General feeling about the game

there's a lot of good discussion in this thread.
i played from alpha 1 to just before steam, and then took a break for months (6?) until feb this year.
but when i tried to explain why, here, i felt unwelcome rather quickly.
so mostly i only say what i like now. i rarely share what i don't like, or what i wish for.
which is a shame, because Frontier don't get the truth of my reality, only the sanitised agreeable version.
many of the "original chcs" from alpha rarely or never appear here, and CHC seems to have been killed off and sent to discord.
why? did they complain too much?
Angelis and Coasterbuff, where you at?
so, "general feeling about the game"?
it's not finished. it's beautiful. spectacular. and it's missing many RCT1-3 features that i assumed would be there.
so, the hype-hypertrain crashed and became the mildly excited tricycle, for me.

if the no-fee upgrades continue, it's all good. i can wait.
i do love it, no doubt... i have considered going back to RCT3 a few times (haven't though), and that frustrates me - PC should be a "better game", i should never be thinking "dammit i'll play rct3 so i can do this or that, and wait for PC to catch up".

yeah. so. rant over. agreeable mode reactivated.

I stopped commenting after I and other people being critical of the game, were basically accused of being a reason why the devs don't wanna work on the game anymore. One of the devs came in and said that the negativity was affecting their work ethic, and someone else pointed a finger saying that we were the reason for that. Gave me a really bad taste in my mouth, know others felt the same way about it too...

I still care about this game, but it's really becoming clearer and clearer that the devs don't really aim to please their core audience, but they're aiming for the the general public, which is fine and understandable. It just results in a game that I don't really wanna play unfortunately.
 
While I personally haven't seen the supposed dev response you're referring to, Stream, that would indeed be discouraging to hear if it's true.

From the moment we saw that very first trailer for PC I believe we all knew that Frontier was aiming for an incredibly ambitious goal. The thing is, such lofty aspirations also come with the burden of intense expectations, especially from fans of the RCT franchise and the park sim genre in general. I imagine that burden can indeed become crushing at times if the dev team is really monitoring all the feedback on these threads; it may often sound like (collectively) we'll never be satisfied and that all we want to do is complain.

For the record, that isn't true. I know that I and most other posters here genuinely care about PC and love what we've seen so far. We all most likely have our own "Wish Lists" of things we hope to see added or addressed, and of course we're vocal about expressing those things. And while I know that the tendency to point out technical issues or limitations may seem to emphasize the negative, the vast majority of such complaints aren't trying to troll or to trash the game; they really love PC and want it to be the very best it can be. To the devs who may be spending weeks or months tweaking a single mechanical feature or currently focusing on a different aspect of Planet Coaster, however, it may come across as impatience, like we're demanding they steer a train, especially if there isn't enough positive reinforcement to balance things out a bit.

That's why I believe it's crucial to never post a complaint here without A) being tactful and considerate and B) offering to the best of your ability any potential solutions to your issue. That's what feedback is all about, after all. The devs are human, and obviously they have feelings. Put yourself in their shoes and imagine trying to meet all these expectations from the community. PC is only nearing its first anniversary (I'm technically counting the alpha); I believe there's a lot more to come and that Frontier's going to meet most if not all of them at some point. I think that the devs could use a little encouragement and a kind word every now and then to keep their passion ignited and remind them of why they're doing this.
 
Hi James. Yes I am still here but just staying in the background

Hi ! Thanks for the reply, nice to hear from you!

I stopped commenting after I and other people being critical of the game, were basically accused of being a reason why the devs don't wanna work on the game anymore. ...

I remember that vividly. I was a bit shocked by the tone of that thread. Obviously the devs and designers pour a lot of love and thought into what they build, so when we are not perfectly and unanimously and unconditionally amazed, it's a real let down for them. I get that.

And it's not really necessary. The only way to have unanimous unconditional amazement is to have about 35 customers, tops. Or maybe 25. 5? So we the players, and the hardworking awesome people at Frontier, must accept that a large fan base is a diverse fan base, and the players disagree with each other as much as we disagree with Frontier!

. . . if the dev team is really monitoring all the feedback on these threads; it may often sound like (collectively) we'll never be satisfied and that all we want to do is complain.

For the record, that isn't true. I know that I and most other posters here genuinely care about PC and love what we've seen so far.

Yes. We call it feedback though, right? :)

. . . it's crucial to never post a complaint here without A) being tactful and considerate and B) offering to the best of your ability any potential solutions to your issue.
. . . I think that the devs could use a little encouragement and a kind word every now and then to keep their passion ignited and remind them of why they're doing this.

Good advice. And Frontier must relax a little about our responses. "I do like your haircut, but I'm afraid you look fat in those jeans". Hmmm. Always going to be tricky. Doesn't mean I hate you. Quite the opposite in fact.
 
