I wish Paradox games took themselves more seriously

[Onlyherefortheconverter]

Im starting to believe that the only requirement to work on ck3 in the interview besides the technical knowledge is "Do you love Game of Thrones and how much do you know about it?". The game is an absolute parody of the middle ages produced by people who clearly dont know anything about the middle ages and are stuck on the middle ages vision of beginning of the XX century and who care not at all about the middle ages, and only to do a good representation of game of thrones and Flying Circus representation of the middle ages. No, the middle ages wasnt like GoT. The middle ages wasnt a endles circle of assassination and incest. There was more to it.

It's really a pity. The game has great foundation mechanics, but they've decided to turn it into an unimmersive joke. Some people might find it fresh and interesting now, but they are gonna get bored of ig two expansion from now on. Well some are already getting fed up with it already.

CK3 is only a representation of Game of Thrones seasons 5-8. If it were a representation of Game of Thrones 1-4, CK3 would actually be a stunning game as it would then have - Extremely deep Court politics and schemes/intrigues where how we handled courtiers and Councillors would literally make or break each game (Season 1); as well as extremely deep and detailed vassal management and internal realm politics and how we managed it all would would literally make or break each game (Seasons 2-4). Instead - and paraphrasing GoT's worst/most infamous quote - We wanted depth in CK3 but PDX said we needed the bad graphics.

 

[Tuo]

CK-2 included a way to deal with the silliness.

After some time, I ended up turning off "absurd events" and "supernatural events" in CK2's options. Yes Glitterhoof and Polar bear events were funny for a while, but eventually I just wanted a more believable experience, focused more on the strategy aspect.

CK3 needs an option to turn off fart jokes before they get out-of-hand, or perhaps should I say "out-of-butt." *h'yuk h'yuk h'yuk*

You hire a jester, and expect them to not engage in silliness? That's literally their job!

 

[Serenity84]

It's also exaggerating things all the time. GoT had one incestuous relationship. In CK it happens all the time. Or real life had the Habsburgs marry uncles and nieces, not brothers and sisters. Same thing with assassinations. They happened occasionally, but weren't the norm.

 

[ShepherdOfCats]

You hire a jester, and expect them to not engage in silliness? That's literally their job!

It's not necessarily that, just that I would rather have had a regent, just being honest.

It's possible that no one at all from the community suggested to the developers at any point in time between Sept 2020 and present day, that regents should be brought back.

Maybe it just got omitted from this update focused on establishing your court.

EDIT:

Sorry for the snark, but it seems that when there are choices to be made, it is becoming clearer to me what sort of stuff will make it into the game, and what won't.

 

[UnenthusiasticClownJob]

Sorry for the snark, but it just seems that when there are choices to be made, it is becoming clearer to me what sort of stuff will make it into the game, and what won't.

This, this, a thousand times this. Some of you people aren't getting it; the problem isn't that fart jokes and shrek references exist in CK3. The problem can be broken down into three components:

1. Fart jokes and shrek references are ALL that exist in CK3.

2. The devs are actively refusing to work on parts of the game that DESPERATELY need work (Like me not catching my wife cheating on me with herself, the fact that they went for over a year knowing that Poetry didn't work and they still didn't fix it, or Samsara being God, etc. etc.) because they just want to add more fart jokes

3. None of these fart jokes, shrek references, incest funny hahas, murdermeme religions, using deposed rulers as footstool events, or memes in general have ANY bearing on ANYTHING. The events come from nowhere, pick random characters to play them out, do nothing, and then vanish into the ether and literally nothing about the game changed. You could remove almost all events from CK3 and the game would play out exactly the same but with fewer interruptions.

Even if the devs WANT to sacrifice any and all seriousness or reasonability from the game in order to turn it into a "haha look what these random events spiraled into" simulator, they're failures at doing so, because the events don't spiral into anything. They don't do anything. You just read the text of the event that says "haha incest", you get 6 stress, and you close the event. And every time the event comes up after that, you close it without reading, because you don't care about it, and it does nothing.

