Grand Strategy Victoria 3

[Fedora Master]

This is the time period of "Made in Great Britain" after all.

 

[Space Satan]

Devs actually considered using 2d art and even had placeholder portraits for generals adn statesman:

What a hideous faces. Just look how 3d nuPortraits are superior to this obsolete 2d scribbles

FFS it's not a rumor or a joke, they really considered using 2d portraits. they are still there!
Victoria 3\game\gfx\portraits\placeholder

 

[HeroMarine]

The 2d portraits look so much better it's unbelievable.

 

[IDtenT]

Transvaal just got a big boost.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Mortmal]

Not even booting it anymore, its just a build order clicker, hard pass on this dlc.

 

[Axioms]

Not even booting it anymore, its just a build order clicker, hard pass on this dlc.

But they are putting out a diplo expansion in March 2024! They just need one more chance. Don't be a quitter!

 

[Fedora Master]

But you can make Napoleon the Whatever'st King of the USA now!

 

[BrotherFrank]

Mostly peaceful protests DLC.

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[AwesomeButton]

This looks positively revolting.

 

[Axioms]

Imagine a Paradox DLC so bad that even One Proud Bavarian couldn't give it higher than 4/10. What a disaster. V3 about to eat shit and get cancelled.

 

[Space Satan]

HAHA

 

[thesecret1]

I think Paradox really ought to start listening to the voice of the people

 

[AwesomeButton]

I think Paradox really ought to start listening to the voice of the people

They do, but that's where purging their forums of disagreeing voices lead them.

 

[Fedora Master]

Looks like One Proud Shill wasn't paid enough either.

 

[thesecret1]

It's really gonna go the way of Imperator, isn't it?

 

[IDtenT]

Sales were way higher than with Imperator, at a higher price. It should at least go another couple of years.

 

[Reina]

I think Paradox really ought to start listening to the voice of the people

The problem might not be with being deaf to the players, but their relatively new strategy of planning entire roadmap of DLCs years ahead. Even if VOTP was of top-notch quality, the main problem with it remains that it doesn't answer the worst problems with Vicky 3 as it is today: abyssmal warfare and international politics.

I can't help but notice that Paradox is caught in a, well, a paradox: they are trying more and more ambitious systems whilst limiting initial scope of their games (either to cynically bolster slales of the DLC or because they simply do not have the output to ship large enough games at the premiere - probably both). All of their last major historical games: HoI4, CK3, Imperator and now Vic3 follow the same pattern: more or less underwhelming initial release, awful first DLC, then either the game slowly becomes decent when DLCs finally start addressing core issues or gets abandoned because it doesn't sell well. I feel Vic3 will unfortunately be the latter.

It pains me, because lead dev for V3, Wiz, is one of the guys who 'gets' what makes Paradox Grand Strategies great and his work as a modder proves so. His initial projects are always interesting and ambitious, yet fall short to deliver, probably because Paradox doesn't have enough workpower/budget.

Paradox really needs to rethink their policy; either scale down their productions or take a risk and go big. The first option is more likely considering limited market for GS's, but also will probably not sit well will established audience, who will always expect the next game to have full features of the previous title in the series, even if that's obviously impossible.

 

[Axioms]

I think Paradox really ought to start listening to the voice of the people

They do, but that's where purging their forums of disagreeing voices lead them.

I believe I posted in here about the great purging of inhappy voices the week before the launch. They literally banned the voices of the people, dozens of them.

 

[Axioms]

I think Paradox really ought to start listening to the voice of the people

The problem might not be with being deaf to the players, but their relatively new strategy of planning entire roadmap of DLCs years ahead. Even if VOTP was of top-notch quality, the main problem with it remains that it doesn't answer the worst problems with Vicky 3 as it is today: abyssmal warfare and international politics.

I can't help but notice that Paradox is caught in a, well, a paradox: they are trying more and more ambitious systems whilst limiting initial scope of their games (either to cynically bolster slales of the DLC or because they simply do not have the output to ship large enough games at the premiere - probably both). All of their last major historical games: HoI4, CK3, Imperator and now Vic3 follow the same pattern: more or less underwhelming initial release, awful first DLC, then either the game slowly becomes decent when DLCs finally start addressing core issues or gets abandoned because it doesn't sell well. I feel Vic3 will unfortunately be the latter.

It pains me, because lead dev for V3, Wiz, is one of the guys who 'gets' what makes Paradox Grand Strategies great and his work as a modder proves so. His initial projects are always interesting and ambitious, yet fall short to deliver, probably because Paradox doesn't have enough workpower/budget.

Paradox really needs to rethink their policy; either scale down their productions or take a risk and go big. The first option is more likely considering limited market for GS's, but also will probably not sit well will established audience, who will always expect the next game to have full features of the previous title in the series, even if that's obviously impossible.

You have it all wrong. Wiz is actually a huge problem, one of the architects of the demise of Paradox. Just like Exley and Sandberg and Califano and Shakir ran the Sanders campaign into the ground because they had no business on anything bigger than an urban 80% Dem blue seat House campaign Wiz and many other top Paradox staffers have no business as game leads.

This happens all the time, pure Peter Principle. People are promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. Wiz needs to be heavily constrained by existing systems to make anything good. If you just give him free reign he doesn't have the oomph to get it done.

 

[thesecret1]

It pains me, because lead dev for V3, Wiz, is one of the guys who 'gets' what makes Paradox Grand Strategies great and his work as a modder proves so.

But his work as a lead certainly doesn't! Nobody who "gets" GSGs would make V3 into something like this. You can't call yourself ambitious if your game is shittier and with less features than its predecessor.

 

[Reina]

But his work as a lead certainly doesn't! Nobody who "gets" GSGs would make V3 into something like this. You can't call yourself ambitious if your game is shittier and with less features than its predecessor.

Judging from the first dev diaries (as well the fact that around the infamous leak Paradox suddenly went silent for months about new features), Wiz had much grander vision from the game, and had to simplify several systems (in particular, economy), because production team failed to properly implement them - or they lacked time to iron them out. Kinda smiliar thing happened with Stellaris, where instead of fixing the existing systems, new lead just overhauled everything after Wiz left the project.

less features than its predecessor.

It's important to judge the base game to the predecessor's base; I don't think base V3 is that much lackluster compared to base V2 (although V2's problems were waaaay simpler to fix). There's also a problem with several systems that more or less 'work' within a game's framework, but fail at other levels. For example, warfare in V2 was more servicable from gaming perspective than mess we have in V3, but it was absolutely awful representation of the warfare in the era, especially WW1.

 

[thesecret1]

It's important to judge the base game to the predecessor's base

I disagree. They should view their previous title as a competitor, because that is what it is to their customers - why should I buy V3 if it's worse than V2? It doesn't matter both games are from the same company or even the same series. They are competing, and V3 should thus be competitive. If it's not then it simply deserves to crash and burn, that's how the market works. I'm not saying it should have every feature of the competitor, but that it should give one a compelling reason to play it rather than V2.

 

[Reina]

They are competing, and V3 should thus be competitive. If it's not then it simply deserves to crash and burn, that's how the market works. I'm not saying it should have every feature of the competitor, but that it should give one a compelling reason to play it rather than V2.

That's good if you're judging the game as consumer, but not as a critic. For example, CK2 became the game it is now after almost 10 years of development; it's unrealistic to expect sequel to have the similar amount of work put into it at the beginning of its lifespan. I'd like Paradox to spend more time and release better product, but let's be real, it's unfeasible for economic reasons.