2.2 ruins Stellaris for me

[Jomanda]

After several thousand hours of gameplay, I have uninstalled Stellaris for the first time since release.

I will try to explain why, hoping the devs might take note of this, though I have no illusions they will address them.

First of all, the new planetary management system feels very unintuitive and has massively increased micromanagement. As the player I feel I have lost control. For example I can not build a robot to mine minerals and a pop for a lab. Since I no longer have control of which pop/robot is assigned, there is no point in modifying said robots and pop to specific tasks.

There is far too much clicking. The fact that no less than four tabs are required to control planets, should be an indication that the interface is sorely lacking and unintuitive. After a few dozen hours of playtime in 2.2, I am still frequently looking where ‘that one button’ was located again. It doesn’t help that many of the hotkeys have been changed. (And I have not found the possibility to change those back.)

I do like the idea of much larger planets and the opportunities these offer for tall empires, but the way it has been implemented now feels clunky.

It no longer feels like I’m in direct control of my planets and by extension my empire. I set priorities to pop/robot assignments but I can no longer assign pops myself. If I want to assign a happy pop to critical resource, I cannot do that. As a result it feels like all I can do is ‘tweak’ some settings in a set of algorithms and ‘wait and see’, causing the planetary management to become inconsequential and dull.

The only way I have found to have some direct control, is by constantly changing settings in the planetary interface. So, when the pop is nearly finished growing, in the above mentioned example, I prioritise the labs. And when the robot is nearly done assembling, I prioritise the mines. This requires lots of pointless clicking, going back and forth changing these settings and thus hugely increases micromanagement.

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

I expect the onslaught of disagrees is imminent.

I however agree with the points you have raised, especially about the management required to optimise your economy with the new system, the change made to managing demographics and specialist roles and the clicking. The new system has potential, which is not well implemented.

 

[Iam5not8]

The only regret I have about pop management is not to be able to assign pops which are considered as slave or maybe residential.
The free ones are let’s say free and therefore it seems normal one has only indirect means to assign them to jobs.
I would like also that job attractiveness is linked to the species traits. I mean the manual prefer to go manual, the clever to research, the charismatic to managament.
I’m more concerner about how pop growth is managed.

 

[Eelectrica]

Don't try to micro it. There's no need. Build when you need to, upgrade when you have the resources to do so.

Perhaps one thing they could do is when we have access to gene and robo modding we could have a toggle a selection for the jobs we'd prefer that pop to be doing.

 

[Surimi]

I would like also that job attractiveness is linked to the species traits. I mean the manual prefer to go manual, the clever to research, the charismatic to managament.
I’m more concerner about how pop growth is managed.

It is supposed to work that way, and it partially does. Basically, each job has a weight denoting how much pops will prioritise it, and the weight is modified by traits. Just about every job has some kind of wieght modifier.

However, there are a few obstacles, which are generally there for good reason.

Firstly, if there are unemployed pops of a higher strata, then low strata workers won't take those jobs even if they have better traits. This is generally a good thing, because it prevents high strata pops becoming unemployed, which is often a very bad situation.

Secondly, all pops have a significant weight to keep their current job. This is probably because AI shuffling accounted for a lot of slowdown in previous game versions. Generally, the job assigning AI won't try to calculate the most optimal configuration, it will only use weights to decide who should fill a job when it becomes open and who should become unemployed when there are too many pops of a stratum.

Thirdly, there are a lot of weights which might not seem obvious. For example, non-citizen species are strongly disfavoured for specialist and ruler positions, and slaves under domestic servitude tend to get picked last for worker jobs (presumably, so that if there is unemployment they will be available to act as servants).

 

[Delthor]

First of all, the new planetary management system feels very unintuitive and has massively increased micromanagement.

So you dislike micro...

but I can no longer assign pops myself.

But you miss the most microy thing in the previous system?

This makes little sense, and you're making mistakes that seem quite common based on the forums. But all you're doing is whining instead of asking for suggestions on how to adjust your play style. So I figure there's not much reason trying to convince you, unless you're actually curious how to better enjoy the new system.

 

[ruzen]

Understandable points because it changes drastecly what people used you not everybody has to like it. I say give it another chanse in future when they polish the feature.

Also i agree that lack of influencing pops jobs is really lackluster. There has to be something. Not nessery clicking one by one but politicly or skill based or maybe desire based i dunno

 

[LockdownX7]

Don't try to micro it. There's no need. Build when you need to, upgrade when you have the resources to do so.

Perhaps one thing they could do is when we have access to gene and robo modding we could have a toggle a selection for the jobs we'd prefer that pop to be doing.

Agreed, but that feature should be available from the start of the game, not be limited to gene/robo modding. Then empires with syncretic evolution, or those that start migration pacts early on, can also make proper use of it.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

I don't agree regarding the pop assignment; besides the bug with slaves out-prioritising robots, the needless promotion/demotion system, pops not always automatically displacing inferior workers, and the inability to prebuild infrastructure, pop auto-assignment works..... ok.

