• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

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
 
  • 73
  • 57Like
  • 25
  • 7
  • 1Haha
Reactions:
We hope you are enjoying your time with 2.7

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

EDIT 2.: I'd like to know each and everyones opinion who gave me reaction "Respectfully disagree."
It's easy to press one button, but how about give a reason why?
Give me one good reason, where I'm wrong. Especially after past 4 updates.

EDIT 3.: THANK YOU for 2.7.2, way better (sp playable, mp still desyncs :( ... one core at 100% and my other 7 cores are sleeping by 2350.
Hope next dev diary (not bug fix patch notes) will be about performance.
 
Last edited:
  • 72
  • 67
  • 22Like
  • 1Haha
  • 1
Reactions:
Before you grab your laser-powered pitchforks and plasma-illuminators,
FOLKS, FETCH THE XL TACHYON LANCES!
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..?
An origin and a civic! Probably not the place for it, but I'm curious if there are ideas for a 'wrong habitability' origin? It'd fit two of the preset empires...
 
  • 12Like
  • 3
  • 1Haha
Reactions:
FOLKS, FETCH THE XL TACHYON LANCES!

An origin and a civic! Probably not the place for it, but I'm curious if there are ideas for a 'wrong habitability' origin? It'd fit two of the preset empires...
The presets in general could use a little more origin diversity. With maybe a handful of exceptions (specifically the ones whose current origins were once civics) all of them use the default Prosperous Unification.

... I wonder what kind of origin is coming. That icon looks promising.
 
  • 10
  • 1Like
Reactions:
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.
Starting when today? Or maybe I'm just in the control group...
 
I want to emphasize that even though we want to improve the visibility of content for the game

Well, i think you should start with improving UI in PDX Launcher 2.0. They UI is horrible. It's small non-scalable window and have huge buttons\etc with a lot of wasted space at the same time. Making 3 common UI mistakes in a single piece is an achievement indeed, but i think you should aim for different kind of achievements.
 
  • 32
  • 11Like
Reactions:
Boy I sure hope you've started giving icons to internal bughunting teams ;D

On a more serious note: more civics/origins possibly related to internal politics/religion?
 
  • 3Like
  • 2
Reactions:
the first one looks like an necromancer/cultist with raised hands over skeleton. Stellaris: Shambling Hordes DLC confirmed?
Haha. Personally, I doubt it, but who knows? I bet it’s material for an internal politics story pack, personally.
 
  • 2
  • 1
Reactions:
  • 9Haha
  • 1
Reactions: