Stellaris is boring and tedious

[Atlantians]

Polished as in that area?
And "stable" is a weak argument. Please, name me one single EA title that use the game engine that have been polished by the same people for a decade.

Because according to the guy I was responding to, Stellaris would be that example you asked for.

So, your question itself is admitting that Stellaris is not even remotely describable as 'early access'. Ergo, you are agreeing with me by the assumptions you are making in your question.

In theory. Nowdays EA is being use in a lot of different ways, not only as fundraising platforms. Advertisement easy come to mind as one.

He used the term 'early access' as a pejorative, not as a meaningful description.

You, and he, are in no place to try and talk about how the concept has been used for things other than revenue.

Moreover, advertisement is intrinsic to revenue, so your point is moot.

Name some?
- combat is weak
-diplomacy is weak
-planet development is weak
-Internal policy is still rough and being changed from patch to patch so it's not "basics".
- Empire constructors is interesting but was already reworked and still and work in the future.

So we left with, like, science and exploring?

None of that is descriptive of 'early access.'

Balancing issues, differing design priorities, and problematic or sub-par game design decisions does not 'early access' make.

He was conflating design and development because of personal ignorance and a desire to cast aspersions on the development team over design decisions and priorities he disliked, yet has no direct involvement with or experience of.

 

[HAL.9000.1]

Just because everything's the same doesn't mean you have to act like it. Maybe it's just me, but I prefer deviating from the most efficient path if it means doing something that I think my race would do.

Exactly.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I suppose the actual sin is that Stellaris has win conditions, unlike other paradox games.
Would probably have been better to have a lore setup with the typical SciFi "universal cycles" trope and let each session take place within one iteration.

 

[Count Hasimir Fenring]

Stellaris is strategically boring and samey. It feels more like Starcraft where the game is in perfecting your routine than it does a proper grand strategy. At least Starcraft matches only last like 20-40 minutes though...

For this reason I now find Stellaris to be quite boring. Every start is the exact same regardless of where I start or who I play as: Rush minerals, rush colony ships, rush corvettes, conquer neighbors, snowball out of control, repeat ad nauseam. I've tried to play it differently, but that never lasts long because spending the game at peace just clicking upgrade buttons on planets is a pointless bore. The AI never bothers you and there's zero challenge to keeping your populace content.

Combat has no strategy to it either. From a combination of poor balancing, design oversights, and just plain bizarre choices warfare in this game amounts to nothing more than getting your ships into one group and smashing them against another. Again kind of like Starcraft, but at least that game has the added benefit of having moment-to-moment positioning and micromanagement. Worst of all though? The tediuous busywork of conquering planets is just a formality of clicking through screens and dumping your throw-away armies onto planet after planet.

When getting ready to go to war with a powerful enemy with lots of planets, you know how I feel? Exhausted. The same kind of exhausted you get when you take one look at a messy room and think to yourself "Fuck this is going to take forever..."

This whole game just feels like one long tedious chore and I'm sick of it! The honeymoon is over and the marriage is setting in...This game is fundamentally vapid and shallow and I need something more stimulating than what is on offer. Peace!

I disagree but I suspect we play this game for different reasons perhaps. For me Stellaris is the Sci-Fi game I've waited for. I've tried just about every Sci-Fi 4x game out there and to me they are all boring and tedious. I think the game has a lot of room for improvement but since it's a Paradox game and we can expect a never-ending deluge of DLC it'll eventually give everyone what they want.

 

[bmt17]

It seems to me that most people who end up hating on Stellaris are trying to play a more sandbox like 4x from a min/max perspective. As the OP pointed out it's clearly not Starcraft and doesn't work well if you try to play it as if it were, if you're talking about corvette swarms then I think you missed the point of the game. There's nothing wrong with that way of thinking but trying to apply your perspective to the wrong game is an exercise in futility.

