Dev Diary - Prototype Vehicles Unit Pack

[Slippyfopp]

Peace treaties are a difficult one. I know a lot of people would like to see this, but in practice it runs counter to HoI's design philosophy of "crescendo to war" in most cases. I don't think that means similar things can't be done, but the ability to simply peace out when you've had enough is unlikely to be seen.

Acquiring land peacefully is something that for similar reasons is unlikely to exist in a systemic form. There are narrative beats where we might want to make this happen, and you'll see it happening in focus trees because they also contain an arena to explain the what/why and the fallout from a narrative perspective.

I think the solution to that is to simply find ways to lock you out of those functions later in the game. Much like World Tension gives you new abilities as it goes up, it also takes some away, so the players can concentrate on fighting. "Sorry, we can't sell you [STATE/RESOURCE RIGHT], we need everything we can get [while we're fighting the Axis/in case we need to fight the Axis]!"

There are other options, like National Spirits: German Reich's Bitter Loser will make it so they'll never accept a peace treaty, no matter how badly they're losing, or things like being at war with a country that has X number of factories/deployed troops.

If you want players to concentrate on the war when it goes into full swing, that's perfectly fine, this IS a game about World War II, and the war itself should be the main focus. But the more you can do in the time leading up to the war, the more possibilities can play out during the war.

 

[Arheo]

I think the solution to that is to simply find ways to lock you out of those functions later in the game. Much like World Tension gives you new abilities as it goes up, it also takes some away, so the players can concentrate on fighting. "Sorry, we can't sell you [STATE/RESOURCE RIGHT], we need everything we can get [while we're fighting the Axis/in case we need to fight the Axis]!"

There are other options, like National Spirits: German Reich's Bitter Loser will make it so they'll never accept a peace treaty, no matter how badly they're losing, or things like being at war with a country that has X number of factories/deployed troops.

If you want players to concentrate on the war when it goes into full swing, that's perfectly fine, this IS a game about World War II, and the war itself should be the main focus. But the more you can do in the time leading up to the war, the more possibilities can play out during the war.

I don't disagree with the latter part, but I feel like there are perhaps other ways to achieve it - still, in either scenario it's a big change, and would likely be the focal point of an expansion rather than a maintenance update or so. Hypothetically speaking.

 

[ZeDoctor1918]

We can, do, and intend to continnue.



Thanks for the suggestions! We've looked at most of these. I think both 2 and 3 are the most likely to see implementation in some form (at some point). Peace treaties are a difficult one. I know a lot of people would like to see this, but in practice it runs counter to HoI's design philosophy of "crescendo to war" in most cases. I don't think that means similar things can't be done, but the ability to simply peace out when you've had enough is unlikely to be seen.

Acquiring land peacefully is something that for similar reasons is unlikely to exist in a systemic form. There are narrative beats where we might want to make this happen, and you'll see it happening in focus trees because they also contain an arena to explain the what/why and the fallout from a narrative perspective.

Historical ON - Total capitulation required for peace

Historical OFF - Limited peace allowed

We can't keep pretending limited peace is this insane idea outside the scope of the game when there are so many ahistorical conquests that are a complete chore because you have capitulate the UK because you wanted 1 province.

 

[Arheo]

Historical ON - Total capitulation required for peace

Historical OFF - Limited peace allowed

That halves the player added value of all the work you're doing.

We can't keep pretending limited peace is this insane idea outside the scope of the game when there are so many ahistorical conquests that are a complete chore because you have capitulate the UK because you wanted 1 province.

I don't think EU4 style peace deals are the only way to achieve that while also remaining true to the game's core premise.

 

[Slippyfopp]

I don't disagree with the latter part, but I feel like there are perhaps other ways to achieve it - still, in either scenario it's a bigchange, and would likely be the focal point of an expansion rather than a maintenance update or so. Hypothetically speaking.


I don't think EU4 style peace deals are the only way to achieve that while also remaining true to the game's core premise.

I don't doubt that this would be a huge change that would require its own DLC, a la the spy missions in La Resistance, the new peace conference in By Blood Alone, or the MIOs in Arms Against Tyranny.

