More Awesome Than You!

Is this a bug?

Is it because they see the restock sign?

I've been compensating by doing a hard sell immediately after they've grabbed the item, and they get a star with two plus signs, so I think that's compensating for the one they just lost.

It's annoying though. If it is because they see the restock sign, good lord give the restocker a chance to get over there before you get all in a tizz about it.

I've only just been noticing this in a bakery. I can't remember if it's happened in other businesses as well.

What makes me mad is that how do they know what item was out of stock? If they don't know what it is, why should they get so mad about it?

It may be because no one assisted them with their purchase?

What bugs me is if I have a whole case full of toaster pastries, and they've just grabbed one, and there's three left should they want more, why are they freaking?

Nope. My sims are right there with them selling away.

I don't know about bakeries but I spent the entire day with Landgrabber getting his businesses up to 10 and I can say this - some customers I just couldn't stop from getting minuses no matter what I did.  On the restocking I would try to go immediately into buy mode and delete the picture of the item so no restock sign would show but no go.  Just like the dirty plates - I don't care if I have someone cleaning their table as they are trying to scoot them out of the way to stand up - they still complain and get the minuses.

I did discover that if I just clicked it out of my owner's queue (the "be complained at") he didn't get minuses or lose loyalty because it never happened.  ;D  That also works on the "May I help you?" when the owner gets "be rejected for sale" after showing the item.  That came in handy since that was always a fear of his.

I just took to deleting the sims I couldn't make happy off the lot (Komei has an appointment with a cowplant after today).  As someone else mentioned it is kind of like calling security IRL when a customer is unruly  ;) 

I also noticed that not all customers complain about dirty plates or unstocked items or at least I could get it taken are of before it bothered them.  Must have something to do with personality and/or mood.  Dunno.   

Perhaps its a hack thing? I don't have any such problems in my game. Then again, I also happen to have about 300 files in my hack folder. Still, there might be a chance you have one of the few hacks that I've yet to install?

According to the guide, customer loyalty is lowered by seeing an out-of-stock sign - amongst other things.  Could be that your particular grump was affected by any number of the factors listed and the out-of-stock sign tipped him/her over the edge.

I've had customers who must have major PMS given their negative attitudes, no matter how hard the owner works to make them happy.

It isn't a hack thing - just the way the game runs.

 

Yeah, I've noticed grouchy sims complain about the sillies things.  Sims in the way, out of stock signs, employees that tried to help them, etc.  JUst keep the grouches off your lot.

Yeah, it's weird how they insist on whining about things being out of stock even though the out of stock item is ONE such item on a shelf of about 80 identical ones, so it's not like the store is OUT of them. I mean, do YOU demand that every single thing in the store be stocked to capacity?

I've found that using the Rally Forth action will make customers much more agreeable, along with giving them a slight boost in customer loyalty. That should help resolve any problems with Sims' dispositions. You could try using Perk Up on a Sim if their relationship is high enough too.

As for your problem, Buddha, I've had Sims in my game buy an item and end up just staring at the sign that was produced, all the while losing customer loyalty. At that time though, the business was very small and had very little else to look at. Could that be your problem? They stopped acknowledging the signs after I enlarged the room and placed more items for sale.

Every sim in my neighborhood must be a grouch then. This is happening every single time an item is sold, the very second they grab it.

I'm still not convinced it's not a bakery glitch of some sort because this bakery is all I've been playing lately, and it seems like if this had been happening before at some other business, I would have noticed, but who knows. I'm gonna keep an eye out.

I wonder too, if it's because I jack the prices up so much. Maybe at the very second they snatch up the item, they're realizing they're being swindled. I'm selling platters of baked goods at $1000-$3000 a pop. If that's the case, I don't really care. I'll take the killer profit over the high business rank. It's at level 6 right now anyway, and it's only been running about 4 or 5 sim days.

No, I think I have plenty of stuff, about 13 of those bakery shelves full of stuff. It looks like tons, but I'm only selling about 6 or 7 different types of foods. I don't know if that would matter.

I also have snapdragons everywhere, so I doubt it's a mood thing.

Well, that's definately the problem. I remember hearing somewhere that when deciding whether or not to buy something the Sim would supposedly check the value of the item against it's cost. Whenever my customers would buy items, they would always gain customer loyalty, more than likely because I set the prices to the cheap area.

It's funny because I have insane prices like that at all of my businesses, sometimes even more extreme than this bakery, and I could almost swear I've not seen this happening before. But I could very well be mistaken.

And another thing is that I'm pretty sure they DO gain a star when their buy bar fills, and then immediately lose it again. I noticed this because one of my sales girls is a fortune sim who always simultaneously has a want for a customer to gain a star and a fear of a customer losing a star, and her aspiration meter kept fluctuating accordingly.

I have run out of reasons why this would be happening then, unless you may have not noticed it before and the game is programmed so that they gain customer loyalty whenever buying something, but lose it when paying too much. Although, if you set custom prices to your baked goods and everything else as well, foods would be worth much less than everything else, except for something incredibly cheap, like a lawn flamingo.

The fools. Like it's my fault they let me con them into buying something at an obnoxious price.

The Swindle effect is what causes it, yes. The amazing this how such an outlandish business model actually works, because you can set any price you want on anything and they will always buy it. It's like they have no sense at all. You'd never get away with a stunt like this in real life, but in OFB, it forms a business model.

I discovered that one too - useful isn't it!

There's a thread in the war room on Buy Bars.
Looks like we need one on customer loyalty too.

Yes, it is very useful for that complaining - particularly when the owner is a grouch and doesn't handle it well.  Ironically, while he has all these customers lining up to whine about dirty dishes and unstocked items the reporter comes up and gives him a "best of the best" award.  I hadn't even noticed he was being reviewed (too busy watching my owner's queue I guess  :P).

Some things just don't make sense in OFB but there are usually ways around it.  Boolprop is my friend  ;D. 

I do think it has mostly to do with personality of the buyer though.  I can't make Komei happy with any of my businesses (not sure what his nice/grouchy score is but all my playables always hate him).  I also have a problem with Nina, Lilith, Andrea Hogan and that old lady that has the bakery. 

I don't mind not being able to sell to them but when they start picking fights in my shop they must be punished.

I don't remember exactly but his nice score is quite low (no more than 2), and combined with the rest of his personality it makes him a right bastard. And he's still better than Kennedy Cox!

Oh, don't pick on poor Kennedy!  He is so misunderstood   :P-.  I had one of my desperate sims marry him once and he was a great family man if a bit fussy ;).  He did do MUCH better than Goopy the time I made him move in with Nina because of an uh oh pregnancy.

I have a long-standing grudge against Kennedy as he was always - ALWAYS! - the one to kick the garbage over and was always rude and grumpy to all of my sims. Even Komei I got to soften up and show a real personality once, but there was no working with Kennedy.

. 

I find that if you don't have staff, there is no one to complain at to begin with.  That works well for those per-hour business.


I think that maybe a cowplant in a locked basement should be part of any business.  Then the hand of god descend upon the hapless sim and he gets dumped in a dark basement...but oh look there is a shiny cake here....