Maybe I am blind, but I don't really see these criticisms? I see more arguing for more depth on the economic side past the construction queue, Military overhaul, fix navy, better passing laws... etc.
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Nice strawman. There is constant battle between uncritical fans, who have downvoted and shushed even mild criticism for years and people complaining about overall low quality of the game. I don't see people waiting for the game to fail.
Game is failure in that sense it didn't deliver meaningful experience in economy, diplomacy or warfare, as we expected from the most hyped PDX game. Numbers of players say it all.
Supporting =/= make fun, decent and well thought-out changes, fixing bugs quickly. PDX has a good track record of bloating games and creating frankenstein monster while doing this. Victoria 3 is/will be no exception.
A lot of games are "very unique" so i don't know what is this argument for?
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I didnt like Victoria 3 when it released. I've tried it again and I really like it now. In fact I think its better than the rest of the Paradox games. It might have some failings but at least it is interesting in new ways. It might become my favourite Paradox game. I am really looking forward to the next free patch. Has it failed? Not from where I am standing.
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Respectfully this is a video game. There isn't any need for a "battle". Most of us are going to have relatively modest input into the game to begin with.
I also don't think its fair to accuse me of starwmaning when you didn't even include everything I said. People give criticsm all the time, people are eager to talk about potential new features and share their ideas for the game. It happens constantly and its one of the great things about paradox. However I think there is a difference between coming from a place of positivity and negativity. Declaring the game a failure definitely feels like the later and seems entirely unnecessary.
This is completely subjective. It can be true for you and I'm sorry if you aren't enjoying the game however there are many people who do, myself included. It also does many things most other games in the 4X and grand strategy genres don't. Games like Civ, Total war, Age of Empires don't explore the subject matter of Vic 3 in the same depth. Even other paradox games don't.
Neither does needless negativity. At the end of the day most of us have relatively little input into the game. Most of us also have relatively little experience in the technical side of game development. I can't speak for you, but I have no idea what constraints the dev team has to work under to create the game systems that we enjoy and to do so in a timely manner.
Paradox has a generally good track record with their games. They constantly update them, provide free content with those updates, have changed their dlc policy to enable wider access to features, created the custodian team, and regularly communicate with the community among other things. Generally I don't think there is too much to be up in arms about.
Because making something new takes time and effort. A lot more than just complaining about it when its done.
Respectfully I don't see the point in being as negative about the game as you are.
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Tbf, paradox could've released victoria 3 in a state of "every system works perfectly as it should, while delievering correct info to the player at all times" and people would still find it a downgrade to vic2.
Anecdoately I'm not quite sure what the hype over vic2 was, since I never can get into it proper. It just seems like nothing leads to proper response in it to me, where it does in vic3 or other paradox games. That doesn't suddenly translate into vic2 being a failure.
And eh...
I'm sure there are plenty of people who are blindly defending it, but I've seen plenty of equally uncritical people complaining about things that really just boil down to "I don't like it". Doomposting, complaints about lack of micro (yes I know it is a common strawman, but equally there was such an influx of it near start of the game's life cycle that I understand that kneejerk reaction), a desire for a more indepth system on X and such.
I've also seen people dismiss such topics as just "hurr hurr, you just want to move a unit dummy" from uncritical people.
I mean from what I see from steam charts, vic3 while having a low player number compared to HOI4 (which tbf beat even stellaris which is well-recieved compared to all other paradox games in terms of updates) has like 20-50% of the eu4/stellaris players every month (mostly dependant on if it is a good month for eu4/stellaris tbf).
But just comparing it to some other strategy games like...
Seems this older civ is keeping up pretty well with EU4/Stellaris, so guess civ is comparable and beats vic 3.
But here it looks like paradox games are just kinda shit if we go by numbers, I mean if you combine players from all of the games they do kinda match Civ VI at the end.
Paradox games are comparable at least, so aoe 2 beats vic 3.
I guess people just prefer warhammer to stellaris & eu4 by a bit.
Now more unfair and sillier comparisons that really don't add a lot, but moreso to illustrate numbers won't show full picture:
Limbus Company, something which is functionally on a shoestring budget last I heard (well 1 million-esque) beats all of Paradox base catalogue outside of HOI4.
