CO Word of the Week #3

[ma2412]

i use devMode option - you can set temp and weather that will stay until next game start

 

[techtoolie]

A - currently the ONLY fairly "game-braking" thing that is NOT working is post sorting facility. Garbage is fixed, exports/imports are working. tho production panel could use some improvement, the whole supply chain stuff IS working. Some things may need tuning, and some less important bugs - fixing, but the game is more than playable. Instead of complaining that everything is broken maybe do some reading (tons of info in dev diaries btw! highly recommend - requires reading tho) and educate yourself on how the game actually works or try to understand how some things work instead of running to the bug forums the moment you face a problem.

B - the government subsidy is there to tell you (aside from early game and investments into the future of your city) that you're doing a poor job...nobody want's a "game over" screen and start rebuilding a 100k pop city from scratch just because some people need some sort of "forced" supervision over their gameplay and are unable to self-evaluate.

I don't have access to the game since I only play on console, but one can tell from the "x's" and "likes" that most people like you are busy enjoying the game as it is and thus don't waste time complaining on this forum unlike the seemingly vocal minority to just can't stop complaining while CO fixes the game that perhaps they set too high a bar for but which I sincerely appreciate their effort to make this game more "realistic", knowing that current hardware requirements are causing the issues particularly when trying to put out a game that is almost as good on the consoles. Way more console players than PC players, but their demographics are probably less discerning than PC players (ie, more youth players vs adults).

I worked for a couple of real estate developers on small, medium and large master planned communities (1K - 10K - 60K+ population) and truly understand how communities are developed from scratch, but I appreciate the ability to play CS with 8 and 10 yr old boys and teach them about all the aspects of not only designing and building successful communities and cities using urban planning, civil engineering, aesthetic and architectural planning, but also learning how to manage communities and large cities with regard to services like garbage, medical care, death care, weather, traffic, importing and exporting products and goods that are produced and manufactured, as well as social issues. Very difficult to design a game that can appeal to such a broad demographic but CO has successfully done so with CS1 and I am hoping they will soon reach the same success with CS2.

 

[techtoolie]

I don't have access to the game since I only play on console, but one can tell from the "x's" and "likes" that most people like you are busy enjoying the game as it is and thus don't waste time complaining on this forum unlike the seemingly vocal minority to just can't stop complaining while CO fixes the game that perhaps they set too high a bar for but which I sincerely appreciate their effort to make this game more "realistic", knowing that current hardware requirements are causing the issues particularly when trying to put out a game that is almost as good on the consoles. Way more console players than PC players, but their demographics are probably less discerning than PC players (ie, more youth players vs adults).

I worked for a couple of real estate developers on small, medium and large master planned communities (1K - 10K - 60K+ population) and truly understand how communities are developed from scratch, but I appreciate the ability to play CS with 8 and 10 yr old boys and teach them about all the aspects of not only designing and building successful communities and cities using urban planning, civil engineering, aesthetic and architectural planning, but also learning how to manage communities and large cities with regard to services like garbage, medical care, death care, weather, traffic, importing and exporting products and goods that are produced and manufactured, as well as social issues. Very difficult to design a game that can appeal to such a broad demographic but CO has successfully done so with CS1 and I am hoping they will soon reach the same success with CS2.

The negative responses to my post would seem to indicate that what I said is mostly accurate!

 

[circuitfarmer]

The negative responses to my post would seem to indicate that what I said is mostly accurate!

All I will say is: you'd likely feel differently had you actually played the game. It's quite strange to come on a forum and make judgements about a game you haven't even played. People disagreed with your comment because it doesn't make sense when considered against the actual game you're referencing.

 

[techtoolie]

Perhaps, but I have watched a ton of videos and read responses from players pro and con and I would rather be able to play the game in its current state than have to wait 6 months for the console version. But understand that I was not a PC player who used tons of mods and assets on CS1--I just played the game myself and with my grandsons on the Switch.

 

[Licenturion]

Perhaps, but I have watched a ton of videos and read responses from players pro and con and I would rather be able to play the game in its current state than have to wait 6 months for the console version. But understand that I was not a PC player who used tons of mods and assets on CS1--I just played the game myself and with my grandsons on the Switch.

With your use case you are better off with CS1 with DLC. Way more stuff to teach them, way more assets and planning options and control over industries and services.

CS2, for now, mainly plays itself without much user input and u basically have 1 building of each without differentiation or options. There are also 5 percent of policy and district option to work with. U will be disappointed after the honeymoon week is over.

Or Anno 1800 with DLC is also a great game to teach or show stuff although that is more micromanaging if you want to get a successful eco system.

