Management Matters

[Funrir Woulfe]

Maybe because the guests are so well behaved we don't NEED security guards ?

After all we haven't seen a single one of them destroy a bench or spray paint their name on a wall or anything else along those lines.

I've yet to see an angry guest, sad, sure, tired, sure, happy, sure, upset, nope, maybe it's hard to add that into the game ?

 

[Evilhomer]

Maybe because the guests are so well behaved we don't NEED security guards ?

After all we haven't seen a single one of them destroy a bench or spray paint their name on a wall or anything else along those lines.

I've yet to see an angry guest, sad, sure, tired, sure, happy, sure, upset, nope, maybe it's hard to add that into the game ?

That is like saying, Engineers? Why? I never seen a ride break down.

Many of these features come from older games, and security can be used in many ways, fill up the ATM's or make sure no one messes with the entertainers.
Every park has rotten eggs which need to be dealt with.
Guests could get mad if prices are too high, or when roads are too crowded and they are being pushed around.

 

[tyczj]

Maybe because the guests are so well behaved we don't NEED security guards ?

After all we haven't seen a single one of them destroy a bench or spray paint their name on a wall or anything else along those lines.

I've yet to see an angry guest, sad, sure, tired, sure, happy, sure, upset, nope, maybe it's hard to add that into the game ?

they already said security is coming

 

[Funrir Woulfe]

Sheesh... Wish you folks would make up your minds... I was the 1st to say that just because there was no icon in the management screen for them that maybe it was because none were hired yet... Then folks say no there would be an icon anyway... So now that I'm saying there isn't... ARGH !

=P

 

[Bo Marit]

Regarding security guards, please check out Zac's reply from reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PlanetCoas..._beta_screenshots_of_park_management/d9bhp3w/

Hey guys, glad to see everyone enjoying the posts and getting excited for November 9 - We can’t wait for you to get your hands on it! It’s also awesome to see people pouring over the screenshots and finding little hidden gems. Security guards are an interesting topic actually, we really enjoyed designing and animating them and the security guard had some really lovely personality to him, as you might of seen in some of the early concept and renders on Facebook. It’s important to know that a lot of what we’ve shown on social media over the past few months is part of a transparent development process, as is showing concept images, early renders and animation. The vast majority of these all make it in game but as always it needs to be reviewed as a whole within the game before it can make the final cut. How does it work with other content? Is it a fun experience? On a very few occasions as the game is being crafted together to form the final game there are a piece or two which unfortunately ends up on the cutting room floor. Security guards are a good example of one that won’t be making it into the game at release, simply because the gameplay and the “fun factor” doesn’t meet the teams high standards. That doesn’t mean it’s not something that will ever come to the game. We, like you, really hope Planet Coaster is well received and that people enjoy playing it (after all, the devs really have been pouring all their love into the game). If the game does well then it’s possible that further content/expansions/whatever could be made. If you speak to the dev team you get this sense of almost limitless possibilities of things the team would love to continue to build and add onto the game to further expand the content. Obviously this isn’t confirming any future content and it’s just my own personal ramblings but it’s certainly possible that features such as security guards make it in alongside a number of other changes and additions and does the game and content justice. As with everything, it’s all about making sure the content is amazing first and foremost.

 

[Vampiro]

Regarding security guards, please check out Zac's reply from reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PlanetCoas..._beta_screenshots_of_park_management/d9bhp3w/

Thanks for letting us know!!

Too bad he's gone, but i have to agree that him catching guests who vandalise was a littlebit too cartoony for my tastes.
I hope we see him in the future in a littlebit more serious role. But as for now, im not too bothered by it at all

(and props for the dev's to have such high standards!!)

 

[WingardiumLevicoaster]

Regarding security guards, please check out Zac's reply from reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PlanetCoas..._beta_screenshots_of_park_management/d9bhp3w/

Thanks Zac! It's not the end of the world, I would prefer to meet him when and if he is ready to protect my parks.

 

[EndDays]

Too bad he's gone, but i have to agree that him catching guests who vandalise was a littlebit too cartoony for my tastes.

Yeah. I wouldn't expect too much of that in my park either, but here's some other things I see security guards doing...

