[Megathread] Leviathan Release Problems

[treb]

Not the time to talk about this. Sure, maybe some customers can get obnoxious. It happens and it's bad. But good God, Paradox just released *the worst rated product in the history of the Steam*. They got into the annals of videogames in the worst way possible. Now you don't complain about stuff, now you say "we're sorry and we're going to fix things ASAP". That's all. Saying anything else just adds fuel to the fire.

There is a difference between getting obnoxious over a game, and directly attacking the people who made it...

 

[TheAtreides84]

There is a difference between getting obnoxious over a game, and directly attacking the people who made it...

Sure. But this isn't really the time to complain about it. It just makes things worse.

 

[Willem IV]

A good forum etiquette is the most difficult thing to maintain. Which requires a strict regime by the moderators. So I urgge them to (temporally) ban members that attack individuals and remove those posts and/or threads.

However, avoiding visiting the forums has the opposite effect. Many (me included) feel ignored and unheard.
I would prefer to hear that a certain bug is either WAD or scheduled to be fixed in the next patch.
Currently many bugs are around for several patches, while posted in the bug thread several times.
Which again adds to the feeling that they don’t listen to us.

I’m (for example) are complaining about the speed for the macOS version since it went 64-bit. And yes, every update it becomes even slower, while running it on supported hardware.

 

[Jaymoh]

They should be aware after all these years that those engaging in threats/violence or just flat out insulting specific individuals are the minority but they tend to get focused on the most. The sheer reaction and disappoint of the launch alone points to the high regard the majority of the players have for game and staff at PDX. Instead they focus on the "kids" in the room being making absurd/insulting or flat out violent statements because they are 12 year olds with no mood/emotional control. To me it just seems like they want to be able to cast blame for the poor reviews and complaints back onto the "mob mentality".

The 8% steam review isn't the result of gaslighting or a bunch of trolls leading a underground campaign to hurt your feelings. The game's quality/functionality at launch and even up to now is very much worthy of a 8 out of 100 rating which is a shame given how many areas appear filled with creative/interesting mechanics/flavor but that hardly matters when images are missing, text is missing, basic missions don't work, bugs so widespread they were affecting stable mechanics that have been in place for a long time. To me this is hard evidence of lack of communication between various parts of the team, its more like a school project where they have to design a poster with every person doing their own thing at home and all show up without a damn poster board or glue.

 

[Atomcreator]

Sure. But this isn't really the time to complain about it. It just makes things worse.

Are you trying to tell me that asking to be respectful and constructive in your comments, plus stopping attacks on the individual is bad timing ?
Well if so, that's just plain wrong. The forum has been awash with personal attacks and is probably the reason for the article and the Devs comments.
Yes, be mad at the product. But also, if you love the game, point out what's wrong in a decent manner, so they can fix it to your liking.

 

[TheAtreides84]

No. You misunderstood. Personal attacks achieve nothing. Sure, be mad at the product. Not the individual.

And what's going to achieve saying it to a magazine just after releasing the worst DLC ever? Trolls will be less trollish because of it? Mad people will take pity? I see no point in this. First you fix your mistakes, and *then* you complain about the mistakes of others.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

Attacks against the persons are bad, yes, but attacks on the product are fair and if they are taking it personally, is a completely different matter. Sadly the idiots calling for Johan resignation or Closing Tinto before it deals more damage are going to serve as a scapegoat out of their responsibility from releasing a product that doesn't pass the "Working as intended" test

Pay attention to what Paradox are doing and how they are shifting the narrative of the conversation.

They claim, in public, they are receiving death threats and people are calling for them to lose their livelihoods. Neither of these things are okay, and people who do this should be ashamed of themselves.

But the narrative then somehow changes to, if you're harshly criticising this game, you're basically in bed with those very, very few people who are saying terrible things.

Thus, Paradox are basically immune from criticism. You either fall in-line and praise the psychological horror of a release that is Leviathan, or you're in bed with the worst kinds of people on the internet.

It's an intentional PR move from Paradox. Nothing else.

With every passing hour, my respect for this company diminishes. As other members have pointed out, if they just came out with this, "Look guys, we messed up, but we're going to fix it next week and in the future we'll go through a more thorough QA process, paying attention to QA, to get this right".

