Dear Retailers,
Last week, we posted an update teasing some features coming to our next update, the new “Macromanagement” Update, which we can now say will be ready before the end of the month. It’s time to look in more detail at what new employee functions will be introduced in this update, which is all about bringing Employees to the forefront to introduce store automation.
A Foreward on Store Automation
Independently-running retail stores have been a hotly requested feature ever since our initial demo launch back in February. This has been a design challenge, as a lot of features need to be functional in order for “authentic” automation.
No,w what do I mean by “authentic” automation? When we represent actions that are occurring off-screen, we can do it by two broad approaches:
“Summarize” events as they occur from an input-output perspective (“Money generated is a function of X, Y, Z variables) so that the game generates an outcome.
“Itemize” events by generating and resolving them in real-time, so that actual things occur and their outcomes occur dynamically and possibly in real-time.
To most players, the outcomes seem the same, but are based on different calculations. The latter is more sensitive to changing attributes and is closer in line to the experience we want to simulate. Automated stores that simulate entire shopping days are more responsive to the customization and care that players bring in.
As of the next release, we will be introducing Store Automation, but it will be introduced in stages in order to test and refine automation as a whole. That means that early iterations of automation may be closer to “Summarizing” work days than “Itemizing” them, but that will be our springboard to better refine the system in the coming weeks.
The Noble, Lonely Manager - Stressed in All Things
Now onto our next feature coming into the next update: Team Roles!
We’ve got an updated Team Heirarchy UI that allows you to build custom team roles down to a store and even a departmental level. Let’s dig in:
A preview of our upcoming Team Hierarchy view
Team hierarchy is divided into four broad categories of employees:
Team Managers - The principal worker in charge when you’re not at the store. With the coming update, this role will be functional when you’re not present, but will defer to your manual control for the time being while you’re occupying the store.
Assistant Manager - Works like a secondary manager, and takes over as full Manager on days that your Manager is off work.
In larger stores, they can share the workload with the Manager and other AMs. All teams will incur a “Workload” to reflect how labour is distributed among the team, and one Manager can’t do everything on their own. That’s where Assistants step in to shoulder the load.
Team Leaders - Team Leaders serve as the guiding force of any established retail Team. Working closely with employees also makes them effective coaches. In later updates, Team Leaders will be able to coach individuals under them, with attributes that can make some TLs better recruits for trainees, or to specialize in specific departments or tasks.
Employees - Not to be forgotten, life doesn’t just end at the Entry Level. Employees will be able to learn and grow under experienced leaders and co-workers. Employees form the core of any team, and can be directed to specific tasks and eventually specific store areas as team functions are expanded upon.
What Influences a Good Team?
Rather than get into the math, let's look at practical applications of employee attributes and how they’ll relate to improving Team Dynamics once the feature is introduced in the next update.
Individual relationships between team members and with store leadership can affect work ethic, mood, and eventual workloads.
Relationships between Team Members change dynamically as they work together for a long period of time. Positive relationships can encourage both parties to work harder and tire out less easily, while long-term negative relationships can disrupt an employee’s work ethic.
A Leader’s own Positivity skill can emphasize existing positive relationships, building a kind of “social synergy” that adds to team harmony. Conversely, a Leader’s Conflict Resolution skills can manage and even improve negative relationships.
A Leader’s supervision skill dictates their capacity for additional work, allowing them to take on and delegate more tasks. For Employees, this same workload is dictated by their Teamworking attribute.
Highly motivated leaders can pass on their motivation to their employees and improve worker quality.
Worker quality is based not only on their individual personality and qualities, but also on their scheduling preferences. So if workers are doing the task they are best suited to, that will, of course, increase the quality of their work.
Supervisory and Leadership skills are emphasized the higher a role a worker occupies, and are consequently less important the lower they are. To develop good leaders, you’ll sometimes need to develop up-and-coming leaders as opposed to natural talent.
Employee skill progression will be based on their own Talent skill, as well as their leader's teaching skill. The teacher’s own ability at a specific Skill also affects their ability to teach others.
Teams without proper leadership or insufficient numbers are less efficient and become overworked more quickly without proper support.
As mapping and modeling worker behavior is an ongoing process with many, *many* complexities to account for and test, this is only the starting point of how we plan to build more dynamic, smarter, and more interesting employees to join your Team.
What’s Next?
Automation and a mini-roadmap of how we plan to proceed with Automation as a design concept will be part of our next reveal, as we also launch the second of our major milestone updates: The “Macromanagement” Update.
This is a huge undertaking on the backend for King of Retail 2, and something we absolutely want to hear your feedback on. Be sure to join the Community Discord, where I’ll have more news to share leading up to the launch. As always, your feedback is appreciated.
What do you want to see your employees do next?
-Daniel