Scenarios... who's going to play them?

[Scott.]

So with the introduction of the scenario editor I've personally yet to touch it. That said it does appeal to me as a builder and I will most likely create a scenario or two but for what purpose other than self fulfillment.

Is there a market within planet coaster for people who want to play custom senarios? And I mean more than the odd player, who's going to play them? Will you? Genuine question. Again personally I'm not, I only looked at the scenario page of the forums to see how busy it is... and it's full of scenarios with little to no interest.

For me planet coaster is a design game for creators as it lacks any real management elements which is why the scenario sections for me personally doesn't appeal. I play planet coaster to unwind and create anything my mind lets me.

That's why I'm interested to see how much of a market there is for people playing custom scenarios? Will the workshop be littered with untouched scenarios? With the odd one or two by master builders being touched? My guess is yes.

Discuss.

 

[Gysan]

I fear the same.

Personally I like to play the officially scenarios. There is a moment of satisfaction by gain and collect stars in the Career mode. They lock up new levels. A moment of progress between scenarios. Also, there is a moment of tutorials in the official scenarios. You learn some good basics of the game. And you also see and learn how Frontier themselves use their own content, that makes you understand their intentions better.

Now, you don't earn any points by playing a lot of custom scenarios right? And you don't have to struggle to lock up new levels. You just go and download it from the Steam Workshop. It is doomed to fail. There is no moment of progress. No moment of challenge. And of course, people are more interested in spending time with their own creations and work than other peoples content.

If this should work and catch the players interest, they should look at Mario Maker to the Wii U. That game generate automatically a set of levels/scenarios together as one adventure that you had to finish. And when you did that you got rewarded. And you had to finnish one level to lock up the next one.

 

[breezerHOG1]

I like the scenario editor because it gives more flexibility. For sandbox players who want to tweak the outside of your park, or change something about guest behavior, you can now do that. When players share their work on Steam, it no longer is just about looking at the park, it could be about improving it. Obviously, not every park needs to be a scenario, but its good to mix it up.

To answer your question: I think a lot of the custom scenarios will be ignored, but that doesnt really matter. Even if theres 1,000 scenarios, as long as a few of them are really great, they will appeal to some players. I think it will be interesting to see if Youtube channels like Jonny5Alive will play any of them? But more importantly, we have to ask will Planet Coaster reach 2 million in sales by next year?

Currently, I dont think a lot of people play this game specifically for scenarios, because a lot of "scenario players" would probably prefer a game like RCT or Parkitect. I think the addition of the scenario editor will help draw some of that crowd back to PlanCo, but theres still a few more things this game needs to really compete with RCT/Parkitect, and that is simplicity. Hopefully a bigger expansion is planned for 2018, like water parks, which will help increase sales, but in order to reach a larger audience PC needs to apply more UI/QoL improvements to draw in a more casual player base. Those are the players who will want to see some awesome scenarios made by the experts!

 

[inspectorgadget1]

Of course people will play them. Many players put the majority of hours into scenario play over the other game modes (me included). Different people like different things... May also take some time for the workshop scenario popularity to pick up given the recent update hasn't been out too long.

Personally I like to play the officially scenarios. There is a moment of satisfaction by gain and collect stars in the Career mode. They lock up new levels. A moment of progress between scenarios.

They're not really linked though are they? The more popular custom scenarios can be just as rewarding as the Frontier ones, maybe even more so if they are super challenging.

I think it will be interesting to see if Youtube channels like Jonny5Alive will play any of them? But more importantly, we have to ask will Planet Coaster reach 2 million in sales by next year?

[confused]

Hopefully a bigger expansion is planned for 2018, like water parks, which will help increase sales, but in order to reach a larger audience PC needs to apply more UI/QoL improvements to draw in a more casual player base. Those are the players who will want to see some awesome scenarios made by the experts!

Interesting way of getting in your obsession for UI updates and water parks in this thread

 

[Empo]

Simulation still falls short in too many ways to enjoy scenarios in the way I did with the previous games. So not me.

 

[Helena]

I am already playing people's scenarios.

 

[cerealfruitcakes]

I think we desperately need more backdrop scenes to flesh out the scenario editor. What makes the original RCT scenarios so good (and 3 as well IMO) is how diverse the landscaping is for each one. There are a lot of unique environments that keep things interesting. The scenarios would be a lot better if we had more diverse landscapes to build them on and not the same 6 or so backdrops we have now. A river cutting through, coastal cliffs, beach, rocky mountains, ocean plane, sandy dunes, etc.

There's a sense of "more of the same" with the limited amount of backdrops we have.

 

[seeker939]

Stopped playing the Frontier scenarios soon after release because there simply is no game. Nothing has changed since then. Not gonna touch any custom scenarios.

 

[Scott.]

I think we desperately need more backdrop scenes to flesh out the scenario editor. What makes the original RCT scenarios so good (and 3 as well IMO) is how diverse the landscaping is for each one. There are a lot of unique environments that keep things interesting. The scenarios would be a lot better if we had more diverse landscapes to build them on and not the same 6 or so backdrops we have now. A river cutting through, coastal cliffs, beach, rocky mountains, ocean plane, sandy dunes, etc.

