Civ6 June Update Video

[Westwall]

I haven't been able to finish games even on Warlord. Not because it was difficult but because it started feeling incredibly tedious with no end in sight. I'll give Civ6 credit for giving its players plenty to do but there's something to be said about Civ5's very clear goals and measures of success and accomplishment. Even the diplomacy felt more impactful and the World Congress more consequential. Having logged over 2,000 hours in Civ5, it maybe now feels a bit too simplistic but Civ6 is too much of a shot in the other extreme for me. Religions feel like a pain to get up in running for instance because there are just one too many steps involved.

 

[MrRadar]

It's a good and valid question, but it seems you and most everyone who quoted your message seem to equate FINISH with WIN !!! the stats are for those who WON a game, not for those who FINISHED a game.

the question then becomes: where are those 57% of players who never WON a game ?

In my mind, that's an important nuance. It's still way too many players, but might it mean that the game isn't SO VERY easy to win ???

Oh, fair point. Quite possible, I haven't even thought about it.
Although on the lowest difficulties the game tends to win itself on behalf of the player, I did see some posts on reddit by pleasantly surprised players, who won culture victory without having an idea how.
There were also a number of posts from players, claiming their first victories on high difficulties in Civ 6, who in their own words have never won on such level in earlier versions of the game.
This shows that Civ 6 does deliver easier victories and those who were interested enough to play until the end, might have gotten at least the achievement for the victory on Settler.
Or else, they might indeed have fallen victim to the interminable drag of the end game and unfriendly UI.

 

[Engeez]

I'm pretty underwhelmed, to be honest. Absolutely zero interest in Red Death, though I guess it's nice they added an update for those who do like it.

Will need to see the other fixes written down. They spent half the video talking about the changes they'd already made which was confusing and I don't think I caught what was new other than tweaked/new pantheons, which does seem cool.

I agree. Nothing of real note. How about “there has been a major update to the military AI, situational AI, anything AI. No lets just continue to bloat the game and make it more confusing for the AI. Just disgraceful i'm embarrassed i actually bought the seasons pass and contributed to this garbage.

 

[Westwall]

I agree. Nothing of real note. How about “there has been a major update to the military AI, situational AI, anything AI. No lets just continue to bloat the game and make it more confusing for the AI. Just disgraceful i'm embarrassed i actually bought the seasons pass and contributed to this garbage.

I would pay the equivalent of 2 seasons passes if they actually revisited Beyond Earth and got back to work on knocking out the bugs and releasing a second expansion that added major events or something for the endgame. So much lost potential with that title and now it doesn't look like they'll ever go back to the sci-fi Civ experience.

Moderator Action: This is the Civ6 forum, not Beyond Earth. Please stay on topic. leif

 

[CivLuvah]

Just disgraceful i'm embarrassed i actually bought the seasons pass and contributed to this garbage.

How exactly is buying the pass "contributing" if they've already put in money to develop the game before they announced the New Frontier Pass? At least that's what I assume has happened.

 

[Ziad]

Amused at people who think they're entitled for more free content years after the game is released.

You're the reason people in game development work 60 hours a week in unhealthy company cultures.

Moderator Action: Please do not flame other forum members. leif

 

[criZp]

Amused at people who think they're entitled for more free content years after the game is released.

You're the reason people in game development work 60 hours a week in unhealthy company cultures.[/mod4]

But people aren't asking for any more content, but for the game to get the fixes it needs.

 

[The Civs 6]

Amused at people who think they're entitled for more free content years after the game is released.

You're the reason people in game development work 60 hours a week in unhealthy company cultures.

Moderator Action: Please do not flame other forum members. leif

DOTA seems to pull it off while Valve haves what I have heard is a great company culture... but even then, there is the Paradox model - where you sink a ton of money into the system and get a lot of great content.

The problem is less a sense of entitlement and more sadness or disappointment at the obsolescence of this approach, of base game, expansion, and now these thinly veiled expansions. The complete lack of attention my $40 investment resulted in improving the base game was a huge disappointment. If I, who played Civ on DOS and played every Civ installation, want to consider another 4x game, I'm going to look at Humankind. Even if the base game is not good, I have more confidence that the team behind it will show love for the game over time.

Edit - by the way, if you understand the time value of money, you will realize that Civ basically took my dollars for an expansion up front, and are giving me that expansion splayed out over a year. After all, isn't this "pass" just giving me what previous expansions gave me, except I'm paying all up front (while the designers gets to put money into the game over time to meet their schedule)? And I'm guessing I'll have to buy the next "pass" to keep the content...

