Everyone is IMPACTED by poor balance whether they consider it a problem or not, yes.
Hivemind 2.6, Society output gone?
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May be removing 33% bonus assembly from Flesh is Weak and mass produced trait is a good way to start? This will reduce late game synthetics growth and will give a chance for other ascention paths to perform better.
I don't see that. In many of my games, which AI flourish and which don't depends on spawn proximity to other AI or which ones lucked out with Advanced starts. I've seen AI machine empires get chewed up by neighbours, so to say they are dominant is just wrong.
Often xenophobe empires are huge because of their cheaper influence costs.
Personally I don't think Poor Balance is Stellaris biggest problem, because the game is a strategy game. If you find yourself in a situation where you have less power than a neighbour, then you apply some strategy and problem solve.
The Pro Balance crew are, in my opinion, actively sabotaging Stellaris. What does Balance even mean?
It seems to mean every player should have the same power/capabilities at all points of the game, so relative progress remains equivalent.
Nobody knows what is "balance".
When from 5 empire types(machine, hive mind, regular synt, regular bio, regular psi) one empire always banned in multiplayer (Machine) and one other(synth) having everything(pop growth, pop output, pop maintrance) in economy just better then all other - that isn't look like balanced game.
I think that would indeed be a good idea to remove the pop assembly bonus from The Flesh is Weak. The cyborg project does give all your pops +20% Habitability (worth 4 trait points) and +40 leader lifespan (worth +2 trait points) so that's 6 trait point in total and you need to perform it only once, which by itself is at least competitive if not superior to what you get from Engineered Evolution (+3 trait points, a building that gives +33% growth, -25% genemodding cost, guaranteed Gene Seed Purification research option).
I might also buff Engineered Evolution by adding Glandular Acclimation as a provided research option (the tech could still be researched by anyone, the perk would just give you the option to research it any time you want). The Flesh is Weak would then give you powerful generalist pops while Engineered Evolution would give you fast-growing specialized pops.
This is a bt off-topic, but since we're already speaking of ascension paths, how about making it possible to combine The Flesh is Weak, Engineered Evolution, and Mind Over Matter but doing so blocks you from being able to take the second perk in your ascension path? I can't see any balance problems emerging from this and it would fit certain empires better to use mixed benefits instead of going all-in on one (the Imperium of Man from Warhammer 40K for example arguably has all three basic ascension perks, but none of the second stage ones).
I might also buff Engineered Evolution by adding Glandular Acclimation as a provided research option (the tech could still be researched by anyone, the perk would just give you the option to research it any time you want). The Flesh is Weak would then give you powerful generalist pops while Engineered Evolution would give you fast-growing specialized pops.
This is a bt off-topic, but since we're already speaking of ascension paths, how about making it possible to combine The Flesh is Weak, Engineered Evolution, and Mind Over Matter but doing so blocks you from being able to take the second perk in your ascension path? I can't see any balance problems emerging from this and it would fit certain empires better to use mixed benefits instead of going all-in on one (the Imperium of Man from Warhammer 40K for example arguably has all three basic ascension perks, but none of the second stage ones).
Stellaris has mostly-symmetrical starts, so if one option is consistently underperforming and another is running away with the game, THAT'S A PROBLEM.
Machine empires being overpowered means that playing them is a cakewalk and trying to compete with them inordinately difficult.
Robots being overpowered means the "strategic" thing to do is ALWAYS build robots, which makes every game feel the same. There should be other options.
Exactly, nobody knows what "balance" is, so it's just a utopian dream.
Games always have metas and preferred playstyles. The point I'm making is that Stellaris is a strategy game, some asymmetry in outcomes is to be expected, so give us strategies to deal with it rather than making every game feel the same because every empire feels the same to play.
Stop shouting.
So what does balance mean then? Because the very vocal, pro-Balance crew aren't saying "Give us other options", they keep saying "Machines/Robots/Synths are OP, please nerf".
In a nutshell? Balance means you should be ambivalent between the various Big Decisions that the game gives you. A way to recognize a balanced game: there is no dominant starting setup or in-game strategy, even among people who are very good at the game.
It means there shouldn't be any strategy without a decent counter. It means it shouldn't be possible to build a faction that is much more likely to win from the start of the game than a completely different faction, if both of them are created (and played) by somebody who knows what they're doing. It means your big, mutually-exclusive decisions should be all about as likely to win the game on average (in any individual situation there might well be a superior choice, but that option should be inferior in some other situation that is about as likely to occur).
