Stellaris Dev Diary #156 - PDXCON

[Tech Noir Synth]

Maybe this works as a wakeup call for Paradox to finally give players what they want? The recent CK2 dlc Holy fury is really good and a lot of fun. What is also did is not create problems, unlike the Ancient Relics dlc.

Paradox designers need to finally get together and create interesting civics and playstyles for Hiveminds. Biological Asencion, Psionic Ascencion are nothing compared to Synth ascencion in terms of power - because of pop growth. How has Synth Ascencion been allowed to have 2 to 3 times as much pop growth as anything else in the game since 2.2.6? Who allowed the addition of a 50% pop growth relics for Robots only? Machine empires are utterly overpowered since 2.3 - an unacceptable state for a game that calls itself "strategy". You pick Machines - you win.

So far I have only been playing since 2.2. What I learned is that in 2.2, Machine empires were terrible, they were far from what was promised for them. Then they got buffed multiple times over, while Hiveminds kept getting nerfed and their outdated civics ignored. 2.3 arrived and everything with Robots was buffed because Machine empires never received the much recommended nerfs along with the big habitatbility changes.

There are many so little things that make you pull your hair out. A 100% pop growth speed relics as passive vs a relic that grants you 30! yes THIRTY society research a month- as a reward for defeating the endgame crisis. Buffs to Driven Assimilators. Organic empires cheating additional trait points with decadent because pop ethic attraction seems to be not functional. Every non-Gestalt empire abusing Crime Lord deal since 2.2 for free stability indefiantely. Hivemind rulers never gaining any traits from level ups and have no access to agendas while immortal Synth rulers are the best rulers in the game.

Still no control over pop jobs and automatic migration. It seems like there is still a lot missing for Stellaris due to the big rework. I am hoping the next updates do not try to re-invent the wheel. Just keep adding interesting stuff and fix the current problems.

 

[Gromit]

My post was before the mobile fiasco. I've been VERY vocal since the mobile announcement that I honestly think the CEO should be ousted.

Paradox Studios over the last 18 months has been an embarassment going from one failure to the next, each one bigger than the last. I'm quite literally expecting PDXCon to be a dumpster fire with all of the guests getting food poisoning.

At least you're more positive about it than I am.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

a relic that grants you 30!

WHOA! Damn, that's a lot. That's so much they must have introduced a new BigNum library just to handle it; that's way bigger than even a 64-bit integer can hold!

yes THIRTY society research a month

Oh, you didn't mean factorial(30).

</snark>

 

[I am Sovereign]

As long as crucial things like ethic attraction of pops just dont work and destroying any flavor of your empire which just consists
out of more or less random pops of random ethos I just wont play the game.
Also as funny as it is it makes the spiritualists even weaker as one of their niche playstyles ist just not executable.

And yes also Hive Minds are underpowered as hell. Devouring Swarms are good yes but only out of the sole reason that they can eat machine pops for alloys.
Because machine empires are so godlike that even eating them makes you like someone from the anime "One Piece".

 

[Methone]

As long as crucial things like ethic attraction of pops just dont work and destroying any flavor of your empire which just consists
out of more or less random pops of random ethos I just wont play the game.
Also as funny as it is it makes the spiritualists even weaker as one of their niche playstyles ist just not executable.

And yes also Hive Minds are underpowered as hell. Devouring Swarms are good yes but only out of the sole reason that they can eat machine pops for alloys.
Because machine empires are so godlike that even eating them makes you like someone from the anime "One Piece".

Let's not forget that neither Awakened Empires nor Crises have been working properly since 2.0; aka A YEAR AND A HALF!

 

[UltimateTobi]

Let's not forget that neither Awakened Empires nor Crises have been working properly since 2.0; aka A YEAR AND A HALF!

I am sure there's more #TODO code.

 

[Hugh Mann]

Sounds great!


But what do the "Disagrees" mean? How can someone disagree with an information?
Do people on the forum know more about the PDXCON than the Devs? And if yes, why do they not share their information with us?

I am generally curious as to what the people think that pressed "Disagree".



And can some link me to a guide about what Agree/Disagree means? On other threads I have seen questions marked with "disagree", which left me quite confused.

It's the equivalent of shouting "rabble rabble rabble".

