Zoos attract too much guests

[jeruntje]

Hi Everyone,

Here are my thoughts on the game so far. I played 80 hours and I noticed some things which are bothering me.
First I started with career mode (only the tutorials), worked great! I understood the mechanics very fast because I played Planet Coaster. I understand that people who didn't play Planet Coaster struggle more.
Then I opened a franchise zoo, which I abandoned because there was so much lag with the animal trade center and because of the server issues. I couldn't start the game or I was kicked out because the server couldn't connect.
Then I started a zoo in challenge mode, which went quite well. I had around 20 species and around 170 animals in my zoo. I was making profit. The refund issue hit me, thanks Frontier for fixing this! Nevertheless I managed to keep my zoo profitable by placing more drink and food stalls. This zoo attracted around 5200 guests and started to lag and suffer from frame rate drops. I have an i9-9900k paired with a rtx 2700, 32gb of ram and Planet Zoo is installed on a ssd. I tried to limit the amount of guests, but when doing so, I couldn’t make a profit anymore.
I eventually was forced to start a sandbox game, So I could limit the amount of guests without going in debt. I like the sandbox game, I only really miss the managing part of the game. Without this it’s a bit boring.

Don’t misunderstand me, I like the game but I think the balance is a bit off. I searched how many guests the top 20 zoos in the world are attracting each year and how many animals/species are in those zoos.
https://www.travelandleisure.com/slideshows/americas-most-visited-zoos?slide=128583#128583

I noticed that on average those zoos attract between the 3,2 and 1,2 million guests each year and have around 1000-10.000 animals. Then I did some mathematics.
Let’s take the middle ground here, 2 million visitors and 5000 animals:
Per day this means about 5000 guests and thus around 1 guest per animal/day.
I know this is a simulation game and 1 guests per animal isn’t feasible nor fun. But how the game mechanics are coping with the ratio animals to visitors now, is totally out of proportion. To only have 170 animals and have 5000 visitors in game is far too much. I really think a re-balance is needed to make the game far more enjoyable. This would help not only those who have high end systems but also those people with low to mid end systems.

Less guests per animal = less lagging = a bigger zoo = more fun

Greetings,

Jeruntje

 

[jooxis]

I agree, it's unrealistic how many guests come into a zoo (mine was swarming with guests after I put in 2 animals) but it might have something to do with making a profit - perhaps it's calculated in such a way that the average player could never turn a profit if it were more realistic.

 

[jeruntje]

I agree, it's unrealistic how many guests come into a zoo (mine was swarming with guests after I put in 2 animals) but it might have something to do with making a profit - perhaps it's calculated in such a way that the average player could never turn a profit if it were more realistic.

Yes, I agree. That's also something that needs re-balacing! So you can turn in a profit with less guests without making it too easy. I think this Will be very difficult to achieve. That's why I think a hard mode would come in handy. A mode where attracting guests becomes much, much more difficult. This way people can choose!

 

[NL_Mutso]

I agree, but I think it's really difficult to really balance this. That would require multiple updates to please the players.. You don't want another 'refunds' incident where people bankrupt their zoos.

If it's about performance/lag, they could adjust the visibility of the visitors.. Not every visitor on the visitor counter needs to be visible.
For example: not for 4 guests in a group but 2 visible guest who represent a 4 man group.

 

[Kai]

I've found my zoos look wonderful with around 500 guests instead of 2500 - I honestly pray that the devs rebalance & cut the number of guests back by 80%.
My zoo looks like some sort of awful disney land theme park at peak season, not a zoo - it's never that busy at the local zoo even during the summer holidays!

...and the guest cap does nothing until they fix finances; I can't limit my zoos to 500 guests without losing money.

 

[Arletario]

I tried to limit the amount of guests, but when doing so, I couldn’t make a profit anymore.

