual indication of what a district is specialized in, the "Malfunctioning replicator bay" blocker that is supposed to give you extra pop assembly jobs doesn't do that (it just acts as a most basic -1 district blocker), and job distribution is... poor. In adition, for some reason sometimes drones don't demote to maintenance drones, leading to economy spiral of doom cannot be stopped.

It's almost like nobody even checked if machine world are functional lol. I love the game and really like the direction in which planets are going, but cmon devs, you showed us with 3.0 you can do a launch properly, please do better.

Just chill with the release dates and make sure the game is in a playable state before dropping it. The current release feels more like a decent beta, not something you publish

Otherwise, f**kin' A on the planet rework, the depth is orders of magnitude greater than before!

 

[Thiend]

The trend in the past and expectation into the future is not that it will take two weeks to fix the problems such that the negative reviews become outdated.

It's that it takes two weeks for them to stop patching almost entirely and leave it however broken it is at the time. Often a lot of the major fixes are in the patch for the next DLC, although last year it was even worse than that - ironically, including Cosmic Storms fixes in THIS patch.

Frankly, even if they become incorrect later, they deserve those reviews. Neither they nor anyone else should release stuff broken like this.

In any other industry this would have been shut down a long time ago. If someone sold you a car that wouldn't start for the first two weeks "but then they'll fix it," you would NOT change your review on the car to positive, nor would anyone think it reasonable to expect you to. They'll get good reviews when they finish products BEFORE they sell them, instead of hopefully-maybe-at-some-point fixing them.

If they're going to stick with this until its fixed, that's a new and extremely positive behavior change. Still not as good as actually releasing it functional, but better. I used to think reviews on the free patch instead of the DLC wasn't reasonable, but... you can't play the DLC without the free patch. It's exactly as reasonable as rating a game based on the DRM it won't run without, which is to say completely reasonable.

 

[Kingsleydale]

I can play the game for like 30 minutes at most before it crashes for one reason or another. Its really frustrating.

 

[Masked Ermine]

Another awesome DLC.
Another great patch.

And the DLC reviews are getting ruined because of a ton of bugs that are going to be fixed within 2 wekks, while the negative reviews are most likely never getting updated.

I swear, Stellaris has many "mixed" awesome DLCs, some of paradox best works, and most of them are tainted by the exact same problem, they always come out with a new, radical patch that changes everything, creates a bunch of bugs, and people review the latest DLC negatively because of a free patch that had nothing to do with it.

You know it's almost like they should've delayed publishing it for a couple of weeks or a month or two months if that's 'all it would take to fix all the bugs'; maybe they could avoid the bad reviews then huh...that's a strange and novel thought innit?

 

[Taritu]

Getting a bug which won't let me load games. Never had that before, even a clean reinstall didn't solve it.

Yes, the 4.0 should have been released a month before the DLC.

 

[Thiend]

Getting a bug which won't let me load games. Never had that before, even a clean reinstall didn't solve it.

Yes, the 4.0 should have been released a month before the DLC.

Or week after.

If it was after, we'd be able to play Biogenesis without it and they could run a beta until it was actually ready without a looming deadline.

I suggested exactly this. Unfortunately, here we are.

 

[Taritu]

Before, not after. The new buildings, civics, etc... would have all been designed to work with 4.0. They wouldn't want to do two sets, one for old, one for new.

But yes, I wrote in advance that releasing them both at the same time seemed like a bad idea. Got slammed for that, of course, the fanboys can't think, or maybe they weren't around for 2.2.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

They should separate the releases. Release 4.0. Get that patched up, then release the DLC a couple of weeks later. I pretty much expected the 4.0 release would need a lot of post release work. I think most people did though.

Agreed. While the negative reviews for the DLC are not fair assessments of the DLC itself, the choice to release it alongside the big-and-likely-bugged free update seems like a needlessly risky move. Releasing the free patch a month in advance would make it both feel more optional to those who download the free update immediately, and also give Paradox ample time to stomp out any serious issues in time for the DLC release - which then gets more favourable reviews.

While this may initially mean less time to get things into the next free update, it will also mean fewer bugs remaining at the DLC launch - and fewer bugfixes remaining after that, reducing the passed-on workload burden for future free updates.

If valuable workforce will need to be spent on fixing bugs either way, it may as well be done sooner rather than later.

If customers stop buying a DLC on launch day, and instead wait 3 months or longer, it means delayed revenue - with an increased possibility of less revenue, or no revenue at all.

