The diagnostic/queue system still feels broken

[Sombrero]

I have loved the game at release but after playing quite a lot I stopped entirely for a while waiting for more fixes to be deployed. Now that the DLC is here I came back to it and currently playing Pelican Wharf hospital.

The problem is that the queuing system in particular for diagnostic rooms still feel really broken.

The problem is that at first I'm fine 3 basic diagnosis room but very quickly the demand starts to rise and I need to build more rooms, on paper it makes sense and I'm fine with it. But in the execution it becomes a huge mess very quickly.

Basically what happens is that one diagnostic type of room get flooded for no reason whatsoever while the other becomes deserted (and I've done nothing to make it happen, it just happens by itself). The GP doctors keep sending the patients to that one diagnostic room and not the other so everybody eventually dies because of waste of time.

The issue gets really excruciating with more sophisticated diagnosis rooms such as DNA lab, x-ray or mega scan. I know that if I don't instantly buy two of them the one room will be flooded in no time. And then my cariology, fluid analysis and others that were previously really flooded now barely have 2 or 3 patients at max.

WHY ?

[RamblingFar]

Once you have the higher level rooms, you no longer need the lower level ones. I diagnose with just my DNA room and Megascan. Though admitedly I then need more than 1. Two of each were sufficient on the last level I completed.

[Sombrero]

I still call that broken though. There's no reason for it to work that way. Neither in term of gameplay nore "realism".

[Big Mark]

Yeah, they get sent to the room with the best chance of diagnosing thier illness. It seems pretty realistic to me

[RMJ]

Originally posted by RamblingFar:

Once you have the higher level rooms, you no longer need the lower level ones. I diagnose with just my DNA room and Megascan. Though admitedly I then need more than 1. Two of each were sufficient on the last level I completed.

So you don't need gp's office ?

[Sombrero]

Originally posted by Big Mark:

Yeah, they get sent to the room with the best chance of diagnosing thier illness. It seems pretty realistic to me

That's not realistic at all. If it was realistic they would be sent according to their symptoms, like fracture wouldn't be sent in cardiology. And likewise why doctors would send all their patients to the same room when they know there's a flooding of patients there when they can be diagnosed elsewhere.

The game expect you to sell all your diagnosis rooms and put only mega scan ? I find this really dumb and not fun personally.

[milkygirl]

Originally posted by RMJ:

So you don't need gp's office ?

RamblingFar was talking about not needing the official diagnosis rooms. GPs are considered their own type of thing, so you do always need GPs, for a patient's first visit if nothing else.

Originally posted by Sombrero:

That's not realistic at all. If it was realistic they would be sent according to their symptoms, like fracture wouldn't be sent in cardiology. And likewise why doctors would send all their patients to the same room when they know there's a flooding of patients there when they can be diagnosed elsewhere.

The game expect you to sell all your diagnosis rooms and put only mega scan ? I find this really dumb and not fun personally.

But.. that's what they're doing. There is a guide here on Steam that shows what illnesses are best diagnosed by what diagnosis machine. Cardiology diagnoses, to use your example of the Fracture Ward, the illness "Lazy Bones" better than any other diagnosis machine. So a well-trained (as in 3-or-more star) GP will send someone with "Lazy Bones" to Cardio for diagnosis.

The reason you see "runs" on diagnosis rooms are either 1)hiring low-ranked GPs who don't know how to diagnose and just send people wherever or 2) an influx of conditions that are best diagnosed by the same equipment. For example, when I get a run on Fluid diagnosis, I tend to see a spike in Injection Room patients (because most Injection Room illnesses are best diagnosed via Fluid Analysis).

In Pelican Wharf, I run MEGA, DNA, Fluid, X-ray and General Diagnosis. X-ray is primarily for Premature Mummification and GD for 8-bitten. Yes, that means Flumps and Spinal Bap (both Surgical Procedures) don't get diagnosed as fast since I don't have Cardiology, but patients get in line fast enough to have surgery before they die with the all the other forms available.

[Sombrero]

Ok, I see.
I guess I just don't like how levels are structured maybe ? Because you basically have to either be lucky or to guess in advance what disease will flood you and prepare your hospital accordingly. Also I never like the idea of not building every room in a hospital. I'll try to adapt my game plan and feel really awkward playing the videogame. Hopefully it will work. The game balance still feels wrong to me, especially regarding reputation and patient influx.

