Vic 3 was on fire, though, so they kind of had to run damage limitation.
A customer in a job I had some time ago said something that really stuck with me; "its how you deal with problems that matters, not so much that problems occur".
That's the difference between Vic 3 and CK3 at the moment. The Vic 3 team has take note of the issues the community has identified, acknowledged the problems then offered solutions or made clear that any solutions they do not have time to provide in latest patch is clearly on their to o list to address at earliest opportunity. For example, community points out some of the following issues;
(1) Construction queue grows exponentially and requires excessive micromanagement
(2) Warfare lacks direction
(3) Severe performance issues in late game
(4) Diplomacy needs expanding
Vic 3 team does the following;
(1) Acknowledges and adds ways of reducing excessive construction management
(2) Acknowledges and provides goals for warfare so generals have some direction
(3) Acknowledges and improves performance
(4) Acknowledges and admits they do not have time to do this in latest patch but is high priority for nearby future patches
Vic 3 might have had an awful launch (which I strongly suspect was down to Paradox managers, not developers, demanding a release before xmas) but their post launch addressing of issues has been amazing. These above points are a small selection of community pointed out problems, but I see the Vic 3 team taking this approach of addressing concerns directly very often with other problems.
Now compare with CK3. Among many issues that I have seen regularly asked to be addressed since launch, some are;
(1) Far too easy to snowball and a severe lack of challenge compared to CK 2
(2) Events almost all provide shallow bonuses such as +10 opinion with a vassal and have little impact on general gameplay
(3) Playing rulers in different regions of the world feels very similar
(4) Rulers can stack stats far too easily
(5) Warfare was a big part of the medieval period but is not represented well in game
(6) Council and law mechanics are shallow compared to CK2
CK3 team does the following;
(1) - (6) Barely acknowledges any of these after 2.5 years of release and gives you vikings, a 3D court and artifacts allowing you to stack more stats contrary to request (4), gives you some event packs with little impact on general gameplay (adding to existing problems in (2)) and a struggle mechanic that makes Iberian peninsula feel a bit different to rest of the world.
Their patches and DLC are widely off the mark. Decision making when it comes to patches seem arbitrary (a trait I really wanted to avoid in CK2!) and not very related to addressing existing game mechanics - sometimes even giving people more of what they have been asking
not to have (such as point (2) and (4) in the above list). If the CK3 team are recognising some of these problems, they certainly aren't communicating it anywhere near as well as the Vic 3 team, nor showing much action or intention of addressing the issues.
I admit the DLC they have released does set the game up to realise some of its potential in future. For example the struggle mechanic in Iberia can clearly be applied elsehwere in the world to make regions feel unique. Fine. But its a feature that has been lumped onto the game whilst the many other concerns of the community are ignored. The game has always felt shallow compared to other Paradox games and it is still that way. Wide in terms of content available, but shallow in terms of what effect that content has.
Personally I stopped playing the game just before royal court came out. In theory CK3 should be the Paradox game I like the most - I see it as supposed to be a strategy game with realm management and interesting characters - a description it fails to achieve. I'll keep lurking on these forums looking for signs that the game will get some challenge, rulers will get some personality, events will have meaningful impacts etc. Am not so hopeful though.