CO Word of the Week #1

[seanbaran77]

Thank you for the update Mariina. And thank you for acknowledging us console players. I had an awesome conversation with someone from your social media team when I commented on a story on IG and they addressed my concerns as an individual. Awesome job by whoever took the time to give me that one on one. Unheard of these days and with the number of users you get messages from all the time.

 

[Arctyc]

How to deal with this problem? Delay the release

This is not up to Colossal Order. It is Paradox you need to be upset with, not the developers that are working hard on the game.

 

[S.C. Watson]

We are currently investigating a garbage problem and it seems that some citizens are abandoning their dogs resulting in a huge dog pack just stranded in the city. Not cool, citizens, not cool at all.

I actually think this should be a feature - like the homeless camps (which should not just be confined to parks, btw). If a citizen becomes homeless (or dies and they're the only one in the household), and they have a pet, it should run wild, unless it's adopted by another citiizen. This then would allow for an animal control service, which is a thing. I personally love the idea of a pack of wild dogs running around.

Also; dogs should add to citizen happiness - the psychological benefits of pet ownership are well documented.

 

[bish0p2004]

Hmm, one would hope that children living in houses by themselves (which seems to be a thing in the game)...would get more attention than stray dogs....

 

[Herr B.]

I commented on the thread here, but as a quick FYI we are aware of some issues affecting this as well as investigating the reports we have received.

Ah thank you.

Why do CO devs not have the dev highlighting? Makes it really hard to know if some bug/question has already been commented on. (This goes not to you, but to the PDX forum team: Please fix!)

 

[Shootin89]

Better late than never to get some actual interaction to the community that has purchased your product. Keep it up. More diaries, more thoughts, more candid interactions, more insight into what is going on. Good to hear that the focus is not just on fixing performance issues, but also simulation aspects.

 

[Shootin89]

Hmm, one would hope that children living in houses by themselves (which seems to be a thing in the game)...would get more attention than stray dogs....

Did you bug report that? I bug reported the dogs being stranded and bugging out in parks with video evidence of it happening. Others did to. if you want something fixed then go and lodge a bug report.

 

[WoodsWookie]

I hope the trading bug gets fixed soon. I really wanna see the trains leaving with something instead of just empty ones.

 

[Eddek]

I'm waiting for mod tools, so modders can fix balance issues. This for the moment i game breaking for me.

 

[S.C. Watson]

Hmm, one would hope that children living in houses by themselves (which seems to be a thing in the game)...would get more attention than stray dogs....

Just use the same basic mechanic - they can form gangs and run around terrorizing citizens, stealing cars, spraying graffiti on everything ...

Now, we just need a Social Anarchy DLC.

 

[Jen1]

Word of the Week = WoW
Isn't this obvious...?

 

[thegreatestbugfest]

Hi Everyone, welcome to our little weekly update, CO Word of the Week, where we share what Colossal Order is doing right now, and what you can expect for Cities: Skylines II as a result.

CO Word of the Week originally ran from March 2016 until early 2018 and was mainly written by me, Mariina, the CEO of Colossal Order, but we also had some other team members as guest authors every once in a while so I can’t take all the credit. Now, in the name of transparency, it’s time to dig this old concept from the toolbox and start sharing!

To write this very first Word of the Week (please feel free to suggest an abbreviation) I needed to go back to the source. I searched the Cities: Skylines forum for the original posts and was extremely happy to find the very first one:



The mission remains the same: We want to bring you the best city builder ever made! And as I have grown older I am no longer afraid of the marketing department so no holding back.

As you may have noticed Cities: Skylines II was released last week and we are happy the game is finally out! However, the launch was overshadowed by technical issues which caused disappointment, and rightfully so. We are happy to see that many players do enjoy the game and for those who are currently unable to play, I want you to know that we are working on a number of fixes and improvements to address your reports.

The first hotfix patch was quick to roll out on Steam last week and this morning the patch for Microsoft Store and Game Pass finally made it live. We will have to see how we can speed up the patching process so we don’t have players waiting for these important fixes longer than necessary. The patch included optimization for LODs, or Level of Detail, which means that the game renders fewer details when the camera is far away from the object. Finding optimal LOD levels is a balancing act between visual fidelity and performance, and we’ll be addressing this in future patches. Yes, including the characters and their teeth! We also identified some offenders such as the depth of field, global illumination, and fog, all now tweaked for improved performance. Additionally, the patch included fixes for a few crash bugs and stutter cases.

This week we will continue to go through the forum reports and fix the most urgent issues. The work on the assets and LODs continues, but it’s a task spanning over a longer period of time as there are quite a few different types of assets needing special attention. On top of the performance work, we are looking into gameplay issues you have reported. We have fixes being tested for education, where college/university eligibility is not shown correctly in the UI, and for trading, where it looks like the citizens are not consuming all different commercial types correctly resulting in not enough customers for the local business. We are currently investigating a garbage problem and it seems that some citizens are abandoning their dogs resulting in a huge dog pack just stranded in the city. Not cool, citizens, not cool at all.

The performance improvements and bug fixes take top priority until we have reached a level we are satisfied with. All the performance improvements will benefit the development of the console platforms and we hope to bring the game to Xbox Series X/S and PS5 as soon as possible!

I want to thank everyone for the reports, they’re very helpful and we appreciate you taking the time to provide us with the information we need. We will go through all of the reports as fast as we can. If you are experiencing a crash or performance issue please create a report on our support forum found here:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forums/cities-skylines-2-bug-reports.1162/

I will be back next week to give you an update on how the work is progressing. Until then, thank you to everyone for the patience and support, it means a lot to us.

