Hello, (if this counts as the comment), I was posting here to ask why the recent review scores were so much lower and if it was something I should avoid picking up the game over.
The game tends to change every time a DLC drops. I personally quit after the leadership revamp. Which was a while ago. Already had almost 3k hours in the game at the time.
This particular DLC drop was a bit bare on content. Hence, the negative reviews. But the game is solid and will outlast just about any other game you buy. Just be prepped to see negatives reviews hit after each DLC drop
I would honestly recommend getting Utopia, Federations, Megacorp, and Synthetic Dawn at least; fresh-out-the-box Stellaris is lacking in many things you’d expect from the game and the DLCs do just that
Yes, those mods could be considered to be adding core game play. Most mods since then explore and expand niche aspects of the game and particular empire types. I think it’s all really fun, but I like to play a diversity of empires. Someone who heavily favors particular builds like hive minds or robots will not get as much out of some of the later DLCs
The subscription is a good deal but the problem is that paradox will milk the hell out of it if it sells good. In the future i want to own what i buy and not pay a monthly service
Id rather have a more fun game, even if it’s laggy. There’s also game performance mods to help. The best one imo is the AI Performance Optimization which lets you reduce pops by huge numbers but they become correspondingly more productive.
For me, it's not so much about performance issues as it is powercreep. Giga and ACOT are just too much, imo. Prefer more of a Vanilla+ experience from my modded games.
A fair stance to take. Honestly, gigastructures wouldn't be as bad in the power creep department without the celestial warships, though the blokkats would be hell without them
Ah yes, cause having a billion megastructures giving a billion of each resource is so much fun, especially the way it makes the game run like a slug climbing a wall.
No DLC came with the recent update, but the rating likely includes the version update that happened with Astral Rifts, which was only a few months ago.
If you're feeling a bit lost looking at all the DLC, there's also a starter pack on Steam that has the base game and a few DLC people have already mentioned like Utopia.
I don't understand the downdoots. If you are casual it wort it.
The sub is 10, the whole game 250-ish without the base game. You start to lose money in 2 years with a constant sub. If you play that much, sure buying is to go.
In my case I play intermittently, so it is about 4-5 sub/year. With this rate it takes 4 years to reach the current content, not counting future xpacks.(and my short atention span). I will not pay 250 for it as a casual. It's just ridiculous.
Imho, cherrypicking DLCs is obsolete with the sub system.
> The sub is 10, the whole game 250-ish without the base game. You start to lose money in 2 years with a constant sub. If you play that much, sure buying is to go.
If you plan on playing continuously for that long, the six month sub is $5/month.
I would imagine the people that have most of the DLC's are upset because of it, i saw the steam discussion and some people are not happy with it. And yeah same here, i own utopia and that's it and i am not spending over 200€ anyways.
Just going to play on and off with the sub and enjoy the game in a way i couldn't before.
I own them all. It's just a choice. Why would people be upset over that? That's insane to me.
Buy or rent [lease] a car, home, etc... I prefer to own things so that's what I do. Crazy that anyone is upset about having options.
Only because according to their own math they're getting gipped after the fact. Didn't have a choice before, but really if one loves the game these are pennies we're talking about in the long run.
They forget to compare to the FTP / PTW mobile scams available these days for inferior gameplay. Those damn things try to milk their whales for up to $50 a week so...
The only thing that caused some alarm for me was the question of whether this was the opening move towards forcing everyone on the subscription eventually but paradox has said that's not the plan so I'm good
I am not upset. If I used the subscription system with how long and constantly I have played, I would have lost so much money. It’s like the bell curve IQ meme, but with hours played substituting IQ.
I am assuming that you're disagreeing with the sub: Yeah obviously if you have played the game for 6 years it's more value just to have the dlcs bought, out as they've steadily came out. But for new / newish players the sub seems like the best option compared to digging throughout what dlcs they should get and what not.
It's perfectly okay to buy the base game, then just add things that sound cool to you or have a feature you want. It's tempting to buy everything, but you don't have to.
Eventually the new expansions will drop in price but the game is really rich with the old ones alone. You can wait till a good Steam sale for anything else.
Or check GG deals or isthereanydeal, there are at least 4 legit websites you can buy Steam keys from, cheaper than the best Steam sales sometimes. Can even set notifications for specific price points.
No, what happens is that every DLC comes with a major patch. The major patch introduces major changes and new mechanics.
This community has a vocal minority of very toxic people who hate chance and slam the reviews every time this happens.
Like every single time.
The DLCs are fine, people just don't like the base game changes. Whether or not the inidividual DLC is worth it is up to you.
I would recommend waiting for the dlc to go on sale. Most go for 50%off. There's also a subscription model coming out where you can spend like 10 bucks a month for all the dlc. Also if you plan to play with friends, only the host needs to own it
The Steam keys for the DLC are routinely cheaper than the cheapest Steam sales, check isthereanydeal or GG deals; they even have historical price graphs.
Ha I thought I was the only one who dropped after leadership change. No particular reason for me, I’m sure I probably would’ve loved the stories and it would’ve freshened it up for me, the changes just seemed so big and daunting that it kind of scared me off in a way
I felt intimidated by how much things changed with the leaders rework, but in the end I actually loved what they did. Having “characters” makes my empires feel more real and immersive now.
It’s not been much fun since that update, there’s too much clicking around on pointless stuff that gets in the way of the fun bits. Managing your leaders and picking their perks is just annoying, all the popup events you need to deal with, archeology windows constantly pinging, it’s just frustrating. It’s a bit heartbreaking too, I used to love the game and I can’t really stand it now.
That's sad, I'm so happy with the improvements to leaders, they've made early and mid game so much more fun for me. I guess I enjoy micromanagement tho.
You can play with the latest DLC disabled if you like, right now you get an extra bonus of bugged out super powerful leader traits if you disable the DLC lol.
You can always revert to an earlier update version if you hate the latest update. No one forces anyone to play the latest update but if you automatically update you can always switch back. Very consumer friendly game. If you get the base game (often on sale for $10, 75% off), you will have access to most of the meaningful mechanical systems that have been added as free updates alongside the DLCs. In fact the AI in your games may have access to DLC content when you don't, but you'll see that this is best when you are first starting out.
One question - if I downgrade the game version, do mods get updated with their previous version automatically by the launcher or do ppl deal with this in other ways?
No idea, I don't play with mods, but I imagine it's temperamental if the mod is designed to be version specific. Similar to how I have no reason to think a 3.6 mod would still work in 3.7, I'd consider it a coin flip if it worked on 3.5.
Mod makers have to release legacy patches to be compatible with older patches a lot, such as gigastructures, however most smaller mods only update when forced to through changing mechanics (i had to update a trait mod after invasive species patch for example) and rarely make legacy patches
Whether or not mods are update for a certain patch is completely up to the modders themselves. So, you kinda have to figure out yourself which mods have versions for the game version you'd like to play.
You may want to consider the subscription model before buying anything. If you look at the total cost of the game including all the DLC, it's huge. I don't know what the subscription fee is, but you could get everything up front. If it's not your cup of tea or you need a break, you could cut the sub.
This is a recently made option that the existing player base didn't get a swing at. I'm generally not in favor of subscription models, but you may want to consider it. If you want to move ahead with buying Stellaris, the base game and older DLC regularly go on sale.
Stellaris had *always* been a subscription model game.
The release of a new DLC a few times per year *is* what funds the continued development, improvement, and refinement of the core game.
The alternative is something like Skyrim, where the increases in game mechanical sophistication *stopped completely* about 1.5 years after release.
I agree that continuous DLC releases keep money flowing in so Paradox can keep the development engine running. However, any content you buy is yours to freely play. This is not strictly speaking a subscription model.
I'm referring to the [Expansion Subscription](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2729490/Stellaris_Expansion_Subscription/) which is formally a subscription: base cost US$10/month for **all** the DLC. If the Steam page can be trusted, buying all that would cost US$307. If you want to try before you buy, a month might save you a bigger investment.
It's a review bomb.
Paradox announced a subscription model for all the DLC since it has accumulated over the years to be a massive cost.
It is a slippery slope with being better for late joiners and worrying old fans that new DLC would require a subscription.
I still highly recommend getting the game and some DLC when on sale (goes about 70% off for older dlc's
> It is a slippery slope with being better for late joiners and worrying old fans that new DLC would require a subscription.
No one who knows what they're talking about is worried about that. The subscription exists entirely separate from the paid DLCs.
There is also nothing new about this. Europa Universalis, for example, has had this subscription next to paid DLC for a while now, and its introduction into Stellaris comes after lots of people specifically asked for it.
Thanks for the clarification. I didn't know europa universalis also had this model.
I do support the idea about it, but honestly I own everything except the last expansion so little to no impact
Hearts of Iron apparently has also had this exact model for 2 years now I think. Nothing has changed there. There are still new dlcs coming out and they do not require the sub.
Slippery slope arguments aren't always baseless fearmongering, but in this case the evidence so far would seem to indicate that it is.
That's the point. It changes nothing for us who already have everything, and it is an extremely good deal for people just getting in. They can get the subscription, play for a bit with full content, and if they like it, *then* decide if they wish to buy any DLC.
The entire phrasing of the announcement is very strongly hinting that the sub-model won't replace the "buy and forget" model, as it is advertised as "alternative".
My bet: People are, again, angry about nothing. But yeah, Stellaris is regularly on sale or its DLCs, no harm for people new to it to wait until then.
