1-Stop using customers as QA, 2-dev clashes as balancing reference and 3-missions as power-creeping

[EarlKonrad]

You're completely right. I suspect that one of the massive problems that comes with this asinine DLC policy is that it becomes almost impossible to do what your players want or even compare how un/happy your players are. Maybe player 1 only has 3 DLC's while player 2 has 5 and player 3 have all of them. Their experiences differs a lot. You also touched on a key problem here, which is part of what the differences in player ownership; it is impossible to make the DLC's interact much with each other because that makes into a DLC for DLC policy, which is probably even worse. In turn, this means that their load of spam-like DLC's never will make the game any deeper. It will just provide a bit of extra, but in the end very shallow, content.

Part od their policy is to have DLC features that are self contained. Their idea of a perfect DLC is one that offers a lot of self contained features that aren't essential but offer great value for the player.

Not my word, theirs. They said as much on a GDC talk about their DLC business model back in 2018 or 2019.

 

[Stratagyfan101]

Part od their policy is to have DLC features that are self contained. Their idea of a perfect DLC is one that offers a lot of self contained features that aren't essential but offer great value for the player.

Not my word, theirs. They said as much on a GDC talk about their DLC business model back in 2018 or 2019.

Which explains why their games feel so disjointed.

 

[TheProf]

I always seen Missions as low brow content, especially seeing as better missions can be added in mods and acquired for free. What I would really love to see is a dynamic mission system, where royal marriages, military strength, relations and territory generates missions based on your current situation and your past actions. It also solves the problem of more and more superpowered missions in dlc, with each having to outdo the last, like Germany in this patch.

 

[firezatswill9]

I always seen Missions as low brow content, especially seeing as better missions can be added in mods and acquired for free. What I would really love to see is a dynamic mission system, where royal marriages, military strength, relations and territory generates missions based on your current situation and your past actions. It also solves the problem of more and more superpowered missions in dlc, with each having to outdo the last, like Germany in this patch.

So... the previous mission system? The one that became the diet function with estates?

Don't get me wrong, I agree that mission trees were a bad idea and don't gel well with EU4, I've had that opinion since they released with RB. If you wanted to do a historical thing, just, I don't know, DO THE HISTORICAL THING. Especially since, at the dev's own admission, the AI don't actively pursue their mission trees, meaning it's SOLELY for the player. And the player is the LAST thing that needed to be on the receiving end of more power creep (well, more like power rush in this case.)

I miss playing as one of the Siberian councils and getting missions to colonize the Americas, or giving me a free claim on the Manchurians once I migrate next to them for a nice speed boost in the early game. Or you know, having the difference between a major nation like England and a relative unknown like Sarig Yogir be country events and their overall starting position.

 

[KRBLACK]

So... the previous mission system? The one that became the diet function with estates?

Don't get me wrong, I agree that mission trees were a bad idea and don't gel well with EU4, I've had that opinion since they released with RB. If you wanted to do a historical thing, just, I don't know, DO THE HISTORICAL THING. Especially since, at the dev's own admission, the AI don't actively pursue their mission trees, meaning it's SOLELY for the player. And the player is the LAST thing that needed to be on the receiving end of more power creep (well, more like power rush in this case.)

I miss playing as one of the Siberian councils and getting missions to colonize the Americas, or giving me a free claim on the Manchurians once I migrate next to them for a nice speed boost in the early game. Or you know, having the difference between a major nation like England and a relative unknown like Sarig Yogir be country events and their overall starting position.

Back in the day, I thought mission trees could be a good addition to EU4. But with every new release the power creep gets worse. I like the idea of having to complete objectives for small permanent buffs at the end, but 5% admin efficiency really has no place in mission trees imo.

Another side effect of these mission, is that they cost a lot of dev time for what essentially amounts to player buffs. Consequently, player has to be restricted in other ways to balance it out.

 

[Dasmani]

How ever you just spent the first 200 years playing the game to make the corruption go”away” so did you ignore it or adapt your hole game play around it?

