I had a meeting with Paradox and Colossal Order to discuss the future of Cities Skylines 2...

[@CityPlannerPlays]

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[@das_yati7057]

Nice Video, are you going to continue/start a new manor lords series?

[@CityPlannerPlays]

@@das_yati7057 At some point, yes, but probably after a major update.

[@SynthLizard8]

You tried all those things and all it took was a sleep mask?.....I don't know, man, sounds like placebo to me, being overly caffinated and laziness is why I couldn't sleep right.

[@Drakkart]

so macs are not abandoned - interesting. That means when they get to it, mac users will get a more polished game then, given the game or CO survive that long. thanks a lot for that video phil! maybe i abandoned hope to early i would wish for that but i guess only time will tell.

[@CityPlannerPlays]

@@SynthLizard8 I found out I'm really light sensitive. I can even sleep through more sound when it's pitch black. Pretty shocking, but it was that easy.

[@fee1776]

I am 66 yrs old. I use CS more like a HO Rail Set. Instead of buying tons of tracks, and trains, set aside room in a house, and buy a locomotive with a camera, CS allows me to do the same and store it all into a PC. With mods I have released 91 tiles, and a city that maxed out on all the roads, and a population that exceeds 1,000,000. I enjoy the huge metropolis I created. Waiting for CS2 to sort itself out, and I will find a way to use it more like a sandbox than a full simulation.

[@SpanishGarbo]

That's so awesome.

[@bagger8078]

if you enjoy trains and the likes of it, check out transport fever 2

[@CityPlannerPlays]

That's so awesome! That part is easy with unlimited money and unlock all, the simulation part is what needs a lot of work tbh. Hopefully with the upcoming fix, you'll have exactly what you're looking for. I second the idea from bagger though - it sounds like you'd really enjoy Transport Fever 2!

[@rd9102]

LOL, this is EXACTLY what i think of and how i play it, i am hoping with CS2 they will come out with a trains or even multiple train DLC, i would gladly play it. It's so incredibly much alike a giant digital HO diorama akin to some of the largest model sets in the world, just in digital form. I am so glad i am not the only one. Personally only 51 but there has to be more that think like this than just a few of us.

[@alexgrover7693]

Respect. But I just want to say many others play for the simulation, and having a good simulation isn't an impediment to "city painting" as long as there's a creative mode.

[@Chrissie-d2n]

I would like to see two types of industry zoning, Heavy industry and light industry. Not all industry pollutes if you can have light industry like warehouse and small scale manufacturing that doesn't make pollution and can be put closer to residential as it is irl

[@simongeard4824]

Yeah, there's a lot of that kind of thing near my home, on the edge of the city center. Signwriters, small-scale engineering firms, plumbing and electrical supplies... the kind of thing that sort of straddles the line between commercial and industrial. And because it's so close to the city center, and the land is becoming more and more valuable, it's becoming more residential... mid-rise apartments in some places, residential conversions of industrial spaces in others. That said, "zoned industry" in CS is more on the scale of light industry anyway... heavy industry tends to be much larger, more like the factory buildings from CS1 Industries, or the CS2 special buildings.

[@dercfts1]

simcity 4 had it, idk why CO didn't add this into CS2

[@Distress.]

Light industry can also be converted into commercial and residential space.

[@Nortonuru]

In my opinion, the biggest problem with the game is the lack of variety in buildings and architectural styles. All the cities look the same and repetitive. They have little personality.

[@karmah88]

right? its a city builder that is only bound by our imaginations so they say. yet you're forced to build either a modern european or north american style city that always has exactly the same buildings every time. the same landscape everytime. the same modern cars and transport everytime. its very specific.

[@bassman87]

that comes with time. at this point CO is and should continue to fix the core game play mechanics. no point in having a variety of buildings that are broken.

[@karmah88]

@@bassman87 yeah I get that and I know it’s in their plans with region packs. It’s not a major gripe. I’m just imagining how cool it would be to build a city in a different era. I’m sure it’ll be possible with mods.

[@erikaverink8418]

My problem is, it's not challenging. (on the economy side) CS1 i had to start with dirt roads, now just put them down and who cares how you pay for it, you can't go bankrupt. But i agree on all look the same. I live in an EU City (netherlands) 80k population, we have like 4 or 5 local soccer clubs, each with different locations and amount of fields. Different size of schools and no high school has it's own stadium, or sport team. There are also things i like, modular building and i am sure they will fix it.

[@rynezuzinec688]

@@erikaverink8418they just announced today that there is a patch coming soon to begin fixing the economy.

[@ZebraLens]

I know Phil probably briefly talked about this idea but, one _sure-fire way_ for Paradox and CO to understand what the community wants is to pull the data for the most downloaded mods on the steam workshop and *look at their functionality.* That will give them the cheatsheet for what the _must-have_ downloads are in CS1 and what the community wants to see implemented in CS2. 😊

[@Svidrir]

There's something really strange in CS2 is that nothing is tied up together. As you said, the game needs purpose, more difficulty and choices must have bigger consequences. At 17:00 you talk about the train depot that is way too big for its usage, that's true. The game should make you build a small one at first, with limited capacities, and then you build / detail around. Then, when it must be upgraded, it must be hard, relocating citizens, getting into a park or whatever. Same with every aspect of the game. In real life, every action or choice has influence which there isn't in the game.

[@erikaverink8418]

Couldn't agree more. And they have the bones for it with modular building. ( i know doing this takes time, to accomplish)

[@dymondsonny3990]

I absolutely loved phils Idea about having smaller service buildings available from the get go but the modules need to be unlocked via the development tree

[@speedemon81]

It's like the train station: Wildly oversized for a small station, and massively undersized for a central station for a city!

[@ThylineTheGay]

all the CS2 placeable buildings seem massively oversized or, all sized for a large city

[@Sovereign-Gaming]

Thank you so much for meeting with the Paradox/Colossal Order team. Your explanation at the end there was super insightful in terms of the overall vibes being felt by everyone. When it comes to CS2, I honestly feel like it has the bones to be a successful successor to CS1. There were a lot of shortfalls at launch but if we look back to CS1's journey, a lot of CS1's problems were eventually fixed by mods created by that epic modding community (much love from me!). I think that where there is a lot of tension is that players would expect the CS2 team to take note of those popular mods and implement them within their game. Or (as a compromise) to at least make the game as easily moddable as CS1 was. I think that this was a case where neither of those expectations were delivered. But that's just my opinion 🤷‍♂.

[@4ndr_s]

I think I agree with most of your feedback. Going further in the issue of parks, something that bothers me the most is that the parks feel DEAD. In CS1 we could see how our parks and plazas got filled out of people, they were full of life. In further DLCs we had festivals, sport events, pedestrian areas etc that were very lively. We lost all of that in CS2, and that is one of the things I miss the most in my cities.

[@EnergeticSpark63]

hey

[@stillshallow]

Yes, I miss the walking prn you get around transport hubs in CS1 - my CS2 builds feel like ghost towns.

[@Krentand]

