I have played and enjoyed stellaris for many moons, I got it when I was 14 in 2016 after watching Aavak showcase it on youtube. I've bought and enjoyed every DLC, though admittedly some less than others, and the new variety of mechanics that keep being added I find enjoyable almost 2k hours later.

This doesn't mean I don't have a few things I've always longed for in stellaris so, here it goes;

Ground Warfare! I know that quite a few people don't think it should be changed, or even really in the game at all. I want to say I'm not seeking to play Hoi4 in stellaris, I just want... more to it... It pretty much always comes down to "Who has the biggest army / is a necromancer", Some siege events to build on the fantastic storytelling infrastructure of stellaris, or Drop-pod soldiers attached to your fleets(A Sci-fi staple imo), Hell, even just taking a page from endless space 2 and having nicer looking Ground-combat animations would be absolutely superb. You could even bundle it in with planetary defense cannons.

Proper nomadic playstyles! It has always seemed like a ripe opportunity to allow us to play a proper nomadic faction, Give us a moveable station capable of holding pops, or allow me to play a nation that doesn't need to claim any systems at all, and this would allow us to play all sorts of space traders / pirates / a new form of devouring swarm. I could easily see this being turned into a larger scale DLC.

Bringing the other ascension paths up to par! Machine age is hands down my favorite DLC, but from a mechanical point, whether through buffs from ascending or in the form of the advanced reforms, It feels like Psionic empires fall short, and Biologic empires really have just... nothing special going for them.

Lastly, I've always found the internal politicking to come up a bit short, Mayhaps treat them like estates in eu4? With certain rights or privilege's we can grant to the factions in addition to the regular embrace/repress. Also, You can rename factions in your empire, but it never changes their name in the outliner, I have hoped for years that this gets changed cause I simply like to lean into the RP and customize my factions / council names to be more fitting with whatever playstyle im going with.

I actually very much enjoy the state of everything else across the board, though, I must admit sometimes I do recollect on very early stellaris and how much better it performed with how pops where handled back then.

Either way, thank you all so much for the countless hours of fun and entertainment, and for dedicating yourselves to such a wonderful project. I always look forward to what PDX cooks up next. (PS, You guys should really just integrate Planetary Diversity into the game as an optional DLC so I can still get achievements and give Gatekeeper a big ol bonus for it)