HOI4 Dev Diary - Bag of Tricks #1

[Dan1109]

Well, I have paid 2 focking cents, that $0.02, per hour of game time. Who cares if this or that feature is free for not. The point is you got your $40 worth at launch, like it or not. The rest is called sustainment. At least this model lets them fund the sustainment. If you can't afford $25/year for your favorite form of entertainment, with similar hourly costs based on your use, then don't buy so many games, get a job (a decent paying job will pay for the year's DLCs in an hour), order 1 less pizza per year, buy one less bottle of booze per year. It's called sacrifice. Too much time and not enough income is not a good combination.

That's one thing Millenials and GenXer's were not taught by their parents: NOTHING IS FREE.

 

[adam_grif]

As someone who never plays MP, I have absolutely zero use for pinging.

As someone who never plays Czechoslovakia I have no use for the CZE focus tree, but the DLC packs are always a mixture of things that I do want and do not want. That's ok. Both the minimap and pinging are paid content - I'm arguing that it really should not be the case that the minimap (which is a feature in every other paradox game I can think of and all past HoI games) is paid content. It's an extremely bad look. In the past I've defended things like tech sharing, the battle log and licensed production being DLC content because they were implemented very differently in previous games. But a minimap in a paradox game is an extremely basic usability feature.

I'm not being a drama queen, I'm not boycotting the game, I'm not saying the game is unplayable without it, I'm not furious, I'm not saying this is a slippery slope to doom. I'm simply saying I think this specific decision to make the mini map paid content is both bad for the customers and bad for their own PR. If they're worried the content isn't meaty enough to warrant the price tag without a minimap, if this was the difference between "possibly enough content" and "not enough content", then the proposed paid content must be pretty slim pickings.

Well, I have paid 2 focking cents, that $0.02, per hour of game time. Who cares if this or that feature is free for not. The point is you got your $40 worth at launch, like it or not. The rest is called sustainment. At least this model lets them fund the sustainment. If you can't afford $25/year for your favorite form of entertainment, with similar hourly costs based on your use, then don't buy so many games, get a job (a decent paying job will pay for the year's DLCs in an hour), order 1 less pizza per year, buy one less bottle of booze per year. It's called sacrifice. Too much time and not enough income is not a good combination.

That's one thing Millenials and GenXer's were not taught by their parents: NOTHING IS FREE.

I own the Field Marshall edition, this literally does not affect me one way or the other. One thing that your generation obviously wasn't taught - principles, empathy, and civility.

 

[CrazyZombie]

As someone who never plays Czechoslovakia I have no use for the CZE focus tree, but the DLC packs are always a mixture of things that I do want and do not want. That's ok. Both the minimap and pinging are paid content - I'm arguing that it really should not be the case that the minimap (which is a feature in every other paradox game I can think of and all past HoI games) is paid content. It's an extremely bad look. In the past I've defended things like tech sharing, the battle log and licensed production being DLC content because they were implemented very differently in previous games. But a minimap in a paradox game is an extremely basic usability feature.

I'm not being a drama queen, I'm not boycotting the game, I'm not saying the game is unplayable without it, I'm not furious, I'm not saying this is a slippery slope to doom. I'm simply saying I think this specific decision to make the mini map paid content is both bad for the customers and bad for their own PR. If they're worried the content isn't meaty enough to warrant the price tag without a minimap, if this was the difference between "possibly enough content" and "not enough content", then the proposed paid content must be pretty slim pickings.

HOI4 dev team sometimes seems to understand wrong, what exact features should be free, added in updates, and what should be paid. Chain of command could be paid, while minimap is something free.

Still, PDX games are not something that can be played without having all DLCs, as pure vanilla is something more like "base of the game" than the game itself. It is their policy and while they continue support of their products, doing that way longer than a lot AAA-games "live", I stay more or less loyal to them.

Anyway, we will need a couple more big updates to see at least major problems fixed, like odd naval warfare or idiotic major AI, unable simply to rationally follow it's railroaded focus trees.

 

[adam_grif]

HOI4 dev team sometimes seems to understand wrong, what exact features should be free, added in updates, and what should be paid. Chain of command could be paid, while minimap is something free.

