First-time player to Stellaris experience with (apparently) 2.2... just saying

[Losttruppen]

Finally, you're really overselling how much more difficult this new system is. It's deeper and requires a bit more attention, but really it's different from what you're used to. If learning new systems doesn't interest you, that's just another question mark in my head around why you'd buy into a Paradox game in the first place.

I never said it was difficult, my point is it changed the priority of my time in game from fun things like exploration and war to planet management, something I could offload on a sector or completely ignore by going tall. You can argue this is "more complex" and the standard evolution of paradox games but really its just a change of priority for what I focus on in game to something that was always part of the background to me.

Maybe I'm wrong and a better planet UI will bring back some of the simplicity, but right now Stellaris is a very different game from before, more than any other expansion to date, and it seems most of the advocates in favour of the new system are established paradox fans.

Please stop with the condescension, its insulting and discourages genuine discussion about topics and dissuades new players from sharing their two cents. I'm well aware that I bought a game from a company who has other titles with complex mechanics and in depth resource systems. Do you really have an issue with paradox making a game that might appeal to those outside their established base? Why do they have to cater to a single demographic and homogenize all their games into convoluted spreadsheets.

The whole reason for forums is to share opinions, and mine is that Paradox finally made a game that appealed to me and my friends, with the same polish and lore standards they apply to their other games without similar mechanics, but now those mechanics are creeping in under the guise of being "deeper". If they want to make drastic new systems put them into a new game or a PTR, don't force them on people who already enjoy what we have, especially with their policy of releasing things in the hope of fixing and refining them later on because now I have to deal with all those unfinished things indefinitely if I roll back to a patch with my style of gameplay.

I think we've done a pretty good job hijacking this thread already, but I made a topic here in which I express my dislike for the new direction and implementation, with ways I feel could bring the new system back in line with what I liked about the old game. Perhaps it's mostly the UI and the half-assed way in which the resource system was implemented that I dislike about the new system, I don't know. I'm just distinctly aware of how much time I spend in the planet manager in 2.2 and how little I now enjoy the biggest feature stellaris has which is the galaxy itself.

 

[Spaceception]

The changes mean I now have to plan for growth. Over build, as one person mentioned, and the snippy experts would rather starve on unemployment than take a job beneath them (I wouldn't think this is a problem for hive minds, however). Pops want to improve themselves so they tend to move to the better job rather than keep working in the coal mine... go figure. Economic decisions can make or break your empire, just like RL. This is how GRAND STRATEGY is supposed to work.

I understand a lot of people may have a preference for the basic 4X format, but to me Stellaris is finally starting to look like a real Empire Level Strategy Game and not some click for bonus shell.

Wish I could agree more than once.

In my current 2.2 playthrough (And the first of three playthroughs where I'm making my way to the endgame), my economy is finally getting to the point where it's strong enough to potentially fight off a crisis. I was worried at first because of how slow planetary growth was for the early game. But now, I'm working on developing more colonies, I had a massive food deficit for over a decade because I decided it was a good idea to change food policy, several of my worlds are maxing out, and now I'm near the top for economic power. I think it's the first time the mid game wasn't boring.
In 2.1 prior, you would only pay attention to planets for the click spam when you got a new building upgrade, and that was that. Now everything is changing, you have to plan for multiple routes instead of just a couple, and you have to figure out the best way to balance an economy while competing with other empires (At least in the early game currently). Once they have an AI overhaul and an diplomacy rework, the game may finally kick my ass and force me to be more diligent with building larger fleets.

EDIT: I do think there could be improvements, including better UI and everything, but from what I've experienced, what they're going for is really good so far.

 

[lemmox]

and it seems most of the advocates in favour of the new system are established paradox fans.

Why is this a problem?

Do you really have an issue with paradox making a game that might appeal to those outside their established base? Why do they have to cater to a single demographic and homogenize all their games into convoluted spreadsheets.

First of all, I have no problem whatsoever with Paradox making a game that appeals outside their established base. I have problem with you whining that they aren't doing that, at least not to the extent you'd like. There was never any indication from Paradox that they wanted this game to be dramatically different, in terms of development trajectory, from their other games, so it's a little ridiculous for you to be expecting such a drastic departure.

