Maybe the backlash isn't that bad

[Roxas15]

if u look at how eu4 was in 2013 and how it was few years later - it became so much different from what it originally was. thats what i like about pdx games, they try things and dont fear to change things or to adjust certain game mechanics, sometimes even drastically. u cant compare that to most other developers.
i think the devs are professional enough to know that alot of harsh opinions dont represent all too much. although they are not made of stone and reading this stuff can be exhausting.

 

[AzorApie]

In my experience, ‘backlash’ is quite a negative term, but you’re right - it isn’t always bad.

I’ve seen a great deal of opinions over the last few days, some expressed more forcefully than others, and many of which contain valuable feedback and criticism.

It’s understandable that people feel ready to pass judgement on a game based on what they know, but what they know isn’t everything. Similarly, making promises early on that end up being impossible to keep, is why we don’t simply spew out all the plans and intentions at the very beginning. The downside to that, is that everybody has created an ideal version of IR in their head, and it is difficult (read; impossible) to meet all those expectations.

I enjoyed reading this thread, particularly because comments on both sides of the fence have been thought-out and on the whole, well meant.

Ultimately, we do listen - ‘the devs’ are not faceless corporate drones; we love playing PDS games as much as you. We are trying our best to create a game that will be loved, so, please keep criticising, keep suggesting, and keep telling us your expectations. They may not all be met, but I guarantee you that every thread posted here is read by one or more of us.

What is unfortunate, is when criticism becomes anger. It’s hard to expect it not to, with the internet being what it is, but for a team who are genuinely invested as players as well as devs, who are working (hard!) to create a title that will be fun as well as immersive, it can be incredibly disheartening, and is rarely productive.

Tl;dr: Rational discussion ftw.

All best,

Peter

Good. A dev response that isn't a mockery or Wendy's level sass.

Now, can we reasonably expect an actual change in Imperator's direction towards the points addressed by the community in these past days?

EDIT: How can you respectfully disagree with a question?

 

[Yiorgakis]

Good. A dev response that isn't a mockery or Wendy's level sass.

Now, can we reasonably expect an actual change in Imperator's direction towards the points addressed by the community in these past days?

EDIT: How can you respectfully disagree with a question?

Robots tend to work with patterns, not logic, to answer to your edit.

 

[Arheo]

Now, can we reasonably expect an actual change in Imperator's direction towards the points addressed by the community in these past days?

This is a fair question, but one which I can't answer in the way I expect that you desire.

What I can definitively say, is that you haven't seen 'the direction' yet - you have seen a tiny snippet of what is to come, and people have extrapolated based on that. As mentioned previously, it is fully understandable that many are jumping to conclusions, forming opinions, and making judgement on the information they're given, and I don't fault anyone for that.

The community have had diverse opinions on many issues, and even in this instance, I haven't seen what I'd call a concerted opinion. If pleasing everyone was an achievable goal, we'd have:

- World conquests that are easy, but also impossible.
- A perfectly balanced start, that accurately portrays the historical imbalances of the time.
- Minutely detailed 'modelling'* of literally everything, combined with unparalleled game speed and an AI capable of playing 38 games of chess, peeling a banana, and redefining poverty.

*This word makes me cry.

I understand the frustration - I do. I'm equally frustrated that we can't show you all the cool things you haven't seen yet - but that day will come.

Peter

 

[wielkiciensteam]

The community have had diverse opinions on many issues, and even in this instance, I haven't seen what I'd call a concerted opinion.

You wouldn't say that our - community - opinion were concentrated, regarding increased usage of mana points in I:R? You surely didn't miss one of the hottest topics ever created on the forum

 

[EvilMonk3y]

Minutely detailed 'modelling'* of literally everything

So you are telling me that you are not going to model the sweat on the brow of Scipio Africanus? Even partially?? Next you will be telling me Hannibal's beard is not trimmable.

Unavailable pre-order cancelled.

 

[Cypres]

I think you misspelled that, its pronounced Beter

 

[Rhaegar1]

This is a fair question, but one which I can't answer in the way I expect that you desire.

What I can definitively say, is that you haven't seen 'the direction' yet - you have seen a tiny snippet of what is to come, and people have extrapolated based on that. As mentioned previously, it is fully understandable that many are jumping to conclusions, forming opinions, and making judgement on the information they're given, and I don't fault anyone for that.

