Zones; what is good, what needs to be fixed before 4.0

[Critical Ethics]

I really appreciate the insight and thought process behind the changes. I think that goes a long way to helping the players understand what the goal is for what we see as a pretty massive change to a system many thought worked fine as is.

As someone who really likes that idea of being able to customize and specialize planets as mentioned, the only thing I still really do not understand is the Building change. I mean I get wanting to differentiate Districts, Buildings and Zones, but if "buildings modify jobs" is their main goal how is this any different than just having passive Tech that does this? Sure there's a small build and upkeep cost to Buildings, but unless 4.0 is also coming with a considerable increase in the number of Building types for the Zones, most Zones don't have enough Buildings to make any of it a meaningful choice. Most of the game it will be a "Build it or you just have an empty slot" until you've unlocked most tech for Buildings, and even then the choice will likely be to choose 3 of 4 Buildings which will be a simple "choice" for most players since most players will choose Output over Upkeep Reduction every single time unless they're in a Consumer Goods crisis.

Some points I'd like to make concerning an often brought up issue, which is building diversity.

A)The goal is roughly to have at least 6 possible buildings for the 3 slots for every district, that is the minimum.
B) The buildings you saw in the mockups, especially the robot factory, are placeholders. And to be super specific about the robot factory, outside of the government zone, the robot factory will not effect pop growth but instead handle automation.
C) The final goal for planet diversity is that the bonuses the buildings can give you should be roughly equal in their resource-impact. Production/Upkeep/Workforce/NewResource/PlanetModifiers/Automation are some of the categories we are considering for this.

This is also why I find the 9 slot speciality planet worrying as it nixes what in my mind is one of the big selling points of the urban zone system.

 

[Critical Ethics]

I'd feel better about just moving mining district boxes over to generator district -- changing what the red boxes mean seems like it's going to be something I forget to check when I'm rushing to build stuff on 20+ colonies.

That doesn't allow you to drop miner bonuses on an energy producing job, which is a very different feel to just having a lot of technicians.

 

[Red Death]

The original idea for zones actually came up because we felt that we were planning on putting too many districts onto the planet (since we wanted to separate Foundry and Forge, and add Research) and thought that you'd prefer being able to customize/specialize the Urban Zones to provide the jobs you wanted.

Thank you so much for the insight!

But, dear Blorg, why did you think players would prefer modifying the job output of the entire stack of city districts with a maximum granularity of 33%, over a granularity of single Districts? Just because of the number of Districts on screen? I don't think adding zones instead of districts made the screen more readable.

Clearly, you were planning on splitting up the foundry district and adding a research district for a reason of more control, right?

 

[Critical Ethics]

Thank you so much for the insight!

But, dear Blorg, why did you think players would prefer modifying the job output of the entire stack of city districts with a maximum granularity of 33%, over a granularity of single Districts? Just because of the number of Districts on screen? I don't think adding zones instead of districts made the screen more readable.

Clearly, you were planning on splitting up the foundry district and adding a research district for a reason of more control, right?

"Control" is not a single lever that goes from more to less. Zones grant more control in that they let you decide what one-to-three t2 "districts" are on a planet, at the cost of less control over fine grain adjustment of their proportions on a per-planet basis. I think it's a good trade, not everyone agrees.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

The original idea for zones actually came up because we felt that we were planning on putting too many districts onto the planet (since we wanted to separate Foundry and Forge, and add Research) and thought that you'd prefer being able to customize/specialize the Urban Zones to provide the jobs you wanted.

Since past the early game, Stellaris players tend to usually super-specialize your planets, we figured you would generally end up applying three identical zones to a planet to get the maximum number of jobs, but still would have reasons to split-specialize at times or have Urban Zones for additional buildings. (Our original design included duplicate zones NOT providing extra building slots.)

Then we also thought about how we could use them to provide unique zones for special planetary features to make planets more unique, and we liked the idea. Yes, they could be buildings, but we were also fairly tied to our "buildings should modify jobs" plan to differentiate buildings and districts more than they are in 3.x.

I'm glad you're reading all the feedback, I hope you are able to make some changes. But I want to stress that I really, really do not prefer the zones system.

Your old plans may have resulted in too many district options on a planet and so needed limits... I understand that. I'd have picked districts from a list (like we pick zones), keeping some dual-use districts as options and adding special unique districts added from features/civics.

I think you dramatically overcorrected and did the exact opposite of the good ideas you were planning before.
Squashing multiple districts into a single city-district is worse than displaying too many districts because of huge swings in job numbers, complete lack of control of the ratio of jobs, worse UI and confustion about buildings slots.

 

[HFY]

That doesn't allow you to drop miner bonuses on an energy producing job, which is a very different feel to just having a lot of technicians.

Why do you think that "+20% Miner Output" would mean that energy from miners doesn't get buffed?

 

[Critical Ethics]

View attachment 1272416

Why do you think that "+20% Miner Output" would mean that energy from miners doesn't get buffed?

I'd feel better about just moving mining district boxes over to generator district

If they're generator districts then they'd employ technicians, not miners.

