May 23, 2023

Dev Diary #129: Post Release Update Extra Content

Crusader Kings III - PDX-Trinexx

This Dev Diary will talk about some of the extra content coming with our next post-release update, 1.9.1! The update will of course also include a ton of fixes and tweaks, as we’ve been monitoring all the ways you’ve been playing with the big 1.9.0 update and the Tours and Tournaments DLC.

► Discuss Dev Diary #129 on our forums!

Points of Interest

Hi everyone! I am Daan, also known as Joror, and I am a programmer on the CK3 team.

It is I, le Joror

First off a little background info about me so we’re no longer strangers: I have worked at Paradox for over five years, and in a couple of different roles. First in our online department (DevOps) as a software engineer and Developer Relations specialist, then as a Clausewitz Engine programmer and tech lead, and finally I have been working in the CK3 team as a programmer!

Before joining Paradox I also dabbled in making mods and modding tools for Paradox games - which has helped me a lot in understanding how the games work from the outside, before moving to the inside.
I am Dutch, like cats, fancy beers, the occasional Goth party, game-jamming, and in general games of all varieties!

Resurrecting Darlings

Making games is hard - it is a space where ideas are easy, but time is short, and success is measured by a graspable but fickle thing called ‘fun’.
So when developing, we design, build, evaluate, and cut. Many ideas fall by the wayside during each of those steps, including some personal darlings. Often not because the ideas are bad, but because there is not enough time, or they would be too risky, or… one of many other reasons.

Luckily, we also bake various ways into our process that give us space for personal agency and creativity! And one such way is PDT - Personal Development Time.
This is dedicated time in our busy schedule where every developer can work on improving their skills in an area of their choice. And (after checking with leads) we can also work towards adding ‘darling’ features or ‘pet peeve’ fixes that can make it into the game.

The “Points of Interest” travel system is such a feature! It’s also the reason why it is in a post-release update. Of course, it is not just a one person effort. Lovely icons and GUI elements were added by a crafty Artist, code was reviewed by discerning Programmers, the user experience checked for consistency and purpose by a UX Designer, its rewards evaluated for balance by a Game Designer, the end product tested by perceptive QA, while being supported by a whole range of other disciplines that make the work environment organized and smooth.

A Travel Carrot: Points of Interest

While working on Tours and Tournaments, one of the main systems I was involved in was the Travel system. For a little dev-insight, this is what route planning looked like early on in the process:

A screenshot of an early state of development of travel route planning, with different colors and icons.

We added Danger as one of the main ‘friction’ mechanics of travel, where players get to make planning decisions and have reasons to change their route. But Danger is mostly a ‘Stick’ - a punishment if you will - and it would be nice to have a ‘Carrot’ as well - a positive reason to change your route!

Enter: Points of Interest - a small system that rewards you for visiting interesting places.
These points of interest will give a reward the first time you visit them during your lifetime. The same also applies to your entourage, so bringing people along will also help them improve.

An adjusted travel plan which travels through Pisa, a province that contains a Point of Interest.

Types and Rewards

These Points of Interest are not static locations - but grabbed from the living world of CK3.

All Special Buildings (if they are built) give a Point of Interest based on their type, and give different rewards depending on the Special Building type:

Visiting the Pyramids is something to boast about.

Special building type rewards:

Walls and Forts: +100 Martial Lifestyle Experience
A part of a multi-province defensive structure (Hadrian’s Wall, etc): +25 Martial Lifestyle Experience
Universities & Places of Learning: +100 Lifestyle Experience in your currently selected Lifestyle
Religious Sites & Buildings: +100 Learning Lifestyle Experience, and +100 Piety if they are of your Faith
Palaces and Political Buildings: +100 Diplomacy Lifestyle Experience
Ancient Wonders & Natural Wonders: +100 Stewardship Lifestyle Experience, and +150 Prestige
Economic Buildings (mines, ports): +100 Stewardship Lifestyle Experience

Visiting Capitals of independent Kingdoms and Empires also gives Lifestyle experience, based on their Court Type (if you have the Royal Court DLC) or Diplomacy Lifestyle experience when they do not have a Court Type. Empire Capitals are more rare, and give +300 lifestyle experience points, where Kingdom rank Capitals give +100 points. The capital Points of Interest are updated monthly, so sometimes your information might be slightly out of date.

