This game makes me feel dumb

[Mizzely]

I have been playing park management games since Roller Coaster and Zoo Tycoon were released. I absolutely loved JWE, beat it 100%, and have had JWE2 preordered for months.

And I'm struggling. I cannot get past the Jurassic Park level of Chaos Theory because for some reason, I'm unable to get to 5 stars. I've restarted once already, and am about to do it again because clearly even though I'm not new to this type of game in the least, I'm apparently terrible at it.

I'm not the only one struggling based on conversations with friends. Between micromanaging the mobile vets that, despite telling them to Heal and Scan, only scan, Triceratops giving themselves injuries every 5 minutes, the 3 million dollar expeditions, and status checks that require a vehicle to be tied up, I am not having a ton of fun right now!

Anyone else having issues? Is there a bug preventing me from progressing? Or am I just not cut out for this game style anymore??

 

[Ashaantha]

I've had the same experience. I am getting better though, lots and lots of trial and error. So many of us seem to be having trouble with our Triceratops and them fighting.

 

[PCMR4Life]

Watch this. He will help you with the JP scenario. I had some issues as well and had to start over. I wasn't struggling but I wasn't happy with how things were going. I felt like I was going to have a bad time later on.

Source: https://youtu.be/gce14Iu2rko


This game is a bit harder than the first game. The management is deeper, some people say it's tedious. But if you have ever had a real job or had to manage something a lot of it is tedious. It's basically doing the same stuff over and over again every day. Some of the complaints I agree with some I think are just people wanting the more easy going experience from the first game back. Of course a lot of people complained the first game was too easy.

You have to think more in this game now. There is a bit more strategy involved now. The campaign is a bit of a tutorial but the real tutorial is in the Chaos Theory mode, especally in the JP chaos theory scenario, but they are all kind of tutorials from what I have heard. Don't be afraid to start over if you think you need to. I know it feels bad to lose hours of gameplay but if you see your build is going poorly and you can't save it then just start over.

The shops basically work kind of the same way they did in the first game. All your attractions need to have shops that provide guests with drinks, food, shopping and so on. I didn't care for this in the first game and I don't like it in this game much either. I thought they would have done something different in JWE2 but it seems like we have to the same old system from the first game. You just have to go along with it. Once you get to sandbox you can build all the parks how you wish in creative mode. Want a nice looking park? Build it in creative mode. But through Chaos Theory and Challenge Mode if you build a park it will probably look like a mess with shops all over the place if you have a lot of attractions.

 

[Deleted member 198721]

The micromanaging is a problem, but if you go into the research area and add more places for scientists then you will start making progress. I did 5 star it, but only after I figured out that a ton of things were added that didn't do more than give you more busy work.

 

[Ashaantha]

A few things I do now, after a few days of fighting with JW chaos theory.

• Make sure to have the Social trait as "avoid at all costs" for dinosaurs to minimise the fighting chance between the same species. Do not hatch social dinos, or aggressive, avoid anything adding dominance.
• Keep your scientists trained, having 6 scientists with 2 focusing on each stat is helpful to cut down staff costs. Often i can fly with 5 trained up scientists. Keep staff happy (rest often)
• Take your time once dinos are happy, let your finances gather up.
• The stars are based on income: more appeal (dinosaur - includes dinosaur visibility, and guest attractions) increases guest number potential, have guest comfort high, widen paths when you can (this seems to be your park capacity now). cost cut where you can.
• backup generators covering guest facilities as well as normal power, because guests get very mad if their fast food shop isn't open for business during a tornado.

I have no tips for the MVU, this thing is cursed in my game.

 

[shirandhak]

I'm fighting with the campaign. Like Planet Zoo the tutorial just tells you to do things, but it doesn't tell you how. No list of shortcuts you need, if you don't want to search for your different jeeps or helicopters per mouse every time. No hint why the game just tell you : "No, you can't do that", no hint, why you can't start some tasks. Sure, I do something wrong - but what? How can I do better? If I can't achive the goal, it is no use of reminding me of the goal. Showing me the way to achive it, would be apprechiated.

