Feature Focus: Challenge and Sandbox Mode

[paul78]

@IG Lord Ragtag Im glad to see players like the game for what it is. I’m not saying this is a bad game but to players who prefer to play based on creativity it’s still disappointing no matter what anyone says. I generally like the jwe franchise and have the first one but from a sandbox players point of view it’s still totally unnecessary to be forced to do campaigns. To me it totally defeats the purpose of even having a sandbox mode. The planet series games got it right offering the best of both worlds and yet this title is still getting things wrong. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind a stand-alone frontier game would be hands down better. Anyway here’s to hope for a planet prehistoric in the next couple years.

 

[Lunchboxx77]

I never really got into Challenge mode in JWE because skins just didn't excite me, but "unique species cosmetic unlocks" could be interesting. Also please tell us there will be a 'Clear and Flatten' button for our maps in Sandbox mode!

 

[IG Lord Ragtag]

Also please tell us there will be a 'Clear and Flatten' button for our maps in Sandbox mode.

That would be useful, but not really needed.

It took me 20 mins to 'clear and flatten' Nublar 93 in JWE. You only need to do it once as once done you just save it with a different name, like Nub93base. This way any time I want to do a new build on that map, I load my base map, then save it with a different name, like Jurassic World.

I did this for the 4 maps I prefer to build on for both eras. Granted this takes 8 save slots from Sandbox to do, but well worth it.

 

[FunGaming]

I have to agree that its kinda disappointing that once again we are forced to play modes some dont like just to have everything in sandbox mode, gues I will once again get it on pc so we can use mods, hacks and trainers to unlock all and play the way we want. Sandbox is my primary mode as it gives the freedom to build your dream parks.

 

[Thylaco]

I never really got into Challenge mode in JWE because skins just didn't excite me, but "unique species cosmetic unlocks" could be interesting. Also please tell us there will be a 'Clear and Flatten' button for our maps in Sandbox mode!

Pretty sure it's just referring to variants of the patterns and colours we've been told about before. With more than 75 species, even just one pattern or colour per species is more than enough for 18 challenge mode maps (assuming the 4 difficulties have one unlocked pattern or colour, each, from being 5 starred).

It sounds like challenge mode maps are their own thing (probably smaller maps using the same terrains as Campaign). Considering the "global location" side of things, I'd guess that some "forest" trees might be swapped out to better fit each location.

 

[Jura Arena]

The challenge mode progression sounds a little bit wrong for me.
I don't want to waste time on easy, medium or hard. On JWE1 i only played jurassic difficult to unlock both skins for each island in one run.
Would be nice to do it the same way in JWE2.
At this point it sounds for me just like stretching the playtime with this.

 

[MarcWP]

For those who are crying about not having everything unlocked in Sandbox from the get go, get over it. Campaign is the main game, not Sandbox. At least this time around it sounds as if Sandbox is available from the get go, which was not the case in JWE.

How hard is it to set the game to easy and complete the campaign? You want the other things that could be available from Chaos Theory, again play it on easy. It took me maybe 20 hrs to do JWE's campaign on easy over a 2 week period. I then spent the next year in Sandbox experementing before I decided to do Challenge Mode.

Skins made available for completing Challenge Mode is a choice you can do or not. If CM works like in JWE, then you only need to play each challenge once on Jurassic difficulty to unlock all the skins from each level.

Playing the Campaign and Chaos modes teaches you the mechanics of the game and how things work so you know what to do in Sandbox.

For those on counsole, you are going to need to do this. You'll also have a greater sense of accomplishmet for it.

Those on PC can do this also or once someone develops the hack to unlock everything, they can cheat.

Then there's just no point in having a sandbox at all. If you have to play through the campaign anyway... It's just a chore which is so unnecessary. I had the exact same mindset as you, when the first game dropped. But quickly I was just going through the campaign to unlock stuff, not because I was enjoying the story...

 

[MarcWP]

That would be useful, but not really needed.

It took me 20 mins to 'clear and flatten' Nublar 93 in JWE. You only need to do it once as once done you just save it with a different name, like Nub93base. This way any time I want to do a new build on that map, I load my base map, then save it with a different name, like Jurassic World.

I did this for the 4 maps I prefer to build on for both eras. Granted this takes 8 save slots from Sandbox to do, but well worth it.

If it takes you 20 minutes to clean up every map, before you can start to make your park, then it's definitely needed. Waste of time for the players. Almost 60% of the time in the first game I used to make paths straight. It's so horrible on the eye to see your paths uneven all over the place...

 

[Thylaco]

The challenge mode progression sounds a little bit wrong for me.
I don't want to waste time on easy, medium or hard. On JWE1 i only played jurassic difficult to unlock both skins for each island in one run.
Would be nice to do it the same way in JWE2.
At this point it sounds for me just like stretching the playtime with this.

The idea is to make it more accessible, instead of pressuring people into immediate failure on the highest setting (I fell in that trap immediately and it really turned me off Challenge mode), JWE was originally intended for the most general of audiences after all. Granted, applying that to every map, even after doing the higher difficulties, might be a tad far (it does sort of encourage continuously leaving one map for the next, which might be the better experience now there's multiple environments).

As to time wastage, you can speed up the game, so it's hard to say just how it might go, but I'd lean towards it being a similar reward to time ratio, seeing there seems to be a reward for each difficulty.

 

[Lunchboxx77]

Pretty sure it's just referring to variants of the patterns and colours we've been told about before. With more than 75 species, even just one pattern or colour per species is more than enough for 18 challenge mode maps (assuming the 4 difficulties have one unlocked pattern or colour, each, from being 5 starred).

