still no fix for park rating

[danny420]

how come there is no mention of a fix regarding the park rating dropping when park is closed? i literally cant build and test my rides inside my park because my rating drops to zero. im talking about the guest rating/park reputation rating (not sure what its called in english). its the last one in the list of the picture. literally one ingame day and im at zero there. this then forces me to set all my entry prices to 0 and fast forward the game for about 2 real life hours to reach full rating again and beeing able to change my prices back to my custom ones.
these are exactly the types of gamebreaking issues that many user kept reporting, some since release. we arent seeing any improvements here?

 

[Nioell]

I mean it tells you right there in the description: it's an average build on guests thoughts while they visit your park. When you close the park there are 0 guests there to draw that data from so how would this particular rating be anything other than 0? It may be annoying to wait for it to build up again, but this one actually does make sense when you see what it is and how it works, so I don't think this is anything on the "is a bug, needs fixing" list.

On another note: why would you close the entire park to add a single new ride? There's no need to do that and you can just add and test the ride while the park is open. Just imagine a real park closing for months or even a year at times whenever they add a new ride, don't think they'd survive that for long either and their rep and income would certainly take a nose dive, too.

 

[danny420]

I mean it tells you right there in the description: it's an average build on guests thoughts while they visit your park. When you close the park there are 0 guests there to draw that data from so how would this particular rating be anything other than 0? It may be annoying to wait for it to build up again, but this one actually does make sense when you see what it is and how it works, so I don't think this is anything on the "is a bug, needs fixing" list.

On another note: why would you close the entire park to add a single new ride? There's no need to do that and you can just add and test the ride while the park is open. Just imagine a real park closing for months or even a year at times whenever they add a new ride, don't think they'd survive that for long either and their rep and income would certainly take a nose dive, too.

1. the rating doesnt decrease the more guests leave. it starts dropping only after all guests have left, so it clearly isnt related to needing to have guests in the park. it also clearly states "reputation based on guest experience of my park" not "reputation based on guests thoughts inside the park".
2. its called "park reputation". i have never seen people NOT visit europa park on season opening because it was closed for 2 months prior and lost all its reputation.
3. why would i close my park? why not? the game literally gives us the option of opening and closing our parks so let me play the game i want and the way it was intended. if i want to empty out my park to have more fps when building a completely new area than let me do it. this was also never an issue in previous games. and like ive explained, this "bug" is causing a series of avalanched reactions which in the end result in tampering the users experience.

this is not how it is supposed to work, it literally doesnt say anywhere that closing the park will decrease that rating, thats the reason why im calling this a bug and asking for it to be fixed

 

[danny420]

I mean it tells you right there in the description: it's an average build on guests thoughts while they visit your park. When you close the park there are 0 guests there to draw that data from so how would this particular rating be anything other than 0? It may be annoying to wait for it to build up again, but this one actually does make sense when you see what it is and how it works, so I don't think this is anything on the "is a bug, needs fixing" list.

On another note: why would you close the entire park to add a single new ride? There's no need to do that and you can just add and test the ride while the park is open. Just imagine a real park closing for months or even a year at times whenever they add a new ride, don't think they'd survive that for long either and their rep and income would certainly take a nose dive, too.

Just to clarify the issue so it’s easier to understand:

I had a park with over 11,000 guests and a 5-star rating across the board. All the rides and entry fees had custom pricing, and guests were more than happy to pay those prices.

Then, I closed the park and guests began leaving. Once the park was empty, the rating started to rapidly decline. Eventually, it dropped all the way to zero.

When I reopened the park and the rides, only about 200–300 guests started to show up. This low number is clearly tied to the park’s low rating, as guest spawn rates are rating-dependent. Because the rating is so low, guests aren’t willing to pay the park entrance fee—or the ride prices.

This creates a kind of "softlock" situation:

• I can’t attract more guests because the rating is too low.
• But I can’t raise the rating because I don’t have enough guests—and the few that do come in aren’t spending money due to the poor rating.

From a gameplay perspective, there seems to be no benefit or logic behind this mechanic working the way it does. i cant imagine frontier implementing this only for me to have to change prices to 0 and wait for 3-4 real life hours for more and more guests to spawn as the rating keeps crawling back up again. and that everytime i close the park.That’s why I believe this may actually be a bug. and even if it isnt a bug, theres no point in this so it should be changed anyway, and i know im not the only one who doesnt like to deal with this.

Issue Tracker

issues.frontierstore.net

 

[Nioell]

1. the rating doesnt decrease the more guests leave. it starts dropping only after all guests have left, so it clearly isnt related to needing to have guests in the park. it also clearly states "reputation based on guest experience of my park" not "reputation based on guests thoughts inside the park".
2. its called "park reputation". i have never seen people NOT visit europa park on season opening because it was closed for 2 months prior and lost all its reputation.
3. why would i close my park? why not? the game literally gives us the option of opening and closing our parks so let me play the game i want and the way it was intended. if i want to empty out my park to have more fps when building a completely new area than let me do it. this was also never an issue in previous games. and like ive explained, this "bug" is causing a series of avalanched reactions which in the end result in tampering the users experience.

this is not how it is supposed to work, it literally doesnt say anywhere that closing the park will decrease that rating, thats the reason why im calling this a bug and asking for it to be fixed

1. If the rating only drops after all the guests left it clearly is related to the guests currently staying in the park. The easiest way to achieve good rating goals here is basically get rid of all guests except one and keep that one guest 100% happy and the rating would be top. It's the same with the animal rating in PZ e.g. You need a high average for the objective? Easy, just get rid of all but one and the game will only be able to calculate the rating with that critter, done.

It also states "how satisfied the guests are with your park. Keeping track of their mood and thoughts can help etc." meaning the end result is based on and calculated using the input from the guests visiting the park at that point. Their mood and thoughts are a mirror of their current experience. If the game loses all input for that feed it has nothing to calculate the rating with anymore, hance it drops to 0 after the last guests disappear from the map.

2. Doesn't really affect the game but if the EP or any park started closing everytime they worked on rides or new areas in the middle of the season and not the regular off season I can guarantee you people would get very annoyed by it very fast. Not to mention they'd basically be closed permanently because there's always some thing or other they're working on.

3. I didn't say you couldn't close the park if that's how you want to play it, but if you do you have to deal with the consequences of it and in this case (or any park sim I've played so far tbh) that means losing at least part of the park rating in some way or other. There are also ways to save FPS without throwing all the guests out, like building in pause mode or simply lowering the guest count cap to 1k or even less.

I'm also pretty sure it works exactly as it's intended to for the reasons stated above. It's just how that mechanic is coded into the game and it does make sense when you see it as the live feed of guest satisfaction that it is.


In regard to your second post: the spawn rating seems weird because all the time I played the numbers coming in seemed to be related to the number of rides first and everything else second. So as soon as I add more rides more guests come in and so on. The price system is definitely a mess and makes no sense however and if anything it's in way more need of a rework than the ratings system.

In the end I believe we might have to agree to disagree when it comes to how ratings are implemented in the game, because I think we got entirely different ideas about how the whole thing works or should work so we'd probably just end up going in circles. For what it's worth: I do get where you're coming from and why it's annoying when you decide to play that way, I just don't think that's the approach the game takes or is trying to take.

 

[Valdo82]

I'm also pretty sure it works exactly as it's intended to for the reasons stated above. It's just how that mechanic is coded into the game and it does make sense when you see it as the live feed of guest satisfaction that it is.


In regard to your second post: the spawn rating seems weird because all the time I played the numbers coming in seemed to be related to the number of rides first and everything else second. So as soon as I add more rides more guests come in and so on. The price system is definitely a mess and makes no sense however and if anything it's in way more need of a rework than the ratings system.

In the end I believe we might have to agree to disagree when it comes to how ratings are implemented in the game, because I think we got entirely different ideas about how the whole thing works or should work so we'd probably just end up going in circles. For what it's worth: I do get where you're coming from and why it's annoying when you decide to play that way, I just don't think that's the approach the game takes or is trying to take.

Guests are tied to park rating, Park rating is tied to rides you have and most of the time this is the only number you are having trouble with (non water park), so yes more rides = more guests seems right, but this is technically a wrong conclusion.

So Park reputation, what ever this number is, is a bit crazy. So let's not close the park, but have heavy rain all morning, unless you have a completly indoor park, your guest will get miserable, as they get wet and miserable. (i dont want to dive to deep into the wet mechanic).

Your park reputation drops, i mean it rains, it makes somewhat sense, that people dont want to visit on a rainy day. What is weird, you still will experience the whole afternoon miserable rep, even your guests are happy again: the rating doesnt go up. It goes up, when the day ends. So my question is: why does it drop live but doesnt go up live. My rep shot last time from 3.2 to 5 back just by the end of the day report.

I agree that closing the park take a rep hit, as most guests are annoyed that you just closed the park, while they are inside. The weird thing is the comeback from park rep is so static tied to the end of the day.

 

[danny420]

Guests are tied to park rating, Park rating is tied to rides you have and most of the time this is the only number you are having trouble with (non water park), so yes more rides = more guests seems right, but this is technically a wrong conclusion.

So Park reputation, what ever this number is, is a bit crazy. So let's not close the park, but have heavy rain all morning, unless you have a completly indoor park, your guest will get miserable, as they get wet and miserable. (i dont want to dive to deep into the wet mechanic).

