Thanks for the review Montu! I think I may end up picking it up, but I definitely see how it isn't for everyone. I like the narratives that come out the game, and if it really adds hours of content to explore then I can see myself really digging into it. I kinda hate to support higher prices for DLC with my wallet, but the sad fact is that inflation is probably gonna hit video games hard in the next couple of years. We've been lucky that gaming prices didn't change much for so long.
I stopped buying thing on release a long time ago. Honestly, there are dusins of mods out there that are vastly better than most DLCs - for every game I've delved 1000+ hours into. It's hard for me to justify 30€ for a few new shiny things, or even 10-15€ for BS cosmetic DLCs.
My problem is that if I buy it, it encourages Paradox to start pricing all new Story Packs at this price point. And then, what next? $30-40 Expansions?
Inflation is a thing. Global recession is also a thing. Global energy war (Ukraine, Middle East; Orient) over energy supply logistics by all the major powers (BRICS vs NATO), is a thing. Consequences are many. One of those, is collapse of fiscal stability, market instability and devaluing of fiat currency purchasing power, is all a thing, and will continue for some time. To put it in simple terms, anything not related to food and energy provisions, is at this point a luxury, that includes gaming. This will continue.
@@theflame5919 It's ok, just push the price and blame Inflation, global shit issue over. It doesn't make sense that this dlc can cost such amount of money with such lack content + buggy shit.
Should see if the fleet you can summon can be turned into a merc enclave. Edit: so I checked it out, they can not have leaders so you can't make the enclave. They are super strong tho. I'm playing with the guardianship civic and when in my territory they are reaching 31k around year 80. Not sure if they are going to scale more other then my own bonuses. I can see why they couldn't have leaders tho, as a psionic clone leader would make the fleet extremely scary.
Weirdly the rift system reminds me most of the way they handle primitives and observation now. I kind of wish we could assign a Scientist to oversee observation if we wanted and it would offer us more options.
Right? The primitives (at least without the "First Contact" DLC, like I don't have it (yet!)) I feel like any primitive civilization is just a minor 'cool thing to have'
The caveat with the price is that future DLCs will be at the price same level as Astral Planes. Pretty much every new game is priced higher than before 1-2 years and it was just a matter of time that this price hike will effect DLCs too.
@@barryevans791 Yeah but the total war games is waaaaaay worse, not only do there dlcs add in way less but they also release the new lords as turbo buffed, if you buy the expo its basically an auto win in multiplayer, at least with stellaris they are definitely releasing significantly more re-playable content and they always release a big FREE patch with the expos, to me its pretty clear there mostly increasing the price due to inflation..
It's called inflation. I can remember getting full priced games for 50 DM. adjusted for Inflation that is today now 70 €. It is the way our money system works.
@@tuskular A 100% increase in a couple of years is not inflation, it is probably to cover the cost of City Skylines 2, just as Warhammer DLC is to cover the cost of Pharoh. This was pointed out in the video when he compared it to an earlier DLC with the same amount of content, but it cost £8 instead of the £20 that this one does.
@@sakkra83 Inflation alone is not the sole reason. In the last two decades there was no significant price hike for video games even with inflation every year. Because the cost of nearly everything exploded, in short time (pandemic btw) and the threshold to keep video game prices constant was overrun. On other note, buying a game for 50 bucks in 1992 that is playable, at best, for 10h and maybe not a good game at all, was common. The perspective comparing game prices in the early 90s (or even earlier) to our present is humongous. I'm not justifing any prices hikes, neither Stellaris nor any other game related stuff, just an interesting thought.
Considering I am not working at the moment and that because of that, I haven't got yet First Contact and Paragon, I will not get this new one right now. Maybe as you said in a sale it could be good. In canadian dollars, even with the 10% reduction, it still cost 22.49 instead of 24.99. For the other two, they are at 18.99 on their regular price. When I see that Baldur's Gate 3 costed me much less than all these DLCs in total and that I played 475 hours for 4 campaigns without late-game lag, I'll admit that I might become a bit picky with games that "features" a lot of expansions. I love Stellaris, I still do. And I played nearly 1400 hours. Still, BG3 and Cyberpunk 2.0 + Phantom Liberty have changed my perspective on a few things...
Already have all the other dlc and I get bored mid to late game because I'm more an explorer and defender than a warmonger. Sounds like it's a hard buy for me.
That opening bit couldn't have described my reaction any more perfectly. I see Stellaris DLC; I buy Stellaris DLC. I do this with no other game. Still loved the video, and thanks for all you do, Montu!
@@Nibmus i quit EU4 years ago because their dlcs did not add anything meaningful except more randomly very specific modifiers. the game's core mechanics were the real problem, it always felt bland and boring. It's like a worse CK. You essentially do the same stuff, EU4 just is more dumbed down and provides no challenge later on.
@@SkyForceOne2 I think I still enjoy EU4 because of its core mechanics and all that. I like building up my nation and being efficient and becoming the strongest in the world. Taking the modifiers and stacking them til they reached the moon. And then conquering the world with it. Probably why I enjoy Stellaris so much xd CK never really clicked with me because your empire can fall apart pretty easily, and imo you want that to happen because it drives the narrative and honestly I think that's CK at its best: when you're following the narrative of your bloodline instead of focusing on your nation. Sadly that kind of stuff never really interested me in the first place xd to me losing your country to your brothers or your dukes was a failure state and I hated when it happened. But I'll agree that EU4 is getting dated and an update to its systems is in order.
