Agree. Mere “patches” aren’t going to do it. It’s fascinating that this crowd, which consistently cites Cyberpunk 2077 and No Man’s Sky as examples, fails to note that those comebacks resulted from massive transformations, not just nipping around the edges.
Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread
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youngsteve
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Also Imperator Rome had massive time & resources ploughed into the game by Paradox, but still couldn't save it, even though the game was in a good condition in the end. I hardly think Take 2 is going to be as generous in either time or money. Having a disasterous opening is something any company should avoid if possible.
Agree, and it’s just another reason why Firaxis needs to abandon its secretive development process in favor of something that is more open. Openness doesn’t guarantee success (i.e. Victoria 3, but that title suffered from Martin Anward’s hubris, and its development since has conceded virtually every community concern leading up to release), but it can help detect issues that the dev team might be insulated from. It isn’t unusual for a minority idea to take root in a dev team (best example of this imo is Mass Effect: Andromeda, where a disproportionate number of the devs loved ME1’s uncharted worlds), and allowing more community feedback earlier in the process helps guard against that.
GeneralZift
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I think it's coming, I mean they'll definitely try. Don't forget Civ5/6 also went through those massive transformation via expansion packs. I only saw that Civ7 only has regular DLC planned though and not news of an expansion, perhaps someone can clear that up
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Looking on the bright side Civ 7 has a chance to become a cult favorite with a small, vocal minority singing its praises.
I'll be very surprised if Civ 7 doesn't get an expansion, but of course Firaxis hasn't announced one, yet. They won't announce one until a few months before it's released. Same as ever.
aieeegrunt
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At minimum civ switching and the era reset need a complete rework
There are some good ideas in the “My solution to Civ Switching” thread for the former.
Civ5 and 6 didn’t ditch the core identity of the game
stealth_nsk
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Depends on what you define as the core identity. Civ5 was more revolutionary than Civ7 in many aspects in it's time. Not only because of 1UpT, but, for example, due to tall/wide balance concept, which put "expand" aspect of 4X under question.
Well 1.2.3 seems to be a big rework of the age transition…eliminating a massive amount of the actual transition.
I wouldn’t be surprised if 1.2.4 or 1.2.5 lets you keep/choose your civs name/city list/graphics. and then 1.3.0 gave the ability for a single civ game (with unique bonuses for only one age)
stealth_nsk
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I would be really surprised. Age transition and civ switching are different things and all civs are designed to be age-specific.
Yes, but
1. just keeping the name, etc. doesn’t affect age-specific factors
2. If civs only have their uniques in their “native” age and semi-generic bonuses in the other ages, the civs are still age-specific…but you could play them all the way through.
GeneralZift
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Yea but doesn't matter, doesn't affect what I said. They'll still probably try to fix it with an expansion. And core identity or not, the older games did suck and fixed it with an expansion.
I think ever since Firaxis was acquired by TakeTwo, this has been the case right? The producers rush it out every time.
So I agree with you but it doesn't matter.
aieeegrunt
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5 and 6 didn’t have the debacle of a launch, sales, and playercount that 7 does, clearly something is different.
GeneralZift
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Dude, I just said I agree with you, but like I said, it makes no difference in the way things play out - they'll still try to save it with an expansion / DLC, whether or not they succeed is hard to know.
So okay, Civ7 was worse, and okay it doesn't play like a Civ game in some people's eyes.
Well it's still going to go down the same route of trying to fix the game with the expansions, and maybe in 5 years it will be a good game somehow. You just never know
The ability to turn off large parts of the game isnt a major rework. It's the bare minimum Firaxis could do - it doesn't require any real game design or thoughtful consideration from Firaxis. The absence of these features doesn't fix anything for people who dislike what civ7 is at its core; it only removes some annoying elements for those who already bought the game and are still playing it. New players are still expected to pay a AAAA price for a AA game, only to find they need to disable half the default settings just to get something that reminds them of a civ game - and even then, it still isn't quite there.
I mean, Cyberpunk didn't have that massive of a "transformation", it "just" received a great amount of additional content, flair, polish and technical fixes, plus some gameplay redesigns, over a long time period for free - before dropping very well made big DLC. Civ series already have a precedent of a game changing a lot between 1.0 and final version, that game being civ5 - its entire combat system and diplomacy were redesigned along the way, an enormous amount of content compared to the barren base version got added etc.
Civ7 also needs only one truly massive dilemma and reform to solve, I think - what to do with the civ switching controversy. We can see devs being ready to redesign and "soften" a lot about era transitions, so it's not that big of a deal, but civ switching is an enigma and there are many approaches possible. They may not be willing to compromise at all, focusing instead to make the best of the current system, or make so civs have to be unlocked but then can be retained in the next era (would need some rebalance though), or maybe even introduce the oft discussed "classic mode" of persistent civs (strangely enough it would actually need less rebalance that the previous humble proposal I think), or something in between like "classic mode but optionally you may change civs during the game, AI also does it but only occasionally".
I honestly think that the latter proposal, well advertised some blabla director's cut civ7 with blabla classic mode, stand the test of time again, could help attract a lot of players when combined with more content and the notions of the general redesign of the UI, era transitions, map generation etc.
Maybe I'm not completely pessimistic yet because I have followed the development of Stellaris and hoo boy this is a strategy video game equivalent of a Ship of Theseus paradox, for example it has completely thrown out of the window and turned upside down its most fundamental economic systems twice
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aieeegrunt
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Dude, I just said I agree with you, but like I said, it makes no difference in the way things play out - they'll still try to save it with an expansion / DLC, whether or not they succeed is hard to know.
So okay, Civ7 was worse, and okay it doesn't play like a Civ game in some people's eyes.
Well it's still going to go down the same route of trying to fix the game with the expansions, and maybe in 5 years it will be a good game somehow. You just never know
I see your point sorry
A lot of the rest of the game revolves around both civ switching and the era reset, it will take a fair amount of surgery.
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Felon
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Yeah, they did. Neither are the same type of game as Civ 1 through 4.
aieeegrunt
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They had some major mechanics changes, but you were still building a civ to stand the test of time
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