Design Challenges Update - We Want Your Feedback [ Edited ]

[SimOldFan]

Unfortunately, in the absence of clear information about the assessment system, one can only fantasize ...

2.5 means no one liked your design compared to the other in the pair.

The minimum score is 2.5. Maximum 5.
Does this mean there were 5 impressions? After all, there are no ratings of 2.6 or 3.2? )) Or does 2.5 points mean that no one has seen the design at all?

I have submitted 1 design, but I can rate 5 pairs of others up to 3 times. That is 10, 20 or 30 designs. Not bad. (But the choice of two options destroys the very meaning ..).

The actual number of views from the unique design is unknown. Let it be at least 5.

Then:
Rating = 5 x (the sum of all grades) / (number of grades)
*(grade = 0.5 or 1)

Examples for 10 views:
5 x (0.5 + 0.5 + 1 + 1 + 1 +1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1) / 10 = 4.5
5 x (0.5 + 1+ 1 + 1 + 1 +1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1) / 10 = 4.75
5 x (1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 +1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1) / 10 = 5

Assuming rounding has occurred, at least 9 positive votes out of 10 are required to achieve a 5-star rating.

[JaxSim1991]

Thank you for implementing the City Design Challenge. I'm happy to be able to play too.
However, the improvements proposed in Early Access have not been fixed.

① Do not add XP. Or if you want to add it, please store the house. Why can't I check the city level from the challenge screen? If you want to add XP, please display the city level on the design screen.
② Please remove it from the assignment of the contest. Or adjust the timing.
After proposing the design, I received the assignment of "2,500 points to submit the design". Is this achievable within the period of the mayoral contest? The duration of the challenge is fixed, so make sure the assignments appear when they are achievable.
③ When I actually played it, I felt that the screenshot of the limited area was a good idea. This is because the production area is large and you can see only the important parts of the design.
④ Please be able to check the designs made in the past.
⑤ The voting system is not appropriate. Those who just cleared the minimum requirements and those who designed it over an hour were the same ☆ 2.5. I feel

that it is necessary to disclose how many times my design was displayed in the votes and how many votes were received.

I think playing in this state is a waste of time and effort. This new mode is a good idea, so please improve it so that you can enjoy playing it.

[Cocatriz]

Design Challenge is one of the best game improvements ever. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the voting system need to be fixed.

After play a first round and read the other players experience I think I start understanding how the Design Challenge voting system works.

Basically, all players get 2.5 starts and few cities get into the voting rounds. This method could be a bit unfair with players that play hard.

How could you fix this? I think there are different ways to improve it.

1- Server could assign an internal score to each city. So, for example, a tree or a pond is one point, a home improvement 2 points, a building related with the event is 10 points... Only players with higher score will be introduced in the voting system.

2- Voting should be awarded with drawings points. So, voting should be equivalent to being voted.

3- There are three days to built and they are on weekend, but just one voting day on Monday. Voting should be extended during 4 days. As more votes, better results.

4- Server may ban certain kind of buildings. For example, if you are requested to make a Parish city, ban all the other residential or Christmas buildings.

5- Some weeks, once a month, the contest may request the higher population. The player with higher one wins, no need to voting. So, population players could enjoy it. High population require also to design layouts. 

6- A simple system to make epic buildings should be added.

7- When building in Design Challenge, all buildings achieved should be available. It is so slow to remove buildings from main city to place them temporary.

Hope this helps.

[Dunsnoozin]

The more I think on the voting system, the more it appears flawed.  In simple terms, random rubbish against random rubbish, some you win, some you lose, average is win half = 2.5 stars.  Good against good suffers the same problem.  The only differentiator is good vs rubbish and that only works if people choose the good one.  If you want your entry to win, you actually do better voting for the rubbish and hope others vote for yours.  As for 5 stars, whomever came top is probably promoted to 5 regardless of how many stars they actually had.  I am taking my 3 stars as I did far better than average even though 3 stars is an insult comparatively.

how to fix it?  The previous post is onto something.  There needs to be an algorithm sense check.  My suggestion is look at the % of land covered.  The higher % used, the better the score.  HOWEVER, people do just fill their space with roads or landscape so the algorithm would need to look for that by asking what % of the ground is covered by roads, parks, buildings, landscape, services, education, entertainment etc.  The more types of things used and the more even the spread the better.

