How important is it for Firaxis to admit mistakes or acknowledge failure?

[Lord Lakely]

I actually think they've hit this note well. One of the developers notes had a line to the effect of "increase players' feeling of identification and cohesion (or continuity, maybe it was) with their civilizations" and that said to me, "we've belatedly come to realize that civ-switching violates something crucial to many players: the feeling of guiding one civilization from stone age to space age. We'll explore ways we might enhance that effect within our present game design."

I have mixed feelings about how they're communicating this though. It almost leaves the impression that any of the changes they've made based on fan feedback (indicated with that little star) were not planned in the first place, and some of those changes feel crucial to the game. It simultaneously creates two impressions: that the devs have lost touch with the base ideas of what a polished game should be, and that they're almost bending over arse-backwards to placate the fans after realizing they shat the bed.

Some of the fan feedback also doesn't represent the preferences of the silent majority of Civ7 players, but those of the very loud minority. If you don't speak up and try to enjoy the game you're licensed to play, you risk seeing changes other 'fans' wanted to see but you didn't.

 

[GeneralZift]

Modern already plays like a mini-age. The second it starts you want to finish it, as quickly as possible, before the AI turns start taking an eternity.

A fourth small age after Modern just feels pointless to me. Just incorporate the Information Age inside the third act, and expand the victory conditions to have more intricate steps. (steps you can actively prepare for in the late half Exploration, ideally).

Personally, I would see every Age as having three distinct acts:

Antiquity: Bronze Age, Iron Age, Classical Antiquity
Exploration: Feudal Age, Renaissance, Age of Enlightenment
Modern: Industrial Revolution, Atomic Age, Information Age.

You can tweak the Tech tree accordingly so that the 3rd act of Antiquity and Exploration align with the 1st act of Modern and Exploration, respectively, and potentially even cross over before the Age Transition itself (as it does in Ara). There little you can do to prevent full snowballing, but you can allow the behind players to automatically catch up in Tech at the start of the new Era, or even a new act within the same age on high difficulties such as Deity.

I also like to see the extention of the Modern Age because some prospective Civs (such as the Zulu) lack a clear Modern Wonder, and they could use an Information Era edifice linked to their culture as their Wonder (like the Cradle of Humankind for the Zulu).

But that's probably a discussion point for a different topic.

You know what, incorporating it is the better idea. Although makes me feel bad that it will probably be a DLC rather than an update.

 

[Gorbles]

I have no problems with another Age.

At the same time, I echo calls for Modern to be improved (and Exploration, but we are already seeing that over time). I don't think it's a zero-sum game in that regard.

 

[tman2000]

But if you think they should, you've probably lost any grasp on the reality of these matters.

By the way, weren't you in a similar situation some months ago after the launch of 7? What made you actually come back? What changed?

Being a bit rude and personal here, but FWIW I never ever said I was done with the Civ franchise. I said I was done playing 7 and didn't feel like participating with the game anymore (modding, gameplay stories, etc.) The story of its trainwreck is different. This game could kill the franchise and I think an ongoing "post-mortem" is critical and at the very least interesting.

Regardless, I don't get your angle. You're acting incredulous about Civ 6. You honestly don't remember people being very critical of it being too much like a board game? I never said the game was unliked. I said that people were reticent about the direction and were hoping it would reverse in future games. The unstacking of cities was widely criticized because it significantly impacted the effectiveness of the AI. The AI never doing anything by the modern era was one of the most common criticisms of Civ 6 at launch.

I really don't get your angle. Are you really claiming that you have no memory or consciousness of the fact that unstacked cities leading to poor AI and a dead late game was a significant early criticism of Civ 6, and then accusing other people of losing their grip on reality?

Yes, Firaxis should have apologized for Civ 6. Not a formal apology such as what I think would be helpful for Civ 7 for marketing reasons, but there should have been two reactions to Civ 6's launch.

1) Make up for the swing and a miss design decision with great DLC. They did this successfully.
2) Stop going in a board game direction, return to roots for the next iteration, maybe let Ed Beach move on as has always been the case with past Civ games and their leads.

Not doing the second point has been an unmitigated disaster for the franchise and the roots are clear for everyone to see in Civ 6 and its highly criticized design decisions.

I also am not sure if you're picking up on rather elementary nuance here. Just because districts were not preferred by a major slice of the audience, and caused many problems, doesn't mean everything about them was universally hated. You seem to be building up a strawman to that effect and then using it to attack me personally. What, are you Ed Beach Jr. or something? Please, let's calm this down.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Some of the fan feedback also doesn't represent the preferences of the silent majority of Civ7 players, but those of the very loud minority. If you don't speak up and try to enjoy the game you're licensed to play, you risk seeing changes other 'fans' wanted to see but you didn't.

This, I think, is why they're hiring that "Director of Product." The qualifications include the ability to elicit and sift through user responses to find the ones that represent the real majority opinion, not just the loud minority.

 

[Lord Lakely]

This, I think, is why they're hiring that "Director of Product." The qualifications include the ability to elicit and sift through user responses to find the ones that represent the real majority opinion, not just the loud minority.

What worries me about it, is that it also indicates that the approach might be data-driven - it's based on statistics and profit, rather than you know... heart and soul, intuition, passion and other things that give games that extra bit of feel.