Hearing about potentially not getting 10 years of support broke my heart a bit. I barely ever give feedback, but if I had to give suggestions aside from the ones most people mention, I'd say: 1) Give us a reason to make use of properly zoned areas. I don't like to spam high-rise, I want to make a realistic-looking city. Make businesses look like the area they're in. In a low-income area the businesses should look not so well-off, in downtown pedestrian streets, businesses should look like boutiques. I've tried making streets like Passeig de Gracia from Barcelona, Rodeo Drive from Los Angeles and Nanjing Road from Shanghai, the commercial buildings always look off. Good enough if you look from the sky, completely missing the mark upclose. I'm not a strong detailer, but I want models to reflect the street they're in. 2) I'm making a Northern California fictional city, I've spent close to 500 hours on it between planning and playing, the main problem I see is that there are very few ways of using landmarks. Ploppables are amazing for it, you can build an area around them, but I'd like more variety so that I can make a place feel alive. Make me feel like my citizens want to go shopping on a summer day, increase the demand for services that day, or make dynamic events that actually affect how my city plays for a day (month?). I know concerts and match days will probably be included in the future, but I want dynamic events that happen spontaneously and test my traffic, my logistics, and hotel industry. 3) I have not unlocked the chirpX center specifically because the frequency is too damn high. It can get annoying, let us adjust that or make it work a few times A YEAR, please. 4) Let us choose the kind of businesses that are nearby other buildings. I want a dealership close to my car Megafactory (from the same brand, please). I want restaurants near my oversized office skyscrapers. I want my cims to use THOSE restaurants (not the ones next, necessarily, but the ones in the district), not to waste most time in transit after work to go to a place that doesn't quite make sense. I think adding a proximity modifier for what to do next would make a lot of sense, especially for cities that don't depend so much in private transportation. Everyone knows that place in their city that has that big hotel. Or that absurdly large restaurant that is always empty. Or that tiny takeout place that is always full next to an alley. Let us make our own stories letting us choose which businesses appear in a specific spot. Make it random by default, but sometimes we want to make a story. Hotels have a completely different kind of landscaping nearby compared to a restaurant or a dealership or electronics shop. We should have the option to reflect it in vanilla if we wish to. 5) I think it is easy to overlook how massive our cities can look, this plays into giving better purpose/eventful lives and places with nice vibes, but let us make use of the huge scale better. You let us follow a cim through their life cycle, I want them to make choices that make sense, especially in a larger city. If they move to the suburbs, I want them to mostly spend their lives around there, use local businesses most of the time (not always, as I mentioned, make dynamic events with modifiers). I never see anyone using the basketball court, or playing football, or the small stage from parks. Only way to get use of them is to have homeless people so that they'd use it. 6) Bikes? 7) Let me change the company in charge of the color-changing skyscrapers, please, please I beg you. 8) If they add biomes to currently in use maps, please, let us choose the weather. My northern California town doesn't want to become mired with tornadoes. 9) I want to make emphasis again on your point about priority roads and choosing the length. I like naming them, I like making streets relevant to my lore and make them feel like places that people live in. Nothing worse than having a 19km circular boulevard because you can't choose at which intersection it "ends". 10) Please, for everyone but specially those of us who purchased the ultimate edition for beach properties, we really need something to do with our shoreline. Every time I have to expand towards the ocean I get anxious and stop building just because of how horrible I'd build without proper tools for it. I don't like using mods and breaking savefiles, so I'd appreciate a vanilla tool for beaches, seawalls (not pedestrian street + depressing soil, please), etc. You know the deal. 11) Please, lower the rewards for unlocking the special high-rise buildings. Leveling up the high-rise appartments is a nightmare, I just want to have some special looks. I hate, hate, hate to repeat large buildings. You don't see two Chryslers next to each other, I want to get selective with how many skyscrapers I have in a 150k pop city. Spamming them in a corner of the map just to unlock the good-looking ones hurts. 12) Please, let us adjust the time of the year, it's a pet peeve of mine, but damn, I really don't see my city looking like this in 2060. Let us adjust the possibility so that 1 day equals 1 week or something. Let us roll back the date, too. I don't mind if my cims live only 7 months, I do care about my city looking outdated. 13) I understand that it will get solved with future DLC, and it's not a bit problem for me right now for the kind of city I'm building, but if we get the region packs and someone wants to build a Nagoya lookalike, or a Shenzhen lookalike, they're gonna feel disappointed if their train station looks like a mix of mid-sized city outskirts of Germany+Idaho. Same is true for many other assets. I get why they use that style as a reference, but it doesn't work for downtown, sorry. 14) Policies are so extremely in need I can't overstate it. I want to designate some areas as high-income and others as low-income. I want some people to demand low density-big-level 5 housing. I want to build a welfare office to improve the economic situation of these locations and I want to see the impact. I don't want to just see happy poor people with no impact on how the buildings look. I want to provide means to my citizens, that's part of the fun of master planning. If I want to create a capitalist dystopia, I can. If I want to improve economic means across the board, I want to, too. If I just want to create a realistic city, from anywhere in the world and show that reality, I think this is the perfect game to display that. Use modifiers for the streets, buildings, etc. Get graffities, get trash on the street. Perhaps mix police into the mix. (Protests could be some dynamic events, perhaps?) Make waste management workers have a purpose. Make wealthier streets cleaner, with stupidly clean shop displays. You've used a lot of polygons in a lot of assets, this is a great use of those resources, in my opinion. 15) Sometimes poo gets under the terrain and you have to level everything so it doesn't pollute the water towards infinity, please, fix it. 16) Again, playing into the scale, most buildings are ridiculously big or give abnormal values for its size, no in-between. I have a medium density row houses neighborhood, at level 5 a 1x6 house (3 floors, looks for 3 families tops) holds 12 households and 33 residents. Most of the area of the building is just the backyard! I get the gameplay reasons, but damn it feels overdimensioned, specially when taking into account how population affects performance. 17) Let us choose which model/color of the building gets built for those who have multiple options. 18) If there is a single thing that I want to highlight from this list is... please, make streets make sense. They should reflect the environment they're at. Making generic buildings and businesses may be okay when starting out, but at some point the fantasy falls apart and it really doesn't make sense anymore. It is easy to become disillusioned for something that could be achieved by variations of the same buildings with minimal changes. Think of an RPG game like Cyberpunk 2077. A Jinguji store looks fundamentally different from a store in Jig-jig street, even if the overall shape and characteristics are similar. Just a few decals and fancier advertisement can do wonders. Let us have control over placement of the buildings and I think both detailers, industry/logistics freaks like myself, and the average casual player will enjoy much, much more the game just because with the same assets you increase exponentially the possibilities to plan around these. Players want to come back to CS2, they want to play, they're willing to pay, but they need performance and they need to be able to live out the idea of "their city", the one in their minds, the one that they plan while driving home, or taking the bus and metro while taking notes of the surroundings and saying "huh, that's how they solved it here". The game is making us look outside, and when we want to get back in, it lacks some fundamentals that make the experience of the city worthwhile. I love logistics, but there has to be something else to city life than solving problems. Seeing what looks like real life is what draws many back, we just need that. I'm extremely sorry Philip for the absolute wall of text I've put here, hopefully some of these ideas resonate with you and you can share them with the team. I'm not a frequent commenter, but you're doing amazing work. Thank you for all the effort.

[@SineN0mine3]

The fact that the beaches DLC didn't come with beaches is pretty hard to get over. I think if they just open up the asset editor we'd probably get a lot of this stuff from the community. You shouldn't be afraid to try some mods too, especially now that they're officially supported. Start with the road upgrade mod, it really feels like it should have been there all along. It never hurts to back up your save before adding a mod, but I've never had any issues with the official ones. They're so far mostly made by experienced modders who have a long history with the first game. It's best practice to add them one at a time, but everything on the front page is well tested by now and there's not much chance things will go wrong. If you haven't tried it, it's super easy. You can do it all from in the game without even opening a web browser. With the Road Upgrade mod, line tool and move it you can do a lot more with the tools already in the game. If you don't like one, turning off or uninstalling the mods is just as easy through the in game menus.

[@Krentand]

@@SineN0mine3 Thank you for the comment, I'll give it a try. I had a pretty bad experience with just a handful of mods breaking hundreds of hours after a patch in CS1 and now I'm a bit wary of them. I'll give it a try Traffic looks really good

[@michaeljkeeney]

Holy smokes, bruh. 😂

[@Krentand]

@@michaeljkeeney I got carried away lol

[@OhOkayThenLazySusan]

This is a comprehensive (yet somehow incomplete) list of things that are legit wrong with the game. If ya have to expand on 18 specific things (and there's more) that really need improvement, I think it's safe to say it's just a bad game. To fix all these things is like making a whole new game. I dunno what the devs were thinking but they messed up to a point of no return imo. I don't forsee this ever actually being a great game. With time, mods and updates, it might only approach the playability of CS1 which defeats the whole purpose of having made a second one. Sad really.

[@TheFormalPickle]

I haven’t fully finished the video yet so maybe you covered this but… I would like to see an option to start as the new “planner” for an existing city and then just go from there. Let me change and improve the city or cities on the map. I think that offers a quick option for players who don’t want to build everything up themselves. Even better make the cities procedurally generated so they are unique each new save for endless playability.

[@CityPlannerPlays]

I love that idea so much!

[@elaz925]

OMG yes please I love the "Here is the situation, now go" situations in like Planet Zoo

[@OlTheremin]

This is EXACTLY what I was thinking about, think of like when Biffa would sort out other player’s traffic or infrastructure messes. Maybe even challenges that allow us to explore how to rebuild a city or town that’s been majorly affected by a natural disaster (think about the real-life work that went into rebuilding Greensburg, Kansas after the 2007 tornados as an example).

[@Jaxrud]

This sounds a lot like scenarios, which they apparently didn't have many users for in the first which is why they have scrapped it for the second. Scenarios can admittedly be more but you could very much make a scenario like you suggest without severe losing conditions

[@germandog123]

The scenarios in CS1 were just kinda hokey. I’m one of those people that kinda like playing campaigns. I think if you did a CS2 version of historic campaigns like transport fever 2, it would do well. You could have easy ones that are like tutorials and then some more challenging ones.

[@kafitty]

Phil, you are so impressive. I just love how you went full municipal employee on them 😂 This is truly so skillful - your data collection, presentation, and obviously, storytelling. Bravo, man, and thank you for continuing to be so passionate about your community.

[@Schroeder2424able24]

I think a logical way for the player to progress in CS2 is to have small versions of every major utility and service available very early on, with the option to upgrade as they experience more demand. Once that service is upgraded the player unlocks higher tier facilities they can place outright.

[@caramelcobalt2991]

Yeah, like if they had smaller train stations you could start out with, before unlocking larger ones. Also help woth the fact many cities were built around rail. Right now I just use a mod to unlock it at the start.

[@shawa666]

I feel, and this is just my personal opinion, that constructive feedback a two way street. I would be much more inclined to give feedback if I didn't feel like I was talking to a brick wall. CO needs to be absolutely transparent right now. This meeting is a step in the right direction, but there's still more to be done here for CO to earn back my trust. A public known bug list that is being actively maintained would be a good start. I don't mind being used as a supplementary QA department. In fact, i love it usually. But I need to feel that the feedback i'm giving is useful.

[@rd9102]

I think Content creators spend a SIGNIFICANT amount of time in and around the game. I think they make an excellent choice for providing focused feedback and i generally agree with the things you and overcharged egg have said over time, i am aware of Biffa and i'm sure his feedback is great as well i just am not subbed to him. Paradox/CO can solicit feedback from the general public but it has to be gathered and sorted to get much done, it can take time. Thank you for keeping the community in the loop, i personally GREATLY appreciate the effort you make on this.

