Guest Leaving for no reason and getting refund

We’re talking about two different aspects. I am saying that if you have too many people leaving with getting refunds, you can either reduce the number of guests or increase the number/size of food courts. = gameplay
And by reducing the number of guests and reducing the amount of refunds, you can even increase your income while having less guests in your zoo and without having to stuff shops into every possible corner. Once you expand with more habitats and more shops, you can increase the number of guests again, but still keep a cap of their total number.

You are talking about the game’s technical ability to handle high numbers of guests without lagging or other technical issues. And if you do have a problem with losing too much money due to refunds, you still could try to restrict your guest numbers. Maybe you need less guests than you think you do.
My point was that zoos can be built to handle large numbers of guests with no problem, mine currently has 9,500 pretty happy guests. I never feel I need to reduce the number of guests because my facilities are stretched, as i said, I think my zoo facilities could cope with potentially 12k+ of visitors. BUT the technical / performance issues are forcing me to lower my number of guests to make the game playable, and it is this reduction that causes financial issues.

I have used restricted guests on all of the zoos, but it has always been to aid performance. Not sure it is a great tool to fix finances unless you havent planned your zoo for expansion. Better solutions is to make zoos focused on guest happiness.
 

Paul_Crowther

Senior Community Manager
Frontier
Thanks for the feedback all. Currently guests are set to leave and demand a refund if their needs are not being met, this can be anything from having to walk too far to see what they want, being chased away by an escaped animal or by being hungry/thirsty and not having nearby access to shops to satisfy them. The guest tab on the Zoo overview and the negative heatmap should help highlight areas that need work but if you believe you are encountering any issues that are causing guests to lose happiness when they shouldn't be do please report it on our Issue Tracker or contribute to an existing report. The more information you provide in those reports or the more people contribute to an existing report the more information our developers have to work with to investigate further.
 
The “walk too far” can be somewhat tricky though based on what I’ve seen from this AI. When a guest enters the park, they seem to be more interested in making a beeline for a particular habitat (may or may not be something on their list of things they want to see) and on the way they may pass something that IS on their list, but don’t stop to see it. I had a family walk over to my Galapagos Tortoises only to read a sign, not actually view them, and change course to a food vendor. Then comes a sort of ping pong effect that might occur should a line be too long when they get there. I’ve even seen guests walking by an empty Pipshot Water because they’ve been walking to another one which clearly has a longer line! So the spiral of spending happiness, energy, and food begins. To my knowledge I don’t know I’ve seen any thought of “the walk to the X habitat is too far”. Maybe there’s something similar?

Also given this randomness, the heat map of guest needs isn’t always indicative of a particular area lacking amenities, just an overall sense of how your guests are around the park. Guests won’t all become hungry or thirsty in the same exact spot. Moreover, a large stream of red guests on the heat maps are usually heading to the exits to inevitably collect their refund. It seems the only thing guests will follow through on is leaving, even if it meant walking by some of the animals they wanted to see. So if you are seeing red it’s likely already too late and unclear where exactly the point where they gave up trying and ran out of happiness.

There are solutions to this, but it seems like you can’t solely rely on food courts, you need to pepper in vendors between your habitats. It also makes larger parks much more tricky because some guests may string together habitats farther away than others.
 
I have also followed a guest for the entire journey around a reasonable sized zoo. I wanted to know why my refunds shot up but I found the AI is insane they entered the zoo went to my bison near the entrance then went back on themselves to see the diamondback snake. That very exhibit is next to a food court of two chief beefs to gulpee sodas ATM and toilets no queues complaints at all. They got thirsty and decided to walk to a gulpee milkshake stand all they way in the furthest part of the zoo. On the way ignored reindeer, polar bears and Dall sheep. By the time they reached they were so unhappy and complaining about not having enough time. Now I understand what the devs are saying but the guest behaviour is not making any sense. I understand they lose happiness as they travel and sitting, viewing animals and education boards boost that but I cant force the AI to make them boost their happiness. I have education, conservation boards and benches everywhere in an effort to keep people happy but its becoming tedious and somewhat unrealistic and creating and another financial problem with the running costs.
 
Many people have been having issues with guests leaving after 20 minutes or less in the Zoo. I am pretty sure that was a bug, didn't happen previously. I think several have reported to the issue tracker- any idea when this will be investigated?
 
