I followed a handful of guests during their entire stay in my park to try and understand their behavior. I made a chart but it won't let me attach the picture. The error message doesn't specify why.
Background
Certain areas of my park are virtually empty, despite having the most appealing animals. I added transit stations from the front of the park to these exhibits, but it didn't help much. I also changed the guest settings (in sandbox) so that they would stay longer. I decided to do a more in-depth investigation into why guests are not travelling to these areas, as well as why education and happiness levels were lower than I would expect. For reference, I have 23 habitats in my zoo, plus a reptile house with 10 exhibits.
Findings
Test Guest
Habitats seen: 7
Exhibits seen: 0
Favorite animals seen: 1/5
Habitat education boards viewed: 1/7
General education boards viewed: 0
Donations: 0
The first problem I noticed is that guests often want to see animals that exist in the trade center only. These animals do not have habitats and are not on display anywhere in the zoo. The first guest I looked at had 2/5 favorite animals in the trade center. 2 of his favorite animals were in the reptile house, but he walked through the entire reptile house on 3 separate occasions, and did not view these animals, or any other reptiles.
Guests choose which habitats to visit in a way that is very inefficient and seems random. All of the guests I followed chose to head to a habitat on the other side of the park when they first entered. They all changed their minds before arriving at these habitats. None attempted to use the transportation rides, even when they went directly from the entrance of the park to the target habitat. I can't upload the screenshot, but my park is in 4 distinct sections, all pretty far apart. In real life, guests would view all the habitats in section 1 before moving on to section 2. Zoos generally have a clear path to follow so that guests don't miss anything or get lost. Guests behaving this way would not have to walk far between habitats. The first guest I followed walked past all of section 1, viewed one habitat in section 2, went back to section 1 and viewed 1 habitat, and then walked past sections 1 and 2 to get to section 3. It took a long time and he complained about the walking. Only one of the habitats he chose contained a favorite animal, despite some favorites being nearby.
He first targeted a habitat in section 2, viewed it, and then headed to a favorite animal in section 1. Before he reached his favorite animal, he stopped at a habitat right next to the favorite animal. After viewing the neighboring habitat, he inexplicably decided not to view the favorite animal. He then targeted a favorite animal in section 3, which was very far away. Before reaching the animal, he stopped to view two other neighboring habitats in section 3. From there, he wandered around section 3, viewing the same habitats multiple times and looking for a drink stall. Several times, he decided to take the train to a drink stall at the front of the park before changing his mind.
I am focusing on this particular guest because the others were plagued by bugs. The second guest got stuck viewing her second habitat (I think), and then fled despite no escaped animals. The guest also viewed animals while standing next to education speakers, but they did not become more educated. I assume this is a bug. The guest almost never chose the view the habitat education boards and completely ignored the larger general education boards.
How Transportation Rides Make Everything Worse
Transportation rides transport guests much more slowly than walking, in most cases. I watched a transportation queue and it took 10 months for the guest to board the train, not including actual transit time. I have two trains lines at every station, going in opposite directions. At one of the entrance stations, every guest in the queue was queuing to "go home." Even though they are a few steps from the park exit, they decided to use the train to leave. I don't know how or why they can leave using the train, but they clogged the queue preventing guests from using the train to view faraway habitats. Because guests are stuck in transport queues for 10-13 months, their happiness plummets despite green needs and "amazing" station scenery. For guests with a set time limit in the zoo, it wastes 15% or more of their stay.
Conclusions
In a small zoo with a handful of habitats, this behavior doesn't matter much. The guest can choose habitats at random and not have to travel very far. They can see every habitat in the zoo fairly easily. The maps provided are huge and that's awesome, but guest behavior doesn't make sense in a large park. It's very frustrating to see a guest say "I wish I could have stayed longer to see the iguana" when I saw him pass the iguana exhibit 3 times and not look at it. Or when he wants to see an animal that is not actually in my zoo. Guests with hugely inefficient routes clog up the zoo, wasting time wandering around without viewing animals, becoming educated, or gaining happiness. I'm sure that the randomness was implemented to get guests to spread out and not clump up at the zoo entrance, but it's causing problems and I think there is a better solution. Maybe the first habitat choice is random, but all subsequent decisions are based on proximity. That way, the guests "start" in different places around the zoo, but they follow a logical and efficient path from there until they get tired and leave. They also shouldn't view the same habitat multiple times (habitat A, then habitat B, then back to A.) This would work well with the transport rides too, since guests who initially choose a far-away habitat can travel there by train, while those with close habitats can walk. Once they view all the habitats in an area, they can get on the train and ride to a different area rather than doubling back (if that makes sense for the layout of that particular zoo.) Transport rides really need to be faster and more efficient to support large zoos.
