Increase (or remove) the monthly restriction of pair-bonded breedings

I think one week in the pack before they can pair and 30 day divorce cooldown should be plenty to stop feature abuse. Having no male cooldown or a 20-24 day male cooldown actually incentives keeping breeding pairs intact because it shaves 6-10 days off of breeding cooldowns. 

Big agree. Lifebonds are essentially useless outside "I want this pair to have pups Exactly Once for lore reasons"

I don't know if you saw my post in the other thread, and I may be wrong in my estimations here, but I the calculations regarding how many litters a bonded pair can have in their lifetime seem to me to be a little off - wolves only become breedable at the age of 1 year (24 days), and females become unbreedable from 7 years 2 months (172 days). This means that females have a breeding "lifespan" of 172 - 24 = 148 days. Since 148/30 = 4.93, the maximum number of litters a bonded pair can have together in their lifespan is 4, although you may be able to squeeze an additional litter out of the female by breeding her to a stud, or the male by re-pairing him with a younger female once his mate retires*. Bonded pairs where the male is also the pack's breeding male may have up to 6 litters together (148/24 = 6.17), or 7 if IBFs are used (148/20 = 7.4), since the male has no breeding cooldown in this case and thus breeding is limited only by the female's 20-day cooldown and 4-day pregnancy period, the latter of which can be nullified by using an IBF on the same day she is bred.

I agree that the two-breedings-per-month limit is too restrictive in this case, given that pairs aren't able to have many litters in their lifetimes anyway. The 30-day cooldown for males, and the fact that this can't be worked around with IBFs, seems more than enough of a restriction on the feature to discourage mass pair breeding - even without the two-per-month limit, it's still massively more profitable in terms of number of litters/pups achievable to sex-change a male than it is to pair him, and studding out females leads to more efficient overall use of their breeding "lifespan" than does pairing them since it cuts the interval between breedings from 30 days to 20-24.

*I'm still not entirely sure how this works - presumably the 30-day cooldown and 100% mood loss penalties to breaking up a pair do not apply if one of the wolves in the pair dies, but I would also assume that wolves in a pair bond must be disbanded first if the player wants to retire one of them early or chase one of them (and if that restriction isn't already in place I would...think it should be). Since males are presumably breedable up until they die, while females become unbreedable at 7 years 2 months, this would mean that if you pair a male with a female the same age or older than him, you might be able to get more litters out of the male by re-pairing him with a younger female after his mate dies naturally. But if wolves in pair bonds can't be retired or chased unless the pair is disbanded first, the 30-day cooldown would make early retiring/chasing of paired females once they become unbreedable unworkable as a strategy to get more than 4-5 total litters out of the male, since after retiring the female you wouldn't be able to pair the male again for another full month, by which point he would likely have died as well. Pairing a male with a female younger than him in this case also wouldn't work as a strategy to get more than 4-5 litters, since females become unbreedable before either wolf has a chance of dying (wolves only start dying from 7 years 6 months). Staggering pairs by age might work to increase litter number in this case (since you could pair young females with >7-year-old males and then simply re-pair them with new >7-year-old males once their mates die, and do this 6-7 times until the female reaches 7 years 2 months), but doing so could require a lot of micromanagement and careful syncing of wolf ages, and wouldn't ultimately give the females any more litters than they would have got from studding (as well as being potentially even more costly than studding in the long run, since you'd have to be continuously cycling males, and wouldn't be able to get more than one litter out of each male), so I'm not really sure it's a strategy many players would opt for. However, if that kind of "workaround" strategy is one the devs want to discourage, then there are other limits they could place on pairing that would make it impossible without needing to restrict pair breedings to two a month - they could, for example, make paired wolves suffer (reduced) mood penalties or have a short cooldown period after losing their mate even if their mate dies naturally, make it impossible to retire or chase wolves that are currently paired if this restriction doesn't exist already, or limit the number of pairings that can be set (but not bred) in a month, which would discourage players from constantly re-pairing their wolves or cycling their wolves in and out of pairs.

