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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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Dont understand why they cant just release a super quick hotfix for the ethic changes that are currently making the game unplayable. Just turn it off and its like before 2.7.1 or do it once per month or so. The other fixes could wait a couple of days but this one is making the game almost unplayable after just a few decades.

I would love to enjoy playing this game but right now I am having my worst time playing a paradox game since I as a kid got crushed in the Svea Rike games from the late 90s before they even became Paradox. I know I could just go back to an earlier version of the game but I actually wanted to finish my current 2.7.1 game and then put Stellaris on the shelf for some time and now I am just sitting F5 on the forum waiting for a fix so I can continue.

Perfectly said. Just gonna add, that PDXs release time-table seems quite erratic for quite sometime.
I don't understand their "policy"?? of releasing only "big/long list" patch fixes.
Releasing, bug fixes in smaller batches would be way better for games like this.
Especially if there's an option of testing it on beta branches first. There's already a playerbase who are willing to spend time on testing those bug fixes. WHY NOT USE THIS RARE RESOURCE? It's really a shame in what condition the game is right now.
 
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I have myself stopped buy DLC, waiting for when the game will be better. I Don't really care about performance coz i have a good machine but i understand that it might cause problems for a lot of users.

I'm myself more conflicted with the DLC Policy of paradox and the state of the game 4 years latter. If we look at What was implemented we can't really say that a lot of things were. You still have no options to expend other than build the bigger fleet, if you play pacifist or non militaristic you Don't have really much to do. Exploration is locked because of neighbour empires, diplomacy options and interactions outside of federation is kind of a joke, there isn't real Economy in the game either (not economical wars, embargo, blocus or having the Opportunity to be impactfull galaxy-wide focusing on Economy), there is no political management, no others way to expend other than war (What about planet sellings/buying, cultural integration etc...?) and no intel , sabotage or espionnage.

To sum up 4 years of DLC only give us bigger ships to play the only way the game give to expend, AI network, some exploration content and new species… If Paradox will stop to support Stellaris in 2 years like they did for CK2 (6 years support) I'm afraid that the game will never see enjoyable content and possibility… Kind of a pity, the game has potential.
 
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@grekulf, I don't want to come across as impertinent but is it possible that some minor changes could make it into next patches? I think it would help if the defeated empire notification could feature a flag of the defeated empire and maybe also tell who defeated them. Half the time I'm wondering who was whiped out.
Could there be subtitles dividing the policies and edict tabs like the ones in the ship design tab (destroyer/cruiser/etc.)? It could make those tabs more legible, with subtitles like 'foreign policy' or 'domestic policy' you can identify the policies you need more quickly. Finally I would really like a better terraforming mechanic but a small change like scaling terraforming cost based on the planet size would come a long way without the need to make big changes.
 
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I'm afraid that the game will never see enjoyable content and possibility… Kind of a pity, the game has potential.

the game always had huge potential and yet lacked in delivery. Underdeveloped, undercooked and underexplained sparse features that get the neglected instead of built upon is literally every patch since release.

I mean they promised more colonization events in the first big patch after release to make the game experience more varied and never put those in. We got a handful of them as PAID DLC, but those are rather rare and limited to specific things too.

And we get a gamebreaking bug practically every major patch too.

Stellaris is just sad nowadays. All that potential? Will remain unfulfilled, like it has been for the past 4 years.
 
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I think the game is a nice enough 4X, especially with a couple of mods that plaster over some holes. But the QA was atrocious in the past, and is now, while improved, still substandard.

As for the DLC reminders - they clutter the nice title screen view and are downright naggy during empire creation.
 
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Necromancers and poets? Or maybe Necromancers and Wizards - Space Magic DLC confirmed!
 
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By the way, Firaxis just changed it. The next expansion is split in 6 smaller parts, released seperatly or in a season pass for 40€.
Oh goody. Well, I guess I should have said I'll never stop giving them credit for doing it ... until they stop doing it.
 
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I dont know if there is an other thread to give feedback about the "DLC Visibility" so I will just post it here:

I hate it.

It feels like getting shoved in my face which DLCs I havent bought. It reminds of games like The Sims and gives me really bad vibes and angers me. If I wanted to know which DLCs I lack, I would visit the store page. I dont want to be told ingame which DLCs I havent bought and should buy... There is also no benefit at all for showing it ingame that I can think of.
 
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The first civic looks like a person manipulating something using their hands and mind. Possibly some telekinesis? The other? Who knows.
 
