Mostly negative Steam reviews - does Paradox care?

[Axe99]

Venezuela, no, I'd have to do some research. China, yeah probably. In fact, I'd say I could layout a plan for China in about 10 minutes, and even have two versions, with one being the big focus tree addition show casing some new features of an expansion it should come in (partisan+supply system!!)

Assuming that the Paradox team has subject matter experts for each is probably a bit unrealistic. I could come up with a focus tree for Australia pretty quickly as well (although it wouldn't be as good as the one in TfV).

Anyways, to call your bluff, how about that plan for China in 10 mins? All you need to have is something on a piece of paper, take a photo/scan and post it up. It needs text for each focus tree description, the bonuses and of course the flow.

The reason I keep 'calling your bluff' is because something humans (me included, I'm a human too ) consistently underestimate the difference between an idea and how much time/effort it actually takes to make something happen. This happens even to people that are experienced and established in a field. I don't mean any offense by suggesting you're being affected by this (I've just said it's a species-wide thing, so at worst I'm insulting our species, assuming you're human as well - but I don't think I am, I think all species have strengths and weaknesses, and accurately forecasting the amount of time it takes to do something isn't most humans do well unless they've had a lot of practice doing it).

Coding in the layout and bonuses is trivial. For a first draft, you could definitely have that part of it done in an hour. I mean, it's just positions, names, and effects.

Planning out those positions, just looking up the names of the effects, and making sure they're balanced is more than an hour (if the job is to be quality). I'm speaking with quite a few hours under my belt modding HoI4 here (none on focus trees, but I've gone through the focus tree syntax to get a feel for how it works). There isn't much to each individual step, but there are a lot of individual steps, and doing them all correctly takes time and effort. This is often the difference between stuff on the workshop and dev team stuff as well - stuff on the workshop often is whipped up in a few hours - and it shows.

I think a dollar a tree is about the max the price should be.

In that case, I'm even more surprised by your concern over TfV's price. If the overall package is $15, and we assume $5 is the sprites (the Rights of Man sprite packs cost $5.99), and $5 is everything else in the DLC (not unreasonable), then you get a price of $1 for each focus tree. Now, this may not be how it was budgeted internally, but this is far from an unreasonable assessment of the cost of each component of the DLC.

Note (as with all my posts today) - I'm crook and cranky - if I come across as such, it's not you, I'm grumpy at this virus and nothing else .

 

[Had a dad]

Coding in the layout and bonuses is trivial

ha...

 

[Rundstedt75]

although I am still never going to understand people with 1000+ hours giving a negative review. Luckily my brain translates them to positive reviews when I read them because I refuse to believe someone would spend so much time on something they don't like

Think of it like a bad marriage. You spend a lot of time on it and wish it was better but it still sucks.

 

[Dragula]

I just went to look on Steam, and omg it's mostly positive reviews!

Fake news!!!!

 

[Black_Shade]

Assuming that the Paradox team has subject matter experts for each is probably a bit unrealistic. I could come up with a focus tree for Australia pretty quickly as well (although it wouldn't be as good as the one in TfV).

Anyways, to call your bluff, how about that plan for China in 10 mins? All you need to have is something on a piece of paper, take a photo/scan and post it up. It needs text for each focus tree description, the bonuses and of course the flow.

The reason I keep 'calling your bluff' is because something humans (me included, I'm a human too ) consistently underestimate the difference between an idea and how much time/effort it actually takes to make something happen. This happens even to people that are experienced and established in a field. I don't mean any offense by suggesting you're being affected by this (I've just said it's a species-wide thing, so at worst I'm insulting our species, assuming you're human as well - but I don't think I am, I think all species have strengths and weaknesses, and accurately forecasting the amount of time it takes to do something isn't most humans do well unless they've had a lot of practice doing it).
.

Ill do this because I'm tired of people making excuses for the ridiculous price gouging of TFV.
Here's my 5 minute China Bullet List-

industry/infastructure
Move Industry To Interior (Requires War With Japan, 30 day focus), similar to Soviets, no net industry gain, moves industry from coastal areas to interior
Fortify the Ports: Add coastal defenses to any port with level >3
you could even do something tricky and make fortify the ports mutually exclusive with a fortify the Japanese border, which adds level 3ish land forts on the border provinces with Japan, but prevents you from fortifying the coastal provinces.

One or two civilian factory foci (3 factories if 1, 4 factories if 2)
Two military factory foci (5 or 6 factories net)
infrastructure foci- 1 or 2 infrastructure to a few states
Naval focus tree- 6 dockyards net but gated to require China to control port arthur, prevents early fleet build up.

