A few thoughts about the recent dev diary responses

[Wombat69]

Its not that tricky. The focus trees let us give people choices. Sure it means we gotto make more content but if more people are interested in it its not a bad thing


Initially focus trees were designed to guide the AI and players towards historical choices. We pretty quickly realized that a lot of players (I dunno.. like 50-70% by gutfeel?) really liked alt history content. I guess not a surprise given our other games, but after working on hoi3 that pretty much only catered to historical major players it was a bit of a rethink. The more you design towards a sandbox the harder it is to create historical play which is why it wasnt designed 100% as a simulation.

HOI 4 cannot be a 100% simulation, because a simulation would leave no room to deviate. I agree wholeheartedly with your statement there.

BUT (yes there is one) what motivates me personally is to still beat the odds with the historical resources and means available. Am I better than my historical counterpart?
That is the reason why I believe (warning: personal impression of fellow commentators) many players are highly motivated to rely on historical content first. Additional alt history may add some spice, but it is probably not the main reason why many HOI veteran players stuck with the series over 4 releases (and the last one has seasoned well over the years, too).

I would not hope that my perception is way off, but that is why I think many fellow commentators put so much passion (without nasty words) in their comments - because we love playing the game.

 

[Wombat69]

I mean, sure, but do we the players need to write a dissertation on how absolutely bananas it is to give Poland free nukes? Afaik, they don't even have a reactor today, much less in 1944 in a secret off-map site.

In the contrary - the MARIA research reactor is well known amongst companies that make radioactive pharmaceuticals... but that is off topic.

 

[Indyclone77]

People shouldn't believe Chinese whispers about the size of staffing level of the HOI4 team or create their own Strawman that "If only this was done then everything would be amazing" Game Development is a complicated and nuanced beast even from team to team within the same Development Studio.

As Podcat has said feedback has been taken into account already on yesterday's diary and repeating the same points here misses the point of the thread.

 

[bitmode]

Look back on past nations. There is usually plenty of changes

As a representative sample, I looked at the first nation presented for each DLC (i.e. the one with the longest time left to make potential changes):

• Canada: released as presented, except one extra research focus at the end
• Romania: released as presented (King Michael's coup was moved up later iirc)
• Germany: some minor branches got visually horizontally flipped; Long Range Escorts added; Tannenbaum added (the latter could be attributed to dev diary comments - the only clear instance I found of this happening)
• UK: additional naval focuses; reshuffling of Commonwealth Ties branch (bonus: bratyn rolling his eyes at balkanizing the UK. No wonder he went to Imperator )
• France: released as presented
• Greece: released as presented

(I only looked at the structure of the trees because the conditions and effects can not be easily compared with their prose descriptions in the diaries)

 

[Axe99]

I'm very much saddened to swing past here today and see that people have been being nasty pasties. I'd strongly recommend everyone remember that the devs are people, and to think how they would feel if they'd done something, and someone else responded to them in a rude and nasty fashion. I'd recommend this just because being nicer, kinder people (in a deep sense - not "walkovers", but people that stand up for what they believe in, but do it in a way that means they treat other people with respect) is a good thing to be in and of itself - but even if, deep down, that's not who you are, it's in your best interest to do so if you want HoI4 to be the best it can be.

Making video games (particularly complex videogames like HoI4) is a difficult job, with thousands upon thousands of different elements to keep an eye on, and in this case an audience with a wide range of interests. Not everything in every DD will be aimed at you. This is totally cool - unless "you" is a very wealthy individual bankrolling the development of HoI4 on your own, the game would struggle to be near as good as it would otherwise.

Which is perhaps an overly-complex way of saying "remember that HoI4's wider audience means more resources means a better game". Generally speaking, if worst comes to worst and you just can't live with whatever it is in question (which, in this case, seems to be one NF that's entirely optional, and would be super-super easy to mod the AI not to take.....), there's always modding to tweak the game more to your preference.

It's also important to remember that everyone's human (except for Podcat, who I suspect is half-human, half-machine - the six-billion Krona man ) and there will be occasional mistakes. Calling them out helps the devs, but call them out respectfully.

