CO Word of the Week #12

[pixxa]

When developers have to explain how their game's economy works, there is something wrong in the way said economy was conceived.
Most of us have played sims for many many years, so we know how it SHOULD work.

 

[Potoroo]

When developers have to explain how their game's economy works, there is something wrong in the way said economy was conceived.
Most of us have played sims for many many years, so we know how it SHOULD work.

I have no problem with the idea that the economy is and should be sufficiently complex that it requires explanation. It is supposed to be a simulation, after all, albeit one which necessarily has some fudges in order to make the game runnable at all. I'm all for having as rich a simulation as current PCs can run as long as it works properly, which means all the interlocked bits work so you don't get cascading failures. I have exactly zero interest in a painter. I want what the SimCity franchise always provided, a city that responds dynamically to my actions in a way that feels like it's a real city, but where there's always some challenge to it.

I do have a problem with the way the devs have built-in various game mechanics without the game inherently letting the player know they exist, much less how to manipulate them. This is why people like CPP et al have said one of CS2's biggest problems is that too much of the game doesn't matter. Too many of the game's mechanics are hidden, both unknowable and unusable by the player. That's why it's important that CO has started to explain how various bits of the game work, even if they're tending to be a bit high level.

 

[Stealthy]

When developers have to explain how their game's economy works, there is something wrong in the way said economy was conceived.
Most of us have played sims for many many years, so we know how it SHOULD work.

Not really. Vast majority don't even understand how economy works in real life, why on earth they'd know how it SHOULD work in game either, unless of course you refer to oh so typically flawed economic models that games have and are over simplified due to said lack of understanding amongst general population. Heck, people don't even understand the connection between salary raise = higher prices and faster inflation.

 

[ddt-opmas]

Not really. Vast majority don't even understand how economy works in real life, why on earth they'd know how it SHOULD work in game either, unless of course you refer to oh so typically flawed economic models that games have and are over simplified due to said lack of understanding amongst general population. Heck, people don't even understand the connection between salary raise = higher prices and faster inflation.

You are partly right. But I think anyone who is interested in a city building game, will understand that a 50% reduction in company production due to lack of electricity is ridiculously low.

 

[Licenturion]

Not really. Vast majority don't even understand how economy works in real life, why on earth they'd know how it SHOULD work in game either, unless of course you refer to oh so typically flawed economic models that games have and are over simplified due to said lack of understanding amongst general population. Heck, people don't even understand the connection between salary raise = higher prices and faster inflation.

You are basically saying ‘almost the whole playerbase is too dumb to understand how it should work’.

Don’t fall of that high horse.

 

[jxshbxxth]

It just feels like there is too much focus on the individual ppl. Dude, the fact that "dogs were being abandoned" means it's been overdone. We don't NEED dogs running around without being tied to people like the first game. I think the work done on the cims has gotten in the way of the actual city building. Resources being used on things that just aren't important, imo. If I wanted to play the Sims, I'd play the Sims. Or Life By You. We don't need the two games to connect to each other.

 

[gizzamaluke]

I work for a software company creating software for about 800 companies.

Is that software video games?

 

[Diacritic]

100% Agree Lee (It's Lee!). I've made similar comments on Reddit myself. I still think the higher ups wanted the game released no matter what. I would have paid for Early Access knowing there were issues. It's no good to release a major game with major underlying issues. It reflects badly on Colossal Order as a whole unfortunately. It's unfortunate the talented devs weren't given more time to polished what will eventually be a great game (I Hope!).

I, honestly, am fine with how the game operated at release. Lots of games are unfinished. What's unforgivable to me is to make the game operate worse with what's supposed to be a "bugfix" and then just leaving it unplayable for months without even rolling back that patch.

This is basic software engineering company stuff, it's not even about this being a game. Don't release a potentially-breaking patch right before the entire company goes on vacation. It's like pushing to prod on a Friday night except the weekend lasts until February.

