Some observations from a long-time Theme Hospital player

[Zheega]

Hi. I haven't played TPH for long (just a few levels), but there are a lot of changes that are needed. Some things were actually better in TH;

1. Patients shouldn't enter queue until they knock on the door of the room they want to queue in. Patients should also be restricted from moving far away when they are in queue and being #1 in queue should cancel whatever they were doing (toilet, vending machine,...) and bring them next to the door. This would make queues much better.

2. You should be able to buy a small "light" item to place outside of the room. That way, as soon as the current patient pays for diag/treatment, the light turns green and the #1 patient in the queue can enter the room at the exact same time as the previous one leaves (as was the case in TH)

3. Patients visit GP's office way too often. TH actually had a setting for this, you could set diagnostics at 200%. That way patients would visit more diagnostics and had a much higher chance of being cured, but it would cause big queues. When you had enough research and experienced staff, you could set it at 100%, causing less queues.

4. The game is too easy. You can have patients dying left and right, yet you still make money and win the level sooner or later.

5. Reputation seems to be broken. It should decline significantly for each death, resulting in less patients coming to visit. I can have my reputation at zero, yet enough patients to complete all objectives, unless cure % is an objective. Then I can just send all patients home, cure the first next 20 patients that visit and be done with it.

6. You should reintroduce "cure effectiveness" in the research department. If each cure needs to be researched to be more effective (and kill less patients), you can compensate for that with the ability to have a patient diagnosed over 100% (to 200%). Patients being diagnosed over 100% would result in more need for queue management early game (more visits to diag and GP rooms), but would compensate for the cure only being 80% effective. When you have longer queues (as long as they are under the current patch, which should be fixed), you must have more drug research completed, so that patients don't die when you decrease diagnostics back to 100%.


This is all I can think of for now, will post more when I am able to play more :)

[ste]

I'm not sure you'll still be saying its too easy once you play a bit longer

[Jeruzalem]

Originally posted by ste:

I'm not sure you'll still be saying its too easy once you play a bit longer

though most problems are related to GP. i just came out of a level where 8 GP's wernt enough, but i still needed other rooms to cure the patients. every few minutes, i just send half of the patients that queued up home. this was the only way to prevent massive deaths. even my 3 head assistants had a queue of 6 people. its insane. its almost like you get way too many patients.

[Anders]

Originally posted by Jeruzalem:

Originally posted by ste:

I'm not sure you'll still be saying its too easy once you play a bit longer

though most problems are related to GP. i just came out of a level where 8 GP's wernt enough, but i still needed other rooms to cure the patients. every few minutes, i just send half of the patients that queued up home. this was the only way to prevent massive deaths. even my 3 head assistants had a queue of 6 people. its insane. its almost like you get way too many patients.

OP is on the money about everything.

As for GPs (for now).

Replace the early diagnostics with late game ones. And level up diagnostics machinery and personel. Thats exactly whats causing it. Not only the GPs (mostly not). Lines at GPs is a symtom of bad diagnostics (again mostly).

Edit. Use Mega and also focus on rooms that combine diagnostics and treatment: Ward, DNA and your beloved shrink.

Example.
3Star Mitton: https://imgur.com/a/mZWv6qq

[Jeruzalem]

no staff rooms?

[Anders]

Originally posted by Jeruzalem:

no staff rooms?

Yup, one big one, all decked out :)

[Djayc85]

How about buying the game OP and then reporting you findings and feedback.

[Grumpy Goblin]

Originally posted by Djayk85:

How about buying the game OP and then reporting you findings and feedback.

This suggests you didn't read his post and ignored him. At the start of his post he said: "I haven't played TPH for long (just a few levels), but there are a lot of changes that are needed. Some things were actually better in TH;"

I would have to agree with a lot of what OP is saying, what I have discovered is the lack of punishment for running a hospital poorly, customers, regardless of the rep of the hospital will line up and pay. Your hospital will deal with what it can and reap whatever profits it would make. It doesn't drive you to improve it, just push for the stars.

