Give me some hope.....

[LiberiusX]

EU4 was in pretty bad shape for the first 18 months of its life. I wasn't the most vocal critic, but I had my moments. It was like the dev team had no focus. One patch they would buff something, and the next patch they would nerf it and then buff it again. They had Spain colonizing regions that had absolutely no possible benefit for Spain. In one version, a single battle could last 3 months or more because the killing ability of armies had been nerfed.

I gave up on it after 6 months. I think most people will agree that by the time Art of War was released, 18 months after release of the base game, PDS had done a fantastic job addressing the major issues, and the game was quite fun.

I grudgingly have to admit now, after the release of Rights of Man, that EU4 is probably superior to Vicky 2, and thus the best PDS game. There are still some issues, and EU4 is still in danger of losing this station if the devs lose focus again, but it's a really damn good game, and I believe that PDS will fix HOI4 to most people's liking.

 

[fabius]

Hope n.
1. a. The longing or desire for something accompanied by the belief in the possibility of its occurrence

As above, EUIV points to the possibility, along with significant improvements already. Doubt the improvements, go look at the major patch lists. Or roll back and play with release version.

My perception is that the consensus, not everybody mind, is that Hoi4 took great leaps forward in several areas. The combination of production and new manpower mechanics are impressive.

I recall many posts way back in Hoi3 about how great it would be to have an AI battle planner thing. It looks like they tried to take a leap hear too; which has lead to prototype problems.

They have a solid base game with hug potential to widen game mechanics and even timeline a little. What looks like a solid player base and income stream for dlc. So long as they keep the player base and income stream it will continue to improve.

On the less positive side. There appears to me to be something missing from internal QA or direction or attention to detail. There's things like the AI shuffle that really shouldn't still be an issue. But then I see whenever the devs QA stream they always seem to play at a superficial level on fast speed, and/or multiplayer and I think that could be why they don't spot things so much.

 

[Carrierguy]

Again thanks to everyone for not turning this into a rant post. It was not meant to be started as such.
I have restored some faith. One of my problems maybe is that I also play PDX Stellaris and I have seen it make such HUGE strides. They are working on update 1.6 while HOI 4 is still waiting for 1.4, has some real problems, and I see them adding content for minor nations.

Guess I keep playing and keep hoping.

 

[Tarnoyan Warrior]

I'd argue that there are huge issues in terms of how submarines perform from a historical plausibility perspective, and substantial gameplay/UI/UX issues from a 'game' perspective, but I don't want to go derailing the thread . But the way subs interact with convoys, fleets and aircraft is all off if we're looking for historical plausibility. Not suggesting this is and end in itself, but at the moment there's no way, at all, of having anything approaching a 'Battle of the Atlantic' (or starving of Japan) in that sense, let alone have subs pick of carriers (Ark Royal, Shinano, Courageous, Wasp) and battleships (Barham) in the general course of play, or aircraft have a role forcing subs to submerge and leave convoys alone. That unescorted convoys are completely obliterated by as little as one sub if they're found is something else that is way off from a plausibility perspective, and I'd argue not great for gameplay.

Sorry, I'd better stop before I get started . Not having a go, and I know we don't see completely eye-to-eye here, but I've been doing more reading on the Battle of the Atlantic, and the more I read, the more it's clear that the current commerce warfare model isn't much chop. And I haven't even mentioned convoy pathing . Not having a go at the devs here - HoI4 is a hugely complex game, and they quite rightly are sorting land an air warfare first, as these are both more visible and appreciated by a wider audience - but at some point I hope commerce warfare gets the attention it deserves.

The problem there is that convoys are singular entities rather than made of individual ships, so there's really no way to simulate a few ships dying in the convoy, unless you gave convoys hp, but I doubt they'll be doing that

 

[LiberiusX]

Again thanks to everyone for not turning this into a rant post. It was not meant to be started as such.
I have restored some faith. One of my problems maybe is that I also play PDX Stellaris and I have seen it make such HUGE strides. They are working on update 1.6 while HOI 4 is still waiting for 1.4, has some real problems, and I see them adding content for minor nations.

Guess I keep playing and keep hoping.

