The biggest problem with CS2 at this point is that it's been out for two months and still has not gotten a patch that fundamentally solves anything.

[Miwi]

CO simply overreached themselves with the complexity of the game development and grossly underestimated the effort required. As long as the game has game breaking bugs that might (hopefully) still be tinkered with don't get your hopes up for mods, mods only make the chaos worse if major bugs are not fixed and in the end nobody knows what is actually needed for a working game and what is not. And newcomers are put off completely. The list of game breaking bugs is just too huge and still growing with new issues upcoming that makes me worry to reach a status of a satisfactory playability at some point.

 

[sys_64738]

Hi folks,

this thread was very helpful for me. Seeing that I'm not alone with these mixed feelings about CS:2 really help to ease my mood quite a bit.

I think, I'll shelf CS:2 for a while now and go back to C:S1. In the it's current state, CS:2 only gives me frustration right now. It has so much potential, but it's far too bug ridden to be properly enjoyable.
Let's all hope that CO starts fresh this week with a good crisis management and a plan for patching out the worst bugs in due time.

I'll give it a try when the next patch comes out, but for now, I'll have a good old session of city building with its predecessor.

Best regards,
sys

 

[Rostan]

Oh no! Check it out! My favorite D&D game of all time has fallen off!

View attachment 1072109

See? I can do it too. In marketing it's called a "sales surge".

Actually, BG3 had great player retention, especially given that it is a single campaign game with more limited options for self-directed play. At this moment in time, daily peak players reach 30% of the all-time high. They only reach 15% of the all-time high for Cities 2.

 

[BoraBora]

CO simply overreached themselves with the complexity of the game development and grossly underestimated the effort required.

This. They made it obvious in the latest video.

 

[Krazel]

No, it is not. Your graphic shows some peak number of players. If you have a look at the general average players over the last months, you will see that the player base of CS1 has dropped by >5k and the average number of CS2 players is a bit higher.

Higher than what? The 16k average peak players CS2 has had the last few weeks? From where we started that's bad. And I saw we because I genuinely want this game to do well but I also hold companies accountable for a subpar product.

However, the figures suggest that this month's player numbers will be below those of CS1 - the first time since the release of CS2.

Yeah, I don't need to be a data scientist to tell you this is not good. Of course there was always going to be an unavoidable drop. But when your new product is being utilized less than your old one, it's time to re-evaluate.

But that doesn't mean anything - it's the same with every game. If the number of players in CS1 comes close to the pre-CS2 level again, then we can discuss it again.

Everyone should draw their own conclusions from statistics, but please use the appropriate data.
Look into the statistics of any game; the number of players shortly after release is many times higher than some months later.

Ahh listen, my friend. The beautiful thing about data is that it doesn't care about how you feel about it. It exists. However, we do agree that you can draw your own conclusions from it. The only difference is that I don't see how you can draw any conclusion other than this is a mass exodus compared to where this game should be performing right now with its players. The developers have their work cut out for them. Let's see what they've got (besides DLCs).


UPDATE: As I was writing this I decided to just check and see. CS1 has 2k more players than CS2 currently playing. Interpret that data however you like.

 

[BoraBora]

No, it is not. Your graphic shows some peak number of players. If you have a look at the general average players over the last months, you will see that the player base of CS1 has dropped by >5k and the average number of CS2 players is a bit higher.

However, the figures suggest that this month's player numbers will be below those of CS1 - the first time since the release of CS2.

But that doesn't mean anything - it's the same with every game. If the number of players in CS1 comes close to the pre-CS2 level again, then we can discuss it again.

Everyone should draw their own conclusions from statistics, but please use the appropriate data.
Look into the statistics of any game; the number of players shortly after release is many times higher than some months later.

Here's one year of statistics ( https://steamdb.info/charts/?compare=255710,949230 )

What we see is this (clicking on the link above to display the various numbers):

* In the last full week, starting monday, 1 jan:
14 745 CS I players
14 625 CS II players
Total: 29 370

* The week starting monday, 25 dec:
14 628 CS I
14 699 CS II
Total 29 327

* The week starting 18 dec:
14 028 CS I
15 030 CS II
Total: 29 058

* The week starting 11 dec:
14 217 CS I
17 598 CS II
Total: 31815

So:

1 - There's been around the same number of CS I and CS II players for 3 full weeks now. It's very unusual to see a brand-new sequel with the same player base than the first 8 years old version. When that happens, it speaks very bad of the sequel.

