I don't get it. I wouldn't be buying such games. I would wait 2 years till all DLCs come out, and then pirate the whole package. Considering I buy all my games. I'm not paying a price of a game and 5 or more expensive DLCs to have a full experience.
it just meant that all the base game they sell is pretty much the early access until the time they will announce that they will stop development on a particular game
@@stanislavkimov2779 Eh I am not a big moral person on the issue of Pirating, I watch a lot of movies online because I refuse to have half a dozen different anime subscription services. I will say when it comes to games though it's fairly hard to find anything "not mainstream" in a complete state, and you also run a far higher risk of viruses and such than other forms of media. It can be done obviously but the effort and risk is high enough that if companies made a half decent game at a fair price I think the risk of people going to pirate a game is far less than anything else. Frankly the only roms I ever really got into were for games I own on systems that no longer work, like some the older Pokemon games.
Reminds me when I went around shopping for schools to learn game development. One school bragged that for a final project the students have to help make a Call of Duty game. I thought in the back of my mind, that sounds like sweatshop development.
Those were all the rage in the early 2000's I believe. Funny how almsot all of them went bankrupt and shut down after it was proven few if any the graduates got a job in the industry. I think Devry was the big one, an all around "Tech" school that failed to really get people jobs.
@@JustaGuy_Gaming The for profit schools were basically the ones that had commercials on TV. The one I was looking at was in Hollywood and focused primarily on film but had a growing video game department. It was impressive but them bragging about getting students to work for free was BS.
@@JustaGuy_Gaming yeah I had a friend and a cousin back then who each got scammed by those kind of schools. I also still remember the DeVry ads on tv back in the day.
@@SoullessAIMusic I heard few rumors about them being used for "Free work" if anything the major Universities like Harvard, MiT etc are more well known for their graduate students being used as free labor in Internships and the like. But as I said the biggest problem is most those for profit schools lacked the historic track record to really get people into jobs. Most taught you decent skills but their graduate degree didn't mean much to companies that barely heard of them. Their more than fair passing rates didn't help either. Tons of people who barely knew anything would graduate from those schools.
@@JustaGuy_Gaming it was worse. Thanks to parental guidance I ended up at one of those schools. It was basically live youtube tutorials. In short they cancelled the game development program 3 months before I was going to graduate the AA program, leading me into the BA games program. The good news was that the AA program I had to take was graphic design and video editing, needless to say that really came in handy in the modern day, though I have a few horror stories from the college for profit days.
Reminder that some content creators (Rimmy Down Under) defended Victoria 3 to the death. Going so far as to argue & say the problems were actually good. Companies paying ppl to play games is such a trash move.
It's sad to think the great studios are gone but they are, the old founders who had vision and the drive to create that made the original companies profitable are either retired or passed on. These are shell companies now. ,
@@hugovandyk9918 Indeed, the people that make the studio, these is something i heard in a challen call Pato Bonato, is not the nation, is not the flag that make the nation, is the people, the cutlrue of those people, is the people that make, wiouth the people, Blizzard, EA and more, it was the people take a picture the people that develop the game with people now, ones were dudes wanting to hav efun, now they are corporate suits, these is not the people these is corporate suits
Let's also not forget their games, especially Stellaris, breaking under all the DLC or having features no longer work down the line, or having features removed and sold back to you, or features added by DLC being made irrelevant or not working with newer DLC features, or-
To me, Stellaris died when they got to 3.0... It literally bricked itself with the new "economy simulation" Should've added a turn based option to that patchwork of a game, so that I can reach endgame at least once lol
Which features were removed and sold back? The only thing I can think of that actually happening was the transition between CK2 and CK3. Even then a lot of the mods preempted PDX so some of the "features" they reintroduced were indeed somewhat meaningfully different. The quality is another discussion but still.
@@MundaneThingsBackwards I'd have to go back and check, and frankly i cannot bother, but i distinctively remember it being something Diplomacy related. Something got reworked, and then was put into DLC which was then no longer accessible without buying it.
Agree but I don't think their games lack polish, they are very present in all the games, except Victoria due to the fact the start date is just 40 years after the Partitions.
The thing that makes it completely ruinous is that not having the DLC unbalances the game. I remember when one of the CK3 expansions came out offering a new prestige mechanic and I didn't fancy buying it. Well, I tried to play without the DLC and the new prestige meter had been patched in anyway, just now I didn't have access to the new DLC mechanics needed to fill it up. The upshot of which was that the game kept repeatedly plunging me into civil wars and I needed a mod to give passive prestige just for the game to be playable.
Yeah, that's the shit that I've been hating with Paradox games. You want to lock the new features behind a pay wall? That's fine, but stop giving it to the AI to abuse me into buying the DLC. I'll just stop playing.
No wonder the warfare in Vic3 was bad, when their philosophy is 'find the middle ground' and changing entire systems instead of building upon already well established mechanics.
They should have made it semi-automatic combat like in HOI4 where you can set frontlines and battle plans and the AI largely does the tedious micromanagement for you but you can still micro units if you needed to for more tactical granularity. Instead, V3 went full retard and just made it fully automatic and you have no control whatsoever and the AI just decides to do suicidal pushes and naval invasions that get clapped and there's nothing you can do about it.
@@aznhomig HoI4 system would be bad because it completely misses how wars were still fought in the early 19th century. Vic2 did it well, because early game you have EU3/4-esque battles where you doomstack and win a decisive battle and then run down the enemy, but over time it evolves because you suddenly control so many units, the trench mechanics kick in, and you suffer so many losses from battles and attrition it's way better to organise them into proper frontlines and push one at the time.
Also Peter Molinux was really creative, and the games were creative, Black and white, Fable, and one of mi fave the stars, Victoria was creative was unique but now is pieces
Peter was a bit of a nutjob But his games despite being unfinished and flawed were so unique and interesting in presentation, style, concept and mechanics that he could get away with his nutty behaviour. I still fondly remember bullfrog and lionhead studio games. Deeply flawed but amazing.
Fable is still great today. I don't remember bullshit marketing so it's a nostalgia play now. I only see of how it's copied in other games. poorly copied, I might add
its an issue of the salesmen taking over the company and the talented programs moving on. Whether to their golden years, or onto their own projects after leaving the company... or even R.I.P. ... And the Salesmen are going "How can we get the most money for the least amount of work... Without offering the true work the company offered before. Really they just need to focus on 3 games. And if you need more talent reach out to the modders. See if they would be willing to have their mod cemented into the game. And finish the 3 games before making a new game or picking up a lost game and finishing it.
@@Rellana1 there is the cavate that the mod has to tiptoe around copyright. And they have to put on the QA department to make sure the mod is balanced and work with the mod creator to get the mod balanced if it isn't already.
Main problem with Paradox for me is that for example CK3 is a pretty good game with some of its DLCs, but not good enough to charge 3x what the base game costs. If the current game with all DLCs costed as much as the base it would be worth it, but as it is - it's a pretty good game for the price of 3-4 great games or a dozen or so fun indie games.
almost all of the DLC that make the game better where a part of CK2 and CK1 that they cut away from the game so that you buy the same DLC for a second and third time
I consider Ck3 their last success. The buildings are limited as they should be, similar enough to CK2. The CORE GAMEPLAY of steering your character through events, through generations, remains. You can be a count, in a larger Empire, for the entire game. Porting all that DLC over into CK3 seems to have been 'mostly' successful. Problem is the newer DLCs aren't adding the things still missing from CK2.
So many unique types of games used to get made that just don't anymore. Even if a game was in a genre they were still so unique and different you needed to read the manual because you never played anything like it. Now if it's a FPS you know exactly what you are getting. An RPG? You know exactly what you are getting. RTS? You know exactly how it will play. Etc. everything is so standardized and boring now
@@Mark-sd4hv So true, i mean in those times, you want an RTS, you have an RTS, you want an RPG, you have an PRG, now everithing have to have everithing, with all tipe of crap for everyone
@@Mark-sd4hv no one wants to risk any more. And also people expect much more big and expensive games (graphics, details, animations, voice acting..). So a bigger investment to make a game makes people afraid to risk even more. In older days 1 person or several could make a groundbreaking game that became a hit. It happened left and right. Not any more apparently. There are indies now too, but they are too small and many people ignore them to play bigger games.
I love paradox games, I hate how they monetize and break down the content. A paradox game is basically early access until you buy $130 dollars worth of DLC.
To be fair, I'd actually integrate older dlcs into the base game when a new dlc releases... especially if the game gets fundamental changes with major updates, like Stellaris with 2.0 and 3.0 release. I can't even recommend their games to anyone, because you have to get in early to even convince yourself to buy the dlcs as they come... But a new player will never be convinced to buy all the dlcs and looking at a dozen dlcs will discourage them from even buying the base game...
I've been buying their games since HoI 1, and yeah I skipped a DLC or two on the recent titles (that I enjoy!!!) and I really can't be bothered to buy 3-4 'new' DLC just to get back in.
18:56 ...But they did fix Imperator Rome! It's actually one of my favorite of the "modern" PDX's library! Vanilla, just with the DLC? Sure it's lacking in a bit of flavor, especially outside of the major tags. Mechanically? The game itself is tremendously solid and runs like a dream even deep in the late game. With the two major overhaul mods that give a bunch of flavor to all the different tags (and in one's case, introduces tags all the way to Japan)? It can't be beat when put up against most every other game despite some of their laundry list of expensive DLC AND mods combined. It unironically is peak PDX design: meaningfully deep and rewarding gameplay, modern UI and other related comforts.
I still disagree I:R is "fixed". It is much much improved, they seem to have started to figure it out, but no sooner than they figured it out they stopped working on it. Some systems and mechanics still blow - barbarians stacking gold and then merc-spamming from midgame onward, while also being in 6 member defensive pacts every time you fight one.
