Allow All Males to Breed within the Pack

Agreed. This is one game mechanic that I feel is way too Lioden-y as it encourages people to have all female packs with one male, creating a harem.

Since wild wolf packs are made up of mated couples, I think it would be really cool to see an "assign mate" mechanic for males within the pack. To alleviate abuse, maybe there would be a cooldown on any female who lost a mate due to sale/chasing so that people aren't crazy with it.But then that male could only breed that one female while within the pack, and vice versa, just like a real wolf pair. Permanently connecting the two wolves would limit over saturating the stud market (though I think the price minimum does a lot for that already when coupled with the difficulty of getting sc, especially at first). 

here to say i support this wholeheartedly!! there are too many male wolves i pass up because i have no room for them ;;

Big support on this! this allows better genetics to be passed down and also unique ones that are unique to the wolf!! I feel like it would also support people's breeding goals and what type of base, genetic, mutation or what marking they're achieving. It's so sad having to get rid of males or sex change them just because there's only ONE stud male ://. I 100% support this and hopefully it will be implemented in!  

Adding my support here, I would love to keep more males to fill out lore purposes, and also I already have a male I have to sex change in order to keep his stats and genetics. 

That can suck for someone who can't put steady money into the game for sex changers. Some of the younger players should be given a more equal chance to unlock cool wolves without having to spend a ton on stud fees or sex changes. 

I think it would be quite a reasonable compromise to have males other than the breeding male to have a breeding cooldown. Assigning mated pairs within the pack as Raine mentions is an intriguing idea. I feel it might be harder to implement, but (with a reassignment cooldown included) it would handle the loophole of people sending their female wolves to other peoples' packs temporarily to breed with their non-stud males.

Another thing that could close that loophole is to have a separate 'pack entry' breeding cooldown. The female would still be able to breed with the pack's stud and out-of-pack studs during the cooldown. OR it could be that only wolves born into the pack or claimed in the wild would be able to breed with the pack's non stud males? Idk. I can't think of any airtight ways to close the loophole that don't err on the side of overly restrictive.

I would love if something could be worked out though. While I suppose I wasn't truly banking on the devs changing this mechanic, it was still a little disappointing to get here and find out that breeding is just as restricted as in LD. You might be able to set a female pack lead now, but as long as you can only have a single breeding male, it still kinda forces you to have a harem playstyle. Which isn't how wolf packs operate, unlike lion prides.

It also might work to only be able to set a few 'subordinate breeding males'? Maybe you would have to buy or unlock the slots. Then it would operate similarly to the regular breeding male except only within your pack (and again, there would have to be some sort of cooldown or restriction to prevent people from just temporarily trading their female over to another pack for the breeding). Then it wouldn't be a free for all in your pack but at least there would be SOME genetic diversity and SOME increased usefulness for males.

Idk, just spitballing here. Especially since there is a strict one account limit on Wolvden, compared to Lioden where you can have two linked accounts, it is really hard to work on more than one breeding project at once. As someone with a short attention span this can make it harder to be consistently invested in the game, especially since there are such high costs/penalties to changing your breeding male. I would like to be able to multitask in the game without needing to get extremely rich to afford stud costs ;v;

Actually if the males' breeding cooldowns are equal to females then transferring a female over to breed wouldn't be any different from selling a female's heat. Which is allowed in Lioden and even became a supported mechanic. Honestly just the cooldown (and added hassle of going through such a loophole) might be restriction enough imo.

Anyhow, I will stop posting in this thread for now ;>.> My hopes aren't super high that this will be changed since devs have been pretty adamant about it, but it's nice to see it getting such a huge support. 

I'm popping back in here to add a few more cents about the negative impact the female skew is having on the wolf market. Tier two base types are the rarest available in the game right now, and I've seen a few people list their Tier 2's as 50 sc or lower simply for being male, whereas females sell for 200 sc or more. Some beautiful wolves are still listed at higher, but seeing any Tier 2 listed that low ought to be eye-opening given that we're only a month into the game being public. 

In addition, this system is really rough for sentimental players. I'm someone who hates chasing the wolves they've bred, and who intends to have a massive pack. However, my ability to sell male puppies on the market seems to be hampered by them being effectively worthless- even puppies with rare markings or colors just don't seem to sell unless I put them below 10sc. And even with a lair that has some male wolves in the mix, I'm experiencing a puppy boom that I fear is going to become unsustainable. As it is, I'm struggling to purchase enough lair slots to keep up with the adolescents aging up, and I'm a player who buys currency! I'd love to have a massive pack, but the pack is outpacing my ability to house them even with these benefits in my corner. I can't imagine how a sentimental player who can't buy currency or has an all-female pack would be able to house their puppies.

Personally, I don't think the current system is sustainable. Even players who chase undesirable puppies will still have trouble selling their desirable ones as the market becomes more and more saturated, and I think it'll lead to wolves eventually becoming worthless. A change really needs to be made before we reach that point.

I don't personally feel like the loophole has to be closed here. Studs already bypass the slot limit through risky traditional breeding, without any penalty. Why can popular studs have penalty and punishment free traditional breeds, but every other wolf needs a harsh deterrent to stop them? Usually the staff don't step in to settle disputes if you choose not to use existing site features, so why should there be further restrictions if you already run the risk of losing your wolf?

Under the proposed cooldown restrictions a non-stud male wolf would have 6-7 maximum breedings per lifetime, making each chance very valuable. Breeding a desirable male would be easier and safer under the existing stud male system. I'm not saying nobody would do traditional studding, but it would be a case of risk vs reward, and there's nothing in the rules saying we can't do it if we want to take that risk.

Also I've said it before but I'll say it again, to add extra breeding male slots, behind a paywall or not, is IMO a really bad idea. Not only does it not fix the issues that we have with males that every supporter has said before, but to then put it behind a paywall AND have varying limits just puts a bad taste in my mouth. I want the freedom to pair whoever I want with whoever I want for lore and story purposes, not just add a few more slots for a 5% increase in genes that will also become over saturated in a pack that leaves the rest of my males absolutely pointless.