I have some things I need to say about Cities Skylines 2
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- This is not a video bashing the devs or the publishers or the game, but some things that I think need to change to make the game better. I honestly hope this helps...
Sean Murray of Hello Games @ GDC
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Flyvox's Podcast about the state of Cities 2
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*** Please keep your comments respectful, that's all I ask ***
hi biffa, my names tom I'm in secondary school, I really like your videos. I have a small to mid size city, it needs beautification and the is high tax nearly everywhere even though residential is at 0%. I would really like if you could maybe look at my city?
Coffee is better than tea
I just got the game a couple weeks ago now that performance seems a bit more optimized. Some good things about CS2 I've noticed in my short time:
-Traffic seems much more balanced. I have only had a few traffic issues to address.
-Cargo and public transport seems much more balanced, trains, lorries, busses, subways seem much more realistic and contribute to traffic.
I agree there's something 'missing' from the game but overall I've had a good time so far but worry it's going to get stale after I start my next city.
Thank you, I've been waiting for this video
You did a good job trying to stay cheerful about this game for a long time. I was already hating on it like a proper hater before it even came out!😅
You know it’s serious when Biffa doesn’t stop to take a sip of tea for 37 minutes straight.
Also, with the British politeness, getting to this level of criticism it must be bad
I thought about that every time his cup showed up 🤣
He takes it through an IV bag now.
Saw this comment before the video even started. I guess I'm in for something.
My mouth dried out just listening to him
Great commentary Biffa, spot on! I like the constructive attitude :-)
Thank you kindly X, much appreciated 👍👍
Yo Xisuma is here. That's cool. Loved the first hermitcraft season 10 episode by the way 😀
@@michadomeracki5910 Yeah, right... I think deleting unconstructive criticism of the game and himself for playing it (aka something along the lines of "Why are you playing this garbage and encouraging those shitty devs?") is rather different than "don't criticise him or you get banned"...
Hey xisuma, if cities skylines 2 has multiplayer you gotta play it with biffa and make a city together
My one request on top of everything else said so far here: For the love of Chirper, FIX THE BUILDING SCALE. How is a primary school the size of 2 factories?! Pick a scale AND STICK TO IT THROUGHOUT.
whats even worse, is that making things 'to scale' was one of the things they promised in CS2
In my experience an elementary school can absolutely be the size of a factory or machine shop
@@user-vp9lc9up6v really depends on the student count and type of factory, sure.
The really sad thing is if you look at the Steam player counts, CS1's player count collapsed upon the release of CS2 (from 32,000 players to 10,000 players), and many of those players probably moved to CS2, but CS2's numbers are now even lower than CS1 (9,000). Meaning that 11,000 people have been so burned by CS2 they've stopped playing CS1 as well.
That's me
Me
Were still here were just waiting for the new one to get fixed and for the content. I deleted the game and I won't reinstall it until its ready. Honestly I think the game needs another few years. Luckily there's plenty of fantastic games to play at the moment.
That’s me. I don’t even really watch the TH-camr shills anymore. Same scum as CAs total war
Me. I get miffed when I get let down by developers and it sours my relationship with the game (and studio) forever.
I still haven't forgotten what you did, Bethesda!! (Shakes fist)
When you asked in Discord if you should play CS1 again, I said something along the lines of
"Yes, please, because it seems that CS2 isn't much fun for you, and therefore we aren't enjoying it so much either. Whereas, in CS1 you are free... almost everything you want is there"
That is my answer to this video too. Bring back the fun, Colossal Order/Paradox. All cities look the same and I just don't feel inspired.
I still watch all the creators I have for the last few years but the only ones I actually pay attention to closely for the whole video at the CS1 creators. CPP keeps me watching for the story building he does, but the actual gameplay doesn't do much. Biffa's stuff has been about the design and layout and the fun and joy of building, but there hasn't been much of that for a bit because of, as he says, the sameness of it all. Sadly, most don't put CS1 up because it gets low views now, which is why I steadfastly support Overcharged Egg so much these days because we get both modded and vanilla. And they're varied and interesting and unique.
Still holding out hope for good CS2 someday but CS1 is where city building is these days.
Agreed. Maybe in a few years when the game is sorted out, has some expansions and mods. Until then its hard to beat the original.
I absolutely love Cities Skylines 1. I am one of the remaining players who loads it up as if it has just released.
@@iguiste23 Not few. CS1 has more players on Steam than CS2 since the end of December.
I have to agree on this one, if you want to keep the CS2 content I'm ok with that but I'd love to see some CS1 content as well. I miss the real game.
Instead of season toggle, may i suggest something on the line of "adaptive cursor color for snow conditions"? I mean instead of us having to toggle the whole seasons manually, the mouse cursor could switch to black whenever mousing over snow?
This is just UI 101, don't render a white cursor or pointer on a white background. This sort of thing has been done for decades in terminal software etc. It's even possible in CSS for websites.
What I really wanted from CS2 was for it to feel like a "Greatest Hits" version of CS1 + it's DLC mechanics, taking what worked and fleshing it out so it felt cohesive instead of like a bunch of disconnected systems. But other than the Industry DLC they barely brought anything forward.
I just read this and this was what I was trying to say. I really don't understand why they didn't just do that.
@@Mita069 because paradox is the publisher, and has probably forced CO to do it like this. It's a consistent theme across every game that paradox releases
@Mita069 and they do it cause it's easier to squeeze a lot of money out of the players*
That's what it should have been fr fr. I HATE all the counters that are like "well you can't expect 8 YeArS ofDlC tO bE iN tHe CS2 BaSe GaMe" and I can reasonably say no one who is angry or disappointed was expecting that, but what you said instead. Instead, we got hyped up marketing videos and a barely playable, bugged out husk of an unfinished game.
@@Mita069 Microsoft is partner with Paradox and CO is in a bad position now because they have two bosses telling them what to do. To make matters worst for CO they will be blamed for everything since both Paradox and Microsoft will never take responsibilities for their mistakes.
You know it’s pretty bad when biffa is nearly ready to call it quits. It’s quite sad honestly, I know we all wanted this game to be great😪
I'd honestly be fine with it if he called it quits on CS2 content. Cause you can tell he's just not having fun with it at all. With CS1 all the stuff is there for him to do legit whatever he wants with a city. Until CO decides to get their crap together then personally I'd abandon CS2. Cause they don't deserve content creators showing off a game in such a sorry state. Overcharged Egg and CPP have both put out CS1 videos recently and you can tell both of them are having more fun with it than 2
By the time the game is fixed there will be $350 worth of DLCs that we can buy to enjoy it in its "correct" state. That's what the devs are banking on anyway imo.
If the bicycles are a dlc im calling quits.
paradox fed over way too much games and its not even 350 dollars look at ANY game they own and there is over 500 dollars of dlc crap that should have been base game look at how bad they fed prison architect 1 ... and now look at the news articles in steam of prison architect 2 the fans are so angry at them that they disabled comments on them just not to have over 500 comments asking them to FIX all the issues they MADE in pa1 that are fixed by the dlc's they brought out ... i dont buy a game to be buggy i buy a game to have fun
btw PA1 whas a COMPLETED game with allmost no issues when they bought it
publishers*
presumably the same people that said "no" when the devs asked to delay the release so they could fix the simulation (since it seems like they were forced to dummy it out last minute and fake the numbers)
That's what I think too. The Workshop has been replaced by paid DLC. Someone up high in some board room told them not to have a game with too much free stuff.
ive been thinking a great feature that could be added to cs2 is a "plan" mode, a build mode option where drawing roads and placing other buildings would be "built" (planned) in a "ghost" layer; you dont pay for these roads/buildings right as you plan them, rather you can pay for them later as you progressively develop and build said "ghost" pieces. this would make forward planning much easier and consistent as you know in advance where/how you would like your cities to develop.
I imagine similar to the anno1800 one? It would help with making cities seem more modernly design
Anno 1800 has this feature and it’s fantastic. It’s become obnoxious to go back to older games in the series without it
Prison Architect also has this feature and it seems to be well received as a way for the player to be an actual planner rather than just a builder.
With Paradox being behind both games, I think they should take the opportunity to share concepts that work across game titles.
this is a legitimately fantastic idea
shut up and take my money, that sounds INCREDIBLE.
I wish the devs were more receptive instead of telling us “If you dislike the simulation, this game just might not be for you”
They have been gaslighting us which is really pissing me off
I agree. I understand it goes both ways, but I have made a genuine effort to keep up with bug reports and participate in constructive conversations about the game.
There have been a lot of overly negative comments as well as outright abusive ones, but this is the internet and that has to be expected.
You can't ignore the players who have tried to be involved and been patient otherwise the community is going to lose interest.
We understand that there's a time and money constraint to adding features and fixing bugs, we're not demanding everything all at once, just saying it would be nice to have better communication about what IS being done as well as acknowledgement of what we're talking about.