@@Pangora2 I can't name a single PDX game that doesn't have its annoying quirks. I wouldn't claim the game is outright broken over it, though. CK2 (probably their best game ever right next to hoi3) has the same exact hugbox problem. Either you choose to work with it and deal with triggering half the map every single time you declare over a single barony or you turn the coalition mechanic off entirely and struggle with boredom over a trivialized mid and end game. It's fiiiine. Further more it's literally irrelevant in the modded version of the game where it wasn't an issue for me at all in my first campaigns (even as a French tribal, but definitely as Rome.) So what about the positives, though? Name me a better automated army system and I'll eat my hat. It's literally better than every other one of their games. It makes the end game so much more tolerable (and dare I say fun.)
@@MundaneThingsBackwards IR has the best maps hands down, the last PDX title I started a campaign in was IR just a month or so ago. I've been with it since release. The shame is they stopped developing it just as it actually got nearly to where it needed to be at the start. Like the early game versions had countries simply die with no one to marry since no one has kids. The potential is there, I'd rather give IR another dlc over Vicky 3 or another "mission tree" pack for HoI 4. Mission trees ruined modern PDX!!!
I've been following Project Caesar and it looks fairly promising so far. But I will not buy it right away, and if it is bad I will never buy any Paradox product ever again.
Don't be fooled. Victoria 3 was also expected to be an awesome game on release. They intentionally tell you the good stuff to make you not think of the possibility of bad stuff
@@RomanCigić Maybe some people did, but I was following it for some time and could tell it wasn't going to be good. The military system alone was indicative enough in that regard.
New gamers are far too forgiving, they lack the experince of old gamers who are far less so, Paradox lost me when they started lecturing Stellaris players about the correct way to play the game, then changed every system to be a fixed cap with no way to mitigate and a debuff for going over. I dont play my galatic spread sheet game to have a huge mass of red numbers and nothing I can do about it. Plenty of other things out there and most of them made before 2016
still haven't bought Victoria 3, and I don't think re-adding wars will make me do it either The release state was frankly and simply an insult And while I have a difficult time voicing why, I still prefer age of wonders 3 over 4, that I only bought the base game and didn't see a reason to buy any of it's dlc yet. Another problem is Paradox is getting worse at making dlc, for instance we recently got a dlc for ck3 Road to Power, it focuses on adding in landless characters and administrative government. Except: -they made a massive numerical change to warfare in effectively a single patch note, 1 point of advantage increases dmg from 2 to 10%, and suddenly FAAAR too many battles become stackwipes as a single character trait on ONE of the commanders can add 100% bonus damage to the army he commands -they AGAIN broke renown by adding a dynasty modifier that gives bonus renown, which then breaks game balancing ,this wouldn't be as much of an issue if it hadn't already happened in a previous dlc, and yes it has been patched already, but shouldn't have happened in the first place, -landless are overpowered to the extreme, and can materialize armies of thousands of professional soldiers to eradicate empires in a single persons lifetime (got nerfed but not enough) while landed characters can for that same cost hire a third as many mercenaries most of which are shitty levies -administrative government has MANY problems, but I want to focus on two of them, One, the administrative government is supposed to represent the byzantine/roman empire, and reforming rome is part of the dlc features BUT if you restore rome and convert your culture from greek to roman you lose access to many features added by this dlc, because they were added to the greek culture, like holding triumphs, chariot races, recruiting varangian guard, also if you reclaim an important city of the empire like Rome, Tunis, Antioch as a vassal, you don't get anything, not even the event as it fires only for the emperor, so there goes vassal gameplay Two, estate is your family personal holding, it already was there in CK2 in republics, except now they have a shiny nice window, can be moved around, but more importantly if you as say the emperor, make your heir and son a co-emperor, give him a province to command, and then you die, as your son you have your sons estate, which is probably bare bones, and ai-made, so badly, btw, making your son into a co-emperor and sponsor him conquering and ruling entire kingdoms was a feature described in the dev diaries as one of the reasons to even bother making a co-emperor The fact that so many core functionalities are badly balanced or just wrong as soon as you spend a moment to think about them, repeating past mistakes, sweeping balance changes with no followup, and it all can be seen with a single playthrough, makes me think paradox barely if at all play the games they make, much less test them.
@@Thinkingnamesishard no they are not. there is still no closed global economy and resources is pretty much infinite if you can handle the subsidizing cost (tried with cheat that gave me billions of Pound) which means that if somehow you can cheese the economy and subsidize your industry carefully, you will not have goods shortage. plus they are still not using individualized unit piece board in warfare as far as i know. also, i dont think they would bring back westernization mechanic because it is not PC
@@Ozzystrayroo honestly don't need too, if I wanted more war focus I would play hearts of iron or crusader kings. I play victoria for the math/theory experience. That said I do like the setup of age of wonders 3 over 4 better and that is tied to balanced expansions vs dlc spamm. They fixed a bunch of problems I had with 4 recently though,,, for example tier 1-2 units getting obsolete when fighting higher tiers. So tier 1-2 units experience ranks power them up now almost to the next rank. A tier 1 spear unit that have 2-3 ranks of experience ( which you can now give them through city buildings again, as you could in 3 ) is now a worthwile cheaper option. Fully ranked up to champion it is basicly as powerful as if it was a tier higherso a tier 1 unit powered up can fight a tier 3 now....sure at a disadvantage but you atleast can. Another fix needed was necromancy, in wonders 3 it was cleanvut and balanced,,,,in wonders 4 necromancy had issues, summonig had issues ( high rank summons came online way too fast, now slowed down and tied to your magic tower ) Still not liking the tome system and city expansion fully as the flaws in those persist but it is atleast stable now. Why they didn't spot these issues earlier on rather than needing user input is rather poor handled development though. Also why I refuse to even look at city skylines 2 which is paradox too if I recall. I got most the interesting dlc for city skylines 1 through steam sales and I am not recollecting it again on that new broken setup
@@Thinkingnamesishard There isn't any real economy simulation in Vic3 (or at least the market demand based like in Vic2), it's just a cookie clicker with a coat of paint. Don't say it's on the same level because until they change that it never will be.
I know what was said. What I heard was “we’re too lazy/greedy to make a demo. Now give us your credit cards and eat the slop like a good little paypig.” I’m out of goodwill for companies that consistently express disdain for their core audience
I remember when DLC for EU4/CK2/Stellaris got me excited. Then it turned into barely meaningful "flavour packs", almost cheat like mission trees, repeatedly breaking the game for a long time after patches, etc. , over time. I will defend parts of EU4/CK2/Stellaris DLCs though.
Yes, it's a double edged sword. Yes, every few months i bought a new DLC, but that DLC added at least 100 hours of game-play. I can get angry about paying 10-20 euros for it, but then i realize publishers sell games for 100 euros with 40 hours of gameplay.
The real question is, when will Paradox also migrate to the Unreal Engine too? Its very fashionable nowadays to gain investor points afterall... Even if it makes no sense
@@Ozzystrayroo Honestly if i could create a game i would made a total war, with angels and demons two version the version normal, will be angels like warriors and that, vs eldrich monstrositys and have a map that randomizes each time you start a great campaing. The second one will made money, will be all angels and demons will be femenine, think in the Bayonettas Joy or the steel heart sisters something like that, you costumize them weapons and that,vs all demons are fememenine monsters with breasts, and depending side you can capture champions of the enemy and convert them using bayonetta stile torture finishes. That will sell of course wont be made, i mean come on i dont know how deliverance was make and not pollute
For me the biggest problem with the initial vic 3 release was not the crappy combat, but rather the absolutely horrible economics system, which arguably is the core of the entire game. They did a great job on that front in vic2, but vic 3 released with essentially only a command economy (the exact opposite of a free market system). I have not dug in enough w the vic3 updates to see if they have really fixed it, hope they have, but I am skeptical at best.
Been playing Vic3 for 2-3 months. They kind of did - various economic systems have different amount of construction sector relegated to Private (AI) construction queue. Command economy is distinct that it alters investment pool dynamic but it seems like late game tool. From what I gather people are somewhat ok with it generally - it is the Warfare system and to lesser degree Diplomacy that is still complained about (although last DLC: Spehere of Powers kind of helped Diplo). Power blocks are better spheres of influence from Vic2 (less microing them) but also funny kind of invalidated some portion of community tutorials as they replaced "Joining other's markets". Warfare seems pointless as on the roadmap it is already considered reworked so beside fixing some weird instant teleportation of troops due to fronts dissapearing we probably can't expect another rework. Compared to Vic2 it puts warfare in this weird place, that you don't really need those techs as much because investing more in economy helps more as you can field more of army then. It kind of lacks that Vic2 loop of Big stacks into Machine Guns into Gas Into Airplanes dynamic of battles on various stages of game. On other hand economic ceiling is far higher in Vic3 than in Vic2, so no matter who you are you will in the end outgrow AI's several times (when in Vic2 it was a challenge as non GP to beat Germany/America without sabotaging them). That's my 2 cents as someone that is getting into Vic3 without DLC. I hope it helps you.
Vic2 is still garbage at making a free market economy. Laissez-faire and the Liberal will instantly crash the economy that was booming under State Capitalism and Conservative in a death spiral. It didn't even bounce back either. It just keeps tanking.
With Victoria they've been selling us back Heart of darkness piecemeal for over a year and we still don't have colonial range or westernization in any meaningful sense. Subsaharan africa starts with several techs unocked like atmospheric engine and litteracy in the double digits. There is no artisans to produce basic stuff without state interventions and no machine tools industries (meaning you can build any factory no matter how complexas soon as you unlock the tech through sheer force of will, no machines necessary) also civil wars still do not work and war exhaustion makes no sense as you can 100% occupy a country without them accepting a surrender (which funnily enough allows you to genocide any state region in the game if you so wish as population ticks down due to devastation) Also also they still haven't found a way to represent arable land independently from peasant population wich leads to some funny scenarios like ireland having more arable land than the rest of the uk combined and often ballooning in population and being more populated than all of western europe because as those peasant become workers it creates unused arable land that siphons off pops from neighboring state regions.
"they've been selling us back Heart of darkness piecemeal for over a year" what do you mean by that also there is a better mechanic than westernization in the game, it's called recgontion subsaharn africa doesn't start with atmospheric engine , you are just lying and most african countries start with around 10% litteracy there is no need for artisans bec your capitalists and aristocrats automatically build farm and factories with out you doing anything there is a tool factory and you need it to build any modern factory in the game are you playing the same game my guy?
