Why you can't have a free rides, paid entry park

Airboss

A
So I really love the way Six Flags and Cedar Fair have pricing set up. You pay a large entry fee, but then all (some exclusions) rides are free. This doesn't work in game however. You barely make a profit if you choose this method. Why? I'll explain.


Lets say 1k people visit a Six Flags park every day (Ik its wayy more irl, but just for example) They would be making 1k*price of a ticket. In game, the peeps pay, and stay for as long as they want. They can stay, for the price of one day, for 100 days if they want.
The solution to this would be to make guests pay every time the day changes, but then that would empty their pockets and because the day is so short, they wouldn't be able to stay for long..

Thoughts?
 

Serpentrax

S
I won an objective in that first Pirate scenario just by closing the park, wait a while until most guests left, and open the floodgates again. In all honesty that was in the beta, but I don't think this changed a lot afterwards.

Like many aspects in the actual gameplay of PlanCo, the guest population seems to be pretty shallow. I have a feeling that the game calculates how many guests should fit in your park based on the amount of rides and the rating. When that ideal target is not met (e.g. the park was just emptied) it starts generating peeps like crazy and it stagnates when the target is reached. This "evolved simulation" became blatantly obvious when the beta updates cleared out guests in older savegames, it was back at the previous level within minutes.

If the guests have no reason for leaving the park, they will stay in and preventing new visitors from entering and paying the entry fee. So basically, taking care of your customers and keeping them happy actually punishes you. A solution would be to close the park manually very often, it feels a bit like cheating, but hey.
 
Last edited:

gregorburns

G
Yeah I wish it would work like this as well. I remember asking about this during my studio tour as well, but its sad to see that guests are not willing to pay much to enter the park, even if rides are free. From what I have played so far it seems like $10 is about the most any guest is willing to pay to enter the park when the rides are free. It would be good to have some tweaking done on this so that more realistic pricing can be allowed.
 

Stream

S
Since it would take too long for the guests to exit the park and enter again every day cycle, maybe compromise and have them pay the admission again, plus reset whatever they have in their wallets. Or maybe just give you the entrance fees that your guests would pay without it affecting their wallets - that way they can't go crazy with buying everything in the park since their wallets would reset every day.
 
Last edited:

Slipknottin

S
Airboss said:
Interesting, all of mine and a lot of the communities parks don't. Any tricks you used?
Click to expand...

You need a good size park to do it. And it takes a couple days for it to really start working correctly. After awhile you'll see more guests entering and more leaving.
 

LeglessBloke

LeglessBloke
I tried doing a paid entry free ride park and yeah it was a real struggle. You can gradually put the price of the entrance up as you get more and more rides in however the majority of the time it just doesn't feel like you're getting enough cash from the guests before they start complaining and turning away. I just about got it to work on a smaller park which I subsequently gave up on with a few flat rides, a coaster and a handful of shops. It felt like there was zero room for error though, if the guests all got full up and stopped buying food, the profits would quickly turn red. One of the big problems is the guests seem to spawn in large groups as you place flatrides and coasters down so for a while you're getting cash a plenty and then it will suddenly dry up until guests start to leave. The trouble is, with free rides they like to hang around for a good while before they sling their hooks!

To get it to work for me though I had to really concentrate on getting good scenery down near all of the shops and then try and bump the prices up until they're on the brink of complaining. Also try to streamline everything as much as possible to avoid having to employ an excess of mechanics and janitors. if you set up the work areas correctly and place bins in the right places you can get away with very few workers.
 

smelly

S
I haven't tried paid entry yet but it seems that paid entry is the challenge and management part of pc that everyone is complaining of lacking?
 

tyczj

T
If have an entrance fee and free rides then you have to charge more for food/drinks to keep the income coming in.

Park entrance fee/free rides does provide an increased difficulty to the game
 

Inge Jones

I
In real life, guests would leave when they are tired or have to get back home for other business - like going to bed ready for work and school. This should be pretty simple to add to the simulation.
 

Static1589

Static1589
The problem indeed is the fact that people don't leave at the end of the day and a fresh batch comes in the next banking you big bucks like in real parks.

My idea on this is quite simple. Just take a percentage (let's say 5%) of the total amount of guests times the entry fee you charge but don't get it out of their pockets as they need money to spend on food and the like.
Eg: Say you have 1000 guests in your park and the entry prices is $10.
1,000 guests * $10 = $10,000 * 5% = $500

So that would net you $500 everyday in this case.
 

MrAdrianSW

M
As mentioned... There are a few factors you need to consider before switching to a Paid Entry system.
Are you getting enough guests?.
Are your food and drink prices properly balanced for a Paid Entry system?.
Do you have too many benches?
Is your park rating high enough to support an expensive entry price?.
Do you have at least 2 sufficiently attractive rides to draw people in?.
.
If you have all the above right... Then switching to a Paid Entry system will work fine.
.
However, I should mention that players with low spec computers who have a Guest Limit set (for performance reasons) will have a much bigger challenge on their hands.
 

pwc1

pwc1
I hope Frontier will fix this. I prefer the pay at park entrance style.
 
Last edited:

breezerHOG1

breezerHOG1
I dont understand how this worked fine in RCT1 but not in PC?

I thought by now they would have been able to give us a more realistic time schedule with parks closing for a few hours each night, but I guess that wont ever happen [downcast]
 
Last edited:

matty b1

matty b1
It doesn't appear so creaper, I'm bummed - unenthused to play.

Can anyone answer that question though? Did it work better in RCT games? I remember it did, I have a terrible memory though.
 

Kickflip

K
Paid entry is comes down to having a scenery score that's near or at your ride score. You will want your rides to be fairly efficient as well but you can charge small fees typically if the ride is new.

This is on harder difficulty.
It's easier on the other difficulties because guest generation is lower on harder.

Build up your scenery score score using no upkeep scenery (animatronics are less efficient and doable but you'll cut into your margins) then check your monthly guest entrance numbers. Your entrance numbers x average entry fee per guest needs to exceed your monthly operating costs and facility costs before you switch over. It usually takes some trial and error to find the maximum acceptable entry price that guests won't balk at. This will need to be increased as the park expands obviously.

I made the switch at 3000 guests and expanded up to 12000 guests and it evened out my income and rides aging was no longer a concern because they weren't generating my incoming. Introducing a new ride causes a huge cash spike then you will have a few slow months as guest generation rebalances.

All of your vendor shops should hopefully be profitable on their own.
 

NainConPetant

NainConPetant
well,

am charging for the entrance and charging for the rides, I'm making a sh*t load of money. I dont understand why you wouldnt do the same since in carrer and challenge, you need to make money.

If you play in sandbox, well, then its careless
 

breezerHOG1

breezerHOG1
NainConPetant said:
am charging for the entrance and charging for the rides, I'm making a sh*t load of money. I dont understand why you wouldnt do the same since in carrer and challenge, you need to make money.
Click to expand...

I didnt realize you could charge for both without annoying guests, hmm thats odd lol
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom