The cub-collecting Capybara! [A potential solution to the cub flood!]

DISCLAIMER: I am a new player here at Wolvden. I used to play Lioden, but haven’t played in 2-3 years. Any similarities to Lioden features, therefore, are coincidental.

DISCLAIMER 2: All example SC values listed are just examples, I promise. As I'm a new player, I haven't gotten the hang of values yet.

THE CUB-COLLECTING CAPYBARA

The elevator pitch: An NPC that, once per day, will trade a certain amount of SC for pups with certain features. The features are randomized each day, and change at rollover.

How it would work, overview:
1. The Capybara asks for cubs with a certain base, certain markings, and/or certain eyes (etc) once per day. Her ask changes every rollover.
2. If a player has cubs that fit her parameters, the player receives a certain amount of SC.
3. The player gives the cub(s) to the Capybara. The cub(s) is/are removed from the player’s den and from the game.

How it would work, detailed:
(Up to the devs’ discretion, of course.)

The Capybara may ask for:
A certain, specific base color. (EX: Honeydew.)
A certain, specific base genetic. (EX: Light Is, Monochrome Dark IIs, Monochromes.)
A certain eye color. (EX: Blue eyes.)
A certain age. (EX: 5-month-old pups.)
A certain skin, nose, or claw color. (EX: Black nose, marbled skin, bone claws.)
A certain personality. (EX: Optimistic.)
A certain marking. (EX: Black Agouti.)

She may pick one trait from each category, or use every category at her disposal. That means that some days, everyone and their mother will potentially have a cub to give to her...and other days, she’ll ask for something only one damn person in the game has.

Other potentials: Stat ranges, sex, fertility level. Mutations, mutation carriers, and variants are also a possibility if, sometime in the far future, they flood the game...or the devs just want Hard Mode.

The Capybara may give: SC. (I am not sure whether the amount should be randomized, or follow a pattern. Please give suggestions!)

Should she potentially give anything else (except GC of course)? Exclusive decor, backgrounds, other items? It really needs to be worthwhile.

What would it add to the game?
FIRST: a potential solution to overbreeding that still fits within the game’s lore. She takes cubs out of the game, but only certain kinds on certain days, so that people can’t overbreed just to make SC off her. And some funny lore about a chill capybara nesting with a load of uggo cubs would be A+.

SECOND: a comedic way to bring the community together. “The Capybara is asking for 4-month-old arkoses with more than 300 stats and hetero black and white eyes today. Is she high?”

“Okay BUT she’s also offering 2000 SC…”

“Bruh no one has that combo, though.”

“2000 SC!”

“IT MIGHT AS WELL BE GHOST SC WITH THIS LAME-ASS ASK.”

Resources it would need:
1. Art & writing, as the Capybara, in my mind, would be a new NPC with a new page. I suppose the devs could implement this concept without an NPC, but it wouldn’t be as fun!
2. Coding. I can only hope coding a randomizer wouldn’t be too much of an issue!

I don’t think it would require server tweaks? But if anyone’s more knowledgeable there, let me know.

FAQs:
Q: Why a capybara?
A: No reason. It could really be any animal or spirit or human or whatever. I just picked capybara for the alliteration and to take the thought out of that process for the devs.

Q: Couldn’t people just breed to give to the Capybara?
A: No, as her desired features would be randomized each day. You’d never know what she’d ask for.

Q: Wouldn’t this mean people would stop selling to each other?
A: I don’t think so, as people will always want to buy specific wolves off each other for breeding projects, lore, etc.

Q: Does she have to change her ask at rollover?
A: No, I don’t think so. To prevent the server from keeling over, in fact, it may be best that she does her ask at like, 3pm Wolvden time or something. I feel like a day she’s asking for something broad + everyone trying to sell to her + everyone also rolling over at once = bad. But that would be a dev thing to decide.

Q: What if she asks for something that doesn’t exist yet?
A: Unless a non-extant combination can be coded out of her randomizer, I imagine this is a possibility we’ll just have to deal with. With any luck, she’d always be broad enough that there’s at least a handful of wolves that fall under her parameters in the game.

Q: What if she asks for something impossible right now (like a Tier III)?
A: This I feel the devs could code out until further notice.

Q: How can the devs ascertain that enough cubs are being removed from the system with the Capybara?
A: Depends on their ultimate goal for the Capybara. I imagine if they felt she was asking for overly specific cubs way too much, they could add ‘weights’ to certain things. (EX: She’ll ask for one, two, or three traits way more often than four+.) It may definitely be a feature that requires tweaking over time.

Q: Why cubs, and not adult wolves?
A: The economy issue seems to lie mostly with unwanted cubs. I feel like including adults would be fine, though (?) if people wanted it.

Q: Would we still be able to just chase cubs?
A: Of course.

Q: If we allow adults, couldn’t people sit on their unwanted adult wolves until the Capybara asked for wolves like them?
A: Then we go cubs-only. But I imagine her randomization is enough that sitting on unwanted adult wolves (who take up precious pack spots) would be very unwise.

Q: How much SC would she give?
A: As stated above, I legitimately have no idea here.

The devs could assign each trait a value, which totals to the amount of SC she gives...but the economy fluctuates so much that a rare trait may be not-so-rare in a month, and getting 2000 SC for a hyper-specific Tier III isn’t fair if everyone has one (or something. This is hypothetical, lol).

OR. The devs could assign each trait a value and tweak it over time as the economy changes, but that’s a lot of frigging work.

OR. The SC amount itself could be randomized. Perhaps lower amounts for a broad ask (EX: 2-4 SC for blue-eyed cubs) and higher amounts for specific asks (EX: 2000-2500 SC for a Teardrop recessive melanism carrier with dark nose and black points and…). IDK.

