Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[Pistol90]

As I said earlier, they introduce too many changes no-one asked for ...

They didnt change 1/3 of game, they change almost all of it.

And at least half of changes were in totally wrong direction (leaders and civ separation, narative events, age being game restart basicly, religion and culture huge simplification, etc) on top of game being unfinished.

 

[VGT]

Not to get too personal, but Ed Beach reminds me of some of the managers I worked with, very much convinced his ideas are better than others. I have a feeling he represents the current culture at Firaxis. With such drastic changes, you would of thought, they would test this with selected people to get real feedback. Instead they invited paid youtubers to praise their work.

It's interesting for me how your post triggered some self-reflection on my feelings towards the guy over the years. I recall I considered him savior of civ5 during civ5 expansions. Due to rocky launch and Jon Shafer's design decisions that didn't land with me, I felt back then Ed Beach saved it from likely demise. When he stayed for whole lifetime of civ6 instead of Firaxis doing what they usually do, which is bringing someone new for expansions - I celebrated it. I liked civ6 from the start, so I was happy he stayed at the wheel longer than expected and was hoping this will continue. Aaaaand boom - be careful what you wish for Civ 7 not landing with me to the point I didn't buy it for the first time and we're again in the situation where I'm hoping for another Ed Beach to show up save this franchise. But trying to look at it objectively, I assume there are people for whom my current feelings happen already at civ6 release if that version didn't land with them. And there are people for whom my celebration during civ6 is continuing because civ7 is ok for them. It boils down to which civ didn't land with you.

Still personally I feel current changes are biggest we ever had in this franchise, but maybe for fans of civ7 we're still within 1/3 rule and he's doing his work.

And for the culture representation. I would really like to know some day if there was sort of "toxic positivity" happening in Firaxis during civ7 development. Because I almost cannot believe there was no one in Firaxis team who would question those design decissions and try to raise yellow flags for them. If half the audience is not liking it, it's not possible all team members unanimously had nothing against it.

 

[trev1972]

There seem to be three overall camps of negative reaction: "Fundamentally the game simply isn't good"; "The game has good fundamentals, but was released too early"; and "The game's cost model is too much of a barrier to entry". I wonder what apparatus Firaxis has to diagnose the overall issue here. Do companies routinely do post-release focus groups? Are they relying on steam reviews? Reading social media and forum posts? I think the question of "Where do they go from here?" depends significantly on whether they can pinpoint exactly what is at fault here.

I am in the camp of those who hate changing civs and mix/matching leaders. But it must be difficult for firaxis to work out why the game is being bashed- is it the UI?, Is it the ages system?, Is it bugs?. Do people dislike the quest system?

Given the massive change made to the core game with this iteration (i would say it is a far bigger change than moving to hexes) i wonder how many veteran civ players and new players they invited to give feedback on the changes and how they acted upon that feedback?.

Did they know the decisions would be divisive but feel new customers gained would outnumber old players lost?

I guess we will never know, but given the huge sums of money involved i would have hoped they would have tried to get lots of feedback before forging ahead?.

 

[uppi]

And for the culture representation. I would really like to know some day if there was sort of "toxic positivity" happening in Firaxis during civ7 development. Because I almost cannot believe there was no one in Firaxis team who would question those design decissions and try to raise yellow flags for them. If half the audience is not liking it, it's not possible all team members unanimously had nothing against it.

What males you assume that there were no objections? From what you can read in the dev diaries, they had these discussions, evaluating different options and their pros and cons. It is not "toxic positivity" to follow design decisions once they have been made.

Honestly, if it were up to me, the comments on this thread would discourage me to ever make a Civ 8.

 

[VGT]

What males you assume that there were no objections? From what you can read in the dev diaries, they had these discussions, evaluating different options and their pros and cons. It is not "toxic positivity" to follow design decisions once they have been made.

If they did, then great. I stopped watching dev diaries early when I realized I will have issues with this iteration and decided to wait for youtubers let's plays to made my mind. And I agree that following design after open and truthful discussions happened is ok. But the thing is you heard summary of those discussion from one side and it's the side that could force their idea in the end. Which of course I understand is the role of creative director in case discussions are not conclusive. But toxic positivity can hide in this environment by some people just not saying their opinion out of fear. Anyway, don't take to much from my paragraph you quoted. It's just one wild assumption amongst many others that happened on this forum since game was released.

