Why is it that many people are angry right before the release of a new DLC?

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I've been playing this game long enough to remember when there was total hype before a new patch. This time around seems more like dread.

They went to the well a few too many times with disppointing releases. Burned a lot of goodwill.
Aye, I remember most DLCs for this game were day 1 buys from me and I would take off work on launch day.

This is going to be the third DLC in a row I'm just not going to buy period now.
 
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Game director of EU4 from about 2017 up until late 2019, with a period as game designer and QA before that. Goes by DDRjake on the internet.
Earlier known for making videos where he used various exploits to achieve e.g. world conquest as Ryukyu (back when it wasn't popular).
 
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I have noticed continuous criticism since at least Golden Century. Is it really deserved? Is it a tradition already? I myself was quite critical of some features implemented by Emperor DLC, particularly HRE and Catholicism changes. Is the EU4 public moanful? Do we like to complain too much?
I understand you could be in a new relationship or a job or even bought new stuff...and you find yourself in a position of positivism
but let me remind you the history

almost after every DLC release, there the game becomes broken and people forced to wait the "mega patch" to play it properly not to mention in almost every fuck-up they come to the forums, apologies, etc... then people have to wait months and (in the previous DLC) years for last mistakes to be corrected.

It is an endless cycle, new people and die-hard-fans always accelerate the hype meter and few "reasonable" fans will always ask for caution, while the people who have common sense and the experience know about the cycle will go on and on.

EU4, HOI4, I:R, Stellaris, CK3
Every game is the same.
Paradox doesn't sell a concept, they sell a never ending idea
 
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This.

I remember a few years ago, there was a guy Ixal or sth like that. He was always negative and angry about dev diaries and what was happening. He used to be an unicorn. Forum-goers have become a lot more negative over the past few years.

though tbh, I don't believe that this change is the fault of Jake or Johan. It's just the game that is slowly collapsing under the new content. Though in the latest few dev diaries at least they have been honest about the limitations that they are facing. We just shouldn't expect massive mechanical reworks anymore.
Thats because most DDs get flooded by trained seals who clap on command without realizing what the changes mean and what effect they would have on the game.
I give praise when praise is due, but that has not happened a long time in EU4 because, as you said, it is so massive by now that there is nothing useful left to be added. The last good thing was the rework of the mercenaries. The result was maybe not the best, but a change to the unlimited mercenary swarm was needed. But before Emperor PDX was stuck releasing 3 Button DLCs which did not make the game any better or addressed any of its problems. To cover that up they resorted to publish meme materials like the pirates (which is now getting removed again because even PDX realized it was too silly).

One reason for that is the DLC policy. In general I think it is positive, not splitting the playerbase between DLC owners and core game owners by giving the important stuff for free and only having optional mechanics in the DLC.
But now for EU4 that has become a hindrance because in order to fix bugs (free patch content) PDX has to create optional features for the paid DLC and there is nothing meaningful left to add. So thats how you end up with Expel Minorities and other buttons with at best no meaning or which at worst hurt the game.
 
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I think some people here do not remember how much worse it was. If I remember correctly it was not possible to declare war (or something similar) after the release of certain expansion (RoI?) for CK 2.

And yet people in here were thrilled before each release.

In general quality of QA has risen. It doesn't mean there aren't any issues anymore but it's better now. It's the quality of EU 4 features that fell.

But at the same time Paradox turned into a big company, communication is handled by community managers on Twitter, the forum has been mostly abandoned (just DDs stayed), complaints ignored, and the developer-customer relationship is history.

EU 4 is reaching its end and it's ok. Paradox is trying to make as many expansions as possible and, well, that's also their right, even though there seem to be fewer and fewer things they could offer us.

Therefore the resulting situation is not surprising at all. It's just all about money these days in here and that's perfectly fine but expectations are logically higher and it's up to Paradox to deal with it.
 
