Please add customizable message settings

[Merrivale]

Yes, back again with this. Since Paradox still seems to be on the fence about message settings I thought another push was warranted. If you agree with me and want message settings back, please post in the thread to keep the topic as near to the front page as possible.

Taking this down to basics, the game right now fails to tell the user things that many users would like to know and tells some users things they do not want to know (or makes sounds they don't want to hear). In each instance the game should be able to tell the user, if the user wants the information, each individual occasion of the event occurring easily. In the past this has been through pop-ups, if there's a better way to do it without popups that doesn't sacrifice the individual notification/alert for each instance that's great.

Unit Arrival/unit out of orders
With hundreds of units all over the world, it's easy to lose track of one that will therefore sit until remembered. This can take months.

- Units arriving somewhere (sorry seventh division, hope you enjoyed the 6 months you just spent in Singapore because I forgot about you....)

I used to be a micromanager, yeah one of those fools I know, but this game is impossible to micromanage, even if it's only 5 or 6 units, simply because you dont know when units arrive at their location. In one of my wars I lost 5 para div, but I had to find out myself. No warning, nothing.

Units under attack
This applies to naval and land units, the air war is, I think, a different subject. If you aren't watching carefully, you might lose a bunch of ships or have an entire front cave in without even realizing there was any action going on. The devs have said multiple times that the battle planner is not supposed to be a complete substitute for player control of units, players are supposed to be watching and intervening where necessary. Hard to do if you don't know what is going on.

I didn't notice, because nothing clearly told me, that my ports were bombed. Noticed it when it said "1 Capital Ship needs repairs" or something. that was too late, I was already missing 2 Battleships and 4 Cruisers.

It is very annoying to have a naval combat in progress I hadnt even noticed. How on earth are we supposed to reinforce or retreat from a naval battle if we dont know it is occuring?

Initially I was mostly interested in having the option to set any currently existing notification / alert to automatically pause and would still consider that as a decent, quick fix. However, having played more I'm also starting to find that the currently existing notifications / alerts are not enough (for me).

I have lost significant parts of my airforce and army while playing a minor nation and I only found about them when specifically checking airforce status window or happened to notice the little number showing army strength had dropped to 22/24 from 24/24. Without messages for unit arriving to province and such I also can't effectively manually control even that kind of relatively small army to avoid loosing my precisous divisions.

In fact, without messages I personally find microing that army of two dozen divisions more tedious than microing the whole German eastern front in HoI3. (Different kind of tedious though, HoI 4 version feels like annoying fight against the UI and the AI of my own army, while HoI 3 version is just terribly slow.)

On multiple fronts, managing battles can be a tad difficult without the messages. In once instance I was being attacked and my force was attacking elsewhere in the pacific. I was focussed on Europe and didn't see this until too late.

A message informing me that an attack was underway would have helped, or a pop-up even at the top.

So I started out as Italy in 1939 for my first attempt, and was concentrating in Europe.
After some time I went to check on East Africa only to find that the UK had overrun much of my position there.

Not realizing the planning bonus is full
Kind of fiddly to have to keep checking, especially in the middle of a war.

Not a big thing, but it'd also be handy to have a notification when a planning bonus has 'filled up'. A few of my armies have sat there for a few weeks (or so - obviously I'm not sure how long because I'd forgotten to check back in time) waiting for me to press the go button, but I was distracted elsewhere.

Naval invasion
The game tells you when a naval invasion is targeted, but not when it actually occurs. Similar to not knowing when your units are being attacked, this can lead to catastrophe.

I'd like to know when the Brits are staging an amphibious landing on the German coast.
I got caught up in a battle in Poland, and next thing I know, there are 8 British divisions in Bremen.

I just fired up HoI4 and found in my "start of the game sweep" Britain's invaded southern India (through regions that I, according to the map, had naval superiority). I had no idea at all that this had occurred. I would consider this very relevant information!

The main frustration is the lack of awareness. I don't know when I'm being invaded or that the enemy is landing 5000000 divisions in their African port unless I happen to be looking at that part of the map, which for a large empire like the UK is extremely problematic unless you're playing quite slow and checking around constantly.

Not getting battle results
Not knowing that you've won or lost a battle can mean not knowing that you've opened a major opportunity or are in major trouble. The lack of battle resolution screens also means you don't have a good grasp on how your units are performing.

I feel like I could live without most messages(although I do like to have them) but for me the lack of battlereport messages and combat started messages makes it almost impossible to get a grip over the situation. I understand that this was so that players would use the battle planner but still, not know your casualty rates from battles makes it impossible to even know if the divisions I'm making are efficient or not or if my eastern front is crumbling while I try to do something in the west.

Don't know if other countries have changed regimes
Pretty self-explanatory. Have to be constantly checking to see if someone has switched ideologies.

It would be nice to know when coups and gov't changes have happened somewhere. It's very relevant to your overall strategy to have a grasp on the politics. As it stands right now, you have to eye the entirety of the map every month or so with a fine toothed comb to see if there have been any regime changes.

Factories being destroyed
Either through bombing or resistance. Again, right now the only way to know is to constantly check.

And another one.

