W3C Please Read: Permanent Solution To Quality

One of the central issues with quality has been the fact that it serves very little purpose beyond artificially increasing corporate profit.

There is a quite simple solution: Translate Quality to reduced consumption, require quality supplies and quality upgrades to produce equal quality product, and essentially cap quality officially at 250.

I will elaborate point by point.

1. Translate quality to reduced consumption.
When calculating supply usage, apply an adjusted modifier for quality between 100 and 250. The modifier should be on a slight curve granting greater benefit as quality increases.
For example using quality benchmarks:
Country uses 1 million widgets per month at 100 quality. Each widget cost $100, costing the country $100 million.
At 150 quality, the country would use 40% less, 600k costing $90 million at $150 each.
At 200 quality, the country would use 60% less, 400K costing $80 million at

Wow, something like this or similar to it would be great.

I applaud your effort FarmerBob, well thought out and a simple solution. Easy to understand and grasp too.

Q

That sounds good fb

AT LAST

before i sign on to this proposal, i'd like to see someone put it into practice. maybe the internal system would have to be changed to check it but but on the surface it doesn't sound like it would work. currently, a corp may be set to use materials at 150 and sell with a quality of say 250 with the sales price goint down say 10% a month. my assumption is that that differential between cost of materials and the cost to sell is what makes your profit, considering all the extra charges fir FMU, etc. also, with the high cost of having corps in ceo's it would seem to further reduce the possible profits for corps in ceo's.

This does not work.

For each economy there is an optimum point. With ours, using this, ours would be so ahead, we would die in debt the same.

This would cause oversupply.

The current system runs on perpetual shortage to sell products. This shortage is no more real than anything else in the game. Corporations are designed to "lose" money or barely break even unless managed just right. We who know how take that for granted and do it automatically. That does not validate the system, however.

The entire "economy" is a sad, smoke and mirrors illusion. A contrived appearance of a functioning economy. Are we actually pretending that its real? That it operates on some sort of actual market principles? That is beyond absurd.

This suggestion merely attempts to introduce real supply and demand into the equation and allow for quality to actually mean something other than another propped-up facade, as well as make use of game features that are currently worse than useless.

Corporations are becoming uprofitable because W3C adjusts them to be so. They could be profitable by further adjust

This bears further discussion as it touches upon topics mentioned throughout these forums.

The fundamental issues that keep coming up, the questions players ask each other in chat and the forums are recurring, persistent, and insiduous.

Does anyone at W3C even play the game?

That is one I have heard often since returning to SC, and it is a damned good question.

What W3C, and many vets, seem to be doing is failing to look beyond current processes to see this fundamental fact:

Most of the basic functions of this sim are fundamentally flawed.

Quality is a prime example. It is artificially boosted to levels that are required to sustain profitability even though there is no corresponding market for such high quality goods. It is a contrivance that has to be subsidized and is, despite denials to the contrary.

Base pricing is another facet that exists by W3C fiat, not market forces. It

Post script.

Forgive my bluntness. I am simply getting a little disgusted at seeing the wonderful potential of this sim going unrealized due to entrenched insistence on retaining obviously flawed foundations which have been around for years.

It's time to stop tweaking and start implementing new thinking on fundamentals.

Enough excuses, already.

It's slavery to the .. Cash market. Every idea how to "improve" the game has to be reflected on or considered in the context of exchanging real cash for in-game assets, and its implications for those who invest their money into the game, those who exchange real cash for virtual assets.

That is why there are set parameters for pricing, that is why there are features for the so called "asset protection", that is why huge and unrealistic armies are not seen as negative, that is why the basic functions are fundamentally flawed.

The root of the evil is - even if only in my opinion, but without any doubt -, the concept of the Cash market which enslaves the game design and game mechanics.

Anyone playing this game should learn to live with this as trying to change it proved as futile in past.

The less needed approach wouldn't work with weapons.

One idea I had awhile ago was to make missile systems hit better. [Quality 200 would do twice as much damage.] and weapons system would be harder to hit. [quality 300 batteries would get hit 1/3 as often]. If the quality of both defense and offense are the same then there would be no difference. A variation would be to use the square root. Then quality 200 grenades would do 1.41 times the damage.

