Stellaris Dev Diary #301 - Galactic Paragons is out, what's next?

[Cahokia]

"Just don't play with leaders except for the council in the expansion/update focused on leaders."
Yeah I'm overexaggerating but do you even hear yourself?

Nothing about what I said mentioned not playing with leaders. I have interacted with my leaders far more than I ever have, even if they just sat on the council.

You were pointing out that you felt a large leader cap was needed. I assumed this was because you felt they weren't strong enough. I was merely pointing out the fundamental change the game has gone through. You only need 6 leaders now and anything past that is optional.

There were only two real interactions in previous patches. One was cycling leaders until you got that one trait you wanted. Second was ensuring every leader slot was filled which in a late game empire is a lot of needless micro. Not exactly engaging so this is a welcome change.

 

[Spaceception]

How well could tying leader cap to pops or absolute empire size mesh with the idea of 'fewer leaders'? Something that increases throughout the game as your empire expands, but still feels narrow.

To avoid making fewer leaders pointless, this could scale pretty slowly, like +1 leader per 150 pops/size, or something to that effect. In this case, you'd need 900 pops/size to double your base cap. And at least in the early/mid game, you'd have to work with the cap, or produce extra unity to go over as a trade off. By the mid/late game, you can start to comfortably go over, but it takes more leaders for the maluses to max out. You could even cap the scale as well, 10 additional max leaders this way at 1500 pops.

 

[Dr Pippy]

As someone who's been reading the forums/steam and other platforms, and have been immersed in this since release: I disagree that the feedback is overwhelmingly negative. Yes, I agree there are some negative feelings out there, but saying the feedback is overwhelmingly negative is disingenuous.

For what it's worth, my feelings about the leader cap specifically are very negative, but about (most) other aspects of the DLC are very positive. This doesn't seem to be an atypical reaction. I'm not sure how that dynamic is coming across in your reading of the forums, etc.

 

[Ebosher]

Guys, coop Desync can be related to using different APIs? I have DirectX11, my friends have DirectX 9.
Has anyone checked their compatibility and does coop work better using the same APIs?

 

[wisecat]

New council leader trait:
Spreadsheet Obsessive
+5% Pop Resource Output
-10 Years Leader Lifespan

At Head of State level obsession with Spreadsheets usually lowers life expectancy of Government employees not the leader himself.
So maybe +0.5 Consumer goods consumption by Administator jobs?

 

[Bakalov]

The -2 flat bonus for governors is underwhelming. I don't see any reason now to pick up the Aptitude traditions. I expected something like -2% per governor or -0.5% per governor lvl up to -10% or -20%, whatever makes sense. The flat -2 is useless.

 

[Lenk]

Shouldn't the Chosen one and the Covenant chosen be marked as legendary? With the graphic and title? Since there can only be one of each? It is kind of strange seeing the all mighty upon the throne not labeled as a legendary paragon nor their right hand for that matter. Its a small thing, but think it adds some flavor.

Also if a normal leader gets to a certain level, could they get the renowned paragon graphic border? Like if they hit level 8. Wouldn't do anything since its just a graphic addition.

 

[MrFreake_PDX]

I'm talking specifically about the "leader cap" here.

You see, it's also important to note why they dislike the leader cap.

Reasons players have mentioned include, but are not limited to:
Do they want to build 15 science ships and explore half the galaxy in the first 20 years?
Are they upset that they lose so much XP for being over the leader cap?
Are they upset because they lose so much unity to leaders?
Are they mad because they can't specialise their research as easily as they previously could?
Are they feeling like their empire is empty because of the black boxes on their planets/fleets, where there used to be a shiny character?

Each of these issues have/can have different solutions. The devs have been going over player feedback that we've been receiving and discussing it at length on the best possible approaches for figuring out which solution(s) to use.

For what it's worth, my feelings about the leader cap specifically are very negative, but about (most) other aspects of the DLC are very positive. This doesn't seem to be an atypical reaction. I'm not sure how that dynamic is coming across in your reading of the forums, etc.

No, this seems to be a fairly common reaction to me as well.

Guys, coop Desync can be related to using different APIs? I have DirectX11, my friends have DirectX 9.
Has anyone checked their compatibility and does coop work better using the same APIs?

Coop is still in beta, we have some OOS fixes in the pipeline/being investigated that we hope will improve coop's stability substantially.

 

[Dr Pippy]

Are they upset that they lose so much XP for being over the leader cap?

For me: it's 100% this. I'd actually rather see a stricter penalty in terms of unity cost (e.g., +25% costs per leader over the cap, as with starbases) without the XP cost. This gives me the choice to have lots of good leaders at the cost of building a large unity/bureaucratic infrastructure to support them. Right now the choice is to have a few good leaders, a moderate number of mediocre leaders, or lots of crummy ones, and that just feels like less of an interesting tradeoff to me.

