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Post by semperfi on Oct 19, 2020 17:49:08 GMT
Just want to say I am seriously considering quitting because of the imbalance.
Do I want to go into AS in one form or another - not really. (I tried Sales Offices before, just waaaaay too much time to find suppliers - discovered it really only works if I have funds to invest in broad inventory to cover randomness in orders from SO - confirmed this w Walt Disney)
Do I have much of a choice - not really, IF I care about progress on the Over-Achiever achievement.
My next level is at Rank = 300, but I've been treading water in the 400s. Worse, the CV amount for 300 keeps getting further away.
Had to adjust strategy when AS was launched - suppliers went into AS, so figured out I can manufacture my own electronics to retail. I was making good profit, but nothing like before.
Hard to keep suppliers because just not profitable for them at the prices I need.
Lately - in two weeks of Normal, inputs / supplies have crept up in price that margins are squeezed significantly - I'm selling out inventory I have, but largely only acquiring what I manufacture now (but for small volumes from a couple of suppliers, but they are not all that profitable anymore).
I thought the imbalance w AS was being addressed - maybe so, but not fast enough. Electronic Retail is on a slow death march at this rate.
This prompted me to check the competitive landscape, courtesy of an online Google Sheet.
Found out that 109 companies have started since Jan 1, 2020 are ranking above me. ~70% of them are in AS (13 partially concentrated). Of those who joined since Apr 1, 2020 - ALL are in AS (3 partially). The rest are a mix of Petro Industry, Electronics Mfg, Other Mfg - none Electronics Retail.
Electronics Retail has a couple penalties:
1) Admin OH - I am #4 employer in the game. Of the other 3: 1 is a very large AS operation with buildings worth 13x mine, and the other 2 do a combo of Oil and Mfg with buildings worth 1.5 to 2x mine. All of our Gross Admin are >130% 2) Collecting Money - when the other industries sell goods (either Exchange, Sales Office, or Shipped to Buyer Warehouse) when items are sold they immediately get the cash. Retail has to click on the buildings. Seems minor, but real life means missing that from time to time - impact is beyond reason given the money is "there" - happened a few times, but it can take a week to recover if it happens at the wrong time. Have to leave a significant cash balance, which means missed buying opportunities.
Decision:
Do I go into AS? Will I make much headway, when/if the imbalance is addressed? If I do, do I have enough to invest in inventory for SO now (~40M after everything is sold off)? And, enough simboosts to change orientation, if need be?
There are some R&D outliers. Could they be viable alternative?
Ultimately, will have to start over on the refinement of the processes, and spreadsheets to figure it all out.
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Post by RichardWest on Oct 20, 2020 19:28:47 GMT
I have tried to bring this up before, but folks like The Center act like I'm crazy.
Is this a market simulation or just a competition to see who can get into AS fastest and with the most profit?
Patrik says he's bringing a big change to agriculture that would have food retail rivaling car retail -- that might be cool. But there's no way that will be here in the next 3-4 months. Meanwhile, the AS cartel is rolling in the dough. Maybe Patrik just really really really likes AS?
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Post by The Center on Oct 21, 2020 10:05:20 GMT
I have tried to bring this up before, but folks like The Center act like I'm crazy. Really? Why bring me into this?
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Post by RichardWest on Oct 21, 2020 11:33:16 GMT
You brought yourself into it when you were the first person to respond to my AS post and basically say, "They have to spend more money, so they make more money." Everyone else agreed with me that the game isn't balanced.
No hard feelings, but you have discussed the subject before -- with me -- in a thread about AS -- as the most visible mod in the game. Seems rational to bring you up.
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Post by The Center on Oct 21, 2020 15:17:17 GMT
You brought yourself into it when you were the first person to respond to my AS post and basically say, "They have to spend more money, so they make more money." Everyone else agreed with me that the game isn't balanced. No hard feelings, but you have discussed the subject before -- with me -- in a thread about AS -- as the most visible mod in the game. Seems rational to bring you up. You know I don't develop the game right? I can only talk about what exists currently in the game. Bringing me forward as target makes no sense here.
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Post by RichardWest on Oct 22, 2020 11:20:03 GMT
I mean, if you don't want people mentioning your opinions are wrong, then don't post them lol
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Post by The Center on Oct 22, 2020 13:52:05 GMT
I mean, if you don't want people mentioning your opinions are wrong, then don't post them lol But what you said here is true. "In order to make money you have to spend money." How is that wrong? This is true of ANY industry in the game and is not limited to Aerospace. If you want to make money you have to be able to take risks and expand and spend money on things so that you can make more profits. Did I say anything about it being balanced? No. All I said is they have to spend more money. Aerospace is the End game industry. It takes a lot of money to get into it. If you don't want to do aerospace there's a lot of other options you can do.
