Greece? Bulgaria? then what's next? Most of players never play such endless unimportant minors!

[Jochen_Mongolia]

I am wondering how PDX spends developers time wasting on minors such as Greece and Bulgaria, the endless unimportant nations most of us will never play.
Instead, PDX should focus on game mechanics improvements such as AI, order of battle, brigade +division +corps +army +army group +front, and infrastructure +railways +bridges etc.
Some of game details such as tank building mechanic, airplane manufacturing and more detailed economic models and work/human resources will be the needed add-ons on current game mechanics. Why not just adding Tank Aces per tank battalions?? Heroes and Aces slots 5-10 per division and their assignments to other units, more and more historical generals, SS and Red Guards will be the excellent small details to make this game more time consuming and fun.

Thanks and regards
Jochen

 

[Krautkopf]

I beg your pardon, but in fact I enjoyed playing minors like Hungary and Romania a lot, and I think e.g. Greece and Bulgaria are not too far away from them in terms of potential. Of course, that´s only me, I can not provide hard evidence on how many fellow players enjoy playing smaller countries, but I think one strength of Paradox games is exactly the ability to play virtually any country that existed during the given time setting. I appreciate that a lot.

Also, perhaps one should not slap Greeks and/or Bulgarians in their face by calling their home countries "endless unimportant", that´s just mean if you ask me.

I agree to your point that core game mechanics are more important than providing an individual focus tree for any and every country in the game, but then I think to recall that in some dev diary it was stated how different persons work on those, i.e. a content designer who creates focus trees would not work on combat mechanics anyway, so no resources are "wasted", right?

 

[Nawolith]

(oh boy this starting-post will be downvoted....)

I have to disagree i in fact have a lot more fun playing minors in HoI then majors. Becoming a major or just surviving can be a lot of fun. And im sure a lot people will agree on that, and so says the data of Paradox: Minors get played a lot and thats why they expand them. BUT not like you proably think: As stated in the dev diaries they hired freelancers to do the focus trees of the coming country pack, while the developers in the studio continue to work on the Barbarossa patch, and this one will include mechanics and the country pack will not. So dw about someone "wasting their time" because the devs are working on bigger things. But while they do it, why not give some minors some love, finish the Balkans and thus lay the groundwork for the coming Italy rework. And again, just because you won't play them, dosn't mean others wont.

Regards

Nawolith

 

[Jochen_Mongolia]

(oh boy this starting-post will be downvoted....)

I have to disagree i in fact have a lot more fun playing minors in HoI then majors. Becoming a major or just surviving can be a lot of fun. And im sure a lot people will agree on that, and so says the data of Paradox: Minors get played a lot and thats why they expand them. BUT not like you proably think: As stated in the dev diaries they hired freelancers to do the focus trees of the coming country pack, while the developers in the studio continue to work on the Barbarossa patch, and this one will include mechanics and the country pack will not. So dw about someone "wasting their time" because the devs are working on bigger things. But while they do it, why not give some minors some love, finish the Balkans and thus lay the groundwork for the coming Italy rework. And again, just because you won't play them, dosn't mean others wont.

Regards

Nawolith

Sorry, I am just a common player kk. I am just expressing my own view on game development path and I do also respect your points at the same time.

 

[Nawolith]

Sorry, I am just a common player kk. I am just expressing my own view on game development path and I do also respect your points at the same time.

It's good to hear that we can both respect each other! I have seen enough 'discussions' on the forum where it just turned violent. Like i said im totaly fine with your opinion about the game, but just wnated to tell you that work on mechanics and stuff is happening rn and Greece or Bulgaria don't set it back.

 

[Louella]

Tank aces were a pure propaganda thing by the Nazis and are more than a bit silly, as the vast majority of them were down to equipment superiority rather than any skill. E.g. using a Tiger and firing on enemy tanks at 4000m range, when those enemy tanks could not penetrate a Tiger beyond 1500m.

 

[coffeelingfine]

I don't get how tank aces can be a thing when it takes more than one person to operate them.

