I feel zero connection to my animals......because of the speed of the game and animal longevity

[Indiglow]

When I get the message that "animal X is about to have offspring" it means absolutely nothing to me. I have zero connection to any of my animals. Why would I want to spend a few seconds naming each of my animals if they will be dead within a day of game play due to old age? I have had HUNDREDS of different animals....dare I say over 1,000 and I couldn't tell you the name of a single animal.

This is not, in my opinion, what a ZOO simulation game should feel like. I should feel like my animals are something spectacular just like my guests do. When animal X dies, I should feel like my zoo just lost a piece of its history. Unless that animal is albino, I don't really care....because I don't have time to care.

Honestly, this is a big miss in the game. The time is way too fast. The time also pollutes the animal trading experience. People have SO many animals breeding left and right that they are selling animals for cheaper than what they would get if they just released them into the wild or quick traded them.

What's worse is I feel that the dev team isn't listening to people with this complaint. So many people have basically begged for a slower time on breeding/aging that it feels like it's fallen on deaf ears.

I'm just really disappointed with the whole experience. I feel more connected to my shops, facilities and rides than I do with my animals. Transformer break down? Wow, that's a major issue! Giraffe died? Oh well, I'll have 3 more to take their place in a matter of minutes.

 

[turkeyfox]

What's worse is I feel that the dev team isn't listening to people with this complaint. So many people have basically begged for a slower time on breeding/aging that it feels like it's fallen on deaf ears.

This is really the main issue. This is by far the most common complaint about Planet Zoo as a game, and fixing it wouldn't be easy but (assuming they won't be fixing it, which is what appears to be the case) they should at least have the guts to say "we are aware of how much this affects the player experience, but fixing it would be too difficult to balance between game speed, animal breeding rates, and animal longevity rates so we can't do anything about it".

 

[Jileha]

Would that really change dramatically with an only slightly slower speed? How can you even bond with every single one of your animals in Franchise or Challenge unless you only have very few habitats? And how can you bond so much more with your animals if they live only one, two or three hours longer in actual game time? Will that really make any difference?

Also, the more you bond with them, the sadder and more upset you will be when they eventually die. I am not sure that this is a good thing.

If you really want to bond with your animals, Sandbox is the only mode that will allow you to do so. They also will neever die if you want.

 

[EvolGrinZ]

I find this a problem too. I like it when building something and there is an emergency that I need to take care off immediately, but in a bigger zoo, all I am doing is releasing/trading animals, picking up dead bodies, stressing when fights break out as soon as the babies become adults. I don't like it that I need to pause the game if I want to do anything else.

 

[johandenver]

I was excited about this game but I've actually quit playing because of this. It feels like all I do is get rid of animals the whole time.

 

[Wolfen75]

Once the bugs are solved it will be a solid, fantastic looking zoo tycoon game i suppose.
But yea, it has nothing do to with the premise it was advertised as.

Its very much like in real life for most people, the animals are nothing but a cheap commodity.

 

[Bluefriend]

In my opinion, you're all exaggerating, you demand that a game meets the needs of each and every one of us. Only a product created by ourselves can be in everything and for everything we want, the developers have had an idea, now to please every single player is impossible, you must also be a little tolerant and still patient. I follow several forums and in many of them the developers do not even respond, Frontier on the contrary seems to me to have a good connection to the players, certainly can not always respond to each of our posts, especially when there are 10 equal posts. Let them work, Planet Zoo will surely improve, as it was with Planet Coaster.

 

[TheGaijin87]

In my opinion, you're all exaggerating, you demand that a game meets the needs of each and every one of us. Only a product created by ourselves can be in everything and for everything we want, the developers have had an idea, now to please every single player is impossible, you must also be a little tolerant and still patient. I follow several forums and in many of them the developers do not even respond, Frontier on the contrary seems to me to have a good connection to the players, certainly can not always respond to each of our posts, especially when there are 10 equal posts. Let them work, Planet Zoo will surely improve, as it was with Planet Coaster.

its not that a single person wants this. the majority does. and its not that this would in any kind be a disadvantage for anyone else cos faster game speeds are already included in the game. and its not exaggerated that i have to pause the game every minute for 3 to 5 minutes to check grown up animals, new born animals, problems with hunger and thirs t that are beyond reasonable and so on.
if you say its exaggerated means you either played just in a very small zoo or play it as a breeding simulator with your only goal to breed as many as fast as you can. thats up to you to do it. but you cant tell me that you care for your animals or that you have time to properly watch them or do anything thats not selling animals / releasing them permanently as soon as your park reaches a quarter of the area that is usable.

