Also I'm pretty sure that in one of the announcement videos they said that animals would have personalities/preferances. So as the OP says, where are they frontier?
Why the animals aren't the stars of the game - and what needs to be done about it
- Thread starter Swjosdotschka
- Start date
4 within a species would indeed be enough variety for me as well, concerning it's after all a management game and not a pet simulator. It would help us bond with the animal and make the gaming expierience much better for me.
There were that idea or wish with animals using everythink in their habitat and break trees and such. However, we should keep in mind, that already building something your zoo and using lots of climbing pieces is a heavy load on the computer quite a bit, because it hasto calculate when and were an animal can climb. Making objects TOO interactive would worsen the problem. So a variety in how an animal aproaches its habitat, based on personality, would already be enough for me. Could be as easy as with a randomizer, if it has to be easy.
"Shy animal has a 60% chance of hiding, 15% of interacting with guests, 25 % of exploring the habitat"
"Aggressive animal has a 50% chance of attacking other animals (especially shy ones) in the habitat, 25% of minding his own business, 25% of friendly interactions like mating or playing."
And there we go, we have animals, which character plays also into management and which animal we can put in a habitat together with others of its species and which not. I am sure, character would also play a role in the pricing in franchise market, making it all in all more interesting as well. Those who do not want to breed could buy the aggressive tiger for cheap and keep him alone, those who want to improve animal rating wouldn't buy the one that was shy - however, this would be a perfect match for a larger pride.
The maintenance schedule of my habitats says there'll be a keeper visiting every month. Yet, often enough a keeper doesn't visit for 2 months straight, I get a notification and notice none of the keepers are complaining about workload. All 3+ stars keepers by the way...
In Zoo Tycoon (2) if that happened incidentally you'd just fix it manually. However, that's not an option here. So you're forced to hire another keeper that does just as much a poor job as his colleagues. Yea, that took some getting used to.
I design and build, I also spend a lot of time following animals via their camera. So I guess I enjoy the best of both worlds. But, like folks before me have said, the lack of dynamics for the animals is a bit disappointing.
When I built my first elephant habitat, I was so excited, but ultimately disappointed. They didn't use the water to spray themselves like they would IRL.
The big cat cubs don't play at hunting & stalking like the would IRL.
The monkeys and primates don't groom each other, like the would IRL. We can all see where I'm going with this...
Despite this disappointment, I love playing PZ and I spend way too much time haunting the animals than I do worrying about guests. Variation in colouring and behaviour would be a welcome addition, but even if it doesn't happen, PZ is an awesome game.
When I built my first elephant habitat, I was so excited, but ultimately disappointed. They didn't use the water to spray themselves like they would IRL.
The big cat cubs don't play at hunting & stalking like the would IRL.
The monkeys and primates don't groom each other, like the would IRL. We can all see where I'm going with this...
Despite this disappointment, I love playing PZ and I spend way too much time haunting the animals than I do worrying about guests. Variation in colouring and behaviour would be a welcome addition, but even if it doesn't happen, PZ is an awesome game.
The elephants in my home zoos (San Diego) have water areas available. In all these years I have visited both zoo and Safari Park uncountable times and I have seen the elephants spray water over their heads one single time!
The PZ elephants blow sand in the air. Monkeys and primates do groom each other. The big cats cubs would constantly (and I do mean constantly) chase flies, but I guess this behavior was turned down quite a bit because it was simply too much of it.
If you want the PZ animals to act like in real life, they would be sleeping most of the time you’re watching. The PZ animals are overall much more active than they would be in real zoos. It would be extremely unrealistic to watch PZ animals for 10 min straight and see them go through every single one of their activities one after the other, so even with relatively intense observation, it is easy to miss activities.
That doesn’t mean that there are not a lot of behaviors that could be added, but all these additional animations and interactions need a lot of develoment time and might also make the game even more CPU/GPU demanding. Overall, the PZ animals are very active and interacting with their environment and enrichment items quite nicely.
Yes, yes, yes! Please! I have honestly lost all interest in Planet Zoo. I tried to play it yesterday and just couldn't. They are just clones. Any game that can call itself "the best zoo simulation" needs to care about the animals first. The building system is cool, but watching virtual animals interact realistically with the habitat that you created, is WAY cooler. There's the whole unique patterning thread that was given the "we'll consider it" (quite sometime ago), but also personalities and interactions. For instance:
1. Animals with horns playfully headbutt each other, with a chance of ethier one winning, determined by immunity/size stat.
2. Males have a chance to be rejected by females, with species like peafowl, who court a mate, the peahen might have a lessened chance to mate with poor genetic ones.