Political tree dealing with Chinese Civil War- this will be a bit tricky to work with given its all handled by event now and the time frames involved given the early Japanese invasion. If the focus tree deals with this, it will either have to be quick foci (30 day) that gate all others, so that you have to decide what to do prior to Japanese invasion, or will only be foci that deal with the aftermath of a Chinese victory over Japan. This is the portion of the focus tree that I need to think about for more than 5 seconds.

International Assistance-
American Lend Lease (infantry equipment, could be net, could be bonus production, etc)
American Volunteers (air support mainly, fighters, fighter doctrines, airfields)
Soviet Volunteers (Not sure how large soviet contribution was, need some research)
Burma Road- infrastructure boosts on indian frontier, infantry equipment
German Cooperation (Currently a national modifier at the start, land doctrine research boost)

Ahistorical- Additional German assistance (for a germany that chooses not to withdraw advisors)- land doctrine bonuses, armor research, close air support research. You could even do something like adding another focus or two to the german tree if they choose to support China over Japan, where China gets a fascism boost and potentially an axis invitation if they so choose.

The big gameplay addition- I want a revamped partisan system that significantly effects supply throughput, to the point of lowering it to almost zero. In addition, offensives/taking provinces should take large amounts of supply to enact. I think the bulk of your supply throughput should be for just keeping your armies supplied while not moving, and that major offensives should require a supply build up prior to launching them to be effective.

The land doctrine planning bonuses could be related to this as well and reduce supply usage. The grand battle plan doctrine will get bonuses to reduced supply consumption while using planned offensives (no manual control!) in addition to the planning attack bonuses, while the mobile tree will get supply usage reductions on unplanned offensives to reflect the greater freedom for improvisation. I want it so that your troops won't be able to be resupplied on unplanned offensives unless you're on the mobile path, and you can only attack deep into China if you have a full planning bonus offensive going. Basically, partisans will severely impact supply throughput to the point where if suppression divisions aren't employed, troops will start to starve.

In the Chinese theater, what stopped the Japanese weren't the Chinese main armies, in fact their combat losses against China were quite low. It was difficulties in supplying their forces due to the poor infrastructure and partisan activities that halted their offensives. I want China to have a boost (+50%?) to partisan strength, with the goal of starving the Japanese armies as their supply lines get extended. The main effect of partisans should be supply, not factory sabotage. This will obviously impact other theaters, in particular the Russian front and maybe Poland can get a nice partisan boost as well.

This will allow Japan to take the coasts, and launch large preplanned operations (planning bonus), but as they move inland their supply lines will become longer. Here's where the partisans taking out the Japanese supply routes come into effect. With the extremely poor supply throughput their attacks will become weaker the deeper they get into China, with each province they take stretching their already extended supply line. The goal here is to make the war stalemate, where Japan can't advance effectively anymore without heavily investing in securing supply routes for their main combat forces. Of course, the main issue with this is the AI needs major revamping and ability to actually deal with unrest effectively, otherwise it will cripple the Japanese and German AI.

China could have several foci related to the partisans. There could also be foci related to peace with Japan if China controls Manchuria, perhaps an extended chinese civil war tree could come after this with choices on striking a deal with the communists, war, appealing to the US, etc.


There, there's a rough chinese focus tree story board AND the major overhaul/addition for an expansion that might fix the Sino-Japanese war AND make the eastern front last until 1945 in 5 minutes. You're welcome Paradox.

edit:

In that case, I'm even more surprised by your concern over TfV's price. If the overall package is $15, and we assume $5 is the sprites (the Rights of Man sprite packs cost $5.99), and $5 is everything else in the DLC (not unreasonable), then you get a price of $1 for each focus tree. Now, this may not be how it was budgeted internally, but this is far from an unreasonable assessment of the cost of each component of the DLC.

For this, note I said MAX. Ideally it would be like $0.50. Which is still significant return on investment, if it takes one employee 3-4 days to make a well though out focus tree and they sell 100,000 copies for $0.50, I'd say that's a great return for Paradox. And as I said, I want nothing to do with the sprites and portraits. Those are purely cosmetic, I shouldn't be paying for something that adds nothing to the gameplay unless I want to.

 

[SovietSpyCommisar]

There will always be people unhappy with whichever approach is taken, as evidenced by the response.

If one person complains or if 1000 people complain, there will be people who say (like they are a genius) "people always gonna complain" as a way of dismissing justifiable criticism. The number of people complaining and their reasons do matter. I personally see more passionate gamers demanding more from the higher priced (compared to content) dlcs. Cant fault them for that. As a ending ill say that "always gonna be some people who will be happy no matter what they get".

 

[ascii]

Fortify the Ports: Add coastal defenses to any port with level >3

was this done historically? If not was there a plan for it? Was that plan realistic, or are you just coming up with something to do for the sake of it?

