My opinion about HoI IV

[preussen6]

Hello !

I want to share with u my opinion about Hearts of Iron IV.

First of all I want to say thank you to paradox for this game. Why ? Because it is very good base for mods.
And thats sad, because vanilla is very bad. In this stage of this game playing it is too easy. It is sad that levels of difficulty are penalties from player not improved AI. I don't know why it is but I think it shouldn't be.

Secondly, as I mentioned previously AI is bad, it is disaster, it is brainless, human player can easilly won as every major country, rushing as he/she want. Thats nothing. Worser problem is poor focus tree. Yesterday was published new version of Kaiserreich mod. And what ? Most of american countries has own focus tree. In vanilla we have only canadian and american. It shows us how developers are lazy. And these 2 countries have own companies, generals and etc.. In previous games like HoI 2 and HoI 3 maybe minors weren't very good made, but they had own politicians, now they haven't. I can't understand it.

At the end I want say a little about dlc politicy. It it disaster. In last one we have focus tree for commonewealth countries, great, but couldn't be it added as a part of vanilla, even the price was higher ? Now we have next one, and it is again, worser than made by modders, terrains which we can't pass are just in mods too. I don't know who is manager, who is repsonsible for this politicy, but sorry it is not good way. Even last dlc for Stellaris has better changes than this new one for HoI IV. What has gone wrong.

And propably the fanboys of paraodx, which can't withstand criticising paradox will attack me. I don't care about you. As a customer of this company I has possibility to disagree with such politicy.

Thank you.

 

[adski42]

It shows us how developers are lazy.

That's unfair - to comment on the decisions made by the devs is fine and a buyer's prerogative as you suggest, but we simply don't know enough to call them lazy. From the sounds of it they are putting the hours into this project and are passionate about what they're doing. Perhaps a more valid point would be to suggest that the team is under resourced, although this is again conjecture only.

For the record I agree to a certain extent about the DLC policy and the state of the game, but I also understand they're trying their hardest to get it right. What frustrates me is that the updates at the moment (i.e. the forthcoming air update) are re-doing elements to a game that's less than a year old when ideally it should have been done right in the first place. I also understand, however, that resource limitations may have meant that certain features may have had to be rushed to get the game released, which again raises questions on the originally planning and scope of the game. But then again I know nothing about game design (just project management) and so could be completely wrong.

I just think the devs get a hard enough time on here without groundless personal accusations!

 

[marcotam]

My personal feeling is HOI4 go strategy as EU4. The vanilla game provide major countries and DLC for others piece by piece. The question is EU4 is Europe focus and people willing to see the expansion in the other continents. But HOI series is focus on World War II and the sale point is playing as any countries of the world. But the vanilla game with the National Focus for major. The first DLC for commonwealth and now the Axis minor in next DLC. Rather than players expecting features & enhancement.

 

[LukMaxPL]

S

That's unfair - to comment on the decisions made by the devs is fine and a buyer's prerogative as you suggest, but we simply don't know enough to call them lazy. From the sounds of it they are putting the hours into this project and are passionate about what they're doing. Perhaps a more valid point would be to suggest that the team is under resourced, although this is again conjecture only.

For the record I agree to a certain extent about the DLC policy and the state of the game, but I also understand they're trying their hardest to get it right. What frustrates me is that the updates at the moment (i.e. the forthcoming air update) are re-doing elements to a game that's less than a year old when ideally it should have been done right in the first place. I also understand, however, that resource limitations may have meant that certain features may have had to be rushed to get the game released, which again raises questions on the originally planning and scope of the game. But then again I know nothing about game design (just project management) and so could be completely wrong.

I just think the devs get a hard enough time on here without groundless personal accusations!

