I have some things I need to say about Cities Skylines 2

This is not a video bashing the devs or the publishers or the game, but some things that I think need to change to make the game better. I honestly hope this helps...
Sean Murray of Hello Games @ GDC
• Sean Murray GDC 2019 T...
Flyvox's Podcast about the state of Cities 2
• How to NOT promote you...
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👓OTHER PLAYLISTS:
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- Cities Skylines - Final City (Vanilla 2023):
• Cities Skylines - Fina...
- Cities Skylines - Biffalo Countea (Plazas & Promenades 2022)
• Cities Skylines - Biff...
- Cities Skylines - Plazas & Promenades DLC
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- Cities Skylines - Teaport City Build
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- Cities Skylines - TeaVille City Build
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- Cities Skylines - FIX YOUR CITY
• Cities Skylines - Fix...
- City Build Series (Kerrisdale Map): • Cities Skylines - Kerr...
- Cities Skylines Project Dam Snow: • Cities Skylines: Proje...
- Cities Skylines Industries: • Cities Skylines: Indus...
- Cities Skylines Real Time: • Cities Skylines: Real ...
- Cities Skylines Parklife: • Cities Skylines: Parkl...
- Cities Skylines Maximum Disasters: • Cities Skylines: Maxim...
- Cities Skylines Green Cities: goo.gl/pB28pS
- Cities Skylines Gameplay Mass Transit: goo.gl/LIldsj
- Cities Skyline Natural Disaster Comedy Short
"DISASTER STRIKES LONDON!":
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- Cities Skyline Natural Disaster (inc Scenarios): goo.gl/hgXj4c
- Cities Skylines Unlimited Mods: goo.gl/LBzkua
- Cities Skylines: Snowfall DLC: goo.gl/jD8g5G
- Cities Skylines: After Dark DLC: goo.gl/MCNlgW
- Cities Skylines: Heavenly Island Map: goo.gl/bVZGsE
- Cities Skylines: goo.gl/iO3cjK
#biffaplays #citiesskylines #CitiesSkylines2

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

*** Please keep your comments respectful, that's all I ask ***

[@_1MAP0TAT0_]

hi biffa, my names tom I'm in secondary school, I really like your videos. I have a small to mid size city, it needs beautification and the is high tax nearly everywhere even though residential is at 0%. I would really like if you could maybe look at my city?

[@burtreynolds8030]

Coffee is better than tea

[@wohnai]

I just got the game a couple weeks ago now that performance seems a bit more optimized. Some good things about CS2 I've noticed in my short time: -Traffic seems much more balanced. I have only had a few traffic issues to address. -Cargo and public transport seems much more balanced, trains, lorries, busses, subways seem much more realistic and contribute to traffic. I agree there's something 'missing' from the game but overall I've had a good time so far but worry it's going to get stale after I start my next city.

[@xavian8970]

Thank you, I've been waiting for this video

[@markvogel5872]

You did a good job trying to stay cheerful about this game for a long time. I was already hating on it like a proper hater before it even came out!😅

[@alexdre]

You know it’s serious when Biffa doesn’t stop to take a sip of tea for 37 minutes straight.

[@thefunkybassistnl]

Also, with the British politeness, getting to this level of criticism it must be bad

[@IzzacJ]

I thought about that every time his cup showed up 🤣

[@ghosttwo2]

He takes it through an IV bag now.

[@Zyo117]

Saw this comment before the video even started. I guess I'm in for something.

[@JenMaxon]

My mouth dried out just listening to him

[@IsaacIsaacIsaacson]

The really sad thing is if you look at the Steam player counts, CS1's player count collapsed upon the release of CS2 (from 32,000 players to 10,000 players), and many of those players probably moved to CS2, but CS2's numbers are now even lower than CS1 (9,000). Meaning that 11,000 people have been so burned by CS2 they've stopped playing CS1 as well.

[@BingBongYourLife]

That's me

[@silberpetermann4003]

Me

[@BeeWarrior_]

Were still here were just waiting for the new one to get fixed and for the content. I deleted the game and I won't reinstall it until its ready. Honestly I think the game needs another few years. Luckily there's plenty of fantastic games to play at the moment.

[@thekey1175]

That’s me. I don’t even really watch the KZbinr shills anymore. Same scum as CAs total war

[@biggley2417]

Me. I get miffed when I get let down by developers and it sours my relationship with the game (and studio) forever. I still haven't forgotten what you did, Bethesda!! (Shakes fist)

[@prometheus140]

I wish the devs were more receptive instead of telling us “If you dislike the simulation, this game just might not be for you”

[@benhoffman8264]

They have been gaslighting us which is really pissing me off

[@SineN0mine3]

I agree. I understand it goes both ways, but I have made a genuine effort to keep up with bug reports and participate in constructive conversations about the game. There have been a lot of overly negative comments as well as outright abusive ones, but this is the internet and that has to be expected. You can't ignore the players who have tried to be involved and been patient otherwise the community is going to lose interest. We understand that there's a time and money constraint to adding features and fixing bugs, we're not demanding everything all at once, just saying it would be nice to have better communication about what IS being done as well as acknowledgement of what we're talking about. A lot of us spent extra on the premium edition with the expectation of playing this game for a long time and purchasing DLC in the future so it seems very shortsighted not to engage with the genuine fans.

[@ActionScripter]

If I had to guess based on industry experience, from the devs' side, they get thousands of people telling them things they already know or trying to backseat design the game. No dev team is going to actually want to hear any of that. Usually there's a community team of some kind that serves as a buffer/shield to placate people and leave the devs some space to work on the game, but occasionally you'll find teams that do more direct interaction, and that's where some harsher, more honest comments can come out due to frustration. Just remember, game design is an art, not a democratic process. Devs are often expected to treat community feedback like some kind of holy mandate, and violating that expectation is considered rude or some kind of betrayal. But people aren't buying games because "the community" designed and built something special, they're doing it because the devs did. So let the devs create, and either play the game or don't. If it sucks, they'll know from sales and reviews, and they'll know how to fix it better than any single person whose priority is being patted on the head for their forum posts.

[@brad5426]

@@SineN0mine3 Always thought it was a bit of a cop out for them to say we're "getting toxic" and I understand but, have they wondered the root cause of it? Because they aren't addressing the problems transparently, it just feels like they're biding time.

[@user-el5yw1er2j]

It was so painfully predictable. In an attempt to appeal to a broader audience they alienated their long-running and most devout fans. Delivered a supposedly accessible product that the true fans quickly saw as shallow and flawed. I get that studios need to be profitable but I can't see how folks keep convincing themselves taking advantage of their dedicated fans - or taking them for granted - is a good business move. Our vision isn't "make a game that draws more players to make you more money by cheapening systems and making gameplay more shallow." Ours is "fix the stuff broken in CS1, make QOL improvements and expand on proven systems to make a more robust experience. Am I wrong? Seems like that's a pretty good summation of what we, the fans, expected. This isn't that.

[@user-pl7oz1jr2q]

My one request on top of everything else said so far here: For the love of Chirper, FIX THE BUILDING SCALE. How is a primary school the size of 2 factories?! Pick a scale AND STICK TO IT THROUGHOUT.

[@Thenamesjamo]

whats even worse, is that making things 'to scale' was one of the things they promised in CS2

[@user-vp9lc9up6v]

In my experience an elementary school can absolutely be the size of a factory or machine shop

[@houndofculann1793]

@@user-vp9lc9up6v really depends on the student count and type of factory, sure.

[@xisumavoid]

Great commentary Biffa, spot on! I like the constructive attitude :-)

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

Thank you kindly X, much appreciated 👍👍

[@darknesswave100]

Yo Xisuma is here. That's cool. Loved the first hermitcraft season 10 episode by the way 😀

[@lacavernedug33k]

@@michadomeracki5910 Yeah, right... I think deleting unconstructive criticism of the game and himself for playing it (aka something along the lines of "Why are you playing this garbage and encouraging those shitty devs?") is rather different than "don't criticise him or you get banned"...

[@GeographyMarmot]

Hey xisuma, if cities skylines 2 has multiplayer you gotta play it with biffa and make a city together

[@Warriorbox]

When you asked in Discord if you should play CS1 again, I said something along the lines of "Yes, please, because it seems that CS2 isn't much fun for you, and therefore we aren't enjoying it so much either. Whereas, in CS1 you are free... almost everything you want is there" That is my answer to this video too. Bring back the fun, Colossal Order/Paradox. All cities look the same and I just don't feel inspired.

[@chrisbeveridge6891]

I still watch all the creators I have for the last few years but the only ones I actually pay attention to closely for the whole video at the CS1 creators. CPP keeps me watching for the story building he does, but the actual gameplay doesn't do much. Biffa's stuff has been about the design and layout and the fun and joy of building, but there hasn't been much of that for a bit because of, as he says, the sameness of it all. Sadly, most don't put CS1 up because it gets low views now, which is why I steadfastly support Overcharged Egg so much these days because we get both modded and vanilla. And they're varied and interesting and unique. Still holding out hope for good CS2 someday but CS1 is where city building is these days.

[@andromidius]

Agreed. Maybe in a few years when the game is sorted out, has some expansions and mods. Until then its hard to beat the original.

[@iguiste23]

I absolutely love Cities Skylines 1. I am one of the remaining players who loads it up as if it has just released.

[@udishomer5852]

@@iguiste23 Not few. CS1 has more players on Steam than CS2 since the end of December.

[@NerdyNanaSimulations]

I have to agree on this one, if you want to keep the CS2 content I'm ok with that but I'd love to see some CS1 content as well. I miss the real game.

[@strawberryturtle8978]

By the time the game is fixed there will be $350 worth of DLCs that we can buy to enjoy it in its "correct" state. That's what the devs are banking on anyway imo.

[@kristoffernorman1530]

If the bicycles are a dlc im calling quits.

[@MrQuadGame]

paradox fed over way too much games and its not even 350 dollars look at ANY game they own and there is over 500 dollars of dlc crap that should have been base game look at how bad they fed prison architect 1 ... and now look at the news articles in steam of prison architect 2 the fans are so angry at them that they disabled comments on them just not to have over 500 comments asking them to FIX all the issues they MADE in pa1 that are fixed by the dlc's they brought out ... i dont buy a game to be buggy i buy a game to have fun

[@MrQuadGame]

btw PA1 whas a COMPLETED game with allmost no issues when they bought it

[@ckorp666]

publishers* presumably the same people that said "no" when the devs asked to delay the release so they could fix the simulation (since it seems like they were forced to dummy it out last minute and fake the numbers)

[@Justyburger]

That's what I think too. The Workshop has been replaced by paid DLC. Someone up high in some board room told them not to have a game with too much free stuff.