A lot of us spent extra on the premium edition with the expectation of playing this game for a long time and purchasing DLC in the future so it seems very shortsighted not to engage with the genuine fans.
If I had to guess based on industry experience, from the devs' side, they get thousands of people telling them things they already know or trying to backseat design the game. No dev team is going to actually want to hear any of that. Usually there's a community team of some kind that serves as a buffer/shield to placate people and leave the devs some space to work on the game, but occasionally you'll find teams that do more direct interaction, and that's where some harsher, more honest comments can come out due to frustration.
Just remember, game design is an art, not a democratic process. Devs are often expected to treat community feedback like some kind of holy mandate, and violating that expectation is considered rude or some kind of betrayal. But people aren't buying games because "the community" designed and built something special, they're doing it because the devs did. So let the devs create, and either play the game or don't. If it sucks, they'll know from sales and reviews, and they'll know how to fix it better than any single person whose priority is being patted on the head for their forum posts.
@@SineN0mine3 Always thought it was a bit of a cop out for them to say we're "getting toxic" and I understand but, have they wondered the root cause of it? Because they aren't addressing the problems transparently, it just feels like they're biding time.
It was so painfully predictable. In an attempt to appeal to a broader audience they alienated their long-running and most devout fans. Delivered a supposedly accessible product that the true fans quickly saw as shallow and flawed.
I get that studios need to be profitable but I can't see how folks keep convincing themselves taking advantage of their dedicated fans - or taking them for granted - is a good business move. Our vision isn't "make a game that draws more players to make you more money by cheapening systems and making gameplay more shallow."
Ours is "fix the stuff broken in CS1, make QOL improvements and expand on proven systems to make a more robust experience. Am I wrong? Seems like that's a pretty good summation of what we, the fans, expected.
This isn't that.
The game doesn't matter, you can do what ever you want will always reach the same goals. I felt this at the start I thought was going to change but now it looks like they are throwing the towel
vc aqui
what?
@@tomaka121 buttbutt mcfutt booty juice from concentrate
This is a very fair, well rounded appraisal of the state of the game and I truely hope the devs and pdx pay attention to what you have to say here. Very well said Biffa 🙌
hey everyone’s here! :)
Thankyou FC 🙏
Biffa and other creators play throughs of CS2 are the only way I can feel I'm amongst the hype and love. Because my potato of a computer couldn't even run a modest CS2 map.
I'm also having to run the game on... basically potato settings (this is probably my fault, my laptop is 5 years old and she didn't have bells and knobs on when I bought her and we're definitely getting a bottleneck on the CPU). But no matter what I do, the simulation speed is just so painfully slow.
what makes me sad and very disappointed is just being left out of the new version of a game i love because i can't afford a fancy computer. they made the conscious decision of not making me part of their target market for CS2 even though i could run CS perfectly well 🤷♀️
@@kirithornalley6123 I mean you're gonna have to buy a new computer. I had to buy a new one to play CS1 because my old one was just too old to handle it. Or if your current can handle CS1 your fine. It is a better game currently.
@@veritush I've got a pretty decent computer and it still struggles. Seems you need a pretty elite computer to run CS2 at it's full potential.
@@larag4646Depends on what you find elite level.
11:00 I think adding difficulty modes would be a great addition! It would allow causal players like me to just enjoy building without stress, and players like you who want more of a challenge to get it. Would be really fun to see you struggle to build and keep a city afloat :P (not something I personally want though)
They had that in CS1, you could play with unlimited money and everything unlocked at the start so 0 stress and can just build how you like. You don't need a difficulty level in a city builder Sim as the difficulty is normally money management and unlocking buildings, take that away and you're on easy street.
@@alixlawrence8555 yes you dont need an easy mode if you have that mod/cheat. but you need a difficulty scaling to make it harder ( maybe a 'realistic mode' which is more punishing in ways that make sense? ) it would be a nice edition
@@TeloMoviesI agree, I think sandbox or various other (custom) cheat modes are great but I don't think they do away with the need for a difficulty scale. If you want it to be a little more challenging so that you feel a pay-off, being told that you can cheat isn't going to help!
@@alixlawrence8555 Theres a difference between having it easier and focusing on building nice and getting everything for free and not having to develop the city somewhat organically
Two of the things I most wanted from CS2 were better, deeper and more noticeable simulation of urbanism themes like pedestrianism, cycling, traffic calming, safety, sense of place, etc. and a better way of handling default zoning on non-90 degree corners and curved roads. Neither are really in it. Yeah you've got the pedestrian street, limited vertical mixed use and some good transit options, but biking to me is essential for a modern well functioning city. And the zoning is basically the same. So a European city with lots of wall-to-wall streets, courtyards will still involve a lot of manual plopping and mods.
This is it for me. Always wanted to plan out a city I'd like to live in, and New Urbanism is what I model my ideal city around. In the first game it wasn't really flashed out, so I was waiting impatiently for the second game hoping it would expand on those considerably. Shame
Exactly that. There is so much empty spaces everywhere, the city I can build look nothing like what I live in. I got bored and abandoned the game.
Square zoning + boring default floor texture + no "really small road" + pedestrian roads are huge = empty green spaces everywhere in the city center. That's not realistic at all. The city center should look super dense.
Row houses are the exception, but again, curve the road just a little bit and it's all void.
@@acka.Not a native speaker myself, but I always was under the impression it was 'fleshed out'. As in adding meat to the skeleton.
@@MaximusLongus Looked it up, you're right. My brain always imagined it as shining a light on something to make it more visible. Thanks
I think it's obvious that CS2 was not ready for release and needed another six months or more in development. CS1 was doing fine, there was no pressing need to rush this out the door. Part of what exacerbates the weather issue is the development decision to ship the game with only temperate zone maps, and for me the maps are the biggest issue with CS2 right now because every map looks identical, all being the same bland colour, which is another big problem. With the absence of LUTs, CS2 just looks terribly bland. My most common comment to CO's updates though has been get the editors out. Maps and assets are a must.
It most likely needs years of additional development. A sequel should exceed the main characteristics of the original and honestly, CS2 doesn't even remotely do this. It's missing *core* features. It should have 100x more assets, modding, etc all on day 1. Take CS1 + great DLCs + 50% of the best mods and this should be the starting point of CS2. It feels like the entire goal was to push the "reset button" on the product so they re-sell DLC to us all over again.
CS2 was released because Paradox are beginning to become far less profitable, they were hoping for a boost in profits, they're losing out because their recent releases (Victoria 3, Imperator Rome etc) are not selling in numbers they thought they would and the shareholders want some dividends, Bellular News covered this 3 months ago.
I think the pressing need came from the financers wanting a return on their investment. Possibly coupled with unrealistic expectations made by an overenthusiastic devellopment team who are better at coding than project management. But that's all speculation, so I could be way off the mark here.
@@Brusselpickeryou are absolutely 💯 they tried to please the shareholders and wanted some of the holiday sales!! In the end it's all about the shareholders!!!
It has already nearly been four months since release, so six months would have done.... Zero difference, just as the existing patches have done.
The reason I still play CS1.. (almost 1500h started in 2022 ) better graphs, more mods, better gameplay (hate that point system they use now) better building (roads ect) , all around way more fun. I got hyped when they announced it. It looked amazing!! but when I saw the first vids here on you're channel... honestly felt a bit disappointed... so decided to give them some time to fix things.. I'll keep playing CS1 for now. but I have have to admit! CS2 has some great features; Deciding how big you want certain service area's is one of them. I do wish that we are sooner or later able to place/paint in a single house, and then decide how big you want the yard to be, and more important, you can add thing in the yard (swings, pool, patio's ect...) and yes @biffa that is the reason I haven't watched much of you're CS2 vids. (hope you don't block me now :p) look at it this way. when the game gets better, I have something to binge-watch on TH-cam :D and thx for you're insight!
Thanks Biffa, this video was definitely needed. For me the biggest one is the limited creativity and lack of the steam workshop. "Jarring" is an understatement, "traversty" comes closer. It's just no fun to play yet having such limited assets!
I agree, releasing a game with limited features is understandable because they have rebuilt so many systems and really made them ready for a new generation of simulation behaviour. But releasing that limited feature set without a supported option to mod the game was a big mistake. Modders are looking into the game and how to make it better just as CO is. Making life easier for them should be their top priority because the modders make life easier for their players. The core of the game should be good, clean code and working systems. The community can work on all the outer layers. A single dev studio can never match the development capacity of a large and enthusiastic community. I would consider creating maps and maybe even other mods myself. But if they lose that, it will be very hard to come back.
It's TRAVESTY, brother, not "traversty."
Biffa you are the expert. It stings and hurts to hear you unhappy with a game. H
You are is the reason I got CS1 and i still enjoy the game. So, its hurts to hear you upset with this game. But i will wait for you to tell me its ready!
Give us control over traffic lights. This was such an easy addition they could have implemented. For example, we could have dedicated left turn lights.
The lack of asymmetric roads is still crazy considering how much they did add. I don't know a single city that doesn't have multiple turn pockets.
