[Dev Team] Astral Planes and Stellaris 3.10.0 "Pyxis" Released - checksum (462c)

[Panzerslothen]

One of the best ways to show a company when they make a mistake that they need to correct course and start delivering products that are worth the asking price.

Stellaris as a game still has overwhelmingly positive reviews, and it should! It's a fantastic game! One DLC having bad reviews isn't going to make people not pick up the game. But this particular DLC is seen by a lot of people as simply not worth it. If it were priced at $10 like Ancient Relics or even $15, I'm sure many more people would be inclined to give it positive reviews because the story content is apparently quite good (though I haven't seen it myself as I haven't purchased it).

While that is all perfectly valid, none of it is relevant to my recent comments addressing Corpus Festerheart's stated reason, which is purely emotionally driven at the Outliner change (ironically enough, something I don't even think he's wrong to mention, but which is waaaaaaay over the line to leave an entire bad review about).. Corpus hasn't mentioned value proposition or content.

2/3 of all reviews for this DLC are negative. The complaints range from outliner being tedious to the point of being unusable, to the pricing being the same as a major expansion while being basically Ancient Relics 2: Electric Boogaloo, to leaders offering traits for the wrong classes entirely. The main complaint I see that is in almost every negative review is the pricing.

You address this at me but I've not really touched upon the content-to-price ratio (the value proposition) of Astral Threads yet. I've barely managed a few hours of play time so far; how can I judge a value proposition without having tested a meaningful proportion of the value?

At time of writing this comment, these are the negative reviews I see, and the stated reasons for the bad review:

"Not playable yet" - Blaming bugs
"Boring" - I don't even know where to start with how absurd a review like that is.
"It's the archaeology DLC for twice the price and half the stuff." - Value proposition.
"Buggy e.g. when selecting homeworld settings with new origin and picking Sol. Fancy story pack but otherwise just lack of content and quality combined to demand this price tag." - Blaming bugs, value proposition
"overpriced for the content it gives" - value proposition
"I'm not certain if it's this DLC or the base game update, but much of the game has broken since this has released." - blaming bugs.
"This is worth $5 max. 3 civics, an origin, and fancy archaeological sites. Don't buy this." - value proposition
"To be frank, I'm not sure what my money has paid for; this is a full priced expansion but it compares poorly to the smaller story packs." - value proposition
"What a ripoff." - value proposition
"My problem with this DLC is the impactfulness of Astral Actions." - value proposition (mechanics)
"This ain't it. For 20 dollars, you get reskinned archaeology sites with worse rewards." - Value proposition (albeit a lie of a review, because AR's aren't "just" reskinned Archeos, and there's other content in there too, but whatever). Of course that same review also goes on to say "Not only that, but this DLC was coupled with one of the worst updates (3.10) to date", which is also blaming bugs.

So yes, having gathered the data, it seems yes: a strong (but not sole) focus on a perception of insufficient value. And hey, fair enough to those people! An entirely valid reason to leave a bad review if you want (me personally, I haven't made up my mind yet). But with that said: are these reviewers genuinely telling me that they have played through all 31+ Astral Rifts, the Origin, and used all four of the new Civics, inside of 48 hours? Are they REALLY? I am sceptical.

 

[blahmaster6k]

You address this at me but I've not really touched upon the content-to-price ratio (the value proposition) of Astral Threads yet. I've barely managed a few hours of play time so far; how can I judge a value proposition without having tested a meaningful proportion of the value?

I can't speak for others, but I don't think someone needs to have experienced all content to issue a value judgment. And granted, all value judgments are subjective. But I think a lot of people just looked at the list of features and saw nothing particularly game-changing that warrants it being priced at double the cost of Ancient Relics while having a very similar feature set.

 

[Panzerslothen]

I can't speak for others, but I don't think someone needs to have experienced all content to issue a value judgment. And granted, all value judgments are subjective. But I think a lot of people just looked at the list of features and saw nothing particularly game-changing that warrants it being priced at double the cost of Ancient Relics while having a very similar feature set.