[@almightyIrie]

Instead of season toggle, may i suggest something on the line of "adaptive cursor color for snow conditions"? I mean instead of us having to toggle the whole seasons manually, the mouse cursor could switch to black whenever mousing over snow?

[@alexmckee4683]

This is just UI 101, don't render a white cursor or pointer on a white background. This sort of thing has been done for decades in terminal software etc. It's even possible in CSS for websites.

[@litbolt4205]

What I really wanted from CS2 was for it to feel like a "Greatest Hits" version of CS1 + it's DLC mechanics, taking what worked and fleshing it out so it felt cohesive instead of like a bunch of disconnected systems. But other than the Industry DLC they barely brought anything forward.

[@Mita069]

I just read this and this was what I was trying to say. I really don't understand why they didn't just do that.

[@tuxtitan780]

​@@Mita069 because paradox is the publisher, and has probably forced CO to do it like this. It's a consistent theme across every game that paradox releases

[@tuxtitan780]

​@Mita069 and they do it cause it's easier to squeeze a lot of money out of the players*

[@JC_Cali]

That's what it should have been fr fr. I HATE all the counters that are like "well you can't expect 8 YeArS ofDlC tO bE iN tHe CS2 BaSe GaMe" and I can reasonably say no one who is angry or disappointed was expecting that, but what you said instead. Instead, we got hyped up marketing videos and a barely playable, bugged out husk of an unfinished game.

[@stormfire962imastarcitizen5]

@@Mita069 Microsoft is partner with Paradox and CO is in a bad position now because they have two bosses telling them what to do. To make matters worst for CO they will be blamed for everything since both Paradox and Microsoft will never take responsibilities for their mistakes.

[@Nxkamxbxms]

You know it’s pretty bad when biffa is nearly ready to call it quits. It’s quite sad honestly, I know we all wanted this game to be great😪

[@darknesswave100]

I'd honestly be fine with it if he called it quits on CS2 content. Cause you can tell he's just not having fun with it at all. With CS1 all the stuff is there for him to do legit whatever he wants with a city. Until CO decides to get their crap together then personally I'd abandon CS2. Cause they don't deserve content creators showing off a game in such a sorry state. Overcharged Egg and CPP have both put out CS1 videos recently and you can tell both of them are having more fun with it than 2

[@elise3455]

11:00 I think adding difficulty modes would be a great addition! It would allow causal players like me to just enjoy building without stress, and players like you who want more of a challenge to get it. Would be really fun to see you struggle to build and keep a city afloat :P (not something I personally want though)

[@alixlawrence8555]

They had that in CS1, you could play with unlimited money and everything unlocked at the start so 0 stress and can just build how you like. You don't need a difficulty level in a city builder Sim as the difficulty is normally money management and unlocking buildings, take that away and you're on easy street.

[@TeloMovies]

@@alixlawrence8555 yes you dont need an easy mode if you have that mod/cheat. but you need a difficulty scaling to make it harder ( maybe a 'realistic mode' which is more punishing in ways that make sense? ) it would be a nice edition

[@LlywellynOBrien]

​@@TeloMoviesI agree, I think sandbox or various other (custom) cheat modes are great but I don't think they do away with the need for a difficulty scale. If you want it to be a little more challenging so that you feel a pay-off, being told that you can cheat isn't going to help!

[@MaxPalaro]

The game doesn't matter, you can do what ever you want will always reach the same goals. I felt this at the start I thought was going to change but now it looks like they are throwing the towel

[@vito_k6479]

vc aqui

[@tomaka121]

what?

[@saladinbob]

I think it's obvious that CS2 was not ready for release and needed another six months or more in development. CS1 was doing fine, there was no pressing need to rush this out the door. Part of what exacerbates the weather issue is the development decision to ship the game with only temperate zone maps, and for me the maps are the biggest issue with CS2 right now because every map looks identical, all being the same bland colour, which is another big problem. With the absence of LUTs, CS2 just looks terribly bland. My most common comment to CO's updates though has been get the editors out. Maps and assets are a must.

[@SlamTiltBS]

It most likely needs years of additional development. A sequel should exceed the main characteristics of the original and honestly, CS2 doesn't even remotely do this. It's missing *core* features. It should have 100x more assets, modding, etc all on day 1. Take CS1 + great DLCs + 50% of the best mods and this should be the starting point of CS2. It feels like the entire goal was to push the "reset button" on the product so they re-sell DLC to us all over again.

[@Brusselpicker]

CS2 was released because Paradox are beginning to become far less profitable, they were hoping for a boost in profits, they're losing out because their recent releases (Victoria 3, Imperator Rome etc) are not selling in numbers they thought they would and the shareholders want some dividends, Bellular News covered this 3 months ago.

[@tjitsekoster9379]

I think the pressing need came from the financers wanting a return on their investment. Possibly coupled with unrealistic expectations made by an overenthusiastic devellopment team who are better at coding than project management. But that's all speculation, so I could be way off the mark here.

[@smokescreenFromThe6ix]

​@@Brusselpickeryou are absolutely 💯 they tried to please the shareholders and wanted some of the holiday sales!! In the end it's all about the shareholders!!!

[@Merecir]

It has already nearly been four months since release, so six months would have done.... Zero difference, just as the existing patches have done.

[@TastierBackInThe80s]

Biffa and other creators play throughs of CS2 are the only way I can feel I'm amongst the hype and love. Because my potato of a computer couldn't even run a modest CS2 map.

[@kirithornalley6123]

I'm also having to run the game on... basically potato settings (this is probably my fault, my laptop is 5 years old and she didn't have bells and knobs on when I bought her and we're definitely getting a bottleneck on the CPU). But no matter what I do, the simulation speed is just so painfully slow.

[@veritush]

what makes me sad and very disappointed is just being left out of the new version of a game i love because i can't afford a fancy computer. they made the conscious decision of not making me part of their target market for CS2 even though i could run CS perfectly well 🤷‍♀️

[@88balloonsonthewall70]

@@kirithornalley6123 I mean you're gonna have to buy a new computer. I had to buy a new one to play CS1 because my old one was just too old to handle it. Or if your current can handle CS1 your fine. It is a better game currently.

[@larag4646]

@@veritush I've got a pretty decent computer and it still struggles. Seems you need a pretty elite computer to run CS2 at it's full potential.

[@TypicalDutchSaysHi]

@@larag4646Depends on what you find elite level.

[@svendemeyer6278]

The reason I still play CS1.. (almost 1500h started in 2022 ) better graphs, more mods, better gameplay (hate that point system they use now) better building (roads ect) , all around way more fun. I got hyped when they announced it. It looked amazing!! but when I saw the first vids here on you're channel... honestly felt a bit disappointed... so decided to give them some time to fix things.. I'll keep playing CS1 for now. but I have have to admit! CS2 has some great features; Deciding how big you want certain service area's is one of them. I do wish that we are sooner or later able to place/paint in a single house, and then decide how big you want the yard to be, and more important, you can add thing in the yard (swings, pool, patio's ect...) and yes @biffa that is the reason I haven't watched much of you're CS2 vids. (hope you don't block me now :p) look at it this way. when the game gets better, I have something to binge-watch on KZbin :D and thx for you're insight!

[@jenniferpenderis348]

Man this video resonated with me. 100% agreed with all points and have really been struggling to love the game the way I want to because without all the information of how certain aspects of the city are being affected and why it just feels shallow and like it isn’t even there. I remember when I first launched cities 2 I was really anticipating a depth of gameplay that was promised in trailers and I looked around everywhere for the information showing that depth but it wasn’t there. I’ve been trying to lean on making my cities pretty but as you said the 18 trees, lack of rocks and the empty hole of props makes it such a challenge… but not the fun kind 😢

[@antipoetic1223]

ive been thinking a great feature that could be added to cs2 is a "plan" mode, a build mode option where drawing roads and placing other buildings would be "built" (planned) in a "ghost" layer; you dont pay for these roads/buildings right as you plan them, rather you can pay for them later as you progressively develop and build said "ghost" pieces. this would make forward planning much easier and consistent as you know in advance where/how you would like your cities to develop.

[@Solstice261]

I imagine similar to the anno1800 one? It would help with making cities seem more modernly design

[@arthurcatrambone1982]

Anno 1800 has this feature and it’s fantastic. It’s become obnoxious to go back to older games in the series without it

[@tyleverty]

Prison Architect also has this feature and it seems to be well received as a way for the player to be an actual planner rather than just a builder. With Paradox being behind both games, I think they should take the opportunity to share concepts that work across game titles.

[@chrismgallen]

this is a legitimately fantastic idea

[@kirithornalley6123]

shut up and take my money, that sounds INCREDIBLE.

[@Dmartin42]

Give us control over traffic lights. This was such an easy addition they could have implemented. For example, we could have dedicated left turn lights.

[@Distress.]

The lack of asymmetric roads is still crazy considering how much they did add. I don't know a single city that doesn't have multiple turn pockets.

[@dr.bherrin]

That fixes one tiny problem. What about the land value bug? What about the fact you can operate a city without any services just by letting your neighbors handle them for you? The simulation is fundamentally broken.

[@pep6354]

TL control is essential to handle the traffic flow which is a large part of the tanking. There has been a TL control mod around for a while, which I used from it's first release, and I found that after I setup all my junctions, within a couple of minutes my pop cap raised by an extra 30K. What I mean by that is that my pop was capping around 130K where the game performance would tank and my traffic was gridlocking all over the place. After I added the mod and set it up, my game performance was instantly better (after around a minute), and my pop started steadily rising to my new cap off around 160K where the performance would tank again. I also used an early mod that changed the pedestrian pathfinding forcing them to use walkways/underpasses no matter how badly they were built or how far the entrance was from the junction, and that mod raised my pop cap by a further 25K to 30K, because the peds were no longer pouring across junctions holding up traffic everywhere. And that mod worked better than CO's later ped pathfinding fix lol After the CO ped pathfinding fix I turned off the mod to see what happens, and while most of the peds used walkways/underpasses there were still a lot of suicidal peds jaywalking, but when I turned the mod back on, zero peds crossed on the surface, they all used the walkways/underpasses. TL;DR we definitely need TL control, and we desperately need code modding so the modders can make huge improvements to game play CS2 desperately needs.

