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Stellaris Dev Diary #180 - DLC Visibility Experiment

Hello everyone!

We hope you are enjoying your time with 2.7 and the 4 year anniversary of Stellaris! It’s very fun to see how far the game has come, and just as interesting to imagine what the future can hold.

We want to make sure that Stellaris is well-prepared for more content in the future. Something we’ve learned, especially with CK2, is that a long tail of new content can make it very difficult for players to see what kind of DLCs are available for the game. As we recently announced, Stellaris has more than 3 million players, and we want to make sure that players – both new and old – have an easier time finding content that they might like.

In order to improve visibility, starting today and lasting for a couple of weeks, we’re going to be running a couple of experiments that will be looking at DLC visibility within the game. We will be running a controlled experiment that will split up the player base into different groups, where each group will get a slightly different experience (or no change, in the case of the control group). The experiment will only affect the main menu and empire creation/selection, and will not have any effect on the game as you are playing. The purpose of this is to gather some insights into what kind of visibility features are actually helpful.

Before you grab your laser-powered pitchforks and plasma-illuminators, and complain about development focus, rest assured that all of this work has been done by an external team (who has done a great job btw!) and has had no effect on the development of Stellaris as a game :)

I want to emphasize that even though we want to improve the visibility of content for the game, it will never come at the expense of the game experience itself, so you don’t need to worry about that. It is very important for us that our players are able to immerse themselves in the Stellaris universe and to have fun while they play.

And because a dev diary can’t be complete without pictures or teasers, here’s two icons related to some future content. What could it be..?
merciless_teaser.png
 
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I consider this both a colossal waste of time and a direct insult to myself and anyone else who has already purchased your title and it's DLC.

These experiments had best be brief. If I run into any sign of monetisation, after having given you over a hundred dollars, I will immediately and permanently cease all contact with your company. One ad. One "reminder" of what I'm missing. One textbox explaining how much more fun I could be having if only I paid you some more of my pension. That shall be my line in the sand.

That is all.
 
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While I absolutely love the new DLC which greatly enhances diplomacy it must be noted that it is severely lacking still. There is no way to sway the way other empires view each other in anyway. For instance if you are attempting to build a Galactic Republic and lets say one of your federation members dislikes the nation you are attempting to bring into the fold then its completely jacked. especially if there is a rivalry between the two (rivalries between AI seem to last the entire game so immersion to trying to do anything in a "growing federation" is utterly pointless.) This needs to be addressed somehow or a federation of "cooperation" is utterly pointless. which is sad and only leaves a single play style available :(. Other than that a great game.
The solution I propose is that there be some way to slightly influence the relations between nations to improve them by playing a diplomat or to harm them with a spy and cause tension between two powers. Or sow small elements of discord into said nation, not enough to be a game breaker but allowing new play styles. Essentially a espionage system be put in place. It appears there is something like this in the mods but having an official release would be beneficial.
 
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Technically there is a "friend of our ally modifier" which means making defense pact with two other empires helps. Practically it is relatively minor however, especialyl now sinde the opinions of both sides count.
It used to be +100, but sinde 2.7. I have seen it only at +50, so it might have become even less usable.
 
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The presets in general could use a little more origin diversity. With maybe a handful of exceptions (specifically the ones whose current origins were once civics) all of them use the default Prosperous Unification.

... I wonder what kind of origin is coming. That icon looks promising.
There's a very simple explanation for that: almost all of the origins are locked behind certain DLCs!
 
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There's a very simple explanation for that: almost all of the origins are locked behind certain DLCs!
While true, that's no reason why they can't change the origin of a preset when a more appropriate one comes out in later content.

The UNE and Commonwealth of Man use the Mammalian ships and cities until you download the Humanoids DLC, in which case they promptly switch to the Humanoid ones; why can't a similar principle apply to preset origins?
 
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One ad. One "reminder" of what I'm missing. One textbox explaining how much more fun I could be having if only I paid you some more of my pension. That shall be my line in the sand.

Then definitely don't click into the new species portrait screen. At least in my version, they now show you all the species portraits you could use if you bought the right DLC.
 
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Then definitely don't click into the new species portrait screen. At least in my version, they now show you all the species portraits you could use if you bought the right DLC.

GC3 did the same thing and I stopped playing as soon as this was implemented.

So I guess if this is the new normal, I'm stopping here at 2.6.3 it seems and won't be purchasing PDX for the foreseeable
 
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GC3 did the same thing and I stopped playing as soon as this was implemented.

So I guess if this is the new normal, I'm stopping here at 2.6.3 it seems and won't be purchasing PDX for the foreseeable

To call it disappointing is putting it mildly.

And it's kind of insult added to injury. Substantive development has slowed down to a crawl. Despite all the big fixes that the game still needs, the diplomacy update was pretty thin at best. Yet at the same time they're building this kind of aggressive marketing right into the gameplay experience itself.

It's bad enough on its own. But it gives the impression that they're making up for weak and uncreative DLC's with more aggressive marketing, instead of making the underlying product more appealing.
 
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Huh, good thing I have all the portrait packs and didn't see this kind of advertisement. It's still not that big a deal in my book, but it's annoying.
 
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The experiment is missing the point. I haven't bought the DLC I don't have because I consider them too expensive, not because they aren't front of mind.

Also because of Paradox illegally misleading prices on their store a few years ago.

The DLC purchase suggestions are bizarre too. Choose mining guilds or industrious and the game recommends Lithoids because your empire fits well with the theme of rocks... what?
 
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The experiment is missing the point. I haven't bought the DLC I don't have because I consider them too expensive, not because they aren't front of mind.

Also because of Paradox illegally misleading prices on their store a few years ago.

The DLC purchase suggestions are bizarre too. Choose mining guilds or industrious and the game recommends Lithoids because your empire fits well with the theme of rocks... what?

Oh wow, that's really reaching!

Jesus, it really is a matter of time then before we're looking at MTX in PDS games. Megacorps reliquaries sarcasm will get a whole lot more ironic it seems.

Is there any way to mod this out?
 
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I think dev diaries are now on hiatus. No-one said they were, but we didn't have one last week so it seems that way.
Yup, this certainly seems to be the case. Still don't understand though why the devs don't address it. Just a few words would be fine :(
 
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Just assume that there won't be any until the time that they do post one. Honestly I didn't expect any dev diary this week. Most likely there won't be any next week either.
 
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Just assume that there won't be any until the time that they do post one. Honestly I didn't expect any dev diary this week. Most likely there won't be any next week either.

And then the 6-8 week long holiday break comes in. I guess we are facing an up to 10 week long silence at worst. Keeps me really interested in this game tho... :rolleyes:
 
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