PZ2 Features Meta-wishlist

[NegativeHeli]

Animal Token Feeding Sessions. Player sets up a feeding point, and guests can pay to feed animals (keeper must be present for supervision and there must be a cap to the number of guests that can feed)

Feeding sessions are mainly for animals such as giraffes, zebras and elephants

 

[TheYeti]

Yeah I forgot to mention I am also taking specific requests for foliage and really any scenery pieces. I just added some examples of features everyone can request to the first post so these kinds of features aren't overlooked.

Traveller's Tree.

I'm not saying this will be my only desired piece of foliage, but it's by far the most important one to me.

1. All terrain paints in all biomes
2. More fonts
4. More tuned towards small animals
6. Proper free roaming animals

+1

Here are some some suggestions I have. None are duplicates from previous posts that I could see but may have missed one.

• Elevators. These can work where when placed on top of each other guests can enter (despawn) and exit (respawn) through any of the stacked elevators. Elevators can be rotated so that the doors (entry/exit) are facing different directions. For example a guest can enter on a ground floor elevator from the front and exit on the second floor to the right. Or possibly have a couple different types of Elevators (single-sided, double-sided, etc.). They would also obviously need to be connected to a path.
• Flat Solar Panels. Can actually be placed on roofs. These can be linked to some sort of pad-mounted transformer (like how tables can be linked to restaurants) and the transformer is what mechanics interact with for maintenance purposes.
• Animal Feed Vending Machines. These could work like a donation box where guest interact with it, a small donation is collected, and then a small animal-guest interaction animation plays of either either guests tossing food or holding out their hand to the animal (both of these animations are already in game). Animals in habitats that have feeders in them could also be less prone to hunger.
• Different Styles of Donation Boxes. I'd really like one that was shorter without the spinning thing on top.
• Allow Pathing to be Included in Blueprints
• The Ability to Save Color Palettes
• Exit Gates. I'd really like to designate an entrance and exit to my zoos. Many smaller zoos do this irl to funnel guests through gift shops.
• Guest Only Barriers/Signs. Prevent guests from entering areas (especially within walkthrough habitats) but still allow zookeepers access.
• Pathing with Road Markings
• Animal Gates of Various Sizes. Bonus if they actually function (open/close).
• Small Parking Lot or Parking Garage. Guests spawn out of vehicles. Would also love if cars we shown driving in and out.
• Modular Tree Parts. Give us tree parts to create our own trees (branches, trunks, and logs of various kinds (debarked, mossy, old and dry, rotten, etc). Should have a few varieties, one for each biome basically. Can also be used for creating custom feeders and enrichment items.

These two aren't deal breakers but I would like to see them implemented if at all possible:

• Prevent Animals from Walking Through Other Animals
• Prevent Guests from Walking Through Animals

+1

 

[Erior]

Seconding the 5 top features, plus the return of the full roster (like in JWE2), and an egg mechanic.

Also a rework of the plant viability and interspecies enrichment needs: having local plants and animals that coexist in the wild should work towards increasing the education score rather than animal welfare.

And interspecies socialization between close relatives. African and Asian elephants will socialize with each other in captivity, yet they don't meet in the wild. Having them together in the game shouldn't give an education boost, but they could make friends all the same, for example.

 

[Leaf Productions]

Realistic Animal Mating and realistic animal “features”.

 

[Leaf Productions]

In reality I’d love a challenge mode (I’ll probably made a real video out of this bc it’s such a banger of an idea) where you can’t just get elephants off the bat. To me that just isn’t fun or realistic.

To me, I see a two pronged system for unlocking animals.

Zoo star rating would stay the same, and the more stars your zoo has, the more animals you “unlock”. Very on brand with ZT2’s challenge mode. Basic animals towards the bottom of the ladder (Ring Tail Lemurs, Capybara, etc) but as you get more stars, you can unlock more notable animals (Wildebeest, etc). This would be the straightforward way for zoos to progress but honestly I’d make the stars more difficult to garner. Feels too easy to get to five stars in the current game by just placing down a few things.