[@Faltery]

TMPE would do the job but they don't want people to mod because they prefer to release paid DLCs with "extra content". Expect a "new Traffic Lights DLC that has a unique feature to change road signs and customize traffic lights! Only 19,99 € in Steam.|

[@1DontNoclip]

​@@dr.bherrinI don't think it's fundamentally broken, all of the issues you mentioned seem fixable without a whole system rework

[@JamesKirk1988]

Great summary of the issues, Biffa The issues can be summarized into 3 categories: 1. Things mattering & making sense. 2. Customization 3. Performance More of the nuances of the city need to be conveyed to the player, and need to matter more. This applies to Traffic Patterns, Supply Demand of Goods & Zones, Economy, etc. Some mechanics need to be revested for rebalancing and improvements. Distribution of people in the city and them actually using plopable buildings. We need more customization. The foundation's good, but some ways to aesthetic chance plopable building easily would be greatly appreciated. More customizable parks, trees, placements, etc., similar to CS1 with Parks & Anarchy Mods. Integrated searchable assets would be great. Obviously, performance needs to improve, but I'm sure this is hard, especially the simulation bottlenecks. Maybe there are ways the engine can start taking shortcuts as the city gets larger? Here's to hoping this game gets better over time!

[@bradfromoz]

CS2:773hours - I love the potential of this game. Straight out of the box I didnt really have any issue - but unfortunately now after building 3 x 100k+ cities, its just gotten stale. I got the game on pre-launch. Now I will probably take a break for 3-6 months until some major updates come on. Thank you Biffa for your content and putting together most of the things that really frustrate us about the game as it is. I hope they hear you!!

[@KC-mw3rp]

Are you considering playing more on CS one now, or do you feel like that ship has sailed with the new components promised in CS two?

[@davidgabriel9551]

Is it now playable with 100k cities?

[@bradfromoz]

I have a half decent PC so the game doesnt slow down too badly for me@@davidgabriel9551

[@bradfromoz]

I struggle to play CS1 now. Because the road building is just so good in CS2. No.2 just needs some work. Think that CS1 has 8-10 years of work, DLCs and assets/mods.... give 2 a year or 2 and let them drop a game changing DLC like Green Cities or Industries and it will be GREAT!@@KC-mw3rp

[@six_twentythree]

This mirrors my experience exactly. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

[@profduck715]

Something upsetting to me that Biffa touched on briefly in the video is that CO must have known there were serious issues with the game during development and it feels like they used the amazing content creators from CS1 to pump up a game they didn't have confidence in and now that the game is out they've abandoned those same creators.

[@hughesy606]

This. This is exactly the point.

[@darknesswave100]

Of course they did. Cause they got them to hype the game up and then once they got their money from people and everybody realized how crappy the game is they thought that the content creators would take some of the blame off of CO cause well they hyped the game up too. I've seem it happen before. It's what scummy developers do. Not only that but release a game in the sorry state that it's in and then give barely any apology for it. Don't forget too that the one person said "well if you don't like the game then it's just not for you" and expected people to be fine with that. That's the kind of people we're dealing with. They didn't apologize cause they were sorry. They apologized cause people called them out for it

[@WeAreThePeople1690]

Yeah, remember all those release videos when the game looked amazing? Then they give you this!

[@WeAreThePeople1690]

​@@darknesswave100I'm surprised they refunded console players tbh. I'm glad I got mine

[@wm-nu1yf]

That has bothered me too. It was really shifty to use people like Biffa and City Planner, and several others, to do that. In hindsight, I can see why there were restrictions on how far into the game they could get and how long the videos could be. I don't really blame the content creators for hyping the game because it seems like they were being misled as well.

[@fewcandy]

This is a very fair, well rounded appraisal of the state of the game and I truely hope the devs and pdx pay attention to what you have to say here. Very well said Biffa 🙌

[@AwesometownUSA]

hey everyone’s here! :)

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

Thankyou FC 🙏

[@petrekelly]

Biffa you are the expert. It stings and hurts to hear you unhappy with a game. H You are is the reason I got CS1 and i still enjoy the game. So, its hurts to hear you upset with this game. But i will wait for you to tell me its ready!

[@JWUniverse]

Thank You for being Honest about this Biffa I agree there have been a lot of bugs in this Game I can only imagine the Console versions when they eventually release!

[@DonnaChamberson]

I just think the game looks 💩 right now and I’m glad I held off on buying it.

[@LilyMoonWitch]

Pity he wasn't honest before release when he was shilling for CO pretty badly.

[@DonnaChamberson]

@@LilyMoonWitch Biffa is terrible. Not only for being a liar, but also just a bad person. Money grabber, basically.

[@RenAigu]

Two of the things I most wanted from CS2 were better, deeper and more noticeable simulation of urbanism themes like pedestrianism, cycling, traffic calming, safety, sense of place, etc. and a better way of handling default zoning on non-90 degree corners and curved roads. Neither are really in it. Yeah you've got the pedestrian street, limited vertical mixed use and some good transit options, but biking to me is essential for a modern well functioning city. And the zoning is basically the same. So a European city with lots of wall-to-wall streets, courtyards will still involve a lot of manual plopping and mods.

[@acka.]

This is it for me. Always wanted to plan out a city I'd like to live in, and New Urbanism is what I model my ideal city around. In the first game it wasn't really flashed out, so I was waiting impatiently for the second game hoping it would expand on those considerably. Shame

[@mnapoli_]

Exactly that. There is so much empty spaces everywhere, the city I can build look nothing like what I live in. I got bored and abandoned the game. Square zoning + boring default floor texture + no "really small road" + pedestrian roads are huge = empty green spaces everywhere in the city center. That's not realistic at all. The city center should look super dense. Row houses are the exception, but again, curve the road just a little bit and it's all void.

[@MaximusLongus]

​@@acka.Not a native speaker myself, but I always was under the impression it was 'fleshed out'. As in adding meat to the skeleton.

[@acka.]

@@MaximusLongus Looked it up, you're right. My brain always imagined it as shining a light on something to make it more visible. Thanks

[@robrinva9561]

I pre-ordered CS:II and I downloaded it to my new pc. Since then, I've been watching the weekly email updates and comments from users testing the waters. Thank you for this candid, detailed update, Biffa.

[@TheRealEtaoinShrdlu]

You mean "C:SII". It is Cities: Skylines, not Cities Skylines:

[@user-hh6jy7uk9j]

Thank you Biffa for all these really great points raised. For me the TLDR/catch-all issue is that nothing is "driving" me forward or towards improvement. Production chains and taxes are a huge part of this like you mentioned. Give me production chains to fix and improve in ways that make sense, e.g. oh we have a deficit of "software", give me a way to address that issue directly. On the issue of taxes, examples I've thought of also include things you've mentioned like the ability to charge fees for certain services. E.g. It's weird to me that I can't charge a fee for internet if I so choose... Hoping/wishing/manifesting that CS2 developers keep an eye on this video and others like this and make improvements.

[@ElWooha6]

I've got less than 20 hours in cities 2 and even though I've barely touched it since its launch I still have it installed because I still have some tiny shred of hope that CO can still turn this around and fulfill the promises they made. I just hope the fan trust hasn't been completely burned to the ground cause I want to see this game flourish.

[@WarbandGames]

Sorry but it probably will never be fixed to the level of if they just waited longer to fully cook it. This is the sad state of the gaming industry right now.

[@ElFelix88]

yeah in like 2 more years, sadly

[@hughesy606]

I’m with you brother, I’ve set my alarm clock for next year

[@ssmrgrim]

@@WarbandGames YOu're right it probably will never reach the desired level,but that's because CO is so small that this time around I don't think they are up to what they tried to do.

[@LeverActionLarry]

Same here. I've shelved it and can only hope by the fall of 2024 it's where it should've been at launch.

[@TeaAddict]

Thanks Biffa, this video was definitely needed. For me the biggest one is the limited creativity and lack of the steam workshop. "Jarring" is an understatement, "traversty" comes closer. It's just no fun to play yet having such limited assets!

[@ThaJay]

I agree, releasing a game with limited features is understandable because they have rebuilt so many systems and really made them ready for a new generation of simulation behaviour. But releasing that limited feature set without a supported option to mod the game was a big mistake. Modders are looking into the game and how to make it better just as CO is. Making life easier for them should be their top priority because the modders make life easier for their players. The core of the game should be good, clean code and working systems. The community can work on all the outer layers. A single dev studio can never match the development capacity of a large and enthusiastic community. I would consider creating maps and maybe even other mods myself. But if they lose that, it will be very hard to come back.

[@ClassicMusicianChannel]

It's TRAVESTY, brother, not "traversty."

[@cane3691]

Thank you Biffa! You spoke deeply from my heart! The only thing that rescued my motivation to continue playing is the MOOB and overlay mod to build my hometown. Even without a lot of assets it is so much fun to see the same traffic jams like in real life and so on. You will drive trough your city with different eyes if you have build the same area based on google earth from the second screen. Guys keep calm this will be a better game over time like the first version

[@jakehr3]

Really appreciate this whole video and the whole message. I was super hype for CS2, I bought the game on day 1, I put in nearly 50+ hours into the game (not a lot, but definitely more than most). I started and ended dozens of cities as I learned the new mechanics and wanted to optimize things better and get a better road layout and a better location of my services and a better bus system and maybe make better transit connections to my neighbors and so on. But at a certain point, it just became more frustrating to play then actually fun. If I don't want my citizens to complain about rent I have to manually zone. The RIC bars are different from every RIC bar in every other city sim in that if you slam em to 0 then you just over produce. Sure that can be seen as me not fully getting how CS2 works, but CS2 is building off of CS1 and all the Simcities that came before it. All of which operated on your RIC bars being at 0 being a good thing. It just seems odd to disregard that and try and shake the boat on something so fundamental to the city sim genre. I get that it gives me more freedom, but I also feel punished if I do try and get the RIC bars to 0, which is just an odd game mechanic to have. I also started just getting really frustrated by rush hour traffic. I get that rush hour is going to have more cars, and I like that challenge, but at a certain point it just gets frustrating to try and build road systems without good road tools. I had to make very short 1 lane highways to get dedicated turn lanes, and even that took up a lot of space, and I couldn't customize my traffic lights to encourage one part of traffic to have higher priority over another. Or even lanes that switch direction with rush hour (something that many cities have). If we are going to have this more interesting traffic sim, then there should be much better options to have more customization. I should be able to drive to and from my work, and be able to emulate 90% of the intersections I come across in game. As is, I'd maybe be able to do 50% because there isn't dedicated turn lanes, or divided lanes, or dedicated right turns, or split traffic lights, etc. Overall, I really want this game to be good. I loved CS1, and when I saw news about CS2, I was following all the dev diary updates, and I was getting so hyped up for the whole game, but then it just wasn't as good as I was expecting it to be, and that's a real shame. I really hope the devs for CS2 can start turning things around because if they can, then this game can easily be one of the best city sims ever made. If they instead try and bury their heads in the sand and wait for players to come around to the game as is, or after they put in paid DLC, then it is just going to end up being something lesser than it could be.

