What species is in the enclosure where they clump up? A lion? There are some species that guests disproportionately love to the point where they will annoyingly ignore all other species just to be with them. [Here's](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1928258377) a guide to different species appeal levels.
It’s an enclosure with Sable Antelope and Black Wildebeasts đŸ˜‚ meanwhile the really cool grizzly bear is getting like 0 attention. That’s a really cool guide!
Tried placing benches along the path? If guests are tired, they tend not to venture too far into the park. The paths headed to the ? area appear benchless, but it might be my old eyes.
Not certain why they bunched. Try completing that one section of unfinished path and see what happens.
Have you got multiple species in that habitat? If you have 2 or more species in a habitat it significantly boosts the appeal so animals that you don't think will get lots of guests suddenly get really popular (I often do mixed grassland habitats with warthogs/zebras/antelopes etc and they are more popular than my lions and tigers!).
Have you tried following guests around the zoo to see where they stop and where they turn around etc? I find this can be really useful although it might be worth putting your zoo into 5x aging while you're doing it to avoid missing alerts if you're in 1st person view. Usually guests will look for the next animal if their needs are all green, then when they finish viewing an animal they will go for the nearest donation box and then will either need to top-up their needs or will go to another animal. Sometimes their decision making doesn't make a lot of sense to us as they will have an animal listed as one they want to see but keep turning around and going in the opposite direction for food/drink/toilet. From watching them I think most of the time they go for the closest facility regardless of whether it's the direction they were going in or not. So they might finish viewing and then decide they need a drink and go back in the other direction because that vending machine/shop is just a tiny bit closer. Then they will finish their drink and go to the nearest toilet and/or food shop. If tired they will look for the nearest bench and leave if they can't top up their energy quickly enough (energy drinks are also an option).
Animal talk points can be a good way to attract guests to a particular habitat or a certain place around a habitat, so if you want to draw guests in a certain direction put the animal talk on that side of the habitat and then make sure to have one for the animal you want them to go visit next (make sure you've changed the month the talk happens so they aren't both at the same time and that you have educators in the work zone so you don't have guests turn up to a talk that doesn't happen). Don't forget you can do animal talks for exhibits as well, Guests will also look for things to read so education and conservation boards will pull them in that direction as well as the kids education items, it's a bit like laying out a trail of breadcrumbs to try and get them to follow.
Sometimes long staircases or slopes can be difficult because you can't place things on the stairs/slope to pull guest attention. So make sure to think about making the top/bottom of that staircase or slope attractive. Also think about the width of paths, if the path gets clogged up guests will take a lot longer to move in a certain direction and you risk their needs dropping so much that they give up and have to turn around or even leave. If you find an area is getting clogged and you can't widen the path consider making it so they can only view the animal from one side (ie a nice solid wall on the other side). Then you have a viewing side and a walking side to the path.
To get people over to those bears I'd consider putting some shops along that top path that leads from the entrance to the bears and maybe an exhibit as well as a couple of kids education items and conservation boards. Imagine that the guests are looking down that path and thinking that it looks like a long boring trek to get to the bears compared to the shorter path up to that raised viewing area that also then leads onto multiple habitats. Then I'd definitely put an animal talk point for the bears and also a couple of the vista point posts that encourage guests to stand in a certain place to get a good view.
I hope some of this helps, it's a really interesting starting layout and hopefully the guests will start to spread out and enjoy it all soon!
What species is in the enclosure where they clump up? A lion? There are some species that guests disproportionately love to the point where they will annoyingly ignore all other species just to be with them. [Here's](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1928258377) a guide to different species appeal levels.
It’s an enclosure with Sable Antelope and Black Wildebeasts đŸ˜‚ meanwhile the really cool grizzly bear is getting like 0 attention. That’s a really cool guide!
Dude, thank you, that’s a literal game-changer!
No. But, I can tell you what's wrong with your picture.... It's too dark.
Edited the post with a brighter pic
Tried placing benches along the path? If guests are tired, they tend not to venture too far into the park. The paths headed to the ? area appear benchless, but it might be my old eyes. Not certain why they bunched. Try completing that one section of unfinished path and see what happens.
They have benches up until the grizzley exhibit. I'll try that out, though I'm not sure that will attract them. Good suggestion though! I'll try it!
Yeah, I'm just taking random stabs. Everything looks good to me otherwise.
Have you got multiple species in that habitat? If you have 2 or more species in a habitat it significantly boosts the appeal so animals that you don't think will get lots of guests suddenly get really popular (I often do mixed grassland habitats with warthogs/zebras/antelopes etc and they are more popular than my lions and tigers!). Have you tried following guests around the zoo to see where they stop and where they turn around etc? I find this can be really useful although it might be worth putting your zoo into 5x aging while you're doing it to avoid missing alerts if you're in 1st person view. Usually guests will look for the next animal if their needs are all green, then when they finish viewing an animal they will go for the nearest donation box and then will either need to top-up their needs or will go to another animal. Sometimes their decision making doesn't make a lot of sense to us as they will have an animal listed as one they want to see but keep turning around and going in the opposite direction for food/drink/toilet. From watching them I think most of the time they go for the closest facility regardless of whether it's the direction they were going in or not. So they might finish viewing and then decide they need a drink and go back in the other direction because that vending machine/shop is just a tiny bit closer. Then they will finish their drink and go to the nearest toilet and/or food shop. If tired they will look for the nearest bench and leave if they can't top up their energy quickly enough (energy drinks are also an option). Animal talk points can be a good way to attract guests to a particular habitat or a certain place around a habitat, so if you want to draw guests in a certain direction put the animal talk on that side of the habitat and then make sure to have one for the animal you want them to go visit next (make sure you've changed the month the talk happens so they aren't both at the same time and that you have educators in the work zone so you don't have guests turn up to a talk that doesn't happen). Don't forget you can do animal talks for exhibits as well, Guests will also look for things to read so education and conservation boards will pull them in that direction as well as the kids education items, it's a bit like laying out a trail of breadcrumbs to try and get them to follow. Sometimes long staircases or slopes can be difficult because you can't place things on the stairs/slope to pull guest attention. So make sure to think about making the top/bottom of that staircase or slope attractive. Also think about the width of paths, if the path gets clogged up guests will take a lot longer to move in a certain direction and you risk their needs dropping so much that they give up and have to turn around or even leave. If you find an area is getting clogged and you can't widen the path consider making it so they can only view the animal from one side (ie a nice solid wall on the other side). Then you have a viewing side and a walking side to the path. To get people over to those bears I'd consider putting some shops along that top path that leads from the entrance to the bears and maybe an exhibit as well as a couple of kids education items and conservation boards. Imagine that the guests are looking down that path and thinking that it looks like a long boring trek to get to the bears compared to the shorter path up to that raised viewing area that also then leads onto multiple habitats. Then I'd definitely put an animal talk point for the bears and also a couple of the vista point posts that encourage guests to stand in a certain place to get a good view. I hope some of this helps, it's a really interesting starting layout and hopefully the guests will start to spread out and enjoy it all soon!