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Post by SPC Trading Co on Oct 23, 2020 1:32:48 GMT
This has been hinted at for a while now, maybe over a year. At the time when it first came up there was a lot of discussion and work done by Supporters to provide suggestions on new products and inputs that wouldn't need a complete overhaul or new buildings. You only need to look at the fact the Beverage Factory only makes one product. The potential is there. To be fair however, those in the agriculture/food business are the newer players and are few in number. Thus when a poll was running asking to prioritise where the focus on development should it, the result looked elsewhere. So I understand why things happened the way they would. I'd like to see some more variety in agriculture and food, but I don't think it needs to be complete new product lines and buildings. I'd also like to see the quality levels looked at. Agriculture and food remain with very high levels of demand which mean investing in research beyond say Q2 really has no value. Maybe with some new products that may change.
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Post by RichardWest on Oct 24, 2020 21:37:17 GMT
If you don't want to do aerospace there's a lot of other options you can do. Did I say anything to that affect? I said if you don't want to do Aerospace; there are other options.
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Post by The Center on Oct 25, 2020 0:03:44 GMT
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Post by semperfi on Oct 28, 2020 1:20:03 GMT
Look. I am pointing out a serious problem with the game. I'm not looking to get into a debate about it. The fact that you came back with about 20 of the top 100 who are in concentrations other than AS is rather my point.
More specifically, April (IIRC) was when the last major adjustment was to AS to bring balance. Since then, the ONLY ones who have surpassed my rank are those with an AS component (most with AS as their major concentration, or a minor one for a few).
Has anyone on the team done a temporal analysis to see how AS has become a dominating concentration?
If investment in patents is the way to rank, the money to invest has to come from somewhere, right? So it comes back to the same issue.
I'm not saying I am doing everything 100% right - for example, I recently added another recreational building for another 3% boost (after paying for maintenance with simboosts) to see if that helps. WIll it, or how much that helps, I don't know. I'm trying something different.
I've investigated producing the next Q level (patents I could use vs to inflate CV) of electronics that I am manufacturing, but it seems sketchy - the price point for the next Q level on those same inputs is significantly higher - and no doubt the effects from AS demand I see now is likely headed in the same direction for them too.
I've had suppliers drop and the Exchange is no longer offering retailable electronics right now at profit levels I had seen in just the prior Normal economic cycle - the profitability seems to be down $20 to $30 per unit across the board (and I can see why - inputs costs are up significantly).
I could spend more time looking high and low to find other suppliers who might be able to provide what I need at the price I am looking for - but I doubt I will find any who are not facing this issue.
There is one more thing I am thinking of trying, but it does mean dumping / transitioning from electronics retail and manufacturing - but it is disappointing to feel the need to have to, just to be competitive.
At the end of the day, Patrik has done a stellar job overall. But, this imbalance needs some serious attention, and ought to get priority (though I'm sure that what is really needed would be unpopular now, given that so many of the top players are in AS).
You've done some great work in guides - but an important piece of information is missing... get the heck out of everything else and move on to AS to be competitive, quickly make money, invest in patents and rank.
I don't think that is the intention of this game, but it seems to be sound advice for the game as it exists today.
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Post by The Center on Oct 28, 2020 16:07:55 GMT
I wasn't responding to you Semperfi. I was responding to Richardwest. Sadly, he hijacked your thread.
As far as your last comment Semperfi. The last AS cull has caused a lot of players to leave AS. The culling was a huge nerf and it takes time for things to change. We are already seeing players move out of AS and into other industries. If you just take a look at game chats you can see a lot of players complaining about the terrible profits they are making in SO, if they are making any at all. The cull combined with per product bonus for SO contracts really did limit the profits as far is huge growths go. The producers were hit with the per product bonus too. They no longer could just make SEP and sell them off to supplement the quality bonus in the SO for the retailers.
Again. It all takes time. "Rome wasn't built in a day" comes to mind when thinking about culling/nerfs. Patrik, I believe did it the right way. If he took a sledge hammer to AS then too many players would have left the game. And we don't want that. We all want this game to survive and thrive.
I invested $200k to $300k daily to research to get patents. It took my roughly 9 months to get Know-it-all quality 3. I'm hovering right around 100 in rank. I am also not in AS. So, yes. The money came from budgeting.
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Post by RichardWest on Oct 30, 2020 16:47:56 GMT
I didn't hijack the thread. I got The Center to bring more viewership/discussion to this thread than any new post in this forum in the last 6 months.
And I agree with SF, Patrik has done a stellar job. But developers don't always have the time to see what's going on from the player perspective. Again, TC was instrumental in amplifying our message that there are issues with AS. Thanks TC!
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Post by The Center on Oct 31, 2020 1:06:57 GMT
I didn't hijack the thread. I got The Center to bring more viewership/discussion to this thread than any new post in this forum in the last 6 months. And I agree with SF, Patrik has done a stellar job. But developers don't always have the time to see what's going on from the player perspective. Again, TC was instrumental in amplifying our message that there are issues with AS. Thanks TC! How do you think I even found out that I was mentioned in this post? Its like you think this was some sort of "AHA!!" That I brought attention to this. You know that Patrik does read these right?
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Post by The Center on Nov 3, 2020 17:13:23 GMT
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