This is not a topic to rant, I just wonder whether and how many people feel a similar way.
When the game was launched, personally, the base game's 7 focus trees were meh but at least they were a nice thing because they were a good addition from the otherwise plain and identical focus tree that the other nations have.
There were some balance problems, such as playing a minor nation, it was obvious you were going to go fascists for that huge much needed 7.00% manpower, the communist path was plain by comparison, with only some extra political power. And even some major fascist nations didn't have a focus tree so good as that 7.00% manpower.
As I understood it at that time: the fascists had the power, being a heavily militarized nation, the communist had the political power, often acting behind the scenes like they did in real life, the non-aligned was I guess kind of average, and the democratices would have disadvantages or debuffs due to their nation's people not being that willing to fight. Unsurprisingly, if you don't force the people to go to war, they won't want to go to war.
Then came the focus tree of Poland, who personally I feel that it was a dissapointment, as in, it had some nice bonuses, but overall the focus tree was forgettable.
And then the 2nd step in Hearts of Iron 4's evolution came: The Together for Victory and Death or Dishonor DLCs.
I enjoyed both of these DLCs. The focus trees started to become something more than a forgettable part of the experience.
At its core, I still believe Hoi4 should be mainly about how you organise your army before the war and how/where you move your troops during the war, a game about military strategy.
But the options of having more diplomatic choices were just great and I loved them.
It was simple yet flexible, you could intuitively understand all that focus tree, and it wasn't a difficult part to follow it, while still doing your own thing, in a way making it a good blend of sandbox game and not sandbox game.
Then came the 3rd step in Hearts of Iron 4's evolution, I'm calling it a step because I believe this is where significant changes happened to the core gameplay.
While I disliked some additions of both Marshals and Generals being needed, due to extra micromanagement reasons, and the upgrade tree for Generals, due to feeling so very unrealistic, overall I liked the areas of the game it touched and the nations picked to gain new focus trees.
The war in Asia was amazing, while previously a forgettable experience, it made it as fun as the war in Europe to this day, and due to its novelty at the time, it was more fun to fight in Asia than in Europe. And the "Oppose Hitler" path was also an amazing addition.
When it comes to Man the Guns, I can't say I would have picked Mexico myself, but it turned out a fun focus tree to play, considering that you have to keep in check your stability so that your country won't revolt. Same for Netherlands, great choice, a bit of a stretch with the "minor democractices factions" but alternative history is alternative history, if you don't want it, don't play it.
And then came what I believe is the 4th step in Hearts of Iron 4's evolution: La Ressistance and this next DLC.
The espionage part was something the community requested even before Together for Victory was launched, and the developers delivered.
Some would call it an "extra micromanagement system", like the government system of USA, and well, it kind of is an extra micromanagement system, but how else would you want spies without extra micromanagement? If you would have nothing to do, then why add this spy system in the first place? Moreover, it's completly optional, if you play as a minor nation you can simply be not that interested in intelligence and simply focus on the army.
But it's the focus trees that I found a little bit, too much and at the same time too separate. A lot of people complained about Japan's new focus tree in Waking the Tiger as being too rigid and overall the worst focus tree in the entire game. Because you basically had 4 paths that you could choose from day 1: go communist, go fascist, go non-aligned and go democratic. Despite being being, I feel that Portugal, Spain and France's new focus trees are ultimately that way too. With France having an extra game mechanic of communist revolution if you drop below 25% stability, even though the communists end up having 0% party popularity.
I don't think many people would say that La Ressistance was their favourite DLC as far as focus trees are concerned. The spies, some like it, some don't, but the focus trees, pretty much everyone I talked to seem to agree that they have been a dissapointment, with way too much unnecessary stuff and too rigid too simple "yes or no" kind of choices, despite a Spanish focus tree being long expected. Even Portugal is basically a huge focus tree with 4 barely interconnected paths.
