[Dev Team] BioGenesis + 4.0 'Phoenix' released (checksum 1ae3)

[Kataclyszm]

Everyone's gone over it in more detail than I can, the catastrophe of the release, so I'll just add this:

Shame on the PDX team. Shame on the managers for imposing such strict deadlines, but also shame on the devs for knowing they have these deadlines, and deciding to do a major overhaul of a huge, FUNCTIONING, portion of the game, and then having too much pride to admit wrongdoing. You are only human; not all of your ideas are going to be golden.

Until this behavior stops, not only am I not paying another dime, I am telling everyone I know not to even come close to this company. Vote with your wallets, folks, and stop preordering.

 

[DarkHelmet110985]

I got One Vision for the amenities reduction.... I think they nerfed it too much, I dont see a reason to pick it anymore.

Executive vigor I dont know why they dont add an extra +50% edict funds. It would become very interesting.

Shared Destiny is supposed to.... share your destiny, not absorve your friends lol Better to increase the extra vassals to 2.

Master builders if they add +1 megastruct limit it would be a must pick, not a good change.

And yeah, the Wold Shaper can be merged with the others and unlock Detox and Hydrocentric as techs depending on your species, civics, etc...




Why they dont simple make that on the 'dead levels' it simple upgrade a random Trait it already have automatically...? Then its less stops but it keeps the power.

There's lots of Amenity reduction sources and honestly, it's not hard to generate Ameneties if you need them. I took One Vision for the bonus Unity output to rush through Traditions. Executive Vigor needs a re-do and honestly not sure how one would do that. Shared Destiny is a vassal AP and integrating Vassals can be quite costly and time consuming. Anything that cuts that cost and duration would be worth taking. Master Builders idea simply takes an End-Game Crisis Relic and turns it into an Ascension Perk because honestly I never get Master Builders since being able to build/upgrade an additional Megastructure at the same time only really helps if you got the Alloy production to benefit from it and multiple Megastructures to build(Ring Worlds benefit a ton from it but that's about it). The ability to hold up to two of each Megastructure would give it some staying power and yes I'm well aware of how strong it'd be. In its present state though, I can't see a reason to take it.

Also, I started my first game today and examined the new 4.0 Economy and what not and noticed something rather glaring. Firstly, they merged Industrial Districts into City Districts via the specialized Zones. Yet the amount of jobs generated by Industrial Zones does not match what we started with via Industrial Districts back in 3.14. We get 50 Jobs per City District when it should be 100. With 3 starting City Districts, we effectively get a -25% nerf to Industrial Output at game start and its even worse for Spiritualists since they enjoyed a bonus Industrial District that netted them 3 Forge and 3 Factory jobs at game start(hence half of what they'd get in 3.14).

Another thing I observed is that the Archive merges Unity and Research together and while on the surface that seems great, it makes generating Consumer Goods via City District Expansion on the Capital all but pointless. Each City District built would yield 50 Artisan jobs or 3 Consumer Goods before %Resource buffs. Yet at the same time, you'll add +20 Researchers(respectively) and 40 Bureaucrats yielding a total job upkeep of 0.9 + 0.8 = 1.7 CG. Then you factor in Living Standards(0.5 w/ Decent Conditions) and the **Net** Consumer Good production boost is 0.3 CG. Seems to me Paradox didn't think this through when creating the default Homeworld City District because if they had the old Industrial District Output for Industrial Zones, it would stand at 3.3 CG(minimum) per City District.

So the TLDR: 4.0 Economy does not match 3.14 in any way shape or form and it seems Clerks were not the only Job to get cleaved since Culture Workers do not exist anymore(afaik).

 

[DelphineasSD]

I was literally thinking "maybe we need to pick their role much earlier in their career" as I was typing my post

I had this thought back when they announced Veteran Classes. Explorers are terrible because you've already explored most of the open space by the time they hit level 4 and get their bonuses.

Maybe a baby bonus as you select the class of the leader, then at level 4 you can confirm it to get 2x-4x of the baby bonus? With a small unity cost to retrain to a different track?

Might need to be able to select more than just the Ruler class at Empire Creation. Or maybe it wouldn't matter a whole lot until they reach level 4 anyway. Still not sure if you want your Minister of State councilor governing your home planet at the start, or if you are better off with an industrialist while your minster play Game Boy in the break room.

There have been starts where I don't have a scientist I like for the council, or all councilors exploring.

 

[yarpus]

Another list of observations from few hour playthrough.

Pop Groups

• First step to fixing Pop Growth visualisation would be to merge all Pop Groups from Growth perspective. Just show them aggregated.
• Pop Growth calculations per Pop Group seem to be heavy. They load in slowly (usually get updated 1s after I switch to tab) and are often bullshit.
• Please display predicted growth instead of growth from last month on top of the page.
• Detailed Job output popups show separately outputs per Pop Group.

Overall I start to believe that performance issues may stem from Pop Groups being pulled into a lot of additional calculations.

Criminal Heritage

• Criminal Heritage uses Private Security holding, same as vanilla empire. I understand you don't want to waste effort on them too much (it was okay for Private Clinics to just add Crime modifier) but in this case it just does not make sense. Consider introducing alternative building for Criminal Megacorps here which adds Criminals to the planet or reduces effectivness of Enforcers.
• Criminal Heritage were probably not balanced around ability to sign Commercial Pacts. Aside from minor balance stuff (Open Markets agenda, Universal Transactions), criminal buildings in construction queue disappear after you sign a commercial pact.

Evolutionary Predators

• Invasive Species Trait is a bit too perfect for Evolutionary Predators. Maybe just integrate it with Malleable Genes instead.
• I have never seen effects of automodding traits from Malleable Genes.
• Synthesize approach to Adaptive Evolution situation does not mention that it gets boosted by Commercial Pacts as Megacorp.

Economy

• Upgrades for Biology / Physics / Engineering buildings are very expensive. Adding SR upkeep per 100 jobs is a lot.
• Colonists may be worth bumping them back to Specialist jobs.
• I do not feel Planetary Deficits that much. Altough I play a very tall empire (4 Planets) and made sure to minimize them. I just wonder if minimizing them is worth it in first place.

Balance

• Overpowered Things
  • Crowdsourcing
  • Purity
  • Civil Education
• Underpowered Things
  • Genetic Identification
  • Stalwart Network

General Feedback

• Evolutionary Predators are a very fun origin. It's a really nice content.
• I like the new economy. I already got used to managing it and enjoy it.
• If I would have to point toward things that annoy me right now
  • User Interface: Still, the worst part of the experience. Between low quality assets and illogical decisions behind it - I really really hate the Planetary Management UI.
  • Flexxible Job Names: I understand that you have added possibility of grabbing appropriate job name for jobs with multiple alternatives (Artisan, Artificer etc.) but right now it does not work too well. If I, as Megacorp, hover over a normal empire's Civic it tells me about Managers because of what I play.
  • Performance: I already started to feel that it's not that good.
  • Gestalt Trade: Gestalts currently do not have Trade buildings, they can only get Logistic Drones from Commercial Nexus Districts. I would still reccomend just putting Trade Value on Maintenance Drones and forgetting about Logistic Drones.