Sandbox Improvements

And its your opinion it should be an option which will require recourses and development which should be used for other facets of the game.. Development should leave sandbox alone. It works just fine. Not arguing. Just pointing out that you're wrong ;)

Sandbox works fine, just like management then I suppose? And how am I wrong exactly? It's not an opinion the game will improve with less restrictions, it's a fact. Just simply look at every other creative game out there. And Frontier knows this, that's why they spend a lot of time so we could turn of collision.

I think this is a good idea for the future, but I think it is a bad idea until they get out some Tutorial Scenarios. I find myself turning to Sandbox Mode to get achievements, which while is probably not it's purpose, seems to be the easiest way to go about it. The Sandbox mode allows players to learn mechanics of the game without severe punishments, so disabling staff quitting does a disservice to beginners.

The sandbox mode is not meant for teaching players the mechanics. That's what the earlier career scenarios should be for. Sandbox is meant to create without limits.
 
I don't even play Sandbox and I don't agree at all with PC_OCD sentiment. In no way does the option to turn on/off wages and staff training need any affect to all the hard coding. You click no to wanting training on then all staff that are hired are auto level 5 staff.

Turn off wages, then they are always happy with pay.

Turn off staff quitting and they are always happy when there is no work for them.

To suggest anything otherwise is foolish in honesty. To suggest it is fine because I should have to click through the staff menu each time I place something to just up their wages to maximum is silly. So sorry but I just don't see how that viewpoint can be suggested.

Chems is also correct in that you learn the game through playing through the career mode. Sandbox is all about design aspects and building a beautiful world. It is what and what has always been a sandbox builder and the point of having so.

The same can be said for any of the management features in sandbox. Every game that has ever come with sandbox has had an options menu to select what the player wants to do with it. With PC we are locked to it basically being just an open world challenge map set to easy without stars to collect :/
 
It's not either or. We want to have the option to disable certain restriction, so we can basically configure the game how we want. Why should you care if someone wants to turn of gravity and make coasters fly? Not that gravity is the kind of restriction we are talking about anyway. What we want is to be able to turn of restrictions that get in the way, like certain management features or coaster track limits, speed limit, etc...
This is exactly my point.. now you are putting restrictions on your free of all restrictions idea now. You just want certain restrictions removed... not all. Or a choice for some.. not all? There has to be a line drawn somewhere. You cannot please all the people all the time.
Creating a toggle switch and and adjustment ratios for each and every rule in the game? That's unreasonable. Maybe somebody wants peeps to breathe air? Maybe somebody doesn't want peeps walking on paths? Maybe somebody wants an infinity sized park? So now we are deciding what restrictions should be taken off and what restrictions should remain. Which restrictions can be player altered? A toggle switch for each and every restriction would be tons of code. You want rollercoasters with freedom to do whatever you want? That sort of thing requires a complete rebuild of the mechanics and UGI. Sandbox already works great for creativity and for making your dream park and as Vanessa said, its a great learning tool for all sorts of things shops and salaries included.. Maybe you can't make a mine train coaster that will invert but there are plenty of other trains in the game that will. There are logical reasons for why the developers have used restrictions for specific game mechanics and ride features. There have to be rules or the game stops being a game anymore.

The sandbox mode is not meant for teaching players the mechanics. That's what the earlier career scenarios should be for. Sandbox is meant to create without limits.

This is also wrong. Sandbox is a way to have an open game mode. To be able to explore all that Planet Coaster has to offer. That Includes learning game mechanics and specific restrictions. You cannot tell another player how they want to play sandbox or what they can or cannot do in Sandbox. Its perfectly legitimate that somebody wants to figure out weather or not the strip mall they built in sandbox will operate successfully before uploading it to blueprint. Sandbox is not designed to break all the rules and create without limits. there have to be limits or you cannot have blueprints. The entire blueprint thing would go up in smoke if players could start messing with ride limits. Nobody would be able to mimic the user generated restrictions you've established for your blueprint. Right now sandbox offers everything that career and challenge mode offers along with monetary freedom. It works great. A few toggle switches which are completely unnecessary, aren't going to make it better not to mention, its way too much work when there is so many other cool things the developers could be involved in.
 
