Precursor spawning

[Masked Ermine]

That's not what Eladrin said, either on the forum or on a stream can't remember, back when they were first previewing this. It was said there are no empty chunks as the galaxy is created divided into slices depending on the number of precursors. So if there's one precursor the whole galaxy can spawn them.

The problem seems to be that you can have triggers spread over the whole galaxy. So even if you find one you aren't guaranteed to get the rest.

Strange when I made this very prediction about how they were doing the precursor spawns and how it was a dumb idea and not what we were asking for when we were asking for control over what spawns in our galaxy I was told 'oh no that's not how that works you're just being mean'. This was precisely the outcome that I was against when they announced the precursor to change. Because it was very much in my opinion a passive aggressive response to the continual request to be able to pick a precursor pre-galaxy creation. Cuz they could have just gave us a thing in Galaxy creator that was just like how the crises spawns where you can pick which crisis spawns but no they gave us this instead where sometimes you just don't get the precursor because it spawns on the other side of the Galaxy from you.

 

[Masked Ermine]

Nah, your chance isnt lower in any way. The galaxy pie chart is the full pie, if u choose a single precursor. The more precursors u choose the more pie pieces there are and the smaller each pie piece becomes. So more precusors lower the chances to get a certain precusor, but the chance to get a precursor at all is not changed.

Which was explicitly not what the customers were requesting when they requested the ability to pick and choose their precursor spawns and there was nothing stopping paradox from giving us the exact same spawn system that the crisis has in pre-production of the Galaxy. Every part of the way they decided to implement choice in precursor spawn feels like them actively thumbing their nose at the people requesting it because they've made it such a monkey's paw of a stupid system instead of just giving them exactly what they wanted.

 

[Masked Ermine]

The whole thing seemed to me a way to prevent you from getting the ones you don't want, and not just a way to ensure you get your cake and eat it in year one. Their current implementation gives you the same likelihood of finding and starting your chosen Precursor, without adding the odds of the other 6 on top and giving them to your favourite.

Before you had a 1/7 chance of finding your choice, now you have the same 1/7 but the other 6 are prevented from rolling and blocking you out; your suggestion would be for this new feature to just give you a 7/7(discounting Systems that spawn without tags) chance of finding what you want, and making it 7 times faster on average.

I kind of agree with their implementation, in that selecting less than the total should not improve your odds of getting what you want, only reduce the odds of getting what you don't want.

Except over and over and over again that is not what the players asked for. Paradox has a nasty habit of not giving the players their audience the ones that pay their bills what they want and instead passive aggressively do literally anything else. It would not have been a broken system to give us crisis style precursor selection you could have always implemented in tournaments or multiplayer play the randomization effect or band certain overpowered precursors. In my opinion there is no excuse for their Petty implementation on this and it feels Petty. I said that when they rolled it out after they got everyone hyped that they were going to be able to pick precursors and they rolled it out as this I said this feels Petty this feels passive aggressive this feels actively antagonistic to what the player base requested. Which in part has fed my lack of sympathy to the dabs and to paradox about the fiasco of the rest of 4.0.

 

[Prosodium]

Happened once to me in the first patch as the Baol but around the second or third patch, it seemed to be alright.

 

[Nabil ad Dajjal]

Not just that, but they seem to actively spawn further away even within your 'chunk' of the galaxy.

I play tall and it's very noticeable. In the last year, if I got a precursor I was nearly guaranteed to have all archeology sites in my sector. VERY rarely I would see the homeworld spawn outside of my borders but usually one system out so you could still claim it if you were fast.

Of my last five games with 4.0 (all choosing the recommended four precursors) I've had two with no precursor at all, two where the initial archeology site spawns in another empire's borders, and one where I had half of the archeology sites spawn in my sector but I could force the conclusion through precursor insights (Irassian). Not a single one where I could actually get the precursor chain naturally.

My instinct is 'horrifically bugged release' over 'malicious compliance,' contra @Masked Ermine, but it certainly feels meanspirited at present.

Edited: Since posting, several people have pointed out that it's an anti-feature and not a bug. So I guess that I was wrong and this is malicious compliance. Which is a shame, because I otherwise really like the Stellaris devs and this feels beneath them.

