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CO Word of the Week #5

This week I’ll keep things brief and focus on what’s happening on modding. As suspected, modders wait for no-one and they have already achieved really cool stuff like maps and code mods which is amazing!

Cities: Skylines II release build included an unfinished version of the Editor and it didn’t take long for it to be found. The modders took almost no time to figure out how they could create maps and started to advance the Editor tools to their liking. Again, just like with the first Cities game I am astonished by the effort you are all putting into modding the game. I love it!

However, I must ask for caution because any work done with the hidden unfinished Editor may break since there are still going to be changes to it. This is not to discourage you from working on your mods but rather to try and openly share what to expect. Some of the most notable changes will be in how the maps are saved so we can’t guarantee the maps saved on an unfinished version of the Editor will work with the game in the long run. We’re currently testing the map Editor and there are already changes to the water placement and landscaping tools so any tools made touching upon these are also likely to break. The Editor will be released early next year, so until then don’t let that stop you, just be aware that you may need to rework some things later on.

To further help the modding community we’ve updated the wiki to include more information on asset creation. You will notice there are no instructions for the level of detail models. This is because we’re working towards an automated system where you wouldn’t have to worry about the LODs unless you actually want to make them by hand (or the complexity of the asset requires it). Any other information will be added to the wiki as it becomes available.

We would like to invite all mod, map, and asset creators to join early access to the Editor for a few weeks before its release so you can see what it is like, test out your already created mods, and share your feedback with us. If you have experience creating mods for Cities: Skylines please sign up here.

I can’t wait to see all the things coming for Cities: Skylines II from the modding community!

And finally a quick update on the higher priority items mentioned last week: Performance improvements are on their way as we’re reducing the cost of rendering geometry. Bug fixing is going forward nicely and the mail and export bugs are getting sorted out. We are also working on a fix for some achievements not unlocking, statistics bugs, and a taxi getting stuck because someone left their child in it. Parenting is hard. A full list of fixes is introduced with each patch, so check the patch notes if you are interested in more details!

You may expect a bigger patch coming out in December before we go on a holiday break in three weeks. During the break, there are no patches and limited responses from the team while we take time off work. But until then, we’re working our hardest!

Sincerely,
Mariina
 
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Its awesome to hear about the current progress of the editor and bug fixes. However I would appreciated if the whole team would focus on the bugs first, before working on modding support.
Providing modding support will likely see fixes to a lot of issues as modders get their scripts out, already the pedestrian pathfinding mod makes a huge difference to performance in cities, also the traffic light mod. Then there's the cim behaviour mod addressing the high rent problems.
Plus the assets the modders will provide to address the lame vanilla assets and the lack of content.
 
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At least I don't want modders to fix issues - this has to be done in original source code. I don't want to have 50+ mods installed just to make the game working. Mods fixing things should get special attention from the developers and then included in the original source code.
 
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This is excellent news. The issues with children extend beyond taxis as there are many living alone in my city who simply can't afford their rent! Also, I am wondering if there might be an issue with the Welfare Center not working as most of the seniors in my city also can't afford their rent.

Those with a job tend to be fine, though.
If children can’t afford rent we should have a city policy to allow child labor.
 
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I'm glad you finally provided an approximate date for the larger performance improvement update. This is extremely happy news for the entire community. I hope that this time it will really do something, and not just 5fps more.
However, I still think this game should be released in Early Access. Now we know when one of the major optimization fixes will be released. The question is: how many revisions will there be? And how long will we wait for them?
This performance fix should be your top priority. The rest is in the background.
I'm not sure why people are so concerned about performance. This is not an FPS, don't need 120fps.
It's perfectly playable on my 1050ti from I don't even remember how many years ago. I'm sure anything newer won't have much problems running it. It's funny how people with 4090s are complaining when my 1050ti is running it
(Not mentioning cpu as in my case it's gpu bound)
 
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You will notice there are no instructions for the level of detail models. This is because we’re working towards an automated system where you wouldn’t have to worry about the LODs

Last week your #1 priority item was this:

1. Performance improvements
Specifically, we are working on the level of detail models for the assets.

Sounds like you fixed your own models manually, when you knew you'd eventually have an automatic system for user-generated assets. We know from the credits you're using InstaLOD. Does that mean you couldn't use it on your models (maybe they were too complex? *cough* fully modelled monitor cables *cough*), or was there some problem with integrating it?
 