I don't even play Sandbox

To suggest anything otherwise is foolish in honesty. To suggest it is fine because I should have to click through the staff menu each time I place something to just up their wages to maximum is silly. So sorry but I just don't see how that viewpoint can be suggested.

I'm not suggesting anything. I'm saying keep it the way it is, it doesn't need to be fixed. "If it ain't broke don't fix it"

Chems is also correct in that you learn the game through playing through the career mode. Sandbox is all about design aspects and building a beautiful world. It is what and what has always been a sandbox builder and the point of having so.

No. Sandbox's are tools to be able to explore the game and what it offers including its limitations freely. It is not a break the rules box.
 
There has to be a line drawn somewhere. You cannot please all the people all the time.
Creating a toggle switch and and adjustment ratios for each and every rule in the game? That's unreasonable.
You have shared your opinion, but your arguments are not facts, and I hope you can stop arguing about this thread. Are you afraid this possible suggestion is going to completely ruin the game?

Maybe somebody doesn't want peeps walking on paths? Maybe somebody wants an infinity sized park? So now we are deciding what restrictions should be taken off and what restrictions should remain.
Actually people have requested open park areas and better plazas and bigger maps, but we also understand those are not restrictions but limitations. Its funny you talk about being "reasonable" and ask "who makes these decisions" well its not a decision any of us make, neither do you. This is a discussion and you have shared your opinion multiple times, so please let others share theres. Thank you [happy]
 
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This is a discussion and you have shared your opinion multiple times, so please let others share theres. Thank you [happy]

If somebody addresses me or quotes me, or asks me a question, I have the right to validate and discuss my argument. Thank you for your concern creaper but, I will continue to add my 2 cents when and where I feel its necessary Just because you don't agree with me or my ideas doesn't give you the right to tell me when and where I participate on this forum.

Your arguments are not facts either creaper. This entire thread is based on your and everyone else's opinions.

Your opinion "sandbox improvements" my opinion, no improvement necessary.
 
This is exactly my point.. now you are putting restrictions on your free of all restrictions idea now. You just want certain restrictions removed... not all. Or a choice for some.. not all? There has to be a line drawn somewhere. You cannot please all the people all the time.
Creating a toggle switch and and adjustment ratios for each and every rule in the game? That's unreasonable. Maybe somebody wants peeps to breathe air? Maybe somebody doesn't want peeps walking on paths? Maybe somebody wants an infinity sized park?

Oh come on, you can't be serious here. Peeps breathing air? You are pulling a straw man. The restrictions we are talking about here are of course artificially put in place limits to the game, primarily for career and challenge mode. Like restricting how we can shape the track of a coaster, based on its type. Or restricting us from disable-ling certain management features. One could say they make the game feel more finished or polished. I agree with that. However, we want to have the option to remove these restrictions because they do limit the freedom the game gives at the moment.

So now we are deciding what restrictions should be taken off and what restrictions should remain. Which restrictions can be player altered? A toggle switch for each and every restriction would be tons of code. You want rollercoasters with freedom to do whatever you want? That sort of thing requires a complete rebuild of the mechanics and UGI.

If we continue taking the coaster restrictions as an example, it does not at all need an entire rebuild of the mechanics. Why do you think it does? Without track restrictions we can simply create any shape we want. It would literally change nothing to already built coasters, or how coasters work in general. Again, all the restrictions we have for the coasters are artificially put in place. For career-mode, I get why they are there. it gives each coaster a unique function. But for Sandbox mode it only gets in the way of our freedom. Also, some coaster restrictions make no sense at all, even from a realism stand point.

Being able to turn off certain management features would require some rework of certain systems, but I guess nothing too crazy. At the end of the day many of the restrictions the game currently forces upon us are merely some boolean checks that a simple checkbox in the game settings menu could change. This wouldn't require any rework, just a little work in putting some more check-box elements pointing to said variables. They payoff would be huge. The ability to disable these restrictions would be welcomed by everyone who plays this game for the creative aspect and believe me when I say that is the largest part of the community by far. So it wouldn't be a waste of development time at all in that regard.

