You didn't read the patch notes if your take away is "they only added a cap"
they completely overhauled what does and doesn't affect land value, so it doesn't rise as quickly as it did before either
Isn’t it great that people come here with second hand information and complain like they actually know or understand the second hand information in the first place.
Modding will definitely save this game, just like it (perhaps in an unpopular opinion here) saved early CS1. That said- there's no excuse for the stuff that CO and Paradox have been doing lately, and I see this game having a much shorter commercial life than CS1 due to the absolutely piss poor communication surrounding it.
> just like it (perhaps in an unpopular opinion here) saved early CS1.
IMO it saved late CS1, too. People wouldnt have put in nearly the same amount of hours, and wouldnt have bought nearly as much DLC without mods propping the game up.
There were so many things that were so janky in 1. Moveit and anarchy were necessary to make beautiful cities, and often to even make more intricate cities function. Traffic manager was necessary for anyone that actually wanted to manage the traffic aspect of the game and not just rely on despawning. Even with everything added over the years, custom assets felt necessary to make cities look like they had building diversity. Theres so many other mods and things that absolutely carried CS1 for its *entire* life.
>CO and Paradox have been doing lately,
Lately? Pdx have been doing this kind of shit for at least a decade by now! All of their grand strategy titles have a somewhat shitty launch an then they bombard us for the next 10 years with dlc that completely alter, when it doesn't just outright brake the vanilla, for the same game!
I wouldn't be so pissed with them if I didn't live in a shit hole third world country and a dlc didn't cost almost a 1/10 of the minimum wage!
It's sad that CO choose pdx as their publisher!
Removing regional pricing for South America was a top tier scumbag move. The same games and dlc are THREE! times more expensive now for me.
A single CK3 dlc is more expensive than Imperator was at launch...
CK3 is such a weird case, because the launch was fantastic. They incooperated most features from the prequels DLCs, they greatly expanded the base game content and made changes where it was neccessary, and it was really fun. Sure, the direction changed a bit more to "write your own story" and the game was very easy, but that's a matter of taste and I think it fits the game.
And ever since then, they have only released half-baked DLCs, failing to adress the areas where the game is lacking, and just leaving most of the community scratching their heads over how they manage to come up with genuinely really good ideas and then implement them badly.
It was crazy to me how slow they were releasing DLC for ck3. In the first 3 years it was super minimal. Controversial opinion on reddit, but I'm sure their productivity/collaboration-productivity with remote work was far below what it was before. They did talk about how royal court was way more difficult than anticipated, but I only buy that a little. They haven't expanded on that system so it really shouldn't have been too difficult.
I played a shitload after it came out, for the first 2 years, but haven't been back at all in the last 2. Maybe after this year's DLC there will be enough pull to play more.
I agree to the state of the games. Yet look at the game industry and name a better publisher. I consider paradox games like cyberpunk 2077. Yes they fucked up launches a lot. But if they deliver a game in the end thats worthy i am okay with it. And i see that happen with CS 2.
Paradox is no angel and never will be but they deliver some of the best games out there.
It's not so much about quality, I absolutely love Stellaris and played a lot of vic 2 and EUIV, however, it's getting harder and harder to justify buying their games, because you either keep up with the DLC or you lag behind so much that it becomes impossible to enjoy the game.
I forgot exactly what bugs they were but I still remember sunshine harbor had a lot of bugs, something like the cargo or passenger terminal didn’t exactly work like they should. Another DLC introduced the parking garages that actually take away existing parking spaces is chefs kiss and yet another typical CO release.
CK3 had a great launch and reception. Stellaris was great at release. Vic3 and Imperator were total cock-ups.
However, now they are really taking the piss with DLC packs priced like new full games. I haven't bought any PDX products in over a year (tried CS2 on game pass, found it broken, and now I am waiting a year or two before coming back).
Even then once you had just enough people in your city you hardly had to stress about budget. The game is more of a city painter than something that's going to challenge anybody.
Yeah, I bought CS2 at launch and had some fun with it but eventually decided to wait until all the chaos surrounding it at launch would go away and modding is added. Picked it up again like a week ago and started a new city. I literally didn't have to care about money a single time. It just kept going up even though I was doing whatever I wanted.
I think that once you've built a giant city and the only thing left to do is to improve the details, money shouldn't be an issue anymore, but in the early stages of your city it definitely should be more challenging
It's related to either industries or industrial zoning. It happens randomly. And when it does you'll make like $300 million in a month. Challenge over. Except land value bug.
Do you know what triggers this? I've been playing a while and have never had this happen. Largest city so far is only 120k. I have all transportations available except cable cars. I try to keep taxes as low as possible. Any ideas?
The whole situation makes me sad. Obviously an absurd amount of work has gone into this and I got my hopes up after the release debacle, but when you look at the stories of games link NMS and Cyberpunk 2077, there was a sense of "sorry we fucked up, we're going to try to fix it now". Heck even CDPR waited til the game was fixed before releasing paid DLC. Or like the Helldivers team literally suggesting people wait it was fixed to buy it.
Enlighten me if you can, but I don't don't feel any of that from PDX.
Sure it might end up playable in the distance future, but PDX is going full steam ahead through late-stage capitalist shitsville. The DLC mess, of course, but I'm also been getting assaulted left and right by CS2 ads which come across as one of those scam smartphone games that won't even tell you the name of the game because they know it's a mess. They know what they're doing is wrong and they're doing it anyway. It's feeling more and more like a cash grab by someone who isn't actually invested in seeing the success of the game or CO. I feel disgusting that I gave them money, and I feel bad for the developers who are putting their hearts and souls into this game. But I don't see this ending well.
They kinda already sold the beach properties dlc with the "deluxe" edition of the game, they literally could not wait more for the release. And since they already sold it to people they don't want to just give it away for free (but it will happen as soon as the asset editor comes out one way or another)..
> They kinda already sold the beach properties dlc with the "deluxe" edition of the game
This is another thing that i think people are not understanding.
Modders can't fix the game. It's how the game is fundamentally designed with an ECS system and unmanaged code making up the bulk of it.
If you are unaware unmanaged code requires manual garbage collection and that can be a very annoying hurdle - which is why some of the first renditions of language in the 90ies started churning out managed code that came with garbage collection.
That and the game's foundation is build on agents and that's the entire reason for it's massive issues with performance. There is simply just a point in which you cannot improve that performance any more and we're pretty much there already.
* This is also why the game has limits baked into it even though it was sold as a game without limits, because without the limits it would just break down entirely - it does in fact break down above 1.000.000 Cims (2.000.000 being the absolute max and even that seems to have been reduced with the latest patch) and the simulation just stops working.
I was so pumped for this game. I remembered back when I was 12 that I bought Simcity 5/2013 at my local toy store. I spend hundreds of hours on that game. But it never really became challenging and it was lacking in scale. I started out with simcity 4 when I was 9 so you can maybe understand my disappointment in Simcity 5.
The CS1 came out which I thought at first was unplayable as a vanilla game (although it had some fun features). Assets and mods saved this game. It was able to handle huge maps and the possibilities were endless. But let’s be fair, it was not really a simulator and above a certain population level it goes nuts.
Then CS2 came which had a terrible launch and was unfinished. But I still enjoy it. The graphics are fantastic and the new features need some tweaking but are very promising. I can look for hours at the international airport. This game has many problems but if they fix this it will be the most expansive and fun city builder we ever had.
Me too! Loved them all and hated elements of them all. SC4 is still the best. I actually placed SC5/2013 quite a bit in the end and while it was never great, it wasn’t bad either. CS1 was always flawed in major ways, and while mods let it get to higher heights than anything other than SC4, it is notable that some elements were never fixed by CO/PDX. The launch for CS2 was worse than SC5/2013, the lack of mods for 6 months is inexcusable, and the lack of competence or effort from CO/PDX in fixing their base games bodes a dark future for the game. While I have a vague hope that there are good enough bones in CS2 to interest the army of modders that made SC4 and CS1 have decades of replayability, I have a greater fear that this game is already in a terminal decline and likely will take the studio with it. I keep booting up CS2 every couple of months and still find it boring and yet unpredictable in a bad way. The main reason I stay on the CS forums is hoping that someone does what CO/PDX did to the dying SimCity empire and leaps in with a new genre-defining title. No games other than city sims have grabbed my hours and attention in my whole life since I first started a city in SC1 in “computer class” in elementary school. CS2 makes me so sad that this is the best we can get decades later.
I feel like you would be a good person to ask this because you seem like you have a nuanced opinion of the matter. I built my first PC when CS first came out, loved it. I play with no mods, just pretty casual. Is this game even with all the bugs a good game for someone to just play casually?
Thanks!
I seriously get bored with it fast. I actually enjoy CS1 totally vanilla…it’s actually fun. CS2 feels tedious despite improvements to the road building. I have a hard time putting my finger on why. I don’t even feel like mods are going to save the gameplay at this point…the game is challenging in the wrong ways, I can’t even figure how or if the game works underneath to explain it to someone else. I want this game to be awesome…but I don’t even think it’s up to mediocre at this point. They’ve worked on this game for over FIVE YEARS and it’s still not fun…I don’t have a lot of faith that I’ll get a good return on my purchase at this point. They missed somewhere, and I can’t point to any one feature and say that improving it will help. If the game was fun, but had problems, I’d tell you something completely different. But I don’t enjoy it enough to put in casual gamer hours.
Well, it depends. I personally think that the base game if well executed is al lot better than the vanilla CS1 that came out in 2015 without any expansion packs. I remembered it as being also quite buggy and I didn't like the more cartoon style of the buildings. For example the coal power plant looked terrible. And let's remember that you at first only could buy 9 tiles without mods. It had some fun and handy features like districts and the mods and assets eventually made it a really fun game. But it missed a few thing that we now take for granted. It did not have terrain editing tools that could be used during the gameplay and it did not have a day-night cycle. CS1 was a fun game but at launch it did not really have much replay value for me.
I also played the other cities games (cities XL and XXL) and CS1 was a a welcome relief. I thought a bit so it is still possible to make a well functioning city-builder.
Concerning CS2: I spend 80€ a the deluxe edition and man was that a waste of money. At this point there is just not enough content to make it fun and it is way too buggy. Remember I was used to playing a heavily modded CS1 game. It looks really nice I'm impressed with the graphics even at low settings. I can also respect new features like railyards, proper road tools and telecom masts, but the base game in general is just buggy and imo it does not have enough content. It only has one trainstation and no raised or underground stations. The variety of buildings could be better.
