Modders doing the work of devs

[SammyKhalifa]

I'm actually a bit surprised that we didn't get a hotfix for those issues. Firaxis actually did release a small hotfix after the previous big patch.

Anyway, just remember that there are far more modders than developers, that modders don't have to answer to anyone but themselves, and that every team has to prioritize what they work on. What's problematic to you (e.g. WASD controls) might not be a priority for the team.

Yes, all this. A million monkeys on a million typewriters vs. a dozen monkeys on a dozen typewriters (no offense intended to anyone).

And the "modders fix everything!" set need to remember that there are also many many crappy bugridden do-really-unbalanced-stupid-things-with-the-rules mods.

 

[GrumboMumbo]

I don't think the OP is saying that all they want is WASD controls. Clearly a lot of quality of life changes could, and some have be made to the game since launch.

However, I don't want to speak for anyone else, I will instead give my own perspective after only 163 hours in civ6 so far. Perhaps with so few hours I am considered a casual player?

Obviously there are different levels of bugs/QoL fixes that could be made to the game. But some should have higher priority than others.

Major bugs:

1. Production Queue Bug - It is currently possible to select nothing in your build queue and 'build up' production in any city. So from turn 1 you can build up production, and when you unlock the tech for Stonehenge for example, you can then use that stored production to complete the wonder in 1 turn. Is this a minor QoL fix? or is it a game-breaking bug that needs fixing before anyone can even take the game seriously?

2. Send Aid Emergency Bug - This is to do with the AI and how they handle 'Send Aid Requests' Very seriously. Currently it is possible to get huge (game changing) amounts of gold if you have a natural disaster happen and there are any AI in the game. I still need to test this to see if it happens everytime, but I am confident that it will. (see my other thread for details if you are unsure what i mean)

There are lots of other Minor balance/QoL fixes that I am sure many people would like to see, and some already have been added by Firaxis. Like the UI mod that made it so you can make pins with the district images on them. At the top of my list here would be the AI's behaviour in general, but I honestly don't think they can even fix that now. The fundementals are so flawed that it would need a whole new AI system in place.

 

[Sknubbinateur]

Sknubbinateur said: ↑
I think it is normal that we expect a fully functional product.

quite the opposite, when did Windows last release a finished version? Oracle? Sap? I work with all 3 of these big guns and a new version is always rubbish till it’s been beta tested by the end users.

I believe you instantly. But just that most things aren't of great quality doesn't mean we should lower our quality standards, imo. If most public toilets are dirty, doesn't mean I'll be fine with the fact that the next one I go to is also dirty, etc.

And finally as already stated they strip money out of the testing area to pay for what is considered ‘scope creep’ and similar.... and modder ideas are often considered scope creep, indeed the title of this thread is the cause of delays and lack of good testing.

I just read up on scope and feature creep, interesting. I would think the planning of a development project should include options to add more, unforeseen things as it goes on, because you can notice possibilities for improvements as you go. Would think that this improves quality; Wikipedia says that feature creep can lead to "over-complication, rather than simple design" but you can leave the simple design as the default setting and the complexities as options for the power users. But seems the problem again is money (budget for a game limited and fixed in advance, commitment to release the game by a certain time for commercial reasons / because the revenue is needed now).

But what do you mean by that "modders doing the work of devs" causes delays and lack of money for good testing? That devs often add more features than planned, because they're afraid otherwise modders will do it? (In case of Civ 6, I can't really identify 'superfluous' features)

