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Stellaris Dev Diary #180 - DLC Visibility Experiment

Hello everyone!

We hope you are enjoying your time with 2.7 and the 4 year anniversary of Stellaris! It’s very fun to see how far the game has come, and just as interesting to imagine what the future can hold.

We want to make sure that Stellaris is well-prepared for more content in the future. Something we’ve learned, especially with CK2, is that a long tail of new content can make it very difficult for players to see what kind of DLCs are available for the game. As we recently announced, Stellaris has more than 3 million players, and we want to make sure that players – both new and old – have an easier time finding content that they might like.

In order to improve visibility, starting today and lasting for a couple of weeks, we’re going to be running a couple of experiments that will be looking at DLC visibility within the game. We will be running a controlled experiment that will split up the player base into different groups, where each group will get a slightly different experience (or no change, in the case of the control group). The experiment will only affect the main menu and empire creation/selection, and will not have any effect on the game as you are playing. The purpose of this is to gather some insights into what kind of visibility features are actually helpful.

Before you grab your laser-powered pitchforks and plasma-illuminators, and complain about development focus, rest assured that all of this work has been done by an external team (who has done a great job btw!) and has had no effect on the development of Stellaris as a game :)

I want to emphasize that even though we want to improve the visibility of content for the game, it will never come at the expense of the game experience itself, so you don’t need to worry about that. It is very important for us that our players are able to immerse themselves in the Stellaris universe and to have fun while they play.

And because a dev diary can’t be complete without pictures or teasers, here’s two icons related to some future content. What could it be..?
merciless_teaser.png
 
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I have all of the DLC... I agree with others in this thread, ... can I not have DLC advertisements on my main menu please? Keep it to the trash launcher where it belongs...
 
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Uhm really?? After fiasco with performance your write this? Yes other changes are quite welcome but REALLY?????

EDIT: To all those dislikers, try to play MP, unplayable = unenjoyable (early-mid-game insta desync between players)
Especially on low-mid end machines, where game ran nicely on 2.6.3
Thank god I am not only one who noticed that. In single player performance in the late game returned to pre-2.6 level too:mad:

And because a dev diary can’t be complete without pictures or teasers, here’s two icons related to some future content. What could it be..?
View attachment 577156

First one is something spiritualist but the second one definitely associated with diplomacy for me.
 
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So I've got the experiment which shows a list of DLC icons along the edge of the screen in the main menu and empire creation, with a checkmark next to the ones I own. My reaction: I hate it and I hope it dies in a fire. I am neither an infant nor an imbecile, and so I already know what DLCs I have and haven't purchased and why. I don't appreciate pushy sales tactics in the game itself.

It's so totally true. And the worst part is the f'ing LAUNCHER already has tons of marketing crap. Push the wares there if you have to but stay OUT OF THE GAME.
 
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So when are the space billboards with all the dlc advertisements coming to the game? Maybe some random popups too?

In for a penny in for a pound...
 
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Yeah, this and the version in the empire creation menu both seem fine to me.
You gotta admit it smacks of 'buy our stuff! Here! Here! Hope you haven't forgotten to buy our stuff!' though.
 
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Here's a novel idea: make it a settings option to hide the DLC list and suggestions. It'd be obviously off (as in, show the suggestions and list) by default, but at least for those of us who want to avoid it it'd be possible without doing mental gymnastics.
 
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I own every DLC for this game, whats the purpose for me? I have absolutely no problem with a hint in the main-menu saying "There is content missing, click here to see more!" or whatever. Or a seperate menu item "Content" which is prompted, if new stuff is available. Its okay when its decent, even a small billboard is fine in the menu, praising stuff i dont own for this title. And you can give an option to switch it off. But the screenshot of @Dearmad looks really like: BUY IT! NOW! ONLY GREEN CHECKMARKS ALLOWED!

Why is this needed? There are good ways to promote your DLC in the game. this looks awful.
 
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And because a dev diary can’t be complete without pictures or teasers, here’s two icons related to some future content. What could it be..?
View attachment 577156

The "Necromancer" origin icon:
  • Could be an "Ancestor Worship" civilization, a spiritualist origin where perhaps the ghosts of dead leaders live on in some way to advise their successors. Maybe each dead leader gives the empire a generic boost, or maybe a boost based on their current level and/or traits. This would give an alternative to "immortality" as a way to mitigate leader death. Reminiscent of Jedi "Force Ghosts" and other similar tropes.
  • Could a reference to George RR Martin's "Corpse Handler Trilogy". It's easily his darkest stuff, makes A Game of Thrones and its sequels look like nursery rhymes. Seems less likely, since it's somewhat obscure and tech/psi-based "necromancy" isn't an otherwise well-trod trope. Not sure what the gameplay mechanics of this would be: Martin's corpse handlers used their corpses for brute labor, so I'm not sure they would function much differently from robots or syncretic evolution.
 
Hello everyone!

Hi

We hope you are enjoying your time with 2.7 and the 4 year anniversary of Stellaris! It’s very fun to see how far the game has come, and just as interesting to imagine what the future can hold.

