In this case you won't have default parameters at all when calling through a base class pointer, resulting in an error if you don't mention the parameter explic

In this case you won't have default parameters at all when calling through a base class pointer, resulting in an error if you don't mention the parameter explicitly. It won't solve the problem, but it is a much saner behavior. If you want the expected behavior, that is that a call through a base class pointer uses the default parameters of the derived class, then you shouldn't use default parameters at all. Use overloading instead.