Paradox Grand Strategy becoming stale

[Paul93]

I have opposite feelings about what the OP (and some people immediately after) said.

Surely I think that PDS games have problems, and I am not talking about bugs only. Many parts of Stellaris are (by far) not properly worked out, while EU4 is largerly overworked, strangulated below a ton of metrics all very similar gameplay-wise, added to justify the tired (n+1)th dlc only.

But I don't think that PDS is descending in the Casual Inferno. While at launch Stellaris was quite an insult, it has been largerly improved and, as someone has reminded, many have complained the increased difficulty of the new economic system. HOI4 has tons of balance problems but it is not a dumb game and speaking about CK2, the latest dlc only adds more glory to that masterpiece. What I see are errors and a bad market strategy (that nevertheless has largerly increased their capital) rather than the end of the glorious era of grand strategy games.

They are more cautious about releasing ambitious games like CK2 and Victoria2 and now prefer to reiterate the solid but (a bit) shallow EU4 scheme. On the other hand, costumers usually prefer the same soup rather than something totally new...

 

[Alpha2518]

I can think of two reasons major patches and expansions coincide:

- new functionality in the expansion requires substantial changes in the game to support it. That's why you can't use an expansion with any patch that precedes it

- the money to pay for patch development has to come from somewhere

Hard to see how to get past those, TBH.

Or you could do this. New patch comes out and has all these changes. Now wait a week or two, all that should happen is some hotfixes perhaps, and you put out your DLC so it stands out from whatever free changes the patch did. Surely it's not hard to make sure the DLC works with some quick hotfixes.

OR you could put out the expansion before any hotfix and it will still not be affected by anything negative that the patch changes. This method lets you avoid any problems with puttng hotfixes first and now you can focus on the patch without making the DLC compatible with the hotfixes.

 

[GundamMerc]

Or you could do this. New patch comes out and has all these changes. Now wait a week or two, all that should happen is some hotfixes perhaps, and you put out your DLC so it stands out from whatever free changes the patch did. Surely it's not hard to make sure the DLC works with some quick hotfixes.

OR you could put out the expansion before any hotfix and it will still not be affected by anything negative that the patch changes. This method lets you avoid any problems with puttng hotfixes first and now you can focus on the patch without making the DLC compatible with the hotfixes.

Then you have to make hotfixes for the issues that the DLC adds. You're having hotfixes either way. Your way just adds more hotfixes, not less. DLCs are still patches that can break things, and hotfixes are for things that PLAYERS have spotted much of the time. So you'd be solving nothing and creating more work.

 

[Metz]

Demographics, statistics, and multiple outcomes would increase replay-ability.

Population growth and dynamic culture/religion/economic system would make the games going back to more frequently.

 

[safe-keeper]

As for "dumbing down", I can only refer to my signature*.

As for modders appearing to outdo devs, that happens all the time. It's just how modding works. Also keep in mind that often devs and modders simply have different visions and design goals. I can say that Project Reality is a massive improvement over regular Battlefield 2, others might say it's boring and way too complicated.

I don't really agree they're "dumbing things down" across the board either. I for one greatly enjoyed MtG and thought it really breathed life into the previously stale naval game, and the ship designer is lots of fun to play with. Sure, it has its micro and QoL issues, but I find the idea itself to be great and the last thing I would call it is "dumbed down", and their design goals for HoI4 seem to be to add complexity, and many of the negative reviews of MtG complain about how it makes things too complicated. Likewise with the latest Stellaris updates, which got slammed by the "too complicated!" crowd.

I haven't played I:R, so I can't voice my opinion on it, but I suppose that they maybe decided to try something new by making a more "casual" game you can hop into more easily so that the non-grognards would also have a PDX game to play, and that the blowback is from PDX veterans who feel alienated. Just a guess from an outsider looking in. Again, haven't played I:R, so don't know if it's good or bad.

