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Game bad, so what
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May 21, 2019 18:36
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Flavius Aetass posted:what does any of this mean Friend Beamed is referring to fact that the game's player count has fallen to the 1.2k-3k level, from a 29k peak at launch. It's hard to know what to make of that, really, without knowing what a Paradox game's typical performance is in the first month. I checked steamcharts but it looks like they don't keep finely grained datasets going back more than three months. It does seem to be a much sharper dropoff than Stellaris or HOI4 had (or EU4, but that's a much older datapoint).
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May 21, 2019 18:56
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I think that the culture groups and their graphical cultures need to be reworked a bit. From what I’ve read, Dacians apparently looked more like Scythians than Greeks, and the Thracians and Bythnians (and technically Phrygians) were culturally and linguistically a lot closer to Dacians than the Greeks, though their religions were more hellenized than the Dacians were. Illyrians should also really be their own cultural group with either Ritualism or an entirely new religion rather than split between Greeks and Italians. That vague “pre-Indo-european” group should be split so that there’s some kind of Basque/Aquitanian group and then an Etruscan/Raetian/Sardinian/Corsican culture group (call it Tyrsenian after the proposed language group I guess). Not to mention that the Anatolians and Caucasians should be split off from the Xyber-Huge Persian group. But hey, that’s all easily moddable.
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May 21, 2019 20:06
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:Friend Beamed is referring to fact that the game's player count has fallen to the 1.2k-3k level, from a 29k peak at launch. I wonder if the fact that the devs dangled a huge update "coming soon" from the beginning had a big effect on that.
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May 21, 2019 20:25
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Most Paradox titles are perpetually in a state of "big update soon!!!" for years on end so I'm not sure I buy that.
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May 21, 2019 20:32
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There’s definitely something different about this launch. Stellaris and HoI4 were taken to task for plenty of things at launch but both were still in the mid/high 80s in terms of Steam reviews at this point.
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May 21, 2019 21:00
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Flavius Aetass posted:I wonder if the fact that the devs dangled a huge update "coming soon" from the beginning had a big effect on that. Or the fact the huge update to fix core missing UI features, without addressing genuine core issues, was announced begrudgingly after release.
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May 21, 2019 22:18
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I don't play it mostly cause I wait for UI improvements. Also curious about more diverse governmental powers but that's secondary.
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May 21, 2019 22:20
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Anno posted:There’s definitely something different about this launch. Stellaris and HoI4 were taken to task for plenty of things at launch but both were still in the mid/high 80s in terms of Steam reviews at this point. Because it is a surprisingly different game design than any PDX game since EU:3 and EU:Rome. As I've mentioned before it's a game focused on map-painting and "winning". But a lot of the players of current PDX games like them for flavor, role-playing, (decent) historical accuracy, awesome potential for making/chasing weird goals, etc. Imperator seems at first glance to support these playstyles, but it doesn't. I think a lot of the strangely vague, but still incredibly upset, poor reviews and complaints, are due to players being confused when they try to play this game like they normally would play a PDX game, and the experience is weirdly shallow. It's a game that is best when you just focus on painting the map and accept that this is a game about optimizing use of mechanics. Players looking for historical parallels and basis in the mechanics are going to be upset. Players looking to the character and event driven narratives of CK2 are going to be upset. But at first glance, this isn't apparent. So I agree that this is mostly about managing expectations - Paradox should have been more upfront about the game is trying to be and what it is not trying to be. But there are still some issues beyond expectation management: there are relatively major design and balance problems. And perhaps worse, players have seen with other games that Paradox can produce games that cater to a wide variety of players, but for some reason have chosen not to do so with this game. That might explain (but not excuse) some of the extremely unpleasant vitriol aimed at Johan specificially. They see a more narrow game design, they see a chief designer quite passionate and happy about his game, and they conclude he ruined the game for them. I'm not sure that Johan/Paradox have completely understood that this game is much more narrow than their other recent titles, and that they need to be more specific about what is being improved in 1.1 and beyond. It's not just about nations being more unique, more flavor stuff and more mechanics. They need to understand that many players don't want to focus on juggling numbers to optimize the speed of map-painting, and either tell those players the game is not going to be what they want, and or plan a more comprehensive game overhaul. The players who're angry about the game now are mostly still going to be angry after 1.1 - perhaps even more so, as several of the new mechanics are making the game even more number-focused and abstract. Personally I hope expansions and overhaul mods will bring the game closer to my preferred style of gaming, but as it is, I am rather disappointed. The game could have had EU4/CK2/Stellaris levels of potential and breadth - but it didn't, and I'll still enjoy for what it is. But I hope the next PDX title is less narrow and abstract. PederP fucked around with this message at 22:29 on May 21, 2019 |
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May 21, 2019 22:21
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Flavius Aetass posted:what does any of this mean The thing that validates my opinion is correct while the thing that validates your opinion isn’t. In a nutshell.
