Improvements in simulation ?

[unoace1006]

Now with that out of the way, I want to ask you: What are the improvements you want to see the most? Which bugs are the most frustrating to you?

While I can't share a roadmap, a big part of what I do as community manager is make sure we prioritize the things that matter to our players. That's how the detailing improvements ended up in the game, but we know that's a playstyle only some of our players enjoy. It's always valuable feedback when you share how you play or what you want to see, even if others have mentioned it before it never hurts to share exactly what you hope we dive into next.

Thank you for the engagement! I appreciate you taking the time to weigh in by posting although I know you're often lurking in the forums as you've said before. I think the Survey from a few months ago was interesting, but it missed the mark. I had really hoped the questions would ask exactly the question you asked above and prompted the community to rank the bugs on a likert scale (least frustrating to most frustrating).

In the absence of a survey, I will answer your question as of today.

Improvements I want to see:

• end-game performance - after my city hits 175k to 200k cims, the simulation speed/performance/stutters worsen on a beefy system. I don't know how others with lower specifications are managing through the gameplay. My hats go off to them.
• More user input; more ways to impact the simulation.
• Improved UI and Infographics; as well additional Infographics (i.e; Housing Stock/Inventory/Homeless data).

Most Frustrating Bugs:

• the buggy systems; I still don't feel confident that the simulation is behaving as the Developers intended it to; I'm not sure why, but it simply isn't. As you mentioned, the game's systems are highly interconnected by design and that poses its own unique set of challenges as you develop fixes, implement changes, and test to evaluate impact within the system changed and to other linked systems.

1. Housing/Homelessness
2. Mail
   1. -- why is it impossible to create enough capacity to service the demand for mail? Why does the post-sorting facility stop working if you have a cargo harbor?
3. Tourism/Hotels/Motels
   1. -- why does the number of tourist seem really low even for large cities with 100 attractiveness? Why do motels spawn more easily than hotels? Why are hotels bugged to 5 employees? Why do hotels/motels complain about insufficient customers even when they have customers?
4. Trash Management
   1. (applies to most things as well) (it requires districts to work well; but we don't have district specific information on trash generation). Either give us district data for all the Services (as a stop-gap measure) so that we can create appropriate capacity and limit services to a district or make sure the game performs at the city-level. I have 18,000 ton capacity for trash and my city generates 6,000 tons of garbage, and yet I still have trash issues.
5. Crime/Policing
   1. --- this stopped working at some point. I seem to have 0 crime even when I force higher rates of unemployment; so I guess I'm curious as to what causes crime?
6. Cim Aging/Lifepath --
   1. many many cims don't seem to die anymore or ever (not sure when this happened or if we just noticed it because of the InfoLoom Mod but many have posted about this recently--- it's definitely causing demand/housing stock issues) In my city of 200k, I have 58,000 cims that are older than 109 years old retired, have housing, have generally very low health (28-31), and never die. I even polluted the water, turned off health services and outside services and they did not die.

Thank you for reading.

 

[taxableAbe]

Now with that out of the way, I want to ask you: What are the improvements you want to see the most? Which bugs are the most frustrating to you?

Is there any way you can create an official CPU benchmark tool to see how high before the sim speed suffers at higher populations or whatever the pop limit could be of that CPU? Maybe even a GPU one as well I guess.

Maybe something that asks for a series of X number of pathfinding and how long it takes. I'm not sure I'm not a coder or cpu engineer. We just need something that tells us X Cpu is better than Y Cpu for population sim speed and maybe at what population it starts slowing down at in a controlled environment. Youtubers would love this as it simplifies benchmarking and I think more customers could see that the game is actually enjoyable and playable again with your fixes you've made and hopefully the best CPU.

Before with CS1 it was easy, I would buy the fastest single threaded processor on the market based on single threaded benchmarks.

But today I'm confused as multi threaded benchmarks aren't directly relating to CS:2, my 7800x3d runs smoother and higher frames than my 14900kf build under 200k pop, but at higher population the 14900kf has a faster simulation speed due to the sheer core strength. and my smooth speed at 800k pop on the 7800x3d is x0.65 while the 14900k can push to x0.85.

 

[DarkMore111]

Now with that out of the way, I want to ask you: What are the improvements you want to see the most? Which bugs are the most frustrating to you?

A bug report I would like to pass to you, please: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...t-materials-in-general.1697359/#post-29798236

Probably introduced with Economy 2.0 commercial companies can't import from ports anymore since then. And industry production seems low because of missing imports of input materials.

I was hesitant to ping personnel, because I don't know if you may be already aware of the bug. Please let me know, if I can improve upon bug reports or if I can provide more information.

