Refunds

[Kai]

I'm having this same issue and it's making me not want to play my franchise in case I go bankrupt!! I went from having about £300k in cash and making more every year to £70k in a few years and constantly losing money. I couldn't work out what was happening and soon realised it was refunds. But the game doesn't give much info as to what refunds are or why they are happening so I had to google and it led me here. I had no overlapping speakers. I've just moved around staff areas so they're well out of the way. More bins and caretakers. I've fired a lot of staff to try and save money on wages but now I fear that the animals or shops will suffer which in turn will make my guests unhappy! I really wish that there was some kind of pop-up warning about many guests requesting refunds because now I fear it may be too late for my 50 year old zoo

There's 2 things that can make my zoos go negative in a year and it's always either refunds or animal food costs. Refunds are caused by the guests hitting 0 happiness and leaving the zoo. Doesn't necessarily need to be caused by overlapping speakers (just in a lot of cases it is, as the negative is so poorly explained). Do you have any security guards? I like to keep at least one around even in small zoos, just because the guests enjoy watching them chase people.

Check your guest heat-map to see where there's a lot of red guests and then try to work out why they're in the red (which is often hard I'll agree). Mine are pretty much always moaning about food/drink queues non-stop in every zoo I own. I hate how they seem to expect food/drink huts available to them every 10 meters.

They will also moan about the weather (snow in my UK zoo, heat in my rainforest zoo) so adding heaters/coolers helps keep them happier. Same for rain: I like to at least put something to above popular viewing areas, shops and/or paths, so they whine less. They were even moaning that my lions were too hot (at 24C); I had to give the lions a cooler too.

Animal food costs can sneak up on you, especially if you're breeding. I had issues with the gorillas myself as the keeper would overfeed them when I had more than 4 in the enclosure. I could sit there and watch the extra food he put down rot before it was eaten; they never even touched it once. Eventually I had to store the adults after they gave birth, just to keep the food costs sane. Anything with babies often seems to cause issues with food prices/keepers over feeding. I've been told to run lots of exhibits (for donations) to offset feeding costs.

As a last resort, you could always store your animals just run a bunch of exhibits at the entrance (at least 10 but the more the merrier). That's how I start up any new franchise zoos while I research everything again (awful mechanic). They're very cheap to maintain. Boas, anacondas, gila, red knees and goliath frogs all have a decent lifespan; I'd avoid the species that die super fast unless you enjoy the micro. You can let them breed and sell the babies for more $ but honestly I'm too lazy - I suggest contraceptives and go do something else for an hour on max speed. Should be able to get yourself back in the positive, with a decent bank of cash after a few hours.

 

[plumpear]

There's 2 things that can make my zoos go negative in a year and it's always either refunds or animal food costs. Refunds are caused by the guests hitting 0 happiness and leaving the zoo. Doesn't necessarily need to be caused by overlapping speakers (just in a lot of cases it is, as the negative is so poorly explained). Do you have any security guards? I like to keep at least one around even in small zoos, just because the guests enjoy watching them chase people.

Check your guest heat-map to see where there's a lot of red guests and then try to work out why they're in the red (which is often hard I'll agree). Mine are pretty much always moaning about food/drink queues non-stop in every zoo I own. I hate how they seem to expect food/drink huts available to them every 10 meters.

They will also moan about the weather (snow in my UK zoo, heat in my rainforest zoo) so adding heaters/coolers helps keep them happier. Same for rain: I like to at least put something to above popular viewing areas, shops and/or paths, so they whine less. They were even moaning that my lions were too hot (at 24C); I had to give the lions a cooler too.

Animal food costs can sneak up on you, especially if you're breeding. I had issues with the gorillas myself as the keeper would overfeed them when I had more than 4 in the enclosure. I could sit there and watch the extra food he put down rot before it was eaten; they never even touched it once. Eventually I had to store the adults after they gave birth, just to keep the food costs sane. Anything with babies often seems to cause issues with food prices/keepers over feeding. I've been told to run lots of exhibits (for donations) to offset feeding costs.