Sandbox already works great for creativity and for making your dream park and as Vanessa said, its a great learning tool for all sorts of things shops and salaries included.. Maybe you can't make a mine train coaster that will invert but there are plenty of other trains in the game that will. There are logical reasons for why the developers have used restrictions for specific game mechanics and ride features. There have to be rules or the game stops being a game anymore.

Nobody is saying Sandbox doesn't work. It just could be so much better without all the restrictions and annoyances it currently has. Why should I be concerned about my employees being happy? I am playing Sandbox, I just want to build stuff. Planet Coaster is a management game, but by far the biggest focus lies on the creative side. Without restrictions, the creative side of the game would be better, thus making it actually a better game. And since you can still play with restrictions, because all we want is the option to disable, not remove in its entirely, there would also be more game. Also because the restrictions do make the management side of the game indeed more fun to play.

So to summery all of this:
  • Adding the option to remove restrictions will greatly improve the creative side, which is the biggest part of the game already. As prove, just look at the awesome ideas people come up with since we got the ability to disable collision. Just being able to disable this one restriction added so much new content. People use coaster track to create supports, people use the river rapids ride to make actual moving rivers, not to mention the ability to theme flat rides. So this is definitely a great improvement to the game. +
  • The restriction that would take the most work by far is collision. Luckily, a big part of this has already been implemented! Many other restrictions simply need an option that enables us to turn them off, like the track restrictions on coasters for instance. Again, when we can turn these off it would open up the game to a whole new level, creating large amounts of new content, for a relatively low amount of work. Definitely a plus. +
  • Many restrictions are annoying. Nothing breaks motivation to play a creative game faster than having an idea in your head, but then the game tells you NO because of an artificially put in place restriction that doesn't make sense in the first place. Also, when building you don't want to bother about staff being happy. Especially since many of the management mechanics are not meant to be compatible with large scale building and custom build elements and park stories. They are there to offer a fun challenge in career mode, but have no place in the creative part of the game. So being able to turn them off would be a great addition to the game in that regard! +
  • Since for most people the ability to disable restrictions would do nothing but enhance the game (have you noticed how 99% of the content on YouTube for example is people just building stuff), it would be a great move for Frontier as well to spend some time to actually make this happen. So not only would it benefit the player, it would benefit Frontier as well. +

So there are really no negatives to have the option to disable restrictions.

You may have noticed I am only talking about the creative part of the game here. That is, just in case you missed it, because that's where the restrictions don't add anything but frustration to the game play. Where these restrictions shine is in the career mode, and that is where they should be, where they only should be.


This is also wrong. Sandbox is a way to have an open game mode. To be able to explore all that Planet Coaster has to offer. That Includes learning game mechanics and specific restrictions. You cannot tell another player how they want to play sandbox or what they can or cannot do in Sandbox. Its perfectly legitimate that somebody wants to figure out weather or not the strip mall they built in sandbox will operate successfully before uploading it to blueprint.

I don't tell what people can or cannot do in Sandbox, only these pesky restrictions do [wink]. I was only stating what the Sandbox mode is intended for. It is intended as a tool to let our creativity flow free, not as a learning tool for the career mode, as that clearly isn't the focus of the game anyway.

Sandbox is not designed to break all the rules and create without limits. there have to be limits or you cannot have blueprints. The entire blueprint thing would go up in smoke if players could start messing with ride limits. Nobody would be able to mimic the user generated restrictions you've established for your blueprint.

Could you elaborate this? I don't really understand why you would think this. How would the blueprint system go up in smoke? Nothing happened when the we could disable collision.. Well, except for people making way cooler blueprints than before. Users mimicking the same settings I used for my blueprints wouldn't be a problem I guess? If I make a coaster right now with collision disabled, and make it intersect with itself and put it on the workshop, what would happen if someone were to download that coaster and tries to put it in a park with collision enabled, what would happen? I actually haven't tried this so I don't know. I guess it would just let you place it, since it has already been built so it doesn't check for collision anymore. This could be a potential problem when having more options for restrictions. Although this could easily be fixed by just having the options uploaded in the blueprint itself, or have it so blueprints are free of restrictions anyway, since everything in a blueprint has already been placed (probably how it works currently).