I also think statements like yours that they only appeal to a single demographic, or that all their games are "homogenous spreadsheets" are incredibly ill-founded, and likely part of the reason why you aren't getting any traction. The only similarity between their games that you've been able to articulate is that they're complicated. This makes it sound like you're looking for an easy, straightforward game and are sad that Paradox didn't make you one. That isn't likely to be a very common or popular opinion for a company that has made it's way making complicated, deep games.

The whole reason for forums is to share opinions, and mine is that Paradox finally made a game that appealed to me and my friends, with the same polish and lore standards they apply to their other games without similar mechanics, but now those mechanics are creeping in under the guise of being "deeper". If they want to make drastic new systems put them into a new game or a PTR, don't force them on people who already enjoy what we have, especially with their policy of releasing things in the hope of fixing and refining them later on because now I have to deal with all those unfinished things indefinitely if I roll back to a patch with my style of gameplay.

I'm sorry but, welcome to software development? They don't owe you any further development on the game and while you may not like having new gameplay forced on you, very few players would want to be stuck with a half-finished, shallow, boring space simulator. And since the fans of "depth" seem to make up a much larger portion of the player base, they are the ones that are going to be catered to.

 

[Losttruppen]

I have problem with you whining

I've asked twice for you to stop being insulting. Enjoy your new game.

 

[sillyrobot]

Why is this a problem?



First of all, I have no problem whatsoever with Paradox making a game that appeals outside their established base. I have problem with you whining that they aren't doing that, at least not to the extent you'd like. There was never any indication from Paradox that they wanted this game to be dramatically different, in terms of development trajectory, from their other games, so it's a little ridiculous for you to be expecting such a drastic departure.

What's a little ridiculous is expecting people who haven't bought Paradox's previous games to understand and expect Paradox's dev process. I own 2 previous titles: the original Crusader Knights and the original Rome Universalis Gold. Neither had the level of basic gameplay change seen in Stellaris. I waited 18 months to pick up Stellaris because I wanted a game whose main features were (mostly) complete as opposed to undergoing constant upheaval. That means I bought in at the tail end of 1.7. That's not what I got. I am not a happy customer. Will I buy a new game from Paradox? Not until they drop the game from development. I've already passed on the Mars game that I was keen on after experiencing the Stellaris trajectory.​

I also think statements like yours that they only appeal to a single demographic, or that all their games are "homogenous spreadsheets" are incredibly ill-founded, and likely part of the reason why you aren't getting any traction. The only similarity between their games that you've been able to articulate is that they're complicated. This makes it sound like you're looking for an easy, straightforward game and are sad that Paradox didn't make you one. That isn't likely to be a very common or popular opinion for a company that has made it's way making complicated, deep games.

I'm sorry but, welcome to software development? They don't owe you any further development on the game and while you may not like having new gameplay forced on you, very few players would want to be stuck with a half-finished, shallow, boring space simulator. And since the fans of "depth" seem to make up a much larger portion of the player base, they are the ones that are going to be catered to.

And a half-finished, shallow, boring game is all the customers will receive until Paradox stops dicking around replacing major systems and starts to repair and extend the systems that exist. Was the tile system perfect? No. Could it have been made better without dumping it entirely? Almost certainly. Does dumping it entirely mean a few new rounds of bug-fixes, rebalancing, and stabilization that wouldn't have been necessary if it was kept? Of course. Will the new system be better for the game in the long run? Maybe. It has two extra levels of resource consequence, huzzah!

 

[FoolishOwl]

So far, I've been able to keep my economy more or less in balance, at least as far as I can tell. I've played 2.2 for about twenty hours, I think, and have only run into one peer empire, one fallen empire, and one raider; there's not been much competition.

Everything seems to be going much, much slower than it did prior to 2.2; I'm not sure how much is that the pace of gameplay itself has slowed, and how much is that the game is eating more CPU cycles than before. I'm thinking I may have to start over with a smaller map; I'd gone to huge maps to improve the odds of finding L-Gates. (I'd played on smaller maps, where there was only one L-Gate.)

But, the UI is really bad, especially with respect to discoverability. The menus are very busy. The icons are *tiny*, and often obscure each other. I was confused for a while because, especially when they're half obscured, it's hard to tell the "volatile" resource icon from the "amenities" resource icon. I keep seeing people refer to menus and options that I haven't been able to find yet, like setting priorities on different industries. And while discoverability is bad, the setup also seems to discourage experimentation.

