The in-game speed of time has remained unchanged as of release day.

[Fortunanovesia]

The gameplay appeal of Planet Zoo to me is relaxed creativity, the balance between concentrated building and just hanging out in your zoo.

Hanging out in my zoo. Lol

As soon as i start hanging out and watching some of my animald it feels like my zoo starts to burn. Notifications over notifcations. Animals growing up, starting fighting, animals getting sick, animals starving or beeing thirsty.

Theres just no time for just hanging out and watching my animals. At least, when you have more then 5 or 6 exhibits. Micromanagement starts and steals the most time in franchise mode.

 

[NL_Mutso]

Theres just no time for just hanging out and watching my animals. At least, when you have more then 5 or 6 exhibits. Micromanagement starts and steals the most time in franchise mode

That's a very personal issue.. I have over approx. 40 exhibits and at regular speed, you can easily enjoy your animals.
Forgot to pause the game when i went to the store, 30-45 minutes without any actions was no problem. Only a few fights but no deaths because of those fights..

When you put fast breeding animals/higher maintenance animals all together in 1 workzone, you'll need to micromanage stuff..
Other than that, it's not much micromanagement at all. (but that's my personal experience)

 

[Fortunanovesia]

In my main franchise-zoo ive got warthogs, nyalas, bongos the small hippos (and some others) at the moment for example. All the time a new animal is born or grows up. And it starts. Animals are fighting, animals get injured, welfare is decreasing, i need to take them out.

After the updates i got rid of the starving problems, but in larger exhibits it can still happen.

Theres just so much you need to take care. I pause the game frequently just to deal with all the nots. Then i have to trade or release animals.

Besides that animals are dying all the time and you need to replace them, if you wanna avoid inbreeding. Theres so much to do. And dont get me wrong: its right that theres so much to do! Thats the challenge in this mode. But with the time slowed down it wouldnt be that much at the same time.

 

[K M Butler]

I don't understand why FD couldn't just have a logarithmic slider for time acceleration, and let people decide for themselves how fast they want to go. PZ is not an MMO, for whatever's sakes.

 

[Jileha]

The main issue with adding a slower speed is that in the current system, it’s not just that the time moves faster when you accelerate the time, but animals and people move faster as well. The single ”proper” speed is the currently slowest one.

What you are asking for is two completely separate ”proper” speeds.


Adding a slower speed in the current system would result in everything moving at the speed of molasses. How much would you enjoy watching your animals in that case? And making the slow option the standard mode would tick off many more people than those wishing for a slow mode because their animations would always be accelerated and horrible to watch.

Having different speed options that do not affect the aninations might not be that easily achievable in the game system.

 

[playfuldreamer]

There are two kinds of speed at discussion here: the speed of animations, and the speed of a day cycle. What I think most of us are having trouble with (at least it's my personal gripe) is that the day cycle--the time it takes for the game to go from Jan 1 to Jan 2 is very quick. The result is that animals have short lifespans, and it's difficult to keep up the more you add to the zoo. I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to lengthen the day cycle while not at all touching the speed of animations.

 

[JamieCA]

There are two kinds of speed at discussion here: the speed of animations, and the speed of a day cycle. What I think most of us are having trouble with (at least it's my personal gripe) is that the day cycle--the time it takes for the game to go from Jan 1 to Jan 2 is very quick. The result is that animals have short lifespans, and it's difficult to keep up the more you add to the zoo. I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to lengthen the day cycle while not at all touching the speed of animations.

^^^^ This

 

[Indoraptor27]

I have a hard time seeing why people are against this. Because it might be too easy for other people? I don't see why those people can't play on the normal time if it isn't challenging enough. To be honest, fast time is more of a nuisance than a challenge. And slow time will not make it too easy for starting players, because it will mean animals will take longer to breed and cash will take longer to come in.

 

[Cocolori]

I genuinely don't know whether I want time slowed or not. But I guess the issue would be, if they make the base speed say half the time it is currently but keep the animation speed etc the same. Do they then keep the current speed as well to please players who like it and make career mode and to some extent franchise more viable? If they do then do they somehow keep it with the same animation timings? In which case that would make it different to our current time buttons.

To me it would be easiest to keep the current time as the default because it seems to me that a lot of the career mode and goal orientated stuff is built around that and then have a button to the left that is the go slow / easy / relaxed mode with half time on the clock. I wouldn't have any issue with that.

 

[Vayman]

I'll start by saying I'm enjoying the game immensely. But it's hard to enjoy the fruits of my labor when events, alerts, aging and financial situations fly at me every few seconds or so.

I play most of the game on pause, which is unfortunate. I would think the following might be a welcome solution...

• Normal speed should follow a day/night cycle with some sort of scale.
  • For example: 1 real world minute = 30 game world minutes.
  • So if someone played for about an hour of real time (considering several pauses over that session and what not), they'd advance about a day.
• Then bump up the first "speed arrow button" to equal what today's "normal speed" is.
  • This way, for anyone who likes how it currently is, we don't invalidate their style of play
• And just leave the final "speed arrow button" as is.
  • I don't think we really need two "go fast" buttons. If someone wants "speed", they want SPEED, not slightly less than as fast as one could go.