Your park reputation drops, i mean it rains, it makes somewhat sense, that people dont want to visit on a rainy day. What is weird, you still will experience the whole afternoon miserable rep, even your guests are happy again: the rating doesnt go up. It goes up, when the day ends. So my question is: why does it drop live but doesnt go up live. My rep shot last time from 3.2 to 5 back just by the end of the day report.

I agree that closing the park take a rep hit, as most guests are annoyed that you just closed the park, while they are inside. The weird thing is the comeback from park rep is so static tied to the end of the day.

i honestly havent even paid attention to that yet. next time ill play i will check if it is the same for me, only changing at the end of day back again. still i think its just way to extreme. its enough punishement to have your finances drain without any income when closed. but my park shouldnt loose 5 star reputation only for being closed half an ingame day. that "consequence" should be prolonged way more, like lets say have the park closed for 1 ingame week or something, then start slowly bringing rep down. the way it currently is, i loose the 5 star rep in about one ingame hour of the park being closed. its just a chore everytime i wanna reopen it again.

 

[danny420]

1. If the rating only drops after all the guests left it clearly is related to the guests currently staying in the park. The easiest way to achieve good rating goals here is basically get rid of all guests except one and keep that one guest 100% happy and the rating would be top. It's the same with the animal rating in PZ e.g. You need a high average for the objective? Easy, just get rid of all but one and the game will only be able to calculate the rating with that critter, done.

It also states "how satisfied the guests are with your park. Keeping track of their mood and thoughts can help etc." meaning the end result is based on and calculated using the input from the guests visiting the park at that point. Their mood and thoughts are a mirror of their current experience. If the game loses all input for that feed it has nothing to calculate the rating with anymore, hance it drops to 0 after the last guests disappear from the map.

2. Doesn't really affect the game but if the EP or any park started closing everytime they worked on rides or new areas in the middle of the season and not the regular off season I can guarantee you people would get very annoyed by it very fast. Not to mention they'd basically be closed permanently because there's always some thing or other they're working on.

3. I didn't say you couldn't close the park if that's how you want to play it, but if you do you have to deal with the consequences of it and in this case (or any park sim I've played so far tbh) that means losing at least part of the park rating in some way or other. There are also ways to save FPS without throwing all the guests out, like building in pause mode or simply lowering the guest count cap to 1k or even less.

I'm also pretty sure it works exactly as it's intended to for the reasons stated above. It's just how that mechanic is coded into the game and it does make sense when you see it as the live feed of guest satisfaction that it is.


In regard to your second post: the spawn rating seems weird because all the time I played the numbers coming in seemed to be related to the number of rides first and everything else second. So as soon as I add more rides more guests come in and so on. The price system is definitely a mess and makes no sense however and if anything it's in way more need of a rework than the ratings system.

In the end I believe we might have to agree to disagree when it comes to how ratings are implemented in the game, because I think we got entirely different ideas about how the whole thing works or should work so we'd probably just end up going in circles. For what it's worth: I do get where you're coming from and why it's annoying when you decide to play that way, I just don't think that's the approach the game takes or is trying to take.

• Guest-based rating system: I understand that the game calculates the park rating based on current guests — but that’s exactly the problem. It doesn’t make sense for a park’s reputation to drop to zero just because there are temporarily no guests on the map. Reputation should reflect the overall quality and track record of a park, not whether someone’s actively standing in line for a coaster at that exact second. If there's no data to work with, the system shouldn't default to “0” — it should hold the last known value or gradually decay over time if the park stays closed.
  Think about it like this: imagine a world-class park temporarily closing its gates for renovations or weather. Its reputation doesn’t instantly vanish the moment the last guest leaves. That’s just not how public perception — or game logic — should work.
• On real-life comparisons: Sure, closing a park mid-season for routine work might annoy people in real life — but this is a game. And it actively encourages creativity, efficiency, and management at a level where temporary closures can be a useful tool (performance, construction, etc.). Penalizing players for using those tools, especially with a zeroed rating, feels like a punishment for using the game’s own systems. And again, EP closes down for about 2 months yearly. as we dont have "offseason" in Planco i cannot close my park during that time only. And ive never heard EP actually loosing any kind of reputation for that 2 month closure span.
• Consequences vs. broken logic: I agree with you that choices should have consequences. But those consequences should make sense. Dropping the park rating to zero when guests vanish — not because of guest complaints, but because there’s no one to poll — feels like a technical quirk, not a meaningful gameplay penalty. There are smarter ways to handle that. For example: decay over time, or a temporary “inactivity” rating plateau.
• On FPS workarounds: Yeah, I do use guest cap adjustments and pause mode. But none of those address the fact that when you do want to close the park for any reason, you're hit with a zero rating that affects the parks operationality or future guest spawns (the willingness of guests to pay certain prices tied to rep rating). That’s a harsh consequence for something that isn’t necessarily “bad management.” After all, the game is supposed to be fun to play no?

