You misunderstood me. If the keeper walks normal speed in real time, and the game goes 1/2 speed in game time, instead of 1 day, it takes the keeper half an ingame day to walk from a to b. There is a difference between your own clock and the game clock. In programming this must be a real problem to solve. Make the game go slow, but the animals must maintain normal speed for the gamer who is watching. There is no fun in slowing down the game time when all animals start moving in slow motion. This slowing down more is a programmer's nightmare.
Slow Down Time Please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Thread starter TheGaijin87
- Start date
You misunderstood me. If the keeper walks normal speed in real time, and the game goes 1/2 speed in game time, instead of 1 day, it takes the keeper half an ingame day to walk from a to b. There is a difference between your own clock and the game clock. In programming this must be a real problem to solve. Make the game go slow, but the animals must maintain normal speed for the gamer who is watching. There is no fun in slowing down the game time when all animals start moving in slow motion. This slowing down more is a programmer's nightmare.
The "slow time" you talk about, would be the base time, so all other options (maybe up to 5) which go faster will make the staff and animals go faster. Since people who like the actual flow of time say they are often playing at the current speed 2 or 3, this shouldn't be a problem, since the staff an animals are "walking faster" already in those modes.
The base time has to be slower and that way the base time would have walking staff and animals like in the current first one, just with slower passing days!
I don't understand your thinking of "slow mode" (which sure would be the wrong way to do it) we don't ask for slow mode, we ask for a slower base time, because that one is already far off from what it should be for new players (beginners) and people with another playstyle.
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I'm sorry, but when it takes a visitor three years to walk around the zoo, that is not a simulation, it also won't change simply by 'slowing' the game time down. It will still take a guest three years to walk around your zoo, that guest will just do it more slowly. I read that in Beta time was x2, I'm sorry to discover that this was not the case, because here we are live and it's just the same. What they have tried to do here is make a hybrid build/manage game and totally failed, but there IS a fix.
Split the game into two phases, building & management. If you think about it, there was no reason, at all, to make it that you had to fill you zoo with animals as you build. The best way would be a build phase (create your zoo) and then a management phase where you bring in your animals and open to the public. Of course I realise that they will never do this.
As a building game, yes it's fine, it even works in Franchise to a certain degree, but for those of us who bought Planet Zoo for the animals it is a total waste of time (no pun intended) and slowing the game down won't fix that.
Split the game into two phases, building & management. If you think about it, there was no reason, at all, to make it that you had to fill you zoo with animals as you build. The best way would be a build phase (create your zoo) and then a management phase where you bring in your animals and open to the public. Of course I realise that they will never do this.
As a building game, yes it's fine, it even works in Franchise to a certain degree, but for those of us who bought Planet Zoo for the animals it is a total waste of time (no pun intended) and slowing the game down won't fix that.
That point about the visitors walking around for 3 years is so true haha. But the rest didn't make sense to me, unless you think that we're asking for the actual gameplay speed, like the animations, income, walk speed of characters and so on to be slowed down? Because that's not the case.
We want the in-game time, the 3 seconds per day, to be slowed down. So instead of the current 18 mins and 15 seconds per in game year, it could take 36 minutes and 30 seconds per game year if you make the time tick by 6 seconds per 1 day. I'd like at least 6 seconds, but that wouldn't be suitable for those who don't want change. But yeah it means that your guests would take the same amount of real time to walk through your zoo but it would take them 1 and a half in-game years instead of 3.
Not a big fan of that idea. However, it would be more convenient if we didn't have to place the animal in the habitat before we build the terrain. Although that's the way of the game calculates whether the habitat you've made is suitable. Not having to put the animal in beforehand would work if you were only putting one animal in before tagging the habitat with the animal you're planning on placing there or something. But the game doesn't know how many animals you're going to put in there. And tagging that as well would be too easy and take away from the management. But yeah I like putting my animals in as I build so I'm against your idea personally.
Just got the game today and I agree with the majority: please, please slow down the time, and by a lot.
I love one user's suggestions of a "real time" mode as well. Barring that, though, at least give us a minute or two per day, with the optional ability to speed up time as desired. The current rate is absolutely absurd and makes me want to put down the game until it's fixed.
