just curious: do you find males on wolvden useless?

@Nika- i do that too! The increasing the price by 3GC automatically. I'm happy with my current lead, and he isn't old enough to go heir hunting for, so I always have to change the gender of my wolves. There's no point in keeping them male when I could breed them and get a pretty wolf to replace my lead later on....

Depends on who they are. I have a more RP-type pack, so I’m focusing on my lead’s legacy, not profit. Still, as far as roles a wolf can have:

Female-only:
-Non-canon Hunting Team (as they need to replace themselves every generation, and kick-start breeding towards my next lead’s mate)
-Mate to male Lead Wolf

Either Gender:
-Lead Wolf
-Hunting Team, Scout, Herbalist and Pupsitter of the Main Pack

Male-only:
-Mate to female Lead Wolf

Which means that if they’re a child of the Lead pair, it doesn’t matter in the slightest since none of them are being bred unless they become the next Lead. For the non-canon wolves, though, they must be female to keep their lineages going and their stats raising. The only non-canon male is the one that will become the next Lead’s mate if the next Lead is female.

So I’d say not useless, but their roles are more limited if they aren’t a pup from the Lead Wolf.

I occasionally get the tinge of disappointment if the marks are nice but I don't really care. They can still find use.

I don't find males completely useless but I do see them as inferior to females so I've long since stopped buying any. I'm not interested in breeding for profit or in the studding system, I came to wolvden with the intention to form a story and some lore around my pack, make breeding pairs and form legacies by replacing the older generations with the new over time and avoiding inbreeding. The way males currently work makes this impossible without spending lots of real world money (which I won't do) and even then I'd have to make compromises. As Bluefire put it: "oops, it's just not possible to play how I want to."

I find them as useful as the NBW I befriended - somewhat useful but once I have better stat wolves im not sure if they will sell.

I ended up turning my male herblist into a female because they were the best stat wolf I had. I have no regerts. I plan to have a revoling door for my wolves. I'll make 100% proficiencies, have 'apprentice' younger wolves and once they get high enough sell the older ones.

I find them 'useless' because the females can do everything a male can do and breed. The energy regen debuff from pregnancy has not impacted me at all. So if I have a choice I will keep a female or pay the 3GC to sex change a male if they are the 'best' of a litter. And if I'm not breeding them, I can later.

I consider male wolves just as useful as their female counterparts. In fact for the roles of herbalist and scout, I'd argue they are better since they don't have to deal with pregnancy's energy penalties or the inability to do their jobs since they'll never have to nest.

Unpopular opinion here but the fact that females produce puppies is one of their drawbacks for me. Unless the pups have traits that are sought after, they are extremely hard to sell off and you end up using resources keeping them around in hopes they sell. More often than not, I make much more money when I chase a pup and instead sell the food/ toys that I'd use on it than if I kept it to sell.

I know you can choose not to breed the female so you don't waste resources on her pups until you decide that the time is right, but lets just face it, it is very hard to ignore the little flame icon xD

I guess I don't have any trouble ignoring the little flame icon if I don't think breeding is worth it, so it's not an issue for me. XD

(Right now I mostly think breeding is worth it - the energy drawbacks are pretty minor and I nest on the last evening so I barely lose any work. and then for the first five days the pups don't take up any resources, since you're just feeding/playing with the mom which you would be doing anyway. All the pupsitting is a bit of a nuisance, granted, and using toys on any but the best pups is not really worth it, yeah. But it depends on whether you want to keep any puppies or have the motivation to sell them.)

A bit. I wish there wasn't only one breeding male for each pack; even if you could only breed other males far less or only once it'd be nice.

Substantially less useful, yeah. I don't know if I would say they were useless but looking at it objectively there is literally no reason to not have an all-female pack with one breeding male other than that is extremely boring and one of the reasons I never could get into Lioden for more than a couple months at a time every few years despite it being a good game.

My biggest issues have already been said, to breed them essentially comes with an additional fee of +3 GC (then if you are a lore/RP pack it's a can of worms) and if you aren't willing/able to do that any stats you've trained into them by giving them a profession or any nice genetics die with them. If you are buying wolves it's almost always cheaper to find a similar female than sex-change a male.
... Or you could just get females and not have to worry about any of that.

I wanted to do a challenge pack in order to preserve my interest in the game with a long-term goal; Start with my customs and a group of NBWs and try to organically breed nice wolves after they had better stats. Since they decided to go with this bizarre breeding male thing, that is simply not possible.