By being rude and unpleasant, this will impact how the devs feel about the game, and runs the risk of them either deciding not to share as much information with us, or losing some of the passion that gives us the Poland focus tree, which as a game element has truckloads of win to it, as well as an awful lot of well-researched history, alongside some of the things that are a bit more of a stretch historically but are very much enjoyed by a significant proportion of HoI4's fanbase.

More broadly, I'd also like to highlight that I've been following game development of my favourite games for decades now, and the passion, work ethic and talent of the HoI4 team puts them in the top-drawer of developers. They're still human, and there'll still be mistakes (we all make them), but there's a reason HoI4 has been my favourite game consistently for near half-a-decade now - it's a really good game, put together by a group of really good people.

And before you think I'm mindlessly praising the devs because they made it possible to mod in corvettes, there's still a slew of things naval-related I hope to mod in. Is HoI4 what it would be if I was a multi-millionaire dictating game development? No, it's not (and a good job to, because my perfect game would involve far too much naval and logistics stuff for most to stomach ) - but it is by far my favourite strategy game, and as a bonus it has oodles of scope for modding in my alt-history universe where I have time to get back to it

I'm a bit rough today - sorry if that makes less sense than I'd like - TL; DR - be kind and respectful - even if you don't feel like it, it's in your own best interests

 

[bitmode]

HOI 4 cannot be a 100% simulation, because a simulation would leave no room to deviate. I agree wholeheartedly with your statement there.

I think it is somewhat of a red herring. To get a virtual sandbox, you don't simulate castles. You simulate sand and you simulate it well. Building the castle is up to the player and is not a deviation from the simulation but a natural product of it. Rather than replaying an outcome, simulation is the imitation of a process.

 

[xtfoster]

So not wanting for someone to say that my country was "supposed to die" in world war is "polish supremacism". Interesting take...

P.S.: I don't care about this buffs and debuffs. Tho I think you are overthinking it

No offense intended (and I wasn't the one who said it), but in a game that represents the period of 1936-1945+, yes Poland (the country, not the people) is supposed to die. Just like Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Norway, the Low Countries (the European parts at least), Yugoslavia, Greece and the Baltics are supposed to die (as independent countries at least).

 

[xtfoster]

If I was making a World War 2 game and I gave free atomic bombs to Poland, I would deserve every single rude comment for my dumb, dumb action.

They aren't giving free Nuclear Bombs to Poland - They are giving a free (off-map) nuclear reactor (i.e., siphoning fissile material away from the allies (kinda like how Israel is rumored to have gotten the material for their alleged nuclear program). Poland still has to research the technologies to start producing the bombs (at a rate of about 1 per year from the 1 reactor).

 

[Arknav555]

I think it is somewhat of a red herring. To get a virtual sandbox, you don't simulate castles. You simulate sand and you simulate it well. Building the castle is up to the player and is not a deviation from the simulation but a natural product of it. Rather than replaying an outcome, simulation is the imitation of a process.

I think that's equally as much of a red herring. It is obvious when people say they want a simulation of WW2 that they want a historical game. Otherwise, they wouldn't complain about the Cossack King (the equivalent of creating Michelangelo's David in the sandbox).

 

[Arknav555]

They aren't giving free Nuclear Bombs to Poland - They are giving a free (off-map) nuclear reactor (i.e., siphoning fissile material away from the allies (kinda like how Israel is rumored to have gotten the material for their alleged nuclear program). Poland still has to research the technologies to start producing the bombs (at a rate of about 1 per year from the 1 reactor).

Which is even worse. It leads to the unfounded claim that non-American-born scientists were using the discoveries to aid their governments, which is simply nonsensical.

 

[Taniwha]

Which is even worse. It leads to the unfounded claim that non-American-born scientists were using the discoveries to aid their governments, which is simply nonsensical.

It is strangely 'McCarthy was right!' when you put it like that- which again goes back to my point of the devs not spending enough time thinking through the implications of their writing.

 

[OldCleric]

And with that, I think you're deeply unfair to the developers because you expect them to do a herculian job. They are on the path towards improvement, that's good in my view. But they cannot improve the whole game all at once.

I think the issue is that they are pushing more paid DLC content out the door when past DLC is still half-baked.