we live in age where the young people have an attention span of a few minutes ( gross generalization but hey it is a youtube stat ) , and we want new toys, new everything all the time.
the gaming industry , as any other, has to adapt or die. so they found this preorder-beta version - microtransaction - DLC model , that works well for them at the moment.
Now coming to the crux of the issue , as with any model that works well , the market leaders ( in this case big publishers with deep coffers like EA-activision or any other who want to be big ) will hire managers that will exploit the model .these managers have only one goal , to make money. Guess what doesnt make money , a little hint , anything AFTER people already paid for the game. Or do you think it is just a coincidence that EA buys hugely succesful companies , have them spit out the next version of their successful franchise in half the time and with tons of bugs , dont support the game apart DLC-micro transactions, have poor communication ( it gets harder and harder to find excuses that will cover up the truth of "we dont have the budget to fix this" ) and then shut them down?
I understand that developpers have a job to do and that unfortunately is usually what the money guys tell them. So i am never angry at them , i just blame the publishers and project managers who mishandle the game/franchise. Take a note of who did what and dont spend any money on their next project/game. If you want to see a change , you are in a unique position to do so. Dont spend money , dont preorder and show them that this is not how the sector should progress. Of course the price of the games will skyrocket because of this .

Agree 100% with your analysis (not just gaming industry but many industries in our profit-maximising economy: journalists being under pressure to write clickbait, etc). I also would agree that games should be more expensive as the price of a base game hasn't increased since I got Nintendo 64 games for the equivalent of €60, 20 years ago, despite inflation and increasing product quality.

But what to do as individual consumers? Would be nice, but if no publishers exist with a model that really assures quality support of a game to the same standards as modders currently do for free, because they can't survive in a cutthroat market, no way to support them.

For digital card games, I'm playing and supporting Faeria because it's the ONLY one where you buy the game once for a normal price and get all the cards, and it's not faring so well in the market. All others have microtransactions based on manipulative gambling mechanisms (random card packs with rare rewards). Probably some of the developers aren't happy with that either, but feel forced to because it makes them more money, people get invested and have to keep playing, bigger playerbase, more publicity, more money, etc and will otherwise get crowded out of the market. And card games are much less expensive to develop than grand strategy games...

And the "modders fix everything!" set need to remember that there are also many many crappy bugridden do-really-unbalanced-stupid-things-with-the-rules mods.

Doesn't matter, if modders still fix everything with the base game in the end, and you can ignore the other mods Not saying that the average quality of a mod is better than the average quality of a feature by the designers, the average is not relevant anyway but just the best things (check out Sturgeon's law).

 

[Karmah]

I have no issue with the fact that modder can release a fix before a company. It's devoted people who don't need to answer to anyone , unlike the company. I even sometimes suspects that some company release mods under anonimity to avoid the extra-responsability of officiality.
I do have one concern however , when a mod is around for ages and truly improves a non-mechanical aspect of the game , like say the UI, in a meaningfull way , why not give a bit of money to the guy and incorporate the code into the main product. It is gonna be very cheap compared to your IT manhours because a few hundreds of bucks are enough , as it is a pure reconnaissance gift. That is what does not make sense to me.

 

[Gorbles]

Legal restrictions. I'm speaking in a historical sense with a now-defunct publisher, because that's the last time I experienced this personally.

To incorporate code not owned by you into a product you legally own, it introduces a lot of red tape. And even then, it still factors into production pipelines and needs to pass internal QA, etc.

 

[Kwami]

Firaxis has already included one mod into the main game (Map Tacks). They did it before with improved AI in Civ IV, too. So, I'm sure that they could include others. I'm too lazy to check right now, but I bet there's a clause in the game's user agreement that says all mods are fair game to Firaxis and whatnot.

 

[Deliverator]

Firaxis has already included one mod into the main game (Map Tacks). They did it before with improved AI in Civ IV, too. So, I'm sure that they could include others. I'm too lazy to check right now, but I bet there's a clause in the game's user agreement that says all mods are fair game to Firaxis and whatnot.

Yeah this. I believe Firaxis has the right to incorporate any mods if they choose too.

 

[Sknubbinateur]

Yeah this. I believe Firaxis has the right to incorporate any mods if they choose too.

Claims the right in its own conditions, not sure how it would hold up legally, but don't think anyone is going to challenge them on it

I'm actually a bit surprised that we didn't get a hotfix for those issues. Firaxis actually did release a small hotfix after the previous big patch.

