This is my first post in this subreddit, so I hope I won't be underlining commonplaces, but in anticipation for the sequel I thought I might give my two cents on why I thought JWE was a decent, but not great game. I also played and spent many hours on Operation Genesis as a kid, so I was particularly excited for this game.
My number one grievances with the game is: It's one-sided, non-nuanced penalties.
What I mean by this is following: Short on one tree? The dinosaurs go for the fences. Short on one single dinosaur in the herbivore pack? Going straight for the fences. Just one dinosaur too much in the enclosure? You guessed it, dinosaurs go straight for them fences. Those connoisseur reptiles notice every little detail and they're not having it.
This is so utterly frustrating and immersion breaking. If only one dinosaur, not even a carnivore, would escape just once your park would be closed and sued out of their last pair of socks. Also: What kind of security team sat in their team meeting and after a while of productive brainstorming came to following conclusion: Yes, we will build these fences to keep the dinosaurs within the enclosure, since the safety of our guests is our main priority - That is until the dinosaurs just don't feel like staying in there no more, then all bets are off.
I get that if you put a Tyrannosaurus Rex in an encounter that is surrounded with the lightest, little fence that it can escape if it wants to do so, that's a managing mistake on your part, but I literally had raptors shoulder tackle their way through brick walls with given time. That doesn't make any sense. You build fences to keep the animals inside and for every dinosaur there should be fences they just can not break. Period. The dinosaurs in the movies also only escaped because of sabotage, not because they were disgruntled and wouldn't have it anymore.
This creates an atmosphere of constant agitation. The bigger my park got, the more micromanagement I naturally had to do, but with the omnipresent pistol at the back at my head that in case of failure my dinosaurs would go guns a blazin at my fences yet again and most likely ruin my safe file. At a certain point I felt like I didn't even have time to breathe or just watch my park an awe, because I had to meet the needs of all of my hyper aggressive dinosaurs.
Why does every mistake have to met with this extreme penalty? Here is a list of more reasonable penalties that are still penetrating, but don't create the same kind of constant anxiety:
- Dissatisfied dinosaurs are more inclined to get sick
- Dissatisfied dinosaurs have a shorter life expectancy
- Dissatisfied dinosaurs refuse to eat or procreate (If that would be thing)
- Dissatisfied dinosaurs suffer from a lethargy-state (Predominantly non-active, just lie around and that causes them to lose attraction percentage in your park rating)
- Dissatisfied dinosaurs antagonize or even attack other dinosaurs in the enclosure
- Dissatisfied dinosaurs attack the jeeps
- Visibly dissatisfied dinosaurs will bring in complaints from customers and diminish your park rating
I don't know if they are going to do something about this in the sequel, but I can only hope so, because this was without a doubt the number one thing that diminished my enjoyment of the game.
