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If the dev's gave the community a full post mortem on this release with honest and open explanations of how these bugs where "missed" I'd really respect that.
As long as we don't get a decent explanation it does become easier and easier to believe that PDX/the HOI team does not playtest their stuff.

Bugs are always gonna happen but some of these issues like provinces missing from formable's or missing infrastructure are things that would be found the first time a testers touches those systems, so its genuinely baffling how those weren't fixed before launch, its not like it would've been hard or a lot of work.
Every known solidly reproducible bug that is expected to take an hour or less to fix should be fixed before launch, even if the impact is minimal.
This is probably nothing but a lack of resources. Devs get easily blind to bugs and another team should take care of testing. But they are humans too, prone to make mistakes... Thus automated tests are a way to go but you need resources to write and maintain tests. This is often dismissed in the software industry.

Maybe the last 2 weeks/month before launch could be a combined open beta/bug smashing sprint.(And Arheo's argument seen in a different thread that you can't have open betas for expansion content seems completely detached from reality to me, there is lots of games that let the general public playtest premium content/whole premium games)
I see it as a vehicle to promote the game and DLC. Definitely + in my opinion.
 
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I've heard this a few times, does anyone know why (or when)? Because this sounds like absolutely wrong decision, and I can't think of circumstance under which it would be right. A lot of new players WANT to play MP together in coop, I'm quite sure that being hacked/kicked out of the game isn't the experience they look for.
According to the game director it would be way to costly compared to the benefits.

A few excerpts below:

Everytime I play Hoi4 multiplayer, a cheater keeps coming in and shutting down the server. Are the developers planning a solution for this?
No, not in the way you probably mean. The cost vastly outweighs the benefits.

And to be clear here, I'm talking about the cost and benefits to the players.
I should also point out that once you start fighting the practical war against hacking, you will never, ever stop. Someone will always be out there enjoying the challenge of waiting to crack the latest advances, and that becomes an arms race I simply have no interest in fighting. For games with competitive or online ecosystems, that's part of the cost of doing business, but we are not in that situation.
 
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I've heard this a few times, does anyone know why (or when)? Because this sounds like absolutely wrong decision, and I can't think of circumstance under which it would be right. A lot of new players WANT to play MP together in coop, I'm quite sure that being hacked/kicked out of the game isn't the experience they look for.
There is no form of anti cheat or real verification or anything because the game simply was not build for that, MP was/is intended for groups or people that have mutual trust, not for playing with strangers, if you only play with people you know (which is probably >98% of the playerbase) then the cheater/griefer issues simply don't exist.
So while it sucks for the people impacted by it, I can understand why putting resources into hardening a game that was not build with any kind of anti cheat in mind is just not something the team wants to put resources into, as it would likely take lots of effort, and probably never really solve the problem completely.
This is probably nothing but a lack of resources. Devs get easily blind to bugs and another team should take care of testing. But they are humans too, prone to make mistakes... Thus automated tests are a way to go but you need resources to write and maintain tests. This is often dismissed in the software industry.
This seems a bit *too* generous, there should at least be a checklist when adding a new formable that has "Check if there are any weird holes because of missed provinces" on it.
Automated tests in video games are a bit of a difficult thing, games are extremely complex and generally non deterministic, so simple unit tests for bits of code are very possible, they would not catch bugs that occur when 2 game system interact in unintended ways, and there really isn't a way to automatically test that.
Same for balance, there isn't a good way to test that besides playing and seeing if things "feel right".
And while some sort of linter can probably check for basic issues in focus tree scripts, you can't really build tests against developer oversights or something that was simply forgotten to be implemented, that sort of stuff should be caught be a peer review, or by a dedicated testing team, and it really feels like HOI is failing at this front.

While it generates its own overhead open beta's are a great way to get more free testing in a few weeks than even the best and biggest QA team could do in years time.
And as you said it also a great way to drum up hype, I don't know if I would've bought humankind given its review scores if I hadn't played its open betas and gotten hooked.
 
