I dont think you should get the same level of cash/conservation points reward though, but I like the idea it takes up staff time, distracting from feeding and cleaning, maybe make it quite staff intensive so if there are too many animals to remove it starts to trigger a downward spiral thus at least you still have to keep an eye on it and may require some manual intervention when you hit a critical mass to implement contraceptives or manually sell off the majority of adults.
An absolute MUST HAVE feature needed - animal management policies
- Thread starter Indiglow
- Start date
I frankly am rolling in both cash and conservation points. Price point seems to be a strictly Franchise mode concern. I want to play through Career mode first, so I haven't even tried Franchise yet. Balance it however you like, just get the animals out of my habitats before they start complaining without me manually selling them every few minutes.
If you could automatically sell animals you could make way more money/CC and the whole game balance would topple.
Huh? I just pause and sell them all anyway. What difference does doing it automatically do?
I am talking about Franchise mode too. Why does there have to be a downside? Again you're referring to auto, this wouldn't be auto... it would be an additional capability of an in-game character. They wouldn't be 100% accurate (they make mistakes depending upon skill/training level) so there is the downside if you want one.
I guess some people may use contraceptives to reduce the need, but the game would rebalance anyway
No, the game would rebalance as with most populations. Either animals would sell for less (as supply is increased) or people would want more for premium animals (as demand is increased)
You don't spam Exhibits with Titan Beetles to make money...
But you could do it without spending any time on it with auto-sell and make tons of money.
Basically mirco-managing and selling costs you time currently, which affects money per time played.
As you increase supply, the price will reduce. Hence a new balance will be found.
Actually its more like every 10 minutes to micro manage a few seconds ... I've had several animals in the exhibits before it gets a problem. A quick look at the animal list ( sort by reverse age and species and trade out the excess, then back to what you were doing. Seeing as I bought this game for the management side of things I can't really complain about having to actually manage anything ... but that's me
You're right, I spam Tiger Snails.
Rows of Tiger Snails.
I mean... It doesn't take long at all to just, pause the game, go to the animal tab, move every snail with a 0.0 to 0.5 Age Year to the Animal Trade and shunt them out the door. So I'm already exploiting that, it's single handedly kept my zoo afloat. Five seconds more with an auto-seller isn't going to make a huge difference and I know other people already do this. Economy isn't dead yet so all seems fine.
It's the bigger exhibits with animals that can injure eachother because they instantly start fighting over space that it gets annoying and obtrusive.
And if the game's economy can't handle people not having to break up game flow by pausing to break for mindless sorting and selling every... Single... Time... Your Warthogs have babies. Then there's something fundamentally wrong with game flow and economy, not the idea that cuts out tedium.
That's not management, that's a clicker game. Clicking a lot is not management; management is about making decisions. Deciding between choice A and B. This game is about going around clicking on stuff closer to phone game mechanics.
The issue is Frontier is absolutely terrible when it comes to gameplay/management. Sure I'd like more management in PlanZoo but if they don't know how to do that I'd rather it be simple like PlanCo and to focus more on simulation (what they excel at). Instead they attempted to add what they thought was management and included a bunch of annoying phone game type mechanics.Most heared remark prior to launch:
"Give us more management!!!"
*PZ gets more management
After launch:
"Give us an auto-management option, there is too much management!"
I don't get it, but maybe that's me.
I've played tons of management games from the original simcity to roller coaster tycoon and more. This is not a management game, this is just a list of annoyances that require constant clicking on stuff. No decisions to make really.
Exactly.
For those people who think it's totally fine to pause every few minutes or so to deal with the constant flow of animal breeding because this is a management game, might I pose this question:
Why don't you support the idea of you having to manually pick up litter throughout the park?
After all, that's managing as well. Why do you need it to be done automatically via staff?
I will never get why some people want a game to be played for them.
Why not watching a nice zoo movie?
Lets plays on youtube?
If you don't want to bother with animal breeding use the freeeeeaking sandbox mode, it is there for you.
Stop trying to make all people play sandbox because you are bored with the other game modes.
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(The small exhibits are a pain in the neck if you grind-breed small things for fast money (i am looking at you, giant snail), but once you set them up properly they are working, yet...
they feel a little out of place, i have remove them alltogether atm.)
Why not watching a nice zoo movie?
Lets plays on youtube?
If you don't want to bother with animal breeding use the freeeeeaking sandbox mode, it is there for you.
Stop trying to make all people play sandbox because you are bored with the other game modes.
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(The small exhibits are a pain in the neck if you grind-breed small things for fast money (i am looking at you, giant snail), but once you set them up properly they are working, yet...
they feel a little out of place, i have remove them alltogether atm.)
I forget whether or not I actually posted about this, but I had a similar thought/idea at one point. I'm not sure at which point it could/should be implemented (i.e., when you get a five-star zookeeper or when you hit a certain level star zoo).
Having something like this automated would help save me a bit of stress/time in the game and allow me to focus on other things (expanding my zoo, refining my existing exhibits, setting up proper work zones, etc). I'm aware that the pause button exists... But it would be nice to be able to not have to press it once every 2-5 minutes.
