Mister Death RJ: McFlono McFloninoo Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 266 Karma: 300 Joined: Feb 6, 2012 |
Posted on May 8, 2012 (a) Regarding the left-handed corkscrews: The supplier is (pun intended) screwing him/herself by overpricing the corkscrews, as the stores can't sell a thousandth as many, literally, when they're priced at 200x base. Also, it'll only take me a day or two to gear up and have competing left-handed corkscrews available for a fraction of the cost. This game is about volume, although people in general appear not to have clued into that.(b) I'm liking the limited-slots idea. There will still be demand for all products due to the supply/demand equation, so if everyone else decided to run an apple cider cafe I could make a killing with my lemonade-and-hotdog stand. |
Bob Malone RJ: Bob Malone CO: Malone Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 341 Karma: 191 Joined: Apr 17, 2012 |
Posted on May 8, 2012 on cons ( about specialization ): it would mean less B2B sales in general since many of us will be specialized on what we product, so less players interactions.
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Innocent Bystander RJ: Matthew Matician Post Rating: 3 + / - Total Posts: 76 Karma: 54 Joined: Apr 2, 2012 |
Posted on May 8, 2012 I have a few ideas, one which I think is super-important and so I'll say it first and another brainstorm on how to handle a slot-like mechanism.1) With the unique opportunity that a hard reset presents, I would like to implore Scott/Ratan to change the way the import market works. Currently, everybody can import q15-q40 items (typically up to q30) to stock in stores. I think it's very safe to say that the import-to-retail strategy is currently one that is easy to do, requires little capital (cost of store), and gives one of the biggest "bangs for the buck". What I would propose is to fix the import quality to be somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of that item's TopFiveAverageTech value. This would have two effects: a) items are still available to import, which is important if you need it as an ingredient when there are only a small number of players. It also has the neat effect that, as that item becomes closer to the end of your "creation process", the lower quality affects your own final product more (eg: import cotton thread, make towel) but as it gets further "upstream", affects your quality less (import cotton, make cotton thread, make towel)--this rewards people who have the whole supply line, but doesn't unduly penalize people for needing an ingredient here or there. b) it makes research meaningful--especially for areas where the averageTop5Tech is low. In the beginning, everyone can import q0 widgets to sell directly in stores. As people plunk down hard-earned money for R&D and factories, they can start to make widgets at a higher level and have a rightfully-earned advantage in selling them retail over people who simply import->sell. Whether we do "slots" or not, if we modify sales so that the more items you sell, the slower any individual item moves, it eventually discourages people from trying to import and sell for every slot and instead move to a system where different people specialize in different items that can be sold in stores. (In a hardware store, this might mean that one person specializes in selling bedding and another sells only furniture and they both do well because that's all they sell) b_part2) Changing import quality while allowing diversity/specialization should also help the B2B market. If all you could import was some crappy q10 towels, the B2B towels with q30 suddenly look much more attractive. 2) Bah, this post went too long. I'll put the second point in a follow-up post. |
Innocent Bystander RJ: Matthew Matician Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 76 Karma: 54 Joined: Apr 2, 2012 |
Posted on May 8, 2012 Personally, I would prefer not to have more slots as I had more of the same type of store (or even as my stores grew larger). I think this makes the UI harder to navigate as players become more successful, and I think it's duplicating an effect that's already there: larger stores already sell more items in direct proportion to their sqft + marketing.I see two options. Here's the easy one: Leave item sales the way it is now (but limited to one floating-point quality per item) and simply ramp up individual items' selling power by multiplying each active item's sales with totalItemsThisStoreCanSell/numberActiveItems. The only downside I see here is that you can't give unequal weight to actively stocked items: every item you sell is given equal shelf space, but as you sell fewer items, they each get a proportionate boost. If you only sell Bonsai plants, then you get a huge multiplier to one item. I like this idea a lot. I'm not worried about market saturation because selling different items is a zero sum game: if I'm selling only one item, there are 29 items I'm *not* selling, so even though I'm providing way more of item1 to the world, I'm providing nothing else whereas I used to provide 29 other items. Option 2: Same as option one (although you could allow relative weights for each quality type you have), but put a little text box in front of each item (I'm assuming this is after the layout change to be more like a spreadsheet/table, like B2B or warehouse) that specifies the relative weight you want to sell that item at relative to everything else. Different examples with 3 items: Scenario 1) Relative wt | Item | Percentage of store devoted to this particular item ------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 ItemA 33.3% 1 ItemB 33.3% 1 ItemC 33.3% Scenario 2) Relative wt | Item | Percentage of store devoted to this particular item ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2 ItemA 50% 1 ItemB 25% 1 ItemC 25% Scenario 3) Relative wt | Item | Percentage of store devoted to this particular item ------------------------------------------------------------------ 9 ItemA 90% 1 ItemB 10% 0 ItemC 0% |
Scott (Admin) RJ: Ratan Joyce CO: Ratan Joyce Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 1175 Karma: 5083 Joined: Jan 13, 2012 |
Posted on May 8, 2012 I'm going to be "selfish" this time by implementing the shelf system with limited number of slots.Please understand this doesn't mean less work for me, but it'll be much less maintenance in the grand plan. |
Moe Jack RJ: Moejack CO: Moe Jack Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 128 Karma: 74 Joined: Apr 7, 2012 |
Posted on May 8, 2012 I keep reading that as "shelfish" sorry, off topic.
