I for one think It's clear that paradox is heading to its own demise with its emphases on MP casual players.
The future of EU4 and Paradox games, a schism?
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I bought EU3 in 2010 and have pretty much all the current and some past strategy games from Paradox. I enjoy Victoria 2 and EU4 the most, but CK2 is fun in a different way. I genuinely have no problem with the way EU4 is being run. If you're on the side of historical simulation, vanilla Paradox games were never that. There are mods that try, but vanilla EU4 is not supposed to be accurate to history. Everything changes as soon as you unpause. I loved EU3, I loved Victoria 2, I loved CK2, and I love EU4. They're all great games, and they're all massively different. EU3 let me paint the map in any way that I wanted, and so does EU4. They have different ways of representing each way of doing things, but they both allow me that basic capability. Maybe I like aspects of one better than the other, but I can say that EU4 is the better game so far.
And people are saying the monarch point system makes no sense? I mean, the monarchs were scored in EU3, and I have to say, the magistrate system of saving up guys to do all of your tasks didn't make a whole lot of sense either. There is no more abstraction to monarch points than there was in EU3. They're both completely unrealistic, but both games are inherently that anyway. You're not playing as a character; you are the god of that country, doing whatever you want.
Also, this big argument about casualization makes no sense. Call of Duty games are bad now because they release them every year and they're always the same. Rome 2 wasn't bad because it was casual. It was bad because they rushed it and left out components that are historically important to the gameplay of those games. The game was incredibly buggy too. Casualization isn't bad, is my point. There are other factors. It is never a problem making things easier to understand.
Lastly, none of us are game developers. People can say they want things and they don't want things, but the core idea of the game is always there. The developer has freedom to do what they want. People can complain, but it's not their game to make. Paradox has experience making these games. They know what they're doing more than anyone else. That doesn't mean you have to like it, but complaining constantly on the forums only drives away people like myself. I have complaints too, but by and large I enjoy these games because they still let me do what I want, and I think that's the basic feature they provide.
It just makes me mad when I come here and see threads like this, and then I click on another thread, seemingly a question about gameplay, and see the complaining there too. Or maybe it's a new person asking for help and people suggesting he down-patch and all this other garbage. Jesus Christ, just play the game and stop complaining so much. I understand you don't like the game anymore, but you're not any more entitled than I am to an opinion, and the spam is annoying.
Just play the game, or don't. I don't care.
And people are saying the monarch point system makes no sense? I mean, the monarchs were scored in EU3, and I have to say, the magistrate system of saving up guys to do all of your tasks didn't make a whole lot of sense either. There is no more abstraction to monarch points than there was in EU3. They're both completely unrealistic, but both games are inherently that anyway. You're not playing as a character; you are the god of that country, doing whatever you want.
Also, this big argument about casualization makes no sense. Call of Duty games are bad now because they release them every year and they're always the same. Rome 2 wasn't bad because it was casual. It was bad because they rushed it and left out components that are historically important to the gameplay of those games. The game was incredibly buggy too. Casualization isn't bad, is my point. There are other factors. It is never a problem making things easier to understand.
Lastly, none of us are game developers. People can say they want things and they don't want things, but the core idea of the game is always there. The developer has freedom to do what they want. People can complain, but it's not their game to make. Paradox has experience making these games. They know what they're doing more than anyone else. That doesn't mean you have to like it, but complaining constantly on the forums only drives away people like myself. I have complaints too, but by and large I enjoy these games because they still let me do what I want, and I think that's the basic feature they provide.
It just makes me mad when I come here and see threads like this, and then I click on another thread, seemingly a question about gameplay, and see the complaining there too. Or maybe it's a new person asking for help and people suggesting he down-patch and all this other garbage. Jesus Christ, just play the game and stop complaining so much. I understand you don't like the game anymore, but you're not any more entitled than I am to an opinion, and the spam is annoying.
Just play the game, or don't. I don't care.
No, not really. But it saddens me that it's going that way - because no, they are not going to go badly, if their games are more accessible. At all! But it is a slap in the face to those who came to Paradox (be it Entertainment, Interactive, or Developer Studios) for that specific complexity, depth and accuracy. It's a pity, but their bank accounts are not going to suffer for it.
I don't see how that is clear. I would argue that if they're doing that, they're not doing it effectively since MP in general still doesn't run too well and this game isn't really showing much evidence beyond the monarch point system of going casual, but casual MP has a track record of success.
SP could use a lot of help on a lot of fronts, but IMO most of those are compatible with functional MP mechanics.
