The DLC vs EXPANSION dilemma now shows its core problem...

[AradoX]

These days, our expansions are about 3-4 times as big as the ones with the previous models..

We also add bugfixes and features for free..


And you guys seem to like this model far more.. At least when it comes to actually paying for it, and playing it.

I like the new model. I prefer larger expansions with meaningful content, than small dlc's with small things.
Re. the blitzbutton, please remember it's just one feature of a large expansion - so you're not paying just for that one thing - it's part of a bigger package.

 

[Number 7]

I got blasted to hell and back in the DD for stating this, the Blitz feature was never stated as something the BP was supposed to do. As such this Blitz is not a fix it is a new BP feature.

I am not stating that because I believe that PDx should charge for it. I believe that PDx can charge for what ever they like. If I do not believe that the DLC is worth the money, I wont buy it (who am I kidding...I always end up buying all the DLC anyway - except the music and sprites don't care about those).

I will say this though and I suggest others do the same. Take the cost of the game and divide it by the number of hours you have played the game...now tell me when exactly did you get so much entertainment per hour for such a low cost? I have played and "beaten" too many games in so short a time that the cost/hour ratio made me feel like I needed more. I enjoyed those games but at $6 or $7 per hour it just felt light. Why? Because of PDx. I am currently running a ratio of $0.25. I mean really! So the game cant suck too bad!

Offensive Line:
This tells divisions assigned that you want them to advance along their axis of attack (represented by an arrow that you can bend and adjust as you want) from their assigned frontline to the offensive line. You can chain several of these together if you want as well.

Offensive lines and frontlines may also be overlapping. I prefer to assign a big front line of infantry to a frontline with a broad attack plan, and then manage my panzer divisions or other breakthrough units along smaller sections of that front and with a much narrower offensive line. In my barbarossa plan above Guderians panzer divisions are operating in this way together with von Rundstedt's infantry.

When you have drawn an offensive line you can hover mouse over its arrow and the game will show you a map highlighting step by step of how your units would move to take this area (the green strips in the picture below)

Tell me, how exactly you are meant to carry out this from the developer diary without the blitz command? It was shown, and it was sure as hell expected to work. This isn't some "i wish it was in" feature, this is a core feature of a WW2 game. Not only that but battleplans were the core gameplay mechanic of waging war and we can see right there in that screenshot and quote that podcat claimed you could use panzer divisions or breakthrough units with a smaller offensive line to punch through. Then you can see in the provided screenshot that the line did not expand. in fact it looks like the blitz command doesn't it?

This is forcing people to pay to fix the game, to make it work as promised. I am giving you hard evidence that this capability was promised from day one of the battleplan reveal.

 

[AradoX]

I got blasted to hell and back in the DD for stating this, the Blitz feature was never stated as something the BP was supposed to do. As such this Blitz is not a fix it is a new BP feature.

I am not stating that because I believe that PDx should charge for it. I believe that PDx can charge for what ever they like. If I do not believe that the DLC is worth the money, I wont buy it (who am I kidding...I always end up buying all the DLC anyway - except the music and sprites don't care about those).

I will say this though and I suggest others do the same. Take the cost of the game and divide it by the number of hours you have played the game...now tell me when exactly did you get so much entertainment per hour for such a low cost? I have played and "beaten" too many games in so short a time that the cost/hour ratio made me feel like I needed more. I enjoyed those games but at $6 or $7 per hour it just felt light. Why? Because of PDx. I am currently running a ratio of $0.25. I mean really! So the game cant suck too bad!

I agree. With RL comming in the way, I've only been able to put 124 hours into the game until now - but that is still 0,75€ / hour and sure to get much lower in the comming years.
And most importantly - also the reason I got to 100+ anyway - I've enjoyed the game immensely!

 

[Roytje]

I have personally stopped buying Paradox DLC and have stopped playing CK2 and EU4. I will do the same for HOI4, when the DLC gets out of control. Because as soon as you get behind, you need to invest a lot of time (to understand new features) and money to get up-to-date again.