I still care about this game, but it's really becoming clearer and clearer that the devs don't really aim to please their core audience, but they're aiming for the the general public, which is fine and understandable. It just results in a game that I don't really wanna play unfortunately.

I think they are aiming for their core audience. RCT has been around all these years because of the community's passion for sharing their creations and UGC. The devs specifically went after creating, "UGC in a box" and we've seen that demonstrated in action with the crazy community creations that have been made without actual UGC. I think they know exactly who their target audience is and who's in it for the long term that will keep supporting it.
 
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Love the April update but this game needs themes to add life to this game I dont even mind if i have to pay for say 3 or 4 new themes as some sort of dlc
I mean games been out since November and still no prehistoric theme or anything like ancient Rome\ Greece or lost city of Atlantis ...don't get me wrong this game is amazing but we need themes badly
 
Love the April update but this game needs themes to add life to this game I dont even mind if i have to pay for say 3 or 4 new themes as some sort of dlc
I mean games been out since November and still no prehistoric theme or anything like ancient Rome\ Greece or lost city of Atlantis ...don't get me wrong this game is amazing but we need themes badly

I think we will get more themes over the next twelve months, but as an expansion packs, like we had with RCT3. These won't be free and will have to be paid for, which I think is only fair, we can't expect everything for nothing.

There is still a lot of things that Frontier are probably still working on, such as a Scenario Editor, so we can create and set our own goals for developing our parks.

More themes are probably in the pipe line and more transport rides, such as boats and cable cars, which are the main two I can think of. Like I said, we are not going to get everything for free, at some point in the games development, we are going to have to pay. But I am sure PC will be looking much different and better by this time next year.

The game has not even been out twelve months, since its final release and look what we have got so far. Frontier are doing a great job with this game and although it is not yet up to par with RCT3, as far as content is concerned, I am sure they are aiming to reach that level and beyond. PC is a long term development, which Frontier stated at the beginning, so we will just have bide our time and wait for more additions over the next twelve months.
Rome wasn't built in a day!
 
That's why I believe it's crucial to never post a complaint here without A) being tactful and considerate and B) offering to the best of your ability any potential solutions to your issue. That's what feedback is all about, after all. The devs are human, and obviously they have feelings. Put yourself in their shoes and imagine trying to meet all these expectations from the community. PC is only nearing its first anniversary (I'm technically counting the alpha); I believe there's a lot more to come and that Frontier's going to meet most if not all of them at some point. I think that the devs could use a little encouragement and a kind word every now and then to keep their passion ignited and remind them of why they're doing this.

I have seen very little flat out disrespect, but I used to see a lot of criticism, which almost completely stopped with this instance I described above taking place. It was a long time that you got heavily criticized if you didn't first write a paragraph praising the game before you got to your complaint, which was just silly. As soon as someone only wrote criticisms they got attacked.
 
I think they are aiming for their core audience. RCT has been around all these years because of the community's passion for sharing their creations and UGC. The devs specifically went after creating, "UGC in a box" and we've seen that demonstrated in action with the crazy community creations that have been made without actual UGC. I think they know exactly who their target audience is and who's in it for the long term that will keep supporting it.

To some extent, sure, removing the collision is basically one of those things that core audiences will appreciate, but the fact is that they also ignore a vast majority of wishes that the "old veterans" of the genres have been wishing for. I feel like they're definitely prioritizing the general public, which is fine, they need to make money, it's just that by doing that I specifically feel like I probably won't get the game I wanted. Which is of course selfish as hell, but just being blunt about it, lol.
 
I really can't stand these threads that start out with "im not playing this game anymore..." My instant response is: "good for you!", Where you expecting a trophy for saying it? A cookie? a pat on the back, a tissue?

I agree with idea if your going to post a complaint, be constructive. Don't push blame, don't hail insults. You see an issue with game, tell us the issue describe it, tell us what you do differently. People adding I dont play the game anymore or claiming frontier lie doesn't help anyone!


I feel most games released these days rarely get played for more than a month or so. Part of that comes to the yearly releases we see for so many titles. You beat the campaign, you play a few weeks of multiplayer online. When the next game comes out you move on. Frontier is trying to be more than that. More than a game, its meant to be a platform for creativity. Both on a management and constructive plane.

Planet Coaster is far form perfect, and it mostly keeps to the if aint broke don't fix mantra. But that doesn't make it a bad, game and it doesntmake frontier bad people. You either enjoy it or you dont. Can't please everyone.
 
I really can't stand these threads that start out with "im not playing this game anymore..." My instant response is: "good for you!", Where you expecting a trophy for saying it? A cookie? a pat on the back, a tissue?

I agree with idea if your going to post a complaint, be constructive. Don't push blame, don't hail insults. You see an issue with game, tell us the issue describe it, tell us what you do differently. People adding I dont play the game anymore or claiming frontier lie doesn't help anyone!