The main draw for me was the animals, especially growing up with older zoo simulation games. If I can't enjoy the animal aspect of my zoo because of a ridiculously accelerated flow of time, then I may as well not have bought the game at all. Very frustrating and disappointing.
I love one user's suggestions of a "real time" mode as well. Barring that, though, at least give us a minute or two per day, with the optional ability to speed up time as desired. The current rate is absolutely absurd and makes me want to put down the game until it's fixed.
The main draw for me was the animals, especially growing up with older zoo simulation games. If I can't enjoy the animal aspect of my zoo because of a ridiculously accelerated flow of time, then I may as well not have bought the game at all. Very frustrating and disappointing.
I hope we get a response from Frontier soon... The report in the Issue Tracker reached maximum 'upvotedness' the other day so I'm sure they've seen it. They'll have to acknowledge this at some point soon.
In the meantime, please keep the contributions on the Issue Tracker report coming. The more feedback they get, the better!
In the meantime, please keep the contributions on the Issue Tracker report coming. The more feedback they get, the better!
I think you've slightly misinterpreted what people want when they ask for slower time. From the user POV there are three clocks in the game - the game clock which determines the speed of the animation. This is the current slowest speed and should remain so for a slower passage of time.
The other clocks are the day clock - the staff actions and day to day behaviours of animals happens on this timescale. This needs to be thoroughly recalibrated so that there is much more time between events and feeding, cleaning, travelling and resting have a more natural timescale to happen.
The third clock is the year clock - weather events, breeding cycles and animal lifespans are measured against this clock. This again needs to be thoroughly recalibrated to spread events out. We should be able to experience clear seasons in our zoos and the lives of longer lived animals should be long enough for us to become attached to them and the events in them to be significant.
Personally, I think the rate should be that, at the slowest speed, an in game month should take at least half an hour to progress through.
None of this has any bearing on building - as that is very much to do with the level of detail you put into a build. detailed builds will always need to be done in pause.
Having reached about 15 or so species in the zoo now this is by far the biggest issue with the game other than bugs. Even playing exclusively on the slowest speed and pausing while doing any type of building work, no matter how small, I’m constantly having to put fires out all over the place and honestly the game is just not enjoyable to me like this.
The UI is inundated with angry red numbers. Every second something is happening that needs my attention. Animals fighting, animals dying, animals starving, animals getting sick or injured, habitats need cleaning or fixing, staff can’t find staff room, power and water failing, guests complaining, trash needs cleaning, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some. And it’s all there all the time and it’s constant. This isn’t even a huge zoo, but I’m spending more than half of my game time clicking in menus and doing micromanaging and generally feeling like I’m playing a twitchy clicky RTS. I can’t even imagine going to a higher speed right now, and I’m dreading expanding my zoo further because I can barely keep up and hold my sanity as it is. This is an urgent issue imo. I find it hard to believe that anybody could ever enjoy having to deal with this stuff constantly.
The UI is inundated with angry red numbers. Every second something is happening that needs my attention. Animals fighting, animals dying, animals starving, animals getting sick or injured, habitats need cleaning or fixing, staff can’t find staff room, power and water failing, guests complaining, trash needs cleaning, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some. And it’s all there all the time and it’s constant. This isn’t even a huge zoo, but I’m spending more than half of my game time clicking in menus and doing micromanaging and generally feeling like I’m playing a twitchy clicky RTS. I can’t even imagine going to a higher speed right now, and I’m dreading expanding my zoo further because I can barely keep up and hold my sanity as it is. This is an urgent issue imo. I find it hard to believe that anybody could ever enjoy having to deal with this stuff constantly.
I really can’t keep up. Honestly the worst part for me is that I don’t remember my animals. I used to name and remember every single animal on ZT2. But here, they just keep coming and leaving and a couple hours later I’m sure I have seen like 5 different Jacobs, mainly defined because the tried to kill each other.
