Two-Mode Realistic Breeding System

To prevent people lending wolves, perhaps that wolves who are sold through the trading centre can’t breed in their new pack unless they’re made the breeding male? Although that wouldn’t prevent female wolves.

@Lunar Lords, thank you for responding to clarify! I wouldn't necessarily agree with what you're saying here -- yes, even the best puppy sitter can only give so much survival % at once, even to a puppy who is their sole focus... but there's already a reason for that. It's to ensure that you can't just give a pup a pupsitter and call it a day -- you have to make sure to feed and play with them, stay invested in their wellbeing, etc. Even a pup who starts at 5% and who receives a pretty much untrained pupsitter who can only offer 60% protection will still be at 100% survival within 5 days. If we do go with what other members have been suggesting and boost that 5% up to 15% or higher, then that's only 4 days or less.

At the end of the day, how much of a survival risk casanova-style pups are at is one of the things that would probably need to be tested extensively for balance before this system could be implemented. The 5% is not a fixed amount, and it's not integral to the system for it to remain exactly as it is. If the mods did decide to run beta-testing on this system or one like it, I have a lot of faith that they would manage to balance it out well.

@Dżanek, I'm glad you like it!!! "a bunch of puppies are born but very few are chosen" is also one of the things I like about this idea -- not only does it introduce some risk, it also reduces puppy overpopulation and the decline in wolf value. I also completely agree that if it was only 1 public stud per pack, players would just turn to traditional studding to get around that. That is, I think, the flaw in any of the breeding-system-related proposals that says "oh, let all males breed within the pack only!" Sooner or later (definitely sooner), that will just turn into a system of traditional studding.

I totally agree with what you're saying about some players finding a riskier system like this overwhelming, and I like your suggestion of finding a way for players to invest time and effort into raising puppy survival chances. Honestly, if you're interested -- would you like to work together to come up with a proposal for a system like that? I think it's an idea that has merit even completely outside of the context of my breeding system proposal, and I'd love to discuss it with you in more detail. (Just in case you're not watching this thread anymore, I'll shoot you a DM about this as well :3)

@SokkasSpaceSword 1. I love your name, 2. Thank you for the support! I'm glad that you feel like this system would successfully reduce overpopulation -- that's really one of my big goals, here, along with being more realistic and introducing more elements of player choice.

@Rina thank you for saying I've put a lot of thought in! I really appreciate that, even if you're not a fan :) Can you explain a little more about what you dislike about this system, and how it could be fixed?

@Coal, Thank you for that awesome summary! You're dead on the money with that explanation of the system. As for the issues you brought up, I think that's a pretty decent summary of some of the weak points here. (Also, you're dead on the money with breeding pair members not being able to be chased, run away, etc. -- I didn't think to bring it up specifically in the header post, but you're right that it would be a key point in this system.)

This system would definitely, uh, rock the boat on the studding market -- and you're right, probably not in the best way. The market absolutely would be flooded with cheap and low-quality studs, since now every male (except those in breeding pairs) are now studs. My question is... what would be the material impact of that?

Right now, there are 8702 males up for stud. Of those 8702, there are certainly hundreds or thousands of breeding males who are theoretically up for stud, but who I'm certain receive very few stud offers, if any. If I had to guess, I would say that the vast majority of studding requests go to, say, the top 10% of all males who are up for stud -- those like Mor'du, who have extravagantly rare combos of markings, or those like bonibaru's Echo who are at the top of stat leaderboards. Some outside that top percentage might receive requests, but I'd guess it's only when they have a specific marking that the requester wants. If this plan is implemented and suddenly all unpaired males are potential studs... honestly? My prediction is that the trend will stay pretty much the same. The high-quality males who would already get the majority of stud requests will get those stud requests. The males who have specific markings desired by specific customers will get those requests. And the rest will get few to no requests. All that will have changed is that the latter group is much, much bigger.

Maybe it's just because I'm not as familiar with the stud market but... part of me still feels like quality will float to the top, no matter how deep the waters. I'd appreciate your feedback on whether or not you think that's true?

As for the low survival rate on casanova litters -- I do like the suggestion above about casanova litters being smaller than average, and I think it's worth incorporating. (Actually, @Badger if you don't mind, I'd really like to include that suggestion, with credits, in one of the header posts.) Even with that, though, I still think that it's worthwhile to use low starting survival percentages for casanova litters. I can definitely understand how it'd be frustrating, but that's why the breeding-pair litters exist: to give players a litter than they can relax a little with, a litter that's safer. If Dzanek and I do end up coming up with a proposal for a system where players can invest time and effort into raising puppy survival rates, do you feel that would do enough to reduce frustration? The goal is for keeping a casanova pup alive to be a struggle -- but not impossible, not if you're careful and prioritize.

