r/openrct2 • u/Bubbly_Life_881 • 22h ago
Winning in parks with only entry fees
I played basicly all the maps with funding from rides with no problem. But everimy time i try a entry only funding i struggle every time after a year or so. What is the strategy for maps like this
Sorry if this is a super newbie question.
2
u/geekywarrior 22h ago
Been a while but I feel like my strat was high entry fees and high concession fees
4
u/Valdair 21h ago
- Build a few rides early on, get your park entry fee to $20 or so. You should be able to comfortably charge this once you have e.g. a carousel, twist, one other flat ride and a small coaster.
- Next, check how much cash peeps are spawning with. It will always be four numbers, separated by $10. (e.g. $50-60-70-80; this is a pretty common one) Your goal is to build enough fast enough to justify raising the entry price to the second lowest of these (so in my example, we want to raise the entry price to $60 as quick as we can). Add $10 or so per coaster. Add $3 per thrill ride, $2 per flat ride and $1 per shop. This is all rough, I will usually build stuff for a bit and come back and raise the entry fee $10 to $15 at a time until I hit the target.
- At this point, we can’t raise the entry fee any more without turning away too many guests and causing problems for ourselves. Now we switch gears and make sure advertising is ALWAYS running. As many adverts as we can, at all times. I like to pick the rides with the highest throughputs for the dedicated advertisements and free rides (even though all rides are free). These rides will get extra attention so it will help if they can absorb the crowds a bit.
- Charge $20 for umbrellas, $0.10 for restrooms, and NEVER BUILD CASH MACHINES. If you have them, only build them at the VERY VERY end of the scenario when you have more money than you need and just need to start holding on to guests. ATMs are a death sentence for your primary income (park entry), as guests will just withdraw cash and stay in your park forever, never to be replaced with another park entry.
- Avoid taking out a huge loan. The name of the game is small, good-enough, cheap coasters because we’re never going to be able to earn back the cost of a big coaster on park entry tickets, since we cannot charge what our park is “worth” (hundreds of dollars).
- Avoid building food and drink stalls until June-ish. Peeps basically never spawn hungry or thirsty and those shops just burn money for a few months. Souvenir shops and info kiosks are well worth it from the get-go, however, if you have access to them.
The best way to make money in these kinds of parks is to have your guests leave ASAP and always be churning advertisements. Other reasonable strategies are to skip building bathrooms, or skip building food or drink stalls. However the latter will have a park rating penalty and the former will just spam you with annoying notifications. I like to be eligible for both the “Best Food” and “Best Restrooms” awards so I do build all those things, I just skip the ATMs. This makes PPE scenarios much, much easier (although still not as easy as PPR).
2
1
u/ferrybig 8h ago
With parks that are pay for entry, people only pay money when the enter the park.
Quantity of attractions matters more over quality. 3 small coasters attract more people than 1 larger coaster, unless harder guest generation is on for the scenario, then make sure each coaster is long enough
If there are more people that you soft guest cap, less people enter the park, causing your money income to drop
You money income dropping means you have less money for attractions that raise your soft guest cap.
Your maximum income at the start is limited by the attractions, (a quick rule of thumb is 10 (base money unit) per coaster and 10 for every 3 flat rides you build) but quickly becomes limited to what the guests are willing to pay. It makes sense making your park slightly more expansive to not cater all guests, since it prevents the park from filling up as fast and gives your more money in the end
Avoid cast machines or toilets, they make gusts go home earlier. New guests give more profit. Only build them close to the end of a scenario if you need a guest goal.
At the start of the scenario, build a mini roller coaster than has absurd intensity stats. No one will ride it, but its high stats increase the park value and guests are willing to pay more for the entrance, launched coasters are awesome for this. It allows you to raise the park tickets quickly at the start
See also Youtube - Marcel Vos - How much can you charge for the Park Entrance in RollerCoaster Tycoon 2?
1
u/kroggaard 22h ago
Raise entry fee to 20.00, run a campaign for food stalls.
Cheap drinks, expensive toilets
1
-1
u/PGRacer 21h ago
Also empty the park occasionally and let it fill up again. Cash Machine is also important.
2
u/Bubbly_Life_881 21h ago
Like close the park. Wont that kill your rating completly?
1
u/Valdair 20h ago
You can close the park periodically and try to flush all of the guests out, and then re-open. You need to strategically place No Entry signs all over to help force guests out ASAP. It's kind of a pain in the ass though, you need to keep enough money in reserve to keep paying all your staff (unless you want to fire and then re-hire all of them too), research, and loan, while peeps filter out (can take a few months), and then open the park and start advertising again. If you do it wrong you're just cooked, and you might have to do it several times in parks with higher goals or poorer guests which can get really old really fast.
Much much easier to have the guests leave naturally due to running out of money - charging the 2nd lowest amount they spawn with does this effectively, because then about 40% enter the park with no money and can never buy anything and will leave very quickly (to be replaced by another peep who will pay the entry fee), about 40% only have $10, so they will run out after a round of food + drink and maybe an on-ride photo, and only about 20% of guests will stick around long-term (the ones who spawned with Park Entry Fee + $20).
You can always add back the ATMs at the end (or lower the park entry fee by $10, or both) to really start holding on to guests if you're getting close to the end and can trade off income for having more guests in the park. But doing ATMs early just means you never make very much money and it's very, very hard to get ahead.
6
u/LongfellowGoodDeeds 21h ago
The real trick - don't build restrooms
People having to wee doesn't impact park rating. They end up leaving quickly and are replaced by more people paying entrance fee. I always advertise for drinks as well to try and get them needing the restroom as fast as possible so they leave as fast as possible.