A separate but tandem system could be in place where the more “care” you provide and advance for species of specific types (Great Apes as a group, Big Cats as a group, Rodents, Hoofstock, etc) the more “difficult” ones you unlock. For example, doing husbandry work with a domestic horse could allow you the chance to unlock Zebras, Wild Ass, or Przewalski Horses earlier. Basically a tech tree but done through background work in the game.

I honestly think that this could go a long way in incentivizing taking it slow instead of Puppy Mill Sim that franchise pretty much is right now.

That’s one idea for now but I have another one I am going to write up separately hehe

 

[USzoofan42]

Realistic Animal Mating and realistic animal “features”.

...

 

[Leaf Productions]

Alright. Gamification.

I don’t care what you say but at the end of the day Planet Zoo is a boring ass game if you’re not setting up goals for yourself. I’d love the game to give you small challenges here or there to fulfill. Zoo Tycoon has a few of these, some you might remember:

• Marine Mania’s Training and Show Minigame
• Extinct Animals Fossil Finding, Building, and Reviving Minigames
• Photography Mode
• Zookeeper Mode (Fill up food bowls, groom animals, etc)

And even from ZT2013…

• Washing Animal Minigame
• Driveable Buggies

Hell, even look at JWE2…

• Animal Tranquilizer Minigame (also in ZT2, RCT3)
• Animal Medical Treatment (Also in ZT2)

And hell, Planet Coaster had minigames too…

• Driveable Go Karts (albeit with a cheat code)
• Shooting Gallery Track Ride (this was literally the best thing Frontier ever did)

This dumb tiny stuff kept you so occupied in ZT2, JWE(1/2), RCT3, Zoo Tycoon 2013, and EVEN PLANET COASTER, that I think Planet Zoo 2 should prioritize it.

I love setting the goals up for myself, I love building zoos and even the career mode from time to time if I want a bit of a change but the game is very surface level. You’re either building habitats or planning puppy mills. I want small stuff to do in between making my habitats or planning out areas. I want my little play set to come to life. Having first person mode is literally just the slightest crumb of what could be done for PZ2. Let me BECOME a keeper. Let me do a small mini game puzzle for filling a food enrichment thing. Let me walk around and clean up animal poo when my keepers won’t get their act together. Let me go take out the garbage if it’s getting overloaded. Let me go box up an animal to bring it to quarantine or the vet station and let me do a small mini game of healing it. Let me drive around my zoo in a dumb golf cart to get to my next location quicker. This is the kind of stuff we need in the next game, in my opinion, over aviaries or aquariums. New gameplay elements. Because at the end of the day, an aviary habitat is the same thing you can make in the current game, albeit a more “functional” way of making it work. However, you can’t make outright mini games or functions or “Keeper duties” like im listing here unless if you do some dumb stuff like I did with Koali Golf or something. I really think and believe Frontier can benefit so much by making it feel like we can live and interact in our zoos in the sequel. Everything else is very surface level, including birds or stuff, but make me feel like this game has layers to uncover.

 

[USzoofan42]

albeit with a cheat code)

THERES CHEAT CODES?!?!?!?!?

 

[Captain Callum]

THERES CHEAT CODES?!?!?!?!?

Yeah both of the wiki pages have details about the cheat codes

Cheat Codes

There are many cheat codes in Planet Coaster that help players. Many were released by Frontier Developments on April 26, 2017. BOLLARD - Name a Go Kart track 'Bollard' to enable the ability to RIDE your go karts! Use W A S D to control a go kart whilst using the ride camera. You can also honk...

planetcoaster.fandom.com

Cheat Codes

The following is a list of known cheat codes and other developer Easter eggs. In a lovely memory of Zoos Victoria's employees.[1] In connection with the first of April 2021.[2] Naming any guest on your Zoo "SelenaM" will give a balloon to every guest in the zoo. Conversely, naming any guest in...

planetzoo.fandom.com

 

[Mr-Hyrax 2]

I don't know if that really applies to this wishlist, more of a personal wish for the dlc trailers.

That's why I said I am not sure if it counts for this list.

 

[SanRazo]

In reality I’d love a challenge mode (I’ll probably made a real video out of this bc it’s such a banger of an idea) where you can’t just get elephants off the bat. To me that just isn’t fun or realistic.

