How do you make rides the right price?

[Potential Legend]

I just wanna know if there's any tips on how much I should charge for rides and drink stalls. Like when they all say "this is a really good value" I feel like I could charge more for it but how do I know when I'm charging too much? Without making it so expensive until the guests tell me otherwise. Not just with rollercoasters but stalls as well, should I add all the extra stuff to make guests want them more and how do I know how much to charge for them?

[dwwilkin]

I do not think we ever identified a clear formula for this. It was trial and error. Just as you would set a gate price and find that there was a point where you charged 1 dollar too much for your park and then no one showed up any more, if you added more rides then Peeps started coming again. Same with ride prices, and food prices at shops. It always has seemed like everyone is buying, or no one is buying. Not a price point graph where the more you charge the less buy. Just when you charge too much, it all stops for that item, ride, or peeps entering the park.

[Nathan Drake at Subway]

There is no "right price." It is more or less you adjusting it from time to time. Like if a ride is super popular, and the queue is super long, up the price. If nobody is riding it, lower the price. Now obviously dont charge 25 bucks or people won't ride it. One time in RCT1, I had a log flume that was 6 bucks a ride and there were 50+ people in the queue. And I also had a scrambled eggs that was a dollar and 2 people were in line. It depends on a lot of things like ride age and complexity.

[dwwilkin]

There is a formula, there has to be, but did we ever figure out what Frontier was using, no. And it changes per peep and over a length of time, and influenced by how much vomit and little that peep can stand. So all those factors affect what a peep will pay to go on a ride, or for a souvenir. And peeps had different hunger values, and the speed at which that value replenished so that too was something that motivates an individual peep, and that we never learned the formula for.

[Potential Legend]

Wow, it sounds a lot more complicated than I thought! Is there a way to make peeps hungry? It's rather annoying when all of the keep saying they aren't hungry or thirsty. I guess I'll just do as Ericrct says and raise and lower prices as I go. I guess the most difficult thing is the stalls, where you can tick ingredients to add value. I notice the peeps sometimes say a certain stall is too stingy with their things, so that's when I should add more, it's just a matter of charging the right price. It's pretty annoying when absolutely nobody in the park is even going to the food court.

[Nathan Drake at Subway]

Originally posted by Potential Legend:

Wow, it sounds a lot more complicated than I thought! Is there a way to make peeps hungry? It's rather annoying when all of the keep saying they aren't hungry or thirsty. I guess I'll just do as Ericrct says and raise and lower prices as I go. I guess the most difficult thing is the stalls, where you can tick ingredients to add value. I notice the peeps sometimes say a certain stall is too stingy with their things, so that's when I should add more, it's just a matter of charging the right price. It's pretty annoying when absolutely nobody in the park is even going to the food court.

Rasing and lowering prices is the way to go. Like dwwilkin said, there is a formula, but it just hasn't been fully discovered yet.

[Crazed Possum]

Originally posted by Potential Legend:

Wow, it sounds a lot more complicated than I thought! Is there a way to make peeps hungry? It's rather annoying when all of the keep saying they aren't hungry or thirsty. I guess I'll just do as Ericrct says and raise and lower prices as I go. I guess the most difficult thing is the stalls, where you can tick ingredients to add value. I notice the peeps sometimes say a certain stall is too stingy with their things, so that's when I should add more, it's just a matter of charging the right price. It's pretty annoying when absolutely nobody in the park is even going to the food court.

Just because they say they aren't hungry could mean they just got into the park the past few minutes and haven't worked up an appetite yet. Check out that exact Peep's info bars to see if they are even hungry at the moment.

Food court : Location , location , location...........place it near congested pathways where there is good peep traffic. If you have a food court place it center to rear of park so peeps have travel time inside park inorder to get there and thus be hungry by that time. If they have been in the park for say 20 minutes and the court is near the gate well they probably aren't hungry at that time.

[dwwilkin]

Originally posted by Potential Legend:

Is there a way to make peeps hungry?

Sure. Don't have any food stalls at all, or close all the ones you do have for a long time. That builds up demand. Then that part of the formula we don't understand as yet kicks in and lots of peeps start getting really hungry.

[Cerl]

Usally you base the price on the excitement rating on test results, ex: 5.50 excitement charge $5.00

[Cerl]

That usally works

[Crazed Possum]

Straight from the readme file on the hard drive:


Q - WHY DON’T PEEPS GET ON MY RIDES?

A - RCT3 has several new features and therefore, does not play exactly the same as RCT 1 or 2; you should NOT assume that strategies you used successfully in the past will work as well in this new game. In most cases parks that do not provide the basics for their guests (toilets, food, benches, lights for nighttime, ATM machines and protection from the elements) will not be able to coax peeps to ride their rides, no matter what the ticket price

Consider the following strategies:

1) HUNGER, THIRST, TOILET, AND TIREDNESS NEEDS OF PEEPS.

If many of your peeps are allowed to get hungry, they will go in search of food, and if you haven’t got adequate food shops, peeps will refuse to ride any attractions until their hunger needs are satisfied; the same is true for the other basics.

Sample the status of a few of the peeps who are walking by your ride entrances or use the guest thoughts summary window. If peeps are hungry, or thirsty, have low energy, or need the toilet and you don’t have enough of the correct facilities in your park, your peeps will suffer and refuse to buy tickets for any of your rides. Note that facilities can only serve peeps at a certain maximum rate, if you have more than around 30 peeps who all need a particular facility at any one time you should seriously consider providing more capacity.

