Slow Down Time Please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now as I have played a bit, no I do not want "half speed"-button anymore. However, I still think time is unbalanced. Animal can die from thirst or starvation just to reach the water/food. Not very realistic. Now I have to plan the shelter+food distances for the slower animals.
This is a MAJOR issue with the Galapagos Tortoise. They take about 18 months to walk from one side of their 400 sqm habitat to the other, add this to the keepers only filling 1 enrichment item or food bowl and you have permanently starving animals.
 
I just noticed this with the Galapagos i put in yesterday. I even spaced several small feeders around the pen so theyd always have food on hand nearby since they are slow AF but no, the feeders don't get filled at all. so they are trying to get all the way over to a single location from everywhere and starving on the way.
 
and the best thing is: they dont want to fix it. they dont acknowledge it. they dont care. this is the last game i ever bought from frontier development. worse than a china moneygrab scam.

I really hope we get a (decent) response from them soon. At this point, I really regret buying this game and have completely stopped playing it. It's such a massive flaw that I can't enjoy the thing, and it's really frustrating that it's an issue I didn't notice until it was too late to refund.

I want to love and play this game to death. I want to support it and buy future DLC, but I won't be spending another penny until we get a proper solution to this issue. It completely kills my enthusiasm for future Planet games as well, or anything else Frontier churns out. They have to prove they can set aside their pride, listen to the community and work to make them happy. The frankly arrogant 'fix' and response they gave after the beta doesn't give me much hope at all.

I think more and more players are realising this flaw as they sink more time into it. More replies are being added to the Issue Tracker report on a regular basis, and we're only hearing from those who can be bothered to vocalise their complaints (very likely thousands more suffering in silence).

I don't want to sound too dramatic. It's just a game and it's not like the purchase has put me on the streets or anything. It's just really disappointing because I've been waiting years for a game like this and it's about 75% there...
 
I read somewhere on the forum that in a livestream they very briefly adressed it. Probably they don't want to mention anything they can't promise. TheGaijin, they are obviously not dead to you, because you've been spamming this all over the forums. I thank you for that, since I and many other feel the same, but don't let yourself get to carried away, it's just a game. Let's hope they make it happen, more options and tweakable settings will allow us to get the balance we seek. Scenario editor did that for planco to a certain extent, but I hope they invest more in management expertise, instead of just adding content in terms of animals and building pieces (which are offcourse welcome, but please also invest in QoL management).
 
What i dont understand there is an Sandbox mode where you even can stop the aging of your animals to "bonding with them or looking at them" how much you want. And even the slowest speed will not prevent the insta fighting off offspring getting adult or that you lost track of animals in even midsize zoos. Its a matter of missing tools and comfort options not time imho.
 
What i dont understand there is an Sandbox mode where you even can stop the aging of your animals to "bonding with them or looking at them" how much you want. And even the slowest speed will not prevent the insta fighting off offspring getting adult or that you lost track of animals in even midsize zoos. Its a matter of missing tools and comfort options not time imho.
First of all, not everyone wants to play sandbox. I for one don't. I enjoy the management aspect of the game and find it more important than simply building things and making them look pretty. Anyone can do that with unlimited money and time, and no research and the like. Granted, it's not like Frontier's games are hardcore management sims, but the management aspect is still there and it's something you have to deal with anyway. I've never touched, and will never touch sandbox, not in Planet Zoo as I never did in PlanCo.

Secondly, the flooding of issues we get is 100% an issue with time. Yes, some other things need tweaking and fixing, and some QoL improvements would be nice. But the problem right now is that because time moves so fast there are issues happening all over the place all the time, constantly. And that's because everything is turbocharged. Days, months, and years fly by, and there's no downtime for anything. The lions had cubs? Well don't worry, in about 5 minutes they'll be grown and killing each other. Meanwhile the tortoises are starving becuse it takes them 1 year to cross their habitat and get to the food. Oh and that water treatment you just fixed? Yeah, it's been 2 years already and it's breaking again. We still would have these issues with a slower timescale and we should. Having problems to solve is a good thing. And sure some of them could get less annoying with some QoL fixes, but the pace at which you have to deal with them would be a lot slower, manageable, and realistic. We shouldn't feel like we're putting out fires everywhere all the time, even in the most efficiently managed zoos that get to about 15 species or more.
 