[@SineN0mine3]

Personally, I think it'd be more effective for CO to engage directly with the players more often. I think the guys have done a great job of voicing our complaints but that's more to do with them than it is to do with CO. i imagine if they'd chosen different creators this could have gone quite badly. A lot of streamers play games in a very different way to the main playerbase because they're playing for an audience first and foremost. I used to watch a lot of Cities 1 content that was so far removed from the vanilla game it was basically a different game, but I didn't particularly want to do that myself. We're lucky people like CPP are so engaged with their audience that they've managed to gauge the main issues people are bothered by. All the same, I think that kind of work could have been done by the developer or publisher instead, and that the content creators would probably prefer it if they could focus more on making the content. I also don't see why it should be an either or situation. I feel as though I've had more success commenting on CPP videos than reaching out to CO. I'd rather come here to talk about his videos than talk about the problems with the game but it seems like this is the best way to get my complaints heard. If they'd been more proactive about getting feedback I'd have told them instead.

[@eighthsinner]

I don't understand how CO seemingly dismissed all of the most popular mods because that's "not how they play." Almost everyone else does, and these were even mentioned in the beta testing by popular youtubers. In my opinion, there are 5 core elements to playing the game which can be improved significantly. 1. Aesthetics. We need decals and props to bring cities to life, as well as different textures, LUTS. Biomes are being added which is great, as is the dynamic seasons and weather. 2. Gameplay. We need a meaningful economy that can fail or succeed depending on the choices that the player makes. The bones are there, but the auto-balance makes it pointless. 3. Simulation. Parks need people, bicycles need to be added, summer time should be full of tourists clogging up public transport and commercial areas, arenas and landmarks should have events that draw crowds. 4. Transport. Road networks, intersection type, and public transport should all have more influence on the game. If the traffic is bad, people shouldn't get to where they need to go, affecting happiness and the economy. Different people should also have different preferences e.g. Tourists prefer trams and boats. 5. Governance. Policies like "old town" should have serious consequences like attracting more affluent retired folk that don't work (meaning workers in those districts will have to travel from other districts, thus increasing traffic). Pollution reduction policies should have an impactful economic loss etc. In CS1 the policies did not seem to change anything. Other games have done this very well.

[@CitySculptor]

Can’t thank you, Biffa and OE enough for your work on helping the CO team move the game to a better place. Your combined lists of improvements and wishes are spot on. So many things to work on, and it’s great to have everything documented in the level of detail that you guys provided. Thank you, thank you, thank you! 🙏🏼 😊

[@tylerpi]

Rent needs to be fixed. If the rent is too high in a single family house, they should move to an apartment or to low-income housing, if one is available. High rent warnings should be silenced if the resident is “wealthy” tier. Poverty should be more persistent. Every single neighborhood in my region has a wealth level of “wealthy,” even the neighborhood immediately next to industry and the one loaded with low-income housing.

[@HowManySmall]

I treat this as a bug because it should not keep happening

[@SpanishGarbo]

I own CS1 and all the DLC. I was excited about CS2. Seeing the state it launched I obviously didn't feel like purchasing it at the time and decided to wait, and wait, and wait. It's been many months and they have an unoptimal game. But I still have hope. I will keep waiting for the game to keep getting better and I will purchase it when it's in a worthwhile state. I know I'm not the only one feeling this and waiting to "return" to the game. It's happened with No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk, and it can happen with CS2. If they put in the effort to make a good game people will buy it.

[@karalas]

That's where I am at. Console player was pumped for cs2. Love the original hundred of hours multiple cities. Watching Phil and Biffa struggle made me hold out got planet zoo instead will wait for cs2 for probably another year at least then reevaluate

[@naturedo2]

I'm the same, I need to upgrade my PC to play, but I don't want to part with the cash until I can see that CS2 is ready. Currently at 1500 hours in CS1 !

[@mrgooglethegreat]

​@@naturedo2I'm a console player ....yesterday I was literally at Best buy asking them if their i7 super computer can run CS2.... And their response was the laptop can't but the desktop (that's $500 more) can. I told them I'll be in after the game patch in two weeks to buy the desktop ....only if this super patch fixes the game significantly. Then the lady said 🤔💭 "if they fix the game enough u can just play on the i7 laptop without it overheating." Choices choices....

[@naturedo2]

@@mrgooglethegreat If a 4090 struggles and over heats at higher populations, I think we are going to need about 20 super patches...😆

[@mrgooglethegreat]

@@naturedo2 I admit ....Idk ish about computers. I just know i7 isn't i9 but better than i5 ....and I need a lot of RAM too. I just don't want my simulation slowing down. Id prefer the laptop over the desktop tho always.

[@SynthLizard8]

I HONESTLY don't understand with sequels like this is where they suddenly struck with amnesia and have to re-learn all the lessons they learned from the first game, like search bars and how players like to play, like the actual prospect of losing.

[@Ryzza5]

Might be interesting to compare the Credits reel between the two games to see if it's the same people responsible for game design.

[@max.ferrari]

I absolutely love how you presented this like a planning commission meeting or something. Very well done! Thanks for being a great middleman between the player base and the developers! Keep up the great work

[@DominionKnight]

Thanks for voicing those concerns to CO! I agree with a lot of what you said. I'm waiting until CS2 gets into a good enough state to really dive into it. As far as suggestions/wishlist:, I've always wanted to build a dense Hong Kong style city, so my wishlist is coming from that perspective. 1) Have additional mixed zoning types and commercial built into transportation stations/hubs - In Hong Kong (and a lot of cities in general), you'll have a shopping center at the bottom and maybe offices, residential, or both on the upper floors of a building. Also, there is also substantial commercial activity near station because of the amount of foot traffic. 2) Allow for zonable surfaces - The idea is that you put a surface down and as long as that is connected to a road, you should be able to zone. In Hong Kong, many residential towers are not directly on a road. You have to walk to get to a road. 3) Have a slider at the start of the game for a citizen's cultural leanings - Let me explain this one. I'm thinking we could have a slider where we could have citizens are extremely communal, extremely individualistic, and anything in between. How this would affect the game is how citizens derive their happiness from the space they live in. For citizens who are more culturally communal, they have a smaller happiness penalty for living in higher density residences, but is offset by a lesser happiness bonus for single family homes and a smaller radius in which they would be fine with traveling to to get their basic needs met (meaning that they will incur a happiness penalty for example, if there's no food availability with a 15 tile radius). The opposite is true for individualistic, where you have higher penalty for living in higher density, but a high level of happiness for single family homes and a higher radius for traveling to meet basic needs. 4) Planning roads/space reservation - It would be nice to be able to have a non-functional road or building to be able to save the space needed for all of the larger buildings and development. I don't really want to bulldoze existing buildings if I don't have to and it would be easier to plan where I want things if I can put a placeholder the size of the building or road I want and prevent putting other things like actual roads, buildings, and zoning from being built there. 5) Be able to add multiple commercial companies in a building - The way this should handled is that I think all commercial buildings should have a toggle whether or not it will contain more that one business. Then if so, the commercial area is then calculated for the building. Shops selling consumer goods will require a range of space, with some like automotive, will require a higher space, than another good, such as pharmaceuticals. Then, using the remaining commercial space, a company is generated and a random space within that range is selected, which also determines the number of jobs available. The game will then continue to pick companies until the remaining space is less than the minimum of any good.

[@fenus609]

"give us the lowdown chair daddy"

[@CityPlannerPlays]

Might be my favorite comment of the stream, haha

[@daltonbedore8396]

chair daddy really let them know!

[@theorixlux]

I saw that xD

[@truckingganes879]

that comment was really really funny 😂😂😂😂

[@TrevorD19]

Time stamp?

[@shaneintheuk2026]

I’ve struggled to work out why I really didn’t connect to CS2 and I think you nailed it with your first point. At first it was solving the puzzles in not running out of money, then once I knew the game it I tried hard mode and even deliberately building in a way that would cause problems in the future. Solving problems and reaching milestones made it fun. I never played CS1 beyond the last milestone. As soon as I reached it I started another city. Clearly having goals is important to me.

[@christopherkeyes1742]

It will eventually be a great game! Just like Cities 1. Thanks to people like you!

[@xavian8970]

Your absolutely right

[@bassman87]

yeah I mean just look at the base game of CS1. its pretty basic. its not until you add the major DLCs and a host of mods that we get the CS1 game play we know today.

[@daltonbedore8396]

the fact they invited this feedback upon themselves is a good sign. they know they really failed to understand their audience and want to correct that

[@Alex-js5lg]

That's why I didn't ask for a refund. Whether it's in six months or six years, I'll play it when it's ready for me.

[@WimsicleStranger]

@@Alex-js5lg Exactly. It's more of an investment into what you hope will turn out to be a fine wine lol

[@R00F_K0REAN]

I imagine this isn't a particularly big deal for most players, but having worked in 911 EMS for nearly 15 years, I've always been bugged by the fact that healthcare services are lumped into singular all-encompassing service buildings, specifically the clinic or the hospital. It's not representative of how pre-hospital healthcare (e.g. Emergency Medical Services) is provided for in communities, at least where I am from in the northeast United States. We should have options to place EMS stations that spawn ambulances to bring patients to the hospitals in conjunction with the hospital-based ambulances. We should also have an option for fire or police department-based ambulances. This was possible in CS1 with vehicle spawn point mods along with custom assets for ambulances and buildings. Thanks for putting this together! Love your content as always.

