HOI4 - Development Diary - September 9th 2016

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podcat

Game Director <unannounced>
Paradox Staff
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Jul 23, 2007
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Hello everyone, this is going to be a very short diary because the team is knee deep with work on the Sunflower patch today.

Patch is coming along and bugs have been squashed this week, but there are no major new features to talk about this week. The funniest bug found was probably the one where German AI, presumably due to its strong sense of honor, refused to attack units it massively outnumbered (say 40 divisions of medium tanks vs 2 infantry divisions sitting on Copenhagen). We are also looking at integrating the Enhanced Peace Conference AI mod into the patch, because frankly it works well and its creator is a nice guy who gave us permission :)

Oh yeah, also our artist added more neat icons (now 14 in total) for your Armies so it's easier to keep them apart:
FST7OrS.jpg


Now for something totally different! As you know our games collect stats and metrics and who doesn't love stats?
  • 12% of players use Nato counters (this jumped a whole percentage when Black ICE and August Storm mods released)
  • 12% play multiplayer
  • 20% play ironman
  • The most popular major nations are Germany at ~40% of games, Soviet (15%) and USA (12%). France is least popular at 6%.
  • 35% are played as a minor nation
  • Mods are super popular! Around half of daily active games use mods of some kind. We are really excited by this, because we spent a lot of time making sure HOI was easy to mod and easy to get mods for in the workshop.
Among mods the most popular ones are cosmetic. Here are the top 3:
  • Colored Buttons
  • More Division Icons
  • Flavor Names extended
When it comes to daily active players I can't quote exact numbers, but compared to other games and how its historically looked the numbers for HOI4 are strong which looks great for the future :)

I know everybody was hoping for a patch this week (including us!), but we also want to make sure things are as good as they can be when we release, and especially since we are still dealing with a lot of illness among team members we need to push it a little longer. You will know it when I do when the patch is ready :)

See you all next week, in another life where we are all cats (cats playing 1.2 Sunflower)
 
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No patch for the weekend, eh? Better late than never.
We don't really release patches on fridays anyway since there is nobody here as support if something goes wrong.
 
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  • Mods are super popular! Around half of daily active games use mods of some kind. We are really excited by this, because we spent a lot of time making sure HOI was easy to mod and easy to get mods for in the workshop.
Among mods the most popular ones are cosmetic. Here are the top 3:
  • Colored Buttons
  • More Division Icons
  • Flavor Names extended

I hope in future these, and other mods (fixing AI) will be included into normal game too as free content, not as one milion of cosmetic DLC's...
 
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...and I guess now you're only going to be working 6 hour days, right? ;-)
 
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Dang, I was hoping for a beta patch.

Still, I must say I've seen the "AI refuses to attack inferior force on chokepoint" a bunch - Greece and Denmark seemed to be the main problem areas.
 
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Interesting stats.

Pity that so few play MP, then again this is normal in a PDX game. Personally I pretty much only play MP.

A bit surprising that so few use NATO symbols. Must be all the new peeps.
 
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beta patches may be ok on fridays, but there is little point to release one when you have blockers you know about already. Expect one next week though unless we all get sick somehow.
 
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Pity that so few play MP. Personally I pretty much only play MP.
yeah, I hope its something we can increase with 1.2 where there is resynch and hotjoin making stuff easier to organize
 
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I knew you could change the colour, but I only found out about changing the icon thing last night. I'm glad you've added some more. Is there any chance you can show some more of the new ones off?
 
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Interesting stats.

Pity that so few play MP, then again this is normal in a PDX game. Personally I pretty much only play MP.

A bit surprising that so few use NATO symbols. Must be all the new peeps.

I think it's pretty much standard that in any game where the singleplayer is more than just a tutorial for MP, the singleplayer crowd outnumbers the MP crowd significantly.

Must say I've never seen the point in NATO symbols, and am not surprised they're barely used.
 
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The only major I ever played was France .. like 4 times. And I use NATO counters! I don't suppose any of those new fancy army icons use NATO symbology?
 
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The funniest bug found was probably the one where German AI, presumably due to its strong sense of honor, refused to attack units it massively outnumbered (say 40 divisions of medium tanks vs 2 infantry divisions sitting on Copenhagen).
This seems to be more generic, actually -- in some places the AI seems adverse to attacking last remaining enemy province in the given area, even if it's completely undefended. Corsica is another place like this -- at the start of the war Italy usually takes two provinces there, then leaves the last one unclaimed and goes back home.
 
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Must say I've never seen the point in NATO symbols, and am not surprised they're barely used.

I think the NATO counters were added back in specifically because there was quite vocal support for them on the forum. Personally, I quite like the emblems PDS have made but each to their own.
 
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Huh, well, I did ask for more theater icons so I suppose I can't be offended if you guys made a load more. :D

@podcat

Out of interest, do you know how many new portraits look likely to be added in 1.2?
 
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Pity that so few play MP

Good point.

Us players could help...perhaps those of us who play multiplayer can reach out to others and invite them to join multiplayer games?

Multiplayer is a fun way to play the game. Kudos to those who organize the games, develop the house rules, pay for the TeamSpeak, serve as game masters, etc.
 
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