[OPINION] After 2.2, development should slow down

[Faesar]

This is a very intersting post and I think OP covered a lot of valid points. Two remarks:

1. A lot of points that were discussed here are AI issues (which I totally understand), but only a very limited number of people on the team are probably able and allowed to fix those issues. It would be contraproductive to let everyone on the team work on the AI issues at the same time (although I wish it would be possible). It doesn't harm the game or even slow down the process if for example the other devs add for example events, while the AI guy fixes the AI.

2. Things like the AI have very much improved over time. Although there is always room for improvement and the AI takes a step back in the process once in a while due to heavy changes in the game mechanics it is reasonable to think that the team is aware of most of the issues and will also fix it in the future. A lot of these changes are gradual and therefore not immediately noticeable, but I remember how f.... up the sector AI was at the beginning and how very much helpful it now is.

I think that the team has to see who can deal with which issues (don't let the graphics guy fix the AI) and maybe make the next DLC focused on the guys who are available at that time (but based on Wiz's comments whenever this issue comes up, they already do exactly that).

 

[Etrutian]

I agree and disagree.

Before the go back and polish their old material, we need a Politics and an Economy patch.

I argue this because it would be optimal to have a proper framework of a game before going back and polishing parts that might make more sense or need more fine tuning after a Politics patch is released. We have had Exploration, War and Economy. Get us the Politics, then go back and make them all work together in a solid way.

 

[Ezumiyr]

Well I had to put the first "respectfully disagree" there, because ven in the list made by OP, some features will only be fixed by actually developping for features. I'm pretty sure it means they are actually being fixed, but it takes a long time because they are being re-designed

• The War In Heaven has unsatisfying mechanics as it is. It's just a very long war which destroys alliances. The solution? Giving its own intricate mechanics to alliances and federations. Will liekely not be fixed/enjoyable til the federation rework.
• The machine uprising could be somewhat fixed by giving a proper economy to the uprising. Maybe that's already done for 2.2 with the new economics. But maybe we need a proper revolt feature so it's fun and interesting.
• The contingency always firing is trivial to fix. No reason to slow down dev just for that.
  
• The war system is still relatively recent. Of course they didn't stop working on it, and of course there's gonna be changes in 2.2. If we hadn't the new war system you would be saying "we want the death stacks to be fixed! please slow down dev to fix death stacks and planet rushs!". But the new war system was designed specifically to address the problem. The downside is that it's still not perfect, but it doesn't mean they stopped working on it...
• I simply didn't see what you said about colossi. For me the AI builds them.
• I've seen AI empires synthetically ascend. Just your experience.
• Ground combat is bad and everyone agrees with it. That's why it requires a rework. Rework comes with development, not by bug fixing or "polishing", which is a very vague term.
• The marauders coming to fight is likely a bug. The Stellaris team never stops fixing bugs.

Additionnaly, new/rework features is what makes people coming back to the game.


I find the reactions of the people on the forums very surprising. Wiz and the team have explained very often that there isn't a dichotomy between working on the game and fixinf bugs. They are always doing both - it's just that talking about fixing bugs isn't very fashionable for dev diaries. And in the same time, the new features are done to address more general problems the game has, it's not just purely new content for the game (that's what proper DLCs are for).

 

[Kayden_II]

Additionnaly, new/rework features is what makes people coming back to the game.

Fixed features, too + A fixed game is what keeps people playing this game ...

Wiz and the team have explained very often that there isn't a dichotomy between working on the game and fixinf bugs.

Yeah, that's sounds good and reasonable and very placatory, but it's the prioritization of the former (instead of the latter), which keeps people making such a thread like this.

 

[Death Dragon]

I don't really understand this thread because to me 2.2 sounds exactly like what the OP wants, an update focused on fixing the game and quality of life (as have basically been all Stellaris updates, to be honest). The "new features" it adds are the market and trade route stuff, but we have seen barely anything about those yet, so I wouldn't really call those the focus. Planetary management isn't new and unrest isn't new either, they're just getting "fixed" in 2.2

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.

