From reddit: First Details from a Developer

[Torngasuk]

The current palette of traits is diverse and flavorful, but due to the way the system works, every character is composed of extremes on every axis. Characters cannot be both humble and proud, but player characters will almost always be one of the two. Instead, you would expect that most characters would be somewhere in between - not particularly humble or nor especially proud. That would make a character for whom pride is a significant personality trait stand out more and enable the trait to be more meaningful to how that person behaves.

Heresy for referencing it, I know, but I would here favor a more robust trait system inspired by the older Total War games, where traits exist on a sliding scale. You might be a little Proud, pretty Proud, very Proud, or extremely Proud. You'll probably notice in CK2 that you often get the same events over again that would give you traits you already have: in this case, they would be an opportunity to reinforce and strength existing traits, or be guided away from their more extreme virtues and vices if that's the way you want things to go. That way you may not have as many trait templates, but those that exist will have a much greater degree of depth and be a much better indicator of character.

 

[Husein]

How will genetics play out with 3D models? Will thwre be unique looks for cultures as it is now or will characters be simply divided into races lioe white black etc?

 

[Atalvyr]

Heresy for referencing it, I know, but I would here favor a more robust trait system inspired by the older Total War games, where traits exist on a sliding scale. You might be a little Proud, pretty Proud, very Proud, or extremely Proud. You'll probably notice in CK2 that you often get the same events over again that would give you traits you already have: in this case, they would be an opportunity to reinforce and strength existing traits, or be guided away from their more extreme virtues and vices if that's the way you want things to go. That way you may not have as many trait templates, but those that exist will have a much greater degree of depth and be a much better indicator of character.

That also sounds pretty good, though you should in that case shuffle the traits so that the most "extreme" ones are the most visible, since they will be the most defining for the character. I also think that is kind of the idea for the "skill tree", that you would have a more orderly and granular progression on your abilities in a field from novice to expert.

 

[Ellionas]

In the case of traits, quantity IS quality.
The more traits you have available, the more ways there are to represent a character.

I'm not a fan of this change, but we'll see...

I agree with that. We tend to believe that quality = less quantity, but in the case of the representation of a personality, there is nothing more wrong.

The personality of a human being is built on nuances and paradoxes. We may be cruel to a greater or lesser extent, and, on the contrary, empathetic about certain things. A human perhaps at the same time: Strong, (Physics) a genius, (Representation of his intellectual level) kind, honest, ambitious, cynical, concupiscent, scarred, versed in stewardship, greedy, faithful, etc ... Are there any traits of character in excess? No, it's the multitude of these traits that make a personality! Especially as we get older, our personality changes, improves or not and becomes more complex.

In short, I am waiting to see, but I have the impression that we are witnessing above all a simplification to the HoF IV / Imperator: Rome, namely, a digest of past possibilities in more accessible mode to attract the new player . I feel that we will earn points (hi "mana" Imperator: Rome) to spend in a non-dynamic tree, which will make, we will, throughout the parties, always the same winning combination, without the reversals of epic situations that randomness provides. Boredom in perspective ...

Wait & see, but in view of the Paradox Interactive babies of recent years, I am not very optimistic.

The problem with fewer traits is that it leads to only two possible outcomes and both are bad.

Outcome one is that there are a small number that are still relatively attainable over time, which means every old character ends up with more or less all the same traits and RP is destroyed.

Outcome two is that there are a small number that are NOT relatively attainable over time, which is arguably worse because it means you'll go 60 years getting an extremely small handful of traits, your characters will never really differentiate and again RP is destroyed.

There needs to be enough traits that you can routinely get a healthy number over his lifetime to feel like your character is developing/unique while also being enough so that the guy next to you also has his own healthy number that are different than yours. THAT is how each character feels unique and you get attached to them.

200% agree. The replayability of the game, the attachment to our characters and the differentiation from our ancestors or our companions, will be very weak. And for my part, if this scenario is real disaster, I may be bored very quickly. (I hate standartisation with the current MOBA / MMORPG sauce.) Make sure it does not apply to the Grand Strategy genre now ...

 

[Will Steel]

Heresy for referencing it, I know, but I would here favor a more robust trait system inspired by the older Total War games, where traits exist on a sliding scale. You might be a little Proud, pretty Proud, very Proud, or extremely Proud. You'll probably notice in CK2 that you often get the same events over again that would give you traits you already have: in this case, they would be an opportunity to reinforce and strength existing traits, or be guided away from their more extreme virtues and vices if that's the way you want things to go. That way you may not have as many trait templates, but those that exist will have a much greater degree of depth and be a much better indicator of character.

Oh man, those were good times. I remember the progressively scaling traits - I had characters who came of age being "a little odd" and slowly got more and more insane over the years with hilarious trait descriptions. Or my ruling dynasty getting progressively more inbred each generation, where the first one is just "shamed" in traits while the final generation was practically Charles II of Spain on roids.

 

[Denkt]

In the case of traits, quantity IS quality.
The more traits you have available, the more ways there are to represent a character.

I'm not a fan of this change, but we'll see...

I rather have more visible and impactful traits so if more development time is put into each trait to make them stand out more rather than having alot of traits but they mostly feel like attribute modifiers, pick fewer traits. Also it is possible that stuff such as education could be represented in other ways than traits.

It is also pointless to talk about the amount of traits in CK3 because we don't know yet, 10 traits would be way to Little but 150 poorly made ones would not be good either. In best case traits should have an impact on nearly all events and even what actions you can do so you really feel their impact rather than being +- to attributes.

Also if traits have more interaction with each other it would be even better.

 

[The Shacks]

Barons not playable? BAAH. I'd love to play a baron. Actually make the game hard, most CK runs are most engaging when your still at the bottom of the pile.

 

[Lordy's]

Barons not playable? BAAH. I'd love to play a baron. Actually make the game hard, most CK runs are most engaging when your still at the bottom of the pile.

Dear devs: Can you please remove the hardcoded restriction on playability and make it moddable: For every government and tier mods should be able to define "playable = yes/no". So you don't need to provide any content for baronies, just make them potentially playable with mods. It's also fine if some mechanics are broken for them! I believe that would be really helpful for total conversion mods especially, since they can make good use of additional playable tiers. Same goes for governments (for example theocracies). It's literally just changing a few lines of code... Please.

 

[Vohen]

Might as well ask, any news on when DDs begin?
Last year Imperator's DDs started quite soon after the announcement (a week or two after iirc).
If CK3 is to follow that, maybe this Friday there could be one already?

 

[LeSingeAffame]

Might as well ask, any news on when DDs begin?
Last year Imperator's DDs started quite soon after the announcement (a week or two after iirc).
If CK3 is to follow that, maybe this Friday there could be one already?

Imperator was announced May 19th 2018, and its first DD was in May 28th 2019. So hopefully the DDs will starting flowing soon enough!

But Stellaris was announced during early August, and its first DD was in the end of September

 

[Denkt]

Might as well ask, any news on when DDs begin?
Last year Imperator's DDs started quite soon after the announcement (a week or two after iirc).
If CK3 is to follow that, maybe this Friday there could be one already?

Next week probably due to PDXCON and they are also moving offices.

 

[Cardolam]

Sounds good.