Something like this would make the management simpler (if people chose to take that route).
Yeah, I think refining the number of allowable animals in an exhibit would make sense/help things along too. I would also argue that, for certain animals, you shouldn't need to wait until maturity to send them to another zoo, put them on the market, etc I'm specifically thinking about any of the reptiles. There should also be exceptions for siblings, parent/child relationships, etc. The number of times I've been to a zoo that had siblings of the same gender in the same exhibit... It just feels unrealistic to suddenly have them start brawling at adulthood.
It's added stress and it takes away from the realism some... If they can tweak this and add those new management features, my enjoyment of the game would increase ten-fold.
I agree with your point, but I do want to say: I do kind of wish it were an option to just do some of this yourself if you wanted to, though. Cleaning up litter, fixing vandalized items, cleaning exhibits, etc. Just being able to click those things away would be a nice option in emergencies (i.e., if an exhibit is messy and animals are at risk of disease and for whatever reason the keeper hasn't been to the exhibit).
The staff members are picking up the litter for you. Clearly, the game is playing for you. Why don't you support picking up litter so the game doesn't play for you?
Pretty lame argument. No one is asking for the game to play for us. We're asking to make it manageable so we can play the actual game of building a zoo.
This game isn't called "Planet Caretaker" or "Planet Animal Handler". I don't want to spend my time doing things animal handlers should be doing. I don't clean up the poo either.
You're incredibly good at making a stupid statement.
We've been chatting on a number of threads about how this could be an option for those who want it. Those who don't would be unaffected. For example I am not affected by the exhibits as I don't use them... they are optional.
Being able to choose to automate is not the same as being forced to automate. What you're proposing is to not implement a system that would offer choice. Choice being a key mechanic of being a manager.
Sandbox mode does not only remove the breeding aspect it removes other game play too. Again, automation using an in-game character would be a choice you wouldn't have to take. Given your approach on here I would love to see Frontier mod the game so that you have to do every single tedious action... and not just as a novelty "oh I can clean up sh*t" but more like remove all characters and you have to do everything. Let's see if you still don't welcome some automation... at least as a choice.
If automation were delivered as an option it wouldn't affect you at all as you could choose not to use it. So why are you so against it being an option for others?
I concur to this .. I do, however, wish that I had the ability to clean up when I see litter, refill a feeder when I see it is empty etc, but instead I have to go grab someone to do it instead .. so yes I agree that some sort of optional automation would be useful, especially in the bigger, busier zoos where there is just too much to do that micro managing is literally all you do .
However, I did point out on one of the threads talking about this ( it might be this one ), that automating the decision on which animal to remove when a baby ages up is a bit more difficult to decide on .. some people remove the adults, some people remove the babies, some people remove the babies for a few batches and then the adults .. then throw in the sex ratio and counts of the adults .. some animals prefer a set ratio, to stop a certain animal from breeding we choose to stop that with contraception .. so .. automating these decisions may have to be a mini DLC in its own right due to the amount of decision making code that would have to be implemented, as well as a new UI set up.
It's not quite the same as saying, 'oi, you clean .. use your walking algorithm to walk between these buildings and look for litter and clean it up ... , oh you also carry stuff, is there a request to move an animal ? quick go do that as soon as possible afterward, oh wait, your colleague is handling that .. '.
Outside of the UI, it could be broken down into an AI task that is attached to a zoo keeper that you have allocated as a Superior Zoo Keeper, say after level 5 training. So, when they come to check on the habitat/exhibit, they have to decide whether any animals have to be removed and then look at the rules you set up ... below age X, above age X, more than X females, more than X males, toggle contraceptives when number of births have reached X etc. Put them in a priority queue and they will be processed in order for that habitat. Of course giving them more responsibility, will mean you will have to pay them more as they are doing more work for you. So a zoo keeper level 5 will earn less than a level 5 zoo keeper that has been promoted to Superior Zoo Keeper. Clearly not something able to be done within the first few years of game play, so players would still have to micro manage themselves until the training for the chosen zoo keeper has increased enough and your profits are enough to pay the additional wages for them.
Obviously, to speed up the process you could choose one or more superior zoo keepers at the start that are already trained up that you can set up to do whatever tasks you want them to do, just make sure you can cover their wages.
Anyway, that's my take on the topic, which is totally fine to implement as you would as a zoo owner. Your assistant wouldn't be paid the same fee as a trainee and doing almost the same work as you, and would likely have to be trained up to take over some of your tasks ...
It doesn't even have to be difficult at the start. Just a simple "Keep X females and X males in my exhibit" to start and place all extras in the trade center. Later on, perhaps it can get more intricate and go to "Keep X females and X males - preference goes adult > newborn > aged".
I don't really even care about the selling part, that's fairly easy. I can do that and it doesn't have to be automated. But the constant filtering of animals in my zoo to see which ones have too many animals and clicking each one I want to sell....it's like an unnecessary amount of clicking.
I want less clicks managing animals and more clicks managing my overall zoo. I feel too much like a caretaker or animal handler then I do as a manager of a zoo.