Feed All/Play All (& how it affects mentally/chronically ill and neurodivergent players)

"I don't have this problem": Good! But just because you can/don't mind walking up the stairs, does not mean wheelchair users don't need or deserve to have a ramp built. Just use the stairs like you have been! 

"It'll hurt the economy": No it won't, you still have to actually have enough food and toys in your inventory, it doesn't do it without you already having the items.

"Lioden works the same way/similar": No it doesn't. Lioden food and toys can give varying percentages of hunger/amusement depending on how big it is. Each usage of an item on Wolvden is fixed at 10% no matter what.

"The devs need/deserve the money": There are still so many other items in the Grove that are worth buying, repeatedly, that AREN'T about accessibility. This would not hurt their income that badly, in exchange for helping players keep playing (which is what they should want most, right? Can't be tempted to buy more things if you're not playing in the first place.)

"I don't like FAPA": Then just don't use it. Making it easier to get is not the same thing as forcing it on every user. Those are very different things.

"Just don't log in if you're having trouble that day": Do you realize how important talking to friends and just admiring your wolves/playing around with the wardrobe can be for morale on bad days? For some people, this may be one of the few things they want to do that day, and you're just telling them to not do one of the few things they feel up to doing, just because one important barrier that could be made easier for them to handle, isn't. "Don't come to the park if climbing up the steps to it is too hard that day!" How about we just build a ramp, though? We're even offering to help pitch in some money to build this metaphorical 'ramp'! (One time pay instead of free!). As a person who has been deeply depressed, and knows people who are or have been, this argument sounds a bit cruel, even if you don't mean it that way. And that's just mental. For people with physical barriers, they may just have to quit entirely with that mindset.

"This isn't ableist" - Isms & ists are not by default insults, and you can very much do something -ist without even intending to be! I am not saying the WD devs are intentionally trying to discriminate against anyone! I trust that they mean well. But that doesn't mean that a few features here and there do not really take their disabled players into account that well, if at all (yet!). Ableism is not being used as an insult, or saying anyone is intentionally being discriminatory. Unintentional -isms from even the most well-intentioned of people are very much a thing - we are just mentioning it and suggesting ways to solve it.

"What about people who bought it already?" - Now that is a good question, and very worthy of being discussed. GC vouchers were brought up at one point - WD wouldn't need to do actual money refunds, and players who already bought them would still get reimbursed in some fashion. I don't have any other ideas myself, but instead of saying a flat out no, you're absolutely encouraged to toss around some ideas!

TBH I think it should be free, I am so mad when I find out that you have to pay for QOL feature AND it is not permanent?

I agree with every point listed here and genuinely hope this will be taken into consideration.

I have played Lioden only comparatively little, and I know that this QoL feature being paid-only is a big reason for it. And I know I'll stop playing Wolvden much as well in the foreseeable future for this reason as well, which is quite disheartening and preventing meaningful attachment.

If not for free, which it genuinely should be, then a one time payment, like with the pup stages, would be my personal 'favorite' solution.
I highly doubt the game would not make enough money to survive because of this recurring payment being taken out -- and if that IS the case, then maybe consider more appealing premium content that is not a necessity for many players to prevent wolves from leaving.

I'll say what I said in the other thread about feed all/play all: QoL features should not be cut out from games and sold back to players, least of all with a subscription. It makes the devs look very greedy. The grove already has plenty of items that are desirable and useful when bought multiple times so I see no need to treat features that make players' life easier like luxuries. And, before that argument comes up again, I don't care if most games do the same, it's still disrespectful towards the players. If your game has an annoying mechanic then fix it, don't try to sell me the solution.

As a person with clinical depression and high functioning autism, I somewhat agree. Like you said, I understand that the site needs to make money too, but I'm also very low income, but I don't agree that it's full on ableist. Wolvden is still new and therefore no where near the best as it could be yet. (And this is coming from a person who has never touched Lioden if that matters.)

However, I worry about the time my depression acts up and makes me drop this game for a month (or potentially longer. I haven't touched Animal Crossing since July!!). I know not every person is like me. I'm just one example. But I do go through 'cycles' when it comes to games. One day I'll be completely hyperfixated with a game. The next I'll drop it like a rock and cry over how no games bring me any feelings of joy anymore.

My personal problems aside, I do think there needs to be some changes. After reading you and your friend's situation the site definitely could use a 'mass feed/play' button. That would make it easier for people like you guys, right? (I was about to recommend we move this to a suggestion/feedback forum, only to find out there isn't one! Oops.)

