Stellaris Dev Diary #187 - Post-mortem

[adil3tr]

I hope their gameplay isn't mostly about ground combat, that's not really that interesting, you just spam armies and dump them when needed.

 

[Red Earth]

You can define suggestion like an idea.
And whenever you use someone else idea, without even crediting them, its a stolen idea, or at least very bad move.
When someone described you a way to produce something, and you use this, you should credit that person.
If someone send to other company suggestion that will be taken into account, they always credit that person.

The whole idea of a suggestion is that someone will do it. If that's not the result you want you shouldn't suggest it. No where does it say you'll get acknowledgment for it. No one lied.
I've read about what happens when people post idea on an official forum and get mad when they're used. The creators stop reading the forums to avoid the hassle.
If you want ownership of an idea, keep it to yourself and use it on your own project. Three times I pitched ideas and had them end up in a game. I got what I wanted, to see them happen. If anyone expects more, they misunderstood the situation.

 

[Archael90]

The whole idea of a suggestion is that someone will do it. If that's not the result you want you shouldn't suggest it. No where does it say you'll get acknowledgment for it. No one lied.
I've read about what happens when people post idea on an official forum and get mad when they're used. The creators stop reading the forums to avoid the hassle.
If you want ownership of an idea, keep it to yourself and use if on your own project. Three times I pitched ideas and had them end up in a game. I got what I wanted, to see them happen. If anyone expects more, they misunderstood the situation.

I mostly agree.
But what in situation, when you suggest something, and then devs use it but in some different way just for it to looks like not your idea?
How would you feel if you suggest to make something in your work to improve everyones qol, and that idea was used by your boss, but he changed some details so it would not be exact idea and said that it was entirely his creation?

 

[Eelectrica]

Wishlisted and will order day 1. Origin sounds interesting and shipsets glorious.

Most recent games have been for achievements so will be good to play a game normally.

 

[UltimateTobi]

Because some of us really hated linking portraits to mechanics. Why can't I have rock eating dwarfs or food eating rock creatures? Or for that matter use the golem looking rock creatures for machine empires?

I agree with you.
My point just was that the development of Stellaris in general feels directionless/without purpose/not coherent.

 

[Primarch Victus]

You're a real piece of work, buddy.

I mean, all you had to say was "I'm not buying this because I don't want the DLC to add these fantasy features to my game."

Instead you have to act rudely.

---

Thematic or not, we're all overlooking the primary problem here: will the AI be able to handle any of this? My money's on no.

Maybe you have a big old friend group that you can play MP with and the AI problems don't bother you. Good for you. Most of us play single player, or fill out our MP lobbies with AI.

Game is broken, Species Packs won't fix it. Pass.

Even if you have people to play mp with it is a pain, because you either have a huge ruleset, use a mod to improve the balance or always play the same kind of empires.

I hate Multiplayer games. I prefer to play only with the empires I create -- never with the vanilla ones.

 

[Shifty2012]

I hope their gameplay isn't mostly about ground combat, that's not really that interesting, you just spam armies and dump them when needed.

When I saw the re-animated armies civic my enthusiasm for this started to bleed away.

Create undead armies! - All right, not a strong point in Stellaris but could be interesting and unique. What do they do?

Oh they take no morale damage and do increased morale damage of their own! All for the price of a civic slot!

So like robot armies then...... Well there's a civic I'll never take. How underwhelming.

 

[Primarch Victus]

What Stellaris really needs is a complete overhaul of its gameplay mechanics. And a dev team able and willing to fix all the problems in the game.

 

[Methone]

What Stellaris really needs is a complete overhaul of its gameplay mechanics. And a dev team able and willing to fix all the problems in the game.

And management that'll allow them.

 

[sillyrobot]

And management that'll allow them.

and a consistent vision of what the game is supposed to be so the same mechanics don't keep getting continually reinvented and changes to one mechanic don't get undercut by changes to a different one..

 

[Nerkos_The_Unbidden]

When I saw the re-animated armies civic my enthusiasm for this started to bleed away.

Create undead armies! - All right, not a strong point in Stellaris but could be interesting and unique. What do they do?

Oh they take no morale damage and do increased morale damage of their own! All for the price of a civic slot!

So like robot armies then...... Well there's a civic I'll never take. How underwhelming.

Despite my enthusiasm for other aspects of the species pack, I agree.

With how 'ground combat' currently works, aside from for flavor the only reason I see people taking the civic is for the research provided, slight though it may be

 

[Red Earth]

I mostly agree.
But what in situation, when you suggest something, and then devs use it but in some different way just for it to looks like not your idea?
How would you feel if you suggest to make something in your work to improve everyones qol, and that idea was used by your boss, but he changed some details so it would not be exact idea and said that it was entirely his creation?

You're assuming sinister motive and assuming there is a need to change things so it doesn't look like someone else's idea. They don't need to; if it's in their suggestions forum it's fair game. Also, this is not our workplace so your example is irrelevant.

 

[ashbery76]

What Stellaris really needs is a complete overhaul of its gameplay mechanics. And a dev team able and willing to fix all the problems in the game.

Yeah the biggest and most played space 4x ever made is in real trouble.

 

[Primarch Victus]

My friend, Stellaris can be "the biggest and most played space 4x ever made", but that isn't synonimous with perfection -- Stellaris is good, far better than most space 4x games in the market, but it has its share of problems: midgame/endgame lag, low performance in some PCs, problems with some gameplay mechanics, and AI dumb enough to make the Lemmings of that famous game look like geniuses, etc.

 

[Primarch Victus]

And management that'll allow them.

Yeah, that too.

and a consistent vision of what the game is supposed to be so the same mechanics don't keep getting continually reinvented and changes to one mechanic don't get undercut by changes to a different one...

For that, they would need a notebook -- a very, very big notebook...

 

[pliznobn]

Yeah the biggest and most played space 4x ever made is in real trouble.

Bad bot.

 

[lordvagrant]

There should be a limit on how many undead armies can be raised. With a species that lives long and procreates slowly, there is a limited supply of fresh recruits entering the system, and those already in the system will also be decaying (un)naturally.

 

[Shifty2012]

No thanks, the civic sucks enough as it is.

Despite my enthusiasm for other aspects of the species pack, I agree.

I feel the same way, the ship designs look great- kudos to the art team; and the overall concept is fun. It's just a shame one of the key civics would be appear to be so bland.

 

[LWE]

Yep, the undead armies thing would make sense as a secondary part of some other choice (of some militaristic civic, or maybe as an inherent part of playing Necroids), but it's clearly pointless to waste a whole civic slot on it.

 

[Celulthor]

Necrophages do sound enticing, but the trait is a bit lackluster. That +5% to ruler output seems ridiculously low considering that, if it works like Shadow Council bonus, it does not work with amenities, trade value or stability. So, the yields rulers mostly produce are not affected. Even if this has been changed, the 5% bonus is still too low to really notice as ruler strata pops are always just a tiny minority.

I think the Necrophage design should really emphasize the elite status of powerful entities, who are created by sacrificing lesser beings. My suggestion is to keep the +5% specialist bonus, increase worker resource penalty to -20%, increase leader resource bonus to 20% and make it apply to all leader strata yields. This would make them feel more meaningful and unique.

The design for reanimated armies feels kind of bland to me. Here is my idea to make them feel different: Instead of being regular armies, the undead should be generated for free at the moment of invasion. These undead would only last for the duration of the battle. The number of undead armies would depend on planetary devastation at the moment of troops landing on the planet: there would be none on an intact planet, but more and more as devastation increases. Similarily the Dread Encampment could provide free undead armies for the defender based on devastation.