Have CO lost touch with what players want?

[barcasam7 185]

As the title says, the latest DLC has somewhat made question their overall approach to improving the game. My biggest complaint is the latest DLC. To me this a flawed strategy. I won't be purchasing anymore DLC as they all fail to fix the underlying flaws in the game. You can get great stadiums on the workshop and the Nou Camp is one of them? $5 for 4 stadiums is not value at all. Improve the game mechanics of the game instead of building aesthetics buildings which the modding community are doing a great job in. Also choosing football you limit your target audience. Who chooses your game decisions needs to re-evaluate what the players want. As right now I'm not sure these mini-DLC's are the right approach and going to help improve the game.

What are your thoughts?

[mutton noir 170]

Spend a couple of minutes listening/watching CO staff talk in various live streams/interviews and you have an insight into their "kooky" personalities- they appear to have a creative "alternative" perspective view on life. Nothing wrong with that so long as the company has some balance and a few folks with a more structured practical grounded approach to the company/business. My impression is the team are easily distracted by "beautiful shiny objects" and are prone to disappear down various rabbit holes in pursuit. They appear to lack a cool hard headed counter weight to challenge and channel the creativity in a more focused way. It does appear that they skirt around the edges tinkering with the game. The additional content does look good but seems to be superfluous to most serious fans who really want to see CO address their concerns regarding refinement of core game mechanics before all else. CO have to be commended for producing a solid game that has amazing potential but they have established a pattern whereby a new element is introduced - such as canals and tourism- but remains a "stub" that fans expect to be developed further or the unfathomable eternal winters of Snowfall. The modding community is fantastic it truly represents the "wisdom of the crowd" transforming the experience for fans. 

Natural disasters does look interesting but surely it runs counter to why most of us like Cities Skylines- we spend endless hours carefully designing and CREATING our cities, do we really want to DESTROY our work when we've invested so much?

I don't want to knock CO the folks seem great and do get actively involved with the fans but I do believe that they lack focus and rigour and would benefit from a more balanced team.

 

[squirrelarmyuk 100]

The first thing to remember is that this DLC has been commissioned and brought us by the publishers Paradox and not Colossal Order. They may have done the design work needed but the reason we have this DLC pack lies with Paradox.

As for why they are pushing forward DLC it's quite simple. The business model for most games is an initial influx of cash as people buy the base game and then the publishers earn subsequent money as they push microtransactions onto the users. 

They appear in all forms of games. It could be season passes to enable online play or additional content such as in the CoD or Battlefied series. Bethesda offer season passes for Skyrim & Fallout so you gain all future DLC for a set yearly price.

Other games are more direct such as Overwatch and CS:Go. You can buy extra items as you play. The same goes with Rockstar and GTA,  you can boost your in game bank balance by buying Shark Cards with real world cash. Rockstar are constantly releasing new must have vehicles, they usually time these releases to come just after they have drained peoples online bank accounts with a selection of in game discounts.

Additional content is essential for a game company now in order to keep publishers happy. This money is then pushed back into development for either the next game in the series or updates to the existing one. 

They gave us Matchday free to coincide with Euro 2016, they obviously picked up on very positive feedback and commissioned the Stadiums DLC. Completely optional and the assets themselves are fantastic. I'm very impressed with the design. The size of them also far exceeds anything that can be created using mods.

As for natural disasters, it's a DLC aimed at the casual simulation players. It's been one of the top requested features ever since the game came out. For us city painters the thought of destroying our hard work is unbearable but for the majority of players it will be fun and a nice challenge rebuilding afterwards.

You have to remember while the modding community is a close knit group we're also quite a small group too when compared the masses who just play the vanilla game. If these updates bring more players to the community then it's a good thing for all involved in the game.

 

[Linoa06 1,374]

I prefer DLCs to in game microtransactions, but CO needs to churn out those mini DLCs for revenue, even though the base game still has flaws. That's a business model, and a fair one at that.

Lost their way....quite fairly there are a lot of other publishers and developers that destroy franchises by putting money over design, push in-game microtransactions even in AAA games, force multiplayer DRMs, and put games at massive prices ON TOP OF DLCs and the aforementioned strategies. I don't think CO lost their way at all, they're very honest about what they're doing, there's always a free update with each DLC that fixes some stuff, and you're not forced to buy if you don't like it. 

As for disasters..a lot of people actually like creating a city then launching meteors at it actually. I love to create stuff, I love to destroy stuff, it makes for great story, it adds some of the Simcity flair, and then you have to go ahead and rebuild. To me it's a challenge. Planning for disasters is an inherent part of the city planning, and my cities are always built with hard mode and budget on, despite my very aesthetical/world building focus, and a disaster would certainly lead me to rethink some of my strategies.

