Dev Diary #108: Dev Diary Scheduling & Community Activities

[rageair]

i think the only genuinely serious bug they should hotfix is the performance hit for empires

anything else is just an annoyance that can wait

We're aware of this issue (and have made a fix). Interestingly enough the issue was caused by something deep in the opinion code, something that had been around for some time, and fixing it actually yields a slight performance gain in addition to fixing the stutter. It's unlikely that we'll make a 1.7.2 just for this issue though, but I'm not saying it's impossible - ideally we'd find a fix for the missing faces to go along with it.

Is it implies no dairy for a few weeks until it will be two weeks ahead of a minor update planned for this year or a few months ahead of a bigger one? A lot of pieces of information, but no clarity about the schedule. Especially given that two studios are working on things in parallel.

I guess the schedule is that eventually, we might see a diary, maybe on one of the 14 Tuesdays left this year. And once we see it we need to estimate how big what it talking about is and go back to try to crack this riddle.

We don't intend for it to be a riddle, whenever you see a DevDiary that details content (talking about features, detailing balance changes, etc.) then they're tied to an update, and we'll make clear what sort of update that's coming. We'll definitely have a few diaries connected to the free update later this year, and they'll make clear that it's a free update they're connected to.

What will be more sporadic are DevDiaries about other things than updates, of which we will have at least a few before the ones about the free update.

I appreciate the improved communication.
Did i understand correctly that we will have no dev diaries until we get close to the update that is supposed to come later this year?
That'd be unfortunate, because i really like dev diaries, but i get that they take some time to put together and you want to have something concrete to show for it.

Note:
In the summer break the Stellaris team decided to use some (normally skipped) dev diaries by talking about their in-progress experimental rebalancing of content.
While certainly not as brimming with new information or content, those have been received quite well by the community.
It got a lot of feedback and ideas to rebalance relics so they are more useful for more types of player empires, while still being strongly themed.
I personally would classify those types of dev diaries as successes, too. I like seeing a bit behind the scenes with unfinished content.

We won't have one every week, but there will be sporadic DevDiaries outside of the update cycles, we just want to do other activities too rather than only DevDiaries.

I guess your "oopsie" from Bastion that has caused a great number of Dukes to have no Counts whatsoever due to aggressive revocation is not a big enough deal, even though it makes your Feudal system look completely anachronistic...

It's not an 'oopsie' per see, but completely in line with the changes, that said I can see where this sentiment comes from. Now, there is something related that I've been thinking about, domain limit. In general, the average Domain Limit is very high - even if a ruler doesn't have high stewardship. If the limit was lower, there would be more Counts around, and I think there's a point in looking into the static permanent sources of domain limit. Specifically the limit you get from innovations, which adds up to quite a lot even in the midgame. A Duke would have a permanent +2 from innovations and +2 from rank, in addition to whatever they get from stewardship, for a minimum average of 5. Most Duchies in the game have 5 or less Counties (598 out of 676, only 78 have more than 5), which leads to a lot of consolidation.

There are of course other avenues that can be explored, but this is one I've been thinking of recently. Naturally, this creates other challenges, such as what to potentially replace bonuses to domain limit with, but it's all theoretical by this point anyway!

Not trying to be rude here, so please excuse me for being direct: after last week's "look forward to the next Update from us as it should have more information on the work we have been doing!", I expected a little bit more than basically "we're working on stuff, and it's not gonna release this year".

I'm well aware of the limitations you have regarding sharing the exact nature of the exciting new content you're working on, but this is the second week in a row that is a bit lacking content-wise.

It's a stark contrast to the Stellaris DevDiaries; they have more than one per week, and all full of new and upcoming content. When I think back to pre-RC times, when you guys even shared little sneak peeks during summer break with us, I can't help but notice the apparent drop in quality and quantity of CK3 DDs. Makes me wonder what happened between then and now.

Anyway, I appreciate the declaration of transparency and am looking forward to next week's DD.

"we’re hoping to have another smaller free update out before the year is over"

Three months and ten days left in the year. I get the feeling they're working on something big, and it won't be ready until next year. The small update is probably to keep us sated for now.

There are always problems with sharing things too early, and I don't think this is the time to start sharing specifics for what we're working on, as we want to nail everything down and make sure that the scope is set before we start. I can say that we're working on an expansion in the Stockholm studio, and that we'll probably start sharing specifics sometime within Q1 next year.