That fixes one tiny problem. What about the land value bug? What about the fact you can operate a city without any services just by letting your neighbors handle them for you? The simulation is fundamentally broken.
TL control is essential to handle the traffic flow which is a large part of the tanking.
There has been a TL control mod around for a while, which I used from it's first release, and I found that after I setup all my junctions, within a couple of minutes my pop cap raised by an extra 30K.
What I mean by that is that my pop was capping around 130K where the game performance would tank and my traffic was gridlocking all over the place.
After I added the mod and set it up, my game performance was instantly better (after around a minute), and my pop started steadily rising to my new cap off around 160K where the performance would tank again.
I also used an early mod that changed the pedestrian pathfinding forcing them to use walkways/underpasses no matter how badly they were built or how far the entrance was from the junction, and that mod raised my pop cap by a further 25K to 30K, because the peds were no longer pouring across junctions holding up traffic everywhere. And that mod worked better than CO's later ped pathfinding fix lol
After the CO ped pathfinding fix I turned off the mod to see what happens, and while most of the peds used walkways/underpasses there were still a lot of suicidal peds jaywalking, but when I turned the mod back on, zero peds crossed on the surface, they all used the walkways/underpasses.
TL;DR we definitely need TL control, and we desperately need code modding so the modders can make huge improvements to game play CS2 desperately needs.
TMPE would do the job but they don't want people to mod because they prefer to release paid DLCs with "extra content". Expect a "new Traffic Lights DLC that has a unique feature to change road signs and customize traffic lights! Only 19,99 € in Steam.|
For me no dedicated left turn got me to stop playing. I don't want to turn every intersection into a giant interstate construction when the city grows
When I place assets like parks and such, I don't see anyone physically interacting with it. In CS1, you could see the dogs in the dog park or people milling around in plazas. Maybe it's a setting (hopefully)? Otherwise that's a huge oversight
Man this video resonated with me. 100% agreed with all points and have really been struggling to love the game the way I want to because without all the information of how certain aspects of the city are being affected and why it just feels shallow and like it isn’t even there. I remember when I first launched cities 2 I was really anticipating a depth of gameplay that was promised in trailers and I looked around everywhere for the information showing that depth but it wasn’t there. I’ve been trying to lean on making my cities pretty but as you said the 18 trees, lack of rocks and the empty hole of props makes it such a challenge… but not the fun kind 😢
Something upsetting to me that Biffa touched on briefly in the video is that CO must have known there were serious issues with the game during development and it feels like they used the amazing content creators from CS1 to pump up a game they didn't have confidence in and now that the game is out they've abandoned those same creators.
This. This is exactly the point.
Of course they did. Cause they got them to hype the game up and then once they got their money from people and everybody realized how crappy the game is they thought that the content creators would take some of the blame off of CO cause well they hyped the game up too. I've seem it happen before. It's what scummy developers do. Not only that but release a game in the sorry state that it's in and then give barely any apology for it. Don't forget too that the one person said "well if you don't like the game then it's just not for you" and expected people to be fine with that. That's the kind of people we're dealing with. They didn't apologize cause they were sorry. They apologized cause people called them out for it
Yeah, remember all those release videos when the game looked amazing? Then they give you this!
@@darknesswave100I'm surprised they refunded console players tbh. I'm glad I got mine
That has bothered me too. It was really shifty to use people like Biffa and City Planner, and several others, to do that. In hindsight, I can see why there were restrictions on how far into the game they could get and how long the videos could be. I don't really blame the content creators for hyping the game because it seems like they were being misled as well.
I've got less than 20 hours in cities 2 and even though I've barely touched it since its launch I still have it installed because I still have some tiny shred of hope that CO can still turn this around and fulfill the promises they made. I just hope the fan trust hasn't been completely burned to the ground cause I want to see this game flourish.
Sorry but it probably will never be fixed to the level of if they just waited longer to fully cook it. This is the sad state of the gaming industry right now.
yeah in like 2 more years, sadly
I’m with you brother, I’ve set my alarm clock for next year
@@WarbandGames YOu're right it probably will never reach the desired level,but that's because CO is so small that this time around I don't think they are up to what they tried to do.
Same here. I've shelved it and can only hope by the fall of 2024 it's where it should've been at launch.
Thank You for being Honest about this Biffa I agree there have been a lot of bugs in this Game I can only imagine the Console versions when they eventually release!
I just think the game looks 💩 right now and I’m glad I held off on buying it.
Pity he wasn't honest before release when he was shilling for CO pretty badly.
@@LilyMoonWitch Biffa is terrible. Not only for being a liar, but also just a bad person. Money grabber, basically.
You guys realize that he was just as mislead as us right? Sure he did get to play the game but a relatively short and limited playtest is more often than not very different from a comprehensive analysis you can get after release.
Another fix for seasons mouse visibility could be a contrasting mouse color, as white winter approaches, the mouse can change to dark grey or have a dark outline around it.
I would certainly not complain if you started a new CS1 city, if you were interested. I love watching you, and I honestly REALLY commend you for trying do hard to be positive throughout this. As a single player, yes it stinks... but I can just turn it off whenever I want and play something else or (shudders) outside. Content creators are getting hit the hardest, and I LOVE watching you.
I'm not sure if Biffa has any kind of agreement with CO to be on CS2 for a while and help keep people interested, but I’m with you on wanting more of CS1 as it was once Kettlebridge is maxed out
Overcharged Egg is still putting out CS1 content and he's doing fine. If I was Biffa or any other content creator I'd do the same. Cause at least CS1 is playable and not a complete mess
I have no agreement, I choose what I play and record 👍
I pre-ordered CS:II and I downloaded it to my new pc. Since then, I've been watching the weekly email updates and comments from users testing the waters. Thank you for this candid, detailed update, Biffa.
You mean "C:SII". It is Cities: Skylines, not Cities Skylines:
I've thought, recently, about you and other full-time C:S content creators and how difficult, probably even scary, this whole situation must be. Had C:S2 launched as promised, your job, I assume, would probably have simply moved along as normal. But the way it is, with the state of the game and the player drop-off, I can only imagine how difficult the decisions that you all have had to make have been. I feel for you. I honestly do. I have no interest in many of the other games that some of you are turning to. But, despite that, I'll watch the content, and "Like" the content, simply to help support you all. Thank you, Biffa, for your positive spirit. It's always so evident in your videos. Good luck to you, and to all the full-time C:S content creators.
You've hit the nail on the head. It's not just the huge disappointment that CS2 wasn't a huge hit and we didn't all gain millions of subscribers (nice but not my aims on YT anyway) ... it's the fact that a lot of us felt like the rugs been pulled from under us suddenly and now we're trying to find a way through to keep our business running to pay the bills. I'm doing ok, but others haven't been. Thanks for the kind words and the support 🙏
its crazy to me that they got all the content creators to hype up the game, to just do what you described. I really thought things would be different with these developers. When broken games are coming out i was fully expecting this team to really shine and show other developers how to make a game, but seems like they have scooped to their level. @@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines
@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines I mean you definitely assume that risk when you rely on a video game someone else makes for your income. Pulling the rug out is a bit extreme, it's not like anyone is owed being able to make a living off making video game content. It's not really a real career (evidenced by situations like this) and anyone that gets to do it is simply lucky and should enjoy it while it lasts.
It's a career if you treat it like a business and I'm still going 😉
Well said, Biffa. I feel you hit the key item around 24 minutes when you quoted from CS2's marketing materials. It is not that the game didn't meet our expectations, it was that the game did not meet the expectations that were set by CO/PDX themselves. Plus your bigger picture you kept touching on, that the game simply does NOT communicate what is happening or why, is such an oversight for CS2. While I have had moments of fun with the game, it is mostly just frustrating and disappointing. I struggle to keep my own video series on it going when I am not enjoying it, at all. That kinda breaks my heart because I am a city builder nerd going all the way back to SimCity's DOS release.
Takes me back to one of the dev streams where they changed the city money value gain and loss to a green or red arrow and thought it was an improvement. And then didn't think some players wanted values and a way to choose to see them. ( I think you could mouse hover and see it but only then.) I don't feel justified to have held off buying a dumbed down, console-leaning game but instead I feel sad for what might have been if they'd even seemed to listen to what the big CS1 streamers were telling them was must-have in CS2. And those people don't play on consoles.
CS1 was absorbing, every week there was something new on the workshop to discover, so far I've played 4498.8 hours. Created my own assets and enjoyed learning the tips from Biffa, Overcharged Egg etc. With CSII it doesn't matter which map you choose, expansion, infrastructure etc are all the same. Outcomes are inevitable in the same way as Sim City 3000. One of my biggest head scratching discoveries has been that oil can't be exported by sea or even rail... and what's with all of the taxi's clogging the roads?
Brave words Biffa, I hope they take your input & energy onboard mate.