[@mattgiacobbe9681]

When I place assets like parks and such, I don't see anyone physically interacting with it. In CS1, you could see the dogs in the dog park or people milling around in plazas. Maybe it's a setting (hopefully)? Otherwise that's a huge oversight

[@michelhouseman1643]

I've gone back to CS1. When my CS2 city reached a population of 170K, it literally ground to a halt. It maxed out my CPU to the point where my PC became an expensive space heater.

[@FARBerserker]

Seen the Linus Tech Tips Vid? It will take and use 64 cores.

[@JasonDeveau]

I have as well. Was back on CS1 yesterday actually. It was much more fun. I think city skylines 1 needed like a 2.0 update of the same game. I don't know better graphics and more citizen units expanded map but the same city skylines 1 just like a big update. Why they went for a whole new game and start from square one and rip out everything that we were used to and the thousands of things that were made for it. It just makes no sense. I'll try CS2 again after a few more updates. CS1 all the way for me right now.

[@osborne9255]

I stuck with CS 1 until last weekend when my frame-rate dropped to barely 20fps, It used to be 40-45 but I'm wondering if the lack of support for CS1 has given it a steep creep towards obsolescence as I'm using steam on linux. Other games haven't deteriorated like CS1. Well, good luck. I'm missing my city a lot already.

[@jhtummers]

Thank you Biffa, you pinpointed exactly what I'm experiencing as well. There is not enough to create nice cities and there is no challenge at all. All the joy we had in CS1 has been taken out of the game. I hope they fix it soon, otherwise it will end up like Simcity4

[@cdr0915]

I'm glad you did this video; I wish I enjoyed the new CS2 enough to still watch you and City Planner do your cities. Hopefully soon!

[@davidcoombes9298]

IMO, I think that there is too much in the base game, and none of it works properly. We didn't need disasters, seasons and industries that have no impact. We needed a balanced city builder where things mattered and we can actually place a rock...

[@EATHinNZ]

Imagine having a city of over 100,000 people and not a single one rides a bike 😂 CO: oh well, we can make the gamers pay for that later

[@darknesswave100]

@EATHinNZ or be like that one person who decided to be an ass and say "well if you don't like the game then it just isn't for you" and only apologized cause they got backlash for it. They weren't sorry they said it. They're sorry cause everybody called them out on it

[@emile135]

Absolutely not, it already exist, they needed to make the game evolve and innovate, seasons were a nice thing, industries too, the problem is much more the lack of skill of the devs and the too small team working on the project.

[@AnonSeacat]

I can appreciate what you're saying here, but every time I see a sequel that cuts back some of what DLC added to the previous game there's tons of complaints about it. Paradox in particular gets a lot of this. I don't think it's necessarily fair (especially when you're considering games that got years and years of DLC and patching), but it is what it is.

[@--_DJ_--]

I think you need and deserved to have all of those things (working obviously) for the price they ask for the game. You are basically saying "I want to pay more for less". I don't understand how people can stomach losing so much content that we had in CS1. Do you all happily pay for DLCs? I just can't do it.

[@Smittel]

Here's my list of grievances with the game. People movement is just not something the devs considered, Public transport is a joke Detailing your city requires the use of devmode. It includes some functionality that I consider fundamental, like drawing surfaces and placing props, and the response by the "spokesperson" (i. e. the discord mod) was "we have no intention of making it available, but mods can easily do it now." Which brings me to the next point: making a mod-friendly game is great and all, but when you make a game that is explicitly mod-reliant, that's just bad. especially when mods aren't officially supported yet and mentioning ways of installing mods easily without the non-existent official mod platform you get banned or muted. Then there's the utter lack of variety in assets. Overall, it just feels like what they want you to build is American sprawl. It doesn't feel like a city builder, it feels like an economy simulator, and not even a good one. The city doesn't feel alive. Cims feel like mindless drones, they go to work/school, then go shopping, then go home, rinse and repeat. Even the city services don't really show what they're doing anymore. I want the cims to actually look like they're doing stuff, meet with people, tourists taking photos at landmarks, things that make the city feel alive. There's no communication. When people ask for bikes, all we get is "they're coming", but when? When will custom parks arrive? Devmode has a park drawing tool thats non-functional. When does pdxmods arrive? all we know is that it keeps getting pushed back. There's thousands of suggestions in the discord, but we haven't heard anything regarding any of these for months. The two maps they added recently were so unrefined, they look like what happened in the old game when you just imported a bad height map and left it as is. for something official, I'd expect at least some effort, even if it's free. Landscaping still is a buggy mess leaving weird water artifacts everywhere, usually barely clipping through the terrain for no apparent reason, an just yesterday, I tried to terraform and it created a water source out of nowhere that flooded everything. Zoning behaves quite strange, tiles appear, disappear, even when not doing anything directly to that area, trying to manipulate zoning to fit your vision doesnt work half the time. You need mods to make networks look like you want them to, there's no way in the game to for example turn a road into a Quay road for either detailing or because it kinda has to, since even on water edges, sometimes it just doesn't. Building along the water is a pain. Overall, the game is just stale and lacks creative freedom. it feels like for every map, there is an expected city design that if you do not follow it, things just won't work. There's a few more minor things, for example the lack of residential/office mixed use but that's not really a dealbreaker, just strange that it's missing.

[@grahamsopp]

With CS1 they gave us a vanilla game that was ok(ish) but the workshop made it fantastic. To give us CS2 that's less Ok, and no workshop is just madness.

[@KyleJamesFrazer]

Releasing the game early to get more digits on a balance sheet, meanwhile tanking the goodwill built up over years and annoying the people that promote the game every day on KZbin.

[@thenamelesspoet]

I would certainly not complain if you started a new CS1 city, if you were interested. I love watching you, and I honestly REALLY commend you for trying do hard to be positive throughout this. As a single player, yes it stinks... but I can just turn it off whenever I want and play something else or (shudders) outside. Content creators are getting hit the hardest, and I LOVE watching you.

[@AleeCarretero]

I'm not sure if Biffa has any kind of agreement with CO to be on CS2 for a while and help keep people interested, but I’m with you on wanting more of CS1 as it was once Kettlebridge is maxed out

[@darknesswave100]

Overcharged Egg is still putting out CS1 content and he's doing fine. If I was Biffa or any other content creator I'd do the same. Cause at least CS1 is playable and not a complete mess

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

I have no agreement, I choose what I play and record 👍

[@drac124]

My constructive criticism: - Unlink low, medium and high density to type of citizen. Just like in SimCity 4, low, medium and high can be poor, middle or rich. - Radio annoucements have to be linked to variables of the city no random. - Chirpers should have colour when they are important, like lack of water.

[@Greippi10]

To your first point, that's just like in real life!

[@filipeeeeeeeee5615]

Simcity 4 really is the blueprint, that the sims 2 and the sims 3 were the last good games ea released unfortunately.

[@Qyngali]

For the seasons issue, my first thought was make the mouse cursor a dynamic colour so it changes depending on what's on screen, or allow you to choose the colour yourself. Winter could be yellow maybe, or bright green. Or just the outline could be any colour you like while the cursor stays black or white. I hope I'm making sense. Heck I use a yellow mouse cursor all the time lol, makes it so much more visible in general. Personal preference of course. Would also be nice to be able to change cursor size.

[@squirrel_44]

I am so happy and relieved that you (probably one of the most influential and experienced players of CS1 and CS2) talk so honestly and constructively about your experiences on CS2, your expectations you had (and even suggest solutions for Paradox and Colossal Order). I can see how important the future success of the franchise with CS2 is to you, how much you care about it. My hope is that Paradox and Colossal Order will now take heart and finally listen to the community, accept the criticism (not the toxity!), accept the criticism and take action instead of words. So far Colossal Order has been very insistent on dismissing a lot of the community's criticism and requests, now I hope that your criticism, requests and suggestions will make them rethink their priorities (e.g. I don't like the approach of only doing bug fixes in case of new releases or hotfixes, they should continue to do regular fixes to improve gameplay and player immersion). Dear Biffa, your videos mean a lot to me, I feel always entertained, I have learned so many new and interesting things, your videos helped me to change the way I play CS1 and CS2 and pushing forward (to think and play out of the box and thus have a new experience for my city playing). Keep up your creativity and open mind!

[@amiiranamastii5306]

Yup ^^^ what they said

[@Kirk-LS]

I've thought, recently, about you and other full-time C:S content creators and how difficult, probably even scary, this whole situation must be. Had C:S2 launched as promised, your job, I assume, would probably have simply moved along as normal. But the way it is, with the state of the game and the player drop-off, I can only imagine how difficult the decisions that you all have had to make have been. I feel for you. I honestly do. I have no interest in many of the other games that some of you are turning to. But, despite that, I'll watch the content, and "Like" the content, simply to help support you all. Thank you, Biffa, for your positive spirit. It's always so evident in your videos. Good luck to you, and to all the full-time C:S content creators.

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

You've hit the nail on the head. It's not just the huge disappointment that CS2 wasn't a huge hit and we didn't all gain millions of subscribers (nice but not my aims on YT anyway) ... it's the fact that a lot of us felt like the rugs been pulled from under us suddenly and now we're trying to find a way through to keep our business running to pay the bills. I'm doing ok, but others haven't been. Thanks for the kind words and the support 🙏

[@Spyrouz]

its crazy to me that they got all the content creators to hype up the game, to just do what you described. I really thought things would be different with these developers. When broken games are coming out i was fully expecting this team to really shine and show other developers how to make a game, but seems like they have scooped to their level. @@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines

[@derpderpin1568]

@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines I mean you definitely assume that risk when you rely on a video game someone else makes for your income. Pulling the rug out is a bit extreme, it's not like anyone is owed being able to make a living off making video game content. It's not really a real career (evidenced by situations like this) and anyone that gets to do it is simply lucky and should enjoy it while it lasts.

