Hello, my name is Chris, I'm a game designer from Poland and a big fan of Planet Zoo recently. Although I grew very fond of the game, there are some things that I find need fixing and I'd like to share some of my suggestions. I hope Frontiers' devs will seriously consider introducing at least some of those improvements; these problems might seem like trifles, but all of them combined during gameplay they add up and make up for a very bad user experience.
I'd also like to ask the forum community to upvote these suggestions to show developers how much we care for those changes
Thanks in advance!
1. Animals Panel - Filters Auto-Reset After Each Closing; Search feature
Problem: this is the problem that I find is most annoying for many players and not solved as of yet (I’ve found requests for solution dating 2019). Animal Market Panels save user filters and Zoo Animals Panel should behave the same way. I can’t stress enough how bad the user experience is having to set the filters and search for particular species every time when managing certain animals. I can think of two reasons why devs decided not to sort this out to this day. One: no space for “Reset Filters” button; two: worry that noob players will open this panel and wonder ‘where are all my animals’, in which case I think the Fuschia colored tabs are suggestive enough , but anyway…
Solution: Below is my suggestion for Reset button placement. Alternatively, if you don’t want to alter the layout, at least please give as a toggle in Game Settings like “Remember Animals Panel Filters on Close”. Furthermore, the search field is also a much-requested feature, and could easily fit as seen below. This should allow for searching by species or name at the same time.
PLEASE... PLEASE... PLEASE consider this to be a high priority popular demand request. Planet Zoo is not only a zoo building game but also a zoo management game and every single improvement in the managing aspect is of high value to many players.
2. Animals Panel - Maturity Sorting
Problem: the ‘MATURITY’ filter doesn’t actually do what it’s intended to, meaning it is simply sorting all animals by age, not by their maturity.
Solution: animal maturity should be the first sorting criteria, and age the second. As an example, below I’ve manually sorted animals the way they should be (animals are sorted into maturity groups and listed by age within that groups):
3. Animals Panel, Animals Trading - Species Combo Panel Height
Problem: the Combo Panel doesn’t use all available screen estate, making browsing through a long list a poor user experience. Also, the animals listed do not reflect the selection between Habitat and Exhibit animals.
Solution: I understand that the panel height is related to the GUI scaling option, but still, the combo height should be calculated and adjusted dynamically according to the list length and space available. And of course, only Habitat or Exhibit animals should be listed according to the user’s selection at any given time.
In the same way, the combo height should be also dynamic in Habitat and Exhibit Trading panels.
4. Animals Panel - Genetic Makeup Quick Peek Popup
Problem: when managing a certain animal population player is forced to painstakingly click through each animal to compare their genetic stats.
Solution: This is not a huge problem, but still, it would be very nice to have a quick glimpse of that information right in the Animals list activated on mouse hover over the animal icon, allowing for quick comparison.
5. Animals Panel - Habitat + Exhibit Animals ‘Send to Trade Center’
Suggestion: the ‘Send to Trade Center’ button should be active if applies to selection (currently, for some reason, no action is available when Habitat and Exhibit animals are selected simultaneously).
6. Exhibit Animal Info Panel - Tab Auto-Resets
Problem: while Habitat or Exhibit Animal info panel is open on Genetic Makeup tab (or any other tab for that matter), selecting other Exhibit Animal resets the panel to the first info tab.
Solution: Exhibit Animals info panels should behave like Habitat Animals info panels do, meaning remember recently/currently opened tab.
7. Animal Markets - Minor Issues
Problems:
1. Animal Market ‘species’ tab doesn’t show the correct arrow icon (listing direction).
2. Exhibit Animal Market: there’s one unnecessary step when opening ‘species’ tab (opening species list should work exactly like in Animals Market panel).
3. Both Habitat and Exhibit trading panels default to Animal Market on opening.
Solutions:
1. Correct the glitch.
2. Remove the extra step.
3. Panels should open on the last opened section (Storage / Market).
8. Timeline - Color Coding and Display Time
Problem: event popups disappear very quickly which makes it very difficult for a player to react to the notification, or even read it in time. Also, I find the timeline list almost useless, since there are identical icons used for different types of events, which forces the player to read through everything each time.