Thanks for the feedback all. Currently guests are set to leave and demand a refund if their needs are not being met, this can be anything from having to walk too far to see what they want, being chased away by an escaped animal or by being hungry/thirsty and not having nearby access to shops to satisfy them. The guest tab on the Zoo overview and the negative heatmap should help highlight areas that need work but if you believe you are encountering any issues that are causing guests to lose happiness when they shouldn't be do please report it on our Issue Tracker or contribute to an existing report. The more information you provide in those reports or the more people contribute to an existing report the more information our developers have to work with to investigate further.

yeaaaahhhhh, great information but no... it is made so that guest will leave after 1 hour maximum, why? i don't know, maybe because in planet coaster there was a time that guest would not leave even when they were out of money to ride coasters. Now in planet zoo they leave because their alotted time is over, not because they are out of money, not because they have seen all the animals, not because they have seen the whole park but no because you decided to put that restriction in.
 
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Yeah, I noticed that, too. My zoo's pretty big now with around 30 species and almost 9k guests. Happiness is between 89-93% and really isn't a problem but almost all my habitats and exhibits have a guest feedback that says "I wish I could've stayed longer to see..."

Maybe a solution to that would be to reprogramm the guests so they don't leave after an hour but once they actually saw all the animals they came to see. Pretty sure that'd help some with the refund issue and the guests won't stay in the zoo forever either.
 
Yeah, I noticed that, too. My zoo's pretty big now with around 30 species and almost 9k guests. Happiness is between 89-93% and really isn't a problem but almost all my habitats and exhibits have a guest feedback that says "I wish I could've stayed longer to see..."

Maybe a solution to that would be to reprogramm the guests so they don't leave after an hour but once they actually saw all the animals they came to see. Pretty sure that'd help some with the refund issue and the guests won't stay in the zoo forever either.

One major cause for the wish to have had more time are long lines everywhere. Having guests stay longer in the zoo wouldn’t change that. They would just spend even more time walking from one shop to the next. You even want those guests out as quickly as possible before they get really mad and ask for a refund. Also, having guests stay longer means that fewer new - and hopefully happier - guests enter the zoo. Fewer tickets sold + unhappy guests > financial fiasco.

Build more shops at strategic places and/or restrict the number of guests to the size your facilities can handle. Less is sometimes more. Also, make them really happy (high appeal animals are great for that). My happy guests don’t mind at all waiting a bit in line. So they get their needs fulfilled at their first stop and spend most of their time admiring my animals and giving lots of donations. :)
 
One major cause for the wish to have had more time are long lines everywhere. Having guests stay longer in the zoo wouldn’t change that. They would just spend even more time walking from one shop to the next. You even want those guests out as quickly as possible before they get really mad and ask for a refund. Also, having guests stay longer means that fewer new - and hopefully happier - guests enter the zoo. Fewer tickets sold + unhappy guests > financial fiasco.

Build more shops at strategic places and/or restrict the number of guests to the size your facilities can handle. Less is sometimes more. Also, make them really happy (high appeal animals are great for that). My happy guests don’t mind at all waiting a bit in line. So they get their needs fulfilled at their first stop and spend most of their time admiring my animals and giving lots of donations. :)

That's just the thing. Like I said happiness isn't the issue here, the guests needs are fulfilled. I have shops everywhere as well as transport rides (the guests even use those so thankfully I don't seem to have that bug) and my zoo has tons of high appeal animals: both elephant species, all the big cats, rhinos, giraffes, hippos etc. The zoo's also making profit so no problem there either but the fact remains that guests leave after an hour no matter what without seeing all the animals they wanted to see, which in turn can lead to unhappy guests and refunds.

As soon as your zoo reaches a certain seize the time restriction becomes a problem 'cause the guests have to walk longer to see the animals. Doesn't really matter if you have 1 shop or 10, the distance and therefore time needed to get from habitat A to habitat B is still the same and that's time the guests obviously don't have. Ticket sales would remain the same 'cause those wandering from shop to shop would either leave unhappy or find a shorter line just like it is now. The others would leave once they saw the five or so animals they wanted to see, some sooner some later depending on where the animals are located, spend more money while they're in the zoo and leave happier in the end.

BTW, limiting the guest number in any other mode but sandbox is pretty much impossible if you wanna run a decently sized zoo 'cause you need the money they bring in or you'll go bankrupt faster than you can say lion.
 
Well I don't know about you guys, but I cannot find any specifics on who is getting a refund. Just that they are occurring. There's nothing about the guest UI that indicates that they received a refund that I could find. The overall finance tab is the only thing that shows refunds as an aggregate.

