What the game needs

[Jenrai]

Let me preface this by saying this is an amazing game, I can see all the hard work that has gone into development. The animals and there behaviors is wonderful.

However, I don't mind micro-management but this is micro-management on steriods! I find in Career and Franchise mode playing nearly always in pause mode. Once you get medium to a large zoo I can't keep up with all the management, bariers, animal welfare, staff, guests, the wrong social group and breeding plus a couple of dozen other tasks to take care of.

What I am suggesting is having an assistant, a head keeper if you like to help run the day to day stuff. A bit like in Football Manager where you can get your assistant to run as much or as little as you like.

This would let players decide which bits to manage themselves and which to ask the head keeper to take care of.

 

[Xordus]

or just slow the game down substantially, which is the much more realistic solution. there's nothing wrong with the gameplay loop. having an assistant run the park completely defeats the purpose of a management sim. we simply need to be able to play without constantly pausing. a slower timescale achieves that while keeping the gameplay intact.

 

[Dr4gon]

All I like is a way that you can actually trust the staff to do what you tell them. There should be a warning like this: "You sent staff member A to feed the starving animals, but s/he is on break now. We recommend you place an other staff member." And it's always good to check the work pressure they are under. Sometimes you really need some emergency done, but the staff is on break and you are out of luck.

The problem is now that when a staff member is on break, you can't ask an other staff member to do the feeding. Tough luck, but you have to go to the trading center again for new animal and hope the protestors and the inspector don't find out.

 

[Remira]

All I like is a way that you can actually trust the staff to do what you tell them. There should be a warning like this: "You sent staff member A to feed the starving animals, but s/he is on break now. We recommend you place an other staff member." And it's always good to check the work pressure they are under. Sometimes you really need some emergency done, but the staff is on break and you are out of luck.

The problem is now that when a staff member is on break, you can't ask an other staff member to do the feeding. Tough luck, but you have to go to the trading center again for new animal and hope the protestors and the inspector don't find out.

The way I can tell if no staff member is available is when you call for one, it will say something like staff member being requested but there will be no location icon next to it. That's how you know no one is actually on the way to do the job you just asked for. An easy way to solve that is to just hire a new member of staff and place them at the habitat needing care. Or anywhere else depending on the situation. And if you can't afford them, just fire them after they've carried out their task.

 

[jakecminihan]

AirportCEO has a good way of managing this - it too is a management simulator and in it you can hire "board members" who can automate various minor tasks if you so wish, for example in ACEO the COO will automate the repair of stands. This would be good for PZ in cases such as automatically commissioning the repair of vandalised property, just as an example. A system such as this would remove a lot of the drudgery of the more granular micromanagement and allow us to spend more time doing what we want.

I do agree though - the time system in this game is way out of whack and urgently needs to slow down as I find myself having to replace animals so often, and unfortunately I don't think this can be automated as we, the players, want to be able to choose the best/right/cheapest animals.

Project Hospital also has a good system whereby for each hospital department a department head can be selected, who brings buffs (or debuffs) to the staff under their control. Having a head keeper or head veterinarian would be a neat touch - for example, speeding up times inbetween staff training, improving efficiency or staff happiness.