@@Nibmus what disappoints me is just the Paradox-Syndrome: Core systems/engine need and overhaul, yet alot of people playing the game have so many DLCs and are so far invested, that they'll buy anything we release as an add-on for it. Just change a few old mechanics to the point where you can enjoy them without having the DLC anymore. .... and then they publish shitshows like Skylines 2...
I uninstalled Stellaris today. After years of great new content they have dropped the ball. There are now much more bugs than features in the game and it has become a bloated mess. The final kicker for me was experiencing all of the same bugs that have existed for years now, after I bought 3.10 and updated to 3.10.1. The devs have cleaely given up. So will I.
It's got a Mostly Negative rating on steam. Seems to be some sort of major problems with the DLC not even showing up/being detected by the launcher after purchase.
That's only the beginning of its problems, and one that Paradox fixed with a next-day hotfix patch. Many bonuses from leaders and perks no longer work. There are many, many bugs in this patch (and the gameplay balance of 3.10.0 is not very good either).
So long as it’s actually good at what it’s trying to do - which it seems like you think it is - then that’s good enough for me. If people specifically want more narrative content and how much they’re willing to pay is going to vary a lot from person to person.
I haven't played Stellaris in a long while, but from what I heard in this video, the dlc sounds like a repackaged mod that costs one third of the original game. Considering that PDX did this with the latest EU4 dlc, they've been making a lot of weird choices lately.
I wouldn't compare rift world to toxic god it's more similar to on the shoulders of giants staying intentionally vague here: you start with a rift in your home system and when you're finished with that (which can easily be done in the first few decades) you get hints that there will be more story later, just like how on the shoulders of giants is just a handful of archeology spots at first but later you find something interesting
Yeah this was my comparison feeling too. I loved On the Shoulder of Giants as my go to origin before Broken Shackles. And the new origin felt quite a bit like it. I would love a few more origins with a few more procedurally themed backgrounds.
So far, I am finding the update aggravating, although it's mostly the free update rather than the paid DLC I am reacting to. Weird UI stuff. The way the leader information is laid out, it is really tough to sort out who will have what effect at the councilor, governor, and ship scientist level. The outliner, although I understand their reasons for breaking it up into parts, makes a previous weak point worse. It has always been very easy to miss that a science ship has no orders, particularly after dealing with an anomaly. Now, it is less likely to notice promptly in the outliner. Some weirdness in assigning council positions, apparently qualified leaders who don't stick. Sudden decrease in number of leader options, no apparent reason. My sense is that this needs to bake a little longer, get the kinks worked out. Honestly, I'm not sure whether it's bugs or shaky communication or a little of both.
Makes sense, you're researching an active phenomena not a dead one from ages past. Personally I hope the espionage system gets a slight rework to feel more engaging but now that you mention it ya they're almost the same.
This is the buggiest patch PDX has released, by far. Many leader bonuses don't work, many ascention perk bonuses don't work, there are big balance problems with the 3.10.0 patch, and many users complain about frequent crashes. IMO, this is all due to Paradox outsourcing the work to low-cost bidders (or the low-cost bidders outsourcing!). The game will be unplayable for at least a week.
PSA: tech bonuses are a bit bugged atm. As standard, I built a bunch of hydroponics on all my starbases for obvious reasions. If you hover over them in the starbase menu, they apply proper bonuses such as from eco stimulation and the sort. However, if you check the resource overview at the top of the screen, the tech bonuses are not being applied and each hydroponics is only producing the base 10 food
The dream (and you would need an apocalyptically powerful PC in the present build of the game for this to ever be possible) is that astral rifts eventually become a way for the late game to evolve into interacting with entirely new galaxies. I want a galactic custodian squaring off against a galactic emperor. Ah well, maybe by the time Stellaris 3 rolls around.
Would be a nice tie-in with becoming the crisis. You could be the unbidden of that new galaxy. Or be drop-kicked straight back to your starter galaxy...
It'd be cool if there was a way to become the crisis for some other players galaxy, imagine how terrifying it would be if the Unbidden actually had strategically designed ships
The problems this patch has caused should warn Paradox not to do this in the future, except that they were probably doing it to cut costs so they'll do it in the future.
Theres a relic called "The Continuum"? Like the continuum transfunctioner? The device thats said to be all that stands between the universe and violent destruction? :P
I feel like a lot of the dlc have gone downhill. Nothing has come close to utopia, apocalypse, federations, megacorp, or even synthetic dawn in a while. Lack of new megastructures, empire types, crisis factions, ascension paths and perks, and really just play styles has been disappointing to see. The only major positive has been story driven origins, as they have consistently gotten better, but aren’t typically very replayable
Certainly feels like Stellaris is in a "maintain at low cost" type of phase. All the major content additions are done, and now they just need to keep people happy to squeeze the last dregs of profit they can while they work on other projects
@luzekiel9343 it's not bloat, it's additional *paid* content. If they just stopped making DLC entirely it'd be fine (although I'd get bored and stop playing because I have so many hours). But, if they ARE releasing DLC it should be substantial and worth buying. It hasn't been for a few releases now
TLDR: $20 dollar dlc with $8 dollars of content. I suspect Paradox is subscribing to the profit models of larger companies like Blizzard by producing less for more capitalizing on a strong fanbase. Edit: I enjoy it sure, but with a sense of loss and regret. I bought it and have been testing stuff for about 20 hours now. It really doesn't interface with other dlc's in any special manner, the dark consortium literally skips some major game progression, and the lack of actual narrative is the real red flag. I have never seen Paradox slack on narrative before to this extent, the origin is really a bundle of non-unique mechanics, especially compared to the stories we received with other dlc. I have to be honest, the quality of Paradox is dropping while the prices are increasing. Shrinkflation at this point appears to be the future of Paradox. I would price this amount of dlc and effort at $8 USD tops.
