Let us just take a moment to admit that Utopia is a step in the right direction.

[Sapare]

Stellaris is a GSG, but as well a 4X. And latter are designed by consistency. Imagine random events popping up giving an opponent a (slight) ressource bonus in Starcraft (extreme edge example).

I am sorry but i have to correct you here. Starcraft is in no way a 4x, unless you are really misusing the term(it really is like saying chess and poker should share similar mechanics).

Stellaris stands decently alone as a strange hybrid, and it has many luck based elements.(simple fact that the nations you can encounter can have drastically different personalities, the tech you research push you down different routes and the people you hire change your strategy)
The game has enough randomness as it is that I do not think it is trying to actively avoid events. I think it was more a case of them not wanting to overburden players by giving them a full new system to learn and then at the same time a bunch of random events that can make the system do crazy things.

 

[Tha Pink Guy]

New 1.5.1 hotfix supposedly (according to dev in the 1.5.1. discussion thread) fixes achievements earning (and, before someone asks, no, not retroactively).

It does? I didn't see it in the patch notes and all the developers are ignoring my tweets to them.

EDIT: I did see @BjornB say on steam that old saves wouldn't work with achievements for certain.

 

[kviiri]

I'm not sure if I'd want pop-ups in Stellaris, the EU4 system can turn into wack-a-mole if many of them fire at once but that's part of the game however Stellaris has enough to do that it doesn't need events to impact your empire.

Stellaris already has some - very few, but still. I'm not talking about any crazy amount, less than in EU4 would be fine. They could perhaps be tied to elections and other events that you need to look at already.

 

[Alblaka]

It does? I didn't see it in the patch notes and all the developers are ignoring my tweets to them.

EDIT: I did see @BjornB say on steam that old saves wouldn't work with achievements for certain.

Hey all. We tested achievements in 1.5.1, and just retested them now: they work on our end. Our *hope* was that the fix would apply retroactively to older saves, but that doesn't appear to be the case. We're not sure at this time if it's something on our side, or relating to the Steam backend. Achievement unlocking is tied to specific conditions in your save file that reloading in a new version doesn't recreate, sadly.

I know it's not ideal, and we sincerely hope we haven't invalidated your play experience thus far. What I can say is new saves started in 1.5.1 should get you achievements as normal.

 

[Tha Pink Guy]

Stellaris already has some - very few, but still. I'm not talking about any crazy amount, less than in EU4 would be fine. They could perhaps be tied to elections and other events that you need to look at already.

That's very true but they then go immediatly into the Situation Log, now events that go there would be much more welcome. Situation log is a great play to give a story, it's out of the way and not in your face but you can still put a lot of text to it. That also plays into the multiple choice aspect of the game.

 

[Tha Pink Guy]

Thank you @Alblaka you're a real help, and i've seen many of your posts. The community is lucky to have you.

 

[Nyrael]

The forums seem quite happy to me. Or maybe I'm just used to everyone raging and whining for first two or three weeks whenever a DLC is released

 

[Alblaka]

Thank you @Alblaka you're a real help, and i've seen many of your posts. The community is lucky to have you.

If I'm not busy creating forum riots or textwalling people with completely unreasonable suggestions, that is.
Still, the appreciation is very much appreciated and means quite a bit to me.
The appreciation is appreciated... I need a dictionary.

 

[kviiri]

To give an idea of what sort of "spice" I'd like to see in Stella's politics, I'd like to see the player having to make choices about which ideologies to support and which not. For example, if you have a very good ruler as a democracy, you might be offered to increase their personal power to gain benefits for war, economy or whatever but also increased autocratic attraction as people start to like the idea of a strong leader.

Or there might be a xeno terrorist attack which polarizes the population towards xenophobe and xenophile as people take sides, while reducing the impact of other ethics for the time.

Or the freshly coronated emperor happens to have a thing for social reforms and starts advocating for egalitarian ethics.

Basically, too much randomness sucks, but having it in right amounts makes the game dramatically less boring.

 

[Alblaka]

To give an idea of what sort of "spice" I'd like to see in Stella's politics, I'd like to see the player having to make choices about which ideologies to support and which not. For example, if you have a very good ruler as a democracy, you might be offered to increase their personal power to gain benefits for war, economy or whatever but also increased autocratic attraction as people start to like the idea of a strong leader.

Or there might be a xeno terrorist attack which polarizes the population towards xenophobe and xenophile as people take sides, while reducing the impact of other ethics for the time.

Or the freshly coronated emperor happens to have a thing for social reforms and starts advocating for egalitarian ethics.

Basically, too much randomness sucks, but having it in right amounts makes the game dramatically less boring.

The problem is, what you describes is not randomness, but a 'Yes, strengthen my ethic' button. It doesn't add choice, because the choices are, in their situation already self-evident. (I.e., based upon what your ruling government ethics are.)