It doesn't mean all strategies are equally good - to use a StarCraft analogy, you're probably not going to win by doing anything that involves massing Queens, even though that could in theory be some part of a strategy, any more than a Stellaris player who spends all their alloys on Construction Ships is going to win - but it does mean there shouldn't be any strategy without a decent counter, and the counters should be different so that there isn't even a situation where one strategy beats everything except its specific counter.
Contrary to what you seem to think, defining and describing balance is easy. Achieving it is hard - especially in a game with as many "moving parts" as Stellaris, and even moreso considering how much randomness Stellaris has - but progress toward better balance is often easy: find some big choice the player makes that wins far more than the alternatives, and make it a little worse. Alternatively, find an approach that rarely wins (again, against equally-skilled enemies) and make it a bit better. Iterate.
Stellaris has so, so much low-hanging fruit of this sort. The power differences between the ascensions are huge. The difference between normal, machine, and hive intelligences is also huge. The tiny portion of the game's civics that are considered worth taking (in the competitive, "helps you win" sense), and the significant number that are considered such garbage as to not even ever be situationally worthwhile, is a clear indication that something's wrong.
And don't complain that there's not enough suggestions. Even this thread has had a bunch of them, and others have had many, many more. Civic updates, ethic tweaks, various changes to some authority types, making trait costs commensurate with their benefits, hive fixes, machine nerfs, ascension perk re-works, ascension path adjustments, overhauls to ships/sections/weapons/defenses/tracking/PD/etc... There have been suggestions galore.
''What is balance?''
It's REALLY simple and, honestly I fail to understand how people don't get it straight away.
Does one ethic/gov. type/civic consistently (important word here) outperform others/ underperform by a large margin to the point where if you were trying to win you would always/never pick it? Not balance.
When asking players to tell you how often they use civic X and they go ''Rarely if I'm trying to win, because it's complete garbage, but sometimes I roleplay with it'' Not balance
Examples?
Very good civics: Technocracy, Byzantine Bur., pre 2.2 Mining Guilds, DA, etc.
Very weak civics: Shadow Council, The ones that buff army strength, Feudal Society, Exalted Priesthood, etc.
Solution? Nerf and Buff accordingly. How much? Just go for it. You can adjust again based on feedback. Keep going until they're all fairly good.
At present MEs outperform others because of their growth (all else such as player skill being held constant), so we nerf the growth. Now MEs are no longer the clearly optimal strategy.
What you're aiming for is Civ5's Tradition vs Liberty.
I don't know if you've played Civ5 but the two are basically the equivalent of unity traditions (except it's a bit difficult to get both and you usually choose between them). One encourages you to build a few big cities (tall) while the other to spread out (wide). The first is great if you're going for a science or culture victory, the other is great if you're aiming for a conquest victory.
The important thing to note is that they are equally likely to lead to victory in the hands of a skilled player. If you watch pro Civ5 players give people meta advice they will never suggest one is categorically better, only that each excels at different things.
Now obviously depending on the world set up, domination victory may be a suboptimal approach thereby making tradition suboptimal. But the opposite can also be true, and ultimately neither of the two is the clearly better option given the average map type. In other words, they are balanced.
There are two reasons this is important:
1) In singleplayer a lot of players wish to use x civic for thematic purposes, but knowing it is suboptimal detracts from the enjoyment somewhat
2) In Multi where players ultimately derive enjoyment from competition and victory, the diversity of the game is greatly diminished as one would never pick a civic like idealistic foundation instead of say Meritocracy, if they were trying to win. Likewise, all empires being allowed, one would be handicapping themselves if they went as a Hive, or if they didn't use robots even as spiritualist (because it is always better and that's the problem)
Don't get me wrong, I love robots more than the average guy (might even major in that field) but at a certain point after building a robot plant on the nth planet, because it's categorically better in all cases to do so and I WANT TO TRASH my best friend at multi again, I just think to myself ''I wish this wasn't the only viable strategy, because I'm getting sick of looking at droid pops all the time. I'm supposed to be purging them thematically speaking, but I'm not gonna nuke myself in the foot, sooo ...''
