HTML X-Change™ Life [v0.22.0] [Aphrodite]

[DavDR]

When taking optional demos, a number was indeed offered, but which you refused by opting to instead do said demonstration. It sounds as though you are playing the game in such a way that you only ever take the optional demos when they're at their highest (absolute) risk, and lowest (relative) reward, and then compaining when that strategy doesn't work out for you. If you instead only take optional demos on sales where there are a lot of employees but the buyer offers the expected or even a low-end number of pills relative to employees, i.e. when doing so is at the lowest (relative) risk and highest (absolute) reward, you will have much better outcomes.

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

What a pointless post, and what does it have to do with the discussion we were having?

You are also miles off on how I play the sales game. I always choose to end the sales pitch at between 78% and 88% acceptance, which according to the wiki should give a good chance for a sale without a demo. If the customer demands a demo I then decide if the sale is worth my characters time, if not then I either post it to the board or refuse the sale. I NEVER take the option to give a demo.

 

[miyuki25]

Sounds like nothing is being "arbitrarily snatched away" from you then.

 

[Nauticalius]

Okay, but it is absolutely a bug because the in-game description doesn't suggest any sort of re-roll or time pressures or anything like you mentioned, it just says you get a 25% boost to the commission rate, meaning that $4k I should have gotten should have gone up by a few hundred dollars rather than down several thousand, especially considering I fucked the dude I was doing business with.

NO. It is NOT a bug.

That is how a COMISSION works.

The company sells $4k worth of pills. Because you have a 25% comission, 25% of that is yours to take home, while the company pockets the remaining 75%.

So, if you sell $4k worth of pills, with a 25% comission? You would only get $1k. Oh, look at that - exactly how much the game gave you...

 

[Nexus_07]

Yeah, I think that's the key thing that would avoid the ambiguity, just something that indicates that doing the demo could wildly change how many pills you sell would likely tidy up any confusion nicely. I'll admit, I've rarely been "punished" like this as I only usually do demos if I *have* to, so I don't typically have the before and after sale number to compare, but a simple note somewhere early on about the risks, such as they are, if intended would permit more informed choice on when someone has the option to engage with the system.

I guess the one down side is that it means that if you got a large sale you are now actively disincentivized from doing a demo, because the RNG odds could result in you making less money even with the boosted commission, so choosing to do a demo on a large order is just, objectively, a bad decision now? Dunno if that's a desirable outcome.

Curious! Always took sales as being risky sales and so, final contract signed depended on my sales performance. Actually, while doing the demo fo "Dumb Bitch" for many times the guy enjoyed fucking with my character and then told he wouldn't buy at all.

Never cared to much about it. Just kept making enough money to keep going and enjoying the world.

 

[DavDR]

Sounds like nothing is being "arbitrarily snatched away" from you then.

Once again you are sadly informed of the game that you seem to like to tell everyone how to play.

There is a phenomenon in the game. Nobody knows if it's a bug or not, probably not. Let's say you get a lead for 50 pills. After doing the sales pitch, and after that a lengthy demo, you succeed with the sale only to be told that the customer is purchasing 22 pills.

This is what I meant by holding out a reward only to arbitrarily snatch it away.

 

[God of Debauchery]

NO. It is NOT a bug.

That is how a COMISSION works.

The company sells $4k worth of pills. Because you have a 25% comission, 25% of that is yours to take home, while the company pockets the remaining 75%.

So, if you sell $4k worth of pills, with a 25% comission? You would only get $1k. Oh, look at that - exactly how much the game gave you...

Hey dumbass, the sale was for around $11k and MY CUT was the $4k, THEN I did the demo and the sale became significantly less and my cut also became significantly less.

 

[stochastic]

Hey dumbass, the sale was for around $11k and MY CUT was the $4k, THEN I did the demo and the sale became significantly less and my cut also became significantly less.

I know it's not the F95 way (typing every message with just your middle fingers and accusing everyone else of being a worthless milking shill) and I do want to respect the culture here, but as an alternative you could just let Aphrodite know that the pill quantity rerolls for voluntary sales demos seem a little off and maybe that mechanic would be more compelling if the calculation was tweaked.

Or you guys can be mad at each other, that's fine too I guess.