Yes, that's indeed a problem when you want to built a bigger zoo. Even with an high-end gaming PC, you'll eventually have to limit the number of guests if you want to play at a decent fps-rate. But if you limit your number of guests, you can go bankrupt very quickly. All guests in your zoo will get bored, because they've already seen all the animals you have, and they don't donate anymore. They just run in circles from one drink / food shop to the next one, these places get pretty crowded, the guests are upset and leave the zoo disappointed -> additional refunds.
I need at least 6,000 guests in my largest franchise zoo to finance the ~300 animals, but apparently this is the upper limit for me. It's no fun to build an even bigger zoo, because with so many guests the game starts to lag extremely. After 2-3 hours I have to restart the game as it becomes almost unplayable. And well.. "big zoo", ... this zoo is built on only a fifth of the entire map area - which is a bit disappointing

 

[Kai]

Yes, that's indeed a problem when you want to built a bigger zoo. Even with an high-end gaming PC, you'll eventually have to limit the number of guests if you want to play at a decent fps-rate. But if you limit your number of guests, you can go bankrupt very quickly. All guests in your zoo will get bored, because they've already seen all the animals you have, and they don't donate anymore. They just run in circles from one drink / food shop to the next one, these places get pretty crowded, the guests are upset and leave the zoo disappointed -> additional refunds.
I need at least 6,000 guests in my largest franchise zoo to finance the ~300 animals, but apparently this is the upper limit for me. It's no fun to build an even bigger zoo, because with so many guests the game starts to lag extremely. After 2-3 hours I have to restart the game as it becomes almost unplayable. And well.. "big zoo", ... this zoo is built on only a fifth of the entire map area - which is a bit disappointing

This is the reason I keep my zoos tiny, and only allow the guests to walk around a small courtyard - I really don't like to go past a couple of thousand guests.

Thousands of guests just make the zoo look ugly: they cause management/design/staffing issues (because they want food and drink stands every 10 meters) and they can create FPS problems (especially during bad weather). I tried putting my ticket prices up so only a few guests entered the zoo (how I would manage the number of guests in ZT2), but a higher entry price unfortunately doesn't make up for the loss of donations from the masses.

 

[meimento]

Hi Everyone,

Here are my thoughts on the game so far. I played 80 hours and I noticed some things which are bothering me.
First I started with career mode (only the tutorials), worked great! I understood the mechanics very fast because I played Planet Coaster. I understand that people who didn't play Planet Coaster struggle more.
Then I opened a franchise zoo, which I abandoned because there was so much lag with the animal trade center and because of the server issues. I couldn't start the game or I was kicked out because the server couldn't connect.
Then I started a zoo in challenge mode, which went quite well. I had around 20 species and around 170 animals in my zoo. I was making profit. The refund issue hit me, thanks Frontier for fixing this! Nevertheless I managed to keep my zoo profitable by placing more drink and food stalls. This zoo attracted around 5200 guests and started to lag and suffer from frame rate drops. I have an i9-9900k paired with a rtx 2700, 32gb of ram and Planet Zoo is installed on a ssd. I tried to limit the amount of guests, but when doing so, I couldn’t make a profit anymore.
I eventually was forced to start a sandbox game, So I could limit the amount of guests without going in debt. I like the sandbox game, I only really miss the managing part of the game. Without this it’s a bit boring.

Don’t misunderstand me, I like the game but I think the balance is a bit off. I searched how many guests the top 20 zoos in the world are attracting each year and how many animals/species are in those zoos.
https://www.travelandleisure.com/slideshows/americas-most-visited-zoos?slide=128583#128583

I noticed that on average those zoos attract between the 3,2 and 1,2 million guests each year and have around 1000-10.000 animals. Then I did some mathematics.
Let’s take the middle ground here, 2 million visitors and 5000 animals:
Per day this means about 5000 guests and thus around 1 guest per animal/day.
I know this is a simulation game and 1 guests per animal isn’t feasible nor fun. But how the game mechanics are coping with the ratio animals to visitors now, is totally out of proportion. To only have 170 animals and have 5000 visitors in game is far too much. I really think a re-balance is needed to make the game far more enjoyable. This would help not only those who have high end systems but also those people with low to mid end systems.

