Stop buying content DLC!?

[unmerged(347098)]

All the DLC Content is very nice.
I bought them all, just to support CO, hopping they will fix some of the pathfinding issues.

What are scedules good for, if they are not used for pathfinding???

I know, that programming and fixing cost time -> Money.
So I hoped, buying all DLC will show, that there is still interest in this game, so Paradox ordered to improve the game. But it seems, that Paradox just missunderstood.

The just request a 3d modeler to make some new content, but not fixing any problems.

Looking to the price, all DLC are more expencive than the main game. But I guess, the used not 1% of the manpower, than the main game.
So continuing buying DLC will only show paradox that we are satisfied with new content, and they do not have to order any improvement of the game.

So for my position: I would pay another 20 USD, to get the pathfinding fixed. But I will quit spending another 2-5 USD to more content.

 

[unmerged(334932)]

I disagree, i like new content, and i will continue to buy them if i want it, but you do have a point with the path finding system. In CIM1 it was fun to track down the CIMS and follow them on their journey, in CIM2 it just doesn't make sense what they do sometimes. My best hope is to be patient, the Devs are aware of all the problems. At least wait until April 2014, if the MAJOR bugs aren't fix by then, then I'll have a problem.

 

[chris-tier]

At least wait until April 2014, if the MAJOR bugs aren't fix by then, then I'll have a problem.

Why until April 2014?

 

[unmerged(334932)]

Why until April 2014?

From gaming experience, it usually takes a year from the release date for the Devs to iron out a lot of the bugs, and at the pace their going i expect that. Its September and there were no patches this month, and i also expect that if there is a patch coming soon its not going to be a big one since they say they are a small team. Then again that's just my opinion.

 

[Aufrechtgehn]

I decided for myself not to buy any new vehicle DLCs, as long as there are no European buildings, which IMHO would be far more important than the umpteenth bus. My aim in this game is to recreate real European cities, including their public transport system, with as much detail as possible. I love CIM2 for giving me much more possibilities to do so by losing the grid system. But the buildings leave much to be desired, including, of course, airports and train stations.

But indeed, pathfinding is a MAJOR bug in this game, which would make this game completely unplayable, would I focus more on the "building a functional public transport system" aspect than on the "recreate a real city" aspect, like I do. Given that the first aspect is the intended one, CO should stop working on anything else and focus all their energy and manpower on fixing this major bug before releasing anything new, IMHO. Unfortunately, it seems that Paradox / CO doesn't seem to think so, even denying that it is a bug and it makes the timetables, THE most important selling point of CIM2, useless. They are even risking their fan base with this behaviour.

So, what I'd like to see is an anouncement of CO, accepting that pathfinding in this game is buggy and the promise that it will be fixed, and giving us a time frame. Even if it's six months. Hell, I'd even pay 20 € upfront if they'd promise to use the money to fix it! And I'd love to see European buildings, as quickly as possible. I'd buy every single DLC containing European buildings and city infrastructure like harbours, airports, train stations and public buildings, but I'm not going to buy new vehicle DLCs, as long as these issues aren't adressed.

 

[co_martsu]

So, what I'd like to see is an anouncement of CO, accepting that pathfinding in this game is buggy and the promise that it will be fixed, and giving us a time frame. Even if it's six months. Hell, I'd even pay 20 € upfront if they'd promise to use the money to fix it! And I'd love to see European buildings, as quickly as possible. I'd buy every single DLC containing European buildings and city infrastructure like harbours, airports, train stations and public buildings, but I'm not going to buy new vehicle DLCs, as long as these issues aren't adressed.

I'm very sorry you don't like the pathfinding in the game. However it is something that we will not be addressing since it works as designed.

When it comes to the European buildings, we'll see what our options for those are.

 

[unmerged(500066)]

So it was planned, that Ppl. switch the line every 2 stops, even if they can reach their destination with only 1 line? That is absolutly senseless.

 

[Gogomaester]

I dont like the attitude on this forum. As I am vistinig the final year on high school with programming, I know how hard it is to:

- Change something, that is finished
- Its not hard to code a programm that will be working, but it is hard to code something, that can people run on their computers, which are definitely not so powerfull as the devs computers.

Another thing to mention is, that the pathfinding is definitely NOT very bad. Is it working? It is. Is it working great? Yes it is. You are talking about switching lines. Are YOU Mr Krabs not switching lines? Do you preffer to go 120 minutes with one line than 30 minutes with 5 lines? The Pathfinding is done. If you would like some more research, why is it not possible to change it check this. The game works fine, and its not necessary to solve it anymore. Of course there are some bugs, but devs are trying to fix them as soon as possible. Good example of this is CiM 1. They gave us lots of patches in time and I dont think, that the devs have changed and are just sitting and saying: "hahaha look at those hate post, it is funny, we will wait 2 more months". This is how kid would think. You must be patient.