Just keep one thing in mind: the players want UNIVERSAL mechanics, mechanics that could apply to every country, ESPECIALLY small ones. One of the most memey and fun ways to play the game (especially for me) is to turn a miniscule nation into something that can alter the course of WWII. Even something as simple as adding more Advisors and Generals would help a lot. I don't see how adding more National Focus Trees will do the trick, unless you completely revamp the Generic one.

 

[ZeDoctor1918]

That halves the player added value of all the work you're doing.

I don't understand what you mean. If I put the game on historical, then odds are I'm doing mostly historical things and want historical reactions. If I go off the rails, and by extenstion the AI does too, then thats my fault for picking historical. Whereas if I'm looking to restore *insert empire here*, and set the game accordingly, why would the war ending in 1944 as opposed to 1950 be a negative? If you want to look at history, Bismarck saw the value in offering Austria peace despite the fact the general staff and Kaiser Wilhelm wanted to march on Vienna. Austria doesn't join the UK and now Prussia has to land on the British Isles and then sail across the Atlantic and take out Brazil because they became major and joined the allies via focus. Conquering the world for the first time is one of those milestones you can look back on fondly. But doing so for the umpteenth time with a different flag is annoying at best.

 

[elPolaco]

Dear Paradox-Team,

your product HoI4 is supposed to be the historical simulation of the period of time between 1936-1945. It should not resemble the history in 100% - as we have alternative ways/foci to arrange the war times just as we would like to have it.
BUT. The recent amount of fantasy elements is really disturbing. War elephants - which were not used for military purposes, got introducd and were at the beginning absolutely overpowered. Alternative ways for multiple countries feel like lackluster, like communist Iraq or the famous "Silk-road empire" quickly redesigned.
Here, basing on the comments of the community you will get another fail for second time in the row.
The concepts are unrealistic - how A TANK is supposed to get lifted by a HELICOPTER? A tank is like 60 tons? Especially with technology from the 40s?

Götterdämmerung provided us some really realistic ways of playing - and it functioned, Steam: 90% positive.
No Step Back with railways, deepening the realism: one of the best if not THE best expansion.

Wouldn't it be smarter to indeed postpone the release to Q3, as initially communicated in order to release a polished - and realistic - product, instead of releasing it quicker, but with disappointing feedback, and following sum-ups on the first expansion pass which is at the moment....not in the best condition? I understand the pressure of making money, it's a goal of each company, but that's not the way. Unless getting the reward of "Meme-game" is the goal you pursuit nowadays.

Have a nice day.

 

[Dimmie_Dumm]

No Step Back with railways, deepening the realism: one of the best if not THE best expansion.

No step back was a step forward - and in the right direction, yes. Unfortunately, as is symptomatic with HoI4, it remained just that - a step, and never to be followed.

I.e. to this day divisions are allowed to redeploy through wild jungles, marshes and whatnot and ignore railways just fine (granted, railways do add a speed bonus). Trade flows in a totally whacky mode and ignores tiles completely, going at an unfathomably high abstraction level right through states themselves - and with unlimited throughput. Railway construction costs were never revisited and e.g. carving a line through mountains is the same business as laying tracks on plains. Tunnels and bridges as possible strategic chokepoints have never been mentioned, but the troops tailor-made to interact with those (paras) got enigmatic region-wide effects instead.

 

[Herennius]

(....)

Thanks for the suggestions! We've looked at most of these. I think both 2 and 3 are the most likely to see implementation in some form (at some point). Peace treaties are a difficult one. I know a lot of people would like to see this, but in practice it runs counter to HoI's design philosophy of "crescendo to war" in most cases. I don't think that means similar things can't be done, but the ability to simply peace out when you've had enough is unlikely to be seen.

(...)

