Size of DLC packs - Vintage Shrinkage!

redrum · Jul 13, 2018

As I've done with all previous main packs, I added the contents to my scenery explorer park, everything laid out on the ground for easy viewing.

That's when I noticed how thin the Vintage DLC is compared with other packs.

Number of scenery and building items per pack:

Spooky: 345
Adventure: 485
Studios: 419
Vintage: 238

That's quite a step down. In addition, Spooky, Adventure and Studios have two track rides each. Vintage has no track rides.

Vintage has two new coasters, but one of those is a re-skin of the wooden Gnarler. So there's really only one new coaster, the Bobsled. Is the Bobsled and the extra flat rides enough to balance out the pack comparatively with the others? That's the question keeping me up at night!

It's not keeping me up. For me, the Vintage is a little underweight. Adventure and Studios packs set the bar high, and the bar has been nudged down just a tad.

I'll buy these packs every time, I'm not trying to start any negativity here, we're all fans etc. I'm happy with new lamp posts, box-lettering, lit archways, victorian tile roofs and a couple of other things. Blowing leaves is cool, but to me this effect is not "vintage" it's a main game effect they put in vintage.

To be my own devils advocate, maybe I'm just not a vintage guy. Maybe I'm struggling to work out why we even have trapeze artists, and how I could possibly use them, given their "background animation" non-dynamic format.

Anyway, I'll keep building. That's all one can do in times of DLC uncertainty! [big grin]

mr.sugar · Jul 13, 2018

redrum said:
As I've done with all previous main packs, I added the contents to my scenery explorer park, everything laid out on the ground for easy viewing.

That's when I noticed how thin the Vintage DLC is compared with other packs.

Number of scenery and building items per pack:

Spooky: 345
Adventure: 485
Studios: 419
Vintage: 238

That's quite a step down. In addition, Spooky, Adventure and Studios have two track rides each. Vintage has no track rides.

Vintage has two new coasters, but one of those is a re-skin of the wooden Gnarler. So there's really only one new coaster, the Bobsled. Is the Bobsled and the extra flat rides enough to balance out the pack comparatively with the others? That's the question keeping me up at night!

It's not keeping me up. For me, the Vintage is a little underweight. Adventure and Studios packs set the bar high, and the bar has been nudged down just a tad.

I'll buy these packs every time, I'm not trying to start any negativity here, we're all fans etc. I'm happy with new lamp posts, box-lettering, lit archways, victorian tile roofs and a couple of other things. Blowing leaves is cool, but to me this effect is not "vintage" it's a main game effect they put in vintage.

To be my own devils advocate, maybe I'm just not a vintage guy. Maybe I'm struggling to work out why we even have trapeze artists, and how I could possibly use them, given their "background animation" non-dynamic format.

Anyway, I'll keep building. That's all one can do in times of DLC uncertainty! [big grin]

Wow, that´s very interesting, thanks for comparsion. I do not own any DLC, but I would say Vintage looks like the biggest one from presentations and was thinking of buying it if the game itself gets some significants updates in the future.. It surprised me, a lot.

What is also alarming is that it looks like Frontier goes with re-skinning content.

Kucewiczr · Jul 14, 2018

I love all of the DLC packs but my favorite one is the Vintage Pack. It adds so much to Planet Coaster. If you are deciding on buying any of the DLC's you should go with the Vintage DLC. I hope Frontier is planning on doing more DLC's like the Vintage DLC.

seeker939 · Jul 14, 2018

MR.sugar said:
Wow, that´s very interesting, thanks for comparsion. I do not own any DLC, but I would say Vintage looks like the biggest one from presentations and was thinking of buying it if the game itself gets some significants updates in the future.. It surprised me, a lot.

What is also alarming is that it looks like Frontier goes with re-skinning content.

I thought there weren't too many different pieces in those screen shots so I'm not surprised. But the total is disappointing. I thought Spooky pack was a bit underwhelming and this one has significantly less pieces.

So far with every DLC some gaps in the scenery selcetion have been closed. But from what I can tell (I don't own any DLC ) the item catalogue is still on the all-over-the-place-side of things. I wonder how the process of choosing new pieces works.

I don't mind re-skinned content, as long as it's clear what you're getting is not a brand new ride. Or why are you alarmed?

Michael Z · Jul 14, 2018

We need a rides only DLC.

breezerHOG1 · Jul 14, 2018

redrum said:
Blowing leaves is cool, but to me this effect is not "vintage" it's a main game effect they put in vintage.

This is a big problem with how games are broken up into chunks these days. Each DLC has certain items that are very useful (like when they first released the Munsters pack as having the ONLY window in the game) and I personally dont like games that are sold as incomplete chunks, especially one that revolves around creativity as there could potentially be 100s of these miniDLC addon packs

I have not purchased any of the DLCs as I am choosing to wait for something bigger, or a heavily discounted bundle as the price of all the DLCs combined has now surpassed the price of the base game.

If I had to pick which of the DLCs seems the best, I would say adventure or studios seem like they have the most content to offer

redrum said:
I'm struggling to work out why we even have trapeze artists, and how I could possibly use them, given their "background animation" non-dynamic format.

wouldnt it be nice if they could just release things when they are complete instead of breaking them down into chunks and rushing certain aspects? its sort of like how theres technically 4 types of gokarts even though the tracks are all the same [wacky]

Kucewiczr · Jul 14, 2018

Michael Z said:
We need a rides only DLC.

I agree hopefully Frontier will add a all Flat Rides DLC.