Sincerely,
Mariina

Thank you for acknowledging that your simulation is broken and actually understanding the cause.
Just a quick note: not just the commercial zones with the materials not being processed as goods for residential is broken, but the entire raw material processing part of the economical simulator, along with the import/export system is faked with imaginary numbers and all the raw materials that supposed to be processed into consumable resources by industries to be used by commerce are faked and a sham. But you probably knew this

 

[∆tlαntic4]

This week we will continue to go through the forum reports and fix the most urgent issues. The work on the assets and LODs continues, but it’s a task spanning over a longer period of time as there are quite a few different types of assets needing special attention. On top of the performance work, we are looking into gameplay issues you have reported. We have fixes being tested for education, where college/university eligibility is not shown correctly in the UI, and for trading, where it looks like the citizens are not consuming all different commercial types correctly resulting in not enough customers for the local business. We are currently investigating a garbage problem and it seems that some citizens are abandoning their dogs resulting in a huge dog pack just stranded in the city. Not cool, citizens, not cool at all.

---

I'm glad to see that you're addressing these crucial issues. Do you have a release date for the next patch? I'm eagerly awaiting a smoother gaming experience.

 

[shells0ck]

Any explanation on why you released this as the full game for AAA price, when its in this sad state? Its not like you were not aware of the performance issues making it barely playable. This is obviously rushed like crazy. If you even played your own game for a couple of hours you would find all these bugs reported, no doubt. Are your investors looking for a quick buck, or are you just using us as alpha testers?

 

[Artax Nighteven]

Any explanation on why you released this as the full game for AAA price, when its in this sad state? Its not like you were not aware of the performance issues making it barely playable. This is obviously rushed like crazy. If you even played your own game for a couple of hours you would find all these bugs reported, no doubt. Are your investors looking for a quick buck, or are you just using us as alpha testers?

They needed money imho

 

[∆tlαntic4]

The most effective approach to game launch involves developing the core content, releasing it at full price (even in its early access phase) and allowing the community to participate in free testing. Any issues with the game arise primarily due to the absence of available mods, which will eventually be provided at no cost to address and resolve the game's problems

 

[Harry Angel]

nd allowing the community to participate in free testing

I didn't report any bug, I won't be involved in it. I decided to respect my time and the creators' decision to release that one mAsTErPieCE.

Why do CO devs not have the dev highlighting? Makes it really hard to know if some bug/question has already been commented on

As Designed - simple

I'm waiting for mod tools, so modders can fix balance issues. This for the moment i game breaking for me.

So who did we pay to play, after all? why do they try if "mod fix the game" and they didn't fix anything. If you treat yourself this way, you get a bugfest. Let them fix their early access

 

[Jen1]

I actually think this should be a feature - like the homeless camps (which should not just be confined to parks, btw). If a citizen becomes homeless (or dies and they're the only one in the household), and they have a pet, it should run wild, unless it's adopted by another citiizen. This then would allow for an animal control service, which is a thing. I personally love the idea of a pack of wild dogs running around.

Also; dogs should add to citizen happiness - the psychological benefits of pet ownership are well documented.

Hear hear!
I second to that!

Please adopt stray dog packs as part of the simulation!

Stray dog packs could be a simulation mechanism somewhat comparable to pollution. They would terrorize citizens (reducing happiness locally) and eventually scaring people to move to another part of the city, if not tackled by Animal Control (an existing City Service, I believe?) By increasing funding of this service, the Mayor could increase citizen happiness, as the number of stray dogs is reduced.

Citizens could alert the Mayor initially about "Someone is falling the trash bins", progressing to "Increasing number of stray dogs seen at nights. I'm worried..." If not checked with Animal Control, the complaints would go from "DO SOMETHING!" all the way to "That's it. I'm moving OUT!!"

The dog packs could start with a few stray dogs only, slowly increasing by their numbers, either by new dogs abandoned by their owner (the bug in question), or by natural reproduction. They should remain wandering within their birth area / territory, about the size of a suburb (1-2 km in diameter) and if they come in contact with a neighboring dog pack, only one (randomized) would survive, having killed the other pack into extinction. The victorious dog pack would divide into two new, significantly smaller packs, each occupying one of the two territories. This function could serve as a self-regulating mechanism preventing the dog packs to grow unchecked: More dog pack territories, more encounters and resulting fights, less dogs. A balance can be found, surely.

An animation of a dog-pack fight could be hilarious: Wiewed from a distance, it would exhibit itself as a dust cloud only. Seen closer by, it could be a cartoonish whirlwind, where dogs would be expelled like Romans on Asterix! (Remember to add appropriate sound effects. I already have a few ideas...)

Devs. Please take this idea, already supported by many, under consideration!

 

[∆tlαntic4]

One week to release a simple patch for the Microsoft Store, at this pace, in a year or two, we'll have stable gameplay.

We have fixes being tested

You wouldn't even need to worry about testing the fixes, just release it to the community free testers already.

Perhaps the mods should be the priority; then they could fix the game.

At bugs we have 161 topics marked as 'Confirmed.' It doesn't seem like a game ready for release. CO is currently fixing 3 bugs: education, trading, and garbage. How long will it take to address these issues? Once this patch is released, there will still be 158 confirmed bugs remaining.

 

[deAbacus]

View attachment 1039784

If we are talking about bugs. Think this would be one. For some reason (cant pinpoint what I built) my water/sewage usages went from ~100k to 4mil.

Tried loading older saves but could not find one old enough where everything was normal already by the time i noticed it.

Problem is its so much use that I had to build 50 water pumps just to manage water, and its cheaper to send sewage outside than buy treatment plants (would have to place like 20-30 of them. Mind you i had it already in 70k city now its nearly 100k.

Had the same issue after dropping the Hadron Collider. I removed it and and the usage dropped to normal.
Placing it again had the same results