Adding risks to Inbreeding

Adding risks to Inbreeding
Posted 2022-02-10 11:08:53 (edited) #659889 This is more of a yes or no question on a curiosity of mine and I've been interested in seeing what others think for a while now. Inbreeding isn't something rewarded or punished on wolvden, however in real life it can have major impacts on the health and development of living creatures. What if inbreeding in wolvden carried these same risks? The following are a few things that I'm proposing or suggesting. #1) Increased risk of lethal mutation. Its a known fact that consistent inbreeding in real life causes developments issues for the offspring. Why not show that in wolvden? This would give a slightly easier and unique way of obtaining mutated pups for those who desire them and something for players who don't want inbreds to avoid. This also gives a different method of obtaining mutations rather that relying on the total randomness of low fertility wolves. Or maybe we could combine the two methods? #1.2) EDIT — Lowered life expectancies of closely inbreed wolves or higher risk of illness. Lethal mutations aren't the only risks of inbreeding. Most offspring of inbreeding have shorter life expectancies due to health complications. While it would take some time to implement into WD, wolves of closely inbred parents could have a little bit of their expectant life span shaved off or have a higher risk of contracting an illness. These rates could be shown on every wolf in their information tab as "Immunity" and have a similar rate system as fertility. #2) Stats and Bases/Markings. Much like how it is now, breeding high stat or unique markings can produce better marks/stat pups. Not too much of a change, but something positive for those who don't care all that much about inbreds. #2.2) Edit — Stat down, Marks up Ive seen a few ideas float around with a few bringing to light some interesting suggestions. Stats from inbred wolves would have a small stat percentage decrease depending on how many times theyve been inbred. [1] However the more they are inbred, there comes a slight precentage increase to pass markings. #3) Better family tree page to assist with identification. As it is right now, the family trees only show one page of a wolf's background. It's a lot more difficult to find what wolf is inbred and what wolf is clean. In order to assist this, what if there were family tree tabs you could click through without the page refreshing (similar to how the tabs on a wolf's profile works)? #4) Assisting Items While I understand wolvden wants to differentiate it's from its sister site Lioden, I think having items that help increase chances for lethals would be beneficial. You could buy them from the fertility snake(maybe) or win them in the lottery. I'm curious to see what other people think, so if you have any suggestions or ways of making this sound more interesting let me know! If you don't like this idea i would also be interested in knowing why!	makochrome #51763

Posted 2022-02-10 11:08:53 (edited)

#659889

This is more of a yes or no question on a curiosity of mine and I've been interested in seeing what others think for a while now. Inbreeding isn't something rewarded or punished on wolvden, however in real life it can have major impacts on the health and development of living creatures. What if inbreeding in wolvden carried these same risks? The following are a few things that I'm proposing or suggesting.

#1) Increased risk of lethal mutation.
Its a known fact that consistent inbreeding in real life causes developments issues for the offspring. Why not show that in wolvden? This would give a slightly easier and unique way of obtaining mutated pups for those who desire them and something for players who don't want inbreds to avoid. This also gives a different method of obtaining mutations rather that relying on the total randomness of low fertility wolves. Or maybe we could combine the two methods?
#1.2) EDIT — Lowered life expectancies of closely inbreed wolves or higher risk of illness.
Lethal mutations aren't the only risks of inbreeding. Most offspring of inbreeding have shorter life expectancies due to health complications. While it would take some time to implement into WD, wolves of closely inbred parents could have a little bit of their expectant life span shaved off or have a higher risk of contracting an illness. These rates could be shown on every wolf in their information tab as "Immunity" and have a similar rate system as fertility.

#2) Stats and Bases/Markings.
Much like how it is now, breeding high stat or unique markings can produce better marks/stat pups. Not too much of a change, but something positive for those who don't care all that much about inbreds.
#2.2) Edit — Stat down, Marks up
Ive seen a few ideas float around with a few bringing to light some interesting suggestions. Stats from inbred wolves would have a small stat percentage decrease depending on how many times theyve been inbred. [1] However the more they are inbred, there comes a slight precentage increase to pass markings.

#3) Better family tree page to assist with identification.
As it is right now, the family trees only show one page of a wolf's background. It's a lot more difficult to find what wolf is inbred and what wolf is clean. In order to assist this, what if there were family tree tabs you could click through without the page refreshing (similar to how the tabs on a wolf's profile works)?

