CK3: Is it *really* a complete failure, though?

[MatthewP]

The opinion of the product here in the forums or statistically more relevant in the opinions given on steam does not reflect in the least the preference of CK2 over CK3. After all, if that was the case, CK3 at release wouldn't receive "Very Positive" reviews while the expansion receives "Mixed" reviews with 52% of the users that rated it giving it a "Thumbs Down". As a casuistic example I am a great fan of CK2 who loved the game that was quick to recognize the potentital of CK3 giving it a heartfelt "Thumbs Up" at release and quicker still to recognize the misguided approach to this big DLC giving it a "Thumbs Down".

Thus, I feel the problem doesn't linger on how much the veterans enjoyed CK2 more but the value for expectations and money of Royal Court. For me, in spite of a very good new culture system and a needed but unbalanced artifact implementation (my first character aquired a great total of 9 items without trying really hard!), Royal Court falls short on the subjects that should add to the game: deeper mechanics, instead of an incipient 3D court taken out of Morrowind or at most Oblivion 3D quality and that by itself, adds nothing to the game, only very significant resources better spent elsewhere.

Well, I thought ck3 had potential too. There are a lot of interesting systems. There’s just not much depth. Ck2 wasn’t a paragon of depth by any means. But it had, IMO, marginally more depth, marginally more challenge, and vastly more content. The elegance of the systems in ck3 is in theory great for modding and future development but so far seems to have largely served to make the game generic. I hope it changes with more expansions. But I’m not at all surprised by the direction of royal court as it seems very in keeping with the direction of the game generally.

BTW, I don’t think you can capture “what do people who loved ck2 think of ck3” in steam reviews. It’s undeniable that ck3 has a large fan base.

 

[Ezumiyr]

Let's face it - the forums have become a shitshow. Now it's mostly a place for very confident but also very wrong people to expression their debatable opinions about the game, and that's it. I've not seen a good suggestion in months. But I've seen many threads pretending that CK3 should be more serious/historical full with misconceptions and exaggerations. I've also seens lots of very confident opinions about game design by people who clearly don't understand the first thing about it.

So yeah, let's face it: the core of this community isn't active on the forums anymore. They migrated on various social media where they don't have to tolerate this kind of behaviours.

My only hope is that no dev is wasting time reading all this bullshit.

 

[Karlington]

Let's face it - the forums have become a shitshow. Now it's mostly a place for very confident but also very wrong people to expression their debatable opinions about the game, and that's it. I've not seen a good suggestion in months. But I've seen many threads pretending that CK3 should be more serious/historical full with misconceptions and exaggerations. I've also seens lots of very confident opinions about game design by people who clearly don't understand the first thing about it.

So yeah, let's face it: the core of this community isn't active on the forums anymore. They migrated on various social media where they don't have to tolerate this kind of behaviours.

My only hope is that no dev is wasting time reading all this bullshit.

You're the one who's coming here slandering a whole group of people just for disagreeing with you, more or less, so who's engaging in what kind of behavior here now?

 

[Torredebelem]

Let's face it - the forums have become a shitshow. Now it's mostly a place for very confident but also very wrong people to expression their debatable opinions about the game, and that's it. I've not seen a good suggestion in months. But I've seen many threads pretending that CK3 should be more serious/historical full with misconceptions and exaggerations. I've also seens lots of very confident opinions about game design by people who clearly don't understand the first thing about it.

So yeah, let's face it: the core of this community isn't active on the forums anymore. They migrated on various social media where they don't have to tolerate this kind of behaviours.

My only hope is that no dev is wasting time reading all this bullshit.

Not commenting on the credentials of game and mod design of the community here as I don't want to go tread that thin path, I suppose inspired by the confident stance of this post of yours, the devs, instead of "wasting time" reading this forum, should take a look at the "Mixed" reviews Royal Court is gathering on Steam, together with the reviews people left there. Maybe that "shitshow" where as of yesterday 52% of the people gave a thumbs down to a game that was awash in praise at release is more enlightening about the real value of the DLC.

 

[jmac2828]

I always get a chuckle out of people putting any kind of importance to the reviews when a game first comes out of the gate. If you really want an accurate reaction to the game you have to wait a few weeks before reading the reviews. Haters gotta hate and when an expansion comes out that they didn't ask for specifically they just toss that dislike out there like it's nothing. 9 times out of 10 they then go and PLAY the game and realize it's not all that bad, and sometimes "go figure" it's good. To those who end up enjoying the game, you usually don't see their reviews until they are through having fun with it... *sigh* a very simple concept but some people are just to dense and want to toss out the "Look at the horrible reviews" post EVERY SINGLE TIME.... it gets tiring.

