[Megathread] Leviathan Release Problems

[taidaishar_]

I still believe that if people cause Paradox to dump Eu4 that there will be no desire for Paradox to make a Eu5 and we will end up like the people who keep asking for VIC3 year after year after year with no results. So yes point out what went wrong and what needs to change but don't burn everything to the ground. There are many people like myself who have spent years building/contributing to mods and utilities to help the eu community and it is a shame to stand by and watch it all die.

I would agree with this too. This is actually one of the reasons why I want them to make an apology. Because it would be the start of making amends with a disappointed community who feels cheated, opens up the communication channels again. So Europa Universalis can keep being a thing. It would really be a shame otherwise.

Where we differ with you is that I think it's PDX's work to keep it alive at this point. The community has done what it can. We've been supportive of the devs, we are still buying DLCs for an 8-year-old game, we are trying to justify to our friends it is actually worth the value of nearly 5 triple-A games. This was the feather that broke the camel's back for the majority of the people. The ball is at PDX's court now. We've done what we can. At this point blaming the community with toxicity is not just unproductive, it's borderline gaslighting.

 

[deathbypie]

They won't. At best, they'll completely ignore it. At worst, they'll consider it toxic harassment.

Plus, it'll end up merged and lost in the mega thread anyway.

 

[Delta388]

Seeing in the General forum that the main 3 teams are focused on other PDX games than EU4, I suppose EU4 doesn't really matter for them anymore.

For anyone interested, the 3 main teams are focused on Stellaris, HOI and CK3. Everything else is either suspended or it has only a minor team that deals with development.

That's just not true at all.

EU4 simply isn't mentioned since it already has a dedicated dev team separate from the regular PDS structure in Paradox Tinto, it's just that now the rest of development has been reorganized as well.

 

[pinetemplar]

Well sad truth is while people buy DLC and pay them money they will not care about you complaining. As long as bottom line is fine you can cry a river and the only person who will care is forum moderator but it is his job anyway. Stop buying this buggy trash and we may see a change. Right now after reading 1.30.5 report and watching this DLC start i don't think paradox cares one bit about us.

 

[Vaximillian]

The “I’ll buy anything Paradox regardless” crowd is to blame as much as the management is. Stop buying “anything” from Paradox. Stop preordering.

 

[Zhetone]

If Steam puts it under US jurisdiction, then there is a broad exemption for software from consumer protection laws to be applied. EU may have similar exemptions going back to the days of tape drives.

when selling a product in a country, the sale is governed by its laws. there is no international law in this area; just national and supranational (i.e. EU)
if you sell a product online to people in the EU as a marketplace you have to follow EU commerce laws, even if your company in American. otherwise, everyone would base their businesses in countries with no consumer protection laws and then scam people across the world

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Project management has been an evident problem going back most, if not all, of the game's life cycle. Fixing it won't happen without the will and knowledge of how to do so, and neither of those things are trivial.

 

[Ziffallo]

Well written

 

[Prince Ire]

So looks like the "hotfix" broke state edicts, at least for me. I now crash to desktop whenever I try to implement one.

 

[Rizzopolis]

So I've had so many saves corrupted when I click "save game" that I've been relying only on ctrl+alt+del and autosaves to try and get anywhere in an ironman to see how broken the late game is. On my most recent load (playing Florence -> Tuscany, around 1535 for context), the following happened the moment the game loaded:

1) An event popped (can't remember the name, the one where you can add one development of your choice to a trade region province) that definitely wasn't popping before the autosave I loaded from

2) a "Noble Rebels" group rose up, even though I didn't have those rebels valid in the region they showed up in - they should have been Neapolitan Separtists, which had been at around 40-60% before the autosave

3) My gold went from about 250 to negative 601, with no explanation or associated event of any kind, though the sfx for gold leaving the treasury did play, so something (???) triggered it.

And the most fun part of it is, when I tried loading from the backup autosave three months earlier, literally all three of these things happened again, in exactly the same way. Dev event, Noble rebels, the hole opening in my treasury.

I mean, at this point I'm almost impressed that the save system has been wrecked so hard that it's brain-farting on multiple different mechanics, and doing it for distinct saves. I honestly can't wait until I try to load again tomorrow to see what insanity awaits, like my newly-conquered Genoa is being besieged by Sunni Zealots or my tag has inexplicably switched to the Iroquois. Anything is possible in 1.31.1

 

[FleetingRain]

So looks like the "hotfix" broke state edicts, at least for me. I now crash to desktop whenever I try to implement one.

Amazing, they got to break even such a minor feature?

 

[yellowbiz]

Wow, such new and interesting information you've provided us with!
Especially when parts of it is already fixed.

The community has not identified what's causing the bug, it has identified the bug and its effects. Why do you have to spread misinformation? It just looks silly. The very person who's fixing the saved games for people and created the thread about it has no idea what causes it, but apparently you say the community does!

If it says a lot about NMS's effort to fix the game, then why are you utterly ignoring the 8 years of development of EUIV that receives constant free updates? After all, it's about the effort, right? Why are you also ignoring the fact that they're already fixing the very issues that bother you so much?

It would be better to mention that the Carpet Sieging doesn't work as it should, and if it does, then it's utter shit xD

 

[Tarroque]

Quite the opposite honestly. If people who had been the silent majority of customers take the step of complaining, it means you messed up more than usual. And as it happens, we've also had plenty of very active and supportive members criticizing them (people like me who defended them in pretty much every previous release), and some very moving stories from players who play Paradox games since 10 to 20+years and say this is the last drop they can take.


