Problems with 2.0 beta summarized.

[hashinshin]

In bullet point order just a few problems I've had after like 50? hours of MP games on the beta patch.

-War Exhaustion-

• WE gain is so SO SO SO low. If you have nearly any modifiers for WE gain it basically becomes irrelevant. The penalties are also insignificant.
• Forcing a surrender is a huge pain, as nobody will ever surrender as soon both parties will be at 100% war exhaustion. The defender will just refuse to surrender to hurt the attacker, which discourages any attacks since you don't want to be at the penalties.
• Using a mod to force status quo peaces to be mandatory is basically required for any MP.
• Letting an attacker sit on 100% war exhaustion while you aren't even if you have no intention of pushing or taking land just to penalize them is a viable yet frustrating strategy. This means any failed attacks in to a choke point will result in years of sitting at the 100% war exhaustion penalties until the defender reaches 100% and then says status quo.
• Gestalt 20% WE reduction needs to be removed outright. Being able to take 20% war exhaustion then ignore the penalties while your opponent has to deal with them? Their gameplay basically ENCOURAGES them to drag everyone down to the ground then eek out a win.
• Remember you can go militarist and get nationalist zeal for 30% WE reduction at game start. Currently you don't need to do anything since empires need to take 66% of their naval limit as loses (blown up, not retreated) to get war exhaustion. You don't get ANY war exhaustion from occupation.

-Tall versus Wide-

• AFKing for super tall is too effective, the system penalties are absurd and put the balance way in tall's favor.
• Synths are too strong. Teching till synths and then ascending is the 100% best play, even after the discovery nerfs.
• Discovery nerfs were good.
• Distance for claims penalty is too much. I'd reduce the distance modifier to 25 from 50, then increase the regular claims cost to 60. 60 on first world, 85 on second, 105 on third. Instead of 50 on first world, 100 on second, 150 on third. Claims in their current condition make basically no sense to actually use to push aggressively, and instead using the edicts on top of pushing for habitat spam becomes ideal.

-Military gameplay-

• PD needs to be buffed.
• Destroyers should be faster. (Currently only as fast as Cruisers?)
• With the above, the health/fleet ratio is 300, 400, 350, 375 with Corvettes/destroyers/cruisers/battleships, but the health upgrades screw that. Upgrades add 100/100/100/100 health per fleet cap, making upgrades for non-corvettes and especially destroyers weaker.
• Maybe destroyers are supposed to be slower and tankier than their weight would suggest?
• Consider lowing the hull strength technology for corvettes to 90 or 85.
• Hangers suck.
• Autocannons are perhaps too strong.
• Defense turrets are too weak (0 evasion) and never cause enough casualties to be worth being on anything other than a supreme choke point. With high energy upkeep there seems little reason to actually defend much in your empire, causing much of the game to be deathballing since defenses + 1/2 fleet doesn't beat full fleet.
• Range modifiers don't work, and maybe that's causing defense platforms to be too weak since they're supposed to get a 20% range buff, then a possible 'nother 50% from the station.
• Starbases should be 1 per 10 systems instead of 1 per 20, that would drastically improve the desire to actually conquer stuff.
• Starports and anchorages should probably be combined, as current even large empires can afford like 2-3 starbases if they want secured borders.

 

[Quinzal]

They need to find some way to make wide plays viable, because as it is, the only bonuses sprawling empires get is to fleet cap, which is irrelevant if you don't have the income/tech to be competitive.

 

[Takfloyd]

Most of the WE problems are instantly solved by the obvious change of having the penalties only apply when you refuse a status quo offer at 100% WE. The penalties should also be stronger - dragging out the war needs to directly hurt the war effort. Lowered fire rate for ships for example.

 

[hashinshin]

Most of the WE problems are instantly solved by the obvious change of having the penalties only apply when you refuse a status quo offer at 100% WE. The penalties should also be stronger - dragging out the war needs to directly hurt the war effort. Lowered fire rate for ships for example.

The obvious change is to make denying a status quo 100 influence, so that if you want to continue you can, but it costs you. The same way that you pay down WE in EU4, except influence is much harder to come by than diplo points.

