Why is there this strange complaints and negativity?

[Mudrac]

I don't see it that much here on the forums, but I noticed in YouTube comments and other places that there is very often this negative stance to Civ 6. Most of the comments come from the place that the game looks too user-friendly and approachable and thus it is android dumbed down game. I never understood these comments coming from people. It's like good interface, and the fact that there aren't a bunch of numbers to read, that the relies rather on critical decision, strategy and tactics automatically mean that the game is for stupid people, kids and wider dumb audience.

The same talk was when HOI 4 came out and people were like how the game is dumbed down only because it did lack some features from HOI 3 true, but because the game is more accessible now and understandable. While in fact it is a pretty deep and complex game where you have to make critical decisions because you can't have everything. I mean HOI 3 had a terrible UI that was bad design from developers and was broken in some segments.

I mean I just want to know where does this come from? I am not angry or anything just curious. It seems as some things become more popular, more user friendly and more strategic with less sliders and numbers the game is becoming stupid. So what's up with that kind people? Do they like feeling special and above everyone else because they sat for millions of hours trying to understand some overly-complicated things and looking and numbers. Really what is it? I am just interested does anyone know?

P.S. : Sorry for bad grammar and wording I wrote it in a hurry.

 

[Haggbart]

Welcome to the internet!

 

[ProMeTheus112]

I would say, past years have been pretty bad for games, in part because it was a mainstream-growth-era for them. People getting discouraged of seeing better games ever come out, maybe make a mistake when seeing this one due to the art style?

 

[thecrazyscot]

Many people seem to mistake complexity for depth. I think your last paragraph nails it on the head...many gamers have grown used to poorly designed/overly complex games and resent "their" game opening up to a wider audience of "casuals" by "dumbing down" the game (i.e. removing or redesigning unnecessarily complex or poorly implemented features).

 

[stiiknafuulia]

People who have negative opinions about something are more likely to express them (and in stronger words) than those who think positively about it. Given this bias, the complaints about Civ VI have been fairly mild I'd say, especially since the devs de-saturated the graphics a little bit, and let us know more about the actual gameplay. After the last deluge of information, you'd have to be wilfully ignorant to accuse the game of being 'dumbed down' as a whole, so people really only complain about the graphical style now. But even so, I'd wager that very few of the complainers will actually leave the game on the shelf on account of the graphics alone, so it's just more noise before the inevitable caving in of their wallets.

 

[DemonMaster]

Because it is 2016 (or more correctly since a couple of years back this is how it is). Most of internet has a maturity of a badly educated teen. Simply put, it is popular these days to jump on the hate bandwagon.

Or with a school reference: One way of avoiding being bullied is to join with the bully.

Personally I ignore these and move on.

 

[Haig]

Videogame fans hate change and LOVE to be angry about the game.
The biggest sites Civfanatics and Reddit/civ are excited about the game.

Don't torture yourself by reading comments on certain sites..

 

[The Highwayman]

People who have negative opinions about something are more likely to express them (and in stronger words) than those who think positively about it.

^I believe this to be true.

Negative posts seems to stick out more because they usually cause 30 pages of back and forth debate, some constructive, some not constructive. These posts are frequently at the top of the forum boards. Civfanatics doesn't seem nearly as bad as most, which is why I recently joined. I also think more positive topics will appear when the game comes out and strategies are being fleshed out.

I've never learned anything useful from Youtube comments so I stopped reading those a long time ago.

 

[Morningcalm]

Let us not be too readily negative about negativity--there is a difference between hating on a game and offering constructive criticism. Some critiques of the graphical style have been accompanied by suggestions to make the game better. For example, popular Civ V YouTuber BAStartGaming has critiqued the game, and so have many others. GamerZakh I think noted that huts and bananas (for example) were difficult to see on the map, but also said he was fine with the game's graphical style. In a separate video he summarized criticisms of the game wherein people attacked Civ for looking too much like a mobile game.