I hardly ever write comments, but I felt like I should this time. I don't remember since when I have been watching your videos, but you have been with me since I was at least in middle school (I'm now 24, so maybe 10 years; god, time flies). I struggle with insomnia and have a hard time staying focused without something playing in the background. Your videos have been and still are like medicine for me, always there when I need to clear my mind or stay focused while studying for exams. There isn't any other channel that does this for me. The funniest part is that, throughout all my academic years (5 by now), I play your videos when I need to fall asleep and it works like a charm - besides medicine, this is the only thing that works. You have been an amazing creator and you seem like an amazing person with a big heart.
It's difficult to hear about the game that I loved because of you, but your comments are valid - CS2 is an unplayable game, sadly... it breaks my heart. As a soon-to-be fellow game creator, it's devastating how CS2 was a waste for so many players and fans. I hope Paradox will do something about this situation, even if we will have to wait for a year or two.
I hope you, Biffa, as a person so dear to my heart, will find something new and exciting to play. I'm a little biased, because I need your videos to fall asleep... But from the bottom of my heart, I wish you everything best and truly hope that there will be a time when CS2 will give you as much pleasure as CS1 did.
I apologize for any errors in my comment - English isn't my first language.
Me too :)😵
6:52 Production chains was the one i was really looking forward to. Management of multiple logistical networks and warehouses, slowly expanding into massive supply chains operating in just about every sector within the city.
Same. Instead it feels like a giant step back from the Industries DLC. I tried to get into the new logistics management layers, but it just seems like there are buildings and layers of control completely missing.
At the end it would be just too much for them to handle. Maybe all the functions is just a too big task for a studio like CO. I mean that in a respectful way.
Biffa cut the comments made about the simulation. You clearly don't align with their CEO "If you dislike the simulation, this game just might not be for you.".
I didn't cut any comments about the simulation... not sure what you mean? Delete comment about the sim? Nope. I don't know
Here's my list of grievances with the game.
People movement is just not something the devs considered, Public transport is a joke
Detailing your city requires the use of devmode. It includes some functionality that I consider fundamental, like drawing surfaces and placing props, and the response by the "spokesperson" (i. e. the discord mod) was "we have no intention of making it available, but mods can easily do it now."
Which brings me to the next point: making a mod-friendly game is great and all, but when you make a game that is explicitly mod-reliant, that's just bad. especially when mods aren't officially supported yet and mentioning ways of installing mods easily without the non-existent official mod platform you get banned or muted.
Then there's the utter lack of variety in assets. Overall, it just feels like what they want you to build is American sprawl.
It doesn't feel like a city builder, it feels like an economy simulator, and not even a good one.
The city doesn't feel alive. Cims feel like mindless drones, they go to work/school, then go shopping, then go home, rinse and repeat. Even the city services don't really show what they're doing anymore. I want the cims to actually look like they're doing stuff, meet with people, tourists taking photos at landmarks, things that make the city feel alive.
There's no communication. When people ask for bikes, all we get is "they're coming", but when? When will custom parks arrive? Devmode has a park drawing tool thats non-functional. When does pdxmods arrive? all we know is that it keeps getting pushed back. There's thousands of suggestions in the discord, but we haven't heard anything regarding any of these for months.
The two maps they added recently were so unrefined, they look like what happened in the old game when you just imported a bad height map and left it as is. for something official, I'd expect at least some effort, even if it's free.
Landscaping still is a buggy mess leaving weird water artifacts everywhere, usually barely clipping through the terrain for no apparent reason, an just yesterday, I tried to terraform and it created a water source out of nowhere that flooded everything.
Zoning behaves quite strange, tiles appear, disappear, even when not doing anything directly to that area, trying to manipulate zoning to fit your vision doesnt work half the time.
You need mods to make networks look like you want them to, there's no way in the game to for example turn a road into a Quay road for either detailing or because it kinda has to, since even on water edges, sometimes it just doesn't. Building along the water is a pain.
Overall, the game is just stale and lacks creative freedom. it feels like for every map, there is an expected city design that if you do not follow it, things just won't work.
There's a few more minor things, for example the lack of residential/office mixed use but that's not really a dealbreaker, just strange that it's missing.
i've been going back to simcity 4, and that game REALLY makes profit and expenditure a very important thing that you CONSTANTLY have to worry about, including tax, policies, and budgets for everything.
Yeah whenever discussion about economy comes up in the C:S community I always point to SimCity4. Think about the possibilities with similar economy management in SC4 mixed with the intricate systems already supposedly present in C:S2.
A lot of people who play cities skylines aren't in it for the arcadey management or challenge that SC4 offers but that's fine. Just give the players the option to play for fun or for challenge
Yep. SimCity 4 could be hard, at least if you weren't a little sweatlord. Idk about CSL:2 but CSL:1 really never presented me any budgeting concerns, the bank balance was just a number that kept going up and maybe stopped me from building an entire city within the first 3 minutes which I wasn't trying to do in the first place and is gated by milestones anyway.
@@Person01234 For me there always comes a point where I run relatively high taxes to support lots of services and an extensive public transportation network, and my city is still growing and making money, but the game just devolves into going around destroying abandoned buildings and waiting for all my zones to fill up
Plus the music was spot on. The side missions were great too a life saver sometimes. Although they were janky by todays standards I would happily welcome them to this game considering its janky launch just to get me playing it again. Feel like I have to wait for a year to see what happens.
CS2:773hours - I love the potential of this game. Straight out of the box I didnt really have any issue - but unfortunately now after building 3 x 100k+ cities, its just gotten stale. I got the game on pre-launch. Now I will probably take a break for 3-6 months until some major updates come on. Thank you Biffa for your content and putting together most of the things that really frustrate us about the game as it is. I hope they hear you!!
Are you considering playing more on CS one now, or do you feel like that ship has sailed with the new components promised in CS two?
Is it now playable with 100k cities?
I have a half decent PC so the game doesnt slow down too badly for me@@Chaos_Dave98
I struggle to play CS1 now. Because the road building is just so good in CS2. No.2 just needs some work. Think that CS1 has 8-10 years of work, DLCs and assets/mods.... give 2 a year or 2 and let them drop a game changing DLC like Green Cities or Industries and it will be GREAT!@@KC-mw3rp
This mirrors my experience exactly. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
IMO, I think that there is too much in the base game, and none of it works properly. We didn't need disasters, seasons and industries that have no impact. We needed a balanced city builder where things mattered and we can actually place a rock...
Imagine having a city of over 100,000 people and not a single one rides a bike 😂
CO: oh well, we can make the gamers pay for that later
@EATHinNZ or be like that one person who decided to be an ass and say "well if you don't like the game then it just isn't for you" and only apologized cause they got backlash for it. They weren't sorry they said it. They're sorry cause everybody called them out on it
Absolutely not, it already exist, they needed to make the game evolve and innovate, seasons were a nice thing, industries too, the problem is much more the lack of skill of the devs and the too small team working on the project.
I can appreciate what you're saying here, but every time I see a sequel that cuts back some of what DLC added to the previous game there's tons of complaints about it. Paradox in particular gets a lot of this. I don't think it's necessarily fair (especially when you're considering games that got years and years of DLC and patching), but it is what it is.
I think you need and deserved to have all of those things (working obviously) for the price they ask for the game. You are basically saying "I want to pay more for less". I don't understand how people can stomach losing so much content that we had in CS1. Do you all happily pay for DLCs? I just can't do it.
The dam has certainly broken on a number of creators, four months on, talking about the real problems in the game and the process overall.
What finally lost me on playing this for quite awhile was a different creator talking about taking a city of 100k, removing all public transportation, and it had zero effect on the traffic in the city.
It's just not working.
My favourite was when a content creator cut off all access into the city with a population of 2000 and yet people were still moving in.
@@Brusselpicker Was that one of RCE's videos?
@@pbsquilz It was yes
Just to add, that this was the final straw for me.
are you talking about imperatur?
Cities Skylines 2 is the perfect example of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
Buffa, I have never commented before but have been a long standing viewer of your channel. As a software dev myself I appreciate the generosity you showed the team at CO. The devs will be under the pump. I also am bitterly disappointed in the game. I will keep following you to see when the game might be playable again. I have always enjoyed your work and your happy banter. This was obviously hard for you to do and you didn’t even have a sip of tea during it. I hope to keep watching your content for years to come.
I also am a software developer and fully agree with you. I think from experience we have higher tolerance for this kind of situation, but my limit is also near. I really hope this good, unfinished foundation of a game develops until end of the year
I have noticed your disappointed probably because I feel much the same. I have reloaded CS1 with all my DLC and I am only just popping back to cs2 on updates to see if it's improved. I won't ever be buying a new release before launch again.
Appreciate you saying this Biffa! The community needs the people with the platforms (like yourself) to speak up because our complaints are falling on deaf ears. I raise my cuppa to you, sir!
My constructive criticism:
- Unlink low, medium and high density to type of citizen. Just like in SimCity 4, low, medium and high can be poor, middle or rich.
- Radio annoucements have to be linked to variables of the city no random.
