Instant bankruptcy after 1.1.0

DrAkula87 · Dec 17, 2019

What is happening?! After the last 2 updates, my franchise zoo's finances have gotten drastically worse.
Before 1.0.4, my zoo was making a good amount of money, even having the game paused 90% of the time I got up to 150k+$. After 1.0.4 it suddenly dropped really harshly, I somehow lost over 100k in just 2-3 ingame years, which is about how long it took me to notice what was happening. At this time I thought that I maybe trained too many staff up while on pause and got punished by the higher salaries. So I did my best to get back into green numbers, fired a bunch of inefficient staff, increased ticket prices a bit, etc., ending yesterday with my Zoo being profitable again, ready for the arctic animals.
However, after I just got the patch and played for maybe 1 ingame year, my money had evaporated again, my profits have suddenly turned from +10k into -30k per year without me changing anything! It seems like salaries suddenly cost twice as much as before, and for some reason a lot of guests suddenly want refunds, because they "didnt like it" for some unknown reason?! (Most needs are in the green... guests just always seem to get unhappy when they leave the zoo.)
At this point, I am even scared to play in the Zoo I have spent over 80 hours on.... what am I supposed to do?!
Help!

ralphthestick · Dec 17, 2019

I'm in the same boat. I had a pretty profitable zoo before 1.0.3, but then the refunds started hitting really hard. Things seemed to get better right after 1.0.4, but quickly got worse again. I keep trying to tinker with things to fix the issue - put down a load more food and drink stalls where people were complaining about hunger/thirst (now they complain about the queues!), moved the more expensive-to-feed animals out, fired a load of staff, but I don't seem to be able to get myself out of the hole I'm in. I'm wondering if it's a case of guests being pretty happy when they decide to leave at the far end of the zoo and then their happiness just ticks down as they make their long way out - maybe some kind of transport could fix it, but I can do nothing with my bank balance of -$500k!
It's a real shame, because I'm really pleased with the zoo I made, and want to keep developing it, but I just can't do anything with it! It would be great if we were able to port franchise zoos into sandbox, but there we are. Boo.

retainedkitten · Dec 17, 2019

ralphthestick said:
I'm in the same boat. I had a pretty profitable zoo before 1.0.3, but then the refunds started hitting really hard. Things seemed to get better right after 1.0.4, but quickly got worse again. I keep trying to tinker with things to fix the issue - put down a load more food and drink stalls where people were complaining about hunger/thirst (now they complain about the queues!), moved the more expensive-to-feed animals out, fired a load of staff, but I don't seem to be able to get myself out of the hole I'm in. I'm wondering if it's a case of guests being pretty happy when they decide to leave at the far end of the zoo and then their happiness just ticks down as they make their long way out - maybe some kind of transport could fix it, but I can do nothing with my bank balance of -$500k!
It's a real shame, because I'm really pleased with the zoo I made, and want to keep developing it, but I just can't do anything with it! It would be great if we were able to port franchise zoos into sandbox, but there we are. Boo.

I had the same thing happen to a zoo I loved and then after the 1.03 update it crashed and burned financially so I went and opened a new zoo and once it became profitable 2mil, I started collecting animals from that zoo and selling them in the other in debt zoo annoying I know, but with lions and tigers and a few other top dollar animals elephants etc, I dug my beloved zoo out of the red and into the black. So now I can continue developing it, hopefully 1.04 won't kill it.

ralphthestick · Dec 17, 2019

retainedkitten said:
I had the same thing happen to a zoo I loved and then after the 1.03 update it crashed and burned financially so I went and opened a new zoo and once it became profitable 2mil, I started collecting animals from that zoo and selling them in the other in debt zoo annoying I know, but with lions and tigers and a few other top dollar animals elephants etc, I dug my beloved zoo out of the red and into the black. So now I can continue developing it, hopefully 1.04 won't kill it.

Yeah, I've been collecting big-ticket animals in the trade centre for a couple of days now rather than releasing to the wild/putting on the market. I did the maths and I've almost got $100k worth, so I guess that's another way to go. I don't mind doing it if it actually helps, but I don't want to waste them all if the zoo's just going to go straight into debt again!

DrAkula87 · Dec 17, 2019

That cannot be the solution though. Not changing anything and suddenly dropping into deep red numbers out of nowhere is not acceptable game-behavior.

Puce · Dec 17, 2019

Bonjour,
Avec la carte d'impact négatif, il s'avère que les objets rouges sont loin des visiteurs et pourtant les visiteurs demandent un remboursement. À quoi est-il dû?
Les visiteurs disent qu'ils auraient souhaité pouvoir rester plus longtemps. Comment résoudre ce problème ?
Merci d'avance

chloeismagic · Dec 18, 2019

Ive noticed My zoo is making less money, but Im not actually losing money, I went from about 20k to $40k per year to 1k the first year I played with the patch.

retainedkitten · Dec 18, 2019

This is likely why my zoo is tanking, even though guest needs are green, happiness is staying yellow. I have reported via tracker. https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/11269 this seems to be only affecting old saves in franchise mode from 03 patch.

marcnesiumHH · Dec 18, 2019

no, it's the same for new ones

Maky1355 · Dec 18, 2019

I had issues with food prices and unexplained escapes and that's why people run home in my zoo. But my main issue was the food.
I just temporarily set my biggest and greatest franchise zoo aside for a while until they fix the escape thing at least. I'm still 3 million in the green and keeping it there, but at it's worst it was down to almost 2 million.
Tbh refunds are ridiculous unless something is seriously wrong. For instance - actual escapes would be a good reason, the bug escapes are not.