_________________________________________________________________________
*For phone users or others who can't see it:
"Paradox gamers are funny. They take games that need dozens of hours to learn, that they play for hundreds of hours, and they say "Oversimplified and dumbed down. No replayability value." --Panzer Commander
"We'll have people put 400+ hours into a game and then come over to the forums to decry it as "unplayable" without a hint of irony." --icedt729

 

[Alpha2518]

Then you have to make hotfixes for the issues that the DLC adds. You're having hotfixes either way. Your way just adds more hotfixes, not less. DLCs are still patches that can break things, and hotfixes are for things that PLAYERS have spotted much of the time. So you'd be solving nothing and creating more work.

It would be the same amount of work. Lets say a new version and a new DLC each have 10 bugs. So thats 20 bugs total. Patch goes out and you wait a bit like I said for the flak to hit the patch. Then you can put out the DLC without it being dragged down by the patch by people saying the DLC did things it didn't do. Guess what? You still have the same 20 bugs. It's the same amount of work in regards to fixing things. Having a simple additional step of waiting a bit so the DLC isn't caught by flak it doesn't deserve isn't work. It's just a few extra steps you take to the desk to start work.

You're not going to have 5 new bugs pop out out of nowhere just because you patch first then DLC. Why? Because at PDX where have both before release on their computers, they should have all the bugs that should be there because on the PCs that they test on, they are running both the patch and DLC at the same time as they test them. It would just be a staggered release with all the bugs that are already present. Nothing new is going to pop up.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Or you could do this. New patch comes out and has all these changes. Now wait a week or two, all that should happen is some hotfixes perhaps, and you put out your DLC so it stands out from whatever free changes the patch did. Surely it's not hard to make sure the DLC works with some quick hotfixes.

Isn't that what Blizzard does with WoW basically?

Mechanics changing free patch first and then expansion go live a few werks later?

 

[sr999]

...Everybody SAYS they want Rome games. Nobody actually does. ...

I think your second statement there is not quite right. They do actually want Rome games. But what they actually want is different to what almost everyone else actually wants.

Evidence? Ok, this thread is Exhibit A. There are almost as many incompatible identifications in this thread of "the" problem with IR (all expressed with ironic certainty) as there are posters in the thread. For example, those who "know" that "the" problem is it's dumbed down, versus those that (correctly in my view) realize it's anything but, and instead "know" that it's lack of nation-customization (which in my view is misplaced because contrary to superficial presentation it's far more customized "under the hood" than say FOGE). And so on. (ok, I trust you see what I did there, adding to the metaproblem I just identified)

...When the 1.1 patch hits, it'll pick up again, and people will howl about how broken it is, and they'll whine and complain. Then they'll gnash their teeth and rend their garments. In suitable Roman fashion. Then Johan will drop a Dev Diary with the first expansion "Delenda Est" and the sales numbers will jump through the roof, ad infinitum.

This prediction courtesy of your Uncle Duukie.

Indeed we need a bit of Stoicism. I hope you're right! But from what I'm seeing I reckon we've already fast-forwarded past the first expansion.

Why? because this discussion seems incredibly dated. The Cicero beta is running amok - sort of like an early access game on steroids, only faster than that. The update "patches" (we're up to the fourth) aren't just patches. They devs are sneaking in very serious new mechanics, some of which go way beyond what I remember of the original Cicero announcement. So we're not in Kansas any more. This week's specimen example is Update 4, which (iirc on just two days' notice) has abolished the old city concept, replacing it with three different beasts with some different rules applying and new type-specific buildings (EDIT: and I forgot to mention the new Food mechanic interacting with the new "cities" and attrition and trade etc...). So much for boring beta testing of bugfixes etc - we might as well be playing a new game every week or two. Sort of tough if you want to finish a game while having a day job, but... I don't know what the devs are smoking, but I want some!

At the same time, and apparently completely unrelated to announcements or bugfixes, Ive noticed some existing mechanics are (invisibly to non-modders) getting refactored, with swathes of modifiers becoming obsolete as they're replaced by others and sometimes organized in a completely different way. I stumbled across this because I do my own nerfs of slave promotion. On this week's update I found the relevant variable had done a runner from its old habitat, along with many others. It took me a while doing a series of brute-force searches to find the new pop defines and modifiers infrastructure, which had been more or less reassembled into new data structures with data for each of the four population types, in a completely different file, in a newly created game folder (or at least one I hadn't noticed before) in a different part of the engine.

