A few thoughts about the recent dev diary responses

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Well, when i respectfully disagreed to the dev diary i did exactly this – resprectfully disagree to the content i was shown.


I actually don’t know who bears the responsibility for that said content and it also is not my job to think that over. Neither do i take the content personal, nor do i intend to direct my criticism at a specfic person.


But why am i so critical about the very stuff that was presented?!


My reasoning has always been that the real world war participants have priority in getting focus trees. Poland is one – and like every other playable nation it should be an interesting one. I would have wished for a different country (Italy) but it is natural that an Eastern-Front oriented DLC is the right place to put that revamped Polish focus tree. Offering options to improve the nation and make it stronger than usual is to be expected. There should be ways to change political ideology as well as choosing which side to take part in as well. The focus should offer a good playing experience for players that originate from that country.



However, to me (and this is my very personal impression), this specific focus tree comes across like a collection of all imagineable revisionist fantasies a polish ultranationalist extremist could wish for. Such a person would find any of his personal ideas reflected in some way.

A medieval intermarium,

a united communist state,

not only one but even several monarchist options (even those seem to not be enough and are a matter of hot debate),

colonies granted for free,

a large portion of Eastern Europe suddenly turning into national cores,

a multitude of minor powers and even a major power being subjugated by some focus clicks,

nuclear and industrial assets after being conquered.



All this within the historical setting of 1936 onwards. My personal reception is that this given message just does not sound right.

From a more distanced perspective, it even feels like a reminder of some odd propaganda posters. And getting rid of undesired minorities has been included as well – which is a premiere in this game – and a pretty unwelcome one i assure you!


I don’t think that the polish members of this community belong to such a group of people and i also don’t assume that they actually asked for this. Furthermore i think that they deserved more and different: an immersible and plausible way to increase playability of their country and more justice to the history of their country.


Alternate histories always will be subject of debate – they are by their very nature. As of yet, most of them had been applied in the game with serious repercussions / backlashes for following such a path.


Let’s take Germany changing it’s political ideology from the start of the game onwards as an example:

The alternative options are fantasy. I believe that they only eventually got accepted by the community because of the price a player has to pay for following them: No free territorial expansion, a civil war instead, losses in manpower and equipment, damage to infrastructure and production, future restrictions in access to advisors, commanders and a general delay for the coming build up.

The same applies in case of Japan and several other nations, be it France, USA and so many more.

I don’t like pure fantasy scenarios in a ww2 game but i can accept the overall compromise that was found in most cases. And i also accept that there is a reasonable customer base for more sandbox-style.


But this tree not only straightly blows up the realm of the reasonable in several branches – in most of the more fantasy scenarios it does so for free. „Click youself to the world empire of your personal imagination“ is the message that reaches my mind.

To me, the result shown feels more like a farce and not a serious focus tree in line with the game concept ("quid pro quo") that was presented to us in the past.


Even the historical course grants this country with benefits no other country has been given - and no country actually should receive it at all.
In a historical match the only way around it would be to conquer all majors of the Allies so that this fantasy stuff eventually disappears. I feel player freedom being taken away from everyone – except for the subject nation of this very focus tree.

Poland is special you may say – yes, it is - but not this special i think.

The reasonable idea would have been to give Poland a nuclear theorist. But wait – they certainly get one on top of this… one may even wonder whether this country will actually have to pay pp for activating him. The latter sarcastic notion is of course nonsense but a recipient of the shown content might easily get lead that this might be included as well.

I guess that i don’t have to elabroate any further why i don’t think that is a good idea at all in a ww2-era grand strategy game starting in 1936 with a focus on war.


And now – is it really that surprising that quite a few people feel dissatisfied with what has been shown? And in consequence - in what way are we supposed to discuss these … given ‚facts‘ … in a constructive way?


As i understand it, „constructive“ means „let’s find a way to improve it“. But how can a given matter that feels entirely wrong to so many from the start be improved?

