Stellaris Dev Diary #241 - Unity Open Beta and the Dev Clash

[DeanTheDull]

So as we say, these are good, but...

Well, we could always want more, but a lot of these are really good.

• Edicts can now have a cooldown before they can be manually disabled, but are now cancelled if an empire can not sustain the upkeep.

Question- does 'can not sustain upkeep' mean a monthly negative, or a total balance?

• Leaders now only stay in the active pool for 1 year, hire them quickly before they leave!

This is a good answer for leader cycling tension if it's easier to just wait for an answer. Escalating unity hire cost will have to be re-assessed in light of this.

Something I'm not clear on is if the leader cost will go down as you lose leaders and go below 6, or if it just goes up.

• Telepaths now give +5% planetary output and get bonuses from planet administrator modifiers

This is potentially huge for the overall balance of Psionic builds. However, will this bonus from planet administrators provide equivalent boosts to trade values as well?

(And if not, could it, since Psionic currently already synergizes with trade builds from stability?)

• Empire Size effects on edicts, campaigns, and ambitions now directly affect the base costs of these, so bonuses like Spiritualist ethic's cost reductions now reduce costs and upkeep by the full percentages.
• Increased Spiritualist discounts on edict cost and upkeep to -10%/-20% from -5%/-10%. Cutthroat Politics now grants -20% edict upkeep.
• Reduced campaign costs and ambitions costs significantly, re-added Edict Cost Reduction to spiritualists for Unity Ambitions and Sacrifices

Hopefully these will play well. Edict funds have potential, but the scaling cost is decisive.

• Removed the penalty to trade value from low habitability due to it not working properly with pops that were of a species other than the empire founding species

This is a great asset for a Trade build as a low-sprawl size alternative to resource districts jobs. Not only good for low-habitability worlds, but making the most of a jobs-per-district sprawl consideration.

Much appreciated.




Hopefully there's more to come- including the Megacorp sprawl dynamic- but glad to see changes are being made on feedback.

 

[Archael90]

So... are edict funds going to make it into the game? We can only hope you reconsider and do not add Edict funds to the game. Its a bad system and its going to make civics even worse. Powerful early on but a lot weaker as the game progresses. And ontop of that its going to add even more techs for bonus edict funds to the game. This clutters the tech pool, which means we need even more tech, pushing players to tech rush more. The goal was to add some alternatives to tech rushing, remember?

Overall I didn't spot a ton of changes from last beta patch, which is worrying. You introduced tons of unity costs and things to spend unity on. But its still better to simply go for Tech instead of investing into unity. The current state of unity vs tech is pretty good, but it could be even better.

Edict funds were made to make tall empires more viable since for them edict funds can cover much more edicts than for wide empires, and allow for some savings in terms of unity. Wide empires still have more production so they are still better than tall.

 

[Eladrin]

Wait..... does that mean, RS are supposed to have access to the normal unity building? Cause everyone here points out that they are demolishing those because they are not supposed to be able to build them.

They should have access to the "monument" equivalent that grants Unity based on APs and boosts planet-wide Unity production, and should be able to upgrade it fully. We briefly had it backwards.

 

[Lidhuin]

I'm a bit sad that you're not immediately tweaking the numbers for base unity production, given that Death Priests and Memorialists both cost a civic, and exchange 1:1 unity for society research, meaning that by Paradox's valuation of society research, a researcher produces 3x the output of a bureaucrat for the exact same cost (they're both specialist, they both require a building, and they both take up 2 consumer goods to work the job).

This isn't even getting into whether or not unity or research is better (though I have opinions on that). It's simply observing that one of the jobs has a vastly better output.

 

[Olterin]

Intel level is too low.
We still don't have the release date of the release date of the public release of 3.3.x
The envoy we sent to earth to build spy networks must be spending too much time watching Dev Clash and forgot to do their job.

"Perhaps bribery would be more effective?" -800 energy

 

[Cymsdale]

Hells yes! Love it

Is this the AI nerfing itself to give the player a chance to win the 'race' to buy them all first? Perhaps the 'race' shouldn't exist and it should be some kind of bidding/auction system instead.

Let actual demand set the price instead of having the winner be the player who can click the fastest. Are we playing a strategy game or a first person shooter?

 

[Mastikator]

Is this the AI nerfing itself to give the player a chance to win the 'race' to buy them all first? Perhaps the 'race' shouldn't exist and it should be some kind of bidding/auction system instead.

Let actual demand set the price instead of having the winner be the player who can click the fastest. Are we playing a strategy game or a first person shooter?

If by "nerf" you mean "play more like a human" then I'm for it to be honest.

