I personally believe that Jurassic World Evolution has fundamental issues in design that will hamper it's improvement.
Before we go into this, however, I'd like to give some details about myself.
1. I am not a JPOG fan. To be honest, it looks a little jank to me.
2. I have played sims casually in the past and I have never gotten into them obsessively.
3. My name is very much of a descriptor of what I am - a guy with too many ideas in his head and without the smarts to implement them.
4. I love this game, but loving a game makes me see the problems all the more.
Now that we have that out of the way, I think we can continue with the important bits.
__________________________
1. A Problem Park
Jurassic World Evolution is built on the idea that we are controlling a park that is constantly falling to shambles. The gameplay, story, set up, etc. facilitate this idea. We need to care for much of the park in order to create a stable balance that will teeter totter one way or the other, creating a very addictive loop I might add. Alas, due to this focus, we lose one of the aspects of truly enjoying a park simulation, the "simulation" aspect of things.
While many people will complain about things such as not being able to put down toilets, or about how the maps are too small, or how this or that isn't like JPOG, I tend to focus on the big picture so that I understand the core aspects of the game's philosophy. With a big picture focus, I was able to determine that much of the core is centered around keeping the park stable. It explains why maps are condensed, why things like toilet numbers are a non-factor and why key features tend to be cut. This core says a lot ... but it also gives us a bad omen.
If the focus of the game is centered around the problems of the park, the game will inevitably fail due to its lack of focus on the simulation aspects.
___________________________
2. A Lacking Simulation
I came to find the simulation lacking when I first started to have my dinosaurs fight. Why would I do such a thing, you may ask? It's because I'm a sick , but I'll tell my therapist that. More importantly, we go back to the dinosaur fight where I had my T-Rex boi gettin' ready to fight this Indominus Rex that just happened to fly into his territory. What happens?
They just awkwardly stand around ... and bite each other on occasion.
That's it? No circling around each other? No sudden retreats into the trees or what not? No unique animations (save for executions upon winning fights)?
When I tried the fights again, once more there was a lack of combat simulation. Then I got to notice more about the lack of combat simulation how dinosaurs didn't two v one or pack fight one big dino. Herbavores of the same species don't go to defend each other and etc etc etc.
But it wasn't just the fights that were lacking, there were also just a lack of interactions in general. That really killed it for me, unfortunately. It really showed me how this game was becoming a checklist to simply manage a facade of a park ... rather than simulate you managing a zoo of dinosaurs.
___________________________
3. Living Up to My NameSake
So, what can be done my friends? What can we do to truly get this game from a below average sim with potential to that amazing 8 to 9 out of 10?
Well, first off, we need to shore up the first bit of difficulty that would hamper the sim side of things.
-Make things harder to break/make things harder to go to hell
(If you have smaller increments of breakage/chaos, it is a lot easier to make the chaos that much more interesting.)
(Instead of breaking a small section, dinosaurs can wear down whole sections that could potentially be fixed in quick bursts ... but left unchecked, would lead to a mass breakout rather than just one or two or three creatures.)
(Don't make things escalate from 1 to 10 in an instant. Make things ramp up ... which would help with giving this game a proper difficulty scaling.)
-Make things harder to fix ->put more aspects to the fixing/dino wrangling.
(Imagine a really good fixer/builder team that you can value because they've leveled up their ability to work under pressure.)
(With dinosaurs harder to take down, maybe certain security teams or people start specializing in subduing certain dinosaurs)
(With things more difficult, there can be more research in taming or keeping dinosaur's in check)
(Will go in dino behavior later, but perhaps dino can be made to be afraid of humans rather than having them run head first into a crowd of them)
Now with that out of the way, we can discuss how to make the simulation of these dinosaurs much more interesting.
-Expand Dinosaur behaviors.
(While there are certain dino v dino behaviors like how Indominus doesn't seem to ever attack a raptor unless they're tranq'd, there is a lack of dinosaur interaction)
(Each dinosaur seems like their own creature in a bubble. Unless you poke that bubble, they rarely do anything else)
(The wants and desires list is good, but needs to be revamped. It needs to function more like a preference list rather than a complete requirement)
(https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/unusual-animal-friendship-6-1.jpg Can you imagine a T-rex befriending a raptor?)
-Expand how YOU interact with the dinosaurs.
(Petting zoos, small inclosures for babies, perhaps wranglers making connections to even large predators)
(The very notion that people can't imprint dinos/teach dinos/domesticate dinos is a load of crock. People have domesticated animals and reptiles in particular for how long? People even know how to deal with sharks safely in aquariums as well and this is fantasy, we can have fun with this!)
(GO WILD. Make dino carriages. Pet the dinos yourself. Teach raptors to hunt. The possibilities are endless!)
I will expand on these idea list later, but I think this is a good start for now. I just wanted to create a list of things I would have hoped to see in this game and have somewhat of an idea of how to actually improve the game rather than complain about how the game isn't up to snuff or etc.