 

[Krikkit1]

I am in the camp of those who hate changing civs and mix/matching leaders. But it must be difficult for firaxis to work out why the game is being bashed- is it the UI?, Is it the ages system?, Is it bugs?. Do people dislike the quest system?

I think that is a key problem. There were big changes so some people would be upset about that (and others would like it). But the sloppy/rushed state it was released in (UI, bugs, Revenge) meant that the people that would have liked it either got bad word of mouth and didn’t buy it, or bought it and were disappointed enough to leave a bad (or not a good) review.

 

[Kyriakos]

Is it by now at all possible that major changes (which apparently are very unpopular) like the civ-changing can ever be annulled?
Personally I am not a fan of leaders outside the civ either - you already have someone to represent an external force in the game: yourself.

 

[UWHabs]

It's interesting for me how your post triggered some self-reflection on my feelings towards the guy over the years. I recall I considered him savior of civ5 during civ5 expansions. Due to rocky launch and Jon Shafer's design decisions that didn't land with me, I felt back then Ed Beach saved it from likely demise. When he stayed for whole lifetime of civ6 instead of Firaxis doing what they usually do, which is bringing someone new for expansions - I celebrated it. I liked civ6 from the start, so I was happy he stayed at the wheel longer than expected and was hoping this will continue. Aaaaand boom - be careful what you wish for Civ 7 not landing with me to the point I didn't buy it for the first time and we're again in the situation where I'm hoping for another Ed Beach to show up save this franchise. But trying to look at it objectively, I assume there are people for whom my current feelings happen already at civ6 release if that version didn't land with them. And there are people for whom my celebration during civ6 is continuing because civ7 is ok for them. It boils down to which civ didn't land with you.

Still personally I feel current changes are biggest we ever had in this franchise, but maybe for fans of civ7 we're still within 1/3 rule and he's doing his work.

And for the culture representation. I would really like to know some day if there was sort of "toxic positivity" happening in Firaxis during civ7 development. Because I almost cannot believe there was no one in Firaxis team who would question those design decissions and try to raise yellow flags for them. If half the audience is not liking it, it's not possible all team members unanimously had nothing against it.

It's slightly ironic that the first time the team effectively doesn't change the person at the top of the chain in development, is the one time that they arguably make the deepest changes to the franchise between iterations.
Now, obviously it's not just one person in the studio. I'm assuming Ed has to sign off on all the major features, but who knows which of the other stuff were the brainchildren of which of the other devs and producers.

I think that is a key problem. There were big changes so some people would be upset about that (and others would like it). But the sloppy/rushed state it was released in (UI, bugs, Revenge) meant that the people that would have liked it either got bad word of mouth and didn’t buy it, or bought it and were disappointed enough to leave a bad (or not a good) review.

I think if the only "problem" with the game was people not being fans of the unrestricted leaders and civ switching, they can live with that. While it certainly annoys some people, there's always some fans from the past who don't like something in the new iteration (people who hate 1upt, or hate districts, or disasters, etc...). But the fact that you really need a good 10-15 mods installed to have the game in a relatively usable state, doesn't help. The vast, vast, vast majority of users don't install any mods, and I can't even imagine what the game looks like right now without mods.

Is it by now at all possible that major changes (which apparently are very unpopular) like the civ-changing can even be annulled?
Personally I am not a fan of leaders outside the civ either - you already have someone to represent an external force in the game: yourself.

They can't walk them back completely, the game is too far for that. I'm sure they could add an option to be even stricter to make sure civs follow their historical/geographic paths. So you'd only ever meet Tecumseh playing the Mississippian (or maybe Maya) in the antiquity, as those are the only civs that lead to the Shawnee in the next era.
MAYBE they could figure out a way to add in a generic civ in missing eras, so that if I really wanted to, I could play all 3 eras as the Maya, but I only get generic bonuses outside of my heyday. I could maybe see modders find a hack to get that working, but whether they could come up with an official version of that, I'm not sure.

 

[Leucarum]

Is it by now at all possible that major changes (which apparently are very unpopular) like the civ-changing can even be annulled?
Personally I am not a fan of leaders outside the civ either - you already have someone to represent an external force in the game: yourself.