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May 21, 2019 22:26
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I'm just struggling to think of experiences in this game that are as different as Portugal and Austria in EU4 or Fanatic Purifiers and Inward Perfectionists in Stellaris. Hell how about a range of experiences as different as Germany and the Soviet Union in HoI4?
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May 21, 2019 22:28
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AnEdgelord posted:I'm just struggling to think of experiences in this game that are as different as Portugal and Austria in EU4 or Fanatic Purifiers and Inward Perfectionists in Stellaris. There are some elements of I:R that feel like better bones than EUIV and HoI4 in this regard. True that there isn't a big set of fixed custom modifiers for each nation, but the modular set of modifiers that you can move around in your government and national laws are at least as weighty as those (and interactive, which the other games are often not). That said, while I'm glad that the system means that you can really alter a nation over time... There just aren't any systems for something as alternate as a 'Portugal' relative to the norm. Well kinda, I'm finding ways to do fun stuff with trade in MP (but obviously that's no triumph of mechanics). Speaking of trade, the modular bonuses from goods add another significant layer of modifiers that can change much more readily. For me it makes specific regions a little more compelling than they are in EU or HoI games as well. Just an evolution of similar systems, but I think it's more interactive and generally more compelling than the previous iterations.
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May 22, 2019 01:09
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AnEdgelord posted:I'm just struggling to think of experiences in this game that are as different as Portugal and Austria in EU4 or Fanatic Purifiers and Inward Perfectionists in Stellaris. Can't understand that argument. Compare two Hellenic powers of similar size - like Epirus and Bosporus. One has to fight an emergent Roman empire, has a set of small inter-fighting Greek countries nearby, has a proper Greek civilized populace (both in-borders and nearby) and access to most Mediterranean goods. The Bosporus has to deal with a tribal population, big tribal nations around (only a single "civilized" nation for a natural expansion), will have a lot of lands to colonize and lot of people to convert, doesn't have any reliable access to iron so can't properly use the phalanx that has all the bonuses... It's day and night. What's the difference in Stellaris? One of those doesn't get to use trade with other factions and instead trades with the magical internal market? If I play Inward Perfectionists in Stellaris exactly the same way I'd play as Fanatic Purifiers will I have any problems? Portugal and Austria seem like a better example as one has to fight Berbers and colonize as the other fights most of Europe and uses diplomacy. But their relations with various other systems like trade and warfare and expansion and internal development are pretty similar. Meanwhile in Imperator almost everything you do will heavily depend on what country are you playing.