Oh, and completely unrelated, but I'm starting to get really sick of the smug people who say that we should have expected it because EU4 is buggy/shitty since X update. No, it wasn't anywhere near 1.31. Definitely weren't losing saves, definitely did not have filler art or missing features, definitely had nothing as stupid and imbalanced as concentrate development (except maybe the corruption from territory, but I'd argue you could at least enjoy some runs despite it).

Regarding the first paragraph I agree that a sensible company would see it that way, but New Paradox is definitely going to dismiss OP's demands without comment. Even so I went through this "decline of paradox" experience with Emperor and only checked on the forums here in the hopes that people were celebrating the AI debt spiral finally being fixed, even hoping that I could buy the DLC if the reception was good enough. I'm sure you can imagine my "Oh.. Oh dear.."

I hope I haven't come off the way you describe in the second paragraph, I don't personally think there's anything that any of us can do to personally turn this around for Paradox and the fanbase collectively. Instead I believe that Paradox possess enough resentful confidence that they feel they can ignore their customers indefinitely. I don't think that's an appealing attitude and it's a shame that they've chosen that direction, though I hope the fanbase upon being served yet more surstromming at the paradox restaurant will save their money until a different menu is on offer.

 

[yellowbiz]

As such, I hereby demand a formal public apology from PDX Studios management.

And again, I am actually defending the developers.

Demands are usually made when you have some kind of leverage, not sure what that would be in your case. It just reinforces the appearances of entitlement.
Oh, Johan provided such an apology, you people ripped it to shreds because you preferred to be angry. You called it "corporate" bullshit or whatnot.

I don't believe any of the critics do, it's just something you say now as a reaction to the recent PDX statements.

Create a support ticket and ask for a refund. Are you unaware of how this works? Steam makes it very easy if you purchased it there.

 

[yellowbiz]

After what we've seen so far, I don't think anything the community says or does ruffles any feathers in higher ranks of PDX management, for to have them ruffled you first need to have feathers. All feathered animals have spines.

And secondly, I fail to see what does the age of my account has to do with anything. On the contrary, maybe they should ask themselves why a veteran of the game and the community like myself had been staying away from their official forum until now.

And there's the personal attacks on PDX. Then you say you're not toxic.

It would only reinforce their belief that part of this community is rotten, that's why you stayed away from it.

 

[Vulkandrache]

the 8 years of development of EUIV that receives constant free updates?

You mean the 8 years of constant DLC for 5-20 bucks a piece.
You mean the updates which frequently left longstanding bugs ignored (we are talking years here) to the point that many people dont even bother posting about them anymore?


This game was always a hot mess of bugs and inconsistent design.
But for a long time the fun it provided easily outclassed the problems it had.
Slowly at first then ever faster that changed. For some people earlier than for others.

This is the fourth DLC in a row that im happy to not buy.
Because starting with 1.26 almost anything i found fun was removed without giving anything to replace it with.

Some people might have played for other reasons so changes did not affect them as much as fast.
But regardless of what something thinks of the content provided Emperor was so buggy at release that its best contribution
is showcasing just how broken Leviathan really is in comparison to something thats "just" buggy.

That dude thats repairing savegames is providing a service for free that Paradox is unable or unwilling to provide themselves.
He is doing it in good faith and good intentions and its great. His contribution further highlights what Paradox could be doing but isnt.

 

[Fanatic Xenofile]

Hi, I hope this is the correct place to post bugs.

NA Totemist mission "Uniting the Tribes" cannot be completed if you are already Republic or Theocracy.

 

[Orange1861]

I agree with the OP that the damage control was worse than the DLC. Screw ups happen and no company is perfect.

However, Paradox has instead interpreted community outrage as "hordes of angry people attacking their developer team", when in reality, we're just normal (probably nerdy) people that want a good game. Tell us that you'll fix it and actually do it, (not just patch out the crashes and move on, actually integrate the new features into the rest of the game, better support the AI using them and make old ones still useful options compared to the new ones), and the community will be happy again. Instead, this has happened 3 times before now and the community feels attacked again. Honestly, the main reason why I haven't moved on is Paradox's monopoly on Grand Strategy games.

 

[Stepkick]

I assure you that everyone is working really hard - but for people to do good work they also need to rest in between

In that case they were certainly not well rested while developing Leviathan over the past year. Considering last year was the most active and out going year in human history I can see why.

And creating a megathread were dozens of threads are mashed together in a haphazard order neither helps you nor this community, if anything it just unites all the people hating on this DLC and the Devs who made it.

So you received death threats. So what? I mean, I do condemn them but so what? You're not the first person to received a death threat and you won't be the last and the Internet is filled with psychos, and your company has a presence on the Internet. To place the blame on the entire community for the acts of a few retards who quite frankly your actions (not ours) agitated, is hubris at its heights. That being said I do hope none of them are serious and that you are your team are safe!

Now if you want constructive criticism here's one piece of advice and you only need this one piece of advice.

"This is your product, but swallow your ego and realise that the end user truly understands it better. Keeping this in mind involve the major streamers of the community and earnestly ask for their opinions and feedback. Most of the time it is these very people who know the game so much better that they are the first ones to point out the flaws and in some cases even predict them before release simply by reading your patch notes. There is a reason why the modding community makes EU4 a much better product than it is, involve them for ideas. They are ready to work for free because they even love the game more than you, because until now none of the content you've done for free, money is what motivates you and I'm not saying that's wrong, but that just means you and your team can never be as passionate about it as those who do it for free. Long story short involve the community to a greater degree, you don't know your own product, sorry to hurt your feelings but facts are facts!"

 

[Greene]

Can we expect the hotfix sometime closer to Monday or late in the week?

They are both “next week”.