Do your diagnostics tell you what percentage of player time is spent playing SP vs how much spent playing MP? If so, does that then influence your development actions (ie balancing idea groups).
Idea group balancing
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Do your diagnostics tell you what percentage of player time is spent playing SP vs how much spent playing MP? If so, does that then influence your development actions (ie balancing idea groups).
That is damning confirmation that the idea groups are imbalanced in SP.
Perhaps the solution is to have different idea groups for SP and for MP, or different modifiers/percentages using the same groups.
Think I can find extremely niche use for everything but plutocratic, aristocratic and diplomatic (I know a lot of people like pluto, but trading mil for eco ideas isnt really ever a good thing in mp). With that said, expansion, humanism, espionage, influence, diplomatic, mariitime, aristocratic, plutocratic and naval all have at most very niche use (and I'd argue that the niche use of naval/mariitime isnt particularly good for mp gameplay).
WIth that in mind, a selected few idea groups being go-to in single player and a selected few being go-to in multiplayer, would it be unreasonable to ask for some reworks to be done? Having more valid options would both make idea choices a lot more interesting, and prevent suboptimal choices from being more devastating. Getting the balance just right between groups (especially for both sp and mp) would obviously be a challenge, but if the goal merely is to make more groups viable for both modes than currently it wouldn't be very difficult. Hell, if you wanted to I'd be happy to throw together several change alternatives for every group.
I think exploration ideas should be more costly or harder to unlock for non-western nations. Because if you take exploration ideas as a native american tribe you gain such a huge advantage over the other tribes. Yes, you will still struggle to deal with the europeans when they come but the disparity between the player's tribe and the other native tribes that it causes is just unrealistic. And taking exploration ideas is the main reason the player has a chance against european powers anyway. I wish the player could have a realistic native american experience and struggle as much as the AI does. Tribal federations should be the key to survival, not colonizing as fast as possible before the europeans arrive. Maybe make it so that exploration ideas (and possibly other ideas that don't fit the native theme) can only be unlocked after reforming religion.
Biggest problem is that there are some modifiers which are just too good to have as a single idea, f.e. the reduced core creation cost in Administrative ideas.
If they ever want the idea sets to be more generally balanced it's going to require a rework so that these single ideas are split up. So for example the core creation cost bonus reduced to 15% and some of the the other ideas buffed slightly to compensate. And then put another 10% core creation bonus in some other idea set.
There's always going to be a difference in balance between SP and MP due to army quality but we could at least have more of an open playing field when it comes to SP choices.
I apologise I thought diplo rep gave -5% liberty desire. Though I still think influence is better for subject heavy countries or situations.
I'd say the problem is that SP is actually just so easy and offers such little challenge that the ONLY modifiers that matter are core creation, AE, unrest, stuff like that. Military quality, money, things like that just are useless in SP.
Then you have never played Florence or the like. I do agree the game requires little skill once you get the hang of it, but ''getting the hang of it'' happens after 500-1000 hours. I just want the idea groups to be more balanced and provide a real choice in the way you play.
That is why I kind of dislike the predetermined national ideas. On the one hand they make a nation unique, but they also force me to play a certain way. If I want to play a diplomatic game with Brandenburg then I'm at a constant disadvantage. With the nation designer's release I was hoping to be able do edit the ideas of existing nations. Sadly this is not possible and I cannot go full diplomatic with Brandenburg of completely colonise with Ireland.
EU4 should be balanced for single player.
In cases where MP balancing significantly differs from SP balancing, changed values should be an option in the game setup.
This circle jerk goes to such extreme ridiculousness. What is it, exactly, that makes SP idea groups so linear? That only one has CCC? That only one has subject integration cost reduction? That humanist was basically MADE for single player? How exactly do you propose Paradox fixes that? Throw CCC around on every idea? Nerf CCC?
SP has different priorities compared to mosh-pit MP games. Idea groups that don't take this into account get left behind.
Core cost modifiers aren't the only way to make things engaging. Give Expansion its CB back along with +5% admin efficiency and it goes from being trash to being a very interesting strategic alternative to picking Admin every game.
Yes I agree that things need t obe mixed up a bit. I created this post because I was wondering whether revisiting idea groups is actually on PDX's agenda. I see a lot of idea group rebalance posts on the suggestions forum and I was surprised so many other people want the groups to be rebalanced.
"single players don't only care about CCC! They also care about CCC repackaged as admin efficiency!"
Fact is SP is super linear and the more boring of SP and MP. Scapegoating MP for SP being linear is ridiculous.
Mate what is your problem? Many people don't play MP and don't care about balancing the game for MP. And when someone suggests idea groups can be balanced differently in MP compared to SP you get angry?