Farmer bobs suggestion would probably work for a few items like luxury goods, jewelry, and pharmaceuticals. The terminal products that are not used by other companies.

John R's compound fragment might be right. I would call it a "demand vacuum" instead of "over supply". Whatever you call it everyone would bankrupt quickly.

Let's consider following:

1. go to World market
2. pick random product in "green"
3. place order for everything there is available @ 100 quality

What will happen?

Oder will be fulfilled, paid for and added into stock.

Now, explain to me how is it possible that everything what was offered, ordered, paid for and added to stock was available @ 100 quality?

The buyer pays the 100-quality rates. The seller profits at the rate of whatever quality at which the products were produced. The game master covers the difference.

I thought we had already established the majority of changes that moved the game towards 'realism' were damaging to the fun?

I say we keep the game a game. If i wanted to play a realistic country game i would just buy civilisation 4, the total war series etc (which, by coincidence i have).

The main attraction of Simcountry is the community aspect. By punishing older players with financial fees, governmetn costs, limitations on how much cash they can move, you drive them from the game. Once the old, communicative players are gone, this game will die.

Dub. It's not a question of realism, but game mechanics and playability.

List of useles features:

Loan Market
Share Market
True Public Corps
Non Military Contracts
Common Markets
Assorted Weapons
High Quality

Anyone wish to add to the list?

But, hey. It's obviously impossible to do any better.

Why ask or suggest alternatives?

And everyone knows the best way to get people thinking about alternatives is to dismiss their concerns and belittle them at every opportunity.

Way to kill your own idea, Farmer Bob.

It was dead on arrival.

Silver had it exactly right when he left.

But, you are correct, Henry. My apologies to any offended.

FB,

It was a good idea I thought. May have been to hard to implement.

Thankyou, Kevin.

To FB- in actuality i wasn't attacking your idea (it seems good, apart from the oversupply issue) it was more a criticism on the current mentality that 'realistic' is better.

The buyer pays the 100-quality rates. The seller profits at the rate of whatever quality at which the products were produced. The game master covers the difference. - Kevin Henry

Thank you.

.. and that is why any arguments about "over supply" or "demand vacuum" are in relation to "quality" irrelevant.

So for those very few who did not get it by now:

Then what is relevant?

Only quantity. The game will "cheat" its way around "quality" by default.

Silver ... coins :P

What happened to the terrorist anyways?

Please consider this idea W3C. Something has to be done about the uselessness of quality or the game economy will be forever FUBAR.
It's impossible to fix the economy while the game system is printing money with every world market transaction.

I like the idea as far as being able to supply one's own needs again through common markets and contracts. It makes no sense that in an Empire of 12 countries with 2 large CEO's that I would need to buy products on the market when I could simply build them myself.

The buyer pays the 100-quality rates. The seller profits at the rate of whatever quality at which the products were produced. The game master covers the difference. - Kevin Henry

I think Kevin is a bit wrong. Quality is used in a multiplication with price. This is how it works (or at least as i have allways interpreted it):

Example-product, price $ 500,-, sellersquality 200%. sold quantity 1000. This makes totall sale $ 1.000.000,-.

Buyer, wants to buy 1000 at $ 500,- with quality 100%. The totall order will cost $ 500.000,-

What happens with the difference? It will be corrected in the ammount. The seller will get a sale of $ 500.000,- worth, since he sells at quality 200, his sold quantity will be less.

The SC-miracle is that the buyer buys 1.000 items while the seller only sells 500.

This mechanism works for as it is, because when you use products to produce goods, you need less quantit

Thank you for the feedback.

The issue at hand is that changes are happening whether we like them or not.

Will these changes be rational and coherent that improve gameplay and the quality of SC? or will they be haphazard, arbitrary, and detract from gameplay?

The changes thus far fall into the latter category.

See above list of game features that have been made pointless by arbitrary changes.

The stated goals of W3C are to reduce all numbers to "realistic" levels, which translates to lower numbers. That is their goal.

Therefore, debating whether realism serves any purpose or not is irrelevant. It is happening.

We can pressure W3C to implement changes that serves their purposes and improves the game or let them continue on the path of screwing everything up at player expense.

This suggestion for building in a function for quality that serves both purposes is