@@mohamed_alaa- "they've been selling us back Heart of darkness piecemeal for over a year" by that I mean that the content of that final DLC for Vicky 2 was cut off from core Vicky 3 and then and only partially reintroduced in Vicky 3 over several dlcs (the biggest one being "shperes of influence") I'm not talking about recognition. That's a separate mechanic that determines whether you can enjoy the perks of a GP. Westernization is about unlocking the tech tree in the first place. My bad about the "atmospheric engine" I spoke from the hip and misremembered the name of the first mining tech which is actually "shaft mining". The fact that these countries start with any 19th century technologies unlocked is plain ridiculous still. I am also not lying about literacy: 10% does indeed contain 2 ("two") digits., which is quite paradoxical since we're talking about some pops which did not even have a writing system at the time (I'm obviously not talking about every non recognised country in subsaharan africa at game start) "there is no need for artisans" there is obviously a need for artisans since not every country starts as capitalist at game start. I shouldn't have to explain this, it's really not that complicated (the short of it is that just as peasants are self employed low productivity farmers, artisans are self employed low productivity workers). Still now that we're back on the topic, another interesting side effect/problem caused by the lack of artisans is that similarly to their incapacity to accurately model arable land at game start the game does not have a way to simulate an urban population without factories (which completely fucks up China among others) Tools and machine tools are not the same. You're talking about an input for the building, I'm talking about construction materials. As it stands you only need wood and cloth (assuming you use the basic production method of the construction sector) and the game magically turns the empty barn you just raised into any kind of heavy machinery. We are definitely not playing the same game my guy
@@adamperdue3178 exactly. it's stupid and doesn't work because anything below 100% blocks the process if you don't occupy the wargoal. It also means you can genocide an entire country by selecting a far flung island as a war goal and then occupying the mainland (For China you select Taïwan and for the uk any of the carribean islands)
@@adamperdue3178 btw while we're on the military topic isn't it hilarious that they gave terrain traits to generals (like mountain commander/open field commander) in a game where you can't tell your troops where to go. lol
Isn't this is meta of Video game development for last decade? Even prior there's no best way other than buying vidya the goty edition or full game with all dlc. Using fomo tactics turning user as beta tester
Byzaboos, allow usually Nono stuff in their games so long as it’s abstracted, and practically having a monopoly on the 4X/Grand Strategy market at this time.
It's not only gamers who have short memories and lax standards... why do you think our corporations are so powerful and think of their customers like trash? None of us has been trained to be an effective participant in the market, and we are paying for it. For that matter, none of us has been trained to be an effective citizen that participates in the power structure of a country either, so, no wonder our politicians turn out as they do.
Exactly. Why would they ever properly fix their games, if they can keep charging money for another DLC that promises to fix problems that still exist in the game? Running out of problems with the games just makes it harder for them to sell DLC.
Christ, I remember the HOI3 release, I still have a hard copy somewhere. That was a disaster, nothing worked - CTDs and the supply system was a complete mess... It took them years to fix that mess...and I would still rather play it than HOI4
@@afrovarangian Places which didn't even have their own scripts have 10%+ literacy (literacy would only make sense in the muslim and christian parts of Africa not in most animist areas), they have basic 19th century technology which should be unlocked by only certain Asian, European and American states at the start of the game. Like people in the tropical sub-saharan loctaion didn't even have concepts of wheel, wagon and roads and somehow have shaft mining discovered in start, they also had limited range of draught animals (horses can't breed in hot and humid climate and they didn't domesticate local fauna since they have evolved alongside humans and know how to counter humans).
Its classic Paradox, the break the game and if you do not buy the over priced DLC you are screwed because you cant use features the AI can. Some hardcore Paradox fans will tell you the vanilla game is just fine and that dont need all the DLC to play them, but these same players owns all the DLC. Paradox games are overpriced and one of the main reasons why piracy is still alive and well, mainly because paying $500+ dollars for a complete game is insane.
Best part about these hardcore fans is that they will not give you tutorials for no DLC playthrough. I had no dlcs on EU4 and i had trouble finding ONE video explaining how to do things with no dlcs. (I was looking for video tutorials on youtube because Paradox makes God awful tutorials)
@@RomanCigić Dont get me started on that BS, they did it with HoI4 to and I owned all 3 of those DLCs and 2 of the 3 for EU4, have half a mind to ask steam for a refund.
Yeah, I'm kind of glad Paradox is facing a reckoning. They can make good games, but they constantly choose to not make good games so that they can sell DLC later. They need to start using an actual Early Access system, and they need more quality assurance for their DLC. EU4 is a perfect example of poor QA absolutely demolishing a game's reputation through several borked DLC in a row. I have almost 5k hours in EU4, and now I can't bring myself to even boot it up just due to it becoming clear what their opinion of their customers was.
I fell out of love with Paradox because there are only so many times you can be excited for a DLC, realise that it's either broken or poorly balanced, and then sigh and hope they fix it next time.
@@Hippo_Hegemony Nope, hegemony was created by longbow. Hooded Horse is a publisher of several great strategy of low to AA budget studios. they are a contender to Paradox for sure
Part of the issue with outrage is it only really communicates displeasure when things are really bad. If things are just kind of bad you'll probably only get gentle complaints which are easy to ignore but still steadily erode confidence in you over time. Good will is one of those pesky ethereal resources which you want to be careful playing around with. You never know just quite how much you have left until sales start mysteriously drying up. Considering how much time and hard work it takes to build up a good reputation, it's not an asset you want to throw away unless you know you can operate without it.
It's more than a sane person would ever pay for it... Paradox games are in the "want to recommend, but can't" category, because no matter how good the game is, you cannot convince anyone after they see the dlcs lol
@@SolantisA well... If it happens to go on a massive discount (like 80+%) then maaaybe. But otherwise yeah, not a chance most people will even consider that.
They don't just "fix games with DLC", they finish games with DLC. Half of all "DLC" features should have been in the base game, and this goes for every game they released since at least CK2.
It's pretty sad because Paradox already figured out how to make tactical warfare fun way back in 2013 with March of the Eagles (Napoleonic era). Each army had 2 wings and a center and you could fine tune its composition with various types of troops: light/heavy cavalry, regular infantry/militias/elite infantry/, artillery/ heavy artillery/ horse drawn artillery and so on. You could also assign generals to each wings and select the way each flank fought. For instance you could pack a wing with light cavalry and have them harass and delay. Each tactic had events associated that would favor the units best suited for the role. On top of that each major nation had mastered how to use certain type of units better than others. Positioning corps on the map + building your armies with flavor is a lot more fun than the wide front crap Victoria 3 came up with.
But but but it’s just higher expectations in the fans, that’s why we’re technically regressing our games, we did too much the first time… Why won’t people understand we can’t be expected to do what we did.
Paradox can be forgiven, but gamers should never forget: This is who Paradox truly are. If they change their tune and behavior in the future, it is only because they are forced to, and they will only change insofar as is required to be forgiven. Underneath they will remain the company willing to screw over their fans with a steady stream overpriced, underproduced DLC-frameworks + with associated steady stream of DLC slop.
In Stellaris, Paradox divided the team into two. One to develop new content, one to improve existing content. They could do the same for their other games. If the had the balls to be honest about the fact that Version 1.0 is the early access version of the game.
Agreed. The Custodian team saved Stellaris. But I HATE how they keep changing the bloody game everytime they introduce a DLC. First there was the expanded traditions which were cool and did make it more meaningful. Then they “fixed” them and nerfed the hell out of Prosperity. Okay, understandable and the new ‘specialist merchant’ sucks but I can KIND OF get why. Then they added more traditions and now split the ascension into a tradition but did not add another tradition slot to compensate. Just… why Paradox?
I still remember bots/shills spamming every Victoria 2/3 related forum, video or website how the new system is actually good and better than the war system Paradox did before. I wonder if any of them actually bought the game, because I sure did not.
They will keep doing it, as long as they can get away with it. And it really kills all the motivation to try these games. "Oh, a new paradox game? I guess I have to wait a decade to play it, when they finish it."
Paradox games are terrible for lack of a better word, the DLC introduces mechanics to the base games but you can't really counter said mechanics without the DLC, it's predatory to say the least. most of the DLC released should be included in the base game, and every Paradox game feels like you are playing an unpolished Beta. take Stellaris for instance, released in 2016 they made changes in 2017 taking away the ability to customize starbases, so here we are 7 years later and you can build a starbase in a system that nullifies shields but your starbase will still have shields in the defensive slots, rendering them null. i have 7500 hours in Stellaris, 3500 in CK3 and when someone asks me about Paradox games i tell them to save their money, buy ANYTHING else if you want to enjoy a game.
Time was, I would wait however long it took for them to finally release a complete game, then wait even longer until it was on a Steam sale that brought the price down to something reasonable. Now, however, if I ever play a Paradox game it will be acquired via...alternate...methods. Yo, ho, ho!
Triumph Studios understands the assignment. Release a game, Than develop ADDITIONAL content that ADDS factions and mechanics for sale, while patching broken parts of the game and adding some content for free . Also listen to your consumers and give them what they want (They are finally bringing back Archons). They aren't perfect but they are better than most companies these days (Which is admittedly a low bar) Now i am going back to playing my Demonic, crocodile riding, giant, frog people. A holy empire of angelic orcs is attacking.
I got stellaris never buying a paradox made game again , endless over priced dlcs , some are megabytes in size ..and many are crap, good game though, but thier are others like Sins of the Solar empires and Distant Words, without huge expense
Paradox is a joke at this point. I literally don't know why people continue to pay their insane fees to keep playing games they burn to the ground and screw over the players every year or so.
I'd be cool with their early access model if the game was eventually made good. I still feel burned by my purchase of Imperator: Rome. To clarify: I'm saying that when they release the base game, it comes with a promise that it will eventually be finished. Them getting to back out due to bad sales and leave me high and dry is what soured me on the whole experience.
The Heck you say! Why, if people did that, they'd have full access to all the Steam Workshop content for only the price of the base game, while saving hundreds on DLC. What kind of nefarious desperadoes would do such a thing?
