Disappointed with lack of coat variation in wolves

TobiDaDog

T
I say wolves specifically because I've noticed it the most in them. I was very excited when I learned that each animal would be slightly different, and I squinted at my wolves for ages trying to find any subtle coat differences in them. There is none. They are all carbon copies of one another. I would be happy if there were at least different shades of the same color.

Also, I was surprised to find that when you have an albino animal, your guests don't comment on it! Just a 'whoa that bear is white!' would be AMAZING.
 

Indoraptor27

Indoraptor27
Grayyy said:
Yeah, they aren't actually different from each other. The whole ''each animal is unique'' selling-point isn't something that's actually in the game. Guests commenting on albino animals would be a nice feature too.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it was advertised to the point where they said "each zebra will have its own stripe pattern" or something. Now, most animals are just copies and the mythical zebra just has eight skins that are almost identical. Even just eight wolf skins would be nice. There could be the normal one, a white one, a black one, a brownish one, a reddish one, and some with a mix of patterns.
 

Swjosdotschka

Swjosdotschka
Yes. As much as I love Frontier, the team and the game, it still bugs me that the game was advertised with different coat patterns (also with lions in the dev diary) and we don't have them. I was looking forward to breed for darker fur lions. And no, it wasn't only advertised for the zebras, but for all animals. And in the timber wolfs it's especially noticeable that the game is lagging on this feature, as there is a huge coat variety in real life among wolves. So to be honest, a true word on when and if the feature will be implemented (and why it doesn't have for release) would be very much appreciated.
 
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Kai

Kai
Sadly, this topic of coat variations has been brought up multiple times - still no dev response that I've seen. It's a disgrace that the ZT2 modders did a better job.

Annoys me greatly and is one of the main reasons I'm very disinclined to buy their DLC (reindeer/sheep are just as bad as the wolves).
 

Indoraptor27

Indoraptor27
Kai said:
Sadly, this topic of coat variations has been brought up multiple times - still no dev response that I've seen. It's a disgrace that the ZT2 modders did a better job.

Annoys me greatly and is one of the main reasons I'm very disinclined to buy their DLC (reindeer/sheep are just as bad as the wolves).
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Coat variation is really bad. How hard is it to add an animal, that is an actual reskin, with no new noises, animations, or behaviors? Something as simple as making ligher or darker manes on lions would make so many players very happy. If reindeer had some coat varieties, so many people (including me) who hadn't purchased the DLC would buy it. Rant over.
 
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Khaidu

Khaidu
Indoraptor27 said:
Coat variation is really bad. How hard is it to add an animal, that is an actual reskin, with no new noises, animations, or behaviors? Something as simpler as making ligher or darker manes on lions would make so many players very happy. If reindeer had some coat varieties, so many people (including me) who hadn't purchased the DLC would buy it. Rant over.
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From my experience, if they painted it in substance painter with mask/fill layers, not hard at all, you could spend 10-15 minutes making a re-colour and bake it.

If they painted it without using mask layers, depending on the complexity of the shade it can be between 15 mins to 7 hours for a skin. But if you spend 6 hours doing the above, you can do all the other colour variants in 10-15 minutes.

If you are painting complex patterns where the stripes or spots vary, 1-14 hours depending on how complex it is. The longest I spent on making a complex skin with spots was 28 hours, but that was because I painted both side of the model without mirror on as the base model's UV was uneven on both sides.

Considering these would be coat colours that match existing animal coats, you wouldn't need to do a concept of each skin shade and instead just use photography as reference.

here is an example of masks being used to make a fully customiseable skin and the final shades (model copyright to The Isle)
 

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Mkau

M
Frontier still needs to make an official statement regarding colour variations/uniqueness,overall animal behavior/social interactions and group sizes.
Most of the well made posts regarding the whole animal topics are already burried under all the other new posts/issues.
They had another opportunity with the generic reindeer,which they didn't use,too.Adult Reindeer and reindeer calves can be different shades of brown,black,gray,white,isabelline (blond/cream) full body,all of those colours mixed (e.g. only black|white or black|gray|white),then add different markings too (e.g. face markings,white patch on one leg,while others are full black) - and now imagine what they could have done with the reindeer antlers,it's really disappointing to see literally no difference.Just to name a few antler type suggestions: big and thick (especially for older males) thin,broken,broken tips,straight,curved,symmetric,asymmetric etc.
If Wildlife Park 3 and Zoo Tycoon 2 modders could make all of those things happen,then I think that Frontier could do it a lot better for sure - but I'm slowly starting to fear that Frontier wants to charge us for different 'animal skins' (e.g. JWE Raptor Skin Pack),which would be totally unacceptable,because those features were advertised to be and should be in the full game.
 