[@max.ferrari]

14:25 sorry if you get to it later in the video, but to add to this list, I would say the game desperately needs some form of Undo It! It is far too easy to ruin a city In one click, there should be a cntrl Z feature

[@sal-the-man]

Yesss we really need it, the amount of times I accidentally destroyed a node that took me a while to get right.

[@4879daniel]

Asked for about a billion times in CS but ignored for some reason

[@AleksiJoensuu]

Hmmm... I'm Finnish and the parks don't all have fences here 😄

[@Xiyng]

Came here to say this. That said, more parks than I realized do actually have fences, although they're not all tall, and some are actually hedges. Fences seem quite common for playgrounds though, probably for safety reasons. Funny enough, Tampere, where CO is based, actually seems to have very few fences around parks.

[@simongeard4824]

@@Xiyng Yes, the "fences" around my local park are essentially just bollards to keep vehicles out (and that replaced some old knee-high fences that used to serve the same purpose. The playground area does have some large planter boxes separating it from the street... as you say, that's a safety aspect.

[@zantar2482]

What if they had district challenges? Like a district you draw exists, there would be a rare event that that district demands. Idk, that type of stuff would be fun

[@CityPlannerPlays]

That would be fun!

[@Fallout3131]

That sounds annoying to me But I respect the creative input

[@zantar2482]

@Fallout3131 Yeah. I would develop a toggle for it. But yeah rare.

[@PaddeyJ]

As a Scandinavian I would like to add that Finland is not a part of Scandinavia, only Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Cheers for the video, really nice to have this come out and shows they care and really want to fix the game.

[@SagarKhushalani]

I hope the fence around parks is an option, not taken away completely. I grew up around parks that had fences (India), and even the ones near us here (in the US) have fences. Thanks for representing!

[@CityPlannerPlays]

That's something I should have put in there - there was a discussion of how it could be a variation like they added at the end of CS1

[@bassman87]

I feel like that's where prop line tool comes into play. this way you can chain multiple parks together then draw a fence around the whole thing.

[@Macquarrie1999]

We could build fences in CS1, seems like it should work the same in CS2

[@koko-lores]

@@bassman87 It could even be done in a way that sound barriers can be added to streets. That way it should be easy to add the same option to other objects like special buildings, schools, maybe even homes (different countries have different standards on fences around their homes)

[@edb.2365]

No fences on parks should be the default, if you want a fenced area, then draw a fence. Parks should be like CS1's basic ones where you could draw a path and connect them without needing to use the anarchy mod.

[@ExpedientFalcon]

27:20 Thank you, I have been saying this from the start that the decision to release less than one patch a month feels really bad when the game is broken. It's part of the reason many of us feel that Colossal Order has handled things poorly. Some of the other games I play are seasonal games, that release fresh content every 3-4 months, and are also by what you might call "indie developers". The new content patches are large and often have bugs. *They fix the bugs as quickly as possible* and they often release *multiple patches per DAY* until the game is in a state that they consider stable. These are also games that are on Steam and have to go through Steam's process. This makes it particularly hard to relate with CO's philosophy here.

[@JClark2600]

So glad they asked you to do this. I never picked up the game because of all the bugs and most of the issues you spoke of. If they fixed your list or gave it some love, I'd pick up the game.

[@CityPlannerPlays]

Fingers crossed! I'll keep you posted either way!

[@mariocueva8700]

Phill, your videos are the reason I play this game, and I’ve learned a lot - thank-you. Having said that, I stopped playing when I realised nothing I did made a difference. Traffic despawning makes traffic jams nothing more than a cosmetic nuisance. And yes, I would love a despawning slider. What really put the nail in the coffin for me was removing all public transport made ZERO difference. And all busses running bunched up together on one corner of the city while my bus stops have over 200 ppl waiting. A pet peeve of mine is hobos, in the game my parks usually spawn with hobos. I can’t seem to help them no matter how much low income housing or social services buildings I place. If the game is going to give us a challenge, it would be nice if we had the tools to address it. I am waiting for the game to have these things fixed before I touch it again. I know that could take a long time, but I am hopeful they will eventually sort it out because the game doesn’t make much sense the way it is now.

[@sendark001]

i find really interesting (and cool) the fact that game developers are engaging with the community through content creators like you. Very few other industries have this sort of thing and i wonder if we'll start seeing this in other areas (i.e. apps developers, music, etc). It's really cool how this can inform the development cycle.

[@BattleshipOrion]

I dont play C:S much, I mainly watch videos to see how towns/cities develop over time. My major complaint with most city builders is that you dont get to choose WHY your town/city exists from the start. Like seriously, is it a railroad town, farm town, spaceport, harbor town, etc. My gripes aside, watching these videos let's me enhance my own lore for my custom vehicles. My favorite is "What if Lima Locomotive Works was bought out by a Tycoon", in which I have maps that show Lima, Ohio in that alternate universe. Another favorite is Orion Shipyards, a group of shipyards based in modern day Scapa Flow, Chicago, San Fransisco, Galveston, Kansas City, and Hawaii (the Hawaii one I'm still working out the lore for). Same universe as the undying Lima Locomotive Works, and I have a map of only the Chicago Shipyard thus far...let's just say, downtown Chicago in this universe is VERY different....Your play-through's especially help me merge current maps with fictional ones to tell a story, and I cannot thank you enough for that ability.

[@Fallout3131]

Use your imagination why your city is there….

[@BlairPurvis]

I’m so glad you brought up Mac support. I loved playing CS1 on my Mac and was so disappointed with no Mac version for CS2. I have no plans to buy another computer just to play a game. At this stage I have given up hope and have turned my attention to Transport Fever 2. I’ve tried the simulators on Mac and the Nvidia option but the experience was so bad with crashes which was just the nail in the coffin. I will only consider coming back to play City Skylines after a native Mac version is available. Whatever that contractual obligation is that you mentioned, I hope they get out of it.

[@angusbeef9200]

a train/metro station DLC / CCP is ESSENTIAL. My favorite part of CS1 was making public transport systems, and the current metro and train stations in CS2 is so underwhelming.

[@wilk746]

They're way too big too, IMO. Why does this small commuter rail station need 6 platforms?

[@epicchocolate1866]

@@wilk746they really over corrected didn’t they

[@NoDecaf7]

I've watched the videos that came from this meeting and I'm going to echo the folks who are so grateful to have voices like you, Biffa and OE and so grateful to have open ears listening to the CS community's issues with the game. As a Pre-Orderer with less than 30 hours in the game, I'm near vibrating with excitement to see the updates that develop from this meeting. We appreciate y'all ❤❤

[@abigaillilac1370]

They need to add bicycles, bike paths, and bike lanes. I'm sick of them leaving stuff out from the original game. I would've bought the game day one if bicycles were in it. I will buy it as soon as they add bikes.

[@CityPlannerPlays]

Honestly, I'm really surprised I forgot to mention that at the meeting. They are aware though and for the community submitted feedback, I can tell it's already going to be #1 on the list. They really, really, really need to get it sorted out quickly.

[@SineN0mine3]

Bikes weren't in the original game until the Nightlife DLC or whatever it was called. They added them into the base game, but they weren't a release feature. Here's a handy guide for figuring out if it was a release feature or not: the first game released with only residential, commerical and industry zones. No sub types. There was 4 types of road, service buildings usually one of each type as well as a large version of the police and fire and.... ... That's it. The game was the most barebones sim city clone you can imagine. Mechanically it was a city painter without any simulation whatsoever. I'm not hating on the first one, we were utterly desperate for a 3d city builder after Sim City failed spectacularly. It was also a matter of weeks before custom assets gave us plenty of variety and fixed for the game thanks to Steam Workshop integration on day one. Besides the workshop, there's precisely no features missing from CS2 that were in CS1 at release. The workshop is by far the most significant, but the complaint of leaving stuff out of the original doesn't hold up, at least to those of us who remember the original before it had ten years of updates.

[@SineN0mine3]

Another way to put it is, bikes were among the first additions to the first game via updates. It seems reasonable to expect them sooner rather than later. I imagine if there wasn't so many mechinal issues with the simulation and so, so much work needed on the editors we'd probably have them by now.

[@abigaillilac1370]

@@SineN0mine3 I know, I was there. I'm not talking about Cities: Skylines on release almost a decade ago, that's a low bar to compare the sequel to. I'm talking about the base game right now. The sequel should at least have the current features in the base game, otherwise what's the point? I want them to improve upon the gameplay in Cities: Skylines, not make a game with less features and better graphics.

[@Eldius00]

@@abigaillilac1370 CS1 is in development for 9 years now. If you want to have all of it features (DLC, CCP, Radios) it cost 380 € now on Steam. And bikes are NOT part of the basic game! You still need to get After Dark DLC. But I agree that there could be cyclist in CS2, even without bike paths etc. Biffa talks more about bikes in CS2.

[@afm_101]

I love the scenario idea! This would be a great way to bring the community together!! Provided Paradox gets the game up and running to expectations, this would be a fantastic way to improve their image and community morale. I have absolutely loved cities skylines 1 and have been so hesitant to get the 2nd game because of everything you, Biffa and Overcharged Egg likely talked to the developers about lol. Can't wait to see what comes out of this discussion, you are all great ambassadors for this game and community. Super stoked!!