Even at its worst it doesn't dip below Paradox games, shows that clearly budget is spent wrong at all times at Paradox /jk
On a serious note, it is a game I enjoy deeply but like. if we only looked at numbers here then you'd assume that limbus was a hit and not the paradox games.
Well I guess that except at one point last month, vic 3 had more relevance than undertale has.
High player count is only a reliable metric in context of things, and it can be very difficult to gauge that (heck there are some people who has a job to just figure that out and gauge interest/problem areas).
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No, this is the strawman.
It’s those of us that like this game the most that are posting the most real criticism of the game. This forum is filled with topics of us discussing and analyzing mechanics, talking about how system could be improved, what we think the game needs to get better, what needs to change, what priorities should be etc. It is absurd to say there’s some cult of toxic positivity here - the people who like the game the most are by far the ones with the most criticism of the game, we just don’t coat it in negativity and doomerism because as people who actually are doing meaningful criticism, we also see that the game’s trajectory is clearly going in a good direction and our feedback is being heard, taken into account, and implemented.
“Dis gaem is failure” is not a productive conversation. First of all, it clearly isn’t true given the ongoing development and the stable + slowly increasing player counters. Second of all, such hyperbole adds nothing to the discussion and just leads to arguing instead of real analysis of the game. Miss me with this until you’ve contributed even a fraction of what the forum regulars have to the discussion and analysis and criticism of the game.
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Also other minor note of the "numbers says it all" comment I woke up just now and thought of.
Even if we go by numbers, and the fact Victoria 3 has the least amount of players compared to Stellaris, EU4, CK3 and HOI4 that'd still not tell us anything about how it can be fixed OR what numbers Paradox expected the game to have upon release. I suppose it is fair to assume "around EU4 and Stellaris" but we don't know if instead it is something like "have a consistent playerbase buying our dlc" or "have x amount of players at any given time".
Like in my opinion, all numbers do tell us is like one of 4 things:
1. If new update/content came out (spike in popularity, although this could also be due to etc. a large influencer playing the game)
2. Longeviety (but that requires looking at player data over a long period of time + comparing it to other games + other factors)
3. Numbers of players playing (well this one just is basically "i went to baker to count how much bread he has, now i know how much bread is in stock")
4. If a drop in numbers happen (which can be due to: gamebreaking bugs, boycot, withdrawal of support in multiplayer games or anything really)
None of it is meaningful by itself.
Even if we go by numbers, and the fact Victoria 3 has the least amount of players compared to Stellaris, EU4, CK3 and HOI4 that'd still not tell us anything about how it can be fixed OR what numbers Paradox expected the game to have upon release. I suppose it is fair to assume "around EU4 and Stellaris" but we don't know if instead it is something like "have a consistent playerbase buying our dlc" or "have x amount of players at any given time".
Like in my opinion, all numbers do tell us is like one of 4 things:
1. If new update/content came out (spike in popularity, although this could also be due to etc. a large influencer playing the game)
2. Longeviety (but that requires looking at player data over a long period of time + comparing it to other games + other factors)
3. Numbers of players playing (well this one just is basically "i went to baker to count how much bread he has, now i know how much bread is in stock")
4. If a drop in numbers happen (which can be due to: gamebreaking bugs, boycot, withdrawal of support in multiplayer games or anything really)
None of it is meaningful by itself.
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This is true, but what I fear is how the game is still failing to address most of its biggest flaws 2 1/2 years after. If the player base is not growing, and it's slowly declining all while complaining of certain features (or missing mechanics) the only possible ending is a grim one.
Game is still very easy, with an half-working diplomacy, non-existent navy system, a warfare gameplay too dry and (in my opinion, worst thing) an AI not capable of setting objectives and evaluating player actions. It's non-responding, it exists in another universe until a certain trigger (like infamy) tick, and then it acts in a scripted way. Only trade is getting a massive rework, but considering how most of us here are playing HOPING to see VIC 3 be improved, how long can it lasts if the next major thing reworked would be AT BEST 18 months from now?
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Theres a reason Player Retention Graphs are a joke, its a fake 'gotcha' that only reveals a lack of any real interest in the game or what it can be and reeks of vindictive spite.
