Platinumstorm
Member
It's a huge issue. It doesn't make the game unplayable, but it does ruin towns.
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SimCity Traffic and AI is broken, Sims are fake
- Thread starter jambo
- Start date
It's a huge issue. It doesn't make the game unplayable, but it does ruin towns.
Dark-Cloudz
Member
I actually like the game and have put quite a few hours into it, so I can say I've gotten my money's worth out of it. Some of the vitriol and negative hyperbole about the game has been ridiculous.
Saying that, I've been noticing a lot of stupidity in the AI in recent days and this explains it. I had a house near a railway station where literally hundreds of cars kept pouring into it - it must have been bugged and nothing was telling the simulation that the house was full so sims were just going home the only way they knew how - find nearest house and if not full go in. I can only imagine the arguments over the remote in that household.
It's a shame because I was looking forward to a true simulation - I don't really give a rats about always online, despite the predictable launch issues that entails, but I was using the nature of what I originally perceived the simulation to be to justify the small size of the cities to myself.
Saying that, I've been noticing a lot of stupidity in the AI in recent days and this explains it. I had a house near a railway station where literally hundreds of cars kept pouring into it - it must have been bugged and nothing was telling the simulation that the house was full so sims were just going home the only way they knew how - find nearest house and if not full go in. I can only imagine the arguments over the remote in that household.
It's a shame because I was looking forward to a true simulation - I don't really give a rats about always online, despite the predictable launch issues that entails, but I was using the nature of what I originally perceived the simulation to be to justify the small size of the cities to myself.
poppedcollar69
Member
That's funny, 'cause the same is true for Tropico.
Haunted
Member
Settlers 2, 1996.
I thought the hype for this game was partly around how each sim had their own persistent life.
Is that even remotely the case? You follow one Sim at the beginning of the workday, he goes to work at a shop, but...comes home to a different house, with a different wealth level? And then the next morning he works at a different store? This doesn't make any sense to me.
Is that even remotely the case? You follow one Sim at the beginning of the workday, he goes to work at a shop, but...comes home to a different house, with a different wealth level? And then the next morning he works at a different store? This doesn't make any sense to me.
This screenshot is hilarious. Dat police state xD
A bunch of game breaking shit is bolded in the OP. Maybe you should read it.
This Kickstarter still seems really sketchy to me. Just seems really disorganized and lacks clarity in a lot of key areas. And they still don't have a video.
Given the timing, it just seems overly opportunistic and poorly thought through.
Yup. They've alone admitted the sketchiness(ed: what a wording) in the latest update, so they'll do big KS page update.
For myself, I haven't pledged anything, but posted the link for people that might be interested in something different.
Goodacre0081
Member
.
ambientmystic
Member
Dang it Sethos, why didya have to ninja edit that GIF away, it was LOL-worthy.
EDIT:- Ouh, you just moved it to the other Fark EA thread, my bad.
Posted it in the wrong SimCity thread, was meant to go in the Offline mode thread, where it is now
Hey! curved roads!
What? No it isn't. If you can't give the level of detail you are aiming for you abstract to a higher level. It's pretty basic simulation design.
You know, that actually sounds interesting. I wonder how high you could go with "real" per-citizen tracking on a modern quadcore with a good implementation. Memory-wise even 10 million is not an issue at all, just computation.
I don't think they're asking for that. But you'd expect that population agents, which each represent hundreds or thousands of citizens, at least somewhat resemble real world population behavior. Because that's what you'd assume when building your city in the game.
Them to live up to their marketing promises?
SC4 was functional, especially after Rush Hour and installing NAM, but even before that it worked a hell of a lot better than this. This SimCity is not functional thanks to the way it handles the population simulation. Explain to me how this is better.
dragonelite
Member
First thing i thought of shortest destination heuristic, should have chosen for travel agent to use a least resistance heuristic
SneakyStephan
Banned
This is WAY up there with the most shameful shit developers have pulled...
Jesus christ, every time you think the bar cannot go any lower EA will prove you wrong.
Jesus christ, every time you think the bar cannot go any lower EA will prove you wrong.
Everyone should redeem themselves for giving EA money by kickstarting a project that looks way more likely to deliver what we actually wanted:
Civitas GAF Kickstarter thread
Civitas GAF Kickstarter thread
I'm not surprised to hear that certain aspects of the simulation are inherently flawed. It annoyed me that they were defending the small city sizes on the basis that we would have an excellent simulation engine instead. It turns out we now have neither. Since I played the beta I could tell that Glassbox was extremely arbitrary in the way it handled certain things. For example, plopping down a few parks in a slum would turn those trailers into mansions. That is not what I would call a realistic simulation.
exmachina64
Banned
Just like in my city in real life!
SC4 based it's numbers on raw and static number crunching, so you were able to basically cheat through the game by building your stuff in particular patterns.
SC5 isn't perfect but it at least tries to react dynamically to changes which is (at least for me) a huge step forward.
ElectricKaibutsu
Member
It's a shame Sony didn't stick with the Cell for the PS4. It would have been perfect for this.