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Personally, I think the main problem with the dlc the last few years is partly creative bankruptcy, ie they can't think of anything meaningful and cheap to add to the game, and budget constraints. Programming new features that are more than editing scripts and reusing existing code for "fresh" new buttons is expensive, while hiring interns that make meme-y mission trees, national ideas and province modifiers (like wonders) is cheap. They even relocated the team to Spain in order to, I assume, save money and make the game even cheaper.
 
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Personally, I think the main problem with the dlc the last few years is partly creative bankruptcy, ie they can't think of anything meaningful and cheap to add to the game, and budget constraints. Programming new features that are more than editing scripts and reusing existing code for "fresh" new buttons is expensive, while hiring interns that make meme-y mission trees, national ideas and province modifiers (like wonders) is cheap. They even relocated the team to Spain in order to, I assume, save money and make the game even cheaper.
Mission trees are a very good example of this.

They are easy to make and are used to fill out DLCs in place of more complex content. With them you can also cheap out on the AI which does not have to analyse the current situation and make its own plans, but just has to follow the mission tree and all its permanent claims. Thats why they pop up in many PDX games even though they railroad nations and cause unbalance thanks to the mission tree power creep.
 
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Well I see this thread has run its course. and has fallen to bile opinion and assumption based on a few posts I've erased based on their inability to follow forum rules.

I realize the DLC pattern isn't for everyone, and that is fine, however please remember to play nice
 
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My view was meant to be more generic for most games and games forums out there - it's a fact for most forums on any topic, the loudest people are those that complain because it's human nature to stand up to complain about something that is wrong, rather than stand up to say 'hello chaps, today I wanted to tell you that I still enjoy the game'. The problem (let's say debt spiral) hasn't gone away, and so you can justifiably come back once a week and mention it, as well as in 'that topic about trade' because it's in some way related to money and therefore the debt spiral is also ok to mention here too. No-one comes back weekly to re-praise the same game they are still enjoying, so that's why the forums become the way they are - it's completely natural and there's no issue with it, other than the sad fact those that enjoy the game give up coming on the forums just to see/hear the same problems being mentioned and be put down for being up Paradox's arse for daring to say they enjoy the game and don't think 'topic xyz' is entirely justified for 'insert facts here'.

I just checked 50 negative reviews of emperor and 42 of them mentioned debt spiraling. It's people that go and down vote an entire dlc for a single problem that isn't actually about the expansion/dlc. This is backing up what i'm talking about.

I am not saying there aren't problems, or that what they are saying isn't justified, I am saying it's human nature / society today to complain about something you don't like much more than to say what you do like (without being prompted) - the stats there again only show a few hundred people out of thousands playing the game - it's still a small sample and i'm surprised how many are still positive.

Finally - a lot of DLC's were downvoted after the first few purely for being 'another dlc cash grab' - £x for a dlc was considered too much by some people and so it was downvoted due to cost, not content. Noone was up-voting the game purely because they were ok with buying it for the price, so again, people that have an issue are more likely to downvote/voice their complaint than someone is to upvote/voice their support of something if not prompted, and so the numbers are skewed and a small sample size to start with.

p.s - 'undervaluing their opinion based on the false grounds they are of the minority' ??? I literally said in what you quoted that their negativity may be justified and i'm saying it again here - The value of their opinion is identical to the value of the opinion of those that are content with the game.
I won't argue against that negativity bias people tend to have on forums and steam reviews, but to disregard them seems like a mistake to me.
Sure, they don't tell the whole story, but you can certainly draw something from them.
When dealing with a biased environment, you have to set the scale accordingly, in this case we can compare EU4 with its peers to get an idea of the situation.

From steam reviews, it was clearly presented in this thread how older DLCs and DLCs from other PDS games are significantly better reviewed.
The "cash grab" complaint cannot be blamed here, all PDX games have suffered from that for more than half a decade now.
And the AI debt ones are quite valid for the topic at hand, even if they aren't valid for the DLC itself, they are representative of the dissatisfaction with the current state of the game overall, which is exactly what we are discussing here.

As for the forums, I frequent every single one of them except for Stellaris, and I can very well say that the negativity here is on a league of its own.
 