People need to stop being afraid of the whole "destruction" thing, even if I do understand that some people prefer not to deal with it, since by now it's the most requested feature that's not been added yet, I would say you're the one not quite in the way of everyone else, not that there's anything wrong with that - if the fact not everyone sees the game as some spiritual creative endeavour of building glory, but more as a giant, interactive city lego set. Besides, as I said, you can always just not buy the DLC, or disable disasters entirely. 

The bottom line is, you can't be entitled to everything. Just look at EA and its holdings if you want an abusive games publisher/developer.

[Avanya 2,605]

Like squirrelarmyuk pointed out it's important to keep in mind what is actually CO's ideas and what is Paradox's ideas. The Art Deco was all Paradox and Shroomblaze and looking at the latest Word of the Week it seems the stadiums was also mainly Paradox's initiative based on how Match Day went. With Natural Disasters CO are actually making something that was asked for - and they're not just adding destruction, but some actual mechanics. I like the idea of handling disasters like floods or forest fires and I'm usually someone who just likes to make pretty cities.  

We don't know how deep the disaster system will be, but it sounds like it will add a bit to the simulation at least. And let's not forget scenarios! I predict they will add much more to the game than the disasters - just think of how many gorgeous and diverse maps we have out there, some even with a little back story. With scenarios we can play out those stories and set challenges for each other, forcing us to build differently than usual to achieve the goals.

Around the time they announced disasters alot of people were hoping for a transport focused DLC, which CO talked about in one of the interviews. It at least sounds like they are updating their wish list with what players are asking for. We just had the ferry mod and talk of the metro overhaul so alot of ppl got excited for transport stuff - I wonder what ppl want by the time CO delivers on the transport DLC.

[squirrelarmyuk 100]

As for future plans and transport DLC, CO asked on Reddit what we'd like to see. I got an intriguing response about a suggestion for airfreight so I'm hoping that this is something they will be considering in the future. They are a small team though so any future developments will take time.to implement, 

 

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Well... what more can you do in a citybuilder ?

Ok the stadiums thing... I don't get it. It's awfully overpriced for what it is.
But the Disasters ?? That's something I won't use... maybe (if money falls from the sky and I buy it) just to see "how it looks" from time to time, but that's all... BUT... some people love having disasters in a city builder, and it allows the creation of interesting scenarios.

Of course I would prefer them to fix some things that REALLY ned to be fixed, and I'm a bit nervous about what the DLC will break (because each DLC broke stuff, and some of the broken things were never fixed. And I'm not talking about mods, I'm talking about the vanilla game. AD gave us the yellow tint and completely washed look. They never ever acknowledged there was a problem. Snowfall made the streets and rooftops MUCH too reflective after rain. How did they fix it ? By killing ALL the speculars.)

Oh yeah and their approach. I sometimes wonder if they ever play their own game.

[barcasam7 185]

Thanks for the responses, some really great responses. I fully agree with Cool_Z about being apprehensive for the new DLC and what impact it will have on the vanilla game. I sometimes do wonder whether it would have been better to have one big DLC? Like Sim City 4 Rush hour. Also, good point Avanya about Paradox's idea. It would be interesting to see how different Paradox and CO future ideas are. 

[calpolyfan 47]

10 hours ago, barcasam7 said:

As the title says, the latest DLC has somewhat made question their overall approach to improving the game. My biggest complaint is the latest DLC. To me this a flawed strategy. I won't be purchasing anymore DLC as they all fail to fix the underlying flaws in the game. You can get great stadiums on the workshop and the Nou Camp is one of them? $5 for 4 stadiums is not value at all. Improve the game mechanics of the game instead of building aesthetics buildings which the modding community are doing a great job in. Also choosing football you limit your target audience. Who chooses your game decisions needs to re-evaluate what the players want. As right now I'm not sure these mini-DLC's are the right approach and going to help improve the game.

What are your thoughts?

Great post!

Yeah, this game is not very good. It really never has been either.

CO do not understand what a city builder actually is, and it is showing.

I really do not like anything about this game, except the roads/rail and ability to place them creatively.  Other than that, I am not impressed with anything.

This game just has a "hollow" feel to it, where you don't feel like there is much behind the actual city simulation at all.

The game interface is poor, the graphics are poor, and sometimes hard to look at, especially when zoomed out further.

There really isn't any "skyline" simulation at all..  Buildings grow too tall too early, and are all 4x4? Are you kidding me? This is a joke.

 

Like I have said before, Sim City type games are more like Gardening than they are anything else-  You want to WORK to get that taller building... You don't want a flat-top sea of skyscrapers showing up, with no clear focus.

 

Cities seem to lack personality, vanilla architecture is awful.

No interconnections with other cities in the map, no larger city regions.

Areas which could have really become fun gameplay aspects: Ferry lines, Interface with real freight transfer between ships, trains, trucks, airports etc.. were somehow left out of the game..  Ships just drive over land if the land gets changed STILL.. is this a joke?

But mostly, the scale is just way off..  No larger plot sizes is just a joke more than a year later..  What is the point of this game exactly? Plopping everything?