As a last resort, you could always store your animals just run a bunch of exhibits at the entrance (at least 10 but the more the merrier). That's how I start up any new franchise zoos while I research everything again (awful mechanic). They're very cheap to maintain. Boas, anacondas, gila, red knees and goliath frogs all have a decent lifespan; I'd avoid the species that die super fast unless you enjoy the micro. You can let them breed and sell the babies for more $ but honestly I'm too lazy - I suggest contraceptives and go do something else for an hour on max speed. Should be able to get yourself back in the positive, with a decent bank of cash after a few hours.

Thanks for your help! I managed to save my zoo. Fired a lot of keepers. I also used the heatmap to move a few staff buildings further back away from paths and hired more security/CCTV. Also more bins and janitors. Now I'm making profit refunds have gone from ~£18k to about £600 a year!

 

[Ryan_]

I can confirm as well.

I run a franchise zoo. Went from 1 Mil. down to 20.000 in a few years.

Why? I was no surveillance zoo. Now we know if you watched at our zebras - for how long - and what you did afterwards. And if we are not satisfied with the results (that means you drop below viewing average) we will have a survey at the end of your visit, with a lot of painful questions. Like: Why didn't you watched for 35 point 3 sec. at our zebras, but spend a lot of time with our gemsbock - 24 point 7 seconds to be precise? That is not normal, what is your issue here?!!! Huh?! Huh!.^^

Anyways:
That did the trick. Nothing else changed. I made it up to 1 Mil. with my layout etc. and went into big cat breeding etc. so I did not play for profit.
Just more cameras and double amount of security guys.

If you want a number: ca. 4500 guests and 14 guards (all yellow atm by the work amount). But that might depend on your zoo layout and cameras! There is nothing happening in my casino - sorry - I mean zoo - without the floor-managers - pardon again - I mean the security ( that is here for your safety - of course) - without us knowing it.^^
As we do not like cheats. Uh. I mean zebra cheats. Like guys who do not spend 35 point 3 seconds at our zebras. For that guys we got the hammer. I - mean - hummer. That is a car.
We drive them around with... At the zebras then.
So do not cheat on your zebras.^^

 

[Xrystal]

I spotted my source for refunds ..

Vandals being ejected out of the zoo.

I had tons of unhappy people leave with no affect on the refund amount but the moment a group of 6 vandals who felt better after they kicked something then realised they shouldn't have as they were being ejected... as they walked out the zoo their $10 ticket fee was refunded.

This group all had the same thoughts and all had their ticket refunded...

 

[Ryan_]

I have to modify my statement before.

The refunds work like this:
Every visitor wants to see specific animals. IF they can not see that animals they demand a refund.
So - whatever makes them not seeing the animals they want to see - helps with refunds.

Like vandals, thieves f.e. can stop them. Otherwise a new path - that changes the path-finding - or there is not enough food, drink or to expensive that the energy drops low - so that they can not get to the animals they want to see.
If your refunds go up - it means people can not see the animals they want to see and there are multiple issues that can cause this.
Mostly new animals are the ones they want to see - but if that habitat is far away - and the infrastructure not perfect - that is why it can hit you late in game out of a sudden.

So refunds is all about - do your visitors see the animals they came to see. You can check this on the vistor - they have a tab for that.

 

[Jaggid Edje]

So refunds is all about - do your visitors see the animals they came to see. You can check this on the vistor - they have a tab for that.

This is useful information, thank you! I think I know what happened to my zoo after the patch that caused refunds to go crazy then. A section of path "broke" after the game updated in that visitors couldn't got to it and just started going in a circle. By the time I noticed something like 1/4 of the total visitors in the zoo were stuck going in a circle there.

