Paradox Washing its Hands of HOI3?

[HighLigerBimBam]

I believe that the add-on will "fix" anything that is not in the scope of a patch to address, such as a major overhaul of core game engine code.

I doubt that "overhaul of core game engine code" is within a scope of a addon. :rofl:

 

[TheLoneGunman]

I doubt that "overhaul of core game engine code" is within a scope of a addon. :rofl:

Not the entire thing no, but portions of it, such as the supply system, allied cooperation, and theater management.

 

[X_MasterDave_X]

"allied cooperation" is much better then ever before in Pdox Games. Maybe to good.

 

[unmerged(84132)]

Lets talk about AI...

There are numerous tests on how a player thinks the AI is designed well or not. I think it was in HALO(or UT) where the producers tested the AI with some beta-Testers. At first they gave the AI same HP as humans had, just to get complains about the freaking easy and stupid AI. Than they decided to increase the HP, just a bit, without changeing a single line of code, and voila the Testers said, wow what a nice AI its so good and statisfies me...

For a developer its not so easy to make a challangeing AI. But its easy to make a winning AI. Humans must be able to win more games against the AI than lose or the game aint fun for the players.

So what Paradox did is making a AI which doesn`t cheat and everybody is complaining (even i do).

For me its simple, however 1.4 is a great step its not enought. Naval AI needs improvement and therefore at least a 1.5 is needed. I can recall a sentence i read some mounths ago: "1.3 is the last patch for HOI3" guess who said that?!... Johan did it. And now we are here with eleven release candidates for 1.4. And guess what, people will not stop to complain after 1.4 is released. Its simple because they feel the AI is not smart enought!

And what will Paradox change? I bet nothing because with all the fixes done in 1.4 i think a better AI is out of scope for a patch. So maybe just make it cheat so everybody is statisfied.

In a world full of humans, perception does mean more than reason. I will give you that. Technically, atleast for the difficulty levels, the player/AI get bonus (basically cheats) in HoI3. The difficulty level is also easily modifiable, so that you can give the AI even more of an advantage.

Even in an expansion, I do not see much being done with the AI. Game companies with budgets big enough to support a bunch of PhDs designing AIs, still produce sub par AI. Unless there is some revolution in AI design that does not require a super computer, I do not see any VG AI being vastly improved any time soon.

 

[unmerged(45464)]

Everyone expects that a game like HOI3 will need a lot of work after release, and they expect that the company supporting it will put in that work. People were disappointed with the previous patches and many felt that not enough effort was applied in creating them. Patch 1.4, which Paradox began with reluctance, has had a dozen RCs and Paradox is powering through bug fixes like crazy for this new patch. It really seems like this is a final attempt to silence those who have complained about the lack of effort post-release. Is Paradox simply "going through the motions" with all of the effort on patch 1.4 so that it can simply hand off further improvements to the modding community and rid itself of further responsibility for this game?

Impressive how you manage to make their hard work on the 1.4 patch sound like something bad. Most games are lucky to get a couple of patches. The only company I can think of that support thier games much better are Blizzard. If you look at EA for example they release a couple of patches and move on.

Not saying Paradox is perfect by any means, but you should at least give them credit for trying to fix the game. I doubt they have unlimited resources to spend on patches that doesn't bring them any money. They have to survive as a company after all.

Compain about how 1.4 still has flaws if you will, but don't complain when they spend months on patches. There is an expression that says "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" why PI made 1.4 doesn't concern me, only that they did.

 

[unmerged(61296)]

IThe only people really left on this board are the die-hards.

If that's what we are then so be it!

Yes, paradox put in effort to fix HOI3. I have no idea if 1.04 will be any good. I didn't even try 1.03 I was so irritated at this game. Plus the comments suggested it wasn't that good.

You know the most irritzting feature of early releases of HoI 3? It's that anyone can see the game is good, with immense potential.

What a lot of folks - including paradox - do not understand is that there is a short window after a game is released in which people care.

I respectfully disagree. If PI released adds-on for Victoria 1 now, I would get excited about it. Because release window or not, it's one Hell of a game. And so is HoI3, actually so was every game of the HoI franchise.

 

[Lordban]

I would add that Paradox probably aren't targeting games like the HoI series at audiences who only care during a short window after a game is released. Those are games you play for 5 or 10 years, not games meant to be put back on the shelf after 50-100 hours logged in.

 

[Ostheim]

I would add that Paradox probably aren't targeting games like the HoI series at audiences who only care during a short window after a game is released. Those are games you play for 5 or 10 years, not games meant to be put back on the shelf after 50-100 hours logged in.

Agreed, I hope PI continues to support HOI3 with more patches in the future.

