I Don't Want To Be That Guy But...

[Risa]

Yes, those situations ARE embarrassing... there is a total failure of communication somewhere, as the only plausible reason for such persistent dumb bugs is that the person who is supposed to fix them is totally unaware those bugs exist. Or is the That Guy malingering coworker.

Not necessarily. Remember last patch was released in mid-December, which is three months ago. Maybe a lot of bugs are already fixed in internal build, just not released yet.

What needs improvements in my opinion is bug fixer's feedback. If we can see developer / bug fixer / QC staff's feedback in our bug reports, such as "will be fixed in next patch" or "already fixed in internal build", mood of community will surely raise. However, it seems to me that developers / bug fixers who investigate and fix bugs do not read bug reports (so naturally not posting feedback in them). They use internal bug database instead, which is filled in by QC staff who read bug reports. Since QC staff do not do bug fix themselves, they have no first hand information about status of a bug, so no useful feedback from them, either. It may be better if some QC also has right to edit scripts to fix some simple and clearly analyzed script bugs, so he can have first hand information.

 

[Summin Cool]

Feel I should chime in...

When it comes to development, seems some people have become spoiled. The insistence the game be FLAWLESS at launch is near valid for some companies, but not for Paradox games. Paradox developers constantly update their games and make changes based on community involvement. Good luck getting that from an EA game for example. So, if you have problems SAY SOMETHING and it'll likely be addressed in time.

Seriously people, you have NO CLUE how absolutely wonderful that sort of interaction is...

As far as Utopia goes... the mechanics it changes coincides with free patches. The patches typically contain the base gameplay changes while the expansions add features in. CK2 and EU4 do this all the time. Perhaps someone with little to no experience with Paradox games and their development would be worried, but I am not.

TL;DR: Chill.

I expected a much better game for the money I paid for it.
Bugs factor in of course, but it's the base quality of the game that's the issue.
In other words, Paradox games by standard are terrible on release, but they tend to get better as they work on them. Stellaris is a particularly apparent example of this.

 

[AndragonLea]

I expected a much better game for the money I paid for it.
Bugs factor in of course, but it's the base quality of the game that's the issue.
In other words, Paradox games by standard are terrible on release, but they tend to get better as they work on them. Stellaris is a particularly apparent example of this.

Yeah, but they never particularly hid this fact from anyone.

They straight out admit that their games start out as engines and platforms that get made into a finished product as you play.

It's the equivalent of going to an artists workshop, paying them to watch them work and then starting to complain after a few minutes that this block of marble doesn't look anything like the statue you paid to end up with.

If you want a finished product, go to the art dealer and buy a finished painting.

 

[GamerSteve]

Yeah, but they never particularly hid this fact from anyone.

They straight out admit that their games start out as engines and platforms that get made into a finished product as you play.

It's the equivalent of going to an artists workshop, paying them to watch them work and then starting to complain after a few minutes that this block of marble doesn't look anything like the statue you paid to end up with.

If you want a finished product, go to the art dealer and buy a finished painting.

The counter-argument to this is that, except when they are on sale, Paradox's base games -- which not only you but, according ot you, even they admit are unfinished in their launch, i.e. 'base game' form -- do not tend to be less expensive than games which *are* much more polished and complete upon release. EU IV is 39.99 right now on Steam (the base game). That's in the ballpark for typical game titles. So is HOI IV. So is Stellaris. Paradox doesn't even (again, excepting sales) appear to recognize the passage of time, as they are quite as willing to charge $40 US for a 4 year old game (EU 4) as for one that is their newest product (Stellaris) -- a 4 year old game that represents the basic and mostly unfinished game they released in the first place.

By your analogy, we have two sculpture options.

Option 1 is to go into a store and buy a completely finished statue we could take home today and put in our living rooms, for $40. This statue was made by a slightly inferior artist and may be only somewhat attractive, but it is complete. We bought it, we paid for it, and it's in our home.