- Dec 14, 1999
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Was that before or after the revoltrisk rework they did in the later years of EU2? (when they changed revoltrisk from monthly to yearly tics, and made it reduce income) I know they reduced the RR the ming collapse events gave at that point.
Also, another thing they fixed later was the bug that if you had an event giving you X amount of RR for say Y years, then got another event that gave you RR.... BOTH lasted for the entire span of Y.
So you think that it's a coincidence that all game franchise that have introduce casualization MP as their main focus are now tainted and seen as repetitive, unoriginal and boring? COD is direct result of casualization, to appeal to the masses and make money they release one annually. Their are many example of the failure of casual franchises Battlefield,Total war, Tome Clansy series, Star Wars,COD,Halo etc. the list could go on, they are all consider milked and unoriginal franchises now because of their "Broad Appeal"(which make the games bland and generic) and Paradox will likely suffer the same fate if it values money over its core fan base.
This doesn't underscore my liking of Paradox games as they have mostly replaced my previous favorite games.
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16000'th post lol..
Biggest fear for me would be paradox trying to appeal to casual player.. It turns interesting gameplay into boring railroaded gameplay.. Ofc casual players never notice that so they're fine, but fans who love those games definitely notice that.. I hope paradox dont do what alot of developers do.. Appeal to casual player..
Well they can consider themself lucky then. Im not a charity, so I wouldnt buy it.
I guess they know that, since they implement new features/ new ideas/ new mechanics AND new graphics. While keeping the old spirit.
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This doesn't seem true, though. It seems to me like earlier EU games attempted to roughly simulate the decisions faced by the leaders of states. EU4 doesn't do this, because monarch points make decision trade-offs really weird - for example, building a load of new docks across my nation means my nation is more likely to have a backwards naval fleet. What monarch points do is abstract these decisions very heavily, making different option easier to directly compare but reducing the strategic depth. It feels to me like this was done in the aim of making the game more easily accessible at the cost of less accurate simulation and strategic depth, which seems like a different design philosophy to 1999. If this isn't right, could you explain why the monarch point system was brought in? Genuinely curious, because my initial impression seems to be that among fans who've been with the series a little longer, it's not a very popular design choice.
I think there are definitely lots of improvements and better systems too - AE is much better than infamy, although it still needs a few tweaks, and trade is better than EU3 too, although it would be nice if it was bidirectional - but monarch points in particular don't seem to have gone down well.
I thought what was being argued was the use of "Mana" and the reliance on these abstract points that kill immersion and make the game a chore to play. Even EU3, not a complex game at all, had sliders that allowed the player control over their country's direction. EU4 does not have this. Instead, players are forced to find ways to get more mana points to advance their countries, and have almost no control over this.
Casualization is problematic because it sacrifices important mechanics central to Grand Strategy games in order to make them appeal to a wider audience. Why do you think Paradox is refusing to go back to the Victoria 2 model? Because some people complain that the game is too hard, and so instead we get these watered-down games that we see emerging now.
So players and consumers shouldn't try to drive a game's direction? The company should just have complete and total control over everything, no matter how flawed it might be? I don't think you understand how businesses work; if the consumers are totally compliant, then the quality of the product is almost always marred. Compare a developer like Obsidian with one like Bioware. The former constantly encourages player input and builds its games based on this input; the quality of its products is reflective of this policy and Obsidian has set a high standard for RPGs over the years. The latter, Bioware, refused to accept player input and banned all dissent from its forum. The results of this were only disastrous games - Dragon Age 2, The Old Republic, and Mass Effect 3. Bioware now is nothing but a shell of its former self. Player input is always important, and if you don't think so then you'd fit in well in a totalitarian society.
I don't think you know what spam is.
Nothing is being milked here though. They're releasing $5, $10, $15 DLCs that add significant things and also releasing free patches so people don't even need to participate in the DLCs if they don't want to. Do you understand that difference? CoD is releasing a new game every year, $60, and it's largely the same thing as the previous games. That's actual milking the fanbase, the 'casuals', as you call them. Maybe you're saying that Paradox is heading in that direction, but by what logic? They're making the games easier to choose what content you want, and I wouldn't consider their prices to be over the top. I don't pay for a lot of the unit packs and music packs because I don't want them. They give me that option. Instead of packaging all the DLCs into one thing and charging me $40, I can get what I want for around $10 or $15 if it's a lot of content.
Johan himself said a few posts above that they are making the games like they always have. He just only recently said what that focus was on. Like I said, they know what they are doing. They're just being more transparent with it right now.