 

[unmerged(88057)]

Personally, I do not even think Big Blue was a good AI; in fact, I would go so far as to say it is not an AI. It is 100% deterministic. All it did was find all the answers and pick the best one. That is not intelligent by any means. Intelligence is more about discerning patterns than it is having all the answers. Most of what Big Blue did was a waste of time.

Yes you are right, I never won on diety with a full compliment of AI players (just a few). The only civ game where I could do that (and do that 100% of the time) was Rev, but that is not an achievement.

Also, I would say AI cheats (basically game rules) are not part of an AI. An AI starting with a full compliment of settlers, workers, and archers does not make a better AI. All it does is make a stupid AI with lots of unfair advantages. The AI is not challenging in this case, but the rules are.

When the rules are the same for both player and computer, only a few games like Gal Civ are even remotely challenging. To me, a good AI is one that makes me think (even if it is only a little), and does not make me want to go in to the world builder and give me all the bonuses that the AI gets. Having played Civ since Civ 1, cheating AIs no longer challenge me, but just piss me off.

Edit:
One more note, Big Blue only works for things like chess, checkers, etc. You try to apply it to concepts like Civ, and it would never work. The most you can hope for is (especially against a human player), is maybe a 10-20 turn fidelity. Yes, it will give the AI an edge, but a smart player will eventually figure out that every time you do X, it does Y. All you still really have to do is gear your startegy to force the AI in to a certain postition (like you do now), and then crush them.

Big Blue is non-adaptive, non-creative, and needs and environment where all the answers are finite and already known.

Well with the way you put it and think there is no such thing as an artificial intelligence at all therefore we can resort to calling all of them merely computer opponents and qualify them by difficulty to beat at various levels and ranges of variables given to them to implement challenge vs the player.

Taking out the "intelligent" factor this then makes it easy to create a computer opponent that is challenging to just about everyone at various difficulties (like Stardock did with GC2 and Sliterine did with Spartan). This is where the majority of developers fail because they do not try to make difficulties high enough for experienced players. The majority don't give enough OPTIONS to create a computer opponent within the game that will put fear in the player be it by cheating or advantages or whatever perk allowed to make it more fun and challenging to play against. Civ IV did this very well with it's option page and you could make the computer opponents very aggressive, the barbarians very aggressive and/or even start the game with everyone at war with you and no peace. I like this kind of game.

As I said this is what I look for in a computer opponent [one that has a level of difficulty that will beat me the majority of the time but I have a "chance" of beating it should I not make any mistakes and a little luck is on my side]

Now if you want a game like that I'd suggest Warlords 1.04a and start out on the highest difficulty just for fun. ) I got beat so badly I had to jump down two levels to actually win a game. What this game provides is ability to win by the amount of games you play against the computer opponents starting at lower difficulties and then taking your retinues up to higher difficulty levels with you. I had a blast playing this way and I'd love to see more and more developers make computer opponents and difficulties this way.

 

[unmerged(84132)]

Well with the way you put it and think there is no such thing as an artificial intelligence at all therefore we can resort to calling all of them merely computer opponents and qualify them by difficulty to beat at various levels and ranges of variables given to them to implement challenge vs the player.

Taking out the "intelligent" factor this then makes it easy to create a computer opponent that is challenging to just about everyone at various difficulties (like Stardock did with GC2 and Sliterine did with Spartan). This is where the majority of developers fail because they do not try to make difficulties high enough for experienced players. The majority don't give enough OPTIONS to create a computer opponent within the game that will put fear in the player be it by cheating or advantages or whatever perk allowed to make it more fun and challenging to play against. Civ IV did this very well with it's option page and you could make the computer opponents very aggressive, the barbarians very aggressive and/or even start the game with everyone at war with you and no peace. I like this kind of game.

As I said this is what I look for in a computer opponent [one that has a level of difficulty that will beat me the majority of the time but I have a "chance" of beating it should I not make any mistakes and a little luck is on my side]

Now if you want a game like that I'd suggest Warlords 1.04a and start out on the highest difficulty just for fun. ) I got beat so badly I had to jump down two levels to actually win a game. What this game provides is ability to win by the amount of games you play against the computer opponents starting at lower difficulties and then taking your retinues up to higher difficulty levels with you. I had a blast playing this way and I'd love to see more and more developers make computer opponents and difficulties this way.

I think the term AI is overused for things that are just artificial and not intelligent, but Big Blue is more akin to an single algorithm than an AI. While it is a sophisticated algorithm, it does nothing more than generate weighted permutations and picks the one with the highest weight.

I have never played a Warlords game, so it might be worth it to check it out. Games with good AI generally share one thing in common, they are very simplistic in terms of the operations that can be done at any given time. It is relatively easy to create an AI/algorithm that can do one thing well. It is nearly impossible to make an AI/algorithm that can do 100 things well.