Stellaris is a game where you click a whoooole bunch of times to increase your resource production and then you use those resources to spam military ships and fight wars of attrition to conquer the galaxy. I don't think this is gonna change in 2.2. It's hopefully gonna have a bunch less clicking (unless you were using the "autobuild" mod already, which you really should use because it removes a hell of a lot of unecessary clicks for constructing mining stations and upgrading buildigns etc), but there is just not one other thing you can actually do with your resources that doesn't just end up improving your military directly or improving your ability to make even more resources.

After 2.2, all being well, the 'lack of features' critique is going have been pretty much blown out of the water.

Wiiiiiilll it though?

 

[Tavior]

Many of Paradox Games suffer to various degree those issues. EU 4 is probability the most egregious example.

Just look at the EU 4 thread where bugs have survived so many patch cycle.

 

[Nelson007]

My CPU0 hope PI can improve the performance, So CPU 1-7 can help.

 

[The Founder]

My CPU0 hope PI can improve the performance, So CPU 1-7 can help.

To blatant steal a example from Hearts of Iron:
It does not mater that you can churn out 25 Infantery Batallions in the same time it takes to make 1 (90 days). If the attached recon team takes 120 days, that is how long it takes until you got a division.

 

[REDDQ]

Stellaris is finally shaping up to be something I will enjoy. So I agree, hopefully all things in the new patch and DLC will work as they should.

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

I agree with one exception because kicking that useless mechanic from the game is the only way to proceed

 

[Secret Master]

The war in heaven (paid feature) never fires, and doesn't often work properly when it does

It fires for me with some frequency, and it works fine when it does.

It even works fine when a Crisis spawns during the War in Heaven.

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

I've seen them build them.

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's happened to me before. They died quickly when they attacked, and I barely noticed it was them, but they did at least try.

 

[Tavior]

It fires for me with some frequency, and it works fine when it does.

It even works fine when a Crisis spawns during the War in Heaven.

I have yet to experience a War in Heaven myself despite having lot of games with 5 fallen empire in earlier versions of Stellaris.

 

[Sifer2]

I imagine the issue here is free bug fix patches don't make money. Creating new DLC to sell does. To which the best solution I guess we could get is to suggest them to focus on smaller content packs for a while to give them a chance to fix stuff that's gotten broken along the way. I don't think it will change much though until they have the 4th expansion pack out. Since it sounds like they want a total overhaul of Diplomacy too before they are satisfied.

 

[Oscot]

Call this a strawman if you want, but I see OP's argument as being equivalent to:

Given the choice between
A) A 90%-working version of a totally new feature, and
B) Patching the final 10% to bring an existing feature up to 100% functionality
I'd rather have (B)

And I think this is, like, a literal inability to do math, because getting 90% of something is better than getting 10% of something.

So a big fat disagree from me. I'm with @Juboboman ; all-speed ahead on the new features instead, please!

 

[Marconius]

The planetary rework is already not a 'new feature': it's a rework of an existing feature. I personally would like to see other features (diplomacy, trade, factions, warfare, ground combat, etc.) reworked/expanded in a similar way. I think stuff like this is still a form of polish: if a system is not working well or turns out to be poorly designed, it needs to be remade; I don't want development restricted to just small modifications of existing systems.

 

[Oscot]

The planetary rework is already not a 'new feature': it's a rework of an existing feature.

To-may-to, to-mah-to.
If you don't think strata, stability, crime, infrastructure, and amenities are "new", then idk what to tell you.

This is like saying the Contingency isn't a new feature, it's just a rework of the 1.0 AI Rebellion. This is like saying that 2.0 didn't take away 2 FTL types, it just put them elsewhere in the tech tree (although I do note that this remains Paradox's official line on the issue, lol).

