Why the animals aren't the stars of the game - and what needs to be done about it

[Swjosdotschka]

Why on earth is a wall of text incoming and why do I care so much?

First of all, let me get straight the basics, as this is very important to me: I am (almost) a one game player. I have one game as a hobby and just play other games from time to time. After EA took the Sims away as my hobby after round about 20 years, I was left with no „main game“ until Planet Zoo game around. I love this game and wish for it to grow, to advance and to be the best and most successful zoo game there has ever been. And I know the Devs are working their butts off to make this game successful and the community managers are working hard to be a bridge between Devs and players. I am incredibly thankful for that.

What the heck is happening?

But lately there has been a mood shift in the Planet Zoo community. When I first heard all the YouTubers suddenly whine that they lost interest in Plan Zoo I could not understand. How can someone be bored by such a creative and wonderful game? I was, to be honest, rather annoyed by this mood shift. But I’m a person who always tries to be empathic and be understanding with people. Which is why I thought about why I am happy with this game and others aren’t. I’m not saying I found every reason there is for the mood shift. But I found one.



I am a builder. I never played Planet Coaster and building things got me hooked with this game. I haven’t had such possibilities to express myself for three years, like others had.

Masked Bandit said in a comment to me and in one of the Brocoaster season Zoo, that he felt the interest in Planet Zoo drop at the time he has to let an animal into a new habitat. Which actually got me thinking. And I realised that I myself build, watch the animals for three minutes, build again. And build, and build, and build.

How to change what is happening now
However, this is a zoo game. The animals should be the main aspect of the game, should keep players interested. But they aren’t the main aspect. And in my opinion it is, because they are beautiful, but lifeless. Beautiful shells. Not individuals. And that, for players that have enough of building, kills the long-term aspect of the game and will sooner or later kill Planet Zoo. I don’t want that! I want this game to stay and shine. So I try to help by giving ideas on what can be improved about the animals. Feel free to add your opinion in the comments as well.

• The animals lack variations. Every lion, every tiger is the same. Yes, they differ in size. But besides that, every tiger can easily replaced by another. What we need is difference in behaviour. Let one tiger me more playful, one less interested in breeding, one more aggressive. One more interested in enrichment, the other more lazy. Let one tiger need more different toys, the other just playing with his favourite. And please let there be different fur shades. Ideal, this could passed down to the offspring via a genetic system.
• Let the animals react more emotionally. I had a new gorilla female once adding to an existing group. When I put her in a habitat – nothing happened. In real life, every group member would check her out, interact with her in different ways. Depending on personality sometimes intimidating, sometimes friendly. New animals can react shy or like an extrovert. Whatever it is: Let something happen! At the moment, animals only react interesting and different, when there welfare is low. Whenever you meet their requirements, they start to get boring and life less. And that is also, because they only interact with themselves or with enrichment items, but very, very rarely with other animals or the guests. Which brings me to point three:
• Let them react to guests. Let them scare guests, when they have a naughty or aggressive personality by roaring a lot or jump against the barrier. Let naughty lemurs in walk-in habitats be pocket thefts. Or let aggressive lemurs bite them. This could lead to the zoo paying a compensation to the injured guest.
• Let the animals be like persons. Not easily be replaced. Maybe the new ice bear baby gets very famous with the guests. They ask for merchandise for this animal, buy annual tickets to see them more often, mourn for them when they die.

Fazit / Summary
In short: Give animals character, please. Make them the star of this game. Let this be a zoo simulation, not a building simulator. Individualism in animals could be a challenge for the player. Maybe we have to change our breeding plans, because two individuals won’t get along. Maybe we need to change the habitat, because the shy individual in the lion pride needs more places to hide. Maybe the one Mandrill gets bullied in his current group but can shine in a new one.




I am not a programmer and don’t know what is possible to implement at all or at this stage the animals are in now. But I know that something has to be done. And I know if this game gets polished a little more and the animals get more interesting, this game can become a cash cow. And in the end, that’s what’s important for a company as well.



