PDX: Adding new content and new DLC isn't good if you can't get the existing content to work.

[~Robbie]

I think taking one look at these forums will reveal that a lot of us are really frustrated with the state of the game. There have been innumerable threads on all the different reasons why we are frustrated, but the question that should be on everybody's minds should be "where can Paradox go from here?"

The answer is simple. You guys desperately need to put a freeze on new content until you get the old stuff under control. A diplomacy overhaul sounds amazing, and something I've always wanted from the game! But I'm not interested if the deal is "we'll add it, then take a year getting it to actually work properly".

As a Stellaris fan, I'm as frustrated as anybody at the current state of the game. I always, always want to see Stellaris improve and get better. But it's to the point where I feel that the focus on adding new content or overhauling existing content isn't helping. It's become a detriment. Over the past year or so, new content has repeatedly been added without ever feeling finished. New content used to be iterated on frequently until it was perfect. This past year, it feels like that's changed, and now content is just added with seemingly no regard for how well it works, then left to fester. The AI has still never recovered from the jump from 1.9 to 2.0, and has only gotten worse as time goes on.

Please, Paradox. Think long and hard about what you ideally want the game to be with all the ingredients you have right now. If you could snap your fingers and make the current game work perfectly, what would that vision look like? THAT is the goal you need to strive toward. Not more overhauls and more DLC. We need to see you guys starting to shore up the foundation before building another 30 roofs on a house that can barely hold one.

 

[Attitude Adjuster]

Yep. There are so many features, minor and major, that have not worked as intended for more than 50% of their time released. War in Heaven has been intermittently broken since release (i've personally never seen one work properly, and i've 1000 hours). and the end game crisis hasn't worked properly for about 85% of the time since stellaris has been released (various levels of broken, from simply overweighting one crisis, to full blown not functioning)

 

[~Robbie]

Yep. There are so many features, minor and major, that have not worked as intended for more than 50% of their time released. War in Heaven has been intermittently broken since release (i've personally never seen one work properly, and i've 1000 hours). and the end game crisis hasn't worked properly for about 85% of the time since stellaris has been released (various levels of broken, from simply overweighting one crisis, to full blown not functioning)

The general vibe I've gotten for a long time is that PDX tends to release content and then not bother touching it or improving it for, at the very least, months. In some cases (like you said, the War in Heaven) they've gone years without fixing the problems, while at the same time constantly adding new content that they will also, ultimately ignore.

 

[Attitude Adjuster]

Yeah I read a similar vibe,

I feel like they knew they were gonna revamp stuff so didn't care to fix it because it would just break again anyway.

I'm hoping now that the major revamps are over (I can't see diplomacy being as big as war or economy) they will concentrate on making the game polished, and keep throwing in distant stars/leviathan's style content.

 

[EvilTom]

I don't know why they don't seek to include more of the mods into the game. There are plenty of ones that are designed to "fix" perceived issues. The work has already been done and just needs vetting and testing.

I wonder what mods the PDX crews play with.

 

[MrMess85]

At this stage I'd love just a response from Paradox to say they're listening and going to come back with a plan.

Open up some communication. Something!

 

[monkeypunch87]

At this stage I'd love just a response from Paradox to say they're listening and going to come back with a plan.

Open up some communication. Something!

Maybe tomorrow, since it is the usual dev diaries thursday. EU4 got some communication yesterday.

 

[ComradeKroo]

I don't know why they don't seek to include more of the mods into the game. There are plenty of ones that are designed to "fix" perceived issues. The work has already been done and just needs vetting and testing.

I wonder what mods the PDX crews play with.

Including mods to the game is non-cannon. Mods are just mods, especialy overhaul or gameplay mods cant be including in official game.
I think PDX game designers and game producers should hire or outsource some modders to improve their games. I found some modders create better UI or AI or even mechanics than PDX teams.

 

[TheTam]

They even removed some of the paid content from previous DLC with this patch.
It boggles the mind.

 

[monkeypunch87]

They even removed some of the paid content from previous DLC with this patch.
It boggles the mind.

