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Bold Robot posted:I'm totally cool with them not balancing around the multiplayer meta at all. It's been a while but there were times in the past when Paradox made some questionable balancing decisions based mainly on their in-house MP games. I don't have any data to back this up but my guess is that people who play multiplayer are a small minority of players. Point being, it won't bother me and I would guess it won't bother 90+% of players if the new patch either doesn't change the multiplayer meta or makes it worse. I think a TON of people play Paradox games in MP, but it's almost completely comprised of group of friends playing with each other and not really trying to go MLG420ESPORTS on each other.
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Apr 4, 2017 21:31
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Kimsemus posted:I think a TON of people play Paradox games in MP, but it's almost completely comprised of group of friends playing with each other and not really trying to go MLG420ESPORTS on each other. Totally possible. I'd be interested to see some stats on this, if they exist.
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Apr 4, 2017 21:34
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Truga posted:If you're going to be enslaving everything, you'll probably spend a considerable amount of time building armies. Slaves = unrest, unrest = no resources. This build, even now, is a lot more micro heavy than pretty much any other build. I doubt that will change. As for resources, slaver rush builds roll in resources. That's why its such a strong build. Unless they've changed the game such that upkeep is more than the output of people's capital planets then this situation isn't going to change.
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Apr 4, 2017 21:37
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Kimsemus posted:I think a TON of people play Paradox games in MP, but it's almost completely comprised of group of friends playing with each other and not really trying to go MLG420ESPORTS on each other. This is pretty much the issue. I play a lot of pick-up games via stellaris.online and it only takes 1 power gamer to ruin things.
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Apr 4, 2017 21:39
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VirtualStranger posted:I'm basically trying to pull apart this mod and modify it for my own purposes. Maybe an alternative? 
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Apr 4, 2017 21:39
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There's a reddit sub called "imaginary cityscapes" that is a gold mine for poo poo like that.
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Apr 4, 2017 21:40
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Kimsemus posted:I think a TON of people play Paradox games in MP, but it's almost completely comprised of group of friends playing with each other and not really trying to go MLG420ESPORTS on each other. I haven't played played multiplayer but blaming whatever balance problems there are on those mean 'ol powergamers is always silly don't know where it should be on the priorities list but if it's as degenerate as space monster says I hope they fix it sooner or later
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Apr 4, 2017 21:49
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:I haven't played played multiplayer but blaming whatever balance problems there are on those mean 'ol powergamers is always silly I think when it's in a developer's interest to screw 3% of their player population to appease the other 97% they will. See: Rated PVP in WoW over the last 7 years.
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Apr 4, 2017 21:54
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I actually like things to be tight and balanced as if it was being tested for competitive play even though I don't play competitively because it makes the choices I do make while chill role playing feel more meaningful.
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Apr 4, 2017 21:57
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:I haven't played played multiplayer but blaming whatever balance problems there are on those mean 'ol powergamers is always silly It just kinda ruins the game for me knowing that strategy is so effective. It seems like they should put more effort into having some level of balance in the game. I mean, if the best strategy in starcraft was to 6-pool, bunker rush, or cannon rush every time, regardless of whether the other guy knows its coming, wouldn't that be a problem? That's what this is.
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Apr 4, 2017 21:58
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Baronjutter posted:I actually like things to be tight and balanced as if it was being tested for competitive play even though I don't play competitively because it makes the choices I do make while chill role playing feel more meaningful. yeah balancing a game well for multiplayer generally has positive knock-on effects for sp balancing, and good balance helps role playing types because it makes it less likely that the empire they chose for RP options is horribly gimped
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Apr 4, 2017 22:00
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Space Monster posted:This build, even now, is a lot more micro heavy than pretty much any other build. I doubt that will change. As for resources, slaver rush builds roll in resources. That's why its such a strong build. Unless they've changed the game such that upkeep is more than the output of people's capital planets then this situation isn't going to change. Slaves are going to change a bit in 1.5: - slaves now aren't per pop, but per race (or resource they work if you have a caste system for that race). You can't pick and choose freely. This isn't a big deal by itself. - slaves on a planet generate unrest, unrest kills resource production. To combat unrest, you need to build armies. To build defensive armies you'll need to spend influence to relocate some of your non-slave pops. Assault armies, on the other hand, have very expensive energy upkeep. - slave power production is -33%, which makes previous point far more annoying. You'd think this isn't a huge deal because you can just put them in a caste system and then they won't be slaves if they work power plants. but then - new faction system will gently caress you over because you have poo poo influence gain and base happiness on pops that aren't enslaved, because you have a bunch of alien parties that are very very mad at the current state of affairs. You can combat this by buying them more expensive toys (consumer goods), but pretty much nothing else, since they're unhappy due to the policies you're using to win. Not saying slaver rush won't still be the best way to do things, hell it might actually end up being better due to some civics I missed, but it should end up being less effective, after all those things are considered. Truga fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Apr 4, 2017 |
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Apr 4, 2017 22:00
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Space Monster posted:It just kinda ruins the game for me knowing that strategy is so effective. It seems like they should put more effort into having some level of balance in the game. I mean, if the best strategy in starcraft was to 6-pool, bunker rush, or cannon rush every time, regardless of whether the other guy knows its coming, wouldn't that be a problem? That's what this is. I agree with this, which is why they worked so hard to kill cheese tactics like 7-roach rushing early when the game came out. Silver bullet strategies are bad. Unpredictability, even in competitive play, = fun.
