The Real Problems With Stellaris

[Serenity84]

The Galactic Community is implemented incredibly poorly

A big issue is that the GC covers policies that should really be at the federation level. Somehow a lot of internal policy stuff like how a society is structured is handled galaxy wide. Which makes no sense and punishes empires merely for having certain ideologies rather than what they do. If certain policies applied to federations instead, the GC could deal with external things and actions such as galactic war, war crimes, slavery, environmental issues, etc.
It would make federations more interesting rather than having gamey levels that add just more percentage modifiers. And you could have competing power blocks with actually different ideologies.

But I can see why they didn't want to duplicate the whole voting system

 

[Enero]

I hear the devs are creeping here with "This thread has well and truly derailed. Please keep posts on topic and productive" and ironically lock it forever. (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞

 

[HFY]

I agree with basically everything you've said, but the your last line requested a fight, so here we go:

P.S. The archaeology DLC was really stupid. It's literally just anomalies that take multiple attempts to research. Fight me.

Bullshnaps. Dig sites must be within your own borders, unlike Anomalies, and furthermore there's one dig site which creates a goddamn Titan, and even more further furthermore you get to see which dig sites your opponent empires have available.

In exactly one game this had an awesome result for me:

An obnoxious little one-star Xenophile hatemonkey next door got the Grand Herald dig site, and I immediately started a war to get his science vessel off that thing. I conquered that system with ONE GREEN DOT left on the dig site, so barely in time. It was awesome.

(Of course, that was just one game out of almost a hundred.)

 

[ashbery76]

The Galactic Community does need looking at.Most votes are just passed making it mostly pointless.It is great in theory but its a friends club atm,

 

[Kinkness]

No idea how your post has more negative votes than positive.... you're 100% correct on all points....

The biggest thing about the FTL change though I'll add that I think you glossed over, was that the FTL change was a golden gift wrapped in poison...

While the change was necessary, and while I agree it was good change... both you and I never realized what it meant... that PDX was dumbing the game down tremendously under the guise of "making the AI function smarter"...

that was the whole reason they changed it.. because the AI was having difficulty with too many things...

Then they started taking out many other good things that added depth to the game, under the guise of "better more intelligent AI".. Like manually placing stations, and defenses..

Now the game is nothing more than a bleak, shallow button pusher, where you sit and watch numbers rack up on the top of your screen then click a button to build something...

There's no real planning, no real diplomacy, and I agree completely that the diplomacy has been overly lack luster and idiotic.. and the Federations update was a joke as a whole.. Adding nothing and being lazily done..

 

[Oscot]

------------------- FTL ----------------------

Warp and wormhole had to be taken out because positional / defensive warfare is impossible with them in. When your enemy can just go 4D-under your static defenses, you may as well have no static defense. This won't make positional / defensive warfare work on its own (because, as everyone can see, it didn't), but you can't have it without removed warphole.

Alas, the devs at this point stopped, having solved only half the problem by cutting out the warphole cancer. I know everyone complains that "Hurr durr just sit on a chokepoint and think that makes you smart, warfare is just as 1D as ever", but this is not my experience. It's very rare that I can chokepoint anything because there are always so many hyperlane routes that anyone I'm trying to stop can just go around my fortresses. The problem is that even with hyperlanes only, the map remains too accessible, there is still scant opportunity to entrench profitably.

What Stellaris needs is for its planetary FTL snares to work like EUIV forts. One snare blocking one hyperlane isn't good enough because it's easy to go round. One snare blocking multiple hyperlanes, suddenly we might be getting somewhere. Or, rather, suddenly our fleets might not be getting somewhere, before we siege down planets in some sort of order.

-------------------- Jobs --------------------

I might be the only person on the forums who doesn't seriously hate the jobs system. Maybe I'm just not OCD enough to feel the visceral screeching hatred everyone else does when the intelligent pop gets put on the farm and the unintelligent pop gets put on the research institute. I agree that the system doesn't help micro, and I agree that it's not WAD, but... eh, I always think of Stellaris (and, indeed, all Paradox games) as character RP games first, wargames second, and economy simulators last. Job stupidity is, then, I guess at least on my list of concerns, but it's way down there at the bottom.

