Sandbox too easy even in Jurassic difficulty

@Nioell did you try Sandbox yet and see if this was fixed? I forgot to check this issue, and can't check it myself atm.

Files were still the same, 800$+ ticket prices and easy to reach goals, so no, didn't change from what I saw and I modded it again to make it harder lol
 
@Jens Erik sorry for the ping, but I've reported this issue on the issue tracker. Here is the report
I wanted to upload more than one screenshot, but that wasn't possible. Could you kindly inform the team about this issue, if maybe the report isn't clear enough in the issue tracker? I would really appreaciate it.
 
For one thing way lower ticket prices and fewer guests would work. Going by what I found while modding those numbers are waaay too high, especially compared to some other modes. I went and changed the price from 800$ (yes that much) to 100-150$ each and it already made a huge difference and I actually get to play some before I reach the next star and can progress further. Add to that higher appeal and dino numbers and it actually turns into a bit more of a challenge. So it really wouldn't be that hard to make some changes there and make things more interesting in sandbox as well.

It already sounds like a lot of fun from what I read in this paragraph alone! I loved progressing through my parks and I admit that a sandbox park really speeds things up in an area I wish would be gradual. Now that the game is getting a wider variety of creatures and some that are really high in appeal rating, I would love it if prices in sandbox mode were lowered so that park building gets more gradual. I dislike how easy it is to get in in Jurassic settings sandbox mode, and there were multiple times where I would get a 5-star park using less than a third of the map's size if you plan the enclosures with highly appealing ecosystems.

Could I ask if you could see what the prices are in the new Malta sandbox maps? I had this hilarious yet unfortunate experience of almost reaching a 5-star map in 38 minutes with low dinosaur appeal but just stopped since the pacing was too quick for me to care. It was hilarious since despite the first malta map being one of the biggest in the game, I only ever used the small area next to my entrance to reach almost 5 stars, about a third of the small map you are given access to at the start of the campaign. This is very likely to be a hiccup but one that has greatly diminished my Malta sandbox experience.
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If there are some key areas to improve progressive park building in sandbox mode, they would be these:

1) SANDBOX SETTINGS TO ADJUST TICKET PRICES AND INCOME TAX

As @Nioell has mentioned, one of the biggest issues in sandbox mode is that ticket prices are too high and having the tickets lowered or letting the players lower the ticket prices themselves would make park building more gradual.

The ability to enable and adjust income tax would be just as amazing because even if we manage to squeeze a lot of profit with what we have available, we won't have a bank account that is growing in the millions, which diminishes any worry of financial mistakes when it comes to park management decisions such as researching more costly upgrades, reincubating a batch of expensive eggs for more desirable traits, hiring and training more expensive scientists, and using strategies that would allow for future planning of expensive projects, all the while the risk of bankruptcy is present if things get chaotic when they get chaotic.


2) SANDBOX CATEGORY TO ENABLE CHALLENGE CONDITIONS

I have grown to really love challenge mode and the various conditions seen from that mode of play. With each park comes conditions that spice up the park management of Jurassic World Evolution 2 and I definitely see some challenging conditions and features that I would love to use in sandbox mode. Urgent messages bring about ultimatums for the player to choose from, dinosaurs that are very fussy and prone to be dangerous during storms, intelligent ones that need a more secure enclosure to be housed in, scientists that are more likely to sabotage with each new task assigned, tranquilizers that needs to be researched in order to contain the more aggressive dinosaurs, not being able to sell your animals, and dinosaurs failing to live up to 10% of their expected life due to having negative traits.

Those are some of the challenge conditions I would love to enable in sandbox mode, as they really test me when growing my park to reach 5 stars. We could research and house a T-rex, but I find it to be more satisfying if that process was expensive, chaotic, and dangerous due to limited funds, agitated staff, and a T-rex that needs high-level security, darts, and is likely to cause a lawsuit due to the fussy and intelligent trait.

Jurassic World challenge mode does satisfy that direction when it comes to park management, I would like that to be possible in sandbox mode so that I could use these conditions on any map and with any building set, with the possibility of making it more challenging with other challenge conditions.


3) A NEW LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: DOMINION

At least from my experience, Jurassic levels of difficulty does not feel satisfying anymore. This could be in part to sandbox mode not having adjustable ticket prices and taxes, but I always feel that Jurassic Levels of difficulty do not let me utilize all of my park space. I recall back in Jurassic World Evolution 1's challenge mode where I would have to make the most of all of my park space, while yes the maps were rather small compared to 2, I enjoyed having to figure out what to place and where to place it. Jurassic World Evolution 2 really does streamline a lot of the process so that you could house a lot of animals within a limited space and have it feel more organic and complex compared to 1, to which I think the only downside is that experienced players may only ever need a third of a map if they know how to house animals for more appeal per gallery and guest amenities that would make the most of the traffic.

