Please don't introduce humans as battle-able enemies

It could be possible for a wolf pack to take out an armed human, even a lone wolf could do it if they had the element of surprise... Still want the battle encounters to be rare though and consist mostly of poachers. I don't have much sympathy for people who kill animals for fun or greed and personally have no issue with the idea of fighting them. I know some poachers do it for food, but that is rather rare in a North American setting and wolves (or dogs in general) aren't poached for food. 

My pack probably is the bane of some poor farmer as they consistently take out livestock. I know they are officially feral animals, but I imagine that not every kill is actually feral and may just be escaped animals mistaken as feral. Farmers have every right to defend their livelyhoods but that relationship could lead to farmers being rare enemies in biomes where livestock is hunted. Though I'd prefer not to kill them. Same for fur trappers in the more northernly biomes, fur is essential for warmth as faux fur doesn't always cut it ( or so I hear). They kill to survive and I'd rather not criminalize that. Of course there is always the option to ignore those particular battle prompts if they occur.

Definitely still think most of the encounters should be either passive or beneficial as the case would be if encountering researchers and conservationists with chances at decor, immunity and cures or some fun new amusement items as others suggested.

I love Flower’s idea of having human ‘battle’ encounters be more of a posturing competition. They could even reuse the battle system with some flavour text changes - the hp bar to a ‘fear’ or ‘courage’ bar, bite to bark, latch to approach, sheer/crush to growl and air snap, etc. At the end, either the human runs off and has a chance to drop a phone, camera, boot, etc., or you run off and suffer a health/sc penalty because your wolf tripped in the rush.

I also agree with the above in that there’s no way to realistically portray a true battle between a wolf and a human. Either you’re attacking someone unprovoked, which is incredibly rare in NA as ajmx has said, or your wolf is fighting someone with a gun and somehow not being shot dead - which doesn’t really happen either.

It would be an unexpected and severe tone change for devs to implement gore-y human trophies now, or even to implement humans as normal battle enemies. 

I ADORE the idea of a researcher or nature photographer encounter, as suggested by some others !! Changing the text to non-lethal/harmful actions, and the humans end up running away, although it could get tricky when the wolf loses... it might be easy enough to explain that the HP losses are tranquilizers or something along those lines. 

I personally don't like the idea of humans being added as any type of encounter, battle or otherwise. I know there are some small signs of them (I was familiar with the sled dogs and -often decaying- human structures pictured in decor. The trap injury flavour text was new to me though). But going from some extremely minor nods to more interactive, important content is a huge leap, and one that would change the atmosphere of the game completely for me.

I really appreciate that the setting of this game is currently quite vague and mysterious. If anything, the Lunar event has the flavour of fantasy world-building, and personally gave me the impression that Wolvden is set in more of an alternate reality, with fantasy creatures (Volukros, Ferris and Cnitharian). I personally don't see the Wolvden world as our current world. Another advantage of this open-ended setting is that it gives us all a chance to situate ourselves in whatever way we like, and be creative with our lore. It basically supports an infinite range of playstyles. Some players might lean into the little human breadcrumb elements and think of their pack as being in a human-populated setting, while many others will prefer to think of their pack as being in a setting completely devoid of humans. Narrowing down the setting to more of a real world setting/fixed time and place by adding more detailed representations of humans (set in a time period, portrayed in a specific way) would really restrict the scope of the game, and would clash with many players' vision and lore, which is a shame.

What with the fact that wolf-on-human violence is completely unrealistic as stated by others, and what with the fraught reality of the current day discourse around wolves, I feel it'd be much safer to just avoid adding humans entirely.

I also don't feel like a toggle option would be a good idea. If we start adding toggles on all controversial game aspects and mechanics, things are going to get needlessly complex for the devs and create too many different takes on the game. I can imagine it being much more desirable for the devs to run one, universal version of the game for everyone - which makes it even more important to make the right decisions for defining features like this.

As a closing, I'd like to mention that I totally understand that others would like the addition of humans and are excited about it (though I don't believe the poll is most representative because of the way it was set up), but I do appreciate having this chance to voice my own opinions on the subject ahead of anything being implemented and set in stone.

