Constructive Criticism And Ideas To Improve Cities XL

[sparky66 0]

updated first post.

[GlobexCo 33]

I suggest a complete redesign of roads because:

- roads have a texture without something like UVW mapping, so if you make the road longer you'll have a longer texture and longer zebras and viceversa.

- Smoother curves. So, more segments in a curve.

- The interchange between different roads creates crossings with traffic lights where isn't needed.

- I don't like the interchange between a normal road and a rural road.

- New highway interchanges (especially for small roads, like in SC4)

Finally I want the UDI function also for CXL!

[ForceInfinity 0]

I was thinking that one suggestion would be to have something at the borders of the city such that if you're looking out the horizon at a city boundary, it doesn't look as if you're at the edge of the planet. Something like at least a generic ground texture (be it land or water) that stretches off into the distance.

[rhenry 1]

Originally posted by: ForceInfinity

I was thinking that one suggestion would be to have something at the borders of the city such that if you're looking out the horizon at a city boundary, it doesn't look as if you're at the edge of the planet. Something like at least a generic ground texture (be it land or water) that stretches off into the distance.quote>

Not sure what game you're playing but they do have that. If you have a coastal map or one with a lake running off of it, the block you are building on is surrounded by water. That way when you look out of the "harbor" towards the edge of the map, it gives the impression you're looking out into a large body of water. If you are on a different terrain and you look out to the edge, it tends to have some kinds of hills, gentle slopes or mountains that give the illusion of looking off into an enless distance into the horizon. I think it's one of the coolest features of the game.

you must be talking about something similar to Societies where you are at the edge of the map and you are looking out into an abyss of empty land that you can't get to.

[soundwave27 0]

Originally posted by: rhenry

Originally posted by: ForceInfinity

I was thinking that one suggestion would be to have something at the borders of the city such that if you're looking out the horizon at a city boundary, it doesn't look as if you're at the edge of the planet. Something like at least a generic ground texture (be it land or water) that stretches off into the distance.quote>

Not sure what game you're playing but they do have that. If you have a coastal map or one with a lake running off of it, the block you are building on is surrounded by water. That way when you look out of the "harbor" towards the edge of the map, it gives the impression you're looking out into a large body of water. If you are on a different terrain and you look out to the edge, it tends to have some kinds of hills, gentle slopes or mountains that give the illusion of looking off into an enless distance into the horizon. I think it's one of the coolest features of the game.

you must be talking about something similar to Societies where you are at the edge of the map and you are looking out into an abyss of empty land that you can't get to.

quote>

He's playing the same game I'm playing... I will give you the water maps though.

To add to this, it would be nicer if the road that's connecting my city to the outside world, actually looked like it was connecting to the outside world lol

[Troels 0]

I have now played this game for a few days. Apart from the graffics, when it comes city building this is for the momemt a huge set back compared to Sim city.

1. you have to smash half the city to upgrade a road.

2. bridges huge and hard to make look nice.

3. buildings block are all square. I was thinking of the dutch houses of Amsterdam 1x3.

4. Buildings dont take corner sight into account. buildings are all free standing. Not posible to make a traditional european city with continous city blocks. thinking of the nice model in simitropolis of Parisi nan houses that could grow next to each other.

5. A command type economy were you assign what type of people live were. The GDR would have loved it. instead of fluctuasitons in values wich decides were the rich live.

6. when you want to upgrade a residendial zone to a higher density you have to destroy it first. (as with the roads.

Basicaly extrylmy unflexible impossible to make a city grow organicly.

i ll give it few weeks but if it doesn t improve quiclkly i ll stop plyaing.

And playind in palnet mode have been disconecet withot being able to reconnet. ( and don t give me the answer that its my connectio: was able to play WOW straight away).