- Helping reunite lost group members (especially children)
- Security check-in stations at the entrance to the park. (All the parks here in Florida have them now. Universal even has full-on airport-style metal detectors.)
- Act as a kind-of roving information booth for guests needing directions or whatever. (I would love to see guests stop to ask him a question and then he points them in the right direction.)
- If there IS a park closing, they would sweep the park from back to front to make sure everyone has exited.
- Watching over entertainers.

 

[xyphic]

Yeah. I wouldn't expect too much of that in my park either, but here's some other things I see security guards doing...

- Helping reunite lost group members (especially children)
- Security check-in stations at the entrance to the park. (All the parks here in Florida have them now. Universal even has full-on airport-style metal detectors.)
- Act as a kind-of roving information booth for guests needing directions or whatever. (I would love to see guests stop to ask him a question and then he points them in the right direction.)
- If there IS a park closing, they would sweep the park from back to front to make sure everyone has exited.
- Watching over entertainers.

There's clearly a lot that security guards could do, but it has to add something to the gameplay (other than just realism) otherwise it's effort wasted that could have been spent on another feature. My original expectations for security would be along the lines that certain troublemakers could cause damage (graffiti) that your janitor would have to clean up, and having security would either reduce or stop that happening completely. Your mascots might get harassed (and get demotivated), people could have money stolen, etc.

 

[Curlyriff]

That's a real shame [sad]. Not only for security guard but it confirms they are the 4 staff in total that we employee and set wages etc. All those others that have been discussed are going to be missing which doesn't lead to any real progress in that area compared to anything on the series or similar games from a decade ago. My hype train has just slowed down a gear I am afraid.

I understand the principles why but it does feel like we missing key things like having senior ride attendants and training for ride attendants on certain types of rides be it coasters, track rides, flat rides etc where they could have trained. It also leads to the idea that we will just have the generic 3 training levels as there is no reason to train someone to work on the gardens or general litter etc.

 

[SPRidley]

Good to know about security guards not making the cut before people got hopes of them being there.

If i have to be frank, security guards have ALWAYS been the less interesting staff from a gameplay and visual standpoint in not only RCT 1 to 3, but also games like theme park series.
Vandals never really existed in these games, it was just something behind the scenes, you get too many people in the park and things start to be broken, there were not individual guests that broke those things, only an illusion of them being there. When you see this brake things, you just plop a security guard and they went they merry way going through the zone you indicated and think never broke where they walk.
You would never see a scurity guard throwing a guest out of the park or anything similar. They just walked. And I can tell you, security parks is not something you actually see in daylight at real theme parks. They mostly use cameras and people under cover (and real security staff was inside of a building monitoring this cameras), not actual security guards dressed walking through a park.

I understand that when Frontier came to the game design of them (and it was a sure thing at first glance becuase, of course they were in the older games), lots of questions starting popping up from a gameplay standpoint that couldn't be resolved as easy as it seems (creating games is resolving problems of things you start to add, "does it work on every way possible and if working is it fun?" is the mantra of game designers). Do they work like in old RCT games? In the much more creative game that is Planet Coaster, invisible vandals breaking lights and benches is not fun, is not as easy to change this super decorative things now as it was in RCT once they were broken. Then how can we make them more interesting and fun to play?
They probably tried a lot of new implementatios and nothing seem to work well for them, so the best thing was axed them for the time being, who knows, maybe they find something that works much better in the future (this happens a lot during development and a good time sleep).

Maybe they already tried this, but here is an idea for the future.
Instead of vandals breaking things or them being "invisible" they are actual people that start entering your park after you have a cosiderable amount of them.
This "vandals" wil distract entertainers and other guests, and entertainers and guests will start asking for security.
Security staff then comes handy to protect this conflict zones, if security catches this vandal distracting people, it automatically boots him out of the park and guests and entertainers are happier. Vandals will reapear in your park if you have a big amount of people coming in again and displease in queues, not founding food stalls or restrooms, or too little rides for the amount of people starts becoming rampant.
Or something like that. Of course, Im sure they already thought of something similar but you never know.

Would love for them to return in the future better implemented, of course, but its not something Im going to cry about.

EDIT: I actually think they were vandals hitting mascots in the original Theme Park.