So why not include a new level of difficulty in the game? DOMINION: A difficulty setting that is double that of Jurassic but is only ever accessible in sandbox mode if players are willing to build a park in such conditions. This is mainly due to how amazingly huge the roster is in Jurassic World Evolution 2, and how you could utilize that roster to conquer the dominion levels of difficulty with the space given in sandbox maps, especially the large one.

Jurassic Difficulty in sandbox mode for Nublar 2015 is to have a park that would have a dinosaur appeal requirement of 9000 consisting of 30 species and to earn an income of $2,000,000 with Jurassic levels of guest count and sabotage. More often than not, I would reach that 5-star rating with at MOST, half of the park built. with the other half being empty and not experiencing any difficulty managing guest needs or experiencing any notable sabotage.

If that park is given a higher level of difficulty, such as Dominion, those aspects could increase doubly so. So a park in Nublar 2015 may need $4,000,000 in income, 60 species, and an appeal of 1800 with even more guests to satisfy and more risk of sabotage.

Already it sounds bonkers, but such a level could work in sandbox mode, cause it is sandbox mode. Not all aspects could be done at this dominion level of difficulty as players may want to try out this level of difficulty for one aspect instead if they think it is easy in that area, or be curious and try it out in all 4 categories and see how long they could last under such pressure.


4) GRADUAL STORMS AND DISEASE INTENSITY SANDBOX SETTINGS

This one is very straightforward, but I think the maps in the game could use a weather and disease system that gets more intense the higher the star rating. The ones in the current sandbox settings could be very random or too much from the start, and I think having it gradually would enhance the experience. If gradual, things will be peaceful from the start so as to allow players to set everything up accordingly. Only when players start earning higher star ratings, the storms would get more disastrous and the diseases could be more common, acting as a suppressor to the player's progress during the later star ratings, so that the final few levels of star ratings could be more challenging and would require the player to plan ahead for any impending disaster.


5) RESEARCH PAGES APPROPRIATE TO THE BUILDING SET

While all the above are to make it more challenging for the player in sandbox mode, this is more to have it be fair. When playing sandbox mode, I would often go for Jurassic World, Jurassic Park, DFW, or All-Building sets, because I dislike how the Biosyn and Malta building sets are handicapped due to research.

If you played sandbox mode with research enabled, you would notice that the research's UI is done with the Jurassic World building set in mind, as Jurassic World has a building set that covers everything such as transport, additional attractions, and higher level fencing. While it made sense to use it for all building sets at first, flaws are more apparent when playing in other building sets, Jurassic Park and DFW would have research items that would yield nothing if research such as the monorail, zip lines, and heavy fencing when using the DFW set.

It however gets more infuriating when using the Biosyn or Malta pack as they have important items that are only accessible in later star ratings that would make the park management with research very difficult or downright impractical. The power stations are only accessible at 3.5 stars with no smaller substitute to use, while Malta only has a large hotel which is practically impossible to get since you need 500 guests to unlock it but no small hotel to reach those guest numbers.

If the research page were to be more appropriate per building set, not only would it be aesthetically immersive per building set with the correct research pictures and Biosyn's research compound UI, but items like power stations and hotels would be accessible to the player in a much fairer manner when playing in Biosyn or Malta sets with research enabled, allowing for players who like to progress in park management via sandbox mode to enjoy the new building sets without feeling they have reached a dead end and would have to use other building sets that allow for more fair research progression and only use these building sets for parks where research is not enabled.


6) SANDBOX SETTING TO ENABLE AND DISABLE GUEST NEEDS

If we are able to adjust the ticket prices for our sandbox game, we could overcome the need for guest facilities and focus on expanding exclusively on species variety and dinosaur count.

This would allow a similar level of play from some campaign levels where players were to build a park with more focus on sustaining ecosystems and containing many dinosaurs while disregarding guests. This would be great for roleplaying DFW Containment Parks, Research Facilities, and especially Biosyn sanctuaries that have a building set that lacks basic guest facilities like toilets, tours, and hotels and rely on the DFW pack to fill in the gaps.

Turning guest needs off would simply turn off the management tab for guests, and not display management aspects that cover Food, drinks, shopping, toiletries, and transport.


