Is anyone else really disappointed with the way Vic3 is being developed?

[Chromsh]

First of all: They just announced a new Expansion, so far so good.
Hoewever this has taken them 5 months since the last DLC was released. Which also means with "Charters and Commerce" coming out in June that it takes them 8 months (!) to add anything to the game. Meanwhile the game sits in a really bad state since they still haven't bothered to fix anything since the last Hotfix in December!
Next: Why are they so hellbent on Expanding the economic simulation of the game again? The economy has since launch consistently been the best part of Victoria 3. And while some reworks like the ownership one last year were needed and well done, one has to wonder why they won't focus on things that need way more attention..
Take the Navy for example: Right now Victoria 3 has the worst Navy and Naval combat system in any Paradox Game, propably in the whole of modern Gaming. It simply doesn't make sense and is an absolute pain to deal with. Yet instead of reworking it or tying it to the Trade Rework they just focus on the economic aspect yet again, leaving this part of the game in shambles.
Same goes for the content additions: The most popular nations like Prussia, Italy, Sweden and other majors still lack any meaningful Journal-Entries and the Unification mechanics are an absolute joke. Yet they focus their Expansions on Iberia and the Balkans... Why?
I simply don't understand how the devs place their priorities.
What do you think?

 

[HomesliceSupreme]

To be fair the Balkans & Austria really do need more focus

 

[Rabid]

Economy is the most important part of the game, it informs the entire game experience. Reworking trade is clearly required for many reasons. I would agree that the naval side of the game is in a more broken state, but it's also fundamentally less important (ironically the lack of interaction between navies and trade is one of the things which is broken about both systems currently)

It would be better to fix both at once, but given the size and scope of the trade rework compared to what is likely to be needed to improve navies it seems understandable that they're choosing to deal with trade first.

As regards flavour content, I would much rather have more mechanics reworks and additions than any amount of flavour events, but I understand that some people like flavour and the devs will cater to that with DLC content. The fact that they've chosen to split up the next DLC into separate flavour and mechanics packages seems like a good move to me.

 

[Timewalker102]

Take the Navy for example: Right now Victoria 3 has the worst Navy and Naval combat system in any Paradox Game, propably in the whole of modern Gaming. It simply doesn't make sense and is an absolute pain to deal with. Yet instead of reworking it or tying it to the Trade Rework they just focus on the economic aspect yet again, leaving this part of the game in shambles.

If trade is impotent and nonexistent why would players even care about the navy?

What do you think navies were historically (and currently are) used for?

 

[Delterius]

I am rather hyped for the trade rework. Does that mean I have no other issues with the game? No, not in a long shot. However some of my top priorities are related to trade. From the status of export economies to center periphery relations and to the cumbersome nature of the current trade system all of these have to be fixed before I care to even use my Navy at all.

 

[yurcick]

I would prefer
1) a faster pace in development
2) better QA results
3) a significantly more simulatorist approach to game design

I disagree with the devs on priorities, clearly and heavily.

I wouldn’t word it as being “really disappointed” though.

 

[Timewalker102]

Very ironic to complain about a trade update on today of all days. As it turns out global commerce is very important to post-industrial economies LMAO, maybe Vic3 should be representing that

 

[VineFynn]

I would prefer
1) a faster pace in development
2) better QA results
3) a significantly more simulatorist approach to game design

I disagree with the devs on priorities, clearly and heavily.

I wouldn’t word it as being “really disappointed” though.

1 and 2 are basically mutually exclusive for a given development team.

 

[yurcick]

1 and 2 are basically mutually exclusive for a given development team.

More or less true. Devs and QAs are different people, although their work is significantly interconnected, but anyway, this is a resource issue, ultimately “how much workhours aka money PDX is willing to spend on the outcome”.

I think PDX has been getting away with allocating less resources on QA than they should have, for years. After the disasters of 2022-2023 they seem to have improved somewhat, but I still think that another fanbase would not tolerate what we do.
If they need more resources to ensure reasonable quality, it’s not a paid customers’ problem.

And to be honest, with what little I know of QA, I’m unsure that everything is optimal, process-wise. There are hints that what resources are there, are not used in the most effective way.
Yes, GSGs are very complex products that make thorough regression testing more or less impossible (although I think that this could be alleviated with a much heavier focus on playerless simulation outcome analysis: if Germany forms only in 0.2% of playerless runs, that means you have a problem you need to fix etc).
But the level of problems and bugs that can linger in the game for months (like players being unable to use explicitly and separately paid features) suggests that the functional testing is not in the right place as well.

 

[Goodfortune99]

I somewhat agree and somewhat disagree. I think the free updates have been incredible almost all the way through, slowly revamping and updating some really important systems. Trade is definitely one of those systems and among the most important ones as it pertains to the industries gameplay loop. Great stuff!

What I don't like so much so far is the paid content. While the approach in the free updates aims to create a better simulation and more nuanced mechanics, the narrative content appears quite linear, very limited in scope, and at odds with the approach to the rest of the game. I hardly ever engage with this content.

So I feel a little conflicted about the new expansion pass. I feel I'm paying for the ongoing free updates rather than the paid content itself, mostly. And of course I do wish to support continuing Vicky 3 development, but this content is a hard sell.