There are already some pretty brute force mods that allow you to play any civ in any era albeit with many of their uniques not working. I'm sure that there is a workaround firaxis can find to at least let you play civs from earlier eras in subsequent ones if Firaxis has the will to do so.

I think the degree of hostility to civ switching was something firaxis underestimated. I am in the "I don't like it but I can live with it" camp but that sounds like the most positive type of opinion which is frequently voiced, and it's not especially positive! People either are attached, or get attached to their civ. I get that switching lets every civ be played in the era they work best, but I never enjoy switching and it seems this is an area where emotion trumps logic.

On the other hand I doubt leader switching would go anywhere given how many of them don't have matching civs. It also seems to have a more even balance of people who like it compared to those who don't (or maybe even have slightly more supporters than detractors). I wouldn't be surprised to see it be an evergreen feature in future civs if I'm honest as it opens up a lot of design space and isn't as divisive as some other changes.

I do feel bad for firaxis since the scale of changes was always going to be tough to balance without massive amounts of player data. Honestly it's impressive they got antiquity as well as they did!

 

[evonannoredars]

I think that is a key problem. There were big changes so some people would be upset about that (and others would like it). But the sloppy/rushed state it was released in (UI, bugs, Revenge) meant that the people that would have liked it either got bad word of mouth and didn’t buy it, or bought it and were disappointed enough to leave a bad (or not a good) review.

Strongly agreed, also the UI quality would probably impact how people receive the big game changes too. The civ switching only kicks in a third of the way through the game, so if someone's been having a bad time with the UI up until then, they're probably more likely to think negatively of other things too. Pricing also set up people for disappointment too.

I'm confident the game will become much better with time (tho imo it's alright as it is) and think people are being a bit overdramatic rn about how bad it is/how civ is doomed/etc, but how the game launched definitely set it up for controversy.

 

[user746383]

I suspect that if they changed the game so that your old civ didn't die offscreen as part of a crisis for a new one to take over their buildings, and it was more like your civ was adopting the "spirit of the Bulgarians" at the new age people would feel very differently about it. People might not like it from a mechanics standpoint, but inserting guaranteed failure and collapse twice in any given game just feels odd in a game about building a civilization to stand the test of time.

 

[Leucarum]

I'm sure they could add an option to be even stricter to make sure civs follow their historical/geographic paths. So you'd only ever meet Tecumseh playing the Mississippian (or maybe Maya) in the antiquity, as those are the only civs that lead to the Shawnee in the next era.

They already do this as closely as they can as they try to pick civs which match the leader/previous civ. Though I honestly find from a gameplay perspective that I would rather the opposite - when leaders always pick the same civs, with such a small roster you end up seeing the same combination of civ/leader over and over. I'd hope for a game setting option on what degree of historicity you want leaders to follow rather than a strict rule.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I suspect that if they changed the game so that your old civ didn't die offscreen as part of a crisis for a new one to take over their buildings, and it was more like your civ was adopting the "spirit of the Bulgarians" at the new age people would feel very differently about it. People might not like it from a mechanics standpoint, but inserting guaranteed failure and collapse twice in any given game just feels odd in a game about building a civilization to stand the test of time.

That would make no difference for me. The game breaking bit for me is the over focus on leaders that don't correspond to the civs, and the city lists being incompatible across eras, and that AI can do bonkers culture switches

I could get on board with Civ switching if there was a proper path a la China for every Civ, preferably with more than one option each transition.

But I already know that's going to be completely cost prohibitive to achieve based on their pricing model so Civ VII is a complete write off to me. I can get what I want from a historical based 4X already with Civ V, so id rather not waste my money.

 

[itix]

I would not blame Ed Beach (alone). Quote from interview:

[...] you can do things like, you can have Augustus Caesar lead India, you can have Hatshepsut of Egypt lead Rome. So some of the things do strike you as a little bit wacky, but there are really good reasons and compelling reasons to try those things out... leaders that don't normally go together might have bonuses in the same part of the game and you just want to explore, wow, what if I get really powerful in culture or in my military strategies?

[...] Our quality assurance department who's playing the game all the time is like, "Oh, you got to try this one with that one, because that's amazing." So it's great to hear that kind of stuff.

Result: 50% negative reviews.

