„I feel like I'm reading this apology for the sixth time.” Crusader Kings 3 players angry about Paradox's latest slip-up

"I feel like I've read these apologies half a dozen times already" - this is how players summarize the debut of the Crusader Kings 3: Coronations expansion, which turned out so "well" that the Paradox Development Studio had to apologize to fans. Again.

If one were to briefly summarize the feelings of players towards Paradox Interactive in recent years, the word "ambivalent" would come to mind, assuming a relatively optimistic attitude. Or "mixed", just like the current reviews of the organic add-on to Stellaris and Cities: Skylines 2... which is still a progress compared to the initial reception of both these titles.

Or, to not look far, with the disastrous reception of the new DLC for Crusader Kings 3.

Unimpressive coronation without splendor

Let's face it: no one expected miracles from Coronations. This is not a full-fledged expansion like Roads to Power (well-rated) or Khans of the Steppe (with lower rating after the new update, despite initially positive reception of the add-on itself), but only a so-called Event Pack - a small DLC focusing, as the name suggests, on individual events.

In this case, the developer focused on a heavily neglected "event": coronations. The developers wanted the ruler's ascension to the throne to be a grand event in CK 3 - and a pretext for conducting diplomacy, gathering information, and gaining the recognition of subjects by making various promises.

That's the theory, but 19% positive reviews out of nearly half a thousand reviews for CK 3: Coronations on Steam show that in practice the DLC greatly disappointed players.

Without going into too much detail, the main complaints boil down to one problem: the add-on is clearly unfinished and heavily "buggy", with "lazy" mechanics. The oath system is almost an impossible challenge to execute - which particularly strongly reflects on artificial intelligence rivals, who do not keep these promises. And even if someone fulfills them, the game can still consider that the oath has been broken, which greatly affects the ruler's prestige.

This is one of many issues that together make Crusader Kings 3 with Coronations installed virtually unplayable. And this time, the patience of many players seems to have run out, at least judging by the threads on social media.

Yet another apology from Paradox

If someone tried to compare this situation to the typical grumbling of the "vocal minority" as in, not to look far, the complaints about the difficulty level of Silksong, they would have to give up quickly. For Paradox studio itself apologized for the state of Crusader Kings 3: Coronations.

Rad „Arakrates” Deneche, Quality Control Manager at Paradox Development Studio Black, stated outright: Coronations proved to be unworthy of gamers' respect, for which he himself took responsibility. Partly due to the team's focus on the upcoming big expansion All Under Haven, but Deneche emphasizes that this does not justify this neglect.

In addition to this, Deneche provided a list of changes in the recent update, which among other things, fixed the problem of breaking oaths despite their fulfillment. Another patch is expected to appear soon and should eliminate the most important remaining issues.

Gamers appreciated the number and how fast the fixes appear, so everything will end well, right? Not this time, at least judging by the posts on the internet.

Yes, the quick response of the developers earned them praise. The problem is that this is yet another time just this year when Paradox Development Studio releases a product or update that clearly lacked testing. The same happened with Stellaris: Biogenesis and the Phoenix update, it was the same with CK 3 during the "steppe" DLC and update, and we have epxerienced this time and time again on many other occasions.

Players are clearly fed up with this pattern: releasing extremely unfinished products, developers apologizing, and slowly fixing the game.

Gamers can forgive developers a lot of things - provided that the devs learn from such failures and try to avoid them in the future. Meanwhile, as you can see, Paradox fans get the impression that most of the publisher's contemporary releases repeat the same pattern - and they clearly have had enough of being treated this way by the developers.

Of course, the question remains how this will translate into Paradox's results. Because, as we know from elsewhere, complaints do not always translate into getting less money from allegedly offended players.

1. Review – Crusader Kings 3 is a Game without Competition
2. Crusader Kings 3 - game guide

Crusader Kings III

September 1, 2020

Rate It!

• Overview
• Guide
• Review

• DLC and expansions
• game scores
• Paradox Interactive
• grand strategy games
• Crusader Kings (franchise)