Honestly I have a tinfoil hat suspicion that pre-patch franchise zoos of considerable size, had a trojan horse of pre-patch guest AI. When the new patch and refund mechanics were released, some updated guest AI came with it, but given that pre-patch zoos were full of old agents, they had to cycle through the old ones leaving. Pure presumptions though. I don't have any evidence to support that.
 
That's just the thing. Like I said happiness isn't the issue here, the guests needs are fulfilled. I have shops everywhere as well as transport rides (the guests even use those so thankfully I don't seem to have that bug) and my zoo has tons of high appeal animals: both elephant species, all the big cats, rhinos, giraffes, hippos etc. The zoo's also making profit so no problem there either but the fact remains that guests leave after an hour no matter what without seeing all the animals they wanted to see, which in turn can lead to unhappy guests and refunds.

As soon as your zoo reaches a certain seize the time restriction becomes a problem 'cause the guests have to walk longer to see the animals. Doesn't really matter if you have 1 shop or 10, the distance and therefore time needed to get from habitat A to habitat B is still the same and that's time the guests obviously don't have. Ticket sales would remain the same 'cause those wandering from shop to shop would either leave unhappy or find a shorter line just like it is now. The others would leave once they saw the five or so animals they wanted to see, some sooner some later depending on where the animals are located, spend more money while they're in the zoo and leave happier in the end.

BTW, limiting the guest number in any other mode but sandbox is pretty much impossible if you wanna run a decently sized zoo 'cause you need the money they bring in or you'll go bankrupt faster than you can say lion.
First up, not actually sure there is a bug with the rides, the only images of rides I have seen where this 'bug' appears have been pretty awful. Single stations, no decoration, only visiting one / two habitat which can be seen from the station anyway, that sort of thing. All my rides have worked in my zoo, ALL of the time. That is a side point though.

Sounds like you have come to the same conclusion as me regarding guest though. The bigger your zoo gets, it becomes impossible to keep everyone happy, this is due to the guest needing to see certain animals and only having a certain time to do it. The bigger your zoo gets, the trickier this becomes. My zoo was built from the ground up with guest happiness in mind but I still get issues with guests getting a random lists of animals which are all far from my entrance, which means it is very tricky for them to see anything they want in time. This is compounded by guests choosing to leave the zoo really early (only 25% of the normal time) if they dont see an animal on the list. Simply changing the mechanic so that guest wont leave until at least 50% of the max time (30 mins) would make a big difference.
Thanks for the feedback all. Currently guests are set to leave and demand a refund if their needs are not being met, this can be anything from having to walk too far to see what they want, being chased away by an escaped animal or by being hungry/thirsty and not having nearby access to shops to satisfy them. The guest tab on the Zoo overview and the negative heatmap should help highlight areas that need work but if you believe you are encountering any issues that are causing guests to lose happiness when they shouldn't be do please report it on our Issue Tracker or contribute to an existing report. The more information you provide in those reports or the more people contribute to an existing report the more information our developers have to work with to investigate further.
IMHO after extensive testing, those criteria are too strict to make large zoos viable. I wouldnt be such an issue if your guests pathfinding was tighter, but I have seen countless guests visiting stalls near my entrance, which are right next to a habitat on their viewing list but then decide to visit something on the other side of the map. Now I REALLY understand the need for you to keep the AI streamlined, it is the biggest resource hog in the game, BUT if the AI is going to be bit stoopid, you need to give us more leeway. Up the minimum stay time to allow guest to see the animals they want, reduce happiness decay a little bit and refunds should sort themselves out.
 
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Thanks for the feedback all. Currently guests are set to leave and demand a refund if their needs are not being met, this can be anything from having to walk too far to see what they want, being chased away by an escaped animal or by being hungry/thirsty and not having nearby access to shops to satisfy them. The guest tab on the Zoo overview and the negative heatmap should help highlight areas that need work but if you believe you are encountering any issues that are causing guests to lose happiness when they shouldn't be do please report it on our Issue Tracker or contribute to an existing report. The more information you provide in those reports or the more people contribute to an existing report the more information our developers have to work with to investigate further.
There's been threads and posts about this for...well its been 2 weeks since I could even play because of this. so 3+ weeks. People mentioned this issue days after the last patch went into play. People have pointed out the change in behavior of how guests operate since then. Guests come in they go to a few shops and after about 20 minutes leave unhappy and request refunds. This is a noted massive change since the last patch that makes the game basically unplayable, last time I was able to log in was Dec 24th when i noticed my happiness plummeting because everyone decided to go to the food court as opposed to see animals and left with 3 "i wish i could have seen xxx" unhappy thoughts.

