Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome! Welcome to the fourth iteration of my (hopefully) long anticipated small changes list, where I lay out various fixes and improvements the dev team can implement into the game. The theme is low effort, high impact suggestions, so put those suggestions of redoing the path system or adding in dolphins to away! I have seriously upped my game with this iteration of the list. You'll notice quite a bit of community ideas have been incorporated here, and I'm going to do my best to give credit to those ideas where it's due. As I said, I put a lot of leg work into this iteration, as it seems some ideas won't be accepted without us providing proof as to why they should be, so I've gone ahead and done some research for the PZ team already. They can use my stuff as a jumping off point.
Zoopedia, Biome and Geography Issues
And that concludes this season's suggestion list! You all know the drill, this list is considered fluid and live for about a month after initial posting, and then I lock everything in for the next two months, hopefully giving the team enough time to implement as much as possible.
Also, I know that the CMs always read my lists, but I'm @'ing you all anyways, because it's tradition! So, @Jens Erik @Tim Smith @Francesca Falcini @Eltanin Casciani , if you communicate anything on this list with the dev team, and they tell you it isn't possible or something similar, please let me know here, in which case it will be removed from the list. And as always, thanks dear reader, for sticking with us!
Zoopedia, Biome and Geography Issues
- Make the following appropriate biomes changes for the following animals/biomes
- Desert: Jaguar, American bison, pronghorn
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- Taiga: American bison
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[*]I don't think I need to provide specific sources, as ones I've already linked provide plenty of info
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- Desert: Jaguar, American bison, pronghorn
- The North Sulawesi babirusa's distribution map currently displays the distribution of the Buru babirusa, which is on a completely different island. These are two different babirusa species. Credit to Chuditch for pointing this out.
- "Timber wolf " refers to specifically to three North American exclusive subspecies of gray wolf. Since the gray wolf in game represents the species as a whole, as a sort of umbrella, the name should be changed to simply "Gray wolf". If the wolf is intended to in fact be a "Timber wolf" that name can stay, however the animal must not be considered a European animal any longer.
- For the "Nature" tab, Central American should be added to North America and removed from South America, in order to be accurate to geography and geopolitical issues.
- Rename the African elephant to "African bush elephant", as there are two distinct species, and the one in game is the bush elephant. The two are quite different.
- Edits for major behaviors (Diving, burrowing, climbing)
- Giant otters and caimans need to have their depth requirement greatly reduced, if possible. It is highly unrealistic to require a depth beyond 2m for both species, so as long as there is no technical reason for this requirement, it should be reduced.
- Allow Cuvier's dwarf caiman maximum group to be 6 individuals. Ideal ratio is 2M to 4F. This is more realistic than the current max of two individuals.
- Try and find a way to make binturong, koalas, capuchin monkeys and red pandas stay in trees longer/spend more time climbing, and less time spent on the ground.
- Add Chinese pangolin to the climbing system, and give it the binturong's "hanging" animations. This species of pangolin is actually notably arboreal and also has a prehensile tail like the binturong. Credit to @macronecu for pointing this out.
- Finish adding diving to relevant species: Baird's and Malayan tapir, Nile monitor, Bengal tiger, jaguar.
- Giant otters and caimans need to have their depth requirement greatly reduced, if possible. It is highly unrealistic to require a depth beyond 2m for both species, so as long as there is no technical reason for this requirement, it should be reduced.
- Expanding enrichment usage:
- Give all canids that do not already (except fennec fox, due to size constraint) access to rope toy, swimming pool and tennis ball enrichment items (fennec fox has this latter one anyways).
- Add natural termite mound use and animations to chimpanzee, bonobo, pangolin, aardvark and meerkat. Currently, these can only use the non-natural one.
- In congruence with this, give the giant anteater access to the artificial termite mound
- Give forage wall access to all remaining bear species
- Give hammock access to jaguar, giant panda, Formosan black bear and snow leopard
- Replace herb scent marker with blood scent marker for polar bears
- Give disco ball access to the bonobo, since the chimpanzee can use it, they may as well also
- New enrichment item ideas
- Add a "sentry post" style enrichment item for meerkats, modeled after a tree stump (preferably some generic enough to fit in any setting). New animations only need to be created for getting onto the object, when on the object, the current "sentry" animations can be reused with no issue.
