Yeah, so, I've been playing for awhile since the newest patch and DLC release, and I've noticed there are a few new issues, as well as older ones still being around that I think need to be addressed. So here, I'm going to bring up a few points of issues, and suggestions for improvement.
1. "Predation is occurring" and predator hunting.
This one is honestly kind of just annoying, and kind of lacks realism in how it works, especially if you're running a zoo with a massive, zoo-wide habitat full of both predators and prey that should fall into a natural pattern of realistic predation.
For one, the fact that predators will occasionally just go on random rampages, killing prey in mass amounts, and then not even bothering to try and eat the bodies is kind of... ridiculous. JWE fixed this issue already with the majority of predators minus hybrids, and that's a dinosaur game in which "realism" was literally never even a premise and the whole idea is violent dinosaurs killing eachother, so why do predators in Planet Zoo, a game where animals are supposed to be more realistic and lifelike in their behaviors, act like the Indominus Rex?
In general, predators should only hunt and kill when actually hungry. I get that this is a zoo game, but there are a LOT of people who play PZ that enjoy trying to take a "wildlife park" approach to the game, at least in Sandbox, and I really don't think it's too much to ask to make that at least somewhat possible in a way that isn't directly encouraging it, but doesn't get in the way of it either or really negatively affect the zoo aspect of the game at all. A lot of PZ's fanbase comes from old fans of Zt2, and a lot of people within that community love making safari, wildlife park, etc builds of "free-roaming" animals with self-sustaining populations, where the predators only hunt when necessary, and prey populations can sustain themselves by outnumbering the predators and continuing to breed. Basically, a single wolf should not be killing 3 dall sheep in 5 minutes just for fun. Not only is it not realistic, especially considering that a lot of players do use wildlife park setups where the habitats are massive and as wilderness-like as possible, but it's not really fun either considering it basically stops people from having creative freedom in the way they play the game in a way a lot of people enjoy playing it, for... really no real reason.
Secondly, even if that first bit isn't fixed, the "predation is occurring" message is extremely annoying due to the fact it stays PERMANENTLY, regardless of whether there is an active ongoing hunt or not. That "predation is occurring" message really should only show up if a predator is currently in an active state of hunting a prey animal, not all the time just because they share a habitat.
2. How wolves determine who the alpha is...
This is another broken mechanic. After an hour of having two arctic wolves in my habitat, they are still, for some reason, listed as "beta animals" and cannot breed. This is without fighting disabled, too- but they ALSO will not determine alphas if fighting is disabled, period, which in all honesty is ridiculous considering wolves should no longer determine alpha status via fights.
The wolf pack structure just needs a complete rework, honestly, considering sandbox options break the alpha system, and it's already broken in general even without it.
First off: The first male and first female wolf added to a pack should automatically become the alpha male and female, by default. Like, no questions asked, no "fighting" required, will happen even if fighting is disabled in sandbox options. Upon being added to a pack, wolves should automatically get a rank-status of either "alpha" or "beta", first of each sex is always alpha. Until a wolf joins a pack, they should have NO rank, as in are not considered a "beta animal", OR an "alpha animal". These wolves should be able to technically breed until a rank is assigned to them through the pack system. This makes it impossible for only two wolves placed in an enclosure to become broken and unbreedable due to a permanent beta status, and also FORCES the pack system to assign them a role, meaning the first two WILL be alpha, regardless.
Secondly- when one of the original two alphas dies, the remaining alpha should not take a new mate out of any related family members, and the now-empty alpha slot should remain empty until a new wolf of the opposite sex, completely unrelated to the remaining alpha, is introduced to the pack. If both alphas die, a single replacement alpha should be chosen from the other wolves in the pack, the one with the highest overall stats. An unrelated wolf must then be introduced to the pack of the opposite sex in order to fill the new alpha spot. This makes it less of a hassle to manage inbreeding, and is also a bit more natural to how a wolf pack works, as wolves naturally will not mate with their immediate family and will instinctually seek out an unrelated mate. In general, inbreeding should not be a concern with wolves as, due to the pack structure, without the system I just described, it would be nearly impossible to keep a single pack going for a long period of time without inbreeding without constantly moving them in and out of the habitat to reset ranks.
