Is it in any way shape or form possible for one of the devs to maybe write out a post of where you plan on taking the game with the next patch? In terms of AE, Coalitions, and other game balance decisions. Even some rough outline would be nice.
1.6 Vision?
- Thread starter Korashy
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Probably safe to assume more of what every patch has been so far: Seesawing over nerfing/buffing mechanics without any discernable vision (besides perhaps mutiplayer balance), an ufortunate side effect being that single player gameplay options become increasingly limited each patch.
Nerf westernisation, rebalance ideas add new wonky and incomprehensible mechanics for nations who have converted religion, implement features for WoN expansion.
I'm not aware of any changes to AE or Coalitions, but they'll probably be thought up and implemented about 3 days before the patch goes live.
Those words will decrease my opinion of you by -40, you neighbouring heretic!
In seriousness, it would be nice if they want share their vision on the game. How does Paradox thinks the game should be played? What aspect (trade, republics, conquest, colonisation, reformation, westernisation, AE/coalitons etc) is lacking and should get more focus in the game? And what should be a feasible goal for players? European conquest, world conquest or smaller? (uniting Italy, the HRE, scandinavia, exterminate the habsburgs or the ottomans etc).
I think what most people seek is stability. At the moment each patch is like a new monarch coming in after the death of the previous one decreasing stability. Then confidence or trust in the devs gradually increases until the next patch wherein we start this cycle all over again as players expect devs to implement certain changes or they feel that there is an indication old issues will be fixed. Then the new patch brings in new problems and some people are up in arms again. After awhile, I fear that some players may get sick of this and quit. Although me personally I'm fine with riding out the storm until things settle down.
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I continue my crusade to get unique ideas added to the meso american nations and georgia, so if developers can do that and brush up a few wonkey mechanics I'll be happy as a peach
Everything just seems very directionless right now. The same changes are going back and forth and often between 2 extremes, and it's gotten to the point were I'm actually not looking forward to patches anymore.
My vision would be: coalitions, coalitions and some more coalitions 
But also, more impact if the reformation and religious wars
But also, more impact if the reformation and religious wars
I have to agree with what several others have stated above. Currently it very much feels like things lack vision and direction (particularly given the trajectory of the patches), and as far as I know, we've never really got an in-depth answer from Paradox as to what the overall design philosophy is. We have heard that Paradox has excluded the possibility of adding more depth to the internal aspects of the game, but we never heard much reasoning for that. I fear that the design philosophy may be somewhat metric-based, seeing as the metrics of EU4's success are what Johan always falls back on when pressed about these things. Otherwise I have a lot of trouble piecing together a coherent vision that informs the various design decisions.
When you ask Johan about his design philosophy in regards to a mechanic in a company-solicited Q&A session, his answer is just "no.". That says a ton about why we're seeing this kind of see-saw nonsense by itself, and also why a decent chunk of threads here are unhappy ones.
I've been assuming that 1.6 will come with the next expansion, no? That should tell you something about their vision.
Despite the fact that I am a critic of aspects of 1.5, I don't think the "no vision" opinions are correct. I think the vision, though, is this: they are happy with the general state of the game, and are using patches to tweak balance when players (as they will) discover ways to take advantage of mechanics in ways that were perhaps not fully anticipated. That tweaking isn't always successful - and the coalitions changes are perhaps the biggest example of that.
What I'd personally is an overhaul of coalitions along the lines that many of us are requesting. Not "less AE" generally, but (mainly) fix the peace options (and perhaps a small nerf to HRE AE). Unfortunately I think that either (1) Paradox doesn't share that vision, or (2) it's harder to implement from a programming perspective than we think.
Despite the fact that I am a critic of aspects of 1.5, I don't think the "no vision" opinions are correct. I think the vision, though, is this: they are happy with the general state of the game, and are using patches to tweak balance when players (as they will) discover ways to take advantage of mechanics in ways that were perhaps not fully anticipated. That tweaking isn't always successful - and the coalitions changes are perhaps the biggest example of that.
What I'd personally is an overhaul of coalitions along the lines that many of us are requesting. Not "less AE" generally, but (mainly) fix the peace options (and perhaps a small nerf to HRE AE). Unfortunately I think that either (1) Paradox doesn't share that vision, or (2) it's harder to implement from a programming perspective than we think.
Yep, that happened to me in the last reddit Q&A session. Admittedly I could have made my question more straightforward, but it still came off as a bit disrespectful. Oh well, I've just taken it as a license to be blunt about the state of the game here on the forums.
I disagree, it says almost nothing about either of these things. Compare this approach with Blizzard's which is very open about design choices and lots of designer feedback and it doesn't matter at all with respect to the negativity of threads or the amount of changes. People just love to complain and if you are satisfied the reason to post is a lot smaller.
