Update and fix transparency - season 8 DLCs

[Thiend]

Let me start with a summary: Cosmic Storms is badly implemented and there is no sign of more updates to its content. Machine Age gave a massive cool expansion to 50% of a mechanic (species ascension) and literally nothing for the other 50%. At the same time, it introduced a higher tier of tech available to only one ascension perk that essentially should be universally taken both because of that and a ridiculously strong megastructure that would be worth it if not obligatory still even without that tier of tech locked behind it, simultaneously many of those techs break fundamental game mechanics and render other entire areas of the game pointless (why make an ecumenopolis when you could get FE buildings for more jobs faster). Grand Archive looks theoretically cool, but I said that defending Cosmic Storms before it released and that's how we got here.

If I hadn't bought the season pass I wouldn't have bought Grand Archive, and as it is I wholeheartedly recommend not prepurchasing it to anyone who doesn't have the season pass. Let those of us who did test it first, so if it's as bad as CS you don't waste your money. I also don't plan on buying a season 9 pass unless improvements are at least guaranteed to come eventually for the content of season 8. As it is currently, as far as any communication from the devs is concerned, Cosmic Storms is done and there will be no updates - they're talking about Grand Archive now. Which means either relying on mods to fix it, inherently requiring rolling the game back any time it exceeds them, or disabling it entirely (while likely needing mods for Machine Age, bringing it to the same problem).

Is it possible that the above issues will be addressed at some point? Absolutely. Is it reasonable to expect me to trust that and potentially buy a season 9 pass without saying anything about them? Absolutely not. My trust is further undermined having realized in composing this that the problem so far is heavily concentrated in this season pass, purchasers of which had no way of backing out of Machine Age, Cosmic Storms or Grand Archive by the time the problems with them were clear. This isn't an encouraging state of affairs.

Now, I don't want to be Mr. Doom-and-Gloom here, but can we please get confirmation that there will, in fact, be fixes to the ongoing problems in Cosmic Storms (precursor system is now overloaded, DLC-specific precursors are uniquely easy to have glitch out, storm devastation is a currently terrible mechanic - see my posts or those of others about it) and Machine Age (Psionic and Genetic need a similar update, Cosmogenesis still has too much sheer power and too much locked behind it - either individually would be more than worth a perk)? I'm not even asking for actual fixes right now, the game has taken a long time to fix problems before (tile system removal [growth is still awful, lag is still higher], research speed adjustments, Megacorps, First Contact [which is still moderately broken], Galactic Paragons, and many more...), and I haven't seen waiting for those fixes as a particularly major crisis because I trusted that they would indeed be fixed eventually. Both because none of these issues have been acknowledged by the devs as something they still need to fix and because in the case of Cosmic Storms they have explicitly moved on from it (and almost did so before even patching gestalts having halved alloy district jobs) without having fixed the major problems that both significant features of the DLC still have (storms and precursors), I for one would definitely like some sort of confirmation that any of this is even planned to be fixed at all before you ask me for more money to buy the next season pass after Grand Archive is released.

 

[hart30]

Just be patient.
Trust in the custodians.

 

[Thiend]

Just be patient.
Trust in the custodians.

As I explained, I did and I have, in the past, before this time when they have explicitly moved on from something still broken within a couple weeks while coincidentally a lot of people displeased with the quality of the last two releases are already locked into their next one too.

Why should I trust them now? They've had many, many months to say "psionic/genetic updates will be in a custodian patch" as an example, but unless you've seen something I haven't, no such statement exists. My entire point is that as of Cosmic Storms and their speedy turnaround on NOT fixing anything else wrong with it I no longer do (but previously did) trust that things will eventually be fixed. Including examples that stretch back a solid half-decade and are currently not fixed. The critical difference is that they have acknowledged that pop growth circa "not the tile system" is broken and that they want to fix it, repeatedly. They have not acknowledged a single time any of the four main issues of the last two DLC - ascension balance/equivalent depth is broken, Cosmogenesis is broken (the overpowered kind, and forcing every empire that wants FE tech to take a crisis path), precursors (especially the new two) are broken, storms (the thing the entire DLC was named for) are broken. That's my point. It's not that I'm unwilling to trust their word that they'll eventually fix things - again, pop growth mechanics have been awful since they were released and I've been relatively contentedly waiting on that to be fixed for half a decade, because they said they wanted to fix it. Why should I trust they will fix things they've so far failed to acknowledge are even broken?

