The “Headliners VS Filler Species” Problem

[Angeł]

I’ve finally figured out what it is that makes planning in Planet Zoo so frustrating for me. And that’s the imbalance between Headliners and Filler Species for each geographical region.

For example:

If I am to theme my Asian area specifically to Southeast Asia, I have plenty of filler species. I have the tapir, the babirusa, the buffalo, the gibbons, the binturong, the otter, the clouded leopard etc. I also have one or two headliners in the form of the sun bear and the orangutan. But what I am missing is THE major headliner for any Asian area, which is a tiger. The Sumatran tiger is the major headliner for any Southeast Asian area, and without it in the game, whilst my Southeast Asian area is BULKY, it will never be complete.

So then you might say - there is an Indian tiger and a North Asian tiger subspecies - why not theme your area to India or the Far East, so you have the headliner? Then I ask, where are my FILLER SPECIES for those areas. India, for example, has every major headliner species it could possibly have: the tiger, elephant, rhino, sloth bear etc. But where are the blackbuck and nilgai to bulk out the Indian grasslands? The lion tailed macaque, the Indian mongoose? Indian crested porcupine? All of the filler species that are needed to pack out an Indian area are missing.

So, if I want to focus my Asian area to one geographical region, I’m stuck between having all headliners and all filler species, and neither seems correct.

We have the same issues with temperate Europe and tropical South America, where the former has all of its major headliners but no filler species, and the latter has a bunch of great filler species but only one real headliners in the wisent. Without coatis, tamanduas and new world monkeys to pack out SA, and the Eurasian brown bear and Eurasian wolf to headline Europe, both sections will never feel complete.

The closest we have to completion is Australia, Madagascar, African grasslands and temperate North America. But even then, you cannot build a region specific African section without missing out key species. If I want to build a Kenya section, I’m missing a lion and can’t fit the meerkat. If I want to build a South Africa section, I’m missing a giraffe AND a lion.

Now, I know what some of you will say. ‘Just build an Asian area! No need for specifics!’ Well my answer to that is, it’s an overdone concept and boring. Everybody’s zoo I see on here is just ‘general Asia area’, ‘general Africa area’, ‘general North America area’, ‘general South America area’. I’d rather stray away from that, otherwise I’m just doing what’s already been done a thousand times before me.

‘Okay,’ you might say ‘use stand ins’. To me, that RUINS immersion. I can’t pretend a Bengal tiger is a Sumatran tiger. It’s not. When it would take minimal effort for Frontier to release a Sumatran Tiger, Eurasian Brown Bear etc, why should I settle for pretending?

I know that this is not a problem for a lot of people. I know a lot of you will use stand ins, build generic continental areas and be happy. But there’s gotta be some people out there who agree with me, right?

I also know that this is a problem that will likely not be solved in this game. The filler ‘reskin’ species in each DLC go a long way towards closing this gap, but it will never be enough with only a finite amount of packs left. The only way I can see this being solved is with a big final pack full of the missing subspecies as filler species.

I just wanted to air this frustration, with the hopes that I have some people agree and that Frontier takes this on board for the final pack or for PZ2.

 

[Captain Callum]

I don't often encounter this problem myself as general continent areas are really how most zoos are built so the line between headliner and filler is rather thin for me. Often animals such as the lar gibbon are headliner animals themselves, standalone tropical island habitats where gibbons can brachiate between them are some of the more impressive habitats to build.

That being said though, the imbalance between headliner and filler animals throughout dlc releases is a clear pattern. India has to be the best example, it has an almost all headliner animals with little to no filler habitats. Sure a sloth bear, tiger, gharial and elephant can be a rather exciting habitat area to tour but it can surely feel empty at the same time with typical filler animals completely absent. It's at a point where all the headliner animals being added makes me think Frontier doesn't value filler animals where they don't seem as appropriate to sell in a pack. I blame real zoos really, these areas are often bulked up with existing southeast asian animals or monkeys - monkeys are of course another issue themselves.

It surely has to be just the big 2 - asia and africa. Europe, oceania, North america and even south america have a nice balance between headliners and usable filler animals, but the sheer diversity of animals in these asia and africa makes it hard to localise filler animals to fill that gap in the roster. We have received countless filler animals for both continents, often the more popular but possibly niche, but leaving out key areas in favour of zoo theming.

 

[wanderoo]

I 100% agree with this, just want to point out that the buffalo (given here as a filler animal example for SE Asia) is more of an Indian animal. Wild water buffalo live almost exclusively in India, almost all in the same area as Indian rhino, with a few in Southeast Asia. The otter also counts for both India and Southeast Asia.