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So I guess I'm in the test group? I can clearly see all the dlc with a big green check-mark next to them. Tried clicking on one just to see what it's all about.

My perspective is that this I'm game dlc advertising is pretty close to the line of acceptability and stays in the safe zone only by 1) not being in the main part of the game and 2) requiring navigating a few popups before being sent to the store for money to change hands. Still a little bit of a shock tbh. I didn't think that paradox was this desperate for dlc sales to increase (I tend to get new stellaris stuff within the same week of it releasing though so what do i know).

Maybe make it a tab that can be toggled to be hidden if you must keep it in the game? I personally like seeing the big beautiful main menu image without clutter.
 
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It's the new Tickle flavor DLC. The first is a poor victim of tickle slavery raising his arms in uncontrolable laughter as its sides are mercilessly tickled, the second an icon to use feathers, for a more devious tickling.
 
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I have a suspicion that the "preference" for the DLC is going to come from engagement, not our comments. Ultimately anecdotal evidence often does not match up with habits. For example, "everyone" complains about microtransactions but there are enough whales out there that annoying or angering millions of people is worth the value of the %5 or so who not only spend, but outpace spending by orders of magnitude. However, do I detect a tinge of FOMO at work here? I mean, as long as the DLCs you didn't buy are safely hidden on the store page, where they belong, showing the player just what they don't have every time they play is only a degree of separation from slapping a limited time and best value flag on it.

I'll come out and say I think this all paints a rather bleak pattern. I mean, first we have the Stellaris mobile game. Now we have an engagement metric for DLC. Something tells me Stellaris is "underperforming" and Paradox is saying, pick up sales or we're giving it the ax. I suppose I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, a lot of people say they are swearing off of DLC, and maybe they are? If the attach rate is low and Stellaris has a large vanilla/mostly vanilla population (makes sense, mods are a thing) then emphasizing getting those numbers up to justify the model is unsurprising. Perhaps not, but "finding the best way to get people to buy more DLC," is the conversation topic.

As for my anecdotal evidence, I don't hate it but it is a bit insulting to see all the DLC there with a big ol' check mark which is where the FOMO comes in. I'm a bit sensitive to all marketing right now because as part of a short coding project I needed to learn how idlers work and I was stupid enough to pick up AdVenture Capitalist and Communist to pick apart the model. Mobile gaming really is one degree removed from slot machines, they are like the old pinball games that were designed to skirt gambling laws. It's disturbing. While Stellaris isn't anywhere near that (well, not the PC version, the mobile port IS decidedly that), I am going to notice and interpret the same psychological motivators. I think it's fairly benign as a sales tactic, but frankly they need to be good enough to encourage people to be spending on them, and I don't think it's a visibility problem. I mean, what "must have" DLC is there for Stellaris? The DLC packs are often like charging for sprinkles, as the meat is in the "free patch". Apparently the ships and species packs aren't very popular, and I guess I see why. In Civilization you get a big animated and voiced leader with special units, a new color scheme, etc... Still kind of shitty to sell them piecemeal, but Stellaris is offering up lightly animated portraits and a dozen sections of hull.

I think that alone paints the broader issue with the DLC in Stellaris. As I've complained, and you see others doing as well, the DLC in Stellaris sucks because it ends up being this one time things that is added to the game and then goes nowhere. The only major DLC feature to end up back in the base game was megastructures, but that makes sense: why was that a DLC to begin with? I just think the DLC model is anathema to the cause. People want big, meaty expansions. XCOM 2's DLC was laughable and largely hated, but War of the Chosen is a must-have for most fans. Strategy games live and die on their cohesiveness, and the DLC model has kept Stellaris in a fairly mediocre state as it has to decide what it can charge for. If each expansion came out with new portraits, emblems, ships as well as new gameplay systems and features I think you'd see a much higher "must have" factor. As it stands, most of us who have large amounts of DLC probably have it for "completeness" sake, rather than seeing it advertised and going, "Oh, hell yes."

I don't think Stellaris has a visibility problem, I think it has a quality problem. I mean the last patch went live with a performance bug still in it. Sure, it was trying to meet the anniversary date and that's well intentioned, but it comes off the back of literally every patch having a QA problem. I think the game is great in a lot of ways, and I'm really not as hardcore about all this as my comment might seem. But if you asked me what would keep me from recommending it to others, the DLC model is a big one. Not because it asks you to spend a lot more entry level buckaroos, but because I'd be hard pressed to tell you which ones you should buy. I'd say, "Get the base game and if you like it, maybe like Utopia? I couldn't tell you what's in the other ones." I think that's the problem with the DLC.
 