What I hate on the economics side, as the OP mentions, is the market, because it makes strategic resources pointless which in turn makes wars for resources pointless, and wars for resources I do care about.

----------- Galactic community ---------

I am not a smart man, but I was at least smart enough to see the writing on the wall before shovelling my money down this particular pit rather than after.
I'll still buy it retroactively if you fix the rest of the game Paradox, hint hint

--------------- Dig sites ----------------------

I don't disagree with you that they're "literally just anomalies that take multiple attempts to research"... but ThatsThePoint.jpg

Anomalies remain probably the best part of Stellaris and having more of them is always good.

It'd be nice if they gave significant bonuses rather than "Eh who cares" ones, that's the thing I'll say against them. The best relic system ever implemented in vidya is the one in Civilization: Beyond Earth: Rising Tide, mostly just because the bonuses from dig artefacts are often substantially better than Wonders and that makes it both exciting to do and strategically worth your time.

 

[Subtle Apparition]

What you're saying makes sense on paper, but in practice, that is not how the game actually works. It might work that way if the AI had even the most basic ability to strategize, but it doesn't. At the end of the day, you're sitting here telling me what "doesn't work" despite the fact that I have played this way ever since 2.0 and have had absolutely no issues. So... it's hard to take seriously when my own experience is completely counter to what you're saying.

I’m not OP, but I will say that I had a completely different experience than you.

Question: did you ever play on max hyperlanes? It’s way different than 1x hyperlanes; I don’t use chokepoints, and There were times I was surrounded by genocidal empires or hostile alliances that wanted me dead, but this also allowed free-form movement. As for fleets being too slow, well this is true for mid-endgame empires that are big, but that’s one of the reasons why I don’t put all my ships in one place.

there were very few times I ever doomstacked: against a neighboring khan, a neighboring awakened empire, to defend against a neighboring crisis. What they all had in common was that I was already put in a situation where I can’t maneuver my fleets and it’s already turned into a nasty all-or-nothing battle. It becomes “doom stack, activate all edict/ambition buffs, and pray.”

Against every other empire, I’m either trying to attack a one-fleet AI empire from multiple sides (especially if they’re surprisingly stronger than me) in early-mid game, or doing a multi-theater and/or long-distance war in endgame where enemy alliances (like war in heaven or a simple federation vs federation war) have

And yes, the enemy AI is stronger than me at times. No, I can’t steamroll the enemy early-mid game, but should I really feel bad about that?

Does that mean max hyper lanes is better? Maybe stop playing 1x hyper lanes, 1x wormholes, and 1x gateways if it’s that bad, but it’s true that those shouldn’t be the instant end-all fixes to the problems with Stellaris warfare (the latter two settings does cause lag).

“chokepoints and doom stacks” has been useful, but only in very few select times for me that I don’t resonate with the reasonable complaints a lot of people have about it. My experience has flickered between both what you’re experiencing, and what OP has stated.

I’m not intentionally defending either side and there’s definitely holes in my anecdote, so have at it.

 

[MichaelJanuary]

The FTL rework was objectively good, and I am willing to fight (with words) anyone who says otherwise, because you are wrong.

FTL
The FTL re-work was necessary in the context of the game. But only because the game design lacked a fundamental ruleset that all FTL types should adhere to in order to achieve a competitive game.

Playing on max hyperlanes somewhat approximates the playstyle of warp, but not completely. The impact of tech to achieve longer range jumps or faster FTL movement and so shift the tactical and strategic landscape over time remains totally lost. There is pretty much zero strategic impact for researching hyperlane II or III.