There have also been issue trackers up for just as long, you take forever addressing whether something is being taken seriously, the least you could do is, idk, look at what people are saying before you just post a passive aggressive canned answer that doesn't apply here.

If somehow it does apply here, then perhaps you should illuminate the issue and some suggestions on fixing it, since SO MANY people are having this issue, and your game does an absolute trash job of explaining how it works in the first place, "lol deal with it and git gud" is such a ty reply from a CM, on something that is very probably a bug.

I enjoyed Jurassic World Evo, and while Planet Zoo has a ton of promise, the company is really not handling it well. IDK if you have more people playing than you expected or what, but between the company dropping the ball on the game and the CMs apparently not caring, I can say I'm super not into this company anymore.
 
There's been threads and posts about this for...well its been 2 weeks since I could even play because of this. so 3+ weeks. People mentioned this issue days after the last patch went into play. People have pointed out the change in behavior of how guests operate since then. Guests come in they go to a few shops and after about 20 minutes leave unhappy and request refunds. This is a noted massive change since the last patch that makes the game basically unplayable, last time I was able to log in was Dec 24th when i noticed my happiness plummeting because everyone decided to go to the food court as opposed to see animals and left with 3 "i wish i could have seen xxx" unhappy thoughts.

There have also been issue trackers up for just as long, you take forever addressing whether something is being taken seriously, the least you could do is, idk, look at what people are saying before you just post a passive aggressive canned answer that doesn't apply here.

If somehow it does apply here, then perhaps you should illuminate the issue and some suggestions on fixing it, since SO MANY people are having this issue, and your game does an absolute trash job of explaining how it works in the first place, "lol deal with it and git gud" is such a poopooty reply from a CM, on something that is very probably a bug.

I enjoyed Jurassic World Evo, and while Planet Zoo has a ton of promise, the company is really not handling it well. IDK if you have more people playing than you expected or what, but between the company dropping the ball on the game and the CMs apparently not caring, I can say I'm super not into this company anymore.
Christmas holidays, the UK has been pretty much off since around the 22nd Dec, so can understand why nothing has moved forward. Also if you are finding that your 'guests are going to a few shop' you could have an issue with queuing. Normally this means they went to a shop and the queue was full. People will arrive at your zoo hungry / thirsty, for obvious reasons, so that does need to be catered for.
 
IMHO after extensive testing, those criteria are too strict to make large zoos viable. I wouldnt be such an issue if your guests pathfinding was tighter, but I have seen countless guests visiting stalls near my entrance, which are right next to a habitat on their viewing list but then decide to visit something on the other side of the map. Now I REALLY understand the need for you to keep the AI streamlined, it is the biggest resource hog in the game, BUT if the AI is going to be bit stoopid, you need to give us more leeway. Up the minimum stay time to allow guest to see the animals they want, reduce happiness decay a little bit and refunds should sort themselves out.

I spent some time this weekend observing guests in real time and mapping their paths. I'm prepping a longer post (with visuals!) on what I found. What you describe is common and if you are watching guests throughout a visit, incredibly frustrating given their pathing decisions. The major lingering question is whether or not leaving without seeing desired animals impacts refund status. I see a good number of guests leaving the park with high happiness, a lot of money spent, and many habitats visited but seeing anywhere from at least one to almost all of their desired animals. Large Zoos may still succeed if desired animals are just a "thing" in the UI and if in the end, the happiness meter is what dictates getting a refund or not.

Guests do seem to make several attempts to see a desired animal, but the AI seems to be constantly re-evaluating its priorities based on things both obvious (going to get food when they are hungry) to not so obvious (going to the giraffes, stopping to read a conservation board on the way, then going to the flamingos instead of resuming their goal of the giraffes).

The biggest thing I can suggest to people though, is that despite any sort of realism or aesthetic you are trying to achieve in franchise mode, you should avoid centralized food courts at all costs. If you do, they need to be considerably larger than you might think and staffed appropriately.
 