- Chirpers should have colour when they are important, like lack of water.
To your first point, that's just like in real life!
Simcity 4 really is the blueprint, that the sims 2 and the sims 3 were the last good games ea released unfortunately.
Also another thing. A tool i used in cities one every time. The Paths tool in cities one showing you where stuff is going that takes this piece of road or goes through this district. WHERE IS THAT ? i dont want to click on every single agents destination. less features is always a great idea.
Exactly! One of my most used tools when fixing traffic or planning effective and efficient public transport.
Because transports does not matter. The vehicle can just randomly despawn in a free and open roundabout and the goods just teleport to their destination.
@@Merecir Exactly, which means traffic jams don't matter at all, you can just let them pile up and they resolve with no negative effects. Which makes road planning or design have zero effect and makes no difference. Which mean every other part of the layout of your city just does not matter. At all. Perfect city vs. haphazard wreck of a city = same exact city in CS2. Both will keep on growing at same rate and make tons of money....again making the budget not matter at all. Sheesh....
One of the things I can think of is the "dynamic pathfinding" where they weren't able to find a way to illustrate it properly. But yeah I agree, what's the point if there is traffic, then said traffic just... Vanishes?
cs2 without trafic manager as a part of the game is INSANE to me, after all those years of cs1 gameplay shown game is handicapped without it..
I was waiting for logistical challenges and using trains, but when I played last time cargo stations didn't worked logically... I mean there was no inner city usage for train stations. That was one of the biggest reasons what killed my interest in this game.
Also when CO talking about how toxic is community, I would remind that making unfinished game and game in such poor state on lunch is same toxicity from developers. At least it signals of some level of disrespect.
And some degree of dishonesty too. The previews they showed had none of the issues that are instantly apparent when playing, and a lot of promised features are non-existent.
I agree with the last paragraph. Two wrongs don't make a right, but neither have the right to complaint (about the toxicity), especially for the one who started it. Just suck it up and find a way to fix the game. Calling them out is just putting fuel in the fire. As Biffa said, do more, less talk.
Good point. Although I don't like to make directly toxic comments myself, CO should actually be glad that there is some level of toxicity, because it means that people still care enough to have strong feelings about wanting the game to work. They should be more worried about the moment that the toxicity is replaced by the deafening silence of a failed game, with nobody still around who believes in the game's ability to be bounce back. I fear that moment is coming fast, unless they listen to advice like what Biffa is offering in this video.
yeah. i mean, i sympathise w the devs-gamers can be really awful. pick literally any game, and go and read the Steam discussion forums for it. the experience will prob make you want to shoot yourself in the face. but you have to know that's what you're dealing with-and as Biffa says, you have to be able to sort the "lol this game sucks" clown point farmers from the genuinely disappointed/aggrieved customers who really wanted the game to be what it promised to be.
Looking forward to content creators returning to CS1
Overcharged Egg hasn't stopped his CS1 content!
Honestly they all should pretty much say they aren't gonna return to CS2 until the game is actually playable and works like it's supposed to. The game shouldn't get the attention until colossal order earns it and they haven't yet
@@darknesswave100 It's not like they have a choice until paradox mods comes out.
Because we had several years of amazing and free mods to fall in love with Cities 1, that there was no incentive to play 2 until it was out for a couple years and all the bugs were fixed and mods began.
Parking garage costs more per month than a health clinic, make it make sense.
Cleaning fees for needles and poop lol
Thats a great example of how nothing in CS2 makes sense. It is like whichever individual developer made an asset or system, they never coordinated anything with anyone else on the team. So there is zero balance in how it functions at all.
The lack of modding in CS2 is nothing short of shocking. For such an incredible game that built its name on mods to release a sequel like this really beggars belief.
It feels like all of the focus was on road building tools and super duper graphics. What a shame.
Let's hope they can sort it out before the community moves on to something else.
I'm waiting on modding. I want to recreate my hometown but I can't do that without modding api opened up to modders.
I am not sure they focused on the graphics. They haven't implemented DLSS yet, but it is in the game because there is a mod to activate it and developer mode mentions it as well.
It seems to me that it's not there because the game was released unfinished. In the "Aight, deadline's now, kick it out the door. What, it's missing half the things we need to ship? It doesn't work? Don't care, marketing says we gotta release no, go." way that seems to happen way too often. Is there a minimum viable product here? Yeah. But it's not done.
the graphics are not even good. shadows are utterly 2005 shitty.
id like the blame Paradox, and they are of course the reason, however it's impossible to not blame CO as well because they constantly say they agree with Pdx and they choose to stay under them. I dont think CO has a great Ceo and not a great lead either.
I also think cities skylines success went a bit to their head, it wasn't a good game, there was just no decent alternative.@@manoflead643
Thank you Biffa, you pinpointed exactly what I'm experiencing as well. There is not enough to create nice cities and there is no challenge at all. All the joy we had in CS1 has been taken out of the game. I hope they fix it soon, otherwise it will end up like Simcity4
The snow can be solved by adding different snow textures for the terrain like dirty snow and partial coverage with areas having grass and dirt patches. They can look at RTS snow levels to get an idea on how to go about that. Using a filter with a cloud pattern as a map overlay to create lighter and darker patches to break up the terrain with the illusion of thinner and/or deeper snow drifts would also greatly alleviate the eye strain.
The game runs at 20 fps (completely blank map) on my 4070 Super with a Ryzen 7 5800X. It’s still absolutely woefully optimised. My PC runs original Cities at over 100 fps and any current AAA game at 4k 80-100 fps.
My old R5 3600 runs it great on 4070 super ti ? I maybe on 1440 though
@paulgriffiths8488 did you put fps counter?
I get 60 fps with my 1080 lol
@@RambleyShibayou really don’t tech reviewers show it can’t achieve 30fps at 1080p.
@claimediraq9715 I really do. I'm not defending the game. It kinda sucks sadly but I'm very confident on what my frames are.
+1 to all that's been said, and to me the main thing is that the game is simply boring: my actions have no effect after some point, I feel no challenge. No need to fix traffic, no need to earn money, almost no need to manage industries or production chain, etc.
I've gone back to CS1. When my CS2 city reached a population of 170K, it literally ground to a halt. It maxed out my CPU to the point where my PC became an expensive space heater.
Seen the Linus Tech Tips Vid?
It will take and use 64 cores.
I have as well. Was back on CS1 yesterday actually. It was much more fun. I think city skylines 1 needed like a 2.0 update of the same game. I don't know better graphics and more citizen units expanded map but the same city skylines 1 just like a big update. Why they went for a whole new game and start from square one and rip out everything that we were used to and the thousands of things that were made for it. It just makes no sense. I'll try CS2 again after a few more updates. CS1 all the way for me right now.
I stuck with CS 1 until last weekend when my frame-rate dropped to barely 20fps, It used to be 40-45 but I'm wondering if the lack of support for CS1 has given it a steep creep towards obsolescence as I'm using steam on linux. Other games haven't deteriorated like CS1. Well, good luck. I'm missing my city a lot already.
TPME, network extension mods (whichever type you choose to use, not just NE2) and Move It are 1000% essential to play the game. Why none of this was included in the base CS2 game is beyond me.
Assets and mods should have been priority 1 since they hyped it so hard before launch. CS:2 launched about 18 months early in my opinion. There are so many promised features that are still not in the game, features that shouldn't be done via paid DLC, but are essential to gameplay.
CS:2's launch and subsequent patches were underwhelming at best, as they really didn't appear to try fixing the biggest things. I still play it here and there, but it's still installed, hoping that it gets fixed and becomes bigger than it's predecessor.
so true, if the majority of the player base of cs1 download a mod to play the game - include it in the cs2 as part of the base game! it blows my mind they they didn't mine CS1 mods for all the awesomeness
They kinda did have Move It, since you can move buildings (for money, as it should) and you can also "adjust" roads (although it isn't very intuitive). And they also kinda had TM:PE and others. It's just most of them feel like pared down knock offs.
For me, there are more essential mods:
Find It 2, Network Anarchy, Prop Line Tool, Forest Brush Revisited, RICO Revisited, Node Controller, Intersection Marking Tool, Prop Control, Tree Control, BOB, Customize It Extended.
I use these basically every time I play CS1.
And of course my trusted 13000 workshop assets (although to be fair I probably use only 3000, the rest came in "packs" or just subscribed out of greed)
They should add "random events"!
Kind of like in Crusader Kings, something like that.
Giving you something to react too.
Imagine a child of Cities and RimWorld!!
_DREAM GAME!_
Biffa, I applaud your tenacity and communication and constant reaffirmation of your objective for CS2 to be the best builder ever. This sort of video is no fun to make, especially for someone so obviously positively oriented. Very nicely done. Hopefully the folks at CO and Paradox receive it in the spirit it is intended.
Thankyou. Yes it was a tough decision to make the video and I do hope it's received as intended and makes a difference 👍
Its so bad, I dont watch CS2 content from any content creators anymore. I'm going back to watch CS1 playthroughs now.
i have been doing that to i started to watch old Biffa videos and watching him create some great stuff with great memories .....