- Add two new enrichments items: smaller versions of the forage box and mud wallow. This would be intended to be used only by smaller animals/smaller groups of animals. The current items are quite large, and can thus limit habitat design. Idea provided by @NZFanatic
- Sleeping log/tree limb! One or two variations, perhaps a natural branch and one that's more of a generic log (felxicolor please). This would hang off of the edge of a hill or climbing platform and would provide unique sleeping/resting animations for the relevant animals, being binturongs, clouded leopards, sun and moon (Formosan) bears, jaguars, lions. Super easy way to get animals climbing more often, and for longer.
- Water slide object that must end in a connection to a body of water, being used by otters. Could be made big enough in case, oh I don't know, a California sea lion is ever added.
- Each biome should have a tree for a natural scratching post, except the aquatic biome. Currently the tropical rainforest and taiga biomes are the only two with trees that fit.
- Give ambiance speakers a small privacy bonus for shy animals
- Increase cold and snow tolerance for Bactrian camel, American bison and Formosan black bear to be more realistic.
- Make Bactrian camel and American bison models larger. Both species are currently too small.
- Make red kangaroos available as a walkthrough habitat.
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[*]Moonlit Sanctuary
[*]San Diego Zoo
[*]Cincinnati Zoo
[*]Columbus Zoo
[*]Currumbin Sanctuary
[*]ZooParc Overloon
[*]Living Desert Zoo
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- Remove giant anteaters as a walkthrough habitat, they are incredibly dangerous and would absolutely never, ever be allowed as one in a real zoo.
- Make the Bactrian camel a walkthrough habitat. Since this is supposed to be the domesticated animal, not the wild one, it makes sense to allow this as a walkthrough animal.
- Make it so that water based plants, in particular the lilly pad and water lotus, are not able to be walked on. It completely ruins immersion to see a hippo or elephant walking on a patch of water lilies.
- Slightly boost the number of spotted hyena able to be kept together without infighting. Generally, hyenas can be kept in larger family groups than the game currently limits.
- Change any food texture items with polar bear food enrichment to be meat exclusive. Some still use a mixed fruits and veggies texture, which is fine for any bear species except polar bears, which are hyper-carnivores and would never eat fruits or vegetables, except very, very rarely in captivity only. Not common enough to justify the texture remaining the same.
- Allow Southern white rhino and hippo to share habitats without fighting. Doesn't necessarily need enrichment bonus, just the no fighting caveat.
- Fix bad dlc animal models:
- Southern white rhino calf issues: Team made a juvenile model the size of an infant animal. Model either needs to be redone to look like an infant, or scaled up to the size of a juvenile animal.
- Malayan tapir: Purple coloration, Baird's tapir mark on head is leftover, nose is too short, hump not pronounced enough etc.
- Llama: Not a "bad" issue per say, just please re-add the all white skin that was the default before color variations, as a new variation.
- General foliage ideas:
- Less bushy bamboo options. Sometimes we just want to be able to use the taller stalks and not have gigantic leaves and branches obscuring vision. This happens even with the smallest Bengal bamboo size.
- Taller, skinnier trees. This follows the same logic as above, we want to use trees that aren't so short and fat they obstruct vision.
- More grasses. The drinn grass was a fantastic addition, but we could use at least 2-3 more species.
- More Western palms (and palmettos). I've changed this to specify "New World" palms as the Africa pack and 1.6 update did a good job adding some fantastic African palms.
- More aquatic plants. Specifically, some more sea grass and giant kelp would be fantastic choices.
- More natural looking climbable branches and logs. We're super limited still and usually have to resort to non natural looking options, which yes, I would include the log/wood climbing set. I want some really natural looking dead trees and branches.
- Foliage options for regions that are underrepresented in general:
- Aquatic-Saltwater/Coastal (As mentioned above, the aquatic biome in general is lacking, but the saltwater side is especially lacking.)
- Europe-Grassland (I would 100% include any Mediterranean climate plants here since there is no scrub or Mediterranean biome in game right now)
- Europe-Temperate
- South America-Grassland
- North America-Grassland
- North America-Temperate
- Asia-Grassland
- Fix tag issues for existing items:
- Give rainbow eucalyptus the Oceania tag
- Give bramble North America tag
- The ability to make 2m and 3m wide paths without using exploits involving placing queues. This should at the very least be implemented for staff paths.
- Add same color variations of staff paths without the logo imposed. Also, a new or color or two, such as a sandy brown, would be great.
- Ability to place trash cans on sloped paths
- Add a null path option
- Add null kerbs to the terrain paths
- Add an option to the null barrier that allows a toggle for visibility through it.
