The free update of the base game had all the changes with 2.2. So, the review bombing found the right target.
How can so many major game aspects be broken?
- Thread starter BlackholePD
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
I will switch my reviews back to positive when the game comes back to a good and playable stance like many other people with negative reviews. But at the moment: No recommendation for new players from me. And as others said, the 2.2 update is free for all Stellatis players. All other DLCs are broken together with the base so all of them are negative reviewed atm. Sad story...
Absolutely not, but i feel the "fault" has been caused by the will to sell enough Megacorp DLCs before Christmas. So, without Megacorp, 2.2 would have been released in 2019, with hoepfully half the problems already solved before release.
But probably, new players wouldn't check the reviews on the last DLC, only those of the base game, so bombing the DLC wouldn't "send the warning" to them.
Revbombing aside, the best possible message is just not buying next DLC on release. It's day one and preorders that push companies to release problematic products: if people waited a week or so before buying, and don't buy unless the product is in a sufficiently polished state, there wouldn't be incentive to rush release date. People wouldn't buy a rushed product on Dec 6th, so why bother? Polish it and release in 2019, avoid backlash, cash in the same or even more.
I think the problem goes much deeper: I do not think that the DLC system established in CK2 and EU4 works well with Stellaris and HOI4, because CK2 and EU4 are much less depended on balance and AI performance.
One reason is, that CK2 and EU4 are much more asymmetric games. In CK2 and EU4, you can always pick a smaller nation to have a more difficult experience, without giving the AI artificial boni. Therefor, the AI performance is less important.Furthermore, it does not matter that much if a character trait in CK2 is to strong, if a national idea in EU4 is very weak. It also does not matter that if a patch is changing the balance of the game.
In contrast to that, HOI4 needs a historical balance between the Allies, Axis and Comintern. Also, since you are fighting only one large war, the AI performance is extremely important. In Stellaris is a very symmetric game. Generally, all nations have a very similar starting conditions. Therefor, the AI must be good enough to compete with a human player. Balance is also a larger concern, especially since, in contrast to CK2, there is no real incentive to play inefficiently. In CK2 the player is encouraged to make strategically suboptimal decision. Having a bad character trait can lead to some interesting or funny events/developments. In Stellaris, picking a bad civic like "Warrior Culture" does not provide you with any interesting events etc. It is just a bad civic, which some player might pick for role-play purpose.
This has consequences for the development of DLC. In EU4, you could bring new national ideas or a new mechanic for a specific religion without rebalancing everything or being overly concerned about the AI performance. Also, this type of new content requires very little time in play testing (in case of new national ideas) giving more time to test the stronger mechanical changes. In contrast to that, the new planetary management in Stellaris affects basically every other aspect of the game: New and different technologies are required, their cost must be balanced, all traditions must be changed, the cost of ships is now different etc., additional to the huge balance and AI application. This requires a different amount of people, a different distribution of skill sets etc. The formula which is working for CK2 and EU4 might therefor not work for Stellaris or HOI4.
One reason is, that CK2 and EU4 are much more asymmetric games. In CK2 and EU4, you can always pick a smaller nation to have a more difficult experience, without giving the AI artificial boni. Therefor, the AI performance is less important.Furthermore, it does not matter that much if a character trait in CK2 is to strong, if a national idea in EU4 is very weak. It also does not matter that if a patch is changing the balance of the game.
In contrast to that, HOI4 needs a historical balance between the Allies, Axis and Comintern. Also, since you are fighting only one large war, the AI performance is extremely important. In Stellaris is a very symmetric game. Generally, all nations have a very similar starting conditions. Therefor, the AI must be good enough to compete with a human player. Balance is also a larger concern, especially since, in contrast to CK2, there is no real incentive to play inefficiently. In CK2 the player is encouraged to make strategically suboptimal decision. Having a bad character trait can lead to some interesting or funny events/developments. In Stellaris, picking a bad civic like "Warrior Culture" does not provide you with any interesting events etc. It is just a bad civic, which some player might pick for role-play purpose.
This has consequences for the development of DLC. In EU4, you could bring new national ideas or a new mechanic for a specific religion without rebalancing everything or being overly concerned about the AI performance. Also, this type of new content requires very little time in play testing (in case of new national ideas) giving more time to test the stronger mechanical changes. In contrast to that, the new planetary management in Stellaris affects basically every other aspect of the game: New and different technologies are required, their cost must be balanced, all traditions must be changed, the cost of ships is now different etc., additional to the huge balance and AI application. This requires a different amount of people, a different distribution of skill sets etc. The formula which is working for CK2 and EU4 might therefor not work for Stellaris or HOI4.