ASYMMETRY
The problem I have with the removal of warp/wormholes is not that I was tied to either FTL specifically, but that I was attracted to the concept of asymmetrical space empires (different ethos, technology, playstyle). In one way or another, all of these has been watered down to the point where the similarities between different empires far outweigh any differences. Probably this is due to multiplayer tears, but I don't know, as I am more of a solo player. I would have much preferred empires to be distinguished more in terms of the technologies they have choose to pursue, their warfare doctrines, their culture and traditions, but instead all empires just seem to gravitate towards the centre as the game progresses. Ultimately, everyone builds Titans. With the same weapon loadouts.


AUTONOMOUS POPS
The impact of managing an empire of autonomous pops has been lost over the course of the game. The game has become more and more about "empire modifiers", rather than "pop behavior". This has created a dichotomy where things like prop growth, resettlement, migration, unrest, crime is not centred around the individual pop anymore, but have become colony or empire modifiers.

==================

My fundamental frustration has more to do with the fundamental game design, than any implementation of it, which is what most discussion seems to revolve around. Weapon damage, range, ship movement speed, etc are just numbers. Dialog boxes can be re-organised or the UI re-painted.

The argument against all of the issues I mentioned above boild down to "but the AI". If the developers had a strong concept of the game fundamentals (say autonomous pops, or diverse tech trees) they would have built AIs around it, but every DLC just proves there is a lack of direction, and adds more band-aids and duct tape.

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

To be fair, I dont think the content designers who design the game fundamentals are computer scientists, software engineers or computer engineers.

 

[Madzai]

FTL rework was both great, and necessary.
Old FTLs were accumulating far too much problems.

And how many of this problems rework actually solved?

The funniest thing, way before the FTL rework, a huge part of the multiplayer community were already playing with forced hyperlane mod + no jump drive.
Paradox only listen the community. It was the good old time...

So, multiplayer mob already had a solution, but now everyone are forced to play by the rules of multiplayer community. Very nice of them. So, remind me, what part of a playerbase engage in multiplayer at least from time to time?

 

[MateuszS]

A big issue is that the GC covers policies that should really be at the federation level. Somehow a lot of internal policy stuff like how a society is structured is handled galaxy wide. Which makes no sense and punishes empires merely for having certain ideologies rather than what they do. If certain policies applied to federations instead, the GC could deal with external things and actions such as galactic war, war crimes, slavery, environmental issues, etc.
It would make federations more interesting rather than having gamey levels that add just more percentage modifiers. And you could have competing power blocks with actually different ideologies.

But I can see why they didn't want to duplicate the whole voting system

To be honest, I like the concept of imposing your world view on galaxy through diplomacy (AKA buying votes). I'd like to see more options (so I could i.e. enforce slavery). That doesn't men that federation or internal policy should be left out; actually, GC could be an example how it could look like on regional (federations) and local (individual states) level.

However, GC needs an overhaul, first.

 

[Atahal]

And how many of this problems rework actually solved?

Already told it.
And it looks like you are having hard times to prove me wrong. Staling doesn't work against me.
Btw, for me, it solved almost every FTLs issues we were having.

So, multiplayer mob already had a solution, but now everyone are forced to play by the rules of multiplayer community. Very nice of them. So, remind me, what part of a playerbase engage in multiplayer at least from time to time?

A lot of issues are already solved by mods:
-All the UI/UX issues are fixed by mods for years now.
- Some of the hardest AI problems are fixed by mods.
- Even the space battles, I saw a lot of people and topics complaining about it, but they can fix most of the issues with....... Mods.
- Etc.

Modders are literally the voice of the community in this game.
They are not just speaking and complaining, and they are offering real solutions. Solutions you can directly test IG.
Most of the time, they are right, and the game feels simply better.


