How the hell is this "expansion" worth $20?

[CacoSteven]

I am genuinely baffled by how Paradox is able to keep doing this. This is a $5-10 DLC pack at most. All you're getting is some new ship models, a few new graphics, and some new songs. If I recall it's only 32mb, most of which is probably music.

Stellaris isn't the only game like this. Looking at other Paradox titles, such as CK2, all of the DLC combined would cost you like $250 - 350 while the base game was probably $40 on release.

This seems to be a running theme for Paradox and they've conditioned and suckered their fanbase into accepting it. Release a game in a barebones, skeleton beta state. Spend the next few years actually making it look like a complete and thought-out product. All the while pump out over-priced piecemeal DLC that eventually totals far and beyond what the game originally cost.

Sure, one could argue "But you don't have to buy the DLC, it's optional; duh silly". Well, yeah, but then you're left with skin and bone of a game because they trim all the fat and muscle for their DLC. They even said "screw it" and carved out the ascension perks from Utopia and made it part of the base game. Hah! Utopia buyers, suckers!

Then there's my favorite argument: "we must buy their DLC to support the company!" Hah, right, and once upon a time game dev companies used to release full, complete products in cardboard boxes. Oh those fairytales our parents tell us!

/end of nerd rant

[Ogami]

Yeah, its the first expansion i skipped. Most of the changes are included with the free 2.0 update and the things the DLC offers ( marauder hordes and planet killer weapons) are the two things i hate most in 4x games. So a skip for me.
2.0 is still great though.

[Taddl]

With paradox its pretty much that you also pay for the content that everyone gets for free.

And yes if you only see the content in the apocalypse dlc its way to expensive especially compared to utopia.

[Army Pea]

Thats the price.

[Apeironic_Entelechy]

Because people can have different opinions than yourself.

Apocalypse includes
-Marauders: A new neutral faction of raiders who can form a midgame crisis and shakeup the galaxy.
-Unity Ambitions: A way to spend unity once you've bought all of the traditions.
-New Advanced Civics: From the barbaric despoilers who are more or less playable maurauders to the civics for starting on tomb or gaia worlds, they can allow for different starting conditions/playstyles than the norm.
-New Ascension Perks: From the ability to stop enemy's from scanning your debris to the ability to raid the enemy for slaves.
-Titans: Large capital class ships excellent for taking down hardened targets.
-Planet destroyers: Ships with the ability to take an enemy planet out of play, one way or another.


Now obviously there's nothing wrong with looking at these features and deciding that you'd rather wait for a sale, but acting as if people who disagree are just suckers is frankly obnoxious. We all have different priotities and personally I think the features offered is worth the price.

Originally posted by Taddl:

With paradox its pretty much that you also pay for the content that everyone gets for free.

And yes if you only see the content in the apocalypse dlc its way to expensive especially compared to utopia.

Are you kidding me? We literally just got a massive free update, get that "we pay what everyone else gets for free" nonsense out of here.

[Froz]

I mean, you're first saying that Apocalypse has nothing in it, then a couple paragraphs later you're saying the game is nothing without it.

There are points in there that are bordering on being valid, except you're just using them to justify venting about not being able to afford/not being willing to buy the DLC even though you still want its contents. I feel like just saying "this is too expensive for me" is better, more concise, and more constructive feedback than this whole thing you typed up instead.

[Taddl]

Originally posted by Fourthspartan56:

Are you kidding me? We literally just got a massive free update, get that "we pay what everyone else gets for free" nonsense out of here.

Of course the DLC finances the free updates. There would be no 2.0 if there was no dlc.

[Red Dox]

The DLC is already offered for around $13
https://isthereanydeal.com/search/?q=stellaris+apocalypse#/page:game/info?plain=stellarisapocalypse
and nobody is forcing you to buy. You can also wait for summersale 2019 if you think the value offered is only worth $5.

The funny part is how you claim that the game is barebones without DLC, then jump to the Ascension perks added with the free patch and from there claim that buying the Utopia DLC offers nothing and people got sucker bunched for buying it. I get that you want to make the point how devious the devs are, but your arguments there are really drifting apart since either the game is barebones without DLC, or we get tons of stuff for free with patches including previous DLC stuff. I doubt it can be both.

[Apeironic_Entelechy]

Originally posted by Taddl:

Originally posted by Fourthspartan56:

Are you kidding me? We literally just got a massive free update, get that "we pay what everyone else gets for free" nonsense out of here.

Of course the DLC finances the free updates. There would be no 2.0 if there was no dlc.

And that's not my point, whining that we have to pay for something when we get a massive free update is repugant.

It's one thing to dislike a price offered it's quite another to dislike the existence of paid content.

[Taddl]

Originally posted by Fourthspartan56:

And that's not my point, whining that we have to pay for something when we get a massive free update is repugant.

It's one thing to dislike a price offered it's quite another to dislike the existence of paid content.

But I only said that by purchasing the dlc you also fund the stuff in the free patches, which is why it seems that there is not a lot of content for the price.

Where the hell did I whine about the price or complain about paid content?

