Paradox games becoming more casual

[TurboBear]

I have played a lot of paradox games, although not all. I have played Vic 2, Ck2, eu4, HOI 3 and now HOI 4. I have played around 150 hours of HOI 4 now, and it doesn't seem asa deep or complex (without mods) as Vic 2 or Ck2. There is just something missing for me. The way that the combat works with the AI usually doing most of the work for you, feels really dull and takes out a lot of the fun for me. Trading also seems really dulled down compared to Vic 2 and the political system compared to Vic 2 seems really barebones and basic. In Vic 2 the ruling party had so much to say for what you could do with economy, wars and you always had to follow it really closely. In Vic 2 you also had an a lot more advanced rebel system, with different rebel armies assembling at once and tons of depth. Although most of my complains can be fixed or at least somewhat improved with mods, i feel like Paradox is putting out a barebones and frankly uninterresting game only to release DLC for tons of money that fixes the game years after release (like with Ck2 where the DLCs are frankly bullshit, disabling you from playing countries without the DLCs, like WTF) and this should really not be acceptable to us consumers.

All in all, i feel like paradox is dulling down the games to enable more casual people to play them, without giving the games significant depth and milking us consumers for money with ridiculous DLC.

Sorry for rant, but Paradox, stop being assholes.

 

[MikeFranks]

Maybe your message is a bit strong but I agree partially, PDX is turning a way I dislike and I am slowly also turning back them. I can read this kind of message more and more recently on internet.

I hope they will show us we were wrong and give us an amazing new games.

PDX has good points also : their games are uniques, and developers are reading us to improve them.

So PDX, don't change, don't abuse DLCs (please !) and keep your way to listen your community.

 

[icedt729]

CK2 is one of their more recent games. EU4 is objectively more complex than any previous installments, even if some people don't like the new "feel." And while HOI4 has been controversial they have added complexity to several aspects of the game, especially in regards to equipment and production. Victoria 2 was phenomenally complex under the hood and if anything is a "middle Paradox" game, coming right before CK2.

Honestly, I think a lot of these complaints boil down to nostalgia for previous generations and a feeling that better-looking games with cleaner interfaces are inherently simpler than their predecessors.

 

[aruon]

I have played a lot of paradox games, although not all. I have played Vic 2, Ck2, eu4, HOI 3 and now HOI 4. I have played around 150 hours of HOI 4 now, and it doesn't seem asa deep or complex (without mods) as Vic 2 or Ck2. There is just something missing for me. The way that the combat works with the AI usually doing most of the work for you, feels really dull and takes out a lot of the fun for me. Trading also seems really dulled down compared to Vic 2 and the political system compared to Vic 2 seems really barebones and basic. In Vic 2 the ruling party had so much to say for what you could do with economy, wars and you always had to follow it really closely. In Vic 2 you also had an a lot more advanced rebel system, with different rebel armies assembling at once and tons of depth. Although most of my complains can be fixed or at least somewhat improved with mods, i feel like Paradox is putting out a barebones and frankly uninterresting game only to release DLC for tons of money that fixes the game years after release (like with Ck2 where the DLCs are frankly bullshit, disabling you from playing countries without the DLCs, like WTF) and this should really not be acceptable to us consumers.

All in all, i feel like paradox is dulling down the games to enable more casual people to play them, without giving the games significant depth and milking us consumers for money with ridiculous DLC.

Sorry for rant, but Paradox, stop being assholes.

oh here we go again. another half-baked claim that equates easier accessibility to dumbing down. totally not a horse that's been beater to death 1000s of times already.

"The way that the combat works with the AI usually doing most of the work for you" ...ok do you even know what a video game is? AIs handling the tedious crap is kind of what makes games PLAYABLE. not having anything to streamline the process is the single most prominent reason i have what made me give up on HOI 3 altogether.

comparing other PDS games to Victoria 2 is like comparing Call of Duty to Fallout 4- they are fundamentally different games which have a much different playstyle, making all comparisons practically pointless. games that play different don't play the same. shocking, i know.

anyone who's payed literally any attention at all to PDS in the past few years has noticed that even since they went to the modern DLC policy, their games have been... wait for it... much better in the long run! like how CK2 is still going strong WAY after the majority of primarily single player games would be having their sequels or companions halfway done by now.

on CK2- have you ever taken a good hard look at the name of the game? CRUSADER kings. as in, those middle age catholics who yelled "deus vult!" like it was a thrash metal band and then died, leaving their kids in charge afterwards. PDS were, and have never been obligated to open up other religions, let alone more of the map. and going back to DLC policies, most likely never would've had CK2 only had 3 major expansions in its lifetime.


as trhe saying goes, Rome wasn't built in a day. and just because times change and newer games become more efficient doesn't mean any random person can MLG them. just like supporting a game with new content over an extended time period doesn't make PDS a corporate con artist.

and seriously, get over yourself.

 

[Denkt]

I have played Vic 2, Ck2, eu4, HOI 3 and now HOI 4.

