Base reluctance for Invite to Court is nonsense (too high)

[NewbieOne]

Even with the person having +100 opinion of you and negative opinion of liege/host, it will still come down to:

basic reluctance -50
opinion +25

no other modifiers (traits, prospects, nothing)
no way of bargaining (council position, land grant)

In effect, this is yet another of those useless limitations that add nothing positive to the game while imposing unrealistic, immersion-breaking limitations that frustrate the player.

[Thor's Wrath]

I agree that it doesn't really appear that Paradox put much thinking into this aspect of the game. Even when you want to invite a member of your own house to your court, the base reluctance is still 50. This makes no sense, especially when they are languishing in small sh.itty court somewhere under a ruler they don't like.

[EA Latium]

While I agree there should be more flexibility, is not totally unrealistic and immersion breaking - we are basically asking someone to change everything in their life.

I'd like too if there a was a way to bargain it however, it'd make sense inviting someone for a prestigious position or a better life in general.

[Eilif]

I had my heir and son married to and orthodox lady from Byzantine. Not long after she married, she suddently leaves to Bulgaria. Asking her to come home was useless option, due to basic reluctance. She then moves to Ethiopia and give born to a son before going to Wales and leaving the son behind in Ethiopia. At my death and my son coming to throne, she finally comes home but the son and hair in Ethiopia do not come home before he turns 16. As i couldnt educate him, he got the traits Coward, Just and shy with drunkard as an extra treat.

So yes, i agree. This isnt right. Everyone behaves like they are Marco Polo, and its to hard to ask them to court.

[VayneVerso]

It's a little silly. You're an unlanded wanderer with nothing and I'm inviting you to be a courtier in one of the most prestigious courts in the world--maybe even giving you gold to improve your opinion of me--and you're just going to be like, "Nah, I'm good."

I mean... maybe? For some personality traits. But you'd think that, say, an ambitious person would be easy to recruit. Or somebody who is terrified by your dreadful reputation. People who share the same culture and religion as you should also be easier to recruit.

I guess this is sort of why "fabricate hook" exists, but with a few personality traits, it just causes too much stress to use that, and there should be a diplomatic alternative. Not to mention that I don't think you can even fabricate hooks on wanderers (or guests?).

[NewbieOne]

Originally posted by EA Latium:

While I agree there should be more flexibility, is not totally unrealistic and immersion breaking - we are basically asking someone to change everything in their life.

I'd like too if there a was a way to bargain it however, it'd make sense inviting someone for a prestigious position or a better life in general.

Well, what's immersion-breaking is not that people are falling over backwards to change courts, but that it's impossible to entice them even when they essentially idolize you (100 opinion) and dislike their current liege/host (e.g. -20). It is further immersion-breaking when you realize that is not so because of any strict requirements but because of incomplete or badly thought design — the value of base reluctance is clearly shown, so you know it's the single largest negative component and you can also see that there are almost no positive components available. In effect, there's a function in the game you effectively can't use because it comes with a 'base reluctance' offset that's insurmountable.

You can't really not know that this is because the game's designers didn't finish their work on this properly and not because of a conscious, well-though design decision that's supposed to reflect some kind of 'mimesis' of real-world realities. Misdesigned or grossly misbalanced mechanics that make themselves clearly visible and add a lot of vexation and frustration are enough to break immersion in the game.

In my view, negative opinion of the current liege + max opinion of the inviter should be enough, if only just barely (e.g. net +5). You should also have the option to promise a council position or land grant or throw in a hook. Right now, you can only pick a special focus so you can gain access to the Befriend Scheme and hope becoming friends is going to work — and only if the target isn't a councillor or knight.

Originally posted by Thor's Wrath:

I agree that it doesn't really appear that Paradox put much thinking into this aspect of the game

On the basis of CK3 and especially CK2, Paradox apparently isn't good at putting much thinking in something. Or isn't inclined to do so. Or both. Most of the problems with the CK series come down to not putting some thinking at least in the basics — things that even a person of modest skill and thoughtfulness should be able (and willing) to think about. And this is highly frustrating, especially in what would otherwise be great games. But Paradox's thinking handicap is detracting a lot from the games and effectively gimping them.