Me too
@@donrebel1340it really seems like he had so much more fun with CS1 than he is right now in 2
I really miss the feature where you can click on a part of your streets and you can see where most traffic flows. Where they want to go and so on. Often I’m clicking on random people and look where there destination is. And again and again…
I think there's something worse happening with Cities2 and KSP2, where they focused too hard on integrating mods pre-release and scrambling to make a game that was on par with where the first game was 8 years after release, where they should have focused on having a better core of a game to build off of. They should have focused on making the core game more modular and easily modded and optimized to make it easier to add stuff later.
Civilization has a pretty solid game development model, where the first release is actually pretty underwhelming, BUT it's a solid core game ripe for mods and expansions. And after a few mods and the 2nd or 3rd expansion is where the game gets really good.
Cities Skylines was a pretty decent and simple core game, but what made all of us play it consistently for YEARS on end was the mods. And the reason the mods made it more playable was because the core game was already a solid foundation.
When the Game released I really tried to love it, it stopped for me when I seen more and more how things were falling apart. People standing outside at Night, People getting arrested but not moved to Jail are just some examples. But still then I was like they gonna for sure fix that, with the first few patches. It ended for me when the first "major patch" still didn't fix anything. For me it is a City painter, and I wanted a City "Simulator" like in CS1 where at least some Simulation was going on. I loved to watch Hurses, Fire Engines, Cops and so on driving up having a small Animation. So far the patch that would make me come back isn't there, and I fear more and more it will never come. I'm really disappointed and now knowing that they don't even have a bug list, just fixing stuff as they move along, relating on upvotes and luck really makes me think then some stuff will never be fixed. I hope for the big miracle but don't believe in it anymore.
Yah know it’s bad when *Starfield* a Bugthesda game has had a more consistent flow of bug fixes and performance improvements. 😂
Releasing the game early to get more digits on a balance sheet, meanwhile tanking the goodwill built up over years and annoying the people that promote the game every day on TH-cam.
Constructive suggestions:
1. It could look much better. When you zoom in the building textures are gorgeous, but when you zoom out it all looks very grey, overcast, washed-out. It doesn't look alive or excited to manage from the sky. All just grey and dark green. Every part of the city looks the same.
2. It's not entirely clear how anything works or what's happening in my city. I don't see or feel any noticeable difference by placing a school, police station, etc. I don't know what's making money and what's not. I don't see how my actions are going to meaningfully level up or change my city. I really love the idea of the industry chain but I just don't see it at work in my city, if that makes sense?
3. I absolutely could. not. be. arsed. applying trees to every single damned road. The idea of a modular road decoration system is excellent, but also build in pre-designed roads, e.g. tree-lined roads.
4. More props! Anno 1800 is brilliant example of this done well. CS2 has like 3 trees and they don't look terribly dissimilar. I'd really like to be able to create defined spaces with walls, fences, and hedges. Create different feelings in different areas with different types and strengths of streetlights. Every road and area looks the same!
5. Except for the (excellent) road tools, this game has no "wow" feature the way the water physics blew my mind the first time I played CS1. Some ideas could have been a first-person camera, or a map overlay, or zoneable cemeteries - something interesting!
6. The game just feels empty. No district building styles. Quays. Building variations for schools, etc. No church or religious buildings.
I really really want CS2 to be a success, but the game as it stands is empty, ugly, and has no meaning or purpose. I don't know if it even qualifies as a game.
If CO was still a young company things would be different, but when they've made excellent city-builders before and made *tonnes* of money from CS1, it's really hard to forgive this launch. It'll probably be 2-3 years before there's enough content and adjustments to this game for it to be fun, but I paid for the higher tier pre-order and I *really* don't want to pay more just to the basic content this game should have had at launch.
Cinematic Standby mode would be so cool. Just let your city run while watching a movie and get some random viewing angles of your city, even if its from far away, its still appealing.
Love this. I found myself following a helicopter in camera mode at night admiring the views. Would be cool to see a feature like this to get close ups in the city too.
Isn’t it all so tiring though? It seems to happen to everything from gaming to tv, things you love seem to be destroyed and it doesn’t make sense. You had a perfect blueprint to build on and make better, how on earth do you go backwards?
About the economy in the game. Add an option when starting on a new map what difficulty you want the economy to be. So that all people new and veterans can enjoy the economy side of the game.
Still not bought the game, Nothing i've seen as of yet is making me say I need this when I already have CS1. Maybe if they do a 50% sale (unlikely) then I will consider getting it.
i agree cs1 is good cos of mods cs2 barely a beta game
Games are nearly always at least 50% off when they're finished. I got Cyberpunk 2077 for 75% off when all the bugs were fixed and lots of new features were added 2.5 years later. I always wait about 2 years before I buy a game and it's very rare for a game to be full price.
@MarkLikesCoffee860 what I meant is at its current stage. If they add what they said they would add like biffa pointed out and refine the game to actually make it feel like a finished game and not a beta I'd consider buying it at the full price but since I got cs1 and mods there isn't much point at the moment
To be honest, even at 50% off its not worth it. Almost everything in CS1 is far superior
My city in CS2 is almost at 300,000 and ive encountered so many game breaking bugs that just forced me to put it down for a month at the time waiting for patches, and then when it does work the simulation just sucks. Also the messaging from the Devs is absolutely condemnable.
Wish we could have more control over zoning. Like specify where warehousing is. Where different types of industries can build or not to build. Be able to decide if a gas station or a restaurant or a grocery stores in to a certain location with out having to play whack a mole. We can control housing pretty good with making different sized lots and with different densities. And Yes I miss the Traffic manager soooo much. I also have been playing CS1 and CS2 from close to the beginning. I am not a youtuber but I do try all these challenges they put out just to not be bored with the game. Also would be nice if the mayor would receive requests from citizens/business on where they would like to have a certain business built. So then the mayor can make citizens happier.
I think my biggest issue is that most of the simulations don’t seem to affect each other. That’s an issue for me.
When I had air pollution blowing onto residential, my first instinct was to landscape between them so the wind direction would go around the landscaping and the residential would be sheltered.
Nope.
Wind direction ignores any change in landscaping. Oh well.
And it’s the same over and over. Each system seems to exist independently and can only be interacted with independently.
Which makes the game feel small. And not interconnected.
yeah i remember planting trees and stuff to reduce noise pollution. in CS2 it doesnt work xd
building parks in CS2 just to see your people staking up at the feet of their buildings is wild lol it's like we build cities for them not to even be *lived* by our citizens
People should understand that Colosal is a company, not a charity or enthusiast club, they don't care about your happiness, their main goal is to make money and as such they released an empty shell of a game that doesn't even feature bicycles in order to milk it for the next 10 plus years through thousands of DLC's, which purely coincidentally also matches with the lack of mods that totally and entirely isn't meant to push us to buy more DLC's to not have such an empty game. The development rushing, bugs, transport having zero effect on traffic,etc. is just the icing on the cake.
My biggest disappointment was expecting to be able to use "Strong Towns" principles to build a profitable dense city that wasn't car-centric. But instead we got a "fix traffic with more lanes" broken thinking and cities that refuse to exist without suburbs. Public transit should have an affect on traffic but it doesn't seem to matter at all.
Makes it realistic 🤣
In my country, millions, probably billions was spent on bike lanes to be used only by wolt/bolt couriers and a few leisure bike enthusiasts in summer
@@UtamagUtaand yet some countries manage to pull it off... Maybe the problem is deeper than just building bike lanes :)
What surprises me the most is that the game is made by a studio based in Finland, yet both CS1 and CS2 strikes me as games made by the American Federal Highway Administration consdering how car-centric they are.
@@DanVibesTVyeah, we like cars (EU, btw, not some american country). Public transport is not popular either
@@DanVibesTV there is no problem, people just prefer to drive a car when they have a choice
2. and what countries pull it off? even in your beloved Netherlands that has Amsterdam a lot of people use cars,
3. and in real life you cant just spawn a brand new city from 0 by just building skyscrapers because that just doesnt work (china tried, and even they failed)
so ofc in cs2 you will also have to start with suburbs because thats what people want, higher density and shoe box apartments get build later when the land gets expensive and the people cant afford a house in the suburbs anymore
I can’t stop thinking-this could’ve been a MAGNIFICENT Early Access. And paid! I would’ve paid the same amount I did for the regular game even. There are so many great examples of paid early access-Timberborn, Satisfactory to name a few. Vibrant and growing communities. The games are making money, there’s no anger and frustration. This could’ve been such a great move. Too bad it’s late for that.
It’s baffling that they didn’t go that route. I truly don’t understand why?
The only problem that I see with your comment is that you think there's "no anger or frustration" in Early Access games! There are a LOT of people who REALLY complain about games in Early Access, ESPECIALLY when they paid for it!
