The game is starting to feel more like "use the mission tree"

[annulen]

...
The problems experienced after the release of Leviathan were a consequence of that legacy, and since then, we've spoken out loud on what we're doing: fixing as much as possible the state of the existing game systems while developing new content.

On the first objective, I think the changelogs of the last updates speak for themselves on our work.
...
PD: In our CD Team there are no interns, the only historian here is me and I held a Ph.D. (so I know a couple of things about historical research and History), and we also have some programmers. So I suppose ignorance is bold.

That's nice to hear, and changelogs are definitely impressive. However, I'm curious if you have any QA folks there. Or just anybody in your team who can play the game sometimes? Björn said you have no open QA positions, but your QA department still seems non-existent to me. A lot of entries from aforementioned changelogs address really trivial issues which could have been easily spotted by anyone playing the game. Yet, somehow a number of them were fixed only after I've filed them to the bug reports forum.

BTW I've started new campaign in 1.33, and already filed 2.5 pages of new bug reports, so you definitely have some more work to do for 1.34 and 1.35

 

[annulen]

You kind of do have to because you're left with a wholly different meta to work with.

And... what? You can build a game tailored for your interests, it's a part of experience. I've started from vanilla game and added more DLCs gradually, still not owning the whole suite, and I see no problem with that.

And, again, there are always hints that this DLC or that will fix ongoing problems but add stuff which no one was really shouting for, which usually require a few patches just to fix.

DLCs don't ship fixes. All fixes (including fixes for content exclusive to previous DLCs) are shipped in free patches.

I know I see the dates jump and soft cuts in games allegedly being recorded "live".

If some blogger edits video and pretends it to be live, it might be considered as fraud made by that specific person (or just be their way of presenting content). This does not prove that edits were made because of Paradox attempting to hide (something gruesome? dead aliens grade?) from the public.

 

[I like wars and maps]

This thread has come to the attention of the dev team, so let me say a couple of things.

Mission trees are not a mandatory feature of the game, as some people have already pointed out. What they do is expand the gameplay experience of EU4, which by this time, almost 9 years after it was released, is already difficult to achieve.

And it's difficult not because of a lack of creativity or fresh ideas in the team, but because there is a legacy that had to be assumed when Paradox Tinto was put in charge of the development of the game, in 2020. The problems experienced after the release of Leviathan were a consequence of that legacy, and since then, we've spoken out loud on what we're doing: fixing as much as possible the state of the existing game systems while developing new content.

On the first objective, I think the changelogs of the last updates speak for themselves on our work. Regarding the second, it's true that the main way of developing new content is being in the form of missions, but not that we're avoiding adding more depth to the game. In the last mission trees, we've been experimenting and developing less railroaded paths for them, giving more agency to the player to develop and create its own gameplay, based on both branching missions, but also on variable triggers and rewards. And what we're also doing is implementing new content to the existing game mechanics, instead of introducing new ones that would compromise again the state of the game. Also because the game at this point is already quite dense and complicated to learn for newcomers, something that veteran players with thousands of hours into the game are not always aware of.

What are the changes to the base game we've been working on? I'll talk a bit more about them in a DD in a couple of weeks. But we've already shown a lot of new government reforms, not only giving modifiers but also affecting other game mechanics; new naval doctrines; changes in the combat system; next week we'll show improvements to the AI... And all of them coming for free in the next update.

So, it's fair to criticize the mission system if you don't like it. But, at the same time, we think some of the critics poured into the game development are unfair, on the other hand.

And, also, let me note that comments like these:




Are completely out of place in this forum, regarding the new code of conduct. As I said in another thread, devs deem respect, and more if you want us to continue interacting directly with the community, one of the things that we're proud of in Paradox.

PD: In our CD Team there are no interns, the only historian here is me and I held a Ph.D. (so I know a couple of things about historical research and History), and we also have some programmers. So I suppose ignorance is bold.

