Campaign thoughts and suggestions

[jip24]

Firstly, it’s worth noting that Parkitect is a real breath of fresh air, and really feels like a *proper* update on RCT (which I spent far too much of my childhood playing!). The shop stocking mechanics, scenery calculations and other more fleshed-out strategy aspects in particular are great additions and superbly executed!

As I’m now roughly 2/3 through the campaign, I thought I’d add a bunch of thoughts and suggestions in case the devs find them useful – and I’d be interested to hear what others think too.

So yes, the campaign is easy overall - which isn't necessarily a bad thing, although personally I feel far more motivated when playing if I'm chasing goals rather than a free build. There are, however, a couple of more specific points which I'm finding a little frustrating. In particular, the campaign feels very uneven: some levels (and their objectives) are really interestingly crafted, while others feel rushed and ultimately unsatisfying. Many of the levels also feel simply too short.

******

Better scenarios:

Scenarios up to and including Coral Island are pretty good, and feel like a nice ‘first act’ of the campaign.

Mystic Oasis: Nice design, fairly straightforward. Could easily call for a larger guest objective.

Ice-shelf islands: Nice design; it cost far too little to mass-flatten most of it. Nevertheless felt like a little more of a challenge, with pickier guests grumbling about the cold.

Biscayne Beach: Really simple design worked surprisingly well. Suggest upping the guest number requirement – I topped 1000 by early year 2 when the experience rating finally peaked.

Improvable scenarios:

Nova Labs: Extend the time limit to December Year 2 (see below). Other than that it’s a nice, unique scenario.

Archipelago Adventures: A great design to look at, but the islands are irritatingly small to build on (unless you just build over the water, which doesn’t make for a great look). I spent c.£1k to make a large central island to build on. Had way more than 500 guests by the time the experiences rating started climbing (a common trend).

Adventure Island: The starting coaster is nice but has an irritatingly low throughput. I built a mid-run block brake (just before the track threads the vertical loop) which helped enormously, but that feels like a bit of an unnecessarily niche solution.

Highway Hijinks & Honey Hills: Both have the same issue – they’re completed far too quickly. Both could benefit from c.1000 guest and/or higher monthly income objectives.

Win-immediately scenarios:

HappyCo Harbour & Coaster Canyon: Completed in one month with a bunch of identical blueprint coasters (and some scenery for HH). Coaster building objectives need to be more demanding – different types, length, speed, ratings etc…there are so many options!

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I’ve just started on Pagoda Valley: What’s the point of the “have no loan debts” (complete-anytime) objective? It can be trivially paid off immediately, and then completely ignored for the whole level. Its only purpose seems to be to point out the existence of loans, but given that it’s in the latter half of the campaign that seems redundant. Also, why aren’t the park guest number objectives increasing as the campaign progresses…still only 500 or so needed for most levels? Kaiserberg, on the other hand, looks like a nice challenge with no option for adjusting the (novel) terrain.

******

Other comments/issues

Terrain changes are far too cheap, so for several maps where the terrain is designed to add to the challenge, it takes all of c.£2k to flatten a suitable area and make things much more straightforward. Yes, you can force yourself to not do so, but I'd prefer the genuine challenge. Then again, in RCT I was never keen on the ugly parks-on-stilts you ended up building on sloped maps.

A wider variety of starting parks would be really appreciated; empty or one-coaster starts are certainly fun, but where are the poorly functioning parks, half-built rollercoasters, over-zealous ride height restrictions etc?

Cheap money is generally in far too great a supply; I rarely needed to bother with loans, and their availability is far too high. If you’re happy building more than one of each ride then by taking out a couple of loans you can build everything you need to complete most levels immediately.

I'm now bored sick of building the same three coasters (junior, gentle & wild mouse) and three thrill rides (pirate ship, twister & jumper). It was necessary back in RCT1, but given the huge range of rides in this game, it would be nice to shake things up from one scenario to the next!
Research is quite a drag. The time requirement is too inelastic with respect to monthly investment, and most scenarios can be completed by the time you've researched 3-5 new things. Once you have one each of food and drink, who would bother researching another shop when a new rollercoaster takes the same length of time? Also, having ample rides available at the start of some scenarios would be a nice change.

The massive lag for guest experience rating is a bit of a pain (albeit a neat idea), particularly for the Nova Lab level (the only one I’ve not completed well ahead of time on the first playthrough). More so, it appears that you’re punished for building a bigger and better park, as that results in happy guests not leaving (and writing reviews) for longer. Every scenario with this requirement could also benefit from more demanding other objectives – I usually have about twice the required number of guests by the time I finish!