I get your point that many small peace treaties are somewhat contrary to HoI4's "DNA" and I don't want to derail this thread further...but is there any chance of fixing the fairly serious overflow bug occuring in the peace conference after long, dragged out wars? As it is a fairly disappointing end of a playthrough one likely sunk an considerable amount of time, if then the supposed big, "I reshape the world" peace conference is ruined due points being negative. Roughly half a dozen reports on this have been made since BBA (but not yet a visual "confirmation label" has been given); I linked the ones I found here:

Graveyard of Empires | Known Issues

Remember to post bug reports in the Bug Reports forum! Greetings Generals With the release of Graveyard of Empires, we've identified a few issues you may encounter. Rest assured we are working diligently to resolve them. (We may update this...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[BeauNiddle]

I don't understand what you mean.

What he meant was it is a development work allocation issue.
Developing something that will only be used by half the player base has only half the perceived value as something that will be used by the whole player base.

That's assuming the player base is split 50/50 between historic/a-historic game modes. But that is a reasonable rough guess.

You can't run a company solely on perceived value, hence why the custodian team and the war effort patches are usually so well received, but ranking big feature work by perceived value is a valid sorting method to pick development priorities.

Limited peace is already situational, if you limit it further to only a-historic game mode then it drops so far down the priority order it is unlikely ever to be done.

 

[BeauNiddle]

your product HoI4 is supposed to be the historical simulation of the period of time between 1936-1945. It should not resemble the history in 100% - as we have alternative ways/foci to arrange the war times just as we would like to have it.

The concepts are unrealistic

You do realise that NONE of those designs were created by Paradox - that EVERY single one of them are historic prototypes put forward during 1936-1945. You get that right?

Back then engineers and designers tried everything and anything to try and get an advantage. The vast majority of them were shot down in the planning phase but they are all historic prototypes.

Paradox have done one purely cosmetic DLC that allows the players to see some of the wilder what-ifs of the war. And you're acting like it's the end of the world.

The 3d models were probably chosen for A) fun, B) visual distinctiveness. The true war-nerd might be able to recognise all the different pz4 models on sight but for the vast majority of the player base a tank looks like a tank. At least with these models the player can tell they are using the new DLC, should they wish to.

 

[ZeDoctor1918]

What he meant was it is a development work allocation issue.
Developing something that will only be used by half the player base has only half the perceived value as something that will be used by the whole player base.

That's assuming the player base is split 50/50 between historic/a-historic game modes. But that is a reasonable rough guess.

You can't run a company solely on perceived value, hence why the custodian team and the war effort patches are usually so well received, but ranking big feature work by perceived value is a valid sorting method to pick development priorities.

Limited peace is already situational, if you limit it further to only a-historic game mode then it drops so far down the priority order it is unlikely ever to be done.

Thanks for the explanation, although that poses its own problem. We are assuming of course, but if the historic vs. ahistoric split is roughly 50/50, how is that less valuable than a sprite pack that I can guarantee far less people will ever use? Not like these are special projects with stat differences. Artists don't code sure, but the lack of generic portraits causing clone factories, old portraits that could desperately use a touch up, and just flat out people missing portraits entirely would seem like much more value added to a far larger proportion of players.

 

[Arheo]

I get your point that many small peace treaties are somewhat contrary to HoI4's "DNA" and I don't want to derail this thread further...but is there any chance of fixing the fairly serious overflow bug occuring in the peace conference after long, dragged out wars? As it is a fairly disappointing end of a playthrough one likely sunk an considerable amount of time, if then the supposed big, "I reshape the world" peace conference is ruined due points being negative. Roughly half a dozen reports on this have been made since BBA (but not yet a visual "confirmation label" has been given); I linked the ones I found here:

Graveyard of Empires | Known Issues

Remember to post bug reports in the Bug Reports forum! Greetings Generals With the release of Graveyard of Empires, we've identified a few issues you may encounter. Rest assured we are working diligently to resolve them. (We may update this...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

I think that was fixed in one of the recent updates, I forget which.

Edit: Our internal notes suggest 1.16.3 but I see that didn't make it to the external log. Has it still been occurring after that update that you're aware of?

 

[withche.07]

We can, do, and intend to continnue.