The game is also right now heavily exploitable and cheesable. I checked the leaderboards for example, a guy on my friends list has a hospital value of 125 Million and makes 22 million a year (on tumble no less) but has a meager cure rate... in fact I trashed him on the cures challenge while he destroys everything on the profits...he has the same staff levels as me as shown on the staff listings and even if he had less, it surely couldn't make up that gap!

I checked the first lvl as I was now curious and he makes 7 million a year while only curing 55 patients...I actually loled at this. I am sure they are using the fact that there is no diminishing returns on anything, spam 50 med cabs and get perfect diagnosis. This devalues training, staff management, patient amenities, budget management, further diagnosis chambers and hospital lay planning...you know, the whole game. A lot of cheesers are now on the forums demanding people who highlight this to stop because people should get to "play the game however they want." which is a bogus statement, the game is to be played however the devs want it to played since they are the ones who set the challenge and the bar. So the devs need to, I believe, consider the following:

1. Is it in the games design to be able to, using meger items to boost diagnosis, circumvent many rooms, mechanics and pitfalls?
2. If so, why? And why make it so easy to discover?
3. If not, will you be fixing this? Perhaps looking at a huge nerf on items and a more considered look on advanced diagnosis methods.

[Vanessa]

HOW TO SEND EVERYONE HOME OMG?CURE RATE IS THE MOST IMPOSSIBLE TASK
EVER.

[Jonathan J. O'Neill]

Originally posted by Voodoo Velkro:

Originally posted by Djayk85:

How about buying the game OP and then reporting you findings and feedback.

This suggests you didn't read his post and ignored him. At the start of his post he said: "I haven't played TPH for long (just a few levels), but there are a lot of changes that are needed. Some things were actually better in TH;"

He was referring to the fact that OP doesn't even own the game. There's no mouse icon next to his name. So, he doesn't have a right to offer suggestions about the game if he's pirating it.

[Grumpy Goblin]

Originally posted by Jonathan J. O'Neill:

Originally posted by Voodoo Velkro:

This suggests you didn't read his post and ignored him. At the start of his post he said: "I haven't played TPH for long (just a few levels), but there are a lot of changes that are needed. Some things were actually better in TH;"

He was referring to the fact that OP doesn't even own the game. There's no mouse icon next to his name. So, he doesn't have a right to offer suggestions about the game if he's pirating it.

If he says he owns the game then I am not going to question it, he may not have it on this account. Also does setting your account to private remove this mouse?

[Jonathan J. O'Neill]

Originally posted by Voodoo Velkro:

Originally posted by Jonathan J. O'Neill:

He was referring to the fact that OP doesn't even own the game. There's no mouse icon next to his name. So, he doesn't have a right to offer suggestions about the game if he's pirating it.

If he says he owns the game then I am not going to question it, he may not have it on this account. Also does setting your account to private remove this mouse?

Nope, private setting does not remove it.

[Djayc85]

Originally posted by Voodoo Velkro:

Originally posted by Jonathan J. O'Neill:

He was referring to the fact that OP doesn't even own the game. There's no mouse icon next to his name. So, he doesn't have a right to offer suggestions about the game if he's pirating it.

If he says he owns the game then I am not going to question it, he may not have it on this account. Also does setting your account to private remove this mouse?

No marking your account private doesn't hide what games you own when you post on the forum.

[Grumpy Goblin]

Originally posted by Djayk85:

Originally posted by Voodoo Velkro:

If he says he owns the game then I am not going to question it, he may not have it on this account. Also does setting your account to private remove this mouse?

No marking your account private doesn't hide what games you own when you post on the forum.

Well like I said, why don't you question him on it? There may be a valid reason for it?

[Silence Suzuka]

I mostly agree with you. But about the reputation, there is a problem

In Theme Hospital, you hardly cause a death as long as you got the correct diagnose. And an experienced nurse can help to prevent the death caused by wrong diagnose. But in TPH, the dianose is just the very first step to cure. So if you are using some raw recuit nurse in the hospital, you can't keep the patients from dying in early game (Until you gome some lv. 4 skilled nurse and doctor). So if the death penalty is increased the game will be unplayable at all.

[luckz]

Originally posted by A-TeamIceRain:

So if the death penalty is increased the game will be unplayable at all.

.. because death and diagnosis aren't really related, so TH-based suggestions don't fit.