[@yourearent]

Being able to do bike infrastructure is one of the best parts of modded CS1 for me. Protected bike lanes, traffic lights where cycleways meet roads ect. Not being able to do this at all in CS2 is just a dealbreaker for me, and I can’t see myself having fun with the game until this, along with far better public transport options (BRT, more and high capacity buses, a variety of trams etc) are added. If CS2 made significant improvements over CS1 on this (so like being able to make Dutch style cycleways) it would immediately become so much better than CS1 from my perspective.

[@darrenharrison3591]

Hi, fellow Madison, WI resident. I have been watching your videos for a while and didn’t realize you were local. I live on Fish Hatchery! Keep up the good work!

[@Yahir_s._]

If SimCity Was Still Around, EA Would Never Ask For community feedback & Have Meetings with KZbinrs. Instead They Would Release DLC & Microtransactions Instead of Making A DLC Free From Colossal Order.

[@sirbonobo3907]

They only donthis because they fucked Up real Bad

[@mahadevovnl]

SimCity had it all and they peed it away. That's what they get. Colossal Order didn't do much better and blamed the customers who rightfully complained about a game that was 2 years from being finished.

[@Hachiae]

to be fair they gaslit us until they couldnt deny they had to fix the game. but you are right, at least they are fixing it

[@SineN0mine3]

EA has zero interest in appealing to gaming niches or fans in general. They want mass appeal, and city builders are not ever going to be their forte. EA is where you look when you want to play exactly the same Need For Speed that you already have, but you feel like your wallet is too heavy and you want somebody to make it lighter. Or when you want to play the Sims but somehow keep forgetting they already ruined it.

[@SineN0mine3]

​@@robert-73besides the mod store we had been begging for a long with a bunch of fixes. We're not asking them to fix everything overnight, that's never going to happen. We just want clear communication about what is being worked on and when to expect the more important fixes. So far the game has graduated from unplayable and broken to playable. That's a pretty significant improvement. It's far from being a game I would recommend to people who aren't already fans, but I'm seeing what I wanted to see which is a genuine effort. The first game was very barren when it released. It was a huge mistake to release the sequel in the same state WITHOUT mods. Paradox should have understood that mods defined the first game and let the fans take the game where it needed to be. The fact that the editors and mod store are still a work in progress is dissapointing, but it's not hard to see this sequel taking the old model of custom content even further. At this stage, still dissapointed but at least hopeful for what's to come.

[@johnedwardcastillo8442]

Thank you for bringing this up. You made the feedback to devs in a very structured and easy to understand way. I completely agree on all of the suggestions and wishlist you said. I just hope their management see solution on making fixes faster because time is really their enemy here. Also if they can somehow compensate the modders if they want to incorporate their solutions into the base game, I would see it as a plus. Some wishlist from my end: 1. Where is the lightning? I saw it in the trailer before (when they mention hailstorm) but havent experienced any. 2. Make more policies that can be applied city wide and district wide. 3. More textures in agriculture industries. 4. Option to have grass. 5. Better visibility when building underground roads/tracks 6. Slider in percentage (probably) on agents. This will provide flexibility on lower end systems to finally enjoy the game.

[@infinite562]

Cities Skylines needs more animations, we lost the fire department police, deathcare, emergency service animations and much more with City Skylines 2. Also no stadiums, golf courses, resort hotels, convention centers, etc. Game lacks tourism centric buildings.

[@SineN0mine3]

It's annoying that there's a whole tab for tourism and hardly anything in there. It's expensive to unlock so it should feel like it's worth it. It doesn't need to be crazy, but half a dozen more assets here would have been great. With the maps being larger you're more likely to have a few different smaller towns on the outskirts of the city and I always want them to have some kind of landmark or attraction. I assume they've got a parks and attractions DLC in the pipeline, and that's fine but there should be a bit more in the base game. I don't doubt asset creators have stacks of ideas for these kinds of assets so hopefully soon it won't be such a problem. I really love the unique buildings we got, but I feel like they missed a beat here.

[@marekkos3513]

I want Simcity 6 so much

[@infinite562]

@@marekkos3513 Simcity 5 was awesome, there was animations of the police chasing criminals down the street and helicopters shining lights on them.

[@DM-fe2bc]

Thanks for your work advocating for the community. My biggest gripe about all of this is that I feel like they didn't do the work to identify what the most popular mods were that made CS1 so enjoyable and have those included in the base game. That would solve a TON of feedback that I have for the game, because I want all the basics and those quality of life things without having the worry about mods breaking my game. The majority of my feedback you already covered, so I won't repeat those things here. But in addition to your feedback, here's what I'd like to submit: On the topic of Districts, it would be nice if you could draw boundaries with the same tools as roads (why can't we do curves instead of having to polygons with 100 vertices?). Another good option would be the ability to create a district out of a space enclosed by roads so that boundaries follow the contours of your roads. It would be nice to be able to control how big the property boundaries are for things like schools, universities, cemeteries, etc. For example, you plop the school BUILDING, and then you determine the footprint of the "campus" to how large or small you want it using tools similar to the district tools. Then, any upgrades you plop within that space is part of that school's campus. This would ensure you don't have a huge school parking lot in the middle of a city, but also each additional upgrade doesn't have to be touching the actual building. This mechanic could work for cemeteries too, so we can make sprawling ones--and we can plop graves within that boundary to expand its capacity, and make clever shapes that roll across the landscape. (Essentially Park Life DLC, but also for more things than parks)

[@emmata98]

14:36 I think an important thing would be to have the buildings respecting the topography, and not force autoleveling for a graveyard, that are commonly found in hilly areas.

[@andrewevenson2657]

Can we just give them a round of applause for meeting with content creators in the first place? That should be common practice for large game devs at this point. Have meetings with people who play your games a lot, and are competent enough to give you valuable feedback. Edit: I haven’t been able to play CS2 yet. I own it, but performance was so bad I couldn’t play it. Idk if the performance is playable yet, but I’m building a new PC probably this month, so maybe I’ll try it then.

[@BlackDragonRuler]

Mind blown homie I didn’t know you were a brotha 🤯 the way I pictured you was totally different.

[@luisjalabert8366]

same! i would never have guessed what he looked like LOL

[@fuzzzone]

Dude, my mental image could not have been more off the mark. The first few seconds of the video were definitely a mindf*ck.

[@brianlance]

@@fuzzzone same! I had to check what channel I was on.

[@sovereign41]

Ha 100% I legit thought he was a skinny white dude.

[@sal-the-man]

He’s mixed that might be why

[@NeverlandSystemZor]

I love this collab and working with other creators and with CO actually taking time to talk with you like this and get the word out- it's incredibly rare these days and despite the issues with CS2... this is a GOOD sign.

[@Hannodb1961]

One of my greatest pet peeves about the game is: Why do you get the welfare office before the city hall? City halls has been around much longer than welfare office. I think one thing Cities XL did right was to make City halls available very early on in the game, and to have it provide a limited amount of all city services, including police, fire protection and heath care. Then, as the city progress, you would have specialized buildings providing those services.

[@IceDree]

Excellent work, Phil. Kudos to CO for initiating this meeting, hope they take your feedbacks seriously & implement most of the fixes/suggestions.

[@PassTheBiscuit]

Maybe I’m just living under a rock but I’m fairly impressed they took the time to meet with Phil et al to have these conversations.. idk many other big companies that would care that much to do so? Fingers crossed for the future

[@SineN0mine3]

No, I think it's one of the best things they could do short of actually talking to the community on their forums. I think I'm a bit old fashioned for believing that's still possible. Obviously they should have fixed these issues before they asked us for money but I'm happy to see they're working hard to get our trust back. There's no way that they'll be able to make people forget the rocky launch. If they figure out a set of killer features to add over the next 6-12 months they'll be able to draw in new players and creators. Asset editor is a must though, they really can't delay it any longer. The asset editor defined the first game and was the main reason it was famous for the abundant assets from the community. You can't expect people to download and write their own tools. That's work. People want to do the fun parts of asset design and will do it for free if you just give them the tools! Technically that's work too, but it's also fun and people will happily contribute just for the enjoyment of others and the recognition and thanks they get when their assets are used by other people.

[@4879daniel]

The game was two years late as it was. I don’t see how they are going to make improvements in 6-12.

[@bitmanagent67]

Kudos, Phil. Your work as a real city planner paid dividends with your suggestions and solutions. I am honored that PD and CO had enough respect for you and your work to include you and other top creators in providing open feedback. That was awesome and concur with your suggestions as a CS 1 player (no macOS support for the game)

[@akyhne]

As a creator, my biggest problem is the water. Ive msde several guides on how to make real data 1:1 grayscale heightmaps for the franchise, but i can't be bothered making maps, because of how water simulation works. As a player, im frustrated by many of the things you mentioned, but i wanna add tunnels. A road needs to be more than 10 meters deep, to go below another road or infrastructure. When did you last see a tunnel with a ceiling 10 meters tall?! That's 33 feet or thereabout. And the 11 foot 8 bridge in the US is not tall enough. It needs another 3 feet or 1 meter to be safe. That's something like a little over 4 meters, so why do our bridges have to be at least 7,5 to make a cross?! Thats around 25 feet!

[@T1tan466]

I really do appreciate how paradox and colossal order are dedicated on fixing the game and trying to improve the best as they can

[@buckeyedave7]

except the fixes will come in the form of paid DLCs

[@cod-the-creator]

Dude the "telemetry data" line is so fucking sad and is honestly I think responsible for most of the downfall of AAA gaming. They make bad scenarios, data shows nobody plays scenarios, so they think "oh well scenarios aren't worth investing in." Their focus should be on making a fun game. Fire all data scientists.