Whether it is points per type of building or my suggestion it doesn’t matter.  What that would do is give an indicative rating for each city ... and then we go into voting.

In the first round, those with a high indicative rating must be put against those with a low one.  This should validate the automated assessments.  After the first round of voting, 1/3 are eliminated : the 1/3 with the lowest win rate and these are assigned 0 to 1.5 stars.  Any eliminated with a high indicative rating could be checked by a moderator and reinserted to the competition as applicable.  In the second round, Eliminate half of what’s left (the next 1/3) and assign 2 to 3.5 stars.  In the final round, there should be more of the best ones left and they compete for 4 to 5 stars.

the only downside of the elimination method is that it assumes 1/3 of entries are good, 1/3 are average and the rest rubbish.  From what I saw, 70% rubbish, 25% average, 5% good.  That means rubbish will get good points.  However, as people realise they can do well with a little bit more than token effort, over time the standard of the competition should improve.  If you can get 2.5 stars for no effort, guess what people will do?

[Forgotten_Woods]

As it stands I have no interest in using this feature. Mainly because to make a nice design you need lots of landscape items like rivers and trees. I have these in my Capital, but I'm not going to uproot these once a week to do a design in another region. This is also a disadvantage to those players that do not have these items at all.

What I'd like to see is that you have access to tons of temporary landscape items so that you can actually make something nice and also different to what your main city looks like. Maybe even a choice of another item like a castle or bridge, or some other landmark to be the main feature of the design.

[thebairn1000]

And there you have it. To help assist in your design challenge how about this offer for only £5.99 

Said the other day it'll be motivated by extracting real money from players. 

[Therealpcsurgeon]

@thebairn1000I was oblidged to spend that money since they took out the delete function on residential plots. So no way to earn the design cash - forced to buy. So... after this I won't be entering designs since it abundantly clear that the real good designs are never seen or rewarded AND getting robbed as well! In the end hoping to make all rewards, but we are left over to "luck". Back to playing SimCity I guess.... this is truly midday robbery!

[SimOldFan]

@EA_Leeloo 

If EA really needs our feedback, we'd love to have someone at EA read it.

Here are not only our proposals, but also CoM errors due to DC

Thanks.

[MichealYun]

Here’s my Speculation about the scoring mechanism of Design Challenge: maybe only 10 or less people have seen your design and decided on the final star (It apparently goes wrong by now).

When the Voting start, all the submitted designs are distributed to the players who participate in the voting. How the distribution works is the key point.

Assuming that every design has an equal status, then each design should be distributed to the same number of voters. For the sake of distinction this number is called as the number of judges(of each design). Then

Total number of pictures to be distributed = number of designs submitted * number of judges;

Total number of pictures during the voting session = number of voters * number of pictures received by each voter per round * number of voting rounds.

At present, there are 10 pictures(5 groups) in one round and we can vote at most three rounds in 24 hrs. Ideally, all the designs are successfully distributed to the same number of voters, then =, that is

Number of voters * number of pictures to be voted per round* number of voting rounds = number of designs submitted * number of judges.

For example, if 100 players submit designs and 100 players participate in voting (as judges), then we have:
100 voters* 10 pictures * 1~3 rounds = 100 designs * 10~30 judges

It means that Each Design is Distributed to 10-30 Voters. In the case of a certain number of submitted designs, more voters in more rounds means more judges and then more reasonable scores. 

Next key point is how the final star comes. In my opinion, the result of voting is first converted into a score by some algorithm(for example, 0.5 points for the one who is selected and 0 for the other; Or 3 points for being selected and 1 point for not...); Then the total score from all voters for this design is calculated and its star is finally obtained by some rules.

All of the above are based on the assumption that the score is determined entirely by voting without any other intervention, and there are enough voters (≥ the number of submitted designs) and that each final score is determined by one round of voting (i.e., no reelection/better of better).

Above all, the scoring system has to be improved a lot. What a bittersweet new model!🤣

[inhert5orh0u]

I was part of the testing phase and really enjoy this Design feature.   Still disappointed with unfair voting system.  Also the number of blueprints required to unlock the buildings needs adjusting again as it is not possible for anyone to reach the final prize.  Bonus blueprints for design entrants who stick to the required theme.  Otherwise what’s the point of having a theme?