Dev Diary #112 - Year in Review

[Idle America]

I look forward to the moddability of nicknames:

"Prince Malcolm the Based, son of King Henry the Chad!"

 

[partywithhugo]

I was really hoping that the year would end with a "bang". The Robes update certainly wasn't it, not by a mile. And this Dev Diary misses this mark as well.
Nicknames are nice and all, but definitely not something to keep us talking for 4-ish weeks, imo.

That's exactly my point!!!!

The main important things is what we desire.

Nick names is something extra.

 

[Tschobo]

Still waiting for crusades to be pleasant to experience.

And events around the Crusades and GHWs.

Half the fun with the crusades and holy wars were the events around them. Currently there are not many of those at all. Same goes for specific decisions like the Crusader States.

Also more Events around leading/not leading armies in warfare would be nice. Or have some specific events only available in peacetime that are fruitful with the right decisions.

 

[certuda9]

I have a few french king nicknames in mind :

The Universal Spider - have 50 intrigue (honestly, a banger of a nickname, it has a positive and negative aspect at the same time)
The Younger - if your father or grandfather has the same name
Capet - if you founded 2 or 3 religious (christian) domains
The Lion - if you battled a lot
Posthumous - if you were born after your father's death, though i understand it would be hard to put it in the current system
Iron (count/duke/king/emperor) - if you refuse every vassal/foe request.

Otherwise a neat addition to the game, have good holidays!

 

[klopkr]

Better than last year, but all in all another very weak year for CK3.

Continually your focuses baffle me. I hope this nicknames thing is just a little icing you guys can show us early and you are working on some serious game reworking and mechanic adding DLC. The DLC this year were rather lackluster and weirdly overly focused on RPG and visuals.

Every year the comparisons to CK2's DLC releases along the same time schedule make CK3 DLC look very sad in comparison. There's a lot of down talk about Ck2's early DLC mechanic being not good enough but at least CK2 had a large amount of mechanics and unique flavour by this point in time.

For those not aware CK3 came out september 1st 2020 so it's been 2 years, 3 months and 5 days since release. For CK2, Rajas of india released 2 years, 1 month and 11 days after CK2 original. That's 6-7 (sunset) gameplay dlc compared to CK3's 4.

By this time, in CK2 not only did you have special flavour for republics, byzantium, pagans, and muslims, the map had been increased to reach all the way to India and with all DLC almost all parts were playable and there had been a number of redesigns for revolts, religions, technology, a rework of all troop numbers, and dlc stuff like retinue and factions.

Charlemagne and Way of life are the DLC upcoming for Ck2 at this point in development. What are we getting? Anything close to as exciting?

I'm also starting to discover much of the CK3 team wasn't even around for this era of CK2. I feel if they were they'd feel a bit embarrassed for what they have to show.

I really love this game series. I really do support you guys. I know you did some amazing stuff with the new religion and culture systems. It's just that the focus seems so strange, stilted, and slow. Where is the excitement? Where are the groundbreaking DLC? I'll give royal court a pass for being a very hefty very unique DLC but the rest is feeling incredibly lackluster. Major parts of the game design have not been significantly touched since release. And I can't help but reiterate every time that the war system is a noob trap, and extremely click heavy and gamey. It's just not a welcoming look to new or old players.

I know you guys work on positive feedback. You do deserve a lot! But it's hard to give it when so little comes out and the good work is done on the same elements of the game over and over while other parts are becoming clearly neglected.

I'm really hopeful for next year. Make some smaller DLC if you need to. Just get the ball rolling, give us exciting little DLC done right. Throw the community some bones and focus on much loved areas like the byzantines, or the HRE, even persia! Bring up the positive mood on this game and its community. Get into those untouched areas, like warfare, technology, crusades.

 

[TheGib770]

So outside of 'Gold Testicles' I have a few more that are always fun.
The Greek dynasties in game are usually the founder's by name. So going through byzantine council you should be able to find some fun ones like Kopronymous, 'Dung Named," because he had poo in his baptism (maybe)

In the landnambrok there is one for a serial divorcee, 'Pride of the Bench' or Bench Warmer for short, alluding to the benches of a wedding ceremony.

Similar to Abu Bakr there is an Arabic by name, Abu Lahab, meaning Father of a Flame refering to the man's beauty.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_I_of_Aragon#:~:text=John I (27 December 1350,from 1387 until his death. Here is the fancy by-name 'The Lover of Eloquence'

Runnerups:
James the Beshitten
Alfonso the Slobberer
Louis the Lazy
Bertha the Bigfooted
John the Posthumorous
A viking named 'The Fart' because of a bad translation of Fast
Peter the Creamy
Albert the Degenerate

 

[Rhipeen]

Honorary mention of "the Iron and Golden King" nickname given to Přemysl Otakar II., King of Bohemia (Iron for armies (heavy cavalry) Golden for his stable wealth (slightly funny because said wealth came mainly from silver))

 

[Voy]

The Greek dynasties in game are usually the founder's by name. So going through byzantine council you should be able to find some fun ones like Kopronymous, 'Dung Named," because he had poo in his baptism (maybe)

That's already in-game with Friends and Foes. Including a very nasty event.