Solution: it would be nice to have a time control in the settings for event popup duration (I would personally even include ‘never hide’ option making the recent popup stay on until clicked or replaced by new event). And, as shown below, color coding events would make a huge difference in timeline readability and usefulness.
9. Dropdown mechanic for Lists
Problem: there are many lists in the game, which don’t have dropdown (grouping) mechanic. In addition, the unassigned staff list should be sorted by occupation primarily rather than name.
Suggestion: Practically every list that could have its contents grouped by meaningful criteria should be a dropdown list, e.g.: Staff list groups by occupation, Zoo Animals list group by species… This is obviously important because as the Zoo grows, the lists become unbearably long and difficult to manage.
10. Inbreeding Prevention
Problem: the ‘animals are about to inbreed’ event warning is triggered practically seconds before the act, so very often It’s too late to apply contraceptive after clicking the warning.
Suggestion: for me personally it would be a great feature if I could just set ‘Inbreeding Prevention’ for a female - the effect would be that her offspring will have contraceptive applied automatically on birth. Otherwise, the inbreeding warning should give us much more time to react to the situation.
11. Non-grid props toggle
Suggestion: there should be a non-grid props toggle available in construction filters.
12. Color Editing Clean Preview
Suggestion: While editing the color of barriers or buildings the selection markers should be invisible while the color palette is open - the same way changing colors of props works. Otherwise, the player is forced to completely exit selection EVERY EACH time to see how the change will finally look like.
13. Hidden GUI bug
Problem: the ‘G’ shortcut doesn’t actually turn off the GUI (problem shown below).
Solution: the GUI should be not only visibly hidden but completely turned off, otherwise the HIDE function is completely useless - what would be the reason to hide GUI if not to have the entire screen estate available for construction and placement?… which is currently impossible.
14. Color Palette Presets - a bonus feature
Suggestion: it would be very useful to have the option to save color schemes as presets. This could be grouped as 2, 3, 4-color sets. Otherwise, there should be at least a custom palette feature, not only ‘recent’ used colors.
I'd also like to ask the forum community to upvote these suggestions to show developers how much we care for those changes
Thanks in advance!
1. Animals Panel - Filters Auto-Reset After Each Closing; Search feature
Problem: this is the problem that I find is most annoying for many players and not solved as of yet (I’ve found requests for solution dating 2019). Animal Market Panels save user filters and Zoo Animals Panel should behave the same way. I can’t stress enough how bad the user experience is having to set the filters and search for particular species every time when managing certain animals. I can think of two reasons why devs decided not to sort this out to this day. One: no space for “Reset Filters” button; two: worry that noob players will open this panel and wonder ‘where are all my animals’
, in which case I think the Fuschia colored tabs are suggestive enough , but anyway…Solution: Below is my suggestion for Reset button placement. Alternatively, if you don’t want to alter the layout, at least please give as a toggle in Game Settings like “Remember Animals Panel Filters on Close”. Furthermore, the search field is also a much-requested feature, and could easily fit as seen below. This should allow for searching by species or name at the same time.
PLEASE... PLEASE... PLEASE consider this to be a high priority popular demand request. Planet Zoo is not only a zoo building game but also a zoo management game and every single improvement in the managing aspect is of high value to many players.
2. Animals Panel - Maturity Sorting
Problem: the ‘MATURITY’ filter doesn’t actually do what it’s intended to, meaning it is simply sorting all animals by age, not by their maturity.
Solution: animal maturity should be the first sorting criteria, and age the second. As an example, below I’ve manually sorted animals the way they should be (animals are sorted into maturity groups and listed by age within that groups):
3. Animals Panel, Animals Trading - Species Combo Panel Height
Problem: the Combo Panel doesn’t use all available screen estate, making browsing through a long list a poor user experience. Also, the animals listed do not reflect the selection between Habitat and Exhibit animals.