Hopefully the Head of Product is hired specifically to address that problem, because it is a problem - Companies that operate solely on statistical results and profit, tend to cultivate environments in which they put out slop, which is then happily consumed by the masses, because everyone else is doing the same. I hope that this HoP will push for changes that will give Civ7 a soul.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Oh, it's driven by profit, no doubt.

The ad does indicate that the successful applicant will be one who knows and is enthusiastic about the franchise. So maybe they'll preserve the "soul."

 

[Nikolai II]

I have no problems with another Age.

At the same time, I echo calls for Modern to be improved (and Exploration, but we are already seeing that over time). I don't think it's a zero-sum game in that regard.

Same. Another age sounds fun, but I hope for and expect a lot to change before they go in that direction.

 

[Kwami]

This, I think, is why they're hiring that "Director of Product." The qualifications include the ability to elicit and sift through user responses to find the ones that represent the real majority opinion, not just the loud minority.

I do worry about this. There's a very loud minority here that rants and raves about what they don't like every day, but people who enjoy the game don't post as much. Maybe CFC isn't typical, though.

 

[GeneralZift]

Wait if they're hiring a new Head of Product, doesn't that mean they're firing the last one? Probably over what happened with the release?

 

[Gori the Grey]

It's a new position.

At least it isn't listed in the credits of Civ 7. (But they list every blessed person involved in the game in any capacity, so I think that's fairly conclusive.)

 

[GeneralZift]

I do worry about this. There's a very loud minority here that rants and raves about what they don't like every day, but people who enjoy the game don't post as much. Maybe CFC isn't typical, though.

Man I don't know why you use this sort of rude language, but I have to say, only in your mind is there a loud "minority" critique when it comes to Civ7.

Take a look at the reviews. The average user does not recommend the game. This means there is a "silent majority" of people who dislike the game.
Now go on Reddit. People who like the game are the most likely to go online and post strategy guides, fun screenshots, stories of their games etc. This makes them the "loud" group.

In comparison, people who don't like the game are likely to leave a review or a post and never play it again. Or not Buy it in the first place.

What you see on CFC (and YouTube) is a group of constructive critics who leave long detailed essays about what they like and dislike. It's not random toxic hate as on some other forums (ie the woke hate)
You even see tons of suggestions and ideas.

CFC is very lucky in that we have lots of respectful fans and respectful critics, and respectful 'people in the middle' in order to have in-depth discussions.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yes, this site should be a gold mine for the new Director of Product.

It will still require a lot of sifting to make use of the data here. Many of the posts are very thoughtful. But the very thing that makes them thoughtful (precision of observation) will make them hard to aggregate, so that the DoP can give the developers the best sense of how to move forward in such a way as to draw back in the largest group of gettable customers.

 

[aelf]

Though it's not a Civ game unless we get a spaceship, GDRs, nukes and the internet.

GDRs weren't even in the first 4 Civ games.

 

[stealth_nsk]

GDRs weren't even in the first 4 Civ games.

Yeah, but we have it for 15 years, it's already rooted in.

 

[Gorbles]

Yeah, but we have it for 15 years, it's already rooted in.

Makes for an interesting theory game of what's considered baked in, in 15 years time.

Or by 2031 (15 years post-Civ VI).

 

[ColtSeavers]

I do worry about this. There's a very loud minority here that rants and raves about what they don't like every day, but people who enjoy the game don't post as much. Maybe CFC isn't typical, though.

Sure, only a "very loud minority" dislikes the game... Come on, you can't be serious about this!

 

[Kwami]

Man I don't know why you use this sort of rude language, but I have to say, only in your mind is there a loud "minority" critique when it comes to Civ7.

Take a look at the reviews. The average user does not recommend the game. This means there is a "silent majority" of people who dislike the game.

It's barely a majority at 51/49 right now. But I wasn't talking about all players everywhere. I was just talking about here. Here, there's a group of about 10-12 posters who continuously post the same complaints over and over again in many threads.

While there's still some constructive criticism around here, most of what I see is predictions of doom, attacks on the developers, misinformation, and binary, no shades-of-grey complaining. And if anyone tries to say that they like the game, everyone else piles on to tell them that they're wrong and that the game is a failure. This board has become very unpleasant.

 

[ColtSeavers]

It's barely a majority at 51/49 right now. But I wasn't talking about all players everywhere. I was just talking about here. Here, there's a group of about 10-12 posters who continuously post the same complaints over and over again in many threads.

While there's still some constructive criticism around here, most of what I see is predictions of doom, attacks on the developers, misinformation, and binary, no shades-of-grey complaining. And if anyone tries to say that they like the game, everyone else piles on to tell them that they're wrong and that the game is a failure. This board has become very unpleasant.

51 % of people who bought! the game wrote a negative review! If you included the disapointed Civ fans who didn't purchase the game, the unfavorability number would much higher than that. There is just no way to call people who dislike this game, just a "very vocal minority", that's absurd.

 

[Kwami]

51 % of people who bought! the game wrote a negative review! If you included the disapointed Civ fans who didn't purchase the game, the unfavorability number would much higher than that. There is just no way to call people who dislike this game, just a "very vocal minority", that's absurd.

No, 51% of people who bough the game and left a review left a negative review. The overwhelming majority of players never left a review and we have no way of knowing how they feel about the game.

And again, I was writing about this forum, not the entire world. When the game was released, there were a lot more people posting here and about a dozen or so people who kept ruining every thread with their complaints. Over time, the other posters have mostly left and now the complainers are a much larger percentage of the overall posters still here.