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May 22, 2019 07:17
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ilitarist posted:Can't understand that argument. Which is almost the exact same thing Johan said in one of the first community interactions after the post-release backlash. What's the difference between nation A and nation B in EU? If you approach it from the perspective of min/max'ing map-painter - not that much. If you approach it from a number of other playstyle - quite a bit. In EU4 you will engage with mechanics that have a strong coupling with history. Portugal will focus on colonization, trade, building a powerful fleet, explorers, conquistadors, north african expansion. Austria will focus on HRE dominance, a land army, territorial continental expansion, handling unions/inheritances, etc. In I:R Epirus and Bosporus will raise the biggest army they can, gobble up weak neighbors when possible and spend mana on the same things. Colonization is the only real difference, and it's a very awkward mechanic. At the end of the day constant territorial conquest is the only interesting thing to do. If you don't expand you'll get bored and/or wiped off the map. Sure, EU4 and Rome both have different geopolitics for nations, but the mechanics you interact with, vary from nation to nation in EU4. Rome feels samey to players who focus on mechanics more than geopolitics. Buildings in Rome are a good example. There are 4 buildings with very distinct mechanics, but they are also very abstract and generic. Some players want baths, coliseums, aqueducts. To the design team this probably seems redundant, bloated and inelegant. The buildings are already good at varying stages of the game, so present a sufficient strategic choice. Adding more buildings, making the effects culture-unique, complicating the system - all take away from the strategic impact and balance of buildings. The design team starts from a mechanical base and applies flavor on top. But many players want to see mechanics derived from flavor. On top of that there is a very striking lack of mechanics that limit the expansion potential of a nation. Germanics and Celts can easily reach high tech and civilization levels. Any culture/religion can be map-painted at equal cost. Balance is heavily favored over flavor. The inability to understand that a grand strategy game can be more than a puzzle and an optimization challenge to paint as much map as possible seems to be the very core of why many players (and apparently Paradox staff) are genuinely baffled by the poor reception. This whole situation reminds me of the old Games Workshop game, Epic: Armageddon. The designers were so proud - it was an incredibly elegant game design, and it was well balanced. But it was poorly received - many wanted back the clunky, but charming and flavorful mechanics and army lists, from the old Epic games. A lot of gamers don't want a streamlined, elegant and balanced game. They want whacky, unabalanced, clunky and diverse games. Stellaris has a bootload of really horrible perks and numerous ways to gimp your empire, but it has a variety. Crusader Kings 2 is a glorious mess of mechanics, options and interactions. A lot could be abstracted and steamlined, but the unnecessary gunk is part of the charm.
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May 22, 2019 08:36
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You're right. I can sorta see the reasoning besides this argument but it's very easy for me to put myself in Johan's place. And see how he reacts with "Ok, get your filthy unimportant *unique* modifiers if you can't appreciate the beauty of the systems".
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May 22, 2019 08:50
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PederP posted:Because it is a surprisingly different game design than any PDX game since EU:3 and EU:Rome. As I've mentioned before it's a game focused on map-painting and "winning". I haven’t played much IR because I keep getting CTDs every few minutes, but this is EU4, and EU4 is one of their most popular games. It doesn’t have the character-driven RPG elements of CK2, it’s purely about understanding and using the various resources and mechanics effectively to grow as big and powerful as possible. Wafflecopper fucked around with this message at 09:06 on May 22, 2019 |
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May 22, 2019 09:04
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EU4 has tons of flavor. Events, special government buttons, mission trees. It's more like Total War game in that regard, I guess, but with a mod unlocking every nation so you can also play boring nations if you want to. Plus devs added some random fluff even for small unimportant nations all over the world. So you more or less get something new to learn when you try a random tribe in the Central Africa, then Denmark, then Austria, then random daimyo in Japan, then random Native American, then Aztec, then Castille, then Ethiopia, then Novgorod... There's an infinite list of countries that will give you some unique events or mechanics early on. In Imperator you have something like that only for a few countries and apart from Rome (maybe Epirus?) there's nothing compared to more developed EU4 countries. Even if you have no DLCs EU4 has Muscowy, France, Austria, Ottomans, Ming - all with a lot of new things to see. You'll see new puzzle pieces. In Imperator you know all the puzzle pieces once you've played as each government type, but the puzzles themselves are much more complex in each case.