All that said -- I LOVE your idea of a pack having multiple mated pairs based on territory size. LOVE LOVE LOVE it, holy smokes. I think it's the kind of thing that would have to be very, very carefully tested and adjusted for balance, and I don't know if 1 pair per 15 slots would be where that balance ended up, but I think the idea would fit in PERFECTLY with the overall sense of "getting beyond a certain amount of breeding takes time and effort."

Actually, would you mind if I put part or all of your summary of this plan and the issues with it, as well as your idea about multiple breeding pairs scaling with territory size, in one of the header posts? (With credit, of course.) You've done an awesome job summarizing the conversation to date, and I freaking LOVE your ideas, and I'd love for newcomers to the thread to be able to see where we're at right now.

@Eastwood, I like the suggestion, but honestly, I think that might end up being more trouble than it's worth for the players and the mods both. Occam's razor makes the best instrument when it comes to making new systems like this. Given that players will almost certainly find a way around restrictions -- as they've done with studding slots vs. traditional studding, etc. etc. -- I kinda lean in the direction of trying to predict and manage the ways in which they'll get around restrictions, and setting the system up so that the restrictions it sets either require a lot of effort to get around or aren't damaging when circumvented.

@ɛlɛutheriahaswon 

Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response. You are probably right about the additional studs entering the market not having a huge effect - I suppose people who use studs filter by traits they're interested in anyway.

I have mixed feelings about a way to up a pup's survival chance. On the one hand, it would be very satisfying to work hard on a pup and see it survive to adolescence. On the other, if I put a lot of effort into a pup, and despite those efforts, it died before its survival had quite reached 100, well, that would be more frustrating than if I'd left it up to fate entirely. I think it's also worth noting that, with some investment, it's already possible to get a pup's survival to 100% - give it a fully proficient pupsitter all to itself. Fully proficient pupsitters require planning and effort to maintain, even more so having a lot of them, so I feel there's sort of already a mechanic for this? I must admit though, I've not read any other pup survival increasing suggestions in depth, so I do apologise if I'm missing the point here.

By all means you're very welcome to use any part of my post in your header posts.

@ɛlɛutheriahaswon  Thank you for asking to come up with a new idea regarding pup survival, but I'm afraid I'll refuse. I'm quite too lazy and new to this game, I'm not into proposing elaborated ideas. I leave all the work to devs and the rest of community. I'm just here and there to catch potential flaws and point out what looks inconspicuous.

Sorry it took me so long to reply, I couldn't really think of the words to get my point across. First of all, thank you for responding with so much detail!

I'm not sure how the RP/lore community would respond to your idea as a whole, but personally? I already have added some harsh survival stuff to my ideas (i.e. not protecting runts, only keeping half of any litter) so it isn't all sunshine and rainbows, haha. The difference is that I have some control over it, through keeping my pupsitter's proficiency past 80%, through quarantine caves, through choosing whether or not to feed/play with certain wolves, when to breed, and so on.

Your system makes there a random chance of death no matter what I do, something I don't play games for. I have had enough of random unavoidable deaths IRL, I don't want the majority of games to be that way. Games are often played with escapism in mind, hence why there is only one disease on WD that kills pups outright, whilst in real life there are many things that can and do go wrong.

There needs to be an element of "if I do this, I will succeed" for a feature to work. If the choice is taken from players it makes the risk hardly ever worth it. If you combine the near certain risk of death with the RNG heritability of different traits, you cannot really say your feature has any pros that aren't far outweighed by the cons of losing a favoured pup no matter what you do. I hope you understand what I mean now? Helplessness isn't very fun.

In my opinion, the game would need some pretty drastic changes, and it would be another steep learning curve to implement this suggestion. The simplest solution is often the best. So, whilst I would probably play a game with the features you came up with (if I knew what I was getting into at the start), after careful consideration I think don't they are suitable for WD. There are other suggested features that I feel are a better fit.

@#2410 (is that how you guys are tagging people? I have no clue lmao, if not it's @op!)

The reason I wouldn't like these features to be implemented is because I think it'd just make the game unnecessarily difficult and restrictive

There is very little of my opinion thus far that hasn't already been said, but I'll just drop in with this.

