It's 2022, fix your pathing already.

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

If there's something in your game that needs a mod to be fixed and many people suggest that mod as being essential, I'd say that's a game design issue.
My issue isn't needing to learn to use the tool. It's that learning requires you to delete things in order to be able to place something, just to have to build it again later.
No other game does this and that makes Planet Zoo unique in a terrible way because it's the only game where working with paths makes you want to slam your head against a wall repeatedly.

That is: redundant, tedious, a waste of the player's time, something that can be fixed (FreeBuild's creator did it) and annoying.
The devs could fix it because someone already has but won't and that is bad management as well
Games will never improve as long as people accept badly designed systems and don't demand a change happens.

Sir, your talking about redoing the path as if it takes time and effort, which it doesnt.
You can make a path, delete it, terraform and make a new path in seconds. Its neither a time sink or hard.

 

[CISAC]

I wouldnt say im an apologist when its literally a thing you just need to get used to.
Sorry to say that, but even building games have a skill curve and the pathing in Planet Zoo, while not perfect, is literally just something to get good at using.
It comes with time and experience in the game and i promise you for most things its more then just fine, as its actually pretty good.
Is it annoying for newbies including me when i started out?
Sure but its really not a big deal, you just need to learn how to use it.
There are far bigger issues in the game that need fixing, like basically everything management related, while the pathing mostly just needs some more bug fixes, that it is activly getting.
Somebody else allready said it, but the only bigger changes that should be added are 2m paths and null paths, even though i would argue that the natural paths allready kind of fill that role.
And even the 2m paths arnt without issues, because the Guests and staff will propaply have problems navigating in that restructed space which props is the reason why it isnt here in the first place

Today I learned that having to delete things just to be able to place things and then needing to place the things you deleted once again is a learning curve.
You'd think a learning curve would be learning how to use the pathing system to make elevated viewing areas or good-looking loops but nope, apparently it's learning to delete all your hard work because the game said so and eventually needing to do things twice for them to work.

Paths should be able to merge with each other and it's completely wrong to say this isn't the case.
No other game does pathing like this and why do you think this is? Because this system is inherently bad and things being able to merge gives you a lot more options for building.

 

[CISAC]

Sir, your talking about redoing the path as if it takes time and effort, which it doesnt.
You can make a path, delete it, terraform and make a new path in seconds. Its neither a time sink or hard.

It takes time and effort when attempting to recreate your path doesn't work anymore for some reason so you need to change it and it just looks ugly.
Did you not see the first picture on my post?
And please don't tell me again it was the Flatten Terrain or the Angle Snap options because I disabled and enabled everything multiple times to no avail.
The pathing in this game is so inconsistent that I had to spend 1 hour figuring out how I'd be able to rebuild the curves and straight paths I had before because they just refused to connect the way they had previously connected for no real reason when nothing about the area near that specific piece of path changed and the only thing that did was me having to rebuild the entire thing to be able to place my habitat.

So yeah, by deleting my previous path, I was then unable to remake it the way it was previously because logic.
Great game design, once again.

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

Hard work?
Your literally only putting down a path. The moment when putting down a path, work that takes seconds to do and not even close to what for example a custom fence needs, not even talking about any more complex build or detailing.
Of all things in the game, the paths are by far the least time consuming parts to do and in most cases the error is in the settings made for placing paths.
When multiple people just say "oh you just delete the piece and turn setting xy of" after you showed your pictures, something that takes about 10 seconds to do, maybe longer if you need to search for it, is not a sign of a broken system, but one that works as intended with you just not knowing what your doing.
This is not meant to be rude, but when the issue can be summed up as that you seem to be doing something wrong and blame the game for it, then what else should be said?
Max 2 months and paths will be a no brainer to you, i would love to give advise, but you dont seem to want any and just to complain.
Which is fine, you do you, but it doesnt make the path system any more or less just a thing that you need to get used to and learn how to use.
If you want to use mods to change that, go ahead but this is nothing cryptic or strange or bad designed.
You know whats bad game design?
That we rely on basicly an exploit to make underwater tunnels. Thats something i would love to see get implemented in a more user friendly mannor, but i also understand if it isnt, because theres a way to do it that works.
So yeah, have fun with the paths, i have nothing to add to this thread anymore