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I won't argue against that negativity bias people tend to have on forums and steam reviews, but to disregard them seems like a mistake to me.
Sure, they don't tell the whole story, but you can certainly draw something from them.
When dealing with a biased environment, you have to set the scale accordingly, in this case we can compare EU4 with its peers to get an idea of the situation.

From steam reviews, it was clearly presented in this thread how older DLCs and DLCs from other PDS games are significantly better reviewed.
The "cash grab" complaint cannot be blamed here, all PDX games have suffered from that for more than half a decade now.
And the AI debt ones are quite valid for the topic at hand, even if they aren't valid for the DLC itself, they are representative of the dissatisfaction with the current state of the game overall, which is exactly what we are discussing here.

As for the forums, I frequent every single one of them except for Stellaris, and I can very well say that the negativity here is on a league of its own.
I'd say much of it is rightly earned by Paradox what with the horrible release that was Emperor. And that though the negative feedback loop has gotten quite stale, it's hard for it to change when there's not much to be hyped about.

For Odin's sake, they want to add in a money sink +15% admin efficiency wonder. It's like the absolutely broken Spanish +1 artillery fire all over again.
 
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Mission trees are a very good example of this.

They are easy to make and are used to fill out DLCs in place of more complex content. With them you can also cheap out on the AI which does not have to analyse the current situation and make its own plans, but just has to follow the mission tree and all its permanent claims. Thats why they pop up in many PDX games even though they railroad nations and cause unbalance thanks to the mission tree power creep.

EU4 development steered itself into this situation a long time ago and now can't find the way out. Mission trees became a power creep that just gets bigger and bigger. Russia mission tree had no PU, England had 1, Castille got 3 +iberian wedding. Now mission trees are having sooo many permanent modifiers that without admin efficiency +5% it is not even interesting. There is a lot more formable nations that you can switch, get the perma benefit and then switch to another one making it even worse. I tried a run to get diplo annex reduction 90% and it wasn't even hard to archive after that I quit that game as there is no challenge anymore.
Government went the same way, it started with the Ottoman, Tsardom and Prussia which were powerful but not overpowered. Now Austria gets +2 dip, Mameluk +2 admin and let's not forget the Mughal Borg government.

This is impacting of course the current and every future DLC. A monument giving 5% admin efficiency is not even worth it, it has to be at least 15%. Every DLC has to add more mission tree, formable nation, perma bonus otherwise the region will not be able to compete. Many people are asking a rework for Scandinavia even though it was done before but as they have the standard mission tree they are not good enough even with their very strong idea set.

This is behind my negative feeling around the new DLCs since Golden Century. It is like eating the 5th bag of chips, you really like it but it is just too much of the same thing. There is now only one optimal way of playin EU4 and that is switch nation as many time as you can and maximize your overpowered mission tree bonus.
 
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I remember when Rule Britannia came out and everyone was talking about how the new British mission tree was very extensive and powerful.
But now compare that tree to Castille or Austria....
 
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Mission trees are a very good example of this.

They are easy to make and are used to fill out DLCs in place of more complex content. With them you can also cheap out on the AI which does not have to analyse the current situation and make its own plans, but just has to follow the mission tree and all its permanent claims. Thats why they pop up in many PDX games even though they railroad nations and cause unbalance thanks to the mission tree power creep.
Yes, from the beginning I hated mission trees, because they railroad countries. When they don't give countries useless bonuses that since they aren't permanent you never know when to take them, they give insane long term bonuses like unwarranted PUs based on real history, but often absolutely unrealistic in the context of the game's mechanics.

What I'd like to have in EUIV is realism, which isn't the same thing as historical accuracy. I would like that B flows logically from A, not that some mechanic gives bonuses for the lulz.
 
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Eh, its the same for all rising gamedevelopers/publishers.

They start small, they are highly motivated and make 1-2 games they are passionate about. Their prime concern is to make a game their small-but-loyal playerbase will enjoy. The average player can come to the forums and be a part of it - even communicate directly with the devs on those very forums.

