An open letter to UPlay, you need to fix this.

[Raptor Jesus]

I posted my review of this game, and it wasn't pleasant. I wanted to share further feedback with UPlay, as I write this at 3am in my timezone.

Let me start by saying this: YTL2 in some ways, a stunning upgrade from it's predecessor.

-The graphics, are GORGEOUS.
-It runs very well on max settings (I run 1440p @ 170hz. Had no issues or major drop in frames).
-Home editing, love it. It gives you a way to make your house your own.
-Social Media, definitely a step up. Although it could use some more poses.

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Now let me get to why I think, to put it bluntly, this game is lifeless and dumpster fire. Here's why:

1. For some reason, the tutorial loves to hold your hand on the first 5-7 days once you start. You're forced to go make the videos and you can't do anything else. You HAVE to unbox the package and HAVE to proceed to the computer to make a video. It forces you to do all these things that the majority of buyers already know how to do.

But for some reason, the game doesn't explain to you what certain faces or emote faces mean. There's one where the face looks like it just walked in on his mother naked and looks absolutely disgusted. I have no idea what that face means. I can tell when a lime green smile face or an red angry face means. There's ZERO information anywhere as to what does any of that mean?

2. The game sets up unrealistic, confusing, and/or impossible goals.

One of your major mainline goal is to become a bronze youtuber in order to get to Playcon (Basically, E3). This is great and all, but the game expects you to get to 10k subscribers within 2-3 weeks. I hit all the orange trends and made several videos, and with the pacing, it's impossible to even reach 10k subscribers before Playcon begins. And as more time passes on, the videos get harder and harder to produce. So much so that the last 4 days had straight turds of videos that were 1.5-2 stars. Mind you, I picked the EXACT same cards every time, still tanked.

Some of the other "jobs" as I call it, are confusing. They want you to post a picture of either a game, event, poster, whatever. In some cases, you'll search around the entire city for said poster, only to find absolutely nothing. However, if you go into Player1, you can take the picture of the small case of the game it wants you to post about inside the store. And all of a sudden, BOOM, you completed the task. So I'll spend probably a full day in game time searching for absolutely nothing. Which takes away time for making those
turds erm, amazing videos or just doing literally anything else.

3. The city and it's citizens feel so lifeless.

One of the game's (and content creator's, tbh) pillars are growing your connections and building your relationships. It can takes WEEKS AND MONTHS to really build that up. As you can only talk to that person once and get an actual increase in your relationship meter. If you talk to them more than once, it doesn't increase it at all.

Also, you can only give one gift to a person PER DAY. What? What kind of rule is that?

You also can't seem to find some specific people most days. I'll spend an entire day looking for Joy, and can't find her any day of the week with the exception of Sunday where in the morning she's at the port sipping on smoothies or at AFK Bar in the tournament.

4. Bugs, bugs, and more bugs. Absolutely 0 QA done at all.

Let's talk about the bugs. As everyone knows, there's some that pop up that nobody could expect. Take for example Gas Station Simulator and the infamous broom physics. (If you're not familiar, check out Let's Game it Out's video on Youtube). Accidents happen, things happen, it's life.

However, it gets to a point where the game gets extremely difficult or unplayable. Which both happen.

There's sections of the game where if you either go through a certain building (AFK Bar on Sundays) or doing a random task, it'll stop letting you click on things. You can open up your phone, but you can't select your apps. Oh let me go and open the menu and exit the game, oh wait, it won't let you hit exit. Instead, I have to Alt+F4 in order to close it. The game is literally stifling me from progressing at the maximum pace possible. As all Youtubers know, you need subscribers in order to grow.

Now let's talk about the scooter "exam." I'm not sure who thought this was a good idea, but it wasn't. You pay $100 for the license and to start the exam and you get 3 attempts. Okay, well, the game doesn't tell you what you need to do in order to pass. It'll just stop you mid riding and restart the course. Fail 3 times, guess what?

You have to pay ANOTHER $100 to take the exam. So now, I'm stuck in this endless loop of failing the exam because the game can't recognize whether or not you hit a cone. But random citizens? Oh you can run them down during your test and not get penalized. Especially when their walking in the scooter path.

