Marketing Deals?

[deece16]

So, I moved to the test branch (10.2.1) last night (which I'm loving so far) and I noticed something. I feel that it's a bug, but I'm not sure.

In Alpha 9, you take a market deal and just set the budget to the required amount and all is good (as long as you complete it every month). I got that. Worked like a champ.

Now however, I do the same, set the budget to what it says they want, but the progress bar doesn't fill all the way, and I have red stars (loosing rep) which now says why, which I love, and it has "Deal" with red arrows pointing to the left. I looks to me that setting the budget to what the contract says isn't working correctly.

I'm pretty sure this is a bug, as if it's not, how do you know what to set the budget to and how would you decide if a contract is worth your time or not?

Anyone else seeing this?

Thoughts?

[EvilFinchen]

In my most recent gameplays i started with marketing deals only and haven't recognized anything like this. I don't get red stars if i can't use up all set budget i just don't get anymore reputation (stars). Maybe it's affected by something else? Firing employees? Not fulfilling printing deals? Missing contract deadlines?

[deece16]

I looked at a lot of things before posting this. As I had said, it was fine before playing on the test build. Are you playing on the test build?

[EvilFinchen]

Yes, i'm playing the alpha 10 test build.

[EvilFinchen]

Sounds 101 - but have you tried reinstalling the game?

[deece16]

Originally posted by EvilFinchen:

Sounds 101 - but have you tried reinstalling the game?

I have not, perhaps I will.

[RoxiSinister]

I have experiencded the same thing, which prompted me to stop taking marketing deals. I know it was the marketing deals because aat the top hovering over reputatiion stars I saw red arrows for the marketing deals and had no other current deals/contracts active at the time. I even went as much as $5000 over the required budget and still got the reputation hits, so it wasn't worth it to spend $40k to make $50k and take rep hits.

[EvilFinchen]

Are you guys playing with mods? I'm playing with a lot of software mods, maybe something's altering the way deals work.

[Chama]

Taking support deals is pretty annoying aswell. On your vacation month, even if the support tickets dont go into "missed", that entire month you are on vacation, your deal rep goes down considerbly. It's quite annoying. (I avoid those entirely now)

[EvilFinchen]

Originally posted by Fear None:

Taking support deals is pretty annoying aswell. On your vacation month, even if the support tickets dont go into "missed", that entire month you are on vacation, your deal rep goes down considerbly. It's quite annoying. (I avoid those entirely now)

3 teams working 24 hours shifts with different vacations months might do the trick :)

[deece16]

Originally posted by EvilFinchen:

Are you guys playing with mods? I'm playing with a lot of software mods, maybe something's altering the way deals work.

I'm playing only vanilla, no mods.

[RoxiSinister]

No mods here either, since half of them don't work in Alpha 10.

[chitz_a]

It's the new education/skill system. When I brought more experienced marketers on, and a better leader I started to fill the bar faster compared to budget. If you hit optimum you'll complete the contract without spending all the allotted money, thus pocketing more.

[Traksimuss]

Yea, but low quality marketers are too low, and good ones are expensive, so not much benefit from the deal.

[RoxiSinister]

I wasn't having any problems hitting the "required budget" they requested on mine. They were already medium skilled marketers (abouot 50%) and could do the contract budgets easily. But I still took hits on the reputation despite hitting my marks.

[deece16]

Originally posted by Traksimuss:

Yea, but low quality marketers are too low, and good ones are expensive, so not much benefit from the deal.

Good Point...


This may be so, but then this should be changed.
Reason: If I higher a company to market something, it would be me that excepts thier skill in doing the work, not the marketing company that has to get the results at whatever that might cost.

And in game terms, it means you can't have any idea of that your profit margin is. At the very least, it shoud tell you something like: due to the skill of your team, this budget would cost 15% more ($7,000). Then I could see what I'm actually dealing with. And, I have to guess at what it costs to "compete" the deal in the current form, which is just too tedious and time micro-manage"y", for at least me, to bother with.

I have been avoiding Marketing deals due to this.