Also look on other games - Train Simulator 2014 for example, i have been waiting 4 months till they fixed a bug, which caused signals to be invisible. At least they fixed it. FIFA for example? There is plenty of buggs, Missing leagues.... 100000000 hate posts, 0 dev posts and still, people are giving 50€ for it. You piad 20€. Are you waiting the devs to do everything you want?

That brings me to another topic, to this topic. Nobody said you have to buy DLC's. DLC's are only an expansion of finished game. The game without DLC's is well playable. Don't get them if you want them. Another example of Train Simulator 2013: A DLC costs 30€. In CiM 2, you pay 4 - 5€. What the hell do you want? Completely new building pack after a half year? Well I do not know what happened to you people, but normally, for bigger games, you are waiting year or more for bigger DLC. Don't buy the DLC's if you don't want them. I think 5€ is good price for 5 vehicles.

If you read my whole post, you could say that I am just defending the developers, but common. Of course I had some objections to CiM2 for example missing Train Stations and Parks etc.. but the Landmarks really surprised me, and they add another aspect to the game. Start thinking as adults!

P.S.: I would like to thank one more time to all developers, that they gave us this great game and that they are still listening to our feedback.
Gogomaester.

 

[Aufrechtgehn]

... we will not be addressing since it works as designed.

I have to say I'm a bit puzzled about this attitude. From CIM1, I remembered and admired CO for your ability to accept costumer critisism and constantly develop the game in our favour. What has changed? If you're cross-reading the forum you can see that I'm by far not the only one thinking that the current pathfinding is buggy and needs to be fixed.

Please don't get me wrong: I loved CIM1 and I love CIM2. You already gave me endless hours of fun with those games, and I'm really grateful for that. CIM2 has the potential of becoming such an ace game, it'd be such a pity wasting that potential. If you don't have the financial resources or manpower to fix this issue or if it's a technical matter: this I could understand. If it's a case of programmer's pride I'll accept it's not a bug, but a feature - still, I (and dare I say: I think most of us) believe this feature doesn't work as we'd like it to work and it needs to be changed if you want us to stay on the game and buy the next 200 DLCs. But simply stating "it works as it should" when costumers constantly say it needs to be changed seems a bit... stubborn to me. Especially when it's about one of the core functions of the game.

But please don't let this complaint stop you from seeing into your options for European buildings: I'll promise to sing your praise and put you into my evening prayer if you do so.

 

[Senap]

I dont like the attitude on this forum

+1. I agree with everything you said.

 

[baolong]

I hope that Some official Information can open .

 

[Aufrechtgehn]

If you would like some more research, why is it not possible to change it check this.

I've read this thread and the reasons given. I also read the anwers of forum users to it, suggesting that there still may be possibilities to change it and adressing why they (and I) think it needs to be changed. I'm not a programmer, I may be naive about this. If someone from CO tells me "this CAN not be changed for technical reasons", I'll immediatly stop whining and accept. However, so far I got the impression that they simply do not WANT to touch it. And this attitude, as stated before, puzzles me.

 

[adys123]

+1. I agree with everything you said.

I agree with eveything you mentioned.

 

[pollux_ar]

I dont like the attitude on this forum. ...
Gogomaester.

+1

 

[unmerged(347098)]

@Gogomaester:

Finishing high school makes you an expert in programming.

I do have 25 years experience in programming. 12 years expirience in programming workflows in industrial environment.
So I can tell you, that for me, it looks like, that CO had a lot of very good ideas. Starting to develope them. As usuall, to put all the good features in, they figured out, that the scedule was to tight. So after implementing scedules, wich was a very good idea, and a lot of people were waiting for this, they just put the old pathfinding algorithm over it, making the scedule thing, and the express lines totally useless.

Programming in an object oriented environment, like c#, it is quite simple, to replace parts of an engine. If you want to.

If I do want do design cities, I play cities XL.

New content is cheaper to produce, than fixing the engine. It is sad to see, how a publisher is able to ruin a good game idea.

