Power/mood reduction issues

There were some issues related to power/mood reduction as part of Mastery and level 4 upgrade, presumably some not reducing power/mood as they should and some only displaying incorrect values. It's been many weeks back. Have they been fixed finally or are they still an issue? Since I've been waiting with my upgrades and masteries but haven't seen any anouncement about these fixes. The details to remind can be found in the threads below.

https://board-en.risingcities.com/threads/mood-not-decreased-50.8030/#post-133163

https://board-en.risingcities.com/threads/problem-with-building-specialty.4305/

https://board-en.risingcities.com/threads/mood-for-amalia.8059/#post-154644

Thanks.

 

As far as I know those "balancing" issues where fixed soon after they became evident I do not believe we have any further issues and I cannot find any problems being reported on any of the other forums.

Not sure why we did not announce this but it may be I forgot to say something.

 

The problem didn't disappear in my case:




But, as I mentioned before, it's just a display issue, the mood values are subtracted correctly (checked again this evening).

 

sfintzishor: How do you verify that the mood and energy values of the city are correct? If you put the house in the inventory and then back in the city, that doesn't work. It will show you that everything is OK. But if you check the values of the city before an upgrade, and after it is finished, you will notice a problem.

I've just upgraded another Prefab and the amount of mood and energy added to the city are 8 and 4 respectively (with the 50% reduction it should be 4 and 2).

Nothing has changed. PirateLee, if you want I can send you the snapshots I took during the upgrade. Also you can find out if I am doing something wrong!

I have a spreadsheet with the mood and energy of the city and the houses because I never let them go below 75%, and I like to plan the constructions and upgrades in advance. That's why I know that nothing has been fixed. I don't know how careful other players are keeping record of the numbers.

 

Thank you Sfint and Amalia. You have said that better then I would have.

Which means I will still wait with my upgrades since I wouldn't like this mess in my City.

But ...... is it just an individual issue, or do other players struggle with the same thing?

I think I could help you with this issue. Could it be because it has never been fixed?

 

@amaliagranata: I'm not sure I understand. For example, my mood loss at this moment is 8243; by placing a prefab house in the inventory, it changes to 8239. So this means that house has a 4 units mood loss, even if it displays -8. The energy values are correctly shown in my case. I can't check the numbers during an upgrade, since I don't have any blueprints left.
Another option would be to add all the numbers myself, but I don't have the time right now to count all the decorations

 

Since I haven't had much time for gaming research lately I'm taking lazy stance here in terms "let the fast runners sort it out first", but I might need to do my own testing if the issue doesn't clarify soon since it has been well over 2 months now since I first read Amalia mention it. Probably a Prefab will have to lend itself to become a guinea pig at least for amalia's type of problem which seems elusive. Sfint's problem should be easily spotted and checked, but why are there no further reports of it? Is everybody else taking a lazy stance too?

EDIT: If I reed Amalia correctly, the house in/out inventory pretends the problem is not there, while in reality incorrect amount of mood and energy consumption was added to the overall values with the reduction never applying to that. If so, it would be hard to prove the issue without keeping detailed log of all power/mood changes. Sounds kind of funny. Amalia, would you like to recheck if I got that right from you before I get to running my own tests, which will probably not be anytime soon?

 

sfintzishor:

I mean exactly what you are saying. I also put a house in the inventory and back in the city, and the results are as you say.

But when I started upgrading Prefabs and Suburban Homes I noticed that the mood and energy of the city once I chose the 50% reduction Specialty where not as expected. That is my main interest for upgrading to level 4, to keep mood and energy use as low as possible.

I always keep track of the numbers of the city. I calculate in advance the amount of mood and energy each building will provide. Also, as you say, the display in the house info window is wrong. I have 1 Prefab and 3 Suburban Homes left waiting to be upgraded, and I use them as Guinea pigs, to check if this problem has been solved.

The only real "truth" is how many units are added to the city once the upgrade is finished, compared to the values before upgrading. The inventory trick doesn't work, you will be happy thinking everything is fine.

I think the fastest way for you to check should be to demolish one Prefab, do all the upgradings again and check if the numbers are OK. Prefabs are cheap and evolve quite fast. But of course, you don't need to do it!!! Just be careful if you count on saving some mood and energy when you upgrade higher houses, you can end up with a not so nice surprise!

Has anyone else checked the real mood and energy added to the city after an upgrade, not using the inventory trick?

edit: Norton, you were faster than me!! I saw your post after posting mine! I did another Prefab "experiment" yesterday night. No change! And yes, you got it right.

 

Well, thanks Amalia. I still have 7 Prefabs for testing as I only did just one with rent increase and left all the others hanging right before level 4 as there was no real need or benefit in upgrading them. Just fun doing the masteries. So I can do a lot of testing when the time is right for it and I sure don't mind demolishing some to do even more testing. It's trickier as you say with those mastery - 10 % changes on higher level houses since you don't want to demolish these to do the testing again. So here the detailed log of mood/power values before and after mastery would be crucial to prove anything. Well, it actually applies to both cases. Only detailed log of values before and after upgrade can prove if the issue is real or if you just made some mistake in observation I think.