 

[HFY]

If they're generator districts then they'd employ technicians, not miners.

Are you making a joke here?

 

[Critical Ethics]

Are you making a joke here?

I may have misunderstood you. You said you'd prefer if the moved the "mining districts boxes" over to the energy district because changing what the "red boxes" do would be confusing. I took that to mean putting the mining district cap at 0 and increasing the energy district cap by the same amount. Did you mean something else?

 

[Thiend]

I just trip in here and ask myself—if zones are now using the "free" slot in the energy district, why couldn’t we just leave out zones and switch out districts instead?

Like, having a Betharian deposit on a planet and the ability to freely choose our districts would allow us to build a Betharian Energy District that does the same as the zone.

Overall, a better step and alternative to the whole zone debacle would be to allow us to replace, upgrade, and modify districts directly. And to be even more simplistic—just make the districts on planets more diverse and give us more district types per planet based on features and empire. We already have numerous district types based on planet type—why couldn’t that be expanded instead of introducing zones that add a whole new layer of issues?

That is definitely an option, but the advantage here is each zone will have three slots for buildings, so unless you wanted the same three buildings having them as separate zones instead of the same pool of districts and buildings means the amplification for one isn't the amplification for the other.

I cracked the code. It's not being explained well, but that's why - it's so you get equal building slots for both instead of a pooled total.

 

[ShaTiK]

The original idea for zones actually came up because we felt that we were planning on putting too many districts onto the planet (since we wanted to separate Foundry and Forge, and add Research) and thought that you'd prefer being able to customize/specialize the Urban Zones to provide the jobs you wanted.

I don't want to sound arrogant, but after trying new system I'm certain you should've went ahead with specialized districts. And that's what a beta is all about after all, trying new things to see what works.

Zones totally can work as district modifiers. After some pondering I can see the potential for a ton of zones for various cases - different housing zones for different civics/ideologies, additional zones for industries like better alloys for militarists at the expense of CGs or more CGS for megacorps, more variety (urban district temple zone for vs admin zone for unity generation), new zones for resource generation district etc. This reduces building clutter (by restricting them to zones), gives tons of options, flavor for special empires and leaves room for lots of future zones.

But all of that works only if we get at least some room to maneuver, ie some districts of our choosing (apart from housing and government). Set a limit on number of different districts a planet can have if that is deemed absolutely necessary (can't say I see the need, if player want to hyper-specialize he would limit himself but if a planet is 25 giant you might want a bit more variety), but give us more districts.

 

[Imp0815]

The original idea for zones actually came up because we felt that we were planning on putting too many districts onto the planet (since we wanted to separate Foundry and Forge, and add Research) and thought that you'd prefer being able to customize/specialize the Urban Zones to provide the jobs you wanted.

Hey, really cool to see you this deep into the discussion. I find the discussion is getting heated here, and a bit of a grounding comment is always appreciated!
_____

Did you test a setup where we had district slots and could choose districts on planets? With such a system, we could have the flexibility of zones, the ability to provide unique and interesting districts per planet, have buildings interact with these districts, and keep it straightforward with job management: Districts make jobs – buildings (mostly) modify jobs.

We could be limited to one slot for each of the raw resource-gathering districts. That could lead to actual choices—like using Betharian deposits to turn mining-districts into energy providers at the cost of fewer minerals. Then, we could have 3 or 4 urban district slots, which could be tailored into industrial, unity research or special urban zones for flexibility. We then simply upgrade these districts to increse the jobs they provide, just like before.

This system could give us the experience of freedom by keeping the old building-slot system while maintaining the vision of unique features being reflected in jobs and districts we can build.
We’d avoid the multijob-per-district issue that creates job management nightmares and remove a whole layer of confusion between districts, zones, buildings, and their relationships. In addtion this sounds like a feature doabel and working in 4 weeks.

 

[HFY]

I may have misunderstood you. You said you'd prefer if the moved the "mining districts boxes" over to the energy district because changing what the "red boxes" do would be confusing. I took that to mean putting the mining district cap at 0 and increasing the energy district cap by the same amount. Did you mean something else?

That would be one better solution.


But the post you quoted was about this:

That doesn't allow you to drop miner bonuses on an energy producing job, which is a very different feel to just having a lot of technicians.

... which seems inaccurate as the building which buffs miners does not specify minerals nor exclude energy.

So I'm curious why you think miner bonuses would not apply to energy, or why you feel adding technicians for energy would be worse than miners making energy.

 

[Imp0815]

That is definitely an option, but the advantage here is each zone will have three slots for buildings, so unless you wanted the same three buildings having them as separate zones instead of the same pool of districts and buildings means the amplification for one isn't the amplification for the other.

I cracked the code. It's not being explained well, but that's why - it's so you get equal building slots for both instead of a pooled total.

I get what you're saying, but we didn’t really gain anything—just swapped one limitation for another. Before, buildings competed for slots, now they compete for zone slots, which are even more limited. Zones lock us into 3 specific buildings, so if we want one type, we have to burn a whole zone slot first. Once those few slots are gone, we’re stuck—no flexibility, no extra building slots, just more steps to hit a wall faster.