 

[FridaShines]

I've started to understand the people more and more who wants a slower time with the growth of my zoo. I feel like I can still connect with them at this point but it would of course make the connection even stronger and better for time to slow down a bit. Or at least have the option to change it in the setting.
Although I do not want to nag on Frontier about this, I know that they have read it and this is probably one of those bigger issues that they need more time for to look into and work on. Therefore I'm staying put. They've clearly showed they listen and take in the concerns from us players and I am very hopeful this is another concern they are taking seriously.

 

[Jileha]

Planet Zoo has something for everyone: If you primarily want to build a beautiful zoo, connect with your animals and don’t feel pressured by micromanagement, play Sandbox. It already gives you so many options to customize your game play, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Frontier adds a couple more. It’s perfect for building, creating really phantastic habitats and keeping your animals alive forever. No worries, just enjoy the beauty of your zoo.

If you like some more challenges, play Challenge mode. If you want to experience a management game that just happens to be a zoo, to its fullest, play Franchise with its free top- and bottomless market. You just have to pick what you like to play. But you cannot have everything in one and the same mode as some of the features are mutually exclusive.

If you feel ocerrun by tasks in Franchise, don’t let animals that live in larger groups such as gazelles, lemurs, peacocks, etc. breed freely. Select one breeding pair for each species or don’t let them breed at all to keep things from getting out of hand. But in order to get CCs for Franchise, you need to breed and release/sell - one of the main premises of that mode. And the name ”Franchise” speaks for itself: Your primary task is running a business, which just happens to be a zoo.

All management games are hands-on, multi-tasking experiences that also include some levels of stress as you are constantly working to keep everything balanced. That’s the nature of the beast. And the better you are in managing it all, the less stress you have. And the more you play, the better you will get at keeping things under control.

I personally enjoy Franchise mode a lot, but for relaxation and building a beautiful zoo I also started a Sandbox game. But I love a challenge - which will be to build a beautiful zoo also in Franchise mode. Having accumulated a fair amount of CC will make that a lot easier. I just started a new Franchise game yesterday and it’s a lot of fun since I can apply everything I learned since my first zoos. And if I wait a long enough time before adding more animals, I even have a lot of time to connect to my animals while the money keeps rolling in and my staff finishes all the research to allow more beautiful building. A lot of the stress in Franchise is caused by the way you play the game.

 

[Monsarona]

I've started renaming all of my animals when I get them and when they are born. I feel that naming something is the best way to build a connection to them. I feel more connection to Barry my grizzly bear than I do to insert auto-generated name here zebra. This compounded with sometimes I will have one litter of babies with 2 of them having the exact same generated name.

 

[xesta]

the unfortunate thing is the animals could live forever and each one be unique and beautiful but as long as the game has an economy that is player based, with animals that have higher rarity, with animals that have specific stats that effect gameplay, you will NEVER form a bond with the animals you have. they immediately become nothing more than currency. this zebra here? worth 5000cc. she becomes 5000cc. I don't care about her being a baby because it's in my way of selling her and getting the cc. I don't care about her parents except for how much of an investment they are and boy they better give me good quality babies or I'll be mad! they're breeding machines at that point? in the end I want habitats less for how much I love that kind of animal, but so I can breed them to death and make money

time is defo an issue, for sure. I feel like it could help, but at the same time it will never go away. by design, this will never change

 

[TheGaijin87]

i sure did have a better connection to my turtles who live 5 to 10 times as long as most animals. my bongos or antelopes though? dont care a single bit. they are gone so fast i dont give a .

 

[Jileha]

the unfortunate thing is the animals could live forever and each one be unique and beautiful but as long as the game has an economy that is player based, with animals that have higher rarity, with animals that have specific stats that effect gameplay, you will NEVER form a bond with the animals you have. they immediately become nothing more than currency. this zebra here? worth 5000cc. she becomes 5000cc. I don't care about her being a baby because it's in my way of selling her and getting the cc. I don't care about her parents except for how much of an investment they are and boy they better give me good quality babies or I'll be mad! they're breeding machines at that point? in the end I want habitats less for how much I love that kind of animal, but so I can breed them to death and make money

time is defo an issue, for sure. I feel like it could help, but at the same time it will never go away. by design, this will never change

That’s why there is Sandbox, where you have unlimited money and CC. Why is everybody complaining about Franchise, but apparently not playing Sandbox, which would fulfill all their wishes?

 

[Indiglow]

That’s why there is Sandbox, where you have unlimited money and CC. Why is everybody complaining about Franchise, but apparently not playing Sandbox, which would fulfill all their wishes?

Simple: Because I want to have money constraints to see if my zoo is profitable. With zero money constraints then things like ticket price, shop price, food price, ride price mean absolute squat.

 

[Moonfox]

I agree with this. In zoo tycoon 2, animals lived for a long time and had colour variations - I could watch from above or up close and know “Hey, there’s Nala”. Births were exciting, baby animals were bonded to and dependant on their mothers, and deaths were sad when I had had that particular animal for so long.