The CK3 devs spent 18 months working on 3D models that look like trash you'd find on the Xbox Arcade a decade ago, writing jokes that nobody cares about, and adding more bugs into the game. That's the problem. It's not that they have a different vision for the game than we'd like, it's that they've failed at every possible opportunity to even achieve their own vision.

 

[sandro chronicler]

and take some inspiration from for example Ridley Scott. He knows how to set a tune.

If you referring to his "last duel" movie, then, it was actually criticized by historians and reenactors for lack of historical accuracy, and stereotypenes. And, it flopped. Hard.
There is much better examples of accurate and atmospheric medieval movies.

 

[Rubidium]

Honestly, the parts that bother me are less the events (I don't care about the Tinder event), and more the general focus on memes in the mechanics. So everyone is sleeping with everyone else (including special event chains and perks designed to make it easier to be incestuous), Vikings as uber-warriors who can rip pathetic feudals in half (and don't get me started about Haesteinn dumping all over the Karlings), and entire mechanics designed to make it easy to create a crazy sex cult with yourself as god-king while the actual, historical religions are bare-bones at best.

 

[Kyberia]

Oh but I think that in CK2 there was a balance between the silly stuff and the more serious historical flavored events. I mean events like Glitterhoof were funny and made up CK2 essence. I personally really hate non historical content and even for me it was the perfect equilibrium between fantasy and historical flavor. Another point is that I think that in CK2 devs were really trying to simulate history, while in CK3 you can see how important historical events such as the Crusades or Norman invasion of England rarely work.

I think Demony has hit the nail on the head here. It's not that there are fart jokes, but that they're too concentrated - they could do with more un-fart-related and preferably history-based events to space them out. I've always meant to try modding an event pack or so, so this tempts me to get off my arse and give it a go.

 

[ToraktheNord]

I wouldn't say that CK3 became more silly but I haven't played Royal Court yet. It might seem like it because there are few events that can happen regardless of lifestyle. Most events are lifestyle events and I think they are great, however, they become repetitive because many select the most optimal lifestyle. That's why silly events become more noticeable.

Not really on topic, but I personally think one of the big problems of the game is that lifestyles are selectable by players. Instead of players choosing the perks and “seeing“ ahead of the tree and getting the events associated with the lifestyle, it should be the other way around, and the actual tree should be hidden. I think a kind of hybrid between the ck2s WoL and ck3s lifestyle system would be better:
choose which general direction you want to pursue (martial), and each level and split in the skilltree will trigger events which will influence what path ( authority, chivalry, strategy) you are going down and how fast depending on success.

additionally: you can‘t really see the progress npcs have in the skilltree at a glance. A character could have every perk for every lifestyle except the last one which actually gives the completion trait and you wouldn‘t know unless you inspect their lifestyle screen. i don‘t really have a good solution for this though

 

[Nevars]

I can't take people who unironically think that GoT is realistic portrayal of medieval era or even ancient era seriously.

Spoiler alert, it's not, it got literally almost everything wrong that it made ck3 or even ck2 with all that silliness more realistic and fun portrayal of medieval era.

 

[Notthemama]

I'm going to disagree with the initial statement, for two reasons.

The first one is that the idea that the Middle ages were grim and serious is inaccurate. People in they day-to-day lives had fun with simple and more elaborate things. Yes, they made fart jokes. This is actually immersive, and we have loads of texts to prove that. So yes, some memes are annoying (like this weird obsession with incest and weird-looking characters) but overall, I'm also tired of medieval simulators trying to make us think that life was like a perpetual Game of Thrones scenario with death at the corner all the time.

The second one is that a historical game that takes itself too seriously is always really bad news for teachers and researchers, because it means more students who think that playing a game is learning about history. I know it's a rather egotistic reason, but nowadays we already have enough online content trying to rewrite history that it's an issue. A student with an appetite for learning because they had fun in CK, while realizing it wasn't the most accurate depiction of history, is preferable to idiots who think Total War Rome is a historical simulator.