That said: Thanks to everyone who read all this. I am so looking forward to a lively discussion and your ideas on what could improve the animals.

 

[Heggy]

There's a lot I'd say, but there's no point. I agree with you, though. Things aren't moving quickly. Only a few content updates - one that can be considered decent. They love their DLCs too, knowing this company, so prepare yourself..

 

[Swjosdotschka]

Knowing the company behind this game, it will either die as quickly as it became a thing (By that I don't mean they will have 0 players) or they'll have 500 DLCs, barely any free content (Which you can already see, there's been one single content related update so far since the launch). This is just how this company operates unfortunately.

Many months have passed since the launch and not much has been done as far as content goes. It doesn't even need to be as big as a bunch of animals or a billion maps; having different variations, little details here and there, QoL updates which are more than just a typo fix would do. Heck, there are multiple animal lists and what not where the order they've used makes 0 sense. So many things.

CMs will always say the team is working on new great things, which no doubt they are of course - nobody hires developers to sit at the table for 8 hours doing nothing, but are things moving too slow? The matter of the fact is, actions speak louder than words.

Well. Comming from another company I disagree completly with you. I expirienced Frontier as very interested in their player base, very genourous with free updates and adding features and very quick reacting to feedback. Which is why I made this topic. I want to help Frontier and the game with positive ideas and feedback. Bashing won't help anyone.

 

[Dienstbier]

I agree on ALL points.

I love to build, but I also enjoy watching my favorite animals.

I've played a few zoo games and enjoyed it when the animals looked different.
So I always found my favorites quickly and paid a lot of attention to them.

Here at the Planet Zoo I lost my favorites too quickly and never recognized them again.
The pride in the first cub quickly vanished. Finally the time passed very quickly. (Before the time update)

I also could not recognize the young animal when I had several young animals / adults.
One animal is just like the other.
They are pretty, but not individual.

I can't connect to them.
I do it very well.
I feel much more sorry for the employees than I had to fire one and read the sentence with the family.
Unfortunately I didn't find out how to reset it.

To release or sell an animal into the wild?
No matter.
I'm pregnant again and they eat my hair off my head.
I never know who was important to me or who wasn't.

The game still has a lot of frustration points, but I know it is being worked on.
Please try to implement as many ideas (also for guests, employees and other) as possible.
I don't just want pretty herds.

I want my favorite animals, even if the genetics are bad.

 

[Mkau]

Totally agree with you.
The piece by piece unlimited building is the main aspect of the game,even if it's only logical that the animals should be the main stars of the game.The animals are just soulless clones of each other and good looking moving decorations which are meant to complement/blend into the habitats/buildings.
For me personally, "the best ever made" zoo simulation game is meant to be,this is just a creative sandbox builder game - and it does that job very good.
As you already know,there are a lot of good threads full of suggestions etc. (the whole (visual) uniqueness/individualism topic,colour variations and mutations,horn,antler,tusk variants,different personalities,overall animal behavior,social interactions,changing the ridiculous fighting,juvenile/adolescent stages,changes to group sizes and calculation) regarding the whole animal topic,but they all got kinda burried under all of the other threads about different problems etc. and are now harder to find.
Here is just a small example I made in another thread,which would be totally possible to implement into the game and it would already please a lot of people:

Animal A and Animal B are both 100% genetics (same size,fertility etc.)animals.They are both males and both full body black.They are literally clones.

Now with just a small change:

Animal A and Animal B are both 100% genetics animals.They are both males and both full body black,but Animal B has a white marking on it's right foreleg and around it's right eye.You now know exactly who is who and they aren't clones anymore.

 

[TheSpectre]

I largely agree with this topic. We must not forget that this takes an enormous amount of time for devs.
My biggest problem with this game is that when there is a new patch, bugs are fixed, and new bugs appear with it, I think this is a priority first.