But what about taking previous dlc mechanics and giving them to other countrys too sort of like how you create religions with them mostly being recolours of Protestanism with different modifiers.

 

[PDXBigBoss]

That's nice to hear, and changelogs are definitely impressive. However, I'm curious if you have any QA folks there. Or just anybody in your team who can play the game sometimes? Björn said you have no open QA positions, but your QA department still seems non-existent to me. A lot of entries from aforementioned changelogs address really trivial issues which could have been easily spotted by anyone playing the game. Yet, somehow a number of them were fixed only after I've filed them to the bug reports forum.

BTW I've started new campaign in 1.33, and already filed 2.5 pages of new bug reports, so you definitely have some more work to do for 1.34 and 1.35

We have both external and internal QA teams of multiple people who have been working for months since we delivered the first iteration of the 1.34 content. They're just quiet people and not in the limelight I suppose. But they are extremely hard-working folks and I have discussions with them daily.

A lot of entries from aforementioned changelogs address really trivial issues which could have been easily spotted by anyone playing the game. Yet, somehow a number of them were fixed only after I've filed them to the bug reports forum.

Since 2020 we have fixed over 3000 bugs according to internal analytics, some may slip through the cracks. We are humans after all ^_^ Please feel free to submit any and all bug reports and we will get to them as soon as we can!

Or just anybody in your team who can play the game sometimes?

I have nearly 12.000 hours in the game, about 2k of them probably on modding, I love playing the game personally. I know our QA guys have at least 4-5k hours of pure gameplay each, so there's also that! I play MPs with my friends as frequently as time allows it and we have a weekly game going on internally ( rip Gotland ).

 

[annulen]

Since 2020 we have fixed over 3000 bugs according to internal analytics, some may slip through the cracks. We are humans after all ^_^

Whoa. Then I'm sorry, my bad for not giving them a proper credit. (I actually suspect that most of those 3k bugs were found in pre-release iterations where it's mostly known where to look for bugs, but it's still a solid number). Perhaps they enjoy the game too much and don't pay attention when some things are off if they don't ruin gameplay completely

 

[Arizal]

But what about taking previous dlc mechanics and giving them to other countrys too sort of like how you create religions with them mostly being recolours of Protestanism with different modifiers.

Which mechanics are you thinking about exactly?

Minimal implementation of "conditional missions" should be possible without changing missions UI and with very little (if any) changes to missions themselves.

I would really like to be as optimistic as you are. To me, mission trees are static modifiers that you click on when you fulfill the triggers. If you could add missions in-game, the mission panel would be very different indeed.

 

[annulen]

To me, mission trees are static modifiers that you click on when you fulfill the triggers. If you could add missions in-game, the mission panel would be very different indeed.

Basically, it just needs to re-check mission conditions when triggers fire, rebuild mission graph, and repaint itself if necessary.

 

[Arizal]

Basically, it just needs to re-check mission conditions when triggers fire, rebuild mission graph, and repaint itself if necessary.

Mmh, you are probably right. But changing all the missions in a tree, unlocking other trees based on the choices the player makes, is probably less easy to code than you think.

That said, I'm no programmer and no content designer.

Currently, as far as I know, missions are solely tied to the countries you play. The "easiest" way to do that that I can envision would be to tie them culture or religion, having "generic" missions tied to each culture you accept and to the religions that are present in your country. Already, with religions, except a button giving you the ability to convert, the changes are less absolute than with culture.

Then you can add as triggers when you become a kingdom or an empire. You may also think about giving missions to idea groups, government reforms, disasters, to some states your country can find itself in (-3 stability, 20 WE, 20 inflation, etc.)...

If it's something like that that you have in mind, maybe it's doable. But calculating this for every country might become an headache. That's why I'm trying to privilege button clicking triggers.

 

[I like wars and maps]

Which mechanics are you thinking about exactly?



I would really like to be as optimistic as you are. To me, mission trees are static modifiers that you click on when you fulfill the triggers. If you could add missions in-game, the mission panel would be very different indeed.

