Reduced Reliance on RNG (from the perspective of a game maker)

@Magpie

I live in the Mountains right now. Used to live in the Prairie but I damn near starved there and its not a super difficult biome. My best team, all 100% synergy and proficiency in their respective roles, all over 300 stats, and they failed to the point I was worried about food. I stayed in the Prairie for a while, too, I think I went winter to summer, and during summer went back to the Mountains, so it wasnt even just the hardship of winter.

They were failing probably 8 out of 10 hunts and, as active as I am, I cannot dedicate a vast majority of time to the game to hunt my teams until theyre out of hunts (I have 2, one is fairly new, so while I have 20 hunts total I realistically only use 6-8 total). Even in the Mountains, an easy biome, I can go a few days and not kill anything. The RNG system for hunting definitely needs to change because for more casual players it is absolutely brutal.

And right now, all the packs in WD are small, whats going to happen when people have massive packs? They wont be able to get enough food to sustain them. The game should be challenging, but it shouldnt be impossible

You know, I wonder if the RNG itself is has an effect on everyone having a different experience too?

I've tried different strategies in battle and still am with little effect. Like resting, unless the opponent will bleed out in the next turn it's just giving them a free hit. I can't reliably latch anything without a lucky foot or it being so far beneath my lead's level it isn't worth the energy (and not even then sometimes)...
But on the flipside I also decided to switch between medium difficulty areas for the hunting exp and am not doing as bad as others have said they were.

So I have low-ish stat wolves in the prairie. My A Team are NBWs, 100 proficiency/synergy, an average 410 stats. They can reliably hunt critters and small game, semi-reliably with in medium game, and large game trails appear but are basically for exp only (yesterday they did get a bison somehow.) Today they had 10 hunts and brought back, according to my log, 3 critters, 3 small game, 2 medium, and 1 hunt failed.
My B team, which is an experiment right now, got 7 critters, 1 small, and 2 failed hunts. A chaser and the finisher have +500 stats (ex-scouts) and 6% proficiency, the rest average to 270 stats and 81% proficiency. 47% synergy after I swapped in the scouts.

And with no transparency of the inner workings it's really hard to determine why some people might be doing better in battle while others are doing better in hunting and some are having a rough time with everything.

just a huge support. the lack of transparency really bugs me, and i appreciate the thought you put into the suggestion and establishing your credibility!

Big agree on this. the level of RNG is frustrating. It reminds me of the grind of Warframe, another game where transparency with percentages and other such things is damn near a trade secret. This makes the game dull and unrewarding. Especially since the advent of "boosters" which allow you to roll more of the things you WANT and less of the things you don't.

The RNG in explore is awful. I spend more time wasting my energy to get no return at all. A level 1 battle here, an illness there. Gods forbid you need just a couple encounters to level up. You're sure to find none. And lucky foot still fails half the time in battles. This is on top of the fact that even with resting and waiting for enemies to die, you're likely to be defeated in a fight you SHOULD have won. Since the return on resting is so abysmally low, it's never worth it unless the battle is going to net me something I want. Which is nearly never. Some EXP and 1 measly SC for my struggles. Grand.

I feel the RNG rate on Illnesses is fine though. That's the one thing I can't really complain about. It's low enough that I can throw caution to the wind, and is extremely easy to fix once it happens. 

But, as others have said: Synergy in parties, proficiency, stats, and so forth...they mean almost nothing. I get that it's made to simulate living in the wild and how not everything a wolf does IRL would succeed...but you have to take into account that humans are not in the wild. AND, this is a fantasy simulation game with wolves. Other games handle RNG a lot more like a fun party trick rather than the core mechanic. Sure, you can play a gacha game and it'll almost always be rigged to get you to play more by spitting out all commons, but there are still ways to 100% secure yourself a rare item in these instances. 

You level up a wolf and the only feeling of accomplishment is that the numbers went up a bit. Great, now I can battle enemies that are marginally tougher. But do I want to, when a level 8 can wipe the map with me at level 12? Not really. 

TL;DR - I fully agree with you. I support transparency and honesty from devs regarding RNG. I also agree that things should feel more rewarding. Either make the game not require leveling for your wolves to stand out and succeed, or make the leveling curve WORTH doing. 

Really big agree, here. The RNG at times makes any strategic attempts at combat or time efficient hunt plans pretty much non-existent. I've had decent luck with hunting compared to earlier in the game (my A team has had great luck with bringing home elk bull carcasses), but combat is just...utterly ridiculous.

I'm pretty much spamming 1 button and hoping I win, sometimes clicking another one if it'll decide to work. The majority of the time, though, it's just a major waste. I just used a Lucky Foot against a bear and the very next turn still got infected with bleed. There's no point in continuing the fight when half my health is now gone and I've only just chipped the tip of the bear's.

I enjoy that the game wants to be challenging and difficult, but at times it feels so punishing even when I try to do things "right" (watching my energy level, using lucky foot, restoring HP before battle) that I am often tempted to set the game down and not pick it up again.

YES! Right now it feels like the whole game is repeatedly clicking buttons and hoping for good luck. It makes it more difficult to get to the result sure, but not in an interesting and engaging way.  In my personal opinion, the purpose of a game is to entertain the player. The point of RNG is to make sure the game isn't to easy, and even keep older players entertained by some un-predictability. But the difficulty should be at least partially controlled by the player. If you entirely remove the ability to have a significant impact for your actions, the game just becomes  a "push this button and see what happens" kind of thing. In real life slot machines exist, which is really just a 'pull this lever and see if you are lucky' kind of thing. It works because sometimes people get a massive pay-off, just often enough to keep them playing. Wolvden doesn't even have that. There are no 'jackpots'. I personally would like to be able to really do something in the game. I plan on continuing to play Wolvden, but realistically it is another game that I will eventually stop using. Things like the battling system could make it more interesting. Right now it is just annoying. 

Support on this, I stay on the website for 3 seconds and then get off because there's just nothing else for me to do. 

You put into words exactly what was bothering me at the game. I 100% agree and support because at the moment explore is such a chore and honestly battling is super discouraging and I burn through multiple healing salves every time I fight an enemy, even if it is several levels lower than me

also BIG agree for the herbalist!! There need to be more benefits for a high prof herbalist because foraging is hardly worth it at the moment, and it still takes forever to craft medicines even when your wolf is a high level

I agree that we should feel like we have more control over the game. The more random chance there is the less control we have, which works to some extent. In Pokemon it's fun to think that you might get a crit or even simply a high roll, and it creates tension when it happens for your enemies. But it's also fun because you intimately know your own mons and what they can do, you've trained them and are given the tools you need to understand how to use them. You can see your progression and battling doesn't just feel like flipping a coin. WD could use some of this in battling.

I also think WD could use some more feeling of progression in other arenas. If I could see for instance, what scent trails my wolves are able to pick up specifically because of their level, that would be cool. Then I would know for sure that I am only seeing that large trail because Hidden Path has 99 proficiency at stalking or whatever. Or my Herbalist should be able to find more herbs when he has a high proficiency. Or a higher wisdom for the Herbalist could lead to him making an extra of a medicine every now and then. Just... more. The stats need to do more.

100% support 

Couldn't agree more, all the points are really well thought out and everyone in the comments has made great additions too.

Editing my comment just to add that with my level 9 wolf at almost full HP I've gotten defeated (or had to escape from) level 1 and 2 enemies on multiple occasions. It feels like the enemy level has no meaning at this point, and I just have to spam healing salves and get by on sheer luck. :/