Where Planet Zoo goes wrong

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

A zoo game simulator has so much potential for to provide deep gameplay. None of this is found in the Planet series.

Let's take the flamingo example. I think three species, Great Flamingo, American Flamingo, and Chilean Flamingo would provide the variety that's needed without becoming too repetitive. Each has a different native range, appearance, and most importantly different climate needs. These difference will dictate which species is best suited to each zoo.
1. Variety. Why do we need variety? Because flamingoes are a zoo staple and found in nearly every zoo. It is incredibly boring (not to mention unrealistic) to see the same species roster in every PZ player's zoo. Building an African savannah complex? Use the greater flamingo. Building a huge South American rainforest biodome? Use the American flamingo. Looking for the most vibrantly colored flamingo to add to your avian collection? American flamingo.
2. Location. Let's make the location that a player chooses for their zoo actually meaningful. Location dictates climate. Chilean flamingoes are far more common in more northern/temperate zoos because they are better adapted to cooler temperatures. That means they can be displayed outdoors in large, well-landscaped exhibits for a longer part of the year and have lower energy costs to maintain the species. When the climate is too extreme for a species it must be kept in indoor holding facilities. Indoor holding can be back-stage utilitarian facilities, or elaborate indoor display areas, such as a glass-enclosed aviary. Indoor spaces are more expensive to build and maintain (heating, cooling, ventilation, electricity, etc). Guests are unhappy when animals aren't on display.
3. Animal Market. Location also influences the animal market. Species are easier to obtain in the native range, and some species are much more prevalent in European vs. North American zoos due to historical reasons. These differences in availability would be reflected in the animal market. You can purchase any animal listed in the market but must pay a shipping fee based on how far that zoo is from yours. A small animal, like a flamingo, costs a lot less to ship than an elephant. The longer the shipping distance the higher the risk of disease or injury in transit. Greater Flamingoes are much more prevalent in Europe than North America.
4. Breeding. I don't know why flamingoes breed like sewer rats in zoo games. In reality flamingoes are challenging to breed in captivity. Flamingo flocks must reach a certain size, and have a relatively even sex ratio in order to breed. Some enrichment items, like mirrors, can help trick flamingoes into thinking the flock is larger and promote breeding. Other enrichment items, like pre-built nests, also encourage breeding. Adding a new animal or scenery to the enclosure, or moving the flock to a new exhibit can disrupt the entire breeding season. Even changing the keeper that cares for the flock can cause them to stop breeding - a good reason to retain your employees!
In the wild flamingoes nest in extremely inhospitable locations were there are no natural predators because ground nests are highly vulnerable to predation. In captivity both the eggs and parents are very vulnerable to predation while nesting. Flamingoes are also easily startled and can trample and destroy all the nests in the colony. Removing the eggs to a new staff facility, Incubation Centre, greatly increases the chance of those eggs surviving to hatching.
5. Guest Interaction. Guests love to interact with the animals; no longer is just viewing them in their habitat enough. Flamingoes can be presented on stage during a bird show, marched through the zoo along guest pathways at a scheduled time of day, or allow guests to feed them from pre-filled cups distributed by the keeper.
6. Diet. Giving the players a choice between different quality diets make sense. The player must find a balance between animal welfare and economics. Higher quality diet improves factors like animal happiness, health, and fertility. In flamingoes diet also has a visual impact. Flamingoes fed a low quality diet without high levels of carotenoids will loose their color.
7. Ethics. A new mechanic could be introduced. Flamingoes and many other large birds have traditionally been pinioned (wing partially amputated as hatchlings) to render them permanently flightless and allow them to be displayed in open-top enclosures.
Advantages of pinioning: open-top enclosures are much less expensive to build, especially for large enclosures; birds can easily be incorporated in mixed species exhibits with ungulates, open-top enclosures allow better sightlines for guests.
Disadvantages of pinioning: ethical concerns of permanently maiming birds, which can lead to animal right's activists protesting the zoo; decreased breeding efficiency; increased risk of birds being injured by trampling in mixed species exhibits.
Advantages of not pinioning: birds can fly, improved animal welfare, improved breeding.
Disadvantages of not pinioning (flighted birds): birds must be housed in completely enclosed exhibits, risk of birds escaping.

Imagine if this level of depth was added for multiple species. We might actually have an interesting simulator.

By all means keep sandbox for the sandbox players. I have always viewed sandbox as kind of a cheat mode for players who don't want to play by the game's rules. Sure sometimes its fun to just play around with the parts without having to worry about money or to test out ideas, but it gets boring quickly and then its nice to have actual gameplay to return to. If I just wanted to make pretty scenery I would do it in a 3D modelling program, like PurePolygons, that allows infinitely more design freedom than Planet ever could.

All these changes are defenetly idears, but how would it actually improve the game in a way not allready present?
Besides the pinioning these changes are allready in the game like diet choices with so little impact that you put it in as a new point.
Planet zoo wont become a great zoo sim by many high effort tiny impact changes like those proposed here but by actual bigger sweaping changes that prioritise management like staff specilisation, better Energie management (Imput vs output instead of ugly forced builds) or introduction of management staples like ressource management.

