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Ham Sandwiches posted:I can't think of a single game that has changed as much as Stellaris has since release and I am honestly, genuinely confused by these posts coming out of the woodwork writing like multi page screeds about how terrible the state of affairs is Look man there's not much game to play because the AI has lost its dang mind, so we gotta bitch instead  (Just cram yourself in a galaxy with lots and lots of other civs, it at least limits your expansion really fast)
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Apr 24, 2018 00:47
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2.0 was a much needed update, as trying to rework war and chokepoints having all 3 types of FTL would be a colossal task. While war is less janky, it's still bad, but it's better than what it was like before. I do hope that the Distant Stars update will make exploring a lot more interesting.
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Apr 24, 2018 00:54
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Shugojin posted:(Just cram yourself in a galaxy with lots and lots of other civs, it at least limits your expansion really fast) People bang on that drum constantly in this thread, but it actually is good advice. When I tried it I had a greater variety of both friends and enemies (so diplomacy was better), there were fewer instances of AI on the other side of the galaxy spawning with tons of room compared to everyone else (so balance was better) and expansion didn't feel too slow or limited to be fun.
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Apr 24, 2018 00:55
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I agree, maxing (or at least hugely increasing) the empire count is key, otherwise you end up with huge empty chunks of the galaxy, which isn't much fun.
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Apr 24, 2018 00:59
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Yup, I max out the AI count too. It's a lot more fun that way imo.
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Apr 24, 2018 01:02
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Ham Sandwiches posted:I can't think of a single game that has changed as much as Stellaris has since release and I am honestly, genuinely confused by these posts coming out of the woodwork writing like multi page screeds about how terrible the state of affairs is I bought the game after 2.0 and apocalypse came out during a Steam sale. My only exposure to the game is the current, crappy state of its AI. So yeah, kinda miffed, and I post about it. Otherwise the game is great.
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Apr 24, 2018 01:08
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Looks like the new thing is to go like "heh, Stellaris 2.0 sucks see you when 3.0 is out". Because people paid for Stellaris 1.0 but got cheated when the new game came out and PDX discontinued support for it. But oh ho ho! You 2.0 likers are gonna feel real bad when 3.0 comes and you hate it!
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Apr 24, 2018 02:13
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I think it is fair for people to be annoyed that the AI is literally broken and just doesn't even try to do anything sometimes. That doesn't mean I hate Stellaris or Paradox, but I wish they would focus on making the AI know how to play the game again.
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Apr 24, 2018 02:19
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It is annoying when you capture an enemy planet and it's like welp 10 dudes standing in open fields.
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Apr 24, 2018 02:23
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Peachfart posted:I think it is fair for people to be annoyed that the AI is literally broken and just doesn't even try to do anything sometimes. That doesn't mean I hate Stellaris or Paradox, but I wish they would focus on making the AI know how to play the game again. Exactly. I can like something and still wish parts of it were different.
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Apr 24, 2018 02:25
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really queer Christmas posted:And even then, when I think of mana bar type mechanics- they’re superficial and add very little in terms of content. Whereas unity is pretty ingrained as a game mechanic and can radically change how you govern your empire. Try and compare that to innovativeness. Baronjutter posted:I'm more looking at their other games and the directions their DLC went and worrying the same for stellaris. I'd be quite happy if they didn't go that route though!
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Apr 24, 2018 02:55
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:Its sad that there isnt a "Unity Focus" for Sector AIs. Wouldn't this just result in every planet being filled with strongholds?
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Apr 24, 2018 02:56
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appropriatemetaphor posted:It is annoying when you capture an enemy planet and it's like welp 10 dudes standing in open fields. This is the part that bothers me, capturing an enemy homeworld and seeing two farms and one mine and 15 pops doing nothing... Then vassalizing them and sending lots of minerals and energy to prop them up and... they still aren't building anything and all the pops are in revolt thanks to hunger and ok, great job.