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Apr 4, 2017 22:01
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:yeah balancing a game well for multiplayer generally has positive knock-on effects for sp balancing, and good balance helps role playing types because it makes it less likely that the empire they chose for RP options is horribly gimped It also helps the AI. A bad game has a ton of good options, and a ton of trap options. The AI and new players will fall in the traps and have a bad time. When you remove the trap options, both the AI and the new players do better. It's also much more interesting for experienced players to have a dozen similarly-powerful strategies to pick from, rather than just one or two degenerate ones.
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Apr 4, 2017 22:03
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Truga posted:Slaves are going to change a bit in 1.5: I hope so. It seemed like a pretty fair bet in 1.4 too, though :/ I worry that they'll just have made the slaver rush build more micro-intensive (which is what happened in 1.4) without actually knocking it from it's 'best strategy possible' position. I expect, regardless of the changes, that conquering your closest neighbor as fast as possible will still be a lot better long term than colonizing as fast as possible, even if it becomes impossible to just keep conquering without pause. Space Monster fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Apr 4, 2017 |
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Apr 4, 2017 22:04
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There is no such thing as competitive Stellaris. It's a singleplayer game that happens to have multiplayer.
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Apr 5, 2017 00:31
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I play Stellaris so I can role-play the rise and fall of the Holy Empire of the Snailmen from Arcturus.
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Apr 5, 2017 00:43
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3 DONG HORSE posted:There is no such thing as competitive Stellaris. It's a singleplayer game that happens to have multiplayer. I think when the game director himself takes note, that most players set their own objective and count accomplishing that as a 'win', yea...trying to put down any kind of objective way of scoring who'd win Stellaris competitively is a fool's errand. Doesn't mean you can't still do so, obv, by killing all the other dudes or building that ringworld or whatever. But it's just not built for any kind of e-sports definition of competitive at all.
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Apr 5, 2017 00:44
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the e-sports thing is a ridiculous red herring, balance issues matter at all levels of play it's not some out-there hardcore thing for players in multiplayer to try to beat each other
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Apr 5, 2017 00:51
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Nope, but when the balance was very much so designed for singleplayer from the get-go over multiplayer, I don't see much point about pretending otherwise and instead focusing on having fun. Whether that comes from beating each other in wonky-balanced MP session or just RPing your empire in whatever way you deem appropriate for your own amusement and that of others.
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Apr 5, 2017 01:01
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So this specifically started with a guy concerned that rushing an invasion is way more efficient than colonizing, right? That sounds bad and, all else being equal, should probably be changed. But it's honestly a really, really minor issue considering you'll never run into it in single player, and you'll never run into it if you aren't playing with assholes. That guy who plays with competitive people has every right to complain about this point of balance, but honestly it doesn't seem like it should be at the top of Paradox's list to address.
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Apr 5, 2017 01:15
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I'd be surprised if Wiz and the Paradox didn't take the view that you can have cool and fun stuff that is also balanced...
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Apr 5, 2017 01:21
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Kitchner posted:I'd be surprised if Wiz and the Paradox didn't take the view that you can have cool and fun stuff that is also balanced...
