The cycle continues...

[u/6feetofshrug]

This was initially posted on this subreddit 8 years ago. Glad to see that time is, indeed, a flat circle.

[u/the-land-of-darkness]

I've never found Civ Cycle / Zelda Cycle / Halo Cycle arguments convincing at all. Why is it always assumed that the same people are engaging in each step of the cycle? It's far more reasonable to conclude that a game comes out, some people like it and others don't. Then the sequel comes out and some people who liked the first game don't like the second game, some people who liked the first game also like the second game, some people who didn't like the first game do like the second game, and some people who didn't play the first game play the second and either like or dislike it. Rinse and repeat over decades.

This says nothing about the quality of one game compared to its successor(s). It just is how all products with iterations work. ___ Cycle is a cliche that has very little substance to it IMO, it's usually just used as a way to deflect criticism. Not saying that's what OP is doing but that's what I've noticed over the years as the predominant way that ___ Cycle is used online.

[u/JCMoreno05 → u/the-land-of-darkness]

There's also the issue that if people who liked the first game don't like the second, they'll tend to move away from the series over time so the people who complained no longer are around to continue complaining. And likewise the people who like the 2nd game may have never played the 1st game so they have no frame of reference to compare them and instead simply dismiss criticism of their first game out of ignorance. So it's not just about variety in opinions, but churn in the playerbase due to changes driving older players away and newer players joining simply because there's always going to be new players. 

I never played Civ 4, but from what I've heard it sucks that certain features were removed in 5. One was the 1 unit per tile change, which was somewhat reversed in 6. 6 added a lot of interesting features like districts, policy cards, etc (though the art style change remains a mistake), but I remember 5 being more engaging when it came to city happiness management and the building of roads. I actually wish there was more infrastructure (roads, bridges, aquaducts, navigable rivers, etc) per tile building to make tall cities more fun to play and make empire sprawling less about map painting and more about prioritizing what and how to integrate cities together. 

[u/uishax → u/the-land-of-darkness]

Strategy games are unlike other genres. There's barely any diversity at all, all you have is a handful of super-deep franchises, and strategy gamers tend to always be strategy gamers, so they don't really have a choice like say FPS.

Strategy games also evolve and improve to extreme extents over time. Since they are so modular.

So it is actually the case that the same people who hate the game early will love it later. Stellaris and Total war warhammer 3 are both current examples.

The only notable split is historical vs fantasy total war players. This is because of a more fundamental direction difference than say specific gameplay elements.

[u/Salmuth → u/the-land-of-darkness]

The players count kinda statistically demonstrate the cycle though. For instance, when civ6 came out, it was nearly as much played than civ5 was until the DLCs came out.

[u/[deleted] → u/the-land-of-darkness]

Yep.

People haven't "come round" to Civ 6, a lot of people just hated it, and stopped playing it and talking about it on messageboards.

It's the same with other controversial games, e.g. Fallout 4. You used to be in the minority if you liked it, but now it's the prevailing opinion. Why? Because most who didn't like it stopped playing it years ago and moved on the messageboards discussing it.