 

[FleetingRain]

Range modifiers don't work, and maybe that's causing defense platforms to be too weak since they're supposed to get a 20% range buff, then a possible 'nother 50% from the station.

I don't know when nor where, but I recall Wiz saying in the forum that he had finally managed to find what was bugging the modifier so the next beta update will have it working.

 

[Madzai]

I feel expansionist wide gameplay is much harder in 2.0 and involve a lot of luck in it, unless you make a very specific set of rules. You can be easily cut off from expansion, you can have to many "meaningless" systems between you and you goal, while one single hyperlane can cut you off massively. You can wage wars, but it's so costly in all aspects, it will throw off your expansion massively, any if you're going for a conquest, it's cheaper\more effective to make not an expansionist "build", but an militaristic one that helps will claiming, WE, ships and much more, since sitting with smaller Empire and attacking later (since AI is weak with managing its economy) allow you now only get better ships, but also a lot of tech that improve claiming\influence gain, etc and traditions. Everything's gonna make following conquests easier.
While being an expansionist require to sink all your influence until, you at least have a stable connection to a region that isn't in imminent threat of being claimed. You have to be so focused on claiming choke points so you don't have influence to claim system around them, so unless you're lucky with "path" to choke point, you don't get much in terms of resources until you can finally stop and start building up.

 

[Pocho_caos]

Agree with most of your post (as a solo player)

• Starbases should be 1 per 10 systems instead of 1 per 20, that would drastically improve the desire to actually conquer stuff.
• Starports and anchorages should probably be combined, as current even large empires can afford like 2-3 starbases if they want secured borders.

Don't you find tedious to upgrade starports/anchorages at mid/lategame? you end up with a lot of starports/anchorages almost the same, and they don't work for defense. They are like another layer of planets.

Agree on defense turrets should have no energy cost, or a low one which can be reduced with tech, so you really have to fight for each system with a base, and it has some sense to have defenses inside of your empire, I feel weird that you always have your borders so well defended but you capital unprotected. Maybe big planets could spam turrets too, like defense armies. So you have the feel, ok, I'm ready to fight for his capital world, the most defended one, and the opposite, I can fight for his border, but if I go in I'll get f....

 

[Astax]

Problem with tall play is that it is SUPER boring, hence need to AFK. I found the cure for now, set tech and tradition cost to lowest level. It is still boring but only 25% as much.

 

[GloatingSwine]

• Range modifiers don't work, and maybe that's causing defense platforms to be too weak since they're supposed to get a 20% range buff, then a possible 'nother 50% from the station.

I've done some more testing on this.

The Artillery computer range bonus does work, but only for Battleships. It has no effect on Cruisers or Destroyers.

I am not sure if the Starport range aura would also affect battleships and nothing else, not sure how it would interact with attackallfleets making everything hostile.

 

[Almond_Brown]

The Starbase +50% range add-on (which would be HUGE btw) has not yet come up on the BUG FIXED list yet, afaik.

 

[Qoff]

In bullet point order just a few problems I've had after like 50? hours of MP games on the beta patch.

-War Exhaustion-

• WE gain is so SO SO SO low. If you have nearly any modifiers for WE gain it basically becomes irrelevant. The penalties are also insignificant.
• Forcing a surrender is a huge pain, as nobody will ever surrender as soon both parties will be at 100% war exhaustion. The defender will just refuse to surrender to hurt the attacker, which discourages any attacks since you don't want to be at the penalties.
• Using a mod to force status quo peaces to be mandatory is basically required for any MP.
• Letting an attacker sit on 100% war exhaustion while you aren't even if you have no intention of pushing or taking land just to penalize them is a viable yet frustrating strategy. This means any failed attacks in to a choke point will result in years of sitting at the 100% war exhaustion penalties until the defender reaches 100% and then says status quo.
• Gestalt 20% WE reduction needs to be removed outright. Being able to take 20% war exhaustion then ignore the penalties while your opponent has to deal with them? Their gameplay basically ENCOURAGES them to drag everyone down to the ground then eek out a win.
• Remember you can go militarist and get nationalist zeal for 30% WE reduction at game start. Currently you don't need to do anything since empires need to take 66% of their naval limit as loses (blown up, not retreated) to get war exhaustion. You don't get ANY war exhaustion from occupation.

