Allow All Males to Breed within the Pack

Misontic

I wrote this whole post, but I decided to get rid of it. I'm not sound of mind enough right now to properly explain my point, it would just be rambly. So I'll just say agree to disagree, I still don't believe it would be as harmful as you might think. And frankly, I don't understand why for some players, there's such an insistence to keep the studding system in place, and to make it top priority to keep it intact. Change doesn't guarantee bad things. Providing more opportunities to breed males more freely could open up a lot of really fun possibilities that could offset the potential negative effects for studding.

And as Jessi said, this pair bond thing doesn't properly address the 'males being genetically useless' issue. I was debating getting more males, but I decided there's not really a point. I got one for lore purposes (which is how I wanted to play this game in the first place, but the restrictive breeding system forced me to play to its tune) and that's it, the rest will stay breeding to my breeding male. Males may not be quite as useless now, but they're definitely still not nearly as favorable as females. I'll just stick to my harem pack, I guess; that's what the gameplay wants me to do.

Why is the stud market so important it has to be protected at the expense of every other feature? Especially when it benefits the owners of high-value studs to the detriment of everyone else. Like, it’s a nice feature, and I enjoy having it as an option, but I’ve always hated feeling like I’m forced to use it. Just last week I was figuring out how to stagger my breeding males so they’d each serve two years and die of old age.

Do you know what I did first when I found out about the new feature? Bought a male puppy. I added value to someone else’s den and helped a different part of the economy.

Also there will very much be room for studs even with unlimited pair breedings! Take my lair as an example - I have 25 spots, so a max of 12 pairs. If I want to go full pair-breeding only (which I would argue is a valid play style I should be allowed to use), then I need a carefully balanced sex ratio with well matched wolves - pushing me to buy further pups from other players. I also need to wait at least a week after obtaining each wolf, costing food and toys. Once set, the pairs are effectively locked in unless I’m willing to pay a steep cost in toys & cooldown. On top of looks, I need to worry about stats. In its own way, pair breeding is expensive - which ironically makes studding look cheaper and more appealing, at least in my eyes. Realistically, with my 25 wolf den I’ll probably set, oh, 3-5 pairs, and find studs for 1-2 females. All the breeding cap does is force me to stagger pair ages and litter times, just like I was previously planning to stagger studs. It’s not fun. And it’s all the more frustrating because everything else about the update was so, so perfect.

Omg I was planning the exact same thing Badger, let my males age at around 5 - 6, then make them studs so I can use them. Then pick up the next eldest and repeat. 

Anyway pair bonding is kinda useless for most males when you take into consideration that lets say you use the pair for about 2 breeding when most likely peeps want to use all their female’s heat, which is most likely 7 breedings. The point of pairs is to let non stud males to breed, but even with that in mind, it never solve the real issue of male usability and honestly, pair bonds itself doesn’t change one’s play style when the overall system still encourages users to still use studs anyway and honestly, if pair bonds even enforces that females can’t breed out of a pair, you hardly are missing out with maybe 1/2 females out of your overall den can’t be use to breed to other studs 

Female in pair bonds can still be bred to studs. Which is part of what makes the two breeding limit so confusing to me? There’s already a lot of reasonable limits built in to the system to prevent abuse and gently encourage people to stud/use breeding males.

Limiting males so heavily with basically zero restrictions on females seems so weird to me. The number of males  doesn't affect how many litters are being born at all, and in fact, having more males would REDUCE the overpopulation issue as long as they are as valued in the game as females. It is clear that it is only a restriction to protect the stud market, which is honestly already difficult to make income from, especially if you don't have the cash to invest in trends and time to advertise relentlessly. I don't think the people who are keeping up and already profiting from their studs are going to be harmed because they are going to have studs that are likely more desirable to most pack males because they are putting the effort/money/time in.

I have 24 territory slots right now, so I can have 24 females and my lead/breeding male and have 24 litters a month no problem without studding. This is how I feel the majority people are playing currently.

If I could breed all my males with no restrictions besides staying in my own pack, I would probably swing towards a more 50/50 mix of males and females because I love a lot of my male pups and don't really want to sex change them. Now I can have 12 litters a month. I honestly feel like this alone would be a huge improvement to the market that would make up for potential stud down turns by actually being able to sell some pups maybe. I know that personally, I would still use studs often because I am breeding for stats, and I am pretty sure that I am never going to have the highest statted wolves in the game.  

So, I did post on the bonded pair suggestion thread and stated I could only support that suggestion if the there were no ridiculous restrictions. Two bonded pair breedings per MONTH and applying 'wolves like to mate for life, so breaking a pair up will make them depressed and unable to re-pair and breed again for another length of time' when it's pretty clear that the other game mechanics do NOT force nor even imply monogamous relationships are ridiculous restrictions. To make things clear, I can understand the depression point, as breaking up is painful, but not the hinging it on the idea of a monogamous relationship. A one month breakup cooldown is much too long (it's over a year off your wolves' lives). I also don't think the breakup cooldown is even necessary from a gameplay standpoint when they gave males a full month breeding cooldown. Since these restrictions exist, I am now here to support this instead rather than as well.

These restrictions make it so having an all female pack (minus breeding male - and healer if you're a stat breeder) is still much, MUCH more appealing than having even one extra male, which in turn makes males still just as worthless unless they have something that makes them worth a sex change (superior stats, breed-only traits, mutations). It just costs too much to raise them when I could 

The 'protect the stud market' arguments are invalid.

