|
uber_stoat posted:feel empty, spend money, dopamine hit, hit fades, feel empty...
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2020 21:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 22:14 |
|
|
Splicer posted:oh it's findom i've been findommed by gabe newell, jesus loving christ.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2020 21:49
|
|
|
And Tyler Too! posted:If this game didn't have mod support I'd have bailed forever ago. It's near-Bethesda levels of relying on the players to actually finish developing the game. I've not played Bethesda games since Morrowind, but to my understanding they still all have a plot, overarching goals, and an endgame. Stellaris literally removed win conditions, so in terms of 'unfinished product' it sits somewhere around Rage, except of course Rage was actually fun.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2020 22:18
|
|
|
I find myself voting "No" on all the galactic community resolutions. They seem weird and hard to evaluate.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2020 23:26
|
|
|
Dick Trauma posted:I find myself voting "No" on all the galactic community resolutions. They seem weird and hard to evaluate. Some are quite counter-productive for what they're supposed to do. Take the "mutual defense" chain of resolutions starting with "the readied shield". The idea of it is that it encourages naval build-up and grants greater diplomatic weight to empires with strong fleets. The diplomatic weight bit works fine, and they give a small, flat naval capacity bonus, from 10 to 50 points, which is a fair bit in the early game but a drop in the ocean in the late game. The problem is, they also add a ship upkeep penalty, from 5% to 25% - which is nothing in the early game but a big penalty in the late game. It means that if you want a big fleet, you should vote against this policy.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2020 23:53
|
|
|
The purpose of the mutual defense chain, like most others in the GC which is a whole other kettle of fish, isn't to benefit people. It's to create gotchas that you use to administer sanctions on nations you don't like. Or nations you do like. Or really, anybody but you. The best part of the GC is running everybody but the die-hards out because it's maximum sanctions in all areas on literally everyone except the player. Rogue Servitors are really good for this due to the level 5 Greater Good law ruining everybody but you and maybe the one fanatical egalitarian that's survived the hellpit because the game loves to fill the galaxy with empires of opposing inclination. A good war with the Mutual Defense chain in place and you can knock over them too. edit; and of course the AI hasn't been programmed to be able to reform to be inside galactic law because that'd be AI coding and the Stellaris devs are allergic to that.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2020 00:01
|
|
|
I played Stellaris a lot and enjoyed it well enough, but it really does feel half-baked. I would love to know how many different directions it got pulled in during development, because a lot of the systems feel like they were Frankensteined from “Europa Universalis in Space” “Victoria In Space” and “standard space 4X”. It just doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2020 03:07
|
|
|
If it's against the GC to purge pops you get sanctions, until the forced relocation (or genocide?) is finished and everything is instantly back to harmonious. It's kinda annoying how if it's illegal to have basic subsistence for pops you can just do it anyway but when the AI inevitably votes through more expensive ship upkeep and lowered habitability there is no way to violate those. Voting is mostly pointless and doesn't matter because the majority of the time 90% of the AI's all vote for the same thing anyway. The edict to make pops move by themselves might as well not exist if the AI's don't want to vote for worker benefits stuff. It's also bizarre how egalitarians who care about free movement are the only ones who can't have pops move between planets (unless they get lucky with the edict in the late game). But if pops did that on their own from the start it'd probably make the game turn into a lethargic snail even earlier. I can't even get to the crisis because after a certain point time is too slow and there's a high chance of the entire game freezing for seconds every first of january. Now excuse me as I go grumble in a corner.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2020 08:37
|
|
|
Dick Trauma posted:I find myself voting "No" on all the galactic community resolutions. They seem weird and hard to evaluate. It's actually really easy to evaluate them! Just think "What would my space people do?" and then take whatever option would make more sense to them, consequences be damned. In practice, this means I tend to make 1-2 empires really angry because I keep telling them "gently caress off, space clowns", while in general, my empires are going "Hell, YES!!!", to 90% of resolutions, even if it hurts us. Because it would make sense for the people living in that empire to do that!