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

It's a career if you treat it like a business and I'm still going 😉

[@VaingloriousGaming]

Well said, Biffa. I feel you hit the key item around 24 minutes when you quoted from CS2's marketing materials. It is not that the game didn't meet our expectations, it was that the game did not meet the expectations that were set by CO/PDX themselves. Plus your bigger picture you kept touching on, that the game simply does NOT communicate what is happening or why, is such an oversight for CS2. While I have had moments of fun with the game, it is mostly just frustrating and disappointing. I struggle to keep my own video series on it going when I am not enjoying it, at all. That kinda breaks my heart because I am a city builder nerd going all the way back to SimCity's DOS release.

[@cynvision]

Takes me back to one of the dev streams where they changed the city money value gain and loss to a green or red arrow and thought it was an improvement. And then didn't think some players wanted values and a way to choose to see them. ( I think you could mouse hover and see it but only then.) I don't feel justified to have held off buying a dumbed down, console-leaning game but instead I feel sad for what might have been if they'd even seemed to listen to what the big CS1 streamers were telling them was must-have in CS2. And those people don't play on consoles.

[@peteratkins7383]

fair play Biffa, i found you in lockdown and you helped a lot of us get through a tough time, really did! i love c.s 1 same as you i play on xbox but still l love yours and others videos for all the tips and inspiration and honest discussions like these, ive felt c.s 2 really is missing something and i hope the developers do listen to your feedback. one thing city planner did mention was on release c.s 1 was very basic and after the initial updates managed to gain some ground hopefully the same happens with c.s 2 :)

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

Thank you 😊 Also true, but cs1 was 8/9 years ago, we expect more from a sequel almost a decade later.

[@peteratkins7383]

@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines I'm only guessing here Biffa I havnt played the new game. Maybe the bigger "simulation" is what's holding things back, I've never seen a 1 million population c.s1 city? And how that coped with things! I have a city now on Xbox 260k population 9 tiles maxed out and my consoles hot 🥵 and she crashes a lot lol..I have no idea how the game engine on this works, I heard you mention the huge calculations the game makes like c.s.1 in the background. hopefully they can show us more of what's going on and bring more life to the game and our city's 😎 keep going tho Biffa we all love your channel 👍

[@peteratkins7383]

If needs be Biffa were send in Hugo and the Heavys for a Proper Chat! 😎👍 🤣

[@lohengrin5082]

I feel the same about the whole: It just doesn't matter. I think that a great addition to the traffic would be some kind of route sentiment chart. If we could have a visual about how people feel about a certain route, I think it would help.

[@jenna9260]

I think my biggest issue is that most of the simulations don’t seem to affect each other. That’s an issue for me. When I had air pollution blowing onto residential, my first instinct was to landscape between them so the wind direction would go around the landscaping and the residential would be sheltered. Nope. Wind direction ignores any change in landscaping. Oh well. And it’s the same over and over. Each system seems to exist independently and can only be interacted with independently. Which makes the game feel small. And not interconnected.

[@maxnstl6001]

yeah i remember planting trees and stuff to reduce noise pollution. in CS2 it doesnt work xd

[@maxnstl6001]

building parks in CS2 just to see your people staking up at the feet of their buildings is wild lol it's like we build cities for them not to even be *lived* by our citizens

[@jonblair5470]

Another fix for seasons mouse visibility could be a contrasting mouse color, as white winter approaches, the mouse can change to dark grey or have a dark outline around it.

[@briansterling5912]

The fundamental question I had to ask when I bought CS2 was “Is it better than CS1 with a couple DLC’s and a few mods?” The answer ended up being a resounding “NO”. And when a sequel is a sizable step back from its predecessor there is something terribly wrong.

[@unhommequicourt]

14:15 about power production, i d like the other towns to have a variable limit of the amount of energy you can import and export. It could be a completely random variation, which would push you to be more autonomous in this regard.

[@chrisbeveridge6891]

The dam has certainly broken on a number of creators, four months on, talking about the real problems in the game and the process overall. What finally lost me on playing this for quite awhile was a different creator talking about taking a city of 100k, removing all public transportation, and it had zero effect on the traffic in the city. It's just not working.

[@Brusselpicker]

My favourite was when a content creator cut off all access into the city with a population of 2000 and yet people were still moving in.

[@pbsquilz]

@@Brusselpicker Was that one of RCE's videos?

[@derbygaz]

@@pbsquilz It was yes

[@Brusselpicker]

Just to add, that this was the final straw for me.

[@randomproductions1650]

are you talking about imperatur?

[@DrewSpencer]

The lack of modding in CS2 is nothing short of shocking. For such an incredible game that built its name on mods to release a sequel like this really beggars belief. It feels like all of the focus was on road building tools and super duper graphics. What a shame. Let's hope they can sort it out before the community moves on to something else.

[@libshastra]

I'm waiting on modding. I want to recreate my hometown but I can't do that without modding api opened up to modders.

[@mver191]

I am not sure they focused on the graphics. They haven't implemented DLSS yet, but it is in the game because there is a mod to activate it and developer mode mentions it as well.

[@manoflead643]

It seems to me that it's not there because the game was released unfinished. In the "Aight, deadline's now, kick it out the door. What, it's missing half the things we need to ship? It doesn't work? Don't care, marketing says we gotta release no, go." way that seems to happen way too often. Is there a minimum viable product here? Yeah. But it's not done.

[@user-wq9mw2xz3j]

the graphics are not even good. shadows are utterly 2005 shitty.

[@user-wq9mw2xz3j]

id like the blame Paradox, and they are of course the reason, however it's impossible to not blame CO as well because they constantly say they agree with Pdx and they choose to stay under them. I dont think CO has a great Ceo and not a great lead either. I also think cities skylines success went a bit to their head, it wasn't a good game, there was just no decent alternative.@@manoflead643

[@winkle1008]

CS1 was absorbing, every week there was something new on the workshop to discover, so far I've played 4498.8 hours. Created my own assets and enjoyed learning the tips from Biffa, Overcharged Egg etc. With CSII it doesn't matter which map you choose, expansion, infrastructure etc are all the same. Outcomes are inevitable in the same way as Sim City 3000. One of my biggest head scratching discoveries has been that oil can't be exported by sea or even rail... and what's with all of the taxi's clogging the roads? Brave words Biffa, I hope they take your input & energy onboard mate.

[@Bernwilmle2]

I’ve been watching your channel since I saw you on hermitcraft all those years ago! I’m glad you’re still relevant and still making great content and I always circle back to your videos. You always put a great amount of care and effort in your videos and I love that!

[@yanczar]

I can’t stop thinking-this could’ve been a MAGNIFICENT Early Access. And paid! I would’ve paid the same amount I did for the regular game even. There are so many great examples of paid early access-Timberborn, Satisfactory to name a few. Vibrant and growing communities. The games are making money, there’s no anger and frustration. This could’ve been such a great move. Too bad it’s late for that.

[@jpettersson84]

It’s baffling that they didn’t go that route. I truly don’t understand why?

[@JacksonOwex]

The only problem that I see with your comment is that you think there's "no anger or frustration" in Early Access games! There are a LOT of people who REALLY complain about games in Early Access, ESPECIALLY when they paid for it! If you don't believe me, just go look at 7 Days to Die! Though that game has been in Early Access for more than 10 years I believe, plenty long enough to have made pretty good game.

[@yanczar]

@@jpettersson84 my guess is as good as yours. I am afraid it was publisher pressure, “getting the game on the monetization track”.

[@Brusselpicker]

Its so bad, I dont watch CS2 content from any content creators anymore. I'm going back to watch CS1 playthroughs now.

[@donrebel1340]

i have been doing that to i started to watch old Biffa videos and watching him create some great stuff with great memories .....

[@davidibbetson6698]

Me too

[@darknesswave100]

​@@donrebel1340it really seems like he had so much more fun with CS1 than he is right now in 2

[@MyExStacyOfficial]

This hit's the spot of why I do not feel the urge to play anymore... it's all the same. Every city is the same and nothing really mattters... Thank you for this video. A major thing missing for me in the information branch is seeing who uses the road and where they are going to fix a traffic jam. Maybe it has been implemented already but I never found it. Something that would also be great is some sort of feedback from the citizens. For example a letter to the mayor asking to create a park at a certain location. Or industrial zone for some workers looking for a job. It would make it feel so much more alive.

[@warmike]

The funny thing is that there is a city builder that does the opposite in regards to your issues with CS2. Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic has very hardcore winters (if you mismanage heating and snow plowing, your republic may literally go extinct), detailed and micromanagement-heavy production chains, and an interesting economic simulation. In the game you build a communist system, so you don't pay your workers any salaries (so you could say the tax is 100%), but you must provide them with all necessities (and some luxuries, if you want them to be loyal to you and not escape) for free. Despite the lack of an internal market, you still need to trade with foreign countries to get resources that you lack. The world market is affected by inflation, random events and your actions (if you overexport a commodity, its price goes down as supply starts to outpace demand, so you need a somewhat diversified economy). In general, while the depth of mechanics in CS2 is underwhelming, in WRSR it's overwhelming :)

[@claimediraq9715]

The game runs at 20 fps (completely blank map) on my 4070 Super with a Ryzen 7 5800X. It’s still absolutely woefully optimised. My PC runs original Cities at over 100 fps and any current AAA game at 4k 80-100 fps.

[@paulgriffiths8488]

My old R5 3600 runs it great on 4070 super ti ? I maybe on 1440 though

[@billrobert3226]

​@paulgriffiths8488 did you put fps counter?

[@MapShiba]

I get 60 fps with my 1080 lol

[@claimediraq9715]

@@MapShibayou really don’t tech reviewers show it can’t achieve 30fps at 1080p.

[@MapShiba]

@claimediraq9715 I really do. I'm not defending the game. It kinda sucks sadly but I'm very confident on what my frames are.