The latest expansion for EU4 costs 50% of the game at release. Did it seriously cost 50% of the resources to make this compared to vanilla EU4? Or is the base game too cheap or the DLC too expensive? Either way, I think I need to invest >€100 to get up-to-date on EU4. That is just too much. I am not going to do that.

Yes, the € per hour is really cheap, but investing a lot of money in 1 go is not very cheap. And yes, there are Steam sales, so I might get the DLC eventually when it is cheap, but only when Paradox is finished with these games. It's a shame, but then again, I have plenty of other games to play in the mean time.

(FYI it's not just Paradox, the milking of Warhammer Total War by Sega / Creative Assembly has also begun. Another game I have enjoyed but will no longer support.)

 

[Mabs]

i have mentioned this before, but anyway...

i will never understand people crying about pricing on DLC on games. I have done (and still do..) play Subs based MMOs. they cost around £10/month. I have had conversation with friends about this, and it has almost always boiled down to
"im not paying that"..
"but you drink/smoke/go out twice a week and happily spend £50 in pubs"
"yea but thats different"

end of the day, if you have the money, spend it on what you enjoy doing, (and if you cant afford DLC , then get a job or more understanding parents )

but price shouldnt be an issue


and if its value for money, thats entirely personal and you are unlikely to sway anyone opinion, especially if you dont actually understand how companies work and in particular how games are made.

 

[mursolini]

thats a quality of life feature, to save you having to fiddle.. essentially a shortcut, it doesnt add anything new to the game. so whats the problem ?

It isn`t. Battle plans were advertised as a tool set that allows you to do things efficiently and without much micro. Blitz feature is supposed to be in battle plans.
You shouldn`t be paying for shortcuts. You`re supposed to pay for new stuff. Allied cooperation, for example.

I got blasted to hell and back in the DD for stating this, the Blitz feature was never stated as something the BP was supposed to do. As such this Blitz is not a fix it is a new BP feature.

And you should be. Battle plans were advertised as a feature that decreases HOI3 micro to manageble levels, allowing you to do things conveniently.

The excuse some people claim is that with a tonne of micro, you can already do same thing the blitz is supposed to be. Why yes, I can do WW2 without battle planer. But it was supposed to do exactly what blitz feature is doing, reduce troops management micro.

I am not stating that because I believe that PDx should charge for it. I believe that PDx can charge for what ever they like. If I do not believe that the DLC is worth the money, I wont buy it (who am I kidding...I always end up buying all the DLC anyway - except the music and sprites don't care about those).

I will say this though and I suggest others do the same. Take the cost of the game and divide it by the number of hours you have played the game...now tell me when exactly did you get so much entertainment per hour for such a low cost? I have played and "beaten" too many games in so short a time that the cost/hour ratio made me feel like I needed more. I enjoyed those games but at $6 or $7 per hour it just felt light. Why? Because of PDx. I am currently running a ratio of $0.25. I mean really! So the game cant suck too bad!

i have mentioned this before, but anyway...

i will never understand people crying about pricing on DLC on games. I have done (and still do..) play Subs based MMOs. they cost around £10/month. I have had conversation with friends about this, and it has almost always boiled down to
"im not paying that"..
"but you drink/smoke/go out twice a week and happily spend £50 in pubs"
"yea but thats different"

end of the day, if you have the money, spend it on what you enjoy doing, (and if you cant afford DLC , then get a job or more understanding parents )

but price shouldnt be an issue


and if its value for money, thats entirely personal and you are unlikely to sway anyone opinion, especially if you dont actually understand how companies work and in particular how games are made.

Oh, there we go again

Comparing games with off line activities in terms of money/hour is moot. I will just say that IRL activities are overpriced, due to rent&wages of real people doing service. Computers don`t have any of such costs. You already payed 1-2k/month in rent for your house. You already payed 500-2k for your gaming computer. The idea that a game has to be compared with full service of place, food, drink and human service is ridiculous. Games wont`s sell for such high price.