 

[Troyen]

I'm a little disappointed in this Dev Diary. For the last two weeks, I've been hoping you'd give us something on further content changes beyond the Open Beta - ideally something on the Buffing the Backlog for Nemesis & Necroids (I think it was Necroids?) which you've promised, or - equally as good as that - on the Situations/Disasters system which we now haven't had anything on since November. Previously you strongly implied that we'd get the first of those in 3.3, but we have nothing to go on. I SINCERELY hope you've not shoved those features to 3.4. That'll be a very painful wait for us...

It seemed pretty clear to me from DD #234 that was post-3.3 content. Situations is marked "although work has started very recently", the DD was posted at the end of November prior to the winter holidays (i.e. month of downtime), and system changes like that have traditionally taken on the order of 6-9 months (the Unity rework was hinted back around 3.1's release). Similarly with the Necroids/Nemesis buffing: "we have no concrete plans yet".

The two things that were promised for 3.3 are AI improvements and the Unity rework, both of which will be in the patch.

 

[DeanTheDull]

. So, what I am wondering is whether it is intended design in 3.3 that higher Empire Size is meant to run fewer edicts than small ones?

I think this is the exact goal, as a way of offering smaller empires better pop-efficiency to endure better against larger empires and have a wider window to catch back up via their own conquests/actions/options. In theory, this can let a smaller empire skip the first two energy techs in favor of an energy edict, and spend that time researching military-energy techs to catch up/counter an empire who manages an early expansion but hasn't run off with the game yet.

 

[Nebbie Zebbie]

I find the closing of the feedback period, then this dev diary having little information on changes being made in major mechanics, rather worrying. Spiritualists getting a little buff and edict fund improvements are nice, but it looks like with the 3.3.1 changes, things will still be fundamentally broken, and there's a lot unanswered about the approach being taken for many other problems from the beta.
Are Planetary Ascensions being buffed to be actually worthwhile? Is empire size calculation, or the available reductions to it from colonies, being tweaked so the patch can actually deliver on its bold claim it makes tall viable, rather than making wide better than ever? Is Power Projection being tweaked to not reward empty corvettes? Is influence getting more uses later on? And finally, are gestalts getting scalable unity generation to match that from factions?

And on a less beta-related, more general patch note...are asteroids going to finally stop spawning a month's movement away from colonies?

Any chance that the "+2 starting level to Generals" could be moved to Warrior Culture instead?
That civic is weaker than Distinguished Admiralty, and it also feels like the most logical civic for a bonus to starting level for Generals (since it concerns the army, while Distinguished Admiralty concerns the navy).

While they're at it, they should really undo the nerf to Duelists that moved Warrior Culture from arguably okay in some builds to just being kinda bad, but I don't think general levels matter at all, since it's already kinda meta to only hire generals in emergencies. Also give generals a high unity production instead of upkeep (so there's a reason to have them), and Warrior Culture would be maybe worth considering.

 

[OnyxAbussos]

Correct, we haven't given a release date announcement more specific than "February". So "soon". (Edit: Barring unforeseen circumstances.)

"When will *then* be *now*?"

 

[smile444]

you need to increase sprawl penalties if you want to make tall play viable As it stands an empire would need more than 1000 pops to experience diminishing returns on scientists. Meaning t's easy for a wide empire to out-tech a tall one with those sprawl values.

 

[Leylos]

I like the changes.

I'm still hoping for bugged Raider Fleets of Marauders to be finally fixed though. (They get stuck indefinitely once FTL Inhibitors start showing up and then the entire "Raid Empire" feature becomes unusable for the rest of the game).

 

[Jman5]

I wasn't able to get this into the feedback in time, but I wish you would add Sectors to Empire Size. Sectors would help better differentiate small, dense empires versus large, diffuse empires. The number would have to be rather chonky; greater than 10 at least.

I also think it's worth considering adding subject empires into the Empire Size at a greatly reduced value. Perhaps 10-25% of the total value. You could give subject empires themselves a similar discount to help give them a bit of a catch-up mechanic.

 

[DaJay42]

• Scientists assigned to research can now gain new traits.

*gasp*
One of the oldest issues in the game, finally resolved?

 

[MrFreake_PDX]

From Eladrin:​

fourteenfour said:​

Is there a new feedback thread for 3.3.1 to separate it from the fun of 3.3.0?

Not specifically, since the 3.3.1 changes aren't up on the open beta branch. If everything goes well, those changes will be going live together with 3.3 when it releases.

orochi2k said:
We still don't have the release date of the release date of the public release of 3.3.x

Correct, we haven't given a release date announcement more specific than "February". So "soon". (Edit: Barring unforeseen circumstances.)

From Enfield_PDX:

We're not done with the unity rework, we anticipate and have planned to have to tweak things contiuinely going forward (Post launch I am expecting at the very least to adjust numbers for balance reasons) We've just hit what we can manage in the time we have left.

The Open beta was a great success but only a single digit percentage of the total players participated. so we'd be foolish not to give ourselves some room to maneuever once it hits the mainstream playerbase.