And some are forced choices. Some players complained that Japan's non-aligned path includes a forced non-aggression pact with USSR. What if you don't want to make a non-aggression pact with USSR? In the same sense. Portugal's choice of communism, democracy or fascism is tied to their choices of support in the Spanish civil war. I get that the Spanish Civil War was a big thing for Portugal, but what if you don't want to take any sides but still go communist or still go fascist? It seems like a choice that was ultimately deined by the structure of the focus tree. They could have easily made a focus tree branch for "who you want to support in the war?".
Some things like supporting the fascists as a communist state may be exaggerated. Although in an alternative history scenario, if Germany makes an alliance with USSR, you are in faction with Germany and the nationalsits have already lost the civil war, you may support that one too. But even with the most extreme cases out of the question, it makes sense of you to choose either whether you want to get involved in the civil war supporting one particular side, or stay out of it, even if from purely a lore perspective.
This overall leads to less flexibility in the focus tree making it less of a focus tree and more of a predefined path tree.
And I'm not going to point any fingers because it's way too early to judge, the new DLC isn't even out yet and I didn't even play it. I, of course, could be very wrong about the direction I think the new DLC is heading. But it already looks big, and the core problem isn't whether the focus tree is big or not, the core problem is whether the focus tree is or isn't flexible. Personally, I liked the focus trees from Walking the Tiger and Man the Guns the best, they were bigger than Together for Victory and Death or Dishonor while having their own particularities, making the country feel like playing a completly different country from a standard focus tree one. But at the same time they weren't too big so that you would get lost on them, with unnecessary focuses just for the sake of increasing its size, and the parts of the focus trees were intertwined, making it easy to create your own favoruite scenario, with the only notable exception being Japan.
I believe that a good focus tree is one allowing the player to make as many choice as possible while not being unnecessarily big and complex, by using different variations of picked focuses from different branches, such as, you could go fascist buy stay neutral, unlikely given that you started Hearts of Iron 4 to play it, but you get the point. I hope that the focus trees don't become too big and at the same time the paths too separate from one another, making it overall less flexible.
I get that ultimately personal preference is subjective, but what do you think about all of this?
When the game was launched, personally, the base game's 7 focus trees were meh but at least they were a nice thing because they were a good addition from the otherwise plain and identical focus tree that the other nations have.
There were some balance problems, such as playing a minor nation, it was obvious you were going to go fascists for that huge much needed 7.00% manpower, the communist path was plain by comparison, with only some extra political power. And even some major fascist nations didn't have a focus tree so good as that 7.00% manpower.
As I understood it at that time: the fascists had the power, being a heavily militarized nation, the communist had the political power, often acting behind the scenes like they did in real life, the non-aligned was I guess kind of average, and the democratices would have disadvantages or debuffs due to their nation's people not being that willing to fight. Unsurprisingly, if you don't force the people to go to war, they won't want to go to war.
Then came the focus tree of Poland, who personally I feel that it was a dissapointment, as in, it had some nice bonuses, but overall the focus tree was forgettable.
And then the 2nd step in Hearts of Iron 4's evolution came: The Together for Victory and Death or Dishonor DLCs.
I enjoyed both of these DLCs. The focus trees started to become something more than a forgettable part of the experience.
At its core, I still believe Hoi4 should be mainly about how you organise your army before the war and how/where you move your troops during the war, a game about military strategy.
But the options of having more diplomatic choices were just great and I loved them.
It was simple yet flexible, you could intuitively understand all that focus tree, and it wasn't a difficult part to follow it, while still doing your own thing, in a way making it a good blend of sandbox game and not sandbox game.
Then came the 3rd step in Hearts of Iron 4's evolution, I'm calling it a step because I believe this is where significant changes happened to the core gameplay.
While I disliked some additions of both Marshals and Generals being needed, due to extra micromanagement reasons, and the upgrade tree for Generals, due to feeling so very unrealistic, overall I liked the areas of the game it touched and the nations picked to gain new focus trees.