 

[God of Debauchery]

I know it's not the F95 way (typing every message with just your middle fingers and accusing everyone else of being a worthless milking shill) and I do want to respect the culture here, but as an alternative you could just let Aphrodite know that the pill quantity rerolls for voluntary sales demos seem a little off and maybe that mechanic would be more compelling if the calculation was tweaked.

Or you guys can be mad at each other, that's fine too I guess.

I mean my original post was literally just trying to figure out if anyone else had run into the bug, it was other people who got their panties in a twist or even just flat out failed to comprehend what was going on.

 

[tooldev]

Curious! Always took sales as being risky sales and so, final contract signed depended on my sales performance. Actually, while doing the demo fo "Dumb Bitch" for many times the guy enjoyed fucking with my character and then told he wouldn't buy at all.

Never cared to much about it. Just kept making enough money to keep going and enjoying the world.

To be fair - that is not how sales works for a real sales person. Only desperate car dealers would act that way, a 'proper' sales person knows the value of things which include ones own dignity. Since you usually deal with customers more than once you would never ever make such dumb deals, since you can never get back from that low.

 

[miyuki25]

This is what I meant by holding out a reward only to arbitrarily snatch it away.

The point of a demo is so a buyer can assess the value of product to their business, of course they can decide to purchase a different amount having seen the product in action. Do you feel equally put upon when a lead for 80 only asks to buy 40 after the phone call?

 

[cache-coherent]

I mean my original post was literally just trying to figure out if anyone else had run into the bug, it was other people who got their panties in a twist or even just flat out failed to comprehend what was going on.

I can confirm this behavior exists. It's actually a bit nontrivial to get, because due to how the sales calculation works, for many companies the result is fully deterministic and so a reroll changes nothing. But yes, it sure is rerolled if you do a demo, and you can get a worse result:

They would like to purchase 59 'GoodGirl Basic' pills. That brings the value of the sale to $5768, factoring in their 15% discount.
You'll make $1385 on the sale, considering your commission rate of 24%.

Paradise Yacht Club would like to purchase 25 'GoodGirl Basic' pills. That brings the value of the sale to $2444, factoring in the 15% discount.
You'll make $733 on the sale, considering your commission rate of 24% (commission has been increased 25% to 30% due to your demonstration).

I don't think sales demos were messed with recently, so this is probably not a new behavior.

 

[Nexus_07]

To be fair - that is not how sales works for a real sales person. Only desperate car dealers would act that way, a 'proper' sales person knows the value of things which include ones own dignity. Since you usually deal with customers more than once you would never ever make such dumb deals, since you can never get back from that low.

Not being a sales person, I have only a slight idea about how it works. So, I meant that, in my case, I just take the in-game sales job as an action to support the rest pf the story, the big picture. Never cared too much on how realistic it is and actually, I really don't know how many of all players could be able to detect that kind of "distortion" as well. Same way I can't tell a 20 yo good whiskey from a not so bad one, just lack the knowledge and taste to do that. Anyway, for the sake of accuracy the more accurate is always, the best.

 

[DavDR]

The point of a demo is so a buyer can assess the value of product to their business, of course they can decide to purchase a different amount having seen the product in action. Do you feel equally put upon when a lead for 80 only asks to buy 40 after the phone call?

No, because in that scenario I can make a choice of rather to do the demo or not. Remember that doing a demo will use up a workday. It cost you money to take an entire day away from the office to demonstrate a product so of course any reasonable person is going to calculate if that time is worth it or not.

 

[TheFamilyDog]

The sales game hasn't really changed that much since the early days when I started playing. Look far enough back in this thread and you will see me complaining about it. But once I learned the rules and figured-out a system, I had characters with over $25K in no time. Later versions of the game, lowered the commissions somewhat and give one a lot more stuff to waste their money on. Yet its still not hard to build up a fortune, now it just takes a little longer and you need to budget your expensive.

So choosing not to do pill demonstration is a choice, and I doubt Aphrodite do anything since she has a vision to what the game is about. So I would suggest talking to one of the mod-folks and see if one could convince them or just recode the game yourself. Its downloadable and open source, so it shouldn't be that hard to fix your issues and maybe even create your own mod for folks that have the same problem with the game.

Win, win as they say...

