About Leviathan

[ArtFart]

You were though when you said "I don't want EUV whatsoever".

Well, you may be happy with groundhog day gaming, some of us have more imsgination and higher standards. EUIV WAS a good game, it no longer is, it has become broken, bloated and stale.

That's your opinion, but I made a thread on why people wanted EU5 on the steam forums, and most people either gave a throwaway answer like "so it runs better" or they agreed with me that we don't need a gutted reskinned EU4. EU4 is still an amazing game, your opinion might be otherwise but looking at recent reviews for EU4 pre leviathan were "Very positive", soooo...

And me stating my opinion was not talking about approaches to game development. And, I do play other games you know.

 

[DebbieElla]

Stay on topic, be nice to each other.

 

[vilkas622]

Thanks Johan! Looking forward to the next few updates then! After 1.31.3 will dev diaries return?

 

[Popkorn124]

Pls make EU5´s map into a globe

 

[Mindel]

Leviathan was one of the worst releases we have had, and follows a long trail of low quality releases starting back with Golden Century for EU4.

If there was one low quality DLC, then the cause could be any number of random circumstances. But if there is a long trail of low quality DLC, then this suggests some deeper underlying cause.

What do you think this cause is?

My guess is that there are natural diminishing returns that come from trying to fit more and more stuff into an overloaded, outdated technical framework. A lot of precious PDX manpower is being expended on just trying to navigate through the labyrinth. The growing complexity of the task is causing bugs to more easily creep in. At the same time, being constrained by older mechanics (and also the large fan base) is hamstringing any greater ambitions that you or the team would have for reworking the game in a positive direction. So it seems that each new DLC risks unleashing a plague of new bugs, but cannot be too adventurous lest it unbalance other mechanics already in place.

 

[Lavilledieu]

Johan's post sounds so sad. Please Johan (and dev team), cheer up, don't let all the criticism drag you down. It's not entirely your fault that the release isn't a success. New location, new team members, superiors wanting money, a jungle of old code, adding compatibility for every combination of dlc's, engine limitations, .... Additionally, the fact that the overall quality of the game has always been great makes it that people are sometimes a bit too critical than should. Though that is also a bit understandable, the total package of the game is expensive. Anyway, people tend to easily forget that each patch also provides a lot very good content, and I'm sure your team will make sure the next patches, even if they are small fixes, will absolutely bring the game to unprecedented glory.

 

[AnssiA]

Thanks, I especially appreciate the more detailed future update schedule. I don't necessarily care if DLC or patch will come out in september or november or whenever, but getting occasional approximate "roadmaps" does make me feel more appreciated.

 

[Ninking]

Please, please, please slow down both the speed of colonization and government reform rate. It doesn't all have to be finished by the late 16th century, and would help provide stoff for the end game

 

[Arkonos]

To clarify, "accelerating" here doesn't mean the team is now crunching, it means a re-ordering of the team's task priorities so that legacy bugfixing gets in players' hands earlier (and more frequently) than in the original plan.

I'm sorry, I'm still not quite getting it.

If Leviatan was a success, you would have developed more DLCs like before until the last one and then fixed outstanding legacy bugs.
Now you will fix [legacy] bugs until the game is in good shape [and the team is on solid ground], and then work on DLCs [after the usual evaluations, no promises].

Did I get that right? [] contain my assumptions, feel free to ignore them.

 

[noblehunter]

One of the best things about Paradox, is that when they screw up badly enough, then tend to learn from it and come back better. I remember CK and HOI3. This is a low water mark for recent releases but not the lowest.

 

[Miganto]

I'm sorry, I'm still not quite getting it.

If Leviatan was a success, you would have developed more DLCs like before until the last one and then fixed outstanding legacy bugs.
Now you will fix [legacy] bugs until the game is in good shape [and the team is on solid ground], and then work on DLCs [after the usual evaluations, no promises].

Did I get that right? [] contain my assumptions, feel free to ignore them.

Simply (as an idea, numbers are made up);

Pre-leviathan, the idea would have been to continue development after leviathan came out by splitting developer time 80% new features, 20% bug fixes.
Now they are going to go more like 10% new features, 90% bug fixes until the majority of legacy bugs are sorted and then the % will start moving in favour of development again.

 

[Romanix90]

I'm sorry, I'm still not quite getting it.

