Noone Riding Certain Flats

[Bullethead]

It would not be difficult at all because the guests don't actually see

Which is why it would be difficult. You'd have to give them that ability as a first step JK

Actually, the real problem with tying parts to themes is what we see already when looking for specific parts with the theme filter. Parts that should be in 1 theme are arbitrarily assigned to another. Even worse, the theme sets don't all have corresponding parts, so either you'd need to invest a bunch of time into making a bunch of redundant parts differing only in their textures and theme tags, or you'd have to give most parts tags for many if not all of the themes. Which defeats the entire purpose of what you're trying to do here, because the result would be that no matter what parts you used, you'd still get the theme bonus.

It would be far easier to have 1 small little easily hidden part for each theme. This part would have the effect of saying "everything within X radius of me belongs to Theme Y". Then you wouldn't need theme tags on the parts, and could use whatever parts you wanted in the nearby scenery. BUT, OTOH, if that's all you have to do to get the bonus, then everybody would and there'd be no real point in having the bonus.

And finally, there's the problem that if you have bonuses for game-defined themes, you limit the creative ability of players to invent their own themes. For example, I tend to make many buildings in the same park or area out of the same mixes of a couple of stock themes to create my own theme that the game doesn't give me. For example, Spanish and French tropical colonial. This uses modern (stucco, brick, wood, and concrete) plus western (lime plaster), all covered with triopical/pirate bushes. At present, I'm neither helped nor hurt by this, yet my park has a consistent appearance which I think realistically captures a specific historical architectural style . However, if theme bonus points come into play, then I'd be hurt by doing this. My buildings wouldn't be pure-blooded in any specific theme and my building themes wouldn't match my gardening theme. I'd be rather miffed by that .

So really, there isn't a good way to implement theme bonuses. No matter how the devs might try to set it up, it's either going to do more harm than good, or result in a bunch of part redundancy, or computer overhead, or all of the above, for what is objectively essently ZERO gameplay effect. Which is no doubt why the devs very sensibly opted not to have this antiquated and misguided feature in PC, thus allowing much more player creativity. Make no mistake. Theme bonuses are simply limits on what players can do. That's a bad thing. Not having them is freedom. That's a good thing.

 

[breezerHOG1]

Which is why it would be difficult. You'd have to give them that ability as a first step JK

L[haha]L

it worked great in RCT3. I liked using just one set of pieces per area, it gave me a little bit of structure for learning the building system and pieces available. Like I said, this is more for the casual career player who plops down a lot of premade structures, not the sandbox players who mix and match. But its not a big deal

 

[Bullethead]

I think you're generalizing a little bit here Bullethead I'm not in the mind set of dictatorship and I like the puzzle aspect too. My basic point is why does a thrill seeker (I didn't mean all teens in general), have a fear factor of .8 - 7.8? If they are determining rides on fear (I actually think they do not, and should). I think a thrill seeking teenager should not be as interested in a family rides as much a timid peep. Last time I was at a park, I didn't see many teens in kiddie land, riding the jr. coaster.

I was making a joke about "the stereotyping"

The devs and the loading hints both say that peeps determine which rides they can go on based on fear and nausea. This is also borne out by observations.

Anyway, the true thrill-seekers, those with the highest max fear tolerances in their demographic, do not as a rule spend much time on kiddie rides. The higher their max fear, the higher their minimum fear (usually), so the more likely they are to patronize scarier rides instead of tamer ones. Other factors of course still come into play, such as prestige and travel time, which can divert them to tamer rides depending on where they happen to be at the time, but by and large they go for as much thrill as they can tolerate.

However, you do have a good point. I added another column to my raw data for (Fmax - Fmin) and it turns out that teens have by far the greatest difference between these points. It looks like this:

• TEENS: greatest difference: 8.5, lowest difference 3.0, average 6.1
• ADULTS: greatest difference 6.9, lowest difference 2,9, average 4.16
• FAMILIES: greatest difference 4.6, lowest difference 2.8, average 3.7

I suppose the wide range for teens makes a kind of sense, actually. Teens are in the gray area between childhood and adulthood, not quite sure which to be at any given moment, which is why there are all these teen angst movies and such . They have the childish habits of their whole lives so far, but are also exploring new territory with varying degrees of temerity or daring. Plus each individual teen matures both mentally and physically at different and not necessarily consistent rates. So realistically, the whole "teen" demographic is a very mixed bag and a moving target, with the only constant being change. So all in all, I still don't have a problem with a fair number of teens hitting kiddie rides on a regular basis.

