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CO Word of the Week #3

Last week I promised to give you an update on where we are with the modding of Cities: Skylines II. The Editor is in the works and we shared an updated version of it with the closed Modding Beta group for a feedback round just last Friday. The Editor currently includes only maps and support for code modding and we’re looking forward to getting those ready for an initial release. I’m calling it an initial release as we will be adding to the modding tools throughout the game's lifetime, just like we did with Cities: Skylines.

We do not have the asset import feature available yet, so the creators are currently unable to import their own assets into the game. After we have the import feature in place we’ll be running it through the Modding Beta group. When the asset part of the Editor is ready, we’ll have the Paradox Mods nicely populated with the Region pack assets that the asset creators have been working on. The assets are looking amazing, and I’m sure you’ll have a lot of fun choosing the ones most fitting to your cities! If you haven’t already, check out the Region Pack teaser here:


Our goal is to release the Editor as soon as possible, and we will keep you updated on the progress. We expect it will take a couple of months to get the Editor in a shape where we can release it, but we don’t have a concrete timeline yet as we don’t want to make promises we can’t keep. Once the Editor is out we will continue to work on it with your feedback and suggestions to help us prioritize the most wanted features and improvements. We’re very much looking forward to seeing your creations and mods too!

As an update on console, the game will have all the intended Editor features in place when the console versions are released, so you’ll be able to catch up to the PC players in no time. The Editor on console will be on par with the PC version in all but two features: code modding and asset importing as these are not possible within the console restrictions. However, you will be able to download user-created assets from Paradox Mods and create custom maps! The performance improvements we are currently working on also benefit the console version, and we’re actively working on the console versions so they will be ready for you in the first half of 2024.

In the last three weeks, we’ve had a very quick pace with the patches. There is one more of those landing soon, but after that, we’ll be focusing on bigger fixes that take longer to work on. The team is now focusing on LODs and improving GPU performances, and while geometric LODs are largely automated, there are a ton of tweaks and adjustments required. We are expecting a relevant performance boost with these asset fixes. The workload is significant and unfortunately, there is no silver bullet to improve the performance at once, instead, it requires several tasks completed before we are happy with it. This results in less frequent updates so we won’t have weekly patches going forward. Please check the future Word of the Weeks for more information, as I plan to keep writing one every week until further notice.

Before I go, here’s a link to last week’s patch notes if you want to check what it brought! Thanks to everyone who reported an issue and gave feedback. Your effort is most appreciated!

Sincerely,
Mariina
 
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a couple of months?
are you serious? you promised "days" before I preordered the game.
it is probably 10%off after a couple of months. this is ridiculous.
PC players are just funding the debug for console players
 
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I have personally been enjoying playing the game since release. Clearly there is work to do, on performance, on bug fixes, on quality of life items, and on getting the modding tools in a shipping state. I think it is fair to say the game was released too early, but if they hadn't I wouldn't have gotten to enjoy it for a few weeks already? I don't regret the purchase and the time.

I think it is important that:
  1. The people who work on this game are not overworked. No crunch time, just normal hours.
  2. The updates we get to the game are shipped when they are ready, tested, and good to go. Not to meet a specific cadence.
  3. People in the community express themselves, but stay respectful. I think y'all do a pretty good job of that here. On Reddit (for example) it can get ugly for no reason (pretty often the worst part of gaming is gamers).
  4. Anybody who suggests that CO hire more people now to fix these problems should read The Mythical Man-Month.

I think the developer, and potentially the publisher, has had to do some refactoring of their plans due to the reaction this game got. We should not be surprised that things are not hitting targets that we expected. But making a mistake does not mean you should then make more mistakes to try and compensate. The correct path forward is to deliver things when they are ready, and take the time to do it right. The signals I've gotten from CO makes me think that is what they are doing, at least I hope so.

Now if you'll all excuse me, I've got a city to work on.
 
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They’ve already said no mods on GFN, and the region packs will be released as mods rather than DLC, so no they will not be accessible on GFN.

It’s a huge shame as GFN could have been great for playing while away from home for people that don’t have a bleeding-edge gaming laptop, but as soon as mods come out it won’t be possible to play the same modded save locally and on GFN.
Well that's very disappointing then. GFN is currently my only way to play CS2 decently without needing to have a quantic NASA-grade computer to zoom into the city.

I understand that code mods and player-made assets won't be allowed in GFN, but I thought that at least the official asset packs would be available... I struggle to understand why player-made assets and maps will be available on consoles, but nothing of that will be available on GFN (apart from DLCs).
 
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I once again feel heavily KSP2'd right now.

Several more months for even just some modding?

The only two games I was looking forward as a "good release". The only two games I was hyped for in years.
I also pledged a small amount into Star Citizen (smalles package around 20-30USD) - but they at least don't promise me a fully functional, feature complete game at date xxx. I knew I pledged into an Alpha and more years to come. But even here I waited until 2 years ago to pledge into.