 

[Gogomaester]

Maybe you are right, but I do not agree with the statement, that express lines are useless. I can provide you a save, where I have two metro lines (local & express) and it works perfectly. The only bad thing about this, is that you cant do:

Night lines
Weekend lines
Double lines (In city centre, they are the same, but at the end, they split)

Edit: You are very experienced, why dont you share with us your example of solution?
Edit2: I did not write anywhere, that i am programming master, I have only 3 years of not so intensive experience. So please dont offend me in this part, I only said, that I agree with the fact, that it would not be so easy to change it, since it a deep game structure.

 

[unmerged(347098)]

As long as almost 30% of the cims leave the express line to switch to the local, go the local stops, returning back to the express at the next express stop, pathfinding is buggy.
Increase the cost of changing lines, and the problem would be fixed. Bad thing, if you do not have deployed cost to your pathfinding algorithm.
If I do have a european week.
I do have rush our MO - FR in the morning
MO-TH 4pm - 6pm
FR 1pm - 3pm

I have people go to party, cinema FR-SA night
Go Shopping SA
Go siteseeing SO

This is implemented. Very fine.
But to cover this, there are not enough options at the time table.

This could be easiely be increased by pulldowns.

Making a special night service is not possible with the pathfinding at the moment. So it is not working as designed.

At some point in Patching, they started to beam.
So why is this not being done in terms of computer performance.
This could be very easily done.
Use qoueues as in between threads. So if some sim starts a journy, put him on a qoueue. Take sim from qoueue and calculate the path.
If qoueue qoueues up to an certain amount, beam them away.
After rushhour keep the same percentage of beaming. Otherwise you have the problem, that on a weak machine it always seems like rush hour.
While a strong computer would be able to simulate a town of 200'000 habitants completely.

 

[kellergeist79]

This is also my policy. I don't buy any DLC at any price since bus mania, as long as the pathfinding stays the way it is. For several months I hoped this would be fixed, but nothing happend. Things got even worse as after one of the last patches even looped lines do not work anymore (vehicles jam at first station, after changing the frequency to a lower one in the time table). Due to this the motivation on playing the game went to zero, as any strategy beside 24/7-services with same frequency at any time seem to be senseless. This is the major issue for me, preventing me from both buying new DLCs and playing the game.

The second one: in every vehicle-DLC I only see one or two good vehicles. Look at the bus DLC's: none of them contains e.g. new articulated busses, the capacities are somehow random and not moddable. Very confusing seeing small midi-busses having a larger capacity than the only articulated bus...

And yes, a refreshment with a new building style (e.g. european) would be a good thing. But after a while even this would not help in the long run if the pathfinding stays the same. But as CO mentioned it was a design decision. IMO a wrong one, as it makes the game only casual, providing a lot of initial fun, but not keeping the player in game for months or even years, which is bad for DLC sales in the long run.

 

[quirinus]

I'm very sorry you don't like the pathfinding in the game. However it is something that we will not be addressing since it works as designed.

well this is indeed very funny. after reading this thread i took a closer look on the paths that cims use, and it is true, they do choose sometimes very weird paths.
and then i tried to relieve a very busy tram line by adding a metro with same endings of the line but fewer stations, the result was an even more busy tram line, because of the reason lifeguard explains above.

did you really want to design it like that? for what reason? in the city where i live there are plenty of examples of 2 lines following the same way, like a tram and a metro, and people do not switch 3-4 times between those lines on one journey

edit:
i don't buy dlc not at all, because 99% are much more expensive than they are worth. for 5 euro you sometimes can get a full indie game that gives fun for hours.. i would pay some euro for a really good map, but for buses? lol
the best thing was the double-metro station in cim1 that, in my opinion, was necessary for the game and so it should have been implemented in normal game.

 

[Rick D]

I'm very sorry you don't like the pathfinding in the game. However it is something that we will not be addressing since it works as designed.

When it comes to the European buildings, we'll see what our options for those are.

How can you POSSIBLY say that pathfinding works as intended!?!?!

Please see screenshot below. I have repositioned tram stop C and bulldozed a road I had earlier built that contained an old tram stop. Take a look for yourself and see the route my citizens take to make the transfer from metro to tram...



All passengers alight the metro at A as this is the final stop on the line. They walk in completely the wrong direction
They cross the road at B, walk one block and then cross back to continue their journey
They walk directly past their final transfer point (E)
They make their way to C to board the tram
They travel one stop and alight at D (They already walked past this stop on their way to C to board the tram
They finally make their way to E to board the train at its first stop to continue their journey

Why do they not just walk across the road to the tram stop?

This is living proof that the pathfinding system does NOT work as intended. Like I stated in my other post, I'm trying not to be negative about this game as it has so much potential, but when I see posts like the one I have quoted I really find I have to bite my tongue to avoid venting my pure frustration at this whole thing!