Change Difficulty Level Removed?

[swskydancer]

Has the ability to change game difficulty been removed from settings? I had downloaded a zoo which I wanted to change from hard to medium and discovered that the drop down menu to do so is no longer in the settings menu. Thinking I just wasn't looking in the right place I looked in the game help section and it still has the section for changing difficulty present.

I then checked several other large zoos I had downloaded and started playing on easy, with the intent to increase difficulty to medium as I became familiar with them. Nope, can't find any drop down available in settings for them either. I'm not sure when it disappeared since this is the first time I wanted to make a change since installing the Africa DLC and updates since then.

I've tried verifying file integrity and no change. Is anyone else experiencing no ability to change difficulty level in an existing zoo and/or if you still have a drop down available to you, could you let me know where in the heck it is, if they have moved it? I've looked until I'm blue in the face without success.

TIA for any input. Searching has not turned anything up about the feature being removed and I didn't find anything anybody else had posted with the same question.

[grampers62]

That option is selected only at the beginning of a zoo and cannot change there after. Thus some downloaded zoos are *preset* at the difficulty they were started at.

[swskydancer]

What you say makes sense but when I first got the game there was a drop down menu available after loading a zoo to select difficulty level but it isn't there any longer. My confusion over the missing setting is further exacerbated because both the patch notes that introduced difficulty settings and the in game help on difficulty settings both say that even though you make an initial selection that the difficulty level can also be changed while the zoo is loaded by going to Settings>Game and changing difficulty from the drop down menu. I used to see that option in Settings>Game but it isn't there anymore. I am truly baffled.

The patch notes actually say: "When loading into a Zoo in any mode, you will get the opportunity to choose from the three settings. For more information on these settings, you will be able to select the question mark icon above the settings to learn more about what will change when you play. You can change the difficulty at any time via the settings while you’re inside your zoo too, so the difficulty settings will be able to change to suit you at any moment."

Well, I can't make the option appear again so the alternative is to just accept it. This is one of those happenstances that makes one question their sanity, lol. Thank you so much for your reply, grampers62.

[swskydancer]

Thank you for chiming in Chasbar. I appreciate your input and help.

I had come to the conclusion that the changes made to Sandbox mode probably led them to eliminating the game difficulty level from the settings menu in Sandbox mode. However, I can't say that I'm sold on that decision. Most of the Sandbox options have always appeared as they are now since I bought the game last May, just presets now offered. The only option when going through individual settings is to enable or disable. Yes, there are a few new options like eliminating negative effect of staff buildings and now not having zoo staff flee from escaping animals, for two that come to mind quickly.

What bothers me is that it is now an all or nothing type of choice. For example, with guest happiness the percentage required for 5 stars varies in difficulty. On easy one needs 80%; medium 85% and hard 90%, according to the in game help menu. I've always enabled guest happiness in Sandbox mode but used the difficulty level to determine which percentage came into play. Now, I can only turn guest happiness on or off. That's not ideal for me since I've used downloaded zoos to learn and experiment with settings and gameplay. I'm also left with not knowing for sure if hard level is automatically applied if guest happiness is enabled but feel that's probably the case without a way to apply a difficulty level.

I'm also not sure where that leaves me with things like animal welfare and stress. If I enable those two settings, which I do to learn how to best deal with situations, is Sandbox automatically putting it at hard level if those options are enabled? I can only assume probably so again, since no difficulty level choice can now be made and I used to use the difficulty level to address how quickly those situations arose.

I guess the bottom line for me is that I still see a need to have a difficulty level choice in Sandbox. I'm not pleased to have to choose enable or disable, which seems to translate to playing either easy or hard, without the benefit of the "in between" added by having the difficulty level choice offered for medium settings.