The Byzantine Empire has an Intrigue Court - and will give Intrigue Lifestyle Experience when visited

Giving out these Lifestyle rewards is very narratively fitting for expanding the horizons of your character, but also substitutes nicely for the normal Lifestyle events you are not getting while traveling.

Some locations can also trigger a “Great City” sight-seeing event chain, which is actually hooking in a PDT project of another CK3 developer, TrinTragula!

When you visit, you get a message and the Point of Interest is marked as visited. To seek similar rewards, you will have to visit different places in the future!

A point of interest has been visited, and the rewards given.

Once you have picked up the Traveler Trait, you also start getting a bit of experience towards the different tracks within that Trait. (Martial and Economic building Points of Interest give Seasoned track experience, where the rest give Wanderer track experience.)

Getting ‘Seasoned’ travel track experience.

To conclude, here is a snapshot of the Points of Interest that exist in 1066:

A zoomed out map showing Points of Interest in 1066

To note, this system is part of the Free Update - so no specific DLC required.
Happy sight-seeing in Update 1.9.1.0~!

What’s the Harm?

Welcome comrades, to the Wokeg section of the DD! I’m afraid I don’t have anything quite as meaty for you as Joror. Instead of lovely new player carrots, we’ll be talking about the oldest and wackiest of all sticks with which to whack the player: death.

Something we’ve generally been a bit reluctant to do in CK3 is to just kill you. Luck plays a decent roll in the events you get and guiding your own luck is an element of many core mechanics, but we’ve been really reticent to have you just… die unexpectedly.

This was a stylistic design choice. It doesn’t really feel great when a random event pops and just kills you mid-run with no set-up or warning — it can be impactful every now and then, especially if it happens at a narratively dramatic time, but it’s just such a quit moment for so many people, and in wanting to provide an experience that felt fair, we over-corrected somewhat and scrubbed a vital element of friction from much of the title.

Whether you’re building your realm, planning marriage alliances, or carefully organizing your succession, these little shake-ups are needed to keep you course-correcting. They’re the firm, unexpected kick to the back of the knee that keeps you guessing and makes you react on the fly.

Not just that, of course, because random death and dismemberment were absolutely staple features of the medieval world too: you might be struck down by a virulent camp disease whilst marching, you might fall from the window of a tall tower, you might die in a house fire, you might be thrown from your horse whilst riding, you might be playing too roughly with another child, you might be old and just fall down the stairs, the list goes on. Paupers, kings, and clergy alike all have to walk the danse macabre eventually, and not everyone gets to go from the traditional big three of honorable combat, succumbing to wasting disease, or expiring from the ravages of age. Sometimes you just die.

The challenge we set ourselves, then, was adding in more ways for death to happen unpredictably without making for an irritatingly frustrating experience. Enter, the harm event.

Harm events are out to do one of two things: if you’re unlucky, they want to kill you, and if you’re lucky, they want to render you incapable. There generally isn’t a direct gameplay benefit to surviving them, and there’s always a stress cost. Their odds are generally pretty harshly against you, though depending on the event, high skill levels might give you a much better chance of success, and some traits will let you trade stress for negating a specific harm event entirely.

With these, there’s a whole variety of new ways to unexpectedly expire or be reduced to a bed-ridden shell! Fun stuff, y’love to see it. I did also say, though, that we were trying to avoid frustrating rocks-fall-PC-dies situations, and that’s still true. To avoid that, almost all harm events are partnered with a foreboding event — something that fires first and alerts you that hey, you are now eligible to… [spins tombola] … unexpectedly choke to death!

Rather than spring immediate death/incapability on you out of the blue, we alert you that you are now at risk of it. It can now just happen, at any time. In fact, just _getting_ a foreboding event gives you a 50% chance of getting the follow-up harm event within the next 4-8 years, though you’re also eligible to fire it forever after.

