Entrance pricing and monorail pricing questions

[Wolf]

Hi guys, I'm a new player, and I'm playing challenge mode and just getting my feet off the ground. These questions are specifically for challenge/career mode.

Question 1: When guests enter the park, do they distinguish between park entrance fee and ride prices? I'm asking because I do see that they'll say "I paid so much money for entrance and XXXX cost too much for me to ride" -so do I have the option to charge a lot for entrance fee (say $100) and make all rides free...like theme parks in the real world? I feel like this wouldn't be easy to do and probably best sticking with the current model.

Question 2: Assuming I stick with the current pricing model (entrance fee + ride fee), is a monorail cost effective? I think it would be expensive to implement so early on my playthrough and I'm not sure if it will be cost effective. What should ticket prices be? $2-5?

Question 3: Also, do guests realize they are getting on a monorail to go to a different part of the park or do they think they are going on a ride?

Thanks all. I'm enjoying the game so far.

[Trakehner]

1. Yes, you can make a higher admission fee and rides free. This is what I do personally.

2 &3. Monorail stays at a flat fee (It's like less than $3 I believe).

Keep in mind that guests seem to use it more as a ride than a park travel ride. Although they still do get off at different stops. For some reason, they flock to it like crazy. My queues for it are always overflowing into the part paths causing congestion. Forces me to sometimes close the monorails just to curb the congestion, or just to get the guests to visit other rides and areas of the park. Seems they need to tweak it.

[MissedHurry]

Yeah, but... the guests do a weird thing where they come to the park and then don't leave.... So I start the game with a high entrance fee and low ride prices... then switch after the park is full and they stop coming in, to a low or free entrance fee and higher ride prices. The other option is to shut down for a few weeks and repair rides while guests exit the park, so you can get a whole new influx of guests when you re-open. Also, adding the priority cues to the popular rides, and clicking on the information booth to set the price of priority passes can help with profits. To change the entrance fee, you click on the gate posts that the people pass through at the entrance.

[Trakehner]

Originally posted by MissedHurry:

Yeah, but... the guests do a weird thing where they come to the park and then don't leave.... So I start the game with a high entrance fee and low ride prices... then switch after the park is full and they stop coming in, to a low or free entrance fee and higher ride prices. The other option is to shut down for a few weeks and repair rides while guests exit the park, so you can get a whole new influx of guests when you re-open. Also, adding the priority cues to the popular rides, and clicking on the information booth to set the price of priority passes can help with profits. To change the entrance fee, you click on the gate posts that the people pass through at the entrance.

That is where putting ATM's throughout the park, mainly where you have most food stalls, etc, help. Guests will use them to acquire more money for rides, etc. Even better, add a hotel or two. They not only replenish guests money, but energy too.

[Wolf]

Originally posted by MissedHurry:

Yeah, but... the guests do a weird thing where they come to the park and then don't leave.... So I start the game with a high entrance fee and low ride prices... then switch after the park is full and they stop coming in, to a low or free entrance fee and higher ride prices. The other option is to shut down for a few weeks and repair rides while guests exit the park, so you can get a whole new influx of guests when you re-open. Also, adding the priority cues to the popular rides, and clicking on the information booth to set the price of priority passes can help with profits. To change the entrance fee, you click on the gate posts that the people pass through at the entrance.

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

Ohh hmmm...so what is the purpose of the park opening/closing times? I thought that feature was meant to prevent guests from staying multiple days?

Also you mentioned you close the park for a few weeks. I havent closed my park since I opened it. Do you lose ANY money when your park is closed? Do you still need to pay salaries or are those workers basically sent home? Sounds like a good idea to close every once in a while if there's no con to it.