You cant just re-balance the idea groups and suddenly think that game play is going to change... It wont. Until we have meaningful things to do during peacetime (and a fixed naval game), which offers alternative game play to war, there will always be a "ideal" progression if you want to optimize. Fact of the matter this will always happen, especially if conquest is prioritized. And that's not to say that some idea groups need some loving (I have already commented above).
That said, you can always not optimize. If you want to blob, well those are the best blobbing ideas, if you dont.... who cares. There are a bunch of wacky achievements that dont involve WC style game play (just for ideas, you can make your own - the joy of sandbox), that can offer some crazy wierd setups with idea groups. My fav to this is probably the +dip rep for Hormuz. The goal is VERY different (although yeah you could just WC then re-arrange groups but come on), we need more of these achievements, and then things to do in the meantime so we dont speed 5 while reading the forums. Once that happens then suddenly alternative groups become REALLY meaningful.
IMO because we have have enough UI clutter already, and more importantly what kind of MP game? If I am playing with my wife in a nice little co-op game doesnt that mean we should be using the MP version of idea? Or a bunch of people seeing how big they can blob and they have un-offical truces for the first 100 years.... I've p[played enough wierd scenarios with friends because our skill levels are so different. If we are really talking about re-balancing for competitive MP.... have a mod, or maybe optional rule sets at game creation.
That said, you can always not optimize. If you want to blob, well those are the best blobbing ideas, if you dont.... who cares. There are a bunch of wacky achievements that dont involve WC style game play (just for ideas, you can make your own - the joy of sandbox), that can offer some crazy wierd setups with idea groups. My fav to this is probably the +dip rep for Hormuz. The goal is VERY different (although yeah you could just WC then re-arrange groups but come on), we need more of these achievements, and then things to do in the meantime so we dont speed 5 while reading the forums. Once that happens then suddenly alternative groups become REALLY meaningful.
IMO because we have have enough UI clutter already, and more importantly what kind of MP game? If I am playing with my wife in a nice little co-op game doesnt that mean we should be using the MP version of idea? Or a bunch of people seeing how big they can blob and they have un-offical truces for the first 100 years.... I've p[played enough wierd scenarios with friends because our skill levels are so different. If we are really talking about re-balancing for competitive MP.... have a mod, or maybe optional rule sets at game creation.
Admin efficiency and core cost modifiers both aid expansion, but they do so in very different ways. CCR reduces the time you need to eat OE penalties, while admin efficiency reduces the magnitude. Admin efficiency improves your warscore efficiency, while quick cores can allow you to take an infinite amount of OE if you get coring time below 10 months. Core cost and admin efficiency stack very differently, with core cost being nice through the entire game while 5% admin efficiency would be practically worthless early on and insane in the late-game.
Calling Admin efficiency "repackaged CCC" is as disingenuous as calling discipline "repackaged siege ability"
By using MP as an excuse not to rebalance the game, the devs are arbitrarily elevating a tiny percentage of players above the rest. The HoI4 devs recently had a dev diary on MP telemetry:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...v-diary-1-5-2-update-3-and-telemetry.1086632/
The key finding was that "competitive" MP is a tiny fraction of the already tiny fraction that bothers with MP in the first place. Granted, the data is for HoI4, but if any thing the MP scene is far more prominent in HoI4 than EU4.
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Tbh i prefer to use some risky builds in SP, cause AI can't handle warfare on the same level as human. I really like plutocratic (which i won't pick in nearly any other case) and innovative (same), but pluto is available only for republics. I think there should be choice to give more power to cities with ideas (aka pluto for monarchies), like with Magdeburg Rights.
That is one good addition
In MP nearly all is about the war, so without quality you will be decimated (because, lets be honest, game favors quality over anything else and there is too much modifiers for it).
Naval is pointless because navy brings little value, in SP at least. So it would be particularly hard to improve this one.
Balance is good but hard to achieve, I only wish that all ideas are viable.
Balance is good but hard to achieve, I only wish that all ideas are viable.
I'd rather take Maritime than Naval as Maritime gives a rare boost to Ship Limit and I'm always game for a jillion trade ships leeching Trade from my enemies. Sure, I could just conquer them but it's fun taking stuff without actually having to go to war.
I like the idea of making EXPANSION the Idea Group for those who want to blob instead of Administrative and giving Admin Efficiency to Administrative and maybe Corruption Reduction or faster Autonomy reduction.
I like the idea of making EXPANSION the Idea Group for those who want to blob instead of Administrative and giving Admin Efficiency to Administrative and maybe Corruption Reduction or faster Autonomy reduction.