Right now sandbox offers everything that career and challenge mode offers along with monetary freedom. It works great. A few toggle switches which are completely unnecessary, aren't going to make it better not to mention, its way too much work when there is so many other cool things the developers could be involved in.

You seem to be alone here with this opinion. For most players it wouldn't be unnecessary at all. In fact, it would make the game so much better.
 
Chems!
YES! finally somebody reasoning profoundly against the devils advocate. Thank you for your well thought out rebuttal. Its nice to see somebody actually considering my thoughts as valid and not just tossing them aside as irrelevant or silly. I'm not here to make trouble and I'm not a troll either, creaper. You have no right to imply that.

Personally, I like Chems ideas for user adjustable restrictions and feel they are the most needed in sandbox, but unfortunately its probably not going to happen. The blueprint thing is a huge bust. To rework that will be a ton of work. All the coding would be a headache. Not only that but there are many ways to break a game. Adding user adjustable settings is a great way to start down that ugly path. Developers have to be very careful what they give the general public access to in a game. Also if you're going to start putting adjustable setting in place, you have to draw a line somewhere. Where is the line drawn and who's going to still complain about a missing toggle box?

As for a management toggle.. meh. Just logically, a management toggle is more work than its worth. As I've said before Id rather devs work on cooler things. It is not a resounding change to the game like collision removal. All it does is skip a step in building a park. It works right now as it is. I've never had a problem in Sandbox. If you build a shop, pay your trainee and hire a janitor or two. Pay them. If you build a ride, hire a mech or two and pay them. Its not hard to do. It takes much less time than building a rollercoaster or an intricate shop. Its free! It works! haven't had a problem yet. I don't see why this needs a fix? Its not broken. If a toggle is put in, well, okay whatever, no big deal. It won't affect me in the slightest but its definitely not a game changer like collision removal.

So unfortunately, I still say Sandbox Improvements not needed.
 
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Alas, I hoped I'd changed your opinion by now.. [tongue]

Joking aside, I completely get your reasoning. As someone who rarely ever plays the management side of the game, I'd rather not have them work too much on management and focus more on the creative aspect. But since the game has both these sides, creative and management, naturally you would expect both of them to improve, to satisfy both types of players. For those playing the creative side of the game, getting rid of certain restrictions and annoyances would open up the some so much more, the amount of content could easily be doubled/tripled. For me, personally, I would rather see Frontier go back to the current systems and fix/add everything that doesn't yet work or is missing, instead of implementing all kinds of new things. It surprises me at times how many basic features the game still doesn't have.

Also, game studios have different teams that work on different parts of the game. So bug fixes wouldn't get in the way of new assets for example. Anyway, whatever Frontier will do, the game will improve regardless. I, at least, hope they know what the by far largest part of the community wants, and acts accordingly.
 
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Joël

Volunteer Moderator
Hey guys,

Lets respect opinions, suggestions and ideas of each other.

Creaper and Chems have shared their opinions, suggestions and ideas about limitations and features that are in the game, and options to turn them on or off. Those are valid ideas and have potential to improve the game. If a player wants an option to turn off ride breakdowns or turn off staff quitting, then they are free to have that suggestion for the game and express that on the forums. Other players are free to discuss those suggestions on whether they like it or not, have different opinions about them or other suggestions for the game.

Personally, I wouldn't mind having more options to turn on/off limitations and features in the game, if those options would benefit better gameplay and creativity, even if not for all of the players. You are suggesting more options. Each player will be able to decide for their own if they want to use those options or not. If they do not want to change anything on the game as it is, then they can simply leave new options untouched, in case they get added.

Personally, I like Chems ideas for user adjustable restrictions and feel they are the most needed in sandbox, but unfortunately its probably not going to happen. The blueprint thing is a huge bust. To rework that will be a ton of work. All the coding would be a headache. Not only that but there are many ways to break a game. Adding user adjustable settings is a great way to start down that ugly path. Developers have to be very careful what they give the general public access to in a game. Also if you're going to start putting adjustable setting in place, you have to draw a line somewhere. Where is the line drawn and who's going to still complain about a missing toggle box?