For example, here’s a foreboding event:

And its follow-up harm event:

The goal is to warn you that a new type of random harm is on the table, so that the notion is playing around at the back of your mind. Maybe it’ll come to nothing, maybe you’ll forget about it, maybe you’ve got just a few short years left to live. Do you want to make rapid preparations for succession? What if it never happens at all? What if you just pushed to do things a little bit faster so the realm’ll be ready for your heir? What if it happens sooner than expected? Lots of little questions to ask yourself. Or, if you’re one of the coworkers testing or playing on internal builds since we added these, lots of questions to menacingly direct to me when I’m making tea, demanding to know when they can stop being worried about impending doom. WAD, I whisper back to them, WAD.

There’s sixteen new harm-foreboding pairs for becoming incapable (well, fifteen pairs and one triplet: becoming incapable due to the march of time vs. your declining health sees your mind weaken, your body start to fade a little, then you risk becoming incapable), twelve new harm-foreboding pairs for dying unexpectedly, and six new events for dying/becoming incapable whilst on campaign.

Those last six aren’t paired with a foreboding event. Like I said, almost all harm events are, and the exceptions to this are the ones that fire for army commanders. Warfare could kill you quickly and unexpectedly without you ever donning your armor, and history is replete with examples of even fairly hale and hearty warriors succumbing to sudden unexpected disease, poor luck, or taxing environmental conditions, from John Lackland to Richard the Lionheart to Frederick Barbarossa.

Instead, opting to put yourself in charge of an army is your warning that you’re in a dangerous, taxing position, where poor luck might cost you dearly at any moment. High health will protect you from many of the potential ravages of campaigning (with the amount needed going up more the more you age), but the best way to stave off the risk of death outside of battle is to campaign in terrain you have the correct commander trait for.

Maybe you’re not too big a fan of this change - perhaps you prefer a more predictable world, or you want to have the occasional sudden death but mostly skate on by just fine. For you, we have the Safe & Illusion of Safety settings for the new Random Harm game rule, so you don’t have to deal with this stuff if you don’t want to.

Maybe, though, you’ve been waiting for something like this. Maybe you want more uncertainty in the world, or for life to be just that little bit more mean-spirited than most. For you, we’ve got the Tragic setting, making harm events much more likely generally. If you’d prefer that the tallest blade of grass be the first under the scythe, then we’ve also got the Spiteful setting, which specifically weights up the likelihood for harm events to target proportionally better or more interesting characters. And if you want both, welp, Tragically Spiteful, the single edgiest game rule we’ve added to date, has got you covered.

As long as you’ve got harm events set to anything but Safe, they do run on a cooldown. Players can’t be subject to a harm event more than once every fifty years, and the AI not more than once every thirty per house. These cooldowns help to reduce frustration whilst keeping the threat present, and mean that even playing on Tragically Spiteful, you can still thrive and survive. Just, with the occasional setback.

… and that’s it from me! Hope you like the harm events, I tried to cover a variety of types from historic references and common causes of death or severe injury either still present in the modern day or mitigated only in the last few centuries, and I’m very happy to be able to resurrect this particular darling for 1.9.1. Have fun with the update!

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May 23, 2023

May. 25 Update (6/1 15:20 (UTC+9) Edited)

UNDECEMBER - UNDECEMBER

Greetings, Rune Hunters.

Our next update will take place on May. 25 (Thu).

Please see below for more details.

※ The following information may change when the update takes place.

◈ UNDECEMBER Key Update
※ These are the updates, improvements, and changes that will come into place with the update.

■ Descent Raids
- A new FLOOR website community board for the game’s periodic Descent Raid content will be established.
　└ For details on Raid schedules and modes,
please check the notices on the UNDECEMBER FLOOR website > ‘Content Schedule’ board.
The schedule for Descent Raids that will take place before the start of Season 2 will be announced on this board.
       [Go to Content Schedule Board]
- The difficulty of Descent Raid modes will be partially adjusted.
- After the update, users will not be able to enter Descent Raids if their Bag is full.
※ Please ensure you have enough space in your Bag before entering the Raids.