[@ScotlandTom]

It's not so much the data scientists or telemetry that's the issue, but the response to it. They could've seen the data, looked into why players weren't engaging with the scenarios, and fixed the issues. But instead they effectively abandoned the system without looking into it. That's a decision making problem, not a data problem.

[@lordthor5951]

> Their focus should be on making a fun game The problem is that you usually only got so many devs so if you want to make a fun game its a question of putting work where it matters and if only 5% of your players use it maybe you would rather dedicate the devs to developing maps or whatever.

[@Azuvector]

The scenarios in CS1 *aren't* fun for most, is the thing. I know of no one in my friend group who has ever bothered with them other than going for unlocks legitimately. (Me) And I found them a mixture of boring and tedious, with one or two that were brutally hard. I don't think anyone but content creators would care about some sort of community scenario thing on a weekly/etc basis. If they want something like that, organize it(players, not CO), and provide the map and conditions to other players. Doesn't have to have anything to do with the base game.

[@bgyoshi]

Telemetry has been around since the beginning of successful business. The problem isn't the data science, it's the interpretation of it. And again, this has been a thing for all of time. If telemetry shows that nobody is playing your scenarios, there are a large number of possibilities as to why. It could be that the scenario itself is bad, or that players aren't aware of the scenarios at all, or maybe the game has been out for so long that most players aren't interested in playing scenarios, or or or or... If you make the simple conclusion that scenarios are unpopular because people don't want scenarios, then you're not doing a very good job of researching. Nothing wrong with the data scientists and the ability to collect information.

[@cod-the-creator]

@bgyoshi sure, but obviously my point is with the analysis of "telemetry data". You're right that you can be good and bad at analyzing data. AAA companies have been, in recent years, LUDICROUSLY BAD AT IT. That's obviously what I was whining about. Not your imaginary world where data scientists are perfect and the data is perfect.

[@Azeria]

Cities: Skylines 2 is a lesson in the problems with ‘ten-year games’; you cannot re-implement ten years of progress into a new game, but that’s what the users will expect. That’s not to say they couldn’t have done better, but it feels like there was no winning from the outset. Expectations were insurmountably high. Games like ETS2 and Minecraft survive because there isn’t an ETS3 or a Minecraft 2. You don’t kill the mods, you don’t break basic functionality, you just continue upgrading the core game again and again.

[@deadchannelwoooooo]

On the topic of density: Trying to build a tokyo style city is literarily impossible. Apartments are unusable and nobody will move into high density residential.

[@Musasabi31]

same, I tried many times and it never works. Currently, I have no demand for high density because "there are empty buildings" despite having build none

[@ldsviking]

And they got rid of single-cell zones, which are basically required to have any hope of a Japanese-style city.

[@furonguy42]

I like your idea of having specialised industries unlocked from the start to emulate how real-life cities are built due to the usefulness of land; you could even take it in a direction where the map you start on will have certain industries or facilities unlocked early to better the simulation - for example a starting area with a lot of trees can have forestry from the start but still need to unlock the other industries, or a coastal starting area could have ports and ferry lines open earlier than on other maps.

[@nightdraggerd3241]

A suggestion that hasn't been made yet: A big reason why I haven't played the game yet is the weird school system. Lots of elementary school students, but hardly anyone attending high school or university. I watched a recent video from May 25, 2024 (kzbin.info/www/bejne/apS4qqCHpJx8ecU) and only 5-6% of primary school students attend higher school? - 39k primary school students -> 21% of the residents are primary school students, which seems a bit too much to me. I think 3-6% would be a more realistic number - 2.6k high school -> 1.1% of residents attend high school. I think the number should be 3-4 times larger. In short: fewer primary school students, more higher school students.

[@Sephiroth144]

Honestly, the school system always seemed off (in CS1 as well); like, Elementary meant Primary School (K-12), High School seemed like College/University, and Unis were more like Post-Grad; that how the numbers (and job requirements) always seemed to break down for me...

[@YpsilonTM]

Hey, first of all thank you for taking your time for this and engaging with them to improve the game. A lot of things I want to see are already mentioned. Something i really want back in CS2 that was in CS1 is animations like from the firefighters and other services. It brings more life to your city.

[@tylerpi]

The game could really use a more consistent theory of time. The year takes forever. Sometimes I play three or four gaming sessions and never leave winter (complete with green lawns). And yet people are graduating high school in 11 months and college in three months. The region goes from empty to a bustling metropolis in three years. If the day/month went by faster I think that would help.

[@SineN0mine3]

While I agree, I don't think it's likely. I think most players get the sense that the time scale is peculiar but I imagine that they've based it off of the simulation and how long it takes cims to get around the city. The problem being that the simulation is very resource intensive and that means there's a hardware limit as to how fast it can be run. They could definitely do with more balance, but I don't think it will be technically possible to run it faster on normal consumer hardware.

[@SineN0mine3]

I think it would be a good idea for CO to talk in greater depth about the technical limitations with the game. There's a lot they'd like to add but likely never will because it can't be implemented efficiently. I think (some) people would be more forgiving if they understood that they're struggling with technical limitations as a opposed to being lazy or not knowing what people want.

[@SineN0mine3]

They kind of shot themselves in the foot with the Dev diaries which often implied that their in-house tech was beyond what other studios with similar titles can do. With all these recent developments in AI we're seeing computers do things that we couldn't even imagine 10 years ago. It's not unreasonable for the average customer to have little to no understanding of what their games should be technically capable of. We don't know what technology they're working with before the game is released, and as far as anybody knew they had solved many of the technical issues that would have made this game impossible in previous years. The cat's out of the bag now, they're not doing anything revolutionary and that's pretty clear. If they told us a little more about where the limitations are we won't keep harping on about fixing it. Another example is the traffic AI. A lot of people complain about the lack of collision physics (fair enough since they advertised them as a feature) but realistically, adding actual physics to this game would probably break your computer. Your hardware is probably already struggling just to render the city let alone trying to calculate physics for another 50,000 objects. So realistically, sometimes cars are going to drive through each other. At best we'll see some kind of hacky fix that estimates the position of the vehicles a little better and makes it less common. Cars fading out of existence also seems like a fairly necessary design choice. Many people had problems with Traffic Manager: PE (the popular mod for CS1) when they disabled spawning. The reason being that computing simulated gridlock is incredibly expensive for processors. There's no way to simulate gridlock without simulating the agent's inability to get to their destination. If the agents can't decide what route is best, and the simulation realises that they're going to be infinitely locked in place which inevitably causes the software to crash. There are ways to fix these kinds of problems, but they're all going to be expensive to process. Therefore the best thing they can do is create a system that creates the illusion if being consistent but has soft coded release valves for these kinds of issues. Ideally they'll be better hidden, but when you play for a hundred hours or so you're going to notice.

[@mrjamezjc9845]

I mean a pretty simple answer to “why content creators?” Because of point 5, a content creator is both themselves and a larger audience by extension at the same time which means the devs can get questions from that content creator as well as their community at the same time so we feel included in the process to a certain extent while also getting info from people who make a living out of making content on the game, it’s a win win!

[@zantar2482]

I love the idea of weekly challenges. Like think of No Mans Sky (quick silver) or State of Decay (bounty hunter).

[@georgiamay_753]

As a channel lurker (sorry) I just wanted to crawl out of the woodwork to say thank you for your content. I recently discovered your channel and have really been enjoying your play-throughs of CS2 and Manor Lords and enjoy the narrative you incorporate into gameplay while explaining game mechanics as well as your ability to critique without hyper focusing on the bits that you don’t like. You’ve created and nurtured a safe space for watching these videos. While my financial situation isn’t good enough at the moment to support you as a channel member, I want you to know that I really appreciate your content and I am sure I’m not alone when I say I find a place of refuge here in you audience in the past turbulent months/year. Thank you for your thoughtful and open dialogue with the developers and us your viewers. Now enough of that sap, I’ll be returning to my nice safe nook in the shadows. Please don’t @ me, I’m shy.

[@dumaskhan]

This game feels like CO got lazy and made the game closer to Sim City, moving away from what made CS a superior game.

[@Netist_]

To your point about industries, I've always thought it was weird that the game starts with residential. It'd make much more sense for your first zones to be industrial.

[@dzang6250]

Okay a finn here. Most parks do not have fences around them. That feels like an excuse

[@DokisKalin1]

otherwise known as a lie LOL

[@Jakeurb8ty82]

Everything on my wishlist was on yours. I especially like the 'early towns reason to exist idea' -I always have to spend an hour or two mapping out the destinations of the crossroads my town actually spring up from when making my own maps and starting cities -because towns don't pop up from greenfields usually. We need small town services and industries from the get go. Thank you for addressing what a step backwards the new park system is too. Sounds like a productive meeting with my three favorite skylines streamers.

[@Jakeurb8ty82]

and your right about scenarios - the maps were terrible. That's why we didn't touch them. I did last year finally. Once another friend started passing me on skyline steam achievements...

[@fleety5621]

10:00 All or many. As a Finnish person i can't even say where would be a park that has a fence around it. Unless its a children's playground or some kind of sports field. I think the park designs in CS2 are absolutely idiotic.