 

[Calvax]

I think you're mixing a lot of different things in here which undercuts a legitimate criticism. Machine age got incredibly high praise from the community, it certainly didn't just add nothing and while cosmogenesis is still strong after the nerfs I don't see any mass outcry to nerf it further. Yeah it's strong but you don't have to pick it each time and most people won't because it won't fit their empire. Genetic and Psionic ascension not getting a similar overhaul (though the latter has gotten many iterative improvements) isn't a flaw of Machine Age.

I also brought season 8 and while I felt positive about it after Machine age I feel less so now. That isn't really to do with the content of Cosmic Storms or Grand Archive as they're both fun small expansions. Rather it's the pace. It's pretty typical of Stellaris development for things to come out and need bug fixing, balance tweaks, and QoL improvements. It might take a while but it usually happens. The times it doesn't are when the schedule is rushed. First Contact had issues like enlightenment being way too long and there being too small a pool of events, but because Paragons released two months later there was limited time for anything to be addressed. We've got an even shorter turnaround between Cosmic Storms and Grand Archive leading to the same issue.

Eladrin has said they're adjusting the schedule next year and will be focusing on custodian stuff which is good. Whether or not I buy a season 9 will depend on what that schedule is. It definitely feels that they put too much on their plate this year so while they delivered some great stuff the number of rough edges has grown.

 

[Thiend]

I think you're mixing a lot of different things in here which undercuts a legitimate criticism. Machine age got incredibly high praise from the community, it certainly didn't just add nothing and while cosmogenesis is still strong after the nerfs I don't see any mass outcry to nerf it further. Yeah it's strong but you don't have to pick it each time and most people won't because it won't fit their empire.

I'll accept Cosmogenesis as debatable, but my broad problem with MA isn't that the content it had was bad. It's that they massively expanded and buffed half of the ascensions, but the other half wasn't in it, isn't in season 8 at all, and they haven't said they're doing the other two in the future at all.

It's not that I dislike what it has, it's that what it has is incomplete in a way that has broken species ascension as a whole. It's like if they'd only rolled out the district system for Machine Empires - it's a good rework, but why is it only for some empires? The same problem is largely reproduced for gestalts in Galactic Paragons, but they DID get the update and they DO have upsides, I just don't like them and think they're worse/less interesting than destiny traits and paragons.

I also brought season 8 and while I felt positive about it after Machine age I feel less so now. That isn't really to do with Cosmic Storms or Grand Archive as they're both fun small expansions. Rather it's the pace. It's pretty typical of Stellaris development for things to come out and need bug fixing, balance tweaks, and QoL improvements. It might take a while but it usually happens. The times it doesn't are when the schedule is rushed. First Contact had issues like enlightenment being way too long and there being too small a pool of events, but because Paragons released two months later there was limited time for anything to be addressed. We've got an even shorter turnaround between Cosmic Storms and Grand Archive leading to the same issue.

Eladrin has said they're adjusting the schedule next year and will be focusing on custodian stuff which is good. Whether or not I buy a season 9 will depend on what that schedule is. It definitely feels that they put too much on their plate this year so while they delivered some great stuff the number of rough edges has grown.

I'm less concerned with the specific pace and more with "will it be fixed." If they can release DLC at this rate having now seen what they need to be prepared to do to fix it, sure, no problem. But so far, by all the actual evidence we have, it's not hyperbolic to say they've swept the leftover problems under the proverbial rug and moved on. That may be actually true or it may not, but that's why I'm asking them for a simple "yes those are problems, yes those will be addressed" statement - the evidence would suggest that they aren't even aware of the problems.

Ascensions and Storms are the most major problems, followed closely by precursors. Cosmogenesis I absolutely hate but it is indeed lesser, it's thematically annoying and it's extremely overpowered and I think just trying one game with and one without reveals that pretty quickly but it is at least self-contained in a way that the other three are not.

 

[A2ch0n]

Why should I trust them now?