India absolutely still needs more filler animal diversity though. Mostly small/medium sized ungulates like blackbuck, muntjac, etc. And of course a monkey.

Waterfowl and ground birds make for great fillers, so Frontier would be really wise to go for a couple of species that can bulk out a lot of regions, like white-faced whistling duck and bar-headed goose.

 

[turkeyfox]

Real zoos use stand-ins all the time. The famous Africa Rocks exhibit at San Diego Zoo uses Amur Leopards, for example. Houston Zoo's new award winning Galapagos exhibit uses California Sea Lions instead of Galapagos sea lions. Russia's Grizzly Coast at the Minnesota Zoo uses the southern sea otter, found in California, rather than the Asian sea otter found in Russia. The list goes on and on.

 

[Fossa]

Mods are a very simple solution for this, so future expansions don’t have to be tainted by 100%-other-name-only clone animals

 

[Captain Callum]

Mods are a very simple solution for this, so future expansions don’t have to be tainted by 100%-other-name-only clone animals

Yeah that's what I do currently, animals like say the American Black bear, American flamingo, masai giraffe and all the other clone animals (and unique animals we don't have yet) probably won't make it to the game in the near future. I know it's not a solution for everyone but it does exist.

 

[Angeł]

Mods are a very simple solution for this, so future expansions don’t have to be tainted by 100%-other-name-only clone animals

I can’t use mods, so this is not a possible solution. As I say, I know this won’t be solved in PZ1, so this is me hoping for PZ2

 

[avietar]

Honestly... a perfect base game zoo roster, to me, features mostly 'filler' animals that are lots of fun but not the big attractions in zoos. And DLCs can bring in the headliner animals.

For example.

European base game animals could include the red fox, mouflon, European wildcat, brown hare, roe deer, chamois, red squirrel, Eurasian brown bear...
European DLC animals could include the European badger, Eurasian lynx, red deer, fallow deer, moose, ibex, wisent, Eurasian wolf, grey seal...
Oceania base game animals could include the emu, wallaby, wombat, echidna, dingo, kiwi...
Oceania DLC animals could include the cassowary, red kangaroo, grey kangaroo, koala, Tasmanian devil, little blue penguin, platypus, salt water crocodile...
North America base game animals could include the raccoon, white tail deer, wolverine, black bear, skunk, beaver, pronghorn...
North America DLC animals could include the wapiti, bison, grizzly bear, cougar, alligator...
Arctic base game animals could include the arctic hare, arctic fox...
Arctic DLC animals could include the polar bear, caribou, musk ox, walrus...
And so on.

Make it so the base game has plenty of variety from places all over the world, allowing you to make any zoo you want. And if you want the big ticket animals for certain regions you buy the DLC. This way you also don't have to buy a Europe DLC if you don't care about European animals anyway. Note that the above are just examples. I can imagine that animals that occur in many places of the globe (such as the moose, that ranges in North America, Europe and Asia) should be base game animals. And that DLCs focus on animals specific to a certain region.

 

[Fossa]

Planet zoo 2 should release two big expansions each year, with many animals in it, not just 4 or 7

If it was me I should even get rid of the themes, just give 30 really needing animals from any continent and any biome, add some newstuff and gadgets and ask 30 euros for it

And I heard some people wanted planet zoo 2 roster to start off with every animal from planet zoo 1+ dlc already in it, that is a horrid thought, it would mean the graphics doesn’t change and we get the exact same game, then they should just keep releasing dlc for planet zoo 1 instead, I didn’t like this in Jurrasic World evolution 2

 

[Angeł]

Honestly... a perfect base game zoo roster, to me, features mostly 'filler' animals that are lots of fun but not the big attractions in zoos. And DLCs can bring in the headliner animals.

For example.

European base game animals could include the red fox, mouflon, European wildcat, brown hare, roe deer, chamois, red squirrel, Eurasian brown bear...
European DLC animals could include the European badger, Eurasian lynx, red deer, fallow deer, moose, ibex, wisent, Eurasian wolf, grey seal...
Oceania base game animals could include the emu, wallaby, wombat, echidna, dingo, kiwi...
Oceania DLC animals could include the cassowary, red kangaroo, grey kangaroo, koala, Tasmanian devil, little blue penguin, platypus, salt water crocodile...
North America base game animals could include the raccoon, white tail deer, wolverine, black bear, skunk, beaver, pronghorn...
North America DLC animals could include the wapiti, bison, grizzly bear, cougar, alligator...
Arctic base game animals could include the arctic hare, arctic fox...
Arctic DLC animals could include the polar bear, caribou, musk ox, walrus...
And so on.