I don't care what a court or law says. I feel scammed by both Devs/Publisher (CS2 and KSP2). For me it's fraud. No matter what a court or lawyer would say to this.

But now I at least know for sure that I don't need to waste my time looking after updates/announcements here or on Steam for CS2. At least they have finally admitted that it will take several more months. (so much for being negative when guessing it from day 1 that exactly this will happen lol)

I'm disgusted. I hope one day lawmaker in enough countries will put an end to this malpractice.

I wish I would've waited at least a week after release before I spent my money. I was too much listening to the Youtubers who claimed the game to be in a good state, aside of performance (which I already expected to be an issue, but not much of an issue for me personally).
 
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"Months" for mods is rough.

This should have been communicated before release. Talk of modding support was a significant part of the pre-release communication and I'm sure it was a big part of why many people chose to buy the game.

There's not enough asset variety in the game to sustain playing for months, and I expected mods to be able to help with that relatively soon. Genuinely disappointing.
 
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I don't care much about editor or modding. For me bugfixing is much more important than modding tools. I mean modders usualy find their own ways to mod games even if there are no tools made available for them by the developer.
 
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I don't really understand the argument of "they're not releasing mod functionality right now because something might break when the game updates".
Do you really believe that?

I don't trust them anymore. I don't believe a word they say. Only what I do and in the future will see in the game myself.

And I bet most of the issues (missing modding/editor, terrible state of the game and "fail safe systems") are all tied to Consoles. They had to test the performance before console release. All the issues with "fake simulation" (their fail safe systems and limitations) is due to limited processing power of consoles as they have to have to guarantee 30fps.

I would be seriously surprised if I am wrong.
 
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I'm concerned that there may be an overemphasis on performance improvements while neglecting the resolution of gameplay bugs. Please continue with the weekly patches, but ensure that addressing gameplay issues remains a priority.
For me the bug report section looks like there are 99% of the players having gameplay issues, not performance issues. So I wonder about the real ratio of gameplay vs performance bugs... maybe 90/10? I'm pretty sure that CO will fix every bug and also the performance issues, but I don't want to wait months without any gameplay bugs fixed, especially when it looks like that most of the players are affected by gameplay issues and not performance related ones. I really like this game and enjoy to sit back and observe how things are going, but it would be frustrating to know that cargo, traffic, etc will act like it currently does for the next months :/ So I hope we can get a statement about the ratio of gameplay vs performance...
 
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You cant believe a marketing department when it communicates for the devs. Its common in gaming right now, they are 24/7 talking B/S and try to sell as much as they can without being in the position of being responsible for features not in the game and so on.

It´s unbelievable. You would return any 30 Dollar T-Shirt in H&M for being in the state the game is. But in gaming everything seems possible. Unbelievable, really.
 
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And I bet most of the issues (missing modding/editor, terrible state of the game and "fail safe systems") are all tied to Consoles. They had to test the performance before console release. All the issues with "fake simulation" (their fail safe systems and limitations) is due to limited processing power of consoles as they have to have to guarantee 30fps.
Yes, it all points to that. Seems that the actual release will be the date of console release.
 
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Yes, it all points to that. Seems that the actual release will be the date of console release.
Hmmm... I doubt. If they're making it primarily for console, the PC players will have to live with the restrictions coming from the console implementation and in the worst-case scenario it would mean that we never get a version with the promised features :/
 
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Do you really believe that?

I don't trust them anymore. I don't believe a word they say. Only what I do and in the future will see in the game myself.

And I bet most of the issues (missing modding/editor, terrible state of the game and "fail safe systems") are all tied to Consoles. They had to test the performance before console release. All the issues with "fake simulation" (their fail safe systems and limitations) is due to limited processing power of consoles as they have to have to guarantee 30fps.

I would be seriously surprised if I am wrong.

The console release is very worrying, especially Xbox Series S.

In long run this might greatly hinder the development of future DLC content for the game.

I can imagine many times in the future dev will be forced to drop some great ideas because "it won't run on Xbox Series S".

Well, I cannot imagine how this game is going to work on Series X or PS5, with their very low amount of shared memory. So, even trying to make it work somehow on Series S, seems to require some higher level wizardry.

Commitment to underpowered consoles, might really hurt the game in long run.
 
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There are a LOT of bugs in the game and many, many issues... We are a year away from an actual, releasable version...

So until the point that you can sort out the performance issues, would you please make CS 1 cims available in CS 2 so we can actually enjoy SOME performance?
 
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I have personally been enjoying playing the game since release. Clearly there is work to do, on performance, on bug fixes, on quality of life items, and on getting the modding tools in a shipping state. I think it is fair to say the game was released too early, but if they hadn't I wouldn't have gotten to enjoy it for a few weeks already? I don't regret the purchase and the time.

