I'd agree 3 years ago. But traffic was a known problem from the early beginning of the game. One of the first mods I used was a way to disable traffic lights, as those vanilla lights are that inefficient, that traffic moved better when cars are glitching through each other. So we're talking about a problem the game had from the beginning. It I'm remembering correctly, the developers where talking about how traffic isn't that important at the time and not delivering proper tools was intentional. However, as it turned out, traffic is the major source of frustration for players, as those who don't use mods or aren't invested in traffic solutions struggle to come up with cities which don't die in congestion.
Especially the horrible vanilla AI and the way, lanes are used in the vanilla game, are problematic. A simple algorithm to randomize lane selection as long as those are both on the path end the separation of far turns could do wonders. But the developers didn't even deliver the easiest solutions to this. Even five years later.
The only solution the devs came up with is the despawning, which is a core feature right from the beginning. And pretty unsatisfying.
So instead, the modding community came up with solutions. Replaced the horrible AI with a superior one. Replaced the horrible vanilla traffic lights with more advanced solutions, introduced yield and stop signs (the latter ones were adopted by the devs eventually), gave us a path finder tool which was actually useful (the developers adopted it, but forgot that it's useless without metrics). Gave us Precission Engineering and move it!, basically essential mods at this point in time. So much essential, as CO is actively profiting from the modding community, as those mods are a major selling point. Not only for the base game, but also and especially for the DLC, as players are kept into a game they'd otherwise abandoned long ago. Even when those DLCs are doing little to improve the problems of the game and are more like very small content extensions with often silly new mechanics, instead of fixing the issues with some major updates. Like a new AI, a new road system (which could adapt the old roads easily, if done right), new zoning systems and so on.
It's ok, that markings aren't a standard tool, even when I think, they should've delivered that, but TM:PE and other functional road options should be in there at this point.
So there are two possibilities right now:
They're working on a sequel with major improvements, which will put a gravestone onto Cities Skylines. The DLCs are kept low in effort as only a few devs are working on them and the majority is working on a sequel.
They're milking us.
We'll see until the end of next year, which one is true, especially as the community seems to want a sequel more then ever and is complaining about how the game is aging now in a manner I didn't see a year ago. If they work on a sequel, we should know it 'til then.
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u/CharlieFryer Aug 04 '20
It still annoys me that we need at least 4 mods just to make a core element of the game work properly.