Please make late game more interesting

[Commander Tobe]

I know this is vague. And maybe it's best to be understood as a place to collect different ideas.

Currently you can win by 3 conditions
1) Have most victory points
2) Conquer the WHOLE galaxy
3) Become the crisis and destroy the galaxy

All winning conditions somewhat demand that you have the biggest fleet. Especially in late game you will have endless tiresome wars which can be exhausting. At least for me it feels more like work than fun which is why most of the time I quit the game and start with a different empire in an infinite vicious circle.

I bet there are ways how Stellaris can do better! It would be nice for a change if devs could focus on that. In my mind it is still the biggest problem the game has.

 

[Commander Tobe]

LOL, Stellaris fans really, really love this game and want it to be more, and more, and more. In all, the developers are smarter for making the game playable and making it incredibly fun for the imagination, rather than skill or experience level. It has great early day RPG qualities that are cherished by my generation. I love Stellaris.

And yes, I absolutely agree

 

[EarthboundPapa]

I know this is vague. And maybe it's best to be understood as a place to collect different ideas.

Currently you can win by 3 conditions
1) Have most victory points
2) Conquer the WHOLE galaxy
3) Become the crisis and destroy the galaxy

All winning conditions somewhat demand that you have the biggest fleet. Especially in late game you will have endless tiresome wars which can be exhausting. At least for me it feels more like work than fun which is why most of the time I quit the game and start with a different empire in an infinite vicious circle.

I bet there are ways how Stellaris can do better! It would be nice for a change if devs could focus on that. In my mind it is still the biggest problem the game has.

Gaining vassals and tributaries will easily dominate fleet size in game score. However so, "the biggest fleet" will acquire this still, so it still feels like there should be other options for victory other than what comes down to fleet size.

Building a fleet that will win the galaxy is also seemingly the main point of the game. Fleet combat is also the most exciting part of the game so it's fitting. Stellaris feels like it's set up to be a multiplayer game and solo is training for that. I can imagine the magnitude of the battles when multiple empires have combined resources...1M+ size fleets duking it out in huge wars sounds like the game to me. Gotta get your little vassals to agree to keep your resources going so you and your ally can combine efforts against the enemy.

@Commander Tobe: I do agree though, for solo game there could definitely be a bit more after the end-game crisis and more options for solo-story type victories. An RPG-story-like victory that you work for in various ways throughout the entire game, and can win after the crisis after further work, sounds like something that would make solo better. If the player were unable to complete the victory, they will have to win by domination or work for the endgame score.

 

[EarthboundPapa]

The only thing in my experience that really changes is the aggressiveness of the AI towards you since they will have a boost in Research and production including alloys. That means they will be stronger and more likely to attack you. Nothing else really changes for you.
If you ask me, that's not really a way to make a game more diverse or colorful to play. It's simply the same as before just more unforgiving.

I understand this completely. I felt the game was losing it's charm at a moment, too. I liked it twice as much after downloading 'Utopia' and another 500 hours went down this past month. Stellaris just has a unique feel to it. Overall, building a fleet and dominating with it IS the basic point of the game in my honest opinion.

I think players should understand the prototype for what Stellaris is, was created long ago. Paradox probably didn't even exist. In essence, Stellaris isn't old, but It's heart is quite old in some ways...Has anyone out there played these proto-type Stellaris games? I know there's one for Nintendo because I played it at my neighbors as a kid.

 

[Commander Tobe]

Stellaris feels like it's set up to be a multiplayer game and solo is training for that.

Interesting! I always found that it's the other way round. For me it feels like a strong solo experience with all the stories and events that are exclusively for you. Most times we even had our respective "solo play experiences" in multiplayer (with AI empires) until mid-game when the Galactic Community is formed and we meet one another for the first time.

 

[EarthboundPapa]

Funny because in the end, the game's music is worth AS much as the game itself. Yes, I would pay for every expansion full price just to have the music, it is absolutely the most awesome music of any video game I have every played and everyone should listen to it.

Part of me is like, whatever with the game this music just dominates my mind.

 

[Commander Tobe]

Funny because in the end, the game's music is worth AS much as the game itself. Yes, I would pay for every expansion full price just to have the music, it is absolutely the most awesome music of any video game I have every played and everyone should listen to it.

Part of me is like, whatever with the game this music just dominates my mind.

Agreed that the music is supreme! I bought the soundtrack on Steam for me and my board game group. Every time we play Eclipse 2nd Edition or Twilight Imperium you can bet that it will be our atmospheric background music <3

 

[EarthboundPapa]

Interesting! I always found that it's the other way round. For me it feels like a strong solo experience with all the stories and events that are exclusively for you. Most times we even had our respective "solo play experiences" in multiplayer (with AI empires) until mid-game when the Galactic Community is formed and we meet one another for the first time.

I suppose the game being set up for a multiplayer experience isn't accurate at all, it's just sort of the way the game is. I haven't experienced multiplayer yet so I don't have an idea of what this is totally like yet. Yeah, it's an RPG. : )

 

[NotAYakk]

What makes the playing game different from sitting at your computer, staring at a blank screen, and imagining yourself being the leader of an galaxy spanning empire is the game's mechanics, the incentives it gives you, and the obstacles it puts in your path.

Yes, you can be done when you feel like you're done. And you can have your own win condition in mind, and push toward that. But "I roleplayed in my mind a thing which is not reflected at all in the game's mechanics or in the way that other empires interact with me in game" is not the same thing as having actual event chains and mechanics to represent alternate victory conditions.

Thing is, I tweak the game until it is hard at each era.

And when I reach the point that I have overcome the last challenge (be it a 10x crisis or a repeated crisis or I've defeated most of the galaxy united against me or I've formed a galactic scale federation or I destroyed MSI), the tail end is going to be anti climactic.

The game could use better tuning to keep the tension up. If I have an easy enough early game to win an early conquest, the mid/late game becomes trivial with the.resulting boost. So to keep tension high the early game has to be a desperate struggle for survivsl, the mid game has repeated underdog wars, and only in the end game do I get to dominate rivals.

Not sure how to do this, really.

Hence, the game ends when I know I have won.