Some thoughts on Species Modification and Balancing

[hxu04]

I guess it's not news that we can't apply template to species with unmodifiable traits anymore. The patch notes didn't mention this change or I might overlook it, nonetheless, I am against it. It will just make the species screen more clutter when it's already a mess, and you have to factor in the species tab lag that been there for centuries. It also makes biological ascension and psionic ascension more inferior compare to synthetic ascension, when synthetic ascension already is the strongest ascension of all. And this hits Life-Seeded and Shattered Ring to dust as this change cripples their early expansion.

I will further this topic by talking about the balancing, since there always is a focus on balancing like we are play some sort rts game. Then why synthetic ascension never been looked upon on? Why it's always more efficient go for tech rush and conquer than peacefully build your empire? Whatever you change, players who want efficient will always find the meta builds and cheese them, so why not put your effort from balancing every single aspect of the game which is impossible into somewhere useful? Or more precisely speaking, buff the weak to make them more appealing or interesting, but stop nerf those alright one. e.g. I don't see Functional Architecture needs a rework at the first place and who uses Inward Perfection anymore?

 

[Baqar79]

I think that was in the 3.2 patch notes under 'Bugfixes':
~~~
* Fixed it being possible to remove and add traits that shouldn't be possible to change, via species modification.
~~~

I haven't played recently until this latest patch, but I almost always choose Evolutionary Mastery, and so far in my current game I seem to have been lucky enough not to meet a species without one of those traits . The whole species modification system is a pain...for one why does it cost research? The research has already been done, if anything I would expect a cost in consumer goods and/or food to make the changes (or Alloys and/or energy in the case of robots).

I would also love to apply these changes automatically to refugee's or other immigrants coming into my borders to cut down on my work load (perhaps create an immigration policy and integrate the cost into that?).

What traits aren't modifiable? I know that Serviles is at least a trait I can remove (thankfully!, otherwise there would be no end to the unemployed at my research habitats).

As to Buff's and Nerfs, yeah I agree that making weaker picks stronger (and more interesting) is better than making currently strong picks weaker...it just seems like it isn't going to happen. Another example where things haven't changed much in the game are that a lot of anomaly events simply add +3 resources to a deposit which often happens well outside my borders....I've even spent energy on an anomaly event only to get a deposit that I would never use; I have Niven (2.1.4.4) which I occasionally play to compare, and those +3 resources were actually quite well tuned for that version of game, but aren't anywhere near as good with versions 2.2+.

 

[tribnia]

I think that was in the 3.2 patch notes under 'Bugfixes':
~~~
* Fixed it being possible to remove and add traits that shouldn't be possible to change, via species modification.
~~~

I haven't played recently until this latest patch, but I almost always choose Evolutionary Mastery, and so far in my current game I seem to have been lucky enough not to meet a species without one of those traits . The whole species modification system is a pain...for one why does it cost research? The research has already been done, if anything I would expect a cost in consumer goods and/or food to make the changes (or Alloys and/or energy in the case of robots).

I would also love to apply these changes automatically to refugee's or other immigrants coming into my borders to cut down on my work load (perhaps create an immigration policy and integrate the cost into that?).

What traits aren't modifiable? I know that Serviles is at least a trait I can remove (thankfully!, otherwise there would be no end to the unemployed at my research habitats).

As to Buff's and Nerfs, yeah I agree that making weaker picks stronger (and more interesting) is better than making currently strong picks weaker...it just seems like it isn't going to happen. Another example where things haven't changed much in the game are that a lot of anomaly events simply add +3 resources to a deposit which often happens well outside my borders....I've even spent energy on an anomaly event only to get a deposit that I would never use; I have Niven (2.1.4.4) which I occasionally play to compare, and those +3 resources were actually quite well tuned for that version of game, but aren't anywhere near as good with versions 2.2+.

Psionic IS one of these traits. So IMO for a Spiritualist run it's kind of disastrous.

 

[Zagreb 887]

Psionic IS one of these traits. So IMO for a Spiritualist run it's kind of disastrous.

You can still assimilate non psionic pops once you reach Transcendance AP. It's traits like brain slugs and the 3 traits from the orbital speed demon who are unremovable and not applicable anymore.
The fact that it is noted as a "bug" that we were able to apply those traits for years let me think thats the devs who take this decision don't really play the game actually.
What's the point of brainslug if it just affect a minuscule amount of your pops? The trait for leaders is already very rare even with your entiere specie slugged. This anomaly goes from just very rare, to very rare and useless.

Same for orbital speed demon trait, this event is complete trash now, why would you bother to clutter the species tab for a - 5% housing or +2% habitability.

 

[Archael90]

What's the point of brainslug if it just affect a minuscule amount of your pops?

Brainslug trait is mostly for leaders, because it gives very little for pops on their own. And there is no corelation between % of pops with brainslug, and chance of leader with brainslug trait. So even with 100% having brainslug you will still have same chance of finding leader with that.

 

[Ferrus Animus]

The fact that it is noted as a "bug" that we were able to apply those traits for years let me think thats the devs who take this decision don't really play the game actually.

It feels a lot like a knee-jerk approach to balancing. "Players use gene-modding to shorten assimilation times and not have their entire conomy collapse? Can't have that! And while we're at it, let's fix all the other stuff these players do"
Balance is often cited, but given the absolute mess it always was and still is, the ways Shattered Ring and Functional Architecture have been "balanced", I don't believe there there's any coordinated approach or even gameplay experience factored in and it's just random mood swings a lot of the time.
Remember that devs MP shopcase where their best(!) player domianted with robots and robots got nerfed all over right away?

 

[Zagreb 887]

Yeah it's not like there was thousands of hours if gameplay on YT going from casual, modded, competitive with some constructive and sourced analysis on gameplay and balance... And a somewhat big community they can rely on to decide on balance issues.

I can understand that the dev dont have time to run lots of ful playtrough to test wathever changes they plan, but they should at least listen and probe said community for this kind of thing. Stellaris being a heavily moddable and modded game, I think this is relevant.

 

[Archael90]

The worst thing here is that synth ascension is hugely boosted here!
Psionic pops can shows up in cybernetic empire and become syber psionics. But Cyber pops can not be assimilated into psionics nor can be gene modded...
Decide devs... dont make here some paradox! Either those traits ARE incompatible OR not. It cant be that those ARE incompatible for empire A, but are COMPATIBLE for empire B!

 

[hxu04]

It feels a lot like a knee-jerk approach to balancing. "Players use gene-modding to shorten assimilation times and not have their entire conomy collapse? Can't have that! And while we're at it, let's fix all the other stuff these players do"
Balance is often cited, but given the absolute mess it always was and still is, the ways Shattered Ring and Functional Architecture have been "balanced", I don't believe there there's any coordinated approach or even gameplay experience factored in and it's just random mood swings a lot of the time.
Remember that devs MP shopcase where their best(!) player domianted with robots and robots got nerfed all over right away?

Oh, my, I don't get me start on this. I played stellaris since Utopia, but I still don't believe the QA department exist at all. The dev teams tend to release something either super weak that is almost useless ( e.g. trade value system until recently, espionage system, hive mind, megastructures when they are first introduced ), or super OP that is broken ( e.g. Post-Apocalyptic origin, shattered ring origin and machine intelligence with catalytic processing ) without enough QA testing. It's almost become tradition to wait about a week when a new version comes out on any Paradox games, I guess that's their company culture maybe. By the way, speaking of origin, I still don't understand the nerf done to prosperous unification.