So you think that it's a coincidence that all game franchise that have introduce casualization MP as their main focus are now tainted and seen as repetitive, unoriginal and boring? COD is direct result of casualization, to appeal to the masses and make money they release one annually. Their are many example of the failure of casual franchises Battlefield,Total war, Tome Clansy series, Star Wars,COD,Halo etc. the list could go on, they are all considerd milked and unoriginal franchises now because of their "Broad Appeal"(which make the games bland and generic) and Paradox will likely suffer the same fate if it values money over its core fan base.
This doesn't underscore my liking of Paradox games as they have mostly replaced my previous favorite games.
At least those who didn't believe use can see this then
.But that aside, the perception of the issue of SP vs MP is overblown. This game is based on a board game, originally a fundamentally MP concept. The concept of the AI designed as competitors fits this model, even if the AI has the same limitations from a programming standpoint as other mechanics. In a perfect world, the AI would behave like a human in a competitive game. I've said before that there's nothing wrong with this premise, at the expense of siding against quite a few people who usually agree with me haha, but it's always been like that. I prefer the design goal of the AI in this game to the set-piece nature it had in Civ IV, where its role play element would cause it to behave at its own detriment and/or actually prop up other players (including the human sometimes) unreasonably. I don't think the AI is there yet in EU IV, and doubt it could realistically be, but it's more fun when it's trying to win and is threatening IMO, especially in a game like this.
I also disagree with assertions that marketing and designing a game to attract casual players is necessarily bad. If a game can't grab and hold new casual players, it's going to die and eventually lose its hardcore base as well. There are good and bad ways to do that in a skill-based game however. I've seen quite a bit of theory on crutch type mechanics that let new players be competitive, but not at the level of the most advanced players who largely don't use them. I don't think monarch points really fit that bill for example, but in EU IV country selection should help wrt that. I do feel very strongly about the UI and accessibility to the game's rules being a serious barrier to casual players though. I have multiple friends who won't touch this game because it's hard for them to understand how it works or tried and got frustrated, and having learned far too many rules through trial and error I understand where they're coming from.
Quite a few mechanics have the potential, but aren't quite there in concept, and man that can get frustrating if you've played the game long enough. The "schism" though? Insofar as it exists, it's probably disagreement over 1) understanding of what the game currently is and 2) different preferences on how one wants it to play.
For example, quite a few people argue for internal mechanics, but in my mind the game wasn't built for them in most cases, and I'd rather its warfare and base tax growth setup be polished and carry more important choices more often, rather than trying to introduce even more convoluting factors without doing that first.
What mechanics are sacrificed? I don't have Vicky 2, what's going on there that is too "hard" to be implemented here? Is that actually the case, or is the game's functionality regarding it not intuitive?
To PI's credit, they don't go down the path of "banning dissent", even somewhat harsh dissent. I'm still here, and appreciative of the times where I have seen improvements in the game. It's hard to talk about changes I like at length because I agree with them (national focus, ROTW monarch point change, neighbor bonus), or changes that I don't mind in concept or most of its implementation but wish were done just a bit better (colonial nations needing more micro than one's own nation). People tend to argue on things they disagree with, but unless you do something you were told not to do ahead of time I've not seen much evidence of banning dissent here.
I'm going to avoid the DLC/cost issue. Both sides like having money, and the reality is that the market will drive what companies do and don't do to make money. It's very much a "doing, not saying" issue. People will buy if they consider it a good exchange in terms of value. If the market actually finds that repulsive, then it won't be a working model, but I suspect we'll just find an equilibrium point to maximize profits and some people won't agree with that from their own value proposition. You can set that point anywhere and it will happen.
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Monarch points are indeed retarded. If paradox wants to stick with the point system the three point types need to be collapsed into a signle, shared pool, so you can actually start strategising where to spend your stuff and make an actual imprint on your nation, instead of just crossing fingers for the next heir.
There are other building sites besides the crappy MP system though: terrible rebelmechanics, awful diplomacy, nonsensical trade, OE still being part of the game, WE still not making any sense whatsoever,... to name just a few.
There are other building sites besides the crappy MP system though: terrible rebelmechanics, awful diplomacy, nonsensical trade, OE still being part of the game, WE still not making any sense whatsoever,... to name just a few.
Honestly, Johan, I don't think that's necessarily better. Evolution is a good thing, and stasis is not. People are worried you're evolving in the wrong direction, reassuring them that you're not evolving at all is probably not the ideal message.
Very well said!
Yep. I gotta kick outta reading that too.
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