I also mildly disagree with this idea that fear is the deal breaker, I think there is more to it than just fear, (nausea perhaps?) because I have a carousel that has a queue that's always full in a park with very high prestige rides regardless of classic age being used or not. Yes its probably the "deal breaker" determining if they will ride but its not what's attracting them to rides. Excitement and prestige are and that's why I think flat rides need to have something more to give them a higher attractiveness.

Fear is the only real deal-breaker because all peeps tolerate more nausea than fear, and you can't make a ride with more nausea than fear without deliberately trying--it never happens if you have any desire for realism. Nausea is coded as a deal-breaker but that never happens because fear breaks the deal before nausea enters the picture. Both fear and nausea are also tie-breakers, however, attracting peeps if they fall between the peep's min and mox tolerances. Excitement alone isn't even a tie-breaker. It's just one component of prestige, which itself is just one of many tie-breakers.

I agree that the tame flat rides are kinda screwed by the current state of balance in the prestige system. And likewise, IMHO track rides are unduly favored by it. But here's the thing. Parks consist of multiple coasters, track rides, and flat rides. The members of each general type can have very different stats and the general types are VERY different from each other.. Somehow, peeps have to decide which one of all these choices to go on, which means the game has to have some system to rank all these very different rides on the same scale. How do you do that?

In PC, the answer is prestige, which attempts to make sense out of all this. It factors in excitement, duration, and scenery, each of which can be considered the forte of one of the general types of rides. The problem, of course, is that these generalizations fall down in practice. It's pretty easy to make a coaster strong in all 3 areas, track rides IMHO get WAY more excitement than they deserve so they're also strong across the board. Even the more exciting flat rides can compete with these due to their excitement. But the tame flat rides have the short end of the stick.

So IMHO the prestige system needs some tweaks. It's very apparent that track rides get way more excitement and fear for their so-called "speed" and utterly lame track layouts than coasters do with the same track. I suppose this is to make them appealing to all demographics, which they should be. But IMHO the same thing should apply to some of the tamer flat rides, those incapable of generating any real excitement at all. Give them a buff to excitement, so they can have good prestige without stupidly long durations, but leave their fear alone so it stays low. That way, they still cater to the same market (based on fear) but are more competitive (due to higher prestige).

 

[PC_OCD]

I'm going to have to disagree with all your points Bullethead.
Your first argument I can somewhat agree with

the real problem with tying parts to themes is what we see already when looking for specific parts with the theme filter. Parts that should be in 1 theme are arbitrarily assigned to another. Even worse, the theme sets don't all have corresponding parts, so either you'd need to invest a bunch of time into making a bunch of redundant parts differing only in their textures and theme tags, or you'd have to give most parts tags for many if not all of the themes. Which defeats the entire purpose of what you're trying to do here, because the result would be that no matter what parts you used, you'd still get the theme bonus.

The main reason I do not agree with the above argument is because the database for the scenery and building parts is a flipping mess. It needs a major overhaul to begin with. So when overhauling, why not make it work for themes? There is no need to make redundant parts. If said object is not part of a theme then it is just a vanilla part without a theme, unless user assigned as I will talk about later.

It would be far easier to have 1 small little easily hidden part for each theme. This part would have the effect of saying "everything within X radius of me belongs to Theme Y". Then you wouldn't need theme tags on the parts, and could use whatever parts you wanted in the nearby scenery. BUT, OTOH, if that's all you have to do to get the bonus, then everybody would and there'd be no real point in having the bonus.

This won't work because of exactly what you said. All rides would get bonuses and that's not what I'm talking about here. Flat rides I think are definitely in need of some sort of boost to prestige or whatever is making peeps decide to go to a ride. Adding a theme boost to a flat ride is a suggestion for implementing that without having to completely rework the excitement, prestige fear and nausea of each flat ride. My suggestion is a quick fix and its probably not much more code than adding an "if then" statement to the prestige calculator and setting up the database to understand themes.