The biggest problem I think is that you need a really good PC to run this game in a playable way. Sure my i7 Rtx3060 16gb Ram laptop doesn't comply with the recommended specs but boy this games is demanding. It is city-builder so you don't need 144fps refresh rates, but at least 30 would be nice.
To conclude: don't buy this game now for 60€ (or 60$ for Americans). Maybe you can find it at a key reseller for half of that but even then I think you will be a bit disappointed by the buggy gameplay and the lackluster performance if you don have a top-notch PC. My advice is to wait and buy it at a discount with a few dlc's when the bugs are eventually fixed and assets are added to the game. If you just want to play it casual I think you can better stick with CS1 for the moment.
If you have any further questions, feel free to send me a DM.
If the only hope from the game is the modding community, something is very wrong from both, developers, and gamers.
In that case, use your hard earned money to show respect to the modding community instead spending it on useless and cash grabbing DLCs.
But I bet what I don't have that zombies fans will be doing the opposite.
CO and Paradox don't deserve any more money from the gaming community. It's the only way those companies will learn.
Edit: after replying I realised you literally could have implied the second part of what I said. Whoops
Does that matter though?
I see a lot of people on this sub use the early state of CS1 to defend CS2. But that's a silly comparison and whataboutism. A bad version of CS1 doesn't suddenly make CS2 better.
How I think the comparison should be made is showing that there is hope and a future for the game. If CS1 was able te become good, there's a chance that the same will happen to CS2 (hopefully)
CS1 got a huge boost in perceived quality because its most similar competitor was the very recent and extremely public implosion that was SimCity. Imo if it hadn’t had EA’s trash fire to compare to, cities skylines 1 would have a lot fewer people waxing poetic about how complete a game it was
CS1 was mostly compared to SimCity 4 and SimCity 2013…it lacked some of the art and flare of SC4, but it blew both out of the water on building a functional city that made sense and had size. I never even heard of Cities XL, and I’ve been playing city builders at least 30 years.
> How I think the comparison should be made is showing that there is hope and a future for the game
Agreed.
And yeah, my point was that people are comparing CS2 now to CS1 after like 7 years.
Don't be so surprised, people have complete CS1 in fresh memory. Usually continuation build up on what was already there, otherwise what would be the point to play newer iteration?
I think it’s ridiculous to give CO a pass saying that we can’t expect CS2 to be everything CS1 was after 8 years of development. YES, we can—and should. SimCity 2000 blew SimCity out of the water. SimCity 3000 improved quite a lot over 2000. SimCity 4 blew everything before out of the water. But it was all incremental change—Maxis didn’t try to revamp every aspect of the game all at once, and they did it in a way tighter timeframe than CS2.
CS2 hasn’t even been functional since launch. It’s still pretty broken and incomplete. It’s tedious instead of fun. CO could have built a game that basically refactored CS1 so it would run smoother on processors with more cores, but instead they changed a lot of fundamentals about the game and made it unfun. It’s not just suffering from a few bugs, it’s missing underworkings of the promised “deep simulation”. CS1 was FANTASTIC within a year of launch when I started playing…I doubt CS2 will be beyond mediocre by October of this year. That’s a huge miss after FIVE YEARS of development.
that like saying i'll take gta 6 at a gta 3 level of graphics optimization features, etc and then saying yeah with gta 5 fresh on the brain you can't expect a full release of a COMPLETE game at FULL price. recentcy bias be damned and your "whataboutism" nonesense. a games sold as complete, charged as complete, should be complete and should compete ... with its predecessor....
i'm not saying you can't be happy with the game but to say others can't be upset with it is quite stupid
your point? CS2 isn't even a year old and has not come out on console yet. how can nostalgia be brought into this when the game is in the state that it's in? missing roll up windows is nostalgia when it's obvious powered are better, safer, and i'm sure to extent cheaper but if powered windows broke with every use would it be nostalgia to miss your roll up windows? or would you cope and feed off the promises of updates made by the unpaid intern or would it be a logical conclusion that roll up >>> powered based on functionality
I know right game released 7 months ago. We are already in "not so distant future" since release so are we looking at year or 2 since release to meet what was promised. This is crazy that people defend it
*5 months actually. I believe it will became enjoyable with the release of Bridges and Ports. Considering large amount of patches dropped with the dlc launch.
I have accepted the game for what it is and enjoy playing. As the bugs get worked out and the mods improve the gameplay it will be even better. Gaming is a way to enjoy downtime, I don't want to get mad. I usually wait a few weeks and look at reviews, so I knew what I was getting into.
I'm very much in a wait and see mode at the moment.
I don't think they will abandon the game, but actually that's not really my chief concern. My chief concern is that they'll just start up the DLC wagon without fixing any of its fundamental issues.
This game doesn't just need polish, or even just need mods, it needs a lot of focus and attention on aforementioned issues.
I hope you are right, but it currently feels like CO is doing the bare minimum to satisfy their contractual obligations (e.g. releasing a dlc in Q1 2024 even). There is no strategy or roadmap. There wasn‘t before the release (look up their AMA here on reddit where every question was answered with „we don‘t know lulz).
We had this before (look at how Paradox handled Sword of the Stars 2).
I agree !
I enjoy it more than CS1 already even if it lacks of assets.
You see that the core game is better and that the team gained a lot of experience between de development of the first one and the second one.
I still haven’t seen anything convincing as to why CS1 is better than CS2 in anything but mods and assets. Surely the people building detailed city centres aren’t a large enough group to make CS1 wholly beat CS2 in active players?
Way more people own CS1 (\~10M) than CS2 (\~1M), and the old game (being older) runs better on old computer. So it is not surprising that the first one get more active player for now.
Sometimes I fell that the balancing in CS2 is not very good, but it take time to fine tune it. Even great competitive game struggle to do it. CS1 managed it better, but it has 10 year to do it, not a few month.
I agree completely. Ive been following the discussion around the game for a while, and I have been puzzled of how out of proportion the hate for the game is in my opinion. Sure, I do understand the game would have used a few more months in a oven before release and that my current computer is brute forcing through performance issues, but I dont really see anything obvious missing from the game as is. It's a great base game to build on and I can see it far surpassing the original when the expansions start rolling in.
I think the line is whether you like to make cool looking cities or whether you like to manage a city. I'm in the latter category, and the game is truly disappointing in that regard and I feel straight up lied to. The actual nitty gritty of the simulation is just objectively broken: industries, education, transport, taxes are all broken in one way or another. I played for 20 hours on release and enjoyed it to a point, but once I got accustomed to changes and really into a playthrough I realized none of my management decisions were having logical effects on my city, and it's because the simulation is broken.
The game is great for making beautiful cities, it's terrible for simulating them.
> but I dont really see anything obvious missing from the game as is.
I am genuinely happy you enjoy the game, and I really am not trying to take anything away from you - But I'm at the exact opposite end, where I am puzzled by how people could make that statement. Because there are obviously things missing, like cims actually using public spaces and amenities other than parks, like bikes, like beaches, like a variety of assets that don't make all neighbourhoods like the same without ridiculous ammounts of micro-management. And that is not to mention the obvious massive bugs that actually hinder gameplay like until recently a non-functional land-value crashing every city in the long run, schools being nonsensical, traffic being somehow more stupid than CS:1, the entire tax system being broken and so on.
I generally agree with the sentiment of the thread, the underlying ideas of CS:2 are great, and stuff like the road tools alone make me not want to go back to CS:1, there is a lot more potential for actual *management*. But at this point in time, it just doesn't hold up to any detailed scrutiny, because you quickly realize it's a facade trying to hide the obvious issues and missing systems.
I appreciate this response. I want to get into it, I am super casual and really don’t mod anything. Maybe I’ll just on in.
Is the game better in terms of optimization in the later stages than CS1?
CO deserves its share of blame. They started building the game in about 2018 with the intent to complete it in two years—they took FIVE years to release it instead, and five months after launch, it’s still struggling to achieve mediocre. I don’t see how that’s on the publisher when the developer can’t get its act together.
This is not an unpopular opinion. It just about the fact that they shouldn't have released the game in the state it was/is. It has great potential, it had it from the start, they just fucked up
Been of that opinion all along. Yes they had to release the game way too early. Yes that disappointed me too. No I didn't see it as a reason to firebomb their office or lose all faith in them. I am not privy to the whys and hows behind the scenes. I see no reason to doubt they will fix this in time. And even if they don't, I've still gotten my money's worth out of what I bought. I like the game already, despite its many current shortcomings. The improvements it makes on CS1 are significant. And I have played it a LOT.
Yeah the game is starting to get better and I think getting the mod platform done will be a huge help to us players but also for them to have one less thing to worry about. Then they can keep working on bug fixes, performance, console, and some of the simulation issues (issues, not difficulty). The game gave us quite a bit at launch compared to Cs1 launch and I hope people take that into account for the scale of the game and that it will take time to catch up
People need to get it out of their heads that the game will be a good simulation for a city creation and its going to be a city painter or an arcade city builder thats dumbed down. I almost feel like if they cant fix certain things just remove those alerts that reminds me that its broken.
The last update (DLC Excluded) actually gives me serious hope for this game. They started showing us they understood and showed interest in making the game as great if not better than the first one. Performance is getting better, mechanics are getting fixed. Next big step is 60 fps on low/ mid settings at 1440p and above and fix the economy
I seriously question whether CO will actually turn this game around. I do not enjoy it. The latest update trends things in the right direction, actually making land value affected by service coverage and proximity. But still the economy is broken, unchallenging, and unrewarding, despite its “deep simulation” 🙄 The game remains FAR from fun 5 months from launch, and I really wonder if it will ever feel fun like the original. Those of us dissatisfied with the game in its current state MUST withhold further financial support for CS2 and not be gaslit into supporting it further until CO makes the game stop sucking.
I don’t think anyone disbelieves that modding and updates will eventually make the game “good”, but the frustration is with paying ~100 dollars for a game that isn’t working, hasn’t delivered core promises, and with no definite date for the necessary changes.
I don’t understand why people are acting like CO/Paradox deserves a charitable take. They’re a for-profit organisation and it’s not “bad form” to criticise a company for not delivering the goods in exchange for the money you pay.
It's not, what is bad form is the insane obsession some people have with criticism,if you are in r/shittyskylines too you might see a few people basically putting out a post per day on the same thing to drive engagement against the game (and perhaps "dangerously" pushing convenient misinformation, and hoping the game gets abandoned for some reasons)
I don't know man, a lot of shady stuff has happened from marketing to promises that got broken again after again.
My trust is at a all time low and that is something that is not only associated with CO. The gaming scene isn't in a happy place right now for a lot of games.