Make it so the base game has plenty of variety from places all over the world, allowing you to make any zoo you want. And if you want the big ticket animals for certain regions you buy the DLC. This way you also don't have to buy a Europe DLC if you don't care about European animals anyway. Note that the above are just examples. I can imagine that animals that occur in many places of the globe (such as the moose, that ranges in North America, Europe and Asia) should be base game animals. And that DLCs focus on animals specific to a certain region.

Yes, I agree. I thinm the best way to do it is by having all the ‘similar’ animals from each geographic area in the base game, leavingn room in the DLC for unique picks.

The best example would be Europe and North America. Having the Wisent and Plains Bison in the base game would mean that the other wouldn’t feel like a ‘wasted’ DLC slot. Same with the Eurasian Brown and Grizzly Bears.

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

I’ve finally figured out what it is that makes planning in Planet Zoo so frustrating for me. And that’s the imbalance between Headliners and Filler Species for each geographical region.

For example:

If I am to theme my Asian area specifically to Southeast Asia, I have plenty of filler species. I have the tapir, the babirusa, the buffalo, the gibbons, the binturong, the otter, the clouded leopard etc. I also have one or two headliners in the form of the sun bear and the orangutan. But what I am missing is THE major headliner for any Asian area, which is a tiger. The Sumatran tiger is the major headliner for any Southeast Asian area, and without it in the game, whilst my Southeast Asian area is BULKY, it will never be complete.

So then you might say - there is an Indian tiger and a North Asian tiger subspecies - why not theme your area to India or the Far East, so you have the headliner? Then I ask, where are my FILLER SPECIES for those areas. India, for example, has every major headliner species it could possibly have: the tiger, elephant, rhino, sloth bear etc. But where are the blackbuck and nilgai to bulk out the Indian grasslands? The lion tailed macaque, the Indian mongoose? Indian crested porcupine? All of the filler species that are needed to pack out an Indian area are missing.

So, if I want to focus my Asian area to one geographical region, I’m stuck between having all headliners and all filler species, and neither seems correct.

We have the same issues with temperate Europe and tropical South America, where the former has all of its major headliners but no filler species, and the latter has a bunch of great filler species but only one real headliners in the wisent. Without coatis, tamanduas and new world monkeys to pack out SA, and the Eurasian brown bear and Eurasian wolf to headline Europe, both sections will never feel complete.

The closest we have to completion is Australia, Madagascar, African grasslands and temperate North America. But even then, you cannot build a region specific African section without missing out key species. If I want to build a Kenya section, I’m missing a lion and can’t fit the meerkat. If I want to build a South Africa section, I’m missing a giraffe AND a lion.

Now, I know what some of you will say. ‘Just build an Asian area! No need for specifics!’ Well my answer to that is, it’s an overdone concept and boring. Everybody’s zoo I see on here is just ‘general Asia area’, ‘general Africa area’, ‘general North America area’, ‘general South America area’. I’d rather stray away from that, otherwise I’m just doing what’s already been done a thousand times before me.

‘Okay,’ you might say ‘use stand ins’. To me, that RUINS immersion. I can’t pretend a Bengal tiger is a Sumatran tiger. It’s not. When it would take minimal effort for Frontier to release a Sumatran Tiger, Eurasian Brown Bear etc, why should I settle for pretending?

I know that this is not a problem for a lot of people. I know a lot of you will use stand ins, build generic continental areas and be happy. But there’s gotta be some people out there who agree with me, right?

I also know that this is a problem that will likely not be solved in this game. The filler ‘reskin’ species in each DLC go a long way towards closing this gap, but it will never be enough with only a finite amount of packs left. The only way I can see this being solved is with a big final pack full of the missing subspecies as filler species.

I just wanted to air this frustration, with the hopes that I have some people agree and that Frontier takes this on board for the final pack or for PZ2.

I both agree and extremly disagree at the same time.
I agree with the general vibe, that its frustrating that many areas have their headliners but really struggle in filler, but your examples are all straight F tier.
SEA is one of the two regions in the game where this really isnt a problem, literally just use a tiger, most zoos dont even have fitting subspecies in their areas, just saying that whenever you see a leopard in an african area, 99/100 times its not an african leopard.
And even then, just take a small size gene bengal tiger and nothing is lost.
The brown bears and timberwolf are even less of an issue here, as to be frank, they dont look particulary like any brownbear or gray wolf, but just plain ugly, which is a valid reason to not use them, but if anyone says they look like x subspecies all i can do is laugh. The timberwolf looks like an early ps3 animal, thats what it looks like not subspecies xy.

