There's a lot of toxicity on this forum, but there are also legitimate issues we'd like the team to address

[WarriorofMODS]

Stellaris excels at the appearence of customization. You have all these sliders to move and civics to pick and traits to count out at the start that you think wow, with all these options there must be so much variety and depth in the game!
It's only after you try more than three of them that you realise they don't actually do anything strategically substantive.
...which was the gist of the rest of your post, so TL;DR I agree.

If you were designing a grand strategy game around the question of "How can we get the highest number of upvotes from casuals and reviewers who won't play more than 10 hours", I kinda feel like Stellaris is what would fall out.

It's ironic when you remember that Stellaris was the first time Paradox included a Crisis mechanic specifically designed to jolly up the lategame, but there you go.

I highly suggest the Expanded Civics-Ethics mod on the steam workshop. Someone actually fixed this problem because PDX didn't feel like expanding on it.

Now it's far more interesting with the mod. I can't play without it anymore.

 

[WarriorofMODS]

Last crap I am going to say on this topic:



Apples to oranges. You are asking the AI to do a lot more than either EUIV or CK2. And news flash, the AI has a hardtime keeping a stable economy in those games too. Only real difference is that there is more. Instead of only having fifteen AI's you have dozens to hundreds.



Do you those for a living on code as complex as game? How big is your team? I assume that you're only then is maintenance of the system. The Dev's only job isn't maintanance.



It's not better. It is the same AI, just with changed priorities. That is it! Its the same AI.

I hate to break to everyone, but the average monthly players stats, published by steam, actively disagree with you that the game is broken. So far, with the exception of January and February, Stellaris has exceeded the average players for each month. The average players per month is increasing too, and is actually on route to exceed previous years. So either, everyone complains about the game and plays it anyways, meaning that the defects can't be that serious (in the eyes of paradox and devs); or that the majority of players don't agree with you, in which case why should effort be taken to please a handful of customers when the majority are content, and probably willing to spend money on DLC?
Just saying. Attaching link and spreadsheet where I did all the leg work.

Adios.

Stellaris - Steam Charts

An ongoing analysis of Steam's player numbers, seeing what's been played the most.

steamcharts.com

Funny, because most other PDX games have seen a much larger playerbase with less sales.

That means lots of people are actively leaving.

 

[James Fire]

Here https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...d-ships-the-art-process.1429333/post-26974964

How are you guys taking that to mean no fixes? He's saying nothing risky, which means AI and performance, not simple bugfixes.

 

[sillyrobot]

How are you guys taking that to mean no fixes? He's saying nothing risky, which means AI and performance, not simple bugfixes.

There might be a lot of simple bug fixes. Like I posted before, the scripts are certainly a target-rich environment when bug-hunting. Simple bug repair won't make the game more pleasurable to play if your main complaint is (1) late game slowdown, (2) non-competitive AI, or (3) too much micro-management. Since those are the compelling and most common concerns, simple bug-fixes, while generally welcome, won't accomplish much. It's like vacuuming your rugs while the house is on fire. Sometimes routine maintenance isn't enough.

 

[Kayden_II]

On Reddit:

Hm Ok. I don't keep that much track on reddit ( or other secondary communication-platforms like that ) since I've the bold stance to believe that this forum ( aka the primary communication-platform ) should be the preferred place to get these kind of informations. Nevertheless, thanks.

How are you guys taking that to mean no fixes? He's saying nothing risky, which means AI and performance, not simple bugfixes.

If you want to play that game then OK: How are you taking that to mean a ****-load of simple bugfixes in return since ( plot-twist ) grekulf hadn't mentioned them at all ?

Because the community has been an absolute peach.

Wait, not "some" or the "vocal minority", but the community ? OK ! It's still a baseless provokation and ( ironically ) an exaggeration on your side, but ... on a second thought, no, it's still not OK.

 

[Gromit]

@Kayden_II Make use of this feature.

 

[Shadowstrike]

I don't think it's reasonable to insult or hector the dev team, but I feel that anger is at least a symptom that people still care about the game - and will spend more money on it - and is preferable to indifference.

I wouldn't mind describing myself as a Stellaris superfan - I've got over a 1000 hours in it, have almost all the Steam achievements, own every expansion, I'm typing this on top of a Stellaris mousepad and even travelled across the Atlantic to PDX Con to meet and drink beers with you guys. And yet, I find I have very little enthusiasm for the game because honestly I am not super excited by anything that's been announced, or feel like gameplay has been fixed to a degree that I can get some fun out of starting another run. Honestly, I'm kind of indifferent about Necroids, and without anything about the next "big" expansion, I'm kind of indifferent about the series as a whole.

I don't think you'll particularly miss the $50 or so I spend on the series every year (maybe a bit more, if you include the friends I drag into this game), but it's kind of a bad sign if your hardcore fans are becoming disillusioned with the (lack of) direction that the series is taking.

 

[Malecord]

I was talking about in general. Public forums like YouTube, reddit (which isn't really managed.) And other backwater sites.

There are sites where people can express their opinions.

Since I'm no lawyer I might be wrong ofc but I don't think that's the case in a broader sense. Not even in publicly streamed events (see Riot and Blizzard issues with their Chinese dictatorship friendly censorship stances: it certainly generated outcry but no actual lawsuits. They were in the bounds of the law). Also depending on where you live there are different interpretations of what is "free": the present day America government doesn't look like it want any kind censorship at all ("there are no fake news and for the gov everyone can say what it wants"). Europe instead welcomes censorship, but it doesn't want to have anything to do with it (private companies are required to censor appropriately... or be successfully sued by anybody who doesn't like what they read). China dictatorship also welcomes censorship and it very much enthusiastically wants to be involved with it (they have dedicated government branches for the job).

