Tips on getting that fabled 90-100% rating?

[Modded Skyrim at 40 FPS]

It seems like the main thing holding me back according to the reviews is Gameplay. I get 97%-100% on sound, graphics, and controls, but for some reason Gameplay is always in the low 80s.

It's a bit strange; I have a bunch of game testers that always improve every aspect of the Gameplay and then spend a good time polishing it, and the development room itself is filled with high-stat Game Designers. I've even looked up the cheat guides to ensure that I'm giving 40% Gameplay priority to RPGs (my main genre).

Perhaps the only thing that is off about my current setup is that my Development room is like 80% Game Designers and 20% Programmers. Is this what's causing the low Gameplay review scores?

P.S Sorry for making 2 posts less than 24 hours apart, I'm just too curious lol

[Hightower]

One possible reason might be bad game designers. Have you tried training them to 100%?

[Sol]

Another thing to check: What features you using? You should look at the slider settings and when you add features, stay within a balance. So if you want RPG which is 40/30/15/15, you might want to add a few features that give bonus to gameplay but not the others.

[Kyouko Tsukino]

The only real difference between Game Designers and Programmers is that Designers do development stuff (very) slightly faster, while programmers can be used elsewhere (Motion Capture) and thus specialize into giving a lot to only one stat.

My games (RPG is my main genre) tends to get low gameplay review scores at first (until 1980 or so,) due to low experience on several of the factors involved. The "stars" you get from using things (platforms, engine features, game features, topics, genres,) affect your game's stats. So if you're using things you have five stars in, and still get low gameplay review scores, then that may indicate an issue.

What I sometimes do to bypass this problem of the early game stages: I'll release a game every four months, giving it plenty of time to get polished. This doesn't mean "start developing your next game two months later" but actually "start developing your next game as soon as you're done with the one you were developing." Since I use "meta" knowledge, I have no use for game reports (except the first time I release a genre, which marks all the sliders as perfect,) so I can basically just keep on developing games non-stop (engine upgrades aside.)

So when my latest game on sale reaches its sixteenth week, I'll release the one I'm working on (which will usually be 100% done and debugged by week six or eight,) and I'll keep getting 95%+ in all four review stats, sometimes even managing 100% once in a long while.

Later on (by the time AA and AAA become a requirement for the number of features you need to add to games,) this becomes harder to pull without very big development teams (30 people per room, that's 150 employees or more,) which may make console development and self-publishing an "either/or" thing, you can't really have both of those and 30 employees of each of the rooms needed for development. I also completely bypass MMOs and F2Ps, they're not things I'm fond of anyways, and in-game they're just another way to watch money grow. That saves me space I would waste (sorry, "use") on servers. And if I choose to not publish, I can use the space I would use for production for more game development rooms, which means releasing games faster, or being able to polish them a lot more.

"Wait, you never mentioned marketing!" Why would I? I don't use that either. Hype is overhyped. ;)

[andrewpnichols]

Originally posted by Kyouko Tsukino:

"Wait, you never mentioned marketing!" Why would I? I don't use that either. Hype is overhyped. ;)

I agree with this, especially later in the game. Hype seems to be capped at 100 and I find that without a marketing room I nearly always release at 100. Some star designers and a small booth at the previous expo are all you need.

[Sol]

I've been saying we need a Hype Cap on the Star Dev perk. I think the perk should cap the hype at like 70. You should have to use marketing to get to 100. I also believe each "Star Dev" should only be allowed to add UP TO 30 points (but not guaranteed to give all 30).

This would mean having 3 Star Devs will usually get you to 70, then you have to hype.

Another option to back it up would be allowing "Special Marketing" to give a bonus instead of adding to the raw number. This would allow Hype to temporarily exceed 100 but give you a reason to still use marketing (so the bonus brings you to 120 instead of 90, if it's a 20 point bonus and you're sitting at 70).

[Kyouko Tsukino]

Right now, the only "good" reason to have marketing around is to up a console's hype to 100, which generates more sales. But this "use" is basically like adding a dollar to Scrooge McDuck's money vault. It's hardly noticeable, and highly redundant.

[freelancer909]

Programmers will run over your designers. I use two designers per programmer and eventually cross train them.

[yutterh]

Originally posted by Kyouko Tsukino:

Right now, the only "good" reason to have marketing around is to up a console's hype to 100, which generates more sales. But this "use" is basically like adding a dollar to Scrooge McDuck's money vault. It's hardly noticeable, and highly redundant.

Do people not market add ons? I also use the special marketing for a chance at overhype (which should also be usable for consoles) and to increase review score. I also release demos when hype starts to lower for a game to get a cheap and quick boost.

[Kyouko Tsukino]

I don't even make add-ons anymore. Games themselves already give me twice or thrice what I invest in them. "Horse Armor DLC" is an illness of this century anyways (and so are retro games.) I haven't even bothered with budget games for a month now, either... And I don't miss those parts of the game at all. It's just extra effort for no real "fun" gain (for me at least.)

As for marketing... As I've already said a few times in several threads, I think hype is overhyped. It's just a way to enhance the game's "money making simulator" syndrome, past the initial struggle - or even worse, to reduce that initial struggle. I'm already making millions on top of millions through games, and having no way at all to lose unless I purposefully start releasing trash games until I go bankrupt, so I don't see a reason to use those extra tools to further increase what doesn't really need to increase.

Once the game is balanced to make every part of the game challenging enough (relative to the difficulty settings, at least,) then maybe marketing, add-ons and such will be a tool I will *need* to use.