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Thus automated tests are a way to go but you need resources to write and maintain tests. This is often dismissed in the software industry.
Bugs are always gonna happen but some of these issues like provinces missing from formable's or missing infrastructure are things that would be found the first time a testers touches those systems, so its genuinely baffling how those weren't fixed before launch, its not like it would've been hard or a lot of work.
Every known solidly reproducible bug that is expected to take an hour or less to fix should be fixed before launch, even if the impact is minimal.
  1. I really don't know who would ignore auto-testing now (or may be semi-auto but verifiable). May be devs who do mom-and-pop shops. Even web and mobile devs doing small stuff for corporate clients won't make a step without auto-testing. You run the risk of screwing something and not being paid in the best case. Or worse -- litigated into oblivion.
  2. Guys don't click focuses and decisions to check if they produce the needed effect. Auto-tests won't help. If you don't spend one second clicking a focus you'll easily skip running auto-test as well. IMHO it's a culture of feeling OK about bugs because I don't have any other explanation.
Maybe the last 2 weeks/month before launch could be a combined open beta/bug smashing sprint.(And Arheo's argument seen in a different thread that you can't have open betas for expansion content seems completely detached from reality to me, there is lots of games that let the general public playtest premium content/whole premium games)
  1. My guess is two weeks before the product is still a full mess with no fixed scope yet. So to run an open beta would mean to let client base see something that is way worse then what we see at a regular launch. Two weeks is definitely more than enough to click all decisions, missions and focuses so there should be a reason why it's not done. But to do this final test run you need to have a semi- / almost finished product 2-3 months before that to do at least couple of "dirty" test runs.
  2. IMHO there're all kinds of problems with HOI4 development process -- not just QA. Country research, clear and unambigous wording in UI, stupid things like 120% productivity in TOA BRA tree etc. It feels like the whole development process is rather messy.
  3. But the interesting thing is where manhours are sunk into. Really to do historical research for one country tree is one-two-three weeks max IMHO. Countries rarely have something unique in focus trees or decisions, except for unique BoP, 95% are the same lego blocks that were already used in one or many DLCs before so you can just copy paste the code. 2D graphics is quick -- it's not a highway big board ad poster, just a small icons in focus trees that no one really pays much attention to IMHO. 3D graphics is rudimentary due to the engine limitations and / or the need to be light on client PCs. PDX has 590 full time employees, HOI4 is the most popular game in their portfolio so with all the engine development, Project Ceasar etc. HOI4 team should be closer to 100 if not over that. And yet they mostly release on "big" DLC per year. Where all these mandays go? Mistery...
 
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I've heard this a few times, does anyone know why (or when)? Because this sounds like absolutely wrong decision, and I can't think of circumstance under which it would be right. A lot of new players WANT to play MP together in coop, I'm quite sure that being hacked/kicked out of the game isn't the experience they look for.
I too believe this is a critically wrong decision that needs to be audited.

Most importantly, I see that there is zero desire to understand what the problems actually are (spoiler: they are not with people getting bonuses out of thin air, they are with hackers usurping Host rights in lobbies) and to come up with even "bare minimum" solutions.

More importantly, I don't see what HOI4 has gotten better at, by neglecting multiplayer.

Is the content suddenly better? Not really.

Is AI better? Maybe a slight bit, but not by much.

Do we have a lot of new mechanics? Honestly not much, and a lot of them are kind of half-baked, imbalanced and not "married with the AI".

2. IMHO there're all kinds of problems with HOI4 development process -- not just QA. Country research, clear and unambigous wording in UI, stupid things like 120% productivity in TOA BRA tree etc. It feels like the whole development process is rather messy.
100% agreed.

3. But the interesting thing is where manhours are sunk into.
Same question as the one I have, which is why I would advocate for some audit/DOGE style effort to see what's going on.

Graveyard of Empire was developed by the team that made Trial of Allegiance: they had about a year. They're known not to be involved in bug-fixing or mechanics changes (they have a different skillset as mentioned before).

Is GoE really the product of a full year worth of work of 5 people? Or even 9 months worth of work?

Really to do historical research for one country tree is one-two-three weeks max IMHO.
Normally I would disagree.

But given the HOI4 development process is "siloed" and deliberately not "holistic", thus not oriented at game balance or touching "all affected countries" (Tibet core being given to India but not China as an example), 2-3 weeks seems exactly around what effort can fly.

But that's 2-3 weeks full-time, not part-time.

Not to mention that you can always take the "shortcut" and check what Kaiserreich did for minors you are working on. Almost the same world.