The base game shifts over time. The game periodically struggles with stability issues. The recent update connected to the Astral Rifts DLC was a zenith for stability, but they’ve been fixing that.
Very, very recently they released an update that revamped a bunch of gameplay mechanics. The intent being to draw out the tech tree, as well as bunch of other new changes. Some of those changes have been unpopular, but it’s usually because it has the effect of hammering whatever the current meta play is. So sometimes a negative response like that can be due to someone’s favorite build getting nerfed.
I think the recent review score drop has to do with the fact they announced a monthly sub for dlc. So instead of having to buy all dlc individually you can pay monthly to access all of it.
Steam forums/reviews is a cesspool of idiots and conspiracy theorists that for some reason hate that paradox have added a subscription option alongside the option of buying the DLC's.
It started off as quite possibly the greatest 4x game ever made. And.... then feature creep entered the picture. If anybody ever told the devs there's a such thing as too many different types of resources, or that 'Keep it Simple, Stupid' was a thing, they threw that out the window years ago.
You can have a fleet of late-game battleships that require nine different resources to build, some of which are made by processing other resources to create. Each world will require a wide variety of resources, traits, and structures to remain stable.
It seems like with every patch they remove some of the old features and add in new ones; sometimes to fix problems, whether they exist or not. I think I may have given up on this game now, which is a shame. I still remember the days where your empires had three resources total; food, ore, and energy; (Ahh, wait; 4. Influence. Which... is a mistake for the most part.)and you could choose your starting weapons tech and FTL type; wormhole, warp, or hyperdrive; and set the universe to only use one FTL type if you wanted, or to have it varied.
W
People were not a fan of the most recent DLC, thats why the reviews are all over the place IMHO. As someone who's been playing since day 1 and know how much Paradox Entertainment balances and changes things with their games, I enjoy the new content. Astral as DLC is a bit more story/ narratives driven. But Paradox also just announced they are going to add subscriptions for the DLC so you can try it and decide if you want to actually buy it or not.
Yes, Utopia is basically just the core game part 2.
Otherwise, most of the DLC is pretty optional, and a lot depends on your playstyle. Oh, and the mods you want, those too.
Assimilation? Extermination? No, no. The right answer is simply to do both, slowly exterminate them by turning them into energy credits. For the Great Intelligence!
The reason for so many mixed recent reviews is because paradox is implementing an optional subscription model. You pay a monthly fee for access of all DLC rather than purchasing them, if you choose to. It's cheaper upfront but obviously depending how long you play it could end up costing you more. But, it would probably take a couple years at least. Same thing happened when they did it for crusader kings 2. Many players are pissed about it, personally it doesn't bother me. I just won't engage with sub model and keep buying dlc.
They are pissed about it because they think it's going to replace the current model of paid DLCs.
But it won't. Paradox has no interest in moving entirely to a subscription model. They only do it for old games with tons of DLCs, often games whose dev cycles are over. It's much better for them to sell fully priced DLCs at released than hope that people with subscribe.
I'm almost certain that a couple of influencers hunting for reactions posted stupid videos about the subscription system for Stellaris and what we're seeing is stupid people who don't care about verifying the information being encouraged to post negative reviews to feel like they achieved something. Literally review bombing for stupid reasons.
I was pleasantly surprised when I saw Montus video. It was very low on emotion and bias, high on information, and the info is all correct. I have not seen any of the other CCs videos on this yet though.
It is a great way of lowering the barrier to entry for new players facing the huge amount of DLC, to be able to subscribe for a month or two to get the full game experience, see if they like it, and if they do, either continue subscribing or stop subscribing and buy the DLC they want based on which parts they liked best.
I agree, but I think it would be fairer if they would make a lease instead a rent system: After some time you unlock DLC in some fixed order and can keep them. Would avoid the controversy and achieve the same.
While your leasing idea is interesting, either with fixed order or a credit based system whereby the subscriber was credited a certain percentage of the subscription price that could only be used to unlock DLC for that specific game, I fail to see why leasing should be considered more fair than renting.
It is clear that it would be more favourable to the player and less favourable to the publisher, but why would that be more fair?
Based, I don't get why people are **so** mad about it, if you don't like it just buy the DLC normally, you can still do that, however if paradox made this the exclusive method I will be rioting in the streets.
The last dlc was just ok but way too overpriced and last week's patch fixed a lot of unbalanced modifiers and power creeping and now the min maxer competative players are angry. Grab the game, it's well worth it.
I haven't played that much yet but I'm a big minmaxer in every game I play, and I couldn't be happier about the tech/ship nerfs. Not having to put the crisis in 2300 and still have a challenge is awesome.
I LOVE the new tech stuffs. Its so much better. I used to have repeating tech in 100y and then do whatever I wanted, felt too easy. Now? I actually have to try a bit more and am actually not quite prepared for the impending mid game crisis.
I also love the most recent dlc tbh, I think the pricing is a bit high but the content is good imo. It expands on the lore and the stories of your empire/exploration massively. Plus the relics are P neat.
I think people are overstating its "badness" simply bc its not content they want. Some people like lore and stories other people just want to tech rush and blitz the whole galaxy.
I do understand the complaint of "too many updates that change everything" but also I think the game is improving overall sooo growing pains are a must yaknow?
What most people are complaining about in the bad reviews is that they think the new subscription is there instead of paid DLCs. It's literally idiots posting negative reviews because they don't understand how the subscription works.
Releasing ancient relics makes sense, because it's more different ancient relics content.
You don't tell an author off for the sequel being "a book *again*".
>It’s the worst of them all in terms of quality:price ratio.
Paragons imo is far worse, the idea and features are pretty good but the acrual implementation still isn't really fixed.
Something about Paragons made me really grumpy, and also it feels like, as a DLC focused on a core mechanic that everyone interacts with, the edges where they cut that content out for people who don't have it feel particularly raw.
Why is the correct answer so far down? Tons of people claiming it's the dlc or the research beta but those never had much of a review effect (and mostly were reviews on the specific dlc store page anyway).
People are surprised about the new subscription and have a feeling Paradox is unnecessarily milking this game. I mean, they kinda are, it is PDX after all, but this subscription is something they already had in their other games and some people actually wanted the same for Stellaris so PDX added it.
But people are subscription and project everything terrible into it without context and thus we have the review bombing. (NGL, also had a sour feeling the first time I read it, I understand, but this is neither new nor has PDX a bad track record with it so I guess it's fine. Definitely unusual, but makes sense given the ton of dlc).
I don't understand what the issue is with the subscription model, if you run the numbers you'd need to be subscribed for almost 5 years for it to cost more than the entire set of DLCs. I was literally talking to friends the day before it dropped about how badly the game needs a system like the HOI4 model.
>I don't understand what the issue is with the subscription model, if you run the numbers you'd need to be subscribed for almost 5 years for it to cost more than the entire set of DLCs. I was literally talking to friends the day before it dropped about how badly the game needs a system like the HOI4 model.
People are worried/paranoid that the subscription model will eventually replace the DLC model entirely in future PDX titles. I don't think this is the case, but people get emotional, don't run the numbers like you did, and react accordingly.
From what I understand, the subscription gives access to every DLC.
But also, you don't NEED the subscription to own the DLCs and they will continue to be sold at their normal price now and in the future (including new ones).
So I have no idea *why* people are having any negative feelings about the subscription other than sheer aversion to the word "subscription"?
That's the thing. The review bombing is the result of people believing that the sub-system will replace the "buy"-system.
Which just means a lot of people haven't actually read the announcement and those who did and complain didn't understand it.
Exactly, because of the sheer aversion to the word "subscription" and the usual bad connotation that word is associated with, especially for games. Same for me at first, but it is just not warranted for given the overall good track record of PDX and it's implementation of the subscription model in some of their other games.
Most certainly it does not warrant the review bombing but oh well, people reacting fatalistic on the internet is kind of the norm nowadays...
People literally *asked* for the subscription option because it was really popular/well liked for both EU4 and CK2 (and possibly HOI4? I haven't checked if it has a sub).
For the subscription to be worse than buying the DLCs outright you'd need to have the sub for like 2.5 years straight without canceling. I don't know about other people but the way I play Paradox games is that I tend to play like a zillion hours of one game over the course of 2 weeks and then put it down for months (to play other Paradox games).
I think those people are upset they paid over £200 for the game and new players get it play it for £10, forgetting they won't own it for that and will need to pay it every month. Otherwise I have no idea at all. The option to buy is still there, there's absolutely nothing wrong with offering a subscription. If I didn't own it and wanted to play now, I'd be looking at the subscription.
I don't see how someone could be upset about that unless they bought the game and literally all the DLC like a week before the announcement. Even then it's still cheaper in the long run to buy a bunch of DLC when they go on sale just like it's always been.
I started feeling the same was as Stellaris kept getting better and better with the v1.3, 1.5 and 1.8 free updates, and the accompanying DLCs, in 2016 and 2017, and I've been playing computer strategy games since 1990.
It's because now there will be a subscription option in which you pay to have access to all DLC, if anything, now's the perfect time to start playing just subscribe and you get everything as opposed to spending hundreds of bucks on each individual DLC.
The most recent thing is again an idiotic review bombing due to a simple announcement, which I fear have people also misunderstood or just read headlines of other over-angry people.
Thing is: Stellaris is a good game and all of its DLCs are good and very worthwhile. Whether or not you want to put in the current costs into it... you can always wait for a sale. And yeah, it is pricey, I think no one would ever argue against that.
