These are some things that I noticed and would like to see after playing a good bit of time in my first franchise zoo. I know there is a separate reporting channel for bugs, so I'll stay away from those.
1. I noticed this with Indian Elephants and, while not tested, I imagine also happens with African Elephants: When they walk through water, the animals leave their trunk down such that it's in the water. Obviously, in reality, the animal would raise its trunk so as to breathe. Would be a nice detail to add.
2. Another thing with elephants (again, only had Indian and haven't tested African, but likely the same), there should be an alpha female, not an alpha male. The zoopedia even tells you elephants are matriarchal and that females stay together their entire lives, lead by the oldest female in the herd. Males live largely in male only groups or alone. Alpha Female makes way more sense.
3. One more elephant thing: I was just reading about elephant sleep behavior, and it seems they only lay down to sleep every few days. Other times, they lean against a tree and sleep for a shorter time. Maybe this is different in elephants in captivity, but I sure would love to see an elephant leaning against a tree to sleep. Shoot, I'd love to see elephants using trees as toys. I know they sometimes push trees over or rub their tusks on them. But, those are some super specific behaviors, so if they don't make it in, I get it.
4. I feel like I should get more credits for RELEASING endangered animals than I do from trading them. There's only 400-500 Siberian Tigers in the wild. I should be encouraged to release them to the wild if I do so with an animal younger than a certain age and meeting certain minimum genetic criteria.
5. Please allow multiple staff gates for a habitat. This is useful for guest enter-able habitats, especially if said habitat is right inside the main entrance. This would allow me to have staff facilities on either side of the habitat without needing a path all the way around it for staff to access things.
6. Maybe consider some cave shaped terrain stamps? This one is just nice-to-have, but it would be.....well, nice to have.
7. The negative effect of staff and utility facilities should be minimized or stopped at visual barriers. Even if that means putting up an actual barrier, it makes sense that either an actual wall or a wall of tree/plants would block those buildings from guests view and therefore would not effect the guests.
8. I would like to be able to start a new zoo, franchise or otherwise, with a NOT FLAT blank slate. In real life, zoos are built around the physical features of the land their on. Plus, I think it would be way more interesting this way. And you could always terrain tool things to be more workable.
9. This is more from nostalgia than anything, but I'd like to see a couple of the enrichment items from Zoo Tycoon put in the game. Particularly the sunning rock for big cats (particularly lions) and the swinging log for elephants and rhinos.
10. I would like to see the animal menu in the top right show what the selected animal is doing. This is a feature that is in Jurassic World Evolution. And I'm sure way deep in the animal behavior code, it is switching between various coded behaviors. Just display what that is, be it eating, playing with siblings/parents, swimming, walking, sleeping, etc.
11. I think an expanded genealogy screen would be useful, especially for large group animals like, for instance, the Japanese Macaque.
12. Simple one: Want to see more barrier variety, visually speaking.
13. I think we really need to be able to specifically direct zookeepers. Sometimes I just can't get the auto managed stuff to work quite right in a timely manner, but meanwhile I have animals starving or getting sick from not being cleaned. I have had animals die of starvation as I watch keepers I drop next to the gate walk in, look around, and walk out and continue wandering around. Very frustrating.
14. Can we have a habitat trial mode for building habitats prior to placing animals in them? Only way to know what changes need to be made right now is to put an animal in the habitat first and let it basically suffer as I make the changes needed. Maybe this just is an option select-able in the animal tab of the habitat when no animals are actually in the habitat.
15. Thermal barriers. When I have a cooler in a Siberian Tiger habitat which shares a wall with a Gharial habitat, the brick wall between them should either stop or significantly reduce the effects of the coolers in the tiger habitat. This is a logical thing in real life, so....please? Would just make adjusting the temperature of habitats less fickle work.
16. Last one: give me degrees in Fahrenheit. I'm a lowly American who doesn't use (or want to use) Celcius. You have other unit options, please add temperature.
Sorry this was so long and if any of these issues have been brought up in the past. Just saw a lot of things. I adore this game. It's all the good stuff of Planet Coaster without feeling like it's so much work. And I've been looking for a Zoo Tycoon game for a long time. Keep up the good work Frontier! But, nothing is perfect while everyday is the pursuit of such, so these are some improvements I'd like to see.