Also I noticed that the last update added the Policy tab which can remove the last GP visit which is a huge help for big queues so I need a lot less GP now which saves so much space so hurray for that.

[OldGamer]

Originally posted by RamblingFar:

Once you have the higher level rooms, you no longer need the lower level ones. I diagnose with just my DNA room and Megascan. Though admitedly I then need more than 1. Two of each were sufficient on the last level I completed.

This is wrong advice.
Different illnesses are better diagnosed with different diagnostic rooms. Build up instead of having one room.

[OldGamer]

Originally posted by Sombrero:

Ok, I see.
I guess I just don't like how levels are structured maybe ? Because you basically have to either be lucky or to guess in advance what disease will flood you and prepare your hospital accordingly. Also I never like the idea of not building every room in a hospital. I'll try to adapt my game plan and feel really awkward playing the videogame. Hopefully it will work. The game balance still feels wrong to me, especially regarding reputation and patient influx.

Also I noticed that the last update added the Policy tab which can remove the last GP visit which is a huge help for big queues so I need a lot less GP now which saves so much space so hurray for that.

Look at the illnesses tab for all the illnesses.

The first rooms you build is gp office, a GD and a pharmacy
nearly always you need those three rooms.

Then you go off by what comes in.

The diagnostic tree is:

Level 0: GP office (DOCTOR - get to GENERAL PRACTICE 5)
Level 1: General Diagnosis (NURSE - get to DIAGNOSIS 5, upgrade machine 3 times)
Level 2: Cardiology (same as above)
Level 3: Fluid Analysis (same as above)
Level 4: X-RAY (DOCTOR - get to Diagnosis 5 or 4 if you are pairing up with level 6)
Level 5: DNA (DOCTOR - DIAGNOSIS 4) - this does treatment also so be careful.
Level 6: Megascanner (DOCTOR - diagnosis 4)

Also levels but do both treatment and diagnosis:
Level 2: Psychaitry (DOCTOR - Psyhe training level 5)
Level 2: Ward (NURSE - have two per ward of 6 beds and 2 screens, 4 medi cabs and 6 wall monitors, train nurses in ward management 5)

[Sombrero]

It's easier said than done. I'd love to take my sweet time and train everybody to level 5 and all. But patients are coming in much faster than I would like to (as many players report).

Also I can't always get fresh students with no skills so sometimes I have to adapt.

I guess I'll just play the game very very very very very slowly to farm for the right combination. But it's overly tedious because of very strange balancing. I never had that feeling ever in theme hospital and I felt Theme Hospital was kinda harder in some capacity.

The problem is that whenever I build room X I start to have way more patients than the room can handle so I need room X+1 and so on until hours later my hospital is just killing people non stop. It's a very frustrating feedback loop of complete misery just because patients keep flooding my hospital despite me killing them all. The game should let you have a much better control of the flow of patients, especially considering the fact that money should be what pushes you to get more patients and get a good reputation to attract more patients.

I always end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars and still a really average if not mediocre hospital because the game is constantly flooding me with patients I never asked for.

[Jonathan J. O'Neill]

Originally posted by Sombrero:

It's easier said than done. I'd love to take my sweet time and train everybody to level 5 and all. But patients are coming in much faster than I would like to (as many players report).

Also I can't always get fresh students with no skills so sometimes I have to adapt.

I guess I'll just play the game very very very very very slowly to farm for the right combination. But it's overly tedious because of very strange balancing. I never had that feeling ever in theme hospital and I felt Theme Hospital was kinda harder in some capacity.

The problem is that whenever I build room X I start to have way more patients than the room can handle so I need room X+1 and so on until hours later my hospital is just killing people non stop. It's a very frustrating feedback loop of complete misery just because patients keep flooding my hospital despite me killing them all. The game should let you have a much better control of the flow of patients, especially considering the fact that money should be what pushes you to get more patients and get a good reputation to attract more patients.

I always end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars and still a really average if not mediocre hospital because the game is constantly flooding me with patients I never asked for.