Option 2 is to go to the studio of a more accomplished, talented artist. When there, we buy the promise of a future great sculpture which right now is a block of marble. We pay $40 as a down payment. Then over time, we visit the studio, and upon seeing improvements to the sculpture, we make some suggestions on what we would like to see, and pay $10 or $15 increments (and the artist agrees to consider our suggestions, without any guarantee he will take them in the end). When the statue is complete 3 years later, we have paid upwards of $100, and it is now complete. We have a nicer one than the $40, but it has also cost us a lot more and taken us 3 years to get it. And you are complaining that we have the temerity -- the unmitigated gall -- to complain that we feel this is, relatively speaking compared to option 1, a bit of a ripoff.

 

[AndragonLea]

I'm not complaining that you do, I'm pointing out that you're objectively wrong in doing so.

I don't believe expensive watches, shoes or pants provide enough extra quality to justify the expenses of (at best) 2 to 10 times the price of cheap version and (at worst, in case of luxury watches and designer clothes) up to a hundred times or more.

Consequently I don't buy these things. What you are doing is going to the store, seeing a vastly more expensive product that promises a longer half life (which Paradox delivers) and better quality end product (which they also deliver - their older games are some of the very best gaming experiences I've had, albeit admittedly expensive if bought outside of sales), buying it, playing it until you grow bored and THEN complain about the price after being informed about what you were getting and how much you would have to pay for it.
I'm also not impressed by people then pointing out that that is not AAA behaviour when many of those same people bash AAA games for fire-and-forget product practices.

Most of those threads don't even say the game is bad, they are more along the line of "I enjoyed it but want free stuff because (insert sector/AI complaint or pet peeve bug here)".

The old adage to this is vote with your wallets. If a product looks like it's not worth the money, is packaged with stuff you feel you wouldn't buy seperately or comes with bothersome terms and conditions, you don't buy it. Buying it, getting what you paid for and then nagging about the price is just petty.

I'd be as outraged as some of the naysayers if Paradox sold Stellaris as the full, final and finished product and then tacked on DLC out of the blue that clearly contains extra stuff where there shouldn't have been any, but the only one to blame if you buy a product after full disclosure is YOU for making the decision to buy it in the first place.

Nobody went into your house and strong armed you. Ninjas didn't hold your family to ransom in a cunning plot to have you buy a long term investment against your will. You saw the product, you had the opportunity to look at Paradox's product history, speak to customers via the internet (so much easier than in the past when you still had to actually FIND someone to ask if they truly liked the product) and had several full gameplay streams available even PRIOR to release.

Anybody who has access to all that information and still cries that he's been duped needs only look into a mirror to find the guilty party.

 

[krios41]

Option 2 is to go to the studio of a more accomplished, talented artist. When there, we buy the promise of a future great sculpture which right now is a block of marble. We pay $40 as a down payment. Then over time, we visit the studio, and upon seeing improvements to the sculpture, we make some suggestions on what we would like to see, and pay $10 or $15 increments (and the artist agrees to consider our suggestions, without any guarantee he will take them in the end). When the statue is complete 3 years later, we have paid upwards of $100, and it is now complete. We have a nicer one than the $40, but it has also cost us a lot more and taken us 3 years to get it. And you are complaining that we have the temerity -- the unmitigated gall -- to complain that we feel this is, relatively speaking compared to option 1, a bit of a ripoff.

except the 'extra payments' are completly optional.
I'd rather describe it as:
you get a mediocre statue, but every day the artist comes to you and chissels a bit extra, making it better by the day.
Won't say nuffing about it taking more time then the other 40$ option tho.
I don't complain though, if i comapre my game hours of stellaris to me going to the movie i'd stil be better of with Stellaris even if it was a terrible game (wich it isn't, i like it)

 

[Summin Cool]

They straight out admit that their games start out as engines and platforms that get made into a finished product as you play.

It's on the same engine as EU IV fyi.

