CO Word of the Week #1

[unmerged(524934)]

There's so much missing in this game compared to what was promised in the marketing pre-release bullshots and content creator-sponsored videos, I don't think you can handwave it away Mariina, despite your best efforts.

I'm sure the pre-orders made it worthwhile financially, but I do wonder whether there's a certain queasiness at CO HQ about the way the punters have been sold a bit of a pup here.

 

[Duke49th]

So is that to say there is a plan to add more feedback to the game? As it stands, it feels like a lot of things are just running themselves with relatively little challenge. It's a shame, because it seems like it has the potential to be great.

For example, in another thread, you mentioned that there is no lack of service fees for outside connections, but rather that cims are paying those fees. But we can't see them in any way, and there also doesn't seem to be a consequence from them? If we could at least see "this cim is paying $X for garbage service", it gives some idea that the lack of a local service is actually affecting the city.

As it stands, a lot of stuff seems like it just doesn't matter (even outside of things which are confirmed bugs, like exports), which makes players who were sold a "deep simulation" feel somewhat disenfranchised.

Same here. It seems like it doesn't matter what I do, nothing has serious consequences. Feels like its all fake (at least since the economy is broken and I just make millions, no matter how much my services costs).

Take mail for example. You build all the neccessary buildings and mailboxes - you get up to a -15 for unreliable mail services as it is bugged. But if you don't build anything at all - you have a +15 for reliable mail services.

And that's how it goes for literally everything so far.

Whats the point to play, other than "painting" a city? Just turn off money all together and paint your city the way you want to. Doesn't matter what you do anyways.

And I am truly shocked that barely any content creator is talking about all this and just play it like its the best city builder there is. I know some have pointed out some bugs. But come on - they play it for months already. They know the current state even better than us who just started out playing it.

Edit: We should create a new category: City Painter Because that's what it is. CS1 is a city builder - CS2 is a city painter. It's not even a joke.

 

[circuitfarmer]

Same here. It seems like it doesn't matter what I do, nothing has serious consequences. Feels like its all fake (at least since the economy is broken and I just make millions, no matter how much my services costs).

Take mail for example. You build all the neccessary buildings and mailboxes - you get up to a -15 for unreliable mail services as it is bugged. But if you don't build anything at all - you have a +15 for reliable mail services.

And that's how it goes for literally everything so far.

Whats the point to play, other than "painting" a city?

And I am truly shocked that barely any content creator is talking about all this and just play it like its the best city builder there is. I know some have pointed out some bugs. But come on - they play it for months already. They know the current state even better than us who just started out playing it.

I've not yet been able to get a city to fail. I'm not even sure it's possible. I can send the city into the red and poof! there's a government subsidy covering me, with no rhyme or reason for its existence, nor any way to know how the amount was calculated, nor any way to avoid it, nor any way to turn it off entirely.

I'd love to play further with things like garbage management (aware that incinerators are confirmed bugged atm), but why? What incentive is there if not only does everything continue running without it but it continues running and making a profit?

Given the responses from the devs today, I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt that some of it will make more sense if the simulation data is better exposed to the player. But aside from that, a game without a challenge isn't really a game, so it's frustrating to hear that many of these things were design choices.

 

[shapask]

You basically quoted the same issue with 2 different copy pasted answers
Yeah pretty much sums up how deep you are.
Do you even know what happens in your own company anymore?
WAKE UP!

this video should be everywhere. "DEEP SIMULATION" boys. but i already see the answer ... its a bug and they are working on it

 

[icedude94]

I'd like to comment on the issue players have reported on garbage accumulation which ties into the UI not providing enough information for the player to make good decisions.

I've even made a guide on Steam with screenshots for how to manage garbage and avoid the problems people have. I've even run tests on a city with just 1 ton of excess processing capacity to prove my theories.

I've been able to re-create the "bug" of garbage piling up despite having excess processing capacity by using only one type of garbage processor and I have been able to grow a city and avoid the "bug" by using varied facilities including the industrial waste processor.

Basically I think there might be more than one type of garbage in the game that is hidden like how unsorted mail contains local mail and global mail.