Still, PDX games are not something that can be played without having all DLCs, as pure vanilla is something more like "base of the game" than the game itself. It is their policy and while they continue support of their products, doing that way longer than a lot AAA-games "live", I stay more or less loyal to them.

Based on their general policies I don't think they could have made Chain of Command a paid feature - it is not really something they could switch on/off easily because it is a change to underlying game systems. I don't begrudge them for having to make tough choices, but the minimap is one of their real head-scratchers.

I also don't hate their business model generally. I think it's one of the better (overall) ones in modern times, because there is no gambling element like loot boxes, the player base isn't split with incompatibilities like old expansion packs of yore, everyone in multiplayer can play together, and people who don't purchase updates still get all the bug fixes and quite a few improvements. That's great! I bought the FM edition of HoI4 and I buy a lot of the expansions for other games too. I defend their policy in general, and have gone to bat for some decisions that were very unpopular but I felt were at least somewhat reasonable. But that doesn't mean I won't criticize specific bad decisions they make as part of this policy.

 

[Ironside121]

Since the diplomacy and war merging code has been changed- have you removed the stupidest thing that was put into the game- Auto Faction Joining?

 

[Had a dad]

Based on their general policies I don't think they could have made Chain of Command a paid feature - it is not really something they could switch on/off easily because it is a change to underlying game systems

oh, from a programming stance it most certainly could be easily turned on and off... objects are objects...

 

[adam_grif]

oh, from a programming stance it most certainly could be easily turned on and off... objects are objects...

Only if they wanted to maintain two separate versions of the battle planner and leader system. They're reworking how general traits, battle-plans and combat bonuses work and removing FM's abilities to command troops directly in the way they used to do it. It would be much less convenient for them to go down that path and they have made statements in the past to effect that they prefer to make underlying engine/gameplay changes free because it makes the modular aspect much easier. When they rip out this much of the guts of the old system they don't want to keep it all around as legacy code just in case you don't have the DLC, it's much more clean and convenient to do it the other way around, have cosmetics, focus trees and other conveniently modular systems be the ones that are enabled by DLC.

 

[CrazyZombie]

Based on their general policies I don't think they could have made Chain of Command a paid feature - it is not really something they could switch on/off easily because it is a change to underlying game systems. I don't begrudge them for having to make tough choices, but the minimap is one of their real head-scratchers.

I also don't hate their business model generally. I think it's one of the better (overall) ones in modern times, because there is no gambling element like loot boxes, the player base isn't split with incompatibilities like old expansion packs of yore, everyone in multiplayer can play together, and people who don't purchase updates still get all the bug fixes and quite a few improvements. That's great! I bought the FM edition of HoI4 and I buy a lot of the expansions for other games too. I defend their policy in general, and have gone to bat for some decisions that were very unpopular but I felt were at least somewhat reasonable. But that doesn't mean I won't criticize specific bad decisions they make as part of this policy.

Well, what I honestly dislike in HOI4 is that it feels a bit "poor" in comparison with for example Stellaris. Yes, I know, a bit different genres, different mechanics, different development teams. But!
Both games have started in more or less same time. But Stellaris "lore" part is expanded pretty fast (lore and immersion is something, I find pretty important) while HOI4 is spinning more around small additions like licensing (which anyway is not working as it should), autonomy system (well, already better) while most majors lack focus variety, so two playthroughs look pretty similar: Germany will do the same, Britain, Japan, USA, Italy, Soviet Union. "Alt-historical focuses" option doesn't help as technically it changes only order, AI will pick focuses.

I'd like to see adequate diplomacy - that is game about WW2 and last years of peace were full of different combinations and attempts to achieve wanted results by peaceful means. I was supporting solution with chain of command when it existed only as forum suggestion - but I'm still worried about future expansion of commanders, as PDX sometimes make pretty odd mistakes with taking anachronistic photos/pictures as a base for the portraits or picking no-name people while missing a lot important persons of the time (I've already created a topic in "suggestions" sub-forum but not sure about any result).
I'd like to see more complex tech trees, not just "3 lvls of everything". Maybe even something "a-la Stellaris" with creating vehicles from researched modules - which could also add a lot more immersion and balance to variant system as current "max everything" is not very satisfactory, and current trees are pure abstraction.
Maybe more complex home policy - not just setting 3 advisors for ages to buff your industry.