In what world do you need a license to ride a scooter? Come on now. That is so cringey.

So not only cannot I not make a post to maximize the exposure, I also can't pass the stupid freaking scooter exam and now I'm stuck running around the city at a snails pace.

5. Now, what I found ironic is what a developer responded to some actual problems and criticism with this fluff:

"Expect a hotfix soon, this shouldn't take too long. This is a very big game and some things might fall under the radar. "

No, you guys didn't test YOUR GAME properly. YOU are the developers, YOU plan the release date. YOU create the timeline in which you spend time to develop. Don't give us these pathetic excuses. These problems aren't "somethings that might fall under the radar."

What you guys did is develop with console in mind FIRST and now are scrambling to fix the problem you failed to test. I find it VERY hard to believe that there were any QA testing done on the simple control or even game play elements, don't feed us that bs.

You guys released YTL1 for PC first, then ported it to console and mobile 2 years later. Now you decided to release it all at once and did a poor job of testing the PC version. Which is why the rating sits @ mixed (62% at the time of this thread). Instead, your temporary fix is "using a controller when this happens fixes the problem." Further proof of you developed console in mind primarily.

6. It seems that a good portion of the budget went to getting top trending and highest ranked Youtubers (PewDiePie, etc. for example) took priority over game development.

In fact, this is clearly evident in PewDiePie's ACTUAL YOUTUBE VIDEO he posted on October 15th. You were so worried about marketing and getting his face and brand into your game, as opposed to QA.

How you spend your budget and money is not entirely my concern, that's your decision. However, my money when I go to purchase a game is trust that this content will entertain me and satisfy that. So when I spend my money that I earned and got this, I have every right to be incredibly frustrated.

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I laid out my concerns and frustrations. My only question is how are you going to address this and what are you go to do about it? Don't give me any of that fluff, I understand your job takes time and mistakes happen. However, it's not a mistake if you didn't do your due diligence and if you make the same mistake more than once.

I don't care how long you take to fix it (within a reasonable amount of time). I understand that it will take a bit. Whether you slowly release small bug fixes or a large all in one patch is up to you.

As I mentioned in my review, I'm open to potentially changing it. I don't have a problem giving this a 2nd chance. But only if the issues are addressed and resolved.

I wouldn't make this thread if I didn't genuinely like the game, I do. But there needs to be more. MUCH more.

At the end of the day, I'm more upset that I looked forward to this being released for the past several weeks only to be disappointed.

[oboka]

First, thanks for the positive points.


1. No, the tutorial does not force you to record gameplays or even go to meet Blair to get the game, you can ignore that. Starting the second day you are free to do what you want, but obviously the game needs to explain you the core mechanics that build up the game. The face that is right next to subs number is a thermometer that shows you if you are doing it good or bad, we felt we don't need to explain things that explain themselves and make the start even harder.


2. The bronze mission, will be changed in the next big update. We've seen it's confusing, YOU DON'T NEED TO DO IT TO GET TO THE PLAYCON. Sorry for that, that message is not clear. But it is actually possible and fairly easy to reach 10k subs by day 25. Video get harder because you have gained a level in the Gameplay video type, you will get more views and more subs but now it is a little bit harder.

You don't need to find everything every day, you better do what you know to do, and go for the trends you know where to find, as you spend more time in the city you will discover where are all those trends eventually.


3. Maybe you find citizens lifeless, but there are near 40 story characters each one with their own missions, their own backstory waiting for you to help them, and grow your relation. You can only increase your realation talking once a day, and taking a photo once a week, but you can try finding what gifts do they like if you want to go faster. I think you should not be worried by how many time it will take you to marry someone, in the trip you will enjoy character missions, character cutscenes, and many other surprises. For the gift limit, that's a progression limit every game has, but we also find it a bit realistic.

We're in the process of doing a better map that shows you where the characters you know are everytime, but keep in mind that each one of them has their daily routines, you can learn where they spend the mondays, and probably you will find them in the same place on mondays.