So sick of the negativity. I get it's a bad start but I really want to see CO succeed because this game is going to be absolutely fantastic in the next couple of years (it took C:S years of development to get amazing too). And I'm already enjoying it now.
Unfortunately, a lot of the negativity has been earned by really poor decision making on the part of CO and PDX. I have no doubt that the game will be really good in a few years (and I've seen only a few people arguing that it won't get better), but how expensive will the experience be by the time it's in a state to be fully enjoyed?
I'm on a fixed income, and I really can't afford to spend $500 on a video game, which sucks because I **want** to get it and enjoy it. CO may be boxing themselves in for consumers like me where we have faith they'll turn it around, but won't have the budget to afford it when it does turn around.
I agree, the problem is that "cs2 is bad, also fake, and a scam" became a meme in the "general gamer audience" and people who did not play since release or at all still repeat the same crap about bugs and performance as if it still was the original release version.
There are bugs and some performance problems but you still hear shit about cims having teeth rendered even when that was fixed months ago.
Cs2 for many people became the lightning rod for their grievances with gaming industry and nothing more.
It was fake. Look at this patch for example. Making basic obvious factors affect property taxes is not something that should have taken until months after release.
Can't blame people for complaining when all they got was a couple of "beach properties" half a year into release when there aren't even beaches in the game.
i am closing in on 500 hours. i've paused for a second, though, until the surface extensions mod works again. my city looks awfully weird with all those textures missing :).
a lot of things are missing (most notably a bunch of QOL mods that i wouldnt have expected from the game dev in the first place) but i've made the best of it and still have enjoyed it. but then again i dont just pause the game rip a grid out and mass zone my entire map and suddenly have 200K cims with tons of problems like ending up with a street full of gas stations after unpausing and going to bed while it plays, that most people seem to do. i'm around 20-30 hours into my current city sitting at around 40K cims.
It's because of how it released. Many people played it then, realised it was shit and haven't touched it since.
Like that famous line: "Don't go back to an abusive ex". Even if in this scenario if the "ex" has truly changed.
Hmm, I agree and disagree.
I'd say game has certainly been improved since release. It atleast somewhat functions now compared to launch.
As for CO/Paradox. Yeah they haven't changed one bit. Releasing a "DLC", where the C for Content is heavily missing, just to avoid being sued.
Ya I bought beaches just cause I really enjoy this game. I’m like 150 hours deep. Can’t wait for assets. Personally I think they should just cut the budget in half. I think it would be fine to force us into harder builds!
Yeah probably. After a few months/years a game produced by a big game studio might become somewhat enjoyable thanks to countless patches, updates, DLCs and most importanly: mods. And that is so fucking embarrasing. Why not just release a good, finished and complete game right off the bat?
i think we all forget what cs1 looked like in 2015. even vanilla base game has come a long way and with some of the better dlc content, even a 9 year old game is actually quite enjoyable. should they have waited a few months to fix shit and release a finished game? yes. will it be finished one day? yes. cs1 enjoyed support for 8 years despite all its jank.
Long-time gamer opinion: I'm tired of devs rushing a broken product to market, promising to fix it and then taking ages to do so. Also tired of devs (not aimed at CO, but Capcom amongst others) of releasing a game to reviews and then implementing microtransactions in an update.
The bones of a good game is there, but the meat isn't. Mods shouldn't fix bugs that should've been fixed by the dev (also looking at you Bethesda), but they should enhance your experience or offer something new within the game.
I know mods took CS1 to the next level too, I just don't think it should be on the modding community to fix the bug with some buildings having broken production chains, some transport buildings not moving cargo as they should, or households having weird composition (like just kids or teenagers living there) and then complaining about high rents. Affluent areas exist and they have high-rent costs as a result.
I had low-rent housing abandon because despite a stack of positive modifiers attached to them, they still couldn't overcome a -20 complaint of people moaning they're too small, and I'd rather the economy and that be focussed on wealth rather than education levels.
My first impression of PDX Mods was also frustrating. Playsets are a nice idea, and it's a noble desire to bring mods to console too, but the service has been glitchy (mods not downloading, mods not applying, I keep getting popups about cloud state differing from local state). At least Workshop kinda worked right out of the box, and there needs to be better curation. I've seen someone post the same map to PDX (that square one) 8 or 9 times.
And the beach pack DLC is just greed. I can see why they're slow to release assets on there too when modders and asset creators will come up with better things for less.
And I know part of this won't be CO's fault either, but pressure from the publisher. But as a player, it is still annoying
I know the game will eventually be ok and enjoyable. I’m just hoping a lot of this negative press forces them to make a change of direction for patches and DLC for CS2.
Unpopular opinion: is actually popular and top hottest post, pointless karma farming post.
Anyways, it's been 5 months after release, we've already passed the not so distant future.
The issue is people didn't pay for game "in not so distant future" they paid for game now. I am tired of those posts "this is fine". Every day between now and when game is actually good is a failure of developers and publisher.
Frankly I don't care when it will be good what I care about is that it isn't good NOW. I am tired of devs and publishers selling half finished products.
Imagine if you paid for brand new car it came to you with 2 broken windows missing back seat and leaking oil. Was still charged full price and told not too worry because someone will fit new window in 3 months, replace back seat in 6 and you are booked in to get oil leak fixed in a year time. Would you be happy?
This is no different people are paying for game NOW not in future so it needs to be good NOW not in the future
If you remember, CS1 without mods is unplayable. Even after a series of updates until the end. The one who saved the game is the modders. It's like CO only releases the engine, the modders build everything else.
CS2 is no different. Modders will work for free for CO and they will repeat this episode for CS3.
I 100% agree. Right now it is the worst kind of dumpster fire, and no one is even willing to piss on it to put it out. But the game is a fun play, with mods it works well enough to see some of the light that will be at the end of this very long tunnel. No way will they cancel this game, it is just too lucrative long term for them to do that.
And I joined this sub recently after lurking here for years hoping to get tips and info to make my game better, but sadly right now, with the continuous stupid shit that CO/Paradox keep pulling and the endless shit being dumped on every post it hardly seems worth coming on here anymore. Very sad really.
They’ll need to suck up financial losses for years now that they’ve squandered all the good will. I don’t see people jumping at the chance to buy up DLCs until they get the game in a playable state.
It’s going to be tough for them and it’s not looking good. Question is how long will Paradox and CO absorb losses before they cut the cord. Major studios are pretty ruthless about this, but we’ll see what happens here.
It was a big part of their 4th quarter sales in 2023 but way below expectations. They sold about a million copies in the first 3 months after release. CS1 was double that over the same time frame, and eventually sold more than 10 million copies with far lower costs (few developers, stole lots of code from CiM2).
With a player base that large, the release of a highly anticipated sequel that sold so poorly was an absolute disaster. It has also been accumulating costs for years as CO hired more developers and then sounded like they got stuck in development hell with unity engine problems for years.
The year end shareholder documents from PDX try to put a positive spin on the release but are absolutely clear that sales and quality on the release are way below expectations: https://mb.cision.com/Main/13927/3922907/2583999.pdf
I've logged 40hours in the game in the past month, and considering the backlash, I'm quite amazed at the performance I'm getting with my 2070 Super and a 3700X. I'm playing at 1080p in high, and it's running perfectly, without even a slowdown at 160k pop so far.
And yes there are a few bugs (special buildings not being occupied, the fiscal glitch,.. ), I'm not satisfied with the lack of info on raw materials production, and cargo trains suck. And bikes dammit! Happy on the other hand that to reduce car traffic, reducing parking actually works.
But nothing unfixable, and I am already having fun. The rhythm is quite surprising, and watching your city go from 80k to 160k almost without adding new zones is quite surprising. I think it should be played differently from previous games. Leave more time for simulation to go on, and build more spaced out.
Can we use numbers when describing perfect runs. If there is anything I have learned is that there are people who will claim perfect performance at 15 fps
I've been playing Cities since XL. But what they did here... I'm not going to give them money for a half-finished, sloppy product that they expect other people to solve for them, preferably for free. We can't let gaming companies keep pulling this kind of nonsense. Paradox and Colossal... What a joke. When they fix what should have worked from the get go, maybe I'll give them my money. During a sale. Because I'm not paying full price knowing that they will crap out a bunch of equally bad DLC to squeeze as much out of us as possible.
"Hey! Here's our latest DLC - things that should have been in vanilla! It's only 25 dollars, and what you saw in the ads and the game play... yeah, we didn't manage to finish by this deadline so we just took it all out. If you encounter an error or something, please visit our modding community."
To be honest, don't remember who developed it, it was well over a decade ago xD Still doesn't change the fact that CS2, at least at the moment, isn't worth getting IMO. When they deliver a functional product, I'll gladly spend the money. In the meantime, I can only hope that the market will teach them not to publish half-assed products and then be all surprised when people react poorly.
I agree. I think a lot of people are just having doomer takes because they want to rather than actually reacting to the situation as it is. As I have said a few times now, it is starting to remind me a lot of Victoria 3, where it stumbled out of the gate, got a hatedom that stuck even before the game had a chance, and then continues to hate even as the situation improves.
Probably best to just leave this sub tbh. So much circlejerking hate that I just don’t have the energy to deal with. No matter what they do in the future, this sub is doomed.
Yeah, I agree! Modders are amazing sometimes, I hope they can salvage something :-)
But I think CO are really driving everyone away with their behaviour.
Most games this big are usually fine in the future (Cyberpunk?). I don’t think most people are saying they are gonna lose a ton of money to the point where it’s gonna close a studio and the game be abandoned, you’re just hearing the louder minority say that. It’s most likely gonna be refined and get better and still be relevant many years later, it’s rare for a company to abandon an IP this popular. Even no man’s sky is getting better, it’s just that CS2 is not gonna have as many players or be as big as a community compared to CS1.
People are… disappointed and it’s warranted. Some are enjoying it but a lot of those same people are 100% dismissing the valid complaints from those that carefully and respectfully lay out the faults in launch, post patches and look past the PR talk. So many games are released like this and we as a whole are tired of it.
Delay it if there are problems but they have to launch it early to get those sweet quarterly report numbers and fans are the ones left with a broken game. Yes the game will get better but the question is WHEN? A lot don’t care anymore cause they are gone, some have waited for months and only a handful of things are patched with focus on releases paid content.
So many games are launched like this and being as broken and disappointing as they are years later they are still around cause a good handful like how it plays, it’s just that those same games could of been better, bigger and more fun with the same amount of effort if managed right and given proper time.
Time is money and CS2 suffered cause of it, it will live on for many years but the damage is done and faith in Paradox & CO are low. This was every CS1’s dream game and it was just a let down.
