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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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No-one is rushing the console versions, the development of them doesn't slow down the work we are doing for the game.

The post/export is being investigated, so there's not a fix for it yet. I'll include the gameplay focus in the word of the week next time!
 
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co_martsu said:
No-one is rushing the console versions, the development of them doesn't slow down the work we are doing for the game.

The post/export is being investigated, so there's not a fix for it yet. I'll include the gameplay focus in the word of the week next time!
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Whats holding a console release back? Performance. Because the hardware is fixed and not variable like a PC, it doesnt meet the quality benchmarks youve set. You've said in your word of the week the focus is now on editor/performance instead of continuing the focus on weekly bug patches. That to me says the games good enough in its current state, the team can focus our attention on the next task at hand.

Please, personally have a look at reddit/citiesskylines and reddit/cityskylines2 and see what your players are discussing. Theres an overtly strong negative overtone about bugs/gameplay mechanics. Please consider polishing what you've released so you have a strong game foundation to build upon. The rewards will come from that.

Thanks for the great games, I want to see the game and your team achieve the best outcome, but I feel your charting in the wrong direction with the focus.

P.S. We getting our ritual weekly [final] Thursday patch by COB today :cool: ?
 
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I agree will all opinions about priorizing bug resolution.

Although the first day, we were surprised by the lack of optimisation and performance (you got very bad advertising just because of that), now we are choked by the amount and nature of bugs that are present, at the point it is hard to find an interest playing this game. Paradox always been mentionned like a strong game builder, but those two major mistakes (choices?) on cities skyline 2 really changed the perception of players.

With thousands of hour playing CS1 or Stellaris, i've always been ready to give my money to Paradox. But the situation now is seriously affected and will probably lead to a non-return point if you don't listen to community about the necessity to turn back your game to a playable state.

That said, bugs like traffic or economy-related are fairly not solvable in one week. Most of the community is aware of this, but there are so other many things that you could solve quicker and at least give a reason to player to keep following you.
 
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timfrombriz said:
Whats holding a console release back? Performance. Because the hardware is fixed and not variable like a PC, it doesnt meet the quality benchmarks youve set. You've said in your word of the week the focus is now on editor/performance instead of continuing the focus on weekly bug patches. That to me says the games good enough in its current state, the team can focus our attention on the next task at hand.

Please, personally have a look at reddit/citiesskylines and reddit/cityskylines2 and see what your players are discussing. Theres an overtly strong negative overtone about bugs/gameplay mechanics. Please consider polishing what you've released so you have a strong game foundation to build upon. The rewards will come from that.

Thanks for the great games, I just want to see the game and your team achieve the best outcome , but I feel your charting in the wrong direction with the focus.

P.S. We getting our ritual weekly [final] Thursday patch by COB today :cool: ?
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Yes, there is a patch on its way. The next one after it hasn't been scheduled as we need to get a bigger performance issue sorted out for it. All future patches will most likely include also gameplay fixes as we have several team members working on them. The pace is slower because the quicker fixes have been done and released and we just need more time between the patches. A weekly patch takes time each week and that's time away from further fixes.

I personally check Reddit quite often and have even participated in some discussion, but right now I need to save up some strength before going there again.
 
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co_martsu said:
The post/export is being investigated, so there's not a fix for it yet. I'll include the gameplay focus in the word of the week next time!
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Ugh, what a colossal disappointment once again...pun intended

I can't wait to read next week how hard these problems are to solve and you need to redo the whole underlying economy system which will takes a few weeks or months to fix :)
 
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co_martsu said:
Yes, there is a patch on its way. The next one after it hasn't been scheduled as we need to get a bigger performance issue sorted out for it. All future patches will most likely include also gameplay fixes as we have several team members working on them. The pace is slower because the quicker fixes have been done and released and we just need more time between the patches. A weekly patch takes time each week and that's time away from further fixes.

I personally check Reddit quite often and have even participated in some discussion, but right now I need to save up some strength before going there again.
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Thanks for the response. For what its worth, the communication and engagement is appreciated and valued. Thanks for listening and keeping the community as a whole posted.

