So We Had a Chat with Colossal Order & Paradox About Cities Skylines 2 

if the simulation, the core game, is not fixed, no matter how many assets and detailing mods are added, the game will continue being a great-looking city painter, not a city simulator

I am glad that the Paradox team is engaging with the community to get the game into a state that it should have been in when it launched, and not just shutting down the studio. *Cough cough* take two *Cough chough*

It's weird seeing rooftops and trees covered in snow but vacant lots and backyards devoid of it.

I had CS:1 sitting in my library for a couple of years, but Biffa's city fixing videos are the reason I reinstalled CS:1 and for whatever reason, I was addicted like never before. To see him dealing and fixing with the same troubles I was running into in my own cities, made me want to get back into the game and test all of his ideas (yeah LANE MATHS, I'm looking at you). And then other youtubers came with their ideas, I learned about road hierarchy, how to build crazy interchanges that ACTUALLY made a difference in overall traffic, I learned how to use rail to move and spread goods to the rest of my city, the traffic mods, the assets... It was a sandbox where you could TEST your creativity rather than a simple city builder. And then CS:2 came along and NOTHING of the above makes a difference. You cannot test stuff, because you can hardly fail. It doesn't matter if a major intersection is clogged because the industry is going to function as nothing happened. CS:2 reminds me of one of those strange dreams, not a nightmare, not a pleasant dream either, where anything makes sense, you think you are controlling the story of it, but in the end it just a distant mix of memories of your past experiences stitched together by a sleepy brain.

It's so sad. In 2013 they rescued us from the Sim City 5 debacle, just to become the villains themselves, in the very same way.

Thank you kindly. It sounds like a productive meeting. Especially as they included people familiar with both city painting and city building styles of play.

What I understand listening to you is that they are doing the research work that they should have done way before starting development.

I agree with the traffic fixing and turning vehicle despawning off. It's one of the things I really enjoy in CS1. I'm glad you brought that up.

Interesting Biffa - I'm indeed hoping that the game is going to improve like CS1 did. Thanks to you, Egg and CPP for doing the interview

The biggest setback I think the sequel had was indeed in the parks. You'd think they'd pick back up the idea of parks being zones from the first game, and improve on it. Instead we are back to "square" Heck, the "industries" things you can draw out. They are a good basis. Just let us populate those with special buildings inside it more. To make it look like it's not just a ground texture.

Games are hugely complex and while I understand Biffa's "priority" as someone that does a lot of city landscaping, I hope Colossal Order doesn't get the wrong impression that the management part of the game is less important. Personally much rather have their focus be in game mechanics then assets. Sure assets are great to make beautiful cities, but I need the management side much more and CS2 has a lot of potential on that side that still needs a lot of love. I guess this is where it gets hard, as everyone and their dog may have slightly different consideration what they think is important. I'd argue that the simulation part, which includes the challenges mentioned in the video about traffic and production chains, etc. are crucial for the city build part. But again I recon my manager heart bias.

Now that you listed the things, I realized why I didn't feel like playing CS2, but loved CS1 - traffic and solving traffic challenges. That's it. My cities look the same, I rarely detail anything, I just make them functional and optimize traffic (including pedestrians and cyclists, and public transportation). I get the fulfillment from having "perfect" traffic in a city of 100000 cims. When CS2 gives me that feeling, I'll be playing it.

Thank you agreeing to take part in this, it is good to know knowledgeable people took part in it. One thing to add to the list, while fixing the zoning, add the tool to manipulate zoning as well (Same as in CS1), basic add/remove/one side/both sides.

Thanks for the update on whats going on Biffa.

IF there was one fix Paradox could make immediately for me it would be to have my cims use my parks. Play soccer, run the track, bring their dogs, walk through the plazas, watch a show... instead the only activity is a trash can fire and some tents.....

They should have a mode where stuff costs as much as in real life. So to build a mile of highway, you'd have to spend 5 million credits... I'm sure this will be quite the challenge.

You just reminded me of something else. So the crosswalk situation. The remove crosswalk function removes crosswalks from an entire half length of a road if done at a junction, removing the crosswalk at the other end removes crosswalks from the entire road, then you cant place a crosswalk in the centre because the remove crosswalk function overrides you trying to. This is because the node lengths are now longer so you physically cant in built up areas remove crosswalks from junctions and have the crosswalks in between junctions like you would have sometimes irl. This is a simple fix just allowinjg path crosswalks to override the remove crosswalks function, or somehow make the remove crosswalk function only remove the crosswalk itself instead of banned the entire road from having them.

In my brutally honest opinion the game should still be early access at a reduced price. Sorry, but if they're still talking about patching this and fixing that seven months after release then simply the game wasn't and still isn't complete. Long gone are the days that you bought a finished game on a CD that didn't need fifteen patches to "fix" something. The gaming industry at the moment, to be perfectly blunt, is on its arse. Developers have become so comfortable with "Release now, fix tomorrow" and it's a complete joke at this point. To quote someone that I've long forgotten: "You wouldn't buy a car today and have them come out to fit the seats next month"

The way Biffa speaks, putting things into categories, his ability to absorb information and pass that on to us and that he had a spreadsheet for traffic fixes, I’d say he was definitely a manager or senior manager in a previous life.

I'm waiting for node controller, and traffic manager. Intersections in this game need a mod to not only make them look better, also to build a better traffic network. I hate seeing vehicles travel in one lane and then switch the other lane right before they make a turn. It ends up with all vehicles doing this blocking both lanes when they cant turn.

Thanks for being community's ambassador and articulating our problems.

I'm super glad you were involved in that conversation! These past few years, I have dedicated a lot of time & money into gaming. Games that I loved~ only to be met with disappointment after disappointment. I'm sure I am not the only one, as evidenced by the community's response. This can be a learning experience, the unfortunate, down-side is that, no matter how companies try to "smooth things over" it all still "feels icky". Like we are in a perpetual state of being taken advantage of. That feeling will not just go away by talking about it. Where money is involved, there is very few second chances given, if ever. I can forgive a friend, how can I forgive someone (thing) that tells me, they understand, yet would make me pay for another chance??? What chances could be expected??? So, yeah, you're right. apologies are no longer an option. that would be just as useful as complaining about a community reacting horrifically to a highly anticipated thing, that was as broken as CS2 was at launch. This is the way things have been for a while now, while CO & Paradox are not to blame for these trends, they ARE culpable for following suit. That is an NOT innocent "aw shucks" moment to us, it is the trend that makes all customers tools & all business good as long as both are profitable. That is what we are all angry about. AS we should be... CO/Paradox, if you are honest with yourselves, what IS your goal here??? To make customers a product that will make them happy, or is it to make money on a product that you KNEW would NOT, to meet financial goals? This has been asked before, and there is still no answer, which generally indicates more truth than fiction. I dunno, I really don't like feeling harsh, and have a very low threshold (these days) for consistently feeling more exploited than gratified. there is never going to be a dollar amount that will erase that feeling. It seem too much to expect that there are still companies left that actually build a product that isn't about profit over function. anyway, more wasted time writing to an para-social entity that can effect my mood. on to the actual lawn... Thanks again Biffa, for the forum to express these "feelings". We appreciate your commitment to CS2 & to change.

I don't really see what the sense of this meeting was. They now have like 8 month of community feedback on steam, reddit, etc. You said yourself that none of your feedback came as a surprise. We want to see change, big fixes and content. To me, it sounds like a playable CS2 is still years away. It was just oversold way too much before release. If it was released as a beta the community would have been more understanding. But man, look at the snow that is just pure white colour and then look at the snow at Manor lords. Look at the way it dissolves in spring. Why can one guy do such a better job then 30 people?

To be fair. It was - for me at least - mods that made C:S1 fun playing. Which is why I find it odd that they didn't go through the most popular mods on Steam Workshop and go "okay, let's make sure these are part of our base game" And then also include at least the highlights of the expansions from the original game. Like industry. The current C:S2 industry feels like it's a placeholder for something they'll sell us down the line... at least C:S1 industries was "something" that felt intentional at release.

