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.

[benzoll]

The biggest problems I have with the game right now are:

- Land value and the way it spreads throughout the city. Basically destroys my cities if they get older. Especially Industry areas.

- Export by train not working at all since December patch.

- tax system seems to have a overflow bug since december patch because in every city at one point it starts to break and produce millions of additional taxes or losses on one or 2 goods.

- no way to influence spawning of industry. I would expect to see more for example food industry to spawn if it has low taxation. But since even the tooltip does not say anything about taxes influencing new companies (it only takes about profitability of existing) it is probaply as designed.

- decision making of the ai what industry to spawn is way off. If I have cheap oil in my city but no grain it should not spawn new bio oil companies that need grain instead of companies that use the existing oil. This goes for all ressources. If I have a surplus on wood and a demand on wood products I expect it to spawn wood industry but it does not. If I have a demand for food and many food raw materials like chicken, I expect it to spawn food industry, it does not. The decision making therefore is not comprehensible from the player side and seems completely random.

- deleting busstops breaks the grid and leads to loss of roadside attached spawned buildings.

- bus station seems to be designed for left hand traffic and therefore causes conflict points on its entry and exit road.

- ai search for parking spot behavior causes massive unnecessary traffic because the cars will all try to enter full parking lots just to exit them again driving from one full parking lot to the next. Ai should not enter full parking lots but drive by if it is detected as full.

Good summary.
The first 3 are bugs. Would add high demand for primary school.

When these important bugs are corrected, perhaps we can do something with the industry through their taxes. If not, an adjustment of the simulation of industries by CO would be good, giving more options to handle.

I have observed: if petrochemical industries appear in an industrial zone, after, by putting small trade in a residential neighborhood, gas stations appear. When I really want stores.

 

[G315t]

School demand is a bit odd yes. Its probaply caused by the time they need to graduate from elementary school before they go to other school forms in the game. Or by the high birthrates. If we had smaller 200-300 kid schools that we could place in the residential areas it would not be such a pain. But that 1500 kid school is too massive to mix it in with smaller residential areas.

 

[safe-keeper]

It's sad that some of us have to insist on expressing our disappointment until being censored and banned from the forums just to trigger the start of a real dialogue with the CM...

This I have to disagree with. I've voiced my criticism since day one, and never as much as gotten an infraction or warning. I think the devs are perfectly aware the game is in a bad state and people are unhappy (player numbers alone tell us as much), spamming threads with complaining just generates frustation, with everyone.

 

[RagnarokZ]

Ran into a fun one when my city began producing 20000+ cars, which earn a taxable income of: 70000ish, which makes zero sense.

I'm presuming that most of the cars ended up being stuck in the harbour/cargo stations, but still.

I think I'll just take a break for a couple of months.

 

[Abitus]

This I have to disagree with. I've voiced my criticism since day one, and never as much as gotten an infraction or warning. I think the devs are perfectly aware the game is in a bad state and people are unhappy (player numbers alone tell us as much), spamming threads with complaining just generates frustation, with everyone.

And yet I was referring to something very specific, but we're not allowed to discuss that publicly here (see the "Commenting publicly on mod/admin action" part on that page).

Please believe me on the fact that I'm sincerely not trying to generate more frustration here. Just trying to prove my point (the bad communication).

 

[anydaytv]

School demand is a bit odd yes. Its probaply caused by the time they need to graduate from elementary school before they go to other school forms in the game. Or by the high birthrates. If we had smaller 200-300 kid schools that we could place in the residential areas it would not be such a pain. But that 1500 kid school is too massive to mix it in with smaller residential areas.

Just a little bit, yep.

 

[avahZ]

Should have specified - I was talking about Industries DLC and its analog in the base C:S2.

I don't like just zoning a specialized industry area and watching crap rando-spawn throughout the zone. I'd prefer being able to build my specialized industry up like we could in that DLC, with some improvements.

Completely agree, Industries DLC was a game changer for me with CS1. I played a good bit, but the my micro manger gaming style just went all girly squeal with that DLC. That was until I hit the vehicle limits, etc. Cant name it atm, but a mod boosted all those hidden game limits and I spent hundreds of hours zoning, planning, routing, building, directing.... =)

I still have high hopes for this game. As such I have put it to the side for Baldur's Gate 3. Starfield is also in a similar boat as CS2. I played BG3 early access the moment I was allowed to. I understood the issues and bugs I would hit, but it also allowed me a VERY small voice in the process. CS2 definitely feels early access. I don't have an issue with early access games and I will pay full price just to dig into them (was an old time Beta Tester for Activision back in the late 90's). Digging into them is a game unto itself for me. I do appreciate the fact CO gave us a heads up that the game was being release with issues. TBH that one heads up bought a lot of good will from me.