Genuinely, a lot of the biggest flaws in vic3 arent THAT bad. At worst theyre unfun and frustrating sure, but theyre not the worst ever or bad design even.
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Vicky 2 and 3 provide very different experience. In Vicky2 most mechanics are either obfuscated or unpredictable (in many cases thanks to the endless amount of bugs present), basically a player has extremely few instruments to control what is going on but can somewhat guide the direction of the chaos exveloping. Vicky3 gives you everything, all information, all ways to influence and to get exactly what you want but there are very few things to achieve compared to the endless barrage of hidden mechanics present in Vicky2. It leads to the counterintuitive result of VIcky2 being a worse gamedesign by modern standards but a way better nation simulation experience. My point here is that Vicky2 has few actual simulation but it is obfuscated, there is a believable illusion people want to experience. Vicky3's oppeness and straighforwadness breaks this illusion of deep simulation revealing how shallow it is. I always pointed this out to Vicky2 zealots that even at this stage Vicky3's simulation is deeper, it is just open about how not deep it is as well as predictable.
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Mind you, Victoria 2's simulation doesn't actually work which is part of the reason why everyone plays with mods. You just gotta add a lot of duct tape to the Vicky2 economy otherwise it literally runs out of cash. Why? Because government debt deletes it, among other things. So mods gotta cheat in a lot of liquidity into the game.
However the game as a whole still does work, in particular with the way it focuses on indirect tools to affect national development. National foci are the main direct tool, with tax policy being the main indirect one. Many of the positive developments in Victoria 3 have been to add depth towards that general idea. You switch direct tools for indirect levers you can pull. The last dev diary about Trade is big on this transition. It's not just about trade becoming autonomous. It's about how you interact with trade, with a big focus on subsidies and tariffs that shape it.
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1) Doesn't seem anything light, honestly being "unfunny" is pretty serious ahah
2) They still are present, and in no-way being worked on. If every single aspect of the game has to undergo "a major rework" one can argue that the game itself is not viable.
Again, I still think that VIC 3 can be saved and prosper, but the focus should be to tweak the original experience AND do it in a brief span of time. Neither of these two things is happening (I hope the inclusion of "national fervour" may redirect some of the AI actions, although in a minimal way).
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I'm pretty sure that "not fun" and "makes you angry" are 2 of the pillars of being a bad game.
It's probably uncontroversial that on release V3 was a "bad game". The devs then spent the last 2.5 years trying to improve things. Whether they've done enough to call V3 "good" is certainly up for debate and depends what you want out of the game.
For myself, I'd say it's mediocre. Many of the "improvements" are, in my opinion, big steps backwards (the great game, discrete units, power blocs) and my biggest pain points (teleporting units, front lines, generally boring moment to moment gameplay) haven't been fixed. When I see it in my Steam library I have no desire to reinstall it and play a game or 2 and I'm definitely not going to buy any DLC anytime soon. But it's certainly not a dumpster fire anymore.
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We need more effort to prove that Victoria 3 is not a failure, because Paradox deputy CEO Mathias Lilja thinks otherwise.
I think we need a sticky on main forum page like "List of reasons why our game is not a failure"
And daily "line goes up" statistics.
That'll show them.
I think we need a sticky on main forum page like "List of reasons why our game is not a failure"
And daily "line goes up" statistics.
That'll show them.
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I believe I've seen that article before (the over 1 year old one) and here is another part of it:
Which to me indicate his point, that many who qoute this latch on to, is less that "Victoria 3 is an objective failure" but rather is a critique of how Paradox is handling releases afaik.
Also gonna link an old post I remember from another thread of a QA who is indicating it could be inaccurate, or at the very least put into question Mathias himself in regards to it (however, seeing as they have a NDA we won't know the exact reasoning) but I'm not putting my bet on what Mathias Lilja has to say (since the lack of kind words make me think that perhaps a lot went on behind the scenes that we're not prevy to).
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The "Vitoria 3 influence" in EU5 you're seeing is the EU3, and Imperator Rome influence.
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Were there pops or market prices in EU3? I don't seem to remember that for some reason.
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