Velcro Fly
Member
I watched a guy on twitch build a magnificent city that he basically had to (hilariously) tear apart because of this very issue. His city had maybe 120k people in it with the ability to expand a bit more because he planned out many other things quite well. In the end he just made a few disasters happen in his 'downtown' area so to speak and it wrecked his city. The worst part is that people would complain about garbage pickup and then he'd add more garbage trucks and then you'd have 10 garbage trucks in a row in the same traffic jam. It gets even worse when you consider that high money buildings get abandoned because of fire or no shopper or whatever and it's because of this. I haven't even played the game and could tell that it wasn't really working right.
It was an ambitious effort but it seems like some tweaking is needed.
It was an ambitious effort but it seems like some tweaking is needed.
Air Zombie Meat
Member
This sounds a bit shit. How did reviewers miss it?
Its a fantastic game with many flaws
If they fix the traffic and random natural disasters id be a much happier mayor!
It tries, and fails. It is simply not functional right now. Are you really trying to say that it is better to have a game where you could abuse/game the system to be successful is worse than a game where you have to fight the poor underlying mechanics to make the game come reasonably close to functional?
Yes - because SC5 has a basic ruleset for everything (as seen in OP) - the game needs to adopt those rules to your city layout. In SC4 you have to adopt your city to the rules.
dragonelite
Member
Haha yeah the data is already available for traffic.
I implemented a version of A* it could calculate over 35k complete paths within a second on my shitty laptop cpu in java was a really naive non threaded implementation too. I would bet i could easily service over 100k partial paths in a second on the same cpu. Or my memory is failing me and it was 3.5k complete paths. But a I5 or I7 should be able to run the city sim with no problems.
Other point i would love to put up my own stopsigns and stoplights i mean i already have to plop down bus stops everywhere.
What? In SC5 you need to design your city to suffer least from game logic that doesn't function as it should. Like building your city in a zig-zag pattern like was posted earlier. The mechanics don't at all handle any city you design. You are forced into very specific patterns and behaviours. How the hell is that better than SC4 where you could build a city purely based on what made sense? It doesn't matter that it was also possible to more or less game the mechanics to be more successful, because it didn't force you to.
exmachina64
Banned
CarbonatedFalcon
Member
Your Sims probably didn't have health insurance.
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And this stuff is just embarrassing. Somewhere along the line someone probably took a shortcut just to get stuff "working" rather than putting in the time to write proper AI algorithms, which shouldn't/wouldn't have been too difficult. No one noticed or cared to change it, and here we are. Unless they're just making poor decisions intentionally, which could very much be the case when you look at some of the stuff Jay Wilson pushed for in Diablo 3.
I see your point and I guess it's a matter of personal preference but for me it is more challenging the way SC5 does stuff.
More "challenging"? Thats totally not the point. You are missing the complete issue here, lol. You might still like SC5 more for its graphical fidelity and focus on watching agents/Sims if you like that. But the core gameplay is BROKEN, not more challenging. Its like playing Fifa with a cube instead of a ball (including non-ball physics) and then saying you prefer that because its more challenging.
Not at all. You follow a Sim once he exits a residential housing and leave said Sim once it enters another house. You are then free to click on another Sim and follow it until it enters a building.
Or in other words: Due to the nature of how Sims appear and disappear "following" one takes only as long as the traffic jam lasts until it reaches its destination.
ThusZarathustra
Member
1 huge step (according to you) forward. 17 huge steps (according to everyone else) back.
dragonelite
Member
Kinda like with fps right now everybody has that random change to get a power weapon or killstreak.
Stuff happens random in SC5 how can i plan for random stuff it takes away skill and management. Take for example unemployment one day this house has money problems the other day it hasn't. One day one shop doesn't have workers then next one it does same with industries.
Hell after 200k citizens i can hardly balance my income with taxes(10k~16k in the red) vs expensive and have to pray the transform depot truck comes in time for alloy or have a bond free. You need so many services to save your city from fires,diseases and crime because of fucked up traffic. Still love this game. And got my money worth of it bigtime(almost 40 hours i think and 3 cities further).
Sure, I am not saying people cant enjoy it! And I am very glad for you guys that you got enjoyment out of something that cost you $60.
But I am also glad that people actually realize the missteps this game has taken. People need to be vocal about these things, otherwise things never change. Maybe the next EA game will finally miss out on those first day sales since so many people claim "they have learned".
dragonelite
Member
Im weak.
I said i would never buy a ME after ME3.
If EA announces ME4 on gdc you would see me scream like a little school girl from excitment.
Probably the same with a SimCity 5 addon.
Im part of the problem.
Im weak.
I said i would never buy a ME after ME3.
If EA announces ME4 on gdc you would see me scream like a little school girl from excitment.
Probably the same with a SimCity 5 addon.
Im part of the problem.
I am currently writing up a thread that partly addresses this issue, but random aside:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=520371
Its cheaper than SimCity, and will offer more flexibility. The modding alone is a huge plus since that means that an existing community could focus the game in any way they would see fit (Which would alleviate any kind of problem SimCity has in its current state).
People need to stop throwing $60 into the wallets of big publishers and should take a look at what $15 in the Indie scene might get them. (Actually Civitas looks a bit like a scam right now, but the point still stands. People should reconsider these $60 purchases).
Not saying big budget games dont have their own merits, or that their are big games that are actually good. But people need to STOP and start considering the decisions they make, since that also affects the direction the gaming industry is heading.
that's wonderful =D
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