What should be in the next patch?

[RA1981]

I wanted to pop in this thread quickly and express how happy we are to see these suggestions. While we aren't able to respond to every single thread, we do read most of them. And we take suggestions and wishes to heart.

It was my intention to have one single thread where the opinions and "priorities" of the players become visible and I'm glad that it worked (thank you all for your input) and that it also got recognized by Paradox.

As an addition to my initial "priority" list, please add the broken post system to the ToDo list - that's currently causing problems in my city. In general, I think most people agree to first fixing the known broken mechanics before adding something else - excluding the modding tools like asset editor, etc because I'd need them to make smaller highway crossing XD - should have priority.

I'm happy that so much people contributed to this topic until now and I hope that there'll be even more input

 

[Chad]

I think the Economy improvements are a great step in the right direction. The game now feels challenging to a degree that makes me feel like my decisions have purpose. That said...

I see lots of people complaining about Tile upkeep. I agree that feels like a very punitive mechanic, given the way it scales. I don't think it should go away, but it should be tweaked somehow.

My biggest pet peeve currently is the way Residential Taxes work. This needs to be changed. I want to be able to use Residential Tax to incentivize types of residential property zoning, but I can't. Right now, taxing based on education feels pointless.

The other problem I am having on this latest patch is Education. Previously, you needed an exponential amount of Elementary Schools to meet demand. That is no longer a problem, but now no one goes to school. My education window shows many people eligible for elementary and high-school, but only a fraction of them are in school. Why? Are there roaming gangs of children on the streets that I can't see?

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I haven't gotten all that far in the tech tree in my current city, because the finances finally feel like a challenge. I am sure I will find other issues as I build into other city services; but that is my input from someone who plays the vanilla game without mods, and just got my first Econ 2.0 city past 30K population.

 

[brother_korahael]

So, I thought I'd add some more thoughts as someone who has broken past the 300k population limit (and the game is now unplayable to me due to speed, so it's done for now) and managed to reach milestone 20, and unlock everything. I've divided it into two bits, detailing my experience, then some suggestions.

My experience so far:

• Tile upkeep isn't as big a deal when you have a dense city centre that basically prints money for you, but it is a serious constraint early in the game. Overall I think it helps with the challenge, as every border expansion has to be thoughtfully considered.
• The tile upkeep mechanic makes bespoke border connections more difficult: the map I was playing with had no rail connections, so by the time I could afford to unlock the tiles for one, the tiles were much more expensive to purchase.
• The challenge with larger cities comes from the performance of the game: when you want to build the more expensive buildings, you have to wait for the simulation to just move so you can have the money. I had the game playing in the background while I was working, and when I came back it had just passed a new in-game day. We've beaten the performance horse to death by now, but I still think this is imperative to continue improving performance.
• Somehow I've managed to keep control of homelessness and crime (after a rough start) by focusing on industry for jobs and expanding housing in line with this. Welfare, the "pre-release programs" city ordinance, and keeping on top of housing and jobs meant that by the time I could afford a prison, it never had more than 10-20 criminals in it at any time, and the total number of criminals in my city never exceeded 600, even in a city of 300k it was at 350. However, it was easy to see that if I didn't keep on top of this one (as had happened in the early game) that it would evolve to a serious problem.
• I've been running at about $400k p/h surplus since hitting 180k pops because of the big focus I placed on industry, which in turn meant that my commercial districts were the big money makers. Offices felt grossly underpowered in revenue terms.
• I only realised that the $2m p/h upkeep from my hospital was a bug when CO mentioned it in their latest patch update. I was running at a good profit for a while, but placing down my first hospital meant greater expenses than was mentioned in the window. I took a $2m p/h hit to the budget that wasn't detailed anywhere. I love the fact that the city pays the wages of city employees, but we need accurate estimations of the total impact.
• There was no way of keeping up with healthcare needs or deaths: this might be from my own carelessness, or the fact that I became too used to the external city services as a crutch prior to the new economy patch, but after hitting about 130k pops the need for healthcare and death care in my city centre was so high that the swarm of ambulances and hearses weren't able to keep up with demand. This may be a vehicle carrying capacity issue. I had somewhere around 20 crematoriums, a cemetery and it still wasn't enough.
• I have six major entrances into my city centre from the freeway, and several smaller ones for the outer edges, but all of the vehicular traffic focused on one: the closest to the edge of the map. When I attempted to alleviate this with passenger rail, the impact wasn't strong, and traffic was still blocking the freeway. Same with cargo rail, it simply added capacity to my cargo network rather than eliminate intercity truck traffic. This may be from routing, but it always seemed a bit wrong that only one exit was blocked while all of the others remained open.
• There was never any point after I reach 50k citizens where I had adequate numbers of schools to cater for the amount of kids and teens in my city. Seeing full high schools was fantastic. The space required for the number of schools I needed in the inner city especially, though, I couldn't find it. Every school, high school, college and university I built was filled to capacity. I think I need to plan my spaces better, or we need new high-capacity inner-city schools.