 

[Alkaid98]

Let's not forget that neither Awakened Empires nor Crises have been working properly since 2.0; aka A YEAR AND A HALF!

These are the kinds of things that really bother me with the game. Because most updates they do fix/improve some things, but there's still major problems that just never get fixed, even when they'll say they have been(like they keep doing with performance). And most times I just go, "oh well, they're still doing their best working on it" but then eventually I realize oh shit it's been like a year and the stuff is still messed up.

I think I've been very patient so far, but what is the deal? Are some of these systems/features too much to handle for the devs but they don't want to rip out or replace them? That's pretty much what they did when they reduced the choice of space travel to just hyperlanes, and while it's still a shame they couldn't make the original idea work I do think the game got better and more managable for them in doing so. Between the long-standing issues like ethics or performance and then short term issues like the disastrous problems half the updates are accompanied with (breaking the AI declaring war that somehow nobody noticed, or the gigantic mess that was last December which took months and months to recover from) the development of this game seems really troubled.

I had thought things were improving this year when the finally cleaned up most of the 2.2 update's mess, we got a change in management and we had the relatively good launch of the Archeology DLC/update. However, after summer vacation for the devs we hit months of near-silence with bi-weekly dev diaries of nothingness, and then the bomb of the Chinese mobile game happens right before PDX Con to trample on people's hopes for good news.

I still enjoy Stellaris and I still root for the dev team, but I'm also still concerned and disappointed how this game could be so much better than its current state if not for all these issues. If Stellaris can finally get its shit together I promise I'll try to pretend the mobile game just didn't happen.

 

[Ecervele]

Instead of paying chinese con artists to steal assets from other franchises on an counterfeit product, you could just give more ressources to the people who actually works on proper games...

I know, it's absolutely mind blowing...

 

[Echo12684]

Excited for the ability to create the space UN

 

[Methone]

Excited for the ability to create the space UN

I'll be excited when it turns out to be fun.

 

[Apollo1784]

SO is that really all that PDXcon was for stelalris? Announcement of 2 more dlcs for a broken game that cant reach the late game content? Great. 0/10 will not be buying anymore dlc until the game's core issues are addressed

 

[Methone]

SO is that really all that PDXcon was for stelalris? Announcement of 2 more dlcs for a broken game that cant reach the late game content? Great. 0/10 will not be buying anymore dlc until the game's core issues are addressed

And when you do reach that endgame content, it's been neutered in their strength and danger, reduced to paper tigers for a year and a half.

 

[UltimateTobi]

SO is that really all that PDXcon was for stelalris? Announcement of 2 more dlcs for a broken game that cant reach the late game content? Great. 0/10 will not be buying anymore dlc until the game's core issues are addressed

Do you expect them to talk technical mumbo jumbo on-stage? Maybe they did talk that stuff back-stage or in those talks they had with peeps.
I really expect a good DD about it this week though.
They said it'd continue weekly after PDXCon.

 

[Vanharian]

I think the real question that is all troubling our minds: will the Federations DLC bring us a new season of glorious Stellaris Dev Clash?

 

[TempusxX]

SO is that really all that PDXcon was for stelalris? Announcement of 2 more dlcs for a broken game that cant reach the late game content? Great. 0/10 will not be buying anymore dlc until the game's core issues are addressed

they are not going to talk about technical mumble jumble on stage, that is not what people are there for. People are there to see what the next game/DLC/Expansion is

also they continue to work on performance and bug fixes all the time

 

[Rabid Ice Weasel]

Excited for the ability to create the space UN

Meh. I mostly play a Devouring Swarm, so for me personally a space UN is just one more thing I can't participate in, and will ultimately consume. Here's hoping for some kind of espionage in Federations, or in a followup release.

 

[Ecervele]

Meh. I mostly play a Devouring Swarm, so for me personally a space UN is just one more thing I can't participate in, and will ultimately consume. Here's hoping for some kind of espionage in Federations, or in a followup release.

Eating every one unite them in the end...

 

[Tyrannical Prince]

Meh. I mostly play a Devouring Swarm, so for me personally a space UN is just one more thing I can't participate in, and will ultimately consume. Here's hoping for some kind of espionage in Federations, or in a followup release.

But a devouring swarm doesn't use espionage...

 

[Methone]

But a devouring swarm doesn't use espionage...

"Where are the juiciest members of this species held? I must know!"