I get that we may never fully agree on how this should work, but I do think feedback like this matters — because if enough players run into friction like this, it’s worth at least reviewing. Sometimes “works as intended” doesn’t mean “works well.”
Anyways, thanks for your view on the matter.

 

[Valdo82]

Ok, after some play around with my millions of franchise parks. I think i found out how reputation works:

The reputation works on despawn of the guest, so like an exit survey: did you enjoy your stay? + the end of day seems either to delete 'older ratings' or takes all ratings in or both. It makes sense that the ratingscore is overridden at some time.

So in your case: You close the park: Most of the guests are unhappy, cause you robbed them of their time in the park. (technically also some kind of abuse prevent for closing/opening in franchise mode). So as long as your park is closed, it stays at the 0. (makes also sense since no one, can tell this is a great park). Now when new guests come in, they only start changing the rating when they leave and the bigger the park the longer it takes, guests try to experience all attractions and stay probably around 2 days max for your park.

So yes, in a way this system makes sense that i wouldnt call it a bug per se, but for me it seems somewhat badly balanced and inconsistent. Also i feel there is a double punishment in place as we still got the intransparent refund system, which should do the same: For me, it may not be too realistic, the reputation system should be live and not when leaving, so too much vomit/trash on the paths? drain the rating now, not afterwards, etc. especially i feel guests are kind of forgetful, like they can have 90% a great time, but then rain, a not adjusted janitor etc. can kill your reputation even it is just short time.

 

[danny420]

Ok, after some play around with my millions of franchise parks. I think i found out how reputation works:

The reputation works on despawn of the guest, so like an exit survey: did you enjoy your stay? + the end of day seems either to delete 'older ratings' or takes all ratings in or both. It makes sense that the ratingscore is overridden at some time.

So in your case: You close the park: Most of the guests are unhappy, cause you robbed them of their time in the park. (technically also some kind of abuse prevent for closing/opening in franchise mode). So as long as your park is closed, it stays at the 0. (makes also sense since no one, can tell this is a great park). Now when new guests come in, they only start changing the rating when they leave and the bigger the park the longer it takes, guests try to experience all attractions and stay probably around 2 days max for your park.

So yes, in a way this system makes sense that i wouldnt call it a bug per se, but for me it seems somewhat badly balanced and inconsistent. Also i feel there is a double punishment in place as we still got the intransparent refund system, which should do the same: For me, it may not be too realistic, the reputation system should be live and not when leaving, so too much vomit/trash on the paths? drain the rating now, not afterwards, etc. especially i feel guests are kind of forgetful, like they can have 90% a great time, but then rain, a not adjusted janitor etc. can kill your reputation even it is just short time.

but thats the problem, i cant simply reopen the park and wait some time for things to balance out again. because my guests dont want to pay the entry fee for a 0 star rated park nor do they pay 1 dollar for any of my rides because again bad rating. i have to set all prices to 0, fast forward for about 3-4 real life hours, cause guests spawn in bulks it seems and only then can i go and change back to all my custom prices. i dont think this is how frontier intended this to work.

i think they could start by changing how guests react when closing the park. when the park closes it closes, simple as that. i know people would get angry when they just bought entry, but the game doesnt think that far. the ai is not complex enough. we dont have a calendar where we can plan for a closure in advance so that guests dont buy tickets shortly before closure.

it also somehow doesnt make much sense because currently my park is empty, yet my rating is still dropping. it was sitting at 3.8 like 5 minutes ago. i was testing a new ride im building in my unfinished area and it dropped to 3.2 in just 5 minutes. so i dont understand what is dragging this rating down when there is nobody currently leaving my park and giving their experience a rating?

ngl im realy confused by this and i think these is room for improvement as ive explained above. but thanks for sharing your test results with us

 

[Simplefacts]

the ride rating it calculated by rides that are actually open and functioning. Closed and broken down rides negatively impact that rating. You closing all your rides effectively makes it so you have 0 rides in the park which tanks your rating. And this makes sense. Why should you get a positive rating for non-functioning rides that guests can not access? If you want to build out areas of your park with a lower performance hit lower your guests capacity limit while you're building.

 

[danny420]

the ride rating it calculated by rides that are actually open and functioning. Closed and broken down rides negatively impact that rating. You closing all your rides effectively makes it so you have 0 rides in the park which tanks your rating. And this makes sense. Why should you get a positive rating for non-functioning rides that guests can not access? If you want to build out areas of your park with a lower performance hit lower your guests capacity limit while you're building.

we are not talking about ride rating, we are talking about the park reputation rating i know that closing all my rides drops that ride rating down to zero, but that always jumps back up to 5 stars the moment i open all rides back up again