 

They didn't even include a good building creation tool.. I mean, that's a basic thing and as far as I can tell it takes a college degree to import buildings and custom content into this game.

Having constant "Steam Updates" and needing essentially to be online, and having all your subscribed assets makes for a very clunky user experience, that isn't truely "offline".. and game load times are ridiculous.

Just an overall terrible city builder that looked very promising in the beginning, but was ultimately a let down.  Was it worth the 20 bucks or whatever? Probably, but it's not even as good as SimCity 4 really as far as re-play ability goes.

 

[LivingInThePast 364]

I personally think that the Disasters DLC is a worthy addition. After all, we all want this to be the "true" SimCity 5, and disasters have been in every SimCity since the first, right?

However, while CSL hasn't gone down the path of outright hatred against its players (the first expansion to the highly broken SC13 was..."Cities of the Future") but yes, I do feel like CSL has neglected its player base. There's still a lot of things that should be fixed. The "Building Upgrade" is an incredibly poor way to combine the Stages and Wealth Levels of SimCity 4. With the Wealth Level, it wouldn't just change what was on the lot, you could have it so it could be a once opulent mansion in disrepair or what was originally a cheap bungalow now an extremely expensive bungalow in a trendy part of town. Railroads are too a disappointment, and seemingly unfixable texture problems at intersections (you don't need zebra striping crosswalks when an alley intersects your road, highway exits/entrances look particularly terrible) are another problem.

I would hope that a true v2.0 fixes most of the problems @calpolyfan mentioned before the DLC starts going off the deep end.

[boformer 3,169]

@calpolyfan

I agree with most of your points. As a child, I always loved the old SimCity games. The games were challenging and realistic, and I always felt like a real mayor.

C:SL is a casual game. The simulation is a joke, the graphics are awful.

There are many design failures, like the zoning system, the growable/wealth simulation, the oversimplified network system, the broken economy. There is no way to fix these fundamental problems in this version of the game. DLCs can not fix it.

That's why this game became a city painter, and that really makes me sad. It could have been more.

The game is still the best 3D city building game.

Now we got two ways to proceed:

1. Fix the game with mods. This might take a few years, but it is possible. I thibk we can fix at least 80% of the issues, especially simulation-related ones.

2. Create a new (open source) game that targets a mature audience. I think a group of mod developers and asset creators could pull this off. It would also take a few years.

[rmjohnson144 42]

I think they are just biding their time with the DLC and waiting for ND to release.

I'm hoping this is the Xbox One release as well.  With such a delay in updates and MS unspoken progress on the game, maybe they are all finishing it up for both.

I can't see MS taking so long porting this over as the game is working in win10 already and Xbone already has windows 10 as well.  It should take little to no effort to have it working.

Maybe MS doesn't want to use Steam and use their own system?  Maybe they want to dump unity and convert it to metal?  If we're lucky we'll get a version 2.0, or at least a version 1.1.  With all this time wasted, they better have something good.  

[sccolin 4]

I agree with points made that CO / Paradox have to maintain revenue stream.  They also need to earn a living as well as respond to player interests.  Hence DLCs vs improving basic game flaws.  That's life.

That said CS in dire need of major revamp to fix some basic flaws including performance.  My pet peeve is load time.  There should be option to precompile subscribed assets.  I have about 500 including props.  I estimate it would reduce game load time by about 50% from 10+ minutes to 5.

[Linoa06 1,374]

17 hours ago, calpolyfan said:

Great post!

Yeah, this game is not very good. It really never has been either.

CO do not understand what a city builder actually is, and it is showing.

I really do not like anything about this game, except the roads/rail and ability to place them creatively.  Other than that, I am not impressed with anything.

This game just has a "hollow" feel to it, where you don't feel like there is much behind the actual city simulation at all.

The game interface is poor, the graphics are poor, and sometimes hard to look at, especially when zoomed out further.

There really isn't any "skyline" simulation at all..  Buildings grow too tall too early, and are all 4x4? Are you kidding me? This is a joke.

 

Like I have said before, Sim City type games are more like Gardening than they are anything else-  You want to WORK to get that taller building... You don't want a flat-top sea of skyscrapers showing up, with no clear focus.

 

Cities seem to lack personality, vanilla architecture is awful.

No interconnections with other cities in the map, no larger city regions.

Areas which could have really become fun gameplay aspects: Ferry lines, Interface with real freight transfer between ships, trains, trucks, airports etc.. were somehow left out of the game..  Ships just drive over land if the land gets changed STILL.. is this a joke?

But mostly, the scale is just way off..  No larger plot sizes is just a joke more than a year later..  What is the point of this game exactly? Plopping everything?

 

They didn't even include a good building creation tool.. I mean, that's a basic thing and as far as I can tell it takes a college degree to import buildings and custom content into this game.

Having constant "Steam Updates" and needing essentially to be online, and having all your subscribed assets makes for a very clunky user experience, that isn't truely "offline".. and game load times are ridiculous.

