Rank your most important non-Animal aspects

[The_Riot22]

We see a ton of animal rankings, but I haven't seen any type of ranking for non-Animal content lists.
Yes there is a very detailed list of things that aren't animals (called the Meta-Suggestions list 1.10 Edition), but there is no ranking by category, so I thought I'd do a shorthand version here.

We all have our reasons for playing Planet Zoo, some people focus on buildings, other animals, others a mix of the two. This isn't about a specific thing you want, but more about groups of things. For instance, instead of saying Giraffes getting a new high-feeder as your #1, you say new food enrichment, or just new enrichment in general as your #1, then you can list Giraffes as an example.
One last thing, everyone will put Aviary and/or Fish mechanics as their #1, so let's just assume that is the winner, and move on to the next one.

So here is my ranking:
1. Foliage - no question this is my #1. We can never have enough trees, grasses, flowers, etc.
2. Non-living foliage - Logs, dead trees, are always welcome. Also, I don't think we need more rock sets, but would love to see 10-20 additional rock pieces for the Faux Rocks Set.
3. Increased educator-guest interactions - This new update looks like Frontier is moving in the direction of adding more of this, and I'm excited because they have barely scratched the surface on this very important aspect of zoo conservation and education.
4. More enrichment items for animals - there are still several animals(Badger comes to mind) where there are barely a handful of toy enrichment, making it tough for Franchise players to keep the levels high.
5. Adding guest-animal interactions - It's difficult to see how many of these real world interactions would get added to the game(such as kids holding baby animals, kids being able to spray down an elephant with a hose, etc.) However, the best one to introduce would be in the form of a Petting Zoo.
6. New food/beverage stations - things like a Chinese-food booth, or Popcorn Shack, for example
7. Animal signs - Would love to see signs for each animal in each of the various styles...or at least in several different styles.
8. Kids activities - things like a climbing wall, animal-themed playgrounds, etc.
9. New "shopping" buildings - things like a Carousel, or how about things I grew up getting in my local Brookfield Zoo...the vending machines that made a waxy-like figurine of an animal. I think they may still have these in some zoos.

I came up with a Top 9. I know there are plenty other categories people would love, like more backstage props, new fences, better transport rides, updating various animal models, etc. Please post your top-whatever.
I'm very interested to see what is most wanted.

 

[lala2021]

More scenarios (not timed!) or a scenario editor (or both!) please.
The ability to choose the size of the map when starting a new zoo.

Plus your suggestions above too!

 

[yoav_r]

Exhibit update. They are a bit repetitive and too large for some species.

 

[The_Riot22]

Exhibit update. They are a bit repetitive and too large for some species.

Oh yeah. I forgot about that one. It is easily in my top 5.

 

[AlexSea]

Exhibit update. They are a bit repetitive and too large for some species.

Honestly, probably the thing I want most in a free update period. With the exceptions of lizards, snakes, and some frogs, the exhibit size we have is way too big for most exhibit animals. Come on, nobody puts insects and salamanders in tanks that big.

 

[Birb（｡･ө･｡）]

To be honest it's kind of hard to rank these, as I think all of them would be wonderful to have in their own ways, but I'll try and do my top 5. :>

1. More generic zoo props - I love the stuff we've seen so far from the Conservation Pack, and it seems like it's going to cover most of the essentials, but I feel that the game could go even further here. For example some educational props (e.g. skull replicas, more signage, etc.), gift shop objects (stands, shelves, placeable merchandise...), smaller, specific zoo building sets (a tropical or nocturnal house set for example), and more decorations for animals in general. I love the more versatile art styles of things like the award statues and the Aquatic Pack's animal signs. It would be nice to see stuff like that be extended to more species, especially for ones that don't have any decorations at all (looking at you, African wild dog).

2. More map backgrounds (and maybe even terrain paints) - I loved the Outback variant of the desert biome that came out with the Australia pack and I wish we had more maps like it. As some examples, some kind of coastal map background would be great. For regional variants, maybe a new temperate rainforest map for New Zealand as opposed to the default tropical rainforest one in game (I know it should be temperate, but I've also heard that they won't be changing the biomes, so I guess a map variant could be a decent fix for that!). The grassland biome could also really benefit from this (so the North American prairie would no longer look like an African savanna). Custom maps like the ones seen in Planet Coaster (the ability to choose terrain paints, soundscapes, backgrounds, maybe even weather and temperature in PZ's case) would be a nice bonus as well.