- Tone down severity of light/godrays indoors
- Space apart the barriers addition and extension buttons when building barriers as they often overlap, forcing you to change angles while building, which is restrictive.
- Allow glass on exhibit boxes to be set to null. There is a mod that allows this, but being an official part of the game would be preferred. This will allow us to create custom displays and would go a long way for creativity options, which is easily the biggest complaint for exhibits currently.
- When starting a new zoo, add the option to select the background that you want for it. As an example, if I'm going to start a new desert zoo, the game prompts me with asking if I want the standard desert map background, the new sandy dunes background, or the Outback background. Some of the scenario and challenge maps have amazing custom backgrounds that we still can't use in sandbox on blank maps.
- In addition to doing this, a few more backgrounds would be awesome. For instance, because of the Japanese campaign map, the temperate biome has an amazing background that turns the actual zoo into an island. This would be incredible to have for all the other biome types.
- Smaller version of the walkthrough habitat gate
- Null Version of both would be good as well. Option made of metal or glass would be nice but not as needed, especially if a null option is made. This bit suggested by @darthquell
- Import the barriers from PC used to block guests from walking towards or into unwanted things. Make them flexicolor, and easy to hide. Perhaps 1-3 different sizes?
- Add the ability to have a railing or kerb on only one side of a path when placing it; ie checking kerb on path grays out both buttons, unchecking that allows you to check either kerb on left side and/or kerb on right side. Just a little thing that will help with building more than you'd think.
- Allow zookeepers to walk through flat bottomed water that is 1.5m or shallower. This will allow just a little more flexibility when creating habitats such as monkey islands.
- Add large and small circular billboards.
- Add fake eggs props for various in-game species (ex: Cassowary, caiman, Komodo dragon, Ostrich). Idea originally discussed with Chante in "Eggs" thread last December.
- Give the mulch items retexture options that are the same textures as the different soil types on each map. This solves people wanting to use a hard soil brush for Tropical dirt on a Grasslands map for instance. This would be an incredible addition.
- Add in 5-10 new models for the fake rocks, with some updated texturing, but still make them flexicolor. It will give us even more variation for habitat building.
- Ability to specifically turn off "About to mature" notifications
- There is a game decoration that is clearly and Asian elephant that displays the name of "African elephant sign". This hasn't been fixed in over a year and a half.
- Take a break from the timed challenges and just make them regular campaign maps, even if they're a simple one-off without voice acting. This is highly requested by both people on the forums, and on the PZ Reddit.
- If there are any food stalls that were a part of the base game of PC, consider adding them to PZ for free in the next update, just for a bit of variety.
- Add the ability to make longer zoo names. Suggested by @macronecu originally
- Add flexicolor water and flexicolor rock to the forage pool enrichment item
- Focus on more cohesive theming for any statues added into a free update. What I mean by this is, instead of giving the hippo or Nile monitor for instance, a random theme for a statue, give them some statues in the theme of the new Africa pack, that way they can all be used together. Another example, give the Baird's tapir a statue that fits the SA pack theme.
- Fix grid flickering issue with path and terrain. I thought this was fully fixed, but it's still happening during construction.
- Mesh pieces are not see-through by guests, but they really should be.
- Added desert biome tags to cheetah, common ostrich and African wild dogs
- Added taiga biome tags to Formosan black bear and giant panda
- Upgraded capuchin conservation status from LC to V
- Added more statues for existing animals
- Added more art for animals by adding custom billboards
- Added different sized education boards by way of custom billboards
- Added more ambiance sounds by adding custom sound speakers
- Added staff heatmap to show where keepers can and cannot walk in habitats
- Added continent tags to all rocks, allowing them to still be used when filtering strictly by continent
- Fixed visibility issue with water/tanks by allowing custom colors and visibility
- Updated animal icon for the binturong to show the new model
- Updated African elephant conservation status from V to E
- Added a search bar to animal trade centers
- Added diving to polar, grizzly, sun and Formosan black bear.
- Added train all staff button
And that concludes this season's suggestion list! You all know the drill, this list is considered fluid and live for about a month after initial posting, and then I lock everything in for the next two months, hopefully giving the team enough time to implement as much as possible.
Also, I know that the CMs always read my lists, but I'm @'ing you all anyways, because it's tradition! So, @Jens Erik @Tim Smith @Francesca Falcini @Eltanin Casciani , if you communicate anything on this list with the dev team, and they tell you it isn't possible or something similar, please let me know here, in which case it will be removed from the list. And as always, thanks dear reader, for sticking with us!
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