And you might say "well don't buy the product", but that's a Firaxis problem. They established an anchor with their approach to Civ 6. I have expectations in terms of content, money, and delivery. This attempt to give me less for the same price must inevitably be compared with what they have already done...

Edit x 2 - just to complete this portrait, you have Firaxis using this strange vendor to do payments, you have the recycling of the animations (cheap much?), and the big "features" are memes like "apocalypse mode" and "secret societies"... I'm not excited for any of that stuff...

 

[Gedemon]

Amused at people who think they're entitled for more free content years after the game is released.

You're the reason people in game development work 60 hours a week in unhealthy company cultures.

Moderator Action: Please do not flame other forum members. leif

again we don't ask for more free content, we ask for fixes to existing stuff.

I respect Firaxis choices of resources sharing between their projects, but it's also their decision to remove from modders the ability to fix the AI while they've taken 4 years to teach it to use it's air force offensively (how many more to teach it to defend ?)

And if they plan to keep the core locked to modding, then yes, I think we're entitled to get a working AI for the game we bought, whenever it happens, even if its in 4 more years.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

They need some real good players to help them develop, instead of focusing on random forum discussions such as praising Canada for diplomatic victory or Macedon for domination.

it seems that they never do the right tweak. Stacking burial grounds with warrior monks seems like nonsense, while giving a penalty on diplomacy favor for capturing capitals does not really alter the situation of diplo victory at least on standard disaster level. （Interestingly enough, the real change for diplo victory is the new disaster 5 mode)

As for the past changes, Magnus and the pillage enhancement brings disasters for game balance. They always want to slow down the game however their changes never meet their goals. Victory time for my current random standard speed continental deity games is still around 140~150 turns, and this is based on I force myself making no trade deals with AIs. If I use another unfixed exploit--selling diplomatic favors to AIs, the victory time will be much sooner.

To conclude, they always 'try' to fix the exploits, slow down the game speed, balance the game, etc. However because of lack of good players in the development team, they never succeed in doing that. There're still full of exploits, bombers are still free to fly in Medieval and Renaissance Era, and AIs are still very very terrible, plantations and quarries are never built.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

They need some real good players to help them develop, instead of focusing on random forum discussions such as praising Canada for diplomatic victory or Macedon for domination.

No. They need both, because reality is more complicated than your particular expectations based on level of play. And they must keep the game playable of casuals as well. I have intruduced Civilization VI to a few board game players who can manage real hard brain challenging euro games and they all said Civ is hard and complicaded. They will never have a chance to jump to this train if you want to profile the game for 1% of players claiming it is not challenging for them anymore. Not well balanced but not challenging anymore. This is the key world. Challenging not ballanced.
On the other hand I am totaly with you when it comes to engage more players to test the game because forums and social media feedback is probably the mess when 99% of people say fix AI without any meaningfull examples and those 1% with meaningfull feedback is just overwhelmed by buzz.

 

[AntSou]

I would pay the equivalent of 2 seasons passes if they actually revisited Beyond Earth and got back to work on knocking out the bugs and releasing a second expansion that added major events or something for the endgame. So much lost potential with that title and now it doesn't look like they'll ever go back to the sci-fi Civ experience.

Why does it look like that?

Amused at people who think they're entitled for more free content years after the game is released.

You're the reason people in game development work 60 hours a week in unhealthy company cultures.

No, people in game development work 60 hours a week in unhealthy company cultures because of unhealthy company cultures.

DOTA seems to pull it off while Valve haves what I have heard is a great company culture... but even then, there is the Paradox model - where you sink a ton of money into the system and get a lot of great content.

Also a lot of rubbish content, which would be nice to mention if you're using Paradox to make a point. Imperator Rome?

The problem is less a sense of entitlement and more sadness or disappointment at the obsolescence of this approach, of base game, expansion, and now these thinly veiled expansions. The complete lack of attention my $40 investment resulted in improving the base game was a huge disappointment. If I, who played Civ on DOS and played every Civ installation, want to consider another 4x game, I'm going to look at Humankind.

Why are you talking like we're 9 months into New Frontier? That would be a reasonable comment to make then, not now.

Edit - by the way, if you understand the time value of money, you will realize that Civ basically took my dollars for an expansion up front, and are giving me that expansion splayed out over a year. After all, isn't this "pass" just giving me what previous expansions gave me, except I'm paying all up front (while the designers gets to put money into the game over time to meet their schedule)? And I'm guessing I'll have to buy the next "pass" to keep the content...