 

[CISAC]

Hard work?
Your literally only putting down a path. The moment when putting down a path, work that takes seconds to do and not even close to what for example a custom fence needs, not even talking about any more complex build or detailing.
Of all things in the game, the paths are by far the least time consuming parts to do and in most cases the error is in the settings made for placing paths.
When multiple people just say "oh you just delete the piece and turn setting xy of" after you showed your pictures, something that takes about 10 seconds to do, maybe longer if you need to search for it, is not a sign of a broken system, but one that works as intended with you just not knowing what your doing.
This is not meant to be rude, but when the issue can be summed up as that you seem to be doing something wrong and blame the game for it, then what else should be said?
Max 2 months and paths will be a no brainer to you, i would love to give advise, but you dont seem to want any and just to complain.
Which is fine, you do you, but it doesnt make the path system any more or less just a thing that you need to get used to and learn how to use.
If you want to use mods to change that, go ahead but this is nothing cryptic or strange or bad designed.
You know whats bad game design?
That we rely on basicly an exploit to make underwater tunnels. Thats something i would love to see get implemented in a more user friendly mannor, but i also understand if it isnt, because theres a way to do it that works.
So yeah, have fun with the paths, i have nothing to add to this thread anymore

I had an entire plaza designed around that path that broke when I had to delete it and replace it.
You clearly didn't see what it looked like before so I'd appreciate it if you didn't dismiss my work as "what hard work?", It just makes you look bad.
I already told you that none of the solutions people suggested worked for me.
Did you really think I would have tried for 10 seconds and then would have made a long post about it?
I tried for 1 hour or 2, I looked up videos, threads, everything.
Nothing I did worked, so I made the post.
Multiple people have had problems with the pathing system before and if you choose to ignore it and say we need to get used to it when so many people complain and that clearly makes it an issue, you're part of the problem and the reason it doesn't get fixed.

 

[shirandhak]

What nearly ruined the game for me when I first played it, wasn't the pathing system, but that Frontier does nealy everything in a different way than any other game I know (including pathing). I can tell you, I had a very, very steep learning curve (but first I bashed my table, cried a little, took some days off to cool down and then started watching youtube tutorials about building in planet zoo (again many thanks to all those very nice youtubers, who did (or do) those tutorials (you are great!). And then I tried again. And again. And again. And it happened that it worked! If you haven't played planet coaster before, then planet zoo is a very complicated game and it doesn't come easy. But once you get the hang of it, it's the best game ever! And they won't "fix" the pathing, because it is not broken, but doing as it should. It is complicated for beginners, but not broken - that's the difference. It is quite normal, that you have to delete things sometimes, which took hours to build. That's life! Yes, multiple people have problems with the pathing system - but they'll learn (if they want to). Multiple people have problems with maths or with university or with getting used to driving a car. Nobody is going to "fix" that. It is just a matter of practice and the intention to learn.

Edit: Look at the pathing system as something like a "boss"-level. How many times (and hours of gameplay) have you to restart your level to get the boss down?

 

[NZFanatic]

because this is an apologist community

That's a politically loaded phrase to use.

You do realise we're discussing a video game, right?

 

[CISAC]

That's a politically loaded phrase to use.

You do realise we're discussing a video game, right?

It's only politically loaded if you want it to be. I, for one, don't care about politics and used the definition of the word.
You're the one bringing politics up.

I have seen many game communities that excuse the developers not wanting to do better with phrases like "get used to it" or "that would be too difficult to implement" and this seems to be one of them.
That, to me, is what apologist is. "A person who offers an argument in defence of something controversial".
These forums are for giving suggestions on how to improve the game and that's what we are doing, because we feel this aspect of the game could definitely be better and we know it can because FreeBuild exists.
But why should the community need to rely on a single person who made a mod for something the developers could do and implement into the game themselves, especially when said mod gets broken when a new update is released?
Let's just keep adding new animals and not fix the issues our game has, that's sure to bring in lots of new customers!

