Stop Complaining About Paradox "Watering Down" Titles!

[overthetop_G]

I'm sure a lot of you have complained about or at least seen complaints about paradox "Watering down" Victoria III and CKIII from their predecessors in the series. And I am sure that all of you know that EUIV's time as an updated game is coming to a close, despite having become one of the most- if not the most- successful games paradox has ever made. Naturally, the time has come for the developers to start thinking seriously about making a new addition to the Europa Universalis dynasty. And, of course, some of you are worried that EU5 will be a watered-down version of EUIV. In fact, I think that this post on the last domination dev diary sums up the majority viewpoint:

EU IV is a masterpiece, i[sic] only hope that you will not water down the game with EU V as what happened with the other titles, if you literally dont[sic] change anything about the design of the game but only improve the graphics and deepen the gameplay systems it will be a huge success. you [sic] already have a huge fanbase no need to dumb it down for new players.

(The "sic"s are added by me, they are used when quoting texts with grammar and spelling errors to show that you did not misspell a quotation).

First of all, when the developers "Water down" games, it is not for new players. New players arrive in a constant stream, not all at once at the release of a game. In addition, new players do not need a game to be "Watered down". I started playing EUIV after lions of the north was released, and I had no problem adjusting to an extremely complex game. True, it took me a while to understand that it is not a good idea to integrate vassals by declaring a no cause belli ware on them, but I did not need "dumbing down" to understand the game. And the developers probably understand that new players don't need a game to be "dumbed down".

In addition, only improving the graphics and deepening gameplay (and, of course, adding more DLC's- gotta love those-) is only grafting new things onto an existing structure- what paradox does when ever they release a DLC. So, an EUV with all the same mechanics as EUIV would not be "Watered down"-- but it would not deserve the title of EUV. Maybe, it might be deserving of the title of "EUIV- New Engine, Better Graphics, More DLC's!" or "EUIV- all previous DLC's are now free, enjoy them for a month before the next wave of $20 add-ons comes!" or even "Europa Universalis-- 4.5!", but it would not deserve the title of EUV. Making a new game in a series is about stripping the game to it's core, re-making that core, and then adding more content over the years- NOT re-coding an existing game and tacking on new content.

Perhaps, though, an analogy is the best way to reach you. You start a game as Munich in 1444. You unite Bavaria by 1460, and then follow the mission tree until you control Austria, Bavaria, the lowlands, and northern Italy, and have become the emperor of the HRE. by the year 1821 you have become a nation with dozens more provinces, thousands more ducats then when you started, and a powerhouse that dominates Europe. Complaining about paradox "watering down" games is like comparing Munich in 1444 to the Bavarian powerhouse you have built by the year 1821, and saying "Why is Munich not as powerful as it was at the end of my last play-through?! I've been betrayed by paradox!". Every new addition in a series of titles is like a new play through at the 1444 start-date. Maybe that time Munich dominated europe. Maybe this time you will give it a colonial empire. Maybe in EUIV colonization became overpowered. Maybe in EUV it will be diplomacy that is over-powered. Every new game is a new play through, with the same vague goals. When you play as Byzantium and wish to resurrect Rome, you do not know how to get there. Paradox knows it wants to attract massive amounts of players and make a killing from DLC's, but Paradox does not know how it is going to get there. So each and every playthrough of the game of development starts with the same base, and tries to reach the same lofty goals. And that, my friends, is why paradox "waters down" games, and why we should not criticize them for doing so, but instead praise their efforts.

 

[moscal]

Main problem with EU5 can be, that this will be only "paint by PDX". Only go and change world in your color. Lack deeper interaction with society, economy, diplomacy, factions etc. Lack side effects after 100 years. You look - polish nobles had ban on trade and craft (or this person lost nobility). After few generation trade in PLC was dominated by Jews, Germans and Dutch and PLC hadnt own non-rural production. In EU4 this is only "click for +5%X and forget".