■ Chaos Dungeons
- Adjustments will be made so that the following items are dropped in Chaos Dungeons.
  * Skill Rune Engraving Stone Piece / Monster Lv. 144 or higher
  * Link Rune Engraving Stone Piece / Monster Lv. 142 or higher

■ Stage Events
- The duration of the ‘Blessed One‘ buff, which is received when Altar of Blessing is activated,
will be changed from 60 seconds → 100 seconds.
* As before, the ‘Blessed One’ buff will disappear upon death,
and if you have no related buff, you will not be able to find Realm Rifts.
- Once 100 seconds pass after activating the Altar of Blessing,
all Realm Rifts and monsters created by the event will disappear.

■ Void Rift
- Void Rift 2 will end and Void Rift 3 will begin!
  Your Void Rift progress, Rank Points, and reward history will be reset.
  The boss monsters of each area will also change once the Void Rift is reset.
You will not be able to receive previous rewards once the period ends,
so please collect all rewards before the maintenance takes place.
- Each Void Rift will take place for 2 weeks.
- The difficulty of some bosses that use Summon Skills in Void Rifts will be lowered.

■ Constellation of Time
- The confusing Constellation of Time Memory ‘Amplify Element’ display will be deleted.

■ Black Market
- The following items will no longer be sold at the Black Market.

■ Alchemy
- The icon for the Alchemy Mastery Trait ‘Master of Bargaining Ⅲ’ will change.
- New Combining formulas will be added to the Alchemy Combining tab.
　* [Exclusive] Skill Rune Engraving Stone Piece
　* [Exclusive] Link Rune Engraving Stone Piece
- The sources of the Runes below will change.
　└ Buff Activation upon using Movement Skill, Opportunistic Strike
　※ Source: Chaos Mission → Synthesis
　※ The above 2 Link Runes can be obtained from Magic Synthesis Link Rune Selection Chests /
Rare Synthesis Link Rune Selection Chests / Improved Magic Link Rune Selection Chests /
Improved Rare Link Rune Selection Chests.

■ Ore Shop
- The items below will be sold from the Gemstones of Merit Shop.
* [Exclusive] Skill Rune Engraving Stone Piece
* [Exclusive] Link Rune Engraving Stone Piece

■ Tooltips
- The descriptions for some Skill Runes will be changed as follows:

- For the ‘Wheel Slash (Verity)’ Skill Rune tooltip, the ‘Skill Buff Stack Count +n’ phrase will be changed to ‘Max DoT Stacks +n'.
└ The actual effect will be the same as before.

■ Compendium
- With the changes in sources for some Runes, the information that can be viewed
through the ‘Rune Compendium – Source’ filter will change.

■ Titles
- The phrase ‘Account Title’ will be deleted from some descriptions related to Titles.

■ Items
- The ‘Minion Block Expertise +’ and ‘Sentry Block Expertise +’ options from the Minion/Sentry Belt options
will be changed to appear from Tier 1.
- The drop chance of Traces of Creation obtained from Memory Rune events will be significantly increased.
- Among the Auction House keywords for the Unique Item ‘Ortemis' Rejuvenation’,
the following will be changed to match the actual Unique option.
　└ On hit/Additional Element DMG → Per Accumulated Overheat/% HP Regen per Sec

■ Sealed Runes
- New Sealed Runes will be added.

■ Storage
- The following item slots will be added to the Exclusive Essence Storage:
  [Exclusive] Skill Rune Engraving Stone Piece
  [Exclusive] Link Rune Engraving Stone Piece
  [Exclusive] Runestone Magic Link Essence Piece
  [Exclusive] Runestone Rare Link Essence Piece

■ Skill Rune
- The control feedback for the ‘Deadly Poison Skewer’ skill will be improved.