Funnily enough, one of the best Paradox games is imperator: Rome. Why? Because they considered it a failure of a game, so I can mod the shit out of it and actually have a good game without said mods breaking. Not to say it only has like 3 DLCs that are sold together with the game. Poured countless hours in my modded runs.
And here I thought Sega and Creative Assembly piecemealing DLC for Total Warhammer felt rough. Skaven on launch felt like a far cry from how they are now. They REALLY needed those weapon teams.
I feel like DLC needs to be a significant enough experience to be worth the extra money. To do that in a strategy game it needs to either introduce new paths to victory (note: not alternative victory conditions) and alter old ones. For example, in Against the Storm, the new frog race makes incoming groups of people arrive faster. That means you have more people to do more stuff, but they also still have to be fed, housed, etc. They also require a non-standard house, which means you need to plan runs with a lot of frogs for more starting building materials. That, overall, changes the entire pace and feel of the game. This is why, even though I own Age of Wonders 4, I have not bought any DLC for it and will not unless it's on a very significant sale.
I would say CK3 is 40% of CK2 even today since the economy system was gutted. Compare the amount of buildings you can build in a normal feudal province in each game at the start. Now compare the special buildings and how in CK2 they were buildings with a plethora of building options within the building along with more getting unlocked as the great work increased in tier level. Not to mention how now troops just teleport all ready formed up when you need them vs CK2 where you had to march them all together from your vassal's territory and had to boat them over if they were in far flung lands or islands. And also worrying about having enough boats to even transport them. It facilitated, you know, strategy. Long term planning.
I really disliked how many of the publishers went to $70 for games but I’d much rather Paradox do that then what they’ve been doing with their last major releases. They all feel half baked and semi broken. They used to be one of my fav publishers but they’re pissing away the good will they’ve built up with me.
Peter Molyneux strategy is a great term for that. Minecraft development is another great term for something different. Its what Starship Troopers: Extermination did. Its where you drag out the development for as long as possible to milk as many early access sales as possible rather than actually trying to release the product promised. People need to stop giving excuses for shi**y anti consumer practices just because they're indie. They are a business, treating you the customer like shit, serving you half the meal promised, and you just say "but its a small business so its ok they're snake oil salesman."
I want the game put down because I don't like seeing a beloved animal use being hooked up to an iron lung just to scream constantly but bloodlines 2 clan dlc should really be the twisting knife of how unacceptable this shit from paradox has gotten.
Well that genre peaked in early 2000 and is niche. 4X is also tough piece of market and for example Stellaris keeps getting competition that simply can't stack up to it when it comes to amount of content.
Exactly what happened with Imperator was that they released it incomplete with very little replayability and so it died. Bet they were hoping to pump out DLCs for years like they've done before ck2, hoi4 and eu4. But to be fair, imperator had like 7 months of development while victoria has had a lot more and now eu5 has also been talked about to have had much, much more time in the oven.
I agree with their business model. We cannot seriously expect a complete game for 20$ every so many years. How does the company sustain itself. Besides, a person doesn’t need to buy ALL of the DLC. I sure don’t, yet I got thousands of hours on Stellaris.
I think you're mistaken on the part of Imperator Rome. It wasn't bareboned and with preplanned dlc roadpath, it was a total unbalanced mess where majority of your country's functions were tied to one of four ruler stats, AI was braindead, gui was unreadable and the game couldn't decide if it wants to be EU4, CK2 or VIC2 with many poorly mashing mechanics borrowed from the three titles. Most of the flaws could be ironed out or at least mitigated if only Paradox spent time on balancing/playtesting the build. All the mechanics sound cool in theory, but together are a unnavigable mess. Thank gods that they didn't abbandon the game after it flopped and fixed it to a playable state. Nowadays it's quite fun yet still unpolished. Even the net code is good enough to host small multiplayer lobbies. Just imagine what game we could've recived if Paradox decided to dev it a year longer.
EUV/Project Cesar is going to be the final nail on vicky 3s coffin, from what has been shown on the dev diaries (tinto talks) that game is going to be everything vicky 3 ever dreamt of being
Don't forget that by putting their hands into so many other products they got new customers who are not on board with their development strategy and weren't even aware if it. This means their current stupid development strategy locks them into only their ever shrinking current fan base who only want a tiny handful of products preventing them from ever expanding unless they completely do away with the Peter Molyneux strategy, which they can't because its what their current fans want. Catch 22 they built themselves, both the company and the customers.
To point out the obvious. Paradox's recent DLCs have been very content light across all their flagships. This is because they are most likely heavily restricting budgets given fears about profit potential (looking at several recent releases for context) and with the aim of sustaining margins. This is the reason for the long development times and the perceived content stinginess in premium prices DLCs.
This has been the case with almost every game that's been coming out lately. Even though the revenue streams increased and the amount we paid for has increased as well, the games we have been getting lately have been consistently getting smaller and lower in feature and functionality. For Paradox it was just the most blatantly obvious.
As a diehard lover of Vicky2, I wasn't against the warfare change. But if I were to compare, imagine if you always get to choose where to eat. Then your friend says "can I choose where we go this week?" You say, okay, what's the worst that could happen. Then they drive you to a barren field and hand you a bag of seeds. I expected a different system with different mechanics. Not, what I call "mechanics that say the player to not play the game."
The warfare system was always just an excuse to not make that part of the game and then market its exclusion as a feature. I can't believe some people fell for it.
Fable was under production long before Peter Molineux got involved. The original creators were pushed out of a pretty unhealthy work environment fostered by Peter.
Difference between paradox and early access is that in early access you don't have to pay for each single patch.
And usually for half or less of the base price.
@@HontounoShiramizu My favorite is games like City Skylines where they charged 9.99 I believe for radio stations.
I don't get it. I wouldn't be buying such games. I would wait 2 years till all DLCs come out, and then pirate the whole package. Considering I buy all my games.
I'm not paying a price of a game and 5 or more expensive DLCs to have a full experience.
it just meant that all the base game they sell is pretty much the early access until the time they will announce that they will stop development on a particular game
@@stanislavkimov2779 Eh I am not a big moral person on the issue of Pirating, I watch a lot of movies online because I refuse to have half a dozen different anime subscription services.
I will say when it comes to games though it's fairly hard to find anything "not mainstream" in a complete state, and you also run a far higher risk of viruses and such than other forms of media. It can be done obviously but the effort and risk is high enough that if companies made a half decent game at a fair price I think the risk of people going to pirate a game is far less than anything else.
Frankly the only roms I ever really got into were for games I own on systems that no longer work, like some the older Pokemon games.
Reminds me when I went around shopping for schools to learn game development. One school bragged that for a final project the students have to help make a Call of Duty game. I thought in the back of my mind, that sounds like sweatshop development.
Those were all the rage in the early 2000's I believe. Funny how almsot all of them went bankrupt and shut down after it was proven few if any the graduates got a job in the industry. I think Devry was the big one, an all around "Tech" school that failed to really get people jobs.
@@JustaGuy_Gaming The for profit schools were basically the ones that had commercials on TV. The one I was looking at was in Hollywood and focused primarily on film but had a growing video game department. It was impressive but them bragging about getting students to work for free was BS.
@@JustaGuy_Gaming yeah I had a friend and a cousin back then who each got scammed by those kind of schools. I also still remember the DeVry ads on tv back in the day.
@@SoullessAIMusic I heard few rumors about them being used for "Free work" if anything the major Universities like Harvard, MiT etc are more well known for their graduate students being used as free labor in Internships and the like.
But as I said the biggest problem is most those for profit schools lacked the historic track record to really get people into jobs. Most taught you decent skills but their graduate degree didn't mean much to companies that barely heard of them. Their more than fair passing rates didn't help either.
Tons of people who barely knew anything would graduate from those schools.
@@JustaGuy_Gaming it was worse. Thanks to parental guidance I ended up at one of those schools. It was basically live youtube tutorials. In short they cancelled the game development program 3 months before I was going to graduate the AA program, leading me into the BA games program. The good news was that the AA program I had to take was graphic design and video editing, needless to say that really came in handy in the modern day, though I have a few horror stories from the college for profit days.
Reminder that some content creators (Rimmy Down Under) defended Victoria 3 to the death. Going so far as to argue & say the problems were actually good.
Companies paying ppl to play games is such a trash move.
Reminds me of how GmanLives kept shilling for Bethesda.
I noticed noobs liked V3 , I got put off by the cultural universalism ..aka woke imho
Rimmy's the type of guy to cheer for his government when they put their citizens in camps back in 2020.
he also hates the best hoi4 mod (pony)
OR.... he actually just simply liked the changes?
Real Paradox died long ago. What we're seeing is a company wearing a skinsuit
For me the best of Paradox crusader kings 2 was so unique and i love it, even the vanilla game was so good
It's sad to think the great studios are gone but they are, the old founders who had vision and the drive to create that made the original companies profitable are either retired or passed on.
These are shell companies now.
,
I have a tiny bit of faith in EU5 since one of the old dogs Johan is on the helm for it. Wouldn't be surprised if it flopped though.
There is hope that Paradox are mending their grifty ways in the form of the latest DLC for CK3 which is both a meaty expansion and excellent.
@@hugovandyk9918 Indeed, the people that make the studio, these is something i heard in a challen call Pato Bonato, is not the nation, is not the flag that make the nation, is the people, the cutlrue of those people, is the people that make, wiouth the people, Blizzard, EA and more, it was the people take a picture the people that develop the game with people now, ones were dudes wanting to hav efun, now they are corporate suits, these is not the people these is corporate suits
Let's also not forget their games, especially Stellaris, breaking under all the DLC or having features no longer work down the line, or having features removed and sold back to you, or features added by DLC being made irrelevant or not working with newer DLC features, or-
To me, Stellaris died when they got to 3.0...
It literally bricked itself with the new "economy simulation"
Should've added a turn based option to that patchwork of a game, so that I can reach endgame at least once lol
they have been doing this for almost 15 years people forgive them becose of buyers remorse
Stellaris was complete but they keep revamping it drastically. If it was separate games we would be on Stellaris 5 or 6 by now.