To me, I see a two pronged system for unlocking animals.

Zoo star rating would stay the same, and the more stars your zoo has, the more animals you “unlock”. Very on brand with ZT2’s challenge mode. Basic animals towards the bottom of the ladder (Ring Tail Lemurs, Capybara, etc) but as you get more stars, you can unlock more notable animals (Wildebeest, etc). This would be the straightforward way for zoos to progress but honestly I’d make the stars more difficult to garner. Feels too easy to get to five stars in the current game by just placing down a few things.

A separate but tandem system could be in place where the more “care” you provide and advance for species of specific types (Great Apes as a group, Big Cats as a group, Rodents, Hoofstock, etc) the more “difficult” ones you unlock. For example, doing husbandry work with a domestic horse could allow you the chance to unlock Zebras, Wild Ass, or Przewalski Horses earlier. Basically a tech tree but done through background work in the game.

I honestly think that this could go a long way in incentivizing taking it slow instead of Puppy Mill Sim that franchise pretty much is right now.

That’s one idea for now but I have another one I am going to write up separately hehe

Alright. Gamification.

I don’t care what you say but at the end of the day Planet Zoo is a boring ass game if you’re not setting up goals for yourself. I’d love the game to give you small challenges here or there to fulfill. Zoo Tycoon has a few of these, some you might remember:

• Marine Mania’s Training and Show Minigame
• Extinct Animals Fossil Finding, Building, and Reviving Minigames
• Photography Mode
• Zookeeper Mode (Fill up food bowls, groom animals, etc)

And even from ZT2013…

• Washing Animal Minigame
• Driveable Buggies

Hell, even look at JWE2…

• Animal Tranquilizer Minigame (also in ZT2, RCT3)
• Animal Medical Treatment (Also in ZT2)

And hell, Planet Coaster had minigames too…

• Driveable Go Karts (albeit with a cheat code)
• Shooting Gallery Track Ride (this was literally the best thing Frontier ever did)

This dumb tiny stuff kept you so occupied in ZT2, JWE(1/2), RCT3, Zoo Tycoon 2013, and EVEN PLANET COASTER, that I think Planet Zoo 2 should prioritize it.

I love setting the goals up for myself, I love building zoos and even the career mode from time to time if I want a bit of a change but the game is very surface level. You’re either building habitats or planning puppy mills. I want small stuff to do in between making my habitats or planning out areas. I want my little play set to come to life. Having first person mode is literally just the slightest crumb of what could be done for PZ2. Let me BECOME a keeper. Let me do a small mini game puzzle for filling a food enrichment thing. Let me walk around and clean up animal poo when my keepers won’t get their act together. Let me go take out the garbage if it’s getting overloaded. Let me go box up an animal to bring it to quarantine or the vet station and let me do a small mini game of healing it. Let me drive around my zoo in a dumb golf cart to get to my next location quicker. This is the kind of stuff we need in the next game, in my opinion, over aviaries or aquariums. New gameplay elements. Because at the end of the day, an aviary habitat is the same thing you can make in the current game, albeit a more “functional” way of making it work. However, you can’t make outright mini games or functions or “Keeper duties” like im listing here unless if you do some dumb stuff like I did with Koali Golf or something. I really think and believe Frontier can benefit so much by making it feel like we can live and interact in our zoos in the sequel. Everything else is very surface level, including birds or stuff, but make me feel like this game has layers to uncover.

+1 to both

 

[RightWhale]

Alright. Gamification.

I don’t care what you say but at the end of the day Planet Zoo is a boring ass game if you’re not setting up goals for yourself. I’d love the game to give you small challenges here or there to fulfill. Zoo Tycoon has a few of these, some you might remember:

• Marine Mania’s Training and Show Minigame
• Extinct Animals Fossil Finding, Building, and Reviving Minigames
• Photography Mode
• Zookeeper Mode (Fill up food bowls, groom animals, etc)

And even from ZT2013…

• Washing Animal Minigame
• Driveable Buggies

Hell, even look at JWE2…

• Animal Tranquilizer Minigame (also in ZT2, RCT3)
• Animal Medical Treatment (Also in ZT2)

And hell, Planet Coaster had minigames too…

• Driveable Go Karts (albeit with a cheat code)
• Shooting Gallery Track Ride (this was literally the best thing Frontier ever did)

This dumb tiny stuff kept you so occupied in ZT2, JWE(1/2), RCT3, Zoo Tycoon 2013, and EVEN PLANET COASTER, that I think Planet Zoo 2 should prioritize it.