If I'm paying $25 for a glorified choose your own adventure DLC then it better has more content than the entire published Silmarillion and LoTR combined.
I’d love to wait, but I tried that with First Contact and Galactic Paragons and the sale never came even 7-8 months later. Although with Christmas approaching it might be different.
Dark Consortium is definetly somwthing appealing for crisis empires. I don't have any other civics currently in mind but I imagine also going fanatic spiritualist for more unity to unlock become the crisis faster. PS: But you need citadels and collosal assembly yards anyway so 🤷
Another Montu Plays video? It feels like you've been releasing content nearly every other day! Truly we are blessed to have Montu as our benevolent lizard overlord.
I will say part of it for me was steam had it 10% off and the last two dlc haven't gone on sale at all yet. Haven't had a chance to play it yet but mid to late game exploring is very welcome if it works right. Still feel like that is the weakest point in game.
you see, I've played a couple games with this DLC. I think it's both incredible and situationally overpowered. My first game with it I played as the Human citizen federation from starship troopers. Trying to emulate this accurately, I went down the psychic route. You can only summon the dimensional fleet if your are psychic, and given how I was playing with a higher AI difficulty this one ability literally saved the entire playthrough on numerous occasions. The more you activate it, the stronger and stronger each summoned fleet gets, by the end game I was summoning fleets of 1 million strength and since they were disposable troops (leaving after 10 years) I would throw them at the front line of whatever war or crisis I was facing and usually it have a massive effect. (don't use the dimensional fleet against the Prethoryn or any other "missilemaxxers", also don't take it into combat in a pulsar system). The downside is that this fleet uses naval capacity, most of this run this wasn't an issue since I was almost constantly at war and almost never near my fleet cap. So if I was past naval cap as a result of the dimensional fleet, it was imperative to send it into the toughest battles asap. My second game with this dlc I played as a machine intelligence similar to the automatons from helldivers2. In this playthrough I got the Formless event. Through a choice option of 66% likelihood of success, it failed and I was faced with a mid game crisis version of the unbidden. I fought hard and with no thanks to the AIs in this game, I defeated them and claimed a relic known as the celestial throne, you can see it at 4:30 in the lower left. This is probably the most powerful relic in the game IMO, because this relic's active effect is to boost your monthly astral thread production by 333% effectively tripling it. Now, remember those astral thread edicts that are mentioned? one of those is called "astral binding", it boosts all your production of everything by 10% after other modifiers no questions asked. However astral binding is way too expensive to run all the time normally, but by spamming the throne relic, you can :) So if you've read all this, start THREADMAXXING
I mean the devs even understood the price would be the main sticking point which is why it's 10% off through the 27th. So $18 instead of $20. I still think that's $5-7 overpriced, but I still picked it up because I've been playing since launch in 2016, have all the other DLC, and spend way too much of my free time genoci- I mean subjuga- I mean exploring the Galaxy.
Another reason to wait: many people who have bought the DLC (though steam) find that the game is random about if it will recognize that you have the DLC or not. Combine that with crashes that randomly kick you out of the game and you have a cycle of pain where you can't resume a game because it no longer thinks you have the DLC... For a company that plans to profit on DLCs, they should at least make 100% sure the people who buy the DLC can play it as intended.
I've also been experiencing crashes, though oddly they seem to only begin around the year 2250, from which point they trigger each time I unpause the game.
So basically full priced pack of new archeology sites with the old option to fail at science projects (which they specifically patched out ...). Yea ... How about NO. Seriously Paradox? Some of the custodian upates gave us more for FREE.
Should take into account that it makes MP really unstable aswell. As soon as our mp lobby started using astral planes, desyncs and crashes have skyrocketed, and when we turned it off, the desyncs and crashes stopped (we were playing pure vanilla aswell btw. mods weren't the issue).
I have almost no interest in this DLC thematically, I'm not sure what exactly it's going for or why they couldn't have just been added as a more interesting type of archeology site. And the asking price is fairly absurd for what effectively amounts to some text blurbs and stat modifiers. No thanks.
multiuniverse + autoexploring = lazy souless 0 design effort. This shouldn't be an expansion in any game, but merely a side feature "because other games have it" (and failed because of it)
I see mostly negative and i know its a good one. People wouldn't be salty if they didnt care. I try not to by other games. Stellaris is a contender for total personal playtime. 2.9k hours. I think it comes out to 8 hours per dollar (most of that was on my moms old work tower with integrated graphics so that play time is a little skewed). Even on an enimic system i enjoyed and was enthalled the majority of the time. Look i play yugioh as much as we complain the deals actually pretty sweet. Even our mobile version is pretty good, its literally the game with a global ban list and eveyone has equal access (the paywall is not a problem) ive only payed for a new deck because i was about to spend 100 bucks on singles. Its only a rip off if you dont have the dedication to the game. And unless you're talking about a popular socialist revolution i dont want to here it. Good opening meme.