 

[RagingMonkey]

I never said it was difficult, my point is it changed the priority of my time in game from fun things like exploration and war to planet management, something I could offload on a sector or completely ignore by going tall. You can argue this is "more complex" and the standard evolution of paradox games but really its just a change of priority for what I focus on in game to something that was always part of the background to me.

Maybe I'm wrong and a better planet UI will bring back some of the simplicity, but right now Stellaris is a very different game from before, more than any other expansion to date, and it seems most of the advocates in favour of the new system are established paradox fans.

Please stop with the condescension, its insulting and discourages genuine discussion about topics and dissuades new players from sharing their two cents. I'm well aware that I bought a game from a company who has other titles with complex mechanics and in depth resource systems. Do you really have an issue with paradox making a game that might appeal to those outside their established base? Why do they have to cater to a single demographic and homogenize all their games into convoluted spreadsheets.

The whole reason for forums is to share opinions, and mine is that Paradox finally made a game that appealed to me and my friends, with the same polish and lore standards they apply to their other games without similar mechanics, but now those mechanics are creeping in under the guise of being "deeper". If they want to make drastic new systems put them into a new game or a PTR, don't force them on people who already enjoy what we have, especially with their policy of releasing things in the hope of fixing and refining them later on because now I have to deal with all those unfinished things indefinitely if I roll back to a patch with my style of gameplay.

I think we've done a pretty good job hijacking this thread already, but I made a topic here in which I express my dislike for the new direction and implementation, with ways I feel could bring the new system back in line with what I liked about the old game. Perhaps it's mostly the UI and the half-assed way in which the resource system was implemented that I dislike about the new system, I don't know. I'm just distinctly aware of how much time I spend in the planet manager in 2.2 and how little I now enjoy the biggest feature stellaris has which is the galaxy itself.

You're blaming established paradox fans for the direction the developers take the game. THEY are the developers, they design the game in their vision. You keep bringing up diehard fans like somehow we're this negative influence? We're not some boogie man out to ruin everyone's experience. You're being quite selfish in INSISTING that we are this out of touch, ruling elite oppressing the every day silent Paradox player, simply because the game is going in a direction you disagree with. I mean, seriously?

We're not disagreeing with your opinion because we're evil monsters, we're not being critical of the way you're presenting yourself because we're prejudiced assholes who want to mercilessly manipulate the game how we want it to be. We're disagreeing with you and being critical of you because you're insisting that everyone change for how you want the game and also insisting you represent the everyman player, when you have absolutely NO IDEA if that is true at all. The development team have taken the game a certain way. You don't like that. Fine, express that, but don't start with your flailing about moaning about how oppressed you are on these forums.

I mean, as said before, you're complaining that Paradox makes the games that Paradox is known for? Sure, we get it, you don't like that, fine. But alot of people CLEARLY do like that, because Paradox have been growing pretty consistently. The option to roll back the game version exists for exactly this circumstance, I would suggest you utilise it.

 

[cscx]

I'm gonna pop-up again and suggest that trying things out and succeeding or failing is inescapably part of a game. What I'm, sort of, up against is that you can never learn from failure, if one wrong click 5-30 minutes back in time affects all current clicks in a way that makes them bad moves. You can't just tie the two together in your head and realize the influence of the original wrong click. So you are stuck with learning 'academically' (reading wikis/forums about why it may have happened), as opposed to from gaming experience.
Nothing warns you, when you build a new building on an empty tile that this may become a major problem if coupled, latter on, with a plus button click.
(assuming that was my original problem and if I have understood things correctly now)
Long term repercussions of player actions are fine, as long as the player can actually possibly identify the possible causes, right?

The other thing that adds to the above, is that things should look their part and function, if possible. Tiles are obvious, because of CIV. Specialists look like something in CIV but work differently, which creates some confusion. And actions with potential bad repercussions should sound the part, if possible; e.g. "adopt martial law", click on "raise taxes" etc. "Build a power station" doesn't.
Common-sense real world experience should align with gaming experience in a strategy game. It is common-sense that people/pops might not want to be demoted (GOOD), but nowhere does the UI tell you "click this to demote a pop and suffer the consequences", right? Surely bad actions should be an actual action that you can do, and not just a consequence of another action? This would add both clarity AND depth.