 

[Tacticus101]

Tell me, how exactly you are meant to carry out this from the developer diary without the blitz command? It was shown, and it was sure as hell expected to work. This isn't some "i wish it was in" feature, this is a core feature of a WW2 game. Not only that but battleplans were the core gameplay mechanic of waging war and we can see right there in that screenshot and quote that podcat claimed you could use panzer divisions or breakthrough units with a smaller offensive line to punch through. Then you can see in the provided screenshot that the line did not expand. in fact it looks like the blitz command doesn't it?

This is forcing people to pay to fix the game, to make it work as promised. I am giving you hard evidence that this capability was promised from day one of the battleplan reveal.

Actually, that is exactly what you get if you draw similar offensive lines using the existing offensive line command. I literally just went into the game and tested it.

 

[Mabs]

It isn`t. Battle plans were advertised as a tool set that allows you to do things efficiently and without much micro. Blitz feature is supposed to be in battle plans.
You shouldn`t be paying for shortcuts. You`re supposed to pay for new stuff. Allied cooperation, for example.

supposed to be according to whom exactly ?

Comparing games with off line activities in terms of money/hour is moot. I will just say that IRL activities are overpriced, due to rent&wages of real people doing service. Computers don`t have any of such costs. You already payed 1-2k/month in rent for your house. You already payed 500-2k for your gaming computer. The idea that a game has to be compared with full service of place, food, drink and human service is ridiculous. Games wont`s sell for such high price.

well done on missing the point.

the cost is so minimal as to be trivial for anyone over the age of 20 / who has a job as to be entirely irrelevant to the conversation about DLC, and yet people bring it up as though $20 is some how going to ruin their live if they spend it on a game.

out of interest how much do you pay to go see a film ? (no idea where you live)

PDX is a company, it has staff and costs, and lots of other things that they have to continue to pay, to afford this they generate "products", and "customers" buy these products with "money" which is how "business" works....

 

[rcbricker33]

Tell me, how exactly you are meant to carry out this from the developer diary without the blitz command? It was shown, and it was sure as hell expected to work. This isn't some "i wish it was in" feature, this is a core feature of a WW2 game. Not only that but battleplans were the core gameplay mechanic of waging war and we can see right there in that screenshot and quote that podcat claimed you could use panzer divisions or breakthrough units with a smaller offensive line to punch through. Then you can see in the provided screenshot that the line did not expand. in fact it looks like the blitz command doesn't it?

This is forcing people to pay to fix the game, to make it work as promised. I am giving you hard evidence that this capability was promised from day one of the battleplan reveal.

I like how you interpret what you think is said and what is actually said in the DD. See Below.

For HOI4 we decided we wanted to attempt the best of both. Keep the high province count, always allow manual control override, enough tools to automate parts that didn't matter and control and feedback when managing lots of units at the same time so you would not be surprised by the system doing things you didn't tell it. The system is specifically not allowed to be clever, that is the player's job, so if you tell it to suicide into the maginot line it will say it thinks it's too risky, but do it anyway.

The battle plan system in HOI4 lets you draw plans on the map which are followed by assigned divisions, but at any point you can go in and reassign things or issue manual overrides. The player's role is then basically to draw up high level plans and to watch for opportunities and situations to take advantage of (such as small encirclements, or prioritizing fighting a certain enemy, or cutting off someone's retreat). Generally the strategic situation will change over time, so while you may have prepared a longer plan expect that you will need to improvise and adapt parts as you go or break off a group to manage some emergency, or particularly stubborn enemy section.

PODCAT clearly states in this (the same DD you quoted) that the BP system is used to make high level plans and that the player's role is to watch for opportunities. One of which is encirclements.

It isn`t. Battle plans were advertised as a tool set that allows you to do things efficiently and without much micro. Blitz feature is supposed to be in battle plans.
You shouldn`t be paying for shortcuts. You`re supposed to pay for new stuff. Allied cooperation, for example.