4. We've spend months testing the game, not only us but we also hired external testing. But in software, and specially in games where a lot of things happen in the same time, it is almost impossible be bug free. Does Microsoft test Windows? Then why they sometimes send updates that corrupts the filesystem for some users?

The bug about the mouse click in the AFK will be fixed today.

The scooter exam, well its just cones. Once again we though we didn't need to explain it further. We will take note and fix that for the next update. We can't be in the mind of every player.

The exam itself it's pretty easy, most of the kids we've tried have passed it.

6. The game has been in full development for two years, +30 people. It is big. Thats a lot more expensive than a PewDiePie video.

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What you can expect of future updates is:

- Bug fixing
- Better explanation of things that we've seen people getting stuck, we have a version in the works to fix the most important problems
- Game balance tuning: maybe we've seen people have a hard time getting some money at the start, or maybe the scooter exam is too hard...
- Content updates and new features, we are working in a lot of content for the next months

But, if this game is not for you, don't expect that suddently you update the game and now it's a shooter, that won't happen.

[vince]

Originally posted by oboka:

First, thanks for the positive points.


1. No, the tutorial does not force you to record gameplays or even go to meet Blair to get the game, you can ignore that. Starting the second day you are free to do what you want, but obviously the game needs to explain you the core mechanics that build up the game. The face that is right next to subs number is a thermometer that shows you if you are doing it good or bad, we felt we don't need to explain things that explain themselves and make the start even harder.


2. The bronze mission, will be changed in the next big update. We've seen it's confusing, YOU DON'T NEED TO DO IT TO GET TO THE PLAYCON. Sorry for that, that message is not clear. But it is actually possible and fairly easy to reach 10k subs by day 25. Video get harder because you have gained a level in the Gameplay video type, you will get more views and more subs but now it is a little bit harder.

You don't need to find everything every day, you better do what you know to do, and go for the trends you know where to find, as you spend more time in the city you will discover where are all those trends eventually.


3. Maybe you find citizens lifeless, but there are near 40 story characters each one with their own missions, their own backstory waiting for you to help them, and grow your relation. You can only increase your realation talking once a day, and taking a photo once a week, but you can try finding what gifts do they like if you want to go faster. I think you should not be worried by how many time it will take you to marry someone, in the trip you will enjoy character missions, character cutscenes, and many other surprises. For the gift limit, that's a progression limit every game has, but we also find it a bit realistic.

We're in the process of doing a better map that shows you where the characters you know are everytime, but keep in mind that each one of them has their daily routines, you can learn where they spend the mondays, and probably you will find them in the same place on mondays.

4. We've spend months testing the game, not only us but we also hired external testing. But in software, and specially in games where a lot of things happen in the same time, it is almost impossible be bug free. Does Microsoft test Windows? Then why they sometimes send updates that corrupts the filesystem for some users?

The bug about the mouse click in the AFK will be fixed today.

The scooter exam, well its just cones. Once again we though we didn't need to explain it further. We will take note and fix that for the next update. We can't be in the mind of every player.

The exam itself it's pretty easy, most of the kids we've tried have passed it.

6. The game has been in full development for two years, +30 people. It is big. Thats a lot more expensive than a PewDiePie video.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What you can expect of future updates is:

- Bug fixing
- Better explanation of things that we've seen people getting stuck, we have a version in the works to fix the most important problems
- Game balance tuning: maybe we've seen people have a hard time getting some money at the start, or maybe the scooter exam is too hard...
- Content updates and new features, we are working in a lot of content for the next months

But, if this game is not for you, don't expect that suddently you update the game and now it's a shooter, that won't happen.

I've got a question about 2 actually. I got my gameplay to level 3, and now i'm struggling to even achieve 1 star in my recordings, let alone three or four. How do I make the recordings better after levelling up? The cards just do so little now... is there some way to improve the cards or something that I'm missing?

Also, yes I found it very easy to get 10,000 subscribers before playcon, I don't really think there's any problem with that objective.

[oboka]

Unlock better cards, meanwhile record other video types that are easier (level 1), like vlogs, interviews, comments..., use the shuffle card on your lucky days, have an strategy, go for 1 star instead of trying to get all 5

[Owl]

I personally thing that "go for 1 star instead of trying to get 5" is a big oversight in the game design. The one to five star rating system implies that if you are doing less than 5, you, the player, did something wrong, especially if you had previously achieved better ratings before.

