Most annoying game mechanics?

[Technotopia]

There are things that are not adding real challenge but annoy players.

My list:

Negative traits

They are just appearing on a leader which was developed for a long time and sometimes ruining him/her completely. Think of "+5% empire size from pops" on a councilor. There is little you can do except stacking -1 max negative traits on your species and traditions, which means you eliminate them completely.

What can be done:

Cheap solution - let player pick one bad trait of X. Pick lesser evil.

More interesting solution - stress mechanics like in CK3. Leaders get stressed at work. If you don't let them recover and force them doing something that they dislike (depending on ethos) - stress bar overfills and they get a coping mechanism which is negative trait. Now negative traits are just assigned depending on level. If stress gain is tied to level or age it will be more organic. Older they get faster they get stressed.

High strata jobless

Randomly pops lose specialist and elite jobs, which are immediately filled by other pops being promoted. Now it makes sense. But for a player it means that planet will have an unemployment indicator. you can't do anything about it for a long while especially if elite unemployed. Information about unemployment is very important for players that manually resettle pops. Once you have unemployed on popfarm worlds - move them to the worlds you are currently growing. It gets completely messed when these useless elite pops are counted as unemployed

Solution:

Toggle visibility of unemployment by strata. Also please add a filter or quick button to go to a planet with unemployment (now you need to scroll the list, which is annoying)

Suicidal fleets

When your small fleet tries to evade much more dangerous enemy - you tell them to go to fly away towards nearest system. You get intercepted. It makes sense to continue flying away while charging emergency ftl. Right? Wrong! Fleet commander only does one word from that reasonable instruction. Charge. Not like that... CHARGE!!! We are going to die honorably!!!

Solution:

Add combat stance - evade enemy while preparing eftl and jump immediately when charged. Fleets try to get as far as possible from the enemy full speed away from enemy fleet.

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Would you add your own game mechanics that you want to be removed or reworked?

 

[stilgarpl]

Extremely Big Numbers (especially at Late Game).

In the early and mid game, there is some strategic and tactical depth. You can win a battle/war even if you are weaker by using the better strategy. You can see how the battles progress.
Late game is just... enormous fleets that wipe the other in seconds. And ususally the winning side doesn't even take that much losses, so it's not like the sacrifice of that destroyed fleet meant something.
So, depending on RNG and how your game went crisis can be "that's too easy and boring, I should have set crisis multiplier to higher value" or "rage quit, there is no way to defeat that!". If the crisis spawns on the other side of the galaxy, you will win easy while it wipes out your opponents. If it spawns right in the middle of your empire... rage quit. That's not fun.

Three original crisises are just "let's flood the galaxy with huge fleets of enemies".

 

[Technotopia]

Extremely Big Numbers (especially at Late Game).

In the early and mid game, there is some strategic and tactical depth. You can win a battle/war even if you are weaker by using the better strategy. You can see how the battles progress.
Late game is just... enormous fleets that wipe the other in seconds. And ususally the winning side doesn't even take that much losses, so it's not like the sacrifice of that destroyed fleet meant something.
So, depending on RNG and how your game went crisis can be "that's too easy and boring, I should have set crisis multiplier to higher value" or "rage quit, there is no way to defeat that!". If the crisis spawns on the other side of the galaxy, you will win easy while it wipes out your opponents. If it spawns right in the middle of your empire... rage quit. That's not fun.

Three original crisises are just "let's flood the galaxy with huge fleets of enemies".

Actually, I'd disagree.

In late game there are many tactical options besides "make even bigger doomstack".

Particularly because you can make kiting carriers with arc emitter slots - it allows owning numerically bigger AI fleets.

You can use cloaked frigates to kill very fat and buff enemies. Or said CV battleships.

You can do a crippling alpha strike, kite, that eFTL.

You can divide and conquer - let AI split fleets and pick them separately.

If they are in single doomstack, you usually can avoid it and take systems while they are bombing a maginot world.

Most of the crisis fleets have counters, unbidden by carriers/missiles or kinetics with full shield. Prethoryn with X lances and either carriers or plasma. et.c.

 

[cdub8d]

Actually, I'd disagree.

In late game there are many tactical options besides "make even bigger doomstack".