The community have had diverse opinions on many issues, and even in this instance, I haven't seen what I'd call a concerted opinion. If pleasing everyone was an achievable goal, we'd have:

- World conquests that are easy, but also impossible.
- A perfectly balanced start, that accurately portrays the historical imbalances of the time.
- Minutely detailed 'modelling'* of literally everything, combined with unparalleled game speed and an AI capable of playing 38 games of chess, peeling a banana, and redefining poverty.

*This word makes me cry.

I understand the frustration - I do. I'm equally frustrated that we can't show you all the cool things you haven't seen yet - but that day will come.

Peter

But we where just jumping to conclusions so nicely and here you come ruining it all!

That being said speaking for myself. Thanks to you and the other Devs for keeping us posted on the development of the game through weekly updates and forum posts. I can't imagine it is as fun to read through all the topics in a week like this but I appreciate it a lot and know that for every one going a bit too far in their jumped to conclusions anger and frustration there are 10 fans in a constructive mode to help with their ideas and thoughts or just guys like me patiently waiting for more info before judging

 

[Thure]

You wouldn't say that our - community - opinion were concentrated, regarding increased usage of mana points in I:R? You surely didn't miss one of the hottest topics ever created on the forum

It's just a loud part of the community and not the whole community. That's the point.

 

[AzorApie]

It's just a loud part of the community and not the whole community. That's the point.

It's clearly not, considering the overwhelming amount of support that argomentation against karma got on this forum and on reddit. I don't care if you like mana or not, just like you don't care if i do, reducing a vibrant big argument among the community as "a loud minority" is unfair, it has no argument supporting it and is against the very thing that the dev said in this exact topic.

 

[Thure]

It's clearly not, considering the overwhelming amount of support that argomentation against karma got on this forum and on reddit. I don't care if you like mana or not, just like you don't care if i do, reducing a vibrant big argument among the community as "a loud minority" is unfair, it has no argument supporting it and is against the very thing that the dev said in this exact topic.

I didn't use the term 'minority'. I just said it's the loud PART of the forum. We can't say if it is the majority or not. But no side should claim that they represent the WHOLE community. And that's exactly what he did. He claimed the community had a concentrated opinion against Mana. And this is not the case. Reddit and the forum are just a small part of the player base.

And allways remember:
People agreeing with something have NO REASON to make a topic 'We like this feature!'. But people hating a feature have a reason to make topics 'We hate this feature, change it!'

 

[Arheo]

So you are telling me that you are not going to model the sweat on the brow of Scipio Africanus? Even partially?? Next you will be telling me Hannibal's beard is not trimmable.

If you've seen the shamefully leaked PDXcon footage, you'd already know that brow-sweat is a flagship I:R feature .

You wouldn't say that our - community - opinion were concentrated, regarding increased usage of mana points in I:R? You surely didn't miss one of the hottest topics ever created on the forum

Personally, I find this issue a particularly challenging one. I am not in charge of deciding what system we use - but I would still pick this one, myself.

'Mana' is traditionally the domain of a Splendid Wizard. The name is misleading, but I understand the sentiment. Why do characters in MMOs have a health or mana value? It represents how close they are to death or exhaustion. Some games have done away with the concept, but I don't feel like grand strategy is the place for that.

Is it an abstraction? Sure. Is that bad? Not necessarily. Many of the complaints I have seen about the power system, is that it was too broad, too nonspecific, and too ubiquitous. With many complaints over features, there are often amazing suggestions that go alongside. With power, I haven't yet seen a suggestion that I think adequately provides an alternative. Time gating as the only method, as any game developer will tell you, makes reactive gameplay difficult, especially in our genre. Random chance is utterly horrible (what's that? I got the wrong result, oh well, I'll alt-f4 and try again).

Abstraction is the domain of gaming - show me a game with none, and I'll be eternally grateful. Refer to bananas and chess comment in my previous post.

There are some in-betweens, and some decent ideas, but none which adequately represent what power is, in my eyes. Power to me, is influence. It's a gameplay mechanic, certainly, but it has a representative purpose. The sum total of political or national influence in an arbitrary number of categories that you as the 'spirit' of your nation, through your puppet, the ruler, can extend over the forces in play within your empire. Caesar, despite what he would have liked people to believe, didn't have absolute control over his subjects - he had to constantly balance his political situation. I feel like the main thing to be careful of is not having a power system, but how we use it.

