Stellaris Dev Diary #185: Announcing Necroids

[Beer Fiend]

Space zombies? Really?

Eh, cool for RP stuff I guess, I do like the idea of death cults rampaging across the galaxy.

That's if they will attack stronger empires for the thrill/lovely casualties/the lulz, but no doubt that won't be considered interesting enough, so same old mechanics in essence as usual.

Plantoids should have had a photosynthesis mechanism by the way.

 

[ImperatorRoman]

This looks interesting from a story-telling standpoint, though I am hoping we'll hear more about some under-the-hood improvements.

 

[Lorenerd11]

I like the Death Cult civic and the new rooms. New city and ship sets look promising as well.

I've got mixed feelings about the Memorialist civic. I'm not sure if it needed to specifically focus so much on death at all, and it feels like the primary reason that it does is just to follow the pack's broader death theme.

Let's say that instead of Death Chroniclers we had Archivists, as part of a civilization committed to recording and collecting all sorts of knowledge from civilizations past and present, without an explicitly stated focus on neither dead nor living. It wouldn't be much different, would it?

Making this civic more ambiguous on that front would make it suitable for both the empires that feel strongly about honoring the dead, but also for empires that simply happen to be diligent knowledge seekers and record keepers.

Also, are we going to see the new Origin?

 

[Kyoumen]

It's so irritating to see every dev diary swarmed with people bringing up their pet grievances which have nothing to do with the topic and (often rudely) demanding employees work on issues that aren't in their area of jurisdiction.

I am always in favour of new species packs and flavour, and this looks pretty neat. I'll look forward to it.

 

[FailFailWin]

If this had come with a 'it will be accompanied by a patch where we have fixes for broken military ai and crisis', I might have had the reaction you were hoping for.

Since not, I'll wait and see if fixes to the core broken features appear at all, and if not, I am not buying.

And at some point soon, I will stop coming back to check, and the name 'Paradox' next to any game will make me suspicious, not excited to buy, and you lose my future money.

And for the record I used to buy all your dlc for games I actually play, within a week of release. I'm not a whinging cheapskate. I want the working product I paid for.

 

[Perseus Veil]

Let's say it were an Archivist civic, for a civilization committed to recording and collecting all sorts of knowledge from civilizations past and present, without an explicitly stated focus on neither dead nor living. It wouldn't be much different, would it?

Making this civic more ambiguous on that front would make it suitable for both the empires that feel strongly about honoring the dead, but also for empires that simply happen to be diligent knowledge seekers and record keepers.

Agree. This is the first thing that came to my mind reading the name of the civic. I prefer this focus/tone.

 

[Dr Doc]

Like other people have said already I find it very hard to get excited for new content when what we already have either barely works or is flat out broken. The last DLC I bought was Ancient Relics and I regret even buying that considering the state of the game. So many fundamental parts of the game have been broken or not working right for so long that I just don't care any more. The amount of time that this game has spent languishing in bugs and broken features has eroded any optimism I have for the future of the game and trust in the development team. I really hate to sound so negative but even if the dev team told me that a feature fix was incoming I will only believe it when I see actual proof of it. So many times did I see assurances that fixes were incoming or that new features would work only to have them not that I have zero faith in those statements now. Until there is real progress towards fixing this game I will spend nothing on it and will continue to not recommend it to my gaming group. Sorry if you feel that this doesn't belong in a dev diary post but me and other people have brought these issues up time and time again and never see them get resolved. So now we have to post in a place where it might actually get noticed. The ball is in your court PDX - how you take the negativity here and what you choose to change about your communication with players and development time is up to you. As it is a continuation of the current will see no play time or purchases from me.

 

[Pellaken]

This seems very "light" for a DLC. It's just pictures and models? No new mechanics? I thought after Lithoids we were headed into more beefy species packs.

 

[Birdos]

Let me know when the game is fun to play (again?).

Until then, good luck in your endeavors as a publicly traded company.