For how much fun GC2 is, and for how much depth it has, the AI plays it in a relatively simple fashion. It only upgrades things in a predetermined manner. It does not have to pick and chose what weapons it wants on its ships or anything like that. It just has to pick its ships. Also, 99% of space is empty, and completely traversable. That cuts away most pathing issues (as the shortest path is 99% a straight line), and greatly decreases what the AI has to take in to account. Yet, at the same time, there are many things a human player can do, customize, and enjoy.

There seems to be a difficult balancing act in games to give players something complex while keeping things simple for the AI. One way (like GC2, and most RTSs for that matter), is to keep some of the features out of the hands of the AI.

 

[unmerged(88057)]

I think the term AI is overused for things that are just artificial and not intelligent

I tend to agree with you here an in the future will attempt to title the ai as "computer opponent". This way intelligence doesn't enter the picture and hopefully getting the point accross to developers that it's the challenge of the computer opponent that is important moreso than its intelligence.

With so many different types of players out there that want something different from a computer opponent it would be impossible to please us all. I still think challenge and a good fear of losing is most important. I can pick up games of the Total War series post MTW and have no fear at all of starting out on vh/vh settings. They just have no challenge to them thus for me it's a waste of time to even play them. As pretty as the graphics are and the enticement of the battles without a challenging ai I just cannot play them. Same has gone for the HOI series I just do not find enough challenge out of the ai in any of them. Though I will give credit to HOI II it was a little more challenging than HOI and because HOI III is still so messed up I can't compare to it yet, but, vanilla is definitely not challenging on any level.

As I've said before I don't care what the computer opponent gets or does in a game as long as it challenges me to do better or find new ways to try to beat it. I know there's not going to be a computer opponent that actually "thinks" as much as I've wanted one all my life it just isn't going to happen. Thus, I have to resort to computer opponents that just challenge my own intelect with more power, more handicaps, more whatever to make the games fun and challenging for me. This is why there needs to be more OPTIONS and/or DIFFICULTY LEVELS in every game and not just say some level is very hard when it isn't. Which brings me to Making History and why I like it over HOI. The difficulty levels in that game provide a challenge and a hard one at the top level whereas HOI's do not. I tried playing Italy in MH on highest difficulty and was overwhelmed by American and UK forces and navy. The computer opponent in Making History actually does something on the USA front and doesn't just sit there the entire game and pick its nose. )

Now for another game for you to try with excellent computer opponents is "Empire Deluxe" from killerbee software. Just google it and it will show you the address. It's like $25 last I checked and if you get the enchanced version you get a lot more stuff to play with. This is one of those simple games that the computer opponents really are good in. Not a lot of detail just explore, expand, exterminate and buildup. I like playing it on 25/25 maps agaisnt 4 other computer opponents. Quick game and very challenging.

 

[LeatherApron]

And why weren't the problems fixed before the software was massed-burned on CDs then sold to the public? Laziness and management detached from what their employees were actually doing, is my answer.

To give an example of the type of stuff that should be fixed before a formal release:
A Health Management (look up the term, or PHM if you don't know what I'm talking about) function was added to my engine software that introduced a divide-by-zero. Even though I caught the problem after a test was done on the engine controller, the entire 2-day bug detection/fix could've been avoided had the developer who introduced the problem actually tested his code on his corporate PC. That in turn cost at least $2,500 to identify and fix the problem which should've been caught by the coder. A further $1,000 was lost implementing and testing the fix. That's $3,500 wasted because someone didn't test his code.

PI should seriously reconsider its testing procedure, as each patch it releases costs money (in terms of salary and lost sales). Clearly, their management is not connected with reality. A successful sales model does not rely on die-hard fans that will buy a product no matter how broken it is. Instead, it relies on how many NEW customers it brings in due to advertising and quality.

Well said. I hate being an unpaid beta-tester. I wonder if they were cringing on the day they ordered this mess to go gold? This game is a disaster. I was totally expecting a WW2 sim but instead (even with 1.4) it's a silly mish mash of code that does not work. The system's math is flawed, the geo-politics are total non-sense (The Soviets would never allow US troops to run willy-nilly through the country-side as I noticed it does now... So you can't use common-sense planning because the entire game world is insane.) Maybe the modders can make this thing work right. In my book, the entire HOI series is dead now and I certainly will not invest any money in an expansion pack, (Or HOI 4 if they ever have the nerve to try to build that.)

 

[domanb]

Thanks for all the hard work

Everyone at PI, thanks for all your hard work. I have loved every installment of the HoI series, and this one is no exception.

Thank you!

