Disappointed with lack of coat variation in wolves

[Mkau]

I get that coat colours (looks) give more uniqueness etc.
But then we are again talking about what a individual wants/expects, and not what's in the game and meant by Frontier.

For me, character traits are equally important.

It's only logical that most people expect colour variation,because it is the biggest visual uniqueness factor - that's a fact nobody can deny.
It is also way easier to depict something visually in a game,instead of personality/character traits,which are not literally visible with the bare eyes/at first sight,but require studying of that particular individual.Not to mention that procedurally generated colours/markings/patterns would add a huge boost to the genetics part of the game and the overall replayability.People still can't tell if the different personalities are ingame,because the animals all seem to act randomly - but that's not the topic of this thread.
The topic is also not based on solely peoples' expectations,because Frontier advertised with colour variations and unique markings/patterns and people are now wondering what happened with those features.In addition there is the fact of the dev post at the end of the beta,which said that these features were just turned off for the beta,but will be there at full release,which turned out to be not true.

 

[Narwhaler]

Honestly I never took the "each animal is unique" statement literally, because that is simply impossible. Animals have different stats and some species even looks, that's all, nothing more, nothing less. If you expected more variations, well, too bad, but you shouldn't be so demanding to Frontier just because you had higher expectations.

Besides, animals that have patterns (giraffes, zebras, tigers, wild dogs, etc.) do have variations, so yeah I think you shouldn't blame them for not doing their work, not all animals must have variations, it's simply not worth the effort. Darker or lighter fur variations? I don't even think they considered adding that, it would be nice if we had them for lions and wolves, yeah, but it's not something they ever implied nor something I urge to have in the game. At the end of the day, most people will end up overlooking these traits because they aren't that relevant to gameplay.

What I'm trying to say is, it would be nice if they added some coat variations to some species, but dont demand it as if it was something they should have done before and calling them lazy for it. And the top notch is labelling the animals as robotic, Jesus, PZ is the game with the most realistic animals up to date, don't pretend it's worse than Zoo Tycoon 2, it's simply not true.

 

[paul78]

It’s not a game changer for me personally. Some variation would be nice but with so much going on in game already I would much rather have future dlc if I had to choose between the two. And agreed I used to play zt2 everyday even in modded form and sorry pz to zt2 is no comparison.

 

[Swjosdotschka]

Darker or lighter fur variations? I don't even think they considered adding that, it would be nice if we had them for lions and wolves, yeah, but it's not something they ever implied nor something I urge to have in the game.

It was visually ON SCREEN in the dev diary and it was talked about. If I see somethingvisually in promotion material of a game, while a programmer sits in front of a screen, it's not black magic that I come to the conclusion they will add shade variations. Plus as I said, my zebras are almost all clones (and not related), so I don't even see the variety with them and I watched them very closely already.

Source: Dev Diary "An authentic expierience, bench mark 1:27.

So this is no request but telling that something must be off, if it is not in the game. As I said, I would not be surprisedif it is a bug. However, with the lions, I haven't seen shades at all.

 

[Joël]

It was visually ON SCREEN in the dev diary and it was talked about. If I see somethingvisually in promotion material of a game, while a programmer sits in front of a screen, it's not black magic that I come to the conclusion they will add shade variations. Plus as I said, my zebras are almost all clones (and not related), so I don't even see the variety with them and I watched them very closely already.

View attachment 158742

Source: Dev Diary "An authentic expierience, bench mark 1:27.

So this is no request but telling that something must be off, if it is not in the game. As I said, I would not be surprisedif it is a bug. However, with the lions, I haven't seen shades at all.

Here's the link to that video, timestamped at 1:27: link.

 

[Narwhaler]

Yeah, there is a darker lion there, but it could also be that they just darkened a model so they could tell models apart when working on the fight animation, because you know, in that specific part they are only talking about the animations, not the looks. I won't blame you for thinking it, but it's most likely that they didn't mean that to show lions would have different tones.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

Any picture I see of wolves usually look pretty much the same with very little variation so it seems kind of spot on if there is not much difference

 

[LN]

Yeah, there is a darker lion there, but it could also be that they just darkened a model so they could tell models apart when working on the fight animation, because you know, in that specific part they are only talking about the animations, not the looks. I won't blame you for thinking it, but it's most likely that they didn't mean that to show lions would have different tones.

Might as well be one model with more light as in daytime and the other less light, as in sunset or sunrise.
Not sure if it works that way, such a design program.

 

[Swjosdotschka]

Wow, you guys should apply for the marketing section Those explanations are really a bit too stretchy for my taste and all support for frontier I have aside: Nope. Just nope. Color variation where mentioned several times (even if not exactly in that time stamp), if you have a model on the left and the right there probably won't be any confusion and SHADING the model would involve more work than nesseccary for the task. And no, looking at the tail and the mane and the shading there, lighting is no explanation for me. But well, lets agree to disagree. I am happy with a lot of the game, but I stand my point that this part is really a missing (and in my opinion promised) feature.