For me I agree, the game feels really fast. Animals are breeding and overpopulating my zoo before I've even settled in and had a time to care for them. I also dislike the immense amount of visitors in the zoos. It just feels rushed and impersonal when there are so many beings walking around. The animals are also ALWAYS MAKING THEIR ANIMAL SOUND [13 peacock cries]
Slow down the game please… It's really sad. I'v created beautyfull zoo and now i just cant walk around and watch my park from the first perspective of some guest. I'v just had a quick walk from habitat to habitat. Result? Wolfs fighting, few animmals died, overpopulation, and catatlism. Just slow it down!
ps plus the time of year changed twice when I watched the guests stand in line for the train.
It's exactly the same as with Jurassic Park evo. You create the most beautiful games that you can't play.
ps plus the time of year changed twice when I watched the guests stand in line for the train.
It's exactly the same as with Jurassic Park evo. You create the most beautiful games that you can't play.
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Hello all,
I would also like to share my thoughts on this.
In my opinion, a slowdown is really necessary to balance the gameplay and make it durable for bigger zoos. Without a slowdown I feel it's just pure stress to manage your zoo. The birth rate is so high and the time until death is so short for most animals that you are always busy sorting out and buying more. This is simply no fun from a certain zoo size and you quickly lose the overview.
Just as Planet Zoo is my first Frontier building game, this year I got to know the Anno series for the first time too with Anno 1800 (yes, I know it is not 100% comparable). Now that I know both of them, I really have to say that Anno 1800 is MUCH more stressful and you are bombarded with distractions, BUT Anno manages to keep you happy for hundreds of hours with its good time balancing. I would love to say that about Planet Zoo too, I really want to be able to play it for hundreds of hours too, but unfortunately the speed with which time runs and the animals give birth and die just tears everything down and kills the fun with every new habitat a bit more.
Additionaly this is also reinforced by the lack of a family tree or a type of breeding overview UI which would massively help managing and keeping the overview.
So I hope the developers will listen to us and offer an option to all those who want a slowdown, I wouldn't mind if this were in a second franchise mode.
I would also like to share my thoughts on this.
In my opinion, a slowdown is really necessary to balance the gameplay and make it durable for bigger zoos. Without a slowdown I feel it's just pure stress to manage your zoo. The birth rate is so high and the time until death is so short for most animals that you are always busy sorting out and buying more. This is simply no fun from a certain zoo size and you quickly lose the overview.
Just as Planet Zoo is my first Frontier building game, this year I got to know the Anno series for the first time too with Anno 1800 (yes, I know it is not 100% comparable). Now that I know both of them, I really have to say that Anno 1800 is MUCH more stressful and you are bombarded with distractions, BUT Anno manages to keep you happy for hundreds of hours with its good time balancing. I would love to say that about Planet Zoo too, I really want to be able to play it for hundreds of hours too, but unfortunately the speed with which time runs and the animals give birth and die just tears everything down and kills the fun with every new habitat a bit more.
Additionaly this is also reinforced by the lack of a family tree or a type of breeding overview UI which would massively help managing and keeping the overview.
So I hope the developers will listen to us and offer an option to all those who want a slowdown, I wouldn't mind if this were in a second franchise mode.
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I don't want to start another topic on this as there are too many of them already.
First of all, I absolutely love the game in general. Despite the fact that there are still a bunch of somewhat minor bugs and issues, it is clear the devs have put a lot of care and effort into their product, making it utterly enjoyable and visually stunning.
Now, I've restrained myself not to post about the issue with in-game time because there were already many people raising the same concerns. After many hours playing the game I've kind of gotten by with it but the more I play and expand my zoo the bigger the problem is, to the point that it makes the game unplayable.
I've only been playing on one zoo so far. It's a very succesful one (1.000.000$ and, 6.000CC) and all animals have over 90% welfare and good breeding. All the staff is well-organised in meticulously designed workzones with at least 1 keeper+keeper hut assigned to every habitat (2-3 for bigger multi-species habitats), 1 vet and 1 mechanic assigned to 3 habitats (plus a couple of water treatment/energy supply stations), all of them trained at 4-5 stars with way more staff rooms than they need. All habitats have accessible water and their respective keeper huts are just a few meters away.