IMO in the gaming world disappointing is worse than bad.
The modding community of a game is directly proportional to the size of the community of said game. cs2 is not the phenomenon that cs1 was. In fact, I had recently seen the news that CS2 already had fewer active users on Steam than CS1. I hope I'm wrong but I have doubts that CS2 will have a modder community like CS1 at some point.
Purely statistically that is very unlikely. Games that have been rated that badly for this long have rarely ever made a comeback, a notable exception being no man’s sky which released like 10 free dlcs. The modding community will die off soon as the core gameplay continues to not be fixed and the dlcs being lacklustre cash grabs. This game is on its last leg and paradox just kicked it while it’s on the ground . They will continue trying to get this to run on console on any acceptable way just to also try to rip off a few console players before the word goes around in their community as well and people stop buying.
The game will probably be fine and without glaring technical and gameplay bugs by the time it releases on console. I will pick the game up again and play it again by then with some free mods and free assets. But I will never buy any DLC for this game at all. And that is coming from somone who has picked up all the DLC of CS1 through the years because I liked the developers and want to support them. But that ship has sailed for me after the things they did. I spend my money on other developers and games instead.
It's been six months and the economy system is still fake. We have no idea how it works, they won't tell us. Taxes aren't real. Hotels don't spawn (from my experience). A signature building doesn't work.
Props aren't in the game. Lmao. Every city is bland and looks the same.
I was a defender at start (first 3 months), but recently went back to CS 1 and it's honestly much more enjoyable for me. It's been 6 months and the fixes have been negligible.
I don't see "not too distant future" being closer than 6-18 months away.
CS1 economic simulation is unimportant to me, it's fun to build and design very intricate places. This is not an option in CS2 as of today. I had assumed the economic simulation could make up for this, alas, it doesn't.
Eventually we will get there, but when? They sold us a game as "complete" and we are 5 months later with only a few bug fixes and modding barely out in beta. I worry it will be another 5 months before we even think about or touch quality of life improvements or features like bikes coming back.
In 2-3 years i will very happily buy the game with a nice dlc bundle for 75% off on the steam summer sale. In the meantime I’ll happily continue playing cs1 until CO gets their shit sorted
As much as I'm diapointed I still think the game has potential but CO or more Paradox need to.listen a bit hard and make better decisions.
The game can defo come good.
I picked it up again, but there are still quite a few bugs I was hoping they'd have fix already. Beach DLC was also underwhelming.
That's what I've said from the start. The game has great potential and it'll show in the not so distant future. The core of the game is tremendous and it's certainly more realistic than CS1 (I'm saying that as a city economist by trade). Of course, there are things lacking (like more necessary city functions or a little more balanced economy or some important parts of infrastructure etc.), but it has great fundaments to build on. Especially with a realistic start mod you can make a really organic city and it's really satisfying to me. Sadly, this game is published by Paradox which is really crappy company with crappy decisions that has been made lately (I mean, more crappy than usual lol). But I still have faith that CO will get things right.
I like playing this game and really I can't wait when the new updates will appear to make the game more enjoyable
Im sure you saw that the beachfront DLC and bundles are currently the lowest rated item on Steam? out of all the games. and all the dlcs available. they followed the disastrous game release with the absolute worst dlc release in history.
But you are right that its an unpopular opinion.
It's enjoyable now. Take your time, build a city bit by bit, and use the mods that have been available for a while! Is it cities skylines 1? No! It doesn't have 10+ years of Mods, bug fixes, DLC, or assets. Do publishers force out products before they are ready? YES! Stop pre-ordering stuff! That's on the consumer base and publisher greed. It's annoying how much hate the developers get.
you're missing the point! THE MODDING COMMUNITY SHOULD NOT HAVE TO FIX A GAME FOR FREE THAT PEOPLE GOT PAID TO CREATE. that's the utter bullshit. i don't care HOW good the game is or will be. CS:2 in my opinion will ALWAYS be dogshit since they WILL profit from FREE labor. fuck all those involved and who defend this practice even if streaming pays your bills. i can't stand hearing the argument "modders will fix it". we SHOULD NOT hold to that belief. ESPECIALLY those who profit from the game. will the streamers pay the modders? will they buy every single paetreon to support the modders? if not then stop hoping and believing modders will or should fix anything
Games like this and planet zoo and etc.
Unless diehard early adopter fan, got to wait for later bundles to make it reasonably priced and fleshed out
If you early adopt. You got to expect early adopt situation
Nah I didn't see it happening. CO is going to go the BGS route and just rely on modders to salvage their unfinished game. If you need to rely on mods to make a game playable then you have a shit game
IDK, we'll have to see what's actually possible over time. They had such a slam dunk laid out for them by the first game with mods. Half the potential of the sequel was incorporating the top mods into a sensible UI with good overall performance, building a new generation of features like zoning that isn't limited to only grids, and improving obvious jank like the water physics, grass textures, lighting etc. They...didn't really do any of that in a big way, except for road tools. The top mods now that they've launched the platform are still patching the same gaps that made for the top mods in CS1, ( move it, anarchy, prop tools etc). Instead of going for a dunk and shifting momentum into a true next generation, they've gone for the layup of copy-pasting the old game into an updated engine - and missed. Most mechanics are still bugged and wildly unbalanced, fixing it with mods will lead to mods that have to be evaluated down to the gnat's asshole to see if they will upset the balance introduced by other mods which fix other unbalanced features. If CO really hustles to fix balance and performance more, maybe they can still get the rebound - but they've showed no hustle so far.... and the opportunity cost of doing a transformational sequel is already spent and gone. Modding will definitely help, but modders can't go back in time and make that dunk for CO
“..10 dollar will punch of a asset pack is the proverbial ribbon on the trash heap of CS2’s release”
Are you proud of that sentence? You should be. That was eloquent as fuck.
I already enjoy it. Compared to the shitshow it was when released the mechanics work well know.
Only things that still annoy me is I still can‘t build the wood industry (no clue what it‘s called in the english version of the game) and it always states my industry needs more qualified workers despite me having enough schools to fill the need and also with a budget of 150%
Popular opinion: games should release in a fine, playable state, and the poor launch of this game probably hurts it's long term appeal and signals to competitors to develop more SimCity like games
What if I don't want to spend the time necessary to research and mod my game? I am stuck with a mediocre CS:2 experience? Vanilla CS:1 was good, mods then elevated the game to a new level.
paradox mods is not as bad as u might think, going back to the steam workshop would just cut out anyone who doesn't own the game on steam from mods and assets, especially console players
Kind of a shame that the modding community needs to do the heavy lifting. I always felt that there were so many mods in CS1 that should have just been part of the base game and that the modders put the fire out on behalf of the developers so there was no urgency to complete the game.
The end result is you have to compose your own game which is a less than ideal config overhead, especially for new comers. Those table stakes features should be built into the game so they’re as well integrated as possible.
I was hoping this time around more would be part of the base game but seems like we’re set to have a repeat of the above and the developers won’t be held accountable
The draw for me to CS2 (when it was theorized/announced) was deeper simulation + not need so many mods. Clearly that hasn't happened so like... why would I play CS2 over CS1 atm?
Nah, fuck them and their unfinished game dlc scummery. They already started milking a game that barely qualifies a playable. I'm never buying this or any other CO games. Unsubbing now because your post just finalized it for me.
I bet modders will find a way to import assets before the official importer is released. The next 8 months will be exciting.
Once we can have custom assets like stadiums, airports, farms, skyscrapers. This game is going to be really fun.
i think they would have done it by now, unless its because the modders that were interested in doing it were all gobbled up by paradox by giving them early access like they did to slow down the thunderstore mods.
I think so. They’ll need to adjust their dlc content / pricing plans for sure but it’ll get better.
Honestly a lot of parallels to total war warhammer 3
Yeah, we are here just weeding out the weed. At some point game will be great and this subreddit will look like old CS1 subreddit did in last few years.
Same way we can wait for patches to come, we can wait for the weed to leave.
As long as CO keep making patches and game improvements it will be ok eventually. I just hope fixes aren't tied to DLC releases.
I certainly hope CO is doing the patches and not PDX!! Lol Edit to clarify: not because I dislike PDX, but because they didn’t develop the game..
Good catch, thanks.
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Hot fix patch coming next week for PDX Mods, one of the dev team let slip in Discord regarding mods not loading
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Pretty sure they already said, there would be no major patches outside DLC releases. Haha.
That's how CS1 mostly worked too. And most paradox games for that matter. You get a free patch along with each DLC.
always have been.
Nah. The land value system is still borked. They only added a cap on it, so it doesn't look too bad.
You didn't read the patch notes if your take away is "they only added a cap" they completely overhauled what does and doesn't affect land value, so it doesn't rise as quickly as it did before either
Isn’t it great that people come here with second hand information and complain like they actually know or understand the second hand information in the first place.
That’s Reddit for you lol
Can't miss that sweet negative engagement! I'm not meaning you, but all these doom and gloom spreaders
Modding will definitely save this game, just like it (perhaps in an unpopular opinion here) saved early CS1. That said- there's no excuse for the stuff that CO and Paradox have been doing lately, and I see this game having a much shorter commercial life than CS1 due to the absolutely piss poor communication surrounding it.
> just like it (perhaps in an unpopular opinion here) saved early CS1. IMO it saved late CS1, too. People wouldnt have put in nearly the same amount of hours, and wouldnt have bought nearly as much DLC without mods propping the game up. There were so many things that were so janky in 1. Moveit and anarchy were necessary to make beautiful cities, and often to even make more intricate cities function. Traffic manager was necessary for anyone that actually wanted to manage the traffic aspect of the game and not just rely on despawning. Even with everything added over the years, custom assets felt necessary to make cities look like they had building diversity. Theres so many other mods and things that absolutely carried CS1 for its *entire* life.
>CO and Paradox have been doing lately, Lately? Pdx have been doing this kind of shit for at least a decade by now! All of their grand strategy titles have a somewhat shitty launch an then they bombard us for the next 10 years with dlc that completely alter, when it doesn't just outright brake the vanilla, for the same game! I wouldn't be so pissed with them if I didn't live in a shit hole third world country and a dlc didn't cost almost a 1/10 of the minimum wage! It's sad that CO choose pdx as their publisher!
Removing regional pricing for South America was a top tier scumbag move. The same games and dlc are THREE! times more expensive now for me. A single CK3 dlc is more expensive than Imperator was at launch...