I get it. I was excited too watching videos, dev diaries and content creators playing. But as soon as I had the tools in hand it quickly turned into a big disappointment after my city became bigger and saw all the limitations and stuff not working as it should.

 

[BoraBora]

Perhaps, but I have watched a ton of videos and read responses from players pro and con and I would rather be able to play the game in its current state than have to wait 6 months for the console version. But understand that I was not a PC player who used tons of mods and assets on CS1--I just played the game myself and with my grandsons on the Switch.

CS1 was my main and almost only game for 8 years. I own an above average PC. I was hoping for a sequel for years and I wish I could play the game in its current state but I can't because of the hundreds of bugs, the terrible performances, the weird simulation failsafes and the lack of any editor and mod. I only played for 10 hours before quitting. You say most people are busy enjoying the game, well, look how many people are playing on Steam: most people are neither complaining on the social networks or busy enjoying the game. Most people just moved on.

As soon as CS II was announced, in march, I created a thread on the most popular french forums (I've been called a fanboy more than once). I spent hours reporting each and every news, contributed to the expectations and the teasing. This thread is now pretty much dead because all the buyers and would-be buyers of the game said "bye-bye, see you next year when the game will be finished. Maybe". That's the reality at the moment.

I understand popular youtubers downplaying the problems. They can't interest people in videos of a game they'll bash. City Planner Plays said he's "very, very, very disappointed", though, and Akruas said he's not making C:S II Let's Plays anymore until there's more content/updates.

 

[fazhos]

That is, Early Access

I think money should be refunded accordingly, that would be the least...

Sorry for the hard words but at some point you get so disappointed with always crashing and shitty performance, As has already been said, this is a better beta or early access but never a full-price game in its current state

 

[Astramael_Nyx]

Once the dust settles, I want this to be an excellent game with many years of fun in it. That means filing bugs, filing feature requests, stating plainly where I see problems, and also where I see positive things as well. There are plenty of all of these things to go around.

Unfortunately, it very much seems that a lot of people on the internet do not care whatsoever about the end result. They don’t care if they have a good game or not. They just want to complain about things in a sensationalist way, like it’s a sport.

To the people stating in a coherent way that you are disappointed: it’s great that you are saying that, CO needs to hear it.

To the people reminding everybody that there are bugs and performance issues still: yes, that is good, CO needs to hear that.

To the people who are just posting unsupported nonsense, delivering ad hominem attacks, and being cluelessly condescending: You’re part of the problem. This isn’t Reddit, be better.

 

[Snailmus]

Once the dust settles, I want this to be an excellent game with many years of fun in it. That means filing bugs, filing feature requests, stating plainly where I see problems, and also where I see positive things as well. There are plenty of all of these things to go around.

Unfortunately, it very much seems that a lot of people on the internet do not care whatsoever about the end result. They don’t care if they have a good game or not. They just want to complain about things in a sensationalist way, like it’s a sport.

To the people stating in a coherent way that you are disappointed: it’s great that you are saying that, CO needs to hear it.

To the people reminding everybody that there are bugs and performance issues still: yes, that is good, CO needs to hear that.

To the people who are just posting unsupported nonsense, delivering ad hominem attacks, and being cluelessly condescending: You’re part of the problem. This isn’t Reddit, be better.

I hope you can say the same thing when you purchase a car at full price but without an engine inside.

 

[Astramael_Nyx]

I hope you can say the same thing when you purchase a car at full price but without an engine inside.

This is a really fantastic example of the kind of unhelpful, unsubstantiated, rhetorical, memetic comment that I am talking about.

Appreciate you helping me with my point!

 

[sdsoldi]

This is a really fantastic example of the kind of unhelpful, unsubstantiated, rhetorical, memetic comment that I am talking about.

Appreciate you helping me with my point!

The game is launched. It is a final release of the game. You pay for a complete product.

Sounds good.... but after playing a few hours you can see that the game is broken. Not just with small bugs. Base bugs that makes a final product an alpha test. Ask why they don't release the game on consoles... because the game is not finished and they can't release it.

You can't sell a product with features and on release day remove them like map editor, mods, ....

But your idea is to keep quiet because it will be a great game many years from now and not complain about what you received today.

 

[Astramael_Nyx]

The game is launched. It is a final release of the game. You pay for a complete product.

Sounds good.... but after playing a few hours you can see that the game is broken. Not just with small bugs. Base bugs that makes a final product an alpha test. Ask why they don't release the game on consoles... because the game is not finished and they can't release it.

You can't sell a product with features and on release day remove them like map editor, mods, ....

I have over 100 hours of very good entertainment and a couple of large cities into this game. It needs work but it’s not an Alpha product. It’s not completely broken. It’s not fake. Repeating those thoroughly disproven talking points is so boring, completely unconstructive, and not actionable.