Here's to good things and great cities in 2024!

 

[safe-keeper]

Just a little bit, yep.
View attachment 1073126

Never Let Me Go vibes. Just needs to be encircled by a wall.

 

[LeandroB]

"This is an interesting comment..."

I didn't mentioned CP2077 bcoz of the quality, just bcoz it is a demanding game for the hardware and i can run it well, but i can't run CS2.
But since you mentioned the "come back story", dude, i don't think any game should have the mindset of releasing it and fixing later. For every CP2077 or No Man's Skies, there are a lot of Anthems.

 

[Brynjar]

You get a lot of beta testes at once while you don't get the same bad PR as for a bad game release.

Judging by the reception of KSP2, there is no guaranatee people won't pile on an early access game for not being finished.

That said, seeing the release quality of just about every big title Paradox is publishing, I do think they would have recieved a better reception if they started doinh early access properly.

No Mans Sky was a similar unprecedented title that was also shredded and ridiculed at launch, but then grew into new mature forms of itself years later, to the pure delight of die-hard fans.

I never understood why people keep bringing up No Man's Sky as an example of how to redeem your game. To me it seems like an extremely niche game that a lot of people return to for limited time events, hoping they will be able to finally see some fun in it, just to be reminded that the fundamental problem with the game was never adressed: Visiting what feels like the same planet over and over again gets boring really quickly, so there is no good reason to keep playing. It doesn't seem like the kind of game people would want a game city builder to replicate. As of right now both CS2 and Vic 3 have more players than No Man's Sky. Both of those games had significantly fewer players on release, and are in dire need of improvements according to large parts of their playerbase.

If CS2 is to become a good game it needs to have its problems fixed to ensure playing it is fun, not use limited time events to exploit people's fear of losing out to draw people back. No Man's Sky never managed to do that.

 

[Krazel]

A ton of these comments are " Look.. It's not in a great state, but I went in knowing that could be the case. I loved CS1 and this game has its flaws but it does a lot right and I know this game will come around too and I can wait because in the end it will all be worth it."

I know that comes from a good place and I wish there was a nicer way to say this but that is exactly why the gaming industry is in the state it's in. I really believe this is a perilous way to think about a product. It's truly created the most predatory sales techniques. It takes advantage of good people who love their things they love.

Releasing as a 1.0 or marketable finished game implies that it is ready for public consumption. Of course, there will be fixes and updates but overall it's in a stable state. This game is not in a stable state. AND we as consumers are upset. We're coming to forums, chats, discords, any platform possible to voice our discontent. That is our right, as long as it isn't threatening or abusive. Hold companies accountable. There's no shame in that.

It saddens me to see the industry I love the most turn into this. As much as I hope to see this game turn around nothing will really surprise me at this point, in either direction. I am what I despise, I bought the ultimate edition ON announcement. If you love city building simulation this series is second to none (sorry Sim City). I expect more though. I've seen a lot of people mention that until we stop purchasing games, DLCs, etc. that aren't finished we'll continue to perpetuate this cycle. I hope that cycle gets broken soon. We're all gamers that love our games.

 

[kevex91]

People are back to CS1.

It's going to be difficult to sell an expansion at this point.

More than the bugs, it's the false promises from the dev diaries. My expectations were quite high :/

I wonder if someone made a CS2 mod for CS1. Add some of the new assets and maps that we got in CS2 but on a base game that actually has a simulation and is stable.

 

[rd55]

If Paradox had released this as early access and still in development. Then I would have had less issue with the amount of bugs. But they released it as full ready for prime time game. I truly think that was a huge mistake and blunder on there part. Because all the early access streamers showed how easy it was to build play etc...

I don't know the economics of game design industry, all I know if that I wanted to play the game, payed my money and due to the large amount of issues in the game I can't.

 

[safe-keeper]

A ton of these comments are " Look.. It's not in a great state, but I went in knowing that could be the case. I loved CS1 and this game has its flaws but it does a lot right and I know this game will come around too and I can wait because in the end it will all be worth it."

I know that comes from a good place and I wish there was a nicer way to say this but that is exactly why the gaming industry is in the state it's in. I really believe this is a perilous way to think about a product. It's truly created the most predatory sales techniques. It takes advantage of good people who love their things they love.

Releasing as a 1.0 or marketable finished game implies that it is ready for public consumption. Of course, there will be fixes and updates but overall it's in a stable state. This game is not in a stable state. AND we as consumers are upset. We're coming to forums, chats, discords, any platform possible to voice our discontent. That is our right, as long as it isn't threatening or abusive. Hold companies accountable. There's no shame in that.

