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CO Word of the Week #2

Another week, another patch! If you missed them then you can find the full patch notes here:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/patch-notes-for-1-0-12f1-hotfix-steam.1606507/

The most discussed change in this patch was the removal of a radio ad after it was pointed out to us that it came off as offensive. We want Cities: Skylines II to be welcoming to all, so we decided to remove said radio ad. I was, however, surprised by the tone of the discussion. The best part of the Cities: Skylines community has been how helpful and kind its members are to each other, and we hope to see that continue with Cities: Skylines II. I would like everyone to keep that in mind when you join community discussions. I would urge everyone to leave constructive criticism and remember that if there’s an issue with the game it’s not appropriate to attack a fellow community member or single out a developer or a partner of Colossal Order. We are reading all the feedback and we are more inclined to take polite feedback (including criticism) back to the dev team. You can be a part of a positive community if you so choose.

This week we are really digging into Garbage. It looked like the Garbage feature in the game has bugs that affect the balance of it in an unwanted way. The work started earlier by identifying the following issues:
  • Garbage collection bug, that is caused by the garbage trucks just disappearing mid-journey.
  • Garbage accumulates too little and City Service buildings that process garbage are out of balance.
  • Garbage City service buildings which are just placed get their storages filled with garbage seemingly out of nowhere which then prevents them from collecting garbage from the city.

Now that these bugs are fixed we can look into the balance of the feature as the processing buildings don’t go through the garbage quickly enough and this causes issues with the export. If the city doesn’t handle the garbage internally, excess garbage is exported outside of the city. The downside of exporting is that it takes time and causes traffic leading to unhappy citizens, so it’s beneficial to process the garbage in the city for a faster outcome to please the crowds.

Another issue I mentioned last week was about stray dogs. In the next patch, the amount of them is fixed so that we don’t end up with an insane number of abandoned packs of dogs all over the city. Newlyweds should just welcome their partner’s dogs to the family and not leave them behind. Plans to fix this issue caused immediate debate if we should turn this bug into a feature. I for one would absolutely welcome the idea of an animal shelter DLC with a bunch of policies and all sorts of animals needing rescue in the city!

While on the topic of DLCs, we will not release new paid content for Cities: Skylines II before the outstanding performance issues are fixed to our standards. As a small team, we must focus on the task at hand to avoid spreading too thin. We are also very much looking forward to starting to go through your suggestions for Cities: Skylines II, such as adding some beloved quality-of-life improvements already familiar from the predecessor that were missed in the sequel due to priorities and time constraints.

My pledge to you is that Colossal Order will keep working on Cities: Skylines II so it will reach its full potential. To reach that potential we also need to talk about modding. Next week I’ll be focusing on the status of the Editor and what it will have when it’s ready for release. Check out this video to get an idea of what’s coming!

Sincerely,
Mariina
 
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While on the topic of DLCs, we will not release new paid content for Cities: Skylines II before the outstanding performance issues are fixed to our standards. As a small team, we must focus on the task at hand to avoid spreading too thin. We are also very much looking forward to starting to go through your suggestions for Cities: Skylines II, such as adding some beloved quality-of-life improvements already familiar from the predecessor that were missed in the sequel due to priorities and time constraints.
This is totally understandable. I think many of us are used to Paradox games, and they have mid sized teams which are large enough that most people's roles are more specialized so a focus like this would just mean people on content-focused roles weren't meaningfully contributing anything. With any luck CO will in time also be that large and successful.
 
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Thank you so much for the update! Regarding DLC not being released until it is deemed appropriate, does this affect the post-release contents of the Ultimate Edition? Thank you again!

Edit: To clarify, I am referring to the announced release windows of the items in the Ultimate Edition.
 
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This is totally understandable. I think many of us are used to Paradox games, and they have mid sized teams which are large enough that most people's roles are more specialized so a focus like this would just mean people on content-focused roles weren't meaningfully contributing anything. With any luck CO will in time also be that large and successful.
Thank you for the support!
Thank you so much for the update! Regarding DLC not being released until it is deemed appropriate, does this affect the post-release contents of the Ultimate Edition? Thank you again!

