Huge constructive feedback thread

[tioeduardo27]

After playing for the whole week, I decided I am done with the game in its current state. I love it, but it's basically a game that fights against me so I don't do what I actually want to do.
Before anything else, I'd like to state somethings:

• I understand the Scientist system, with the action points representing human workforce and having them rest simulating the needs of each one. However, that system is not good and seems to only cause an increase in the micromanagement requirements and makes playing the game more tiring than fun. I want to look at my park and dinosaurs, not at the many windows the game forces me to look at.
• I understand the Dominance system, making us breed the Alpha and the Betas of each species. However, the system is counter intuitive to the systems you implemented in JWE2. In JWE1, where we breeded one dinosaur a time, it made a whole lot of sense if you were to breed them as it would take a different configuration each time. When we breed more than one dinosaur at a time, and we select the genomes for the whole batch at once, you are forced to breed at least two times for each dinosaur, so you can select different modifiers in the genomes. That implies in utilizing more money and time, and translates to being less fun as well.
• I am not a sandbox-andy who wants everything unlocked from the start. In JWE1, for instance, my favorite game mode was the campaign, which had you slowly go from park to park researching new dinos and dinosaurs and going back to old parks to upgrade them.

After that, I want to link the first feedback I posted on Reddit after playing for many hours in the launch day. Now, many hours later, I wouldn't change a thing I said.

https://www.reddit.com/r/jurassicworldevo/comments/qquiv4

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/jurassicworldevo/comments/qquiv4/jwe2_feels_like_jwe_not_in_a_good_way/


But, as I said in the beginning of this post, I am done with the game as it currently is. Whenever you reach the ~2,5 stars and ~50 dinosaurs mark at every park, the game stops being about building a park (adding dinosaurs, building and starts) and becomes a micromanagement clicker, bringing the park to a halt (spending all your money to cure/heal dinosaurs, not having money to breed new dinosaurs before a storm comes and makes you stop gaining money, etc)

Don't get me wrong, the game is fun, but with - in my opinion - many wrong design decisions and that, together with the many bugs currently ingame, adds to the frustration and makes the game not fun at all. Therefore, I came up with a list of suggestions/feedback/criticism and this will be my last comment on the game until we receive any news on patches and upgrades.

NEEDS URGENT FIXES

• Make screens them OVERLAYS which don't pause the game!!!;
• Rework SOCIAL trait not to have dominance
• Add DOMINANT/SUBSERVIENT trait;
• Reduce probability of Major injuries so the "endgame" of the park isn't CONSTANTLY healing the same dinosaurs over and over again;
• Overall, reduce quantity of Clicks to do almost everything ingame;
• Rebalance Interior Modules and Guest Interests so not everything wants Aquarium/Ice Cream/etc;
• Rebalance costs for almost everything but scientists salaries;

BUGS

• Frozen dinosaurs who don't eat nor drink;
• Vehicle collision;
• Vehicle pathing AI;
• Security Rating in map view being completely crazy;

QOL SUGGESTIONS:

• Hold Tab to see map icons such as Injured, Dead in the overworld (not only when close to the dinosaur)
• M opens Map, Shift+M opens Vehicles Map, Ctrl+M opens Dinosaur Maps
• Toggle for Buildings to attach to road angle;
• Different colored helipads for each building to help differentiate where to click (I know there's the hotkey)

STORM PROTECTION BUILDINGS

• Port them from JWE1
• Remove upgrades that replaced this functionality

RESCUE TEAM HELICOPTER
- Automatically Tranq any injured dinosaur they see while patroling;

VET UNITS

• Assign Vet Units to Ranger Posts and they will Heal any dino in range IF a Ranger has performed a Status Check;
• Vet Units can also Tranq. and are the ones responsible to move SMALL dinosaurs (so if they scan one and detect a major injury, they automatically tranq it and move it to the Facility);

PALEO-MEDICAL FACILITY

• Add the Cargo Helicopter to it, they will be the ones who move MEDIUM and LARGE animals around, instead of appearing/disappearing out of nowhere (like Expedition helicopters in the first game);
• Automatically moves dinosaurs back to where they were taken to be healed;
• ADDITIONAL IDEA: Add a range surrounding the facility and if any dinosaur dies in range they will automatically remove the corpses;