See above for the DD information as it was presented pre-release. encirclement was a player micro expectation.

And you should be. Battle plans were advertised as a feature that decreases HOI3 micro to manageble levels, allowing you to do things conveniently.

again see above. And no I shouldn't be. My point as I stated in the quote you are attacking was that regardless as to whether the Blitz should or should not be free, it was not what the BP was supposed to be. As stated pre-release in the DD.

Oh, there we go again

Comparing games with off line activities in terms of money/hour is moot. I will just say that IRL activities are overpriced, due to rent&wages of real people doing service. Computers don`t have any of such costs. You already payed 1-2k/month in rent for your house. You already payed 500-2k for your gaming computer. The idea that a game has to be compared with full service of place, food, drink and human service is ridiculous. Games wont`s sell for such high price.

I was not comparing the game to off-line activities. The cost per game hour ratio is to make you think of the entertainment value you are getting. You can then compare them to other forms of paid for entertainment. Such as going to the movies. I get $0.25 per hour of HOI IV at this time. A new movie I go see will get me about $12 per hour ($18 for a ticket on a 1 1/2 hour movie). So the time spent at the movie costs me more than the same time spent playing HOI IV.

Another way to look at it is time playing. If you have 200 hours in playing HOI IV and you are here blasting it as a broken game, then you have some issues. I would not play a game I think is broken for 200 hours (or that I did not find entertaining). Like HOI 3 or either of the CK games or Skylines. They just were not fun for me.

 

[Shimmergloom]

Just buy all DLCs, problem solved.

 

[mursolini]

supposed to be according to whom exactly ?

Why Podcat himself:

Offensive Line:
This tells divisions assigned that you want them to advance along their axis of attack (represented by an arrow that you can bend and adjust as you want) from their assigned frontline to the offensive line. You can chain several of these together if you want as well.

Offensive lines and frontlines may also be overlapping. I prefer to assign a big front line of infantry to a frontline with a broad attack plan, and then manage my panzer divisions or other breakthrough units along smaller sections of that front and with a much narrower offensive line. In my barbarossa plan above Guderians panzer divisions are operating in this way together with von Rundstedt's infantry.

When you have drawn an offensive line you can hover mouse over its arrow and the game will show you a map highlighting step by step of how your units would move to take this area (the green strips in the picture below)

Expet, in practice small narrow arrows don`t work like that at the moment, because they expand. Now, PI introduces a feature that will make battle plan arrows work exactly as advertised, and be useful for small pincer moves.

Exept, it is a paid feature for some reason.

well done on missing the point.

the cost is so minimal as to be trivial for anyone over the age of 20 / who has a job as to be entirely irrelevant to the conversation about DLC, and yet people bring it up as though $20 is some how going to ruin their live if they spend it on a game.

PDX is a company, it has staff and costs, and lots of other things that they have to continue to pay, to afford this they generate "products", and "customers" buy these products with "money" which is how "business" works....

It is only trivial if you look at people who play one game almost exclusively, and then only look at game being the only expense. And then, you ignore expancion packs and DLCs.

Companies price according to how much people will pay. You can put any price tag, but you will see appropriate sales

out of interest how much do you pay to go see a film ? (no idea where you live)

2-4 USD, depending on time of day, per ticket. Food is another 2-4$.

See above for the DD information as it was presented pre-release. encirclement was a player micro expectation.



again see above. And no I shouldn't be. My point as I stated in the quote you are attacking was that regardless as to whether the Blitz should or should not be free, it was not what the BP was supposed to be. As stated pre-release in the DD.

I suggest you reexamine the quote, it clearly supports blitz being part of offencive line.

 

[Tacticus101]

All the Blitz command really does is have your armies move to that province, really the same as just moving the army directly there with a click.

 

[Number 7]

I like how you interpret what you think is said and what is actually said in the DD. See Below.



