[Megathread] Leviathan Release Problems

[Borgratz]

So there is this super easy, barely an inconvenience method to avoid any problems with paradox products.

You dont preoder. You visit the forum on patchday. If its a shitstorm, you wait for the third patch until you visit the forum again and find the "is it good yet?" thread. If it's people sharing their cool new empires or complaining that aragon/spain/space spain hasnt been buffed enough you see if you like the adverticed features and buy it. You play the game until that one thing that always makes you quit but is to kaput to ever be fixed makes you quit ... usually 30 hours into your game. You go play something else until the next DLC comes out.


(This isnt really a defense for the way paradox works, it's just a really good way to be a happy person playing paradox games. Just sharing it in case someone here doesn't actually enjoy shitstorming and is looking for a way to enjoy paradox despite it's flaws)

 

[Delpheus]

Leviathan has been a year of "work" of an entire dev team. This release doesn't make any sense, something bad is going on in the company.

Does not bode well for paradox's future

 

[Quget]

What's going on.

Well I gave it a positive review. I have had only one issue that the game keeps crashing at a certain day in my save game so I reported that.
Played a different nation and it was still fun didn't see anything insane in that game either.

I played as a nation in Australia it is 1600 and I am still behind europeans which sounds fair.
I played in a nation in Fiji with the focus to have only 1 state, stealing development from my vassels and tributaries \o/

So yea, some people have fun and didn't notice any issues that others have found.
That crash issue that I have, it is annoying but it is not something that makes it negative for me

 

[Xetfield]

Ayutthaya not getting Siam formable at all without the DLC, since their missions (along with other SEA majors) are locked behind the DLC. Totally legitimate to have a work in progress line in the official patch release!! (also, look at that file name, classic "portugese" move).

I’m trying to play as Ayutthaya right now with DLC and there is no decision to form Siam as well.

 

[Tue_p3]

Now, really, I get that its not the end of the world, but really, a purchase, whether its a game or a 2 ton vehicle, are an act of trust. The purchaser trusts that the product will be what they say it will be, and will be working as designed, the seller trusts that the buyer is giving them actual funds for the value of their product. A broken car is more dangerous, but a game that is broken is no less a breach of trust. At the least, the seller needs to expect that that trust is damaged, and try to repair it if they expect to be entrusted with funds again. Its not "legally owed" no, but a respectable company should respond with accountability, or no one will trust them anymore.

I think a respectable company respond by taking responsibility to either fix the product or admit they can't to the satisfaction of the customer and refund. That's different than OP suggest.

 

[Shogun96]

Shameless unfinished mess of a cash grab. Sad

 

[Argandios]

As I have not been able to find bug report forum this time (I did for other DLCs), let's go here.

Starting as Castile (trying to get my 'conquer the world' once and for all) we usually have 3 countries which rivals us, chosen between France, Aragon, England, Burgundy and Morocco. When I tried to begin a new game, now I get one or, at most, two rivals chosen always between Venice, Mamlucks and Morocco, nothing more. Also, before DLC, I could usually rival France, Portugal, England, Aragon, Morocco, or Burgundy, after DLC, neither France nor Portugal shows up for me to rival them, ever. I have created about 20 games to test this.

So, yes, looks like the rivalry system is also broken (at least for Castile)

 

[Shogun96]

I'm not sure if QA is actually to blame in this case. I've that feeling that a certain Johan has already forseen today's shitstorm.

My feeling is Johan knew this was going to be a mess and tried to to some damage control before release

 

[Sundacz]

Maybe you are really enjoying paying for unfinished and bugged things, but most people don't. We pay for the product, so we have the right to demand a certain quality.

 

[KubiG37]

Lol I came here for the sole reason of checking the latest EU IV DLC reviews on steam (super negative) and immediately I knew I must go check the forum!
Was not disappointed!

 

[Sundacz]

 

[Atomcreator]

Best thing, if unhappy, is to refund it, or, even better, read others reactions and don't buy it. The bottom line is now the only thing that PDX seem to care about considering the hefty price of the DLC's and the poor amount of content given for that money. You can see I've been around for a long time, I have all EU4 DLC's. But I'm sure as hell not buying this one.

