CO Word of the Week #8

[Licenturion]

I completely understand the desire for a clear overview of the issues we’re aware of and working on, but I also want to be up front with you that it isn’t realistic for us to have a list with categories like that. We simply don’t have the resources to keep it updated without taking time away from other important tasks. I would absolutely love for us to update the forum bug reports to "Fixed" when there is a fix, but doing so takes time away from logging new reports. While it would be nice to have, it’s just always going to be higher priority to make sure the reports are investigated.

This is what I don't understand. Don't you have internal planning boards like that? I can't really believe you don't first plan and prioritize before you execute and allocate resources. That seems very hard to believe There are a lot of early acces games I follow on Steam, some even have 2 or 3 developers and they have way more information and roadmaps available than CO. It sometimes feels more like'we don't want to say' instead of 'we cannot say'. If that is the case CO should just say that tbh instead of keeping people on edge.

With most of these tools you can share only parts of it. Or you can just duplicate/export and delete stuff that is not relevant for external consumption.

We don't really ask for much to be honest. Just what is in active development right now (bugs, improvement and features), and what is planned after that. And with a priority marker. Cause that isn't clear either in all those posts. One week it is the editor, the week after the mod platform, then performance, then asset rebuilding, then simulation, console release etc. If everything has priority, nothing really is. We never asked to label the 1000s of reports in the bug forum. We don't ask for huge tables or corporate documents. We just want a small bullet list with concrete things to expect the next weeks that don't sound vague and raise even more questions. We all know by know what you would love to do, or want to look into etc. What we want know is what you guys are doing right now.

I am looking forward to the next WOW of the week but I have a strong feeling it will still be more vague words, stalling or deflecting without saying much. But I hope CO proves us wrong this time

 

[Pinkcheeks50552]

Not sure why people are being toxic about it. The game is more than playable. It needs some optimization here and there and some tuning but it will come in due time.
Im glad what didnt happen was a basic reskin like the train simulators do and call it a new game.

You guys are not EA or some other mega developer and people need to understand the fact we got something this good from a team as small as CO is amazing feat in itself.

Keep it up you have the best city sim out there. And good things take time to make sure its right

 

[Mazisky]

In my opinion Aviana should write the Wows.

She is clearly more in touch with the community

 

[dan1979]

We simply don’t have the resources to keep it updated without taking time away from other important tasks.

CO must have known there'd be a decent amount of bugs and there's also people wanting to know when certain features they expected in the base game will be added like bicycles, animations and prop placement. Yet CO didn't think to allocate resources for proper updates..

Three months after people complained it was released too early, should be early access, etc. it still seems a big unknown when the base game will feel a finished product.

 

[Pyoro]

Don't you have internal planning boards like that? I can't really believe you don't first plan and prioritize before you execute and allocate resources.

Reminds me of the Bethesda lead writer saying they don't do game design docs. At first you go "this obviously cannot be true, come on, surely not ..." - then you remember the state their games are in and go, "well, uh, maybe?!"

I wonder if this is the same sorta thing ^^;

 

[CensoredLOL]

We’re not a huge team, so whenever we pull additional personnel for things like AMAs that means other work doesn’t get done.

Thanks for the response. An AMA only takes an hour or 2 out of each participant's schedule. The value to the community's goodwill is worth more to us (and you!) than 2 hours of writing code. If you guys know the game forwards and back, there should be no prep time needed to prepare for questions, since most have already been brought up here. If you market it, announce it, and go through with it, 3 things will happen:
1. Generate buzz (likely including 3rd party sites linking/announcing it)
2. Show the community that you care/generate goodwill
3. Answer some questions for all of us that want answers/bring people back into the community that might have already left

But you have to be transparent and honest. It's critical.

We simply don’t have the resources to keep it updated without taking time away from other important tasks.

Utilizing an organized system of bug fixing and reports will help efficiency, not hurt it.
What do you currently use? Is there a priority board? Trello? Spreadsheets?

but doing so takes time away from logging new reports.

This is the third reference to "not having enough time" in your latest post. If something isn't working, then perhaps it's time for a change in how your time management works.

CO used to be ~30 workers. I assume some are marketing, accounting, reception, and other critical components for any small business.

How many personnel are actually working on fixing the current issues with the game?
How many personnel are working on console release?

It seems everyone is overutilized, if you don't have enough staff to answer questions, update a project board, or respond to messages in the forums... one of the concerns on this thread, and others, is that your main priority is Console Release, and NOT fixing the game. Can you assuage those fears by answering the questions above truthfully?