There is a lot, I'd like to see in HOI4. Devs are going into right direction, but too slow, as it feels.

 

[Axe99]

@podcat @Archangel85 @KimchiViking please be aware that the reception to the minimap being part of the DLC is overwhelmingly negative on both r/hoi4 and r/paradoxplaza. It's also not very good here. I would strongly recommend reconsidering the decision to include that feature as part of the paid content, even if for no reason other than cynical PR management. Even if that means we get a minimap for free but pinging is paid (to my knowledge we've never had pinging before) that would be an improvement. You were all doing so damn well with the dev diaries up to this point and locking something as fundamentally basic as a minimap has lost you a fair chunk of that goodwill from the community.

I understand the pressure to include features as part of the DLC since so many big changes are coming for free (and you need to make up the $25 price point to fulfill the contract with consumers you made with the season pass) but this is Blitz all over again - actually arguably less defensible than Blitz because at least that was a feature we'd never had before.

I'd argue (again, as someone who'd buy the DLC as long as it was tangentially related to WW2, and has the Field Marshal pack so can happily argue as a disinterested individual - I have no stake in this either ) that spearhead/blitz was more of a concern being DLC, as it's a gameplay mechanic, and so if the devs want to build on it as a gameplay mechanic it has to be through DLC, and has to be balanced with a 'game without spearhead' as well. Beyond the QoL and faster navigation (in a pausable game), the minimap shouldn't cause a lot of trouble

I also don't buy the "it's been in past games at launch, but it's DLC now" argument. It quite clearly wasn't in HoI4 at launch, so the only way we're going to get it in is with post-launch financing of development for it to be included in the game. In HoI3, everything under this banner after Semper Fi* was released was behind a paywall (in that all expansions and patches built on past DLC, so if you didn't get Semper Fi, then there were no new features, no bug fixes and whatnot. If we were really going on past precedent, we'd be paying for everything - although I doubt many over at reddit are arguing for that .

An important point to keep in mind is that, technically speaking, people relying on the free patches are free riding off those buying the DLC. Given this, I'm not sure they have a particularly strong foundation upon which to base a principles-based argument. I doubt Paradox would go down this path, but there would be noting wrong, ethically, with them charging for everything that was produced, outside of 'game is broken and needs fixing**' patches. The current model is good PR, and very generous (unless you're one of the people buying the DLC and subsidising the free riders), and I think a sound business model, but if the complaints got so loud it became bad PR, the rational (and perfectly fair) decision may look like putting everything behind DLC again***.

More broadly, it'd be a lot easier if (by the sound of it, I don't frequent those parts, I've only swung by every now and again when I've heard there was something interesting over there, and I know there's plenty of good there to) a lot of peeps over at reddit didn't blow up over ever second 'DLC' decision or what-have-you. Makes it hard to tease out the real issues from that part of the reddit community just going off again. This may be one of those 'real issues' moments, or maybe it's a quiet week at reddit and people are being people - although I'm guessing it must have got fairly ugly over there if you posted this over here .

In that context, if it really is that bad, then there may be value in adjusting what is paid/not paid, in the interest of customer satisfaction, but the reddit crowd doesn't have a leg to stand on in a principled argument sense - they're just people shouting loud and hoping they get heard (who, by the sound of it, don't want to pay for the DLC and want someone else to cover the cost of the new features they're particularly interested in).

* The first HoI3 DLC, unless my brain's having a moment - if it is, please substitute Semper Fi in this sentence with whatever it was.
** Here I mean properly broken, not "Germany invades France before Denmark, it's not like WW2, the game is broken"
*** Luckily for everyone who likes the DLC business model, I don't work for Paradox .

me either... little known fact, podcat does find it amusing if you show up outside his window with "mini map" on your bum, however it will cause you to end up in jail, and he won't post bail for you...

Pics or it didn't happen

I can't believe that people are disagreeing with this post, he is ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.

It is absolutely INEXCUSABLE to lock the mini-map behind a paywall. Your genre of games are referred to as "map starring" games after all, what kind of corporate cash grab would motivate you to cut off poorer players from quality of life improvements? DLC after DLC, Paradox is becoming more like EA games. Stop the anti-consumer practices while you still can and your fan-base will be eating out of your hand. Otherwise, you may have an even bigger forum riot than the whole Blitz command fiasco.