I think it is important that:
  1. The people who work on this game are not overworked. No crunch time, just normal hours.
  2. The updates we get to the game are shipped when they are ready, tested, and good to go. Not to meet a specific cadence.
  3. People in the community express themselves, but stay respectful. I think y'all do a pretty good job of that here. On Reddit (for example) it can get ugly for no reason (pretty often the worst part of gaming is gamers).
  4. Anybody who suggests that CO hire more people now to fix these problems should read The Mythical Man-Month.

I think the developer, and potentially the publisher, has had to do some refactoring of their plans due to the reaction this game got. We should not be surprised that things are not hitting targets that we expected. But making a mistake does not mean you should then make more mistakes to try and compensate. The correct path forward is to deliver things when they are ready, and take the time to do it right. The signals I've gotten from CO makes me think that is what they are doing, at least I hope so.

Now if you'll all excuse me, I've got a city to work on.
I like what you have said. I am also very disappointed that I have to wait for another possible 6 months before I get to play CS2 on console. But I do have to wonder what the heck they were doing for the past six years that they say they have been working on CS2 and why all these bugs were not reported by the players who were granted early access (or maybe they were but one has to wonder why they were not fixed during the beta testing period)--but what do I know about game development. I do believe the added detailed simulation really adds to making the city building process more "realistic" since it tries to incorporate real economic, social, civil engineering and broad urban planning issues into the game, but obviously added a lot more algorithms that obviously were not tested as thoroughly as they should have been prior to release.
 
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Seeing how everyone here (and everywhere else) is very disappointed and upset with this news about mods I wonder if it isn’t possible to just patch those free asset packs into the base game.

Everyone is going to download those anyway as they are officially endorsed.

Can’t be that hard if they are ready anyway and we don’t have to have mod support right away but have some variety in the game and something to ‘ease the pain’ and bring back some goodwill and positive community vibes . It will also helping the GeForce players out there. Triple win!

Or is this yet another ‘Marketing said no!’ answer?

Same concept as the pre-order bonuses that where patched in on MS Store in a few days, but with asset packs.

I would love to hear the CEO or Avanya her thoughts on this idea! (Which I think is a good one )
 
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Can we get a timeline or level of priority that the team is addressing the gameplay bugs?

While I'm devastated that modding will be months (definitely thought soon = days/weeks), it could help to know something like "Cargo will be top priority and fixed within 1 week followed by cim&traffic pathing the following week"

The news about modding delay wouldn't be so disappointing if the community knew which specific gameplay issues were being worked on with a timeline.... but the modding news combined with the news that patches will be slowing down too is a double-gut-punch
 
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All the goodwill fostered with the first game has been thrown right out the window. Im hugely disappointed with myself for falling for the pre order hype. I wanted the pre order bonuses, but I also expected a fully working game, not an alpha test. Its not like you guys have ever made a city builder before.....
 
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Seeing how everyone here (and everywhere else) is very disappointed and upset with this news about mods I wonder if it isn’t possible to just patch those free asset packs into the base game.

Everyone is going to download those anyway as they are officially endorsed.

Can’t be that hard if they are ready anyway and we don’t have to have mod support right away but have some variety in the game and something to ‘ease the pain’ and bring back some goodwill and positive community vibes . It will also helping the GeForce players out there. Triple win!

Or is this yet another ‘Marketing said no!’ answer?

Same concept as the pre-order bonuses that where patched in on MS Store in a few days, but with asset packs.

I would love to hear the CEO or Avanya her thoughts on this idea! (Which I think is a good one )
Two issues with that:

- baking over 2,000 additional assets into the base game could have a nontrivial impact on storage and VRAM requirements for the game
- there could be IP considerations around including third-party content in the base game
 
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I honestly feel that this whole game release has been botched from the beginning. You over promised and severely under delivered with this game. I understand some fixes will take time, but you should be releasing any fixes you have done and tested as soon as they're done. We're not going to be mad if you have smaller updates with a few fixes in them. It just shows you're working. I was ok with weekly updates but now that you're not doing that and there is no clarity on when we should expect updates going forward I'm getting fed up.

The incompetence in the c-suites of CO and Paradox with the decisions around this game are abhorrent. This game should never have been released in this state. The traffic Ai alone is a disaster. No car or garbage truck irl backs up on a highway and crosses 4 lanes of traffic stopping everyone, no matter how many times I rebuild that section of road and try and get the nodes perfect. Did any of the execs actually look at the game and play it past 10k pop or 200k pop? Not to mention the economy not working with import export or just giving you cash magically. I suspect it's export profits but how can I know there is no way to track where the extra is coming from. I can run huge deficits and the balance just keeps rising without a clue where it's coming from.

You also promised to be able to build a huge city, if 300k is considered huge in a world of 10million+ cities, but yet get a few hundred people waiting at a train station and the whole simulation grinds to a halt. Have the execs created such a toxic environment that the devs couldn't honestly tell you it wasn't ready or were the execs just not willing to listen and change because they set a deadline and they think the world will end if its not met, which wouldn't have been the case?

The more I play the more disappointed I've become because I can see the promise it has but it doesn't live up to any of the promises that were made by CO and Paradox.
 
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