What happens with 2/3 of the reported bugs (the ones without visible response)?

[Dojo704]

Hey all,

We currently have a lot of reported bugs, in my view a positive sign of our active and responsive hoi4 community. However lots of them get no visible response and once they are on the second, third, fourth page, they seem to be off the map completely. Is this only my impression or reality?

I dont want to sound too negative or demanding but there are some very important ones in my eyes, like the ones showing that some existing modifiers do not work (which always has the taste of wondering if there are more of that kind), non land casualties not being counted, focus tree landgrabs not checking the actual current owners and so on...

It sure seems a little disappointing to see many bugs with a 2022 or 2023 posting-date to reappear on the front page because no one took care of them.

Thank you for reading

 

[lilcritt]

It's genuinely helpful to have that kind of longform insight into the process, and I do appreciate your engagement here. That said, at the risk of sounding like a broken record (and of you getting tired of seeing my username)...

And that, honestly, accounts for most of the problem you’re seeing I think.

This is where you start to lose me a bit. I think the OP is, whether intentionally or not, using the number of reported bugs both literally and symbolically, as a reflection of broader frustration with the bugfixing process. It’s much easier to point to a backlog of untouched bug reports than to repeatedly say, "I’ve run into old bugs, why hasn’t Paradox fixed them?" even though we see that sentiment often.

If, as you say, most of those reports are invalid due to duplication, missing detail, or user error, that should be reflected in the overall player experience. But the growing number of upvoted posts and comments in dev diaries highlighting persistent problems tells a different story. The perception that bugfixing is slow or inconsistent is not coming out of nowhere. It shows up in the above bug metrics, the forums, Reddit, and elsewhere. And frankly, it’s hard to trust that the same team who thought GoE was ready for release is thoroughly vetting and addressing bug reports behind the scenes accurately.

Take Italy’s broken balance of power system as an example. It took 2+ years to fix, despite being tied to a major DLC and affecting one of the major WW2 nations. Players spotted the issue immediately, as would anyone who played it for more than a few minutes. I remember posts about it shortly after release. One bug report from March 2023 was confirmed about six months later, and the fix didn’t arrive until mid-2024. That’s a long time for a fundamental and widely known issue to go unaddressed. I’m sure most players could list several similar examples just as frustrating.

I appreciate that the development process is complex. But at the end of the day, something clearly isn’t working. It’s hard to accept that the growing frustration from players is simply a misunderstanding. We are the ones playing the game. We see the bugs, read the forums, and participate in these communities. The disconnect between the developers and the players is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Communication helps, but only if it leads to meaningful action. Otherwise, it just feels performative. GoE was the flashing warning sign that a real pause and reevaluation was needed. Instead, the response was underwhelming.

As I’ve said before, these issues aren’t isolated. They compound. little to no QoL updates, obvious bugs are missed, fixes take too long, underwhelming and overpriced DLCs release while core problems remain unresolved, and promises to address concerns often go unfulfilled. There’s a saying: good, fast, cheap - pick two. Right now, it feels like we’re getting none.

 

[benb41]

It's genuinely helpful to have that kind of longform insight into the process, and I do appreciate your engagement here. That said, at the risk of sounding like a broken record (and of you getting tired of seeing my username)...



This is where you start to lose me a bit. I think the OP is, whether intentionally or not, using the number of reported bugs both literally and symbolically, as a reflection of broader frustration with the bugfixing process. It’s much easier to point to a backlog of untouched bug reports than to repeatedly say, "I’ve run into old bugs, why hasn’t Paradox fixed them?" even though we see that sentiment often.

If, as you say, most of those reports are invalid due to duplication, missing detail, or user error, that should be reflected in the overall player experience. But the growing number of upvoted posts and comments in dev diaries highlighting persistent problems tells a different story. The perception that bugfixing is slow or inconsistent is not coming out of nowhere. It shows up in the above bug metrics, the forums, Reddit, and elsewhere. And frankly, it’s hard to trust that the same team who thought GoE was ready for release is thoroughly vetting and addressing bug reports behind the scenes accurately.

Take Italy’s broken balance of power system as an example. It took 2+ years to fix, despite being tied to a major DLC and affecting one of the major WW2 nations. Players spotted the issue immediately, as would anyone who played it for more than a few minutes. I remember posts about it shortly after release. One bug report from March 2023 was confirmed about six months later, and the fix didn’t arrive until mid-2024. That’s a long time for a fundamental and widely known issue to go unaddressed. I’m sure most players could list several similar examples just as frustrating.