I personally find playing like that to be boring and tedious and refuse to unless I am in a competitive multiplayer situation, which I pretty much avoid now in part because multiplayer communities have all gone to crap. Neither is worth the headache to me anymore.

But screwing around roleplaying how I want my galactic empire to unfold and watching it either succeed or fall apart? I can spend much more time trying new things out and starting over and over again and never get bored. Now it's far from perfect for this type of experience sure and there are thousands of things I would like Paradox to do differently or add but since we are still both swimming in roughly the same direction I can find the patience to wait and see how it develops.

If I tried to apply this sandbox type of mentality to a more traditional RTS then I would probably end up hating it too.

 

[Garfazz Steamfang]

I suppose the actual sin is that Stellaris has win conditions, unlike other paradox games.
Would probably have been better to have a lore setup with the typical SciFi "universal cycles" trope and let each session take place within one iteration.

I have the feeling that Fallen empire are a bad thing for that. Don't get me wrong i love the idea of the Fallen empires being in the game but i find this to be a little Strange coz, when you look at it, near every space-opera tale which tell you a story take place in an universe where precursors have disappear and where, the young space faring empires, are using the remnant of technology the precursors have left behind for progress and develop themselves.
Having Fallen empire (precursors) in the game is a quite unique idea and i love it in some point, but i find that that can make the things harder for narration and story.
In fact i'm quite curious to see how Stellaris manage this problem.

PS: And i don't think that was the real problem here but the plethora of bugs and the lack of content, mechanics the game have.

 

[Mouthwash]

If there's one thing Paradox should have taken from the Civilization franchise (instead of those goddurned social policies), it's the idea that you don't literally have to have the exact same starting position in every game. Why did the devs think that starting on a generic planet with the same setup, having two other colonizable planets close by, going through the exact same events (precursors!), building as many mining stations as you can early on, etc would be fun? They don't even use fricking resources properly - they're just some mid/late-game pizzazz. In Civilization your entire strategy is affected by whether you start in mountains or flood plains, or whether you have access to horses or marble.

There don't seem to be any early-game tradeoffs, even. I can't invest in (say) exploration vs military, because my exploration is just limited by how much time I'm willing to blow plotting the course of science ships (totally mystified as to why automated exploration requires a tech). Early conquest is nearly impossible in the current version, so it's just about maintaining a reasonable protection force. I can't build anything interesting. All the unique treasures (which are a neat idea in themselves) don't mean much once you're powerful enough to access them. I don't even have projects based on the research types, which seem like an almost too obvious solution here.

However... I actually don't think combat is badly implemented at all. Maybe I've just not looked closely enough to spot the brokenness, but it seems fun to put effort into designing a loadout for your ships and then seeing how they fare against another fleet.

 

[Lexo]

I'm no expert but I do know my Paradox games well. The game can be fixed with a good job done fleshing out the skinny areas I outlined. Just don't take the piss by doing it with overpriced dlc. Fix the game then pump out overpriced dlc would be the best way forward IMHO.

 

[Red192]

it's the idea that you don't literally have to have the exact same starting position in every game.

This is a typical example of mechanics written just to balance the multiplayer, the number one killer of every good game

 

[Lexo]

I suppose the actual sin is that Stellaris has win conditions, unlike other paradox games.
Would probably have been better to have a lore setup with the typical SciFi "universal cycles" trope and let each session take place within one iteration.

Its a valid point but it's more the lack of options to meta game. You can't say dominate trade, diplomacy, espionage only option is expand and dominate. I've made a few suggestions in the thread for suggestions on how to flesh this out.

 

[Ribalt]

Uhm, no.
The Sandbox or whatever Approach made no Issue when playing EU or CK...

But Stellaris?
Having to manually upgrade every Building on your Planets is boring/tedious.
Having to upgrade XX Starports is boring and tedious.
Having to produce Ships out of XX Starports is boring and tedious.
Having to build armies on XX Planets is boring and tedious.
Having to constantly survey stuff is boring and tedious (until you get autoexploration).
Having to wage war in this game is the pinnacle of tediousness.
+There is basically no diplomacy and nothing to do except waging war.

