*FIX* for Micro-Management

[Ragnar Odinsyn]

Hey everybody, I hope everyone is have a great time with Planet Zoo.

I would like to start by saying this is a very thoroughly made game for how early it was released.

I see a lot of complaints in the community about how the game is always played in pause mode, and after reading a few reviews and playing for a few hundred hours, I'd like to put my two bits in.

A lot of suggestions are to slow the time scaling, which in reality, leaves the same amount of micro-management (animals mature slower, die slower, juveniles stay young longer)
While this is a great theory, it doesn't change the amount of management throughout the same lifetime of the zoo, simply means you are waiting to breed longer, the above, and does not address the interactiveness of the game.

A correct fix to this would be to focus on the core of all the management issues on a larger zoo scale, then scaling it to make it playable on smaller starting zoos, to ensure they are not boring to play.

Giving staff the options at certain "training levels" to take on additional responsibilities.
Example.

Caretakers can see when a habitat is threatened by too many of one species, overcrowding/incorrect sex ratio.
These caretakers are now able to remove or isolate the issue by boxing a random animal of the correct ratio/sex.
Having animals in a box too long is bad, but the caretakers can only identify if there are too many of a certain sex/species. These are the animals caretaker, they know how old they are can also identify age. Read your Zoopedia, then set a slider for age priority removal/boxing.

The veterinarians, however, after completing research, are able to identify the said species reproductivity, fertility, and other baseline stats.
A high enough level of research and a veterinarian with enough "training levels" would be able to identify the animals set to slider options.

Having a certain facility, "Conservation Research Center", or something that doesn't sound too silly, that allows for at least two staff members, Vet/Caretaker to work here allows them at high enough "training" and "research" to box animals according to set sliders on age/sex, and size, longevity, fertility, immunity stats. This also allows for the creating of work zones to be implemented.

The reason this would be the "better" fix when compared to timescale is it allows the management to be learned from a base lower level zoo, but helps the burden of "pause menu playing" at larger scales, and makes the management optional to use.

Thank you for reading, and if anyone agrees with me please help to relay this to the correct people, as I'm sure everyone enjoys this game just as much as I do, but the pause menu playing is very tedious.

Ragnar

 

[Kolikokoli]

What I don't care about while playing:

• animal management and care
• staff management and care
• guests management and care

What I look for:

• animals to reproduce, but maybe select a number of max. animals in the habitat and automatically sell oldest animals (or animals with worst stats) above that number - similar to your boxing, but if they box the animal, you have to sell it by yourself anyway, better to just sell it automatically, or at leat move it to trade center.
• not really care about staff at all (automatically educate them, automatically get them highest possible wage)
• guests are kinda alright now

What I really play for:

• animal life circle
• to my Zoo to look pretty

So I don't quite understand how more management can produce less management. For example having to train staff to be able to unlock sliders, too OP for franchise, but to annoying for sandbox (should be allowed from the start).

 

[Ragnar Odinsyn]

@Kolikokoli
By unlocking the management buildings and resources, it would allow for less microplay and more of enjoying the game.

By studying and training staff on how to take on more responsibility, it in turn would more for them to manage and less for you. I do not understand how this does not make quality of life from a micromanaging aspect apparent.

After all, this is a type of management simulator, in the skin of a zoo franchise, so how doesn't giving staff more management options produce less management for the player.

 

[Kolikokoli]

@Kolikokoli
By unlocking the management buildings and resources, it would allow for less microplay and more of enjoying the game.

By studying and training staff on how to take on more responsibility, it in turn would more for them to manage and less for you. I do not understand how this does not make quality of life from a micromanaging aspect apparent.

After all, this is a type of management simulator, in the skin of a zoo franchise, so how doesn't giving staff more management options produce less management for the player.

I was talking more about the process of unlocking and studying/training staff. These should be maxed and unlock from the start.
But yes, adding more responsibility to staff would be great. Somebody here once mentioned "head staff member" that would do staff micromanagement for you, that sounded really interesting and similar to yours.