A true Career mode

[breezerHOG1]

Career mode is just a collection of scenarios, and the progression or challenge seems lacking. So, how could a real career mode work?

The challenge would be to start out small, and work your way up to owning your own park. You would start out as a "travelling carnival" that setups up rides at various locations, for a limited time. You would have only a few months in a given location, before you would have to move to a new location. There would be a world map (not earth but a pretend map) with places you could choose to go. Each location would have a variety of conditions, climate, guest demographics, etc.

When you begin the career, you would have difficulty options similar to challenge mode, which would change how much starting cash you have. But you would start with a couple small flat rides, and shops. Carnivals usually don't have too much theme'd scenery, and the terrain would not be allowed to change. The maps would also be much smaller.

You would have a set amount of time in each location to gain profits, It could vary from location to location, but I'm thinking between 4-8 months in game would be good. At the end of the "round" or pay cycle, the rides you own would be saved in your "collection" and can be replaced for free in your next location, unless you choose to sell them.

Each location would have different guest requirements, and a unique challenge if you impress your guests. If you fail to impress your guests, your carnival will receive a lower rating and you will not be welcome to return to that location.

Once your carnival makes enough money, you will find that the size of your park is too big to fit into the locations that are available for carnivals. And having to rebuild your coaster every few months is not worth it. This is when you would save up enough money to buy your very own land.

It could be possible to sell some of your existing rides to buy the land, and it would also be possible to continue your carnival, and your official theme park, at the same time! Your theme park however, would be your primary focus, and it would have competition. There would be other theme parks trying to steal your guests, and vandalize your park. You would want to try and buy them out so that you can own every park in the world.

Maybe we could design our own if we had a scenario editor https://forums.planetcoaster.com/showthread.php/29043-Scenario-Editor-More [yesnod]

 

[Dolenz]

and the progression or challenge seems lacking.

Speak for yourself. My coaster building skills suck so those tasks are a major challenge to me.

 

[breezerHOG1]

Speak for yourself. My coaster building skills suck so those tasks are a major challenge to me.

thats exactly my point. the game doesnt have a good progression from beginner to experienced. many of the objectives are boring, but then you get the occasional one that is really tough. I dont have a problem making good coasters, but I have played a lot of RCT and know how to design some what decent coasters. But the career mode should start off with more of a tutorial for beginners, and have more of a focus on teaching players how to build a coaster rather than just expecting them to know how, and progressively get more challenging rather than just having a couple random objectives that you occasionally get hung up on

 

[Chems]

I like you ideas. I remember when you fist started playing RCT1 you began with a very small park and only the simplest rides unlocked and slowly started to unlock more rides. For instance, you started with the junior coaster. After some time you unlocked the wooden coaster that could be build higher and have more interesting elements and this would go on and on.

By slowly introducing the player to more advanced rides and mechanics, the game gives players the feeling they really accomplished something. It would also be a great way to teach the player the mechanics of the game.

 

[breezerHOG1]

Yes Ive said that before about RCT1. The progression from a small junion coaster, to wooden, to looping, to inverted was perfect to help new players learn the game. It took me a while before I could build a coaster with inversions beyond a basic boomerang.

PC just throws everything at you at once

 

[Replica]

Or just like,

A custom scenery editor that lets you tweak these things and set up the tech tree yourself.

That might be a little easier to implement than such a radical and major thing.

 

[widlanquebec]

Great ideas. The ideas of starting with a carnival and the competition were suggested many times and the more I think about it, the more I like these.

The sense of achievement would be a lot better to have this kind of story mode where we start small and grow bigger. Personally, I don't care about being able to continue the carnival and the "real park" at the same time...

About the competition is the point that would be awesome and really add challenge. We should be able to see demographic to see how many teens, family, adults there's and see how much our park and the competing park do. If we do less good than competition, we could add rides, make marketing, etc. and we should be able to see attractiveness of our park in the UI to be able to adjust against the other(s) park(s). It would really add a lot of fun and challenge to have competition.

 

[Kickflip]

Great ideas. The ideas of starting with a carnival and the competition were suggested many times and the more I think about it, the more I like these.

The sense of achievement would be a lot better to have this kind of story mode where we start small and grow bigger. Personally, I don't care about being able to continue the carnival and the "real park" at the same time...

About the competition is the point that would be awesome and really add challenge. We should be able to see demographic to see how many teens, family, adults there's and see how much our park and the competing park do. If we do less good than competition, we could add rides, make marketing, etc. and we should be able to see attractiveness of our park in the UI to be able to adjust against the other(s) park(s). It would really add a lot of fun and challenge to have competition.