[@thundercactus]

I think there's something worse happening with Cities2 and KSP2, where they focused too hard on integrating mods pre-release and scrambling to make a game that was on par with where the first game was 8 years after release, where they should have focused on having a better core of a game to build off of. They should have focused on making the core game more modular and easily modded and optimized to make it easier to add stuff later. Civilization has a pretty solid game development model, where the first release is actually pretty underwhelming, BUT it's a solid core game ripe for mods and expansions. And after a few mods and the 2nd or 3rd expansion is where the game gets really good. Cities Skylines was a pretty decent and simple core game, but what made all of us play it consistently for YEARS on end was the mods. And the reason the mods made it more playable was because the core game was already a solid foundation.

[@R1ch4rd74]

i am now playing cities skyline 1 remastered. it is really good. they have learned what works and what does not. what would have made my 1st playthrough better is a super small set of roundabouts with fountains in the center and lights. i know a lot goes through developing these games. they have done a great job at fixing a lot of game breaking bugs and i appreciate them for it. thank you for all of your hard work to you to the devs and modders. thank you. the auto delete for abandoned buildings. helpful chirps that suggest what may be needed instead of snarky chirps. at the end of the day there is a live person doing their level best to make this city the best it can be for the people who choose to move into my cities.

[@Incidental104]

I'm going to say it as it is: Mods and assets are what made CS, well, CS. That's what distinguished CS from SimCity, and that's why CS became so successful. It's what made SimCity lose its decades-long monopoly. How in the world can you remove the one thing that made CS so successful? In other words, I want a tropical city where the weather is perfect all the time, palm trees everywhere, with cobble streets lined with colorful buildings and great infrastructure that I can choose. Maybe I want a smaller metro, or maybe I want a smaller train. Maybe I want to build a futuristic, self-driving metro system. Who knows? I live in Northern Europe; I don't want to see my everyday life on my screen. I can just take a stroll in my local park for that. Not to mention, the summers look so artificial; that slimy green is not it. I was really hoping for CSII to have better shoreline graphics so one could build actual beaches with shallow water. Instead, we get a jagged coastline that looks like it's straight from the 90s. Honestly, the only thing I envy is the new roads mechanic; it's great. If you wanted roads looking like that in CSI, you'd spend hours in different mods. That's truly nice.

[@Cmbgo98]

I'll admit as someone who put in over 2,500 hours in Cities Skylines 1 that I wrote off a ton as "Oh it's a pre-release it'll certainly be in the final game" or "They must have thought it was so basic that they didn't even bother showing it". Looking back though it doesn't seem like there was ever a plan to put features used in mods like TPME or metro overhaul into the final release of the game. It really feels like it was designed for usability on consoles at the expense of the PC experience honestly, like almost cut down to the point of being nearly unusable in some cases. Which I don't quite understand... The performance is so poor on PC a console port even for PS5 or Xbox One X would have been nearly unplayable and city builders historically sell poorly on consoles and do a majority of their sales on PC, I can't think of a single city builder besides like the old SNES games that outsold their PC counterparts on console. There really should have been more of a focus on making the game what people wanted based on the mods that were downloaded on Steam and I cannot believe that TPME specifically wasn't in the base game at launch in nearly its full form. Mod support not being there on day one is one of the biggest blunders I've ever seen in a game release ever. It is insane that they hadn't built this out back in an alpha to be day one ready and are now scrambling to release a BETA of a mod manager almost 4 months later. Thunderstore mods are fine, but they're injection mods, they're buggy and prone to crashing or corrupting your save file. At the very least whatever exists of the mod maker or even the dev tools should be made public today or within the next week or two so that mods themselves will be ready as soon as the mod manager launches and to salvage some of the excitement from those that haven't given up on the game already. For a game like Cities Skylines that was pretty much BUILT on mods its absolutely inexcusable and I don't know if it was a last minute change from Paradox to have it be in the Paradox mod manager instead of Steam workshop, or the dev team getting crunched too much and having it as one of the last things they would work on but it is crazy it wasn't there in some form on day one. It's also pretty inexcusable that the DLCs weren't just added to Cities Skylines 2 in some form or another. We know what was possible in the base game with DLCs so the cats out of the bag there. I can't think of any reason I could justify paying for DLCs in Cities Skylines 1 and then turning around and having to pay for those same DLCs in Cities Skylines 2 except for maybe like building packs or asset packs. Also, there are sooo many of the DLC features that are missing or that were reduced to nearly base Cities Skylines 1 in quality. Parks completely suck, airports are plopped assets, industrial is maybe a half-step above CS1 in its detail (but sucks in other ways), weird forms of transport are missing (gimme back my cable cars), pedestrians feel like an afterthought (and biking was never added), etc. It just feels so weird, and almost like a step back if you own some of the DLCs like me, that day 1 almost all the existing DLCs for CS1 aren't in CS2 already.

[@mdbourne]

I think Paradox wants ultimate control of the mods, so they can turn it into a way to make more money. I almost can guarantee they are internally talking about having access to it by a monthly subscription or pay per mod. They looked at all those downloads every month on the steam workshop and thought “how can we cash in on this?”.

[@manboy4720]

@@mdbourne reminds me of bethesda.

[@ThaJay]

I agree their stance on mod support is a slap in the face after the expectations the release of the first game set so long ago. We can wait for DLC but we can not wait for mod support. CO has had a working steam workshop implementation for the last dozen yeas so least they could do was last minute give us steam workshop for CS2 until Paradox mods releases.

[@manboy4720]

@@ThaJay cities skylines 1 would not have lasted so long if it didn't have adequate mod support.

[@ThaJay]

@@manboy4720 And it would have had a much more rocky start.

[@FrankErdman]

My biggest disappointment was expecting to be able to use "Strong Towns" principles to build a profitable dense city that wasn't car-centric. But instead we got a "fix traffic with more lanes" broken thinking and cities that refuse to exist without suburbs. Public transit should have an affect on traffic but it doesn't seem to matter at all.

[@UtamagUta]

Makes it realistic 🤣 In my country, millions, probably billions was spent on bike lanes to be used only by wolt/bolt couriers and a few leisure bike enthusiasts in summer

[@DanVibesTV]

@@UtamagUtaand yet some countries manage to pull it off... Maybe the problem is deeper than just building bike lanes :)

[@Edinovich]

What surprises me the most is that the game is made by a studio based in Finland, yet both CS1 and CS2 strikes me as games made by the American Federal Highway Administration consdering how car-centric they are.

[@UtamagUta]

@@DanVibesTVyeah, we like cars (EU, btw, not some american country). Public transport is not popular either

[@faustinpippin9208]

@@DanVibesTV there is no problem, people just prefer to drive a car when they have a choice 2. and what countries pull it off? even in your beloved Netherlands that has Amsterdam a lot of people use cars, 3. and in real life you cant just spawn a brand new city from 0 by just building skyscrapers because that just doesnt work (china tried, and even they failed) so ofc in cs2 you will also have to start with suburbs because thats what people want, higher density and shoe box apartments get build later when the land gets expensive and the people cant afford a house in the suburbs anymore

[@TDWSilver]

I've been struggling since release to find the words to explain why I'm so disappointed in this game; and what you've got here Biffa damn near perfectly describes it. We were promised so much in the hype prior to release -- but the base game itself is just broken. Transit doesn't work, parking doesn't work, bugs will collapse you economy without any warning, your entire city will complain about rent being too high due to lack of housing while your RCI has a demerit for empty buildings. I've logged over a thousand hours of playtime on CS1. It's been my go-to city builder ever since EA Games got the grubby hands on SimCity and turned it into shovelware. I was so excited when CS2 got announced. I had such faith in this team that I broke my pre-order rule and bought the deluxe edition. And for that, my reward was a full price game with less features than its predecessor, with broken mechanics, and communication from the devteam that is either non-existent or a newsletter complaining about toxic users. I tried to push past all that to stick it out and see what the game could be. I did my fair share of reporting of bugs on their forums, (even ignoring the tone of their moderation team talking down to users), but ultimately? I can't bring myself to play it anymore. I did mildly disagree with the comparison to Hello Games/No Man's Sky. When Sean Murray went on the press tour and made grandiose claims a lot of us side-eyed him a bit because we know when something sounds a bit too good to be legit. That wasn't the case here. In the previews and press leading up to the release a lot of the things CO talked about were either things already implemented in CS1 by modders or were reasonable things to expect in a game sequel coming out 9 years later. They promised us the world and couldn't deliver a city.

[@kateclark2660]

spot on about the creativity! I know everyone plays for their own reasons, but for me, I never play for the money etc. I always play with unlimited cash, because for me, its about making a beautiful looking city. Right now, I just cant do that, with the limited props i have. And don't get me started on the the industry visuals. I guess, ill have to find something else to do while I wait for the mods and assets to come. Then I will definately be spending some hours with this game

[@AKStovall]

TPME, network extension mods (whichever type you choose to use, not just NE2) and Move It are 1000% essential to play the game. Why none of this was included in the base CS2 game is beyond me. Assets and mods should have been priority 1 since they hyped it so hard before launch. CS:2 launched about 18 months early in my opinion. There are so many promised features that are still not in the game, features that shouldn't be done via paid DLC, but are essential to gameplay. CS:2's launch and subsequent patches were underwhelming at best, as they really didn't appear to try fixing the biggest things. I still play it here and there, but it's still installed, hoping that it gets fixed and becomes bigger than it's predecessor.

[@n2paints]

so true, if the majority of the player base of cs1 download a mod to play the game - include it in the cs2 as part of the base game! it blows my mind they they didn't mine CS1 mods for all the awesomeness

[@hanzzel6086]

They kinda did have Move It, since you can move buildings (for money, as it should) and you can also "adjust" roads (although it isn't very intuitive). And they also kinda had TM:PE and others. It's just most of them feel like pared down knock offs.

[@udishomer5852]

For me, there are more essential mods: Find It 2, Network Anarchy, Prop Line Tool, Forest Brush Revisited, RICO Revisited, Node Controller, Intersection Marking Tool, Prop Control, Tree Control, BOB, Customize It Extended. I use these basically every time I play CS1. And of course my trusted 13000 workshop assets (although to be fair I probably use only 3000, the rest came in "packs" or just subscribed out of greed)

[@SturmerSS]

I was waiting for logistical challenges and using trains, but when I played last time cargo stations didn't worked logically... I mean there was no inner city usage for train stations. That was one of the biggest reasons what killed my interest in this game. Also when CO talking about how toxic is community, I would remind that making unfinished game and game in such poor state on lunch is same toxicity from developers. At least it signals of some level of disrespect.