Then they start getting popular. An influx of money and new fans. The project list starts growing. The outside forces, like the Twitter people and the gaming world at large is slowly learning of your existence. The devs now also have to think of things that can keep the new players interested without investing a lot of time into reading game manuals and guides, but still closely listening to the old guard. The old guard grumbles sometimes from all the stuff made to appeal to newer players, but still enjoy the games alot.

Then they get popular and a part of the gaming mainstream. The devs are much less active on the forums because of the increased workload. Besides the games that started the company's ascent, there are also published games and an expanded list of own titles - no time to make everyone happy, while the overwhelming majority of players is now the "average gamer", brought to the company's produce by their successful PR practices. The average gamer did not play strategy games before and is unaccustomed to the challenge a good strategy game can provide. Not listening to those leads to the loss of revenue, so the new content is mostly made for them - easy to play, easy to win, colorful and memey, taking from the game's initial feel and spirit (also switching design focus mid-development leading to the dilution of the feeling of the game, technical debt, game slowly collapsing under its own weight due to tons upon tons of unconnected mechanics and so on).
I don't actually think it is bad, or that "new fans" are wrong, i just wonder if it is possible to become a large and well-known game company that makes strategy games without sacrificing difficulity, older fans and the initial vision, whatever it was. I also am not sure whether my post fits this thread, but eh, here it is.

With this said, it is rather logical, that the older players may feel grumpy and abandoned, missing the "good times", when both the game and the forums were better. Its also logical that some players don't like when old problems of the game only seem to get more severe. Hell, even i am somewhat salty now, despite being an active proponent of Pdx's dlc policy and still liking their games.

I don't actually think it is bad, or that "new fans" are wrong, i just wonder if it is possible to become a large and well-known game company that makes strategy games without sacrificing difficulity, older fans and the initial vision, whatever it was. I also am not sure whether my post fits this thread, but eh, here it is.
 
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Eh, its the same for all rising gamedevelopers/publishers.

They start small, they are highly motivated and make 1-2 games they are passionate about. Their prime concern is to make a game their small-but-loyal playerbase will enjoy. The average player can come to the forums and be a part of it - even communicate directly with the devs on those very forums.

Then they start getting popular. An influx of money and new fans. The project list starts growing. The outside forces, like the Twitter people and the gaming world at large is slowly learning of your existence. The devs now also have to think of things that can keep the new players interested without investing a lot of time into reading game manuals and guides, but still closely listening to the old guard. The old guard grumbles sometimes from all the stuff made to appeal to newer players, but still enjoy the games alot.

Then they get popular and a part of the gaming mainstream. The devs are much less active on the forums because of the increased workload. Besides the games that started the company's ascent, there are also published games and an expanded list of own titles - no time to make everyone happy, while the overwhelming majority of players is now the "average gamer", brought to the company's produce by their successful PR practices. The average gamer did not play strategy games before and is unaccustomed to the challenge a good strategy game can provide. Not listening to those leads to the loss of revenue, so the new content is mostly made for them - easy to play, easy to win, colorful and memey, taking from the game's initial feel and spirit (also switching design focus mid-development leading to the dilution of the feeling of the game, technical debt, game slowly collapsing under its own weight due to tons upon tons of unconnected mechanics and so on).
I don't actually think it is bad, or that "new fans" are wrong, i just wonder if it is possible to become a large and well-known game company that makes strategy games without sacrificing difficulity, older fans and the initial vision, whatever it was. I also am not sure whether my post fits this thread, but eh, here it is.

With this said, it is rather logical, that the older players may feel grumpy and abandoned, missing the "good times", when both the game and the forums were better. Its also logical that some players don't like when old problems of the game only seem to get more severe. Hell, even i am somewhat salty now, despite being an active proponent of Pdx's dlc policy and still liking their games.

I don't actually think it is bad, or that "new fans" are wrong, i just wonder if it is possible to become a large and well-known game company that makes strategy games without sacrificing difficulity, older fans and the initial vision, whatever it was. I also am not sure whether my post fits this thread, but eh, here it is.
I agree with everything except that you totally can blame the new fans for making the game worse, especially the kind who cry and whine every time their easy mode map painting is threatened.
 
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