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Comment by elil17 | Hacker News Reader

I feel like this is not only a massive technical mess-up but also belies a deep misunderstanding of their customers. Most C:S fans were more excited for a more realistic traffic AI and mixed use zoning. Yet this experience was made unplayable by an attempt to make it look prettier.

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As a C:S fan, I want realistic traffic, mixed zoning, and expect it to be prettier. I don't find it unplayable at all even when it is turning my PC into a space heater. Optimizations will come, and I'd rather be waiting for optimizations than features.

> Optimizations will come

As someone that has played C:S 8 years ago and last year, I'll tell you, not really, at least, not from people like paradox.

Definitely not from Paradox. Europa Universalis IV is 10 years old now, still getting regular DLC releases, and late game is still unacceptably laggy on 2023 computers. Like, 20 to 0.2 fps.

Mid-late game Stellaris still chugs on my 7800X3D, which is massively faster than pretty much any non X3D CPU in this particular game.

And I have it overclocked, with CL30 RAM, running a medium galaxy. Thats kind of unacceptable.

They fix it some, then it regresses...

DLC feature bloat >>> incentive to optimize

Funny thing is Stellaris has a "custodian" dev team specifically to address this.

The custodians fix a bunch of bugs and performance issues... then the features/dlc team introduce new ones.

And things like "If you accidentally enable xeno-compatibility, good luck and god speed."

I have an absurd amount of hours in EU4 and I have absolutely no lag in EU4 on my desktop. And I can think of at least two times where Paradox has had a patch that really significantly increased performance.

How often do you play past 1750? That’s when the 5 second month ticks happen for me. Also 2-3 seconds between clicks in the macro builder when you get 3000 provinces or so, methinks some algorithm is quadratic. Restarting the game helps.

Late game does get bad, ill admit. Thsts just more incentive to win by then!

Since my post a performance patch has been released!

I mean, how playable is the game on minimum graphics settings? As you said, I don't care if the game is prettier.

For me - not at all. I don't have a computer that meets their minimum system requirements. I really feel like the cycle of newer games requiring more hardware is pointless and wasteful. I wish publishers would focus on good game design and make their games accessible to people without high-powered gaming hardware.

It takes a lot of time and effort to pare down the assets and add tricks to make a game look good on lower hardware. Targeting current-gen GPUs means the devs get a better game out in the same time and budget.

I have about 5 hours of play time on minimum setting on my 3yo Dell XPS laptop.

It runs fine but it is ugly. Still enjoying it for now, hoping they fix it before my cities get too big.

I have a 1050ti and I can play it on low graphics settings at 1080 with no depth of field. I've gotten to about city stage #5 or so and I feel that it's playable. It's not pretty but good enough to get a feel for the game and learn about the new stuff.

> belies a deep misunderstanding of their customers. Most C:S fans were more excited for a more realistic traffic AI and mixed use zoning. Yet this experience was made unplayable by an attempt to make it look prettier.

That's not fair. This is a new engine that they probably expect to support for maybe as long as 10 or 15 years. As a AAA publisher, Paradox doesn't get to stylize behind indie-style aesthetics and needs to keep up with where their peers are headed. It's not aiming to be prettier just for the heck of it, but because it needs to maintain a certain mark to keep the franchise relevant.

Knowing Paradox, more rich gameplay enhancements probably are on the update and DLC agenda, and we can assume that their designers really care about that kind of stuff. But for AAA publishers like them, there are also other factor that matter and that may need to take priority.

That said, what a f'd up and premature launch!

I don't think that's true at all. Nothing else Paradox publishes has AAA graphics, and that's not the target audience for their games. The first Cities Skylines didn't beat Sim City because it had better graphics. It was because of gameplay. Since EA gave up on city sims, they don't even have peers, they're only competing with themselves.

>and that's not the target audience for their games.

nor was it for Baldur's Gate. But studios are constantly seeking to try and expand their audience, so graphics are an inevitable first impression.

And of course, They need to show that this sequel is a deserved step up instead of staying in CS1. if it just looked like CS1 but with more plugins, that might not draw enough people away from 1.

  That's not fair.

There is something taught to children about this idea..

It's not a new engine. They continue to use Unity.

Why would someone crank all the settings up and then complain that it runs slowly? Just put the settings where you want them.

Because they spent $2k on the GPU alone to do such things.

The cards have a certain level of performance. They can change the settings of the game to match what they bought. If they have a $2,000 card, it's going to look good.

> If they have a $2,000 card, it's going to look good.

But it doesn't look good on the $2000 cards. That's a big problem.

It does in fact look good on my $1000 card (not even $2000).

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