VioletGrey

VioletGrey
I haven't noticed any variation with the coat colors at all except for scars and the occasional albino/leucistic. I agree that the way they were marketing the game made it sound like there would be at least a few more variations in coat colors/patterns.

If they make leopards or jaguars and don't include the melanistic versions, I will be very disappointed.
 

NL_Mutso

NL_Mutso
With the game-breaking bugs/performance issues a lot of people are still encountering, i'd rather have them focus on that.
I just read a comment about someone who had a corrupted save game with their 500hours zoo..

Don't get me wrong, i'd really like a lot more coat variations. But I don't think it's a big deal compared to other issues.
But if they increase the variation of coat/skin patterns, they need to do all animals at the same time.

Bo Marit said:
Animal patterns are unique (as mentioned in the E3 Gameplay Demo) and also determined by genetics; for example a baby Zebra's stripe pattern will be determined by what its parents look like.
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This was posted on 11th July 2019.
 

Swjosdotschka

Swjosdotschka
NL_Mutso said:
With the game-breaking bugs/performance issues a lot of people are still encountering, i'd rather have them focus on that.
I just read a comment about someone who had a corrupted save game with their 500hours zoo..

Don't get me wrong, i'd really like a lot more coat variations. But I don't think it's a big deal compared to other issues.
But if they increase the variation of coat/skin patterns, they need to do all animals at the same time.



This was posted on 11th July 2019.
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Well, the thing is, we are not requesting a new feature here but something that was advertsed for being in the base game. Something we payed for. If it was a new feature I'd agree.

However, I am pretty sure Frontierhas different teams working on the game and there is probably a "bug" team and a "new feature" team and a "tweaks" team and something like that. I don't think anything ew will take away from the bug fixing thing. SometimesI wonder though, if the coat patterns really aren't included or if the gamejust do not show them yet. It took very long until they find out why the freakin' peafowl wouldn't show off their feathers, even though the feature was in game.

As I said, I think on this topic a statement would be appreciated and is actually needed. Even if it doesn't take away the support I have for Frontier these days away for me, I understandif it does for others. Silence is never a good idea when topics are brought up regularly.
 

Indoraptor27

Indoraptor27
Not only would charging for skins be unfair in general, but it would also ruin the market, because players who bought those skins would begin breeding them en masse. Meanwhile, players who refused to pay for something they were expecting would have less options buy from.
 

NL_Mutso

NL_Mutso
I'm aware that this feature was announced before release.
We all know, that the game wasn't fully ready at release.

Like I said, I'd love the see more variations with all animals but the game is still playable without it.
When you lose a large portion of your progress in 2 months, that's an unplayable issue and most likely (rage)-quit the game after that.

I know for some people this is a major missing feature and I consider this an minor missing feature. So I have a different view about this.
I do understand your POV, I had the same with the family tree.

Charging for skins would be a horrible idea, i don't think that would happen.
 

Indoraptor27

Indoraptor27
NL_Mutso said:
I'm aware that this feature was announced before release.
We all know, that the game wasn't fully ready at release.

Like I said, I'd love the see more variations with all animals but the game is still playable without it.
When you lose a large portion of your progress in 2 months, that's an unplayable issue and most likely (rage)-quit the game after that.

I know for some people this is a major missing feature and I consider this an minor missing feature. So I have a different view about this.
I do understand your POV, I had the same with the family tree.

Charging for skins would be a horrible idea, i don't think that would happen.
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You do make some very valid points, however I have never heard of anyone having issues this severe before. This being the first I'm hearing of it, I'd assume it's pretty rare. I also think Frontier probably has a bug fixing team that is separate. Finally, I doubt they would stop all development anyway and just start fixing bugs. Frontier has always added things based on player feedback alongside bug fixes.
 

Swjosdotschka

Swjosdotschka
Yes, there are people with servere bugs. But there are also looots and lots of players who have very few bugs or none at all. For them, fixing bugs is not on their priority list and to keep them playing, there have to be updates as well. That's why I definately think @Indoraptor27 is right and Frontier definately has several teams working on different aspects of the game. Drawing ALL of them away of what they are currently doing and let them just work on bugs would not be a wise idea.

Keep in mind that players who have little problems with the game are usually less vocal on forums. Because well,why should they bother if everything runs well? I feel sorry for all players who lost their zoo due to this horrible bug and I hope it will never happen to me. But I never heard anyone having this bug outside the forum. And as far as I know it only happens to franchise zoos, doesn't it? That's not whatI would call "makingthe game unplayable".
 
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