The new pop system is horrible.

[Voidian]

"The new system is more like Victoria and other games I prefer, therefore superior!".

Meanwhile we lost tons of functionality, traits affecting more than one job, etc.

So you think the new system is so bad you had to name something else, unrelated to the pop system as a bad feature of the new system?

 

[Critical Ethics]

That part isn't even the design, it's that they decided job efficiency scaled better (actually true) and changed them all to efficiency per job, not output per resource.

That isn't inherent to anything about the new design, but it is a massive oversight. The obvious solution is to either add output bonuses to appropriate resources for jobs that the efficiency bonus doesn't apply to ("10% unity from jobs for non-bureaucrat jobs") or make them apply to the resources, but weighted ("half of this job is society and half is physics, so physics traits apply 50% of their efficiency buff to the entire job").

Either of those would be a huge improvement and/or total functionality restoration, at least for this problem.

It's not a loss of functionality or an oversight, it's a lateral shift in functionality due to a deliberate design decision. Traditional doesn't boost Unity any more, it boosts Bureaucrats, meaning it also boosts the science from auto-curating vault. Where before your Charismatic Entertainers weren't getting boosted unity unless they were Traditional Charismatic Entertainers now they're getting the unity boost just from being Charismatic. If a job is supposed to be a Technician Physicist it can inherit multiple job modifiers like the Toxic God event jobs do. If a trait is supposed to boost technicians and physicists it can do that, too. And because efficiency scales upkeep all the resulting combinations roughly all balance out (well, ignoring the broken state of upkeep, designations, ascension...)

The "oversight" is they've done almost nothing to actually leverage any of this. We have no technician physicists or physics-and-technician traits. We have minimal buildings that add new resource types to pops and most of the ones we do have are wildly untuned. While the actual obvious solution is to add more stuff that plays to the strengths of the system they designed, based on their reactions to everything else I will not be surprised to see them break the system they designed by doing the exact opposite.

 

[Thiend]

It's not a loss of functionality or an oversight, it's a lateral shift in functionality due to a deliberate design decision. Traditional doesn't boost Unity any more, it boosts Bureaucrats, meaning it also boosts the science from auto-curating vault. Where before your Charismatic Entertainers weren't getting boosted unity unless they were Traditional Charismatic Entertainers now they're getting the unity boost just from being Charismatic. If a job is supposed to be a Technician Physicist it can inherit multiple job modifiers like the Toxic God event jobs do. If a trait is supposed to boost technicians and physicists it can do that, too. And because efficiency scales upkeep all the resulting combinations roughly all balance out (well, ignoring the broken state of upkeep, designations, ascension...)

The "oversight" is they've done almost nothing to actually leverage any of this. We have no technician physicists or physics-and-technician traits. We have minimal buildings that add new resource types to pops and most of the ones we do have are wildly untuned. While the actual obvious solution is to add more stuff that plays to the strengths of the system they designed, based on their reactions to everything else I will not be surprised to see them break the system they designed by doing the exact opposite.

What you are describing in your second paragraph is this being an oversight.

It also is a loss of functionality. This is just objectively true. Your repeated attempts to say things that we previously had that we now don't is anything other than an objective loss of functionality isn't compelling now, wasn't before, and won't be next time.

The change from output to efficiency was deliberate and good. The change from output type to job type has had unintended results. At no point was it said that there being no impact on research from non-researcher jobs via research-boosting traits was intended.

 

[Critical Ethics]

What you are describing in your second paragraph is this being an oversight.

That's not what oversight means. I was using the word ironically. I think you knew the latter, I hope you know the former.

It also is a loss of functionality. This is just objectively true. Your repeated attempts to say things that we previously had that we now don't is anything other than an objective loss of functionality isn't compelling now, wasn't before, and won't be next time.

If by loss you mean reduction then no, it's not. If you trade functionality to gain equal or greater functionality then you have not lost functionality.

If by loss you mean we traded functionality for equal or greater functionality and you want everything put back the way it was, no. Your repeated attempts to say things that we previously did not have that we now have is anything other than an objective gain of functionality isn't compelling now, wasn't before, and won't be next time.

If by loss you mean we traded functionality for equal or greater functionality and you want to have both, no. Your repeated attempts to say that compromising things that we now have to make worst of both worlds half and half compromises would be anything other than an objective loss of functionality isn't compelling now, wasn't before, and won't be next time.

