EU4 - Dev Diary - December 3rd 2015

[Ntek_sr]

Then go way then, I doubt Wiz will lose sleep over your brave defection to the non-existent competitor. Honestly, why do people come on here and complain and gripe as if Paradox is going to cater to their every whim? If a restaurant changes the sauce they put on my favorite dish to one that I dislike, I don't whine at management that they owe me the old sauce. I either learn to like the new sauce or find a new restaurant.

Well, I found a new restaurant in a small Indie. But this is wrong forum for that. I will follow your advice and say god bye!

 

[Bernard Black]

Well it is certainly interesting to have a look at the pricing process. I personally haven't bought cossacks but thats mainly due to time constraints rather then problems with the price.

I just like to add a few thoughts addressing some of the points i read here:

- Obviously value is a very subjective thing and how much you get out of a new DLC depends largely on yourself and your playstyle. So everyone has to decide to for themselves if he wants to pay full price for the DLC, wait or won't buy ever. BUT PDX has to assign a value to their product and the way Wiz has explained here is one way to do it, which seems entirely reasonable. In the end their work has to be paid somehow and of course their calculation has to be based on the manhours they invested and if they were right with their decisions is determined by the customer. The moment they dont get their investment back from a DLC they have to start thinking about changing something.

- I don't get the glorification of the Early PDX and their selling out now. They are a company and they have to pay bills. They sell a product and if i am satisfied i buy it, why is there always so much emotional investment going around. They don't owe us anything and we don't owe them anything in return.

- The assignment of Value equals entertainment hours/Price tag assumes that you can get a very high value out of anything by just spending lots of time with it. That doesn't really work when you don'T have a lot of time to spend with your games. The reason i haven't touched PDX games for several weeks now is not that i don't enjoy them but because i cant find the time to invest some 50h into a campaign. I enjoy other titles as well and that leaves little room for EUIV. I guess all i want to say is, that for me and i guess a lot of other people the quality of the product is much more important and then we invest easily the 20 bucks. Something to consider when talking about value.

Regards

 

[AndrewT]

Several spammy and trollish posts deleted. No infractions handed out this time, but do not do this any more.

 

[Mataresian]

Nice and transparent, I still need more options to choose what kind of islands spawn in the new world though ^^ (I like the big island the most but they usually don't always spawn)

 

[FrostFG]

While I am not overly happy having to pay 20$ for a new expansion (and the unit pack I find outrageous - but optional), I realised something last night when trying to dig out some Assassins Creed and Far Cry - they are not working anymore on my machine (which is brand new). I have spent a lot of money on quite frankly bulls**t Ubisoft and EA games, just to be ripped off, plagued by bugs and unable to save, play at all or play offline. And of course these guys don't give a flying f***. I have paid them and that is all that matters.
Then I look at my EU4 playtime, the fact that I have not yet seen a serious bug and the fact that the game has a depth to it that you can't find anywhere else. So yes, I am gonna fork out 20$ dollars tonight. I think I get my value out of it even though I have due to time constraints never fully finished a campaign. Draw your own conclusions...

 

[cloudwasher]

I see why you guys charge $20 for it this time around and all, especially with the amount of changes I've seen just from the free patch. What has kept me from getting it isn't the price, it's the estates. To be honest, it looks like far more of a micromanaging hassle than it's worth. If they had an estates-free version of cossacks for $15 I would've bought it on day 1.

 

[Gothmar]

I'm sorry, Did they really say that no fix to this DLC till AFTER new years?!?!?!? While arguing the cost is justified on a DLC that doesn't work and crashes to desktop making Ironman saves disappear? Seems pretty game breaking to start a game , play 20 minutes , lose all progress, start again, play 20 minutes etc etc.. How is it not priority to get ATLEAST the desktop crashes fixed before the holidays so that the game is playable for what we paid for?

Says you've fixed this but I'm still getting them consistantly as before.

 

[thebluedoll]

Hello everyone and welcome back to another development diary for Europa Universalis 4. With The Cossacks released, we'll now be getting back to non-feature related development diaries for a while. Before I start yammering on, however, I thought I'd let you know that we're currently working on a hotfix for 1.14, due to be released soon(tm). In addition to the hotfix, we're also working on a larger bugfixing patch (as we always do after an expansion) that currently has no decided ETA.

Since the hot topic the day seems to be the pricing of The Cossacks, I thought I would go ahead and address the bugbear in the room by explaining how we (we being EU4 specifically) price expansions.

What's in a price tag?
A number of comments have emerged along the lines of 'Why is Cossacks, which has the same amount of features as Common Sense, $/€5 more expensive?" The answer to that question, quite simply, is that they do not have the same amount and size of features.

When designing an expansion, we make a plan for the number and size of features that will be in said expansion. We break up features according to the following classifications:

Mega - A mega feature that represents a very large time investment and a major change in how the game can be played, such as introducing new game modes. The Nation Designer and Random New World are the only mega features to date.
Major - A major feature that takes a large time investment and has a large impact on the game. Examples of these include Estates from Cossacks, Subject Interactions from Common Sense and the Army Planner from Art of War.
Medium - A medium-sized feature that takes about an average time investment and usually has a fairly large impact on the game. Examples include Development from Common Sense, Nahuatl mechanics from El Dorado and Horde Unity from Cossacks.
Minor - A small feature that can be implemented quickly and generally has limited impact on the game. Examples include Threaten War from Cossacks, Return Province from Common Sense and Selling Ships from Art of War.