I'm posting this with no hate and please take it as the constructive observation it is intended to be. I bought, pre-ordered, CS2 because you, and CPP, were so positive about it in the build up to its release. There was no indication despite hearing how you'd got to experience the game play ahead of times of the problems we've since had. While I'm sure there are lots of very valid reasons for this, the state CS2 was shipped has in my eyes tarnished yours and CPPs impartiality of the game and while I really do appreciate your content and the updates in this video I hope you can see how their delivery or lack of, undermined your status as a brand champion of the game. I really do hope that the game improves so I can feel you're more than a paid voice piece. (I use that phase very loosely but hope you understand where I'm coming from. To give a little more insight, recently you played Manor Lords. Before the CS2 release just watching you say it was good would have been enough to toggle over to the Steam store; this is how much I valued your opinion. This time I spent several hours looking for other creators to see if they'd had the same opinion of the game as you before buying it.

Genuine question.. If they said they were really not happy in the condition it released, then why did they go ahead and release it anyway?

I think they need to completely stop worrying about 'adding' anything. They need to fix the simulation - full stop. As it stands right now, none of your decisions matter, which removes the entire point of playing for a vast majority of the people that enjoy these games.

The “we only have 30 devs” argument really drives me up the wall. I do 100% understand that, but they took some huge sales on release. They want to continue to support those 30 devs through DLC’s right? In that case, if they want to secure future revenue they could at least hire in 20/30/50% increase ( 6/9/15 people) in devs on a temp contract basis to, at the very least, bug squash. That would at least show some proactivity, and using the money we gave them to accelerate the product to a state we expected on launch. It would then release the experienced game devs to work on features and core game.

I think you nailed it when you said "the challenge is gone", referring to traffic and industry. That's definitely what made the game not last for me since there's no way to fail. I really liked the challenge of building but that broke traffic somewhere and then you had to figure out a way to make it work. For me detailing has always been secondary. Like, when you have a district that's working properly and you know you don't have to fix it for a while - then I'd do detailing to make it feel nice.

One thing I've noticed about the different style of gameplay with people is that it seems to be City Painter versus City Simulator. CS2 seems to be *currently* the base for a City Painter, because as you mentioned, a city can just grow with only a single pedestrian access. The income flow is hand held by government subsidies, removing money management. Traffic doesn't matter, it's there, but has no economic impact. CS2 should be capable of both, because both are fun!

I truly hope they add bikes as part of the base game and not as a DLC, cause at this point they ran out of good faith to pull off something like that.

So at the current: Cities: Skylines Current players: 13,631, 30 days avg.: 9,881, 30 days gain: +522.4 / +5.58% Cities: Skylines II Current players: 4,969, 30 days avg.: 4,604. 30 days gain: -630.3 / -12.04% Seems we can safely call this an expensive failure.

big yes for everything you said on the industry and production chains, this (and more assets that will come with time) would make the game pretty good for me. thank you!

I am happy that you are still keeping up with your Cities Skylines commentaries. I also watch your CS2 comments. Content (assets) is probably the most important quality to me. As one once said, variety is the spice of life. Keep up the good work!

You brought up some great points and if your explanation to us is anything to go by, i can assume it was as well structured to them also. Great job, thank you.

Thanks for representing. Choosing you three is probably one of the quickest ways to get broadest spread of information to them and each of you are a good balance between city fixer and city painter. Perhaps the next groups should be with modders and then the biggest critics of CS2. I'm saddened by the lack of scenarios so far, but I understand as I usually only played them until I beat them, but there were great in teaching specific mechanics of the game or new DLC. They need something to increase the replayability. I do concur on the list of 4 free updates packs for designers, networking and such. I hadn't thought about it that way, but I want all of them. Putting aspects from the more popular mods would go a long way for console players especially.

The other thing I loved in CS1 were the scenarios. If you are not a detailer it gives you a purpose to play and achieve certain results. I also used to create scenarios which I enjoyed making You even played my snowy mountain one in one of your videos :) P.S. I just got to the part of your video where you mentioned their feedback on scenarios! Disappointed they don't feel this is needed as there were a huge number in the workshop and I loved them

Appreciate you engaging with Paradox on behalf of the community, and not forgetting us poor buggers that play on console. Have to admit I've been somewhat frustrated at the inability to mod on console, but what you've suggested (shall we call it 'mods light'?) sounds perfect! Thanks to your videos I've understood the mechanics of CS1 that had helped me build bigger, better and more functional cities, so thanks a bunch!

CS2 needs to have modular building mechanics. This can be utilized into service buildings, supply chain and factories, consumer buildings such as shopping malls, airports and stations. Can have different styles and shapes cater to different peoples tastes. Modders and asset creativity can jump on this idea and flurish it. Thx

Biffa, thank you for taking the time to be a part of this conversation with CO & Paradox. It's the best news about the game we've heard so far.

Great video Biffa! For me, the way the emergency vehicles work when responding is odd. One problem is that my city has great fire coverage, but still other city fire trucks are responding. Also, if 2 houses are on fire, the 2nd house burns down cause the fire truck won't go around to get to it. They also always get stuck in traffic, making the lights and sirens pointless.

Kudos to you, the other streamers and devs that were involved in this meeting! Especially for them reaching out to those that actually play the game. The three of you are genius at this game. Love watching all your videos.

As a console player I'm waiting our version to come out. Thanks for taking the time to speak to them.

They need to hire more devs. They think they’re saving money by keeping the staff costs low, but they’re losing 1000s of customers as result. You gotta spend money to make money, and in this case, you gotta spend money to not lose half your fan base

Sounds as if the CS/Paradox Management successfully delegated listening to players away and had the door shut.😮 Coz all you guys explained to them is just basic player stuff which is on the wall everywhere.😂

Coming from the future to this video, it's impressive how Colossal Order listens to the community and actually take action. First economy 2.0, then the free detailers update soon after. I work at a software tech company and I can tell you, it's rare for a company to be this receptive to their community. Especially when you have financial stakeholders' demands which may not fit what the consumer wants. Either they have stakeholders that supports them or they fought really hard internally to get these updates through.

Biffa's Fix it series is the reason I started playing Cities Skylines

I agree. There are huge fundamental changes to the game mechanics I wish to see before additional content. Performance is not an issue for me.

I will keep waiting on that game until I can get mods and play the game without having to do a paradox account just for them to be able to siphon data they just do not have a right or need.

Absolutely amazing video biffa! I’m so glad they asked you to be a part of this and very grateful for the I for you shared here today. I am really optimistic for the future of this game. Thanks so much for this video it’s really sparked some hope for this game!

This game just needs to run like water with 2 million sims on any system. It needs the train station assets. A little more land still. Differing service buildings ....i agree. And a new improved Airports DLC. Then im quiet and playing everyday for the rest of my life

Scenarios might not be popular amongst the player base. But they're an essential tool in providing content for creators. Creators are the glue that hold the community together. Every player that views a scenario streamed by a content creator is participating in that content and Colossal orders analytics having accounted for that.

An idea for making the progression more challenging or better realism (with differing settings that affect cost multipliers and or when government funding starts to run out), you could have federal funded buildings that provide a basic coverage but it gradually gets more expensive as you level up (for power water and sewerage, it could have a base to cover excess at a cheap rate then ramps up so you can’t just rely on outside sources), to prevent that you can upgrade it to one of the related basic unlocked service buildings, i.e “Rural practice” upgrades to the “Clinic”, “Sherifs office” upgrades to the small police station, “volunteer firefighters” upgrades to small fire station, “Small refuse station” could upgrade to the garbage, “Funeral home” could act as a storage/ export instead of having to place so many crematoriums (leaving the option open to level them up/ upgrade them for higher capacity), i also feel there should be a basic council office that lets you have some control over lower level edicts or such and maybe they get upgraded so they are placed and have influence over suburbs/ districts (naturally on a more “realistic” and/ or harder setting). Not sure how hard that could be to implement but it could help.

As a casual player, who does not deal a whole lot with the specifics of the game like Biffa does, I think we should be rather grateful for this game. The developers at least made a decent attempt to move the franchise forward, despite the flaws. It's in the beginning stages, they had some mistakes and whatever. I'm happy that this game has such an active community, and we have people like Biffa and others on RU-vid who can help to advocate for the rest of us who would like to see changes. I think we need to stop living in a world of instant gratification and "fix this now" mentality, and give the developers a chance to build it out. They are people with jobs too like the rest of us. I'm happy we have mods now and we can start incorporating some new interactions into the game. I love playing it, and I'm glad I invested in CS2 and looking forward for what's to come.

I was also thinking why I get tired with the game quite quickly and you said it. It's the lack of challenge, that makes the game bore me after a while. I don't care much about detailing I like games where I get to optimize things.

Well you know what game studios are like when they say they "Hear the feedback" and "We're listening", it doesn't necessarily translate in to action.

I think the biggest complaints I see are always that the simulation is "broken..." Where I think the real problem is, it comes across like it's pretending to be a game, then not actually doing it. There's no good or bad to anything you do, so what's the point? Wait for money to come in, buy the next square, paint some roads and it all just works. Not having the essentials needs to break the city! It should be hard to get everything right - the fun comes from figuring out how to fix it when it's wrong! If the city is rubbish, people need to not want to live there. If there is a service that you can build, that service needs to function in a way that failing to provide it penalises you in some way. If there's sliders to change tax rates, or funding of services, there needs to be an incentive to actually go in and change them. People moving out because tax is too high, not enough funds because costs are high and tax is too low. Bad road layouts should cause jams. This is the basic functionality I expected from the game. Not more assets, or more control over traffic lights. No game has all the content these days without DLC so totally expect there to be less than CS1. But the base game needs to do the basics instead of just pretending. It needs to provide the platform for the DLC, Mods, extra content to be built on top of. That to me is where it's failing.

Concerts DLC - that was one of my favoriites in CS1. I loved that sudden population magnet to one place and then planning for that surge. Good challenge, and it was fun to see the three different performers. I hope we get something like that again. And yes, bring back the BIKES. I don't care if they are "pocket" bikes like in CS1, just bring them back.

The answer to releasing hot fixes is to always be testing release candidates, and release whenever they pass muster. So you take a snapshot with whatever fixes are ready, test it, determine whether to release, take the next snapshot, test that, etc. If Paradox were competent as a publisher, they'd be coaching CO how to do this.

That cop car segment was incredible. Reignited hope for Cities 2!

The lack of content shouldn't really be a problem since these should come in the future. The lack of features should definitely be a problem. I expected traffic manager and other quality-of-life mods to be fully integrated into the game. Plus, more interesting mechanics.

I wanted to thank you for revisiting CS1 and publishing your curated Brit collection. In the course of a recent hardware migration I chose to jettison my previous huge collection. I became a serious CSer back in the day, even got involved in procedural objects and detailed design. I even modelled real places (including my own gash London - with great inspiration from a magnificently ambitious YT soul). Then something happened during a patch update to render CS1 unlaunchable. Believe me, I'm no stranger to troubleshooting, but I just didn't have the heart to do it again. Besides, CS2 wasn't far away so I thought I'd wait. Tried it, performance wasn't too bad for me, but the experience just wasn't enjoyable. To be fair to the devs I knew it had (and still has) a future but it was a long way off. So new PC now and CS1 isn't spannered for me anymore. And that's where I'm staying for now - I'll keep an eye open of course, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who's bitten and shy. It's only a personal observation but I think that with CS2 the devs have strayed too far into the simulation side and neglected the fun bit. I didn't mind that the logistics were rather wonky in CS1, it was just the world's best trainset...

