Yet another paid entry topic

[MrOsterman]

So I got fiddling with this last night with my Potter-Verse theme park I'm building in Challenge mode. I turned all the rides down to free and started to up the ticket price. It took a few months of tweeking but one month I had a real surge in ticket sales at the door and had my biggest profit month ever. Usually I was making $10k profits between rides, food, and ticket sales. When I first transitioned to free rides, I was losing 4k a month. Then some how I was able to find the spot on the ticket prices and got 50K in a month. It's leveling off again so I think maybe that one month was a fluke of the new pricing scheme.

I did start charging a nominal fee to use my transport ride. I figure if the peeps want the convenience of riding to the back of the park first, I can handle charging for that.

I also tried raising prices at my stalls to help make up the difference but dropped them all again. That did NOT work. Sure the park was free but that didn't mean anyone wanted to pony up $6 for a bottle of water.

Marketing seemed to be a factor. I turned on the two campaigns for Adults and Teens to pull them in (I have a lot of families already) and that seemed to really pack the gate. I'm pretty sure increased ticket sales beat out the cost of the two campaigns though at 5k/ month I'm not sure that's sustainable.

The last bit is that now that all the rides are free my "new area" around the Quidditch pitch is packed with peeps as is my original opening area of Diagon Alley. But Hogsmeade (my second area I developed) is a ghost town and I'm bleeding from the stalls there. All areas have high prestige rides, stalls etc. How much does scenery draw people in? I'm wondering if all the buildings on Diagon Alley and the massive Quidditch stadium are so high in Scenery that peeps are ignoring Hogsmeade because it's just a little less "wow" to walk through.

 

[Anerkas]

This is actually the problem with the paid entry/free rides model, in my experience marketing is usually just wasted money and i'll explain why (but of course i may be wrong): your park rating is the sum of your ride rating and your scenary rating, together they make up a score which determinates how many people at max will come to your park at any given time, now it seems there is a cap of peeps that will stay in your park based on this rating, so the problem is like you described that once you for example open a new coaster/flat ride many people will flock to your park and make you an incredible profit for that month, but then the cap will be reached and for the next few months you will start losing money badly.

Marketing campaign aren''t really useful for me because if you open a new ride people will come in no matter what but once you reach your peeps cap which i determined by your park total rating no more folks will spawn, at least until the ones in your park leave, placing a new ride every month is of course not sustainable as more free rides will cost you more and drain your money quicker and as alredy enstablished peeps are willing to pay only so much for entry and not more, as opposed to paid rides/free entry which often leads too peeps spending more on rides than they would have with entry in the first place.

I think the goal here is to find the sweet spot of park rating and i believe we should rely more on scenary rating as they are less expensive and have little to no mantainance costs, it could work if it comes to a point where enough peeps are leaving and so hopefully the same number of visitors would take their place and pay the entry, also as you said shop prices can only be raised toa certain point and they can't really cover the expenditures of a large park with a lot of coasters.

My biggest gripe, even if i enjoy the game a lot, is that it's not just difficult to make a park that follows the paid entry/free rides model, it's also useless, let's be honest if you tweak sequences and get queue rating to 100% you can charge ridiculous amounts of money for rides and peeps will gladly pay, so from a management standpoint, like imagine if we were all suits that would have to maximize the profits, there would be no denying the free entry/paid rides scheme is the best strategy between the two, but since this is a game and since IRL big parks do not usually work this way and it is so difficult for us to make paid entry model work makes me a bit puzzled about this game.

EDIT: (I always forget something) One more thing i've noticed is that oddly enough it's easier to accomplish a paid entry scheme on harder difficulties because of peeps happiness and energy draining faster and make them leave your park sooner than in easier difficulties, thus making room for new guests who will pay the entry fee.

 

[cerealfruitcakes]

Whenever I run into dead months I just close some high prestige rides down & speed up the time. A lot of guests will start leaving shortly after + many will flock to stalls and spend some $$ before they go. Open the rides back up and you'll get a new group of guests. I don't have a lot of mechanics because of this since the longer it takes for them to fix a broken ride the more likely some guests will leave before it's fixed (broken ride = park rating drop).

 

[Anerkas]

This is actually a good idea, a bit of an exploit but ehh, it's ok.
Another thing i was trying was to build several squares around the park, each one with shops and 3-4 rides, connect them all with a train or monorail with various stations much like a transport service and charge for it like it was (like a subway), this way they have to pay to leave too and once you get enough peeps all your various shop are profitable.
I know technically i am charging for a ride, but since it is more of an optional transport service, so i don't feel bad about it.

 

[cerealfruitcakes]

This is actually a good idea, a bit of an exploit but ehh, it's ok.
Another thing i was trying was to build several squares around the park, each one with shops and 3-4 rides, connect them all with a train or monorail with various stations much like a transport service and charge for it like it was (like a subway), this way they have to pay to leave too and once you get enough peeps all your various shop are profitable.
I know technically i am charging for a ride, but since it is more of an optional transport service, so i don't feel bad about it.

I could never charge for transport rides, you guys should feel ashamed [tongue][squeeeeee]

The coaster is costing too much to keep open. It's getting more difficult to stay in the green even with just flat rides.

 

[Anerkas]

I could never charge for transport rides, you guys should feel ashamed [tongue][squeeeeee]

That is nothing, want to be a real greedy ruthless park manager? Add a ton of extras to food and drinks (the ones that make peeps need to Ioo) and make them free, then charge 20$ for toilets. [squeeeeee]

 

[MrOsterman]

I could never charge for transport rides, you guys should feel ashamed [tongue][squeeeeee]

https://i.imgur.com/iSxKQfr.jpg

The coaster is costing too much to keep open. It's getting more difficult to stay in the green even with just flat rides.

I would agree but given the number of parks I've been to where it's X to get in and then Y extra to take a true transport ride to get around, I'm okay with a nominal fee to ride from the front of the park to the back. Where I feel I've really failed is in the total lack of scenery on my transport rides.

I've got "The Hogwarts Express" that runs from the main entrance (I went Disney and put it OVER the main gate) all the way back to Hogwarts Gardens (You can't actually go in to Hogwarts because I put a coaster around it) and there is, like, ~nothing~ along the railway between them but open space. I think I'll fill it eventually but.....