Which content?

 

[Askorti]

I don't know why they don't seek to include more of the mods into the game. There are plenty of ones that are designed to "fix" perceived issues. The work has already been done and just needs vetting and testing.

I wonder what mods the PDX crews play with.

Mods usually work around the issues the code has in the base game. So they don't generally fix the underlying issues, but cover them up. For example, AFAIK Glavius' AI mod basically tells the AI what to do, so it doesn't have to make decisions of its own, because it simply isn't capable of doing it anymore. This gives the illusion of the AI being competent.

 

[TheTam]

Which content?

L-Gate ressources and unique ressources from Trader Enclaves, they are now just a fixed price market for motes and whatnot
Is the Drake Shrine back in?

Its not that big of a deal.

 

[~Robbie]

Yeah I read a similar vibe,

I feel like they knew they were gonna revamp stuff so didn't care to fix it because it would just break again anyway.

I'm hoping now that the major revamps are over (I can't see diplomacy being as big as war or economy) they will concentrate on making the game polished, and keep throwing in distant stars/leviathan's style content.

I could almost get behind this if the pace between breaking stuff and fixing stuff was fast, but it's not. It takes them months to even start refining existing features more often than not, and the more DLC that they add, the more they have to juggle. It's just really unfortunate the way the game has been going lately, and it's left me really frustrated.

 

[TheVoidDragon]

Could you give some examples of what you feel is unfinished? I enjoy the new content that gets added to the game and I agree that sometimes things feel a bit lacking, but I haven't played much for a while so I'm not too sure specifically what sort of problems there are at the moment.

 

[Wolfgang I]

Could you give some examples of what you feel is unfinished? I enjoy the new content that gets added to the game and I agree that sometimes things feel a bit lacking, but I haven't played much for a while so I'm not too sure specifically what sort of problems there are at the moment.

Some people like to play with an AI that is more than a broken placeholder.

 

[methegrate]

A diplomacy overhaul sounds amazing, and something I've always wanted from the game! But I'm not interested if the deal is "we'll add it, then take a year getting it to actually work properly".

I mostly agree, but I actually think a diplomacy overhaul is part of getting the game working properly.

Much of the reason they have to keep overhauling Stellaris is that it essentially shipped in a conceptual beta state. Many, if not most, of the game's mechanics were unfinished or essentially placeholders for something more complicated. And I don't mean technically (although that's often true too). Rather I mean from a design standpoint. Most of the gameplay mechanics were shallow, unrelated to each other or simply missing.

I mean, just look at warfare... It's almost hard to believe that the same company that created HoI IV was responsible for Stellaris 1.0's strategic warfare.

So they rebuilt warfare from the ground up in 2.0 and the economy in 2.2, frankly doing the work that should have been done before release. I'm not saying the devs were wrong to do so, those updates are why I still buy some of the game's DLC, but they weren't really updates. They were finishing a game that had been on the market already for years.

Diplomacy is the next missing piece of that. There isn't any, and it is supposed to be an essential part of the game. Finishing diplomacy so that you can actually have relationships with other empires beyond "you're a xenophile? I love you." or "you're an egalitarian? I hate you." is a necessary part of finishing the game.

 

[~Robbie]

I mostly agree, but I actually think a diplomacy overhaul is part of getting the game working properly.

Much of the reason they have to keep overhauling Stellaris is that it essentially shipped in a conceptual beta state. Many, if not most, of the game's mechanics were unfinished or essentially placeholders for something more complicated. And I don't mean technically (although that's often true too). Rather I mean from a design standpoint. Most of the gameplay mechanics were shallow, unrelated to each other or simply missing.

I mean, just look at warfare... It's almost hard to believe that the same company that created HoI IV was responsible for Stellaris 1.0's strategic warfare.

So they rebuilt warfare from the ground up in 2.0 and the economy in 2.2, frankly doing the work that should have been done before release. I'm not saying the devs were wrong to do so, those updates are why I still buy some of the game's DLC, but they weren't really updates. They were finishing a game that had been on the market already for years.