I have 11 habitats and 2 exhibits with 16 species in total which is nowhere close to what an average zoo has and it really saddens me that I can't expand it any further. I've just used roughly 1/5 of the map and it will sadly stay as it is. I could live with having to pause the game every time I wanted to create/build a not-so-complex area, habitat or building, but once you have a medium-size zoo it's beyond that. At the current state, if I don't pause the game I get bombarded with notifications every few seconds (broken energy supplies, constant fights for alpha status or overpopulation, x animals are hungry/thirsty, etc.). This last bit is ridiculous, in somewhat big habitats (not much bigger than those you have in the African Caldera Campaign map btw) some animals become "very hungry" simply because it takes them a few days to i) identify where the food is and ii) reach the feeders...that's terrible. I'm not complaing about the difficulty of the game itself, it is relatively easy in fact. As I said, with just 16 species and around 5 animals/specie it's impossible to keep track of every animal to avoid inbreeding, animals fighting, animals becoming mature, animals being born, etc. unless you take it as a full-time job ofc or you're keen on experiencing nervous breakdowns. And all due to the absurdly fast pace of the game... more than 3 times faster than PlanCo...sigh.
I reckon slowing the pace of the game is not as easy as changing a couple of figures. And as I said I really appreciate all the work Frontier has done to create this gorgeous game and the fact that the community's feedback is taken into account. I know that what I wrote isn't new but I really encourage the devs to at least consider allowing the player to play on a slower pace (and keeping the current one for those who are happy with it, if you wish). As long and as much effort it may take, even if it's done in one year from now, it'd still be much appreciated.
Thanks and sorry for the wall of text!
First of all, I absolutely love the game in general. Despite the fact that there are still a bunch of somewhat minor bugs and issues, it is clear the devs have put a lot of care and effort into their product, making it utterly enjoyable and visually stunning.
Now, I've restrained myself not to post about the issue with in-game time because there were already many people raising the same concerns. After many hours playing the game I've kind of gotten by with it but the more I play and expand my zoo the bigger the problem is, to the point that it makes the game unplayable.
I've only been playing on one zoo so far. It's a very succesful one (1.000.000$ and, 6.000CC) and all animals have over 90% welfare and good breeding. All the staff is well-organised in meticulously designed workzones with at least 1 keeper+keeper hut assigned to every habitat (2-3 for bigger multi-species habitats), 1 vet and 1 mechanic assigned to 3 habitats (plus a couple of water treatment/energy supply stations), all of them trained at 4-5 stars with way more staff rooms than they need. All habitats have accessible water and their respective keeper huts are just a few meters away.
I have 11 habitats and 2 exhibits with 16 species in total which is nowhere close to what an average zoo has and it really saddens me that I can't expand it any further. I've just used roughly 1/5 of the map and it will sadly stay as it is. I could live with having to pause the game every time I wanted to create/build a not-so-complex area, habitat or building, but once you have a medium-size zoo it's beyond that. At the current state, if I don't pause the game I get bombarded with notifications every few seconds (broken energy supplies, constant fights for alpha status or overpopulation, x animals are hungry/thirsty, etc.). This last bit is ridiculous, in somewhat big habitats (not much bigger than those you have in the African Caldera Campaign map btw) some animals become "very hungry" simply because it takes them a few days to i) identify where the food is and ii) reach the feeders...that's terrible. I'm not complaing about the difficulty of the game itself, it is relatively easy in fact. As I said, with just 16 species and around 5 animals/specie it's impossible to keep track of every animal to avoid inbreeding, animals fighting, animals becoming mature, animals being born, etc. unless you take it as a full-time job ofc or you're keen on experiencing nervous breakdowns. And all due to the absurdly fast pace of the game... more than 3 times faster than PlanCo...sigh.
I reckon slowing the pace of the game is not as easy as changing a couple of figures. And as I said I really appreciate all the work Frontier has done to create this gorgeous game and the fact that the community's feedback is taken into account. I know that what I wrote isn't new but I really encourage the devs to at least consider allowing the player to play on a slower pace (and keeping the current one for those who are happy with it, if you wish). As long and as much effort it may take, even if it's done in one year from now, it'd still be much appreciated.
Thanks and sorry for the wall of text!
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In Elite the complaint was time ran at normal speed so it take too long for game time.