I appreciate that the development process is complex. But at the end of the day, something clearly isn’t working. It’s hard to accept that the growing frustration from players is simply a misunderstanding. We are the ones playing the game. We see the bugs, read the forums, and participate in these communities. The disconnect between the developers and the players is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Communication helps, but only if it leads to meaningful action. Otherwise, it just feels performative. GoE was the flashing warning sign that a real pause and reevaluation was needed. Instead, the response was underwhelming.

As I’ve said before, these issues aren’t isolated. They compound. little to no QoL updates, obvious bugs are missed, fixes take too long, underwhelming and overpriced DLCs release while core problems remain unresolved, and promises to address concerns often go unfulfilled. There’s a saying: good, fast, cheap - pick two. Right now, it feels like we’re getting none.

Also the optics are pretty bad when they are investing money into DLC for countries that played little role in the war while bugs sit in the game for years.... Do yall remember when they took over a year to fix broken strategic bombers and yet released multiple DLC at the same time? It's all about where the resources are going.

 

[Arheo]

It's genuinely helpful to have that kind of longform insight into the process, and I do appreciate your engagement here. That said, at the risk of sounding like a broken record (and of you getting tired of seeing my username)...



This is where you start to lose me a bit. I think the OP is, whether intentionally or not, using the number of reported bugs both literally and symbolically, as a reflection of broader frustration with the bugfixing process. It’s much easier to point to a backlog of untouched bug reports than to repeatedly say, "I’ve run into old bugs, why hasn’t Paradox fixed them?" even though we see that sentiment often.

If, as you say, most of those reports are invalid due to duplication, missing detail, or user error, that should be reflected in the overall player experience. But the growing number of upvoted posts and comments in dev diaries highlighting persistent problems tells a different story. The perception that bugfixing is slow or inconsistent is not coming out of nowhere. It shows up in the above bug metrics, the forums, Reddit, and elsewhere. And frankly, it’s hard to trust that the same team who thought GoE was ready for release is thoroughly vetting and addressing bug reports behind the scenes accurately.

Take Italy’s broken balance of power system as an example. It took 2+ years to fix, despite being tied to a major DLC and affecting one of the major WW2 nations. Players spotted the issue immediately, as would anyone who played it for more than a few minutes. I remember posts about it shortly after release. One bug report from March 2023 was confirmed about six months later, and the fix didn’t arrive until mid-2024. That’s a long time for a fundamental and widely known issue to go unaddressed. I’m sure most players could list several similar examples just as frustrating.

I appreciate that the development process is complex. But at the end of the day, something clearly isn’t working. It’s hard to accept that the growing frustration from players is simply a misunderstanding. We are the ones playing the game. We see the bugs, read the forums, and participate in these communities. The disconnect between the developers and the players is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Communication helps, but only if it leads to meaningful action. Otherwise, it just feels performative. GoE was the flashing warning sign that a real pause and reevaluation was needed. Instead, the response was underwhelming.

As I’ve said before, these issues aren’t isolated. They compound. little to no QoL updates, obvious bugs are missed, fixes take too long, underwhelming and overpriced DLCs release while core problems remain unresolved, and promises to address concerns often go unfulfilled. There’s a saying: good, fast, cheap - pick two. Right now, it feels like we’re getting none.

I think what I mostly disagree with is the "all or nothing" interpretation of how things are doing. Here you point out some specifics and use them to consistently justify the assertion that nothing is working, and that everything has failed.

Building on HoI is difficult because the aspects that make the game so compelling also make it extremely fault-prone - it's a deep and complex simulation (other GSGs also do this!) with the expectation of extreme timeline and historical railroading (no other GSGs do this to our level). To put it in your terms, that makes it expensive, slow, and difficult to make content for. And like other games, sometimes we just get it wrong. And then it's expensive, slow, difficult, and disappointing. I wouldn't try to defend that - it shouldn't happen. But to conflate all of those things as examples of the same problem is, in my view, reductive.

 

[benb41]

I think what I mostly disagree with is the "all or nothing" interpretation of how things are doing. Here you point out some specifics and use them to consistently justify the assertion that nothing is working, and that everything has failed.