3. More shops - Some more food shops would be nice, although I'm thinking even more about gift shops here. I've always found it weird that we have a balloon shop in a zoo game, but nothing for say, stuffed animals or t-shirts (I think both are sold in the Just a Momento shop if I recall correctly? It would still be nice for them to have dedicated shops though IMO).

4. Exhibit update - This has already been discussed a ton, and I don't really have anything to add. As many have said before, having a spider and an iguana in the same sized exhibit just looks strange. Maybe some more backgrounds for them would be nice as well (adding 3D backgrounds to the aquatic exhibit for example).

5. More foliage - Another thing that the Conservation Pack seems to be doing great with, although like the props it could be expanded even further. I'd love more options for ground cover in general, plus more faux stuff (faux leafless trees would be wonderful, especially a baobab).

Honorable mention: Ride variants - I don't use the rides enough for this to make my top 5, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Mainly I'd like new versions of the boat and the gondola. The former is too themed and the latter is just too bulky, the weird track doesn't look like something a zoo would have and I would certainly use it a lot more if we had a less obtrusive version.

 

[Veah]

Just the first 3 things that came to my mind:

1- Exhibit revamp - More sizes (specially smaller), more items customization (but I'm happy with the overall concept of not being free design as habitats), more biomes, aquariums... (and also way more species, and adding mammals, but that would count as animals ).

2- Better weather: Lots of game climates are too hot, some are too cold... Both more realism and more customization are needed.

3- Different maps: We need more different maps, with more realistic and less scenic backgrounds, and different plants (and climate, see point 2) depending on the continent (it does't make sense that European grassland is the same than African savannah), and I would love some maps with coastline so that we can use the ferry entrance from Euro DLC.

 

[NZFanatic]

Honestly, probably the thing I want most in a free update period. With the exceptions of lizards, snakes, and some frogs, the exhibit size we have is way too big for most exhibit animals. Come on, nobody puts insects and salamanders in tanks that big.

It exceeds AZA recommendations for every exhibit species we have right now, including the iguana. It's 16m3, that's gigantic. Bigger than the room I'm sitting in right now.

So exhibits top the list for me of things that need updating. It's always been low priority for Frontier because so many users think they're boring, but we absolutely need some TLC for them.

Other than that, my biggest non-animal wishes are;

• Longer rope props for climbing frames. Right now we only have the curved rope in 2m and 4m. I'd like it in 8m and 12m as well, to really get the full use of out of it.
• Grid-based mesh and chain-link walls and roofs. I'm amazed we still don't have this.
  • Also, triangular mesh pieces to make the current props more usable. It's great Frontier made them, but they seem to have misunderstood why they were wanted in the first place; bit hard to create covered habitats with big gaps in the roofs!
• More "broken" foliage; the broken cherry tree especially is a perfect example of a 'fake' tree that many zoos will use in climbing animal enclosures. We need more just like that.
• More variations of the "Planet Zoo Log" - you know, that big log that looks like it came out of the Jurassic Park scene with the galimimus. I want more versions of that in different shapes. It's useful and looks great but it gets repetitive.
• An all-in-one 'gift shop' counter. I'm glad we've got the merchandise shops in counter-form now, but we really need a 'restaurant' version of the merchandise stall, since most zoos don't tend to sell different gifts from different places; you get it all in one gift shop. So I think we need that.
• A set of faux, recolourable rocks in the same shapes and sizes as the standard rock sets. Again, the faux rock set we got with the Aquatic Pack was awesome, but it wasn't exactly what was being asked for at the time, so although it "does the job" I still think we need what most of the community really wanted.
• More standard garden plants. I'm talking recolourable rose bushes, tulips, smaller bamboo plants, recolourable hydrangeas, and so on. Plants that anyone can put in their garden, to go along with the Classic Theme especially.
• More generic animal signs. The stylised ones are fun, but sometimes the whole zoo wants to match a similar theme, especially in low-budget builds. Getting the basic sets updated to as many of the new DLC animals as possible, as well as the missing base-game animals, would be a big undertaking, but totally worth it I think.

 

[jcp011c]

1. Exhibits - larger, smaller, modular, more customizable.

2. See #1 (not a joke, it's been my main non-animal want since the game launched)

3. All the grid-based building objects to be flexicolor.

4. A cohesive uniform sign set for every animal in the game, or at least the habitat ones.

5. This will be a bit more specific but that wood building set? with the log beams going vertical? Can we please get that on a horizontal axis, the way most - log-type buildings actually are built?