Breeding requirements could be nice, but any big general change that doesnt need as much research would be much prefered

 

[SanRazo]

From what I remember, it was never necessary from a first person mode? You could assign your jeeps/helicopters to cover those parts of the park for you. That to me is important, that a player has options to achieve the same goal, whether it's from a management RTS-top-down perspective, or a first-person perspective.


Completely agree! The Community Challenges that Frontier have set up are... fine... I suppose? They could be roundabouted by puppy milling though, which is such a huge shame. Would love more contextual, client-based ones.


The thing is, the new challenges are new content. Even if you don't see it like that, they are. Also, I think you're onto something but not the right way. The main element of playing Planet Zoo/Coaster is a diorama simulator, whether that diorama is within the context of a Franchise, Challenge, or Sandbox mode, it's a diorama, but there's no outside forces impacting it. Adding new animals, no matter what the type, whether it's a bird, or a hoofstock, or a reptile, is not "content". It's additions. Sure, a certain animal might not require the same habitat requirements as a previous one, but you're still doing the same thing - building a habitat.

Hence the crux of my video, you build, you finish, you look. You can't do anything else. That to some people is fine, but I would much prefer the addition of some elements - Optional Elements - to improve the game beyond that, because at the end of the day, you can't say that Planet Zoo isn't a game. It is quite literally a video game. But the way that I treat it right now, the way that many other players treat it, is that it is nothing but a Game Studio App that you place and move elements that walk around with prebuilt AI within the context of a map. To me, I would love smaller things to do within the context of the park, preestablished elements that are already present in other Frontier Games that work on the Cobra Game Engine, to be brought into PZ or a PZ Sequel.

My video goes over these all but a Photography Mode since we're already taking photos ingame, just let us have a small monetary or small gameplay reward for it akin to the Social Media concept I pitched in the video. I would love to see this impact gameplay decisions from the player on what animals to add to their park, or having them go back to an old habitat they made before for the context of a challenge.

Even something as simple as a Zookeeper Mode. I know it seems childish and unimportant, but in realistic vision of the game, it's not obtrusive, does not take away from the player who doesn't want this in their game, it's completely optional. I just would love the chance to take care of some of the duties on my own than have the keepers take care of it. It would give the player the "reward" to take care of the tasks themselves instead of hiring a Keeper, Janitor, or Vet, by allowing them to handle the duties themselves at the cost of their own time. It just gives the user another option to play the game in a different style.

Even as previously mentioned, Small Challenges, Quests, or Missions in a Franchise or Challenge park would be so rewarding. Give me a troublesome animal that another zoo is having a hard time with keeping contained and my reward is I get to keep it if it doesn't escape for an hour. Have a goal for me to breed and release a new Tiger Cub to release to a wildlife preserve in India, and as a reward I get higher appeal of my Tigers. Give me a chance to take a picture of an Elephant using a specific enrichment item for a chance to receive a boost in research level for them. As I mentioned, small, tiny trivial rewards that it's up to the player to decide if it's worth their time to go into that camera mode and take care of that task, or if they could find their time more profitable placing down more Food Stalls or the like.

At the end of the day, Frontier can add whatever everyone wants to the game, better herd dynamics, better foliage tools like a terrain brush or scenery brush. They can add scaling or even new animals like birds or manatees, but my point is, if you build for it now (assuming you have the systems correct), you'd be doing the same exact thing once it actually comes out (or, if). But truly at the end of the day, you can place down the items and it would look the same with a foliage brush in concept. You just do it quicker with a brush. You can put together items in a creative way, but you save time if you use scaling if we had it in concept. You can build for a Shoebill right now if you really wanted to, and plop it into a habitat if we do end up getting one. But at the end of the day, I just want functions, events, and gameplay elements that would push this game to a new viewpoint. I've had 3,500 logged hours of this game. Probably another 500 of editing and another 1,000 of modding it. I enjoy this game so much and I know what would allow me the chance to enjoy it more, completely optional small goals for the player to utilize and do while they wait for their money to fill up, or as a way to gain a small financial advantage in the meantime.

My points I'm typing aren't as sharp as I make them out to be in the video I made but alas here it is lol:

Source: https://youtu.be/XyUtftWBYgs


at the end of the day i would never advocate for the game being completely 180'd on itself, outcasting the sandbox players who build just as we do right now, for the sake of minigames and gamification, but i would rather see it as, hey, we know the game can be a bit stiff sometimes, here's a bit of something to help break it up a bit more. would never advocate for the main loop of the game to change but i would love different avenues for it to improve. xoxo <3

Not to mention the other cool challenges that were in zt2 like a earthquake hitting your zoo and you gotta repair all the barriers, or your staff going on strike so you got limited staff members and have to step in yourself. Not to mention celebrities coming to your zoo and you needing pictures for ads or magazines contacting you for pictures for ads. Man those challenges were so peak. Then that famous dolphin that got transported to your zoo so you had to accommodate her for a fame boost to your zoo, or the one where a zoo contacted you to trade a random species with them and you had to take care of a new animal on the fly