Countries rarely have something unique in focus trees or decisions, except for unique BoP, 95% are the same lego blocks that were already used in one or many DLCs before so you can just copy paste the code. 2D graphics is quick -- it's not a highway big board ad poster, just a small icons in focus trees that no one really pays much attention to IMHO. 3D graphics is rudimentary due to the engine limitations and / or the need to be light on client PCs. PDX has 590 full time employees, HOI4 is the most popular game in their portfolio so with all engine development, Project Ceasar etc. HOI4 team should be closer to 100 if not over that. And yet they mostly release on "big" DLC per year. Where all these mandays go? Mistery...
I could be wrong, but I believe there are two teams: the Country pack team is about 5 people, and the main team I believe is 10 people.

That does not count marketing, accounting etc. These are developers and maybe graphics folk.
 
Normally I would disagree ... But that's 2-3 weeks full-time, not part-time.
  1. No, I mean only country research. Make a list of major political players, their portraits, historical events and their logic etc. Basically labels / text / portraits to slap onto focuses, decisions and leaders. Having a targets for what countries should reach, making actual focus trees, decisions etc., balancing countries in the DLC between each other is certainly a separate effort and will take way more than 2-3 months.
  2. Re this, I might be wrong but I have a feeling they:
    1. Don't create a cross-country vision of what countries should be able to achieve or at least the detalization of it in terms of free productivity upside through focus / leaders etc, target number of factories, stability and all these things.
    2. Don't have targets to balance different paths withing one country. This is the first thing I do when I analyse countries -- I put and sum up all "sources of strength" for all paths for all DLC countries and they normally look EXTREMELY unbalanced. Even paths within one country are normally very unbalanced. I don't remember a case when I needed to weigh pros and cons of different paths -- one normally stands out way above all.
    3. Don't do cross-country content guidelines that each country content developer should stick too. Some countries end up being rich and interesting in "things to do" options to consider while others look like street beggars.
    4. Don't check the quality of country research.
Country pack team is about 5 people, and the main team I believe is 10 people. That does not count marketing, accounting etc. These are developers and maybe graphics folk.
If they do big DLCs every 9-12 months, War Effort patches and general bug fixing in between with just 10 people then they're no less then heroes. But if other product staffing is done proportionate to revenue I guess it'll mean 40-50 people plus may be 10-15 on the engine bring like 80-90% of the company revenue. What other 525-540 are doing? :p
 
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There is no form of anti cheat or real verification or anything because the game simply was not build for that, MP was/is intended for groups or people that have mutual trust, not for playing with strangers, if you only play with people you know (which is probably >98% of the playerbase) then the cheater/griefer issues simply don't exist.
But I've heard that this affects 'private' games as well, that they could even bypass the passwords. Or not?

Anyway, that's still a really sad state of affairs. I guess the only way is to organize outside of the main lobby ahead of time, then join the same game and launch immediately.
 
But I've heard that this affects 'private' games as well, that they could even bypass the passwords. Or not?

Anyway, that's still a really sad state of affairs. I guess the only way is to organize outside of the main lobby ahead of time, then join the same game and launch immediately.
If you create a "Friends" lobby I'm pretty sure it never shows up in the in game server browser, the only way to join those is through the steam friends interface.
I play MP with friends and we have never experienced any kind of disruptions or issues related to cheaters/griefers.

Personally I don't see why anyone would even want to play with randoms anyway, HOI isn't some quick 1-2 hour RTS game, but quite a commitment. And even without any external tools someone could quite easily ruin things for everyone else by dropping out half way in or doing things that go against the spirit of the lobby (Like PVPing when it was meant for COOP).
But it seems some people find playing this way works for them, and it really sucks for them that when the HOI4 MP infrastructure was designed that no thought was given to anti-cheat/security, but I don't blame the dev's for that decision back then because they probably did not expect there to even be attackers, or for people to play in a no trust environment.
 
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i work on a software company, the demand was chaotizing due to managers just keep adding new and new features.
I steped in, and sai i wont add any new feature til past stuff is solved...
Now my philosophy is before taking 1 step forward, I take 3 steps back, the meta is solve so much past bugs til the entire team become idle.
 