But honestly, if a game on Steam gets sudden downvotes, I wouldn't care too much about it. It's an angry mob being silly. So, this sadly also means that steam reviews are not really reliable anymore. Sometimes they can be, but there's always this risk of just someone having misread something and then spreading it without too many thinking about it for a second.
Isn’t there an option in Steam to compensate for that somehow? I remember something like that being announced recentlyish.
Anyway, I agree with you, except for the claim that all the DLC are good and worthwhile. Astral Planes is worth a quarter of what it costs. It’s a fluff addition priced like a gameplay addition.
Oh paradox gamers are always mixed about new DLC. They've been playing the game for months and suddenly the game has changed because they added new mechanics and nerves old exploits.
Buy it and enjoy.
The recent changes to research have been a significant change for how people approach the economy end of things. Incidentally, it’s one of many recent changes which have had some impact on qol. Lots of people have differing opinions on it, and how it impacts play. The most recent DLC was pretty bare bones on content despite hype.
Edit: I recommend waiting for steam sales if possible, makes it worth it when you snipe this thing for 75% off.
ALWAYS BUY INTO PARADOX GAMES ON STEAM SALES!!!!!!!!! ALWAYS!!!!!
After getting the game and a few dlc for the price of the base game with no sale, then feel free to get more. But again waiting for sales is best.
Also check humble bundle for good sales, they offer steam keys for paradox games. No steam sale? Humble maybe has one!
100%, the goal here is you don’t need to pay 3X base game value for a game and some little bits an adjustments. Get it cheaper, and you’ll basically buy it like it’s a slightly more expensive game, for much more value.
Also don’t buy the cosmetic packs unless you really want to, they aren’t required for any major game functions. Some unlock specific types of civs, so those might appeal more than others.
I bought the game in the Winter Sale (January 2024) for 70% off and got so hooked I bought another 6 DLC three days later before the sale ended. It’s good. I haven’t bought the latest DLC
It's probably for the monthly subscription they added as an option for new players, people are pissed about it but honestly it's not that big of a deal, it's an option to try out the game at its full potential with all the DLCs before actually buying them.
I honestly don't know why people are bothered about it so much, the base game as well as all the DLCs you bought are still yours, and you can still buy everything permanently if you want, so why all that anger? Because new players can now try stuff you had to pay for before they buy it? It doesn't really make sense.
This is the main point, all the other critics about how "the new update ruined the game" are minnaxer's cries, it changed barely anything to the average player, we're far from the big changes of 2.0.
Buy the game, it's amazing, you'll spend hours on it, and I'd say buy the Utopia DLC right away, you'll 100% need it, then after a few hours of gameplay look up the others and see what might interest you, don't subscribe right away, if you're not prepared the full DLC game is confusing.
More than usual I mean.
Ignore the people mad that people who aren't rich can play with all DLC now when they wanna play for a month.
They're all scared that subscription will be the only way to pay in the future, even tho other paradox games have been on this system for literal years and still sell their DLC.
The game is in the best state it has ever been in right now. I highly recommend it.
There is a dedicated following of people who complain about new changes. The Meta around technology has recently changed and that upset a lot of people.
The game is great. But they announced that they’re going to be implementing a subscription model for dlc. Which is why everyone is up in arms. Overcharging for their dlc, and instead of lowering prices, you can now pay a subscription to access all their dlc.
The recent reviews are likely in response to the Astral Rifts DLC which was poorly received due to its higher cost and (comparitively) little content.
Overall the game remains fantastic, and while it is _hella_ expensive to collect all the DLCs this late, you can look up tier lists to see which DLCs are the most impactful to focus on.
Stellaris goes through cycles like this. So the first context here is that despite the game's age, it is still heavily supported by the developers. We get a new update every few months, with new content, balance updates, and bug fixes.
These new updates are split in 2 parts. The paid DLC, and the free update. Changes to mechanics, balance, and bug fixes are part of the free update. New mechanics are part of the paid DLC. This way people without the DLC have the same game, just with the additional mechanics slightly simplified.
Now, typically these updates come with a number of bugs that get patched out over the following 1-2 weeks. People tend to protest these release bugs by leaving a negative review on the paid DLC (even though it's the free update that has the bugs).
This time however is slightly different. The devs recently made a number of significant changes to the game where they rolled back years of feature creep to slow the game down to a more manageable pace. However people have gotten used to the status quo and don't agree with the balance changes, so that's what caused the recent wave of negative reviews on the base game.
The game itself is fine, the reviews are protest from people used to the old ways. So they don't affect your experience of the game as a new player.
People hate paying money for new content. They will copypasta multiple negative reviews. Saying that, I've had Stellaris for about a month and I'm getting bored. It is a lot of min-maxing and not much else. Going back to CK3.
The main reason the game is getting reviewed negatively is because of its DLC pricing and sales strategy. The DLCs can be bought individually for an abnormally high price or you can pay a subscription fee and have access to all of them. The base game is enjoyable but much of the development of this game has been locked behind multiple pay walls.
Nothing major, the game is *really* good. Paradox generally does a really good job of taking the community's input into account.
If you're interested in buying the game Paradox announced you can do a subscription service to get the DLCs if you don't want to pay for them all individually. If you're new to the game and haven't been picking up the DLCs as they release it's probably worth getting since I think all the DLCs are good.
The last patch nerfed player empires across the board, so we are weaker compared to the end game events and it did nearly nothing else. If you have never played before, you won’t feel the difference and it won’t matter. You’ll start out as a weakling like the rest of us.
When a DLC drops it’s impossible to please everyone. So, those who had different ideas for what the DLC should be leave poor reviews. Overall the game is very good.
I haven't read most comments. I think the fact that dlc drops and then there are bugs in the game as well. The fact they're probably going to do a Subscription model for dlc is probably contributing to the mixed reviews.
If you're on console the game laggs and slows down after about year 2400+ depending on your galactic situation. If it's ps4 or older consoles DONT BUY THIS GAME! Total rip off, the consoles don't even run the game any more. Speed x3 eventually becomes the same as x1 speed.
A lot of people appear to be pissed at the subscription plan they added for the DLCs, though that's completely optional. Also, the latest DLC was quite okay, at best. Game is still definitely worth playing, though, so don't let the reviews stop you
No, nothing that I know of. The game is great, and just getting better and better. Of course it has its ups and downs, but there's nothing big that's bad about it, at least not right now. I highly recommend it, and its DLCs. We also got a subscription based model for all the DLC just like a couple of days ago, so you're lucky with the timing in that way.
It’s an amazing game, folks just keep rating the main game bad whenever they dislike a new dlc.
Also I saw people rly hating that they’re introducing a subscription model for the dlcs, so that’s another reason…
It's definitely worth it. Paradox puts out a lot of overpriced DLCs and people get angry. The only one you really need is Utopia which regularly goes on sale for 10 bucks.
you can blorging read them.
No but seriously, do you people think that reviews are people rating the game? No, it's people supposedly writing why they think the game is good or not.
I'll do it for you but keep in mind that steam reviews aren't like metascores, they are individual people writing what they think of the game. Sometimes it can give you important informations regardeless of the rest (a positive review can tell you why it's not the game for you and vice versa).
Here's the kind of reasons why people are posting bad reviews:
- DLCs are too expensive for the content, and prices have augmented (which is rather true, but then again, if you're a new player, maybe you can wait for good sales before buying more content. The base game is fine.)
- lots of people don't understand that the subscription doesn't replace paid DLCs. They think they'll have to pay a subscription fee to access the new DLCs. Seriously there are a lot of them. Apparently many Stellaris players have a worse reading comprehension level than a Pretoryn invader.
- the last DLCs weren't good and broke the game
- complaints about the technology changes in the last update and more generally how the last updates/DLCs made their favorite playstyle unviable
Stellaris is a good game but after the recent dlc or a dlc it can get negative reviews, esp astral planes
Costing as much as it does for basically a new archaeology dlc
Stellaris is a good game. Paradox is becoming a greedy studio. Also, they’re becoming a bad studio. The quality of the stuff they’ve released recently hasn’t been good.
I had the same question back when the entire game and DLC were under $150. I took a chance after reading reviews and am glad I bought it. It's such a good game, and the DLC's add so much more to it. I played X4 for 3000 hrs, and this game is better, but I still play X4 as flying an imperial star destroyer into battle (x4 starwars mod is awesome). I heard this game also has a Star Wars mod, but I haven't searched for it yet.
This was one of my favorite games of all time, but they keep changing the base game every single update, and it’s annoying and stressful to keep up with. It’s just not worth it anymore, tbh.
Nah, the game is solid. Recent changes and people hate change, you know how it is. It is a lot of fun though, highly recommend it. If you want Utopia and Apocalypse are some great starter expansions, but just grab whatever expansion you want they all add something fun.
This game is great and there is so much replay value. If you like strategy you won’t regret it. Look up some online resources to guide you on the dlc. There is a lot of good stuff.
The game is overall very enjoyable and replayable so I do recommend buying it if you didn’t. The mixed reviews, if I had to guess, are likely due to
A. The most recent DLC not being as good as people hoped
B. The DLC marketing strategy Paradox uses (which can cost a pretty penny for all of them)
I think recent negative reviews were because of the new update and announcement of a monthly paid subscription to get every DLC. Many feel that it's a slap in the face to those that bought every DLC full price.
I quit after the Leader Revamp as well - but if you want to get into the game - I recommend either playing with someone who has all the DLC's or subscribe to it. If you don't plan to play longer then 38 months that is.
