Dev Diary #108: Dev Diary Scheduling & Community Activities

[GoldenSageBondi]

i had no idea about its contents prior to release but the first time i got into a 'feud' with a dynasty i had been crusading against for a generation or two, i was loving it. friends & foes made the game way more enthralling to me. i can see why your data suggests that, i feel it. good work.

 

[Idle America]

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.

Called it!

 

[PDX_Pariah]

I said I wanted to be constructive, and those last few paragraphs weren't particularly, so I'll finish with a few questions/requests:

• Could we have a permanent pinned thread of upcoming Q&As and other off-forum stuff that is scheduled that's regularly updated?
  
  
• When Discord Q&As happen, could the questions and responses be retained and made available for people who weren't able to follow it in real-time?
  
  
• When Livestream Q&As happen, could the video be posted somewhere for people who weren't able to watch it live? It'd be amazing if questions and answers could be transcribed somewhere - but I understand that's not a small job and may not be possible.
  
  
• For any kind of "live" Q&A (Discord, Livestream etc.) could we have a way of submitting questions in advance? That would help people in different timezones, people who work when they usually happen or just people who aren't consistently online throughout the day to participate.
  
  
• Is there some way you could make recent dev/staff replies more visible on the Discord? A custom channel or something? Discord is really great for a lot of things - but it being a live chat means it's not easy to "catch up" on what's been recently discussed/answered/announced. e.g. If a Dev had posted something really cool on there this morning and I logged in now, there'd be no way of me knowing that had happened.

A solid post as always and I think the Game Director has answered most of the stuff that has to do with the game, but I would be more than happy to answer the Community facing concerns in order:

- Absolutely! As we get closer to this time frame, we will have not only a schedule, but a dedicated spot to ask Questions to get the Answers in the Q&A with a pinned post and a stickied thread for a good while afterwards.

- Yes, absolutely.

- The video will definitely be added not only to YouTube, but shared on social media and in a thread here on the Forums for all to enjoy.

- There will be threads well in advance of all Q&A activities with a chance for all to get their questions in not only ahead of time, but also live during the events if time permits.

- This would be more of Trinexx's realm of expertise than mine, but I can circle around and check with them on that subject in the morning.

 

[Karlington]

So what will we do instead? A variety of things - we might have Discord AMA’s, hangout streams with Devs, or sometimes we might post a Dev Diary about something not related to an update - for example, about how we work or plans we have for the future.

If you want to partake in some of this, here’s where you can find us:

Discord: Chat with your fellow Community members, staff members, Modders, and other Content Creators. Also a perfect place if you want tips or a game to join!

Twitch: We stream weekly and go through all the latest and greatest content that we have. This is also a great place to chat with others and ask questions of our team.

YouTube: If you haven’t happened to catch our Streams or just want to see a collection of all our videos, this is your one stop shop for all Crusader Kings III official videos.

Twitter: Our latest and greatest spot for news and interaction with our Community. We are always online, as they always say. Feel free to follow us and see what we have going on from day to day.

Facebook: Just a nice relaxed place to hang out and socialize with our Community and see what everyone is up to.

Reddit: If Facebook isn’t your speed, we also have a great resource in Reddit for conversations and more detailed threads regarding the game and any questions you might possibly have.

Steam Workshop: While we do not control the content of Steam Workshop, it does contain a great number of highly interesting and resourceful Mods from our Community and has a ton of troubleshooting and technical information.

Hi @rageair,

How should we interpret the future of the forums in light of this? It sounds kinda like "You can engage with us pretty much anywhere except these forums," though I'm not sure if I'm reading you correctly here...

 

[kawamuratc]

Hi @rageair,

How should we interpret the future of the forums in light of this? It sounds kinda like "You can engage with us pretty much anywhere except these forums," though I'm not sure if I'm reading you correctly here...

I think y’all lost forum privileges.

I’m only half joking in this assessment. Forums are often one of the most toxic and unpleasant places to check out community interaction, which really sucks because I think they’re the easiest to follow.