It sounds like challenge mode maps are their own thing (probably smaller maps using the same terrains as Campaign). Considering the "global location" side of things, I'd guess that some "forest" trees might be swapped out to better fit each location.

I doubt it would be new colours, it would be new patterns, which would be cool

 

[Thylaco]

I doubt it would be new colours, it would be new patterns, which would be cool

It's new in the sense that the Challenge mode skins of JWE1 were new, just genes not already used by an animal.

Colours in particular are much easier, you just need a different shade to an existing one. I'd say 1 pattern and 3 colours is the most likely per map, unless there's only 3-4 maps, in which case it might be more like 2 of each.

 

[Dark_Ansem]

I doubt it would be new colours, it would be new patterns, which would be cool

I just hope the JP skins and raptir squad aren't hidden behind challenge

 

[Thylaco]

I just hope the JP skins and raptir squad aren't hidden behind challenge

Of course not, they'd most likely be unlocked through Chaos theory mode.

 

[Jens Erik]

Thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts and opinions about Sandbox and Challenge Mode. To clarify: You can unlock dinosaurs and park features for Sandbox Mode by researching them in any mode. For example, if you research the Brachiosaurus in any level, the Brachiosaurus will immediately be available to bio-engineer in a Hatchery in Sandbox Mode.

As we mentioned in the article above, you'll have access to different ways to tweak Sandbox Mode to your liking, and we'll have more to share about all the settings at a later date.

For Challenge Mode, you can choose your difficulty and jump straight to Jurassic Difficulty if you so choose. We're leaving the unlocks up to you to discover, however!

Wait, so Challenge Mode and Chaos Theory use completely different maps to the campaign?

The Conditions and what you have available to achieve are different from level to level in Challenge Mode, but Challenge Mode doesn't use completely different maps to the campaign.

Chaos Theory mode is another thing I really want to learn more about in due time!

And we'll have more to share about it in the future!

 

[XmanZY]

Two questions.

1) Will the cosmetics unlocked from challenge mode be extra skins for a dinosaur? For example, let's say each one gets 7 base skin colors. Would it bring that number up to 8 for that one dinosaur?

2) Will we be able to disable constraints in any way? I really enjoyed the progression in challenge mode within JWE, and making a park from the ground up separate from the story driven campaign. It would sort of be a bummer if these constraints were a requirement to have.

 

[SAVE THE DINOS]

I definitely agree. Challenge mode in the first game was terrible and repetitive. You had to it on 12 different maps to get all the skins. I hope it’s not like that, and I hope not all the good skins are stuck behind challenge mode.

I agree to

 

[Thylaco]

The Conditions and what you have available to achieve are different from level to level in Challenge Mode, but Challenge Mode doesn't use completely different maps to the campaign.

So they're similar maps (using the same terrains and such), intended to represent locations not in Campaign? It's a pretty severe misinterpretation on my end if it's the campaign locales.

 

[paul78]

I’ll admit I got mild interest in the game. At first I had none whatsoever and was open to the idea of a planet aquarium tbh(which I still am)but after watching the dev diary and newsfeed for the game it sparked some interest. I am however very disappointed with the whole jwe format. In planet zoo for example you have your sandbox players and you have your franchise,campaign, and challenge players and this format is gold. You’ll always have players interested in different aspects of the game and if the needs are filled everyone’s happy. However the jwe format continuously drops the ball on this one. I don’t know if that’s a universal thing or a mixture of both tbh. Look anyone who wants to buy this game I recommend you do. I’m not trying to create a negative bandwagon for this game just expressing my disappointment really. For me the interest has faded quite a bit after this news tho if it is indeed the same setup as the first game. I unlocked everything in game 1 and it wasn’t super hard and I was motivated to get everything but this second installment should have improved on that.

 

[Dinoxels]

For Challenge Mode, you can choose your difficulty and jump straight to Jurassic Difficulty if you so choose. We're leaving the unlocks up to you to discover, however!

So in short we can choose our difficulty? That's good.

 

[Thylaco]

I’ll admit I got mild interest in the game. At first I had none whatsoever and was open to the idea of a planet aquarium tbh(which I still am)but after watching the dev diary and newsfeed for the game it sparked some interest. I am however very disappointed with the whole jwe format. In planet zoo for example you have your sandbox players and you have your franchise,campaign, and challenge players and this format is gold. You’ll always have players interested in different aspects of the game and if the needs are filled everyone’s happy. However the jwe format continuously drops the ball on this one. I don’t know if that’s a universal thing or a mixture of both tbh. Look anyone who wants to buy this game I recommend you do. I’m not trying to create a negative bandwagon for this game just expressing my disappointment really. For me the interest has faded quite a bit after this news tho if it is indeed the same setup as the first game. I unlocked everything in game 1 and it wasn’t super hard and I was motivated to get everything but this second installment should have improved on that.

I suppose it's a bit of a pattern of treating sandbox as post game for JWE, rather than an alternative (a leftover from the JPOG legacy maybe). Part of the logic is potentially trying to prevent the possibility of overwhelming new players (the audience is a fair bit more general than other titles, and I wouldn't expect most to have played JWE1 more than a couple weeks after launch)

When it comes to actual dinosaurs, easy challenge mode might be the quickest way to unlock most stuff, rather than going campaign, (if it's just one challenge mode for all the non-hybrids and JW versions of dinos, it's a pretty good initial return, though 50% on every animal might still take a while, assuming that's the threshold for being "researched").

Of course, save sharing on PC circumvents the process entirely, so there's that available for a third of sandbox players at least.