 

[Sfan]

Took me time to spot it: that's the ruler name, localization missing.

 

[kkeiper1103]

I’m sure that these bugs will all be fixed. I’m not concerned about that, I’m sure the team is hard at work.

What I would like though is a frank and honest assessment from Johan on how this happened, and clear and non-abstract ways that he’s making sure it doesn’t happen again. Now that Emperor and Leviathan have both released in unplayable states with fundamental features not functional and placeholder art, I think we deserve an apology and dev diary on what concrete things the team is doing to ensure better outcomes.

I don’t want platitudes and abstract ‘game dev is hard’. When Jake was in charge the dlcs did not release in this state. I don’t want ‘but pandemic’ because Emperor released in this state before the pandemic. What is going on over there Johan? Give us a straight answer.

The problem is that their directors have a serious problem with "ooh shiny".

Golden Century was for Iberia, so the logical conclusion is to add... PIRATES. Seriously. They didn't touch Portugal at all, but added a ton of code for pirates. WHAT?
Leviathan is to focus on South East Asia, so, oh I knoW! Let's reWOrk COLONIZATION IN THE NEW WORLD. Because Natives in North America cared about Indonesia during that time period and it had such an effect on the continent. \s

 

[Battlex]

Hey! I bought the new DLC and launched the game but i cant even play since theres no multiplayer, when i go to singleplayer it says i have no owned DLC's even tho i have all of them! i tried everytrhing from unistalling the game to clearing cache. Anybody had the same issue?
I literally gave them $20 for them to screw up my game!
Thanks Paradox <3

Is it enabled in the launcher?

 

[Triplebassist]

The problem is that their directors have a serious problem with "ooh shiny".

Golden Century was for Iberia, so the logical conclusion is to add... PIRATES. Seriously. They didn't touch Portugal at all, but added a ton of code for pirates. WHAT?
Leviathan is to focus on South East Asia, so, oh I knoW! Let's reWOrk COLONIZATION IN THE NEW WORLD. Because Natives in North America cared about Indonesia during that time period and it had such an effect on the continent. \s

That's less a problem with being distracted and more a function of the fact that mechanics that affect gameplay around the world are more likely to drive sales than Indonesia only mechanics. That was Third Rome's problem: people who didn't want to play in Eastern Europe much saw it as worthless to them.

 

[KubiG37]

And you know what is even better variant of a customer (for all of us in the end) ? NOT being a paying customer if you're not satisfied with the products.
Wait a while, check the reviews - it's terrible - I'm not buying it, not unless they fix it. Would do miracles to product quality if more people were thinking like that when hovering over the "BUY NOW" buttons.

 

[Mrkew]

I would react with a Haha, but it's not funny. It's sad.

 

[Atomcreator]

If it was just bugs I'd honestly be annoyed, but nowhere near that. That's the underlying design choices that worry me. Half the DLC is favors and centralize development, and if you want to have an enjoyable game you should intentionally not use them, or else you'll have twice the income and FL you used to have in previous patches simply by using the mechanics you purchased, while the AI can't use them at all.

Played 20 years, my capital has 74 development and I asked over 1000 ducats, and I'm not even trying to minmax and to abuse the system. No AI seemingly did anything with those mechanics. It's like the old estate interactions that the AI was not using giving you free tech lead over them early game, just a lot worse. If you want to have a moderately challenging game, you have to not use the sold mechanics.

God, this sounds dreadful. I truely hate it when they just buff the player ludicrously and the AI then has no idea how to use the new mechanics. I would much prefer it if they made the game more of a challenge by making things harder.
Why do PDX always release mechanics that the AI has no idea how to use ??
SO BAD.

 

[LeSingeAffame]

Interesting point about the pandemic, I just thought, maybe that had something to do with the poor quality of the DLC... I know my office has been severely limited due to the lack of coordination and communication you get from being at the same location. I think this is a likely factor now that I think about it.

We're over a year in the pandemic, the correct move would have been to greatly reduce the scope of the expansion (why the hell is it an expansion anyway and not a smaller flavor pack? Especially since Pdx Tinto is a new studio??) and/or to delay the release by several weeks, at least.