There's a lot of toxicity on this forum, but there are also legitimate issues we'd like the team to address

[~Robbie]

At what point does it stop being the community's fault for being "toxic" and start becoming the developers' fault for not fixing a product we all paid for after literally years of waiting? A few months? A year? Two? Because all of those milestones have come and gone.

PDX cannot do these three things simultaneously:

1) Ask for people's hard-earned money to play their game.
2) Release that game and every subsequent update full of so many bugs that it severely reduces the quality of that game.
3) Expect the people who spent their money to just be totally cool with the game never being fixed.

The situation with the community is the direct result of the fact that they won't and/or can't fix the game. It's that simple.

 

[klopkr]

I gave up on this hope after seeing how good CK3 is after less amount of development time than stellaris has had. I really wish the stellaris team cared as much about community feedback as much as the CK team.

I feel that but I think it comes and goes in multi year long cycles.

I really loved the dev work on later CK2 and mid CK2 DLC's but there was also a time in the middle where it felt like they were phoning it in. The teams change a lot over the years too. I felt that Stellaris had that phase around 2.0 and 2.1 but we're back to the phoning it in phase. Since stellaris probably has a few years left on its life span I think they might come back into a good phase again in a few years.

The rough part is it feels like 2.0 and 2.1 were great bold new ideas that had a lot of reason to be excited for but as the problems with the new game design started showing the devs shifted into pure content. It feels a bit like they're trying to just squeeze out some money from the game since then. I think that the fundamentals for a good stellaris are there but the dev team have to be bold again and willing to rework parts of the game from the ground up to focus mostly on making the game actually work.

Personally if I was in charge of Stellaris I'd work on a huge AI patch for combat, then I'd shift an entire year into rebuilding the galaxy generation from the ground up to find solutions around some of the games fundamental limiters, like pops/planets/wormhole generation/etc.

 

[Caligula Caesar]

I know I'm sticking my neck out a bit here, but the funny thing about the whole rage on the forums atm is, I am firmly convinced (and this is a personal opinion) that 2.8 will be the best patch we've ever done. And I don't just mean the content - there's a fair few nice and juicy bugfixes in it too.

If you don't believe me, obviously that's your prerogative, but I'd ask that you wait until it ships before you condemn it.

 

[sillyrobot]

I know I'm sticking my neck out a bit here, but the funny thing about the whole rage on the forums atm is, I am firmly convinced (and this is a personal opinion) that 2.8 will be the best patch we've ever done. And I don't just mean the content - there's a fair few nice and juicy bugfixes in it too.

If you don't believe me, obviously that's your prerogative, but I'd ask that you wait until it ships before you condemn it.

Condemning a patch we haven't seen isn't the zeitgeist. Condemning lack of communication is. You might be entirely correct, but how would the customers know? We've been told... marketing copy about the new features and background on art. Hooray. The forum guess is the patch is about the end of the month so 2-3 weeks. We know what the next dev diary is and it is more background.

Also we've been told that no serious fixes are coming with this patch and the dev lead has intimated there aren't many being held back in his only communcation about the topic in literally months. So if you are correct, the communication is actually worse than the forum thinks.

 

[Subtle Apparition]

2.8 will be the best patch we've ever done. And I don't just mean the content - there's a fair few nice and juicy bugfixes in it too.

If you don't believe me, obviously that's your prerogative, but I'd ask that you wait until it ships before you condemn it.

Until 2.8 is shown to have fixed some of the issues still present since 2.2 AND the issues caused by AI changes in 2.6, there's literally no concrete reason to take your comment in good faith.

"fair few nice and juicy bugfixes in it" is too vague and fails to address the list of issues that the community has been compiling since 2.2.

 

[Caligula Caesar]

Well, I can't say whether you'll be satisfied or whether you'll find it insufficient, but I can promise that there are a bunch of fixes in 2.8.

 

[Subtle Apparition]

Well, I can't say whether you'll be satisfied or whether you'll find it insufficient, but I can promise that there are a bunch of fixes in 2.8.

You're kind of expecting the same kind of trust that we put in the changes (especially for the AI) in 2.6, which ended up having its own set of issues (AI still not functioning properly in war, and crises no longer caring about defending their systems to the point of being crippled are two main issues).

I guess I'll leave it at that.

 

[charliex3]

I don't have any hopes for the next patch as I was fairly disappointed by the previous ones.

If it's not at least 1000 entries long as EU4, I'm out of here and never coming back to Stellaris if the next patch doesn't fix the main issues. AI, Micromanagement and Fleet manager bug thats been with us since 2.2.

And it would be great to get a date already for the next patch, at least by the next week (not that it needs to be released next week). Just test everything properly this time, so it doesnt end up same as 2.7.1

 

[Spartakus]

I know I'm sticking my neck out a bit here, but the funny thing about the whole rage on the forums atm is, I am firmly convinced (and this is a personal opinion) that 2.8 will be the best patch we've ever done. And I don't just mean the content - there's a fair few nice and juicy bugfixes in it too.