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2020 10:47
|
|
|
Gort posted:Some are quite counter-productive for what they're supposed to do. Take the "mutual defense" chain of resolutions starting with "the readied shield". The idea of it is that it encourages naval build-up and grants greater diplomatic weight to empires with strong fleets. The diplomatic weight bit works fine, and they give a small, flat naval capacity bonus, from 10 to 50 points, which is a fair bit in the early game but a drop in the ocean in the late game. Too many of the policies are simply 'would you like a penalty y/n?' and the computer loves to vote yes every time it can for it. edit : i just figured it all out now. the policies all have great sounding names but actually suck poo poo most of the time, so whomever wrote them did it like they studied gop law making. ded fucked around with this message at 10:54 on Oct 20, 2020 |
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2020 10:51
|
|
|
ded posted:Too many of the policies are simply 'would you like a penalty y/n?' and the computer loves to vote yes every time it can for it. A lot of them end up being good in ways that they weren't intended to. Like the trade policy is amazing for robots. You can cripple everyone else while suffering no drawback. The industrial one is a straight upgrade for them, even.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2020 15:45
|
|
|
Part of me was hankering to maybe try Stellaris again so I read the last few pages of this thread and remembered why I stopped playing. The whole "maybe this DLC will finally fix the game" chain for years was a depressing ride.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 05:58
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:Part of me was hankering to maybe try Stellaris again so I read the last few pages of this thread and remembered why I stopped playing. The whole "maybe this DLC will finally fix the game" chain for years was a depressing ride. This is me every few weeks. I'm trying my level best to like Stellaris, and on some levels I even do, but actually playing the game just depresses me. There's rarily a moment where I wish "this mechanic should be different/better/more fleshed out" and no new dlc ever changes anything because they're shallow just like the rest of the game. And unfortunately at this point even mods can't fix most of it. I really hope there'll be a Stellaris 2 at some point though. One that actually improves the game, that is.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 06:21
|
|
|
Hopefully one that brings back warp.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 10:44
|
|
|
Libluini posted:Hopefully one that brings back warp. Why bring back the worst one, tho?
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 10:45
|
|
|
If we're getting space 4X sequels, can we have ones of good titles? SoaSE, or maybe even the older stuff like Galciv or whatnot. Why do the DLC treadmill again for a title that was never good enough?
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 11:05
|
|
|
Serephina posted:If we're getting space 4X sequels, can we have ones of good titles? SoaSE, or maybe even the older stuff like Galciv or whatnot. Why do the DLC treadmill again for a title that was never good enough? Because Stellaris is, honestly unique in some ways. And has a lot of potential that was never fully explored. But then again, this is Paradox we're talking about and shallow DLCs is kind of what they do so you may be right.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 11:09
|
|
|
Yami Fenrir posted:[...] bring back the best one, imho I agree! Back in the early days, I could never really get warm with wormhole stations, and hyperdrive was just "this thing that was almost as nice as warp" in my mind. Besides, entire games like Distant Worlds are build around warp drive like systems, so I was always really confused about all the odd complaints people had about warp. It's not like it can't be done! And I really enjoyed both the challenge of defending myself against enemies warp driving past my border and doing the same thing when I circumvented fortifications by just flying past them. Alas, if I want that specific kind of game again I have to go back and fire up Distant Worlds. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 11:32
|
|
|
Libluini posted:I agree! Warp was bad in stellaris specifically. For you, the player it was fine, but everyone else also having it made hyperlanes entirely worthless. And unlike Wormholes, you also couldn't target anything to slow them down or block them completely. Functionally that meant that you'd have to do a benny hills chase for EVERY SINGLE FLEET that showed up, which could take forever depending on technology if they didn't just disappear from your radar. If I remember correctly that was also the time where the AI loved sending single corvettes EVERYWHERE, and base stations had trouble dealing with them sometimes. I.E. the fact that it was entirely unrestricted is makes it bad because there was no space terrain with it. If you can just circumvent fortifications, then what the hell is the point of fortifications? If anything should come back, it should be wormhole as a predecessor tech to jump drive or something, imo. Yami Fenrir fucked around with this message at 12:10 on Oct 21, 2020 |
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 12:05
|
|
|
Yami Fenrir posted:that was also the time where the AI loved sending single corvettes EVERYWHERE, and base stations had trouble dealing with them sometimes. There was no concept of a base station then, they would just blow up your mining platforms.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 15:05
|
|
|
MrL_JaKiri posted:There was no concept of a base station then, they would just blow up your mining platforms. Right. So that was even more annoying back then.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 15:08
|
|
|
Yami Fenrir posted:Warp was bad in stellaris specifically. For you, the player it was fine, but everyone else also having it made hyperlanes entirely worthless. And unlike Wormholes, you also couldn't target anything to slow them down or block them completely. I was mainly a warp player, but I never had these problems. I even remember giving tips about how to properly play warp drive games, but back then people just continued complaining without engaging my posts, it was exhausting. At some point after warp death I accepted that Stellaris isn't getting warp drives back and got finally off my rear end to finish my Distant Worlds portrait mod and played that game instead when I got the mood for warp.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 16:20
|
|
|
Yami Fenrir posted:Because Stellaris is, honestly unique in some ways. And has a lot of potential that was never fully explored. The main thing that makes Stellaris unique is the thing that all Paradox games do, where it's less about a "win condition" and more of a strategy sandbox. I think that's why the features being so shallow feels frustrating - it's not like it's any less complex than other 4X games; it's basically on par with civ. The problem is that as a sandbox you want more depth than average because the point is to get lost in the minutae and really feel like you're trying to run an empire rather than just moving pieces around on a board to "win the game".