The wrong road leads into the false direction. I see no way to actually change that fact. In such a situation i would have to find an option to turn back instead.


Poland has a very passionate player base and like all other playable nations it deserves to be interesting to play. Still I think that this can be realised by paid development without having to entirely go overboard.


Gathering some more player feedback earlier in the development process would have been helpful i guess.
 
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Well, when i respectfully disagreed to the dev diary i did exactly this – resprectfully disagree to the content i was shown.


I actually don’t know who bears the responsibility for that said content and it also is not my job to think that over. Neither do i take the content personal, nor do i intend to direct my criticism at a specfic person.


But why am i so critical about the very stuff that was presented?!


My reasoning has always been that the real world war participants have priority in getting focus trees. Poland is one – and like every other playable nation it should be an interesting one. I would have wished for a different country (Italy) but it is natural that an Eastern-Front oriented DLC is the right place to put that revamped Polish focus tree. Offering options to improve the nation and make it stronger than usual is to be expected. There should be ways to change political ideology as well as choosing which side to take part in as well. The focus should offer a good playing experience for players that originate from that country.



However, to me (and this is my very personal impression), this specific focus tree comes across like a collection of all imagineable revisionist fantasies a polish ultranationalist extremist could wish for. Such a person would find any of his personal ideas reflected in some way.

A medieval intermarium,

a united communist state,

not only one but even several monarchist options (even those seem to not be enough and are a matter of hot debate),

colonies granted for free,

a large portion of Eastern Europe suddenly turning into national cores,

a multitude of minor powers and even a major power being subjugated by some focus clicks,

nuclear and industrial assets after being conquered.



All this within the historical setting of 1936 onwards. My personal reception is that this given message just does not sound right.

From a more distanced perspective, it even feels like a reminder of some odd propaganda posters. And getting rid of undesired minorities has been included as well – which is a premiere in this game – and a pretty unwelcome one i assure you!


I don’t think that the polish members of this community belong to such a group of people and i also don’t assume that they actually asked for this. Furthermore i think that they deserved more and different: an immersible and plausible way to increase playability of their country and more justice to the history of their country.


Alternate histories always will be subject of debate – they are by their very nature. As of yet, most of them had been applied in the game with serious repercussions / backlashes for following such a path.


Let’s take Germany changing it’s political ideology from the start of the game onwards as an example:

The alternative options are fantasy. I believe that they only eventually got accepted by the community because of the price a player has to pay for following them: No free territorial expansion, a civil war instead, losses in manpower and equipment, damage to infrastructure and production, future restrictions in access to advisors, commanders and a general delay for the coming build up.

The same applies in case of Japan and several other nations, be it France, USA and so many more.

I don’t like pure fantasy scenarios in a ww2 game but i can accept the overall compromise that was found in most cases. And i also accept that there is a reasonable customer base for more sandbox-style.


But this tree not only straightly blows up the realm of the reasonable in several branches – in most of the more fantasy scenarios it does so for free. „Click youself to the world empire of your personal imagination“ is the message that reaches my mind.

To me, the result shown feels more like a farce and not a serious focus tree in line with the game concept ("quid pro quo") that was presented to us in the past.


Even the historical course grants this country with benefits no other country has been given - and no country actually should receive it at all.
In a historical match the only way around it would be to conquer all majors of the Allies so that this fantasy stuff eventually disappears. I feel player freedom being taken away from everyone – except for the subject nation of this very focus tree.

Poland is special you may say – yes, it is - but not this special i think.

The reasonable idea would have been to give Poland a nuclear theorist. But wait – they certainly get one on top of this… one may even wonder whether this country will actually have to pay pp for activating him. The latter sarcastic notion is of course nonsense but a recipient of the shown content might easily get lead that this might be included as well.

I guess that i don’t have to elabroate any further why i don’t think that is a good idea at all in a ww2-era grand strategy game starting in 1936 with a focus on war.


And now – is it really that surprising that quite a few people feel dissatisfied with what has been shown? And in consequence - in what way are we supposed to discuss these … given ‚facts‘ … in a constructive way?