 

[meanderingmalcontent]

Why are some services free to import while others have a fee?
One part of the Budget panel’s Expenses is the cost of service trade. Only part of the services are charged when traded, and these are electricity, water and sewage. Other services do not cost you anything to import. But why? The cost of these traded services comes in the form of time, as it will take a long time for them to arrive at their destination. This increases the negative effects on the city. For example, a citizen waiting for an ambulance for a long time increases their probability of dying when their health is low for a long time. Additionally, when a citizen is waiting for treatment, they can’t go to work, giving the company a penalty to its Efficiency.

Been trying to figure this one out for days and my only conclusion is that the intended result is not happening based on this claim. There are no negative effects to utilizing external services.

Well, that's not true. I have to listen to that God awful reporter interview the frustrated city services guy.

 

[VineFynn]

Wow, ok, if that's how this game works, I'm not buying it.

 

[cRAGGLE]

If you take away the economy then you don't have a city simulator, just a painter. We not only need the economy to be functional, we need to know how it is functioning. Bland high level explanations like we're starting to get from CO are not particularly helpful.

Completely agree. I was referring to the WOTW. Why bother explaining things we can't even see in game, it's useless to us.

 

[Pstrangler]

Thanks for the updates, I enjoy reading them a lot.

One thing that would be nice is to restrict industry to a certain type within a district. Say I create a district near farms, I would like to restrict most to farm related businesses: food, byproduct processing, textiles, farming equipment retailers...

 

[Aulternator83]

Thank you for all the positive feedback on last week’s word! It’s great to hear you like the format so we’ll stick to it for the time being. While the tech team is hard at work implementing the code modding support, we can focus on the economy in Cities: Skylines II in today's WoW. At release, the economy did not meet the quality standard we strive for and I apologize for the frustration this has caused. In the post-release patches, we have included fixes for issues present in the economy implementation, but some still remain, and we’re working on resolving those thanks to your reports. The fixes will focus on the underlying system as well as how the information is presented in the game to achieve more clarity that helps you understand the economy better. We’ve received many questions about what parts of the game’s economy are working as designed and what we’re working to change, so let's dive in!

What is the impact of the specialized industries on the local economy?
Providing raw materials locally means companies using them do not have to import them as much from outside connections (or at all), which leads to those industries being more prosperous. Importing from outside connections is a more expensive choice than local availability, so local resources benefit companies’ bottom line. The design team will look into how to make it more clear which companies are importing or exporting, and how you can affect that.

Why are some services free to import while others have a fee?
One part of the Budget panel’s Expenses is the cost of service trade. Only part of the services are charged when traded, and these are electricity, water and sewage. Other services do not cost you anything to import. But why? The cost of these traded services comes in the form of time, as it will take a long time for them to arrive at their destination. This increases the negative effects on the city. For example, a citizen waiting for an ambulance for a long time increases their probability of dying when their health is low for a long time. Additionally, when a citizen is waiting for treatment, they can’t go to work, giving the company a penalty to its Efficiency.

How is “profitability” determined?
In the game, the company's profitability is calculated from the company's revenue and expenses, which include employee salary, resource buying, tax-paying, and daily production. The profitability indicates the possibility for a positive income, and it varies between 0 and 255. When there is no income for the company, and it still needs to pay a lot of expenses, the profitability can become 0. But it doesn't mean the company currently doesn't have any money, but rather predicts the value of revenue or loss of money. Issues like the lack of employees and the lack of input or output resources can cause profitability to fluctuate. When it comes to the profitability of the company, the calculations may change after we evaluate the complexity of the entire economy based on the feedback we’ve received.

What does the monthly balance show?
The game’s user interface includes tools for you to observe and control the overall economy of the city. The monthly balance in the City Economy panel’s Budget tab counts the current Revenues and Expenses together. It shows what is currently the estimated amount of money the city will gain or lose in the current month. Note that one day cycle in the game equals one month! The City Economy has been affected by bugs that caused the expected income (or loss) to not match the actual monthly income of the city, and we’re working to resolve the remaining issues with industrial tax reaching high values for no apparent reason.