I had to delete the path and redo it...which sent all of those people that were on it back to the zoo entrance. Which created massive congestion. I have no doubt that almost none of them got to see all of the animals that they wanted. Combine that with the rash of escaping crocodiles and hippos due to their new phasing mutation and it explains the crazy refunds I saw all of a sudden (over 100k a year for a few years straight).

 

[Kai]

I have to modify my statement before.

The refunds work like this:
Every visitor wants to see specific animals. IF they can not see that animals they demand a refund.
So - whatever makes them not seeing the animals they want to see - helps with refunds.

Like vandals, thieves f.e. can stop them. Otherwise a new path - that changes the path-finding - or there is not enough food, drink or to expensive that the energy drops low - so that they can not get to the animals they want to see.
If your refunds go up - it means people can not see the animals they want to see and there are multiple issues that can cause this.
Mostly new animals are the ones they want to see - but if that habitat is far away - and the infrastructure not perfect - that is why it can hit you late in game out of a sudden.

So refunds is all about - do your visitors see the animals they came to see. You can check this on the vistor - they have a tab for that.

If that is true I suspect that will cause me some massive issues, because I've often see guests who want to view animals that aren't even present in my zoo (but stored in my trade center). Not sure if that's been fixed in the last few days - not logged in since I got the panda rewards, as finances seem looking at the forums.

EDIT: Yup just logged in to confirm that's a problem - that really needs to be fixed.

• This was in my panda zoo
• I have 4 panda enclosures with a bunch of pandas - nothing else.
• I have some tiger/lions/cheetah/animals stored in the trade center (I had the cats in the zoo at one point but not at the moment).
• The guests are demanding refunds because they cannot view animals in my trade center (completely daft).
• I suspect if I let this zoo run 100% of my guests would demand refunds, as chances are they want to see at least one animal that's in my trade center.
• You can 'fix' this by removing said animals in the trade center to another franchise zoo (but we really shouldn't need to)

 

[Ryan_]

If that is true I suspect that will cause me some massive issues, because I've often see guests who want to view animals that aren't even present in my zoo (but stored in my trade center). (...)

Yeah that is true, that animals belong to your zoo. I like the mechanic - because so you force not to hord animals.
I participated in breeding white lions, gemsbock and sibirian tigers.

5 sibirian tiger habitats in Africa = 10 animals plus young (+ a full running zoo)

Problem: Food costs
I had to switch constantly the animals and keep an eye on the visitors. So I liked the mechanic even if it made my life horrible and I do not think that Frontier wants that people hord their animals. To counter the problem - that you can grind and are forced not to store in your trade-shop.
Actually exactly what you are doing.^^ No offense. Just saying.
As you can grind in that game multiple way and they try to counter that a little bit. So I do not think that this is a bug or glitch and intended.

BUT - YES. Animals in your trade-center count as part of your zoo.

 

[Kai]

Yeah that is true, that animals belong to your zoo. I like the mechanic - because so you force not to hord animals.
I participated in breeding white lions, gemsbock and sibirian tigers.

5 sibirian tiger habitats in Africa = 10 animals plus young (+ a full running zoo)

Problem: Food costs
I had to switch constantly the animals and keep an eye on the visitors. So I liked the mechanic even if it made my life horrible and I do not think that Frontier wants that people hord their animals. To counter the problem - that you can grind and are forced not to store in your trade-shop.
Actually exactly what you are doing.^^ No offense. Just saying.
As you can grind in that game multiple way and they try to counter that a little bit. So I do not think that this is a bug or glitch and intended.

BUT - YES. Animals in your trade-center count as part of your zoo.

I mean it won't stop me keeping them. It will just force me to either:

• Load another zoo, get a keeper to put them in an enclosure and then trade center them in said zoo.
• Make a new spare zoo and throw them in some tiny trash enclosures to store them as they won't age unless the zoo is running < probably this

They always counted as part of the zoo, but I'm not convinced the guests were demanding refunds if they didn't see them before last patch - I feel like I would have seen crazy high refund values in my panda zoo if that was the case. If it's actually on purpose (and not a bug like I assumed), they're just making things tedious but not preventing 'hoarding' as you so put it.