 

[Thiend]

Agreed. While the negative reviews for the DLC are not fair assessments of the DLC itself

They're completely fair assessments of the DLC itself if the DLC can't run without them.

They're arguably not fair assessments of the base game, as you can roll that back to 3.14 to avoid it. 4.0 is a prerequisite for Biogenesis, therefore 4.0's quality is relevant to review Biogenesis with.

If you are aware of a way to play Biogenesis in 3.14, my opinion will change.

 

[HFY]

Another great patch.

Patch isn't currently great.

Maybe it'll get fixed in two weeks or whatever, but with so much basic stuff not working right now, it can't be considered "great".

 

[Thiend]

Patch isn't currently great.

Maybe it'll get fixed in two weeks or whatever, but with so much basic stuff not working right now, it can't be considered "great".

It can be considered Great, but in the same vein as "The Great Depression" or "The Great War."

It's Great, but it sure isn't Good.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

They're completely fair assessments of the DLC itself if the DLC can't run without them.

They are not constructive assessments for someone who has (or will have) 4.0 and considers buying the DLC. The assessments of an optional DLC should be relative to the current version of the base game, not a review of the base game itself.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

 

[Thiend]

They are not constructive assessments for someone who has (or will have) 4.0 and considers buying the DLC. The assessments of an optional DLC should be relative to the current version of the base game, not a review of the base game itself.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

There are versions of the base game that are a good game, so rating the base game overall badly isn't completely reasonable.

There isn't a version of the base game that can run Biogenesis that is a good game. It's obviously reasonable to give a negative rating for something that isn't a good game. It can be either a review of the base game, which has many good-game versions, or a review of Biogenesis, which has 0 good-game versions.

I don't agree that therefore rating Biogenesis negatively is "a wrong."

 

[tksolway]

Another awesome DLC.
Another great patch.

And the DLC reviews are getting ruined because of a ton of bugs that are going to be fixed within 2 wekks, while the negative reviews are most likely never getting updated.

I swear, Stellaris has many "mixed" awesome DLCs, some of paradox best works, and most of them are tainted by the exact same problem, they always come out with a new, radical patch that changes everything, creates a bunch of bugs, and people review the latest DLC negatively because of a free patch that had nothing to do with it.

All true, but I would argue that releasing with the bugs is on them, and I won't criticize those that choose to review based upon the state they were given. As much as I agree with the fact that the bugs will largely be patched in a couple weeks, and commend PDX in their ongoing support for their games. I won't claim to not be disappointed in the current state either. It's a buzz kill to realize that you'll have to wait a couple weeks to play the game again. Especially after psyching yourself up for the new release.

 

[Kataclyszm]

As much as I agree with the fact that the bugs will largely be patched in a couple weeks,

How do you possibly look at Paradox's past behavior and come to this conclusion? I would remind you that Awakened Empires have been largely nonfuctional since 2.0.

 

[Averath]

If I write a negative review on a game that later gets updated and that content is fixed, that does not mean they automatically deserve a positive review.

I am not a beta tester. I am not being paid. I am paying someone for a service. If that service is subpar and people want to inform others, they're within their rights to do so.

First impressions are important. You only have a single chance to catch someone's attention. We're honestly way too lenient on these multi-billion dollar corporations. They have more money than 99.9% of us can even properly comprehend. You are effectively hardwired to not understand what a billion dollars actually means. That is the scale of things for these companies.

There is no excuse for releasing something before it is ready, and this wouldn't happen if people didn't rise to the defense of corporations over and over again over the decade or so.

 

[ToneyT]

I know that it's a live service game but, before every expansion, World of Warcraft releases what it is know as the "pre-patch".

This patch serves a double purpose: It adds some story tie-in to the new expansion, but it also puts the new systems out in the wild so they can test and fix if anything is broken before the actual expansion release.

Someone else suggested doing something similar and I second it. Just release the free update a week or two before the expansion, test it out, then release the expansion once you know it actually works.

The fact that this happens every other time is why I actually stopped buying expansions last year.
Do better, Paradox.

 

[Thiend]

I know that it's a live service game but, before every expansion, World of Warcraft releases what it is know as the "pre-patch".

This patch serves a double purpose: It adds some story tie-in to the new expansion, but it also puts the new systems out in the wild so they can test and fix if anything is broken before the actual expansion release.

Someone else suggested doing something similar and I second it. Just release the free update a week or two before the expansion, test it out, then release the expansion once you know it actually works.

The fact that this happens every other time is why I actually stopped buying expansions last year.
Do better, Paradox.

Stellaris now has a subscription.

It IS a live service game.