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May 22, 2019 09:14
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Wafflecopper posted:I haven’t played much IR because I keep getting CTDs every few minutes, but this is EU4, and EU4 is one of their most popular games. It doesn’t have the character-driven RPG elements of CK2, it’s purely about understanding and using the various resources and mechanics effectively to grow as big and powerful as possible. EU4 has loads of variety in how you become big and powerful, that's the point. You start the game as a prince in the HRE, you start the game as a native american nation, you start the game as Ming, or as one of the Japanese states.... the gameplay mechanics you'll be interacting with are so extremely different. The variety of goals and routes to power in these starts is a huge part of the replayability of grand strategies. They're imbalanced, if you want a challenge you start as someone weak. That's the whole point. Stellaris suffered similarly due to the balance of its starts. Fortunately it's a space 4x game so it can instead lean more heavily on that genre instead and the devs have been moving further in that direction with each patch. It forgoes starting variety in favour of exploration and adventure and a big bad end boss story line. It's fine, some people like it and some people don't - but Imperator is stuck as a grand strategy and it needs to play to the strengths of that genre.
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May 22, 2019 09:19
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PederP posted:Which is almost the exact same thing Johan said in one of the first community interactions after the post-release backlash. What's the difference between nation A and nation B in EU? If you approach it from the perspective of min/max'ing map-painter - not that much. If you approach it from a number of other playstyle - quite a bit. i appreciate the epic armageddon deep cut, but for the record it was great
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May 22, 2019 10:05
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Fuligin posted:i appreciate the epic armageddon deep cut, but for the record it was great Oh, I loved that game too (and Warmaster). It just had similarly confused and angry reception to I:R. I may be a weirdo roleplayer when playing GSGs, but I am a competitive powergamer to the core when it comes to pushing dolls around on a tabletop.
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May 22, 2019 10:35
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Chalks posted:EU4 has loads of variety in how you become big and powerful, that's the point. You start the game as a prince in the HRE, you start the game as a native american nation, you start the game as Ming, or as one of the Japanese states.... the gameplay mechanics you'll be interacting with are so extremely different. The variety of goals and routes to power in these starts is a huge part of the replayability of grand strategies. They're imbalanced, if you want a challenge you start as someone weak. That's the whole point. How much of that variety was in the game at release though? Sure you could play as Native Americans or a Japanese Daimyo but wasn't most of the actual fun mechanics, content, and flavour for those nations added in DLC? I didn't start playing EU4 until a few DLCs in, so correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is the game was very bare-bones outside of Europe at release. Even now a lot of tags still have the generic mission tree and generic regional NIs.
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May 22, 2019 12:29
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On release they had a lot of special mechanics for Asia (China and Japan) because EU3 Divine Wind expansion was still fresh. They also had a lot of Dynamic Historical Events for major countries. Many countries got unique missions and ideas. It turned out to make a lot of difference: even if only a dozen of countries had a lot of unique content it still meant hundreds of hours of play as "new" factions. Also reaction to EU4 on release was in many regards similar to I:R. But there were more new players who didn't have a similar older game as a point of reference, just CK2.
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May 22, 2019 12:43
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ilitarist posted:Also reaction to EU4 on release was in many regards similar to I:R. But there were more new players who didn't have a similar older game as a point of reference, just CK2. The two primary groups of negativity towards EU4 on release were the mana sucks crowd and the steam sucks crowd. Nigh everyone else had a positive reaction to it, especially players of EU3, as it was unequivocally an improvement on EU3:DW in every way while also stealing a bunch of advances and features from CK2. Imperator lacks that feeling of being an improvement on what came before it.