Sorry for my not so good spelling

[LBII 3]

On a french forum, I was discussing about highways interchange. Actually, the roundabout to change directions when taking an exit is really not the best idea : there is no such exits ramps in North America, as far as I know! Second point : why does butting an interchange imply losing so much space? Here is an illustration of what I'm talking :

The picture down here originated from a city journal on Simtropolis

In the yellow circle, we clearly see that the land near the interchange can't be developped.

This means that an highway passing in a downtown core can't have interchange beacuse it takes too much space! I have quicky deawn some ideas of possible ramps that don't take much space and are more often seen in North America.

This is, I think, an important adjustment for more realistic freeways

[morriswalters 16]

4. bridges over rivers. why do they have to be so high aboue water level? it just looks stupid. they should be able to cross the river at the same level as the surrounding land without having to have a huge ramp at each end.

All roads are 3D and have retaining walls.  In the beta you could do exactly as you request and it looked pretty silly. You ended up damming the river efectively.  Adjust the height of your bridge.  By the way this is how it works in SC4 and real life.

5. road junctions. i have built a few junctions where pavements (sidewals if you are american) don't appear properly or don't line up with the road and it just looks wierd.

 This is generally an indicator that the alignment is off.  What you actually doing is laying one road over another.

6. parks. if the enclosed area is slightly too large, you can't add a park. parks need to be surrounded with roads. mouse needs to be in exactly the right place to add larger parks. parks don't look very good.

Use small roads to enclose or divide the area then fill and delete.  Park textures have a number of of good properties.  They can adjust to the terrain and make unlevel terrain look better, that includes reducing the amount of retaining wall that is visible.

7. lots don't always line up with roads properly. if there is a tiny gap between the building and the road on a steep hill the grass texture is stretched and looks horrible.

This is related to 5.  Roads will tend to get out of alignment when using the zone tool if you are doing a large number of lots over time.  To help prevent this do some planning.  When you set the first zone and your sure it's straight then draw some roads from it. The roads should draw blue.  Now fill in between with the zone tool. Rinse and repeat. This should reduce this problem.

8. making one way roads. hard to tell what way the arrows will point until you click on the buttons.

Trivial, use the road properties to change direstion if its going the wrong way.

19. highway system very difficult to use. need more freeform junctions.

Highway interchanges are large lots.  Maybe modders can add more interchanges.  That's the only way to add junctions.  The graphics in the game can't handle small angles.  I wish you luck.

41. allow tunnels and bridges to go over and under buildings (especially tunnels)

Can already do.  But got to have room for piers.  Tunnels are possible if the terrain is far enough above sea level.  Somebody set a tunnel entrance into water so MC made sure it couldn't happen again.

52. it should be possible to upgrade a road if there is space on one side.

Can already do.  But must get rid of old road first.  But I guess what you mean is it's not automated.

Edit:

What people in most cases don't understand about CXL is the limits imposed by the choices they made.  Look at the Wind Generator and you will see one of the problems with their 3D world, it floats above the terrain.  Things don't sit flat on the terrain.  If a lot doesn't have foundations it floats.  The same for interchanges.  If they used earthworks for ramps they would all have foundations or they would float.  If on the other hand they  used foundations for the whole interchange the interchange would look really weird. The cure would be worse then the disease.  The farms are another example of this.  The buildings have no lots.  They have foundations.  The farmfields are like the park texture and evidently they can't be laid over one another. So the farm texture is under everything.

[Androv 6]

I'm just thinking of the sign into the tunnel that ended underwater.

"City Centre - Straight Ahead" - "Watery Grave - Exit Right" .........

[jeremy12 0]

I only have 1 big issue, Details, Details, Details, when i click a road that has a capacity of 60 cars a hour i want to know how many cars are going down it not just traffic is heavy, i don't want to know a hospital will have medium impact i want to know it will serve xxx people of my x,xxx this is what will keep me going back to Sim city , well this and the no trade between your cities and the severely handy-caped solo mode transport options

[SimBurger 0]

Sparky - I only got to about number 20 on your list before I stopped.

As a leader of several development teams, can I suggest that you take out all the "opinion" related requests and clearly separate them from actual "bugs" ?