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I bought the full game last week, if I knew that the development is this way I would have spent my money on EU4.

Comprei o jogo completo semana passada, se soubesse que o desenvolvimento está desta forma teria gasto meu dinheiro com EU4.
 
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I have a suspicion that the "preference" for the DLC is going to come from engagement, not our comments. Ultimately anecdotal evidence often does not match up with habits. For example, "everyone" complains about microtransactions but there are enough whales out there that annoying or angering millions of people is worth the value of the %5 or so who not only spend, but outpace spending by orders of magnitude. However, do I detect a tinge of FOMO at work here? I mean, as long as the DLCs you didn't buy are safely hidden on the store page, where they belong, showing the player just what they don't have every time they play is only a degree of separation from slapping a limited time and best value flag on it.

I'll come out and say I think this all paints a rather bleak pattern. I mean, first we have the Stellaris mobile game. Now we have an engagement metric for DLC. Something tells me Stellaris is "underperforming" and Paradox is saying, pick up sales or we're giving it the ax. I suppose I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, a lot of people say they are swearing off of DLC, and maybe they are? If the attach rate is low and Stellaris has a large vanilla/mostly vanilla population (makes sense, mods are a thing) then emphasizing getting those numbers up to justify the model is unsurprising. Perhaps not, but "finding the best way to get people to buy more DLC," is the conversation topic.

As for my anecdotal evidence, I don't hate it but it is a bit insulting to see all the DLC there with a big ol' check mark which is where the FOMO comes in. I'm a bit sensitive to all marketing right now because as part of a short coding project I needed to learn how idlers work and I was stupid enough to pick up AdVenture Capitalist and Communist to pick apart the model. Mobile gaming really is one degree removed from slot machines, they are like the old pinball games that were designed to skirt gambling laws. It's disturbing. While Stellaris isn't anywhere near that (well, not the PC version, the mobile port IS decidedly that), I am going to notice and interpret the same psychological motivators. I think it's fairly benign as a sales tactic, but frankly they need to be good enough to encourage people to be spending on them, and I don't think it's a visibility problem. I mean, what "must have" DLC is there for Stellaris? The DLC packs are often like charging for sprinkles, as the meat is in the "free patch". Apparently the ships and species packs aren't very popular, and I guess I see why. In Civilization you get a big animated and voiced leader with special units, a new color scheme, etc... Still kind of shitty to sell them piecemeal, but Stellaris is offering up lightly animated portraits and a dozen sections of hull.

I think that alone paints the broader issue with the DLC in Stellaris. As I've complained, and you see others doing as well, the DLC in Stellaris sucks because it ends up being this one time things that is added to the game and then goes nowhere. The only major DLC feature to end up back in the base game was megastructures, but that makes sense: why was that a DLC to begin with? I just think the DLC model is anathema to the cause. People want big, meaty expansions. XCOM 2's DLC was laughable and largely hated, but War of the Chosen is a must-have for most fans. Strategy games live and die on their cohesiveness, and the DLC model has kept Stellaris in a fairly mediocre state as it has to decide what it can charge for. If each expansion came out with new portraits, emblems, ships as well as new gameplay systems and features I think you'd see a much higher "must have" factor. As it stands, most of us who have large amounts of DLC probably have it for "completeness" sake, rather than seeing it advertised and going, "Oh, hell yes."

I don't think Stellaris has a visibility problem, I think it has a quality problem. I mean the last patch went live with a performance bug still in it. Sure, it was trying to meet the anniversary date and that's well intentioned, but it comes off the back of literally every patch having a QA problem. I think the game is great in a lot of ways, and I'm really not as hardcore about all this as my comment might seem. But if you asked me what would keep me from recommending it to others, the DLC model is a big one. Not because it asks you to spend a lot more entry level buckaroos, but because I'd be hard pressed to tell you which ones you should buy. I'd say, "Get the base game and if you like it, maybe like Utopia? I couldn't tell you what's in the other ones." I think that's the problem with the DLC.

Well said, couldn't agree more.

There have been many threads of new people asking what DLC to purchase, and most of the time the responses are 'get Utopia, everything else is *shrug*'

And as you say, there are many features that come with DLC's that are kind of forgotten about after release. 2.6 has definitely improved on patches 2.1-2.5, but there are many legacy features that need balancing and fixing, and knowing this is the model for DLC releases, it's left me feeling little enthusiasm to continue sinking money into half finished features.
 
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