Which features were removed and sold back? The only thing I can think of that actually happening was the transition between CK2 and CK3. Even then a lot of the mods preempted PDX so some of the "features" they reintroduced were indeed somewhat meaningfully different. The quality is another discussion but still.
@@MundaneThingsBackwards I'd have to go back and check, and frankly i cannot bother, but i distinctively remember it being something Diplomacy related.
Something got reworked, and then was put into DLC which was then no longer accessible without buying it.
oh my, Paradox Games... one studio that has some amazing games ruined by a lack of polish and awful DLC practices
Amen, hald of their recent dlcs are "flavor" packs which do the same as fan made mods. $20 to do what a couple of free mods could do.
Too many "content writers" and not enough coders
Agree but I don't think their games lack polish, they are very present in all the games, except Victoria due to the fact the start date is just 40 years after the Partitions.
@@TheDrWolfram Damnit, you beat me to it.
The thing that makes it completely ruinous is that not having the DLC unbalances the game. I remember when one of the CK3 expansions came out offering a new prestige mechanic and I didn't fancy buying it. Well, I tried to play without the DLC and the new prestige meter had been patched in anyway, just now I didn't have access to the new DLC mechanics needed to fill it up. The upshot of which was that the game kept repeatedly plunging me into civil wars and I needed a mod to give passive prestige just for the game to be playable.
Yeah, that's the shit that I've been hating with Paradox games. You want to lock the new features behind a pay wall? That's fine, but stop giving it to the AI to abuse me into buying the DLC. I'll just stop playing.
@@musicninja98 Exactly right
same with HOI4. any AI will out do you if you dont have all the DLC's.
thus i will stick to HOI3. luve me 50 battleship stacks,
@@nickvanachthoven7252 until they retroactivelly do something to the game to break it.
Which DLC did that? I didn’t buy most of the dlc on release and didn’t have this problem, maybe I just didn’t notice
Paradox doesn't make games, they make DLC chassis.
No wonder the warfare in Vic3 was bad, when their philosophy is 'find the middle ground' and changing entire systems instead of building upon already well established mechanics.
They should have made it semi-automatic combat like in HOI4 where you can set frontlines and battle plans and the AI largely does the tedious micromanagement for you but you can still micro units if you needed to for more tactical granularity.
Instead, V3 went full retard and just made it fully automatic and you have no control whatsoever and the AI just decides to do suicidal pushes and naval invasions that get clapped and there's nothing you can do about it.
@@aznhomig HoI4 system would be bad because it completely misses how wars were still fought in the early 19th century.
Vic2 did it well, because early game you have EU3/4-esque battles where you doomstack and win a decisive battle and then run down the enemy, but over time it evolves because you suddenly control so many units, the trench mechanics kick in, and you suffer so many losses from battles and attrition it's way better to organise them into proper frontlines and push one at the time.
Also Peter Molinux was really creative, and the games were creative, Black and white, Fable, and one of mi fave the stars, Victoria was creative was unique but now is pieces
Paradox is one of those companies that you never buy at full price
dont think i ever bought anything from them at full price.
steam sales, cracks or humble bundle
Oh, absolutely
buy base game, crack the dlcs with creaminstaller (you need to get a hold of the dlc files though)
Peter was a bit of a nutjob
But his games despite being unfinished and flawed were so unique and interesting in presentation, style, concept and mechanics that he could get away with his nutty behaviour.
I still fondly remember bullfrog and lionhead studio games. Deeply flawed but amazing.
not scared of being experimental or taking risk. Is something i miss.
member dungeon keeper?
I member dungeon keeper.
@@nickvanachthoven7252I have dungeon keeper
Fable is still great today. I don't remember bullshit marketing so it's a nostalgia play now. I only see of how it's copied in other games.
poorly copied, I might add
@@nickvanachthoven7252 The dominatrix girls of DK2 was my first awakening. ah the good IP we have lost as we get older *sniff
It is very shocking and oh so terrible for the developers that the customers want a finished and good product.
Crash! Crash! Crash! Crash! Crash!
Y E S
its an issue of the salesmen taking over the company and the talented programs moving on. Whether to their golden years, or onto their own projects after leaving the company... or even R.I.P. ...
And the Salesmen are going "How can we get the most money for the least amount of work... Without offering the true work the company offered before.
Really they just need to focus on 3 games. And if you need more talent reach out to the modders. See if they would be willing to have their mod cemented into the game. And finish the 3 games before making a new game or picking up a lost game and finishing it.
You mean like the anbennar mod for eu4? I play that a lot and that's why I'll be holding for on eu5 until the mod for that is ready.
@@Rellana1 Stellaris, Giga structure, ACOT
@@Rellana1 there is the cavate that the mod has to tiptoe around copyright. And they have to put on the QA department to make sure the mod is balanced and work with the mod creator to get the mod balanced if it isn't already.
@@mightypancake2211 Planetary diversity, AlphaMod, New Generation of Starship components, Real Space, Extra ship components etc etc etc
Main problem with Paradox for me is that for example CK3 is a pretty good game with some of its DLCs, but not good enough to charge 3x what the base game costs. If the current game with all DLCs costed as much as the base it would be worth it, but as it is - it's a pretty good game for the price of 3-4 great games or a dozen or so fun indie games.
almost all of the DLC that make the game better where a part of CK2 and CK1 that they cut away from the game so that you buy the same DLC for a second and third time
Yeah, paradox titles are games that would be good if they were 40$ - but stand up to absolutely zero cost-benefit / quality analysis as a 400$ game...
@@Coconut-219 Or just make the base game free. The Sims 4 and CK2 say hi.
I consider Ck3 their last success. The buildings are limited as they should be, similar enough to CK2. The CORE GAMEPLAY of steering your character through events, through generations, remains. You can be a count, in a larger Empire, for the entire game. Porting all that DLC over into CK3 seems to have been 'mostly' successful. Problem is the newer DLCs aren't adding the things still missing from CK2.
Black and white what a game, i so miss those tipes of unique games
So many unique types of games used to get made that just don't anymore. Even if a game was in a genre they were still so unique and different you needed to read the manual because you never played anything like it. Now if it's a FPS you know exactly what you are getting. An RPG? You know exactly what you are getting. RTS? You know exactly how it will play. Etc. everything is so standardized and boring now
@@Mark-sd4hv So true, i mean in those times, you want an RTS, you have an RTS, you want an RPG, you have an PRG, now everithing have to have everithing, with all tipe of crap for everyone
@@Mark-sd4hv no one wants to risk any more. And also people expect much more big and expensive games (graphics, details, animations, voice acting..). So a bigger investment to make a game makes people afraid to risk even more.
In older days 1 person or several could make a groundbreaking game that became a hit. It happened left and right. Not any more apparently.
There are indies now too, but they are too small and many people ignore them to play bigger games.
Someone get Spudgun the finest bottle of scotch.
I love paradox games, I hate how they monetize and break down the content. A paradox game is basically early access until you buy $130 dollars worth of DLC.
That, and the fact you should probably not even try their game before 5 years of DLCs and updates.
basically
Victoria 3 is a spinoff in all but name. It went out of its way to not fulfill many of the things victoria 2 did, alas.
To be fair, I'd actually integrate older dlcs into the base game when a new dlc releases... especially if the game gets fundamental changes with major updates, like Stellaris with 2.0 and 3.0 release.
I can't even recommend their games to anyone, because you have to get in early to even convince yourself to buy the dlcs as they come...
But a new player will never be convinced to buy all the dlcs and looking at a dozen dlcs will discourage them from even buying the base game...
Which theybhave done fornhearts of iron practically all eraly dlc is now base
@@paulrasmussen8953 They've done it for EU4 as well, some of those earlier DLCs that provide what are now core game mechanics are now free.
I've been buying their games since HoI 1, and yeah I skipped a DLC or two on the recent titles (that I enjoy!!!) and I really can't be bothered to buy 3-4 'new' DLC just to get back in.
18:56 ...But they did fix Imperator Rome! It's actually one of my favorite of the "modern" PDX's library! Vanilla, just with the DLC? Sure it's lacking in a bit of flavor, especially outside of the major tags. Mechanically? The game itself is tremendously solid and runs like a dream even deep in the late game. With the two major overhaul mods that give a bunch of flavor to all the different tags (and in one's case, introduces tags all the way to Japan)? It can't be beat when put up against most every other game despite some of their laundry list of expensive DLC AND mods combined. It unironically is peak PDX design: meaningfully deep and rewarding gameplay, modern UI and other related comforts.
Yes Imperator is a fantastic game.
That's quite correct. Albeit I think they fixed it, because they knew it was going to be abandoned
I still disagree I:R is "fixed". It is much much improved, they seem to have started to figure it out, but no sooner than they figured it out they stopped working on it. Some systems and mechanics still blow - barbarians stacking gold and then merc-spamming from midgame onward, while also being in 6 member defensive pacts every time you fight one.
@@Pangora2 I can't name a single PDX game that doesn't have its annoying quirks. I wouldn't claim the game is outright broken over it, though. CK2 (probably their best game ever right next to hoi3) has the same exact hugbox problem. Either you choose to work with it and deal with triggering half the map every single time you declare over a single barony or you turn the coalition mechanic off entirely and struggle with boredom over a trivialized mid and end game. It's fiiiine. Further more it's literally irrelevant in the modded version of the game where it wasn't an issue for me at all in my first campaigns (even as a French tribal, but definitely as Rome.)
So what about the positives, though? Name me a better automated army system and I'll eat my hat. It's literally better than every other one of their games. It makes the end game so much more tolerable (and dare I say fun.)
@@MundaneThingsBackwards IR has the best maps hands down, the last PDX title I started a campaign in was IR just a month or so ago. I've been with it since release.
The shame is they stopped developing it just as it actually got nearly to where it needed to be at the start. Like the early game versions had countries simply die with no one to marry since no one has kids.
The potential is there, I'd rather give IR another dlc over Vicky 3 or another "mission tree" pack for HoI 4.
Mission trees ruined modern PDX!!!
I've been following Project Caesar and it looks fairly promising so far. But I will not buy it right away, and if it is bad I will never buy any Paradox product ever again.