Also europe defenetly has its headliners, even if we dont count the ugly ones, as red deer, fallow deer, wild boar and wisent ARE the major european headliners, thats what you would expect to see in an european area as the big front animals, while whats missing is a larger roster of other smaller critters like the wildcat, duck, stork, marten, marmot or a squirrel.
In general every area at this points has its headliners in place, unless its very specific and even then areas like new zealand got theirs, whats really missing across the board are those filler animals. Primates for SA, ungulates for asia, anything past the bare minimum for oceania, small carnivores for europe, birds everywhere, only temperate na, south saharan afirca and sea are really filled out to a satisfying degree with both headliner and filler animals, with the only areas in the game that have representation at all that still desperatly needs its headliner being north africa with the hamadryas baboon.
Everywhere else, its filler animals that are missing, but on the other hand i get why we dont get as many.
Look at the arid pack, wonderfull filler pack for an underrepresented region with a big headliner aaaand most people regard it as among the worst packs.
Thats not a coincidence, when your not as deep in the game, you dont need these filler animals most of the time, as they are only interesting as filler between more interesting things. Its their absence and in many areas the lack of flexibility that is lacking, but if you only build for an area once or twice i doubt that you really care about that.
North africa was completly fine before the arid pack, you could build a nice area once with the scimitar horned oryx, fennek fox, exhibits, striped hyena and caracal, but now that we actually got something more we can mix that formula up, making it fun to build them again and again with different mixes, but thats only a concern after you build your first.
So yeah, feel with you, but i just dont see any more filler focused packs happening after the backlash of the arid pack, but on the other hand atleast the ungulate train is very strong, maybe a bit to strong, so i feel confident to say that atleast the asian ungulate hole will be filled in the future, as it allready has begun with the eurasia pack.
Everything else though? Eh highly doubt we will get that much non ungulate filler love, maybe even more less hype cats, but only time can tell

 

[jcp011c]

I can see the point of view with your frustration. To a lesser degree, I share it, at least for some areas. And I think I've fallen into the habit of just doing "general continental" sections because of it, without focusing on certain regions of continents.

India in particular, as you pointed out, has little to know filler animals. As much as South America in general is not well represented, non-Amazon South America is extremely poorly represented, in terms of both filler and headliners. Africa presents its own issues dependent on the region - another reason I want a second giraffe and second lion. Filler animals for some of the African regions is lacking as well - in some areas the headliners are there and the fillers are not, and vice versa. Non-India/Non Southeast Asia is also a problem in general, particularly the Himalayan area, which has few species represented.

Australia itself is pretty well represented, I think you have enough headliners and fillers, but outside of Australia, Oceania is a bit worse off. Problem there though is what would be considered headliners and fillers for non-Australia Oceania, aside from the Tree Kangaroo. And frankly not sure if that would even be counted as a Headliner or Filler species.

I personally do think the various parts of North America are pretty well represented at this point, with the ABB and Muskox being the big headliners missing, but I also think that the areas they show up in have other good headliners and fillers, where applicable. Tundra NA may be an issue with the filler species though, and I can see the opinion that Western Desert and Praire areas of NA also is missing some headliners. '

For Europe, I think we have an even balance of headliners and fillers, but there could be more added, and there's the issue of Eastern and Western Europe getting a good balance as well as Iberia (I know that's in Western Europe but still), Mediterranea and Scandanavia not have lacking in balance.

ETA: I am certain they will not be coming in PZ, but this is an area that having small and medium sized birds would do a tremendous job of helping out with filler animals, an in some cases even headliners if they're iconic enough. Sadly, that's something we will be missing an opportunity to have.

 

[Marvinb]

I both agree and extremly disagree at the same time.
I agree with the general vibe, that its frustrating that many areas have their headliners but really struggle in filler, but your examples are all straight F tier.
SEA is one of the two regions in the game where this really isnt a problem, literally just use a tiger, most zoos dont even have fitting subspecies in their areas, just saying that whenever you see a leopard in an african area, 99/100 times its not an african leopard.
And even then, just take a small size gene bengal tiger and nothing is lost.
The brown bears and timberwolf are even less of an issue here, as to be frank, they dont look particulary like any brownbear or gray wolf, but just plain ugly, which is a valid reason to not use them, but if anyone says they look like x subspecies all i can do is laugh. The timberwolf looks like an early ps3 animal, thats what it looks like not subspecies xy.

