The way backing down is punished disincentives deescalation

[Voidian]

The way diplomatic plays work needs to be changed and there is no sense pushing against that.

There are ways the system could be made worse, that doesn't mean there arent ways the system can be made better. Currently diplomatic plays in victoria 3 do not reflect the way they work in real life, and they are a frustrating element for the playerbase to engage with. One or the other isn't enough for a system to be in need of refinement, but both certainly is.

A diplomatic play is supposed to be a lot of sabre rattling and diplomatic manuveering, not a countdown to war. there should be options for a white peace or even a negotiated settlement. This is hard to achieve, just look at treaties in the current iteration of the game. But it should be a priority of the dev team to be lurching toward that goal

You're probably right.

But that rework must not be done to simply dumb down the feature further, people often conflate "better" with easier, and easier is Always worse.

If anything the system could be made better, with more depth, in a way that's even more punishing than it is now.
I mean, other than EU4 can we even name a modern paradox game in which players have even a chance of losing territory anymore? Every game is just turning into a blobbing simulator, every war ends with the player growing larger, who decided removing the possibility of losing land, or getting stuck in impossible situations/military conflicts shouldn't happen in a grand strategy game?

I'd say a grand strategy game in which this does not happen is a shameful failure.