Unpopular opinions about TU?

General
66

I just had a brain blast regarding this issue. A lot of people do their disclaimers in the server/condo title/name.

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If someone gets this ban, they can’t put the disclaimer in the condo title. At that point, it’s up to the condo owner has to put up some sort of buffer before the NSFW stuff starts in the condo, which I feel like a good amount probably don’t do. Not sure of the actual amount- because I don’t go to condos for this reason. Not a whole lot I can add to further this discussion, this is just something that popped into my head, so I thought I’d post it.

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67

I liked the bright realism aesthetics TU had when I downloaded it in 2019 more than the cartoony style it’s heading towards now.
When I opened it first, it was perfect. Music, sounds, visual appearance. The main menu music was adding up to the feeling of bright future city I am stepping in (as In Plaza).
Unfortunately, it’s not the case as much now, and I am just watching TU shifting from what made me extra love it at the beginning.
It can be seen in Plaza’s redesigns, like its jungle part, which goes for “themed park” aesthetics. I… *sigh* seriously, it’s great lotsa players loved it. But it feels a little ridiculous to me. Why a virtual city I love to visit and enjoy suddenly feels like an attraction for children? I mean, that’s what I personally get from “themed park” vibes. It’s something artificial and created to immerse children into some atmosphere, but it won’t look as something realistic like a real city, right? And I loved feeling like I was visiting some futuristic, bright city with lotsa stuff to do in it (stores, casino, arcade, etc, you know)
And I feel it in the changed main menu music as well. Its altered version now sounds a bit childish and like you are entering… themed park with lots of fun attractions, right? I get why it fits for lots of people, and I get my opinion is likely unpopular.

That said, I can’t help but just feel a bit sad in my heart while seeing how the game I fell in love with sincerely changes some of the important parts I loved in it. But of course that’s wasn’t all, and I’m still a pretty big fan of the game. And I know it’s nice if the made changes are welcomed by the majority of players.

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68

Honestly I feel the same. While I don’t mind the new aesthetic and the changes weren’t drastic enough that I’d personally call them “childish”, I do agree that the old style felt nicer. The quality of the new models/textures and the stylization of it all are fantastic and feel like an upgrade, but I also liked the more realistic style a bit more just as a personal taste thing.

That said, I do like the fact that different parts of the game seem to have slightly different styles. For instance, Lifeless’s new condo still seems to be more on the realistic side and I love how it’s coming together. Meanwhile gamemodes like Little Crusaders also exist which are far more cartoony in nature. I feel like the plaza strikes a pretty decent balance between the most realistic and most cartoony aspects of the game. It’s a stylized middle ground that isn’t quite one way or the other and I can understand the decisions made to update it because of that.

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69

Here I am, and I’m back again with yet another unpopular opinion:-

The perceived moderator inaction towards prolific Plaza cheaters.

This is with regards to those who use macros to farm exp without going idle, to cheese difficult achievements (“Jumping Jack Rabbit”), or to fraudulently win casino jackpots, in particular.

For the sake of transparency, it begs the question: What gives?

I can name specific individuals (but I won’t for obvious reasons) who very clearly shouldn’t be on either the Triple Diamonds, Grand Quest, or Trivia leaderboards and nor should their high scores because of their use of macros, but there they are.

These same individuals; when challenged about their actions in the plaza text chat do not even respond, nor do they not even respond to your actual presence if you happen to be in the same common space as them. I know it’s not my place to challenge them on the matter, because I’m not a moderator, I get that.

But if I take 20-30 minutes of my time to stop playing so I can do the due diligence of recording video evidence of blatant and unashamed use of macros to so that it can then be sent in with a player report. - To which I have recently submitted two player reports regarding the use of macros via the proper channels, then I have to ask where the due diligence is in return?

I appreciate you may have to do audits and investigations first at your end, but if someone is blatantly cheating with macros, then why the inaction?

If leaving your game running all day and night while on Video Poker for the sole purpose of farming a >6 figure jackpot (and it wouldn’t be the first time) isn’t fishy, then what is?

If having over 2k-3k exp on just plaza and casino badges alone with nothing or next to nothing on any of the other badges isn’t fishy, then what is?

These are just a couple of the most egregious examples of macro use I’ve seen recently. If this isn’t crossing the line, then what is?

Allowing such prolific cheaters in to official servers is making the game less enjoyable for others. Myself included.

Thank you for your time.

1 Like
70

I have a back log of macro reports I need to go through, and plan on doing so very soon.

Steam doesn’t like when you wipe a stat when someone is playing the game. However, Steam broke the API that is used to determine if a player is indeed currently playing the game.

I’ve since come up with a workaround which will be deployed very soon, and then the backlog of macro reports will be processed.

7 Likes
73

Unpopular opinion? Workshop content, especially new maps for game modes, is the untapped bread and butter of this game. I don’t understand why it is not being prioritized more. It could give the game some much needed replayability at no extra development expense post-release. Why work on official maps when you could have the community create them for you? I know I would love to make some new virus/ball race maps.