• I do not, and never will, support such drastic decrease in pups' survival rate from birth. That number is cruel, and will make not only breeding for certain marks, bases, what-have-you difficult, but also extremely stressful. Like others before me have said, I play to relax, not to bite my nails to the quick over whether or not a perfect ten-mark pup will make it through the next day simply because they came from a certain breeding.
• I would support a simple lowering of the amount of pups that can be born from "casanova breedings." I have no issues with that at all, and it seems the least harsh way of handling the matter. I doubt anyone would protest this, whereas the drastically lowered survival rate has already caused some uproar. Perhaps a higher chance of runt versus largest pup litters, as well.
• I do not like the idea of a breeding "pair." I think that the single breeding wolf should remain, but it would be interesting to have the option of this wolf being male or female. If you chose a female for your breeder, then males from other packs could stud her; it would work similarly to the reverse studding feature on Lioden, in that the owner of the male would have to send all nesting / food / amusement items, and receive the pups when weaned. Obviously, this would also give the males in your own pack the chance to mate with your breeder, increasing bloodline diversity in that way.
• I do not think males from your pack who are not the breeding wolf should be able to mate with those outside of their pack unless it is to another pack's breeding female. Females, obviously, should still be able to breed with other "studs."
• TL;DR, breeding wolf can be either male or female; females can mate with other packs' breeding males, as well as any male in their own pack, including the breeding male if applicable; males can mate with other packs' breeding females, as well as any female in their own pack, including the breeding female if applicable. "Casanova" breedings simply result in lower pup count, no change in survival rate; possible increase in chance of runt vs largest pup litters.

Edited to clarify a couple of words because I'm dumb, oops.

I’m late to the party but I must say, I really appreciate the idea of set breeding pairs. While I play WolfQuest if I want realism, Wolvden’s breeding system doesn’t feel suited to wolves, maybe dogs or hyenas, but not wolves. I feel “okay” with the current system, but tweaking would be much appreciated.

However, given the responses on this thread, perhaps a few compromises are in order? Perhaps players could be given the option to choose between having a breeding male or a breeding pair, each with its own benefits and drawbacks. If giving every male the ability to breed is too much, perhaps Casanova could be an assigned roll – similar to breeding male, but much, much easier to replace. I also support the idea of smaller litter size rather than lower survival rates for Casanova-sired litters. While I don’t mind slightly lower survival rates, I would much prefer the pups not be born than be unprotected.

Thank you for bringing this up! I really hope some changes like this are made. :3

Not a fan of the hightened difficulty level. Getting the one wolf with the perfect base, skin, claw, eycolor and uo to 10 markings in the right slots with the right opacity and THEN not even being able to keep that look over several wolves is... DAUNTING to say the least. I'd rather not have that complicated by limiting the available breeding pool to only two wolves - both of which I'd have to pick and stick with OR risking to have the perfect combinations of pups born but they watch them die because their survival chances are low as dirt and seeing your breeding project being set back several months.

If this was an additional option for hardcore realism players to opt in to? Sure. Whatever hardcore rules and mechanics you want to apply for your game. But I want to play this more casually, fulfill a project or two and move onto the next project.

Just want to voice my support here. This is a really interesting and well-thought-out idea. Lower survival chance is a particularly interesting (and realistic! <3) tradeoff for balancing subordinate breeding, and I don't think it would be excessively frustrating as a fully trained pupsitter could still bring a desirable pup's survival to 100% if dedicated to that pup alone. And once you have a hunting party, two scouts, and an herbalist, everyone else can be a pupsitter, so as your pack grows your pupsitter capacity would also grow.

5% starting is a little extreme imo, but I don't think lower survival for studded or subordinate litters is a huge deal. I've just started getting tier II pups and combo mark pups, the rare ones I really want to keep, and my first pupsitter also recently hit 100% proficiency (been playing for 22 days iirc), so she has 100% protection. My second pupsitter is at 80% protection. I think the strategy in this system would be less "raise every pup to 100%" and more "raise special pups you want to keep to 100%, raise pups you want to sell above 50%, let potatoes die." I think that's fine honestly - the pups that would be unguarded to make space for sitting desirable pups would likely be chased anyway, or sold for pocket change (I sold a male with merle & inuit for 1 SC the other day). It would be a choosier playstyle, but honestly I don't think it would make a huge difference on pack composition or pup-selling profit? You can't keep all your puppies currently because of territory size, and if you sell them once they're weaned you're not really bringing in much SC unless you're consistently breeding tier IIs and rare markings, at which point you probably have the territory space and playtime to have lots of fully-trained pupsitters.

I like the idea of increasing mated pair slots per territory size too. ^^