Bonus: Scientist-only guest type

To better capture a guestless park in areas that are not DFW, let us have the option to have our guests be scientists only. This is different from the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World staff if we want to utilize an unbranded guest type for parks that are not operated by InGen.


7) SANDBOX SETTING TO ENABLE AND DISABLE ALL DECORATIONS

An aesthetic change, but I always felt decorations could contain all items for any building set, similar to how we could use rocks from all biomes on any map. Sometimes I like to focus on a single building set such as Jurassic Park, and I like how it simplifies the choices for guests, facilities, and fencing to focus on Jurassic Park era items, as any other building set item like Jurassic World, DFW, or Biosyn could be unnecessary and removes those items from selection to streamline the experience.

Except for decorations, as sometimes I feel this cleanup is more limiting in that area. Similar to the other buildings, decorations would focus on a specific era, but I always felt that there are items I would love to use in a certain era, such as the spinosaurus skeleton in Jurassic Park, the DFW spotlight for my incubation labs, tents and wooden crates for Jurassic World and Malta, and the multiple dinosaur cages that are divided between building sets.

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This post really grew to be rather big but I definitely see potential with this game's sandbox mode. All the ingredients are there to allow for more challenging park progression that would better capture the franchise's chaos while simultaneously benefitting sandbox mode's ability to use any map, any building set, and access all dinosaurs the game has to offer. The areas to work on in sandbox mode shared above I think would help make such level of progressive play achievable and enjoyable, and I hope it gets considered by the devs to implement such changes to the game.
 
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It already sounds like a lot of fun from what I read in this paragraph alone! I loved progressing through my parks and I admit that a sandbox park really speeds things up in an area I wish would be gradual. Now that the game is getting a wider variety of creatures and some that are really high in appeal rating, I would love it if prices in sandbox mode were lowered so that park building gets more gradual. I dislike how easy it is to get in in Jurassic settings sandbox mode, and there were multiple times where I would get a 5-star park using less than a third of the map's size if you plan the enclosures with highly appealing ecosystems.

Could I ask if you could see what the prices are in the new Malta sandbox maps? I had this hilarious yet unfortunate experience of almost reaching a 5-star map in 38 minutes with low dinosaur appeal but just stopped since the pacing was too quick for me to care. It was hilarious since despite the first malta map being one of the biggest in the game, I only ever used the small area next to my entrance to reach almost 5 stars, about a third of the small map you are given access to at the start of the campaign. This is very likely to be a hiccup but one that has greatly diminished my Malta sandbox experience.
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If there are some key areas to improve progressive park building in sandbox mode, they would be these:

1) SANDBOX SETTINGS TO ADJUST TICKET PRICES AND INCOME TAX

As @Nioell has mentioned, one of the biggest issues in sandbox mode is that ticket prices are too high and having the tickets lowered or letting the players lower the ticket prices themselves would make park building more gradual.

The ability to enable and adjust income tax would be just as amazing because even if we manage to squeeze a lot of profit with what we have available, we won't have a bank account that is growing in the millions, which diminishes any worry of financial mistakes when it comes to park management decisions such as researching more costly upgrades, reincubating a batch of expensive eggs for more desirable traits, hiring and training more expensive scientists, and using strategies that would allow for future planning of expensive projects, all the while the risk of bankruptcy is present if things get chaotic when they get chaotic.


2) SANDBOX CATEGORY TO ENABLE CHALLENGE CONDITIONS

I have grown to really love challenge mode and the various conditions seen from that mode of play. With each park comes conditions that spice up the park management of Jurassic World Evolution 2 and I definitely see some challenging conditions and features that I would love to use in sandbox mode. Urgent messages bring about ultimatums for the player to choose from, dinosaurs that are very fussy and prone to be dangerous during storms, intelligent ones that need a more secure enclosure to be housed in, scientists that are more likely to sabotage with each new task assigned tranquilizers that needs to be researched in order to contain the more aggressive dinosaurs, not being able to sell your animals, and dinosaurs failing to live up to 10% of their expected life due to having negative traits.

Those are some of the challenge conditions I would love to enable in sandbox mode, as they really test me when growing my park to reach 5 stars or attempting to implement. We could research and house a T-rex, but I find it to be more satisfying if that process was expensive, chaotic, and dangerous due to limited funds, agitated staff, and a T-rex that needs high-level security, darts, and is likely to cause a lawsuit due to the fussy and intelligent trait.