Just an overall terrible city builder that looked very promising in the beginning, but was ultimately a let down.  Was it worth the 20 bucks or whatever? Probably, but it's not even as good as SimCity 4 really as far as re-play ability goes.

 

I really play CSL because it's in 3D and allows me to make really nice screenshots, but I do believe that nothing will quite top Simcity 4, partly because of sheer nostagia value, but also because SC4 really -was- the apex of city building and nobody's really bothered ever since. Simcity 5 could have been beautiful, if EA hadn't destroyed it from the start with their multiplayer bs.

[calpolyfan 47]

21 hours ago, boformer said:

@calpolyfan

I agree with most of your points. As a child, I always loved the old SimCity games. The games were challenging and realistic, and I always felt like a real mayor.

C:SL is a casual game. The simulation is a joke, the graphics are awful.

There are many design failures, like the zoning system, the growable/wealth simulation, the oversimplified network system, the broken economy. There is no way to fix these fundamental problems in this version of the game. DLCs can not fix it.

That's why this game became a city painter, and that really makes me sad. It could have been more.

The game is still the best 3D city building game.

Now we got two ways to proceed:

1. Fix the game with mods. This might take a few years, but it is possible. I thibk we can fix at least 80% of the issues, especially simulation-related ones.

2. Create a new (open source) game that targets a mature audience. I think a group of mod developers and asset creators could pull this off. It would also take a few years.

BO, thanks for your comment, and also thank you so much for the time you have put into modding this game.

I agree with everything you said. This is a "city painter" I couldn't have put it better myself.  This isn't a city simulator, this is more like "painting" a city than a city simulator.

Yes, the simulation is a joke (is there a simulation at all?) yes, the graphics are awful, even though some people like to say the graphics are "breathtaking".  In fact, I was amazed looking at the forums and reddit and people talking about how great this game looks..  are you kidding me?   Maybe at a zoomed in level, with some special light filter it looks alright, . but zoom out at all, and you almost have to squint so it doesn't give you a headache.

Like you said, regarding so much of the game being broken. I really feel like this game is beyond fixing. I wouldn't waste my time if I were you. I know you and others have tried hard to fix these issues, but it's really a pointless task, as there are so many serious flaws that it would take many mods to fix it at all, if at possible. Besides, CO should be paying you to fix their laziness.

Why is it people like yourself are having to fix this game for CO again? Why aren't they fixing it? Why wasn't it released in a working manner in the first place?

Cities Skylines definitely left the door open for a new City Simulator game (a real one) that actually listens to the fanbase and understands what we want. It game clearly isn't it.

CO never listened to the fan base when you actually go back and look at the history and how things developed-  players wanted larger regions, interconnected regions.. Didn't get it, and CO ignored them.  Players wanted freight networks to be linked to seaports/airports/vans etc..  CO ignored it.  Nobody asked for dynamic water, but they gave it to us. although it is "nice" to have..  players never wanted the Chirper, but they got it anyway.  Players wanted 3 levels of zone density, but CO told us over and over again that we didn't know what we were talking about.. Turned out we were right, and the zoning options are lacking. This game just sucks all around.

Players asked for zones larger than 4x4.. CO told us not to worry about it.. we didn't know what we were talking about.

Players wanted realistic looking architecture, but got a pastel Easterish looking color scheme of blues and pink futuristic looking buildings that just look awful.

Then, instead of making the game run smoother, and simulate smoother, CO decides they are going to simulate every single player and object? Over-ambitious much? That to me seems like a waste of processing power, when you could just simulate traffic levels and have objects generate accordingly.. like in SC4.

I really really love city building games, I have ever since the original Sim City, but I don't think I can accurately portray how much I dislike almost every single aspect of this game.. especially the fact that they really don't understand the point of city-building, and that is growing larger, taller skyscrapers, and that should be very hard, and very rewarding. As it is, its not even a challenge.

Ultimately, I hope this game doesn't discourage another real city builder game from coming online, because they feel like Skylines owns the market.  Hopefully, if anything, this game's massive sales, and also the fact that it isn't that good make people realize there is a market for city builders, and hopefully if they understand we aren't satisfied with this game there is money to be made with a good game.

Anyway, thanks for your work BO and can't wait to see what you can do when we get a real city sim come online in the near future hopefully.

 

[calpolyfan 47]

7 hours ago, Linoa06 said:

I really play CSL because it's in 3D and allows me to make really nice screenshots, but I do believe that nothing will quite top Simcity 4, partly because of sheer nostagia value, but also because SC4 really -was- the apex of city building and nobody's really bothered ever since. Simcity 5 could have been beautiful, if EA hadn't destroyed it from the start with their multiplayer bs.

I never bought SC2013..

Refuse to buy any product that is always online for obvious reasons.  Also, when I saw the size of the maps in SC2013 those were the deal breakers.

SC2013 is a lot better than Skylines in the graphics department-at least the buildings they do have look very nice in SC2013.. The right architectural "look" for vanilla buildings, and great looking graphics.