American Lend Lease (infantry equipment, could be net, could be bonus production, etc)
American Volunteers (air support mainly, fighters, fighter doctrines, airfields)
Soviet Volunteers (Not sure how large soviet contribution was, need some research)
Burma Road- infrastructure boosts on indian frontier, infantry equipment
German Cooperation (Currently a national modifier at the start, land doctrine research boost)

you gonna flesh these out or just put them up? I mean balance and all, what you just give a NF for the sake of an NF?

Political tree dealing with Chinese Civil War- this will be a bit tricky to work with given its all handled by event now and the time frames involved given the early Japanese invasion. If the focus tree deals with this, it will either have to be quick foci (30 day) that gate all others, so that you have to decide what to do prior to Japanese invasion, or will only be foci that deal with the aftermath of a Chinese victory over Japan. This is the portion of the focus tree that I need to think about for more than 5 seconds.

you do realize this isn't a complete anything just a "do a tree about this" with no information, but hey it can be done in an hour, according to you.

One or two civilian factory foci (3 factories if 1, 4 factories if 2)
Two military factory foci (5 or 6 factories net)
infrastructure foci- 1 or 2 infrastructure to a few states
Naval focus tree- 6 dockyards net but gated to require China to control port arthur, prevents early fleet build up.

again, what's the historical reference here? Or just doing it to put in fodder?

One or two civilian factory foci (3 factories if 1, 4 factories if 2)

last time I checked btw china already had a civ ind foci, but hey way to be original, too bad pdx never thought of that

 

[Axe99]

Ill do this because I'm tired of people making excuses for the ridiculous price gouging of TFV.
Here's my 5 minute China Bullet List-

industry/infastructure
Move Industry To Interior (Requires War With Japan, 30 day focus), similar to Soviets, no net industry gain, moves industry from coastal areas to interior
Fortify the Ports: Add coastal defenses to any port with level >3
German Cooperation (Currently a national modifier at the start, land doctrine research boost)
One or two civilian factory foci (3 factories if 1, 4 factories if 2)
Two military factory foci (5 or 6 factories net)
infrastructure foci- 1 or 2 infrastructure to a few states
Naval focus tree- 6 dockyards net but gated to require China to control port arthur, prevents early fleet build up.

Political tree dealing with Chinese Civil War- this will be a bit tricky to work with given its all handled by event now and the time frames involved given the early Japanese invasion. If the focus tree deals with this, it will either have to be quick foci (30 day) that gate all others, so that you have to decide what to do prior to Japanese invasion, or will only be foci that deal with the aftermath of a Chinese victory over Japan. This is the portion of the focus tree that I need to think about for more than 5 seconds.

International Assistance-
American Lend Lease (infantry equipment, could be net, could be bonus production, etc)
American Volunteers (air support mainly, fighters, fighter doctrines, airfields)
Soviet Volunteers (Not sure how large soviet contribution was, need some research)
Burma Road- infrastructure boosts on indian frontier, infantry equipment
Ahistorical- German assistance (for a germany that chooses not to withdraw advisors)- land doctrine bonuses, armor research, close air support research

The big gameplay addition- I want a revamped partisan system that significantly effects supply throughput, to the point of lowering it to almost zero. In addition, offensives/taking provinces should take large amounts of supply to enact, perhaps planning bonuses could be related to this as well and reduce supply usage. The grand battle plan doctrine will get bonuses to reduced supply consumption in addition to the planning attack bonuses, while the mobile tree will get supply usage reductions on unplanned offensives to reflect the greater freedom for improvisation. I want it so that your troops won't be able to be resupplied on unplanned offensives unless you're on the mobile path, and you can only attack deep into China if you have a full planning bonus offensive going. Basically, partisans will severely impact supply throughput to the point where if suppression divisions aren't employed, troops will start to starve.

In the Chinese theater, what stopped the Japanese weren't the Chinese main armies, in fact their combat losses against China were quite low. It was difficulties in supplying their forces due to the poor infrastructure and partisan activities that halted their offensives. I want China to have a boost (+50%?) to partisan strength, with the goal of starving the Japanese armies as their supply lines get extended. The main effect of partisans should be supply, not factory sabotage. This will obviously impact other theaters, in particular the Russian front and maybe Poland can get a nice partisan boost as well.

This will allow Japan to take the coasts, and launch large preplanned operations (planning bonus), but as they move inland their supply lines will become longer. Here's where the partisans taking out the Japanese supply routes come into effect. With the extremely poor supply throughput their attacks will become weaker the deeper they get into China, with each province they take stretching their already extended supply line. The goal here is to make the war stalemate, where Japan can't advance effectively anymore without heavily investing in securing supply routes for their main combat forces. Of course, the main issue with this is the AI needs major revamping and ability to actually deal with unrest effectively, otherwise it will cripple the Japanese and German AI.

