Hearts of Iron IV - 41st Development Diary - 22nd of January 2016

[BeauNiddle]

an hardcore game is by definition a game that is hard and complex enough to require dedication and patience by the player (an hardcore player) to understand and master the mechanics.
hoi 3 is quite hardcore, especially with mods.

hoi 4 is a game for everyone.

Your definition reeks of elitism - a hardcore game is one that only the worthy can work out.

Obtuse and confusing is neither good nor hardcore. Clicking thousands of buttons instead of one is not hardcore either.

In the latest WWW the German army is in grave peril because it's running out of supplies and the factories aren't producing efficiently enough to keep up. Something that HOI3 with it's simplistic factory system and massive stockpiles never had. HOI3 was a game about getting the supplies to your forces. HOI4 is a game about building the supplies to get to your forces. It is not any less complex, in fact I would argue it's more complex (or at least better connected) than HOI3 ever was.

 

[Zaku]

an hardcore game is by definition a game that is hard and complex enough to require dedication and patience by the player (an hardcore player) to understand and master the mechanics.
hoi 3 is quite hardcore, especially with mods.

hoi 4 is a game for everyone.

I heard the same old arguement with HOI2 and HOI3 back in the day.
Elitists will be elitists, no matter the game.
There is nothing "hardcore" about a video game, they exist for one reason, and that reason is entertainment.

 

[Axe99]

Hardcore is a ridiculous notion in gaming, and the elitist sub-text only casts gamers more generally in a negative light.

A more useful discussion might revolve around accessibility, complexity and historical plausibility.

For example, many of the improvements made for HoI4 make the game more complex and more historically plausible (for example, how air wings move about, or production and variants, or divisions design, or two widths of rivers, or being forced to actually plan offensives and invasions in advance). Others, less complex and plausible but more accessible (eg, supply, OOB).

I would argue that the balance in terms of comparing the complexity and historical plausibility with HoI3 is far from clear.

 

[Baldos]

ofc. casual gamers pay so much more. and also buy dlc.
harcore gaming is dead even at paradox

That is very short sighted.
Yes casual gamers "newbe" may buy a few games because the games looks and sounds "cool". This newbe spends money like a drunk sailor but never becomes a dedicated fan.
The hard core gamer plays one game "to death" not buying every game nor DLC, but this person will buy games for many years because he really enjoys them.
The Hard core games stay loyal. The casual games will move on to the next cool thing...
Do does Paradox want to be a flash in the pan company or still be in business in ten years?

 

[vicerory]

'Hardcore' is a term coined by gamers that doesn't really have a business application. HOI IV (and most other Paradox games) are niche games. It's players can be casual or hardcore, as long as they fit the specific niche of the game.

 

[safe-keeper]

My issue is that I only play Paradox games because of the great level of historical detail and simulation. Other game companies have better graphics and real time battle games.
Paradox is making the game too simple...dumbing it down. Having generals and FM commanding a dozen or more units means no possibility of a player trying to play as a historical simulation.
The US had 11 armies in all of WW2, the UK had 7, Germany had 6 Panzer and 23 other Armees. The USSR had 57 but these were almost corp size. Will a HOI 4 player have a dozen Generals or FM to command?
Or have a slew of fictional commanders?
HOI 1, HOI 2 and HOI 3 had the possibility of full OOB's why get rid of a good thing? Why take a step down to the arcade?

After all those encouraging DDs, here's one that really disappoints me. Why do even Paradox games need to be dumbed down? I especially run away from those kinds of games to Paradox so I can enjoy complexity.

an hardcore game is by definition a game that is hard and complex enough to require dedication and patience by the player (an hardcore player) to understand and master the mechanics.
hoi 3 is quite hardcore, especially with mods.

hoi 4 is a game for everyone.

true dat. In fact, HOI4 is so dumbed down and simplistic in comparison to HOI3 that I took it upon myself to create a list of ways it's more simple.

Oh, wait, I meant deep and complex.

 

[Krafty]

Given that some players have thousands of hours into paradox games I don't think so.

I dont think you understood what he said.

Hardcore gaming is essentially dead.

Theres War in the East/West by Matrix/Gary Grigsby, and thats about it. Complexity has taken a back seat while were going through a 8bit, and classic gaming revival coupled with the Indy Explosion.

Hours put into a game, have nothing to do with "hardcore gaming".

Complexity is a non starter right now. Its "ease of use" "low bar for entry". Thats the industry. Thats what he was pointing out.

Of course to be fair, Paradox games have never been complex by any stretch of the imagination. Deep? Great? Sure. Complex? No.

 

[Krafty]

All games are not created for entertainment.

Some are educational, some are entertaining, some are psychological experiments, others are endeavors of some specific origin, some are a means to deal with loss or tragedy...

I dont care one way or the other about the OOB (though id like an OOB like HOI3 because thats my personal preference, I dont care if its not there) its a fallacy to say all games are designed to be entertainment products. Thats not even close to the truth.

You can be obtuse and evasive if youd like, but "hardcore" and "casual" strategy games are real genres.