This thread was made by and for people who don't like the pathing system, which is something that can be considered controversial, to voice their concerns.
No one asked for other people who are fine with it to come here and tell us to "get used to it".
You're not helping. You're only telling the developers that nothing is wrong with their game and nothing needs to be fixed when there is very clearly a group of people trying to voice their concerns about this issue.
Look at how many people say they can't play the game without this mod here: https://www.nexusmods.com/planetzoo/mods/656?tab=posts

I'd think that companies nowadays wouldn't want to be like Bethesda and have fans fix their game for them but it seems not.
Many people don't like the pathing system and you coming here and acting like the FromSoftware community telling people to "git gud" is not going to change that.
It's a flawed system no matter how much you choose to ignore this because you've gotten used to it.

What nearly ruined the game for me when I first played it, wasn't the pathing system, but that Frontier does nealy everything in a different way than any other game I know (including pathing). I can tell you, I had a very, very steep learning curve (but first I bashed my table, cried a little, took some days off to cool down and then started watching youtube tutorials about building in planet zoo (again many thanks to all those very nice youtubers, who did (or do) those tutorials (you are great!). And then I tried again. And again. And again. And it happened that it worked! If you haven't played planet coaster before, then planet zoo is a very complicated game and it doesn't come easy. But once you get the hang of it, it's the best game ever! And they won't "fix" the pathing, because it is not broken, but doing as it should. It is complicated for beginners, but not broken - that's the difference. It is quite normal, that you have to delete things sometimes, which took hours to build. That's life! Yes, multiple people have problems with the pathing system - but they'll learn (if they want to). Multiple people have problems with maths or with university or with getting used to driving a car. Nobody is going to "fix" that. It is just a matter of practice and the intention to learn.

Edit: Look at the pathing system as something like a "boss"-level. How many times (and hours of gameplay) have you to restart your level to get the boss down?

"The pathing system isn't broken"
"It's not an issue"

Let me present to you:

I'm sure ignoring all this feedback is doing great things for Frontier and their sales/current number of active players...
Oh, wait, we can actually see if it is:

Looks like ignoring the players has had a great effect.
The game doesn't even have 25% of the players it had back when people complained.
Wonder why.

If you even need to compare a system in a video game to a boss fight, you know that it's badly made.
Players shouldn't wrestle against mechanics unless that's the game's intention (like Dark Souls does) and I am pretty certain the developers didn't intend for players to have to wrestle against their pathing system and if they have, boy do they need to learn what good UX is like.

 

[Northpin]

It's only politically loaded if you want it to be. I, for one, don't care about politics and used the definition of the word.
You're the one bringing politics up.

I have seen many game communities that excuse the developers not wanting to do better with phrases like "get used to it" or "that would be too difficult to implement" and this seems to be one of them.
That, to me, is what apologist is. "A person who offers an argument in defence of something controversial".
These forums are for giving suggestions on how to improve the game and that's what we are doing, because we feel this aspect of the game could definitely be better and we know it can because FreeBuild exists.
But why should the community need to rely on a single person who made a mod for something the developers could do and implement into the game themselves, especially when said mod gets broken when a new update is released?
Let's just keep adding new animals and not fix the issues our game has, that's sure to bring in lots of new customers!

This thread was made by and for people who don't like the pathing system, which is something that can be considered controversial, to voice their concerns.
No one asked for other people who are fine with it to come here and tell us to "get used to it".
You're not helping. You're only telling the developers that nothing is wrong with their game and nothing needs to be fixed when there is very clearly a group of people trying to voice their concerns about this issue.
Look at how many people say they can't play the game without this mod here: https://www.nexusmods.com/planetzoo/mods/656?tab=posts

I'd think that companies nowadays wouldn't want to be like Bethesda and have fans fix their game for them but it seems not.
Many people don't like the pathing system and you coming here and acting like the FromSoftware community telling people to "git gud" is not going to change that.
It's a flawed system no matter how much you choose to ignore this because you've gotten used to it.



"The pathing system isn't broken"
"It's not an issue"

Let me present to you:
View attachment 304028
View attachment 304029
View attachment 304030

I'm sure ignoring all this feedback is doing great things for Frontier and their sales/current number of active players...
Oh, wait, we can actually see if it is:
View attachment 304033
Looks like ignoring the players has had a great effect.
The game doesn't even have 25% of the players it had back when people complained.
Wonder why.