China could have several foci related to the partisans. There could also be foci related to peace with Japan if China controls Manchuria, perhaps an extended chinese civil war tree could come after this with choices on striking a deal with the communists, war, appealing to the US, etc.

That's a good set of starting ideas, but that's not enough to get coding with and it needs a whole lot more text (descriptions for each foci), and there's no 'layout' (how they all flow together), plus there's not enough ideas there for a full focus tree (noting that you've acknowledged that there's more development required for the political side).

Yes, all these little steps don't take long on their own, but they add up (quickly) to pushing you out past that hour mark (which was for a completed, coded (but presumably not balanced or tested) focus tree - I'm not sure from what you've written you'd be able to come up with a plan that could be committed to code in an hour, let alone the coding - that's no criticism, I couldn't either - and I'm just saying I'm not sure, not that you couldn't - but what you've got above is more a quick brainstorm than a fleshed-out plan).

I still think, even if you had the inclination, it would take you far longer than an hour to put get a functioning Chinese focus tree on the Steam workshop. I won't go asking for an hour of your time though (and I expect there's already a few quick'n'dirty China focus trees up there already, and if we're lucky maybe one or two good ones, given China's popularity and 'major minor' status).

I do like your ideas about resistance btw . I agree that supply/resistance and the like could do with some love - the ease of supply over long distances makes Germany's life a bit easy in the Soviet Union as well, and the lack of significant supply distance impact makes the North African campaign lack the logistical check and balance that it had historically.

For this, note I said MAX. Ideally it would be like $0.50. Which is still significant return on investment, if it takes one employee 3-4 days to make a well though out focus tree and they sell 100,000 copies for $0.50, I'd say that's a great return for Paradox. And as I said, I want nothing to do with the sprites and portraits. Those are purely cosmetic, I shouldn't be paying for something that adds nothing to the gameplay unless I want to.

Aye, but I was just working with the number you gave me - attributing $5 to the focus trees in TfV is arguably giving them too much (although I think they'd probably more than $2.50) - I just went with $5 as I'm not one for spinning the truth to make a point and it was a safe and easy point to make - it would be possible to cost it, in a defensible but contested fashion, where the focus trees were 50 cents, but now that moves from being 'easy to accept $5' to 'contested $2.50'.

The issue about the bundling, on the other hand, is a separate issue to the pricing for the focus trees. It is a real issue (I personally prefer unbundling them, as I posted earlier), but if the issue is one of bundling, then if you complain about that, rather than the price of focus trees, you're more likely to get what you want addressed. Paradox DLC as a whole is far from unfairly priced (even if regular sales aren't taken into account). I have no idea how the set their bundling policies, but contributing to that discussion wouldn't be an unhelpful thing to do. Confusing it with the cost of focus trees, though, makes it harder for the point to find its way to Paradox's marketing folk.

If one person complains or if 1000 people complain, there will be people who say (like they are a genius) "people always gonna complain" as a way of dismissing justifiable criticism. The number of people complaining and their reasons do matter. I personally see more passionate gamers demanding more from the higher priced (compared to content) dlcs. Cant fault them for that. As a ending ill say that "always gonna be some people who will be happy no matter what they get".

In my post, I did outline the issue somewhat more deeply than you're suggesting (including noting that there were numerous complaints about the unbundled DLC approach). It's not an issue of price, it's an issue of bundling, and complaining about the price without addressing the bundling just confuses the issue (and wastes the complaint - if you complain about something, best to make it clear and easy for whoever you're complaining to, so they can take it on board). The DLC is a fair price for what it contains. The issue is that for a number of gamers, they didn't want everything it contained. This is a reasonable position to take (even if not everyone that takes this position does it reasonably), but the redress for this isn't asking Paradox to reduce price but to un-bundle, so that people can purchase gameplay separately from cosmetics and music/sound effect-related content. Paradox may or may not want to do this, but at least they know what the fans are trying to argue between when they do.

As for people complaining about the unbundled DLC policy - they really did (and do, in CK2 and EU4, every time an expansion is released and numerous times between them). It's not a throwaway line, but more noting that people complained to Paradox (for years) to change their policy. Paradox changed their policy. Now people are complaining to change it back. This suggests that Paradox have to make a judgement call, rather than it being an easy to answer question.

As for potentially implying I'm a "everything Paradox does is right" fanboy, you obviously didn't see my posts in the supply thread . I think the HoI4 team is hard working, talented, dedicated and genuinely passionate about producing a great product and providing good value for money, but I don't agree with everything they do (including bundling DLC, as per my previous posts in this thread!) Further, I'm actually in support of unbundling (although I'm very relaxed about it, I'm just generally pro-choice when it comes to these types of things - I generally buy the sprite and non-Sabaton music packs), so we're actually aligned on this issue .