Jurassic World challenge mode does satisfy that direction when it comes to park management, I would like that to be possible in sandbox mode so that I could use these conditions on any map and with any building set, with the possibility of making it more challenging with other challenge conditions.


3) A NEW LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: DOMINION

At least from my experience, Jurassic levels of difficulty does not feel satisfying anymore. This could be in part to sandbox mode not having adjustable ticket prices and taxes, but I always feel that Jurassic Levels of difficulty do not let me utilize all of my park space. I recall back in Jurassic World Evolution 1's challenge mode where I would have to make the most of all of my park space, while yes the maps were rather small compared to 2, I enjoyed having to figure out what to place and where to place it. Jurassic World Evolution 2 really does streamline a lot of the process so that you could house a lot of animals within a limited space and have it feel more organic and complex compared to 1, to which I think the only downside is that experienced players may only ever need a third of a map if they know how to house animals for more appeal per gallery and guest amenities that would make the most of the traffic.

So why not include a new level of difficulty in the game? DOMINION: A difficulty setting that is double that of Jurassic but is only ever accessible in sandbox mode if players are willing to build a park in such conditions. This is mainly due to how amazingly huge the roster is in Jurassic World Evolution 2, and how you could utilize that roster to conquer the dominion levels of difficulty with the space given in sandbox maps, especially the large one.

Jurassic Difficulty in sandbox mode for Nublar 2015 is to have a park that would have a dinosaur appeal requirement of 9000 consisting of 30 species and to earn an income of $2,000,000 with Jurassic levels of guest count and sabotage. More often than not, I would reach that 5-star rating with at MOST, half of the park built. with the other half being empty and not experiencing any difficulty managing guest needs or experiencing any notable sabotage.

If that park is given a higher level of difficulty, such as Dominion, those aspects could increase doubly so. So a park in Nublar 2015 may need $4,000,000 in income, 60 species, and an appeal of 1800 with even more guests to satisfy and more risk of sabotage.

Already it sounds bonkers, but such a level could work in sandbox mode, cause it is sandbox mode. Not all aspects could be done at this dominion level of difficulty as players may want to try out this level of difficulty for one aspect instead if they think it is easy in that area, or be curious and try it out in all 4 categories and see how long they could last under such pressure.


4) GRADUAL STORMS AND DISEASE INTENSITY SANDBOX SETTINGS

This one is very straightforward, but I think the maps in the game could use a weather and disease system that gets more intense the higher the star rating. The ones in the current sandbox settings could be very random or too much from the start, and I think having it gradually would enhance the experience. If gradual, things will be peaceful from the start so as to allow players to set everything up accordingly. Only when players start earning higher star ratings, the storms would get more disastrous and the diseases could be more common, acting as a suppressor to the player's progress during the later star ratings, so that the final few levels of star ratings could be more challenging and would require the player to plan ahead for any impending disaster.


5) RESEARCH PAGES APPROPRIATE TO THE BUILDING SET

While all the above are to make it more challenging for the player in sandbox mode, this is more to have it be fair. When playing sandbox mode, I would often go for Jurassic World, Jurassic Park, DFW, or All-Building sets, because I dislike how the Biosyn and Malta building sets are handicapped due to research.

If you played sandbox mode with research enabled, you would notice that the research's UI is done with the Jurassic World building set in mind, as Jurassic World has a building set that covers everything such as transport, additional attractions, and higher level fencing. While it made sense to use it for all building sets at first, flaws are more apparent when playing in other building sets, Jurassic Park and DFW would have research items that would yield nothing if research such as the monorail, zip lines, and heavy fencing when using the DFW set.

It however gets more infuriating when using the Biosyn or Malta pack as they have important items that are only accessible in later star ratings that would make the park management with research very difficult or downright impractical. The power stations are only accessible at 3.5 stars with no smaller substitute to use, while Malta only has a large hotel which is practically impossible to get since you need 500 guests to unlock it but no small hotel to reach those guest numbers.

If the research page were to be more appropriate per building set, not only would it be aesthetically immersive per building set with the correct research pictures and Biosyn's research compound UI, but items like power stations and hotels would be accessible to the player in a much fairer manner when playing in Biosyn or Malta sets with research enabled, allowing for players who like to progress in park management via sandbox mode to enjoy the new building sets without feeling they have reached a dead end and would have to use other building sets that allow for more fair research progression and only use these building sets for parks where research is not enabled.