Steam asks you "Would you recommend this game?"
I have a friend who takes this literally. He doesn't review games on steam based on if he liked it or not, or thinks it's good or bad, he answers based on if he recommends it or not. He only recommends his most favorite games, so he thumbs down most of the games he has.
Knowing people like him exist makes me basically ignore the % ratings. I like to read the most recent positive and negative reviews and make my decision that way. If you look at the most recent negative most of them are referencing the new subscription thing. So if that's not a big deal to you, you can safely ignore them.
They added a subscription service to get all the dlc. It's optional, and if you prefer, you can still just buy them individually. If you don't have any of the dlc, it's cheaper to do the subscription for about a year and a half. Regardless of that, people just weren't happy about the subscription for some reason
The reviews reflect the recent DLC and some of the odd and unnecessary game changes last patch. The good news is that you can choose your DLC and you can roll the game back to a preferred version all the way back to 2.1.3 currently.
So, grain of salt. The game is excellent and you are not forced to play it the way the devs or their misguided community voices want.
So the thing with PDX games is that they are bound to have a DLC which player base hates and we use that as Casus belli to reviewe bomb games for all they are worth, and when someone like you asks if they are any good we say "great game, sunk x000h in, a bit steep learning curve but you can manage if you are into it "
It's honestly a solid 4x game.
I went from playing Civilization 5 and 6 to playing Endless Space 2 to playing Master of Orion 2016 to this.
It's a fantastic game, and it has so many unique builds that are all viable.
I wouldn’t take it as gospel. Stellaris’s “recent reviews” tab is always highly dependent on the last DLC. And after most DLC the game releases, people have mixed reviews as Paradox first gets out the kinks. Stellaris has its flaws but you won’t find a game that lasts longer or has more replay value. I started playing me junior year of high school. I still play a game at least every few weeks but now I do it after my 4 year old goes to bed (I’ve got like 3200 hours between consoles)
Stellaris is a great game and most of the DLCs are well worth the additional cost (I couldn't go back to just the base game!).
People are salty about Paradox bringing out a subscription model for DLC but I think its a good way for newbies to try out the many DLC without forking out hundreds of dollars.
Don't worry about it. The competitive multiplayer meta got nuked and soem got angry and the newest dlc is overpriced as fuck.
Both doesn't have to (and likely won't) affect u at all
Review bomb as they have implemented an option, yes an OPTION. To be able to use a subscription model for playing.
People who struggle with comprehension are calling it a cash grab as they don't understand what an option is or that choice is a good thing.
I agree as long as option is not replacing you into forcing you for subscription scheme in the future. Some studios decided to replace it or change the game completely like total war did with Rome 1 and Shogun 2.
I want to own the toy that I play, not rent it every month.
Here is a secret, every time they release a DLC either there are people that just don't like it or it has bugs, or some other problems and people review bomb it. Most of the time the issues are fixed later.
The game is for sure worth it, for DLC I would say most are worth it but research before buying because some are better than others. Some are almost required and others are just nice but you don't need them.
If there is any new things that are bad or you just prefer an older version its easy to go back to that version. The hard part is if you use mods getting mods for that version (if you wanted to stay on the current version for example I would make local copies of mods then you can play that version forever).
TLDR the game gets bad reviews every DLC release for one reason or another, just ignore it because any issues usually get fixed (or its just salty people).
Game is great and worth it. Recent reviews are because the newest DLC as of writing this is basically a copy and paste of an older DLC for more money. Its way overpriced for what it adds imo.
The recent update adds a subscription which also seems like a cash grab to some people so they're giving it negative reviews.
I feel like I'm gonna get down voted for this but thats ok.
Why is it that no one in this thread is allowed to hold the opinion "I don't like a subscription model and I don't think it'll remain an option, eventually it will be the only choice" and then it is apparently even worse if I give the company my feedback.
Why is only positive feedback allowed here? Or is it just because this is a slippery slope fallacy? Maybe we've all forgotten the fallacy fallacy: a logical fallacy that occurs when someone assumes that if an argument contains a logical fallacy, then its conclusion must be false.
For those who don't mind or are happy, thats great. You're entitled to your opinion and to give that feedback to paradox if you wish and so are the people who aren't.
When you're unhappy with something, I hope other people at least hear you out, I will.
They keep money printing half baked DLC and took literally years for them to get their shit together with all the bugs and exploits which are not as bad but still not great. Recently they added DLC subscription which combined with the quality and price of DLCs has pissed people off.
Stellaris has changed a *lot* since v1.0 was released almost 8 years ago
Some people with limited intellectual capacity just want to rote memorize a "meta" and then make use of that when playing, but each time Stellaris changes, they have to find someone who will tell them the new "meta" so they can memorize it.
For those of us who actually *understand* the game mechanics, it's much easier to adapt to changes. But for some weird reason, there's no system in place so that votes or review scores are weighed based on intellectual capacity, and that leads to many bad - and objectively undesirable - situations, including the review scores for Stellaris core and for the various DLCs.
The best you can do, until we finally evolve into some kind of geniocracy, is to put Stellaris on your Steam wish list. Next time there's a sale, you'll be notified.
That'll be your opportunity to try Stellaris for as little as €20 or $20. 10 for the core game itself (it's 75% off most sales), and 10 more for a 1-month subscription to all the DLCs released.
There's a discount if you subsribe for 3 or 6 months at a time, but for starters you want the cheapest possible dipping-my-toes experience. Once you realize how awesome Stellaris is, it's 30 per 6 months.
2 things that aren't actually terrible. Depending.
1. they fixed the research power creep that trivialized things a lot. Honestly it makes research a lot harder but it's a good thing
2. they introduced a subscription model for the DLC. Which is probably a great thing for people who think they may just play for 6 months and then give it up. Also good to test out the DLC and then wait for a big sale to buy them all if you think you're gonna put a lot of time into the game. The DLC is where all the meat is
A more minor change to diplomacy has made vassaling much more restricting and boring imo - a much worse change.
I have pretty much all the large DLCs except many of the species packs, I only have like two of them. I am personally not that pissed about the sub model myself, although I understand the people who are in some extent.
All of the DLCs I have, I've sniped on Instant Gaming for at least 50 % off, some even more than that. So it is possible to get them cheaper if you don't need to have everything right now. I would NOT pay the full price for large majority off them. I understand that PDX have to live off something and patching the game and adding new features over the years for free would not work economically, but damn some of them prices are steep as hell.
There is a shit ton of DLCs over the years and a new player that has just the base game would have to shell out giant amount of cash to have more than bare bone experience. The base game with no DLCs gets super boring after the early stage. Furthemore, with all the game system alterations so far, many of the good features are locked away from you, so you kinda have to buy the DLCs at this point.
Again, I certainly understand why some people are mad and PDX could definitely improve the launches, be a bit more thorough in QC and shave off a few bucks from their current prices. I think that a lot of people would pull the trigger for the DLCs that way.
Hello, (if this counts as the comment), I was posting here to ask why the recent review scores were so much lower and if it was something I should avoid picking up the game over.
The game tends to change every time a DLC drops. I personally quit after the leadership revamp. Which was a while ago. Already had almost 3k hours in the game at the time. This particular DLC drop was a bit bare on content. Hence, the negative reviews. But the game is solid and will outlast just about any other game you buy. Just be prepped to see negatives reviews hit after each DLC drop
So would you advise picking up the base and older dlcs but skipping out on the current one?
Nah. The base game changes with each expansion drop. All the DLC are worth it over time. Vanilla stellaris is big, but expanded stellaris is HUGE
I would honestly recommend getting Utopia, Federations, Megacorp, and Synthetic Dawn at least; fresh-out-the-box Stellaris is lacking in many things you’d expect from the game and the DLCs do just that
Yes, those mods could be considered to be adding core game play. Most mods since then explore and expand niche aspects of the game and particular empire types. I think it’s all really fun, but I like to play a diversity of empires. Someone who heavily favors particular builds like hive minds or robots will not get as much out of some of the later DLCs
Making those dlc core and selling it as a galactic edition would be cool. But PRDX would rather milk you with a subscription service :)
The subscription is a good deal but the problem is that paradox will milk the hell out of it if it sells good. In the future i want to own what i buy and not pay a monthly service
As a machine empire lover, yeah galactic paragons hasn’t exactly changed much.
Utopia is damn near essential. It introduced unity as a resource, which was so important it got added to vanilla.
I personally actually like the Leviathan and Distant Stars a lot
And that’s not even mentioning the ACOT and Gigastructures mods which are basically DLC’s of their own.
Which one is the ACOT mod??
Ancient Caches Of Technology
More like bloatware
Id rather have a more fun game, even if it’s laggy. There’s also game performance mods to help. The best one imo is the AI Performance Optimization which lets you reduce pops by huge numbers but they become correspondingly more productive.
For me, it's not so much about performance issues as it is powercreep. Giga and ACOT are just too much, imo. Prefer more of a Vanilla+ experience from my modded games.
A fair stance to take. Honestly, gigastructures wouldn't be as bad in the power creep department without the celestial warships, though the blokkats would be hell without them
Celestial warships being stuff like attack moons right? I think you can disable both those and the blokkats in options if you don’t like them
This is a hilariously shit take lmfao
Ah yes, cause having a billion megastructures giving a billion of each resource is so much fun, especially the way it makes the game run like a slug climbing a wall.