 

[Fenuu2014]

Here is some more information I found that updates what I originally said.

An Update To The Release Schedule - Paradox Interactive

Paradox Interactive is a world leading PC games publisher known for games such as Cities: Skylines, Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings.

www.paradoxinteractive.com

• Modern Architecture & Urban Promenades pushed to Q4
• Bridges & Ports expansion pushed to Q2 2025

• Decorations patch is NOT part 2 of the detailers patch
  
  • Looking at road related decorations & line tool (plus more maybe)

They definitely seem to have the first quarter of 2025 set aside to work on the asset editor. I do wonder if the CPP will be pushed to Q1 2025. We only have a little bit left of this final quarter.

 

[unoace1006]

Here is some more information I found that updates what I originally said.

They definitely seem to have the first quarter of 2025 set aside to work on the asset editor. I do wonder if the CPP will be pushed to Q1 2025. We only have a little bit left of this final quarter.

It’s nearly a foregone conclusion that Paradox will once again delay paid content creator packs and use the same reasoning it used last time it did so. They want to continue to improve the game, make the community happier, and not split their time between asset implementation and key game improvements.

That’s the bar they’ve set and unless they change it, I don’t think we’re there yet. It’s also a lot of assets to release over the next 6 weeks, while competing with free region packs.

 

[Troyen]

1. Adjust the cost of service buildings and their upkeep. Adjust by how much? 5% - 10%? 50%? I think 50% would be too much, but a small decrease would give us players a little more room to breathe. A little does go a long way. This can be improved, and was, by the inclusion of cheaper options for service buildings. I think a little more adjustment is perhaps needed. What do others think? Granted, I know there are workarounds to this. I could abuse game mechanics so that I don't have to worry about money. I know I could use high cab fares, high parking fees, super high taxes but for me this is less fun. This locks me into playing a certain style. Do others have this issue or is this a me problem?

Keep in mind that simulation bugs are impacting the difficulty. For example, coal power plants aren't taking any locally mined coal so you're always paying max price for imports, which means the small coal plant is super expensive for its output and probably more expensive than intended. There are also some issues with traffic pathfinding (especially for service vehicles) and service vehicle dispatching that forces you to overbuild services.

At this point, I think I'd rather they fix all the issues with industry goods consumption and importing/exporting before doing another numbers pass because they've balanced around a buggy simulation state twice now, which means the game gets unbalanced again every time they fix more bugs.

I do think they should allow you to choose which services you import. Having it be all or nothing is kinda useless since it's a huge waste of cash to import services you can provide locally (like police and fire, since outside police/fire won't arrive in time to do anything anyway). Allowing you to opt-in on a per-service level would help the early game by giving you more options on how to grow at the start.

 

[cvatanen]

Keep in mind that simulation bugs are impacting the difficulty. For example, coal power plants aren't taking any locally mined coal so you're always paying max price for imports, which means the small coal plant is super expensive for its output and probably more expensive than intended. There are also some issues with traffic pathfinding (especially for service vehicles) and service vehicle dispatching that forces you to overbuild services.

At this point, I think I'd rather they fix all the issues with industry goods consumption and importing/exporting before doing another numbers pass because they've balanced around a buggy simulation state twice now, which means the game gets unbalanced again every time they fix more bugs.

I do think they should allow you to choose which services you import. Having it be all or nothing is kinda useless since it's a huge waste of cash to import services you can provide locally (like police and fire, since outside police/fire won't arrive in time to do anything anyway). Allowing you to opt-in on a per-service level would help the early game by giving you more options on how to grow at the start.

I admit I did not think about bugs affecting the costs of services. It could be one bug making things more expensive or reducing income, who knows? If the economy did not suffer from such bugs I'd like to see them adjust the costs of the service buildings, but not at the expense of more important things. You are right about that. I assume any adjustments would be very easy to implement, hence my suggestion. I don't want it to be too easy either, and I don't want to rob people the joy of an actual challenge to the game. Hopefully we can find a goldilocks solution, not too hard, not too easy, just right.

Importing services would be a lot easier if it were available at the very start, and not at milestone 4 (if I recall this correctly). I'd also love the option to pick and choose. Right now it's all or nothing. This was often reported as soon as that patch was released so long ago.

 

[tamsi99]

Yes, we have a bunch of improvements to the simulation that we want to make. Some come from our team while others are based on feedback from you all. Because all aspects of the simulation are so interconnected, these kinds of improvements take time to implement and test, often highlighting other bugs or creating new ones that need to be fixed. You saw this firsthand with the Economy 2.0 changes and the issues with homeless people being stuck, which has mostly been fixed (and we currently have a fix for the remaining issues in testing). As a result of those issues, we're improving our testing process to better catch those bugs before the game goes live, but as you can imagine, more testing takes more time.