But your idea is to keep quiet because it will be a great game many years from now and not complain about what you received today.

I see you aren’t taking the time to read my comments. Really stellar work.

 

[co_martsu]

If you need someone to blame you should blame me. As the CEO of Colossal Order I carry the responsibility for the quality of our products. I'm sorry the game didn't meet the expectations and we'll take the feedback onboard.

And we have indeed gone through a ton of feedback and bug reports. Some bugs are already fixed and we're working on the rest. The designers and gameplay programmers are focusing solely on this while those working on performance get results.

Performance is important for all platforms. PC is the the primary development platform and all performance work is done there first and will help the console versions. Therefore PC players will get access to the optimizations as soon as they are done.

We have no intention to abandon Cities: Skylines II. We think it's a better game than the first one. We will keep working on it and like I said actions speak louder than words so stay tuned for the news about patches. There won't be a patch next week, but the patches will come out when ready.

And for those concerned about the team I want you to know that we are working normal workhours and we are very happy to see so many players enjoying the game. Thanks for caring!

 

[SereneLobotomy]

The "POTATO TREE / GRAPHICS" LOD BUG needs to be fixed.

It's probably the worst bug right now in the game as:

• It's completely random when it happens
• It's not affected by the city size (happens to my ~20k population city)
• It's completely random on how to fix it.
  • Sometimes I change the texture quality and give some time and change the camera and it fixes
  • Sometimes I restart the game and wait for a new "compiling textures" before load and it fixes
  • Sometimes I need to delete DX Shader Cache and restart the game
  • Sometimes I need delete the DX Shader Cache and restart the COMPUTER

Please please fix this!

Yes, please fix this! It's infuriating. I notice that zooming all the way out and waiting a few seconds will sometimes fix it for me, but it's still not a guarantee.

 

[pablomarti354]

PC is the the primary development platform and all performance work is done there first and will help the console versions. Therefore PC players will get access to the optimizations as soon as they are done.

Glad to know that

EDIT: Glad as a PC player. I'm truly sorry for the delay for the console users

 

[Licenturion]

If you need someone to blame you should blame me. As the CEO of Colossal Order I carry the responsibility for the quality of our products. I'm sorry the game didn't meet the expectations and we'll take the feedback onboard.

And we have indeed gone through a ton of feedback and bug reports. Some bugs are already fixed and we're working on the rest. The designers and gameplay programmers are focusing solely on this while those working on performance get results.

Performance is important for all platforms. PC is the the primary development platform and all performance work is done there first and will help the console versions. Therefore PC players will get access to the optimizations as soon as they are done.

We have no intention to abandon Cities: Skylines II. We think it's a better game than the first one. We will keep working on it and like I said actions speak louder than words so stay tuned for the news about patches. There won't be a patch next week, but the patches will come out when ready.

And for those concerned about the team I want you to know that we are working normal workhours and we are very happy to see so many players enjoying the game. Thanks for caring!

I just hope the big gameplay systems like cargo/post/export not working at all or barely, which everyone has been reporting since release almost a month ago, are finally fixed with this week patch.

This would finally be a bit of good news and I can finally actually start playing the game instead of getting stuck on bugs in every city I try or complaining all the time.

These are big issues and seeing no new patches are on the near horizon, I assume and hope those are in the patch notes this week. If not....then CO really doesn't care about gameplay at all. But I have still have my hopes up for this weeks patch

 

[pablomarti354]

If you need someone to blame you should blame me. As the CEO of Colossal Order I carry the responsibility for the quality of our products. I'm sorry the game didn't meet the expectations and we'll take the feedback onboard.

And we have indeed gone through a ton of feedback and bug reports. Some bugs are already fixed and we're working on the rest. The designers and gameplay programmers are focusing solely on this while those working on performance get results.

Performance is important for all platforms. PC is the the primary development platform and all performance work is done there first and will help the console versions. Therefore PC players will get access to the optimizations as soon as they are done.

We have no intention to abandon Cities: Skylines II. We think it's a better game than the first one. We will keep working on it and like I said actions speak louder than words so stay tuned for the news about patches. There won't be a patch next week, but the patches will come out when ready.

And for those concerned about the team I want you to know that we are working normal workhours and we are very happy to see so many players enjoying the game. Thanks for caring!

Hi @co_martsu

Thank you for this followup and for the apologies that some users were eagerly expecting.

I know it's not a priority, but me and many other users who can only play through Geforce Now (for an acceptable quality-performance ratio or for other reasons), would like to know exactly what content from Paradox Mods can we expect to be accessible in GFN, if any (code/non-code mods, asset packs, region packs, DLCs, official/user-made assets, official/user-made maps, etc).

Thank you.

 

[timfrombriz]

If you need someone to blame you should blame me. As the CEO of Colossal Order I carry the responsibility for the quality of our products. I'm sorry the game didn't meet the expectations and we'll take the feedback onboard.

And we have indeed gone through a ton of feedback and bug reports. Some bugs are already fixed and we're working on the rest. The designers and gameplay programmers are focusing solely on this while those working on performance get results.

Performance is important for all platforms. PC is the the primary development platform and all performance work is done there first and will help the console versions. Therefore PC players will get access to the optimizations as soon as they are done.

We have no intention to abandon Cities: Skylines II. We think it's a better game than the first one. We will keep working on it and like I said actions speak louder than words so stay tuned for the news about patches. There won't be a patch next week, but the patches will come out when ready.

And for those concerned about the team I want you to know that we are working normal workhours and we are very happy to see so many players enjoying the game. Thanks for caring!

The number of bugs in this game indicate it was pushed out the door too early, and/or the QA testers lack the skills to understand the game mechanics. Things like garbage/post services/cargo not working, cars floating in the air when moving a carpark, these should of been found if most players can find them within 60 hours of gameplay.

Ive been a loyalist CO fan since your first Cities In Motion 1, I want your team to suceed, because you touch a genre that is not very established and have previously done a good job. I can personally see the great job the programmers have done with the underlying systems, but its unpolished and not finished. Its rushed.

Please, focus on fixing the BUGS in this game, before focusing on performance for months. Get the gameplay mechanics balanced so it feels like a simulation and offers a challenge to those interested in not just drawing a city. Because it feels like its now a focus on getting the console ready (getting the performance better so you can release for that market - is this paradox pushing this agenda?), the editor ready, then the asset packs and DLC's, and forget the underlying problems that make this game really dissapointing for many of us.

The traffic AI problems are really frustrating, they are all listed in the bug reports forum, they've been marked confirmed for weeks. But nothing. Focus on fixing the bugs before prioritising all your other tasks. Theres a hell of a lot of bugs, and you've barely touched the surface in the last 3 weeks.

I wish the best for CO, but please, fix the bugs, balance the game, and make it not just a city painter with broken simulation challenge mechanics. If you have a solid foundation to build DLC's upon, the players will flock. If you start flogging off DLC's without getting the base game right, then why bother spending money to add to a broken experience?

Look at what's being discussed on communities outside here, like Reddit. The themese are the same, the game mechanics and bugs are frustrating players. Please consider changing your course, as its going to cause a lot of players to walk away dissapointed. I for one, dont have any desire to play the game in its current state and have only been lingering here on these forums waiting for patches to see if it fixes the problems that make the game unenjoyable to play.

 

[unmerged(524934)]

If you need someone to blame you should blame me. As the CEO of Colossal Order I carry the responsibility for the quality of our products. I'm sorry the game didn't meet the expectations and we'll take the feedback onboard.

@co_martsu Thank you for the apology Mariina, but the fact remains that the PC version of the game should never have been released in this state. I paid £79 for a game that was clearly rushed out the door and should at best have been marketed as "early access".

And speaking of meeting expectations, you set them, remember? At no point in any of the glossy (and I'm sure hugely successful) pre-release marketing campaign was there any mention of the PC release being the base of a great game sometime in the future once it had been polished post-release and erm something something - rather, we got this (quoted directly from the Steam store page today)

If you can dream it, you can build it

Raise a city from the ground up and transform it into the thriving metropolis only you can imagine. You've never experienced building on this scale. With deep simulation and a living economy, Cities: Skylines II delivers world-building without limits.

Lay the foundations for your city to begin. Create the roads, infrastructure, and systems that make life possible day to day. It's up to you – all of it.

How your city grows is your call too, but plan strategically. Every decision has an impact. Can you energize local industries while also using trade to boost the economy? What will make residential districts flourish without killing the buzz downtown? How will you meet the needs and desires of citizens while balancing the city's budget?

Your city never rests. Like any living, breathing world, it changes over time. Some changes will be slow and gradual, while others will be sudden and unexpected. So while seasons turn and night follows day, be ready to act when life doesn't go to plan.

An ever-expanding community of Builders means more opportunities to build a truly groundbreaking city with mods. They're now more easily available in Cities: Skylines II.

The most realistic and detailed city builder ever, Cities: Skylines II pushes your creativity and problem-solving to another level. With beautifully rendered high-resolution graphics, it also inspires you to build the city of your dreams.

Can you honestly say that this is the game we're playing (or not) right now?