I LOVE the graphic look of the SC2013 buildings, and the building construction animations, they are fantastic.

If only the maps were larger, and there was regional play (and the roads looked a bit better)...

If you could somehow get that level of graphics, those buildings and skylines road layout flexibility, combined with a Transport Tycoon or A-train style goods distribution aspect we're talking a seriously fun game.

For simplicity, maps should generally be a square, which is an even numerical amount, such as 2x2km2, or 4x4km2 or 10x10km2 whatever, and they should be linked together like in SimCity 4, where you just have road/rail/(add shipping and airport) connections to other cities..

Have goods interchange on a much larger map, which is just a collection of square maps of smaller sizes.  It would be easy to layer this over a "globe" of varying sizes.. you get where I'm going with this.  

Instead, they had tiny maps, which aren't even connected to other maps.. in both SC2013 and in Cities Skylines..  What a complete let-down! 

If they could take SC2013, and substantially increase the map sizes, and incorporate regional/global play, and also use a more cities skylines road/rail laying system that game would sell like hot cakes.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

About the simulation in both SC2013 and CSL, well as some have said it's part of what limits them (much harder for 2013 because it was flawed and because they also used agents for electricity... and water... and poo... seriously, WHY ???)
A city builder, as SC4 showed, does not need that. It has to simulate a city, why simulate all citizens ? A good statistical engine is perfect for that. Of course you won't be able to follow a citizen or a car... but what if you could ?

What could be used is what I would call a semi-statistical engine.
Let's imagine a game running on an engine identical to SC4's one... but the part you look at and only that part would have agents simulated individually, so you would not get disappearing cars/sims. When a car or sim enters the field of view (at closer zooms) they become part of the individual simulation. Once they leave it they remain in it for some time in case the player moves his camera and then at some point stop being part of it. This could give a game the best of both world.
Add the capacity to follow some selected sims (like SC4 did)... and you've got it.
This would allows for colossal maps and huuuuge populations, and still get realistic looking traffic flows.

Graphics ? Hell yeah, SC2013 is good to look at. Its a beauty !

[boformer 3,169]

@calpolyfan

Maybe I will come up with something, next year. But it would also not be a perfect city builder. For example, I'm totally ok with the map sizes of C:SL, and the lack of regions. I got a ton of ideas, not sure where to post them.

37 minutes ago, Cool_Z said:

What could be used is what I would call a semi-statisctical engine.
Let's imagine a game running on an engine identical to SC4's one... but the part you look at and only that part would have agents simulated individually, so you would not get disappearing cars/sims. When a car or sim enters the field of view (at closer zooms) they become part of the individual simulation. Once they leave it they remain in it for some time in case the player moves his camera and then at some point stops being part of it. This could give a game the best of both world.
Add the capacity to follow some selected sims (like SC4 did)... and you've got it.
This would allows for colossal maps and huuuuge populations, and still get realistic looking traffic flows.

Graphics ? Hell yeah, SC2013 is good to look at. Its a beauty !

I agree with you, a statistical simulation is a much better choice for a city building game. Displaying agents which do not disappear is hard, but I could live without that.

The graphics in SC13 are much better. Not entirely realistic (I'm not sure if that should be the goal), but really polished.

[boldlybuilding 873]

I don't have much to add, except two points:

1. I'm probably one of the rare few who really wants disasters. It's more a personal preference, as I have a fascination with disasters. I watch disaster films, disaster documentaries, read about disasters, and I'm working on a game about a disaster (Titanic). There's just some sort of strange fascination there, and I like the idea of being able to have a bit of fun destroying my cities. It gets boring plopping stuff after a while, and the challenge might be nice, plus the added services and dynamics to consider. Besides, while it's not everyone's cup of tea, "DISASTERS PLZ!" was probably one of the loudest chants in the earlier days of the game.

2. I agree with Boformer that the graphics are awful. The default graphics you get with the base game anyway. I've been meaning to post something about this somewhere, some sort of comparison for fun between modded and un-modded graphics. Point is, every time I look at unmodded screenshots or even the new DLC footage directly from CO, it just looks... bad. The buildings aren't very realistic, more stylized, the coloring is terrible, just so very... yellow. Harsh shadows, and the default LUTs aren't that great. Not to mention the lack of AA. And it actually got worse after AD. If it weren't for daylight classic, custom LUTs, softer shadows, dynamic resolution, ambient occlusion, and ultimate eye candy, we wouldn't get any realistic graphics out of this game. I don't even use the game's default buildings anymore mostly because they look weird with the better quality and more realistic custom buildings surrounding them. One could build a city that doesn't use a single default building and show it with graphics beefed up by mods and it would look like an entirely different game. Much nicer. That's not to say all of it CO's fault. The default buildings aren't overly awesome and are all over the place in styles, but that's why they gave us the ability to make our own, and that's all right. But the graphics could really use improvement.