I spent some time this weekend observing guests in real time and mapping their paths. I'm prepping a longer post (with visuals!) on what I found. What you describe is common and if you are watching guests throughout a visit, incredibly frustrating given their pathing decisions. The major lingering question is whether or not leaving without seeing desired animals impacts refund status. I see a good number of guests leaving the park with high happiness, a lot of money spent, and many habitats visited but seeing anywhere from at least one to almost all of their desired animals. Large Zoos may still succeed if desired animals are just a "thing" in the UI and if in the end, the happiness meter is what dictates getting a refund or not.
The ONLY real reason I get unhappy guests leaving my zoo (which causes the refunds i get) is down to not seeing animals on the list. Normally because they have dropped a really bad set of animals nowhere near the entrance. Not seeing the animals, effects happiness, red guest leaving causes refunds. I have also noticed similar issues with my zoo, guests taken really random routes, and 100% agree that this can be caused by interruption. Food courts can work, I have several areas in my zoo with groups of shops near each other but I also have further solo shops throughout the zoo. But it does take planning.
Shops.jpg
 
warning: wall of text incoming

Your zoo is certainly much bigger than mine, so perhaps your shop structure is more suitable to take the load re: vendors. How many guests do you have in your park?

I'd refute that not seeing animals on their list impact their happiness though. I spent the entire day with the Burnett family. Given all of our discussion on happiness, pathing, and priorities I had to see exactly where and how guests were spending their day. This zoo is a pre-1.1 patch franchise. It's not particularly glamorous since I've been just trying to get used to mechanics before diving into beautification. You'll see in the picture attached I've got around $980K in the bank, at patch release I was just shy of 2M. Prior to this experience I did make some changes and during my walkthrough with them, I DID start to turn a profit. This was after I had offloaded a few animals to another post-patch franchise I have been working on, went through the park and made sure I had education speakers everywhere, and added one more small section of vendors. Aside from that I've made very few changes to the park post-patch while I've tried to get a handle on what was happening.

My main takeaways from this experience were the following:
  • Improper vendor placement or support will kill your zoo and your guests happiness. Continuous staffing is critical.
  • Education speakers will save your zoo, every habitat needs one or more in order to make sure there is proper coverage. Having coverage over a main path also insures that guests simply walking by will boost their education meter, even if they aren't viewing an exhibit.
  • Fulfilling a need has no impact on happiness. This ties into last point
  • Doing work on your zoo may impact guest AI in ways you wouldn't expect.
  • Guests change their mind frequently and in many cases will not return to a previous goal after a distraction. Some decisions seem logical, others do not.
  • Guests can "explore and view" for a a varied amount of time. This appears to be a 2-step process. First they "explore" a habitat viewing area trying to get a good spot to view an animal, then they actually view it. Exploring does not seem to impact happiness, viewing does.
  • Guests who come in with needs below 50% are more prone to falling into a "line trap" or leaving your zoo early. This is where they prioritize hunger/thirst but are stuck bouncing between lines. During this time they gain no education (which offsets happiness deterioration) and aren't fulfilling needs therefore no happiness is being gained. MOST of the people I saw leaving my zoo were doing so after 15 minutes of visit time and maybe 1 habitat visited, but 8-10 "trips" to vendors.
  • There doesn't appear to be any information on guests who leave who received a refund. So it's hard to connect who the individuals are who are receiving refunds vs ones who aren't. Are they individuals with literal unhappiness? or individuals who didn't get to see what they wanted to. This doesn't appear to be clear by the UI but maybe I'm missing something.
  • Guests who come in with their needs at orange or less, are almost guaranteed to leave unhappy. They prioritize going to a vendor first along with everyone else in a similar situation. This creates a sort of feedback loop of a ton of guests bouncing from line to line burning happiness, not fulfilling a need, and never viewing an animal. If they do manage to fulfill hunger or thirst, they do so and set out to see an animal with half (or lower) happiness. In my zoo, even going to see the gharials after standing in lines is a too far for them before they burn out and go home. Most of these guests seem to leave anywhere between 15-20 minutes.
My observed guests wanted to see the following:
  • Common Death Adders
  • Lehmann's Poison Frogs
  • Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes
  • Green Iguanas
  • Grizzly Bears
The first four are all within the reptile house, you can see where the Grizzlies are. As a form of control, I chose a family that had all green needs upon entry. I'll remark about those who had orange needs (I may have even encountered a high red need in a new guest as well).