I would much rather have a separate career mode that was handled like the game dev sims where you start a little park somewhere with the rides available limited by the year. I wouldn't do a tech tree, just introduce new rides as you get to the point they were actually invented and then have off-screen competitors
with their semi-random park scores competing for the same local/regional/global tourists.
I would suggest the starting map be small with extra plots that are purchaseable for expansion as the park grows like other games in this genre.

 

[matty b1]

Brilliant.

I was thinking something like this (a career) was a given during alpha.

 

[Charley]

I like this idea. It would give more of a progression to career mode.

Also, as it stands at the moment the only really "end game" for career mode is to build you park till your GPU/CPU gives out.

It would be nice to have a goal rather than, build as big as I can then start a new map.

 

[Took]

I love your idea. This would be a real career mode.

[yesnod][up]

 

[Ddef12]

I would love this. When I play in sandbox I often set up my park and build it pretending to start as a small operation in the past and imagine my park as it progresses through the years to current time. I'd love for my imaginative way of playing to be a featured career mode that is real.

 

[SirTophamHatt]

Yes Ive said that before about RCT1. The progression from a small junion coaster, to wooden, to looping, to inverted was perfect to help new players learn the game. It took me a while before I could build a coaster with inversions beyond a basic boomerang.

PC just throws everything at you at once

Does it?

The first Career gives me less rides (even through researching) than the later ones.

I've not even looked at Sandbox yet. When I've finished the Career and Challenges, then I'll naturally move on to creating my own park with no restrictions. People who think games like this are build for the Sandbox are simply missing the point of the game. The Sandbox isn't the main driver and it should never be so.

 

[matty b1]

Any 'career' certainly isn't a driver. I think creativity is the driver, therefore, sandbox mode.

 

[Wablamo0821]

The point of the game is to play the game and enjoy your time. Whether people play challenge, sandbox, or career, as long as they are enjoying themselves is all that matters. Life is to short to worry about playing the game "your way" or any other way other than what you find enjoyable.

 

[Alexman]

Any 'career' certainly isn't a driver. I think creativity is the driver, therefore, sandbox mode.

I find sandbox mode just a blueprint designer, I usually just stay with challenge mode.

but going back to the topic, I think if the career mode was set up somewhat like Cities: Skylines, that the more you expand your park, like guest limits or what not, you get the ability to buy more land or new ride types.

 

[Ryzian]

The management aspects of the game definitely leave a lot to be desired. However, if you think about the vision and directions the developers are taking with the game - it does not make sense to be dedicating time to develop a Story or more regimented Career mode.

Planet Coaster is supposed to be a game where you play the way you want, and you design the park the way you want. It's focused on the creative aspect, and it makes more sense for developers to be focusing on expanding that element, giving you more options to design your way - vs. creating an "on the rails" career mode.

The game could definitely benefit from expanding management aspects, but I don't think Career mode needs to rely more heavily on it.

 

[breezerHOG1]

It's focused on the creative aspect, and it makes more sense for developers to be focusing on expanding that element

I don't see how adding a career mode would "hurt" the freedom of creativity. You will still have sandbox, but this idea would bring more players into the game, the kind of players who are not super creative. Cant PC offer both those types of a gaming experience? I have a few friends who would probably play PC if they didn't feel so overwhelmed by the "freedom" aspect of the game. Anyway if I had a choice between "career" or "more management" I would definitely choose more management like in my other thread here https://forums.planetcoaster.com/sh...e-Career-and-Staff-Management-with-Facilities

 

[PC_OCD]

I like your ideas for the career mode. It would be really nice if career mode actually felt like a career.. but before something like that, I would rather the devs focus on giving us more content for what is already in the game... We need more flat rides, track rides, scenery, props, themes, and customizations, and management needs a backbone. Maybe somewhere in the future, they expand the career mode but I feel the game has fallen short of some of the basic content that I miss from RCT series like water rides and go carts (Hoping that little screenshot tease with go cart track is for real).

Your ideas are really good though, and I also would love to see an improvement to the career mode.

 

[cerealfruitcakes]

My idea of a career mode would be something of a mix between RCT scenario's and the original Theme Park. In Theme Park you'd purchase park land from around the world and once you've accumulated enough $$ you could purchase new land to start a new park.

So take that and imagine in PC where you have locations you can purchase all over the globe that act as the scenario's. In the beginning, you'd only be able to afford one location that's a small park with the basics which essentially acts as the tutorial level. Once you complete the objectives and have accumulated enough $$ you can return to the globe to purchase the next park/scenario (the more $ you have the more choices available).