Why should I buy Stellaris?

[Fulgrymm]

Well, one the one hand, a new player is generally not very good at 4Xs but likes to play on easy difficulties, then I'll say it's probably fine to buy now. Bugs are mostly at the point where they probably won't notice and won't make a pick that gets them a game breaking one.

One the other hand, if they want an AI that is even mildly competent or challenging in any sense, then getting the game now is going to give the wrong impression.

But on the gripping hand, execs at Paradox obviously forced this out early and it's still a mess and won't be really fixed for months. I just don't think that should be rewarded. I was going to buy two dlc, as much as I hate their insane dlc system there's just not another game really like this. However, I'm not going to do that now because I don't want to send a message that it's ok for them to attempt to maximize quarterly profits at the expense of the game itself. Heck, the game suffers enough from that attitude without them pushing out beta/alpha releases.

All of this is the primary reason I haven't opted in to season 9.

 

[Adonnus]

If you do play, you're definitely going to want to use the UI Overhaul Dynamic mod.

Thanks, I tried it and it does look better than vanilla. But still somewhat blurry.

It's still stupid that I have to get a mod to get something compatible with my monitor though.

 

[rubert]

Thanks, I tried it and it does look better than vanilla. But still somewhat blurry.

Unfortunately mods can't do anything about that as far I know. It's up to PDX to fix it if they want to.

And yeah, it is really annoying. I am leaning towards not buying any new DLCs for Stellaris until the high DPI issues are fixed. I initially thought I could tolerate the slight blurriness but it is far more annoying than I thought it would be - plus it causes extra eye strain least for me.

 

[RingworldUtopia]

i don't understand what you're all seeing. this could actually be a problem with WINDOWS DPI scaling instead, because my 65 inch 4k screen is not blurry at 1.8x dpi scaling. try playing with the dpi scaling options in application properties in windows, right click on stellaris EXE and properties, and then check compatibility.

 

[rubert]

Doesn't do a thing because Stellaris just uses simple resample to scale the output rather than actually increasing font sizes etc.

See below for examples

• Top, 4k scaled to 1.5x in Stellaris settings. Text is nice size, but blurry
• Bottom, 4k, no scaling. Text is sharp, but too small on 32" screen. Probably fine on larger screen depending on how far you are looking.

Note that if you are viewing the picture on a monitor with different display scaling (eg. 4k monitor) set in Windows/other OS settings browsers seem to generally use that for all images, even if opened directly to a seperate tab so to view the most accurate results you probably want to save it and open in Paint or other phot editor.

 

[RingworldUtopia]

Doesn't do a thing because Stellaris just uses simple resample to scale the output rather than actually increasing font sizes etc.

See below for examples

• Top, 4k scaled to 1.5x in Stellaris settings. Text is nice size, but blurry
• Bottom, 4k, no scaling. Text is sharp, but too small on 32" screen. Probably fine on larger screen depending on how far you are looking.

Note that if you are viewing the picture on a monitor with different display scaling (eg. 4k monitor) set in Windows/other OS settings browsers seem to generally use that for all images, even if opened directly to a seperate tab so to view the most accurate results you probably want to save it and open in Paint or other phot editor.


View attachment 1328048

maybe my eyes are just bad, cause this does not look blurry to me. just looks like anti-aliasing and shadows. i'm on a 65 inch 4k screen. but alright, let's say that it still needs another pass for better 4k for the sake of argument, it certainly does not look bad enough to tell people "hold off on playing the game".

it definitely USED TO BE way way worse on 4k. i think people have short memories, and OP seems to be implying it's been a LONG time since they played. so the game definitely improved its scaling since their last experience.

 

[Shekelnator]

I technically did buy the base game years ago but have yet to really play it much nor buy the DLCs as I have done for most of the other Paradox games. I would like to but the blurry UI in 4K resolution makes it absolutely unplayable for me and there are no working mods around it that I could find.

Why should I spend money on a game which hurts my eyes to read the text of?

DONT FOR NOW!

Wait till the developers fix the current patch. despite 21 patches the game is way way worse and in bad shape compared to 3.X.X

 

[rubert]

maybe my eyes are just bad, cause this does not look blurry to me. just looks like anti-aliasing and shadows. i'm on a 65 inch 4k screen. but alright, let's say that it still needs another pass for better 4k for the sake of argument, it certainly does not look bad enough to tell people "hold off on playing the game".

it definitely USED TO BE way way worse on 4k. i think people have short memories, and OP seems to be implying it's been a LONG time since they played. so the game definitely improved its scaling since their last experience.