Particularly because you can make kiting carriers with arc emitter slots - it allows owning numerically bigger AI fleets.

You can use cloaked frigates to kill very fat and buff enemies. Or said CV battleships.

You can do a crippling alpha strike, kite, that eFTL.

You can divide and conquer - let AI split fleets and pick them separately.

If they are in single doomstack, you usually can avoid it and take systems while they are bombing a maginot world.

Most of the crisis fleets have counters, unbidden by carriers/missiles or kinetics with full shield. Prethoryn with X lances and either carriers or plasma. et.c.

This is most fun in mp with a group of friends. Trying to figure out what types of fleets your enemies are making adds another layer of strategy.

 

[Dr. B]

Micromanagement after early game.
I challenge anyone to name a greater annoyance.

 

[A2ch0n]

Micromanagement after early game.

I at least never care about micro anything. Except if you count settle on a new planet and build some districts/buildins as micro. But if you talk about moving pops or activate/deactivate jobs i'll never do so. In fact it is not neccessary. At a certain point you get more resources than you need. And i don't care if it is not optimal as long i can stop any rampaging grandadmiral AI or 5x crisis. A template manager would be increadible tho.

To the OP: The most annoying mechanic from my point of view are the somewhat "forced" rivalries that most AI-Empires have. It's increadible how often i find a neighbouring empire with similar or even identical ethics that has no rival yet und the first thing they do is rivaling me instead of becoming a a prosperous ally...

 

[Kataclyszm]

Micromanagement after early game.
I challenge anyone to name a greater annoyance.

Damn, if only the game gave us automation tools to not have to do that.

Oh, wait.

 

[Wagner Joy Division]

Designing a meta ships that will murder all AI ships and never touching it again. Rock-Paper-Scissors are the worst combat mechanics ever, Endless Space and Galactic Civilizations series proved that long ago and we are still dealing with this.

 

[Adaman5280]

Not a game mechanic but a bug that's existed for way too long at this point and thus might as well be considered a game mechanic. I imagine most of us have our army transport ships following our fleets right? if so you might have noticed that this can sometimes cause your fleet to just fly around in circles instead of actually engaging with the enemy while your transports just rush right towards the enemy. Its as if the fleet is trying to mimic the intended transport ship behavior (circling to evade attacks) why does this happen? whys it not been fixed? who knows! but the moment i see my fleets exhibit this behavior it makes me wanna instantly quit the playthrough.

 

[Technotopia]

Micromanagement after early game.
I challenge anyone to name a greater annoyance.

It is certainly annoying, but it is not a specific game mechanic.

I.e. what feature must go or slightly tuned to make micromanaging slightly less pain or less necessary.

Something actionable for devs

 

[Perimal]

What drives me crazy is when, as a xenophobe, I fight a war and don't lose my Empire is forced to play host to revolting swarms of xeno science ships which poke their disgusting appendages into my systems and steal my anomalies and sometimes even steal unoccupied systems inside my borders.

What should happen is that xenophobe empires should have the choice the keep their borders closed unless they lose the war; fanatic xenophobes will not have a choice but always close their borders unless defeated.

Xenophobes (at least of the fanatic variety) should also have the option to close their borders to their own vassals should they so wish.

As a corollary I'd let Trade Empires who win a war force a trade agreement on the loser(s) (include this option in the Mercantile Tradition).

 

[Fenris_SE]

What drives me crazy is when, as a xenophobe, I fight a war and don't lose my Empire is forced to play host to revolting swarms of xeno science ships which poke their disgusting appendages into my systems and steal my anomalies and sometimes even steal unoccupied systems inside my borders.

What should happen is that xenophobe empires should have the choice the keep their borders closed unless they lose the war; fanatic xenophobes will not have a choice but always close their borders unless defeated.

Xenophobes (at least of the fanatic variety) should also have the option to close their borders to their own vassals should they so wish.

As a corollary I'd let Trade Empires who win a war force a trade agreement on the loser(s) (include this option in the Mercantile Tradition).

This drove me insane. I would rather have the enemy (or me if I lose) in my borders be forced to emergency FTL to their closest planet (or maybe their capital) and not be allowed to just wander through my space at will. I've had empires declare war on me, never show up, then during the 10 year treaty fly through my space, build outposts and sometime colonize planets as well just on the other side of me. Granted those areas and planets are the first thing the AI will lose once the 10 years are up, but it is very annoying, xenophobe or not.