If you don't believe me, just go look at 7 Days to Die! Though that game has been in Early Access for more than 10 years I believe, plenty long enough to have made pretty good game.
@@jpettersson84 my guess is as good as yours. I am afraid it was publisher pressure, “getting the game on the monetization track”.
What I love about this video is that it doesn’t have your over-hyped forced delivery of your usual videos. You just sound like a normal person and not the (quite annoying) character of your usual TH-cam persona. Please, more like this please.
🤣
As someone quite late to the CS series I absolutely loved CS:1, so much so I bought nearly all the DLCs in a one year period and racked up hours and hours of gameplay. What I loved about it is how organically, without even having a plan, sometimes cities would come out different… little pockets would really stand out and it felt deeply egaging. I could imagine what it would feel like as a citizen of the city… Also each time you would gradually improve things, make better connected industry etc. I know it won’t have been like that at the start but the blandness of the cities in CS: 2 really is depressing - it feels way less immersive.
Thank you Biffa. I can't tell you how refreshing it is to hear a creator be brutally honest about a game they play all the time. Thank you for sharing your opinions and not only speaking for yourself, but speaking for all of us noncreators who don't get our opinions taken into consideration because we aren't advertising the game through TH-cam or twitch and aren't "big enough" for developers and producers to care
@@4879danielBecause he thought the versions he was given were still pared down ones lacking in some features (and they were) and not as optimized as the release version. Only to find out that the release version didn't have as much as he expected, and didn't improve as rapidly as expected either.
@4879daniel because that wasn't the finished product. You can say something is good when you play a certain version of it only for it to release completely and the game is a broken mess because the developers didn't deliver on what they promised. Version 1.0 could be good then they release the full version in 2.0 and it could be a gigantic buggy mess. It's happened with several games. The base is good then the end product just doesn't work
@@4879danielAs previously stated, he was expecting many of the missing features (some of which *had been present* in previous versions, along with features that weren't mentioned here, like toggleble road zoning), to be a part of the release game.
Is it me, or is Collossal Order at the same point where Maxis was 2012? Cities 2 is way better than the ill-fated "reboot" of Sims City, but it is a bit ironic that PR wise CO is in the EXACT spot EA / Maxis was then. ..All I wanted was Cities 1 with built in traffic manager... (as for the No Man Sky: Yeah my mind went there too, and also of course Cyberpunk 2077, which is the other amazing redemption arc)
I'll admit as someone who put in over 2,500 hours in Cities Skylines 1 that I wrote off a ton as "Oh it's a pre-release it'll certainly be in the final game" or "They must have thought it was so basic that they didn't even bother showing it". Looking back though it doesn't seem like there was ever a plan to put features used in mods like TPME or metro overhaul into the final release of the game. It really feels like it was designed for usability on consoles at the expense of the PC experience honestly, like almost cut down to the point of being nearly unusable in some cases. Which I don't quite understand... The performance is so poor on PC a console port even for PS5 or Xbox One X would have been nearly unplayable and city builders historically sell poorly on consoles and do a majority of their sales on PC, I can't think of a single city builder besides like the old SNES games that outsold their PC counterparts on console. There really should have been more of a focus on making the game what people wanted based on the mods that were downloaded on Steam and I cannot believe that TPME specifically wasn't in the base game at launch in nearly its full form.
Mod support not being there on day one is one of the biggest blunders I've ever seen in a game release ever. It is insane that they hadn't built this out back in an alpha to be day one ready and are now scrambling to release a BETA of a mod manager almost 4 months later. Thunderstore mods are fine, but they're injection mods, they're buggy and prone to crashing or corrupting your save file. At the very least whatever exists of the mod maker or even the dev tools should be made public today or within the next week or two so that mods themselves will be ready as soon as the mod manager launches and to salvage some of the excitement from those that haven't given up on the game already. For a game like Cities Skylines that was pretty much BUILT on mods its absolutely inexcusable and I don't know if it was a last minute change from Paradox to have it be in the Paradox mod manager instead of Steam workshop, or the dev team getting crunched too much and having it as one of the last things they would work on but it is crazy it wasn't there in some form on day one.
It's also pretty inexcusable that the DLCs weren't just added to Cities Skylines 2 in some form or another. We know what was possible in the base game with DLCs so the cats out of the bag there. I can't think of any reason I could justify paying for DLCs in Cities Skylines 1 and then turning around and having to pay for those same DLCs in Cities Skylines 2 except for maybe like building packs or asset packs. Also, there are sooo many of the DLC features that are missing or that were reduced to nearly base Cities Skylines 1 in quality. Parks completely suck, airports are plopped assets, industrial is maybe a half-step above CS1 in its detail (but sucks in other ways), weird forms of transport are missing (gimme back my cable cars), pedestrians feel like an afterthought (and biking was never added), etc. It just feels so weird, and almost like a step back if you own some of the DLCs like me, that day 1 almost all the existing DLCs for CS1 aren't in CS2 already.
I think Paradox wants ultimate control of the mods, so they can turn it into a way to make more money. I almost can guarantee they are internally talking about having access to it by a monthly subscription or pay per mod. They looked at all those downloads every month on the steam workshop and thought “how can we cash in on this?”.
@@mdbourne reminds me of bethesda.
I agree their stance on mod support is a slap in the face after the expectations the release of the first game set so long ago. We can wait for DLC but we can not wait for mod support. CO has had a working steam workshop implementation for the last dozen yeas so least they could do was last minute give us steam workshop for CS2 until Paradox mods releases.
@@ThaJay cities skylines 1 would not have lasted so long if it didn't have adequate mod support.
@@manboy4720 And it would have had a much more rocky start.
I pre-ordered the physical Premium Edition of the game. The official Cities: Skylines Twitter account blocked me for suggesting that the toxic comments (which are NOT okay, under any circumstance, let's make that clear) are stemming from the situation that we're in where the game remains in a poor state and official mod support is now going to be a year after the game's release. The fact remains that the game is not in a good state and now it looks like it will not be for some time. People are calling for refunds, but those requests are falling on deaf ears. The fact that we can't even talk about these things without being blocked makes me think they just don't want to hear it, and the way they blamed the community last month was a real knife stab. Thankfully, they can't block content creators from talking honestly about the game on TH-cam. Thank you for making this video, Biffa. I hope they'll take it to heart.
The sensible thing used to be just not pre ordering. For a while now it has been waiting at least a year before buying it.
It is what it is, we got the games and the industry we deserve and they're not going anywhere because _we're_ not about to change anytime soon.
The first point mentioning weather and seasons reminds me of how very Finnish this game is. Blinding snow in winter? Real. Depressing rain all the time? Too real. Weather not affecting traffic? Kinda true in Finland due to how our infrastructure is designed for the battle against heavy snowfall and harsh winter. Shopping patterns not getting affected by weather? Kinda true as well. Shops are open and people will go shopping in any weather, and while some stores suffer from weather, other shops benefit equally.
Agriculture, tourism and events (music, festivals etc) are all things heavily affected by seasons and weather.
Go to the Greek islands in the winter, 80% of businesses are closed...
There is also the summer schools vacation that's ignored in both CS1 and CS2.
@@udishomer5852so they mention how the game is very much a product of where the creators are based, and you "counter" with "but other parts of the world aren't like that...."?
Who cares if the game is similar to real life Finland?? It's still a terrible simulation with a lot of bugs and things that just don't make any sense.
you will see way too more accidents during the winter than the other seasons and that's not realistic at all, the road maintenance is a joke, those cars will "fix" new roads and will stop the traffic in a stand still every time, they should do that during the night how is in real life not all day.
@@MihailBFC That's not universal at all!
Colossal Order SEO - "If you dislike the simulation, this game just might not be for you."
Just a CEO taking responsibility for the issues in their game.
@@stevenfaulkner5649 there's a difference between being a troll and pointing out the lack of respect for the community that they built and let down heavily.
I heard this by CEO's of other companies also. this is how you treat your community nowadays it seems. the CEO should take a deep look into the Total War Warhammer from SEGA and the shitstorm they went through the last 8 months, almost dying. if you f*** up the community, even as big publisher/developer you can be brought down
The CEO should resign anyway.
Biffa please remember that not everyone is as skilled at this game as you are. You keep saying that in CS1 eventually money didn't matter. I was never able to reach that point. For some of us, the less complex financial aspect of CS2 is not a bad thing.
honestly ? few hours on cs2 and Im back to cs1 , way better for now.
Totally agree! I was really excited when I heard about CS:2, but after playing I realised that there just wasn't much of a feel for cause and effect.
This hit's the spot of why I do not feel the urge to play anymore... it's all the same. Every city is the same and nothing really mattters... Thank you for this video.
A major thing missing for me in the information branch is seeing who uses the road and where they are going to fix a traffic jam. Maybe it has been implemented already but I never found it.
Something that would also be great is some sort of feedback from the citizens. For example a letter to the mayor asking to create a park at a certain location. Or industrial zone for some workers looking for a job. It would make it feel so much more alive.