When you're in the DevDiary cycle for an expansion it's much easier to do meatier diaries and also sneak peeks, and it's very likely that the next cycle will be similar. In that sense nothing has happened really, except that we're being transparent about not wanting to start posting specifics too early.

Unfortunately, based on this DD, I’m not sure there will be a DD next week. If there is one, I don’t expect it to be substantial. Feels like this DD was trying to toe the line between “being transparent and communicative” and laying the groundwork for a pause in actual substantial information as it seems like they do not want to share plans for future content until that content is more firm.

In one sense, I appreciate the heads up that true substantial DD’s are going to become less frequent (helps manage expectations) but at the same time, it’s disappointing that true substantial DD’s are going to become less frequent (there is a joke in here somewhere about Paradox interactive inspiring this paradox in my feelings but I digress).

Anyway, thanks for the heads up. I imagine I’ll finish up my current campaign then take a break from the game and forums for a bit. Perfect timing to turn my attention to Vic3.

Even if the devs don't want to talk about what they are working on in detail yet, something along the lines of this post from the HOI4 lead were they layout their basic vision for the immediate and near future of the game would do wonders.

There will not be a DD next week, but there will be one in the coming few weeks. It won't be about any of the content updates, but I'd like to do something similar to the one Areho made for HoI, as mentioned in the above quote. Though I don't necessarily agree that it's explicitly about the 'immediate or near future', it's more long-term ambitions with some short-term ones mixed in.

Basically:
Dev diaries are canceled until the next expansion is announced, probably after winter break. If we're lucky we'll get a free patch before winter break. If you want to interact with CK3 devs, go anywhere but here.

That's an unfortunate way of interpreting what was written. We'll still be on the forums, there just won't be a DevDiary every week. And if you want, you can find devs elsewhere too - many devs have their own preferred places to be, some are here, some on discord, some on reddit, and so on.

First of all - thank you the info about future DD releases, its appreciated.

However, this...

...raises a question for me:

Reporting issues is one thing...but if there is likely no 1.7.2... Can we still expect to see some visible reaction to all the reports which have been made since the last patch/DLC? And new ones we make from now following your quoted call above ?

I don't expect that each bug gets immediately tagged and categorized; I know there is a flood coming in after each release and the poor QA people have to wade through all them, separating real ones from duplicates, mod issues or misunderstood rules of the game...so a backlog is understandable. I just have the impression that there is never enough time after an update to catch up with all the reports. If you look through the entire bug forum - most bugs never get visible attention. I'm not saying that no attached tag means inevitably that the bug hasn't made ii in your database; I'm pretty sure there are cases where exactly this happened: Silently noted, logged, maybe even stealth-fixed. But is that really true for all of those visually untouched bugs? I have my doubts.

I know that asking for each and every report getting a response/categorization is probably too much of a mountain of work and would probably actuall harm the attempt to fix bugs, too...but I really hope you can move at least a bit in said direction. It currently feels too much like a lottery, if a bug gets any attention.

Visually tagging and responding to every thread takes a lot of time, as you point out yourself. As with every discipline, QA works with different things at different times - if there's a lack of visual tagging on the bug forums, it just means that their main focus is somewhere else right now. I can with confidence say that anything really significant will get picked up regardless of where the focus lies though.

Ordinarily, I'd be in this thread pushing back against some of the more over-the-top negative posts and trying to encourage a bit of perspective.

But, honestly, what's the point?

We were told a couple of weeks back that there was a recognition that communication had been poor and plans were being put in place to improve. And now this.

Genuinely just feeling really disappointed and let down.

Plans take some time to set in motion, we're still discussing what we want to say, and when, but progress is being made. Hopefully you'll like what we have to say in the next diary. We appreciate what you do, but of course it's also on us to keep your trust.

 

[Pete0714]

Sadly, as much as I was excited by the prospects of this game, I have grown increasingly disillusioned by the design and development priorities. The DLC released so far has been fairly small in terms of content, and now with the admission of not seeing any new content until next year, as well as the apparent choice to communicate less here and dissipate to other communications channels, I feel less excited about the game now, as it feels like the development is already slowing down so soon in the life of the game.

 

[BrotherJonathan]

While I also would like some new content sooner rather than later, I think it's important to keep in mind that Crusader Kings isn't a live-service game or MMO where it will die if it doesn't get new stuff every 3-6 months.