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It's funny to read claims about Hoi4. It was clear that this game is hopeless from the very beginning, when they published a WW2 Global Strategy in which tanks are produced from oil (!) and do not consume (!) oil while moving. *facepalm*
In Hoi4 you even can't drag&drop your warships and send them to another port, as 99.99% of all strategy games can. :D
For 8.5 years of Hoi4's existence, they were not even able to invent money and trade, although humanity invented it many millennia before 1936. lol
But they have invented a completely absurd and ridiculous system of 'political mana' and 'focuses' that does not exist in the reality and is absolutely no need for WW2 global strategy. The next step should be to introduce in the game dragons and magic. :D
Hoi2 Darkest Hour is still the best Hoi game ever, even after 8.5 years of Hoi4. ;)
 
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In Hoi4 you even can't drag&drop your warships and send them to another port, as 99.99% of all strategy games can.
What do you mean by drag & drop?
For 8.5 years of Hoi4's existence, they were not even able to invent money and trade
HOI IV has had a basic trade system since launch, and IMO not having money is a good thing because at HOI's scale money doesn't matter anyway.
But they have invented a completely absurd and ridiculous system of 'political mana' and 'focuses' that does not exist in the reality and is absolutely no need for WW2 global strategy.
Political power/capital is very much a thing in reality and unless you want to add a whole VIC3 level of political simulation to a wargame (Which seems like a bad idea to me) it seems like a perfectly fine abstraction for a WW2 GSG.
a WW2 Global Strategy in which tanks are produced from oil (!) and do not consume (!) oil while moving
Yeah while at the time I didn't really realize, looking back this was just a terrible way to abstract that.
 
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What do you mean by drag & drop?

HOI IV has had a basic trade system since launch, and IMO not having money is a good thing because at HOI's scale money doesn't matter anyway.

Political power/capital is very much a thing in reality and unless you want to add a whole VIC3 level of political simulation to a wargame (Which seems like a bad idea to me) it seems like a perfectly fine abstraction for a WW2 GSG.

Yeah while at the time I didn't really realize, looking back this was just a terrible way to abstract that.
- 'Draw selection box using the mouse. Send selected units to move.'
(This damn game doesn't allow me just to 'boxed' warships and send them anywhere. As it is always is possible in all other games.)

- Actually, money are needed in about 20% of all events. And also money needs in order to create normal resource trading mechanic, not this terrible perversion that exists in Hoi4. :eek:
I'm even afraid to imagine how Cash&Carry events, 'evacuation' of Spanish gold to USSR, or for example, the seizure of Austrian or Czech gold reserves are implemented in Hoi4.
And also, without normal trade mechanics, you will not be able properly to implement oil concessions.
The lack of strategic reserves of resourses and money/gold is also a huge absurdity and the failure of Hoi4. In fact, countries tended to accumulate some reserves of resources and gold. And this is a very necessary mechanic for global strategy.

- Do you understand that it is absolutely ridiculous if Stalin (Hitler, Churchill) is unable to perform a routine action because he 'does not have enough mana'?
It's so ridiculous and absurd that if it have to explain, then it don't have to explain.
It seems that I never managed to start WW2 exactley on September 1, 1939 in Hoi4 just because this fantasy game have mana (!), the lack of which prevents starting the war on time. *facepalm*

I could partially agree that during WW2, political ratings were of some importance in some rare cases, for example, Roosevelt was forced to struggle with the isolationist mood of the electorate for a long time, and the Canadian authorities could not begin to mobilize for a very long time, also because of the unpopularity of this measure.
But that's all I can remember quickly.
These all are rare cases that can be realized with ordinary events/decisions and do not require the introduction of fantastic ridiculous 'mana' into WW2 game. Because this is a game about WW2, not about peacetime electoral processes. In the end, you can name this mana a 'political rating' and use it to simulate political electoral processes... But this 'electoral mana' should have nothing to do with 99% of historical events/'focuses'!!
All other routine actions were taken by the leaders of the countries at the right time on the basis of expediency, and not because they 'accumulated mana' this is an absolute absurdity!
I can't give examples because I'm too lazy to open Hoi-4, but I'm sure that all 50 of the 50 Soviet 'focuses' in reality could have been activated by Stalin at any suitable moment without any need to accumulate this fantastic 'political mana'. It doesn't need 'political mana' to attack Finland or to build new aluminum plants in the Urals! That's need only suitable geopolitical circumstances or an economic necessity and technical capability!
 
