I agree they are honestly perfectly fine as habitat animals their settings are just off. The land requirements should be smaller to increase the climbable terrain to walkable terrian ratio and their ai should favour climbing and sleeping while climbing more. In real life unlike sloths koalas do regularly go on the ground when moving between trees if jumping isnt viable.
Hot takes for planet zoo
- Thread starter Mr-Hyrax 2
- Start date
Maybe a little hyperbole. But I’m really perfectly happy with how they are in game rn. People have taken it way too far. I feel like they already spend a lot of time climbing as is and if they don’t for you then maybe people need to make better habitats cause I usually keep all their stuff elevated and they stay there.
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I agree that people have taken it too far and half the problem is people don't build habitat properly. They definitely aren't perfect but I build well for them and this means that they do spend alot of their time climbing I don't notice the problem so much but even so it isn't easy or intuitive to do so.
I've said it elsewhere as well but I'll repeat it here because it seems a lot of people indeed don't know it; but honestly if you do these three things you'll get a noticeable difference in climbing:
- Make sure all the green lines of your climbing frames actually connect. If they don't they won't climb it.
- If you play in Sandbox; do not turn of all welfare. If all their needs are constantly met, they won't have a reason to climb.
- Set your zoos mode to "Hard" so that needs go down faster. That will make them spend time filling their needs more often, which means they'll climb more.
I definitely agree and use all of these points regularly Im going to add a few more tips that I find work well.
1. make sure you have a high proportion of climbing frame to empty space so even if they are picking a direction at random it is more likely to be climbing frame.
2. make sure your frame is clear and unobstructed even if they can climb it they might no route to the frame if there is alot of stuff in the way
3. make the frames lead somewhere a pole going up and down isnt going to get as much use as a pole that leads to food enrichment or habitat area.
Kinda weird that arboreal movement requires their needs not being met. You'd think that animals would do more natural behaviour when they're more comfortable, right?
Climbing is tied to both the exploration aspect of the habitat and the enrichment need; which both make perfect sense to me tbh. Animals like monkeys need climbing elements in zoos as a form of enrichment; they're not comfortable without it to begin with, so it being tied to the enrichment need makes sense.
IDK, it makes perfect sense to me in a zoo game; it's how all 3D zoo games have done it so far and I see no reason why you'd deviate from that.
Well, I'm not sure of what you'd like exactly in terms of complexity of management, right now I think we need qol improvements to simplify some parts of the gameplay to be able to add more complexity in other areas. It kind of breaks my mind that the most complicated thing in a zoo game is tracing pathways and barriers in a practical and elegant way.
That's exactly my point, climbing animals are naturally comfortable while climbing, so welfare being constantly at a maximum should correlate to them climbing to match that status. Climbing animals IRL aren't normally as happy on the ground, so them being on the ground at maximum happiness feels weird to me.
I'd just rather that climbing not be partially shackled to welfare if it means the results people want aren't going to be seen.
It's very much a chicken or the egg situation really. Climbing animals are only comfortable whilst climbing; so there's a climbing need that needs to be met for them to be comfortable. If you take that need away, they don't need to climb to feel comfortable so they don't do it. (Frankly, that's even realistic to some great apes in real life in zoos lol)
I do somewhat get what you mean, but I think your issue is not with the fact that animal welfare is tied to climbing (or broader, tied to enrichment as it should be); but more that disabling animal welfare just diminishes the animals in general because everything is needs based. But frankly that is more of a problem with how disabling welfare works in this game and because of the fact that it was added after the fact rather than at the start.
That being said, it's not that the animal only stays on the ground of you turn off welfare completely; that's also not true. That's where the exploration based climbing comes into play, which was increased a few updates ago. But once you turn of welfare completely, you basically fulfill the needs of your animals all the time so their incentive to do stuff is gone, so the enrichment based climbing doesn't seem to happen hence why they climb less.
So I disagree with your notion that it is shackled, it's for instance less shackled than it was in ZT2 where climbing was just completely tied to enrichment needs. It just a multi layered system, which in itself is good, but is thwarted by the welfare disabling that was added later to the game.
