Ratings of the Pizzas

[Watershine]

So, since the Beta dosn't have any Standard Default Pizzas you can instantly add to your menu to have a base you can start out with, the first thing we do is go into the Pizza Creator.

Each Ingredient Category has an indicator who of the 6 customer categories likes this the most. Like Veggies are most popular among Big Shots and Students.

Now i'm creating a Pizza and every time i put an ingredient on the Pizza, i can see the overall rating of the customers change little by little. So far so good.

But when i go to the menu where i can name, save and set the price for my Pizza the rating is completly different then in the creating menu.

I don't know if this is a Bug or intended. But if it is intended, it makes no sense at all. XD If i can't rely on the indicator of the creator, creating Pizzas is more a hassle then fun.

On top of that, how does it make sense that increasing the price makes people happy? I don't like paying to much for something, so why should it be the same for game customers? ;-)

And besides that, even if i push the price to 200% profit, the rating is still not the same as in the creator.

Please find a way to make the creator more logical and easier to understand what is doing what.

[herbertp00ny]

Responses to pizza price

When i am raising the price for my pizza in the pizza editor, the response rate is growing. Should this not be the other way around? Maybe for some target groups the response rate is higher for higher prices, but not for all.

[Watershine]

I was wondering about that as well! I made a cheese-pizza with not to much on it so even "poor" people can afford it and it would get my name out there, then noticed no one likes it. Raised the price and it made them happy. XD

[Murcie]

It makes sense - I played the game for a couple of hours right now and the issue you're having are 2 different ratings that apply to the overall rating of the pizza :D

The indicators you see while creating the pizza tell you how well the relative amounts of each ingredients are seen by the target groups. F.ex. if you make a pizza for Oldsters, I figured the best percentage of ingredients is 40% fish, 30% meat, 10% spice, 10% veggies, 10% cheese, 0% fruit (+-2% to each percentage).

Now if you made it with a little amount of ingredients, they still won't be happy about the pizza. So just increase the amount, while keeping the ratio of the ingredients, and see how the target groups react to the pizza! :D Then you can also see that increasing the profit margin does not always mean higher approval.

But I agree with you that it still is strange, because you don't want everyone ordering 3kg pizzas for 60$, so the rating system on its own should still be fixed somehow :D

[Watershine]

I'm not sure right now if you didn't understand me or i don't understand you. *lol* =D

So, here's the thing. You go to the Pizza Creator, right? Then you've those 5 sub-menus: Rolling pin, Pizza, Overview, Saved Pizzas, Random Pizza Generator.

So you go to the Rolling Pin menu to make a brand new pizza and pick its shape. Then you go to the Pizza-Menu to put the ingredients on the Pizza. On top of that Menu you see the indicator of the target groups, which group likes which ingredient the most. On the bottom you see the customer response to your Pizza. After you're done you go to the Overview Menu where you can name your Pizza, choose the price marging and save the Pizza. On the bottom you've, again, the customer response to your pizza.

And that response is completly different from the response in your pizza menu.
So i made a Pizza that had a 100% response of Big Shots, but when i went to the Overview to name and save the Pizza - even with the price at 200% - the response dropped to 50% while the response of other groups - which were very low in the pizza menu - were suddenly higher.

Sadly i can't post screenshots here, otherwise i would show you what exactly i mean.

It's kinda hard to make a pizza when you create one that at first says 100% but in the Overview it's down to 50%. =(

[Murcie]

Okay, I understood your issue, I think I just didnt explain myself clearly enough; I'll try again.

The indicators on top of the ingredients menu while making the pizza in the Pizza-Menu are telling you how much the target groups like those specific group of ingredients. How in this case means how to mix different ingredients together and how the distribution ratio of different ingredients should be for the group to like the pizza. Example:

Oldsters' preferences are: 25% Veggies, 25% Cheese, 50% Meat, 100% fish, 0% fruit, 25% spice. So now, you should try to make a pizza that matches those preferences in terms of distribution ratio of the ingredients you put on the pizza. So there should be more fish on the pizza than anything else, more meat than anything else, but less meat than fish, approx. the same amount of veggies, cheese and spice, and no fruit. That's how I came up with my recipe, which then stated the following distribution in the distribution indicator below the ingredients in the Pizza-Making-Menu. 40% fish, 30% meat, 10% spice, 10% veggies, 10% cheese, 0% fruit (+-2% to every percentage, I rounded up the numbers :D).

This distribution ratio gives you the customer response to the pizza within the pizza making menu, in your case the 100% response of big shots.

Now if you switch to the Overview Menu where you set the profit margine for the pizza, the response to the pizza may be different compared to the response you saw while making the pizza. This is caused by the overall amount of ingredients on the pizza, and thus the price of the pizza. Different target groups have different expectations what amount of ingredients should be on a pizza, or in general, how much a pizza should minimally and maximally cost. This explains the issue with setting the profit margine to 200% still increasing the response of groups. If the ingredients/production of the pizza is expensive enough, you will see that overpricing the margin will reduce the response at some point, since the pizza will be too expensive. If it's too low, increasing the price with increasing the profit margin, will only move the price towards their minimal/optimal point of price expectation.

Right now, the way to fix this is to increase the amount of the ingredients on the pizza, while keeping the distribution ratio the same it was before, so you can set the initial price of the pizza higher and meet the expectations. So, in general, double the amount of every ingredient you put on the pizza and see how the response in the Overview Menu changes.

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I'm not saying this is the way to do it, or that the system is perfect as it is right now, since, as I said in my first comment, it's highly unrealistic that people expect to buy 3kg pizzas, for 60 dollars, on a daily basis. Or that people are unhappy that they can not spend less than 10$ on a pizza :D The interplay of the distribution ratio and the cost of production of the pizza needs fixing, so the ratings feel more realistic.

But, on the other hand, it makes creating the perfect pizza for every one a bit of a challenge, which I personally like :D I feel it should not be fully transparent how people react to a pizza, so it's a bit more challenging to balance your menu etc.

[Mr.SUX]

That is definitely a balancing thing but not a bug. The thing is, you create first the recipe. The recipe alone does not mean, you'll get this rating from the customer. Because for example a bad cook can mess it up and screw your pizza. On the other side it is intended that the percentage of how the people will probably like your pizza change when you set the margin. the thought behind this is when a big shot will buy a 10$ pizza and he even liked it he will be a bit curios why it is so cheap. So it is about the feeling, is the pizza price the pizza itself worth it or not. It is like if you would buy a pizza for 1$. Wouldn't you think something might be wrong with it because it's too cheap and can't be profitable at all? So this might would leave a bad impression in your mind even if the pizza was tasty or not. I hope you understand the thought behind the feature. But surely it is a balancing thing if some rating in this case wouldn't make any sense at all.

[Watershine]

Okay, now that you explained it like that it makes more sense. It's still confusing because no matter where i pull the pricing slider i can't get the number i got in the step before.
Maybe a little ? next to the customer response would be good a player can click on and get a short explanation?
I dunno if you plan to add a Tutorial in the finished game, if you it would be good to explain it there so players can get a better feeling for it.