Factory Levels/Magazine Written Descriptions

[Geredis]

To begin, I want to say that I love all of these numbers in the game. Having htem all out there gives you a certain control and lets you see exactly what has an effect on what else, and how. It's great that they are all there, but sometimes, I'm not looking to sift through numbers, but just want a very quick, at-a-glance summary of the situation in a factory. While thinking about how to do this, the various component creation feedback you get got me thinking - what if you had something along those lines for the factories? This wouldn't be something that replaces, but instead augments it, adding either at-a-glance information that you can skim through without having to make sense of the numbers OR simply serves as nice flavor text to help get a better picture in your head of just what sort of facility it is that's in the city.

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For instance, in the Car Creator you get little hints that say things like:

"This car engine is poor. The engine's size and weight make it impossible to reasonably fit in any chassis. Never mind that it's terribly underpowered. Why anyone would want to use this, I have no idea"
(Paraphrased in the most terrible way, I know)

Is it possible to get something like a fluff summary of your factory, so that it says things like:

"This factory is little more than a handful of workers hand-crafting vehicles in their spare time. Cars are made to order, and even keeping up with that can be difficult for the workers here without sufficient tools or space." (For the lowest levels, c.1895-1900 and likely what you start out with on Normal/Hard - low technology, low capacity)

"Considered state-of-the-art, this factory uses innovative techniques including an assembly line where the car moves from station to station and the workers remain in place, further reducing the time that workers spend being unproductive. This vastly increases productivity, and with ten production lines and three shifts, vehicles produced can easily meet demand. Of course, maintaining this sort of pace will be expensive as tools will wear out quicker from near-constant use and you will require a greatly-increased workforce to ensure the factory works at maximum efficiency." (a top of the line factory, c.1910 with 10 production lines, likely with high technology and capacity)

   
An example of how it might look in-game
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I think that it would definitely help better qualify what sort of factory you really have, without throwing massive amounts of numbers at a person who may not be inclined to them. Not to say that the existing numbers interface should go away, but that having some sort of written summary of all of that can make it easier to make sense of the pips and numbers in the game.

Also, while doing up the mock-up I've attached, I thought of also adding an advice layer which analyzes the factory and gives you a suggestion about what it's greatest issue is, as well as (perhaps) how to solve it...if you feel like having that sort of thing also available.

Now - I know, with the way things are, the basic factory DOES have 5 lines on Hard (not sure what the other difficulties are), so obviously these descriptions would probably need to be tweaked somewhat, but the basic idea stays the same.

And I think I'll leave it here, before even more comes up and I suggest something that's more than just an improvement/tweak.

[Arakash]

I can understand your desire to try to simplify the viewing of things so you can understand things at a glance.
However, i think the current implementation of this kind of advice and hints, or numbers put into words, no offense intended for the game designers, tends to be really poor and not useful. (ill list some examples at the end)
So i would argue that its a bad example of something that should be expanded.

Several of them afaik have been earmarked for improvement in the future, so i suppose i have some hope they will be good in the future.
For now, I usually avoid them alltogether and focus on direct comparison of stats and ratings through things like the compare vehicles screen.

So seeing as i dont use them or want to use them, im not interested in having time spent on creating more of them.
I would be happy with another set of rating numbers listed in factory screen, showing many of the hidden values that effect the quality of a factory.

Where we do agree, is having some kind of hint on a factory that suggests it is still costing money and not doing anything as it looks in your picture. That sounds like it would be useful to new players.

Examples:
To start off, i think you showed some decent examples of what is wrong with them currently in your post.

"This car engine is poor. The engine's size and weight make it impossible to reasonably fit in any chassis. Never mind that it's terribly underpowered. Why anyone would want to use this, I have no idea"

I wish it regularly went into this much detail, it usually just tells me "this is a poor engine, you can do better, but you dont care as long as its cheap right?". Even when its actually quite a decent engine for the time, or has some kind of specific advantage.
Usually though, i just a generic message telling me that its highest stat is basically its best feature, but this is already clearly visible in the stars/ratings/stats.
The only really useful information ive got from it is when it tells me my torque is low, as that's currently not displayed (there are several suggestions about that).