VIEWING GALLERIES AND PLATFORMS
- Automatically Check status of any dinosaurs in range, encouraging park builders to maximize Visibility;

ENCLOSURES:

• Add diversity by adding Cameras attachments to the fences, who will also do Status check
• New system: temperature, adding Sprinklers or Heaters to keep dinosaurs healthy during heat periods or snowstorms;

HATCHERIES:

• Add a Info button when dinosaur is ready for incubation which shows up a summary of important information: Dinosaur Needs, Likes/Dislikes, Territory Needs, Environmental Needs, Cohabitation preferences;
• Queue more than one AIRLIFT release!;
• Randomize skins. It's amazing to have 6 new dinosaurs released at once... but not if they look the same!

SCIENTIST SYSTEM:

• Assign "Chief Officers" for each one of the areas;
• Chief Operations Officer - defines max quantities of ground vehicles per building (1 vehicle every 5 Logistics);
• Chief Expeditioneer - defines max level of Expeditions you can do. Maybe also add a bonus to quantity/quality of the fossils found
• Chief Paleontologist - defines max level of Extraction Slots you have available. Maybe also adds a bonus to the % they will add;
• Chief Medical Officers - defines times it takes for healing dinosaurs;
• Assistant scientists - the ones you want average stats for, they will automatically add their stats to the other operations

NEW BUILDINGS/SYSTEMS

• Helicopter Hangar which provides "helicopter units" to the buildings in game. Maximum helicopter is defined by Logistics of Chief Operations Officer (5 Cargo helicopters/2 Rescue helicopters per 5 Logistics);
• If FUELING is something too important to the game, create a new Deposit building which connects to the Arrival Point and keeps the stations fueled up (and with enough food)
• ROAD paths for vehicles separate from Walkable Paths, adding to the challenge of designing the park;
• Bridges and Viewing platforms for paths, also adding to park design possibilities;

MAP UI:
- Add color indicators to the dinosaur icons (ie Yellow for

DETAILING FOR BETTER IMMERSION

GATE:
- Not open by proximity, change the AI to only open when the vehicles will actually use it;

FEEDERS
- Add variety of animals to be Prey, and add to the feeding mechanic dinosaurs, like Pigs (who will make dinosaurs fatter (unfit modifier) and Chicken (fit modifier).

GUEST ATTRACTIONS
- Different sizes for more customization in parks;

GUESTS
- Visual improvements for guests;

DINOSAURS
- Add variety of height and weight.

 

[Aramus418]

BACKUP GENERATORS actually make a lot of sense to me. You start with a temp genny while you get established and build a proper grid. This is how it happens in real life and I don't think I've seen a game nail it like JWE2 did. They also, as the name implies, make excelent backups to keep key facilities running when those nasty storms knock out the usual grid. The storms aren't so bad when a genny keeps the fences and the response center running.

SCIENTISTS I think was actually executed pretty well. Some of the cost of late game things are a bit high, but that's a balance issue, not a problem with the scientist system itself. One thing I want to point out is why two-stage hatching makes sense: synthesizing needs a geneticist to fertilize the eggs with dino dna, then a veteranarian incubates and cares for young dinos into the adulthood when they can be released. What I do agree with you a little on is the resting system: if you don't use a guy for a while, they should slowly be losing stress naturally. I think it would make more sense if scientist provided some passive buff to the park, which suspends while their put on rest and justifies rest because even when theyre not on an active project it implies their still at work somewhere/somehow.

INJURIES is another cool feature that's growing on me the more I play. In my experience, if you take the 15-20 minutes to focus on the pack social dynamics you can fix the "constantly fighting and getting hurt" that a lot of people complain about. I would prefer if more inter-herd/pack dominance matches resulted more often in minor injuries that an MVU can handle, but the main problem is that the game will punish you with one feature (overwhelmed med-bay) if you neglect another (pack dynamics). When things got most challenging for me was a bad storm (yes, storms in JWE2 break more than just buildings now) on JP chaos when 4-5 dinosaurs ended up badly injured at once by the storm and I was scrambling to keep their health up while they waited their turn on the tennis court. But it only got that bad once; there was another time on San Diego that a sandstorm injured as many but they were all minor and the MVU patched them right up.

