PDXCON 2015: The Grand livestreaming schedule for PDS (Including HOI4)

[Le_Carabinier]

Very little new content, compared to earlier videos. We still haven't seen a second of actual fighting, in a wargame.
This was a disappointment.

Also, may I suggest that inviting someone that needs to play HoI III to know how WW2 went to give his opinion on HoI IV is maybe not the best choice ?

 

[Centurion1973]

Also, may I suggest that inviting someone that needs to play HoI III to know how WW2 went to give his opinion on HoI IV is maybe not the best choice ?

I agree. IMO, it would be much better to get preview from some experienced HoI3 player (and HoI3 players usually know WW2 very well).

 

[Darkath]

PDS want to show everyone can play their game, even Quill18, so that's why he's here.

Arumba gives off a quiet/analytical type, he doesn't talk much but does solid remarks and comments

Angry Joe is awesome.

hardcore fans of PDS games belong to the forums, where we can grill the devs any time we want, in the videos they just need to make their game attractive

 

[Heatth]

It is worth remembering the stream won't be watched just by the most hardcore fans, but also by people who are not actively following the development.

Also, both Arumba and Quill18 are relatively popular youtubers with a history of covering Paradox Games. Maybe I don't know many HoI youtubers, but how many of the active ones today have over 100k subscribers?

 

[Jakalak]

Oh wow, is that what Arumba looks like? I always imagined him looking very different.

podcat dresses really well.

As for the rest, I agree that it's not a whole lot we haven't already seen. I'm still a little wary about the battle planner.

Did anyone else see the 'create faction' diplomatic button when he had Poland selected? I'm very excited to see how that will work.

 

[Jamey]

Thanks for the stream. It was good to see the game being (lightly) played.

I'm looking forward to seeing Barbarossa in the next stream.

 

[apfelstrudel]

can't find the video on youtube. please upload it.

 

[Stenner]

can't find the video on youtube. please upload it.

Based on how long the last one was, it will be a few days for that, both halves are on their "paradoxinteractive" twitch page (history)

 

[Evilfisher]

really really love the the deployment system.

you can just deploy it when you want with 10% strength and no training.. or wait and just let it be there for experience.. and those training animations are just hilarious

 

[ZanderD]

Liked the stream, the army planner and training part( I wonder if ship crews also have a similar mechanic ), and the on map training. But would it not be better to name the on map training button "war games" instead, since it also speeds up xp gain.

 

[Vedinu]

They always just make preparations of Poland invasion... it was a little boring, but at least podcat looked great.

 

[podcat]

The new battleplanner looks much better. Do we still get bonuses when assigning panzerleader/battlemaster commanders to armored divisions or panzer armies? By the way did anyone get screenshots of the trade screen?

We only have panzer leader atm (rip battlemaster) which gives bonus to divisions containing a certain amount of "hard" battalions (so either some tanks or majority mechanized etc)

One of the best parts for me was hearing that a veteran division will have a 100% bonus over a green unit. That it huge and leads to some great roleplaying. Getting XP for green units and trying to conserve you vets for the hard fights playing that fire brigade. Now with some type of priority in reinforcements and new equipment you really have elite divisions.

And that means I can say send 5 elite divisions to a country and defeat their army of raw recruits even when out numbered. Amazing if you really think about it.

well, only really if you have some good choke points to fight in. an elite force can still be encircled by a larger group of green divisions and cut off.

Loved the stream - had sympathy for Podcat who looked like he was clearly trying to be careful about what he said to avoid flame wars .

Rough thoughts:

- Battleplan system looks very good - manual control is still there, and manual control plus battleplan could make for a great balance between controlling everything, and just focussing on the key battles in a sector (but if I want to control everything, which I may, I can do that).

- Higher manpower laws reduce factory production (in the tooltips) - not sure if this is final or not, but that it's being thought about at all is great.

- Training mechanic looked tops as well. That said, it might be an idea to have an 'animations off' tick box for those players who don't want to see their army doing jumping jacks for a couple of years (say as the US player).

- Supply discussion, while vague, sounded like the devs are really on the right track, with a focus on showing where the bottlenecks are.

- Interface in general looked like a huge step up from HoI3.

- Army planner interface looked pretty sharp as well.

- Releasing it when it's done - if it has to slip to Q3, that's better than launching not ready in Q2.

Overall impression was very positive, keen as mustard .

From the stuff shown in the stream, the only two things that were potential 'concerns' (ie, not sure how well it'll work out):

- the convoys being shown on the map - I could imagine it could get a bit cluttered for nations that traditionally have quite a few convoys (US/UK/Japan) - but am sure that it'll work out, as it's something that'll be visually very obvious if it looks off.

- the potential for not having enough generals for a detailed battleplan. Say I'm a small country that ends up with a large-ish army, then it looks like I could only have as many 'army groups' as I had generals, which may or may not be enough. A dynamic general creation system would get around this, so not necessarily an issue.