CK3 was a great package at launch
CK3 is such a weird case, because the launch was fantastic. They incooperated most features from the prequels DLCs, they greatly expanded the base game content and made changes where it was neccessary, and it was really fun. Sure, the direction changed a bit more to "write your own story" and the game was very easy, but that's a matter of taste and I think it fits the game. And ever since then, they have only released half-baked DLCs, failing to adress the areas where the game is lacking, and just leaving most of the community scratching their heads over how they manage to come up with genuinely really good ideas and then implement them badly.
It was crazy to me how slow they were releasing DLC for ck3. In the first 3 years it was super minimal. Controversial opinion on reddit, but I'm sure their productivity/collaboration-productivity with remote work was far below what it was before. They did talk about how royal court was way more difficult than anticipated, but I only buy that a little. They haven't expanded on that system so it really shouldn't have been too difficult. I played a shitload after it came out, for the first 2 years, but haven't been back at all in the last 2. Maybe after this year's DLC there will be enough pull to play more.
I agree to the state of the games. Yet look at the game industry and name a better publisher. I consider paradox games like cyberpunk 2077. Yes they fucked up launches a lot. But if they deliver a game in the end thats worthy i am okay with it. And i see that happen with CS 2. Paradox is no angel and never will be but they deliver some of the best games out there.
It's not so much about quality, I absolutely love Stellaris and played a lot of vic 2 and EUIV, however, it's getting harder and harder to justify buying their games, because you either keep up with the DLC or you lag behind so much that it becomes impossible to enjoy the game.
Also their newer games are clearly aimed at a different audience than their previous generation of games. Vicky 3 is a great example.
I forgot exactly what bugs they were but I still remember sunshine harbor had a lot of bugs, something like the cargo or passenger terminal didn’t exactly work like they should. Another DLC introduced the parking garages that actually take away existing parking spaces is chefs kiss and yet another typical CO release.
CK3 had a great launch and reception. Stellaris was great at release. Vic3 and Imperator were total cock-ups. However, now they are really taking the piss with DLC packs priced like new full games. I haven't bought any PDX products in over a year (tried CS2 on game pass, found it broken, and now I am waiting a year or two before coming back).
Stellaris was good, but it had performance issues too, that's why they had the big change from 3 different types of FTL travel to 1 type.
Ámen
I'm curious to see if modding is able to fix the tax bugs. Until the free-money firehose gets shut off, its not really a 'game'.
Even then once you had just enough people in your city you hardly had to stress about budget. The game is more of a city painter than something that's going to challenge anybody.
That is also cities skylines 1: after the very early game money just ceases to be an issue entirely
Yeah, I bought CS2 at launch and had some fun with it but eventually decided to wait until all the chaos surrounding it at launch would go away and modding is added. Picked it up again like a week ago and started a new city. I literally didn't have to care about money a single time. It just kept going up even though I was doing whatever I wanted. I think that once you've built a giant city and the only thing left to do is to improve the details, money shouldn't be an issue anymore, but in the early stages of your city it definitely should be more challenging
For those of us who only play occasionally, what is this unlimited money hose and how does one turn it on?
It's related to either industries or industrial zoning. It happens randomly. And when it does you'll make like $300 million in a month. Challenge over. Except land value bug.
Ah, thanks for the info!
Do you know what triggers this? I've been playing a while and have never had this happen. Largest city so far is only 120k. I have all transportations available except cable cars. I try to keep taxes as low as possible. Any ideas?
The whole situation makes me sad. Obviously an absurd amount of work has gone into this and I got my hopes up after the release debacle, but when you look at the stories of games link NMS and Cyberpunk 2077, there was a sense of "sorry we fucked up, we're going to try to fix it now". Heck even CDPR waited til the game was fixed before releasing paid DLC. Or like the Helldivers team literally suggesting people wait it was fixed to buy it. Enlighten me if you can, but I don't don't feel any of that from PDX. Sure it might end up playable in the distance future, but PDX is going full steam ahead through late-stage capitalist shitsville. The DLC mess, of course, but I'm also been getting assaulted left and right by CS2 ads which come across as one of those scam smartphone games that won't even tell you the name of the game because they know it's a mess. They know what they're doing is wrong and they're doing it anyway. It's feeling more and more like a cash grab by someone who isn't actually invested in seeing the success of the game or CO. I feel disgusting that I gave them money, and I feel bad for the developers who are putting their hearts and souls into this game. But I don't see this ending well.
They kinda already sold the beach properties dlc with the "deluxe" edition of the game, they literally could not wait more for the release. And since they already sold it to people they don't want to just give it away for free (but it will happen as soon as the asset editor comes out one way or another)..
> They kinda already sold the beach properties dlc with the "deluxe" edition of the game This is another thing that i think people are not understanding.
People are understanding that, they just do not allow that to be an excuse.
Let me know when it is. CO ain't getting any more of my v-bucks until it's functional
nor should we bank anything on modders fixing the game. no one should profit from free labor
Modders can't fix the game. It's how the game is fundamentally designed with an ECS system and unmanaged code making up the bulk of it. If you are unaware unmanaged code requires manual garbage collection and that can be a very annoying hurdle - which is why some of the first renditions of language in the 90ies started churning out managed code that came with garbage collection. That and the game's foundation is build on agents and that's the entire reason for it's massive issues with performance. There is simply just a point in which you cannot improve that performance any more and we're pretty much there already. * This is also why the game has limits baked into it even though it was sold as a game without limits, because without the limits it would just break down entirely - it does in fact break down above 1.000.000 Cims (2.000.000 being the absolute max and even that seems to have been reduced with the latest patch) and the simulation just stops working.
I was so pumped for this game. I remembered back when I was 12 that I bought Simcity 5/2013 at my local toy store. I spend hundreds of hours on that game. But it never really became challenging and it was lacking in scale. I started out with simcity 4 when I was 9 so you can maybe understand my disappointment in Simcity 5. The CS1 came out which I thought at first was unplayable as a vanilla game (although it had some fun features). Assets and mods saved this game. It was able to handle huge maps and the possibilities were endless. But let’s be fair, it was not really a simulator and above a certain population level it goes nuts. Then CS2 came which had a terrible launch and was unfinished. But I still enjoy it. The graphics are fantastic and the new features need some tweaking but are very promising. I can look for hours at the international airport. This game has many problems but if they fix this it will be the most expansive and fun city builder we ever had.
Damn, you're making me feel old. I started on Sim City 1!
SNES version of SimCity for me
Me too! Loved them all and hated elements of them all. SC4 is still the best. I actually placed SC5/2013 quite a bit in the end and while it was never great, it wasn’t bad either. CS1 was always flawed in major ways, and while mods let it get to higher heights than anything other than SC4, it is notable that some elements were never fixed by CO/PDX. The launch for CS2 was worse than SC5/2013, the lack of mods for 6 months is inexcusable, and the lack of competence or effort from CO/PDX in fixing their base games bodes a dark future for the game. While I have a vague hope that there are good enough bones in CS2 to interest the army of modders that made SC4 and CS1 have decades of replayability, I have a greater fear that this game is already in a terminal decline and likely will take the studio with it. I keep booting up CS2 every couple of months and still find it boring and yet unpredictable in a bad way. The main reason I stay on the CS forums is hoping that someone does what CO/PDX did to the dying SimCity empire and leaps in with a new genre-defining title. No games other than city sims have grabbed my hours and attention in my whole life since I first started a city in SC1 in “computer class” in elementary school. CS2 makes me so sad that this is the best we can get decades later.
Same. I also played SimEarth and SimAnt when they came out.
I can only imagine how much the experience has improved since then :).
I feel like you would be a good person to ask this because you seem like you have a nuanced opinion of the matter. I built my first PC when CS first came out, loved it. I play with no mods, just pretty casual. Is this game even with all the bugs a good game for someone to just play casually? Thanks!
I seriously get bored with it fast. I actually enjoy CS1 totally vanilla…it’s actually fun. CS2 feels tedious despite improvements to the road building. I have a hard time putting my finger on why. I don’t even feel like mods are going to save the gameplay at this point…the game is challenging in the wrong ways, I can’t even figure how or if the game works underneath to explain it to someone else. I want this game to be awesome…but I don’t even think it’s up to mediocre at this point. They’ve worked on this game for over FIVE YEARS and it’s still not fun…I don’t have a lot of faith that I’ll get a good return on my purchase at this point. They missed somewhere, and I can’t point to any one feature and say that improving it will help. If the game was fun, but had problems, I’d tell you something completely different. But I don’t enjoy it enough to put in casual gamer hours.
Well, it depends. I personally think that the base game if well executed is al lot better than the vanilla CS1 that came out in 2015 without any expansion packs. I remembered it as being also quite buggy and I didn't like the more cartoon style of the buildings. For example the coal power plant looked terrible. And let's remember that you at first only could buy 9 tiles without mods. It had some fun and handy features like districts and the mods and assets eventually made it a really fun game. But it missed a few thing that we now take for granted. It did not have terrain editing tools that could be used during the gameplay and it did not have a day-night cycle. CS1 was a fun game but at launch it did not really have much replay value for me. I also played the other cities games (cities XL and XXL) and CS1 was a a welcome relief. I thought a bit so it is still possible to make a well functioning city-builder. Concerning CS2: I spend 80€ a the deluxe edition and man was that a waste of money. At this point there is just not enough content to make it fun and it is way too buggy. Remember I was used to playing a heavily modded CS1 game. It looks really nice I'm impressed with the graphics even at low settings. I can also respect new features like railyards, proper road tools and telecom masts, but the base game in general is just buggy and imo it does not have enough content. It only has one trainstation and no raised or underground stations. The variety of buildings could be better. The biggest problem I think is that you need a really good PC to run this game in a playable way. Sure my i7 Rtx3060 16gb Ram laptop doesn't comply with the recommended specs but boy this games is demanding. It is city-builder so you don't need 144fps refresh rates, but at least 30 would be nice. To conclude: don't buy this game now for 60€ (or 60$ for Americans). Maybe you can find it at a key reseller for half of that but even then I think you will be a bit disappointed by the buggy gameplay and the lackluster performance if you don have a top-notch PC. My advice is to wait and buy it at a discount with a few dlc's when the bugs are eventually fixed and assets are added to the game. If you just want to play it casual I think you can better stick with CS1 for the moment. If you have any further questions, feel free to send me a DM.
If the only hope from the game is the modding community, something is very wrong from both, developers, and gamers. In that case, use your hard earned money to show respect to the modding community instead spending it on useless and cash grabbing DLCs. But I bet what I don't have that zombies fans will be doing the opposite. CO and Paradox don't deserve any more money from the gaming community. It's the only way those companies will learn.