Suggestions for future patches:

• We don't just need smaller versions of services, we also definitely need inner-city, high-density versions of city services.
• High capacity elementary and high schools are 100% more imperative now (edit: I just read that the detailers update includes these, which is fantastic! I’ll try them out in a new city)
• A high capacity version of a crematorium (like a city morgue?) with a higher-capacity vehicle may help with the inability to keep up with death (not death waves, inadequate capacity means even a swarm of vehicles isn't keeping pace)
• If there was a way to build outside connections without direct edge access it might help with solving the punitive aspect of the tile upkeep mechanic
• Vehicle capacity may need a retune, particularly for health/death care; this may be a vehicle garage decision, a building decision, or an extra high-capacity vehicle to deal with dense city areas
• Tooltips and information boxes should be able to tell me the estimated and actual cost of a service
• Is there a way to fix vehicles crowding a single exit? Six main exits into the city and all intercity vehicle traffic crowded around the one that was closest to the edge of the map, but also the one that was furthest from where everyone was going (which made no sense)
• Maybe to help with traffic, allow more people to take an intercity train into your city; I was shocked that this made very little impact to the freeway traffic.

 

[KaKuc]

I miss the action of people in the city, just walking and traveling...
1 The city services just arrive, no one gets out, no one does anything, while in CS1 the firemen put out the fire, the police went to look for the criminal, the paramedics took away the injured, funeral services.... It was beautiful and I miss it very much. I hope that this well be as one of the first exp packs... more than some new buildings...
2 All parks , sports places are used only by homeless tents but no people there
3. Emergency vehicles do not have the right of way. They stands with his siren on and flashing in lines of cars, letting pedestrians through, no one dodging them, no alternative routes for them. Risky driving, using the opposite direction is just a dream. Most of the time they just get stuck in a traffic jam until the accident just goes away...
4. Dedicated lanes for city services (red one) are used by all cars and thus lose their benefit for city traffic.

 

[Infiniterocks]

Homeless people, tourism, death rate and police could use a patch.

My city is has 27,000+ monthly tourists and not a single hotel or motel, and tourists are not being highlighted blue in tourism map data mode, so you can't see where they are or anything. My streets are packed with so many homeless it's looks like New York on New Years' Eve.

Police don't patrol the city anymore since the patch. The police cars only come out when dispatched, making it take longer to secure crime scenes and car accidents.

Death rate is just crazy, maybe give players some stats on what is causing death the most, whether it's age, health, air quality, covid, crime, car accidents etc.

Homeless just stay in the city, clogging up the sidewalks, they don't find homes, leave or move out. I found many homeless people who are wealthy and educated, but refuse to find a home. No residential demand despite residential zones and low unemployment rate in a happy city.

If a passenger train despawns, you get stuck with a bunch of sims idling on the train tracks away from the station. Deleting the track where they are doesn't help much, they'll go to the nearest street and idle in a big group until they die of old age.

 

[brother_korahael]

Homeless people, tourism, death rate and police could use a patch.

My city is has 27,000+ monthly tourists and not a single hotel or motel, and tourists are not being highlighted blue in tourism map data mode, so you can't see where they are or anything. My streets are packed with so many homeless it's looks like New York on New Years' Eve.

Police don't patrol the city anymore since the patch. The police cars only come out when dispatched, making it take longer to secure crime scenes and car accidents.