#4) Assisting Items
While I understand wolvden wants to differentiate it's from its sister site Lioden, I think having items that help increase chances for lethals would be beneficial. You could buy them from the fertility snake(maybe) or win them in the lottery.

I'm curious to see what other people think, so if you have any suggestions or ways of making this sound more interesting let me know! If you don't like this idea i would also be interested in knowing why!

makochrome
#51763

Posted 2022-02-10 16:08:59

#660225

I rather like this as it gives both risks and rewards to inbreeding just like irl inbreeding does. I like the stream lining for better stats, particularly those that can be a pain to increase in the bloodline such as herbalist stats, not many studs seem to focus on herbalism so the potential of getting a slight increase from breeding my herbalist girl to her son after pup training and apprentice ship in those needed stats would be great, especially seeing as we can't have more than one herbalist at a time.

Phantom
#44024

Posted 2022-02-11 10:39:38

#660935

This is a good idea I think. Inbreeding irl can make for some real wonky babies, it only makes sense we have a similar mechanic for wolvden.

As for #2, I'm pretty sure we already get pups with better stats/markings from their parents? Not sure about markings, but the stats are definitely better than the parents if they've been trained up enough.

I like the family tree idea, though I think it would be easier to just have something on a wolves' family page say something like "Parents share X amount of relatives" or something along those lines. That way you can see whether the wolf is inbred or not at a glance, and by how much.

SnowJackal
#16364

Posted 2022-02-11 11:19:43

#660968

I support this if it was like real life, where once you get any more distantly related than, say, first cousins, it didn't matter anymore. Or not much, anyway. It would be nice to have a real inbreeding mechanic that somewhat mirrored real life, then people wouldn't worry as much if a wolf was inbred like six generations back, and wouldn't need to hesitate to breed two wolves together just because they have one great-grandparent in common. Plus more realism is (in this case) fun!

Katie
#28191

Posted 2022-02-15 11:44:48

#665171

I'm a bit confused by the topic title/first post. The title mentions adding risks to inbreeding, but the post seems only to talk about adding benefits (increased potential for mutations, stats, and rare marks/bases).

In any case, I wouldn't support adding any downsides to inbreeding, because it's already heavily disfavored by the playerbase/market. (So many people are like "ugh this pup is inbred, I have to yeet it/can't breed it" even if it's so distant that it would not realistically affect canine health.) I'm undecided on whether it would be good to add upsides to inbreeding. It might be nice to offset the playerbase aversion to inbreeding; but, on the other hand, people shouldn't feel forced to adopt a playstyle they don't want.

Lionel
#34199

Posted 2022-02-15 12:31:13 (edited)

#665240

Inbreeding can be a give and take. The more you inbreed the more likely you are to get a desired outcome, but the higher chance you have of your wolves becoming sick/ill. Increesed lethal mutations are just one of the things that could be added, but if we want to go deeper perhaps adding in other factors would play a part in how wolvden is played. Maybe continuous inbreeding would drastically lower survival chances of pups or the life spans of the wolves. Maybe inbreed wolves get sick much easier than Non-inbreed wolves or the act of inbreeding exposes the parent wolves to more illnesses. Perhaps the closer together inbreeding is done increase these negative outcomes, but the more sparingly its done doesn't matter as much. Things like these are realistic to real life consequences of inbreeding. While you would be rewarded with mutations you want, you'll end up strapped with pups/wolves with low life expectancies or health issues. It adds in some interest and variation to the game to keep longer standing players, and some new players too, from growing bored.

There are actually quite a few players who either don't care for or actively seek to inbreed for better stats/bases/markings. I've seen a number of pages within forums of players who hate having to constantly walk on eggshells to avoid inbreed wolves because of the stigma that "inbreed wolves equals bad and you should be punished." I'm sure there are tons of players who agree that having to look through pages upon pages of generational history just to find out if their wolves are related by even one ancestor is tiring. Those who do care can continue avoiding inbreeds, but would still have those lower chances of mutations they want just as the game is currently. In the end the statement that most players avoid inbreeding is a generalisation, not a fact of the entire community.

These are only examples and ideas of something that could potentially be added to the game. If you're on the fence, what do you think could be done to make something like this more appealing? What would you add or change? I'm very interested in reading other people's ideas are because, as stated before, there really are no consequences (good or bad) to inbreeding at the moment.

makochrome
#51763

Posted 2022-02-23 22:14:14

#673561

I'm on the fence about this, since lethal mutations can be frozen and are therefore highly valuable and desirable, and including all instances of inbreeding would be highly unrealistic.