And last but not least, micromanaging a city/planet should be doable in a glance and on the surface (because there may be a LOT of it). Submenues and subscreens are just a bad UI programming practice (personal opinion).
I just can't be spending that much time on the planet screen(s) - meaning I don't want to, but I feel like I have to. Other people have already said this, but it was my original experience with my first planet in my first game. I do want to spend time on the planet screens and in a meaningful way, but both the situation and the possible solutions need to be apparent and on the surface and without having to think numbers through every single time, even for minor problems (I could be wrong that this is the actual state of current planet management - no actual experience and all that).

 

[RagingMonkey]

I'm gonna pop-up again and suggest that trying things out and succeeding or failing is inescapably part of a game. What I'm, sort of, up against is that you can never learn from failure, if one wrong click 5-30 minutes back in time affects all current clicks in a way that makes them bad moves. You can't just tie the two together in your head and realize the influence of the original wrong click. So you are stuck with learning 'academically' (reading wikis/forums about why it may have happened), as opposed to from gaming experience.
Nothing warns you, when you build a new building on an empty tile that this may become a major problem if coupled, latter on, with a plus button click.
(assuming that was my original problem and if I have understood things correctly now)
Long term repercussions of player actions are fine, as long as the player can actually possibly identify the possible causes, right?

The other thing that adds to the above, is that things should look their part and function, if possible. Tiles are obvious, because of CIV. Specialists look like something in CIV but work differently, which creates some confusion. And actions with potential bad repercussions should sound the part, if possible; e.g. "adopt martial law", click on "raise taxes" etc. "Build a power station" doesn't.
Common-sense real world experience should align with gaming experience in a strategy game. It is common-sense that people/pops might not want to be demoted (GOOD), but nowhere does the UI tell you "click this to demote a pop and suffer the consequences", right? Surely bad actions should be an actual action that you can do, and not just a consequence of another action? This would add both clarity AND depth.

And last but not least, micromanaging a city/planet should be doable in a glance and on the surface (because there may be a LOT of it). Submenues and subscreens are just a bad UI programming practice (personal opinion).
I just can't be spending that much time on the planet screen(s) - meaning I don't want to, but I feel like I have to. Other people have already said this, but it was my original experience with my first planet in my first game. I do want to spend time on the planet screens and in a meaningful way, but both the situation and the possible solutions need to be apparent and on the surface and without having to think numbers through every single time, even for minor problems (I could be wrong that this is the actual state of current planet management - no actual experience and all that).

If anything, the new game design lines up perfectly with real life economic management: make an educated estimation of the best way to expand/what decision to take, wait a while and see if it actually helped.

Also, micromanaging SHOULD require lots of fiddling.... that's why it's called micromanaging.

This new planet managment/economic system was DESIGNED to make player choices have greater, more meaningful impact, and require some actual forethought and planning beyond click this, click that, click this, never look at the planet ever again.

 

[cscx]

This is still not an argument against having the option to "click here to demote a pop and suffer the consequences"- for example, as a possible fix to the non-intuitive, one-way street, "hidden" features of the economics/planet management, wherever and whatever they might be (maybe its just this one?).

 

[Gyrvendal]

I've seen plenty of people say that clerks suck because you don't really need that many amenities. I've taken over some AI-built planets with tons of clerks, and they don't seem to be all that great.

Clerks work extremely well with slaves, since slaves have almost no maintenance costs. In a free empire (or god forbid shared burdens), the barely produce enough to pay for their own maintenance, but in a slaver empire, you can have tousands of them at very little cost.

 

[cscx]

BTW 'one-way street' features prevent and discourage "fiddling", fiddling is the actual goal here.

 

[SpectralShade]

Not to be "that guy", but you're clearly aware of what every other major Paradox game is like. This is obviously their thing - they like complexity and nested systems - and while Stellaris is a different setting and a move in a different direction it's still clearly within the wheelhouse of their other games.

So, what on Earth is surprising about them doing in this new game what they've done with all their previous games?

new game?

we are talking about 2.2 patch that fundamentally changed the gameplay of a game that have been sold since 2016...

