another disappointing multiplayer game?
- Thread starter ddd123
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CanuckSoldier
Emperor
Well I can't gather stats for casual MP players, not even sure if Steam or Gamespy ever could provide those. But at the peak of Civ3 and Civ4, the best MP games so far, the Civplayers ladder had about 1200 players playing at least one game a every two weeks. That is a pretty small percentage of purchased games for either of those titles....
CS
CanuckSoldier
Emperor
Well I can't speak to a direct comparison to those other genres, as I've always been a TBS game player. But I do agree that the the default design of the random factors in Civ don't make for a good MP game. Despite that in the past we have managed to engage scenarios/mods/game settings that level the playing field as much as possible. But yes it would be nice to have a game that had balanced MP settings available for day 1.....that is likely a bridge to far even for Civ6...
This is why I hope at least that the mod system is just not deep and robust in general but that its completely MP friendly as well. The community can do a lot for it's own MP mods if the tools are available. This is why there is still a Civ3 MP group actively playing today...
CS
Man we are in 2016, and even then i refused to go to a site, subscribe, ask to a chat, wait for some soul to answer, play a game, concord a result and send it to the site.
Its totally out of mind, those are things a game HAS TO provide.
And im an hardcore gamer, at the time i used to play A LOT of online civ, while in the past i played PBEM and other more complicated stuff...
Its just absurd, if not even i would do such a thing, its obvious casual and kids wont even consider it.
Its the reason why i always said to the stupid argument "ppl dont play civ online" that it makes no sense cause there was never a online structure to start with.
Even this argument isnt right, and i totally agree that it would be very good to have more balanced maps(and civs since most of them are totally useless in a competitive game).
The point is that ppl dont really care, or even more often dont really know what balance is.
Think of the multi milion smartphone games, or games like HS... they are by definition pay to win, which infers they are not balanced by definition, whoever pays more has a better "start".
And still tons of ppl play them, cause ppl dont really care about super balance in the end.
I tend to agree with your analysis of the complexity.
Also id add that these days online matters TOO MUCH, even a game complex like civ, and with a steep curve of learning probably ( i mean other competitive games are super complicated but in the end you "move" and you "shoot", you need months if not years to learn to do it properly, but the base is easy, that is why they are fun and popular) would be understood way faster with a online community, the amount of hours ppl watch streaming/yt, read guides, watch tournement would make top strategies totally accessible
Where i dont agree is the settings, civ online has never been long games, yeah some casual might have starter (or tried to) some FFA with 10 civ in a huge map but those dont really count, normal online games are relatively fast per se, also ppl never play with barbarians, city states and such.
And lets be clear, city states were an exploitable resources even in single player whose only role was to be abused in every strategy even there
Jon Shafer
Civilization 5 Designer
It's certainly a large number in absolute terms, just unfortunately not a huge one in terms of percentage. Which tends to be the one that executives look at when assigning resources. Same issue with AI a lot of the time.
- Jon
But they are totally right to watch the percentage ofc!
The point is also considering the % of the *EFFORT* done to develop the online...
There are games that are/were impossible to play online and ppl still used hamachi or something to connect or the more recent desktop sharing tech etc etc
It would mean something if 1% of the playerbase play online a game IMPOSSIBLE to play online with 0% support of it.
Thats not exactly the case of civilization, i know, but still who analyze civ data? its clear the effort civ did was always poor, gamespy servers still makes me cry, and despite all that, ppl was still online trying to play it.
Its like saying "ehy we built this railway that connect 2 cities, it cost 100$ for 2 km travel and it takes 8 hours, but still 99% of ppl go with a car!!! ehy our conclusion is that ppl dont like trains?!?!?"
CanuckSoldier
Emperor
Well if you are expecting 2K to provide a robust built in ranking system, I guess you have 5 months to think of a way to deal with your disappointment, as 2K has never done this. That's just the simple truth, right or wrong.
CS
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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Putting more than 4 people in a game is desync city in the group I play with, and which 5 players does not appear to matter much.
In vanilla the MP de-sync, horrible "can't move after ending turn", and straight disconnects rendered MP as advertised false. MP was not justifiably functional at that point, whereas now it kind of works but not very well.
If you fire up a game now with 4 people or less (especially less) it is reasonably possible you'll get through it without a de-sync or crash. If you want to do a larger map with 5 human players forget it, you'll never finish that in an evening even with a 90 second turn timer because you'll start losing someone on de-sync.
Turn times for AI are awful on those maps too but that's a problem in SP and MP.
Well im starting to post now, maybe after 5 months of posting someone at 2k will notice
Anyway ofc i m not deluding myself thinking about a ranking system (also pretty hard to think how to do it since the variables of civ customization... we would need just 2 3 standard game modes for it to mean something) but other online tool yeah, the ability to rejoin a game for example and not crash and lose the match forever, the ability to see online games, like it was perfectly working in civ 4, this stuff is something you can do with some online tutorial, im sure programmer at 2k are able to do it as well.