------------------

This post really grew to be rather big but I definitely see potential with this game's sandbox mode. All the ingredients are there to allow for more challenging park progression that would better capture the franchise's chaos while simultaneously benefitting sandbox mode's ability to use any map, any building set, and access all dinosaurs the game has to offer. The areas to work on in sandbox mode shared above I think would help make such level of progressive play achievable and enjoyable, and I hope it gets considered by the devs to implement such changes to the game.
Ah, I already changed all those back to 150$ ticket prices but tbh I didn't pay that much attention to the original price ^^'

Though most are in the 800+$ range some even go 2-3k+ depending on which campaign it is they're from. Like those research/rescue center campaigns where you basically don't have any guests but still obviously need enough income to complete the tasks. Those have insane prices so the few staff that come in still make it work and when the maps are transfered to sandbox those simply aren't changed to the needed range you usually play with in challenge parks (between 180-400$ from what I saw) so that's where the issue lies with prices.

The tax thing is also something I added in again in my files. A simple change of two numbers but makes the game so much more challenging and fun. Totally agree that this should be an option in the sandbox settings as well and really would love the ability to simply set the ticket prices ourselves, too. It's such an important part of park management games and we can't influence it at all which is so weird.

And also agree with the other points up there, there's a lot that can be changed to make things way more fun. Btw, my jurassic settings currently have 30k appeal, with 60 species and 5mil income goal and it's still rather easy to progress xD It's also basically always the exact same thing 'cause digsites and started dinos never change which is kinda boring in the long run...still miss the random dig sites function from the first game and have no idea why it wasn't in this one from the get go, but oh well...
 
Ah, I already changed all those back to 150$ ticket prices but tbh I didn't pay that much attention to the original price ^^'

Though most are in the 800+$ range some even go 2-3k+ depending on which campaign it is they're from. Like those research/rescue center campaigns where you basically don't have any guests but still obviously need enough income to complete the tasks. Those have insane prices so the few staff that come in still make it work and when the maps are transfered to sandbox those simply aren't changed to the needed range you usually play with in challenge parks (between 180-400$ from what I saw) so that's where the issue lies with prices.

The tax thing is also something I added in again in my files. A simple change of two numbers but makes the game so much more challenging and fun. Totally agree that this should be an option in the sandbox settings as well and really would love the ability to simply set the ticket prices ourselves, too. It's such an important part of park management games and we can't influence it at all which is so weird.

And also agree with the other points up there, there's a lot that can be changed to make things way more fun. Btw, my jurassic settings currently have 30k appeal, with 60 species and 5mil income goal and it's still rather easy to progress xD It's also basically always the exact same thing 'cause digsites and started dinos never change which is kinda boring in the long run...still miss the random dig sites function from the first game and have no idea why it wasn't in this one from the get go, but oh well...

Oh, that does make sense! There was a time after the Biosyn expansion came out that building a park in the sanctuary map would have the star rating explode to 5 stars really quickly, which makes sense since it may be the ticket prices in addition to the new operating guest facilities that were not possible in the campaign map. I have linked the issue I submitted down below for reference which has an image of the park management screen back then.


I also went ahead and added an additional new sandbox setting to enable and disable guests' needs in sandbox mode. I think if we could, later on, change the ticket prices in sandbox mode, then we could decide if we need our guests or not. That way we could build parks that are more focused on dinosaur count than satisfying needs like sanctuaries and research facilities.

Btw, my jurassic settings currently have 30k appeal, with 60 species and 5mil income goal and it's still rather easy to progress xD

I did experience that too! I deleted all of my saves so that I could start a new slew of sandbox maps with the new updates and DLC the game received this past year, but I particularly had a Jurassic Park map on Isla Nublar that had more than 18000 dinosaur appeal, and I haven’t even built the tour section yet! I really like how much you could cram in, cause I went to an old Park in Jurassic World Evolution and my busiest parks look barren in comparison thanks to species having a 'Population Need'. I like how that need was taken care of with the new territory and the space of the enclosure rather than being limited by 18 animals in a herd for some reason.

Man... I am mostly on PS5 but I would love to see these changes get to the game, as it would have me glued to a park. I really want it to be a time-consuming project where there is some downtime for me to go around and explore my parks but also really make the most of the resources I have. However, once I have bypassed the one-star rating and have a park with millions of $$$ in the bank, I might as well have turned sandbox settings to creative mode since any sense of danger or consequence gets eliminated.