[@andromidius]

And some degree of dishonesty too. The previews they showed had none of the issues that are instantly apparent when playing, and a lot of promised features are non-existent.

[@varthshenon]

I agree with the last paragraph. Two wrongs don't make a right, but neither have the right to complaint (about the toxicity), especially for the one who started it. Just suck it up and find a way to fix the game. Calling them out is just putting fuel in the fire. As Biffa said, do more, less talk.

[@TurboLingaLanguages]

Good point. Although I don't like to make directly toxic comments myself, CO should actually be glad that there is some level of toxicity, because it means that people still care enough to have strong feelings about wanting the game to work. They should be more worried about the moment that the toxicity is replaced by the deafening silence of a failed game, with nobody still around who believes in the game's ability to be bounce back. I fear that moment is coming fast, unless they listen to advice like what Biffa is offering in this video.

[@evilotis01]

yeah. i mean, i sympathise w the devs-gamers can be really awful. pick literally any game, and go and read the Steam discussion forums for it. the experience will prob make you want to shoot yourself in the face. but you have to know that's what you're dealing with-and as Biffa says, you have to be able to sort the "lol this game sucks" clown point farmers from the genuinely disappointed/aggrieved customers who really wanted the game to be what it promised to be.

[@FeelingShred]

when I launch up a game called Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic , the game is well optimized to a point that I don't need to close my entire browser and close all background apps just for the game to sulk up all my memory, like Skylines requires... for a game of such gigantic scope, I can have Soviet Republic working alongside my browser using up only 1 Gig of memory, which only goes to show that yes, it IS indeed possible to have non-crappy things

[@FeelingShred]

from a much smaller team too

[@mitchellweaver4126]

Thank you for saying what most of think about the release of this game. They might listen to you and the others content creators. I enjoyed CS1 so I figured I would love CS2, but I have only played it for about 24 hours versus almost 4K for CS1.

[@onieyoh9478]

The snow can be solved by adding different snow textures for the terrain like dirty snow and partial coverage with areas having grass and dirt patches. They can look at RTS snow levels to get an idea on how to go about that. Using a filter with a cloud pattern as a map overlay to create lighter and darker patches to break up the terrain with the illusion of thinner and/or deeper snow drifts would also greatly alleviate the eye strain.

[@starburst23]

Parking garage costs more per month than a health clinic, make it make sense.

[@burtreynolds8030]

Cleaning fees for needles and poop lol

[@mdbourne]

Thats a great example of how nothing in CS2 makes sense. It is like whichever individual developer made an asset or system, they never coordinated anything with anyone else on the team. So there is zero balance in how it functions at all.

[@deatho0ne587]

I have not gotten CS2 yet for some of the reasons you have said, but also the bugs that were there to begin with. If current content makers are having issues, then it does not make players that are on the fence of getting it. In everything I am saying I want an update to CS2 that it works, I have loved Sim Cities (most of them) and CS1. I am worried that CS2 might be the same thing that SC4 had. Winter does not have snow everywhere even if it dumps meters/yards of snow, so maybe LUT in-game that has % based and it changes over time. Example this past winter it snowed in my city but there was about a 10km area around my place that had 0 snow. No Man's Sky did not 100% overpromise if you actually watched the pre-stuff. Just that all the media overhyped it.

[@landofsuchbeauty]

Dear Biffa, I am writing to you from the Mayor's Office in Crowley County, a lightly-modded city in CS:1. My Creator has not yet purchased CS:2 because his CPU is an i5-7400 and can barely run our favourite game, the original version on medium setting graphics. First of all, thank you for all you do. You're a treasure to the community. Second, I'm very glad my Creator didn't upgrade his PC just to run CS:2, and your assessment of the release affirms His decision! My home is Crowley County, so I am obviously biased, but it sure is a lovely place to visit and even live in, while CS:II places look so stark and soulless they border on dystopia. So please take heart, my friend -- Cities Skylines:1 will always be here for you when you need to feed your soul with creativity and your palette with Yorkshire tea. Sincerely, Edward Smith Mayor, Crowley County.

[@marcofaccini1549]

I have noticed your disappointed probably because I feel much the same. I have reloaded CS1 with all my DLC and I am only just popping back to cs2 on updates to see if it's improved. I won't ever be buying a new release before launch again.

[@HoosfoosMcCave]

Biffa, I applaud your tenacity and communication and constant reaffirmation of your objective for CS2 to be the best builder ever. This sort of video is no fun to make, especially for someone so obviously positively oriented. Very nicely done. Hopefully the folks at CO and Paradox receive it in the spirit it is intended.

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

Thankyou. Yes it was a tough decision to make the video and I do hope it's received as intended and makes a difference 👍

[@theopollitt1829]

I have a cool idea for later in development: civil disobedience/disruption. Like protest, bugleries and other crimes, stuff like that. It seem like it be cool.

[@sirisaac6125]

Paradox and Cities Skylines saved us from Sim City 5 and EA just to become the very thing we escaped from in 2013. The hero now becomes the villain.. They've burned so much community trust that the damage to their brand is likely irreparable at this point.

[@manboy4720]

i've been going back to simcity 4, and that game REALLY makes profit and expenditure a very important thing that you CONSTANTLY have to worry about, including tax, policies, and budgets for everything.

[@tac_caliber]

Yeah whenever discussion about economy comes up in the C:S community I always point to SimCity4. Think about the possibilities with similar economy management in SC4 mixed with the intricate systems already supposedly present in C:S2. A lot of people who play cities skylines aren't in it for the arcadey management or challenge that SC4 offers but that's fine. Just give the players the option to play for fun or for challenge

[@Person01234]

Yep. SimCity 4 could be hard, at least if you weren't a little sweatlord. Idk about CSL:2 but CSL:1 really never presented me any budgeting concerns, the bank balance was just a number that kept going up and maybe stopped me from building an entire city within the first 3 minutes which I wasn't trying to do in the first place and is gated by milestones anyway.

[@nickandres7829]

​@@Person01234 For me there always comes a point where I run relatively high taxes to support lots of services and an extensive public transportation network, and my city is still growing and making money, but the game just devolves into going around destroying abandoned buildings and waiting for all my zones to fill up

[@Cam882000]

Plus the music was spot on. The side missions were great too a life saver sometimes. Although they were janky by todays standards I would happily welcome them to this game considering its janky launch just to get me playing it again. Feel like I have to wait for a year to see what happens.

[@doktorhund6926]

Also another thing. A tool i used in cities one every time. The Paths tool in cities one showing you where stuff is going that takes this piece of road or goes through this district. WHERE IS THAT ? i dont want to click on every single agents destination. less features is always a great idea.

[@lofiloop9124]

Exactly! One of my most used tools when fixing traffic or planning effective and efficient public transport.

[@Merecir]

Because transports does not matter. The vehicle can just randomly despawn in a free and open roundabout and the goods just teleport to their destination.

[@gps9715]

@@Merecir Exactly, which means traffic jams don't matter at all, you can just let them pile up and they resolve with no negative effects. Which makes road planning or design have zero effect and makes no difference. Which mean every other part of the layout of your city just does not matter. At all. Perfect city vs. haphazard wreck of a city = same exact city in CS2. Both will keep on growing at same rate and make tons of money....again making the budget not matter at all. Sheesh....

[@LeDerpLegend]

One of the things I can think of is the "dynamic pathfinding" where they weren't able to find a way to illustrate it properly. But yeah I agree, what's the point if there is traffic, then said traffic just... Vanishes?

[@Geno5]

I am an OG gamer. My first computer was an Atari 800 in 1984. My first computer game was a helicopter simulation. I have played a handful of city building games. I have CS I with all of the DLC’s. I have dozens of props. I purchased CS II pre-launch. I was not really paying attention to the announcements before the release. I downloaded the game on day one and it was a Sh!t Show. Nothing feels real in CS II. People move in and it seems that some people go to work, others just hang out at home. I have seen a citizen drive to work and then drive right back home. The homes are boring even after they upgrade. Industrial building for example, the biggest building is like 30,000 square feet. In my hometown we have an Amazon building that is something crazy like 500,000 square feet. After a few months and comments from the CEO, it has turned me off to playing the game. I have not played the game for over 30 days. (Nothing to do with performance, I have a beefy system) It just feels like a money grab. They relied on the goodwill from CS I and I feel took advantage of customers. I was told I would get certain DLC’s in the 4th qtr of 2023 and first qtr of 2024…. So far nothing. The game wasn’t out two weeks and the delayed the schedule. They knew when they released the game that the DLC’s would not be ready. Not to be harsh, but seems like fraud to me! I want the game to get better. I decided to take a 90 day break and go back and see how I feel. Thank you Biffa for being upfront. I commented on a promotional video you did for CS II and you replied that you would always be honest. Hats off to you sir!! You are true to your word.

[@welshtony1]

Still not bought the game, Nothing i've seen as of yet is making me say I need this when I already have CS1. Maybe if they do a 50% sale (unlikely) then I will consider getting it.

[@CharlieBrown-ut4fz]

i agree cs1 is good cos of mods cs2 barely a beta game

[@MarkLikesCoffee860]

Games are nearly always at least 50% off when they're finished. I got Cyberpunk 2077 for 75% off when all the bugs were fixed and lots of new features were added 2.5 years later. I always wait about 2 years before I buy a game and it's very rare for a game to be full price.

[@welshtony1]

@MarkLikesCoffee860 what I meant is at its current stage. If they add what they said they would add like biffa pointed out and refine the game to actually make it feel like a finished game and not a beta I'd consider buying it at the full price but since I got cs1 and mods there isn't much point at the moment

[@rjs69]

To be honest, even at 50% off its not worth it. Almost everything in CS1 is far superior

[@ActualDav]

Looking forward to content creators returning to CS1

[@EricJCaraballoso]

Overcharged Egg hasn't stopped his CS1 content!

[@darknesswave100]

Honestly they all should pretty much say they aren't gonna return to CS2 until the game is actually playable and works like it's supposed to. The game shouldn't get the attention until colossal order earns it and they haven't yet

[@Jay_Johnson]

@@darknesswave100 It's not like they have a choice until paradox mods comes out.

