Jon Shafer
Civilization 5 Designer
I have heard different MP game percentiles over the years. they mostly lay in the 5% to 10% range.
Sad to say, you're about an order of magnitude off.
- Jon
I have heard different MP game percentiles over the years. they mostly lay in the 5% to 10% range.
Sad to say, you're about an order of magnitude off.
- Jon
That sounds more like an excuse than reality to me. MOBAs, especially LoL and DOTA which I know to an extent, have heaps of complexity. In addition to far more rote memory required just to be competent than Civ, these regularly change their balance framework + update the rote memory list while having mechanics that are unique to one out of dozens of hero/champion options and might require specific skillsets.
In essence, memorizing a champion is comparable to memorizing the unique aspects of a civ, and the core gameplay of Civ (unit movement, planning, math) isn't too far past it.
So why can't Civ compete there? It's a mixture of game community's culture, duration of a game, and terrible support for a true competitive scene. The only way to get an equitable start in any civ release to date is to doctor one in advance and hide it from the players. That's a big difference from counterstrike/halo/LoL/StarCraft 2/competitive games in general.
The design of Civ V's ruins, barbarians, city states and even civs that milk these random factors are directly counter to a viable competitive MP experience. It's not in the design scope.
Civ can't balance civs or especially generated starts to save its life, and we haven't had a solid MP connection going since Civ IV, and it took a while for even IV to stop with the de-syncs.
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
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
That sounds more like an excuse than reality to me. MOBAs, especially LoL and DOTA which I know to an extent, have heaps of complexity. In addition to far more rote memory required just to be competent than Civ, these regularly change their balance framework + update the rote memory list while having mechanics that are unique to one out of dozens of hero/champion options and might require specific skillsets.
In essence, memorizing a champion is comparable to memorizing the unique aspects of a civ, and the core gameplay of Civ (unit movement, planning, math) isn't too far past it.
So why can't Civ compete there? It's a mixture of game community's culture, duration of a game, and terrible support for a true competitive scene. The only way to get an equitable start in any civ release to date is to doctor one in advance and hide it from the players. That's a big difference from counterstrike/halo/LoL/StarCraft 2/competitive games in general.
The design of Civ V's ruins, barbarians, city states and even civs that milk these random factors are directly counter to a viable competitive MP experience. It's not in the design scope.
Civ can't balance civs or especially generated starts to save its life, and we haven't had a solid MP connection going since Civ IV, and it took a while for even IV to stop with the de-syncs.
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.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
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
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.
I don't know what problems civ5 had. Maybe playing with strangers? I only play with friends and we never had a problem
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
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.
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.
It would of been nice to see the Devs fix Civ V