6.Terrain paint - make all terrain paints available in all maps.

7. More diversity in background part of maps; also a map that is open to the sea on one side. Definitely a city-scape type of one so that it looks like we're building a zoo in the middle of a city.

 

[NZFanatic]

Terrain paint - make all terrain paints available in all maps.

We know by now that this is impossible. Best we can hope for is what Planet Coaster got - a scenario editor which allows for the selection of eight different paints when you open a new map. It's an engine limitation, not just something they haven't done because they don't want to (I believe the coding for the selection already exists in PZ as well; it was leaked a while ago, it just hasn't been finished yet).

 

[NZFanatic]

On the exhibit note, in a perfect world every exhibit animal species would have their own dedicated exhibit interior design. Spiders have different needs to frogs, after all, and all the aquatic exhibit animals also have different requirements. As an example, did you know that it's not recommended to have a substrate on the bottom of an axolotl tank? Axolotls suffer more than other salamanders from impaction due to swallowing substrates, because they literally inhale their food. A bare-bottom tank is best practice. Likewise, bullfrogs don't need as much water as turtles and salamanders; something with a different design that has more land-based areas for them would be nice.

And of course, having the Australian reptiles in exhibits that look more like the Australian outback would be neat, compared to them matching the North American and African desert animals.

I know this is definitely off the cards, but still, it's nice to imagine.

 

[The_Riot22]

• More variations of the "Planet Zoo Log" - you know, that big log that looks like it came out of the Jurassic Park scene with the galimimus. I want more versions of that in different shapes. It's useful and looks great but it gets repetitive.

This yes. I really like that log piece, but you can only rotate it in so many directions before, as you said, it's just repetitive.
I don't know why they haven't given us a 5-10 pc log set of this style.

 

[The_Riot22]

5. This will be a bit more specific but that wood building set? with the log beams going vertical? Can we please get that on a horizontal axis, the way most - log-type buildings actually are built?

I'm holding out for a wood-themed build set like a North American Wild West theme. I don't do much building in-game, but that would immediately compete with the plaster set as my favorite.

 

[Existentialist Knight]

What a great thread, absolutely loved reading the lists.
Here's mine
1. Overhaul/Diversify the animals market
I am primarily a challenge mode player, and the animal market system there has not been adapted to fit in the dlc animals. The general balance was great in the base game, but is not capable to offer a challenging and enjoyable experience once you own the majority of the DLCs, and has me seriosly considering not buying the conservation pack even though I'd love the animals and the pieces.
Sandbox players have their own issues with this system they can talk about at great lenghts ...
The animal market is one of the most central game features, as it gives us players access to the animals, and it's not in a very good state. I would really really appreciate any efforts towards improving it on Frontiers side.
2. More education options.
The recent update already took a great step into that direction, I'd like to see even more of that. Mostly I'd like interactive education boards (quizzes, puzzles, guesswork), exhibition boxes (so we can create exhibitions guests interact with and gain education bonuses from), educational cinemas (could be handled similarily to the animal talks with seating areas) and more topics for conservation boards (the sixth species extinction, invasive species, carbon footprint, death of coral reefs, bush fires, desertification, ... ideal would have been one new topic with every update).
3. Enrichment on hard difficulty.
On hard difficulty, the game can keep track how much entertainment value each enrichment item has for every individual animal, and how far this value has decreased. I would appreciate if these items could regenerate their entertainment values when they are no longer present in the enclosure of the animal. That would provide an interesting managment aspect by regularly exchanging the items instead of having to spam the enclosures as is the current state of late game.
4. More resting place options and new resting behaviours.
Sleeping branches for big cats, heat lamps for reptiles (as they are poikilothermic, these seem much more aprropriate then hay) and nexting baskets for primates, each one with corresponding animations, as well as needle and fallen leave variant of the two existing sleeping piles.
5. "New" foliage options
I'd like to see more dead trees, dead leave and needle piles, more seedlings or smaller variants of trees and tree guards. These items could help with "realistic" builds, and would complement the existing options.
6. New barrier options
Most of all wooden posts and horizontal metal bars. Also some "decorative" barriers, e.g. piled stones, wooden fletching, ropes tied to poles etc. as "guest barriers" would be nice.
7. More map backgrounds
This has already been mentioned often enough, so I don't want to discuss it further.