■ Crafting
- The max for the Totem Duration +% crafting option Totem Effect +% tier appearance will be adjusted.
* Before: 7, 10
* After: 7, 10, 12

■ Zodiac Pass
- Zodiac Pass 2 will end.
You will not be able to claim Zodiac Pass 2 rewards after the May. 25 (Thu) scheduled maintenance,
so please claim the relevant rewards before then.
- Zodiac Pass 3 will begin!
For more details, please check the in-game ‘Event’ tab in the upper right corner of the screen.
- The Zodiac Pass period will last for 2 weeks.

■ Runestones
- When obtaining Runestones through drops in Descent Raids or with Alchemy Synthesis,
the minimum obtained level for each Runestone will be adjusted as follows:

■ Charms
- The probability of obtaining a higher tier than before for Charm tiers that are obtained from Charm Synthesis will be partially increased. (05/25 13:55 (UTC+9) Edited)

■ Other
- The UI will be improved to enhance the visibility of the grade category button within the sell and disassemble screens. (05/26 18:20 (UTC+9) Added)

◈ New Products
※ These are the new products that will be added with the update.

◆ Zodiac Pass 3
The Zodiac Pass product will be updated.
✔ Passes can be used and purchased from ’Event’ in the upper right corner.

■ Zodiac Pass Use Period
- After the May. 25 (Thu) maintenance – Until before the Jun. 8 (Thu) maintenance

■ What is the Zodiac Pass?
- Purchasing a Zodiac Pass applies the following benefits during the Pass period:
Alchemy Slot + 1, Formula Slot +1, Alchemy Brewing Acceleration +50%, Zodiac Free Reset
- By clearing Zodiac Pass missions, you can collect EXP and raise your Pass Level.
You can then obtain the various rewards corresponding to each level.
- Pass Rewards are available for up to Level 20, and you can only obtain rewards for each level once.
- Zodiac Passes are applied according to mode within each account, and once purchased,
its effects are also applied separately according to mode.
This means that Zodiac Pass missions, rewards, and levels are shared within each mode.
E.g.) Your play in Standard Mode will not be affected by your Pass in Season Mode.

■ Zodiac Pass Rewards
- Normal Rewards: Can be obtained when your Zodiac Pass Level increases.
- Premium Rewards: Can be obtained when you purchase the Premium Pass and your Zodiac Pass Level increases.
Details on rewards for each level can be found within the game.

■ Premium Rewards
- If you purchase the Premium Zodiac Pass, you can receive Premium Rewards in addition to Normal Rewards
when your Pass Level increases.
- With Premium Rewards, you can obtain higher value rewards such as [Exclusive] Skill Rune Engraving Stones.
- Purchased Premium Rewards will only be applied during the current pass period,
so please make sure to claim them before the period expires.

■ To Note
※ The outlined period and details above may be subject to change.
※ Once the Zodiac Pass period ends, your progress level, points, and rewards will be changed and reset.
※ If you have activated level rewards, please claim them before the end of the period.
※ Premium Rewards can only be claimed if you purchase the Premium Pass.
※ These products may be resold in a same or similar format in the future.

◈ Bug Fixes
※ These are the bug fixes that will take place with the update.

■ Runestones
- The issue where incorrect Runestone levels are obtained when synthesizing Runestones through Alchemy will be fixed.

■ Chaos Dungeons
- The issue where Legion of Evil grade monsters do not immediately spawn in Dungeons
created with upgraded Chaos Cards will be fixed.
- The issue where the displayed Chaos Dungeon level and tier are different between Party Members
when playing Chaos Dungeons in a Party will be fixed.

■ Constellation of Time
- The issue where information on Spent Emotions and Obtain Memory is not displayed in the information screen UI
for Stage 4 of Constellation of Time will be fixed.

■ Monsters
- The issue where Crowd Control is applied on monsters summoned by Evermund will be fixed.
- The issue where the area skill effect of Subject Slaughterer is not displayed will be fixed.

■ Black Market
- The issue where, after purchasing an item from the Black Market, the ‘Identify’ button is not displayed
when selecting a Chaos Card of Magic grade or higher from the Chaos Statue will be fixed.

■ Party
- The issue where the notification UI for the Recruit Party category in the Chat is displayed incorrectly
when promoting a Party will be fixed.
- The issue where Party Member icons do not disappear from the minimap when members leave the Party will be fixed.

