Suggestions after 150 hrs - Much BIGGER ambitions!

[Lelo Mariin]

After roughly 150 hours, I do believe I have quite a good idea about what I like and what I don't like about the game.

I'm well aware that its a small devteam and theyre doing their utmost best to deliver us a great game. However I do think that the game needs quite a bit of content to make it viable for longterm saves and replayability.


I'm not going over story mode, simply because it'll probably get quite a few changes in future alpha releases.
Sandbox is where the fun is at, in my case ofcourse.




1. Loans

Loans are easy to get but repaying loans is a joke. Simply put the daily payment to 0 and you'll only pay the interest. In theory you could never pay the loan back. That should not be possible.

Loaning money should be connected to how many businesses you have.
Example: Till 5 business you can only loan from Jensen and after the 6th you could load from Vantander. You should not be able to load the max instantly.

2. Rebalance the price of equipment.

Prices are totally weird. A coffee maching should not cost 10k. For a simple 30CC store you need 3 (crazy!!)
I believe its on roadmap already.

3. Profits

Profits are to much. A single 30CC Gift store can have a daily revenue from 13k to 20k. It's also quite easy to attain it. SImply train your staff manually and bring in your goods via Distro delivery. Sure it costs 1k but thats a small price to pay when you get profits like this.

After 1 30CC Gift Store and if you save a bit of money you can go straight to a 75CC Clothing store in Midtown.

4. Staff

You're the CEO. THe main man/woman. The only store you interact(ed) with is your first and second store. The whole "happy hippy enviroment" demand is worthless because the CEO isn't in the store, at all.

4.1 Store Manager
Thus you need a store manager. Personality of SM should not be immediatly known. He/She may be a nice or a jackass. Which will allow the happy hippy enviroment employee demand to trigger or not.
Obvioulsy the higher quality employee deserves a higher salary, promotion, retirement, benefits.
Sets cleaning schedule.
This is something the store manager can handle.
The store manager is directly responsible for just the store and the employee and he/she answers to a DISTRICT MANAGER.

4.2 District manager.
Handles the store managers in said distric.
Handles roster of cleaning crew. Hiring new cleaners if needed

Example:
Having 5 stores in Garment. 5 Store managers, 1 distric manager.
Handles training of store manager and salary, benefits, retirement
Answers to HR manager at HQ


4.3 HR Manager

Handles training of Distric managers, salary, benefits, retirement
Handles press, and other things that could happen at your company as a whole
Stuff needs to happen at stores. Right now its set-up store, max the interiour, prices, staff and thats it. Reap the profits.
Stuff needs to breakdown. Employee not coming in for a shift. Leaving early. Theft from customers and employees.
Things HR needs to handle before it gets out of hand.

4.4 Cleaning

The ever so popular cleaning crew.
I believe that after 5 stores the CEO would consider setting up his own cleaning company.
Hiring handled by distric manager and schedules handled via store manager

5. Setting up your biz

Let's make a 75CC clothing store.
64 clothing racks
Bring 18 yourself and deliver 18 from supplier
Unload them per 4 rack
Go buy 18 again
Unload by 4
Go buy 10 again
Unload by 4
Unload the pallet from the supplier
Voilla, you now have 16 carriers with 4 racks each.
Select 1 then select a rack and move to the loction where you want to place it
Do that 64 times with the mouse zooming back to rack position and well.... Im just getting RSI by thinking of doing this.

I love setting up my own business. I love decorating it. Even if a blueprint function is added I won't be using it because I like doing it myself.
Have a pallet inside, unload all the racks on the pallet. Detach camera and DO NOT zoom my mouse back to the pallet.
Rotate left and right. Not only right turn.
Being able to flip the cassier station horizontally.

6. Revamp "happiness"
Another poster called it lifestyle. I think thats a good
The play 4 hours of games, watch 4 hours tv and walk 4 hours in a park for a 3 day buff is genuinly crap.