What does “9% interest” on a loan mean? How is it calculated?
It will add a Loan Interest to the Budget panel, which is a monthly fee that will apply to your city’s money. It is calculated by the formula LoanRemainAmount * InterestRate every month, and as the remaining loan amount decreases each month, so will the amount your city pays.

We have also received questions about Land Value, so I want to share a quick update about the current state of both the Land Value and Demand systems, as both will have changes and fixes included in the next patch to the game. The Land Value system has been worked on for a while now, with the first improvements available in patch 1.0.19f1, and the demand system will be improved to make it easier to understand. Fixing major systems like the land value takes a bit more time than the usual bug fixes because these elements are connected to the other parts of the game’s economy system. Our goal with these changes is to make the systems more user-friendly to work with so, for example, it’s easier to understand what causes the high rents and how you can affect it. We’ll go over the land value and demand system improvements after all the changes are in, so stay tuned for that.

That’s it for this week. Have a lovely one until next time!

Sincerely,
Mariina

I have taken a break from Cities Skylines 2 for the past month and have noticed a vast improvement in logistics coming back yesterday, cars actually utilizing businesses, the change of seasons isn't as drastic as it was. You have me back playing this game. It took me awhile but I love the terraforming tools, it makes so much more sense. Also the mechanisms with regard to snapping and such, it reminds me of AutoCAD lol! And honestly, it's an awesome thing! Keep up the great work, would like to see more "music" stations, in a world of Spotify and Apple Music. Many times I turn the game music off and listen to my surround sound on my Alexa. I LOVED the music from the previous Cities Skylines. Again, thank you so much for responding to myself and others feedback, I know you guys are working hard around the clock but also understand you need a break from time to time lol! I get that!

Hope this week and the months to come bid you well.

/mod-edit: Name/address removed. Don't post your full name and address in public. Or anywhere else, for that matter, unless you really trust the person(s) you are talking to

 

[unicornspitt]

Hope you all at CO still plan on fixing the 'Crash to desktop' bugs, they're not gone.

Coming onto the forums for support about a completely game-breaking bug, only to find the devs have been ignoring this issue since November while making weekly posts about things like mod support and improving the economy. HELLO???

 

[Diacritic]

It just feels like there is too much focus on the individual ppl. Dude, the fact that "dogs were being abandoned" means it's been overdone. We don't NEED dogs running around without being tied to people like the first game. I think the work done on the cims has gotten in the way of the actual city building. Resources being used on things that just aren't important, imo. If I wanted to play the Sims, I'd play the Sims. Or Life By You. We don't need the two games to connect to each other.

It's certainly telling that simply patching out dogs the moment they caused a problem would have been a much more parsimonious action than, well, anything else done about the existence of dogs in this game.

 

[Diacritic]

In the game, the company's profitability is calculated from the company's revenue and expenses, which include employee salary, resource buying, tax-paying, and daily production. The profitability indicates the possibility for a positive income, and it varies between 0 and 255. When there is no income for the company, and it still needs to pay a lot of expenses, the profitability can become 0. But it doesn't mean the company currently doesn't have any money, but rather predicts the value of revenue or loss of money. Issues like the lack of employees and the lack of input or output resources can cause profitability to fluctuate. When it comes to the profitability of the company, the calculations may change after we evaluate the complexity of the entire economy based on the feedback we’ve received.

This feels really illustrative to me, because you could simply let companies run for a couple of months and then report whether they are actually, currently profitable. If you had that, then a next step might be a complex system that can then estimate and report to the player the likelihood of future profits as well. With the first order report, the second order report would add some value.

Instead, you don't report the actual, in the moment profitability at all, and only produce the estimate. This makes it useless even as a predictor of itself. There is no way to check if an estimate is correct if you don't have access to what it's estimating!