Stellaris (Fake) Dev Diary #138 - Donte's Inferno

[Sir Roderick]

Espionage is terrible! But on the flip side.. we can sell hats for lots of money.. so...

Hats you say?

Coincidentally, there's a game that makes a lot of money by selling hats:

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hat simulator

hat simulator
A first person shooter made by Valve Industries to make money


https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hat-fortress-2

During the page introducing the game for Mac computers, they even jokingly called it:
America's #1 war-themed hat simulator

http://www.teamfortress.com/macupdate/earbuds/

For the first time, Mac users can experience the head-covering excitement by getting online this weekend and playing America's #1 war-themed hat simulator for themselves.



Team Fortress Today

Many players weren't so happy with these new additions, as they questioned if was about playing the game and enjoying it anymore or to simply do nothing else but to collect hats and other unlockables. Whether some liked it or not, hats were here to stay. Another gripe many had with hats was that many of the later ones would go outside of the borders of the games unique art style. Serveral of the hats in the game just simply didn't fit in there with everything else.

Some went so far that they didn't think TF2 was a online first person shooter anymore. It was nothing but a hat simulator.
Hat fortress 2.​

 

[Benjie164]

Stellaris:
-Bug fixes and improved AI
-More ship designs, building types etc.
-More flavour events.Things like placing all of my people into machines should have felt like a big deal with unrest due to dislike of the idea, maybe technical problems etc, felt like I just clicked a button and it was done.
-Religion mechanics
-More in the psychic route
-Extra diplomacy
-Late game stability
-QoL


I think a problem with a few of the Paradox games can sometimes be what to do between wars. I haven't played EU4 in a while but when I played that in the past it just felt like war and then waiting for your next war. Games like CK2 have such depth in general that even while you're not a war you're constantly occupied. Same could have been said of stellaris before the new update, if your planets were built up you just had to spam out ships, definitely needs more depth in it.

Also the AI can sometimes be awful. Even when playing on Grand Admiral before and after the patch the AI couldn't match the player most of the time, and I'm sure my empires were far from optimsied. They need to try and take the initiative more when attacking players.

 

[Killian Khanaervon]

CK2 dynasty sim in spess pls?

 

[KelrynGrey]

Victoria 3 with Stellaris' population and production chain mechanics.

I want to see Victoria III with Stellaris pops = food mechanics.

On a serious note, I would like to see some of those World of Darkness properties worm their way into existing titles. Vampires in Stellaris? Heck yeah. Crusader Mages? Yes, please.

 

[Osvirius]

Honestly I love how far Stellaris has come since launch. It is so rewarding being a player with hundreds of hours in this game and still seeing new content and balance changes roll out regularly. I would gladly keep buying expansions (and species packs) if it meant we'd get to see more of these features/systems.

For Stellaris I think:

• More Species/Empire Creation Options: One of the most interesting, unique, and compelling parts of Stellaris is the more roleplaying elements of it's species creation. I would love to see more Species Traits and Empire Ethics (and their equivalents for Hive Mind and Machine empires). Rebalancing them would also be welcome. While I'm very glad that they were updated recently with the planetary overhaul, I think more traits and more balancing to bring all traits into a more relative power level would add a huge amount more depth to empire diversity.
  
• Espionage System: I'm a fan of Civilization: Beyond Earth's spy system (one of the only things that game did really well) and similar ideas incorporated into Stellaris. Being able to not only spy, but steal, sabotage, etc. Something like the current "Planetary Decisions" system, or perhaps the Megacorp "Branch Offices" but that you can perform on unowned worlds. Taking diplomacy hits from doing this (a British spy has stolen the secrets of The Internet from Mecca!) and/or failing operations would also make the diplomacy system more interesting, as well as give lots of interesting design space for new Empire types/Ethics.
  
• Deeper Diplomacy (international and intranational): meaningful interactions other than the binary "make people you friends, hurt your enemies". Current diplomacy feels relatively shallow, and in turn I think hurts many of the interesting elements of ethics/govt choices (and the consequences of ending up next to those Democratic Crusaders as you're playing Slavers), which would also in turn make playing as the 3 'purge' empire types more alien (hah) from other playstyles. More internal diplomacy would also be interesting: like factions radicalizing, or schisms not unlike the Prodestant Reformation in Europa Universalis. This could also play really well with some new/revamped faith/belief system or Espionage System, where one empire could convert pops or planets of other empires for benefits or maybe even control.
  
• Army Redesign: I'm a huge fan of the planetary rework, but one thing I think is still left out is armies. Armies ATM feel largely meaningless, especially late game since Minerals are so accessible (even purchase-able). I think Armies should be more closely tied to pops (rather than just having a pop-related cap), perhaps even costing pops to produce (like, subtracting a pop of the type of stock they're produced from on the planet they're built on). Different kinds of armies would be nice too, in a non-linear way; since ATM army upgrades feel linear and more punishing not to get improved versions rather than rewarding once you've recieved them. Perhaps a 'rock paper scissors' system like what we have with Naval Combat, but also for Army Combat, like Tanks -> Infantry -> Aircraft -> Tanks etc.
  