As i understand it, „constructive“ means „let’s find a way to improve it“. But how can a given matter that feels entirely wrong to so many from the start be improved?

The wrong road leads into the false direction. I see no way to actually change that fact. In such a situation i would have to find an option to turn back instead.


Poland has a very passionate player base and like all other playable nations it deserves to be interesting to play. Still I think that this can be realised by paid development without having to entirely go overboard.


Gathering some more player feedback earlier in the development process would have been helpful i guess.
You just said everything I wanted to say but didn't have words for it, well done.
 
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The priority on focus trees to be in themes is a an arbitrary self imposed restriction which is a detriment to the game. Could have had a proper Soviet tree years ago but nup got a Mexico one.
I don't see this as a flaw. Mann The Guns was focused on navy, so they reworked two biggest naval power's trees which have huge impact on the game. Which is already a huge task as they are 2 key players and have to be balanced properly. They couldn't do Italy as they were already reworking two majors, so they couldn't give Italy proper care , so they decided that they would do other smaller nations that interact with the reworked countries and their choices were Mexico and Netherlands. USSR with it's small navy and not many interesting interactions with USA and UK didn't fit. Also USSR is so important to the game that it needs a whole DLC focused on them to do it properly, that's why we'll get logistics rework along.
Also a failure of management to hire devs/enough devs to develop key parts of the game is a glaring omission.
9 women won't give birth in a month. Though I have to admit that it baffles me that their content designers reference wikipedia as a source. Why not hire or pay some historians to consult stuff in order to avoid really weird memey stuff like random cossack as king of Poland?
 
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And alongside "polite arguments" exist "hissy fit crowds" that garner attention. One thing you conveniently forget is while the devs get to decide how to make something, the bean counters decide what to make in the first place. Those bean counters need to be roused, and a riot is how to get their attention, otherwise we customers don't exist: we're just entities floating in the void that they need to poke for monies, with specific pokes generating the most monies. The bean counters' job is figuring out what pokes will do that

I would bet no small sum that those bean counters to not read a single word from the forums. The community managers will, and the devs, and that'd be about it - keeping an eye no forums is time-consuming, and I imagine the bean counters are off doing other things.

That said, the model of running a business you've outlined there is incredibly simplistic (at least for well-run companies - for companies run by people with fewer clues it's not so common). Paradox has a long history of trying to build long-term relationships with its customers, something it has had no small success with (PDXCon for a big example - yes it's marketing as well, but a large part of that is community-building). At the end of the day, it does come back to revenue streams, but I imagine (and from observation on the forums have seen) that people that go off having hissy fits aren't likely to stick around anyway (the behaviour is a sign of an emotional perspective that's generally less community-oriented, and often the complaints are framed in a way that suggests an unbalanced perspective to boot).

Not life experiences. Paradox devs have taught me this. Paradox has become a company where their priority isn't improving the quality of the game it is pushing the limits of creaming money off customers. Quality of product isn't anywhere near the top of their priority no matter what they say. With customer satisfaction being even below that. Profits and meeting artificial deadlines are the top priority.

I've been playing Paradox games since the first HoI. HoI4 is, far and away, the least buggy, most feature-rich, most stable iteration of the franchise, with the best AI. There's no question I'd like the AI to be better (being a single-player person, I personally believe at the end of the day the AI is the single most important part of the game, and pay it close attention) but I'm well aware it's all sorts of difficult to code. I'm also well aware the AI in HoI 1, 2 and 3 was far, faaaaarrrr worse.

Thus the evidence doesn't really support that Paradox has shifted its priorities away from quality (quite the opposite - I autosaved weekly in HoI3 because when (not if) it crashed, I'd lose as little game as possible - HoI4 has crashed literally once (outside of when I've been modding - the total increases very quickly once that's included - but it's hardly fair for the devs to wear my mistakes!) in over 1500 hours of playing it. That's more stable than almost any other piece of software I've used recently (MS Word, Excel, Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop - they all crash far more often, even if it's not that often in absolute terms).

