Weather overhaul - missed opportunity and a game changer. Crossing everything for this.

[Ozian]

Currently weather in game seems more cosmetic than impactful. I love the introduction of sunburn and the need for umbrellas and shade in game play but this could been taken further to have a significant impact on game play and visuals too. I really hope this is worked on for future updates because it seems the tech is there within Cobra. I’m also thinking these updates are worthwhile as storms and lightning would look great in Planet Zoo 2 as well!

So if it rains, guest numbers will be lower for water parks and coasters, with them seeking dark rides or indoor attractions, or coasters having to close in high winds. I think this would really improve things for management players, who would need to be strategic in what they build, so that guests have options in different weather conditions and based on different weather cycles and seasons (I.e. what you build overall would need to adapt to weather specifics in a biome such as frequency of weather types, as well as different one off weather events). As a sandbox player, snow will obviously look great in game as it does in Planet Zoo and a new weather type of storms would bring some awesome new visuals we haven’t seen in a Planet game, with the flash of lightening and rumble of thunder across a park (which could then be used to great effect in PlanZoo2 as well).

All of this would be such a game changer, along with overall visual QoL improvements for weather (e.g. skies going darker when it rains). The introduction of seasons, the passing of time changing, wind improving in game and weather being introduced vs. PlanCo1 makes me think this approach must have been in the pipeline at some point and we’ve also seen what is possible in the JWE franchise too as a wider reference point in Frontier’s work. I really hope this is ironed out, as all the potential is there. It could advance the game even more in many ways.

 

[Valdo82]

Uhm....saying weather has no impact, you are clearly not playing the game. The actual impact for weather is huge. 3hours of heavy rain and your park is basically done for two days or you close the park after the rain and swap out most of the peeps.

So rain has the issue that people get the wet status, probably the worst status ingame, how do people get wet: doing stuff in the rain, walking doesnt seem a big impact: but sitting on a bench, queueing a ride and riding one will get them wet, once they are wet they get desperate and never recover, desperate people give 0 reputation, lower reputation = less park rating in less guests.

To counter act it, you basically need to have the ride and the queue under a roof, but it doesnt stop there people still going on rainy rides like it happens in real life, so to counteract it, basically all your start attractions need to be covered, same goes for benches and seating options. And lets just say: all the management functions can eat something of me that the sun doesnt see much. It is no fun. Basically it is just a dice roll and all your guests are unhappy.

 

[Ozian]

Uhm....saying weather has no impact, you are clearly not playing the game. The actual impact for weather is huge. 3hours of heavy rain and your park is basically done for two days or you close the park after the rain and swap out most of the peeps.

So rain has the issue that people get the wet status, probably the worst status ingame, how do people get wet: doing stuff in the rain, walking doesnt seem a big impact: but sitting on a bench, queueing a ride and riding one will get them wet, once they are wet they get desperate and never recover, desperate people give 0 reputation, lower reputation = less park rating in less guests.

To counter act it, you basically need to have the ride and the queue under a roof, but it doesnt stop there people still going on rainy rides like it happens in real life, so to counteract it, basically all your start attractions need to be covered, same goes for benches and seating options. And lets just say: all the management functions can eat something of me that the sun doesnt see much. It is no fun. Basically it is just a dice roll and all your guests are unhappy.

Thank you for correcting me on this. I play the game a lot but am mostly a sandbox player. So I’ll amend what I’ve said to have this feature advanced - I’d still like to see storms and snow. And also would like see rain and wind cause outside rides to have to completely close like in theme parks. I think the visuals can also be improved - particularly darker skies when it rains.

 

[Valdo82]

Thank you for correcting me on this. I play the game a lot but am mostly a sandbox player. So I’ll amend what I’ve said to have this feature advanced - I’d still like to see storms and snow. And also would like see rain and wind cause outside rides to have to completely close like in theme parks. I think the visuals can also be improved - particularly darker skies when it rains.

i get it from a sandbox type of play, maybe it is the way frontier implemented it in pc2, but i do feel to get weather fully as an manegerial feature we would need to have more indoor attractions, right now it feels a bit random, if it rains or not, i feel frontier strayed away a bit from the "day cycle" more and more and the mishmash of the year/day cycle doesnt gel well with weather effects, it doesnt force any decision on you and just punishes you in a strange and bad way.

 

[danny420]

I was honestly realy hyped for the weather feature. But apart from it being a visual eyecandy and an extreme pain in the place the sun never shines i have not had any good experience with it.

i have played most of my 1800 hours with weather off for several reasons:

Guests are simply not smart enough. When i go to europa park for example i check the weather beforehand. If rain is to come in i make sure to have a rain jacket or take a umbrella with me. If i cant i buy one at the start of the day in the park. Guests in planco cant do that. So basically when it rains they either continue strolling around in the rain, or some few guests flock the stores to buy umbrellas. In heavy rain or when wet guests instantly start flocking the dryers. In my opinion dryers shoudlnt be used for that reason. Dryers should be used at the exits of water rides but guests can get wet status from those.

Guests currently are just not smart enough to deal with weather at all i feel. Im also pretty sure the goal isnt to have information stalls every 20 meters to realy get those umbrellas to guests when rain kicks in.

I hope we see a huge update adressed only to this specific feature, the same way they did a complete rework of flume physics