Hey sure enough. And no, not "all" of the content. There is a point between 0% and 100% at which it's reasonable (and I don't think it is either 0% or 100% themselves, myself).

There are some VERY big rumours that Astral Threads is hiding a big hidden reveal which I haven't gotten to yet, and which it would be unfair to spoil, which if true would (I think) significantly improve the value proposition. If not? Possibly not. Let's see, aye?

Speaking of, it's high time I actually played the DLC, rather than talking about it! TUH-TAAAHHH.

Hey @Aexrael, what the heck is your problem?

 

[luxeritib]

UI change made me do extra clicks which is just terrible. Hope this gets fixed by UI Overhaul modder. I don't think hotfix will make a dramatic change on this.

 

[Rodik22]

My question are you reading reviews on steam? DLC really not good. This is trash, maybe you fix the game and stop shoveling money in?

 

[CocoCincinnati]

My guess is that many players are going to be using at least as many scientists as governors as officials.

Apart from their shared common traits aiding governing, and a few shared veteran traits:

• The official's governing subclass and its veteran traits helps energy, minerals, food, alloys, consumer goods, and unity production.
• The scientists's governing subclass and its veteran traits helps science production

So you are going to want to assign scientist governors to every planet/sector devoted to science production.

The wiki says that officials boost job production, which I assume means all jobs, including researchers, while scientists boost just researchers. Both classes boost 2.5% sector/level and 5% planet/level, so the exact same amounts, meaning it is better to have an official, even for science. The lone exception of course is the Analyst which boosts research more, but unless officials are specifically NOT using their level to boost researcher jobs then it is better to have an official as a governor than any other scientist except an analyst. So we have this new scientist based DLC released at the same time a major change has been implemented to make analysts even more preferred than they already were. They really need to bring back assist research from a science ship in orbit, just make it less than as a governor, that way your explorers and scholars won't seem like a wasted pick.

 

[DrFranknfurter]

Astral Rifts is the first DLC I haven't bought, not because I can't afford it (I have the money sat in my steam wallet looking for a game or DLC to buy and I usually make a habit of getting Stellaris DLC day 1). But this year has made me rethink supporting Stellaris in future.

Spoiler: A poor value proposition

Astral Rifts = £15.07
That doesn't sound so bad at first... but there's more to it than just one number.

A sample of my purchase history on steam, other games:
Small games x4 = £16.82
Civ 6 x15 DLC = £17.69
Dave the Diver = £16.99
Against the storm = £13.49

So I could buy Astral Rifts... or a lot of small experimental games, or another full game. Astral Rifts is similar in price to Dave the Diver but obviously much less content than a full game, I bought Against the Storm when it was cheaper but that game is well worth buying at full price as it's interesting, creative, pretty and unique.

Playing the up-to-date version of Stellaris is getting expensive (price of DLC bought on release day):
£12.98 in 2019
£21.28 in 2020
£21.24 in 2021
£22.68 in 2022
£40.65 in 2023

The yearly "subscription" cost (to keep Stellaris up-to-date) almost doubling is NOT ok... and if you include another +£26.99 for the Star Trek:Infinite standalone version of Stellaris this year the cost is more than tripling. It feels like Paradox is trying to milk me for every penny they can sqeeze out of me and I'm not a fan.

Personally I had the most fun with Stellaris in the first two years of release back in 2016 and 2017 (with planet tiles and multiple FTL types).
I keep supporting the game not because it's amazing and improving but because there's not a lot of competition out there.

If Stellaris had released a new game every two or three years instead: Stellaris 1 in 2016, Stellaris 2 (2.0) in 2018, Stellaris 3 (3.0) in 2021 and Stellaris 4 (4.0) in 2023?
Then, I'd be playing the classic Stellaris 1, sometimes Stellaris 2. The more recent games would sit in my game library with minimal playtime like with Master of Orion 3 or Master of Orion (2016) as failed experiments that failed to understand what I enjoyed about the older games.