[@BobMotster]

C:S2 is not the evolution to its predecessor I was hoping for either. One too many tools and features that were obviously coveted by the community were not implemented in this game. And the game was not ready to be released when it was. Just look at the latest patch notes - fundamental systems are still being tweaked and redesigned on the go. Performance is still far from good too. This is particularly important to me. I've had hardware failures in the past as a result of poorly or not at all optimized software. I am very touchy on the subject.

[@Warriorbox]

I really thought that CS2 would implement all the things I paid for (DLCs) in CS1. Was I living in fantasy land?

[@enkiduo]

On seasons - I'd do optional seasons model - game by default lives in a generic season which is bright and cheerful. And then a mechanism to optionally enter a particular season for a limited time - either a designated building that you click on and has an option to play current season or a global invite - make it have strong gameplay effects that you can do to speedrun stuff or deal with other challenges. Big picture I would have cut this from the go as expensive to implement with no gameplay effect - ditto lots of things.

[@MrMisiuq1234567890]

I hardly ever write comments, but I felt like I should this time. I don't remember since when I have been watching your videos, but you have been with me since I was at least in middle school (I'm now 24, so maybe 10 years; god, time flies). I struggle with insomnia and have a hard time staying focused without something playing in the background. Your videos have been and still are like medicine for me, always there when I need to clear my mind or stay focused while studying for exams. There isn't any other channel that does this for me. The funniest part is that, throughout all my academic years (5 by now), I play your videos when I need to fall asleep and it works like a charm - besides medicine, this is the only thing that works. You have been an amazing creator and you seem like an amazing person with a big heart. It's difficult to hear about the game that I loved because of you, but your comments are valid - CS2 is an unplayable game, sadly... it breaks my heart. As a soon-to-be fellow game creator, it's devastating how CS2 was a waste for so many players and fans. I hope Paradox will do something about this situation, even if we will have to wait for a year or two. I hope you, Biffa, as a person so dear to my heart, will find something new and exciting to play. I'm a little biased, because I need your videos to fall asleep... But from the bottom of my heart, I wish you everything best and truly hope that there will be a time when CS2 will give you as much pleasure as CS1 did. I apologize for any errors in my comment - English isn't my first language.

[@paulgriffiths8488]

Me too :)😵

[@shaolinslumz]

6:52 Production chains was the one i was really looking forward to. Management of multiple logistical networks and warehouses, slowly expanding into massive supply chains operating in just about every sector within the city.

[@demersstep]

Same. Instead it feels like a giant step back from the Industries DLC. I tried to get into the new logistics management layers, but it just seems like there are buildings and layers of control completely missing.

[@kml9166]

At the end it would be just too much for them to handle. Maybe all the functions is just a too big task for a studio like CO. I mean that in a respectful way.

[@dominionsminions7372]

I think you did a good job at explaining things Biffa!., I have the game but fined I don't really feel like playing it , kind of just waiting for the mods and game to improve a bit , so I just sort of shelved it.

[@jurassicattack01]

This is one of those games that I was really excited about when it was announced and when we got the first trailers/teasers for it, I was incredibly hyped, but it felt like all the air was taken out of me when it turned out that I couldn't even run the game due to the performance demands, now I don't know if it's changed but I'd love for them to optimize the game so I could at least get to experience the game because despite all the problems that people have pointed out, I think it still looks incredibly fun and has an incredible amount of yet untapped potential, so I'd want to be right there in the thick of it experiencing the game

[@chrismerridew1148]

As someone quite late to the CS series I absolutely loved CS:1, so much so I bought nearly all the DLCs in a one year period and racked up hours and hours of gameplay. What I loved about it is how organically, without even having a plan, sometimes cities would come out different… little pockets would really stand out and it felt deeply egaging. I could imagine what it would feel like as a citizen of the city… Also each time you would gradually improve things, make better connected industry etc. I know it won’t have been like that at the start but the blandness of the cities in CS: 2 really is depressing - it feels way less immersive.

[@TrolledBy]

The first point mentioning weather and seasons reminds me of how very Finnish this game is. Blinding snow in winter? Real. Depressing rain all the time? Too real. Weather not affecting traffic? Kinda true in Finland due to how our infrastructure is designed for the battle against heavy snowfall and harsh winter. Shopping patterns not getting affected by weather? Kinda true as well. Shops are open and people will go shopping in any weather, and while some stores suffer from weather, other shops benefit equally.

[@udishomer5852]

Agriculture, tourism and events (music, festivals etc) are all things heavily affected by seasons and weather. Go to the Greek islands in the winter, 80% of businesses are closed... There is also the summer schools vacation that's ignored in both CS1 and CS2.

[@MaddJakd]

​@@udishomer5852so they mention how the game is very much a product of where the creators are based, and you "counter" with "but other parts of the world aren't like that...."?

[@EATHinNZ]

Who cares if the game is similar to real life Finland?? It's still a terrible simulation with a lot of bugs and things that just don't make any sense.

[@MihailBFC]

you will see way too more accidents during the winter than the other seasons and that's not realistic at all, the road maintenance is a joke, those cars will "fix" new roads and will stop the traffic in a stand still every time, they should do that during the night how is in real life not all day.

[@MaddJakd]

@@MihailBFC That's not universal at all!

[@dildoshwagginsz4428]

I’d like them to put together a road map for 2024. Doesn’t need to be explicitly prescriptive, something basic like… Q1 performance and optimisation with three areas in that they are going to try and fix, Q2 simulation issues with some areas to address including the normal bug fixes along the way… The worst, absolute worst thing they can do is start releasing paid DLC before optimisation, simulation and mods are fixed, released and working. If they release paid DLC before that, I’m done. Back to Hello Games… they could have probably started charging for DLC after a while but they stuck by their fans and made an incredible game which is making me look forward to their next release knowing that even if they don’t have a smooth release I am spending my my money on a company who will work with their community. I find it troubling the responses Paradox and CO have given so far but remain positive… Another fear of mine is they will just front load getting the mods up and running so the community fixes the issues for them… in other words a game that needs a hundred mods for something they should have in the base game. For me mods should be for fun and aesthetics, not ‘building’ basic functionality for their game for free. Give me a roadmap showing commitment, don’t release paid dlc yet and don’t just throw out mod functions so we have to fix the game.

[@citybuilderben]

Thank you, @Biffa, for your excellent summary. I have followed you for many years, and no one out there summarized everyone's findings as well as you did. I hope that @paradoxinteractive shows some humility and starts fixing the most pressing issues for all of us. I love CS1 and can see that CS2 has such massive potential. I hope, over the next few weeks, we will see some significant improvements. My channel is small, and I only share my ideas about urban planning there. I don't have to generate a living from it - or better, I am far away from a point to create a living from it - but I always loved city building games from my early childhood, starting with sim city. I so much wished that CS2 would have had a better start. Thank you!

[@Rio.Punk.T]

Your community post about still playing CS1 made me so happy! Haven't watched many cities videos since everyone switch to 2 for those exact reason. Can't wait for the cities 1 videos

[@robbbmm]

Constructive suggestions: 1. It could look much better. When you zoom in the building textures are gorgeous, but when you zoom out it all looks very grey, overcast, washed-out. It doesn't look alive or excited to manage from the sky. All just grey and dark green. Every part of the city looks the same. 2. It's not entirely clear how anything works or what's happening in my city. I don't see or feel any noticeable difference by placing a school, police station, etc. I don't know what's making money and what's not. I don't see how my actions are going to meaningfully level up or change my city. I really love the idea of the industry chain but I just don't see it at work in my city, if that makes sense? 3. I absolutely could. not. be. arsed. applying trees to every single damned road. The idea of a modular road decoration system is excellent, but also build in pre-designed roads, e.g. tree-lined roads. 4. More props! Anno 1800 is brilliant example of this done well. CS2 has like 3 trees and they don't look terribly dissimilar. I'd really like to be able to create defined spaces with walls, fences, and hedges. Create different feelings in different areas with different types and strengths of streetlights. Every road and area looks the same! 5. Except for the (excellent) road tools, this game has no "wow" feature the way the water physics blew my mind the first time I played CS1. Some ideas could have been a first-person camera, or a map overlay, or zoneable cemeteries - something interesting! 6. The game just feels empty. No district building styles. Quays. Building variations for schools, etc. No church or religious buildings. I really really want CS2 to be a success, but the game as it stands is empty, ugly, and has no meaning or purpose. I don't know if it even qualifies as a game. If CO was still a young company things would be different, but when they've made excellent city-builders before and made *tonnes* of money from CS1, it's really hard to forgive this launch. It'll probably be 2-3 years before there's enough content and adjustments to this game for it to be fun, but I paid for the higher tier pre-order and I *really* don't want to pay more just to the basic content this game should have had at launch.

[@philthehuman]

+1 to all that's been said, and to me the main thing is that the game is simply boring: my actions have no effect after some point, I feel no challenge. No need to fix traffic, no need to earn money, almost no need to manage industries or production chain, etc.

[@darianhobo8838]

Also the leveling up system was odd, lets game it out showed the cheese of building a million parks to gain more money from leveling than it cost to build them, but the problem is deeper. XP can only be gained so anything constructed can be removed for free and yet the XP remains. It would feel much more natural to tie the size of the city to.... the size of the city. More population, higher tax income, even tied to greater industrial output. The XP sort of does this passively, but it felt weird that building a giant highway tornado with monopoly money was more impactful to city tech growth than building schools, increasing population, or maintaining high levels of happiness.

[@cbremer83]

My biggest issue is the broken simulation. The more I played the more I realized nothing I did really mattered all that much. In my first city, I went from struggling to stay positive to making millions for no apparent reason. Not sure what I did. Then I noticed import/export from cargo terminals seems to not function at all. Cargo piles up from my industries, but nothing leaves. If I have local cargo routes those move cargo for intracity transport. Just no exports. Nobody goes to high school, but I can not build enough elementary schools. Mail is totally borked. As long as there is coverage, people are happy, but it just piles up in post offices and the big sorting terminal thing never gets any mail. It just sits there costing money. The issues just keep going and going. The detailing stuff will come, especially with mods. But if the simulation is not working, it really does not matter. Unless you are basically wanting to build digital model cities to look at. It is great for that, right now. But the simulation side of the game seems nonexistent. I really hope they can get this game sorted out. I really liked the first one. And I am willing to give it time. I just hope they can do it.