Paradox has announced Stellaris: Distant Stars, a new story pack

Quoting: DisharmonicI don't get the hate on Paradox's DLC policy. I mean, sure some of the DLCs are overpriced on release and i don't like that for some games they sell the new art separately, but do you know of many other developers that keep expanding their games continuously for several years? They have to pay for that somehow.

Personally I don't blame the dlc policy by itself. Megagames like eu4 and ck2 wouldn't exist without it.

The problem is PdX addiction to dlc regular cash flows. Imho this has been especially detrimental to stellaris. Stuff is released unfinished and untested over and over again because release dates cannot be postponed or diluted over time. Even the controversial 2.0 release with all the feature scrapping and game style flattening ultimately had the purpose of simplify the game implementation so that it's easier to develop and test it (with... arguable success for now).

Imho PdX should milk Stellaris Project a little less for the time being and let it stabilize. If they continue to squeeze it like they're doing it will severely hurt the game.

Quoting: MalEven the controversial 2.0 release with all the feature scrapping and game style flattening ultimately had the purpose of simplify the game implementation so that it's easier to develop and test it (with... arguable success for now).

I don't really know whether I agree or not with the rest of what you say--I just have insufficient information to form a judgement--but I don't think this is really true. In some ways it makes the game more complex, like it tends to lead to more fleets running around. But mainly it seems like the key changes that simplify the game (mainly the shift to only hyperdrive movement) was aimed at impacting tactical gameplay. For the most part it was aimed at putting limits on the number of avenues invaders have to attack through, creating the possibility of chokepoints and making the idea of guarding borders at least plausible. This goes together with the new system of starbases which can be built up to seriously badass fighting power.
I'm not yet sure whether I think that's an improvement, but it does seem to have been a major motivation for the changes. They weren't all about simplifying the code.

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: MalEven the controversial 2.0 release with all the feature scrapping and game style flattening ultimately had the purpose of simplify the game implementation so that it's easier to develop and test it (with... arguable success for now).

I don't really know whether I agree or not with the rest of what you say--I just have insufficient information to form a judgement--but I don't think this is really true. In some ways it makes the game more complex, like it tends to lead to more fleets running around. But mainly it seems like the key changes that simplify the game (mainly the shift to only hyperdrive movement) was aimed at impacting tactical gameplay. For the most part it was aimed at putting limits on the number of avenues invaders have to attack through, creating the possibility of chokepoints and making the idea of guarding borders at least plausible. This goes together with the new system of starbases which can be built up to seriously badass fighting power.
I'm not yet sure whether I think that's an improvement, but it does seem to have been a major motivation for the changes. They weren't all about simplifying the code.

My point was just on game implementation and testing not on game difficulty. Just with the mere FTL cut they removed a lot of code and a lot of edge cases from the game which ultimately makes it easier to develop (especially when they will enhance it in future) and test.

My opinion on 2.0 overall is that the game has been made more restrictive to the player. In the sense that either options have been removed entirely or new balance changes makes so that adopting a play style that diverges from the "meta" intended by the game designer is totally non viable compared to before. So yes: difficulty changed in the sense that several macro options have been removed. But the new play style enforced on the player does have a lot of new things to manage. So if 2.0 is more or less difficult is more of a subjective thing (how fast you can adapt to it and how much you are ok in doing that).


Last edited by Mal on 26 April 2018 at 12:53 pm UTC

Quoting: Mal

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: MalEven the controversial 2.0 release with all the feature scrapping and game style flattening ultimately had the purpose of simplify the game implementation so that it's easier to develop and test it (with... arguable success for now).

I don't really know whether I agree or not with the rest of what you say--I just have insufficient information to form a judgement--but I don't think this is really true. In some ways it makes the game more complex, like it tends to lead to more fleets running around. But mainly it seems like the key changes that simplify the game (mainly the shift to only hyperdrive movement) was aimed at impacting tactical gameplay. For the most part it was aimed at putting limits on the number of avenues invaders have to attack through, creating the possibility of chokepoints and making the idea of guarding borders at least plausible. This goes together with the new system of starbases which can be built up to seriously badass fighting power.
I'm not yet sure whether I think that's an improvement, but it does seem to have been a major motivation for the changes. They weren't all about simplifying the code.

My point was just on game implementation and testing not on game difficulty. Just with the mere FTL cut they removed a lot of code and a lot of edge cases from the game which ultimately makes it easier to develop (especially when they will enhance it in future) and test.

My opinion on 2.0 overall is that the game has been made more restrictive to the player. In the sense that either options have been removed entirely or new balance changes makes so that adopting a play style that diverges from the "meta" intended by the game designer is totally non viable compared to before. So yes: difficulty changed in the sense that several macro options have been removed. But the new play style enforced on the player does have a lot of new things to manage. So if 2.0 is more or less difficult is more of a subjective thing (how fast you can adapt to it and how much you are ok in doing that).

Yesyes. I wasn't saying that the FTL cut didn't simplify the code (although some of the other changes didn't, eg changes to discourage doomstacks and hence encourage more fleets and add an extra bookkeeping feature to fleets, their size cap--it's minor, but that added complexity rather than subtracting). I was saying that their motivation for doing so was less to simplify the code and more to shift the tactical gameplay in ways they found desirable due to some perceived shortcomings of how it worked before. And again, I wasn't offering an opinion as to whether that tactical shift was actually desirable or not, just pointing out that Paradox definitely did seem to find it desirable and claimed that as their major motivation for the change. So if you say the change had the "ultimate purpose" of simplifying the code, I want to say that while that simplification happened and I'm sure they were pleased about that, it would be at least an overstatement to say that was the "ultimate purpose".


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 26 April 2018 at 4:31 pm UTC

In the controversial dev diary #92 where asymmetrical FTL scrap have been announced the lead game designer justifies the choice with the fact that having all three together bogs all future development. Designing new expansions that work with all the base mechanics is difficult: they scrap some of them so they can expand more the game in the future. Outside that post I also remember him be very clear on twitch about this: it's either asymmetric FTL scrap or Stellaris stops at 1.9.

For a game with that many sold copies and such an enthusiast fan base the only motivation I can imagine for such drastic course of action is that either they are able to simplify the (game mechanics/code of the) base game enough so they can start to produce a satisfying amount of DLCs (and money) per year or the management will scrap the project because is not profitable enough.

Which is legit for a publicly quoted company. It's also legit for me as a customer in love with their game to hope that they slow down on DLCs schedule instead and take their time to release with less bugs (a constant issue of the game, they often apologize but the issue remain) and implement mechanics that in addition to be easily expandable (as they need) allow also for a more varied play styles (personal opinion ofc but I do find 2.0 to be less fun than 1.9 and without going into details the main reason in the end is just this: more restrictive game play).