It's certainly an interesting time for being a multinational corp with global presence nowadays.

Besides private spaces are still private spaces. Pdx pays money to run forums for the sake of their business not to provide every random people a place to express their opinions, political or not. And (in the case of forums at least, I have a different opinion on esports events) I think it's reasonable. So they make their rules, whatever they are and we accept them and stay or not accept and go elsewhere. Freedom of speech in general must always be contextualized. You're not free to go in a church and argue how Satan or the Spaghetti Monster is the true God, and you don't break in during a parliament session to state your personal opinions in front of everybody on matters that in your opinion are very important. Healthy democratic societies are societies where there must be reasonable spaces for free expression. Which is not every space. And for sure privately owned spaces.

Also (returning on topic), opinions on the scrappy state of a videogame, even important ones like Stellaris, hardly qualify for opinions that deserve a dedicated free speech space, in the broad sense interest of the public interest.

Then you can ignore me, break forum rules or make enemies out of mods, get banned and then sue them for denying your rights. But in my opinion, if you think about it, you'll realize as well that they have some ground for doing it. Technically you can't even argue on forums about wrong moderator decisions or forum rules. It's against the rules and they can ban you. And they can ban you even if you don't break any rule if they want. They just make up a new "internal" one to justify their actions. It's super frustrating, I've been there and I would have liked to be treated differently, but that is.

 

[WarriorofMODS]

Since I'm no lawyer I might be wrong ofc but I don't think that's the case in a broader sense. Not even in publicly streamed events (see Riot and Blizzard issues with their Chinese dictatorship friendly censorship stances: it certainly generated outcry but no actual lawsuits. They were in the bounds of the law). Also depending on where you live there are different interpretations of what is "free": the present day America government doesn't look like it want any kind censorship at all ("there are no fake news and for the gov everyone can say what it wants"). Europe instead welcomes censorship, but it doesn't want to have anything to do with it (private companies are required to censor appropriately... or be successfully sued by anybody who doesn't like what they read). China dictatorship also welcomes censorship and it very much enthusiastically wants to be involved with it (they have dedicated government branches for the job).

It's certainly an interesting time for being a multinational corp with global presence nowadays.

Besides private spaces are still private spaces. Pdx pays money to run forums for the sake of their business not to provide every random people a place to express their opinions, political or not. And (in the case of forums at least, I have a different opinion on esports events) I think it's reasonable. So they make their rules, whatever they are and we accept them and stay or not accept and go elsewhere. Freedom of speech in general must always be contextualized. You're not free to go in a church and argue how Satan or the Spaghetti Monster is the true God, and you don't break in during a parliament session to state your personal opinions in front of everybody on matters that in your opinion are very important. Healthy democratic societies are societies where there must be reasonable spaces for free expression. Which is not every space. And for sure privately owned spaces.

Also (returning on topic), opinions on the scrappy state of a videogame, even important ones like Stellaris, hardly qualify for opinions that deserve a dedicated free speech space, in the broad sense interest of the public interest.

Then you can ignore me, break forum rules or make enemies out of mods, get banned and then sue them for denying your rights. But in my opinion, if you think about it, you'll realize as well that they have some ground for doing it. Technically you can't even argue on forums about wrong moderator decisions or forum rules. It's against the rules and they can ban you. And they can ban you even if you don't break any rule if they want. They just make up a new "internal" one to justify their actions. It's super frustrating, I've been there and I would have liked to be treated differently, but that is.

Youtube is actually going through a lawsuit over that very thing. They have others make content for them, and thus cannot by law moderate that content. It's the Public forum V Private forum.

Youtube was caught with their pants down systemically blocking and shutting down videos covering conservative Politics, and now are facing a class action lawsuit against PragurU as well as a bunch of channels like Ben Shapiro that affiliate with them.

 

[Kayden_II]

Freedom of speech in general must always be contextualized.

You're not free to go in a church and argue how Satan or the Spaghetti Monster is the true God,

Your mistake is to believe that Stellaris has to face antagonistic people that have an interest to harm it. Just like satanists or spaghettitarians in regards to the christianity. Plot-Twist: If people pay for the Stellaris-base-game and for various of its DLCs ( with the respective badges as actual proofs ) then that's a pretty good indication that Stellaris faces its actual care-takers. Just like the christianity would face its actual christians.

By the way and in my opinion, if you want to contextualize by all means then see these badges as the actual "tickets" that "authorize" the respective owners in order to speak freely about Stellaris.

I know that it's most likely not liked by Paradox ( or the Vatican ), but critics aren't antagonists ( similar to satanists or spaghettitarians ( from the perspective of the christianity ) ) and patches can't surely be seen as pure evilness, too ( similar like Satan himself or the Spaghetti-Monster itself ( also from the perspective of the christianity ) ).

 

[Industrious81]

Nice to see a couple developers commenting on some hot button issues (fixes) for customers concerned about such things. No concrete information, but I never expected that anyways.

Expectations are low, but the communication is appreciated.

 

[Malecord]

Your mistake is to believe that Stellaris has to face antagonistic people that have an interest to harm it.

I personally don't think anyone arguing about "long standing broken state of the game" or "wrong direction of development" being antagonistic. The want a better game and I identify with that group. Infact I just don't won't that people that are like-minded to me to offer excuses for easy bans or moderation actions for inappropriate language or vocabulary. Even if in the end I personally know you can get banned or moderated anyway. Forums are just no place of "free speech". Write accordingly using wisdom to make a point (that others can read) but not get gratuitelessly axed (so that nobody can read). That's just my free advice. Do what you want with it.

 

[Ashantai]

This thread has well and truly derailed. Please keep posts on topic and productive.