Two-Mode Realistic Breeding System

I love this

Have to say I'm not a fan.  I want more freedom in breeding, not less.  Having a subordinates pups start at 5% survivability would make it impossible to ensure the survival if you managed to breed your "perfect" pup.  With the way RNG works on passing marks and bases people are going to have to breed a lot of puppies to get that perfect pup and they aren't going to want to loose it.  Games should be fun, not infuriating.

I think having smaller litters might also be a good adaptation to make -- Badger's right that the goal here really is to debuff the casanova breeding strategy, specifically in order to limit the puppy market. But you're right that that needs to be done without people feeling like RNG is consistently screwing them over.

also, thanks, Mythborn~! I'm so glad you like the idea :DDD

Ah, you sniped me, Lunar Lords -- we've been chatting about that 5% and whether or not people like it. I'm afraid I don't completely understand your comment? I really believe that this system would provide greater breeding freedom, since it would mean that even adult (male and female alike) are potentially reproductive. As for the low survivability of non-breeding-pair pups -- it is possible to take a pup at 10% or lower and keep it alive until adulthood. It's difficult, but with a dedicated pupsitter and careful feeding and mood-boosting, it's possible. It's only impossible to do for large amounts of pups simultaneously, which would hopefully keep the breeding rate down and the pup market unsaturated.

(And of course, there could also be items introduced which increase pup survival rates in the Grove.)

My understanding is that 99% percent pupsitting proficiency only gives 90% boost, so at 5% health or less even a dedicated pup sitter would not *garuntee* a pups survival.  Since keeping pup sitters at 100% is going to be annoying at best you face losing pups no matter how hard you try.  Slim, but there and RNG generally hates me.  There's basically nothing realistic about Wolvden and I want to play games to relax not stress out.  I'd consider the severe negatives to any "non-breeder female" litter to be very restrictive.  More so than the current Lioden system.

Support! I think this would be a really interesting way to play the game, not to mention help further diversify it from Lioden! (And would probably encourage people to breed more carefully + thin out the trades)

You've put a lot of thought into this which I admire and while I do want a bit of a tweak to the breeding system I would absolute hate the implementation of a breeding pair and your puppy suggestions 

May I make sure I'm understanding the original idea properly?

• One pair in each pack would be designated the "breeding pair" and their litters would have a high chance of survival
• Every adult not in the breeding pair could breed with anyone else, both within and without the pack, and these puppies would have a very low chance of survival.

If this is correct, then I like the idea in principle but can see some issues with it (most of which have already been mentioned, I'm just summing up my thoughts.

• The stud market could become saturated with low-quality studs. If every single adult male could be offered up for stud, finding the good ones could become challenging. I would prefer it if only one male per pack were available for breeding between packs.
• The low survival chance for "extra-marital" pups could be very disheartening and frustrating for some. I prefer an alternative suggestion above that "extra-marital" litters are instead smaller (maybe 1-4 pups with 2 being most common, rather than 1-6 with 3 or 4 being most common).
• Having only a single mated pair seems quite restrictive, especially if someone doesn't want to produce pups with low survival chances whether due to lore or just the frustration of it. This would be mitigated if the cost of changing or time to change the mated pair was reduced somewhat compared to what replacing the breeding male currently is. If a mated pair were fixed for, as an example, 50 days (that's two pregnancies + cooldowns), and then became cheap or free to replace, that would be better imo.

To throw in a random thought - what if packs could have multiple mated pairs depending on their territory size? For every 15 adult slots you have (say), you could have one additional mated pair slot? This would simulate the pack having more territory and members to find food in and keep an eye on pups. I would still prefer only one public stud per pack, reduced litter sizes rather than drastically reduced survival chances with this, but it would mean that each pair could be semi-permanent (cost as much to break up as a breeding male currently takes to retire).

This has probably already been mentioned, but wolves in mated pairs would I think clearly have to be unable to be sold, immune to death to fatal disease and unable to run away to low mood/hunger, to prevent abuse of the system.

If there was only one public stud per pack when the rest could mate only within the pack, users would simply lend their other wolves via TC for breeding purposes to bypass the restriction.

There would have to be a system, I think, that makes you easier to protect a single pup if you have more wolves in the pack, such as auxiliary pupsitters or other examples I have mentioned.