Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[GeneralZift]

The only way I could see a late-game of consequence is if there was some kind of US/USSR-style superpowers that emerge in a final age/era to challenge the player

Ideology system is screaming right now

 

[Gori the Grey]

The only way I could see a late-game of consequence is if there was some kind of US/USSR-style superpowers that emerge in a final age/era to challenge the player

That's my solution as well.

Civ V has a dynamic that, if you're playing for domination, after you've captured two or three capitals, you can pretty much count on three or four civs to simultaneously declare war on you. I find this a challenge to my play, because my military is often stretched pretty thin / overcommitted to one front. But more importantly, I find it entirely plausible. If one country has shown such aggressive propensities, the others are going to be more inclined to band together to stop that one. So I find this a natural anti-snowballing effect.

It think it could be enhanced. If you've conquered two capitals, any civs that share a border with you should sign a mutual defense pact and should move maybe 50% of their troops to those borders, prioritize the building of fortresses there. Late game, with air and naval power, it shouldn't even be just civs that share a border with you; it should be the rest of the known world. And they should set their troops up for some focused, maximally-annoying counter-defense, so that even a civ that hasn't built a particularly large army can set you back a step.

And, there should be some equivalent in other dimensions of the game. They're more inclined to sign research agreements with one another, if you start to develop a tech lead. They boycott your blue jeans and rock-and-roll if you get too uppity in culture.

And the player should be able to join in such leagues to keep a snowballing AI in check.

And "hear, hear" to GeneralZift's x-post.

 

[Wrenched]

based on reviews, the main complains about Civ7 were UI, bugs, price and incomplete state.

Really hoping this isn't the feedback analysis that Firaxis has settled on as well.

 

[Gorbles]

Really hoping this isn't the feedback analysis that Firaxis has settled on as well.

"don't listen to those fans, listen to these fans"

We're not even joking at this point

 

[Leucarum]

Honestly I'm just gonna vote with my wallet. I don't want to pay for Civs that are only playable in specific ages, and I don't want to pay for a 4th age.

If Firaxis do something to make civ switching optional I'll buy Civ packs. If an expansion is anything other than a 4th age I won't automatically turn my nose up at it. Otherwise, they have my vote.

 

[Crashdummy]

Ok, now my 2 cents on end-game fatigue




In my view there is a small problem and a big problem here. The small problem is that the design and QA team are just going to play to the end of a game. That's their job. They wouldn't be doing their job if they quit whenever they felt they had the game wrapped up (or had no hope of winning). They need to check out all elements of the game, through the late game, to make sure they work. In place of QA, you would need something almost like the "devil's advocate" in the Catholic Church's canonization process: someone whose role it is to take a hostile view. To play the game skeptically (rather than responsibly, as QA must). And then to listen to that person.

The big problem (and again this has been said many times before by myself and others) is that the early game just is more consequential. This is constitutionally so. There's nothing one can do to make it not the case. Good (or bad) decisions made early on "snowball."

What this means is that designers of 4x games are just going to have to resign themselves to the fact that the late game will be played less. Is that a huge frustration: to put efforts into the graphics of late-game units and the balance of late-game buildings, all the specifics of victory conditions, and then have players rarely reach the stage of the game where they appreciate all of that care? Yes. I'm sure it's a huge frustration. But it's just one that designers of such games have to resign themselves to. There's no "fixing" it that doesn't come at the expense of making players think their careful early-game play (their playing the game the way the game challenges one to play it) is being arbitrarily negated. Moreover, the stuff all has to be in there. The game does have to be complete, to play out fully to whatever is its end. You can't skimp with the late-game material. Because sometimes players do play all the way to the end, and they'll notice if you've shortchanged them. Build it. Know that it plays its role in the totality of the game, but then shrug that it will see less play. Designers of lots of things have to resign themselves to certain portions of their design being less directly appreciated than others.

Devs made a huge mistake with this thing

Every game is played more at the beginning that at the end.

