Hey Mayors! We hope you are all keeping well, and that your citizens and cities are happy and prospering! We are currently testing a new game mode: City Design Challenges. It is currently in a restricted early-access mode which means it is only available to a limited number of Mayors. This feature is currently still a work in progress because we want to thoroughly test it before rolling it out to all Mayors. The testing phase will continue with a small subset of Mayors until we are satisfied that the feature is in tip-top shape to make sure that you all can properly love and enjoy it! At this time, we will not be adding more players to the testing, but we do want to provide a place for our testers to discuss the feature, and to provide feedback on their experiences as they go. So, feel free to drop us a quick post below - we will be reading over the comments at various stages throughout the testing stage. However, please remember to keep the discussion on-topic and directed toward the City Design Challenges only. Any comments that are not focussed on this will be removed. Have fun Mayors, and we are looking forward to seeing what you all create and comment on shortly!

A few remarks about the design challenges: - the general concept is very interesting, it allows to breathe new life into the game which was beginning to sink into the war game and no longer a creation game, I really like the idea. However, there are still improvements to be made: - once the challenge has been validated, it is a shame not to be able to go back on it, just to visit it and share it with another player. - it would be nice to be able to visit the designs of other players in our own club - on the vote, the choice between 2 designs is too much limited. Out of the 5 votes to do, I most often voted for the less lame one, but sincerly it did not deserve any star: unfinished site, barely the minimum of inhabitants, photo which shows nothing.- and +1 on the fact that it would be great not to add XP into our level and just keep it a uncorrelated challenge.

Nice to see that our opinions and feedback are valued.1. I feel the motivation to participate in the Challenge is not enough, or I don't want to invest too much, as it is temporary and cannot be saved after the challenge is over.So the rewards could be more generous, such as some honorary titles for the Top players, and be marked on the City Info Panel or in other forms.2. It may be for a number of reasons that we can't visit the candidate cities during Voting.So at the very least, is it possible that we could visit the Top cities as we're always looking for design talent?Above all, it is an interesting mode and I hope it could have really Special things to lure us in. GOOD JOB, EA!

•Please do not add XP for residential upgradings for the city design challenge. Or please let us store the residential even just for the challenge mode. ⇨I don’t want XP for residential I’d lose. I’d like the game-mode to be separated with the regular city development.•I’d like to see the whole city we created but not just one screen shot. No need to to visit their city or trade depot, but would like to see the design from deferent angles!•share the top players cities on the official social media. The cities will be gone after the challenge, it’d be nice if we can check the older challengers too.Really excited for the new game mode. Can’t wait it’ll be released for all players 🙂

After completing 2 challenges, I really feel the voting system needs to be changed.Can’t select the best design with the current system. There are cities that barely fit the requirements and not even “designing”. Don’t want to vote for them...Mayors who spent 1 hours to make the city look pretty get only 3 stars, and mayors who spent only 10 mins just placed 5 houses also get 3 stars... it’s a total joke. this needs to be fixed. Here are some ideas;-let us skip vote if those randomly selected 2 cities aren’t worth voting-let us pick from randomly selected 5 (or 10) designs instead of 2, so we can vote for a design that actually looks good, but not elimination method.I saw some designs a lot better than the winning one. Please improve the voting system so those great designers can get 5 stars!!

Hi everyone,thank you for the interesting game mode of design challenge. At first, I thought that this will be quite fun.Now after the 3rd participation, I‘m not sure if I will play this mode ever again. The reason for this are the - in my opinion - randomly awarded stars. I‘ve got 0,5 stars for a design that met all requirements, was elaborate, had quite some population, and on which I spent quite some time and Sim Cash. What really irritated me was the fact that the winner of the current round did win the last round too. This time, his design was impressive but last time it had nothing to do with the topic. So I‘m asking myself why I should spend hours on a design if I never have a chance of earning stars / blueprints whilst other players will get rewarded for „low to none“ effort designs. Like this I‘ll neither get the achievments nor the feeling of being evaluated fairly. I understand that designs are based on subjective evaluation but something appears to be very off for me. Thanks for checking

