My prices are the lowest and customers complain

[Knottypine]

Since the update released today, my customers are complaining about my prices. I have the lowest prices on all my merchandise in every store. Up until today, customers were 100% satisfied with my pricing. Even though I still have the lowest prices, it has been dropping below 100% satisfaction and while in the store I can see them complaining about it.

Was this intended for this update?

[nightshark]

yeah... cuz you're charging too much as of today. New update changed customer price sensitivity. You'll have to reprice most things starting in the black and just testing to see how high you can go into the orange. Remember Garment and Lower Manhattan are the lowest income citizens.

[waltduo]

I noticed that today, too, with my coffee shop and no competitors in the neighborhood for the items they complained about. I'll keep an eye on my other shops, but I did see them also complain in my larger electronics store about prices, again, on items where there is no competition, or on items where my prices were lower than the competition.

[Knottypine]

Originally posted by nightshark:

yeah... cuz you're charging too much as of today. New update changed customer price sensitivity. You'll have to reprice most things starting in the black and just testing to see how high you can go into the orange. Remember Garment and Lower Manhattan are the lowest income citizens.

Originally posted by waltduo:

I noticed that today, too, with my coffee shop and no competitors in the neighborhood for the items they complained about. I'll keep an eye on my other shops, but I did see them also complain in my larger electronics store about prices, again, on items where there is no competition, or on items where my prices were lower than the competition.

Thanks guys. There was also this post as well:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1331550/eventcomments/4336483797757672476/?ctp=2#c4336483797758936583

So I'm not sure if it'll sort itself out, I'll see. Thing is my prices are still lowest compared to my competitors. So if I still have the lowest prices, then they should also be making far less as well. I'll keep an eye on it, but it'll make it tricky to compete with them as it is at this moment since I have to undercut them severely to keep my customers happy so it'll be more difficult to keep up with them financially.

[Knottypine]

Well I'm not sure what to make of it. The rivals appear to be largely unaffected and are still making similar profits as before. However, my profits have been cut in half over the past couple of in-game days. Even after adjusting my prices to try to make customers happy.

[Knottypine]

A few screenshots.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3266044400
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3266044769
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3266046059

Think I'll wait and see for a bit for official confirmation if this is intended. Something just doesn't seem right. Especially with my rapid decline of customers at my liqueur store while at nearly 100% satisfaction. Huge loss of customers even with marketing and best prices.

Also I wasn't watching my lawyer fees, that pricing had dropped to 1% and I've been losing over $5000 per day.

Whatever the change was, it was quite severe and a little too drastic IMHO.

[Knottypine]

Newest screenshots... My law office appeared to have maximum customers, but I'm losing almost $6K per day. Are they not paying?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3266057368
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3266057523

Would appreciate some official word on this so I know if this is actually a bug or are the customers not paying me?

[nightshark]

Okay, to explain. It does not matter if your prices are lowest in the district. Devs have made price ranges each district customer will pay for items. If you're over that but still the lowest, your prices will be hated and you'll lose money.

[Knottypine]

Originally posted by nightshark:

Okay, to explain. It does not matter if your prices are lowest in the district. Devs have made price ranges each district customer will pay for items. If you're over that but still the lowest, your prices will be hated and you'll lose money.

I guess here's the thing. These changes took place after the update. So there was no warning that there would be substantial changes to pricing, giving players a heads up that they will need to adjust prices after the update would have went a long way. It was deceiving since after the update, and multiple in-game days later, I had lower prices than my competitors in the same district. So the competitors still have higher prices than me, I thought I was ok. Again, referring to a single district. So I'm still a bit fuzzy on how competitors can still maintain higher prices when I nosedive if I match their prices. Keeping in mind that my customer satisfactions were all at virtually 100% prior to the update. The only way to get back up to 100% was to substantially lower my prices. So there must be some sort of advantage that the competitors have over me to succeed with higher prices that I'm unaware of.

[Jeza]

Originally posted by nightshark:

Okay, to explain. It does not matter if your prices are lowest in the district. Devs have made price ranges each district customer will pay for items. If you're over that but still the lowest, your prices will be hated and you'll lose money.

Well yes it matters.
Of course you are right that even if your prices are the lowest the customers can be unhappy because it's too expensive for them and it could mean less sales because they can't afford your product.
But if every other shop is more expensive than you they should have the same issue and see their sales drop.
The customers unhappy with your prices shouldn't go buy the same product in another shop that's more expensive .

[jhughes]

Originally posted by Knottypine:

Originally posted by nightshark:

Okay, to explain. It does not matter if your prices are lowest in the district. Devs have made price ranges each district customer will pay for items. If you're over that but still the lowest, your prices will be hated and you'll lose money.

