Please fix the financial system in Planet Coaster. Somethings buggy.

[jatomlinson]

The financial system seems seriously broken. For instance under 'Rides and Tickets' in the Financial tab you are charged a negative amount for park entrance tickets. This doesn't make any sense because you are already being charged money on park management under the park management tab, so not making a sale on park entrance tickets should not be marked as negative income under Rides and Tickets. Let me just show you what my Rides and Tickets looks like in finances to explain:

Ride Ticket Sales = $5,331.50
Coaster Ticket Sales = $3,744.00
-----------------------------------------
Added together this equals $9,075.50 money coming in from ticket sales and coaster sales


Ride Running Costs = - $3,511.06
Coaster Running Costs = - $2,123.79
----------------------------------------------
Total Money going out to run rides equals -$5,634.85

If you subtract the money going out from the money coming in it should equal a profit of $3,440.65

This is not counting park ticket sales. Park ticket sales should be around $2,205 for the month and this should be added to the ride sales profit for a profit of around $5,700 total for the month just from rides and ticket sales. However, I am sitting at a profit loss of -$5,516.35 for the month because it is telling me my 'Park Entrance Ticket Sales' is -$8,957 for the month. There should not be a negative number of ticket sales for the month. I understand missing a sale but the game reads zero missed sales for the month, and even if you miss a park entrance ticket sale it would not be a negative number. The only thing reading for Park Entrance Ticket sales should be a number of $0.00 if your entry fee is free, or a positive number if you sold any tickets at a price. There's no 'running cost' for selling park entry tickets. The system is broken and makes it impossible to make a profit on ticket and ride sales. I don't know if it's just my game that's broken, or if it's a bug or if it's the coding, but it doesn't make sense to have a negative number on park entrance ticket sales.

See screenshots:

 

[breezerHOG1]

Thank you for pointing this out, its too bad more people don't look further into these things, but not enough people are invested in the financial aspect.

In most real life parks, coasters don't bring in the profits, shops do. It's too bad that Planet Coaster doesn't have a better system for park admission fees with free rides.

 

[Chems]

Thank you for pointing this out, its too bad more people don't look further into these things, but not enough people are invested in the financial aspect.

In most real life parks, coasters don't bring in the profits, shops do. It's too bad that Planet Coaster doesn't have a better system for park admission fees with free rides.

Could a system where you can link shops or merchandise to coasters/rides, and the more popular the coaster the more people will but the coaster's merchandise work?

 

[breezerHOG1]

Could a system where you can link shops or merchandise to coasters/rides, and the more popular the coaster the more people will but the coaster's merchandise work?

I do like the idea for certain souvenirs like a photo booth, or t-shirt stall. But I dont think that would fix the financial system.

Something that might help, could possibly be to have parks close down for the winter, and each November the guests all leave and each March new guests arrive, that could increase admission income while also refilling guests wallets. But that would be a major change of the game and require a lot of balancing (and of course it would be optional with an on/off toggle)

I haven't looked into the games finances enough to have a serious opinion on how to fix it (its basically a lot of math) but what it comes down to is realism vs fun/puzzles... like do you price everything true to life? or do you make it all up just for fun? It seems like the devs kind of threw a dart at a wall on that one, and just hoped to land it somewhere in the middle.

I have looked into prestige quite a bit and I think prestige ratings could be balanced a bit too. Also, research could be improved too (lol) but thats a lot of different areas to cover. Oh and dont even get me started on the objectives/challenges [tongue]

I also think the game could have its system of time-flow tweaked a bit too. PC still uses an 8 month calendar like RCT, but each month is longer now. I think each month is 12 minutes and a year is about 1 hour 35 minutes, but it can vary based on how long you have your park open for. The whole park closing or hours feature is silly because, its better to keep your park open 24/7... I think most people would not be bothered if years/months were a little bit longer.

Theres so many other possibilities that could effect finances too, like rain, guests that come in groups/parties, staff breakrooms, training rooms, etc. I really hope they can fix up finances and then hopefully we can get a fully featured scenario editor someday [up]

 

[mechanikos]

While i do agree with some of the above suggestions, 43% is getting a refund of previously paid entrancefee. There you have your negative ticketsales. I don't see anything wrong with that. But what in your park caused it? 39% really likes your park.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

While i do agree with some of the above suggestions, 43% is getting a refund of previously paid entrancefee. There you have your negative ticketsales. I don't see anything wrong with that. But what in your park caused it? 39% really likes your park.

Yeah, I've never seen gate refunds, nor negative ticket sales. All my parks are paid entry free rides.
It seems a lot of complaints come from players own doing rather than game mechanics.

 

[mechanikos]

Yeah, I've never seen gate refunds, nor negative ticket sales. All my parks are paid entry free rides.
It seems a lot of complaints come from players own doing rather than game mechanics.

I had it when closing the park, kicking everyone out, and the occasional 1% or so when getting a park started, so curious what happend to the OP's park that half likes it and half is P'ed off by it.

 

[breezerHOG1]

Yeah, I've never seen gate refunds, nor negative ticket sales. All my parks are paid entry free rides.
It seems a lot of complaints come from players own doing rather than game mechanics.

It makes sense that small parks don't work with paid admission, I guess. I've found that paid admission can work well with bigger parks, but its a lot more challenging(or slows down income) than charging per ride. A lot of times when my park grows, I will charge a small admission, and then set the rides prices to be very cheap but still maintaining an income, as that is the best way to achieve profits. Otherwise, guests run out of money too fast since they rarely use an ATM. I guess it makes sense, which is why I am mostly concerned about balancing prestige, as many rides are not worth any value.

I also find that rides which are in the "old status" are completely ignored by guests, even if I set the price to free. If rides are free, it should increase guest happiness and park rating IMO. Most of the parks I have been to in real life only charge for certain rides, like maybe go-karts or a bungee-jump etc

Another idea I have is about the type of guests we get. If I build a bunch of family rides, I will get more family groups. Profit wise, it is better to bring in adult groups. Maybe it would be interesting if there was a way to have different settings like, one scenario could have a specific demographic that it needs, I don't know if the career mode had any scenarios like that but it didn't seem like it.

I wish PC had some of the features found in Theme Hospital, like having a large group of guests come with a specific requirement, or having employee stamina and more advanced training/researching features.

While i do agree with some of the above suggestions, 43% is getting a refund of previously paid entrancefee. There you have your negative ticketsales. I don't see anything wrong with that. But what in your park caused it? 39% really likes your park.

I would like to know what constitutes a refund? Is there a set number of rides a guest must go on? Maybe there could be a fee for non-riders, many real life parks offer a discount price for non-riders

 

[shaneturner12]

A refund usually happens if a guest is unhappy enough to request one. You can get an idea on what percentage of guests do this by looking under the tab where you set the ticket price (it will be in the thoughts section at the bottom if it applies).

Shane