I do miss the random digsites as well, I am curious how it could be incorporated into Jurassic World Evolution 2, as most dinosaur research is branched by looking into dinosaurs of similar species or niches, which I like, but I admit it gets predictable after a while. Have you tried the dinosaur exchange? It does remove that sense of research and fossil expedition, but you are likely to get dinosaurs of random traits, genes, and some that are not available until the later part of the game, or not what you even ordered! I found that to be a refresher and was happy to see it get incorporated into sandbox mode, I use it to play with the idea of having a DFW-style park where you rescue random dinosaurs from the black market and house them in a sanctuary.
 
I agree it's a bit easy financially but also on the attraction side. My main goal is to get 5 stars, and even on Jurassic, it can be done with one or two enclosures depending on what you put in there. The tedious part is how small an area amenities cover, so you have to spend a ton of space just placing gift shops and whatnot, like 50 yards apart. Instead, loosening that radius and tightening what's required for things like species and attraction diversity, dinosaur combat, bonuses for genetic modifications, etc, would IMO be more enjoyable. :)
 
Happens on Malta DLC maps aswell.

Im actually going to share two screenshots aswell. It's really sad, because it literally just kills these maps for me. And they are brand new content.

Jurassic World Evolution 2 Screenshot 2022.12.22 - 22.31.26.70.png
Jurassic World Evolution 2 Screenshot 2022.12.24 - 23.02.09.27.png

First malta park had one tiny herbivore enclosure and was at 3.5 stars with 1.5m ticket sales. A second enclosure with 4 carnotaurus actually made it 5 stars, with just 3 small amenities.

Second biosyn park has 4 struthiomimus and already at 372K income with one small amenity.

Really thought about changing my negative review to a positive one after this dlc, simply because the game matured content wise and it had a nice campaign. But that's sadly not going to happen. The game is still too buggy for it's life cycle and sadly not catered to people who actually want a playable park sim, instead of a sanbox/beauty park creator kit.
 
The game is still too buggy for it's life cycle and sadly not catered to people who actually want a playable park sim, instead of a sandbox/beauty park creator kit.
You just summed up my thoughts perfectly. Either you play a cheaty-feeling Sandbox, or you get to deal with a lot of restrictions, some of which make little to no sense.

I've actually uninstalled the game, and probably won't reinstall until some of these issues are fixed. Unfortunately, I have a feeling the fixes are never going to come, considering that Planet Zoo has a very similar problem...
 
Pretty sure Sandbox economy on the Malta maps is still broken.

This is on all Jurassic difficulty with a High income tax.
 

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Pretty sure Sandbox economy on the Malta maps is still broken.

This is on all Jurassic difficulty with a High income tax.
Well, just look at the ticket sales income and you know what the culprit is. Bet all the other campaign maps that need a high ticket price to work still have the same issue as well.
 
@Jens Erik
Hi Jens, so it seems the DLC maps (Malta, Biosyn and Sierra Nevada, probably other campaign maps as well) direly need the adjustments in Sandbox mode in order to have reasonable ticket incomes.
@Pixelated Sparkster has reported this issue in detail here. Here is another report by another user confirming this.

@Nioell actually already pointed out the easy solution for this annoying problem in this thread:
Yeah, there is: the ticket prices are through the roof. I kinda went on a little modding spree to make the game harder and found out sandbox parks have ticket prices of 800$+ which is just insane. For comparison the challenge maps have something around 300$ if that, so obviously the balance is waaaay off already, add to that the low goals for appeal and dino count etc. and super easy, everything at 5* within 10min mode is complete. And it's so easy to fix, too, just a few line changes and done. I set my prices to 150$ and upped the goals by quite a bit and damn it's actually fun to play it now lol

Please, just forward this to the dev who is in charge of this specific part of the game, and let them fix the ticket prices (just set them to 100 - 150$ in Jurassic difficulty) for the Sandbox maps in question. So we can finally have a challenging experience when choosing Jurassic difficulty in Sandbox.
 
Hey, so out of sheer curiosity, I went over all the maps in Jurassic World Evolution 2 and recorded the appeal requirements of each map when set to different difficulties when it comes to dinosaur appeal. I decided to share my findings in this thread instead of making a new one since it is appropriate to post here:

When recording the appeal requirements, I used Reddit user's u/86karlos's map size chart that he has been updating with each new update, this is so that we could read what appeal is required for certain maps and if their sizes determine what appeal is needed. Maps of a larger size may need more appeal than smaller maps.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/jurassicworldevo/comments/128qhre/updateand_rework_maps_size_chart/


So to start things off, here are the current maps we have in the game, including the ones that have been introduced via updates and DLC before the release of update 6 and the feathered pack:

Screenshot 2023-04-05 at 2.35.46 pm.png


This is an overall healthy appeal requirement per map. Size has been a factor when implementing the appeal requirements in sandbox mode where small maps like Canada, Oregon, and UK have smaller appeal requirements when compared to Biosyn Sanctuary, Isla Nublar 2015, or California.

