EU4 - Development Diary - 12th of February 2019

[Tom D.]

This is just not a DD. I'm sorry Paradox but it even looks like it was written hastily 5 minutes before it was posted. I'm all for being open with the fans and sharing inside info on the current development but if there is nothing meaningful to tell, than just don't. It feels like they feel they need to keep writing weekly DD even if its content is abysmal and has little value. I'd rather have a DD every month or every 2/3 weeks than these kind of 'filler DD' every week, it's just disappointing to read this.

 

[Picasso Sparks]

My concern is the lack of map moddability of that game...

What are you talking about? Anyone with a sharpie can mod the map!

Also, Paradox, you should make a unit pack that turns all our pieces into Board Game figurines.

 

[Roland Traveler]

This is just not a DD. I'm sorry Paradox but it even looks like it was written hastily 5 minutes before it was posted. I'm all for being open with the fans and sharing inside info on the current development but if there is nothing meaningful to tell, than just don't. It feels like they feel they need to keep writing weekly DD even if its content is abysmal and has little value. I'd rather have a DD every month or every 2/3 weeks than these kind of 'filler DD' every week, it's just disappointing to read this.

If they didn’t put out a dev diary, people would be furious and accusing them of the exact same thing (i.e. “you’re not listening to your fan base!”). The user base is being way too demanding right now and the devs can’t win if there’s a slow week like this one. Seriously, they gave a reason why it’s not a proper diary, give them some goddamn slack.

 

[Mingmung]

If they didn’t put out a dev diary, people would be furious and accusing them of the exact same thing (i.e. “you’re not listening to your fan base!”). The user base is being way too demanding right now and the devs can’t win if there’s a slow week like this one. Seriously, they gave a reason why it’s not a proper diary, give them some goddamn slack.

It's all about communication and managing expectations; they've said they are taking their time with this DLC, have two more interns and will work more closely with the community. Well, that sets some expectations, yes. I mean, the holidays were more than a month ago.

 

[ErringMelkor]

My history loving part wants to believe, but since late 2017 I am really skeptical with the Pdx dev team and policies, at least EU4 wise. You have made a lot of money, to put it in simple terms, since the new dlc policy, but it lacks both consistency, deep work and, perhaps more dangerous, leads to bad and/or lazy design development philosophies. DDRJake said it a while ago (if I recall correctly), he (and by extension, we can say Paradox) preffer making money to making a good videogame.

I am not expecting a really deep game (I can have other games and mods for that), but (and I mean no disrespect) you are lacking the basis both in philosophy and actual design. I do not wish to end this post giving you a bad feeling (I wanted to start really optimistical about what I liked from you since new year), but I think a wake up message is mandatory here. Hence, I will compromise myself to sadly stop buying anything you create or are related with. I sincerely hope that you decide to strenghten the team, change your dlc policy to allow a deeper-more focused and interesting work, and take into much, much more considetarion your fellow members of your community, to whom you owe all your attention, love and disposition.

With appreciation and best wishes, a skeptical person that used to like your games.

 

[tafsiwerd]

There are issues that affect the entire playerbase, that caused massive forum/reddit revolts. We still haven't gotten any explanation or feedback in regards to the following recent game-breaking changes:
- Nerfing the New World into pointlessness
- Buffing Trade Companies to the extent that rushing TCs >>> all other strategies
- Conversion broken for AI/subjects.
- Corruption for exceeding state/territory cap

The playerbase was hoping for them to take a step back and re-evaluate things, re-design things, or at least give some kind of rational explanation / design vision regarding these things.

Instead this week we find out there's a new board game.
Stay tuned next week when units will finally train the day the game says they will instead of the day after.
Exciting stuff.