Don't be fooled. Victoria 3 was also expected to be an awesome game on release.
They intentionally tell you the good stuff to make you not think of the possibility of bad stuff
@@RomanCigić Maybe some people did, but I was following it for some time and could tell it wasn't going to be good.
The military system alone was indicative enough in that regard.
New gamers are far too forgiving, they lack the experince of old gamers who are far less so, Paradox lost me when they started lecturing Stellaris players about the correct way to play the game, then changed every system to be a fixed cap with no way to mitigate and a debuff for going over. I dont play my galatic spread sheet game to have a huge mass of red numbers and nothing I can do about it. Plenty of other things out there and most of them made before 2016
You mean Administrative Cap?
still haven't bought Victoria 3, and I don't think re-adding wars will make me do it either
The release state was frankly and simply an insult
And while I have a difficult time voicing why, I still prefer age of wonders 3 over 4, that I only bought the base game and didn't see a reason to buy any of it's dlc yet.
Another problem is Paradox is getting worse at making dlc, for instance we recently got a dlc for ck3 Road to Power, it focuses on adding in landless characters and administrative government.
Except:
-they made a massive numerical change to warfare in effectively a single patch note, 1 point of advantage increases dmg from 2 to 10%, and suddenly FAAAR too many battles become stackwipes as a single character trait on ONE of the commanders can add 100% bonus damage to the army he commands
-they AGAIN broke renown by adding a dynasty modifier that gives bonus renown, which then breaks game balancing ,this wouldn't be as much of an issue if it hadn't already happened in a previous dlc, and yes it has been patched already, but shouldn't have happened in the first place,
-landless are overpowered to the extreme, and can materialize armies of thousands of professional soldiers to eradicate empires in a single persons lifetime (got nerfed but not enough) while landed characters can for that same cost hire a third as many mercenaries most of which are shitty levies
-administrative government has MANY problems, but I want to focus on two of them,
One, the administrative government is supposed to represent the byzantine/roman empire, and reforming rome is part of the dlc features BUT if you restore rome and convert your culture from greek to roman you lose access to many features added by this dlc, because they were added to the greek culture, like holding triumphs, chariot races, recruiting varangian guard, also if you reclaim an important city of the empire like Rome, Tunis, Antioch as a vassal, you don't get anything, not even the event as it fires only for the emperor, so there goes vassal gameplay
Two, estate is your family personal holding, it already was there in CK2 in republics, except now they have a shiny nice window, can be moved around, but more importantly if you as say the emperor, make your heir and son a co-emperor, give him a province to command, and then you die, as your son you have your sons estate, which is probably bare bones, and ai-made, so badly, btw, making your son into a co-emperor and sponsor him conquering and ruling entire kingdoms was a feature described in the dev diaries as one of the reasons to even bother making a co-emperor
The fact that so many core functionalities are badly balanced or just wrong as soon as you spend a moment to think about them, repeating past mistakes, sweeping balance changes with no followup, and it all can be seen with a single playthrough, makes me think paradox barely if at all play the games they make, much less test them.
Vicky 3 now is pretty much at the same level as vicky 2 was.
Different glitches and bugs and bizarre behaviour sometimes. Also Germany is nerfed.
@@Thinkingnamesishard no they are not. there is still no closed global economy and resources is pretty much infinite if you can handle the subsidizing cost (tried with cheat that gave me billions of Pound) which means that if somehow you can cheese the economy and subsidize your industry carefully, you will not have goods shortage. plus they are still not using individualized unit piece board in warfare as far as i know. also, i dont think they would bring back westernization mechanic because it is not PC
@@Ozzystrayroo honestly don't need too, if I wanted more war focus I would play hearts of iron or crusader kings. I play victoria for the math/theory experience. That said I do like the setup of age of wonders 3 over 4 better and that is tied to balanced expansions vs dlc spamm.
They fixed a bunch of problems I had with 4 recently though,,, for example tier 1-2 units getting obsolete when fighting higher tiers. So tier 1-2 units experience ranks power them up now almost to the next rank.
A tier 1 spear unit that have 2-3 ranks of experience ( which you can now give them through city buildings again, as you could in 3 ) is now a worthwile cheaper option. Fully ranked up to champion it is basicly as powerful as if it was a tier higherso a tier 1 unit powered up can fight a tier 3 now....sure at a disadvantage but you atleast can. Another fix needed was necromancy, in wonders 3 it was cleanvut and balanced,,,,in wonders 4 necromancy had issues, summonig had issues ( high rank summons came online way too fast, now slowed down and tied to your magic tower ) Still not liking the tome system and city expansion fully as the flaws in those persist but it is atleast stable now. Why they didn't spot these issues earlier on rather than needing user input is rather poor handled development though.
Also why I refuse to even look at city skylines 2 which is paradox too if I recall. I got most the interesting dlc for city skylines 1 through steam sales and I am not recollecting it again on that new broken setup
@@Thinkingnamesishard There isn't any real economy simulation in Vic3 (or at least the market demand based like in Vic2), it's just a cookie clicker with a coat of paint.
Don't say it's on the same level because until they change that it never will be.
I know what was said.
What I heard was “we’re too lazy/greedy to make a demo. Now give us your credit cards and eat the slop like a good little paypig.” I’m out of goodwill for companies that consistently express disdain for their core audience
I remember when DLC for EU4/CK2/Stellaris got me excited. Then it turned into barely meaningful "flavour packs", almost cheat like mission trees, repeatedly breaking the game for a long time after patches, etc. , over time.
I will defend parts of EU4/CK2/Stellaris DLCs though.
Yes, it's a double edged sword. Yes, every few months i bought a new DLC, but that DLC added at least 100 hours of game-play. I can get angry about paying 10-20 euros for it, but then i realize publishers sell games for 100 euros with 40 hours of gameplay.
The real question is, when will Paradox also migrate to the Unreal Engine too? Its very fashionable nowadays to gain investor points afterall... Even if it makes no sense
And to hire people with low knowledge and quality, honestly i dont care for me crusaders kings 2 was paradox
God, how I wish they ditch the f*ucking Clausewitz engine and use ANYTHING else lol
how would UE handle a grand strategy game is the thing that i am wondered. are there any grand strategy game that use UE?
@@Ozzystrayroo Honestly if i could create a game i would made a total war, with angels and demons two version the version normal, will be angels like warriors and that, vs eldrich monstrositys and have a map that randomizes each time you start a great campaing.
The second one will made money, will be all angels and demons will be femenine, think in the Bayonettas Joy or the steel heart sisters something like that, you costumize them weapons and that,vs all demons are fememenine monsters with breasts, and depending side you can capture champions of the enemy and convert them using bayonetta stile torture finishes.
That will sell of course wont be made, i mean come on i dont know how deliverance was make and not pollute
@@Ozzystrayroo
Their current engine can barely handle grand strategy
UE can't be much worse
For me the biggest problem with the initial vic 3 release was not the crappy combat, but rather the absolutely horrible economics system, which arguably is the core of the entire game. They did a great job on that front in vic2, but vic 3 released with essentially only a command economy (the exact opposite of a free market system). I have not dug in enough w the vic3 updates to see if they have really fixed it, hope they have, but I am skeptical at best.
that is totally true. And so is the political system.
Been playing Vic3 for 2-3 months. They kind of did - various economic systems have different amount of construction sector relegated to Private (AI) construction queue. Command economy is distinct that it alters investment pool dynamic but it seems like late game tool. From what I gather people are somewhat ok with it generally - it is the Warfare system and to lesser degree Diplomacy that is still complained about (although last DLC: Spehere of Powers kind of helped Diplo). Power blocks are better spheres of influence from Vic2 (less microing them) but also funny kind of invalidated some portion of community tutorials as they replaced "Joining other's markets". Warfare seems pointless as on the roadmap it is already considered reworked so beside fixing some weird instant teleportation of troops due to fronts dissapearing we probably can't expect another rework.
Compared to Vic2 it puts warfare in this weird place, that you don't really need those techs as much because investing more in economy helps more as you can field more of army then. It kind of lacks that Vic2 loop of Big stacks into Machine Guns into Gas Into Airplanes dynamic of battles on various stages of game. On other hand economic ceiling is far higher in Vic3 than in Vic2, so no matter who you are you will in the end outgrow AI's several times (when in Vic2 it was a challenge as non GP to beat Germany/America without sabotaging them).
That's my 2 cents as someone that is getting into Vic3 without DLC. I hope it helps you.
Vic2 is still garbage at making a free market economy. Laissez-faire and the Liberal will instantly crash the economy that was booming under State Capitalism and Conservative in a death spiral. It didn't even bounce back either. It just keeps tanking.
With Victoria they've been selling us back Heart of darkness piecemeal for over a year and we still don't have colonial range or westernization in any meaningful sense.
Subsaharan africa starts with several techs unocked like atmospheric engine and litteracy in the double digits.
There is no artisans to produce basic stuff without state interventions and no machine tools industries (meaning you can build any factory no matter how complexas soon as you unlock the tech through sheer force of will, no machines necessary)
also civil wars still do not work and war exhaustion makes no sense as you can 100% occupy a country without them accepting a surrender (which funnily enough allows you to genocide any state region in the game if you so wish as population ticks down due to devastation)
Also also they still haven't found a way to represent arable land independently from peasant population wich leads to some funny scenarios like ireland having more arable land than the rest of the uk combined and often ballooning in population and being more populated than all of western europe because as those peasant become workers it creates unused arable land that siphons off pops from neighboring state regions.
"they've been selling us back Heart of darkness piecemeal for over a year"
what do you mean by that
also there is a better mechanic than westernization in the game, it's called recgontion
subsaharn africa doesn't start with atmospheric engine , you are just lying and most african countries start with around 10% litteracy
there is no need for artisans bec your capitalists and aristocrats automatically build farm and factories with out you doing anything
there is a tool factory and you need it to build any modern factory in the game
are you playing the same game my guy?