Would like to see these changes from the topic, but hopefully they will fix the bugs first!
And I sincerely hope that free animals will also be added. Because I do not intend to pay 10€ for 5 animals each time..

 

[Swjosdotschka]

Totally agree with you.
The piece by piece unlimited building is the main aspect of the game,even if it's only logical that the animals should be the main stars of the game.The animals are just soulless clones of each other and good looking moving decorations which are meant to complement/blend into the habitats/buildings.
For me personally, "the best ever made" zoo simulation game is meant to be,this is just a creative sandbox builder game - and it does that job very good.
As you already know,there are a lot of good threads full of suggestions etc. (the whole (visual) uniqueness/individualism topic,colour variations and mutations,horn,antler,tusk variants,different personalities,overall animal behavior,social interactions,changing the ridiculous fighting,juvenile/adolescent stages,changes to group sizes and calculation) regarding the whole animal topic,but they all got kinda burried under all of the other threads about different problems etc. and are now harder to find.
Here is just a small example I made in another thread,which would be totally possible to implement into the game and it would already please a lot of people:

Animal A and Animal B are both 100% genetics (same size,fertility etc.)animals.They are both males and both full body black.They are literally clones.

Now with just a small change:

Animal A and Animal B are both 100% genetics animals.They are both males and both full body black,but Animal B has a white marking on it's right foreleg and around it's right eye.You now know exactly who is who and they aren't clones anymore.

Totally agree and I know the community has looots and lots of good ideas. I just felt like all this should also be adressed in a broader way, because in my opinion this game really has a problem and as passionate as I am about it, I don't want it to have this problem anymore. ^^ I want at least as many DLCs as Planco and at least a support for three years and more. And a success that legitimates a Planet Zoo 2 in a few years.

Looks are pretty important and - as you say - easy to implement. However, I feel looks alone wouldn't be enough in the long run. After a while, they would also just repeatand be beautiful shells.So I think its a bit like with a Sim in The Sims: The more puzzle pieces we have that adds ti the individualism of an animal, the bettter.

 

[NL_Mutso]

For me, the animals are the star of the game, I have to disagree with your comment about animals not being the main aspect. Building still feels a secondary mechanic to me. And i'm more a management player.

Well, I think your points are a bit based on your personal wishes/preferences.
I don't think people will return to the game, get less bored or activity will increase, just because animals are more unique.
(sry, but somehow this topic feels like another topic asking for unique features for animals)

I always ignore the average player figures from the Launch-date's Month. I think the next month gives a bit more clear view.
Compared to other games (also JWE/PC), the current players numbers aren't that much different (there's always a big drop and after that a pretty stable lower player base)
We'll just see what happens in the next months.
I do think numbers from 6 months or 1 year have more meaning.

I think some people just stopped/moved on because they were expecting ZT3 (an updated ZT1/ZT2) and weren't expecting management or these game-mechanics.
Tbh, very few games give me the motivation to play for many months and I think a lot of people have the same. Don't think this is different with PZ.
Another reason could be a lack of goals in the game?? Tycoon/tycoon-like games usually have more goals, competing CPU companies or ways to reward a gamer for a yearly achievement.

Youtubers losing interest? What's new?
I somewhat question their motives (not all of them). Most of them move on if a game doesn't give them the desired views/new subscribers.
They don't want to spend that many hours with a game, most youtube channels want to grow fast and looking for something to provide those views/subscribers.
They'll never say that but find another reason to abandon the game. Seen this with a lot of Ark Survival youtubers..

DLC gives a temporarily boost in average players.
Asking for free animals feels a bit ungrateful, we already have a large selection of animals in the base game. (especially compared to other zoo games)

A lot of developers want to tweak/balance their game after launch but free larger content isn't that common.
When i was a more die-hard gamer (many years ago) most games were launched in their base form, got 1 or 2 hotfixes and never got extra (free) content.
Or you just had to buy the extra expansion disc if a game was highly successfull.
And if you were really unlucky you bought a buggy game, which would never be fixed.