For some reason, I assume because they’re fairly unwilling to ban paying costumers from the place where you post bug reports and seek help from the studio, forums are nasty as hell. They’ve gotten better here, but even now, it often ends up with snowballing negativity that is both unhelpful and demoralizing.

By unhelpful, I mean you’ve got folks on the forums who are convinced whatever the feeling of a few folks they often see on the forums is somehow a representative sample of all players’s opinions, and they start saying things like “we all agree that” and “you’re fostering bad will and contributing to poor optics” and whatever else.

Forums seem exhausting to me. I wouldn’t want to deal with them either.

 

[Dathremo]

I think y’all lost forum privileges.

I’m only half joking in this assessment. Forums are often one of the most toxic and unpleasant places to check out community interaction, which really sucks because I think they’re the easiest to follow.

For some reason, I assume because they’re fairly unwilling to ban paying costumers from the place where you post bug reports and seek help from the studio, forums are nasty as hell. They’ve gotten better here, but even now, it often ends up with snowballing negativity that is both unhelpful and demoralizing.

By unhelpful, I mean you’ve got folks on the forums who are convinced whatever the feeling of a few folks they often see on the forums is somehow a representative sample of all players’s opinions, and they start saying things like “we all agree that” and “you’re fostering bad will and contributing to poor optics” and whatever else.

Forums seem exhausting to me. I wouldn’t want to deal with them either.

Your suggestion to anyone airing their concerns, issues or dislikes with CK3 is to go do other things and play other games - so maybe you should take some time away from the forums and go do other things

 

[MrMcQue]

The things going public do to a passionate developer studio...

Yeah, no. I mean other PDX games have none or few of the problems CK3 has. It is the outlier here, and both in HoI4, Stellaris and V3 for example, the devs are very active in the forum, the communication is good, releases are more frequent and proper roadmaps are published.

This has less to do with paradox as a company than with CK3 itself.

 

[MrMcQue]

Thank you for the response. Much appreciated.



I’d argue here that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something. Like if your goal is a grounded and historical based play through, then don’t go the route of the incest god emperors that reform their faith on a whim. In order to cater to all, some of those options must be necessary and it’s up to the player to decide how to play.

I should note, I very much respect your opinions and posts that often offer constructive criticism and hope that you can see some value in my counterpoint. For example there is a lot of value in your post here (which is why I only quoted the portion I took issue with) such as the lack of mechanics for a slower paced and more detailed play through.

You don't seem to understand that the route of incest god emperors is the one being consistently pushed on you by the very game design itself. The content promoting historical immersion is in comparison miniscule to entire mechanics, modifiers and content designs explicitly geared towards promoting said incest cults and pushing every character, as fast as possible, to emperorship.

It's as if you argued to a HoI4 player that in order to stay peaceful the entire game he just never join WW2, only that warfare is (rightfully) a core mechanic in the game, while the core mechanic in CK3 revolves around things that would irl lead to the monarch's head being on a spike within a day.

 

[anbory]

By this schedule, the game will take approximately 9 years to complete, much like CK 2 I suppose

I think, the main difference with CK2 development is that the game was almost complete by RoI after only 2 years since the initial release. The last major expansion adding entirely new gameplay style was Horse Lords and it was just 3 years after initial release. CK 2 has 7 expansions in 2 years and 8 others in 5 years since RoI. So, in the first 2 years of development were heavily focused on adding actual gameplay mechanics and play styles to different regions that had bare minimum of content. The other 5 years were focused on polishing and fleshing existing content and revising things that could be fleshed even more.

Back to CK3, in the first 2 years of development the team was focused on... nothing? I don't really know if devs have any vision of what they are doing now and what they will do in future. We have some viking dlc that add flavour, we have Royal Court which is focused on adding content in general, we have some Iberia focused dlc that adds some flavour to the specific region again, we have an event pack which is focused on adding content in general... again. And what we don't have is some expansion that actually focused on some specific region and/or culture/religion that don't have any content now. 2 years have passed, but everything besides Western Europe is a barren wasteland of placeholder content.

So, I fear, the game will take approximately 9 years just to reach the point it will be on the same level with RoI.