Plus, Stellaris was 100% designed for multiplayer. That's a thing you probably forgot.
And I have to say, the shitty AI, incapable of maintaining an economy without huge cheaty-buffs, unable to adapt ships fits according to the enemy’s, etc was a big clue of stellaris true orientation.
And we can’t even blame paradox for this part of the AI because, to be honest, this is the typical 4X experience in solo games.
You are not supposed to play Stellaris, Civilization, or in fact almost any strategical games in solo, because the AI are always crappy, cheaty and ultra-predictable.

Even if I can easily understand why a huge part of the community will always prefer the comfort of a solo game (specially in 4Xs where a game can last for days), this kind of games are always better in multiplayer.
In fact, I can say without any doubt that the game would have been much better if Paradox just understood this and stayed focus on Stellaris initial intentions instead of trying to satisfy both sides so poorly.

But well, now, if you want to know, the part of the player base engage in multiplayer is null.
Simply because the multiplayer is broken for months now. Yeah, it doesn't help keeping a multiplayer community alive, even if the discord I joined is still somewhat active.
I honestly think multiplayer is now dead for good. I can't imagine a revival after what happened to the game, and to the multiplayer. Maybe the future will prove me wrong, who knows.

 

[Rosthun]

As a person that actually plays 1.9.1, FTL rework was a crime against humanity. Three different FTL types might've needed tweaking, but removing them altogether, what? Paradox could've added an option to restrict FTL types in game setup and if people wanted to deliberately reduce the quality of their games it would've been their choice to make, just don't force that garbage onto the vast majority of players.

 

[Madzai]

Already told it.

Okay. Let's try.

Even with the finest tweeks in the world, you can't balance the liberty of a warp drive or a worm holes vs an hyperline drive.

You can. By giving a lot of extra speed to hyperline early game and ability to build custom hyperlines later

Even in mid game, having to build worm holes stations with 0 attack power into enemy territory to move freely , and the risk of being completely stuck if your WH stations are destroyed were too much of a pain...

So, a very good FTL method had actual drawbacks...? Who could have guess. But for you it's just a pain.

Specially when the meta was reduced to corvette spam.

Nothing to do with FTL

And maybe you forgot about it, but Stellaris isn't only about solo vs AIs. (Well, now the multi is broken, so maybe i speak for the past)

And i still think that interests of majority should be before interests of obvious minority. Especially if, by your own worlds, the minority is just fine playing with mods. And, btw, you had option to enforce FTL type anyway. The only thing that was missing is an ability to turn off hump drives. I'm sure one checkbox was easier to implement than "rework".

That was terrible. War was a pain in the ass hide and seek strategy. Even with better starbase mods, fighting a human was both boring, and frustrating.
I remember building defense stations in enemy's territory not to defend, but to trap their fleet with the FTL inhibitor of the station....

It's an issue with "one fleet" reality of Stellaris which didn't go anywhere at all. You just have easier time catching fleets up.

Btw, hyperline was almost 404. No one need to ask why, right?

Because they need a buff i mentioned in first part or something similar.

And in end game, jump drive was everywhere, as it was nothing else than a better warp drive.
The shittiest moment was if someone had the chance of unlocking this rare random tech too early. The advantage was insane, and there was literally 0 counter play + the risk of an end game crisis spawning in your territory while you were already struggling to catch fleets moving at twice the speed and twice the range of yours without any sort of drawback...

The funniest thing, way before the FTL rework, a huge part of the multiplayer community were already playing with forced hyperlane mod + no jump drive.
Paradox only listen the community. It was the good old time...

Again, may be solved by a single checkbox at galaxy generation.

Now at least, everyone uses the same FTL. Territories are more clear, you can have a nicer expansion strategy, actions are more predictable, defense stations have a purpose, jump drive now has a real identity... It's simply better even if it's still not perfect with the AI.

Basically everything is easier and simpler for you with new FTL. Because you had hard time having things under control in multiplayer. A lot of very heavy Subjective opinions instead of facts.