Sorry, but paradox's behavior look like lazyness. That is unthinkable to modders could make better mod in alpha stage than group of professionalist who earn money for work. I understand that paradox made "base" but that not enough. Pls. did you view with free-DLC for Poland? That comedy. Only difffrent beetwen poor-mod and DLC is that DLC doesn't change checksum. Paradox could adapt a lot of officers to generals in Hoi4's armies. Paradox could adopt politicians from previous HoI games. That amazing that after Trotsky's purge there is lack of ministers (ofc without democracy reformer). Even in "stupid" Kaiserreich in Poland (eg) you have more politicians than in vanilla SOV. In "stupid" Kaiserreich you have focuses in alpha stage even in II-tier's countries. If that isn't lazyness, you could tell me "Tsar Nikolai II". I remember for EUIII. That was very complexited addons. I forgot name (propably In Nomine) but one rebuild half of interface. Im know paradox can do better finished games, and make better and bigger DLCs but doing small DLCs (or in grace of majesty of Uncle Paradox, freepatch who force you to buy DLC like Commonsense for EUIV) for +/-15euro giving them bigger profit.
To be honest the most developed HoI was DH (unless very uncomfortable interface and controls at nowaday's)

 

[JerkyJerry]

I want to share with u my opinion about Hearts of Iron IV.

Opinions are like butt holes. Everyone has one.
However few should be seen and even fewer heard!

Secondly, as I mentioned previously AI is bad, it is disaster, it is brainless, human player can easilly won as every major country, rushing as he/she want. Thats nothing. Worser problem is poor focus tree. Yesterday was published new version of Kaiserreich mod. And what ? Most of american countries has own focus tree. In vanilla we have only canadian and american. It shows us how developers are lazy. And these 2 countries have own companies, generals and etc.. In previous games like HoI 2 and HoI 3 maybe minors weren't very good made, but they had own politicians, now they haven't. I can't understand it.

Mr. Trump, is that you?
I realize English is not your first language however it sounds very familiar to us Mericans these past 100 days or so.

Ok lets talk facts.
First, Paradox, Podcat and the team have balls. They could have released an "Alpha" or "Beta" game and the vast majority of complaints would simply vanish into the depths of the "never should have heard from you in the first place forum pit". However they did not. If nothing else, you have to pay respect to those who put it on the line and don't take an easy cop out.
Second, have you read the team's posts, watched any videos, twitch etc.? Ya think they don't love the game? The genre? The war? Where ya been son?
Third, if it were easy every gaming company would be doing it. Are they?
Fourth, the game is extremely complex to write, change, re-write etc. etc. etc. If it were easy to do the team would be doing it. They no more want to hear complaints than anyone wants to type them. However the community demanded (and still demands); complexity, realism, WWII factual everything, etc. that level of detail does not come by changing just a line or two of code. If it did then every gaming company would be making these games.
Fifth, give the team a break. I'm giving you one

 

[Adrized]

AI is bad, it is disaster, it is brainless, human player can easilly won as every major country, rushing as he/she want.

Ok seriously I find you guys to exaggerate a lot here. Yes, the AI is not optimal for an expert player and it certainly can be improved but besides that it's not a "disaster" like you're saying.
And that's coming from someone with 970 hours into the game.

 

[Tarnoyan Warrior]

I'm kind of baffled as to why one modding team can create an entire world(kaiserreich) and then the paradox team comes out with a focus tree for 4 nations. Especially when you look at eu4, which adds new mechanics that effects a lot of the world, like with the art of war and common sense. What about conditional surrendering, or better naval mechanics, or fixing the myriad of problems facing this game? I don't need something in a dlc mods can do for me. I just want new mechanics, like the license production stuff. That's good

 

[Polakko]

I can't agree with people that defend paradox.
First of all: They have not done this game in 2 years, more like 4 to 5 and now you trying to tell me that "some things need to be re-done or need polishing but you know, thats becuase the game is new" Well in fact paradox failed here so much. Naval and air warfare are examples of failutre of Paradox. These things have not been repaired for 1 year! Such shame, in fact, in one year we get only 2 or 3 patches, im not sure.
Second thing:

Fourth, the game is extremely complex to write, change, re-write etc. etc. etc. If it were easy to do the team would be doing it.

So how it is possible that Kaiserreich team, team of modders, so people who dont get anythnig for thier job, did better job in such shorter period of time that a profesional team of developers like pardox? And surly devs have better tools to work than modders. Furthermore, modders also have thier own jobs/lifes etc. And main goal of HoI IV team-dev is (in fact, should be).... developing the game but thier progres is ridiculously slow.

Summary: Dev team is lazy and maybe they like HoI $ (huh, did you see that? on keybord underneath 4 is $. Maybe its not a coincidence?) but still, they dont care much about game.
So sad, paradox....