 

[DanaDark]

The TL;DR version of this thread:

Customer: Game doesn't seem finished, there are some bugs.
Dev: Patches to fix the issues you complained about coming right up. Free!

Customer: I want more features. I want you to add in A, B, and C that you never promised in the first place.
Dev: Expansion coming right up!
Customer: OMG NICKEL AND DIME ME!?!? HOW DARE YOU! I paid once, you must work for my entertainment FOREVER.

 

[Summin Cool]

snip

The game was horrible value for money. It felt on par to Beyond earth to me.
I did invest because I knew paradox would be giving out content over time, but in hindsight I should have waited for a good sale or not have purchased at all.

But, While I do enjoy this game, consider this:
With 1.4 Stellaris you could buy DOOM instead.

I'd much rather have DOOM, don't even have to wait a year for it to be good either.

 

[Emraldis]

The game was horrible value for money. It felt on par to Beyond earth to me.
I did invest because I knew paradox would be giving out content over time, but in hindsight I should have waited for a good sale or not have purchased at all.

But, While I do enjoy this game, consider this:
With 1.4 Stellaris you could buy DOOM instead.

I'd much rather have DOOM, don't even have to wait a year for it to be good either.

Right, but DOOM has far less replay value. I know, because I also bought DOOM. Well worth it, but I've put far more hours into stellaris already. Nearly 10 times as many hours already. Mind you, I enjoyed stellaris from the get-go, but the point that stellaris has more replayability in general still stands, as it was meant to be played that way.

 

[Slynx]

Right, but DOOM has far less replay value.

if you think doom has low replayability insert another tile - civ V GotY(maybe even VI), total war:warhammer, heroes 3 (non-HD)...even some games like darkes dungeon or don't starve(friend of mine has over 8k hours in don't starve in steam)

 

[Emraldis]

if you think doom has low replayability insert another tile - civ V GotY(maybe even VI), total war:warhammer, heroes 3 (non-HD)...even some games like darkes dungeon or don't starve(friend of mine has over 8k hours in don't starve in steam)

I mean, DOOM has a bit more replayability than, say a standard FPS campaign, like Halo, simply because you can take multiple routes, and because it's more challenging, but there is generally far less drive to replay it once you've finished the game. You could argue multiplayer, sure, but DOOM's multiplayer is pretty lacking.

 

[Fourthspartan56]

At the end the day, I don't think I'm as frustrated with the issues as the OP is, but I am a bit disappointed in this thread's reaction to his feedback. Seemed kinda harsh. I love Stellaris and will continue to throw money at it, but it's by no means a perfect game. The OP isn't 'wrong', the game definitely has it's flaws. I'm confident that most of them will be ironed out in due time, and within a few years of development at this pace the game will take it's place beside CK2/EU4.

I understand how you feel but just because you feel that OP's points are valid doesn't mean the rest of us should, I personally wasn't criticizing OP for making a thread or complaining. I was simply pointing out that I disagreed relatively strongly with most if not all of OP's points.

The game was horrible value for money. It felt on par to Beyond earth to me.

Right but this is incredibly subjective, personally on release I enjoyed Stellaris enough to consider absolutely worth it's cost.

 

[GamerSteve]

I understand how you feel but just because you feel that OP's points are valid doesn't mean the rest of us should, I personally wasn't criticizing OP for making a thread or complaining. I was simply pointing out that I disagreed relatively strongly with most if not all of OP's points.

Although that is certainly fair, and I am not directing this at you, the majority of people disagreeing with the OP's points keep acting like he was talking about bugs, and he was not. And he and I and two or three others have pointed this out multiple times, only to have the next person or a prior person disagree on the basis that 'all games have bugs.' Which means some folks are not really reading, or understanding, what the OP and some of us others have been saying. At this point to be perfectly blunt it seems rather willful.

