Suggestion

[Parkerrush92]

Hi all,

After hours and hours of testing and playthrough, and scrupulous note-taking I'm making a suggestion for a significant (but not that significant) alteration to gameplay.

Just as a preface, my style of play is such that I have multiple subsidiaries, and multiple brands of the same product. I think many people have a similar issue when it comes to realism as it relates to the number of products that can be sold in retail stores. Currently due to the 4 product limitation, many redundant stores must be opened, often (in my case) to sell the same product. Here is the solution to that problem that I came up with.

note* an update to the UI may be required, but I can see some visually appealing options, that could be integrated into the current UI theme.

I propose that all retail stores with the exception of department stores, Mega-stores, and supermarkets begin with the normal 4 product slots.

Mega Discount store should begin with the option to sell up to 10 products. All stores should have a one or the other option of private labeling OR advertising.

Department stores and supermarkets should begin with 6 product options.

After significant training upgrades, say level 5, and with appropriate amounts of cash on hand, an option to upgrade store should be presented. this would allow specialty outlets the option to increase to 10 product offerings. and after reaching training level 7 and with enough funding, expand to allow for the sale of 20 products.

In my model, Discount mega stores only have 2 options (regular 10 and large 20) This could be changed to 10 and 25. Department stores have 6/10/20 upgrade option and supermarkets have the same.

I hope the forum can see the benefit of this addition.

Parker

[Parkerrush92]

There could also be a game setting option to select classic style or alternative store.

[Arcnor]

This is something I fully support especially with player mods that add several products to classes

[Parkerrush92]

+1

[David]

Right now, the retail store UI works well because it can only display a maximum of 3 products on the screen, and a store will never have more than 4 products.

If there is a large number of products in a single store, it will require lots of clicking to browse the products on the firm detail screen. Any suggested solution to this?

[piermario]

My idea
Ciao!

[Arcnor]

Right now, the retail store UI works well because it can only display a maximum of 3 products on the screen, and a store will never have more than 4 products.

If there is a large number of products in a single store, it will require lots of clicking to browse the products on the firm detail screen. Any suggested solution to this?

I personally will take clicking arrows in one firm selling more than 4 products over having to manage 20 retail firms just to obtain a good market share for all the products of a product class. Expanding the interface for retail and factories will correct what I believe is the single largest draw back of the game. In late game situations, current game play is all about setting up multiple firms to increase market share, add new products, etc to the point you have 100s of firms. A management nightmare! I'm to the point that if expanding the retail and factory interface needs to be its own DLC, I am more than happy to pay for it.


Piermario's suggestion of floors is one that has been made before and one I fully support.


In terms of the product details, the R&D interface is already in place allowing the user to see all of the products. Perhaps a horizontal scroll bar would also be useful.

[David]

I will ask the dev team regarding the technical feasibility of implementing such a multiple floor system.

In the meantime, I would like to know more about what you guys think about:

-how many floors do you think are sufficient?
e.g. 2 floors x 4 products = 8 products max per store.
e.g. 3 floors x 4 products = 12 products max per store.

-do you prefer a game mechanism where the player has to pay for upgrades to add more floors after building a retail store?

-do you prefer the horizontal product list to show only products from the currently selected floor (i.e. 4 products max) or to show all products from all floors (e.g. 12 products max if there are 3 floors)? The first option will require less scrolling and the player just clicks on the floor selector at the bottom of firm detail window to switch the currently selected floor.

[asc2]

My preference, floor based, each floor 4 products like now with 3 floors maximum(ideally mod-able)

[Arcnor]

I think a floor based system would be better. Looking at 4 products at a time seems logical.

I think the game should start at 2 floors per firm and then have the ability to add a 3rd once you have researched or achieved a goal. The ability to modify this would also be a nice feature and something I believe would fit within the building modification framework already established.