Snapshot of Leviathan DLC ratings in Steam

[Nuclear Elvis]

Paradox Dev's/Board Admins, I am hopeful you allow this thread to exist and persist here. The point is simply to show the snapshot of today's view of the Leviathan DLC in the Steam platform, so that your game players who are not in Steam, and this Forum Community, can see where it is in terms of ratings/opinions at a macro level. We/I could paste in updates monthly or on some cycle to show what the going ratings are in that future time, with hopefully improvements in the stats shown to this community.

This post is not intended to be the hub of flame wars about Leviathan, but simply an observation place that we can have constructive commentary and reflection on the status of Leviathan as it exists in the marketplace, and in Steam in particular.

Here is the Copy/Paste from the Steam Store Page as of today, August 15th, 2021:

From the Steam store header Review Metrics at top right of Leviathan DLC Store Page:
RECENT REVIEWS: Very Negative (59)
ALL REVIEWS: Overwhelmingly Negative (4,403)

And further down the Leviathan DLC Steam Store Page, the total Data count:
Total Reviews, All Languages: 5,006
Positive Reviews, All Languages: 483
Negative Reviews, All Languages: 4,523

 

[prismaticmarcus]

where are your posts containing snapshots of the other DLC's?

hasn't there been more than enough commentary and reflection on the status of Leviathan?

 

[Nuclear Elvis]

where are your posts containing snapshots of the other DLC's?

hasn't there been more than enough commentary and reflection on the status of Leviathan?

Leviathan DLC is the most current and relevant DLC to observe at this time. While there are plenty of varying posts in this forum toward Leviathan, I did not see one that captured the current data for reviews at Steam, and this will help build a snapshot over time, maybe every 2 weeks (bi-monthly) is the best approach to collect the data, to see the going trends for Steam reviews. This post isn't bashing Leviathan, as I'm trying to stay as neutral as can be with all of this. Bear in mind - I have not posted a review in Steam toward Leviathan, but I am an avid EU4 player and you will see in the EU4 Suggestions forum here, that I am frequently making valid/real attempts to point out things that the Paradox Developers could take into account for changes to EU4, while they are still updating/coding this game into a better state. I really do want to see EU4 matured to the best game it possibly can be, regardless my disagreements with some Design choices (some of which I point out in my Suggestions), and I think we must keep the Dev's highly informed as they prepare to potentially design/build an EU5 game of the future. I think this post-Leviathan release period for EU4 amounts to an "Existential Crisis" period for the EU series as a whole, as this is a make/break time for not just EU4, but Paradox as a business-minded company will make decisions toward whether they commit resources to develop an EU5 (and a related decision as to "When" to attempt such).

Paradox as a company and among the Developers should be looking at this as an "All Hands On Deck" period for EU4 and for the EU Series in total.

 

[I like wars and maps]

This wont ever change since players wont and neither should give it a positive review. I even own it and its my faverouite DLC since Cradle of Civilization and I still gave it a negative review since the launch was a disaster and monuments were nerfed into being background noise for people like me who spend their money on conquest and dont save it for imaginary interest. Otherwise I love everything else about this DLC wich is strange cause I dont care about a single region wich got updated.

 

[Destaloss]

This wont ever change since players wont and neither should give it a positive review. I even own it and its my faverouite DLC since Cradle of Civilization and I still gave it a negative review since the launch was a disaster and monuments were nerfed into being background noise for people like me who spend their money on conquest and dont save it for imaginary interest. Otherwise I love everything else about this DLC wich is strange cause I dont care about a single region wich got updated.

Players like you are the reason why this game is slowly dying. All you care about are new overpowered features in form of mission trees and button clicks.
The game more and more only consists of ideal conquest paths and all you do is checking your script on how you have to play the game in order to be efficient enough.
The game is about conquest and diplomacy, but I don't feel like I'm in charge of the country I'm playing anymore. The game is playing itself instead of giving alternatives outcomes. It is a railroad, because you can plan your game more than 100 years in advance. If something happens that keeps me away from completing my overpowered missions that can be fixed with a quick ALT + F4, I just do that.
This doesn't apply to every country you can play, some have overpowered missions, some only have the generic mission tree. I feel like major countries in 1444 shouldn't have that strong missions. It just kills the fun, because there is no doubt on how to play a certain major effectively. I miss the randomness and unpredictable things in EU IV.