And I would add a third one:
In CK2 we had lots of silly supernatural events that were leaning more towards fantasy than actual medieval supernatural stuff. In CK3 we get some jokes, but a lot of them aren't out of place for a medieval game. Like, the obvious reference to king Salomon in the court event would be understood by a lot of medieval people. Also, I'm not sure which fart joke you're referring to, but one of the most famous medieval farce tells the story of a man who substitutes his soul for a fart when the Devil comes to take it.

Comments like the one written here by cristofolmc reminds me of those people who actually don't know the first thing about the daily life in the middle ages, but are persuaded to be very knowledgeable because they know of some very serious stuff like battles and laws. CK3 may not be an accurate version of the Middle Ages, but it doesn't really try to, and often it gets the spirit, much more so than CK2 ever did.
In fact, the issue we have is that this community takes itself way too seriously for a bunch of nerds playing games. If you want history, then do history, don't play games.

I'm going to disagree with this for several reasons. No game is really making a difference to teachers or scholars. If you think the primary problem with people have a misperception of the middle ages is a game instead of a terrible high school textbook that talks about notions of feudalism from the 19th century that have been absolutely destroyed by modern scholarship, or even other pop culture like Braveheart, you're way off. You could turn the supernatural stuff off in ck3. I don't think people are complaining about the farts jokes as such; the complaint is that is basically all the RC really added. Fart jokes are fine, not so much as the most prominent expansion of a DLC people spent money on. No one wants a strict medieval simulator, but it would be cool to have more medieval aspects since, you know, it is the setting, and less incest

 

[Notthemama]

It's also exaggerating things all the time. GoT had one incestuous relationship. In CK it happens all the time. Or real life had the Habsburgs marry uncles and nieces, not brothers and sisters. Same thing with assassinations. They happened occasionally, but weren't the norm.

And I'd also point out the Habsburg thing was really a late medieval (really late medieval) early modern phenomenon, not really an early/high middle ages thing. The Church was rather serious about consanguineous marriage in the high middle ages.

 

[InsidiousMage]

No game is really making a difference to teachers or scholars. If you think the primary problem with people have a misperception of the middle ages is a game instead of a terrible high school textbook that talks about notions of feudalism from the 19th century that have been absolutely destroyed by modern scholarship, or even other pop culture like Braveheart, you're way off.

An actual historian and professor says otherwise. Key quote....

I have already heard from multiple college-level instructors that they have students coming into their classes specifically to learn the history behind these games, which in turn means that these games are serving to shape those student’s understanding of history before they even enter the classroom. Moreover, and we’ll get deeper into this as we go along, the very presentation of Paradox’s games, which use their efforts at historical accuracy as a key selling point, encourages players to think about them as exercises in history rather than just games.

 

[Jarolleon]

Oh but I think that in CK2 there was a balance between the silly stuff and the more serious historical flavored events. I mean events like Glitterhoof were funny and made up CK2 essence. I personally really hate non historical content and even for me it was the perfect equilibrium between fantasy and historical flavor. Another point is that I think that in CK2 devs were really trying to simulate history, while in CK3 you can see how important historical events such as the Crusades or Norman invasion of England rarely work.

It helps that Glitterhoof was reserved for when your ruler is actually insane. Silly things would happen when they made sense.

Anyhow I think Reddit isn't entirely to blame for the fart joke overload, Facebook pages and the various "fun fact" clickbait mills that rely on it probably inspired their inclusion & frequency. For some reason posts about flatulists were as common in recent months as memes about Charles II von Hapsburg were a couple years ago.

 

[Olaf Trygvasson]

And was never advertised as anything else; the more or less explicit intent is that if you like buying your DLCs individually, and you're not into Vikings, you don't need to buy it.

It did accompany a free patch, of course, and I seem to recall that had good, generally applicable updates to game mechanics in it.

(Honestly, the behaviour of a noisy and intemperate minority of the anti-RC posters has me tempted to buy the expansion pass precisely because they're being annoying brats about it.)