 

[TripleAgent]

I completely understand the desire for a clear overview of the issues we’re aware of and working on, but I also want to be up front with you that it isn’t realistic for us to have a list with categories like that. We simply don’t have the resources to keep it updated without taking time away from other important tasks. I would absolutely love for us to update the forum bug reports to "Fixed" when there is a fix, but doing so takes time away from logging new reports. While it would be nice to have, it’s just always going to be higher priority to make sure the reports are investigated.

That said, we can still try and make some improvements to give you a better idea of what we’re working on, even if it doesn’t give a good overview of which bugs are being worked on at the moment.

Sorry, are you saying that CO internally doesn't have an organized way to categorize/track/update bugs and features? And if you do have that system, why not share that information?

 

[Globmeister]

This is my first post on these forums, and even though I don't own CS2, I do have over 3k hours in CS 1, so I think it's fair to say I'm in love with that game.
Of course I was very interested and excited when I noticed CS 2 was to be released, but that excitement soon enough grew less and less when I saw YT videos, noticing some very annoying flaws (i.e. buildings on sloped terrain looked awful, one of my main grievances in CS1) .
Ever since then I followed these forums, WoW's and developer updates, and the whole story reminded me so much of the release of Microsoft Flight Simulator in 2020 (MSFS).

That release was also riddled with bugs and had a very unhappy customer base. Imo that was resolved at the time with a frequent dev update that showed what bugs had priority, what was under investigation, etc. All with an ETA when it was EXPECTED to be solved. And I noticed that all negativity became much less, even if those eta's were hardly ever met, and some long-existing bugs/ issues remained present.
What I'm trying to say is, information is key, people want to know why their metro is stranded half-way, if they don't, they get nervous if it will ever move again. Some information is better than nothing.

For me it means considering buying CS2, or not at all (on the short run, the way it looks/ feels now I feel I might wait another year for more patches, and mods).

Ps, and Off Topic: @co_avanya Speaking of MSFS, towards the launch of the console version of that sim, there was a noticeable tweaking of graphics on the PC version to make it run better on console, can we expect something similar with CS 2?)

 

[anydaytv]

We’re aware of some issues with the statistics and they’re currently being looked into. I’d have to check the specifics to see if that’s what’s happening here, but if I remember right that’s likely the case.

I appreciate the response. I also didn't catch the fact that you were sick until just now. So I wish you well and hope you're feeling better.

My question had a little bit of an understatement though, and I don't expect an answer for this I just want to let you know what it is - and what others are going to think as well:

What do those statistics mean for the underlying simulation? Is it just graphical? Does it impact anything?
If those statistics are the things that I can easily see, I start to wonder what might be happening that I can't easily see.
Once confidence in the underlying system becomes eroded, it starts to make literally everything in the game look like a bug.
Genuinely, I'm trying to help you here because Cities 1 was my jam.

Thanks for the response. An AMA only takes an hour or 2 out of each participant's schedule. The value to the community's goodwill is worth more to us (and you!) than 2 hours of writing code. If you guys know the game forwards and back, there should be no prep time needed to prepare for questions, since most have already been brought up here. If you market it, announce it, and go through with it, 3 things will happen:
1. Generate buzz (likely including 3rd party sites linking/announcing it)
2. Show the community that you care/generate goodwill
3. Answer some questions for all of us that want answers/bring people back into the community that might have already left

I understand the sentiment, but just want to throw something out there: This isn't totally true, because I've been on the other side of that equation - especially if you're knee deep in focusing on a particular task, it can be very disrupting to the workflow to stop, prepare for public interaction, do public interaction, then go back to what you were doing. A 2-hour AMA might be 2-3 hours just prepping, and this is so everyone on the team is singing the same song.

It's far better to just have the guys in the trenches write the notes for it and then have a dedicated community manager do the AMA. Trust me.

 

[steveguo]

Thank you for all the effort!
I love the game.
Although there are still things to fix, it is a great idea and have lots of potential.
You guys are pushing the limit of city simulation, or even the limut of econmy simulation game. There must be bumpy on the road, but I wish you have the best luck to go though it!

 

[Gonzoez]

@co_avanya, wishing you a good health.

Please don't take my comment as toxicity as my goal is only to better understand what happened in order to decide whether we can actually trust you as a company or not going forward. Since my native language is not English (just like for you and most people on this forum) I can only hope that the tone of my writing will not come out as toxic. While it feels weird to feel sorry for my feelings and words even before I express them - this is what Mariina statement led to and I think it is not a good thing.