With this model, players can continue to play as it is today, or elect to slow it down or speed it up to suit their current preference (a fluid decision, I imagine).

 

[Jileha]

There are two kinds of speed at discussion here: the speed of animations, and the speed of a day cycle. What I think most of us are having trouble with (at least it's my personal gripe) is that the day cycle--the time it takes for the game to go from Jan 1 to Jan 2 is very quick. The result is that animals have short lifespans, and it's difficult to keep up the more you add to the zoo. I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to lengthen the day cycle while not at all touching the speed of animations.

If that’s easy or difficult to do from a programming point of view is hard to tell based on our knowledge. Right now, game time and everything that happens in the zoo are clearly closely linked. Time passes faster = it’s not just the animation that’s affected, but all management tasks, guests actions, etc. are sped up as well. Guests spend less game time eating their hamburgers, getting hungry again faster, buying food more frequently, looking at animals, getting upset about something, etc.

You basically cannot separate the animation speed from what’s happening underneath. Slowing down the game speed without slowing down the animation means guests spend months eating a hamburger even if the animation of them eating is long over, months before they feel the urge to move on to see the next animal even if they cover the distance between the old and the new habitat at exactly the same pace as before, months before they decide to donate money - even if the actual donation animation is as fast as before. If guest spawning is not reduced, the zoo will be overcrowded in no time because guests don’t feel the urge to do anything for a long time and just stand around at the same place forever. If guest spawning is reduced, - paired with the much longer time before guests feel the need to spend money - your zoo will most likely go bankrupt in the foreseeable future. You won’t have the funds to even buy new cash animals and expand your zoo.

It’s a very complex system of interdependencies. The developers tried to address the issue by adjusting the animals’ life cycles. This way they avoided the above issues. But obviously there is a limit to how much longer they let animals live.

 

[SleepyEngi]

If that’s easy or difficult to do from a programming point of view is hard to tell based on our knowledge. Right now, game time and everything that happens in the zoo are clearly closely linked. Time passes faster = it’s not just the animation that’s affected, but all management tasks, guests actions, etc. are sped up as well. Guests spend less game time eating their hamburgers, getting hungry again faster, buying food more frequently, looking at animals, getting upset about something, etc.

You basically cannot separate the animation speed from what’s happening underneath. Slowing down the game speed without slowing down the animation means guests spend months eating a hamburger even if the animation of them eating is long over, months before they feel the urge to move on to see the next animal even if they cover the distance between the old and the new habitat at exactly the same pace as before, months before they decide to donate money - even if the actual donation animation is as fast as before. If guest spawning is not reduced, the zoo will be overcrowded in no time because guests don’t feel the urge to do anything for a long time and just stand around at the same place forever. If guest spawning is reduced, - paired with the much longer time before guests feel the need to spend money - your zoo will most likely go bankrupt in the foreseeable future. You won’t have the funds to even buy new cash animals and expand your zoo.

It’s a very complex system of interdependencies. The developers tried to address the issue by adjusting the animals’ life cycles. This way they avoided the above issues. But obviously there is a limit to how much longer they let animals live.

I highly doubt it was programmed like that. That would be too contrived. I don’t think a change to the day speed would affect a guest’s itinerary- it would just make the “progress bars” that define everything go down slower. Like hunger, age, facility maintenance, etc. But once a events is triggered like a guest eating a hamburger, a animal eating their food, a machine breaking down- the speed of the event would be the same. It’s just when it is triggered that is changed.

 

[The_Tick]

I am not gonna write the comments but I am absolutely disgusted by the fact that Frontier is not being transparent in this matter. I am building a detailed zoo from the ground up in franchise mode, but if I want to manage the zoo I am forced to pause the damn game 90% of the time. I can't just keep it running or every habitat will go out of control, I will end up with dead animals.

There is a lot of Micro involved in the game already, but getting a message popup that requires your attention every 5 to 10 seconds because of an event happening really starts to me off.

In order to slow down the game speed requires an insane amount of rebalancing. it is not just about flicking a switch and decrease the time. Guests and animals still need to walk around at a normal rate while keeping things like income and cash income balanced. It is not an easy task, but I do wish frontier is giving a update about this that they are going to do something about this. This is the number one issue with the game.

And again. I only would like to see this rebalance in Franchise mode. Changing the game speed in scenario's is ludicrous and will require to rebalance every single scenario which is just a waste of time in my opinion.

 

[Cocolori]

I am not gonna write the comments but I am absolutely disgusted by the fact that Frontier is not being transparent in this matter. I am building a detailed zoo from the ground up in franchise mode, but if I want to manage the zoo I am forced to pause the damn game 90% of the time. I can't just keep it running or every habitat will go out of control, I will end up with dead animals.

There is a lot of Micro involved in the game already, but getting a message popup that requires your attention every 5 to 10 seconds because of an event happening really starts to me off.

