(my) Recent Experience re: Death Waves

[Chyll]

I did not see anything in the patch notes that specifically addressed the death waves that seemed common. My personal observation is that they seem less marked or severe in my recent - post patch - play. When I have noticed deaths popping up, in my current new city, they clear quickly and no 'wave' builds. It seems that my hearses keep up with things and it does not noticeably affect the city. This is new for me. Every city that I've made has experienced a notable wave of skulls.

This city is perhaps the first I have had that I've felt like I had a real handle on traffic flow. Even the mad rush of initial move in for an expanding/new region is handled relatively well. Ambulances, fire trucks, etc. all quickly get to locations and illness, skulls, and fires are all getting handled without my ever noticing. If it is just service accessibility due to traffic... then despite any common underlying cim age/death issues my tone on this particular topic may be shifting. In short, I am prepared to believe now that my poor planning/execution was the primary culprit for past death waves.


So if age/death code did not change, what is different? What magically changed for my traffic flow?

Tunnels. I do not use many workshop junction/intersections. I choose to try and build my own, which are sloppy and ugly and lousy and too few because I try to cram them in without 'rebuilding' an area for them. Tunnels have let me move the intersections underground, adjust them, and make more of them all with limited surface impact.

Just two new cents on this topic from me.


TL;DR

1. Good traffic flow and service accessibility seems to be mitigate any death waves, which surprised me.
2. Tunnels rock.

 

[Greygor69]

I don't think the Death Waves were "addressed" because they weren't seen as a bug per se.

Now whether or not the aging mechanism needs to be tweaked, that's another matter.

On a personnel level I have not experienced the "death waves" that many describe in any version of the game. But then I'm also playing without mods and I'm not sure if any of those impact the build. Also I've not experienced massive traffic issues, so maybe that matches with what you are saying. If your traffic flows so do the hearses and ambulances

 

[Vimes]

In my recent post patch fledgling city I had just turned 30,000 inhabitants when I head the repetitive sound of the bulldozer tool demolishing buildings. It took me a little while to realise that it was the automated demolish tool at work and watched with growing alarm my entire agricultural / industrial section being wiped away, due to abandonment.

I then faced the "other way" in the map view to see my high density residential zone equally being bulldozed and many many other buildings depicting the red skull and bones symbol. Thankfully it bottomed out for me with the population dropping to just under 17,000 but for that loss on a 30,000 city it was not fun.

I do hope that the next patch concentrates on fixes / adjustments etc over that of content, as welcomed as that can be.

 

[Estates2R]

My understanding is there was nothing in the update addressing death waves. I too have noticed deaths occurring in numbers due to poor traffic accessibility, which can be corrected by trying a number of strategies when studying traffic flows and congestion; I 've also noticed deaths (and illnesses) due to polluted drinking water, something to keep an eye on and probably due to poor pipe planning on my part. I've never experienced a death wave as others have reported experiencing, that has not been a consequence of my own city planning/engineering.

 

[Matt8D]

Death waves are not a bug. Perhaps hearses -could- be optimized a bit, but really, it's mostly traffic issues. Your hearses take forever to get anywhere because your roads aren't planned well, meaning they can't keep up with a growing population.

Besides, sims of different ages move into an area at different times. They don't all die at the same time. You just perceive it that way because you hit a critical mass where you simply don't have enough hearses moving quickly enough to satisfy the demand of a quickly expanding city. I've never had a death wave, except of course my very first city where, of course, traffic was terrible. Again, it's not a bug. Just like lines of cars is not a bug. Learn from these mistakes and don't blame the game.

The only thing is, I think perhaps more educated sims have less children. I haven't investigated but I have a hunch.

That's my rant over. Glad to see you're improving at the game. That's like 99% the fun of it.

 

[Rysouke]

I download Soda hearse mod and also i dont zone residential so fast and always monitor the birth and death figure as now my birth is twice the death figure. Therefore i dont have this death spike.

 

[Imsvale]

Many things that are not bugs per se, are still not working as well as they should. It doesn't have to be a bug for complaints to be legitimate.