Last night I discovered that my factories were blown up only by looking at my build queue

The current solution to these problems tends to be either frantic scanning and pausing, staring at one location when you really want to be looking at another, or just accepting that you're going to miss a lot.

Definitely needs some messages coming through. It's more than a little difficult to try and do something in one area only to go back to another and find that everything has gone to shit. As it is, I basically have to just manually pause the game almost every 24 hours so I can look around and address different situations. This is because I don't fully trust the AI though, and I know lots of other people are playing on speed 5 with practically no stoppage time.

Right now, as Germany, I just started my invasion of Russia... and am spending most of my time staring at the northern France coastline. My east infantry is under AI control and I have a separate group that has all my armor. I keep that armor group selected so I know when one of my armor divisions need orders. After I issue new orders I go back to stare at the French coastline.

Staring at the northern France coast while conquering the world in the background. Ridiculous.

I really don't know why Paradox removed so many features that gave players useful information and more control. "Streamlining/abstracting the interface to hide complexity" isn't the answer because even the most casual player will want to know when the enemy is landing troops on their land.

110 hours over 3 different campaigns: Yes it does. Current "alerts" are insufficient. I'm trying to listen to half a second sounds to discern something's going on. This isn't a shooter, I shouldn't have to be constantly on the edge to hear a bell if my only fleet engaged the enemy to decide the fate of my navy and the seas.

Bottom line: the game fails the player in several key areas of information and right now forces every player to constantly be scanning the entire world, while checking all available information windows, or risk missing out on something potentially very important.

 

[zveroboy]

This is almost the only thing that keep me from playing HoI 4.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...lder-hoi2-players.943774/page-2#post-21366024

 

[pvtpeaches]

I don't know how they looked at all previous games and thought no one edits these message things we will remove player options, that's the ticket!

I understand multiplayer needs other options like turning off auto pause, but it should still be player choice in what pops up.

 

[Morwys]

IMHO the only messages missing are 1) unit without a battle plan and 2) unable to move. Other than that, the only change I want is the removal of the auto-unpause feature. If I can set it to auto-pause, allow me to set if unpauses too, dammit.

 

[canberkk]

Also we need ledger/stats.

 

[Torakka]

While I have enjoyed playing HoI 4 even at its current state, I would still greatly prefer to have customizable message settings. They are not top priority for me (AI optimization, performance enhancements and general UI improvements are), but they are definitely the one "new" feature I would most like to get.

 

[Stavian1]

100% agree with having customizable message settings since I often work on other things and play at the same time so need the pauses and like the information.

 

[Aries666]

I applaud your persistence OP

 

[Merrivale]

I applaud your persistence OP

Note I don't have the HOI4 icon in my group. Well, this is basically the thing preventing me from buying the game, and as I think the rest of the game looks great, I'm really hoping they change it.

On a side-note, this is first PDS game I haven't bought at release since I believe HOI 2 (edit: actually EU2. Bought HOI 2 at release). And HOI is my second favorite IP in PDS' suite after EU. But as soon as I saw Stellaris and the potential for this coming in HOI 4, I decided against ordering until I knew message settings were at least coming or that people who liked playing with them in past titles said they weren't necessary.

 

[Aries666]

Note I don't have the HOI4 icon in my group. Well, this is basically the thing preventing me from buying the game, and as I think the rest of the game looks great, I'm really hoping they change it.

On a side-note, this is first PDS game I haven't bought at release since I believe HOI 2. And HOI is my second favorite IP in PDS' suite after EU. But as soon as I saw Stellaris and the potential for this coming in HOI 4, I decided against ordering until I knew message settings were at least coming or that people who liked playing with them in past titles said they weren't necessary.

They are necessary. I personally don't need many and would settle for battle won/lost which I would probably only use for naval battles and a pop up for being invaded. I don't like the use of sounds to replace messages as I don't even play with the sound on most of the time!

 

[2gutter67]

I'm glad you brought this back up as I really love to have messages about things. I have a feeling that Paradox is working on this in some way, but it's a matter of when something will come out and that is the great unknown.

 

[Axe99]

Well, I'm sure anyone following these threads won't be surprised to see me here . I love HoI4, I think it's an exceptional game and hold the devs in very high regard, but I think it could do a far, far better job of telling the player what's going on. I've had divisions encircled, fleets destroyed and invasions happen without me knowing about them. That's not a game playing itself, it's a game not being played at all because the player doesn't know something's happening. I play with a notepad and paper (I write down theatres that are active and do a map sweep as often as the situation suggests is sensible (more often when the war is tight and fluid), but notifications would remove this tedious UI micro and make the game a good deal more enjoyable.

Note I don't have the HOI4 icon in my group. Well, this is basically the thing preventing me from buying the game, and as I think the rest of the game looks great, I'm really hoping they change it.

On a side-note, this is first PDS game I haven't bought at release since I believe HOI 2 (edit: actually EU2. Bought HOI 2 at release). And HOI is my second favorite IP in PDS' suite after EU. But as soon as I saw Stellaris and the potential for this coming in HOI 4, I decided against ordering until I knew message settings were at least coming or that people who liked playing with them in past titles said they weren't necessary.

