I am frustrated with 2.2. Reasons why, and suggested remedies.

[Jazzbanana]

I've honestly never got even close to crashing my economy in 2.2 (yet). In my experience it's pretty straightforward to understand, or better yet, to work around the imbalanced and suboptimal mess that is the current planetary management. Not saying it's ok, just that it never happened to me.

 

[Elm0__]

In the current release, planetary management is far more a "reactionary paradigm" than a planning paradigm, meaning that the most efficient way to manage your planets is to react a single primary event, pop growth, to plan your next planet action rather than simply periodically scanning the planets, deciding what improvements you want to make, queuing them up, and moving on to the next task.

Regarding the "planning" paradigm, I think that having some option to add notes/annotations to planets (for example - to describe construction plans for yourself as to not have to remember them or even use system notepad) would be quite handy.

 

[SS Boss]

My hope is that Paradox doesn't dumb down the new system because people doesn't have the capability to "micromanage" (i.e take actual and relevant decisions instead of the automated clicking of the old tile system borefest).The system is great. There's a lot of things that need polishing and bugfixing, but please, don't change the essence of the new system.

 

[SpectralShade]

My hope is that Paradox doesn't dumb down the new system because people doesn't have the capability to "micromanage" (i.e take actual and relevant decisions instead of the automated clicking of the old tile system borefest).The system is great. There's a lot of things that need polishing and bugfixing, but please, don't change the essence of the new system.

This makes me think of people arguing to coca cola back in the days that 'the new recipe is just awesome! keep it even if some people dislike it!" when tried out the "new coke"

We all know how that went... (hopefully we all know).

 

[Scorpio_Shirica]

"Now I'm focused not on my empire and being an executive, I'm a micromanager in the accounting office."

This. Exactly this is my own problem with 2.2.

Speaking only for myself, I do not want to play a game simulating the everyday work of finance and trade ministers. As important as economy micromanagement and structure is to a nation I personally find it incredibly dry and uninteresting and managing it is outright tedious. It feels too much like WORK for a game.

I want to play as president or fleet admiral, making top level executive decisions on the direction and policies of my country, and major military strategic level decisions. Pre 2.2 this was the majority of what the player did in this game and I loved it. Economy was abstracted and could be largely ignored beyond balancing the budget in two resources and saving up for capital projects or stockpiling to run deficits during wartime or rapid expansion.

In my humble opinion, I believe the current massively enhanced complexity can be left in just the way it is for those who want the more traditional Paradox spreadsheet management economy simulator. Just offer the option to AUTOMATE it. If I do not choose to micromanage the economy I might sacrifice some potential efficiency gain. I am willing to accept that as long as the automated mode will produce comparable, competitive results vs the AI empires. In fact, I would opine that this will produce a more "realistic" experience at the executive level, since in reality most nations do not have a god emperor possessing relative super-intelligence running their economies at maximum efficiency. The fact that as a human I can out-think and out-plan any AI in a micro heavy economy simulator is an unfair advantage that the developers are forced to balance by giving arbitrary bonuses to the AI.

For those that derive great satisfaction in crafting and managing a highly complex (for a game) economic model the option would remain and they can play and win this way. But I for one would love to have the option to avoid at least the vast majority of micromanaging the economy and leave that to a competitively competent AI. It does NOT have to be anywhere close to maximum efficient. Just competitively competent vs its peers in game. And I'll manage the executive decisions within the budget and resources it provides me.

I feel like there is another 4X space game that has this that devs could take some inspiration from... the flexible and optional automation for large complex economies... ever heard of Distant Worlds: Universe?

 

[Hyomoto]

While it's true there are flaws and things to address, to be blunt: 2.2 is the single most played version since launch and you are playing it wrong.

The reality is it is now possible to be bad at Stellaris and make mistakes. While the economy is pretty easy to handle, it is a lot more dynamic, and policies, edicts and species rights matter. What you build matters. When and how you build matters. If you want to play 2.1's "spam all the relevant bindings" now, you'll have a bad time. Planets are developed, and redeveloped over time.

Most of these negative comments ultimately come down to "it's a new system, you don't know how to play". I'll admit 2.2 isn't flawless, and that's an easy concession to make. The UI needs love (this is a ongoing problem in Stellaris), and if the AI did a better job, even paranoid, obsessive nanny players would be less inclined to try to micromanage everything. But, that said, you are playing the game wrong and most of these complaints and suggestions will seem silly and pointless as you learn.

 

[SpectralShade]

While it's true there are flaws and things to address, to be blunt: 2.2 is the single most played version since launch and you are playing it wrong.

The reality is it is now possible to be bad at Stellaris and make mistakes. While the economy is pretty easy to handle, it is a lot more dynamic, and policies, edicts and species rights matter. What you build matters. When and how you build matters. If you want to play 2.1's "spam all the relevant bindings" now, you'll have a bad time. Planets are developed, and redeveloped over time.