No, that was your decision. The packs are available individually and the total cost will not be that different in the end.

Edit x 2 - just to complete this portrait, you have Firaxis using this strange vendor to do payments, you have the recycling of the animations (cheap much?), and the big "features" are memes like "apocalypse mode" and "secret societies"... I'm not excited for any of that stuff...

No it's not cheap to use recycled animations.

The two big features you mentioned were revealed with the New Frontier Pass. You're not excited for any of that stuff and somehow still thought it wise to buy the pass. I don't know what to tell you other than the obvious.

They need some real good players to help them develop, instead of focusing on random forum discussions such as praising Canada for diplomatic victory or Macedon for domination.

Some "real good players"? Those real good players lurk around these forums as well. You can see them giving useful suggestions like "Deity easy, new players should begin on Deity" and other such gems.

To conclude, they always 'try' to fix the exploits, slow down the game speed, balance the game, etc. However because of lack of good players in the development team, they never succeed in doing that. There're still full of exploits, bombers are still free to fly in Medieval and Renaissance Era, and AIs are still very very terrible, plantations and quarries are never built.

Most of the stuff that requires tweaking doesn't require really good players. They are apparent to anyone who plays the game regularly.

 

[GrumboMumbo]

No. They need both, because reality is more complicated than your particular expectations based on level of play. And they must keep the game playable of casuals as well. I have intruduced Civilization VI to a few board game players who can manage real hard brain challenging euro games and they all said Civ is hard and complicaded. They will never have a chance to jump to this train if you want to profile the game for 1% of players claiming it is not challenging for them anymore. Not well balanced but not challenging anymore. This is the key world. Challenging not ballanced.
On the other hand I am totaly with you when it comes to engage more players to test the game because forums and social media feedback is probably the mess when 99% of people say fix AI without any meaningfull examples and those 1% with meaningfull feedback is just overwhelmed by buzz.

Exactly, they need both. They already have plenty of casual players, so they need some higher level players (I don't think they have any right now)

I agree that it is hard to get new players to enjoy civ6, because it is so complex. You often hear people describe some of the best games as 'Easy to pick up, hard to master', but I think civ6 is actually 'Hard to pick up, also hard to master'. Most of the games mechanics are hugely Min/Max orientated. Eureka boosts/Policy Cards/Golden Age Points all these require a lot of min/maxing to get the best results. I think the game could do with some more broad strokes in terms of mechanics, this would also lead to more broad, empire wide Grand Strategy approach. But at this point I am probably talking about a different game entirely. Civ6's mechanics are way too deep rooted to change that now.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

Some "real good players"? Those real good players lurk around these forums as well. You can see them giving useful suggestions like "Deity easy, new players should begin on Deity" and other such gems.

This is really very good observation.
The truth is many so-called "real good players" tend to live in their ivory towers. After many hours of play, they think everyone is on the same level.
To be honest there are three kinds of elites. One kind never appears on social media just play and minimaxing. The second kind is aware that he spent more hours and knows the game better and sees himself as an adviser and tries to help other players. Rare but precious kind. And the third kind is the worst. I am elite death to casuals, devs must make the game for me! Avoid them, they are toxic And there is a swarm of elite wannabees and fanboys. Usually, it is they who are giving advice like "deity is easy"
To be serious: It does not mean a player's experience cannot be used by developers to make the game better, get rid of some glitches and stupid things, or improve AI. But it means the overall level of difficulty should not be increased because some people after hours spent in a game want bigger challenges. My good advice to Firaxis: Try to find elites of the first kind, hear the voice of elites of the second kind avoid the elites of the third kind don't bother elite wannabe buzz. And modding would help with this issue. It's a flexible solution for everyone.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

Civ6's mechanics are way too deep rooted to change that now.

So true
But don't get me wrong. I still think this is a very good game I enjoy. Just take it as it is and do not frustrate yourself with unreal expectations.

 

[Westwall]

Why does it look like that?

It just doesn't seem to be in the cards for the foreseeable future. I'll be the first to celebrate being proven wrong.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

To be serious: It does not mean a player's experience cannot be used by developers to make the game better, get rid of some glitches and stupid things, or improve AI. But it means the overall level of difficulty should not be increased because some people after hours spent in a game want bigger challenges. My good advice to Firaxis: Try to find elites of the first kind, hear the voice of elites of the second kind avoid the elites of the third kind don't bother elite wannabe buzz. And modding would help with this issue. It's a flexible solution for everyone.