Not all additions and changes are improvements... too many cooks spoil the broth.... and doubling the yearly cost is a bit ridiculous.

Spoiler: Annoying adverts

Small thing, but like a splinter it gets under my skin and is hard to ignore.

Youtube has been annoying lately with the anti-adblocker push, at least gaming isn't that bad... oh, no...

I just loaded up a game without the DLC and had an advert for Astral Rifts on every single screen in empire creation (except the ship viewer), also two adverts before that in the launcher and before that the new DLC released banner on steam for good measure... that's 16 different screens with (multiple) adverts for the DLC before I even unpause the game...

Additional: The annoying side DLC adverts with chunky circles and big green ticks flow off the bottom of the screen because I use UI scaling, if you're going to shove adverts down my throat without my consent at least have them fit on the screen so I don't gag.

It's getting so bad that soon I'll need a ublock addon for Stellaris

Spoiler: Gameplay

In the first 30 seconds I had issues with:
Outliner (I hate hiding things in tabs when they can be shown at once),
Starting leaders (1 unemployed leader, already at my scientist leader cap playing as a science-themed empire so it's not looking good so far),
Traits (so many useless traits),
Bad new tooltips (I don't need to know generic information but leader specific information)...

It needs to be playtested more to ensure it is ready for release.

That's a rough summary of my (poor) impression of starting a game in 2023 before I even unpause.

TLDR:
The yearly price to keep up-to-date with Stellaris has doubled, that's a bit sad.
All the recommended DLC suggestions can go [insert profanity, blasphemy and obscenity involving [REDACTED] and a tulip bulb]. I don't like being milked for cash.
The changes to the game could do with more playtesting to ensure they actually are more fun in practice and not just in theory.

 

[luxeritib]

The wiki says that officials boost job production, which I assume means all jobs, including researchers, while scientists boost just researchers. Both classes boost 2.5% sector/level and 5% planet/level, so the exact same amounts, meaning it is better to have an official, even for science.

No, wiki is incorrect with that one. Officials give +5% energy, minerals, foods, alloys, CGs, gases, crystals, motes production.

 

[Mcgan]

It was then pointed out to you that the change wasn't even with the DLC, but with the free patch, meaning you've poured out toxicity into a review effectively unnecessarily.

What happened to "the DLC pays for the accompanying update" which is mentioned... basically every big update?
A bad review can (and should) always be changed or removed when/if the situation improves.

In fact, I sometimes find positive reviews coming from similar situations on other games:
Reviews which state how bad the game or dlc was at first, but then proceed to explain how much better it got after the developers took the time to not only fix the various problems, but also improve the general experience.

Personally, I find those reviews more impactful than most. But they all started as negative reviews.

I bet you'll leave the review up even when the Devs fix the Outliner in an incremental patch, won't you?

Ok, now that would be toxic. Assuming they still play the game by then.
It's not really the same if they become so pissed with the game that they never pick it up again after. Big "if", I know, but still something to consider.

 

[CocoCincinnati]

No, wiki is incorrect with that one. Officials give +5% energy, minerals, foods, alloys, CGs, gases, crystals, motes production.

If so then that was a change with the new patch because I just loaded up a game on 3.9.3 and the tooltip clearly shows a bonus to science from governor level. So this patch overall is just a big nerf to science.

 

[Seridor]

As much as I want fixes and features asap they need to betatest their game much more. I stayed with 3.7.4 for a long time, I wouldn't had mind if I stayed more. These leader rework-consolidation-reconsolidation just make ppl nervous, and rigthly.

Also I agree that DLC prices are just too high.. you could by a full release for the price of two small DLCs.