Thanks for reading, discussions are always welcome.

 

[yoav_r]

3. Enrichment on hard difficulty.
On hard difficulty, the game can keep track how much entertainment value each enrichment item has for every individual animal, and how far this value has decreased. I would appreciate if these items could regenerate their entertainment values when they are no longer present in the enclosure of the animal. That would provide an interesting managment aspect by regularly exchanging the items instead of having to spam the enclosures as is the current state of late game.

That's already how it works. If it doesn't work for you, either you don't wait long enough before swapping enrichments, or your game is bugged, which you should report.

 

[TheYeti]

1. Exhibits - Let's assume this one comes right after aviaries and aquariums. We should get some more sizes and preferably also box-less exhibits.
2. Foliage - I am very ignorant about temperate species, but we lack so many common species of tropical foliage. Most notably I think we need a traveller's tree, bird-of-paradise, some generic rainforest trees (i.e. tall thin stem without branches), more epiphytes and something like a shell ginger.
3. Construction sets - I am talking about the grid-prop sets with walls and roofs. While we have a good selection, few are looking anything like what you'd see in a real zoo. We could easily have more different textures including modern tiles, lava stone and horizontal weathered wood. The European DLC really made a step in the right direction with the rustic stone set that's entirely flexicolour.
4. Barriers - I made a thread for this a while ago, in which I explain how limited the barrier function is. We have very few types of barrier to choose from and few options to customise. I would love to have more add-ons, options to tilt walls (which is impossible to do smoothly with construction pieces) and more types of barriers. Adding flexicolour to the gabion set would also be very appreciated.
5. Paths - Similarly to barriers, we need more options here. Flexicolour options are most important, followed by some path types that are actually realistic and not cartoony (also here, the European cobblestone path is a great leap in the right direction). Finally, it would be nice to have more options with the path railings (add each railing to each path and add them on one side only).
6. Themed pieces - Although I think some DLCs were too 'themed' (I never saw a zoo with Venice gondolas), some regions could still do with a theme. In my opinion these are Southeast Asia, the Middle East (although well represented in the Africa DLC) and the Caribbean/Central America. In addition to specific temple pieces for SEA, these can include versatile items such as colourful murals and weathered wood for the Caribbean and modern tiles and market items for the Middle East.
7. Playgrounds - While much to expect, I do think playgrounds are quite an essential part of zoos and while I personally care little about the management aspect of the game, I think it would be nice to have guest happiness depend on the availability of playgrounds.
8. Terrain - Don't get me wrong, our terrain tools are great. However, they have some issues. My biggest issue is that you can't have a steep 90 degree slope like you could in the original Zoo Tycoon. While this is unrealistic in any habitat, it would be perfect in places where your terrain connects to the wall of a building that also has a floor below ground level. I'd prefer having natural terrain instead of rocks or mulch patches to cover a gap. Similarly, it would be nicer to have the ability to have a steeper slope right next to a path.
9. Rocks - We have nice rocks in the game, especially after the faux rocks were added, but they all have a similar 'smooth' texture which doesn't always look good. I think it would be great to have more diversity of rock textures (not just colour), especially with the addition of some rougher textures.
10. Non-electric signs - I personally rarely see electric signs in zoos. Instead, I'd love to have wooden signs which we can also edit with our own pictures like the billboards.
11. Map teleportation - I miss the function from ZT2 where you could open a zoo map and click on the part of the zoo where you wanted to go and poof you'd teleport there.
12. Generic zoo items - I would put this much higher, if it weren't for the fact that we're getting many in the Conservation pack. Still, this is an aspect that has still been underlooked by Frontier so far, and I hope we'll get more generic pieces in the future. I'm not just talking about facilities and behind-the-scenes stuff, but also more generic fences, mesh pieces, alternative 'mulch' patches (gravel, sand, woodchip, etc.) and more stuff that will add realism to the game. Basically anything you would find when Google streetview-ing through any real zoo.