New government types like the Mamluk one wich are very unique and fun to play with.

 

[annulen]

Currently, as far as I know, missions are solely tied to the countries you play.

Yes and no. Each mission subtree has a set of conditions that enable it - "potential" block. Resulting graph of missions is composed from all subtrees that have their conditions satisfied. However, conditions are only evaluated on start, and effectively everything depends solely on country you play.

Then you can add as triggers when you become a kingdom or an empire. You may also think about giving missions to idea groups, government reforms, disasters, to some states your country can find itself in (-3 stability, 20 WE, 20 inflation, etc.)...

Potentially everything listed in https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Triggers can be used. But it would be better to limit list of triggers that can affect missions to a small set. Otherwise it would just turn missions into an analog of events or event chains, and they would lack necessary level of determinism.

But calculating this for every country might become an headache

There are lots of triggers evaluated for every country periodically.

 

[Arizal]

New government types like the Mamluk one wich are very unique and fun to play with.

Indeed, any unique government reforms should be available to everyone provided they meet reasonable triggers.

Thanks for the precisions, @annulen . It's true triggers are already periodically checked. I might be overplaying how difficult it would be to apply them to mission trees, as they are functionally events in waiting.

 

[annulen]

Indeed, any unique government reforms should be available to everyone provided they meet reasonable triggers.

I disagree, Unlike mission trees, unique government reforms don't create a narrative for you, they only affect your strategic options. So IMO they can very well be hardwired to tags and require formation of respective tag to access them.

 

[Arizal]

I disagree, Unlike mission trees, unique government reforms don't create a narrative for you, they only affect your strategic options. So IMO they can very well be hardwired to tags and require formation of respective tag to access them.

Ehh, government reforms affect how your country is governed, what it's strong at and what it can do. They are a very good illustration of what I mean by dynamic parts of the game. They help create a story through your actions. I think it's a shame that the devs still didn't make them available to everyone.

There is nothing inherently different between countries by virtue of their simple names. EU ought to represent how those countries were different.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

That's nice to hear, and changelogs are definitely impressive. However, I'm curious if you have any QA folks there. Or just anybody in your team who can play the game sometimes?

Son, you ARE the QA (spoken like the gears of war line) lol.

But no, even historically QA testing/ID of bugs wasn't the issue in EU 4. There were times where the line "we are the QA" could have been considered a lot more true than it is now. There was never a dearth of bugs identified. The issue in EU 4's patch history was always that long-confirmed bugs simply weren't fixed. You can't fix already ID'd bugs with more testers or more gameplay knowledge. You need someone who can actually program the game to go in and fix the enormous quantity of problems already identified, and to allocate resources so that someone is able to do it.

Prior to 2020, that was happening a lot less than it is now, and the backlog was pretty immense. Tinto more or less had to not only try to keep up with issues introduced by new stuff, but also fix remaining issue from new stuff from the past 6+ years. I know this, because bugs I'd known about for longer that which always annoyed me went away. Which means they reached that far back, but also addressed other known issues introduced in that 2016-2020 window too.

It's a massive improvement and while I have my criticisms of some design choices (nobody will get a game 100% to preference that still sells) and UI elements (somewhat more low-hanging fruit), IMO Tinto should be commended for both overall direction choice and making up for lost time wrt cleaning up the game. Previous devs have talked about catching up on tech debt, but in the past two years we've actually *observed* it happening.

To me, a meme Gotland tree is a small tradeoff for that, assuming we don't go into HOI territory.

 

[Aloraand]

Son, you ARE the QA (spoken like the gears of war line) lol.

But no, even historically QA testing/ID of bugs wasn't the issue in EU 4. There were times where the line "we are the QA" could have been considered a lot more true than it is now. There was never a dearth of bugs identified. The issue in EU 4's patch history was always that long-confirmed bugs simply weren't fixed. You can't fix already ID'd bugs with more testers or more gameplay knowledge. You need someone who can actually program the game to go in and fix the enormous quantity of problems already identified, and to allocate resources so that someone is able to do it.