Honestly, it should have been the opposite, the lower the level of a thing you are trying to make, the harder it is to get 5 star rating. It would actually show progression of getting better at some skill = getting better rating at the end. Like, it makes way more sense than starting out with great ratings and as you make more of the same thing you are suddenly becoming worse and worse at it.

I'm not that far into the game, but maybe it could be a bit better if you had something like in the first game with courses and books you could read to improve yourself instead of simply relying on cards.

[Shiro]

The whole game feels like you are not allowed to play at your own pace. You have to rush.

[勞資蜀道山]

no idea how to pass the scooter license,failed 10 times already ...

[PsySpy]

Wow, someone thinks a lot of themselves and it's not the developer I'm talking about. I had no problem getting to 10k subs before PlayCon, just made sure to make one to two videos a day following the trending topics while buying food to re-energize and to have at least one social media post with trending. Haven't tried the scooter thing yet.

[Agent J]

Originally posted by Moon:

no idea how to pass the scooter license,failed 10 times already ...

Originally posted by Moon:

no idea how to pass the scooter license,failed 10 times already ...

You just gotta go through the cones, go through the circle and don’t hit any cones. If your still confused they do have some Youtubers that did the scooter exam

[ShillHog]

Yah, obaka is an arrogant angry little person. Fire yourself, Obak - you suck at speaking to people and handling criticism.




- call me

[Raptor Jesus]

Originally posted by oboka:

First, thanks for the positive points.


1. No, the tutorial does not force you to record gameplays or even go to meet Blair to get the game, you can ignore that. Starting the second day you are free to do what you want, but obviously the game needs to explain you the core mechanics that build up the game. The face that is right next to subs number is a thermometer that shows you if you are doing it good or bad, we felt we don't need to explain things that explain themselves and make the start even harder.


2. The bronze mission, will be changed in the next big update. We've seen it's confusing, YOU DON'T NEED TO DO IT TO GET TO THE PLAYCON. Sorry for that, that message is not clear. But it is actually possible and fairly easy to reach 10k subs by day 25. Video get harder because you have gained a level in the Gameplay video type, you will get more views and more subs but now it is a little bit harder.

You don't need to find everything every day, you better do what you know to do, and go for the trends you know where to find, as you spend more time in the city you will discover where are all those trends eventually.


3. Maybe you find citizens lifeless, but there are near 40 story characters each one with their own missions, their own backstory waiting for you to help them, and grow your relation. You can only increase your realation talking once a day, and taking a photo once a week, but you can try finding what gifts do they like if you want to go faster. I think you should not be worried by how many time it will take you to marry someone, in the trip you will enjoy character missions, character cutscenes, and many other surprises. For the gift limit, that's a progression limit every game has, but we also find it a bit realistic.

We're in the process of doing a better map that shows you where the characters you know are everytime, but keep in mind that each one of them has their daily routines, you can learn where they spend the mondays, and probably you will find them in the same place on mondays.

4. We've spend months testing the game, not only us but we also hired external testing. But in software, and specially in games where a lot of things happen in the same time, it is almost impossible be bug free. Does Microsoft test Windows? Then why they sometimes send updates that corrupts the filesystem for some users?

The bug about the mouse click in the AFK will be fixed today.

The scooter exam, well its just cones. Once again we though we didn't need to explain it further. We will take note and fix that for the next update. We can't be in the mind of every player.

The exam itself it's pretty easy, most of the kids we've tried have passed it.

6. The game has been in full development for two years, +30 people. It is big. Thats a lot more expensive than a PewDiePie video.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What you can expect of future updates is:

- Bug fixing
- Better explanation of things that we've seen people getting stuck, we have a version in the works to fix the most important problems
- Game balance tuning: maybe we've seen people have a hard time getting some money at the start, or maybe the scooter exam is too hard...
- Content updates and new features, we are working in a lot of content for the next months

But, if this game is not for you, don't expect that suddently you update the game and now it's a shooter, that won't happen.

