Allow All Males to Breed within the Pack

Ngl the gc argument seemS ridiculous to me since they while all breedable males would put a change to how people spend their money, I don’t think it’s gonna be major change tbh. Lbr here, not many people really have extra funds to even want to put the effort/time to change breeding males. Right now, it’s ridiculously high compare to when you change studs in lioden especially when you factor in the cool downs here which is v significantly higher, it’s a steal from the players. Studding right now is so flawed as it’s v similar to lioden as I see 1 male having about 50 - 1,00 pups already. This is a factor in the rare base/markings/stats, which will honestly will always be desirable no matter how you look at it. 

Besides, you know what people really like to use gc for? Instant births, customizing your current wolves, taking chances with rmas, fixing opacity, removing unwanted markings, base/eye changer and so on. Peeps with breeding projects are definitely gonna use these and in addition, maybe quick age up to desired pups. Like gc will keep being and the current favored studs are those who are more than willing to spend 50 - 100 dollars worth of customization and time skips for their breeding males to even keep up with the current trends now. 

@coal i mean from my lore perspective, my breeding male's pups from his studdings just wouldn't exist in the lore, and in lore he would be the most prominent male in the pack— maybe he has a mate, maybe he's more of a love-all-around kinda dude, but either way he's just kinda vibing lol

i mean sure, breeding males don't make sense from a game perspective compared to other breakable males, but they also don't currently "make sense" lol a male that sires 15 pups every 2 weeks is kinda wack, but it also does make sense from a game perspective because it makes the game more enjoyable for a lot of players. i don't know if this thread is the place to suggest breeding males being removed, since it's a pretty different subject, but you could always make a suggestion topic about it and see what people have to say!

@ Phantom StarsX

Both rolls would have to succeed, it'd literally be no different than now in a way players could see. We don't see a roll and it would also cause a long term SC sink as fertility raising/lowering items would be useful for both genders.

However I do not support fertility in your Breeding Male. Consider that a perk of the role, either he has none or it's set to 100% upon taking the mantle. Since he'll be neutered on leaving it, that won't matter much.

Big yes to the original post.

In the wild, when prey is abundance, the breeding pair normally allow others to reproduce so that they can help with the hunting.  So it is plausible. 

Chiming in once more. Had a couple further thoughts as I've been following the discussion. Everyone has had lots of interesting ideas and points.

I want to agree with others that male wolves are not the "bottleneck" for puppies; that's the females. And right now all females are fertile, meaning there is no functional control on how many puppies are born in the game. Indeed, the game mechanics support mass breeding by both this mechanic--one breeding male who is permanent--and by the way the genetics pass. I'm not complaining over the genetics, they're fun, but they do contribute to the issue.

By limiting players to one EXTREMELY important male who will last a long time, the game forces players to acknowledge the breeding male as the most important long-term pack member and the most important part of a breeding pair. Therefore players absolutely must choose only the absolutely best male for the position. This means the selection process is extremely aggressive and extremely limited. 

Then we have the other fact of breeding: if you're trying for a higher tier base and more/specific higher rarity markings for your male, you are forced to breed over and over and over until you beat the odds. (Tier 1 to Tier 2 produces 10% T2...Which means that for the purposes of producing your next breeding male, 90% of those puppies are automatically out of the running. And you might get lucky on the first breeding, but most likely you will have to breed many many litters to hit those odds.)

Effectively, the 1 male system actually exacerbates the overpopulation problem. 

By contrast, allowing many breeding males would serve to lower overpopulation:

1. People would fill more spots in their dens with males, leaving fewer spaces for females. Fewer females = fewer opportunities to produce more puppies.

2. Each male is not so overwhelmingly, devastatingly important to the player. This means it doesn't matter if he isn't the most amazing perfect example of wolfhood that ever wolfed; if he's pretty, you can breed him once or twice to see what happens and then retire him, the same as any female. There is less pressure associated with male choice, and less pressure to mass breed. It will still happen, but I believe more casually, with less fervor than is done today.

3. Especially if the game implements a breeding cooldown for males that matches females, that further emphasizes the equality of both sexes. Right now the player is incentivised to have as many females as possible of any quality, and breed them to the nicest male possible to see if they get a decent pup. If they do, they'll keep the nice pup and get rid of all siblings and usually mom, get another cheap female and rinse and repeat. It's purely a numbers game right now. If you have to plan your breedings a bit more carefully--if male breeding opportunities are valuable rather than just costing 2% of energy but otherwise functionally unlimited--female choice becomes a lot more important than it is now.

For those who prefer the challenge of one breeding male, that's fine. You can choose to challenge yourself by not breeding to any other male--nobody here is saying you have to breed to every male you own. But a lot of players don't want to play that way, and feel very limited by the mechanics as they currently stand.

@Coal- The cooldowns for regular males vs no cooldown for stud males is purely a game balancing feature. It was said early on that the devs wanted to make it so you never had to set a breeding male if you didn't want to, but right now it's many times more difficult to play that way. If a player wants unlimited breedings they have to set a breeding male, and pay to retire early if they want unlimited breedings from a different male.

If a player wants to play without a breeding male, but still breed within their pack, there has to be a way to keep males and females on an equal playing field. Making it so you can keep a small number of males, and breed them willy-nilly to every female in the pack, defeats the purpose of the stud/breeding male feature we currently have, and does nothing to address concerns of mass breeding.

The reason behind the cooldown being similar to females is to make males and females completely equal in terms of breeding ability. The limitations for both sexes are exactly the same, and therefore there is actually more incentive to keep males around to do hunting and similar tasks, because not only can they pass on their stats and appearance, they also don't incur a pregnancy penalty on energy regen. This encourages players to keep more pairs, and makes the whole site more diverse in terms of bases and markings. Players will no longer have to pick what is popular because their only breedable male is also their stud.

In terms of actual realism, or a reason behind it? Badger mentioned how a similar/same cooldown makes monogamous pairs encouraged, but not mandatory. Wolves tend to pair up and raise puppies together in the wild, so a male wouldn't move on to the next female immediately after getting one pregnant, they would probably stick around to raise the pups. Wolves also tend to have 1 litter per year. Therefore the cooldown for males reflects typical wolf mating behaviour.

In terms of fertility, perhaps the mutation and pregnancy chance could be based on the average of the male and female fertility? I.e. if you have a 50% male and a 1% female, it averages out to a 25% success rate, and whatever chance females with that fertility currently have to make mutations? That way you could avoid ridiculously small chances, and also breed towards higher or lower fertility depending on who you pair up

@Keld - there are infertile females out there. I bred two recently out of a VLF (below 10%) female. (I chased them, because what use is an infertile female to me? ........ this anchors the point about males doesn't it, lol)

@ VagueShapes

That sounds like a really nice way to handle fertility to be honest. On LD there was always a dead end of my very low fert girls hitting infertility after a generation or two, but you had to bring them up by 10% at a time using items. An average would make that so much easier to maintain.

Full support!!

I am the kind of person that whenever new markings become popular or new bases get released, I feel tempted to change my stud. 

I end up wasting GC retiring due to the fact that we are limited to one stud. If our other male wolves were able to breed  that would be amazing, so that I wouldn’t feel the need to replace my breeding male every time. 

And I also agree that I consider male wolves to be useless, I have 2 gorgeous male wolves that I plan to sex change just due to the fact that I can’t pass on their looks.

However I do also agree with the fact that there should be restrictions, a breeding cooldown is a great idea. 

I still disagree with males having fertility. It doesnt seem like a necessary point and would just make it more tedious.