That being said, no dev, anywhere, that earns their living from programming can afford to focus all their time on bugs. They have to prioritise. If we're unhappy with the degree of prioritisation, then we should speak up (and I have in the past, and may well in the future), but it's worth keeping in mind that cashflow is important - if they're not doing something that will get sales, then the game development is likely to stop, and asking gamers to pay for bug fixes isn't exactly going to go down well - so the bug fixing has to go alongside further development (which then creates more bugs, and thus the cycle continues :) ).
 
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A couple times now, I've posted lengthy rebuttals of your points. Both times you specifically pick only one part, then attempt to counter that one, ignoring the rest of the points. Might I say, this tactic of only taking very specific parts of a post and purposely ignoring the rest of them, for the specific purpose of taking those parts out of context and countering only those, seems like a tactic I keep encountering in other - one might say - less civilized forums. It's a tactic called strawmanning, and I really don't appreciate it. It's the kind of tactic only people who genuinely cannot contribute to exchanges make use of

It's not a tactic, I can assure you and I'm not ignoring what you write. I read it carefully.
It's just that I dont want to talk about every sentence you write.
I would like to talk about very specific things you write. Is that ok?


and if you're insulted
I'm not insulted.


and have I been not polite to devs? Can you point to me, where I have not been polite to devs?

No you haven't.
But you wrote here:
Here you are asking us to be polite to "think about the devs", but what is achieved in doing that?
Implying we are required to be not polite to achive anything.

So you werent impolite but you said it's ok if people are (maybe it's even better, if they are impolite, than they are polite.)

And my CENTRAL POINT is:
We are here in a thread were the game director asked us to be polite to the DEVs and you are arguing that being impolite is better. I cant let that stand without an answer.
 
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9 women won't give birth in a month.
On average they'll do.

True, you will get some organisational overhead and due to technical reasons some things cannot be made at the same time (which is where the organisational overhead - who makes what when - comes from) but in general it's true in software development (and most other projects) - especially on such big software like this game - that more developers get stuff done faster. Not necessarily cheaper, though, quite the opposite actually - which is also a problem.

 
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Here is a non-exhaustive list of HOI4 major design flaws I consider the most important (very personal but with a logical sense)

- Too abstracted economy, with snowballing industry and on top of that, invocated buildings from thin air due to national focuses witchcraft. (I've no hope to be fixed ever, so the n°1 reason I'm modding the game)
This is a Grand Strategy Game that occurs over a 12 year (roughly) period. Economy has to be abstracted...its not like this is EU or Vicky.
- No direct link between industrial output and available population (same as above)
Same response
- Resources abstractions failing to represent how strategic resources were important (same as above)
Semi-valid
- Unbalanced industry with minors being completely OP "to be playable". (could be fixed by implementing features allowing to buy weapons instead of producing them)
If only the big 7 were 'playable' this game would only have a 1-2 year lifespan before they wouldn't be able to release new (paid) content for it.
- Absence of range stats for ships (Why remove it in the naval overhaul along MTG, just why?)
- Absence of altitude stat for planes (Hopefully may b ealong the next DLC after Barbarossa)
- Absence of light/heavy attack split for planes (Hopefully may be along the next DLC after Barbarossa)
This is a strategy game, if you want that kind of granularity, you need to be playing an RTS.
- Absence of organic mechanisms limiting standing army size (Hopefully solved with Barbarossa)
- Carrier planes can't train when affected to carriers (perhaps the biggest thing affecting AI, making it a pushover on naval)
BUZZ, wrong. They can train while attached to a carrier, just not while in port...guess what. Carrier wings don't train from the carrier while in port in real life either.
- Various defines not working properly
1) Not working properly, or not working as YOU expect them to?
2) I would ask for examples, but I doubt I will be coming back to this thread anytime soon.
- AI still attacking recklessly in whole front instead of concentrating forces/firepower
Valid
- Barebone diplomatic interractions and flawled peace conference
From the beginning, this has been a Total War simulation (look at the original DDs). There aren't supposed to be limited peace agreements. And again this is a Grand Strategy War Game...diplomacy should be limited to a simple equation.
(Paraphrased from Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's Liaden Universe)
In an ally, considerations of country or faction are insignificant beside two prime questions, which are:
1. Can they shoot?
2. Will they aim at your enemy?
- Width system making weird divisions design being meta (hopefully corrected with Barbarossa)
As opposed to weird divisions simply because X country did it that way (for a short period in most cases during the timeframe in question).
1) During war no division was at full ToE
2) Most divisions ToE changed (usually decreasing in size) as the war progressed.
- Binary armor/piercing system for land combat while the same system is way better with ships (hopefully corrected with Barbarossa)
I might be wrong, but I didn't think land piercing was binary. I thought it was scaled if you don't pierce.
- Underexploited doctrines/tactics system
Again, I would ask for examples but won't be back to check.
- No pilots manpower pool separated from the rest (Pilots were so much precious IRL, hope it will be in when overhauling air war)
Pilots weren't limited because of manpower, they were mostly limited because of self-imposed limits (must be officers, limited class sizes, etc.)
- No officers pool separated from the rest (explain greatly both German early performances and Soviet purges impact, hope it will be along Barbarossa patch)
I'm assuming you are referring to field officers (since Flag Officers are most definitely limited). Again, most of the limits were self-imposed. (i.e, college/academy graduates, politically reliable, etc.)
And I may forgetting many things.