Thanks, convoys is actually a problem for UK for example and it does look a bit cluttered right now. Its something we'll try to improve.

generals isnt really a problem, you can get more, but doing that when you have a lot is going to cost political power (so you cant just ignore all the historical commanders, so cost scales with how many you already have)

Arumba gives off a quiet/analytical type, he doesn't talk much but does solid remarks and comments

yeah he was giving me hell for changing some of the shortcut keys compared to EU4 and he is right

 

[fabius]

yeah he was giving me hell for changing some of the shortcut keys compared to EU4 and he is right

It's really great that you guys are relatively open and listen, while retaining your own vision and game design focus/philosophy.

 

[fulminea]

10/7×15×1.05×0.25÷4=1.4unit/day
Wow! Efficiency is quiet crucial.
50%eff PL makes twice as many equipments as 25%eff one.

 

[FOARP]

Disappointing. Showed us very little of what we already know. The LITTLE of the new battle plan that was shown was too broken up. A lot of speaking about stuff we already known, it was more or less for the two reviewers who seemed to be clueless on the HOI series. Most of the stream was teaching THEM the stuff we have been told over the past year. The ALPHA tag in the beginning was disheartening. At this stage in development, you would hope they would be in BETA. At the minimum, a solid 3 months of beta testing should be commencing.

True. Basically, for there to be much chance of a late Q2 release, the game should be in Beta now. I now expect an August release, perhaps on the 6th anniversary of the release of HOI3.

However, I've recently been thinking that the pressure and frustration fans voice about late releases and delayed DDs really, really doesn't help them develop a good game.

Back in the old days, I might read a preview of a game a year before it came out in, say, PC Gamer, then play a demo off the front cover and decide whether I liked it or not, as well as reading the review when it finally dropped. That would be my entire anticipation of the game, with no interaction with the developers, and I genuinely wouldn't care (or have any avenue for expressing frustration if I did care) if the game released late. This is how I waited for Tie Fighter and Panzer General 20 years ago (feeling seriously old now ) which were both awesome classics.

Nowadays, games are announced way earlier than they used to, ideas seem to be announced before the devs can even see whether they are workable or not, and so the result seems to be more pressure on the devs, more frustration and disappointment from the fans over what are seen as "broken promises" (in reality: ideas and dates put forward before anyone really knew whether they could be acheived). I don't think any of this helps.

 

[illathid]

Thanks, convoys is actually a problem for UK for example and it does look a bit cluttered right now. Its something we'll try to improve.

Couldn't you do it kinda like how they have trade routes in EUIV? Light dotted lines in ground and air map modes, current thick dotted line in sea map mode.

 

[Uandwhosearmy]

I have to say the day/night cycle doesn't really work if you do it on a 24 hour basis. It will likely get to be very annoying after playing for a while. Hopefully there will be an option to turn it off completely or a setting to change from day to night and back much less often?

 

[SpanglishEmpire]

1st PodCat what was the deal with your clothes was that meant to be 1940's English gentlemans dress or is that how you always dress

Otherwise looked good not that much info but I like the new training system and the ability to deploy early which was something I had posted about in the past.

The AI seemed to be moving alot of units around at random in the bordering nations not sure what that was for.

 

[Le_Carabinier]

True. Basically, for there to be much chance of a late Q2 release, the game should be in Beta now. I now expect an August release, perhaps on the 6th anniversary of the release of HOI3.

However, I've recently been thinking that the pressure and frustration fans voice about late releases and delayed DDs really, really doesn't help them develop a good game.

Back in the old days, I might read a preview of a game a year before it came out in, say, PC Gamer, then play a demo off the front cover and decide whether I liked it or not, as well as reading the review when it finally dropped. That would be my entire anticipation of the game, with no interaction with the developers, and I genuinely wouldn't care (or have any avenue for expressing frustration if I did care) if the game released late. This is how I waited for Tie Fighter and Panzer General 20 years ago (feeling seriously old now ) which were both awesome classics.

Nowadays, games are announced way earlier than they used to, ideas seem to be announced before the devs can even see whether they are workable or not, and so the result seems to be more pressure on the devs, more frustration and disappointment from the fans over what are seen as "broken promises" (in reality: ideas and dates put forward before anyone really knew whether they could be acheived). I don't think any of this helps.

This is more of a dev problem than a forumite problem. After all, they are the supply and we are the demand. If they announce that they will supply us with awesome stuff very quickly, then back down on the content and reconsider their schedule thrice, it is normal for us to feel frustrated.

But I agree with you : games should be announced at a much later stage. Seeing devs constantly changing their mind on what is going to be inthe game and when it will come out is not something we should have to go through with every new game. This is bad PR at best.

 

[Gamer_1745]

I thought the suit was cool! Much better than shorts & t-shirt. Which may mean you should never wear it again as I may not have the best dress sense.