Auto-fill button for commercial buildings

Hey all!

I don't know how you bigger players keep up with need-management! Filling and checking all the commercial buildings must take you ages (although the fill all button is awesome!)

I'd like a fill-all button in the warehouse - you could select the product and tap the button and presto - all the buildings of that type are full!

It's a relatively small step from what we have now, but the time saving would be great.

Any goods that you need to prioritise could be done in the usual way.

What do you guys think?

Dom

 

Been wanting it for ages, even before I made this thread:

https://board-en.risingcities.com/t...ly-the-problem-with-the-rent-collector.37571/

It's not hard to manage your commercial buildings unless you use the rent collector. I only click two buildings at a time, so I'll always see when any commercial building is about to run out. It's made somewhat easier because you can't possibly fulfill all needs after a certain point, unfortunately, so I only supply a few goods.

 

People have requested, begged and threatened for this capability for a while now. But in my opinion this is beyond the technical abilities of the "Powers that Be". All we can do is keep asking for it and one day it might come true.

 

The problem I see with a simple fill-all button is that some people don't keep all commercials filled all day: they may supply them only occasionally, due to cost/production limits for example. Granted, that may be a minority, but without some control, it'll be troublesome in it's own way. My proposition has some controls, but dealing with a situation like that will still be a minor nuisance, much like the current system. I mostly imagined it as a thing that wouldn't change often.

Even if we can choose one product at once, it would still likely only be able to affect one field at a time, like the rent collector, diminishing how much time you could save. I only think about this now, because I realize your idea, while implemented differently, is very similar to the 'distribution centers' that several people have independently suggested as a separate menu. I'm really not trying to push my own idea here, but I still think that anything that maintains the current system is dated. All ideas that I have seen aside from mine amount to a different GUI for the current system, but it's the system itself that needs changed. For the moment, I can't think of anything better, though the mall proposition, even using the current system, could help significantly.

Well, the code for removing things from the warehouse/commercial building is obviously present, so I think it'd mostly be a matter of changing the conditions. At least for my idea, at best, most of the code may already present to implement the basic functionality of direct from warehouse, and the other controls are simple toggles which likely exist in a partial form for detecting commercial presence. Then you need only to make it toggleable manually. Of course, I can only imagine without seeing the code and it's surely not that simple, but I think it could be simpler than may be imagined, which is also attractive.

In any case, change probably won't be soon.

 

Arsuru sorry my sarcasm got in the way.

 

@billyjim Oh, not at all. I didn't think you were totally serious, but with the track record they have, one can have doubts.

 

Arsuru thank you for the explanation. I thought I went to far in

 

I would love the auto-fill option for all the commercial buildings.
Plus I would also love the "select all" option where you only click on 1 farm and choose the desired production and have that started on all other farms too when "select all" option is chosen. Same goes for other manufacturing buildings too.
Less clicks will be involved that way.

 

I don't think we need that option. In this case, the gameplay will be reduced to "Log-in, autocollect, autofill, log off" trivial cycle. You will be able to earn a lot while visiting the game for 2-3 minutes a day.

 

It's already like that, minus the auto-fill, and it's not filling commercials that is going to delay you much on your road to riches. Though it is really a dated system that has some flaws as-is. RC isn't designed to require babysitting, aside from the earliest levels and events, depending. As I've made clear, I agree a simple autofill isn't ideal because it doesn't solve the inherent flaw in the rent collector and commercial range combination, and thus doesn't really add anything to how you plan.

 

And you offer to eliminate this last "minus" instead of make the gameplay more serious.

I don't think so.
I remember the times when disasters were... disastrous the prices were much more floating etc. My city really required attention. Since then, the game slowly becomes a "clicking exercise".
I don't think people would enjoy such exercise.

anything "auto" is harmful because it ruins the necessity to do something and turns us into tax collectors. Do you know the difference between "mayor" and "tax collector"?

I just compare with how it implemented in SkyRama and come to conclusion that RC is already too simple...