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Secondly, the flooding of issues we get is 100% an issue with time. Yes, some other things need tweaking and fixing, and some QoL improvements would be nice. But the problem right now is that because time moves so fast there are issues happening all over the place all the time, constantly. And that's because everything is turbocharged. Days, months, and years fly by, and there's no downtime for anything. The lions had cubs? Well don't worry, in about 5 minutes they'll be grown and killing each other. Meanwhile the tortoises are starving becuse it takes them 1 year to cross their habitat and get to the food. Oh and that water treatment you just fixed? Yeah, it's been 2 years already and it's breaking again. We still would have these issues with a slower timescale and we should. Having problems to solve is a good thing. And sure some of them could get less annoying with some QoL fixes, but the pace at which you have to deal with them would be a lot slower, manageable, and realistic. We shouldn't feel like we're putting out fires everywhere all the time, even in the most efficiently managed zoos that get to about 15 species or more.
Sry i disagree
"The lions had cubs? Well don't worry, in about 5 minutes they'll be grown and killing each other." Time will not fix that the only fix is an automechanic that transfers fresh adults to TC.
"Meanwhile the tortoises are starving becuse it takes them 1 year to cross their habitat and get to the food." I have 2 turtles both over 100 years never had probs with feeding with em. The offspring is another Story but thats a problem with the underlying feeding mechanic combined with there speed thats the reason i dont breed em cuz its nearly unavoidable again time will not fix that too
"Oh and that water treatment you just fixed? Yeah, it's been 2 years already and it's breaking again." I found that a little bit contrary to that statement "even in the most efficiently managed zoos". How can in an well managed zoo something break down?
I have over 20 species in my actual franchise Zoo i would say its well managed i only have the issue with the offspring when getting adult thats just it.
So in the end there is not much left except from the OP "bonding with them or looking at them" and then there i point again on Sandbox. The devs should work on fixing the actual bugs that plague the game atm and not get distracted to something (and i admit) an very loud minority cry for.
 
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Sry i disagree
"The lions had cubs? Well don't worry, in about 5 minutes they'll be grown and killing each other." Time will not fix that the only fix is an automechanic that transfers fresh adults to TC.
"Meanwhile the tortoises are starving becuse it takes them 1 year to cross their habitat and get to the food." I have 2 turtles both over 100 years never had probs with feeding with em. The offspring is another Story but thats a problem with the underlying feeding mechanic combined with there speed thats the reason i dont breed em cuz its nearly unavoidable again time will not fix that too
"Oh and that water treatment you just fixed? Yeah, it's been 2 years already and it's breaking again." I found that a little bit contrary to that statement "even in the most efficiently managed zoos". How can in an well managed zoo something break down?
I have over 20 species in my actual franchise Zoo i would say its well managed i only have the issue with the offspring when getting adult thats just it.
So in the end there is not much left except from the OP "bonding with them or looking at them" and then there i point again on Sandbox. The devs should work on fixing the actual bugs that plague the game atm and not get distracted to something (and i admit) an very loud minority cry for.

Have you played the game at all? Time has everything to do with all of that. The lion cubs or wolf pups or flamingo chicks or whatever wouldn't grow up as fast if time wasn't so crazy quick like everything is on a rush to get nowhere in particular. The fighting is beside the point, but it wouldn't be such an issue if 10 babies didn't grow to adult at any given minute in the zoo, seemingly minutes after they were born.

Turtles move slow, as they should, but because of the lopsided timescale of the game it takes them literally months to cross the relatively small habitats they need to get to the food. So you get the animals is hungry/starving notification even if their feeders are full and the keepers are doing their jobs. I don't see what breeding and babies have anything to do with this.

And yes, even in well managed zoos where everything is split in workzones and mechanics are set to visit things at the latest every 6 months, things keep breaking down constantly because before you know it years have passed and it takes staff months to walk across your park, which is nuts in and of itself. There is no downtime whatsoever in the game, and this is not anything even approaching a big zoo. You constantly have to be clicking in the menus, on the same buttons, over and over. If you don't see how the timescale and how fast it is affects all of this then I'm sorry but either we're playing different games or there is no way we could possibly agree on anything.
 
I say give them a bit more time before declaring that. Usually the two weeks following release is usually a "break" for a lot of teams considering the crunch they are under post-beta and pre-launch. I usually say about a month after those first two weeks is when you start see how a team will manage the game post release.
 
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Have you played the game at all? Time has everything to do with all of that. The lion cubs or wolf pups or flamingo chicks or whatever wouldn't grow up as fast if time wasn't so crazy quick like everything is on a rush to get nowhere in particular. The fighting is beside the point, but it wouldn't be such an issue if 10 babies didn't grow to adult at any given minute in the zoo, seemingly minutes after they were born.

Turtles move slow, as they should, but because of the lopsided timescale of the game it takes them literally months to cross the relatively small habitats they need to get to the food. So you get the animals is hungry/starving notification even if their feeders are full and the keepers are doing their jobs. I don't see what breeding and babies have anything to do with this.