And finally, there's the problem that if you have bonuses for game-defined themes, you limit the creative ability of players to invent their own themes. For example, I tend to make many buildings in the same park or area out of the same mixes of a couple of stock themes to create my own theme that the game doesn't give me. For example, Spanish and French tropical colonial. This uses modern (stucco, brick, wood, and concrete) plus western (lime plaster), all covered with triopical/pirate bushes. At present, I'm neither helped nor hurt by this, yet my park has a consistent appearance which I think realistically captures a specific historical architectural style . However, if theme bonus points come into play, then I'd be hurt by doing this. My buildings wouldn't be pure-blooded in any specific theme and my building themes wouldn't match my gardening theme. I'd be rather miffed by that .

Obviously the developers had themes planned out. They wanted themes or there would not be any themes listed. A pirate theme is a great idea. So is sci-fi and western and fairy tale. Your French Colonial idea is superb! So along with the developers themes why not just give the players the ability to define their own parameters for a unique player made theme?
I want French Colonial. choose your wall and roof. What scenery items do you primarily use? Pick 20 (random number for this example). All the sudden you have your own theme. That cannot be very hard to implement and there are no bounds to players creativity. Not only that, now, this French Colonial theme is a blueprint and can be uploaded to the workshop to be shared with other players. Or, for the sake of argument, if that is too much to ask for.. lets say you've created your own theme and Planet Coaster wont allow it to be user defined. Well, you probably are using a specific wall and roof type. That wall or roof would fall into a pre made theme (pirate maybe). Select that theme from your option box in the customization tab and now you get the scenery boost for your flat ride. It may not be as much as if you strictly use pirate stuff but you're still getting some boost.

So really, there isn't a good way to implement theme bonuses. No matter how the devs might try to set it up, it's either going to do more harm than good, or result in a bunch of part redundancy, or computer overhead, or all of the above, for what is objectively essently ZERO gameplay effect. Which is no doubt why the devs very sensibly opted not to have this antiquated and misguided feature in PC, thus allowing much more player creativity. Make no mistake. Theme bonuses are simply limits on what players can do. That's a bad thing. Not having them is freedom. That's a good thing.

I think there easy ways to implement theme bonuses and all the good things that could come from having themes. As creaper said, it was really awesome in RCT3 and its not antiquated or misguided. If its antiquated and misguided why does every theme park ive ever been to use some sort of theme? I think this suggestion brings an entire new level to the game along with new ways to create playability for the challenge, and career modes and with some database restructuring which needs to happen anyway.. it could become a new way to make theme blueprints for the workshop. No redundancy or computer overhead needed.

 

[PC_OCD]

So IMHO the prestige system needs some tweaks. It's very apparent that track rides get way more excitement and fear for their so-called "speed" and utterly lame track layouts than coasters do with the same track. I suppose this is to make them appealing to all demographics, which they should be. But IMHO the same thing should apply to some of the tamer flat rides, those incapable of generating any real excitement at all. Give them a buff to excitement, so they can have good prestige without stupidly long durations, but leave their fear alone so it stays low. That way, they still cater to the same market (based on fear) but are more competitive (due to higher prestige).

Now this I agree with! [up] But I still think themes would be an excellent way to tweak that flat ride prestige problem.

 

[caterpillar]

And finally, there's the problem that if you have bonuses for game-defined themes, you limit the creative ability of players to invent their own themes. For example, I tend to make many buildings in the same park or area out of the same mixes of a couple of stock themes to create my own theme that the game doesn't give me. For example, Spanish and French tropical colonial. This uses modern (stucco, brick, wood, and concrete) plus western (lime plaster), all covered with triopical/pirate bushes. At present, I'm neither helped nor hurt by this, yet my park has a consistent appearance which I think realistically captures a specific historical architectural style . However, if theme bonus points come into play, then I'd be hurt by doing this. My buildings wouldn't be pure-blooded in any specific theme and my building themes wouldn't match my gardening theme. I'd be rather miffed by that .

So really, there isn't a good way to implement theme bonuses. No matter how the devs might try to set it up, it's either going to do more harm than good, or result in a bunch of part redundancy, or computer overhead, or all of the above, for what is objectively essently ZERO gameplay effect. Which is no doubt why the devs very sensibly opted not to have this antiquated and misguided feature in PC, thus allowing much more player creativity. Make no mistake. Theme bonuses are simply limits on what players can do. That's a bad thing. Not having them is freedom. That's a good thing.

I totally agree with this.