 

[Narwhaler]

Color variation where mentioned several times (even if not exactly in that time stamp)

Color variation isn't mentioned at any point of the video you linked. Like, not a single time. Let's just agree that coat variations for lions and wolves would be welcome if they add them in the future.

 

[LN]

Wow, you guys should apply for the marketing section Those explanations are really a bit too stretchy for my taste and all support for frontier I have aside: Nope. Just nope. Color variation where mentioned several times (even if not exactly in that time stamp), if you have a model on the left and the right there probably won't be any confusion and SHADING the model would involve more work than nesseccary for the task. And no, looking at the tail and the mane and the shading there, lighting is no explanation for me. But well, lets agree to disagree. I am happy with a lot of the game, but I stand my point that this part is really a missing (and in my opinion promised) feature.

Nah . Marketing is not my thing.

Numbers and administration is.

I'm not good at anything they do for this game. I'm glad others are that talented.

If they can fit in more variations that is perfectly fine for me.

 

[Grayyy]

Wow, you guys should apply for the marketing section Those explanations are really a bit too stretchy for my taste and all support for frontier I have aside: Nope. Just nope. Color variation where mentioned several times (even if not exactly in that time stamp), if you have a model on the left and the right there probably won't be any confusion and SHADING the model would involve more work than nesseccary for the task. And no, looking at the tail and the mane and the shading there, lighting is no explanation for me. But well, lets agree to disagree. I am happy with a lot of the game, but I stand my point that this part is really a missing (and in my opinion promised) feature.

Completely agreed, I'm perplexed that people are defending this. It's honestly a fact that certain things were advertised, but are not present in the game

 

[NL_Mutso]

If it was ingame footage, that would be a great point. But footage from the development stage, could just be a texture/lighting/animation test..

Coat variation, would love to see this but can't find anything mentioning/confirming that.
Pattern variation is in the game, but very limited and very subtle that it's barely noticeable.

You can't fully use the unique animal argument here, genetics make every animal unique (especially size)
But when you look at them in your enclosure, they don't 'feel' unique.

.In addition there is the fact of the dev post at the end of the beta,which said that these features were just turned off for the beta,but will be there at full release,which turned out to be not true

I think a lot of people asked this, where did they mentioned this?
I wouldn't call it defending but if people start using words as facts/advertised, it should be easy to find an actual confirmation for coat variations.
In November I searched for this a lot - except for the long streams - couldn't find anything.
It's not defending/attacking but i really think people are genuinly curious, where/how this was promised..

 

[Indoraptor27]

Completely agreed, I'm perplexed that people are defending this. It's honestly a fact that certain things were advertised, but are not present in the game

I have noticed that this thread has become extremely hostile and it sounds like people are getting very mad.
Edit: Completely misread your post.

 

[paul78]

For me I’d like to see some variation in shades of colors but I’ve always been non hostile about it. Either we get it or we don’t I’ll continue to love the game either way. One thing I would rather see in game that I’m kinda confused by is big cats don’t pick up the babies and move them around on occasion. And maybe a nursing behavior added. But like the variations it’s not the end of the world if we never get that. I don’t want to sound rude or ungrateful as I appreciate and thank all frontiers employees for bringing us the best zoo sim ever. At the end of the day this is a amazing game with tons of stuff to look forward to.

 

[Masteradstriker]

To all Zoo Tycoon 2 players or explayers:

Do all the animals in the roster have lots of variants/animal? No. There's only less than 30 species with distinct variants, even then they're limited to just color changes. Zebras only have three striped patterns, tigers only have a white skin, and here's a shocker: The wolves have NO variants whatsoever. They're just, well...gray! Neither did the giraffes have different spots, elephants and rhinos have varying tusk and horn sizes, caribou were just the same, and so forth. So in terms of variety, I think PZ is tad better than ZT2. How do I know all of this? I have the game installed in my laptop a few weeks back, and I'm playing it. Vanilla with no mod-content.

One question: When you guys go to a zoo or a safari park, do you really take a close inspection at the tigers or leopards to see that they have different markings? Unless you're a zoo staff or a scientist, I don't think anyone really cares about it.

Side note: This thing reminds me of a thread made by Garyd73 a few weeks back, stating that Planet Zoo is NOT Zoo Tycoon 2 or 3.

 

[JamieCA]

To all Zoo Tycoon 2 players or explayers:

Do all the animals in the roster have lots of variants/animal? No. There's only less than 30 species with distinct variants, even then they're limited to just color changes. Zebras only have three striped patterns, tigers only have a white skin, and here's a shocker: The wolves have NO variants whatsoever. They're just, well...gray! Neither did the giraffes have different spots, elephants and rhinos have varying tusk and horn sizes, caribou were just the same, and so forth. So in terms of variety, I think PZ is tad better than ZT2. How do I know all of this? I have the game installed in my laptop a few weeks back, and I'm playing it. Vanilla with no mod-content.

