Less boring traits, more traits like Decadent

[Sapidianus]

Well, enjoy chewing on your flour I guess.

I can't wait for your thread about how you think components are boring because you refuse to consider them as part of a ship, or how planets are boring because you refuse to think of them as part of an empire.

Planets and ship components arent boring. Political agendas of elected leaders on the other hand could use some work, a straightforward bonus for the whole term is a bit bland.

 

[EvilTom]

YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

You make the mistake of thinking of traits one-by-one. Traits do not exist on their own. Traits exist in a bundle which sums to +2 and all together characterize a species.

This is what makes decadent the worst trait from an RP perspective, not the best one. It should be 2 traits, one of them a flat -10% resource output for maybe +2 and one of them +10% resource output if there are slaves for maybe -1. Then you can bundle it together if you choose, and RP your empire as decadent slaveholders. But with them separated like that you can alternatively take +10% productivity if there are slaves with Slow Learners: -25% experience gain and RP as Operation Paperclip: The Empire, a race who knows that other species have quicker wits than them so takes the sensible expedient of enslaving them all to toil in intellectual serfdom. Or, indeed, RP with any other combination of "No slave malus" with "Positive trait".

RPing requires player imagination whatever you make of it. You're not going to convince the kind of minimaxing powergamer who strives for CK2 Magyar world conquest runs to think like a slaver regardless of how much you force-bundle traits together. But I would hope that a sane player is capable of imagining "I am a slaver race" without the game having to spoonfeed you "LOOK AT THIS ONE TRAIT IT MAKES YOU A SLAVER".

TL;DR: No more traits like decadent please. My species is already a bundle of inseparable traits by the time it comes out of the species designer, you don't need to graft the traits themselves together too.

I like your argument. I did think that things like decadent were good, but you are right in my opinion.

The only thing I could think of as a compromise is to tie certain negatives to a positive. So if you take decadent you are then force to chose from a group of negatives which are defined (rather than free to chose from).

I think you have to remember that the AI races are fairly random so they'd have to weight the traits somewhere.

 

[Drow7]

Some examples of more unique traits I had in mind.
Not saying they are balanced or that they couldn't be done differently...

BIG
+40% army strength
+20% army cost and upkeep
+15% food required

PACK MENTALITY
-20% army strength
+5% army strength per each additional army
-5% ethics divergence for each neighbouring tile occupied by same ethics pop

COPYCATS
-10% science output
-50% cost of reverse engineering technology

 

[Brownbeard]

I'd prefer if traits were less about modifiers and more about alternative outcomes of events and that certain traits trigger unique events. Much more fun than min/maxing.

 

[Drow7]

I'd prefer if traits were less about modifiers and more about alternative outcomes of events and that certain traits trigger unique events. Much more fun than min/maxing.

Why not both?

 

[Ezumiyr]

I think they need traits that include both positive and negative effects.

That way they could put in more unique powerful effects and balance them at same time.

I think that "more traits like decadent" means more gameplay-changing traits, more unique traits that can't be modelled through simply putting together positive and negative effects (traits that simply do that would be like the actual traits, except with a shiny name).

Stellaris seems to give us more "precise" tools to make our own species. You dont put "trait packages" like in other games : you forge your own. You can make a species which is adaptive and charismatic but slow breeder, which would probably be called something like "egocentric individualists" in other games.

 

[General WVPM]

Agreeing with OP decadent is a good trait because it has a conditional bonus or a buff and a nerf in the same field depending on how you want to see it. If you can pick combinations such as extra science but leaders die younger, it is an obvious improvement. It's much more fun if you get a chance to get a bonus if you play it right than a flat out bonus.

 

[beckermt]

Some examples of more unique traits I had in mind.
Not saying they are balanced or that they couldn't be done differently...

BIG
+40% army strength
+20% army cost and upkeep
+15% food required

This is almost exactly Very Strong and Slow Breeders (-growth instead of +food req).

PACK MENTALITY
-20% army strength
+5% army strength per each additional army
-5% ethics divergence for each neighbouring tile occupied by same ethics pop

Cut down version of Weak plus some annoying micromanagement version of Conformists.

