This update is the biggest tragedy to ever hit the game. I still have my main original city because of all the time and money I have put into the game since 2021. I got some experience with the service upgrades because of my now-deleted feeder city that was unfortunate enough to have the upgrades.
You have created a system that is extremely confusing, and I'm an experienced player. Yes the game has a tutorial mode for new players, but it is extremely frustrating, intrusive, and made me delete the feeder before I even reached level 14. The over enthusiastic and quite frankly, extremely disgusting messaging we have received from EA staff is that this is a "new and exciting way of managing your city's economy". Tracktwenty clearly does not understand it's players, nobody wants to have to manage anything. They want to build a city and have fun designing - and you've taken what was once one of the best city building simulation games - quite honestly what was once the gold standard, and you have completely destroyed it. I think the game in it's current state is an insult to the original Maxis developers and the original Sim City titles. This game does not deserve to bare the Sim City name.
With the experience I had with the new city, I've been demolishing residences to reduce future service demand - prioritizing demolition of residences that were covered by the small fire / health / policy stations (and small regional service buildings) to reduce costs on future upgrades. Doing this also means I'm ruining designs I spent years crafting. I'm doing this proactive action for the inevitable day that the service upgrades do hit my city, and if I am still playing, I'll hopefully minimize my headaches and frustration.
The developers may sincerely care about developing a game, but that is not coming across to the players. Some of us have had hints something was coming thanks to information shared by data miners, but the full breadth of how many disruptions that will occur was not known. To me, it appears that EA is using AI to identify ways to further monetize the game. which I get it - gotta make money. But, instead of factoring in player suggestions with the AI produced scenarios to monetize the game, the development staff instead blindly went ahead with the changes, and only actively solicited player feedback after the first rollout and realized that a dumpster fire was started and players became extremely angry with EA staff.
Even if the developers did not actively seek player input prior to rolling out the changes, EA could have done more to forewarn players of the upcoming changes and could have provided guidance on what sorts of things players would encounter and how to best prepare. But you didn't, instead you blindly pull in players against their will into "beta" tests (if you can even call it a beta test), some of which may not have been totally experienced players who ended up asking questions and pretty much being helpless because there was no way any other player could support them.
The saddest part of this all, there will be player turnover as a result of changes. There usually always is, but this update I think will drive away even more players - mainly long term players, many of which who have spent money on the game. You can make an assumption that new players will fill voids left by long term players - but I don't think this is a safe assumption to make. The tutorial I experienced with my deleted feeder was extremely cumbersome and I think EA will be lucky if even 25% of new sign ups continue playing after the tutorial.
In conclusion, I feel a major lack of empathy from EA staff (developers and forum staff included) about the changes. I asked if someone could ask the developers to provide some sort of update or guidance, and either my message was ignored or not seen. I am not even sure why feedback is being sought from players, overwhelmingly the response from everyone I've seen is that nobody likes this update. We are asked "what could make this update better"? The response is get rid of it. Any tweaks or adjustments to the new system is basically like a mortician preparing a body for a funeral, putting makeup on to hide the decaying structure underneath.
In my mind, I'm imagining the developers and other EA staff sitting around making fun of the responses from players. This was a really bad rollout, you are going to lose players, and game revenue will just further decline because paying players have left, and replacement players will decide this game is not worth paying for. Please do not raise prices as. a result of the loss of revenue stemming from this update, players should not be punished for poor decisions.
Thank you.
Community Manager
