What's the deal with the expansion pack reviews?

[jonatron5]

So Stellaris never was my favorite game, I don't think I've ever actually sat down and completed a campaign I always lost interest. that being said I was looking through the expansion packs trying to see if getting them would add enough flavor to the game to encourage me to finish one.

then I see the steam reviews.


nemesis: Mostly Negative
Federations: Mostly positive (allready own it)
MegaCorp: Mixed
apocalypse: Mixed
Utopia : mostly Positive

I mean why are the reviews so relatively low on all of these? none of this is encouraging me or says to me :

"oh yeah these absolutely overhaul the gameplay experience for the better and make the game more enjoyable to finish"

 

[Ripley Riley]

I mean why are the reviews so relatively low on all of these?

Honestly? People don't like paying money for things. I know that seems like hyperbole, but it really isn't. People want the features in the DLC, but dislike having to shell out money for them.

Damn game developers having to eat and pay bills. It's a travesty!

 

[CrazyJ]

honestly the reviews are more to do with the state of the game at the time they were introduce then the dlcs themselves, the only dlc i would say is worthy of a highly negative review for it's content is apocalypse and that's simply because there's almost nothing there.

hands down the best dlc in my mind is utopia simply due to the sheer stupid amount of new and amazing content introduced. if you are going to look into dlc I'd pick that one up immediately because a lot of the better mods use utopia code and you need the dlc to use the mod(including my personal favorite gigastructural engineering )

but if you want to make the game more enjoyable without dlcs look in the workshop for mods, some of the bigger total conversion type mods don't require dlc and are amazing .

 

[LostInACave]

It's normally not due to the DLC itself, but due to the accompanying free patch.

In the case of Nemesis, it was due to the pop growth rework. MegaCorp was due to the economy changes which did bring about a lot of late game lag issues and Apocalypse because people were salty about the removal of Warp and Gateway FTL.

It is rarely about the actual DLC.

 

[Pancakelord]

apocalypse: Mixed

They cut 2 FTL types and changed a bunch of other things, like how borders and stations work. Game wasn't in the best state after.

MegaCorp: Mixed

Game wasn't in a good state at all for quite a while after this.

The economic rework for both of these two DLC/accompanying patches didn't deliver promised performance (or AI) improvements either.

nemesis: Mostly Negative

Nemesis headline feature wasn't exactly the espionage focus everyone was expecting I think. I did the crisis thing once - I'll probably never do it again, its really just win harder. Skimming Steam, a lot of people felt this way too, saying it lacks value as a pack.

Espionage, much like the favours system, is a solid foundation/system that feels woefully underbaked/lacking in integration with other parts of the game. When viewed in this light I can understand a lot of negative comments (and agree with them) that star killing wasnt necessary - that time/work could have gone in to other, more interesting, espionage ops, for example.

IMO the mechanics in free patches often seem to not be aligned with the DLC overall, and this is part of where the negativity comes from I think. (federations being an exception - though they still rammed in the juggernaught for some reason) you cant say "DIS Is the diplomacy DLC" or "Dis is da economy DLC" as they are honestly quite a mess, touching on a wide range of systems, but never really doubling down on the themes outlined in dev diaries (For example: did diplomacy actually change all that much after federations? No - but we did get the GC minigame, whose resolutions often affect the economy more than politics (virtually nothing in the GC influences factions, inter-country relations or PP even though its technically possible for example), why? We could have had more stuff packed in to Bilateral trades, or bringing back system trading somehow or new vassal types etc etc)

 

[TrotBot]

Just get them all.

Edit: ok lots of people got mad, cause obviously it's expensive to get them all one shot. get Utopia, megacorps, and apocalypse first in my opinion. Then synthetic dawn, ancient relics, and federations. there's a lot of sales, so pick them up one by one as you can afford. but I was just saying all of them are worth getting eventually.

 

[Critical Ethics]

Nemesis was the DLC that came out alongside the empire growth limiter which a bunch of people (not me!) were very upset over, so they vented by downvoting the DLC despite the change being in vanilla. Similarly Megacorp also came alongside the death of tiles, Apocalypse came alongside the death of warp/ wormholes. So sometimes it's less about whether it's worth buying as it is about how people feel about the direction of the game.

Also sometimes DLC gets downvoted when too much stuff is gated behind the DLC. Non-Nemesis espionage is kind of anaemic but also mandatory. Edit: Pancakelord makes a lot of good points about them feeling a bit arbitrary sometimes. Megacorp contains 1/3rd of the galactic wonders ascension for some reason.

Finally, Megacorp was kinda meh anyway.