I am buying all stellaris dlcs as I think there are far worse options of games with overpriced dlcs, microtransactions or lackluster gameplay and bugs. Im probably going to be a bit mad at paradox, but ultimately they are not blizzard, Activision, EA or anything else of that matter
That new species portrait looks fucking horrible. A lot of the new humanoid portraits they been releasing recently are actually disgusting to look at. Wish someone would make a mod to remove them.
I just don't like the theme, I'm obviously going to buy it because I'm the host but most every DLC had a very applicable and wide reaching theme along with generalist features for other empires, the only thing I can see myself using here is the dark matter researchers and I expect more from a stellaris DLC. Give us another nemesis tier expansion that turns every game of stellaris into even more of a grandiose space opera, give us more types of player based endgame crisis victories, more government types like megacorp, expand more on internal politics and individual dealings so we can track the adventures of space heroes from each of our planets coming together, superpowered, gigantic, or miniature species/individuals who can change up the dynamic and make wacky and memorable stuff happen in the galaxy. Don't give us a bunch of space magic that just happens to give you resources or effects that already exist in the game, that's lazy nonsense. Do better please, stellaris devs.
It doesn't even work at all for me. Shows up as owned in steam and the launcher and even in the main menu. But shows as not owned within the game. So I can't even get it yet. Is Montu warping reality by saying not yet?
It's not just you, the patch is VERY buggy. I heard that PDX outsourced the development, and then the outsourcer outsourced its development. This is the low-bidder hiring low-bidders!
"oh boy I got the new dlc I can't wait to see what new content there is" *plays another imperium of man campaign*
Thanks for the review Montu! I think I may end up picking it up, but I definitely see how it isn't for everyone. I like the narratives that come out the game, and if it really adds hours of content to explore then I can see myself really digging into it. I kinda hate to support higher prices for DLC with my wallet, but the sad fact is that inflation is probably gonna hit video games hard in the next couple of years. We've been lucky that gaming prices didn't change much for so long.
pirate it
I would buy it immediately for 10€, but 20€ is a bit much for so little content. It also hasn't been on sale so far, so I will continue to wait.
I stopped buying thing on release a long time ago. Honestly, there are dusins of mods out there that are vastly better than most DLCs - for every game I've delved 1000+ hours into.
It's hard for me to justify 30€ for a few new shiny things, or even 10-15€ for BS cosmetic DLCs.
ı only buyed this dlc because it was 5.5 dolar for me
My problem is that if I buy it, it encourages Paradox to start pricing all new Story Packs at this price point. And then, what next? $30-40 Expansions?
I have pretty same feeling about it and even the gaming industry these days. They give us expensive crap and expect to thank them
pirate it
Must stop buying it
Inflation is a thing. Global recession is also a thing. Global energy war (Ukraine, Middle East; Orient) over energy supply logistics by all the major powers (BRICS vs NATO), is a thing. Consequences are many. One of those, is collapse of fiscal stability, market instability and devaluing of fiat currency purchasing power, is all a thing, and will continue for some time. To put it in simple terms, anything not related to food and energy provisions, is at this point a luxury, that includes gaming. This will continue.
@@theflame5919 It's ok, just push the price and blame Inflation, global shit issue over. It doesn't make sense that this dlc can cost such amount of money with such lack content + buggy shit.
Should see if the fleet you can summon can be turned into a merc enclave.
Edit: so I checked it out, they can not have leaders so you can't make the enclave. They are super strong tho. I'm playing with the guardianship civic and when in my territory they are reaching 31k around year 80. Not sure if they are going to scale more other then my own bonuses.
I can see why they couldn't have leaders tho, as a psionic clone leader would make the fleet extremely scary.
Good idea
Weirdly the rift system reminds me most of the way they handle primitives and observation now. I kind of wish we could assign a Scientist to oversee observation if we wanted and it would offer us more options.
Right? The primitives (at least without the "First Contact" DLC, like I don't have it (yet!)) I feel like any primitive civilization is just a minor 'cool thing to have'
I guess you need First Contact for the Archaeotech insights, etc? I was just thinking those are kind of like the rewards with the Astral Abilities
@@siruoro6718first contact doesn’t really improve it you’re not missing much
Wait so are rifts just handled in dialogue events? I thought there'd be actual new systems to send ships into at least...
It's just more complicated Archeology with a specific currency that probably doesn't need to exist.
Montu: "Should you buy Astral planes?"
Me: You are one purchase too late.
To late, had it preordered.
*THE COLLECTION MUST BE COMPLETE*
Sureeee but at full price? Right away?
You're part of the problem
@@Gafferman Yes…I may have poor impulse control…
The caveat with the price is that future DLCs will be at the price same level as Astral Planes. Pretty much every new game is priced higher than before 1-2 years and it was just a matter of time that this price hike will effect DLCs too.