If you don't believe me, obviously that's your prerogative, but I'd ask that you wait until it ships before you condemn it.

Thanks for sticking your neck out anyway. I guess it's fair to say that we'll remain sceptical until we see the patch and the fixes, but for now I'm quite happy just for seeing a dev respond here. Please keep this going.

 

[Gromit]

I doubt it'll happen again, unfortunately. They're not supposed to engage with us.

 

[Caligula Caesar]

I doubt it'll happen again, unfortunately. They're not supposed to engage with us.

Nah, you just need quite a thick skin to do it.

 

[Zagreb 887]

Well, I can't say whether you'll be satisfied or whether you'll find it insufficient, but I can promise that there are a bunch of fixes in 2.8.

As it has been told several times before total silence, and we all see how much the game is still broken.

I don't mean to despite your work, or criticizing it before seeing it, but you have to understand that poor communication and lack of improvement lead to at least scepticism regarding the future of this game.

The thing I don't understand is why you guy's keep so much secrecy around this bug fixes update? What is so risky to let us know, even without details, what are you planning to fix?

Nobody here will jump on your troath if you tell us about solutions you might bring, or things you can't fix, we just want to know.

And thanks to take the time just talking to us.

 

[Gromit]

Nah, you just need quite a thick skin to do it.

This is the end result of gaslighting a community as toxic. From what I can tell, this community actually cares more about the game than the others do. They're not posting memes and random screenshots. They're posting actual discussions on the game, reporting bugs, making suggestions etc. These are not the actions of a toxic community.

You don't need a thicker skin, you just need a communication plan in place. Right now communication is so haphazard and predominantly marketing based.

 

[Spidee]

I know I'm sticking my neck out a bit here, but the funny thing about the whole rage on the forums atm is, I am firmly convinced (and this is a personal opinion) that 2.8 will be the best patch we've ever done. And I don't just mean the content - there's a fair few nice and juicy bugfixes in it too.

If you don't believe me, obviously that's your prerogative, but I'd ask that you wait until it ships before you condemn it.

Thank you for sticking out your neck. We like and welcome any and all indications where things go. You sound confident, we like it. After what feels like eternity of silence of the Community ambassadors here, this ray of hope is welcome. Please tell your team to speak with us and share a roadmap.

That said, we have been burned twice now (2.0 and Megapork). So I am thrice shy on the promise. Enjoy the Sunday.

 

[Elimdur]

Ahh, perfect a content designer informing us that the next patch will be the best. What could possibly be wrong here? The most irrelevant person trying to engage us.

Were are the coders?

Are you even sure you know, what a content designer does? At the least he has a lot more insight into the ongoing work that is being done with the game than any of us. You do know who is scripting all kinds of events happening throughout the game? Right, it's the content designer. And after calling them the "most irrelevant person" to try to engage you, please wonder again why the devs refrain from showing up here. If I was in their shoes I would stay far away and if just to prevent myself from losing my cool...

 

[James Fire]

Were are the coders?

Staying away from your toxic attitude, I would imagine.

 

[GnoSIS]

Staying away from your toxic attitude, I would imagine.

And I'm staying away from the DLC.

Sad since they are the only ones who can authoritatively lay our minds at ease, by providing a serious update. They can't just have firefighters posting here.

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

I don't see how it is toxic to point out that content designers aren't software engineers.

 

[~Robbie]

I know I'm sticking my neck out a bit here, but the funny thing about the whole rage on the forums atm is, I am firmly convinced (and this is a personal opinion) that 2.8 will be the best patch we've ever done. And I don't just mean the content - there's a fair few nice and juicy bugfixes in it too.

If you don't believe me, obviously that's your prerogative, but I'd ask that you wait until it ships before you condemn it.

With all due respect, this isn't the first, the second, or even the fifth time that "one more patch" was going to be the "best patch ever", nor is it the first time that it was said to solve tons of issues.

This is an endless cycle with this game. Every major patch comes out and breaks as much as it fixes, which I'm sure you know considering you're on staff.

Asking us to wait until it ships before expressing frustration is absurd. We have been waiting. For years, we've been waiting for "one more patch" to make the game actually function properly.

My response to you is this: How can you possibly think it's reasonable to ask us to wait when we bought the game years ago and are still waiting? Can you not see how immensely disrespectful it feels to the players to ask for patience, four and a half years after release? Do you even realize how many times we've been told that the issues would be solved in just one more patch? How many times can you guys promise the moon, let everyone down, and then still expect people to be able to take it seriously? Even if this patch comes out and fixes all, or heck, even most of the issues with this game, do you think we should be excited for it considering how long we've been waiting? Do you think that after waiting two years since 2.0 that we should be excited to have the game finally function again? A game which we paid good money for?

Sorry, but your post really rubs me the wrong way, and it genuinely feels disrespectful. It's so out of touch with the frustrations we've had with this game. A game, might I add, that this community is clearly passionate about. And that community is not the problem with Stellaris.

 

[James Fire]

I don't see how it is toxic to point out that content designers aren't software engineers.

That's a)Not all he said, and b) Definitely wasn't the implication.