 

[Kapi96]

Do they actually have anything unique though?

Because so far the lithoids are the only worthwhile species pack (and even then barely). Even the base game species are worthless, why not add some uniqueness to them too?

 

[Birdos]

Even the base game species are worthless, why not add some uniqueness to them too?

(Estimated) Money.

 

[Aurelius789]

To be honest I really like the new ship set and portaits (dont care much about those civics and theme about death tho).

But the problem is that last time I enjoyed the full playthrough was in 2.1. After that I usually just gave up as AI empires severly lagged behind. Even if I bothered to play till lategame, crisis and awakened empires didnt do anything.

I periodically get itch to play stellaris as it is my favorite PDX title in favorite setting, but now I have been waiting over half a year for some AI fixes that even starnet or gadius cant resolve.

I just hope I can return to this awesome game sometimes soon.

 

[arrowtt33]

So...Necrons or Necromorphs?

 

[Mauer]

Do they actually have anything unique though?

Because so far the lithoids are the only worthwhile species pack (and even then barely). Even the base game species are worthless, why not add some uniqueness to them too?

They said about a year ago that they might add something unique for plantoids for example if they had time. But never did, so obviously they can't spend the two or three hours on something that would make the company no money. Same for the Crisis AI, or anything else that we already paid for.

Must keep pumping out new things that marketing can use to drive sales, fuck everything else.

 

[Snake_Squeezins]

If you had asked me which PDX game would be the first to release an "Army of Darkness" DLC . . . I would have guessed CK2 or CK3, not Stellaris.

 

[Monturiol]

It's so irritating to see every dev diary swarmed with people bringing up their pet grievances which have nothing to do with the topic and (often rudely) demanding employees work on issues that aren't in their area of jurisdiction.

I used to agree with this perspective.
Responses to every dev diary being "Yeah but have you considered my pet idiosynchracy, please give me feedback on these [three] [linked] [threads] where I ramble on about how Authoritarianism is a dumb name or how space unicorns are vital" was obnoxious.

I no longer agree with this perspective, because that's not what's happening.
That's the reverse of what's happening.
It's the devs bringing us dumb cosmetic idiosyncrasies now. The OP post that's "Yeah but here's [more] [inconsequential] [pig lipstick] where I ramble about space zombie cosmetics" to go on top of what is both a (big-picture non-functional) conceptually broken gameplay loop that's (small-picture non-functional) riddled with AI bugs, for which there remains no light at the end of the tunnel at either scale.

Ironically, it's the screeching off-topic posters who are the responsible parties here.

 

[Vratislav]

Looks like the best species portrait pack so far. I'm sure it'll come alongside a patch that will address people's grievances.

 

[exi123]

Looks like the best species portrait pack so far. I'm sure it'll come alongside a patch that will address people's grievances.

I would love to agree. I dont mind the content of this species pack, if i dont like it, i dont buy it. But there is a big frustration on the technical side of the game, the game feels hard to play sometimes. It would even call it boring. And not fixing bugs which are a plague for over 2 years now is just... i dont know how to say it... an insult for experienced players who follow the game for four years now.

 

[TheFunMachine]

I like what has been show with this pack. Always up for another ship set and species type, but please can the Crisis events finally get fixed such they actually expand please?

 

[GetSchwifty01]

Do you mean people legitimately complain about brain dead and lobotomized AI? Yeah we are whining, but who defends paradox is simping.

Yeah, cause anybody who agrees with me is a hero, standing up for all the players, but anyone who disagree's, or is just stoked to have a new racepack to play is a shill........... you have NO IDEA whether or not the accompanying patch will fix/change anything. 6 months of pdx working on this game, ever consider the fact they've been quiet for months because they are TRYING TO ADDRESS THE ISSUES??? The whining about the AI has no place in an announcement thread for a racepack. They know there are issues. The same group of people creating threads on it all the time is just pointless and boring.