 

[Panzerslothen]

Astral Rifts is the first DLC I haven't bought, not because I can't afford it (I have the money sat in my steam wallet looking for a game or DLC to buy and I usually make a habit of getting Stellaris DLC day 1). But this year has made me rethink supporting Stellaris in future.

The yearly price to keep up-to-date with Stellaris has doubled, that's a bit sad.
All the recommended DLC suggestions can go [insert profanity, blasphemy and obscenity involving [REDACTED] and a tulip bulb]. I don't like being milked for cash.
The changes to the game could do with more playtesting to ensure they actually are more fun in practice and not just in theory.

I agree with a fair bit of what you're saying (and kudos for doing the sums while accounting for inflation), but it must be said that it isn't really a 'price' to keep up to date with Stellaris. All the DLCs are optional, and very few of them even come 'strongly recommended' by the community. The Custodian updates are free.

Plus we do get occasional Open Betas, so there is SOME playtesting.

[I await the now inevitable Disrespectful Disagrees by the usual suspects for my audacious pointing out of truth]

 

[Corpus Festerheart]

So let's recap:

• You got mad with all of Astral Planes purely because of the change to the Outliner, and it has made the game LITTERALLY UNPLAYABLE for you.
• You channelled your spite and bitterness into a bad review, incorrectly blaming a DLC pack which you've not explored more than 50% of (at most).
• You were called out on this.
• It was then pointed out to you that the change wasn't even with the DLC, but with the free patch, meaning you've poured out toxicity into a review effectively unnecessarily.
• And now you're doubling-down on it all and digging your heels in?

Dang bro, that's pretty crazy. I bet you'll leave the review up even when the Devs fix the Outliner in an incremental patch, won't you?

Dude, stop talking with voices in your head and imagining some kind of grand forum trials on a matter of defending Devs' honor.
Just give Astral Planes a good review - voila, all harm negated, big Biased Childish Forum Evil defeated. Good guys win.

 

[KNakamura]

My question are you reading reviews on steam? DLC really not good. This is trash, maybe you fix the game and stop shoveling money in?

Reviews on steam are an interesting metric, but I would like to point out to you that games released with bad balance and incomplete are 79% positive - review scores are prone to bandwagoning.

That said, I need to actually test it to see if it was worth $20. c.c

 

[MattSwim82]

This update crashes the game anytime I try to unpause. No mods, and it doesn't matter if its a new game or old save. Immediately crashes.

 

[Lenk]

I really like the story of the Astral Planes, it flushes things out, but there are some problems with it because of where the story goes, Like what happened to Crystalline Empire, their suppose to be in the same region of the galaxy but are absent from the story. There should be more to the region instead of one system. At max this DLC should be worth $10-15 at most.

 

[Millbot]

Couple thoughts:

-The rift stuff is pretty fun. It really does add some great midgame and late game exploration and I do enjoy the exploration stuff more than anything else. My one critique here, the whole bloody ironman thing probably should be reconsidered. Given how RNG it is to get the rifts, with the exception of the riftworld origin (I'm assuming the home system rift will always be the same each playthrough) and how long a campaign can take, it would be nice to have the option to have multiple saves of the same game, to try different options; especially, when we get to considering other stuff that is super rare.

-Leader starting traits

Something needs to be done here because the governor traits are really annoying when we get to recruiting commanders and scientists. I don't care if they are setup so they can't roll those as their starting trait or if the devs end up having to come up with a new subset of traits that is purely universal and always worth having regardless of what a leader is doing. With how the pools are for recruiting leaders, too many of them aren't even worth considering, unless you want to handicap yourself, because they are rolling with a starting trait that is irrelevant to what you're recruiting the leader for.

-Also find it annoying that anomalies will constantly pop up in ways that annoy me because no I don't want deal with them the instant I find them in most situations. Before some goes "You're not playing optimally!" My surveying scientists aren't suppose to stop surveying systems to research anomalies, that's what my ideally, anomaly specialized scientist is for.On the other hand, paragon leaders are setup, so that they can completely pass by unnoticed, literally one of those event where I wouldn't mind the game pause and event popup on my screen, so that I don't miss it.