Something I'd pay for is the ability to draw a park. Kinda like in CS1 but on a smaller scale. Have a small metal gate, UK people will know what I mean, as the anchor on the road/footpath, then draw the waist-high metal/wooden fence to define the area. This would allow us to use those awkward areas at the end of streets/behind buildings that you would often see a small urban playpark built. Being able to build a park on a bend would be amazing. And once built, let us place a few things in it, slides, swings, seesaws and whatever. Those Shin destroyer sprung ride on animal things. I'd also LOVE it we could get proper UK-style roads. With proper hazard lines and giveaway/stop lines from side roads right up inline with the main road. Not set back a few yards with a cross walk. I was pretty disheartened to see American style junctions again :(

Thanks for the up date. I have stopped playing it but might go back look at the mods and see. Loved CS1.

Personally, I don’t regret buying Cities Skylines 2 even though I don’t really play it right now. I think there’s some good groundwork, and would hate to see the game get dropped before it can surpass cities 1 because it’s just not profitable enough. Maybe Colossal Order could have handled the release better, but making cool stuff is hard, and I want to give the developers the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re doing the best they can. I doubt anyone goes into that industry wanting to make a crappy game.

I'm really glad you focused so much on the missing challenge. It seemed a lot of people were concerned you as a content creator would be motivated primarily by what looks good for.. well content.

Unless they use the Steam workshop I just don’t see the modding community doing for CS2 what they did for CS. That alone isn’t a dealbreaker but what is for many people, is how paradox treats the fans of their games so there is negative trust in the company.

Thanks for advocating for the community, especially your ideas for getting things in the base game as a thank you to those of us who have been loyal to the franchise, and especially those of us who are sticking by them through this mess.

I know it's not the biggest deal in the world, but I was so disappointed that they couldn't make buildings/lot geometry be anything other than a box. It's so frustrating to have curvy or odd angled roads and intersections and still have to abide by a preset box shape. While most building faces are flat, not all buildings are rectangular. To me that's one of the reasons all cities look the same right now.

I consider myself mostly a "city painter" but there were two challenging things I absolutely LOVED figuring out in C:SL - the traffic (using TM:PE with no despawning) and the industries DLC. I loved the challenge of getting my road layouts just right so that traffic flow was just right, without being too overbuilt. And I loved the challenge of getting my different industries raw resource extraction, generic and specialized processing, storage, and distribution all tweaked perfectly. I am very proud to say that my main city build in CS:L was 100% self-sufficient with all importing of raw resources and goods turned off. My oil and ore industrial areas were massive and they felt like they did something. They felt like entire parts of the city existed solely to support the industries. Entire residential neighborhoods and commercial districts existed in certain locations only because the industries were thriving. And all without unreasonably heavy traffic These are things you just can't even BEGIN to do in C:SL2 and I sorely, sorely miss that. I do still enjoy painting my city, but it's just missing so much. I feel more like I'm just along for the ride, rather than I'm the one actually creating it. I have these tiny little distant isolated neighborhoods that require a MASSIVE elementary school. I have these specialized industrial areas that really all they are is just a building or two on top of differently colored ground. That's it. As far as I can tell they don't actually do anything or affect the city in any meaningful way. I get a little traffic here and there but it doesn't feel like I have much say in how they get from place to place or how the roadways interact with each other And overall, the FREAKING ZONING is so incredibly frustrating I can't even breathe while thinking about it. The zoning tool (mod version, not the one they added in one of the very last updates) in C:SL was so clutch, and is exactly how zoning should have been handled from the very beginning in C:SL2. I can excuse some of the other things they didn't include at launch just due to the scale of it all, but I just can't excuse their poor handling of zoning. They said they were under the impression that most people were city painters, but they they gave us NO control over how the zoning is handled?!?!?! How are we to "paint" the city we want if we can't even make buildings spawn facing the correct road?

The only chance i see for Cities Skylines 2 is proper mod support for mods on Steam workship and nexus. Something outside of their fenced garden.

Thank you for taking the time to share. I’m still frustrated that they put out a game that they didn’t like but I’m encouraged to know that they are trying to make it better. I’ve tabled the game for now but hopefully I’ll be inspired to play it once the fixes are implemented.

The dev / test / release process they described to you is normal. There is nothing novel about it. That does not preclude the idea of hotfixes. A short window of about 2 weeks the dev / qa / release for a "fixit" op is completely reasonable. They could pull one person out of general dev work each quarter (on rotation) and make them the fixit runner; no standard work unless there is nothing broken that falls into the minor task category. I hear the "small team" excuse a lot. It's BS. I've run small teams and core + regression / QoL work can co-exist.

Challenges: things that pop up on game to give you focus on a particular thing in your city, give a time bound and some benefit to completing it. Thinking like subsidiaries in OTTD

The amount of work they need to do and judging by their current/past amount of workflow. This game isn't going to be fully playable for at least another 2-3 years. I'm not sure they can weather that.

Thanks for being such a great advocate for the community!

So after 8 years since cs1 launch and 7 months after cs2 launch, they are still trying to figure out what to do by doing a focus group with youtubers? Not a good sign in my opinion

I want this game to succeed. It looks like it has so much potential, and CS1 was definitely showing its limitations at the end. They haven't permanently lost me as a customer, but I'm holding out on CS2 until I see a game that I would enjoy playing.

Sounds like a clever PR exercise

I appreciate hearing this update. The long time without much communication felt a bit lackluster, but this has helped me excited again. Really looking forward to having to fix traffic again.

Paradox need to fix up. They’re on their way to joining the naughty list with EA, Ubisoft, Activision-Blizzard and Bethesda. Look I love Cities: Skylines, HOI4, and CK3 but let’s be real they’ve been serving up slop for the last few years.

I just hate having to feel like I NEED mods to enjoy the game. Wish Vanilla was just simply better (in many ways).

Well it makes sense I love CS2 I can't wait till this game is 100% but I know it will take time and I'm willing to wait to get a great game.

Thanks for being a community ambassador. Hopefully this has a positive impact in the future. I will say that by releasing this game in this state and all the anger that followed in the months that followed I have chosen not to give any more money to this game or future DLC. An that comes from some who bought the ultimate edition of CS2 and all DLC for CS1 to support them. I will use free mods or other means to acquire DLC as punishment for what they did, and I am not the only one in this…

Scenarios aren't played as much because they have no replayability value, you beat it once and it doesn't feel like there's any reason to try again. Scenarios need some sort of randomness or progressive challenge modes.

Tell them to just call it an Early Access next time they release 😂 Seriously though props to them for doing such an interview. I hope they get it back on track. They need to look at doing free content updates in future with cut down basic versions of whatever DLC/expansions they add.

I feel like Cities: Skylines 2 will have an awesome future and the final game will be super good! I love the communication, how they ask what the community wants and that they see their mistakes!

This is all very well and good. Doesn't change the fact they released a broken game and it still requires a lot of work. Industry in general seems moving towards "release early & fix the game afterwards" model... Maybe in a year or two it will actually be playable and out of "beta" phase.

I hope this was productive for everyone. Ty for sharing and for the content.

Excellent and informative video mate, thanks. I can fully understand and agree with what they are saying. Before I retired I spent 35+ years working as a devloper on retail software and whilst users might think that a certain bug fix will be easy, in theory it could be a 10 minute fix for the developer but for the QA department it could mean days of testing the bug fix, regression testing etc. So it’s very rare for a company that isn’t a 1 man operation to release bug fixes one by one. One simple little change in the code can cause issues in all parts of the system and all of these have to be cased for and tested. I would feel more comfortable as a user or potential user of this software because they are still talking sense and not promising the earth even under the onslaught of criticism from many people. Some of the criticism is justified but a lot of it is just people jumping on the bandwagon and being rude because it’s fashionable at the moment to slag them off. Just my humble opinions 😊

I haven't been following C:S II for several months now so it's good to hear this. Thanks for sharing with us, Biffa! I'm not keen to play the game now, I did play it a bit after launch tho, and I'm looking forward to some meaningful updates that will bring people back.