If you even need to compare a system in a video game to a boss fight, you know that it's badly made.
Players shouldn't wrestle against mechanics unless that's the game's intention (like Dark Souls does) and I am pretty certain the developers didn't intend for players to have to wrestle against their pathing system and if they have, boy do they need to learn what good UX is like.

Looks pretty stable to me and i see no signs of something broken
However, as been pointed out, it does have a really steep learning curve and this might put some people off.


89% all time positive reviews and 90% recent positive reviews on Steam is really impressive (out of almost 50,000 reviews), while showing the game is improving

 

[shirandhak]

It's not about wrestling, but about spending time to get better. - But never mind

 

[CISAC]

It's not about wrestling, but about spending time to get better. - But never mind

So in a game about managing one or multiple zoos, the one thing players need to spend time to get better at is the pathing system?
When it should be one of the simplest things to make and often is one of the first things game developers make when making a game like this?

Again, I don't see how this isn't clear but when multiple people in the forums complain about the pathing system, it's because it could and should be better.
And why isn't it? Because people will dismiss complaints about it with a "it's a learning curve, you gotta learn to delete things just to build them again later!".

That sounds ridiculous to me and I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks like this.

Looks pretty stable to me and i see no signs of something broken
However, as been pointed out, it does have a really steep learning curve and this might put some people off.


89% all time positive reviews and 90% recent positive reviews on Steam is really impressive (out of almost 50,000 reviews), while showing the game is improving

View attachment 304035

When you want to see if a game is good, you should look at the negative reviews and not the positive ones because more often than not the positive reviews consists of "omg this is the best game in the world, get it!!!" while the negative reviews actually point out the issues.

But of course the positive reviews blow the negative ones out of the water, right?



Even the positive reviews acknowledge the pathing system is frustrating so I really don't understand how you can stand there telling me it's not.

The game is not improving, the animals keep getting stuck inside places in their habitats because they can't fit through 4m gaps.
There's so many bug reports and people complaining everywhere and you are trying to tell me the game is improving when the concurrent players have been getting lower and lower with each update?
I showed you an in-depth graph and you show me a picture of review percentages.
The game is not getting better by any means.

I really love this game and wish it was better because of that. If I hated the game, I wouldn't bother posting in the forums and hoping for a fix, much like the other people who take some time from their day to post in hopes it gets fixed some day.

 

[coatifan]

I'd love path fixes, but I just don't think it's gonna happen. Sure, a lot of people (maybe even a majority) have issues with it, but since we're focused on not sugarcoating things here, it's not making money, or at least not enough to justify Frontier doing it. They didn't see enough of a problem with it to fix it between PCo and PZoo, and the game's built around it. To speculate wildly, it's possible that fixing the system would be difficult or would break older zoos that use it -- but the main motivator here is money. Anyone who's dropping the game because of the paths had already bought it, and the engine change is significant enough that it would likely require a lot of time and effort for something they couldn't charge more for (eg, there wouldn't be a "path improvement DLC"). And sure, it would increase purchases, but to be blunt this clearly falls high on the axis of "takes a lot of effort" and low on the axis of "easy money." I love Frontier, I generally defend their practices, but the paths do kinda suck. And as far as I can tell, we'll have to live with it. It's frustrating, but it's life, I guess.

 

[CISAC]

I'd love path fixes, but I just don't think it's gonna happen. Sure, a lot of people (maybe even a majority) have issues with it, but since we're focused on not sugarcoating things here, it's not making money, or at least not enough to justify Frontier doing it. They didn't see enough of a problem with it to fix it between PCo and PZoo, and the game's built around it. To speculate wildly, it's possible that fixing the system would be difficult or would break older zoos that use it -- but the main motivator here is money. Anyone who's dropping the game because of the paths had already bought it, and the engine change is significant enough that it would likely require a lot of time and effort for something they couldn't charge more for (eg, there wouldn't be a "path improvement DLC"). And sure, it would increase purchases, but to be blunt this clearly falls high on the axis of "takes a lot of effort" and low on the axis of "easy money." I love Frontier, I generally defend their practices, but the paths do kinda suck. And as far as I can tell, we'll have to live with it. It's frustrating, but it's life, I guess.