Thank you for your response.

1. I never would have known it was a thermometer, not once. That needs to be explained more clearly. Ever heard the phrase it's not what you say or how you say it, but it's how it's perceived is what matters? This is a perfect example. All other topics are acknowledged.

2. Acknowledged on the Bronze mission. As for the videos, I never would have known that I grew a level in the game play section. It's possible that maybe I missed something? I would have to take a 2nd look. I don't remember there being either a notification or really anything.

3. Regarding the gift limit, that's bs. Ever played Dragon Age: Origins? Do you know how many times I can gift a character? Unlimited. There are many games that allow you to do this. All other topics, acknowledged. I look forward to the improvements on the map.

4. While I'm not a developer, but I've played plenty of games in my lifetime to know whether adequate testing has been done. If there's been external testing that was hired, they missed quite a big bug. But comparing Windows to YTL2 is like comparing a Ford Focus to Maserati. Your program is built as Windows to operate it, it is your pilot. That's ignorant and it lacks any introspective criticism about your product.

As for the scooter, I will happily record what I'm encountering and send it to you. I don't have a problem with that. But to say that most "kids" have passed it, is a pretty insulting. Considering that 43% of steam users are between the ages of 20-29. A considerable amount of people are having problems. How arrogant.

5. I like how you completely avoided this. Disappointing.

6. I have nosite on the finances that were used due during development. But from an outside perspective, it appears to me that a lot of money when into the actual Youtubers than development. That's my opinion.

Lastly, I never said anything about shooters in general.. That's why I play mostly simulation and strategy games. Check my profile, I have 324hrs playing Game Dev Tycoon and 342hrs playing Civ 5. The only multiplayer shooter that broke 100 is NS2; if you want to go a step further there's only 3 games with any form of shooting or gun violence. I don't know where that came from, but if have a problem with shooters in general, then you need to deal with that on your own.

[Raptor Jesus]

Originally posted by Rei:

Originally posted by oboka:

First, thanks for the positive points.


1. No, the tutorial does not force you to record gameplays or even go to meet Blair to get the game, you can ignore that. Starting the second day you are free to do what you want, but obviously the game needs to explain you the core mechanics that build up the game. The face that is right next to subs number is a thermometer that shows you if you are doing it good or bad, we felt we don't need to explain things that explain themselves and make the start even harder.


2. The bronze mission, will be changed in the next big update. We've seen it's confusing, YOU DON'T NEED TO DO IT TO GET TO THE PLAYCON. Sorry for that, that message is not clear. But it is actually possible and fairly easy to reach 10k subs by day 25. Video get harder because you have gained a level in the Gameplay video type, you will get more views and more subs but now it is a little bit harder.

You don't need to find everything every day, you better do what you know to do, and go for the trends you know where to find, as you spend more time in the city you will discover where are all those trends eventually.


3. Maybe you find citizens lifeless, but there are near 40 story characters each one with their own missions, their own backstory waiting for you to help them, and grow your relation. You can only increase your realation talking once a day, and taking a photo once a week, but you can try finding what gifts do they like if you want to go faster. I think you should not be worried by how many time it will take you to marry someone, in the trip you will enjoy character missions, character cutscenes, and many other surprises. For the gift limit, that's a progression limit every game has, but we also find it a bit realistic.

We're in the process of doing a better map that shows you where the characters you know are everytime, but keep in mind that each one of them has their daily routines, you can learn where they spend the mondays, and probably you will find them in the same place on mondays.

4. We've spend months testing the game, not only us but we also hired external testing. But in software, and specially in games where a lot of things happen in the same time, it is almost impossible be bug free. Does Microsoft test Windows? Then why they sometimes send updates that corrupts the filesystem for some users?

The bug about the mouse click in the AFK will be fixed today.

The scooter exam, well its just cones. Once again we though we didn't need to explain it further. We will take note and fix that for the next update. We can't be in the mind of every player.

The exam itself it's pretty easy, most of the kids we've tried have passed it.

