Comments and Suggestions on 2.5.2 Conclave beta

[fivestarultra]

Then why not have the AI, when it wants to declare war, send a message to its allies ahead of time saying "I plan to declare war on X within the next month*, are you with me?" Then, if the player says yes, they're auto-called if the AI declares war on X within the desired timeframe, and if the player says no, the AI knows not to depend on them. (Drawing inspiration from the EU4 feature where you can spend favors to ask an ally to prepare for war.)

*If needed, replace month with a better timeframe.

This is the proper solution for an offensive call to arms for player and AI. It gives the player choice and lines up allies fairly for the AI.

I'm new here.. so how do we make this happen and have our grievances heard by the Rí?

 

[jpinard]

Couldn't you have made refusing calls to arms have more penalties, similar to breaking truces? And encourage accepting calls to arms by giving favours with your ally for example? At least every ally shouldn't be called in automatically, I don't want every ally of mine in every war.

This is what should have been done. I greatly dislike the current system as it's inflexible and honestly, a bit on the lazy side. For those that have done AI routines in the past, the new take was done because it was the easiest set to program for. It reduced routines and made it a easy (for PDX) as now it's just an on/off. Yes you can't go back because you lopped out a bunch of code when you did Conclave but the reality of why that was done, is not because it was better for us - the players. We'd have been much better off with the old code which could have been modified for those that felt they needed to impose a stiffer penalty on themselves for abusing the alliance system. For tons of us, the old system was just fine, and offered a much better sense of immersion as we actually had choices.

While it's great you're listening now, and we really appreciate it, many of us would hope programming shortcuts wouldn't dominate your future DLC. I'm not just referring to alliances, but also to all the code copied from EU IV as well. Efficiency is fine and all, but as you can see by the reception this DLC brought, it's not always the best route. After Cossack's and the Snowfall update on Cities Skylines a lot of us ardent PDX backers are feeling a bit burned.

If anyone feels I'm out of line, I'd suggest you read the top review on Steam for the Cossack's DLC written by Kaiser. While I don't care about the price as much as he does, I do care about my game(s) getting significantly better. It feels like PDX is not working more efficiently, or listening very well... not until the damage is done. It's very odd for a company who turned things around from having a poor reputation for game and DLC releases to being the stellar light of pc gaming.

"We don't need to fix fonts", "We don't need to fix the interfaces", "We don't need to work on AI outside of static triggers". "Cities Skylines - We don't need to do seasons with snowfall i;e update existing maps because it's impossible"... only to have modders do the "impossible" after 1 week.

I love Paradox, no doubt, and for a while everything was a buy any game by the PDX studios ASAP along with the DLC. You earned that in 2014 and early 2015. But you've lost it and it's not because I've changed.

Darkrenown - this is unfair to you concerning this current DLC since you were moved after the DLC came out - it's not your fault. But there is a trend many of us have seen over the past couple quarters that are concerning to a lot of your fans and it didn't start with Conclave. I would hope you can have some voice of reason. Wasting time in Cossack's on stuff people didn't want is not a good, nor efficient use of resources. While some companies who are light due fantastic fast iterations, come up with stuff they throw out as they discover stuff that works, I'm not sure you're the "fast iteration" type of company? You seem more like the carefully planned feature set that doesn't deviate. If you are the latter, it means you must be much more cognizant of what is going to stick. Having to go back and re-write a bunch of stuff because it didn't stick hurts your reputation on release, and your bottom line.

This is a long way to say thank you for fixing this up but also I'm disappointed in some of the reasons for changes. I'm a terrible CK2 player, and for the alliance changes were bad for the bottom and middling players, and probably most experienced except the tippiest toppiest tier.

 

[GalenZ]

I think what he means about the old system being exploitable:
Ai is FAR more willing to accept a player's call to arms, than the player is to accept the AI's.
Naturally, this creates some situations where AI declares wars expecting the player to join, and when the player doesn't, the AI is trapped in a near suicidal war.

Well, yes. But the new system of being forced to join allies' wars doesn't address that problem at all. Just because the game *says* I'm involved in a war doesn't mean I have to commit any troops to it. In fact, I've done this a few times, and have been mightily amused to see the AI notice that I haven't helped at all, and angrily end the alliance in the middle of the war. Unfortunately, the game didn't actually kick me out of the war, which was annoying, thus my request in the OP.