PODCAT clearly states in this (the same DD you quoted) that the BP system is used to make high level plans and that the player's role is to watch for opportunities. One of which is encirclements.





See above for the DD information as it was presented pre-release. encirclement was a player micro expectation.



again see above. And no I shouldn't be. My point as I stated in the quote you are attacking was that regardless as to whether the Blitz should or should not be free, it was not what the BP was supposed to be. As stated pre-release in the DD.



I was not comparing the game to off-line activities. The cost per game hour ratio is to make you think of the entertainment value you are getting. You can then compare them to other forms of paid for entertainment. Such as going to the movies. I get $0.25 per hour of HOI IV at this time. A new movie I go see will get me about $12 per hour ($18 for a ticket on a 1 1/2 hour movie). So the time spent at the movie costs me more than the same time spent playing HOI IV.

Another way to look at it is time playing. If you have 200 hours in playing HOI IV and you are here blasting it as a broken game, then you have some issues. I would not play a game I think is broken for 200 hours (or that I did not find entertaining). Like HOI 3 or either of the CK games or Skylines. They just were not fun for me.

let me guess, the manstein plan wasn't a high level plan. all the WW2 commanders of germany got together and went "hey man, lets push like its 1914!" and hitler approved it immediately, after all, that is a high level military plan. draw red line hit go.

Then suddenly, Guderian noticed he could micro and boom, that encirclement GG france. no. the manstein plan was set up before the invasion. Encirclements are sometimes targets of oppurtunity but they were planned more often than not when they were big encirclements. If you think that the game as it is right now has "high level plans" you are crazy. utterly crazy. have you not played the game? Literally all you can do is A) draw a line and make a big push. B) draw a more complex plan and let it run and watch as the lines extend, as AI assigns the divisions around at random and it turns into a complete mess. C) micro it yourself either by constantly adjusting the battleplan every time it ruins itself every second province, or just dont use the BP system and micro

There is not a shred of "high level" plans in hoi4.

EDIT: also, did you not read podcats quote, i mean seriously. he physically says he'd use a thin offensive line for encirclements. that is not "player expectation of micro". I also like how you're trying to claim i have a massive amount of hours in hoi4, because i don't. its an awful game and i physically can't get any fun out of it.

 

[rcbricker33]

Where do you live? I pay $18 per ticket in DC.

Not how pricing of products work by the way. there is actually a complex process which is called a break even analysis. this tells the company how many items it must sell at a give cost (determined by considering fixed and variable costs) before they reach a net profit of $0.00. So the more content that the studio kicks out (patches included) the more they will need to charge for the DLC. content which is programmer and support staff salaries are a variable cost. the more they do the more they cost.

 

[rcbricker33]

let me guess, the manstein plan wasn't a high level plan. all the WW2 commanders of germany got together and went "hey man, lets push like its 1914!" and hitler approved it immediately, after all, that is a high level military plan. draw red line hit go.

Then suddenly, Guderian noticed he could micro and boom, that encirclement GG france. no. the manstein plan was set up before the invasion. Encirclements are sometimes targets of oppurtunity but they were planned more often than not when they were big encirclements. If you think that the game as it is right now has "high level plans" you are crazy. utterly crazy. have you not played the game? Literally all you can do is A) draw a line and make a big push. B) draw a more complex plan and let it run and watch as the lines extend, as AI assigns the divisions around at random and it turns into a complete mess. C) micro it yourself either by constantly adjusting the battleplan every time it ruins itself every second province, or just dont use the BP system and micro

There is not a shred of "high level" plans in hoi4.

Once again this is your interpretation of what you think he meant versus what he said. He called it high level planning and he said the player would be required to watch for opportunities like encirclements. Regardless of what it is you would like that to mean, it means what he said. You are upset because your expectations of what you think was said does not measure up to the reality of what he said. The current BP (with the exception of the expanding frontlines) works exactly as he stated (and technically he addressed that expanding in the DD also).