I'd argue it's inexcusable to dictate to someone selling something that isn't a public good/regulated utility what they can and can't sell it for, and what they can and can't sell. If we were to move to an economic model where customers or someone else could dictate what was/wasn't included in which pricing model, how would you suggest we model it? Have a Government authority managing consumer votes or something?

I'm simply saying I think this specific decision to make the mini map paid content is both bad for the customers and bad for their own PR. If they're worried the content isn't meaty enough to warrant the price tag without a minimap, if this was the difference between "possibly enough content" and "not enough content", then the proposed paid content must be pretty slim pickings.

I'm not sure how we can argue the measure is bad for consumers. We know from testing (and feedback in this thread) that not everyone wants a minimap. We know that DLC is optional. We know that something has to go in the DLC or the business model falls down and there's no more HoI4 development. When products are made available in segments such that people are better able to buy and not buy what is appropriate for them, that's pro-consumer - and Paradox's approach here is very pro-consumer (and far more so than any previous Hearts of Iron game).

One thing that your generation obviously wasn't taught - principles, empathy, and civility.

The people making a song and dance about anything being free rather than paid aren't exactly standing in terribly strong position from a perspective of principles (a more equitable model would arguably involve everyone paying for what they use, not non-DLC users free-riding off the benefits of the people that buy DLC) and empathy (understanding that developing games actually takes time, effort and resources). You've done a great job with civility here, but I'd bet pretty good money from what I've seen in this thread that if I swung past reddit, there may be some comments lacking in civility there as well .

Sorry to ramble on a bit - it's not directed at you (I know you're just 'surfacing the issue', and anything but ranting and raving - you're being very good about how you're arguing your case ) - I just don't think in a private market anyone should be able to dictate to someone selling something that isn't a 'subsistence good' (and while awesome, WW2 GSGs are hardly necessary - they're a luxury item) what they include in their DLC. At the end of the day, I don't see how the "Minimaps should be free" camp isn't, in effect, arguing "you should be giving me what I want for free and if you're not you're in the wrong" - which when applied more broadly to the production and distribution of goods and services is unlikely to work terribly well.

 

[FulmenTheFinn]

As someone who never plays MP, I have absolutely zero use for pinging.

How do you enjoy this game in SP? What's your secret?

 

[CrazyZombie]

How do you enjoy this game in SP? What's your secret?

Ability to play "immersive" role-playing game, without various exploits and max-effective tactics like Superior firepower+division template of all times and etc.

Not ideal at all, but working. Game is not spinning all around MP.

 

[coffeelingfine]

I really think some like to exaggerate how "broken" the single player is. I've put over 500 hours into it and never felt that it was broken lol.

It's not perfect but it's perfectly playable.

 

[FulmenTheFinn]

exploits and max-effective tactics like Superior firepower+division template of all times and etc.

You don't need to do any of these things to capitulate AI Germany in 1939 as the UK for example.

If you restrict yourself to 100% historical templates, doctrines, laws, research choices etc. (meanwhile the AI does not restrict itself to such things) and give the AI a lot of cheats, allowing them to field millions more men than historically, then maybe you won't win the game in 1939. But does that feel like a WW2 game anymore; Germany with hundreds of divisions in September 1939? And is it fun to intentionally remain on toaster economy till WW2 just to give the terrible AI an edge? Maybe some people enjoy that kind of thing, but I certainly don't.

 

[Axe99]

You don't need to do any of these things to capitulate AI Germany in 1939 as the UK for example.

If you restrict yourself to 100% historical templates, doctrines, laws, research choices etc. (meanwhile the AI does not restrict itself to such things) and give the AI a lot of cheats, allowing them to field millions more men than historically, then maybe you won't win the game in 1939. But does that feel like a WW2 game anymore; Germany with hundreds of divisions in September 1939? And is it fun to intentionally remain on toaster economy till WW2 just to give the terrible AI an edge? Maybe some people enjoy that kind of thing, but I certainly don't.

If you can capitulate Germany playing as Australia with historical doctrines, laws, research choices and templates, hats off to you . I've put over 700 hours into SP by now (I don't play MP either) and there's a lot of fun to be had. The defines have been tweaked in a way I think reduces Germany's preference for suiciding itself on the Maginot line (in my latest game, Germany and France were at war for a year, with neither the low countries and Italy involved, and both sensibly didn't launch any offensives, and just glared at each other over the border, lol), and it's generally an enjoyable game. I also very much enjoy playing vanilla as well, but I didn't spend a year modding in historic ship stats not to spend most of my time playing that.