 

[DuroSVK]

I can't agree with people that defend paradox.
First of all: They have not done this game in 2 years, more like 4 to 5 and now you trying to tell me that "some things need to be re-done or need polishing but you know, thats becuase the game is new" Well in fact paradox failed here so much. Naval and air warfare are examples of failutre of Paradox. These things have not been repaired for 1 year! Such shame, in fact, in one year we get only 2 or 3 patches, im not sure.
Second thing:

So how it is possible that Kaiserreich team, team of modders, so people who dont get anythnig for thier job, did better job in such shorter period of time that a profesional team of developers like pardox? And surly devs have better tools to work than modders. Furthermore, modders also have thier own jobs/lifes etc. And main goal of HoI IV team-dev is (in fact, should be).... developing the game but thier progres is ridiculously slow.

Summary: Dev team is lazy and maybe they like HoI $ (huh, did you see that? on keybord underneath 4 is $. Maybe its not a coincidence?) but still, they dont care much about game.
So sad, paradox....

You are right...
Sadly, they cannot make suddenly focus trees, politicians and everything else for all nations because then there is nothing they could sell in upcomming DLC´s

 

[Polakko]

@DuroSVK

There is one thing they will always find time: a SABATON music DLC... They had enough time to make 1 or 2 already to HoI $ but they havent to patch game? Its a f*****g joke paradox. I believe some day there will apear a better studio which will give you a hard lesson how to treat you community by cutting half of it to thier (better developed) game.
But maybe devs get a grip and stop their dlc-politicy?

 

[KiwiNoob]

Ok seriously I find you guys to exaggerate a lot here. Yes, the AI is not optimal for an expert player and it certainly can be improved but besides that it's not a "disaster" like you're saying.
And that's coming from someone with 970 hours into the game.

No - I think disaster is a pretty accurate evaluation of the AI as it currently stands.

The two best ways to have fun in HOI4 are to 1) play the game up until 1939 and then 2) after war breaks out just tag switch and rofl at what the AI is doing.

 

[Redz28]

Hoi 4 has lots of potential. I really want to like it, but as long as the AI continues to be broken it's just smoke and mirrors. Needless to say I won't be buying another title for at least a year after release from this company.

 

[kosmoface]

Ok seriously I find you guys to exaggerate a lot here. Yes, the AI is not optimal for an expert player and it certainly can be improved but besides that it's not a "disaster" like you're saying.
And that's coming from someone with 970 hours into the game.

Damn right. I don't know why or when it happened, but suddenly everything is completely broken and all devs are lazy.

I wonder what would happen if we were equally hard, unforgiving and nitpicking on their work...

 

[Chengar Qordath]

I have to agree that focus trees are pretty uninspiring as far as DLC content goes, simply because modders can make them (and already had pretty soon after launch).

 

[adam_grif]

Worser problem is poor focus tree. Yesterday was published new version of Kaiserreich mod. And what ? Most of american countries has own focus tree. In vanilla we have only canadian and american. It shows us how developers are lazy. And these 2 countries have own companies, generals and etc.. In previous games like HoI 2 and HoI 3 maybe minors weren't very good made, but they had own politicians, now they haven't. I can't understand it.

The Kaiserreich team is the largest and most organized modding team working on the game. At last headcount I believe Kaiserreich's volunteer team was actually similar in size to the Paradox team working on Hearts of Iron 4. HoI4's steady team is on the order of ~10 people, give or take a few. There are 11 "created by" people listed on the Kaiserreich mod page, I'll double check the credits when I get home.

Secondly, while Paradox must code the game, the Kaiserreich team only needs to use the mod tools that paradox developed for them. They can create assets to import, they can make focus trees, they can make events and so on, but they can't change the core code of the game. Paradox must use it's (quite limited) resources to fix bugs and code new features. It's their job to try and work with the AI. On the other hand, the KR team can develop content, that's all they need to do. And since that's their only focus, they develop a lot of content.

There are other differences. The KR team has created many ministers and generals, sure. But they're usually just photographs. The ruler portraits for countries are photographs that have gone through photoshop to try and make them look a bit more painterly. In HoI4 vanilla, all of the leader portraits, for heads of state and for generals, are painted. That's more labour intensive.