 

[peafowl]

Animal personality, traits, herding behavior, mother-baby interactions, interspecies interactions, guest-animal interactions... And mushroom 'foliage'. When will i get my mushrooms

 

[Cocolori]

Ok here's mine (understanding that some of these just might not be possible)

1. Scenario creator tool along the lines of Planco, I'd love more scenarios but honestly giving the freedom to the community would be the best option plus it gives more customisation on climate etc. as well if it is as detailed as the Planco ones.
2. Animal traits - not after a complex system but having some traits like the guests have in planco that alter the chances of an animal behaving in certain ways would be great e.g. scardey-cat would get more stressed, greedy would get hungry slightly quicker and would be more expensive to keep, confident would be less likely to get stressed even in shy species, playful might use enrichment more but maybe also need more, sociable would need bigger groups and stick closer to others, dominant could be a trait for pack species etc.
3. more enrichment items for species that have fewer going on
4. more guest education items especially easily customised ones like a table top screen where the guests would lean over and touch it but we could put our own image or video
5. more animal signs
6. improved transportation mechanics - it bugs me that the transport rides it takes guests so long to get off that it can be difficult to get the settings right to make them efficient
7. exhibit improvements e.g. more variety in size
8. more foliage, especially common garden plants and ideally i'd like them to create a generic category where they don't add to the animal foliage needs but also don't annoy them just so we can use them on the other side of fences or on shops technically within the habitat but not in reach of the animals without it lowering their habitat stats
9. more gift shops and crucially more variety in the givts available for the existing ones, I was so happy we got the crane hat but sad there isn't more variety in hats fantastic becuase ideally I'd love to only sell relevant hats to what I have in my park but that is basically impossible. With the balloons it would be great to have animal shaped balloons as well.
10. more barriers and a greater variety of guest gates, airlocks etc. great to get the smaller ones but more flexibility would be nice

Edit: I'm adding an 11. but it probably doesn't really count as it isn't about gameplay at all - more splash screens please!

 

[Emma20]

I have so so many and could probably go on forever with this but I have chosen a top ten, mostly they are not in a particular as I feel they are all equally important. I have also tried to not repeat exactly the same as what everyone else has said but I agree with all the ones I have seen and would love it if everything in this thread was added eventually. I am one of the few people who prefer the 5 animal with building pieces packs to the animal packs since I like to make every zoo look different and this is difficult without new decoration and building pieces (although I do love a greater variety of animals.

1. Size scaling up and down - nearly every prop in planet zoo is either too big or too small so being able to make them all bigger or smaller would be amazing.

2. Trees planted outside of the habitat to not bother the animals (or add to foliage needs) if they overhang into the habitat - in reality these animals would not be bothered by this so I don't really see why they are bothered in game (I play franchise so cannot disable this).

3. More climbing material for habitats e.g. fire hoses for orangs and chimps since these are extremely common in zoos (at least in the UK anyway).

4. Exhibit size variation - the small animals are impossible to see and the iguanas nearly fill the box!!!

5. Overhaul of the pathing system - I know it can't happen but I literally spent nearly an hour yesterday trying to place a few metres of path up a slope without having to use an elevated path (I didn't really want the fences at the sides but had to have them in the end!)

6. Africa tropical plants - I think that most of the terrain types are quite well rounded now with a lot of choice (will never be upset with more though), however there aren't any pretty plants for the African tropical biome. I can't believe that there are no flowers in the African rainforest!

7. More statues and general zoo decoration - especially for all animals in game to have their own decoration pieces (ideally in multiple designs but I shouldn't be greedy) and a statues for all animals, it is quite frustrating when trying to make a zoo with a theme throughout but not having the pieces to make this possible so even if every animal just had one of the colourable silhouette pieces each it would be amazing.

8. Zookeeper mode/ more useful zoo keepers - very frustrating when I was building the other day and came back to find that the lemur habitat was now fully of poo and diseased animals because the keepers are useless (work zone set, 3 keepers with only 2 habitats in it), I then had to wait and had a very poor inspection score because of this and it took ages for the staff to clean it up, it would have been much easier to just go in and do it myself!

9. Golf buggy/gator to drive around my zoo in - very common to be used by staff in zoos and this would just be really cool (and more realistic), might even make the staff more efficient if they could drive to each habitat rather than walk!

10. Less stressy/thick animals - although they say guests can enter the habitat I find that the animals are always stressed with the guests in there so reduce the stress the guests cause or make it so that when the animals get stressed they move away from the guests!!! I find that the animal will be walking along the guest path whilst there is an alert saying they are stressed and trying to hide!!! In reality these animals would move as far away as they could (and lemurs would go up into trees) if they were not happy/scared. It's got to the point where I rarely use walkthroughs because of this which is shame since it's a great feature.