And just to clarify. I was neutral when all the drama around FTL happens. Firstly, by that time i knew already that complaining is pointless, with facts or not, since the very first day i was against the Sectors as they were presented because giving away such level of control over players property is a bad things with usual PDX AI (and i was right 146%), and secondly i though that maybe the recourses that goes into fixing FTL maybe used for something i care more about, or single FTL type allow more depths in some areas. I was wrong. Single FTL type potential was completely wasted the same way as new POP system.

 

[Ojodeaguila]

The main problem of the jobs are the AI selection, maybe can be added Ideal race selector for each job, maybe even in the species menu.

You must be able to prioritise the Jobs for each race.
Humans: 1. Administrator, 2. etc.
Orcs: 1. Miners, 2. Farmers, 3. Soldiers etc.
Elves: 1. Researchers, 2. Priest etc.

 

[HFY]

No idea how your post has more negative votes than positive.... you're 100% correct on all points....

Isn't that exactly why?

 

[Akka le Vil]

As a person that actually plays 1.9.1, FTL rework was a crime against humanity. Three different FTL types might've needed tweaking, but removing them altogether, what? Paradox could've added an option to restrict FTL types in game setup and if people wanted to deliberately reduce the quality of their games it would've been their choice to make, just don't force that garbage onto the vast majority of players.

That was a pretty hot potatoe at the time, to the point that Paradox simply went the way of the Sectors and constrainted all discussions about it in a quarantine thread.
And just like sectors, it seems that the initial take by the complainers was right from the get-go and Paradox just wasted time and efforts to deliver something actively detracting to the game. We can only hope it follows the sector parallel all the way and they revert it, though it seems a much, much too big work to happen, and they will probably simply leave the game half-finished in a ditch when they have finished to milk it.

The worst of all ? Every single reason that drove this change (better performance, space terrain, more strategic depth, etc.) was either not requiring this change, has been completely inconsequential, or simply went unaffected.
Basically, it was the single biggest and most controversial change in the game... for NOTHING.

No idea how your post has more negative votes than positive.... you're 100% correct on all points....

Obvious reason : because he isn't, his opinion on FTL rework itself is dead wrong.

 

[MichaelJanuary]

The main problem of the jobs are the AI selection, maybe can be added Ideal race selector for each job, maybe even in the species menu.

You must be able to prioritise the Jobs for each race.
Humans: 1. Administrator, 2. etc.
Orcs: 1. Miners, 2. Farmers, 3. Soldiers etc.
Elves: 1. Researchers, 2. Priest etc.

Not so sure about this. It would just be micro x number of species you have.

I am not familiar with the internal mechanics of it, but from the outside, it appears that POPS prioritise taking jobs in a higher strata (Ruler > Specialist > Laborer), and then do not relinquish the job if someone more qualified comes along. There are probably weightings of job specific traits or time-outs that need to be adjusted to prevent continuous job shuffling, but it should really be simple maths. If job optimising is happening, then its completely invisible to the player.

The strength of the weightings for promotion or traits should probably be tied to ethics or government, so that its not the same for all species (not everyone is egalitarian about voluntarily giving up a job).

 

[itsuart]

Paradox could've added an option to restrict FTL

You mean this? I think it was there right from the start.

The screenshot is from 1.9.1.

 

[Atahal]

Okay. Let's try.

You can. By giving a lot of extra speed to hyperline early game and ability to build custom hyperlines later

Hyperlane were already way faster than other FTLs..
The main problem was the lack of liberty, which was clerly a huge handicap for your early game.
We can talk for hours about the fact that giving "a lot of extra speed" would have fix or not the issue.
In my opinion, this kind of solution is at best a pad on a broken leg. In the worst case scenario, it would have just been something completely OP at some point with the capacity of building your own hyperlines.

And it's even worst when you put the jump drive into the equation.

Putting bad on paper ultra focused ideas never works for balancing when you look at the biggest picture.

And, i don't want to be mean, but let's be serious for this one.
Sorry bro, but but when i see what happened to Stellaris the last 2 years, i can say it without any doubt: We dodged a bullet.