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Apr 24, 2018 03:03
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Peachfart posted:I think it is fair for people to be annoyed that the AI is literally broken and just doesn't even try to do anything sometimes. That doesn't mean I hate Stellaris or Paradox, but I wish they would focus on making the AI know how to play the game again. I'm honestly amazed that people are still posting this poo poo in the year of our lord 2018.
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Apr 24, 2018 03:15
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Peachfart posted:I think it is fair for people to be annoyed that the AI is literally broken and just doesn't even try to do anything sometimes. That doesn't mean I hate Stellaris or Paradox, but I wish they would focus on making the AI know how to play the game again. Sure, and that's fair. People being all  and "WHY ARE YOU MAKING DLC AND NOT FIXING THE AI PARADOX" when they do a story pack teaser trailer can get bent, tho. Maybe they're constantly working on that in the background and tweets about AI fixes just aren't as engaging as new actual content??
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Apr 24, 2018 03:19
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While a mod can fix the AI problems, the developers have to stop the cause of those problems and it is sometimes extremely difficult to do that. AI is hard and strategy game AI has often been one of the harder sorts to make. Wiz and the team could definitely do band-aid fixes like mods do, but then you end up in a situation like Minecraft where Notch just did whatever was good enough to the player and years later they still are in the process of refactoring the entire codebase of the game to fix the horrible mess under the cover (yes there are issues with the current dev team for Minecraft Java but that's not relevant here). The difference in what a modder can do and needs to be mindful of, and what a dev needs to do and be mindful of are very different. Modders only need to be concerned about the current patch, while devs need to keep in mind any potential future development to the game. Most end users lack the knowledge to appreciate the issues the devs have, and only people who work with the code base really have a context to understand the problems they face.
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Apr 24, 2018 03:30
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Arrath posted:Sure, and that's fair. People being all I see posts like this and I wonder what these trogs think devs should be doing. If they hire more people to work on the AI then they have to train the hirees, which means that manpower currently assigned to AI is now going to be assigned to training new staff. That means that there's less time being put into fixing the AI, which means that the AI takes longer to be fixed. There isn't an amazing "make AI more better fasterer" button that Wiz can press and magically have additional trained coders on the project.
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Apr 24, 2018 03:31
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turn off the TV posted:I see posts like this and I wonder what these trogs think devs should be doing. If they hire more people to work on the AI then they have to train the hirees, which means that manpower currently assigned to AI is now going to be assigned to training new staff. That means that there's less time being put into fixing the AI, which means that the AI takes longer to be fixed. There isn't an amazing "make AI more better fasterer" button that Wiz can press and magically have additional trained coders on the project. They released a huge update(a good rebalance) where the AI can't play, and hasn't been able to play, for a month and a half. Can you not see why people would be a bit annoyed?
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Apr 24, 2018 03:37
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Paradox games are all sandbox games anyway, on any difficulty. You're probably "playing them wrong" if you care what the AI is doing. 
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Apr 24, 2018 03:40
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Peachfart posted:They released a huge update(a good rebalance) where the AI can't play, and hasn't been able to play, for a month and a half. Can you not see why people would be a bit annoyed? It's reasonable to be annoyed that the AI is hosed. It's real weird to be annoyed that the team's writers, artists and composers are continuing to do their jobs in the meantime.
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Apr 24, 2018 03:45
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turn off the TV posted:It's reasonable to be annoyed that the AI is hosed. It's real weird to be annoyed that the team's writers, artists and composers are continuing to do their jobs in the meantime. Um why are we spending money sending spaceships to Gargantua when people are starving on Trappist 1a??