Solution: I understand that the panel height is related to the GUI scaling option, but still, the combo height should be calculated and adjusted dynamically according to the list length and space available. And of course, only Habitat or Exhibit animals should be listed according to the user’s selection at any given time.
In the same way, the combo height should be also dynamic in Habitat and Exhibit Trading panels.
4. Animals Panel - Genetic Makeup Quick Peek Popup
Problem: when managing a certain animal population player is forced to painstakingly click through each animal to compare their genetic stats.
Solution: This is not a huge problem, but still, it would be very nice to have a quick glimpse of that information right in the Animals list activated on mouse hover over the animal icon, allowing for quick comparison.
5. Animals Panel - Habitat + Exhibit Animals ‘Send to Trade Center’
Suggestion: the ‘Send to Trade Center’ button should be active if applies to selection (currently, for some reason, no action is available when Habitat and Exhibit animals are selected simultaneously).
6. Exhibit Animal Info Panel - Tab Auto-Resets
Problem: while Habitat or Exhibit Animal info panel is open on Genetic Makeup tab (or any other tab for that matter), selecting other Exhibit Animal resets the panel to the first info tab.
Solution: Exhibit Animals info panels should behave like Habitat Animals info panels do, meaning remember recently/currently opened tab.
7. Animal Markets - Minor Issues
Problems:
1. Animal Market ‘species’ tab doesn’t show the correct arrow icon (listing direction).
2. Exhibit Animal Market: there’s one unnecessary step when opening ‘species’ tab (opening species list should work exactly like in Animals Market panel).
3. Both Habitat and Exhibit trading panels default to Animal Market on opening.
Solutions:
1. Correct the glitch.
2. Remove the extra step.
3. Panels should open on the last opened section (Storage / Market).
8. Timeline - Color Coding and Display Time
Problem: event popups disappear very quickly which makes it very difficult for a player to react to the notification, or even read it in time. Also, I find the timeline list almost useless, since there are identical icons used for different types of events, which forces the player to read through everything each time.
Solution: it would be nice to have a time control in the settings for event popup duration (I would personally even include ‘never hide’ option making the recent popup stay on until clicked or replaced by new event). And, as shown below, color coding events would make a huge difference in timeline readability and usefulness.
9. Dropdown mechanic for Lists
Problem: there are many lists in the game, which don’t have dropdown (grouping) mechanic. In addition, the unassigned staff list should be sorted by occupation primarily rather than name.
Suggestion: Practically every list that could have its contents grouped by meaningful criteria should be a dropdown list, e.g.: Staff list groups by occupation, Zoo Animals list group by species… This is obviously important because as the Zoo grows, the lists become unbearably long and difficult to manage.
10. Inbreeding Prevention
Problem: the ‘animals are about to inbreed’ event warning is triggered practically seconds before the act, so very often It’s too late to apply contraceptive after clicking the warning.
Suggestion: for me personally it would be a great feature if I could just set ‘Inbreeding Prevention’ for a female - the effect would be that her offspring will have contraceptive applied automatically on birth. Otherwise, the inbreeding warning should give us much more time to react to the situation.
11. Non-grid props toggle
Suggestion: there should be a non-grid props toggle available in construction filters.
12. Color Editing Clean Preview
Suggestion: While editing the color of barriers or buildings the selection markers should be invisible while the color palette is open - the same way changing colors of props works. Otherwise, the player is forced to completely exit selection EVERY EACH time to see how the change will finally look like.
13. Hidden GUI bug
Problem: the ‘G’ shortcut doesn’t actually turn off the GUI (problem shown below).
Solution: the GUI should be not only visibly hidden but completely turned off, otherwise the HIDE function is completely useless - what would be the reason to hide GUI if not to have the entire screen estate available for construction and placement?… which is currently impossible.
14. Color Palette Presets - a bonus feature
Suggestion: it would be very useful to have the option to save color schemes as presets. This could be grouped as 2, 3, 4-color sets. Otherwise, there should be at least a custom palette feature, not only ‘recent’ used colors.
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