 

[guiskj]

...
It's not an 'oopsie' per see, but completely in line with the changes, that said I can see where this sentiment comes from. Now, there is something related that I've been thinking about, domain limit. In general, the average Domain Limit is very high - even if a ruler doesn't have high stewardship. If the limit was lower, there would be more Counts around, and I think there's a point in looking into the static permanent sources of domain limit. Specifically the limit you get from innovations, which adds up to quite a lot even in the midgame. A Duke would have a permanent +2 from innovations and +2 from rank, in addition to whatever they get from stewardship, for a minimum average of 5. Most Duchies in the game have 5 or less Counties (598 out of 676, only 78 have more than 5), which leads to a lot of consolidation.

There are of course other avenues that can be explored, but this is one I've been thinking of recently. Naturally, this creates other challenges, such as what to potentially replace bonuses to domain limit with, but it's all theoretical by this point anyway!
...

First, my deepest thank you for the response. Please see this suggestion thread for a healthy discussion on this, started by @Tiax.

High domain limits are indeed much needed of a balance pass.

Also, please let me clarify that I actually REALLY liked the direction of the AI upgrade done in Bastion. I just really hoped it did not come at a cost of immersion.

Lastly, domain limit is not the only problem. As with anything related to balance, multiple levers must be adjusted. Here are my findings/suggestions:

1. Current consolidation logic has a small bug. AI with less aggressive traits are meant to stop revoking once their domain count reaches 3. Current logic checks for GREATER THAN 3, meaning that, in actuality, this leads to even content AI characters revoking titles until they have 4 holdings. This is componded by the following:
2. A very large number of Counties in the game have only 3 baronies, meaning that for Feudal AI, they won't be able to get multiple baronies out of a single County, and instead are forced to revoke from other Counts
3. A very large number of Duchies in the game have only 3 Counties, meaning that for even less aggressive AI, they will deplete the whole Duchy of Counts in order to satisfy their consolidation logic

• Domain limit should have an upper bound cap. Meaning you can continue to have multiple sources of increasing your domain limit, but after a (tier-specific) hard cap it will not increase further. Just like now, you can choose to be above that limit and accept the penalty.
• Increase the number of Counties with 4+ baronies, and maybe already give a lot of AI two or more Castles in their capital County. This is vital to allow AI to consolidate without depleting your pool of Counts. It also has the added effect to soften a bit the blow of Confederate Partion, both for the AI and for Players!
• Balance cost of buildings and upgrades. The return on investment on upgrading your holdings is just terrible, with many upgrades not paying for themselves for hundreds of years. This matters because it makes the holdings that the AI (and the player) do have more impactful, and introduces the option of upgrading what you have vs blobing, which now always yeilds better results
• Introduce a soft inneficiency penalty for having holdings spread across multiple Counties, countered by having great Stewards. Again, to incentivise concentrated bases of power for both the AI and Player.

 

[Pete0714]

While I also would like some new content sooner rather than later, I think it's important to keep in mind that Crusader Kings isn't a live-service game or MMO where it will die if it doesn't get new stuff every 3-6 months.

Well, I have seen several games do just that that were not MMO's. No content often creates less interest. Less interest means the development gets put on the back burner, and then eventually death.

 

[Axis89]

We're aware of this issue (and have made a fix). Interestingly enough the issue was caused by something deep in the opinion code, something that had been around for some time, and fixing it actually yields a slight performance gain in addition to fixing the stutter. It's unlikely that we'll make a 1.7.2 just for this issue though, but I'm not saying it's impossible - ideally we'd find a fix for the missing faces to go along with it.


We don't intend for it to be a riddle, whenever you see a DevDiary that details content (talking about features, detailing balance changes, etc.) then they're tied to an update, and we'll make clear what sort of update that's coming. We'll definitely have a few diaries connected to the free update later this year, and they'll make clear that it's a free update they're connected to.

What will be more sporadic are DevDiaries about other things than updates, of which we will have at least a few before the ones about the free update.


We won't have one every week, but there will be sporadic DevDiaries outside of the update cycles, we just want to do other activities too rather than only DevDiaries.