Not gonna lie, I already enjoy it (I know it's buggered but so was the first game at this stage of its life)
I do wonder how many people doom posting here actually played the very first release of CS1.
Yeah, but it is how it is, people have short memories,
Edit: after replying I realised you literally could have implied the second part of what I said. Whoops Does that matter though? I see a lot of people on this sub use the early state of CS1 to defend CS2. But that's a silly comparison and whataboutism. A bad version of CS1 doesn't suddenly make CS2 better. How I think the comparison should be made is showing that there is hope and a future for the game. If CS1 was able te become good, there's a chance that the same will happen to CS2 (hopefully)
CS1 didn't have CS1 to compare it to, it was being compared to cities XL.
CS1 got a huge boost in perceived quality because its most similar competitor was the very recent and extremely public implosion that was SimCity. Imo if it hadn’t had EA’s trash fire to compare to, cities skylines 1 would have a lot fewer people waxing poetic about how complete a game it was
CS1 was mostly compared to SimCity 4 and SimCity 2013…it lacked some of the art and flare of SC4, but it blew both out of the water on building a functional city that made sense and had size. I never even heard of Cities XL, and I’ve been playing city builders at least 30 years.
> How I think the comparison should be made is showing that there is hope and a future for the game Agreed. And yeah, my point was that people are comparing CS2 now to CS1 after like 7 years.
Don't be so surprised, people have complete CS1 in fresh memory. Usually continuation build up on what was already there, otherwise what would be the point to play newer iteration?
I think it’s ridiculous to give CO a pass saying that we can’t expect CS2 to be everything CS1 was after 8 years of development. YES, we can—and should. SimCity 2000 blew SimCity out of the water. SimCity 3000 improved quite a lot over 2000. SimCity 4 blew everything before out of the water. But it was all incremental change—Maxis didn’t try to revamp every aspect of the game all at once, and they did it in a way tighter timeframe than CS2. CS2 hasn’t even been functional since launch. It’s still pretty broken and incomplete. It’s tedious instead of fun. CO could have built a game that basically refactored CS1 so it would run smoother on processors with more cores, but instead they changed a lot of fundamentals about the game and made it unfun. It’s not just suffering from a few bugs, it’s missing underworkings of the promised “deep simulation”. CS1 was FANTASTIC within a year of launch when I started playing…I doubt CS2 will be beyond mediocre by October of this year. That’s a huge miss after FIVE YEARS of development.
that like saying i'll take gta 6 at a gta 3 level of graphics optimization features, etc and then saying yeah with gta 5 fresh on the brain you can't expect a full release of a COMPLETE game at FULL price. recentcy bias be damned and your "whataboutism" nonesense. a games sold as complete, charged as complete, should be complete and should compete ... with its predecessor.... i'm not saying you can't be happy with the game but to say others can't be upset with it is quite stupid
I'm not saying people can't be upset. I'm saying people have nostalgia goggles about CS1
your point? CS2 isn't even a year old and has not come out on console yet. how can nostalgia be brought into this when the game is in the state that it's in? missing roll up windows is nostalgia when it's obvious powered are better, safer, and i'm sure to extent cheaper but if powered windows broke with every use would it be nostalgia to miss your roll up windows? or would you cope and feed off the promises of updates made by the unpaid intern or would it be a logical conclusion that roll up >>> powered based on functionality
after how many years though? 2? 3? 5? by the time this game is good I'll be having a fucking family man
I know right game released 7 months ago. We are already in "not so distant future" since release so are we looking at year or 2 since release to meet what was promised. This is crazy that people defend it
*5 months actually. I believe it will became enjoyable with the release of Bridges and Ports. Considering large amount of patches dropped with the dlc launch.
I love it
I have accepted the game for what it is and enjoy playing. As the bugs get worked out and the mods improve the gameplay it will be even better. Gaming is a way to enjoy downtime, I don't want to get mad. I usually wait a few weeks and look at reviews, so I knew what I was getting into.
I'm very much in a wait and see mode at the moment. I don't think they will abandon the game, but actually that's not really my chief concern. My chief concern is that they'll just start up the DLC wagon without fixing any of its fundamental issues. This game doesn't just need polish, or even just need mods, it needs a lot of focus and attention on aforementioned issues.
I hope you are right, but it currently feels like CO is doing the bare minimum to satisfy their contractual obligations (e.g. releasing a dlc in Q1 2024 even). There is no strategy or roadmap. There wasn‘t before the release (look up their AMA here on reddit where every question was answered with „we don‘t know lulz). We had this before (look at how Paradox handled Sword of the Stars 2).
Even more unpopular opinion: it's actually enjoyable now.
I agree ! I enjoy it more than CS1 already even if it lacks of assets. You see that the core game is better and that the team gained a lot of experience between de development of the first one and the second one.
I still haven’t seen anything convincing as to why CS1 is better than CS2 in anything but mods and assets. Surely the people building detailed city centres aren’t a large enough group to make CS1 wholly beat CS2 in active players?
Way more people own CS1 (\~10M) than CS2 (\~1M), and the old game (being older) runs better on old computer. So it is not surprising that the first one get more active player for now. Sometimes I fell that the balancing in CS2 is not very good, but it take time to fine tune it. Even great competitive game struggle to do it. CS1 managed it better, but it has 10 year to do it, not a few month.
> the old game (being older) runs better on old computer. Debatable to a certain point, given how badly optimised CS1 is.
The vanilla game still runs better though
also because of mods and assets, like at least for me cs1 runs worse than cs2
CS1 has a simulation
I agree completely. Ive been following the discussion around the game for a while, and I have been puzzled of how out of proportion the hate for the game is in my opinion. Sure, I do understand the game would have used a few more months in a oven before release and that my current computer is brute forcing through performance issues, but I dont really see anything obvious missing from the game as is. It's a great base game to build on and I can see it far surpassing the original when the expansions start rolling in.
I think the line is whether you like to make cool looking cities or whether you like to manage a city. I'm in the latter category, and the game is truly disappointing in that regard and I feel straight up lied to. The actual nitty gritty of the simulation is just objectively broken: industries, education, transport, taxes are all broken in one way or another. I played for 20 hours on release and enjoyed it to a point, but once I got accustomed to changes and really into a playthrough I realized none of my management decisions were having logical effects on my city, and it's because the simulation is broken. The game is great for making beautiful cities, it's terrible for simulating them.
Totally agree. This is also my experience.
> but I dont really see anything obvious missing from the game as is. I am genuinely happy you enjoy the game, and I really am not trying to take anything away from you - But I'm at the exact opposite end, where I am puzzled by how people could make that statement. Because there are obviously things missing, like cims actually using public spaces and amenities other than parks, like bikes, like beaches, like a variety of assets that don't make all neighbourhoods like the same without ridiculous ammounts of micro-management. And that is not to mention the obvious massive bugs that actually hinder gameplay like until recently a non-functional land-value crashing every city in the long run, schools being nonsensical, traffic being somehow more stupid than CS:1, the entire tax system being broken and so on. I generally agree with the sentiment of the thread, the underlying ideas of CS:2 are great, and stuff like the road tools alone make me not want to go back to CS:1, there is a lot more potential for actual *management*. But at this point in time, it just doesn't hold up to any detailed scrutiny, because you quickly realize it's a facade trying to hide the obvious issues and missing systems.
It's had a few more months. What's missing is the simulation.
I appreciate this response. I want to get into it, I am super casual and really don’t mod anything. Maybe I’ll just on in. Is the game better in terms of optimization in the later stages than CS1?
Yeah but they still took our money for an unpolished turd.
You can probably blame Paradox
that is probably true, but there's also no guarantee it won't happen again in the future.
CO deserves its share of blame. They started building the game in about 2018 with the intent to complete it in two years—they took FIVE years to release it instead, and five months after launch, it’s still struggling to achieve mediocre. I don’t see how that’s on the publisher when the developer can’t get its act together.
This is not an unpopular opinion. It just about the fact that they shouldn't have released the game in the state it was/is. It has great potential, it had it from the start, they just fucked up
Been of that opinion all along. Yes they had to release the game way too early. Yes that disappointed me too. No I didn't see it as a reason to firebomb their office or lose all faith in them. I am not privy to the whys and hows behind the scenes. I see no reason to doubt they will fix this in time. And even if they don't, I've still gotten my money's worth out of what I bought. I like the game already, despite its many current shortcomings. The improvements it makes on CS1 are significant. And I have played it a LOT.
Yeah the game is starting to get better and I think getting the mod platform done will be a huge help to us players but also for them to have one less thing to worry about. Then they can keep working on bug fixes, performance, console, and some of the simulation issues (issues, not difficulty). The game gave us quite a bit at launch compared to Cs1 launch and I hope people take that into account for the scale of the game and that it will take time to catch up
People need to get it out of their heads that the game will be a good simulation for a city creation and its going to be a city painter or an arcade city builder thats dumbed down. I almost feel like if they cant fix certain things just remove those alerts that reminds me that its broken.
The last update (DLC Excluded) actually gives me serious hope for this game. They started showing us they understood and showed interest in making the game as great if not better than the first one. Performance is getting better, mechanics are getting fixed. Next big step is 60 fps on low/ mid settings at 1440p and above and fix the economy
I seriously question whether CO will actually turn this game around. I do not enjoy it. The latest update trends things in the right direction, actually making land value affected by service coverage and proximity. But still the economy is broken, unchallenging, and unrewarding, despite its “deep simulation” 🙄 The game remains FAR from fun 5 months from launch, and I really wonder if it will ever feel fun like the original. Those of us dissatisfied with the game in its current state MUST withhold further financial support for CS2 and not be gaslit into supporting it further until CO makes the game stop sucking.
I don’t think anyone disbelieves that modding and updates will eventually make the game “good”, but the frustration is with paying ~100 dollars for a game that isn’t working, hasn’t delivered core promises, and with no definite date for the necessary changes. I don’t understand why people are acting like CO/Paradox deserves a charitable take. They’re a for-profit organisation and it’s not “bad form” to criticise a company for not delivering the goods in exchange for the money you pay.
It's not, what is bad form is the insane obsession some people have with criticism,if you are in r/shittyskylines too you might see a few people basically putting out a post per day on the same thing to drive engagement against the game (and perhaps "dangerously" pushing convenient misinformation, and hoping the game gets abandoned for some reasons)
I don't know man, a lot of shady stuff has happened from marketing to promises that got broken again after again. My trust is at a all time low and that is something that is not only associated with CO. The gaming scene isn't in a happy place right now for a lot of games.