 

[noblehunter]

I suspect one reason why TfV was so expensive for its content is they knew it wasn't going to sell as well as their DLC does normally. Since the mechanics really only matter to the Commonwealth (those being the only significant puppets at game start), it's only a subset of players who can use most of the content. Fewer units sold mean a higher cost per unit.

Thankfully, I don't have to buy it to keep getting patches or to get other DLC with content that matters to me.

 

[Black_Shade]

That's a good set of starting ideas, but that's not enough to get coding with and it needs a whole lot more text (descriptions for each foci), and there's no 'layout' (how they all flow together), plus there's not enough ideas there for a full focus tree (noting that you've acknowledged that there's more development required for the political side).

Yes, all these little steps don't take long on their own, but they add up (quickly) to pushing you out past that hour mark (which was for a completed, coded (but presumably not balanced or tested) focus tree - I'm not sure from what you've written you'd be able to come up with a plan that could be committed to code in an hour, let alone the coding - that's no criticism, I couldn't either - and I'm just saying I'm not sure, not that you couldn't - but what you've got above is more a quick brainstorm than a fleshed-out plan).

I still think, even if you had the inclination, it would take you far longer than an hour to put get a functioning Chinese focus tree on the Steam workshop. I won't go asking for an hour of your time though (and I expect there's already a few quick'n'dirty China focus trees up there already, and if we're lucky maybe one or two good ones, given China's popularity and 'major minor' status).

I do like your ideas about resistance btw . I agree that supply/resistance and the like could do with some love - the ease of supply over long distances makes Germany's life a bit easy in the Soviet Union as well, and the lack of significant supply distance impact makes the North African campaign lack the logistical check and balance that it had historically.
.

Well, of course they need more description, that was just off the top of my head as you wanted quick bullet points! If I can do this quickly, someone who is literally paid to do it can also do it quickly and add those minor details that make the trees have a fleshed out feeling. And you certainly could immediately code all the non political ideas, as it'x just add X to Y state. Nothing complicated about this.

was this done historically? If not was there a plan for it? Was that plan realistic, or are you just coming up with something to do for the sake of it?


you gonna flesh these out or just put them up? I mean balance and all, what you just give a NF for the sake of an NF?

you do realize this isn't a complete anything just a "do a tree about this" with no information, but hey it can be done in an hour, according to you.


again, what's the historical reference here? Or just doing it to put in fodder?


last time I checked btw china already had a civ ind foci, but hey way to be original, too bad pdx never thought of that

I'm going to assume your entire post is tongue in cheek, otherwise it adds nothing to the discussion- because if you bothered to look at the focus trees we had, this is what they are. It's just add X factories to Y state, X infrastructure to Z state, with different names for the different countries. There's also plenty of ahistorical free crap, like extending the maginot line for France (similar to my coastal defense focus). And if I had spent more than 5 minutes on my post and not added a whole revamp of the supply/partisan/land doctrine system, I could have fleshed out the political tree more too. Axe wanted an example of a story board tree and I gave him one and major gameplay changes to fix some major outstanding issues, the fact the focus tree wasn't fleshed out with specific names for everything is because it took longer to type than it did for the basic ideas to pop into my head. And since generating the code/layout for a focus tree is pretty basic (you can look at them yourself in your HoI4 folder, there's nothing complicated in them), and just typing out what you want anyways, I think this is easily doable in a short amount of time for someone who is getting paid to do it. But they seem pretty balanced to me- the industry additions are bigger than the generic tree, but smaller than the other majors. You get lend lease/free infantry equipement, maybe a free fighter wing or two, nothing is OP in my list.

And I did that in roughly the same amount of time it took to make your post. Ok, so if it takes one employee a day or two to flesh it out more than my story board, how much is that basically insignificant time investment worth given they are going to sell 100,000 copies? And paradox wants to charge $15 for a few of these plus ONE major game play feature? Two, if the battleplan AI becomes usable at some point? No, that's not a reasonable price, and Paradox needs to be called out on it.

 

[Axe99]

Well, of course they need more description, that was just off the top of my head! If I can do this quickly, someone who is literally paid to do it can also do it quickly and add those minor details that make the trees have a fleshed out feeling.

That's kind of what I'm getting at though - to do (not just plan) a focus tree in an hour, to a level of quality, requires a little sitting down and thinking (at least to do well ). To get something more than just 'off the top of the head' (particularly if the dev in question isn't, say, an expert on New Zealand's history in WW2, which would be a bit much to ask of your average European game dev) takes time if you want good results. Anyways, I think we've probably taken this as far as it's useful for either of us - we clearly hold different positions on how long it takes to do a decent job of a focus tree. I do hope something like your resistance/supply suggestions make it into the game at some stage .

 

[ascii]

There's also plenty of ahistorical free crap, like extending the maginot line for France

oh... the idea that was actually planned to do but was scrapped because the french didn't want to offend the belgian gov based on their stated nutrality... gasp... omg you are soooo correct it was never considered.