 

No, I offered something else entirely in my above link that gives finer control over distribution and freedom of placement, thus aesthetics as well, and it's more complicated than a simple auto-fill. It's really not unlike resource allocation in serious strategy games; used when needed, but according to one's own restrictions.

I've always advocated the game be more serious (I liked negative RI values in principle, remember), but that doesn't mean it has to be tedious. Streamlining is important, and I think ditching the commercial stocking system entirely increases micromanagement and player engagement as one has to be more aware of their production capacity and stock. If you run out, it's your fault. So is neglecting to fill commercials, but that is just tedious, and as explained, there are compatibility problems with the rent collector (which, for an automated feature I think is reasonable given the game's model), harming it's value. It diminishes enjoyment when I have to count every click so that I don't deplete a fully-stocked commercial building that can cover more buildings than it can actually serve. That is bad design. Very bad. Even if that issue is addressed, it's still a tedious and boring system to use, bouncing all around filling commercials before and/or after collecting rent.

I don't play SkyRama, so I can't compare, but even without the simplifications that have been made to RC you could have still been largely inactive, only collecting products a few times a day and selling them, largely ignoring emergencies, as long as you could deal with them when you were logged on for those few minutes. I don't imagine most people are logged in all day anyway, but the game accommodates well to both types.

 

Arsuru you state so elegantly the position I wish I had said. Thanks

 

And that's quite bad. Gamedevs should do something to make people spend more time ingame, not to turn the game into regular rent/autofill clicker. It's already too simple.

 

Actually I am a game player not a game developer. But, if a game is to time consuming then the players will leave the game because we have lives to live. The game is a diversion not a life choice.

 

No-no. Do you remember the very first MMORPGs? They required so-o-o much time to reach the top but they were so-o-o popular!
When the game is time consuming, the player has 3 typical options:
1)to spend more time in game
2)to pay for some "premium" content to advance faster
3)to do some kind of optimization that will allow to advance faster with no extra money spent
Whatever he chooses, this helps the game to develop.

When the game allows reaching mid/top levels with little effort and maintaining relatively fast progress by spending 5-10 minutes a day, it quickly becomes boring.

 

Yes, I do and I see how many of them are still around in there original form. Part of there popularity was the fact they were "New" and cutting edge. They like the internet have morphed and developed into something different from what they originally were. Or, they have faded away into history.

All we are asking for is the opertunity to do option number 2 in your post. We would like to have a premium offer to be able to fill the commercial buildings in a manor similar to the Rent Collector. This does not eliminate the ability to individually fill a commercial building but inhances the playability of the game for more people. Not everyone has a great deal of time to be online and play continously.

 

I never said it was good, but remember, RC is designed to be accessible. Products require different times which accommodates a person's time and the market.

Let's not compare RC to an MMO, especially early ones, even though there are plenty of comparable things; mostly the grind. Being required to spend so much time in-game to advance is a major reason reason I don't like many MMOs. On the contrary, I've sunk hundreds of active hours into other games that have no online functionality, so time investment isn't actually the problem. Forcing people to stay in-game is not always a good strategy. Staying in-game doesn't guarantee being entertained. RC caters to varying people.

The thing is, such a small time commitment will only be able to get you CC with relatively little effort in RC, which is far from enough to level up or upgrade anything quickly. And to make all of this relevant to the thread again, RC is far from being able to advance on it's own, and removing a largely superfluous element – a principle you seem to be for – is not going to turn RC autonomous.

Well, I know some people want it bad enough to pay, but as I've stated in my thread, it would have to be tied to the rent collector. Making it separate is too much to ask of players and almost useless on its own. I would rather see any such change as something to be integrated to the core functionality though, not a premium feature. Filling commercials takes much less time than collecting rent, it's just more annoying and problematic. Again, this simplified auto-fill isn't sufficient for me, but it could be made to work with the rent collector if they fixed the service range/capacity problem. I still think another approach is best though.

 

Auto-fill would be a nice feature to have in the game. Especially for someone doesn't have that much time but still wants the game to move on until he or she has more time. Some days I have more time than other days depending on my work schedule. I do not mind manually re-stocking my commercial buildings but on those rare days when I sure would like the auto-fill I am all for it.