Edit: To clarify, I am referring to the announced release windows of the items in the Ultimate Edition.
The DLCs that are listed for the Ultimate Edition may suffer delays, especially the ones set for release in Q4 2023. The Beach Properties assets have been under construction for a while, but as the coding recourses are tied to the improvements and we're having to pull the artists for more urgent tasks this will directly affect the DLC development. It is very likely we'll have the first DLCs for Cities: Skylines II release in Q1 2024. We are committed to delivering the promised post-release content even if they must be delayed for some time.
 
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No mention of the community response to your admittance that the game has failsafes, making a city unable to fail thus rendering your entire "detailed simulation" pointless at best, even misleading?
 
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Thank you for the support!

The DLCs that are listed for the Ultimate Edition may suffer delays, especially the ones set for release in Q4 2023. The Beach Properties assets have been under construction for a while, but as the coding recourses are tied to the improvements and we're having to pull the artists for more urgent tasks this will directly affect the DLC development. It is very likely we'll have the first DLCs for Cities: Skylines II release in Q1 2024. We are committed to delivering the promised post-release content even if they must be delayed for some time.
Thank you so much for your response! I understand. I don't even have a graphics card because I had to sell it earlier this year, so whenever I currently run Cities: Skylines II, it's through GeForce Now.
 
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In regards to the editor, can we make sure that the map/terrain editor has the ability to specify the exact height of the level tool (as can be done in CS1)?
 
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i second that:
first fixing perfomance and ecosystem/balancing bugs - then Editor and then DLCs

so playable and simulation first!
This is exactly the plan, and we're working as fast as we can to deliver the fixes.
The newly weds abandoning their partner dogs ....loving how a bug can become a feature and we could get a DLC out of this
I'm just relieved it's the dogs and not the children.
No mention of the community response to your admittance that the game has failsafes, making a city unable to fail thus rendering your entire "detailed simulation" pointless at best, even misleading?
Just like Cities: Skylines this game also has fail conditions where the game helps the player so that there is no hard failure ending the progress of a city entirely. Is your feedback that the game should punish the player more for the mistakes? We can most certainly look into the difficulty level in the future and see if there could a hard mode implemented.
 
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Just like Cities: Skylines this game also has fail conditions where the game helps the player so that there is no hard failure ending the progress of a city entirely. Is your feedback that the game should punish the player more for the mistakes? We can most certainly look into the difficulty level in the future and see if there could a hard mode implemented.
Hey! :) First of all, thanks for the update. And to answer this, I know you are all busy doing your best, but yes, this is what it seems a lot of us want (at least, just taking by some discussions on this forum and Reddit).

To just point out two of the larger ongoing discussions on this topic:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...y-to-lose-give-us-difficulties.1607282/page-1

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...anagement-in-the-game-is-a-deception.1604434/

I realize these are a lot to go through, but the sum of them are essentially that we are a part of the playerbase who would love to have some sort of difficulty modes implemented. Less hand-holding, and even the possibility of having cities fail or collapse from failure of understanding the simulations. We feel like it's a shame that there appears to be such complex simulations that we're not allowed to really feel the consequences of harder when we overlook something.
 
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Hello, please fix the level of detail. Since last week the game is really not good lucking since the reduction of these and I had to stop playing :(
 

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In regards to the editor, can we make sure that the map/terrain editor has the ability to specify the exact height of the level tool (as can be done in CS1)?
Your feedback has been logged into the map editor wishlist!

We opened a new sub-forum for Suggestions so that it's easier for our community team to keep track on all the topics of conversation. It's great to see Cities: Skylines evoke this must discussion and we can't wait to dig into your ideas for the future!
Thank you for addressing the most dire bugs so promptly!
We're doing our best! And while we prioritize the fixes I want to thank everyone for their patience as we can't address all reports at once but we are combing through them!
There is a issue with cars changing lanes like insane in the game and that need to be fixed
We have two fixes pending (meaning these need to be tested and added to a future patch): Increased pathfind penalty for unsafe u-turns on highways and Fixed incorrect traffic lane-changing behavior when one or more lanes are merged to one from the left side.
Is it one of those by any chance that you are referring to? If not please check the Bug Reports and if the issue you are facing is not reported yet please report it. Your feedback is greatly valued!
 
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Hello, please fix the level of detail. Since last week the game is really not good lucking since the reduction of these and I had to stop playing :(
Added some pictures as example,
 

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