What determines rate of special NPCs?

[Lazureus]

I can't wrap my head around this... My fiancee gets visited by the special NPCs a lot more often than I do. It takes most of the day for me to see Karmen a second time, while she gets visited by Karmen all the time. It takes anywhere from 1-3 hours for me to see Cid, but sometimes she sees him every 30 minutes or so... I started a week after she did , but she passed me up in expansions and everything else because she gets tools, stamps, and items way more often than me. We are , at the moment, the same level (35). I tend to only see Lily once or twice a day, too, but she sees her more than that. Forget Lani, she never shows up except when I wake up in the morning it seems.

Is my account bugged? Is there something I did to make the NPCs show up a lot less? We're around the same level (she caught up to me), we are around the same expansion. I have more tables and counters out than she does even. Until last night, we even had identical restaurant layouts.

Another thing, regarding Karmen. She regularly gets like 5 tropical fruits at a time from Karmen. All the time. Almost every day. I have NEVER had this happen. Karmen NEVER gives me more than 1 fruit at a time, and given I don't see her more than twice a day most of the time... I get a measly 2 fruit a day.

Seriously, what gives here? What do I need to do? Kick out neighbors? Change my layout? Remove stuff? Add something? What am I being penalized for?

[kooky panda]

I sometimes have the same issue. I may only get a few customers and NPC's coming in. I force close out my game and when I open it again, the rest of the NPC's start coming in.

Try that to see if that helps.

[Lazureus]

Is there a known set amount of 'cooldown' time they have between showing up? 4 hours? 8 hours? 6 hours? Cid seems totally random but the others seem to show up around set intervals. I wish the game had a small button somewhere that showed the cooldown of special NPCs, so we knew if they are supposed to be showing up or not.

[cherrycolafreak]

I've had this problem for a long time.
I accidentally found out that by visiting a neighbor & then going back to your restaurant, the special customers that at first didn't appear, would suddenly be in the restaurant or would walk in.

Then I found out an easier way of making them appear.
After opening the restaurant & collecting from the special customers, I gifted a neighbor which resets the restaurant and then you can collect from the customers that didn't appear the first time.
Sometimes I have to gift a second time to make sure I get to collect from all the special customers.

This has been working for me for months.
I would think it would work for everyone?

[JustKay]

My special customers will visit my restaurant en-masse every four hours. I don't really play actively so I login every 4 hours to tap the special NPCs, including Lani and Lily. Cid (the repairman?) sort of comes a bit randomly sometimes, but usually is pretty regular too. For the record, outside of cruise events I usually only collect and cook the gem ingredients, upgrade my pantry and nothing else. I don't do any decorations and recently stopped expanding. I'm not a gem spender, and recently haven't used any that I've saved.

The only thing you didn't mention is gem spending habits, do both of you spend the same amount of gems at the same rate? It would make sense for S8 to reward their more gem generous players with more of these perks on a regular basis.

[Lazureus]

I've spent more gems than her. I have been jotting down times today and logging in almost every hour. I can confirm that it does appear to be around 4 hours for most of them, with Cid being difficult to pin down.

[Rynetory2]

Karmen visits every 4 hours and I think CID visits hourly. Try the suggestions others have posted, restarting your game, visit another restaurant, etc to get your NPC to visit and make sure you have enough tables and chairs out. Here's a list of interval of the NPCs.