From that, which obviously has zero visibility to most players, I would infer that the game's infrastructure is being re-engineered to make future maintenance simpler and/or to support future development projects. Such refactoring is a resource sink with no conceivable short-term payoff, managers always hate it and even devs find it a drag. So you only do it when you really really think you need it to fix future maintenance and.or development in the relevant area. From such "evidence" we objectively might infer that PDS is very committed to this game.

Interestingly, the way the new data structures are set up suggests to me that introduction of additional pop types, or splitting the existing ones, etc, now might be a relatively straightforward exercise for the new infrastructure, with minimal if any changes to code. I have no idea whether that, among the many other possibilities for nuancing pops such as assisting modders, could have been a motivation - but we're definitely living in interesting times!

 

[sr999]

Demographics, statistics, and multiple outcomes would increase replay-ability.

Population growth and dynamic culture/religion/economic system would make the games going back to more frequently.

Interesting! Pop growth was there from 1.0 iirc, and the dynamic stuff has been there from Pompey on. In Cicero it's getting mind-bending (in that I'm having trouble cracking it!)

 

[TFR]

Roman times doesn't do anything for me personally for how long ago it was, I can't relate to something 2000 years old. CKII is as far back as I can go before I start losing "touch" with how they lived. Though I just like fucking everything in that game and murdering people in combat. I'd like them to make another Victoria so it's easier to play with friends instead of having to use things like Hamachi or to add more depth to HoI IV like add economy and spying and more peacetime things to the game but HoI is just made for playing WWII.

 

[Kahldris]

I like rome imperator, I was a little disappointed at release as I was hoping for something more in depth. I wasnt the biggest fan of eu4. Eu4 is a good game in a lot of ways but there were some big things I didn't like.

Anyway paradox is really listening to the community and imperator rome is already looking better and better.

So what's the problem? I honestly dont get it. But then again my favorite paradox titles is stellaris and imperator rome.

I do like hoi4, stellaris was my 1st paradox title so i am little late to the party.

I am also a huge fan of the time period of rome imperator.

 

[Tapio]

Roman times doesn't do anything for me personally for how long ago it was, I can't relate to something 2000 years old. CKII is as far back as I can go before I start losing "touch" with how they lived. Though I just like fucking everything in that game and murdering people in combat. I'd like them to make another Victoria so it's easier to play with friends instead of having to use things like Hamachi or to add more depth to HoI IV like add economy and spying and more peacetime things to the game but HoI is just made for playing WWII.

Go read some Plato/Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius and you'll feel just fine in the time period...

 

[CrazyZombie]

Roman times doesn't do anything for me personally for how long ago it was, I can't relate to something 2000 years old. CKII is as far back as I can go before I start losing "touch" with how they lived. Though I just like fucking everything in that game and murdering people in combat. I'd like them to make another Victoria so it's easier to play with friends instead of having to use things like Hamachi or to add more depth to HoI IV like add economy and spying and more peacetime things to the game but HoI is just made for playing WWII.

It works the other way too. For me I:R is the game, where I can play as literally anyone and not feel bad, because I reenact massive massacre of my virtual "ancestors". I still prefer Greeks as, hey, they are cool, but in the end I'm pretty open minded to try everyone else.

And as I know some stuff about era, it adds some immersion over time.

 

[George1848]

I agree with the OP: Paradox games ARE becomming stale
-there is too much abtractisation and behind the scenes simplification, compensated by padding the game out and the ammount of clicks necessary
-it is simply too based on text, dice-rolls and mana
-therehas been barelly any truly new concepts introduced and most games are a rehash or something else. The last "experiment", is Stellaris and it run very badly, even without mods
-performance is very bad, when x5 times speed become x2 speed in many cases
-DLC model is simply not acceptable for a company that buys off other compagnies, organises events and basically became AAA for the past couple of years
-the games are too close for a spreadsheet simulator and do not seem to move on from there, despite the compagny being almost 20 years old soon
-numbers make no sence at times: in order to "balance" everything has a buff, when when it should have maluses: Feudal monarchy vs Constitutional monarchies and republics in EU4

 

[Oyster Boy]

-DLC model is simply not acceptable for a company that buys off other compagnies, organises events and basically became AAA for the past couple of years

Hear, hear! All these "respectfully disagree" mandems are in pure denial. If Ubisoft or Bethesda were doing what Paradox does they'd, rightly, get ripped too pieces, but because Paradox has a de facto monopoly on this genre they get excused. It's the same way people who play FIFA games turn a blind eye to their aggressive microtransactions.