That's true, but the argument is that it should not be. Just take a look at the controversy around the Total War games currently.
@@barryevans791 Yeah but the total war games is waaaaaay worse, not only do there dlcs add in way less but they also release the new lords as turbo buffed, if you buy the expo its basically an auto win in multiplayer, at least with stellaris they are definitely releasing significantly more re-playable content and they always release a big FREE patch with the expos, to me its pretty clear there mostly increasing the price due to inflation..
It's called inflation. I can remember getting full priced games for 50 DM. adjusted for Inflation that is today now 70 €. It is the way our money system works.
@@tuskular A 100% increase in a couple of years is not inflation, it is probably to cover the cost of City Skylines 2, just as Warhammer DLC is to cover the cost of Pharoh. This was pointed out in the video when he compared it to an earlier DLC with the same amount of content, but it cost £8 instead of the £20 that this one does.
@@sakkra83 Inflation alone is not the sole reason. In the last two decades there was no significant price hike for video games even with inflation every year. Because the cost of nearly everything exploded, in short time (pandemic btw) and the threshold to keep video game prices constant was overrun. On other note, buying a game for 50 bucks in 1992 that is playable, at best, for 10h and maybe not a good game at all, was common. The perspective comparing game prices in the early 90s (or even earlier) to our present is humongous. I'm not justifing any prices hikes, neither Stellaris nor any other game related stuff, just an interesting thought.
Considering I am not working at the moment and that because of that, I haven't got yet First Contact and Paragon, I will not get this new one right now.
Maybe as you said in a sale it could be good.
In canadian dollars, even with the 10% reduction, it still cost 22.49 instead of 24.99. For the other two, they are at 18.99 on their regular price.
When I see that Baldur's Gate 3 costed me much less than all these DLCs in total and that I played 475 hours for 4 campaigns without late-game lag, I'll admit that I might become a bit picky with games that "features" a lot of expansions.
I love Stellaris, I still do. And I played nearly 1400 hours. Still, BG3 and Cyberpunk 2.0 + Phantom Liberty have changed my perspective on a few things...
It's even worse in other third world country like mine, got increased like 70% skyrocket
Already have all the other dlc and I get bored mid to late game because I'm more an explorer and defender than a warmonger. Sounds like it's a hard buy for me.
That opening bit couldn't have described my reaction any more perfectly. I see Stellaris DLC; I buy Stellaris DLC. I do this with no other game. Still loved the video, and thanks for all you do, Montu!
I do this with Stellaris and, unfortunately, EU4 as well lmao
@@Nibmus i quit EU4 years ago because their dlcs did not add anything meaningful except more randomly very specific modifiers. the game's core mechanics were the real problem, it always felt bland and boring. It's like a worse CK. You essentially do the same stuff, EU4 just is more dumbed down and provides no challenge later on.
@@SkyForceOne2 I think I still enjoy EU4 because of its core mechanics and all that. I like building up my nation and being efficient and becoming the strongest in the world. Taking the modifiers and stacking them til they reached the moon. And then conquering the world with it. Probably why I enjoy Stellaris so much xd
CK never really clicked with me because your empire can fall apart pretty easily, and imo you want that to happen because it drives the narrative and honestly I think that's CK at its best: when you're following the narrative of your bloodline instead of focusing on your nation. Sadly that kind of stuff never really interested me in the first place xd to me losing your country to your brothers or your dukes was a failure state and I hated when it happened.
But I'll agree that EU4 is getting dated and an update to its systems is in order.
@@Nibmus what disappoints me is just the Paradox-Syndrome: Core systems/engine need and overhaul, yet alot of people playing the game have so many DLCs and are so far invested, that they'll buy anything we release as an add-on for it. Just change a few old mechanics to the point where you can enjoy them without having the DLC anymore.
.... and then they publish shitshows like Skylines 2...
Stellaris, CK3 and Vic3 for me.
I uninstalled Stellaris today. After years of great new content they have dropped the ball. There are now much more bugs than features in the game and it has become a bloated mess. The final kicker for me was experiencing all of the same bugs that have existed for years now, after I bought 3.10 and updated to 3.10.1. The devs have cleaely given up. So will I.
The opening joke was great. Well done.
7:45 Thats Paradox for you, modifiers untop of modifiers without anything tangible.
It's got a Mostly Negative rating on steam. Seems to be some sort of major problems with the DLC not even showing up/being detected by the launcher after purchase.
That's only the beginning of its problems, and one that Paradox fixed with a next-day hotfix patch. Many bonuses from leaders and perks no longer work. There are many, many bugs in this patch (and the gameplay balance of 3.10.0 is not very good either).
So long as it’s actually good at what it’s trying to do - which it seems like you think it is - then that’s good enough for me. If people specifically want more narrative content and how much they’re willing to pay is going to vary a lot from person to person.
Great, as a console player I wasn’t expecting this DLC to show up until 2030 as least.
I was very tempted to buy it instantly but after seeing it rated on Steam as mostly negative, I decided I wait on -50%.
I haven't played Stellaris in a long while, but from what I heard in this video, the dlc sounds like a repackaged mod that costs one third of the original game.
Considering that PDX did this with the latest EU4 dlc, they've been making a lot of weird choices lately.
It really doesn't but ok.
