EU5 will most likely be a failure

[J_Master]

It is revolutionary because before LotN missions were just one way. Now you can go through different paths depending on how you play. Livonia is another example because of the mission to give it a event chain to get different government types.

Mission trees are just Generic PDX Feature #27 copied straight from HoI4, where in devellopment it was admitted (at least I heard so) that it was used as a AI crutch. The fact that they now have branching mission just means bringing in more from the focus trees. It's in no way revolutionary. It breaks down what was one of the great appeals of EU4 and of GSG's in general, the openendedness of it all, the fact that you make your own goals. Get a lucky PU over a HRE minor? Sorry, the mission tree has nothing about that. It is the game (the devs really) setting your goals for you. It's what made me tune out from the game the most. The only time I return to the game is if I go for a round of Third Oddysee, which is the only way I can really enjoy the mission system. The great part of the old mission system was that it left you fully free to ignore missions if you didn't like them, because once you chose one you didn't see any others. Here, you are constantly reminded of unfinished missions

 

[grandadmiralbob]

Mission trees are just Generic PDX Feature #27 copied straight from HoI4, where in devellopment it was admitted (at least I heard so) that it was used as a AI crutch. The fact that they now have branching mission just means bringing in more from the focus trees. It's in no way revolutionary. It breaks down what was one of the great appeals of EU4 and of GSG's in general, the openendedness of it all, the fact that you make your own goals. Get a lucky PU over a HRE minor? Sorry, the mission tree has nothing about that. It is the game (the devs really) setting your goals for you. It's what made me tune out from the game the most. The only time I return to the game is if I go for a round of Third Oddysee, which is the only way I can really enjoy the mission system. The great part of the old mission system was that it left you fully free to ignore missions if you didn't like them, because once you chose one you didn't see any others. Here, you are constantly reminded of unfinished missions

Yup, a significant number of missions give you claims on land taking from Vic3 or Hoi4 timeline.
Another thing about the missions, a human player will achieve them quicker and get more bonuses faster than the AI ever will. Sometimes they won't even be able to complete said missions.... especially Orissa's.

 

[TK3600]

Everyone want the old way. Nobody, NOBODY want a game devoid of content just to force devs reinvent every mechanics instead. The reviews made this point overwhelming clear enough. I am glad this is not institutional limit imposed on developers. As such similar mistakes can easily be avoided.

 

[Emperor8428]

I honestly prefer the fact that the newer pdx sequels are trying to do something different. Let the new game scratch a new itch. I always have the older games to play for when I want the experience I know I enjoy. I hope EU5 dismantles missions trees as they currently are, and tries a different approach to the period. I own eu4.

To be clear I agree that flavor shouldn't be thrown out altogether, and I do think that is a major issue for Vic 3 right now. But I also think reinventing and revisiting core mechanics is an important thing to do, because with pdx games this only happens every so often

 

[Kurfürstin Adelheid]

As long as Swabia is formable in EU5. I think it would be sad if they didn't have them formable at the very start and we have to wait to have included formables that were already formables in EU4.

Also, I really hope national ideas are still there in some shape or form, because otherwise you are just choosing to play a bigger or smaller country (that might be a bit of an exaggeration for certain countries that have unique government reforms or positions but for a lot of countries in the HRE, where I like to play, the ideas are really what make them feel different from each other for me).

Obviously it will probably take time for EU5 to build up the amount of content EU4 has now, but that doesn't mean it has to start as a blank slate with no flavour added in until later. All the formables and flavour which didn't exist at the start of EU4 can exist at the start of EU5. So too can the government reforms/ideas/missions or their new equivalent. Of course, some of these might be 'saved' for a rework in DLC or something like that. What it would be interesting to see disappear (or not) with EU5 are all the EU3 leftovers. There were quite a lot in EU4, and although many have been removed since the game first came out there are still a few left (Meissen etc.). Finally, EU5 presents the golden opportunity to rework the game to be less deterministic.

 

[Promethium555]

I think there's a lot of options to improve on flavor without railroading. For example, the difference between feudalism and absolutism in this game is just a bunch of minuscule modifiers, when it should have a massive impact on gameplay. I personally prefer the ck2 approach to flavor, which focused on giving different playstyles and options for different religious and cultural groups, rather than the eu4/imperator approach where flavor = mission trees.

 

[gianlucad]

There is no "higher ups" that demand these things. Every team and project does their own decisions with their own creative control. I used to have the role of being boss of all projects, and having final creative say over everything at PDS until end of 2019, a role that Henrik Fåhraeus now has, and nobody micromanages a project in that detail.

Nowaways, most of the projects are created by people who used to be fans, and got hired to work for us, and they make ambitious new things.

Back in the day when we did a sequel.. Like HoI2 or Eu4, we took the previous game, added a few "big" features, upgraded the graphics a bit, changed some UI, and called it a sequel.

Thank you for the transparency.

I would say your description of HoI2 and EU4 fits the definition of a sequel better than what is being done nowadays, which is more akin to making reboots.

Victoria 3 is a completely different game from either of its predecessors, is it then more of a sequel than Victoria 2 was to 1 because of that?

 

[Mike1984]

This is what we want lol Just keep adding those features over the life of the game, it shouldn't take 5 years post release to get it even with prior release...

The problem is that, in order to keep all of the old game's features and still finish the game in a reasonable timeframe, you have to change as little as possible. As soon as you want to change the game design significantly, it becomes much harder to simply copy across old mechanics.

 

[Cizm7]

This is true, maybe it's because CK3 was kind of like the first revamped game we saw come out of PDX, with all the flashy 3D models etc. Then we get to Vic3 and we have already seen all the new 3D models and what the engine can do from CK3, we're no longer impressed by it, so it lost it's "wow" factor compared to CK3, hence the negative reviews focused around actual gameplay.

I don't know. No game is perfect. But CK3 obviously had / has solid mechanics to build upon and offers challenges inside your Realm as outside. It still lack of more outside but it's reasonable and can / could be developed in the Future. Whereas V3 was essentially abstract in every way and completely oriented towards the Outside. And the problem is that this doesn't work at all since almost everything feels sloppy, especially the Political System.