I've been in the Blizzard forums. Most of the complaints there are balance-related...and even then the prevalence is weaker than here, the arguments against (rather than for) the changes less hollow...but then balance vs design changes are not really comparable. Those games change very little across a year compared to 1 patch here.
As have I. However, I do find it interesting that the AI now does get pissy about you not giving it stuff in war, reflecting #2, which got said resounding "no". Even THAT message is inconsistent lol.
The vision is both clear and elusive.
Paradox wants EU4 to be a game about expansion of empires in a few different forms (mostly conquest and colonization). Paradox wants to create a challenging game for players.
That's it. That's the vision.
The problem is in HOW they create a challenging game about expansion. What they've basically been doing is mucking about with a bunch of different mechanics, all designed to slow down how fast a player can expand. AE, OE, coalitions, etc., all are designed to check the player's ability to expand rapidly.
The other part of the problem is that Paradox has shown zero (0) interest in modeling any kind of even moderately detailed internal governance mechanics. That is not, they believe, what the game is about. That's an internal management game, not an expansion game, and they're making an expansion game. Internal management would take away from that, apparently.
What this does, however, is remove a key mechanism by which expansion would more naturally be checked -- namely in-fighting between, for example, political factions in parliament, or religious factions, or whathaveyou. Rather than develop this aspect of the game, Paradox continues to add a little "salt" or a little "sugar" to its existing mechanics, trying to find the right balance between salty and sweet, but never being able to strike the balance effectively. Thus, we go back and forth between game designs where it's easier or harder to expand because that's really the only thing to do in the game, and the only thing Paradox is interested in doing is finding that perfect balance between too-easy and too-hard expansion.
But the vision is and, apparently, always has been a game about expansion of empires, with no hands-on internal management.
Paradox wants EU4 to be a game about expansion of empires in a few different forms (mostly conquest and colonization). Paradox wants to create a challenging game for players.
That's it. That's the vision.
The problem is in HOW they create a challenging game about expansion. What they've basically been doing is mucking about with a bunch of different mechanics, all designed to slow down how fast a player can expand. AE, OE, coalitions, etc., all are designed to check the player's ability to expand rapidly.
The other part of the problem is that Paradox has shown zero (0) interest in modeling any kind of even moderately detailed internal governance mechanics. That is not, they believe, what the game is about. That's an internal management game, not an expansion game, and they're making an expansion game. Internal management would take away from that, apparently.
What this does, however, is remove a key mechanism by which expansion would more naturally be checked -- namely in-fighting between, for example, political factions in parliament, or religious factions, or whathaveyou. Rather than develop this aspect of the game, Paradox continues to add a little "salt" or a little "sugar" to its existing mechanics, trying to find the right balance between salty and sweet, but never being able to strike the balance effectively. Thus, we go back and forth between game designs where it's easier or harder to expand because that's really the only thing to do in the game, and the only thing Paradox is interested in doing is finding that perfect balance between too-easy and too-hard expansion.
But the vision is and, apparently, always has been a game about expansion of empires, with no hands-on internal management.
We had major turn arounds on vassal feeding which was stated to be WAD and the optimal way to expand in the early patches (I'm fine with the 1.0 and the 1.5 mechanic here personally, just an example).
Then they got rid of AE size scaling because they specially stated countries that get a certain size just want to paint the map and they want to support that play style. Then then they completely change course again.
Every patch just feels like a completely different game (not in a good way) instead of patches being smooth and complementary to the game.
Then they got rid of AE size scaling because they specially stated countries that get a certain size just want to paint the map and they want to support that play style. Then then they completely change course again.
Every patch just feels like a completely different game (not in a good way) instead of patches being smooth and complementary to the game.
Indeed. I'm still having fun and had fun with every iteration of the game so far, but the way I (have to) play changes drastically with each and every new patch...
Balancing games like Starcraft or WoW is not the same thing, balancing a game like EU is a lot easier. People who complain against Blizzard about balance are those who see their class/race receive nerfs they feel uncalled for. The only problem with Blizzard id they're turning all their games in dumbed down, streamlined, boring shadows of what they once were (see Diablo III and the latest expansions of WoW) and now attract a lot less mature audience than they used to.
In EU4 it's different because it's the very core mechanics of the game that are unbalanced and the complaints are warranted. I never saw any company change course so many times on design decisions and altering the game completely on every patch. Honestly I liked EU4 on release more, if I knew it would turn out this way I wouldn't have bought it.
I would say those are merely "design goals", whereas "vision" is understood to include the reasoning for how they will be achieved with certain mechanics.
That's basically the whole problem. Paradox has decided that modeling (with any semblance of depth) the natural balance mechanisms, which give history (and specifically historical expansion) its game-like qualities, is outside the scope of the game, and thus we are left with arbitrary, rigid, and unintuitive abstractions struggling to perform this role. And as if that wasn't farce enough, we have the schizophrenic trajectory of the patch history.