It's not an 'oopsie' per see, but completely in line with the changes, that said I can see where this sentiment comes from. Now, there is something related that I've been thinking about, domain limit. In general, the average Domain Limit is very high - even if a ruler doesn't have high stewardship. If the limit was lower, there would be more Counts around, and I think there's a point in looking into the static permanent sources of domain limit. Specifically the limit you get from innovations, which adds up to quite a lot even in the midgame. A Duke would have a permanent +2 from innovations and +2 from rank, in addition to whatever they get from stewardship, for a minimum average of 5. Most Duchies in the game have 5 or less Counties (598 out of 676, only 78 have more than 5), which leads to a lot of consolidation.

There are of course other avenues that can be explored, but this is one I've been thinking of recently. Naturally, this creates other challenges, such as what to potentially replace bonuses to domain limit with, but it's all theoretical by this point anyway!



There are always problems with sharing things too early, and I don't think this is the time to start sharing specifics for what we're working on, as we want to nail everything down and make sure that the scope is set before we start. I can say that we're working on an expansion in the Stockholm studio, and that we'll probably start sharing specifics sometime within Q1 next year.

When you're in the DevDiary cycle for an expansion it's much easier to do meatier diaries and also sneak peeks, and it's very likely that the next cycle will be similar. In that sense nothing has happened really, except that we're being transparent about not wanting to start posting specifics too early.



There will not be a DD next week, but there will be one in the coming few weeks. It won't be about any of the content updates, but I'd like to do something similar to the one Areho made for HoI, as mentioned in the above quote. Though I don't necessarily agree that it's explicitly about the 'immediate or near future', it's more long-term ambitions with some short-term ones mixed in.


That's an unfortunate way of interpreting what was written. We'll still be on the forums, there just won't be a DevDiary every week. And if you want, you can find devs elsewhere too - many devs have their own preferred places to be, some are here, some on discord, some on reddit, and so on.


Visually tagging and responding to every thread takes a lot of time, as you point out yourself. As with every discipline, QA works with different things at different times - if there's a lack of visual tagging on the bug forums, it just means that their main focus is somewhere else right now. I can with confidence say that anything really significant will get picked up regardless of where the focus lies though.


Plans take some time to set in motion, we're still discussing what we want to say, and when, but progress is being made. Hopefully you'll like what we have to say in the next diary. We appreciate what you do, but of course it's also on us to keep your trust.

Hire me as a consumer representative, I can both listen to the community and try to condense it down to ideas and frustrations that have popular support, and also ve the punching bag in the forums.
I can create working groups with several well supported consumers that are here on the forum sometimes and hash down what they want.
This way I can work hard on making clearer and clearer what frustrates players the most and also what might be prioritized differently.

I seriously think you need someone in that position, at least you can get someone to me the consumers feel heard, and that the community have someone who solely listen to them and take on their pleas as the main job. Filtering it down to of course those who most people think have a good idea, and also communicate with those less supported on how they might refocus or work on their idea.

I'm not joking, like workers have their representative, I think itbwould do good for you and the consumers to have one solely working on communication with the consumers daily, and who interacts with them daily by trying to condense things that are requested and work it out.
Taki some heat from you at PDX but also advocating the community to you, so sometimes I bring the heat, but after agreeing with the community on what I should communicate and advocate.

As of now, we don't know what to expect, feel a little disconnected and discouraged to communicate with PDX and that all these voices drown into silence.
With one person who advocate and listen, PDX can communicate with one person in addition to going directly with the community as you already do, sporadically.

 

[Chip Block]

ideally we'd find a fix for the missing faces to go along with it.

yeah i saw some reports about that - what is causing it? why did it appear?

 

[guiskj]

yeah i saw some reports about that - what is causing it? why did it appear?

I can't find the post, but basically PDS is still stuck on trying to find a consistent way to replicate the bug, since reloading or restarting the game often fixes the issue on its own.

Hard to replicate bugs are incredibly annoying to fix and issually goes into this support dev hell cycle of:

1. Bug is assigned to Dev, along with many others
2. Dev can't replicate, runs out of time until end of Sprint or some other delivery date
3. Bug goes back onto the backlog, maybe with some added info
4. Next Sprint/Dev-Cycle, bug gets assigned to another Dev
5. Rinse and repeat

 

[PDX-Trinexx]

Hire me as a consumer representative, I can both listen to the community and try to condense it down to ideas and frustrations that have popular support, and also ve the punching bag in the forums.
I can create working groups with several well supported consumers that are here on the forum sometimes and hash down what they want.
This way I can work hard on making clearer and clearer what frustrates players the most and also what might be prioritized differently.