In Planet Zoo, time goes waaaaaay too fast, babies spew out every twenty seconds, they act nothing like babies, I’m too focussed on them just aging up so I can sell them for CC. Then adults die super fast and I don’t notice or know them - they only walk around anyway, no personality or individualism.

It’s all fixable, but only if Frontier work on it, which I’m sure they will, but we really need some feedback here. It feels like we’re yelling to the wind.

 

[Cocolori]

I agree with this. In zoo tycoon 2, animals lived for a long time and had colour variations - I could watch from above or up close and know “Hey, there’s Nala”.

I gotta say i had the opposite problem I'm zoo tycoon. I never finished the campaign because it took so long to do anything as the game was so slow and I became resentful of the two antelope and tortoises I had because they were the only thing I had to look at.

I'm not saying they shouldn't look at the time issue but they do have to cater to those of us who are more goal orientated as well.

Also for those of you asking for frontier to respond I can tell you from experience that they won't unless they have a) decided what they are going to do and usuallt b) have some kind of timeline for when it might happen. If they weren't thinking of changing it they would say so. So this is actually good news because it means they are considering how to address it.

I know people find this comms strategy frustrating and want acknowledgement but it is just not the way frontier do things. All I can say is that for planet coaster I think we eventually got pretty much all we asked for (with the one exception I guess on pathing). If they can address it they will

 

[Charmmy Colour]

I love the challenge in career and challenge mode, the idea of the online market and overall, I want to lose money. I DON’T want my animals living forever, that’s just weird and unrealistic and takes out the fun for me.

But I also want to bond with them, hang out with them, I want to rename them in peace because I they will not die in the next couple hours. I want to feel these animals are individuals, living creatures that I’m caring for, not numbers.

Zoo Tycoon gave me both. Planet Zoo is only giving me the former. And the main difference it’s obviously the time speed.

Man, I miss ZT2 campaign mode, it was by far my favorite thing on the world...(although I think the game shouldn’t be as slow as ZT2 because some mechanics are different, but something on the middle).

 

[Crea_TivELA]

This is really the main issue. This is by far the most common complaint about Planet Zoo as a game, and fixing it wouldn't be easy but (assuming they won't be fixing it, which is what appears to be the case) they should at least have the guts to say "we are aware of how much this affects the player experience, but fixing it would be too difficult to balance between game speed, animal breeding rates, and animal longevity rates so we can't do anything about it".

Hey you two (and all others) ... in a stream on 13th Nov. from PlanetZoo Bo replied in the chat to that question and she wrote, that Frontier is looking into the time issue right now and that she can't tell more about it yet. Have some patience please, because changing the base time is probably a big change for them - I'm sure we will hear more to that, when they made decisions.

Probably they add more options to the time, eigther with more arrows or like other games do it (Sims).

So the people who like it like it is won't loose anything... as much as Frontier knows that there are many people who want slower time, they know too that many people are happy with it like it is right now - so they will find a way to make the expirience good for us all.

And before someone again replies that we "slower ones" will have less animals (like in other threads) I'll tell you now that this is not right. Yes it will take longer, but it's still the same amount of animals. The only thing that's right is, that we will earn money and CC slower, but we are fine with it, even with slower research... it's another way to play we favoritize.

Sandbox is no option when you want to be part of the community, the challenges and want to manage your zoo with money/CC, animal and guest happyness...

Sandbox mode is something you can be creativ about, try out things and you don't need to care about anything... your idea is like: "okay, you don't like the time right now - go and play the half game in sandbox and you will be fine"... it's not that easy clearly not.

 

[TigerRoar]

Would that really change dramatically with an only slightly slower speed? How can you even bond with every single one of your animals in Franchise or Challenge unless you only have very few habitats? And how can you bond so much more with your animals if they live only one, two or three hours longer in actual game time? Will that really make any difference?

Also, the more you bond with them, the sadder and more upset you will be when they eventually die. I am not sure that this is a good thing.

If you really want to bond with your animals, Sandbox is the only mode that will allow you to do so. They also will neever die if you want.

It would absolutely make a difference.

On sandbox mode, I do believe (correct me if I'm wrong!) if you turn on immortality, the animals don't breed, it just shuts it off. I'd like to have more time with my animals while still having animals born in my zoo. I don't want to have to choose, do I want baby animals,generations ect or do I want the lion I've gotten attached to, to be able to live forever?

In franchise mode, sure things might be a little more hectic, but I'm sure people still visit their favorite animal from time to time.

I'd love for frontier to add a significantly slower pace to the game, and if people like the pace that it's at now, well then you can have that too, the game allows you to speed up time.