OR. She could offer decor or other items instead, but they’d have to be really cool and worthwhile, I think. I might even suggest cycling them out/retiring them as time goes on so that they have an added piece of rarity attached. This would increase the amount of art needed for implementation, however.

OR. She could give, like, stats? XP? Help!

If you have a suggestion for her “trade” to the players, let me know.

Q: Wouldn’t this give players too much SC?
A: I don’t think we’d know for sure until we saw her in action and/or the devs decided on an SC pattern/system. But, at the core of this feature, the randomization process is my way of preventing another economy break—ideally, you wouldn’t be able to make so much SC off of her that the game becomes trivial, because you wouldn’t be able to give her a zillion cubs every day.

Essentially, she’s purely there so that unwanted cubs aren’t always a total waste of time and resources, and/or you don’t have to feel weird chasing your pretty-but-unneeded babs. I don’t, personally, see this feature as a way to steadily make money, or a garbage disposal for your 15 cubs that came out icky last week.

Other suggestions, important comments, etc:
To be added!

THANKS FOR YOUR HARD WORK AND CONSIDERATION, DEVS!
Fellow players, please leave comments, questions, suggestions, critiques, etc!

I absolutely adore this idea, full support! It would also help stimulate the rather stagnant pup sales right now, since people would likely buy up pups at low prices to give to the Capybara if they didn't have one of their own that matched that day. Since there is little to do with pups you don't want right now if other people don't want them, I feel like this would be a healthy and rewarding way to still encourage people to breed a variety of pups without tanking the economy :D

Support. The pup market could use some help, I'm seeing a lot of people trying to sell pups at just 1SC and it's kind of ridiculous.

I'd suggest rather than having a single, site-wide request from the capybara (ie., every person is told to bring a pup with green eyes and a glaucous base) have it be randomly generated per person, like the crossroad snake quests. I think having a single request site-wide could overly favor people in time zones where they're online at rollover (or whatever time is assigned for her to change requests) and can immediately buy up any cheap pups that fit the criteria, leaving everyone else with much lower odds of success. Plus, a variety of quests each day will mean a wider range of pups are getting bought up, which should have a bigger impact on the market, especially if some days her requests are so specific that no wolves are available to be bought anyway.

Q: Wouldn’t this give players too much SC?
A: I don’t think we’d know for sure until we saw her in action and/or the devs decided on an SC pattern/system. But, at the core of this feature, the randomization process is my way of preventing another economy break—ideally, you wouldn’t be able to make so much SC off of her that the game becomes trivial, because you wouldn’t be able to give her a zillion cubs every day.

I think a simple way around this would be to put a cap on how many pups someone can give her in one day. Like, 1-3 maybe.

I don't think the SC payout would need to be very high to incentivize people to sell to the capybara, anyway. There are currently over 1000 wolves at 5 SC or less in the trading center (I think it caps out at 50 pages, because I get 50 pages even if I search all wolves under 6 months). Which of course isn't accounting for people who currently just chase simple/ugly pups because there's such a low chance they'll sell at all. Even if she just gave 15 SC per cub, people would buy those super cheap pups and turn a little profit.

Or it could be made less SC-based. Give a small SC payout with a chance of lucky feet, herbs, food, etc, and a very small chance of an exclusive decor item. Pretty sure people would still go for it, since they're out there obsessively licking toads for a tiny chance of an exclusive expression, even though it risks poisoning their wolves (and yes I am one of those people lol). And same with RMAs, it's very chancy and very small chance of getting a special marking, but people pay GC for that chance.

Support!

This would really help. The pup economy is out of control.

I support this! My only concern is that if her requests are too specific, it might not actually stop the problem since she might ask for combos that not a lot of people have. I don't see any way this would harm anything, it just might not help much. What if she gave a list of traits that she wants to be fulfilled, and offers more SC depending on how many categories the pup you give her fills? That way more people would be able to get rid of unwanted pups even if they can't fill more than one or two categories, but it would still be more rewarding for those players who somehow actually DO have a 4-month-old arkose with more than 300 stats and hetero black and white eyes. ;)

Thank you all so, so much for your feedback! I really appreciate you reading through. I'll be updating the post soon to include some points y'all made, as well as to eliminate the bit about tier 3s not existing, since we have them now!

I think that this is awesome and really well thought out! A lot of love and care went into this suggestion!

I like the idea that she'll lead to more engagement in the community because people will have to sell/buy more wolves, and it should keep the wolf market alive, since that's been very shaky and unstable since Tier II's became super common (You used to be able to sell Arkoses and Lavenders for multiple GC, now you're sometimes lucky to get even 1).

My one worry is market scarcity if everyone gets the same quest. If she wants wolves with blue eyes, there won't be a single blue eye to be found. But maybe it could fully randomized like the Gorillas on LD. Or maybe there would be a limited pool of pups she's looking for.

For wayyyyy in the future if this gets implemented (for some reason I wanna call the Capybara Sadie), I think it would be fun if she had two difficulties that players could choose from: Pack and Lone Wolf. Pack would be normal difficulty, and Lone Wolf would be INCREDIBLY difficult. Lone Wolf rewards would be pretty high, though, maybe a limited prize pool (possibility of winning an RMA or maybe some special Capybara recipes?).

Oh man y'all. I meant to finally update this and it looks like we're getting something like it next year according to the new development post!

If you took my idea, devs, thanks! If I helped at all, thanks! And if you just came up with it independently, well, that's cool too. LOL

Full support. As for pricing, randomization would be best, but within a fixed range (eg. a simple pup would be no less than 100 sc, no more than 150.)

Support! Full support :D I can see this as a win for everyone while keeping TC cleaned up a bit without being way too overpowered