April 2021 Developer Livestream Discussion

[Kupe Navigator]

My dude, this sounds more like a problem with your expectations than with what Firaxis has done with the patch.

they SHOULD'VE came honest and said this patch only contains minor changes. They shouldn't have hyped up so much.

 

[CromulentRomulan]

My dude, this sounds more like a problem with your expectations than with what Firaxis has done with the patch.

Firaxis bears responsibility for this. When it first began circulating that 2/3s of Civs would be rebalanced (think it came up in the Portugal livestream? maybe before? cant remember) @p0khiel wisely counselled not to set expectations high. Then coverage came out of Anton and others emphasising the extent of this pass. Even those who doubted whether it would be a big patch began to revise their expectations. All throughout this Firaxis have had a part to play in managing expectations

 

[Kupe Navigator]

Firaxis bears responsibility for this. When it first began circulating that 2/3s of Civs would be rebalanced (think it came up in the Portugal livestream? maybe before? cant remember) @p0khiel wisely counselled not to set expectations high. Then coverage came out of Anton and others emphasising the extent of this pass. Even those who doubted whether it would be a big patch began to revise their expectations. All throughout this Firaxis have had a part to play in managing expectations

EXCATLY! Hype for this wasn't needed and Fraxis shouldn't have feed the hype!

 

[InsidiousMage]

they SHOULD'VE came honest and said this patch only contains minor changes. They shouldn't have hyped up so much.

They really can't do that though, modern marketing being what it is. If the changes are as minor as a lot seem to be then this probably should have been the first free update instead of the last, which was probably going to have a lot of expectation around it anyway.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

They really can't do that though, modern marketing being what it is.

so they value money and tricking others over honestly.

 

[InsidiousMage]

so they value money and tricking others over honestly.

Name the marketing for something recently that told people to temper their expectations. I'm betting you can't because that's just not the way things work right now.

 

[DWilson]

what is so thematic about it? That is just lazy. It was lazy when they did it for Rise and fall and it is lazy now.
They just went "bruh we have to do Korea? Bah just give plain science buff!"
Korea has it WORSE than Babylon... At least Babylon is unique.

The name of the Three Kingdoms hints at their theming. They want to break up urban sprawl, and see the internal structure as divided. To do that, the Seowon punishes adjacent districts. Since negatives aren't fun, this ability offers balancing by rewarding for playing the Seonwons well, spread out with improvements surrounding them, breaking up your contiguous urban areas into more numerous smaller sections. Meanwhile, the civilopedia does make extensive reference to Korean science, so you're right that it's definitely also to add to the science theme (even if you aren't pleased with that, and don't care for other context).

The result is a civ that while easy, does encourage you to play and structure your civilization differently, with an alternate way of seeing the map. This ties in heavily with Firaxis's focus on civs playing differently than each other and when a heavy focus on the particular map of the game, so you play it differently in each game, compared to normal campus and empire planning, as well as compared to the game before.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

Name the marketing for something recently that told people to temper their expectations. I'm betting you can't because that's just not the way things work right now.

So it is ok for Fraxis to be bad as EA? Is EA right for tricking its customers?

 

[InsidiousMage]

So it is ok for Fraxis to be bad as EA? Is EA right for tricking its customers?

That's kind of immaterial because one company, especially the size of Firaxis, isn't going to go against prevailing trends. Sure, EA is bad and whatnot but like everyone hypes things to ridiculous levels nowadays so getting mad at Firaxis is kind of weird. They aren't going anything unique or different. Nowadays you need to be skeptical about everything and just wait and see. Having expectations is a good way to get let down honestly.

 

[DWilson]

You know, your premise is false (or at least premature). They haven't lied, as far as we know. They've been using patch notes as a measure of how big the update is, and they're indicating these are the most substantial ones to date. They've given a metric for your consideration, and without having received and reviewed them, there is no basis to expect them to have undelivered. Maybe tomorrow you'll be able to argue otherwise, but right now you seem to be spinning personal dissatisfaction into a doom scenario, and are essentially raging in response to the scenario you're creating.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

The name of the Three Kingdoms hints at their theming

it is LAZY CA name that has NOTHING to do with Korea. Many KOREANS agree with me at this.
Three Kingdom refers to ancient time when Korea is divided into three kingdoms- Goguryeo (고구려, 高句麗), Baekje (백제, 百濟), and Silla (신라, 新羅).
It has NOTHING do with boost to food to farms and science to mines next to Sewon. Heck Sewon wasn't even a thing in Silla periode.
It is just lazy designe that dev gave to Korea because they couldn't think of better CA.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

only 2 civs received any meaningful changes... TWO!

I'm not sure where you keep getting that number.

