Since guest count seems to be the number 1 factor that butchers my FPS, I limited my guest numbers only to realise that I would go bankrupt because of the lost revenue. If I could limit guest numbers to 1000 and have my expenditure also scale accordingly, I wouldn't go bankrupt and my CPU and GPU would thank me.
Can we have an option to limit guest numbers while also scaling revenue - expenditure in franchise mode?
- Thread starter Eru Iluvatar
- Start date
Balancing everything and not going bankrupt are what defines Franchise and Challenge mode. Take the monetary aspect away and you’d destroy these modes. If your computer can’t handle more visitors, you can always play Sandbox mode. With all the different settings Frontier has added by now, you can keep all the challenging aspects of Franchise, but give yourself more money to deal with a low number of guests or even no guests at all.
Most of the challenging aspects yeah, but not all. There is no option to turn on the need for reasearch which is a huge no-no for me. Also, I have a very good computer, but after a certain size of the zoos, it just become unplayable. The suggestion the OP is asking for would work wonders for us franchise/challenge mode players. Keep the visual guests at 500 while the economy being the same is the best solution for such situation. Playing sandbox is no option for me, I dont enjoy the game in sandbox. I also think "just play sandbox" is a really, really bad solution to this valid suggestion and helps nothing for players that play for actual zoo management, not just building.
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You cannot reset research in Franchise either unless you delete your entire franchise. for me, removing the money aspect from Franchise simply doesn’t make any sense because that is the biggest challenge. Have you tried Sandbox with all the additional management features available? I don’t really feel any difference between Franchise and Sandbox with all management features activated. I love that I can deactivate crime since I don’t have to sink all those cameras into the ground everywhere. But even that is a feature where you have a choice in Sandbox. You can make it as easy or hard on yourself as player or on your computer as you like.
I only play challenge mode, there, you have to research all the items on every nerw map you create. I understand what you are trying to say, but sandbox even with all its setting still does not check all the criteria I play the game for. I know they changed the franchise research to be done on all maps, but i dont nessecary like the change, so that is why I play challenge mode. If I switched to sandbox, even with all the management options turned on, but was forced to turn the unlimited money, so I could lower the guests number, that would be ahuge deal for me. I dont want to play with unlimited money, it is boring for me.
The suggestion here does not suggest to remove money aspect of the franchise/challenge, but merely suggest to limit the visible quests that can be seen on map, but keep all the economy aspects. Basically you would still have for example 3000 guests in park, but you would only see 500 of them on the map, to save more CPU and GPU space.
it’s not so much the graphic presence of the guests slowing down the frame rate (GPU), but all the calculations that happen for each character in the zoo (CPU). Every guest (i.e. guest group) is treated as individual entity, each with their own decisions, thoughts, plans, needs, etc. Pathfinding processes are also constantly running for each guest group whether you see them currently on the screen or not.
You always only see a fraction of your guests on your screen anyways, but all the necessary calculations for each of them are always running full blast in the background. These calculations and their in-game results affect you income, not the number of guests you see on the screen. Without constantly running all these processes in the background for x number of guests, you simply cannot simulate any cash flow corresponding to that number of guests. You’d have to make up that number based on averages and probabilities instead of actual in-game guests making decisions based on what they see and experience at any given time in the zoo (e.g. long lines at a shop, animals not visible, animals sick, too much poop, vandalism, etc.).
You don’t have to play with unlimited money in Sandbox. You can start with as little as you like to get your zoo running. But you can always add more money should you find that a reduced number of guests doesn’t provide enough income anymore. And that is pretty much the same as in Franchise/Challenge - once your zoo is past the initial setup and is running well, it is really difficult to run out of money and the money managing aspect is pretty much irrelevant. If you want to keep this money challenge aspect alive in Sandbox, you could restrict your additional cash “donations” to a certain amount and interval.