 

[Silens]

My excitement or disappointment heavily depends on how the treaty system will function and how it plays into diplomacy. It's too soon to feel anything yet, considering how little we know.

Where I'm a bit sad is that we get two immersion packs, and not two mechanical expansions. I would've liked more mechanics = content for all. But that's hardly enough to make me feel anything in any direction.

And if I may be perfectly honest, I'm glad they're not doing my favorite nations yet. The later a DLC comes in a game's lifecycle, the more sophisticated it usually is. Currently, immersion is mostly just a bunch of journal entries. I hope that by the time we get to Prussia, Russia, Japan, Qing, national flavor will be more than that.

 

[alexgmcm]

I agree that the roadmap was a bit disappointing. Like having a mechanics pack instead of a full expansion that includes more. The price of the season pass was lower than that of Stellaris and CK3 though, so it's not like they are ripping us off.

And if they say they need to fix trade first then I trust them, I imagine they also have a longer term vision for the game (such as the Navy rework Wiz has hinted at etc.) of which this is just one more step.

 

[47pik]

No, I think the devs are making great decisions consistently and putting together a truly unique game. It’s unfortunate the game launched with a very inconsistent vision, but the vision they have now is clear and being realized more and more with each update.

 

[shoebird]

The most popular nations like Prussia, Italy, Sweden and other majors still lack any meaningful Journal-Entries and the Unification mechanics are an absolute joke. Yet they focus their Expansions on Iberia and the Balkans... Why?

Well the Balkans is focused also in AH, and Iberia is western Iberia, not Georgia (not that I have anything against Georgia) but Spain and Portugal, which are also majors and surely in need of some attention.

Take the Navy for example: Right now Victoria 3 has the worst Navy and Naval combat system in any Paradox Game, propably in the whole of modern Gaming. It simply doesn't make sense and is an absolute pain to deal with. Yet instead of reworking it or tying it to the Trade Rework they just focus on the economic aspect yet again, leaving this part of the game in shambles.

I was hoping they would made ships real “things “ that float and can be sunk for the next update, but trade also needs some attention. Not that I’m fully on board with the world market concept and trade balances are not mentioned anywhere, which it’s disappointing to me but let’s see.

 

[Miskulliny]

It's very disappointing. A game lacking essential mechanics after 2/3 years, being the sorry state of diplomacy the main pain, but also no Cabinet/Ministers, pops are completely irrelevant, and a sad long etc. The few new mechanics are all behind 20+ DLCs. Basic events like Carlismo in Spain, they also expect us to pay.

The game is a cookie clicker of growing GDP with very few challenging decisions or need of an overarching strategy, as it's always the same regardless of the country.

The performance is a massive issue, making the last 25% of the timeline unplayable for most of us.

At this point, the dev team has failed to deliver a worthy successor of Vic2 and they are just finding ways to extract some extra cash out of the project.

I really hope they prove me wrong, Paradox has done it before. Stellaris is now a great game, after like a decade of a team actually listening to players and genuinely trying to deliver a good game. And they also make a pretty penny out of it.

The trade rework might be a step in the good direction, but please, listen to your players. We don't want more frigging music and ugly portraits, just make a game worthy of the Paradox name.

 

[47pik]

No, but seriously, how many of these topics do we need?

 

[alexgmcm]

We don't want more frigging music and ugly portraits, just make a game worthy of the Paradox name.

I thought most people wanted more music? It has quite a small soundtrack compared to the other games.

And it's not like it diverts resources either - the guys programming the new trade system aren't going to crack their cellos out to do the soundtrack too.

 

[yurcick]

Yeah, what's wrong with music, of all things?

 

[Miskulliny]

If the playlist is short ok add more music, but don't list it as part of the new season content or whatever they call it now.

This game is still lacking a huge amount of content, I honestly feel like they are taking the piss with all the additions since release. The only slightly interesting one about Spheres of Influence has like almost a full game price tag.

I have paid for several DLCs for EU4, some CK3, most of Stellaris, etc. I'm fine with the business model when it's actually good content. But releasing an empty and simplistic economic simulator, with dull diplomatic and political mechanics and then go on to release DLCs on fringe topics and nations is hard to support.

Now, they want us to pay another full game money for having a few event chains on topics that should 100% be part of the base game. Ideally it would happen organically with the mechanics, that was the vision of Paradox at some point, resumed at PC. If your game can't replicate at least make it an event/journal or whatever, but don't make me pay for having the most essential events of that time period.

 

[Citizen Caen]

The only thing I’m really disappointed about is patches being so far apart.
I’m not even talking about the release of new content, but old stuff not being fixed in the mean time.

It’s really not cool how they leave bugs and features unbalanced for half a year between patches. Would it have really killed them to slightly adjust agitation in movements so they have a bit more bite? Why are journal entries that I paid for left with several game breaking bugs?

Old paradox from ck2 and early eu4 would be releasing at least quarterly patches to fix and adjust things like this, between major releases. I have no idea why they’ve stopped doing this.
It’s by far the most likely reason I stop buying paradox games in the future. If I can’t trust the releases to be worked on in a timely manner, why would I ever buy new?