Other examples:
Gearcity Monthly:
This tends to give bizzare reviews sometimes as it really doesn't take into account the relative strength of the design vs other designs available. To me, this seems like something that basically all magazines do.
e.g. the vehicle may be terrible, but if its the best on the market and revolutionary in some way i doubt a magazine would not mention that and still say it was terrible.
Note: This has specifically been mentioned as something that Eric wanted to improve, which is why i usually dont bring it up, but its relevant to this discussion.

Marketing effectiveness/Labour skills report:
Another example of numbers being turned into words and made really vauge in the process. For example, i have access to 8 Clyinders in 1921 and my design skill is listed as "Poor" instead of what it started out as "Abysmal"/"Horrible". Sometimes, there is no change in the word at all but you get access to new things because it has passed the design skill requirement of the component, 12 for example, but that's not enough to trigger a new word :S


So in Summary:
I don't like the current implementation of advice/descriptions, and im not optimistic about their future, so i cant say i want to see more of them, especially in places where you can just as easily show numbers/ratings.

[Geredis]

Arakash, don't get me wrong, I completely agree with you that, as the descriptions currently stand, they are terrible, and I'd agree also that my engine description was perhaps a little too generous in the information that it provides. I'd say though that the crux of it all, that we should have more commentary of that sort - obviously improved from where it is right now - and in more areas is a good, even necessary, thing to help keep everyone from having to constantly play a number comparison game any and every time they want to check things out.

Now, regarding the Monthly, I agree that to a degree it is buggy - but, I rather like that it's got such strange parameters. What you, as a designer, or you as a manufacturer might see in a design is not always what the consumer sees, and I see the Monthly as being the main way to get inside the head of the consumer, so I'd say that while there too needs to be room for improvement (namely with its adjectives coming from a relative instead of absolute scale, that looks at other vehicles in the market and in the same class), that doesn't mean it shouldn't be added in some fashion going forward.

[Eric.B]

The idea for the factories is a good one. I will consider it.

Most of the fluff text in the game is just filler until I hire a writer. If you haven't noticed in my communications on here, my English is just short of horrible for a native speaker. I'm dysgraphic, so that makes me mentally retarded when it comes to spelling,grammar, and sentence structure. Almost all advice/review text will be rewritten by professional writers in the near future. Hopefully they'll become more useful.


The car/component designer advice is going to be rewritten, probably in this build if not the next one. It'll include various ratings for for different vehicles, which should give you a better visual advice than the current text does.


To sum it up, lots of work is still needed in this system. Most of it English related, which I'm holding off as long as possible.

[Eric.B]

I should add that the monthly's text is bugged as it' uses overall ratings instead of relevant ratings. What I mean by that a 20/100 rating vehicle is crap. But if the best vehicle on the market is 25/100, then it's not really crap is it? When I get that fixed the text will be more relevant.


The marketing/labor skills are relevant, so you're "poor" because some of the AI has really high rating. This part of the game isn't completed yet, as I still have to make a research modifier for the skills so you can improve your ratings quicker!

[Arakash]

Arakash, don't get me wrong, I completely agree with you that, as the descriptions currently stand, they are terrible, and I'd agree also that my engine description was perhaps a little too generous in the information that it provides. I'd say though that the crux of it all, that we should have more commentary of that sort - obviously improved from where it is right now - and in more areas is a good, even necessary, thing to help keep everyone from having to constantly play a number comparison game any and every time they want to check things out.

Now, regarding the Monthly, I agree that to a degree it is buggy - but, I rather like that it's got such strange parameters. What you, as a designer, or you as a manufacturer might see in a design is not always what the consumer sees, and I see the Monthly as being the main way to get inside the head of the consumer, so I'd say that while there too needs to be room for improvement (namely with its adjectives coming from a relative instead of absolute scale, that looks at other vehicles in the market and in the same class), that doesn't mean it shouldn't be added in some fashion going forward.

Personally im not bothered at all by a numbers game, i play a lot of numbers heavy strategy games(Eador and Dominions for instance) and even hardcore wargames(Hearts of Iron, up to crazy games like War in the East) which other people don't touch.
Different perspectives and different games for different people i suppose. Nothing wrong with that

On the Gearcity Monthly
Just for reference, mostly to Eric, i tried to make sure to mention in my first post that i was aware that the current form of the Gearcity magazine wasn't what was going to be in the final product (its under development). So i hope there wasn't any confusion on that.