Companies that think like this absolutely baffle me.
If they can't care enough to fix their current project, people will see their name on their next project and think "Ah, it's that company that couldn't be bothered to fix their previous project, so why should we believe they'll care for their next one?" and won't buy it as a result.
This has been happening to the developers of Stationeers because they abandoned Icarus to make it and now people won't buy Stationeers because they fear the same thing will happen.
All this will do is cost them sales on Planet Zoo 2 or whatever they choose to develop next.
This game could have been so much better and have so many more players if they simply just cared for it, it's so sad to see.

 

[coatifan]

If they can't care enough to fix their current project, people will see their name on their next project and think "Ah, it's that company that couldn't be bothered to fix their previous project, so why should we believe they'll care for their next one?" and won't buy it as a result.

I hate to say it, but this is only partially true. Lots of studios (mostly large ones) and series with bad games still have dedicated players.

This game could have been so much better and have so many more players if they simply just cared for it, it's so sad to see.

I don't understand why you feel this is reflective of a lack of care. The developers do care for it -- the DLC and free updates show pretty clearly that the team listens to many of the player's requests when possible.

And while I hate to say "they can't do anything" because they probably could, it's a foundational system of the game, without which many things wouldn't work. A path rework might also require edits for staff, barriers, and terrain, and would definitely need changes to guests, ATMS, etc. At this point, even if pathing sucks, it may be that changing it on a large scale requires reworking vast parts of the game. And maybe it doesn't, and Frontier is as careless as you assert. I don't know. But I think it's reductive to assume malice when it can be attributed to inability to change or at the bare minimum a profit-focused business model.

 

[lunavinceres]

I'm not sure why this is getting so heated. Both sides have good points to them. I'm used to it now, but the pathing system in my opinion is pretty bad. I really hated it in Planet Coaster, although I've had much more practise with it now. There shouldn't be a steep learning curve on something as basic as pathing.

That said I think Coati and others are right that it will be incredibly difficult to implement. There are certain core features in any game that are very difficult to change post release. It may not even be possible to do without breaking people's save files and that just isn't going to be an acceptable option in Planet Zoo.

I think the pathing is more something that should be addressed and reworked if/when Planet Zoo 2 is developed and released. In the meantime Frontier should maybe do more tutorials/beginners guides etc or promote the ones already available on Youtube to help out new or struggling players.

 

[NZFanatic]

But why should the community need to rely on a single person who made a mod for something

The "community" doesn't rely on mods for anything.

There also hasn't been any "apologism" here - it's politically loaded because it's primarily used in politics, not while discussing a game. You've blown this whole thing so far out of proportion it's not even funny - the only "apologism" you're seeing is from experienced players saying that they've gotten used to the pathing system by now and don't have a problem with it. People have also brought up the game's engine constraints, which do exist - the reason the pathing system was never changed between Planet Coaster and Zoo is because it can't be. Many players had the exact same complaints during Coaster's heyday; do you really think Frontier would just not change it to mess with a few players?

They aren't losing customers because of this; Planet Zoo is their most profitable IP last I checked and player numbers have been growing. They keep churning out new content. Both here and on Reddit, probably the two largest communities around the game, discussion has been positive.

Yes, there are some issues with the pathing system that we all want solved, but they aren't game-breaking and they don't make the game unplayable unless you choose that hill to die on. Ultimately, though, that would be your choice. I would love for the paths and water to not interact so melodramatically, for example, and that was something I struggled with a lot when I first started playing in 2019. It's been two and a half years of play since then and now it doesn't bother me because I figured out the constraints.

There are things in every game you just can't do. Fortunately in Planet Zoo that list is very small all things considered.

 

[shirandhak]

I think the pathing is more something that should be addressed and reworked if/when Planet Zoo 2 is developed and released. In the meantime Frontier should maybe do more tutorials/beginners guides etc or promote the ones already available on Youtube to help out new or struggling players.

This!