What to do about Influence is also being discussed, but the rework is only one part of a much grander scheme.​

DeanTheDull said:

does 'can not sustain upkeep' mean a monthly negative, or a total balance?

Running entirely out of your Unity (or other resource) stockpile and going into an actual deficit.

DeanTheDull said:
Something I'm not clear on is if the leader cost will go down as you lose leaders and go below 6, or if it just goes up.

Leader costs are based on the number of leaders you currently have in your empire. It goes up and down as the number of leaders does. (There's just a minimum cost below a certain point.)

AntiMachiavel said:
Hopefully "AI Megacorps should spawn half as often as before now" applies when playing a Megacorp too?

Yes.

Archael90 said:
Even tho unity change should became a buff for spiritualists it changes nothing since their unity output is the same as regular empires

One of the 3.3.1 changes has significant effect, where they now get their entire bonuses to Unity Cost and Upkeep reductions.

GnoSIS said:

I see how you try to push spiritualist, but to what effect? Them having better science than materialists, due to unity and sprawl? I think this doesn't make much sense both as a game mechanic and from an RP perspective...

The Empire Size effects on costs don't scale to the point that this is likely to occur.

Spiritualists have some advantages with Unity generation and the use of Edicts, and should be able to gain their Traditions and Ascension Perks at a better rate than the Materialists.

Ludaire said:
I'm curious whether you're planning to make this standard going forward if this kind of open beta feedback time will be reserved for bigger changes like the unity/influence change.

The Open Beta was extremely useful to gather information and feedback, and adjust things a bit within limits. I have a positive impression of the experience overall, and will push for more in the future if there are similar proposals that we want more data on than we can reasonably gather internally.

Ludaire said:
Did you also fix the issue where Rogue Servitors didn't have access to the Alpha Hub and start with an Uplink Node?

Also, there's an issue where bio trophies aren't getting several important output modifiers because of how they're categorized. Mainly the capital productivity boosts and empire capital designation. Plus they don't get any of the unity boosts administrators get, making things like the unity designation nearly worthless for Rogue Servitors.

Yes to the Uplink Node part. They shouldn't have the Alpha Hub as they don't have Administrators.

We switched the capital designation bonus to affect all production, which should also affect Bio-Trophies. Bio-Trophies remain as their own unique non-administrator category.

I'll make a note for a review of the different edicts, designations, and techs available to the Servitors.

Catnight08 said:

Wait..... does that mean, RS are supposed to have access to the normal unity building? Cause everyone here points out that they are demolishing those because they are not supposed to be able to build them.

They should have access to the "monument" equivalent that grants Unity based on APs and boosts planet-wide Unity production, and should be able to upgrade it fully. We briefly had it backwards.

From Enfield_PDX:

Nebbie Zebbie said:​

I find the closing of the feedback period, then this dev diary having little information on changes being made in major mechanics, rather worrying. Spiritualists getting a little buff and edict fund improvements are nice, but it looks like with the 3.3.1 changes, things will still be fundamentally broken, and there's a lot unanswered about the approach being taken for many other problems from the beta.

Harkinian's Dinner said:
Disappointing to see that the beta feedback only led to limited, numbers-based changes. The takeaway from the beta response should have been "the Planetary Ascenssion system needs more time in the oven altogether", considering everyone agrees it's completely flavorless, uninteresting and adds needless micro.

I feel like this is a Failure on our part to communicate the intent of the beta and how it works with the custodians release schedule + our future plans for Stellaris.

In short, the Beta was intended to gather feedback to see if the rework was viable, if it achieved our aims for the game (I would detail them but that's more of an Eldarin thing). As of 3.3.1 while not perfect, we are of the belief that it does improve the state of the game but this does not mean we are done improving it!

However, to build the foundations of Stellaris' future we need to maintain our release cadence of reliable updates from the Custodian team. I understand the fear of Asecnsion Tiers staying as they are forever for example, we've had times in the past where there have been big gaps between patches.

But that's not how things work now, That does not mean don't critique or let us know what is or isn't working for you. That helps us keep track of what we should be focusing on, but it does mean keeping the new state of Stellaris in mind.

Hope that makes sense.

From Eladrin:

Troyen said:​

Yeah, it seems apparent the Stellaris team has switched more to a service-style iteration method, with a ~3-4 month deployment cadence. What doesn't get fully finished in time for one patch can be refined and adjusted in the next, with continuous improvement in the game over time. This means on the one hand, we'll sometimes get systems that feel unpolished (e.g. planetary ascension), but on the other hand, we get more predictable and regular releases so we won't have to wait a largely unknown time or until a major dlc to see further changes.

My guess is 3.4 is thus tentatively targeted for late-May/early-June, though with Swedish holidays around then, I'm not sure if they'll bump it until after their break.