So maybe it would be great to communicate a bit more on the roadmap to improve actual features and a bit less (relatively speaking) about focus trees? Focus trees are one single feature among so much more! I would like the same effort to be done for research trees, for equipment, for industry, for logistic, for combats... etc

And let's be honnest about the economic model of the game : focus trees are big DLC sellers, so I understand how it is important to highlight them, while organic features cannot be too much locked under paywall (and it is not desirable).

But while being ready to accept thoses sacrifices to historical immersion for the sake of a more complete game, I would realy like the dev to make some concessions to the customers not being fan of fantasist alt-history. Frankly nothing big : a bit more communication on roadmap and gameplay features would be enough to reconcialiate people being disapointed :)

Thnaks you for reading
 
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On average they'll do.
If I'd go on a walk with a dog, we would have 3 legs on average. What average has to do with all of it?
True, you will get some organisational overhead and due to technical reasons some things cannot be made at the same time (which is where the organisational overhead - who makes what when - comes from) but in general it's true in software development (and most other projects) - especially on such big software like this game - that more developers get stuff done faster. Not necessarily cheaper, though, quite the opposite actually - which is also a problem.
What I'm trying to say is that hiring more people isn't always a solution. It all depends on the scope of the project and management style. Because if you have too much workers they won't do anything useful, if too little they'll be overworked which will decrease their productivity over time leading to burning out. I don't know how PDS works and I lack the experience and knowledge of management to say I know the solution for the problem, or if the problem even exists in the first place. Besides if they managed their assets and people wrong they wouldn't be as big as they are today. So I'm really convinced that if they would need more people they would know it and hired them long ago.
 