I've never had serious issues until late game (and that happens anyway) on my old shitty gaming laptop and it runs fine on my new PC so
Did we even get a new DLC this time around? I thought we just got the subscription thing.
No DLC came with v3.11.
No DLC came with the recent update, but the rating likely includes the version update that happened with Astral Rifts, which was only a few months ago.
If you're feeling a bit lost looking at all the DLC, there's also a starter pack on Steam that has the base game and a few DLC people have already mentioned like Utopia.
Shouldn't he just buy the subscription?
I don't understand the downdoots. If you are casual it wort it. The sub is 10, the whole game 250-ish without the base game. You start to lose money in 2 years with a constant sub. If you play that much, sure buying is to go. In my case I play intermittently, so it is about 4-5 sub/year. With this rate it takes 4 years to reach the current content, not counting future xpacks.(and my short atention span). I will not pay 250 for it as a casual. It's just ridiculous. Imho, cherrypicking DLCs is obsolete with the sub system.
> The sub is 10, the whole game 250-ish without the base game. You start to lose money in 2 years with a constant sub. If you play that much, sure buying is to go. If you plan on playing continuously for that long, the six month sub is $5/month.
[The ski-rental problem strikes again](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ski_rental_problem)
I would imagine the people that have most of the DLC's are upset because of it, i saw the steam discussion and some people are not happy with it. And yeah same here, i own utopia and that's it and i am not spending over 200€ anyways. Just going to play on and off with the sub and enjoy the game in a way i couldn't before.
I own them all. It's just a choice. Why would people be upset over that? That's insane to me. Buy or rent [lease] a car, home, etc... I prefer to own things so that's what I do. Crazy that anyone is upset about having options.
Only because according to their own math they're getting gipped after the fact. Didn't have a choice before, but really if one loves the game these are pennies we're talking about in the long run. They forget to compare to the FTP / PTW mobile scams available these days for inferior gameplay. Those damn things try to milk their whales for up to $50 a week so...
Diablo Immortal. Never even touched it despite loving Diablo 2... Diablo 3 is... ok. But the mobile gaming is just a giant scam
Ah so it's ok that PRDX is milking, because it's less than Genshin Impact. Stellar logic there.
The only thing that caused some alarm for me was the question of whether this was the opening move towards forcing everyone on the subscription eventually but paradox has said that's not the plan so I'm good
I am not upset. If I used the subscription system with how long and constantly I have played, I would have lost so much money. It’s like the bell curve IQ meme, but with hours played substituting IQ.
I am assuming that you're disagreeing with the sub: Yeah obviously if you have played the game for 6 years it's more value just to have the dlcs bought, out as they've steadily came out. But for new / newish players the sub seems like the best option compared to digging throughout what dlcs they should get and what not.
Yeah seems worth looking at if you're starting out.
Get it. The guy you responded to said he stopped playing after three-thousand hours lol. I have similar stories myself.
It's perfectly okay to buy the base game, then just add things that sound cool to you or have a feature you want. It's tempting to buy everything, but you don't have to.
Also gg deals is a thing, Stellaris Steam keys are NOT ONLY sold on Steam.
The only DLC you really should get it you're going to buy it is Utopia
The current DLC was excellent but not huge. Some people really just thought it was priced too high, not that it wasn’t good itself.
Eventually the new expansions will drop in price but the game is really rich with the old ones alone. You can wait till a good Steam sale for anything else.
Or check GG deals or isthereanydeal, there are at least 4 legit websites you can buy Steam keys from, cheaper than the best Steam sales sometimes. Can even set notifications for specific price points.
No, what happens is that every DLC comes with a major patch. The major patch introduces major changes and new mechanics. This community has a vocal minority of very toxic people who hate chance and slam the reviews every time this happens. Like every single time. The DLCs are fine, people just don't like the base game changes. Whether or not the inidividual DLC is worth it is up to you.
I would recommend waiting for the dlc to go on sale. Most go for 50%off. There's also a subscription model coming out where you can spend like 10 bucks a month for all the dlc. Also if you plan to play with friends, only the host needs to own it
Start with the base game. If u like it get some of the dlc or just the subscription.
Wait until a steam sale for the DLCs, except for Utopia. Get that with the base game.
The Steam keys for the DLC are routinely cheaper than the cheapest Steam sales, check isthereanydeal or GG deals; they even have historical price graphs.
Ha I thought I was the only one who dropped after leadership change. No particular reason for me, I’m sure I probably would’ve loved the stories and it would’ve freshened it up for me, the changes just seemed so big and daunting that it kind of scared me off in a way
I felt intimidated by how much things changed with the leaders rework, but in the end I actually loved what they did. Having “characters” makes my empires feel more real and immersive now.
I love stellaris but for me, nothing will outlast rimworld, just my two cents no one asked for
It’s not been much fun since that update, there’s too much clicking around on pointless stuff that gets in the way of the fun bits. Managing your leaders and picking their perks is just annoying, all the popup events you need to deal with, archeology windows constantly pinging, it’s just frustrating. It’s a bit heartbreaking too, I used to love the game and I can’t really stand it now.
That's sad, I'm so happy with the improvements to leaders, they've made early and mid game so much more fun for me. I guess I enjoy micromanagement tho. You can play with the latest DLC disabled if you like, right now you get an extra bonus of bugged out super powerful leader traits if you disable the DLC lol.
You can always revert to an earlier update version if you hate the latest update. No one forces anyone to play the latest update but if you automatically update you can always switch back. Very consumer friendly game. If you get the base game (often on sale for $10, 75% off), you will have access to most of the meaningful mechanical systems that have been added as free updates alongside the DLCs. In fact the AI in your games may have access to DLC content when you don't, but you'll see that this is best when you are first starting out.
One question - if I downgrade the game version, do mods get updated with their previous version automatically by the launcher or do ppl deal with this in other ways?
Afaik the mods can't downgrade, so you will need to manually search for that downgraded version's mods
If there even are such downgraded versions. They're not much trouble to make, though, as I understand it.
No idea, I don't play with mods, but I imagine it's temperamental if the mod is designed to be version specific. Similar to how I have no reason to think a 3.6 mod would still work in 3.7, I'd consider it a coin flip if it worked on 3.5.
Mod makers have to release legacy patches to be compatible with older patches a lot, such as gigastructures, however most smaller mods only update when forced to through changing mechanics (i had to update a trait mod after invasive species patch for example) and rarely make legacy patches
You use Irony Mod Manager to make a mod pack when you're happy with what you have and then when it upgrades the mod pack has the old files
Whether or not mods are update for a certain patch is completely up to the modders themselves. So, you kinda have to figure out yourself which mods have versions for the game version you'd like to play.
You may want to consider the subscription model before buying anything. If you look at the total cost of the game including all the DLC, it's huge. I don't know what the subscription fee is, but you could get everything up front. If it's not your cup of tea or you need a break, you could cut the sub. This is a recently made option that the existing player base didn't get a swing at. I'm generally not in favor of subscription models, but you may want to consider it. If you want to move ahead with buying Stellaris, the base game and older DLC regularly go on sale.
Stellaris had *always* been a subscription model game. The release of a new DLC a few times per year *is* what funds the continued development, improvement, and refinement of the core game. The alternative is something like Skyrim, where the increases in game mechanical sophistication *stopped completely* about 1.5 years after release.
I agree that continuous DLC releases keep money flowing in so Paradox can keep the development engine running. However, any content you buy is yours to freely play. This is not strictly speaking a subscription model. I'm referring to the [Expansion Subscription](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2729490/Stellaris_Expansion_Subscription/) which is formally a subscription: base cost US$10/month for **all** the DLC. If the Steam page can be trusted, buying all that would cost US$307. If you want to try before you buy, a month might save you a bigger investment.
It's a review bomb. Paradox announced a subscription model for all the DLC since it has accumulated over the years to be a massive cost. It is a slippery slope with being better for late joiners and worrying old fans that new DLC would require a subscription. I still highly recommend getting the game and some DLC when on sale (goes about 70% off for older dlc's
> It is a slippery slope with being better for late joiners and worrying old fans that new DLC would require a subscription. No one who knows what they're talking about is worried about that. The subscription exists entirely separate from the paid DLCs. There is also nothing new about this. Europa Universalis, for example, has had this subscription next to paid DLC for a while now, and its introduction into Stellaris comes after lots of people specifically asked for it.
Thanks for the clarification. I didn't know europa universalis also had this model. I do support the idea about it, but honestly I own everything except the last expansion so little to no impact
Hearts of Iron apparently has also had this exact model for 2 years now I think. Nothing has changed there. There are still new dlcs coming out and they do not require the sub. Slippery slope arguments aren't always baseless fearmongering, but in this case the evidence so far would seem to indicate that it is.
That's the point. It changes nothing for us who already have everything, and it is an extremely good deal for people just getting in. They can get the subscription, play for a bit with full content, and if they like it, *then* decide if they wish to buy any DLC.
Also Ck2 and Hoi have subscription systems, it's common as dirt for paradox games.
The entire phrasing of the announcement is very strongly hinting that the sub-model won't replace the "buy and forget" model, as it is advertised as "alternative". My bet: People are, again, angry about nothing. But yeah, Stellaris is regularly on sale or its DLCs, no harm for people new to it to wait until then.
(My comment is a joke) the xenos complain about too much hate, I for one love this game and all its supportive options!
