why don't the developers give a *******?

[rwmjlally]

I have been playing Civ for 30 years. I have bought every version and every extension.
It seems to me the Civ VI developers, unlike their predecessors, don't give a ******* about my wishes or the wishes of other loyal players.
The Civ VI developers only seem to be interested in introducing big, flashy and unnecessary new "modes" and such like.
There is always a video with them boasting about how clever they have been to have come up with some ridiculous new nonsense. Most annoying of all they always pay lip service to the wonderful fans that they COMPLETELY IGNORE.
I am not interested in any silly new modes (which I will not play) - to improve my enjoyment I want all the basic game's annoying little faults fixed!

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[Catalytic]

1) I'd avoid using profanity, even self-censored profanity. People immediately disregard it as nerdraging and ranting. It's a poor way to get productive conversation.
2) Development cycles are fairly long. We're seeing projects they started on some time ago being released today, don't expect immediate gratification. Software development doesn't work that way.
3) NFP is effectively a 3rd expansion. They've got the major game systems in place. Changing the rulesets so you can have fun and unique games with your friends is a common, late-in-development move and adds longevity to a game which might otherwise feel stale after several years of play.
4) New game modes aren't the only thing being released. You're getting new civs, new districts and the strategic decisions that go into their placement and use, and a significant number of ongoing balance changes. I won't go down the list. You can look it up. It's much more than just new game modes.

I know it may feel like Firaxis is ignoring _you_, but you're not the only fan either. They're getting demands from thousands of fans all over the world. We're asking for new civs, new alternate leaders, adjustments to game systems, new game systems, bug fixes, and yes, new game modes. We're a very demanding group in aggregate. That's the data stream they have to sort through. I know it is tempting to feel like companies take their most loyal customers for granted. Many do in fact. They focus their attention on attracting new customers and appeasing the squeaky wheels and loudest complainers who generate the most negative PR. But here's the deal. You squeaked, but you didn't say what you wanted here. You just insulted them. Be constructive, or don't expect much, IMO.

 

[Piranga]

While I don't agree with your extreme "devs not giving an ......", I am overall dissappointed in this expansion, so I can feel some similarities there. However I just keep telling myself its mostly cause of covid throwing a wrench in Firaxis' plans. Maybe they didn't have the resources early on in the pandemic to make an expansion dedicated to only a few core additions. Instead they've settled for what they can with all these mini modes (most of which are all lackluster. Either out of game lore, or wildly imbalanced)

I still, very much, appreciate their effort in giving new civs and leaders (even if the leader models don't seem as polished as some of the previous). The continued balance changes and updates are mostly things the studio has done specifically because fans asked for them (civ, natural wonder, CS pickers for example where requested by the community and their addition directly shows they listen to their community).

I consider it all a small covid blip in Civ's long and outstanding history.

 

[CaptainUnknown]

I think Catalytic explained it wonderfully. It's okay to be upset with the features released, but you are acting like your opinion is the only one that matters. I enjoy the NF pass and I enjoy the game modes. I think they are meeting my needs as a Civ player. I think it's disingenuous to say they don't listen to fans.

Also, not everyone wants the same Civ game every time. If civ 6 was a clone of Civ 5 or Civ 4, then why should I even buy it? Why not play an older game instead? Developers need to change things and take risks in adding new features to grow the series. That's where game modes can be fun as it gives the developers a lot of ways to grow Civ 6, without enforcing these additions to the base rule set.

Again, it's fine to be disappointed that certain faults exist, but as Catalytic mentioned, constructive criticism goes further and doesn't alienate other fans who Do enjoy the content they have paid for.

 

[Catalytic]

However I just keep telling myself its mostly cause of covid throwing a wrench in Firaxis' plans. Maybe they didn't have the resources early on in the pandemic to make an expansion dedicated to only a few core additions. Instead they've settled for what they can with all these mini modes (most of which are all lackluster. Either out of game lore, or wildly imbalanced)

I tend to be less charitable with COVID as an excuse, but I work in healthcare and we didn't have the option to not deliver. The same is true of other "essential" businesses. Especially after the initial shock, businesses should have put in place adequate coping mechanisms, especially if your business is entirely on a computer screen. But enough of that.

I don't think they "settled" on the mini-modes. The roadmap for NFP was posted well in advance. They knew they'd be doing new features, new buildings, new leaders, new civs, etc, and even told us the release schedule upfront. This is the amount of content they felt was worth $40 and many of us agreed and handed over the cash. Personally, I'm with you. I'm not a fan of many of the game modes. I tried them once and probably won't again unless major balance changes are made. However, I do use the shuffle tech tree mode reliably. I'm enjoying the Monopoly mode. I've had some very fun games with Dramatic ages, though I do think the dark age penalty is too severe because the AI never seems to recover. I anticipate liking the barbarian mode once I get a chance to try it out as well. It's a feature I've thought would be cool over the years. I don't have to like everything, and I can always give balance feedback on the modes I don't - specifically secret societies which are just broken OP.