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 17:15
|
|
|
Wormholes were a finicky mess and warp drives completely obviated any concept of strategic defense. Getting rid of them was probably the best (and most well-received) overhaul Stellaris ever made and I'm kind of surprised anyone is still pining for the bad FTL types.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 17:25
|
|
|
When did that FTL shift happen? Because I remember buying the game shortly before they switched everything to hyperlines. Then I put it down because I got ganked by a wormhole and when I came back I liked it a lot more.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 17:28
|
|
|
It would be neat if there were a few competing end game movement options, and the game ran off a tech system that made mutually exclusive tech progression viable. So everyone starts off with hyperlanes, but some people also have jump drive and others can launch fleets across the galaxy using special starbase modules and others can generate wormholes that stay stable for a year or two.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 17:32
|
|
|
You are describing Sword of the Stars. Unfortunately you need to lock down the races to make that work without massive balance issues. And it's what Paradox should have done - more interesting races with less customization is better than a homogenous mass of races that mostly play identically with minor percentage differences.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 17:41
|
|
|
DatonKallandor posted:You are describing Sword of the Stars. Unfortunately you need to lock down the races to make that work without massive balance issues.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 17:47
|
|
|
Jabarto posted:Wormholes were a finicky mess and warp drives completely obviated any concept of strategic defense. Getting rid of them was probably the best (and most well-received) overhaul Stellaris ever made and I'm kind of surprised anyone is still pining for the bad FTL types. Yeah it's almost impressive how much warp drive hurt the strategy aspect of the game and getting rid of it was one of the unequivocally good decisions made in the constant tinkering with the game's core mechanics over the years. Warp drive itself was just plain bad game design and I'm surprised to see anybody miss it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 17:54
|
|
|
everybody's talking about warp but wormhole was the really broken one with a little bit of prep time you could easily raid deep into an enemy empire without them even being able to respond at all
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 17:58
|
|
|
I want warp back solely for the sake of the star trek mod, tbh
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 18:02
|
|
|
Yeah the problem with both warp and wormhole is that they basically destroyed any sense of "defensive terrain". There was no way to create choke points when two of the three travel methods could just ignore them, so it turned every war into just playing fleet whack a mole.CainsDescendant posted:I want warp back solely for the sake of the star trek mod, tbh Was it removed from the code entirely? I would have thought that they just removed the scripting that used it and it could be reactivated by mods.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 18:02
|
|
|
I mean, it should be there right? It's basically just a lovely jump drive.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 18:15
|
|
|
IIRC the Star Trek mod gets around it by just bumping the hyperlane density way, way up and making the hyperlanes invisible. The net effect is basically the same.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 18:23
|
|
|
Last I played New Horizons, they had just cranked up the system connections and turned off the hyperlane lines which is pretty lame. Maybe they could hack something better together out of jump drives, but I'm pretty sure any remnants of warp code in the game isn't usable or else they'd be going with that.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 18:24
|
|
|
The Cheshire Cat posted:Yeah the problem with both warp and wormhole is that they basically destroyed any sense of "defensive terrain". There was no way to create choke points when two of the three travel methods could just ignore them, so it turned every war into just playing fleet whack a mole. See, that is what I meant: Regardless of how often I said that's wrong, I was just ignored. It's flat out wrong that there is no strategic defense with warp. I mean, I easily defended my own strategic strongholds and had no trouble defeating AIs using warp. The trick is simply to realize that fleets moving around are completely worthless if you can strike the enemy where it hurts. I won most of my warp wars either by letting the enemy smash into my central planets and my waiting fleets, or by smashing into theirs after they moved all their fleets away. I get it, having choke points to defend is really psychologically soothing, but you don't really need them after you realize the enemy doesn't have them, either. My own theory is that some people just can't adapt to how different warp and hyperspace played, and because they couldn't deal with it, they thought "I can't be wrong, the game is wrong!"
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 18:26
|
|
|
You just admitted there is only one strategy to fighting wars with warp drive and it's the boring one.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 18:29
|
|
|
warp was at least sort-of halfway balanced because it was slow. it was overall bad for the game because warp AIs were extremely irritating, but a hyperlane fleet could at least hypothetically be advantaged over warp in specific situations where the hyperlanes were arranged well wormhole was just broken for any situation that didn't involve going to the other side of the galaxy. and since natural wormholes/gates didn't exist yet, there was rarely a reason you needed to be anywhere outside of your wormhole range. within your range, you could get anywhere an order of magnitude faster than warp or hyperlanes
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 18:30
|
|
|
Libluini posted:
This was always the impression I got too. People really, really want to be able to turtle up in their own little further I guess?
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 18:31
|
|
Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 22:14 |
|
|
I'm not one of the people saying warp drive is hard to deal with, I'm saying it reduced the strategic depth of the game.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2020 18:37
|
|