Chapter IV Q&A TLDR

[PDX-Trinexx]

Quoting myself from another thread

That was... very poor phrasing on my part, and the criticism it's caused is completely justified.

The question as posed in the Q&A suggests that increased difficult is an easy fix that we're just choosing not to do. What I was trying to say is that it's not that straightforward; it's hard to make content that's challenging for veteran players without wiping new players out, but that doesn't mean we're not trying. We just want difficulty that's fun to engage with, and not frustrating.

We want to make the player lose in ways that encourages them to adapt their strategy and try again, rather than sit there looking at a game over screen feeling like the game screwed them over with mechanics that were incomprehensible or completely out of their control. There's already a variety of ways to crank the difficulty up by artificially boosting the AI or hobbling the player themselves via game rules, but given that the discussion around difficulty persists I think it's safe to say that even the veteran players feel that's not an acceptable solution to the problem. And to be clear, I do consider it a problem.

 

[PDX-Trinexx]

I'd much rather you guys err on the side of fun than challenge. Interacting with Crusader Kings like it's a game to win is self-defeating, in my view. There's no win state so there should be no lose state either. Setbacks, yes. As long as they're something the player has a chance of avoiding (I think we all learned that random death events don't make anybody happy lol). And even then, there are always going to be min/maxers, or power gamers, or whatever you want to call them, that will mine the meta and only ever play the most efficient way (and then complain that the game is too boring and easy). Those players should be ignored, because this is a single player game and perfecting the meta isn't an issue the way it is in competitive multiplayer games. Trying to constantly challenge the top 1% of players is a losing strategy, and I'm glad to see PDX seems to realize that.

We still want those players to be engaged and get meaningful experiences out of the game, don't misunderstand me. I just intended to highlight the difficulty in accomplishing that in a way that's fun and engaging for everyone else at the same time. It's something we're still going to try to accomplish.