I love setting the goals up for myself, I love building zoos and even the career mode from time to time if I want a bit of a change but the game is very surface level. You’re either building habitats or planning puppy mills. I want small stuff to do in between making my habitats or planning out areas. I want my little play set to come to life. Having first person mode is literally just the slightest crumb of what could be done for PZ2. Let me BECOME a keeper. Let me do a small mini game puzzle for filling a food enrichment thing. Let me walk around and clean up animal poo when my keepers won’t get their act together. Let me go take out the garbage if it’s getting overloaded. Let me go box up an animal to bring it to quarantine or the vet station and let me do a small mini game of healing it. Let me drive around my zoo in a dumb golf cart to get to my next location quicker. This is the kind of stuff we need in the next game, in my opinion, over aviaries or aquariums. New gameplay elements. Because at the end of the day, an aviary habitat is the same thing you can make in the current game, albeit a more “functional” way of making it work. However, you can’t make outright mini games or functions or “Keeper duties” like im listing here unless if you do some dumb stuff like I did with Koali Golf or something. I really think and believe Frontier can benefit so much by making it feel like we can live and interact in our zoos in the sequel. Everything else is very surface level, including birds or stuff, but make me feel like this game has layers to uncover.

+1 to this, but this also does help explain why I get so bored with this game sometimes.

If I don’t like how something is built, what do I do? I can rebuild it, but there is nothing else to do once I get things set up. I just stare, at my builds, for awhile. Or I get frustrated with the building, and with nothing else to do, I just close the game.

This does hit the nail on the head, Planet Zoo isn’t a zoo game, it’s a Zoo building game. Now, especially after 5 years, it is a way better zoo game than ever before. But with everything being automated it only adds some brief moments of complexity. Yes the new tours are nice, the animal “shows” or keeper talks are nice. But you have no part in it! So outside of building, and hiring the right people, and just manually clicking people to do a job. That’s it.

The sequel is in desperate need of some new gameplay options, and a zookeeper mode. Or even personal animal training. Is a great idea.

 

[Erior]

Realistic Animal Mating and realistic animal “features”.

Please don't bring back the memories of THAT aurochs.

 

[Milurian]

In reality I’d love a challenge mode (I’ll probably made a real video out of this bc it’s such a banger of an idea) where you can’t just get elephants off the bat. To me that just isn’t fun or realistic.

To me, I see a two pronged system for unlocking animals.

Zoo star rating would stay the same, and the more stars your zoo has, the more animals you “unlock”. Very on brand with ZT2’s challenge mode. Basic animals towards the bottom of the ladder (Ring Tail Lemurs, Capybara, etc) but as you get more stars, you can unlock more notable animals (Wildebeest, etc). This would be the straightforward way for zoos to progress but honestly I’d make the stars more difficult to garner. Feels too easy to get to five stars in the current game by just placing down a few things.

A separate but tandem system could be in place where the more “care” you provide and advance for species of specific types (Great Apes as a group, Big Cats as a group, Rodents, Hoofstock, etc) the more “difficult” ones you unlock. For example, doing husbandry work with a domestic horse could allow you the chance to unlock Zebras, Wild Ass, or Przewalski Horses earlier. Basically a tech tree but done through background work in the game.

I honestly think that this could go a long way in incentivizing taking it slow instead of Puppy Mill Sim that franchise pretty much is right now.

That’s one idea for now but I have another one I am going to write up separately hehe

I fully agree with one caveat sandbox stays as is a sandbox with no restrictions forced but all optionally available.

I would love a challenge mode that actually lets you realistically pace animals so I cant just place pandas right away I like both the star system and tech tree system you mentioned and combined I think they would be great.
research as it is in planet zoo 1 is garbage most mechanic research only unlocks blueprints at the higher tiers and at their base level only unlock build theme which in my opinion should not be locked behind research as all that does is incentivise rushing research or putting little effort into building because all the decorations are locked which besides looking pretty serve no other purpose. vet research I think is perfect as is but combine that with locking animals can let you perform research to unlock breeds, subspecies or whole animals would make research more interesting.