That's the issue. You either played the "correct" way where you could just make the speed bump go away, or you, simply, could not play. Once you learned the correct way to make corruption stop bothering you, corruption was never a problem.

There should not be an objectively correct way to play a strategy game.

 

[zbyrne]

Going the more historical route should be the "intended way" and doing heavy ahistorical moves should be a real challenge but still doable instead of the only way to play besides sitting on speed 5 waiting for s*it to happen.

I loved all of this post as it sums up my feelings on state of EU4 quite well but this line is the killer for me - this should be the overriding design philosophy of EU (and CK). shame it isn't, they really dropped the ball there.

 

[zbyrne]

It will be VERY interesting to see what CK3 is like on release.

I hope (as a CK2 fanatic who couldn't help but get excited when it was announced, but like you am basically now on the cusp of being an ex-customer) hope it bombs, and bombs hard. I only hope this because the failure of IR or the space one, who cares. but if Crusader Kings - PDXs strongest IP no doubt - is a failure, that is the only thing that would make them have a long hard look at themselves, their business models, and practices. it might be the catalyst for change. maybe.

 

[Stratagyfan101]

I hope (as a CK2 fanatic who couldn't help but get excited when it was announced, but like you am basically now on the cusp of being an ex-customer) hope it bombs, and bombs hard. I only hope this because the failure of IR or the space one, who cares. but if Crusader Kings - PDXs strongest IP no doubt - is a failure, that is the only thing that would make them have a long hard look at themselves, their business models, and practices. it might be the catalyst for change. maybe.

Its crazy read this statement, because for the longest time Crusader Kings was the red headed step child of PDS titles. Europa Universalis was the flagship title.

 

[Shiny Dog]

I hope (as a CK2 fanatic who couldn't help but get excited when it was announced, but like you am basically now on the cusp of being an ex-customer) hope it bombs, and bombs hard. I only hope this because the failure of IR or the space one, who cares. but if Crusader Kings - PDXs strongest IP no doubt - is a failure, that is the only thing that would make them have a long hard look at themselves, their business models, and practices. it might be the catalyst for change. maybe.

Nope.
CK2 has less than half as many players as EU4. Even Stellaris and HoI4 do better.
Despite this, you don't really hear sustained complaints about CK2's mechanics. Sure, some DLC or another may be extremely stupid (hello Sunset Invasion) or completely underwhelming (hello Monks&Mystics), but there isn't nearly as much discontent about balancing or content decisions.

 

[zbyrne]

Nope.
CK2 has less than half as many players as EU4. Even Stellaris and HoI4 do better.
Despite this, you don't really hear sustained complaints about CK2's mechanics. Sure, some DLC or another may be extremely stupid (hello Sunset Invasion) or completely underwhelming (hello Monks&Mystics), but there isn't nearly as much discontent about balancing or content decisions.

hmm, ok, well not sure about how many players etc, but i know that (including DLCs) CK2 has shifted at least 7 million units, whereas i understand that EU4 was less than that, and i don't think EU4 has substantially less content than EU4 etc.

 

[grommile]

I hope (as a CK2 fanatic who couldn't help but get excited when it was announced, but like you am basically now on the cusp of being an ex-customer) hope it bombs, and bombs hard.

The lesson a for-profit company usually learns from a sequel bombing hard is emphatically not the lesson you profess to want Paradox to learn.

 

[EarlKonrad]

hmm, ok, well not sure about how many players etc, but i know that (including DLCs) CK2 has shifted at least 7 million units, whereas i understand that EU4 was less than that, and i don't think EU4 has substantially less content than EU4 etc.

Take a look at steamspy and steam charts. While Paradox does sell products outside of steam, it is fair to say that steam is the platform where they sell the most (simply due to how big it is).

Last time I checked, around 2018, EU 4 would consistently outperform CK II and HOI IV. Now that CK II is free I'd bet that its player count is higher than EU IV and inflated.