@@mohamed_alaa-
"they've been selling us back Heart of darkness piecemeal for over a year" by that I mean that the content of that final DLC for Vicky 2 was cut off from core Vicky 3 and then and only partially reintroduced in Vicky 3 over several dlcs (the biggest one being "shperes of influence")
I'm not talking about recognition. That's a separate mechanic that determines whether you can enjoy the perks of a GP. Westernization is about unlocking the tech tree in the first place.
My bad about the "atmospheric engine" I spoke from the hip and misremembered the name of the first mining tech which is actually "shaft mining". The fact that these countries start with any 19th century technologies unlocked is plain ridiculous still.
I am also not lying about literacy: 10% does indeed contain 2 ("two") digits., which is quite paradoxical since we're talking about some pops which did not even have a writing system at the time (I'm obviously not talking about every non recognised country in subsaharan africa at game start)
"there is no need for artisans" there is obviously a need for artisans since not every country starts as capitalist at game start. I shouldn't have to explain this, it's really not that complicated (the short of it is that just as peasants are self employed low productivity farmers, artisans are self employed low productivity workers). Still now that we're back on the topic, another interesting side effect/problem caused by the lack of artisans is that similarly to their incapacity to accurately model arable land at game start the game does not have a way to simulate an urban population without factories (which completely fucks up China among others)
Tools and machine tools are not the same. You're talking about an input for the building, I'm talking about construction materials. As it stands you only need wood and cloth (assuming you use the basic production method of the construction sector) and the game magically turns the empty barn you just raised into any kind of heavy machinery.
We are definitely not playing the same game my guy
In one of the more recent patches, as soon as you 100% occupy a country they'll auto-capitulate (unless they're a puppet).
@@adamperdue3178 exactly. it's stupid and doesn't work because anything below 100% blocks the process if you don't occupy the wargoal. It also means you can genocide an entire country by selecting a far flung island as a war goal and then occupying the mainland (For China you select Taïwan and for the uk any of the carribean islands)
@@adamperdue3178 btw while we're on the military topic isn't it hilarious that they gave terrain traits to generals (like mountain commander/open field commander) in a game where you can't tell your troops where to go. lol
Isn't this is meta of Video game development for last decade? Even prior there's no best way other than buying vidya the goty edition or full game with all dlc. Using fomo tactics turning user as beta tester
Paradox are greedy bastards who suppress any form of criticism on the forums. How they keep a loyal fanbase is beyond me.
Byzaboos, allow usually Nono stuff in their games so long as it’s abstracted, and practically having a monopoly on the 4X/Grand Strategy market at this time.
"We try to find a middle ground.".
I don't think there is a middle ground Paradox.
It's not only gamers who have short memories and lax standards... why do you think our corporations are so powerful and think of their customers like trash? None of us has been trained to be an effective participant in the market, and we are paying for it.
For that matter, none of us has been trained to be an effective citizen that participates in the power structure of a country either, so, no wonder our politicians turn out as they do.
Paradox gets no more of my money. Their entire buisness model is vile. And now their products are also just piss poorly made and optimized
Exactly. Why would they ever properly fix their games, if they can keep charging money for another DLC that promises to fix problems that still exist in the game? Running out of problems with the games just makes it harder for them to sell DLC.
Christ, I remember the HOI3 release, I still have a hard copy somewhere.
That was a disaster, nothing worked - CTDs and the supply system was a complete mess...
It took them years to fix that mess...and I would still rather play it than HOI4
Paradox died after setting itself on fire with the Afrocentric vic 3
this
How is Vic 3 in any way afrocentric? There's 0 content for Africa.
The cracks were already there when making CK3. They refused to add in actual history because it would offend someone
@@realah3001 How is Vic afrocentric?
@@afrovarangian Places which didn't even have their own scripts have 10%+ literacy (literacy would only make sense in the muslim and christian parts of Africa not in most animist areas), they have basic 19th century technology which should be unlocked by only certain Asian, European and American states at the start of the game. Like people in the tropical sub-saharan loctaion didn't even have concepts of wheel, wagon and roads and somehow have shaft mining discovered in start, they also had limited range of draught animals (horses can't breed in hot and humid climate and they didn't domesticate local fauna since they have evolved alongside humans and know how to counter humans).
Why don’t we force large companies that exploit early access to give full refunds when they fail to deliver, regardless of time played. RIP KSP2
cant, too many consoomers who will just buy the slop.
"Do you want people to lose their jobs?"
"Judge the game for what it is."
"Don't be toxic."
Any questions?
Its classic Paradox, the break the game and if you do not buy the over priced DLC you are screwed because you cant use features the AI can. Some hardcore Paradox fans will tell you the vanilla game is just fine and that dont need all the DLC to play them, but these same players owns all the DLC. Paradox games are overpriced and one of the main reasons why piracy is still alive and well, mainly because paying $500+ dollars for a complete game is insane.
Best part about these hardcore fans is that they will not give you tutorials for no DLC playthrough.
I had no dlcs on EU4 and i had trouble finding ONE video explaining how to do things with no dlcs. (I was looking for video tutorials on youtube because Paradox makes God awful tutorials)
@@RomanCigić Yeah playing EU4 vanilla is a nightmare.
@@JohnDoe-fg4xe They did make it so that 3 dlcs are now base game. Still not an excuse
@@RomanCigić Dont get me started on that BS, they did it with HoI4 to and I owned all 3 of those DLCs and 2 of the 3 for EU4, have half a mind to ask steam for a refund.
Yeah, I'm kind of glad Paradox is facing a reckoning. They can make good games, but they constantly choose to not make good games so that they can sell DLC later. They need to start using an actual Early Access system, and they need more quality assurance for their DLC. EU4 is a perfect example of poor QA absolutely demolishing a game's reputation through several borked DLC in a row. I have almost 5k hours in EU4, and now I can't bring myself to even boot it up just due to it becoming clear what their opinion of their customers was.
It will always be funny to me that the best versions of new Paradox GSG games are always the last version of the previous game.
I fell out of love with Paradox because there are only so many times you can be excited for a DLC, realise that it's either broken or poorly balanced, and then sigh and hope they fix it next time.
Peter Molyneux's name is inextricably tied to Jim Sterling, which is a suitable fate for both of them.
I don't buy or play Paradox games out of principle. Same with Ubisoft, Bioware, Activision and many more. Do not fund people who hate you.
I have added Sony to the list.
Yeah but those are others are rubbish anyway , Parodox make half decent games
I don't give a shit about their politics. I just want to play a fun game! But that is the correlating problem
@@richardPhilips2 no Paradox sells you the same 3 games while removing core game content in the next game so they can sell you one more DLC
@@viktorgabriel2554 they literally charged to have some portrait options , some BMPs
"Cat waifus".
Where are my waifus, Peter, PETER!
WHERE ARE MY. WAIFUS!!!
to heck with Paradox and CA, long live Hooded Horse
Did they make hegemony?
@@Hippo_Hegemony Nope, hegemony was created by longbow. Hooded Horse is a publisher of several great strategy of low to AA budget studios. they are a contender to Paradox for sure
@@Ozzystrayroo are they the guys that publish manor lords? They sound familiar.
@@Hippo_Hegemony they are, and also Terra Invicta
Part of the issue with outrage is it only really communicates displeasure when things are really bad. If things are just kind of bad you'll probably only get gentle complaints which are easy to ignore but still steadily erode confidence in you over time. Good will is one of those pesky ethereal resources which you want to be careful playing around with. You never know just quite how much you have left until sales start mysteriously drying up. Considering how much time and hard work it takes to build up a good reputation, it's not an asset you want to throw away unless you know you can operate without it.
Whats the average price for all the dlc of a single paradox game? In the thousands I bet
Stellaris with all DLC is about $300, CK2 is about the same, CK3 is also on it's way to $300, Victoria 3 is still fairly new so just give them time...
EU4 is about $230 USD.
Edit: Hearts of Iron 4 is $182 USD.
So...
Depending on the currency, yes. It can approach (or exceed) thousands.
It's more than a sane person would ever pay for it...
Paradox games are in the "want to recommend, but can't" category, because no matter how good the game is, you cannot convince anyone after they see the dlcs lol
@@SolantisA well... If it happens to go on a massive discount (like 80+%) then maaaybe. But otherwise yeah, not a chance most people will even consider that.
They don't just "fix games with DLC", they finish games with DLC. Half of all "DLC" features should have been in the base game, and this goes for every game they released since at least CK2.
It's pretty sad because Paradox already figured out how to make tactical warfare fun way back in 2013 with March of the Eagles (Napoleonic era). Each army had 2 wings and a center and you could fine tune its composition with various types of troops: light/heavy cavalry, regular infantry/militias/elite infantry/, artillery/ heavy artillery/ horse drawn artillery and so on. You could also assign generals to each wings and select the way each flank fought. For instance you could pack a wing with light cavalry and have them harass and delay. Each tactic had events associated that would favor the units best suited for the role. On top of that each major nation had mastered how to use certain type of units better than others.
Positioning corps on the map + building your armies with flavor is a lot more fun than the wide front crap Victoria 3 came up with.
But but but it’s just higher expectations in the fans, that’s why we’re technically regressing our games, we did too much the first time… Why won’t people understand we can’t be expected to do what we did.
I love how they pivoted to early access as though they’re pioneers for selling a “finished” product as a test platform.
Paradox can be forgiven, but gamers should never forget: This is who Paradox truly are.
If they change their tune and behavior in the future, it is only because they are forced to, and they will only change insofar as is required to be forgiven. Underneath they will remain the company willing to screw over their fans with a steady stream overpriced, underproduced DLC-frameworks + with associated steady stream of DLC slop.
Industry's foremost DLC framework manufacturing company admits that they are building and selling DLC frameworks.
Remember when DLC was free? Remember when games just came out whole and complete?
Yeah. Those were the good days.
In Stellaris, Paradox divided the team into two.
One to develop new content, one to improve existing content.
They could do the same for their other games.
If the had the balls to be honest about the fact that Version 1.0 is the early access version of the game.