Permanent bonusses
Having a profitable business gives x of %
Having 2 profitable business gives x of %
Up to 5 businesses give a X % buff
Having 1 home gives X of %
Up to 4 (1 in each district)

More homes does not equal more %.
Each home should give x amount of luxury points. All decoration should have x amount of points. The more points you have the higher your % of owned homes in total. Buff is variable depending on amount of homes and decoration obviously


Cars should give a small %. Depending on which car you own. Only 1 car gives a small %. Having 2 doesnt give more.
You'll get a big % if you own ALL cars in teh game.

Now you can play a game for an hour, watch tv for an hour and goto the park for an hour. Call it "relaxed" buff. Lasts for 5 days. Small %

7. Map

Ok, this is a big one.

THe streets are to narrow. The intersections are to close together. The way to road system especially around midtown is just bad. I believe around broadway.

How to fix? Easy but maybe to large to implement.
Divide the map into 5 submaps
Each distric have their own map.
That means you can stretch the map wider and make the roads wider and the intersections farther apart.
The added bonus is.. add more buildings. More buildings to build your stores.
We need more buildings to build our stores in. Investing in property is just uninteresting and a pointless money sink. Keep it in as a moneysink ofcourse.

Didn't i say 5 submaps? yes, I did.

Map 5 should be industrial district. Where the import and export it. Where the distribution centre is (*** explains why i dont call it a warehouse)

This is also the location of your HQ.

Why this? Well, i read on roadmap that importing and manufacturing of raw goods/products is a possibility. Hence making a industrial district a nessesity. Factories can be build/rented here.

[Eye Aye]

I have a similar amount of time in game and I like some of your thoughts
1/ Loans, its perfectly normal for companies IRL to have revolving lines of credit where they don't pay off their loans. Why would they, when you make more profits using borrowed money
3/Profits, Yes I agree the profits are ridiculous but perhaps scaling up the rents to more realistic levels and introducing more difficult modes is the answer. There are lots of mobile gamers out there who want easy money, so let them play the game as is.
4/Staffing, The problem with having Store managers and district managers to handle all the humdrum setting up and running of your businesses is that....Excuse me but isn't that what the game is all about ? What would you do except sleep and play video games.
4.4/ Cleaning, Sounds like a good idea I use my Cashiers to also clean but a dedicated cleaning company sounds like a nice option.
5/ It sounds tiresome but its more interesting than watching tv or playing video games also I believe there are plans afoot to bring in Store blueprints so that would solve the problem I think.
6/Happiness, Totally agree and I like the way you would improve it.
7/ NYC is BIG and we have just a few blocks and those drivers would never survive, they would be rear ended and in hospital with whiplash, no one anywhere in the world stops at a green light after 3 cars have gone through.
Open up more of New York before you do London or Paris.
I like the submaps idea it would make it easier to have more detailed maps.

[Irushian]

Originally posted by Lelo Mariin:

1. Loans

Loans are easy to get but repaying loans is a joke. Simply put the daily payment to 0 and you'll only pay the interest. In theory you could never pay the loan back. That should not be possible.

Loaning money should be connected to how many businesses you have.
Example: Till 5 business you can only loan from Jensen and after the 6th you could load from Vantander. You should not be able to load the max instantly.

I disagree with it being based on how many businesses you have, there's a huge difference between owning 5 restaurants that do not sell the profit making items such as pizza yet compared to 5 lawyer businesses. Instead the amount you can borrow should be based on how much your net-worth is. Perhaps also have different types of loans (variable or fixed rate etc).

Originally posted by Lelo Mariin:

4. Staff

You're the CEO. THe main man/woman. The only store you interact(ed) with is your first and second store. The whole "happy hippy enviroment" demand is worthless because the CEO isn't in the store, at all.

I agree, it's a chore having to set up stores yourself every time or taking in the delivery from outside, especially when you can only schedule two deliveries per day with a max of 18 items that makes it feel like an eternity. I'm struggling to force myself to do it.