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Apr 5, 2017 02:13
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Kitchner posted:I'd be surprised if Wiz and the Paradox didn't take the view that you can have cool and fun stuff that is also balanced... You can sometimes, but equally, in a singleplayer game, it can very much be the case that players and opponents do not need to play by the same rules. And attempting to make them do so is the difference between, say, unreal tournament with bots, and half life 2. Some experiences just aren't possible if you need other players to be able to take over the opposition. Say, Stellaris would probably work really well with sword of the stars type combat encounters, but not if other players are supposed to be playing as well at the same time. Stuff like fallen empires and crisis forces cannot be given over to player control. It is possible to fit other players into a game with a heavy emphasis on asymmetric systems, such as Left 4 Dead versus mode, but you then have to limit what elements the players can control as well as substantially change either the way of playing (you're not expected to win versus mode, just lose less badly) or change the mechanics of the player controlled elements to make them balanced (and sacrifice some of what made it what it was to begin with). Some cool and fun stuff is incompatible with oppositional multiplayer balance. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Apr 5, 2017 |
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Apr 5, 2017 02:25
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that doesn't seem particularly relevant given that paradox did end up going for essentially symmetric mechanics between human controlled empires and normal AI controlled ones, and haven't indicated any inclination to abandon that
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Apr 5, 2017 02:47
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OwlFancier posted:You can sometimes, but equally, in a singleplayer game, it can very much be the case that players and opponents do not need to play by the same rules. And attempting to make them do so is the difference between, say, unreal tournament with bots, and half life 2. Well, even if you take this tack, that's no excuse for one strategy to be head and shoulders above the rest. I don't really care if Stellaris is somewhat unbalanced---given the variety of possible builds that's unavoidable. But there should still be an eye turned towards achieving some balance. There should be a large number of viable strategies---a large number of lovely ones is fine too, but there should be options. Currently there's a pretty stratified tier system with one particular strategy far and away the strongest. There used to be a healthy pick-up community in this game. This (along with the server list and hot-joining breaking games) has destroyed that community. So you can say 'well nobody even plays multiplayer against randos' if you like, but that's mostly because that community died as a result of this problem. Space Monster fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Apr 5, 2017 |
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Apr 5, 2017 02:56
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Well, personally I quite like having militaristic empires actually be a threat, if you make conquest harder then, well, I can't entirely see how it would be enjoyable as a conquest oriented player given that it's already a bit of a slog, and I think defending against it might be a bit easy.
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Apr 5, 2017 03:17
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I'm not sure where the conceptual space is for allowing players to take out other players early at all, and making it so that this isn't preferable to giving their opponents time to get more powerful.
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Apr 5, 2017 03:37
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In King Game Moo2, starting star bases are strong enough you need a pretty healthy fleet to take them out, discouraging early strikes. 
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Apr 5, 2017 04:04
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Strudel Man posted:In King Game Moo2, starting star bases are strong enough you need a pretty healthy fleet to take them out, discouraging early strikes. But you also start with a colony ship generally, and the initial colony rush is a lot faster so there's often a lot of juicy targets. You don't go after their homeworld, you go after their colonies.
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Apr 5, 2017 04:09
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Baronjutter posted:But you also start with a colony ship generally, and the initial colony rush is a lot faster so there's often a lot of juicy targets. You don't go after their homeworld, you go after their colonies.
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Apr 5, 2017 04:10
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I really enjoyed Stellaris initially but the lack of stuff to do in the mid/late game turned me off. This latest patch/DLC looks awesome and I even tried out a game on the current 1.4 patch to see if I could get my space legs back. I had a few questions though: 1. I created a custom race "The Human Remnant" who are a super militaristic but weakened and broken human race left behind after the rest of humanity fled Earth due to climate change. I turned Earth into a desert planet, but I really think it'd be neat to make it a tomb world instead and give the race the tomb world adoption tech. Can't figure out a way to do that. I also created a custom race for the humans that fled. Is there anyway I can force a game to spawn them as a Fallen Empire? They're the natural non-crisis boss of a game so it'd be nice if they weren't annexed 20 years in by space foxes. 2. What's the best fleet strategy now? I remember back in 1.0 the only thing you needed to do was spam corvettes but I tried that and got my rear end kicked. Does weapon/shields/armor choice matter? I just had the auto-builder do it because I remember customization being a huge PITA in 1.0 3. Any tips for empire building? Right now the only thing I know is that you really don't want to go into the negative with anything but I can't figure out which resources and research I should prioritize. 4. Any cool custom empires you all can recommend using/creating? It'd be neat to have the game filled with more races with unique backstories. 5. Any good ironman-compatible mods? I have to play all Paradox games in ironman mode so I'm not tempted to cheat and for the achievements so I have something to work towards, although maybe in a 4X game that's not as much of a problem since there are win conditions. I guess regular mods are worth it too if you know of any good ones. It's hard to tell what's good and what isn't from the Workshop 6. This is probably a huge stretch, but is there any way to get an accurate-ish Milky Way galaxy for a game map? Obviously we haven't mapped all the stars in the galaxy but putting famous stars near where they actually are would be cool. Obviously this means you'd have to have Sol but I'm cool with that. I really enjoyed Freespace for this because it made the whole thing feel more "real" axeil fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Apr 5, 2017 |
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Apr 5, 2017 05:03
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Baronjutter posted:There's a reddit sub called "imaginary cityscapes" that is a gold mine for poo poo like that. Cheers for that, some nice art in there.