EVERY SINGLE GAME

Even Ocarina of Time had people that started the game and didnt finish it

And if we go to continous games, every simulator game had people abandoning their "careers" to start one again when they felt they achieved their objectives. Be it a Football simulator, a racing one, a basketball one, etc

Its normal to not finish every single game you start

BTW, this happens in board games too, i have abandoned plenty of times games of Risk or Monopoly, etc when the winner is clear

Its not a problem to solve

 

[Crashdummy]

Features like civ-switching and disconnected leaders seem primarily designed to drive DLC sales. Claims like this often come off as mere justifications.

"Present a marketable feature, and I’ll craft a justification for its implementation."

This is the reality IN MY OPINION

Civ Switching was made so they can sell Civlets as full Civ and so they can sell the same popular Civ several times, one per age

That is the reason why we have Civ Switching, and ot any other. The "justifications" came after the decision

 

[Gorbles]

Devs made a huge mistake with this thing

Every game is played more at the beginning that at the end.

EVERY SINGLE GAME

Even Ocarina of Time had people that started the game and didnt finish it

And if we go to continous games, every simulator game had people abandoning their "careers" to start one again when they felt they achieved their objectives. Be it a Football simulator, a racing one, a basketball one, etc

Its normal to not finish every single game you start

BTW, this happens in board games too, i have abandoned plenty of times games of Risk or Monopoly, etc when the winner is clear

Its not a problem to solve

Wanting people to finish more games is a way to keep players more invested.

It doesn't mean people have to finish every game, every single time.

You not understanding the problem, doesn't mean it isn't a problem. You quitting every game you're losing doesn't mean that's automatically what other people do either. Now, I have no idea what the statistics are there. Maybe that's something we need stats on! People who try to at least see games through vs. players that abandon games that aren't favourable to them. This doesn't come from a place of judgement either - it simply seems to be a difference in how people approach games.

Don't get me wrong, I've retired from games before (normally if I lose my capital, or make some other bone-headed mistake that I can't be bothered reloading for). But I don't tend to in board games anywhere near as much, and I do like playing video games generally to a completed state (for example, I wouldn't abandon a Hades run because it makes gameplay - and narrative - sense to continue regardless. But the devs do offer the option of undoing the night in Hades 2, for people with different preferences).

 

[Xandinho]

Well, it’s always seemed pretty obvious to me that players feel connected to the civilization they’re playing, not the leader. The biggest proof of this is that most of the discussions here revolve around the civilizations that could be added, their mechanics, their unique elements, and so on.

It’s not that leaders aren’t part of these discussions, but they’ve always been secondary in comparison. There are very few examples where leaders maybe outshine their civilizations, like Simón Bolívar/Gran Colombia or Alexander the Great/Macedon. Most of the time, players want civilizations because they’re interested in their history, they want to feel like a greater entity governing and guiding that nation’s story, regardless of which leader happens to be in charge.

If the developers thought players got attached to leaders because of a few memes, like Gilgamesh, Montezuma, Gandhi, or Tamar, and designed Civ 7 with that assumption, that was a major mistake in their analysis, a very poor reading of their audience.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Honestly I'm just gonna vote with my wallet. I don't want to pay for Civs that are only playable in specific ages, and I don't want to pay for a 4th age.

If Firaxis do something to make civ switching optional I'll buy Civ packs. If an expansion is anything other than a 4th age I won't automatically turn my nose up at it. Otherwise, they have my vote.

The majority of the playerbase has done this. You have almost half, HALF of the people who did give it a chance dislike it. The player count is pretty bad.

Like you can play all the semantics games you want, and boy I’ve seen some impressive levels of it here, but you can’t spin away from that one.

 

[The Civs 6]

That's my solution as well.

Civ V has a dynamic that, if you're playing for domination, after you've captured two or three capitals, you can pretty much count on three or four civs to simultaneously declare war on you. I find this a challenge to my play, because my military is often stretched pretty thin / overcommitted to one front. But more importantly, I find it entirely plausible. If one country has shown such aggressive propensities, the others are going to be more inclined to band together to stop that one. So I find this a natural anti-snowballing effect.