 

[Civinator]

just feels odd in a game about building a civilization to stand the test of time.

Sorry, but Civ 7 is no longer a game to build a civilization to stand the test of time. That´s why the new slogan is: "Build something you believe in".

The problem is, how should I build something I believe in, if the new mechanisms in Civ 7 are defenitely not convincing me ? The immortal leader was always the worst element for me in every version of the civ series. In earlier versions I simply ignored that element by only looking at the other civs and ignoring their wrong leaders and in Civ 3 there is a chance to mitigate that problem by having at least 4 era-specific leaders for each civ.

And now I should only believe in those ridicolous immortal leaders and all the civs are only "sound and smoke" ? And with all this - in my eyes - nonsense I should be able to build something that I believe in ?? My answer is no !

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I would not blame Ed Beach (alone). Quote from interview:

[...] you can do things like, you can have Augustus Caesar lead India, you can have Hatshepsut of Egypt lead Rome. So some of the things do strike you as a little bit wacky, but there are really good reasons and compelling reasons to try those things out... leaders that don't normally go together might have bonuses in the same part of the game and you just want to explore, wow, what if I get really powerful in culture or in my military strategies?

[...] Our quality assurance department who's playing the game all the time is like, "Oh, you got to try this one with that one, because that's amazing." So it's great to hear that kind of stuff.

Result: 50% negative reviews.

One thing I'm quite certain of is that the dev team over-focused on how much players like to do "cool new things", post "yield spam porn", win in odd ball ways, etc. It's like they noticed that people loved seeing slam dunks and half-court 3-pointers in basketball and changed the rules of the game to create more of those moments, resulting in the All-Star game basketball that practically nobody watches or enjoys.

 

[Kyriakos]

One thing I'm quite certain of is that the dev team over-focused on how much players like to do "cool new things", post "yield spam porn", win in odd ball ways, etc. It's like they noticed that people loved seeing slam dunks and half-court 3-pointers in basketball and changed the rules of the game to create more of those moments, resulting in the All-Star game basketball that practically nobody watches or enjoys.

New feature: if you make a shot one centimeter from your own basket, it gives you x+1 points, x being how many the enemy team had on you.
Result: farming very tall players who only practice this one shot.

 

[GeneralZift]

One thing I'm quite certain of is that the dev team over-focused on how much players like to do "cool new things", post "yield spam porn", win in odd ball ways, etc. It's like they noticed that people loved seeing slam dunks and half-court 3-pointers in basketball and changed the rules of the game to create more of those moments, resulting in the All-Star game basketball that practically nobody watches or enjoys.

That's actually quite succinct I really like the way you put that

 

[misesfan]

One thing I'm quite certain of is that the dev team over-focused on how much players like to do "cool new things", post "yield spam porn", win in odd ball ways, etc. It's like they noticed that people loved seeing slam dunks and half-court 3-pointers in basketball and changed the rules of the game to create more of those moments, resulting in the All-Star game basketball that practically nobody watches or enjoys.

That's exactly right - which is why the game feels like its on rails all the time. They have discouraged role-playing or immersion in the game in favor of minmaxing, on-rails deckbuilding. This is modern mobile game development with a Civ wrapper. And I think its also why they changed their catch-phrase from 'build an empire to stand the test of time,' to 'build something you believe in.'

 

[Askia Muhammad]

What males you assume that there were no objections? From what you can read in the dev diaries, they had these discussions, evaluating different options and their pros and cons. It is not "toxic positivity" to follow design decisions once they have been made.

Honestly, if it were up to me, the comments on this thread would discourage me to ever make a Civ 8.

They really didn’t need to do much to be successful. They have a golden goose and managed to stop it from laying eggs.

If they had kept their principle of 1/3rd new, 1/3rd innovate, 1/3rd the same I think the game would have been fine. I agree with other posters here that they seem to have gone well beyond simply introducing 1/3rd new.

I think commanders, navigable rivers, independent peoples changes were plenty enough perhaps with Civ switching if they really felt that was necessary.

Instead, they decided to introduce completely new victory methods, Civ switching, and break the immersive continuous game into three resets and to add insult to injury shipped the game with an alpha level UI.

The fact that modders dramatically improved the UI with mods in such a quick fashion really makes me feel they were exceedingly lazy with designing it.