New Feed/Play System: Stockpiles

This is inspired by this thread:

https://www.wolvden.com/chatter/topic/111865

But as that thread is now very long, and I believe this idea sufficiently distinct from the OP, I wanted to make it its own thread so that it wouldn’t get lost.

Basically, you would have two 'stockpiles' – a food stockpile and a toy stockpile - that your wolves eat/play from, of their own accord, at rollover. If there wasn't enough for the whole pack at rollover, some wolves would go hungry/lose mood. Otherwise, items/uses from the stockpile are depleted, and the pack stays at 100%. Food in the stockpiles would still rot, and eating rotting food would still have a chance to make wolves sick.

Wolves would only consume rotting items left in the stockpile if they are below a certain hunger threshold. The game could perhaps alert you at rollover if some of your wolves didn't eat from the food stockpile (due to it being empty, or only containing rotting food) or if your toy stockpile is empty. Perhaps there could also be an alert at rollover if there are less uses left in your stockpiles than is sufficient for the current size of your pack (ie, you will run out at next rollover, and it’s time to refill it.)

The site could also make it so that certain illnesses will prevent the wolf from eating/playing at the stockpile with everyone else (are they bedridden? trying to prevent disease spread? you decide) which would be an interesting penalty.

You would still be able to feed/play with wolves manually, in case you left your stockpiles empty, bought a wolf who isn’t at 100%, etc.

Pros

- more "realistic" in that your wolves aren't fed in as much of a virtual-pet-like way. I think this is more fitting for a wild animal sim game. What kind of wolf needs its pack leader to hand-feed it?

- still requires user input/management that could be bypassed in a premium feature, but it's less clicky-grindy management – it’s more make sure you don't overstock and let the food rot, check the stockpile and remove marginal/rotting items as you see fit, etc.

- feed all/play all could be replaced or augmented by a feature to auto-refill your stockpiles to a desired level (or maybe calculated based on pack size?) from your hoard, and auto-remove rotting food.

Cons

- as far as the original suggestion (see link at the top) is concerned, this may not alleviate every type of problem one might have with feeding/playing, since it would still require you to fill your stockpiles with items, but this would require drastically less clicking (assuming you are stocking them with items with multiple uses and assuming the feature has a multi-select for moving them in) and allow you to put a whole bunch of food/toys in on one day and then not need to put in more for a few days, so that you can stock up on a day you feel able to do so.

- if you let your stockpile empty, didn’t refill it, and rolled over, and didn’t have the feed all/play all (or its augmented equivalent) feature, you would have to revert to the old method of manual feeding your pack for that day, as the wolves only automatically eat/play at rollover. However, this would be much more avoidable than it currently is, and even then you could just refill the stockpiles and allow them to refill their mood/hunger at rollover if you were unable to click through the whole pack manually.

I like this but I would also like a way to prioritize which wolves get fed first, similar to the system in the game Niche where you can mark creatures as alpha/beta/omega (obviously, wolves don't follow this sort of thing, but it could just be called something like high priority or low priority feeding) which is the order they get fed in. That way your high-priority ones are always fed first, and only your low priority ones don't get food.

Wolves in certain areas of the world do cache their food, so this makes a lot of sense.

This is a great alternative for those who mentally can’t feed every wolf and for those who just plain don’t have the time to but still want to play

This is a great alternative for those who mentally can’t feed every wolf and for those who just plain don’t have the time to but still want to play

Big support! When I read the original thread, it made me think of this. Another sim game that I've played intermittently has a similar mechanic (I don't remember the game, oop), and it makes feeding and playing with multiple creatures way less stressful. I love Wolvden, but gosh is taking care of those puppers frustrating.

This makes sense! I agree that it's a much more realistic option for a wolf pack.

Ooh, I like this! It puts a nice emphasis on resource management without the tedium of clicking a bunch of buttons. More strategy, less grind.

Support!! I'd love to just basically "queue" food stores for the next few days. It'd also be great for the wolves to be able to eat food that will expire the soonest first (unless its rotting) and for the rotting food to be discarded automatically with an alert added to your rollover summary saying "Your wolves have discarded [x amount] of food from the stockpile due to it rotting"!

Not only does this alleviate some clicking, but it also encourages inventory management, which will add genuine skill and difficulty! If you queue too much food that may expire before your wolves get to it, you'll lose out on the opportunity to sell that excess food. It'll encourage planning ahead a decent amount, but wouldn't be so much that you'll have to stress too much I feel :> You would basically just have to keep track of how many adults and pups you'll need feeding daily and try to match that number. And as you add wolves, you'll just have to put some extra food into the stockpile to make up for it.