Which of the base pop traits boosted astral threads in the old system? What non-miner miner is missing out on their bonus minerals in the new system? Is it more or less micro to maximise biofuel production in the new system?

The change from output to efficiency was deliberate and good. The change from output type to job type has had unintended

[Citation needed]

results. At no point was it said that there being no impact on research from non-researcher jobs via research-boosting traits was intended.

This is, again, you being stuck on old paradigm thinking. There are no longer any research boosting traits. There are researcher boosting traits. (E: by which I mean, if you point to a job that is no longer getting green research boosts from natural sociologists it's because it's getting boosts from a different, job specific trait instead). If there is a job that you believe should count as a researcher then that job needs to be flagged as a researcher. Rangers, for example, should absolutely be entertainer sociologists, getting boosts from both. (E: which means if they have natural sociologists and Charismatic then they get 1.3x to both amenities and green science production and 1.3x to total upkeep). Trying to adjust upkeep to boost their green science output but not their amenities is missing the entire point.

Work within the new paradigms, not against them. Please.

 

[-Marauder-]

So you think the new system is so bad you had to name something else, unrelated to the pop system as a bad feature of the new system?

You made a wild claim, that the "New pop system is in every way superior to the old." without any kind of proof or even actual points to it. Not even subjective ones. Expecting others to go in depth and write out something when you yourself couldn't be bothered to yet have a very clear bias towards a different Paradox game, which now happens to have a more similar game is entirely sufficient here.

 

[Voidian]

You made a wild claim, that the "New pop system is in every way superior to the old." without any kind of proof or even actual points to it. Not even subjective ones. Expecting others to go in depth and write out something when you yourself couldn't be bothered to yet have a very clear bias towards a different Paradox game, which now happens to have a more similar game is entirely sufficient here.

I like the failed attempt at mindreading as a pseudo argument.


But speaking of victoria, where do you think they got this idea to shove pops into every one of their new games?
Care to take a wild guess?

But yes, if you specifically reply to me I'd expect you to be replying to something I've said, instead you're trying to make up excuses to justify quoting something I said to talk about something completely unrelated, hell, you're claiming this has something to do with my preferences and I don't even know who you are, how could you possibly even know that?

If you wanted to know what I thought of the overall current state of stellaris, you just had to ask.

The game's balance was thrown into The Worm's blackhole, can we ever expect to get it back?

I don't hate the update, I think it had some great ideas, and it seems like pops are no longer the real endgame crisis anymore (we should get rid of the arbitrary empire soft-cap on pops btw). But everything else about the game is a mess right...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

These, like what you were mentioning, are issues with the current update, but not necessarily, in any way, related to the new pop system.
It's probably the Only part of 4.0 working fine right now.

 

[-Marauder-]

I like the failed attempt at mindreading as a pseudo argument.


But speaking of victoria, where do you think they got this idea to shove pops into every one of their new games?
Care to take a wild guess?

But yes, if you specifically reply to me I'd expect you to be replying to something I've said, instead you're trying to make up excuses to justify quoting something I said to talk about something completely unrelated, hell, you're claiming this has something to do with my preferences and I don't even know who you are, how could you possibly even know that?

If you wanted to know what I thought of the overall current state of stellaris, you just had to ask.

The game's balance was thrown into The Worm's blackhole, can we ever expect to get it back?

I don't hate the update, I think it had some great ideas, and it seems like pops are no longer the real endgame crisis anymore (we should get rid of the arbitrary empire soft-cap on pops btw). But everything else about the game is a mess right...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

These, like what you were mentioning, are issues with the current update, but not necessarily, in any way, related to the new pop system.
It's probably the Only part of 4.0 working fine right now.

So many words, and absolutely no substance. Try again.

And you made a wild claim. "The new pop system is in every way superior to the old.", there's nothing there to properly respond to. Since you didn't even elaborate on how exactly it is superior to the old system, aside from no it isn't, it's inferior in virtually every way.

 

[Enero]

It is not the pop system, it is the planetary development system. Th enew planetary system is the culprit of all this nonsense.

 

[Voidian]

So many words, and absolutely no substance. Try again.

And you made a wild claim. "The new pop system is in every way superior to the old.", there's nothing there to properly respond to. Since you didn't even elaborate on how exactly it is superior to the old system, aside from no it isn't, it's inferior in virtually every way.

Just so you know, you can't farm jesters here.

 

[Everstill]

Yeah, I thought I would like the high number of pops but I dont, it feels really bad with the numbers all over the place.

