Allow All Males to Breed within the Pack

Absolutely support. Especially for lore purposes, and breeding projects within a pack. I think inter-pack breeding, along with a single Stud setting would be a great addition to gameplay, and I’d care a lot more for the wolves resulting and a pack I’m building solely my self.

I do not agree. This feels like it would make it too, how do I put this.. easy? 

As you said in your post, their would be no reason for people to use studs because they could easily buy a cute male cheap and then use him for their breeding projects. Having their own 'stud' for each thing they need. This might also mess up the rare economy in someone's pack because they can now have a male for each- Get an albino male, melanism male, and brachy carrier as well as males for merles or * level bases and you're set to go. Having only one breeding Male and studs gives someone an incentive to work for the bigger, better male.

@Lily

That wouldn't be an issue if the non-stud males had cooldowns like the females do!

Many people have suggested breeding cooldowns for these intra-pack males, which would reduce the things you're talking about Lily!

If a male can only have 2-6 pups a year (every 20 days), then it wouldn't actually have that much of an impact; no more than keeping a female mela carrier / merle in your pack would (& actually less because, as people have pointed out, the more males, the less females, the less total pups: 2 females with rare marks/melanism/etc = 4-12 pups with the potential to have those marks/muts. But if those territory slots were taken up by 1 male & 1 female with the same rare marks/mela it would  = 2-6 pups with the potential)

People will still have an incentive to improve their wolves because that's the point of this sort of game! On lioden, which is definitely easier than wolvden, people still work to get rare bases, rare markings, great stats, mutations, etc. I don't really see that changing! And there would still be incentive to have your main breeding male be "bigger and better" because then people will pay to stud him (which they would do for a chance to introduce new genetics, get a chance to breed a base they couldn't afford to buy outright, etc)

So while I see where you're coming from, I don't really think the potential problems you have would end up being issues!

I was a bit unsure, but after seeing why people would want all males to be breedable in the pack, I think I have to agree. This system works fine in Lioden but it does feel a bit awkward here, maybe because wolves in the wild may have more than one breeding pair if the area's good for it.

I said much the same thing on the original Watering Hole topic but here we go again.

I don't see why I would interact more or less with the studding market than I do now. I'm not going to be able to keep up with the leaderboarders stats, but I still want to pay them for puppies. When rarer markings/bases/etc start getting introduced I might need a stud to obtain them. But after generations of my wolves that I completely stud out for, the next gen could interbreed without them being all to my one breeding male.

The difference is now I can keep some of my males with traits/stats I want and actually pass them on. Not any less complicatedly as I am trying to avoid any close (less than 4-5 gen) inbreeding aka linebreeding like you see in purebred dogs. But that is my playstyle choice not a system choice.

As for the GC issue. I'm not going to retire my breeding male early. I doubt I am the only one who will rarely, if at all, spend money on this feature. However, I have 7(ish) RMA/Opacity Changer and then two separate full 10 marking Customized the one I have. So I don't feel that the devs are missing me using GC for this. Saying 'I'll spend money on this so everyone is going to' is not a fair way to look at it. I'd rather spend more GC customizing the wolves I have. Some of them boys instead of the female pack I have. Those that want to make GC/SC studding High Stat/Rare Trait wolves will still change their males, if this is implemented that will not change this. The studding system is far safer and easier than trusting a stranger with your wolf or taking care of someone else's wolf.

• I support making them just like females. With a cooldown and fertility. And only can breed in your own pack. Perhaps not allowing them to breed with females on trading cooldown.

They'll have the same limited chances to breed this way, though I suggest no 'heat' period so they can sync up with one female's heat cycle easier. This also might affect mutation chances, so maybe the dam's fert is all that counts. Or since two low fert wolves could take a lot more energy to get a successful breed that can be it's own limiter. Breeding two 1% wolves together honestly sounds like a nightmare.

^ If male fertility for non-stud males is factored in, wheew, the 1% x 1% breeding would... if my maths is correct it'd be a 1/100 x 1/100 chance, so, a 1/10000 chance of success! That's! A lot of energy to get through! And tbh if anyone manages it they deserve that double-boosted mutation chance

I've said this in previous threads, but while I would like the breeding of males to be a bit freer, there are two common suggestions (sub-suggestions?) going around that I'm not a fan of.

The first is a quick one - a few people have suggested fertility values for males and, to be honest, I don't see what this would add to the game except for a bit more clicking. It would just mean it took a bit longer, on average, to get a female pregnant.

The second... Quite a few people have suggested having breeding cooldowns for normal pack males, but then having a single "stud male" that can breed repeatedly with no cooldown. For me, this causes a horrible sort of dissonance - what, from in-game perspective, is special about the stud male? Does he have super sperm? Astronomical stamina? It just feels very arbitrary and "gamey". I would prefer it if there was no distinct "stud male" slot, and instead any male could be offered for stud, but once bred he would then be on the same cooldown as if he'd bred with a female from the same pack. I'm aware that this would change the studding scene significantly, preventing (or at least drastically reducing) the dominance of the gene pool by a small number of very popular studs.

Note that I don't think the male breeding cooldown necessarily has to be as long as the one for females. It could be a bit shorter. In fact. to circle back round, if people really wanted some sort of male fertility mechanic then what male fertility could decide could be not the chance of a breeding succeeding, but rather the length of a male's cooldown, from, say, 24 days for VLF, through to, say 8 days for very high fert (numbers just examples, would have to be balanced).

I agree with them having a cooldown but not having the... time frame? Basically once the cooldown is done they can breed that day or ten days out, basically the males can wait on when a female is in heat without having a similar 4 day time frame. Breeding males stay the same of course and can breed whenever.

@Unheard siren

 I dont think both having fertility levels would work... it doesnt make a ton of sense on how the rolling for that would work...? Maybe males could have a limited number of tries to encourage higher fertility breeding within the pack but idk how I'd feel about that. Seems simpler to just deal with female fertility.