The more I think about it, the better and better it sounds for the AI to simply ask the player ahead of time 'are you willing to join me in this offensive war?'. It solves the AI problems, it gives the player choice, it's good roleplaying, and in fact it even gives the player a little time to prep for an upcoming war, rather than having it be a total surprise.

 

[Darkrenown]

My reply to the response in Darkrenown's comment on #14 is, the why not make things like this toggle-able? I read many of the posts of these "others" that didn't like this, but what about the other "others" who didn't mind and/or liked this because it added to immersion, etc.?

The simple answer is, it takes longer. Sometimes surprisingly longer depending on how the system is set up. But ideally yes, we should have a toggle or just two different alerts so you can disable one if you don't care.

The distance limit on character finder is a feature I've wanted since I saw RoI in development, so hopefully I can get it added.

 

[Sindai]

the Snowfall update on Cities Skylines

Paradox Development Studios has nothing to do with Cities, Paradox Interactive publishes it.

 

[Alfy]

I think what he means about the old system being exploitable:
Ai is FAR more willing to accept a player's call to arms, than the player is to accept the AI's.
Naturally, this creates some situations where AI declares wars expecting the player to join, and when the player doesn't, the AI is trapped in a near suicidal war.

As far choice goes... now you have to think about "who do I form alliances with?" BEFORE you form it. That's still a choice, just a different sort of choice.

What is really exploitable is that players tend to ignore the opinion their character has of anyone else. I would have no problems being force-called by an ally I have a positive opinion of, the same way I deal with the ai. And then, there used to be a negative opinion impact for calling someone into war (not sure if it's still there), meaning that after a couple of times being force-called, my opinion will be negative again and I can choose.

 

[jpinard]

Paradox Development Studios has nothing to do with Cities, Paradox Interactive publishes it.

I know. Colossal Order does Cities, but they are closely linked and these are PDX's top 3 properties. The same issues outlined above, effect their top 3 games.

Dark Renown - thanks for listening and engaging us so much. My post was long and wordy, but I hope it made sense. I played a bunch last night and it reinforced how much I miss having choices from parts of the game that were streamlined or cut. They were "fun" choices, not busywork type of choice so it really hits hard. We'd be honored and thankful if you could relay the concerns outlined in my long lost above to others on the team. We love your games.

 

[Darkrenown]

I do, although QA and our main programmer read the forum a lot, they just don't all post.

(As an aside, I read that Cossacks review and was pretty surprised Kaiser finds Estates worthless - I thought Estates were one of the cooler additions to EU)

 

[Jorlem]

I do, although QA and our main programmer read the forum a lot, they just don't all post.

(As an aside, I read that Cossacks review and was pretty surprised Kaiser finds Estates worthless - I thought Estates were one of the cooler additions to EU)

They are neat, but once you get the hang of them, they're just a list of bacon buttons that you press every so often. They just feel shallow.

 

[zoner16]

I do, although QA and our main programmer read the forum a lot, they just don't all post.

(As an aside, I read that Cossacks review and was pretty surprised Kaiser finds Estates worthless - I thought Estates were one of the cooler additions to EU)

They're something that looks cool and interesting until you actually start playing. The current design actually encourages you to just maintain the status quo with them once you've found an equilibrium, i.e. never interact with them again, because the cost of trying to redress the fragile balance of power once you've upset is is tedious if you've learned how to game the system, and ruinous if you haven't. Keeping them happy once they already are is easy, and the benefits gained from this are usually far greater than anything gained from trying to court one.

In the end, they end up like development, a static system that's easily sidelined and not enticing enough to pick up.

I think the main source of disconnect in the pricing model is that you guys seem to categorize the additions based on the amount of time and effort your spend developing them, but we categorize them by the amount of impact they make on our gameplay. It's two different ends of the pipeline. You guys can put ungodly amounts of man-hours into a new feature, but if if it's easily ignored or reduced, most players are going to count it as a minor addition at best, something that needs to be removed at worst. The same is also true in reverse. If you find some way to dramatically improve or broaden our gameplay for little time and effort, we'd be more than happy to pay far more than what the time developing it was worth.