Background
Certain areas of my park are virtually empty, despite having the most appealing animals. I added transit stations from the front of the park to these exhibits, but it didn't help much. I also changed the guest settings (in sandbox) so that they would stay longer. I decided to do a more in-depth investigation into why guests are not travelling to these areas, as well as why education and happiness levels were lower than I would expect. For reference, I have 23 habitats in my zoo, plus a reptile house with 10 exhibits.
Findings
Test Guest
Habitats seen: 7
Exhibits seen: 0
Favorite animals seen: 1/5
Habitat education boards viewed: 1/7
General education boards viewed: 0
Donations: 0
The first problem I noticed is that guests often want to see animals that exist in the trade center only. These animals do not have habitats and are not on display anywhere in the zoo. The first guest I looked at had 2/5 favorite animals in the trade center. 2 of his favorite animals were in the reptile house, but he walked through the entire reptile house on 3 separate occasions, and did not view these animals, or any other reptiles.
Guests choose which habitats to visit in a way that is very inefficient and seems random. All of the guests I followed chose to head to a habitat on the other side of the park when they first entered. They all changed their minds before arriving at these habitats. None attempted to use the transportation rides, even when they went directly from the entrance of the park to the target habitat. I can't upload the screenshot, but my park is in 4 distinct sections, all pretty far apart. In real life, guests would view all the habitats in section 1 before moving on to section 2. Zoos generally have a clear path to follow so that guests don't miss anything or get lost. Guests behaving this way would not have to walk far between habitats. The first guest I followed walked past all of section 1, viewed one habitat in section 2, went back to section 1 and viewed 1 habitat, and then walked past sections 1 and 2 to get to section 3. It took a long time and he complained about the walking. Only one of the habitats he chose contained a favorite animal, despite some favorites being nearby.
He first targeted a habitat in section 2, viewed it, and then headed to a favorite animal in section 1. Before he reached his favorite animal, he stopped at a habitat right next to the favorite animal. After viewing the neighboring habitat, he inexplicably decided not to view the favorite animal. He then targeted a favorite animal in section 3, which was very far away. Before reaching the animal, he stopped to view two other neighboring habitats in section 3. From there, he wandered around section 3, viewing the same habitats multiple times and looking for a drink stall. Several times, he decided to take the train to a drink stall at the front of the park before changing his mind.
I am focusing on this particular guest because the others were plagued by bugs. The second guest got stuck viewing her second habitat (I think), and then fled despite no escaped animals. The guest also viewed animals while standing next to education speakers, but they did not become more educated. I assume this is a bug. The guest almost never chose the view the habitat education boards and completely ignored the larger general education boards.
How Transportation Rides Make Everything Worse
Transportation rides transport guests much more slowly than walking, in most cases. I watched a transportation queue and it took 10 months for the guest to board the train, not including actual transit time. I have two trains lines at every station, going in opposite directions. At one of the entrance stations, every guest in the queue was queuing to "go home." Even though they are a few steps from the park exit, they decided to use the train to leave. I don't know how or why they can leave using the train, but they clogged the queue preventing guests from using the train to view faraway habitats. Because guests are stuck in transport queues for 10-13 months, their happiness plummets despite green needs and "amazing" station scenery. For guests with a set time limit in the zoo, it wastes 15% or more of their stay.
Conclusions
In a small zoo with a handful of habitats, this behavior doesn't matter much. The guest can choose habitats at random and not have to travel very far. They can see every habitat in the zoo fairly easily. The maps provided are huge and that's awesome, but guest behavior doesn't make sense in a large park. It's very frustrating to see a guest say "I wish I could have stayed longer to see the iguana" when I saw him pass the iguana exhibit 3 times and not look at it. Or when he wants to see an animal that is not actually in my zoo. Guests with hugely inefficient routes clog up the zoo, wasting time wandering around without viewing animals, becoming educated, or gaining happiness. I'm sure that the randomness was implemented to get guests to spread out and not clump up at the zoo entrance, but it's causing problems and I think there is a better solution. Maybe the first habitat choice is random, but all subsequent decisions are based on proximity. That way, the guests "start" in different places around the zoo, but they follow a logical and efficient path from there until they get tired and leave. They also shouldn't view the same habitat multiple times (habitat A, then habitat B, then back to A.) This would work well with the transport rides too, since guests who initially choose a far-away habitat can travel there by train, while those with close habitats can walk. Once they view all the habitats in an area, they can get on the train and ride to a different area rather than doubling back (if that makes sense for the layout of that particular zoo.) Transport rides really need to be faster and more efficient to support large zoos.
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