Re: Design Challenges Update - We Want Your Feedback

Water City Challenge

This time around I made some effort in producing this. Altough we had 2 islands to build on, only one could really fitted to submit, so I chose this one 🙂.

The city itself had close to 220K inhabitants, of course all served well by good roads and services.

Still no word from the officials who wanted our feedback - (yes we want feedback too!!) -  but if you like, gimme a vote over here!  

Will load my image up when I get the chance.  Got 4.5 stars.  Would be happy but the end of the event track is at 2800 which means you need a 4.5 average to get there.  In all the voting I only saw one person with a 4.5 average.  A few with 4.0 but mainly 2.0 to 3.5.  Barely saw anyone with less than 2 star average.

the prize track is not possible to complete given the randomness of voting and the score required.  If it remains unobtainable I will stop.  It’s very draining on resources at a time CoM needs it all and, apart from the odd building I can survive without, there’s nothing worth winning but the simcash.

Again there seems to be a glitch in Design Challenge. During a war, one of our players opened the Design Challenge to check for the assignment & was immediately transferred to Naughty Island. It has happened again to another player & was able to return 24h later, but certainly this situation is causing frustration to all the club members.

Our player has now sent a request to the support team, hopefully soon the issue will be addressed.

EA please fix this glitch!!

Thanks 🙏 

ChinaTown Challenge

East meeting West

Nicely splitted by "Big Walls", services serving 120K Sims on both east and west needs of the necessities to live prosperous. All happy people! They have a nice shopping mall in the middle sharing each others theme in both directions, so you can walk and shop from east to west, or the otherway around, all really depending from which side you come. I really thought this one out, so I hope you really enjoy this one!

They do seem to have fixed the voting ... or at least made it a bit more reflective of the design effort.  Still not too many mayors on the low star ratings but seen more higher value ones who do seem to have submitted good designs.  But even on this "design dash" I'm not convinced by the reward track ... guess it depends on whether it is 2 or 3 iterations.  Looks like the end is at 1500 so on 2 iterations you need 5 stars both times; if 3 iterations it should be a doddle for everyone : too easy or too hard?!?!?

Anyway.  Must have nearly won the chinatown / East meets West as got 5 stars but can't see that happening again!  attached are my East meets West and tropical paradise.  Who knows?

@DunsnoozinOh wow yes, especially your east meets west is a very clear one, and should have been presented as the winning one! I love it, well done!

As per voting goes: it is still a mess... saw a lot of junk of very off-topic "designs" getting far too much than hey are worth. Many like using those unused rewards to clutter-fill their land with the bare minimum requirements fullfilled getting of scores 3.5, even 4.5. I did see a 1.0 and 1.5 too.... hehehe

Tropical Paradise Challenge

75K Sims enjoy this little "DisneyWorld" themed paradise - complete with the Cinderella Castle 🙂

As always, everything works, people are 100% happy and beyond those thick walls everything is running smooth out of sight to keep them alive and prospering. Enjoy and vote here!

Well I have.lodged a formal complaint through the in-game reporting tool.  I got 4.5 stars for my tropical paradise which is fantastic, but the end of the design track required 5 stars for both designs which is impossible.  Not being able to win the prizes really wants to make me reach for a lawyer.  Do they never learn?  The got the prize track wrong for mayors pass, the got it wrong for the early design tracks, they got it wrong for the design dash track ... utter incompetence!

Guys, while I agree it sounds like the requirements are unrealistic (they are)...I think maybe you might want to step back and take an unfiltered look at your individual designs. As an example a road that leads to nowhere or has unnatural curves like a formula 1 race track (in a residential area) are certainly suspect and perhaps design flaws. 
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...it’s just like a newborn, everyone’s baby is the most beautiful (I know mine were) but we all are a little prejudice (except in our case 😎). I always took more stock in the consensus of everyone else’s 2nd prettiest baby...normally that’s more fair and even more accurate. 
I have absolutely no issue with anyone’s design but I will offer a few generic recommendations for folks to consider based on what I’ve seen. Build your design like it was a city...make sure your roads are concise and have a natural flow - build realistic housing based on a community theme. Plan water to support your city but don’t overwhelm it...it defeats the purpose. Limit the quantities of trees to enhance your city (parks are better) and do not use trees as filler and certainly be cautious mixing varieties. When you elect to use prizes won, make sure they actually make sense with the theme and actually fit your design.

I only offer these for your consideration as apparently you haven’t received feedback from officials and they are a few of the things I look closely at when I vote. I’ve had the great fortune of seeing some incredibly well designed and attractive cities as I’ve traveled through the Global Trade HQ and like the mayor that made the suggestion a few years back that appears to have led to the design challenge I would also like to share a snapshot of those cities with the forum to acknowledge the outstanding efforts of those mayors and share great ideas with others just getting started (but where’s the money in that).

I wish each of you great luck with your design.

Lots of good feedback in this thread here, mainly to do with the impossible final reward on the event track:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SCBuildIt/comments/n9s3dd/wait_so_the_only_way_to_claim_the_simcash_on_the/

Otherwise I enjoy it the design track, voting seems to work now, but the rewards are out of kilter and too difficult for users to win.

@DunsnoozinI think I'm done with waisting on this.... do just the bare minimum then submit it. I also think about stopping all together playing this game because we are not heard. We've given them ample time to address issues, but as you just whitnessed, we are ignored.

As I go through the voting process I find it very frustrating when I have 2 designs that have not met the requirements and honestly show very little effort and creativity. Perhaps their should be a third option...neither. If either or both cities have met the minimum requirements I have no problem selecting the better of the two but I do have an issue rewarding obvious poor effort. 

Ok, now I am completely hacked off with the design challenges.  Do these guys NEVER learn.  I thought ‘long track but 8 goes, should be fine’.  I have had 4, 4.5, 4 and 4 stars, plus full 250 for the entries.  To get to the 100 sim cash is 3400, 700 for that level alone.  I am on 2900 so won’t quite complete this level this go (unless I get real lucky!).  So, that will leave me 3 entries for the last 2 levels and a bit ... but this level is 1 whole entry at 700 points.  If both the last 2 levels are 1000 points (the jump from aliens to 100 cash was 500-700 so 200 rise), I will need 2100 assuming 4 stars this entry.  I would need all three remaining entries to be 4.5 stars to get there which is bordering on impossible.  And the good money says the last two levels will keep rising.  If the last 2 levels are 1000 points that’s a 4.25 star average needed, good bet is you will need 4.5 or 5 star average to reach the end which is ludicrous.  Maybe double points for the last entry like CoM?

Might have jumped the gun ... or they got my rant and adjusted the targets ... platinum keys are 4100 blueprints so a jump of 700.  I should get there after my next submission, leaving 2 lots of voting and one more submission to reach the end.  5200 is a 4 star average and that may be possible ... a jump of 1000 or 1100 for the last level ...

Nope, didn’t jump the gun.  It was only 7 goes round the challenge with the end at 4900, or a 4.5 star average.  Given the subjectivity of the voting that is still too hard to achieve.  I will be lodging a formal complaint through the game too.  If that end goal is not brought back to a reasonable level (4 stars maximum) then I will cease design challenges, there is no point - it consumes far to much materials for such miserly prizes.  Only the 1k simcash is worth the effort.  I got t lots of 4 star and 2 4.5 star.  Doubt many people did much better / make the end.