Death rate is just crazy, maybe give players some stats on what is causing death the most, whether it's age, health, air quality, covid, crime, car accidents etc.

Homeless just stay in the city, clogging up the sidewalks, they don't find homes, leave or move out. I found many homeless people who are wealthy and educated, but refuse to find a home. No residential demand despite residential zones and low unemployment rate in a happy city.

If a passenger train despawns, you get stuck with a bunch of sims idling on the train tracks away from the station. Deleting the track where they are doesn't help much, they'll go to the nearest street and idle in a big group until they die of old age.

This is also now my experience with the homeless problem in my latest city. I probably got lucky with the previous city, as this one has only 28k people, and 6k of them are criminals. Homeless everywhere, not moving into any cheap houses, no amount of welfare or anything is solving this problem. Police aren't patrolling, my prison is sitting there only a quarter full, while there are well over 1k sentenced criminals in the city (why aren't they in the prison?), and I'm even finding that the city ordinance is doing nothing to rehabilitiate criminals in time.

Are homeless treated automatically as criminals? Is this preventing them from integrating? I'm curious to see what's going on here and how its solved.

 

[leafeon]

Now that I've had more time with Economy 2.0 with the new assets, I'm generally satisfied with the update.

I think either adding more (cheaper/smaller) assets or lowering the cost of current ones would be nice. College takes a bit more time now to afford. However with the new Urban Schools, I think an urban college and university would be nice.
Power plants as well, although I suppose before the update we were able to afford them earlier than we realistically should have. So in other words...more smaller and cheaper assets would be very welcome in general.

Tile upkeep. Still not a fan as it still makes no sense and makes early game city sprawl not appealing. However the biggest issue is it makes expanding to the edge of the map completely unappealing. Buying 10+ tiles just to place rail, roads or pipes, that is completely unaffordable those upkeep costs.
IMO dump the upkeep costs and just make the cost to purchase the land (tiles) much more expensive.

As for the next patch outside of the above mentioned:
1. Bikes and bike lanes. Should have been in the game day one, but tbh they need to be in the game sooner rather than later.
2. Animations of people using parks. They still feel lifeless, which in turn kinda give cities a lifeless feel.
3. It can be a basic version since I suspect it will be a DLC one day, but a way to create our own parks (similar to park life).

 

[Woody Red]

fix the map editor !!

 

[PkK]

Form reading this thread, I get the impression that the game is quite good now: nearly everyone asks for additional features, not bugfixes.

I deleted the game many months ago. Is it time to give it another try?

 

[Bitula]

4. By the way, how are the wages calculated exactly?

Last time when i looked at the source code wages seemed to be just flat values ranked by education level. Quite unfortunte, if true. There is a multiplier for services vs. private sector. Btw, where do you see the values? I wanted to make a mod to dislplay the value for a citizen, lol.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Form reading this thread, I get the impression that the game is quite good now: nearly everyone asks for additional features, not bugfixes.

I deleted the game many months ago. Is it time to give it another try?

Definitely. It's not quite There yet but it's definitely moving in the right directionn.

 

[safe-keeper]

Form reading this thread, I get the impression that the game is quite good now: nearly everyone asks for additional features, not bugfixes.

I deleted the game many months ago. Is it time to give it another try?

I too would say yes. I just reinstalled and it works much better now, feels more like a game than just a city painter that just plays itself.

 

[Potoroo]

Fix. The. Zoning.

Laying out a grid should be the easiest thing in the game. Instead it's the most rage-quit inducing. To add insult to injury, the grid tool is essentially useless. You can't specify the exact proportions you're building to, you can only drag and guess. Even if you get lucky and get the exact size you want when you later try to change anything the same micro-errors you're trying to avoid will appear anyway.

These errors SHOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE. 90° should always and only ever be 90°, not 89.9°!

 

[Darren3331]

Map Editor fix, think more people would upvote that bug if they realised they could have a much larger choice of available maps. Until we can change climate/seasons/wind some maps are on total hold and have been for months.