What this is: my personal opinions on the topic of power, or, as we apparently call it now, mana.

What this isn't: a blanket statement on the future of the game.

What this also isn't: confirmation of Splendid Wizards.

Peter

 

[EvilMonk3y]

Regardless of whether we agree fully or not (personally I do with your points for the most part) I just want to say thanks a lot for the candid response above!

 

[AzorApie]

If you've seen the shamefully leaked PDXcon footage, you'd already know that brow-sweat is a flagship I:R feature .




Personally, I find this issue a particularly challenging one. I am not in charge of deciding what system we use - but I would still pick this one, myself.

'Mana' is traditionally the domain of a Splendid Wizard. The name is misleading, but I understand the sentiment. Why do characters in MMOs have a health or mana value? It represents how close they are to death or exhaustion. Some games have done away with the concept, but I don't feel like grand strategy is the place for that.

Is it an abstraction? Sure. Is that bad? Not necessarily. Many of the complaints I have seen about the power system, is that it was too broad, too nonspecific, and too ubiquitous. With many complaints over features, there are often amazing suggestions that go alongside. With power, I haven't yet seen a suggestion that I think adequately provides an alternative. Time gating as the only method, as any game developer will tell you, makes reactive gameplay difficult, especially in our genre. Random chance is utterly horrible (what's that? I got the wrong result, oh well, I'll alt-f4 and try again).

Abstraction is the domain of gaming - show me a game with none, and I'll be eternally grateful. Refer to bananas and chess comment in my previous post.

There are some in-betweens, and some decent ideas, but none which adequately represent what power is, in my eyes. Power to me, is influence. It's a gameplay mechanic, certainly, but it has a representative purpose. The sum total of political or national influence in an arbitrary number of categories that you as the 'spirit' of your nation, through your puppet, the ruler, can extend over the forces in play within your empire. Caesar, despite what he would have liked people to believe, didn't have absolute control over his subjects - he had to constantly balance his political situation. I feel like the main thing to be careful of is not having a power system, but how we use it.

What this is: my personal opinions on the topic of power, or, as we apparently call it now, mana.

What this isn't: a blanket statement on the future of the game.

What this also isn't: confirmation of Splendid Wizards.

Peter

That's really just talking about the general concept of abstraction without going in depth about the problems people have with EU4, its biggest example. Of course abstraction per se is not bad, we wouldn't have any mechanic without it.

There is a limit in how much an abstraction makes sense before it turns everything into a side mechanic, when you create games so dependant on it, really.

How do you reduce inflaction in the game, the bane of the Spanish empire and the Weimar Republic? With shrewd economic manouvers? With oculate investments? You click a button and spend 75 mana. How do you increase the gold production in an area? Hell, how do you order your cannons to do what a cannon is supposed to do?

Not to talk that it's really not a funny nor an easy mechanic. It's very counter intuitive, it's gamey and quite frankly, it's probably a lot harder than you might expect on newcomers. I remember trying EU4 on my friend's pc and being quite confused at how to effectively use them, because it's truly counter intuitive, because of course it is. It's magic points that come out of nowhere supposed to represent a ruler's power, it's not life-like, you can't really follow a logic and get a hold on it. Not to mention that it creates a lot of silly choices. Like, imagine not being able to expand cloth production in a province because you might fall behind in naval construction technology. I understand why it makes things easier from a game development point of view, but you're seriously overestimating how much this mechanic works beyond "well, it doesn't make the game unplayable". To alleviate these issues, you probably would have to build a lot of other mana resources to actually represent the governance of a kingdom, but at that point isn't better to create a more compelling, active and realistic mechanic not built around points and buttons?

And quite frankly, that's my opinion, its implementation around pops is just on another level of silliness, sorry. Spend magic points on turning a bunch of slaves into freedmen because you need manpower more than taxes and turn sun shaped things into people following your religion? I understand trying to uniform it to EU4's model, but that's clearly a point in which abstraction turns into something out of a board game.

 

[ShadowPip]

Thanks, it's helpful to read a detailed defence of the power system. I've never had a major problem with it even if it does lean a little too abstract for my liking, but I appreciate the transparency above and can understand the benefits it brings. It's looking like some of the worse problems with the system in EUIV (e.g. tying power points to technology) have already been fixed or adjusted, and hopefully once we get more details people won't be quite so hostile to the design.