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Apr 24, 2018 03:56
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turn off the TV posted:I see posts like this and I wonder what these trogs think devs should be doing. If they hire more people to work on the AI then they have to train the hirees, which means that manpower currently assigned to AI is now going to be assigned to training new staff. That means that there's less time being put into fixing the AI, which means that the AI takes longer to be fixed. There isn't an amazing "make AI more better fasterer" button that Wiz can press and magically have additional trained coders on the project. They have a job posting open for a C++ developer and the toy problem they want you to solve and submit is a path finding problem. I’d dare say that they are actively trying to hire people to work on their game’s AI. I even sarcastically linked the posting a few pages ago. edit: as a C++ developer I’d totally apply except I don’t have experience with games or an EU work permit. Also the bottom panel is me except replace “cores” with “decision trees” 
hobbesmaster fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Apr 24, 2018 |
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Apr 24, 2018 04:14
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turn off the TV posted:I see posts like this and I wonder what these trogs think devs should be doing. If they hire more people to work on the AI then they have to train the hirees, which means that manpower currently assigned to AI is now going to be assigned to training new staff. That means that there's less time being put into fixing the AI, which means that the AI takes longer to be fixed. There isn't an amazing "make AI more better fasterer" button that Wiz can press and magically have additional trained coders on the project. you'd make a great manager at a software company that gets crushed to death by technical debt
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Apr 24, 2018 04:37
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The best kind of debt!
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Apr 24, 2018 05:22
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turn off the TV posted:It's reasonable to be annoyed that the AI is hosed. It's real weird to be annoyed that the team's writers, artists and composers are continuing to do their jobs in the meantime. Is it weird for someone to say that they don't like how something is being promoted because it makes them feel like the developer isn't focusing on things that have been bugging that person for awhile?
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Apr 24, 2018 06:26
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:Is it weird for someone to say that they don't like how something is being promoted because it makes them feel like the developer isn't focusing on things that have been bugging that person for awhile?
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Apr 24, 2018 06:35
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Eiba posted:If it's under the hood stuff that bothers you then yeah, it's a bit weird. They're never going to promote that. You can't sell "we're fixing the AI" as DLC. They're adding what is, in essence, a bunch of art to the game. If your greatest concern is the AI, art stuff is an entirely neutral thing to promote. You don't have to be excited about it, you don't have to be happy with the game as it is, but for an announcement of a pile of new flavor text to make you feel worse about the game is a bit weird. An acknowledgement of "Our AI is completely hosed and we're actively working on fixing it" would be nice.
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Apr 24, 2018 06:49
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Gekkoh posted:Or, stop engineering development on most everything else for a week or two, and have a bug fixing sprint.
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Apr 24, 2018 06:54
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I recommend playing a casual game with friends, especially after the new poo poo comes out. There's a lot of fun to be had in enjoying your friends encountering dumb flavor text.
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Apr 24, 2018 06:55
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Re: programming chat; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snr113r5ocY
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Apr 24, 2018 07:09
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What's super funny about this argument is the last dev diary was a couple of AI improvements cleverly integrated with/disguised as user experience improvements.
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Apr 24, 2018 07:18
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Thanks to Guill's planet mods, I stumbled on a RP concept race that I am rather enjoying.   The Valdari became aware their planet is alive, and that planet views them as unnatural for being sentient and not part of its hive mind. This drove them into a religion devoted to killing this malevolent god. Their entire history is a war against this Planet God. National win condition is to planet crack their home world, but before that, pollute it and poison it as hard as they can with droid slaves and the fires of industry. Terraforming it is not an option to kill Arakim. Its not final enough. First act is to evacuate everyone to a new homeworld with the first colony ships and forced relocation. All other non living worlds are to be cherished as a promised paradise. Any other living world similar to Arakim is a target for Holy War to kill the Planet God no matter the owner.
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Apr 24, 2018 08:19
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Gekkoh posted:Maybe Paradox is different, I like to think so, cause if they aren't, then nobody is and that makes me sad about the game industry. That's exactly what I mean, though - the environment for devs is different for modders. Modders don't have to worry about suits, schedules, budgets, or what have you, they can work on whatever they want, whenever they want to. In any large company you eventually get to the point where you need to hire people to worry specifically about finances and marketing and human resources and making sure all the different departments aren't working too much at cross purposes, and when you get to that point "being able to convince people that X change needs to happen using whatever arguments will appeal to them" becomes an important and useful skill because as it turns out human beings aren't a hive mind and it takes time, energy, and skill to get everyone on the same page, especially when a lot of the people involved come from entirely different disciplines to begin with. The answer to the question of "Modders can do it, so why can't devs?" is "Devs face different challenges." As an aside about "trusting the professionals in the trenches," it's worth noting that there's a lot of professionals in a lot of trenches. The marketing guys are saying "Look, I've been working in this industry for years, and I'm telling you if you can get a release date out by Christmas we can improve sales fourfold." The finance guys are saying "Trust me, if we don't get some extra cash inflow before the end of the quarter, we're going to have a very bad time." The community managers are saying "You haven't been working with the playerbase as often as I have, and believe me when I say that if we don't get the new expansion pack out by the announced schedule they're going to have our heads on pikes." And the devs are saying "I understand that you want flashy new features to slap on the box, but if we don't go back and rework the codebase we're all going to want to shoot ourselves a year or so down the line." It's good to listen to the guys in the trenches, but always remember there's a lot of trenches pointing different ways.