You always only see a fraction of your guests on your screen anyways, but all the necessary calculations for each of them are always running full blast in the background. These calculations and their in-game results affect you income, not the number of guests you see on the screen. Without constantly running all these processes in the background for x number of guests, you simply cannot simulate any cash flow corresponding to that number of guests. You’d have to make up that number based on averages and probabilities instead of actual in-game guests making decisions based on what they see and experience at any given time in the zoo (e.g. long lines at a shop, animals not visible, animals sick, too much poop, vandalism, etc.).
You don’t have to play with unlimited money in Sandbox. You can start with as little as you like to get your zoo running. But you can always add more money should you find that a reduced number of guests doesn’t provide enough income anymore. And that is pretty much the same as in Franchise/Challenge - once your zoo is past the initial setup and is running well, it is really difficult to run out of money and the money managing aspect is pretty much irrelevant. If you want to keep this money challenge aspect alive in Sandbox, you could restrict your additional cash “donations” to a certain amount and interval.
Thank you for explaining the technical stuff, I did not know alot of it.
Still, I think it would be possible to make it work with enough balancing. I appreciate you trying to help by giving these advices for sandbox limitation, however I would still prefer if I was not forced to play a different mode instead of my preffered one. I belive Frontier could figure it out so all modes are viable for all kinds of people.
Maybe give Sandbox a try. I was playing only Franchise previously because like you, I like the challenge, but have recently switched to Sandbox after Frontier added all the extra settings. I can happily play without all the tedious, not really challenging things such as placing generators, water cleaners and particularly security cameras everywhere, and still enjoy the challenges I like. And should I run into financial issues due to too few paying guests at a later stage, I don’t feel bad adding more money to my account. For me, Sandbox has become the best of two worlds.
Buying animals can be a hassle, but afaik the mechanism is the same as in Challenge mode, and the Franchise market can be very frustrating and time-consuming as well.
Buying animals can be a hassle, but afaik the mechanism is the same as in Challenge mode, and the Franchise market can be very frustrating and time-consuming as well.
They're not ASKING to remove money. They're asking for "invisible" guests, so they can get the same money as they would normally without the guests destroying them with lag.
This is very true and is something a lot of people don’t understand about the game. However, I think the OP’s request could be implemented. Specifically, if each guest’s total spend were increased and/or costs were reduced, then the effect would be that fewer guests would be required to maintain cash flow.
Nowhere in the original post do I state the removal of any monetary aspect... What I want is to limit the guest numbers while still earning a proportional amount of income. If I had 4000 guests and I limit it to 500, each guest should then spend 4000/500 more with each purchase/donation. And no I don't want to play sandbox.
我在原始帖子中没有任何地方声明删除任何货币方面......我想要的是限制客人人数，同时仍能赚取成比例的收入。如果我有 4000 位客人，并且我将其限制为 500 位，那么每位客人应该在每次购买/捐赠时多花 4000/500。不，我不想玩沙盒。
मूल पोस्ट में कहीं भी मैं किसी भी मौद्रिक पहलू को हटाने का उल्लेख नहीं करता ... मैं जो चाहता हूं वह आय की आनुपातिक राशि अर्जित करते हुए अतिथि संख्या को सीमित करना है। अगर मेरे पास 4000 मेहमान थे और मैं इसे 500 तक सीमित करता हूं, तो प्रत्येक अतिथि को प्रत्येक खरीद/दान के साथ 4000/500 अधिक खर्च करना चाहिए। और नहीं, मैं सैंडबॉक्स नहीं खेलना चाहता।
En ninguna parte de la publicación original declaro la eliminación de ningún aspecto monetario... Lo que quiero es limitar el número de invitados sin dejar de obtener una cantidad proporcional de ingresos. Si tuviera 4000 invitados y lo limito a 500, cada invitado debería gastar 4000/500 más con cada compra/donación. Y no, no quiero jugar al sandbox.
Nulle part dans le message d'origine je n'indique la suppression de tout aspect monétaire... Ce que je veux, c'est limiter le nombre d'invités tout en gagnant un revenu proportionnel. Si j'avais 4000 invités et que je le limite à 500, chaque invité devrait alors dépenser 4000/500 de plus à chaque achat/don. Et non, je ne veux pas jouer au bac à sable.