Building on HoI is difficult because the aspects that make the game so compelling also make it extremely fault-prone - it's a deep and complex simulation (other GSGs also do this!) with the expectation of extreme timeline and historical railroading (no other GSGs do this to our level). To put it in your terms, that makes it expensive, slow, and difficult to make content for. And like other games, sometimes we just get it wrong. And then it's expensive, slow, difficult, and disappointing. I wouldn't try to defend that - it shouldn't happen. But to conflate all of those things as examples of the same problem is, in my view, reductive.

After reading your comments, I think the issue that many of us have is 80% communication.

We try our best to report bugs in the bug forum, and then we watch as patch after patch is released without our "pet bug" being addressed. This is the most frustrating thing because it feels like (true or not) that you all don't really care about fixing bugs.

It would help if there was some follow up. If we report a bug, we want to see that it is either being worked on, will be worked on in the near future, or that you need more info from us or others to reproduce and diagnose the problem.

My suggestion is the following:
1. Have a dedicated member/team for the bug report forum.
2. Have a firm and clear process to handling bugs. When one is reported, have a team member add the report to your database within a communicated timeframe and confirm this with the original reporter. Then, follow up with that report. If the bug will not be fixed in the next patch, communicate the reason to us.

 

[herculeanus]

It's very problematic at the moment. The game is very buggy. Many new bugs are reported every day. Most bugs either don't get fixed at all, or it takes months to fix them. When a hotfix does appear, new bugs usually appear (as is the case again now. I just reported a new bug). And the next problem is that these rare hotfixes don't seem to be properly tested. This bug could have been discovered with two minutes of testing.

I don't even feel like reporting bugs anymore, since there are always multiple bugs and they're hardly ever fixed anyway.

And yes, that's very critical. But I've had enough. All I can do is get upset about it.

And then there are such bad DLCs. Or rather, their content.

What's going on with you guys at Paradox right now? Why this poor (sorry) quality? I want to love Hearts of Iron and have fun playing it. But I just don't have that anymore.

 

[ZeDoctor1918]

I think what I mostly disagree with is the "all or nothing" interpretation of how things are doing. Here you point out some specifics and use them to consistently justify the assertion that nothing is working, and that everything has failed.

Has it ever even been considered that maybe you, the dev team, interpret things incorrectly? At what stage of constant issues, disappointing releases, and general negative community sentiment do you have to face the fire and do an honest to goodness self-evaluation that maybe. just maybe, PDX is the ones who are wrong? I've said it numerous times, but what ever happened to that post-GoE postmortem? Assuming that wasn't just a smoke screen to divert criticism, which I believe to be the case but I digress, there still has been no roadmap, no admission of guilt beyond the content being lacking, and no accountability. Surely, eventually, after all else has failed, you have to admit that the community can't be entirely mistaken, and maybe they make some valid points. I do love HoI IV, as I think most of us do otherwise we wouldn't care so much, but this entire situation has torpedoed any faith I have in this game or company and I do not intend to spend any more money on it until there is a serious overhaul. Not just words or promises of such, but until there is very tangible evidence and actions.

 

[Arheo]

Has it ever even been considered that maybe you, the dev team, interpret things incorrectly? At what stage of constant issues, disappointing releases, and general negative community sentiment do you have to face the fire and do an honest to goodness self-evaluation that maybe. just maybe, PDX is the ones who are wrong? I've said it numerous times, but what ever happened to that post-GoE postmortem? Assuming that wasn't just a smoke screen to divert criticism, which I believe to be the case but I digress, there still has been no roadmap, no admission of guilt beyond the content being lacking, and no accountability. Surely, eventually, after all else has failed, you have to admit that the community can't be entirely mistaken, and maybe they make some valid points. I do love HoI IV, as I think most of us do otherwise we wouldn't care so much, but this entire situation has torpedoed any faith I have in this game or company and I do not intend to spend any more money on it until there is a serious overhaul. Not just words or promises of such, but until there is very tangible evidence and actions.

I'm not really sure what you want to hear. If I'm honest it sounds like you want to see heads roll or us pointing the finger at our staff and blaming - that's not going to happen; post-mortems are internal, self-reflective, and driven by a purpose to ensure that we do better. I think it should be pretty clear why the details of that don't happen in the public eye, even if the outcome and intent are: we should do better than GoE's launch state.

But GoE is only one part of HoI's story, and from our perspective, HoI's landscape is not one of "constant issues, disappointing releases, and general negative community sentiment", even if that's the perspective you have on it. That doesn't excuse when things go poorly, but that's why post-mortems and patches happen. There are folks out there actually having a good time with the game, enjoying recent QoL changes and content, or who are disappointed and want it to be improved. None of them are wrong.