 

[15JTaylor]

So Stellaris never was my favorite game, I don't think I've ever actually sat down and completed a campaign I always lost interest. that being said I was looking through the expansion packs trying to see if getting them would add enough flavor to the game to encourage me to finish one.

then I see the steam reviews.


nemesis: Mostly Negative
Federations: Mostly positive (allready own it)
MegaCorp: Mixed
apocalypse: Mixed
Utopia : mostly Positive

I mean why are the reviews so relatively low on all of these? none of this is encouraging me or says to me :

"oh yeah these absolutely overhaul the gameplay experience for the better and make the game more enjoyable to finish"

As other people has said it's due to the state the accompanying free patch was in. Megacorp's free patch was uniquely bad. Federations was the first time in a while that the game was considered to be in a playable state. The necrophage dlc was hit hard due to people being upset by the state of the game and people felt that the devs attention had shifted away from quality control to just more art. The discussion got pretty bad at times. And nemesis got hit hard due to the new gameplay mechanics shook up the game in a pretty big way and people struggled to adjust.

I dislike the review bombing done on steam. Since the state the free patch was in has no affect on the state the dlc was in. And these bad scores scare people away from a dlc that is perfectly adequate and you may enjoy them. But I'm defense of the review bombing, there is really no way to really capture people's sentiment surrounding the free patch on steam. So people review bomb the dlc to show their dislike of the patch.

The dlcs aren't bad, but be sure to look up what's IN them before buying. Like, megacorp unlocks a new empire type. If you dont want to play as a mega corporation, then mega corp is a waste of money. The same goes for all of the dlcs. Look before buying, and be sure the new options that are unlocked is worth it.

Fun thing. The devs announced the custodian team. They will be tasked with improving the base game. But much more interestingly, they are also tasked with looking at past dlc and improving them. Maybe if they do a good job, sales will pick up and people will review it good and maybe past customers will return and change their grade.

 

[TrotBot]

As other people has said it's due to the state the accompanying free patch was in. Megacorp's free patch was uniquely bad. Federations was the first time in a while that the game was considered to be in a playable state. The necrophage dlc was hit hard due to people being upset by the state of the game and people felt that the devs attention had shifted away from quality control to just more art. The discussion got pretty bad at times. And nemesis got hit hard due to the new gameplay mechanics shook up the game in a pretty big way and people struggled to adjust.

I dislike the review bombing done on steam. Since the state the free patch was in has no affect on the state the dlc was in. And these bad scores scare people away from a dlc that is perfectly adequate and you may enjoy them. But I'm defense of the review bombing, there is really no way to really capture people's sentiment surrounding the free patch on steam. So people review bomb the dlc to show their dislike of the patch.

The dlcs aren't bad, but be sure to look up what's IN them before buying. Like, megacorp unlocks a new empire type. If you dont want to play as a mega corporation, then mega corp is a waste of money. The same goes for all of the dlcs. Look before buying, and be sure the new options that are unlocked is worth it.

Fun thing. The devs announced the custodian team. They will be tasked with improving the base game. But much more interestingly, they are also tasked with looking at past dlc and improving them. Maybe if they do a good job, sales will pick up and people will review it good and maybe past customers will return and change their grade.

Megacorp also includes shared burdens which is an absolute requirement for playing fanatic egalitarian well. It gives you a low upkeep version of equal wages while you build up the consumer goods economy to make the switch to utopian abundance (lower and higher stages of communism). It also unlocks something not in the tooltip: communal housing and utopian communal housing, the best housing buildings in the game.

Doesn't megacorp also open ecumenopoli?

Review bombing is childish and dumb and these are the people who kill the games they love then wonder why their dev studios go under.

 

[15JTaylor]

Megacorp also includes shared burdens which is an absolute requirement for playing fanatic egalitarian well. It gives you a low upkeep version of equal wages while you build up the consumer goods economy to make the switch to utopian abundance (lower and higher stages of communism). It also unlocks something not in the tooltip: communal housing and utopian communal housing, the best housing buildings in the game.

Doesn't megacorp also open ecumenopoli?

Review bombing is childish and dumb and these are the people who kill the games they love then wonder why their dev studios go under.

I agree. I only explained why they did it. I havd positive reviews on all of them. I own all of them. But it is true people review bomb the dlcs in anger over the patch, not the dlc.

 

[Shifty2012]

Paradox DLC is overpriced, a problem that only seems to be getting worse. When I look at what I can get for £15 on steam compared to what Paradox are offering in their latest DLC, not once have I thought "Damn, talk about getting your moneys worth".

I'm not saying the DLC is necessarily bad, but I always feel slightly cheated whenever I make a purchase. In fact I have almost adopted a "Sales only" policy towards Paradox of late.

Some people still seem to have the misconception that Paradox is a small cuddly swedish gaming firm struggling to make its way in the world. It just isn't anymore, Paradox is huge, and it knows how to milk you for every penny.

Review bombing the DLC based on the poor state of the patch that usually accompanies it is perhaps unwarranted, but Paradox didn't have to release it in this state.
It is entirely within their control as to when and how they release a product, seems perfectly reasonable to me to give a negative review if upon purchasing something the update that must accompany it has had a deleterious effect on your enjoyment of the game.