 

[Torredebelem]

I always get a chuckle out of people putting any kind of importance to the reviews when a game first comes out of the gate. If you really want an accurate reaction to the game you have to wait a few weeks before reading the reviews. Haters gotta hate and when an expansion comes out that they didn't ask for specifically they just toss that dislike out there like it's nothing. 9 times out of 10 they then go and PLAY the game and realize it's not all that bad, and sometimes "go figure" it's good. To those who end up enjoying the game, you usually don't see their reviews until they are through having fun with it... *sigh* a very simple concept but some people are just to dense and want to toss out the "Look at the horrible reviews" post EVERY SINGLE TIME.... it gets tiring.

Base CK3 was an instant success upon release, accruing very positive feedback from the release date onwards. The same, by far, didn't happen with Royal Court. These are facts and all the rest is wishful thinking and fanboyism. But I'll let time pass and after a couple of weeks more, Ill be around to bend the knee if you are right or to point to your bad judgement if you are wrong.

This being said, on what really counts to Paradox, the expansion seems to be a huge commercial success with plenty of people playing it (including myself). Now regarding people's willingness to buy future DLCs, lets wait and see what happens.
As far as the hyperbole of the OP calling the DLC in the title of the thread a "complete failure" when I never read any post claiming that, it is just an old theatrical trick to push his/her own counter opinion, no more, no less.

 

[Tschobo]

I have mixed feelings about the Royal Court expansion itself, but really like CK3 itself. A big issue in CK2 was, that some things weren't salvagable anymore. The gameplay of the nomads and republics weren't the best, even the Imperial gamplay was horrid so I wondered why some people suddenly missed it. Also Trade was rather harshly done and had issues and some mechanics were just plainly broken.

It was clear that CK3 needed fresh starts and it delivered with the launch. It was also clear that it needed to make choices mechanic-wise and it decided to adjust more to a Roleplay-Perspectivbe than a strategic one. The currently big issues are either missing flavour (religion and government) and reasonabnle mechanics in the warfare and mercantile department, but that was obvious at the launch. While I am not surprised that they chose Royal Courts and utilizing the extremely popular portraits in the first launch, I would have preferred more depth in some mechanic.

I currently compare it to the Conclave DLC in CK2. At launch rather unpopular, but with the right direction and concepts it could age perfectly.

 

[ELRIX]

I accidentally found this thread when searching for something related to the old age penalty for our characters. I found the thread's title hilarious as I enjoy playing CK3 with or without mods. So I came here only to say this:
I played both CK2 and CK3. I love CK3 more thanks to its RPG-oriented style (and newer graphics and techs). At its stage now, it even allows us to customize lots of stuff. I am so grateful that they added this to the vanilla version. I rarely play games that don't allow us to create our own characters. Back then before the game was released, I immediately pre-ordered the game when they advertised about the new RPG elements. It was the main draw for me and CK3 is doing pretty well on that.

I don't understand why some people need to say that the game is a complete failure. Sounds pretty full of pointless hatred. People love this game, you know? And not only by a small number.

 

[AvengedK1ng]

Yeah, you're not alone there. When I have 12 kids and all of them survive in 1100, I'm wondering what the heck is going on.

On the off chance they do get sick, I just kind of wait a year or two, and they're miraculously healed.

Doing a ghurid game and kept resetting to find optimum start, turns out you can just not hire a court physician, and not land your sons so they're your knights, and mortality becomes alot more accurate

 

[Torredebelem]

I found the thread's title hilarious

Yes, you are absolutely right. The title is hilarious because nobody ever suggested what was on it, even without the *really* inserted in order to add even more emphasis to the point the OP wanted to make. It is no more than an old theatrical trick where one presents the contrary version of the suggestion in the title to place his/her opinion in the starkest contrast possible and to gather more people agreeing with him/her.

You just fell for it and in your last sentence without malice perpetuated the lie the title concocted.

 

[Joshua Hoss]

I think usually upset users are more likely to give feedback than happy users. Personally I like CK3, I have no desire to go back to CK2 even with all the DLCs. I'm excited to see CK3 continue to grow and evolve.

 

[Flockingbird]

As far as the hyperbole of the OP calling the DLC in the title of the thread a "complete failure" when I never read any post claiming that, it is just an old theatrical trick to push his/her own counter opinion, no more, no less.

Immediately after RC’s release, there were a number of posts angrily decrying RC, CK3, &/or the devs as yes, complete failures, even though the posts expressed that sentiment in a variety of different words. Such posts were so inflammatory that they ended up being removed by the moderators, and I cannot now provide links. As you know, trash-talking, flaming, and trolling posts get removed.

As I have said elsewhere, the angriest posters left the forum after the first couple days, and it would be a pity to let their toxicity continue to poison the discussion. But they were indeed here, and while you apparently didn’t see them yourself, others did.

My understanding was that the OP was responding to the impression left by the inflammatory posts—not to posts made by anyone currently participating in this forum.