The war in Asia was amazing, while previously a forgettable experience, it made it as fun as the war in Europe to this day, and due to its novelty at the time, it was more fun to fight in Asia than in Europe. And the "Oppose Hitler" path was also an amazing addition.
When it comes to Man the Guns, I can't say I would have picked Mexico myself, but it turned out a fun focus tree to play, considering that you have to keep in check your stability so that your country won't revolt. Same for Netherlands, great choice, a bit of a stretch with the "minor democractices factions" but alternative history is alternative history, if you don't want it, don't play it.
And then came what I believe is the 4th step in Hearts of Iron 4's evolution: La Ressistance and this next DLC.
The espionage part was something the community requested even before Together for Victory was launched, and the developers delivered.
Some would call it an "extra micromanagement system", like the government system of USA, and well, it kind of is an extra micromanagement system, but how else would you want spies without extra micromanagement? If you would have nothing to do, then why add this spy system in the first place? Moreover, it's completly optional, if you play as a minor nation you can simply be not that interested in intelligence and simply focus on the army.
But it's the focus trees that I found a little bit, too much and at the same time too separate. A lot of people complained about Japan's new focus tree in Waking the Tiger as being too rigid and overall the worst focus tree in the entire game. Because you basically had 4 paths that you could choose from day 1: go communist, go fascist, go non-aligned and go democratic. Despite being being, I feel that Portugal, Spain and France's new focus trees are ultimately that way too. With France having an extra game mechanic of communist revolution if you drop below 25% stability, even though the communists end up having 0% party popularity.
I don't think many people would say that La Ressistance was their favourite DLC as far as focus trees are concerned. The spies, some like it, some don't, but the focus trees, pretty much everyone I talked to seem to agree that they have been a dissapointment, with way too much unnecessary stuff and too rigid too simple "yes or no" kind of choices, despite a Spanish focus tree being long expected. Even Portugal is basically a huge focus tree with 4 barely interconnected paths.
And some are forced choices. Some players complained that Japan's non-aligned path includes a forced non-aggression pact with USSR. What if you don't want to make a non-aggression pact with USSR? In the same sense. Portugal's choice of communism, democracy or fascism is tied to their choices of support in the Spanish civil war. I get that the Spanish Civil War was a big thing for Portugal, but what if you don't want to take any sides but still go communist or still go fascist? It seems like a choice that was ultimately deined by the structure of the focus tree. They could have easily made a focus tree branch for "who you want to support in the war?".
Some things like supporting the fascists as a communist state may be exaggerated. Although in an alternative history scenario, if Germany makes an alliance with USSR, you are in faction with Germany and the nationalsits have already lost the civil war, you may support that one too. But even with the most extreme cases out of the question, it makes sense of you to choose either whether you want to get involved in the civil war supporting one particular side, or stay out of it, even if from purely a lore perspective.
This overall leads to less flexibility in the focus tree making it less of a focus tree and more of a predefined path tree.
And I'm not going to point any fingers because it's way too early to judge, the new DLC isn't even out yet and I didn't even play it. I, of course, could be very wrong about the direction I think the new DLC is heading. But it already looks big, and the core problem isn't whether the focus tree is big or not, the core problem is whether the focus tree is or isn't flexible. Personally, I liked the focus trees from Walking the Tiger and Man the Guns the best, they were bigger than Together for Victory and Death or Dishonor while having their own particularities, making the country feel like playing a completly different country from a standard focus tree one. But at the same time they weren't too big so that you would get lost on them, with unnecessary focuses just for the sake of increasing its size, and the parts of the focus trees were intertwined, making it easy to create your own favoruite scenario, with the only notable exception being Japan.
I believe that a good focus tree is one allowing the player to make as many choice as possible while not being unnecessarily big and complex, by using different variations of picked focuses from different branches, such as, you could go fascist buy stay neutral, unlikely given that you started Hearts of Iron 4 to play it, but you get the point. I hope that the focus trees don't become too big and at the same time the paths too separate from one another, making it overall less flexible.
I get that ultimately personal preference is subjective, but what do you think about all of this?
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