 

[Vulkandrache]

I need someone to explain the point of this thread to me.

 

[Clonefusion]

Kinda interesting since eu4 is a watered down version of eu3 if u check out eu4 in the first year at least. And as much as this happened with Vic 3 and CK 3 in relation to Vic 2 and CK 2, it happened with EU 4 too in relation to EU 3, so honestly i am not that extremely worried.

 

[Johan]

Kinda interesting since eu4 is a watered down version of eu3 if u check out eu4 in the first year at least. And as much as this happened with Vic 3 and CK 3 in relation to Vic 2 and CK 2, it happened with EU 4 too in relation to EU 3, so honestly i am not that extremely worried.

Ironically EU4 was actually built upon EU3 with all expansions, with a few features removed to be replaced with other mechanics. You could argue that it took a while to get some new Daimyo system for EU4, but the one in eu3 was rather bad.

Here's a DD i wrote 11 years ago on the topic.

Europa Universalis IV dev diary 2 –The purge & all cards on the table

Welcome to a new development diary about Europa Universalis IV where we talk about the purge the game is undergoing. So what is a purge when it comes to creating a sequel? Purging is when we remove features that simply are not good enough...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[st360]

I need someone to explain the point of this thread to me.

The OP is basically saying that its somehow good and necessary for a game to become easier the more DLCs it has. Honestly, I'm trying to keep it forum respectful, but I really don't know how to critique that other than just calling it a impressively bad opinion.

 

[JustinianI.]

I have read your entire post multiple times and it is still baffling to me.
"And that, my friends, is why paradox "waters down" games, and why we should not criticize them for doing so, but instead praise their efforts."
If I end up with a new game in a series that is less fun to me than its predecessor, I am not going to "praise the developer's efforts", I am going to be disappointed that I spent (at least) 50€ of my money for something worse than what I already had. Some people feel this way about CK 3 and Vicky 3. However, having this discussion about EU5 at this time seems remarkably pointless to me, as there is barely anything we even know about that. Telling people to shut up and praise something that neither you nor they know anything about is just confusing to me.

 

[Jarvin]

EU4 is in a funny state currently.

I feel like we really need to learn to distinguish between the early complexity and long-term complexity
Not sure if I can come up with a right analogy, but it's kind of like when you use a smartphone for the first time, and you see a new way of interacting with a device, countless applications, settings...
and then a month later you have no problems with using the touchscreen and you instinctively learn how to use any application


EU4 has a lot of that early complexity, and each new bloated DLC with new modifiers, government reforms and whatnot adds further and further onto that.
Ask a very new player to launch the game as a big country like France, and see if he'll be able to figure out what "Improving provinces" means from literally his first mission, or if he'll be able to figure out whether he should take an idea group that gives "army tradition from battles" or one that gives "estate interaction cooldown reduction"

EU4 is not really complex in the long-run, as with some well-sourced knowledge you realize that 90% of the choices the game gives you are practically non-choices, as in. one option will always be better, a lot of mechanics can be straight up ignored, a lot of modifiers don't really matter, and in a lot of cases it's very, very easy to trivialize any challenge that the game could put up against you. (mostly because AI has been consistently ignored for the past years of development, while the player has been given more and more tools, to the point where this game genuinely feels like a power fantasy shounen anime)


I feel like EU4's main sin is that its simultaneously getting harder to get into, and IMHO harder to stay in, because the game can really lose in your eyes once you learn how it works.
I wouldn't mind if EU5 or whatever decided to remove a lot of EU4's mechanics and a lot of the bloat like stupid unnecessary modifiers and a million government reforms and ideas except only 10% of them are actually worthwhile.

EU5 could be a "simpler" game, but I'd like for its mechanics to be actually well designed, and functional even in the long-term, and not just in the discovery phase.

 

[Moulton]

I have to say recent Paradox releases haven't been what got me into Paradox games to begin with.


We need the clunky magic back, the depth and mystery.

I still don't think there's enough in CK3 for me to play it over CK2.