 

[Tacticus101]

are you seriously trying to claim offensive plans work for that? then why are they adding a blitz command and making people pay for it? the current offensive lines expand the line massively and just do not work without ridiculous levels of micro to the point you're better off just doing it yourself.

fanboys will go through any level of mental gymnastics to justify paradox's terrible decisions however

No, I am claiming that the picture you posted is entirely possible. You asked "how exactly you are meant to carry out this" so I went into the game and drew almost exactly that set of commands using "offensive line". The result was I got an almost identical picture to the one you showed. Thus, the conclusively proven fact is that yes, you can carry out the sort of commands promised in the dev diary.

 

[Number 7]

Once again this is your interpretation of what you think he meant versus what he said. He called it high level planning and he said the player would be required to watch for opportunities like encirclements. Regardless of what it is you would like that to mean, it means what he said. You are upset because your expectations of what you think was said does not measure up to the reality of what he said. The current BP (with the exception of the expanding frontlines) works exactly as he stated (and technically he addressed that expanding in the DD also).

listen, if you think draw red line hit go can be classified as "high level" we're done here. you're hopeless.

No, I am claiming that the picture you posted is entirely possible. You asked "how exactly you are meant to carry out this" so I went into the game and drew almost exactly that set of commands using "offensive line". The result was I got an almost identical picture to the one you showed. Thus, the conclusively proven fact is that yes, you can carry out the sort of commands promised in the dev diary.

but it doesn't work the way as described, they spread out from the line. its not working as described, they don't follow that green path even. the front line opens and opens and opens up until they're just making a general push. if it worked exactly as described they wouldn't be adding a paid blitz command to do what was described.

 

[rcbricker33]

EDIT: also, did you not read podcats quote, i mean seriously. he physically says he'd use a thin offensive line for encirclements. that is not "player expectation of micro". I also like how you're trying to claim i have a massive amount of hours in hoi4, because i don't. its an awful game and i physically can't get any fun out of it.

You edited after I responded.

and again you are projecting what you wanted to hear onto what he said...

Offensive Line:
This tells divisions assigned that you want them to advance along their axis of attack (represented by an arrow that you can bend and adjust as you want) from their assigned frontline to the offensive line. You can chain several of these together if you want as well.

Offensive lines and frontlines may also be overlapping. I prefer to assign a big front line of infantry to a frontline with a broad attack plan, and then manage my panzer divisions or other breakthrough units along smaller sections of that front and with a much narrower offensive line. In my barbarossa plan above Guderians panzer divisions are operating in this way together with von Rundstedt's infantry.

He clearly states that he prefers to assign a big front line of INF to a front line with a broad attack plan and then manage his panzer divs or other breakthrough units along smaller sections of that front and with a much narrower offensive line. No where in that statement does he say he like to use narrower BPs to encircle.

 

[Number 7]

and again you are projecting what you wanted to hear onto what he said...

so expectations of a working WW2 game are just projection now. interesting. we're this far down the rabbit hole are we. am i just projecting the AI issues too, because after all, podcat never promised the AI would not send its entire army to the sahara. this is a great catch all reason. all criticism is just projecting when you get down to it

 

[rcbricker33]

listen, if you think draw red line hit go can be classified as "high level" we're done here. you're hopeless.

but it doesn't work the way as described, they spread out from the line. its not working as described, they don't follow that green path even. the front line opens and opens and opens up until they're just making a general push. if it worked exactly as described they wouldn't be adding a paid blitz command to do what was described.

I am actually beginning to see that conversing with you is hopeless. I am not arguing that I agree with PODCAT or not. I am stating that the blitz was never part of the BP and as such is a new feature. Your comments have shown that you believe that it should not be a paid for feature (I neither agree nor disagree with you cause I don't care) based on the fact that it was promised as part of the BP at release. You are incorrect on that assumption.

I hope PODCAT gets the Blitz to be part of the free content of the expansion mainly because I believe this will help make the game more playable and as such should be available to everyone. If however he can not then no biggie.