Socialization. What does it do?

[ph0ne (greatijedi)]

I'm three months in. I managed to turn around my finances, and now I'm starting to make profits each week. Since I'm no longer in great danger from going bankrupt, I decided to advance the story a bit.

The story task wants me to socialize with one of the idols for a quiz show. Right now, my relationship stats with all of them is zero - the only time I talked to them is when the tutorial forced me to talk casually to one.

I don't plan to keep my current set of 3 idols around - I want to replace them all with a fresh batch of 5 eventually. Because of this, I haven't talked to them at all aside from the one time in the tutorial, so I don't know what benefits socialization gives you in the strategy side of this game.

Strangely, I haven't had one VN event with the idols for the whole three months. No news, no scandal events, no bullying notices, nothing. Aside from the few story events I triggered myself, I only had one VN event with the dance instructor for that entire period.

I can't prove that not socializing causes idol events to not happen, but it seems to be the case for now. I fear that the idols events - and possibly the negative ones - will start happening if I start to socialize with them too much, which could impact my finances.

I'm considering continuing to ignore the VN/socialization aspects and push forward until I hit the endgame. Then, I can try to push through the entire story using my massive resources by that time. On the other hand, I could be missing out on something critical I don't yet know about, since I haven't tried to socialize yet.

[Crimson Idol]

Originally posted by ph0ne (greatijedi):

I can't prove that not socializing causes idol events to not happen, but it seems to be the case for now. I fear that the idols events - and possibly the negative ones - will start happening if I start to socialize with them too much, which could impact my finances.

I wouldn't say that three months in is a good gauge to see whether socialising triggers those events way more often than not socialising.
Even if it's hard due to the money constraints at the beginning I would say you should try to socialize with the idols from time to time. Main reason is the bullying. Sometimes it's rather obvious who bullies whom (as you can see it in the break room) but sometimes it's more subtle.
And to find out about those bullies you have to talk about gossip with the idols and many don't feel like sharing such gossip if the friendship level is zero.
It's can also be important if you want to stop the bullying as one way to stop the bullies is to use your influence to make the leader of the gang / the bully stop. And to gain influence you have to hear about their wishes, which is another aspect of socializing

[ph0ne (greatijedi)]

Originally posted by Crimson Idol:

And to find out about those bullies you have to talk about gossip with the idols and many don't feel like sharing such gossip if the friendship level is zero.
It's can also be important if you want to stop the bullying as one way to stop the bullies is to use your influence to make the leader of the gang / the bully stop. And to gain influence you have to hear about their wishes, which is another aspect of socializing

I read that bullies won't bully members of their own clique, and cliques are made from a batch of idols hired at once. So, would this work:

1. I have the 3 idols I hired at the start of the game, the Old Clique.
   
2. I could hire 5 more idols all at once, the New Clique.
   
3. I can have the New Clique handle the creation of all the singles.
   
4. I can have the Old Clique on Photoshoot duty/other money making things in the building.
   
5. The two cliques would never interact with each other during their activities, and even if they did, one of the cliques can bully and take the other out, opening up a spot for a new 5-girl clique.

[Crimson Idol]

Originally posted by ph0ne (greatijedi):

I read that bullies won't bully members of their own clique, and cliques are made from a batch of idols hired at once.

Cliques, friendships (and romances) change over the course of time. E.g. my first three idols where in the same clique and later on one started to find a new group of "underlings" and then they started to bully each other.
You might be able to circumvent bullies by moving them to another group but I don't know if that solves the problem if you don't know who the bully leader is.

[Tawnee]

Originally posted by Crimson Idol:

Cliques, friendships (and romances) change over the course of time. E.g. my first three idols where in the same clique and later on one started to find a new group of "underlings" and then they started to bully each other.
You might be able to circumvent bullies by moving them to another group but I don't know if that solves the problem if you don't know who the bully leader is.

Moving the victim of bullying works (there's even an achievement for it). I found this out by accident when repeated gossiping wasn't finding the bullies, even though as a player I knew who they were by the relationships screen (number of boxes/size of cliques, and which ones were filled with an idol or a ?).

Move the victim, but none of her bullies, and the problem is over.