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She... she literally says it. Stop with this 'nobody knows what balance even means' nonsense.
i don't think you actualy read my post at this point . its not that machine grow rate is too high , its that organics one is REALY low , and was made that way after nerfing xenophile organics that could fill entire planets in month with multiple race growth and migratory treaty .
you don't have to take from machine \ sinth uniqueness , you have to give back biological pops theyrs .
in a grand strategy game , all touch will greatly destabilize balance , because things adds up over and over creating snowballing , but i'm more on the side of giving and adding uniqueness , rather than buldozzing evrything in a flat .
aaah ... the old days when evryone was complaining that the sinth ascension was the weakest ... give the other more unique traits , don't go around removing possibility of competition .
atm the sinth ascension is the only one competing with machine empires, why not making other empire type able to follow , insteat of flattering evrything in a flavorless mass ?
Machines already got their nerfs with new admin limit.
So, we got 2 underpowered ascention paths.
I think it is much more easy to nerf 1 path, rather then buff 2 others.
No she says what imbalance is, and implies balance is not imbalance. That point was obvious and trivial. Negative definition isn't good enough.
I don't think it's nonsense. There's a consistent element on this forum who calls for reduction to mediocrity and the elimination of interesting and viable strategies in the name of Balance. This discussion highlights the issue I have - "There should be other options" =/= nerf machines and robots.
Now, you've already said to me you don't consider that the lack of asymmetry in Stellaris is a problem. So which is it?
Besides which, the "machines always dominate" claim is false.
this is a good point ; but you should considerate that evrytime they nerf something , it become realy weak . since they tryed to "change and change" to try fix things (making them underpower most of the time) maybe its time to keep things that work there, and change things that are behind .
why is there a nerf to growth in new colonies at all ? why there is no bonus\malus for number of pops\space when growing a new pop? why you can't grow 2 pops at the same time (for hive) ?
atm, hiveminds are nervestample organics that can't use robots. they are giving them something more in 2.6 so i guess we will have to see how things go .
the fact remain that i will always be against "removing" things from those that are considerate "OP" , and always in favor of giving to the underdog.
Synthetics can reach more Pops growth per month.
3 robotists from capital, 1 from plant = 4.
Each produce 2 assembly points.
4 * 2 = 8
With 33% from Flesh is Weak and 15% from trait on robots: +48%
8 * 1.48 = 11.84
And you still can grow organics!
That is extra 6 points.
So, 17 Pops points per month. Can you stop that?
So, with that we shall at least get some rotation in players builds and so.
That is better, then playing only on Synthetics for one year(since 2.3)
Defining balance is simple. It's a probability curve noting how often and by what margin a given type of empire wins the game. If a game is imbalanced then there will be one or more empires that fall outside the curve on a consistent basis, winning or losing more often than other empires in a statistically significant way.
If a game is balanced then most empires will have a roughly equal chance of winning the game or being knocked out early.
It's not something inherent in the game. It's an emergent property from observing hundreds or thousands of games and noting which empires statistically win/lose more often than not.
If a game is balanced then most empires will have a roughly equal chance of winning the game or being knocked out early.
It's not something inherent in the game. It's an emergent property from observing hundreds or thousands of games and noting which empires statistically win/lose more often than not.
It precisely is good enough. We shouldn't have to spoon-feed you definitions word by word. I know for a fact you're smart enough to figure it out.
When you were talking about asymmetry I took you to mean literal asymmetry in mechanics, along the lines of one side being in Total War and the other not, not asymmetry in power levels. You were saying the 'lack' of asymmetry was a problem, and I said that no it wasn't.
Nope. Machines empires wind up with WAAAAAY too many POPs by the endgame. Far more than they can actually use. It's too high. Organic POP growth rates are more reasonable, and the game actually, y'know, works with empires that have them.
its only a problem of alowing hive to have another pop grow at the same time , or giving space for organics to reptroduce and not just nerf to growth rate of new colonies over the already taxing habitability . the math is simple, but the use and price of each pop is not, robot offer a great plus to organic empire for growth speed , but are limited in the resources they gather and upkeeps ; growing pop increase economy but hit other aspect .
i think they should give back the reproduction top particularity to hive by alowing the growth of 2 different pops , and organics buff to the growth rate based on the number of non-robotic pops and planet space , this way empire that don't use robots and have free space for that, will have greater growth with theyr organics .
mhh... with evrything sayd, i see machine and sinth snowballing , but not trascending theyr "order of magnitude" of early - mid - late - end game . so i don't think theyr growth rate is particolary problematic for the game timing balance .
edit: having too many pops its actualy a "crysis" , having to keep creating space or stopping growth is a meccanic of the game.
even if i can say that for evry new expansion, i've see a speed up in game progression overall . new meccanics added new ways to reach more resources and this speeded up the game. cosnidering that now you can match the old leviatans by 2230 .