This is why we don't have a roadmap for simulation improvements or fixes. We may be working on some, but that doesn't mean they will be included in the next patch, and we don't want to create a situation where you're excited about changes that may not be close to release. I think we've already had too many situations where we promised something only to have a new issue pop up preventing the release leading to (very understandable) disappointment. While we want to be as transparent with you as possible, we need to get back to a place where when we tell you something is coming, you can trust it. It's not perfect, but it means that for the time being, we're only really sharing improvements and fixes when they're set in stone.

Now with that out of the way, I want to ask you: What are the improvements you want to see the most? Which bugs are the most frustrating to you?

While I can't share a roadmap, a big part of what I do as community manager is make sure we prioritize the things that matter to our players. That's how the detailing improvements ended up in the game, but we know that's a playstyle only some of our players enjoy. It's always valuable feedback when you share how you play or what you want to see, even if others have mentioned it before it never hurts to share exactly what you hope we dive into next.

Thanks for your feedback, @co_avanya . Too bad they don't let you respond more frequently and to more topics, your postings are always appreciated.

Regarding "which improvements / bugs", here my short-list:

1. The economy still does not have any real impact on the city, and what I do still does not have any real impact on the economy. It should make a difference if I produce any goods locally or import them. But it doesn't. So why taking the effort of producing anything locally. This makes the whole game just plain boring. I can only city-paint but I cannot economically shape my city. Goods are just numbers in a statistics window but nothing else. There should also be goods that are not there by default (and cannot be imported) but that you have to take the effort to produce. And when you have it, it will contribute to the type of shops and people you have in the city, the tax income you have and the happiness you can create.

2. Traffic and public transportation bugs (trams despawning randomly, vehicles blocked randomly where nothing is in their way, cars hovering 0.5m above ground in roundabouts, etc.)

3. Performance improvements for large cities (200k+ pop)

4. Two main visual flaws kill the whole visual quality and immersion of the entire city. Please see details here . Yes, it's "just visual" but given that you obviously can't get a proper simulation working that is fun, I strongly recommend you also focus on visual improvements to satisfy at least this aspect with your game

5. Energy simulation is still broken when you use the day/night toggle (solar panels always produce power, batteries are always full). I really, really don't get it why such a simple bug cannot be fixed in more than 12 months ...

 

[MostBlunted]

Now with that out of the way, I want to ask you: What are the improvements you want to see the most? Which bugs are the most frustrating to you?

Just give me the working game you have advertised and hyped.

 

[CosmicSea]

Yes, we have a bunch of improvements to the simulation that we want to make. Some come from our team while others are based on feedback from you all. Because all aspects of the simulation are so interconnected, these kinds of improvements take time to implement and test, often highlighting other bugs or creating new ones that need to be fixed. You saw this firsthand with the Economy 2.0 changes and the issues with homeless people being stuck, which has mostly been fixed (and we currently have a fix for the remaining issues in testing). As a result of those issues, we're improving our testing process to better catch those bugs before the game goes live, but as you can imagine, more testing takes more time.

This is why we don't have a roadmap for simulation improvements or fixes. We may be working on some, but that doesn't mean they will be included in the next patch, and we don't want to create a situation where you're excited about changes that may not be close to release. I think we've already had too many situations where we promised something only to have a new issue pop up preventing the release leading to (very understandable) disappointment. While we want to be as transparent with you as possible, we need to get back to a place where when we tell you something is coming, you can trust it. It's not perfect, but it means that for the time being, we're only really sharing improvements and fixes when they're set in stone.

Now with that out of the way, I want to ask you: What are the improvements you want to see the most? Which bugs are the most frustrating to you?

While I can't share a roadmap, a big part of what I do as community manager is make sure we prioritize the things that matter to our players. That's how the detailing improvements ended up in the game, but we know that's a playstyle only some of our players enjoy. It's always valuable feedback when you share how you play or what you want to see, even if others have mentioned it before it never hurts to share exactly what you hope we dive into next.

1. Asset editor (obviously). Wish this was in place from release as I think the delay in getting this out has had a huge detrimental affect on the state of the game. Sever lack of content that would be satisfied with this crucial feature. I know you guys already have that as #1 priority, but its so important its worth re-stating how badly the game needs this (yesterday).
2. Simulation slowdown on moderate sized cities. I'm sure theres a plethora of code and algorithmic reasons why this isn't a straightforward fix, however, whatever the reason for the poor performance, its a huge issue. Even on a top 1% computer build, the game simulation is unbearably slow beyond a 400k population or so.