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This is a Grand Strategy Game that occurs over a 12 year (roughly) period. Economy has to be abstracted...its not like this is EU or Vicky.
Abstracted, yes, unrealistic, no. Period.
Countries being able to multiply by 3-5 their total industry in a 4 year timespan is far beyond realism borders. Even the greatest exemple of explosive industrialization (Meiji Japan) took decades to achieve it.
If only the big 7 were 'playable' this game would only have a 1-2 year lifespan before they wouldn't be able to release new (paid) content for it.
That's is not what I claim nor want. Minors like majors can and should be playable within their historical limits. There is plenty of ways to do it without over-industrialize them artificialy, and plenty of ways to make USA properly represented economicaly without making the war irrelevant.
This is a strategy game, if you want that kind of granularity, you need to be playing an RTS.
Absolutely not. Thoses stats are completely needed to balance properly equipment models between countries. Also naval range was alway the big thing in naval combats. It also explain why historicaly carriers becames so good after 1942.
BUZZ, wrong. They can train while attached to a carrier, just not while in port...guess what. Carrier wings don't train from the carrier while in port in real life either.
The problem is about AI is this case.
1) Not working properly, or not working as YOU expect them to?
Not working at all or not properly considered how defines are labelled.
Most obvious exemple is the non-functional define to be supposed to regulate supply use while in combat.
From the beginning, this has been a Total War simulation (look at the original DDs). There aren't supposed to be limited peace agreements. And again this is a Grand Strategy War Game...diplomacy should be limited to a simple equation.
I always claimed it should be a total war simulation, and ww2, the most total war the world has knows, was surely not decided only by the battlefield only, that's why I lobby for more economical and political representation which are badly missing.
On the subject, there was tons of limited peace agreements in ww2 :
- France armistice
- Italy armistice and switching side
- Romania switching side
- Japan conditional capitulation without be invaded
Of course, UK, Soviet Union and Germany refused conditional peace because strategical or ideological reasons when it was actualy proposed, and that is great to be in the game
but having to rely on specific event for conditional peace that did happen for majors power is maybe too much railroaded. Would have prefers the game giving organic features (internal politics etc) deciding if the country is prone to accept peace or would fight to the end.
2) Most divisions ToE changed (usually decreasing in size) as the war progressed.
Yes, as opposed to the meta making big divisions better than same amount of troop/equipment separated in more divisions.
I might be wrong, but I didn't think land piercing was binary. I thought it was scaled if you don't pierce.
You are wrong indeed. Land piercing is completely binary, as opposed to naval piercing.
Pilots weren't limited because of manpower, they were mostly limited because of self-imposed limits (must be officers, limited class sizes, etc.)
Yes, and thoses are constraints you can't easily change in a few prewar years. Thoses constraints have to be represented, else air war is completely unbalanced.
Historicaly, planes numbers were plenty on both sides (half of german military production were aircrafts), but pilots were a much precious resources. Allied doctrines on the use of Aces (become instructors to form more pilots) compared to axis one (let aces in the fights) led to big differences too.

You stated you won't read me, fine
but at least others could read the answers ^^
 
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If I'd go on a walk with a dog, we would have 3 legs on average. What average has to do with all of it?
All and nothing. Some processes can run in parallel, some others can't. Yet you want to compare the productivity of each with the other, so you use averages (or similar measurements). It's called abstraction.

What I'm trying to say is that hiring more people isn't always a solution. It all depends on the scope of the project and management style. Because if you have too much workers they won't do anything useful, if too little they'll be overworked which will decrease their productivity over time leading to burning out. I don't know how PDS works and I lack the experience and knowledge of management to say I know the solution for the problem, or if the problem even exists in the first place. Besides if they managed their assets and people wrong they wouldn't be as big as they are today. So I'm really convinced that if they would need more people they would know it and hired them long ago.
Sure, that's all true and exactly what I was trying to say. You cannot arbitrarily hire new people if it is not within your budget, though...

Let's assume the following: Bug X needs 2 months to be fixed. Feature A also needs 2 months to be added. In the next release you want to have the bug fixed AND the feature added.
One person could fix bug X and implement feature A in 4 months.
Two persons yould do both in 2 months. Or let's say 2 months and one week due to some management overhead.

So hire 2 people, be done with it in (about) half the time and everyone is happy.
Right?
Wrong!

What if you have only the funds to pay only one person at the same time? You know it would be better to hire a second person. But you simply can't. Period.