لا أذكر في أي مكان في المنشور الأصلي إزالة أي جانب نقدي ... ما أريده هو الحد من أعداد الضيوف مع الاستمرار في كسب مبلغ متناسب من الدخل. إذا كان لدي 4000 ضيف وقصرته على 500 ، فيجب على كل ضيف أن ينفق 4000/500 أكثر مع كل عملية شراء / تبرع. ولا أريد أن ألعب رمل.
Нигде в исходном посте я не заявляю об удалении какого-либо денежного аспекта... Я хочу ограничить количество гостей, при этом получая пропорциональную сумму дохода. Если бы у меня было 4000 гостей, и я ограничил их до 500, каждый гость должен был бы потратить на 4000/500 больше с каждой покупкой/пожертвованием. И нет, я не хочу играть в песочницу.
Think of PZ like a huge board game where every player takes their turn and during their turn, they can take a series of actions. The second player has to wait until the first player has made all their decisions and finished all actions before they can start their turn because their reaction will depend on the previous players’ moves. The third has to wait for the first and second player and so on.
Computers can handle a certain number of guests so fast that the user perceives it as simultaneously, but the more animals, zoo staff members and guests there are, the longer it takes the computer to finish the calculations of all the actions of each of these “players” before starting the next round. 1 frame corresponds to one round. This is why the frame rate slows down. The more complicated the board - the players’ environment - becomes - e.g. lots of terra forming that makes movement calculations much more complex, more choices as to what to do next for the guests, etc. -, the more interdependent actions there are, the more complicated the decision process becomes, the longer the calculations will take, the slower the frame rate will be. There is a reason Frontier created guest groups of up to six guests that in many ways act as if they were a single person - it saves a ton of calculations.
If you’d reduce the number of guests and all the calculations that need to take place before the next frame without losing income, each group of guests would have to represent a proportional number of guests, e.g. if instead of 5000 guests you’d only have 500, each guests would represent 10 guests, i.e. ten previously individual actions would become 10 absolutely identical actions. This would have consequences for the game play.
You could still theoretically simulate long lines in front of a shop, but there would only be a single person waiting to be served instead of 10. The shop employee could sell this one guest 10 hamburgers at once to keep the income steady. There would by default always be a line that would cause unhappy guests if just a single guest would need to be served. Since I suspect that the size of guests groups is already handled in a similar way, it would mean that a group of six guests would now represent 60 guests. All guests would continuously be complaining about lines, wait times, etc., which in turn impacts their happiness > length of stay > amount of donations > income. I.e. you would not achieve what you envision: the same amount of income with lower amount of guests while not affecting the Franchise simulation in any other way. You’d have overcrowding issues even with only a few visible guests. You’d have no visible cues of underlying management issues.
Also, if your zoo is large, you need to spread your guests out as evenly as possible to avoid issues. With each guests representing x number of guests - and a group of six guests 6x number of guests -, the probability that you’d end up with shops having no guests while others have invisible long lines is high, i.e. practically none of your shops would run efficiently and you’d lose lots of income. Which again would defy the purpose of this “exercise”.
In order to avoid this type of problems, you’d have to increase the income each of the fixed number of 500 guests brings in in proportion to the size of your zoo. You already do that to some extent by increasing the entrance price. But you cannot increase other costs in the zoo without making the guests unhappy, which would again result in a big loss of income.
Or you’d have to make guests and their part of the simulation completely independent of money (i.e. the afore mentioned removal of the money aspect), for instance by taking away the correlation between happiness and spending money so that guest donate lots of money even if they’re unhappy or hungry, etc. Just increase the amount if money each ne guest brings independent of the actual simulation. Consequently, it would not matter if certain needs are not fulfilled, your zoo would have x amount of money in addition to the income generated by the guests. In other words, turn Franchise into Sandbox mode.
The management of the many aspects of PZ is a very complex system that took Frontier a very long time to set up and fine tune to get everything in balance. You remove or shift one major block of this system and you destroy the balance - and with it the challenges of Franchise/Challenge mode.