Early Access City Design Challenges - Feedback Thread

50 Replies

thebairn1000
5 years ago
@Therealpcsurgeon built and upgraded a lot of buildings. Had also upgraded the utilities to omega on that one
SummitVista3310
5 years ago
And again, Mars1001001 is the winner. 3 times in a row. I started wondering if our votes aren’t even reflected for the result. If it’s not a real competition and they only want to test their system, not worth try. We better just submit a design with minimum population and get voting rewards.
inhert5orh0u
5 years ago
The voting has improved slightly, meaning we can now vote for more designs over 24hrs. However I still don’t think voting against two designs is fair. It would be better if you see one design at a time and give it a score between zero to a max of five stars.
I have attached my new design for Tropical Haven.
MichealYun
New Vanguard
5 years ago
@inhert5orh0u That is about the algorithm problem. I'm not professional but I know that different algorithms have different merits and demerits. Giving scores from my view is not practical as each of us has different standards, even someone may all score it zero. Then the voting result of each design could be out of control. The voting part is supposed to be made relatively practical and as easy as possible.
Dunsnoozin
5 years ago
A few positives. Good to see a cash handout (made the free land expansion) and got 4 stars this time. Not totally convinced the winner was that much better but voting is subjective so I can’t complain at 4. [now with file uploaded for my Green Valley]
as for the voting, I am a software engineer of 25 years experience and the latter half working in quality assurance of software / data analysis. When putting together a voting system, you can think about the ideal solution (people give 5 stars to the best, 3 to average ones etc). However, you need to think about how it can be abused also (with or without cheating). On a ‘rate each city’ format, if I want to win I give everyone else 0 stars an hope someone gives mine non-zero. A ‘pick the best’ approach forces the voter to positively score a city. Still doesn’t stop people voting for the worst one so the competition is reduced but all that means is a rubbish one wins. How you then operate the ‘pick the best’ is up for grabs ... pick from 2, pick from 5, use elimination so only the better ones go through to the next round ... you could use a forced distribution (show 6 and rate them 0 to 5 stars) but that means one from 6 rubbish entries gets 5! At least with pick the best, rubbish v rubbish will randomly win some and lose some so won’t get more than 2.5 stars.
ideally you would hope the developers would use an approach proven elsewhere. They tried this with the war leagues which appear to use the ELO system (chess world rankings amongst many others). They have had to adjust the ELO implementation because of mistakes they made but that’s a whole other thread. Hopefully for design challenges they have taken a proven ‘off the shelf’ solution and implemented correctly, as well as using defensive coding to make it hack proof.
inhert5orh0u
5 years ago
@MichealYun You are right. Example when people use Christmas/Halloween items when the season is over etc.
I guess I will wait and see what they decide regards to voting as I’m clueless when it comes to algorithms.
inhert5orh0u
5 years ago
@Dunsnoozin I have upload my screenshots via iPad with no problems. Also I agree they need to make this hack proof.
Athewhofan2
Seasoned Veteran
5 years ago
This week CoM assignment of the new task to vote on a design at start of CoM when it does not come in line with the CoM as voting is not for under 4 days CoM be ended by time one gets to vote for 2500 points. Only get to vote on the last 3 hours of CoM I completed all my tasks by then. I suggest as it not in line with the com is to ditch this task and bring back canisters!?
SummitVista3310
5 years ago
@athewhofan2 Hi! They made a new thread for the city design challenge.

https://answers.ea.com/t5/SimCity-BuildIt-General/Design-Challenges-Update-We-Want-Your-Feedback/td-p/10142539
SectorN1
5 years ago
I like the new mode. Only problem I'm facing right now that is We can't see our own design after submitting Design. I hope there will be an option for that in the future!

Forum Discussion

Early Access City Design Challenges - Feedback Thread

50 Replies

About SimCity BuildIt

Recent Discussions

Energia in guerra

Graphic glitches

Make it easier to report cheats

Web Bonus - Completely Normal Pass

Why don't the developers understand we are sick of seasonal currency?