 

[PanzerCorps]

That's really just talking about the general concept of abstraction without going in depth about the problems people have with EU4, its biggest example. Of course abstraction per se is not bad, we wouldn't have any mechanic without it.

There is a limit in how much an abstraction makes sense before it turns everything into a side mechanic, when you create games so dependant on it, really.

How do you reduce inflaction in the game, the bane of the Spanish empire and the Weimar Republic? With shrewd economic manouvers? With oculate investments? You click a button and spend 75 mana. How do you increase the gold production in an area? Hell, how do you order your cannons to do what a cannon is supposed to do?

Not to talk that it's really not a funny nor an easy mechanic. It's very counter intuitive, it's gamey and quite frankly, it's probably a lot harder than you might expect on newcomers. I remember trying EU4 on my friend's pc and being quite confused at how to effectively use them, because it's truly counter intuitive, because of course it is. It's magic points that come out of nowhere supposed to represent a ruler's power, it's not life-like, you can't really follow a logic and get a hold on it. Not to mention that it creates a lot of silly choices. Like, imagine not being able to expand cloth production in a province because you might fall behind in naval construction technology. I understand why it makes things easier from a game development point of view, but you're seriously overestimating how much this mechanic works beyond "well, it doesn't make the game unplayable". To alleviate these issues, you probably would have to build a lot of other mana resources to actually represent the governance of a kingdom, but at that point isn't better to create a more compelling, active and realistic mechanic not built around points and buttons?

And quite frankly, that's my opinion, its implementation around pops is just on another level of silliness, sorry. Spend magic points on turning a bunch of slaves into freedmen because you need manpower more than taxes and turn sun shaped things into people following your religion? I understand trying to uniform it to EU4's model, but that's clearly a point in which abstraction turns into something out of a board game.

It seems like you simply have a problem with strategy games, to be honest. Please point me to one that isn't "built around points and buttons". And the second paragraph can simply be rewritten as "spend a short term investment to try to steer your economy in the direction you want it to go for the future". Again, a pretty standard strategy game mechanic. It's not even limited to grand strategies, real time strategies often have multiple resource types and you can build buildings to convert one to another. It's an interesting choice that creates, well, strategical decisions.

 

[Daniel the Finlander]

If you've seen the shamefully leaked PDXcon footage, you'd already know that brow-sweat is a flagship I:R feature .




Personally, I find this issue a particularly challenging one. I am not in charge of deciding what system we use - but I would still pick this one, myself.

'Mana' is traditionally the domain of a Splendid Wizard. The name is misleading, but I understand the sentiment. Why do characters in MMOs have a health or mana value? It represents how close they are to death or exhaustion. Some games have done away with the concept, but I don't feel like grand strategy is the place for that.

Is it an abstraction? Sure. Is that bad? Not necessarily. Many of the complaints I have seen about the power system, is that it was too broad, too nonspecific, and too ubiquitous. With many complaints over features, there are often amazing suggestions that go alongside. With power, I haven't yet seen a suggestion that I think adequately provides an alternative. Time gating as the only method, as any game developer will tell you, makes reactive gameplay difficult, especially in our genre. Random chance is utterly horrible (what's that? I got the wrong result, oh well, I'll alt-f4 and try again).

Abstraction is the domain of gaming - show me a game with none, and I'll be eternally grateful. Refer to bananas and chess comment in my previous post.

There are some in-betweens, and some decent ideas, but none which adequately represent what power is, in my eyes. Power to me, is influence. It's a gameplay mechanic, certainly, but it has a representative purpose. The sum total of political or national influence in an arbitrary number of categories that you as the 'spirit' of your nation, through your puppet, the ruler, can extend over the forces in play within your empire. Caesar, despite what he would have liked people to believe, didn't have absolute control over his subjects - he had to constantly balance his political situation. I feel like the main thing to be careful of is not having a power system, but how we use it.

What this is: my personal opinions on the topic of power, or, as we apparently call it now, mana.

What this isn't: a blanket statement on the future of the game.

What this also isn't: confirmation of Splendid Wizards.

Peter

I don’t know who this Peter guy is, but I already like him a lot. Words of wisdom.

I am still looking forward to Imperator while others are rioting, and this did restore much of my lost confidence. I’m hoping the release will be a success.

 

[Jorlaan]

What this also isn't: confirmation of Splendid Wizards.

Peter

It is also not a denial of Splendid Wizards. Splendid Wizards confirmed!