Underdeveloped sequels that devs launch with a "we'll fix it later" mentality is a ever more common theme in the game industry that's not appreciated by players. Kerbal Space Program 2, I'm looking at you. On the positive side, C:S 2 was less of a disaster (at least it was playable at launch) than that.
Totally, I'm a day 1 player of KSP2 and it was heartbreaking, this was deja vu, I just hoping for a "no man's sky"-esque recovery from both KSP2 and CS:2
This is a knock-on effect from the pandemic. The game industry made tons of money and had a large influx of investment from investors looking for growing areas of the economy during the pandemic. This lead to developers and publishers using that influx of cash to make bigger games or expand the scope of their existing in-development titles as well as over-hire on developers. But as the pandemic gaming boom died down and the economy became more uncertain, investors either wanted out or wanted to start seeing returns which put pressure on publishers to release games sooner or cut-back on spending through other means (i.e. layoffs) to keep revenue and profit high.
Now in 2024 with it being an election year in the US and continually rising world-wide tensions, investors don't want to invest as much in industries they feel are "risky" pending a potential recession or economic downturn. This puts publishers in a tough spot of having these massive titles started during the pandemic with larger teams than before, but quickly dwindling funding to continue development and pay the bills. Hence developers are pushed to release games regardless of the state it's in as delays and extended development would be too costly.
This isn't necessarily "publishers and investors bad, game devs good"; it's the developers job to manage project scope and set appropriate expectations, but they over-hyped their announcement and under-delivered on release.
@@chackiejan3353 A natural and foreseeable evolution completely without regard to pandemics, politics or the economy. It was a natural evolution that developers would push out unfinished products once post-release updates became commonplace.
One can only argue that there may have been an acceleration, but "money in our pockets today" versus later was always going to win out.
@@David-qi1ys I'm just stating what I know from being in the industry and talking to others about why leadership from publishers and developers made the decisions they did over the last few years. Developers aren't dumb, they know releasing unfinished products kills their credibility and hurts sales, but publishers also know that investors are bearish on the game industry need to keep them confident. The pandemic situation is why the industry has faced unprecedented boom followed by unprecedented layoffs; it is also a major driving factor in developers over-scoping their titles earlier in development making it harder on themselves down the line as they get close to release.
@@chackiejan3353 Isn't this a case where a grandiose scope was the only way forward though? It certainly doesn't help that once things started moving again, the powers at play can't adjust for the boots to actually do their do.
I've been enjoying your content for many years and, while I don't normally preorder games, I preordered CS2 as a sign of support for your work.
I'm really glad you made this video to share your thoughts. On the technical side, I agree that getting official mod support to work should be way up on the list of priorities. Modders will make a lot of things better.
But I really appreciated your final point on humility. I was confident they'd fix things until that 1 message saying the game was the way they wanted it and if people weren't happy then the game wasn't for them. I know that person since apologised, but that made me lose faith. I do still hope they turn it around, but until then I'm still enjoying your content!
The day you announce that your very happy with the state of CS2 is the day I will be purchasing CS2. But with so many gameplay issues/bugs/missing features you mentioned, I can't see the game functioning as expected till at least a year. The amount of bugs/games issues on top of the performance issues, my confidence in CO addressing all these issues is dwindling and I am concerned how long CO will be able/allowed to work on it. There's just so, so much to address/fix and so many features missing:(.
I definitely want them to bring back priority roads! That was something special about the game, I really enjoy CS2 even with all the bugs. I've waited for ten years and I was just happy to get something new
It's really a shame that the simulation in the background often times simply just does not work. I can forgive a lot of things missing in CS2, like additional assets for things like trainstations etc. There are so many aspects of the game that I really really enjoy and would hate to miss by going back to CS1 (like road building, the scale of different assets and buildings, the different zoning types, etc.). But when you realize that so many things just don't matter like money, effect of public transportation on traffic, road layouts for traffic usage in general... you at a certain point come to realize that CS2 feels more like a zen-game, rather than a simulation. And while the zen-like aspect of just watching your city work is something I did appreciate im CS1 as well, I still want my decisions to matter in more than a visual way.
idk. I mean they say there is a simulation, but problem is as biffa says that we the player neither see it nor can affect it really.
As for money- the magic "subsidies" one gets makes economy not matter at all..
Very interesting. I must preface by saying, I have not yet bought CS2. After 20K+ hours on CS1, I am actually having a break. A lot of my time in Skylines was creating maps in the workshop and I loved that side of the game. I was always a builder but after starting map creation, I got hooked. I've heard a lot of negativity about CS2 and it seems like a lot is warranted, but I bet when I do buy it, even today in an unpolished state, that I will still enjoy the game and still find it value for money. When I think of how many thousands of hours I put into Skylines 1 and the cost of the game compared to what I got out of it, the value is massive. That said, after all these years being addicted to the first game, I had high expectations for the second one. I thought that even though some of my expectations might not be met, that there is no way they could make a Lemon, given all the years of experiwnce the Devs would have gained from CS1. Is it indeed a Lemon? Well I don't truly know because I have not played it.
From the videos, I like the appearance of scale and if there are no object limits, given the right PC, a very realistic large city could be built. I like realism and I mostly create real life scaled maps, so one of my main desires for Skylines 2, was larger maps. Setting scale aside, the maps are actually smaller....but if you take away object limits, then potentially the cities can be larger. My ideal situation was a Region View for Skylines 2, which would be a much more advanced version of Sim City 4.
It definitely seems like the road dynamics are much improved (no blue mantle), and better lane merging is welcomed. From what I have seen, the building variation is lacking. Downtown buildings are fairly boring and I am assuming there is no ploppable option yet? I'm the sort of builder who plops everything. I spent a lot of time crafting exactly what the skyline will look like and being very specific without growables.
I also expected CS2 to have a fully connected modding and asset creating community. If this is not the case, what on earth are the Devs thinking? I think I know the answer. They want to create all their own as DLC, thus make the money from it, rather than all the modders pouring their love into the game for free. I think someone above the programmers, has dollar signs in their eyes and that these types of decisions are more money and profit based than anything else. Being too profit based will have the negative effect and put off customers. That's the way the market works and this mistake happens all the time. The moment you get greedy or lazy, then you have lost the esscence of what matters.
I would have been very happy with Skylines 2 being a fully unlocked 81 tiles with no object limits. Perhaps just one more ring of 2km tiles, making the maps a bit bigger. Why did they have to mess about with smaller tiles and more of them? Why were map making tools not included in the base game? I also expected a fully integrated real world map download option. Basically a Terrain Party as part of the game. Imagine that? Imagine being able to import real world maps into the game, from the game itself without having to muck about with files and other websites. I used to spend hours messing about with heightmaps and image overlays, which could be written into Skylines 2. Modding tools could be included into the game too. You pick a building and then there's a drop down tab of optional upgrades or building shapes and types. It does feel to me, like they were lazy. They rode on the grace and glory of the first game, thinking that ride was going to last forever. It doesn't work like that.
One of the wider problems is that the genre is mostly monopolized by the dominance of Skylines 1. There needs to be worthy competitors nipping at their heels, pushing CO to be better. So basically what we have now is a dead space in the genre. The decline of an empire that was at the top for too many years without competition.
I will say this: Without a really worthy sequel to Skylines 1, I now have a heck of a lot of free time to do other things, because Skylines 1, pretty much dominated the free time I had in my life :) I'm just like the drug addict who has been in rehab. I'm now clean.
I loved playing CS1 and was counting the weeks untill the launch of CS2. After a week of playing I pretty much lost most of my interest in the game and I can't pinpoint exactly why. It just didn't work like I hoped and maybe I expected too much? Ofcourse CS1 had loads of mods and I used a couple, but just like you say Biffa, those important CS1 mods should've been in the game at launch. I understand the game has to mature, but I feel the launch was too rushed. I'm lucky to have a pretty fast pc, but less fortunate players must be very upset with those low frame rates. I know they can do it and I do hope they keep developing this game further, but I'll take a break for now. i'm pretty sure I wont be playing the game much this year, if even.
I bought a new PC and pre ordered the game. I loved CS1 and I wanted to love this game so much. I just hardly play it anymore. It seems so lacking.. I try every so often to go in and work on my city but, the feeling is not there. Thanks for the video I think it sums up how allot of us feel. Hopefully mods will get going and assets. The industry just throwing up random buildings is the most bothersome part for me. I feel I have so little control over the city.
I agree with you, Biffa. The lack of Steam mod support right off the bat like they did with Cities 1 was a think a huge problem with Cities 2 when Colossal wanted PDX mods and it wasn't ready when the game was released. The mod tool they have is designed for console and PC, yes, but PC players could have used Steam mods as well on day 1. I absolutely loved the steam mod support in Cities 1. Cities 2 needs a lot of improvement.
Thanks for making this really important video Biffa. You've respectfully communicated very fair criticisms of the current state of this game. This video will have more impact/influence than you know
I hope so 😁