PC_OCD, I think it's safe to say we all love themes. (I hope they add more stuff to the already existing themes + add more different themes)
I just don't stand behind the bonus system and bullethead explains why very well.

PS: I don't want PC to be(come) a copy of RCT3. Yes it was a good game, but I already have it [wink]

 

[Bullethead]

Now this I agree with! [up] But I still think themes would be an excellent way to tweak that flat ride prestige problem.

Personally, I'd rather entirely eliminate scenery as a component of prestige because it really makes no difference except where it's unfair to flat rides. Theme-based scenery bonus points would be equally pointless no matter how you scored them, for the exact same reasons as regular scenery.

See, I think it's safe to assume that for any park a player takes seriously, every ride will have 100% queue scenery. In fact, they'd probably have 500-1000% scenery if the game counted that high. And likewise, every coaster and track ride will have "Very High" track scenery. And the paths, shops, benches, streetlamps, etc., will also be completely pimped. IOW, scenery is always going to be uniformly applied in a thick layer all across the park, and it will also always be following a theme, either local to 1 area or park-wide. This is because 1) you get park scenery ratings for doing this, and 2) players just enjoy doing it, which is why they play the game to start with.

Thus, scenery is effectively merely a baseline default condition that applies to all rides. The points for scenery stack as follows, so that flat rides can get a max of about 300 scenery points while coasters and track rides can get a max of 500:

* 100% queue scenery: + ~300 prestige (the only kind flat rides get)
* High track scenery: + ~100 prestige
* Very High track scenery: + ~100 prestige (requires a trigger)

So, if we assume that players are just naturally going to pimp out everything whether they get any points for it or not, it's immediately apparent that queue scenery is completely meaningless. The purpose of prestige is to rank rides on the same scale, but queue scenery doesn't change their relative positions because every single ride gets the same 300 points.

It would be exactly the same with a theme bonus. Say you could get another 100 points for a theme. Guess what? Given that every ride already has a theme even though we currently don't get points for doing it, again, every ride would get the same 100 points, so it wouldn't help the flat rides any.

In fact, the only way the player can manipulate scenery to favor flat rides is to NOT put (much) scenery on track rides and coasters, so instead of getting more scenery points than flat rides, they end up with less. But who wants to do that?

Anyway, bottom line, I think the only real way to help the tame flat rides is by buffing some of their prestige components, and also perhaps tweaking the attractiveness of prestige itself. Things like the following:
* give tame flat rides more prestige per excitement point as mentioned above.
* give all flat rides 500 prestige for queue scenery so scenery isn't biased in favor of track rides and coasters
* smooth out the big jump in attractiveness at the 600-700 prestige level, so rides with 500 prestige aren't so thoroughly unattractive compared to rides with 700 prestige.

 

[PC_OCD]

I think those are good ideas. I like flat rides getting more prestige. They certainly need it but I think you're not giving scenery enough credit. Believe me, unlike you and some of the other creative players, there are players who would not use scenery very much if they didn't have to. Me being one of them. I'm personally guilty of building a coaster station until it receives the 100% rating and then I move on to other more fun things. Doors and Windows? Who needs those? heh. Younger kids like my boys have no interest in putting a bunch of flowers around a coaster station. For me, I like building rollercoasters, but decorating a house, not so much. Using someone else's toilet from the workshop (or really anything from the workshop)? Not me, sorry you may have the most beautiful toilet ever made but I'm not putting it in my park. So there is a valid reason to give players motivation to make their parks and rides more attractive. Objectives and prestige bonuses are one of the ways I'm actually encouraged to put the flower pot near my queue. I also think that the career and challenge mode are definitely a place where scenery and theme objectives are relevant. Especially if those modes start using a timer based gameplay strategy as some of the older RCT games, ie "have a scenery rating of 500 by the beginning of year 2." Things like that give the casual player fun objectives and a reason to actually think about how they build their park efficiently and profitably.
For sandbox I think your argument is relevant but for the casual player that is playing the career and challenge modes scenery and theming can be fun way to incorporate new and relevant game play.

For the workshop, scenery is key to success for those who participate. Most rollercoasters without scenery sit on the workshop with very little downloads. Those who actually put scenery into their creations are getting downloads. Scenery is a fundamental part of Planet Coaster and it shouldn't be disregarded. It should be encouraged.

 

[Bullethead]

I think those are good ideas. I like flat rides getting more prestige..