COPYCATS
-10% science output
-50% cost of reverse engineering technology

Vaguely interesting. Would separate them in case I want to be good at reverse-engineering and still have my own tech production. No real reason to bundle these explicitly.

Damnit, Oscot, you're forcing me to agree with you again by being right. Fiendish.

 

[BrokenSky]

YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

You make the mistake of thinking of traits one-by-one. Traits do not exist on their own. Traits exist in a bundle which sums to +2 and all together characterize a species.

This is what makes decadent the worst trait from an RP perspective, not the best one. It should be 2 traits, one of them a flat -10% resource output for maybe +2 and one of them +10% resource output if there are slaves for maybe -1. Then you can bundle it together if you choose, and RP your empire as decadent slaveholders. But with them separated like that you can alternatively take +10% productivity if there are slaves with Slow Learners: -25% experience gain and RP as Operation Paperclip: The Empire, a race who knows that other species have quicker wits than them so takes the sensible expedient of enslaving them all to toil in intellectual serfdom. Or, indeed, RP with any other combination of "No slave malus" with "Positive trait".

RPing requires player imagination whatever you make of it. You're not going to convince the kind of minimaxing powergamer who strives for CK2 Magyar world conquest runs to think like a slaver regardless of how much you force-bundle traits together. But I would hope that a sane player is capable of imagining "I am a slaver race" without the game having to spoonfeed you "LOOK AT THIS ONE TRAIT IT MAKES YOU A SLAVER".

TL;DR: No more traits like decadent please. My species is already a bundle of inseparable traits by the time it comes out of the species designer, you don't need to graft the traits themselves together too.

While this is a good point to an extent, there are two significant advantages to bundling a good and bad trait, or a very bad trait with a caveat; the first is that it allows you to make traits which have value 0, which can be interesting bonuses which reward certain play styles, but at the expense of forcing specialization (related note: the main way to weaken minimaxing is to make crippling overspecialization ... crippling).

The main advantage though is to be able to put in traits which are already somewhat balanced, so as to lessen the threat of minimaxing. For example (probably will not be in the game) tying leader experience gain rate to lifespan, so short lived races gained leader xp faster.

 

[BrokenSky]

Lets say you have a race, that is religious and communal. Right now this will give you a flat happiness bonus and you will soon treat your people just as "guys who dont usually revolt". But if communal required a pop to have a neighbouring friend to have the bonus to work and probably malus if they have no friends nearby, you would feel and act differently, you would treat you pops with communal trait as communal beings, you would consider the trait when placing them on the tiles, colonizing and etc.

This would be awesome actually. So like +5% happiness when there is an adjacent pop, -5% happiness when there are no adjacent pops, with loner being the opposite?

This is almost exactly Very Strong and Slow Breeders (-growth instead of +food req).

Food requirement is fundamentally different from growth in one way: after your planet reaches max population, you still need enough farms to support the total population. Slow breeders does not have a negative impact here, but "big" does. Also very strong gives minerals.

I see what you're saying, but personally I think that they're different enough to justify possibly
considering having both.

 

[griffor]

before we start saying oh this sucks oh this isn't fun let's at least play the game

 

[EmperorZelos]

7 deadly sins traits would be fun! I have so many ideas!

 

[PhroX]

While I'm in the camp of not really seeing the benefit of traits with both positive and negative modifiers, I would definitely like more ones like Decadent which aren't just a "you're slightly better/worse at this game mechanic".

 

[Smiles_]

Pacified Genetics -

"Your species, over time on your home planet, has experimented in ways to genetically pacify the population."​

X% time reduction of your home population maintaining factionalism.

Home Bodies -

"Your species prefers the home world over colonial outposts." ​

X% time increase in colony growth for your home species.
(Thus maybe you need to find a "friend" species to do colonizing for you, or you take the slightly slower colony growth).

Celebrated Explorers / Researchers -

"Your species has long revered scientific discoveries. Everyone loves a parade." ​

.XX% in home species population happiness wherever they may be, upon exploration of a new system (or new uninhabited system) or conclusion of a tech research.


Smiles

 

[Smiles_]

Caste -

"Long ago your home society overthrew a caste system. But the effects still linger..."​

- .XX% population happiness for every policy that affects non-home world species.


Smiles