The best option for a player running into fps issues is to play in Sandbox where the balance issues are not important because it is not a fully interdependent simulation - or rather, you decide how interdependent you want it to be (and how much your fps will be impacted). Guests will be happy no matter how long the lines or how crowded certain areas are if you so want, so you won’t lose any money due to unhappy guests. Or you can play with unlimited money (or add money if you run into issues due to lack of guests) and keep all other parts of the simulation (and challenge) alive. Aspects of the full simulation will be taken away, money, happiness, animal wellfare, etc. and it will affect the overall game play. You cannot have one without the other. Full simulation in Franchise with full impact on fps, or a reduced simulation with fps gain in Sandbox.
Any simulation aspect you turn off will result in a better frame rate. Everything automatically powered - no calculations of decreasing energy ranges for x generators before they need to be repaired, no energy costs to be calculated, no staff requirements to be calculated, etc. No tired guests - no calculations of their increasing tiredness based on time, the distances they walk, etc. You get the idea. But you have to turn off parts of the simulation - otherwise you’d still be doing the same calculations in the background as before In Franchise.
Computers can handle a certain number of guests so fast that the user perceives it as simultaneously, but the more animals, zoo staff members and guests there are, the longer it takes the computer to finish the calculations of all the actions of each of these “players” before starting the next round. 1 frame corresponds to one round. This is why the frame rate slows down. The more complicated the board - the players’ environment - becomes - e.g. lots of terra forming that makes movement calculations much more complex, more choices as to what to do next for the guests, etc. -, the more interdependent actions there are, the more complicated the decision process becomes, the longer the calculations will take, the slower the frame rate will be. There is a reason Frontier created guest groups of up to six guests that in many ways act as if they were a single person - it saves a ton of calculations.
If you’d reduce the number of guests and all the calculations that need to take place before the next frame without losing income, each group of guests would have to represent a proportional number of guests, e.g. if instead of 5000 guests you’d only have 500, each guests would represent 10 guests, i.e. ten previously individual actions would become 10 absolutely identical actions. This would have consequences for the game play.
You could still theoretically simulate long lines in front of a shop, but there would only be a single person waiting to be served instead of 10. The shop employee could sell this one guest 10 hamburgers at once to keep the income steady. There would by default always be a line that would cause unhappy guests if just a single guest would need to be served. Since I suspect that the size of guests groups is already handled in a similar way, it would mean that a group of six guests would now represent 60 guests. All guests would continuously be complaining about lines, wait times, etc., which in turn impacts their happiness > length of stay > amount of donations > income. I.e. you would not achieve what you envision: the same amount of income with lower amount of guests while not affecting the Franchise simulation in any other way. You’d have overcrowding issues even with only a few visible guests. You’d have no visible cues of underlying management issues.
Also, if your zoo is large, you need to spread your guests out as evenly as possible to avoid issues. With each guests representing x number of guests - and a group of six guests 6x number of guests -, the probability that you’d end up with shops having no guests while others have invisible long lines is high, i.e. practically none of your shops would run efficiently and you’d lose lots of income. Which again would defy the purpose of this “exercise”.
In order to avoid this type of problems, you’d have to increase the income each of the fixed number of 500 guests brings in in proportion to the size of your zoo. You already do that to some extent by increasing the entrance price. But you cannot increase other costs in the zoo without making the guests unhappy, which would again result in a big loss of income.
Or you’d have to make guests and their part of the simulation completely independent of money (i.e. the afore mentioned removal of the money aspect), for instance by taking away the correlation between happiness and spending money so that guest donate lots of money even if they’re unhappy or hungry, etc. Just increase the amount if money each ne guest brings independent of the actual simulation. Consequently, it would not matter if certain needs are not fulfilled, your zoo would have x amount of money in addition to the income generated by the guests. In other words, turn Franchise into Sandbox mode.