REQUESTS:
-More decorations
-customizations of gallery/platform/tours to appeal to different guests (i.e. a carnivore gallery/platform pull more adventurers than nature, luxury tours / nature tours)
-I really think they need a business chopper skin for the entrance, a cargo helo skin for expeditions, and a park services skin for response and small dino transport. JP era using the utility chopper skin for the guest entrance and expedition chopper, while JW uses Masrani's personal chopper skin for the whole utility fleet bugs me.
-fix tour gates so rangers/MVU can use tour gates again.
-vehicle ai pathfinding, especially rangers routing around MVU parking and vise versa.
-vehicle roads (place like paths, dirt or paved options, with or without gyro tour lights, connect to gate and can build gates in fences like placing a tour route).

 

[tioeduardo27]

BACKUP GENERATORS actually make a lot of sense to me. You start with a temp genny while you get established and build a proper grid. This is how it happens in real life and I don't think I've seen a game nail it like JWE2 did. They also, as the name implies, make excelent backups to keep key facilities running when those nasty storms knock out the usual grid. The storms aren't so bad when a genny keeps the fences and the response center running.

Yeah, I know how they work and don't disagree with you they make sense. They currently serve the purpose the old Storm protection buildings had in JWE1. They just feel weird by being the default unlock and if everyone in every park has to instantly research the "normal" power station before they even start building anything, does it add to the game system?

SCIENTISTS I think was actually executed pretty well. Some of the cost of late game things are a bit high, but that's a balance issue, not a problem with the scientist system itself. One thing I want to point out is why two-stage hatching makes sense: synthesizing needs a geneticist to fertilize the eggs with dino dna, then a veteranarian incubates and cares for young dinos into the adulthood when they can be released. What I do agree with you a little on is the resting system: if you don't use a guy for a while, they should slowly be losing stress naturally. I think it would make more sense if scientist provided some passive buff to the park, which suspends while their put on rest and justifies rest because even when theyre not on an active project it implies their still at work somewhere/somehow.

I'd rather no resting system at all. I understand how it works, but again: if the correct option is to order 4 tasks then open the window and click Rest, without no gains from actually straining the scientists, does it add to the gameplay or just feels like a chore and unnecessary mechanic?

INJURIES is another cool feature that's growing on me the more I play. In my experience, if you take the 15-20 minutes to focus on the pack social dynamics you can fix the "constantly fighting and getting hurt" that a lot of people complain about. I would prefer if more inter-herd/pack dominance matches resulted more often in minor injuries that an MVU can handle, but the main problem is that the game will punish you with one feature (overwhelmed med-bay) if you neglect another (pack dynamics). When things got most challenging for me was a bad storm (yes, storms in JWE2 break more than just buildings now) on JP chaos when 4-5 dinosaurs ended up badly injured at once by the storm and I was scrambling to keep their health up while they waited their turn on the tennis court. But it only got that bad once; there was another time on San Diego that a sandstorm injured as many but they were all minor and the MVU patched them right up.

15-20 minutes to establish the Alpha/Betas of every species every hour in a park that you can have about 40 different species. If you do math (I won't do precisely) but you can see that you stay more than half your time playing the game having to "manage" dominant species, either by the boring healing process or by modifying genomes (and waiting for synthesis/incubation. Again, doesn't add to the fun, only adds micromanagement.

REQUESTS:
-More decorations
-customizations of gallery/platform/tours to appeal to different guests (i.e. a carnivore gallery/platform pull more adventurers than nature, luxury tours / nature tours)
-I really think they need a business chopper skin for the entrance, a cargo helo skin for expeditions, and a park services skin for response and small dino transport. JP era using the utility chopper skin for the guest entrance and expedition chopper, while JW uses Masrani's personal chopper skin for the whole utility fleet bugs me.
-fix tour gates so rangers/MVU can use tour gates again.
-vehicle ai pathfinding, especially rangers routing around MVU parking and vise versa.
-vehicle roads (place like paths, dirt or paved options, with or without gyro tour lights, connect to gate and can build gates in fences like placing a tour route).

Agreed 100%.

