Missions are too linear, discourage variety and encourage playing each faction the same way each time.

[Ben1612]

I've been confused about what the design thought process was for the missions since they were introduced. They were billed as giving players options and some early guidance to get them started. But having played a number of campaigns, it is clear to me that they don't really do this. The missions encourage players to play each faction the same way every time, in order to pick up the bonuses to help your campaign.

Some missions are worse for this than others, the generic missions are funnily enough the least bad, mostly because their rewards are comparatively so poor in that there isn't that much incentive to do them, but the tailored missions are pretty bad for punishing the player if they don't follow the same railroad path every time.

Missions should either let the player choose which region/province they apply to, or should give an option of several provinces/regions and let the player pick from the available options.

Using the example of the Sparta mission trees, the player can choose whether to either go their own way, not use the missions and handicap themselves by missing out of some pretty significant bonuses. OR play the missions and always progress by uniting the Peloponnese, conquering Greece, then Macedon before going east into Asia. But why? Once you have completed the first step, you are beyond any semblance of historical accuracy, and Hellenic culture is all over the eastern Med, so what basis was used to say that way is the only way Sparta could have gone if it had enjoyed a resurgence? Why not go south to Crete and from there down to Cyrenaica and contest with Egypt for control of North Africa? That is just as historically justifiable and would offer just as interesting gameplay choices, but if you do that, you are handicapping yourself significantly.

Missions should be what they were originally billed as, providing ideas and options, not a railroad track.

 

[IsaacCAT]

Not a fan of missions for what you expose here. I thought a good thing for players to recreate historical actions, but I find myself compelled to do them for the bonus, as you say. They are not empowering but on the contrary, they limit the options of the game.

How do you think they should be designed to provide ideas and options?

Because anything that gives a bonus will have the same (d)effect.

 

[Ben1612]

In every generic mission I would allow the player to choose the region it will affect when they start the mission. Individual cities or territories in the mission can also be player choice, or randomly selected from those available.

With scripted faction specific missions, I'd keep the first one/s affecting the starting region the same, as this helps you build a solid foundation to launch your empire from. But as soon as you go beyond that it becomes the game developer scripting your expansion. So there are two choices. 1 allow player to choose regions, this would unfortunately mean rewriting the missions pretty heavily to make them make sense. 2. Add more missions and give players a choice between three or four missions. This would be my personal preference, and the most logical choice. So for example, as Sparta, you might complete the first mission or two, but then, instead of having to take the mission going north to conquer Macedon, there might be one to go south into North Africa, another to go west to fight Rome, or another to go direct to Asia without troubling Macedon.

 

[IsaacCAT]

In every generic mission I would allow the player to choose the region it will affect when they start the mission. Individual cities or territories in the mission can also be player choice, or randomly selected from those available.

With scripted faction specific missions, I'd keep the first one/s affecting the starting region the same, as this helps you build a solid foundation to launch your empire from. But as soon as you go beyond that it becomes the game developer scripting your expansion. So there are two choices. 1 allow player to choose regions, this would unfortunately mean rewriting the missions pretty heavily to make them make sense. 2. Add more missions and give players a choice between three or four missions. This would be my personal preference, and the most logical choice. So for example, as Sparta, you might complete the first mission or two, but then, instead of having to take the mission going north to conquer Macedon, there might be one to go south into North Africa, another to go west to fight Rome, or another to go direct to Asia without troubling Macedon.

I see, second option is sensible. We only need time and a player base big enough for PDX to commit the resources. Good idea.

(the completionists will try to fulfil all missions, we should make them not possible to complete in the same playthrough)

 

[Rabid]

I'd break down many of the large mission trees into smaller mission tracks - so going along with the OP's suggestion, after the first mission as Sparta you'd then for example get a choice between a mission chain taking you into Egypt or one to conquer Macedonia, instead of many missions being in very long chains where you have to complete them in a specific order.

Though I am generally not a big fan of nation specific missions trees, I prefer regional ones which are fully dynamic and based on the current state of the game rather than fixed ones based on somewhat plausible historical aims for certain nations. The generic missions aren't terrible for this but they're extremely bland and there's zero variety.

 

[Birdos]

I posted this on another thread some days ago:

I have only played 2.0, so not too much experience, but the mission trees felt too long and the need to control 100% of an area too punishing, as often times there would be a single territory left for wich you need to start another global war with another alliance triangle.

I think some shorter, more focused mission trees could work wonders.

Have them always start with 1 mission and make that mision visible before commiting. Then have 1 or 2 either/or or "at least do one of these before you can procceed". Throw an optional sidepath once in a while.

Spoiler: Something like this:

Mission / \ Mission 2.1 or Mission 2.2 | Optional Mission A \ / | Mission 3 Optional Mission B | Final Mission

Regarding focus: have them centered around a province or two instead of a whole area. For development, make them a bit more generic or give us some kind of choice.