We make sure that each expansion has a good mix of major, medium and minor features (with a mega feature instead of several major ones in CoP and ED) and then sum up the total number of features where mega features are worth 10 points, major features are worth 6 points, medium features are worth 3 points and minor features 1.5 points. This is then divided by price to create the actual value, which we ensure stays very close to the value for money in previous expansions (our highest 'value for money' expansion is Wealth of Nations owing to the low price tag, but it's only 5% more value for money than The Cossacks, for example). We never factor free content into the price - while Art of War came with a mega map rework, this had nothing to do with its $20 price tag, and neither did the Random New World rework influence the Cossacks price tag. We set our price purely according to the actual features you are getting for paying for them.

For those still not convinced, I'll make a quick comparison between Cossacks and Common Sense. Here are the 'expansion features' lists for each:

Common Sense vs The Cossacks


In total, Common Sense had 2 major features (Subject Interactions, Parliaments), 4 medium (Protestantism, Development, Buddhism, Devotion) and 6 minor (Free Cities, Remove Electorate, Pause Westernization, Dismiss Advisor, Government Ranks, Return Province) features. This gives a total of 33 points, or 2.2 points per $.



In total, The Cossacks had 2 major (Diplomatic Feedback, Estates), 7 medium (Advanced Change Culture, Build Directly to Army, Improved Espionage, Horde Unity, New Subject Interactions, Native Policies, Tengri) and 9 minor (Name Your Heir, Victory Cards, Concede Colonial Area, Distribute Spoils, Construct in Subjects, Threaten War, Forced Migration, Declare Colonial War, Raze) features. This gives a total of 46.5 points, or 2.32 points per $.

One final thing I wanted to mention is that The Cossacks, in addition to being our expansion with the single most paid content (Art of War had 3 major, 4 medium, 10 minor for a total of 2.25 points per $), also had a huge amount of free content, even if you leave out the RNW rework. The region rework took about a month and the interface reworks in country view and the interface rework to macro builder and country view took weeks and weeks of artist and coder time. In terms of actual team time spent on it, the Art of War map changes were far cheaper, as much of the work was done by our beta testers and map modders. Just because something isn't immediately visible on the map does not mean it did not take hard work on our part.

I think that pretty much wraps it up. You're of course free to think that our pricing model is wrong for one reason or another, but I hope you should at least be able to understand where we're coming from, and that we're not just setting our prices because we decided that we wanted to hit you for an extra five dollars this time around.

Hello Wiz,

I'm glad you have responded in detail to explain the pricing of the Cossacks. However when consumers value a feature that they might not know a lot about, they may value it differently. For example using your metrics I would actually value the estates system as a mega feature and the diplomatic feedback as a minor one. Where it seems that the estates system fundamentally changes the game, is thoroughly fleshed out, and adds another layer to the game, the diplomatic feedback seems rushed and quirky. This impression I think is mainly due to the lack of information on how the feature works. Some of the questions I have are: What exactly happens when I label another nation as friendly, hostile, neutral, threatened (and why not more options). Secondly, (and more importantly) how does the ai respond to provinces of vital interest, not just ones they have selected but ones that other nations that selected around them? To that point why can't the player set provinces of strategic interest? You had mentioned previously that setting a province as a province of strategic importance is a meaningless distinction for the player. If this is true, then it is also meaningless for the player to set a province at all since it is only giving information on what that player desires, not how other nations would respond to it. What is even more interesting is that players can set provinces of strategic importance if they have a claim on the province (this seems counterintuitive but can make sense if the mechanics play out correctly). If setting provinces of vital interest has bidirectional effects then the situation is more complex and should be explained more thoroughly so that consumers know what they are paying for. I genuinely enjoy EU IV and the cossacks expansion but I am probably going to request a refund until I UNDERSTAND not WHAT I'm paying for but HOW that particular feature works, even though I thoroughly enjoyed the estates system. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Thebluedoll

 

[crismac]

I see why you guys charge $20 for it this time around and all, especially with the amount of changes I've seen just from the free patch. What has kept me from getting it isn't the price, it's the estates. To be honest, it looks like far more of a micromanaging hassle than it's worth. If they had an estates-free version of cossacks for $15 I would've bought it on day 1.

+1

I do not have a problem with the price. But the estates I can not stand. I wish there was an option to check to turn them off. For this reason my game play as gone down a bunch since the release of Cossacks. Please give us this option.

 

[happymix91]

It will not be out before new years.

Will beta for 1.15 be released at December like beta for 1.13 was released at same month with 1.12?

 

[grommile]

I do not have a problem with the price. But the estates I can not stand. I wish there was an option to check to turn them off. For this reason my game play as gone down a bunch since the release of Cossacks. Please give us this option.

This is a pretty straightforward modding task, only slightly more complex than disabling colonial nations. (The change is exactly as simple, but you need to do it in six places instead of one.)