The read below is a bit long, but I've tried to condense it where I can, expounding on points that were interesting to me in how the AI was behaving. The following is a map of the path they took through the zoo:

zoo.jpg

  • Thin red line their "first leg" route
  • Cyan line their "second leg" route
  • Yellow line their "third leg"
  • Thick red line, the route they took out of the zoo
1. First destination upon entry is Timberwolves Aux 1, walking by the tortoise pen speaker had a positive effect on their education rating. They change course to Timberwolf Main at corner junction
2. Wolves viewed, puff adders destination (earliest case of seeing a desired animal)
3. Change course to view bison paddock
4. View Bison and read information board, now going to Pipshot Water 93 (4A). By the way, the father stands and cheers/claps at the Bison exhibit then a short while later generates the "I was not impressed at all by Bison" thought. Come on man!
5. Gets to bottom of stairs of Bison Pavilion, abandons water for Lehmann's frogs (5A). Keep in mind how early this desire is.
6. Changes destination to a Pipshot Smoothies
6A. Smoothie Acquired, now heading to Snow Leopards
7. Reads Information Board at Snow Leopards and listens to speaker. Explores for awhile and finally can see Snow Leopard and donates.
8. Decides to head to the farther toilet block, 8A because 8B is dirty. I only know this because I click on the closer block, but there's no feedback within guest thoughts to show they saw or knew it was dirty.
9. A few steps later, changes for Giraffes. Note where reptile house is in relation to where this decision is made
10 and 10A. At this point I get a notification for a toilet block that I had added after my overhead screenshot was taken. I pause and investigate seeing that I put it just outside of my solar panel's range. I attempt to move it but this clips into the Elephant exhibit, so I hit UNDO and simply place another solar on the upper part of my "mountain" in the park. When I return to my group and unpause they are "heading to removed destination". After walking in place for a few seconds, they change course to the African Wild Dogs. A number of other guests seem to do this in the area. Note where this occurs and where the Grizzlies are (a desired habitat) vs the dogs.
11. They change course now for an ATM as they only have about $130 remaining. The ATM is just outside the vendors on the lower portion of the Food Court.
12. They withdraw $1,390 (DAMN) and now redirect to the West African Lions.
13. Steps later, they change course to see the Komodo Dragons. As a status update they have spent 13 minutes in my zoo and have spent close to $600.
14. After a good look at the Komodo Dragons it's off to the Grasslands
15. They spend a lot of time here, at this point they hit full Happiness and Education. These ratings never drop significantly for the rest of their visit. Their energy is at about 50% so they sit at the benches I have at this habitat as I do at all my habitats. They then decide to head to the Nile Monitors.
16. This is where things get weird. In the span of a few seconds they change from visiting Nile Monitors to wanting to see the Elephants, to heading BACK to the Grasslands exhibit, to wanting to use the toilet block back down the hill (13, where the ATM and vendors were) because their toilet need has tripped to orange. But before they follow through on that, they choose to go back to see the elephants after all. For some reason however, they start running. After this quick run they skip elephants for the toilets at 10A up the hill (this was the one I moved/undid a few minutes earlier). I look at the block (13) down the hill and notice its meter is showing it is dirty. The brief run burns about 30% of the energy they just got from sitting down.
17. After a bathroom break, they wish to see the Giraffes. It's worth noting I have two viewing areas for the Giraffes, an observation deck above the paddock which doubles as shelter, and one below about eye-level with the feeders. They initially start down the hill as though they are going to the lower deck, but then reverse course to go to the higher vantage point.
18. After viewing the Giraffes, they now want to see the Elephants again.
19. Distracted by a conservation board, they resume their walk but have changed their destination to Hats Fantastic down the hill (19A), not even a few steps from making that decision and they then want to view the Lions.
20. After another donation (~$100). They now choose to head to see the Green Iguana at the reptile house, something they actually want to see, but only for a second as they change their mind to see the Lehmann's frogs. That's fine of course because they are all within the reptile house. Given that this is a pretty far walk, I imagine some more weird waypoints will come into play. Distance wise, this appears to be the farthest destination they ever set for themselves. It's also the only time they ever want to see the Green Iguanas.
21. They don't get far before they take a detour to see the elephants.
22. It's now back to the Lehmann's Frogs. However during the time spent viewing the elephants the thirst meter tripped into orange. While on the walk down the hill, hunger is also tripped into orange.
23. Down the path, they now choose to go to Hats Fantastic. According to their stats, they've spent no money on souvenirs.
24. With their hats, they set out to the Nile Monitors but a few short steps towards that habitat and they turn around to head for Cosmic Cow Milkshakes. With how my path is structured they are distracted by the African Wild Dogs (they are outside any educational speaker when this decision change occurs.)
25. Here, energy is now tripped into orange. This now means 3 things are in orange: energy, hunger, and thirst. Thirst being the lowest. As such, they resume the trip to cosmic cow milkshakes. It's now worth noting we've crossed the 30 minute mark in the park and have yet to see anything they wanted to see despite several attempts to do so.
26. The milkshake line is long, but not so long that they won't wait on it. When they are 2nd from being served the vendor goes on break. This causes them, and everyone else on line, to redirect themselves. The Burnetts choose to go to the pipshot water just outside the African Mountain section of the park, I check and see it has no line. Clicking around the other guests who were impacted by the shift change, they too are heading to the same place. Curiously, this waiting on the line "counts" as a visit despite them getting no benefit from it. They aren't even out of the line and, because hunger is orange, head to Pizza Pen just next door instead.
27. Pizza is a success. Interestingly this also replenishes some, but not all, of their energy. Around 50%. I actually almost lose them in a crowd but thankfully because of their silly hats, I can find them! They resume their quest to quench their thirst. The line at the pipshot water, which was previously empty is now full. Let's see what happens??
28. They need to throw out their trash. While finding a bin nearby, the vendor at the pipshot water goes on break. This causes another exodus of guests to find water. Luckily there is another one just a few feet away.
29. THIS vendor also leaves for a shift change, only this time another vendor is waiting. While the individuals currently on the line do not get off, the Burnetts never get on the line and are instead going to Gulpee Energy just a few feet away. Thirst level is now around 10%-15%.
30. Finally! With thirst quenched it's off to the toilet (drinking expectedly impacts toilet needs). Luckily there is one on the other side of the Bug Pagoda (8A from earlier). This is also conveniently across from the reptile house. Will they finally see their Lehmann's frogs???
31. They get distracted by a conservation board but resume their toilet destination but only for a few steps. Even with their toilet needs are around 40% they change course to see the frogs. Even though this is only a few feet away, this is another instance where they run for some unexplained reason and burn more energy.

