1* reviews for going slightly over budget make absolutely no sense.

[STLAngel7]

It kills variety. The fact I can get a 1* review for giving the costumer a slightly better component and eating the cost myself should make a costumer overjoyed, not angry. I am paying more and he is getting a bonus... I do not get why even 5$ can trigger a 1* review.

I used to put in used components way overkill for a job once in a while, I guess now I'll be forced to use exactly the cheapest possible material for the job.

RIP giving that little boy that got into an esports team 32gb of 3200mhz rgb ram like I did in every other playtrough so far.

[tommy61157]

Agreed

[Turbo]

You're not eating the cost anymore though. The customer makes up the difference now. Most customers would be pretty darn irate in that situation.

[tommy61157]

Why not have an option to treat them and eat a bit of cost if it's a constant customer? I mean, if you're going for realistic, just saying, which they seem to be really pushing for in this update.

[Anthony]

Ya im takeing a brake for now. some guy wanted a 2000 benchmark so i gave him a free 960 i got from upgrading someone else pc 100% free to me. He was pist off becase it's "Over Bugget" ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. He rather i waste another 200$ and buy a new cheaper Card. Well send it back! Idiot.

[Turbo]

Originally posted by Anthony:

Ya im takeing a brake for now. some guy wanted a 2000 benchmark so i gave him a free 960 i got from upgrading someone else pc 100% free to me. He was pist off becase it's "Over Bugget" ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. He rather i waste another 200$ and buy a new cheaper Card. Well send it back! Idiot.

Used parts aren't free anymore. They count against your total budget.

[tommy61157]

Originally posted by Turbo:

Originally posted by Anthony:

Ya im takeing a brake for now. some guy wanted a 2000 benchmark so i gave him a free 960 i got from upgrading someone else pc 100% free to me. He was pist off becase it's "Over Bugget" ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. He rather i waste another 200$ and buy a new cheaper Card. Well send it back! Idiot.

Used parts aren't free anymore. They count against your total budget.

Which is weird if you end up getting the parts for free from another PC... Certainly not Realistic.

[Turbo]

No, it's perfectly realistic. If you're a businessman and you're giving away perfectly good parts, you're soon to be a broke businessman. The parts are sold at a heavy discount, but you still make money on them regardless.

[tommy61157]

Originally posted by Turbo:

No, it's perfectly realistic. If you're a businessman and you're giving away perfectly good parts, you're soon to be a broke businessman. The parts are sold at a heavy discount, but you still make money on them regardless.

Okay, still a bit odd since you're not paying anything for those parts, maybe have it so any parts you get for free you can set how much they count against the budget? Might not lead to the best business practices, but it gives you the most control, which should be the goal if they're going heavy into the simulation route.

[Tikigod]

Originally posted by Turbo:

No, it's perfectly realistic. If you're a businessman and you're giving away perfectly good parts, you're soon to be a broke businessman. The parts are sold at a heavy discount, but you still make money on them regardless.

Exactly this.

What the game does now is split costs into two areas:

1) Billed Component Cost - The billed value of all components used in the job, which the customer then has to pay.... because honestly that's how reality and business works.

2) Labour Cost - The billed value for you just picking up the machine and projected time required for the job.


It really does make complete sense.


Edit:
You might think that undercutting, taking the loss and giving away stock at stupidly low rates (or even free) will lead to happier customers... but actually most people will think you're ripping them off somewhere or aren't offering a 'professional service' due to not being billed for what the job was actually worth. It might sound crazy, but actually charging more will attract happier customers and make people feel like they got what they expected.... heck just look at Apple.

[tommy61157]

Originally posted by Tikigod:

Originally posted by Turbo:

No, it's perfectly realistic. If you're a businessman and you're giving away perfectly good parts, you're soon to be a broke businessman. The parts are sold at a heavy discount, but you still make money on them regardless.

Exactly this.

What the game does now is split costs into two areas:

1) Billed Component Cost - The billed value of all components used in the job, which the customer then has to pay.... because honestly that's how reality and business works.

2) Labour Cost - The billed value for you just picking up the machine and projected time required for the job.


It really does make complete sense, the only time it doesn't make sense is if you forget that you're operating a PC tech support company and treat it as just being some random person doing favours for friends for the sheer joy of it.