I'd prefer for the downside to be an invisible primary mutation that increases the chance to get illnesses from other wolves and makes them die between 7.2 and 7.6, instead of 7.6 and 8.0 years. Call it immune deficiency maybe.
Like Katie said, once you get to second cousin pairings there isn't much of a health risk at all. Maybe it could be a 5-10% chance for full brother/sister, father/daughter, and mother/son pairings, and 2-5% for half-siblings, uncle/niece, aunt/nephew, first cousins? I'd prefer it to be lower personally.

The upside could definitely be a slightly higher chance for the pup to inherit it's parents markings and stats, since that's generally what inbreeding is used for in domestic animals. A 10% boost to marking inheritance and a 1-2% boost to the highest stat (similar to how the largest puppy mechanic works, but for the entire litter) would be reasonable. If you want to make it more complicated, have secondary mutations like melanism get a 1-2% boost as well.

VagueShapes
#828

Posted 2022-02-24 11:00:47

#674115

These are some really great ideas! It also brings in some visual numarical values that could potentially be added. I myself am realy bad at calculating that sort of thing, so to see more ideas like this would be very interesting. Thank you for your suggestions!

makochrome
#51763

Posted 2022-02-24 13:03:19

#674445

Nope, I disagree

When it comes to Inbreeding/Clean they naturally already have their own benefits and debuffs, for inbreeding you can breed any wolf with ANY wolf, without any hesitation not only that but you can breed for stats, marks, bases, and eyes much easier than you could clean, but the debuff is that the wolf itself isn't "clean" now for clean which was originally supposed to be a challenge (Thanks LD) It's more of bragging rights than anything, "Look at this Pearl I got with storm eyes AND merle! And he isn't inbred!" it's really just "How long can I go before I get bottle-necked" basically

Now another issue with this is...Studs ohhh boy studs, leaderboard studs in specific due to them being very high in stats and have relatively good bases/marks and what, not they're highly sought after, and due to this a leaderboard stud could EASILY have well over 500 kids, heck Poo alone had over 700 kids and 21? Of them were bronze and before everyone started chasing theirs Poo was related to more than half of the bronze population alone, he was literally everyone's daddy, this also goes for a multitude of other first 3 tier base studs, Sango, Faelor, etcetc

If WD didn't have 30 slots for studding, I could potentially agree but they do and popular studs will sell out like flapjacks on a crisp Friday morning, while it DOES highkey SUCK that the market on WD is so heavily focused on clean only, it's just something everyone has to get over at some point, once we have rare achievable mutations(Not lethals), hard to pass marks, and the what not you can definitely expect a surge of inbreeding just to make those more available to the public

🐸AngyFrog🐸
#3122

Posted 2022-02-24 16:02:49

#674778

In similar veins as I've stated before, the terms "Clean" and "Dirty" wolves in the context of Wolvden are ones that the community themselves have created. They're rules placed not as a fact of the game, but as an extra challenge for people who use them. In a non-Wolvdem example, it's like a pokemon player deciding to play the game with or without the nuzlock rule. You don't have to use the rules to enjoy the game, but the extra challenge can make the way you play drastically different.

The issue with wolvden, however, is that it's a highly community based game, whether we want to believe it or not. When the community as a whole decide something, intentionally or unintentionally, it impacts the entirety of the game. This means that if the majority community decide that "clean" wolves are more valuable than "dirty" the market for "clean" goes up and the "dirty" wolves almost instantly go down to a zero value. This is a mindset that I believe can be at be at least mitigated with the right circumstances. Of course, this is something that long time players already understand so I apologise for reiterating.

I'm not quite sure I understand your issue with studs, though, it's probably my own difficulty with comprehension that's getting in the way. By giving inbreeding higher incentives, it wouldn't matter that a Stud is related to half the population of a certain marking/base/stat group. If anything it would increase the chances of such high value items appearing in pups if only by a little and increasing profit for the stud owner. Taking some inspiration from @VagueShapes, if a Stud were to breed with their sibling or other closely related wolf a percentage increase to markings, bases, or stats being passed on would also appear. This means you would actively want to inbreed with studs.

At the end of it all this is merely a question of "Should WD add pros/cons to inbreeding?" rather than a suggestion too add pros/cons. It's definitely something that WD can expand on with new, rare non-lethal mutations or difficult to obtain breed only marks as you've said. It would give new content for the players to either work towards or avoid and that's something you want to look for in any addition you make to game.

makochrome
#51763

Adding risks to Inbreeding

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