3. Going with point 1, the Sandbox ability(or, hell, even any mode if you could add a system to just tell vets not to do a specific job) to stop vets from picking up the bodies of dead animals killed by predators.
So, another issue I have when it comes to the whole hunting thing, is the fact that hunting as of right now is completely pointless and is not at all viable, even in Sandbox. You simply cannot have your predatory animals actually get a chance to eat their kills, even if they did bother to do it(which, they do very rarely.) This is because, no matter what, when an animal is killed, a vet is ALWAYS called to remove the body. And while yes, in a normal zoo setting, this would be realistic- how many zoos would actually have their prey animals be killed by predators anyway? If a prey animal is killed by a predator, chances are the kill took place in a safari/wildlife park/etc habitat, and we should have the option to stop vets from picking up the bodies when they die in that specific fashion, and allow the predators to eat their kill, during which the body will naturally decay over time and when the carcass is fed off of.
Anyway, I would appreciate if my feedback wasn't rebutted with, "but it's a zoo game, not a wildlife park game." I get that, but the fact is many PZ players came from Zt2, and many of those people enjoyed the freedom to create specific types of zoo builds that Planet Zoo doesn't really allow with how restrictive it is in its mechanics, to the point even Sandbox is restrictive in that aspect. Planet Zoo developers have even directly commented on the fact they know players won't all want to play the game the same way, and they want to allow for freedom and creativity to play how you want- and one of the biggest gameplay styles for a zoo game is to run a wildlife park build instead of a traditional zoo, and I think gameplay features should be less restrictive against that type of gameplay to some extent.
If predators simply hunted only when hungry, the predation message would only pop up when an active hunt is occurring, animal social dynamics were further improved, and you could simply stop vets from removing the bodies of hunted prey so that the predators could feed on them in a natural environment, that would open up a lot of doors for more fun gameplay for a large portion of people who would enjoy that. Zoo Tycoon was a 'zoo game' at its core, too- but it didn't actively try to stop you from running a wildlife park instead if you wanted to, so I think Planet Zoo should allow that freedom as well.
Hell, I'd even be happy if this stuff was only possible in Sandbox. At least then it'd be possible at all.(except the wolf social structure thing, that needs to be fixed for all game modes.)
1. "Predation is occurring" and predator hunting.
This one is honestly kind of just annoying, and kind of lacks realism in how it works, especially if you're running a zoo with a massive, zoo-wide habitat full of both predators and prey that should fall into a natural pattern of realistic predation.
For one, the fact that predators will occasionally just go on random rampages, killing prey in mass amounts, and then not even bothering to try and eat the bodies is kind of... ridiculous. JWE fixed this issue already with the majority of predators minus hybrids, and that's a dinosaur game in which "realism" was literally never even a premise and the whole idea is violent dinosaurs killing eachother, so why do predators in Planet Zoo, a game where animals are supposed to be more realistic and lifelike in their behaviors, act like the Indominus Rex?
In general, predators should only hunt and kill when actually hungry. I get that this is a zoo game, but there are a LOT of people who play PZ that enjoy trying to take a "wildlife park" approach to the game, at least in Sandbox, and I really don't think it's too much to ask to make that at least somewhat possible in a way that isn't directly encouraging it, but doesn't get in the way of it either or really negatively affect the zoo aspect of the game at all. A lot of PZ's fanbase comes from old fans of Zt2, and a lot of people within that community love making safari, wildlife park, etc builds of "free-roaming" animals with self-sustaining populations, where the predators only hunt when necessary, and prey populations can sustain themselves by outnumbering the predators and continuing to breed. Basically, a single wolf should not be killing 3 dall sheep in 5 minutes just for fun. Not only is it not realistic, especially considering that a lot of players do use wildlife park setups where the habitats are massive and as wilderness-like as possible, but it's not really fun either considering it basically stops people from having creative freedom in the way they play the game in a way a lot of people enjoy playing it, for... really no real reason.
Secondly, even if that first bit isn't fixed, the "predation is occurring" message is extremely annoying due to the fact it stays PERMANENTLY, regardless of whether there is an active ongoing hunt or not. That "predation is occurring" message really should only show up if a predator is currently in an active state of hunting a prey animal, not all the time just because they share a habitat.
