Message Settings
- Thread starter Merrivale
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Yes. For me, any game with good UX is more enjoyable than any game with bad UX, regardless of how good the game mechanics are. In Paradox games, not having message settings makes the UX bad in a way that is a dealbreaker for me.
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My personal opinion: While I definitely enjoy good UX, there are also other things to consider. There are a *lot* of strategy games out there that have better UX than paradox games. But I still play paradox games, despite the mostly really bad UX. CK2 had message settings, but I would still rather play CK3.
For me, the point in asking for message settings is not to make a threat that I won't buy things if there are no message settings. Because I definitely will buy things even without message settings. The point is to express my view that the absence of message settings is hurting my experience of the game, and that I am not alone in that. Whether or not "a lot of people would enjoy the game more with this feature" is a good enough reason to actually implement it is not my decision to make.
For me, the point in asking for message settings is not to make a threat that I won't buy things if there are no message settings. Because I definitely will buy things even without message settings. The point is to express my view that the absence of message settings is hurting my experience of the game, and that I am not alone in that. Whether or not "a lot of people would enjoy the game more with this feature" is a good enough reason to actually implement it is not my decision to make.
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Please copy-paste the message setting system from EU4, it’s by far the best of all PDX titles.
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I prefer the message settings system in CK2 because it's more customizable. In EU4, if you want auto-pause, the only option is "popup with pause". But in CK2, auto-pause can be combined with any of the message types. For some events (e.g. army has arrived), I want auto-pause, but I also want the message to be less prominent than a popup, so for those events, I use high priority messages with pause.
Also, in EU4, the "army has arrived" message is not triggered if the arrival starts a battle, but in CK2, it is triggered, which is how I prefer it.
But I think EU4 has the best UI overall, especially because of the macrobuilder.
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Even the newer Paradox games do have some nice ways to convey information, like expanded use of sound notifications or CK3's toasts. I even like, at least in principle, the infamous "Issues" button of CK3 for certain alerts that are sort of nice to have visible, but in practise end up being active pretty much all the time. I'd just want to choose myself how some particular message or alert is shown and if it should autopause the game or not, instead of being shackled to the one, hard-coded way the developers were happy with
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I haven't played CK3, but, from what I understand, the issues button is functionally similar to the low priority message tab in CK2. Personally, I don't use it (if I want to see a message, I prefer to have it appear automatically), but it's good to have the option.
I think I mentioned it earlier in this thread already, but I would be interested to find out if there are other people out there who would actually like to have auto-pause in multiplayer.
The typical argument against this is that one player would regularly hold up the entire game while the rest has to wait. I have some questions in response:
-> How big would your typical multiplayer group be? One person holding up the game is obviously a bigger problem in larger groups, but I think I would play mostly in pretty small groups of 2 or maybe 3 people. One person holding up the entire game is not such a big deal there.
-> How long would these pauses last? In CK3, I modded in auto-pause on battle complete, siege complete and council task complete. I just have to give new orders to one army or one councillor until I unpause again, which typically does not take that long. Of course it could be a different story if you actually want to read event-texts, but you *definitely* can't do that without pause. A long time ago, I played a 2-player multiplayer game of CK2, and one of the most annoying things about this was having to *manually* pause when an event popped up, because both of us wanted to actually read the event-texts. I can understand not wanting that in a larger group though.
-> What are you doing while another player has the game paused? Of course a paused game isn't very interesting if you currently have nothing to do anyway, but otherwise there is nothing stopping you from doing your own thing while another player has the game on pause. In an ideal world, this would be kind of like a simultaneous turns mode in a turn based strategy game: Each player gives their orders simultaneously, and when everyone is done, you can let the game run at a higher speed until something happens again for someone.
What would your opinion on that be?
The typical argument against this is that one player would regularly hold up the entire game while the rest has to wait. I have some questions in response:
-> How big would your typical multiplayer group be? One person holding up the game is obviously a bigger problem in larger groups, but I think I would play mostly in pretty small groups of 2 or maybe 3 people. One person holding up the entire game is not such a big deal there.
-> How long would these pauses last? In CK3, I modded in auto-pause on battle complete, siege complete and council task complete. I just have to give new orders to one army or one councillor until I unpause again, which typically does not take that long. Of course it could be a different story if you actually want to read event-texts, but you *definitely* can't do that without pause. A long time ago, I played a 2-player multiplayer game of CK2, and one of the most annoying things about this was having to *manually* pause when an event popped up, because both of us wanted to actually read the event-texts. I can understand not wanting that in a larger group though.
