I made this review when I was year 9 of my franchise zoo. https://steamcommunity.com/id/sunnynoscope/recommended/703080/
Now I am at year 15 and I'm feeling increasingly frustrated.
My vets (6), who research on downtime, have researched my 10 current animals species completely (65 individual animals), and half of the diseases. I feel this is way too fast. I couldn't play unpaused for 10min without getting a research completion notification or two. My mechanics (8), many of them have heavy workload, also completely researched everything available. They also choose to research instead of maintaining water pumps, transformers, habitats - or the vets seem to prioritize research over doing their rounds. I don't want to disable their research ability, I just don't want them to prioritize it... An ability to rank job priority would be helpful.
There is no sense of anticipation for what you are researching. It happens so fast I don't even care to use the new enrichment items or building pieces/shops right away - as I don't really need them. By the time I need to put another drink shop - I have every drink shop in the game to pick from. By the time my animals are sick of one enrichment - I have every enrichment item to pick from.
This just feels... underwhelming. These aspects should be part of the challenge feel arbitrary.
On diseases - I only had one occurrence of a disease early in my zoo, the habitats vet was taking his time to reach the animal after I called him - probably about a month and a half to walk from his research hut next to the habitat to the other end of the habitat where the animal was. I was concerned that the disease would spread but it was contained - didn't really provide any challenge or interesting gameplay. The vets don't have much to do besides rounds & research - should baby animals and elderly animals be more prone to disease? Maybe the immunity of the animal changes with the animals age and welfare?
Enrichment for the animals - I should be able to set a schedule for changing to different enrichments - something my zookeepers or vets can take care of. I don't really notice when enrichment are getting old for the animal, and then it is a pain to find it in the exhibit, especially if I hid it in a bush- which I did for scent markers.
I know it's turning into a buzzword for complaints, but it really does feel like a puppymill. Breeding animals just to release/sell on-mass for CC for more impressive animals (in this case - tigers for the challenge).
Animal behaviour -
What happened to the promise of distinct personality in animals? Is it simply minimal? Does this have something to do with the low rate of social animations? Does time just go too fast for it to be noticeable? Is it implemented at all?
Edit:
"Animals have traits that are directly inherited from their parents. As eurogamer comments “The genomes determine an animal's appearance (such as different stripe patterns on zebras), but also their longevity, size, immunity and fertility.”
Therefore, observes PCGamesN “no two animals in Planet Zoo look the same, even within the same species. Each individual has subtle differences in their appearance and personality that have been directly inherited from their parents. The way their stripes pattern, what shade of brown their fur is, if they have a playful nature – all of these traits make each animal unique and give them a sense of authenticity as they crawl about on the screen.”
Why do Flamingos turn on other males? This didn't feel right - after some brief research I found that Flamingos do in fact live in flocks of varying genders - and pair off to breed.
And, Greater Flamingo chicks look like the image below, not like a slightly smaller flamingo with greyish wings.
An why are my wolves murderous to their pups and siblings as soon as they age up? Currently you can't have a pack of wolves. Not that I would be able to tell them apart, since they all look exactly the same.
Lions - male lions who are family should be able to live together - with only the alpha male breeding with the females. Unless of course, the other male is able to sneak away with a female. This happens in the wild. This would be trackable if there was a family tree in the game.
Additionally - aging up is pretty jarring. I thought animals would scale in size as they aged as described in this dev journal: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...z5Eu0SU5PX-SGg14ba9H3qs2griM9ACOQByFx6U5lpyi0 "Indeed, your animals gradually grow throughout their adult life. This is all happening dynamically in-game, even as you watch them! Of course it’ll be too gradual to see but all of our animal technology is adapting on the fly as they change in size, from how they walk through the environment to how they play with each other; these behaviours all respond to size change." From this journal I believed animals would have a sort of juvenile stage where they slowly grew from baby size to adult size, and would use a mix of baby and adult animations.
Thankfully at least the size gene is working - as I actually notice my 10% size bison are significantly smaller than their 80% size counterparts.
I would like to reiterate that many exhibit animals are a pain and NOT fun. Their lifespans are short, and since time flies in this game they die at a very high speed. Their breeding rates are also high, so you constantly juggle overcrowding. If you use contraception the population will die out while you are busy managing other aspects of your zoo. If you use a breeding pair you will have 10+ very unhappy inbreeding animals in the tiny exhibit while you are busy managing other aspects of your zoo.
Many other issues with the game have to do with bugs, there being only one timescale option (change length of days in settings feature please), and the game being plain unfinished.
While the game is beautiful, and the building possibilities and freedom is excellent, the current state of the core gameplay is pretty disappointing. I hope frontier hears all of our concerns and is able to mold the game into what was promised over these next few months!
Thank you.
EDIT: Animal availability should really have some research aspect. For example - you start with 10 animal options then you have to research "ungulates" or "big cats" or "bears" or "primates" or "north america" for the rest of the animals before you can view them in the market. Right now it's just market puppymill gameplay with no options for direction.
I would also like to draw attention to this post https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/planet-zoo-animals-and-features.510652/ that goes over the promised or reported features. Many of which are currently not in the game.