 

[Masked Ermine]

Not just that, but they seem to actively spawn further away even within your 'chunk' of the galaxy.

I play tall and it's very noticeable. In the last year, if I got a precursor I was nearly guaranteed to have all archeology sites in my sector. VERY rarely I would see the homeworld spawn outside of my borders but usually one system out so you could still claim it if you were fast.

Of my last five games with 4.0 (all choosing the recommended four precursors) I've had two with no precursor at all, two where the initial archeology site spawns in another empire's borders, and one where I had half of the archeology sites spawn in my sector but I could force the conclusion through precursor insights (Irassian). Not a single one where I could actually get the precursor chain naturally.

My instinct is 'horrifically bugged release' over 'malicious compliance,' contra @Masked Ermine, but it certainly feels meanspirited at present.

Except this feature as far as I can tell he's completely divorced from the rest of 4.0. also the way they explained it in the teasers and the unveil of the new system is working exactly as I predicted it to be which again feels wrong it's actively misrepresenting what the players requesting this kind of choice or requesting. And I don't accept or find the arguments that those defending this choice are making because there were ways of providing those players that didn't want direct choice to have no choice as there is on multiple sliders or selection options in the pre-galaxy pages. And when people complained that this wasn't what we were asking for and that this didn't feel like it was going to go well we were again told to sit down and shut up and that we didn't know what we were talking about and that we didn't understand the spawn system and a bunch of other stuff.

 

[Losttruppen]

Except over and over and over again that is not what the players asked for. Paradox has a nasty habit of not giving the players their audience the ones that pay their bills what they want and instead passive aggressively do literally anything else.

I'm a paying customer too, I don't think there should be cheats mixed in with the game setup options, such as getting a free size 25 Relic world, very quickly, in your immediate vicinity. There is the Console for that if you want to get them right away.

You are asking for a massive early game buff, not just a little flavour choice. I'm all for improving these Anomaly/Arcsite chains so they aren't inherently more frustrating and difficult to accomplish the later into the Exploration phase of the game you find them, but to just hand them out seems like a lot.

actively misrepresenting what the players requesting this kind of choice or requesting. And I don't accept or find the arguments that those defending this choice... And when people complained that this wasn't what we were asking for and that this didn't feel like it was going to go well we were again told to sit down and shut up and that we didn't know what we were talking about and that we didn't understand the spawn system and a bunch of other stuff.

I think you should reread this one and realize you might be doing the same thing in trying to speak for other customers and dismissing their opinions.

The galaxy pie chart is the full pie, if u choose a single precursor

Turn on Debugtooltips and mouse over every System in a 1000 Star Galaxy; there are definitely still 6/7 pie slices missing with a single Precursor selected. What everyone here seems to be asking for is that the pie be evenly divided among your chosen X Precursors, down to having the whole pie one flavour.

Your chance is in fact increased in the new system with only 1 Precursor selected as it will remove the 50% chance of you finding double tagged Systems and getting the wrong one(for you).

 

[Masked Ermine]

Like the request to be able to pick precursors has almost existed since the moment precursors existed if not the moment we could make certain selections like crisis selections. And unlike other fan favorite desires like being able to design our star bases I don't feel like this particular developmental request has the logistical hurdles behind it. Largely because we already have a system that is almost exactly what we want with the precursor choice that's already been implemented in the settings menu. This feels like such a slam dunk little quality of life Guinea so many customers without almost any drawback from those that don't want it.

And this decision seems to be a cornerstone of paradoxes game development problem which is they have two player base one that is multiplayer or competitive player and one that is single player or role play player. I would argue the vast majority of the hours of the game played are played single player and I would say a significant subset of those single-player plays are in some way just for fun or for role play situations. I would say the the minority of gameplay is multiplayer and I would go further to say the finished of slivers of the minority of multiplayer are the sort of multiplayer competitive players that don't want choice they are hardcore no choices you get what you get. In this decision feels very much like a compromise where I don't think a compromise was required. Because what was being requested already had a selection that retained full randomness as a gameplay style and again many multiplayer especially the quote unquote competitive ones already implement balance rules for origins and civics and traits and specific and even certain technologies. So I don't understand why the devs went through all of this hullabaloo to give what is probably a significant number of players what they wanted but rather gave them almost expressly not what they wanted.