 

[krokobone]

Personally, I prefer to play as minor countries because gameplay-wise they can be much more interesting and challenging than majors. Also, I think it is a bit unfair to say that Greece or Bulgaria are "unimportant" countries, as they did participate in the war.

I agree that core gameplay mechanics still need a lot of improvement, but seeing that there is already a big expansion coming, which will hopefully adress a lot of these issues, I don't see a problem with making a flavor pack with some smaller countries. It adds some replayability to the game, and doesn't take away resources from gameplay and ai improvements, which are already being developed.

 

[withche.07]

Next is gonna be Turkey.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1308372518642819072

 

[GSS_]

No? I'm excited to play as Bulgaria!

 

[grandad1982]

Greece is actually one of my favourite hoi nations so....

 

[Dlin369]

I want to point out that if a focus tree is well done, Even if a player doesn’t actually play a country with a focus tree, having the AI run it can add to the flavor of the campaign and enhance the interactions majors have with minors

 

[tazaaron]

Playing minors is fun because they are way overpowered just for that reason so I guess it depends on what you want. I prefer more historical accuracy so for me I do agree with OP and would rather see work on majors and game mechanics but this is a business and accuracy in HOI has never been a priority.

 

[Astrocreep]

it's pretty clear from PDX's tweet that it's Turkey, and I am a huge fan of all three countries and look forward to working their unique focus tree.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1308372897262645248

 

[ThaHoward]

Don't see how tank aces are essential game mechanics. SS and Guards divisions? Make them, give them SS/Guards names.

And it is not like they everyone employed by Pdx are content creators. When BMW makes a new car, some will make new "features", but still there are others working on improved engine etc.

 

[Indyclone77]

Telemetry Statistics show that "minor" nations without Trees are among the most played countries such as Brazil and Turkey, I'd give your points more creed if the team was releasing trees for Oman and Yemen but they are not. Greece and Bulgaria were two active beligerents during the war and deserve the content representation.

 

[GrounchoVilla]

Greece during WWII had a pretty epic contribution, first grinding the entire Italian army down, and then fighting a long guerilla war. In any case I've spent more time playing Mexico and Spain than any major power, so making cool mechanics for minors is useful.

 

[Harin]

I am wondering how PDX spends developers time wasting on minors such as Greece and Bulgaria, the endless unimportant nations most of us will never play.
Instead, PDX should focus on game mechanics improvements such as AI, order of battle, brigade +division +corps +army +army group +front, and infrastructure +railways +bridges etc.
Some of game details such as tank building mechanic, airplane manufacturing and more detailed economic models and work/human resources will be the needed add-ons on current game mechanics. Why not just adding Tank Aces per tank battalions?? Heroes and Aces slots 5-10 per division and their assignments to other units, more and more historical generals, SS and Red Guards will be the excellent small details to make this game more time consuming and fun.

Thanks and regards
Jochen

It would not surprise me if many players agree with most of what you say, except, of course, about the part that work on minor countries may be a waste of time. Now that Paradox has brought in some extra help, it seems they are aiming to please both sides of the discussion. The extra help allows the updating of minors, while the larger effort remains on majors and, hopefully, a long list of things we all want to see fixed or added.

I suppose that the developers got a little motivation from the players to bring in extra help. They see we all want something from the unused potential in this game and it is important we tell them about it. Honest threads like yours helps us get some comments in.

 

[Ketchup & friends]

I. This is done by different people. Focus trees are made by content designers (including freelancers like @Buzz! while coders do the AI, balance etc.

II. even if players don't play them, good focus trees buff the AI. And HoI4 AI need buffs.

 

[Voigt]

The last numbers I know of the top of my head were, that 10% of games are played as Turkey, and 4% of the games are done with Greece. This was from the PDXcon 2018 Talk, which you can check on YouTube.

This seems somewhat low numbers maybe, but they rank quite highly, and don't forget how many nations in HoI IV there are, and how much Germany alone hogs as a percentage.

So 10% and 4% of all started games are quite high numbers in this respect and far from "nobody plays them".

Also of course that those Focus Trees were done by outside freelancers, delivering content, while the mainteam works on another DLC/Patch at the same time.