6. The game has been in full development for two years, +30 people. It is big. Thats a lot more expensive than a PewDiePie video.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What you can expect of future updates is:

- Bug fixing
- Better explanation of things that we've seen people getting stuck, we have a version in the works to fix the most important problems
- Game balance tuning: maybe we've seen people have a hard time getting some money at the start, or maybe the scooter exam is too hard...
- Content updates and new features, we are working in a lot of content for the next months

But, if this game is not for you, don't expect that suddently you update the game and now it's a shooter, that won't happen.

Jesus ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Christ.

I can deal with buggy, incomplete, shallow mess of a game, but it pisses me off when the developers like you flaunt their arrogance and their condescending attitude on a very legitimate feedback.

You mess up, say that. Don't say ♥♥♥♥ like "even a kid can pass that exam". We legitimately don't know what you wanted us to do on that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ exam and just having cones on it without any explanation solve nothing.

And really? how arrogant are you to compare yourself to Microsoft? You're a first time indie developer that spent most of your resources paying Youtubers to be in your game instead of properly testing your game on PC. Admit that and move on.

FYI, that so called corrupted patch hasn't happened on an official release for over a decade. Especially not since they introduced a testing branch of their user called WIndows Insider. Is this what we're doing for your game? this is a beta game and we're paying to test it for you?? I don't know what kind of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ stolen Windows you're using, but that issue HAS NOT happened on any official release.

But you know what, just because of that. ♥♥♥♥ you and ♥♥♥♥ your game. I'll spend the rest of my life with this trying to get this game refunded for me and the other half making sure everyone in my circle influence knows what kind of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ developer you are.

Starting by blocking your catalogue on Steam.

Go ♥♥♥♥ yourself.

I think maybe you took some of this out of context. They were using Windows as a reference vs game development. While I think it's a poor reference, they're not comparing themselves to Microsoft.

Before going off and spreading the unneeded hate, let's give them the opportunity to acknowledge the issues and create a plan. If neither happens, then feel free to do as you please. This thread was made with the intent to offer the opportunity to provide feedback and criticism; no matter how harsh it may seem.

[Moonie]

I hope the game updates by adding more channel options besides gaming. Such as cooking, ASMR, fashion, food critic, etc :( Although I understand that you can go around town and find the new hot topics to post about, it honestly just makes me feel like a news reporter simply trying to stay relevant.
I would like to have a YouTube channel that offers different categories besides gaming because I feel like it's just unrealistic. While gaming is popular yes, it's not the only way to become famous on YouTube.

[EagleD3v]

I can't understand all this anger.

Doing the exam Is really easy, you have to just drive around the cones. I've done it at the first attempt.

You can go to Play-Con spending 500$ or trying to take a photo to a pg in all 3 neighborhood. The challenge and the fun is to find the trends / hashtags.

The only feedback I can give go the devs now is to slow down the time. I want to do more things, explore more, but I have time to just 2 quests and a video a day.

Regarding the gifts, games like Stardew Valley work like this: they allow you to give one gift per day, like the fact you have to guess what they like ti increase the relationship faster...

[Kyle]

i don't think i'd enjoy being able to spam gifts and immediately raise my relationship to max

maybe if the npcs were randomized instead of all with their own questlines and stuff
i would tho, atm it reminds me of stardew valley in terms of time and relationship, the only thing that's missing is a detailed wiki telling me where to find people i know nothing about

i didn't have much trouble with the scooter thing personally but i could understand why more explanation might help, feels a little silly to talk about kids passing it

i'd like the ability to skip time instead, i usually have more time than i know what to do with and have to wait for something to open late

this post does feel rly aggressive though

[Jeza]

I agree with most issues on the original post, but I have other issues with this game :

-I don't care for consoles, I don't care for social media, I want to be able to "roleplay" a PC let's play youtuber. Needless to say I'm extremely disappointed in this game.
Even more so reading the dev's answer about making different kind of videos like comments or vlogs at low level rather than harder gaming videos at higher level to get better ratings. It means that I cannot specialize in something I have to minmax posting whatever is easier even if it has nothing to do with what I want to do. That's not fun at all.

-One thing the OP didn't mention is streaming, I tried it 3 times already and I don"t get at all what I'm supposed to do and there is absolutely no tutorial or help.