- Just because it's not your stud doesn't mean the market is dead. Unless you have the money to cough up for the newest and greatest thing every release, you will be left in the dust and your stud will phase out of importance. This is just how the game goes - the stud market will go to crap every single new base release at minimum. (Once the bases hit circulation, of course.)

- Again, just because it's not your stud doesn't mean that there is no stud market. People will ALWAYS be looking for the newest and greatest thing, so studs will always be in use, even if there are other males available.

- It takes a lot of resources and time to raise a single wolf, so studs will still be considered over other options for people who do not want to dump their resources into a wolf they don't have to in order to breed.

- Having it to where all males can breed, but in a way that restricts them to limited breedings in their lifetime, actually opens a NEW studding market - one that you could make a hell of a lot more money off of, I think. I mean, think about it.

- Your want to make money off your stud is not more important than my want to not pay 200SC+ per breeding to gamble against a machine with everything stacked against me. Just as you want me to pay you 200SC+ on your stud because you want to make money, I don't want to lose 200SC+ breeding to your male only to get two male potatoes that are related to hundreds of other pups on the site. Granted, my want is not more important than yours either. However, I'm not going around saying that if you want to stud your male out, you should have to do it for free because I don't want to pay. You're telling me if I want new blood to my pack I should have to pay you for it because you don't want to lose your chance at a stud fee to a male I raised for my own use.

- The single breeding male is a mechanic that I believe the staff have openly stated crossed over from Lioden/was not a decision independent of Lioden's design. A mechanic designed based on lion pride behavior. They brought over a flawed mechanic that does not apply to wolves and is honestly just a frustrating headache.

On the note of the overpopulation, currently, I have the choice of having 10 pairs, which will take FIVE MONTHS (6y3m Wolvden time) to breed, or I can have 20 females who I can work through at a pace determined by me (personally, five at a time, next set ready right as the pupsitters come available). Note that if it takes me five months to breed all these pairs, each pair will only be able to have one litter. Yes, ONE. I might get lucky if I breed early enough that two of them can have a second litter. Now, this sounds good in terms of pup flow control... until I, as the breeder, realize this, as now I'm just going to buy those 20 females and breed them for up to five litters each. So, instead of having 10-60 puppies bred from my account, there will be 20-120 puppies bred from my account. Do you see the problem yet?

It costs me the same amount of resources to raise 10 pairs as it does 20 females, so the decision on which I do comes down to what is convenient to me and what my goals are. The majority of playstyles - heck, all the playstyles outside of the extreme and 'I'm just winging it/enjoying myself' - do not benefit more from having 10 pairs than they do 20 females, especially when 10 pairs will only provide you with one litter per pair.

Note: My personal playstyle revolves around stats, so females are bred sparingly. Having the system as it is, my choice is either heavy inbreeding and coughing up currency to high stat studs who are already overbred or to sacrifice stats (not enough time to get them to level 20 AND breed each of them), space, and resources to breed to very limited male options within my pack. Both of these options, quite frankly, suck. Everyone has their own reasons, so mine are not the only example, but I thought I would share anyway.

TL;DR - The 'protect the stud market' argument is invalid, the system that was added instead of this one makes breeding with non-stud males too difficult for it to be worth it, and the new system does nothing to alleviate the worthlessness of male pups/does not encourage me - or many others - to have anything other than an all-female pack. I don't think the pairing mechanic needs removed, just that the per month limit and breakup cooldowns need to be REMOVED. (The breakup cooldowns are redundant due to the one month cooldown on both males and females already present for breeding and feel like an unnecessary and too harsh punishment.)

Sorry for the wall of text. The 'my stud money is more important' argument is really starting to get under my skin and I am very displeased with an update that I feel I was tricked into being excited about.

Edit: The box does not wish to keep my formatting. -_-

^^^ This ^^^ 

Is something i agree with right now as well

The male cooldown should be the same as the female cooldown imo. Or at least 24 days (4 day pregnancy + 20 day cooldown) so that breeding pairs can stay in sync without skipping heats.

@Volinolona

I can with 100% confidence say that I agree with every and all points you have made. Giving the pairing system this many restrictions was a big mistake. The least that could be done to salvage it would be to remove the breeding cap and the 30 breakup cooldown. Though I also would like for the male breeding cooldown to be reduced to 20 days. At the moment if you IBF or chase young pups you WILL need to buy an elk heart if you want to synch them again because the males cooldown stays at 30 regardless.

I don't have access to this feature yet but i am somewhat dreading the issues i may face once i get to it. I Will have a look at it and see for sure how it is but right now, given how things seem. I don't like the restrictions. The cooldown to match a female's are fine enough without the current restrictions given

I am also annoyed with the 'save the stud market' thing. 

Game is young but new things will come out and once they do well above post(s) here explain so much better than i could at this point. 

I'm stressing over what my next course of action will be once i am able to do the pair quest and this doesn't help me since i have a mode to test out that i want to start using and let other peeps have fun with as well. I do know i have time to sort out my pack before i can take the pairs quest but still, things take time and i am taking guesses on who'll live or not given the nature of the gameplay mode 

I know later on game modes themselves Will come up like on LD which may also help with projects and the like and that's when issues can really get hard. I've ran into many friends who've quit WD because of how it is right now and i doubt that's what Devs want is people leaving because the game is too restrictive. Grinding and having to really think about things is one thing but features like the new pairing With these restrictions is gonna drive more away if they haven't already.