Everything that I think can be improved with PZ in one document

[tigris115]

Now if I were to make a thread about what and what couldn't be improved with PZ, it'd be too damned long and I'd think of things later so I decided to pool everything into a Google Doc anyone can see and comment on.

What can be improved in Planet Zoo

So yeah, Planet Zoo. Pretty good game if I do say so myself. As someone who played Zoo Tycoon 2 religiously for the better part of 15 years, it’s really nice to have a modern, up-to-date version of the game that also has the limitless building potential of Planet Coaster. However, despite the gam...

docs.google.com

Highlights include...
Animal suggestions
More intuitive building of indoor exhibits
QoL upgrades
Fixing the greed driven economy

 

[Jellenart]

I’d add about hiding staff buildings, even if you completely disguise them the guests are still annoyed about seeing them. It takes away from the fun of building a zoo and having it laid out how you want when you have to keep the staff buildings so far away from anything. Having a line of sight or a ‘the more you decorate/conceal the less it bothers them’ thing. I spent ages building an Asian themed building to put the facilities in and they’re completely hidden from view and blend in with the environment wonderfully but the guests literally still “see” them and just leave.

 

[emdanhan]

This is very detailed and comprehensive. Thank you for taking the time to put this together. Aside from the above comment, the only other thing I think you missed is the innaccuracy of some of the animal behavoirs (ex: wolves still can't form proper packs).

 

[Crea_TivELA]

I’d add about hiding staff buildings, even if you completely disguise them the guests are still annoyed about seeing them. It takes away from the fun of building a zoo and having it laid out how you want when you have to keep the staff buildings so far away from anything. Having a line of sight or a ‘the more you decorate/conceal the less it bothers them’ thing. I spent ages building an Asian themed building to put the facilities in and they’re completely hidden from view and blend in with the environment wonderfully but the guests literally still “see” them and just leave.

Hmmm... while reading your post, I was thinking: "Do the vistors care much about scenery in the current version - like they did in Planet Coaster? Do they even recognize whether a building has been prepared with particular detail or whether only four walls without a roof have been raised?"

 

[NZFanatic]

There's a lot I disagree with, and a lot I agree with.

The life stages for animals is a bit iffy. "Teenager" is an abstract concept applied only by humans. In reality, the two main stages of any living thing are "sexually immature" and "sexually mature". I shouldn't have to explain what these mean.

Your animal list is seriously long and overboard, and a few examples are extremely localised. For instance, you gave the Sumatran tiger a "D" rating when it's the most common tiger in zoos in the southern hemisphere, especially Oceania.

Decorative fences should be placeable like building pieces, I think. I've observed that most players build viewing galleries and the like on a grid, so using the prop fences as "wall" pieces makes more sense logistically. This isn't Zoo Tycoon. I agree with being able to align barriers to grids, though, 100%.

The food/food enrichment debate is never ending. Personally enrichment ought to be prioritised. Ensuring animals are mentally stimulated is a huge part of animal management in zoos. The restrictions in a game make it hard to find balance, yes, but generally speaking in zoos all food is enrichment-based.

 

[Tatu]

We can multiselect animals from habitat menu and move them to quarentine at once, this can also be done from the zoo animals menu, not sure if you missed this in the game or you are talking about caretaker taking the animals one by one.

 

[tigris115]

We can multiselect animals from habitat menu and move them to quarentine at once, this can also be done from the zoo animals menu, not sure if you missed this in the game or you are talking about caretaker taking the animals one by one.

This cannot be done when animals are in the trade center. I may be doing something wrong tho

 

[tigris115]

There's a lot I disagree with, and a lot I agree with.

The life stages for animals is a bit iffy. "Teenager" is an abstract concept applied only by humans. In reality, the two main stages of any living thing are "sexually immature" and "sexually mature". I shouldn't have to explain what these mean.

Your animal list is seriously long and overboard, and a few examples are extremely localised. For instance, you gave the Sumatran tiger a "D" rating when it's the most common tiger in zoos in the southern hemisphere, especially Oceania.

Decorative fences should be placeable like building pieces, I think. I've observed that most players build viewing galleries and the like on a grid, so using the prop fences as "wall" pieces makes more sense logistically. This isn't Zoo Tycoon. I agree with being able to align barriers to grids, though, 100%.

The food/food enrichment debate is never ending. Personally enrichment ought to be prioritised. Ensuring animals are mentally stimulated is a huge part of animal management in zoos. The restrictions in a game make it hard to find balance, yes, but generally speaking in zoos all food is enrichment-based.

1. For the adolescent, I wanted to make the transition smoother. For babies, they'd be super attached to their mothers whereas juveniles wouldn't be because rn, babies are way too independent. Elderly is then the point where they're old like in the game
2. The reason the animal list is so exhaustive is that it contains every animal requested by friends and acquaintances. Then I put Sumatran in D because we already have 2 in-game tiger subspecies.
3. I'd at least like the option of decorative fences. Like for outdoor areas, place it like a barrier then indoors, use it as a piece.
4. Learned about why they prioritized and I understand it. Tho I don't understand why I have problems with starvations.