My critique here is that the sandbox maps for Malta require less appeal than what is expected of the parks in the Malta Campaign game. While San Marie Bay and Santaegidius Island are only 1000 appeals points short of their campaign requirements, San Albertus Penninsula is about 3500 points short, which is a shame since it is one of the largest non-expanded maps in the game.

Additionally, I think there is room for the Sierra Nevada map to be updated to require the higher appeal rating considering the buildable area is also one of the largest in the game and is larger than San Albertus Penninsula.

Screenshot 2023-04-05 at 2.49.45 pm.png


With update 6, the game has gotten hold of a ton of new map variants in Sandbox mode, all of which deliver a larger size than their standard variant. From what I have experienced in the game and seen from u/86karlos's data, these maps are gigantic!

It is a shame then that they have very low requirements for total appeal:

Screenshot 2023-04-05 at 2.35.59 pm.png


When doing the calculations for the bloated ticket income for the Biosyn Square Sandbox Map, I could not help but notice that the Southwest USA map I was using to compare with the square map has the same Jurassic Level appeal of 7500. 7500 is very small and is something that could be reached easily in some standard yet significantly smaller maps with the appeal setting set to Normal.

When checking over the data of the expanded and square levels, they all share the same appeal for easy, normal, hard, and Jurassic, which is not great considering the size differences between these maps are very inconsistent. San Diego has an expanded map that is 0.11 KM2 larger than her standard but requires 500 less in appeal, whereas Southwest USA, California, and San Marie Bay are the top 3 largest non-square maps in the game in which their standard map demands more appeal.

The appeal set for these maps is lesser than their standard maps despite the expanded size and makes the progress in growing a park with these maps much easier as a result. It is better if the appeal requirements here reflect the larger map sizes, to be something similar to what I am proposing below:

Screenshot 2023-04-05 at 3.09.16 pm.png


Here, at least from what I have gathered, the appeal rating should be more appropriate to the new larger maps. Sand Diego is just 1000 points higher in rating due to the slight bump in size, with Southwest USA and California being about 3 km2 and needing a large amount of appeal to match the large space. Finally, the San Marie Bay and Square Levels could benefit with a gigantic appeal requirement that would match the gigantic sizes of these maps, with San Marie Bay being the largest non-square map in the game and the square maps being colossal with their 6.25 Km2 buildable space.

They are daunting but that is the benefit of the Jurassic Setting. It would be a great challenge to supply the park appeal with these large maps, and with how many new dinosaurs have been introduced and would be introduced later on, having the appeal rating set so high in the Jurassic setting would let us make the most of the buildable space and roster. If this is too daunting, the lower appeal settings should allow for a more manageable experience.

I hope this data is useful and that the appeal requirement for these maps could be revised further. I may sound critical but I love how the game has been improved and have greatly enjoyed the experience so far, it just needs some TLC in some park requirements to make the progress of building these parks very enjoyable.

If this alongside the bloated ticket income for Biosyn and Malta has been readjusted then we are golden!
 
Hey, so out of sheer curiosity, I went over all the maps in Jurassic World Evolution 2 and recorded the appeal requirements of each map when set to different difficulties when it comes to dinosaur appeal. I decided to share my findings in this thread instead of making a new one since it is appropriate to post here:

When recording the appeal requirements, I used Reddit user's u/86karlos's map size chart that he has been updating with each new update, this is so that we could read what appeal is required for certain maps and if their sizes determine what appeal is needed. Maps of a larger size may need more appeal than smaller maps.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/jurassicworldevo/comments/128qhre/updateand_rework_maps_size_chart/


So to start things off, here are the current maps we have in the game, including the ones that have been introduced via updates and DLC before the release of update 6 and the feathered pack:

View attachment 351540

This is an overall healthy appeal requirement per map. Size has been a factor when implementing the appeal requirements in sandbox mode where small maps like Canada, Oregon, and UK have smaller appeal requirements when compared to Biosyn Sanctuary, Isla Nublar 2015, or California.

My critique here is that the sandbox maps for Malta require less appeal than what is expected of the parks in the Malta Campaign game. While San Marie Bay and Santaegidius Island are only 1000 appeals points short of their campaign requirements, San Albertus Penninsula is about 3500 points short, which is a shame since it is one of the largest non-expanded maps in the game.