Prior to 2020, that was happening a lot less than it is now, and the backlog was pretty immense. Tinto more or less had to not only try to keep up with issues introduced by new stuff, but also fix remaining issue from new stuff from the past 6+ years. I know this, because bugs I'd known about for longer that which always annoyed me went away. Which means they reached that far back, but also addressed other known issues introduced in that 2016-2020 window too.

It's a massive improvement and while I have my criticisms of some design choices (nobody will get a game 100% to preference that still sells) and UI elements (somewhat more low-hanging fruit), IMO Tinto should be commended for both overall direction choice and making up for lost time wrt cleaning up the game. Previous devs have talked about catching up on tech debt, but in the past two years we've actually *observed* it happening.

To me, a meme Gotland tree is a small tradeoff for that, assuming we don't go into HOI territory.

But does the gotland tree need to break the rules of the game for people to buy the dlc? If yes, then that's a reasonable trade off, but I kind of doubt that that's the case. E.g. I really enjoy the GB tree, (besides the hundred years war/France stuff) and it does not break the game by giving me 40ish years of income, or a second golden era.

 

[Arizal]

Tinto should be commended for both overall direction choice and making up for lost time wrt cleaning up the game.

I could agree with that, though I'm playing the game so little lately because I'm discouraged by the aforementioned direction the devs are taking - and since I didn't buy any expansion since Leviathan has been released - that I didn't see it that much.

But does the gotland tree need to break the rules of the game for people to buy the dlc? If yes, then that's a reasonable trade off, but I kind of doubt that that's the case. E.g. I really enjoy the GB tree, (besides the hundred years war/France stuff) and it does not break the game by giving me 40ish years of income, or a second golden era.

Despite what the current fans of EUIV are saying, this feels to me like pay to win : you buy an expansion to get new mechanics, not necessarily good or interesting mechanics, but power creep. In Vanilla, nobody will be able to do with Denmark what that mission tree will make them able to do.

 

[annulen]

Despite what the current fans of EUIV are saying, this feels to me like pay to win : you buy an expansion to get new mechanics, not necessarily good or interesting mechanics, but power creep

It would get really interesting if AI was smart enough to actually follow these mission trees without external help. If results for the world's picture were horrible enough, developers would consider making missions more balanced

 

[annulen]

Ehh, government reforms affect how your country is governed, what it's strong at and what it can do.

In other words, and extended version of national ideas. They define your strong points, but don't dictate how you use them exactly.

There is nothing inherently different between countries by virtue of their simple names. EU ought to represent how those countries were different.

In EU4 countries differ by their national ideas and governments. For example, Madyas and Tondo are very similar Philippine minors, but they have different NIs and different government types. If they were the same, there would be no point in choosing between them.

However, they also have tag-specific mission chains which imply different paths of country development. But there is no real reason why Tondo couldn't put more focus on military and unite home region, or why Madyas couldn't switch government to plutocratic and put more focus on trade

 

[Anna_Gein]

To me, a meme Gotland tree is a small tradeoff for that, assuming we don't go into HOI territory.

I feel the other way.

Bug fixing is great and all but if the trade off is converting the game into something different , then it is at best pointless. I feel the same re CK2 and HoI4.

 

[brifbates]

We have both external and internal QA teams of multiple people who have been working for months since we delivered the first iteration of the 1.34 content. They're just quiet people and not in the limelight I suppose. But they are extremely hard-working folks and I have discussions with them daily.

And yet you're (team, not necessarily you individually) still releasing patches with blatant, easily corrected, bugs in newly added content such as the +100% instead of 1% in the horde ideas so something is clearly broken. Either QA is not being organized properly to ensure all new content is properly reviewed along with more general gameplay testing or said reviews are incompetent or the issues they raise aren't being addressed in a timely manner. Whichever area is the problem is irrelevant to the consumers, all we see is one broken release after another...