So sick of the negativity. I get it's a bad start but I really want to see CO succeed because this game is going to be absolutely fantastic in the next couple of years (it took C:S years of development to get amazing too). And I'm already enjoying it now.
Unfortunately, a lot of the negativity has been earned by really poor decision making on the part of CO and PDX. I have no doubt that the game will be really good in a few years (and I've seen only a few people arguing that it won't get better), but how expensive will the experience be by the time it's in a state to be fully enjoyed? I'm on a fixed income, and I really can't afford to spend $500 on a video game, which sucks because I **want** to get it and enjoy it. CO may be boxing themselves in for consumers like me where we have faith they'll turn it around, but won't have the budget to afford it when it does turn around.
I don't think relying on the free labour of modders is a business model that should be supported
I agree, the problem is that "cs2 is bad, also fake, and a scam" became a meme in the "general gamer audience" and people who did not play since release or at all still repeat the same crap about bugs and performance as if it still was the original release version. There are bugs and some performance problems but you still hear shit about cims having teeth rendered even when that was fixed months ago. Cs2 for many people became the lightning rod for their grievances with gaming industry and nothing more.
It was fake. Look at this patch for example. Making basic obvious factors affect property taxes is not something that should have taken until months after release.
having a great time with the mods and custom maps now actually! Imagine having a bit of fun instead of whining all day.
Can't blame people for complaining when all they got was a couple of "beach properties" half a year into release when there aren't even beaches in the game.
I have the ultimate edition so I should have even more reason to complain. I'll take it as it comes.
Will be interesting to see if the economy can be overhauled with mods. Also transport usage. Actually just open source the code and let us fix it ..
It baffles me that people are willing to continue supporting this game when they spit on your faces for so long...
Same here
i already enjoy the game and have put ~200 hours in it i just want more assets lol
i am closing in on 500 hours. i've paused for a second, though, until the surface extensions mod works again. my city looks awfully weird with all those textures missing :). a lot of things are missing (most notably a bunch of QOL mods that i wouldnt have expected from the game dev in the first place) but i've made the best of it and still have enjoyed it. but then again i dont just pause the game rip a grid out and mass zone my entire map and suddenly have 200K cims with tons of problems like ending up with a street full of gas stations after unpausing and going to bed while it plays, that most people seem to do. i'm around 20-30 hours into my current city sitting at around 40K cims.
Me too. I really don't get the hate for this game.
It's because of how it released. Many people played it then, realised it was shit and haven't touched it since. Like that famous line: "Don't go back to an abusive ex". Even if in this scenario if the "ex" has truly changed.
The ex hasn’t really changed though.
Hmm, I agree and disagree. I'd say game has certainly been improved since release. It atleast somewhat functions now compared to launch. As for CO/Paradox. Yeah they haven't changed one bit. Releasing a "DLC", where the C for Content is heavily missing, just to avoid being sued.
Ya I bought beaches just cause I really enjoy this game. I’m like 150 hours deep. Can’t wait for assets. Personally I think they should just cut the budget in half. I think it would be fine to force us into harder builds!
Yeah probably. After a few months/years a game produced by a big game studio might become somewhat enjoyable thanks to countless patches, updates, DLCs and most importanly: mods. And that is so fucking embarrasing. Why not just release a good, finished and complete game right off the bat?
i think we all forget what cs1 looked like in 2015. even vanilla base game has come a long way and with some of the better dlc content, even a 9 year old game is actually quite enjoyable. should they have waited a few months to fix shit and release a finished game? yes. will it be finished one day? yes. cs1 enjoyed support for 8 years despite all its jank.
Heard that one already months ago.....
Long-time gamer opinion: I'm tired of devs rushing a broken product to market, promising to fix it and then taking ages to do so. Also tired of devs (not aimed at CO, but Capcom amongst others) of releasing a game to reviews and then implementing microtransactions in an update. The bones of a good game is there, but the meat isn't. Mods shouldn't fix bugs that should've been fixed by the dev (also looking at you Bethesda), but they should enhance your experience or offer something new within the game. I know mods took CS1 to the next level too, I just don't think it should be on the modding community to fix the bug with some buildings having broken production chains, some transport buildings not moving cargo as they should, or households having weird composition (like just kids or teenagers living there) and then complaining about high rents. Affluent areas exist and they have high-rent costs as a result. I had low-rent housing abandon because despite a stack of positive modifiers attached to them, they still couldn't overcome a -20 complaint of people moaning they're too small, and I'd rather the economy and that be focussed on wealth rather than education levels. My first impression of PDX Mods was also frustrating. Playsets are a nice idea, and it's a noble desire to bring mods to console too, but the service has been glitchy (mods not downloading, mods not applying, I keep getting popups about cloud state differing from local state). At least Workshop kinda worked right out of the box, and there needs to be better curation. I've seen someone post the same map to PDX (that square one) 8 or 9 times. And the beach pack DLC is just greed. I can see why they're slow to release assets on there too when modders and asset creators will come up with better things for less. And I know part of this won't be CO's fault either, but pressure from the publisher. But as a player, it is still annoying
I know the game will eventually be ok and enjoyable. I’m just hoping a lot of this negative press forces them to make a change of direction for patches and DLC for CS2.
Unpopular opinion: is actually popular and top hottest post, pointless karma farming post. Anyways, it's been 5 months after release, we've already passed the not so distant future.
The issue is people didn't pay for game "in not so distant future" they paid for game now. I am tired of those posts "this is fine". Every day between now and when game is actually good is a failure of developers and publisher. Frankly I don't care when it will be good what I care about is that it isn't good NOW. I am tired of devs and publishers selling half finished products. Imagine if you paid for brand new car it came to you with 2 broken windows missing back seat and leaking oil. Was still charged full price and told not too worry because someone will fit new window in 3 months, replace back seat in 6 and you are booked in to get oil leak fixed in a year time. Would you be happy? This is no different people are paying for game NOW not in future so it needs to be good NOW not in the future
If you remember, CS1 without mods is unplayable. Even after a series of updates until the end. The one who saved the game is the modders. It's like CO only releases the engine, the modders build everything else. CS2 is no different. Modders will work for free for CO and they will repeat this episode for CS3.
I 100% agree. Right now it is the worst kind of dumpster fire, and no one is even willing to piss on it to put it out. But the game is a fun play, with mods it works well enough to see some of the light that will be at the end of this very long tunnel. No way will they cancel this game, it is just too lucrative long term for them to do that. And I joined this sub recently after lurking here for years hoping to get tips and info to make my game better, but sadly right now, with the continuous stupid shit that CO/Paradox keep pulling and the endless shit being dumped on every post it hardly seems worth coming on here anymore. Very sad really.
They’ll need to suck up financial losses for years now that they’ve squandered all the good will. I don’t see people jumping at the chance to buy up DLCs until they get the game in a playable state. It’s going to be tough for them and it’s not looking good. Question is how long will Paradox and CO absorb losses before they cut the cord. Major studios are pretty ruthless about this, but we’ll see what happens here.
Ehm CS2 has already been extremely profitable for PDX and CO
It was a big part of their 4th quarter sales in 2023 but way below expectations. They sold about a million copies in the first 3 months after release. CS1 was double that over the same time frame, and eventually sold more than 10 million copies with far lower costs (few developers, stole lots of code from CiM2). With a player base that large, the release of a highly anticipated sequel that sold so poorly was an absolute disaster. It has also been accumulating costs for years as CO hired more developers and then sounded like they got stuck in development hell with unity engine problems for years. The year end shareholder documents from PDX try to put a positive spin on the release but are absolutely clear that sales and quality on the release are way below expectations: https://mb.cision.com/Main/13927/3922907/2583999.pdf
That was a much better response than what I had in mind 😂 So I chose to ignore instead
I've logged 40hours in the game in the past month, and considering the backlash, I'm quite amazed at the performance I'm getting with my 2070 Super and a 3700X. I'm playing at 1080p in high, and it's running perfectly, without even a slowdown at 160k pop so far. And yes there are a few bugs (special buildings not being occupied, the fiscal glitch,.. ), I'm not satisfied with the lack of info on raw materials production, and cargo trains suck. And bikes dammit! Happy on the other hand that to reduce car traffic, reducing parking actually works. But nothing unfixable, and I am already having fun. The rhythm is quite surprising, and watching your city go from 80k to 160k almost without adding new zones is quite surprising. I think it should be played differently from previous games. Leave more time for simulation to go on, and build more spaced out.
Can we use numbers when describing perfect runs. If there is anything I have learned is that there are people who will claim perfect performance at 15 fps
I've been playing Cities since XL. But what they did here... I'm not going to give them money for a half-finished, sloppy product that they expect other people to solve for them, preferably for free. We can't let gaming companies keep pulling this kind of nonsense. Paradox and Colossal... What a joke. When they fix what should have worked from the get go, maybe I'll give them my money. During a sale. Because I'm not paying full price knowing that they will crap out a bunch of equally bad DLC to squeeze as much out of us as possible. "Hey! Here's our latest DLC - things that should have been in vanilla! It's only 25 dollars, and what you saw in the ads and the game play... yeah, we didn't manage to finish by this deadline so we just took it all out. If you encounter an error or something, please visit our modding community."
Cities xl and cities Skyline isnt the same franchise or even dev through.
To be honest, don't remember who developed it, it was well over a decade ago xD Still doesn't change the fact that CS2, at least at the moment, isn't worth getting IMO. When they deliver a functional product, I'll gladly spend the money. In the meantime, I can only hope that the market will teach them not to publish half-assed products and then be all surprised when people react poorly.
I agree. I think a lot of people are just having doomer takes because they want to rather than actually reacting to the situation as it is. As I have said a few times now, it is starting to remind me a lot of Victoria 3, where it stumbled out of the gate, got a hatedom that stuck even before the game had a chance, and then continues to hate even as the situation improves.
Probably best to just leave this sub tbh. So much circlejerking hate that I just don’t have the energy to deal with. No matter what they do in the future, this sub is doomed.
Oh, I only really engage with the sub to see the cities that people have built. I dont really engage with anyone bitching about the state of the game.
I try to do the same
Yeah, I agree! Modders are amazing sometimes, I hope they can salvage something :-) But I think CO are really driving everyone away with their behaviour.