I love how people shit on this dlc when it added way more content than the previous dlcs.
I wouldn't compare rift world to toxic god
it's more similar to on the shoulders of giants
staying intentionally vague here:
you start with a rift in your home system and when you're finished with that (which can easily be done in the first few decades) you get hints that there will be more story later, just like how on the shoulders of giants is just a handful of archeology spots at first but later you find something interesting
Yeah this was my comparison feeling too. I loved On the Shoulder of Giants as my go to origin before Broken Shackles. And the new origin felt quite a bit like it. I would love a few more origins with a few more procedurally themed backgrounds.
So far, I am finding the update aggravating, although it's mostly the free update rather than the paid DLC I am reacting to.
Weird UI stuff. The way the leader information is laid out, it is really tough to sort out who will have what effect at the councilor, governor, and ship scientist level.
The outliner, although I understand their reasons for breaking it up into parts, makes a previous weak point worse. It has always been very easy to miss that a science ship has no orders, particularly after dealing with an anomaly. Now, it is less likely to notice promptly in the outliner.
Some weirdness in assigning council positions, apparently qualified leaders who don't stick.
Sudden decrease in number of leader options, no apparent reason.
My sense is that this needs to bake a little longer, get the kinks worked out. Honestly, I'm not sure whether it's bugs or shaky communication or a little of both.
From how you described it, the rift system seems to have more in common with the espionage operations rather than the archeology sites.
Makes sense, you're researching an active phenomena not a dead one from ages past. Personally I hope the espionage system gets a slight rework to feel more engaging but now that you mention it ya they're almost the same.
I don't buy any of the DLC unless they are 50% off, and it has been a while since one was (at least one I don't have already).
I also noticed that the price of older dlc now rarely drops below 25% off.
I only buy the DLCs when they're 50% off, so I'll wait regardless 😅
good information, I was curious what this DLC actually added
To late
This is the buggiest patch PDX has released, by far. Many leader bonuses don't work, many ascention perk bonuses don't work, there are big balance problems with the 3.10.0 patch, and many users complain about frequent crashes. IMO, this is all due to Paradox outsourcing the work to low-cost bidders (or the low-cost bidders outsourcing!).
The game will be unplayable for at least a week.
PSA: tech bonuses are a bit bugged atm. As standard, I built a bunch of hydroponics on all my starbases for obvious reasions. If you hover over them in the starbase menu, they apply proper bonuses such as from eco stimulation and the sort. However, if you check the resource overview at the top of the screen, the tech bonuses are not being applied and each hydroponics is only producing the base 10 food
The dream (and you would need an apocalyptically powerful PC in the present build of the game for this to ever be possible) is that astral rifts eventually become a way for the late game to evolve into interacting with entirely new galaxies. I want a galactic custodian squaring off against a galactic emperor. Ah well, maybe by the time Stellaris 3 rolls around.
That would be so cool
that would be cool, i started playing again recently after years with a brand new PC rather than shitty laptop and it still struggles late game lol
Would be a nice tie-in with becoming the crisis. You could be the unbidden of that new galaxy.
Or be drop-kicked straight back to your starter galaxy...
It'd be cool if there was a way to become the crisis for some other players galaxy, imagine how terrifying it would be if the Unbidden actually had strategically designed ships
I appreciate you putting your answer in the thumbnail, even if I still proceeded to watch the whole thing.
This dlc story pack was outsourced right, what is your opinion about how paradox will handle future dlc this way plz ?
The problems this patch has caused should warn Paradox not to do this in the future, except that they were probably doing it to cut costs so they'll do it in the future.
Theres a relic called "The Continuum"?
Like the continuum transfunctioner? The device thats said to be all that stands between the universe and violent destruction? :P
AAAAND THEEEEEN?
I feel like a lot of the dlc have gone downhill. Nothing has come close to utopia, apocalypse, federations, megacorp, or even synthetic dawn in a while. Lack of new megastructures, empire types, crisis factions, ascension paths and perks, and really just play styles has been disappointing to see.
The only major positive has been story driven origins, as they have consistently gotten better, but aren’t typically very replayable
Certainly feels like Stellaris is in a "maintain at low cost" type of phase. All the major content additions are done, and now they just need to keep people happy to squeeze the last dregs of profit they can while they work on other projects
Why would you want more bloat and more potentially unbalanced stuff.
@luzekiel9343 it's not bloat, it's additional *paid* content. If they just stopped making DLC entirely it'd be fine (although I'd get bored and stop playing because I have so many hours). But, if they ARE releasing DLC it should be substantial and worth buying. It hasn't been for a few releases now
A good video to watch while waiting for the DLC to download
TLDR: $20 dollar dlc with $8 dollars of content. I suspect Paradox is subscribing to the profit models of larger companies like Blizzard by producing less for more capitalizing on a strong fanbase.
Edit: I enjoy it sure, but with a sense of loss and regret.
I bought it and have been testing stuff for about 20 hours now. It really doesn't interface with other dlc's in any special manner, the dark consortium literally skips some major game progression, and the lack of actual narrative is the real red flag. I have never seen Paradox slack on narrative before to this extent, the origin is really a bundle of non-unique mechanics, especially compared to the stories we received with other dlc. I have to be honest, the quality of Paradox is dropping while the prices are increasing. Shrinkflation at this point appears to be the future of Paradox. I would price this amount of dlc and effort at $8 USD tops.