Depending of your power level you have 2-4 mission trees to choose from at any given time (Remember, you only see the first mission and a short description). Doing a mission tree centered in an area guarantees that on completion, at least one new mission tree is centered in a neighbouring area. Some generic and repeateble development (civil, military, religious, etc.) missions also make an appearance, so you have something to do while your AE goes down again.

 

[Hootieleece]

The reason this mission style was adopted for all Paradox Games except the CK series was that players often were at a loss for Historical immersion and felt that the games was almost too much of a sandbox.

There was a generic mission system in EU3....It gave the nation 3 choices. usually two generic choices and one Nation specific mission (if the nation was deemed important enough to have historical missions)

Then to sell more DLC content they created the current mission system for EUIV, HOI4, and Now Imperator....

They doubled down on the sandbox with a bunch of Alternate reality missions, but killed replay ability with the railroading.....also giving bonuses and permanent claims (power boosts) are almost like loot boxes.....

I wish the players who were at a loss about what to do would read a history book to get a general idea of that countries situation in 1444 and a their answers by reading the subsequent history. And then when they play the game make their own choices that might be different.

I also agree that the current system kill replay ability and makes every faction feel the same because their are "optimal" bonuses to get.

 

[IsaacCAT]

I wish the players who were at a loss about what to do would read a history book to get a general idea of that countries situation in 1444 and a their answers by reading the subsequent history. And then when they play the game make their own choices that might be different.

Very interesting post, on the text I have reproduced here, the game could have more historical text for players to learn/know about the historic nation they are playing.

Some time ago, players asked for an introduction screen at the beginning of the game with the background of your nation. I will go further and I would like to have a game historical reference notepad always to read about the nation played in the nation tab. I know you can have another window with the wikipedia but this historical reference tab on the nation could have a notes space for the player to write on, so the player can literally rewrite history.

 

[Aquamancer]

I wish the players who were at a loss about what to do would read a history book to get a general idea of that countries situation in 1444 and a their answers by reading the subsequent history. And then when they play the game make their own choices that might be different.

There's a good chance the people who want to read history books as a past-time and the people who want to play video games as a past time don't overlap, even in Paradox games' communities where that's more likely to happen. After all, if you expect an average player with no idea where to go with a nation to read through a bunch of history books just to get an idea how they're supposed to enjoy playing as a specific country, the game is designed poorly, since in that situation, the game relies on the player having external knowledge to gain enjoyment from the game, rather than relying on what is in the game itself. And there's a chance that at that point, you're making the player spend more time reading through history books than playing the game itself, which from a game design point of view is even worse. Besides, a lot of Paradox games contain a lot of obscure nations and characters, from which history books might not be readily available, thus it falls to Paradox to give the context that the player needs.

 

[schultz]

Excellent suggestion.
I posted a complaint about the mission system a few minutes ago, before I saw this post.
I think the best solution would be for players to be able to run as many missions simultaneously that they have the prereqs for.
And also making the mission trees smaller , optimally one mission tree per region.
This "one mission at a time" is poor design. Make them smaller/more detailed, and let us run several concurrently.

 

[Qantrix]

I agree with this post in general. Generally I like the flavor mission trees add in all Paradox games, whether that flavor is historical or more counterfactual "what if" scenario's. All sandbox games can start to feel a bit empty with just randomly-generated event, or event chains and these mission trees add some narrative, just like the core storyline does in a GTA game (although obviously unlike in GTA features should not be locked until parts of said storyline are completed).

I'd say that incredibly long mission trees are a problem. The Diadochi one recreating the Hellenic Empire is an example, that could easily be split up in multiple parts (Egypt, Persia, Bactria & India, economic consolidation, cultural domination). I felt that the Carthage ones were a good example.

I would say that it would be good to have them indeed more non-linear and more dependent on going down different "tracks". This would be for "conquest" mission trees: so for Carthage after taking Sicily you could take a mission tree starting a Western conquest track (Hispania, Mauretania) or an Eastern conquest track (Egypt, Phoenicia). And only after completing the other track would the other open up. In addition many more mission trees could focus on non-conquest things, making use of the many existing elements for this.

Additional mission tracks would be good to simulate the civilization-building aspect and what kind of civilization you are building, with different tracks being mutually exclusive. A track could be building a decentralized mercantile federation, a centralized industrious powerhouse, a religious empire with god-rulers. Adding buffs but also significantly debuffs.

Finally obviously far more mission trees for flavor are needed.

 

[IsaacCAT]

I would say that it would be good to have them indeed more non-linear and more dependent on going down different "tracks".

Additional mission tracks would be good to simulate the civilization-building aspect and what kind of civilization you are building, with different tracks being mutually exclusive

As the OP denounces, missions railroad the player as they are defined now.

IMHO I:R has many different ways to be played and is guilty of not publicizing this potential to the player. There are no objectives that recompensate a particular non optimal playstyle.

Second tier, or Generic Missions could be a way to do this. Without railroading to certain mini objectives, they could reward playstyles with temporary buffs while the playstyle is followed.

This is more difficult to implement than concrete, physical objectives but they will not become obsolete with time.