You've got a diamond in the rough here. Lets make it a gem together with the modders/players. Already decompiled the code to learn and understand the game systems myself, I hope to be ready to release some code mods to tackle some game issues I see once youve got the Paradox Mods ready.
 
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co_martsu said:
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.
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This is reassuring to hear. Thank you.
 
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The Regions Packs look pretty finished based on the trailer and it looks like the assets are already imported in to the game, it's not clear from your post but are both ParadoxMods and the Regions Pack delayed because of the asset import issues? Because again, it looks like the assets are already in the game based on the trailer,and if we could at least have that released even without ParadoxMods support, that would go a long way to building back trust.
 
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TripleAgent said:
The Regions Packs look pretty finished based on the trailer and it looks like the assets are already imported in to the game, it's not clear from your post but are both ParadoxMods and the Regions Pack delayed because of the asset import issues? Because again, it looks like the assets are already in the game based on the trailer,and if we could at least have that released even without ParadoxMods support, that would go a long way to building back trust.
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My personal thinking on this is that the assets might have been OK for top end PCs (hence the trailers) but have proven too GPU-intensive for the targeted console hardware so they're having to rework them as part of the general performance optimisation/graphics work which Mariina has said they're currently focusing on.
 
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co_martsu said:
but right now I need to save up some strength before going there again.
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Hello @co_martsu,

I hope the heavy criticism of the game doesn't take too much of a toll. CO is a great team and the people I have had the chance to meet in person were all great.

I have been playing Colossal Order games for as long as they existed. I started with the demo Version of Cities in Motion 1, preorderd CiM 1, played the Beta of CiM 2, preordered Cities: Skylines 1 and am now playing Cities: Skylines 2. And while I enjoy playing C:S2 a lot, from all of your releases to me, it feels like the least polished one.

I can understand the critiques of the game—even though I disagree with how harsh it is. C:S2 is a good game. A fun game. But a game with a lot of issues that need to be addressed. I know that CO is a pretty small team, and you really have to triage bugs and prioritize what you work on. Time is limited. And weekly patches are draining. I know you are working as fast as you can, and I am thankful for that.

What I would like to criticize though is communication. I like that you are doing a "CO Word of the Week", but I feel like they are a lot of words without too much information content. What I would like to see in "CO Word of the Week" is a more in-depth report of what is actually being worked on. I'd like to know which Bugs are currently at the top of your priority list, even if you cannot give an estimation of when they will be fixed. I'd like to know which bugs are actively being worked on. What new features are in development. Now I know that this kind of transparency is not something we have seen in the past from you for any of your games, but it would be a very welcome transparency.

I know developers that have public (read only) Trello Boards directly synchronized to their internal Jira in which you can track issues and even see in which patch you can expect a fix to drop. That is the kind of transparency that I would like to see from you now, and I expect the negativity in the community to get a lot less if we can follow the development more actively.

Stay strong and thank the whole team for the hard work they are putting in.
 
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anton95 said:
Hello @co_martsu,

I hope the heavy criticism of the game doesn't take too much of a toll. CO is a great team and the people I have had the chance to meet in person were all great.

I have been playing Colossal Order games for as long as they existed. I started with the demo Version of Cities in Motion 1, preorderd CiM 1, played the Beta of CiM 2, preordered Cities: Skylines 1 and am now playing Cities: Skylines 2. And while I enjoy playing C:S2 a lot, from all of your releases to me, it feels like the least polished one.

I can understand the critiques of the game—even though I disagree with how harsh it is. C:S2 is a good game. A fun game. But a game with a lot of issues that need to be addressed. I know that CO is a pretty small team, and you really have to triage bugs and prioritize what you work on. Time is limited. And weekly patches are draining. I know you are working as fast as you can, and I am thankful for that.

What I would like to criticize though is communication. I like that you are doing a "CO Word of the Week", but I feel like they are a lot of words without too much information content. What I would like to see in "CO Word of the Week" is a more in-depth report of what is actually being worked on. I'd like to know which Bugs are currently at the top of your priority list, even if you cannot give an estimation of when they will be fixed. I'd like to know which bugs are actively being worked on. What new features are in development. Now I know that this kind of transparency is not something we have seen in the past from you for any of your games, but it would be a very welcome transparency.