[Trakehner]

Originally posted by TonyDragon:

Originally posted by MissedHurry:

Yeah, but... the guests do a weird thing where they come to the park and then don't leave.... So I start the game with a high entrance fee and low ride prices... then switch after the park is full and they stop coming in, to a low or free entrance fee and higher ride prices. The other option is to shut down for a few weeks and repair rides while guests exit the park, so you can get a whole new influx of guests when you re-open. Also, adding the priority cues to the popular rides, and clicking on the information booth to set the price of priority passes can help with profits. To change the entrance fee, you click on the gate posts that the people pass through at the entrance.

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

Ohh hmmm...so what is the purpose of the park opening/closing times? I thought that feature was meant to prevent guests from staying multiple days?

Also you mentioned you close the park for a few weeks. I havent closed my park since I opened it. Do you lose ANY money when your park is closed? Do you still need to pay salaries or are those workers basically sent home? Sounds like a good idea to close every once in a while if there's no con to it.

Your guess is as good as mine as to park open/close times. It's not like the park ever clears out once it hits that closing hour. Perhaps it's only during those hours that guests will actually pay for stuff?

When you DO close the park, eventually the employees will leave the shops. It seems some quit, while others lumber between the shops they are working at and staff buildings. Not real sure on if salaries are still being paid. But thinking logically, it seems those that leave obviously are no longer paid. I am assuming those still walking the park are being paid since they are in the park still.

[MissedHurry]

Whenever I've shut the park down, I've definitely lost money that month... but over the course of a year, say I only shut down every three or four months.. so three months take a hit, but I can make a lot the other months on high entrance fees. If you do shut down, yes you are still paying your employees, and some of them do quit because they get bored. But, I sometimes use that month to give them all training, since I know I'm taking the financial hit on their salaries anyway, and it makes some of them happier. Also, you should close the rides and coasters if you close the park, because I think you incur less cost of maintenance on them if they are closed.

[Trakehner]

Originally posted by MissedHurry:

Whenever I've shut the park down, I've definitely lost money that month... but over the course of a year, say I only shut down every three or four months.. so three months take a hit, but I can make a lot the other months on high entrance fees. If you do shut down, yes you are still paying your employees, and some of them do quit because they get bored. But, I sometimes use that month to give them all training, since I know I'm taking the financial hit on their salaries anyway, and it makes some of them happier. Also, you should close the rides and coasters if you close the park, because I think you incur less cost of maintenance on them if they are closed.

Not to mention it makes guests leave the park a lot faster . Otherwise they will milk it, just like people do IRL lol.

[Gracey Face]

Admittedly I haven't played the game in a while, but yeah the "Pay at the gate" system didn't work when I played.

The customers can still ride, so they have no incentive to leave, but they can't buy food or drink, so they basically get on a ride, then get off, complain they're dying of dehydration (and so reduce overall park happiness), move to a shop then complain that they don't have enough money for the shop (further reducing park happiness), then they go to a ride and ride it then get off and complain they're dying of dehydration.

And this basically goes on infinitely, which also means no new guests come in to your park so your income dies.



Really massive problem...


Also mentioning the monorail problem, back when I played it the joke was "Monorail 1 isn't exciting enough for me!". As in they don't use it as transport, they view it the same as any other ride. Supposedly there was a patch to fix it but it didn't have any appreciable effect.

[rdwoolf]

The price you can charge for each ride seems to be connected, to some degree, to the price guests pay to get into the park. If they pay more to get into the park they don't want to pay a lot for each ride. This game seems to be setup so guests pay at each ride, unlike the current reality where guests pay a large fee to get in and don't pay anything for rides.

Others have stated they go with the higher entry fee and low/no ride fees. I go the opposite method. I barely charge anything to get into the park, which seems to attract a lot more guests willing to spend money than when I charge a higher entry fee. I usually set the entry fee to a few dollars. $10.00 at the very most. But typically it's $5.00 for adults and $4.50 for kids (family).