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Apr 24, 2018 08:45
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I remember the days when people were saying they were getting constantly stomped by the AI and crushed by pirates. How did things go so wrong so fast?
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Apr 24, 2018 09:11
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appropriatemetaphor posted:I remember the days when people were saying they were getting constantly stomped by the AI and crushed by pirates. How did things go so wrong so fast? 1.9's AI was great, which is why I find some of these complaints baffling: they've demonstrated that they can code decent AI, they've just changed a bunch of game systems that require some changes to the AI, so eventually they'll get back to doing it. I'm not too concerned, given that you can jack up the difficulty in the mean time. Edit: https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/988698588669718529?s=19 I cannot stress how much I love the idea of extragalactic clusters. Aethernet fucked around with this message at 10:17 on Apr 24, 2018 |
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Apr 24, 2018 09:53
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Aethernet posted:1.9's AI was great, which is why I find some of these complaints baffling: they've demonstrated that they can code decent AI, they've just changed a bunch of game systems that require some changes to the AI, so eventually they'll get back to doing it. I'm not too concerned, given that you can jack up the difficulty in the mean time.
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Apr 24, 2018 11:00
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Well, that was annoying. Doing a fanatic pacifist thing since my last few runs were... pretty much the exact opposite, and had a nice federation of people who are more than willing to declare war against the assorted slaving despots around us. The problem is there was no way to actually win the ideology wars I got dragged into. Conquer every system they have, occupy every planet, crush their fleet, and the targets didn't even have defensive pacts or allies. But nope, the federation would wind up -5 to -10 short of actually being able to push the demand through, forcing me to twiddle my thumbs while war exhaustion slowly ticked up and forced a white peace.  The only thing I can think of that might be causing it is one or more of my allies occupying planets but not counting as occupying them for the count for some reason, since that's the only metric that wasn't maxed out, but I dunno. If it wasn't an Ironman game I'd have just consoled the victory in, since eesh.
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Apr 24, 2018 11:13
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Asimo posted:Well, that was annoying. Doing a fanatic pacifist thing since my last few runs were... pretty much the exact opposite, and had a nice federation of people who are more than willing to declare war against the assorted slaving despots around us. The problem is there was no way to actually win the ideology wars I got dragged into. Conquer every system they have, occupy every planet, crush their fleet, and the targets didn't even have defensive pacts or allies. But nope, the federation would wind up -5 to -10 short of actually being able to push the demand through, forcing me to twiddle my thumbs while war exhaustion slowly ticked up and forced a white peace. Was it using the beta? It's currently bugged.
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Apr 24, 2018 11:15
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PittTheElder posted:I agree, maxing (or at least hugely increasing) the empire count is key, otherwise you end up with huge empty chunks of the galaxy, which isn't much fun. A problem i have with this is that maxing out the empires slider severely changes the topography of the galaxy. Every empire spawns with at least two systems near it of the same biome as their home world plus a cluster of systems with balanced resources. Maxing the slider turns most of the galaxy into a series of starting system clusters and it's bor ing as hell, it leaves almost no room for all the cool unique stuff that can spawn in the game and you get very few pre ftl species, even at 5x.
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Apr 24, 2018 11:17
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Aethernet posted:Was it using the beta? It's currently bugged. 
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Apr 24, 2018 11:27
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