 

[Testeria]

The game is not in any way hard or complicated.

Save gold for 9 years of mercenaries for easy succession, use knights for firepower, buildings for gold, and MaA for siege machines and You can't lose - only if You get bored and start to do silly things.

Your first character may be a little more tricky depends where You start but after that, You only lose if You want to.

 

[Testeria]

they are compressing a half to full decade of DLC and patch development into a rose-tinted package to unfairly compare against a single CK3 DLC.

But all that development didn't vanish: they could reuse all the events, mechanics, and experience they got from CK2. They just chose not to.

From my experience as a programmer, it is not that time-consuming to make an event converter to facilitate JSON to JSON conversion. One person could probably move thousands of events from CK2 to CK3 in a week.

 

[Testeria]

Full disclaimer: I'm a newcomer to the Crusader Kings franchise. Prior to CK3, I'd heard about CK2, as most mod enthusiasts have. But when I tried to play it and coax out its mythical properties, I baulked at what I saw as a clunky, unpolished UI and utter lack of visuals.

To me, it felt like a game from the '00s. Without the protective sheen of nostalgia, it wasn't a compromise I was willing to make. There was also a lot of mechanics going on, and it felt like a chore to learn them.

I'm no stranger to things with a learning curve (like learning how to make games in Unity 3D) but the game's hidden gems seemed deep beneath the surface, and I didn't want to dig only to find out they were imaginary.

There, my secret is now exposed. You now have an imprisonment reason!

View attachment 808526

RynGM gains +20 Stress View attachment 808527for Exposing CK Newcomer Secret

Fast forward to CK3. There were rumblings on the gaming news sites. Unlike CK2, this seemed visually stunning, accessible, and fun. I spent ages reading the Wiki before I bought, making sure I learned every system I could. I wanted to know the difference between Faiths, Doctrines, and Tenets, or what decisions I could make.

I hit the ground running in Ireland, and loved it. After quitting the tutorial, I started up as Haesteinn, and over 200 years later I painted the world (I had to do it once). Compared to a regular AAA game where you can get anything between 20 to 120 hours, what I was getting out of CK3 was amazing.

View attachment 808528
RynGM has gained the Reclusive Trait.

In the lead up to RC, I was watching every Dev Diary, waiting for it to drop. That's when I realised, compared to many other games I've played, there was more of a two-way dialogue going on. Ideas were being taken from users and included.

"Hey, I've got ideas! Why don't I share some of them?"

So I jumped on the forum, and excitedly made some threads. It was going to be a new community to check out of people who liked CK3 as much as I did. Maybe there'd be a few folks who were hardcore about historical details, but that's fine.

View attachment 808529
RynGM has the Trusting trait.

Fast forward two weeks.

I'm flicking through thread after thread. There's post after post about how "x has been a failure" or "y is a catastrophe." It's a malicious act by Paradox, who are either fools, or actively conspiring to make the player suffer.

The common solution offered is that the developers need to sit in a corner, think about all the terrible things they've done, then gut the game until it's good again. Sometimes this involves pulling the game from the shelf, or releasing a new DLC to fix it.

My best post - which got over sixty likes - was saying something critical about the game having too many silly events.

"Am I playing the same game? Am I on crazy pills? Does anyone like this game, or is it just me?" I thought.

Let me check Reddit. There's some people who like the game (but, according to Forum folk, they are too positive). Okay, so let's check Steam.

View attachment 808530

Right. So I'm not alone. What the heck is going on, then?

It clicks. I'm probably the new audience. This is the old audience, and there's some friction going on. There's this toxic, suffocating air that hangs around the forum, seemingly spilling from the wounds of the fans that came before.

I'm no stranger to criticising things - I'm the first to point out a movie's flaws when I exit the cinema, much to my wife's chagrin. But the negativity is so omnipresent, it feels like no oxygen actually gets in.

Seems like the smart move is to move on, right? That's what people say: if you don't like it, leave it. On one level, that kind of sucks. This is the space where you can leave suggestions. Plus, if it's like this for me as a new fan, how is it for everyone else?

So I decided to make a post. Very sure it won't do anything, but I wanted to add my voice to it all, as a new player. I like CK3, and it got me here when CK2 didn't! And I'm not alone.

That's not to say anyone else's preferences or gameplay styles are invalid. But I don't think calling CK3 a catastrophic failure that needs to be redone is right, or that it needed two or three more years of development before first release.

I think there are definitely things that need to be improved - making different cultures and religions feel different, for a start - but I think calling it a comprehensive failure is a stretch.

I think you can tell I used my journaling decision.