 

[lilcritt]

I think what I mostly disagree with is the "all or nothing" interpretation of how things are doing. Here you point out some specifics and use them to consistently justify the assertion that nothing is working, and that everything has failed.

Building on HoI is difficult because the aspects that make the game so compelling also make it extremely fault-prone - it's a deep and complex simulation (other GSGs also do this!) with the expectation of extreme timeline and historical railroading (no other GSGs do this to our level). To put it in your terms, that makes it expensive, slow, and difficult to make content for. And like other games, sometimes we just get it wrong. And then it's expensive, slow, difficult, and disappointing. I wouldn't try to defend that - it shouldn't happen. But to conflate all of those things as examples of the same problem is, in my view, reductive.

I understand there's nuance here. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t still be engaging. But it’s a bit ironic to call my argument reductive while reducing all of this to "it's mostly a (you) player perception problem." That feels just as oversimplified, if not more so, and far more inaccurate.

And that, honestly, accounts for most of the problem you’re seeing I think. Our problem is more one of visibility than ignored problems

Frankly, the idea that this is just a matter of misperception starts to feel like gaslighting. I don’t assume that’s intentional, but we’re not imagining the issues. We see bad releases. We see long-ignored bugs. We see the forums in turmoil, we see overwhelming feedback met with this or 'its optional content,' we see the negative Steam reviews, and broken promises piling up. “Classic Paradox” isn’t a meme born from nowhere - it’s shorthand for years of accumulated frustration. In what other context would this volume of feedback be dismissed so easily? They may all be symptoms of different problems but the customer doesn't know or care if the food is oversalted because of the chef and cold because of the server, we can simply complain its over salted and cold. But they're still problems none-the-less.

If OP points to a general metric, like thousands of unresolved bug reports, it’s brushed off as lacking context. If someone brings up a specific bug that went unaddressed for two years, it’s dismissed as a one-off. If people leave negative reviews, they’re written off as review bombing or a vocal minority. If the community is vocal, it’s seen as misinformed. At what point is any of this valid? What form should feedback take if every route is treated as insufficient? What metrics make all these so easy to disregard? Sales?

And that brings me to resources. I understand that HoI is expensive and slow to develop. But if new content is truly that slow and costly to produce, why not take that little extra effort to make it good? Why not shift more resources into polishing that content and properly supporting the existing content? Adding to the basegame (remember urban combat), real QoL attention? Surely It’s far cheaper and more impactful to reheat a cold meal than to create a new one from scratch and ask the customer to pay again - especially when that new dish is also undercooked. With GtD the community has shown we're willing to pay more and wait for good content and additions.

If the development process is truly this careful and complex, the results need to reflect that care. Right now, it feels like we’re getting half-measures, released too early and patched too late. And while we’re being asked to trust the process, we continue to see consistent examples of that process failing.

Lastly, I want to push back on the idea that feedback isn’t being provided properly. Players regularly post detailed research, historical analysis, modded fixes, and thoughtful suggestions for improving both old and new content. And it’s often ignored. That effort by the way, offered freely by a passionate community. (Of course I do understand many are nonsense.)

So yes, there is nuance. But acknowledging that can’t come with simply repeating how difficult development is or the implication its a misunderstanding or player issue. Something fundamental isn’t working, and if the response continues to frame this as a "you problem," player trust will continue to erode. You had a chance with GoE and War Efforts to show a real effort to overhaul the release and demonstrate the process can have faults and recover. I've repeated these points which have been echo'd hundreds more times. It's just not getting through. At this point it will take a while to rebuild trust, if at all. Posting through it isn't doing much. With what I've put into the game and community I really wouldn't be satisfied until an equal effort is met by paradox. But I'm done being a broken record on these same points.

I'm not really sure what you want to hear. If I'm honest it sounds like you want to see heads roll or us pointing the finger at our staff and blaming - that's not going to happen; post-mortems are internal, self-reflective, and driven by a purpose to ensure that we do better. I think it should be pretty clear why the details of that don't happen in the public eye, even if the outcome and intent are: we should do better than GoE's launch state.

If you don't want to tell us what happened to get here, fine, really show us how it'll be different. New development needs to be halted and issues need to be addressed. As its been said a million times, a proper Custodian Team. Action. I don't know why this industry seems immune to responsibility or change.