And I would have been happy to skip it, but many of us here pre-ordered the special edition of the game, so we get it free. I was rather hoping that the first DLC would be adding relevant gameplay and depth to the game, rather than a meme generator and a 3D room that probably cost them a TON of time and money for basically 0 return on value added to the game

 

[Notthemama]

An actual historian and professor says otherwise. Key quote....

That historian is saying it made those students more interested in gaining an accurate knowledge. The guy I was responding to said it made people's understanding less accurate. I was claiming ck's influence in warping the perception of the middle ages is less than a high school textbook or movies or other media. The point was about any negative effect, so you bring in a point to say it's actually having a positive effect, so thanks I guess.

 

[InsidiousMage]

That historian is saying it made those students more interested in gaining an accurate knowledge. The guy I was responding to said it made people's understanding less accurate. I was claiming ck influence in warping perception of the middle ages is less than a high school textbook or movies or other media, so I can't really even say what point you think you are making responding to me

He says that people take the things presented in Paradox's games as historically accurate when they are initially playing them thus if they didn't seek to further their understanding of the time period they wouldn't correct their false impressions. How else could you interpret this...

which in turn means that these games are serving to shape those student’s understanding of history before they even enter the classroom

He is literally saying that people's understanding of history is shaped by Paradox's game and the only way that understanding is corrected is by people seeking out further knowledge on their own. If people don't actively seek out that further knowledge then their misunderstanding then it is not corrected and not everyone takes that further step!

 

[AvengedK1ng]

The norman invasion of england in CK2 works nothing like it historically did (and was at least somewhat shonky anyway).

It doesn't show Billy the Bastard sitting on his duff in Normandy for months because of unfavourable conditions, or his first attempt to actually put out to sea resulting in men drowning in a storm and his ships having to come back home, or Harold sitting on the Isle of Wight with an army for months before disbanding it due to lack of provisiona shortly before the weather turned far enough in Billy's favour for him to cross the channel, or Harold doing a forced march from Stamford Bridge (having pushed Harald's face in) to the Sussex coast.

But Harold didn't sit on wight for months, he turned south when hearing of william ravaging his personal estates

 

[AvengedK1ng]

Like, the demon child...? Or the giant bird hunting? Or immortality chain...? Nah, snark aside (apologies, too few hours of sleep last night), in my *personal* view, I don't consider either II or III as inherently more serious than the other.

Also, let's keep in mind that at the end of its life cycle, II had a bigger volume of events, so somebody's game could be full of silliness, while somebody else would see just a few silly events.

There were game rules to turn it off

 

[Jarolleon]

Supply and demand
Paradox discovered that people follow the creators that make memes on their channel.
Memes are free publicity.
Free publicity attracts more consumers
Consumers give money to the company.
So you most make your games meme-able to earn more money, its simple.

For example the first DLC for CK3 was a nordicist content pack to satisfy an infamous section of our playerbase, but did not added nothing useful to the game in general.
Then Royal Court its all about creating memes, added some small QOL things to improve the game in the long run. While not fixing most of the issues the game has.

The old era of GSG ended a while ago, but we still have these threads, games are made to make money. And companies generally dont care about their "old customers" as much as they care about expanding into new niches, CK3 has more RPG elements than its predecessor.....and we know this from day 1.

Name 1 (one, una) company that makes realistic historical games, only 1 (one, una), and tell me how successful it is. Sadly, memes are the future of gaming, not historical accuracy.

Warhorse Studios with Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Sure it's not strategy but it is realistic by video game standards and does take itself seriously. The Mount & Blade series by Taleworlds is close too, but it does have minor fantasy elements like women fighting on the frontline of medieval battles as a matter of course, named characters who merely get "wounded" 98% of the time upon defeat, and armies not requiring sleep.

IMO this is mainly because marketing departments are very good at persuading people, that's literally their job, so the trends they are inclined to follow are disproportionately adopted. Having a bunch of memes about a game is associated with it being good because good games get played enough for the communities around them to make memes, I suspect the trend is to approximate this in cargo cult fashion. Though what you said about GSG being over does make me think of cursed question... do young people think of mobile games like Clash of Clans when they hear "strategy game"?