...and I really mean it. HOI4's problem wasn't the launch. The game got out playable state but after 2-3 patches, with the start of DLC 's the direction became frightening. The pre-production time was consumed with army planning feature and thus made the producer force more time. HOI4 become really expensive to make because the Paradox was already spent too much on different projects in a short time and they needed more success stories than failures. One thing they wanted to take more from HOI4 is more money, due to the budget was renewed several times, in order to make the game. So that's when they tried the Season Pass experiment on HOI4 for the first time.
Making more money early on really helped HOI4's future on paper but the team never had any plans about what to make as DLC but they needed a continuous income because Paradox used to make money while making patches. They misunderstood about how season passes work. Let's be honest for a second here. The first two DLC's were cut in half and sold separately. So they changed again how season pass work, multiple times. As they made the DLC's smaller the quality went down in a rapid way. The DLC's focus wasn't what people cared too and If you try to sell two side dish feature before focusing on real parts, people are going to get pissed. Rightfully so. So after all the producer, DLC, and income drama, HOI4 dev team finally got their ticket to make a proper expansion.
Waking the tiger's focus was spot on. The content was undeniably one of the Paradox's best. Chain of command was a great start to finally bring some features in order to make a proper WW2 game. The decisions feature is a good innovative idea (which I believe this is going to be included in Paradox's next titles) to stop the event spamming and discovering hidden decisions. Reworking few focus trees and making more content specifically for the orient countries. China now has the best (in enjoyment way) focus tree in the game. Overall the game got very good replayability and new content with good direction focus.
This expansion is a great call back when Paradox used to make good DLC's. Now the EU4 is busy with their micro "nation focus" DLC's, CK2 getting fooled by a vocal minority group in forums and bringing China, banging the last nail on the coffin, Stellaris getting good patches but not good DLC as content wise(!), It was good thing to see there is still in Paradox to make great content DLC. This has proven HOI4 dev team has a different type of work style. They require more time to make content and I'm not saying this to fans, in fact, I'm saying this to producer or higher-ups.
Stellaris massive success shouldn't be compared with HOI4 and their customer base works differently than Stellaris. Stellaris fans get hyped when they saw an article on some "game news" site, while HOI4 fans will get bigger with word of mouth. Let's face it there are more Space hipsters than WW2 nerds. HOI market is more niche crowd. Back when HOI 3 was window shop product for Paradox but that was because WW2 nerds were bigger than History nerds. You won't increase the size of the fanbase with lend-lease while the game doesn't have the chain of command, fuel as a resource, supply chain, weird naval gameplay and so on...
Even I gift this DLC to my friends saying "this is really good". One of them has just ended his mega China campaign (lasted 4-5 weeks I think) and even he said he started again, who shits on Paradox about DLC policy more than I. This is how you do it. You already sold DLC now its time to impress season pass owners and make them talk about the game. I know after that there is going to be smaller DLC but smaller means It doesn't have to offer side dish features like lend leasing.
Besides content, It is good to see the game's weather and climate rules become harsher. Soft values getting nerfed made planes more valuable but stopping planes with planes is more expensive than AA. So this made the AA more valuable as well. Speed values are still not balanced because infantry is still fast enough to rely on. Nevertheless, the direction is good enough to be impressed by. I hope, Devs keep the focus and keep focusing on what is been missing in this game to make it a proper WW2 game.
Making more money early on really helped HOI4's future on paper but the team never had any plans about what to make as DLC but they needed a continuous income because Paradox used to make money while making patches. They misunderstood about how season passes work. Let's be honest for a second here. The first two DLC's were cut in half and sold separately. So they changed again how season pass work, multiple times. As they made the DLC's smaller the quality went down in a rapid way. The DLC's focus wasn't what people cared too and If you try to sell two side dish feature before focusing on real parts, people are going to get pissed. Rightfully so. So after all the producer, DLC, and income drama, HOI4 dev team finally got their ticket to make a proper expansion.
Waking the tiger's focus was spot on. The content was undeniably one of the Paradox's best. Chain of command was a great start to finally bring some features in order to make a proper WW2 game. The decisions feature is a good innovative idea (which I believe this is going to be included in Paradox's next titles) to stop the event spamming and discovering hidden decisions. Reworking few focus trees and making more content specifically for the orient countries. China now has the best (in enjoyment way) focus tree in the game. Overall the game got very good replayability and new content with good direction focus.
This expansion is a great call back when Paradox used to make good DLC's. Now the EU4 is busy with their micro "nation focus" DLC's, CK2 getting fooled by a vocal minority group in forums and bringing China, banging the last nail on the coffin, Stellaris getting good patches but not good DLC as content wise(!), It was good thing to see there is still in Paradox to make great content DLC. This has proven HOI4 dev team has a different type of work style. They require more time to make content and I'm not saying this to fans, in fact, I'm saying this to producer or higher-ups.
Stellaris massive success shouldn't be compared with HOI4 and their customer base works differently than Stellaris. Stellaris fans get hyped when they saw an article on some "game news" site, while HOI4 fans will get bigger with word of mouth. Let's face it there are more Space hipsters than WW2 nerds. HOI market is more niche crowd. Back when HOI 3 was window shop product for Paradox but that was because WW2 nerds were bigger than History nerds. You won't increase the size of the fanbase with lend-lease while the game doesn't have the chain of command, fuel as a resource, supply chain, weird naval gameplay and so on...
Even I gift this DLC to my friends saying "this is really good". One of them has just ended his mega China campaign (lasted 4-5 weeks I think) and even he said he started again, who shits on Paradox about DLC policy more than I. This is how you do it. You already sold DLC now its time to impress season pass owners and make them talk about the game. I know after that there is going to be smaller DLC but smaller means It doesn't have to offer side dish features like lend leasing.
Besides content, It is good to see the game's weather and climate rules become harsher. Soft values getting nerfed made planes more valuable but stopping planes with planes is more expensive than AA. So this made the AA more valuable as well. Speed values are still not balanced because infantry is still fast enough to rely on. Nevertheless, the direction is good enough to be impressed by. I hope, Devs keep the focus and keep focusing on what is been missing in this game to make it a proper WW2 game.
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