I can only play the same ball race/golf maps for so long. Though wiping (unintentionally?) our PBs and adding unlockable achievements for game vanity items has given those of us who predominately live in the mini-game world something new. Otherwise, we’re starving out here.

It always amazes me how every year I get the player survey and it almost seems to dodge this feature. At this point, I think I’m of the minority in terms of the TU player-base and most people like to bum around lobbies. I have a dozen friends who play this and a couple like to do stuff in the lobbies together now and then, but generally it is all about the mini-games or sitting in a private condo and watching youtubes because we don’t feel like playing GLXY for the 69th time. I have one friend who is hardcore into making condos, but stopped because he’d rather have a community condo for us, which also seems far away, but probably not as far as workshop content.

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74

This is a planned feature, one that is not trivial to implement.

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75

I think they know its planned, but the unpopular opinion is why they are waiting till we are near the end of early access.

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76

Yup, this. I understand it is planned, I’ve watched it closely on the trello roadmap for years (and proceeded to watch many later added features zoom past it in priority). I just wish it got attention over making new maps, lobby content, and game overhauls for the nth time. It’s detouring when you see something like Private Theatres weasel its way in. I know I’m simplifying the effort, and clearly the developers who make new maps are different from those that would code an in-game map maker… just disheartening.

I’ve gotten 20+ friends to buy and play this game, even did a full in-house session for my bachelor party. After most had played through the mini-game content, they had no interest in coming back. I realize the heart and soul of GM Tower for some is the lobby/condo social aspect, but for many others its the mini-game/mario party-esk game play. The game doesn’t have longevity for those people and I wholeheartedly believe the game would be more successful if it had community content. People on the outside looking in would probably be more interested to purchase TU if they saw the possibility of infinite content and content creators would have another platform. My friends are more interested in playing Golf It just because there is more variety, I can only imagine how intrigued they and others would be if half a dozen game modes had that same pull. I yearn for that untapped potential.

If non-paid developer positions ever opened up, I would put my money where my mouth is and work on this to see it come to fruition.

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77

The roadmap is the best way we can show the overview of where the project is headed, and the long term goals of the project. However, it’s not perfect. It doesn’t show internal detailed tasks that are being completed day to day and why this feature relates to that one, or why this feature is pushed ahead of the other feature. We do try to be transparent about everything we can though.

Workshop map making is a huge task, but one that we are very interested in and we are working towards. We have a small programming team so we have to prioritize current day bugs, crashes, and the roadmap we have set out to achieve before we can fully tackle the feature. However, the Workshop Condo update was a huge step towards workshop map making. It was designed to support both systems, not just Condos. We used Condos as a way to get the UI working, figure out how people will interact with the UI/download system, create a download system for maps, creating an uploader system for uploading maps, etc. These are all core things that lead towards workshop maps.

We still have to:

  • Create an improved editor UI for game making (this includes a way to test maps in real time).
  • Create a system to make game objects for Virus, ZM, Minigolf, Ball Race, Accelerate, etc.
  • Figure out how physics will work for custom Minigolf maps. Currently we do a bunch of tricks to improve our official maps that would be very tedious for others. We need to streamline the process.
  • We need a spline editor so people can make curved surfaces and pipes.
  • Improve workshop static mesh placement, instead of having to place down a workshop item, you’d want a list of all the models and just be able to drag it into the map.
  • And we have to continue to support this feature after its release, planning for requested features and bug fixes.

Private Theaters wasn’t weaseled in, the artists finished the private theater artwork and the karaoke system was made for Nightclub and the karaoke system is the same as private theaters, so it’s a lot easier to get out and more of it is done due to how things worked out for it, so we moved it forward to get it out.

Our artists and level designers make official maps and tackle the much requested roadmap tasks as we program the game. It’s important to realize that they have their own goals as well.

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79

My unpopular response rant.

As someone who got so overwhelmingly annoyed by people “checking if I was cheating” farming the steps and jumping achievements, please don’t use text chat as a test (especially considering not all players are native english speakers or even have their text chat open). In fact, if you’re not a mod maybe not worry about it at all? I legit almost quit the game only because of people doing these checks.

A few years ago for so many months I was working on them while binge watching shows or hanging with my kid. I couldn’t go an hour of either spamming jump or taking micro steps in the plaza without someone getting in my face obnoxiously and following me around and firing fireworks or whatever. And I used to be playful and jump with them or whatever, but the attitude is always aggressive and it killed my mood. Once I proved my innocence I was left alone so it’s not really people looking to be social, they’re lookin to get someone in trouble, which is a weird way to pass the time (says the person spamming jump in an empty theatre).

Getting in my face wasn’t just annoying, I found there were only some spots in the plaza that logged steps taken, so I was taking a specific path and had to see it. I have a small character model so someone crouched in my face blocked my entire screen. I liked to have the volume on for mini-game alerts so sudden BOOM BOOM of rockets in my face really sucked.