DISCLAIMER - when I say YOU in my comment I do not mean you personally, but rather CO as a company. I will repeat this from my post that was deleted - each one of you at CO is a great person (at least I don't have any reason not to think so), but we have to deal with YOU as a company and a busines entity. Unfortunately I don't know any better words to address the company as a whole than using the word "YOU". So when I write somethng you personally may take as an offense, please know that all my questions and resentments are with CO, and not any individual employed by CO.

Again, it feels very strange to start questions with apologies...


While it is nice to see a periodical communication from CO, it significantly lacking ANY details. All the statements are vogue at best. It's been three months since the release and we are still missing answers to very basic questions. I will group them together for your convenience and I can just hope that the mere fact of asking questions does not violate any of the forum rules.

1) Why this game was not released as Early Access and instead was released as a full-priced "finished game"? I have read all the WotW and wathced the video about the journey, but other than "we felt we can't do it better anyway so we decided to release it" this question was not addressed. This statement addresses the reason to release the game in general, but does not explain the status you guys decided to assing to this game. Who would get hurt if you properly marked it as "Early Access"?

2) Do you (as a company, not you personally) admit that some mistakes were made and we (players) are not the reason for those mistakes? In other words, is CO ready to accept the responsibility for choices you made and actions you took?

3) Do you have a plan to make it up to "the community" you mention in every WotW? This question has been asked multiple times, but it has never been addressed neither by you nor by Mariina. If we are talking about being "transparent" and "communicating openly" I do believe that answer to such a straight forward question should also be straight forward. I did not refund the game only because CO kept stating that "mod support is coming soon" and "we are working hard to get you the game you deserve". Now it is far beyond the window of refund, which is good for CO but bad for many players. It's been three month since the release and it is still unclear when the mods are coming, when the editor is coming, and when the fixes (any fixes of significance) are coming, so my PURCHASE becomes a long term INVESTMENT which was not my plan at any time.

4) The game has been out for almost three month now and the amount of problems became apparent (to us, customers) within a few weeks after the release. After watching the Journey to Launch video it became apparent that CO was aware of many of the issues PRIOR to launch. Now you are trying to explain to us that you don't have enough people/resources to increase the speed you are improving this game with. How did it happen that CO did not hire more people to help at least with the simplest tasks like bug report sorting or even more developers to move this process faster? As of right now we still don't see any effort on CO side to increase the number of "resources" (a.k.a. people) to get thing done faster.

Thank you for periodically responding to our concerns, we do appreciate the effort, but we would appreciate the results (improvements) even more.

 

[ClemiMD]

1) Why this game was not released as Early Access and instead was released as a full-priced "finished game"? s) even more.

I would like to read a statement from Paradox on this question. There is no doubt that CO did not release the game too early of its own free will. They knew it was not ready and I bet everyone at CO had sleepless nights weeks before and after release. Unfortunately, the people at CO are more or less the only ones we communicate with here. They get all the frustration, have to justify themselves and try to calm the players down, while Paradox stays out of the line of fire. This also explains why CO can't, or rather shouldn't, give an answer to this question. It would be great if the publisher (so called because they published the game) could step out of their comfort zone and say something.

 

[TripleAgent]

I would like to read a statement from Paradox on this question. There is no doubt that CO did not release the game too early of its own free will. They knew it was not ready and I bet everyone at CO had sleepless nights weeks before and after release. Unfortunately, the people at CO are more or less the only ones we communicate with here. They get all the frustration, have to justify themselves and try to calm the players down, while Paradox stays out of the line of fire. This also explains why CO can't, or rather shouldn't, give an answer to this question. It would be great if the publisher (so called because they published the game) could step out of their comfort zone and say something.

Unfortunately we've been asking this since launch and we have yet to get an answer. That's part of where the lack of actual accountability comes into play. I was expecting the video they released to address it, but instead they totally skimmed over that decision-making process in favor of a "well now we have bug reports from the community so it's actually turning out to be good thing" turn.

If you want trust back, CO desperately needs to explain why they made the decisions that led us into this mess, because at this stage, if this game was good for release based on CO's judgment and metrics, that calls into question that judgment and metrics going forward. We know the game was delayed 3 years because of engine issues, that's in the video, but with that in mind in the weeks leading up to release was there seriously no one saying "maybe we should delay" or "maybe this should be labeled early access if we release it"?