 

[razaron]

I mean why are the reviews so relatively low on all of these?

It's because PDS puts 70% of the content and features in the free patch that accompanies the DLC.
It's a strategy with pros and cons, the main con being that the DLC doesn't seem worth it in a vacuum. With how low the scores are, I assume PDX has crunched the numbers and decided their strategy is a net positive, profit-wise.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

steam reviews really aren't trustworthy for all sorts of reasons, some mentioned already. maybe check out some youtube vids to get a better idea of whether you'd like a DLC

 

[Anemetius]

DLCs for Stellaris are bad mod copies.

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

steam reviews really aren't trustworthy for all sorts of reasons, some mentioned already. maybe check out some youtube vids to get a better idea of whether you'd like a DLC

So you're saying if the majority of thousands of reviews agrees that a dlc is not worth, then you call all of those not trustworthy? Thats outright foolish in my opinion.
As others pointed out, a lot of it is about the state of the game as a whole.

I myself have changed my review for Stellaris multiple times. It was absolutely horrendous after megacorp and I would not have recommended the game to anyone. Same after Ancient Relics dlc. The dlc wasn't bad, but the balance of Stellaris was the worst it has ever been.

When ancient relics released, Stellaris was literally Robot simulator. Synth Ascension was the strongest path in the game by far and still is. Habitability had just been reworked and severe penalties were added which affected only organics of course. Machine empires were much stronger and ontop of all this, the devs thought that adding a relic for a passive 50% Robot assembly speed would be a good idea.

Out of all the balance issues, the Original Cybrex Warforge ontop of Habitability changes without nerfing Machines was the most outrageous balance decision the devs have ever done and the forum kept talking about it until Cybrex Warforge got changed to what it is today. This goes to show just how much damage you can do to your game if you keep ignoring balance. Of course you can see this to this day. We have countless threads about how bad Spiritualists are and how Materialists are better in every way, which has not changed for years.

And of course this explains why pretty much everyone was overjoyed to hear about the Custodian team working on balance and updating older content.

 

[Ryika]

I think "trustworthy" is such a weird word in this context. You can trust that most reviews written anywhere come from a place of honesty, you just can't be certain that the people writing these reviews care about the same things that you do. But should never trust that a number derived from the opinions of individuals is going to give you a full picture of whether you're going to like the product or not.

DLCs in particular are a bit of a weird case, because just about nobody reviews them. The base game got more Reviews in the last 30 days (1346) than Federations got overall (796). Lithoids got half of that (387). It's not too surprising that the people who want to make their frustration known make up for a larger portion of the reviews if nobody else is interested in posting their opinions on them.

 

[kviiri]

honestly the reviews are more to do with the state of the game at the time they were introduce then the dlcs themselves, the only dlc i would say is worthy of a highly negative review for it's content is apocalypse and that's simply because there's almost nothing there.

This summarizes the problem excellently.

So you're saying if the majority of thousands of reviews agrees that a dlc is not worth, then you call all of those not trustworthy? Thats outright foolish in my opinion.
As others pointed out, a lot of it is about the state of the game as a whole.

The reviews are timeless, barring users revising their reviews that a relatively small percentage of people do. They do not react adequately to the changing situation of the game. The reviews ostensibly concern the DLC, but are instead often driven by issues not directly related to the DLC itself, but also issues relating to the free update (either disliked changes, or launch bugs).

So yeah. The review score aggregates may be trustworthy in the sense that they capture user sentiment; but it is not informative on deciding whether a DLC is worth buying or not.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

You can trust that most reviews written anywhere come from a place of honesty,

this is so naive. have you not heard of review-bombing?


...and there are many people out there who'll sell you 1000 positive reviews for the right price.

 

[MathyM]

Steam lets you view both the all-time review score (which I frankly find less useful, despite being the default way to aggregate reviews in any platform), and recent (last 30 days I think).

For an evolving game like Stellaris, in which initial issues are likely to have impacted the release, and could now have been patched, just focus on the most recent ones.

Also, refrain from buying DLC outside of sales. Most of them receive a massive discount of 50%. They are really worth their price if you purchase them at 50% off.

 

[Ryika]

this is so naive. have you not heard of review-bombing?

What's dishonest about review-bombing? If a company makes a change to the game that ruins it for you, then giving it a non-recommendation is entirely honest. If you believe the problem is major enough to recommend against the game, then recommending against buying the game is entirely reasonable. Steam reviews are not framed as objective reviews after all, they're based entirely on whether you recommend the game or not.

Whether that's a reasonable system is a different question of course - that one thing you care about very much may be completely irrelevant for somebody else, after all. But again... that's why you shouldn't just look at the numbers.

And in general Steam Reviews certainly have the same major downsides shared by just about any system where just about anyone can give their opinion without some sort of filtering.

...and there are many people out there who'll sell you 1000 positive reviews for the right price.

Any examples for a game that has surprisingly good steam reviews despite being despised by the community?