"Negative" reactions to the graphics sometimes come from a good place--I.e., we are all fans and want the game to be better. When people were negative about Teddy Roosevelt's initial obese appearance I think that criticism was valid. Thankfully Firaxis listens to its fans and now there is an appreciative thread of fans titled "Teddy Roosevelt lost some weight (pictures)."

Fans aren't negative for no reason. Some criticisms are stated too nastily but still come from a good intent to make the game better.

Even criticisms as to Catherine de Medici's suitability ("she was not French") have unveiled some interesting historical facts such as the requirement that French rulers be French (at that time), and the virtues of (the similarly spy-friendly) Cardinal Richelieu, who has a more overall positive recognition from French people and might make an excellent Civ VII leader. But it's right to recognize that unsubstantiated attacks like "The graphics are kiddy and therefore he game will be too" are not particularly productive and don't lead to interesting conversations.

 

[ProMeTheus112]

Richelieu, I have such a bad memory of him being a really bad person from history classes :/ abusing the power of the church and his own priviledged position to rule. Catherine de Medicis I don't really know about her though heard her names many times but couldn't remember about her.

 

[Mudrac]

No don't get me wrong I don't get upset by these kinds of comments (not anymore at least). I understand that it is 2016 and that it is internet, but I was just curious. This is something that I have been seeing for years in many games, Civ is not the exception as I mentioned even Paradox Interactive is getting bashed now because their games are now more accessible and more popular while in reality their games are still quite deep and complex they just finally learned how to make a better UI, and believe me that is a good thing. I have been playing Paradox's games pretty much since Europa Universalis II. And even today in most of their older titles I still don't get how some stuff works and all that thanks to bad UI design or simply the mechanic was badly designed in the first place. I like the direction that things are going to today in all more complex strategy games, its now more about strategy, tactics and critical decison making which is what makes the bread and butter for every strategy. The motto easy to learn but hard to master. Because frankly I don't want to return to the time period when most of the things were relatively poorly designed and executed (although don't get me wrong I still love those games and they are quite addictive).

Of course I also get the constructive criticism and that's okay. But criticism of just hating in a way I mentioned in the first post I never got that? Anyway another failed attempt of trying to understand people hehe

Thanks for the answers I was really curious about this subject.

 

[Acken]

Youtube comments lol.

On top of being stupid comments the ranking system for comments is so stupid the worst ones often appear on top.

If you look at thumbs up, cov6 lets play videos are usually appreciated.

 

[Fromage10x]

Being skeptical about the nature of upcoming games, or being disappointed in the state of a game that does not live up to your expectations is not a bad thing, nor is expressing that disappointment. You seem to be of the opinion that the game looks great and that games in general are getting better as they streamline out features. Cool. Others feel differently, and are simply expressing that. They have as much right to do so as you have a right to express yours.

If you are simply asking why people get disappointed, or why the voices of the dissappointed are so loud, I'd agree it's partially as mentioned above, that disappointed fans are much more likely to say something than people who liked or even loved the changes.

But as a disappointed fan myself for many series (Fallout most prominently) I will say this: When a game series has complexity and then that complexity is sanded down to be like pretty much any other game, it may make the game more playable, but there is also a cost there. Most of the time what we are sad about is that while we can see the original game had problems, the various ideas were so compelling that they made us excited to see what could be done in the future...to see features that may not have worked perfectly simply abandoned, then, feels like a step back and a betrayal of a promise.

 

[mrwho]

Because people just look at the graphics, compare them to Civ V, and proclaim they have been 'dumbed down'. When people actually look into the game, they'd realise the exact opposite is true. That's why this forum is very positive about the game and youtube is quite negative.

 

[Seek]

The graphics really don't look "dumbed down" or "mobile" or anything like that, though (aside from the very first screens shown at announcement) so I don't understand why this is still being discussed, even if only on YouTube comments. Looking at thumbnails of civ 5 and 6 side by side and 6 actually looks more sophisticated than 5 imo.