 

[Imp0815]

Extremely Big Numbers (especially at Late Game).

In the early and mid game, there is some strategic and tactical depth. You can win a battle/war even if you are weaker by using the better strategy. You can see how the battles progress.
Late game is just... enormous fleets that wipe the other in seconds. And ususally the winning side doesn't even take that much losses, so it's not like the sacrifice of that destroyed fleet meant something.
So, depending on RNG and how your game went crisis can be "that's too easy and boring, I should have set crisis multiplier to higher value" or "rage quit, there is no way to defeat that!". If the crisis spawns on the other side of the galaxy, you will win easy while it wipes out your opponents. If it spawns right in the middle of your empire... rage quit. That's not fun.

Three original crisises are just "let's flood the galaxy with huge fleets of enemies".

The way fleet combat and overall progression tie into the "Extremely Big Numbers" is such a major flaw — one that doesn’t become obvious until you’re several hundred hours into the game. But once you realize it, the game is ruined.

And it gets worse because the devs know this. They don’t want to — or can’t — change it, as it would rock the boat too much i guess. So they know it’s bad and not fun, but and I quote "many of the alternatives are worse". Not my opinion — that’s canon.

For over a year now I advocate for a more nuanced system focused on smaller task forces and deployment limitations to eliminate the need for massive fleet stacks. In addition, it should include a more easily automated system and add tactical depth to warfare.

But so far, no changes are on the horizon for fleet combat or fleets in general. They said they want to work on fleets — but not this year. Maybe next year, if their goals don’t change by then.

 

[Technotopia]

The way fleet combat and overall progression tie into the "Extremely Big Numbers" is such a major flaw — one that doesn’t become obvious until you’re several hundred hours into the game. But once you realize it, the game is ruined.

And it gets worse because the devs know this. They don’t want to — or can’t — change it, as it would rock the boat too much i guess. So they know it’s bad and not fun, but and I quote "many of the alternatives are worse". Not my opinion — that’s canon.

For over a year now I advocate for a more nuanced system focused on smaller task forces and deployment limitations to eliminate the need for massive fleet stacks. In addition, it should include a more easily automated system and add tactical depth to warfare.

But so far, no changes are on the horizon for fleet combat or fleets in general. They said they want to work on fleets — but not this year. Maybe next year, if their goals don’t change by then.

Actually new logistic system in 4.0 might penalize doomstacks by making them consume more trade.

 

[Nevars]

Not being able to named councilor titles at empire creation.

 

[Imp0815]

Actually new logistic system in 4.0 might penalize doomstacks by making them consume more trade.

Fair point — they mentioned it being used for that. But as of now, there’s no such thing. Currently, it’s just a basic new upkeep that scales with whether fleets are docked or not. I read that as appeasement for people like me — the ones constantly pointing at the gaping, festering wound that this issue has become, at every opportunity possible.

 

[BigPoofyJacket]

Fighting a war to impose ideology and the target of that war just embracing their old ethics to go right back to what they were the moment you win the war.

Winning a war of ideology should place a 10 year cooldown on embracing ethics and reforming government to prevent this.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

Hyperlane creation for newly created systems. Normally, hyperlanes never cross each other, but when a new system gets added during a playthrough its hyperlanes can cross other hyperlanes. Seeing this happen breaks something inside of me*, and makes me savescum until the abomination is gone. It is even a minor supporting reason of why I play without precursors, as their home systems are some of the most frequent offenders.


* (Hyperlane crossing results in total protonic reversal, causing all life as I know it to stop instantaneously and every molecule in my body to explode at the speed of light.)

 

[billy yank]

Micromanagement after early game.
I challenge anyone to name a greater annoyance.

I don't bother with micromanagement. When I notice the number on the political tab change, I pop in and build something.

 

[HFY]

Fighting a war to impose ideology and the target of that war just embracing their old ethics to go right back to what they were the moment you win the war.

Winning a war of ideology should place a 10 year cooldown on embracing ethics and reforming government to prevent this.

There should be more ways to change ethics attraction in another empire, and winning an Ideology War should give you access to a lot of them, and for a discount.