I guess here's the thing. These changes took place after the update. So there was no warning that there would be substantial changes to pricing, giving players a heads up that they will need to adjust prices after the update would have went a long way. It was deceiving since after the update, and multiple in-game days later, I had lower prices than my competitors in the same district. So the competitors still have higher prices than me, I thought I was ok. Again, referring to a single district. So I'm still a bit fuzzy on how competitors can still maintain higher prices when I nosedive if I match their prices. Keeping in mind that my customer satisfactions were all at virtually 100% prior to the update. The only way to get back up to 100% was to substantially lower my prices. So there must be some sort of advantage that the competitors have over me to succeed with higher prices that I'm unaware of.

The game is EA .. there are going to be major rebalances frequently before the final release.

[jhughes]

Originally posted by Jeza:

Originally posted by nightshark:

Okay, to explain. It does not matter if your prices are lowest in the district. Devs have made price ranges each district customer will pay for items. If you're over that but still the lowest, your prices will be hated and you'll lose money.

Well yes it matters.
Of course you are right that even if your prices are the lowest the customers can be unhappy because it's too expensive for them and it could mean less sales because they can't afford your product.
But if every other shop is more expensive than you they should have the same issue and see their sales drop.
The customers unhappy with your prices shouldn't go buy the same product in another shop that's more expensive .

Well that is true, but I don't really know how NPC sales actually work anyway. If you look at 'Delod Does Gaming' YouTube channel he just did a series where he bought out all stores in a neighborhood and created only 1 store in an M1 location to have max demand and compare store types. He could not make nearly what the NPCs make for stores so I doubt they follow the same rules we do. I know, for example, they don't have happy employees when I buy businesses from them. They don't meet the critical non evenings or 4 days a week or full time, etc. They still make lots of money.

[Jeza]

Originally posted by jhughes:

Originally posted by Jeza:

Well yes it matters.
Of course you are right that even if your prices are the lowest the customers can be unhappy because it's too expensive for them and it could mean less sales because they can't afford your product.
But if every other shop is more expensive than you they should have the same issue and see their sales drop.
The customers unhappy with your prices shouldn't go buy the same product in another shop that's more expensive .

Well that is true, but I don't really know how NPC sales actually work anyway. If you look at 'Delod Does Gaming' YouTube channel he just did a series where he bought out all stores in a neighborhood and created only 1 store in an M1 location to have max demand and compare store types. He could not make nearly what the NPCs make for stores so I doubt they follow the same rules we do. I know, for example, they don't have happy employees when I buy businesses from them. They don't meet the critical non evenings or 4 days a week or full time, etc. They still make lots of money.

Absolutely there is an inconsistency with how the Ai is managed, I don't know if it's intentional to better balance the game or if ti's a bug.
But this was just after an update that was supposed , if I'm not mistaken, to re-balance not just our market prices but the Ai's too so It's a good thing to point out how the prices didn't impact the AI at all because it could be a bug.

[TW-傻蛋]

Originally posted by jhughes:

Originally posted by Knottypine:

I guess here's the thing. These changes took place after the update. So there was no warning that there would be substantial changes to pricing, giving players a heads up that they will need to adjust prices after the update would have went a long way. It was deceiving since after the update, and multiple in-game days later, I had lower prices than my competitors in the same district. So the competitors still have higher prices than me, I thought I was ok. Again, referring to a single district. So I'm still a bit fuzzy on how competitors can still maintain higher prices when I nosedive if I match their prices. Keeping in mind that my customer satisfactions were all at virtually 100% prior to the update. The only way to get back up to 100% was to substantially lower my prices. So there must be some sort of advantage that the competitors have over me to succeed with higher prices that I'm unaware of.

The game is EA .. there are going to be major rebalances frequently before the final release.

I feel more like Blizzard!
-----We felt that the player was having too much fun and decided to weaken him
But Blizzard will also mention the nerf ratio, rather than directly stating the error.
This is the same as the original casino tax revision, where winnings and refunds will be taxed together.
It was eventually discovered and corrected by the player. Only one modification was made and not tested. Is it really beneficial to the operation of the game?
Even according to the game developers, this error is correct. But can a broken pricing system really fix its mistakes?

[Knottypine]

Originally posted by jhughes:

The game is EA .. there are going to be major rebalances frequently before the final release.

Yes, I obviously know that of course. What I'm saying is that there could have been a heads up that there would be an effect on players prices as well and once updated they will have to revise their prices. The patch note only mentioned how rivals managed their pricing. I will know to keep a strict eye on this from now on for each update. Also, I'm not the only one that reported price satisfaction dropping, so others fell into the same trap.

[David Estes Creations]

Originally posted by Knottypine:

The patch note only mentioned how rivals managed their pricing.

Hello! The patch notes did also mention the fixed bug that allowed player prices to be too high. But, you're right - many players were taking advantage of the bug with their prices and have had to lower them back down!

Future UI updates should also make it easier to make mass pricing changes - as several people have mentioned, it's a bit tedious changing each store right now!