[cmdp123789 710]

I've been playing the game for some time now.. around 250 hours. I have to admit that the points presented here are true, and of course, all valid. But at the same time I feel like we always have this conversation in the forums, yet no company seems to get it right.. I wonder if we are asking for something that can't be actually accomplished(?)

I mean, with SC4 we were happy with the simulation, right? well, not really.. I remember a lot of people complaining about the fact that cars disappeared, and people weren't "real" enough. Then we said, alright, I'll take the simulation, but man I wish we could have 3D graphics.. and so on.. and there will always be something we complain about.

My point is, is there a perfect city builder? no.. and sadly there will never be one. The reason for that? easy! Every person has a different goal and a different way of seeing the game. Some people will focus on the aesthetics, some will focus on the simulation, and heck some will start with one and then move on to the other option..

In the end, we gotta thank modders for extending the usability and adding great content, but honestly, by now, I rather enjoy what's available than hope for something that might never come at all. 

[ghosty20 150]

29 minutes ago, cmdp123789 said:

I've been playing the game for some time now.. around 250 hours. I have to admit that the points presented here are true, and of course, all valid. But at the same time I feel like we always have this conversation in the forums, yet no company seems to get it right.. I wonder if we are asking for something that can't be actually accomplished(?)

I mean, with SC4 we were happy with the simulation, right? well, not really.. I remember a lot of people complaining about the fact that cars disappeared, and people weren't "real" enough. Then we said, alright, I'll take the simulation, but man I wish we could have 3D graphics.. and so on.. and there will always be something we complain about.

My point is, is there a perfect city builder? no.. and sadly there will never be one. The reason for that? easy! Every person has a different goal and a different way of seeing the game. Some people will focus on the aesthetics, some will focus on the simulation, and heck some will start with one and then move on to the other option..

In the end, we gotta thank modders for extending the usability and adding great content, but honestly, by now, I rather enjoy what's available than hope for something that might never come at all. 

This ^ so much, also a lot of people forget that, also unlike SC4, CSL is still getting updates from the developer.. SC4 got one xpac and couple of update patches and the BAT tool then was forgotten about by EA/Maxis..  Then comes SC2013 it gets some update patches one xpac and then EA shut down Maxis and SC2013 has all but been forgotten by EA..

Either way in the end I also doubt that there will ever be the perfect City Builder, because people will find some fault no matter how small and they will always compare it to SC4..  And I think this is where the genre's downfall will come from in that any new City Builder released will never ever be able to live up to peoples expectations it is sad but I think very true..

One last thing to those hating on CSL we should be happy that someone even bothered to make a new City Builder when you consider how small the market for this type of game is and how many other games in this genre vanished into obscurity..

[Linoa06 1,374]

36 minutes ago, cmdp123789 said:

I've been playing the game for some time now.. around 250 hours. I have to admit that the points presented here are true, and of course, all valid. But at the same time I feel like we always have this conversation in the forums, yet no company seems to get it right.. I wonder if we are asking for something that can't be actually accomplished(?)

I mean, with SC4 we were happy with the simulation, right? well, not really.. I remember a lot of people complaining about the fact that cars disappeared, and people weren't "real" enough. Then we said, alright, I'll take the simulation, but man I wish we could have 3D graphics.. and so on.. and there will always be something we complain about.

My point is, is there a perfect city builder? no.. and sadly there will never be one. The reason for that? easy! Every person has a different goal and a different way of seeing the game. Some people will focus on the aesthetics, some will focus on the simulation, and heck some will start with one and then move on to the other option..

In the end, we gotta thank modders for extending the usability and adding great content, but honestly, by now, I rather enjoy what's available than hope for something that might never come at all. 

That is true, part of what makes SC4 such a great game is nostalgia and the decade spent modding the hell out of it. I think people will find fault with any game no matter what, but I still disagree that CSL is an awful game. It has bad graphics, but there IS still some simulation in it. At least, just as much as unmodded/RH SC4. The problem is that it's more clunky, less statistical, and ultimately more of a memory hog but it's there and I still have a blast running a city, toying with policy etc. despite the game's flaws. My CJ and many others are proof of the wonders of CSL, as much as other mods, CJs and etc made SC4 the great game it really wasn't at lauch.

[Turjan 1,048]

2 hours ago, Linoa06 said:

That is true, part of what makes SC4 such a great game is nostalgia and the decade spent modding the hell out of it. I think people will find fault with any game no matter what, but I still disagree that CSL is an awful game.

This is mostly true from my point of view. However, for me, my love of SC4 isn't much of a nostalgia thing at all. I just looked, and I bought the game on Dec 30, 2012, which is less than four years ago, and I doubt I immediately played it. I played older Simcities a long time ago, and I lost interest when I found that the best solutions to the "game" part (the simulation) were nonsensical, like not making a valid road network to get rid of traffic problems. Which means I got to know SC4 when its graphics were already severely dated, but I still loved the simulation parts of it and was not deterred by the looks. And all those wonderful mods! So yes, I think SC4 is ultimately the better game.