 

[TheSpectre]

You used to have DLCs with 20 extra animals, now they are 5/6 extra animals + some storylines and 200 building pieces.

You don't have to agree with me, but then I think 10 € is a huge amount of money, for so little content.
In the long term, just like with PlanCo, you will pay a huge amount of money if you want all DLCs.

New people will be much less inclined to buy this game if they see that they have to pay almost twice the value of the game for some extra content.

 

[Dezessete]

I totally agree with your points. When I bought JW:E and later Planet Zoo, I was hoping for a game with good and interessting animal A.I. which makes watching the animals exciding. I pretty much got dissapointed with JW:E and I also feel that Planet Zoo coudn't live up to what I hoped, at least in regards to the animals.

I tried thinking about ways other games made their animal activities look more interessting and I remembered the mechanic of the game Wildlife Park.Of course this game mechanic is NOT the perfect way of dealing with the problems and also don't provide that level of individuality that you might want, but I still want to use it as an example:

As one can see, every animal has a set of activities that it needs to fulfill. In this example:
1 hour/day swimming
1 hour/day jumping
0.5 hours/day climbing
0.8 hours/day playful fighting
2 hours/day social interactions

What I liked about this mechanic is that there is always something interessting going on in the habitats, espacially if you have more animals with a lot of activities. Another nice aspect is that the terrain plays right into this activities: If you build a steep hill, where the animal can climb and jump from, it will use this terrain to fulfill his needs. This allows for creative and MEANINGFUL habitat constructions.
Except for climbable trees and water, I never really saw animals interact much with their enviroment in Planet Zoo. I never saw a the Nile Monitor Lizards use a rock for sunbathing. Why? That is a natural behaviour, isn't it?

Masked Bandit said in a comment to me and in one of the Brocoaster season Zoo, that he felt the interest in Planet Zoo drop at the time he has to let an animal into a new habitat.

I can feel this. When I started playing Planet Zoo, I was allways excited when I let an animal in a freshly build habitat, because I wanted to observe how it explores his new habitat. But they don't really do this. They don't sniff or mark their new habitat, they don't seem to have any curiosity. Instead they know exactly where everything ist. It's like JW:E all over again and it makes me kinda sad. The game has a huge potential and I really hope it improves in that aspect.

 

[Swjosdotschka]

Youtubers losing interest? What's new?

New is, that it happens way faster than with Planet Coaster. For me that is a sign that something is missing what was not missing with Planco. And I'm only in my own head and can therefor e only express my own thoughts on what I think it is. I try to understand other peoples views, though. And I am happy for players that see the animals as the stars of the game and are satisfied with them and see a long future for Planet Zoo. Doesn't make those who voice their concerns less valuable though and dragging this down to just being another wish list is kind of an easy view on the topic. But thanks for your input on the current situation. I wish I'd see it this way and not worry about the future of the game.

 

[paul78]

I’ll continue to buy content for the game. I’m all in on this game. I imagine for behaviors and who not that could be something that comes later down the road as the games obviously going to add more. I think there’s a general lack of patience at the moment with frontier. I think support and kindness go along way and people have to let these guys do their jobs and see how it looks a year from now. This is quite a advanced game in a lot of ways and I know I couldn’t do better. I mean you look at franchise with all the people playing and being the first online zoo manager I can think of of course some hiccups are to be expected. In many ways I wanted more animals for the Arctic pack but looking back I think I got good value for what was released. And before if u would have said I’m including a dall sheep I would probably have been somewhat disappointed but that animal was pure genius and even rivals the polar bear IMO.

 

[Firestar97]

I agree on ALL points.

I love to build, but I also enjoy watching my favorite animals.

I've played a few zoo games and enjoyed it when the animals looked different.
So I always found my favorites quickly and paid a lot of attention to them.