I also agree that something major needs to be done to how franchise works because the market is literally so horrible that I havent played franchise in years simply because I couldnt find any animals on the market. Some ideas that I think would be better more frontier zoo animals, other ways to get conservation credits reliably ability to direct trade with people and the ability to do animal for animal trades.

 

[Stygi]

In reality I’d love a challenge mode (I’ll probably made a real video out of this bc it’s such a banger of an idea) where you can’t just get elephants off the bat. To me that just isn’t fun or realistic.

To me, I see a two pronged system for unlocking animals.

Zoo star rating would stay the same, and the more stars your zoo has, the more animals you “unlock”. Very on brand with ZT2’s challenge mode. Basic animals towards the bottom of the ladder (Ring Tail Lemurs, Capybara, etc) but as you get more stars, you can unlock more notable animals (Wildebeest, etc). This would be the straightforward way for zoos to progress but honestly I’d make the stars more difficult to garner. Feels too easy to get to five stars in the current game by just placing down a few things.

A separate but tandem system could be in place where the more “care” you provide and advance for species of specific types (Great Apes as a group, Big Cats as a group, Rodents, Hoofstock, etc) the more “difficult” ones you unlock. For example, doing husbandry work with a domestic horse could allow you the chance to unlock Zebras, Wild Ass, or Przewalski Horses earlier. Basically a tech tree but done through background work in the game.

I honestly think that this could go a long way in incentivizing taking it slow instead of Puppy Mill Sim that franchise pretty much is right now.

That’s one idea for now but I have another one I am going to write up separately hehe

+1
Also resize animals so they are more accurate sizes most notably the tortoises

 

[The_Riot22]

In reality I’d love a challenge mode (I’ll probably made a real video out of this bc it’s such a banger of an idea) where you can’t just get elephants off the bat. To me that just isn’t fun or realistic.

+1 This was a really good metric for Zoo Tycoon. I hope PZ2 is able to work out some form of this for Franchise Mode.

Alright. Gamification.

I don’t care what you say but at the end of the day Planet Zoo is a boring ass game if you’re not setting up goals for yourself. I’d love the game to give you small challenges here or there to fulfill. Zoo Tycoon has a few of these, some you might remember:

+1 with emphasis

I need these type of goals to keep my interest - as role-play in my head only gets me so far. Sandbox Mode is a no-go for me, but Franchise Mode isn't much better. Like RightWhale said, PZ focuses so much more on building than zoo gameplay. I don't want the building aspect to diminish. Sandbox is where most of the builders live and thrive, but unfortunately that means many of the "zoo gamification" nerds who play Franchise get the short end of the stick.
The actual zoo gameplay needs a drastic overhaul to make it actually engaging. There are so many ways Frontier could implement this and so many directions they could go with it. I hope they do.

 

[BiologicalHorror]

Also resize animals so they are more accurate sizes most notably the tortoises

+1

 

[Stygi]

Guests can feed certain animals
Turn off scenery piece hitboxes
More realistic blueprints such as for vehicles
More stages to aging e.g. sub adult juvenile as opposed to just baby to adult

 

[frank1055]

Hi,I think I will stick with my incubation center, which can save a lot of problems

 

[RightWhale]

I was gonna say, more of the educational signs. Yeah we have stuff like

1. Reforestation
2. Poaching
3. Bee decline
4. Amphibian decline

But I would like more.

1. Signs for biomes
2. Food webs
3. More specific signs (poaching signs individually for pangolins, elephants, and rhinos)
4. Connections between humans and primates
5. Insect decline/ displays for insect species.

This just ties into how much I need more educational stuff in the sequel, I already mentioned how badly I need some educational props. But in PZ2 I want to be able to make the best “Poaching camp” I can make without mods or pieces, likewise I want to be able to make various scenes for my habitats.

Yes with the pieces we have we can almost make everything, but I don’t think it’s a fair trade off when I spend 20 minutes trying to make a chainsaw.