Arkthus · Jul 14, 2018

I hope they add more coaster types.
The game is called Planet COASTER, not Planet Flat Rides. It's nice to have some, and there are already a nice amount of them, but before that they need to address the "coaster" aspect and have more coasters, and more coaster options. (for example instead of just reproducing real life coasters and real life restrictions, maybe give existing coasters a little fantasy?)
I wish I could have a launch section on a basilisk (because why not?), or be able to choose the current speed on a water coaster.
Or also have new types of coasters, like the modern bobsled coaster (instead of the vintage one, which is cool but won't fit everywhere).
In short, give the COASTER in the title its full meaning.

Helena · Jul 14, 2018

As for the shrinking maybe there are fewer textures? Studios had quite lot of animatronic people for example.

Vampiro · Jul 14, 2018

DLC is not only about items being added. Its really hard to make a fair comparisson between DLC's.

For example, don't forget the previous DLC's added no flatrides at all while vintage added 5. Timewise how many scenery pieces is equall to a flatride ? 5? 10? 50?
Besides that, this update added vending machines, clawmachines. And i think it had more free pieces then the previous free updates.

What im trying to say, you might be trying to compare apple's with pears here as we can't possible know which DLC has the highest production value.

lilibat · Jul 14, 2018

Vintage feels bigger than Studios to me but that's because it has more stuff I find useful. I have been happy with all the packs though. It's the quality not the quantity? Size doesn''t matter? I don't know, I am not going to complain about it though.

caterpillar · Jul 14, 2018

I see it as Vampiro does.

More rides = less scenery.
Though I would've loved more scenery myself, I understand why there isn't.
We didn't get less in total I think, just different item count.

ps: about reskinning: they reskinned the Sizzer because players said they didn't like the name on it. Things like that still take a lot of work I bet.

TinyBirb · Jul 14, 2018

Vintage added a lot in other ways. It goes beyond track rides and scenery pieces for value.

caterpillar · Jul 14, 2018

ps2: there are two sets of colours for some pieces in the adventure pack , which is nice , but this adds up of course and is why that pack sticks out that much I guess

seeker939 · Jul 14, 2018

Vampiro said:
DLC is not only about items being added. Its really hard to make a fair comparisson between DLC's.

For example, don't forget the previous DLC's added no flatrides at all while vintage added 5. Timewise how many scenery pieces is equall to a flatride ? 5? 10? 50?
Besides that, this update added vending machines, clawmachines. And i think it had more free pieces then the previous free updates.

What im trying to say, you might be trying to compare apple's with pears here as we can't possible know which DLC has the highest production value.

Free pieces are awesome for those not buying the DLC. But I find it strange to argue that because of more free pieces in the update it's only fair that the DLC has less.

Ultimately, I agree that bare numbers alone aren't saying much. You have to consider more factors to make a "fair" comparison. On the other hand the exact "production value" is not the only thing that matters, perceived value does, too.

hos · Jul 14, 2018

to compensate, there was far less in the free update, too

spoonetti · Jul 14, 2018

Arkthus said:
I hope they add more coaster types. The game is called Planet COASTER, not Planet Flat Rides.

Yes, the name is unfortunately a bit misleading. Because PlanCo is not just a roller coaster game, but a theme park simulator game. And that also includes flat rides.

mr.sugar · Jul 14, 2018

spoonetti said:
Yes, the name is unfortunately a bit misleading. Because PlanCo is not just a roller coaster game, but a theme park simulator game. And that also includes flat rides.

Just the same as if anyone assumed RCT should have only Rollercoasters, while the game was rly about building and running a theme park...

Snodge Snoodle · Jul 14, 2018

I haven't got any of the DLC packs because individually I feel they are too small and I don't see the value in buying them separately. I would rather have one huge properly tested and bug fixed expansion every year or two. It would hopefully reduce the amount of time the game is unplayable because it seems after each update there are a bunch of bugs introduced that take a while to get fixed.

Each DLC so far only has a couple of interesting items in each and most of the scenery included I will likely never use, so I find it hard to justify the purchase of each pack because I only want it for a small percentage of the packs contents.

If however all the DLC's released so far had been saved up and released as one large expansion, the amount of stuff included that interested me would have been much greater and would tempt me to part with my cash in one transaction. I would still be buying the stuff that doesn't interest me as much, but the overall amount of interesting stuff would seem way more tempting verses the amount of transactions it takes to get them.

If they had saved up and bundled all the DLC's together and sold it as a proper expansion for the price of the base game I would be tempted. Paying a little over the odds every few months for only a few interesting items and waiting for a bunch of bugs to get fixed doesn't tickle my fancy.

I appreciate how hard it is to add new features without causing bugs, fixing one bug can make 20 more new bugs. This is why I would prefer less frequent but bigger well polished updates.

redrum · Jul 14, 2018

Vampiro said:
For example, don't forget the previous DLC's added no flatrides at all while vintage added 5.

Studios added horror heights, and two track rides.

Horror heights is significant because it's a basis for creative potential, almost a platform in its own right. Normal flat rides on the other hand, are one-trick ponies. You can't really do anything with a flat ride except place it down, and dress up the surroundings - which people love doing. I'm not suggesting that's not fun, I've seen incredible "skins" and scenery around flat rides. But you might say there's less lasting production value in flat rides that spin guests round and round in slightly different ways.

Vampiro said:
Timewise how many scenery pieces is equall to a flatride ? 5? 10? 50?

They must be getting good at making scenery pieces by now, they'd have a streamlined system in place for modelling and texturing. They can also use existing assets as a basis for new pieces. That's why I was surprised by so few pieces in Vintage. I suppose one way forward is to hope for more configurable flat rides like Horror Heights, where we receive a unique starting point for a ride we create, rather than a finished ride. Flat rides with their own unique engine, such as Horror Heights, is a good direction to take flat rides IMHO.