 

[zbyrne]

The lesson a for-profit company usually learns from a sequel bombing hard is emphatically not the lesson you profess to want Paradox to learn.

I'd be curious to as why you say that - taken in isolation, CK3 doing badly says the IP is unpopular, but in the context of 'there is a growing criticism of our model and recent releases have been criticized and this one was similar' (despite being a much more popular IP) would to my mind, if PDX was willing to engage in some real self-reflection, tell them everything they need to know.

So curious why you say differently.

 

[grommile]

So curious why you say differently.

the usual lesson a company takes from a sequel bombing hard is "the franchise is dead" (or even "the genre is dead" if it's enough of a charlie foxtrot).

 

[zbyrne]

the usual lesson a company takes from a sequel bombing hard is "the franchise is dead" (or even "the genre is dead" if it's enough of a charlie foxtrot).

Presumably a quick peruse of this very forum would give them an indication that that is not actually the fundamental cause of the sequel bombing. As I said, it only works if they do some proper self reflection as to why it didn't work.

And if it sequel bombs because of wider frustrates with the company, deciding to not do CK4, or pump out lots of CK3 content doesn't improve their underlying challenge and prevent future sequel bombing of other releases.

 

[Mike1984]

I suspect that what many anti-WC players dislike WC because, if it is achievable, sub-world conquests can't be as difficult to pull off as they should be. Conquering what nations historically conquered is often barely an inconvenience, and that feels wrong to the RP and historically minded among us.

I'm dead set against WC myself- heck, I'd prefer a game where even just conquering a single continent was effectively impossible- but I recognise that I'm not like the average EU4 player. I encourage all players who are (like myself) anti-WC to get mods that suit their playstyle better.

The problem is that Paradox doesn't seem to understand this. So, they end up implementing measures that make Blobbing basically impossible (or not worthwhile) but which do nothing at all to address the fact that the smaller conquests are still easy. Which results in a situation where the player is basically forced to sit there doing nothing for years because they can't expand any more and there's nothing else to do.

 

[Furleppe]

Mission trees are weird in EU4. From browsing the forums, I'm not sure how most people feel about them. On the one hand, people hate them for the power creep, linear gameplay and that they are one of the main features of the expansions. On the other hand, people are happy that individual nations are getting flavour and some uniqueness.

Maybe those things aren't mutually exclusive but personally think that mission trees were a mistake, at least in the current form. They are perfect for advertising: "Look, here we did X amount of mission trees for many nations!" But in the game I often actively refuse to use them e.g. ridiculous PUs. Dunno, I personally prefer more sandboxy approach with semi-randomly generated missions.

 

[zbyrne]

Mission trees are weird in EU4. From browsing the forums, I'm not sure how most people feel about them. On the one hand, people hate them for the power creep, linear gameplay and that they are one of the main features of the expansions. On the other hand, people are happy that individual nations are getting flavour and some uniqueness.

Maybe those things aren't mutually exclusive but personally think that mission trees were a mistake, at least in the current form. They are perfect for advertising: "Look, here we did X amount of mission trees for many nations!" But in the game I often actively refuse to use them e.g. ridiculous PUs. Dunno, I personally prefer more sandboxy approach with semi-randomly generated missions.

As someone who leans towards the 'historically accurate' play approach, i like the missions which encourage you to pursue interests which certain nations did do - what I dislike is that the AI apparently does not actively try to achieve missions (so in some cases, it does not act anymore historically accurate than before), most missions are about blobbing/conquest, and yes, the power creep.

 

[Furleppe]

I dislike is that the AI apparently does not actively try to achieve missions

Oh yeah, that also the thing I dislike too. I dislike any game mechanics that AI can't make much use of. It's essentially player exclusive bonus vs the AI at this point (as if player even needed more bonuses vs AI). I think that AI can only clear the missions accidentaly? I mean, it would be fun to see Austria AI actively trying to PU other nations.