Before we get into the reptile house I lifted the building up to take a shot so you can see how it is laid out below (cyan arrow is them with their hats on):

reptiles.jpg


32. The reptile house is busy, and before they can get to the frogs they read the sign for the Gila Monsters (1) but don't actually view the exhibit. This does not count as a visited destination. After doing so they head for the Death Adders. Despite being RIGHT next to it, they quickly "idle" and change course for the brown snakes (2). After viewing them (3), they head for the Diamondbacks, but get distracted reading the information board for the brown snakes. After reading they head for the frogs. They FINALLY see something they wanted (4). 40 Minutes and 11 seconds into their visit, and $1,215 later (this is a family of 4, no idea how anyone's going to college with trips to the zoo like this) they see something they wanted. The next destination from here are the death adders. There is some foot traffic that slows them down and they instead head to a donation box, then change course for the same toilets as earlier (5).
33. Despite all being full on their toilet needs, when they emerge their destination is set for the other toilet block located within the same strucutre. This changes quickly and they choose to see the centipedes nearby.
34. For some reason, after viewing the centipedes, they want to see the Macaques. Again, note where the Macaques are in relation to their position, and the Grizzly Bears (desired animal)
35. They get about halfway there and NOW choose to see the Grizzlies.
36. Success! Grizzlies are crossed off the list and now it's back onto the Macaques. A rare occurence where their originaly destination is resumed directly after a detour.
37. Macaques done, back to Death Adders... Their path out of the Macaques house appears to be the longer way around. A few steps later they change course for the Himalayan Brown Bears (which would be on the way anyway)
38. With the Brown Bears out of the way it's on to.... the Gharials. Another oddly long distance destination.
39. A walk through the main viewing area of the Brown Bears distracts them with another sign. They now change course to a Pipshot Juice despite their thirst being green and over 50%
40. A few steps later, it's back to wanting to see the snow leopards.. This is the only occurence I notice in which they actually view an animal twice.
41. With another viewing of the snow leopards in, they now want to get a Momento.
42. They get their Momento and want a smoothie next door but with the line being so long they resume their quest to see the death adders....
43. They have now been in the park for 55 minutes and decide to take a quick bench break at the rear entrance of the reptile house. Upon getting up... they decide to head home. Only to lament that they wish they "could have stayed longer to see" the Green Iguana, the Death Adder and the Diamondbacks... The best part is that despite their destination saying "Going Home" they get distracted by a sign... The Diamondback one, but DONT VIEW the exhibit and walk directly by it.
44. On their way out they stop and get some balloons.

