EU4 - Development Diary - 16th of April 2019

[Lavilledieu]

My personal QoL wishlist would be: I'd like more alerts when doing decisions, declaring war, etc.
Basically things like "Hey idiot, you're about to declare war on this country but you have a free rival slot and you could use it against them!"
Also another alert like "Neighbor Ripe for Attack" when all their allies won't answer, they're fifty loans in debt, and their army got stackwiped. If you think that would be unfair, you can already get this information from the ledger and the AI uses that information when deciding to attack you.
Speaking of the ledger, can we finally get troop numbers in either the diplomacy or declare war screen? We have all this information, and more, but we have to do additional clicks for EVERY nation.

I understand why you would want that, but this could become a source of notification spam. And tactical choices like "neighbor ripe for attack" are something you should do instead of the computer. A big part of the game is being attentive on what's happening around you. IMO, ledger information is also part of being attentive, it gives you something to do during peace time.
About the first thing: instead of such a notification, the free rival slot shouldn't disappear. Or at least I have the feeling that it disappears. After you lose a rival during a war, I've got a feeling that the game doesn't always inform you of new possible rivals after that war.

 

[DarkBlue]

Yep. Every QOL counts.



Okay, do people want everything to be spoonfed to them? I mean, am I the only one who like to micro/tune my gameplay?



Nope, nope, nope, nope. Making the game 'friendlier' to newbies usually means watered-down mechanics and dumb instant gratification features, even bordering on 'we should not punish success' mechanics (like that ever happened historically).

If I were to be asked what the community wants for the 2019 Q4 release and I will base this on the majority of the player-suggested ideas from the past several DDs, the larger (or more vocal?) EU4 community wants deeper, more meaningful, and more historical approach to the core mechanics of the game.

Seriously, if the same formula in the near past DLCs were to be used again in the end-of-the-year massive release, well, there's Imperator.

Here's my ranking for patch contents:

Revamping existing mechanisms > Interesting new mechanisms > QoL >>>>>> Superficial new mechanics

Everyone wants good stuff coming to the game but I doubt good ideas are that easily generated and implemented. At least the devs don't fool us with more new buttons as "new contents", and I appreciate that.

 

[grommile]

About the first thing: instead of such a notification, the free rival slot shouldn't disappear. Or at least I have the feeling that it disappears. After you lose a rival during a war, I've got a feeling that the game doesn't always inform you of new possible rivals after that war.

The game does not alert you that you have a free rival slot; it alerts you that you are subject to the Not Enough Rivals penalty.

If you only have 3-4 possible rivals left, then having two rivals is enough to avoid the penalty.

 

[slackerpants]

Fix HRE mapmode so it differentiates between provinces owned by electors/emperor and provinces actually added to the empire. Maybe with striped colors?

 

[GenericType]

Everyone wants good stuff coming to the game but I doubt good ideas are that easily generated and implemented.

Good ideas are already plentiful. It's just a matter of which ones the EU4 dev team is going to integrate, or are they going to devise one themselves. Factor as well the budget and time involved in code development, qa, and maintenance. But...

At least the devs don't fool us with more new buttons as "new contents", and I appreciate that.

Nothing is solid, yet. All the previous DD's -- barring this one -- purpose was to ask the community for suggestions on how to improve the disparage mechanics this bloated game has.

For all I know, due to time constraints, they will not overhaul a single mechanic, instead they will just slap an abstract solution to the disconnected mechanics (maybe too much or too low estate influence now affects corruption, pff boring, can be implemented in 8 hrs or *2), returning the tributtons (for HRE emperor and elector mechanics, new ancien regime, margrave, free city governments for HRE members), or just simply buffing or nerfing several aspects of the game.

OR, they might (at last) implement deep mechanics for diplomacy and internal politics which will drastically affect how empires should be run, how warfare be conducted, and this Q4 release might be the equivalent of CK2's Holy Fury and Stellaris' v2.0

I mean, as long as they will not release a concrete feature and/or mechanic DD, nothing is set in stone.

 

[DarkBlue]

Good ideas are already plentiful. It's just a matter of which ones the EU4 dev team is going to integrate, or are they going to devise one themselves. Factor as well the budget and time involved in code development, qa, and maintenance. But...

Unless you are working in the game industry, I think you underestimate the difficulty of implementing changes. "Ideas" are plentiful, but ideas that work are not. I wouldn't make judgement on something I don't know well.

And it would be better for everyone when they announce something concrete on a new change AFTER they have completed most of the related work.

 

[2dsoul]

This is a bit of an odd QoL request, but in say, special goods produced or trade tab could you guys add the ‘Sufi Shrine’ modifier into it so that it’s easier to find your Sufi Shrines when playing as a Muslim country?

 

[GenericType]

Unless you are working in the game industry, I think you underestimate the difficulty of implementing changes. "Ideas" are plentiful, but ideas that work are not. I wouldn't make judgement on something I don't know well.

And it would be better for everyone when they announce something concrete on a new change AFTER they have completed most of the related work.

I work in a very related industry that deals with demanding customer, system, and administration concerns, and how to deal with ALL of them in a given budgeted time frame. Now, usually what we (I mean me and my coworkers) do is to prioritize the things that we need to do. You are very right in the essence that bug fixes and quality of life improvements must take precedence before any new features or large overhauls.

However, also keep in mind that your customers, the lifeblood of the industry, is anticipating the new or refreshed mechanics that is going to be or may be released in Q4. Customer feedback is very important, and I believe this may very well be the make or break for EU4's continued development, given the overall negative feedback on GC. That's why it is kind of disappointing that we don't have any idea on what has happened with all those user feedback.