 

[Angelis1]

Regarding security guards, please check out Zac's reply from reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PlanetCoas..._beta_screenshots_of_park_management/d9bhp3w/

Thank you for transparency.
It was certain anyway, that the game would not be finished in time, you have too many good ideas.
This is what happens when a game is quality : delayed or updated later.

I am sure that the product will be supported and maintained with patchs/updates for months/years. [yesnod][up]

 

[Lurker1]

I will still reserve my judgement until the beta, but staff are wholly dissapointing.

Right now

All janitors look the same
Janitors tasks reduced from previous games (no watering, no grass cutting).
Training lacks any depth or challenge
No areas. entertainers wander well outside the bounds of where they should be
No staff only areas/behind the scenes
No station staff (except operator who is so far not manageable)
Ticket booth staff pointless (they just stand there, don't take the money. No indication they are doing anything)
Vendors can't quit (shop won't close)
Janitors seem to bunch up (for me at least)
No gardeners
No security
No guest services or other more minor staff
No new / interesting tasks for staff
Unhappy vendors don't have significant impact on sales

Right now staff are hollow and provide no gameplay other than balancing the costs. This could be improved in the beta, but i think quite a lot of issues on that list will remain. We shall see.

 

[MrAdrianSW]

Check out the Guest in the bi-plane (bottom image, behind the Mechanic).
He appears to be wearing a fake beard and wig?.

 

[SPRidley]

I will still reserve my judgement until the beta, but staff are wholly dissapointing.

Right now

All janitors look the same
Janitors tasks reduced from previous games (no watering, no grass cutting).
Training lacks any depth or challenge
No areas. entertainers wander well outside the bounds of where they should be
No staff only areas/behind the scenes
No station staff (except operator who is so far not manageable)
Ticket booth staff pointless (they just stand there, don't take the money. No indication they are doing anything)
Vendors can't quit (shop won't close)
Janitors seem to bunch up (for me at least)
No gardeners
No security
No guest services or other more minor staff
No new / interesting tasks for staff
Unhappy vendors don't have significant impact on sales

Right now staff are hollow and provide no gameplay other than balancing the costs. This could be improved in the beta, but i think quite a lot of issues on that list will remain. We shall see.

There, Ive bolded your the problem with most of the things you had in your post. Wait to see how they act or what they do in the beta, then you can bring the problems you still have up to Frontier and they can decided if your propositions can be good, and can be still changes even after the game is released. That's actually what they have done during the 3 alphas, even if you think they have not. As you said, we shall see, so dont use your divination ball just yet.

Also Janitors having to keep of with grass and garden watering was always contrived for a creative game like this, in fact janitors already didnt cut grass in RCT3.
Just think for a second, the grass in Planet Coaster is bump mapped, and terraforming is so advanced that cutting that bump mapping would not only be strange, but also look horrible. Was it any fun to keep your grass short? what good gameplay elements brought to the table? Is it norstalgia only talking here?
Those are questions you need to ask yourself, and they think how can they be resolved on a complete 3D game that uses terrain a lot to be super creative.

 

[Curlyriff]

There, Ive bolded your the problem with most of the things you had in your post. Wait to see how they act or what they do in the beta, then you can bring the problems you still have up to Frontier and they can decided if your propositions can be good, and can be still changes even after the game is released. That's actually what they have done during the 3 alphas, even if you think they have not. As you said, we shall see, so dont use your divination ball just yet.

Also Janitors having to keep of with grass and garden watering was always contrived for a creative game like this, in fact janitors already didnt cut grass in RCT3.
Just think for a second, the grass in Planet Coaster is bump mapped, and terraforming is so advanced that cutting that bump mapping would not only be strange, but also look horrible. Was it any fun to keep your grass short? what good gameplay elements brought to the table? Is it norstalgia only talking here?
Those are questions you need to ask yourself, and they think how can they be resolved on a complete 3D game that uses terrain a lot to be super creative.

I don't think it's direct game play or even nostalgia that I am missing but the fact that I would need to hire and train these other staff members, I need to hire them, to make sure they are their doing their job. I want to be immersed as a manager to manage things. There is literally zero depth to having 3 direct staff members you hire (mechanics, janitors, mascots) and others that are shop attendants when you hire them and forget about them other than go "oh the wage needs increasing" and "now they need training to level 2" and that's it.