I have a similar problem with espionage. We got those rework promised long ago and didn't got even a hint beside "it's on the custodian list". But i won't give up hope on that. The problem is, that custodian changes are most likely based on the amount (and interest) of community feedback. And at least in case of espionage i know, that i'm part of the minority.

On the storm mechanics: I really like them and haven't had any problems with them so far. And haven't heared so many complains in general about them, maybe beside the early nexus storms (a already fixed thing). So i don't know...

But on the positive side on the Custodians in general: If the team did things to the game, it was always quite cool. I'm willing to wait a little more.

because it won't fit their empire

Thats absolutely correct! It's still a crisis path and that blocks a lot of ways to play the game. I tried it two times with very different empire setups and then put it aside, especially because it blocks the path to become emperor and taking defender of the galaxy. And i bet there are a lot of other reasons to skip the perk.

Genetic and Psionic ascension not getting a similar overhaul (though the latter has gotten many iterative improvements) isn't a flaw of Machine Age.

I bet at least one of them is part of the next DLC season, maybe both of them. I mean, it would include fitting government types, specialised ascension traditions and most likely a bunch of new mechanics, civics, origins, AP's and events. Sound like two complete DLC's to me if it should be made properly. And it could even be tied with some other related topics.

 

[Eladrin]

The shorter than normal Vela release cycle wasn't entirely intended, but was forced upon us by circumstances. I addressed a few things about it, as well as changes to next year's plans here.

Fixes that would have gone into additional 3.13.x releases will be in 3.14.1. At a certain point, the overhead and risk from additional patches when there's a major release impending becomes less desirable as they could destabilize 3.14.1.

While we haven't announced next year's releases yet, before The Machine Age released I spoke about my hypothetical thoughts on Ascension Paths. They haven't changed much, though I'd add that I wouldn't want to leave one out of four Ascension Paths languishing behind the others for over a year.

We've learned a lot from this year, and will be making changes to how we do some things internally. I'm planning on talking more about those changes and plans starting in November after Grand Archive releases.

 

[Thiend]

The shorter than normal Vela release cycle wasn't entirely intended, but was forced upon us by circumstances. I addressed a few things about it, as well as changes to next year's plans here.

Fixes that would have gone into additional 3.13.x releases will be in 3.14.1. At a certain point, the overhead and risk from additional patches when there's a major release impending becomes less desirable as they could destabilize 3.14.1.

While we haven't announced next year's releases yet, before The Machine Age released I spoke about my hypothetical thoughts on Ascension Paths. They haven't changed much, though I'd add that I wouldn't want to leave one out of four Ascension Paths languishing behind the others for over a year.

We've learned a lot from this year, and will be making changes to how we do some things internally. I'm planning on talking more about those changes and plans starting in November after Grand Archive releases.

Works for me! I'm interested to see how that turns out.

 

[Jay Sherman]

We've learned a lot from this year, and will be making changes to how we do some things internally. I'm planning on talking more about those changes and plans starting in November after Grand Archive releases.

I think a very low hanging fruit to ease some of the frustration detailed in this thread is to have a better, more transparent issue/bug system. I'm not saying "give us access to your internal issue tracker" but a public-facing, developer-curated list of known issues would:

• reduce the huge duplication of reports on the bug forum
• make it clear that an issue is known/acknowledged and (maybe) worked on
• let reporters know they're not screaming into the void
• let us prioritize the actual issues and not just duplicated forum posts

For example, there's a specific Overlord bug that I've reported on 5 different versions of the game so far. Nothing serious but I imagine if it was instead a long standing open ticket on some official board it would have been taken care of already. There are bugs I don't even report because of this (perceived, I know) lack of attention to the bug forum.

 

[Dragatus]

I'm glad to learn that the rushed release cycle was forced by circumstance as it's my main point of agreement with the OP. Even if Cosmic Storm fixes will go into 3.14.* patches, it's not quite the same as being the main focus for at least a full month. I hope that in the future we'll get at least 2, preferably 3 months between releases.

I do disagree with most of the details of the criticism of Machine Age in the OP, but since the main issue of the thread seems to be resolved now, I a bit wary to open that can of worms. I will just say that my personal gripes with Machine Age content are that both advanced authorities and the species traits it introduced badly need a balance pass.

