[OPINION] After 2.2, development should slow down

[Tim_Ward]

Stellaris 1.0 was a empty shell of a game. Is that a fair criticism? Debatable. I've seen worse launches. Seen a hell of a lot better, too.

After 2.2, all being well, the 'lack of features' critique is going have been pretty much blown out of the water. Maybe you could make a case about diplomacy and a lack of espionage but that's it.

But the 'lack of polish' critique? Still very much in play.

Off the top of my head:

• The war in heaven (paid feature) never fires, and doesn't often work properly when it does
• The machine uprising (paid feature) dies instantly, and even if they didn't they'd never really work as intended because of the AI transport bug.
• The contingency almost always fires
• The AI doesn't work right with the new war system, it can't move transports around, can't capture planets and therefore drags wars out indefinitely because it also won't peace out until everyone is at 100% war exhaustion. This messes a lot of stuff up.
• AI's take the colossus ascension perk, then don't build colossi.
• I've never seen an AI empire synthetically ascend.
• Ground combat is just bollocks. The UI is atrocious. It doesn't tell you how many armies are on a planet. It doesn't tell you which armies are currently fighting. The counters all overlap in this really stupid way and you can't see what the health of everything is at a glance*.
• When you wipe out a marauders, they send you a cross message and say they're coming to attack you but it never happens.

It seems as though a lot of these issues have been neglected in favor of pushing forward, adding new features and generally filling out the gaps in Stellaris. Not a crazy decision, given where we can from (1.0) but after the economy is reworked, maybe it's time to stop with the mega-patches that add or change like 2 or 3 major features, but instead maybe add 1 feature, make sure it works right and focus on making sure what's already in the game also works as it should.

* And no, they shouldn't make it so you capture a planet just by showing up in orbit

 

[Mouthwash]

So you're not arguing for development to slow down, but that it should reprioritize. That seems fair to me.

 

[Cyber Cavalier]

I believe they meant it to slow down in the sense to slow down the process of adding new features and concentrate on existing ones instead of just adding new ones like they've been doing with the DLCs, which is definitely fair. I'd be all for that.

 

[The Founder]

The machine uprising (paid feature) dies instantly, and even if they didn't they'd never really work as intended because of the AI transport bug.

The AI Uprising has both to conserve the population (if you qickly recapture it or they do not purge) and supply it's war Economy. Wich can not work with the tile limit on pops.
Now if the organic pops can just be pushed into their special, unlimtied jobs? Yeah, suddenly it works perfectly.

The AI doesn't work right with the new war system, it can't move transports around, can't capture planets and therefore drags wars out indefinitely because it also won't peace out until everyone is at 100% war exhaustion. This messes a lot of stuff up.

AI's take the colossus ascension perk, then don't build colossi.

All of these come down primarily to a resource/Economics issue. And nothing has a chance to fix that quite as well as the 2.2 Economics rework.
The Economics AI prior to 2.0 was a aberation. With 2.0 it has reached it's final limits. With 2.2 it might finally get decent on a regular basis.

 

[Army Pea]

This is a very fair post.

I would also like to add the following

1. Fleet manager needs additional work. Including the ability to mix and match fleets quickly and effectively.
Star Drive 1 has a excellent UI for doing this

2. AI. All around AI. From planet development (which is being worked in as we speak but I’m sure it won’t launch without flaws) , AI in combat and dealing with other empires.

3. Combat still had some odd bugs like invincible fleets to fleets changing there power as soon as they enter battle

4. L-gates rebalance. Nano swarm can spawn early and wreck a game if the AI opens it way to soon.

Just some additional ideas.

Assuming they don’t add any features we could do these patches in a rolling beta like previously.

 

[Juboboman]

It's not going to slow down because DLC pays for future development. And quite frankly we don't really know sometimes what we need until we see it. Before 2.2 was unveiled I was alright with the tile system, it had its flaws but I enjoyed it. Yet now I can't even play until the new system comes in because its so much better. Yes them going back and tweaking previous things that are not working properly would be nice, and I'm sure they will get around to it. But if I had to choose I'd still take major redesigns that revolutionize and massively improve core gameplay like 2.0 and 2.2 over those, priority wise.

We will most likely get a diplomacy/federation overhaul after this, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was equally ambitious. I do agree that once that's done rather than adding completely new systems like espionage they go back and do a touch up on previous features that for whatever reason flopped or are not quite working out right like you described. But for all we know they can do that and keep up the pace with new stuff. After all it looks like they are doing a mini economy/trade overhaul and are managing to fit it into the pop/planet patch.

Either way I'm entirely impressed with what they have been doing since 2.0, and I hope they keep it up.