Maybe it is just perception. For example (for a maya player) their changes are much more major to their play than adding, for example, a trebuchet or a new melee unit. You thought those were major though, and I kind of just skimmed by them as NBD. They're just another unit--nothing that's really going to change how I play the game. A "small" numbers change could totally alter how you play a civ though, even if they don't look big on paper. (Just look at the corporations mod to see how "just numbers changes" can really foul or fix things.)

Could there be more changes? Sure? There always can be. I'm not sure about some of the ones they're doing here. But we'll see I guess.

However, nobody's lied to anybody here (at least that we know of so far). You're going way overboard with your reactions here.

 

[TreVor_ish]

EXCATLY! Hype for this wasn't needed and Fraxis shouldn't have feed the hype!

For someone that was bashing against the hype of Humankind, You just played Yourself with an update.

so they value money

Show me a business that doesn't care about the money. Heck even better, try to establish one and have different approach, show the world!

I guess I will play with civ expanded if I wanted some REAL changes to Korea. Dev has lost the balls with this one. a fan can do better why can't devs?

If You already play with a mod that has it's own balance, why such a negativity towards balancing by devs? And If You would like to see any other changes to Your beloved Civ, make a detailed post about it, perhaps someone would do it for You. Even better, I would invite You to try to create Your own balance patch. Those things are mainly based upon modifier system and changing yield numbers, things Civ VI was made for.

 

[8housesofelixir]

The only "lazy" design with Korea is the age-old "Scientific Koreans" cliché and trying to stick everything to that cliché.

Besides that, interesting design choices definitely exists in Korea's toolkit - the asymmetrical, rural themed Seowon, as well as one of the few Tall-play bonus in the game - and Korea is a pretty good opening civ for new players to familiarize themselves with the game.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Please do not make the thread personal. Stick to the topic.

 

[Aristos]

so they value money and tricking others over honestly.

Welcome to the Bright Side.

They have been like you said for years now.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

I'll add just this final bit about Korea: Back when Korea first came out in R&F they had same criticism as said by
sukritact: "Oh yeah, the newbie bit is a fair assessment, a good Science civ that lets you try out Governors. I still wish the UA included one more minor element to not make it the "Seowon Civ", like a small science or culture boost from training Builders or something."
Civ VI Rise and Fall First Look: Korea : civ (reddit.com)
This could've been a final chance for Korea to REALLY change and they received only crumbs.

 

[acluewithout]

Looks good.

New Units. I love the new units and unit rebalancing. Really good changes. Not sure about the techs they unlock at - Men-with-Arms at Apprenticeship, will anyone build Swordsmen - but happy to see how it plays out.

Civ balance. Civ rebalances all generally look good. Really liking Spain, Khmer and Gorgo. If there’s anything that’s a bit of a downer, it’s that a lot of Civs have now had some of their “trade offs” flattened out which might them a bit less challenging to play. eg Khmer doesn’t need to trade off their HA bonuses v getting better adjacencies, Maya don’t need to deal with low housing until they get builders up. It’s though to say if that’s good or bad - I really like having those sort of tough choices, but I suspect QA found that those trade offs weren’t actually all that fun in practice.

Cree, Lumbermills, Workshops. I’m absolutely gutted Cree didn’t get a free starting Recon unit, Lumbermills didn’t get a bonus for being on rivers, and Workshops didn’t get a buff (eg +1production to Strategic Resource tiles). C’mon Carl, these changes are no-brainers!

Oh God, Spies. Sorry to see Spies haven’t been tweaked. No spying on Allies suck. Really needed to be rolled back a bit or tweaked a little - eg bring back sending Spies as Ambassadors or at least give us a smaller list of missions spies cam run in Ally cities.

Colonial District, Governors. Out of left field, I know. But I’m kinda bummed we’ve finished NFP with still only one Civ that gets a unique Governor - that really seems like something that at least one more Civ should get, a bit like how there at least two leaders (not just one) that can lead two different Civs. Also a bit bummed we only got one extra Purple district. Feels like three instead of two would be a better number, like maybe a Colonial District that buffs Governors placed on foreign continents?

Overall. Seriously. It’s a good patch. The new units will massively improve the game. The other balance changes look really good. Good work Carl and team!

 

[InsidiousMage]

This could've been a final chance for Korea to REALLY change and they received only crumbs.

The game isn't going to stop getting new players and Korea, along with Rome, seem to be the beginner civs. They aren't going to overly complicated or have a lot of really in-depth gameplay like the Maori or something. There is nothing inherently wrong with this or that civ being for beginners and then this or that civ being for more advanced players. There need to be civs for all levels of players.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

The game isn't going to stop getting new players and Korea, along with Rome, seem to be the beginner civs.

but Rome came out in orginal civ 6 while Korea came out in R/F... why do we need beginner civ in R/F? isn't Germany and Rome enough?
You could argue that for spain and Khmer and yet they received such a big change.