Most of these negative comments ultimately come down to "it's a new system, you don't know how to play". I'll admit 2.2 isn't flawless, and that's an easy concession to make. The UI needs love (this is a ongoing problem in Stellaris), and if the AI did a better job, even paranoid, obsessive nanny players would be less inclined to try to micromanage everything. But, that said, you are playing the game wrong and most of these complaints and suggestions will seem silly and pointless as you learn.

newsflash: being bad was possible pre le guin too. The difference now is that being "good" wasn't as tedious and mindnumbingly boring back then as it is now.

I used to pride myself on trying to play optimally, especially in multiplayer. After Le Guin I simply can't be arsed playing optimally because doing so would be so frustratingly boring that I would start wondering why I even loaded up the game instead of something that was fun.

 

[calen]

God, why are so many people acting like elites ass hats? "We can't have the game work for everyone, the game is only meant to work for us!" I mean seriously the logic of these people.

 

[Mikhail_Mengsk]

The difference now is that being "good" wasn't as tedious and mindnumbingly boring back then as it is now.

Yeah, clicking the upgrade buttons on 300 buildings over 20 planets for the all the 3 or 5 tiers, i don't even remember, was SOOOOO fun and not a clickfest at all.

 

[SpectralShade]

Yeah, clicking the upgrade buttons on 300 buildings over 20 planets for the all the 3 or 5 tiers, i don't even remember, was SOOOOO fun and not a clickfest at all.

except you didn't need to do that. Lay out the groundwork and let the sector governor handle upgrades with orders not to redevelop.

No need to thank me for removing a ton of of the work you didn't like without impacting the game.

in comparison, le guin added a ton of clicks and is NOW a clickfest in comparison. Especially because you need to go through the planets all the time just to 'check up on them' to see if you can click now instead of haivng to wait.

Seriously. there is not any less clicking in le guin. Quite the opposite, and now you can't even plan it ahead proper like you could in the past but need to suffer through the artificial timepadding that forces you to spend time doing what a properly designed interface could have done.

Do you think it is good design that you have to wait for the first anchorage to be built on a starbase to be able to order the logistics module on that starbase? No? Then why on earth would it be a good design to let that type of design infest the majority of the economy now?

 

[Andrzej2]

This game is finally getting more interesting for me. It's not even close to being complicated enough. I still miss more fleshed out characters and internal politics.


Paradox was always associated with complex strategy games. I hate the fact that after their titles became more popular we have a lot of normies who are trying to push thier dumbed vision of how paradox game should look like.

At least in Stellaris these new mechanics have meaning, everything is connected and give an illusion of working, real State. Would you rather prefer it Eu4 style - only some shallow coockie clicker like buttons that you need to click from time to time to get some points?

Sure this reworked system still has room for improvement but core changes are good and overall direction of Stellaris development is correct. Saying that 2.2 ruined the game is complete nonsense.

 

[Rybear]

Wow. I did not realize what I was starting with that post. Genuinely, just trying to get feedback to the dev team about a game I liked, and now don't like as much.

Why? Because they changed the thing I liked about it. I acknowledge it is different, I just don't like the difference.

My analogy is this:
The ice cream shop had my favorite flavor of ice cream, Cookie Dough. I enjoyed eating it. Sometimes with hot fudge, sometimes not.
The ice cream shop decided to change the recipe.
Thye used to muse chocolate chip cookie dough and now they have changed to chocolate-mint dough.
There's some texture similarity to what I was eating before, and I do like it. Just not as much.
When I want ice cream, I don't usually want this. I really liked what they served before and I'm sad they stopped making it the way I liked it.

I do not expect that we will have the same favorite flavor of ice cream. No amount of talking will change our tastes.

I'll respond to a few things said on the thread. Most of this is opinion - and everyone has one, and we know what that means.

1. CLICK FEST. Someone pointed this out, and I think it hits the mark very well. There are WAY TOO MANY CLICKS to accomplish a thing. In commercial software we do studies on this all the time. How usable is <X> feature? What do people have to do all the time, and how do we make that easier? There is so much clicking to manage planets, etc, that it gets in the way of playing the game. This feels like a major update that was rushed out for some reason.
2. "WHAT'S WRONG WITH MICRO? I LIKE MICRO!" Good. Enjoy the micro! I'm glad the game is more playable for you and more fun. I'm not being sarcastic, I'm glad you like the thing you like. In my case, I don't have a ton of hours to play games. This game offered me a fun strategic RTS experience with interesting challenges and "just the right amount" of micro. Now, too much, and it feels like work. I really think that some good UI work would solve this, but I'll have to wait for it, if I get it at all.
3. SECTOR GOVERNORS. If I didn't have to have 25+ governors, sure, that would work. That's what I'm asking for. Give me back the old sector style. Maybe add some depth to the kinds of instructions you can give them. I really would be happy with just the old style and offloading all the micro to them. I can still micro a few planets at a time for whatever reason I want, which I did previously. I will absolutely give that a shot and see if it solves my personal flavor-preference-problem.
4. DASHBOARD. Someone pointed this out and I really love the idea. It would align with the "executive" concept. I've done some dashboard designs for businessess and the concept is "management of the exception", in this case meaning "(1) Show me everything in a simple format. (2) Highlight cleanly what is going well and poorly. (3) Enable me to drill into the details of any area that I want, so that I may solve problems or exploit advantages". Applying this to a full planet list - not limited to within a sector (especially when I have 60 sectors!) would probably help a lot.