I seriously think you need someone in that position, at least you can get someone to me the consumers feel heard, and that the community have someone who solely listen to them and take on their pleas as the main job. Filtering it down to of course those who most people think have a good idea, and also communicate with those less supported on how they might refocus or work on their idea.

I'm not joking, like workers have their representative, I think itbwould do good for you and the consumers to have one solely working on communication with the consumers daily, and who interacts with them daily by trying to condense things that are requested and work it out.
Taki some heat from you at PDX but also advocating the community to you, so sometimes I bring the heat, but after agreeing with the community on what I should communicate and advocate.

As of now, we don't know what to expect, feel a little disconnected and discouraged to communicate with PDX and that all these voices drown into silence.
With one person who advocate and listen, PDX can communicate with one person in addition to going directly with the community as you already do, sporadically.

You're describing a Community Ambassador! Each brand under Paradox has at least one or two CAs doing exactly what you describe here. I don't think there are any CA positions open right now, but you can keep an eye on the Paradox careers page for future openings. Feel free to shoot me a DM if you (or anybody else reading this) have any questions regarding that.

 

[vandevere]

While I also would like some new content sooner rather than later, I think it's important to keep in mind that Crusader Kings isn't a live-service game or MMO where it will die if it doesn't get new stuff every 3-6 months.

Especially with its Long-play value. You can play the same exact Start a million times over, and it will never be the exact same thing. After un-pausing, the characters are different, the Rulers are different, and the history is different.

 

[Dimo87]

In general, the average Domain Limit is very high - even if a ruler doesn't have high stewardship.

There are of course other avenues that can be explored, but this is one I've been thinking of recently. Naturally, this creates other challenges, such as what to potentially replace bonuses to domain limit with, but it's all theoretical by this point anyway!

I couldn't agree more about changing up Stewardship being tied to domain limit and innovations. It's too good of a stat to not always go for. I say just have rank be the only factor determining your Domain limit and maybe a perk as well. Then you could have Stewardship affect Development instead, which it's already tied to anyway with things like your steward. As a small bonus, I think high stewardship should reduce the cost of decision like Call Hunt and Host Feast.

 

[vandevere]

Not all of us want a Domain Nerf. Especially if it's a Global Domain Nerf. Firstly, I don't see any problem with Dukes not having any Counts. For another, if you simply must have that nerfed, then why not make it a Game Rule, with options to Nerf Globally, AI only, or Vassals only.

Personally, I just don't want my Game nerfed at the behest of other players. Make it togglable so everyone can have as much, or as little nerf as they want...

 

[SeraphAscending]

Firstly, I don't see any problem with Dukes not having any Counts.

It's about historical believability or anachronisms.
Sure, it makes the AI more challenging and thus improves gameplay, but it also leads to very unrealistic scenarios of there not being a single count vassal anywhere for a single duke.

This game might be a game with some alternate history, but historical believability is still important.
Otherwise the devs wouldn't even have to put in all the effort to get historically accurate clothing, buildings, artifacts and court rooms, if it is all just set dressing for something that has absolutely no similarity to history in terms of how it plays out.

 

[Chip Block]

Firstly, I don't see any problem with Dukes not having any Counts.

then just get rid of counts; implement them the way barons are now, where they exist in principle but have no role and aren't playable

you can just have duke as the lowest playable tier

what is the point of having a ruler tier who are designed to have their titles revoked? duchy creation is inevitable, just as kingdom and in turn empire is

why should counts be given a built-in malus where their existence is always threatened? it doesn't make sense, and it just makes ck3 feel like an arcade game

 

[guiskj]

What @SeraphAscending said. Plus, don't forget that, although great for us players, just adding game rules on top of game rules is not so simple.

As the configuration options/parameters for a program grow, the support needed to maintain the whole thing grows much more. More game rules can come at a great cost of increase bug count and dev support time.

 

[Pete0714]

Honestly, a road map would be nice, even if it were in an enigmatic way and without giving dates or spoilers.
For example:
Religious Winter (2022)
Military Spring (2023)
etc etc..

Sounds good, but please your phrases remind me too much of GRR Martin, and that would be extremely disconcerting if they emulate his development cycle...