Some of these critical balance changes take minutes of programming time. Asking the community what they think in a directed thread takes minutes. Writing out a well reasoned argument and development vision takes like an hour. Don't make excuses that they don't have time. They certainly do have time. Any business would make this somewhat a priority, even just from a PR standpoint. Also, interacting with good players would save them time. I'm sure they spent several hours, maybe more, "buffing" Venice. Except they nerfed it terribly. They spent this time literally making the game worse, a blunder that could have been saved by listening to any decent player for 30 seconds.

The holidays are over. There is still no positive indication any of this is happening.

 

[Mingmung]

My history loving part wants to believe, but since late 2017 I am really skeptical with the Pdx dev team and policies, at least EU4 wise. You have made a lot of money, to put it in simple terms, since the new dlc policy, but it lacks both consistency, deep work and, perhaps more dangerous, leads to bad and/or lazy design development philosophies. DDRJake said it a while ago (if I recall correctly), he (and by extension, we can say Paradox) preffer making money to making a good videogame.

I am not expecting a really deep game (I can have other games and mods for that), but (and I mean no disrespect) you are lacking the basis both in philosophy and actual design. I do not wish to end this post giving you a bad feeling (I wanted to start really optimistical about what I liked from you since new year), but I think a wake up message is mandatory here. Hence, I will compromise myself to sadly stop buying anything you create or are related with. I sincerely hope that you decide to strenghten the team, change your dlc policy to allow a deeper-more focused and interesting work, and take into much, much more considetarion your fellow members of your community, to whom you owe all your attention, love and disposition.

With appreciation and best wishes, a skeptical person that used to like your games.

It might be more constructive to point out the things you don't like or want to see changed back to what it once was?

I mean, I feel you man. I've been hard at work discussing here on this forum along with a lot of others and doing research for suggestions (map and flavour-wise, like NI's), but only so little has been done with them.

 

[RagingMonkey]

The level of entitlement in these comments... wow.

 

[Zaragoza]

Good day all. After last week's announcement that EU4 will be switching to 64-bit we saw a lot of comments about what people thought this means and does not mean. To clear up misconceptions we'd like to present a more tech-focused dev diary, but wouldn't be able to do such a topic justice by today, so we'll dive into it next week and today let the Europa Universalis Board Game take today's spotlight.

Going full circle, EU, which started as a board game before entering the digital age, returns to its roots. Those who were at PDXCon last year had an opportunity to get first-hand experience with it, so for more information

Europa Universalis the Board Game DD#6

You can also find their previous Dev Diaries here: EU the Board Game forum

As for the development of the Europa Universalis video game, we continue to work through tech debt, a topic deserving of its own dev diary. It'll be a while before we have content from the game to discuss and show off, but it'll be more than worth the wait.

I do appreciate the work intechnical debt and understand it may take a while to see anything "visual".

However, as a filler and after Golden Century feedback maybe you could share the team vision? I mean, you could present what you feel is working and not working in the game and what would you like to change to realign that. Not necessarily in the next patch/DLC but that kind of discussion will gather a lot of interest in the community.

I think Johan did something like that in some talks, but I feel like Paradox forums (and Reddit) have greater audiences the physical conventions.

 

[Roland Traveler]

It's all about communication and managing expectations; they've said they are taking their time with this DLC, have two more interns and will work more closely with the community. Well, that sets some expectations, yes. I mean, the holidays were more than a month ago.

Yes they were, but it was made clear that the team would be spending time on bug fixes. There’s only so many times you can say “We fixed this, it’ll be in a patch sometime soon” before it not only becomes a waste of time but a waste of space as well. Reporting what bugs have been fixed is the realm of the patch notes, not dev diaries. If the team wants to do so, fine, but they should not be pressured into putting out something pointless to appease their player base.

 

[dynalon]

I mean, I respectfully disagreed with the OP because I disagree with the notion that this is a "Development Diary". It's advertising for another product - which I don't mind, since it's obviously related to EU4, but I would have preferred if it was labeled as such in the thread title.