Dr4gon · Dec 18, 2019

The only way to learn what happened is starting a new zoo and keep an eye on everything what happens. Check the balance every 12 months and don't slack down on that.

retainedkitten · Dec 19, 2019

Energy 71+ Hunger 69 +Thirst 69 +Toilet 79 + education 79 that totals 367 if you divide that by 5 the number of stats I get 73.4 so unless there is some different weight value on education I show my average happiness should be 73.4 but the game is showing only 59 and is in yellow. The math does not add up.

Maky1355 · Dec 19, 2019

retainedkitten said:
Energy 71+ Hunger 69 +Thirst 69 +Toilet 79 + education 79 that totals 367 if you divide that by 5 the number of stats I get 73.4 so unless there is some different weight value on education I show my average happiness should be 73.4 but the game is showing only 59 and is in yellow. The math does not add up.

Protests and staff buildings may be throwing it off.

Traffyl · Dec 19, 2019

retainedkitten said:
Energy 71+ Hunger 69 +Thirst 69 +Toilet 79 + education 79 that totals 367 if you divide that by 5 the number of stats I get 73.4 so unless there is some different weight value on education I show my average happiness should be 73.4 but the game is showing only 59 and is in yellow. The math does not add up.

I have taken a look to an old franchise zoo that I hadn't played since 2 weeks ago, before that update... so, I have sped up time one year and refunds now have become crazy due to unhappy guests for not having seen X especies... with all the other thoughts and bars in green. I never had this kind of problem before, neither in this zoo nor in others, but now it's the same with all of them. Maybe this "bug" is not affecting all players, but... it does exist for some people.

Maky1355 · Dec 19, 2019

Traffyl said:
I have taken a look to an old franchise zoo that I hadn't played since 2 weeks ago, before that update... so, I have sped up time one year and refunds now have become crazy due to unhappy guests for not having seen X especies... with all the other thoughts and bars in green. I never had this kind of problem before, neither in this zoo nor in others, but now it's the same with all of them. Maybe this "bug" is not affecting all players, but... it does exist for some people.

View attachment 156111 View attachment 156112

Oh that's true. I mean we have all the species you want, it's not my fault you go see everything else first. Large zoos are bound to fail with this weird mechanic. You go to a group that spent an hour in your zoo and see they've gone to loads of stuff but not to the ones they really wanted. And for the love of god, when have you ever gotten a refund if you weren't happy with the zoo? Or because you didn't get to see the animals you wanted.

AaronTuckwell · Dec 19, 2019

I'm growing to HATE this game. Seriously, HATE. It is just a mess of a game. I get that there are "lose" conditions to make it interesting and it is mainly based on animal welfare, but when a game also commands the kind of attention to detail of PlanCo, it seems counter intuitive to even bother making an effort over 50+ hours for you to lose your zoo to a badly balanced game. It isn't even like you can admit defeat and load it up in Sandbox. You literally waste hours on a zoo you will never see again. No thanks.

Take the shops. You can't serve people quickly enough, even at 5* staff. Guests will cluster to the nearest shop and leave others within 20m or so completely empty. The speed of guests walking vs demand decay means that you need shops every 20m or so, but then not enough guests use them to make them profitable and without them your happiness declines so much that they rage quit and demand refunds. Power requirements? Forget it. You can't place anything guest related within 10m of power sources (effectively reducing the effectiveness of them) and the solar power ones don't have enough radius to be worth the money you need in purchase and upkeep. Building your shops inside a building? Nope. Guests will only "find" your shop if it is attached directly to a main path.. not if you build an "interior" - and this also applies in busy areas too.

Guests are now leaving "unhappy" because they didn't see the animal they wanted, but spent their time looking at others instead. Why isn't their priority animal, well, priority?

The economy in game is just so volatile. I've had a zoo make 40k profit in one year and 55k loss the next, just while I LOOK at my zoo. Did literally nothing to it other than watch. That's not right, surely?

Your stuff at the back of the zoo goes forgotten because the guest can't "see it"

Cleaning staff are clustering up and not actually cleaning areas - even when assigned an area.You also need staff rooms within 30 - 40m or so of each other because staff needs decline so quickly. But then the negative radius is 10m so, what can you actually put in the middle? Oh and it also needs power too. Generator with larger negative radius or solar power that is expensive for no zoo benefit?