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May 22, 2019 13:43
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Don't remember a lot of steam-haters but I do remember those who hated mana. People also hated how buggy it is. The infamous Catholic Japan and such. But enough about my memory, let's see the forums (this page and next ones are around release): https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?forums/europa-universalis-iv.731/page-180&order=post_date&direction=asc&datecutoff=forever Most of the posts are questions about how various stuff works. Still, a lot of people complain about AI and bugs. Made me remember that Iron Man was horrible on release. Still, the reaction was better than I remember. Miles better than for Imperator. Quite obvious from threads like this: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/all-right-how-is-it.709002/ It also should work as a reminder that no, Paradox doesn't turn their games good with a lot of DLC. EU4 was good on release.
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May 22, 2019 14:00
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ilitarist posted:Don't remember a lot of steam-haters but I do remember those who hated mana. It was mostly a bunch of people pissed about having to install Steam to play the game, even if they bought it elsewhere.
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May 22, 2019 14:06
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ilitarist posted:It also should work as a reminder that no, Paradox doesn't turn their games good with a lot of DLC. EU4 was good on release. So were EU1 and EU2 - they were just more narrow games with the boardgame legacy much more apparent. I find Imperator very similar. A good game, but in the style of old Paradox games rather than the new ones. I think that expecting DLC to fundamentally change the nature of the game is setting oneself up for disappointment. That can't realistically happen until Imperator 2, and perhaps not even then, considering how similar in style this game is to EU:Rome. It's an old-school PDX game. I think the increased focus on multiplayer is part of why the design of Stellaris (at release) and Imperator are so old-school (in each their own way). Elegant, balanced mechanics based on pacing expansion and conflict make for better multiplayer games. Highly asymmetric and unfair games make for poor multiplayer games (for most people - I really like that kind of setup).
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May 22, 2019 14:36
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Cynic Jester posted:Imperator lacks that feeling of being an improvement on what came before it. Which is a touch unfair as it is an improvement on EU:Rome in pretty much every area.
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May 22, 2019 14:38
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But people want it to be an improvement over CK2 and EU4 at the same time.
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May 22, 2019 14:41
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Archaeology Hat posted:Which is a touch unfair as it is an improvement on EU:Rome in pretty much every area. True, but that's a game very few people have played and/or remember. Players are comparing it to recent games like EU4, CK2 and Stellaris. Unfair? Mostly. Expected? Absolutely. I just wish people could be less toxic about it, as nothing good comes from making the designers upset and/or bitter. I doesn't matter if they shouldn't take it personal or have thicker skin. They do not deserve the vitriol spewed at them. There is a huge difference between attacking corporate decisions and getting personal towards specific staff.
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May 22, 2019 14:43
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Archaeology Hat posted:Which is a touch unfair as it is an improvement on EU:Rome in pretty much every area. Being an improvement over a 10 year old game with middling to poor reception at the time is daming it with faint praise. That people had higher expectations than that is not unreasonable. This is not some indie company putting out their first sequel but an industry leader in the genre with several successful games in the genre.
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May 22, 2019 15:57
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All I know is that I have probably 2k hours between eu4, ck2, stellaris, and hoi4. I have 5 hours in this game and dont expect to play any more until it's fun (for me)
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May 22, 2019 16:00
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I like the game but it seems incredibly lazy to me that they didn't go through all the QoL DLC improvements from EU4, pick out the most well received, and put them in IR. The lack of the macro builder is pretty inexcusable and I think would fix, or at least alleviate, a lot of the current problems (Diplomacy, Buildings, Converting/Promoting).
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May 22, 2019 16:14
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Firebatgyro posted:I like the game but it seems incredibly lazy to me that they didn't go through all the QoL DLC improvements from EU4, pick out the most well received, and put them in IR. But there is a macro builder. It’s pretty bad but it’s there!