Of course I'm also not in a position to say that this is the issue at Paradox. But I know how professional software development works and thus know that - in most cases - the capability of making stuff in parallel is a function of the size (i.e. distinct components) of the software. HoI 4 is a huge piece of software. Thus my assumption is that they would add more people to it if they could. Apparantly they cannot which means either there are no people applying (which I doubt despite some bad reputation Paradox has - or at least had - as an employer) or the team (not necessarily Paradox as a whole) just hasn't the funds to employ more.
 
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Can we just round up and ban all the users who disagreed with the original post?

I don't think there's any reason to be hopeful that podcat's message will penetrate their considerable defenses to intelligent appeal.
 
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Well, there are 2 arguments to that:
1. Insane alt history could be replaced by more plausible, that player may want to experience.
2. Such alt-history can still have consequences for "historical" runs, like Anarchist uprising during Spanish civil war currently being the norm.

That, is the strangest interpretation of simulation I've ever heard.

"Real" simulation is about cause and effect.
Game should handle player's actions like WW2, and provide realistic boundaries.

Which is same thing, because techs are researched at no cost. Poland has research slots, and researching nuclear tech is not locked behind any condition.

Even Brits and Soviets had issues with nukes, finishing 4 and 7 years behind US. I'm not gonna judge realistic nuke timing by Germany, but that plausibly could have happened at some point, if not for defeat.

On the one hand, in HOI4 nuclear a reactors are ludicrously chep, and what poland receives is roughly equal to typical free factories from a focus. But hugely immersion breaking.

There are many more less immersion breaking ways to give Polish player ways to choose. Player could get advisor similar to Today, direct buff to building forts, ex.

If game established that warbonds and debt pyramids(MEFO) provide -5% consumer goods, that should be the base line, and then you give players extra something, if the pill isn't sweet enough.
That is what I meant - within historical boundaries. Thank you for helping me out there!
 
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And it's absolutely wrong that politeness is not working. It's the best way to get what you want by far. May the bitter internet cynics tell you what the want.

I'll be sure to tell that to protesters next time there's a strike : "If you're just polite the government will listen to you".


There is no welcoming atmosphere for the far right anywhere in the community that I've seen.

Have you seen any paradox reddit ? Do you really think that "Remove kebab" is an innocent catchphrase used with the serbian song praising Karadžić, a guy that just happened to be guilty of genocide, warcrimes, and crimes against humanity ?
Have you seen the TNO fanbase ? The mod is explicitly about criticizing Nazis, yet you can still find a lot of people just idolizing nazi figures because "they are so cool". Even when making something explicitly anti nazi, you'll gather some nazi crowd because you are using nazi imagery (and on this, this is why paradox is right to remove anything even nazi related).

But then you are using far right imagery, especially in a good light ? What do you think will happen ?

You don't have to be a nazi or far right activist to :
1 - Pander to this player base
2 - Create an environnement that allows far right activists to realize fantasies about... far right stuff.

By removing historical context paradox discourage such fantasies. But by putting them back again not only do they encourage such fantasies but they make them acceptable.

You don't need this kind of context to justify war in hoi4, even in alt-history. Austria-Hungaria doesn't need a fascist tree to go on conquest. Why would Poland need such far right unsavory fantasies ?


>2021
People still don't understand that guys working on focus trees most likely wouldn't work on mechanics otherwise. It seems like people still think that you have to get a programmer to do that, lmao.

Are you seriously thinking that on a team of 10-something guys there is one guy doing focus trees and nothing else ? Are you expecting the HoI4 dev team to have 300 peoples with each their own specialty ? Are you also expecting that Paradox has unlimited funds for unlimited employees, and that they would recruit a guy that can ONLY do focus trees ? And even if that was the case, then wouldn't it be right to complain that instead of hiring someone to fix bugs they hired someone to make focus trees ?

You can do a limited number of things, under a limited time limit, and "guys working on focus trees" do not exist in vacuum. It's called "Opportunity cost".

And it's a perfectly valid criticism of paradox priorities.
 
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This is just the "video games cause violence" argument in another form.

No, it's not.

There is nowhere- absolutely nowhere- in my post where I said that I thought that Paradox games were creating Nazis.