​

Anyway, just remember that there are far more modders than developers, that modders don't have to answer to anyone but themselves, and that every team has to prioritize what they work on. What's problematic to you (e.g. WASD controls) might not be a priority for the team.

This is what I find quite puzzling actually tbh. I used the WASD as an example because allowing the arrow keys to be mapped is a basic functionality in the vast majority of games since decades afaik. I see no reason why it should be left to modders to include something like that in Civ other than that it is 'low priority'. But can't we just expect a complete product? When we go to a movie or buy a book, we expect it to be more or less as good as it can be. It would be very strange if you got a book where let's say chapter 7 is incomplete because there was no more time to finish it, or there are textual mistakes in some parts because these were considered low priority. Of course this isn't directly comparable since games are more complicated to make etc but still

 

[Lanthar]

This is what I find quite puzzling actually tbh. I used the WASD as an example because allowing the arrow keys to be mapped is a basic functionality in the vast majority of games since decades afaik. I see no reason why it should be left to modders to include something like that in Civ other than that it is 'low priority'. But can't we just expect a complete product? When we go to a movie or buy a book, we expect it to be more or less as good as it can be. It would be very strange if you got a book where let's say chapter 7 is incomplete because there was no more time to finish it, or there are textual mistakes in some parts because these were considered low priority. Of course this isn't directly comparable since games are more complicated to make etc but still​

There are still errors in books - an occasional typo or misspelling, especially if they are rushed. The more complicated software is, the harder and most expensive it will be test - especially given the array of hardware and software setups your software has to interface with and work with. Physical products are made with defects all the time - how many car recalls are there that aren't software updates? Remember the coffee cups in Game of Thrones? Movies and shows have errors from time to time also. Perfection is a desirable goal, but we live in reality and need to realize that there will be issues. We shouldn't accept substandard products, but software shipping with bugs isn't automatically substandard, since all software ships with bugs.

Some complaints are also just disagreements - WASD being a good example. It's likely WASD movement wasn't included because it didn't fit the specific UI design/interface philosophy used for this game, not because of incomplete programming. It's certainly justifiable not to play a game, or be annoyed, by an interface you don't like. I wasn't happy with their choice to not let you use the number pad to move units, but that doesn't make the game incomplete or substandard. It's important to realize an individual's preferences don't make a game substandard, either.

​

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I assume six direction movement killed the arrow keys, but i miss it too.

 

[Kwami]

Well, the arrow keys work just fine to move around the map. It's just that WASD doesn't do the same thing.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Can't really wrap my head around the reasons for this. Maybe it is because of the organisational structure of such a company (developers getting orders from above and not having the freedom to improve things they encounter themselves)? Or why don't they hire some of the modders? Do modders generally feel frustrated that they're doing the work of the devs for free or don't mind?

Games development isn't about "incentive". Games developers are often worked incredibly exhausting hours for below-average pay (compared to software development in general). Developers have more tasks to complete in any given week than they have hours to complete them in (comfortable assumption from me, a regular software developer, knowing the additional work games developers often have to taken on). Tasks (as in regular software dev) are done in order of priority (most of the time).

Project management isn't easy. It was one of the more skill-intensive parts of my graduate work, both in making unbiased/reasonable estimates and handling the software. There were more groups than there were total people in the class that could use the software well, and even among those with a good computer person they often choked anyway with their planning, despite the professor's warnings.

And that was introductory stuff compared to what good PMs do.

