Are negative opinions of Civ6 allowed here?

[Balkans]

I find this thread ironic since almost all threads on these forums lately are negative.

 

[Gub]

There were plenty of games that were bug-free and perfect on release. Just not recently!

Haha, take your nostalgia googles off, old timer There is no bug free software, anyone who tells you otherwise is clueless. And game production has became more complex with time, with larger teams, more variation and dependencies..

Overall, in the good ol' days, hardware support and compatibility were crap. In game bugs, glitches and balance issues were plentiful. Actually it used to be part of the fun to fret out various exploits, as was actually trying to master the game and find the best strategies on your own. Anyway, try googling some of classics from that time, you likely find youtube videos documenting at least some of those none existing bugs of yours

They had to be that way a couple of decades ago. No second chances with patches then.

iirc even space shuttle code had a couple of bugs. And that with huge team and budget dedicated to not that big of program in today market.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

How is the game incomplete exactly?

It sounds like you're having technical issues. You submit a support ticket to them in that instance. Most people aren't having technical issues, so it's probably something to do with your particular setup.

The UI isn't a technical issue, it's just incomplete, unless you only want to hold civ 6 to the standards of 20 years ago, where it still doesn't compete with the best TBS UI of that time.

The mechanical tuning in the game is way off too, which in contrast to the AI is concerning (everyone reasonably expects the AI to be bad, since it is almost always bad in strategy games). The game's incentives are messed up.

 

[GIO888]

Re-install from Steam, I did and crashes stopped unless I exit the game directly from the game screen having just saved it.

Actually, that sounds like a line from a Monty python sketch, doesn't it?

 

[Lexicus]

Game is crashing? Blame that on your computer, not the game. The only way my game has crashed is to occasionally freeze if I directly exit the game. OTOH I bought a new computer about a year ago for playing civ.

Otherwise, patience may serve you well, not that I recall your having any patience with civ5 in its early days.

Well I don't think I should have to have patience for a game I paid $60 for, not that I actually bought civ 6 because civ 5 taught me the folly of buying any video game before it's had time to grow into itself a bit.

 

[nzcamel]

Well I don't think I should have to have patience for a game I paid $60 for, not that I actually bought civ 6 because civ 5 taught me the folly of buying any video game before it's had time to grow into itself a bit.

Sounds like you have nothing to complain about then. If you haven't spent $60 n all.

I spent $99 on it (NZ) and I'm very happy with what I got. Currently it's cost me less than 29 cents an hour for the time I've put in

 

[wiggawuu]

Sure you are. I trash civilization 4 every chance I get.

Personally I like 6 and I am really looking forward to the future.

As for 'very incomplete' compared to what? 6 is probably the most ready to go vanilla release since II. 3 was ok until it was 'complete'. 4 was not even playable until BTS and it was the same with V and BNW.

Its the 6th iteration of the game. I mean, what more can they keep doing with Civ?

 

[shaglio]

You'd expect discussions about Civ6 for instance to play out like this:
User A: "I dislike Civ6."
User B: "I like Civ6."

But it often plays out like this:
User A: "I dislike Civ6."
User B: "Why do you say that? You are wrong about this. You're missing some important points. You don't understand the game. Stop ruining the forums with your negativity..

In my experience, it's more like:

You'd expect discussions about Civ6 for instance to play out like this:
User A: "I dislike Civ6."
User B: "I like Civ6."

But it often plays out like this:
User A: "I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6."
User B: "Alright already! Enough!!! We get it; you don't like the game. There's no need to ram it down our throats ad nauseum."

 

[Lexicus]

Sounds like you have nothing to complain about then. If you haven't spent $60 n all.

I spent $99 on it (NZ) and I'm very happy with what I got. Currently it's cost me less than 29 cents an hour for the time I've put in

I'm not actually complaining, just making a remark. I don't think I should have to "have patience" with something I purchased.
I don't see what's controversial about that. If I buy the game, I'm buying the game, not a chance to participate in the beta.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

In my experience, it's more like:

You'd expect discussions about Civ6 for instance to play out like this:
User A: "I dislike Civ6."
User B: "I like Civ6."

But it often plays out like this:
User A: "I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6. I dislike Civ6."
User B: "Alright already! Enough!!! We get it; you don't like the game. There's no need to ram it down our throats ad nauseum."

This kind of non-specific call out can go south fast. There are reasons people like or dislike the game, and some of these on each side hold up under scrutiny, while others don't.

The more frustrating thing is the non-discussion in many cases. One of the most annoying things on forums is "x is good or bad because y" getting quoted...then the response says the opposite without a single word about y. It happens on both sides of the like/dislike fence and it turns otherwise decent threads into mires of non-discussion.

Your consumption habits ruin the quality of games available to me

Unfortunately true, even when people disagree with it. Firms meet the standards of the market. When the market opts to act like a doormat and accept low standards, they remove financial (viable) incentive for firms to release the product at a higher standard.