Yes, of course better traffic flow helps mitigate the death waves, because the very reason the waves build up in the first place is the fact that hearses can't keep up with the spikes.

 

[Cropper]

Here we go. The same people denying that the death waves are real and that it's a bug. Ridiculous .

 

[Greygor69]

Here we go. The same people denying that the death waves are real and that it's a bug. Ridiculous .

As ridiculous as you insisting it is definitively a "Bug"

Let's make it a little clearer for you as you obviously misread my post

1. I said it appears that the Devs don't seem to believe it is a bug. What I believe is that it's a designed mechanic of the game that may need tweaking. If my belief is correct then it most definately is not a "Bug" as you call it.

2. Some people have experienced them, personally I haven't, or at least I haven't noticed it. I speculated on reasons why I hadn't. At worst I see a few "Dead waiting for pick up icons, that rapidly disappear as the hearses service them.

 

[Greygor69]

Many things that are not bugs per se, are still not working as well as they should. It doesn't have to be a bug for complaints to be legitimate.

Yes, of course better traffic flow helps mitigate the death waves, because the very reason the waves build up in the first place is the fact that hearses can't keep up with the spikes.

That's pretty much my view.

People throw the term "Bug" around quite a bit when it's actually a designed mechanic.

Whether or not that mechanic should be changed or tweaked is a perfectly valid conversation.

 

[Greygor69]

Hmm it seems @Cropper only wants to believe his own hype.

I think I'll leave it there with him sat on the beach ordering the waves to go back

 

[Cropper]

Hmm it seems @Cropper only wants to believe his own hype.

I think I'll leave it there with him sat on the beach ordering the waves to go back

Yes you are correct greygor. There are absolutely no bugs in this game at all. It's perfect Right out of the box. Anything not working properly is not a bug, it's a feature and no one should discuss them or else paradox /CO might get mad.

You sound silly. There are legitimate bugs, so much so that people are making mods to fix them. You are one of the few who continue to believe that using the word bug is an unforgiveable criminal act and can't possibly be true.

A bug is not bad thing. It's a bug And all software developers have them. Once it's fixed it's done and we can move on. It's our job as the buyers to point them out. It doesn't help when people such as yourself go into denial about it.

 

[Greygor69]

Yes you are correct greygor. There are absolutely no bugs in this game at all. It's perfect Right out of the box. Anything not working properly is not a bug, it's a feature and no one should discuss them or else paradox /CO might get mad.

You sound silly. There are legitimate bugs, so much so that people are making mods to fix them. You are one of the few who continue to believe that using the word bug is an unforgiveable criminal act and can't possibly be true.

A bug is not bad thing. It's a bug And all software developers have them. Once it's fixed it's done and we can move on. It's our job as the buyers to point them out. It doesn't help when people such as yourself go into denial about it.

Please quote me where I said there wasn't any bugs.

Please quote me where I said something shouldn't be discussed or brought to the attention of the devs.

You're wearing blinders while reading posts, seeing what you want to see rather than what is being said.

 

[Lord Canterbury]

I've only every experienced what might be called a death wave once. It was because I accidentally deleted a sewerage plant and the backlog of poop caused a chunk of people to die. I note there wasn't a strong feedback message explaining why people were dying - I just noticed lots of dead bodies suddenly and then saw my population level dropping. Which made me think (much as the OP) that the death-waves people experience as just a misunderstanding of poor planning.

It would be very useful if someone who has experienced a supposed mega-death-wave if they could post a screenshot of the birth graph and death graph. Many people complain about half their city dying off and suggest that it is something to do with short cim life-spans. If that is the case the death graph should show half the city dying, and the birth graph should show half a city worth of people being born about two years earlier. My suspicion is that is not the case... but one screenshot could happily prove me wrong.

Also worth noting than many who complain death-wave = bug are also complaining on others threads that the game is too easy for them. Perhaps in fact the game is too hard, but they just haven't noticed that yet? (Which would suggest to CO that perhaps some of the in-game feedback about what is happening ot cims is not obvious enough?)