2 - The combined CS I + CS II players numbers is less than the number of CS I players in most of 2023 pre-CS II release. That's even more worrying for every party financially involved. It means this new game couldn't boost the player base. Not one bit. Less CS I players, less CS II players.

Is this expected from any game? Of course not.

 

[Krazel]

So:

1 - There's been around the same number of CS I and CS II players for 3 full weeks now. It's very unusual to see a brand-new sequel with the same player base than the first 8 years old version. When that happens, it speaks very bad of the sequel.

2 - The combined CS I + CS II players numbers is less than the number of CS I players in most of 2023 pre-CS II release. That's even more worrying for every party financially involved. It means this new game couldn't boost the player base. Not one bit. Less CS I players, less CS II players.

Is this expected from any game? Of course not.

Well said, Bora.

One thing being overlooked is the business aspect and consequences. Paradox is a publicly traded company, meaning they have forecasts for every quarter of the year, benchmarks, and goals set for revenue. When they don't hit those marks, or foresee not hitting those marks, they have to answer to their investors. When the investors aren't happy, companies hit the "OH #@$*" button because that can make investors panic and pull funds (selling stock) thus lowering stock and having a plethora of other consequences. This is simply how businesses work.

So when someone comes in here and says "Oh so you don't want companies to have holidays?" "I wouldn't want to work for you!" No, I'm not Scrooge and want them to work on holidays and I don't think they're diving into a mountain of coins Duck Tales style. It is pretty funny but in truth, 3-4 weeks off when your product is failing is excessive. I'd wager Paradox isn't happy about it.

 

[[Delta ²k5]]

I'm working in such a company. Our product development basically stops entirely in this period of the year. Sure we keep our support up and running as there may be urgencies that require immediate action to prevent loss of lots of money but this is a scenario a gaming company simply does not have. Maybe some customers will be unhappy but financial damage (on the customer's side) or worse, damage to health and life, are not to be expected if a gaming comany doesn't do anything for a few days.
It's not silly, it's reasonable.

Same. Couldn't agree more as I'm also working for a small customer (my customer is actually a large pharmacy company which actually runs pharmacies sitting somewhere in Europe with 8M customers in the CRM system for which I'm the single person responsible when it comes down to the actual systems quality).

On the last 3 weeks of the year basically nobody was working in the IT department, me included. There only were some people working which just not took vacation and volunteered to monitor and collect whatever will happen during that time for that to be covered after new year. There were absolutely 0 features developed until this week and 0 bugs fixed which were reported. Even some reports for the financial department which were not properly created on the CRM needed for their end of the year stuff were not covered at all, they now have to deal with the fixes needed being rolled out next week as testing is pending.

However, nobody complained. Nobody was hurt. No bankruptcy is faced. There was no meltdown and nothing exploded.
There are in fact only few sectors irl on which would justify 24h standby of an whole IT department, but only if there is at least also a high probability for something to happen (e.g. If an entirely new server cluster has to be set up for air traffic control because the backup server went up in flames and everything is running on just one cluster at limits the probability for this is still low if these servers are not sitting on an active battlefield).

In basically all other cases the ugly truth is that IT people around the world go on vacation and sleep extremely well during this time, especially on the largest IT companies around - I do too, even knowing that 8M customers could just vanish over night

 