Here at the Planet Zoo I lost my favorites too quickly and never recognized them again.
The pride in the first cub quickly vanished. Finally the time passed very quickly. (Before the time update)

I also could not recognize the young animal when I had several young animals / adults.
One animal is just like the other.
They are pretty, but not individual.

I can't connect to them.
I do it very well.
I feel much more sorry for the employees than I had to fire one and read the sentence with the family.
Unfortunately I didn't find out how to reset it.

To release or sell an animal into the wild?
No matter.
I'm pregnant again and they eat my hair off my head.
I never know who was important to me or who wasn't.

The game still has a lot of frustration points, but I know it is being worked on.
Please try to implement as many ideas (also for guests, employees and other) as possible.
I don't just want pretty herds.

I want my favorite animals, even if the genetics are bad.

I agree. I had maybe 2 or 3 favorite Animals since the Beta started and the Orangutan was only my favorite because it was my first one and I was really excited to get a Orangutan. The Animals should feel more alive.
Even better climbing on Trees would let the Animals feel way more alive. Currently it seems like Animals (at least Primates) climb every time in exactly the same Way when they are using Trees

 

[NL_Mutso]

You used to have DLCs with 20 extra animals, now they are 5/6 extra animals + some storylines and 200 building pieces.

You can't compare another company and a time-gap of 15-20 years with the current DLC era. You actually paid € 20-30 for a expansion pack those days.
And for the bigger ones € 30-50 (like marine/dino)

You mentioned € 10,- for 5 animals.. That's cheap imo.

New is, that it happens way faster than with Planet Coaster. For me that is a sign that something is missing what was not missing with Planco

To me, that has less meaning. For me that could also be a sign, that some youtubers aren't passionate about zoo games.
Maybe the overall theme of creating a zoo isn't that popular. There are a lot more theme Park related games than zoo games.

I’ll continue to buy content for the game. I’m all in on this game. I imagine for behaviors and who not that could be something that comes later down the road as the games obviously going to add more. I think there’s a general lack of patience at the moment with frontier. I think support and kindness go along way and people have to let these guys do their jobs and see how it looks a year from now. This is quite a advanced game in a lot of ways and I know I couldn’t do better. I mean you look at franchise with all the people playing and being the first online zoo manager I can think of of course some hiccups are to be expected. In many ways I wanted more animals for the Arctic pack but looking back I think I got good value for what was released. And before if u would have said I’m including a dall sheep I would probably have been somewhat disappointed but that animal was pure genius and even rivals the polar bear IMO.

Big like for comments like these. Especially the lack of patience comes to mind. I think the Dall Sheep is a great example to let Frontier surprise the gamers. I think the Dall sheep was a great addition.

Another note:
People love to compare this game to ZT2 : They could go with the ZT2 approach and add some features to paid DLC (slight coat variations/herding/breeding mechanics/graphic updates were actually in a later paid dlc and in another paid DLC they improved the herding behavior of the previous DLC)

 

[Swjosdotschka]

. They don't sniff or mark their new habitat, they don't seem to have any curiosity. Instead they know exactly where everything ist. It's like JW:E all over again and it makes me kinda sad. The game has a huge potential and I really hope it improves in that aspect.

You give some very good examples here, that would actually make such a big difference already! Even more so, if not every Gorilla or Zebra would explore the habitat the same, as then we would be back to JWE. Come out, sniff, roar. Ready. (Yawn)
And although I try to not compare Plan Zoo with other Zoo simuöation installments, the stats in Wildlife Park are really interesting!

I must also agree with you @paul78 , though. Impatience is a big aspect when it comes to Planet Zoo. I think it is important that we voice concerns and discuss about it. But I can't stress enough that I still have full trust in the Devs and Planet Zoo at this point. This game CAN come a long way, but it's not an automated process.

(And by the way: Of course bugs are a prio. But there are working different teams on different things, so I don't think one thing gets in the way of another.)