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I'm not sure why people are so concerned about performance. This is not an FPS, don't need 120fps.
With my GTX 1080 the frames drop below 20 in busy areas, especially when you zoom in and out - and my city just has 20k population.
Is it playable? Sure
Should this be running at 120 FPS? No. But I take 30 to 60 anyday on busy sections of the city.

I think the performance issues are just here to hide the other bugs in the beginning - so people can't refund.
Srly, the mistakes on performance made are beginner level 3D software engineering that shouldn't be an issue when you are in the industry for 13+ years, it's not their first game, is it?
 
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This week I’ll keep things brief and focus on what’s happening on modding. As suspected, modders wait for no-one and they have already achieved really cool stuff like maps and code mods which is amazing!

Cities: Skylines II release build included an unfinished version of the Editor and it didn’t take long for it to be found. The modders took almost no time to figure out how they could create maps and started to advance the Editor tools to their liking. Again, just like with the first Cities game I am astonished by the effort you are all putting into modding the game. I love it!

However, I must ask for caution because any work done with the hidden unfinished Editor may break since there are still going to be changes to it. This is not to discourage you from working on your mods but rather to try and openly share what to expect. Some of the most notable changes will be in how the maps are saved so we can’t guarantee the maps saved on an unfinished version of the Editor will work with the game in the long run. We’re currently testing the map Editor and there are already changes to the water placement and landscaping tools so any tools made touching upon these are also likely to break. The Editor will be released early next year, so until then don’t let that stop you, just be aware that you may need to rework some things later on.

To further help the modding community we’ve updated the wiki to include more information on asset creation. You will notice there are no instructions for the level of detail models. This is because we’re working towards an automated system where you wouldn’t have to worry about the LODs unless you actually want to make them by hand (or the complexity of the asset requires it). Any other information will be added to the wiki as it becomes available.

We would like to invite all mod, map, and asset creators to join early access to the Editor for a few weeks before its release so you can see what it is like, test out your already created mods, and share your feedback with us. I hope to see everyone there, sign up here.

I can’t wait to see all the things coming for Cities: Skylines II from the modding community!

And finally a quick update on the higher priority items mentioned last week: Performance improvements are on their way as we’re reducing the cost of rendering geometry. Bug fixing is going forward nicely and the mail and export bugs are getting sorted out. We are also working on a fix for some achievements not unlocking, statistics bugs, and a taxi getting stuck because someone left their child in it. Parenting is hard. A full list of fixes is introduced with each patch, so check the patch notes if you are interested in more details!

You may expect a bigger patch coming out in December before we go on a holiday break in three weeks. During the break, there are no patches and limited responses from the team while we take time off work. But until then, we’re working our hardest!

Sincerely,
Mariina
Thanks for the hard work! The developers have done amazing.

The simulation needs to be fixed. I wish I hadn't bought at release because I've very recently realized that there's not much actual simulation going on; my industrial zone out of town has hundreds of people employed there but no commuters/walkers to go to work each day. Same things with things like school generating no traffic.

I think CS2 has great potential, but the fact that the bare minimum of people driving to go places is missing is crazy. I will be very hesitatant to buy future paradox released.
 
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And finally a quick update on the higher priority items mentioned last week: Performance improvements are on their way as we’re reducing the cost of rendering geometry. Bug fixing is going forward nicely and the mail and export bugs are getting sorted out. We are also working on a fix for some achievements not unlocking, statistics bugs, and a taxi getting stuck because someone left their child in it. Parenting is hard. A full list of fixes is introduced with each patch, so check the patch notes if you are interested in more details!
Will the performance improvements include simulation speed for higher population? For some, the simulation speed starts slowing down already close to 100k pop.
 
