HOI4 Dev Diary - 1.5.2 Update #3 and Telemetry!

[Shifted]

I consider myself to be a good strategy game player overall, yet I stopped using Elite rather quickly. The reason why hindering the player with negative modifiers feels bad is because it doesn't make the game more difficult, rather it makes it more limited, as if half the game's content suddenly disappears. You still win, there's still no challenge really, only now you just don't diversify your gameplay at all and instead go for the best meta strategy that defeats the AI. This is an issue that affects most strategy games. A lot of technologies, decisions, variance, counter units, tactics, etc., that the game offers becomes utterly irrelevant, and yet also completely unnecessary to win. It feels like the game's content is cut in half. There's no longer heavy cruisers or destroyers, there's only Battleships and Carriers now. There's no mechanized divisions, you can't afford them nor need them really, just win with motorized. In other words, the game is still easy, at the end of the day you can still win, but you as the player have reduced options on how to play the game. Lower production and research means you must adhere more closely to a very repetitive and streamlined strategy, and makes the game ultimately boring. You end up losing twice, for you loose in the fun gameplay department, and the game is still not truly challenging either.

The ideal AI scenario would be to achieve an AI that plays better than humans, and then create tiers of difficulty by hindering the AI instead of the player. In this manner, increasing difficulty means you are progressing towards a goal: beta the AI in equal terms. Maybe the game's content is still cut in half as you min-max your strategy and cut off the RP fat, but the challenge still exists, the goal of becoming better than the AI, of surpassing the challenge presented by the game, still exists; unlike what we have now, where you loose in gameplay variety AND the AI is still easy to beat.

Maybe in the next decade as GPUs and APIs like WinML make machine learning feasible for client computers, together with further research into innovative algorithms like AlphaZero. I'd imagine once this is achieved, it would mean even less work for game development teams, too. Instead of juggling a spaghetti of fragile behavior code (fancy if/else really) or struggling in vain to find good human designed heuristics for planners, game studios will be able to just use a common machine learning architecture and train it with their game's model. New patch changed the game? Just re-train the AI; one can dream...

A final note, the saving grace of Paradox games is role-playing. While other strategy games suffer from the same issue as these ones, these other games also often have poor role-playing possibilities (like Civilization). Paradox games on the other hand do offer fun role-playing potential, which is what, in my opinion, really saves it from the "bad strategy AI" plague that is so widespread.

 

[Zer0k]

Negative modifiers for player are far better solution, chiefly because of the amount of developer work that is needed to change AI build strategies to accomodate for buffs. In HOI3, where AI would get buffs, it would run out of steem extremely fast, because it would get a huge bonus to IC, and then spend most of their manpower on a tonne of weak infantry, and lose it in useless attacks.

Being better or not is irrelevant (also no proof it really is), I don't like playing hindered therefore I don't play on any difficulty higher than veteran. This is still a valuable feedback to the devs since they asked why.


EDIT: If I wanted difficulty, I try a small nation who have a small chance of surviving for example.

 

[puppet on a string]

remove the thing on the left though, it looks really cheap

 

[GPounda]

@podcat - Pretty please allow us to sort divisions by experience level!!!!!

 

[J.P.Cliffer]

Could you give some examples of strategy game where AI is even a bit smarter on higher difficulties? All big, AA titles like Total War and Civilization have it this way; by adding "unfair" modifiers.

Galactic civilisation 2 ai is smarter than the average Joe at high difficulty. And CIVILIZATION 4 Beyond the sword better ai mod that improved logic.

 

[Vohen]

So we can see that the new Civilian difficulty level was needed as well as Elite as both effectively split the old difficulty levels in two. The lower two actually both increased as Regular lowered a bit, although this might just be a temporary bias right now as a lot of new players tend to join at a big expansion release. Speaking of, if you are regularly playing on Civilian and Recruit I would love a PM or comment on why. its one of those things we are trying to figure out.

Huh, there's also the fact that it seems like the default option was shifted to recruit when the patch came out.
I play on regular, but even started a game before realizing that I was on recruit.
I wonder if/how that affected the telemetry.

- War support and Stability modifiers are now displayed as numbers instead of %

I've seen this in a previous changelog, but it doesn't seem to be implemented yet in the available beta. To be honest, I prefer it as a percentage.
But more importantly, is it possible to show what the base war support and stability are in their tooltips alongside the modifiers?
When we're at 100%, you can't tell how much you can afford to lose to keep at the max, so if you want to exchage that excess ws for something useful, you're always gambling a little.

- Winter War peace treaty no longer hands over Petsamo (SOV will have to get that the hard way)

Over all three test runs I've done in the past week, I've seen the Soviets declare war again after the white peace (and on historical), proceeding then to puppeting Finland, probably because they still had claims with them.
I feel like this should be prevented somehow, no?