View attachment 808532
RynGM Writes Thoughts Down

You are right in the sense that the game sure looks like it is designed as something that is supposed to only be played a few times. Uniformity of playstyles, lack of rare events, VERY easy and shallow strategic level once You understand the mechanics, no hard and very hard mode - all of that suggests the game was targeted at absolute beginners.

But this begs the question what next? What when the flow of new players dries out? Would CK3 be abandoned a year or two from now?

 

[Kurt Pat]

I gave positive review to CK3 despite it goes in the inverse direction I wished. It is clear game try to be more ''casual player'' probably in order to enlarge its audience.
That dont make it a bad game.

I noticed also that at steam, a large part, of reviews had been made by people who have play 90 to 150 hours. They have made a run ? may be 2 ... and will probably not come back to the game. I suspect a lot of them will not buy DLC simply because they aldeary play something else.

Population at Paradox forum seems mostly made of '' hardcore gamers''. A population with probably hundreds hours of games, and who will continue to play. This population is the target for dlc, but wasnt / isnt anymore influantial for the basic game.

CK3 for me, when I play an independant ruler is ; king in 50 years, imperor in 100 years and bored in 150 years.

It is me, but it will not be true for a customer who will make one campaign, may be 2 at max then will buy an other game and forget CK until ck4 release.

 

[grommile]

From my experience as a programmer, it is not that time-consuming to make an event converter to facilitate JSON to JSON conversion. One person could probably move thousands of events from CK2 to CK3 in a week.

Sure, if they just wanted to do a crappy copypasta job of it, they could have done it pretty quickly.

But the results would be terrible.

Some CK2 events deserved to be discarded (and if they hadn't been paid content, maybe they could have been deleted from CK2).

Some others were good in the context of CK2's design philosophy, but can't be comfortably coerced into alignment with CK3's design philosophy. (CK3 has no place for the events about doing horrible things to persuade Stan to give you back your severed manparts, to take one of the more lurid possibilities.)

Many of the rest would need to be adapted to account for mechanics that didn't exist in CK2 (Stress being the most obvious example), or for major balance changes (adults have three core personality traits and they are expected to stay basically stable throughout adulthood), or ...

All of them would need thought about which family of triggers they should be slotted into, what weight they should be given, etc; averaging under ten minutes per event would be a pretty big ask, let alone the 83 seconds per event implied by "One person could probably move thousands [...] in a week." assuming a 40-hour working week.

 

[Testeria]

Sure, if they just wanted to do a crappy copypasta job of it, they could have done it pretty quickly.

But the results would be terrible.

Some CK2 events deserved to be discarded (and if they hadn't been paid content, maybe they could have been deleted from CK2).

Some others were good in the context of CK2's design philosophy, but can't be comfortably coerced into alignment with CK3's design philosophy. (CK3 has no place for the events about doing horrible things to persuade Stan to give you back your severed manparts, to take one of the more lurid possibilities.)

Many of the rest would need to be adapted to account for mechanics that didn't exist in CK2 (Stress being the most obvious example), or for major balance changes (adults have three core personality traits and they are expected to stay basically stable throughout adulthood), or ...

All of them would need thought about which family of triggers they should be slotted into, what weight they should be given, etc; averaging under ten minutes per event would be a pretty big ask, let alone the 83 seconds per event implied by "One person could probably move thousands [...] in a week." assuming a 40-hour working week.

It depends on how one would approach it. From my programming experience, I would just ask someone to fly through them and flag as either technically "quick" or "save for later". Then someone with historical background would check the "quick" ones and apply the new requirements for the event to fire.

Considering how randomly the CURRENT events fire I doubt it would make much difference, even if they fail to do convert them properly.

 

[Torredebelem]

Immediately after RC’s release, there were a number of posts angrily decrying RC, CK3, &/or the devs as yes, complete failures, even though the posts expressed that sentiment in a variety of different words. Such posts were so inflammatory that they ended up being removed by the moderators, and I cannot now provide links. As you know, trash-talking, flaming, and trolling posts get removed.

As I have said elsewhere, the angriest posters left the forum after the first couple days, and it would be a pity to let their toxicity continue to poison the discussion. But they were indeed here, and while you apparently didn’t see them yourself, others did.

My understanding was that the OP was responding to the impression left by the inflammatory posts—not to posts made by anyone currently participating in this forum.

Huummm... And contrary to all the logic, the OP started this thread 7 days after those hate messages have been deleted instead of immediately answering or create then this new thread?

For me this thread is nothing more than a ruse that should be called for what it is. Psychologic and theatrical tricks to further one's own agenda, nothing more. I've been very present in the forums and to me their gist reflect the "Mixed" score the DLC is getting on Steam, not some kind of rebellion about a failed DLC.

 

[Feeblezak]

All CK3 did is make me wish I was playing CK2. Less than 10 hours played.

I look in everytime theres a new update but nothing brings me back.

I do like the map and art style though. Gotta give it that.