Last, an appreciation.
Several of you have chimed in agreeing with my summary of "I want to be an executive, not an accountant".
Thank you!
I was wondering if it was just me, and I'm glad to know it's not.

Enjoy your gaming,
Rybear.

 

[Rybear]

BTW: The term "click-fest" reminded me of this old Onion video.

 

[exogeologist]

Sure this reworked system still has room for improvement but core changes are good and overall direction of Stellaris development is correct. Saying that 2.2 ruined the game is complete nonsense.

I don't think you read the posts. The gist of what we're saying is we like the patch and the changes, but the UI does not work for the complexity of what we have to manage.

Try re-reading the full posts and share your thoughts on the suggested changes to how we interact with the new features.

 

[exogeologist]

Wow. I did not realize what I was starting with that post. Genuinely, just trying to get feedback to the dev team about a game I liked, and now don't like as much.

Would you consider editing the title of the post (if that's possible)? I don't think it's attracting the right people to participate. It really doesn't align with the constructive nature of your original post.

 

[Rybear]

Would you consider editing the title of the post (if that's possible)? I don't think it's attracting the right people to participate. It really doesn't align with the constructive nature of your original post.

Good idea. Done!

 

[Ilightmaster]

A lot of good suggestions here..., frustrations is the key word for me, i like the new ressources system, the game seems to be more balanced from a player perspective but we can't trust AI sectors, while on the other side, there is a lot of thing to keep track of ( aka ressources expenses on a lot of planets ). I'm sorry to say but i second the idea of another revamp of the sector system.

Piracy didn't make any sense to me until i went on the forum.
I used to love the "piracy era" event. it made me feel like the game should be distinctly divided into eras -> piracy, factions, raids, federations maybe even dynamic eras influencing global diplomacy, unrest...

I would be interested about devs thoughts on this thread because clearly intentions were good but the result is just tidious. Don't misunderstand me, globally i really like the way a lot of things are implemented : bases/frontier are great / ascensions remains awesome / ressources are now yeah / i like solar systems specificities / a lot of good lore / technology feels ok..
planetary system could be great but with a appropiate rework on sector and tide with the new ressource system, wars are meh, and diplomacy is too basic.

 

[Beardy-Bard]

(If gramar or tippo happen English is not my mother language, anyway i try my best)

Several of you have chimed in agreeingwith my summary of "I want to be an executive, not an accountant".

I agree with you on that 100%
Since the new update (i even did buy megacorp) it feels more like a new game
i started many games and never finished one, at some point the managing of everything becomes so time consuming that i just stop it and start anew

Maybe this magnitude of a change would be perfect for a Stellaris 2 or build in to the DLC and not as update

My Suggestion

• As it is already build in to the game make it usable like the Galaxy Building @ Start or in the Menu if you like to manage everything manual or not (other games have the same feature)
• Give Guides how to play now and use everything, from what it seems now i use more time in search enginges and videos then play the game itself just to see if i have any way to play the game as iam used too

My main Problems

• Same as Rybear, MicroMGMT less on planates itself more the entire galaxy, in the old system i could create sectors and these sectors would build colonize itself (if allowed) and build mining stations themself. That vanished totaly i need to build every mining and colonize myself.
• Trade Wares: Nices and so on but too build that on Starbases gives for me no sense, why not do that on planets a Starbase it limited (i know the limit is flexible) or lets say a new building lets say 2 options, i could upgrade to a starbase or to a tradingstation starbase more like defense and tradingstation for trade and so on

As of now iam thinking to change the game to play 2.1 again BUT then i cant play the megacorp DLC
till now i hate do admit i started cheating a bit just to have the same kind of game like 2.1 and thats realy sad

i just mean that in a more neutral way not a way to say the game is bad
i try to just give my thought like rybear if that sound like a cry it maybe the fault on my english skills (some my cry while reading that as they try to figure out what i write here hehe)

 

[The Grumpy Buddha]

BTW: The term "click-fest" reminded me of this old Onion video.

Everything you want is just a few hundred clicks away!

 

[Losttruppen]

The "Outliner" needs to go away.

Why remove a perfectly good taskbar, one of the only pieces of the UI you can actually customize because it's not perfect. Just make it better, such as by adding a priority bar. If you don't like things on the Outliner you can minimize them or remove them entirely as you see fit. We need to stop throwing out one imperfect system for another in this game.