Bugs are the highest priority and the things they need to address now.

Nearly all of your first 20 items were just "I dont like how the lamp posts look" and "why do the bridges have to be so high - that looks stupid" .... and .... "I really would prefer if you could improve the detail of the car graphics"

These things are pretty irrelevant on the scale of things right now.

They're wants, not needs. Luxuries.

So they end up cluttering out the actual bugs that need to be addressed.

Like this one: "make CXL a city building simulator rather than a trading simulator."

Geez man. You want them to scrap the game and rewrite the entire thing? Gotta be realistic in what you ask for or they will completely tune you out.

-SB-

EDIT:  I just read the moderators post on the first page.   Im basically saying the same thing I guess.  MC needs constructive feedback right now, not a 60 item list of complaining about totally subjective unimportant things.  So we need to help them by making focused, prioritized bug reports.  There are a lot of threads doing that so far, and its awesome that MC is here reading.  That says a lot about their priorities.

[Androv 6]

Region play was a bit of a fail in SC4 anyway, my citizens tended to drive around in circles and you could exploit things quite a lot. I like my coloured traffic report! I don't need to know the details about how many cars, that's really beside the point. What you need to know is that the road is stuffed, and you need to replace it with something better (or build a new road). Here's my traffic view for Qulara. As you can see there are a few problem areas.....

And that's *despite* having the biggest road available in some of those spots.   

[bluetooth 0]

I miss a mini-map.

[jeremy12 0]

Originally posted by: Androv

Region play was a bit of a fail in SC4 anyway, my citizens tended to drive around in circles and you could exploit things quite a lot. I like my coloured traffic report! I don't need to know the details about how many cars, that's really beside the point.  quote>

like putting all industry in a diffrent city... lol

Me to they cant give rid of colored traffic i just like being able to see the number of car along side that so when i ignore roads for a long time i will know if i just go 1 step higher it will still be yellow.... hence this is why it does not replace colors just sits in the mouse over of the color dot or next to it (in my opinion)

[masterofflight 0]

MC has created a game that is visually stunning, and I am grateful for that. I tried the trial version and I loved wandering through my city and looking up at some of the large skyscrapers that were being built, or across the valleys from my Elite's hilltop homes.

But one of the things I quickly found most annoying was:

- A lack of detailed information regarding resource generation/utilization. I think most who enjoyed SimCity made good use of the extensive collections of graphs that indicated quite precisely how resources are being utilized. Specifically, electricity, water, waste, and even fuel and farms, would all be much easier to figure out where the resources are going if we had some specifics. Not "Small Power Plant - generates 'some' electricity." I think a lot of us Simmers thrive on details. How Much power? I want to be able to calculate what the cost is to generate power per unit power. The disconnect between generation and use of these key resources is very frustrating.

I also would like to see the mass transit additions and how they work, as well as more precise budgetary controls. The consequences of reduced service budgets in SimCity were always evident, but you could do it in times of hardship and sacrifice some service.

Overall, its a nice game to look at. But MC, before I shell out any money, you've got to improve the analysis tools

MOF

[JakeMD 107]

read

[jeremy12 0]

Originally posted by: masterofflight

But one of the things I quickly found most annoying was:

- A lack of detailed information regarding resource generation/utilization. I think most who enjoyed SimCity made good use of the extensive collections of graphs that indicated quite precisely how resources are being utilized. Specifically, electricity, water, waste, and even fuel and farms, would all be much easier to figure out where the resources are going if we had some specifics. Not "Small Power Plant - generates 'some' electricity." I think a lot of us Simmers thrive on details. How Much power? I want to be able to calculate what the cost is to generate power per unit power. The disconnect between generation and use of these key resources is very frustrating.

I also would like to see the mass transit additions and how they work, as well as more precise budgetary controls. The consequences of reduced service budgets in SimCity were always evident, but you could do it in times of hardship and sacrifice some service.