I know developers that have public (read only) Trello Boards directly synchronized to their internal Jira in which you can track issues and even see in which patch you can expect a fix to drop. That is the kind of transparency that I would like to see from you now, and I expect the negativity in the community to get a lot less if we can follow the development more actively.

Stay strong and thank the whole team for the hard work they are putting in.
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I agree 100 percent with this

A lot of game developers do this

This for example how Sledgehammer is doing it for Call Of Duty that launched last week. Super crystal clear information but without setting up people for constant disappointment:

Trello

Organize anything, together. Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, know what's being worked on, who's working on what, and where something is in a process.
trello.com trello.com
 
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Totally agree, on several points made by other members of the community. Words of the week are great and i enjoy the transparency, but to be honest after this weeks summary i feel like i have zero information about what is actually going on, like several other members of the community and also a follower of CO from the CiM1 era, i would greatly appreciate being able to follow the development in depth and detail, or atleast as much as CO can realistically provide. Im not so bothered about timelines, i'd just like some concrete detailed information about what is in progress.....id feel more comfortable waiting for fixes with that kind of set up, atleast i know they are in the pipeline.

In regards to modding, i have to be honest i am disapointed and still feel slightly cheated that the timeframe for that is so much longer than was orignally suggested before purchase. I have great concerns about the game becoming stale at this rate as it is incredably hard to build with any great diversity at the moment. We can only watch and wait right now i suppose.
 
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Licenturion said:
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.
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Since CS2 will not be released for consoles for at least another 6 months, I will definitely be playing CS1 with my grandsons as I help them to build larger and larger cities/communities. Definitely fun to see how youngsters react to the game.
 
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I feel like I'm in the minority of people who believes we need a good, solid, performing foundation before expecting a fleshed out, detailed game on top of it.

If performance is ignored now, it'll always be ignored. Get the performance sorted and optimal now, fix bugs and build the rest of the game on top of it. Maintain performance as you include fixes and features.

I'm extremely worried that if performance isn't prioritised then it'll always remain bad, whereas I believe bug fixes are more likely to be taken seriously even in the future.
 
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I appreciate that this situation is tough on the team and its not fun to be criticized this much, but paying $80 for a broken product that was sold in a very deceptive way is tough on me too and I am not feeling much sympathy from CO about that. So, I don't really feel much sympathy for the self created storm. Word of the week is cool and all and its nice to say that we will fix this and game will get better. But you made a lot of nebulous claims pre-release as well. What makes it different this time? Its time to make more concrete statements, offer a roadmap, let people know what specific issues you are acknowledging and working on, etc. Saying we don't want to commit to actual timelines and then not deliver sounds great. It would have been cool to have that attitude prior to charging people for the game no? Now that you have already tricked people into forking over the money, its nice to say we are going to take our time with fixes. Cause you have already suckered your audience.

I don't know about others, but lets say sometime in 2024, the game gets to a better state. That isn't going to make me go, "Well they delivered what they sold us finally." That isn't going to magically restore the rep and trust in CO. I am still waiting to see what exactly is being done to do that. You sold us a bill of goods, gleefully accepted that money and now are saying, "Don't worry, we promise you will get what you paid for eventually...maybe". I paid for a product that was supposed to be working on October 24, 2023. Delivering that sometime in 2024 doesn't change the fact that you didn't deliver what you sold. So, what is being done to make good?
 
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PrimusNephilim said:
Never pre-order a game....now you've learned your lesson.
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I've pre-ordered before without issues but that was from reputable studios making AAA titles that were good for their promises, with sufficient dev resources to provide what they said they would, and a competent QA department judging by the minor launch bugs and quick fixes to any major bugs.

What's really laughable is that I played DayZ for the whole time it was early access and for such a small dev studio they provided a really enjoyable experience, even with buses tripping and face planting over a pebble in the road, and dying when exiting vehicles as they leapt in the air and crashed on me.

Yet CO can't even provide a good early access title sold as a final release.

The lesson I have learned is to never ever trust CO again, if they tell me it's daytime when the sun is out and nighttime when it's not, I'll call them liars. If they tell me tomorrow hasn't arrived yet, today is now and yesterday already happened, I'll laugh them out of the room for their pathetic attempt at spreading misinformation.

