Ratings on the decline (later-game problem)

[Scifiwriterguy]

Although all-10s have never been common for my company, we were doing pretty well - 8s and 9s were our regular place. However, now that I'm in the last office and have a full team, my review scores are tanking and I don't know why.

My best guess is this design/tech ratio I've been reading about. Can that alone sink my scores? And, if so, I'm a little stuck on how to fix it because the game really doesn't make clear how those values come about:
•Are the game's D/T values influenced mainly (or exclusively) by employees assigned to tasks and how big those tasks are, or is it an aggregate of the entire team?
•Should I ditch my all-rounder employees and hire specialized ones?
•If I do hire employees heavy on one side or the other, doesn't that lock me out of games where the ratio goes in the other direction?

I really enjoy this game, but my company seems to be in a death spiral I just can't stop.

(Oh, and if someone could tell me: I researched "own convention" in my R&D department, it the event happened, and then stopped. Do I need to research it *every* time I want to hold a convention??)

[[SG] Shingo-_-Yabuki]

See my post "Eventually, you cannot produce profitable games anymore...". Maybe it can provide some insights.

[Scifiwriterguy]

Originally posted by SG Shingo-_-Yabuki:

See my post "Eventually, you cannot produce profitable games anymore...". Maybe it can provide some insights.

I did, thank you. :)

There was no mention made of the T/D ratio in either the OP or reply, so I was hoping someone could address that point specifically. Plus, this isn't a gradual decay from all-10 rated games, this is an inability since early mid-game to reach those levels and the game hasn't been going long enough for the decay problem you mentioned, so it's likely a different issue.

[[SG] Shingo-_-Yabuki]

There are plenty wiki articles on that. Start with this first, perhaps.
https://gamedevtycoon.fandom.com/wiki/Game_Development_Based_on_Experience/1.6.11
I love the game but I hold the Time Stone, and I went forward in time and saw the EndGame lol. Already unlocked 100%. Replaying it with or without Pirate Mode, will not bring me new entertaining experience. Really hope the upgrades, tech unlocks, skills leveling up, will go on forever without flat-lining. I want to keep playing the same attempt until 100yr for fun. But, hehehehee, I confirmed with Dr Strange too; unless there's updates to ensure that kind of playability...

[Scifiwriterguy]

Originally posted by SG Shingo-_-Yabuki:

There are plenty wiki articles on that. Start with this first, perhaps.
https://gamedevtycoon.fandom.com/wiki/Game_Development_Based_on_Experience/1.6.11
I love the game but I hold the Time Stone, and I went forward in time and saw the EndGame lol. Already unlocked 100%. Replaying it with or without Pirate Mode, will not bring me new entertaining experience. Really hope the upgrades, tech unlocks, skills leveling up, will go on forever without flat-lining. I want to keep playing the same attempt until 100yr for fun. But, hehehehee, I confirmed with Dr Strange too; unless there's updates to ensure that kind of playability...

Thanks for the link, although the article says it doesn't cover making high rating games. Still, it had some good general info! One thing it did mention was never dropping a slider below 20% which I'd been doing regularly, so I'll see if keeping a minimum value of 20% helps.

As for 100 years' worth of tech upgrades and such, that's certainly possible. From an actual game design standpoint, the only practical limit on tech trees in a modern game is the developers' imaginations; you no longer need to economize on content, and in a game this simply built (relatively speaking), there's a lot of open room. So it all comes down to creating that content. Now, that can be done the hard way - dreaming up and writing down ten thousand upgrade options - or procedurally, establishing rules for the game to create upgrades. Doing it by hand provides better quality at the expense of a lot of time, while doing it procedurally offers long-range expandability on the cheap at the expense of quality. Like it is in the game, developing one is really a game of trade-offs. :)