But GoE is only one part of HoI's story, and from our perspective, HoI's landscape is not one of "constant issues, disappointing releases, and general negative community sentiment", even if that's the perspective you have on it.

You seriously see the recent community sentiment as positive?

 

[Dimmie_Dumm]

Players regularly post detailed research, historical analysis, modded fixes, and thoughtful suggestions for improving both old and new content. And it’s often ignored.

Often? I'd say it is pretty much always ignored. This is one of the instances where I disagree with you:

Communication helps, but only if it leads to meaningful action.

...because communication has dropped tremendously over the last ~2 years, too. Other than the game director himself, the last time I recall a team member engaging in a forum discussion in any capacity was probably one of the research slots threads (which is quite frankly a very minor issue in the broad scope of things contaminating HoI4).

I obviously won't bring up any 'pet peeves' here, but even the 1st forum page contains several very relevant samples of stuff condemned to lay rotting: light tanks, the air designer etc. - and it's far from these themes having popped up atop for the first time.

 

[Voigt]

Forum sentiment is leaning towards negative currently yes, but for example Götterdämmerung was well received on the forum and is on Steam.

No Step Back was also mostly positive received on the forum, atlhough some people complain about the Paranoia system and would like better alt-hist paths for Soviet Union. The Steam reviews for NSB is overall mixed but recently very positive. When I look up the negative reviews of NSB, I see mostly complains about the price.
This is a fair point overall, but nothing what the devs directly influence and isn't a point about quality.

Yeah the country packs of especially GoE, to a degree also ToA and to a lesser degree AAT are disliked.

I also hate that some easy pet peeve bugs won't get fixed, sometimes for years. Stuff that I can fix in a mod myself and confirm working. This can be quite annoying.

But I can also see the bigger picture, and I can see Arheos view from a bigger picture that there are issues yes, but are they "constant"?, if you look at Götterdämmerung for example? The senitment recently on the forum is quite negative, but is it a general community sentiment, for one outside the forum but also general in a temporal sense, was it negative the whole last year, and what are the plans for this year to change sentiment?


I feel with war effort patches, there really were lots of old bugs fixed, old balance issue improved and some kinks removed from the game. Some tech debt was removed. But while this happend, I feel new DLCs/Patches are bigger than earlier ones, and with that bring more bugs than earlier patches. So it feels overall even more bugs got added over time, despite war effort stuff.

Because older stuff is prioritized, when the time windows of the few weeks post DLC-release are over, and something slipped trough, then it can take 2 or more years for a bug of that DLC to finally also get fixed.

 

[lilcritt]

Forum sentiment is leaning towards negative currently yes, but for example Götterdämmerung was well received on the forum and is on Steam.

Not Step Back was also mostly positive received on the forum, atlhough some people complain about the Paranoia system and would like better alt-hist paths for Soviet Union. The Steam reviews for NSB is overall mixed but recently very positive. When I look up the negative reviews of NSB, I see mostly complains about the price.
This is a fair point overall, but nothing what the devs directly influence and isn't a point about quality.

Yeah the country packs of especially GoE, to a degree also ToA and to a lesser degree AAT are disliked.

I also hate that some easy pet peeve bugs won't get fixed, sometimes for years. Stuff that I can fix in a mod myself and confirm working. This can be quite annoying.

But I can also see the bigger picture, and I can see Arheos view from a bigger picture that there are isseus yes, but are they "constant", if you look at Götterdämmerung for example? The senitment recently on the forum is quite negative, but is it a general community sentiment, for one outside the forum but also general in a temporal sense, was it negative the whole last year, and what are the plans for this year to change sentiment.


I feel with war effort patches, there really were lots of old bugs fixed, old balance issue improved and some kinks removed from the game. Some tech debt was removed. But while this happend, I feel new DLCs/Patches are bigger than earlier ones, and with that bring more bugs than earlier patches. So it feels overall even more bugs got added over time, despite war effort stuff.

Because older stuff is prioritized, when the time windows of the few weeks post DLC-release are over, and something slipped trough, then it can take 2 or more years for a bug of that DLC to finally also get fixed

As the saying goes, the broken clock is right with 2 dlcs. Or something like that, idk im dyslexic.

 

[Shekelnator]

You seriously see the recent community sentiment as positive?