Originally posted by Lelo Mariin:

4.1 Store Manager
Thus you need a store manager. Personality of SM should not be immediatly known. He/She may be a nice or a jackass. Which will allow the happy hippy enviroment employee demand to trigger or not.
Obvioulsy the higher quality employee deserves a higher salary, promotion, retirement, benefits.
Sets cleaning schedule.
This is something the store manager can handle.
The store manager is directly responsible for just the store and the employee and he/she answers to a DISTRICT MANAGER.

4.2 District manager.
Handles the store managers in said distric.
Handles roster of cleaning crew. Hiring new cleaners if needed

Example:
Having 5 stores in Garment. 5 Store managers, 1 distric manager.
Handles training of store manager and salary, benefits, retirement
Answers to HR manager at HQ

4.3 HR Manager

Handles training of Distric managers, salary, benefits, retirement
Handles press, and other things that could happen at your company as a whole
Stuff needs to happen at stores. Right now its set-up store, max the interiour, prices, staff and thats it. Reap the profits.
Stuff needs to breakdown. Employee not coming in for a shift. Leaving early. Theft from customers and employees.
Things HR needs to handle before it gets out of hand.

You can sort-of do a lot of this already, in my game I have a HQ in each district, one HR manager for the other HR managers in said HQ (and that HR employee is assigned under my main HQ HR employee).

Originally posted by Lelo Mariin:

5. Setting up your biz

Let's make a 75CC clothing store.
64 clothing racks
Bring 18 yourself and deliver 18 from supplier
Unload them per 4 rack
Go buy 18 again
Unload by 4
Go buy 10 again
Unload by 4
Unload the pallet from the supplier
Voilla, you now have 16 carriers with 4 racks each.
Select 1 then select a rack and move to the loction where you want to place it
Do that 64 times with the mouse zooming back to rack position and well.... Im just getting RSI by thinking of doing this.

This is one of my biggest issues with the game and actually prevents me from loading it, it's only my drive for the remaining achievements that I haven't stopped yet. Though I am dreading those age related achievements.

Originally posted by Lelo Mariin:

6. Revamp "happiness"
Another poster called it lifestyle. I think thats a good
The play 4 hours of games, watch 4 hours tv and walk 4 hours in a park for a 3 day buff is genuinly crap.

Permanent bonusses
Having a profitable business gives x of %
Having 2 profitable business gives x of %
Up to 5 businesses give a X % buff
Having 1 home gives X of %
Up to 4 (1 in each district)

More homes does not equal more %.
Each home should give x amount of luxury points. All decoration should have x amount of points. The more points you have the higher your % of owned homes in total. Buff is variable depending on amount of homes and decoration obviously


Cars should give a small %. Depending on which car you own. Only 1 car gives a small %. Having 2 doesnt give more.
You'll get a big % if you own ALL cars in teh game.

Now you can play a game for an hour, watch tv for an hour and goto the park for an hour. Call it "relaxed" buff. Lasts for 5 days. Small %

I'm against the "X amount of businesses" part, for the same reasons as my first response. Quality of quantity so net-worth all the way.

Originally posted by Lelo Mariin:

7. Map

Ok, this is a big one.

THe streets are to narrow. The intersections are to close together. The way to road system especially around midtown is just bad. I believe around broadway.

How to fix? Easy but maybe to large to implement.
Divide the map into 5 submaps
Each distric have their own map.
That means you can stretch the map wider and make the roads wider and the intersections farther apart.
The added bonus is.. add more buildings. More buildings to build your stores.
We need more buildings to build our stores in. Investing in property is just uninteresting and a pointless money sink. Keep it in as a moneysink ofcourse.

Didn't i say 5 submaps? yes, I did.

Map 5 should be industrial district. Where the import and export it. Where the distribution centre is (*** explains why i dont call it a warehouse)

This is also the location of your HQ.

Why this? Well, i read on roadmap that importing and manufacturing of raw goods/products is a possibility. Hence making a industrial district a nessesity. Factories can be build/rented here.