[RaunchyNewOrlenas]

i find it funny that people are defending a company that made a game that is mostly about the traffic simulation (effectively it's all connected to that)
that i added roundabouts that even in their own country have 1 basic rule, and they could not implement that 1 basic rule after months of development and designing, and even making video's of them nod adding those roundabouts. there is a huge lack of interest and basic understanding of the exact type of game they are making. if a whole team of dev's can forget 1 basic rule that they themselves have to follow every day when 2x when driving to and from work and don't realize such a basic thing after 2,5 months, i don't believe they are invested in making the game more then it is now. the one thing that could have saved them (mods) they delayed and made more difficult because they somehow find the console gamers more important then the pc gamers. while that platform was the sole reason they even exist. sadly they felt the need to try to make everything "better" for as many people as possible while forgetting that they started with niche games and even the first CS was only a success because of those niche gamers and the mods to save it. when you try to include everything you end up with nothing. and that is how it works with EVERYTHING. you loose the soul and nobody is happy. btw also ksp2 is having similar problems now. even with mods. because many modders are waling away because of how buggy it is atm. another game i don't have a lot of hope for this year, and if they both don't save it this year it's done for them. it's already bad that modders are needed to get the most out of the game anyway. making a game that makes them not even want to fix it is a death sentence. my 2 cents.

ps; the one rule is that traffic on the roundabout always have the right of way, basic rule for like 99% of roundabouts in europe. and that important that not implementing it makes a roundabout mostly useless.

 

[Krazel]

In basically all other cases the ugly truth is that IT people around the world go on vacation and sleep extremely well during this time, especially on the largest IT companies around - I do too, even knowing that 8M customers could just vanish over night

Haha what is happening? Not one person in this thread has suggested working on or around holidays. You are arguing with nobody & patting yourself on the back for it. I don't think this is the 1 to 1 comparison you think it is. I work in IT sales, I know enough about this industry in particular as well.

However, we're talking about what? Dec 13/15th to January 8th? That's almost 4 weeks. The only reason anyone is even talking about this is this product is subpar. You're sticking up for massive revenue companies instead of upset paying players AKA consumers. The workers/developers didn't make these company decisions, nobody is blaming them. At least not anyone with a brain and a heart.

 

[wilcoxchar]

Haha what is happening? Not one person in this thread has suggested working on or around holidays. You are arguing with nobody & patting yourself on the back for it. I don't think this is the 1 to 1 comparison you think it is. I work in IT sales, I know enough about this industry in particular as well.

However, we're talking about what? Dec 13/15th to January 8th? That's almost 4 weeks. The only reason anyone is even talking about this is this product is subpar. You're sticking up for massive revenue companies instead of upset paying players AKA consumers. The workers/developers didn't make these company decisions, nobody is blaming them. At least not anyone with a brain and a heart.

We're talking December 23 to January 7. Two weeks. Which is the normal amount of expected vacation or short-staffing time for a winter holiday on any office job around the holidays.

 

[co_avanya]

I'm gonna go back to lurking here, but seeing as discussions about our holiday schedule keep popping up, I just wanted to clear it up. We were closed for just about 2 weeks - from the 18th of December to the 3rd of January (that's 16 days if you're counting all days, 9 days if we're counting business days). You can always find the dates on our social media if you need it.

Alright, back to lurking I go ^^

 

[Krazel]

I'm gonna go back to lurking here, but seeing as discussions about our holiday schedule keep popping up, I just wanted to clear it up. We were closed for just about 2 weeks - from the 18th of December to the 3rd of January (that's 16 days if you're counting all days, 9 days if we're counting business days). You can always find the dates on our social media if you need it.

Alright, back to lurking I go ^^

Haha.. Hi Avanya. Look, we love your games which is why you are seeing a lot of passionate discussions here.

Even if CO took half a day off for a holiday (which I'm glad they took much more), it doesn't change the discussion truly or at least what the discussion should be about.

Enjoy the show

We're talking December 23 to January 7. Two weeks. Which is the normal amount of expected vacation or short-staffing time for a winter holiday on any office job around the holidays.

It's irrelevant honestly. And sometimes when Mom walks into the room I need to straighten up a bit.

But. Here are some facts:

The last patch was dropped Dec 14th. That is two days less than 4 full weeks. The next patch could be next week, but with the holidays we can't be sure and there's clearly a lot to do. I'm not sure where the disconnect is. This narrative of "They were on break, cut them some slack." No. Hold these companies (NOT specific employees) accountable for insufficiently nurturing their clientele and releasing a product that the consumer is clearly not satisfied with. Some things require criticism and feedback - I think this falls into that category. It's unfortunate this fell into December holidays but a declining player base is the result.

I've stated this before and I'll say it again, I'm just curious how we move forward. If I didn't care I wouldn't be here yelling into the void, I swear.

 

[Otis85402]

No. Hold these companies (NOT specific employees) accountable for insufficiently nurturing their clientele and releasing a product that the consumer is clearly not satisfied with. Some things require criticism and feedback - I think this falls into that category. It's unfortunate this fell into December holidays but a declining player base is the result.

Exactly. Eyes on the prize. I would take honesty like "hey we're sorry we know you're mad we promise it'll be better by February" and that would be a real response. I just want to be treated like an adult who purchased this game. I'm personally willing to be told "come back in x months" as a reasonable expectation. I would hate to hear those words, but if they told them to me and were honest, I'd say "alright, see you in x months".

I just don't appreciate the silence by the company towards an increasingly angry player base. The stage after that is apathy and that's when people just leave and don't come back.

 

[wilcoxchar]

I'm gonna go back to lurking here, but seeing as discussions about our holiday schedule keep popping up, I just wanted to clear it up. We were closed for just about 2 weeks - from the 18th of December to the 3rd of January (that's 16 days if you're counting all days, 9 days if we're counting business days). You can always find the dates on our social media if you need it.

Alright, back to lurking I go ^^

Thank you for the clarification. I hope everyone at Colossal Order had a nice and well deserved holiday break.

 

[TripleAgent]

You'd think that PDX and its partner companies would have learned by now that October/November releases, especially buggy ones (looking at your Vicky 3), inevitably lead to unrest when a month or two after release, when the highest priority work to address performance/bugs needs to be done, less work is done because of the holiday.

Not that you all shouldn't take your holiday, I sure as heck would, but unless the game is VERY polished maybe January is a better month to release things than October/November.

 

[vvilku]

They plan on supporting the game for a decade. Unlike CS1, CS2 is build up from the ground to be more expandable in the future.

Pf... for whom? For the 5-10k people still left playing? Or for those 20 left people in the forum?

Once the modding support is activated and the first DLC start the release this game will look very different.

Again: what modding? There's no community nymore.

Over the years the hardware requirements will slowly shift from highend to midrange and at some point even to low end because 5 years from now the average hardware will be better while GPU drivers (for example DLSS or FSR) and the game will be more optimised.

That is true

It would have been a lot more honest of them to release the game as Early Access.

Or postponing it.

 

[[Delta ²k5]]

Not one person in this thread has suggested working on or around holidays. You are arguing with nobody & patting yourself on the back for it.

If you'd follow the quotes back from my post to the origin you'd know why I talked about that - however you are right about the arguing part (as I could not care less about random people on reddit/X/forums/discord), but my arms are unfortunately not long enough so I rely on others (irl) to pat my back.

Have a splendid evening however

 

[wilcoxchar]

You'd think that PDX and its partner companies would have learned by now that October/November releases, especially buggy ones (looking at your Vicky 3), inevitably lead to unrest when a month or two after release, when the highest priority work to address performance/bugs needs to be done, less work is done because of the holiday.

Not that you all shouldn't take your holiday, I sure as heck would, but unless the game is VERY polished maybe January is a better month to release things than October/November.

The problem with this is that the holidays coming up mean that traditionally the biggest release time of the year for games is October-December and has been for a long while now. Meanwhile January is typically one of the worst times to release a game (and this is also true for other entertainment releases) because it's just after the holidays and people have just bought or been gifted a bunch of new things and aren't going to be spending more money on new releases. So it's a tough balance.

 

[Krazel]

If you'd follow the quotes back from my post to the origin you'd know why I talked about that - however you are right about the arguing part (as I could not care less about random people on reddit/X/forums/discord), but my arms are unfortunately not long enough so I rely on others (irl) to pat my back.

Have a splendid evening however

Haha you seem like a really nice person, sorry if it came across rude. I hope lots of people pat your back and I hope you had a great holiday! (non-sarcastically)

BTW, if anyone ever gets really cocky around you, just say "Don't break your arm while you're patting yourself on the back..." Get's a laugh every time.