■ Guild
- The issue where in certain circumstances, the Guild Master is not included in the number of people logged in will be fixed.
- The issue where only the Guild Master cannot use Guild buffs in certain circumstances will be fixed.
- The issue where the Guild Master promotion cooldown is applied incorrectly will be fixed.
※ This issue will be fixed during the Jun. 8 (Thu) scheduled maintenance.
We will notify you through a notice if this schedule changes.

■ Recruitment Board
- The issue where the notification UI for the Recruitment Board continues to be displayed
even after claiming all rewards will be fixed.

■ Mailbox
- The issue where, when claiming Currency items from mail, Currency cannot be received through ‘Receive All’
when inventory is full will be fixed.
- The issue where received mail cannot be checked in the mailbox will be fixed.

■ Item Compendium
- The issue where users cannot register the ‘Maximized DMG Increase’ Link Rune in their Item Compendium
with Standard Mode characters in certain circumstances will be fixed.
- The issue where certain gear items cannot be registered in Item Compendium - Unique Compendium will be fixed.

■ Chaos Compendium
- The issue where Chaos Compendium progress does not increase beyond a certain score will be fixed.

■ Tooltips
- The issue where the phrase, ‘Cannot link Parallel Multishot Link Rune’, is missing from the tooltip
for the ‘Toxic Flame (Verity)’ Skill Rune will be fixed.
└ The actual effect will be the same as before.

■ Paid Shop
- The issue where products related to Storage are sometimes displayed in the Paid Shop
despite having already been purchased will be fixed.

■ Inventory
- The issue where Descent Raid rewards cannot be claimed when Inventory is full will be fixed.

■ Items
- The issue where the ‘Chance to gain Pulverize for 3 s on hit’ option of some items is not applied will be fixed.
- The issue where options are not added when trying to enchant a certain item
with a Rare Imbue Essence in its 6th slot will be fixed.

■ Trading Keys
- The issue where, despite changing an item to tradable with a Trading Key,
the Trading Key is displayed in the Bag and can be registered for use will be fixed.

■ Crafting
- The issue where items imbued with a certain option before the Apr. 27 (Thu) update cannot be crafted will be fixed.
　└ Affected option: DoT % Amplification

■ Skill Runes
- The issue where the cooldowns of different Totem Skill Runes are shared will be fixed.
- The issue where the Soul Gem’s Skill Rune Cooldown Recovery Speed option
does not apply to Avatar Acuben’s Curse of Storm skill will be fixed.
- The issue where the ‘Chain Attack count‘ description for the ‘Quick Slash (Verity)’ skill is displayed differently
in the tooltips for the Compendium and Rune Awakening screen will be fixed.
- The issue where the ‘Flamethrower’ skill effect is not displayed in certain circumstances will be fixed.
- The issue where the ‘Piercing’ Link Rune does not link to the Skill Runes below will be fixed.
　└ Affected Skill Runes: Shockwave Arrow / Piercing Arrow / Scorching Arrow
- The issue where the skill effect buff sometimes does not activate when using the Quick Slash (Verity) skill will be fixed. (05/24 11:15 (UTC+9) Edited)

■ Avatars
- The issue where from the passive effects of Avatar of Casthor, the ‘Enhance Sanctum Effect’ does not work properly
on certain Sanctums will be fixed.

■ Auction House
- The issue where items that cannot be registered in the Auction House are displayed as ‘Auction Failed’
and can be reobtained will be fixed.

■ Charm
- The issue where the results of Charm Synthesis are different than intended when spending 2 or less high tier materials will be fixed. (05/25 13:55 (UTC+9) Added)

■ Other
- The frame drop issue for Act 12 stages will be fixed.
- The frame drop issue that occurs when entering Golden Ring Chaos Dungeons for some device models will be improved.
- The issue where the UI is incorrectly displayed for some languages when ‘Miss’ occurs during battle will be fixed.
※ Affected Languages: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional)

We hope that these update details will help you avoid any inconvenience as you play the game.

Thank you.