Please don't introduce humans as battle-able enemies

I agree. Although humans might be interesting enemies gameplay-wise, I agree it will cause more harm than good.  Animals fighting each other in the wild is just nature, but when you add in humans, people way start to see things from a more human-centric POV.  And wolves don't need any more bad press. 

I'm not a huge fan of how human enemies are implemented in Wolvden's sister game. They are far too easy, and it hardy feels like a fight. I feels like I'm RPing mauling someone. Even if the enemies are poachers, it feels wrong. If humans were a bit stronger, it would feel less like an attack and more like a fight.  However, if humans were stronger, then you regularly have humans "killing" wolves, and that's depressing.  It a Catch22. Better to avoid them altogether. 

Too many pages for me to go through. But I don’t really support not having humans in the game. I would like human encounters. 

I don’t really mind animals having the ability to attack humans that are trying to cause harm to them and their family. Humans are their enemy and they have to defend. The staff could have it to where the humans get away so it’s not killing them. 

However if the staff want to appeal to both sides I hope they put a toggle to let those who want human encounters to have it and those who don’t want it to toggle it off. It might be a bit of a hassle to code but I think in general both parties would be satisfied enough with the result? If it’s toggled on those who want the encounters will get whatever items are given after a battle and the encounters. Those with it toggled off won’t get any encounters and any possible items they may see that are human related will be coded to be something else for those toggled off. 

During battle there's no mention about killing, just one side being unable to fight when HP hit 0. The only indication are some trophies which imply the enemy must have died to extract those but what if humans dropped souvenirs as Ironacchi suggested?

Arguments about wolves killing humans, extermination, Wolvden being "the game where you kill humans" seem to be vague. What do you think?

I've been away from this thread for a bit but upon reading more of it, I'm kind of stumped that some players seem to think there's no mention of humans in the Wolvden world until now and that it's some sort of magical land free of them? I guess they didn't get the same encounters.

Your pups can get already hurt (possibly die) from traps laid by humans, I had a puppy hurt by them. I don't remember the exact wording but I got a notification some weeks ago that one of my puppies returned with a trap on one of their legs, therefore humans already exist lore-wise and are a threat to your pack.

Humans already exist in Wolvden. They already interfere with the survival of your pack and your pups, and you in turn interfere with theirs (by stealing their cattle). There are also dogs in the game which further reinforces the presence of humans as they aren't wild animals, they're domesticated ones. In addition, there are backgrounds with human construction in the base game.

I just thought it's worth pointing out because some people seem to think it will take away from the aspect of a magical, isolated world that... doesn't really exist in the game. Humans are already here, they just weren't explore encounters before.

this ^ i see them as remnants of humans. and less so that humans don't exist in the world period just not this part of the world

I mean you could argue that the fact more traps keep appearing on your territory over time is proof that someone keeps applying them but let's ignore that because it's just a game mechanic, you can't really implement it as a one-time thing. (I mean you can, but it's pointless to dwell on it.)

I'm not arguing it's impossible humans simply moved away, died, or something, I'm just saying that we have definite proof that they were around, the game isn't devoid of them. My comment wasn't to render judgement on whether human encounters should be added or not, I've done that when the thread began, I just want to dispel the notion that humans didn't exist here at all. They've inarguably existed in this world.

(And given that domestic cows still haven't died I'd assume they still do, but again, that's my personal opinion and irrelevant to the point I was trying to make. This is not a world where humans never had any influence.)

Im not in the camp of "humans dont exist" but i still find it unrealistic to have human battles. If the devs are going for realism they should avoid adding humans as battle encounters and just add them as passive encounters. 

The reality of it is that wolves arent going to be fighting humans. Theyll either get shot dead or run away. The only type of human theyd stand a chance against are dumb hikers that dont know safety around wild animals and killing those people is just depressing. 

The more i think about it the more I ADORE the idea of reasearchers being passive non-battle encounters. Thats realistic, esp considering how wild wolvden is, it seems to take place in a national park. And the game already has backgrounds indicating that its set in more modern times so a national park route wouldnt be far fetched imo. National parks already give off the feel of wilderness and escape from human life that wolvden has without setting it in a different era so it kinda solves both of those interpretations. 

As for traps? Poachers do come into national parks and try to trap wolves and other animals, thats a reality. What doesnt happen is them fighting, the wolf would lose every time to a poacher. All it takes is one pr two bulletes. And i dont think the devs will want to make the battles realistic in that way. So itd likely cancel out any "realism" gained by human battles. Either the wolf is going to lose to a bad guy or a well meaning but stupid person is going to die by a wolf and neither of those sound very nice to play out in wolvden. 

I didn't go through everything either here, but I just want to respond to some of the (1) "humans would add realism" and (2) "are already in the game and harm us so we should be able to attack/harm them" arguments:

1. If we're talking about realism, wolves don't attack people, let alone kill them, almost as a rule, so to say that adding humans to kill would add realism is the very type of misunderstanding about wolves that I think a lot of people on the "don't add humans" side are trying to address. To take this to a data points kind of place, there have only been 22 nonfatal wolf attacks in North American in the last century, and 2 fatal wolf attacks in the same time frame.
2. Unfortunately, humans are generally a terrible threat to nature and wildlife, and part of what makes it so terrible is that it's so thoroughly one-sided (a bullet vs claws). To take the approach that we should be able to revenge kill them, though, feels wrong when you consider the fact that wolves are most often killed out of revenge for them eating livestock, or for fear of them harming humans. To me, implementing humans is essentially agreeing with that narrative of "yes, humans and wolves are enemies and therefore should attack or kill each other." I think this is kind of problematic morally in its glorification of violence, especially because there's not the data to support that this plays out in real life.

Okay, that's my long two cents. If it's not clear, I don't support making battle-able humans in! ^^ At the very least, make it toggle-able, or put human encounters in that don't involve attacking them, because again, wolves don't do that.

edit: ah hard agree with Neo!

I was not arguing whether they should or should not be included in the last two messages, I was just offering knowledge to the few people who seemed unaware that human involvement happens in the game. It's a thing - in what capacity you want to believe it happens is up to you entirely, my only goal with the message was to show that it wasn't a world where humans hadn't existed because the game's own lore suggests that they do.

Whatever opinions you all have on that, best of luck to you - I made mine known and don't intend to argue it. I just figured having the knowledge that human influence exists (e.g. trapping) might help people formulate their arguments (for and against) better.