We are (My son and I) are enjoying the anniversary celebrations, the new graphical and audio elements are awesome. But we are hating the overall quality of the product (which currently entitles UK residents which own Synthetic Dawn full refunds for Federations under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 due to it not working as intended with Synthetic Dawn due to SD issues with 2.6+ and Federations requiring 2.6+), just FYI.

We want to make sure that Stellaris is well-prepared for more content in the future. Something we’ve learned, especially with CK2, is that a long tail of new content can make it very difficult for players to see what kind of DLCs are available for the game. As we recently announced, Stellaris has more than 3 million players, and we want to make sure that players – both new and old – have an easier time finding content that they might like.

If you want to make sure Stellaris is well-prepared for more content in the future my suggestions are:
  1. Don't tell everyone you're taking extra time to make sure a DLC and update is polished and then release with a broken Synthetic Dawn headline feature and two broken Federation headline features (GC and Juggernauts) and then release the bits you didn't have time to do as part of an Anniversary Update.
  2. Don't Improve performance in a major update (2.6) to accidentally sabotage it in the next.
  3. Give bug hunters and coders more time to make less mistakes and fix existing ones.
In order to improve visibility, starting today and lasting for a couple of weeks, we’re going to be running a couple of experiments that will be looking at DLC visibility within the game. We will be running a controlled experiment that will split up the player base into different groups, where each group will get a slightly different experience (or no change, in the case of the control group). The experiment will only affect the main menu and empire creation/selection, and will not have any effect on the game as you are playing. The purpose of this is to gather some insights into what kind of visibility features are actually helpful.

I don't need to be told I own all the DLC by Steam, the launcher and the game. It's awful. A better way to do it is make the DLC into buttons on the front page of the launcher.
If you have the DLC it's a way of enabling/disabling them, if you don't it can send you to a storefront to buy before launching.
Now that you've got my feedback can I move to the control group.

Before you grab your laser-powered pitchforks and plasma-illuminators, and complain about development focus, rest assured that all of this work has been done by an external team (who has done a great job btw!) and has had no effect on the development of Stellaris as a game :)

I disagree on the great job. My 10 year old pointed out design flaws when he saw them.

I want to emphasize that even though we want to improve the visibility of content for the game, it will never come at the expense of the game experience itself, so you don’t need to worry about that. It is very important for us that our players are able to immerse themselves in the Stellaris universe and to have fun while they play.

The biggest single issue of the game experience currently is that there hasn't been a release since 2.1 which had good performance with the singular release of 2.6.X all of which had serious bugs, including the scrollbar snafu which arrived with 2.6.3 (yeah there's no good reason for adding bugs on features which were bug free in minor updates.

And because a dev diary can’t be complete without pictures or teasers, here’s two icons related to some future content. What could it be..?
View attachment 577156

The first one is an Origin which brings back things long thought dead... multiple FTL types, variable size missiles, empire cohesion, an edict system which encourages you to sink influence into the influence sink.

The second is a diplomatic civic which makes you better at surrendering earlier.

The main issue though is that a Development Diary should cover what has been happening in development... "So the marketing guys slapped this DLC selling $H!7 on the side for us to test, happy anniversary, here's two icons." doth not a dev diary maketh.
 
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LOL @Dev team, this is getting ridiculous, kinda on par with grand 4x @consoles or with "Stellaris Galaxy Command". And you seriously call this "announcement" a dev diary?

What about

a) using the test branch if you want to test things, so we can opt in / opt out at our own will at least and

b) hotfixing the performance issues you brought into the game with 2.7.1 before the weekend? I mean breaking things just in time for the free weekend was awesome timing, but hey, when all other companies manage to provide flawless updates and launchers, there has to be someone around being worse, right?

c) moving this "feature" from in game to where it belongs, namely to the ("awesome" in other words feature lacking) launcher 2.0?

Not that the veterans who have been here since 1.0 (despite all flaws and problems with the franchise, braindead AI, cut features, performance, MP desync, no pop management, sectors, flawed targeting - to name a few) would have expected some free stuff for a 4 year anniversary, like a few new portraits, or a shipset, or additions to the soundtrack perhaps - nono, we dont need all that, especially not for the hundereds we have already payed for the game and all its DLCs. Maybe, if you would just stop breaking the game, spying and spamming on us in game? Please?

Sorry folks, couldnt resist, this time you really deserved it...
 
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a) using the test branch if you want to test things, so we can opt in / opt out at our own will at least
can I also add to this very good suggestion a tentative main release date for each test version so we know when to tell you “No don’t do it” before a PDS staff member assumes otherwise and pushes a bugged update.... again.
 
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Yeah, this is a great improvement... I really like it. Thanks PDX special forces programming team.
56F5E731C472F9C9E1E03F917D245DE6E5352ECA
Wait, you have the humanoids pack but you don't have distant stars? What are you doing with your life?
 
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Wait, you have the humanoids pack but you don't have distant stars? What are you doing with your life?
Avoiding the L-Cluster by all means.
 
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