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May 22, 2019 16:37
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Firebatgyro posted:I like the game but it seems incredibly lazy to me that they didn't go through all the QoL DLC improvements from EU4, pick out the most well received, and put them in IR. This is basically the only thing keeping me from playing the game more at the moment, I like the gameplay but the UI issues are enough to make doing stuff that I want to do tedious enough that it stops things from being that good. Plus there's the whole difficulty curve issue (which every Paradox game has but Imperator has it real bad for various reasons) I'm not that sad since Battle Brothers new DLC is really good and I already got like 60 hours of fun out of Imperator which seems like a decent investment considering it's only going to improve with time
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May 22, 2019 17:36
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:All I know is that I have probably 2k hours between eu4, ck2, stellaris, and hoi4. I have 5 hours in this game and dont expect to play any more until it's fun (for me) Maybe you're just tired of Paradox games? I've played a lot of CK2 and a small amount of EU4, but aside from that the only other game I've played of theirs was HoI2 way back years ago. So Imperator is fresh for me and I've been having a blast with it. It seems like a lot of the veteran Paradox players have this idea of their own perfect Paradox game in their head and they are judging Imperator based on that instead of what it is. Then they get mad because of it. The game is supposed to be bad and suck because it doesn't have the right combination of buttons in the UI? Or it doesn't have enough unique flavor events for different nations I guess? Or people are mad because it's a "map painting game" and they don't want to go to war and paint the map or something? I've noticed a few things that I think they could tweak and balance a bit better but I just can't bring myself to care. I don't care if the religion mana points are not balanced perfectly or whatever. I'm too busy having fun zerg rushing the pretty map with swarms of army man Romans. Maybe I'm just easily amused.
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May 22, 2019 19:46
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As someone who is relatively new to paradox games outside of stellaris I think the UI's problems extend far beyond some buttons being in the wrong order. Anyone who has looked at the Senate screen and said they understood what was happening on it is a liar.
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May 22, 2019 19:51
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PederP posted:The inability to understand that a grand strategy game can be more than a puzzle and an optimization challenge to paint as much map as possible seems to be the very core of why many players (and apparently Paradox staff) are genuinely baffled by the poor reception. Yeah, this sums up my feelings. The more a Paradox focuses in on blobbing and map painting, the less I seem to like it. I mean, it's fine when it's one tool in my arsenal of ways of having fun with my SimCountry, but when it's all I've got? Meh. 
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May 22, 2019 20:09
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AnEdgelord posted:As someone who is relatively new to paradox games outside of stellaris I think the UI's problems extend far beyond some buttons being in the wrong order. I don't understand half of the Senate screen, but I don't understand half of the EU4/CK2 screens until I spend several hours playing with them and committing the icon symbols to memory. I think a lot of the problems with the UI can be boiled down to people having many hours in other games where they long forgot how long it took to get used to the UI and now have to learn a new one. Which maybe still means it is a lovely UI, but that means it's lovely everywhere and not unique to Imperator.
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May 22, 2019 20:22
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AnEdgelord posted:As someone who is relatively new to paradox games outside of stellaris I think the UI's problems extend far beyond some buttons being in the wrong order. Bah, who needs the senate? Just ignore those old fucks and imprison anyone who gives you trouble. One thing that I will admit does legitimately suck about this game is the tutorial. I don't even think there is a manual for this game is there? It seems they rely on people having followed the dev diaries or watching youtube videos to understand how it works. Once I've had someone explain things out to me it's not too bad though.
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May 22, 2019 22:47
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nessin posted:I don't understand half of the Senate screen, but I don't understand half of the EU4/CK2 screens until I spend several hours playing with them and committing the icon symbols to memory. I think a lot of the problems with the UI can be boiled down to people having many hours in other games where they long forgot how long it took to get used to the UI and now have to learn a new one. Which maybe still means it is a lovely UI, but that means it's lovely everywhere and not unique to Imperator. This is incredibly wrong lol but I appreciate you acknowledge the UI is fundamentally lovely. The fact there are numerous regressions that everyone here can list off, and I bet you everyone has a different list, between this UI and EU4's or even CK2's, is reason enough that it's not at all "getting used to new UI is hard".
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May 23, 2019 02:02
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