 

[Greygor69]

I've only every experienced what might be called a death wave once. It was because I accidentally deleted a sewerage plant and the backlog of poop caused a chunk of people to die. I note there wasn't a strong feedback message explaining why people were dying - I just noticed lots of dead bodies suddenly and then saw my population level dropping. Which made me think (much as the OP) that the death-waves people experience as just a misunderstanding of poor planning.

It would be very useful if someone who has experienced a supposed mega-death-wave if they could post a screenshot of the birth graph and death graph. Many people complain about half their city dying off and suggest that it is something to do with short cim life-spans. If that is the case the death graph should show half the city dying, and the birth graph should show half a city worth of people being born about two years earlier. My suspicion is that is not the case... but one screenshot could happily prove me wrong.

Also worth noting than many who complain death-wave = bug are also complaining on others threads that the game is too easy for them. Perhaps in fact the game is too hard, but they just haven't noticed that yet? (Which would suggest to CO that perhaps some of the in-game feedback about what is happening ot cims is not obvious enough?)

I'd be quite happy to take a look at a Save Game where the wave of Death is starting to occur so that I can see it for myself and take a look for possible reasons why.

 

[JerkyJerry]

I just find it depressing that in a game there is so much talk about death
I find it to be such a mistake on CO's part to put such an emphasis on death. I play games to have fun not to die or have to manage death. This game seems to be more focused on how a player controls death rather than how one manages happiness. To me this is where CO totally missed the mark and where SC2013 excelled. SC was far more concerned with sim happiness where CS seems to have put their efforts into cim death
I understand that CO wanted to differentiate themselves from Maxis but IMHO they could have chosen a more fun less dark way to do so


Death is a part of life - It just happens to be the worst part

 

[Sarius1997]

The thing with death waves is that they will always exist in Skylines, if huge parts of a city get built at once.
They kinda do exist in reallife too, but their impact is simply way way less serious than in Skylines. And that is simply because the living time of the average guy in Skylines is way shorter than in reallife (don´t know how much exactly, but for one special building you need to have people living a whole life in your city, and i think i got the first after around 20 years), which leads to the point that (if a whole district get´s built at once) the deaths are way closer together than in reallife. The second point is the travel time of the hearses. In reallife you have a situation where one of them can pick up multiple dead people on one day. So even if three or four people die on one day in a neighbourhood, they all would get transported away without problems. Here it can take them a couple of days to get back to the crematorium.

So we have situations where a whole neighbourhood is dieing off over the course of a month (which would otherwise take over years), while the hearses need six days to get one dead to the crematorium.
This is kinda mitigated by the point that an crematorium has more hearses than in reallife (i think), and that people don´t get pissed off after three days when dead don´t get picked up, but it just isn´t enough sometimes.
Overall it´s just a mechanical problem.

 

[Vimes]

After losing 13,000 plus from my mini metropolis of 30,000 I thought that I had recovered. I had to the point of getting back to 33,000 but now it seems that my other half of the city is about to die....


http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=450167880


reminds me of that film Logan's Run, my inhabitants must have just turned thirty - lol.

 

[Cropper]

Please quote me where I said there wasn't any bugs.

Please quote me where I said something shouldn't be discussed or brought to the attention of the devs.

You're wearing blinders while reading posts, seeing what you want to see rather than what is being said.

Actually you are just sidelining a good conversation about bugs by debating the definition of a bug instead of dealing with the actual problem.

The ceo herself has admitted in another thread that this is a bug and they have recreated it. There is a mod that has been downloaded 10's of thousands of times to fix this bug by people experiencing it, but your only addition to this thread is to question whether the definition of a bug fits or not.

I won't be replying to your posts anymore since you are quite obviously just attempting to troll me and this thread.

 

[Cropper]

After losing 13,000 plus from my mini metropolis of 30,000 I thought that I had recovered. I had to the point of getting back to 33,000 but now it seems that my other half of the city is about to die....


http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=450167880


reminds me of that film Logan's Run, my inhabitants must have just turned thirty - lol.

That's not possible. According to people in this thread there is no bug so you must be lying about your issue.