And I did that in roughly the same amount of time it took to make your post. Ok, so if it takes one employee a day or two to flesh it out more than my story board, how much is that basically insignificant time investment worth given they are going to sell 100,000 copies?

nope took you longer. debunking you is way easier than your "thought out" focus tree.

 

[Meglok]

Think I may have the definite answer here on this question.

Paradox announced they have crossed the 500,000 threshold in copies of HOI4 sold this week.

As they popped the champagne in the office one of them probably looked at this thread still going and had a good chuckle.

 

[Black_Shade]

nope took you longer. debunking you is way easier than your "thought out" focus tree.

Once again, Axe asked for a quick outline of a tree, in 5 minutes. I did that. I didn't say it was going to be perfect, it's a rough outline of ideas that you can flesh out in an hour or two (and you can be generating the code for the tree while doing it). I also added a whole new supply/partisan/attrition system in that same post.

 

[Archangel85]

That's kind of what I'm getting at though - to do (not just plan) a focus tree in an hour, to a level of quality, requires a little sitting down and thinking (at least to do well ). To get something more than just 'off the top of the head' (particularly if the dev in question isn't, say, an expert on New Zealand's history in WW2, which would be a bit much to ask of your average European game dev) takes time if you want good results. Anyways, I think we've probably taken this as far as it's useful for either of us - we clearly hold different positions on how long it takes to do a decent job of a focus tree. I do hope something like your resistance/supply suggestions make it into the game at some stage .

Perhaps this is as good a spot to explain our process as any.

What @Black_Shade did was what we call the initial pitch. Its a very short document of a handful of bullet points, to see if it is even feasible to make an interesting focus tree, and if so, what the core events and narrative chains should be (a narrative chain is something like the German coup chain for South Africa, or each of the "warplan" lines for the USA). Obviously, historical events are center stage here, but we also like to include some interesting ahistorical alternatives (for China, approaching different countries for support against Japan is an obvious one, but perhaps the Nationalist Chinese would be willing to trade territory for Japanese help against the warlords?). This usually takes us about half an hour on wikipedia. This is just the first step, though.

After we have made an initial pitch (and @podcat thinks its cool enough to warrant further work - we have had countries fail this stage), we start the in-depth research. There we focus, obviously, on what happened historically and see if we can find any other hooks for ahistorical storylines (treaties proposed but not signed, politicians sidelined by internal struggles, tanks designed but not built). We also look at economic development, both to give some flavor to the industry branch and to add some new design companies (because usually, we don't just make a focus tree, we rework and flesh out the entire country). This takes about a week.

After we are done with that, we start drafting the tree. That means we try and look at how we are going to turn our storyline ideas into focus tree branches. Balance is an issue, of course, but also stuff like the historical timing - Germany should be in a position where they are about to declare war on Poland (that is, finishing the "Danzig or War" focus) in late summer 1939. This requires a lot of boring detail work - in what states are we going to put new industry? What technologies do we give research bonuses for and when? What new features are we going to add in the expansion, and how are we going to integrate them into the focus tree? Which wargoals does the focus give? Does this focus fire an event for another country or give you the reward directly? Is the reward interesting enough to make you want to pick the focus (we have not always succeeded here - Women in Aviation, I'm looking at you)? What focuses should be mutually exclusive to others? Under what conditions can the focus be picked? Can the player actually achieve these conditions before the focus becomes irrelevant due to events in other parts of the world (imagine if China approached France for help against Japan, but could only pick that focus by late 1940 - not much good it does then)? Does going down this focus chain lock you out of important stuff? We schedule about 2-3 work days for this.

Once we have a tree draft (and, once again, podcat has signed off on it), we start implementing. How long this takes obviously depends on how big the tree is, but these days we usually aim for 70 focuses (plus or minus 20). Scripting the basic layout of the tree (focus A leads to focus B and is mutually exclusive with focus C) usually takes about a day including localisation. After that, we start adding the effects, which usually takes about another day or two, not including event chains. These usually take another 2-3 days to script and write the text for.

After that, we are almost done! We just need to add icons (2-3 hours), write the descriptions (2-3 hours), script the AI weights (2 hours for basic, a day for advanced stuff where the AI considers the state of the world), do the historical AI focus list and set up the focus tree for the 39 start (1 hour).

All together, this process takes about two and a half weeks. Then we hand it to QA, who usually find about 20 previously unknown cases where the tree breaks completely (Should China be able to get Burma road supplies if India is not allied to Britain? Should China be allowed to ask for support against a democratic Japan from a democratic US? Should they be allowed to ask for support from a fascist US against a fascist Japan? Should they be allowed if both are fascist, but the US is not in a faction with Japan?) and usually also have opinions about balance and gameplay. Once these cases are accounted for, the tree is done (until it is released, and players find all the edge cases the QA didn't find). So, all in all, I would say about 3 weeks for a focus tree (estimates are, as usual, estimates and stuff happens).