I spent a lot of time breeding albino big cats with great stats and I don't really feel like chucking out my keepbacks (for when their parents die) while I take part in the puppy-mill community events in other zoos. Now sure, I could sell or release them, as I have plenty of CC to just buy new stock, but as those are animal lines I've been breeding for some time, they've got some sentimental value to me.

If they want me to make a pile of storage zoos to throw my animals in 10x10m storage cubes until I get around to making a zoo just for that specific species (which I will add they made awful because of mechanical research), then so be it. Forcing me to do that or lose my breeding animals (on top of all the other bugs) doesn't make playing the game sound much fun though. I was already of the opinion that the trade center was far too small to begin with, and if this was intentional, I'm very unimpressed.

 

[Xrystal]

If that is true I suspect that will cause me some massive issues, because I've often see guests who want to view animals that aren't even present in my zoo (but stored in my trade center). Not sure if that's been fixed in the last few days - not logged in since I got the panda rewards, as finances seem looking at the forums.

EDIT: Yup just logged in to confirm that's a problem - that really needs to be fixed.

• This was in my panda zoo
• I have 4 panda enclosures with a bunch of pandas - nothing else.
• I have some tiger/lions/cheetah/animals stored in the trade center (I had the cats in the zoo at one point but not at the moment).
• The guests are demanding refunds because they cannot view animals in my trade center (completely daft).
• I suspect if I let this zoo run 100% of my guests would demand refunds, as chances are they want to see at least one animal that's in my trade center.
• You can 'fix' this by removing said animals in the trade center to another franchise zoo (but we really shouldn't need to)

View attachment 153518

This is plausible. But I guess I must be lucky as I only have 2 or 3 species in each of my zoos and my small trade center is stored with the same set of animals .. no more than 2 or 3 others ... that I switch in and out to breed on or eventually trade out. I'll get a full tally in a while.

But out of my 11 zoos I have 3 with minimal refunds. So I am not 100% convinced this is the issue, but I'm willing to see if it is.

I'll definitely track some individuals down and see if that is also a reason. Maybe the group I found had wanted to visit animals I didn't have on display. I wonder if I have an old enough saved game that I can look at the groups old thoughts .. hmmm.

 

[marcnesiumHH]

I must stress I have nothing personal about mass breeding zoos if the game mechanics allow that at the moment.
However, I'll show you the other side of the current unbalancing in this game:
Running a zoo with just one species is profitable from now until eternity, I tested that myself with a zoo.

But if you don't want to play mass breeding simulator 2019 but the zoo simulator (it's actually a sandbox game imo) it's advertised for, you run into many problems building a zoo with many different species. This is starting at approx. having 10-15 different species (depending on the specific variety).

The most important things to mention are that guests only come to visit for a couple of them, that these all have a limited budget, which you cannot influence and that building (i.e. just spamming thousands building items would be enough) is economically much more rewarding than having a variety of animals. The latter is due to the fact that they just ported the scenery rewarding system (attracting more visitors) from Planet Coaster and just additionally, the animals have an attraction for potential visitors as well. This means, that many of the different economic results players report (regarding the income) are atrributed only on the difference on how much "scenery" (i.e. hundreds or hundred-thousands) of items you have in your park. An example: I built my new elephant habitat with a nice enclosure at the edge of my zoo, approx one third map distance away from the entrance. But nearly no guest visited, tho there were 5 different other species close by. I added a shopping area and viewing gallery consisting of hundreds of items. Since then, no problem with guest flow any more.

And I want to build a zoo, which comes close to an IRL zoo. I have never heard of a zoo, which only provides 1 species or 4. But this is not rewarded so far. Even if you build a lot in the game, you cannot afford having 5 adult elephants and 10 adult Orangutans as in IRL zoos at the same time if you already have 20 other species.
No, you have to reduce it to 2 of each because the (not bugged) feeding costs are higher than the related donations and other additional income. I have tested this in Beta (having all 20+ species) and now since release with 25 different species.