Thanks for the suggestions! We've looked at most of these. I think both 2 and 3 are the most likely to see implementation in some form (at some point). Peace treaties are a difficult one. I know a lot of people would like to see this, but in practice it runs counter to HoI's design philosophy of "crescendo to war" in most cases. I don't think that means similar things can't be done, but the ability to simply peace out when you've had enough is unlikely to be seen.

Acquiring land peacefully is something that for similar reasons is unlikely to exist in a systemic form. There are narrative beats where we might want to make this happen, and you'll see it happening in focus trees because they also contain an arena to explain the what/why and the fallout from a narrative perspective.

One thing I don’t understand about the game is that we can’t individually use some of the existing mechanics unless they’re triggered by events or scripts (like wars). For example, the game has a mechanic that allows temporary access to resources or factories in non-owned states, but we can’t request or offer them through the diplomatic interaction menu.

 

[Herennius]

I think that was fixed in one of the recent updates, I forget which.

Edit: Our internal notes suggest 1.16.3 but I see that didn't make it to the external log. Has it still been occurring after that update that you're aware of?

Thanks for the response

Can't say yet...the reason I asked in advance is that my current Iran playthrough has reached the WW3-stage and is likely heading towards a (in terms of this bug) "critical peace conference" sooner or later. I will report back once Allies/China vs. Japan/SU has been fought out.

 

[Arheo]

One thing I don’t understand about the game is that we can’t individually use some of the existing mechanics unless they’re triggered by events or scripts (like wars). For example, the game has a mechanic that allows temporary access to resources or factories in non-owned states, but we can’t request or offer them through the diplomatic interaction menu.

You can get this by defeating your enemies: reparations or "soft" occupation. To do this diplomatically would circumvent the trade mechanic, so where we do it outside of peace conferences (sparingly) it requires some narrative explanation.

 

[xtfoster]

As of me typing this, May 2nd, 9:50 PM Eastern U.S. time, the original post has 80 "respectfully disagrees" and not one single "agree".

I think the people have spoken, Paradox. They do not want this DLC.

1) Hmm, 80 people out of the 10s of thousands of people who play this game don't like this purely cosmetic DLC. Hardly a resounding "people have spoken". It looks more to me like they are doing something right.
2) I have never, in over a decade on these forums, responded reacted to an Developer OP statement. But since you brought it up, add another Green Check.

 

[Metz]

@Arheo

For all existing models and these new models, could they have their name on the model list so we can see what tank is what when selecting the 3d image? Same for planes. It would help trying to fit which historical tank/plane we want for the model we are creating.

 

[Le Vengur]

So as a fairly small-scale way of making the DLC more palatable to the more historically inclined elements of the community:

Add a few historical vehicles to the pack.

Sherman 76, T-34-85 & Panzer 4 ausf.H

All are currently missing. And they could be given to say, all democracies, communist states & Fascist/Monarchist.

That way you're adding some real vehicles, all of which were built and served in vast numbers.

Then if you want to take it a step further add the flamethrower variants of the Sherman & T-34-85 along with perhaps a Flammenhetzer?

That fits in with the theme of the DLC as well as the setting and general theme of the game. You'd need a flame animation but otherwise the models should be close enough.


If you then want to take it a tad further:


Give the MTLS or possibly a new light tank model to everyone. The L-60 is quite old and low poly.

Do the same for heavies. Either replace the old Tiger with a better one or make something like a T1 Heavy.

That gives every faction a decently modern and good looking alternative to the B1.

 

[Metz]

Acquiring land peacefully is something that for similar reasons is unlikely to exist in a systemic form. There are narrative beats where we might want to make this happen, and you'll see it happening in focus trees because they also contain an arena to explain the what/why and the fallout from a narrative perspective.

Double post, but regarding this, would it be possible to make some demands be repeatable if they tell you no? Like Italy asking Yugoslavia for Dalmatia where if Yugoslavia says no then that is that? Maybe some sort of timed cooldowns for demands? Some playthroughs, especially for some achievements need you to get land given to you and sometimes you can only be in a position to ask after 1-2 hours of gameplay. Getting a no forces a restart and it wouldn't be unrealistic to have a country demand something more than once, especially if it is in a stronger position than before.