Since I’ve been able to play BP for a week now and spent about 20 hours with it here is a bit of feedback. Of course this is only my opinion so feel free to discuss the points. Also I divided this in a “must have” and “nice to have” section.
Must Have
1. Master / Expert / Beginner System
This system is a nice addition but it’s not well thought out. At the moment it works the wrong way.
Reason:
A “Master” should be able to use his abilities and knowlege of the game to build complex and large production lines. The current system prevents him in doing so because he doesn’t have the time to even research the “good” machines. Last night I completet a master rank game and didn’t even get to the point where I was able to make syringes. Not even to think about a hadron collider or something like that. The given time was simply to short. Instead I flooded the market witch level 2 cures even if they only made 20 bucks only to reach the money goal.
Suggestion:
Don’t give a “medal” for how quick someone can achive a goal, give it for what they accomplished in a fixed time.
Example: You have 10 years. Beginner - Earn 5 Million, Expert - Earn 8 Million, Master - Earn 12 Million
or 10 Years supply 2/4/6 diffrent drugs with a combined value of $800
2. Overwiev of Reasearch / Exploerer Points and progress
We need some symbols in the production window of how many unused research/explorer points we have.
Same goes for research and explorer progress.
I simply find myself clicking to many times on the research tab only to look for my research progress or if I finally have the 8 / 16 points for my machine upgrade.
3. Market Saturation
The current system is, simply said, bad. But this won’t help much so let’s take a deep look whats happening. Also this will be the most complex chage to implement in the game but I think it would be worth it. It would add even more depth and playercontroll.
There are 2 way in which the market becomes saturatet. 1. to many players produce the same drug 2. one player produces to much of one drug.
Both result in dropping prices and nothing the player can do about it. but this is not how economics work and should not work in the game.
Why? because we as players feel a bit helpless or stripped out of power if one of our “wonder drugs” (no sideffects, perfect concentration) in which we spent maybe 30 minutes building a production line for suddenly makes no more money simply because two other ais decided to flood the market with the same or even worse drug which has sideeffects / not the perfect concentration. This is just a frustrating “fuck it” moment. but back to the 2 situations mentioned before.
In the first case (which is what we have most of the time in the real world) we only have the prices go down because the companies decide to lower them because they are competing and customers then decide which product to buy on a quality/price analsys.
In the second case the price goes down because the one company needs to get rid of the warehouses full of something so they lower the prices that more people like to buy something. But ultimatly there is a limit because you can’t sell a cancer treatment to someone without cancer.
In both cases however the companies decide the price. They have the power. Not so much in the game right now.
So how could you bring this in the game? As I said this will be complex but follow me please for a moment.
First get rid of the price bonus through the drug rating (+25% for A ect.). Just give the rating and then give us the option to adjust the price between -25% to + 25% which itself would effect the now “new” drug rating.
For example: A drug with max strengh and no sideeffects becomes A. Then I could go and say ok +25% price which would then lower the rating of A back to C.
If the market then becomes saturated cusomers should then buy more drugs of good ratet drugs (because the value/price is better). This way you could realy compete with the ais and maybe even force them out of the market.
And if you saturate the market on your own your outputs should only generate money every second round or something (depending on the saturation of course).
All in all, this would add even more depth to the game, get rid of these “helpless” situations and add some interaction between you and the competitors.
Nice To Have
4. Strange combination of cures and sideeffects
You should implement a system which prevents some strange sideffect/cures combinations on ingredients. For example I have seen a ingredient which had “eases migrane” and “causes headaches” both active at the same concentration. Seems a bit strange to me
5. Late Game Money
Money becomes a non issue in the late game. I don’t really know what to do about it but it’s only a lesser point for me.
Maybe you could add rising salarys for researchers if you have more than 5/10/15 or something.
6. More Interaction With Competitors
Competitors are atm only faces which take up space in my company overview. There is no interaction, nothing you can do about them. currently they serve no real reason to be there in the first place other than market saturation, which again the player can do nothing about it.
How to change it? Point 3 would be one way.
7. Late Game Performance
Nothing to say about this. It’s probably on your list anyway but I know optimisation is usualy one of the last things in the developement process.
So thats it for now. There was something else I would like to mention but I can’t remember right now.
Let me know what you think and feel free to discuss.