Additionally, I think there is room for the Sierra Nevada map to be updated to require the higher appeal rating considering the buildable area is also one of the largest in the game and is larger than San Albertus Penninsula.

View attachment 351541

With update 6, the game has gotten hold of a ton of new map variants in Sandbox mode, all of which deliver a larger size than their standard variant. From what I have experienced in the game and seen from u/86karlos's data, these maps are gigantic!

It is a shame then that they have very low requirements for total appeal:

View attachment 351542

When doing the calculations for the bloated ticket income for the Biosyn Square Sandbox Map, I could not help but notice that the Southwest USA map I was using to compare with the square map has the same Jurassic Level appeal of 7500. 7500 is very small and is something that could be reached easily in some standard yet significantly smaller maps with the appeal setting set to Normal.

When checking over the data of the expanded and square levels, they all share the same appeal for easy, normal, hard, and Jurassic, which is not great considering the size differences between these maps are very inconsistent. San Diego has an expanded map that is 0.11 KM2 larger than her standard but requires 500 less in appeal, whereas Southwest USA, California, and San Marie Bay are the top 3 largest non-square maps in the game in which their standard map demands more appeal.

The appeal set for these maps is lesser than their standard maps despite the expanded size and makes the progress in growing a park with these maps much easier as a result. It is better if the appeal requirements here reflect the larger map sizes, to be something similar to what I am proposing below:

View attachment 351544

Here, at least from what I have gathered, the appeal rating should be more appropriate to the new larger maps. Sand Diego is just 1000 points higher in rating due to the slight bump in size, with Southwest USA and California being about 3 km2 and needing a large amount of appeal to match the large space. Finally, the San Marie Bay and Square Levels could benefit with a gigantic appeal requirement that would match the gigantic sizes of these maps, with San Marie Bay being the largest non-square map in the game and the square maps being colossal with their 6.25 Km2 buildable space.

They are daunting but that is the benefit of the Jurassic Setting. It would be a great challenge to supply the park appeal with these large maps, and with how many new dinosaurs have been introduced and would be introduced later on, having the appeal rating set so high in the Jurassic setting would let us make the most of the buildable space and roster. If this is too daunting, the lower appeal settings should allow for a more manageable experience.

I hope this data is useful and that the appeal requirement for these maps could be revised further. I may sound critical but I love how the game has been improved and have greatly enjoyed the experience so far, it just needs some TLC in some park requirements to make the progress of building these parks very enjoyable.

If this alongside the bloated ticket income for Biosyn and Malta has been readjusted then we are golden!
The problem here is that the whole appeal rating is basically useless anyway because JWE2 is waaay more unbalanced in this regard than JWE was. Appeal is something you can take into account but is in no way mandatory to reach those 5 stars. The only thing that matters is the income and you can reach that way below the appeal goal, especially with those insane ticket prices still in place. In JWE you couldn't reach 5 stars while your dino rating/appeal was not reached, JWE2 sadly is not like that.

So what we'd really need is a overhaul of that entire system to not make it income only and more balanced again and definitely lowered ticket prices for those campaign levels to fit sandbox instead of story mode...
 
The problem here is that the whole appeal rating is basically useless anyway because JWE2 is waaay more unbalanced in this regard than JWE was. Appeal is something you can take into account but is in no way mandatory to reach those 5 stars. The only thing that matters is the income and you can reach that way below the appeal goal, especially with those insane ticket prices still in place. In JWE you couldn't reach 5 stars while your dino rating/appeal was not reached, JWE2 sadly is not like that.

So what we'd really need is a overhaul of that entire system to not make it income only and more balanced again and definitely lowered ticket prices for those campaign levels to fit sandbox instead of story mode...
I agree. I initially thought that appeal could help make progression better since that is a rating I find inconsistent but relatively low in most new maps.

The ticket sales need to be redone o allow for gradual park growth, or allow players to alter on their own by choosing if they want low, medium, or high-cost ticket sales. I was playing the Northwestern map in a sandbox with Jurassic settings for everything. While I do see the growth is comfortable (it needed a total dino appeal of 10% to pass 1 star instead of 1%), I would still love it if we could alter the ticket prices to be lower so that I could have incubated more dinosaurs before passing 1 star.
 
DON'T force anything into sandbox please, developers. Some of us like it to be completely creative. It IS sandbox, there are already campaigns and challenges.
 
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