Replied here as the high resolution talk is going bit off-topic for this thread:

Stellaris and High Resolution 4K

I have 397.1 Steam hours playing Stellaris. Stellaris is the only game I own that can't install itself for High Rez Monitors. I have over 150 games, all but 1 install fine. I have new and old games. So I see a sale on Steam for Stellaris DLCs...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[passeris]

I technically did buy the base game years ago but have yet to really play it much nor buy the DLCs as I have done for most of the other Paradox games. I would like to but the blurry UI in 4K resolution makes it absolutely unplayable for me and there are no working mods around it that I could find.

Why should I spend money on a game which hurts my eyes to read the text of?

Doesn't do a thing because Stellaris just uses simple resample to scale the output rather than actually increasing font sizes etc.

See below for examples

• Top, 4k scaled to 1.5x in Stellaris settings. Text is nice size, but blurry
• Bottom, 4k, no scaling. Text is sharp, but too small on 32" screen. Probably fine on larger screen depending on how far you are looking.

Note that if you are viewing the picture on a monitor with different display scaling (eg. 4k monitor) set in Windows/other OS settings browsers seem to generally use that for all images, even if opened directly to a seperate tab so to view the most accurate results you probably want to save it and open in Paint or other phot editor.


View attachment 1328048

Ok, I think I can solve the problem. I have just switched from a 2560 × 1600 laptop to one slightly larger with the same resolution. On the smaller PC, Stellaris looked adequate, not perfect but easily readable. On the larger it was blurry and unplayable, and had trouble detecting the screen resolution.

The issue is system display scaling. On the smaller laptop, I was using 200% scaling, but on the larger I had it set to 150%. When I set the larger laptop to either 100% or 200% scaling, it looked fine regardless of in-game UI scaling setting.

TLDR: use integer scaling.

 

[Chrisrous]

I technically did buy the base game years ago but have yet to really play it much nor buy the DLCs as I have done for most of the other Paradox games. I would like to but the blurry UI in 4K resolution makes it absolutely unplayable for me and there are no working mods around it that I could find.

Why should I spend money on a game which hurts my eyes to read the text of?

I totally get that. I’m on a 4K monitor too, and the blurry UI used to bother me a lot
But with UI scaling at 1.6x, it’s sharp and totally comfortable to read now

I’ve played over 600 hours, and it’s one of the few strategy games I keep coming back to
If you enjoy sci-fi and sandbox gameplay, Stellaris is absolutely worth it especially with the amount of content and mod support it offers

 

[fourteenfour]

I would not suggest anyone buy it except when on sale and buy nothing out of the current season until the developers restore the trust of the players. Over four hundred bug fixes should be unacceptable to everyone and that does not even count the number of balance changes, performance changes, and more.

 

[Zarganthrax]

do you like to make numbers go up ?
do you like space game ?
do you like the idea of painting a map, with your color ?
if you answered yes to any of these questions, then, you'll probs get into the game quite quickly.

 

[RingworldUtopia]

Ok, I think I can solve the problem. I have just switched from a 2560 × 1600 laptop to one slightly larger with the same resolution. On the smaller PC, Stellaris looked adequate, not perfect but easily readable. On the larger it was blurry and unplayable, and had trouble detecting the screen resolution.

The issue is system display scaling. On the smaller laptop, I was using 200% scaling, but on the larger I had it set to 150%. When I set the larger laptop to either 100% or 200% scaling, it looked fine regardless of in-game UI scaling setting.

TLDR: use integer scaling.

yes I tried to say this before, there is something weird with the way windows handles scaling. another option is to tell it to let the app handle scaling, just for stellaris. this removes system scaling from stellaris entirely, and lets you set it in game.

 

[HFY]

Why should I spend money on a game which hurts my eyes to read the text of?

Because I bought it and I'm suffering.

Why should you be happy?

 

[RingworldUtopia]

Because I bought it and I'm suffering.

Why should you be happy?

a true addict: "i can quit any time"

 

[Perimal]

Right now don't buy it except on Steam. I'm on GoG and I can't wind it back to a playable version (i.e. before v4). My guess is M$ store is the same. IIRC, on Steam you can go back as far as 2.8x or 3.4x which are playable and before powercreep went totally berserk. IMO First Contact was the latest decent DLC.