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At this point anyone buying a game on release or pre-ordering has to accept their own fault. Companies no longer care about releasing games that are ready, they care about releasing games based on when their marketing campaign has generated enough pre-orders to match whatever corporate earnings quarter they have targeted in order to win their executive bonuses.

Cyberpunk, No Man's Sky, even the "Game of the Year" BG3 released way too early (requiring 4000+ fixes post-launch) with cut content.

Paradox/CO even warned users about what the state of CS2 would be, telling everyone they had "not achieved the benchmark we targeted”. That a company had to come out and admit that a week before launch, combined with the huge upgrade in system requirements should have been a massive red flag to anyone who thought about buying the game.

edit - I wanted to clarify that I don't mean that the company is blameless (after all, they're the ones releasing the game broken, and spending millions on marketing FOMO hype and hiding the flaws). And yes, it was referring to performance specifically with the "benchmark" quote, but my view of it being a red flag was for the game as a whole.
 
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It was never going to be fixed in a month. There is way more than a month worth of work that needs to be done on it. The game people want CS:2 to be is not one patch away, it's going to take until spring/summer 2024 at the earliest.
When did I ever say that? I'm not expecting everything to be done in one month. But considering the launch, patches should be coming out like fresh buns from the oven, at least for now, even if that means smaller patches.

There are still a few pressing issues that should be fixed asap and I don't think fixing 1-2 bugs should take more than a month. (especially that I'm pretty sure devs were aware of majority of those bugs even before release - unless no one has ever actually played their own game).

If we're getting only ONE patch in December...it better be a huge one.
 
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Cant talk for CO, but I think the modding platform is ready as its the same platform other pdx games use, but the game itself is not quite ready for modding support.
 
I hope the other traffic getting stuck (not just taxi's) is also being worked on, this can bring a city to a standstill with the only way to resolve being to bulldoze the vehicle owners home. I have had this with motorcycles (riderless) and cars, but it seems mainly motorcycles.

When it happens, this has a mjor knock on effect, city & game wide, with service vehicles despawning, performance tanking (due to huge flocks of cims being stuck) etc.
The stuck vehicles do not de-spawn on their own, ever. Bug already reported with save where its occurring fwiw.
The best way for us to catch all the cases where traffic gets stuck is to get saves with it happening. Ideally, save the game with the camera pointed at the stuck vehicle and then make a report on the support forum for us to investigate. It makes it much easier for us to investigate existing cases so we very much appreciate the reports and saves you share.

My Cims leave their dog at the cemetery . After a while there are 100 dogs waiting at the cemetery for their owners, while the owners are at home chilling.
Do you remember if this save was created before or after the patch on the 9th of November, which rebalanced stray pets? If it's from after the 9th we would very much appreciate the save, you can add it to this thread:

Will the performance improvements include simulation speed for higher population? For some, the simulation speed starts slowing down already close to 100k pop.
We're working on the level of detail fixes first, but once they are in, we’ll work on improvements to CPU performance. This means focusing on the CPU stutters and simulation performance to improve simulation speed and smooth experience while scaling up the size of your cities.
 
When you announced Cities Skylines 2 would not have support for Steam Workshop but another platform, Paradox Plaza I didn't care too much. I mean, its modding anyway and if that help other players to acess it, better. But then laucnh the game without the modding platform being ready???

The modding tools didn't need to be ready, but the Paradox Plaza yes.

Now we are installing third part mod managers and going on games folders to install mods and "thrusting" different websites for it.
You know mod is what made Cities in Motion and Cities Skylines and decided to launch the game without it? Weird move.
Modding community is split in many different websites already. "Your" early access influencers are already incentivizing mods. It's a mess, just because couldn't postpone the launch.
On this "Now we are installing third part mod managers and going on games folders to install mods and "thrusting" different websites for it.". That's a personal choice. "We" are not all doing that. Although I agree that various things are a mess, I'm just building "seed cities" with at least 1 billion in cash each, ready for any upset that occurs when the bugs get fixed, and waiting a while before adding mods which could end up breaking stuff as the patches come in.
 
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