Also if I'm completely wrong and there's only one type of garbage in this game then the financials for a lot of the waste management facilities, especially the hazardous waste expansion buildings for the recycling plant and the landfill make no financial sense to build ever. Then all of the waste management facilities are made obsolete by the incinerator in terms of value.

I hope this information and my observations of the processes helps you determine what is going wrong and it includes where I think the UI is misleading and what is causing it.

There are 3 different types of garbage in the game and I will explain why I think this from looking at numbers and why I think you are supposed to have a mix of processing for all 3.

The 3 types are:
-Recyclables
-Non-Recyclabes.
-Industrial Waste

Now looking at the costs to maintain these facilities and their processing speeds:

Landfill:
$30,000 monthly cost
Processes 0.6 tons per month
$50,000 to process 1 ton of garbage.
Hazardous waste extension:
$30,000 per month
Processes 1.1 tons per month
$27,272.73 to process 1 ton of garbage.

Recycling Plant:
$160,000 monthly cost
Processes 11 tons per month
$14,545.45 per ton of garbage processed
Hazardous waste extension:
$40,000 per month
Processes 1.1 tons per month
$36,363.64 per ton of garbage processed.

Incinerator(without the processing speed extension)
$210,000 monthly cost
41.1 tons per month processing speed
$5,109.49 per ton of garbage processed.

Industrial Waste Processing Site(and you can only build one):
$450,000 per month
55.1 tons per month processing speed
$8,166.97 per ton of garbage processed

If we are to assume that all garbage is just garbage and can be processed by any facility, it makes no financial sense to use anything other an an incinerator to process your garbage and you should NEVER build the processing extensions for landfills and recycling plants because of how expensive the processing cost is per ton.

Why would you ever build an extension to a recycling plant that costs more than double to process garbage?

The only conclusion that makes sense to me is that there are different types of garbage.

It makes sense to build the industrial waste processor to handle industrial waste at a cost of $8,166.97 vs $36,363.64 per ton.

Now the 2nd part which is throwing everyone off is the perception that the processing rate listed for facilities is wrong or the rate of processing is off.

I think the current processing rate showing when you have a building selected is what it SHOULD be if all of the garbage in the facility was of the correct type. The actual rate it is processing is based off of what you actually have in storage at the facility.

Now all garbage facilities act like warehouses for one another and they redistribute the garbage between themselves with dump trucks to balance out storage percentages. When they do this, they don't distinguish between garbage types. Each building does its own sorting as it processes and what it can't process stays in storage.

Now investing in storage extensions makes sense. If all garbage was the same, then you want your garbage facilities to be near full to maximize the processing speed so you get the most value out of the facility. Storage extensions work against this.

If however all garbage is not the same and having too little storage could cause processing speeds to slow down and garbage facilities to become full of stuff they can't process, now it makes sense to invest in storage.

This even makes the argument for having landfills. The landfill can process all 3 types but very slowly and very expensively and it's mainly for storage.

To put this into perspective for the folks drowning in garbage. Imagine if every one of your waste management facilities was like the post sorting facility but its entire storage was full of global mail and it had no space to receive unsorted mail and nowhere to put processed local mail.

I have a guide on the steam forums with screenshots of tests I had run.

I took a city that was handling its garbage load just fine with 1 incinerator, 2 recyclers, 2 landfills and an industrial waste processor with only a few tons of excess processing capacity and replaced it all with 2 incinerators, giving me even more excess capacity and in only one month, both incinerators were getting full and the city started getting garbage trucks from neighboring connections.

 

[Duke49th]

I've not yet been able to get a city to fail. I'm not even sure it's possible. I can send the city into the red and poof! there's a government subsidy covering me, with no rhyme or reason for its existence, nor any way to know how the amount was calculated, nor any way to avoid it, nor any way to turn it off entirely.

I'd love to play further with things like garbage management (aware that incinerators are confirmed bugged atm), but why? What incentive is there if not only does everything continue running without it but it continues running and making a profit?

Given the responses from the devs today, I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt that some of it will make more sense if the simulation data is better exposed to the player. But aside from that, a game without a challenge isn't really a game, so it's frustrating to hear that many of these things were design choices.

Fully agreed.

I totally love CS1 and can't count the amount of mods and hours I have played it.