-> What are you doing while another player has the game paused? Of course a paused game isn't very interesting if you currently have nothing to do anyway, but otherwise there is nothing stopping you from doing your own thing while another player has the game on pause. In an ideal world, this would be kind of like a simultaneous turns mode in a turn based strategy game: Each player gives their orders simultaneously, and when everyone is done, you can let the game run at a higher speed until something happens again for someone.
What would your opinion on that be?
I play multiplayer only rarely and even then with only like 1-3 friends and I do pause quite a lot (much to those friends' annoyance) in multiplayer too. I do understand their annoyance, of course, but I just don't like at all (at least in strategy games) having to make instant, reflex-like decisions and would much prefer to think at least a bit what I am doing.
For me, personally, it would be really nice to be able to set some things to autopause in multiplayer too, but it would probably need to be something that the host can allow or disallow. Also, if people who play multiplayer are rather small portion of the total player base and people who like autopause are also not huge portion of the total playerbase, then I suppose it is fair to assume that people who both would like to play multiplayer and would like to set things to autopause are really miniscule group. =P
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I don't play multiplayer, but I do have friends who are at least somewhat into Paradox games and we discussed playing them as a group sometimes. The reason we did not is that the "clock is always running" aspect is not very appealing to how we would want to play such a game. It's too hectic on high speeds and drags on low speeds.
There's usually always someone who is currently unhappy with the current speed setting. From what I understand, it is a common practice to drop game speeds during player wars, even if not all players are involved (correct me if I am wrong). How different is having a slow speed forced on you really from having a pause forced on you?
Yes, this can be abused, and there should be game settings to enable/disable it. But I feel like the fundamental setting of no pause is needlessly restrictive.
You could even think about game rules built around this. Chess in competitive settings often has a clock that prevents players from "pausing" the game for too long. You could easily allot each player a pause budget that is drained while they keep the game paused, if you want to limit excessive and disruptive pausing. For example, you give a budget of 5 minutes of pause per hour to each player that counts down between them pausing and unpausing, and refills after an hour.
There's usually always someone who is currently unhappy with the current speed setting. From what I understand, it is a common practice to drop game speeds during player wars, even if not all players are involved (correct me if I am wrong). How different is having a slow speed forced on you really from having a pause forced on you?
Yes, this can be abused, and there should be game settings to enable/disable it. But I feel like the fundamental setting of no pause is needlessly restrictive.
You could even think about game rules built around this. Chess in competitive settings often has a clock that prevents players from "pausing" the game for too long. You could easily allot each player a pause budget that is drained while they keep the game paused, if you want to limit excessive and disruptive pausing. For example, you give a budget of 5 minutes of pause per hour to each player that counts down between them pausing and unpausing, and refills after an hour.
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I see a lot of similarities between pause and game speed in MP. It was common for people to go to speed 3 (or even 2) during the major wars between the players. Of course, for those who weren't participating in those wars that meant basically sitting and doing mostly nothing for the whole session. Given how micro-heavy wars are it's also understandable that people need to go to speed 3. Pausing has the same effect - those who don't need it will have to sit and wait. So how acceptable it is really depends on how often it's used and for how long - very similar situation to going to a slow speed. All this has the same side effect - some players (particularly those who are in a poor position) tend to drop out and it's hard to blame them since they are spending a lot of time sitting and waiting.
I don't see how any of this can be solved without adding asynchronous support to the game.
I don't see how any of this can be solved without adding asynchronous support to the game.
I made a suggestion thread for message settings in Stellaris here. Now we have one for each of the games that don't have message settings.
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Out of all the games without message settings, I've played Stellaris the most. Compared to the other games, Stellaris is less harmed by lack of message settings (although it would still be better if it had them), partly because ships move so slowly, so you're less likely to miss something if you fail to react quickly.
Since V3 will apparently have many small provinces like HoI4, movement between them will probably be quick. This will make it especially important to have an auto-pause on unit arrival option.
Since V3 will apparently have many small provinces like HoI4, movement between them will probably be quick. This will make it especially important to have an auto-pause on unit arrival option.
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I agree that Stellaris is much less hurt by the absence of message settings than other games. This is largely because the default message settings were actually pretty good there for a long time, at least when it comes to what information to show to the player. An Auto-Pause option would still be really nice though.