Ultimately, the modes were always sold as optional rule sets you could pick and choose. And now we can customized civs, natural wonders, and city-states as well to create our own custom rule sets when we play. I think that is a tremendous addition to the game.

 

[Linklite]

Well, I think you need to tone down the hyperbole, it really doesn't help me take the arguments seriously. I'd say that Firaxis has been remarkably good at listening to fans. A lot of the things in NFP, particularly modes and the various pickers have been requested and I've seen them on this forum. They've also been reasonably good on bugs, in the sense that there have been a fair few fixes.

Are they perfect? Hell, no. There were some things, particularly with the UI that really gets me exasperated. I can easily see if a CS is original or Barbarian, but In cant easily tell if a city is a Militaristic CS or a Free City just to name a recent bugbear. I could easily continue with an entire list of basic things that for some reason Firaxis hasn't done.

But still, the hyperbole doesn't help. They're trying and I can see the effort. As someone who has been on both sides of the counter as it were, it really just gets you down when you're working hard and people dismiss it. They might well just say "Damned if we do, damned if we don't, so why bother?"

Just be constructive and helpful.

 

[enKage]

I am happy there are people enjoying new modes, but I would highly prefer devs taking care AI can play those modes too, and that AI can play base game as well.

I am kind of dissapointed too, because all AI changes are sth like:
- AI more likely to use aircraft
- AI more likely to use anti-air
While still not the best player is able to win deity science far before AI even builds first aerodrome

The other thing is that spawning new content every month is enforcing bugs and unintendend consequences - corpotourism being the best example, just because there is not much time for testing. And because producing massive bugs requires fixing it, we still have AI inability to play or annoying things / bugs from vanilla - GS

Yes, I would prefer devs taking care of problems the game already has and allowning modders doing mods or "modes"

 

[TreVor_ish]

Not liking modes is one thing (everyone have different taste).
Nonetheless the amount of bugs that is being introduce is astonishing and completely unacceptable. I guess we gonna need to wait another month for getting "make this deal more equitable" fixed. And that isn't even within any mode.
Back to modes almost every single one of them has one or more issues.
Apocalypse Mode - AI apart from using Soothsayers during Appease the Gods rather well, it does not utilize them in any way. Does not use them, when promoted. Does not cause any additional disasters within enemy territory. Additionally using Soothsayers causing pollution is rather silly (can be modded thankfully), and fact too much of it leading to comet strikes is also making it quite to much of a shortcut for gameplay purposes. Additionally the micromanagement of pillaged, developed cities is tiresome (I'm still forced to repair district and build by building, because I'm unable to queue prerequisites).
Secret Societies - making them really OP is fine (really it's ok, as long as AI is also able to apply their premises correctly). Has anyone tried to play on large, or beyond map with some extra Civs? Voidsingers AI is spamming Cultist like there is no tomorrow, and what do they do? Nothing. just standing carpet of cultist doom. If You play on marathon large map and for whatever rng reason most of AI players choose Voidsingers, game is getting to unplayable state late.
Tech and Civics Shuffle - this one actually never created any issue for me.
Dramatic Ages - another highly likable mode. However, late-mid game because of certain Policy Card, large and strong AI's are starting to massively collapse, to the point when patches of Free Cities create whole continents of non-civs Civs. Trying to necro just makes it worse (and when playing as Kublai You can exploit his ability) even when throwing money at it. And even when loosing only one city, what AI does? Nothing, just expects loyalty will do it's job, rather than reconquer lost land.
Heroes and Legends - well OP mythical units are absolutely useless in AI's hands. Almost like nothing was programmed towards this. I never encountered AI using any Hero Ability.
Monopolies - too much Tourism from more than one monopoly.
Barbarian Clans - that one I only played in one normal game, and made few test runs. When choosing 0 CS barbs will not change to a CS, ever (meter stays unchanged during whole game). Even when You don't tinker with CS pool. You have to have at least 1 City-State from the beginning for this mode to take pools into consideration in a first place. White border for barbaric CS changes for normal colours when reloading game. And to have the audacity to try to sell this bug as a feature makes me wonder, what else their gonna break and say - that's how it suppose to be.

AI is still bad (and worse with every mode added to gameplay), why not use the resources to make it better? Because apparently new shiny content will sell better than fixes.
We also had at least few threads about things that should be fixed (like path finding) so I'm not gonna write this down again.

So yeah. NFP is poorly executed, it's fair to say made me lose trust in Firaxis and probably never gonna buy anything before knowing exactly the full description of content I'm buying.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Preach On Brother... Preach On!

 

[chazzycat]

there's definitely some shreds of truth mixed into the rageposting here. It is a bit disheartening to play the new game modes and slowly realize that the AI is not utilizing the features of that mode barely at all.

The game modes are well designed to provide fun options to the human player, I generally like them. But if the AI isn't using any of the new stuff to any effect...well the shine wears off very quickly.

Haven't played with the newest patch yet, so maybe it'll help.