[@SynRequiem]

When you mentioned the difficulty sliders in Manor Lords I was like YES! I know it’s a very different type of game and it’s not even close to being finished yet but I’ve had more fun with Manor Lords than any city builder since Anno 1800. So much of it feels intuitive and “right”. I think a lot can be learned from the reception of that game.

[@NikolasBeige]

I am really upset that in 10 years of this game existing no one is talking about making cities come alive by implementing a social class system that all cities have in real life. I always wanted to be able to have poor, middle-class and rich neighbourhoods in my cities. I want gated communities and ghettos, I want them to interact, I want them to conflict with each other and to be able to resolve these conflicts by implementing social workers and reforming the economy system in my city. I want tents in parks with homeless people like we were promised to have in CS2. Basically I want all of those things from SimCity Societies but actually working. Without it, it is still a sandbox, a screenshot simulator and I think no one is realizing that. But I guess it will take another 10-20 years for all of that to come to life 😣

[@opalyankaBG]

Thanks for the nice video! My thoughts after playing the game was that it kept reminding me of SC4, though the latter did some things better even though it's a 20-year old game. For example, if your city is doing well and has the demand for it, it'll grow top-level buildings. With C:S2 you always get the lowest level buildings first and this makes your cities look so repetitive. Also, the animations when buildings are growing look better in SC4, it's like they're actually being built. With C:S2 you always get a huge crane (even for a small house) and once the building is finished, it shows all of a sudden.

[@dialog_box]

20:51 lmao almost!! 😂 the stress goes on the second syllable. the first one is unstressed. so it's just "ta-LEM-a-tree" /tə'lɛmətri/

[@SineN0mine3]

Te-lemetry seems like it would be more helpful, your second and third dash seem to imply there should be pauses there.

[@dialog_box]

@@SineN0mine3 i was just separating the syllables. you could also just say teLEMetry

[@carolinezigrang6957]

I think its super cool they sat down with y'all. Very rare these days companies will actually listen to their customers. I picked up CS1 a year ago and just have to remember that was a game that had years of mods and updates. CS2 will get there and I think this is a great first step

[@saladinbob]

Would it not be better to have outside connections give diminishing returns based upon milestones? That way you start off and it's cheaper to use them helping you get a foothold into the city, but later on it quickly starts to become increasingly more expensive, compared to local services? By making it more expensive right off the bat you end up with the reverse, not having them early on when they're most helpful, but once your economy is strong you can switch to them for a financial benefit, and that to me is counter intuitive. How about this as an idea? User-made scenarios? Create a scenario editor so modders can do the heavy lifting and those who want scenarios can play them and those who don't, won't. However that would be a long term project and I don't think scenarios are important right now. I said this on Biffa's channel, there's a real chance CS2 could go the same way as Imperator Rome, so Colossal need to focus as a maximum priority getting the game in a playable state because everything else is superfluous to that. I love CS1, I play CS1 regularly, but I haven't touched CS2 since launch and I am not going near it until I know I can actually play the game and not be hit by a crippling bug. I don't want to be halfway through a city and the game breaks, that's a waste of my time. The game _has_ to be playable to bring people back. Once it is playable, then start on the long road of improvements, engage with the community with polls on what we think they should focus on, that way we know we're being listened to and makes the community buy into this journey of getting to where we all want the game to be. Oh and for Christ's sake please don't base your feedback on likes, likes are time dependent; if you don't comment in the first hour, you're highly unlikely to ever get a like on a comment on a video, that's just the way it is. Someone can watch this video next week, come up with a superb idea and not have a single like and you'd just disregard it because no one's seen it. Read the comments yourself and make a determination as a veteran player.

[@SineN0mine3]

​@@saladinbobwhile i agree completely I also feel like that's where they're focusing anyway. They got a lot of hate for the beaches DLC, but I can only assume it was made a very low priority compared to the bug fixes and that's why it was so lacking. Compared to release the game is considerably more stable and less buggy. I honestly haven't had an issue with crashes outside of the first few weeks and while that sucks it's also pretty common these days. I have to admit that I tend to build smaller cities and it seems like a lot of the bugs are in the late game. I also remember that cities 1 was very similar in it's first year, everything worked up to a point and then it would start to break. Bugs aren't uncommon and it took a lot longer for some of the prominent ones to be addressed but they are working through them. I don't doubt it still has game breaking bugs, but if they're becoming less common then I think it's a sign that they're on the right track. I think they also need to focus on the editors and mod store because the first game is so well known for that and it does such a lot of community engagement. People will absolutely put up with game breaking bugs and even crashes if they can actually build the things they're imagining. Simulation/economy/game progression are all important, but they're not what's going to make or break the chance of a comeback.

[@saladinbob]

@@SineN0mine3 I tried to warn them about Beeches and their community manager should really have listened. Releasing DLC while the game was broken then announcing the fix would come in a patch with the DLC made it seem like a cynical attempt to monetise the fixes. Schoolboy error. CS1 might have been buggy but was buggy within the realms of a typical launch, CS2 is buggy because it needed at least another year of development and everyone has walked away. CS2 no longer has the luxury of being buggy within the realms of a typical launch if it's to save the game. All I'm saying is everything in this video, and the others, everything I and others have mentioned is superfluous to making sure we can build a city that isn't going to see its economy go wonky, or people refuse to move in, or any other game breaking bugs. Then Phil, Egg, Biffa and the others can get playing again because it's these guys that will make or break this game, because if the content creators can't even be bothered to play then then game is well and truly dead. Make sure the game is in a playable state, then throw up a community poll with three or four choices of improvements the community want to see first. Get the community invested in saving this game and they will save this game.

[@IEfromCT]

This is a very specific example, but I feel like it shows a possible change to city services/progression: Fire station is unlocked at level 0. Upgrades include: - More garage bays (additional capacity) - Tanker / ladder / off-road trucks (better suburban / skyscraper / rural coverage - longer “reach” or better effectively in those areas) - Disaster response training (as it exists in-game) - Helicopter pads (as it exists) Late game would be an expansion to the base asset to the largest size. Same idea can be applied to police station, hospital, transportation, garbage, etc

[@drujo25]

Paradox is a blight on the gaming industry. $1,000,000 bet that there is 2x as much content waiting to be released on DLC to feed Paradox's classic style of "DLC every quarter"

[@ArchTeryx00]

Honestly, it's really nice to hear you again implore the community to be civil about this. Screaming at a small company's communications person isn't gonna get you want you want. Considering other experiences I've been through recently with gaming companies? At least they're *trying* to fix the problem. When I saw what a disaster the launch was, I cried a bit, but didn't rush for the doors and start demanding refunds. I backed up my CS:1 assets and mods, and I settled in for a long wait. (Cue the "I'm so old, I remember CS:1's launch" joke). Day's coming when CS:2 will take the mantle, but that day isn't here yet. So I wait, watch, and see what happens. I'm glad there's some real communication going on - that, by itself, is worth some trust and good faith. Considering the defiant stand so many companies take when they put out a lemon, that's a breath of fresh air. Words do matter at the moment. I just hope they're followed by some real action. I ain't giving up on the CS franchise yet. Too much invested in it.

[@Professor.Farnsworth]

Oh, but we weren't. Until we were told that the game they marketed as a complex city builder and manager wasn't for us and we were all just toxic. And that was after weeks of constructive feedback none of which was toxic. That was after fighting with their "QA" which marked everything as working as intended even though a blind person would be able to see it wasn't working as intended. You're not obligated to play nice after that circus. Not a single bit of constructive feedback was taken seriously. They flat out told the community that land value was working as intended, that the economy was working as intended.. All the shit was working as intended. It wasn't until some algorithm decided to no longer favor CS2 (for obvious reasons) that Content Creators took offense and started speaking out. This is the most forced poo in the history of forced poo. Daddy Paradox is not happy and that's the only reason why this is happening. You know WHO should have been asked? The Community. It would not have been hard to put up a questionnaire. Yet, here we are, with a whole 3 people talking as if they represent millions of players.. Please. Be realistic. This will not amount to anything other than some decorative stuff. That's about it. Maybe a few tools for zoning, because for reasons unknown not a single Content Creator has bothered to list the biggest grievances in the community, well Phil touches on a few.

[@DisrUptuSVerRB]

A part of the problem is that they've gone ahead and released an updated version of Cities Skylines 1, 'Cities Skylines 1.2' instead of Cities Skylines 2. Nobody who played the game seriously played the base game or played the game without mods. The sense that you get from the developers is that they played the base game without mods. That said, they've gone ahead and made an updated version of that, Cities Skylines Base Game 1 now with updated graphics and a new simulator, AND IT DOESN'T WORK. For the actual community, the actual player base, the people that actually play, the expectation was that they would no longer NEED the standard mods to play the base game. The expectation was that all that nonsense that the mods corrected would be the default state of the new release 'Cities Skylines 2' new and IMPROVED. With line tool, traffic control, search functions, prop placement, all of the CRAP that you basically HAD TO HAVE as a mod to play the original for more than an hour once a month. (If you want to know what the core mods are go to the steam workshop and look at the most downloaded mods- that's the real game right there, that's what the community expected, I mean seriously, year on year patch after patch these mods were updated, why? Because the freaking game wasn't playable;e with out them, I mean seriously, reach deep into the bag Paradox and pull out a clue). If it's Colossal Orders intention to rerelease all the old expansions but in a new format, I'm done. That's bullshit. All that stuff is default now. Nobody made them decide to release a second Cities Skylines and if they were going to do it they needed to understand what that meant. They needed to understand that their job was to exceed expectations not repeat past performances with new graphics and an updated simulator. Honestly GET REAL. The argument that they 'have to make money' became redundant the moment they released a product that the players want to refund, if they're not making money on the greatest city builder franchise of all time that's on them, it's not because they needed to keep something for the expansions. There's a million expansion ideas out there. The community was so jazzed, so excited with anticipation, how do you screw that up? They didn't understand what Cities Skyline 'TWO' meant. It meant THE MAJORITY of the stuff from Cities Skylines 1 including the expansions with the expectation that new expansions would come later. Not Cities Skylines base game 1.2. I say the Majority, not every system, not every detail, they needed to understand what has become canon, what has become core. If they want to release expansions its needs to be something that the community hasn't seen or experienced before not the same thing they did ten years ago but with updated graphics and a new simulator. I don't think they can win the community back at this point. I think they shot themselves in the foot. I think they'll run out of money before they've released anything remotely like what the player base expects / expected. They're in a sense a victim of their own enormous success. Shame.

