The perception on that's minor and that's major is pretty subjective. Also, I've played Ara on release and I could say it was released in a much worse shape than Civ7. So, generally, both roadmaps just list things needed to bring the game up to the expectations of a release-ready game.
Why level this accusation at Civ but not Ara?
I’m not familiar eniugh with Ara to comment on their overall roadmap (but 2.0 looks great), but one thing that stands out to me about Civ’s: many of those items are triage for the terrible UI and the brain dead AI.
From the Ara lists:
I think - and could easily be wrong - that maybe some of the underlying mechanics they've chosen just can't be combined in the way they were hoping. I don't know that you can get ages where you have a significant amount of stuff carrying over and still have an interesting final age. And if so, I dunno if this is as much a holding pattern/playing defence as a slow realisation/acceptance that their design has a fatal flaw at its core.
To your credit that is more of a personal side note than a valid criticism that I made, but nonetheless it still fits the group of minor adjustments that probably should've been there on release.
I'm sorry if I missed a section of the Civ roadmap, perhaps my eyes skipped over it, you should post the image here so we can read it.
The items you list as minor, are indeed minor, but are definitely major when compared to the Civ items. The Civ items would practically be footnotes in a changelog. It's a real stretch to suggest simply hitting a toggle in the XML file to let a ship disperse a city state is now an entire feature comparable to one of the minor items such as Balance Pass, Combat Overhaul, from Ara. That's like not the same at all.
There might be a way to square the circle, but I've yet to hear a realistic one.
I agree that they have mechanics which are in active conflict but I do think ages give them better potential control. However, managing that control well is a balancing act of tempting versus shoving.
I think if you want to describe something as a toggle in an XML file (which, if true, would've been changed / fixed by modders long before the official patch - and I don't think it was), then why can't I do the same with Ara? What's a balance pass if not juggling a handful of numbers around?
There are things I always say are subjective. How much someone likes something is a classic example. We can like "bad" things, or dislike "good" things, and that's all good (well, when the Internet allows it).And of course like my comparison is mostly a personal view. Although I really find it hard to believe someone could look at this and say that the Civ roadmap is encouraging or something. I hope to see something new soon at least
I'm not a game designer, but I'm product manager, which has a lot in common, just for non-games. Also, I've read and watched a lot of materials on game design, like the classic Schell's "The art of game design" and most of the materials tell that you can't really plan game features - they need to be tested and only after playtest you could understand how people react to them.
Isn't that a really bad worst case in 7? If 1/3 of the civs only get played when they are irrelavent that's fairly problematic, no? I actually think that is the fatal flaw for Civ Switching at least. There's a lot of psychological negatives to it, but that is the one which pretty much kills it.
I'm here for the Antiquity era and quick games I can play on Steam Deck. It's striking how good the game is before the bad mechanics kick in... Especially since single age exploration and modern are also solid. Maybe the good future for Civ7's design is that the original game setup becomes three scenarios.
That is a good point to shine a light on. I had only been thinking in terms of players quitting mid game as the challenge and excitement dwindles as the game gets predictable. Civ 7 is certainly unique that this flaw, if uncorrected, wipes 1/3 of the content of the game away entirely.
Agreed. I am not quite at the point where I am leaning towards their removal, but I certainly understand why someone would. If they don't plan on opening them up for multiple styles of play, I would also prefer they just remove them.
Bleh.
That last part is not to my tastes, personally. I have not played exploration or modern as single era games yet and may never get around to it. Ancient will always have that excitement of revealing the map. It would be nice if Exploration and Modern also offered an exciting thing to discover as you played the age. Like if Independants (and piracy) became a meatier diplomacy game in Exploration just as an example. Something to get the player excited about a new aspect of the game that wasn't there last Age. Then do the same for Modern. But this is 2 big overhauls, which I think both of the last 2 ages need desperately. Which leads back to the roadmap...
