So having played for over 30 hours and completing most things I wanted to share my thoughts with the devs:
First of all it is considerably better than the first installment regarding park mangament, exactly what I wanted. All in all it is a pretty enjoyable park builder, BUT:
First of all it is considerably better than the first installment regarding park mangament, exactly what I wanted. All in all it is a pretty enjoyable park builder, BUT:
- The managament aspects need a bit of balancing. Scientists for example should loose stress over time when not assigned to tasks for a certain period. It's really tedious to send them on a week off every 4-5 tasks basically. But in general the scientists mechanic is a much needed addition management wise IMHO. Although a personal wish would be a button to re-roll my recruitment roster.
- Customization options regarding placeable decorations are kinda bland and more options would have been great. Guest gimmicks like info tablets, small terrariums for prehistoric plants, insects etc. are examples for what could have been. Zoo Tycoon and Planet Zoo have a plethora of options, some could have benefitted the game. Also why are things like signposts limited to certain maps/modes? Why can't I use my beloved T-Rex sign post in challenge mode parks? It would have been great if this era restriction would have been abandoned, it was already annoying in JWE.
- Basically same with attractions/tours and era relation in challenge mode. I want my nostalgia dreams in challenge mode, too... please.
- Raft tours, balloon tours (even the OG JPOG had that one and it was lovely) etc. would have been a nice addition. I kinda missed a bit of innovation in that department.
- The path finding for vehicles (vets and rangers) is atrocious. I am sure this will be fixed, but please do it soon.
- JWE 2 really needs a custom game/more options for sandbox (research, digs, money etc). A map generator, or more maps in general are also much needed. It is quite boring to have only 8 maps. Although I appreciate the design for the current maps especially for the Canyon map, it was quite enyoable to play and experiment on layout wise.
- Please bring back individually paceable trees like JWE had.
- Costs for research/digs and also dig yields need a serious rebalance. I understand that "late game content" should come with an appropriate price, but some things are just ridiculous. I spent 4.000.000 (4 runs) on digs just to get 40% of a Tsintaosaur genome with the higher yield upgrade, while getting 60% from the first run.
- Fossils/Gold etc should be sellable without paying the 50k for extraction. In JWE I always had some in store to save my miscalculating a in case I plummeted into debt during a storm which can happen easily in this game. Now that's impossible.