You can see the difference between this genre and others that have more titles competing with less variance in the gameplay.

 

[Gorbles]

I'd love to say that statement holds true but it's just as much of a generalisation as the non-specifics you criticise in the first half of your post. The RPG and FPS genres are absolutely inundated with what you would call competition, and major players play it safe every time.

Another fact is the cost involved. The higher the costs, the smaller the margin for error. The "safer" things are played. It's not all about competition.

 

[Stilgar08]

negativity is not the problem. There are problems undoubtely.
But, dear OP: If negativity gets articulated like this:

To be fair, the game feels like it was knocked up in two months rather than two years.

you shouldn't wonder...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'd love to say that statement holds true but it's just as much of a generalisation as the non-specifics you criticise in the first half of your post. The RPG and FPS genres are absolutely inundated with what you would call competition, and major players play it safe every time.

Another fact is the cost involved. The higher the costs, the smaller the margin for error. The "safer" things are played. It's not all about competition.

It depends strongly on your reasoning for having a negative opinion, both about those RPG/FPS genres and about civ.

1. What are the most common arguments against these games?
2. Which complaints have the most sound arguments?
3. What is the baseline release standard for quality?

The "safer" things are played. Why are the "safe" (presumably you mean this from the perspective of not taking risk/keeping to a formula) games played? These developers are holding true to an expected formula and putting a greater emphasis on the expected play elements. No matter how innovative your shooter is, if it controls like crap/has aim problems/bad weapons it's going to lose out to expectations. FPS is very broad though, are we talking MP-centric games or more off-line type stuff? As for RPGs, I haven't played one myself directly in a long time and so my take on them is lacking. Fallout, Mass Effect and Final Fantasy are obviously very different, and Dark Souls is a sub-genre that is technically RPG too. What behavior do you consider "safe" there from design standpoint? Even with some pretty heavy deviation to combat mechanics and a borderline RaoCow story going on, FF 13 sold pretty well, but more importantly in making those deviations it did not sacrifice the functionality of its freaking menu. It didn't make you hit attack 200 times extra per hour of playing it.

In those highly competitive genres, the UI and performance are unambiguously much better than Civ . The "safe" behavior in these genres is to prioritize (sometimes to a fault) the core facets of the experience that bring people to them, to the point of being willing to cut innovation to do so.

Civ has a few things that draw people, and each person weights them a little differently. Some like the historical theme most, others like to role play situations, others like the strategy. Correct me if I'm mistaken or I'm missing something here.

Civ lately violates the core of civ in a few ways:

- Newer iterations have reduced the amount of meaningful-to-outcome choices available per real life time (IE strategy per time playing *and* per turn). For those who gain their immersion from making meaningful choices and doing well because of those choices, being constrained to fewer is a blow.
- Plausibility is in the eye of the beholder, but the alignment of industrial era nations wielding swords is odd, same with completely skipping eras. I can't too-effectively speak for the sandbox crowd, but this seems like it's strange.
- The AI also behavior creates an environment where sandbox play isn't too viable (they all start to hate you quickly without gaming them), but it also does not play to win (less strategy per time playing). I'm not talking tactical brilliance here, but just a design "how does X AI respond to seeing Y". In faced with choosing to make it attempt to win or to ham up a personality on a convincing fashion, Firaxis answered "nothing".
- The UI is sufficiently unambiguously terrible on a # input basis such that it interferes with gameplay outright, manifesting in a range of complaints that amount to the same thing. Show me one massively successful major budget FPS or RPG where the game requires triple the necessary inputs to accomplish some common tasks. It's not a thing there.

The fact of the matter is that the market holds FPS and RPG to a higher standard in production quality, while a game like Madden has a similar standard to Civ 6, and you see similar problems with it.

 

[Ferocitus]

I got the tip from somewhere (don't remember where) that if you instead of going to desktop after you have saved the game, you go back to the game. I usually click on a unit or something and then I quit the game and I don't get the freeze on exit.

That's the only trouble I've ever had, even with ludicrous-size (230x115) maps
at marathon pace.

The problem was "cured" in exactly the same way as you suggested: don't
immediately exit to desktop, but return to game, click on a unit, then exit.

Windows Defender has been cited as a possible cause of some problems too.
I don't use the beast but I wouldn't recommend disabling all virus protection if
you play online. I only play offline so I can play with very few other programs running.

 

[c4c6]

Could someone please point me to some examples of bug-free games from the good old days. I've been PC gaming since 1996 and I don't remember those halcyon days of yore.

Tetris. Maybe Lemmings?

 

[nzcamel]

I'm not actually complaining, just making a remark. I don't think I should have to "have patience" with something I purchased.
I don't see what's controversial about that. If I buy the game, I'm buying the game, not a chance to participate in the beta.