This comment is more interesting than the video
20 bucks for basically a story pack is kind of sad.
If I'm paying $25 for a glorified choose your own adventure DLC then it better has more content than the entire published Silmarillion and LoTR combined.
Montu: Should you buy astral planes dlc
Me(who has already bought it): Interesting video wonder if I should buy it XD
I'm enjoying it, but yeah, it's way over-priced for what you get.
"Should you buy [Insert Stellaris DLC]?"
PARADOX GAMERS: "They already have my wallet."
I’d love to wait, but I tried that with First Contact and Galactic Paragons and the sale never came even 7-8 months later. Although with Christmas approaching it might be different.
There weren't good sales since aquatics at least :/
I just wish we'd get more graphics, like we could actually see inside the rifts. Just having a tiny jpeg in menu of text feels very boring to me
If this was $10 I would have snatched it up day one but alas this is another expensive dlc in the strategy genre.
I want to play. And I own it. But it’s broken and a lot of other players are facing the same issue 😢
A launch so broken, people who didn't buy it also can't play Stellaris.
And the quality goes down at paradox with every release and finally reached these stars, too.
Wish the DLC's would come with more pre made empires...
20€ for an ape portrait and some new shenaningans.
I don’t plan on getting toxoids because it seems lame, getting the same vibe off this one.
@@edwing72 Me too. I'm waiting for the last and final dlc in 2-3 years. Then i'll buy everything at once.
i bought it but now i'm annoyed because the update fucked all my mods
IDC, I'm buying it for the tall civic anyway lmao
Ima be real with you. There is very little Stellaris can do to not have me buy there DLC’s
The intro is genius
I bought it, it's 20% off on certain stores. I am a Stellaris DLC collector ^^
Dark Consortium is definetly somwthing appealing for crisis empires.
I don't have any other civics currently in mind but I imagine also going fanatic spiritualist for more unity to unlock become the crisis faster.
PS:
But you need citadels and collosal assembly yards anyway so 🤷
On the other hand, going Dark Consortium pretty much screams 'kill me first' in multiplayer
Not interested until at least 75% off
this is the only dlc i dont have sooooooo
stellaris barely changes the actual things I want it to improve for ages, they just chasing dlc for dlc's sake
Another Montu Plays video? It feels like you've been releasing content nearly every other day! Truly we are blessed to have Montu as our benevolent lizard overlord.
I will say part of it for me was steam had it 10% off and the last two dlc haven't gone on sale at all yet. Haven't had a chance to play it yet but mid to late game exploring is very welcome if it works right. Still feel like that is the weakest point in game.
Yay 3.10 messed my UI mod.
you see, I've played a couple games with this DLC. I think it's both incredible and situationally overpowered.
My first game with it I played as the Human citizen federation from starship troopers. Trying to emulate this accurately, I went down the psychic route. You can only summon the dimensional fleet if your are psychic, and given how I was playing with a higher AI difficulty this one ability literally saved the entire playthrough on numerous occasions. The more you activate it, the stronger and stronger each summoned fleet gets, by the end game I was summoning fleets of 1 million strength and since they were disposable troops (leaving after 10 years) I would throw them at the front line of whatever war or crisis I was facing and usually it have a massive effect. (don't use the dimensional fleet against the Prethoryn or any other "missilemaxxers", also don't take it into combat in a pulsar system). The downside is that this fleet uses naval capacity, most of this run this wasn't an issue since I was almost constantly at war and almost never near my fleet cap. So if I was past naval cap as a result of the dimensional fleet, it was imperative to send it into the toughest battles asap.
My second game with this dlc I played as a machine intelligence similar to the automatons from helldivers2. In this playthrough I got the Formless event. Through a choice option of 66% likelihood of success, it failed and I was faced with a mid game crisis version of the unbidden. I fought hard and with no thanks to the AIs in this game, I defeated them and claimed a relic known as the celestial throne, you can see it at 4:30 in the lower left. This is probably the most powerful relic in the game IMO, because this relic's active effect is to boost your monthly astral thread production by 333% effectively tripling it. Now, remember those astral thread edicts that are mentioned? one of those is called "astral binding", it boosts all your production of everything by 10% after other modifiers no questions asked. However astral binding is way too expensive to run all the time normally, but by spamming the throne relic, you can :)
So if you've read all this, start THREADMAXXING
a waste of got dam money so no
I mean the devs even understood the price would be the main sticking point which is why it's 10% off through the 27th. So $18 instead of $20. I still think that's $5-7 overpriced, but I still picked it up because I've been playing since launch in 2016, have all the other DLC, and spend way too much of my free time genoci- I mean subjuga- I mean exploring the Galaxy.
Another reason to wait: many people who have bought the DLC (though steam) find that the game is random about if it will recognize that you have the DLC or not.
Combine that with crashes that randomly kick you out of the game and you have a cycle of pain where you can't resume a game because it no longer thinks you have the DLC...
For a company that plans to profit on DLCs, they should at least make 100% sure the people who buy the DLC can play it as intended.
I've also been experiencing crashes, though oddly they seem to only begin around the year 2250, from which point they trigger each time I unpause the game.