 

[Axe99]

You can be obtuse and evasive if youd like, but "hardcore" and "casual" strategy games are real genres.

Hardcore and casual are labels that are used to describe games, but they aren't genres. Genres are a general description of the type of game. You could argue you could have a "hardcore" FPS and a "casual" FPS, but FPS is the genre, the "hardcore"/"casual" is an adjective that helps define a sub-genre at best. Anyway, as per my previous post, I find both "hardcore" and "casual" as extremely limiting terms even if they weren't used so poorly in general gaming conversation.

Take WitE for example. What makes it more hardcore than HoI3? HoI3 arguably has more gameplay elements, WitE is a little bit harder than HoI3, but it's still fairly easy once you know how to play it. Both track a lot of stats, but WitE goes deep where HoI3 goes wide, but if deep is what defines hardcore, then niche games like the trucking and railway driving sims are more hardcore than WitE. I maintain the label "hardcore" lacks meaning, and is primarily used as a term to help describe "them and us" style gaming groups, and am yet to be convinced otherwise (but am open to being convinced by sensibly made arguments ).

 

[safe-keeper]

Yeah, I recently bought War in the East (the "complete pack" is 50% off on Steam right now ) and after all I had heard of it, I was surprised by how relatively easy it was to pick up and play. Sure, I needed to spend some time with the manual, still do, and probably will for some time, but I echo Axe when I say it doesn't seem that much more complex/deep than the Hearts of Iron series. It's deeper in what it focuses on, sure, but it also lacks the diplomacy, research, production, practical, intelligence systems, and naval combat of HOI, and probably more things I just haven't thought of here.

 

[bucknastyc]

To be fair, I haven't played any Hoi games.

But, from the outside looking in, HOI4 seems to be the best by far. I've watched some plays of HOI3 lately, where they explain their actions pretty well. From what I can tell, they have taken the completely obscured game elements, brought them into the open, and made them easier to understand.

In a HOI3 play, the player spends a lot of time organizing and shifting and moving and it all seems tedious and terrible. It's like watching a general look at a paper map, and he's explaining orders to his subordinates one division at a time, "This unit will move to this location, this unit will move to this location, this unit will move to this location."

In HOI4, the player commands his armies, "Take the First army and push until you reach the Danube."

Many of the features just strike me as very clever, and while they are an abstraction, make the realistic choices available to the player easily. This leads to greater overall strategic depth.

 

[Aligern]

I play for years HOI2 and HOI 3. The last years with the Black ICE mod. I can´t believe that HOI 4 will have no army corps and no 'Heeresgruppen'...maybe that will come with a new upgrade. So I will play my HOI 3 Black ICE, because I don´t like those mainstream funny games as they present here

 

[Zaku]

You can be obtuse and evasive if youd like, but "hardcore" and "casual" strategy games are real genres.

It's the gamers that are hardcore, the game doesn't matter. You can play any game harcore if you want to, it only means that you take that game very seriously. Just look at Starcraft for example. The game is simple as a it can be, but there are people playing it harcore. An other example is Minecraft, an other simple game with a lot of harcore players. Yet, there are also millions/hundreds of thousands of casual players for both games.

 

[Acaios]

true dat. In fact, HOI4 is so dumbed down and simplistic in comparison to HOI3 that I took it upon myself to create a list of ways it's more simple.

Oh, wait, I meant deep and complex.

in your list you forget the point where pressing a button you can solve every problem.

eg: supply problems? press a button and required upgrade are queued automatically for production.
Can't use your planes? no problem, just select a region and they will fight for you.

oh, but when rivers freeze... it's all ok!

 

[safe-keeper]

You're entitled to your opinion, of course. I personally feel the game is deeper all things considered .

 

[HeilLoki]

You're entitled to your opinion, of course. I personally feel the game is deeper all things considered .

1.) Why can't both things be true? Why can't it be true that the game is obviously dumbed down/worse in some regions (e.g. OOB, air combat, ship combat, no ability to bomb a certain province, no fuel etc.) and some areas are way more complex/better (e.g. division designer, production, frozen rivers, mud etc.)

2.) People who loved HOI3 do not believe that it was perfect, but they loved that they needed to micro units and that you could bomb a specific region etc. The little micro I saw in HOI4 (I watched all WWWs twice) is more like Starcraft or C&C. That's not what HOI-series was ever about. That's what people don't like. Yes, on a strategic level Starcraft is less complex than HOI3. That's the problem.

3.)
a. The first game I will set up (I'm not gonna buy it. I'm gonna test it first. A friend of mine will buy it, so I have access), I will play Germany and I will focus on everything but moving/microing my troops. I won't do anything with my troops. I will give them one plan (simple plan with 1 army, 1 general and 1 attack line) for Poland, one plan for France and (here's where it's gonna be interesting) one plan for Soviet Union. If the AI manages to win easily against all 3 nations without me interfering other than giving them x amount of troops, I won't buy it. That's what I use as evidence to determine, if this game is dumbed down beyond recognition or if it is still worth my money.

b. The Devs said, they wanted to stop people from automating everything. That's a good thing in general, BUT if they reversed what players did in HOI3 (automate everything but combat and production) and automated combat instead, I would be very disappointed. And that's what people see, when they see WWW. They see a game that is literally reverse-HOI3 when it comes to gameplay. HOI4 = 90 % other stuff, 10 % combat. HOI3 = 90 % combat, 10 % other stuff. I really hope, I'm wrong, but that is what we saw so far.