Agreed. The Custodian team saved Stellaris. But I HATE how they keep changing the bloody game everytime they introduce a DLC. First there was the expanded traditions which were cool and did make it more meaningful. Then they “fixed” them and nerfed the hell out of Prosperity. Okay, understandable and the new ‘specialist merchant’ sucks but I can KIND OF get why. Then they added more traditions and now split the ascension into a tradition but did not add another tradition slot to compensate. Just… why Paradox?
@@duncanharrell5009 Mods.
I’m on console so no mods for me.
@@duncanharrell5009 R.I.P.
You're missing on so, so, So, SO much good stuff.
I still remember bots/shills spamming every Victoria 2/3 related forum, video or website how the new system is actually good and better than the war system Paradox did before.
I wonder if any of them actually bought the game, because I sure did not.
Love you man, if I ever create something that needs a voice actor you are on the list.
The irony and sarcasm at the beginning are delicious
They will keep doing it, as long as they can get away with it. And it really kills all the motivation to try these games. "Oh, a new paradox game? I guess I have to wait a decade to play it, when they finish it."
Paradox games are terrible for lack of a better word, the DLC introduces mechanics to the base games but you can't really counter said mechanics without the DLC, it's predatory to say the least. most of the DLC released should be included in the base game, and every Paradox game feels like you are playing an unpolished Beta. take Stellaris for instance, released in 2016 they made changes in 2017 taking away the ability to customize starbases, so here we are 7 years later and you can build a starbase in a system that nullifies shields but your starbase will still have shields in the defensive slots, rendering them null.
i have 7500 hours in Stellaris, 3500 in CK3 and when someone asks me about Paradox games i tell them to save their money, buy ANYTHING else if you want to enjoy a game.
typical schyzophrenic PDX player who I totally relate to.
Time was, I would wait however long it took for them to finally release a complete game, then wait even longer until it was on a Steam sale that brought the price down to something reasonable.
Now, however, if I ever play a Paradox game it will be acquired via...alternate...methods.
Yo, ho, ho!
Triumph Studios understands the assignment. Release a game, Than develop ADDITIONAL content that ADDS factions and mechanics for sale, while patching broken parts of the game and adding some content for free . Also listen to your consumers and give them what they want (They are finally bringing back Archons). They aren't perfect but they are better than most companies these days (Which is admittedly a low bar) Now i am going back to playing my Demonic, crocodile riding, giant, frog people. A holy empire of angelic orcs is attacking.
Owned by Paradox
@@geoDB. Hey. Didn't even realize. Just proves that Paradox can do it right, they just don't want to.
I got stellaris never buying a paradox made game again , endless over priced dlcs , some are megabytes in size ..and many are crap, good game though, but thier are others like Sins of the Solar empires and Distant Words, without huge expense
they may admit it but they all do it. i can't remember a truly finished title from a AAA studio in 14 years.
When you see the Paradox logo you know you have to add an extra 0 on the end. And most of their games, are just not worth that much.
Paradox is a joke at this point. I literally don't know why people continue to pay their insane fees to keep playing games they burn to the ground and screw over the players every year or so.
I'd be cool with their early access model if the game was eventually made good.
I still feel burned by my purchase of Imperator: Rome.
To clarify: I'm saying that when they release the base game, it comes with a promise that it will eventually be finished. Them getting to back out due to bad sales and leave me high and dry is what soured me on the whole experience.
This is why I started pirating their games years ago. What I seen some people do is they buy the base game and pirate the dlcs.
The Heck you say! Why, if people did that, they'd have full access to all the Steam Workshop content for only the price of the base game, while saving hundreds on DLC. What kind of nefarious desperadoes would do such a thing?
Funnily enough, one of the best Paradox games is imperator: Rome. Why? Because they considered it a failure of a game, so I can mod the shit out of it and actually have a good game without said mods breaking.
Not to say it only has like 3 DLCs that are sold together with the game. Poured countless hours in my modded runs.
And here I thought Sega and Creative Assembly piecemealing DLC for Total Warhammer felt rough. Skaven on launch felt like a far cry from how they are now. They REALLY needed those weapon teams.
I feel like DLC needs to be a significant enough experience to be worth the extra money. To do that in a strategy game it needs to either introduce new paths to victory (note: not alternative victory conditions) and alter old ones.
For example, in Against the Storm, the new frog race makes incoming groups of people arrive faster. That means you have more people to do more stuff, but they also still have to be fed, housed, etc. They also require a non-standard house, which means you need to plan runs with a lot of frogs for more starting building materials. That, overall, changes the entire pace and feel of the game.
This is why, even though I own Age of Wonders 4, I have not bought any DLC for it and will not unless it's on a very significant sale.
nothing gonna change while people still pay for the DLCs. my advice is to just buy the base game and crack the DLCs, its the most moral thing to do.
I would say CK3 is 40% of CK2 even today since the economy system was gutted. Compare the amount of buildings you can build in a normal feudal province in each game at the start.
Now compare the special buildings and how in CK2 they were buildings with a plethora of building options within the building along with more getting unlocked as the great work increased in tier level.
Not to mention how now troops just teleport all ready formed up when you need them vs CK2 where you had to march them all together from your vassal's territory and had to boat them over if they were in far flung lands or islands. And also worrying about having enough boats to even transport them.
It facilitated, you know, strategy. Long term planning.
Damnit Paradox, you where one of my top 3 companies, with Tyranny being one of my favorite RPGs. Bullshit leadership...
That's why I simply acquire the DLC from alternative channels, if you catch my meaning...
I really disliked how many of the publishers went to $70 for games but I’d much rather Paradox do that then what they’ve been doing with their last major releases. They all feel half baked and semi broken. They used to be one of my fav publishers but they’re pissing away the good will they’ve built up with me.
"you wouldn't steal a handbag"👀
Peter Molyneux strategy is a great term for that.
Minecraft development is another great term for something different.
Its what Starship Troopers: Extermination did. Its where you drag out the development for as long as possible to milk as many early access sales as possible rather than actually trying to release the product promised.
People need to stop giving excuses for shi**y anti consumer practices just because they're indie. They are a business, treating you the customer like shit, serving you half the meal promised, and you just say "but its a small business so its ok they're snake oil salesman."
PS: Minecraft development turns into Peter Molyneux strategy.
I want the game put down because I don't like seeing a beloved animal use being hooked up to an iron lung just to scream constantly but bloodlines 2 clan dlc should really be the twisting knife of how unacceptable this shit from paradox has gotten.
the main problem is Paradox doesnt have competition yet
Well that genre peaked in early 2000 and is niche. 4X is also tough piece of market and for example Stellaris keeps getting competition that simply can't stack up to it when it comes to amount of content.
Exactly what happened with Imperator was that they released it incomplete with very little replayability and so it died. Bet they were hoping to pump out DLCs for years like they've done before ck2, hoi4 and eu4. But to be fair, imperator had like 7 months of development while victoria has had a lot more and now eu5 has also been talked about to have had much, much more time in the oven.
woke flop paradox
I agree with their business model. We cannot seriously expect a complete game for 20$ every so many years. How does the company sustain itself. Besides, a person doesn’t need to buy ALL of the DLC. I sure don’t, yet I got thousands of hours on Stellaris.
I think you're mistaken on the part of Imperator Rome. It wasn't bareboned and with preplanned dlc roadpath, it was a total unbalanced mess where majority of your country's functions were tied to one of four ruler stats, AI was braindead, gui was unreadable and the game couldn't decide if it wants to be EU4, CK2 or VIC2 with many poorly mashing mechanics borrowed from the three titles.
Most of the flaws could be ironed out or at least mitigated if only Paradox spent time on balancing/playtesting the build. All the mechanics sound cool in theory, but together are a unnavigable mess. Thank gods that they didn't abbandon the game after it flopped and fixed it to a playable state. Nowadays it's quite fun yet still unpolished. Even the net code is good enough to host small multiplayer lobbies.
Just imagine what game we could've recived if Paradox decided to dev it a year longer.
EUV/Project Cesar is going to be the final nail on vicky 3s coffin, from what has been shown on the dev diaries (tinto talks) that game is going to be everything vicky 3 ever dreamt of being
Don't forget that by putting their hands into so many other products they got new customers who are not on board with their development strategy and weren't even aware if it.
This means their current stupid development strategy locks them into only their ever shrinking current fan base who only want a tiny handful of products preventing them from ever expanding unless they completely do away with the Peter Molyneux strategy, which they can't because its what their current fans want.
Catch 22 they built themselves, both the company and the customers.
calling "early access" is a big ask to begin with. That warfare system is basically a disproof of concept
Thankfully it is fairly easy to enable all the DLC even if you did not buy it
These companies are complaining expectations are higher but really they’ve returned to what they were in the 2000s
"We're selling early access games"
Paradox fans: "Yeah...we know."
To point out the obvious. Paradox's recent DLCs have been very content light across all their flagships. This is because they are most likely heavily restricting budgets given fears about profit potential (looking at several recent releases for context) and with the aim of sustaining margins. This is the reason for the long development times and the perceived content stinginess in premium prices DLCs.
not to mention how much stuff is already in pre production, paradox sure deserves its reputation
This has been the case with almost every game that's been coming out lately. Even though the revenue streams increased and the amount we paid for has increased as well, the games we have been getting lately have been consistently getting smaller and lower in feature and functionality. For Paradox it was just the most blatantly obvious.
As a diehard lover of Vicky2, I wasn't against the warfare change.
But if I were to compare, imagine if you always get to choose where to eat. Then your friend says "can I choose where we go this week?" You say, okay, what's the worst that could happen. Then they drive you to a barren field and hand you a bag of seeds.
I expected a different system with different mechanics. Not, what I call "mechanics that say the player to not play the game."
I'm still hyped for EU5 though, and I hardly get hyped by anything nowadays.
But I never buy games or DLCs at launch, that's just stupid
The warfare system was always just an excuse to not make that part of the game and then market its exclusion as a feature. I can't believe some people fell for it.
Peter Molyneux might call himself Peter Molyneux, but is that his real name?
Creative Assembly, Paradox, Bethesda, gamers are waking up, they stop buying slop out of habit.
Paradox has become synonymous with E.A. Abandonware.
Fable was under production long before Peter Molineux got involved. The original creators were pushed out of a pretty unhealthy work environment fostered by Peter.