One question: When you guys go to a zoo or a safari park, do you really take a close inspection at the tigers or leopards to see that they have different markings? Unless you're a zoo staff or a scientist, I don't think anyone really cares about it.

Side note: This thing reminds me of a thread made by Garyd73 a few weeks back, stating that Planet Zoo is NOT Zoo Tycoon 2 or 3.

Leaving aside the rest of your posr, yes many people do spend a significant amount of time observing animals at zoos, especially people who are willing to drop a decent chunk of change on a zoo game. I have spent significant time watching primates at the San Deigo zoo ans birds closer to home. Their variations make them special!

 

[Moonfox]

One question: When you guys go to a zoo or a safari park, do you really take a close inspection at the tigers or leopards to see that they have different markings? Unless you're a zoo staff or a scientist, I don't think anyone really cares about it.

At my local zoo, I absolutely do look at stripe/spot/pattern to tell apart individual animals. If I’m visiting a new zoo, then I won’t. I can understand that spot/stripe pattern differentiation is not important to most players, and personally I’m not fussed about that sort of variation, however this is exactly the sort of variation that was indeed promised, advertised and demonstrated by Frontier when marketing Planet Zoo. For it to be predominantly absent in tigers and giraffes for example, is irritating.

The variations I do expect are in wolves (who should have at least five colour variations: grey, black, brown, blonde and red), Bengal tigers (typical orange, gold, white), reindeer (endless colour and marking combinations - at least four implemented in game), wild dogs (at least seven varied white or black patch overlays), lions (tawny, cream and white, as well as lighter/darker manes). As you point out, ZT2 had such variations in game, and that was almost 16 years ago.

I don’t expect literally every animal to be unique, or for every variation under the sun to be in this game, but I do expect the bare minimum of interesting coat variance in animals that noticeably lack it.

Edit to add: I’m not only using ZT2 to guide my expectations for Planet Zoo. While I’m mainly using their own marketing and descriptions, I’m also looking at the colour variants given in Jurassic World Evolution. Why don’t we have at least that much variation?

 

[JamieCA]

At my local zoo, I absolutely do look at stripe/spot/pattern to tell apart individual animals. If I’m visiting a new zoo, then I won’t. I can understand that spot/stripe pattern differentiation is not important to most players, and personally I’m not fussed about that sort of variation, however this is exactly the sort of variation that was indeed promised, advertised and demonstrated by Frontier when marketing Planet Zoo. For it to be predominantly absent in tigers and giraffes for example, is irritating.

The variations I do expect are in wolves (who should have at least five colour variations), tigers (typical orange, gold, white in bengals), reindeer (endless colour and marking combinations - at least four implemented in game), wild dogs (at least seven varied white or black patch overlays), lions (tawny, cream and white, as well as lighter/darker manes). As you point out, ZT2 had such variations in game, and that was almost 16 years ago.

I don’t expect literally every animal to be unique, or for every variation under the sun to be in this game, but I do expect the bare minimum of interesting coat variance in animals that noticeably lack it.

This!

 

[Swjosdotschka]

One question: When you guys go to a zoo or a safari park, do you really take a close inspection at the tigers or leopards to see that they have different markings? Unless you're a zoo staff or a scientist, I don't think anyone really cares about it.

It is always better people speak for theirselfs and for theirselfs only. I definately do spend enough time in front of a habitat with animals that live in a group to try and tell them apart. Does it always work from a distance? Of course not. But especially with lions and apes it does. Or indian elephants. And especially apes are actually quite easy, as they have way more differences than coat. If you want to learn something about animals in zoos, you have to tell them apart, by the way. Group behaviour would not be visible otherwise. If I go to a zoo,I easily spend the whole day there, just because I observe the animals a lot and not just walk by. If you observe, you'll see a coat differents in most animals.

Side note: This thing reminds me of a thread made by Garyd73 a few weeks back, stating that Planet Zoo is NOT Zoo Tycoon 2 or 3.

Yet you do compare while no one elese does in this topic, as far as I remember. But no, PZ isn't ZT2, luckily. Which it why it has to step things up a notch. Especially if individualism of each animal is such a huuuuge selling point. And again,almost no one here that is disappointed with the lack of feature is asking for a "new" feature but for one that was advertised. And in all honesty. looking at games that have skin variations on humans already, putting in a randomizer with different coats shouldn't be sience fiction. Unless now coat = body. Which would be quite weird, as the zebra quite definately has different coat models (just not really visible in my group obviously. I have two different coats from 7 unrelated zebras, as far as I remember).