There's a sense of "more of the same" with the limited amount of backdrops we have.

I fear this is off topic but I agree. I’d love a random scenery generator that presents me with hills, mountains, trees etc for me to sculpt my park around, rather than a flat surface every time.

 

[breezerHOG1]

I fear this is off topic but I agree. I’d love a random scenery generator that presents me with hills, mountains, trees etc for me to sculpt my park around, rather than a flat surface every time.

Theres tons of park saves on the workshop that offer exactly what your asking for. When cereal said "backdrops" he meant the outside terrain, not the inside of the park...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=797183752
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=803496809&searchtext=empty
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=930708353&searchtext=empty
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=851501327&searchtext=starter
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=805301003&searchtext=starter
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=958418623&searchtext=starter

 

[cerealfruitcakes]

Yeah, to make my point clearer, I think the lack of a backdrop variety will hinder the desire for people to make new scenarios. You can only do so much with the same backdrops/landscaping and I think if you want to see an explosion in scenario creativity there needs to be more variety of backdrops that interact more with the landscape.

Imagine an ocean plane where we can island hop like the scenario in RCT3. A rocky cliff cutting across the entire map. A rocky mountain landscape. More than just "Here's a mostly flat piece of land surrounded by a backdrop". The variety of unique landscapes in RCT1(and partially RCT3) is what made those scenarios so fun IMO. So I think if we want to see more people interested in scenario creation we need to have a bigger variety of backdrop landscapes.

 

[RockandGrohl]

I think what's imperative is for staff to pick the current 10 best scenarios and categorise them into Easy / Medium / Hard.

Then every month add a new scenario for 12 months until there are 22 Scenarios spread across Easy / Medium / Hard.

Of course, these Scenarios need to be made "official" and downloadable from the game's "PLAY" menu, and not in some obscure place.

People need to be directed to these scenarios from the main menu, perhaps after they've done a couple of the original included ones.

 

[Fishook]

I am purely a Scenario player, The management aspect of the game has come on leaps and bounds since release. The problem lies with the official scenarios need updating to include the new features and functions. As some of them lack balance IMO.

I am still working my way through the official scenarios, but I am looking forward to playing some custom scenarios later (once they have been play tested). I have no desire to touch the sandbox aspect of the game but each to there own. I do not have time to invest to creating advanced buildings and coasters.

 

[RockandGrohl]

I do not have time to invest to creating advanced buildings and coasters.

That's fair enough, I was much the same in RCT2. With how easy it is to subscribe to the workshop I wouldn't be surprised if people rack up a fair amount of custom objects to put into scenarios. Nowt wrong with that!

 

[Fishook]

I think what's imperative is for staff to pick the current 10 best scenarios and categorise them into Easy / Medium / Hard.

Then every month add a new scenario for 12 months until there are 22 Scenarios spread across Easy / Medium / Hard.

Of course, these Scenarios need to be made "official" and downloadable from the game's "PLAY" menu, and not in some obscure place.

People need to be directed to these scenarios from the main menu, perhaps after they've done a couple of the original included ones.

What a brilliant idea, as I generally only download the featured creators stuff as I find it pain to trawl through the workshop. The only downside to that is, Do Frontier have enough staff to playtest the scenarios as, the difficulty can vary between patches. As the older scenarios weren't geared up for new functions which have been introduced. I had to restart Oak Island due to problems with a over abundance of staf and all my customers leaving the park after two years.

 

[corkscrewloop]

Maybe some statistics on the scenarios would be cool... Like an analyzis how many have played it, how many achieved it, with what values... and the ranklist would appear listed on the ws, of course optional? So the competition factor would create some challenge? BR Corkscrewloop[happy]

 

[Helena]

I fear this is off topic but I agree. I’d love a random scenery generator that presents me with hills, mountains, trees etc for me to sculpt my park around, rather than a flat surface every time.

This I agree. It would be fantastic!

 

[HeatherG]

im going to play them.

 

[Scott.]

So basically a split consensus.

Some who will play them.

Some who think they could be a thing, if frontier added more features such as statistics, a better ability to access them other than the workshop etc.

Some who think it wont take off.

I'm undecided myself, I guess it comes down to what type of audience PC attracts. Is it a management/strategy game, is it a design game. Can it be both? I'd agree it's come on some in the management part but has work to do on both areas to improve game play.

 

[RockandGrohl]

So basically a split consensus.

Some who will play them.

Some who think they could be a thing, if frontier added more features such as statistics, a better ability to access them other than the workshop etc.

Some who think it wont take off.

I'm undecided myself, I guess it comes down to what type of audience PC attracts. Is it a management/strategy game, is it a design game. Can it be both? I'd agree it's come on some in the management part but has work to do on both areas to improve game play.

Just FYI I kinda hijacked your idea and brought it into its own topic which Bo commented on. I have the same concerns as you - that Scenarios won't be made to their full potential and instead people will make something awesome and have it buried under the rest.