I was totally submerged in the first couple of hours in CS2. Until I figured that there is something wrong. The more I play, the more I read - completely throws me out. It's not a city builder.

And it must be a very weird series of coincidental bugs that would make everything regardless (or however it is called in english). Nothing is needed, you can't screw up no matter what you do. All due to some bugs? I highly doubt it at this point!

 

[Licenturion]

The patch has finanally launched today on MS Store and I got my pre-order and there is finally some communication. What a time to be alive!

I hope in the future MS Store customers are not treated as inferior customers because I paid the same as other people. This also leads to a lot of anger and frustration among the community (as witnessed this week)

The insights are much appreciated! I hope you look into what most people here, Steam and Reddit are saying and that is that simulation mostly 'plays itself'. It feels more like a city painter tool than a real simulation videogame where you have to manage stuff constantly and solve problems visible in the city like a puzzle.

There is also not enough visible 'punishment' for bad decisions in your city. Air pollution, ground pollution, garabage piling up in houses, bad road maintenance etc. All these things are not visible in the city but only in number screens and graphs. It would be nice if these things can be added in the future. I saw someone from QA literally say that trees in polluted areas never die but stay pretty but get their efficiency set to zero.... These are things the first game all got right, so I hope to see those return.

I wish you luck in improving the game but in the meantime I go back to playing CS1 with all the DLC. and Anno 1800 because those games give me more challenges to overcome.

 

[reevesofficial]

The patch has finanally launched today on MS Store and I got my pre-order and there is finally some communication. What a time to be alive!

I hope in the future MS Store customers are not treated as inferior customers because I paid the same as other people. This also leads to a lot of anger and frustration among the community (as witnessed this week)

The insights are much appreciated! I hope you look into what most people here, Steam and Reddit are saying and that is that simulation mostly 'plays itself'. It feels more like a city painter tool than a real simulation videogame where you have to manage stuff constantly and solve problems visible in the city like a puzzle.

There is also not enough visible 'punishment' for bad decisions in your city. Air pollution, ground pollution, garabage piling up in houses, bad road maintenance etc. All these things are not visible in the city but only in number screens and graphs. It would be nice if these things can be added in the future. I saw someone from QA literally say that trees in polluted areas never die but stay pretty but get their efficiency set to zero.... These are things the first game all got right, so I hope to see those return.

I wish you luck in improving the game but in the meantime I go back to playing CS1 with all the DLC. and Anno 1800 because those games give me more challenges to overcome.

Unfortunately the patch fixed nothing for me so i waited for it in vein.

Edit: I also play Anno 1800 rn after beta-testing CS2 painter.

 

[Duke49th]

this video should be everywhere. "DEEP SIMULATION" boys. but i already see the answer ... its a bug and they are working on it

Oh my gosh. That is just absurd. Thanks for sharing!

But I assume a Dev will tell us it is just another "bug" lol...

 

[∆tlαntic4]

Oh my gosh. That is just absurd. Thanks for sharing!

But I assume a Dev will tell us it is just another "bug" lol...

as designed guys...as designed

the level of realism is so high that I am not able to understand

 

[circuitfarmer]

as designed guys...as designed

the level of realism is so high that I am not able to understand

I am going to cringe whenever I see the words "as designed" for a long time now...

 

[reevesofficial]

We all should have got to an economics class before playing the deep simulation, it's all on us!

 

[Artax Nighteven]

Giving specific details on the patch schedules is not something we can reliably estimate due to the way we are working now: As soon as we have a reasonable amount of fixes tested and verified we make a build, smoke test it and push it live. We are aiming for a quick patch release schedule but please understand that we won't in any case be able to have a patch out more than once a week. I will be as open about this as I can without causing even more disappointment by creating false expectations. For example if we were to have a patch in smoke late in the week, say Thursday, and the patch is good to go it can go live on the same or next day. However if it has an issue that requires the devs attention it's easily Monday before the patch is in smoke test again. I hope you understand!