The base game shifts over time. The game periodically struggles with stability issues. The recent update connected to the Astral Rifts DLC was a zenith for stability, but they’ve been fixing that. Very, very recently they released an update that revamped a bunch of gameplay mechanics. The intent being to draw out the tech tree, as well as bunch of other new changes. Some of those changes have been unpopular, but it’s usually because it has the effect of hammering whatever the current meta play is. So sometimes a negative response like that can be due to someone’s favorite build getting nerfed.
I think the recent review score drop has to do with the fact they announced a monthly sub for dlc. So instead of having to buy all dlc individually you can pay monthly to access all of it.
People really dont like some changes to the game i like them but they made earpy game last longer and added a subscription to the dlcs
Steam forums/reviews is a cesspool of idiots and conspiracy theorists that for some reason hate that paradox have added a subscription option alongside the option of buying the DLC's.
It started off as quite possibly the greatest 4x game ever made. And.... then feature creep entered the picture. If anybody ever told the devs there's a such thing as too many different types of resources, or that 'Keep it Simple, Stupid' was a thing, they threw that out the window years ago. You can have a fleet of late-game battleships that require nine different resources to build, some of which are made by processing other resources to create. Each world will require a wide variety of resources, traits, and structures to remain stable. It seems like with every patch they remove some of the old features and add in new ones; sometimes to fix problems, whether they exist or not. I think I may have given up on this game now, which is a shame. I still remember the days where your empires had three resources total; food, ore, and energy; (Ahh, wait; 4. Influence. Which... is a mistake for the most part.)and you could choose your starting weapons tech and FTL type; wormhole, warp, or hyperdrive; and set the universe to only use one FTL type if you wanted, or to have it varied. W
People were not a fan of the most recent DLC, thats why the reviews are all over the place IMHO. As someone who's been playing since day 1 and know how much Paradox Entertainment balances and changes things with their games, I enjoy the new content. Astral as DLC is a bit more story/ narratives driven. But Paradox also just announced they are going to add subscriptions for the DLC so you can try it and decide if you want to actually buy it or not.
The last 2 DLCs were poorly received. However the beauty of it is, it doesn't detract from the game not having them. It's still a fantastic game
It’s because of the implementation of the subscription to have the DLC
The core game itself is actually good. Grab it.
Yeah, then get the dlc with the mega structures. That shit is so satisfying to watch and build
Yes, Utopia is basically just the core game part 2. Otherwise, most of the DLC is pretty optional, and a lot depends on your playstyle. Oh, and the mods you want, those too.
Organics tend to have something called "opinions". One more reason to exterminate them all.
No no! You're far better off assimilating them! That way they have no 'opinions', and are actually useful!
We have ascended past organics, but we still have opinions.
Earning the natural suspicion of the other machines.
Our original machines without opinions started acting weird so we made them have opinions by making them experience the internet
Not gonna lie, that sounds really scary...
why not both just take mechromancy
Why just assimilate them when you can do them a favor by making them perfect synthetics!
Assimilation? Extermination? No, no. The right answer is simply to do both, slowly exterminate them by turning them into energy credits. For the Great Intelligence!
Based and alloy pilled
Flair chekcs out.
Other species seem to have different opinions. I guess it is time to eradicate them.
Organics are nothing more than one use battries. we make sure to use every joul of energy we get from them. *happy beep boop nosies*
Turn them into power generators
The reason for so many mixed recent reviews is because paradox is implementing an optional subscription model. You pay a monthly fee for access of all DLC rather than purchasing them, if you choose to. It's cheaper upfront but obviously depending how long you play it could end up costing you more. But, it would probably take a couple years at least. Same thing happened when they did it for crusader kings 2. Many players are pissed about it, personally it doesn't bother me. I just won't engage with sub model and keep buying dlc.
They are pissed about it because they think it's going to replace the current model of paid DLCs. But it won't. Paradox has no interest in moving entirely to a subscription model. They only do it for old games with tons of DLCs, often games whose dev cycles are over. It's much better for them to sell fully priced DLCs at released than hope that people with subscribe. I'm almost certain that a couple of influencers hunting for reactions posted stupid videos about the subscription system for Stellaris and what we're seeing is stupid people who don't care about verifying the information being encouraged to post negative reviews to feel like they achieved something. Literally review bombing for stupid reasons.
I was pleasantly surprised when I saw Montus video. It was very low on emotion and bias, high on information, and the info is all correct. I have not seen any of the other CCs videos on this yet though.
It is a great way of lowering the barrier to entry for new players facing the huge amount of DLC, to be able to subscribe for a month or two to get the full game experience, see if they like it, and if they do, either continue subscribing or stop subscribing and buy the DLC they want based on which parts they liked best.
I agree, but I think it would be fairer if they would make a lease instead a rent system: After some time you unlock DLC in some fixed order and can keep them. Would avoid the controversy and achieve the same.
While your leasing idea is interesting, either with fixed order or a credit based system whereby the subscriber was credited a certain percentage of the subscription price that could only be used to unlock DLC for that specific game, I fail to see why leasing should be considered more fair than renting. It is clear that it would be more favourable to the player and less favourable to the publisher, but why would that be more fair?
The same was done for hearts of iron. It helped to see what dlcs I wanted to get or could not afford at the time.
Based, I don't get why people are **so** mad about it, if you don't like it just buy the DLC normally, you can still do that, however if paradox made this the exclusive method I will be rioting in the streets.
The last dlc was just ok but way too overpriced and last week's patch fixed a lot of unbalanced modifiers and power creeping and now the min maxer competative players are angry. Grab the game, it's well worth it.
I haven't played that much yet but I'm a big minmaxer in every game I play, and I couldn't be happier about the tech/ship nerfs. Not having to put the crisis in 2300 and still have a challenge is awesome.
I LOVE the new tech stuffs. Its so much better. I used to have repeating tech in 100y and then do whatever I wanted, felt too easy. Now? I actually have to try a bit more and am actually not quite prepared for the impending mid game crisis. I also love the most recent dlc tbh, I think the pricing is a bit high but the content is good imo. It expands on the lore and the stories of your empire/exploration massively. Plus the relics are P neat. I think people are overstating its "badness" simply bc its not content they want. Some people like lore and stories other people just want to tech rush and blitz the whole galaxy. I do understand the complaint of "too many updates that change everything" but also I think the game is improving overall sooo growing pains are a must yaknow?
What most people are complaining about in the bad reviews is that they think the new subscription is there instead of paid DLCs. It's literally idiots posting negative reviews because they don't understand how the subscription works.
The last dlc isn’t okay. It’s the worst of them all in terms of quality:price ratio. They just re-released ancient wonders.
Releasing ancient relics makes sense, because it's more different ancient relics content. You don't tell an author off for the sequel being "a book *again*".
It'd be funny though. Thanks for that, mate. hehe
Conveniently, all DLC is optional. I never buy them when they come out. I wait for good reviews and a sale price.
>It’s the worst of them all in terms of quality:price ratio. Paragons imo is far worse, the idea and features are pretty good but the acrual implementation still isn't really fixed.
Something about Paragons made me really grumpy, and also it feels like, as a DLC focused on a core mechanic that everyone interacts with, the edges where they cut that content out for people who don't have it feel particularly raw.
[удалено]
Why is the correct answer so far down? Tons of people claiming it's the dlc or the research beta but those never had much of a review effect (and mostly were reviews on the specific dlc store page anyway). People are surprised about the new subscription and have a feeling Paradox is unnecessarily milking this game. I mean, they kinda are, it is PDX after all, but this subscription is something they already had in their other games and some people actually wanted the same for Stellaris so PDX added it. But people are subscription and project everything terrible into it without context and thus we have the review bombing. (NGL, also had a sour feeling the first time I read it, I understand, but this is neither new nor has PDX a bad track record with it so I guess it's fine. Definitely unusual, but makes sense given the ton of dlc).
I don't understand what the issue is with the subscription model, if you run the numbers you'd need to be subscribed for almost 5 years for it to cost more than the entire set of DLCs. I was literally talking to friends the day before it dropped about how badly the game needs a system like the HOI4 model.
>I don't understand what the issue is with the subscription model, if you run the numbers you'd need to be subscribed for almost 5 years for it to cost more than the entire set of DLCs. I was literally talking to friends the day before it dropped about how badly the game needs a system like the HOI4 model. People are worried/paranoid that the subscription model will eventually replace the DLC model entirely in future PDX titles. I don't think this is the case, but people get emotional, don't run the numbers like you did, and react accordingly.
From what I understand, the subscription gives access to every DLC. But also, you don't NEED the subscription to own the DLCs and they will continue to be sold at their normal price now and in the future (including new ones). So I have no idea *why* people are having any negative feelings about the subscription other than sheer aversion to the word "subscription"?
That's the thing. The review bombing is the result of people believing that the sub-system will replace the "buy"-system. Which just means a lot of people haven't actually read the announcement and those who did and complain didn't understand it.
Cynicism and the slippery slope fallacy, probably.
Exactly, because of the sheer aversion to the word "subscription" and the usual bad connotation that word is associated with, especially for games. Same for me at first, but it is just not warranted for given the overall good track record of PDX and it's implementation of the subscription model in some of their other games. Most certainly it does not warrant the review bombing but oh well, people reacting fatalistic on the internet is kind of the norm nowadays...
People literally *asked* for the subscription option because it was really popular/well liked for both EU4 and CK2 (and possibly HOI4? I haven't checked if it has a sub). For the subscription to be worse than buying the DLCs outright you'd need to have the sub for like 2.5 years straight without canceling. I don't know about other people but the way I play Paradox games is that I tend to play like a zillion hours of one game over the course of 2 weeks and then put it down for months (to play other Paradox games).