I also wonder how the pairing mechanic works with regard to wolves leaving the pack due to low hunger/mood, and to wolves dying of fatal illnesses. If one of the wolves in a pair runs, do they have to be re-paired once the wolf is reclaimed, and if so do the cooldown and mood loss penalties for "breaking up" the pair early apply (and does the player have to wait another 7 days after reclaiming the temporarily lost wolf to even be able to pair them again)? Or are wolves that are currently paired with another wolf in the pack unable to leave the pack due to low hunger/mood unless their mate also leaves?? Do fatal illnesses potentially represent an exploitable loophole, in that players could deliberately infect paired wolves with fatal illnesses to get them to die early and thus make their mate breedable again without cooldown or mood loss penalties, or are paired wolves immune to fatal illnesses like lead wolves and breeding males??

In any case, I think that if the devs want to limit pair breeding or prevent abuse of the feature, that might be done more effectively by encouraging players to pair wolves for life rather than cycling/swapping out pairings (e.g. by introducing cooldowns or penalties for re-pairing wolves after their mates die, or adding additional penalties for the remaining wolf should one wolf in a pair run away due to low hunger/mood or die due to illness) or by limiting the total number of concurrent pairs in a pack, not by placing a monthly limit on pair breedings.

I... am not sure I entirely read that right, as it sounds like you're just suggesting mechanics that are already in place?

I do believe it has been proven that if a wolf runs away, it breaks the bond/incurs the cooldown - I believe on the thread asking for all males to be able to breed freely/on just a cooldown without this pairing mechanic. I would assume that chasing does the same - I want to say Tala actually mentioned it/sort of mentioned that any method of getting the wolf to leave the pack would require breaking or would automatically break the bond. I have not seen anyone say anything about if a wolf dies, but I would not be surprised if it also triggers a cooldown due to it being otherwise exploitable with lethal illnesses. I personally think it's a bit shitty that a wolf running away breaks the bond, since that means the person unwillingly was forced into a 30 day cooldown that they have no way of escaping. I can understand it if it was only if they wait until the wolf can no longer be reclaimed in an attempt to exploit the mechanic, but it's incurred immediately after the wolf runs.

Currently, the system encourages people to break the pair bond immediately after breeding so the breeding cooldown and pair cooldown is synced if they think the pair may not be suitable later. The entire mechanic, as is, is basically 'we want to force studs to be a better mechanic, force people to use Elk Hearts if they want to efficiently use pairs, and force people to play the harem playstyle.'

Re: the site wanting to force people to use elk hearts to spend GC - that makes a lot of sense with the bonded male cooldown being out of synch with the female's, but if they want people to buy elk hearts why have the two breedings per month limit? Wouldn't it be better to have the cooldown but put no limit on total breedings per month, so people breed more pairs and need more elk hearts?

Anyway, I think the various other limitations on this feature mean there's no way for people to abuse it even if they can breed more than two bonded pairs per month, and I would really love for this feature to be usable so there are more options for diverse play styles (and diverse bloodlines). I'd also like to have a chance in hell of selling male pups, and I think more bonded pairs would create a bit more demand for them, which would be nice. And I think it could actually create a less oversaturated pup market because you can breed a female in a bonded pair fewer times than if she's breeding to studs. And that'd also be great.

The only difference between mass pair breeding and mass stud breeding is play style. The update is (potentially) a huge step forward but there’s no need to punish people for wanting to play differently, especially when the site is trying to avoid becoming lioden 2.0 but with wolves.

I wasn't sure if those mechanics were in place, as I wasn't aware of anyone who had tested whether chasing or having the wolf leave the pack would automatically break the bond, and couldn't remember if Tala had specified whether it does. It definitely seems like something the devs would have controlled for, though - I can't imagine that the update would have been released without it. I'm still not sure about how wolf death factors into pairings, though, and I'm not sure if anyone has any word from the devs or data on that, especially as the feature is still new and so there hasn't been much time for paired wolves to reach dying age. But if there isn't already a cooldown for natural wolf deaths (as I don't think has been investigated yet), there probably should be one to prevent players from using lethal illnesses or pairing females with males of near-dying age to get around the cooldowns, if that kind of strictness is what the devs intended.

I'm guessing as well that at least part of this strictness is to prevent people from simply mass buying wolves from the TC, pairing and breeding them immediately, and then chasing them once the litter is born and weaned (which could be instantly if the player uses IBFs and Aging Crystals) - trying to prevent this kind of mass breeding would definitely help to explain the two-breedings-per-month limit, although even then I really don't think it's particularly necessary or fair. Limiting the number of pairs a player could set, rather than breed, in a month would have the same effect on mass breeding while also not screwing over players who want multiple long-term pairs, and the 7-day cooldown period before wolves can be paired means that there is a limit on the number of times a player would be able to do this kind of "expendable" pairing in a month anyway, not to mention that they can already do the same thing much more efficiently and cheaply by just mass buying females and breeding them to the breeding male.