Diplomacy is the next missing piece of that. There isn't any, and it is supposed to be an essential part of the game. Finishing diplomacy so that you can actually have relationships with other empires beyond "you're a xenophile? I love you." or "you're an egalitarian? I hate you." is a necessary part of finishing the game.

If I had confidence that a diplomacy overhaul would be functional upon release, I would agree with you. I do not. PDX has proven time and time again that these overhauls do not function properly on release, and take months of refinement to work as they should.

There comes a point where moving parts have to stop being introduced if you can't control them. That's the stage I feel we're at. 2018 was not a good year for Stellaris, and it was also the year with more overhauls than there's ever been. I don't think that's a coincidence.

 

[EvilTom]

I mostly agree, but I actually think a diplomacy overhaul is part of getting the game working properly.

Much of the reason they have to keep overhauling Stellaris is that it essentially shipped in a conceptual beta state. Many, if not most, of the game's mechanics were unfinished or essentially placeholders for something more complicated. And I don't mean technically (although that's often true too). Rather I mean from a design standpoint. Most of the gameplay mechanics were shallow, unrelated to each other or simply missing.

I mean, just look at warfare... It's almost hard to believe that the same company that created HoI IV was responsible for Stellaris 1.0's strategic warfare.

So they rebuilt warfare from the ground up in 2.0 and the economy in 2.2, frankly doing the work that should have been done before release. I'm not saying the devs were wrong to do so, those updates are why I still buy some of the game's DLC, but they weren't really updates. They were finishing a game that had been on the market already for years.

Diplomacy is the next missing piece of that. There isn't any, and it is supposed to be an essential part of the game. Finishing diplomacy so that you can actually have relationships with other empires beyond "you're a xenophile? I love you." or "you're an egalitarian? I hate you." is a necessary part of finishing the game.

README: Sorry this ended up quite a long post. I've put a soapbox warning in .

Whilst I don't disagree with your points, I'd like to ask... "When is a game finished or complete?". It's probably too philosophical, but if you intend to release DLC and expansions, (as many do today) then is your game unable to be considered complete?

*** SOAPBOX WARNING***
Probably there's been a fundamental shift in development. Gone are the days of going into an Electronics Boutique and buying a single A4 sized cardboard box with a game, full manual and sometimes a T-Shirt in it, that was ready and never received any updates as they could hardly get them to you. I remember getting excited about £15 expansions for a game that had to be installed on a CD. I didn't consider that those functions should have been in the game from the start, although after playing with them I would consider them necessary to my continued enjoyment of the game and I wouldn't play the game without them.
Maybe it would be better in some ways for game developers to not want to get games out that are buggy... but now they have the ability to patch them on a whim. Does this lead to laziness? I don't know... sometimes I guess. I've heard of Day 1 patches for some console (and other) games being in a tens of GBs! What the hell is that about?

I suppose the real questions come down to the market and money though. Most people would start as a casual/fun/amatuer developer at least to some extent. Casual developers probably don't have so much of the problem with the above bugs. They create games because they enjoy it and if they make money that's good. When you start to work on it professionally and your livelihood (and your families) depend on it you need to make decisions that make more money. On tops of this do you listen to your fans and give them what you want or do you stick to your vision for a game? Given that you can fix mistakes later, maybe you start to make compromises. Then a marketing and executives start to make promises you can't keep and deadlines you can't make, and make executive decisions on when you must release a game, and the cost of bug squashing isn't as high as the money coming in from new features and DLC. I can see how it gets this way. I cannot see how it can be fixed, except for if game developers are given more executive power in companies, or people stop paying for crap stuff.

I think pre-order should die a death though. That's just destructive to everything except sales figures to executives. Too many times have I seen games with massive pre-order sales figures which have been sub-optimal, with people complaining about stuff not delivered or being not what they expected. It hurts the gamers, it hurts the reputation of the developers and just lines the pockets of big execs, who get golden handshakes and move onto other companies before their destructive ways are realised.