Last 2 Community Challenges are frustrating! Frontier, please make them fun again!

[criswaller]

I usually LOVE the Community Challenges. They are one of the main reasons I keep playing Planet Zoo, and I've consistently finished in the top 9% for almost every one. But some of the last few challenges have been very, very frustrating. The last challenge and the upcoming one epitomize this.

The last one was releasing 3-star elephants. It failed- as it was doomed to from the start. Elephants are expensive to keep, slow to breed and take forever to get to 3 stars. I still have baby elephants left in some of my zoos from the last elephant challenge, not that long ago. This was the first challenge since I started playing that I didn't even try to participate.

And now it's silver-rated saltwater crocs. Ugh. They breed like rabbits but again, take forever to rear. So your zoo is clogged up with hundreds and hundreds of them until they get old enough to release. When we had the gharial challenge a while back, I remember having something like 400 baby gharials in one huge pen. Not a lot of fun.

And, even after months now of saying "it will be fixed soon," there's still no indication for the challenges of how many animals we need to meet the criteria.

Come on, Frontier. I love this game, and the Challenges have so much promise. Let's have some creative, fun challenges, not multi-decade joyless grinds. I know you can do it

 

[iloveyourzoos]

I also didn't try the elephants, because I felt life they are worth so much more on the franchise market than in the challenge itself, and they take so long to get to that level. And I had a feeling that the community might not be able to get to the end of the challenge in time.

I will probably do the crocodiles though. I find the breeding challenges much easier to accomplish than the release challenges. (although i do play the release ones too, and quite enjoy them, when I think we have a chance of reaching the final goal).

One tip (which you probably know, but for others who may be starting out): I've found that 67 (I think) is usually the maximum amount or births or releases that gives individualized conservation credit bonuses, and normally qualifies me for the top 9% for the end of week animals. So I often play up until that point, and then look to see whether continuing beyond that will help the community hit the 100% standard to decide whether to keep going.