-Tall versus Wide-

• AFKing for super tall is too effective, the system penalties are absurd and put the balance way in tall's favor.
• Synths are too strong. Teching till synths and then ascending is the 100% best play, even after the discovery nerfs.
• Discovery nerfs were good.
• Distance for claims penalty is too much. I'd reduce the distance modifier to 25 from 50, then increase the regular claims cost to 60. 60 on first world, 85 on second, 105 on third. Instead of 50 on first world, 100 on second, 150 on third. Claims in their current condition make basically no sense to actually use to push aggressively, and instead using the edicts on top of pushing for habitat spam becomes ideal.

-Military gameplay-

• PD needs to be buffed.
• Destroyers should be faster. (Currently only as fast as Cruisers?)
• With the above, the health/fleet ratio is 300, 400, 350, 375 with Corvettes/destroyers/cruisers/battleships, but the health upgrades screw that. Upgrades add 100/100/100/100 health per fleet cap, making upgrades for non-corvettes and especially destroyers weaker.
• Maybe destroyers are supposed to be slower and tankier than their weight would suggest?
• Consider lowing the hull strength technology for corvettes to 90 or 85.
• Hangers suck.
• Autocannons are perhaps too strong.
• Defense turrets are too weak (0 evasion) and never cause enough casualties to be worth being on anything other than a supreme choke point. With high energy upkeep there seems little reason to actually defend much in your empire, causing much of the game to be deathballing since defenses + 1/2 fleet doesn't beat full fleet.
• Range modifiers don't work, and maybe that's causing defense platforms to be too weak since they're supposed to get a 20% range buff, then a possible 'nother 50% from the station.
• Starbases should be 1 per 10 systems instead of 1 per 20, that would drastically improve the desire to actually conquer stuff.
• Starports and anchorages should probably be combined, as current even large empires can afford like 2-3 starbases if they want secured borders.

I must agree with you, did a tall game this weekend and its absurd, I completed all tradition trees by 1320. I wish they change Master Builders back to normal, damn its too bad now, we use a perk and still have to research that thing, it took me 300 months to research it.

 

[Taritu]

Really excellent list, agree with every point.

 

[CyberianK]

Great post almost flawless the only issue I found was:

Spoiler

 

[DC E1G]

I feel expansionist wide gameplay is much harder in 2.0 and involve a lot of luck in it, unless you make a very specific set of rules. You can be easily cut off from expansion, you can have to many "meaningless" systems between you and you goal, while one single hyperlane can cut you off massively. You can wage wars, but it's so costly in all aspects, it will throw off your expansion massively, any if you're going for a conquest, it's cheaper\more effective to make not an expansionist "build", but an militaristic one that helps will claiming, WE, ships and much more, since sitting with smaller Empire and attacking later (since AI is weak with managing its economy) allow you now only get better ships, but also a lot of tech that improve claiming\influence gain, etc and traditions. Everything's gonna make following conquests easier.
While being an expansionist require to sink all your influence until, you at least have a stable connection to a region that isn't in imminent threat of being claimed. You have to be so focused on claiming choke points so you don't have influence to claim system around them, so unless you're lucky with "path" to choke point, you don't get much in terms of resources until you can finally stop and start building up.

I know Wiz has mentioned they want to play around with hyperlane and galaxy scripting, which is good because boy does the game need it. It's far too easy to have your spawn be up against a Marauder, another empire, a Leviathan, etc. and be cut off from the rest of the galaxy. In single player it's less of an issue because you can just restart, but if you're playing with other people it's super frustrating to ditch a game 15-20 years in when one player realizes they have a dozen accessible systems

 

[Leon12]

Agree with 90% of your points. Some other modifiers (apart from +weapon range) are bugged too - I think the Automated Dreadnought's fire rate buffs also do nothing, there are threads in the bug forums exhaustively listing the broken modifiers. Be good to get a fix.

Only thing I disagree with is rolling together bases and anchorages - imo if you want a massive fleet it's good that you need to specialise and invest in infrastructure (which comes with an opportunity cost) to maintain the fleet. Just like in real life!