MadDjinn
Deity
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the real problem with an ingame ranking/ladder/whatever system is that someone at 2K/firaxis would have to be paying attention to it all the time and manage it.
that's a bit beyond what they'd likely want to do. Hence why CS's civplayers site exists.
now, if they made the game in such a way that some modder could hook in a new screen which grabs civplayers data and allowed for autoupload of matches/recognition of other civplayers (cause they'd also use the mod) and pushed data about matches/tournies/etc right into the game... then that'd be nice.
edit: you could probably do that in CiV already.
that's a bit beyond what they'd likely want to do. Hence why CS's civplayers site exists.
now, if they made the game in such a way that some modder could hook in a new screen which grabs civplayers data and allowed for autoupload of matches/recognition of other civplayers (cause they'd also use the mod) and pushed data about matches/tournies/etc right into the game... then that'd be nice.
edit: you could probably do that in CiV already.
TheMeInTeam
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^ You're not getting a meaningful ranking system in a game not designed around being competitive and without blocking people from trivially hacking it.
Even the "leaderboards" in pdox got cheaters with impossible scores (far more than you could get with #1 for every day of the game start to finish) so you had inane nonsense flooding the top.
Did someone lose because of start or skill? Over an enormous number of games (easily hundreds of hours minimum) you might get an idea, but it'll still be rough. It's unlikely such leaderboards will be meaningful (IE providing rankings with a decent approximation of how well people played in their games), even if people erroneously believe they are.
Besides, I don't care about any of that in the slightest until the thing lets you connect, stay in games, and rehost consistently and smoothly. The rest of the stuff is moot if the thing doesn't work in the first place. Civ V never truly got that far even :/.
Even the "leaderboards" in pdox got cheaters with impossible scores (far more than you could get with #1 for every day of the game start to finish) so you had inane nonsense flooding the top.
Did someone lose because of start or skill? Over an enormous number of games (easily hundreds of hours minimum) you might get an idea, but it'll still be rough. It's unlikely such leaderboards will be meaningful (IE providing rankings with a decent approximation of how well people played in their games), even if people erroneously believe they are.
Besides, I don't care about any of that in the slightest until the thing lets you connect, stay in games, and rehost consistently and smoothly. The rest of the stuff is moot if the thing doesn't work in the first place. Civ V never truly got that far even :/.
SupremacyKing2
Deity
I have never played a single civ MP game in my life despite playing 1000's of hours of civ. I can barely finish a standard SP game that lasts for hours, I am not about to try to play MP for 6+ hours. So I for one, embrace the new MP mode in civ6 that will give us shorter games. Civ6 might actually get me into MP for the first time.
I see. 4 players is the maximum I've ever played civ5 MP, so that's why I never had a problem.
About the competitive topic, I don't think civ can ever be a competitive game. At least not a balanced one. Too many factors involved.
I don't even want it to become competitive, not bc I don't like competitive games, but bc we would have to sacrifice several aspects that are a core for me in civ games.
TheMeInTeam
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We used to routinely finish civ IV games on a blazing timer in < 4 hours, not even on quick speed. Playing alone I'd often break 2.
Civ V made AI turn times ridiculously longer (2x longer or more, often more), and made human turns slower too. Many times in games where I've set a 90 second timer, I will "run out of time", despite that I could easily give all the commands in less than 60 seconds.
Why? Because the game can't handle me giving less than 30 orders in 60 seconds, and has unreliable/shoddy input buffering.
1 UPT does add an extra burden of troop movement, but even with 12-15 troops beyond what you'd have done with stacks in IV this should in most wars/cases be on the order of ~1.5 to 2 seconds per troop (IE around 30 extra seconds per turn, max). It doesn't work out that way though, because the controls in V don't work well and I can trivially out-order the interface's ability to keep up.
I don't have elite RTS sleight of hand. I shouldn't be *blowing out* the game's ability to keep pace with me, but in MP it's often the only reason I struggle to finish turns in < 90 seconds. It doesn't sound like much, but if you add 30 seconds/turn over 200 turns you add over an hour and a half of dead time (100 minutes in that case)...BEFORE factoring longer AI turns!
That was bad enough in V vanilla that I quit outright. Even now, I mostly just play V in weekend co-op these days, at least that way I have the conversation distraction. Otherwise spending 20% of my time or more (probably double that in some cases) sitting in front of the game being unable to play it isn't engaging.
Fluphen Azine
What is Fluphen Azine?