 

[Thiend]

I'm glad to learn that the rushed release cycle was forced by circumstance as it's my main point of agreement with the OP. Even if Cosmic Storm fixes will go into 3.14.* patches, it's not quite the same as being the main focus for at least a full month. I hope that in the future we'll get at least 2, preferably 3 months between releases.

I do disagree with most of the details of the criticism of Machine Age in the OP, but since the main issue of the thread seems to be resolved now, I a bit wary to open that can of worms. I will just say that my personal gripes with Machine Age content are that both advanced authorities and the species traits it introduced badly need a balance pass.

My personal least favorite of the authorities is Imperial Feedback, because there just doesn't seem to be much benefit. Tried it out on release and it's basically not very much science per unity spent on the leader unless someone figures out a way to have an Overtuned ruler/heir with no lifespan despite synthetic ascending.

Part of that might just be how much I DO like Imperial Transmission, so it's got direct competition.

I'm not as opposed to the Rulerchip as I thought I'd be for Cybernetic, although the Hivemind variant reducing sprawl penalties (combining with a civic for 75% reduction) seems... excessive.

Also, the mechanical leviathan traits are very literal orders of magnitude stronger than the biological ones.

My specific complaints it seems will mostly be addressed either in the GA patch, which isn't that far off, or in the "going forward" thereof, so we're good to go there. Very interested to see the Psionic variants, particularly because the Animator of Clay theoretically is precedent to allow Machines (gestalt or individualist?) to psionically ascend, perhaps just with that one option. Depends how they expand Psionic really, it's not hard to justify either gestalt type or individualist machines being able to do Psionic (also would give machines a second choice) but it's also not terribly hard to justify not allowing them to do it.

 

[fourteenfour]

I have a similar problem with espionage. We got those rework promised long ago and didn't got even a hint beside "it's on the custodian list". But i won't give up hope on that. The problem is, that custodian changes are most likely based on the amount (and interest) of community feedback. And at least in case of espionage i know, that i'm part of the minority.

On the storm mechanics: I really like them and haven't had any problems with them so far. And haven't heared so many complains in general about them, maybe beside the early nexus storms (a already fixed thing). So i don't know...

B

I think espionage got tossed aside because the system they implemented was a dead end road and engagement was low. Given that Master of Orion had a more useful espionage system and its thirty years old shows it can be done but politics and empire interaction in Stellaris is a mess with far too many absolutes; meaning the answer is always no from the AI. I still think that Overlord make most interactions with subject empires far worse and its use of hard coded agreements; of which only three choices exist at policy level; was laziness beyond measure.

Cosmic storms is the first DLC I had disabled with zero plans on turning it back on. I regularly play on medium sized galaxies with eight defined opponents who can be very difficult to deal with if left alone and the storms are decimating most AI empires - its as easy as looking for a certain storm type to know which empire will have no or little fleet and if that fleet exists it won't last. That and wrecked planets which the AI doesn't know how to manage such issues. I don't need a penalty based DLC and that is nearly what all the effects are... penalties and most are absolutely not fun.

I think a very low hanging fruit to ease some of the frustration detailed in this thread is to have a better, more transparent issue/bug system. I'm not saying "give us access to your internal issue tracker" but a public-facing, developer-curated list of known issues would:

• reduce the huge duplication of reports on the bug forum
• make it clear that an issue is known/acknowledged and (maybe) worked on
• let reporters know they're not screaming into the void
• let us prioritize the actual issues and not just duplicated forum posts

For example, there's a specific Overlord bug that I've reported on 5 different versions of the game so far. Nothing serious but I imagine if it was instead a long standing open ticket on some official board it would have been taken care of already. There are bugs I don't even report because of this (perceived, I know) lack of attention to the bug forum.

What miffs me the most about the bug system is their declaration of "duplicate" when they don't cite the original. This came up with the recent bug with gestalt machine empires losing a metallurgist job. I filed the first report and then I saw another report that showed another aspect and yet days later both are marked as duplicates? Well fine, which report did you accept?

It was game breaking enough to warrant yanking the update in my book but alas I remember 2023 where those of us on Mac and Linux went more than a week without a playable game - it always crashed and once a game crashed it was over.

So bug tracking needs more visibility. We need a new setting which includes a pin option for bugs that will be resolved next patch. There should be a bug tracking db with links to the post accepted as the one kept active.