Whether you have to have patience or not with something you purchased depends largely on whether there is a superior product available or not. That is as old as the hills and crosses all product lines!
And in the case of Civ? No, there's not a superior product available.

negativity is not the problem. There are problems undoubtely.
But, dear OP: If negativity gets articulated like this:

you shouldn't wonder...

Yep. 100%

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

Seriously though, this is a $60 game. If you introduce a patch, and then cannot exit directly after save, FIX THE D**N GAME AND REISSUE THE PATCH. Seriously. I am SO disappointed in the way this whole thing has been handled. Do we have to wait until the second DLC before the exit crash is fixed? And, with my Win 10 setup, forgetting to click on something before exiting results in having my whole computer having to reboot. I know how to put the task manager up front, that's not the issue (and I have 2 monitors anyway). So, I have to carefully make sure that all of my work is saved first, just in case I forget that this game made in 2016 can't exit directly after a save.... I had a few games like that in the late 80's....

And, after experiencing the crash where "well, just declare war on someone after reloading an autosave and it's all cool" and that is *still* not fixed, I will NOT play a Civ 6 game again until that is fixed. Why invest my time? And of course don't get me started on Ctrl+S not saving....

The excuses to say these issues aren't *that* important are just that -- excuses.

Bug free? I don't remember Civ 3 having any issues that crashed to desktop and then crashed the desktop. Civ 4 sometimes had an issue with my laptop video card, but otherwise was fine. Chessmaster 2000 never crashed even in Win 3.1. And so forth....

And quite frankly, why does it matter what crashed or didn't crash in the past. This is 2016. Things shouldn't crash. Quality control is awful, be it games or income tax software, where the software decisions are all made at the top by people who have never done a tax return..... (Block, Intuit, for starters)

 

[Lexicus]

No, there's not a superior product available.

*shrug* I don't exactly know what you mean...I don't have to have patience with Civ 6 because I'm still playing and enjoying Civ 4.

 

[Lewi11]

Yeah, you're only really proving my point, there.

I'm not belittling anyone, I just find the idea that negative threads being unwelcome hilarious consider the often-negative tone of created threads on these forums. This isn't to say that the negativity is necessarily misplaced, this is me simply saying it's kinda abundant. That said, my constructive advice would be to learn to separate out criticism of your logic from the idea that you can't make negative comments about the game. It could be that your criticisms are flat-out inaccurate, or simple arguably / subjective points.

Proving what point? I don't think so.
And yes, like I said in that very comment, my opinions ARE SUBJECTIVE. Again, try reading it again. As for being "inaccurate", when have I made an "inaccurate" comment? Are you talking about the one I made about player testers which I already took someone else's word for despite seeing no evidence and humbly backed down on about 3 times in the appropriate forum? Unless you're still rubbing that one in, all my other comments have been my own subjective opinions.

I don't think you belittled me, not that I remember. I was talking about others in this and other threads. As I said, I have no problem with positive comments. I respect other's opinions. I might disagree with them and very vocally share my own opinion but I would not tell them they are blatantly wrong, stupid (or any other synonyms) or have the memory of a fly. It is when people say these sorts of things in reply to my SUBJECTIVE OPINIONS that make me think negative comments are "not allowed". I don't mean literally not allowed in the forum rules, I mean not allowed by you negative comment police.

As for the negative comments being "abundant", try googling "Civilization VI reviews" and try finding a predominantly negative review or a negative fan comment. If you do find any, it won't be near the top. If by "abundant" you mean people with negative opinions of the game in Civfanatics are over-represented because we are more vocal, you might be right, I can't prove otherwise. But Civfanatics is just a drop in the ocean, especially for people relatively new to the series like me. A lot of potential buyers of the game will just read the glowing 90%+ reviews by the big gaming websites singing their praises and click purchase (big lesson learnt for me). For the ones that do dig deeper and read these forums, they will get mixed opinions that balance out the big websites.

I therefore do not at all regret making negative comments. Firaxis could have avoided much of the negativity by releasing a more complete product. Fans that don't like reading them could avoid reading them by scanning the comment, if it seems negative, don't continue reading. Although the fact that so many of you even clicked on an obviously negative thread title like this one tells me you either love reading them or love telling us we're wrong\stupid (minus the few of you who have actually respectfully disagreed or shared your positive opinions).

Trying to silence debate will fail. You will only add fuel to the fire for us "whingers"...not to mention keep this thread towards the top of its folder.

 

[Acken]

There are plenty of negative opinions on CFC. I've expressed my disappointments multiple time without feeling pressure to shut up. I don't think anybody argues the game is perfect either. That said I've spent less time on the forum because I simply no longer play the game considering its issues so maybe I'm not just seeing the issue.

Though, if you create 10 thread about it or keep repeating the same thing in every thread you will be called out for being just obnoxious.