Obviously your mileage may vary, but HoI4 is still playable without message notifications, just more fiddly and you have to be ready for frustrating moments when something important happens and you don't find out until too late. I find the UI micro worth it for the game, and you might as well, but obviously depends on personal preferences.

 

[Merrivale]

Obviously your mileage may vary, but HoI4 is still playable without message notifications, just more fiddly and you have to be ready for frustrating moments when something important happens and you don't find out until too late. I find the UI micro worth it for the game, and you might as well, but obviously depends on personal preferences.

I just don't have enough time to play to have hours go down the drain due to stuff like this. If I had bought the game at release I'd probably still be working on my first campaign (if that is I hadn't quit in frustration after having an "oh god" moment). At this point I think I have about 50 hours in Stellaris and have played 1 1/2 campaigns. Plus my $40 is actual leverage, piddly though it might be.

 

[Avatar13]

I agree, after playing quite a bit since release (no idea how many hours as I don't launch through steam) I am finding I really do miss having those pop ups and all the options associated with them. Quite surprised also that they were removed and I feel, like many others here, that we get too little information, especially late game where you have multiple fronts and would need to pause quite frequently to check on each and every one of them to see if they are going the way you want them to. Heck, we're supposed to be arm chair generals who get our information from others, here we're being forced to go out in the field to find out ourselves. Probably one of my biggest complaints about this version, and I don't have many.

 

[Oof]

Another reason for message settings is (obviously) are units that have finished construction (land and naval). Now you have to check every day.
The thing is I used to be a micromanager, but now I still spend as much time as I used to in HOI3....just checking and checking and checking

 

[rjohansen]

Just one of the many reasons why I decided to put HOI4 aside for a while. Will check back constantly though, and also play a game whenever a new patch arrives. But for me, personally, this is just "one more thing" that annoys the shit out of me.

And I can't really understand, not even if I try really really hard, why they decided to remove messages? I wan't to know if a division is lost, I wan't to know if enemy has invaded my home country. The first post gave a few very good examples. Can't for the best of me understand why they have removed messages from the game. Hopefully it will come back at some point, but perhaps not before the first expansion.

 

[Aries666]

Yep, really pissed last night, was playing Australia fighting my way through India, busy war lots going on. I check my recruitment page to see my latest batch of divisions has completed so I start looking back toward Australia only to find French and British all over south east Asia and my garrison units doing nothing about it either.

 

[GuyFromTheSky]

When playing HoI4 it feels like the game says to me "Shut up, stupid, i'll handle this." and then don't handle it at all. Let me know when stuff happens so i can deal with it. PLEASE!

 

[Torakka]

Few quotes from other threads (and other people than me). I posted them here in order to try to help keeping this as a sort of master thread of this subject.

My latest game as USA, August 1941 war declaration

I have to keep track of

-A counter invasion of Borneo
-A drive up north from Singapour
-A drive down south from Bangkok

-Combats in Subsaharian Africa

-Yet another invasion of Italy by the UK
-The Balkan front

-German attack toward Sweden

Each time, if I let my ''Allies'' do their own things, they end up doing incredibly stupid stuff. For instance, after saving Sweden skin by securing the province across the Danish straits (and thus cutting of a good 25 German divisions) with a minuscule task force, I had to leave to ''plug'' a landing. You would have thought that guarding the one province the ennemy can pass through would have been a fairly easy task, but the Swedish AI redeployed and let the border open...If I don't personnaly destroy every Italian division in Africa, I can be sure one of them will manage to take Cairo...

And now for a little rant about PUNs (pop-up notifications). First, other than this particular festering wound, the game is pretty fab, aside from some bugs and blemishes and questionable AI and balance (that always comes later). It has massive potential and I am already addicted.

So removing PUNs would be sort of like a doctor removing a patients liver to cure a cold and actually expect them to get better. All previous GS paradox games that I have played had these. It was absolutely essential to playing this game. You want to be able to run at the highest speed and just simply have the game pause for you when there is something to do. This is especially true for the simple events like troops have arrived, battle is over, units being attacked. Without these how do I know/ without constantly scanning all of my many units??? When I have units running all over the planet, how can I possibly remember to move to 100 units I have in motion? I understand you want people to play with the lines and stuff, but that did not nix the need for something that was already well developed and well used by many faithful. Besides, if you don't want PUNs, just turn them off, so don't go disliking my thread because you don't like PUNs. Why penalize my game play just so you can say "no more endless pop-ups", which is the same as the other games with them off. I like to play manually. Other notifications that are important are "army recruit complete", and "building complete". For the record, the old notifications, as they were, would be best for my tastes.

Also, please fix:
1) Pause on event.
2) Auto-unpause on closing a window.

-gz

 

[fabius]

At the moment Hoi 4 is like sex with the lights off. It's still good, but mann it would be nice to see what was going on.

It shocks me that Devs thought it right that we have repeated Air Ace pop-ups. Which at best is interesting but marginal. But I have fleets engaged and only know when some of my ships are sunk. Or whole armies attacked and no information about it happening other than scrolling around; and no information about battle losses.