Anywho, the point of my original post was for those who want to see an animal climb more; not to start an entire discussion
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New hot take: you could have an entire year of DLC that's nothing but ungulate packs and there'd be very few shortcomings. To demonstrate my point:
Asian Ungulate Pack:
Asian Ungulate Pack:
- Nilgai
- Blackbuck
- Gaur
- Chital
- Reeve's Muntjac
- Père David's Deer
- Japanese Serow
- Muskox
- Elk
- Brazilian Tapir
- Marsh Deer
- Grey Brocket
- Mountain Goat
- Southern Pudu
- Greater Kudu
- Aoudad
- Gerenuk
- Waterbuck
- Giant Eland
- Jentink's Duiker
- Bontebok
- Shetland Pony
- West African Dwarf Goat
- Domestic Yak
- Ankole-Watusi Cattle
- Cameroon Sheep
- Vietnamese Pot-Bellied Pig
- Sika Deer
As long as we get a rock hyra... wait a minute... WAIT A MINUTE, A ROCK HYRAX ISN'T A UNGULATE (unlike my previous statements suggest
), OH NO!!!I completely disagree with this opinion and you should be ashamed of it.
Okay I’m down.
African Ungulate Pack
- Greater Kudu
- Impala
- Common OR Southern Eland
- Sitatunga
- Giant Forest Hog
- African Forest Buffalo
- Red Hartebeest
- Indian Gaur
- Blackbuck
- Visayan Warty Pig
- Wild OR Domestic Yak
- Banteng
- Persian Onager
- Lowland Anoa
- Rocky Mountain Goat
- Musk Ox
- Roosevelt Elk
- White-Tailed Deer
- Vicuña
- Marsh Deer
- Red Brocket
- Gerenuk (Stands on hind legs)
- Siberian Musk Deer (Tusks)
- Masai Giraffe (Long neck and other giraffe-like stuff)
- Four-Horned Antelope/Chousingha (Four horns)
- Ankole Cattle (Large horns)
- Shetland Pony (Smaller than most equids)
- Brahman Cattle (Stores fat in a hump like a camel)
OK we should get another africa pack with
headliner: honey badger
Habitat: collobus monkey, eland, secretary bird, shoebill, helmeted gunifowl and serval
Alternatives:
Collobus-debrazas monkey
Eland-kudu
Shoebill-pelican
Honeybadger-none
Guinifowl-other guinifowl
Secretary bird-comunity riot
headliner: honey badger
Habitat: collobus monkey, eland, secretary bird, shoebill, helmeted gunifowl and serval
Alternatives:
Collobus-debrazas monkey
Eland-kudu
Shoebill-pelican
Honeybadger-none
Guinifowl-other guinifowl
Secretary bird-comunity riot
Grey crowned crane where?
Well, this is awkward, might as well get back to the
Also, I know that some of my recent weekly hot takes haven't really been hot takes, I know this; my goal is just to make this something that can cause debate and be fun.
Weekly Hot Take
Let's do something simple: What is your hot take on the Americas in Planet Zoo as a whole, anything from the animals, plants, DLC representation, scenery, etc can be used for your hot take.
For example, my hot take would be that we don't need a coati. dont get me wrong it would be useful and I do want one, but when it comes to SA areas, we really just need more birds and monkeys, and some fish and flying birds to but that will probably be saved for PZ2, and I feel that a mara and even an augoti is probaly more improtant for SA then the Coati, though I do want a coati more than a augoti.
Also, I know that some of my recent weekly hot takes haven't really been hot takes, I know this; my goal is just to make this something that can cause debate and be fun.
Weekly Hot TakeLet's do something simple: What is your hot take on the Americas in Planet Zoo as a whole, anything from the animals, plants, DLC representation, scenery, etc can be used for your hot take.
For example, my hot take would be that we don't need a coati. dont get me wrong it would be useful and I do want one, but when it comes to SA areas, we really just need more birds and monkeys, and some fish and flying birds to but that will probably be saved for PZ2, and I feel that a mara and even an augoti is probaly more improtant for SA then the Coati, though I do want a coati more than a augoti.
For one strictly about the pack itself, I kinda hate the name they chose. I don't like that it ends up double-dipping in an extremely uninteresting way. If it was more focused (i.e. Central America), that could've resolved a number of the issues.
Let's do something simple: What is your hot take on the Americas in Planet Zoo as a whole, including the animals, plants, DLC representation, scenery, etc?
For a broader hot take, the shift away from Exhibit Animals to yet more scenery is overall a net negative and it's been a net negative for me since I don't vibe with modular building at all.
Also forgot to mention, your hot take doesn't have to be based on the DLC, it can be based on other DLCs or just North/South America in PZ