 

[NZFanatic]

1. For the adolescent, I wanted to make the transition smoother. For babies, they'd be super attached to their mothers whereas juveniles wouldn't be because rn, babies are way too independent. Elderly is then the point where they're old like in the game
2. The reason the animal list is so exhaustive is that it contains every animal requested by friends and acquaintances. Then I put Sumatran in D because we already have 2 in-game tiger subspecies.
3. I'd at least like the option of decorative fences. Like for outdoor areas, place it like a barrier then indoors, use it as a piece.
4. Learned about why they prioritized and I understand it. Tho I don't understand why I have problems with starvations.

When it comes to baby animals, personally I feel that it just needs to be more consistent. Some babies are very "babyish" and others are not. Also, I'm not sure if it's to do with the size gene being unbalanced, but sometimes it seems like some babies (wolves and tigers specifically so far) are nearly as big as their parents. Beyond pigment mutations, do we really need genes to be phenotypically visible in babies? I agree that the baby animals ought to behave more like baby animals, though, but I don't think adding another life stage is strictly necessary or important.

I understand why some of the animals are categorised as they are in your list, but I tend to look at it beyond the scope of what I want and into the scope of what is realistic. In terms of the tiger, while adding another subspecies might not be a priority, it would be an easy option for the devs since it will be another "copy/paste" animal. Ergo, logically it would be a good idea to add, since it wouldn't take a huge amount of resources to do so and it would add an animal that is both extremely endangered (far more so than either the Bengal or Siberian) and common in zoos. For the same reason I'd like to see, for example, the Asiatic lion, or the Rothschild's giraffe.

As for the fences, I already find aligning barriers to paths extremely tedious; trying to add a decorative fence would only make it worse, IMO. Another option could be to make path railings customisable (i.e. choose from a list) and add the decorative fencing to that instead.

 

[tigris115]

When it comes to baby animals, personally I feel that it just needs to be more consistent. Some babies are very "babyish" and others are not. Also, I'm not sure if it's to do with the size gene being unbalanced, but sometimes it seems like some babies (wolves and tigers specifically so far) are nearly as big as their parents. Beyond pigment mutations, do we really need genes to be phenotypically visible in babies? I agree that the baby animals ought to behave more like baby animals, though, but I don't think adding another life stage is strictly necessary or important.

I understand why some of the animals are categorised as they are in your list, but I tend to look at it beyond the scope of what I want and into the scope of what is realistic. In terms of the tiger, while adding another subspecies might not be a priority, it would be an easy option for the devs since it will be another "copy/paste" animal. Ergo, logically it would be a good idea to add, since it wouldn't take a huge amount of resources to do so and it would add an animal that is both extremely endangered (far more so than either the Bengal or Siberian) and common in zoos. For the same reason I'd like to see, for example, the Asiatic lion, or the Rothschild's giraffe.

As for the fences, I already find aligning barriers to paths extremely tedious; trying to add a decorative fence would only make it worse, IMO. Another option could be to make path railings customisable (i.e. choose from a list) and add the decorative fencing to that instead.

I like the railing idea. Much better for fencing. Also I see where you're coming from in terms of animals chosen. I would like to see subspecies but I feel much of the community wants visually different animals whereas unless free or cheap, subspecies would bring anger. And yes, the size gene needs to be changed. Also in terms of growth, I was aiming for something like what the indie game Prehistoric Kingdom is planning, a transitional growth of animals.

 

[NZFanatic]

I like the railing idea. Much better for fencing. Also I see where you're coming from in terms of animals chosen. I would like to see subspecies but I feel much of the community wants visually different animals whereas unless free or cheap, subspecies would bring anger. And yes, the size gene needs to be changed. Also in terms of growth, I was aiming for something like what the indie game Prehistoric Kingdom is planning, a transitional growth of animals.

In terms of animals, we ought to have both. Some subspecies are poster-children for conservation, after all.

As for the growth, The Sims devs struggled with that for decades. I believe the biggest obstacle is being able to have different stages of growth smoothly interact in separate animals, hence why there are "block" growths instead (size 1 > size 2 > size 3, so on). That way rather than having animate, for example, size 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, and so on, they can just animate 1, 2, 3, and 4, and how they interact with each other.

I'm not opposed to middling life stages by any means. In the initial reply, it was more the term "teenager" I objected to, as I always object to the anthropomorphisation of animals (it's bad for conservation). I, for one, would love to see a dozen tiny baby ostriches chasing after mum and dad, and watch them as they go through the awkward phase of losing their down for real feathers.

 

[Crea_TivELA]

Older animals could become more grey too... so we could visually see they are old.