If they're coming in too fast, odds are, you've increased your hospital's quality too quickly. Take your time, build rooms as you need then and not before and don' t make them 5*.

[WondrinOstrich]

Doesn't increased prices for say GP reduce the rush too? I think price policy can regulate ingame too, though it takes a while to establish the effect. Is this confirmed?

[InPinkClover]

Originally posted by Jonathan J. O'Neill:

If they're coming in too fast, odds are, you've increased your hospital's quality too quickly. Take your time, build rooms as you need then and not before and don' t make them 5*.

Ah ha! I wonder if that is part of my problem. My hospitals are wonderful places that everyone wants to come to. Time to be more of a grinch, I guess! :D

[OldGamer]

Originally posted by Jonathan J. O'Neill:

Originally posted by Sombrero:

It's easier said than done. I'd love to take my sweet time and train everybody to level 5 and all. But patients are coming in much faster than I would like to (as many players report).

Also I can't always get fresh students with no skills so sometimes I have to adapt.

I guess I'll just play the game very very very very very slowly to farm for the right combination. But it's overly tedious because of very strange balancing. I never had that feeling ever in theme hospital and I felt Theme Hospital was kinda harder in some capacity.

The problem is that whenever I build room X I start to have way more patients than the room can handle so I need room X+1 and so on until hours later my hospital is just killing people non stop. It's a very frustrating feedback loop of complete misery just because patients keep flooding my hospital despite me killing them all. The game should let you have a much better control of the flow of patients, especially considering the fact that money should be what pushes you to get more patients and get a good reputation to attract more patients.

I always end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars and still a really average if not mediocre hospital because the game is constantly flooding me with patients I never asked for.

If they're coming in too fast, odds are, you've increased your hospital's quality too quickly. Take your time, build rooms as you need then and not before and don' t make them 5*.

this

Also, you ALWAYS have time to train. ALWAYS.

This game isn't about curing patients (except the DLC level I am on now but thats an anomaly), it's about control and management.

Training will push down queues especially if your "core" (Gps, diag nurses and doctors) are trained fully. Again - doesn't matter if they are cured or not. Just get them through the system at first.

Once you got that sorted, work on what you can treat and then after you do that, then work on your cure rate.

But if you are on the level I am on (the hailing underlook hotel one in the DLC), it's back to front. You work on training your treatment nurses before your diag. Or just get two training rooms. (however, there seems to be penalty in training in this level? I have found I can't train some staff at times)

However, despite this, general rule of thumb is "building up not across." in other words, train the staff you have (put in temporary staff when training if you like) rather than just building more of X room. That is often does the reverse effect. It creates more queues as your level as probably gone up to above level 10. (when the **** hits the fan!)

OG

[Sombrero]

Originally posted by Jonathan J. O'Neill:

Originally posted by Sombrero:

It's easier said than done. I'd love to take my sweet time and train everybody to level 5 and all. But patients are coming in much faster than I would like to (as many players report).

Also I can't always get fresh students with no skills so sometimes I have to adapt.

I guess I'll just play the game very very very very very slowly to farm for the right combination. But it's overly tedious because of very strange balancing. I never had that feeling ever in theme hospital and I felt Theme Hospital was kinda harder in some capacity.

The problem is that whenever I build room X I start to have way more patients than the room can handle so I need room X+1 and so on until hours later my hospital is just killing people non stop. It's a very frustrating feedback loop of complete misery just because patients keep flooding my hospital despite me killing them all. The game should let you have a much better control of the flow of patients, especially considering the fact that money should be what pushes you to get more patients and get a good reputation to attract more patients.

I always end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars and still a really average if not mediocre hospital because the game is constantly flooding me with patients I never asked for.

If they're coming in too fast, odds are, you've increased your hospital's quality too quickly. Take your time, build rooms as you need then and not before and don' t make them 5*.

That's already what I'm doing actually. I tend to build quite slowly only what I need when I need it. And I never thought that it was a sensible game mechanic, at least the way it is currently working.

The game is essentially rewarding you more for making ugly hospitals with lowest prestige possible. As for staff I never recruit too highly qualified staff because I don't want to use too much money in salary anyway.