What is this about ?
This is not about Sandbox, nor is it about content. This is about game mechanics and game design in Franchise mode on the "default" difficulty.
Specifically, this is about the management of animal populations in habitats. What I mean by the "management of animal populations" is the need for the player to regularly visit habitats to manually manage the number of animals and prevent inbreeding.
What is the problem with Franchise and animal management ?
Right now in Franchise, if I build a habitat for two Bengal Tigers, to be efficient I know that I will need to:This is not about Sandbox, nor is it about content. This is about game mechanics and game design in Franchise mode on the "default" difficulty.
Specifically, this is about the management of animal populations in habitats. What I mean by the "management of animal populations" is the need for the player to regularly visit habitats to manually manage the number of animals and prevent inbreeding.
What is the problem with Franchise and animal management ?
(i) keep track of when the two Tigers will become sterile;
(ii) in the last batch of cubs before this happens, check the genetics of all animals to see which one has the best genes;
(iii) browse the animal market to identify a best match;
(iv) release / purchase accordingly.
This is not a one time thing, it must happen every few hours, as families need to refreshed again and again. Rinse and repeat for every habitat, thankfully with some slight variance according to the animal's preference in terms of family structure, the worst animals being those who tolerate only one couple per habitat (annoyingly, these are the best ones in my opinion).
My feedback on this aspect of the game
Planet Zoo is marketed as a creative game but also as a game involving "Meaningful Management" (this is from the Steam Page).
I think it is fairly safe to say that, in Planet Zoo, we create systems (habitats, guest facilities, staff facilities etc...), balance out their costs and benefits and, through game knowledge, efficient planning and smart implementation, ultimately get a profitable zoo. My opinion is that this is the best part of Planet Zoo as a "management game". I also believe that "Meaningful Management" should not include repetitive tasks that require little to no thinking (creative or otherwise). In short, for me "good" game design in a management game means making the player think a little. "Bad" game design means having the player do a task that is necessary for efficiency, but requires no thinking at all.
Unfortunately, this is precisely what the current animal management system does:
(i) browsing menus and sub-menus to select the animal with the best genes does not only take time, it requires no critical or creative thinking at all. The same comment applies to finding a match for the animal(s) you keep in the marketplace.
(ii) There is no tangible reward beyond meaningless sliders being in the green if you comply with the system, but there is a significant penalty if you do not (fighting and unhappy animals);
(iii) generally speaking, at least for me, there is no fun or engaging interaction throughout the process.
Ultimately, all this does is prevent me from doing the things I would rather be doing: expending my Zoo, coming up with new designs or simply looking at my animals.
How can we improve this ? Introducing the the Gene-Curing-Animal-Management-or whatever-you-want-to-call-it-Center
I do not like the slider to slow down aging. It also slows down the rate at which you obtain an essential currency: Conservation Credits. It also does not change the fact that there will be a moment when a Zoo reaches critical mass and you need to do this too often.
I've seen suggestions on the forums to fix this by giving players the option of automating the process. This would be my preferred solution, although I have no idea whether this could be implemented from a technical standpoint.
In my dreams, we have the option of placing a new Staff Facility: the Gene-Curing-Animal-Management-or whatever-you-want-to-call-it-Center, where X-number of Vets are assigned to run around habitats and replace sterile animals with younger ones. These younger animals would have similar genes as those generated by Frontier on the marketplace and "refresh" the animals in habitats automatically. This seems extremely complicated to implement, but it would actually be a "Meaningful Management" option, because there would be a cost to to the Center, and it would fit well within the other game systems (negative impact on guests, electricy etc...). I have no idea if this is realistic, but I think this would be so good.
Another way to fix this would be to give us the option of turning off inbreeding, or possibly moving it from the "default" to the "hardcore" difficulty. In the original Zoo Tycoon, for animal management, we only came back to habitats to sell a bunch of animals indiscriminately in a few clicks. The matter was sorted in seconds, instead of spending minutes through menus and sub-menus like in Planet Zoo. I also think this would not be too bad, and it would be much easier to achieve from a technical perspective.
The issue with any suggestion is that it would affect the people who breed animals to look for the best genes, and completely change the current landscape of the marketplace. I honestly cannot conceive why someone would enjoy breeding animals for stats, but obviously there are people who do, because I keep seeing albino animals with perfect stats for 10k CC on the marketplace.
Why I still think a change is needed
At this point of game development, I want to invite the community to consider this question: should we keep the animal management system as it is (and in doing so cater to the people who enjoy gene curing) or should we change it to meet the expectations of people who find this regular shuffling through menus tedious ?
In addition to everything, I really think that automating the animal management tasks would make the marketplace a healthier and better system. Players would have more time to interact with the trade center if they did not have to manually manage animal populations and there would be more animals with average or above average stats in every zoo because a lot of players would ignore genetics and let the automated system handle things. Instead of having a few animals with perfect stats at 10k and then Frontier's at reasonable prices, this could be the basis for a new marketplace with way more animals with reasonable stats at reasonable prices.
What do you think about this ?
This has been my opinion on the topic. I would really like to hear from other members of the community and see whether I am the only who feels with way.
Thank you Frontier
I want to end this post by saying that I think Frontier has been, and is still doing, an amazing job. Every concern I had with the game has been addressed (even this one to some extent) over the years. There is always more to do (I would not say no to more map skirts
), but I believe you can be very proud of the product you created. I already said this and will say it again, even if I could not play, I would still buy your DLC to support the game and see where you can take it. If you are reading Frontier, thank you for treating your community with respect.Upvote the Gene-Curing-Animal-Management-or whatever-you-want-to-call-it-Center.