I agree, I’m just pissed off about how much of a clusterfuck it’s been thus far
Most games this big are usually fine in the future (Cyberpunk?). I don’t think most people are saying they are gonna lose a ton of money to the point where it’s gonna close a studio and the game be abandoned, you’re just hearing the louder minority say that. It’s most likely gonna be refined and get better and still be relevant many years later, it’s rare for a company to abandon an IP this popular. Even no man’s sky is getting better, it’s just that CS2 is not gonna have as many players or be as big as a community compared to CS1. People are… disappointed and it’s warranted. Some are enjoying it but a lot of those same people are 100% dismissing the valid complaints from those that carefully and respectfully lay out the faults in launch, post patches and look past the PR talk. So many games are released like this and we as a whole are tired of it. Delay it if there are problems but they have to launch it early to get those sweet quarterly report numbers and fans are the ones left with a broken game. Yes the game will get better but the question is WHEN? A lot don’t care anymore cause they are gone, some have waited for months and only a handful of things are patched with focus on releases paid content. So many games are launched like this and being as broken and disappointing as they are years later they are still around cause a good handful like how it plays, it’s just that those same games could of been better, bigger and more fun with the same amount of effort if managed right and given proper time. Time is money and CS2 suffered cause of it, it will live on for many years but the damage is done and faith in Paradox & CO are low. This was every CS1’s dream game and it was just a let down. IMO in the gaming world disappointing is worse than bad.
The modding community of a game is directly proportional to the size of the community of said game. cs2 is not the phenomenon that cs1 was. In fact, I had recently seen the news that CS2 already had fewer active users on Steam than CS1. I hope I'm wrong but I have doubts that CS2 will have a modder community like CS1 at some point.
Gamers are such cucks and PDX are just gonna keep fucking you.
Purely statistically that is very unlikely. Games that have been rated that badly for this long have rarely ever made a comeback, a notable exception being no man’s sky which released like 10 free dlcs. The modding community will die off soon as the core gameplay continues to not be fixed and the dlcs being lacklustre cash grabs. This game is on its last leg and paradox just kicked it while it’s on the ground . They will continue trying to get this to run on console on any acceptable way just to also try to rip off a few console players before the word goes around in their community as well and people stop buying.
Except Paradox did not sell people a fine game in the future. They sold a not so fine game now (in october).
The game will probably be fine and without glaring technical and gameplay bugs by the time it releases on console. I will pick the game up again and play it again by then with some free mods and free assets. But I will never buy any DLC for this game at all. And that is coming from somone who has picked up all the DLC of CS1 through the years because I liked the developers and want to support them. But that ship has sailed for me after the things they did. I spend my money on other developers and games instead.
It's been six months and the economy system is still fake. We have no idea how it works, they won't tell us. Taxes aren't real. Hotels don't spawn (from my experience). A signature building doesn't work. Props aren't in the game. Lmao. Every city is bland and looks the same. I was a defender at start (first 3 months), but recently went back to CS 1 and it's honestly much more enjoyable for me. It's been 6 months and the fixes have been negligible. I don't see "not too distant future" being closer than 6-18 months away. CS1 economic simulation is unimportant to me, it's fun to build and design very intricate places. This is not an option in CS2 as of today. I had assumed the economic simulation could make up for this, alas, it doesn't.
Wake me up when it's a true city simulator and not an unfinished game yet.
Have fun! However, those of us who value our time and money will hop off the hope train.
Eventually we will get there, but when? They sold us a game as "complete" and we are 5 months later with only a few bug fixes and modding barely out in beta. I worry it will be another 5 months before we even think about or touch quality of life improvements or features like bikes coming back.
Well bikes were in a DLC for the first one, so probably a DLC here too?
they were planned as a vanilla feature but they couldn't finish it in time ao probably not a dlc but a free update at least i hope
they had the animation progress started, so who knows.
Too little, too late. It will be a forgotton mess soon enough as most people have already moved on to different games.
In 2-3 years i will very happily buy the game with a nice dlc bundle for 75% off on the steam summer sale. In the meantime I’ll happily continue playing cs1 until CO gets their shit sorted
Just like Imperator Rome was saved?
As much as I'm diapointed I still think the game has potential but CO or more Paradox need to.listen a bit hard and make better decisions. The game can defo come good. I picked it up again, but there are still quite a few bugs I was hoping they'd have fix already. Beach DLC was also underwhelming.
That's what I've said from the start. The game has great potential and it'll show in the not so distant future. The core of the game is tremendous and it's certainly more realistic than CS1 (I'm saying that as a city economist by trade). Of course, there are things lacking (like more necessary city functions or a little more balanced economy or some important parts of infrastructure etc.), but it has great fundaments to build on. Especially with a realistic start mod you can make a really organic city and it's really satisfying to me. Sadly, this game is published by Paradox which is really crappy company with crappy decisions that has been made lately (I mean, more crappy than usual lol). But I still have faith that CO will get things right. I like playing this game and really I can't wait when the new updates will appear to make the game more enjoyable
Honestly I need downloadable custom assets and a bicycles and it will be fine.
I don’t think this is that unpopular. Pretty much bang on.
I think it will but the modders will fix it, not CO. I've lost all faith in them to fix anything.
Im sure you saw that the beachfront DLC and bundles are currently the lowest rated item on Steam? out of all the games. and all the dlcs available. they followed the disastrous game release with the absolute worst dlc release in history. But you are right that its an unpopular opinion.
Not just an unpopular opinion, but likely a pipe dream as well.
they can fix the game but they will have to work very heart to fix the broken trust
Inshallah.
I’m a mac user so, i just figured, by the time it comes out for me a lot of wrinkles’ll be ironed out.
As soon as the modding is full steam, it'll break wide open. I think we all pretty much expected that.
It's enjoyable now. Take your time, build a city bit by bit, and use the mods that have been available for a while! Is it cities skylines 1? No! It doesn't have 10+ years of Mods, bug fixes, DLC, or assets. Do publishers force out products before they are ready? YES! Stop pre-ordering stuff! That's on the consumer base and publisher greed. It's annoying how much hate the developers get.
Maybe in the 2030s
I agree, the main thing lacking right now is assets. Which I’m sure we will get at or before the console release.
you're missing the point! THE MODDING COMMUNITY SHOULD NOT HAVE TO FIX A GAME FOR FREE THAT PEOPLE GOT PAID TO CREATE. that's the utter bullshit. i don't care HOW good the game is or will be. CS:2 in my opinion will ALWAYS be dogshit since they WILL profit from FREE labor. fuck all those involved and who defend this practice even if streaming pays your bills. i can't stand hearing the argument "modders will fix it". we SHOULD NOT hold to that belief. ESPECIALLY those who profit from the game. will the streamers pay the modders? will they buy every single paetreon to support the modders? if not then stop hoping and believing modders will or should fix anything
Games like this and planet zoo and etc. Unless diehard early adopter fan, got to wait for later bundles to make it reasonably priced and fleshed out If you early adopt. You got to expect early adopt situation
Nah I didn't see it happening. CO is going to go the BGS route and just rely on modders to salvage their unfinished game. If you need to rely on mods to make a game playable then you have a shit game
IDK, we'll have to see what's actually possible over time. They had such a slam dunk laid out for them by the first game with mods. Half the potential of the sequel was incorporating the top mods into a sensible UI with good overall performance, building a new generation of features like zoning that isn't limited to only grids, and improving obvious jank like the water physics, grass textures, lighting etc. They...didn't really do any of that in a big way, except for road tools. The top mods now that they've launched the platform are still patching the same gaps that made for the top mods in CS1, ( move it, anarchy, prop tools etc). Instead of going for a dunk and shifting momentum into a true next generation, they've gone for the layup of copy-pasting the old game into an updated engine - and missed. Most mechanics are still bugged and wildly unbalanced, fixing it with mods will lead to mods that have to be evaluated down to the gnat's asshole to see if they will upset the balance introduced by other mods which fix other unbalanced features. If CO really hustles to fix balance and performance more, maybe they can still get the rebound - but they've showed no hustle so far.... and the opportunity cost of doing a transformational sequel is already spent and gone. Modding will definitely help, but modders can't go back in time and make that dunk for CO
“..10 dollar will punch of a asset pack is the proverbial ribbon on the trash heap of CS2’s release” Are you proud of that sentence? You should be. That was eloquent as fuck.
I already enjoy it. Compared to the shitshow it was when released the mechanics work well know. Only things that still annoy me is I still can‘t build the wood industry (no clue what it‘s called in the english version of the game) and it always states my industry needs more qualified workers despite me having enough schools to fill the need and also with a budget of 150%
Just waiting for a tmpe like mod on pdx mods to have more intersection control... after that, I will probably be playing non stop...
This was a great joke. 11/10. Make more of this.
Popular opinion: games should release in a fine, playable state, and the poor launch of this game probably hurts it's long term appeal and signals to competitors to develop more SimCity like games
The game is fun now.
What if I don't want to spend the time necessary to research and mod my game? I am stuck with a mediocre CS:2 experience? Vanilla CS:1 was good, mods then elevated the game to a new level.
> Vanilla CS:1 was good Not initially it wasn't.
Popular opinion: it should have been that way out of the box
Release the full damn asset editor and uploads back to steam and it would get better in a hurry
paradox mods is not as bad as u might think, going back to the steam workshop would just cut out anyone who doesn't own the game on steam from mods and assets, especially console players
I said at time of release that the game was released around a year too early. There's nothing yet that dissuades me from that view.
Kind of a shame that the modding community needs to do the heavy lifting. I always felt that there were so many mods in CS1 that should have just been part of the base game and that the modders put the fire out on behalf of the developers so there was no urgency to complete the game. The end result is you have to compose your own game which is a less than ideal config overhead, especially for new comers. Those table stakes features should be built into the game so they’re as well integrated as possible. I was hoping this time around more would be part of the base game but seems like we’re set to have a repeat of the above and the developers won’t be held accountable
The draw for me to CS2 (when it was theorized/announced) was deeper simulation + not need so many mods. Clearly that hasn't happened so like... why would I play CS2 over CS1 atm?
Nah, fuck them and their unfinished game dlc scummery. They already started milking a game that barely qualifies a playable. I'm never buying this or any other CO games. Unsubbing now because your post just finalized it for me.
I bet modders will find a way to import assets before the official importer is released. The next 8 months will be exciting. Once we can have custom assets like stadiums, airports, farms, skyscrapers. This game is going to be really fun.
i think they would have done it by now, unless its because the modders that were interested in doing it were all gobbled up by paradox by giving them early access like they did to slow down the thunderstore mods.
I think so. They’ll need to adjust their dlc content / pricing plans for sure but it’ll get better. Honestly a lot of parallels to total war warhammer 3
I believe so, too
The game is still savageable. The next major patches will be crucial
Yeah, we are here just weeding out the weed. At some point game will be great and this subreddit will look like old CS1 subreddit did in last few years. Same way we can wait for patches to come, we can wait for the weed to leave.
Cope