There is a Ship of Theseus argument in here somewhere, fair enough, so I can't just say "YOU ARE WRONG" and be done with it, but I can say that your position is way, way, waaaaaaaaay out of line on what a reasonable person would consider the cutoff of ontological continuity.

 

[The Kombinator]

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.

AI has a bunch of bad military decisions which are not connected to bad economy. Can't move fleets properly doomstacked, often backdoor when it shouldn't, keep fleet above planet, separates defensive fleet keeping a part of it's navy out of action, armies moved badly, and often does not repair damaged ships after retreat.

 

[The Kombinator]

Ground combat is just bollocks.

Nah ground combat UI is fine. I would only change 4 thing about ground combat, and assault armies.

1. Damaged armies get chance to switch out with fresh ones, if there are armies above the combat width. Something similar to the fleet's disengage.
2. Generals should die MUCH harder. A chance closer to the admirals'.
3. Armies should no longer regenerate fully. An army means a lot of soldiers. Sure part of them regenerates, because we can assume, that there are medical stuff on the transport, and there are injured, but how they replenish the dead in space from nothing? Armies would regenerate fully, if they move above friendly planet with the right race, or stand on it.
4. Assault armies would reduce chance of revolt. They would not reduce unrest, but if the chance of successful revolt is 0, then it simply wouldn't occur for non-genociders. You might be mad, but not stupid. For genociders you don't care, because you die anyway, and why not die fighting then?

 

[Oscot]

1. Damaged armies get chance to switch out with fresh ones, if there are armies above the combat width. Something similar to the fleet's disengage.

This already happens tho?

2. Generals should die MUCH harder. A chance closer to the admirals'.

This one I agree with, if only because playing General Rehire after every invasion is getting into the realm of pro-forma Cookie Clicker Micro at this point.

3. Armies should no longer regenerate fully. An army means a lot of soldiers. Sure part of them regenerates, because we can assume, that there are medical stuff on the transport, and there are injured, but how they replenish the dead in space from nothing? Armies would regenerate fully, if they move above friendly planet with the right race, or stand on it.

Here you're creating a problem where none already exists. How does it make the game better to have to stop your invasion eight times per war to fly aaaaaalllllllllll the way back to home territory to heal armies? If your war machine has naval superiority, this is just artificial padding of micro on a war that's already won, and if your war machine doesn't have naval superiority, then you're going to get stopped in your tracks anyway in short order, aren't you?

4. Assault armies would reduce chance of revolt. They would not reduce unrest, but if the chance of successful revolt is 0, then it simply wouldn't occur for non-genociders. You might be mad, but not stupid. For genociders you don't care, because you die anyway, and why not die fighting then?

I've never had a single revolt since 1.7, so, again, this is a solution without a problem. Nobody revolts anyway, so adding negative modifiers to revolt risk is just pointlessness squared.

 

[The Kombinator]

Here you're creating a problem where none already exists. How does it make the game better to have to stop your invasion eight times per war to fly aaaaaalllllllllll the way back to home territory to heal armies? If your war machine has naval superiority, this is just artificial padding of micro on a war that's already won, and if your war machine doesn't have naval superiority, then you're going to get stopped in your tracks anyway in short order, aren't you?

I would call it difficulty increase. Make those planetary defenses worth more. Beside you can bring more armies.

This already happens tho?

Nope. They just stop being damaged, if too damaged, but once everyone is too damaged on combat width, then they start dying fast.

I've never had a single revolt since 1.7, so, again, this is a solution without a problem. Nobody revolts anyway, so adding negative modifiers to revolt risk is just pointlessness squared.

You never played the style i do after midgame then sometimes. When i play as fanatic militarist, or genocider, then i don't bother with planetary edict, fortresses, or resettle after midgame. I just put 20 assault, or 10 elite armies on planet, and goodbye. In case of normal empire revolt happens sometimes, and in case of genocider it's almost 100%. Though for genocider that should be the normal.

 

[Enska]

Edit: Removed upon realizing it's off-topic.