Development Diary #10: Game Progression

[Drewoid13]

Pretty much only one comment but breaking it up into my usual bullets so it's not as terrifying of a wall of text:

• [Love] - I love milestone awards that feel thematic, like hitting a certain level of high tech workers & unlocking a science center, or applying research trees in a manner that still lets us have creative freedom but also have that sense of evolution and progression, or maybe if the ability to do certain things is somehow tied to happiness / approval.
• [Loathe] - I loathe when more city-critical or creatively-constraining things are locked behind these achievements, though, like maybe I want my small town to be based around locked light rail, or maybe I want to grow a city from scratch around its locked oil reserves, or applying some mix of locked policies from the get-go. The Dev Diary mentions being able to build up a small town beside a space center, which seems to address this... but I'm not sure I'm seeing that in what's being shown.
• [What I See] - I'm not yet sure how I feel around what's proposed & whether it falls more on what I love or what I loathe. From what I can see it's feeling like something I'm going to find myself bypassing with an immediate Unlock All at game start, which I kind of feel bad doing because I'd feel like I'm missing out on some bits that I might enjoy, but I totally recognise maybe this is just a Me problem.
• [Ideal] - I think what I'd perhaps be most amenable to is not-so-much locking new things behind the development tree... but maybe unlocking upgrades within the tree? So maybe my scrappy little town gets its Space Center where our cutting edge scientists conjecture that the Earth might revolve around the Sun. And I need to use Development Points to grow its capabilities until it's eventually launching interstellar ships throughout the galaxy.
• [Map Tiles] - (and about those Expansion Permits: I'll also point again to my concerns with map tiles over in the Dev Diary 7 on Maps)
• [Bypass] - I'd definitely appreciate if the game included bypass options to let players tailor the game to how they want to play. So maybe we could toggle on the whole map at once, or maybe unlock all buildings from the get-go but keep upgrades locked, and maybe also an option that keeps more thematic achievements (like unlocking a Mayor's House at some threshold) still locked.

Thanks!!

I think you summed up my feeling accurately.

 

[Drewoid13]

This is the first dev diary where I've looked at it and gone "eh? maybe we can mod that out." It feels overly gamey, like I don't really want skill trees in a game like this. And when you're throwing around skill trees with point costs and XP, it feels like trying to make an RPG out of it.

I get that population based unlocks have their own issues, but this just feels off to me, like I'm going to need to grind for happiness before I can build a bus station.

It does feel artificially gamey.

I'd rather a system with funding where larger services require an investment to build or develop, rather than an xp system.

 

[Tim_Simpson6]

Please swap trams and trains, it will be more logical.

 

[Chief of Staff]

Modding is a topic for the future as I'm afraid we aren't ready to share our plans yet.

That is unfortunate. Does that mean the plans for modding will not be shared until after the public release of Cities: Skylines 2? Actually, I am unclear on whether support for modding will be in the initial release or that will come later.

Also, I want to tell a bit of a story to illustrate why I think allowing for unlocking things for a small town would be good. Many years ago, when I played SimCity 4, I would experiment a bit just for the fun. One thing I did was to do a small town with separate residential and industrial areas placed a considerable distance apart from each other. I would then use the unlock cheat so that I could build a monorail line between these areas.

While this is probably not realistic (especially given how notoriously expensive the monorail are compared to other existing rail types), I just thought it was an interesting scenario to say at least.

Now, today, though, I am not really too enthusiastic about unlocking ALL things just to unlock a specific thing, as I used to. I used to cheat a lot just to play for the fun. Not now anymore, though, as I am now generally more selective. I guess I am mellowed out now or something. Lol.

(Just to be clear, though, I only cheated on single-player; as a matter of principle, I am absolutely against cheating on multi-player or for achievements (I personally don't really care for Steam game achievements anyway), both of which I regarded to be ethically worse than cheating on single-player in which it is just you having fun yourself)

So I think, in my opinion, this new way of unlocking things is a good thing and allow us to experiment a lot more without need to resort to cheating or to use an option to unlock all things.

I also want to point out that, for those who prefer the old way of unlocking things from the previous game, there is nothing to prevent you from constraining yourself personally from using any assets or services until a certain population milestone, in which you can then spend the development points for them. That is assuming, of course, that the storage for development points are not limited so much to allow considerable build-up of development points over the long run without using them (compare with resource storage in Stellaris). There is nothing to stop you from making your own rules in the game... Cities: Skylines is, after all, a sandbox game.

 

[Evie HJ]

Yeah between that post and one post about weather and seasons have left me with some lingering oncerns about the modding aspect. I still hope and think they're likely unfounded, and I remain convinced some editing including of maps will be in the game, but the radio silence is troubling.

 

[safe-keeper]

Yeah between that post and one post about weather and seasons have left me with some lingering oncerns about the modding aspect. I still hope and think they're likely unfounded, and I remain convinced some editing including of maps will be in the game, but the radio silence is troubling.

Map and asset editors were confirmed a long time ago.
And since the game's moddability was a big part of CS' success, I'm 109% sure the sequel will be just as moddable.

 

[Evie HJ]

I know editors are confirmed, but some of the replies lately leave me with some doubt about how complete those editors will be, at least at launch.

Logic says you're right and the sequel will be just as moddable because that was a big strength of CSL1, but some of the recent replies are disquieting nonetheless. Game developers have done deeply illogical moves before (see the move away from moddability in Civ, a game series that for twenty+ years had been the poster child for highly moddable games).

"We aren't ready to talk about modding plans", likewise, is probably, I suspect, because they're working on an alternative (Paradox Mods, presumably) to the Steam Workshop so people who don't get their game on Steam still have modding access, but with only two months to go to release the fact that they aren't ready to talk about modding is at least a little disquieting.

 

[bish0p2004]

I actually like the new unlock system. I like building smaller cities, with loads of suburbs and small downtowns, so this is right up my alley.

 

[Chief of Staff]

Map and asset editors were confirmed a long time ago.
And since the game's moddability was a big part of CS' success, I'm 109% sure the sequel will be just as moddable.

I know editors are confirmed, but some of the replies lately leave me with some doubt about how complete those editors will be, at least at launch.

Logic says you're right and the sequel will be just as moddable because that was a big strength of CSL1, but some of the recent replies are disquieting nonetheless. Game developers have done deeply illogical moves before (see the move away from moddability in Civ, a game series that for twenty+ years had been the poster child for highly moddable games).

"We aren't ready to talk about modding plans", likewise, is probably, I suspect, because they're working on an alternative (Paradox Mods, presumably) to the Steam Workshop so people who don't get their game on Steam still have modding access, but with only two months to go to release the fact that they aren't ready to talk about modding is at least a little disquieting.

Hmm, actually, I can't remember if script modding was originally supported in the initial release of Cities: Skylines. Anyone knows?

 

[jcc5018]

for instance having airport and subway before trains? I think the new game progression is great, much better than CS1 in which only pops counts!

Personally, I play sandbox mode, so i just hope I dont have to deal with unlocking everything. Cause there have been times that the airport was the first thing I built before even zoning a single thing. (mostly after the airport DLC came out.) I just hope there will be an option where everything is available so I can design how i want from the first plop.