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Apr 5, 2017 05:29
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Space Skeleton posted:Maybe an alternative? I was able to find the full-size original of this image from the original artist's website. I cropped it to the proper size and aspect ratio, then increased the brightness and contrast because it looked too dark and washed-out in the game.  Then I was able to use the original metropolis.dds image from before to make some tiles to go with it. 
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Apr 5, 2017 05:31
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I'd honestly have preferred if they had fleshed out planets more and given us more planet-scale mega projects rather than dyson spheres and stuff. I want to be able to slowly transform my planet into Coruscant or something like that. Huge orbital shipyards that allow faster or parallel production. Maybe civ style specialist-slots to let you pack in more pops even after the planet is full so long as you have the resources to support them. Stuff like that. Maybe more meaningful terrain too.
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Apr 5, 2017 05:37
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Conskill posted:I'm not sure where the conceptual space is for allowing players to take out other players early at all, and making it so that this isn't preferable to giving their opponents time to get more powerful. If you're going to lose, you might as well lose quickly.
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Apr 5, 2017 05:54
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Sometimes I'd gently caress up an early moo or moo2 long-game strategy that had a big early-game weakness and get totally hosed because someone who built an actual military straight up defeated me. Then you start a new game, losing is fun.
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Apr 5, 2017 06:02
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axeil posted:I turned Earth into a desert planet, but I really think it'd be neat to make it a tomb world instead and give the race the tomb world adoption tech.
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Apr 5, 2017 09:00
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GunnerJ posted:The thing I wish the mod would do is make the yellow modifiers into mixes of advantages and disadvantages. So, you get to recruit Giant Spider Armies, but it costs more influence to settle there and has much less migrant attraction because jesus loving christ. Hi there! I'm the mod's dev. I kind of want to keep yellow modifiers as neutral "flavor/story" modifiers. Primarily because it makes it a lot easier to check planet modifiers. When you look around for a planet, you can just ignore all yellow modifiers and focus on the red (bad) or green (good) ones. It saves a lot of tedious reading modifiers. Edit; I got it to work! I'm a loving genius. Btw if anyone has suggestions for Guilli's planet modifier mod feel free to make suggestions on the mod page in steam (there's a suggestion thread). I'll endeavour to visit these forums a lot (they seem very nice. Hello) Guilliman fucked around with this message at 10:14 on Apr 5, 2017 |
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Apr 5, 2017 09:03
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OwlFancier posted:You can sometimes, but equally, in a singleplayer game, it can very much be the case that players and opponents do not need to play by the same rules. And attempting to make them do so is the difference between, say, unreal tournament with bots, and half life 2. Not really sure where you're coming from here buddy. I mean I agree that asymmetrical games can be a lot of fun, but I'm not really sure what the point you're making is. Are we talking balance (which is like what benefit does being a pacifist give you) or how the game is designed (which is like "turn based would be better" or "Why can't I play as an end game crisis")? If it's the former then I don't see how all that relates. Anything that can be abused in single player can be abused in multiplayer and vice versa. To leave something in that's cool but OP as poo poo has a negative impact on both modes in my view. It's like when all you needed fleet wise was battleships with tachyon lasers. How is single player fun if you're forced to choose a particular weapon type or face an unnecessarily difficult game (which is different to a necessarily difficult game like playing as Ryuku in EUIV)? It is far more fun if you have an array of options that are equally valid, even if they are not literally equal. If you're talking game design then I think it's pretty clear that, for this iteration of Stellaris, the core mechanics will not really be changing. Sure you may think it would be cool if the game was turn based or some other sort of change to the game design, but really you can't expect paradox to consider changing absolutely fundamental basics like "Combat is now an RTS instance". The best example of a description of a balanced design I saw was back in some edition of Warhammer 40K, where most armies were rife with poo poo units or overpowered ones. The Ork book was pretty well balanced though, to the point that if someone asked what armies were "good" they were told to put all the names of a unit into a hat. Remove a specific crap unit. Stick the names on a dartboard. Then keep throwing darts until they had a valid army list. Being able to take what you think is cool and know you're not being punished as a result is a Good Thing in my view.
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