And given that the flameage about CNs was pretty intense at the time, and they didn't yield on providing a "no CNs" button in the options screen then, I don't imagine they'll be providing a "no estates" button in the option screen now, either.

 

[crismac]

This is a pretty straightforward modding task, only slightly more complex than disabling colonial nations. (The change is exactly as simple, but you need to do it in six places instead of one.)

And given that the flameage about CNs was pretty intense at the time, and they didn't yield on providing a "no CNs" button in the options screen then, I don't imagine they'll be providing a "no estates" button in the option screen now, either.

Thanks for the reply grommile. I guess I will keep an eye out for a mod to come for it since I have zero knowledge about modding.

I figured they probably wouldn't do it, but I can always hope.

 

[Angelos]

I think this whole "breaking down the tab" discussion is pointless. 20 euros (27 with the unit pack) is indeed a bit much for an expansion considering there are two of them each year, but we will buy them if only to support Paradox. Trying to come up with a price list for features is beneath this company's history imho. My only real concern is, that the total cost of the full game for a newcomer is unbelievably high now. I just checked on steam, and the full EUIV collection is at 92.90 euros. Even on an extreme 75% sale, it would be about 24 euros! We might not notice because we keep buying them as they come out, but i doubt any newcomer would easily spend this kind of cash all at once...

 

[Germes]

So, now i know more

 

[Link76]

[QUOTE="Wiz, Humans in general are honestly not very good at estimating value, so we'll just have to try and be better at explaining what you get for your money in the future.[/QUOTE]
But you are also a human, right? This statement is honestly a paradox in itself ;-)

But the amount of negative reviews about the bugs, crashes and overpriced DLC (only 58% of the players on Steam are positive about the Cossacks DLC), does Paradox studios takes this into account? It would be bad for there image if the same thing happened with the next DLC. Honestly, also I am disappointed about the new DLC and I will think twice next time before blindly ordering the next one. All other DLC are great they made, like Art of war.

 

[senera]

Am i the first to say: shut up and take my money!
You are doing a great job already. We are seeing major titles in the market with only a few major features according to your categorization selling at premium price. Each expansion you publish refreshes EUIV gameplay to almost being a brand new game, sustaining high replayability. With these new features you could publish EUVI already by now, if we were in the old CD-ROM days.

 

[crysanja]

wow with this calculation a new game like stellaris or hoi4 will be in the thousands or even even higher Oo

I just hope you put the hours in to make this reasonable. Its allways difficult to see reason about this from the outside.
However youre points system seems unreasonable, its more value then you would ever get from new games with the points system.

 

[Pietbont]

Let me begin by saying that i have thoroughly enjoyed most of PI's games; they have made, in my opinion, some of the best strategy games.
I'm also grateful to Paradox for giving us insight into their reasoning behind the way DLC's are priced. I just think, however, that the reasoning itself doesn't really hold up.

I think that an important factor, when looking at the pricing of DLC, is the pricing relative to the vanilla game itself. EU4 was (roughly) 45-50 euro's at release. As it stands, the major pieces of DLC-i'm not even including minor DLC here such as sprite packs-are combined 100 euro's. While not denying that the DLC has significantly improved upon the vanilla game, it doesn't even come close to offering the amount of features that came in the main game.
And i don't expect them to, because they're merely add-ons. And that's how they should be priced. For a few new features in diplomacy, religion and internal politics, one is expected to pay nearly half of the price of the vanilla game.

I recognize that it's a free market, and people will pay what they want for it (personally. i will wait until a sale). I also know i have no detailed insight into EU4's position from a financial perspective.
I'm just saying that, from the perspective of the consumer, the pricing of the vanilla game and the DLC are markedly disproportional. The amount of content they offer don't even come close.

The rebuke that we are supporting PI with the money gained from DLC doesn't really hold up either. Atleast, it shouldn't. The vast majority of games on steam are able to keep their games patched without going around with the hat.

Having said all that, i still enjoy your games. But stop the stream of DLC, yo.

 

[TheChronoMaster]

The rebuke that we are supporting PI with the money gained from DLC doesn't really hold up either. Atleast, it shouldn't. The vast majority of games on steam are able to keep their games patched without going around with the hat.

Not even close to the same extent, though. Point me to a game that still has free patches adding additional content more than 2 years after release that's not made by Paradox, and doesn't have a similar amount of DLC.

 

[Pietbont]

Not even close to the same extent, though. Point me to a game that still has free patches adding additional content more than 2 years after release that's not made by Paradox, and doesn't have a similar amount of DLC.

I'm not going to scour my entire library so i will give you a few examples of well known games.

A game of another genre-with their own fair amount of bugs to handle-would be Skyrim. Offering two pieces of major DLC containing each entirely new locations and quests-nearly 50 hours of content solely on their own- and a third minor customied housing DLC. Patched their game for nearly 2 years after release, released DLC worth about 50 euros dollars total in contrast to EU4's 200 euros.

A more similar game would be CIV 5. Granted, it also has a big share of DLC, but still only at half that of EU4. It patched its game for about 3 years after release.