✨Service 2.0 Update - Feedback Thread✨

I just used the new update and it’s like the old game but better. I’m an apple user and I use game center I’ve played the game for 10 + years and I’ve been so frustrated the past twoish years constant restart and crashes. And digital wack out freezes when moving across screen. I was so unhappy and now it’s all gone everything is working bigger better faster. I did have problems logging into this form.. had to create a new login.. I’m logged in with apple and it could not find my account so now I have another account to confuse my Game Center back up but I’ll cross that road later. For now, Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!

Can you please tell us how we can sell all of our now extra omega utilities?  Multiple players have been banned because they have done this and suddenly had a huge increase in neocash. They have posted in the forum that customer service was no help in lifting the ban. I refuse to participate in this new update if you can’t guarantee that we won’t be banned. I have been playing since the start of this game and customer service is the worst it has ever been.   

I agree. The maxis manors cost a lot of simcash and it seems that this might be removing much of the benefits. The benefits of maxis manor should be increased. Maybe a much larger coverage area. Something should be done.  All these updates are doing is just angering all the long term players. I don’t even play much anymore because I hate CoM. 

Horrible, just horrible. My population has reduced 800k, taxes reduced 10k. Omega houses don't recognise drones, normal houses don't get covered by police, hospital and fire department. Houses got abandoned and I have to renovate them at my own cost! It is a disaster. It seems that big size departments don't function any more. The game says that I need more sewage and garbage whatever but I have too much of both!!! Please fix my city somehow, and provide me some compensation in taxes lost in 2 days!!! This update has ruined my beautiful city. I have no idea how to fix it. 

I play on two devices with a main city and a feeder.  The main city is on my iPad and today have tried numerous times to open the app without success.  If it does open, it immediately shuts down on me.

My feeder city is on a mini iPad and apparently has the new format.  Hate it.  Find its placement to be annoying and distracting.  Instead of having all info immediately visible, now have to stop and find the right icon to press to show what info one needs.  Why move the icons from the left side to the right?  Actually, why fix everything that wasn’t broken instead of fixing the many problems that have been plaguing the game for ages, like the freezing and pixalation when hitting a landmark, parks, etc. buttons?  Oh, not to mention the Error17 that pops up often.  Just did on my feeder city, in fact.  I have already lost several members of my team because of the updates and I believe you will be losing more now.  BTW, have been playing since the game’s inception and my main city is level 99.

After approximately 20 attempts, finally managed to log on to my main city.  But, it continuously shut down on me almost every time I tried to do something, like buy something on the global network or switch cities. My patience is coming to an end with this game that once was very enjoyable and had good tech support.

According to the announcement, we would not see abandoned buildings requiring renovation until after we get a chance to see the new Services 2.0 features. I, however, have several buildings that need renovation because certain services are not 100%. Is this a bug?

Why didn't the developers prepare a YouTube video that provides examples of all aspects of Services 2.0 when it was fully rolled out? It's hard for people to imagine what this means without visual examples and/or a tour of these features. 

As a longtime player, I find that newly introduced features, such as Mass Transit and Services 2.0, have rewards and upgrades set too high. For example, every Mass Transit passenger generates one-half Rail Simolean, and it takes a lot of Rail Simoleans to buy items from the Railway Shop. Even if the game were changed to be one Rail Simolean per passenger, it would still take a long time to purchase items from the Railway Store or upgrade the locomotives (although better than one-half per passenger :-) ). I understand that the ultimate goal is to entice people to use real money to make purchases to improve gameplay. The changes look like a money grab and have hurt the game's enjoyment. I stopped making real-money purchases with the introduction of Mass Transit, and Services 2.0 might be enough to prompt me to leave the game altogether.

I think the developers (and all EA staff in actuality) are incredibly incompetent and completely useless when it comes to providing decent customer service. Your guide (as per usual with your guides) provides practically no actual information to help me, I wish you'd just stop posting them. 

My feeder city that I just created a week or so ago is the only one of my cities that has the service building upgrades and what a cess pool the developers have created. With this new city, I'm experiencing the game the same way a new player would experience the game and it's very frustrating to advance. These changes actually make the game more difficult and unattractive to new players.

I think the only way to improve it is to scrap the entire thing. What a complete waste of development time.

Things that contributed to how much of a disaster this roll out is going to be:

1. Practically no forewarning from the developers before the first stages of the testing of the new features began. If players were given a heads up, they would know what surprises to expect.
2. The setting of all service demand requirements for Water, Electric, Sewer, and Trash to 1 was a stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid idea. With the new system, service demand is based on how upgraded your residences are versus the old system of service demand being determined by building type. The developers gave no explanation for the setting of service demands to 1, and over the past few months, players have demolished excess service buildings. I was unsure of whether I should demolish the excess services or not, and since no guidance was issued by developers, I stupidly demolished my excess buildings to free up space. I even asked you [Edit - CM] if you could ask the developers to provide some sort of guidance, and I was ignored or my message was not seen / read.
3. Instead of limiting the roll out to specific services at a time, the developers are instead going for the full kitchen sink and instead rolling out the services to groups of players. 
4. There clearly is no contingency plan in event the service upgrades have a huge bug. The developers appear to be reactionary to bugs instead of proactively testing prior to releasing updates. This is a development failure.

In my job, if any project of mine had the number of issues that have been caused by buggy updates, I would no longer have a job. I am astonished at how much poor quality app updates have been released by. I know that most development involves AI at this point, however, EA should still have safeguards and testing measures in places to ensure AI generated code is bug free.

As a player of 9 years+, level 99, having spent huge amounts of time (and also spending quite a bit of money) on refining and and maximising my population (heading towards 32,000,000), this "upgrade" sounds like the end of the line to me. Getting ready to quit the game and go find a proper city builder Sim game instead, without all this multi currency nonsense and all the significant negative changes you keep making (have already been researching and there are a few contenders out there). One thing's for sure - I won't be choosing another EA game any time soon. Your devs have lost their way over the past couple of years.

I am also a 9+ year level 99, with a significant amount of time invested but minimal money spent. I also "started over" by creating two additional new cities -- currently a 45 and a 73. The introduction of Mass Transit prompted me to back off on the 73. The introduction of Services 2.0 may make playing the 45 too painful to continue. As a result, I might quit playing the game altogether, too. 

With all due respect, but why do you keep using your development resources to add unpopular or unnecessary new features, and yet you continue to do absolutely nothing about the cheater problem?!

You allow all sorts of cheaters to ruin every aspect of the game.. Club Wars, Contest of Mayors, Design Challenge.. and instead of taking action, you just add more stuff for legit players and paying customers to do.

In my opinion, you should focus all your resources on fully addressing the cheater problem and providing a safe and fair game. This should be your priority. Then, if you solve it completely, go ahead and add all the new features you want.

A good start, for example, would be:
1. Do not allow the game to open if Game Guardian or other similar programs are detected.
2. Add a new button to each city so we can report it easier and faster. Instead of having to go to another window, enter information manually, etc., it would be preferable to have a button that we can simply press and all the necessary information for the report will be automatically retrieved. The Report button in each city would be like the Invite button for example.
3. Check our reports! and check them quickly and do something during wars for example.

There are many more things you could do, the above are just off the top of my head.