Unfortunately I don't have the time to dig into the entire thread linked now, and the team is on top of this as @co_avanya already commented. When it comes to the economic simulation it is a complex and big part of the game that has been worked on for many years. We are looking into the bug reports related to the economy and also other parts of the simulation that tie into it and will fix those as we identify the causes. I'm not entirely sure how to respond to the accusations of the simulation being fake. It's in no means meant to simulate the real world as that would be far too complex to model for a game. All the citizens and businesses, their wealth and resources etc are calculated, we have no reason to lie in our dev diaries. It would be completely acceptable to fake numbers if it makes good gameplay and I for one would have no issue stating if that was the case. The bugs that can appear are either simple to fix (UI showing incorrect number while the simulation is giving the correct output) or complex to tackle (garbage issues where things are just not as they should be and we need to figure out why).

Great topic for another WoW! (<- had to try how that feels to use)

We are aiming for the game to run smoothly (30fps) on the recommended hardware with high settings with hundreds of thousands of citizens. We are committed to big cities and as you pointed out, this is needed also for the consoles.

We will not delay patches for Steam but we are looking into quicker turnaround for MS patches so the players there won't have to wait almost a week.

I'm a little bit afraid to ask, but what is wrong with the healthcare? I'm not personally aware of an issue so I hope this is reported so the team can take a look!

Thank you for the lovely feedback! We do our best to answer all questions even if at times the responses may be slow. Our social media team at Colossal Order is one person so I'll be sure to thank them personally for a job well done and just in case this interaction was with the Cities: Skylines account I'll thank the Paradox team as well!

Please take the time to report any issues you may be facing and the dev team will take a look. I'm sure the modders will also start to work on their mods as soon as they get the chance but feel free to give us a chance as well.

I'm afraid I fail to understand what fake means in this context. I know there are some bugs that cause the simulation not to function as it should and we are looking into those. The entire simulation is based on the fact that we can measure things so that your actions have an affect on the outcome.

To call the state of the game Alpha is a bit a reach don't you think? The decision to release the game on PC on the announced date was made based on careful consideration. The decision was influenced by us having confidence in the gameplay, having data that the game is running well enough on a variety of hardware and not wanting to disappoint the players waiting so eagerly to play the game. We can debate if this was the right call, but does it make any difference now after the game is out? I'd rather have us focus on solutions so that everyone who likes the game can play it and enjoy it.
Colossal Order is an independent game developer owned by key members of the team so there are no investors that we would need to please on our side. When it comes to the pricing we leave that to the capable hands of our publisher.

Hello, thank you for you detailed answer, very appreciated.

You asked why people is saying that the simulation is "fake" (or whatever you want to call it)

This video tells you why.

 

[Harry Angel]

. its a bug and they are working on it

as designed

We should create a new category: City Painter

it's an arcade game

 

[Mazisky]

Hello, thank you for you detailed answer, very appreciated.

You asked why people is saying that the simulation is "fake" (or whatever you want to call it)

This video tells you why.

Some official comment on this video would be highly appreciated for transparency.

 

[G315t]

The game should give the player feedback that is relevant to them so that they can make decisions based on that feedback. If for example it is unclear how you can improve the citizens wealth level (and should you want to) we need to look into the feedback and make sure the information is displayed in an understandable way.

01:05 here in Germany but I still wanted to replay to this. Yes please, give more informations about household / or company budgets that affect the simulation. Right now if for example a citizen is complaining about high rent, I can only guess what may be wrong. Maybe the family would be able to pay the rent in their current home if they only had to pay 5$ less parking fees in their street. Maybe add a mouseover tooltip that shows the income and costs a cim has to pay for their needs if i hover over their "wealth" line in the profile. or if you do not want to show numbers, show me red / yellow / green lines for all the stuff that is affekting them like rent, shopping, parking, water, energy and so on.

Or for example a shop. It shows me "not enough customers". Ok but why? It can be anything. Maybe the wares are to expensive for the customers, (because to expensive raw materials, or because the shop has to pay too much rent, or I tax them too much, or I give them no parking, or whatever) What does a ton of wood import cost the company compared to a ton of wood from my local forest industry? I don't know. I guess it is probaply more expensive but maybe not. Or maybe there are simply too many competitors in the local area, or the shop is in a bad location. I can only guess what is happening in the "back end" of the simulation I do not get useful information to solve problems shown to me.