 

[NilsFabian]

Not sure how I feel about the autocannon but I like the idea about the legendary leaders.
Maybe also implement a repeatable technology that would raise the leader cap under sociology

 

[MrFreake_PDX]

For me: it's 100% this. I'd actually rather see a stricter penalty in terms of unity cost (e.g., +25% costs per leader over the cap, as with starbases) without the XP cost. This gives me the choice to have lots of good leaders at the cost of building a large unity/bureaucratic infrastructure to support them. Right now the choice is to have a few good leaders, a moderate number of mediocre leaders, or lots of crummy ones, and that just feels like less of an interesting tradeoff to me.

+1 for make the Soft Cap Squishier

 

[KCalo]

I'm happy with the update, it's definitely going to take a bit to get used to the changes. One thing I'd like to see is a way to build upgraded stations with my subjects. These guys want me to defend them, but then have no upgraded stations for defense. I'll pay the resources to build them up!

 

[currylambchop]

For me: it's 100% this. I'd actually rather see a stricter penalty in terms of unity cost (e.g., +25% costs per leader over the cap, as with starbases) without the XP cost. This gives me the choice to have lots of good leaders at the cost of building a large unity/bureaucratic infrastructure to support them. Right now the choice is to have a few good leaders, a moderate number of mediocre leaders, or lots of crummy ones, and that just feels like less of an interesting tradeoff to me.

Yep, its strange that the leader cap hurts the leader's xp. It should be a prohibitive unity cost rather than xp. Because using a low unity cost but high xp cost just encourages people to spam leaders and tank the xp penalty, essentially making the new leaders useless

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Not sure how I feel about the autocannon but I like the idea about the legendary leaders.
Maybe also implement a repeatable technology that would raise the leader cap under sociology

I'd rather avoid a repeatable tech to raise leader cap, since it'd effectively remove the cap from the game completely and be the most powerful Society repeatable by a mile.

 

[Dr Pippy]

I'd rather avoid a repeatable tech to raise leader cap, since it'd effectively remove the cap from the game completely and be the most powerful Society repeatable by a mile.

Depends on the parameters. Something like +0.2 leader cap per level would give you 2 extra leaders at level 10 (Fallen Empire level, right?). By the time you got to level 100, you'd get an extra 20 leaders, but once you're that deep into repeatables it's just a question of how crazy awesome you want to make your empire before moving on to a new game, and it's probably okay if it gets a little ridiculous.

 

[luxeritib]

How about adding 1 cap-free slot for each leader class? I mean, who would hire a general when they share the same cap? A free slot would improve things a lot.

 

[Spaceception]

Depends on the parameters. Something like +0.2 leader cap per level would give you 2 extra leaders at level 10 (Fallen Empire level, right?).

Not a dev, but I can't imagine that would work well. You're basically locking your repeatable society tree up in getting enough leader cap techs to get 1 more capacity. I can't see that being very fun either. The pre FTL envoy techs get away with it because they're cheaper, and have additional effects for picking them.

 

[Dr Pippy]

Not a dev, but I can't image that would work well. You're basically locking your repeatable society tree up in getting enough leader cap techs to get 1 more capacity. I can't see that being very fun either. The pre FTL envoy techs get away with it because they're cheaper, and have additional effects for picking them.

(1) I'd probably bundle it with something like +1-2% leader XP per level, or +5% agenda progress per level, or something like that, in order to make it more worthwhile. Especially on the levels where you're not actually unlocking a leader slot.

(2) It's always nice to have more choices. It wouldn't be a good option for everyone, but if you're running a leader-focused build, it'd be nice to have a repeatable tech to support your playstyle.

(3) I'd suggest that it's also a fair counter-argument to the proposition that a repeatable tech to increase leader cap would "effectively remove the cap from the game."

 

[NilsFabian]

I'd rather avoid a repeatable tech to raise leader cap, since it'd effectively remove the cap from the game completely and be the most powerful Society repeatable by a mile.

I can see why, but this could be fixed by the percentage when the tech comes or maybe give a cap.
Or you could give sectors without governor also some bonus.
Where is the point of having 10 sectors as you've conquered half the galaxy but have no governors

 

[Creeperman0]

I don't think it's a good idea to front-load leader capacity in the early game, since the point seems to be to slow down scientist exploration spam. Gating them behind repeatable techs is also not a good solution, since by that point you're almost beyond caring about the cap except for the XP hit on your newest leaders (the rest having already leveled up decades ago).

I still think loosely tying leader capacity to things like systems or colonies controlled, and possibly also naval capacity, is the better way to go on this. It shouldn't be anywhere close to 1-for-1, but maybe something like +1 leader per 10 colonies and/or +1 leader per 800 naval cap would ease the strain as your empire grows without hard gates behind techs or traditions.