Like the OP, I find it odd.

 

[Mudrac]

Being skeptical about the nature of upcoming games, or being disappointed in the state of a game that does not live up to your expectations is not a bad thing, nor is expressing that disappointment. You seem to be of the opinion that the game looks great and that games in general are getting better as they streamline out features. Cool. Others feel differently, and are simply expressing that. They have as much right to do so as you have a right to express yours.

If you are simply asking why people get disappointed, or why the voices of the dissappointed are so loud, I'd agree it's partially as mentioned above, that disappointed fans are much more likely to say something than people who liked or even loved the changes.

But as a disappointed fan myself for many series (Fallout most prominently) I will say this: When a game series has complexity and then that complexity is sanded down to be like pretty much any other game, it may make the game more playable, but there is also a cost there. Most of the time what we are sad about is that while we can see the original game had problems, the various ideas were so compelling that they made us excited to see what could be done in the future...to see features that may not have worked perfectly simply abandoned, then, feels like a step back and a betrayal of a promise.

Never did I mention that games are getting better. In fact I hardly play any other video games aside from strategy games, because I feel that the industry these days is over-saturated with similar titles and ideas, and strategy games on the other hand at least offer a lot of room for improvement and innovation. I don't see which mechanics are you talking about getting removed and never used to the their full potential? But I suppose there are some as always, but at the same time you are forgetting that the new ones are being introduced as well. And yes generally I like it when things are streamlined a little bit it makes for a more fluid experience. But I don't see how older games were more complex (they were harder true, and developers at least made more finished products). The thing is they looked more complex because of the worse UI and some bad design choices, which is ok, back in the day a lot of the developers were new and young and the industry as a whole was younger so certain mistakes were expected. The industry is evolving in some interesting directions today, not all of it is good, but at least streamlining some stuff is a good direction for me.

 

[apocalypse105]

Because civ 5 had major issues it was bassicly a beta game on release pretty awefull.. Thats why people have more critique now they dont want them to make the same mistake like in civ 5 where they needed a expansion to fix the issues

 

[Aheadatime]

Youtube comments lol.

On top of being stupid comments the ranking system for comments is so stupid the worst ones often appear on top.

If you look at thumbs up, cov6 lets play videos are usually appreciated.

Yeah this. I was going to say that when viewing the newly released content, I generally see a bunch of support with a few 'I still don't like the art' comments sprinkled in.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Because civ 5 had major issues it was bassicly a beta game on release pretty awefull.. Thats why people have more critique now they dont want them to make the same mistake like in civ 5 where they needed a expansion to fix the issues

Civ 5 only partly fixed its issues. MP stayed incomplete, and the UI to this day still requires more inputs to do basic tasks than Civ 4, which wasn't so great itself in UI.

As the UI is something you utilize in every single game, fighting against it is glaring and particularly frustrating when coming from games with better controls. The task of putting 3 units in a queue for a city in Civ 5 is nonsense in terms of how many inputs you have to do to manage it.

Civ 6 can do better, but will it do better? It has a long way to go before release, given the apparent turn times

 

[Gambito]

I'm very hyped about the release, but the livestream they showed on Wednesday was a little of a let down for me. I felt I was watching Civ V all over again with a few tweaks and better graphics (yeah the graphics are beautiful to me, I love the style).

I know there's a lot of new stuff like the civic tree, the government cards, the way you choose Great people...I read in the forums that there's a religion victory, though I didn't catch that myself from the devs on the video.

When they founded a religion I saw that the very same beliefs from V were there (Tithe, etc.) and I thought like "come on! you could have done something a little more different", and I forgot about all of the other new things they're adding.

I'm just a little concerned cos' I'm just not buying a game, I'm buying a whole new computer to run this, and I hope that I'm not buying something that feels more like an expansion for the latter game that is just adding new features.