 

[overthetop_G]

The OP is basically saying that its somehow good and necessary for a game to become easier the more DLCs it has. Honestly, I'm trying to keep it forum respectful, but I really don't know how to critique that other than just calling it a impressively bad opinion.

Well, no, I am trying to say that a sequel is "watered down" because it has less mechanics than the prequel, which has the benefit of years of updates does not make sense.

 

[overthetop_G]

I have to say recent Paradox releases haven't been what got me into Paradox games to begin with.


We need the clunky magic back, the depth and mystery.

I still don't think there's enough in CK3 for me to play it over CK2.

right, because CKIII was just released. My point in the post was that sequels are made by boiling a game down to its core concept and then building it back up again, not by copying all the mechanics from a previous game.

 

[overthetop_G]

I have read your entire post multiple times and it is still baffling to me.
"And that, my friends, is why paradox "waters down" games, and why we should not criticize them for doing so, but instead praise their efforts."
If I end up with a new game in a series that is less fun to me than its predecessor, I am not going to "praise the developer's efforts", I am going to be disappointed that I spent (at least) 50€ of my money for something worse than what I already had. Some people feel this way about CK 3 and Vicky 3. However, having this discussion about EU5 at this time seems remarkably pointless to me, as there is barely anything we even know about that. Telling people to shut up and praise something that neither you nor they know anything about is just confusing to me.

I am saying that a game that was just released (i.e., has one or two years of work) is no where near as complex as one in its end stage. So, complaining about a game with one years work being less complex than a game with five or even eight years work does not make sense. I can understand why people felt cheated when getting a much simpler game as CKIII or Vicky III, but we have to realize that just-released games cannot have as much content as ones with years of work.

 

[overthetop_G]

Kinda interesting since eu4 is a watered down version of eu3 if u check out eu4 in the first year at least. And as much as this happened with Vic 3 and CK 3 in relation to Vic 2 and CK 2, it happened with EU 4 too in relation to EU 3, so honestly i am not that extremely worried.

My point in the whole post is that we should be acting like the guy I am quoting, NOT complaining that just released games have less content than their prequels.

 

[Cuke]

I'm sure a lot of you have complained about or at least seen complaints about paradox "Watering down" Victoria III and CKIII from their predecessors in the series.

That's a queer assumption, to say the least.

 

[overthetop_G]

That's a queer assumption, to say the least.

I am not good at wording things, but the assumption was made on the basis that I've seen many people complain about titles being watered down, but I have never seen anyone come to the developers defense.

 

[Mindel]

I need someone to explain the point of this thread to me.

OP is ranting about and attempting to rebut hypothetical complaints against an unreleased (possibly as yet undeveloped) game which he speculates will have certain design features compared to EU4.

None of these things have actually happened yet. Check back in 2025.

His username seems accurate though.

 

[Lord Lambert]

If EU5 is as much of a step down from EU4 as Vic3 was from Vic2 then I and others will be right to complain. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[agonistes]

If EU5 is as much of a step down from EU4 as Vic3 was from Vic2 then I and others will be right to complain. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well, in fairness, the vic 2 economy was unusually well done.

 

[EarlKonrad]

If EU5 is as much of a step down from EU4 as Vic3 was from Vic2 then I and others will be right to complain. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So we heard you didnt like like army micro so we remove the War aspect from the game to give more focus to the diplomatic side of the game. You now have to micromanage what each of your diplomats do in each and every foreign country by telling them what actions they should be undertaking via the "diplomacy queue". We also made away with such quaint mechanics like colonization, ships and technology. They never worked anyway.

 

[Lord Lambert]

So we heard you didnt like like army micro so we remove the War aspect from the game to give more focus to the diplomatic side of the game. You now have to micromanage what each of your diplomats do in each and every foreign country by telling them what actions they should be undertaking via the "diplomacy queue". We also made away with such quaint mechanics like colonization, ships and technology. They never worked anyway.