If Leviatan was a success, you would have developed more DLCs like before until the last one and then fixed outstanding legacy bugs.
Now you will fix [legacy] bugs until the game is in good shape [and the team is on solid ground], and then work on DLCs [after the usual evaluations, no promises].

Did I get that right? [] contain my assumptions, feel free to ignore them.

That part was confusing to me as well. Like after all bug fixes will there be more DLCs for EU4 or this is the end for EU4?

 

[Peace Weaver]

Pls make EU5´s map into a globe

I think a globe would be far more trouble than it's worth, both from a development perspective and a user perspective.

 

[Battlex]

Leviathan was one of the worst releases we have had, and follows a long trail of low quality releases starting back with Golden Century for EU4.

As the Studio Manager and Game Director, at the end of the day, this is my responsibility, so I have to apologize for this. This is entirely my fault.

I should have delayed the start of the development of Leviathan until we had all the resources that were needed, and they had time to properly onboard on the project. We should have announced a break in the development of EU4 after the Emperor release, until we had a team ready to start designing and working early in 2021.

We are partially changing our plans for the rest of the year. We had originally planned to fix all legacy bugs before we stop developing further expansions for EU4. Now we are accelerating these plans, and also making sure that the community will be getting them frequently.

The 1.31.3 patch is planned to be out this week, and the next patch after that we aim to release either at the end of may or early june, and then we aim to release several more patches for the rest of the year.

This is of course a rough first expansion for the team and the studio, but it's far from the end. We have recruited a set of great individuals, with a huge passion for the game, to form Paradox Tinto, giving us a bright future for Europa Universalis.

Thank you for giving us roughly when you plan to release these future updates. Will these later patches be free content patches or be bug fixing?

 

[Kongo87]

Good luck Paradox Pinto!

 

[nephilim2k]

Pls make EU5´s map into a globe

go put a world map in Imperator...it's god awful. and globe map games aren't as great as you think...plus we all know the earth is flat anyway!

 

[Horagor]

EU is one of the flagship game from Paradox. If EU5 happen, it needs to be done from Martin Anward or Henrik Fåhraeus. Too risky to give this to Paradox Tinto because it's a new studio that doesn't have the experience yet to work on a game of this size, it could become another Imperator:Rome which would be a disaster.
Hope Paradox make the good choice here.

 

[Emp_Palpatine]

Leviathan was one of the worst releases we have had, and follows a long trail of low quality releases starting back with Golden Century for EU4.

As the Studio Manager and Game Director, at the end of the day, this is my responsibility, so I have to apologize for this. This is entirely my fault.

I should have delayed the start of the development of Leviathan until we had all the resources that were needed, and they had time to properly onboard on the project. We should have announced a break in the development of EU4 after the Emperor release, until we had a team ready to start designing and working early in 2021.

We are partially changing our plans for the rest of the year. We had originally planned to fix all legacy bugs before we stop developing further expansions for EU4. Now we are accelerating these plans, and also making sure that the community will be getting them frequently.

The 1.31.3 patch is planned to be out this week, and the next patch after that we aim to release either at the end of may or early june, and then we aim to release several more patches for the rest of the year.

This is of course a rough first expansion for the team and the studio, but it's far from the end. We have recruited a set of great individuals, with a huge passion for the game, to form Paradox Tinto, giving us a bright future for Europa Universalis.

Thanks.

That's what this community needed to have : an acknowledgement of the problems and an apology.
Thanks indeed. Personnally, this lifts a lot of the negativity I had toward Pdox and this particular team and I am more open to watch and listen for the rest even if of course I am still cautious and will judge on acts & releases.

It's indeed a hard step to do such a statement and you have my respect for this. I still believe a gesture for those poor souls that pre-ordered or bought day 1 Leviathan should be done, but hey, that would be an even bigger step.
Any way... The most important thing you did today is acknowledging something was/is wrong and that will help clean the air, remotivate your troops, and restore a trusting mood around here.

Now, time for acts!

 

[Niljapoli]

Thanks for posting this. It's easy to tell how much the devs care about the game, and a post like this feels very genuine compared to others trying to sidetrack the discussion by claiming all fans are toxic for reacting to the state of the release.

 

[Maelm]

Thanks, no one is perfect. Lets hope the next major release goes better.