But don't forget, in the prestige game, there must always be winners and losers. Prestige's entire purpose is to rank the rides in order of preference, so there will always be a tail-end Charlie. If you change the rules so that tame flat rides are no longer in last place, what do you propose as the new all-time loser?

Personally, I think tame flat rides SHOULD be in last place. They're cheap to buy and operate, they have pathetic stats, and they only appeal to a niche market of extreme wimps so they will never do much business even at the best of times. Is there a better candidate for last place in the prestige pecking order? Certainly not coasters. And while I believe that track rides get more excitement (and thus more prestige) than they really deserve, there are many real-life examples that have killer and/or fun scenery so are rightfully very popular with all ages.

So, we come full circle to the OP's problem that his tame flat rides are doing zero business. Because they're so lame, they realistically shouldn't ever really do much business, but some is better than none. And it's possible to fix this problem in the game already. Just jack up the duration with more sequences until the ride's base prestige is at least 300, better 350, then give it 100% queue scenery for 300 more. This will put the ride on or slightly over the great divide in the power of prestige, and it will then be on a much more even footing with the rest of the park. It still won't do much business because statistically there just aren't very many customers attracted to such a wimpy ride, but it will do the best it can.

 

[PC_OCD]

yes but as I mentioned earlier, I don't think the developers spent all this time making these very well designed and meticulously crafted flat rides just so peeps will ignore them and I don't think adding a 5-10 minute run time should be the answer for making the ride more attractive.

 

[PC_OCD]

But don't forget, in the prestige game, there must always be winners and losers. Prestige's entire purpose is to rank the rides in order of preference, so there will always be a tail-end Charlie. If you change the rules so that tame flat rides are no longer in last place, what do you propose as the new all-time loser?

Personally, I think tame flat rides SHOULD be in last place. They're cheap to buy and operate, they have pathetic stats, and they only appeal to a niche market of extreme wimps so they will never do much business even at the best of times. Is there a better candidate for last place in the prestige pecking order? Certainly not coasters. And while I believe that track rides get more excitement (and thus more prestige) than they really deserve, there are many real-life examples that have killer and/or fun scenery so are rightfully very popular with all ages.

So, we come full circle to the OP's problem that his tame flat rides are doing zero business. Because they're so lame, they realistically shouldn't ever really do much business, but some is better than none. And it's possible to fix this problem in the game already. Just jack up the duration with more sequences until the ride's base prestige is at least 300, better 350, then give it 100% queue scenery for 300 more. This will put the ride on or slightly over the great divide in the power of prestige, and it will then be on a much more even footing with the rest of the park. It still won't do much business because statistically there just aren't very many customers attracted to such a wimpy ride, but it will do the best it can.

I started thinking about what you said here, and basically you've just argued in favor of thematic boosts to prestige and argued against your own suggestion of just adding a baseline increase to a flat ride.
Here's my thought:
lets say some big shot decides to make a park but can only afford a small coaster and a carousel. so big shot decides.. For the money, I'm going to make this the coolest carousel ever.. its going to be so pimped out with the most amazing stuff you've ever seen. It has X-Wing Fighters and Tie Fighters and AT-ATs and Chewbaka and Han-solo greeting them at the entrance! It has sound effects and light shows. This carousel is PIMPED out man. And now the peeps say well dang, I like that carousel better than the rollercoaster. The carousel has some really pimped out star wars stuff. The rollercoaster is just boring. I'm going to the carousel, and that makes perfect sense for why a carousel should actually be more attractive than a rollercoaster. And yeah, later the big shot makes the rollercoaster pimped out and finally gets its prestige bump but until then.. the carousel attracts more guests.

 

[Decoy_NDA]

What sandbox are you using? I have a park in the dessert biome and no one or very little peeps are riding the flat rides. this weekend I am going to make a new sandbox park in another biome and see if that will fix the peeps not riding the flat's.

 

[breezerHOG1]

no one or very little peeps are riding the flat rides

this should not happen in sandbox unless the guests are very unhappy (hungry/thirsty, etc)

 

[Bullethead]

yes but as I mentioned earlier, I don't think the developers spent all this time making these very well designed and meticulously crafted flat rides just so peeps will ignore them and I don't think adding a 5-10 minute run time should be the answer for making the ride more attractive.

