New VIP Room Rules Discussion

[Cory Trese]

I have been playing a lot of Cyber Knights RPG this weekend to blow off steam and I got kinda frustrated with the way the VIP room turned out.

I liked the simulator design at first but now in the final implementation I decided that I didn't love it as much as I did.

So it has been replaced with something less simulator and more fast-to-the point.

Try it. Did I go too far? Not far enough?

Goals
-----
- Less time
- Less exhausted
- Find contacts faster
- Make toasts less annoying
- easier to get in and get out

[xdesperado]

Just downloaded update and did a real brief run through the Finnian HQ VIP lounge.

Appears your getting someone new in with every drink which is good.
Also don't seem to be tiring as quickly which again is good.

Still no way to try and get specific needed contacts which is not so good.
Ignore still doesn't permanently ignore someone for the remainder of your visit meaning they can keep poping back up in place of new contacts your actually looking for.

On average seems a bit better and will make them even more effective for burning heat, but still very hit or miss about finding desired contacts.

Note these impressions are from a single very short visit, so more time with it could change my feelings on this.

[Cory Trese]

Oh yeah, I should get rid of ignore -- as it functions now it works backwards. You want them there until you get "VIP Room Full" or one of those results.

Thanks for the quick feedback! Contacts who are "specifically needed" are provided for via a V-Chip. The VIP Room is a compromise-with-time-sink.

It is still burning variable turns, but reversed now "burning to find" instead of "finding to burn" so you're seeing less tiring and the effect of "someone new each drink"

Probably need to relabel the buttons. I'm playing a character the gets by on VIP and have found it a big improvement.

[xdesperado]

Well the biggest fix needed for a lot of us is getting permanent or easily accessible Data Courier contacts.

With what you just posted I'll have to try a Mars or Yakashima back room and see if it's a bit less frustrating now.

[Cory Trese]

Maybe part of the fix is building more Contact rewards into upcoming ladders to help balance the use of VIP rooms?

[johndramey]

Whew - I never really used the VIP rooms before so I'm not sure if I'm the best to comment on this, but I'll pitch in my 2 cents anyway. I like how it only takes 10 minutes now to cycle through a Vudka instead of the 30 minutes it took before, but it seems like you get a flood of people now. Maybe toning down the amount of people coming in a bit would be nice?

Also, I think building contact rewards into ladders for data hounds would be a good idea, but maybe run counter to what you want. I think that could cause players to use VIP rooms even less. Maybe what you want to do is increase the number of functional VIP room contacts. I know as it is now I usually don't bother because the VIP rooms tend to be filled with not-very-helpful contacts or joy-girls. Making fences/Data-hounds more common might help to increase the usage of VIP rooms?

[grävling]

I am still at the conference so I cannot test this as well as I would like. Cory, the real test is to make a Knight and try to finish the Yakuza ladder. I will try that later tonight.

preliminary report -- this is better than it was, but that might not be a good thing. The real problem is that the experience of waiting for the correct guy to show up is frustrating.

So here is my idea. After you get a certain rep with a faction, instead of hanging around waiting for people to show up, you get given your own room to hold court in.
And you can put the word out that you are looking for:

drugs
gear
work
Persona Fixers
to rehire a runner that has worked with you before
to pay your respects to (the Kelly bros/Elder Kazuo/whomver else is apropriate here}

I think this would be more fun.

Also, I mostly come to VIP lounges to blow off heat.
A display to show how your heat is doing would be very much appreciated. Or have conversations with the receptionist go differently depending on how hot you are, so you could chat up the receptionist to see how hot you are NBZ-wide or in this zone.

just an idea ...

[Cory Trese]

I'm working towards something like that.

We do have the heat gauge on the list.