About war exhaustion -
1. Occupying/destroying planets needs to add WAY, WAY, WAY more exhaustion than it does right now
2. I've said it before and I'll say it again, reaching 100% war exhaustion and refusing a status quo peace *needs* to generate a scaling happiness debuff, like -1% or -2% global happiness per month. Any fixed modifier will just be ignored or counteracted by players, thus rendering the war exhaustion mechanic almost completely pointless.

 

[g4borg]

• AFKing for super tall is too effective, the system penalties are absurd and put the balance way in tall's favor.

I actually found "super tall" unviable in mp because of fleet issues, almost all the time people are going to quick expand as much as possible, but mostly into systems with planets. we could debate if that is "tall" at all.
for me "super tall" would mean to stay at the core system size (so owning not more than 1-3 planets).

Maybe the understanding of wide vs. tall needs to be expanded, because I think what has been described here as "tall" in this thread sounds more like "normal expansion", aka, the way the AI plays it: few planets, 10 systems, and then slowly add new territory. For me, tall was to keep the core small and grabbing land in 1.9 was only to keep up in resources and fleet size, while if it would have been possible, just staying the size of a fallen empire and pushing up like venice does in civ would what i call a "tall build".

atm. my biggest issue with this is, that you have to play that style. neither wide play (grabbing as much land and planets as possible) nor real tall play (stay small and focus on your inner empire) make a lot of sense.

so i do not see the same problems with it (afk talling will not help you if your neighbour is preparing to eat you), and some of the arguments are somewhat circular.

i would love to see the balance improved in a way, where tall and wide are both legit options, and are not just dictated by your map placement, and if you have multiple 10 mineral systems next to your main (because that helps a lot), and i would actually give different bonuses and penalties for sector systems vs. core systems, and define a tall player as someone who tries to keep his system amount to the core amount he can handle - but it also has to be flexible enough to be chosen in the game, as sometimes staying tall or becoming wide is either forced on you, or just a giant opportunity.

 

[Tacticus101]

Increases to tech and tradition cost from systems should just be removed, even 1% increase in cost is more than most systems are worth.

 

[Vyktor]

I only started playing the game again since 2.0 - but for me some glaringly bad problems still exist.

1. The UI - the "more" tab is ridiculous - why is there like 9 options under 1 tab? Really poor design. Even the most popular mod the "UI fix" can't fix it it is so poorly designed. The Outliner is also a F-ugly UI copy from EU4 that belongs in 1444.
2. I'm a big bad xenophobe empire with aggressive first contact etc... so why can't my ships attack enemy science ships and constructors in neutral space?
3. Ground combat - still a pretty much missing feature.
4. 5 Trait maximum - with quite a few fairly redundant traits. Even the mods appear stuck with the 5 trait picks maximum - presumably its hard coded? Welp.
5. As the OP says - penalties for 'wide' play effectively forces you to play the same way every game. A boring mechanic.

Sorry don't want to go too off topic with my rant post, and apologies for dumping it here but the OP's good post got me to typing when at this point (2 years or so after buying it?) I can barely be bothered to post about Stellaris - I feel it'll never be the game I was hoping for - or maybe it will be in 4 years plus £120 more in DLC who knows...

 

[Lude]

In bullet point order just a few problems I've had after like 50? hours of MP games on the beta patch.

-War Exhaustion-

• WE gain is so SO SO SO low. If you have nearly any modifiers for WE gain it basically becomes irrelevant. The penalties are also insignificant.
• Forcing a surrender is a huge pain, as nobody will ever surrender as soon both parties will be at 100% war exhaustion. The defender will just refuse to surrender to hurt the attacker, which discourages any attacks since you don't want to be at the penalties.
• Using a mod to force status quo peaces to be mandatory is basically required for any MP.

You say there is a mod for forcing status quo in 2.02, where can I find it ?

Also for some reason if a player achieves war goals against another player it's possible for the loser to REJECT surrender even when they have nothing left at all, so the winner is permanently at high war exhaustion. Force peace is really a needed mechanic I believe.

 

[Beagá]

Had a weird bug where I instantly could contact an AI empire, and another with the message saying contact with alien for the first time... after already being in contact with one marauder and 2 AIs.

WTF.