Well, most flat rides really don't have a problem. They can have reasonable to extreme fear and excitement depending on which sequences you use and the order you put them in, and also can have the highest nausea in the park. That last is actually their selling point. Strangely, all peeps want more nausea than fear and the best way to give them their fix is with some of the more aggressive flat rides. So the minimum nausea tolerance tie-breaker kicks in and peeps come running, even though such rides' overall prestige isn't that impressive compared to coasters and track rides. But they have enough excitement easily to get over the 600-700 prestige divide so they do fine.

It's only the ultra-tame flat rides, the ones where it's physically impossible to have any EFN much above or even at 2.0, that really get stung by how prestige works. There's no way to get these over the prestige divide without making the duration unrealistically long, but if you don't do that, they get zero business. So really, the best change to the prestige system as far as tame flat rides go would be to iron out, or at least relocate, the hump in ride attractiveness at 600-700. Of course, there'd have to be the understanding by players that no matter what, these are niche attractions that will never be very popular simply because the vast majority of peeps prefer even marginally sterner stuff.

Relocating the hump downwards is probably the better option. Maybe move it to 500-550 instead of about 650. 550 is doable for an ultra-tame flat ride with 100% queue scenery without ridiculously excessive duration. But it would have no chance of getting there without 100% queue scenery and some minor tinkering with sequences. Thus, players would still have an incentive to pimp these rides out and set the sequences, but they'd actually get rewarded at a more realistic point of the ride's development. It still wouldn't be nearly as popular as anything else, but at least it wouldn't be deserted if you put a reasonable amount of work into it.

 

[Bullethead]

I started thinking about what you said here, and basically you've just argued in favor of thematic boosts to prestige and argued against your own suggestion of just adding a baseline increase to a flat ride.

If you got that impression, then I utterly failed at communicating because that's the exact opposite of what I meant. So I'll try again.

NOTE: I'm not trying to be confrontational here, so please take no offense. This isn't a personal attack on anybody, it's just got emphasis added where apparently I didn't put enough previously.

================

As a general rule for prestige, if it's something the player is going to do to every ride, every time, then there should be exactly ZERO prestige attached to it. This is because every ride, every time, would get those points, which are the same for every ride, every time, and thus make ZERO difference in their relative prestige scores. And having relative differences in prestige scores is the whole purpose of having prestige to begin with.

For any serious park, every p;layer, every time, is going to pimp his rides. Every player, ever time, is going to pimp his rides to a theme just for his own aesthetic sense, even in the absence of the game providing a carrot or stick on this subject. So every ride, every time, is going to have 100% queue scenery and be done to some theme, regardless of whether the theme is defined by the player or the game. Therefore, every ride, every time, will get exactly the same points for the scenery elements they have in common, such as queue and perhaps theme. Which means there's exactly ZERO reason to have these scenery elements go into prestige, because every ride, every time will get the same points for those scenery elements.

This of course leaves coasters and track rides with the advantage because they get prestige for track scenery and flat rides don't. Which is something that might need addressing in a balance pass later on down the road.

 

[PC_OCD]

For any serious park, every p;layer, every time, is going to pimp his rides. Every player, ever time, is going to pimp his rides to a theme just for his own aesthetic sense, even in the absence of the game providing a carrot or stick on this subject. So every ride, every time, is going to have 100% queue scenery and be done to some theme, regardless of whether the theme is defined by the player or the game. Therefore, every ride, every time, will get exactly the same points for the scenery elements they have in common, such as queue and perhaps theme. Which means there's exactly ZERO reason to have these scenery elements go into prestige, because every ride, every time will get the same points for those scenery elements.

I'm sorry but this idea is wrong Bullethead, and I'm not being confrontational here either.


---------BEWARE: HUGE WALL OF TEXT TO FOLLOW------------



Firstly, queue rating and prestige are two entirely different things. Prestige scores vary tremendously, are not as easy to create and ultimately build the attractiveness of the ride thus the problem of flat rides not attracting peeps. Prestige is not the same for every ride every time. This variation in prestige can be seen in all rides. My best park doesn't have two rides with the same prestige score. This is especially true in challenge mode or career mode where you are building a park from the ground up with financial concerns and trying to attract peeps to rides with a small allotment of cash and flat rides that peeps think are boring.