 

[DavDR]

The sales game hasn't really changed that much since the early days when I started playing. Look far enough back in this thread and you will see me complaining about it. But once I learned the rules and figured-out a system, I had characters with over $25K in no time. Later versions of the game, lowered the commissions somewhat and give one a lot more stuff to waste their money on. Yet its still not hard to build up a fortune, now it just takes a little longer and you need to budget your expensive.

So choosing not to do pill demonstration is a choice, and I doubt Aphrodite do anything since she has a vision to what the game is about. So I would suggest talking to one of the mod-folks and see if one could convince them or just recode the game yourself. Its downloadable and open source, so it shouldn't be that hard to fix your issues and maybe even create your own mod for folks that have the same problem with the game.

Win, win as they say...

Or, I can go on deciding for myself what I like and don't like and all of you white knights can just mind your own business.

 

[miyuki25]

No, because in that scenario I can make a choice of rather to do the demo or not. Remember that doing a demo will use up a workday. It cost you money to take an entire day away from the office to demonstrate a product so of course any reasonable person is going to calculate if that time is worth it or not.

Well, so what about a person who spends two work days on the Secretary job in order to upgrade their lead to a High-Volume Qualified one, only for it to roll fairly low on pillable employees (let's say ~24), followed by a low roll on the purchase quantity when it comes to the phone sale (bringing us to ~12). Do you take issue with this too for being arbitrary?

 

[scannatore]

Well, so what about a person who spends two work days on the Secretary job in order to upgrade their lead to a High-Volume Qualified one, only for it to roll fairly low on pillable employees (let's say ~24), followed by a low roll on the purchase quantity when it comes to the phone sale (bringing us to ~12). Do you take issue with this too for being arbitrary?

You can always reroll. Low customers? Reload the page.
Bad phone sale? Reload the page.
It's easy. It's fast.
You want to make 2 perfect sales? Save after the first one, and reload until you get what you want.

 

[cache-coherent]

Does reloading the page to reroll things work fine for you? I'd be very worried about this being a fast track to corrupting your save.

(Also, IMO work is currently on the easy side. It's pretty straightforward, just buy decent leads (ideally high-volume) and avoid demos; the best pill to sell money-wise is almost always H&R or GG Petite.)

 

[tooldev]

Not being a sales person, I just a slight idea about how it works. So, I meant that, in my case, I just take the in-game sales job as an action to support the rest pf the story, the big picture. Never cared too much on how realistic it is and actually, I really don't know how many of all players could be able to detect that kind of "distortion" as well. Same way I can't tell a 20 yo good whiskey from a not so bad one, just lack the knowledge and taste to do that. Anyway, for the sake of accuracy the more accurate is always, the best.

I gave that example to clarify the reasoning against just dilly dallying with this stuff. Some play the game very casual, others keep an eye on the management features and others just randomly go through the entire thing. Nobody denies this part. But when something uses quite a bit of effort in a process and the result is not what is expected it is fair to raise that point. Immersion is different for different persons and the original poster of the problem obviously shares the same issue with the immersion breaking part as others here.

If the idea was to force you as the player into the female submission part whatever your choice, then that should be made clear. Since the player is given choices, these should be handled properly.

 

[TheFamilyDog]

Or, I can go on deciding for myself what I like and don't like and all of you white knights can just mind your own business.

Not to be Mr. Obvious here, but often I had the same opinion as above but I just don't post it. Cus when you post something on this forum, you kinda imply the desire for conversation. And if you keep posting, this whole "I'm going to take my football and go home" vibe just falls apart. Get in, explain your viewpoint and get out and I think most folks would be fine with it.

Play the game however you wish, hack the game code into whatever witches brew you want. We're cool with it, as I'm sure Aphrodite is as well (as she's said in previous posts in this thread), but X-Change Life will never become "Breaking Bad" the non-porn pill slinging game. Now I think about it, even in Breaking Bad there was at times a "alteration" previously agreed to prices. That's because a t.v show or game be pretty boring if you only had a single choice in any situation. In fact, for some time I've been thinking of playing a session of XCL where I don't get a office job at all. Make my money with rich boytoys and gambling. Afternoons at the mall or beach, nights at home watching movies or at the bar breaking hearts.