It would be nice to get some sort of dev diary or explanation on the exact steps that thus far have been taken to identify where the bottleneck in simulation performance is. Is it pathfinding? Are there parts of code that have been identified via automated tooling or other means that demonstrate a high algorthmic complexity as the agent count increases? I know these things might not mean much for many that don't have a CS background, but at least it would provide some explanation as to why this is taking so long. A post-mortem and "lessons learned" blog on the asset editor release/progress over the year would be huge as well. I imagine these sort of discussions are done internally, but it would go a long way in gaining some confidence and trust from many of the customers that have felt let down over the last year or so if these sorts of analysis, even if they are fairly surface-level, are shared with the public. It doesn't require promising anything concrete, but would at least show us you guys are able to learn from your mistakes and past experiences (that we all make as humans).

3. Bikes, for obvious reasons. Most people also aren't aware that bikes is slated to be a free update, that wont required an additional DLC purchase.

4. Animations (parks, fires, stadiums, ambulances, police, etc, farms/industries).

 

[Gundel Gaukeley]

Now with that out of the way, I want to ask you: What are the improvements you want to see the most? Which bugs are the most frustrating to you?

just read the forum and you get a pretty good idea what improvements people want and what bugs frustrate the players....such a strange question to ask at this point, there is no lack of feedback from the players side

 

[Cardinal Herue]

just read the forum and you get a pretty good idea what improvements people want and what bugs frustrate the players....such a strange question to ask at this point, there is no lack of feedback from the players side

Agreed. What a nuts question after over a year of feedback across multiple platforms and two company surveys. Especially asking which bugs we find the most frustrating. I (maybe kinda) get asking again what improvements or additions folks would like to see (though it's an odd choice to randomly ask in one forum thread), but asking which broken parts are the worst broken parts is just jaw-dropping.

"Umm, pardon me but the burger & fries I ordered is just two pieces of bread."
"Oh I'm so sorry about that, let me fix it. Here are some pickles."
"Wait! But there's still more missing from what you advertised you were selling me."
"Yes but which missing ingredient irritates you the most? The patty, the lettuce, the condiments, the fries?"

 

[LocutusH]

Unpopular opinion: Reducing traffic with even more teleportation and faking trickery isnt a real improvement in simulation.

 

[The Aziz]

vehicles blocked randomly where nothing is in their way,

Oh no no. It may look like there's nothing in their way but they're DETERMINED to make a u turn right in this place or change lane on the spot. If you zoom in you can often notice an indicator turned on.


Which honestly is one of the most infuriating things I currently encounter in this game. Traffic management is my fav part of it and it's ruined by behavior like this. I can't manage traffic if some artificial idiots from the right lane decide they want to turn left right before the intersection. And blocking the turns rarely helps because they'll start doing it somewhere else. Not to mention vehicles using bus lanes, crossing three lanes on motorways while doing five point turns, I could go on for hours.
Simple changes, completely remove the 3 point turns from the game and massively reduce probability of illegal maneuvers. The traffic will be more realistic.

 

[AvgConsumer]

[...]"and we don't want to create a situation where you're excited about changes that may not be close to release."

That's probably the best news I've read on this forum since release. Finally, showing some respect for the community. Though it has been more than a year, and I *still* dont have what was promised/paid for at release. So baby steps I guess.

 

[Fampa]

Unpopular opinion: Reducing traffic with even more teleportation and faking trickery isnt a real improvement in simulation.

Very popular unpopular opinion

 

[ma2412]

If i use an intersection on the map editor, you can see the "grid" of this blueprint.
Within the game i cannot place anything within this grid of the intersection - only with anarchy mod.
is the behavior expected?

 

[MaxHasBeenUsed]

This is why we don't have a roadmap for simulation improvements or fixes. We may be working on some, but that doesn't mean they will be included in the next patch, and we don't want to create a situation where you're excited about changes that may not be close to release.

To me it's the best thing to do at the moment, I fully respect and personally love the attitude.

Get me a bit confused tho since you hyped us all up a year ago before game release and the game itself is something that should have be "not close to release".

 

[Fampa]

Just had conaiderable performance gain with the latest patch

 

[Krage]

@co_avanya
I would love to see that car accidents are not vanishing by itself after some time. In current situation we have a simulation that is repairing itself. It doesn’t matter whether the road services manage to get to the accident, because by the time it get the accident is erased. Accidents are supposed to make some traffic jams. Let us have the consequences of not having roads in good shape.
Another one is improving cars behaviour at roundabouts, beacause the are blocking on it a lot.
And the last one, let us see in stats/money or sth else why it is better to have your own productions of goods, like wood, stone or metal. For now it seems that it doesn’t matter whether you import or produce your own goods