 

[Masked Ermine]

I'm a paying customer too, I don't think there should be cheats mixed in with the game setup options, such as getting a free size 25 Relic world, very quickly, in your immediate vicinity. There is the Console for that if you want to get them right away.

You are asking for a massive early game buff, not just a little flavour choice. I'm all for improving these Anomaly/Arcsite chains so they aren't inherently more frustrating and difficult to accomplish the later into the Exploration phase of the game you find them, but to just hand them out seems like a lot.

Turn on Debugtooltips and mouse over every System in a 1000 Star Galaxy; there are definitely still 6/7 pie slices missing with a single Precursor selected. What everyone here seems to be asking for is that the pie be evenly divided among your chosen X Precursors, down to having the whole pie one flavour.

Here's the thing your argument's invalid because the precursor selection bar could have just had a random function just like the crisis selection has. Why should all the other players have to play like you play if we're for the most part playing single player and non-competitively?

Like I'm struggling to understand what is harming you to allow other players play the game they want with the choice they want? As stated prior what was requested was a choice option akin to what we do crises. A choice option by the way and allowed to pick no crisis a specific crisis and assignment of a crisis, multiple crises your crisis is that were so powerful that the galaxy popped its pants when they arrived.

I don't understand how a system like that would infringe upon your fun or disallow you from playing it in the way you want to play it. It would only allow people to be able to play the game with.

And I disagree console command for people should not be the answer I should not have to go with me the coding of the game to get a choice that should have been made available to me in settings period. Not a single thing in your post is a valid argument against giving players the option of choice. None. As stated elsewhere if you're playing strictly multiplayer you are primarily the minority player and more important players can suggest and importantly require rules in their game play that either enforce random precursor allotment or outright ban certain combos of origins and precursors. No one was asking for the removal of a random option they were only asking for the addition of a choice akin to what we had with the crisis. And I do not see how that affects your gameplay as long as you're willing to assert certain rules in your multiplayer play. Which is a heck of a lot easier to do then going into console commands and fiddling with code.

 

[Losttruppen]

This feels like such a slam dunk little quality of life

You're not asking for just a quality of life feature, you are asking for a free size 25 Relic world, early and guaranteed, every game. I also play single player non-competitively, this is a massive buff you are asking for.

Like I'm struggling to understand what is harming you to allow other players play the game they want with the choice they want? As stated prior what was requested was a choice option akin to what we do crises. A choice option by the way and allowed to pick no crisis a specific crisis and assignment of a crisis, multiple crises your crisis is that were so powerful that the galaxy popped its pants when they arrived.

Deciding who the big bad guy is is quite a bit different from you getting a 3rd Guaranteed Habitable world as a size 25 Relic.

Stop insulting the Devs, and dismissing large portions of the playerbase, because they won't give in to your demands. Maybe if you were more diplomatic you could get a Shattered Ring or one of the Try-it-out Origin treatments with a reduced/ramp-up power version.

 

[Psykhes]

I'm a paying customer too, I don't think there should be cheats mixed in with the game setup options, such as getting a free size 25 Relic world, very quickly, in your immediate vicinity. There is the Console for that if you want to get them right away.

You are asking for a massive early game buff, not just a little flavour choice. I'm all for improving these Anomaly/Arcsite chains so they aren't inherently more frustrating and difficult to accomplish the later into the Exploration phase of the game you find them, but to just hand them out seems like a lot.

Except Stellaris in general allows players to make it as easy or hard as they want it to be.

Be it if you want to play one an empty map, or limit the aggressiveness of the AI, start without guaranteed habitable worlds because you play life seeded and cannot use them anyway, disable advanced empires, and and and.
Not allowing an "easy" precursor option pretty much contradicts the whole philosophy Stellaris has with setting up your galaxy and game.

Your argument is a bit like "I want all difficulties but the hardest removed, because I think people should not "cheat" with lower difficulties".

 

[Masked Ermine]

You're not asking for just a quality of life feature, you are asking for a free size 25 Relic world, early and guaranteed, every game. I also play single player non-competitively, this is a massive buff you are asking for.


Deciding who the big bad guy is is quite a bit different from you getting a 3rd Guaranteed Habitable world as a size 25 Relic.