 

[unmerged(51223)]

I too am now enjoying HOI3 even with the problems that still exist. For my sins I still buy new games even though I know full well that they will be bugged. I do this to support the developers of the games that I enjoy playing; usually now though I`ll buy a new game and put it on my shelf and leave it there, check the forums every week or so to see what the community thinks and usually start playing after the second patch has been released. Software companies putting out bugged games is nothing new - going back 10 years or so I remember Settlers 3 being released with an absolute game breaker of a bug but i still loved it. Unfortunately we do not live in the Utopian Society that so many people seem to think we do and things ain`t perfect folks. Yes, I appreciate that people spend their hard-earned cash on games that don`t work as they would like them too but fair play to Paradox in the support that they give their software well after its been released - and so no, I don`t think that they`ve washed their hands of this game by a long stretch.

 

[unmerged(88057)]

I too am now enjoying HOI3 even with the problems that still exist. For my sins I still buy new games even though I know full well that they will be bugged. I do this to support the developers of the games that I enjoy playing; usually now though I`ll buy a new game and put it on my shelf and leave it there, check the forums every week or so to see what the community thinks and usually start playing after the second patch has been released. Software companies putting out bugged games is nothing new - going back 10 years or so I remember Settlers 3 being released with an absolute game breaker of a bug but i still loved it. Unfortunately we do not live in the Utopian Society that so many people seem to think we do and things ain`t perfect folks. Yes, I appreciate that people spend their hard-earned cash on games that don`t work as they would like them too but fair play to Paradox in the support that they give their software well after its been released - and so no, I don`t think that they`ve washed their hands of this game by a long stretch.

Well I think that's a pretty silly philosophy to support someone who sells you junk to begin with and over time may or may not fix it. As I've said before HOI has never really been fixed it's been expanded and made new versions of like II and III but it itself was never fixed.

Let me sell you a refridgerator and then in 6 months to a year or two put in the condenser? eh? Let me sell you a tv set and in 6 months to a year or two put in the picture tube? eh? Let me sell you a car and in 6 months to a year or two put in the engine? eh? A product is a product there's no because it's software they should be allowed to get away with this crap. Software is a product like a car or a refridgerator or a tv and when you get them and they are bad you get a refund or another one that works IMMEDIATELY....this is and always has been the problem with software; no immediate fixes and rarely a refund. In the case of HOI III there was a refund offered and I can applaud them for that, but, to me that tells me they KNEW it was a bug ridden mess when they released it or they wouldn't have given a refund address.

 

[unmerged(51223)]

This isn`t a fridge, a life critical system, a safety control mechanism or anything else that really makes a difference, its a game, and I would rather be playing a game such as this that doesn`t quite work properly than one that involves me running round and seeing how many times I can kill my friends with headshots (each to their own, those sort of games have just as much value as any other but they are not to my taste); and so, as I enjoy games such as HOI3 I support the developers in the hope that they will produce and continue to support more of the sort of strategy games that I enjoy playing.

 

[erekose123]

Not the entire thing no, but portions of it, such as the supply system, allied cooperation, and theater management.

Why would they take the risk to introduce new bugs ? Why would they take the risk to undo what they did with 1.4 (and maybe 1.5) ?

 

[Devildread]

I want to share with you my point of view from my modding experience.

When I pre-ordered HOI 3 I knew it will be sort of a beta-test, I accept that and I am very happy with the 40€ I spent in it.
All the features I didn't like, I have modded them. All the stuff I found silly, I have fixed it. And now with this 1.4 and the great modding possibilities it bring + the allies cooperation I have to say I am very satisfied of this company and on the work they put in it for those 8 months of patching and listening the community.

Everything is not perfect but with some work and modifications, I am able to see what I want to see in this game, with almost its full potential.

I am more than happy to see this (unscripted !) kind of stuff in a WW2 wargame :



3 allies countries against 4 axis one, this is just amazing.

Here is a random map screenshot from my last handsoff game :



When I see this kind of worldmap in february 44, I just want to quit the handsoff game and play the save and enjoy this damn game as it deserves to be played and enjoyed !


You can call me a fanboy, here I am. But I think you guys should test this game a little further and maybe look for some mods and I am sure you might actually appreciate the game.

Thank you for your attention.

 

[Myndpyre]

You can see in my previous posts that I believe in Paradox, but I am still more upset with the decision to release RC11 as patch 1.4 with the well announced carrier issues that were caused by RC11. To have JPN not building carriers, to have the US building carriers without CAGs, to have those CVs in the production queue with CAGs deployed without the CAGs, to have this deemed acceptable for public release, and to be the gold standard until 1.5 or an expansion has really, for the first time, questioning my faith.

Just seems to me an absolute waste of coding resources to fix naval combat code, to have CVs running around without CAGs.

 

[dashstar1972]

Is this carrier issue confirmed? DD you must have played this a fair bit. Have you encountered it?