3. Since most species can only have one male, perhaps there could be a chance for two males to get along without fighting.
4. Red-ruffed and ring-tailed lemurs could preform some of their existing interactions on one another (this one is a bit more specific).
5. Some animals could become "friends" with other animals and stay near them, plus not fight with them during overcrowding.
6. Conversely, some animals could become "enemies" with other animals, and fight them as soon as their wellfare drops.
7. Animals who had low wellfare at their old zoo could act excited about being moved to a new, better zoo.
8. Finally, sunning on rocks. It would be great.
Anyway, sorry if I was demanding, I just hope behavioural/coloration differences will show up soon.
1. Animals with horns playfully headbutt each other, with a chance of ethier one winning, determined by immunity/size stat.
2. Males have a chance to be rejected by females, with species like peafowl, who court a mate, the peahen might have a lessened chance to mate with poor genetic ones.
3. Since most species can only have one male, perhaps there could be a chance for two males to get along without fighting.
4. Red-ruffed and ring-tailed lemurs could preform some of their existing interactions on one another (this one is a bit more specific).
5. Some animals could become "friends" with other animals and stay near them, plus not fight with them during overcrowding.
6. Conversely, some animals could become "enemies" with other animals, and fight them as soon as their wellfare drops.
7. Animals who had low wellfare at their old zoo could act excited about being moved to a new, better zoo.
8. Finally, sunning on rocks. It would be great.
Anyway, sorry if I was demanding, I just hope behavioural/coloration differences will show up soon.
I still enjoy playing and still play everyday. But I’ll admit planet zoo is stuck somewhere between theme park and zoo construction game. The fact you can build these big elaborate buildings is great but a tad unrealistic as most zoos simply don’t have them. The animals are amazing but do need some behavior and variation differences. I did have flamingos in my sandbox zoo that were pink and three gray but I don’t know if this is the white variant as I’ve never seen the white flamingo. I do have a feeling the activity could slow down with the coronavirus pandemic tho. And rightfully so as safety comes first. But like I said I still consider planet zoo easily beat zoo sim ever but does lack some important animal differences.
I have over 30 Flamingos in Königsfreuden. all clones. There is no variation in Flamingos. The juveniles are grey, so that is probably what you saw. Tbh, I wouldn't even call Flamingos pink in game. That is something they could definately change: Make them more pink, depending of what food quality you feed them. Better quality = better Flamingos = higher rating.
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Absolutely possible, as there is a moment in game, when adult animals still appear to be juvenile.
I’ll have to try this with the African buffalo since the babies are brown but probably won’t work. I do hope they eventually add some variations to at least some of the animals. I know there are mods currently that have wolf and other variants available on nexus by very trustworthy modders but as I mentioned I just don’t want to stockpile mods on my new pc just yet.
As far as I know they replace the existing file, so you can only have one variation anyway. Bo said they would work on different patterns, but it might take some time. Still, would have been cool to hear some update on that. The silence is a bit disturbing. In general ectually. (And yes, before covid-19).
What we probably can be sure of is, that every planned update and new content will be delayed. I begin to hate 2020, seriously.
Yeah so far 2020 has been forgettable at best. Your right about the quietness lately even before the outbreak. I can’t really explain the popularity decline in game either. I feel it’s a overall improved game over Planco but feel the hype hasn’t gotten the same push even on frontiers end. Which is a shame because I believe zoo sims when done right have untapped potential. Not to throw frontier under the bus but news and details have been slow. I do hope the game gets the same attention that Planco had but I guess will see.
That is one of the three wishes I'd waste if I met a fairy. AT LEAST the same attention. Wouldn't mind even more support.
i dont want the game to be converted into "the sims" with animals, that would ruin it for me. there are too many games for blabla already, we dont need another one.
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Who said it should be converted into the sims? No one even mentioned an animal simulation in contrast to a management game. Also: No insulting of players with calling disrespectful names like "simpletons" in my thread. Period.
2,5 weeks ago we did have an update.. Last week they even mentioned somewhere an upcoming update in a couple of weeks.
I don't feel frontier has to give an update every week..
They mentioned coat variations would be addressed and very clearly pointed out that it will take time and they will look into possibilities - that's only 2 months ago.
With the whole COVID-19, expect a delay on a lot of stuff. Which I think, everybody needs to accept - it's just a game.
Is it, now? Seems longer. And a little glimpse into the progress wouldn't hurt, no matter when the update will be released. Speaking of, I never said there is too much silience about patch updates. Those are clearly flowing. They also do a good job with bug hunting or adressing issues that may or may not be a bug.