It think it could be enhanced. If you've conquered two capitals, any civs that share a border with you should sign a mutual defense pact and should move maybe 50% of their troops to those borders, prioritize the building of citadels there. Late game, with air and naval power, it shouldn't even be just civs that share a border with you; it should be the rest of the known world. And they should set their troops up for some focused, maximally-annoying counter-defense, so that even a civ that hasn't built a particularly large army can set you back a step.

And, there should be some equivalent in other dimensions of the game. They're more inclined to sign research agreements with one another, if you start to develop a tech lead. They boycott your blue jeans and rock-and-roll if you get too uppity in culture.

And the player should be able to join in such leagues to keep a snowballing AI in check.

And "hear, hear" to GeneralZift's x-post.

Civ 2 back on the menu boys

 

[Gori the Grey]

Is that what happens there, too? Yeah, it's a natural dynamic.

 

[GeneralZift]

If the Devs only listened to me they would have a great game. Unfortunately they listened to the people with bad opinions, and now we have a bad game such is life

 

[Gori the Grey]

BTW, this happens in board games too, i have abandoned plenty of times games of Risk or Monopoly, etc when the winner is clear

I almost added to my post that the last ten squares of Life probably don't ever impact the outcome of a game. But they've got to be there or the game would stop just shy of retirement. (The game of Life ends at retirement, not at, you know, death.)

 

[aieeegrunt]

If the Devs only listened to me they would have a great game. Unfortunately they listened to the people with bad opinions, and now we have a bad game such is life

I legitimatly cannot tell if this is sarcasm

The Internet broke me

 

[Gori the Grey]

He's being wry. (My read.)

 

[ColtSeavers]

You not understanding the problem, doesn't mean it isn't a problem. You quitting every game you're losing doesn't mean that's automatically what other people do either. Now, I have no idea what the statistics are there. Maybe that's something we need stats on! People who try to at least see games through vs. players that abandon games that aren't favourable to them. This doesn't come from a place of judgement either - it simply seems to be a difference in how people approach games.

The thing is, there’s also no real proof that people not finishing their games is actually a problem. I think Emotional Husky made a great video about that on his YouTube channel. Personally, I only finish a small percentage of my games, but the ones I do finish are usually very exciting. In Civ 5, for example, you could get great endgames thanks to the ideology system.
The ones I don’t finish aren’t necessarily bad either, especially on the higher difficulty levels. Sometimes, you just have to acknowledge that your opponent did better, and then you accept the defeat. It's similar to chess: Most games aren’t played out to the very last move, but that doesn’t mean the game isn’t working as intended. In my opinion, they were trying to fix something that didn’t really need to be fixed!

 

[Wrenched]

"don't listen to those fans, listen to these fans"

We're not even joking at this point

The list I quoted was so generic it could apply to nearly any recent release.

Firaxis can select whichever cohort they want to listen to or prioritize feedback from. Just hope their analysis goes beyond a surface level list that diffuses critiques.

 

[Crashdummy]

The thing is, there’s also no real proof that people not finishing their games is actually a problem. I think Emotional Husky made a great video about that on his YouTube channel. Personally, I only finish a small percentage of my games, but the ones I do finish are usually very exciting. In Civ 5, for example, you could get great endgames thanks to the ideology system.
The ones I don’t finish aren’t necessarily bad either, especially on the higher difficulty levels. Sometimes, you just have to acknowledge that your opponent did better, and then you accept the defeat. It's similar to chess: Most games aren’t played out to the very last move, but that doesn’t mean the game isn’t working as intended. In my opinion, they were trying to fix something that didn’t really need to be fixed!

This. The Chess example is great, Chess doesnt need to be fundamentally changed because 99% of games dont reach the end, as long as the games played are interesting

You dont break Chess into pieces and add artificial stepbacks just to try to force more games to be finished

 

[zerokarma]

I am also one that doesn't really believe that not finishing the game was a huge problem that needed to be solved.

Honestly I end up finishing most games, often by accident, when sometimes I didn't want to, like getting a cultural victory before space race.