Hmm, good points.

[Tikigod]

As an aside, from a business perspective your 'free stock' liberated from old customers are regarded as assets, and these assets are assigned a value and used for taxable purposes.

So whilst on paper you might think you can just declare that in the financial year you had made £22,000 income, with £18,000 expenses on directly purchased components leading to a annual profit of £4,000 with a extra £6,000 'saved' by just recycling used components going into your pocket quietly. The reality would be that all the 'free stock' you recycled isn't seen as a nice extra bit of cash that you get to enjoy in the eyes of the tax man. For tax purposes the moment you use assets (even if you don't directly 'sale' them) and make a financial gain the value of those assets can be taxed on.

The exception to this is if you make charitable donations, or directly gift someone said assets with no kind of return received.

Edit: And yes, the tax man does actually consider marketing or reputation benefits as a potential return.

[TheWhiteFlame]

EDIT: Part about oli22 is kinda obsolete, it seems fixed. even if the mail states budget=150$ replacing the 185$ MOBO gets STILL 5***** rating. so the bug is rather the incorrect email!!! nevertheless discounts would maybe be interesting?!

old post:

I think it would be still a nice option to give a customer a discout! especially when its a returning customer. i maxed out the budget for oli22 the first 3 times, so basically he already had a bench4000 PC when re requested he wanted an upgrade to bech3000. sure i get that his contracts are kinda pre-scripted. but since he more or less paid me unnecesary one time i gave him the best MOBO i could buy for 210$. now he broke it and wants a replacement. BUUUT the budget is only 150!!! so im in trouble now.

1) game rules forbid me to install an "inferior" one (even when 3dmark score remains exactly the same and everything works).

2) i cannot make it used "myself". i would give it to him cheaper, as a returning customer, but i cant! and i really dont want to get the 1*rating from him :(

3) it probably would take ages to find exactly the same mobo at reduce dprice on PC-bay???

4)so now im trying to keep about 25 jobs (or as many as possible) ready to collect berore doing his, so i can immedeatly get back to max rating. which also suxx.

anyway it would be nice to have the option to eat any over-budgedting myself as a discout. yes it would make the game a bit easier, since some builds require some exact party, but on the other side, the greater VARIETY (at my own cost!!!) would add more FUN to the game and also i dont have to calcualte to the penny each time. who cares if im over the budged 5-25$ if the labour is about 150-450$, just let me do it. maybe the customer even responds with a NICE review comment for a discout. (also there could be a game mechanic where a discout may improve a review rating, like you forget to remove viruses but he gets 50% discount, which makes up for it.

------
unless it's deliberately scripted that you get in trouble i assume in this scenario the devs just thought, no way that he has a mobo more expensive than 150$, and these game mechanics collide:
-
-"replace" part MUST be the SAME one!
-no discounts.
-1* if over budget.
-hard coded 150$ for oli22 (where ALL GENERIC "replace"-jobs have the correct budget!)

so at the very least, maybe fix the scripting for oli22 at this job?!

[TheWhiteFlame]

the things i talk about are the things i just noticed right now while playing. and the ONLY discussions about this are the necors. thats why.
to futher understand the problem with oli in THIS thread. yes right now, in this version, the pre scripted email is STILL very misleading. i wrote the post when i noticed this bug. then i did some experiments and realized that in contrast to what one should expect, in this special case, ONE IS ALLOWED to exceed the budged, due to its specific nature. but that was never obvious. so when i realized that, i edited the post a few hours later, so that i can add the info, that it's not really dramatic or any problem from gameplay-perspective. that doesnt change the fact, that the email text is still misleading, thats, why i created a bug report and did not delete the post (which i had done if i realized i just simply was wrong).

in addition i also wanted to bring up the discussion about discounnts again, so that its possible to slightly go over budget. and this was the biggest post on this that i found aswell.
so what do you think? u are quite active here. or is the idea of discounts dead? if so, well then ok, whatever.

[TheWhiteFlame]

so what. you the internet police?? lol jokes aside, would you have liked it better if i had not searched at all and just made a new post: "plz make discountns possible!"

you know, like those kids generating similar post all over cuz they dont even search before??? well im not the god of all netiquette so you can enlighten me what the right move should be :)

or do you think the tpoic is just not worth it???