 

[Aramus418]

Yeah, I know how they work and don't disagree with you they make sense. They currently serve the purpose the old Storm protection buildings had in JWE1. They just feel weird by being the default unlock and if everyone in every park has to instantly research the "normal" power station before they even start building anything, does it add to the game system?


I'd rather no resting system at all. I understand how it works, but again: if the correct option is to order 4 tasks then open the window and click Rest, without no gains from actually straining the scientists, does it add to the gameplay or just feels like a chore and unnecessary mechanic?


15-20 minutes to establish the Alpha/Betas of every species every hour in a park that you can have about 40 different species. If you do math (I won't do precisely) but you can see that you stay more than half your time playing the game having to "manage" dominant species, either by the boring healing process or by modifying genomes (and waiting for synthesis/incubation. Again, doesn't add to the fun, only adds micromanagement.


Agreed 100%.

Power: Frankly I think the gameplay loop makes better sense, and to the extent we can say it replaces storm defense stations it’s certainly more realistic to have a hurricane genny than a magic radar dome that makes buildings take less damage through the power of friendship or whatever they were supposed to be doing.

Resting: I don’t think it’s repetitive, I think it’s part of the ongoing puzzle of managing brain power resources (log, dna, med).

Packs: But it’ll never add up like that because it’s only a handful of problem species and I never said 15-20 for every species: if you’re taking 20 minutes to sort out every species you deserve your trouble cause more than half these animals never fight anyway. In my experience it was 15-20 tops for one species (mostly cause genetics were a puzzle to get the right traits to express) and a few others needed sorting out that was done in the next batch.

 

[Persianking44]

I feel like the Likes and Dislikes for the animals needs to be slightly reworked. It's kind of ridiculous that species that not only lived alongside one another, but in some cases probably worked together when feeding (I imagine many species of the icythosaurs and plesiosaurs would have either cooperated or at least heavily tolerated one another when rounding up massive schools of fish not unlike dolphins and seabirds, or rays and sailfish, etc., etc.) seem to actively dislike one another and/or outright attack each other in the game for no reason.

 

[VioletGrey]

This game could be incredible, but it feels unfinished. I pretty much agree with the O.P. on most everything.
The dinosaurs themselves are amazing, though.

 

[Persianking44]

I forgot to mention, I think the Guests Amenity needs are a little too finicky. I understand now how they work best, i.e. it's best to plant them in front of an attraction, but even then it doesn't make sense to me how guests will all of a sudden disappear without warning even if there's an attraction nearby.

If anything, I think that having Claire, Isaac, or even Cabot pop up to tell us how some of the shops are doing, which shops are seeing fewer and fewer guests of a certain demographic, and so on, would be a nice way of the game warning players "Hey, you might want to move or delete this shop!" without the players having to constantly keep an eye on them.

 

[Raptoid021]

The thing I'd like to add is reducing forest requirements for dinosaurs, or increasing the tree/percent ratio, or something. I find them to be ridiculous most of the time. A giant enclosure, far past what the dinosaurs need for happiness is often 3/4 filled with trees making most of the exhibit completely unviewable for players or guests, which punishes players since you often can't see an injured dino or retrieve them, and reduces their attraction rating for guests since they're often not spotted in the forest.

Everything in OP's post seems to be well thought out suggestions. I'm not entirely decided what they should balance challenge around after a few months of patches, I have to say I don't inherently dislike the scientists and medical mechanics, but they do need a major rework as they fight each other all the time(both the mechanics and dinosaurs). I don't even dislike the management micro in theory, but sickness and stuff is just sometimes too much. without multiple bays, on top of scientist wait times, on top of needing to check their status, which just adds multiple layers of needless wait time and micro when the MVU doesn't bother to heal an injured dino it has just checked. I guess you're just supposed to quarantine first but the maps are so small I'm working with limited space most of the time.

I forgot to mention, I think the Guests Amenity needs are a little too finicky. I understand now how they work best, i.e. it's best to plant them in front of an attraction, but even then it doesn't make sense to me how guests will all of a sudden disappear without warning even if there's an attraction nearby.

Yea I'm not sure this is the greatest mechanic, I feel like money is too heavily dependent on amenities at the moment instead of actual dinosaur attractions/mechanics. As of now, this feels way overpowered while everything else but maybe tranqing/capturing dinosaurs feels underpowered. I know you need to adjust the modules to make it so they're just past the bars for each type of guest, but I feel like a better mechanic could be put in place here, like adjusting ticket and attraction prices while maybe nerfing income, it would feel a bit more like managing a park in my opinion.