Keepers don't fill up food quickly enough for the animals when there are a lot of animals. This leaves guests annoyed and demanding refunds because the game isn't coded well enough to cope with feeding them quickly enough.

Food costs seriously outweigh the donations you are getting from the guests they attract; even for the happiest animals. Either turn down the food costs, increase the number of guests attracted or the amount they donate. The current balance of this with the shops is just unworkable.

Seriously, completely turn off the refund mechanic until the game is re-balanced.

I don't actually know why I bothered to type this out either. It isn't like one post from me on here will make the whole dev team sit up and think "actually, yeah, he is right". I'm going back to PlanCo.

marcnesiumHH · Dec 19, 2019

AaronTuckwell said:
Take the shops. You can't serve people quickly enough, even at 5* staff. Guests will cluster to the nearest shop and leave others within 20m or so completely empty. The speed of guests walking vs demand decay means that you need shops every 20m or so, but then not enough guests use them to make them profitable and without them your happiness declines so much that they rage quit and demand refunds.

I'm going back to PlanCo.

I can feel your rage

but is the AI working better in PlanCo, especially regarding shops?

AaronTuckwell · Dec 19, 2019

Yes.. Sort of.. You can at least have advertisements to drive guests to them.. in Planet Zoo guests just sorta walk around, angry and then quit.

ThunderXSniper · Dec 19, 2019

AaronTuckwell said:
I'm growing to HATE this game. Seriously, HATE. It is just a mess of a game. I get that there are "lose" conditions to make it interesting and it is mainly based on animal welfare, but when a game also commands the kind of attention to detail of PlanCo, it seems counter intuitive to even bother making an effort over 50+ hours for you to lose your zoo to a badly balanced game. It isn't even like you can admit defeat and load it up in Sandbox. You literally waste hours on a zoo you will never see again. No thanks.

Take the shops. You can't serve people quickly enough, even at 5* staff. Guests will cluster to the nearest shop and leave others within 20m or so completely empty. The speed of guests walking vs demand decay means that you need shops every 20m or so, but then not enough guests use them to make them profitable and without them your happiness declines so much that they rage quit and demand refunds. Power requirements? Forget it. You can't place anything guest related within 10m of power sources (effectively reducing the effectiveness of them) and the solar power ones don't have enough radius to be worth the money you need in purchase and upkeep. Building your shops inside a building? Nope. Guests will only "find" your shop if it is attached directly to a main path.. not if you build an "interior" - and this also applies in busy areas too.

Guests are now leaving "unhappy" because they didn't see the animal they wanted, but spent their time looking at others instead. Why isn't their priority animal, well, priority?

The economy in game is just so volatile. I've had a zoo make 40k profit in one year and 55k loss the next, just while I LOOK at my zoo. Did literally nothing to it other than watch. That's not right, surely?

Your stuff at the back of the zoo goes forgotten because the guest can't "see it"

Cleaning staff are clustering up and not actually cleaning areas - even when assigned an area.You also need staff rooms within 30 - 40m or so of each other because staff needs decline so quickly. But then the negative radius is 10m so, what can you actually put in the middle? Oh and it also needs power too. Generator with larger negative radius or solar power that is expensive for no zoo benefit?

Keepers don't fill up food quickly enough for the animals when there are a lot of animals. This leaves guests annoyed and demanding refunds because the game isn't coded well enough to cope with feeding them quickly enough.

Food costs seriously outweigh the donations you are getting from the guests they attract; even for the happiest animals. Either turn down the food costs, increase the number of guests attracted or the amount they donate. The current balance of this with the shops is just unworkable.

Seriously, completely turn off the refund mechanic until the game is re-balanced.

I don't actually know why I bothered to type this out either. It isn't like one post from me on here will make the whole dev team sit up and think "actually, yeah, he is right". I'm going back to PlanCo.

For real this guy here has it on the dot! FRONTIER HAVE YOU EVER ACTUALLY GONE TO ZOOS!? I shouldn't have to have trash cans every 10 feet and as well and vandalism and littering is way over dramatic. I go to zoos all over the US whenever I can and you guys make guests so much pickier than they really are. Also why does my water treatment centers and generators make so much noise when encased in a cemented building? That makes no logical sense and most zoos wont even consider a refund unless you are injured from something or an animal escape. Other than that they will just say oh well and maybe give you a coupon for your next visit. They claim this is an animal welfare game but I spend more time taking care of the guests whiny needs than the animals.

DrAkula87 · Dec 20, 2019

Yes to everything AaronTuckwell said.
And what baffles me most is that this just started happening out of nowhere! I was in love with this game for the entire first month, building a franchise zoo that was both beautiful and successful. And then it is as if Frontier just suddenly flipped a switch and turned the fun off, everything you described there kicking in.

I was really emotionally invested into my zoo, super looking forward to the DLC even, but I just cannot play it anymore. As sad as this makes me, I will not play this game anymore until franchise is in an enjoyable state again or at the very least I can convert my franchise zoo into sandbox mode.