In order to slow down the game speed requires an insane amount of rebalancing. it is not just about flicking a switch and decrease the time. Guests and animals still need to walk around at a normal rate while keeping things like income and cash income balanced. It is not an easy task, but I do wish frontier is giving a update about this that they are going to do something about this. This is the number one issue with the game.

And again. I only would like to see this rebalance in Franchise mode. Changing the game speed in scenario's is ludicrous and will require to rebalance every single scenario which is just a waste of time in my opinion.

They have stated numerous times in other threads and online that they are looking at this issue but it will take them some time because as you point out it is a complex balancing problem. The latest comment from the community team was in the update comments just today. I have said before that Frontier's policy is not to talk about what they intend to change until they know that it is basically ready to go and they don't continually reply on issues they have already said they are looking at. I know many people think that is a bad comms policy but they are pretty consistent with it and are unlikely to change it. So all I can suggest is patience.

 

[Indoraptor27]

I'll start by saying I'm enjoying the game immensely. But it's hard to enjoy the fruits of my labor when events, alerts, aging and financial situations fly at me every few seconds or so.

I play most of the game on pause, which is unfortunate. I would think the following might be a welcome solution...

• Normal speed should follow a day/night cycle with some sort of scale.
  • For example: 1 real world minute = 30 game world minutes.
  • So if someone played for about an hour of real time (considering several pauses over that session and what not), they'd advance about a day.
• Then bump up the first "speed arrow button" to equal what today's "normal speed" is.
  • This way, for anyone who likes how it currently is, we don't invalidate their style of play
• And just leave the final "speed arrow button" as is.
  • I don't think we really need two "go fast" buttons. If someone wants "speed", they want SPEED, not slightly less than as fast as one could go.

With this model, players can continue to play as it is today, or elect to slow it down or speed it up to suit their current preference (a fluid decision, I imagine).

At first I was shocked by how slow that would be, but then I realized I could switch between old normal and it to watch my animals and enjoy my zoo. So, I agree!

 

[Moosegun]

Really disappointing that Frontier did not change the time speed after most of the community made it their main complaint honestly. I'm hoping that Frontier can at least respond to this and say if they even intend to change it. Specially since they said they fixed it and tweaked animal lifespans. Players were asking for a big change, not a small increase in lifespans, which will mean nothing with the current speed of time.

Not sure who you are to decide to slow my game up but I would like to add my voice 100% against adjusting the game speed. No issue with adding a slower speed option, but I am massively against changing the default speed.

The game give you loads of options to lower the level of micromanagement.

 

[marcnesiumHH]

that's what Bo posted today regarding this topic https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/planet-zoo-update-1-0-3.531123/#post-8164470

 

[Jileha]

I highly doubt it was programmed like that. That would be too contrived. I don’t think a change to the day speed would affect a guest’s itinerary- it would just make the “progress bars” that define everything go down slower. Like hunger, age, facility maintenance, etc. But once a events is triggered like a guest eating a hamburger, a animal eating their food, a machine breaking down- the speed of the event would be the same.

All the peeps ”decisions” are ultimately time-based since the game needs to calculate how long they spend doing something before doing something else. And it not only affects the peeps’ decisions, but also the animals’ decisions on what to do next. In order to slow the game speed down without slowing down the animation, many more additional activities need to be triggered, otherwise peeps and animals would sit/stand/lie around doing nothing. Generally, that might or might not be that difficult to do, BUT in order to keep the financial aspects of the game balanced, the frequency of certain activities that impact income/cost related game stats (animal feeding times, new guests paying, guests buying stuff, staff needs/salaries, etc.) would have to be modified to avoid that slow speed players get an advantage by making the same amount of money compared to the normal speeds.

Any kind of balance in a game like Zoo Planet is very delicate and can easily be upset with terrible results.

Don’t you think that if the time change would be as easy as simply adjusting the day counter, Frontier would have implemented this change long ago? They also need to come up with a way that allows users to change as seamlessly back and forth between what are basically two separate game modes as we can now switch between the different speeds. Having everything move in slow motion would be the equivalent of using the current underlying speed functionality. That won’t work, so whatever they need to develop as solutions is obviously much more complicated - and risky - than the other speed changes.

 

[TheGaijin87]

Not sure who you are to decide to slow my game up but I would like to add my voice 100% against adjusting the game speed. No issue with adding a slower speed option, but I am massively against changing the default speed.

The game give you loads of options to lower the level of micromanagement.

not sure who you are to decide how everyone should play their game?

 

[Crea_TivELA]

not sure who you are to decide how everyone should play their game?

I'm not sure what "loads of of options" to lower the micromanagement means... there is a lot you can't manage yet or you have to do it on your own or make workarounds to solve issues. Other complex management games offer a little bit more, so you really can lean back and watch your city (for example)... to really lower micromanagement by option doesn't work for me that well, we currently have limited possibilities to restrict things.

Or is it about sandbox? I heard even there are issues because of restrictions which lead to problems and other micromanagement.

Maybe I'm missing something what could do that, didn't play since the last update - but before that I really didn't had something to lower micromanagement a lot.