 

[Badesumofu]

Now, can we reasonably expect an actual change in Imperator's direction towards the points addressed by the community in these past days?

EDIT: How can you respectfully disagree with a question?

Because questions are based on premises with which one can disagree.

The premise of your question seems to be that there is a clear consensus among the community about the 'direction' the game is taking. Apart from the obvious response that we aren't really in a position to see what the direction of the game is yet, I disagree pretty strongly that there is any kind of consensus about what we have seen. There are some very vocal posters who are opposed to monarch points and some others who seem to want the pop system from V2 to be copy and pasted into I:R. But if you want a better sense of what the community as a whole feels (and 'the community' in this case is still only a very small subset of likely consumers) I'd suggest looking at the reactions to the dev diaries. Diary 3 that covered Powers has about 70% more agrees than disagrees, and then about as many helpfuls as disagrees - if there is any consensus there it is in *favor* of the system as described by Johan. Dev Diary #5 is more contentious, but still has more agrees than disagrees along with a bunch of helpfuls.

In short, the premise of your question is wrong. It should read something more like: 'Can I reasonably expect an actual change in Imperator's direction to fix the things that I personally don't like?' I would still respectfully disagree though, in order to reflect that I don't think you could reasonably expect that.

 

[agus92]

If you've seen the shamefully leaked PDXcon footage, you'd already know that brow-sweat is a flagship I:R feature .




Personally, I find this issue a particularly challenging one. I am not in charge of deciding what system we use - but I would still pick this one, myself.

'Mana' is traditionally the domain of a Splendid Wizard. The name is misleading, but I understand the sentiment. Why do characters in MMOs have a health or mana value? It represents how close they are to death or exhaustion. Some games have done away with the concept, but I don't feel like grand strategy is the place for that.

Is it an abstraction? Sure. Is that bad? Not necessarily. Many of the complaints I have seen about the power system, is that it was too broad, too nonspecific, and too ubiquitous. With many complaints over features, there are often amazing suggestions that go alongside. With power, I haven't yet seen a suggestion that I think adequately provides an alternative. Time gating as the only method, as any game developer will tell you, makes reactive gameplay difficult, especially in our genre. Random chance is utterly horrible (what's that? I got the wrong result, oh well, I'll alt-f4 and try again).

Abstraction is the domain of gaming - show me a game with none, and I'll be eternally grateful. Refer to bananas and chess comment in my previous post.

There are some in-betweens, and some decent ideas, but none which adequately represent what power is, in my eyes. Power to me, is influence. It's a gameplay mechanic, certainly, but it has a representative purpose. The sum total of political or national influence in an arbitrary number of categories that you as the 'spirit' of your nation, through your puppet, the ruler, can extend over the forces in play within your empire. Caesar, despite what he would have liked people to believe, didn't have absolute control over his subjects - he had to constantly balance his political situation. I feel like the main thing to be careful of is not having a power system, but how we use it.

What this is: my personal opinions on the topic of power, or, as we apparently call it now, mana.

What this isn't: a blanket statement on the future of the game.

What this also isn't: confirmation of Splendid Wizards.

Peter

Fisrt and foremost, thanks for the time, and very sensible points in this thread.

Regarding power modelling, I feel everyone is already on the same page that an abstraction like mana is needed. Ofc, the problem is the extent of it's usage.

For the hot topic at hand, that is, how pops promote/demote classes with mana instead of organically, I can't understand the design decision (and I'm afraid I'm not the only one). Not only we are moving to a more complete power model compared to EU:R, but also this move is not justified on inhability to present a more organical one, since it was already done! Moreover, law model can be tied to power system, requiring mana to unlock laws (which is intuitive), therefore being balanceable.

The only serious problem I see that the previous model had that could justify a change is that the effect was too big and scaled out of control. But I think there is a solid solution: implement a law system with a global, yet small effect (and maybe with a hard cap even, like 40% citizens max), and, parallely, allow for sudden, big changes based on mana, but only to cities (your current model).

Having a model that takes into account percentage promotions allows you to add more modifiers, making the model organical: romanization (very small percentage of tribesman to freeman conversion that would happen naturally, would imply culture drift too), regional modifiers based on culture, goods (very expensive goods, higher chance of becoming citizen from freeman) or random events...

If (and that may be a big if) the AI is capable of handling the model presented by Johan, I don't see how it would struggle with the presented above.