However, I also liked CO's CiM titles, which have a similar problem: the second one looks better, but the first one is the better game. I must admit what drew me into Cities Skylines was the ability to build functioning railroad networks in a city builder.That's a very specific and maybe not very understandable reason for other people, but there you have it. In this sense, the city is a bit of a painting in the background. I also don't like many of the design decisions in this game (only two density levels, no wealth levels, the way services work, the atrocious traffic model, particularly with emergency vehicles, etc.). And there's the big thing, the mods. I'm sure I wouldn't play this game anymore without mods. I'm not only talking about all those wonderful assets all these talented people provided, but also specifically about the mods that alleviate at least some of the egregious failures this game shows on the mechanics and interface side. I hoped CO would implement at least some of these, but it seems there's no dice.

Then again, I have a soft spot for games that are flawed gems. At the moment I'm trying to wrestle down Train Fever (which definitely looks worse than C:S), but it resists. The building of road/train crossings, bridges and underpasses there makes me wish for a few more Cities:Skylines features in there. On the other hand, track layout has a few advantages there. But yeah, there isn't a perfect game around.

[.Del 53]

On 22 October 2016 at 8:34 AM, boformer said:

 

C:SL is a casual game. The simulation is a joke, the graphics are awful.

While I somewhat agree with the first two, but nitpicking on the graphics of a game is quite...absurd. Isn't it the gameplay of the game that matters more than the graphics itself? It's not going to win the 'Best Visuals' award in any contest that's for sure, but I wouldn't exactly call it awful either.

Not to mention, better graphics generally means greater load on the GPU, which can either means a drop in performance if the size of the city stays the same or a smaller city size in order to maintain performance.

And we know how well SC2015 turned out when it decide to take the latter approach.

[ghosty20 150]

1 hour ago, Dejected Angel said:

While I somewhat agree with the first two, but nitpicking on the graphics of a game is quite...absurd. Isn't it the gameplay of the game that matters more than the graphics itself? It's not going to win the 'Best Visuals' award in any contest that's for sure, but I wouldn't exactly call it awful either.

Not to mention, better graphics generally means greater load on the GPU, which can either means a drop in performance if the size of the city stays the same or a smaller city size in order to maintain performance.

And we know how well SC2015 turned out when it decide to take the latter approach.

This is what I think a lot of people also forget graphics do not a game make, if the game play sucks no amount of gorgeous graphics will save it..  Not to mention as you said if they go overboard with snazzy graphics especially with a City Builder type game where there is a lot more going on than just rendering the game world then it will slow to a crawl..  And true SC2013 is a prime example of having snazzy graphics and sacrificing map size, general game stability and performance just so one could have snazzy visuals..

[boformer 3,169]

1 hour ago, Dejected Angel said:

Not to mention, better graphics generally means greater load on the GPU, which can either means a drop in performance if the size of the city stays the same or a smaller city size in order to maintain performance.

Some fine-tuning would improve the graphics immensely, without performance drops.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

11 minutes ago, boformer said:

Some fine-tuning would improve the graphics immensely, without performance drops.

Truth !!! The engine we got is just crude.
Just look at aerial views of games like GTA... and modded gta blow it out of the water.

 

Anyway... CSL is not truly a citybuilder.

It's a network simulator that grows buildings... and sadly it's also a very flawed network simulator due to the number of agents to be simulated putting some big limitations on it (and bad, baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad decisions or lack of hindsight. How hard could it have been to randomize the lanes to be used when several lanes could be chosen by cims at some points... but no, they all use the same one.)

[Feindbold 1,190]

Maybe im not an overly critical person, but I generally really like the game the way it is, or to be more precise the game it became during the last 1 1/2 years. I´m not saying everything is fine, there are things that needs fixing, but my mood towards the game is positive.

I don’t think they have lost touch. I think what players want, differs a lot from what a small core of the community wants. Unfortunately you can´t make games for 10k People anymore, you have to make games that please at least a million. "Core gamer" often forget, that not everybody shares their passion. Many, probably even most players are happy with the core features of the game, maybe they hit the workshop for a few parks or intersections, and maybe they buy a DLC with a few stadiums. From my own experience in (trying) to play other simulations, I can tell that "too many" features and depth can scare players away (if I have to play a 15 hour tutorial just to learn the basics, im out. Time is limited). CSL actually offers a great balance imo, as the basegame pleases the "casuals" (the ones that finance the game after all), and the "extended game", offered by the great modding possibilities and the great modding community please the coregamer. Simcity 2013 did not even manage to please the "casuals".