"have x guests" objectives where "have x+y guests" is also an objective: these are variously optional or required objectives – there’s no reason for the inconsistency

One bobsled coaster blueprint (roughly triangular, with a diagonal lift hill) seemed to use a larger rectangular box when deciding whether or not it was indeed wholly within the park bounds on Ice-Shelf Islands (i.e. wouldn’t let me place it close to the diagonal park boundary to the right of the entrance). I haven’t checked if a similar glitch persists elsewhere.

Paddleboats keep getting stuck (an intentional Easter Egg from RCT1/2, I wonder?!)

HappyCo Harbour: some crazy stuff is going on with the decoration calculation – my paths keep turning pink.

Dusty Delta???

Undo button, please!

[Sebioff]

No worries, didn't understand it as a complaint :) It's good to see all opinions to get an understanding for what people are looking for in future updates and were we can improve!

[Sombrero]

Of all the parks I've tried yet Biscayne Beach and HappyCo Harbor are the most unique I feel, they really challenge you in interesting ways. I really hate HappyCo's goal though just making coasters and nice decoration is a bit bizarre. Not having guest count or profit on top feels a bit strange I'm sure you can cheese that level super easily.

[keanzu]

I liked HappyCo Harbor precisely because of the unusual goal. I hadn't looked into excitement on coasters much and had generally neglected decoration. Same with Biscayne Beach - I'd never charged a park entrance fee. Challenge campaigns like this prevent the player falling into a rut. When someone says - I want to play the game my way - what are they really saying? They've found themselves a nice comfort zone and don't want any new challenges? Developers take that feedback to heart and you end up with a sandbox ala Planet Coaster.

More like the Harbor and the Beach. Push the player to explore all the mechanics the game has to offer.

[Sombrero]

The more I play the campaign the more I notice some big balance issues though in terms of difficulty of reaching goals. HappyCo Harbor for instance is an extremly easy level since you only need to make 3 coasters and a decent enough decoration and you win.

On the other hand some other levels have really high guest count compared to the little amount of time given to reach the optional goal. And the more I look at other people's reactions to parks and videos online the more I feel it's quite a general feeling and not just a personal feeling.

It's not gamebreaking either but slightly annoying I'd say.

Also some goals such as reaching X% of cleanliness or decoration are a bit broken when not required to hold them for a period of time because you basically score the goal before the end of the first month (you can't mess them up basically).

[BigManMark]

I'm clearly not as far as you but I do like the casual nature of the game and don't have the urge to have every level be increasingly difficult. Maybe it's because I'm in my 50's or maybe it's because I just don't have that competetive spirit. Rather than make the "win" scenarios increasingly difficult there could be tiered completion goals: Bronze, Silver, Gold. You want the Gold ones, I'm happy to win with Bronze & Silver usually.

[keanzu]

Автор сообщения: Sombrero

On the other hand some other levels have really high guest count compared to the little amount of time given to reach the optional goal.

Any specific levels? I haven't noticed a problem so far (just started Coaster Canyon). Have you tried massive advertising campaigns? I'll generally spend about 10K on advertising, taking a loan to do it.

Challenge goals shouldn't be easy.

[Sombrero]

Автор сообщения: keanzu

Автор сообщения: Sombrero

On the other hand some other levels have really high guest count compared to the little amount of time given to reach the optional goal.

Any specific levels? I haven't noticed a problem so far (just started Coaster Canyon). Have you tried massive advertising campaigns? I'll generally spend about 10K on advertising, taking a loan to do it.

Challenge goals shouldn't be easy.

The three levels I couldn't complete with optional goal so far are Coral Island, Adventure Island and Biscayne Beach. I also struggled with Victoria Lake I think it was (not sure for this one).

And in all instances I realized that RNG was playing a major part. In Biscayne Beach in particular I built one ride and nothing else. Nothing happened for a bit, just gained about 20 guests in total in the park at the same time in about a month and a half. And then "A nearby park closed drawing more guests to your park" and I had +150 guests flooding in my park and finished the level suddenly just after the optional goal (2 months after, yay).

It's not the only time where I felt that those normally small RNG events actually had a massive impact on my performance.

I really really really hoped the optional goal was asking you to really make a massive and super functional park rather than quickly making the objective.