Of course they do. Instead of spending time ensuring most of these game breaking bugs are fixed they recently a released a recent Bonus Songs Pack which certainly the resources put into making this would have been better into fixing game breaking bugs.

For 5$ you can buy something that gives you 5 songs that was supposed to be coming with the DLCs they came from. Even the recent DLC they released isnt doing well

Instead of you know, spending this entire month fixing those game breaking bugs we get paid sprites that virtually does nothing at all to the game other than few moving pixels rarely used.

@Arheo Does not seem to understand here the very most important thing when it comes to business. The more he and his team try to alienate their playerbase and gain these negative review for the game the more players will be pushed away from it and go play something else.


As myself working in contracting business in HR I saw several companies in the group goes to closure for their management refusing to adapt to their customers needs and criticism. One of the company proofs that immediate need to go for huge scale revision of the products is Dominos. Long ago Dominos was considered trash company that made trash pizza and no one really loved it that much. Some of their head management after seeing the drop sales and negative reviews from their advertisement team IMMEDIATLY went to full scale update and changes that what made Domino's great.

 

[Arheo]

Alrighty, I'm going to log off now. Thanks to those with constructive comments: change is always better as cooperation.

 

[Cornutus]

Has it ever even been considered that maybe you, the dev team, interpret things incorrectly? At what stage of constant issues, disappointing releases, and general negative community sentiment do you have to face the fire and do an honest to goodness self-evaluation that maybe. just maybe, PDX is the ones who are wrong? I've said it numerous times, but what ever happened to that post-GoE postmortem? Assuming that wasn't just a smoke screen to divert criticism, which I believe to be the case but I digress, there still has been no roadmap, no admission of guilt beyond the content being lacking, and no accountability. Surely, eventually, after all else has failed, you have to admit that the community can't be entirely mistaken, and maybe they make some valid points. I do love HoI IV, as I think most of us do otherwise we wouldn't care so much, but this entire situation has torpedoed any faith I have in this game or company and I do not intend to spend any more money on it until there is a serious overhaul. Not just words or promises of such, but until there is very tangible evidence and actions.

I am not a fan of the direction that is taken.

But see this:

As much as I dislike the direction being taken, there is an argument to be made that most of these bugs are not actually gamebreaking in singleplayer for the vast majority of players.

You don't see a massive drop in neither peak nor average players for HOI4 in steamcharts.

Forum posts are made by maybe 10 people (including myself), while besides that there's a vast "silent majority" who continue buying the new DLC despite all the criticism.

And it's been like this for years, and likely will be for at least 1-2 more years.

 

[Eruth]

Of course they do. Instead of spending time ensuring most of these game breaking bugs are fixed they recently a released a recent Bonus Songs Pack which certainly the resources put into making this would have been better into fixing game breaking bugs.

For 5$ you can buy something that gives you 5 songs that was supposed to be coming with the DLCs they came from. Even the recent DLC they released isnt doing well

View attachment 1301316

Instead of you know, spending this entire month fixing those game breaking bugs we get paid sprites that virtually does nothing at all to the game other than few moving pixels rarely used.

@Arheo Does not seem to understand here the very most important thing when it comes to business. The more he and his team try to alienate their playerbase and gain these negative review for the game the more players will be pushed away from it and go play something else.


As myself working in contracting business in HR I saw several companies in the group goes to closure for their management refusing to adapt to their customers needs and criticism. One of the company proofs that immediate need to go for huge scale revision of the products is Dominos. Long ago Dominos was considered trash company that made trash pizza and no one really loved it that much. Some of their head management after seeing the drop sales and negative reviews from their advertisement team IMMEDIATLY went to full scale update and changes that what made Domino's great.

While I’m generally on board with the ‘devs need to prioritize fixing old issues’ sentiment, this is not a fair argument. The artists who made the sprite pack likely do not have the coding skills to fix bugs in he first place; sure, PDX could fire them and hire more programmers, but then they wouldn’t have those art resources for more visually intensive packs. I also seriously doubt that the time it took to repackage a handful of preorder music files distracted the dev team from rebalancing light tanks or whatever. These cosmetic packs are clearly not the issue here.

 

[Shekelnator]

While I’m generally on board with the ‘devs need to prioritize fixing old issues’ sentiment, this is not a fair argument. The artists who made the sprite pack likely do not have the coding skills to fix bugs in he first place; sure, PDX could fire them and hire more programmers, but then they wouldn’t have those art resources for more visually intensive packs. I also seriously doubt that the time it took to repackage a handful of preorder music files distracted the dev team from rebalancing light tanks or whatever. These cosmetic packs are clearly not the issue here.

Ah I see you missed something in here but lets address this situation. Because everything in here requires budget so we will role play here as business men in management and you tell me how will you deal with it.

I have 5 thousand dollars budget want it to be used to improve this game and gather more players and get positive reviews for it. For more positive reviews + more attracted players. For more happy playerbase is + more spreading among those players with their friend. If the game looked bad people would mostly avoid it and if the game has been had heard its bad from its players others who would been a potential customer would avoid it as well.

So now you get this 5 thousand dollars budget Mr. Eruth. What would you as a manager use it for? Make some skins that only would do nothing good to the game or use this budget to improve the game and gain back those positive reviews this product needs.

 

[Eruth]

Ah I see you missed something in here but lets address this situation. Because everything in here requires budget so we will role play here as business men in management and you tell me how will you deal with it.

I have 5 thousand dollars budget want it to be used to improve this game and gather more players and get positive reviews for it. For more positive reviews + more attracted players. For more happy playerbase is + more spreading among those players with their friend. If the game looked bad people would mostly avoid it and if the game has been had heard its bad from its players others who would been a potential customer would avoid it as well.

So now you get this 5 thousand dollars budget Mr. Eruth. What would you as a manager use it for? Make some skins that only would do nothing good to the game or use this budget to improve the game and gain back those positive reviews this product needs.

I am well aware how budget works; I directly addressed this when I said

PDX could fire them and hire more programmers, but then they wouldn’t have those art resources for more visually intensive packs

Game devs are salaried employees; once you hire one, you'll be paying them constantly until they leave the company. Unless you work them overtime, they'll cost the same whether you give them 10 or 40 hours of work to do per week. I'm assuming that PDX studio gold did not hire an entirely new artist(s) specifically for this minor cosmetic pack; if I'm correct, then they were already paying this person to make art, and it is simply a matter of what art they are making. As I said, PDX could fire this artist to make more budget for programmers, but then if they make an art heavy project in the future they will need to re-hire a new artist; unless they're confident that won't happen for a long time, its probably less expensive to keep that artist around and have them do something.

Not a MR, btw.

 

[FindFloppies]

Forum posts are made by maybe 10 people (including myself), while besides that there's a vast "silent majority" who continue buying the new DLC despite all the criticism.

Also, (and this is NOT personal at you in any way, shape, or form, @Cornutus ) game forums are usually negative places. People out there playing the game, by and large are not posting here. They come here to complain, or see if they can find someone else with issue X, or help understanding Y.

Game forums are rarely happy happy joy joy places.

So, just because the forum is leaning negative, is not necessarily reflecting the playerbase at large's attitudes.

Before someone jumps on my head, I'll acknowledge that GoE is/was not the best DLC ever released.

In the end we're just customers. You can give feedback on the forums, but that doesn't give you control over how the game is run or designed. We don't design the game, nor are we in control of how or when things are fixed if they're not right, and in some things, whether it is actually 'wrong' or 'right'.

The only *real* choice we get is to spend our money on the game...or not spend our money on the game.

If you choose the 'not' option that is very much your choice to do so, but it's also ok for someone else to use the 'yes' option.

 

[xtfoster]

For 5$ you can buy something that gives you 5 songs that was supposed to be coming with the DLCs they came from.

Going to have to correct you on this. These songs weren't supposed to come with the DLC. They were a reward for people who preordered the DLC and/or participated in pre-release events. Those of us who did these things have had these songs since release.

 

[ZeDoctor1918]

As much as I dislike the direction being taken, there is an argument to be made that most of these bugs are not actually gamebreaking in singleplayer for the vast majority of players.

You don't see a massive drop in neither peak nor average players for HOI4 in steamcharts.

Forum posts are made by maybe 10 people (including myself), while besides that there's a vast "silent majority" who continue buying the new DLC despite all the criticism.

And it's been like this for years, and likely will be for at least 1-2 more years.

That seems to be the stance PDX has taken. If they can get away with either "good enough" or "some people like it", then why bother trying to make a 9/10 product when a 4/10 will not only sell just as well but requires far less effort to pump out. The player numbers aren't dropping, but they aren't really growing either. Much as I would say that it is just business leading to their decision making, stagnation is not a promising outlook.