These are not just some minor "issues"..

 

[trybald]

I suppose the actual sin is that Stellaris has win conditions, unlike other paradox games.
Would probably have been better to have a lore setup with the typical SciFi "universal cycles" trope and let each session take place within one iteration.

The only bad thing about win conditions is that they all resolve around blobbing. There should be much more possibilities like for example whole species transcending into another dimension (shroud?), technological supremacy, saving the galaxy by beating back several crises (or the Hunters who pursue the Prethoryn) and so on.

The main sin of Stellaris is that it is boring as hell and many of its features are incredibly shallow.

 

[Mouthwash]

Gosh darn it, all that effort into adding to my post and there are five after it by the time I finish.

 

[Me_]

Uhm, no.
The Sandbox or whatever Approach made no Issue when playing EU or CK...

But Stellaris?
Having to manually upgrade every Building on your Planets is boring/tedious.
Having to upgrade XX Starports is boring and tedious.
Having to produce Ships out of XX Starports is boring and tedious.
Having to build armies on XX Planets is boring and tedious.
Having to constantly survey stuff is boring and tedious (until you get autoexploration).
Having to wage war in this game is the pinnacle of tediousness.
+There is basically no diplomacy and nothing to do except waging war.

These are not just some minor "issues"..

This game needs a macro builder sooooo much. EU4 was just as tedious before they added the macro builder.

 

[Red192]

I suppose the actual sin is that Stellaris has win conditions, unlike other paradox games.

It is the original sin, yes, but the real disaster is that it has made many sales. Attracting many non-paradoxian, these obviously do not understand the meaning of the paradox's great strategy: Write stories, imagine them, manage them. And think that all you have to do in a paradox is war. No, war is important, but it is not the fulcrum of a paradox game. The fulcrum is always the history, and when you play create ed write your paradoxes, beautiful to see and tell.

Stellaris is a boring game compared to other PDX games? Yes, that is because it does not have enough colors in the palette for our paradoxes, every good or bad story is always the same or very similar. Stellaris has a galaxy of possibilities, but is as deep as a pond. The state and citizens are not separate, maintaining the stable empire is too easy, the economy is invisible, diplomacy is not developed, it is rare to have truly unique colonies, those that you remember. This makes stellaris a boring game, in other words, it repeats itself to each play

 

[Me_]

The only bad thing about win conditions is that they all resolve around blobbing. There should be much more possibilities like for example whole species transcending into another dimension (shroud?), technological supremacy, saving the galaxy by beating back several crises (or the Hunters who pursue the Prethoryn) and so on.

The main sin of Stellaris is that it is boring as hell and many of its features are incredibly shallow.

There's a fundamental design problem here. In games like Alpha Centauri or Endless Space "Ascencion" is the ultimate goal. Your species achieves it and the game ends. You do not know and are not supposed to know what happens next. Stellaris is different. In Stellaris ascencion is just a step and you are supposed to take it and live with it, not just start another game. This has a lot of potential for interesting stories (e.g. a cybernetic empire fighting a psionic one in the middle of an extradimensional invasion) but the problem is that it leaves the game with no ending.

 

[Red192]

but the problem is that it leaves the game with no ending

For me the game should not have a fine endowment, just for philosophy. But if that's the case, make it more exciting:

Victory conditions[edit]

This section may contain outdated information that is inaccurate for the current version of the game. The last version it was verified as up to date for was 1.5.
Victory conditions are predefined goals that ensure victory of the game.

There are three ways to achieve victory in Stellaris:

• Domination, which requires you to own 40% of all colonizable planets. Planets owned by vassals count but those owned by allies and Federation members do not.
• Conquest, which requires you to conquer or subjugate all other empires. Fallen empires do not need to be conquered.
• Federation, which require the federation which you're a part of to own 60% of all colonizable planets.