 

[pryr]

Agree. After big changes from 2.0 game is still have many issues and we are about to meet another big changes. It's hard to enjoy new features when you are constantly stumbling at broken old features.

 

[ZechsMerquise73]

It's not going to slow down because DLC pays for future development.

DLC that mostly have mixed reviews and low review counts on steam which usually indicate low sales. DLC that, as mentioned above, have features that don't work. Selling things with features that don't work, which I can see how someone could get confused considering that the CK2>EU4 converter exists on the market, is not okay. Release a new $10 "story pack" and use the extra time to fix everything that's broken or lacking.

 

[EccentricJoe]

i agree but i do feel like there has been a concerted effort to fix and fill in these gaps. with 2.2, i think/hope some of these issues are goint to be fixed, and some of the other ones your talking about are just bugs that can be ironed out in patches(hopefully with 2.2). alot of your complaints seem to be about the ai, and thats fair, tho with 2.2 the ai is going to be easier to fix and code, so hopefully they are setting the stage to fix these issues later so to speak

 

[EvilKnievel82]

Stellaris 1.0 was a empty shell of a game. Is that a fair criticism? Debatable. I've seen worse launches. Seen a hell of a lot better, too.

After 2.2, all being well, the 'lack of features' critique is going have been pretty much blown out of the water. Maybe you could make a case about diplomacy and a lack of espionage but that's it.

But the 'lack of polish' critique? Still very much in play.

Off the top of my head:

• The war in heaven (paid feature) never fires, and doesn't often work properly when it does
• The machine uprising (paid feature) dies instantly, and even if they didn't they'd never really work as intended because of the AI transport bug.
• The contingency almost always fires
• The AI doesn't work right with the new war system, it can't move transports around, can't capture planets and therefore drags wars out indefinitely because it also won't peace out until everyone is at 100% war exhaustion. This messes a lot of stuff up.
• AI's take the colossus ascension perk, then don't build colossi.
• I've never seen an AI empire synthetically ascend.
• Ground combat is just bollocks. The UI is atrocious. It doesn't tell you how many armies are on a planet. It doesn't tell you which armies are currently fighting. The counters all overlap in this really stupid way and you can't see what the health of everything is at a glance*.
• When you wipe out a marauders, they send you a cross message and say they're coming to attack you but it never happens.

It seems as though a lot of these issues have been neglected in favor of pushing forward, adding new features and generally filling out the gaps in Stellaris. Not a crazy decision, given where we can from (1.0) but after the economy is reworked, maybe it's time to stop with the mega-patches that add or change like 2 or 3 major features, but instead maybe add 1 feature, make sure it works right and focus on making sure what's already in the game also works as it should.

* And no, they shouldn't make it so you capture a planet just by showing up in orbit

There are some fair points in there but some are exagerated or outdated:
- The war in heaven fires quite reliably in my experience, as long as you start in a galaxy with all FE and you ensure the FEs are not killed too early. I had my problems in early versions and in smaller galaxies (with less FEs), but this is clearly not an issue anymore.
- Endgame crisis spawning ratios have always been an issue that has been tweaked back and forth... This has not been ignored, but probably they tried to make it to much dependent on the individual game. Maybe they should just make the triggers way less complicated and put it to 1/3 chance for each crisis and have some slight increases in chance if certain triggers are present (jumpdrive, synths, ect.) but always have a lower limit on the chance for each crisis (e.g. 1/6 at least for each crisis no matter how many synths / machine empires there are).
- I have seen AI empires do all kinds of ascension, but usually only around lategame and only a small fraction of them. Bio Ascension and Psi Ascension do happen more often though and synth ascension is quite rare. I am guessing a lot of this comes from the bad economic AI that results in a too low unity production.

Apart from that, I think the devs will most likely do exactly what you said AFTER the diplomatic / espionage revamp has been done. In my experience a lot of the current problems of the AI simply stem from the fact that it falls behind more and more during any game, because it cannot use the tile system effectively and can only keep up for a while in some games because of the upkeep discounts. If it is done properly, the new economic system will most likely make the AI much more compeditive.

Of course you are right, the military AI also needs another rework, but that will hopefully become much less obvious after the next patch.

Ground combat is still boring, but at least you loose some armies now in most invasions. A rework would be nice at some point, but I don't think it is high on the priority list.

 

[Ambereyed]

Not yet. After 2.2 we desperately need to see Diplomatic&Espionage rework. Only then I could consider Stellaris to be "done" and ready for polishing.