Also europe defenetly has its headliners, even if we dont count the ugly ones, as red deer, fallow deer, wild boar and wisent ARE the major european headliners, thats what you would expect to see in an european area as the big front animals, while whats missing is a larger roster of other smaller critters like the wildcat, duck, stork, marten, marmot or a squirrel.
In general every area at this points has its headliners in place, unless its very specific and even then areas like new zealand got theirs, whats really missing across the board are those filler animals. Primates for SA, ungulates for asia, anything past the bare minimum for oceania, small carnivores for europe, birds everywhere, only temperate na, south saharan afirca and sea are really filled out to a satisfying degree with both headliner and filler animals, with the only areas in the game that have representation at all that still desperatly needs its headliner being north africa with the hamadryas baboon.
Everywhere else, its filler animals that are missing, but on the other hand i get why we dont get as many.
Look at the arid pack, wonderfull filler pack for an underrepresented region with a big headliner aaaand most people regard it as among the worst packs.
Thats not a coincidence, when your not as deep in the game, you dont need these filler animals most of the time, as they are only interesting as filler between more interesting things. Its their absence and in many areas the lack of flexibility that is lacking, but if you only build for an area once or twice i doubt that you really care about that.
North africa was completly fine before the arid pack, you could build a nice area once with the scimitar horned oryx, fennek fox, exhibits, striped hyena and caracal, but now that we actually got something more we can mix that formula up, making it fun to build them again and again with different mixes, but thats only a concern after you build your first.
So yeah, feel with you, but i just dont see any more filler focused packs happening after the backlash of the arid pack, but on the other hand atleast the ungulate train is very strong, maybe a bit to strong, so i feel confident to say that atleast the asian ungulate hole will be filled in the future, as it allready has begun with the eurasia pack.
Everything else though? Eh highly doubt we will get that much non ungulate filler love, maybe even more less hype cats, but only time can tell

I can only speak for myself but arid being mostly filler isnt whats bothering me about the pack, its more that its all to much of the same type of animal.
Having 1 or 2 of the medium to big sized herbivores change to something else would improve the pack for me. Idk rock hyrax are also filler animals but would help vary up the pack by having something different in shape and enclosure style.
But hamadryas would definetly help aswell, although i wouldnt categorize it as a headliner animal

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

I can only speak for myself but arid being mostly filler isnt whats bothering me about the pack, its more that its all to much of the same type of animal.
Having 1 or 2 of the medium to big sized herbivores change to something else would improve the pack for me. Idk rock hyrax are also filler animals but would help vary up the pack by having something different in shape and enclosure style.
But hamadryas would definetly help aswell, although i wouldnt categorize it as a headliner animal

Tell me what else qualifys as a headliner for North africa and the middle east?
Idk about you, but the bar really is quite low here, with only the dromedary currently qualifying.

But yeah big agree, booting the rhino for example for the spurred tortoise would have made a big difference allready

 

[Marvinb]

Tell me what else qualifys as a headliner for North africa and the middle east?
Idk about you, but the bar really is quite low here, with only the dromedary currently qualifying.

But yeah big agree, booting the rhino for example for the spurred tortoise would have made a big difference allready

I mean its definetly a headliner for that area, but not for a zoo overall. Kinda hard to explain

 

[Captain Callum]

I mean its definetly a headliner for that area, but not for a zoo overall. Kinda hard to explain

There's also the definition of a headliner confusing people aswell - are we talking about headliners for a zoo in general or headliners for a specific region? Like Dromedary and the hamadryas baboon could work as headliners for the north africa/middle east but don't have any comparable appeal to zoo headliners like big cats or great apes.

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

At this point, especally regarding new animals, it only makes sense in speaking of headliners for specific regions with the simplest definition being, whats the first few animals youd think of if you had to represent the region with just a low number of animals, not in zoo terms but thematicly.
If youd make a sign for the region for example, what animals would you put on there?
For some easy examples, for india id bet indian elephants, tigers and peafowls would score high marks, african savannah has a ton but lions, giraffes, elephants and a picture of a group of ungulates like zebras mixed with gazelle and gnus would be my choices.
Australia has the kangaroo and koala, europe got the red deer and wisent, south americas are all sorts of monkeys and birds, etc.
Atleast that would be my definition of the term and without a doubt for north africa or even deserts in general the dromedary is the nr 1 animal most people think about