Onto the information you get, generally i like to receive clear, concise and useful information from an interface, i consider it a pretty high priority in game design though im obviously not a game designer myself.
I see your point about generally getting unclear information from consumer articles.
I think that is something you could add in later, with different magazines giving you different and perhaps biased feedback.
For now, id just like to get some quality and informative feedback that takes into account competitors and tells you things you cant see from a glance at the vehicle stats.
e.g.
"This vehicle is heavier than most on the Market"
"This vehicle is underpowered for its weight compared to others on the market"
"This Vehicle fails to meet the high standards of Comfort and Luxury set by others on the market"
"While a high quality vehicle, this Compact Car will likely not be popular due to its low fuel economy compared to others on the market"
"The reliable V420 engine is highly regarded in the community, the vehicle is bound to be more popular from the engine alone"
"The low safety record of the most recent Company 1 offerings is likely to mean this Sedan will never reach the popularity it may have done normally"
"This vehicle, with a modern Gearbox and Engine, is brought down by the outdated and overused Chassis 1 design. Its popularity will likely suffer as a result."
"This vehicle has recieved a lot of positive press for using the VSuper engine, which has been used to win 14 consecutive Championships."
"The performance racing teams of Company 1 have raised the anticipation for this new Performance Sportscar design"
(ok, so i went a little overboard with that example list )

You pointed out that the current systems are likely to be improved, so having more of them shouldn't be dismissed on that basis alone.
I still remain lukewarm and somewhat somewhat pessimistic about it, probably because i think i perceive there to be larger problems with the current implementation than you seem to. Again, as i said earlier, different people, different perspectives, nothing wrong with that.

[Geredis]

I've broken your post apart to better answer it.

(Hearts of Iron, up to crazy games like War in the East) which other people don't touch.

Different perspectives and different games for different people i suppose. Nothing wrong with that

I'm also a Paradox fan, and I've gone through my share of Matrix and Slitherine products as well, so I'm also in the same boat as you when it comes to being a grognard and numbers guy in the right context.

[...]
For now, id just like to get some quality and informative feedback that takes into account competitors and tells you things you cant see from a glance at the vehicle stats.
e.g.
"This vehicle is heavier than most on the Market"
"This vehicle is underpowered for its weight compared to others on the market"
"This Vehicle fails to meet the high standards of Comfort and Luxury set by others on the market"
"While a high quality vehicle, this Compact Car will likely not be popular due to its low fuel economy"
"The reliable V420 engine is highly regarded in the community, the vehicle is bound to be more popular from the engine alone"
"The low safety record of the most recent Company 1 offerings is likely to mean this vehicle will never reach the popularity it may have done normally.

Yes, exactly. I'd love for this same sort of feedback in the design process as well. And maybe also, instead of randomly cycling through feedback, there's an arrow key so, if there are multiple comments, you can read them all instead of randomly having them comment on just one area.

You pointed out that the current systems are likely to be improved, so having more of them shouldn't be dismissed on that basis alone.
I still remain lukewarm and somewhat somewhat pessimistic about it, probably because i think i perceive there to be larger problems with the current implementation than you seem to...

And this is why I brought it up, the current system is indeed lacking, but that shouldn't stop us from looking for other areas that could benefit from that same sort of feature, and then hope that by devoting some attention to this new area, additional areas of improvement might come up.

[Arakash]

And maybe also, instead of randomly cycling through feedback, there's an arrow key so, if there are multiple comments, you can read them all instead of randomly having them comment on just one area.

Even outside of what we were discussing, that is a really excellent suggestion, it just makes a lot of sense.
I certainly hope it is implemented at some point.

Edit: Youll also notice that i even added 3 more to the list of ideal feedback i wrote in my last thread. I went totally over the top there, but i think you get what i was thinking. Checking the Gearcity Monthly and seeing information, analysis and comparison to other vehicles and real ingame phenomenon that effect sales.
In my mind, the essence of good game feedback, that lets you adjust your behavior in order to be more successful or at least understand what is going wrong.

Anyway, i need sleep, ill respond more tomorrow