 

[Thiend]

I think espionage got tossed aside because the system they implemented was a dead end road and engagement was low. Given that Master of Orion had a more useful espionage system and its thirty years old shows it can be done but politics and empire interaction in Stellaris is a mess with far too many absolutes; meaning the answer is always no from the AI. I still think that Overlord make most interactions with subject empires far worse and its use of hard coded agreements; of which only three choices exist at policy level; was laziness beyond measure.

Cosmic storms is the first DLC I had disabled with zero plans on turning it back on. I regularly play on medium sized galaxies with eight defined opponents who can be very difficult to deal with if left alone and the storms are decimating most AI empires - its as easy as looking for a certain storm type to know which empire will have no or little fleet and if that fleet exists it won't last. That and wrecked planets which the AI doesn't know how to manage such issues. I don't need a penalty based DLC and that is nearly what all the effects are... penalties and most are absolutely not fun.




What miffs me the most about the bug system is their declaration of "duplicate" when they don't cite the original. This came up with the recent bug with gestalt machine empires losing a metallurgist job. I filed the first report and then I saw another report that showed another aspect and yet days later both are marked as duplicates? Well fine, which report did you accept?

It was game breaking enough to warrant yanking the update in my book but alas I remember 2023 where those of us on Mac and Linux went more than a week without a playable game - it always crashed and once a game crashed it was over.

So bug tracking needs more visibility. We need a new setting which includes a pin option for bugs that will be resolved next patch. There should be a bug tracking db with links to the post accepted as the one kept active.

I'll be honest, this is unrelated to the main topic, but for bug reports - I think moderators here are a little overzealous about merging similar topics and pruning duplicate bug reports. First of all I've seen them merge topics that are in fact distinct, although rarely, but on bugs... if the devs are asking for saves to confirm a problem, surely even if it is a duplicate they should use that very function and merge the topics? Then the devs have both (more example saves with the problem), know more people are experiencing the problem (more urgency), and it becomes much easier to know what to fix and how to fix it.

 

[Dragatus]

@Thiend The real meat of Imperial Feedback is not the research you get when leaders die, it's the +2 Leader starting skill level. But you have to go out of your way to stack it to get the best results:
1) +2 from Imperial Feedback
2) +2 from Capacity Boosters policy (must be organic/lithoid)
3) +1 from Vaults of Knowledge civic
4) +1 from relevant tradition (Discovery for Scientists, Supremacy for Commanders, Domination for Officials)
5) +X from ??? (I'm probably missing some)

Your new leaders get to start at level 7. Then if you're also a Distinguished Admiralty your new Commanders get to start at level 9. You hire them and they instantly get to pick a destiny trait, which in turn powers up your Vault.

But this isn't one of the ones I find problematic. You have to go out of your way to tool your entire build around it and then you get rewarded. The ones I have a problem with are the ones like Democratic Concurrency or the two cybernetic oligarchies, which are just dropping generically useful specialist output bonuses like candy.

 

[Thiend]

@Thiend The real meat of Imperial Feedback is not the research you get when leaders die, it's the +2 Leader starting skill level. But you have to go out of your way to stack it to get the best results:
1) +2 from Imperial Feedback
2) +2 from Capacity Boosters policy
3) +1 from Vaults of Knowledge civic
4) +1 from relevant tradition (Discovery for Scientists, Supremacy for Commanders, Domination for Officials)
5) +X from ??? (I'm probably missing some)

Your new leaders get to start at level 7. Then if you're also a Distinguished Admiralty your new Commanders get to start at level 9. You hire them and they instantly get to pick a destiny trait, which in turn powers up your Vault.

But this isn't one of the ones I find problematic. You have to go out of your way to tool your entire build around it and then you get rewarded. The ones I have a problem with are the ones like Democratic Concurrency or the two cybernetic oligarchies, which are just dropping generically useful specialist output bonuses like candy.

Oh, I agree, I'm just saying the ones I dislike the most. Feedback can be good, it just seems like it's designed thematically for the leader death to be a big deal and it... isn't. In terms of balance, you've pretty much mentioned the biggest problems, plus my next on the list is hives getting to 75% reduced empire size penalties is a little crazy.

