Why will guests will not stop and watch fireworks shows?

[Myst]

AHHH!! How could such a beautifully designed game apparently overlook something so simple? Park guests will not stop and enjoy the pyrotechnics shows no matter what I do. Whats worse, I have scoured the net looking for an answer and hardly found a soul that has even mentioned it. Certain challenges cannot even be completed without this game mechanic.

I have watched every youtube tutorial on the subject (none of them mention this issue, nor show you how its "supposed to be done"). I have read every forum going back to 2016 (there are only a few on the subject and none of them offer any solution). I have placed vista points all over and connected them with the show, opened up wide viewing pathways with excellent sky access and even tried decorating in a way that augments the show. I have watched every fireworks show uploaded in video (I think) and none of them actually show guests looking up and pointing (an odd omission, since these people worked so hard on their shows and were proud of them enough to put them up online). I have gone into sandbox mode and experimented with near and far firework placements and where obstructions matter/don't matter and even tried to bury small pyrotechnics just under the guests feet to see if close proximity would trigger them.

The ONLY place Ive seen crowds of people looking up and cheering during a fireworks show is in the original trailer (a wonderful moment that is quintessential to a well-rounded amusement park experience). I have only experienced random and rare guests stopping to look during a show... and never all the way though. They just go back to what they were doing while the explosions are still going off! So is this a BUG? Is it due to be fixed soon? Am I missing something obvious? I cant complete the first challenge, on easy mode, to get 100 guests watching fireworks for 30 seconds!

I would REALLY like to know what the exact mechanism is, in the game coding, that triggers the "look up and point" animation. I will upload a tutorial to youtube when I find out to spare future park designers of this frustration. Please help.

[HeatherG]

Have you tried Vista Points? The way to get people to jump up and down and wave, like the trailer you saw, is you delete a piece of a path so it cuts them off from the rest of the park. They will stop where they are and jump up and down and wave. That might be how they got the trailer to look like that.

[Myst]

Wow, thanks for the tip! I'm really surprised how little traction I've gotten on this. Even your advice (which I will execute tonight) seems a lot of trouble to go through for something that should be hard-coded into the game. We put a lot of effort into building and synchronizing these fireworks shows. The ultimate reward is to see a crowd smiling and cheering over it. Seems like, when the spectacle goes off, every guest in the park (maybe a 70-80% ratio) should stop and look up. It would shut down other operations for a minute, but how many firework shows last more than 120 seconds?

So far, I have posted the issue on Facebook directly to the Planet Coaster page and entered it into the Frontier forums (with screenshots) and haven't heard a definitive answer yet. I plan to make a Youtube tutorial detailing my discoveries and (HOPEFULLY) the solution as soon as I get to the bottom of this.

[Cstrfrk]

I agree with this. There should be some kind of pause that the guests watch the shows. Even if it was for 20 seconds. Right now, the don't react at all.

[rdwoolf]

I'm not good at fireworks so I do not set them up much. But I did see some people stop and watch them in the scenario or two where a fireworks show was required. But it took finding a spot where a lot of people gathered and also adding vista points and connecting them to the fireworks (or that direction). At least I assumed they were stopping to look at the fireworks. Not everybody. But enough to count as completing that task.

[marc_darkside]

The thing is you didn't have to use vista points before. I created a boardwalk park just to test and make fireworks displays and whenever the display would start before almost like within a certain distance from the display anyone not on a ride when it started would stop and look up cheering and respond. Now, nothing.

[gnahc]

Well the sequencer + fireworks doesnt ever work for me. They appear to go off but doesnt cost me anything per month and guests never stop and watch. The only way i managed to get this to work was making one of the big fireworks that wasnt attached to a sequencer and just set it to go off every 10 seconds on the firework itself and then duplicating it a bit throughout the main roads in my park. The peeps stopped to watch them then

[Myst]

I've made a discovery! First of all, the Frontier team is on the ball with their Facebook page. I got a response, responded back to it and got a second response. So good on them! Also, thanks to gnahc (above) for making the point that maybe the sequencer is the problem child here. If so, then thats an official bug. (who wants to have fireworks launching off all day and all night?) Now... on to discoveryland...