 

[johnty5]

I don't think a flat domain nerf would be a good approach - as it'd weaken kings and threaten the big advancements to AI behaviours we've seen in 1.7.

Maybe Dukes' domain limits should work completely differently from Kings and Emperors?

Perhaps their domain limit could be dynamic - set at a % of the counties in their controlled duchies and so forcing them to always have Counts to stay under their domain limit?

Or maybe their domain limit could be set to 2 and increased by one for every Count vassal they have - incentivising the holding of Count level vassals by Dukes? This would make for interesting situations where Dukes have larger domains than their Kings - at the cost of having a load of vassals to placate themselves.

 

[Tiax]

Ultimately, any changes to domain size are just bandaids for the real underlying problem, which is that the game gives too much value to holding land directly. Holding a county yourself is just worth so, so much more than having a vassal hold it that your power as a nation is nearly entirely dependent on your personal domain size. Until that is rebalanced, this dynamic will continue to be a problem, regardless of what knobs are turned with domain size bonuses or revocation AI.

 

[Ilya Belkin]

We don't intend for it to be a riddle…

Ok, thank you, appreciate the reply and the good will. Can’t wait to learn more in next diary and very curious what the next expansion might be about. At this point I have my favourite pet theory. Oh well, I a fan boy of CK3 now.

 

[InsidiousMage]

As of 2022, they seem to be back on track with the release schedule

I think people's concern is that the regular schedule isn't enough to fill in the game map. Seriously, I don't think one flavor pack per year is actually enough to cover the entire map given what we've seen with from flavor packs so far. Lets assume there are nine more flavor packs. Filling in the rest of Europe (Britain, France, Germany, Italy, West Slavs, the Baltic, South Slavs and/or Hungary, and Russia) could potentially use up all of those slots! Unless major expansions also start doubling as flavor packs, the game's development will have to go one for a long time to properly fill in the map.

Though I don't necessarily agree that it's explicitly about the 'immediate or near future', it's more long-term ambitions with some short-term ones mixed in.

That's fine, I guess. But unless long-term ambitions are also addressing peoples' consistent issues and complaints with the game I don't think its going to be what people are looking for. Personally, I really, really don't care if you intend on fleshing out the rest of the map if the Christian West is the baseline that the game has be balanced around, ie. partition as the default type of inheritance. I don't really care if you intend to completely rework Muslims but they are still stuck with partition because they inherently disadvantaged by it in a way that most Christian rulers are not. Yeah, you don't have to marry three additional women but the game punishes you with a piety penalty and, while its fairly small its still there! Personally, I don't really care if you plan an amazing Steppe rework DLC if the having Steppe Tolerance cultural tradition with some combination of the Spiritual ethos and/or the tier four Erudition dynasty perk gives you a permanent 40-60% discount on creating a new faith. Personally, I don't really care if you are planning a complete government rework if there is no reasonable and enjoyable way for me to spend a century as a count, a century as a duke, and then get a royal title that I had to actually put in some effort to earn. Personally, I don't really care about anything that doesn't involve generally rebalancing the game because the bonus stacking in the game is just absurd. I though it was mostly fine pre-RC but it's gone way too far at this point and I don't see how you can add any new kinds of bonuses that don't just utterly break the game.

Its a bad cliche at this point that the game seems designed to appeal to the worst instincts of Reddit but, honestly, but why else would you have the ability for the player to get a permanent 60% discount of faith creation if it isn't intended that the player will be creating a new religion every other generation or so, if not every generation. Buryat culture, a Mongol culture, already has the Spiritual ethos and Steppe Tolerance and the Mystical Ancestors tradition guarantees they will get the renown they need to fill in the Erudition perks really fast. Like, if you don't intend to create or a reform a faith then an entire third the Spiritual Ethos bonuses are worthless. Why does it seem like the promise to "cater to all player fantasies we can reasonably accommodate" never seem to include grounded, historically based fantasies but only things like becoming God Emperor of Europe and the head of a bizarre incest cult?

Now, this might just be my own personal bias, but I don't think people are looking vague promises of more and better content alongside fixing issues with the game. They already expect that from the game. They want to now what kind of content that is going to be beyond things they already expect (Steppe Nomads, Republics, etc.) and what problems the devs view the game as having and what needs to be fixed. Without some kind of specifics, I don't think people are really going to satisfied with any kinds of communications from the devs.