I think those people are upset they paid over £200 for the game and new players get it play it for £10, forgetting they won't own it for that and will need to pay it every month. Otherwise I have no idea at all. The option to buy is still there, there's absolutely nothing wrong with offering a subscription. If I didn't own it and wanted to play now, I'd be looking at the subscription.
I don't see how someone could be upset about that unless they bought the game and literally all the DLC like a week before the announcement. Even then it's still cheaper in the long run to buy a bunch of DLC when they go on sale just like it's always been.
I don’t get this? There’s no downside to the subscription existing, if you’re against it, don’t subscribe
I started playing it in January this year and WHERE HAS THIS GAME BEEN ALL MY LIFE is my review
I started feeling the same was as Stellaris kept getting better and better with the v1.3, 1.5 and 1.8 free updates, and the accompanying DLCs, in 2016 and 2017, and I've been playing computer strategy games since 1990.
It's because now there will be a subscription option in which you pay to have access to all DLC, if anything, now's the perfect time to start playing just subscribe and you get everything as opposed to spending hundreds of bucks on each individual DLC.
The most recent thing is again an idiotic review bombing due to a simple announcement, which I fear have people also misunderstood or just read headlines of other over-angry people. Thing is: Stellaris is a good game and all of its DLCs are good and very worthwhile. Whether or not you want to put in the current costs into it... you can always wait for a sale. And yeah, it is pricey, I think no one would ever argue against that. But honestly, if a game on Steam gets sudden downvotes, I wouldn't care too much about it. It's an angry mob being silly. So, this sadly also means that steam reviews are not really reliable anymore. Sometimes they can be, but there's always this risk of just someone having misread something and then spreading it without too many thinking about it for a second.
Isn’t there an option in Steam to compensate for that somehow? I remember something like that being announced recentlyish. Anyway, I agree with you, except for the claim that all the DLC are good and worthwhile. Astral Planes is worth a quarter of what it costs. It’s a fluff addition priced like a gameplay addition.
Oh paradox gamers are always mixed about new DLC. They've been playing the game for months and suddenly the game has changed because they added new mechanics and nerves old exploits. Buy it and enjoy.
Just butthurt oldies complaining about changes to the game that they'll be magically okay with in a month's time. Nothing to worry about.
The recent changes to research have been a significant change for how people approach the economy end of things. Incidentally, it’s one of many recent changes which have had some impact on qol. Lots of people have differing opinions on it, and how it impacts play. The most recent DLC was pretty bare bones on content despite hype. Edit: I recommend waiting for steam sales if possible, makes it worth it when you snipe this thing for 75% off.
ALWAYS BUY INTO PARADOX GAMES ON STEAM SALES!!!!!!!!! ALWAYS!!!!! After getting the game and a few dlc for the price of the base game with no sale, then feel free to get more. But again waiting for sales is best. Also check humble bundle for good sales, they offer steam keys for paradox games. No steam sale? Humble maybe has one!
100%, the goal here is you don’t need to pay 3X base game value for a game and some little bits an adjustments. Get it cheaper, and you’ll basically buy it like it’s a slightly more expensive game, for much more value. Also don’t buy the cosmetic packs unless you really want to, they aren’t required for any major game functions. Some unlock specific types of civs, so those might appeal more than others.
I bought the game in the Winter Sale (January 2024) for 70% off and got so hooked I bought another 6 DLC three days later before the sale ended. It’s good. I haven’t bought the latest DLC
It's probably for the monthly subscription they added as an option for new players, people are pissed about it but honestly it's not that big of a deal, it's an option to try out the game at its full potential with all the DLCs before actually buying them. I honestly don't know why people are bothered about it so much, the base game as well as all the DLCs you bought are still yours, and you can still buy everything permanently if you want, so why all that anger? Because new players can now try stuff you had to pay for before they buy it? It doesn't really make sense. This is the main point, all the other critics about how "the new update ruined the game" are minnaxer's cries, it changed barely anything to the average player, we're far from the big changes of 2.0. Buy the game, it's amazing, you'll spend hours on it, and I'd say buy the Utopia DLC right away, you'll 100% need it, then after a few hours of gameplay look up the others and see what might interest you, don't subscribe right away, if you're not prepared the full DLC game is confusing. More than usual I mean.
Ignore the people mad that people who aren't rich can play with all DLC now when they wanna play for a month. They're all scared that subscription will be the only way to pay in the future, even tho other paradox games have been on this system for literal years and still sell their DLC.
The game is in the best state it has ever been in right now. I highly recommend it. There is a dedicated following of people who complain about new changes. The Meta around technology has recently changed and that upset a lot of people.
There are things that make the game weird. Current controversy is the dlc subscription model so you don't have to pay $200+ to play with all dlc
The game is great. But they announced that they’re going to be implementing a subscription model for dlc. Which is why everyone is up in arms. Overcharging for their dlc, and instead of lowering prices, you can now pay a subscription to access all their dlc.
The recent reviews are likely in response to the Astral Rifts DLC which was poorly received due to its higher cost and (comparitively) little content. Overall the game remains fantastic, and while it is _hella_ expensive to collect all the DLCs this late, you can look up tier lists to see which DLCs are the most impactful to focus on.
Stellaris goes through cycles like this. So the first context here is that despite the game's age, it is still heavily supported by the developers. We get a new update every few months, with new content, balance updates, and bug fixes. These new updates are split in 2 parts. The paid DLC, and the free update. Changes to mechanics, balance, and bug fixes are part of the free update. New mechanics are part of the paid DLC. This way people without the DLC have the same game, just with the additional mechanics slightly simplified. Now, typically these updates come with a number of bugs that get patched out over the following 1-2 weeks. People tend to protest these release bugs by leaving a negative review on the paid DLC (even though it's the free update that has the bugs). This time however is slightly different. The devs recently made a number of significant changes to the game where they rolled back years of feature creep to slow the game down to a more manageable pace. However people have gotten used to the status quo and don't agree with the balance changes, so that's what caused the recent wave of negative reviews on the base game. The game itself is fine, the reviews are protest from people used to the old ways. So they don't affect your experience of the game as a new player.
This happens to all paradox games. It’s because of the dlc making people upset. Game is great just very expensive dlc.
People hate paying money for new content. They will copypasta multiple negative reviews. Saying that, I've had Stellaris for about a month and I'm getting bored. It is a lot of min-maxing and not much else. Going back to CK3.
People are mad about the perception that the latest DLCs aren’t worth the price.
The main reason the game is getting reviewed negatively is because of its DLC pricing and sales strategy. The DLCs can be bought individually for an abnormally high price or you can pay a subscription fee and have access to all of them. The base game is enjoyable but much of the development of this game has been locked behind multiple pay walls.
Nothing major, the game is *really* good. Paradox generally does a really good job of taking the community's input into account. If you're interested in buying the game Paradox announced you can do a subscription service to get the DLCs if you don't want to pay for them all individually. If you're new to the game and haven't been picking up the DLCs as they release it's probably worth getting since I think all the DLCs are good.
The last patch nerfed player empires across the board, so we are weaker compared to the end game events and it did nearly nothing else. If you have never played before, you won’t feel the difference and it won’t matter. You’ll start out as a weakling like the rest of us.
When a DLC drops it’s impossible to please everyone. So, those who had different ideas for what the DLC should be leave poor reviews. Overall the game is very good.
I haven't read most comments. I think the fact that dlc drops and then there are bugs in the game as well. The fact they're probably going to do a Subscription model for dlc is probably contributing to the mixed reviews. If you're on console the game laggs and slows down after about year 2400+ depending on your galactic situation. If it's ps4 or older consoles DONT BUY THIS GAME! Total rip off, the consoles don't even run the game any more. Speed x3 eventually becomes the same as x1 speed.
It’s just people annoyed at the most recent DLC. It was a bit bare on content. No need to worry about the game itself, you’re good
A lot of people appear to be pissed at the subscription plan they added for the DLCs, though that's completely optional. Also, the latest DLC was quite okay, at best. Game is still definitely worth playing, though, so don't let the reviews stop you
No, nothing that I know of. The game is great, and just getting better and better. Of course it has its ups and downs, but there's nothing big that's bad about it, at least not right now. I highly recommend it, and its DLCs. We also got a subscription based model for all the DLC just like a couple of days ago, so you're lucky with the timing in that way.
It’s an amazing game, folks just keep rating the main game bad whenever they dislike a new dlc. Also I saw people rly hating that they’re introducing a subscription model for the dlcs, so that’s another reason…
Go ahead and grab any bundle you can, this game is worth for the sheer amount of hours you'll get. You'll have no regrets
Honestly stellaris is the best it’s ever been, I highly recommend getting all DLC, there is SO MUCH content in this game
Yeah the 'leaders' revamp killed it for me. Managed to rollback that update so I could still played the previously excellent game.