 

[FunGaming]

Still hoping we will get coronation in the game. Also Dynasty banner upgrades are broken now they dont upgrade anymore since last update

I also made a request for it at the correct location some time ago https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/coronations.1518172/ we really hope it gets added, maybe in the small free update later this year ? It would certainly add onto the RPG element of the game

 

[onepot]

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.

There are lots of bugs which have been around for a year or longer now, many of them easily fixable, and I guess they'll stay there for a few years more then, because you don't deem them 'really significant'.

 

[DaBombXXX]

For example, a Trade DLC with differing Trade mechanics for Italy vs Byzantium vs the Middle East is the flavour I want.

At this point I would do just about anything to get any sort of mechanic that lets us actually spend gold. The way the game works now, essentially every game I do I max out my holdings and then sit on a horde of gold waiting for new tech. And then once I get the tech, maybe instantly spend about half of it and then wait another 50 years to do the same thing. I would absolutely love a system that I can just constantly invest in without having to wait for tech.

 

[kawamuratc]

I think, the main difference with CK2 development is that the game was almost complete by RoI after only 2 years since the initial release. The last major expansion adding entirely new gameplay style was Horse Lords and it was just 3 years after initial release. CK 2 has 7 expansions in 2 years and 8 others in 5 years since RoI. So, in the first 2 years of development were heavily focused on adding actual gameplay mechanics and play styles to different regions that had bare minimum of content. The other 5 years were focused on polishing and fleshing existing content and revising things that could be fleshed even more.

Back to CK3, in the first 2 years of development the team was focused on... nothing? I don't really know if devs have any vision of what they are doing now and what they will do in future. We have some viking dlc that add flavour, we have Royal Court which is focused on adding content in general, we have some Iberia focused dlc that adds some flavour to the specific region again, we have an event pack which is focused on adding content in general... again. And what we don't have is some expansion that actually focused on some specific region and/or culture/religion that don't have any content now. 2 years have passed, but everything besides Western Europe is a barren wasteland of placeholder content.

So, I fear, the game will take approximately 9 years just to reach the point it will be on the same level with RoI.

I might be remembering wrong, but CK3 base game was more or less at the level of CK2 at RoI.

A lot of the different play styles weren’t actually too different (except Nomads, Nomads ended up being pretty different, don’t ask me about nomads), they just looked different.

For example, Muslims played different because of a penalty to playing small/tall (so many decadence complaints), the massive number of CBs (until these were slowly given to other areas of the map, which people complained about), and the forced bloody agnatic open succession of the early centuries of the Ottoman Empire. Later changes to the game allowed you to fuedalize and change away from only agnatic.

CK3, as far as I can tell, was developed to start with that level of freedom, so you could make the alt history you wanted.

 

[Tomray94]

I might be remembering wrong, but CK3 base game was more or less at the level of CK2 at RoI.

A lot of the different play styles weren’t actually too different (except Nomads, Nomads ended up being pretty different, don’t ask me about nomads), they just looked different.

For example, Muslims played different because of a penalty to playing small/tall (so many decadence complaints), the massive number of CBs (until these were slowly given to other areas of the map, which people complained about), and the forced bloody agnatic open succession of the early centuries of the Ottoman Empire. Later changes to the game allowed you to fuedalize and change away from only agnatic.

CK3, as far as I can tell, was developed to start with that level of freedom, so you could make the alt history you wanted.

I don't know, I find @anbory 's point quite compelling overall.

I originally found CK2 a little before Rajas of India, had a nice fulfilling first playthrough for the first 400 years or so (started in 869 and reached around the 1200s), and then I abandoned it (partly because Rajas broke it, but also because the few mechanics and systems that existed then had lost their novelty and I was bored). My first experience of CK 3 (pre-Royal Court) was the same, I played an Aquitaine game till 1453, got bored, started a few other campaigns, left them and abandoned the game.

I came back to CK 2 around the time of Way of Life - Horselords, I'd say that by the time of conclave specifically the game was pretty much complete, everything added afterward was very welcome, but it only made a good product better. I worry that CK 3 won't be the same way in a year from now (when it will be the same time frame as the time between CK 2's release and Way of Life).