-God complex scientist is still annoying and for the life of me, I cannot understand why we still do not have an espionage option where we could attempt to find them. Doesn't have to have good odds, just having the option would be appreciated. I mean, I can lure the kaleidoscope entity to a primitive world, if I wanted, so why not be able to task some operatives to try and track down a rogue4 scientist?

- Mix thoughts on the astral actions. On one hand some of that stuff is pretty good. On the other hand, not a fan of some of it. I'll agree with the assessment that some have made about some actions devaluing player choices, I think flash forge hyperrelays are mostly fine, maybe add an alloy cost or up the CD. The fleet one, is the one I feel most cold towards because it's just another button to push, to essentially get a free fleet. If it is kept, maybe the fleet's duration should be a fraction of the CD, make it a tactical choice. If the player activates the CD, they'll get the fleet to use for a limited time, which could be huge in the right situations; however, they'll be a gap regardless of how things go for them in combat, where it'll be on CD and they might really wish they could summon a fleet. Before someone mentions relics that give fleets, I'll point out that those aren't guaranteed, outside3 of the one scourge relic and that one is late game. The astral action that gives one a fleet is guaranteed, the player will need to find something to do with unwanted astral threads and more ships are almost always good (these might not be the right call in every engagement) and it's something we unlock mid game. Then we have other actions that are well button clicks we have to constantly hit, if we want to keep the benefits rolling and it's hard to say no to increased physi8cs research and sublight speed (the former you'll almost always want to keep rolling and the latter only going when you really need that ship speed).

-The new UI is great. It's really nice that I don't have to do constant scrolling for things I want. Probably the three baseline tweaks, I'd like to see for it. An option to reduce or increase size. For some people who have good vision, they might want it smaller, so they have more information accessible, for people with poorer visions, they might want it to be even bigger to be able to read things. The option to create new tabs, which we could move things to that we really care about. Give people the option to combine tabs, I"ll never use it, but I get that some people prefer the obnoxious scrolling over cycling through tabs.

 

[Mister X-X]

Next update In spring March (Religions and Cults) developers Do you like it? Institutes of power ?????
I want to conquer star systems without war with the help of Religions and Cults! Pacifist

 

[Masked Ermine]

I just tried to play a game with the new update patch...note the italics on played. A: there are significant issues where certain things simply don't work, like space station cost reductions. And then randomly, the game just crashed to desktop with no worrying, the game wasn't struggling, or anything, which is the first time I've experienced this particular kind of crash. Also I find the UI tedious, I should not be sitting there asking 'where the hell did Paradox hide my stuff now!?'.

Paradox...stop publishing broke crap. I can only imagine what people who spent money on the DLC are feeling if the patch itself is this broken...this is stupid. If I was anyone who hasn't yet bought the DLC, I'd wait to buy this DLC until A: the patch is fixed, and B: it's on sale. Paradox does not deserve to get full revenue for publishing this in this condition. And you know, I'd give paradox some slack on this kind of crap if this was like the first time this has happened but it isn't, it is almost EVERY major patch, DLC or extension pack, and I am getting damned tired of it.

 

[Ohirra]

My one critique here, the whole bloody ironman thing probably should be reconsidered. Given how RNG it is to get the rifts, with the exception of the riftworld origin (I'm assuming the home system rift will always be the same each playthrough) and how long a campaign can take, it would be nice to have the option to have multiple saves of the same game, to try different options; especially, when we get to considering other stuff that is super rare.

If you're on a Windows PC, you can go to Documents / Paradox Interactive / Stellaris / Save Games / [empire name], and rename ironman.sav to something else.

When you load that game, it'll just make a new file with the ironman.sav name and keep the previous one you renamed, without overwriting it.

That way, you can keep renaming ironman.sav any time you want to make a backup or restore point kind of thing.