SimCity BuildIt: Reports and Feedback.
by EA_RoulboxOriginal Post
oh my, i cant believe this thread, it does make it seem like EA cares! that's amazing! (Just because i can see one recent comment by @EA_Roulbox :D )
I mostly want a few small changes and fixes that i did mention recently elsewhere but ill mention the problems that irritate me here....
Being a player that mostly pays for limited time items (I'm a decoration hoarder :P - I started playing / collecting 21st december 2014 
) i do like things that look nice :P especially things with fancy effects...
That also means some small bugs irritate me such as the Omega bridge, when placed next to no other omega bridge, has a gap between the bridge and the road so cars seem to "float".
some things i don't care about like cars not tilting on sloped roads or cars on bridges going through each other if there is traffic.
There is one suggestion i really hope is added @EA_Roulbox which would be having the omega bridge having a monorail track on it. As you can see in the image below there should be just enough space for the small maglev trains to fit through under the arches and it would make the transition between two omega items seem more cool! (i don't care about the road size of the bridge, if the maglev tracks were added though it would make it so much more special! - could even buff the price cap to 20000 :P)
Some side fixes that aren't that relevant right now but definitely need fixing soon would be the (BUS TERMINAL)RED not giving the red busses (it gives the normal blue ones - the red ones do exist because i saw them during the event but afterwards it switched to blue and it shouldn't have).
The last thing that needs to be fixed would be: when there are limited time events that come with tasks to do, they should always have a special icon and have a seperate task limit to them because they are limited time.... The fact they are not separate meant that during the WWF event where i would've completed ALL of the tasks (i checked the requirements) i ended up completing none because i already had three active tasks 
(that was just random resources though). The much worse example is one of my favourite buildings in the game (the ice hotel - i went to a very similar looking ice hotel in 2009) which was given out in a task but i already have 4 active tasks (a bug) so i had more than 3 tasks which meant the special task giving the building didn't appear... and it was so easy i definitely would've completed it! (i disagree with having the same items appear year after year - gets boring - shame that means ill probably never get it... - even customer support doesn't care! XD).
If they use a separate task counter (It is possible because the RED event tasks appeared for me even though i had 3 tasks active then) then the limited time rewards are more of an incentive to buy the limited time items (as long as the rewards for the task are good). That's why i bought the RED items!
However, If every event had a task with items they would feel less special so it would be less fun... only very major events like winter! (or charity events i guess because they are special :P)
TL:DR: sorry about the fact I write a lot . I try to make it short... Please read it though :D
@SIMRADICAL wrote:
Ea does care It is we who are the real culprits .Imagine a school system with only the principal, this exactly the case with this forum. We have only got EA employees and no other users in the middle.In other forums we have heros, champions,experts,guides to take care of most of the issues and only in grave problems do they step in. With our forum there are no guides or experts and so most of the questions remain unanswered or badly answered.
Edit: I did say i write a lot, haha
Oh, i wasn't specifically talking about the forums because i'm pretty new here The forums actually seem much better than other places from what i see! i was mostly talking about Facebook where the only posted comments by a dev will be helping a user by telling them to contact support or saying they are looking into the problem, or asking for a picture of a city :P which is nice i must say but, a lot of people ask questions on there and wondering why they don't get answers... (Facebook isn't really good for asking questions but i don't think many / if any know about the forums...) (with more people here there may also be more players to help out with answering questions )
the majority of things i see on facebook are generally complaints which i guess is good if people were to use it as feedback... but at the same time those complaints / ideas on the comments section should probably be put on the organised forums rather than facebook comments.... or even better on polls so it gives an easily view-able number of people with the same opinion
It is clear to me now that EA does care and always has just there is no good system for people to know that on other places like social media (because social media isn't that good for that sort of stuff)
I think what might help is if update notes had a note about the forums so people can ask questions on ahq. (by update notes i mean on the patch notes for the game - for example when you want to update an app using ios you can see some changes about the update).
What might also help is if there is some place with in detail patch notes (maybe with reasons - no need to spoil event items or such though ) so that people can see what mechanics were intended changes. (a lot of changes happen that aren't in the update notes and when those changes make the game more difficult for no obvious reason it does make people confused, complain and sometimes just result to the idea that it was part of EA marketing - for example when advert bubbles give a lot more simoleons than before and less simcash, there is no reason why from EA... i personally don't mind because i love the daily rewards that give me some simcash per week )
I think ill give an example with an improvement i would personally like where having detailed patch notes would be good:
The limited time events are something else that is also making me think... Not long after this game first came out and i was trying to get my friends to play one of the things i said i liked most was the limited time events because they had so many events for different social reasons and the items included were always possible to get and included items for free players as well as items to make themselves money. If i was to now ask my friends to play again, i wouldn't say this as much because the recent event is more related to COM and isn't a well known real world event. The fact that there was an event linked to COM was okay i guess but because it was linked to COM, it should've had items that were available for the duration of the season in COM rather than just 1-2 weeks so that the items are more of items for that season rather than normal limited time items that should be kept to either charity events (by apple i guess) or other real world events. What also wasn't that great was that in week two's set of items, there were no items for "free players" if they hadn't saved up keys before, because getting 30+ keys isn't really doable in one week and when so many items cost keys now (like lakes and bridges) any progressing players may have 0 keys at the start of that week (like me). If the event kept the items available for the duration of the season and didn't add more items as the weeks went on, that would also be okay because then it would at least give all players time to have a better chance to get the items (there is no rule saying there has to be new items every week of limited time events...).