• Naval Combat Changes: A major issue I still see with Stellaris' naval combat system is still 'doom stacks', both among AI and human players. Supremacy gives some interesting choices (with it's 'War Policy' Policy options), but aside from that naval combat still feels very binary: don't seek war if you have less total Fleet Power than an enemy/avoid direct combat, or be warmongering if you have more FP/set your fleets to follow one another and bomb planets one by one if you have more FP than your enemy. I really like the Fleet Cap changes, but it still doesn't stop those same albeit more sub-divided fleets from being side-by-side. Some kind of AOE (Area of Effect) weapons to punish larger fleets/more fleets in system, or other game systems which punished fleets being too close together, or changes to how terrain operates or capturing/defending systems would bring a breath of fresh air (space?) to naval combat.
• Ascention Perk Redesign: Some Ascention perks feel highly undertuned (Interstellar Dominion, Executive Vigor, Grasp the Void, Mastery of Nature, and Enigmatic Engineering in particular) compared to the "big three" (Bio, Psi, Machine paths). Currently Ascention perks feel largely meaningless (minus the default Technological Ascendancy asap) until Megastructures/major species changes come out.

 

[Erhardt]

I'd love to see a change in planetary invasions.
The moment the original strategy for the invading forces is set, all I have to do is click the planet and the invasion begins and then auto-resolves, either a loss or a win.
I like the little representation with the front line and reserve line on the army tab during an invasion, but I believe there's room to expand it and improve on it.

I would like it to be generally a little more fleshed out, perhaps with the ability to assign defender armies to districts so invading armies can choose where to attack. Occupy districts and launch operations from there over a longer period of time until full planetary control is established.
Maybe give us the option to customize their gear for different modifiers, taking world type or planetary features into consideration.

Also, I think it would make more sense if recruiting armies would cost pops too. Aside from that I'd love to see more megastructures, more building types, more ship and city architecture, more alien races, that sort of thing.

Edit: I also strongly agree with what everyone else is asking for: espionage.

 

[Serwerty]

Soul crying:
1) Bring back the subspace difference (its give so much options and flexability in empires)
2) Increase the movement speed of all ships ( i dont wana spend hours/gameyears to move my fleet from one part of the galaxy to another one)
3) Never realise superbugged DLC (like last one)
Okey, lets talk about future.
1) Diplomacy and Spy, with ability to sabotage.
2) Add more viable civic for Hivemind (first!) and Machine Empires.
3) Add more viable traits for Machine (first!) and Organics.
4) More weapons and balance in this way, so there will be not a 1 trick build to kill everything.

 

[Fungers]

Unusual stuff not limited to Stellaris... hmmm

1. I'd love to see Tyranny transition into a strategy game. One in which you can design your own "tech tree" through the magic building system made much more robust. Maybe take the Paradox history approach to it and look at what the continent could have looked like prior to Kyros. Play an Archon leading a faction, teaching and/or empowering your acolytes your magic. To bring that home, you'd probably have to make a combat system more robust (in every aspect) than you usually do with your Grand Strat games. I quite love the lack of having to micro too much resources in your games, so perhaps a province and building system similar to EU or the Total War series, but get some of that Paradox transparency in diplomacy and combat effects.
2. I quite loved what Company of Heroes 1 did for the medium-scale competitive RTS genre. It took the onus off clicks per second, provided direct map control incentive, and greatly simplified resources all in one move: by automating resource collection to a counter based on map control. I would love to see what innovations Paradox could bring to the Starcraft-scale RTS genre.
3. Personally: I hate having to micro workers to gather resources, love it when there's a greater context to care about an individual battle you are working on like in the Total War campaigns (obviously there are other ways to accomplish this), and am always really impressed when somebody takes advantage of the natural asymmetry between human and AI behavior (see AI Wars).

 

[Rptr04]

I'd love to see:

- Diplomacy improved
- Espionage
- Alternative ways to win the game or dominant other Empires that are comparable to war as seen in other 4X games
- New end game crises
- More events
- More species

 

[kaboos]

I am not sure if you are still reading comments but...
I appreciate bang for buck ;D... and efficiency, i also really appreciate the fantastic work that your teams put into these "expansions" but i want to point out that a lot of my friends who bought Eu4 only pirate the other paradox titles that or vise versa.

I do appreciate the quality of content that you create!... But in Alot of cases the amount of content in these high quality expansions is not really up to scratch. For instance if there was a pricing on the amount of time or enjoyment added by each patch id only give those patches 1/20th of the value of the main game.
For instance i want to point out that when you came out with the plantoids pack there were ~50 mods that did the same thing to the same effect AND quality, which is generally where the industry makers are supposed to have an "up" on your average everyday Joe.

I like how you guys as a company go back to expansions you have made its nice knowing that the investment i have made will indefinitely help perfect and improve mine and other people experiencing playing Paradox games.
i think that maybe you could say what you're plans are for each expansion pack and maybe update those expansion packs or explain what you would like to do and how you would like them to impact the game in the future this would have to be a promise but Eu4 has beet out for 5 years but by now its safe to say a long term investment into expansion packs instead of just the main game is an option.
This also not just improves the quality of the game by increasing the value but also increases the value of the expansion packs which would probably make my friends want to buy the game not just pirate it because the think the expansions are bad which though i hate hearing i can understand.

I look forward to what you have in-store for us in the future warm regards kaboos

 

[Raiwons]

I would like to see something completly new. I know i know, Rome is new, but i kinda out of feeling with that one.
Would be very cool if you could create a game like these days geopolitical simulator or kingdom simulator (like you are king of kingdom and game starts when youre orince and ends when you die, with some perhaps expansions who would add some crazy fantasy shit).
I realy would like to see somethibg like that.
V3 of course is nice too.