As for some stuff down the line, after all the balance changes I'd make park guest deaths far more damaging to really keep you on your feet in case of containment break, add large delays to people coming back, maybe forcing you to downsize before you upsize again to stay in the green for profit, or add an optional toggle for this challenge or something. I like the park management aspects, I just wish the challenge was directed to other areas other than endless injury/sickness micro.

The game needed a little more time in the oven, I'm thinking of closing my eyes for 6-8 months and hoping to come back to an amazing game, as of now, it's playable but has some underlying problems. It feels like the game is fighting you for every step you take, just not in a good way. Hopefully they rebalance the challenge to areas that make more sense? I'm not entirely how I would do it yet either, but here's to hoping for bug fixing and healing/MVU stuff first.

 

[Persianking44]

Pack hunting should also be reworked in a way that the dromeosaurids will only take down certain dinosaurs if there is a bare minimum of a certain number of hunters involved.

For example:

For the larger theropods, hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, and ankylosaurs, the minimum should be 4 or more raptors.
For the smaller theropods, hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, ankylosaurs, and sauropods (Amargasaurus and Nigersaurus) 3 or more would work.
And for Struthiomimus, Galli, and Archeo, any number of raptors would suffice.

And as for Brachiosaurus, Mamenchi, Camarasaurus, Apatosaurus, and Dreadnoughtus, they should be basically invincible as far as anything smaller than Indominus, T-rex, Acrocanthosaurus, Spinosaurus, Giganotosaurus or Carcaradontosaurus are concerned.

 

[Amikuq]

Very well written critique thread. I agree with you on everything, and I too am done with the game as it currently is. Thank you for summarizing all the problems and giving solutions to them all so well.

 

[Persianking44]

Storms are also a little unfairly punishing in Chaos Theory and since you have no other form of income besides the shops and guests, and just about doing anything in the game is incredibly expensive, it's incredibly infuriating that a sudden tornado and absolutely wreck your park and you will not be able to recover from it.

 

[tioeduardo27]

The game needed a little more time in the oven, I'm thinking of closing my eyes for 6-8 months and hoping to come back to an amazing game, as of now, it's playable but has some underlying problems. It feels like the game is fighting you for every step you take, just not in a good way. Hopefully they rebalance the challenge to areas that make more sense? I'm not entirely how I would do it yet either, but here's to hoping for bug fixing and healing/MVU stuff first.

That's what I'm hoping for. For now, I bought Timberborn and have been having the most fun of my life since I ditched JWE2. It's a "city-builder" game, with the same micromanaging windows aspect of JWE2, but the mechanics ADD to the possibilities of increasing your city, instead of fighting against you doing that.

Very well written critique thread. I agree with you on everything, and I too am done with the game as it currently is. Thank you for summarizing all the problems and giving solutions to them all so well.

Thank you! Sometimes I get too heated when discussing game design (it's one of my Majors) and lose the point in my critiques (ie my rants in modern WoW), but for JWE2 I decided to sit down with a coffee and try to type everything as politely as possible. I've had some other ideas to improve on the game, but will wait for ANY update to the system before installing it again and checking if the ideas would "fit in". (like, what about adding modules to the viewing galleries that add the funcionalities of ranger posts (assigning rangers to check-up dinos).

 

[Jens Erik]

Thank you for the feedback @tioeduardo27. I will relay it to the developers.

 

[Slowpokeking]

I, too, think the medical system needs to be better, especially let the MVU not to return after scanning if we do nothing, but try to medicate the dinos.

Also the research needs to be balanced, some high end ones are too costly and not that useful.

Building upgrade shouldn't cost for each building.

 

[tioeduardo27]

Thank you for the feedback @tioeduardo27. I will relay it to the developers.

Thank you so much for actually taking the time to read and reply. It restores a little bit of the hope I have for this game!
Hopefully I wasn't too toxic in the way I communicated in this thread.

I will be playing Planet Zoo and Planet Tycoon for the foreseeable future (until Endwalker releases) while we wait for new info!