Changes in Product Necessity Indexes in version 10.0.11

[David]

In the version 10.0.11, the Necessity Indexes of a number of products have been adjusted for better gameplay balance.

To see the details of the changes, please download the attached ZIP file which contains the old necessity indexes file and the new necessity indexes file. You can compare them to see the changes.

Please let us know if you think any of the changes are too much, or if you have any suggestions for any other changes to the necessity indexes.

[Stylesjl]

I had a look through the spreadsheets. I haven't tested any of these directly so this commentary is just speculative on my part:

Cola, Grape Juice, Wine all increased in necessity. This is good, I always thought the demand for these was quite low compared to a lot of other products.

Sweater -slight increase. This is good, demand for this was much lower than that of other Apparel.

Coffee necessity decreased from 80% to 50%. Not sure if this is a good idea. I think this would decrease the profitability of the Coffee Shops quite noticeably but I would have to retest.

Computers and Smart Phones - I like these increases from a profit perspective as these are some of my favourite industries but they already seem profitable enough already, at least at first. Smart Phones and Computers do start off as very popular items and I think the demand decreases after a while - does the necessity index mostly affect long term demand? If that's the case then that seems reasonable, as the demand drop off in the longer term is quite sharp, especially for Smart Phones.

Cosmetics (All), Drugs (All) - this goes from 2 to 5 (Cosmetics) and 5 to 9 for drugs. Will need to test the effects of this but I don't mind the increases.

Portable Media Player - slight decrease - not sure about this one. Given that it takes a lot of time to research this makes it now a less worthwhile invention.

Fast Food (All) - slight decrease in popularity. Probably sound, I always did think these items were a bit too popular. Gives the other service firms a better relative advantage.

Corn Flakes, Canned Soup, Corn and Olive increases. These product demand levels were always quite low. This looks better.

Parma Ham decrease - the Pizzeria demand is being decreased and this one is as well. I don't think this one feels right, I always did find Parma Ham demand to be quite low compared to similar products, this makes it even lower. But probably needs testing to see.

Burger Buns, Patty - yes an increase to 6. That's good to see, will be balanced out slightly by the decrease in Hamburger demand.

Footwear (All) - seems reasonable to increase this slightly.

Toilet cleaner - slight increase. Don't know about this one.

Eggs - from 6 to 9 - yes Eggs always did seem to be a bit undercooked in the supermarket sales.

Frozen Beef, Pork, Chicken (not Lamb) - this helps to balance out the fast food changes. However Lamb is not used outside of retail. I suppose realistically Lamb is not all that popular compared to the Beef, Pork and Chicken meats but since Lamb cannot be made into Fast Food or any other products (such as Canned Soup, Parma Ham or Beef Patties) maybe it might be better to increase the demand for this one (or maybe create a new product that uses Lamb as an input)?

Pizza (All) - slight decrease in demand. Seems reasonable to give the other service firms a better shot.

Snacks (All) - slight increases - good idea. Many snacks did seem to have a lower demand level that makes them less attractive.

Back Pack - slight increase. Yes I like this one too, backpacks were not really all that attractive as an item to sell. This makes it better.

Cigars - slight decrease - okay this sounds reasonable from a realism standpoint (Cigars are a lot less popular than Cigarettes) but Tobacco products were never really that profitable in the first place so this does seem to make it a bit worse.

[David]

Hi Stylesjl, thanks for the detailed feedback.

I've forwarded your following comments to the dev team and the following are their responses:

Coffee necessity decreased from 80% to 50%. Not sure if this is a good idea. I think this would decrease the profitability of the Coffee Shops quite noticeably but I would have to retest.

Coffee's necessity index will be changed to 60% in version 10.0.11.
Pizza's necessity index will be changed to 70%
Fast Food's necessity index will be changed to 80%

Portable Media Player - slight decrease - not sure about this one. Given that it takes a lot of time to research this makes it now a less worthwhile invention.

Its necessity index will remain at 30% in version 10.0.11.

Parma Ham decrease - the Pizzeria demand is being decreased and this one is as well. I don't think this one feels right, I always did find Parma Ham demand to be quite low compared to similar products, this makes it even lower. But probably needs testing to see.

Its necessity index will remain at 50% in version 10.0.11.

Frozen Beef, Pork, Chicken (not Lamb) - this helps to balance out the fast food changes. However Lamb is not used outside of retail. I suppose realistically Lamb is not all that popular compared to the Beef, Pork and Chicken meats but since Lamb cannot be made into Fast Food or any other products (such as Canned Soup, Parma Ham or Beef Patties) maybe it might be better to increase the demand for this one (or maybe create a new product that uses Lamb as an input)?

Lamb's necessity index will be changed to 70% in version 10.0.11.

Cigars - slight decrease - okay this sounds reasonable from a realism standpoint (Cigars are a lot less popular than Cigarettes) but Tobacco products were never really that profitable in the first place so this does seem to make it a bit worse.

Its necessity index will remain at 20% in version 10.0.11.

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In addition, the demand for TV and portable media players will be adjusted higher in version 10.0.11. (a small increase for portable media players and a bigger increase for TV)

When version 10.0.11 is ready, if you find any product types' profitability is too low, please let me know and I will forward your comments to the dev team for further tweaking.

[Stylesjl]

Okay, I will test these out when the new patch arrives.

[David]

Attached is the new product necessity indexes DBF file for version 10.0.11.