There is a somewhat negative, almost hating atmosphere in the core community towards CO. Especially on the paradoxforums, but also here on simtropolis. I don’t think this negativity corresponds to the opinions of almost 2,8 million owners of CSL copies. Everyone has an opinion on what needs to be done, changed or edited, thats natural. But if you combine all these Ideas, you get basically a simulation of real life. That would be impressive, but also an unbalanceable, unplayable and far too complicated mess of a game. Finding the right balance is important and once again, I think CO is doing a somewhat good job, especially if you consider the small staff.

About SC4: I played it relatively regularly for quite some time (~2004 to 2015,.. so just about 11 years ) I stopped playing the day CSL was released. I will probably never boot it up again. If you had a lot of mods/assets, loading times were even worse than CSL, maps were tiny compared to CSL (regions do not count imo, it’s just a big picture) and the game was crashing at least every half an hour (if you were really carefully). Modding was a mess, "rabbits" that grow all over the place (generally extreme balancing issues as soon as you started to use custom buildings, which not stopped me from installing about 10gb of these ), endless dependency lists across several modding platforms and a very hard learning curve regarding modding in general. I liked it for what it was, but I had my share of isometric pixelmasch for a lifetime.

 

 

[calpolyfan 47]

9 hours ago, Feindbold said:

Maybe im not an overly critical person, but I generally really like the game the way it is, or to be more precise the game it became during the last 1 1/2 years. I´m not saying everything is fine, there are things that needs fixing, but my mood towards the game is positive.

I don’t think they have lost touch. I think what players want, differs a lot from what a small core of the community wants. Unfortunately you can´t make games for 10k People anymore, you have to make games that please at least a million. "Core gamer" often forget, that not everybody shares their passion. Many, probably even most players are happy with the core features of the game, maybe they hit the workshop for a few parks or intersections, and maybe they buy a DLC with a few stadiums. From my own experience in (trying) to play other simulations, I can tell that "too many" features and depth can scare players away (if I have to play a 15 hour tutorial just to learn the basics, im out. Time is limited). CSL actually offers a great balance imo, as the basegame pleases the "casuals" (the ones that finance the game after all), and the "extended game", offered by the great modding possibilities and the great modding community please the coregamer. Simcity 2013 did not even manage to please the "casuals".

There is a somewhat negative, almost hating atmosphere in the core community towards CO. Especially on the paradoxforums, but also here on simtropolis. I don’t think this negativity corresponds to the opinions of almost 2,8 million owners of CSL copies. Everyone has an opinion on what needs to be done, changed or edited, thats natural. But if you combine all these Ideas, you get basically a simulation of real life. That would be impressive, but also an unbalanceable, unplayable and far too complicated mess of a game. Finding the right balance is important and once again, I think CO is doing a somewhat good job, especially if you consider the small staff.

About SC4: I played it relatively regularly for quite some time (~2004 to 2015,.. so just about 11 years ) I stopped playing the day CSL was released. I will probably never boot it up again. If you had a lot of mods/assets, loading times were even worse than CSL, maps were tiny compared to CSL (regions do not count imo, it’s just a big picture) and the game was crashing at least every half an hour (if you were really carefully). Modding was a mess, "rabbits" that grow all over the place (generally extreme balancing issues as soon as you started to use custom buildings, which not stopped me from installing about 10gb of these ), endless dependency lists across several modding platforms and a very hard learning curve regarding modding in general. I liked it for what it was, but I had my share of isometric pixelmasch for a lifetime.

 

 

Hmm...

going to have to completely disagree with you.

CSL is a poor game, which isn't a city simulator.  Most of the fanbase realized this only after purchasing it, and because of all the hype it got.

It isn't, and never has been a "good city simulator".. It's laggy, load times are extreme, regions don't exist, graphics are awful, there isn't a city simulation going on really. There is no BAT, the interface is terrible, the zones are nax 4x4.. come on!

[.Del 53]

2 hours ago, calpolyfan said:

Hmm...

going to have to completely disagree with you.

CSL is a poor game, which isn't a city simulator.  Most of the fanbase realized this only after purchasing it, and because of all the hype it got.

It isn't, and never has been a "good city simulator".. It's laggy, load times are extreme, regions don't exist, graphics are awful, there isn't a city simulation going on really. There is no BAT, the interface is terrible, the zones are nax 4x4.. come on!

Like I said:

15 hours ago, Dejected Angel said:

While I somewhat agree with the first two, but nitpicking on the graphics of a game is quite...absurd. Isn't it the gameplay of the game that matters more than the graphics itself? It's not going to win the 'Best Visuals' award in any contest that's for sure, but I wouldn't exactly call it awful either.

Not to mention, better graphics generally means greater load on the GPU, which can either means a drop in performance if the size of the city stays the same or a smaller city size in order to maintain performance.

And we know how well SC2015 turned out when it decide to take the latter approach.

And what's wrong with the UI? It's simple and functional, and do you really want to over complicate things by redesigning it with additional stuff that no one uses?

Whats wrong with the 4x4 tile either? I don't see any reason to complain about it. In fact I find it easier to zone my lots with it than in SC2015 since you can actually see how much space a building actually needs.