I price the rides as high as I can without guests complaining. I divide the prestige rate by 37.6 and that gives me a a good ticket price. For example, if the prestige is 1000, then I'll divide it by 37.6 to get 26.56. I round down to $26 for the ride's ticket price. Since the prestige rate changes as the ride ages it's good to keep an eye on that so that you can adjust the ticket prices. The price needs to fall slowly as the ride ages until it becomes a classic where it can go up again

[rdwoolf]

Originally posted by TonyDragon:

Ohh hmmm...so what is the purpose of the park opening/closing times? I thought that feature was meant to prevent guests from staying multiple days?

I think the purpose of open and close times is to determine if you want a daytime only park (don't have to build any lighting if your park is only open when the sun is up). I guess you could also have a night time only park as well. or a mix in between.

It may also let the game play faster too if there are fewer hours in a day. But I am only guessing at that.

[rdwoolf]

I don't think I've used the monorail very often so I cannot remember if it is different than other transport rides. But normally transport rides are a good way to make a lot of money after they pay for the cost of building them. The guests seem to be overly attracted to transport rides and will queue in them forever to ride them roundtrip (due to programming they used to rarely get off at any other destination other than where they started. But supposedly that has been fixed in most recent update).

I normally jack the price up at each station to the maximum allowed after the line starts to form. Just in case someone doesn't know, the prices for transport rides are set at each station rather then in the main ride settings.

In order for guests to want to exit a transport ride at a different location there has to be stuff for them to do at the second/third location. The one good part about them choosing to ride round trip is that they still have to pay the full price for each leg of the trip. To confirm this yourself just click on a guest before they get to your second stop. If they continue you will see their money level go down the amount that that specific stop costs to ride.

[Another thing I learned, by accident, is that guests will exit the park and re-enter at a different location if that is the closest path between them and a ride they want to go on. Each time they re-enter the park they get charged the entry fee.]

[Wolf]

Originally posted by rdwoolf:

I don't think I've used the monorail very often so I cannot remember if it is different than other transport rides. But normally transport rides are a good way to make a lot of money after they pay for the cost of building them. The guests seem to be overly attracted to transport rides and will queue in them forever to ride them roundtrip (due to programming they used to rarely get off at any other destination other than where they started. But supposedly that has been fixed in most recent update).

I normally jack the price up at each station to the maximum allowed after the line starts to form. Just in case someone doesn't know, the prices for transport rides are set at each station rather then in the main ride settings.

In order for guests to want to exit a transport ride at a different location there has to be stuff for them to do at the second/third location. The one good part about them choosing to ride round trip is that they still have to pay the full price for each leg of the trip. To confirm this yourself just click on a guest before they get to your second stop. If they continue you will see their money level go down the amount that that specific stop costs to ride.

[Another thing I learned, by accident, is that guests will exit the park and re-enter at a different location if that is the closest path between them and a ride they want to go on. Each time they re-enter the park they get charged the entry fee.]

Thanks man, appreciate your responses.

[Mike]

Want to add a little to what rdwoolf mentioned;

I make my park entrance fee around $70. Going above this number seems to make it much harder to get people to buy items at gift shops (huge income when you succeed at it). Therefor, I suggest you not go over this.

Instead, make sure ALL your transportation rides ALWAYS have a "priority queue" line and then make said line have max priority over the regular line. You then charge a moderate price for the pass to get in the VIP queue, but the regular line is free. For some reason this seems to fix the AI wanting to do a "round-trip" ride rather than taking the ride to a destination.

IF your transport ride has lots of scenery and your shops and other rides don't, you're going to get "round-trip" people on the transport rides for a very simple reason.. they're literally more fun than your other rides. NOT because the AI is broken.

Lower the default price of hats etc by about a dollar. Guests wearing hats or other items will make other guests have a better experience overall even if they don't purchase. They're basically walking advertisements. So, just like in other full-pay parks, the merch is expensive and so is the food.

NEVER ever charge for restrooms.

[Lucifer Sam]

Mine is bugged. I had to close the ride, take down the entrance and then put it back up to change the ride price lol. Hiked that mafa to $6, it was at $2 by default. They keep swamping it endlessly still