 

[Duuk]

I agree with the OP: Paradox games ARE becomming stale
-there is too much abtractisation and behind the scenes simplification, compensated by padding the game out and the ammount of clicks necessary
-it is simply too based on text, dice-rolls and mana
-the games are too close for a spreadsheet simulator and do not seem to move on from there, despite the compagny being almost 20 years old soon
-numbers make no sence at times: in order to "balance" everything has a buff, when when it should have maluses: Feudal monarchy vs Constitutional monarchies and republics in EU4

Don't take this wrong, but it sounds like Grand Strategy Games might not be your niche.

Paradox games are the spiritual successors of the old "grognard" wargames. Go look up the original Europa Universalis wargame that Paradox licensed to build the game that made them famous. I found EU1 and picked it up thinking it was the closest thing I'd ever find to a PC conversion of the game "Empires in Arms" which is the type of game you need like 12 friends in a room for a week to play.

The kinds of games that come with 10,000 counters to punch out, a 300 page rule book, and a map that folds out to be like 8 feet by 6 feet and the makers of the game just assumed you'd have a 2nd table for everyone to keep their game pieces on.

 

[George1848]

Don't take this wrong, but it sounds like Grand Strategy Games might not be your niche.

Paradox games are the spiritual successors of the old "grognard" wargames. Go look up the original Europa Universalis wargame that Paradox licensed to build the game that made them famous. I found EU1 and picked it up thinking it was the closest thing I'd ever find to a PC conversion of the game "Empires in Arms" which is the type of game you need like 12 friends in a room for a week to play.

The kinds of games that come with 10,000 counters to punch out, a 300 page rule book, and a map that folds out to be like 8 feet by 6 feet and the makers of the game just assumed you'd have a 2nd table for everyone to keep their game pieces on.

With all due respect, but Grand Strategy is one of my favourite types of games, or at least was, you insinuating otherwise is quite disrespectful. Victoria 2, is still one of my top favourites, despite its unpolished design.
And with all due respect, but it sounds like you are defending stagnation: a game genre needs to innovate and change.
What makes Grand Strategy, Greand Strategy is NOT the abstractisation, neither the static counters, but the fact they try to simulate a strategic setting on a large scale:
Eu2-Eu4: 4 centuries, the entire world
CK series: Europe and asia with small pieces of feudalism/dynastic management
Victoria2: not just the world, but also a limited simulation of a population, society and country
On the contrary, ABSTRACTISATION, kills a Grand Strategy game, since it is a lazy way to go at it. And, I do not know how to put it but it has been almost 20 years, or two decades since such games began. Nostalgia aside, there is no reason for any game to seek to deliberately immitate older models. In fact, in a normal society or market, innovation would make older games look outdated, shallow and frustrating to play. This is not the case, as said before, Victoria 2, with all its faults gave you subjects and countries that felt more real than even those in Imperator Rome. This is backwards: a game should not need a few years after release, several DLCs worth of financing and a lot of patches to come close to older more outdated games in terms of depth. Where is the money going to? Advertising? Paying Sabbton for music? Artwork? Shareholders? Organising Paradox Con?

With all due respect,I also notice you tend to fanatically defend Paradox, each time complaints over the DLC models are brought up. As customers, we have a right of complaint.
Fanatical "fanboyism" is like poison to any discussion.

But, moving on: the DLCs were promised in exchange for innovation, but such innovation did not come. It is saddening that the most in depht country simulator is still Victoria 2, hands down. In fact, as I argued before, Paradox Interactive is curretely a AAA company, akin to Ubisoft and EA in terms of bussiness practice:
-events such as "Cons"
-taking over smaller studios
-releasing barebones games and constantly churing out DLCs. (Imperator: Rome)

In short: the DLC model is based on a promised innovation that did not come, and the current development cycle is focused too much on such DLCs, so much so that Imperator Rome proved that 1.0 games are barebones, too based on board games (mana) and too abstract.