 

[Magnificent Genius]

if you think doom has low replayability insert another tile - civ V GotY(maybe even VI), total war:warhammer, heroes 3 (non-HD)...even some games like darkes dungeon or don't starve(friend of mine has over 8k hours in don't starve in steam)

CiVI is a terrible mess, hardly worth the money(I know, I refunded my purchase, though I bought it again when the extended edition went on sale for the base price), and they are nickel and diming their customers for DLC that are quite honestly garbage. Total Warhammer, well, I'm pretty certain that Creative Assembly might be the worst example of bad dlc practices. CiV, I will agree is a good, game, but it might have been worse on release than Stellaris, so it really isn't a good example, and Darkest Dungeon and Don't Starve... that's like comparing chalk and strudel.

 

[Fourthspartan56]

Although that is certainly fair, and I am not directing this at you, the majority of people disagreeing with the OP's points keep acting like he was talking about bugs, and he was not

Except he absolutely was.

The reason was that each new feature seemed to be broken and awaiting either several patches or further DLC to sort it out.

sectors and slavery are still threadbare and in some cases outright broken

Patch after patch after patch after iteration after iteration. My worry is that all Utopia will do is introduce a new broken gamestate which will need to have a further 4 or 5 patches and a follow-up DLC to fix.

Which means some folks are not really reading, or understanding, what the OP and some of us others have been saying. At this point to be perfectly blunt it seems rather willful.

It's absolutely willful because the majority of OP's post is about bugs, so we addressed the most common theme. And personally I addressed every argument that OP made.

 

[Azhcristokos]

CiVI is a terrible mess, hardly worth the money(I know, I refunded my purchase, though I bought it again when the extended edition went on sale for the base price), and they are nickel and diming their customers for DLC that are quite honestly garbage. Total Warhammer, well, I'm pretty certain that Creative Assembly might be the worst example of bad dlc practices. CiV, I will agree is a good, game, but it might have been worse on release than Stellaris, so it really isn't a good example, and Darkest Dungeon and Don't Starve... that's like comparing chalk and strudel.

At least Stellaris is the first game in its series and so can be judged solely on its own merits or lack thereof. Civ V followed up its predecessor by outright removing features like religion and espionage that then only reappeared in later expansion packs.

 

[Slynx]

CiVI is a terrible mess, hardly worth the money

it's all subjective. and i also said "probably" =)
personally i enjoyed Civ 6. and gladly i've bought deluxe edition, or would've been very angry about dlc too.

Creative Assembly might be the worst example of bad dlc practices.

don't see the difference with paradox's games. you may say that dlc are not mandatory but i'll disagree. without dlc i will not have a full game.

like comparing chalk and strudel.

don't understand analogy. for me it's just 3 games(DD, DST, Stellaris) with similar pricing and good replayability. only exception is that first 2 are complete games

 

[Fourthspartan56]

it's all subjective. and i also said "probably" =)
personally i enjoyed Civ 6. and gladly i've bought deluxe edition, or would've been very angry about dlc too.

Sure, that seems understandable.

don't see the difference with paradox's games. you may say that dlc are not mandatory but i'll disagree. without dlc i will not have a full game.

The most important difference is that Paradox expansions are always accompanied by a large free patch so you don't need to buy anything for your game to improve. As someone who plays EU4 quite a lot and hasn't bought some of the expansions I can strongly say that you absolutely don't need to buy the expansions, you simply can.

don't understand analogy. for me it's just 3 games(DD, DST, Stellaris) with similar pricing and good replayability. only exception is that first 2 are complete games

And that is also subjective, I believe that suggesting that Stellaris is not a complete is completely ludicrous which is something that you likely disagree with. But the difference is that you don't need to buy any expansion to have years of free development for Stellaris, I highly doubt you can say the same for those other games.

 

[Emraldis]

only exception is that first 2 are complete games

I would argue that stellaris is currently a complete game. Sure there are some problems with it, but there isn't any glaring lack of content. And a lot of the problems become addressed in free patches, which also add extra content.