I'd say this is pretty accurate. One of the best parts of the Custodian cadence is knowing that we'll have an update approximately once every three months.

From MonzUn:

DeanTheDull said:​

Something I'm not clear on is if the leader cost will go down as you lose leaders and go below 6, or if it just goes up.

As far as I know, it stays at 100 until you go over the starting leader amount and from there on, the cost is relative to how many leaders you currently have.

AntiMachiavel said:

Good stuff!

Hopefully "AI Megacorps should spawn half as often as before now" applies when playing a Megacorp too? IIRC the chance of spawning AI Megacorps was increased for that case. Rationale being to make the game more interesting, practice being that among gestalts, megacorps and purifiers it was hard to find an AI empire that could accept a branch office.

It applies always.

As far as I'm aware, there was never any bias when the player was a Megacorp (apart from the player itself not affecting the randomization).
I personally believe it's that players are more aware of the amount of Megacorps in the galaxy when they themselves are a megacorp.

Their spawn rate was quite high overall though and I think this was a side effect rather than random weight balancing issues.

Jman5 said:

Hey, pretty important issue I just noticed. A lot of enforcer jobs for the AI are remaining unfilled even when a planet is in complete chaos from high crime.

Bug reports should go into the bug reports forum, or they are likely to be missed by QA
That being said, are you on the latest beta?
I have a vague memory of a colleague fixing this one already.

Jman5 said:

Yeah, sorry I'll report it officially. Yes, I'm on the latest public beta, no mods.

It seems to be mostly fixed, but it's still happening with some empires. A handful of empires will start off with their Enforcer job unfilled and they will just keep it that way forever it seems. Even as more enforcer jobs become available they don't seem to fill. I saw this happening to my own empire, a few times, but that may have been in an earlier beta.

If you want to try reproducing it, just start a game with max empires so you get a big sample size, observe the game, and just check each empire's capital world. There will likely be 3 or 4 doing this.

Honestly I have no idea what is causing this. I couldn't find any sort of pattern.

Ah, yeah then we're probably both right
Best to make a bug report to show this off. Make sure to get a save game in there and point to a planet where this is happening.
You could also point out that it's been claimed to be fixed, but that the fix only seem partial.
Thanks!

 

[DeanTheDull]

The changes look good, but after thinking about them, I think that we're back to "wide always wins", depending on how much the planetary ascension numbers affect empire size. You just replaced bureaucrats with ascensions, and just increased the cost!

The goal was never to have 'wide doesn't win'- it is still fundamentally a 4X game that runs on a pop-based economy that grows scaling to planets. In such a system, unless you hyper-penalize wide such that wide always loses, wide has an inherent snowballing advantage.

What the unity changes do is reduce the rate at which the snowball accelerates. This is both useful in its own right- it offers other builds more viability compared to early conquest if their primary handicap is time (pop-bloom strategies), and can later be utilized in other structural changes (such as the hinted upcoming Situation dynamic, which could compromise empires that expand too quickly by war).

Similarly, it appears the goal of the Edicts and Edict fund isn't to support multiple edicts, but to give smaller empires a chance for significantly higher pop-efficiency than larger empires. This did not work due to how costs scaled, but if the costs can be balanced well enough, it can offer expanded windows for catchup/destablization of larger empires. If an empire loses its ability to afford pop-efficiency edicts when it conquers, it's pop-efficiency goes down and can create a window of vulnerability that- if other systems are introduced- can counter wide-conquest through strategies.

 

[ASGeek2012]

So the unity open beta has not been updated today and will not be updated until the release of 3.3.1, did I understand that correctly?

As I understood it, the latest round of announced changes will not get to us until it is released live, meaning we don't get a preview of the changes in the beta branch.

And this is a huge mistake. Changes like this always generate new bugs (not putting the onus on Paradox here, this is true for any software product). It would be much better to let the beta branch players at it and find the worst of them before going live.

Hopefully my interpretation of this was wrong.

 

[Troyen]

Yeah, it seems apparent the Stellaris team has switched more to a service-style iteration method, with a ~3-4 month deployment cadence. What doesn't get fully finished in time for one patch can be refined and adjusted in the next, with continuous improvement in the game over time. This means on the one hand, we'll sometimes get systems that feel unpolished (e.g. planetary ascension), but on the other hand, we get more predictable and regular releases so we won't have to wait a largely unknown time or until a major dlc to see further changes.

My guess is 3.4 is thus tentatively targeted for late-May/early-June, though with Swedish holidays around then, I'm not sure if they'll bump it until after their break.

 

[MonzUn]

Hey, pretty important issue I just noticed. A lot of enforcer jobs for the AI are remaining unfilled even when a planet is in complete chaos from high crime.

Bug reports should go into the bug reports forum, or they are likely to be missed by QA
That being said, are you on the latest beta?
I have a vague memory of a colleague fixing this one already.