So, a very good FTL method had actual drawbacks...? Who could have guess. But for you it's just a pain.

A very good FTL used by almost no one because of that, AND the only FTL who costs resources, AND has an energy unkeep to maintain the stations which was terrible in end game.
SO PLEASE!

That's funny, because it's only good when we compare it to the hyperline drive.

Meanwhile, we have the warp drive. Almost as fast, 0 upkeep, with more freedom -> 0 drawbacks.

Everything looks more shiny compared to garbage, right?

Nothing to do with FTL

Corvette spam was a thing back then because of 2 reasons, the global speed, allowing fast and unpredictable attacks because of the FTL.
And the general inefficacy of other ships, which was fixed after some patchs if i remember correctly.

So yes, it had to do with FTL.

And i still think that interests of majority should be before interests of obvious minority. Especially if, by your own worlds, the minority is just fine playing with mods. And, btw, you had option to enforce FTL type anyway. The only thing that was missing is an ability to turn off hump drives. I'm sure one checkbox was easier to implement than "rework".

That's ironic , as far as i see, the majority of the fanbase welcomed the FTL rework without issue after the traditional "time of adaptation", and the ones against it were just a noisy minority.

And I can prove it actually.

It's good you talked about the "fine playing with mods" thing at it will prove my point.
Then, ok you can just use mod bringing it back. They exist(ed).
But be ready, the reality will hurt you when you will notice the fact that what you are calling "majority" is actually the obvious minority, as none of the mods are more than a couple of hundred subs at best.
Meanwhile the "True Hyperdrive-only" i was using still has 1100 subs, while being deprecated for 3 years. Just to give some perspectives.

I don't know, call me naive but i am pretty sure such a feature, wanted soooo hard by the so said majority of the community would have been at least half as popular as a mod, now dead for 3 years.
But who knows?

It's an issue with "one fleet" reality of Stellaris which didn't go anywhere at all. You just have easier time catching fleets up.

As far as i can see, it just removed a toxic part from stellaris.
So i am fine with that.

Basically everything is easier and simpler for you with new FTL. Because you had hard time having things under control in multiplayer. A lot of very heavy Subjective opinions instead of facts.

Basically, everything is simpler for everyone with the new FTL. Everyone had hard time having things under control in multiplayer AND in solo. Even in this topic, some are talking about the unpredictable AI.

Even back then, on a other forum I remember all the topics i saw and the time i spent to help new players handling this aspect of the game which was NEVER enjoyed by literally NO ONE.
And the shit got real when you were in end game, against federations and vassals, fitted with jump drives, attacking everywhere in your territory without any form of logic.

So, again, what you are saying is pretty ironic.

As far as i can tell, people may do loved the liberty of ONE of the old FTLs, but no one loved to play against.

And just to clarify. I was natural when all the drama around FTL happens. Firstly, by that time i knew already that complaining is pointless, with facts or not, since the very first day i was against the Sectors as they were presented because giving away such level of control over players property is a bad things with usual PDX AI (and i was right 146%), and secondly i though that maybe the recourses that goes into fixing FTL maybe used for something i care more about, or single FTL type allow more depths in some areas. I was wrong. Single FTL type potential was completely wasted the same way as new POP system.

I agree that the FTL rework is still far from perfect and PDX made a lot of bad calls, maybe because of that.
But as far as i can tell, the current FTL system is fine and definitely not a mistake.
While the old was messy, and far from being anything else than a broken system giving real hard time to balance.

But if you want, we can both admit we are fighting over a pill of garbage anyway.
Because yeah, the sectors are trashes, and yeah, PDX didn't even bother to implement important stuffs with the new FTL rework.
I 100% agree to the fact that giving the possibility for the player to create new hyperlines nodes, or even just temporarily wormholes (who knows) for surprises attacks would have been a great addition to the current system for example,
And a mod currently alloys to do it.
But even with this mod, it changes nothing. The game is broken anyway.