Needless to say, quite a few developers don't even get one minute of formal training for project management. Some certainly do, but it's still not easy and it's still probably outside the area of expertise they've spent the most time. What's more, game development is lower stakes & lower wage than other programming ventures, so unless someone's doing it out of love for games dominating $$$ you're going to get weaker candidates on average.

~~~

So we can cut them some slack on things like difficulty bonus scaling, which is non-trivial and has some design tradeoffs anyway. We probably shouldn't cut them much slack in terms of end-user access to information about the rules of the game. They are consistently sending a message that they consider paid DLC/new civs to be more important than presenting the rules of the game consistently and accurately to the player, and in most gaming genres that is not a respectable message.

But it is fair to blame the project manager/higher ups for this rather than a particular designer/programmer, depending on context. Firaxis/Pdox both reek of project management failures, while Pdox also reeks of a few other things. AAA/big money companies in particular have degenerate incentives that invite problems. Their marketing/non-gameplay budgets are so large that they need to sell ridiculous quantities to be profitable, often encouraging PM to cut corners at the expense of long-term goodwill.

"We have a functional UI that doesn't lie to you or force 1000's of strictly unnecessary inputs" isn't a strong marketing slogan, even though a strategy game that delivers on such a promise would be unique today. In that sense, I also blame the doormat market, not just project management/devs. That SHOULD be valued over a marginal extra civ, because problems with it are encountered every game regardless of civ choice. But like developers/PMs, consumers are not consistently rational, to put it mildly. Per the cartoon earlier in this thread, many of them can't even give coherent explanations of their own preferences (see threads about whether something is an "exploit" and why for examples of this --> this type of discussion/"rationale" has led to directly harmful + indefensible changes in multiple Pdox titles).

 

[Lord Shadow]

Trying to distill everything mentioned and adding my own perspective (I also work in the IT sector), the work of developers and the work of modders is worlds apart.

Developers are responsible for the entire game, and have to work with limited resources for a limited timeframe following a central design vision. Modders have the extreme luxury of being able to play hundreds of hours, leisurely pick up things they might find "broken", and then spend weeks or months on end tinkering with relatively small details, at their own pace, on their own time and whenever they feel like it.

Developers, as I've said, are on the clock as they rush to identify and prioritize the real game breakers and then fix them according to the resources available and the design vision. What a random player or even group of players may perceive as important flaws may be neither important nor even flawed in the devs or designers' eyes. What "should've been in the base game" is extremely subjective, and highly dependent on the design vision.

As much as it may pain a segment of us, it's highly doubtful Firaxis believes the state of AI is one of those game breakers. Not only because significantly improving it requires grossly disproportionate amounts of resources, but also because player-like AI isn't a priority in Sid Meier's design philosophy. The human player is always the protagonist. Civilization is not about a battle of equals. It's likely not even a priority for the silent majority of the playerbase.

As for tiny things like WASD map movement or specific implementations of difficulty, I can almost guarantee there were always higher priorities, more critical problems to fix. The "nice to have" section of improvements is always left for last, and with a limited budget and deadlines, it's not uncommon for teams to never get there.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

Trying to distill everything mentioned and adding my own perspective (I also work in the IT sector), the work of developers and the work of modders is worlds apart.

Developers are responsible for the entire game, and have to work with limited resources for a limited timeframe following a central design vision. Modders have the extreme luxury of being able to play hundreds of hours, leisurely pick up things they might find "broken", and then spend weeks or months on end tinkering with relatively small details, at their own pace, on their own time and whenever they feel like it.

It sounds like you're saying astronomy is much more fun when you're not an astronomer

 

[Ziad]

As a dev this thread makes me irrationally angry because it assumes the fault lies with them exclusively rather than the company as a whole, most importantly the business team.

Sure you have your unprofessional or unqualified devs here and there but most of them actually care about doing a good job.

As far as the business team is concerned the game is fully playable and the number of games it would take to notice such bugs, imbalances, and silly AI is relatively large compared to the number of games the overwhelming majority of buyers actually play, let alone those that actually care about them enough to want them fixed.

QA isnt there to make the game bug free. It's there to make sure that the most important ones are addressed first. Ultimately a lot of bugs dont get fixed in time or a fix produces another bug in a seemingly endless game of wackamole.

I assure you that devs know that they are releasing a product that has bugs. They just dont have a choice in the matter.

You know who does? Passionate modders with time on their hands.

And lets not get carried away. A modder realizes their vision of the game. It doesnt mean it works for most players. VP in civ5 is a masterpiece but its systems can be overwhelming for the average player.