2. How wolves determine who the alpha is...
This is another broken mechanic. After an hour of having two arctic wolves in my habitat, they are still, for some reason, listed as "beta animals" and cannot breed. This is without fighting disabled, too- but they ALSO will not determine alphas if fighting is disabled, period, which in all honesty is ridiculous considering wolves should no longer determine alpha status via fights.
The wolf pack structure just needs a complete rework, honestly, considering sandbox options break the alpha system, and it's already broken in general even without it.
First off: The first male and first female wolf added to a pack should automatically become the alpha male and female, by default. Like, no questions asked, no "fighting" required, will happen even if fighting is disabled in sandbox options. Upon being added to a pack, wolves should automatically get a rank-status of either "alpha" or "beta", first of each sex is always alpha. Until a wolf joins a pack, they should have NO rank, as in are not considered a "beta animal", OR an "alpha animal". These wolves should be able to technically breed until a rank is assigned to them through the pack system. This makes it impossible for only two wolves placed in an enclosure to become broken and unbreedable due to a permanent beta status, and also FORCES the pack system to assign them a role, meaning the first two WILL be alpha, regardless.
Secondly- when one of the original two alphas dies, the remaining alpha should not take a new mate out of any related family members, and the now-empty alpha slot should remain empty until a new wolf of the opposite sex, completely unrelated to the remaining alpha, is introduced to the pack. If both alphas die, a single replacement alpha should be chosen from the other wolves in the pack, the one with the highest overall stats. An unrelated wolf must then be introduced to the pack of the opposite sex in order to fill the new alpha spot. This makes it less of a hassle to manage inbreeding, and is also a bit more natural to how a wolf pack works, as wolves naturally will not mate with their immediate family and will instinctually seek out an unrelated mate. In general, inbreeding should not be a concern with wolves as, due to the pack structure, without the system I just described, it would be nearly impossible to keep a single pack going for a long period of time without inbreeding without constantly moving them in and out of the habitat to reset ranks.
3. Going with point 1, the Sandbox ability(or, hell, even any mode if you could add a system to just tell vets not to do a specific job) to stop vets from picking up the bodies of dead animals killed by predators.
So, another issue I have when it comes to the whole hunting thing, is the fact that hunting as of right now is completely pointless and is not at all viable, even in Sandbox. You simply cannot have your predatory animals actually get a chance to eat their kills, even if they did bother to do it(which, they do very rarely.) This is because, no matter what, when an animal is killed, a vet is ALWAYS called to remove the body. And while yes, in a normal zoo setting, this would be realistic- how many zoos would actually have their prey animals be killed by predators anyway? If a prey animal is killed by a predator, chances are the kill took place in a safari/wildlife park/etc habitat, and we should have the option to stop vets from picking up the bodies when they die in that specific fashion, and allow the predators to eat their kill, during which the body will naturally decay over time and when the carcass is fed off of.
Anyway, I would appreciate if my feedback wasn't rebutted with, "but it's a zoo game, not a wildlife park game." I get that, but the fact is many PZ players came from Zt2, and many of those people enjoyed the freedom to create specific types of zoo builds that Planet Zoo doesn't really allow with how restrictive it is in its mechanics, to the point even Sandbox is restrictive in that aspect. Planet Zoo developers have even directly commented on the fact they know players won't all want to play the game the same way, and they want to allow for freedom and creativity to play how you want- and one of the biggest gameplay styles for a zoo game is to run a wildlife park build instead of a traditional zoo, and I think gameplay features should be less restrictive against that type of gameplay to some extent.
If predators simply hunted only when hungry, the predation message would only pop up when an active hunt is occurring, animal social dynamics were further improved, and you could simply stop vets from removing the bodies of hunted prey so that the predators could feed on them in a natural environment, that would open up a lot of doors for more fun gameplay for a large portion of people who would enjoy that. Zoo Tycoon was a 'zoo game' at its core, too- but it didn't actively try to stop you from running a wildlife park instead if you wanted to, so I think Planet Zoo should allow that freedom as well.
Hell, I'd even be happy if this stuff was only possible in Sandbox. At least then it'd be possible at all.(except the wolf social structure thing, that needs to be fixed for all game modes.)