[EA Latium]

Originally posted by NewbieOne:

You can't really not know that this is because the game's designers didn't finish their work on this properly and not because of a conscious, well-though design decision that's supposed to reflect some kind of 'mimesis' of real-world realities. Misdesigned or grossly misbalanced mechanics that make themselves clearly visible and add a lot of vexation and frustration are enough to break immersion in the game.

We know for certain they did want to remove the function as it was implement in CK2, what we don't know however is their intentions, so I bet is the latter. I haven't seen much about it in the official forums strangely, I'll try to search if there have been posts or something next time.

In my view, negative opinion of the current liege + max opinion of the inviter should be enough, if only just barely (e.g. net +5). You should also have the option to promise a council position or land grant or throw in a hook. Right now, you can only pick a special focus so you can gain access to the Befriend Scheme and hope becoming friends is going to work — and only if the target isn't a councillor or knight.

I do agree with this - when I first tried it I assumed that their willingness depended by a balance of opinion from both parties. It would have been nice if we could "negotiate" something with them, like for example a Council position or to press an eventual Claim in let's say a year (like the event we get with guests).

[Thor's Wrath]

I agree with Newbie One, the fact that there is a base reluctance of -50 NO MATTER WHAT is not realistic. This value should depend in other factors, as he mentions, not be a predetermined value that you can't counteract.

Not being able to grant titles to these people is also annoying especially in early game when you are playing with a small culture that doesn't have many eligible unlanded males and you are expanding aggressively.

[ShepherdOfCats]

Originally posted by NewbieOne:

On the basis of CK3 and especially CK2, Paradox apparently isn't good at putting much thinking in something. Or isn't inclined to do so. Or both. Most of the problems with the CK series come down to not putting some thinking at least in the basics — things that even a person of modest skill and thoughtfulness should be able (and willing) to think about. And this is highly frustrating, especially in what would otherwise be great games. But Paradox's thinking handicap is detracting a lot from the games and effectively gimping them.

Well they don't seem to test anything. They change a few lines of code and don't play their own game so they A) don't even know if their changes worked and B) don't see what the consequences are. So we have to wait for a patch that comes along every 3 months while they work on DLC (which they won't play-test).

[NewbieOne]

Originally posted by ShepherdOfCats:

Originally posted by NewbieOne:

On the basis of CK3 and especially CK2, Paradox apparently isn't good at putting much thinking in something. Or isn't inclined to do so. Or both. Most of the problems with the CK series come down to not putting some thinking at least in the basics — things that even a person of modest skill and thoughtfulness should be able (and willing) to think about. And this is highly frustrating, especially in what would otherwise be great games. But Paradox's thinking handicap is detracting a lot from the games and effectively gimping them.

Well they don't seem to test anything. They change a few lines of code and don't play their own game so they A) don't even know if their changes worked and B) don't see what the consequences are. So we have to wait for a patch that comes along every 3 months while they work on DLC (which they won't play-test).

That's one thing, but there's also the thing that not all problems can be blamed on testers not finding them. Testers can only be responsible for not highlighting problems but not for creating them or failing to prevent them, which includes learning from past mistakes, proper planning out of the game's mechanics and thinking about the consequences of design decisions.

Some people say they're stretched too thin, but that's an excuse that individual employees overloaded with work can use but not the company as a whole and its managers after years of experiencing the consequences of understaffing.

As a third thing, they have a culture of rejecting and blocking feedback that isn't positive, and perhaps that's what is responsible for a bubble effect due to which they may be unaware of the problems that exist. Combine lack of testing with repression of feedback, and you've got a bubble on your hands.

[NewbieOne]

Right now I've also checked that Invite to Court doesn't have a separate modifier for being friends. Thus, you can have a ******* friend who is an emperor with his own court and your base reluctance is too great to even consider moving to your friend's court — even when you're reduced to being a 'wondering' vagabond.

To spice things up — that guy is a claimant to one of my counties, and I want to give him some land. No such option because no. 'Fall on your sword because base reluctance.'

Thus, Invite to Court is a function that has been put in the game but there's no way of actually using it.