And yes, even in well managed zoos where everything is split in workzones and mechanics are set to visit things at the latest every 6 months, things keep breaking down constantly because before you know it years have passed and it takes staff months to walk across your park, which is nuts in and of itself. There is no downtime whatsoever in the game, and this is not anything even approaching a big zoo. You constantly have to be clicking in the menus, on the same buttons, over and over. If you don't see how the timescale and how fast it is affects all of this then I'm sorry but either we're playing different games or there is no way we could possibly agree on anything.
I was realy thinking if i should reply to you cuz you seem not realy to have read my post but i try to clarify it. I just read over your childish response in the first sentence for the sake of argument btw.
First to the turtles as soon you have multiple turtles becoming hungry at the same time you will run into the same problem. Cuz its not a Problem of time speed you can even have that with other animals yet its only so obviouse with turtles. Beside the fact on my first franchise i had also breeding turtles yes they sometimes went hungry on an regular base but none died or had to b moved to quarantine so you can still get em up alive when you didnt care to much about the bad ratings from the Inspector.

I also need to clarify if they change the offline challenge mode to realtime i couldnt care less.

But to say it with Greta "how dare you"?

There r so many Bugs in this Game. Or i just could tell yah of an normal Day me playing Planet Zoo.
  • Indian Elefant that rushing through an full powered Electricfence while they 100 % happy SM Indians i guess
  • my small hippos gave birth directly to TC and then pretending they where never pregnant
  • Vari all few years escaping habitat with no escape route
  • Visitors that running cycles to my Zoo from one shop to the next pretending they want to go home but complaining they cant afford XY while still have lot of budget and then running to the next shop till they needs totaly down but dont seem to find the exit.
  • Vendors that warping to the Zoo every workingshift change constant triggering red messages
  • Animals that refuse to eat/drink while sitting in front of an full table or an waterpump
  • TC well there is enough writings about it its hell^^
  • Animal price calculation differs from habitat (high) to TC (low) usualy it lost or gain half of frontier value if you move them from one to the other
And then you have franchise Zoos that crash and dont load anymore what isnt so uncomon, People that cant not even start the game etc.and thats what i call gamebreaking.
And here we are ppl that want an slower gamespeed and when the devs didnt jump immediatly to that number one issue for them then
completely agree. frontier development is dead to me. they had 2 weeks to adress this gamebreaking issue and they dont give a flying gently caress.
Cant take that seriously sry.

To your last sentence about breaking facilitys i hope you can excuse me when i get on the level of your first sentence and just reply "get good"
 
I was realy thinking if i should reply to you cuz you seem not realy to have read my post but i try to clarify it. I just read over your childish response in the first sentence for the sake of argument btw.
First to the turtles as soon you have multiple turtles becoming hungry at the same time you will run into the same problem. Cuz its not a Problem of time speed you can even have that with other animals yet its only so obviouse with turtles. Beside the fact on my first franchise i had also breeding turtles yes they sometimes went hungry on an regular base but none died or had to b moved to quarantine so you can still get em up alive when you didnt care to much about the bad ratings from the Inspector.

I also need to clarify if they change the offline challenge mode to realtime i couldnt care less.

But to say it with Greta "how dare you"?

There r so many Bugs in this Game. Or i just could tell yah of an normal Day me playing Planet Zoo.
  • Indian Elefant that rushing through an full powered Electricfence while they 100 % happy SM Indians i guess
  • my small hippos gave birth directly to TC and then pretending they where never pregnant
  • Vari all few years escaping habitat with no escape route
  • Visitors that running cycles to my Zoo from one shop to the next pretending they want to go home but complaining they cant afford XY while still have lot of budget and then running to the next shop till they needs totaly down but dont seem to find the exit.
  • Vendors that warping to the Zoo every workingshift change constant triggering red messages
  • Animals that refuse to eat/drink while sitting in front of an full table or an waterpump
  • TC well there is enough writings about it its hell^^
  • Animal price calculation differs from habitat (high) to TC (low) usualy it lost or gain half of frontier value if you move them from one to the other
And then you have franchise Zoos that crash and dont load anymore what isnt so uncomon, People that cant not even start the game etc.and thats what i call gamebreaking.
And here we are ppl that want an slower gamespeed and when the devs didnt jump immediatly to that number one issue for them then

Cant take that seriously sry.

To your last sentence about breaking facilitys i hope you can excuse me when i get on the level of your first sentence and just reply "get good"
okay so a turtle needing 2 years to get to water or food is perfectly normal in your world? yeah....
 
Add my name to the list of people who want a slower time.
It's the main gripe I have with the game currently. I think time could be around half as fast (you can still fast forward with the speed buttons). I have never used the increase speed buttons apart from that one time where you have to use them in the basic tutorial.
In my current franchise mode park I have only: 20 red ruffed lemurs, 20 ring tailed lemurs, 30 flamingos, 10 pronghorn antelopes and 4 small exhibits (poison frogs, snakes) and there is already way too much going on. A few days ago, I played without pausing for a few hours and I built nothing, only did all the micromanagement. There was so much micro management that I had basically no time to watch the animals.
In addition to that, the winter is so short that if I get a new animal that needs heaters, I need to pause the game as soon as the first snow falls to place the heaters and then the winter is already over once I've dialed all the heaters in and checked if there are no spots that are too cold.
 