Overall, its a nice game to look at. But MC, before I shell out any money, you've got to improve the analysis tools

quote>

glad to see i am not the only one missing this

[moaku 74]

quick reply, didn't read the whole thread, sorry if already mentionned...

#41: both are possible... to do an underground tunnel, go to "bridge mode", hold shift down and move your cursor (slowly) to the bottom, it will lower the "target point" road level and create a tunnel entrance when appropriated...

Also works for bridges over building (move to top instead of down to raise the target point), you just have to leave free space where the bridge pillars are, and if your bridge is high enough (higher than the maximum building height), you'll be able to build under it... (and this looks great, especially with fastways)

#47: Are you sure about this one? I'm doing a few modding experiences arround roads (nothing revolutionar, don't get excited, lol) and I used a retail lot to force traffic simulation... there was many cars for just 1 lot.. (well, an high dens. slot)

Maybe your detail level is a bit low ?

#49: good idea... why not adding a "distance tax", adding a % to the deal price proportionnal with distance and depending on transport mode used (airport more expensive for local trades, etc...), would be easy and realistic ! (of course, trades offers would have to show the "tax included" total )#50: City hall has 2 purposes.... for the player, it's just a landmark and a "must have or nothing works"... upgrading it will just enlarge the landmark radius, boosting attractiveness in residences in radius, not sure about how it affects attractiveness, but I guess it's simply by boosting a little the local "environment". Megastructures have a similar "attractiveness boosting landmark radius" but it's generally bigger and more efficient than city hall... still good to take anyway.

for the game engine, it's a sort of "beacon"... every pathfinding in the simulation uses it as a reference point, so this is why everything fails so quickly when you demolish your hall in big cities...

the "City core" is also treated the same way as GEMs will be, with that point of view, imagine that your city is a "City GEM" and that your town hall is the "HQ" of your GEM's society. That's the reason it's the very first building to build.

#54: redundant, already mentionned in previous point...

#55: I don't agree, this would makes things much more easier for open cheating.

#56: should be added later, according to what MC said... there will at least be disasters, dunno if it will be a po only feature or a feature for both solo and po..

#58: redundant point

[MandelSoft 2,775]

And I agree that CitiesXL should provide you with clear statistics, instead of vague definitions like "some", "many" , etc.

[We are not doing the other discussion thanks.]

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

 

[PyroMancer 0]

I think the reason people complain so much is because space is very limited. Even though the maps might seem kind of big MC said they were suppose to represent like what 10Km by 10Km? For those of you that don't know 1 KM = 0.6 Miles. So roughly the maps are 6 Miles by 6 Miles. Now I'm not sure the size of the Large maps in SC4 but they felt larger then that.

More to the point though that is actually a VERY SMALL amount of land to build on. A simple example is if you live in the suburbs and it takes you a good 20-30 min drive to reach the center of down town on a highway that let's you go about 50 MPH then you live about 17-25 Miles away (28-42 Km). And that is just one side of the city that doesn't include extending towards the other side.

The other problem is cities are often surrounded by lots of counties, at least in the US. This means many of the Suburbs are not actually within the city limits. Even though most people use the city on their address and consider themselves to live in the city. The most important thing on the address is the zip code and as long as that and the street name and number are correct you can put the wrong city/state and the mail will often still get through . In fact if you include the FULL zipcode which most people don't they only use the first 5 numbers you don't have to put anything else on the letter. Except most people don't know their full zipcode address.

Anyhow the point is cities in real life are often much bigger then what is allowed in CXL in terms of land space and they often are well connected to smaller counties (aka mini cities) surrounding them which funnel in workers and provide a lot of housing. As such every bit of space in the game counts so people don't like it when they think something is taking up to much of that valuable space. Since land is the only scarce resource in CXL . People always complain about stuff that uses up more then they think is fair of a scarce resource whether it's in RL or in a game.