"If i had a nickle for every time a company cornered the city sim market and then threw it all away, I would have two nickles. which isnt a lot, but it is strange that it happened twice."

Also to add to what you said about bug fixing, as we all know fixing a bug sometimes breaks 2 or 3 other things, that is coding. So doing it the way they are they can run the game themselves with a bunch of bug fixes and if there is any conflicts they can address them then before releasing the patch, if you didnt do that each hot fix could break many things that they end up spending all their time trying to fix them and getting those certified too. Also Consoles have their own certification process you have to go through before it can be released too.

I love that they're engaging with the community. Please don't forget Mac users!!!

awesome episode, glad that the paradox team are finally listening to the community :)

I'm chiming in as a Finn myself (like Colossal Order). I was born and raised in Finland so just a few words of this all from cultural perception. First of all, summer vacation is mandatory by law and it needs to be 24 consecutive work days (mon-fri, weekends are not counted) and has to be between days 2.5. -30.9. in some companies this is held graduated, when some are always at work and some on holiday and in some companies, where there is no need for operations running all the time or where people need to work as a team, the whole operations shut down for a month. Summer vacation is not only mandatory by law (and sanctions will be huge) but it's considered good for business too because rested employees are more creative and productive. Someone on Steam was moaning, that first they updated every week, then every month and now it's every two months and how previous updates weren't what they needed to be. This is probably why they don't update that often anymore. In Finland, and in Sweden too, I suppose, one of the worst things you can do businesswise is to promise when you know you can't deliver. That is why there is less promises now, that they have figured out they can't deliver it all. It's best to undermine what you can do than make empty promises. This leads to communication that other people might see evasive, when Finns see it as not making promises you can't keep. One of the most awkward and embarrassing situations in Finland is to be seen just talk,. no act. This is also why you don't often hear Finns boasting about themselves. Admitting you didn't deliver is a must in Finland and that is why I was surprised it took so long. On the other hand, before having that conversation a Finn typically needs to take some time to reflect how bad they messed up, because it's important to come clean of everything at once then, because worst is if you are seen of coming clean about messing part A and not also past B, because then you're seen as a liar and that is worst in Finland than being a loser. Also, when you admit you messed up, you are expected to have a solid, real plan how to fix it, so just saying oops, isn't something we do, and this also is probably part of why it took so long. Basically, in Finnish culture it's never about what you say, it's always about what you actually prove with your actions that count. I don't know how much PR and AD departments have had to say on the communications, because to me as a Finn it seems that at first they did a lot, and now, not so much anymore.

Thank you very much for this video and that you gave CO all of the feedback I think we're going to have a wonderful game in the future🥰❤

I’m pleased that you were invited to talk to them but also concerned at the glacial pace of development. I bought CS1 when it was released and played for a few hours. Then I left it for years until I stumbled on one of your traffic fixing videos. Gradually I was sucked in and spend many thousands of hours playing. At first it was about overcoming the challenges. Not running out of money and then fixing the traffic problems. Once I completed the game a few times I got into using mods and assets and that was when I really got hooked. My first British City was so exciting. I even created some assets myself. However my interest was waning even before CS2 as I had taken it about as far as I wanted. CS2 lacks both the challenges of CS1 that motivated me even late in my CS1 experience, and the enjoyment of discovering just the right asset to add character to an area.

IMHO it is totally fine for C:S2 to be a brilliant city painter. as long as the devs lean into that decision and make it a truly great city painter. of course the simulation fans won't like that but you can't really please both crowds there the devs just needed to say up front, 'this is a city painter' and actually provide the tools to realize that vision, while cutting out things like the economic model (why do we need that in a city painter?) it is likewise true that it is fine if they want the game to be a deep city simulation and lean into that and make that the core identity of the game but they need to actually have a vision for this thing that isn't just trying to please everyone while spinning their tires. pick a lane, stick to it, manifest the vision whatever that vision is a big part of the problem here, imho, has always been the rudderlessness of the project

Thanks Biffa :)