Just some feedback from someone who really doesn't have any major complaints about the game. I love my zoos, the creative freedom the game allows me, and the animals are fantastic. It has largely fulfilled my hopes for a modern zoo simulator, an area in video games left fallow for so long, as such my feedback is largely small tweaks that would enhance my personal zookeeping experience and not major overhauls or re-calibrations.
First and foremost, the ever-popular topic on game speed. I don't really have a problem with it in its current state. Would a slower speed be a nice option for those times when I have a large zoo and want to spend some quality time with some of my animals? Sure. But I make aggressive use of the pause function (as I do in every management game I've ever played) and I have no major problems balancing my time between enjoying watching my animals and guests make use of my creations and actually managing the place. I think if you try to build while keeping the game running, yeah you're going to miss out on a lot and it's going to be really hectic. I don't think that's unreasonable, since in my mind that is the entire purpose of having a pause function. And if you put a sufficient amount of time setting up staff work zones and habitats properly, then they can run themselves well enough while I watch my animals. So yeah, a slower option, sure, I'm against it. Massively slowing down the base speed of the game would be unwise in my opinion. Many animals have reasonably long lifespans, and correspondingly long maturity times. I think that the balance between being able to progress through the game and being able to sit back is pretty good as it is once you have dialed in how to efficiently setup your zoo. The learning curve is steep and things can be really frenetic and hectic when your going through the trial and error phase of things.
Which leads me to the matter of zoo keepers and staff AI in general. This is a complaint I've seen a lot. I really haven't had any problems with keepers since beta (with one exception where a bunch of staff got stuck on a particular piece of path during one of the career campaign), however it seems to be such a common complaint so I'm not sure if I've just been lucky or what. I think I've had one animal die by starvation since the full release and I think I had messed something up. If there are enough keeper huts, enough keepers, and properly set work zones, then the animals get fed and the exhibits get cleaned (other than sometimes the water areas, which I think is a known bug at this point). Likewise, my mechanics do their jobs as long as I don't give them more than they can handle. Notably I've only really played career mode, so maybe it's more of a problem in other modes? In any case, just putting my experience out there.
Another really common complaint I've seen is the matter of animal behaviors and the frequency/variety of social interactions. The animal roster is pretty impressive and since my focus has been on gold-starring all the career missions, so I have in no way done exhaustive observations on all animals in the game or even just one species. The frequency of interactions are fine for me. It reminds me exactly of watching animals in a zoo. Most of the time they are not doing anything special, usually sleeping, defecating, or standing around. And then, every once in a while, you get to see something really special. I love watching my red pandas play together, my pronghorn herd dashing to their shelter to escape the rain, and my wolves playing with their cubs. I don't expect or want a documentary-style highlight reel of awesome behaviors every time I look into an exhibit. They would become a lot less special that way, so frequency is fine for me. Do I want more animations? YES. I haven't seen even a fraction of the animations that are already in the game, but I can confidently answer affirmatively because I know myself and I am greedy. I want more animations and more animals and more themes and more shops and more color mutations and more everything else. But I will happily wait for and buy the DLC when it comes around.
I will say, however, that I really would like to see more coat variation for non-patterned animals (yes, wolves, I'm looking at you) and a little more flexibility in how many animals can happily live together in an exhibit. Larger canine packs, lion prides than can support more than one male, such like that. Not required for me to enjoy the game, but would be nice.
And now the one big thing that I would really, REALLY want to see sometime in the near future? Heatmaps for litter and vandalism. My life would be improved immensely by a convenient and fast way to find these problem areas.
First and foremost, the ever-popular topic on game speed. I don't really have a problem with it in its current state. Would a slower speed be a nice option for those times when I have a large zoo and want to spend some quality time with some of my animals? Sure. But I make aggressive use of the pause function (as I do in every management game I've ever played) and I have no major problems balancing my time between enjoying watching my animals and guests make use of my creations and actually managing the place. I think if you try to build while keeping the game running, yeah you're going to miss out on a lot and it's going to be really hectic. I don't think that's unreasonable, since in my mind that is the entire purpose of having a pause function. And if you put a sufficient amount of time setting up staff work zones and habitats properly, then they can run themselves well enough while I watch my animals. So yeah, a slower option, sure, I'm against it. Massively slowing down the base speed of the game would be unwise in my opinion. Many animals have reasonably long lifespans, and correspondingly long maturity times. I think that the balance between being able to progress through the game and being able to sit back is pretty good as it is once you have dialed in how to efficiently setup your zoo. The learning curve is steep and things can be really frenetic and hectic when your going through the trial and error phase of things.
Which leads me to the matter of zoo keepers and staff AI in general. This is a complaint I've seen a lot. I really haven't had any problems with keepers since beta (with one exception where a bunch of staff got stuck on a particular piece of path during one of the career campaign), however it seems to be such a common complaint so I'm not sure if I've just been lucky or what. I think I've had one animal die by starvation since the full release and I think I had messed something up. If there are enough keeper huts, enough keepers, and properly set work zones, then the animals get fed and the exhibits get cleaned (other than sometimes the water areas, which I think is a known bug at this point). Likewise, my mechanics do their jobs as long as I don't give them more than they can handle. Notably I've only really played career mode, so maybe it's more of a problem in other modes? In any case, just putting my experience out there.
Another really common complaint I've seen is the matter of animal behaviors and the frequency/variety of social interactions. The animal roster is pretty impressive and since my focus has been on gold-starring all the career missions, so I have in no way done exhaustive observations on all animals in the game or even just one species. The frequency of interactions are fine for me. It reminds me exactly of watching animals in a zoo. Most of the time they are not doing anything special, usually sleeping, defecating, or standing around. And then, every once in a while, you get to see something really special. I love watching my red pandas play together, my pronghorn herd dashing to their shelter to escape the rain, and my wolves playing with their cubs. I don't expect or want a documentary-style highlight reel of awesome behaviors every time I look into an exhibit. They would become a lot less special that way, so frequency is fine for me. Do I want more animations? YES. I haven't seen even a fraction of the animations that are already in the game, but I can confidently answer affirmatively because I know myself and I am greedy. I want more animations and more animals and more themes and more shops and more color mutations and more everything else. But I will happily wait for and buy the DLC when it comes around.
I will say, however, that I really would like to see more coat variation for non-patterned animals (yes, wolves, I'm looking at you) and a little more flexibility in how many animals can happily live together in an exhibit. Larger canine packs, lion prides than can support more than one male, such like that. Not required for me to enjoy the game, but would be nice.
And now the one big thing that I would really, REALLY want to see sometime in the near future? Heatmaps for litter and vandalism. My life would be improved immensely by a convenient and fast way to find these problem areas.