Reason for removing division leaders in HOI 4?

[Darkrenown]

I'd describe myself as a pretty big fan of the HoI series (and bear in mind I did not work here until a while after Semper Fi was released, so it's not a "because I worked on them" thing), but re-arranging the leaders of the German army every game quickly went from a cool detail to a chore to something that made me want to kill myself half way through it. Use auto-assign? It wouldn't make the same choices I would make, it would not be optimal, I have to do it manually! I don't think I am alone in that. While we could spend time making much better auto-assign AI with the end-goal of letting players ignore a feature (except even a super good AI would not know your thoughts and you would likely have to tweak it anyway), that seems like a waste of resources. Features that are not fun should be made fun or removed, not shuffled off to be automated. Now I'm sure for some, assigning leaders was a task that was enjoyed every time, and I am sorry those people are losing a feature they liked, but we need to make what we think is a fun game.

 

[podcat]

Really, as I'v said before, just wait for a diary that explains things.

 

[podcat]

I'd love for ministers and leasders to be replaced by CK2-style characters who plot and scheme. It would pretty much simulate things as they really were - particularly in the Third Reich.

Me too, but it would sort of remove most of the focus on actual war A political party focused game with characters would be fun as hell to work on though! House of Cards the game but with more nazi crazyness

 

[Darkrenown]

This is a kind of a dickish stand. "We remove X, wait for detalis in the diery, and don`t cry, you crybabies".

We do have a strong anti-crying policy, it is true.

 

[Darkrenown]

I regret to inform you this isn't Call of Duty. There is a certain type of person who likes these kinds of games and there are people who don't. The people who play this game are the same kinds who enjoy the depth of high-level chess. We are fine with depth and complexity.

I've seen EU4 ruined for me, a very long time Paradox customer, by your exact mentality (and probably by you personally from the sounds of it) and I don't want my second favorite franchise of all time ruined by the same mentality.

Please stay away.

Haha, good one. I'm sure you're a much bigger Paradox fan than me.

 

[podcat]

I have a better idea. How about you be replaced?

We have listened to your thoughtful feedback and taken steps. Because of swedish labor laws we cant simply fire Darkrenown , but we will start to phase him out and replace him with an online service. We'll call it Free 2 Darkrenown.


Seriously though, watch your language and be nice to each other or I will close this thread.

 

[podcat]

These people seem universally to imagine that they speak for all HOI players, and also seem to take a strange pride in simply playing a particular computer game.

Gamers have always felt a lot of entitlement. The whole reason we have a thread like this is really my fault because someone asked in another thread if we would move away from the gazillion division commander leaders micromanagement of hoi3 and i said yes. I shouldnt have said anything until a dev diary where I could present the whole design for leaders and leader management because to many it probably just sounds like we took a pair of scissors to the game and cut out stuff.

So, chill with some hot chocolate and try not to envision the end of the world while you wait for a dev diary. Fear not, Rommel is still in the game ;D

 

[Goosecreature]

Fear not, Rommel is still in the game ;D

What about Assman? You're not cutting Assman, are you?

 

[Darkrenown]

Noobs.

Nice Postcount, scrub :smug:

Problems with governments in V1? Sounds like you might need some mods to help you out, if only some smart, handsome fan had made any:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?151682-Patches-and-Mods
I'd link directly to my Revolution fixing mod, but it's so old the link is in the old forum format and no longer works...

Perhaps it's just as well, they'd be dumbing down your V1 experience, being made by a casual shooter fan who certainly wouldn't spend most of his adult life beta testing and modding Paradox games before moving internationally to work directly on the games he loves.

 

[podcat]

Embarrassing truth: I'v never actually played HoI1 for more than 10 minutes :3

 

[Goosecreature]

Embarrassing truth: I'v never actually played HoI1 for more than 10 minutes :3

Oh. My. God.

 

[podcat]

How do you feel about it?

It was a long time ago and briefly so I dont have a lot of input on it. HoI2 was great though but the interfaces are pretty clunky with todays standard now.

 

[podcat]

Were you into PDS games before you worked for them?

No, I had only played a bit of HoI2 and a bit of EU3. When I applied for the job I actually thought they were the guys who had made Anno 1701 for some reason (I think paradox were publishing it in sweden at the time ^_^)

 

[Darkrenown]

I am literally the biggest Paradox fan at Paradox. I am still amused that guy wants me to get kicked for not being a real fan :wacko:

 

[podcat]

I am literally the biggest Paradox fan at Paradox. I am still amused that guy wants me to get kicked for not being a real fan :wacko:

I bet you didnt play Airfix Dogfighter though. best game is best.

GTFO of here!

OK, in reality HOI2 basically fixed most of what was wrong with HOI1, but I'd say it's worth a play-through just to try out the things that HOI1 had that no other HOI game since then has:

1) Deploying expeditionary forces to any country that you liked and controlling them there. You could, if you liked, deploy an expeditionary force to Spain and fight in the civil war there without being at war, and control your forces whilst doing so. Yes, it was ridiculously over-powered, and the AI wouldn't respond, but a much more limited version of this feature would be awesome (e.g., a limited ability to deploy a maximum of ~3 units to an ideological ally).

2) The map-based game editor. Load it up, change alliances, change OOBs, change province ownership. A simple way of creating a private mod through a map-based interface without having to know anything about coding. A perfect gateway to modding.

1) is as you said very hard to pull off without being exploity but interesting
2) we have made a lot of progress on tools for hoi4. we'll see what you guys think

 

[Darkrenown]

Silly man, expecting a strategy game to have depth and require planning and some *gasp* work! That's not how modern Paradox rolls. You gotta cash it with those portrait and music packs, and play the fiddle for those fickle casual gamers who don't have time to waste on actually playing a game! Ten percent of people who bought Skyrim never finished the tutorial, ie never played the game for more than 5 minutes - yet Bethesda still got their money, just the same as the people who sunk 200 hours into the game. It makes perfect sense to make a prettier and more simplistic game that won't get slammed in the reviews for bugs because it will be bought much more. Who cares if you alienate some old fans? It's just 5% of the playerbase, as Johan once explained regarding the Steam-exclusivity.

Just note the mind-bogglingly high number of posters here who applaud every time a feature has been removed or streamlined. Only Steam? Great idea. HoI2-style rigid land doctrine trees? Awesome. No divisional leaders? Take my money! Even folks who say they are "disappointed" but immediately swear that they are still going to buy the game. With customers like that, what's to worry? Podcat could probably announce that the game will have a Battleship-type minigame instead of a naval combat model and you'd get posters trying to justify it.

Come on man, we can't be both trying to nickle and dime people to death AND be aiming the game at causal players who play for 5 mins and then drop it. We need long term players if we want to bleed them for their DLC monies. At least try to get your troll consistent.

4/10. Try harder.

 

[podcat]

> 68 manpower
> Allies in Italy
> No Atlantic Wall
> Commies In Slovakia , East Prussia and Hungary

Lol, I'm sure Endsieg is only months away, mein freund.

Surely our wunderwaffen will save us!

 

[podcat]

I'm going to go ahead and close this thread. There is no info to go on and it has *again* devolved into name calling so I dont see anything good coming from it.

we are aware that there are:
- people who hated the micromanagement involved with division leaders
- people who don't want to lose their favorite leaders
- people who get a lot of "fun" out of the simulation aspect of the game (eg more more details!)

These are things we think about when designing stuff.

so, see you again when its generals dev diary time