[keanzu]

Автор сообщения: Sombrero

The three levels I couldn't complete with optional goal so far are Coral Island, Adventure Island and Biscayne Beach. I also struggled with Victoria Lake I think it was (not sure for this one).

And in all instances I realized that RNG was playing a major part.

Adventure Island can be done by Year 1, July
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1623426951
1) Take the biggest two loans
2) Spend almost all the money on coasters
3) Spend what's left on Park Advertising
4) Survive the near bankruptcy and then as ride money starts flowing, build calm/thrill rides, hire some staff, put down a bench or two and add some decoration.

I can't remember if some research was needed for these coasters or not. If research is needed hold off on the second loan until there the tech is available to build a nice coaster.

Your park will reach a guest count "cap" based on how many rides you have. You can be in equilbrium with guests in/out perfectly balanced - then build a new coaster and suddenly your guest cap goes up and new guests start streaming in. The best way to get new guests is to build new rides. The second best is advertising which doesn't raise the cap (I think) but increases the rate at which guests come in (I think). I advertised heavily a park with no rides - no guests came in.

[Sombrero]

It's a combination of factors. Advertisment increases popularity of a park/attraction but if the popularity is already maxxed out compared to how much you have on offer then it won't have any effect. That's why an ad campaign says it has X% efficacy everytime it ends. If you advertise a very dead ride you'll often times have really great results, same goes for the park. Sometimes your guest count gets quite lower than it could be just because of poor rating (like a wave of vandalism poorly handled, or a lot of puke all around the park, that kind of stuff). Advertisment can help when the problems have been solved and you want the guests back in quickly. It sorts of break the slow inerty the rating system has by default.

Now I really feel that currently the loan and ad campaign mechanics are too impactful and makes for a strange experience. About 90% of objectives are solved thanks to either a loan, an ad campaign or both. Sometimes it feels a bit too much like an advertisment/finance simulator rather than creating an actual park, and it bothers me.

I would love for the advertisment entire system to be a lot more transparent on its impact, whether straight up telling you thanks to that campaign you gained x% more results or whatever. And likewise have an estimate of the impact of a campaign before your start it.

As for the loans system I really don't feel the way it works is really satisfying. The optimal way to play the game is to constantly spam the higher loans to build as much as possible and quickly get money and then play the minigame of clicking to pay back your loans and as soon as this is done do it all over again.

Basically to summarize my feelings on both ad campaigns and loans I feel that they favor way too heavily a "burst" type of building where not a whole lot happen for a while but suddenly you can build in pause for hours until you're finished. I'd love for the game economy to be more streamlined and not allowing you to build too much to begin with and neither to have to wait a while to build again.

First I think you should be given access to really terrible loans to begin with, small amount of money for super high interest rate. And then as your park grows (either measured by guest count, profit or simply tickets sold) you get access to more interesting deals with higher amount of money to get as a loan and lower interest rate. It would make sense in terms of "realism" and I think would streamline a bit more the experience.

I may be in the wrong or simply my playstyle isn't exactly in lign with what the game offers, I don't know. But I still feel that at the very least players would benefit from having a better feedback on ad campaigns and we need options to fund back loans automatically, or just add a shortcut on the UI so you don't have to open that bloody menu every single time you want to pay back.

[keanzu]

Автор сообщения: Sebioff

As the campaign progresses the spaces get smaller and more difficult to work with and there's more prebuilt content.
The later challenges also have parks with skewed intensity preferences, large pre-existing rides and a disfunction park as you suggest.

I've made it further in the game now and the scenarios do get better (to my taste). Hickory Hills is the best yet, no terraforming + height restriction = no monster blueprints. I particularly like the incomplete wooden coaster - extremely suggestive. Also looking forward to Sakura Gardens as it will not allow my usual high intensity coaster strategy.

[Sombrero]

Автор сообщения: chasbar

This is what I think is really cool about the campaigns. I played the Chanute Airfield level and failed one of the objectives (I think it was the optional one). When I started it agan, I noticed that the entrance was different the second time around. That is awesome. I probably would have proceeded in the exact same way I did originally, but the new entrance inspired me to go in a different direction. Do all the levels change the initial park if you play it a second time?

I think you dreamt it, unless I'm mistaken the scenarios are fix and have no randomness when it comes to their layout.

[keanzu]

Автор сообщения: keanzu

Also looking forward to Sakura Gardens as it will not allow my usual high intensity coaster strategy.