Secondly, not everyone takes the creative mindset you have Bullethead, but they still take this game seriously or take their parks seriously or who cares, maybe they don't, maybe they just want to watch rollercoasters crash.. but I know that not everyone taking their park seriously, every time is pimping out their rides 100% and as I mentioned before, take a moment to watch kids play the game. (If you have not watched a kid play this game, I highly encourage you to do so. It is very fun to see how they approach Planet Coaster. I will guarantee it will astonish you how differently their minds work from an adult, and it may change your opinion of how every player every time is playing this game and believe me, they are taking their park seriously). Also, I'm pretty certain you aren't pimping your rides to max either given I've had the pleasure to download and enjoy your park (thanks again for sharing, its a really cool park) and seen for myself that not every ride had the same prestige score. My parks are also proof. I have a 60 year old park that's scizzer has a 64% queue rating and low prestige. Its attracting enough peeps for me so I don't bother doing more. Id rather build a rollercoaster or work on something else. I'll get back to that later if I need to, but the thing is, if it was fully pimped and still needed peeps in the queue, themed scenery, if it existed, could make that happen. This suggestion BTW is a very good solution for the "aging" or "old" ride to compete better with a "classic" ride.

There are huge variations in prestige depending on track scenery. Themed scenery would be a way for flat rides to have that scenery bonus also. The amount that a player puts on that ride is variable and therefore the prestige score is variable. Of course there is a breaking point when a ride will not be any more attractive, but its fair for a carousel to be highly prestigious, beyond a rollercoaster's. If that is what a player wants to do they should be allowed, and I think they should get a bonus for doing it too. Your idea of just adding or subtracting a baseline to the prestige of flat rides has no gameplay, and could very well imbalance the game even more.

I also mentioned in my suggestion maybe its only flat rides that get the theme bonus. This solves the small prestige imbalance for lack of track scenery, which has unfortunately befell the flat rides. Rollercoasters and track rides would still get scenery bonuses and deserve anything the player dishes out, but the flat ride needs a little bump and therefore maybe they are the only rides that would receive theme bonuses? Maybe not? Maybe all rides do? It really doesn't matter as long as the flat ride can become more appealing in certain parks (especially with reputation options turned on) by building more scenery and increasing its prestige so it can compete with the classic ride, like for instance, the OP's park. Nothing drastic, just a fair increase depending on how tricked out you make it. So what if a carousel is cooler than a suspended coaster? What's the big deal? The player made it cool. they should be rewarded for that. Its not going to turn the inverted coaster into a pig and eventually the inverted coaster could become better than the carousel depending on the amount of scenery used and how well its built. You said in an earlier post you want freedom. Thematic scenery is a great way to add freedom and creativity to the game. I don't think there is any way you can convince me otherwise. I see nothing wrong with this idea if its utilized either for all rides or only flat rides. It adds more gameplay and objectives to the game, mostly in career and challenge modes.. and it gives the player a reason to actually spend an hour making a flat ride look attractive rather than just adding 5 minutes of spin to the ride which cuts down on throughput and ultimately profit. It very much does solve the problem of making flat rides more attractive especially in the case of an aging flat ride competing with a classic. Not only that, it was done before in previous games and was very successful and personally I think one of the best features of those games. I wouldn't be surprised if some variation of this idea is in the next update.

Beyond all that, there is also the fact every ride becomes ridiculously prestigious once its a classic so every ride every time no matter what you do is going to be a highly prestigious in the end so, really the other thing you could do is just plop all the rides down as soon as you can afford them, then close them and wait 25 years. To me, Not fun, and not really a gameplay attribute, probably as close to cheating as you can get in Planet Coaster and very much like adding a 6 minute spin cycle to a ride.

sorry for the long post and hope I did not offend anyone, but I felt I needed to articulate and defend my idea.

 

[caterpillar]

You said in an earlier post you want freedom. Thematic scenery is a great way to add freedom and creativity to the game.

No, if you connect bonuses to it like you want, it does the exact opposite. It would ruin one of the strongest (I personally think it's thé strongest) things about Planet Coaster which IS the freedom in the creativity. [happy] And to me, this alone already makes Planet Coaster a better game than RTC3.

Like Bullethead mentioned: it would punish people creating their own themes, combining things from different themes or adjusting something from an originally different theme to fit in another.
Or how about the single scenery items - as only 1 example of many - the skeleton? It's good that it's in a theme, I love the themes, but you have to be able to use it in all themes without being punished. Put all such things in a generic label? How much themed items would there really be left then anyway?