 

[kawamuratc]

I was really hoping that the year would end with a "bang". The Robes update certainly wasn't it, not by a mile. And this Dev Diary misses this mark as well.
Nicknames are nice and all, but definitely not something to keep us talking for 4-ish weeks, imo.

They said some time ago that Friends and Foes (and its patch) was the last big update for this year. Did you expect them to change their minds?

Also, I should hope nicknames won’t keep you talking for four weeks! That would likely be very boring. Fortunately, we all likely have other interests and conversation topics than just CK3 and do not need to chat about it

I'm hopeful that next year we'll see more work directed towards improving the core systems of the game. I feel like this year we've gotten a lot of window dressing, but precious little work on the most pressing issues. The biggest we got, at least that I can think of, was the AI improvements, but even those I think made other areas of the game a lot worse (by largely removing counts from the feudal hierarchy).

i vaguely remember a huge cultural overhaul that allowed for my dream game mechanic of hybridization and divergence, but I might just be hallucinating that.

This post really seemed like patting yourselves on the back, but pretending that Friends and Foes was highly acclaimed was just a cherry on top.

And here folks keep trying to explain that the Steam reviews are about recommending things and not about if something is bad or not.

Friends and Foes is pretty good. The Steam reviews mostly just show that a vocal group of people take offense at an event pack being sold for money because they arbitrarily devalue the labor of writing and scripting events.

I just...I don't understand wth is going on with this game. Between their Summer Break and Winter Break, all we got was patches and one tiny event pack dlc....did Paradox just nuke your entire budget? Or is doing the bare minimum a conscious choice? Because all we're getting is QoL stuff, as if that's the games only issue. You guys didn't release a finished masterpiece that just required some tweaks, if that's the impression you guys have you need to seriously re-evaluate.

They released a finished game. You bought it. You likely played it. Over time, it’ll get bigger (and it has) and more complex through game expansions, but it’s already a finished base game. They could stop releasing new content for it tomorrow, and it would still be playable.

Its not an early release or crowd funded game. They don’t need to keep putting out updates to prove its not dead; you and I already got the product in our hot little hands.

In any case, I didn’t think the event pack or the accompanying patch with AI changes were tiny, but to each their own, I guess.

 

[guiskj]

They said some time ago that Friends and Foes (and its patch) was the last big update for this year. Did you expect them to change their minds?

I knew that Robes was the last patch of the year.

And when I saw what its content was, and was very disappointed by it, I then hoped that the remaining Dev Diaries, of which we got the one and only, would show us the great things we get to look forward to next year.

I was then given nicknames.

 

[kawamuratc]

A nickname DLC, I can’t wait…

It’s coming in an an update. Don’t know if it’s a DLC or not. But man, what’s the problem with that?

Say it’s part of a paid DLC. You clearly don’t find that a valuable addition to your game. Cool. Then you could just not buy it.

I knew that Robes was the last patch of the year.

And when I saw what its content was, and was very disappointed by it, I then hoped that the remaining Dev Diaries, of which we got the one and only, would show us the great things we get to look forward to next year.

I was then given nicknames.

They said the update would be small when they told us that it was the last one. I don’t know what you expected.

 

[Kimlin1004]

It’s coming in an an update. Don’t know if it’s a DLC or not. But man, what’s the problem with that?

Say it’s part of a paid DLC. You clearly don’t find that a valuable addition to your game. Cool. Then you could just not buy it.

They said the update would be small when they told us that it was the last one. I don’t know what you expected.

If there’s several DLCs that someone like me who had purchased every DLC and has played the game for 1400 hours doesn’t intend to buy, how well do you think the game would continue to do?

 

[BrotherJonathan]

To be fair Friends and Foes is actually quite good in terms of quality. I think that most of the backlash against it is from people who initially assumed it would be free and are annoyed by having to pay for something that they feel should have been a free patch.

Also, as I think anyone who has been hanging out in the Victoria III forums has discovered, Steam reviews are generally not that good of a metric for judging the quality of a game. Positive reviews tend to be memes or lame jokes, and negative ones tend to be angry rants, or the result of people brigading/review-bombing over things like prices, localization, or the perceived political stance of the devs.

 

[Tiax]

i vaguely remember a huge cultural overhaul that allowed for my dream game mechanic of hybridization and divergence, but I might just be hallucinating that.

I understand everyone has their own favorite mechanics, but I would put hybridiziation and divergence much closer to "window dressing" than "the most pressing issues". This is not to say the cultural overhaul was *bad* by any means. But hybridization and divergence are buttons that you might press no more than a few times in an entire campaign. They did not address any of the core weaknesses of the game (and neither do the set of bonuses you get from your culture). It's a perfectly fine set of mechanics, and I'm sure it was a lot of work, but I'm not convinced it should have been the top priority.

 

[Werther]

As always, people are grumpy and disagreeable with the devs, forgetting that they are only employees. They worked hard this year and can be proud of their job no matter what angrykids233 thinks.