One of the most important axioms I learned in college about software design was to never value ease of implementation over ease of use, because to the consumer, whom I'm presumably trying to convince to buy my product, has little sympathy for my stories of late nights and painful hours hammering away at a keyboard, they just want to know if the functionality of what I'm selling them is worth the price tag I've slapped on it. i understand that from a business perspective you guys need to recoup the cost of those man-hours somehow, but keep in mind that while we love you guys, we're people trying to make ends meet as well, and we're not going to pay above our value assessments most of the time.

Just some thoughts.

 

[Olaf the Unsure]

They're something that looks cool and interesting until you actually start playing.

I sometimes wonder aloud here if the Devs ever actually play their own games -- and I occasionally am mocked with, "Of course they do!" But there's a big difference between playing a game as a coder looking to see if a change is working as intended from a QA perspective and playing a game as a gamer assessing whether the change really makes the overall game better. It's the age-old forest and trees problem.

I've bought and played Paradox games from the very beginning, and I've watched them grow from a couple of guys into a huge and successful company. But in the process, they've created a development model where their games routinely grow into ever-changing McMansions with layer upon layer of tacked-on architechural bling built upon a foundation of game rules etched in sand. Their games become increasingly inaccessible -- not just from the perspective of learning curve but more fundamentally from a "what the heck is this game even about anymore" perspective. It's like sitting down for a game of chess and having to ask, "So what are the rules this week?"

They've become exceptionally good at coding. But what they need more of are real game designers with the vision and backbone to defend their games from the coders.

I think the main source of disconnect in the pricing model is that you guys seem to categorize the additions based on the amount of time and effort your spend developing them, but we categorize them by the amount of impact they make on our gameplay. It's two different ends of the pipeline. You guys can put ungodly amounts of man-hours into a new feature, but if if it's easily ignored or reduced, most players are going to count it as a minor addition at best, something that needs to be removed at worst.

Very true. Which I think also hits upon one of the reasons some folks become so upset and so vocal when the Devs suddenly throw out radical and random changes in game rules and mechanics, especially when there was no groundswell of players calling for them. We know these changes aren't free -- they come at the clear cost of neglect elsewhere.

So when the Devs suddenly change the game to remove choices, to allow shattered enemy armies to retreat intact deeper into your own territory, and to make a king on the other side of the world hate you because you conquered your neighbor, some of us think, "Really? Was that the best use of your time?"

They are in desperate need of focus.

 

[BD13]

I would like to see less threat given for peaceful vassalizations.

I am guessing it is to close a potential loophole in which you grant independence to reduce threat and revassalize? Maybe add a time requirement from preventing this from being exploited?

 

[joeBurn]

I do, although QA and our main programmer read the forum a lot, they just don't all post.

I know that you cannot read all the posts, but I would be really grateful if somebody like you could find time to speak your mind about concerns and suggestions raised here for example:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...tomation-and-removal-of-player-choice.909935/

Number of people have similar concerns(as posts ratings in the link above prove). It would be nice to actually hear PDX point of view on those concerns.

Thanks for your time

 

[thekaje]

The two biggest game design rules broken by Conclave:

1) Never remove player choices.

2) If it ain't broke (and no one's complaining), don't fix it.

 

[Olaf the Unsure]

2) If it ain't broke (and no one's complaining), don't fix it.

And a corollary: When you break a game by "patching" something that wasn't broken, endlessly tweaking the "patch" isn't an actual fix. The best way to undo the damage is go back to beginning.

 

[Siggerad]

I dont like the masive coalition for take 2 duchys, the most far country is in the coalition, but when you try to married is soooo far way. What i really hate is read "let the modders fixed"....hmm then i have to give them half of the price of the new DLC? i Love PDX games; please dont go in the path of Blizzard games, the say too "all is perfect" "the game have a tons of new content", 10M subs and now 3 or less millons subs. Is only my opinion but the new coalition and limitations of the council burns out my game experience.

 

[Alfy]

And a corollary: When you break a game by "patching" something that wasn't broken, endlessly tweaking the "patch" isn't an actual fix. The best way to undo the damage is go back to beginning.

Yeah, but that's nevergoing to happen, and it makes me so bad. It will get tweaked until the backlash dies down, possibly toned down a lot, but it will still be there. And because the changes remain, it'll preclude further improvements of these features.

 

[Hector of Troy]

What will probably happen is that the new restraining mechanics will get nerfed to the point they will be barely noticeable in a couple of patches. A true waste of precious resources that could otherwise have been invested elsewhere.