Playing as Yugoslavia, I lost twice in a row - fun, but a little humbling! If you can capitulate Germany as Yugoslavia in 1939, with broadly historical diplomatic and other progression (and a quick trip to the console to turn off any surprise wars with Britain....) then I'll take more than my hat off .

I'm no pro gamer, but I'm also hardly new to strategy games, HoI or HoI4 - there's plenty of fun to be had in SP at least for a certain type of gamer. I fully recognise it may not hold enough challenge for all though, and I'm not in any way trying to suggest your experience is invalid or anything like that .

 

[him_15]

I never care about which new feature is belong to DLC or free update, as I am going to but it anyway. For anyone who has a proper job the cost is just effectively a couple of hours salary.

 

[Jamey]

A minimap is something HOI4 was designed to live without, but there is clearly a part of the community that really miss it, so you can now get it as part of the DLC if you want.

The minimap is a really basic gameplay feature. I get that it probably was a somewhat expensive feature to implement (especially with the extra bells and whistles of map pinging that are irrelevant for me in SP), but I also feel that it was a design flaw that it wasn't included in the first place.

In short, I'm disappointed. This is the first time that I've felt that a basic feature of a PDS game I have played has been added in a for pay DLC. The minimap has been a constant (and useful) feature in virtually ever PDS game that I have played. Stellaris and HOI4 were the only exceptions.

 

[adam_grif]

I'd argue (again, as someone who'd buy the DLC as long as it was tangentially related to WW2, and has the Field Marshal pack so can happily argue as a disinterested individual - I have no stake in this either ) that spearhead/blitz was more of a concern being DLC, as it's a gameplay mechanic, and so if the devs want to build on it as a gameplay mechanic it has to be through DLC, and has to be balanced with a 'game without spearhead' as well. Beyond the QoL and faster navigation (in a pausable game), the minimap shouldn't cause a lot of trouble

I also don't buy the "it's been in past games at launch, but it's DLC now" argument. It quite clearly wasn't in HoI4 at launch, so the only way we're going to get it in is with post-launch financing of development for it to be included in the game. In HoI3, everything under this banner after Semper Fi* was released was behind a paywall (in that all expansions and patches built on past DLC, so if you didn't get Semper Fi, then there were no new features, no bug fixes and whatnot. If we were really going on past precedent, we'd be paying for everything - although I doubt many over at reddit are arguing for that .

As I stated previously, I'm not arguing the merits of the DLC strategy overall. It's just a few specific choices I take umbrage with. They've already set out to make a certain portion of updates free and a certain portion as not free. A minimap may not have shipped with HoI4, but it did ship with every other of Paradox's games (except Stellaris which is essentially a different genre all-together and the galaxy-map makes that functionality redundant) and all prior Hearts of Iron games - all the way back to Hearts of Iron 1.

Why would I, as a consumer, be happy about buying functionality that all previous games in the series had, and even the company's other competing series have? It appears as if they stripped something out of the game and then charged me to add it back. Something some people absolutely did want (you can find threads asking for it going back years). Not adding it back in at least would have told you that they were being consistent with their design decisions. Adding it back into the patch would have told you that they acknowledge that something of value was lost, and they've come around on it (for design reasons, not technical reasons - there was never any obstacle to it's inclusion). But to charge for it looks like nothin' but ol' greed. Like they took it out so they could sell it back separately. That's the signal it sends to the consumer and that's exactly the message received on the paradox reddits (which are larger communities than here, I might add, with ~35k people following r/paradoxplaza!).

An important point to keep in mind is that, technically speaking, people relying on the free patches are free riding off those buying the DLC. Given this, I'm not sure they have a particularly strong foundation upon which to base a principles-based argument. I doubt Paradox would go down this path, but there would be noting wrong, ethically, with them charging for everything that was produced, outside of 'game is broken and needs fixing**' patches. The current model is good PR, and very generous (unless you're one of the people buying the DLC and subsidising the free riders), and I think a sound business model, but if the complaints got so loud it became bad PR, the rational (and perfectly fair) decision may look like putting everything behind DLC again***.

