Is Overlord really as bad as the reviews say?

[Frostiken]

Everyone is saying that basically this DLC will ruin your game, and turns it into a single path to victory forward via vassalizing everything and if you don't do it, the AI will, every single time. It's thus far one of the worst-reviewed DLCs released.

Have they indicated at all that they eve know what the problem is?

[Cinnamoon_dragon]

Absolutely not, I think the main problem with this DLC is that it could be more of a patch to the game and people are unhappy with the value for money and the amount of new content.
However, the game is much more interesting with all the DLCs than without them.

[ScreamCon]

Overlord added in more vassals when it was released.
The negative aspect is that it turns into vassal and federation meta late game.
The positive aspect is that vassals give you loads of goodies. And you get a new megastructure.

Currently there isn't really any effective ways to destroy federations and vassalating empires. This is the reason its lame if any. In particular this isn't the worst thing, but if ONE empire in that federation makes you rival the rest tend to follow suit. And then your chance of getting into said alliance is gone.

This is a particular flaw I hate about federations. You could say it isn't a flaw but if I have to sacrifice my game ensuring my alliance is the biggest due to this, its not really a good thing. Vassalation is the same way. The overlord gets ever more resource to the point you can't stop him. And you won't be strong enough to take on all the vassals and the overlord.

This means you end up having to lose to get vassalated in order to get your new overlord to turn against his own members in the federation so you can get in. Perhaps thats just a negative outlook as it is possible to be vassal and pay little tribute.

The game is too much like on-off extreme in this way

[pete3great]

Stellaris is one of those games where you absolutely cannot trust the Steam reviews.

[Razorblade]

Considering the new vassal mechanics were added in the free patch released alongside Overlord, it's completely irrelevant whether you buy Overlord or not.

Regardless, it hasn't really changed the political meta at all. Before the patch, the late game was dominated by a few huge federations. Now it is instead dominated by a mix of a couple of large Overlords and a couple of large federations. At the end of the day, the endgame still centralizes into large political blocs, which is intended behavior, whether it's through vassalization or federation.

[EleventhStar]

Originally posted by Frostiken:

Everyone is saying that basically this DLC will ruin your game, and turns it into a single path to victory forward via vassalizing everything and if you don't do it, the AI will, every single time. It's thus far one of the worst-reviewed DLCs released.

Have they indicated at all that they eve know what the problem is?

every patch kinda does that with w/e system it updates. (kinda also how live service games meta works.)

but the AI made galaxy spanning defense pacts before this patch and it will long after, so not much has really changed in that regard. fanatic purifiers will also sill take over the map if you let them.

generally unless you want to min/max or play at your skill cap, i wouldn't worry about it and just do w/e you want to do.

[Teyloune]

Overlord is great, having Vassals or even playing as a Vassal has become really fun since it came out. Before that, if you were Vassalized the game was kind of just over for you, with no way of escaping the hell you were trapped in. Overlord is one of the best DLCs that they released.

[Cookie Monster]

Practically none of the DLCs in any Paradox game are as bad as reviews say. Most reviews boil down to "It's not worth the cost" or "it should have been free". I'm not going to argue that this isn't the case often but the DLC objectively make the game better regardless of whether it's overpriced or not. Reviews also quickly become outdated in a game that is constantly being developed. You can't trust reviews when they are outdated.

[Ragnarr Loðbrók]

Originally posted by pete3great:

Stellaris is one of those games where you absolutely cannot trust the Steam reviews.

Steam reviews can't be trusted in General.
Cause of the average mainstream steam user.
Only a very few can be taken serious

[sm303030]

I've stopped playing it for a while until they fix it. My last 6 games were all late game atrocities where the AI is able to Fed/vassal around 70-80% of a 1000 system map. Wither you are joining them early, or don't. The game turns into a mega structure building game, every single time. The game mostly plays itself at that point.

The wars at the end,if your not fed with them, is simply trying to peel off their vassals. They last 5-6 hours each and ultimately are pointless. Its too big to outright defeat due to the forced end to the war to a flawed exhaustion mechanic, it just gives them back their vassals, regardless if your winning. (if your able to fight them at all) So, at best, the game becomes a endless series of wars to claim a extremely small slice of territory of a fed member, cause you can't take a vassals area. Rinse and repeat 20+ times.

I had one game where i had 43 actual planets, 8 full ring worlds. A fleet command strength of 8k. something like 10 million fleet strength. But was out numbered 3.5-4 to 1 with the fed who literately owned everything else on the map. With the way the AI doom stacks fleets, Games over at that point. YAY a endless sim game!

The anger level at this state of game play stems from this kind crap alone. If you spend 20+ hours to get to a stale end game phase, with few ways to play the game to conclusion. Its going to turn off a lot of players. The game is based off endless ways to play it from the start. But it doesn't end that way anymore.

[EleventhStar]

Originally posted by Ragnarr Loðbrók:

Originally posted by pete3great:

Stellaris is one of those games where you absolutely cannot trust the Steam reviews.

Steam reviews can't be trusted in General.
Cause of the average mainstream steam user.
Only a very few can be taken serious

ofcourse individual reviews aren't worth much, unless you are looking for specific answers to specific questions.

but if the aggregate score is below 75% orso, there is something wrong with the game guaranteed.

DLC reviews are bit harder to judge, since you have to go out of your way to review those.

[pete3great]

Originally posted by EleventhStar:

Originally posted by Ragnarr Loðbrók:

Steam reviews can't be trusted in General.
Cause of the average mainstream steam user.
Only a very few can be taken serious

ofcourse individual reviews aren't worth much, unless you are looking for specific answers to specific questions.

but if the aggregate score is below 75% orso, there is something wrong with the game guaranteed.

DLC reviews are bit harder to judge, since you have to go out of your way to review those.

So, when the Chinese brigade a game because they're mad there's no official Chinese translation, then that means the game is bad? Or when a group of people are mad about the creator's politics, or that a game is brigaded by bigots because there's a single minority character, etc etc.

[EleventhStar]

Originally posted by pete3great:

So, when the Chinese brigade a game because they're mad there's no official Chinese translation, then that means the game is bad? Or when a group of people are mad about the creator's politics, or that a game is brigaded by bigots because there's a single minority character, etc etc.

a game not being translated into your language is a valid reason to not like it. that is the biggest power of reviews for consumers: if enough of us are unhappy with the product we can force change.

all that politics stuff gets removed by steam moderation nowadays. (arguably too aggressively, but that's in line with the purpose of the reviews.)

[HappySack]

I mean if you bothered to read the majority of the negative reviews near release they either complain about white people being removed, things people don't like about the newest patch that's unrelated to the DLC or how unpolished the DLC is (despite hotfixes that come days later and address the issues) and stuff like this happens with almost every DLC.

[MP]

To people complaining DLC changes the meta: why is that a bad thing?

[EleventhStar]

Originally posted by HappySack:

I mean if you bothered to read the majority of the negative reviews near release they either complain about white people being removed,

and the company put that feature back in didnt they?

things people don't like about the newest patch that's unrelated to the DLC

that's what reviews are for, to say if you like/don't like something. nobody cares about details like if its the patch or the DLC, only if they like their current experience or not.

or how unpolished the DLC is (despite hotfixes that come days later and address the issues)

again, mission accomplished for people who leave a negative review. their concern was addressed. you really shouldn't be happy to buy broken stuff and then hoping it'll get fixed on a later date.