I set up a sandbox scenario and just erased all my preconceptions to start from scratch. I built a short path in and expanded it to something like a 6x6 courtyard. Dropped in a few employees a couple tiny rides and bathrooms (just to attract a crowd). Then I advertised to the max and the guests started rolling in. I set up a simple show with 2 peonies and 2 roman candles and synced them so they alternated, ensuring constant fireworks round the clock, then grouped them. I used the pathing grid to set up a "measuring tape" WAY out into the back of the property and started the little show right over the rail from the guests.

To my surprise, they started stopping and looking up! Nothing fancy. NO vista points. So here they were at about a 30-50 foot distance from the show. LONG story short, I pushed the show back by increment, testing for distance, and waited patiently to see if a new group would react (each time the show moved, all the guests would detach and lose interest). I was able to captivate a crowd all the way out to 36 path grids out! But no further.

So that MAY be a part of the mechanic! Guests will respond automatically provided a few conditions. 1) That they are not already engaged in an attraction. 2) That they are in an open space and not already committed to be on their way somewhere (like the bathroom). and 3) That they are not too far away from the show. Here is the park Ive been crafting during the nighttime "Skylight" Spectacular. As you can see, even though the sky is sufficiently filled with the show, the launching mechanism is behind the mountain, far from the crowd. Why the fireworks I seeded around the park to grab peoples attention did NOT work, is still a mystery.

https://i.postimg.cc/fR7LNQVC/20190424192900-1.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/pLMT4LLy/20190424201827-1.jpg

Here is a screenshot of the "pyrotechnics experiment" where a small family stopped for the show. As you can see, the guests show the current condition of "Watching Fireworks" when you click on them. Now THATS what Im talkin about!

https://i.postimg.cc/XJ93ww98/20190427161952-1.jpg

[MissZoef]

Originally posted by GamertronBaba:

I've made a discovery! First of all, the Frontier team is on the ball with their Facebook page. I got a response, responded back to it and got a second response. So good on them! Also, thanks to gnahc (above) for making the point that maybe the sequencer is the problem child here. If so, then thats an official bug. (who wants to have fireworks launching off all day and all night?) Now... on to discoveryland...

I set up a sandbox scenario and just erased all my preconceptions to start from scratch. I built a short path in and expanded it to something like a 6x6 courtyard. Dropped in a few employees a couple tiny rides and bathrooms (just to attract a crowd). Then I advertised to the max and the guests started rolling in. I set up a simple show with 2 peonies and 2 roman candles and synced them so they alternated, ensuring constant fireworks round the clock, then grouped them. I used the pathing grid to set up a "measuring tape" WAY out into the back of the property and started the little show right over the rail from the guests.

To my surprise, they started stopping and looking up! Nothing fancy. NO vista points. So here they were at about a 30-50 foot distance from the show. LONG story short, I pushed the show back by increment, testing for distance, and waited patiently to see if a new group would react (each time the show moved, all the guests would detach and lose interest). I was able to captivate a crowd all the way out to 36 path grids out! But no further.

So that MAY be a part of the mechanic! Guests will respond automatically provided a few conditions. 1) That they are not already engaged in an attraction. 2) That they are in an open space and not already committed to be on their way somewhere (like the bathroom). and 3) That they are not too far away from the show. Here is the park Ive been crafting during the nighttime "Skylight" Spectacular. As you can see, even though the sky is sufficiently filled with the show, the launching mechanism is behind the mountain, far from the crowd. Why the fireworks I seeded around the park to grab peoples attention did NOT work, is still a mystery.

https://i.postimg.cc/fR7LNQVC/20190424192900-1.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/pLMT4LLy/20190424201827-1.jpg

Here is a screenshot of the "pyrotechnics experiment" where a small family stopped for the show. As you can see, the guests show the current condition of "Watching Fireworks" when you click on them. Now THATS what Im talkin about!

https://i.postimg.cc/XJ93ww98/20190427161952-1.jpg

Thank you for your explination. It helped me a lot. I just completed the first one with the 100 people for 30 seconds and I hope to get the other one too!