I get that it takes time for development cycles, but this game has been out for years and there are still broken mechanics like diplomacy that haven't even been touched. What's the ETA on a diplomacy rework? How can this DLC be justified in light of the lack of functional peace conferences?

 

[mursolini]

And.... everyone got the choose NOT to play the new parts (I am one of the historical guys. Like to see the alt-historical parts but i will probably never play them). More waiting on the railroad part and Barbarossa.

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.

HOI 4 cannot be a 100% simulation, because a simulation would leave no room to deviate. I agree wholeheartedly with your statement there.

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.

They aren't giving free Nuclear Bombs to Poland - They are giving a free (off-map) nuclear reactor (i.e., siphoning fissile material away from the allies (kinda like how Israel is rumored to have gotten the material for their alleged nuclear program). Poland still has to research the technologies to start producing the bombs (at a rate of about 1 per year from the 1 reactor).

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.

The MEFO bill is used to switch from CIV production to MIL production. You are just focusing on one specific aspect of the MEFO bill and then compare it directly with the Polish spirits.

Thats like saying "Chaos chosen in Warhammer can beat up every other unit so Chaos is OP" without thinking about the intent of something.

Germany does not need to build forts from the start, gets quite a lot of supplies organically from occupation, can send volunteers for XP farm, has quite easy to defend borders and is essentially in the driver seat the entire game. The only thing Germany needs to focus on pre-war industry wise is when to switch to MIL production, and that is what MEFO bills actually helps with

Poland is slammed between 2 majors who both absolutely wants its land, needs to get an army ASAP, has a huge border to defend and need some sort of fortline (assuming historical here), get MILS up and running, AA so that strat bombers dont just blow up said fortline.

Just giving Poland a bunch of extra factories doesn't necessarily make it more interesting either as that is not something that the player has to engage with. If you go down the tree to take those CIVs you aren't doing your political focus, or the Danzig focuses, so when do you go down that tree vs going after the other buffs? That to me is way more interesting that a straight buff to Polands CIV count. The dilemma of timing and its balance is imo what makes Poland's situation fun.

I think that the proper way to look at it is more holistically and take in the entire situation as opposed to focusing on one particular aspect of it, but that's just my 2cents, peace!

There are many more less immersion breaking ways to give Polish player ways to choose. Player could get advisor similar to Todt, 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.

 

[spartansociety]

I hadn't read the horrible comments but this make me think about the forums back when the game released. Around the release there were complaints about bugs and the arcade nature of the game. At the extreme, there were irate nerds calling for the death of certain devs . Always helpful to remember this is just a game.

 

[Shaka of Carthage]

Unfortunately it takes massive negative backlash for the devs to even take notice. The arrogance shown by devs

Expecting polite, well-reasoned arguments only works if polite, well-reasoned arguments actually work. Plenty of times they don't.

If this is what your life experiences have taught you, it doesn't mean you have to react in kind.

 

[Axe99]

Expecting polite, well-reasoned arguments only works if polite, well-reasoned arguments actually work. Plenty of times they don't.

The devs will always have their own vision, and for some things (like, for example, the specific inclusion of landing craft-type vessels) don't fit within that, even though I'd prefer they were there. However, in my experience, what I've seen doesn't work is throwing a hissy fit and calling people names/making threats. What a lot of the people acting out tend to forget is that alongside them are people making well-reasoned arguments, or noting their displeasure of something without being disrespectful and confrontational. Over time, the people that act out on the forums tend to get ignored, and often disappear, while the devs are far more likely to reply, and take notice of, people that raise issues in a more constructive fashion. At no point in the history of HoI4 have I seen the "hissy fit crowd" do more than say "+1, I don't like this" - which can be achieved far, far more constructively (and in a fashion that reflects far better on the person putting forward their view) than going off like a pork chop.

 

[Áurum]

Its not that tricky. The focus trees let us give people choices. Sure it means we gotto make more content but if more people are interested in it its not a bad thing


Initially focus trees were designed to guide the AI and players towards historical choices. We pretty quickly realized that a lot of players (I dunno.. like 50-70% by gutfeel?) really liked alt history content. I guess not a surprise given our other games, but after working on hoi3 that pretty much only catered to historical major players it was a bit of a rethink. The more you design towards a sandbox the harder it is to create historical play which is why it wasnt designed 100% as a simulation.