 

[Thiend]

I get what you're saying, but we didn’t really gain anything—just swapped one limitation for another. Before, buildings competed for slots, now they compete for zone slots, which are even more limited. Zones lock us into 3 specific buildings, so if we want one type, we have to burn a whole zone slot first. Once those few slots are gone, we’re stuck—no flexibility, no extra building slots, just more steps to hit a wall faster.

That's more an issue with the currently available number of zones, rather than the concept itself. The concept itself does have this single major advantage, and the flaw with it is just we don't have enough zone slots - that's probably negotiable. It may even end up as something you can increase, like by a midgame tech granting +1 zone.

 

[Imp0815]

That's more an issue with the currently available number of zones, rather than the concept itself. The concept itself does have this single major advantage, and the flaw with it is just we don't have enough zone slots - that's probably negotiable. It may even end up as something you can increase, like by a midgame tech granting +1 zone.

Well then we hit the next wall—if we have, for example, 4 or 5 slots and make the mistake of building two or three different types of zones, we suffer the consequences. If we want 180 more scientists, we upgrade the urban district with the 5 zones and get 1,000 different jobs in addition, forcing us to micromanage the job slider every time we press upgrade on an urban district.

The system does not work.


P.S. The longer and more I repeat my findings, the clearer it becomes that the system is tailored around having three of the same zones to min-max the endgame, avoid job chaos, and make large empire management easier for a certain type of player. Personally, as a long-time fan of the complex and vast nature of PDX grand strategy games, I find it abhorrent that we seem to be steering in a direction that removes the core aspect that keeps drawing me in—the interactions with empire management and the engagement I get from tailoring my planets and needing to visit them from time to time to keep an eye on things.
If we move forward and streamline that interaction away, there isn't much left in the game that has real merit anymore, in my personal opinion.

 

[Critical Ethics]

That would be one better solution.


But the post you quoted was about this:



... which seems inaccurate as the building which buffs miners does not specify minerals nor exclude energy.

So I'm curious why you think miner bonuses would not apply to energy, or why you feel adding technicians for energy would be worse than miners making energy.

I don't understand your initial post about moving boxes, could you rephrase it. My interpretation of what you were saying was to convert the mining districts into energy districts and I responded to that interpretation. Your responses indicate you meant something else, but I don't know what that something is. There's no bad guys here, just a miscommunication

 

[HFY]

I don't understand your initial post about moving boxes, could you rephrase it. My interpretation of what you were saying was to convert the mining districts into energy districts and I responded to that interpretation. Your responses indicate you meant something else, but I don't know what that something is. There's no bad guys here, just a miscommunication

Sure.

If the effect is intended to replace Miner output, then the Mining district must not appear as it does for Mineral-producing colonies.

- The Mining district could change color and image to reflect that it's now a Betharian district so even a quick glance will show that clicking +1 district will not increase mineral production. For example, by making the red Mining District boxes yellow, and replacing the Mining District graphic with a Betharian graphic.

- An easier solution would be to just set mining districts to 0 and add the previous number of red boxes to the Generator district, which would gain a number of yellow boxes.


It would be a bad UX design to change the meaning without changing the visual.

There is a visual area where energy production is expected: the Generator district. Moving the boxes to that area will produce no surprise.

There could be a new visual which replaces the Mining District visual so that clear what the visual means ("not Minerals").

 

[Critical Ethics]

Sure.

If the effect is intended to replace Miner output, then the Mining district must not appear as it does for Mineral-producing colonies.

- The Mining district could change color and image to reflect that it's now a Betharian district so even a quick glance will show that clicking +1 district will not increase mineral production. For example, by making the red Mining District boxes yellow, and replacing the Mining District graphic with a Betharian graphic.

- An easier solution would be to just set mining districts to 0 and add the previous number of red boxes to the Generator district, which would gain a number of yellow boxes.


It would be a bad UX design to change the meaning without changing the visual.

There is a visual area where energy production is expected: the Generator district. Moving the boxes to that area will produce no surprise.

There could be a new visual which replaces the Mining District visual so that clear what the visual means ("not Minerals").

Oh, you just meant moving the colour of the zone box, not moving the position of some boxes. That makes a lot more sense. Yes, special districts having a unique colour to make it very obvious they're from planetary features and probably work funny absolutely should be a thing. I'd personally go with the same purple colour used for rare techs though.

E: and/or maybe a fancy border.

 

[HFY]

Oh, you just meant moving the colour of the zone box, not moving the position of some boxes.

Both are valid solutions.

Moving the boxes over to Generator District (as normal Generator District boxes which create Technician jobs) is a fine solution.

Making a new visual which shows clearly what will happen when the player clicks +1 Mining District is a different solution, which might also be fine depending on how it's done.


I think one is a lot less work than the other, and given the UX shortcuts we saw in today's MEAT SHIPS dev diary that might be a relevant concern.