I played around 4000 hours of MP and about 6000 hours of SP on Civ V. I think I can safely say I got my moneys worth. Public MP games were fun if you had all day and night to sit around and wait for that 1 game in about 20 that would be epic. Most of your time would be spent on playing about 25-75 turns and back to the MP screen to find another game. I joined NQ when it started and played many games. I watched the group implode and split in two. The NQ group games held together better than public but it had its share of quitters as well. I seen many players have RL situations pop up all the time when they were in a bad position. The NQ group is somewhat of a "click" and if you aren't buddy buddy with the usual suspects you can expect to get 2 or 3v1 on in a hurry. The real problem with the game is balance. MP games usually are over from the start. Every game has one player with some amazing start with plenty of production and food and wonders close by where some other Civ starts off in complete tundra or desert with no production. It would not be hard to look at all 6 starts of the Civs and predict the winner from turn 0. In reality the game on MP is about the best warmonger or best player who has a few "friends" in the game who collude better than the rest. So I would say that land balance is the biggest problem in MP but the collusion that is unstoppable in NQ group or Public Games is the real killer. You can always get away from the collusion by playing 1v1 but now you have a land balance problem when you play 1v1 unless you play some created map that is equal on both sides. Your next problem will be Civ vs Civ because in 1v1 you have huge advantages on this note as well so if you want real balance you have to play the same Civs on an identical map on both sides which takes away what Civ is about as well! You really can't have perfection in this game you are always gonna has some issue. All these problems really do not matter if you enjoy SP and MP Civ. You just have to understand that the game is far from perfect and it is what it is. Could it be better? Of course but in the end like everything else it is about money and you usually spend around 50 to 100 dollars for this game so like everything else you get what you pay for.
It would of been nice to see the Devs fix Civ V for the last few years and keep making expansions instead of getting greedy with a cash grab that they called Civ BE! I did not buy that game nor would ever buy it since it has nothing to do with Civ in my book. I want my Civ to be more on the realistic side of history and it is fair to say that Civ 6 looks more in the cartoon direction compared to Civ V. IMHO Civ IV is still the better game but Civ V's graphics won me over. I was expecting Civ 6 to look more and more like I was watching HD TV on something like the history channel but instead they opted to go to the cartoon network instead. I do not have to ask the question will the game be broken on release and will the MP game be broken as well? Of course it will be busted... no doubt. Players like Acken and IronfighterXXX will destroy the game on Deity in a heartbeat and most likely it will be something simple like abuse the AI with trade or a rush or city spam. I honestly see no advantage in buying the game for 80 US dollars when you know in 6 months to a year the game will be bigger and better and cheaper. The other advantage is that these strong players and others will have mapped out all the strategies for you on this site. The only advantage of buying it now is for some sort of ego comforting boost to play it now instead of later when it will be better. I guess you could buy it now so you can complain how awful it is but we all know that its gonna be horrid for sure. Civ BE should be a strong enough case and Van Civ V should be another if you have forgotten what the base game was like when it first came out. I would easily plop down 1 or 200 US dollars if my leaders looked like RL humans or the game went in a more realistic view instead of cartoon style.
I still do not know if I will buy it now or later. The money really doesn't matter for me.... it is about the time to play... which is what is really required for any Civ game. If you want to win on Deity all the time and win on MP many times you have to be able to play this game hours upon hours on end.
It would of been nice to see the Devs fix Civ V for the last few years and keep making expansions instead of getting greedy with a cash grab that they called Civ BE! I did not buy that game nor would ever buy it since it has nothing to do with Civ in my book. I want my Civ to be more on the realistic side of history and it is fair to say that Civ 6 looks more in the cartoon direction compared to Civ V. IMHO Civ IV is still the better game but Civ V's graphics won me over. I was expecting Civ 6 to look more and more like I was watching HD TV on something like the history channel but instead they opted to go to the cartoon network instead. I do not have to ask the question will the game be broken on release and will the MP game be broken as well? Of course it will be busted... no doubt. Players like Acken and IronfighterXXX will destroy the game on Deity in a heartbeat and most likely it will be something simple like abuse the AI with trade or a rush or city spam. I honestly see no advantage in buying the game for 80 US dollars when you know in 6 months to a year the game will be bigger and better and cheaper. The other advantage is that these strong players and others will have mapped out all the strategies for you on this site. The only advantage of buying it now is for some sort of ego comforting boost to play it now instead of later when it will be better. I guess you could buy it now so you can complain how awful it is but we all know that its gonna be horrid for sure. Civ BE should be a strong enough case and Van Civ V should be another if you have forgotten what the base game was like when it first came out. I would easily plop down 1 or 200 US dollars if my leaders looked like RL humans or the game went in a more realistic view instead of cartoon style.
I still do not know if I will buy it now or later. The money really doesn't matter for me.... it is about the time to play... which is what is really required for any Civ game. If you want to win on Deity all the time and win on MP many times you have to be able to play this game hours upon hours on end.
Yeah but first they would need to fix players brain, since apparently they are still convinced FFA is a way of playing.
Even you say your games end cause ppl go 3 v1, and it means you just dont accept that the only way of playing ANY GAME is n vs n
dannyk2011
Chieftain
I understand its a new game and its not supposed to be like civ5, but this game is so incomplete. No team games, no duel games or strategic duel maps specifically designed for 1v1's like Skirmish in civ5. Altered so many "f" keys. No option to change auto unit cycle in game, you have to go through the start menu to even fix it. I understand from a company standpoint, and I'm sure things will be patched with time, but this is ridiculous. With Civ5 you released a completely broken game. With Civ6 you released a completely broken game. All you had to do was add on and modify a few things from civ5. Not comp[letely revamp everything. I guess I'll just wait for patches