2) PEEPS’ CASH

After a time, peeps who stay in your park run out of cash and therefore can’t afford your rides. Sample the status of a few of the peeps who are walking by your ride entrances – if they don’t have any cash and there are no ATM’s nearby, add some.

3) INTENSITY OF RIDE

Your ride (especially custom designed coasters) may be rated as having very high intensity values, which will put off all but the most courageous peeps. If so, you need to change your ride to be less intense (for example use banks to minimize lateral G forces, brakes to slow it down etc.).

4) PRICE OF RIDE

The price you are charging for your ride may be too high.

5) QUEUE PATH PLACEMENT
Connect your queue path to a busy path in the park.

6) MAPS

Depending on where your ride is in your park, peeps may take a long time to ‘discover’ your ride. By selling maps you can make all those peeps who buy maps immediately aware of all the rides in the park. Otherwise, as in a real park, peeps will only know of the rides in their immediate vicinity.

7) TESTING A RIDE

If you have not tested your ride, it has not yet been rated and information on its intensity is not available to the peeps. This means that all but the most courageous peeps will not want to ride it until it is tested and rated.

8) DISTRIBUTION OF RIDES THROUGH THE PARK

RCT3 peeps respond pretty well to park layouts where the big ‘star’ rides of the park are further into it, with gentler rides near the entrance.

9) PEEPS IN GROUPS

Peeps in RCT3 often walk in groups, and the preferences of the leader often dictate the behavior of the rest of the group. Identify the leader of a group by clicking on a peep and the looking at the group page of the peep's control panel, and finding the list of peeps in the group - the leader is the one with a crown icon next their name. Click on the name of the leader to switch to that peep.



Q - HOW SHOULD I LAY OUT MY PARK TO GET BEST DISTRIBUTION OF PEEPS ROUND ALL THE RIDES?

Here are some suggestions and tips to ensure your peeps flow through your park and visit all your rides & attractions:

1) PATHS - Make sure the design of your paths leads the peeps through the park using main arteries, like in a real theme park. If you have long snaking footpaths that lead to short queue-paths, peeps will take a long time to discover your rides. As soon as peeps come within a couple meters of your queue line, they become aware of the ride connected to the queue path, regardless how far away the actual ride is located.

2) MAPS - Depending on the layout of your park, peeps may not know your rides are there. By selling maps you can make all those peeps who buy maps aware of all the rides in the park. Otherwise, as in a real park, peeps will only know about the rides in their immediate vicinity. UPDATE 1a contains code that increases the distance over which peeps who don’t have maps will be aware of rides.

3) CHAIN’ YOUR RIDES - Consider making the exit from one ride deliver peeps into the vicinity of the entrance to another.

4) TRANSPORT RIDES - Give your peeps a choice between paths and transport rides rather than relying on transport rides alone.

5) PRICES - High prices put peeps off.

6) DISTRIBUTION OF RIDES THROUGH THE PARK - RCT3 peeps respond pretty well to park layouts where the big ‘star’ rides of the park are further into it, with gentler rides near the entrance.

7) NO ENTRY SIGNS - You can manage the flow of peeps through your park using ‘No Entry’ signs – select a sign from the Scenery > Path Extras menu and when the sign is placed click on it, and on the view port that opens up check the ‘No entry’ tick box under the ‘Sign options’ icon. This can be useful for example to prevent peeps spending wasted time walking up a long exit path to one of your rides.

[Crazed Possum]

There is one thing i have been meaning to try out: Find that one peep who really needs to use the bathroom and before he/she gets there jack the price up to every cent they have on them and see what happens.........

[dwwilkin]

Use the tweezers to lift the peep exactly where you want him right when you do so the other peeps aren't too inconveienced

[Mr B]

Ok, so, while this is WAY late compared to when the thread was posted, i thought i'd share a bit of info i've been carrying with me for years...

There is no straight up formula for "ticket price" on rides, for a number of reasons.
The things that affect the pricing most:
Excitement
Intensity
Staff training

Other things that factors in, that may be significant:
Age of ride
Park entrance fee

Interesting enough, i know a lot of people think staff training has no use what so ever, and instead prefer to pay them a bit more to get rid of the laziness factor. But training lets you charge more for rides and items.

Anyway. It's by no means a complete formula, but, given no park entrance fee, and a fully trained staff member managing the ride, Excitement + Intensity * 2/3 = ride fee.
This actually isn't "profit maximized/peep", but rather maxed to get max income over time.
(upping the fee 10% at the cost of having 5% peeps not go on it gets you more profit, but this gets a lot more complicated as the fees get higher. Finding the break-point isn't worth it. Keep peeps flowing throw the rides until they spent all their cash and get more from the ATM, or go home is, over time, more profitable)

It's a damn shame ""free rides" and park entrance fee's aren't as easy to deal with.
Good luck everyone.

[alienaids]

The formula that I use is if the exitement level is 6.58 for example, i would out the price at £6.00.

[Mr B]

If your excitement is 6.58 and your only charging 6, your intensity better be 0, or your losing a LOT of coin...
Anyway, it's always a personal call.