Really? Stellaris? At least HOI4 pushes the genre in some direction. Stellaris is milquetoast. Seriously, Diplomacy is about the only advance Stellaris has made for the Space 4X, and even it still has problems. Combat is boring and a whole weapon group is currently broken. Strategy comes down to who has the bigger fleet. The economy is bland and lifeless. Factions still aren't nearly as big a problem as the dev diaries led everyone to believe. It still suffers from lack of things to do in the mid-game, especially if you are trying to be peaceful.

Distant Worlds: Universe does almost everything better and is quite a bit older than Stellaris. I'm actually kind of dismayed that PDS didn't lift more inspiration from it and Sword of the Stars 1(which, ironically, Paradox Interactive published). I mean, it's only fair...Distant Worlds is essentially Victoria 2(IN SPAAAAAAACE!).

Stellaris just plays it safe. I expect they will fix this as well. They are on the right track but I bet it will take it another 6 months to find some kind of focus.

 

[Celdur]

Bioware bastardization as a company can be directly attributed to it being sold to EA, which shifted the focus from making art through video games to just making money using plastic "cool" themes, art and tropes.

If people who make video games wanted to make money, then go work at the frigging stock market, like me!, don't degrade your art.


Hope? i have 100% confidence HoI 4 will be a great game, but it will apparently take a long time before we get there.

It is still pretty fun, specially in multiplayer, even more with mods like KS.

 

[Khama*]

Again thanks to everyone for not turning this into a rant post. It was not meant to be started as such.
I have restored some faith. One of my problems maybe is that I also play PDX Stellaris and I have seen it make such HUGE strides. They are working on update 1.6 while HOI 4 is still waiting for 1.4, has some real problems, and I see them adding content for minor nations.

Guess I keep playing and keep hoping.

I'm really sorry to tell you, but also Stellaris is full of concept bugs. And the last patch 1.5.1 has just added more new bugs in the game, and the last DLC some content that HAD already to be in the main game. And also the last DLC is bugged.
Maybe the best for them should be to consider us as PLAYERS and then they could start focusing on the main parts of their games, doing them working properly, because all their last games are confused and bugged. Instead they prefer to promise a lot of things to try to keep all the CUSTOMERS of the world, and no one of these things is well done. If Paradox will go bankrupt tomorrow, I will just have my games bugged and incomplete.
So sorry my friend, but I believe that the old original Paradox style went lost. I'm trying to hope in something better for the future just because we don't have a better different choise.

 

[Axe99]

The problem there is that convoys are singular entities rather than made of individual ships, so there's really no way to simulate a few ships dying in the convoy, unless you gave convoys hp, but I doubt they'll be doing that

While a 'convoy' doesn't represent one ship (it's not entirely clear what it does represent - I'm going to crunch the numbers one day, but I'm still gathering data to do it as closely as I'd like) an in-game convoy is made up multiple convoys, and I'd be surprised it it wasn't possible to mod convoy stats to have convoys represent one ship instead of a handful of them. Convoys do have HP - in 1.3.3, the max strength of a convoy is 30, a little more than a first-tier destroyer (which has 25).

 

[LiberiusX]

Bioware bastardization as a company can be directly attributed to it being sold to EA, which shifted the focus from making art through video games to just making money using plastic "cool" themes, art and tropes.

If people who make video games wanted to make money, then go work at the frigging stock market, like me!, don't degrade your art.


Hope? i have 100% confidence HoI 4 will be a great game, but it will apparently take a long time before we get there.

It is still pretty fun, specially in multiplayer, even more with mods like KS.

Biowares problem is that they hamfist their Social Justice preaching into every one of their games since Dragon Age, and they aren't even clever about it. The narratives of their games have just gone completely to sh**.

 

[Celdur]

That has nothing to do with gameplay, and that is not the reason the narrative has suffered. Its too simplistic an answer for you to believe it.

Game development is much more complex and in depth than whatever this made up controversy over "social justice" is all about.

As an aside, artists have always and will always be more liberal, you need to get used to that.

 

[Duke_Dave]

The finished product will be amazing. But it needs another 1-2 years, the way they go with DoD with a focus on domestic policies and problems is very good, the AI will gradually become better. More game mechanics will come one after another.