Total time in zoo: 1 hour 1 minute, total spent, 1,709.61 (about 1,000 of that in donations it looks like). 2 of 5 animals seen, the irony being that of the 20ish outdoor habitats I had, they saw about 15 of them, yet missed 3 exhibits all within a few feet of one another. It's not clear whether they got a refund. That information doesn't seem available in the window of guest information.

This was a fascinating experience, I got to experience the zoo I built from the eyes of a guest and it was great to see how they function. I think there are some odd quirks with how they choose their destinations, and this is compounded by some other factors. As I mentioned earlier, during this time my zoo started turning a profit. Right before I followed this family around I did the following: Made sure I had great speaker coverage, fired a vet and a mechanic, offloaded a lion on the market as well as a few Macaques. Additionally, I changed animal aging to 5 since I didn't want to have to deal with any management while following them around (it's easy to lose guests you are following). Additionally, for some reasons my guest count by the end of this experiment was nearly 1000 higher (5500) after it being 4300 at the time I started this. Their visit took place over Jan Year 93 to sometime Mid Year 95.
 
First up, not actually sure there is a bug with the rides, the only images of rides I have seen where this 'bug' appears have been pretty awful. Single stations, no decoration, only visiting one / two habitat which can be seen from the station anyway, that sort of thing. All my rides have worked in my zoo, ALL of the time.

Sorry, I'll have to disagree with you on that. I've been hit by that bug and...
  • both my railroads went through 4 habitats, and guests actually had thoughts about there being a lot to see on the ride
  • my stations were decently housed and decorated, you may remember my previous pics but if not you can see samples in this thread, no complaints from guests about them
  • to encourage riders, the ride included stations at the most distant part of the park right next to two high-value animal habitats (lions and elephants) which should attract guests
But the most telling aspect is that simply saving and reloading the zoo brings another brief uptick in ridership before it falls off again. If my rides were terrible, they wouldn't attract guests in the first place.

So I'm glad your zoo is working out great, you're definitely doing things right! (y) But please don't dismiss other players' experience so readily, we're definitely being affected by a bug.
 
As Klinn said, don't dismiss other players' experiences out of hand. There have been too many posts/comments about the 'rides bug' to say that it's a simple matter of making a good ride. My ride, a gondola, was as barren as they come the first time I built it. It had only one station (because I had no idea how to build a second one, the information/tutorial is sorely lacking in that department), but it went straight over my biggest habitat, the African Plains, with four species of animals. My guests LOVED it. The lines were always full, they were happy, the price was probably a bit on the low side (because I had no idea I could raise them) and the ride just worked.

I eventually figured out how to add a second station, so they started using it to get to their destination faster (my second station is near the lions, always a popular animal) and the station's also near a cluster of vendor shops and exhibits. There's even a toilet. Now, I had no idea you could build a building around a station, so none of my stations were nice to look at, but my guests didn't mind at all. They loved the ride, had barely any complaints, and used the thing all the time. It goes over my African Plains habitat and I expanded it to also include the lion, Bengal Tiger and African Elephant/Pygmy Hippo habitat. Oh, and I even figured out how to raise the price, and even then they still used it.

This was before patch 1.1

After that patch my ride... simply didn't get used. Yes, when I load my zoo, there's a line, but it dwindles and disappears when I play for a longer period of time. I didn't change ANYTHING in the mean time. The ride before the patch was the exact same as the ride after the patch. I didn't change the prices, the load rules, the track and I didn't beautify the stations. They just stopped using the ride after a while. I tried making it more attractive by building a station (the guests seemed to loved the building, but the enthusiasm for the rides died down as quickly as before I built it), I tried lowering the prices, but nothing worked.

There's also KiriONE's VERY extensive post about guest happiness that, to me, indicates something is very wrong with the AI. If this is an example of ONE family I suddenly understand how so many guests can leave unhappy. And frankly, I don't want to make micro-managing my guests' happiness my priority; it should be balanced part of managing the entire zoo. I mean, staff happiness is so easy in comparison. Hell, even ANIMAL happiness is easy in comparison! But to have to be forced to create a 'shop zoo' instead of an actual zoo, with an AI that, from the looks of things, is crazy as heck, that's no fun.
 
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