No Mods - Only DLCs

[psychoticbob]

Just a quick question for veteran Stellaris people: "Does having ALL available DLCs make Stellaris better/ more fun to play or no?"

I'm looking for answers specific to DLCs only - I don't care about mods - I've never used one and I doubt that I ever will. I'm curious about what changes if any adding the remaining DLCs I do not currently have on playing Stellaris. I can't name the 6-7 DLCs I don't have (Lithoids and the water one are 2 of them) but I know that all but one of them is rated 'mixed/ negative' in the Steam Store.

With Overlord coming next week I expect Paradox will be having a sale on these DLCs and it might be a good time to pick them up depending on the discounts offered - putting them all on Humble Bundle would be FAN-TAS-TIC! I'd love to pick them up for a song like I did the ones I already have. LOL!

I've read the reviews on the ones I don't have and the negatives make it sound like they will break Stellaris with how they corrupt existing files. I haven't read if any of these issues have been fixed with subsequent patches - I hope they have. I'm interested in reading what experiences players that have ALL current DLCs have had WITHOUT using ANY mods whatsoever.

Thank you in advance for all relevant responses to my inquiry.

[crgzero]

I don't have "all" the DLCs, the ones I have I only have because those big fat evil mods I like required them.

Vanilla wise though, I've gotten zero to no use out of them otherwise. Before any of them came out there was a mod that did better with fewer bugs.

As for breaking saves, ANY new update to the game can break your save.

[Shinzor]

I have all the DLC and I will tell you that my friend always looks forward to playing with me and feels like his game is lacking solo with the DLC that he does have, I must also say stellaris has NEVER(imo) been this stable, thanks to the splitting of the team into a DLC focused group and a balance/backlog/updating team that has added a lot of value to existing DLC like plantoids, I also stay away from mods other than shipset mods here and there but not often.
And yeah pretty much every new update you gotta restart or roll back to finish your older save

[Shinzor]

I should also say coming up on 3k hours on Stellaris with most of that mod free I have not regretted buying any of the DLC as each one has added to the game to make it better especially DLC like distance stars and the species packs and the recent changes have only added value and made me more happy about the future of stellaris because let me tell you some of those DLC's have BROKEN the game(when they came out) and some bugs have been left unfixed for far to long till now lol, paradox has learned a lot

[Shinzor]

I would also be happy to try and host a game to give you a try at all the DLC to see how you like it, my connection is not always the best at my new place

[Ryika]

Playing without the DLC is fine, but rather limited. You'll probably run out of things to do pretty quickly, unless you enjoy doing the very same thing over and over again.

Having most or all DLCs opens up a lot of alternative playstyles and expands the game's features quite a bit. The amount of stuff you can do is greatly expanded, and the overall experience is a lot better. Some DLCs are better than others, but in the end, having the full package opens up all the options to choose from, so it's not a bad idea to get it as a package when it's on sale.

I would still look into UI mods though, since the original UI - especially the outliner - is rather wonky, and doesn't make good use of the space that it has available at all.

[Korpah the Dutch Gamer]

Originally posted by psychoticbob:

Just a quick question for veteran Stellaris people: "Does having ALL available DLCs make Stellaris better/ more fun to play or no?"

I'm looking for answers specific to DLCs only - I don't care about mods - I've never used one and I doubt that I ever will. I'm curious about what changes if any adding the remaining DLCs I do not currently have on playing Stellaris. I can't name the 6-7 DLCs I don't have (Lithoids and the water one are 2 of them) but I know that all but one of them is rated 'mixed/ negative' in the Steam Store.

With Overlord coming next week I expect Paradox will be having a sale on these DLCs and it might be a good time to pick them up depending on the discounts offered - putting them all on Humble Bundle would be FAN-TAS-TIC! I'd love to pick them up for a song like I did the ones I already have. LOL!

I've read the reviews on the ones I don't have and the negatives make it sound like they will break Stellaris with how they corrupt existing files. I haven't read if any of these issues have been fixed with subsequent patches - I hope they have. I'm interested in reading what experiences players that have ALL current DLCs have had WITHOUT using ANY mods whatsoever.

Thank you in advance for all relevant responses to my inquiry.

short version: yes it does make stellaris more fun as there is more to do for you and the AI's.

for the race specific ones its only "more" fun if you actually play them or make empires that then can spawn in your games
But i like to have it all played ones (every type of goverment and ethics)
and all of them are fun if you go for it (try fanatic pacifist / xenofile megacorp and become an economic power house, will try this first when the new expansion is here where Mercenaries become a thing <3)

since the custodian team now goes back to all DLC's to allign it with there "standard" aka that a race pack actually gives specific race things instead of just an custom race picture it adds more (which was missing at first) value to the dlc's

i "never" use mods (only used a scaling mod for the ui / a "fix" on the growth per pop which is now a setting) only play vanila with the settings that are available, nearly got all achivements and have roughly 2000+ hours on the clock (2 achivements still elude me will go on the hunt again with the new dlc (expansion) out on 12 of may)
I mostly play solo or with a friend where we together form an federation and form our own goals

[Garatgh Deloi]

The DLC gives more options. Whatever you will find those options fun or not is impossible to say.

[Scyobi_Empire]

Never gonna use mods? Give it half a year...

DLC Stellaris is far better then Vanilla Stellaris

[Creep Gnome]

i can't fathom not wanting to use mods like ui overhaul. do you hate yourself?

[Old Ben]

With over 3500 hours and only the better DLCs, I would never play another game without mods. Only the first couple hundred hours of play time was without mods and the game became extremely boring. I run about 100 mods and thanks to the great modding community we have for Stellaris, they have made the game so much more re-playable over and over again. The only drawback of mods is when there are frequent game updates/patches, some of those affect the mods and you have to wait until the mod authors update them, which can take a few weeks, so many of the simple mods I just update myself in a folder I created for just that purpose. So, just don't out-of-hand limit yourself to only DLCs if you want to truly enjoy the game.

[Grubbs008]

Any game with mods is improved usually waaaay more than the paid DLCs. Why? Because people (modders) put love into their work, where as devs look to squeeze profit from their work.

[Echo]

They're all minor improvements, not really worth the price though they do enhance the game.

[Aethrys]

No DLC is bad, some are better than others. Most of the formerly cosmetic DLCs are now at least flavor packs.