If they want to keep high pop numbers then multiply by 1000 instead of 100 and put everything in the K where 1 POP = 1K and be done with it.

 

[Arkarnia]

They could just sum up the groups into species numbers before rolling dice to calculate growth.

Fewer calculations, and more consistent numbers.

Efficient Idea. I support this!

 

[Trigaea]

Yeah, I thought I would like the high number of pops but I dont, it feels really bad with the numbers all over the place.

If they want to keep high pop numbers then multiply by 1000 instead of 100 and put everything in the K where 1 POP = 1K and be done with it.

I quipped about this two pages ago, but it’s honestly not a bad idea.

Increasing by another 10x and abbreviating with an K might actually do wonders for readability.

It’s more or less what games that deal with big numbers already do. If Cookie Clicker can have cookies counted in the octodecillions and still be readable, I’m sure Paradox can also figure out big numbers.

 

[Voidian]

I quipped about this two pages ago, but it’s honestly not a bad idea.

Increasing by another 10x and abbreviating with an K might actually do wonders for readability.

It’s more or less what games that deal with big numbers already do. If Cookie Clicker can have cookies counted in the octodecillions and still be readable, I’m sure Paradox can also figure out big numbers.

Or just use real numbers, if we're already in the realm of 1=100000 and a group of pops is just treated as "one entity" anyway.

That way we can see if a world has 200k pops working in the mines, 2m in research labs and perhaps over 1b population.

These abbreviations serve the same purpose, should give more readability and more weight to your decisions. Like "I just blew a planet with 20b people" or "these voidworms are eating millions, maybe I shouldn't ignore them"

 

[grommile]

Or just use real numbers

Aaah no that way lies the uncanny valley.

 

[Trigaea]

Or just use real numbers, if we're already in the realm of 1=100000 and a group of pops is just treated as "one entity" anyway.

That way we can see if a world has 200k pops working in the mines, 2m in research labs and perhaps over 1b population.

These abbreviations serve the same purpose, should give more readability and more weight to your decisions. Like "I just blew a planet with 20b people" or "these voidworms are eating millions, maybe I shouldn't ignore them"

I assume they don’t want to commit to pops = an actual number of beings.

You’d end up with a ton of things like “How do the Caravaneers have millions of people willing to migrate to my empire” and “How did a lone corvette abduct the entire population of France?”

We’d also have problems like “Why does my hyper-advanced space empire employ proportionally more miners and farmers than my primitive real world country?” If you made pops 1:1 with in-universe beings, you end up with some wonky job proportions.

Those problems already exist as-is, but they’re easy to gloss over by saying pops are an abstraction that doesn’t represent a specific number of beings.

Personally, I agree. I’ve always thought pops being an abstract and undefined number of people felt lame, but it’d be a monumental amount of work to go through every pop file to make sure pop numbers feels sufficiently realistic.

As grommile succinctly put it, converting pops to be 1:1 with the beings they represent would be way too uncanny valley without also reworking everything about pops all over again.

 

[Enero]

1 pop being approximately 1 million works pretty well for rp.

 

[Trigaea]

1 pop being approximately 1 million works pretty well for rp.

This ratio means the UNE only has 5.2 billion people at game start.

The 22nd century was not kind to humanity.

 

[Anzaman]

This ratio means the UNE only has 5.2 billion people at game start.

The 22nd century was not kind to humanity.

Maybe humans just stopped having babies.

 

[HFY]

This ratio means the UNE only has 5.2 billion people at game start.

The 22nd century was not kind to humanity.

In order to get an Egalitarian society, we had to execute the 1%.

Then another 1% who tried to take their place.

And then another 1% ...

... until finally, that particular urge for hierarchical dominance was bred out of the remaining humans, and us normal 99%-ers could be allowed to enjoy life.

All 5.2 billion of us.

 

[Trigaea]

Maybe humans just stopped having babies.

You want Rogue Servitors for this one.

At a 1 to 1 million conversion, there are only 2 billion human bio-trophies. That’s nearly a billion fewer people every generation.

It’s either that or our Rogue Servitor overlords had a stint as Determined Exterminators before growing out of their edgy teenager phase.

Jokes aside, this highlights why pop to person conversions don’t mesh well outside of roleplay headcanons. You can have this conversation for everything in the entire game related to pops.

Establishing a set ratio between pops and people would be a colossal headache.