This game has had a notification problem since release that has only gotten worse

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frostbiyt

Second Lieutenant
44 Badges
Mar 30, 2014
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  • Imperator: Rome - Magna Graecia
  • Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods
  • Crusader Kings III
  • Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado
  • Stellaris: Galaxy Edition
  • Cities: Skylines
This game has way too many ways of delivering notifications, which makes it way too easy to miss important information. As of Royal Court, there are six notification channels in this game. Six!
1. The row of "important" notifications along the top of the screen.
2. The drop down list of "minor" notifications at the top.
3. The fleeting banners that pop up at the top
4. Events
5. The scrolling list of events above the map mode selector
6. The little tiny indicator for royal court events, which will automatically pick an outcome for you if you don't notice in time.

This is absurd. And it's made even more user hostile by the inability to choose what notifications are shown where. The devs consider some notifications to be minor that I very much disagree with and vice versa, which leads to important things being missed because they're buried. But what's the solution?

I would classify the types of information that is delivered into three main categories: Passive events (3,4, and 5 from above), active events (4, 6), and situations(1, 2). Passive events are things that happen that happen that you are unable to take direct action on, active events are events that presents a situation that you make a choice on how to respond, and situations reflect the state of things that might be relevant to you. Additionally, there are various gradations of priority. High and low priority being the important distinction.

Active and passive events can be served in the same way and so only necessitate two notification channels, one for active events and high priority passive events and one for low priority passive events. Remove the popup banners from the top of the screen, only deliver passive events as popup windows or in the event channel above map modes, and remove the royal court event indicator, instead turn court events into popup events. The two situation notifications are OK, but we need to be able to choose the importance of these notifications like in CK2.

Also, maybe move the buttons for artifacts and lifestyle to the top of the screen so I don't have to keep track of yet another part of the screen.
 
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Also apparently result of every battle even minor one is more important than opportunity to create new title
I mean, I think battles are more important than available titles, but the fact we disagree shows that we need to have the option to change stuff like that to suit our priorities.
 
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I've pretty much given up hope for any message settings as granular as ck2 was. I guess smth like the Configurable News Feed by Morven is the only thing we might get, but I don't think they really want to do that.

It also seems to me there's a big split in certain areas of the game where most of the forum sees room for improvement while the devs feel its good enough for now, like the Issues button on the topbar. Wiz said in a comment that apparently that issue button is seen as working "excellent" and commented how, while for ck3 message settings don't make as much sense, it does in vic3.

I disagree, I think at least being able to decide that a certain event comes up as either a pop up or on the news feed is very important.
 
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If only there was a system used by older Paradox games to handle notification overflow that could be reused for CK3, some kind of "message settings" if you would. But I guess there was no such thing and the developers are forced to spend years trying to figure out a way to handle it instead.

(yes I am really salty over Paradox deciding that user customization is bad in their modern games and that there instead is one specific combination of notifications that is supposed to work for everyone)
 
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If only there was a system used by older Paradox games to handle notification overflow that could be reused for CK3, some kind of "message settings" if you would. But I guess there was no such thing and the developers are forced to spend years trying to figure out a way to handle it instead.

(yes I am really salty over Paradox deciding that user customization is bad in their modern games and that there instead is one specific combination of notifications that is supposed to work for everyone)
I mean is it really reusable? I wouldn't be surprized, if the rework of the engine (CK3 and Vic3 are clearly a newer engine, than Vic2 or CK2) made the old message settings code impossible to use.
 
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For those who don’t have it yet but would like it, here’s a (steam) link to the Configurable News Feed, now maintained by FunGaming44, previously maintained by Morven, and created by dungeonyak. My thanks to all 3 modders!

I never play CK3 without it.
 
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Wiz said in a comment that apparently that issue button is seen as working "excellent" and commented how, while for ck3 message settings don't make as much sense, it does in vic3.
Oh god I just read that post and it is so depressing to me.

CK3 is repeatedly brought up as an example of the pinnacle of Paradox GSG UI (which I agree with!)
The situations button is pretty much the same - this is a concept that works brilliantly in CK3
Who are these people bringing up how amazing the CK3 UI is? Who is it that thinks dumping everything into one 'situation' tab you have to check obsessively is brilliant? Is this just what the UI developers at Paradox has told him? What was so awful with CK2 having different buttons at the top that you could (*gasp*) customize after your own needs?

I like Wiz a lot and the rest of the post is good but man I disagree with his take on CK3 here.
 
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Oh god I just read that post and it is so depressing to me.


Who are these people bringing up how amazing the CK3 UI is? Who is it that thinks dumping everything into one 'situation' tab you have to check obsessively is brilliant? Is this just what the UI developers at Paradox has told him? What was so awful with CK2 having different buttons at the top that you could (*gasp*) customize after your own needs?

I like Wiz a lot and the rest of the post is good but man I disagree with his take on CK3 here.

I remember when someone asked why there was no Dynasty Map Mode, a dev came asking they didn't see a purpose for such a map mode, and that's why they didn't add it. Basically for UI the devs' idea seems to be that they know better than the user, it works for them so it is good.
 
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I remember when someone asked why there was no Dynasty Map Mode, a dev came asking they didn't see a purpose for such a map mode, and that's why they didn't add it. Basically for UI the devs' idea seems to be that they know better than the user, it works for them so it is good.

The thread was the More map modes +Modding adjustements suggestion thread with the referenced comment being specifically about a control map mode. Specifics aside, the dev was not as hostile as you make it sound, but I can understand why you remember it that way.

Here is the dev's post along with a very on-point response to it in the same thread:
When would you want to see control on the map outside of placing your Councillor to increase control?
This entire line of thinking is at the root of the problems with CK3. Just because you cannot think of a reason why someone would want access to that sort of information in that manner doesn't mean that there aren't people out there wanting exactly that.

Maybe the person who posted about the Control Map Mode has written an amazing intrigue mod that allows people to scheme to incite revolts in other realm's counties, and the chances of success are influenced by the level of control. It shouldn't matter. The information is available, don't make it difficult to find it or aggregate it.

EDIT: My apologies. There was, in fact, a similar dev response in the dynasty map mode suggestion thread:
Is there something else you would want a Dynasty (or House) Mapmode to do? When would it be useful (except for the Dynasty of many Crowns Achievements)?
 
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