Then I can guarantee you, 95%+ of negative comments would disappear into thin air. It already happened in the other thread when their CommunityAmbassador got in touch with us.

Instead they generally go about things in a very sneaky, elitist way and it doesn't go down well with people.

Regardless, let's hope for the best in the future.

 

[Bonkster]

i've been out of the loop for a few days. anyone care to enlighten me what these "attacks" were? all i saw was people suggesting Johan did a bad job at running tinto and that devs/qa/management in general were incompetent.

 

[treb]

I think its too early to say worst dlc. worst release of a dlc, oh god yes, but I get the feeling that this was rushed by the suits upstairs. So I doubt its balanced the way Tinto probably would have liked, id say wait and see how the patches change things.

 

[dD_ShockTrooper]

I've heard different experiences from other players. That concentrate development and curry favours are very unbalanced and effectively ruin the challenge of the game, making it way too easy.

Which are easily solved by simply tweaking some numbers. Upping % lost, banning the use of it on disloyal subjects, reducing the amount taken at once, increasing liberty desire from usage, etc. Curry favours is even easier, just trim down the effectiveness of the diplomat and it's fine. Golden Century features are all so terrible you can't even fix them with number changes, they're bad on a basic conceptual level. It's important to note that both favours and concentrate dev are fun features at their core. Participating in your ally's wars for favour gain, and having something to actually do if you've got no interest in expanding are both huge impact changes to the game that improve it.

 

[XYN]

> Not only is it incredibly demoralising to spend months of your life creating something, only to see the people you made it for tearing it to shreds, it is also a debate that gives no one anything

I don't understand this position. I am a software developer myself and if I roll out something poorly designed and buggy that I worked on for months (it happened, yes) and the feedback is terrible, what demoralizing is the fact that I created a terrible piece of software. Or that the higher-ups forced us to releaze the software when it wasn't ready, which also happened. I don't see how you could blame customers for being critical.

The debate gives everyone everything, it gives feedback to the developers (even if it is not very constructive - but managing the crowd of randoms is not the same as reasoning tete-a-tete with your polite and attentive PhD friend), and you shouldn't treat it personally, I'd just treat it as data, and you can't be angry at data.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

i've been out of the loop for a few days. anyone care to enlighten me what these "attacks" were? all i saw was people suggesting Johan did a bad job at running tinto and that devs/qa/management in general were incompetent.

They claim they are receiving death threats, which is entirely possible given the nature of the internet, and they should be believed. No one should ever receive death threats. But that doesn't get them off the hook for this abysmal release and the fact is, having parked myself on the forum for the last 24 hours hoping someone could fix my broken game file, I've seen sarcastic comments at worst.

It's not this vile horror-show of abuse that Paradox claim.

 

[treb]

Sure. But this isn't really the time to complain about it. It just makes things worse.

Yeah, no. its never time to personal attack

 

[Atomcreator]

And what's going to achieve saying it to a magazine just after releasing the worst DLC ever? Trolls will be less trollish because of it? Mad people will take pity? I see no point in this. First you fix your mistakes, and *then* you complain about the mistakes of others.

Do you agree that personal attacks are wrong ?

 

[Kayden_II]

"Sadly, players are now directing hatred towards not only Paradox as a company, but also specific members of the development team at Paradox Tinto"
"Paradox’s former CEO Fredrik Wester has also gotten involved in the discourse on Twitter, speaking out about the value of the forums while not taking kindly to specific hate directed at individual employees."
Let me guess, "hate" against specific members / employees that gets deleted so that I can't really pinpoint my own opinion on what's being written ( "hate" ) so that I've to take Paradox word on this "hate", right ?

"The expansion is officially Steam’s worst-rated launch ever"
So, instead to be distracted by this illusive "hate" that's deleted anyways so that I can't really backcheck it myself, the ratings on Steam are still there and yep, it's true. So ... What're the reasons for that ? Let me guess, this "hate" against Paradox or MAYBE, just MAYBE something else.

"Other teams within Paradox Interactive’s umbrella have noticed and voiced their own concerns regarding toxicity and feedback,"
Let me guess, negative feedback = "toxicity", right ?