I feel most games released these days rarely get played for more than a month or so. Part of that comes to the yearly releases we see for so many titles. You beat the campaign, you play a few weeks of multiplayer online. When the next game comes out you move on. Frontier is trying to be more than that. More than a game, its meant to be a platform for creativity. Both on a management and constructive plane.

Planet Coaster is far form perfect, and it mostly keeps to the if aint broke don't fix mantra. But that doesn't make it a bad, game and it doesntmake frontier bad people. You either enjoy it or you dont. Can't please everyone.

I really don't care what you think of me or others criticizing the game, it's very childish to not let people state their opinions about it on a discussion forum. I am willing to argue that Planet Coaster, to me, is a bad game. I haven't touched it but for a couple of times since release because I simply can't deal with the path system. It's absolutely horrible in my opinion, thus making the game frustrating to a point where I can't play it. Which means that it's a bad game for me. Does it have other areas that it excels in? Of course, but with a couple of their systems being (in my opinion) incredibly broken that fact doesn't really matter to me.

But it's ok. I'm not their target audience and it's fine, I continue to be fascinated by other people playing the game, hoping that they'll fix certain aspects so that I feel compelled to play it moving forward.
 
I really can't stand these threads that start out with "im not playing this game anymore..." My instant response is: "good for you!", Where you expecting a trophy for saying it? A cookie? a pat on the back, a tissue?

I agree with idea if your going to post a complaint, be constructive. Don't push blame, don't hail insults. You see an issue with game, tell us the issue describe it, tell us what you do differently. People adding I dont play the game anymore or claiming frontier lie doesn't help anyone!


I feel most games released these days rarely get played for more than a month or so. Part of that comes to the yearly releases we see for so many titles. You beat the campaign, you play a few weeks of multiplayer online. When the next game comes out you move on. Frontier is trying to be more than that. More than a game, its meant to be a platform for creativity. Both on a management and constructive plane.

Planet Coaster is far form perfect, and it mostly keeps to the if aint broke don't fix mantra. But that doesn't make it a bad, game and it doesntmake frontier bad people. You either enjoy it or you dont. Can't please everyone.

I don't know if you were referring to my post specifically. That's the thing about internet forums; it's way too easy to misinterpret things people say, their intent, and even whom their comments are directed toward sometimes, so my general policy is to give folks the benefit of the doubt. But as long as they're civil and don't unnecessarily troll or hurl ugly personal attacks, I tend to leave things alone either way; people are entitled to differing opinions. I didn't take offense at anything you said; I just want to make my own stance clear as best I can.

All that said, for the record I never stated that I wasn't playing PC "anymore" (as if I never plan to again), and I'd wager that most others who've said they're not currently playing the game are in the same boat. I certainly recognize and acknowledge a lot of positive changes and additions since this project started. It's just that, for the time being, what's been added/tweaked hasn't really grabbed my attention and pulled it back to playing again. I can think of other great games that come to mind (Civilization V when each of its expansions came out, radically changing its mechanics and sheer amount of options, for example); sometimes even truly great games reach a point...that varies with each player and for different reasons...where they may not even be stale, and yet that person backs off from them in order to prevent that from happening (at least that's the case for me personally). That next influx of fresh content or major expansion might just be the catalyst that pulls them back in...or it may be something else they're waiting/hoping for.

In any case, I'm not trying to trash PC when I say I haven't played in awhile or am not currently playing. I'm simply saying that I'm waiting for my own "catalysts". In my personal case that would be more themes and hopefully Frontier addressing the issue of the terrain biome surfaces being incompatible (no way to place "artificial" snow? Surely we can make it happen.). Pretty much everyone reaches a point where they back off a particular game for awhile, and saying so (especially if they share WHY they're taking a break) isn't a waste of time; it can be constructive feedback that helps drive the content being made in a direction that keeps users hooked.
 
RCT was a game that I played off and on over the years, I didnt even get into RCT3 for its first few years because it ran poorly for me in the beginning and I didn't think it was as good as the original, but then RCT3 grew on me after I saw the amazing expansions running on a top of the line computer. The same will hopefully be true for PC in that it will grow with add-ons and hopefully run smoother with better CPUs and optimization, for bigger maps and better biomes and a scenario editor and such. Its just that since PC is a new game, everybody was super hyped about it but then was disappointed because it has less rides than RCT3+expansions, and most people are not patient enough to wait for the add-ons PC will hopefully have.

I personally think a scenario editor would be the primary missing feature that could bring back a lot of players who may currently be bored with the games short career mode [up] I'm sure will get there soon enough!
 