[@gelleby3]

This is an amazing presentation, this is better than most c-suite meetings I go to, amazing and professional. I'm still on the fence on buying the game and happy waiting for a cs2 that's an actual improvement on cs1. One point of feedback regarding the video: If you have twich chat "unreadable" when zooming in on parts of the screen, I'd rather have the screen change so you can still read the comments from chat.

[@HH-dd2xq]

My takeaway is that it sounds like a lot of the problems with the game come down to bad creative decisions rather than technical issues. "But all parks in Finland have fences so whats the problem? Oh you wanted props? Why?" etc

[@Azuvector]

The auto-balancing economy is just .....what? Do you understand how a game works, right? It's supposed to be fun, perhaps challenging, and it shouldn't play itself. The player is an integral part of the gameplay loop.

[@unibeastbeats]

Cool to see a company is invested truly in its product and takes communication with the community seriously

[@danellesmit8297]

I love how your personality really shines through with all your planning in your List/Wish list you made for them. You are a true planner man. Really awesome, I love your videos. This is the first time I commented, but I just thought it was really awesome to see you sticking to been yourself. Have a great day/night/morning??? Okay Byeeeeeeeeee

[@Cyanide300]

I'll be honest, this whole thing makes this studio look wildly incompetent when it comes to game design.

[@DokisKalin1]

very true.

[@Lintary]

As a very casual sort of player some of the indepth stuff is going to go past me, but what I noticed and what annoyed was with the housing and lack of bikes I am dutch damn it I want my bikes :D But really being able to make more dense cities is what makes sense to me, single family homes here are rare in cities, you will find some in the outskirts but even then it is quite dense and often still row houses and apartment blocks mixed in.

[@Therealjeffthethird]

Your face looks different than I imagined 😂😂

[@nutyyyy]

Completely different

[@CityPlannerPlays]

Hopefully not a terrible thing? hahaa

[@elaz925]

@@CityPlannerPlays For me I wasn't expecting the impressive beard

[@Marcoyolo571]

Thanks for everything you’re doing for our community!

[@NilRacing]

How I see: Colossal Order and Paradox had a lot of the work done for them in CS1, modders showed how the game could be so much better and we all hoped for a better CS2 based on that, instead they dropped the ball, hard... I remember how they choose to focus in all the wrong things: pre-order bonus, "influencers" in cranes, special editions, so many weekly videos to generate hype and pre-orders, minimal amount of content with the label "DLC", calling out the community because of the criticism about the state of the game, proprietary game launcher moving mods away from the workshop and now we have "maybe we can't have 10 years of support because people may not come back to the game", like it wasn't they own fault! For me I'm done, CS1 modded it's miles better than CS2 (that I refunded) and with how they are now more "corporate talk" than ever I don't expect much, as soon the community show any good will they will flood the game with lazy DLC and then move on... I don't agree with the more aggressive "gamers", but you can't expect "positivity" after you take money from people, deliver such bad product and have no idea when or how the product will be better, especially when you had all the information with CS1 and all the modders work for that game...

[@t.g.2796]

I really appreciate you putting out this video! I personally don't play city skylines. I never have in any iteration. However , I found your channel last year and it was a huge comfort to me. I've watched almost all of your CS 1 content with multiple rewatches. I watched all of your CS 2 dev updates and shared in your excitement! However once city skylines two came out I found that I didn't enjoy the videos as much. I tried to fall into your new city series, but something was different. Looking back now I can say that I think its because you weren't enjoying the game as much. Because the game was released with so much missing, your compounding frustrations were emanating from the videos. Making it less enjoyable for both you as a creator and me as a viewer as well. (As an avid sims 4 player i understand the feeling well) I look forward to hearing more from you about the updates! I'm still a big fan, and i think if collosal is genuinely taking feedback from amazing creators like you and their overall community, CS 2 could make a fantastic comeback!

[@EdzTech7]

American car centric city sprawl lovers like me are under represented in the cities skyline community. Buildings that don’t have enough parking for costumers and employees should go out of business. edited: multifamily homes and buildings should require at lest one parkin spot per household. The exception would be in a super dense inner-city with good public transport. Also zone able parking lots would be great, at least where i live most buildings especially apartments and row home are not bult directly on the street.

[@Grotes19]

Some of the most fun I had in CS1 was building the smaller communities that ended up surrounding your city and giving each its own distinct look. I didn't realize how much the losing the ability to change your zoned buildings to Green or High Tech really hampers that. Creating a farming community that is populated by buildings specifically designed to be in the center of city or on the outskirts of one has taken a lot of the joy in building those areas away. We now how these huge maps but I don't have a desire to expand out into new areas because of this. How great would it also be to have a Rural look to these buildings to take advantage of the pretty mountain terrain that has been put into CS2. I was happy to hear that we have smaller service buildings on the way. One I would love to see is a smaller cemetery or better yet one that would behave like a landfill where the area it fills could be adjusted. I live in an area that is very hilly. The cemetery and graveyards here aren't giant square blocks, they creep over hillsides and along the edge of forest, having a cemetery that could grow and expand along with your towns would be great as well as provide away to fill up negative space and make slopes and uneven terrain be points of interest.

[@feelthebern3783]

Phil, I was almost going to make a suggestion to improve CS2, but then I realized the game is basically irredeemable. They'll never make the (big) changes necessary to take this game to the next level. For example: if you play a game like EU4 - another gem from Paradox - you'll see how deeply intricate/interesting a strategy game is supposed to be, where all sorts of currencies (gold, monarch points, prestige, armies, manpower, aggressive expansion, etc) interact and merge together to provide the player with choices (including random events). You deal with situations as they emerge and you're forced to make trade-offs, effectively managing an empire. There is no such thing in Cities Skylines, and will never be. Not in the way the game is currently designed. I know they're different genres, but they didn't take any cues from EU4. They only took cues from Victoria 3 (which, surprise surprise, is another "feels dead" game!) In CS2, all is subsumed to the ONE currency - money. All other "currencies" (like happiness, traffic flow, health, wealth, profitability, etc) are nothing but background noise that no one cares about, hidden away in some graph or menu, with no real consequences/effect on gameplay. So long as you "make money", you're good. Sure, there's different WAYS to BUILD a city, but you never feel like you're MANAGING a city. And that's the key distinction... it's what makes CS2 a flawed game. The game doesn't give you any goals to strive towards, nor does it present any problems for you to solve. At least with CS1 you had traffic... You basically just "paint the city" and let the simulation do all the work for you. It feels hollow, non-strategic and devoid of meaning. It's not engaging or captivating. The simulation can be as deep/accurate as you'd like; but the way we INTERACT with that simulation will remain shallow, limiting the game's potential. Basically, CS2 is to games what LoFi is to music. LoFi is not a redeemable genre of music because it's not REALLY trying to be music - just like CS2 isn't REALLY trying to be a game, either. It's just a p(r)etty simulation.

[@DokisKalin1]

Very Good points!

[@Dylan20579]

In Europe most small towns don't have any services or schools at all so it makes sense that you don't unlock many things at the start. But then again it is far too easy to get a power plant or landfill which just doesn't happen in towns of 5000 people or whatever.

[@zantar2482]

They need to run 2 week sprints rather than waterfall patches.

[@Franimus]

THIS! Why doesn't the Internet seem to understand that the slow release cycle excuse is a myth?!?

[@zantar2482]

@Franimus It's hard for old school devs to move to agile. I don't blame them, but they need to adapt better. Sons of the Forest and State of Decay 2 devs are a perfect example of how to do things right. CS needs to take a lesson from them. They have the talent, they just need better PM

[@thomasblake3633]

In the context of historic start, a grain silo that acts as a tiny cargo station for ag export on a spur line would make me so happy. Where I live in the Northern Rockies (US), every farming community has one. Any resource extraction industry would have something like this. There would also be a passenger whistle stop from day 1 if the main line comes through town.

[@asvectic1255]

First outside of the bots lol

[@CityPlannerPlays]

Man, that rush! Haha

[@turner-tune]

A million thanks to you for trying your absolute best to support the community here and to be incredibly helpful for the progression of this games success! Been a long time follower of this channel and I am so grateful that you continue to grow this platform into something more and more people can get behind and enjoy! Always exited to watch your videos, thanks once again 😄

[@ccricc]

This game is so broken! How they could screw it up this bad after making CS1 is an accomplishment in it self. 🤣