So you have only played the newer games and only like one game in each serie. It is important to know that each serie is focused on different stuff so victoria is not ment to play the same way as EU.

I have played EUII and upwards, HOI2 and upwards, CK and upwards and some Victoria + Victoria II.

I have played around 150 hours of HOI 4 now, and it doesn't seem asa deep or complex (without mods) as Vic 2 or Ck2.

As I said above HOI, Victoria and Crusader Kings focus on different stuff, it is very resonable not to like them all.

Trading also seems really dulled down compared to Vic 2 and the political system compared to Vic 2 seems really barebones and basic. In Vic 2 the ruling party had so much to say for what you could do with economy, wars and you always had to follow it really closely. In Vic 2 you also had an a lot more advanced rebel system, with different rebel armies assembling at once and tons of depth.

Victoria II is a game that is focused on these stuff while HOI4 is a game focused on leading a country through WW2 and is focused only around military matters.

i feel like Paradox is putting out a barebones and frankly uninterresting game only to release DLC for tons of money that fixes the game years after release

It can feel that way but did you know how barebone older paradox games are?

like with Ck2 where the DLCs are frankly bullshit, disabling you from playing countries without the DLCs

CK was the same but they never released any options to play as nonchristians. The reason why they locked other religions was they did not feel anything but christians had enough substances in the release version to be interesting to play, they would likely be boring to play.

All in all, i feel like paradox is dulling down the games to enable more casual people to play them, without giving the games significant depth

They have made their later games more userfriendly while keeping the depth.

• Userfriendly: How easy it is to get into the game and understand how it work.
• Depth: How many relevant ways there are to play the game.

They are two separate things, for example chess have quite simple rules so it is quite userfriendly but have also alot of depth given how many relevant moves the game have.

It is very possible that a for example a tower defence game to have more depth than any paradox game while being more user friendly as the tower defence game can much like chess simply focus on doing one goal very well while paradox games are very branching which unfortunately tend to reduce deapth as these branches tend to be quite weak (often have a absolute best move) such as EUIV national ideas.

 

[MrNibbles]

It has been mentioned here in the thread but I can put my "unbiased" thoughts on this.

I can guarantee that we aren't, when developing a game, going through a "dumbing" down phase of anything.
It all is more or less based on creative vision, development time and budget. Many times things are getting cut as they simply are not fun, and yes, some of those things have been brought up by the community afterwards.. "Why did you not do x or y?", so it isn't something new to us, as we've already gone down that route and confirmed that it's does not fit the game (are we always correct in the end? Who knows? .
Other times ( a lot), while developing we go "Damn, this would be so freaking cool", but we don't have the time to do that, which ends up in a backlog of possible things to do.

Another thing boils down to the topic of accessibility. Just because the game is more accessible, doesn't make it less "complex".

I like to take up an example using Victoria II:

A community member was arguing with @Groogy about how certain things are working in the game, and even though Groogy said that he was literally looking at the code while writing his responses, said member of this outstanding community did not budge, as that is how he/she perceived how things was working. That in my opinion is bad design. Making the games more accessible is awesome, but of course that is a fine balance as we want to continue doing mechanically complex games (which we are constantly getting better at).

And finally, NO, we never "cut" out content from the base game in order to sell it later as a DLC.

Either way, we just want you folks to enjoy our games as much as we do here at the office.

//Mr.Nibbles

 

[mighij]

"The way that the combat works with the AI usually doing most of the work for you" ...ok do you even know what a video game is? AIs handling the tedious crap is kind of what makes games PLAYABLE. not having anything to streamline the process is the single most prominent reason i have what made me give up on HOI 3 altogether.

Diffrent tastes for everyone but I can understand the author his problem. In Hoi IV the build up to war is decent, but once war starts it's, for me personally, a rather boring game. While in Hoi 3 the combat was, for me personally, a lot of fun.

 

[aruon]

It has been mentioned here in the thread but I can put my "unbiased" thoughts on this.

I can guarantee that we aren't, when developing a game, going through a "dumbing" down phase of anything.
It all is more or less based on creative vision, development time and budget. Many times things are getting cut as they simply are not fun, and yes, some of those things have been brought up by the community afterwards.. "Why did you not do x or y?", so it isn't something new to us, as we've already gone down that route and confirmed that it's does not fit the game (are we always correct in the end? Who knows? .
Other times ( a lot), while developing we go "Damn, this would be so freaking cool", but we don't have the time to do that, which ends up in a backlog of possible things to do.

Another thing boils down to the topic of accessibility. Just because the game is more accessible, doesn't make it less "complex".

I like to take up an example using Victoria II:

A community member was arguing with @Groogy about how certain things are working in the game, and even though Groogy said that he was literally looking at the code while writing his responses, said member of this outstanding community did not budge, as that is how he/she perceived how things was working. That in my opinion is bad design. Making the games more accessible is awesome, but of course that is a fine balance as we want to continue doing mechanically complex games (which we are constantly getting better at).

And finally, NO, we never "cut" out content from the base game in order to sell it later as a DLC.

Either way, we just want you folks to enjoy our games as much as we do here at the office.