 

[currylambchop]

The game is about conquest and diplomacy, but I don't feel like I'm in charge of the country I'm playing anymore. The game is playing itself instead of giving alternatives outcomes. It is a railroad, because you can plan your game more than 100 years in advance. If something happens that keeps me away from completing my overpowered missions that can be fixed with a quick ALT + F4, I just do that.

HOI4 likes to say hello.

 

[leefnmajors]

This isn't really constructive as multiple devs have not only acknowledged the state of the game, but the player base is acutely aware of it as well. In fact, basically since the days leading up to launch (the preview videos from Youtubers had people terrified about Concentrate Dev) and everything there after.

In short, it's not news that this was poorly received. You're beating a dead horse, and I'm quite certain that all parties involved (the devs, players, fans, shareholders, whatever) are aware that there is something rotten in the state of EU4.

 

[currylambchop]

This isn't really constructive as multiple devs have not only acknowledged the state of the game, but the player base is acutely aware of it as well. In fact, basically since the days leading up to launch (the preview videos from Youtubers had people terrified about Concentrate Dev) and everything there after.

In short, it's not news that this was poorly received. You're beating a dead horse, and I'm quite certain that all parties involved (the devs, players, fans, shareholders, whatever) are aware that there is something rotten in the state of EU4.

Yea, the leviathan bad circlejerk is really getting old. We know, it’s how paradox works.

 

[PurpulaPhoenixum53]

Just decided to drop a review for it and check out the other ones. Its seems to me that the people are buying Leviathan are getting for multiplayer or modding. Beyond that even the one "positive" review was telling Johan to fix the concentrate dev, and saw another one stating that

the launch has made me very weary of all futher paradox titles and will not pay full price from them ever again.

I think this sums up the general mood most fans had (and may still have) towards any future PDX releases. Leviathan, I think, is going to seriously put a dent in potential future PDX sales for the rest of the year. It's sad because many of us love PDX games, and so for us to be this discouraged from getting a PDX game because of crappy release is frustrating and tragic.

 

[Blk82]

Players like you are the reason why this game is slowly dying. All you care about are new overpowered features in form of mission trees and button clicks.
The game more and more only consists of ideal conquest paths and all you do is checking your script on how you have to play the game in order to be efficient enough.

Have you considered that casual normies who like clicking buttons and play-to-win DLC outnumber the more hardcore player base? The dev is aware of the issues, and upper management is aware of the issues. Leviathan is the way it is due to business decisions which were rational from the company's perspective.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Players like you are the reason why this game is slowly dying.

That's easy to say. But I would like to point out that all of us (me included), have subsidized the game's UI lying, broken subjects, and > 5 year bugs, in addition to serially poor QoL to the controls. Those things hurt a game's performance too, though it's not easy to trace precisely how much damage each issue does.

Though for people who try EU 4 and don't get into it, by far the most common barrier for the players I've observed is simply understanding the game and not getting screwed by it. Games will slowly die without new players, and Pdox game UI/setup create enormous barriers for new players.

HOI4 likes to say hello.

At least in EU 4, when your order a unit to go somewhere it will actually go there if not interrupted by losing combat. HOI 4 not only ignores orders sometimes, it will also change them w/o prompt or have units attack away from front lines/areas shown before executing a battleplan. War score does not work, peace conferences do not work, basic controls do not work, several adviser types do nothing, multiple focuses lie about what they do, even basic things like "countdown until some consequence happens" lie to you.

HOI 4 makes Leviathan look relatively polished, and I do not say that lightly. Leviathan was a huge mess and is still something of a mess. I want to like HOI 4 because there's a lot of potential fun in there. But it really is that bad. It's the only game I've ever seen where QA just decided to mark the game lying on purpose about achievement descriptions as "resolved", too.

Leviathan is the way it is due to business decisions which were rational from the company's perspective.

It's also the way it is due to project management failures. Whatever opinions one might have on the directions of the game or particular mechanics, a non-trivial part of the reason Leviathan bombed was the sheer volume of bugs and (for a while) unplayable performance hit. There are still performance issues unresolved, if I'm not mistaken. Making monuments overpowered might have been a business decision, but I doubt the state of release was intended in advance.

 

[gigau]

Another thread of players turning on each other because they view the game differently.... please remember to respect your fellow players whichever their taste in game style.