Let me know what you think!
1. I noticed this with Indian Elephants and, while not tested, I imagine also happens with African Elephants: When they walk through water, the animals leave their trunk down such that it's in the water. Obviously, in reality, the animal would raise its trunk so as to breathe. Would be a nice detail to add.
2. Another thing with elephants (again, only had Indian and haven't tested African, but likely the same), there should be an alpha female, not an alpha male. The zoopedia even tells you elephants are matriarchal and that females stay together their entire lives, lead by the oldest female in the herd. Males live largely in male only groups or alone. Alpha Female makes way more sense.
3. One more elephant thing: I was just reading about elephant sleep behavior, and it seems they only lay down to sleep every few days. Other times, they lean against a tree and sleep for a shorter time. Maybe this is different in elephants in captivity, but I sure would love to see an elephant leaning against a tree to sleep. Shoot, I'd love to see elephants using trees as toys. I know they sometimes push trees over or rub their tusks on them. But, those are some super specific behaviors, so if they don't make it in, I get it.
4. I feel like I should get more credits for RELEASING endangered animals than I do from trading them. There's only 400-500 Siberian Tigers in the wild. I should be encouraged to release them to the wild if I do so with an animal younger than a certain age and meeting certain minimum genetic criteria.
5. Please allow multiple staff gates for a habitat. This is useful for guest enter-able habitats, especially if said habitat is right inside the main entrance. This would allow me to have staff facilities on either side of the habitat without needing a path all the way around it for staff to access things.
6. Maybe consider some cave shaped terrain stamps? This one is just nice-to-have, but it would be.....well, nice to have.
7. The negative effect of staff and utility facilities should be minimized or stopped at visual barriers. Even if that means putting up an actual barrier, it makes sense that either an actual wall or a wall of tree/plants would block those buildings from guests view and therefore would not effect the guests.
8. I would like to be able to start a new zoo, franchise or otherwise, with a NOT FLAT blank slate. In real life, zoos are built around the physical features of the land their on. Plus, I think it would be way more interesting this way. And you could always terrain tool things to be more workable.
9. This is more from nostalgia than anything, but I'd like to see a couple of the enrichment items from Zoo Tycoon put in the game. Particularly the sunning rock for big cats (particularly lions) and the swinging log for elephants and rhinos.
10. I would like to see the animal menu in the top right show what the selected animal is doing. This is a feature that is in Jurassic World Evolution. And I'm sure way deep in the animal behavior code, it is switching between various coded behaviors. Just display what that is, be it eating, playing with siblings/parents, swimming, walking, sleeping, etc.
11. I think an expanded genealogy screen would be useful, especially for large group animals like, for instance, the Japanese Macaque.
12. Simple one: Want to see more barrier variety, visually speaking.
13. I think we really need to be able to specifically direct zookeepers. Sometimes I just can't get the auto managed stuff to work quite right in a timely manner, but meanwhile I have animals starving or getting sick from not being cleaned. I have had animals die of starvation as I watch keepers I drop next to the gate walk in, look around, and walk out and continue wandering around. Very frustrating.
14. Can we have a habitat trial mode for building habitats prior to placing animals in them? Only way to know what changes need to be made right now is to put an animal in the habitat first and let it basically suffer as I make the changes needed. Maybe this just is an option select-able in the animal tab of the habitat when no animals are actually in the habitat.
15. Thermal barriers. When I have a cooler in a Siberian Tiger habitat which shares a wall with a Gharial habitat, the brick wall between them should either stop or significantly reduce the effects of the coolers in the tiger habitat. This is a logical thing in real life, so....please? Would just make adjusting the temperature of habitats less fickle work.
16. Last one: give me degrees in Fahrenheit. I'm a lowly American who doesn't use (or want to use) Celcius. You have other unit options, please add temperature.
Sorry this was so long and if any of these issues have been brought up in the past. Just saw a lot of things. I adore this game. It's all the good stuff of Planet Coaster without feeling like it's so much work. And I've been looking for a Zoo Tycoon game for a long time. Keep up the good work Frontier! But, nothing is perfect while everyday is the pursuit of such, so these are some improvements I'd like to see.
Let me know what you think!
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