This has lead to a further abstratisation of the games: the counters are only arbitrary limits. By this point, with all money it has received, I would have expected the number of people and the economy, not "manpower" and "force limits" to limit armies. Furthermore, it is tiring seeing how the only time there is a problem in the state obeying the player is due to gimmicks not the actual will of the population.
Furthermore, as a last point: I would wish to see rebels not always be treated as "scum", but as a force that can also bring positive changes(Victora 2 does it a bit.)

 

[VoidEmperor]

I agree with the OP: Paradox games ARE becomming stale
-there is too much abtractisation and behind the scenes simplification, compensated by padding the game out and the ammount of clicks necessary
-it is simply too based on text, dice-rolls and mana
-therehas been barelly any truly new concepts introduced and most games are a rehash or something else. The last "experiment", is Stellaris and it run very badly, even without mods
-performance is very bad, when x5 times speed become x2 speed in many cases
-DLC model is simply not acceptable for a company that buys off other compagnies, organises events and basically became AAA for the past couple of years
-the games are too close for a spreadsheet simulator and do not seem to move on from there, despite the compagny being almost 20 years old soon
-numbers make no sence at times: in order to "balance" everything has a buff, when when it should have maluses: Feudal monarchy vs Constitutional monarchies and republics in EU4

Hear, hear! All these "respectfully disagree" mandems are in pure denial. If Ubisoft or Bethesda were doing what Paradox does they'd, rightly, get ripped too pieces, but because Paradox has a de facto monopoly on this genre they get excused. It's the same way people who play FIFA games turn a blind eye to their aggressive microtransactions.

Disclaimer, I do not work for Paradox. That being said:

Paradox is still far from AAA. If you look at a typical AAA game at the height of its development, its usually a few hundred, over even over a thousand people working on it. As far as I've been told, at the height of development for Stellaris (?) before release, it had around 40 devs (might mix it up with EU4 or Hoi4 but im pretty sure I'm not, if any dev or support rep is willing to correct feel free to do so). For comparison, GTA V had over a thousand.


Paradox DLC policy isn't perfect. Over time, Paradox Games since the implementation of the current DLC policy will ramp up quite the cost. But, look at it objectively, taking EU4 as an example.

All of EU4 costs around 360€ without a sale, with the base game being 40€. The base game is perfectly playable and fine for casual gamers who just want to do some alt history on occasion. Those people will usually only buy a few DLCs for regions or game functions they like, such as El Dorado for the new world (my first DLC ever bought because I love the Incas).

Then theres those that invested and keep investing thousands of hours into the game, like myself nowadays - every two months or so I go into an EU4 frenzy where the only thing I do except for school is play the game. While recent DLC's have somewhat gone down in quality for eu4 as well as other Paradox Games, they have said publically that they are aware of it and want to improve on it, and also catch up on "tech debt". That is why 2019 is the year without a DLC for eu4 so to speak. Last one (Golden Century) was released last year in November, and the european expansion will be released early next year (though no exact date was given yet).

Now to look at numbers because numbers are fun and happy and don't hurt anyone. Except it's Pi or 41.8885 which I have concluded is the actual answer to life the universe and everything because Douglas Adams made a rounding error, (the golden ratio *4)² told me so. Anyway lets not get into that now. NUMBERS!

Lets look at The Witcher 3. Very well known and well received game, by one of the more revered publishers and devs remaining. On release it cost 50 or 60€ iirc (30 atm) without DLC's (now its about 60 with DLC's) but lets go with 50€ for simplicity and leniency. People take 25h (speedrun) -100h (completionist) to complete it, so lets go with 65h. So if you complete it once, you spend 77 cents per hour of entertainment. If you were to buy all of EU4 for 360€, a game that is constantly being developed 6 years after release, you would need to spend 468 hours on the game to have the same "cents per hour of entertainment" value. Which, for many active EU4 players, is very little and still considered a beginner at the game. And that is without any sale, not all DLC's bought as bulk during a non-sale period. Which, given that Paradox does -25-75% sales fairly often, is not in Paradox's favor in my calculation.