The question is more: "what on earth makes anyone think it is not surprising that a game that have sold good enough to still be actively developed and sold DLC for after 2 years suddenly needed a totally different gameplay experience when the previous experience seemed to be the one that actually sold all those units as well as kept people buying DLC's?"

 

[sillyrobot]

If anything, the new game design lines up perfectly with real life economic management: make an educated estimation of the best way to expand/what decision to take, wait a while and see if it actually helped.

Also, micromanaging SHOULD require lots of fiddling.... that's why it's called micromanaging.

This new planet managment/economic system was DESIGNED to make player choices have greater, more meaningful impact, and require some actual forethought and planning beyond click this, click that, click this, never look at the planet ever again.

Then the design failed. There really isn't that much meaningful impact or required forethought. I open the planet screen and look at 3 numbers: current population, maximum working population, and available housing. It's mostly continual busy work.

• If the current population is equal to or lower than the maximum working population, but available housing is greater than 1, close the screen.
  
• If available housing is less than 2, I know I'll need to build something with Housing, almost certainly a district and almost certainly a City district. Issue the order and close the screen.
  
• If the current population if sufficiently higher than the current maximum working population, there is available housing, AND a building slot is available, queue a building to improve production levels on something I care about. Close the screen.
• If I made to here, build a district to help with current demand and close the screen.

 

[cscx]

Conversion of resources to other resources might be another 'one-way street' feature, now that I have thought about it a bit more, but this is not something that I can back up with any actual experience, positive or negative (never got to that point - I got this feeling from the second youtube video in the original topic post).

 

[SpectralShade]

If anything, the new game design lines up perfectly with real life economic management: make an educated estimation of the best way to expand/what decision to take, wait a while and see if it actually helped.

Also, micromanaging SHOULD require lots of fiddling.... that's why it's called micromanaging.

This new planet managment/economic system was DESIGNED to make player choices have greater, more meaningful impact, and require some actual forethought and planning beyond click this, click that, click this, never look at the planet ever again.

I disagree. having the magic market create resources out of thin air to compensate the flawed economic model in the game has nothing to do with realism.
The fact that they felt a need to put such a thing into the game should tell everything there is to say about how flawed the model is.

 

[FoolishOwl]

I picked up my ongoing game last night, and made the mistake of upgrading two alloy forges, which had an enormous negative impact on the economy. Fortunately, I can downgrade them.

But I'm reminded of the designers' commentary for Civilization V, where they made a point that most improvements, upgrades, etc., had only positive modifiers; it made more intuitive sense that way.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

But if you take away trade offs what are you left with? Right now theresactual play systems to tinker with yeah it takes some practace so does anything worth calling a game.

 

[FoolishOwl]

But if you take away trade offs what are you left with? Right now theresactual play systems to tinker with yeah it takes some practace so does anything worth calling a game.

It's not that there were no trade-offs, just that, it made it clearer what choices you were making. It doesn't make a lot of intuitive sense to me that upgrading a forge means my economy collapses; it ought to mean, well, I've got an upgraded forge that gives me one benefit, instead of something else that would have given me a different benefit.

As things stand now, it's like I go to the grocery store, and think, "Hey, I've got $300 in checking; I can afford the really good coffee today," and get home to find out that my partner is divorcing me because somehow buying more expensive coffee killed our cat.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

It's not that there were no trade-offs, just that, it made it clearer what choices you were making. It doesn't make a lot of intuitive sense to me that upgrading a forge means my economy collapses; it ought to mean, well, I've got an upgraded forge that gives me one benefit, instead of something else that would have given me a different benefit.

As things stand now, it's like I go to the grocery store, and think, "Hey, I've got $300 in checking; I can afford the really good coffee today," and get home to find out that my partner is divorcing me because somehow buying more expensive coffee killed our cat.

But, so long as you know one thing: Building the forge will take workers from elsewhere, where is the surprise? Is 'This thing provides more desirable jobs than that thing' thus creating a trade-off so very hard to understand? I mean I get the first time you do it it can be a nasty surprise. Happened to me in spectacular style. But the second and on? You know what's going to happen. You know there's no punishment to having open slots... I'm not seeing this as a bad system, but rather its a bad communication of a system.