Focus trees are debateable. They've definitely created a ton of them, and kudos for the effort. I don't like most of them, though. They're large, unwieldy and have been quite glitchy in my experience. They've patched up some problems but I would still nto say they're very well balanced. I think the focus trees we got in Together for Victory were light years ahead of anything I've seen on the steam workshop in terms of quality. You might disagree, fine, but we need to look beyond quantity here. The KR team deserves credit for producing what is probably the best total-conversion mod. But that doesn't mean Paradox are "lazy". That's actually quite insulting, in my opinion.

 

[Axe99]

Sorry, but paradox's behavior look like lazyness. That is unthinkable to modders could make better mod in alpha stage than group of professionalist who earn money for work.

It only looks like laziness to people who can't tell the difference in the level of quality and rigour put into the work. To take nothing away from KR (for a start, it's still openly in Alpha, so judging it against a released product would be unfair), but what Adam Grif said - it's just not at the same standard.

Further, the upcoming update/DLC package is a good deal more than just the focus trees, and includes new mechanics (including what we're told is a substantial amount of work and bug fixes) - ie, it's hardly like the whole team is working on the DLC.

I've seen a lot of game developers and a good deal more organisations in my time. I've seen lazy ones, ones that are 'mediocre' (not lazy, not hard working, just muddling along), and ones that are working hard. The HoI4 dev team (and Paradox in general) show all the signs of being the latter (good community engagement, good response to community ideas (I think once Podcat turned a suggestion into action in under a day - a small suggestion, to be sure - but don't expect to see every dev do that) and a rock-solid commitment to producing a quality game.

As adski42 says, there's nothing wrong (and a lot right) with expressing unhappiness and dissatisfaction, but assuming negative behaviours about a group of people when the data aren't there to support it (or, even worse, when the data are in conflict with it!) is an unsubstantiated personal attack that does no credit to the person or people making the accusation.

I'm kind of baffled as to why one modding team can create an entire world(kaiserreich) and then the paradox team comes out with a focus tree for 4 nations. Especially when you look at eu4, which adds new mechanics that effects a lot of the world, like with the art of war and common sense. What about conditional surrendering, or better naval mechanics, or fixing the myriad of problems facing this game? I don't need something in a dlc mods can do for me. I just want new mechanics, like the license production stuff. That's good

The issue is that new mechanics are easier to manage if they're in a patch rather than DLC. That's why, with the DLC, there are (we've been told) significant improvements to the air game. We are getting new mechanics with the DLC, but the 'gated' mechanics need by design to be at the 'periphery' of core mechanics - so an air war rework needs to be part of a patch, and then DLC mechanics are best added at the side (maybe a few different types of air missions or something? I've no idea what the devs have in mind, so it's a bit hard to say what would be most appropriate).

 

[Magnificent Genius]

I really don't like the "hoi4 ai is dumb as a box of rocks comments". It makes me feel pretty darn stupid, when you consider that the ai routinely hands me my butt. The ai outperforms me in every facet of the game, so I think the ai is perfectly fine as is, thank you very much.

 

[RagingMonkey]

Opinions are like butt holes. Everyone has one.
However few should be seen and even fewer heard!

Ain't that the truth.

 

[RagingMonkey]

And propably the fanboys of paraodx, which can't withstand criticising paradox will attack me. I don't care about you. As a customer of this company I has possibility to disagree with such politicy.

So you want us to respect your opinion and your right to give negative feedback, but you won't respect our opinion and our right to give positive feedback? Sure, makes total sense.

 

[Logist]

I enjoy HOI4 a lot right now, though I do think it'll take a lot of work to get it up to par with a more mature game like EU4. I honestly don't understand people that complain that the game is unplayable. I've sunk 400 very enjoyable hours into HOI4, more than I've spent on any non-paradox game. I probably won't seriously pick it back up again until the next DLC, but I'm looking forward to spending 100's of hours more as the game grows and develops over the years. I'm basically pleased with the work the devs are doing and I don't doubt that podcat and the rest of the team will grow the game into something as complex and beautiful as EU4. Of course I, like everyone else, sometimes wish they prioritized certain countries over others, certain systems over others, but I also recognize they have to serve the entire player community. I will say the one time I made serious noise about a particular issue (the weakness of the Italian AI at defending Sicily) the devs were very responsive and we got a fix in the next patch.

With regard to the upcoming smaller (and cheaper) DLC, my understanding is that we're getting a small expansion because the devs are working on the core systems, which is exactly what they should be doing and what the forum has been asking them to do.