I never said the pathing system is great or easy to get! There are many issues with it, but not many bugs. And it is not broken, only complicated. And it is quite a minor issue, if you start out with this game. If you reread your copied reviews, you'll find what I said in the first place: Frontier does everything in a different way than any other game. That makes everything very, very complicated, if you have no experience with other "Planet" games.
You can't imagine how frustrated and furious I was, when I tried the game for the first few times in this thing called "tutorial" lol (I even wrote a negative review on steam, which I changed some weeks later on)!

If you say, they should "fix" the pathing system, you just demand another engine for PZ - I don't think, this will happen - do you?
But what baffled me most (and does until this day) is, that Frontier did no tutorial for people like me, who did play no other "Planet" game before, which justifys the name "tutorial". At all.

So it's up to you, if you adapt to the game and learn to use and love it (we can only help with pointing out what you can try to get the effect you wanted) - the game won't adapt to you.

 

[Laura_91]

You have to look at it from both sides. Theres always going to be people who like and dislike things. You might want paths "fixed" others have no problem with them. So if they get fixed youve now annoyed the people who are happy with them

 

[Doran]

Just read this thread. Why so many people have problems with using steam activity chart? Every time I see this screenshot I think people can't understand it.
There are more things to take into consideration rather than just 2 numbers (one big, one small) like so many are doing.

Like who tf compares player number from release to later dates. Look at very anticipated game of this year. Elden ring had one million at peak and have 200k on average now, after just 2 months. What happened to these 80% players? FromSoftware must be doing something wrong.

Looks pretty stable to me and i see no signs of something broken
However, as been pointed out, it does have a really steep learning curve and this might put some people off.


89% all time positive reviews and 90% recent positive reviews on Steam is really impressive (out of almost 50,000 reviews), while showing the game is improving

This guy is right. Same numbers for 2 years. Literally nothing is wrong.

 

[CISAC]

The "community" doesn't rely on mods for anything.

There also hasn't been any "apologism" here - it's politically loaded because it's primarily used in politics, not while discussing a game. You've blown this whole thing so far out of proportion it's not even funny - the only "apologism" you're seeing is from experienced players saying that they've gotten used to the pathing system by now and don't have a problem with it. People have also brought up the game's engine constraints, which do exist - the reason the pathing system was never changed between Planet Coaster and Zoo is because it can't be. Many players had the exact same complaints during Coaster's heyday; do you really think Frontier would just not change it to mess with a few players?

They aren't losing customers because of this; Planet Zoo is their most profitable IP last I checked and player numbers have been growing. They keep churning out new content. Both here and on Reddit, probably the two largest communities around the game, discussion has been positive.

Yes, there are some issues with the pathing system that we all want solved, but they aren't game-breaking and they don't make the game unplayable unless you choose that hill to die on. Ultimately, though, that would be your choice. I would love for the paths and water to not interact so melodramatically, for example, and that was something I struggled with a lot when I first started playing in 2019. It's been two and a half years of play since then and now it doesn't bother me because I figured out the constraints.

There are things in every game you just can't do. Fortunately in Planet Zoo that list is very small all things considered.

I don't think you understand.
I'm not asking for a full engine rework.
My original post which was, for some reason, merged with this one mentioned my main issue with the paths and that's what I wish was solved.
It's here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/can-we-please-get-a-path-fix-now.602640/

I'll explain again:
Attempting to place a habitat blueprint near an already built path will force you to move the blueprint super far away from the path in order to be able to place it.
The non-terraformable area around paths is too big and there is no reason I can see for it to be that unreasonably big.

This is what I wish would be fixed and I don't think you'd have to change the entire engine to accomplish this.
It's literally just a matter of reducing the area around the paths.
I don't know how their engine handles this, otherwise I'd mod it in myself, but in most other engines I've used it'd just be an area that checks for collisions and is attached to the path pieces, which would be easy to modify.
Again, no clue how it works with their engine.

Another argument I can give you for not needing to modify the entire engine to make paths much better to use and merge much better is the fact that a modder did it with the current engine.
If a modder could do it >> the engine can do it >> the devs can do it, simple as that.

So please don't act like these two changes would involve changing the entire engine or AI for the visitors because the visitors don't even use the areas around the path and the mod (FreeBuild) that allows you to merge paths with each other more easily doesn't break their AI either.