With "old" items being in events from previous years, i wouldn't say its a great idea always... and newer made items should look nicer! During the most recent valentines day event i was kind of hoping for some new fancy event item for example a romantic cafe (with nice light effects - costing an affordable amount of simcash, like 100-200) or something... idk :P but there was only items from years ago instead... Items that are a few years old probably shouldn't ever be obtainable again because it gets boring if the same items appear repeatedly and they are normally good memories! (some items should appear in a few limited time events though because if they are really badly wanted by players they probably would buy them if they came back, but they should only come back in another copy of the same limited time event... Never, i mean never, make items from limited time events permanent items unless you specify that beforehand.... That mistake from the sports event is probably the worst mistake to my memory, sure lots of people bought things and lots were happy but after that it put me off buying things for quite some time... , what should've been done there is have the items come back more "frequently" in relevant real world, international tournaments... not making them permanent items!)
Something i am confused about is why COM items are sometimes much nicer than some items from limited time events... Sure COM is difficult, but surely players that support the game with even small amounts of real money and buy simcash items maybe should get items that are just as cool / better? (If you compare simcash event items to COM items, the COM items include much bigger buildings that most of the time stand out more). It is also not great because of the comparison between COM simcash rewards and buying simcash from the store in the small bundles (the expensive bundles of simcash are only for rich people that want to progress fast and get lots of expensive things :P )...
If a player gets the max reward from COM which is 4000 simcash (i think including season bonus), the equivelant amount in real money is for most people too expensive and when simcash items became more expensive COM seemed to help for free players, but now its obvious that you can never catch up with the people that zoom to the lead so quickly... For players that have a chance in COM to get to the top (no chance for progressing players - mostly feeder city ppl) this makes the limited time events that cost simcash more affordable for them but with real money they still feel really unfairly priced because it feels like the prices are based off whats affordable without killing your supplies, if you win COM.
Honestly i thought COM would be better with a reward of 1000 simcash with 500 bonus for season because it rewards weekly... the 2nd-3rd place shouldve been not that far off with like 750 normally and 250 season bonus - (still enough for a maxis manor) with nearby categories giving 500 normally and 100 bonus..... After all the main reward for playing COM should be earning those platinum keys not the simcash! (Simcash is a premium "bought" currency but now it feels more like a COM currency.....)
But things like this are why i say the update notes should be more detailed because i can guess that a lot of people would be annoyed with a change like this which "promotes buying simcash", but if there were patch notes to say how unfair the difference was, less people might be annoyed? (although something like this would also need to be accompanied with simcash costs reduced being mentioned otherwise i can guess people would be annoyed :P)
Maxis manor seems really useful from what i understand and if COM rewards were reduced to those i stated above i think that maxis manor should cost 750 the first time, 1000 the second, 1500 the third and 2000 the fourth. for it to be a reasonable price. keys should probably half the cost of simcash so that it feels more like an option and limited event items should never go above 300 and even then 300 should be for some of the buildings that are big and look like the current best COM rewards. Non-event items that are really big / cool are okay being really expensive because they can be bought any time and i guess they let people with tons of bought simcash get really fancy items.
I'm sure people that do like to buy the really expensive bundles of simcash will also be happy having their simcash last a little longer if the change is made (afterall, its not exactly cheap...)
so, back on to the idea of patch notes, a detailed copy of the patch notes should be available on the forums for every update so we can see what changes are made with a short explanation of why so people who like to complain can at least know their facts right before they complain, and then everyone may get a better idea if something was not a good idea.... if the in-store update notes gave a link to the forum where the detailed post was, people could then discuss there a little bit with some input by some devs just so that players feel like they get heard. If there were surveys and polls after major updates asking for specific feedback about that update, or even if it was integrated with the patch notes so people could see which parts exactly were liked / not liked, it may also help. If the patch notes obviously will be hated by players, maybe something else should be in the patch that is relevant to counter it.
I do want this game to get as much money as possible (better development then, right?) but the game definitely has to be fun and not too difficult / slow which makes players unhappy and puts players off...
(i overheard a conversation the other day about some people who started playing recently and the first thing they were complaining about was how expensive it was to upgrade your police station... not sure why they were complaining about that because the price changes should've helped them..., but something i heard later that day was the game was too slow to progress - i also heard that was why two of the people there stopped playing in the first place... - i guess that by too slow they meant land expansions and beach / mountain expansions rather than upgrading buildings...)
On a side note, even though i haven't unlocked all of the current land, i guess i am one of the people who wonders why we don't get land expansions... If it is because of processing power of older devices, more land could also be based on a "second section of land" on the other side of the mountains which could be accessed by building a road tunnel in the top right of the map which could then be moved around and clicked on to travel to the "extra land" in a different layout with mountains at the front and maybe a different shaped shoreline.... (curved)
That would be cool