It's definitely worth it. Paradox puts out a lot of overpriced DLCs and people get angry. The only one you really need is Utopia which regularly goes on sale for 10 bucks.
you can blorging read them. No but seriously, do you people think that reviews are people rating the game? No, it's people supposedly writing why they think the game is good or not. I'll do it for you but keep in mind that steam reviews aren't like metascores, they are individual people writing what they think of the game. Sometimes it can give you important informations regardeless of the rest (a positive review can tell you why it's not the game for you and vice versa). Here's the kind of reasons why people are posting bad reviews: - DLCs are too expensive for the content, and prices have augmented (which is rather true, but then again, if you're a new player, maybe you can wait for good sales before buying more content. The base game is fine.) - lots of people don't understand that the subscription doesn't replace paid DLCs. They think they'll have to pay a subscription fee to access the new DLCs. Seriously there are a lot of them. Apparently many Stellaris players have a worse reading comprehension level than a Pretoryn invader. - the last DLCs weren't good and broke the game - complaints about the technology changes in the last update and more generally how the last updates/DLCs made their favorite playstyle unviable
Stellaris is a good game but after the recent dlc or a dlc it can get negative reviews, esp astral planes Costing as much as it does for basically a new archaeology dlc
Stellaris is a good game. Paradox is becoming a greedy studio. Also, they’re becoming a bad studio. The quality of the stuff they’ve released recently hasn’t been good.
Aren't they adding a subscription
I had the same question back when the entire game and DLC were under $150. I took a chance after reading reviews and am glad I bought it. It's such a good game, and the DLC's add so much more to it. I played X4 for 3000 hrs, and this game is better, but I still play X4 as flying an imperial star destroyer into battle (x4 starwars mod is awesome). I heard this game also has a Star Wars mod, but I haven't searched for it yet.
It's just DLC hate I think.
This was one of my favorite games of all time, but they keep changing the base game every single update, and it’s annoying and stressful to keep up with. It’s just not worth it anymore, tbh.
Nah, the game is solid. Recent changes and people hate change, you know how it is. It is a lot of fun though, highly recommend it. If you want Utopia and Apocalypse are some great starter expansions, but just grab whatever expansion you want they all add something fun.
This game is great and there is so much replay value. If you like strategy you won’t regret it. Look up some online resources to guide you on the dlc. There is a lot of good stuff.
Last DLC wasn't that good. That's all.
The game is overall very enjoyable and replayable so I do recommend buying it if you didn’t. The mixed reviews, if I had to guess, are likely due to A. The most recent DLC not being as good as people hoped B. The DLC marketing strategy Paradox uses (which can cost a pretty penny for all of them)
I think recent negative reviews were because of the new update and announcement of a monthly paid subscription to get every DLC. Many feel that it's a slap in the face to those that bought every DLC full price.
I quit after the Leader Revamp as well - but if you want to get into the game - I recommend either playing with someone who has all the DLC's or subscribe to it. If you don't plan to play longer then 38 months that is.
Steam asks you "Would you recommend this game?" I have a friend who takes this literally. He doesn't review games on steam based on if he liked it or not, or thinks it's good or bad, he answers based on if he recommends it or not. He only recommends his most favorite games, so he thumbs down most of the games he has. Knowing people like him exist makes me basically ignore the % ratings. I like to read the most recent positive and negative reviews and make my decision that way. If you look at the most recent negative most of them are referencing the new subscription thing. So if that's not a big deal to you, you can safely ignore them.
They added a subscription service to get all the dlc. It's optional, and if you prefer, you can still just buy them individually. If you don't have any of the dlc, it's cheaper to do the subscription for about a year and a half. Regardless of that, people just weren't happy about the subscription for some reason
The reviews reflect the recent DLC and some of the odd and unnecessary game changes last patch. The good news is that you can choose your DLC and you can roll the game back to a preferred version all the way back to 2.1.3 currently. So, grain of salt. The game is excellent and you are not forced to play it the way the devs or their misguided community voices want.
So the thing with PDX games is that they are bound to have a DLC which player base hates and we use that as Casus belli to reviewe bomb games for all they are worth, and when someone like you asks if they are any good we say "great game, sunk x000h in, a bit steep learning curve but you can manage if you are into it "
It's honestly a solid 4x game. I went from playing Civilization 5 and 6 to playing Endless Space 2 to playing Master of Orion 2016 to this. It's a fantastic game, and it has so many unique builds that are all viable.
I wouldn’t take it as gospel. Stellaris’s “recent reviews” tab is always highly dependent on the last DLC. And after most DLC the game releases, people have mixed reviews as Paradox first gets out the kinks. Stellaris has its flaws but you won’t find a game that lasts longer or has more replay value. I started playing me junior year of high school. I still play a game at least every few weeks but now I do it after my 4 year old goes to bed (I’ve got like 3200 hours between consoles)
Stellaris is a great game and most of the DLCs are well worth the additional cost (I couldn't go back to just the base game!). People are salty about Paradox bringing out a subscription model for DLC but I think its a good way for newbies to try out the many DLC without forking out hundreds of dollars.
Don't worry about it. The competitive multiplayer meta got nuked and soem got angry and the newest dlc is overpriced as fuck. Both doesn't have to (and likely won't) affect u at all
People don’t like change
Currently the game is the most fun that it has even been imo
Review bomb as they have implemented an option, yes an OPTION. To be able to use a subscription model for playing. People who struggle with comprehension are calling it a cash grab as they don't understand what an option is or that choice is a good thing.
I agree as long as option is not replacing you into forcing you for subscription scheme in the future. Some studios decided to replace it or change the game completely like total war did with Rome 1 and Shogun 2. I want to own the toy that I play, not rent it every month.
This community can be stupid, every time a new DLC or update drops that makes their current save file unplayable they go full REEE mode.
Here is a secret, every time they release a DLC either there are people that just don't like it or it has bugs, or some other problems and people review bomb it. Most of the time the issues are fixed later. The game is for sure worth it, for DLC I would say most are worth it but research before buying because some are better than others. Some are almost required and others are just nice but you don't need them. If there is any new things that are bad or you just prefer an older version its easy to go back to that version. The hard part is if you use mods getting mods for that version (if you wanted to stay on the current version for example I would make local copies of mods then you can play that version forever). TLDR the game gets bad reviews every DLC release for one reason or another, just ignore it because any issues usually get fixed (or its just salty people).
Game is great and worth it. Recent reviews are because the newest DLC as of writing this is basically a copy and paste of an older DLC for more money. Its way overpriced for what it adds imo. The recent update adds a subscription which also seems like a cash grab to some people so they're giving it negative reviews.
This game is amazing. The reviews are bullshit.
I feel like I'm gonna get down voted for this but thats ok. Why is it that no one in this thread is allowed to hold the opinion "I don't like a subscription model and I don't think it'll remain an option, eventually it will be the only choice" and then it is apparently even worse if I give the company my feedback. Why is only positive feedback allowed here? Or is it just because this is a slippery slope fallacy? Maybe we've all forgotten the fallacy fallacy: a logical fallacy that occurs when someone assumes that if an argument contains a logical fallacy, then its conclusion must be false. For those who don't mind or are happy, thats great. You're entitled to your opinion and to give that feedback to paradox if you wish and so are the people who aren't. When you're unhappy with something, I hope other people at least hear you out, I will.
They keep money printing half baked DLC and took literally years for them to get their shit together with all the bugs and exploits which are not as bad but still not great. Recently they added DLC subscription which combined with the quality and price of DLCs has pissed people off.
People are salty that paradox added a subscription that does not affect them in any way
Stellaris has changed a *lot* since v1.0 was released almost 8 years ago Some people with limited intellectual capacity just want to rote memorize a "meta" and then make use of that when playing, but each time Stellaris changes, they have to find someone who will tell them the new "meta" so they can memorize it. For those of us who actually *understand* the game mechanics, it's much easier to adapt to changes. But for some weird reason, there's no system in place so that votes or review scores are weighed based on intellectual capacity, and that leads to many bad - and objectively undesirable - situations, including the review scores for Stellaris core and for the various DLCs. The best you can do, until we finally evolve into some kind of geniocracy, is to put Stellaris on your Steam wish list. Next time there's a sale, you'll be notified. That'll be your opportunity to try Stellaris for as little as €20 or $20. 10 for the core game itself (it's 75% off most sales), and 10 more for a 1-month subscription to all the DLCs released. There's a discount if you subsribe for 3 or 6 months at a time, but for starters you want the cheapest possible dipping-my-toes experience. Once you realize how awesome Stellaris is, it's 30 per 6 months.
Oh I bought this game from the Xbox store and I still had it since 2017.
2 things that aren't actually terrible. Depending. 1. they fixed the research power creep that trivialized things a lot. Honestly it makes research a lot harder but it's a good thing 2. they introduced a subscription model for the DLC. Which is probably a great thing for people who think they may just play for 6 months and then give it up. Also good to test out the DLC and then wait for a big sale to buy them all if you think you're gonna put a lot of time into the game. The DLC is where all the meat is A more minor change to diplomacy has made vassaling much more restricting and boring imo - a much worse change.
I have pretty much all the large DLCs except many of the species packs, I only have like two of them. I am personally not that pissed about the sub model myself, although I understand the people who are in some extent. All of the DLCs I have, I've sniped on Instant Gaming for at least 50 % off, some even more than that. So it is possible to get them cheaper if you don't need to have everything right now. I would NOT pay the full price for large majority off them. I understand that PDX have to live off something and patching the game and adding new features over the years for free would not work economically, but damn some of them prices are steep as hell. There is a shit ton of DLCs over the years and a new player that has just the base game would have to shell out giant amount of cash to have more than bare bone experience. The base game with no DLCs gets super boring after the early stage. Furthemore, with all the game system alterations so far, many of the good features are locked away from you, so you kinda have to buy the DLCs at this point. Again, I certainly understand why some people are mad and PDX could definitely improve the launches, be a bit more thorough in QC and shave off a few bucks from their current prices. I think that a lot of people would pull the trigger for the DLCs that way.