The biggest issue with the systems you mentioned is that we went from closed, separate, self-contained systems (when it comes to cultures, religions, and governments) to almost unrestrained fluidity and granularity in CK 3, which has turned out worse because it doesn't impose any difference between the systems. I can't think of a single distinction I've felt from my government form when I compare my Indian, Western European and Islamic/Clan runs, whereas I could feel it in CK 2 even from something as simple as the UI changes. Cultures and Religions at least have differences, even if they need to be emphasized in the gameplay more.

Another thing for me is the events. The writing in CK 3 is unfortunately a lot more forgettable than that of CK 2 and it almost seems like there are less events and very few of them have been engaging. I can remember, even before Rajas of India, marveling at some of the events I was receiving, I can't say I feel that often in CK 3.

For CK 3 to reach the level of immersion I got from post-Way of Life CK 2, in my own estimation and from my own experience with the games, they would need to release an expansion almost twice the size of Charlemagne, in terms of core mechanics and flavor, and they'd need to distribute it much more widely than they needed then (since they had covered all of the main cultural regions by then in CK 2).

 

[Germanicus_Caesar]

You don't seem to understand that the route of incest god emperors is the one being consistently pushed on you by the very game design itself. The content promoting historical immersion is in comparison miniscule to entire mechanics, modifiers and content designs explicitly geared towards promoting said incest cults and pushing every character, as fast as possible, to emperorship.

It's as if you argued to a HoI4 player that in order to stay peaceful the entire game he just never join WW2, only that warfare is (rightfully) a core mechanic in the game, while the core mechanic in CK3 revolves around things that would irl lead to the monarch's head being on a spike within a day.

I must say, this response feels very much like bait. I considered not responding but here I am.

1. “You don’t seem to understand that…” is an incredibly insulting and intentionally antagonistic way to start a post/response. It makes it very difficult to engage in a disagreement in good faith. Also, it makes me believe that you actually didn’t care to read or understand my posts. My point was that despite what the marketing material is and despite your opinions on the intentions of the “game design” no one is forcing you to do anything. Yes, the game seems geared towards growth, gaining more land and higher titles, but you do not have to do that. Me making this statement does not mean that I am not aware that there is less content for vassal play, for playing as a count, a tall but powerful Duke, or an independent King that just can’t bring his realm to a stable enough place to be proclaimed emperor. In fact, if you look at one of my previous posts I acknowledge to Insidious his point of this very lack of content. Still, my point remains, no one is making you become an emperor god incest ruler of the map. If you don’t want to, then don’t. If you want to play a vassal, do so and fill in the gaps with role play. I do believe there are ways to play that aren’t “incest cults” or immediately running towards emperor as I’ve played games where I intentionally do not make Herculean family members and I avoid the collection of titles to become emperor (sometimes simply by letting partition (as flawed as it my be) do its job)). The entire game is about freedom to do as you please with your characters (as stated by the devs pre-release) and that goes for players who want a more grounded play through and players who want to be the God Empress of a reformed female preference Muslim caliphate full of perfect physical specimens.

2. I have never played HOI so I am not at liberty to speak on it. However, and I’ve said something like this before, this very much sounds like you believe core mechanics of CK3 are intrinsically flawed. You do not like the game design and it is not conducive to your preferred style of play. This is a very fair criticism. But my question is, which has been asked so many times, why continue to play? Why continue to engage? Why be unhappy with other players whom are happily engaging with the game as “intended”? What are the tangible benefits does telling someone that they actually don’t understand the intentions of the game? These are genuine questions. If this is all true, then why not abstain from playing? I myself, who has been a vocal supporter of the game, have admitted that I will soon stop playing for awhile because I’m not entirely satisfied at the moment.

I’m sure this post will not be liked and, in the interest of following forum rules, I won’t engage further if this devolves into talking in circles, insults, and antagonism.