So in short: Yes, we could design a focus tree in half an hour and implement it in an afternoon. We try not to.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Perhaps this is as good a spot to explain our process as any.

What @Black_Shade did was what we call the initial pitch. Its a very short document of a handful of bullet points, to see if it is even feasible to make an interesting focus tree, and if so, what the core events and narrative chains should be (a narrative chain is something like the German coup chain for South Africa, or each of the "warplan" lines for the USA). Obviously, historical events are center stage here, but we also like to include some interesting ahistorical alternatives (for China, approaching different countries for support against Japan is an obvious one, but perhaps the Nationalist Chinese would be willing to trade territory for Japanese help against the warlords?). This usually takes us about half an hour on wikipedia. This is just the first step, though.

After we have made an initial pitch (and @podcat thinks its cool enough to warrant further work - we have had countries fail this stage), we start the in-depth research. There we focus, obviously, on what happened historically and see if we can find any other hooks for ahistorical storylines (treaties proposed but not signed, politicians sidelined by internal struggles, tanks designed but not built). We also look at economic development, both to give some flavor to the industry branch and to add some new design companies (because usually, we don't just make a focus tree, we rework and flesh out the entire country). This takes about a week.

After we are done with that, we start drafting the tree. That means we try and look at how we are going to turn our storyline ideas into focus tree branches. Balance is an issue, of course, but also stuff like the historical timing - Germany should be in a position where they are about to declare war on Poland (that is, finishing the "Danzig or War" focus) in late summer 1939. This requires a lot of boring detail work - in what states are we going to put new industry? What technologies do we give research bonuses for and when? What new features are we going to add in the expansion, and how are we going to integrate them into the focus tree? Which wargoals does the focus give? Does this focus fire an event for another country or give you the reward directly? Is the reward interesting enough to make you want to pick the focus (we have not always succeeded here - Women in Aviation, I'm looking at you)? What focuses should be mutually exclusive to others? Under what conditions can the focus be picked? Can the player actually achieve these conditions before the focus becomes irrelevant due to events in other parts of the world (imagine if China approached France for help against Japan, but could only pick that focus by late 1940 - not much good it does then)? Does going down this focus chain lock you out of important stuff? We schedule about 2-3 work days for this.

Once we have a tree draft (and, once again, podcat has signed off on it), we start implementing. How long this takes obviously depends on how big the tree is, but these days we usually aim for 70 focuses (plus or minus 20). Scripting the basic layout of the tree (focus A leads to focus B and is mutually exclusive with focus C) usually takes about a day including localisation. After that, we start adding the effects, which usually takes about another day or two, not including event chains. These usually take another 2-3 days to script and write the text for.

After that, we are almost done! We just need to add icons (2-3 hours), write the descriptions (2-3 hours), script the AI weights (2 hours for basic, a day for advanced stuff where the AI considers the state of the world), do the historical AI focus list and set up the focus tree for the 39 start (1 hour).

All together, this process takes about two and a half weeks. Then we hand it to QA, who usually find about 20 previously unknown cases where the tree breaks completely (Should China be able to get Burma road supplies if India is not allied to Britain? Should China be allowed to ask for support against a democratic Japan from a democratic US? Should they be allowed to ask for support from a fascist US against a fascist Japan? Should they be allowed if both are fascist, but the US is not in a faction with Japan?) and usually also have opinions about balance and gameplay. Once these cases are accounted for, the tree is done (until it is released, and players find all the edge cases the QA didn't find). So, all in all, I would say about 3 weeks for a focus tree (estimates are, as usual, estimates and stuff happens).

So in short: Yes, we could design a focus tree in half an hour and implement it in an afternoon. We try not to.

IMO you could put this in the next DD too so everyone can read it, because it's really interesting and many have expressed interest in reading more insights into how the development works and how much effort goes into it.

 

[Axe99]

IMO you could put this in the next DD too so everyone can read it, because it's really interesting and many have expressed interest in reading more insights into how the development works and how much effort goes into it.

+1 to this - it's a DD-quality post imo (although please give us the normal DD as well ) - but I think it's well worth getting out to a wider audience - I found it a very interesting and illuminating read, and I was already coming from the angle of 'focus trees take a lot of time and effort' .

 

[Black_Shade]

Think I may have the definite answer here on this question.

Paradox announced they have crossed the 500,000 threshold in copies of HOI4 sold this week.

As they popped the champagne in the office one of them probably looked at this thread still going and had a good chuckle.