Anyway, conclusion is, Paradox DLC policy is not great, but given what they do, that they keep developing the game and add features/fix bugs years after its release, many even for free or from previous DLC content, it is very justifiable given the replayability of (most of) their games that apply this policy.

-Void

#edit 19th of September, messed up a sentence, changed one "but" to "not"

 

[Eelectrica]

Lets look at The Witcher 3. Very well known and well received game, by one of the more revered publishers and devs remaining. On release it cost 50 or 60€ iirc (30 atm) without DLC's (now its about 60 with DLC's) but lets go with 50€ for simplicity and leniency. People take 25h (speedrun) -100h (completionist) to complete it, so lets go with 65h. So if you complete it once, you spend 77 cents per hour of entertainment. If you were to buy all of EU4 for 360€, a game that is constantly being developed 6 years after release, you would need to spend 468 hours on the game to have the same "cents per hour of entertainment" value. Which, for many active EU4 players, is very little and still considered a beginner at the game. And that is without any sale, but all DLC's bought as bulk during a non-sale period. Which, given that Paradox does -25-75% sales fairly often, is not in Paradox's favor in my calculation.


Anyway, conclusion is, Paradox DLC policy is not great, but given what they do, that they keep developing the game and add features/fix bugs years after its release, many even for free or from previous DLC content, it is very justifiable given the replayability of (most of) their games that apply this policy.

-Void

Other thing to keep in mind is that a good chunk of that EU4 cost is in E-book, music packs and graphics addons. In reality their are only 15 DLC and a lot of those can be skipped without losing anything. 15 DLC over 6 years isn't bad actually.
In short with EU4, don't hit the 'complete my collection' button on Steam, or if anyone does, they should review it first and cut out the unnecessary stuff.

 

[Duuk]

With all due respect,I also notice you tend to fanatically defend Paradox, each time complaints over the DLC models are brought up. As customers, we have a right of complaint.
Fanatical "fanboyism" is like poison to any discussion.

I spent over 2 years on a forum ban for my rampant disagreements with Paradox about things. Nice try though. But when I've been around for 18 years, you'd assume I generally like their overall products.

But in reality, I have this same argument on almost every site, CivFanatics, Paradox, ARK, etc:

Companies need revenue. The DLC or expansion model is here to stay. Between CK2 and Stellaris (and prior to them EU1 and 2, CK1, HOI1, Victoria 1 and 2, Sengoku, Majesty, and Airfix Dogfighter I have spent tens of thousands of hours on Paradox games. I have probably given them a sum total of maybe $5,000. MAYBE. Probably significantly less. For nearly 20 years of entertainment. Not the least of which was old-time forum Off-Topic flame wars (and even winning a Post-Of-The-Month once!)

All of that costs money, and the DLC model pays for it. The way Paradox DLC works is the absolute best in the industry, and anyone that doesn't realize that is, quite literally, blinded by pure hate for capitalism and unable to understand basic economics.

Paradox DOES NOT REQUIRE you to purchase the DLC to get the latest patches and features (unlike, for example, Civilization, that gates content behind expansions). If you play multiplayer, ONLY THE HOST needs to own the DLC and it is enabled for EVERY PLAYER. Meaning if I hosted an MP game, and all of my friends ONLY owned the base game, they would all be treated as owning EVERY BIT OF DLC. You can PICK AND CHOOSE which DLC you want. Oh, MegaCorp doesn't interest you, but Synthetic Dawn does? Fine, they are interchangeable. You can buy a-la-carte.

Firaxis just sent out a mass email survey asking people what DLC/expansion model they should be using for the Civilization series going forward. I would be *very* surprised if they didn't move closer to this model and dumped the "1 expansion every 18 months" model.

Paradox does more with less staff than any company out there. The average team per game is 1 game designer/team lead, 2 programmers, 2 scripters. The QA team is often shared between the projects. Some projects may be larger (I think Stellaris has 1-2 more people) but some teams are DEFINITELY smaller (CK2 is basically a skeleton crew right now).