But for the first time in my life, they have actually made me wish I was a console player, because then I wouldn't have witnessed this tragedy of a launch and also wouldn't have pre-ordered.

But as you said,
never pre-order a game from CO...now I have learned my lesson.
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I'm a little worried about the direction this game is going. I get that you want to support all platforms, but it's not cool to sell the game for the same price on all platforms if not all platforms can get the same features.

Let's talk about this whole switch to Paradox Mods for the sake of 'inclusivity'. Days before release you confirmed that Paradox Mods will not be available for GeForce Now, and now you drop the bomb that the Region Packs will be delivered via Paradox Mods only? Am I getting this right? This means that GFN users are basically left in the dust with just the base game from now on.

Other than bringing assets to the console versions, switching to Paradox Mods seems to be a questionable choice for everyone else.

So seriously, before diving into exclusive content for PC versions, because that's what mods and in-game editors are, how about we fix the core game issues first? Simulative aspects are a bit wonky to say the least, and performance needs a serious boost. Let's make the basic experience rock-solid across the board first. I think we deserve at least a smooth playable experience with the base game since it's the only thing we will ever get.

Adding extra content when the basics are shaky just sounds like a recipe for disaster. It's like building an extra floor on a wobbly house.

Yesterday I saw a video from City Planner Plays where he deleted all external connections and the city stats kept showing people moving in even if they had no physical way of doing so, in addition to other weird behavior in balancing industry and commercial, even after leaving the game running for quite some real-life time. How can you get such a basic core mechanic wrong? It makes me wonder if anything is actually simulated at all in this game.
 
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TheLazyHangman said:
I'm a little worried about the direction this game is going. I get that you want to support all platforms, but it's not cool to sell the game for the same price on all platforms if not all platforms can get the same features.

Let's talk about this whole switch to Paradox Mods for the sake of 'inclusivity'. Days before release you confirmed that Paradox Mods will not be available for GeForce Now, and now you drop the bomb that the Region Packs will be delivered via Paradox Mods only? Am I getting this right? This means that GFN users are basically left in the dust with just the base game from now on.

Other than bringing assets to the console versions, switching to Paradox Mods seems to be a questionable choice for everyone else.

So seriously, before diving into exclusive content for PC versions, because that's what mods and in-game editors are, how about we fix the core game issues first? Simulative aspects are a bit wonky to say the least, and performance needs a serious boost. Let's make the basic experience rock-solid across the board first. I think we deserve at least a smooth playable experience with the base game since it's the only thing we will ever get.

Adding extra content when the basics are shaky just sounds like a recipe for disaster. It's like building an extra floor on a wobbly house.

Yesterday I saw a video from City Planner Plays where he deleted all external connections and the city stats kept showing people moving in even if they had no physical way of doing so, in addition to other weird behavior in balancing industry and commercial, even after leaving the game running for quite some real-life time. How can you get such a basic core mechanic wrong? It makes me wonder if anything is actually simulated at all in this game.
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GeForce now isn't really a platform though, it's a way to allow people with low spec hardware to "borrow" better performing machines.

You'd have to install every mod that gets made onto the GeForce machines in order for it to work and that could cause problems.
 
So to rehash my point from up in the thread pages, nothing is changing for the very long forseeable future, the game is a dumpster fire and overall the CS2 ship has taken on water and is sinking quickly.

Do I have it right?
 
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CapnBludd said:
GeForce now isn't really a platform though, it's a way to allow people with low spec hardware to "borrow" better performing machines.

You'd have to install every mod that gets made onto the GeForce machines in order for it to work and that could cause problems.
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It worked in the past and it still works for other games, so there was a choice by someone at some point. If they said from the beginning that code mods wouldn't be supported on console, I don't see why leave GeForce Now out of this kind of communication, especially considering that "mods for everyone" was the specific reason they choose to basically make it an in-game feature. Now, you don't want to actually bring mods to everyone? Fine, I can live with that if you fix all the current simulation issues. But the Region Packs and future assets release being tied to Paradox Mods when you know it doesn't work for GFN? That's a shitty take if you ask me.
 
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