Stop insulting the Devs, and dismissing large portions of the playerbase, because they won't give in to your demands. Maybe if you were more diplomatic you could get a Shattered Ring or one of the Try-it-out Origin treatments with a reduced/ramp-up power version.

And how does that hurt you that someone in some other single player play game is getting their relic world? In what way is that hurting your experience if you're still playing with the randomizer feature on? That's the question I have, why is it hurting you; why are you getting butt hurt someone else is having fun in a different way than you are wanted in no way will affect how you experience the game; why? This is the part I don't understand why are you so against someone else playing the game the way they want when it has nothing to do with you why are you against someone else having the option to play it that way when you still have your option to play it the way you want what makes you the arbiter of someone else's fun in their own game space?

You keep calling it a cheat it is obviously not a cheat it is an option available in game. What would the difference be between rolling until you got first League or just giving us the option straight up choose first League or zroni or whoever first, so we don't have to waste hours of spinning our Wheels? Because I can assure you there are plenty of people that just keep rolling the dice or they engage in actual cheating which is modifying the game files which is what you're suggesting you're suggesting people actually cheat instead, by modifying the game files rather than giving the players the option to do what they're going to do anyways.

 

[Losttruppen]

My instinct is 'horrifically bugged release' over 'malicious compliance,' contra @Masked Ermine, but it certainly feels meanspirited at present.

They didn't change anything about how the Galaxy is divided into pie slices, they just added an option to remove pie slices so you don't end up with an irreversible decision made for you on what flavour you get.

If you want to understand how these things spawn: press Tilde(~), check Debugtooltips on from the the Debug view, and mouse over Systems and check their tags.

This is the extent of the only Precursor I have to spawn in my 1000 Star Galaxy. Any of these Tagged Systems when Surveyed can fire the Event to start their chain. When you have more than 1 spawning, Systems can get 2 Tags. Once the event has fired, any Tagged System can spawn Anomalies or Arcsites on appropriate stellar bodies, but they still aren't guaranteed. If you get at least 1 Anomaly though there are Events(with a cooldown) from Neighbours, Fallen Empires, and random ones to give you additional progress; I don't think there is a consolation mechanic for Arcsites.

 

[Losttruppen]

You keep calling it a cheat it is obviously not a cheat it is an option available in game

Clearly it's not or you wouldn't still be here asking for it to be implemented.

They massively reduced the spawn chance for both Paridayda and Rubricator so they weren't being given out every single game, which have worse rewards than First League does. When they implemented Ringworld spawns they gave us a massively reduced version that you need to put a lot of effort and resources into bringing online to what everyone with the Ringworld Start mod wanted to be given.

I'm certainly not butt-hurt about anything about this video game or what other people do in it, I just think you should use the Console or a Mod if you expect to ever get what you're asking for because it's very much more than just a quality of life feature.

 

[Masked Ermine]

Clearly it's not or you wouldn't still be here asking for it to be implemented.

They massively reduced the spawn chance for both Paridayda and Rubricator so they weren't being given out every single game, which have worse rewards than First League does. When they implemented Ringworld spawns they gave us a massively reduced version that you need to put a lot of effort and resources into bringing online to what everyone with the Ringworld Start mod wanted to be given.

I'm certainly not butt-hurt about anything about this video game or what other people do in it, I just think you should use the Console or a Mod if you expect to ever get what you're asking for because it's very much more than just a quality of life feature.

One of the worst things about Stellaris is the fact that the devs gave people access to the console commands because now the devs get this free right off whenever someone suggests something because you always get someone say well just mod it in or just use console commands no I don't want to have to do that I am not modifying game files I don't want to. And I shouldn't have to on a request like this one because it literally hurts no one else this is purely a quality of life option four players that choose to take it.

Again I ask you, answer this question, how does me using precursor choice to get a relic world in my single player role play where I play a remnant of the first League affect or harm your gameplay? In what way would giving the players the option in pregalaxy settings to choose their precursor hurt you and your gameplay experience? Because that's what you're arguing. You are arguing that giving us choice will harm your gameplay experience. I want to know how that is happening to you in what way are you being hurt by someone else being able to choose?

