@Jaggid Edje, it is no longer a small zoo - sure, it had a dip due to fence decay letting my AWDs and Spotted Hyenas free, soon as fixed though it goes back up. And the little critters really do help in the long run, I've at least two of each species, so they can breed. I also make use of the pause button.
New Patch ruins economic balance + refunds go crazy
- Thread starter Yukari1885
- Start date
Very nice! I'm a fan of the puppies myself and find a way to fit them in to all of my zoos as well. Escapes and refunds causing losses seems to be my only issue in my "new" franchise zoo as well. Though so far my escapes have all been the result of the game glitches. :-/
Regarding feeding costs, @meimento, I've started moving parents out of the enclosures after babies are born and just store them in the market for animals that are expensive to feed (like elephants and lions). It's saved me a ton on feed costs.. Unlike what some folks have reported, my animals in the market are not costing me for feeding. It just takes the game a bit to update the feed costs showing after I move them out of the habitat.
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As discussed on other topics the guest hapiness seems to not be related to their though or to their needs, but to the distance they walk. It is a silly system but it explain clearly the phenomenon you and other users didn't understand : if your service are too far, the guests need will trigger the system to go to toilet and other service but the walk will be very long. This lead to the big decrease of hapiness.
imho It's the worst system of AI never created...
Also, the same topic explained why the hapiness is not related to the balance of found. Because hapiness is neither related to the needs (so you can delete or your service : all the same) nor to the amount of visitor.
The result is that the money from entrance are not driven by hapiness or by the needs in the zoo. The balance is only driven by the costs of employees and other thing like that : to restore balance you can fire some employees. Notice that closing service will not have bad consequences on hapiness as need are not related to hapiness so it ils a good solution.
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@Jaggid Edje, so far luckily no glitches - aside from one guest underground, but that was early on. just helped them onto a path and went about what I was doing.
Guests in this zoo mainly wanting drink, so that one of the focuses. Get a zoo alert myself, I check it. Click the call button. If they take too long I find them or another and move them close to the problem "zone".
Finally have me two Siberian Tigers, but not quite yet placing them down. Focus on the profits currently. And the animals. Tip: even if not so realistic, make use of the PAUSE.
Guests in this zoo mainly wanting drink, so that one of the focuses. Get a zoo alert myself, I check it. Click the call button. If they take too long I find them or another and move them close to the problem "zone".
Finally have me two Siberian Tigers, but not quite yet placing them down. Focus on the profits currently. And the animals. Tip: even if not so realistic, make use of the PAUSE.
Joining in on this topic, I also have issues with the refunds. I had about 4 mil, things were positive but have now dropped to below 2.5 mil due to 100k+ refunds a year, Zoo rating shows 5 stars, only guest happiness rating is 4.5 stars. I have checked many guest thoughts but haven't seen any leave the zoo demanding a refund at all, yet still the refunds are flying out like crazy. My Zoo had it's ups and downs, it is almost 150 years old now but this is just crazy and I don't seem to be able to fix it. Tried firing staff, reassigning my work area's, adding extra guest facilities but the costs remain extremely high.
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Well Pandas only eat Bamboo and huge amounts of that. So it kinda makes sense.
The worst in my Zoo are Orangutans with 40k per feed, and those can be fed really cheap in real life...
There is plenty of bamboo growing right there in my panda enclosure. All the keepers have to do is go in and chop some down. But no, they have to have the finest imported baby bamboo shoots from artisanal farms in deepest Tibet, hand-massaged and bathed in only the purest water from melted snow harvested from the Himalayan peaks.
How many pandas do you have? Looks like quite a lot
handscooped water!
I figured it out. So the original enclosure had 10, then increased to 15 (5 babies). I put those babies in the trade center and another 5 babies were born. Then I put those ones in the trade center. So the game probably treated it like there were 20 pandas in the enclosure (because the babies pandas were assigned to that enclosure).
This is clearly a broken mechanic.
In no way shape or form does ANY amusement park, zoo, retail or ANY BUSINESS for that matter have a time when REFUNDS exceed or come close to your entire staff wages.
This is absolutely bonkers and it's game breaking. It should be hot fixed. It makes many zoos completely unplayable.
Refunds should also never go anywhere close to ticket sales. Your refunds are 70% of your ticket sales. This is unheard of in real life. Refunds usually account for about 10-11% of your total sales AT THE MOST.
A zoo that is allowing refunds on 70% of guests would only ever happen if like a lion broke out and ate a few of the guests and definitely NOT because "I walked too much" or "I didn't get to see the spiders".
It was fixed today. However, it was possible to cope with the refunds. Just after 1.0.3 refunds rose to 60-70k annually, i was able to bring them down to 10k on average. But it took a couple of hours to smooth things.
Now for the whole full first year (after the "hot fix") it's approx 1k.
Hello all! Refunds were a primary focus of our 1.0.4 which went out earlier today. Here's all the information: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/planet-zoo-update-1-0-4.531724/
It should be fixed now, but please continue to report in the Issue Tracker if you're experiencing issues!
It should be fixed now, but please continue to report in the Issue Tracker if you're experiencing issues!
Unfortunately my problem was not solved by the update. The refunds are not less, rather more. I played already 3-4 years after the update.
The new zoo I had started wasn't having the refund problem, close to year 40 and have every habitat animal that I had planned for it (about 40 of them) but the one that I stopped playing because of the refund issue was doing better when I went back into it for an hour or so earlier.
My new zoo is more profitable (making about 150k a year) and a lot bigger though, so I'll just keeping playing that one.
My new zoo is more profitable (making about 150k a year) and a lot bigger though, so I'll just keeping playing that one.
Have you checked the individual non-happy guests (orange and red) to see what their thoughts were? how are the animal escapes and the guests that may accidentally walk on the path?
When I have a zoo that is nearly 5 stars, and less than 600 in refunds, and goes bankrupt the next load up after the .3 patch just in refunds, while still at 5 stars? But people are leaving in droves. I solved the path panic, didn't have an issue with guests walking on paths because all my Staff paths dead-ended to begin with. There was something wrong there.
I don't mind it being a little more difficult. But that was just Permadeath mode.
When I want to punish myself in a management game, I go play Frostpunk. I want to enjoy making my animals happy and building and yeah, play a little of "What the heck does this guest want!" and not, 'Crap, they didn't like 3 people in that line, now they get a refund.'
I've yet to load up after this new patch. Maybe they'll quit being mad long enough to bring in the rest of the guests again and I can gold star the caldera. Which I should have done 3 times over.
I don't mind it being a little more difficult. But that was just Permadeath mode.
When I want to punish myself in a management game, I go play Frostpunk. I want to enjoy making my animals happy and building and yeah, play a little of "What the heck does this guest want!" and not, 'Crap, they didn't like 3 people in that line, now they get a refund.'
I've yet to load up after this new patch. Maybe they'll quit being mad long enough to bring in the rest of the guests again and I can gold star the caldera. Which I should have done 3 times over.
Do the guests really want to see an animal that is no longer present in your Zoo?
I had lions once before the food costs forced me to remove them. There are no more lions in my zoo, but guests still want to see them and demand a refund when they cant (because there are no lions).
Check your guests "animal wishlist" in their thoughts.
Someone wanted to see a Grizzly in my Zoo but I have no Grizzly in the Zoo. I had Grizzlys in the Past. Maybe this can happen if a Animal is in the Trade Center and still assigned to the Zoo