(Realistically, though, I'm not sure abuse of the pairing feature is really such a concern that it warrants all these restrictions - even "just" the 30-day male cooldown puts pairs at a breeding disadvantage compared to using studs, and since unbred wolves are sex-changeable there's really no reason a player who wanted to mass breed for profit would bother pairing males with valuable genetics instead of just sex-changing them, especially since the "mass pair-breeding" strategy I mentioned above would require buying cheap wolves only to breed them once to each other, which is really not an ideal strategy if you want to maximise your chances of getting pups with rare genetics. Really the male cooldown, 7-day cooldown period before pairing is possible, and penalties for breaking up the pairing are more than enough to discourage players from constantly switching out/cycling pairs without a monthly limit, and even if players did "mass-breed" pairs it's hardly like that would saturate the market any more than unrestricted harem breeding is already doing).

I have a female who is 7y0.5m today in a pairing (Ma'ila) - I can let you peoples know if her dying causes her mate to go on cooldown if someone else doesn't beat me to it. Though, with my luck, she's going to live all the way to 8y just to inconvenience me. :P Her mate is significantly younger, though, so there is little to no chance of them dying on the same day/I should be able to see if there's a cooldown even if she makes it to 8y.

Eh. While that mass breeding effort would be 'possible' if there was no month restriction, it is, as mentioned, not an ideal strategy of any sort. Even without considering the cost of having to leave out rare genetics, it would be extremely costly. You have to bring each pair into your pack, taking up two spaces each. You then have to pair and breed them, taking up time. Then you have to choose whether or not to nest the females and whether or not to use an IBF. If you choose to nest the females, that's 50-60SC per female as opportunity cost on top of whatever you paid for her and her partner. If you don't IBF her, she will eat twelve uses of food (24-60SC) and four uses of amusement (20SC). If you do IBF her, you just paid 5GB (325-500SC) to poof potatoes into existence. If you don't nest her, you risk losing the pups whether you IBF or not. Considering the likelihood of such pairings producing anything other than unsellable potatoes is near zero, it just wouldn't be worth paying 44-550SC/losing the 44-550SC opportunity cost on top of the adult pairing's price. So, you're right, protections against this effort aren't necessary, as players just won't do it - or they'll learn very quickly not to do it.

For all the reasons above, I also don't really think mass breeding is as much of a problem as people seem to be convinced it is/would be if males were just able to breed like... well, normal. Like, yes, it happens, but it definitely already has things in place to reduce it and I'm sure the people who attempt it either learn very quickly to stop if they want an enjoyable game experience and chance their playstyle or they quit because their wanted playstyle just isn't possible without massive amounts of funds.

Note: I'm not arguing or anything and I apologize if my fat posts make it look like it. I'm just noticing interesting things and I tend to word vomit, so my need to point out 'OOO SHINY' comes with lots of blurb, which can sometimes look like I'm disagreeing or arguing.

"... but if they want people to buy elk hearts why have the two breedings per month limit? Wouldn't it be better to have the cooldown but put no limit on total breedings per month, so people breed more pairs and need more elk hearts?" - duskpaws#21927

It would make more sense if you think that way, wouldn't it? However, think of it like a mobile game. If you pay very close attention to the deals the mobile game offers you, you will notice how each special popup deal has two things: a timer and a low cost. It's because they know you're more likely to impulse buy if you have a timer and more likely to buy in general if you think it won't have an impact on your financial status. $1 isn't so bad, yeah? If you only have two breeding pairs you need Elk Hearts for, you only need 6GC. Not bad, yes? Now imagine you have ten breeding pairs you need Elk Hearts for, which is 30GC. You're much likely to spend the 6GC on the two pairs and just wait out the ten pairs, no?

Oh, that makes sense. Thanks for the explanation, @Volinolona!

I support this! I thought this was kind of a genius way to get people to buy pups from the TC, which is overflowing with pups: you know, people want to buy wolves that aren't related to their wolves to pair them up! But the restrictions are so intense that I'm thinking twice about pairing my wolves now. I play this game to see cute puppies -- why would I want to restrict the number of puppies that I can see each month?