4.) Again: Yes there are some really, really great improvements and HOI4 is indeed deeper in some areas, but you must be blind, if you think that this game is deeper than HOI3 in general, because it is certainly not - maybe 3-4 DLCs from now, but not today.

5.) "Muh feelz" is NOT evidence. Pointing out that some areas of this game are indeed "dumbed down" isn't invalidated by your "feelz". I hate these "I personally feel"-arguments, because they are the ultimate non-arguments. "I personally feel that vaccines don't work for me." Great, you're still wrong and there is evidence to demonstrate that vaccines work. Just because you choose to ignore this evidence or just don't care about illnesses in general, does not mean that you are in the right. "Muh feelz" is the freaking opposite of an argument. Learn to use reason. It really pisses me off, if people are more about "muh feelz" than about reality, reason and evidence.

 

[Acaios]

2.) People who loved HOI3 do not believe that it was perfect, but they loved that they needed to micro units and that you could bomb a specific region etc. The little micro I saw in HOI4 (I watched all WWWs twice) is more like Starcraft or C&C. That's not what HOI-series was ever about. That's what people don't like. Yes, on a strategic level Starcraft is less complex than HOI3. That's the problem.

3.)
a. The first game I will set up (I'm not gonna buy it. I'm gonna test it first. A friend of mine will buy it, so I have access), I will play Germany and I will focus on everything but moving/microing my troops. I won't do anything with my troops. I will give them one plan (simple plan with 1 army, 1 general and 1 attack line) for Poland, one plan for France and (here's where it's gonna be interesting) one plan for Soviet Union. If the AI manages to win easily against all 3 nations without me interfering other than giving them x amount of troops, I won't buy it. That's what I use as evidence to determine, if this game is dumbed down beyond recognition or if it is still worth my money.

this, this and this again.
they just needed to fix hoi3 problems, not to create a game where cpu tells you what to do.

 

[Zaku]

a. The first game I will set up (I'm not gonna buy it. I'm gonna test it first. A friend of mine will buy it, so I have access), I will play Germany and I will focus on everything but moving/microing my troops. I won't do anything with my troops. I will give them one plan (simple plan with 1 army, 1 general and 1 attack line) for Poland, one plan for France and (here's where it's gonna be interesting) one plan for Soviet Union. If the AI manages to win easily against all 3 nations without me interfering other than giving them x amount of troops, I won't buy it. That's what I use as evidence to determine, if this game is dumbed down beyond recognition or if it is still worth my money.

I don't get this point, since you could win the whole game with only AI control in hoi3 as well. How is it dumbed down then? I even made an AAR a long time ago winning in vanilla hoi3 with France using only AI control on my troops.

4.) Again: Yes there are some really, really great improvements and HOI4 is indeed deeper in some areas, but you must be blind, if you think that this game is deeper than HOI3 in general, because it is certainly not - maybe 3-4 DLCs from now, but not today.

I could argue why It is deeper overall, but I wont because of my next point.

5.) "Muh feelz" is NOT evidence. Pointing out that some areas of this game are indeed "dumbed down" isn't invalidated by your "feelz". I hate these "I personally feel"-arguments, because they are the ultimate non-arguments. "I personally feel that vaccines don't work for me." Great, you're still wrong and there is evidence to demonstrate that vaccines work. Just because you choose to ignore this evidence or just don't care about illnesses in general, does not mean that you are in the right. "Muh feelz" is the freaking opposite of an argument. Learn to use reason. It really pisses me off, if people are more about "muh feelz" than about reality, reason and evidence.

@safe-keeper did a very good post about the differences between hoi3 an hoi4. Read his signiture.

 

[Zaku]

this, this and this again.
they just needed to fix hoi3 problems, not to create a game where cpu tells you what to do.

Well, I always loved automating my units in HOi3, because that's how I roll.
I love the idea that they improved the AI control by a lot. I hope I will never even have to touch a single unit of mine, and can still win the game. I'm more interested in the management aspect of the game overall...
...but this is a hundred percent personal preference, I'm just pointing out that what you dislike may appeal to other people.
Good thing is according to the devs and the videos both micromanaging and automation are going to be viable, so I don't see a problem here.

 

[grandad1982]

in your list you forget the point where pressing a button you can solve every problem.

eg: supply problems? press a button and required upgrade are queued automatically for production.
Can't use your planes? no problem, just select a region and they will fight for you.

oh, but when rivers freeze... it's all ok!

Ummmm..... not to be to pedantic but isn't all game play ultimately press button to achieve something? I think you might be confusing the number of clicks needed to do something with depth in this case. Am I saying that all the systems couldn't be made deeper or better (in my OWN opinion)? No.