What I said was that these games attract a minority of Nazis. Before you respond- note that this is something Paradox themselves have admitted. They had to change the rules for their forums because there is a small minority of Nazi fans, they had to change the way they police mods because there is a small minority of Nazi fans. Anyone who has ever gone to a HOI multiplayer server will have encountered these Nazi fans.

They exist. Normal players are not magically turning into Nazis after playing the game- but they are in the community, and their presence contaminates it.

Remember that before it was finally banned, the remove k***b slur was a joke on this site for years before Paradox took action- because they realised you can't let people make racist jokes about genocide and white supremacy without it affecting the atmosphere.

The question I was asking was: how is Paradox dealing with the fact that there are Nazis in their fanbase.

And the criticism I posed is that isn't enough to ban their memes or their language from the forum. The studio actually needs to ask the hard question of why their games attract this minority- and remember, I have never said it is anything other than an ugly minority- of players to their product in the first place.

Right now, the 'no atrocities' rule has been broken.

It was broken when the Bengal Famine was made a debuff in TfV- when allied cruelty was represented as a problem, but axis atrocities were not represented. It was a problem at release when Soviet players were punished by the game for not completing the Great Purge, because in Paradox's game mechanics Stalin was literally right and there was an evil plot to start a civil war.

It was a problem in Waking the Tiger when Nationalist China's decision to blow the Yellow River dikes was implemented, but Japanese cruelty was not- so that in the game, the Japanese don't kill civilians but the Chinese do!

It was a problem when the USA alternate history, the paid content of the DLC let you persecute Asian and Black Americans.

It's a problem now when the Polish DLC lets you either ethnically cleanse millions of Jews from Poland- or worse, pretends that's not what the Madagascar scheme entails.

I am not saying, and I have never said that Paradox has an agenda. I think that all these missteps were honest mistakes, and often defensible ones.

But they add up to a game that is increasingly welcome to the worst kind of fan, and that should be fought against.

I don't want to play with Nazis. I don't want to share my space with them. And I know there are plenty of players who feel exactly the same way.


And what I am asking is for a single honest response from Paradox to these concerns- not to ignore them, not to brush them off, but to engage with them. If they want to tell me I'm wrong, fine. But it's not to much to ask for them to explain why they think they can put more and more ways to act out right wing fantasies into the game without making the problem of racist fans- a problem that they admit exists- - worse.
 
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when the Polish DLC lets you either ethnically cleanse millions of Jews from Poland
Really?
REALLY?
That's what you take from that bit of the tree?

*shaking my had*

You could laugh out loud at some things happening in this thread, if it wasnt so sad.... People downvoting calls for respect and politeness...
Is that really what you switch on your PC for?
 
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Anyone saying the Paradox Community doesn't have a problem with a not unsignificant far right wing minority is willfully ignorant or genuinely stupid.

Edit: And the reaction ration on this post compared to the answers it gets is rather telling.
 
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Anyone saying the Paradox Community doesn't have a problem with a not unsignificant far right wing minority is willfully ignorant or genuinely stupid.
True. You don't see them too often in the HoI4 forums, but they're all over Steam (I especially remember all the overt Nazis swarming the update on women in WWII), and I regularly see alt-right and far-right propaganda posted in threads like "Post an image because it's funny, weird, interesting, whatever".

edit2: you also see it when you look at what posts are downvoted, often with no explanation. Like the one earlier in this thread that explained how the focuses regarding Palestine and Madagascar are problematic because the reason Poland wanted these areas was apparently that they wanted to deport all their Jews there (which, yes, is ethnic cleansing). Downvoted, with no actual rebuttal or arguments. The only reply I've seen to it so far was pretty much just "lol u r PC".
 
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Honestly I think they should try to stop doing alt history for now after seeing this debacle. The identity of the game looks fragmented and not sure what it wants to be, and more important issues like fixing bugs and polishing the game seem to be an afterthought. I dont have high hopes after this two dev diaries
 
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