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- 'Draw selection box using the mouse. Send selected units to move.'
(This damn game doesn't allow me just to 'boxed' warships and send them anywhere. As it is always is possible in all other games.)
I currently can't check so maybe someone else can confirm this, but I'm pretty sure you can actually use bounding boxes to select naval units and move them?
I am however completely certain that you can at least do that with land units.
- Actually, money are needed in about 20% of all events. And also money needs in order to create normal resource trading mechanic, not this terrible perversion that exists in Hoi4. :eek:
I'm even afraid to imagine how Cash&Carry events, 'evacuation' of Spanish gold to USSR, or for example, the seizure of Austrian or Czech gold reserves are implemented in Hoi4.
Well... those events are in the game and work fine? So you don't have to imagine anything?
This statement makes me question if you have even played HOI IV in the last few(many) years?
And also, without normal trade mechanics, you will not be able properly to implement oil concessions.
Oil concessions are in the game and work fine? What would be the "proper" way to do it according to you?
The lack of strategic reserves of resourses and money/gold is also a huge absurdity and the failure of Hoi4. In fact, countries tended to accumulate some reserves of resources and gold. And this is a very necessary mechanic for global strategy.
Having discrete units of resources in stockpiles really does not fit with the scale HOI operates at and would make for lousy gameplay, as you'd just stockpile everything you could need ahead of time, stockpiling of critical resources is already present in 2 ways, fuel is just directedly stockpiled, and for other resources a deficit reduces production output and slows down efficiency gain to simulate substitution and a slow drawdown from stockpiles.
Gold stockpiles are basically just money, and money is not a factor at the scale of HOI, and in the few situations where a state suddenly got a lot more gold/money than they had before this is represented by spirits.
- Do you understand that it is absolutely ridiculous if Stalin (Hitler, Churchill) is unable to perform a routine action because he 'does not have enough mana'?
It's so ridiculous and absurd that if it have to explain, then it don't have to explain.
I see political power as being a combination of a state's administrative capacity and the political capital of its current leadership, and even dictators are limited by these factors, because no one rules alone. And pretty much nothing in HOI4 that takes PP to do is a "routine action"
Don't forget that the German army tried several times to kill Hitler and several dictators in that period ended up getting ousted or worse by their own regimes. Contrary to the name a dictator can very much not do whatever they want all the time.
It seems that I never managed to start WW2 exactley on September 1, 1939 in Hoi4 just because this fantasy game have mana (!), the lack of which prevents starting the war on time. *facepalm*
Declaring war on Poland goes trough a focus, which means you simply make sure to start it give or take 70 days before your target start date if that is important to you, PP is not a limit there.
And if you can't declare a war when you want to because you don't have the PP for it I would call that a skill issue as you would have just failed to manage your resources in that case, no game system is explicitly holding you back there.
I could partially agree that during WW2, political ratings were of some importance in some rare cases, for example, Roosevelt was forced to struggle with the isolationist mood of the electorate for a long time, and the Canadian authorities could not begin to mobilize for a very long time, also because of the unpopularity of this measure.
But that's all I can remember quickly.
These all are rare cases that can be realized with ordinary events/decisions and do not require the introduction of fantastic ridiculous 'mana' into WW2 game. Because this is a game about WW2, not about peacetime electoral processes. In the end, you can name this mana a 'political rating' and use it to simulate political electoral processes... But this 'electoral mana' should have nothing to do with 99% of historical events/'focuses'!!
All other routine actions were taken by the leaders of the countries at the right time on the basis of expediency, and not because they 'accumulated mana' this is an absolute absurdity!
Political/diplomatic pressures influenced almost all of the major and most minor decisions of WW2 to differing degrees. Including who to fight where and when.
Simulating all of that would be pretty much impossible, so abstracting it to a generic currency makes sense.


Honestly several of your statements seem so at odds with the reality of HOI4 that I wondered if you were a bot or something, and mentioning HOI5 "whole Hoi-2/3/4/5 Universe" in your signature did not help :) .

While I also think there are many issues with HOI(4), hence this thread. And I also don't think "mana" is good game design, capacities are pretty much always better (And I think the dev's agree given that HOI never really had much mana to begin with, and has less now than at launch).

It seems many of the issues you have come from a somewhat limited understanding of history, and not willing to see that abstraction is a needed/normal and very often good thing for a video game.
EG: Just because there isn't an explicit "money" counter in the game does not mean that the impact of money is not modeled in the simulation.
If HOI tried to simulate every possible factor explicitly then the game would become unbearably complex and I honestly doubt it would really produce much fun or interesting gameplay. And I say that as someone that quite enjoys complex games and would like to see HOI4 become a bit more complex.