I'm a little bit sad this is such a parasitic design. Especially Astral Threads. It just only really interacts with itself. I think I'll pass.
For some reason my game doesn't enable the DLC half the time, anyone else getting this problem?
Bought the DLC. Game didn't recognize I had bought. Tried all of the 'fixes' Paradox said would help. None worked. Got refund. Pathetic.
So basically full priced pack of new archeology sites with the old option to fail at science projects (which they specifically patched out ...).
Yea ... How about NO.
Seriously Paradox? Some of the custodian upates gave us more for FREE.
Should take into account that it makes MP really unstable aswell. As soon as our mp lobby started using astral planes, desyncs and crashes have skyrocketed, and when we turned it off, the desyncs and crashes stopped (we were playing pure vanilla aswell btw. mods weren't the issue).
I have almost no interest in this DLC thematically, I'm not sure what exactly it's going for or why they couldn't have just been added as a more interesting type of archeology site. And the asking price is fairly absurd for what effectively amounts to some text blurbs and stat modifiers.
No thanks.
multiuniverse + autoexploring = lazy souless 0 design effort. This shouldn't be an expansion in any game, but merely a side feature "because other games have it" (and failed because of it)
I see mostly negative and i know its a good one. People wouldn't be salty if they didnt care.
I try not to by other games. Stellaris is a contender for total personal playtime. 2.9k hours. I think it comes out to 8 hours per dollar (most of that was on my moms old work tower with integrated graphics so that play time is a little skewed). Even on an enimic system i enjoyed and was enthalled the majority of the time.
Look i play yugioh as much as we complain the deals actually pretty sweet. Even our mobile version is pretty good, its literally the game with a global ban list and eveyone has equal access (the paywall is not a problem) ive only payed for a new deck because i was about to spend 100 bucks on singles. Its only a rip off if you dont have the dedication to the game.
And unless you're talking about a popular socialist revolution i dont want to here it.
Good opening meme.
I am buying all stellaris dlcs as I think there are far worse options of games with overpriced dlcs, microtransactions or lackluster gameplay and bugs. Im probably going to be a bit mad at paradox, but ultimately they are not blizzard, Activision, EA or anything else of that matter
honestly, could have been a mod, archeology with a different paintjob is just... flacid
That new species portrait looks fucking horrible. A lot of the new humanoid portraits they been releasing recently are actually disgusting to look at. Wish someone would make a mod to remove them.
I just don't like the theme, I'm obviously going to buy it because I'm the host but most every DLC had a very applicable and wide reaching theme along with generalist features for other empires, the only thing I can see myself using here is the dark matter researchers and I expect more from a stellaris DLC.
Give us another nemesis tier expansion that turns every game of stellaris into even more of a grandiose space opera, give us more types of player based endgame crisis victories, more government types like megacorp, expand more on internal politics and individual dealings so we can track the adventures of space heroes from each of our planets coming together, superpowered, gigantic, or miniature species/individuals who can change up the dynamic and make wacky and memorable stuff happen in the galaxy.
Don't give us a bunch of space magic that just happens to give you resources or effects that already exist in the game, that's lazy nonsense. Do better please, stellaris devs.
I already have all the other dlcs I want so I'll be getting this soon. Thanks for the review!
Honestly I just got it to play tall on a birch world ngl. Worth the money? Prolly not. Looking forward to the narrative bits though.
Mods add a lot of content, wait for this dlc to go on sale.
First Contact, Astral Planes, Galact Paragons = overpriced half baked product.
Me watching the "should you buy it" video while waiting for my payment to be processed
*gigachad music*
Love Stellaris, but I'm certainly not paying £15 for what's on offer here.
It doesn't even work at all for me. Shows up as owned in steam and the launcher and even in the main menu. But shows as not owned within the game. So I can't even get it yet. Is Montu warping reality by saying not yet?
Its more like a Story Pack then... First DLC I did not buy day one then...
I'm not HARD fan and player but I'm still laughing btw
New challange: drink a shor of vodka whenever you hear the sords « astral » and « rift »
I'm a bit disapointed that Astral Rifts are just glorified archeologic sites with branching options, and no new end game crisis
Ive been pouring over the patch notes but havent found it anywhere. Did they change the starbase defense platform count?
I’m not buying a damn thing until they make the game playable past year 50 without severe lag.
If you're picky you might not want to grab it but it gave us a lot of what I wanted and I have gotten lucky with bugs being minimal
Is it just me or is 3.10 even without Astral Planes kind of buggy? I keep seeing bonuses (from leaders or from traditions) not get applied.
It's not just you, the patch is VERY buggy. I heard that PDX outsourced the development, and then the outsourcer outsourced its development. This is the low-bidder hiring low-bidders!
My money vanished into the black hole that is Paradox long before this video came out.
Does the whole "astral" thing seem lazy ? Astral actions wtf
I wouldn't buy something you can get for free online
Researching dark matter? Sounds broken
I don't recommend until they fix the random crashes
Should you buy? Not is if makes your game crash all the time like the others
I plan on getting it around Black Friday when the price should hopefully be cut in half
For new Paradox DLC? Sadly probably not. But a lot of their older DLC maybe.
Not gonna lie, as soon as I saw it I didn't even look at what it was, just bought it >.