The management of the many aspects of PZ is a very complex system that took Frontier a very long time to set up and fine tune to get everything in balance. You remove or shift one major block of this system and you destroy the balance - and with it the challenges of Franchise/Challenge mode.
The best option for a player running into fps issues is to play in Sandbox where the balance issues are not important because it is not a fully interdependent simulation - or rather, you decide how interdependent you want it to be (and how much your fps will be impacted). Guests will be happy no matter how long the lines or how crowded certain areas are if you so want, so you won’t lose any money due to unhappy guests. Or you can play with unlimited money (or add money if you run into issues due to lack of guests) and keep all other parts of the simulation (and challenge) alive. Aspects of the full simulation will be taken away, money, happiness, animal wellfare, etc. and it will affect the overall game play. You cannot have one without the other. Full simulation in Franchise with full impact on fps, or a reduced simulation with fps gain in Sandbox.
Any simulation aspect you turn off will result in a better frame rate. Everything automatically powered - no calculations of decreasing energy ranges for x generators before they need to be repaired, no energy costs to be calculated, no staff requirements to be calculated, etc. No tired guests - no calculations of their increasing tiredness based on time, the distances they walk, etc. You get the idea. But you have to turn off parts of the simulation - otherwise you’d still be doing the same calculations in the background as before In Franchise.
Yeah, turth is as much as I love the game Frontier very much messed up on the guest balance thing. Whoever thought is was a good idea to throw that many thinking and acting people in in addition to everything else: it was not. It should've been balanced out in a way that requires way less guests to enter the zoo from the get go (same issue with PC already btw) And it can work that way, just look at other zoo simulators like ZT2 (max of 120 guests) and WLP. There are way less guests coming in and needed to make everything run and PZ should've been the same. But yeah, now it's probably waaay too late to change anything about that sadly and many gotta live with way smaller zoos than they'd like in modes like franchise, because the guest numbers required to not go bankrupt drive performance into the ground.
Lots that’s not wrong per say, but does ignore alternative possibilities. For example:
or hamburgers just cost 10x as much (or all costs are reduced to 10% of standard). Each guest still represents 1 guest but either profit per guest is multiplied or costs are reduced (either works). It would change some of the dynamics (number of shops/amenities, need for careful pathing, number of bins, etc.) but most of those are a bit over the top at present anyway TBH and the gameplay would be substantively the same (and would not ruin any mode any more than game difficulty does).
My math skills are not the greatest, but raising costs by factor 10 is not equal to a reduction by 10%. Increase 10 by 10 = 100, reduce 10 by 10% = 9. The reduction would have to be 100% to equal a multiplication by 10. I.e. food would be free in your calculation!
. A true 10% reduction will not make such a great difference. Instead of getting fps issues at 1000 guests, you’d get them at 1100 guests. An increase by a factor of 10 would be more effective. With just a lower number of guests in a larger zoo, you’d still run into issues. Not enough customers, staff will get bored and quit, animals will not be seen by enough guests to raise their star ratings, animals might become unpopular and not attract guests enough, and there might be more interdependencies we are not aware of.
And most importantly, what happens to the challenge of running/managing a zoo? In order to keep the financial simulation somewhat challenging, you’d also need to increase a bunch of other factors directly related to the income proportionally: the costs of staff salaries, animal food costs, repairs, fines, animals in the market, decorations, buildings, building parts, etc., otherwise, you might as well play with unlimited money, one of the reasons people don’t want to play Sandbox - not challenging enough. It is simply no proper challenge or zoo management to run a beautiful zoo with even only twice as much income with no cost increase at your disposal. You might as well play in Sandbox where you can adjust the degree of challenge on the fly.
If you read what I said you’ll see that I said a reduction to 10%, not of 10%.My math skills are not the greatest, but raising costs by factor 10 is not equal to a reduction by 10%. Increase 10 by 10 = 100, reduce 10 by 10% = 9. The reduction would have to be 100% to equal a multiplication by 10. I.e. food would be free in your calculation!
As I said, other factors would be affected. Given that there are already difficulty modes, though, an option to alter the economy to save FPS seems reasonable to me.