It would be nice, if Frontier wouldn't think that all players have played the prequel (I didn't). It is so much frustrating and no fun at all if you struggle for each step.

 

[Mizzely]

I logged in and was able to get my 5 stars today. The comment about how 5 stars was related to profit had me go through all of my amenities and fine tune them, which promptly got me where ai needed to go.

 

[Afaneros]

Got 5 starts in jp chaos and san diego so easy you cant imagine.. Took me some hours but still. Not a single restart yet.
How ppl can fail this? :S its not that hard to learn the new things.

 

[Mizzely]

Got 5 starts in jp chaos and san diego so easy you cant imagine.. Took me some hours but still. Not a single restart yet.
How ppl can fail this? :S its not that hard to learn the new things.

Congrats on your success.

 

[Thylaco]

Got 5 starts in jp chaos and san diego so easy you cant imagine.. Took me some hours but still. Not a single restart yet.
How ppl can fail this? :S its not that hard to learn the new things.

You say that, the JP one starts like a tutorial, tells you about amenities & guest needs (not really how they work, just that they exist, they're important and you need to figure them out) and then throws a storm at you while you're distracted.

The thing is, once you're in negative funds, it's not possible to recover, you can sell what ever you want, it's not going to get close to the million your staff, electricity & new amenities have drained from you, all the buildings are far too cheap for that.

Even the last scenario of campaign required multiple restarts for me, because I'd upgraded all my staff beforehand and had to fire them all to not run out of money before finishing an exhibit.

This game is fundamentally unfriendly, and at this point in time, I've doubts it's enjoyable. I do only get about 3 hours of free time a day and one day off a week these days, but it really doesn't feel worthwhile playing JWE2 at all beyond this point.

 

[Hooded]

So i just finished getting 5 stars on the first chaos theory scenario. It is much more difficult than in the previous JWE. Whereas the previous game you simply needed to reach a certain level of dinosaur rating and keep the guest comfort up to a certain level. The new system seems to look at your park profit too, i feel i only just scraped it because i didnt plan my park out very well. Need plenty of space for lots of amenities buildings to push the profit and guest satisfaction up. By the time i hit 5 stars the centre of my park was so crowded with buildings i had to move my attractions around to make extra space to squeeze in my amenities. Love that feature btw, being able to move buildings instead of having to demolish/rebuild is really convenient.

 

[Hooded]

You say that, the JP one starts like a tutorial, tells you about amenities & guest needs (not really how they work, just that they exist, they're important and you need to figure them out) and then throws a storm at you while you're distracted.

The thing is, once you're in negative funds, it's not possible to recover, you can sell what ever you want, it's not going to get close to the million your staff, electricity & new amenities have drained from you, all the buildings are far too cheap for that.

Even the last scenario of campaign required multiple restarts for me, because I'd upgraded all my staff beforehand and had to fire them all to not run out of money before finishing an exhibit.

This game is fundamentally unfriendly, and at this point in time, I've doubts it's enjoyable. I do only get about 3 hours of free time a day and one day off a week these days, but it really doesn't feel worthwhile playing JWE2 at all beyond this point.

When you run out of money try taking photos. I can usually pull 100k+ on a photo or two in a big enclosure with 3+ species. Forward planning helps too, always keep yourself around 2 million minimum so you have breathing room, the second i get a storm warning i pause time activate all shelters and get ready to damage control. My first couple of storms put me negative had to reload after the first one but i managed to recover after the second. And weathered 3 storms after without losing too much money.

 

[Keeval]

When you get storm warning ensure you open ALL your shelters immediately, tranq. any large carnivores and raptors. If a gate gets damaged pause the game, delete it and place a new one. Same with fences (it is usually faster than getting a ranger team to repair it). I use the ranger teams for repairing buildings, power lines etc.

As soon as the storm symbol vanishes from the top of the screen - open all your shelters and wake up your dinos (just move them into the same paddock).
That will minimise the loss of money.

If you do lose a lot and get into a bad place.. don't forget you can fire scientists, and sell dinos [ transport and when you have picked up the dino press R on PC ] (you can always make more once you have solved the cash issue).