"Not only is it incredibly demoralising to spend months of your life creating something, only to see the people you made it for tearing it to shreds, it is also a debate that gives no one anything."
A "little" hint: Instead of doing this ongoing DLC-diarrhea, do / concentrate on patches ( completions, fixes, optimisations and balancing ) and "suddenly" people are more appreciative. It's just that Paradox gets a bit less money in times of their ongoing record-profits. "Sad", right ?

 

[Zaddy]

Do you agree that personal attacks are wrong ?

You realize that any answer he will give is completely irrelevant to his point, correct?

 

[Travis_Bickle]

"Not only is it incredibly demoralising to spend months of your life creating something, only to see the people you made it for tearing it to shreds, it is also a debate that gives no one anything."
A "little" hint: Instead of doing this ongoing DLC-diarrhea, do / concentrate on patches ( completions, fixes, optimisations and balancing ) and "suddenly" people are more appreciative. It's just that Paradox gets a bit less money in times of their ongoing record-profits. "Sad", right ?

Someone can spend their lives wanting to become a singer, an actor, but if their performance is no good, they'll get ripped to shreds and never make it.

The difference is, Paradox are like a great actor who's given some of the most amazing performances of all-time, but then they got rich, sold-out, got fat and stopped bothering anymore riding on the back of past-success to keep them going.

 

[Bonkster]

They claim they are receiving death threats, which is entirely possible given the nature of the internet, and they should be believed. No one should ever receive death threats. But that doesn't get them off the hook for this abysmal release and the fact is, having parked myself on the forum for the last 24 hours hoping someone could fix my broken game file, I've seen sarcastic comments at worst.

It's not this vile horror-show of abuse that Paradox claim.

This forum is miles above any other gaming forum when it comes to decent criticism and adult conduct lol. seriously i never get the craze about "death threats". I have been getting death threats since i started playing videogames on the internet back in the 90s. this is like the most normal internet thing ever and in the last few years it is getting blown out of proportion everytime something happenes. finding a horses head in your bed...now THAT is a death threat. but XxrandomgamerxX telling me i suck? come on now

 

[JonnySilverhand]

Quite obviously death threats, personal attacks and such from anyone is unacceptable in any form. But it should be time to wake you Paradox.
In any other industry selling product with such blatant and obvious mistakes would be considered cheating and fraudulent. The software industry works different so owners of your product cannot sue you regardless of not delivering (whether it comes to quality like this release or timeline for example Bloodlines2). On the other hand hiding behind excuses like "we tried hard" is not acceptable in your case. Paradox is a huge business venture raking in over a billion (SEK) a year (it helps if you are passionate about your product - but that would be expected in most industries, else you are probably set up for failure).

I have been a devoted fan and own a huge range of your products, BUT I am just infuriated by your inability to deliver quality. After sinking thousands of hours (literally) into crusader kings 2, I have paused playing for a couple of years as most dlc-s crashed and broke my saves - in iron man mode this is just the worst, I find it hard to put into words how bad it is loosing a game after sending hundreds of hours on it due to bugs. Now that crusader kings 2 is not being developed anymore I thought I would do a grand campaign start to finish. After playing a couple hundred hours with it (and experiencing multiple crash issues) I have finally got to a point where I am unable to avoid a crash to desktop problem. (I own all official game content and have zero mods so vanilla game.) How is all this okay?

How is it that after 10 years of "bug fixing" I still can't finish a game? I have spend hundreds of euros on this game and it's still not working as intended or advertised? How do you expect that people will not voice their outrage (some of them obviously in a bad way - sorry to hear)? Get you business model straight.

Protect your business and your employees from negative comments (and worse) by pushing decent product at good value for money prices. So far I believe the community has been positive towards Paradox (ck3 reviews are positive hoi4 reviews as well). But you need to rethink how you handle things, like testing, time to market crunch and the likes. Please heed the communities cry and rethink your standards and way of conduct!

 

[Atomcreator]

You realize that any answer he will give is completely irrelevant to his point, correct?

His point is not in keeping with the thread. The thread is about personal attacks on the Devs. Which must stop.