About the point where you would need to draw the line. That is something the developers will have to decide. They can and will take suggestions of the community into consideration when making those decisions.

About the point of coding the game. It would be best to not think ahead for the developers in this case. We do not know whether coding possible new options such as suggested in this thread will take a lot of time and resources or not. The developers will know best in this case.

So unfortunately, I still say Sandbox Improvements not needed.

You are of course welcome to share that opinion. In this case it differs from the opinions of a lot of other players who prefer to have options (not hard coded) to turn on/off certain features in the game, be it for sandbox gameplay, recording POV videos or for other reasons.
 
Thanks Joël [up] the thread was getting a little off-topic with the whole coaster restrictions ,"too much coding will break the game", and breathing guests discussion. Although there are other things I would like to see improved beyond the suggestions in this thread, I don't think these specific ideas are the biggest requests people have made. And I think Frontier is capable of handling our requests or at least making their own decisions

For me, personally, I would rather see Frontier go back to the current systems and fix/add everything that doesn't yet work or is missing, instead of implementing all kinds of new things. It surprises me at times how many basic features the game still doesn't have.
Yes exactly! I could go on and on about terrain, in fact I already have in many other threads [haha]
 
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Yes exactly! I could go on and on about terrain, in fact I already have in many other threads [haha]

You and me both! [big grin] It was the reason I was a bit disappointed with the 1.2 update. It ignored most of the problems the game has. I still love Planet Coaster and Frontier and believe these problems will be addressed. I'm just hoping rather sooner than later.
 

Joël

Volunteer Moderator
Thanks Joël [up] the thread was getting a little off-topic with the whole coaster restrictions ,"too much coding will break the game", and breathing guests discussion. Although there are other things I would like to see improved beyond the suggestions in this thread, I don't think these specific ideas are the biggest requests people have made. And I think Frontier is capable of handling our requests or at least making their own decisions

Please do know that everyone is free to share their opinions. Don't try to silence other users with your own opinions. Thanks!
 
Hmm, I hope we get it as an actual feature in the options menu, just like the no-collision toggle. Remembering and applying these cheat codes every time seems a bit tedious. I don't get why such a basic feature is locked behind a cheat code. They should only be for the silly things like the go-kart control and stuff.
 
I don't consider driving go-karts or tegidcam silly features, I think its silly having to name all my go-kart tracks some random name and then also find the driver of my car to rename for extra speed. I think it would be better if there was a speed boost button instead of an always on speed cheat that has to be re-enabled each time. These features should be proudly displayed and functioning with a controller for everybody to use!

Friction should also be a slider option for each individual ride, we should be able to reduce the friction just slightly and for specific rides, not all at once, and not have to redo it each time we load up a park.

It will get annoying trying to remember all these cheats especially if they add more. Secret Codes should just be for the silly things. Hopefully they are still working on these features, as I remember them saying in alpha that tegidcam was a work-in-progress, so maybe someday well have a fully functioning avatar to control as a guest!!! maybe with multiplayer [cool] and playable minigolf too!??
 
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i think it's a clever way to pilot or prototype a potential feature without really releasing it.
it's a "cheat", so not really released, yet it's there so it is released.
we can experiment and then feedback how to actually make it real.

like a beta idea hidden inside the production system.
now it gets airtime and attention, and if we respond in a consistent and useful fashion, it can be polished and released properly.

plus, it's a hat-tip to past versions, of course. nostalgia and all.
 
I don't know.. The beta thing seems like a weak excuse to me. The things the cheats currently do already work, so no need to put things like disabling ride breakdowns in a cheat to 'test' it. And if it is not working, they should not put it in the game at all. The cheats are still 'official' content put in the live game, and are not and should not be used to beta test things.

With that out of the way, I really do enjoy cheats! Especially for things like driving go-karts, since it is just a silly addition and does not add to the overall themepark building/simulation gameplay. But things like reduced friction and disabling management systems do and should be put in the menu as actual features.
 
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