I feel like, IF we are going downt he political event route, there should be more akin to 'uncomfortable choices'. I.e. pick-your-poison-events for unhappy factions, or the choice to get a buff, but harm your politics (or vice versa).

 

[kviiri]

The problem is, what you describes is not randomness, but a 'Yes, strengthen my ethic' button. It doesn't add choice, because the choices are, in their situation already self-evident. (I.e., based upon what your ruling government ethics are.)

How so? Clearly the choices could (and should) be designed in a way that makes picking your current ethics either less appealing on its own than picking the other choices.

For example, in the example with a popular democratically elected leader, they'd offer to manage the government more efficiently by cutting down on some necessary safeguards. You agree, you get a bonus but also gain autocracy support. You disagree and you lose the bonus but also don't get autocracy. If designed well, I'm sure it could liven up the scene.

 

[Aotrs Commander]

First off, yes, I'll agree Utopia is heading in the right direction.

That's very true but they then go immediatly into the Situation Log, now events that go there would be much more welcome. Situation log is a great play to give a story, it's out of the way and not in your face but you can still put a lot of text to it. That also plays into the multiple choice aspect of the game.

I'd prefer a more options to turn on, personally. I play PDX games on max speed-between-pauses (i.e. went I actually do anything) and I am forever frustrated (across CK2/EUIV/Stellaris) in the still sometimes in consistency in what pop-ups pause, what pop-ups don't pause and what pop-ups seem to unpause as soon as the window closes.

There's a reason that it's kind of a meme on this forum to take some tiny insignificant thing and call it "literally unplayable". It's a whiny community and it will whine.

I have yet to see any dev forums that are any better, to be fair (and few other types of forums). Negativity seems to be the order of the day these days. Partly it is due to the fact that people who are not complaining (for whatever legitimate, valid, spurious or entitled reasons) are actually to busy playing.

But I think that the internet is a double-edged sword sometimes; the fact that anybody has now a platform to present their views to the world is both good and bad; youtube comments are notoriously vitriolic, but I thnk that sort of culture has effects that spread wider (though the aforementoned effect is very much watered-down on more moderated places). In combination with the state of the computer gaming industry as a whole had lead to a more negative-leaning bend.

On the plus side, there seems to be now more complaints about the game mechanics, and less about how PDX are evil and money grubbing for splitting up content into smaller DLC packets slash are evil and money grubbing for not splitting up content into smaller DLC packets...!

 

[General Retreat]

I feel like, IF we are going downt he political event route, there should be more akin to 'uncomfortable choices'. I.e. pick-your-poison-events for unhappy factions, or the choice to get a buff, but harm your politics (or vice versa).

This is basically what I'd envision. Events would primarily deal with anti government populism, where the government can either take the course of least resistance and condone the action (strengthening the opposition), ignore the situation (unpredictable result and factions take the matter into their own hands) or oppose the opposition at the cost of influence, which prevents negative outcomes.

These events would add temporary opinion modifiers to the relevant factions, increasing/decreasing happiness for a set period. Supporting particular events could also lead to an adverse reaction from rival factions.

So for example, if there is a bombing on a planet and the xenophobe factions want to persecute the local xenos, you may decide to appease them by throwing a number of said xenos under the bus as a scapegoat because you're short on influence and don't want to risk a full on race war (unpredictable result). The xenophiles would be pissed at this and could order temporary strikes in protest.

 

[Seomis]

I love the new faction system, but the change to pop ethics ... not so much. Pop ethics now only serves to make a pop eligible to join a faction. A pacifist pop doesn't care about offensive wars unless it's in a faction that tells it to care. And since a pop can only have one ethic, eventually even a fanatic pacifist empire will have only a minority caring about pacifism.

 

[DominusNovus]

My opinion on the expansion is pretty straightforward: Utopia is what I wanted Stellaris to be when the original game was released. I still want more improvements, of course, but I'm content for the time being.

 

[Emraldis]

The appreciation is appreciated... I need a dictionary.

no sir, you need a thesaurus.

 

[DominusNovus]

no sir, you need a thesaurus.

Or a wordbook.

 

[Chester Nimitz]

I agree with the OP. Stellaris didn't grab me at launch, but after Banks/Utopia, it has its hooks into me. I've now got 100 hours in the game. I'd like more to do in the mid-late game, although I'm plenty happy just expanding my empire and exploring.

Most of all I'd like to see more of the story arcs. I actually read the flavor text in this game. Will I get a new story every time I play? If not, I hope the devs can make that a design goal -- lots of stories to foster replayability.

 

[Gyrvendal]

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Ok I took a moment. Utopia is great. Now can i get back to bashing the game pleaase?