I'm really happy that they worked on nicknames. Some could think it is just a detail, but it is important for immersion and roleplay. I created a sub for it in september 2020 and published a stupid meme in 2021, so I am really glad they found time to work on them. Of course it will be too minor for some or not enough, but let's be honest it is never enough for them, so who cares?

 

[kawamuratc]

If there’s several DLCs that someone like me who had purchased every DLC and has played the game for 1400 hours doesn’t intend to buy, how well do you think the game would continue to do?

People like different things and are interested by different things. They have the metrics of what sells and (I assume) would change what they offered.

With CK2, I only bought things like unit graphics when they were on sale for steep discounts, or because they were bundled with stuff I wanted. But there were people out there who liked their little dudes to have different dresses, and that’s okay because customers don’t have to buy everything you sell.

I understand everyone has their own favorite mechanics, but I would put hybridiziation and divergence much closer to "window dressing" than "the most pressing issues". This is not to say the cultural overhaul was *bad* by any means. But hybridization and divergence are buttons that you might press no more than a few times in an entire campaign. They did not address any of the core weaknesses of the game (and neither do the set of bonuses you get from your culture). It's a perfectly fine set of mechanics, and I'm sure it was a lot of work, but I'm not convinced it should have been the top priority.

And here I consider the cultural rework to be one of the most important and memorable mechanical changes the series has ever made, up there with the disease and epidemic mechanics introduced in Reaper’s Due, as opposed to mere window dressing. It attempted to address the weakness the game originally had in how it portrayed culture, and the cultural and religious systems seem to be influencing eachother’s development in a way that is drastically changing the way the series represents both in exciting ways.

Players have different priorities. As much as I don’t care about improving war (which I consider a mostly tedious waste of time that interrupts the interesting flow of history), I don’t consider attempts to improve the AI’s warfare skills to be wasting dev hours. I know that really matters to others and, who knows, maybe it’ll make the rare war I have to participate in more interesting of an interruption

 

[partywithhugo]

They said some time ago that Friends and Foes (and its patch) was the last big update for this year. Did you expect them to change their minds?

Also, I should hope nicknames won’t keep you talking for four weeks! That would likely be very boring. Fortunately, we all likely have other interests and conversation topics than just CK3 and do not need to chat about it



i vaguely remember a huge cultural overhaul that allowed for my dream game mechanic of hybridization and divergence, but I might just be hallucinating that.



And here folks keep trying to explain that the Steam reviews are about recommending things and not about if something is bad or not.

Friends and Foes is pretty good. The Steam reviews mostly just show that a vocal group of people take offense at an event pack being sold for money because they arbitrarily devalue the labor of writing and scripting events.


They released a finished game. You bought it. You likely played it. Over time, it’ll get bigger (and it has) and more complex through game expansions, but it’s already a finished base game. They could stop releasing new content for it tomorrow, and it would still be playable.

Its not an early release or crowd funded game. They don’t need to keep putting out updates to prove its not dead; you and I already got the product in our hot little hands.

In any case, I didn’t think the event pack or the accompanying patch with AI changes were tiny, but to each their own, I guess.

The game still needs improvement. The base game still feels like a demo. I'm not trying to be rude or overcritical, but it feels like a demo.

Monarchs feel weak and leaderless. Monarchs deserve more power and rule in the game.

Improving the game is what keeps the game running on point. I want Ck3 to become better. But the team never gives me a head up about my suggestions.

Mods are not the solution for everything. Mods can be good, but the game can do better than mods.

We need more fixes and rework more than DLC's.

 

[Werther]

The game still needs improvement. The base game still feels like a demo. I'm not trying to be rude or overcritical, but it feels like a demo.

Not to be "ovecritical", but you say ck3 is a demo? I think you never played a demo in your life. Want to try one? The CK2 demo is still available, dl it, play for an hour and come back to write to the devs of CK3 that they worked the last couple of years on a game equivalent to a demo.

 

[DragonAtma]

What about an attempt to gain a positive nickname or lose a negative nickname instead of leaving it to RNG? Yes, passive ways of getting them would be acceptable, but I can see someone to go out of their way to try and get a flattering nickname, especially if they're diligent or ambitious.

(Also I recently re-read the Al Andalus mega-LP; if it's not on the list, King-Killer should absolutely be a possible nickname)

 

[partywithhugo]

Not to be "ovecritical", but you say ck3 is a demo? I think you never played a demo in your life. Want to try one? The CK2 demo is still available, dl it, play for an hour and come back to write to the devs of CK3 that they worked the last couple of years on a game equivalent to a demo.

Ck3 can do better. The game still misses important Imperial Functions that are crucial for an empire. Currently, you can't recreate the kingdom of Assyria under Eastern Roman rule, something that is crucial for Eastern Rome. Assyria is missing in the game. As Greek emperor you can't promote the Assyrian culture, one of the most important cultures for the game with Eastern Roman Heritage. Assyria is left ignored and forgotten. The Eastern Roman empire is super important along with the Holy Germanic Roman Empire. These 2 empires deserve a special DLC if you want to add a DLC.