Mind you, they already consumed almost 4 months of development. If they are going to start on developing the massive changes and additions just right now, including the QOL, believe me when I say that there is a high chance that either the release will be heavily bugged, the new features will be incredibly abstract and watered down, or the deadline will be pushed. Knock. On. Wood.

The way I see it, if the sprints are already tight, push the QOL improvements to smaller patches after the Q4 release. Focus on the big features and overhauls right now and how to integrate them seamlessly into the system. If those are done and tested ahead of the schedule, them insert the small QOL if they need be.

 

[Dakka]

Fix HRE mapmode so it differentiates between provinces owned by electors/emperor and provinces actually added to the empire. Maybe with striped colors?

I was actually just saying this last night in my Austria game. Agree completely; it’s annoying trying to find what provinces are and aren’t in the Empire when you’re the emperor or elector

 

[F4UST]

As a german player, sometimes i can't read the whole text in the event windows, because the text is too long.

So I hope there will be scrollable event windows or if you float the pointer over the message window, you should be able to see the whole text in a tooltip.

 

[Shiny Dog]

I understand why you would want that, but this could become a source of notification spam. And tactical choices like "neighbor ripe for attack" are something you should do instead of the computer. A big part of the game is being attentive on what's happening around you. IMO, ledger information is also part of being attentive, it gives you something to do during peace time.
About the first thing: instead of such a notification, the free rival slot shouldn't disappear. Or at least I have the feeling that it disappears. After you lose a rival during a war, I've got a feeling that the game doesn't always inform you of new possible rivals after that war.

I understand your idea on attentiveness, because there should always be something you should be doing in a game. I just got off a Stellaris game, and that's pretty much the opposite. Nothing to do but wait.
On the other hand, however, EU4 quickly becomes a mental tax with all the things you have to keep track of. If it doesn't appear on the notification bar it can be very easy to forget what you're supposed to be doing, which only gets worse during war, where you'll be distracted trying to chase down small stacks running all the way to Siberia.
By the same logic, shouldn't we remove the "Ruler without an heir" notification? You can check using the Diplomacy Screen for that (even easier than finding out their troop numbers, in fact), and it would be a reward for paying attention to nations you want to get a Personal Union on.
My point is, information as important as "Can I roughly beat them in a fight?" or "Hey, an opportunity to break-up a massive alliance-bloc" shouldn't be buried in the ledger. Especially once big CBs like Imperialism start rolling in and giving you upwards of 100 tags to watch for an opening.

 

[mechanical_Critter]

it would be better for everyone when they announce something concrete on a new change AFTER they have completed most of the related work.

I don't fancy another religion disaster where they decided they had a good idea and implemented game breaking stuff overnight. Same goes for recent balance changes. In fact the devs have made the opposite commitment from what you suggest.

 

[PabloSugo1991]

I hope that you guys realized that most of your fanbase is from Europe/North America and doesn't give a damn about countries like India that you fleshed out in CK2 and EU4 too

We need more European-centered stuff

 

[dynalon]

As a german player, sometimes i can't read the whole text in the event windows, because the text is too long.

So I hope there will be scrollable event windows or if you float the pointer over the message window, you should be able to see the whole text in a tooltip.

Ah, the ol' German tendency to use three words in places where English only needs one. But overflowing tooltips are a problem in the English localization as well:


However, the most important UI improvement, as far as I'm concerned, is to be done for the Vassal interactions, in particular the "Grant Provinces" mechanic. Right now, there's so, so much redundant clicking involved:
- Press "Grant Province"
- Check the name of the province on the map
- Search that province on the list and click it
- Press Return twice
And then repeat all those steps for every. Single. Province.

Ideally, this would be trimmed down considerably:
- Press "Grant Provinces"
- Select all Provinces that you want to grant, either in a list or by clicking them on the map (as in, both methods are implemented).
- Click "Grant"; get a pop-up saying something along the lines of "We will grant the following provinces to {Subject}: [...] This will increase their Overextension by X (to Y) and decrease their Liberty Desire by Z (to A)"
- Click "Confirm"

Same thing for Client States - it would be so much less tedious if you didn't have to do like four inputs for every single province that you want to grant to a CS (click province - click CS button while avoiding the Return Province one - choose CS - confirm)

 

[RaccoonCity]

We need a map mode for Parliament seats.

PLEASE.

 

[amaromarn]

can we get a QOL to run the hre election one day later after a protestant victory? im almost certain that that would completely solve the odd voting opinions you almost always see after the war ends.

 

[V.V.]

Good stuff!

We need a map mode for Parliament seats.

PLEASE.

Yes, yes we do.

 

[Testeria]

Quality of Life will be a large focus of our expansion and update this year.

Is there any chance that ALL lists in Your app would SORT properly with all columns? It does not seam as a daunting programing task - yet still I can't sort things with some most obvious places...

 

[Nutsolini]

What no. Indonesia/Pacific is the region that’s really lacking in EU4.

While that is true, I believe it's safe to assume that around 60-70% of EU4 players play mostly European Nations of some sort. Thus, improvements and additions to Gameplay in and around Europe will benefit more players in the long run and may make the game more enjoyable to many (completely ignoring the fact that the HRE has not changed in any meaningful way all the way since EU3 and is in dire need of some fresh wind).

Again though, you're not wrong. It's just that Asia is not as high of a priority usually (though PDX does care, as shown with DLCs like Mandate of Heaven and Dharma).

 

[Nutsolini]

I'd like to see the introduction of a new "Government type" mapmode, personally. Wouldn't be hard to do, I reckon.

Monarchy
Republic
Theocracy
Horde
Tribe

That's about 5 colours you'd have to use in total (maybe I forgot some, I don't actually know, but these are the basic forms of government if you ignore the unique ones like English Monarchy and Dutch Republic and so on).