 

[Xrystal]

This is plausible. But I guess I must be lucky as I only have 2 or 3 species in each of my zoos and my small trade center is stored with the same set of animals .. no more than 2 or 3 others ... that I switch in and out to breed on or eventually trade out. I'll get a full tally in a while.

But out of my 11 zoos I have 3 with minimal refunds. So I am not 100% convinced this is the issue, but I'm willing to see if it is.

I'll definitely track some individuals down and see if that is also a reason. Maybe the group I found had wanted to visit animals I didn't have on display. I wonder if I have an old enough saved game that I can look at the groups old thoughts .. hmmm.

The zoo in question ( the one with the most refunds ), has 2 habitats and several exhibits. The trade list for my challenge zoo is small, containing the offspring of the animals in the zoo, so them wanting to see an animal not on display isn't the cause of my refunds. But it does indeed seem to point to not being able to see an animal you wanted to see but were unable to because it was too crowded. I went to the animal that my old vandal group didn't get to see and it was a pretty crowded area.



The group I had identified first had this issue :

And this group had a similar issue but didn't take it as far as vandalising stuff, but didn't have their entry fee zeroed out but as you can see there is no one else out of the green that could have triggered the refund.

But, this kid, also didn't get to see the animal he wanted despite visitng it like the others .. but no refund was provided to his family:

So, a promising point to consider ... and could explain why my biggest zoos were the ones with the small refunds... maybe it was too crowded for them to see the animal. Do the green happy people also have this issue and its not just the orange and red people that need looking after?

 

[Kai]

The zoo in question ( the one with the most refunds ), has 2 habitats and several exhibits. The trade list for my challenge zoo is small, containing the offspring of the animals in the zoo, so them wanting to see an animal not on display isn't the cause of my refunds. But it does indeed seem to point to not being able to see an animal you wanted to see but were unable to because it was too crowded. I went to the animal that my old vandal group didn't get to see and it was a pretty crowded area.
-snip-

I did some testing in a tiny brand new zoo - if people go home @ green happiness without seeing the animal they wanted to see, they're not demanding refunds.

I'm leaning towards it being harder to keep them happy if they decide they want to see an animal in the trade center/they can't view = they're more likely to get angry and then demand a refund when they leave.

Though my testing has now stopped as that zoo is broken: my guests just turn around & leave before they even enter to zoo/buy a ticket (haven't touched the entry price). It's like the path under my gate is broken but I don't seem to be able to edit/delete it or move the gates. Can't work out how to fix it and I'm honestly getting sick of running into a new bug every time I log in.

 

[Xrystal]

I did some testing in a tiny brand new zoo - if people go home @ green happiness without seeing the animal they wanted to see, they're not demanding refunds.

I'm leaning towards it being harder to keep them happy if they decide they want to see an animal in the trade center/they can't view = they're more likely to get angry and then demand a refund when they leave.

Though my testing has now stopped as that zoo is broken: my guests just turn around & leave before they even enter to zoo/buy a ticket (haven't touched the entry price). It's like the path under my gate is broken but I don't seem to be able to edit/delete it or move the gates. Can't work out how to fix it and I'm honestly getting sick of running into a new bug every time I log in.

I only have them turn around if the entrance fee is too high.

I have since identified a more random type decision to the refund system.

The Entertainment Scenario zoo had lots of refunds on it that had dwindled down to 1000 in the last year before I completed the gold level tasks. I decided to watch who and why a refund was requested as someone on the steam forums pointed to a bunch of random people asking for a refund because they were getting wet with no other issues that they could see. What I found out after watching several groups of unhappy people were that not all unhappy people were refunded .. but all of those that were unhappy and asked for a refund, got one. In this particular zoo because they had got bored .. considering it was a packed zoo for a scenario I can't see that as being true but maybe they gave up because of protestors, too busy at the first store/habitat etc.