[CacoSteven]

Originally posted by Fourthspartan56:

Because people can have different opinions than yourself.

Apocalypse includes
-Marauders: A new neutral faction of raiders who can form a midgame crisis and shakeup the galaxy.
-Unity Ambitions: A way to spend unity once you've bought all of the traditions.
-New Advanced Civics: From the barbaric despoilers who are more or less playable maurauders to the civics for starting on tomb or gaia worlds, they can allow for different starting conditions/playstyles than the norm.
-New Ascension Perks: From the ability to stop enemy's from scanning your debris to the ability to raid the enemy for slaves.
-Titans: Large capital class ships excellent for taking down hardened targets.
-Planet destroyers: Ships with the ability to take an enemy planet out of play, one way or another.

Some of these features are so trivial that other games, such as Civilization, had them implemented from the get-go.

-Unity: aka culture, basically ripped off from Civ 5.
-New Ascension perks: already a feature of another expansion.
-Marauders: aka Raging Barbarians, something which should've been a part of the original game to begin with to keep the galaxy interesting. But now it seems we must pay to make the mid-late game more interesting, something everyone has complained about since day one of release.
-Unity Ambitions: again, should've been part of an expansion that already exists.

You're really just getting some new ship models and the ability to break planets.

"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it." - Publilius Syrus

Indeed, Paradox, indeed.

Are you kidding me? We literally just got a massive free update, get that "we pay what everyone else gets for free" nonsense out of here.

What you call a massive free update is what I call a step closer to looking like a complete product with a hint of vision and direction behind it. These kinds of updates have been a long time coming, if anything, so nothing to boast about.

[mcsproot]

Originally posted by Fourthspartan56:

Because people can have different opinions than yourself.

Apocalypse includes
-Marauders: A new neutral faction of raiders who can form a midgame crisis and shakeup the galaxy.
-Unity Ambitions: A way to spend unity once you've bought all of the traditions.
-New Advanced Civics: From the barbaric despoilers who are more or less playable maurauders to the civics for starting on tomb or gaia worlds, they can allow for different starting conditions/playstyles than the norm.
-New Ascension Perks: From the ability to stop enemy's from scanning your debris to the ability to raid the enemy for slaves.
-Titans: Large capital class ships excellent for taking down hardened targets.
-Planet destroyers: Ships with the ability to take an enemy planet out of play, one way or another.


Now obviously there's nothing wrong with looking at these features and deciding that you'd rather wait for a sale, but acting as if people who disagree are just suckers is frankly obnoxious. We all have different priotities and personally I think the features offered is worth the price.

Originally posted by Taddl:

With paradox its pretty much that you also pay for the content that everyone gets for free.

And yes if you only see the content in the apocalypse dlc its way to expensive especially compared to utopia.

Are you kidding me? We literally just got a massive free update, get that "we pay what everyone else gets for free" nonsense out of here.

Shh don't confuse the paradox bashers with facts!

[Carnwulf]

Of cause it is overpriced. Thats why i wait with buying and you should too. Everything they offer ist massivly overpriced.

But if you look into this forums then you will find enough fanboyzombies accepting and even defending it. Well if i were paradox i too would enjoy those people paying and defending my ♥♥♥♥ and putting my Mini DLC on the topseller list and keep my mouth shut.

[Army Pea]

Originally posted by Carnwulf:

Of cause it is overpriced. Thats why i wait with buying and you should too. Everything they offer ist massivly overpriced.

But if you look into this forums then you will find enough fanboyzombies accepting and even defending it. Well if i were paradox i too would enjoy those people paying and defending my ♥♥♥♥ and putting my Mini DLC on the topseller list and keep my mouth shut.

Apparently fan boys pay extra money for DLC just to upset haters.

Awesome

[Tikigod]

Apocalypse was shaping up to be only a little offering the moment Paradox started taking things out of what really should have been vanilla additions and using it to pad out the expansion. (Like adding a much needed larger but focused ship class meant to counter Battleships and then made it an expansion locked addition)

It is a bit of a shame that they didn't adjust the price of Apocalypse to reflect the decrease in offerings in the expansion, but then that's not how Paradox work.... heck if you go on their statement to the unannounced price hikes and decision to then undo the price hikes, even listening to customer feedback isn't how they work when it comes to pricing and business models.

In the their statement they felt strongly compelled to make it clear the decision to undo the price changes had absolutely nothing to do with 'Giving in to the community'. But rather they talked to people whos opinion they actually cared about and they said the sudden price increases on all existing and future DLC with no prior statement was a bad call.... and that it should be made clear, it in no way indicated that Paradox had caved in to "community pressure".... they needed to be clear the negative reactions across the community had no part in Paradox making decisions.

[Drox]

Originally posted by Carnwulf:

Of cause it is overpriced. Thats why i wait with buying and you should too. Everything they offer ist massivly overpriced.

But if you look into this forums then you will find enough fanboyzombies accepting and even defending it. Well if i were paradox i too would enjoy those people paying and defending my ♥♥♥♥ and putting my Mini DLC on the topseller list and keep my mouth shut.

People paying money for things they love and enjoy? Shocking revelations