Currently, I don't enjoy Stellaris very much, and among the reasons for that is that they removed the "construction complete" notifications. Playing the game without these is just a miserable experience.
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Stellaris also has (or at least had when I last time played) mechanics that make concentrating all you ships in one (or couple of) doomstacks the optimal way to play. This makes it not-too-terrible to manage fleet movements even without autopauses on arrival (and other similar things).
Now that I think about it, in CK3 you are also better of with concentrating your troops as much as supply limits just allow (and in the case of small or medium realms that tends to be one, single army). Victorian era, especially with the transformation to industrial trench warfare, makes single (or few) doomstacks pretty unrealistic, so it's probably reasonable to expect many nations in Victoria 3 field very many armies / divisions / whatever. HoI4 has tackled that problem with battle plans that AI tries to execute, but that system is not without its own problems, to put it really nicely... Therefore, army management without proper message settings is quite likely going to be horrible experience in Victoria 3, unless Paradox manages to nail it very well with default messages, alerts and whatever.
Now that I think about it, in CK3 you are also better of with concentrating your troops as much as supply limits just allow (and in the case of small or medium realms that tends to be one, single army). Victorian era, especially with the transformation to industrial trench warfare, makes single (or few) doomstacks pretty unrealistic, so it's probably reasonable to expect many nations in Victoria 3 field very many armies / divisions / whatever. HoI4 has tackled that problem with battle plans that AI tries to execute, but that system is not without its own problems, to put it really nicely... Therefore, army management without proper message settings is quite likely going to be horrible experience in Victoria 3, unless Paradox manages to nail it very well with default messages, alerts and whatever.
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Some people have speculated that the reason that recent games don't have message settings is because they're designed with multiplayer in mind. I no longer think that's the reason. I think a more likely reason is that the devs (and also some of the players, especially in HoI4) think of the games as normal RTS games.
I don't consider Paradox games to be RTS. In a true RTS (even if it's pausable), the continous progression of time is a core part of the game design. This means that whenever any amount of time passes (no matter how short), the game state changes. But in Paradox games, time is divided into discrete ticks. Things can only happen on the ticks, never between them. This makes the games turn-based. (On most ticks, you don't need to do anything, so the game advances them automatically. But this is only a QoL feature, not a game mechanic.)
In RTS games, it's not possible to react to something instantly (in game time) when it happens, so they are designed to reward you for reacting as quickly as possible. But in Paradox games, it is possible to react instantly because you still have time before the next tick. The lack of message settings just makes it unnecessarily difficult to do so.
I don't consider Paradox games to be RTS. In a true RTS (even if it's pausable), the continous progression of time is a core part of the game design. This means that whenever any amount of time passes (no matter how short), the game state changes. But in Paradox games, time is divided into discrete ticks. Things can only happen on the ticks, never between them. This makes the games turn-based. (On most ticks, you don't need to do anything, so the game advances them automatically. But this is only a QoL feature, not a game mechanic.)
In RTS games, it's not possible to react to something instantly (in game time) when it happens, so they are designed to reward you for reacting as quickly as possible. But in Paradox games, it is possible to react instantly because you still have time before the next tick. The lack of message settings just makes it unnecessarily difficult to do so.
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I agree that paradox games are not really RTS, or rather that they would be really terrible RTS if pause was removed.
However: All computer-based games have "ticks" in some form or another. In some unpausable RTS games, this is just the frame rate, so a game running at 60 fps has 60 ticks per second. Other games actually measure the elapsed clock-time since the last "tick", and scale some things by the amount of time that has passed since the last tick. There does not exist a computer based game that changes the game state after arbitrarily short amounts of time.
A tick-based game (even if pausable and with no scaling based on clock-time) is still very different from a turn-based game.
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Yes, of course computers can't do an infinite number of updates per second, so even real-time games update their state at discrete points in time. But that's only an implementation detail. From a game design point of view, RTS games are treated as having continuous time (so things like movement speed and construction time are defined in terms of real time, not numbers of ticks). But turn-based games (including Paradox games) are intentionally designed so that things only happen on the turns.
Although this difference doesn't actually matter that much for message settings. Even if Paradox games were actually pausable RTS, it would still make sense to have message settings with auto-pause options. So I guess the problem is not so much that the games are treated as RTS, but that they're treated as non-pausable RTS.
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Just adding my +1 to this - definitely need message settings (and auto-pause) in Vicky 3. Please don't go the way of CK3/Stellaris, dearest devs!
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