 

[a_sophist]

I play on regular with the Expert AI mod, and I think something missing from the discussion thus far about the degree of challenge is that many of the significant problems are not about "AI" per se, but sub-optimal parameters assigned by the devs. I encourage anyone who doesn't find the base game challenging (or is simply curious) to read through the defines and AI strategy files. You'll find that suicide attacks, weird templates, production shortfalls, illogical construction priorities, lack of tanks/planes/ships, and odd focus choices are greatly facilitated by design choices, not because the CPU is incapable of making the necessary calculations. While some of these decisions are probably enacted for historical/flavor reasons and I'm fine with that, let's not pretend that the base game is designed to do everything possible to challenge the player and the existing difficulty settings are the only alternative.

I'm fully willing to accept that once one reaches a certain degree of knowledge about the game playing around with sliders and player debuffs is necessary to feel challenged, but I think the game can be improved much more before that's necessary, without touching the "AI" itself.

 

[Chesty Jockthrust]

Personally, I usually just play single player, and as a filthy casual who just wants to recreate history or play around with all the toys, I like lower difficulties because they let me research all the things I want to try and deploy. (IE have both good armored and mechanized divisions as well as a strong moder navy, etc.) Also, even with a lot of time in game, only playing against the AI and being bad at micro means I tend to get stomped on higher difficulties.

 

[Louella]

a lot of strategy games, the AI isn't smarter at higher difficulties, i.e. it doesn't do anything differently. It just has access to more resources in some way. Sometimes the AI isn't playing with the same mechanisms that the player has to manage. Like, some games, there's a build cap on some units, for the player. But the AI isn't necessarily bound by those caps.


also, sometimes I think that multiplayer and singleplayer are so different, that it is impractical to try and make the game cater for both simultaneously. take the licenced production thing for example - in multiplayer, this can allow massively ahead of time production of some things due to countries licencing stuff to each other, whereas in singleplayer, there's no way to replicate that. So it can be argued that the research bonus from licenced production is overpowered. But if the bonus is reduced, that makes it even less attractive to use in single player, with the possibility of turning a potentially interesting game mechanic into something considered rather meh.

 

[Axe99]

Cheers for the DD Podcat, and the stats - stats are good . Am not surprised by the MP figures in terms of group size, given the difficulty of organising large numbers of people for pretty much anything (I'm sure you and/or KimchiViking would have some stories to tell about the difficulties of organising people to develop games ). That model selection/viewer tool looks very cool - the models in the game are very nice, and letting players see them in a bit more detail, and giving them a choice over which is chosen, goes well .

Not that this level of detail would be appropriate (let alone practical), but here's a 3D model of a Queen Elizabeth type BB (in WWI, but the ships were still around and played a key role in WW2) 3D ship models are cool .

So it seems like cooperative play is quite popular

It takes a good war to bring people together .

Could you give some examples of strategy game where AI is even a bit smarter on higher difficulties? All big, AA titles like Total War and Civilization have it this way; by adding "unfair" modifiers.

The only one that pops to mind (and it's tactics, not strategy) is that Panzer General (the first, way back when) had two settings for AI, normal and better-than-normal (can't remember the exact term). The vast, vast majority of strategy and tactics games I've played adjust things via modifiers.

Well bragging rights is certainly important or people wouldnt care about achivements etc

Achievements aren't just about bragging rights (although totally agree that's a large component - humans love to one-up each other in all fields . Even strategy games, despite this most likely being driven by evolutionary mechanics targeted at increasing one's likelihood of reproduction, and people focussing on being elite, and showing it off, at strategy games may not actually be doing themselves any favours on this front* ). I like to use them as an 'interesting challenge' and, once played, provide a kind of memento of that game.

* Noting this is a general statement, and not based on any studies I'm aware of .

 

[Blastaz]

Cheers for the DD Podcat, and the stats - stats are good . Am not surprised by the MP figures in terms of group size, given the difficulty of organising large numbers of people for pretty much anything (I'm sure you and/or KimchiViking would have some stories to tell about the difficulties of organising people to develop games ). That model selection/viewer tool looks very cool - the models in the game are very nice, and letting players see them in a bit more detail, and giving them a choice over which is chosen, goes well .

Obviously a whole 'nother kettle of fish, given how navies are organised in HoI4, but if there was ever a chance for similar for the ship models, then I'm sure there'd be interest in seeing them in a bit more detail as well .

Not that this level of detail would be appropriate (let alone practical), but here's a 3D model of a Queen Elizabeth type BB (in WWI, but they ships were still around and played a key role in WW2) 3D ship models are cool .

It takes a good war to bring people together .



The only one that pops to mind (and it's tactics, not strategy) is that Panzer General (the first, way back when) had two settings for AI, normal and better-than-normal (can't remember the exact term). The vast, vast majority of strategy and tactics games I've played adjust things via modifiers.



Achievements aren't just about bragging rights (although totally agree that's a large component - humans love to one-up each other in all fields . Even strategy games, despite this most likely being driven by evolutionary mechanics targeted at increasing one's likelihood of reproduction, and people focussing on being elite, and showing it off, at strategy games may not actually be doing themselves any favours on this front* ). I like to use them as an 'interesting challenge' and, once played, provide a kind of memento of that game.

* Noting this is a general statement, and not based on any studies I'm aware of .