 

[unmerged(524934)]

About that...

There is no doubt that CO did not release the game too early of its own free will.

Erm... Mariina is on record as saying it was her/CO's decision to release the game.

 

[gentlecrab]

Based on what I’m reading here I feel this is what’s happening:

Due to CO’s limited resources they’re trying to kill 2 birds with 1 stone i.e. focusing on the build for the console roll out and then adopting those changes into the PC build.

They are likely fully aware of all of the bugs in the PC version and instead of going after bugs one at a time, are hoping all or most of the bugs go away in the next build.

This will serve as a milestone/reset where they can re evaluate the state of the game based on, you guessed it, new feedback from the community.

It would explain why there is still no hotfix for the economy bug.

 

[MayorWanze]

I’m the meantime, it’s super helpful when you upvote issues that also affect you as it makes it easier for me to determine which ones are widespread and which ones are more rare/specific cases.

I think the tax bug that adds unreasonable amounts of tax income/deficit form specific industries is by far the most posted bug since last patch, not only here but also on reddit and is also the most pressing in my opinion.

Land Value also seems to frustrate many players but i think thats more a balance issue or a lack of understanding from the player base.

Cargo flow (no export from cargo hubs, wrong import weights) 2nd most prominent bug and complaint.

but generally, this is a place where we will lurk more than anything. The fact that we don’t post doesn’t mean we aren’t reading your feedback.

I think leaving a reaction emote is a great way to let the author know that a dev or employee read the suggestion, "Helpful" is probably the best.

 

[anton95]

We simply don’t have the resources to keep it updated without taking time away from other important tasks.

I volunteer. I've been in love with CO games since the demo of Cities in Motion 1. If I can help you realize the incredible potential that Cities: Skylines 2 to has, I will.

Trello was just a suggestion. I like Trello because it's so easy to use, so simple in its UI and yet provides a lot of information. And you can sync it to your Jira so the Devs could update information right from within the system they are already using.

But I get that that takes times. Honestly a simple list "last week we worked on: a) b) c)" at the end of every WotW would do already. That would satisfy my hunger for information without creating expectations in the community that can't be met.

The only alternative I see is taking the Hello Games approach. Lay low. Don't communicate anything and sit out the shit storm to come back once everything is fixed. Probably the best approach for your sanity but not what I would like as a player.

 

[purplegamer]

I completely understand the desire for a clear overview of the issues we’re aware of and working on, but I also want to be up front with you that it isn’t realistic for us to have a list with categories like that. We simply don’t have the resources to keep it updated without taking time away from other important tasks. I would absolutely love for us to update the forum bug reports to "Fixed" when there is a fix, but doing so takes time away from logging new reports. While it would be nice to have, it’s just always going to be higher priority to make sure the reports are investigated.

I am in need of a remote job and have experience in data entry, forum organization, and community management. There are people who can do this, want to do this, and I know CO/Paradox have the resources to make it happen.

 

[Duke49th]

We don't want praise, we want a community where we can discuss with the players about the game, what is working and what is not without facing abuse.

And I want a game that works, with a simulation that was promised, with a mod store (whatever platform) as promised, that runs properly on at least a Nasa supercomputer.

Obviously we don't always get what we want.

At least, dear martsu, you got the big fat bonus check for the profits you made in 2023 with this garbage release. I hope its worth it.

I apologize again for that badly formulated response.

(@ Response "maybe this is not your game")

Sorry, I don't believe you. I think you're not apologizing for bad wording. I am pretty sure you meant it that way. I am pretty sure you just apologize because you got called out for it.
You took the money and forgot to deliver. Why not deliver first, then take the money? I wonder...(not really...)

We don't get our money back from "maybe this is not your game". If you would feel truly sorry and apologetic, you would talk to Steam and allow us to refund. But you don't. And we both know why. (the little thing with the check at the end of the year^^)

I think it is very clear that we're not angry at the actual devs, who just do and communicate the way they have been ordered to do. But the one who is behind these orders...

I am pretty confident that the actual devs feel ashamed and embarrassed as it does not represent their vision nor skill.

I have worked long enough in a corporate setup...

 

[Licenturion]

The only alternative I see is taking the Hello Games approach. Lay low. Don't communicate anything and sit out the shit storm to come back once everything is fixed. Probably the best approach for your sanity but not what I would like as a player.

The only reason Hello Games survived that kind of ‘laying low’ tactic and still redeeming their terrible launch is that every added ‘DLC’ has been free. I don’t think this model works with paid content.