Stellaris Dev Diary #140 - 2.2.x post-launch patch v2

[HighKings_Ruin]

"final post-release patch"

I did not pay over £50 for these kind of results, the game is NOT stable.

Also, what's with all the hard coded locks? modders are capable of fixing these issues if you would let them. Though we shouldn't need to rely on modders to fix a game.

*Glares at Bethesda*

 

[ViolentBeetle]

On topic of district counter - the current [num_districts]/[num_districts+num_free_districts] counter does not actually convey any useful information. There's, to my knowledge, no mechanic that actually make reaching potential fixed number useful. What I want to know is how many more districts I can build, not how many city districts I can potentially end up with.

What could be useful is to have a counter for free districts grouped with district field, as right now it's hidden somewhere illogical. Add boxes for ucapped districts if you like them so much, sure, but only count built ones. But I'd prefer a big number. While the capped districts could go with small number + boxes representing slots.

 

[VerKer]

So, when you guys said "we've budgeted an extended amount of time to fix Stellaris post-2.2"... Less than 100 calendar days, which by my count (and assuming that some of the devs and staff quietly started work on Jan 7 and just didn't communicate until later, and that the patch will not hit until exactly 28 February) means... 51 working days.

That's not a great look for an expansion that still doesn't work where key game systems simply do not function even remotely uniformly and have not been fully worked through systemically to conform to the new game meta.

(...) I'm just disappointed by how completely tone deaf this team is to just how badly you're screwing up the PR on this debacle. Every time you get the tiniest bit of goodwill built up and you start to work yourselves out of the hole, you drop a comment like, "final patch in two weeks after we promised extended support! We know nothing works yet but LOL can't spend any more time before we announce the next DLC!" Then BAM, you're right back to square one in the PR mud.

This, exactly! And within these 51 working days significant time also went into the dev clash production(s).

 

[HighKings_Ruin]

"We're not ending post-release support for 2.2 if that's what you're worried about. We'll give a solid explanation a little later today, so there's no misreading between the lines. "

-Stellaris Twitter

 

[sillyrobot]

The dev team addressed this before. Sectors aren't a simple tweak, so while they'll possibly get another look, it's something that needs more time to be done. Just because a feature isn't introduced/changed, doesn't mean it's not going to be.

It was enough of a "simple tweak" to righteously break them. You break it, you buy it; so fix it.

 

[sortulv]

Regarding the TA perk: is this really a buff? To me it seems a reduction in the chance to get the techs I would typically be looking for, since most of those are non-rares (like + admin cap, better power plants, bigger stations, bigger ships, megaengineering, anti-grav housing). The only rare that I can remember looking for in the early game, is the psionics...

 

[ViolentBeetle]

"We're not ending post-release support for 2.2 if that's what you're worried about. We'll give a solid explanation a little later today, so there's no misreading between the lines. "

-Stellaris Twitter

Pro Tip: You shouldn't write sinister text with benign subtext. It's supposed to be the other way around.

 

[grekulf]

I've opened windows-paint and I've figured out, that the tiny UI allows to display just 24 "free" district-boxes, respectively 18 district-boxes (aka the ones for alloys, consumer-goods and unity), respectively 12 city-district-boxes, so what if I have a colony, which exceeds these limits ? - Then ?

When the number of a district exceeds 15, you show a number inside a larger box, like shown in the image.

Please.

Please tell me that you will look at sectors and give us back some of the previous options we had in past patches.

Thank you.

Sectors are a larger task that is a big too big to tackle right now, with a lot of other fixes being done, but I do want you to know I have sectors as one of my highest priorities going forwards. We will probably not be going back to manual sector management, but we will definitely be looking into how to make the automatic assignment better, while also making sure that resource management and AI development works better. We will probably make a dev diary about our plans for the Sectors in the future, so that we can share our thoughts before committing to anything.

"final post-release patch"

I want to make it clear that this does not mean we will stop making improvements to the game. We will always continue to support our games, but now we need to focus our efforts into a larger patch instead of continuing to deploy smaller patches. The reason why we need to focus on a next, large patch is because trying to maintain multiple branches of development and deploying small patches takes a significant amount of resources away from us working on fixing bugs, improvements and feature development.

 

[HighKings_Ruin]

Pro Tip: You shouldn't write sinister text with benign subtext. It's supposed to be the other way around.

At the time of my first post I didn't know about the twitter post, though I can see how my first post would seem sinister to some.

In other words, I'm worried and frustrated. So I'm going to vent.

 

[HighKings_Ruin]

When the number of a district exceeds 15, you show a number inside a larger box, like shown in the image.



Sectors are a larger task that is a big too big to tackle right now, with a lot of other fixes being done, but I do want you to know I have sectors as one of my highest priorities going forwards. We will probably not be going back to manual sector management, but we will definitely be looking into how to make the automatic assignment better, while also making sure that resource management and AI development works better. We will probably make a dev diary about our plans for the Sectors in the future, so that we can share our thoughts before committing to anything.



I want to make it clear that this does not mean we will stop making improvements to the game. We will always continue to support our games, but now we need to focus our efforts into a larger patch instead of continuing to deploy smaller patches. The reason why we need to focus on a next, large patch is because trying to maintain multiple branches of development and deploying small patches takes a significant amount of resources away from us working on fixing bugs, improvements and feature development.

I think we're just worried about "new shiny stuff" taking priority over fixing the issues in the game.

 

[grekulf]

I think we're just worried about "new shiny stuff" taking priority over fixing the issues in the game.