Though I still think I'd prefer to not have any human encounters (Iona sums up my feelings on this very well), the idea of a modified battle system for humans that's more like a befriending screen is really growing on me. I like the idea of getting little human trinkets like a camera or a phone or a brush or something MUCH more than the idea of fighting a human and getting like, a human leg or arm. You could vary the possible human encounters in each biome and get different rewards for "befriending" different people. Like getting a camera from a photographer or getting a pair of sunglasses from a tourist in the desert. A human "befriending" encounter could end up as something really cute and fun, even if people would rather not have humans at all.

On a side note, I never really liked the human battle encounters in Lioden. They were just... too easy, I don't think I ever lost a battle to them (even high-level ones). Like Keycatt said, it felt like roleplaying mauling someone. It's been over a year since I last touched Lioden but I still remember that the humans had a "soft skin" modifier that made them easier to beat (foxes in Wolvden have this too). Which is true, I suppose, but I never felt too comfortable with it.

I just wanted to pop in and say these are all really great ideas and thank everyone for the good points and discussion! I don't have much to add but I would definitely support any human interactions that don't involve directly fighting them.

(Note, I'm not supporting or not supporting.)

In terms of flavor text, there is already direct, intentional harm being done to our wolves, beyond injury from traps. This is a message I got for my pup when she died over rollover:

"Sikae was found dead a few miles from your territory with a very deep, large wound in her side. The area smells strongly of humans - she must have disturbed a pack of humans and couldn't get away in time."

Take that for what you will.

I would like to add my voice to the pile here and say I was just so dismayed when I saw that the poll to vote for upcoming opponents included humans on the list, especially since it was phrased in a way that implied we were definitely getting human battle opponents, and the poll was just to see which type of opponent would be appearing first. (The exact phrasing was "Which new opponent are you most excited to see in the near future?")

I've really enjoyed exploring and building on the lore and the ambiance of this game as a wilderness untouched by human hands, and even though we do have a few pieces of clear evidence that some sort of human-like sentient people exist, it's never been overt and in-your-face. That means it's open to interpretation. (I mean, we see frozen humanoid robots in the dreamlands as a type of opponent, so for all we know, the sleddogs and the farms in some of the backgrounds are owned by an alien race or an artificial intelligence!)

Putting humans in the game takes away from that ambiguity and forces the location of this game square in reality. But it's not a fun reality that I want to enjoy playing in. Fighting humans as a wolf pack that I have loved and raised, as a player, puts a heavy level of anxiety on my mind. It takes away from the escapism I enjoy when I come here to play, by constantly shoving in my face that these are real animals that are, even as I type this, being killed in real life. That certainly isn't something that I want to think about as I'm playing a fun game online. And judging by this 11-page thread, I'm not the only one feeling this anxiety.

Of course I realize that wolf hunting is an aspect of reality here in the USA, and in other parts of the world as well, and that having pixelated pictures of humans in a simple online game does not change that fact. But the purpose of a game, in the end, is to just play and have fun. I am not a person who enjoys playing realistic FPS video games. I'm not the type to watch documentaries or nature shows where animals are hunted. I'm here to relax and have fun, and escape my dreary life for a little while by coming here and imaging these pixelated wolves living and thriving. Human opponents would take away from that.

Support all the way.

Naike and glasswort also made some good points. When I went to vote I was shocked to see humans winning

I agree and support, Web.  Where I’m at wolves can be really hated.  They get killed all the time just because people “don’t want them”.  Many packs in the area have horrible family structures and even kill their own pups because they have nobody to teach them how to raise them anymore, or they can have deformities from inbreeding due to the low gene pool.  To have humans portrayed in a negative light in this game makes me disheartened, since I’ve worked in conservation for wild doggos.  I understand it’s an aspect of real life, heck, I’ve personally dealt with it and have hunted other animals for food, myself.  So I’m not against the natural world, or humans participating in it.

But it’s different than say, with lioden, where poachers are a thing and you feel okay with that because poaching.  Most people that dislike wolves are farmers, ranchers, people whose family pet got eaten or just random person trophy hunter.  I think we can pretty much say trophy hunters are hated, with reason, but some random rancher that just doesn’t have effective livestock control?  If such an encounter were to exist, for example, it sends a message that people can’t be educated about humans and wolves living together, along with raising livestock near them.  Or that wolves attack tons of people (I’ve been in many wolf-intensive areas and never saw a single wolf).

Anyway, just my thoughts.  I’m not expecting realism but I don’t know how this can be handled in a way that feels like it takes the complexity of all of this into account.