The planet UI is bad though, and as a result of broken sectors, and the inability to prebuild infrastructure, micromanagement of planets has massively increased.
Trade routes are another source of added micro, and while the system adds mechanical depth, it needs streamlining.

"Too much clicking (and scrolling)" sums up Stellaris perfectly.

 

[Deggial]

My opinion: The system is better overall. It is more complex and I like this.

However, an increased compelxity requires an exelent UI in order to understand it and interact with the available mechanics.

I haven't played enough to pinpoint each issue and make educated proposals. But just right out of my head, here are some thoughts:

- When tabbing through my planets in order to see where a specific building is missing (e.g. the unity-granting one), it would be desirable if the chosen build-tabs wouldn't close all the time. Right now, multiple klicks are neccesary just to re-enter the tab you were a second ago.
- It would be great, if those "special buildings" (that require a specific planetary feature to be buildable) would have their own tab or at least be highlighted with a golden border in the build menue (consistency in the visual metaphors is good!).
- The tabs in the build menue are great, but due to their tininess hard to use. A small issue (pun intended), but a matter of good UI design nevertheless.
- When applying new designs to robots, an additional subset-choice for robots already working in the related ressource job would be great. I really don't want my farming bots to become advanced mining mashines.

I am sure, there are tons of other improvements thinkable.
Being able to manage (and have a better overview over) the increasing list of planets/their content is certainly one of them. But I want to play and think about it more before I comment.

 

[_Chrysippus_]

I don't agree regarding the pop assignment; besides the bug with slaves out-prioritising robots, the needless promotion/demotion system, pops not always automatically displacing inferior workers, and the inability to prebuild infrastructure, pop auto-assignment works..... ok.

The planet UI is bad though, and as a result of broken sectors, and the inability to prebuild infrastructure, micromanagement of planets has massively increased.
Trade routes are another source of added micro, and while the system adds mechanical depth, it needs streamlining.

"Too much clicking (and scrolling)" sums up Stellaris perfectly.

I don't see how trade routes are additional micro, they autogenerate and almost NEVER require you to route them yourself. Sure you have to watch out for pirates and make sure your starbase can suppress enough. But how is that different from having to make sure you don't have open areas where pirates can spawn or building defense platforms to kill any that do spawn?

I think people are mistaking having to actually make decisions for micro.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

I don't see how trade routes are additional micro, they autogenerate and almost NEVER require you to route them yourself. Sure you have to watch out for pirates and make sure your starbase can suppress enough. But how is that different from having to make sure you don't have open areas where pirates can spawn or building defense platforms to kill any that do spawn?

I think people are mistaking having to actually make decisions for micro.

Building & routing patrol fleets isn't decision making; the UI tells you how many ships you need, it's common sense that you'll use the cheapest design possible to minimize maintenance. After that point you're just fighting the UI;
- Drag-selecting fleets doesn't work while the trade map mode is up,
- Pathing algorithm is not stable meaning patrol routes don't always match trade routes,
- There's no warnings/notifications when trade increase leads to your patrols being inadequate,
- There's nothing preventing patrol fleets from being caught up when drag-selecting other fleets.
- piracy icons in the trade map mode are meaningless; appearing red whether there's 0.01 piracy (well below protection threshold), or 1000 piracy (stealing all your trade)
- ....and then you have to go through the whole process again if/when they get destroyed/refitted.

It's menial busy work, not remotely interesting, challenging, or entertaining.

It really doesn't need to be this way though; it could be quite simply streamlined without sacrificing any functionality.

 

[Razzlie]

I agree, but only because of the stuttering issue that's currently making it literally and genuinely unplayable for me.

But it's okay, I have other things to do while I wait for patches to roll in.

 

[sillyrobot]

I don't see how trade routes are additional micro, they autogenerate and almost NEVER require you to route them yourself. Sure you have to watch out for pirates and make sure your starbase can suppress enough. But how is that different from having to make sure you don't have open areas where pirates can spawn or building defense platforms to kill any that do spawn?

I think people are mistaking having to actually make decisions for micro.

I expect much of the complaint about microing trade routes comes from the continuous increase in piracy level and thus the need to flip into trade view and manually verify every little skull is still white and figure out how to fiddle the anti-piracy patrols to cover that one system a little bit more frequently or longer.

Heck, I didn't even realise there was a trade route view or that trade piracy was a thing until about 50 years into my most recent game. I spent the next few hours working out how to patrol, where to patrol, and how much to patrol using 75% of my fleet budget before I discovered a single star base with lots of hangars would cover 90% of the trade route.

Now that's been built, I still have to flip back occasionally to verify the slowly building piracy ratings are still wholly suppressed. It's not like the game tells you about your losses to piracy unless you know enough to ask.

 

[M@ni@c]

A notification when there's a pirate skull going red, would be nice.

 

[SAS]

A notification when there's a pirate skull going red, would be nice.

That is a good idea, there is a suggestion sub forum. Might be worth a post.

 

[Arcvalons]

The one thing that's really needed is the ability to move and assign robots, or lock some jobs to robots (and template ) only.