 

I write code myself as a part of my work. So I know how messy things can be!

When Wizz mentioned the "Inventory" trick, I thought "Oh, that's clever", a way around to check the numbers once the upgrade is finished. But it is an indirect test. And what I have learnt in many years of experience in this business is to be as direct as possible. Never be happy with only one indirect measurement, and if it is possible, always check your code in the exact place where you think it is having problems.

I hope someone will fix this soon.

Another display issue to remember. With the "increasing tips" option on I compared how many items a house dropped and how many ended up in the warehouse during the Wood Chopping Competition. Then I sent a ticket to PirateLee with snapshots showing a discrepancy between those quantities. It seems that they use different variables to display information and to do the calculations in the code. Or something happens with their value magically while we play! Everything started when we were complaining about the low drop rate of axes, I think, so I decided to check what was going on. Then, I started not to trust what I see, and realised that there is a problem with the display of quantities. I think it's a general problem in the game!

Anyway, I enjoy playing RC

 

Have you checked this problem recently? Has it been fixed?
I remember similar increasing tips x real gain issue with PP and Exp from the same time, but never bothered to report it since there were soooooooo many bugs at that time and the devs responses to them less then satisfactory. And keep forgeting to check it again. One would expect that with a new feature they do their own testing, spot the problem and fix it without having to be reminded all the time. Now it rather looks that even reported problems were swept under the carpet.

 

No, I haven't. Now I only consider the number of items I have in the warehouse, and only use the "increasing tips" or "increasing symbols" option to have an idea which houses drop and how often, but not for the quantity of items. Also, each event has its own drop rate and boulder drop rate, so it makes no sense to compare among them. As we repeat the same event very often, and I have a log of my strategies and performance for each one of them, I only check that the time and effort are equivalent every time. And it seems so. Good enough for me!

The problem with the Mastery Challenges and the Specialty is different, because what we get in mood and energy use in the city is not correct, and this game is about balance. If they tell us we will have a 50% decrease in mood and energy use, and in the end this is not the case, then it is clear that they made a mistake.

 

Well hopefully Pirate can work through all these posts, make some sense of it and get the devs do their job.

 

@Amalia: now I see what you mean Maybe I will "sacrifice" a prefab or make some "experiment" with an eco-friendly (those don't "mess up" with the power/mood during mastery challenges, so it should be easier to follow what's going on).
Thanks for the details

 

Yes, that's a good idea . I only tried with Prefabs and Suburban Homes, and wonder if other houses have this problem (I guess they do...).

You have to be careful with other Masteries going on in the city, that can decrease the total mood and energy, and then it's difficult to detect the origin of the change. Also, some RI can expire and mess up with the results. That's why I don't like the RI that change mood and energy , except the Epic ones (those are forever! ). It is almost impossible to keep track of all these variables. Maybe that's why people haven't noticed there is a problem yet. At the moment I don't have any active RI or Masteries that change mood/energy.

I look forward to seeing your results!

 

I'll chime in and say I agree totally with Amalia's findings. The power is displayed correctly in the house after completing a house upgrade to level 4 and selecting the 50% power/mood saving option. BUT (and this is the important part) the global power usage total did NOT reduce correctly at that point. This is why the inventory trick doesn't change anything.

IMHO the fix for power needs to address 2 things:
(1) A global recalc (either done at startup or system maintenance time) to correctly recalculate the city-wide power usage.
(2) The code be inspected and changed at the point when the upgrade to level 4 is being completed. Both the internal house value and the global total power usage must be adjusted correctly, at the same time.

Thanks for posting this Norton, and everybody's input to date.

Edit: My own findings were based on the green Modern Single Family Homes.

 

For the record this was added to the devs "need to be done" list around 1 week ago as it was also brought up by our Romanian friends

 

So, does this mean that the problem is already well documented and we don't need to run any more tests to prove the devs their maths and coding is incorrect? It's obvious that something being added to "need to be done" list is not the same as the devs actually fixing it as this was "added" a long time ago and apparently got neglected and forgotten? Just for the record, the problem has been around for about two months now. And IMHO, if the above findings are correct, it's not by any means a minor issue which should be left without a propper attention for another two or more months as it devaluates one of the major features of the game.

 

Any testing would be helpful as the issue is not constant, however we do have some reports that are being checked now.

 

Ok, just done some testing. I upped an Eco Row house to Level 4, with the following changes in mood/power usage:
Before upgrade: 964/514
Proposed L4 usage: 72/36
Pre specialisation mood/power: 982/523 (up expected amount)
After -50% chosen: 982/523 :O
Bldg says: 72/18
Move to inventory: 910/487 (72/36 subtracted)
Move back to playfield: 946/505 (36/18 added)
Bldg still says 72/18
So it would seem it does work, but only after you move it to inventory and back if you can cope with the display glitch (not good). I don't know what would have happened after a refresh, if that would have fixed the totals without need for inventory.