The base game for HoI4 is pretty good (particularly the production/varient+division design system are amazing). The air and naval combat is mediocre, but it functions. The biggest glaring flaw is the AI, which has a myriad of problems. Luckily, almost all of those problems are fixed by expert AI mod, aside from troop allocation+battleplan AI issues, and turns HoI4 from a pretty good game into a great game. This is reflected in the sales and the reviews for the main game.

This doesn't mean that TFV isn't overpriced, though. TFV and the base game are different things. TFV is deserving of all the poor reviews it gets, just as much as the base game is deserving of the positive reviews and the volume of sales it's receiving. Presumably Paradox wants to keep making money off of the game, and so making sure that the DLCs are of high quality (the quality of TFV is fine) and good value (this is where TFV suffers) to entice people to buy them, or entice new customers to buy the base game and several DLCs. Poor reviews on the DLC might affect a new customers decision to buy the base game, so it's in Paradox's best interest to try and make sure the DLCs are well received. If TFV was $10 (I guess going lower than this isn't an option since all the cosmetic DLC is bundled with it ), I have a feeling the reviews would be a lot better.

 

[Black_Shade]

Perhaps this is as good a spot to explain our process as any.

What @Black_Shade did was what we call the initial pitch. Its a very short document of a handful of bullet points, to see if it is even feasible to make an interesting focus tree, and if so, what the core events and narrative chains should be (a narrative chain is something like the German coup chain for South Africa, or each of the "warplan" lines for the USA). Obviously, historical events are center stage here, but we also like to include some interesting ahistorical alternatives (for China, approaching different countries for support against Japan is an obvious one, but perhaps the Nationalist Chinese would be willing to trade territory for Japanese help against the warlords?). This usually takes us about half an hour on wikipedia. This is just the first step, though.

After we have made an initial pitch (and @podcat thinks its cool enough to warrant further work - we have had countries fail this stage), we start the in-depth research. There we focus, obviously, on what happened historically and see if we can find any other hooks for ahistorical storylines (treaties proposed but not signed, politicians sidelined by internal struggles, tanks designed but not built). We also look at economic development, both to give some flavor to the industry branch and to add some new design companies (because usually, we don't just make a focus tree, we rework and flesh out the entire country). This takes about a week.

After we are done with that, we start drafting the tree. That means we try and look at how we are going to turn our storyline ideas into focus tree branches. Balance is an issue, of course, but also stuff like the historical timing - Germany should be in a position where they are about to declare war on Poland (that is, finishing the "Danzig or War" focus) in late summer 1939. This requires a lot of boring detail work - in what states are we going to put new industry? What technologies do we give research bonuses for and when? What new features are we going to add in the expansion, and how are we going to integrate them into the focus tree? Which wargoals does the focus give? Does this focus fire an event for another country or give you the reward directly? Is the reward interesting enough to make you want to pick the focus (we have not always succeeded here - Women in Aviation, I'm looking at you)? What focuses should be mutually exclusive to others? Under what conditions can the focus be picked? Can the player actually achieve these conditions before the focus becomes irrelevant due to events in other parts of the world (imagine if China approached France for help against Japan, but could only pick that focus by late 1940 - not much good it does then)? Does going down this focus chain lock you out of important stuff? We schedule about 2-3 work days for this.

Once we have a tree draft (and, once again, podcat has signed off on it), we start implementing. How long this takes obviously depends on how big the tree is, but these days we usually aim for 70 focuses (plus or minus 20). Scripting the basic layout of the tree (focus A leads to focus B and is mutually exclusive with focus C) usually takes about a day including localisation. After that, we start adding the effects, which usually takes about another day or two, not including event chains. These usually take another 2-3 days to script and write the text for.

After that, we are almost done! We just need to add icons (2-3 hours), write the descriptions (2-3 hours), script the AI weights (2 hours for basic, a day for advanced stuff where the AI considers the state of the world), do the historical AI focus list and set up the focus tree for the 39 start (1 hour).

All together, this process takes about two and a half weeks. Then we hand it to QA, who usually find about 20 previously unknown cases where the tree breaks completely (Should China be able to get Burma road supplies if India is not allied to Britain? Should China be allowed to ask for support against a democratic Japan from a democratic US? Should they be allowed to ask for support from a fascist US against a fascist Japan? Should they be allowed if both are fascist, but the US is not in a faction with Japan?) and usually also have opinions about balance and gameplay. Once these cases are accounted for, the tree is done (until it is released, and players find all the edge cases the QA didn't find). So, all in all, I would say about 3 weeks for a focus tree (estimates are, as usual, estimates and stuff happens).

So in short: Yes, we could design a focus tree in half an hour and implement it in an afternoon. We try not to.

This is a great post to see how you all work on things.

 

[Theodorian]

Having played it for a few hours, I can say unabashedly that The Great War mod has better national focus trees than vanilla HOI4. Go see for yourself.