The starting leader level stacking is really nice, I've used it to get level 10 admirals on recruit (the two you missed I know of are Martial Alliance and being a Bulwark, which both give +1 for admirals).

 

[mrt1212]

I will admit that I am kinda worried about abandonment and lack of touchups just because there has been so much content released and a backlog now. And a backlog thats pretty blackbox in what we're gonna see given a pass and potential set of touchups, concurrent with other outstanding issues that have nothing to do with DLC itself like 'Unbidden abandoning the anchor and not resembling a crisis because of it'.

I wouldn't mind being clobbered with several updates in lieu of DLC, especially so something really novel like Storms doesn't wind up being something illconsidered in retrospect as a bad idea, when it was an interesting idea given short shrift in dev support after release. (I intend to play with them on but I think I got the experience being about them and conjuring them down and it's okay...I think I can actually do just fine being less than all about them going forward, but goddamn there are some pain points, some neglect of effect, and obviously the presentation kills me even when its pure bonus notification.)

 

[Thiend]

I will admit that I am kinda worried about abandonment and lack of touchups just because there has been so much content released and a backlog now. And a backlog thats pretty blackbox in what we're gonna see given a pass and potential set of touchups, concurrent with other outstanding issues that have nothing to do with DLC itself like 'Unbidden abandoning the anchor and not resembling a crisis because of it'.

I wouldn't mind being clobbered with several updates in lieu of DLC, especially so something really novel like Storms doesn't wind up being something illconsidered in retrospect as a bad idea, when it was an interesting idea given short shrift in dev support after release. (I intend to play with them on but I think I got the experience being about them and conjuring them down and it's okay...I think I can actually do just fine being less than all about them going forward, but goddamn there are some pain points, some neglect of effect, and obviously the presentation kills me even when its pure bonus notification.)

My semi-backed assumption given Eladrin's response is that we might be looking at a large custodian patch soon, and it has been a while since we got one.

Not definitive, obviously, but that seems likely.

If season 9 DLC fixes some of the outstanding problems that will also work, although I would then emphasize that saying "we have something planned for XYZ soon so we don't want to take the time to fix the live version" is a completely viable thing to say that will save us all a lot of headaches. I don't mind waiting on a fix to, say, Genetic because systems its updated version will interact with aren't ready yet (that's part of my custodian suspicion, the linked post sounds a lot like stuff that would work way better with Grand Archive already extant).

 

[Abdulijubjub]

For those saying wait for the custodian patches to fix everything: "We do not have plans to decrease the general power level of the features of The Machine Age."

Edit: woops, fixed the link.

 

[mrt1212]

For those saying wait for the custodian patches to fix everything: "We do not have plans to decrease the general power level of the features of The Machine Age."

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/stellaris-dev-diary-352-stellaris-3-13-vela-improvements-and-preliminary-release-notes.1702012/post-29865223

FWIW, I think this is actually hilarious in a way where making something as OP as cosmogenesis that also affords you escaping narrative and gameplay pillars, almost reads as spiteful 'but you said you wanted a set of powerful ascensions for the most neglected species type and have a bellyache because we did exactly that, hmm, interesting stuff'.

Of course I'm on the imaginative dialogue and inner monologue side of creation and delivery.

 

[Thiend]

For those saying wait for the custodian patches to fix everything: "We do not have plans to decrease the general power level of the features of The Machine Age."

It doesn't load, although I recall the statement.

I consider the machine/synth/cybernetic ascensions being overpowered to be a sunk cost. I don't think it's possible to pull back on their power to a significant degree without removing features, which simply isn't going to happen. But that doesn't mean a custodian patch/future DLC can't fix it by improving the other two ascensions, it has always been pretty much a given that taking a species ascension is a soft requirement (although I will add that because of that, we really only have 6 tradition slots and 7 AP slots) so I'm honestly not that concerned about their specific power level as long as all ascensions are at roughly the same level.

Cosmogenesis similarly doesn't actually need to be adjusted itself so long as other ways to get FE tech are added, although that is purely speculative since it doesn't seem to be in Grand Archive based on what they've shown so far. It being a way to get them much faster and also having the Lathe is much more acceptable to me than it being the only way to get them and also having the Lathe.