 

[paul78]

I have quite a few favorites in this game really.I love the lion,both tigers,elephants,and gorilla just to name a few. I believe behavior could get better as time goes on. I know this game gets a lot of attention from sites like zoo chat and Reddit and there’s so many people who would love to be able to play this game that can’t as some can’t afford a high end pc at the moment or other reasons. I feel bad for these guys as the game has brought me almost 200 hrs of enjoyment. I’m not a big franchise player but had to get the elephant items for my avatar and overall a pretty good time. But for me sandbox is where this game really shines as I’ve never seen a game that’s offered such realism in zoo building.

 

[paul78]

Just wanted to add zt2 comparison to this game is apple’s to oranges. That game was made by the modding community. Not that the game wasn’t great in vanilla form but planet zoo has so much more ai and overall realism involved. Zt2 held on a lot longer then it ever had the right to once again credit the modders. Games were released in totally different ways back then too back then you could take your time and get the game up to par. Today games must meet deadlines. There’s a reason zt2 had subpar graphics which enabled them a easier route to build the game. Blue fang also had plenty of experience with this game not that frontier doesn’t but this is the first installment of planet zoo which hopefully will feature a 2,3 and so on. I know a lot of zt2 players on here that have made the switch and are perfectly happy with the game. The pathing system is definitely harder but I like many other people instead of getting mad about will adapt to it. Many YouTubers have had to do the same since Planco and have become great at it.

 

[Kolikokoli]

I don't actually need them to act differently. What would be great tho is some "personality" tab for every animal. Something like:

Liam
Bengal tiger
Loves: snacks, playing with rocks
Fears: too many people, water
History: (put whatever is next to the animal origin in market - like "frontier zoo" or "born in xxx")

That would be totaly ok for me. And maybe add more animation between animals - not only between mother and kid and when mating, but between adults or with other species.

 

[Swjosdotschka]

Interaction with each other besides mating (and fighting if you make a mistake) is still a huge lack, in my opinion. That's something they definately need to work on and it will also make a big difference in how the animals will be seen by the player.

Love the love and fears idea, as it adds to individualism and could also improve animals reacting to their enviorement. Would be cool if the tiker would actually play with rocks we put into the habitat, like climb on them etc. That would also make building more meaningful. At the moment, the animals do not care if you put all the plants in one corner and build a flat habitat in a boring shape.

 

[NL_Mutso]

Just wanted to add zt2 comparison to this game is apple’s to oranges. That game was made by the modding community. Not that the game wasn’t great in vanilla form but planet zoo has so much more ai and overall realism involved. Zt2 held on a lot longer then it ever had the right to once again credit the modders. Games were released in totally different ways back then too back then you could take your time and get the game up to par. Today games must meet deadlines. There’s a reason zt2 had subpar graphics which enabled them a easier route to build the game. Blue fang also had plenty of experience with this game not that frontier doesn’t but this is the first installment of planet zoo which hopefully will feature a 2,3 and so on. I know a lot of zt2 players on here that have made the switch and are perfectly happy with the game. The pathing system is definitely harder but I like many other people instead of getting mad about will adapt to it. Many YouTubers have had to do the same since Planco and have become great at it.

I just mentioned it because a lot of different topics refers to : Why ísn't this feature in the game because ZT2 has it ? And some people claiming the AI from those games were better (especially right after release in november). Never played it with mods except for the graphics upgrade ones.
I wouldn't even try to compare the Theme Park games to the Rollercoaster tycoon games and Planet Coaster. (I played the Bullfrog/Amiga 2000 version)

When you decide to compare games also mention the negative parts.
And ZT2 wasn't that great of a game either. Adding new game mechanics in a paid DLC is such an example.

I think PZ is superior compared to ZT/ZT2/Wildlife Park series, no doubt about this one.

Liam
Bengal tiger
Loves: snacks, playing with rocks
Fears: too many people, water
History: (put whatever is next to the animal origin in market - like "frontier zoo" or "born in xxx")

I'd really like to see those features even if they were "hidden" traits.