Any empire, even an AI empire, can end up meeting the victory conditions, though the AI ignores their existence and may thus only win as a result of other priorities. However, if an empire is a vassal or protectorate, they cannotclaim victory under any circumstance.

The game can be continued even after an empire claims victory.

If, and I say IF, there were some of the most unstable imperial administration mechanics; which makes it more difficult to maintain an empire, military one and diplomatic one than anything else. Then you should add "for 10 years"

To win you have to keep the condition for 10 years, But if it were applied now it would only be 10 years of boredom.
How did CK2 when you had one of the 8 or more King Vassals. The empire was held up with the duct tape. I remember that when I built Roma, I had to wait a century to finish the game, and I had stopped expanding, but the trouble was to avoid crumbling!

 

[Madzai]

I suppose the actual sin is that Stellaris has win conditions, unlike other paradox games.
Would probably have been better to have a lore setup with the typical SciFi "universal cycles" trope and let each session take place within one iteration.

Nah, the original sin is that Stellaris don't have intermediate "winning conditions", like other PDX games. Like: "I have to control this or that to so X", "i'm aiming to X, so i can Z", "i must overcome Z so i finally can...", "i must find a way to endure the effect of ... to ...." and other things, that make the whole party interesting, until you overblob anyway. In Stellaris that is much closer to 4X games, you can't set such goals, or they way to easy to achieve. In 4X games you enemies grow alongside with you, but it's not really happens for a lot of reasons in Stellaris. Well, they do grow, but they aren't treating you and dealing with them isn't a exiting and dangerous event, but a realpain in the *** full of micro.
Inability to predict such outcome for Stellaris, and make end-game problems easily predictable and boring are the "original sin" for Stellaris.

 

[Lordban]

Well, let's face it, there are a lot of broken things in current Stellaris - naked corvette fleets, I'm looking at you - and a few annoyances (would love a spaceport macrobuilder and the option to auto-explore at game start without having to mod it in, an in-game investment that translates into a purely UI-control benefit - don't make me laugh about the 15% survey speed - is not a good design decision).

That said, vanilla Stellaris' hardest difficulty can already be defeated in more than one single way/build. Heck, you can defeat the Unbidden in Insane in a Tiny galaxy - if you're really looking for a min-maxing challenge, try that one. You might have got the "victory screen" before that happens, as a matter of fact, but it's going to take a very well thought-out approach and probably a few tries - and it's damn satisfying when you've finally done it...

... but more importantly, it means you do not *have to* play optimally in order to play. You can try different builds, you can roleplay, you can limit yourself in this or that way, you can test silly notions and try to make them work out, you don't have to "finish" the game - heck, you might start one pretty much with the intention of not letting it run for long, like trying to see how fast you can get all the Traditions, or try silly challenges like seeing how far you can get settling nothing but your starting system (habitats, habitats, habitats! xD )

It's a sandbox game. There's no need to just "Rush minerals, rush colony ships, rush corvettes, conquer neighbors, snowball out of control, repeat ad nauseam." Think the AI never bothers you? Try Insane/Aggressive/Max possible Empires (and advanced ones if you really, really want it to be do-or-die).

And then, once you've exhausted the different ways you can challenge yourself/make it interesting, you can start looking at mods.

Sure, there's more and more tedium the wider you grow (and don't get me started with what happens when you mod into the game the ability to upgrade mines/research stations so that you're not the only idiot in the galaxy left with basic ones after a while - here I'd really *love* an extra button in the Ship Designer to "Upgrade all ships/stations of this class to this design" with a cost tooltip and an autosend to nearest available spaceport for ships). But even with the tedium, even without as much fleshed out vanilla content as there will be a couple of years from now, what Stellaris already is is a game of infinite possibilities.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Well, I suppose the good thing is that it will be fixed eventually. Just like EU3 started with "bare bones" and ended up as a pretty good game after several expansions.