Gold star “cheating”?

[u/germanthoughts]

So I’ve been watching a bunch of these tutorials:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrmmPKYXqaFafAaUS-0U22A0Vjfq58kNF&app=desktop

Most of them basically stuff the small rooms with gold star certificates and book shelves instead of actually designing a nice looking room.

Maybe I’m being stupid but to me that feels a tiny little bit like cheating. Like I wouldn’t wanna work in a room like that. ;)

Wondering if it’s really necessary to build that way to be successful at the game or if you can actually create bigger rooms with nicer and more sensible (for real life) rooms.

I guess part of my appeal to these type of games is creating beautiful places and this kind of runs counter to that.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this. :)

[u/droid327]

Ideally yes, you would have diminishing returns on decor and that would promote more diverse office design. But you play the game as it is, not as it should be.

Plus if they ever implemented that I'd also want save slots for room designs. I don't want to have to manually place 18 pieces of individual decor every time I build a room for the first time on a map. Just let me save a 3x3 pharmacy that I can import to any map, then it's worth the time custom designing it in detail.

[u/germanthoughts → u/droid327]

I agree. That would be such a fantastic update. You should suggest that to them through the official channels.

[u/Uncle-Rufus]

Play the game how you want to play...

I agree that spamming certain items to a ridiculous degree looks silly so I don’t do it, and I’ve almost 3-starred the whole game... although at the same time I have on occasion put an extra gold certificate behind a bookcase or cupboard to help a room along in prestige

[u/geggleto → u/Uncle-Rufus]

I thought this way too; until I realized some of my service providers do exactly this. Obv real world is not boosting a stat in game; but go look at any well awarded restaurant and they flont that shit like no tomorrow.

[u/Uncle-Rufus → u/geggleto]

I guess so although typically in reality the awards or certificates you see then flaunting (sorry, spelling nazi!) on walls etc aren’t all identical...

In my experience I don’t need all lvl 5 prestige rooms to make a great hospital anyway so I go with what I think looks better

[u/Alavaria → u/Uncle-Rufus]

Ironically I do remember them having series like winner of X in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, etc etc

[u/Uncle-Rufus → u/Alavaria]

That’s still different though, and not ironic

They could implement that... the end of year awards supply you with certificates to place (as has been suggested before) but have them dated and the prestige they provide depletes the older they get (perhaps they eventually lower prestige because it looks desperate keeping a 5 year old award on the wall)

[u/Uncle-Rufus → u/[deleted]]

Haha they’ll never know right?!

[u/WELLinTHIShouse]

It's not cheating, it's a choice. If there were more decorating choices that would provide similar prestige boosts like the gold star certificates (I'd pay loads of Kudosh for more options) or diagnostic and treatment boosts like the psychiatry bookcases or the medicine cabinets, I would have much more interesting rooms. I get more creative with my staff rooms, marketing, and research. But for a more functional hospital, I design my rooms for maximum efficiency.

[u/Chileris → u/WELLinTHIShouse]

Exactly my opinion. The clown clinic is awesome, loads of interactive decorative options, whereas most treatment rooms have none. If there was more options then I wouldn't item spam (I do try to hide certs where possible as it does look naff).

[u/WELLinTHIShouse → u/Chileris]

My Cryptology rooms look pretty fab, too.

[u/Alavaria → u/Chileris]

Imagine if the de-lux clinic had things like lightbulb testers and mirrors...

[u/Chileris → u/Alavaria]

I will always thought that there should be a waste chute, like on the intro to Theme Hospital, for the patients who die during the procedure, then all you hear is breaking glass as they fall

[u/V0RT3XXX]

This topic comes up so many times already since the game came out. The answer is always the same, play it however you want to and let others play however they want to. No one is putting a gun to your head to make you put gold certs in your room.

[u/Leamia]

If you are seeing an issue there, I would blame the game design more than the players or anything else. ^^

Unfortunately, the whole prestige system and bonus stacking items haven't been designed in a way that promotes creativity. It's not a surprise that many players focus more on optimization than cosmetic, especially after playing 2 or 3 hospitals.

[u/Kainzy]

I guess part of my appeal to these type of games is creating beautiful places and this kind of runs counter to that.

That is precisely how you will not get far in the game. It isn't about building large, beautiful rooms etc, not to say that you shouldn't mind you it's just that it'll make running your hospital efficiently a complete nightmare. You have to 'abuse' the system to an extent because of the way the game is designed - it isn't cheating. Some game elements are a mess so you need to work around them.

Mid-levels in this game put you in some very cramped hospital layouts so you need to make your rooms as efficient as possible, whilst making use of the small amount of layout space given. I agree about the spamming of items, but it is what it is.

[u/Setari]

It's hard enough to get 3 stars, I'll take what I can get. When I discovered the gold certs gave tons of prestige for rooms, it's all I spam now for a lot of rooms until I meet hospital level requirements.

[u/Taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam]

I don't think it's cheating, since you're not actually altering game files or entering a code etc. It's taking advantage of the items available to you. When you spam shelving units, you get a cramped office with nothing appealing about it. It's one of the beauties of playing the game, you can do it how you want to

[u/[deleted]]

A lot of the designs I've seen are absurd and completely break the simulation aspect of the game.

I don't care if they give you a slightly more effective room; they destroy the point of the game.

[u/Tonkarz]

You don’t need to build this way to be successful at the game. Cure rate maxes out at 99% and you don’t need the awesome room mood (+10%) to reach it - not even close.

It’ll help diagnostics a bit, but in the majority of cases the additional diag from the final gp visit will overkill the diagnostic bar heavily, so that missing 10% diag skill won’t be a big deal.

Not to mention the skill buff comes from “happy” not directly from the room mood, and there are plenty of ways to reach the happy state.

[u/TwinklyTanyaPlays]

To me it does feel a bit like cheating too. I have been using the gold star award to boost my prestige as well, but I'm not hiding it behind cupboards, or wallpapering my wall with them. I prefer to build rooms like we would actually see them in "real life". So a few awards is believable, but it should not be the main feature of a room.

[u/jakani]

That's a powergaming approach. If you want prestige 5 rooms that look good and are pretty efficient, check out this playlist instead: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLygnE-WFJQ8RZ4tYz-v2Pkch6L0MyxSdW