 

[The Civs 6]

I am going to echo the sentiment that there is truth to this but also some exaggeration. Some civ fans (OP and I, and others in this thread) want the game to go in a different direction. But there are other civ fans who like what they are doing. For example, as absurd as it might sound, there was a player in another subforum that wanted fewer buildings. 6 has had the fewest buildings of any game so far. So there are a lot of people that want more "stuff" (like "diverse" civs and rulers, pretty wonders, pirates/vampires/whatever the next "fun" game mode is, etc.) and don't want work on what we would call "core" gameplay features. Point is, it's not fair to say the designers don't care about what fans think. They care about what some fans think at the expense of others.

I am sympathetic to the emotion that you have. But consider where we are in 2021 with respect to the Civ franchise. Civ has had 6 installments. How many franchises have had that many installments without declining? Sid Meier was essentially an indie designer (by our standards, perhaps not at the time) and a true auteur who coded, knew history, and concerned himself with the details of the game. When civ first came out, it was truly a revolutionary game and an artistic masterpiece. Then, Civ fans got lucky that the franchise landed Soren Johnson, who essentially rebuilt the game in 4. 4 wasn't just the best installment in the franchise - it was a game that revolutionized the 4x genre.

There are great designers who are part of 5 and 6. But they aren't really works of art in the same sense as the above games. They are products that are sold by a corporation to make money. They are camels designed by committee. If anything, their responsiveness to fans is a bad thing because a true artist has their own vision and doesn't give a hoot about what the audience thinks. So I am at peace with the fact that the Civ franchise is now just a famous and well-regarded label that is slapped onto a focus grouped, stock-market oriented venture without very much genuine character or spirit.

My recommendation is to try new 4x games. Try Endless Legends. It's by no means a perfect game but it clearly has enough zest for life, enough of a personality, to make you overlook gameplay flaws. Try Old World - maybe not a super innovative game, but a really tight game with strong AI. Look into the modding scene, where you almost by definition will get indie developers. Look into board games - there are some really good ones out there.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

If the developers didn't care then we wouldn't have gotten the Barbarians Clan mode for the game that was a direct result from looking at the forums of what the players wanted. Plus it's free for anyone who owns the game. That's all I have to say.

 

[greenOak]

Like it or not, game modes are very popular among the fan base. I enjoy them quite a bit. The devs aren’t ignoring their fans, you just aren’t a typical fan.

I am happy there are people enjoying new modes, but I would highly prefer devs taking care AI can play those modes too, and that AI can play base game as well.

I am kind of dissapointed too, because all AI changes are sth like:
- AI more likely to use aircraft
- AI more likely to use anti-air
While still not the best player is able to win deity science far before AI even builds first aerodrome

That being said, I agree 100% with this. How hard is it to program the AI to build a campus in every city? This would make the AI perform much much better.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

It seems to me the Civ VI developers, unlike their predecessors, don't give a ******* about my wishes or the wishes of other loyal players.
The Civ VI developers only seem to be interested in introducing big, flashy and unnecessary new "modes" and such like.

people had been asking for cooperation mods and Barbarian mods. While there are some issues it DOSE show they are listening... Hey at least they are not Korean Nexon bad.

Like it or not, game modes are very popular among the fan base. I enjoy them quite a bit. The devs aren’t ignoring their fans, you just aren’t a typical fan.



That being said, I agree 100% with this. How hard is it to program the AI to build a campus in every city? This would make the AI perform much much better.

who asked for Ai air support improvement? They should have fixed Ai to improve resources first before this.

 

[chazzycat]

who asked for Ai air support improvement? They should have fixed Ai to improve resources first before this.

AI not using planes very well has been a big complaint for a long, long time.

 

[universecreep]

I am happy there are people enjoying new modes, but I would highly prefer devs taking care AI can play those modes too, and that AI can play base game as well.

Completely agree.

The focus has been on adding new features (which is fine) but there seems to have been much less attention to polishing the existing ones or making sure the AI can use the old and new features.

Civ V was much better developed along the way. They added new features but really seemed to put a lot of effort into tweaking the base game and ensuring the new additions worked well and the AI could effectively use them for the most part.

Civ VI is fun but it's frustrating that old bugs/problems still exist from the base game (One example - AI still complains you are going bankrupt even though you have thousands of gold and are making hundreds a turn).

I have faith in Firaxis that they will work on getting things in order once they're done with the DLC - they've usually been good about this sort of thing.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

AI not using planes very well has been a big complaint for a long, long time.

Well, according to the new patch, they fixed that issue. You might want to test that out yourself, though.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

AI not using planes very well has been a big complaint for a long, long time.

I'd say Ai not improving resources is a much worse problem than Ai not using planes. They should've looked at this first before doing anything with planes.

Well, according to the new patch, they fixed that issue. You might want to test that out yourself, though.

and ignored about Ai not improving resources... fraxis why?

 

[SammyKhalifa]

and ignored about Ai not improving resources... fraxis why?

Uh, because that just became a thing like three weeks ago?

 

[Kupe Navigator]

Uh, because that just became a thing like three weeks ago?

They should've dropped eveything and focus on fixing it. Improving resources should be taken priory over planes.