//Mr.Nibbles

yes! thank you for giving a developer response Nibbles!

 

[Denkt]

To be fair I don't find EUIV all that deep. If I would describe the game as a tree it would be a short tree with a weak trunk but with alot of branches and twigs.

What Im saying is that while the game got alot of features they don't really add much to the game in terms of deepth.

In my opinion deepth mean how many viable options there are (and by viable I mean resonable picks for powerplaying).

So while the game got alot of stuff, the viable path is really narrow in my opinion.

Another criticism is that the game don't feel alive, like at the start you have bad generals and at the end you have good generals.

I feel the next EU game should have a complete makeover with each single feature being designed to feel alive and build a tall tree with a strong trunk. I rather have much less and simpler features that work really well together and have alot of resonable choices than what EUIV currently is.

So if that mean making the game more casual I would support casualization because it may very well make the game much deeper and alive.

One of the best features in any paradox game is the production line in HOI4 as it have alot of deepth while being simple and feels alive.

 

[Pega5u5]

I don't really think HOI4 is a good example, it is still in alpha tbh. No command system, every units still using weird names like " type 2 division" or " template 7", no later start dates, too few events, no scenarios, missing models or icons like jets, bomber, tanks. The list goes on and on.
What I don't like is that almost everything above will be in DLC instead of base game. I mean look at hoi3, only 3 major DLC for 7 dollar average, that's something I am willing to pay, not some $39 pre-alpha game.

 

[icedt729]

To be fair I don't find EUIV all that deep. If I would describe the game as a tree it would be a short tree with a weak trunk but with alot of branches and twigs.

What Im saying is that while the game got alot of features they don't really add much to the game in terms of deepth.

In my opinion deepth mean how many viable options there are (and by viable I mean resonable picks for powerplaying).

So while the game got alot of stuff, the viable path is really narrow in my opinion.

I agree that EU4 is fundamentally a straightforward map-painter, and in terms of playstyles is the most limited of the current PDS crop. But it's much better in this respect than earlier installments ever were, and the devs have shown a lot of sincere effort towards making the game more interesting in peacetime and in making tall playstyles more viable. There's also been a ton of progress towards making countries outside of Europe better-researched and more interesting to play.

So if we're looking at PDS in terms of generations of games, I think EU4 shows huge progress over EU3. I just think the EU line is doomed to be gamier and less flavorful than games like Victoria with its deep economic simulation, CK2 with its strong roleplay elements, or HoI with its complex and strategic warfare. Out of the batch EU4 is the closest to a generic 4X, which is also probably why it's the gateway drug for so many PDS players but also the least-loved among the diehards.

 

[aruon]

I agree that EU4 is fundamentally a straightforward map-painter, and in terms of playstyles is the most limited of the current PDS crop. But it's much better in this respect than earlier installments ever were, and the devs have shown a lot of sincere effort towards making the game more interesting in peacetime and in making tall playstyles more viable. There's also been a ton of progress towards making countries outside of Europe better-researched and more interesting to play.

So if we're looking at PDS in terms of generations of games, I think EU4 shows huge progress over EU3. I just think the EU line is doomed to be gamier and less flavorful than games like Victoria with its deep economic simulation, CK2 with its strong roleplay elements, or HoI with its complex and strategic warfare. Out of the batch EU4 is the closest to a generic 4X, which is also probably why it's the gateway drug for so many PDS players but also the least-loved among the diehards.

pretty much this.

it's especially amazing that they even had a segment at PDXcon called "where we ****ed up". that's not something you see often even with obsolete games, let alone current ones in active development.

 

[grandad1982]

Royston, Royston! The casuals are coming to steal our games!

(jim sterling at his best)

 

[aruon]

Royston, Royston! The casuals are coming to steal our games!

(jim sterling at his best)

there's not enough jim sterling in the world.

Spoiler

 

[heliostellar]

Vicky has the most complicated trade system of, arguably, any game on the market even today. It attempts to simulate a global commodities market with multiple feedback loops without any "magic" money to plug holes in the system. None of the other titles should even attempt to match it because this economic reality was unique to the era.

 

[TheAtreides84]

More DLCs, please. I can give up on a pizza once a month and buy them, you know.

 

[TheAtreides84]

Another criticism is that the game don't feel alive, like at the start you have bad generals and at the end you have good generals.

Which is actually how it worked in reality. Not because people where dumber in the middle ages, but because it was in the EUIV timespan that concepts like a meritocratic officer corps and a professional military were formulated. So while you can get lucky and find a genius noble to command your armies in the 1400s, late game you will have career generals, leading to better average outcomes.

 

[yourworstnightm]

One of the problems with EU IV is that the DLC features are never allowed to become very deep, since they have to be their own protected gardens and have minimal interaction with other features.

 

[Dodge]

Interface improved lots, EUI's interface was frankly shit

 

[Nussor]

I don't mind if some PDS games become more casual, if that's not hte only thing they do and if they provide high quality content. Unfortunately, I feel that both my requirements for agreement are not met at this point.