Totally agree achievements are a way of guided play through the sandbox of Paradox games! I almost wish they didn’t try to lock them up so tight (Ironman, zero mods) to make them about the bragging rights, and instead said “have you ever considered doing this? Why don’t you go and have a crack at it?”

 

[DaddysDepository]

One thing i thought would be a neat idea would be to have a 3D unit designer UI similar to SuperPower 2 where you get to change the hull, tracks and turret with made up or somewhat realistic designs.

 

[NetherMax1]

The lower difficulties are my default, and here is why:
I prefer my games easier so I can do stupid crap with less fear of repercussions.

 

[Robosoldier1]

I'm certainly not going to convince you if you don't look at the data!

The chart is by time played. They stop counting after 5 players 1.4%. That means that 2.4% of total multiplayer time is spent on games with 6 or more players. The last slightly bigger block is games with 10 or more players and eyeballing it, it looks about half the size of the 5 player block. Let's be generous and say it's 1%.

So for every hour played in a 10 player + game, 75.7 hours have been played in a 2 player game and 92.1 hours played in a 2-3 player game.
But further than that for every hour of multiplayer something like 8-9 hours of single player are played. Lets be generous to me and say 9 to make the maths easier!

So to go back to your example rather than

for every hour of a 10 player game (and 10 players playing at once means for every 6 minutes played in a 10 player game = one hour played in 10 player games in total) 92 hours are played in 2-3 player games and 900 hours are played in single player.

I ain't dismissing other types of play. I've raided in MMOs and struggled to get seven guys round a board to play Diplomacy. You often spend longer on the logistics than you do the game itself and when everything works out it's a sweet experience. But. These types of games are seriously niche. That is what the data tells us.

And that's why Paradox shouldn't be balancing around the "meta" in large form multiplayer. So when someone says something like "this change to Hungary makes Axis OP and needs to be rolled back because now they can produce tons of planes" or "Germany should be building civs not refineries because the Axis can just go free trade as a block and share industry around" or whatever makes sense to someone who has the top twenty countries controlled by a player and thus abiding by the "meta" in every game they play - that person needs to realise that for every six minutes of his experience of HoIIV there are 992 hours of other peoples' experience playing a totally different way.

Ok so simply because there is a bigger volume in conjunction with time indicates that there is more demand for these said game modes? I don't buy it. Alot of regular MP games go for 4-8 hours depending on the circumstances and not all of those cemented communities play at the same time so for all Ik they only did this for a few days and are basing there numbers off that. Just because you got more people playing in that particular moment 2-3 player scenarios means jack if you don't know the reasoning behind why they picked that game mode to play. Again for all Ik those are all competitive multiplayer people testing stuff out with friends or waiting for there regular MP community to get a game up, or hell they missed the opportunity/ the game fell apart to play and are just dicking around. ( dont really think thats the case just saying its not very clear and they even say its not clear). Hard numbers are only half the story the other half is by interacting with the community. I ain't disagreeing that were the smaller portion of the community I'm saying there is more reasoning behind the numbers then people are delving into at the moment ( at least within the post).

 

[rafan]

I would ask to get four mistakes to be repaired.

1. Focus Develop Polish shipbuilding - This i the only fous in game that gives factories/shipyards without giving building slots. - pls paradox give this focus building slots.

2. Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski as prince of terror - its so wrong colling person that was responsible for so many economic developmentts in Poland as prince of terror - he should be captain of industry

3. TKS (light tank 1 technology) - it was in production since 1933 and at start of the game Poland doesn't even have the technology for it. - add it as starting tech

4. Poland does not have even one general with cavaler oficer perk at the start? - add one pls

 

[fabius]

@podcat - Pretty please allow us to sort divisions by experience level!!!!!

And type

 

[mursolini]

Being better or not is irrelevant (also no proof it really is), I don't like playing hindered therefore I don't play on any difficulty higher than veteran. This is still a valuable feedback to the devs since they asked why.

You are obviously entitled to oppinion on what game you like to play, however don`t go too far claiming "no proof exists". HOI3 demonstrated very well how bad just buffing AI without changing it`s strategy turns out, so does HOI4, where, if you slider buff, you can see Axis/Allies taking more far more cassualties, on plenty of occasions (Italy and GB are especially prone to this).

 

[Aurenath]

I always play on civilian, and that's because I don't wanna be good at the game, I don't wanna lose my wars, I just wanna shape the world as I want the easiest way possible

 

[nkibilko]

As for why people choose "civilian" and "recruit" difficulties: a lot of people just want to win when they sit down to play a game, and they don't want to have to think too much or have consequences from poor decision making. For most i'd assume games are an escape of some sort, so most people like to escape to a world where their desires become reality with little effort or stress.

I play regular because i feel like that's just how the game is meant to be played... thats why it's called regular, lol. The other ones are for people who like a harder or easier experience.

 

[AkatsukiEmpire]

@podcat For the "battlecry" and "Awake and angry" achievements, is conquering Hong Kong, Macau/ going to war with the allies intentional? Because on some threads, people say it's an oversight or something. It would be very helpful to get a clarification.