I don't think people are complaining because of alt-history. I think people are complaining because of this alt-history. And because of bugs.

As an example, I don't like the alt-history of the game, but I always play alt-history mods like Kaiserreich or TNO. And I'm not the only one, I'm sure.

 

[Taniwha]

Cruelty and trolling isn't acceptable, and fan entitlement is a very toxic thing.

However, rudeness can mean different things in different contexts- calling the devs names and using abusive language is right out.

But dismissiveness and open tiredness with the studio is a natural response when some of these issues have been ignored for years.

For example, I recognise that people like me who are worried about the welcome atmosphere in the community to the far right and the disconnect between the studio's policy (no atrocities in the game, supposedly, no slurs on the forums) and its actual game content (monarchism and fascist dream scenarios a-go-go!) are a minority. But we do exist and we have been vocal in our concerns on this forum and in places like the paradoxplaza reddit network for years.

The fact that the Devs haven't even had the decency to dismiss us or disagree with us let alone engage with our worries and arguments- the fact that we're just met with silence every time we raise questions about the worrying content of a dev diary- doesn't leave much left except resignation and irritation at the direction of the game.

 

[Nieznaszmnie]

I actually think it's a nice tree, just with several things I didn't like.

Please, shun the cossack. Just replace him with somebody else. I was really serious when I said even a japanese prince would be better since Piłsudski.
Sanacja path still looks suspiciously similar to HPm. I just can't believe you really read a wikipedia page and came to the exact same conclusions like HPM creators, since they made some stuff just for fun.
GIVE POLAND ELECTIONS - despite being an authoritarian country, it wasn't your typical dictatorship. The press have never been censored, the political opposition was lagal and the parliament was still importnant with Sanacja losing it's power with each year.
Gomułka should be able to oppose USRR and ND should NOT be friends with nazi - those guys I just can't imagine giving up half of the country considering their nationalism and in ND's case - democracy. IMO the one who is Stalin's subject should be either Bierut or Wasilewska.
Replace The Black Madonna with actuall polish flag. Some parts of PSL were straight-up anti-clerical and PSL itself was at most instrumental about the church.

Now what I like but what people find controversial:

The 37' strike getting out of hand. But just don't make Mikołajczyk and PSL socialists, it's silly.

Communists opposing USRR and being friends with allies - I don't see anything wrong with it. Maybe would choose PPS intead of communists but yeah, communists in Poland weren't really happy with USSR being an empire.
It includes buying off colonies - Polish colonial ambitions were pretty important issues, even most socialist parties supported that.

And as for the rest of the tree, I think it's not that bad. I'm pretty meh about the monarchist stuff but I don't really think it's something that bad. Especially since after Sanacja collapsed in a civil war, verious stuff would happen.

 

[President Park Lee Ng]

If this is what your life experiences have taught you, it doesn't mean you have to react in kind.

Likewise, if you refuse to learn from life experiences, it doesn't mean it's not reality

The devs will always have their own vision, and for some things (like, for example, the specific inclusion of landing craft-type vessels) don't fit within that, even though I'd prefer they were there. However, in my experience, what I've seen doesn't work is throwing a hissy fit and calling people names/making threats. What a lot of the people acting out tend to forget is that alongside them are people making well-reasoned arguments, or noting their displeasure of something without being disrespectful and confrontational. Over time, the people that act out on the forums tend to get ignored, and often disappear, while the devs are far more likely to reply, and take notice of, people that raise issues in a more constructive fashion. At no point in the history of HoI4 have I seen the "hissy fit crowd" do more than say "+1, I don't like this" - which can be achieved far, far more constructively (and in a fashion that reflects far better on the person putting forward their view) than going off like a pork chop.

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

The bean counters decided that memetic alt history gets a lot of money, that's how we got Battle for Bosporus and the ridiculous things contained within. Someone had already checked what happened to multiple focus trees after "forum feedback" and found out that the changes are almost cosmetic, if at all, which ironically counters both of our claims.

Paradox is not some indie developer where you're talking directly to the guy who made sales decisions. In this forum you only talk to the guys who get orders from higher ups. I guarantee you the devs have all sorts of great ideas that get shot down because "it won't sell"