It's generous in the sense that somebody can in principle get years of updates at no extra cost. It's greedy in the sense that they are making a king's ransom by charging the people who do pay for these (note: I am one of these people, and I own the Field Marshall edition) more than they're worth (there have been some garbage DLC packs over the years, and frankly none of the ones so far for Hoi4 have been great value) and releasing DLC packs at a furious pace for years. And it's worked out great for them, they're a slender and highly profitable company that has been expanding for several years.

But I don't think you're totally right on the PR front. I mean at first, it's definitely the case that there was a honeymoon with gamers, say 2012-2015. But that's effectively over now. The regional pricing change just a few months ago was quite a hammer blow to the goodwill the company had, and for HoI4 specifically they've been shedding good will steadily since launch. The Season Pass was a bit of a question mark but people had little reason to doubt paradox at the time. Then the game launched in - let's be honest - a pretty bad state. The technical side of things has been one step forward one step back, late game lag is severe, the AI has gotten better but is still quite bad overall, and a lot of people were unsatisfied by a broad reduction in complexity. It's not just r/paradoxplaza and r/hoi4, we get threads here too with "Why so greedy paradox?", people complaining about things both general and specific. The first two DLCs that HoI4 had angered people quite a bit, which you probably noticed, and it was worse elsewhere - this community is generally quite pro-paradox, as you'd expect from an official forum.

although I'm guessing it must have got fairly ugly over there if you posted this over here .

Yeah it got really ugly. Here are some choice highlights:

Absolutely criminal that they lock the minimap behind a paywall. I can't believe people condone this, it's an even worse business practice than EA.

There are no excuses for Paradox to do this, it is a cash grab pure and simple. Although they really don't need that considering all the money that they make from their other games. These anti-consumer practices need to stop before Paradox loses the support of its community.

Am I reading this right? We have to buy DLC for map?

Hearts of Iron 4 is way to focused for Paradox’s DLC model. It makes it feel like a early access game that you have to pay for the updates. I can’t believe after a year delay this is what we got.

Fuck this company. DLC Minimap... I mean really how fucking blatantly greedy can you be? I assume their next game will just be a title screen and you have to buy the DLC to get the actual game.

Minimap as a DLC feature? I hope this is a joke.

Why on earth are mini maps part of DLC?

I don't know why it sets me off, but that was something in HoI3. Making it DLC only just seems strange.

I feel that DLCs should consist of novel content, not reheated QoL stuff from a previous game.

Some of these (and the others I didn't copy over) got as many as 80 "points" (meaning ~80 people +1ing the post on average).

I'd argue it's inexcusable to dictate to someone selling something that isn't a public good/regulated utility what they can and can't sell it for, and what they can and can't sell. If we were to move to an economic model where customers or someone else could dictate what was/wasn't included in which pricing model, how would you suggest we model it? Have a Government authority managing consumer votes or something?

Nobody is arguing legalities and nobody is dictating as we have no power to enforce such things. Just as Paradox has a legal right to sell whatever configuration of the games they please for whatever price they please, we have a legal right to criticize their business practices. Even within the much narrower scope of the Terms of Service on this very message board we're well within the local rules to be doing so.

 

[One Proud Bavarian]

Really gotta say - merging units and minimap as DLC features?

Far from amazed by this.

 

[FulmenTheFinn]

in my latest game, Germany and France were at war for a year, with neither the low countries and Italy involved, and both sensibly didn't launch any offensives, and just glared at each other over the border, lol

It's nonsensical AI stupidity like this that's a huge immersion-breaker for me.

Sure you can give the AI cheats, play a smaller country, handicap yourself by making poor gameplay decisions etc. Just generally making the game more tedious and micro-intensive for yourself while the AI still derps just like before, except with ten times the units. Personally for me that doesn't feel very immersive at that point. And I think one of the big reasons people play WW2 GSGs is to try and get that feeling of immersion. But I and most of the players I know that play this game just can't get that feeling against the AI.

But if it works for you, then good for you I guess.

 

[NilsFabian]

When you can kick someone from the faction. Can you do it while at war and what happens to his war participation. Also it would be nice to sign seperate peace and leave a war without much damage to yourself