 

[kawamuratc]

I prefer the fluidity and granularity, I just want more difficulty in the transitions. Societies aren’t usually closed and contained, and I think CK3 does a better job of showing that.

 

[Mindel]

When CK3 first came out, I played it a bit and felt unsatisfied with the lack of substance. So I decided to wait two years for the team to put more meat on the game before returning to it.

But there has been so little substantial development to the core mechanics of the game since release that I didn't even realize until it was mentioned in this thread that my deadline had already arrived(!). Judging from the pace of developments, I think I'm going to set a new deadline to revisit the game 3 years out from today. Or maybe 5.

But I'm honestly not even sure it will get there. Right now the slow pace of updates and new material combined with the conflicts over developer communication give me the impression that I'm seeing the declining end of the game's life cycle rather than a rising one. I hope that's not the case, but it seems clear that some change of direction is needed.

 

[Ben84]

Previously we’ve explained that we run our projects in parallel - what we’re working on in the Stockholm studio has been in the works since before Friends & Foes (but it’s bound to take some time yet, do not expect anything too soon). Our sister studio in Thalassic is also hard at work heading up the work on upcoming content and updates, this too in parallel with work in Stockholm.

For me that sounds a bit strange from a management perspective with a lot of neccessary but degenerating internal communication between the studios.

From my point of view the best fit would be:

1. Round:

Studio Stockholm:
- working on the next expansion/flavour pack

Studio Thalassic:
- bug fixing
- re-/balancing
- polishing / QoL
- other smaller projects


With each release of the expansion/flavour pack the roles of the studios change.
So both teams will do same tasks overtime,
both teams have to fix their own bugs re-/introduced with the last expansion
which might increase precaution before release or better QA, because that means; less bugs with release, more time for other important things


2. Round:

Studio Stockholm:
- bug fixing
- re-/balancing
- polishing / QoL
- other smaller projects

Studio Thalassic:
- working on the next expansion/flavour pack


....and so on.

 

[Karlington]

I might be remembering wrong, but CK3 base game was more or less at the level of CK2 at RoI.

A lot of the different play styles weren’t actually too different (except Nomads, Nomads ended up being pretty different, don’t ask me about nomads), they just looked different.

For example, Muslims played different because of a penalty to playing small/tall (so many decadence complaints), the massive number of CBs (until these were slowly given to other areas of the map, which people complained about), and the forced bloody agnatic open succession of the early centuries of the Ottoman Empire. Later changes to the game allowed you to fuedalize and change away from only agnatic.

CK3, as far as I can tell, was developed to start with that level of freedom, so you could make the alt history you wanted.

I disagree completely. But honestly, it doesn't even matter if you are right or I am right.

Gaming is about the experience, and it seems a fact that a lot of people experienced CK2 to offer varied and fulfilling gameplay for a long period of time, while a significant amount of people experience CK3 to do the opposite (or at least far less so than CK2).

Now we can debate the technicalities, whether CK2 play styles really really were different, or "just looked different." But who cares? People enjoyed those play styles more, and regardless of whether that was because of different looks or "real" differences, that's an example of successful game design that was enjoyed by the players.

 

[DominusNovus]

I think y’all lost forum privileges.

I’m only half joking in this assessment. Forums are often one of the most toxic and unpleasant places to check out community interaction, which really sucks because I think they’re the easiest to follow.

For some reason, I assume because they’re fairly unwilling to ban paying costumers from the place where you post bug reports and seek help from the studio, forums are nasty as hell. They’ve gotten better here, but even now, it often ends up with snowballing negativity that is both unhelpful and demoralizing.

By unhelpful, I mean you’ve got folks on the forums who are convinced whatever the feeling of a few folks they often see on the forums is somehow a representative sample of all players’s opinions, and they start saying things like “we all agree that” and “you’re fostering bad will and contributing to poor optics” and whatever else.

Forums seem exhausting to me. I wouldn’t want to deal with them either.

And yet, this is the only game where the development team does (less than) the bare minimum engagement on the forum. Whatever the problem is, its not with the customers. The same customers with the same general attitudes as in the EU, HOI, Stellaris, and Vicky subforums.