Understandable concern. I'll let you know though, that I have intentionally planned the next DLC so that we will have the resources to make more improvements

 

[LeanneKaos]

Agreed with all those posts. The state of the game is TERRIBLE, and yet PDX is already talking about minor cosmetic things and moving on to the next broken thing they can try to sell us.

FIX THE GAME.

WE DO NOT WANT NEW THINGS YET.

Huh.
I must have read a different post because that's what I thought he said they were doing...

 

[AlphaAsh]

The reason why we need to focus on a next, large patch is because trying to maintain multiple branches of development and deploying small patches takes a significant amount of resources away from us working on fixing bugs, improvements and feature development.

Not to mention the risk of more reversion if you stuck with the little releases, and a bigger patch reduces the probability of impact being missed. Just make sure you actually test the next big patch and get out the obvious bugs. Please. I don't want to test the game for you chap, sorry.

 

[HighKings_Ruin]

Understandable concern. I'll let you know though, that I have intentionally planned the next DLC so that we will have the resources to make more improvements

Planning and Organizing always fair better, indeed.

Well usually, but let's not talk about that.

 

[ImbaXenoSnipar]

Larger patch = more bugs.

I am not really looking forward to this considering how the last large patch put the game in the state it is in right now.

 

[LevKovacs]

I personally find it a bit weird how the AI, which is just obviously the biggest issue with the game right now (maybe on par with performance), is never even mentioned in Dev Diaries or Dev responses. It really makes me afraid that the Devs think that just fixing the bugs and improving performance a bit will fix the game.

Guys, please tell me you are aware just how ridiculously broken the AI is at the moment. I mean, right now even a half-decent player will absolutely leave the AI behind on highest difficulty by midgame. It makes the game unenjoyable.

 

[(Accountdeleted)]

I want to make it clear that this does not mean we will stop making improvements to the game. We will always continue to support our games...

Sounds good.

Understandable concern. I'll let you know though, that I have intentionally planned the next DLC so that we will have the resources to make more improvements

Sounds reasonable.

I just hope for an enjoyable game - atm the AI seems to be broken - completely, so the game is no fun after getting into this game with a first playthrough - and realizing, that there´s literally no AI at all - in a second playthrough. Atm I payed for a game which has much potential - so I won´t say my money was wasted - but I´m a bit disappointed nonetheless. Also I can´t say anything pro or contra the next - final or not - patch, if I don´t know what´s the scale of it - and how it will work if I actually played with it. So i´m just looking forward to it - and hope the best. Perhaps it was not the best time to buy the game - but I thought with number 2.2.2 - and 2.2.3 incoming - a game should work more or less ok - good in the basic stuff, and of course there´s always room for some improvements. I´m patient - and it´s ok for me to buy some DLC to fund a company which improves the game with that money. Makes sense to me. But atm I wouldn´t say that the game is working "ok" - except for perhaps multiplayer without AI - where it could really shine. But multiplayer is not my thing - and after some disappointments, it also makes sense to not buy a new DLC if the gaming experience isn´t improved - and in the worst case is worse than before. I´m not at this point, because I just started again with paradox products in the beginning of last year - and in that time there was light and shadow - but all in all I spend more time than it is good for me in front of my computer and enjoyed EU IV in this case. Stellaris could do the same - if it was entertaining in longer games in singleplayer.

 

[Ciderglove]

I want to make it clear that this does not mean we will stop making improvements to the game. We will always continue to support our games, but now we need to focus our efforts into a larger patch instead of continuing to deploy smaller patches. The reason why we need to focus on a next, large patch is because trying to maintain multiple branches of development and deploying small patches takes a significant amount of resources away from us working on fixing bugs, improvements and feature development.

Sorry Grekulf. If you think that is going to quell the uproar that your original post caused, then you are mistaken.

No one posting here thought that you were going to ‘stop making improvements to the game’. We are all fully aware that there will be more DLCs and patches in the future. What all the anger is about is that, barely 50 days after promising ‘extensive’ post-patch support, we are getting the ‘final’ patch for 2.2. And I think you know that, so your disingenuousness in pretending otherwise just adds fuel to the fire.

Again, no one is, or has been, complaining because they thought that your ‘final’ support patch would be too small. They have been complaining that it is the ‘final’ patch for 2.2. So your reassurances that this will be a large patch are irrelevant (and, again, seem disingenuous). Big or small, patches cannot hope to solve large complex problems with thousands of moving parts, like AI or performance, in one go. That kind of improvement has to be iterative. Also, big or small, patches often break new things and create new problems, often unexpectedly. So limiting yourselves to one more patch, ignoring anything it might break, seems like the very opposite of good support.

When 2.2 came out, there was a huge clamour from players for the devs to acknowledge that they had messed up. That didn’t happen, and we could understand that; a dev would likely get fired for admitting that Paradox had knowingly shipped a broken product. But now, it seems to me like the devs never did, and still don’t, understand just how deep the problems with the game run. If you genuinely think that one final, big patch can complete the salvage operation of the indescribable disgrace that was 2.2.0, then how can we trust that the deep-running, fundamental problems with AI and performance will ever be solved?

 

[HighKings_Ruin]

^

This basically sums up the situation at the moment. What we really need right now is proper communication on all fronts.

It's amazing how a small change to a paragraph of text can either lay worries to rest, or cause an explosion.

 

[WarStalkeR]

Cleaner display of districts! This arcology now display its districts with boxes, and in different colors!

My planetary UI looks even bettter:

So please, at least don't ruin any current UI functionality. It will be just sad to update it yet again.