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Innocent Bystander RJ: Matthew Matician Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 76 Karma: 54 Joined: Apr 2, 2012 |
Posted on May 8, 2012 Ok, fair enough. Would you consider a fixed # of slots that does not grow with # of similar stores though? If I have 10th hardware stores of 100sqft each, they'll already be 10x more effective than 1 store of 100sqft without needing extra slots. Extra slots would just encourage people to only have one type of store per company, which would ultimately take a level of strategy away.Any feedback or thoughts on my import quality idea? |
Scott (Admin) RJ: Ratan Joyce CO: Ratan Joyce Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 1175 Karma: 5083 Joined: Jan 13, 2012 |
Posted on May 8, 2012 I see where the import quality idea came from, so I'll do that.As for the shelves, they will be fixed for each store and will be treated separately. So in one jewelry shop you can be selling diamond necklaces and diamond watches, and in another one gold watches and gold rings. The down side is you'll need to stock/price them separately as well, but the tedium can be mitigated by having less slots per building and more information displayed (revenue over time for the entire store, n/revenue for each product, q/tick chart will be removed since it's not very helpful) Another plus is if the qualities get "squashed" and "floated", and the prices are linked with the warehouse, then you'd only have to price anything once and it'll be kept as long as the product does not run out. - and even if it does run out it'd be efficient in this scenario to hold the data in another temporary table that'll last for 30 days. |
Harold Holt RJ: Harold Holt Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 28 Karma: 48 Joined: Apr 5, 2012 |
Posted on May 8, 2012 Can multiple stores of the same type be abstracted to one superstore with all shelves for that store type appearing on the one pop up as it works currently? Also perhaps make it possible to assign multiple to shelves to 1 product at the same place we set the price?My main concerns with the store changes would be that I would be required even more micromanagement than I do currently, which I already feel can be too much. |
Innocent Bystander RJ: Matthew Matician Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 76 Karma: 54 Joined: Apr 2, 2012 |
Posted on May 8, 2012 I'm very much in favor of Harold's idea.
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Innocent Bystander RJ: Matthew Matician Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 76 Karma: 54 Joined: Apr 2, 2012 |
Posted on May 8, 2012 Also, thanks for listening to our suggestions.
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Scott (Admin) RJ: Ratan Joyce CO: Ratan Joyce Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 1175 Karma: 5083 Joined: Jan 13, 2012 |
Posted on May 9, 2012 make it possible to assign multiple to shelves to 1 product at the same place we set the price?Matt's suggestion will be used here: slots_available/slots_active, I don't want to do the % weight due to concerns about keeping the interface clean. But if you think it's absolutely necessary and you can think of a clean way to do it, feel free to share that and I'll see if there's enough support for it. Can multiple stores of the same type be abstracted to one superstore with all shelves for that store type appearing on the one pop up as it works currently? If more people favor seeing one revenue graph for that "super store" instead of multiple revenue graphs for each store, I'm for it. Also, thanks for listening to our suggestions. Thank you for your suggestions. Of course I'd consider them if I'm working on the relevant parts - after all you're playing the game more than I do. :-) |
Nwabudike Morgan RJ: CEO Nwabudike Morgan CO: CEO Nwabudike Morgan Post Rating: 14 + / - Total Posts: 108 Karma: 344 Joined: Apr 4, 2012 |
Posted on May 9, 2012 The down side is you'll need to stock/price them separately as wellDoes this apply to multiple stores selling the same item? I would like to be able to sell the same item in different stores by setting the price just one time, as we do now. |
Reiter Hexenmeister RJ: Ritter Hexenmeister Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 22 Karma: 10 Joined: Mar 26, 2012 |
Posted on May 9, 2012 (Last edited on May 9, 2012) Shelves idea rocks, but... shelves can be setted independently for each store type?Jewelery sells 12 goods, industral store 27. Flat shelve number for all stores not make sense e.g. a supermarket sells same products in farmer's market but a lot more, supermarket costs 4 times, and i think selling power drops down more (with new stores balance) than farmer's market. If players want to sell fresh products always will choose farmer's market, also for juices and ice creams, choosing a food court or gas station, is a cheaper option to build and mantain than supermarket, thats make SM obsolete, when it should have an advantage over the rest food store types beacause of its variety of products. Something similar could happen with other store types. So if you want to reduce slots for each store in order to gain game performance. I think you must asign shelves on store building price and, total number of saleable products based, also set selling power proportional to total shelves per store. I love the idea that bigger stores have more shelves. Walmart have more variety than convenience stores, simply because it is bigger. Also i think qualities must be mantained apart insted of mixed, if you want to sell 2 or more qualities, each one must use its own slot of course. Edit: May be you can gain one shelve per store level until you reach max seleable products. In this way, with custom product selection, big stores are able to sell each product of its scope, or stock many shelves of the same. |
Innocent Bystander RJ: Matthew Matician Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 76 Karma: 54 Joined: Apr 2, 2012 |
Posted on May 9, 2012 If more people favor seeing one revenue graph for that "super store" instead of multiple revenue graphs for each store, I'm for it.I think everyone's desire comes not from wanting to see a single figure for sales/tick, but for having to only set shelves for one store for each store type that a business has. |