[Everclear 0]

As far as

27. Official forums on CXL website.

I sent an email saying the same and this is the reply I recived

Dear Jennison,

first of all thanks for your interest in Cities XL and for your suggestion,

We inform you that the forum at https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/index.cfm?FTVAR_SUBCAT=399&subcatname=Cities%20XL%20Forum is an official one.

You can also take advantage of our support page at http://www.citiesxl.com/content/view/359/133/?lang=en

Best regards,

the Cities XL team

[ForceInfinity 0]

One suggestion (probably an idea for a GEM) is to give the ability of an Avatar to go driving through the city in a vehicle

(as I wrote this, you get something like it in the ground level zoom + arrow keys.  But still would be fun to have something where you just go through a cruise through your city)

[alexz 0]

Originally posted by: sparky66

33. Would be nice to select what buildings should be build (e.g. a whole street of the same buildings, especially useful for terraced/row houses)quote>

[wondergreat 0]

- Resource like water/oil/agric/manu products have different level of quality (~4-tier in my mind). The higher technology (hi-tech token) of the city will allow better quality products to be produced.

[xannepan 513]

Hi,

My suggestions is to add "Road Maintenance (Micro)Management" option/simulation to the game by (roughly)

1) let the player control a part of the taxes that go specifically to maintenance of the road (eventually MT) network

2) if budget not on 100% roads will start degrading gradually (depending on how low the budget is), starting with those segments that are heavilly used. This could be visualized by changes in road textures (holes, cracks, bumps what have you) As a result perhaps max speed could gradually go down as a result of which traffic jams occur or accidents etc.

3) Allow the user to repair per segment at a certain cost (click on road segment--> option repair, costs dependent on how much degradation has taken place), or overall by setting budget/tax  to> 100 or more percent.

4) Allow to mark roads as toll roads(click on road segment --> option set as toll road)  in case of which this particular segment is not maintained but overal taxes, degradation does not apply --> toll boots appear at  beginning and end of segment.

I think such micromanagement will really add to the experience of the game....

Alex

[moaku 74]

lolllllll

Yeah, and I want an animated title video where we can read "SimCity" in big

Sorry for this "trolling post", but couldn't resist this time

EDIT: To have a bit of "constructiveness" in this post anyway, i'd say that I would enjoy being able to change the square-zones sizes... I mean being able to draw 2 per X blocs instead of 2 per 3... even if that would mean 1 more click in the square-zonning tool... first click = origin point, second = determine bloc orientation, third click: define the numbers of "bat-pairs" in a bloc and fourth click: final confirmation

[gyzzzmo 0]

More suggestions:

- The contract duration is way too short. If you got a really big city, the only thing you seem to be doing is remaking contracts. Maybe permanent contracts with your own cities?

- Fertilizers sometimes dont work

- retail is unbalanced; 8 low density retail buildings cover a 100k city (or whatever)

- Not enough information on descriptions of buildings about how they work and how much they work. It requires alot of asking and trial-and-error to figure out the game mechanics

- Highway bridges/tunnels can only be build by connecting them to intersections.

- Education is bugged, only elementry schools and unlockable institutes seem to have an effect on education levels. Any other school are useless to build.

- The 5 cities maximum is definitely not enough. If MC stubbornly keeps this amount, people will stop playing the game online because they dont want to destroy the city they worked so many weeks on, for creating a new one. And since trading between your own cities is much more reliable (and cheaper), you need multiple cities to support 1 main city in their needs.

[Mathew_MC 0]

Thanks for all the feedback guys and thanks Sparky66 for putting it all on the first page.

I am compiling and reorganizing it to forward it to the devs.

[gyzzzmo 0]

Last thing, MC really has to repair the trading issues ASAP. I'm at the point that i have to stop playing the game, just because i cannot trade between cities anymore: Contracts between own cities get broken for no reason while according to the token, freight, passenger and cash numbers there should be no problem.

I'm sure MC realises this themselves; What is the point of paying for the game if even the most basic (and important) feature (trading) of Planet Mode fails?