I made this discussion because I feel that difficult scenarios are vital to the games success. Atari really missed the mark with rct3 and I'm hoping to highlight some of the mistakes that were made.
The main thing that turned me away from rct3 was the lack of difficult scenarios and the unlimited time to complete them.
Camparisons of scenarios in rct1,2,and 3:
RCT1:
Roller coaster tycoon 1 had the best scenarios in my opinion. They had hard to beat goals and had structure where you had to beat one to unlock another. They also had unique maps where you couldn't build above the treeline or were forced to use a very small park. They had 25 parks in the original scenario list starting from very easy to decently hard.
RCT2:
Roller coaster tycoon 2 had the same difficulty levels in scenarios of rct1, but was severely lacking in structure. Structured scenarios (beat one to unlock another) gives users a reason to play through the entire campaign. It forces them to play through harder scenarios and ultimately has them spending more hours playing the game.
RCT3:
Rct3 had in my opinion the worst scenarios of the 3. They had very beautiful parks that obviously took a lot of time to create, but they lacked difficulty. They lacked difficulty in two areas. First, the scenarios goals were too modest. An example goal in 3 would be to build 2 coasters with very modest excitement ratings.. A similar scenario in rct1 or rct2 would have been to build 8 different types of coasters with a much harder rating to aquire than the counterpart in 3. Because of this, while playing through the scenarios, you were moving on to the next scenario before you even started to get attached to a park. The second area rct3 lacked difficulty in, is failure conditions. None of the scenarios in rct3 had failure conditions, you had unlimited time to achieve the goals. In the earlier installments, the failure modes were either: meet X by Y date.. or maintain condition Z (park rating ussually). Never having a failure mode killed any difficulty the rct3 scenarios may have presented.
TLDR:
Good scenarios contain:
1) Failure conditions (meet X by Y date.. or maintain condition Z)
2) A steady climb from easy to hard (ussualy takes multiple tries) in scenarios
3) A good variety of scenarios when entering the harder difficulties (very small parks, can't build above tree line, ect)
4) Structure (unlock one to beat another)
Discuss:
Do you guys agree?
What types of scenarios and goals would you like to see?
Did you enjoy the please the please the guest scenarios found in rct3, or do prefer hard goals instead (same goal, just completes as soon as you get it instead of waiting for guest X to come to the park), I personally prefer hard goals.