Some more variety in the buildings would be nice, or a useful search function so I don't have to go clicking on every... single... building... to find one that can actually be useful. Also need explanations for the building statistics inside. Why does capacity matter for an office building where the business is purely online? It goes against logic - I lost an hour setting up a business in one to find out that the cap matters to every business type when it doesn't make sense in that regard.

---

Now to add a couple of my own.

Contacts

Please allow us to remove those contact messages when someone was unhappy that long ago that they might not even be employed any longer.

Logisitcs

I don't care that I have X number of items if I can't see the max I can store, the amount of times I have to load up calculator so I can work out how many boxes I can store because in this game, that's all that matters and not really the underlying amount when it comes to a small shop. Plus put the information in game so I don't have to keep checking guides for how many bloody burgers are in a box (as an example). Logistics are a nightmare currently due to this. And for the love of God, please merge the almost empty boxes.

---

There were more thoughts, but they're not coming to mind at the moment.

[Zio Bastardo]

I like the concept of limiting the number of business you can have to some personnel in the hq.
This is realistic and also add a balancing factor.

Probably i think your store manager/district manager idea is a bit too complex (even tough i like it) and its not for all, so there is a low chance its accepted by the devs.

I think something similar can be made in an easiest way:

The player alone can open up to 3 business once you get an HQ.

Then to open more you need executive manager (EM), wich have high salary (rebalancing factor) and help you manage the big company.

Each EM let you open 5 more business.

Also i already proposed to insert fixed HQ cost (telephone bills, paper,ink, mail and electricity) that grows with the number and size of business you have (just for example 500/day for small business/office up to 2500 for bigger business/offices).

Also again since i think that the key for making more players happy (wjich i think is the goal of the devs) you could make these settings fully customizable, like letting the player chose the number of business that the executive manager let you open from 2 to infinite (which is a way of disabling this feature if you dont like it) and letting the player chose the impact of the fixed cost per business always in the customization menu.

[Dennis]

Originally posted by Irushian:

Originally posted by Lelo Mariin:

5. Setting up your biz

Let's make a 75CC clothing store.
64 clothing racks
Bring 18 yourself and deliver 18 from supplier
Unload them per 4 rack
Go buy 18 again
Unload by 4
Go buy 10 again
Unload by 4
Unload the pallet from the supplier
Voilla, you now have 16 carriers with 4 racks each.
Select 1 then select a rack and move to the loction where you want to place it
Do that 64 times with the mouse zooming back to rack position and well.... Im just getting RSI by thinking of doing this.

This is one of my biggest issues with the game and actually prevents me from loading it, it's only my drive for the remaining achievements that I haven't stopped yet. Though I am dreading those age related achievements.

This has stalled my game. Especially after learning the layout after all that unpacking doesn't' mean squat.

I'm the CEO. I have two (small) HQ's chock full of demanding (Exec DesK?) HR Managers.
But I can't find someone to order and 'unpack' a dozen desks, comps, and chairs?

Less 'playing with a meaningless doll house' and more actual business decisions? Law Firms are desperately missing a Paralegal level of staffing that could make them more interesting for example.


If the layout actually mattered AND if there was a Cut/Paste Unpack gizmo - It would be worth playing again. Otherwise it's a time sink mechanic that gets in the way of the game.

[Lelo Mariin]

Yes

[Dennis]

Originally posted by 🍔Klauß _fndrnk🍻:

Guys you type entire books, you expect devs to sit down and read for an hour?

No, I personally do not expect "Dev" to read every post in every forum on the internet that discusses their game.

But - They have a designated rep here (in this very Forum) that does read everything. Like discussions that follow by other Gamers because said "Please Dev" post inspired other thoughts and commentary. That often results in a consensus on what might make the game 'better'.

Many 'fixes' happen exactly because a thread is started that generates enough energy and is something the Dev can implement while staying on their path.

I believe fixing the issue of 'Missing Handcarts' is an example of a Dev NOT reading every single post on the Internet, but aware of the conversations in this one.

[David Estes Creations]

Originally posted by 🍔Klauß _fndrnk🍻:

Guys you type entire books, you expect devs to sit down and read for an hour?

That's what I'm for :)