Now I am at year 15 and I'm feeling increasingly frustrated.
My vets (6), who research on downtime, have researched my 10 current animals species completely (65 individual animals), and half of the diseases. I feel this is way too fast. I couldn't play unpaused for 10min without getting a research completion notification or two. My mechanics (8), many of them have heavy workload, also completely researched everything available. They also choose to research instead of maintaining water pumps, transformers, habitats - or the vets seem to prioritize research over doing their rounds. I don't want to disable their research ability, I just don't want them to prioritize it... An ability to rank job priority would be helpful.
There is no sense of anticipation for what you are researching. It happens so fast I don't even care to use the new enrichment items or building pieces/shops right away - as I don't really need them. By the time I need to put another drink shop - I have every drink shop in the game to pick from. By the time my animals are sick of one enrichment - I have every enrichment item to pick from.
This just feels... underwhelming. These aspects should be part of the challenge feel arbitrary.
On diseases - I only had one occurrence of a disease early in my zoo, the habitats vet was taking his time to reach the animal after I called him - probably about a month and a half to walk from his research hut next to the habitat to the other end of the habitat where the animal was. I was concerned that the disease would spread but it was contained - didn't really provide any challenge or interesting gameplay. The vets don't have much to do besides rounds & research - should baby animals and elderly animals be more prone to disease? Maybe the immunity of the animal changes with the animals age and welfare?
Enrichment for the animals - I should be able to set a schedule for changing to different enrichments - something my zookeepers or vets can take care of. I don't really notice when enrichment are getting old for the animal, and then it is a pain to find it in the exhibit, especially if I hid it in a bush- which I did for scent markers.
I know it's turning into a buzzword for complaints, but it really does feel like a puppymill. Breeding animals just to release/sell on-mass for CC for more impressive animals (in this case - tigers for the challenge).
Animal behaviour -
What happened to the promise of distinct personality in animals? Is it simply minimal? Does this have something to do with the low rate of social animations? Does time just go too fast for it to be noticeable? Is it implemented at all?
Edit:
"Animals have traits that are directly inherited from their parents. As eurogamer comments “The genomes determine an animal's appearance (such as different stripe patterns on zebras), but also their longevity, size, immunity and fertility.”
Therefore, observes PCGamesN “no two animals in Planet Zoo look the same, even within the same species. Each individual has subtle differences in their appearance and personality that have been directly inherited from their parents. The way their stripes pattern, what shade of brown their fur is, if they have a playful nature – all of these traits make each animal unique and give them a sense of authenticity as they crawl about on the screen.”
Why do Flamingos turn on other males? This didn't feel right - after some brief research I found that Flamingos do in fact live in flocks of varying genders - and pair off to breed.
And, Greater Flamingo chicks look like the image below, not like a slightly smaller flamingo with greyish wings.
An why are my wolves murderous to their pups and siblings as soon as they age up? Currently you can't have a pack of wolves. Not that I would be able to tell them apart, since they all look exactly the same.
Lions - male lions who are family should be able to live together - with only the alpha male breeding with the females. Unless of course, the other male is able to sneak away with a female. This happens in the wild. This would be trackable if there was a family tree in the game.
Additionally - aging up is pretty jarring. I thought animals would scale in size as they aged as described in this dev journal: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...z5Eu0SU5PX-SGg14ba9H3qs2griM9ACOQByFx6U5lpyi0 "Indeed, your animals gradually grow throughout their adult life. This is all happening dynamically in-game, even as you watch them! Of course it’ll be too gradual to see but all of our animal technology is adapting on the fly as they change in size, from how they walk through the environment to how they play with each other; these behaviours all respond to size change." From this journal I believed animals would have a sort of juvenile stage where they slowly grew from baby size to adult size, and would use a mix of baby and adult animations.
Thankfully at least the size gene is working - as I actually notice my 10% size bison are significantly smaller than their 80% size counterparts.
I would like to reiterate that many exhibit animals are a pain and NOT fun. Their lifespans are short, and since time flies in this game they die at a very high speed. Their breeding rates are also high, so you constantly juggle overcrowding. If you use contraception the population will die out while you are busy managing other aspects of your zoo. If you use a breeding pair you will have 10+ very unhappy inbreeding animals in the tiny exhibit while you are busy managing other aspects of your zoo.
Many other issues with the game have to do with bugs, there being only one timescale option (change length of days in settings feature please), and the game being plain unfinished.
While the game is beautiful, and the building possibilities and freedom is excellent, the current state of the core gameplay is pretty disappointing. I hope frontier hears all of our concerns and is able to mold the game into what was promised over these next few months!
Thank you.
EDIT: Animal availability should really have some research aspect. For example - you start with 10 animal options then you have to research "ungulates" or "big cats" or "bears" or "primates" or "north america" for the rest of the animals before you can view them in the market. Right now it's just market puppymill gameplay with no options for direction.
I would also like to draw attention to this post https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/planet-zoo-animals-and-features.510652/ that goes over the promised or reported features. Many of which are currently not in the game.
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