A discount/potentially free auto feed/play for people like us would be amazing. But here comes the issues: How can we prove that we're mentally/chronically ill? How are they going to prevent people from taking advantage of this and abusing the system?

Also I dunno if you haven't noticed, but there are options to make the auto feed/play longer!! There's one for 6 months and one for a year. I think that's pretty neat, but at 10 GC a month it does get pretty pricey imo. Unless you were suggesting that there were even more options for individual month amounts.

If not they can't make the auto feed/play completely free, maybe reducing the price to about 2 GC a month would be ideal? That would make 6 months 12 GC and a year 24 GC. Hopefully we won't need to pay for a whole year, but that makes the price for the 6 month option do-able for some of us. (Using myself as an example again here.) As I can make small amounts of GC by trading in SC and other high demand items (such as Healing Salve).

@Chu#18168

No one wants the feature to only be for mentally ill people, and I'm not sure where you got that from honestly.

It should be a feature that's either free or a one time payment for every user (reducing the price wouldn't really solve the issue many, many players have, and would feel more like a bone being thrown at us so we're happy.)
The available option to have more than a month to choose from doesn't really matter either, because it still comes down to: pay for a basic Quality of Life feature.

The subscription feature for feeding your wolves absolutely grinds my gears to no end. Autistic here-- I personally don't have a problem with repetitive tasks but frankly I understand exactly how it is handled by other mentally ill/disabled people and am pretty frustrated on y'alls behalf as well as mine. I spend money on games I like-- I would be more than happy to cough up 5$ to support the site if the feature were actually permanent -- not to mention the fact that you have to pay for it in general runs off players because they get a ton of wolves then don't really want to play anymore. It's really tedious, frankly I would be annoyed even if I weren't mentally ill. I wouldn't want to run a site like that. I LOVE wolvden, but it's probably only a matter of time until I don't want to grind G anymore to afford a subscription I would absolutely pay to have permanently. And it's probably only a matter of time until:

1. the groups who are strictly free to play become bored with the tedious clicky clicky process of caring for a large pack.

2. people realize the clicky clicky is the most boring part and has nothing to do with actually strategizing for your pack (say, rationing food bc winter or whatever other event, this game LARGELY seems to rely on collecting resources, not spending 80% of gameplay clicking to use them).

2. this group has a ton of people leave the site or become very sporadic because they don't want to pay the subscription, and they burn out on just grinding G.

3. the people who remain, the smallest group, are still diehard fans but many of them would be glad to either pay for a full subscription at this point or would adore an announcement that it becomes free and are enticed to stay, and possibly bring in even more players or those who left in steps one or two.

it's just... i don't feel like it's a great business move or quality of life move, and it confuses me a lot.

edit: sorry to add a final point, but to me it almost seems like the only reason they even want f2p to have to stay on the same pages for 5-10 minutes at a time is to keep people online and keep them engaged, when really a lot of them already regularly come back (herb gathering taking only an hour, hunts 30 minutes) anyway??????? it just confuses me.

also, i somewhat do agree with chu. at the very least good gosh make it cheaper, the price is WAY too steep for what i feel like i should be getting for free 

@Rapirisu#5303

Oh! So sorry for the misunderstanding!! I thought that was what this thread was implying. So, again, I do apologize for that. I didn't mean to offend anyone.

I did think about this situation more though, but wouldn't the auto eat/play feature completely ruin or eliminate the food/toy market on the site though? I mean I personally don't pay SC for food or sell it to anyone but the Raccoon Warehouse and happily give my friends food for free if they need it. But I know not all people play like this. What I'm getting at is while making this feature complete free would help in the long run, it isn't without consequences. It will effect the sites economy a little and if this year taught me anything is that there will always be people who will complain about the smallest changes even if it helps the population overall.

I'm not saying don't do it. I just want everyone to look at the situation from all sides.

I don't really have an opinion on the topic but I do want to give a tip (for those who might not know):

Right now, feeding /playing from the hoard is much easier than doing it on an individual pages. You can simply click multiple times on the same spot without having to move the mouse (if you got a multiple use carcass/amusement item); takes a minute maybe (at 20 wolves). If you don't want some wolves to be fed, put them in your lowest den and stop when appropriate.

Seconding what Sienna Snow said about feeding and playing from the hoard, it's a game changer. That way you're only clicking twice per wolf (once for food and once for amusement).