Like I said before (and would like to repeat since it probably never got read anyway because it can take hours for a post of mine to show up, so excuse me if you in fact did read it [happy]) :
I don't want PC to be(come) RCT3. I already have that game. Giving us players such freedom of creativity is the kind of thing that makes it a different game, and, well, imo, is not only an innovation but also an improvement.

(edit: also not wanting to come across harsh, naturally )

 

[PC_OCD]

you wouldn't get punished for creating a theme.. As Bullethead pointed out, A highly creative player like Bullethead, or you that is going deeply into creativity (probably using sandbox) doesn't even need the bonuses and you wouldn't be punished for not using them. Like I mentioned earlier, if you had the ability to create your own theme using objects from the gallery of scenery and building items mixing it up so to speak, where does the punishment come from? For the casual player, especially in challenge and career mode with reputation turned on, themes would only help attract the peeps to flat rides while building a park. Once a park is completed with tons of creativity, its probably hit the 25 year mark anyway and your ride isn't going to need any bonuses anymore anyway its hit the breaking point of attractiveness. Unless you put a new ride down that is going to have to compete with classic rides. Exactly where themed bonuses could help that very badly balanced area of the game. Have you seen the queue for an aging flat ride in a park with multiple classics? Its a ghost town queue. No one rides an aging ride in a classic park and forget old rides. they might as well be shut down for the next 22 years. Theming rides would fix that. Creating their own themes and using them for their own park would not punish them, this logic of punishing the player confounds me. I do not understand where you are getting that from? Its a creative way to come up with new ideas and new ways to have thematic scenery that could be altered and changed and blueprinted to actually help your park attract guests to the not very prestigious flat rides.

On another note, I don't want RCT3 either. That game was fun ten years ago but I don't see why some of the great implementations of scenery and thematics cannot be incorporated into Planet Coaster for gameplay, replayability and management objectives, which is highly needed for Planet Coaster. I think many people will agree that management and playability is right now what is needed from Planet Coaster. The creativity boat has landed and its great. Themes would incorporate both. All themes would do is add more depth to the management and objectives of the game in general and boost a struggling flat ride to boot.

 

[breezerHOG1]

I don't want PC to be(come) RCT3. I already have that game. Giving us players such freedom of creativity is the kind of thing that makes it a different game, and, well, imo, is not only an innovation but also an improvement.

PC is and always will be rct4 to me. Its the same developer, the same engine, the same feeling and style. Theres things PC does way better than RCT3, things it does worse, but most things are very similar. I don't think this specific topic (themes) is a make-it or break-it type of feature. It would mainly effect blueprints so that a specific building could be uploaded and shared to a specific theme set, and allow for more search options as our blueprints grow in size and number. It would also be more for the career/challenge players who are seeking a little extra boost for guest happiness, and not the artistic and creative sandbox style players.

Either way its not a big deal, I doubt its something that will be added, but it would have been a nice feature for searching through blueprints so that if I wanted to see all my "pirate themed" shops together I could instead of having to flip between drinks and food only. Saying this would hurt creative is just being close minded to all the things it would benefit for certain non-creative players. The game is specifically designed around and it does a great job at that, I dont think setting some pieces to a certain theme would change or detract from that aspect of the game, only improve things for those who are less of a mix and match style builder.

Im repeating all this from a post just a few above this, so I know it doesn't matter the devs are not going to change it at this point. But I just get upset when people say that PC isnt rct3 or they dont want PC turning into rct3, as if that would be a bad thing. I for one hope PC follows in the same footsteps of rct3 with add-ons and features

how about the single scenery items - as only 1 example of many - the skeleton? It's good that it's in a theme, I love the themes, but you have to be able to use it in all themes without being punished. Put all such things in a generic label? How much themed items would there really be left then anyway?

thats a valid point

 

[PC_OCD]

thats a valid point

Actually if you read my suggestion a little closer this is not valid. I've already explained how this could be circumvented. If there are "user defined themes" which I've gone into detail in a previous post. The database for scenery and buildings is a flat out mess and needs to be reworked as it is so, why not rework it with user defined themes when they do it. UGC has already been approved and will be released. It only makes sense that with UGC creators should be able to define their own themes.