I normally would do something to signal I was a real person or had control of my keys, but for the most part it didn’t matter, I got followed and harassed often. I got sick of proving myself to a bunch of jerks hell bent on playing fake cop so I ignored them. One guy even was threatening to report me. I made it clear I wasn’t doing anything wrong, just because I wouldn’t defend myself in text he kept the threat up. When I did talk and expressed my exasperation of how frustrating it is to have people in my face firing guns (as if that checks if i’m using a macro?) he immediately got in my face and fired his guns repeatedly. Yep, a real good guy protecting the community and not just some bored bully sure sure sure.

My question is tho, why care? As someone who got the achievement with ample hand/thumb crampage, someone else using a macro to get theirs does not affect the game for me at all. There’s so many achievements in the game, some of them I received from bugs in the past, I’m not stressed about it. They’re not going into people’s games and ruining their fun. And they’ll definitely find a way to do it if they really really really want to, like go into an empty server and leave when someone joins (i started doing that while not macro’ing just to be left alone). Unless someone is ruining your enjoyment, why be concerned?

I can maybe see the casino ones since you are gaining units, but the jumping/walking bits… you get them once and that’s it. Then you gotta deal with achievements like getting a royal flush in poker…

SPEAKING OF. I really hate that there is an achievement for a royal flush in poker. I have famously bad luck. A completely luck based achievement for getting the odds of 1:2,598,960 is ridiculous, and a bit mean to those of us with ill-fortune.

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80

With how the devs function this would mean that most macro-ers wouldn’t get caught. The “mods” are just the developers, who spend most of their time making the game and often don’t have much free time to spend bumming out in the plazas looking for people macroing. The devs heavily rely on player-submitted reports when it comes to moderation.

It might not ruin your enjoyment, but some people definitely get pissy when people do something in a non-legitimate way while they had to do it the legit way. One reason I think they should be concerned is because “The player is using macros” is one of the things listed under “REASONS TO REPORT A PLAYER”. The EULA also considers macros to be cheats because it could be seen as unfair that those who use macros don’t have to put in the same amount of work in order to receive the award, even if it’s only a few thousand units for an achievement. Also, as someone who’s favorite gamemode is super susceptible to macroing- having less people doing it game-wide would be ideal.

But yeah, using text chat as a test is super dumb because I know there’s tons of times where I’m either actively ignoring chat or am just not paying attention.

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81

in casino, we should’ve made some games faster in pace. especially in video poker, why not having 20~100-hand variants?

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Well I definitely get pissy with people harassing me when I’m doing nothing wrong, to the point I almost quit. So my enjoyment of the game was in peril from the “cops” - not the “burglars”, hence it being an unpopular opinion :woman_shrugging: Might go better if there was a way for regular people to identify cheaters more than using “they’ve not been responding to me” but that’s not what we have is it?

Again, as I said, this isn’t actually affecting your gameplay and is basically unpreventable. Of course I would love to have only legitimate earners, but yes while “ideal” I just can’t fathom it ever stopping or even slowing from other players harassing each other. I would not choose large dickish community over someone I’ll never interact with earning achievements they ‘didn’t really earn’. The minimal unit reward is small and even with macro would still take more time than it’s worth… and again it is a one time reward not an exploitable unit loophole. I’m confident no one is doing TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND JUMPS even with a macro, just for 25k units.

I question what is more rampant, macro’ers or the people who spend their time hunting them down. I know I personally saw WAY more of the latter. I also wonder if everyone who cherishes these achievements has earned all of their other TU achievements bug free and without cheesing.

If I saw someone breaking rules in front of me I report them, including macros, but there are definitely people going out of their way to play pretend authority and aren’t doing it for the fairness of the game. But hey at least we agree the chat expectation is bad. :+1:

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83

I appreciate the insight. I guess as an outsider looking in, and only having the trello to get some feedback, it just seemed to me several other roadmap tasks shifted frequently, while Workshop Support consistently sits in “Next Up” since Oct 2019, and at one point was in Active Development back in 2018. So it was a rollercoaster of fanboy emotions when I saw that card come into play, and then get backlogged.

Now it seems I should pay less attention to the dev’s placement of trello cards. Knowing the Workshop condo feature was a tangible effort means it isn’t truly backlogged and appears to be a continual effort, which I can’t stress enough, is an extremely exciting feature.

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84

I agree player made content is an invaluable source of replay value, but I’d way rather have Condo IO and expanded condo functionality before expanded workshop content. Players have proven to be extremely resourceful with the current tools, I can’t imagine what they’d create once things like Condo IO is implemented.

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85

I actually thought that people would be making workshop maps for gamemodes inside Unreal Engine where it should be comfortable/convenient enough

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Unreal 4 mod tools aren’t really all that user friendly to create. You have to build your project, build lighting (takes hours each time), and we’d have to distribute our source code. On top of that, there would be no security protection as blueprint commands could be ran easily. You also have to mount these maps on game start up, not in real time. So if someone made a map “mod” (it’s mounted as a DLC) it would require a full restart after it’s downloaded from worksop. There’s just too many negatives and complexities that would limit the amount of people who could create maps and limit the amount of people who could play on those maps.

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If you don’t mind me asking, why was UE4 picked over something like Unity, in the end?