Let’s face it. The hyena is one of the most plain, generic, and boring animals in Planet Zoo, but it really shouldn’t be. In real life, hyenas are highly intelligent and complex animals. I think these things could help to make the spotted hyenas much more realistic and overall a more interesting animal:
1. New Animations:
Right now, it seems that the spotted hyena just uses wolf animations. The problem with this is that due to their anatomy, hyenas locomote very differently from wolves in real life. Here are some references for the animation team to look at if a community manager or dev ever sees this:
Source: https://youtu.be/ptGw9F4wVgM
Source: https://youtu.be/5pVrF6coROs
Also, hyena cubs don’t wag their tails like little puppies...
2.Emotes/Playing Animations:
The hyena has none of these right now, which is a shame as they do quite a few things in real life. As far as emotes go, submissive hyenas in a clan will bow their heads and flatten their ears around dominant individuals in greeting ceremonies, which also are not in the game. In greeting ceremonies, hyenas go up to each other, lift their legs, and sniff each other. This is their way of telling who’s who in the clan.
Source: https://youtu.be/ftNXBfTGCeo
Submissive hyenas will also crouch in the presence of a more dominant hyena
Source: https://youtu.be/S6T752_EXno
As far as playing animations goes, it mostly applies to cubs which are usually born single in the game for some reason. Usually hyenas have twins or triplets, not just one cub, so maybe fix that too. Adults could also do a back scratching animation, as previously mentioned:
Source: https://youtu.be/eC2OBZMIJY4
3. Fixing the fake science:
Don’t fall for that God damn MinuteEarth crap about female hyenas always being bigger and more dominant than males. Spotted hyenas aren’t sexually dimorphic at all, and their rank in the clan just depends on who their female relatives are as females pass down the ranks and not males. The only reason male hyenas are sometimes lower ranked than females is because they leave often their birth clans in the wild. If you want more info, follow the Hyena Project. They’ve been studying hyenas for over two decades.
4. Clan Size Expansion and realistic Hierarchy:
As previously mentioned, female hyenas should pass down the ranks to their offspring and hyenas have complex social dynamics. The clan size should be increased because in the wild, there can be up to 80 hyenas. Also, in captivity in places such as Kevin Richardson’s reserve, there can be plenty more than just 2-5 hyenas in a group is they grow up together and get along well.
5. Coat color variations:
Spotted hyenas come in a variety of shades of brown and tan, and it’s weird to only see a single color variant in the game. This issue isn’t exclusive to hyenas, but spotted hyenas are one of the animals that suffers the most from the lack of variation due to them varying so greatly in real life.
6. The model and texture:
If you’ve seen a hyena in a zoo in real life, you’d know they aren’t as skinny and weak looking as frontier’s model. It’s too thin, the face is okay but definitely could be improved, the texture needs more realism and variation on different parts of the body like a real hyena, so on and so forth. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice model, just not as accurate as some other games such as Afrika (PS3). The reason I bring this up is because Frontier promised “the most realistic animals of any game ever” in pre-launch advertising campaigns.
7.Habitat space requirement:
Hyenas shouldn't require more space than lions and tigers. An exhibit that can support 4-5 lions should be able to support 5-7 spotted hyenas.
That’s about all I have to say, if I think of anything later I’ll just post it in the reply section. This isn’t meant to offend frontier or anything, just to make the hyena a more interesting and accurate animal in the game so players don’t get bored watching over their hyenas, which is easy even for me right now. It just feels like Frontier had a missed opportunity. Such a complex and intelligent animal included in the game didn’t have any of the things that makes them complex and interesting in real life.
1. New Animations:
Right now, it seems that the spotted hyena just uses wolf animations. The problem with this is that due to their anatomy, hyenas locomote very differently from wolves in real life. Here are some references for the animation team to look at if a community manager or dev ever sees this:
Also, hyena cubs don’t wag their tails like little puppies...
2.Emotes/Playing Animations:
The hyena has none of these right now, which is a shame as they do quite a few things in real life. As far as emotes go, submissive hyenas in a clan will bow their heads and flatten their ears around dominant individuals in greeting ceremonies, which also are not in the game. In greeting ceremonies, hyenas go up to each other, lift their legs, and sniff each other. This is their way of telling who’s who in the clan.
Submissive hyenas will also crouch in the presence of a more dominant hyena
As far as playing animations goes, it mostly applies to cubs which are usually born single in the game for some reason. Usually hyenas have twins or triplets, not just one cub, so maybe fix that too. Adults could also do a back scratching animation, as previously mentioned:
3. Fixing the fake science:
Don’t fall for that God damn MinuteEarth crap about female hyenas always being bigger and more dominant than males. Spotted hyenas aren’t sexually dimorphic at all, and their rank in the clan just depends on who their female relatives are as females pass down the ranks and not males. The only reason male hyenas are sometimes lower ranked than females is because they leave often their birth clans in the wild. If you want more info, follow the Hyena Project. They’ve been studying hyenas for over two decades.
4. Clan Size Expansion and realistic Hierarchy:
As previously mentioned, female hyenas should pass down the ranks to their offspring and hyenas have complex social dynamics. The clan size should be increased because in the wild, there can be up to 80 hyenas. Also, in captivity in places such as Kevin Richardson’s reserve, there can be plenty more than just 2-5 hyenas in a group is they grow up together and get along well.
5. Coat color variations:
Spotted hyenas come in a variety of shades of brown and tan, and it’s weird to only see a single color variant in the game. This issue isn’t exclusive to hyenas, but spotted hyenas are one of the animals that suffers the most from the lack of variation due to them varying so greatly in real life.
6. The model and texture:
If you’ve seen a hyena in a zoo in real life, you’d know they aren’t as skinny and weak looking as frontier’s model. It’s too thin, the face is okay but definitely could be improved, the texture needs more realism and variation on different parts of the body like a real hyena, so on and so forth. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice model, just not as accurate as some other games such as Afrika (PS3). The reason I bring this up is because Frontier promised “the most realistic animals of any game ever” in pre-launch advertising campaigns.
7.Habitat space requirement:
Hyenas shouldn't require more space than lions and tigers. An exhibit that can support 4-5 lions should be able to support 5-7 spotted hyenas.
That’s about all I have to say, if I think of anything later I’ll just post it in the reply section. This isn’t meant to offend frontier or anything, just to make the hyena a more interesting and accurate animal in the game so players don’t get bored watching over their hyenas, which is easy even for me right now. It just feels like Frontier had a missed opportunity. Such a complex and intelligent animal included in the game didn’t have any of the things that makes them complex and interesting in real life.
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and add the Pack-System you've created for the Wolves and Wild dogs, so they don't try to kill each other every 5 Minutes 