My no.1 wish for this game is for there to be a way to slow it down. The ideal solution is just allow us to adjust the speed ourselves (think of how Sims allows you to select the timespan affecting sims lives/aging etc.) Even just adding this for sandbox would be a DREAM, I understand having people choose different speeds in franchise or something could be a problem, but sandbox just allow us to half, quarter the rate at which time passes. I'm craving a closer relationship with my animals and just slowing everyyyyyyything down. The minute I go beyond maybe 2 or 3 habitats I lose all connection to the animals as individuals, everything is just aging, breeding, maturing all too fast. Give us timespeed options in Sandbox- I would be absolutely stoked.
 
I was realy thinking if i should reply to you cuz you seem not realy to have read my post but i try to clarify it. I just read over your childish response in the first sentence for the sake of argument btw.
First to the turtles as soon you have multiple turtles becoming hungry at the same time you will run into the same problem. Cuz its not a Problem of time speed you can even have that with other animals yet its only so obviouse with turtles. Beside the fact on my first franchise i had also breeding turtles yes they sometimes went hungry on an regular base but none died or had to b moved to quarantine so you can still get em up alive when you didnt care to much about the bad ratings from the Inspector.

I also need to clarify if they change the offline challenge mode to realtime i couldnt care less.

But to say it with Greta "how dare you"?

There r so many Bugs in this Game. Or i just could tell yah of an normal Day me playing Planet Zoo.
  • Indian Elefant that rushing through an full powered Electricfence while they 100 % happy SM Indians i guess
  • my small hippos gave birth directly to TC and then pretending they where never pregnant
  • Vari all few years escaping habitat with no escape route
  • Visitors that running cycles to my Zoo from one shop to the next pretending they want to go home but complaining they cant afford XY while still have lot of budget and then running to the next shop till they needs totaly down but dont seem to find the exit.
  • Vendors that warping to the Zoo every workingshift change constant triggering red messages
  • Animals that refuse to eat/drink while sitting in front of an full table or an waterpump
  • TC well there is enough writings about it its hell^^
  • Animal price calculation differs from habitat (high) to TC (low) usualy it lost or gain half of frontier value if you move them from one to the other
And then you have franchise Zoos that crash and dont load anymore what isnt so uncomon, People that cant not even start the game etc.and thats what i call gamebreaking.
And here we are ppl that want an slower gamespeed and when the devs didnt jump immediatly to that number one issue for them then

Cant take that seriously sry.

To your last sentence about breaking facilitys i hope you can excuse me when i get on the level of your first sentence and just reply "get good"
I'm not exactly sure where you see me or anyone else on this thread ask that they don't work on fixing bugs and only work on tweaking the timescale. But in case you do somewhere, here it comes: of course they should fix the bugs! That's not feedback, that doesn't even need mentioning. In fact the game should have never released with as many bugs as it did. I have some of the bugs you menioned, including my first zoo not loading anymore after tens of hours put into it, and yeah, it's really frustrating.

Does that mean that we can't make other suggestions ang give them feedback on what the game needs, in our opinion, to be better? Did this thread disturb you so much, because a bunch of us are asking for time to be slower? You are against it, or actually like you say you don't give a , so I don't even know why you're here and so insistent on this. But fine, I get it. You made that known, and most of us on this thread don't agree with it, by virtue of being on this thread. Now kindly move on. This is the Feedback page of the forums, and that's what we're doing. Giving our feedback. If you don't like it, you don't have to participate. Or you can say you don't agree and move on. I really only see one person being childish here.
 
I think one of the big issues with time stems from where Planet Zoo comes from and how things differ from Planet Coaster.

In Coaster time was also strange - there was no real defined day/night cycle for the park; guests didn't arrive in the morning and leave at night - they stayed there for days on a single visit. Whilst it was an issue for some players, most accepted that as guests were all pretty much interchangeable it didn't really matter - the coasters and the rides were the focus and maintained properly, they are immortal.

Switch the rides out for animals and time becomes a much more important factor. Unlike coasters, animals aren't immortal and people don't want them to be. They have calendar based life events (reaching maturity, births) that should feel significant in game which makes the frequency of those events very important.

Some of the shorter lived animals are probably never going to garner attachment from the player, but those animals that have lifespans of 10 years or more need to stick around long enough in real time to register fully with the player - which means that 10 in game years needs to equate to a fairly long period of game time. A long lived animal like an elephant should feel like a near permanent fixture in the zoo.
 
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