(I still would be happy about a dev diary or five about potential rebalancings and reworkings of existing mechanism. Of course, it's still too early to be concerned that the diaries will directly go from "tech debt" into "shiny new DLC feature", but I still wanted to mention it because I do believe that the game currently has issues that aren't just bugs)

 

[maxirage]

I would personally like to know who is currently the creative director of the game and the direction they want to take it in. There have been questionable balance decisions lately (such as the TC buff and territory corruption) which just leaves the playerbase confused and wonder what the heck is going on. Is DDRJake the creative director now, and is this his decision? Or is it coming from the bottom up, from the grounds-level programmers? Is it based on feedback from playtesters, or something that was concocted during dev MP matches? The only thing I know for sure is that it didn't come from the community.

 

[ErringMelkor]

It might be more constructive to point out the things you don't like or want to see changed back to what it once was?

I mean, I feel you man. I've been hard at work discussing here on this forum along with a lot of others and doing research for suggestions (map and flavour-wise, like NI's), but only so little has been done with them.

Oh, please do not get my wrong (I have written this after a long 12h work day, so I am kind of exhausted). I have been every week on this forums since EU4 dev diary policy get implemented. And I mean, it is a magnificent idea (on paper), just very, very badly executed. I am planning on giving them a year "truce", and during that time I will still be here every week. I do not intend on ignoring them or being purely negative (I wont buy anything ever, duh), but if being a little rough is what it takes, then a little rough I will have to be, even if my critique is just a little spot on the desert, I feel like I must say it.

I can and will support them with love, ideas, designs and researching work if they ask for it. There's tons of suggestions threads that could be listened to. They could do half a year of full rework and still not lose a dolar. And since they could do that, and for the sake of the quality of their games, they should, I will not expect any less than a season of internal reestructuring of the team and a big rework of the game.

I think it is time for season 2.

Anyways, if any of the team reads this, I am both proud of you for all your successes with this game and expectating on seeing what we will have this year.

Have a good night, ladies and gentlemen.

 

[Veag]

Any chance we will be able to get a digital version of the EU boardgame?

 

[illeon]

Not as interesting as I would have liked but I really appreciate the fact that you are working to optimize the game. Even though the dev diaries suffer under it I hope that with the reduction in tech debt the game will run smoother. Although not new content it will make the game more enjoyable which is the most important thing. Keep going guys!

 

[EarlKonrad]

I would like to voice my concern that this DD was not only nonexistent but also arrived later than usual. Sure, plans chance and schedules can be moved but if that was the case why couldn't this diary be released on time? It's not as if it took nearly as long as a regular DD to write.

Also, for a while now the DD's have shown the inability for the Devs to stablish a dialogue with the community, which is sad. Lately it got a little better when some of the community suggestions were highlighted but it still looks like vague promises are made and a direct contact is never stablished

 

[Legionary Guard]

I expected something - anything - and I was still disappointed.

 

[MateuszNH]

but guys

Just read this and you'll understand:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/actually-dot-the-is-and-cross-the-ts.1150253/

In short; there are a lot of things they can discuss with us, the playerbase. There are also a lot of things that could use some addressing. Developer-diaries are THE platform for such things, but the chances aren't taken. Which is sad. Especially with odd things like the thread I linked.

They're taking their time on this DLC, good. They got two more interns working for them, good. They want to involve the community more, good. Why do the first developer-diaries need to be this shallow then? They could talk about some design-processes, about the new people that have joined and what they're going to do and about community-interaction.

Well these guys have everything served on a tray and still do nothing, i think i'll pass further investments until i see any change of attitude

 

[FleetingRain]

My guess is that Jake wanted a tech DD but shit happened and they had to stall for time and then the tech DD couldn't come out because they accidentally the whole thing so he just posted whatever instead of backing down on today's DD and I like run-on sentences.

 

[Zak Preston]

According to recent dev diaries, EU4 is definitely moving to it's end of life cycle, much like CK2 ~1.5 - 2 years ago...