I’d very much like to like this release and a lot of the ideas behind it are great. But the general feeling I get is that the goal was to complicate every possible game aspect to give players more stuff to compulsively click, push it out half finished before holidays, and then fix it gradually with the major undertaking excuse. Honestly I feel like I’m working as a professional beta tester but not getting paid, in fact I paid. And thanks for the decals (and thanks for all the fish!)
At this point Megacorp should be renamed Megaflop
At this point Megacorp should be renamed Megaflop
I think that this is very perceptive. I had not thought of the issue in that way before.
Factorio has an OUTSTANINGLY good Develiopment process that is more then up to date with the latests best practices - this and they have at least a few very very good Software engineers - far beyond average.
That beeing said, Factorio, in my perception, is the gold standard of Game Development atm. While it would be nice it can not be expected the same from other companies. Simply b.c. you need the right heads together at the right time to achieve something like this. Others have to work hard to achieve what they allready have.
You just have to look at EU4 to get an eye opener regarding Paradox's policies. They literally said that they care only about sales figures and not about reviews, which they see as a vocal minority. So you can complain however much you like, Paradox doesn't care about that.
Does this surprise anybody?
Also DDR Jake said ,and I'm paraphrasing here, That they put more emphasis on sales not that they don't care about reviews what so ever.
The ironic part about all of this is if the game gets bad reviews and sells less, there's even less incentive for Paradox to devote more resources to fixing Stellaris vs giving those resources to a game that's reviewing and selling better.
If they don't care about reviews and even what people/we write on the forums, then all this is just for the fantastic illusion of making us think that we matter/that our opinions, problems, issues and bugreports matter. (There are some 15000 posts of bugreports) And if that's true then that's just incredibly sad.
I know, you shouldn't put too much stock into say Trustpilot, but Paradox Interactive isn't getting the best score / reviews on there.
I speculate, that if Paradox doesn't change this 'company policy' of releasing unfinished games, which need a lot of patching, patching and patching, it will only get worse in the future. The internet and youtube is a very 'talkative' place. People read about other companies that try to trick and scam their customers through often quite questionable means, Bethesda, EA, Ubisoft, Activision/Blizzard - all releasing products that are of questionable quality and design. And all are receiving a massive backlash from their behaviour because they've stopped making games to players and are now only making games to shareholders. And Paradox Interactive also have shareholders...
Last edited:
Factorio is way simplier than Stellaris with fewer features and game mechanisms by a very large margin.
I doubt they could be that responsive if the game was as complex as Stellaris is...
That's all the genious of Factorio : simple concepts and game mechanisms, infinite possibilities. But the game is for a very small niche of player (basically I still have to find one non dev player that really enjoy it).
But that still should be a good teaching for PDS : do less thing, but do them well, think them hard and rework all that can be related to them ; that could avoid all this mess...
Last edited:
.png){kind=avatar}
At the end of the day, the more negative the reviews, the less units will sold, so indirectly it will sum up to the same i guess, of cause this effect is less noticable the longer the product already is on the market, but it will be noticable if not handled correctly by Paradox. Since the team got budget for fixes (and i hope its enough to finaly polish Stellaris), they know this also.
My friend and I are no game devs and we quite enjoy Factorio.
Now there's the game Satisfactory on the horizon, which is basically Factorio in 3D; can't wait!
I know the franchise, but this isn't really true, honestly. Rome II is more complex than Rome I as a strategy game, and more historically accurate (Rome I was literally a joke on that account). I think it actually has a more complex government model than EUIV vanilla on paper, it's just that it didn't work for a long time, and still is quite obscure. They "casualized" battles, in that they made them lightning fast and more hard counter based like classical RTS, but there are people (not me, but still) who would argue that increased the skill ceiling especially for multiplayer. So yeah, it's not really clear cut.
.png){kind=avatar}
huh deleted 4 Pages?
i know some harsch words where said from some members but delete all comments?
Edit:
sorry wrong thread
it seems a whole thread gone missing
i know some harsch words where said from some members but delete all comments?
Edit:
sorry wrong thread
it seems a whole thread gone missing