Needless to say I think there is some sort of random setting of a refund element to each group that is a combination of their unhappiness level and a different set of circumstances that affected them. Person A wanted a drink but they hate queues, Person B really really wanted to see that animal but there were just too many people there, Person C was way to hot and couldn't be asked to walk any more .. where are the benches. At some point for some groups it triggers the refund flag.

I suspect that once they have reached the point that they are leaving your last attempt at cheering them up is a souvenir store at the gate. But it still might be too late. So identifying potential targets reasoning for leaving ( before they actually leave ) is the next challenge..

What would be handy if at the end of the year you had a list of reasons for refund so that you could attempt to fix them for the following year.

 

[P3NGU1N]

I'll post this in here too. Sometimes they should have no reason to be unhappy.

 

[P3NGU1N]

And I'll also add that there are no overlapping speakers in the zoo that some of the previous posts had suggested to look at.

 

[Jaggid Edje]

What would be handy if at the end of the year you had a list of reasons for refund so that you could attempt to fix them for the following year.

That would be so useful. It didn't even occur to me to sit at the exit and click guest after guest after guest to see which ones were asking for refunds and why. I check guest thoughts in the zoo all the time but I assumed folks who asked for a refund were "gone" so they weren't available to look at. Shame on me for assuming.

 

[Moosegun]

For me, refund are not specifically linked to one thing except happiness. All the issues people have outlined in this thread basically come down to happiness.

• overlapping speakers
• not seeing the correct animals
• guest needs (thirst, hunger etc)
• lack of education
• excessive litter
• excessive vandalism

When your guests are unhappy they will request refunds. I recently had an issue where my new shopping precinct i forgot to add the toilets too the mech / cleaner workzone, this meant they went uncleaned and caused a big issue with happiness which i didnt notice for a period of time. I ended up with a big group of unhappy guest and my refunds spiked.

The point about vandals requesting refunds is because guest vandalise stuff when they are unhappy, the same with having to view certain animals, this is something that counts toward happiness but it is not the only reason for refunds IMHO.

It gets harder and harder to manage happiness as your zoo gets larger, my refund issues started when I expanded my zoo and opened a large African area which can be seen on the far right;

This caused me a massive problem, as it was taking guests too long to get to the zone, so they arrived tired and hungry / thirsty. I added some rides to the bottom edge to move them to the area quicker but that compounded the issue as the rides we too boring as they didnt pass any habitats etc. So the guests were arriving at the new area already red. After several years and losing my 1.5mil of reserves I have almost got the situations sorted but I am having to convert CC into cash (via buying cheap animals and selling for cash) to keep my head afloat. My next fix is to put another full set of exhibits in this new zone, as I have noted a lot of my guest want to see them but they are all on the left hand side of my zoo, so anyone heading over to the new zone has too far to travel.

 

[Bobble2017]

I think its to do with how much your guests like your zoo . if they are unhappy they demand a refund , But somehow this has now become messed up and the guests demanding refunds all the time has gone to the extreme , It seems as if a guest is unhappy about a single thing , they demand a refund and now 75% of them are getting refunds so any sales on the park entrance are lost . No zoo in the world would give so many guests a refund

 

[JPrin]

This has got to be a bug. I don't care what you say I have a patron in the green on happiness and is demanding a refund. I came here stayed a while, enjoyed the zoo and am happy, yet I demand a refund??????? That's not right!
Every guest is demanding a refund and most of them are in the green!

This only started with the last update. I was issuing no refunds prior to the update!
I have a screenshot I cannot attach that shows $320 in refunds prior to the update and $69,880 after the update. This is an issue!

Happiness in the green, granted she has other issues but overall she is happy! If she is overall happy she should not be demanding a refund!

Money before the exit

Money after the visit!