There is no depth or gameplay that they really add now that to me is interesting. Having to maintain the right staff level and all the management is what I wanted. I still don't understand the non-zones. Great they know where to go by themselves, hang on a min so they are all clairvoyant and know where the litter is and where each other janitor is. In real parks managers "manage" those zones.

So far more and more has been cut from this side and I liked the look of the menus, I like the idea of loans but there is still the obvious missing. The stuff that you cannot cut because that is management to it's core. No it's not original but then you can't re-invent management as it's a real thing. It is a sim game. It is a park management and this just smacks off, well we couldn't get it to work so have just taken it away.

Sorry but this has frustrated me. I think this is a brilliantly creative game but there just is nothing there for the detail and the managing. Great all the bolts are on the coaster supports but we couldn't make 10 different models for janitors and give them different personalities with slightly different traits where they are cheaper to hire but slower or grumpy or they cost more and are faster and more attentive to the guests of the park.

The basics of having someone who just waters the plants would have been good, to have that the plants that have been attended too can just have a greater influence than ones that haven't to the guests that pass them. It just seems like certain things from management have been taken away for the creative requirements.

 

[Abletudu]

These things may or may not be in the game, we just don't know yet. I don't have a crystal ball to see the future, so I must wait and see.

 

[SPRidley]

As management has NEVER been the strong point of the series they are tributing (Theme park and theme hospital have always had more deep in those places, like the every staff member with different personalities you said, but they were worse at everything else) its not something that frankly makes me care less about the game. If some of this things (like watering plants and cutting grass) impact in some way the creative side of the game, that was always the strong point, Im going to prefer if they get rid of them, or change them substantially so they dont affect the creative part, than being forced in and affect it.
Its a pity to find this has that huge of an impact in your enjoyment but games sadly cant have everything we want. I would even make it more creative, but that would be making the game more difficult to use and only catering to me and a few people more, so i udenrstand theeres a line they cant cross.
And dont take me wrong, I would love to have security guards (but I reather have them done well and in a fun way, thank forced just becuase it was a staple) and the staff zones back, that we still dont know if they are completly out BTW, and even I would welcome staff with different peronalities and prices to be bought. But I dont know, you hear some of the management side and I hear things like one guy the other day actually asked for freaking water pipes system in the game! and I dont think this game is the one that needs to go THAT deep. There are games that are better and always have been, like sim city.

 

[Lurker1]

Ive bolded your the problem with most of the things you had in your post. Wait to see how they act or what they do in the beta

Also Janitors having to keep of with grass and garden watering was always contrived for a creative game like this, in fact janitors already didnt cut grass in RCT3.
Just think for a second, the grass in Planet Coaster is bump mapped, and terraforming is so advanced that cutting that bump mapping would not only be strange, but also look horrible. Was it any fun to keep your grass short? what good gameplay elements brought to the table? Is it norstalgia only talking here?
Those are questions you need to ask yourself, and they think how can they be resolved on a complete 3D game that uses terrain a lot to be super creative.

I did clearly write i'll reserve judgement until beta.

I agree, the gardening roles don't seem suitable for janitors in this version of the game, but have they been replaced as tasks to be managed? We'll again, have to wait and find out.

One thing i suggested was training staff in different skills (i.e customer service, salesmanship, efficiency) and then the ability to move staff between facilities and roles to more suit their individual thoughts. Some staff say "I'm not cut out for this" ... right but i've trained you in efficiency, how do you fancy being a ride op. (you then pay to train them in the new role, but keep the skills training).

Another thing i suggested was extra roles for entertainers. Cheif beef has a platter of slider freebies which makes guests want to go to cheif beef stores.

Facilities needing upkeep. Janitors should clean the toilets, maintance should repair broken tills.

I have high hopes for staff management. My point was that several key jobs from previous generations of the game were removed, and now a key staff member. I can only hope that these jobs are replaced with something.

As i said, worried but i'll wait and see what the beta brings.

 

[Funrir Woulfe]

I for one really won't miss the park inspector from RCT3, I think that having a VIP visit your park would fill the same role, and act as a way to advertise your park on top of that, like say it's someone famous that comes to your park, they ride a few rides, eat at a few stalls, look at your theming, etc

They leave the park, boost your rating, get more guests to come, OR, they decrease your park rating because they had a horrible time in your park, that in turns drives guests away, and so on