 

[Losttruppen]

start without guaranteed habitable worlds because you play life seeded and cannot use them anyway

Ironic you bring this up, since Life-seeded did get Guaranteed Habitable Gaias, and it was subsequently removed, presumably for some semblance of start condition balance.

I play Life-seeded, I would use this setting if they brought it back, but considering their actions with previous, similar situations, I think it's unlikely and so is getting a Guaranteed Precursor option. Personally I don't care one way or the other since, as you say, it's a setting that I can change for myself. I just don't understand why you thought this would be any different than any other situation where players wanted a similar thing and got a lite-version at best.

 

[Masked Ermine]

Ironic you bring this up, since Life-seeded did get Guaranteed Habitable Gaias, and it was subsequently removed, presumably for some semblance of start condition balance.

I play Life-seeded, I would use this setting if they brought it back, but considering their actions with previous, similar situations, I think it's unlikely and so is getting a Guaranteed Precursor option. Personally I don't care one way or the other since, as you say, it's a setting that I can change for myself. I just don't understand why you thought this would be any different than any other situation where players wanted a similar thing and got a lite-version at best.

Because they already had a model for doing what we were requesting to be implemented there was already a template in place that did exactly what we requested. It would have harmed no one it would have given a core player base the choices and options they wanted and the pre-galactic settings already had a very similar option tool. Instead the devs didn't give us any of that rather they gave us a 'we'll do it but you won't like it' version that in my opinion just antagonizes the people and the players rather than just doing what they should have done considering the tool was already there and a way of implementing it was already extent no instead they decided to play silly buggers.

And again I do not see forcing players to use file modification as a viable crutch. And that is what paradox has done is they've given the players this idea that you can modify the game anything anyway you want then that way we don't have to do what you want us to. And I think that's kind of a cop out. I don't want to modify game files why because paradox changes things every 5 weeks and breaks mods or changes the files. I want it as a real setting so I don't have to worry about mods breaking every 5 weeks or having to relocate the console command nor do I want to have to go through console command every time I don't want to modify files the idea that I should have to to get a very basic quality of life function from a game that has been requested repeatedly I think is bad policy.

 

[Gilten]

I just do not understand why they letting us choosing the Precussors at the start of the game if we couldn't even discovered them afterward. What's the point?

 

[Losttruppen]

I just do not understand why they letting us choosing the Precussors at the start of the game if we couldn't even discovered them afterward. What's the point?

So you don't get locked into the ones you don't want, that's all this feature does, removes the options you never want to be offered.

Personally, I think they should have just added a second dialogue choice when you find them that let's you simply not start that chain, instead of being forced to study the first type of dinosaur you find and throw out any future bones. It seems by adding the Setting it led people to believe it would work like the Guaranteed Habitables, where they spawn nearby your homeworld and you get to start on them right away.

 

[Masked Ermine]

So you don't get locked into the ones you don't want, that's all this feature does, removes the options you never want to be offered.

Personally, I think they should have just added a second dialogue choice when you find them that let's you simply not start that chain, instead of being forced to study the first type of dinosaur you find and throw out any future bones you might find. It seems by adding the Setting it led people to believe it would work like the Guaranteed Habitables, where they spawn nearby your homeworld and you get to start on them right away.i

But if I got to choose which one I wanted there wouldn't be ones I didn't want don't you see how that's a layer of complexity more than what was requested? Like I don't I'm sorry I realize I feel like I'm harping on this, but the attitudes that the developers have had about this is to my own mind so backwards. Especially for dev team pride themselves many choices and as many options to fulfill whatever fantasy or roleplay they want.

They already had a template to give players choice on game events Vis a vis crisis choice. All they had to do was give us that but for precursors including you know no precursors and any precursors so retaining the randomization of the old system or even letting you play without mega modification and unity boosts. But that's not what they did they created this whole other system that doesn't do what we asked for and in many ways is worse than the original system. And again if they had just given us precursor choice as they had crisis choice it would have changed nothing for any player that did not want to have a choice in their precursor. It would not have affected competitive it would not have affected multiplayer. And it would have been such an olive branch to the players that have been asking for this option for years. Especially those players like me who do not want to make modifications to game files I don't play with any mods I don't like mods I think mods are a developmental cop out for any company.