Before we go into this, however, I'd like to give some details about myself.
1. I am not a JPOG fan. To be honest, it looks a little jank to me.
2. I have played sims casually in the past and I have never gotten into them obsessively.
3. My name is very much of a descriptor of what I am - a guy with too many ideas in his head and without the smarts to implement them.
4. I love this game, but loving a game makes me see the problems all the more.
Now that we have that out of the way, I think we can continue with the important bits.
__________________________
1. A Problem Park
Jurassic World Evolution is built on the idea that we are controlling a park that is constantly falling to shambles. The gameplay, story, set up, etc. facilitate this idea. We need to care for much of the park in order to create a stable balance that will teeter totter one way or the other, creating a very addictive loop I might add. Alas, due to this focus, we lose one of the aspects of truly enjoying a park simulation, the "simulation" aspect of things.
While many people will complain about things such as not being able to put down toilets, or about how the maps are too small, or how this or that isn't like JPOG, I tend to focus on the big picture so that I understand the core aspects of the game's philosophy. With a big picture focus, I was able to determine that much of the core is centered around keeping the park stable. It explains why maps are condensed, why things like toilet numbers are a non-factor and why key features tend to be cut. This core says a lot ... but it also gives us a bad omen.
If the focus of the game is centered around the problems of the park, the game will inevitably fail due to its lack of focus on the simulation aspects.
___________________________
2. A Lacking Simulation
I came to find the simulation lacking when I first started to have my dinosaurs fight. Why would I do such a thing, you may ask? It's because I'm a sick , but I'll tell my therapist that. More importantly, we go back to the dinosaur fight where I had my T-Rex boi gettin' ready to fight this Indominus Rex that just happened to fly into his territory. What happens?
They just awkwardly stand around ... and bite each other on occasion.
That's it? No circling around each other? No sudden retreats into the trees or what not? No unique animations (save for executions upon winning fights)?
When I tried the fights again, once more there was a lack of combat simulation. Then I got to notice more about the lack of combat simulation how dinosaurs didn't two v one or pack fight one big dino. Herbavores of the same species don't go to defend each other and etc etc etc.
But it wasn't just the fights that were lacking, there were also just a lack of interactions in general. That really killed it for me, unfortunately. It really showed me how this game was becoming a checklist to simply manage a facade of a park ... rather than simulate you managing a zoo of dinosaurs.
___________________________
3. Living Up to My NameSake
So, what can be done my friends? What can we do to truly get this game from a below average sim with potential to that amazing 8 to 9 out of 10?
Well, first off, we need to shore up the first bit of difficulty that would hamper the sim side of things.
-Make things harder to break/make things harder to go to hell
(If you have smaller increments of breakage/chaos, it is a lot easier to make the chaos that much more interesting.)
(Instead of breaking a small section, dinosaurs can wear down whole sections that could potentially be fixed in quick bursts ... but left unchecked, would lead to a mass breakout rather than just one or two or three creatures.)
(Don't make things escalate from 1 to 10 in an instant. Make things ramp up ... which would help with giving this game a proper difficulty scaling.)
-Make things harder to fix ->put more aspects to the fixing/dino wrangling.
(Imagine a really good fixer/builder team that you can value because they've leveled up their ability to work under pressure.)
(With dinosaurs harder to take down, maybe certain security teams or people start specializing in subduing certain dinosaurs)
(With things more difficult, there can be more research in taming or keeping dinosaur's in check)
(Will go in dino behavior later, but perhaps dino can be made to be afraid of humans rather than having them run head first into a crowd of them)
Now with that out of the way, we can discuss how to make the simulation of these dinosaurs much more interesting.
-Expand Dinosaur behaviors.
(While there are certain dino v dino behaviors like how Indominus doesn't seem to ever attack a raptor unless they're tranq'd, there is a lack of dinosaur interaction)
(Each dinosaur seems like their own creature in a bubble. Unless you poke that bubble, they rarely do anything else)
(The wants and desires list is good, but needs to be revamped. It needs to function more like a preference list rather than a complete requirement)
(https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/unusual-animal-friendship-6-1.jpg Can you imagine a T-rex befriending a raptor?)
-Expand how YOU interact with the dinosaurs.
(Petting zoos, small inclosures for babies, perhaps wranglers making connections to even large predators)
(The very notion that people can't imprint dinos/teach dinos/domesticate dinos is a load of crock. People have domesticated animals and reptiles in particular for how long? People even know how to deal with sharks safely in aquariums as well and this is fantasy, we can have fun with this!)
(GO WILD. Make dino carriages. Pet the dinos yourself. Teach raptors to hunt. The possibilities are endless!)
I will expand on these idea list later, but I think this is a good start for now. I just wanted to create a list of things I would have hoped to see in this game and have somewhat of an idea of how to actually improve the game rather than complain about how the game isn't up to snuff or etc.