Less guests per animal = less lagging = a bigger zoo = more fun

Greetings,

Jeruntje

You realize in this game, you have visitors in your zoo that are in there for couple of ingame years (provided yours stay in there for at least 18 minutes real time)?

 

[jeruntje]

You realize in this game, you have visitors in your zoo that are in there for couple of ingame years (provided yours stay in there for at least 18 minutes real time)?

Yes, but how busy it is in your zoo is calculated by taking the daily guest count of real life zoos. In real life zoos (the example from above) there are 5000 guests at once in the park looking at 5000 animals. This is how crowded your park needs to be in my opinion to simulate real life.

 

[Jeminyne]

An easy fix: A machanic where you can limit the amount of guests ALLOWED in the zoo at once.

Not something zoos do in real life (to my knowledge) but if Frontier has trouble balancing this, it's a good option to have.

I've never had the problem where I go bankrupt if I close my zoo, but it's still annoying having to close and reopen the damn thing every time my computer starts lagging. And it refills too quickly; my zoo either looks ugly because it's too full, or dead because it's too empty.

(is the bunkrupt part only happening in franchise mode? I've been playing career.)

 

[LN]

An easy fix: A machanic where you can limit the amount of guests ALLOWED in the zoo at once.

Not something zoos do in real life (to my knowledge) but if Frontier has trouble balancing this, it's a good option to have.

I've never had the problem where I go bankrupt if I close my zoo, but it's still annoying having to close and reopen the damn thing every time my computer starts lagging. And it refills too quickly; my zoo either looks ugly because it's too full, or dead because it's too empty.

(is the bunkrupt part only happening in franchise mode? I've been playing career.)

You can already limit guest numbers.

 

[Dr4gon]

An easy fix: A machanic where you can limit the amount of guests ALLOWED in the zoo at once.

Not something zoos do in real life (to my knowledge) but if Frontier has trouble balancing this, it's a good option to have.

I've never had the problem where I go bankrupt if I close my zoo, but it's still annoying having to close and reopen the damn thing every time my computer starts lagging. And it refills too quickly; my zoo either looks ugly because it's too full, or dead because it's too empty.

(is the bunkrupt part only happening in franchise mode? I've been playing career.)

You can already limit guest numbers.

Yes,it's in the settings. Once in your zoo, go to settings > game > all the way down. Easy to overlook.

 

[amoebae]

I agree, but I think it's really difficult to really balance this. That would require multiple updates to please the players.. You don't want another 'refunds' incident where people bankrupt their zoos.

If it's about performance/lag, they could adjust the visibility of the visitors.. Not every visitor on the visitor counter needs to be visible.
For example: not for 4 guests in a group but 2 visible guest who represent a 4 man group.

It's my understanding it's not the visibility of the guests that causes lag but rather the calculations that need to be done about what they're doing. Those calculations would still need to be done, so you know if these 'invisible' guests are using your shops or going to specific habitats or donating money or need the toilet, etc. That's why it's such a cpu-intensive game, because of those calculations.

 

[Aiste]

So why do not cut in half or even more guests spawning rating? I could not understand that. That is a zoo game, not a theme park simulation. No one zoo on Earth has thousands of guests in it. That would solve a lot of lag, stuck, guests' happiness rating problems, etc. Before the release, I was praying that they will make fewer guests if compared to PC. No, we've got the same overcrowded mess.

And the guests' limit is only a quick way to get out of the situation. It is a bandage on the deep wound. The purpose of the game is to make your zoo prosperous and profitable. The guest limit goes against the very essence of the game.

Would you like to be proud of yourself winning 500th guest at the end of year 25 by making huge management efforts or hating your 10K guests because you can not play the game of the lag?