It saddens me to see the industry I love the most turn into this. As much as I hope to see this game turn around nothing will really surprise me at this point, in either direction. I am what I despise, I bought the ultimate edition ON announcement. If you love city building simulation this series is second to none (sorry Sim City). I expect more though. I've seen a lot of people mention that until we stop purchasing games, DLCs, etc. that aren't finished we'll continue to perpetuate this cycle. I hope that cycle gets broken soon. We're all gamers that love our games.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. We can agree that the game was released way too early, and that there's still hope for it if PDX just keeps up support. But yes, I'm not sure if I would've bought it day one again.

 

[Swordsman1219]

Simply put, the game (CS2) is still a dumpster fire 3-4 months post release... The CEO/Powerful company officials made promises (such as modding tools/map editors) being available within the first week of release; that has not happened AT ALL, instead all we get is more vague platitudes and nonsense blathering from on high. As others have said, the devs made many promises that they just can't complete. The classic American expression is that they have bit off more than they can chew and that is 100% true for CS2.

CS2 will go down in flames, it's already happening, it's a massive, slow, death but there is no redeeming it or preventing it from happening.

 

[ClemiMD]

CS2 will go down in flames, it's already happening, it's a massive, slow, death but there is no redeeming it or preventing it from happening.

Can you describe exactly what you mean by the "death" of CS2, how it comes about, what its consequences are and why it is inevitable?

 

[JoeSchmuckatelliUSMC]

CS2 will go down in flames, it's already happening, it's a massive, slow, death but there is no redeeming it or preventing it from happening.

Um...

Sorry. No.

This is the 'New Normal'. Thanks to private equity, games are no longer an art form - they're an investment. When the publisher wants to hit quarterly numbers and the game is 'good enough'... it ships. With proper marketing - they get the cash windfall and make earnings.

Keeping up production extends the life of the game and makes more money - so, while we see (hopefully) them fixing the game to make it right - Investors see 'bringing in the second wave of purchasers' - and 'extended life income'.

The only people who get their feelings hurt are the Devs. Well, and players - but who cares about them?

(Once they've spent the money, that is)

 

[JoeSchmuckatelliUSMC]

I'll add another observation. Back when KSP2 had its fiasco of a release, we spent a fair amount of time looking at player numbers via Steamdb - as I've seen folks do here. It took from February to December for them to get KSP2 into a decently playable state. Seems like an eternity to a purchaser - but from a development standpoint? Maybe it took the time it took because that's how long it takes. They've enjoyed a bump in players and in sales.

The striking thing to me - the difference - is the engagement. Players stayed engaged throughout the process. I'm not seeing a lot of engagement here. And frankly, C:S2 is in a better, more playable state than KSP2 was.

KSP2 has a long way to go before it can be called a good game. C:S2 has a fair amount of optimization ahead of them - which seems the priority as they're focused on a Console release. But we really should keep asking - as politely as possible - for them to make the simulation side of things a close second.

Gameplay

Interesting gameplay - that's problematic right now... and it's hidden behind the posts and concern about optimization and framerates.

 

[tweety80]

A ton of these comments are " Look.. It's not in a great state, but I went in knowing that could be the case. I loved CS1 and this game has its flaws but it does a lot right and I know this game will come around too and I can wait because in the end it will all be worth it."

I know that comes from a good place and I wish there was a nicer way to say this but that is exactly why the gaming industry is in the state it's in.

Yes and no...
In the past, CO had an excellent reputation, which is why people believed the ads.
Let us assume CO will work for years with this game and improve it a lot to, say, an 85% rating on Steam (new reviews). It is certainly possible.
This would be similar to the CS1, but the difference is that if CO announces CS3... people will not preorder it in the same way as CS2. All videos may be seen as pure ads with little to do with reality.
Many will remember that Paradox/CO published a game that needed maybe six months or a year to fix.

Publishing a game like this is a one-shot thing.

I am waiting for CPU performance issues.

 

[MJAnderson]

Yes and no...
In the past, CO had an excellent reputation, which is why people believed the ads.
Let us assume CO will work for years with this game and improve it a lot to, say, an 85% rating on Steam (new reviews). It is certainly possible.
This would be similar to the CS1, but the difference is that if CO announces CS3... people will not preorder it in the same way as CS2. All videos may be seen as pure ads with little to do with reality.
Many will remember that Paradox/CO published a game that needed maybe six months or a year to fix.

Publishing a game like this is a one-shot thing.

I am waiting for CPU performance issues.

All Paradox games are like this. I had hoped that CO would be different, but now I know that the best time to buy is on sale after the first major patch after the first big DLC., just like the Paradox published games.