 

[Ramiel]

Just want to point out that Stellaris development has gone in cycles of Big update/DLC to Little update/DLC and back. Big updates have the large mechanic updates and DLC (Utopia, Apocalypse, 2.2) and are interspersed with smaller, story-and-content based DLC (Leviathans, Synthetic Dawn, Distant Stars) where the update mostly focuses on polishing things. Cycle's about a year long - Stellaris launched in Spring 2016, Utopia in Spring 2017, Apocalypse in February 2018, and now 2.2 most likely in Nov/Dec 2018. There'll almost certainly be a similar period after 2.2 releases where development focuses on polishing things up. A more solid, long-term period of polish-work does seem needed, but like others have said I would prefer it wait until after the (assumed) big Diplomacy&Espionage update after 2.2.

 

[Shermanator]

Agreed. A good way to take some to polish the game up while still selling DLC so paradox can keep making money would maybe be to take the time to create a fairly comprehensive polishing patch and release alongside with a species, which is mostly work for the art team. Cus Paradox as a business needs a financial insentive to focus on polishing instead of big features that get people excited.

What I find interesting is Stellaris' development cycle, which has been very consistent so far.
First, the actual releases, then what those are.

Game release
Leviathans
Plantoids
Utopia
Synthetic Dawn
Humanoids
Apocalypse
Distant Stars
2.2 will likely have big expansion

So very consistently it has been

Big release/update
story pack
species pack
Repeat, as Ramiel said the cycle last about a year, and the species pack lul is usually the more polishing time.

Because of this, I think there will probably be a species pack before 22.

 

[Eelectrica]

I wouldn't mind if 2.3 was a general QoL/Bugfix patch before moving onto diplomacy/espionage update.
Since artists aren't coders they could use 2.3 to release an Aquatic species pack maybe. I mean who doesn't want sharks in space... with laser guns.

 

[Orion88]

I wouldn't mind if 2.3 was a general QoL/Bugfix patch before moving onto diplomacy/espionage update.
Since artists aren't coders they could use 2.3 to release an Aquatic species pack maybe. I mean who doesn't want sharks in space... with laser guns.

I would also support a patch focusing on the in-game issues next, as the lack of espionage, different victory conditions and more diplomatic options are probably the biggest issues still missing from the game, but there are a lot of smaller issues that could take more fine-tuning.

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

Ground combat is just bollocks. The UI is atrocious. It doesn't tell you how many armies are on a planet. It doesn't tell you which armies are currently fighting. The counters all overlap in this really stupid way and you can't see what the health of everything is at a glance*.

I'd love for 2.3 to be the update that the current army system is scrapped and replaced with something better.

 

[Blodo]

To be fair, a lot of the criticisms in the OP aren't just simple bugfixes and would have to be looked at as a feature redesign that is aimed at fixing a problem. Sometimes you can't just slap a bandaid on things, and fixing some problems requires a larger step forward.

So yea I wouldn't really like to see the devs constrain themselves from fixing certain issues (like aforementioned ground combat) because it would require a redesign of something.

 

[sbytheway]

I almost agree but I think they should push forward with one last (for now) big rework before focusing on stuff like you mention :

There needs to be a diplomacy, authority/government, and victory condition rework, so that game is *explicitly* not just about warfare

Then chill out for a bit and focus on polish and filling out existing mechanics

Honestly I'm interested to see what the priority is after the promised diplo rework, after that I think Wiz will have ticked off all the design boxes he had last year... Where do they go from there?

 

[sbytheway]

Agreed. A good way to take some to polish the game up while still selling DLC so paradox can keep making money would maybe be to take the time to create a fairly comprehensive polishing patch and release alongside with a species, which is mostly work for the art team. Cus Paradox as a business needs a financial insentive to focus on polishing instead of big features that get people excited.

What I find interesting is Stellaris' development cycle, which has been very consistent so far.
First, the actual releases, then what those are.

Game release
Leviathans
Plantoids
Utopia
Synthetic Dawn
Humanoids
Apocalypse
Distant Stars
2.2 will likely have big expansion

So very consistently it has been

Big release/update
story pack
species pack
Repeat, as Ramiel said the cycle last about a year, and the species pack lul is usually the more polishing time.

Because of this, I think there will probably be a species pack before 22.

I agree! I wonder what they'll do next... Maybe geocrystaline?

 

[Enska]

OPs points are either AI problems or "advanced" features that should be built on core features. Seeing that many of the core features are still lacking, it makes sense to prioritize them. The warfare is a core feature, and right now it seems pretty obvious that 2.0 did not do enough. The game seems to be stuck on some kind of weird compromise where a fleet is basic unit, but also a ship is a basic unit, and this seems to cause problems with fleet management. Also ground combat is obviously still lacking in both UI and opportunity cost.