Completed Sakura Gardens. Disappointingly mild skew. Fully 10% of my guests wanted rides of intensity 70-80. About 8% wanted 80-90 and maybe 6% 90-100. From the flavor text I was expecting zero ridership above 30 intensity. I struggled initially because I spent my initial capital on low intensity rides, only to get complaints about nothing exciting to ride.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1627316390
Pretty much every park has the bulk of the rides in the 30-60 zone (where Sakura preferences peak) because that's roughly where thrill rides are. No park I've built so far would have failed with these guest preferences.

"Be careful of building thrilling rides, however - as the guests visiting the gardens prefer gentle, calmer rides."

For me this was a 7 ride park implying that each ride needs to target 1/7th or 14% of the guests. That means one coaster in the 80-100 (Very High) range and a second in the 60-80 (High) range.

I took Twister as the benchmark "thrill" ride and it has an intensity of 30.

I'd suggest a much more dramatic skew.

[Knub]

Personal experiences:

I mostly struggled with money and RNG in my playthrough. Sometimes I missed the time limits because of random events and loading a savegame fixed it, because a positive event happened instead.

When I finally figured out some good coaster builds that made lots of money, the game got much easier. Orchard Acres for example seemed pretty difficult but when coming back with new strategies it was easy to complete. The last park I had trouble getting the second coin was Disaster Peaks. I failed with 748 guests. Personally I think that was the biggest challenge but the great thing is:

Once you complete the timed optional goal, it stays cleared forever. I used that for a dirty trick: Once I had 750 guests and the ratings I knew I couldn't pay back the loan in time. So I just sold stuff and payed back. That cleared all the non-optional goals. Obviously I couldn't hold the guests after that but now there was unlimited time for completing the park.

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More general thoughts:

I think the difficulty does not ramp up very well. The last 5 parks feel really weird and some of them far too easy.

Disaster Peaks is challenging because of the pre-condition and the relative high guest count of 750. But you get lots of money for some goals on the way.

Sheer Cliffs is really nice land and enjoyable to play but 400 guests in 3 years is far too easy for the 2nd last park.

Robopark feels really empty and easy too with 500 guests in almost 3 years and great starting conditions (a good coaster and some high-intensity rides to make money and 25.000 cash).

Silica Slopes has a 400 guest goal in 4 years, with cash coming in for 250 guests and a great rating. Also all necessary shops unlocked.

In the last park you have 5 years for 500 guests, 75% happiness and no loan debts (and you get 10.000 for 250 guests in your park). The third park Victory lake demands 300 guests and no loan debts withing less than 2 years (you get almost nothing from completing goals on your way). Obviously the weather is more challenging in the last park, but you start with good rides, lots of cash and all necessary shops unlocked.


Overall the parks are very hit and miss. Some are great (Coaster Canyon, Pagoda Valley, Hickory Hill, Batavia Cay, Honey Hills, Adventure Island, Biscayne Beach) and some are really boring/strange (Kaiserberg, Robopark, Zalgonia, Nova Labs, Western Roundup). Nevertheless I enjoyed the campaign.

[Sombrero]

Yeah I think the campaign could have (still could?) use some tweaking just in terms of goals.

Some parks early on are surprisingly challenging and then some others later on are really simple to tackle. Now that I've got better at finding out how to make guests really happy (and my wallet) I can easily go back to parks I didn't fully complete and get the optional goal in time this time. But the progression still feels strange.

I'm about 2/3rd in the campaign I think, maybe slightly less but I'm still loving it. Big variety of parks.

Would be super cool to have scenario creation contests in the future to be added as "official" campaign!

[Sebioff]

Автор сообщения: keanzu

Completed Sakura Gardens. Disappointingly mild skew. Fully 10% of my guests wanted rides of intensity 70-80. About 8% wanted 80-90 and maybe 6% 90-100. From the flavor text I was expecting zero ridership above 30 intensity. I struggled initially because I spent my initial capital on low intensity rides, only to get complaints about nothing exciting to ride.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1627316390
Pretty much every park has the bulk of the rides in the 30-60 zone (where Sakura preferences peak) because that's roughly where thrill rides are. No park I've built so far would have failed with these guest preferences.

This turned out to be a problem with the market research result graph showing inaccurate results. The skew is much more extreme in reality and supposed to look similar to this: https://puu.sh/CyAhi/97fe979358.png
Will be fixed with the next update.