My Truth about Focus Trees

[fabius]

Focus tree in game time is likely less than 0.1 %

Yet the development focus on them is presented like they are 20% of the game or something.

Somebody quoted a dev as saying they take 4 weeks dev time for 1 focus tree.

They are not a focused game dynamic. Random stuff that is not that engaging because
it's pretty straight forward to work out an optimal enough path. And consequences of one over the other don't impact me much.

They are not as engaging as other game mechanics such as the usual diplomatic screen actions, or EUIV add ons for that matter (thinking estates and how they are an ongoing mechanic that has a coherence).

So less that 0.1 % game time for an unengaging click through another tech-tree like screen for what appears like a disproportionate amount of dev time.

Can the devs refocus away from Focus Tress so we can have more engaging mechanics down the line please.

 

[Secret Master]

Random stuff that is not that engaging because
it's pretty straight forward to work out an optimal enough path.

Only against the AI.

Against humans who can fiddle with WT and budget their resources better, it's not always that straightforward. Ask the US player in our current MP game. The decision on which NF to take has been complicated for the past 200 days, thanks to not always knowing when Germany will increase WT.

 

[fabius]

Only against the AI.

Against humans who can fiddle with WT and budget their resources better, it's not always that straightforward. Ask the US player in our current MP game. The decision on which NF to take has been complicated for the past 200 days, thanks to not always knowing when Germany will increase WT.

True I speak for SP, where most people play, right...

What focus have you been waiting on WT to get started ?

So in MP it's not always that straight forward; but in the main, as in majority of the trees and most of the situations for the others, fairly straight or at least binary, and not much engaging in game time for what appears like a disproportionate amount of dev time.

 

[No idea]

I dont understand how they are focusing so much on focus trees. Iirc, Podcat said the ones in the last dlc hadnt seen much use by players. I guess the problem is they are focus tress for minor nations, which people play only from time to time. So, the effort put into them seems to be wasted.

 

[Surimi]

Paradox games, broadly speaking, seem to attract two types of players: those who play to win and those who play for fun.. Although perhaps it would be better to call them playstyles or engagement styles rather than players, because many people switch between the two depending on the situation and how they're feeling.

Play to win players view the game as competitive and the objective as fixed. Thus, the strategy which is generally agreed to be best suited to achieving what they see as the objective (the "win condition") is the objective "optimal" strategy.

Play for fun players still want to do well, but they want to do well within a set of self-imposed limitations. In essence, part of their strategy within the game (and part of their enjoyment of the game) is based on non-game factors. Play for fun players might have a personal RP goal, rather than a win condition (which, given that most Paradox games do not have a coded win condition, is also a personal and non-game based goal). They might be more interested in maintaining historical plausibility. They might have strong personal preferences for certain strategies or want to try out fringe strategies.

If you are the former type of player, or rather if you never stray from the former engagement style, national foci might indeed seem like a waste of time. However, for the latter type of player they are probably one of the biggest sources of fun because they provide contextualized choices. Non-optimal choices, perhaps, but not everyone is interested in cribbing the optimal strategy from a strategy guide or reddit discussion and robotically steamrolling to victory with whatever perfect 20 width divisions the internet says is best this week.

Because here's the other thing.. the internet will always have an opinion on what the most optimal strategy is for virtually any mechanic. If you followed that logic, eventually you'd barely be playing the game yourself.

 

[Alex_brunius]

What focus have you been waiting on WT to get started ?

Which NF does USA NOT need to wait for WT to get started?

 

[Axe99]

My 2 cents would be that focus trees in SP are important for three main reasons (noting that I'm not saying it'd be the only way to get the job done):

- they guide AI nations down (mostly) plausible paths.

- In non-historical mode, even in SP, they add all sorts of variety but do it in such a way that it's not completely all over the shop (ie, they provide a variety of tracks, but they keep the AI as trains, they don't let them become all-terrain vehicles). As development has gone on, the triggers for the various NF trees are enabling them to work better together, and I'd expect this to continue.

- they show the future path forward (particularly important for players, and there's a strong 'certainty in gameplay' focus in much of HoIs design which this is consistent with).

Part of me thinks getting what's in the focus trees into general gameplay mechanics would be good, but the other part thinks it would be an insanely large and hard job, and that focus trees are a good way of getting it done 'well enough' so that time and effort can be focussed elsewhere (eg, naval combat/strategic issues).

 

[Khevenhuller]

I find the Focus trees the most fun element at the moment. Cycling through different countries, looking at the focusses, I find it both immersive and engaging. I know next to nothing about Japan during the war, certainly not the internal politics (beyond assassinating PMs and so on) but the Japanese focus tree stimulated more reading and research to uncover what things meant.

Whilst the AI remains broken, glitches and bad gameplay abound, the FTs seem like the only thing that hangs together.

K

 

[Secret Master]

Which NF does USA NOT need to wait for WT to get started?

War Plan White?

 

[Bernard95]

Frankly what I find baffling is how the majority of the nations in Kaiserreich have huge and also interesting focus trees for basically every nation of importance, meanwhile it takes 4 weeks for Paradox to churn out one. To me if you're going to focus on focus trees, at least do it in a way so that they're expansive and offer plenty of choices and consequences.

 

[Bolshevik-]

Focus tree in game time is likely less than 0.1 %

Yet the development focus on them is presented like they are 20% of the game or something.

Somebody quoted a dev as saying they take 4 weeks dev time for 1 focus tree.

They are not a focused game dynamic. Random stuff that is not that engaging because
it's pretty straight forward to work out an optimal enough path. And consequences of one over the other don't impact me much.

They are not as engaging as other game mechanics such as the usual diplomatic screen actions, or EUIV add ons for that matter (thinking estates and how they are an ongoing mechanic that has a coherence).

So less that 0.1 % game time for an unengaging click through another tech-tree like screen for what appears like a disproportionate amount of dev time.

Can the devs refocus away from Focus Tress so we can have more engaging mechanics down the line please.

Paradox should just take all the fan made focus trees and sell them in one huge $60 expansion. That way they wouldn't have to spend four weeks on one focus tree thus saving both time and money AND they can make a bunch of money.

 

[Surimi]

Frankly what I find baffling is how the majority of the nations in Kaiserreich have huge and also interesting focus trees for basically every nation of importance, meanwhile it takes 4 weeks for Paradox to churn out one. To me if you're going to focus on focus trees, at least do it in a way so that they're expansive and offer plenty of choices and consequences.

With massive respect to the team (they're an inspiration to other modders, and I've used their work a huge amount myself to learn about modding) the balance in KR is noticeably off at times because it's very clear each focus tree was a passion project for a smaller team or possibly even an individual person. Ireland, for example, has an absolutely massive focus tree with lots of incredibly interesting mechanics and event chains which clearly took a lot of work to script, but the actual impact on the game seems to have been a secondary concern. It feels completely incongruous compared to many of the other focus trees and is full of incredibly powerful bonuses. The Soviet Union can easily stack up something like 20% recruitable population on volunteer only conscription. Russia can reach numbers which aren't far off that while also getting a whole bunch of very powerful bonuses elsewhere. Meanwhile, some countries (most notably Germany itself) have a much more reasonable and sensible focus tree which wouldn't be out of place in the base game.

I expect this is where a lot of the time actually ends up, it's going to be in QA making sure the foci work together and that their impact on the game is appropriate and vaguely consistent. The vanilla foci aren't perfectly balanced either, of course, but if the KR foci were released officially I think people would be extremely annoyed.

For a free mod though, they have indeed done some incredible work.

 

[The-False-Being26]

Frankly what I find baffling is how the majority of the nations in Kaiserreich have huge and also interesting focus trees for basically every nation of importance, meanwhile it takes 4 weeks for Paradox to churn out one. To me if you're going to focus on focus trees, at least do it in a way so that they're expansive and offer plenty of choices and consequences.

Balance in kaiserreich is horrible. It couldn't work for a balenced MP game.

 

[rjohansen]

Suggestion/idea

I am not a fan of the NF as it is today, but with a little work it could work, for both those that prefer unhistorical and implausible games and for those that prefers to play WW2.

For those that wan't the bizarre, implausible and unhistorical games: keep the NF as it is today. But for those that wan't a historical game why not do something like:

• Let the NF still exist, but be hidden (player can not see them or select any) → they can "act" like events instead, but follow an historical path and not be bound by the x days cycles it has today.
• Be able to script the NF to kick of at dates or after another "NF/Event" has been triggered etc.
• Only historical NF should be selected by the AI (on behalf of the player) or by the AI (on behalf of the AI)

 

[Celdur]

Balance in kaiserreich is horrible. It couldn't work for a balenced MP game.

Not true, i play KS almost everyday in MP, the foci are balanced, not perfectly, but enough... Because you also get decisions and events and a crippled country at the start of the game. A whole new Political Power mechanic which is very impressive and useful.


In that context the more powerful bonuses of the Foci as i understand them are there to balance out the absolute hammering your country takes in 36' -37' and to make the game fun and the war interesting during 39', 40', etc.


Besides all countries have powerful foci, which means they can all reach their maximum potential given the right circumstances, Russia getting a lot of manpower without hurting their industry, this is more align with history than vanilla, Germany is getting competently redone for next patch because they do need a buff, and its a work in progress in general.


If everyone has tamed foci the game is lame, if everyone has awesome foci, the game is more fun. Specially in MP, where a huge part of the game is *when* to attack your enemy.

Not just the perfect unit or combat width.

 

[Nussor]

The Focus Trees are one of the few things about the game I think add something to the game compared to HoI2... and I'm really pissed we'll only get the minors - hell, even China - via dlcs.

 

[Duke_Dave]

The focus trees help the AI, they also help the player, I think in getting access o their nation while enabling massive RP (for a grand strategy game) I can play Germany as a peaceful nation just enlarging itself through peaceful means while through the NF also influecning other countries. Especially for minors there is a lot of potential for alternative paths (not so much for the majors I think because SU becoming democratic basically ends the game in favor of the SU, GB joining Germany - the world war is decided. If India joins the Axis the world war gets more interesting.