The 2nd update without content I really need. It´s very frustrating. I can make so good themed darkrides with the game, but no Darkride-Transportsystems coming. No Boatride, no Omnimover, no Gondolas like Peter Pan or Harry Potter. No new Transportrides, no skyway,no water-transport, only 1 monorail car-type inthe game. No Shows, no walkthroughs, no arcade-games, no Flying Coaster, no Bobsled-Coaster. I was hopefully one or more thing of this come with the spring-update.[sad]

I can´t believe that frontier make no classic-darkride systems. A system without rotating is easier to create than a flatride.
I really hope they didn´t realease this yet, because a very big darkride-DLC is coming with 5 darkride-types, doors, animatronics and new effects.

I hope really the pay-DLC´s/Add-ons are bigger than the free. The spring-update is not an mayor-update.
 
i agree that the "i won't play anymore" posts are hollow threats that don't help. software marketing department logic: if you're done playing, then you won't be spending more money and you'll stop complaining, so yay! bye!

I do my time in-game if the game draws me in. 7,000+ hours in CIV V and probably triple that in the CIV franchise collectively. 400 hours Planet Coaster since February 1. my RCT days were not on steam so no stats, but estimate 3k+. otherwise, well Atlantis is right: for most games it's 100-300 hours and i drop out. so PC is by definition a "favourite" for me, already. and i've barely got started. these theme park games are VERY good value for money, if i consider the hours of fun per dollar invested. the amount of money people spend on hardware "just to play PC" is staggering.

the RCT franchise and PC are the only online communities i've ever participated in. i like this community because it has longevity potential, as Atlantis said, most people these days put very few hours (under 100?) into a game they probably paid $20 for (and complained about the price). i also like, a lot, that Frontier read the forums and other social media. and sometimes act on what's posted. the game is built to foster community creation, that is a MAJOR win (players disagree about the mechanism, but...) there's no doubt that this game is community creation-led already; fantastic coup by Frontier.

regarding increasing revenue for Frontier... there's a war going on on the forums (and so, no doubt, at Frontier) as to what we value enough to pay more for. will we fork out for content (themes, pieces), rides, background stuff (immersion, animations, sound, biomes), gameplay (scenarios etc), management, or... usability. that's a diverse set of value points, and it's hard to hit them all, and we the community certainly are not united regarding what we will pay for. our tastes vary widely. we want a lot, and we want it now. doesn't really help Frontier much.

i think the current sentiment indicates that once there's "enough" of any one of those things (content, rides, background stuff, gameplay, management, and usability), we might pay for more of that thing. happy there's enough themes in the base game? paid themes! happy there's lots of rides? paid ride packs! etc. usability opens my wallet the most, indirectly, because if my creation rate increases, so does my "value per hour played" and out comes my wallet for more stuff. so usability, for me, most limits what i'll spend on all the other categories.

i imagine sometimes what it would be like to be at Frontier trying to schedule the road map. mostly, i think it's natural that the road map is mostly set a long way in advance, and only occasionally things are pulled forward or pushed out based on community responses, in an effort to show that some listening has occurred. but largely this stuff takes many months, so there'll always be significant lag between what we way and what they can deliver.
 
i imagine sometimes what it would be like to be at Frontier trying to schedule the road map. mostly, i think it's natural that the road map is mostly set a long way in advance, and only occasionally things are pulled forward or pushed out based on community responses, in an effort to show that some listening has occurred. but largely this stuff takes many months, so there'll always be significant lag between what we way and what they can deliver.

Well said. I think the no collision feature we got with the 1.2 update is a great example of this. It has been one of the most requested features for Planet Coaster, even going all the way back to the alpha's. It seemed to be such a simple thing; collision can be turned on or off, so let us turn it off. Reality was that wasn't as simple as that. A lot of other systems used the collision to function properly, so turning it off would break the game. That's also why paths and terrain still have some collision checks. The fact that Frontier actually went back and changed the game so we could actually turn off collision proves they do listen to the community.

And now, after a lot of work, and no-collision still doesn't work for everything, it is the biggest improvement the 1.2 update brought to the game, probably even the biggest improvement to the game thus far! Just goes to show how such a simple thing as no-collision can be such a complicated task to get right. It's a mistake many people, including me, make sometimes. Underestimating how hard difficult changes, or features are to implement despite how simple they may appear.

Although, in my opinion, Frontier could be a little bit more open about suggestions of fixes/features that seem very simple (like they did with the no-collision thing). It can be a bit frustrating at times when certain obvious problems the game has get completely 'ignored', like coaster friction or lack of continuous-roll for example. Especially when said problems have been in the game since beta or even alpha. Speaking about that, Frontier should really keep us more updated about bug fixed and stuff.
 
I do think there is a bit of a danger of having too much of a detailed timeline, especially if the updates are months apart. I put aside Planet Coaster once I found out an update would not be out until April. I already played all the scenarios I wanted to and there are other games that caught my attention. It may not sound like a big deal, but I imagine it effects purchases and their Steam statistics.
 
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