Oh and I like the game very much already spend over 60 hours with it. Great work so far. The road tools are incredible and the scaling of all the assets is much better than in the first game. It feels much more like a real city now.

 

[circuitfarmer]

01:05 here in Germany but I still wanted to replay to this. Yes please, give more informations about household / or company budgets that affect the simulation. Right now if for example a citizen is complaining about high rent, I can only guess what may be wrong. Maybe the family would be able to pay the rent in their current home if they only had to pay 5$ less parking fees in their street. Maybe add a mouseover tooltip that shows the income and costs a cim has to pay for their needs if i hover over their "wealth" line in the profile. or if you do not want to show numbers, show me red / yellow / green lines for all the stuff that is affekting them like rent, shopping, parking, water, energy and so on.

Or for example a shop. It shows me "not enough customers". Ok but why? It can be anything. Maybe the wares are to expensive for the customers, (because to expensive raw materials, or because the shop has to pay too much rent, or I tax them too much, or I give them no parking, or whatever) What does a ton of wood import cost the company compared to a ton of wood from my local forest industry? I don't know. I guess it is probaply more expensive but maybe not. Or maybe there are simply too many competitors in the local area, or the shop is in a bad location. I can only guess what is happening in the "back end" of the simulation I do not get useful information to solve problems shown to me.

Oh and I like the game very much already spend over 60 hours with it. Great work so far. The road tools are incredible and the scaling of all the assets is much better than in the first game. It feels much more like a real city now.

Want to second the positive sentiments here. With all the negative feedback so far (often rightly so, I'm not denying that), it is easy to forget that some things about the game are vastly improved from CS:1. The road tool in particular is an absolute joy, especially at the lane level.

I appreciate that a lot of things really do feel far more organic, especially people watching and traffic watching at street level. It is satisfying seeing cars and pedestrians interact in crosswalks. Most of the assets are very, very well done. Admittedly, many could use animations. But again, kudos to the team for some serious wins.

For me personally, a lot of the frustration comes from so many systems being almost there -- but seemingly lacking the detail that the player needs to succeed, and for those that may have the detail, they simply don't work at the moment. Likewise, because so many changes feel like they aren't doing anything (perhaps due to the high number of bugs and / or potential fallback conditions), the game feels like it lacks a failure condition. A game that is impossible to lose is boring, frankly.

If CO and Paradox stay focused and listen to the feedback they are getting from fans, and we see timely fixes not only to the acknowledged performance issues but to the issues with mechanics (of which there is some acknowledgement in this very post), I see a path to a great game. If indeed the core simulation is there (not "fake" as some have suggested), then I have hope. Giving the player far more feedback will go a long way against feeling like no changes matter.

A little toggle to shut off government subsidies would also be extremely welcome.

Could the launch have been done better? Absolutely, and I think the response has illustrated that clearly. Does that mean this title is dead in the water? Not yet, by a long shot.

 

[unmerged(566546)]

Hello, thank you for you detailed answer, very appreciated.

You asked why people is saying that the simulation is "fake" (or whatever you want to call it)

This video tells you why.

I can't understand anything that dude is saying, but people can work and shop outside of the city they live in. That video doesn't prove anything is fake.

 

[Duke49th]

Or for example a shop. It shows me "not enough customers". Ok but why? It can be anything.

I can explain that to you. If there is no simulation going on, there are not enough customers.
Same as with industries have workforce, despite no citizens live in the city and the city has no roads to the outside connection.
So where are the goods and resources coming from when there are no road connections?
Where is the workforce coming from, when there are no citizens in the city which has no roads?

I hope that clarifies. If not, kindly watch this, it will explain it to you

And

 

[Duke49th]

I can't understand anything that dude is saying, but people can work and shop outside of the city they live in. That video doesn't prove anything is fake.

You are aware of that there are NO road connections and NO citizens?

I repeat myself here:

Industries (and commercial companies) have workforce, despite NO citizens live in the city and the city has no roads to the outside connection.
So where are the goods and resources coming from when there are no road connections?
Where is the workforce coming from, when there are no citizens in the city which has no roads?

Btw....I am not an English native speaker and can understand him perfectly fine, despite his thick accent.