There're a lot of difficulty levels, I don't think anyone cannot win on settler difficulty, so there's always a suitable difficulty level if you cannot win on higher difficulties. There's no point that the "overall level of difficulty" is too high. It'll never be as you can always choose to play on settler difficulty. If settler is too hard for you I'm 100% supportive to make it easier than what it is now.

People just want Deity not to be that easy and exploitable, this ruin their experiences as there's no other "challengeable and un-exploitable difficulties”.

Also even if the developers claim that they fix sth., those fixes are not to the point, the game is still easy and exploitable, making them more disappointed.

The UI, the background, the system are all good, however the balance and the AI are of the adverse.

 

[Starwars]

I never think developers should only listen to the most hardcore of the community (unless that's completely the type of game they are going for of course). But when the developers ARE doing balance passes, which they have been doing and will be doing for Civ VI, then the hardcore players are important because... as has been pointed out, they *know* the game.

Balancing/fixing the game does not hurt the so called casual players in any way, it's an improvement for everyone, not just for the hardcore ones. So a casual player may not know that there's a huuuge difference in terms of how useful the culture of Choral Music vs the measly gold of Religious Community (as per the video) for example.
But they would still reap the benefits if these pantheons were more balanced. And this is one small example of many, many things in the game.

Personally, I don't even consider myself that much of a hardcore player. I'm not even close to the "elite" players in 4x, like not even close. I'm terrible with planning districts, timing out wars, focusing my way through tech trees and so forth. And yet I still can win Civ VI extremely regularly on Deity provided I don't get run over by a close neighbour in the first turns.
That's a real shame to me, and I can't imagine how disappointing it is for the players who actually care a lot more about the exact numbers in the game. And it IS a game of numbers in many ways, so those numbers should be as balanced as possible.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

There're a lot of difficulty levels, I don't think anyone cannot win on settler difficulty, so there's always a suitable difficulty level if you cannot win on higher difficulties. There's no point that the "overall level of difficulty" is too high. It'll never be as you can always choose to play on settler difficulty. If settler is too hard for you I'm 100% supportive to make it easier than what it is now.

People just want Deity not to be that easy and exploitable, this ruin their experiences as there's no other "challengeable and un-exploitable difficulties”.

Also even if the developers claim that they fix sth., those fixes are not to the point, the game is still easy and exploitable, making them more disappointed.

The UI, the background, the system are all good, however the balance and the AI are of the adverse.

Something I am trying to say is:
1. Some people want to play Deity because they expect the game will be challenging for them. Some people not. NOT EVERYONE IS A MINIMAXER LIKE YOU!
2. Your skill cap is growing over time. So more you play basic difficulties become easier. I give you my example the First time I beat a certain difficulty level (starting from the emperor ) was quite a challenge. After more and more games it just becomes more routine and less challenging. It is the case of deity difficulty level for a small number of people here. I will never say its piece of cake but it is manageable for me. The more you play more the game becomes less challenging.
3. The game is already complex and quite difficult for new players when you play on Deity you probably won't be able to notice this problem. But if 40% of players beat the game on settler it means half of the possible playerbase was bounced off the game. So yes. There is a problem of overall level of difficulty (or maybe to be more precise complexity for casual players). And the game needs new players and casuals for its own health!
4. For some hardcore players, the game become not challenging over time. Their recept is increasing overall difficulty ridiculously easy for them to get rid of exploits (is selling goods and Diplomatic Favor to AI an exploit or just a catch-up strategy in a early game? You will always have similar ones one way or another). This solution affects everyone.
What can Firaxis do with this problem?
a) add a new difficulty level over Deity.
b) increase general difficulty of the game by pump up AI or get rid of some exploits and balance this with some catch-up mechanics on lower difficulties. Increased production, more settlers etc.
c) totally redesign the game and break the meta and enforce people to explore it from the beginning. But this is not a card game where you can buff, or nerf few cards, rotate some set from the game and add a bunch of new cards. So we shouldn't expect this kind of meta shaking.

I don't think it is a possible and elegant option on the table in near possible future different than adding a new difficulty level over Deity. If someone wants to catch a rabbit feel welcomed. Just say clear: I need more challenge rather than cover behind talk about exploits, balance etc.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

But they would still reap the benefits if these pantheons were more balanced.

What does it mean more balanced for you? Equally good? So where is a strategic choice in this approach if you have every option the same viable. Your decisions are not meaningful in this case scenario. Is this the way how strategic game should be built?

And one last advice you need challenge choose a weaker not so obvious paths, or civics, weaker Civs, don't use exploits, this is also a good way to make a game more challenging.