 

[SimNationJan]

This is also now my experience with the homeless problem in my latest city. I probably got lucky with the previous city, as this one has only 28k people, and 6k of them are criminals. Homeless everywhere, not moving into any cheap houses, no amount of welfare or anything is solving this problem. Police aren't patrolling, my prison is sitting there only a quarter full, while there are well over 1k sentenced criminals in the city (why aren't they in the prison?), and I'm even finding that the city ordinance is doing nothing to rehabilitiate criminals in time.

Are homeless treated automatically as criminals? Is this preventing them from integrating? I'm curious to see what's going on here and how its solved.

There is a known bug with homelessness, and CO is aware of it. Sadly they were not able to fix it in this last patch.

 

[mungi123]

Map Editor fix, think more people would upvote that bug if they realised they could have a much larger choice of available maps. Until we can change climate/seasons/wind some maps are on total hold and have been for months.

THIS!!! I don't want snow on my maps

 

[brother_korahael]

There is a known bug with homelessness, and CO is aware of it. Sadly they were not able to fix it in this last patch.

Thank you for confirming.

Happy holidays, by the way!

 

[crazy graham]

View attachment 1152926

It would be amazing if you can reconsider the Tile Upkeep cost. This is just making the game more difficult for the sense of making it more difficult. You get punished for unlocked tiles you are not gonna use yet and this makes it so expanding and building over a large area punishes you. Hopefully this is gonna be adjusted quick. It's just not a fun mechanic and ads nothing of value.

Its fine knobody wa ts it to be to easy! And if you don't want a challenge then just turn the upkeep of job done. Otherwise enjoy the challenge.

 

[Infiniterocks]

Besides the homeless issue,

Tourism and tourism map function isn't working properly, tourists are not being highlighted blue and hotels are not being built. I have over 27,000 tourist and not a single hotel or motel.

Police don't patrol the streets anymore, police cars only leave the police station when dispatched.

Emergency vehicles should drive faster and have priority when traveling with lights and siren. Bring back the requirement of having more than 1 firetruck for larger building fires, 1st game was more realistic.

Fix traffic lane changing so traffic doesn't block thru traffic. All lanes shouldn't be blocked because cars want to make a right or left turn last minute.

Potential upgrades to the game.

New cim animations: firefighters dousing flames, police arresting criminals, police chasing criminals or pursuing fleeing vehicles (who wouldn't want to see a police chase in the city?), ambulances putting cims on stretchers, hearses bagging bodies, garbage trucks emptying trash bins, people using the parks, football, baseball fields, tennis, basketball courts, swimming pools, etc.)

Park visitor stats? like the 1st game.

Bicycle transportation? No one uses bikes anymore?

New recreation: Volleyball court, indoor park/basketball gym, BBQ grills, animated firepits, and batting cages. Bicycle paths?

New high capacity above ground parking garage options for dense urban areas.

For more detailing: colored ambience/flood lights of various intensities so you can highlight buildings and bridges with different colors at night, or put red flashing lights on top or around your seaports for ship navigation, etc. Heck, even make your own red light district New brick tile surfaces (herring bone and square) in terracotta, brown, beige colors.

New Trees/Plants: Cacti, Jacaranda Trees, Cherry Blossoms, Crepe Myrtle, and Bamboo.

 

[dakdak99]

Traffic (and public transport) are high on my list. Not just the known issues like traffic making ridiculous u-turns or switching lanes at the last possible second, and pedestrians just crossing the road whenever they want (those have been mentioned plenty). I'm talking about car traffic basically vanishing when you introduce some public transport options, and being able to solve little "traffic puzzles" in my city.

I just responded to this thread on Reddit where someone showed that since they introduced (good) public transport in their city, basically no one drives any longer. I'm having the same issue with my city of about 20,000 after introducing what I considered to be a few basic bus lines and one train line to the outside.

I'm glad that my Cims appreciate the option to take the bus or walk, but I don't need nearly ALL of them to make that choice. I'm not looking to build a car-free utopia - what point are all the cool road types, intersections, and highways then?

In CS1, I loved solving traffic puzzles, where tinkering with a particularly busy road or intersection (including with TMPE) could result in traffic spreading out better. I'd really love to see that kind of thing again in CS2!

I understand why this wasn't on CO's list until now, but with the Economy 2.0 patch and the updates right after, I'm hoping that improving how traffic works in CS2 gets a place on their to-do list when they get back from vacation.