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

Just wanted to post this since as of right now FAPA is pay to use and it seems relevant for the thread. There are voice control options for clicking depending on the device you’re using if it’s too painful for you to manually click. Just in case anybody needs something like that but hasn’t considered it before. 😊

I have. Windows 10 is difficult at best doing anything that isn't a native to Windows function. If I get so bad I need to use voice recognition I hope it's a few years from now since the tech is improving at a rapid pace. I don't know if it is better on a phone (I don't need one so I don't have one) or other mobile devices or if simply I need to work with mine more to improve it understanding my accent.

However, the clicking isn't the problem for me. It's needing to bend my wrist, elbow, or shoulder to move the mouse repeatedly since every click reloads the Hoard page and that means I have to move the mouse again. Honestly it might actually be easier to use wolf pages as I can use the left and right arrow keys to swap pages. The only problem with this fix is if I zoom out on chrome to keep my mouse static I won't be able to actually read what items I am using. Which is another problem in and of it's self.

@Magpie that's...exactly what this thread is talking about??? It's about making it free or cheaper since those with chronic pain or disabilities have a tough time keeping up with caring for their wolves, what with all the clicking/moving the mouse you have to do (it's still a bunch of clicks even if you feed and play from Hoard and not tabbing from wolf to wolf).

And not to be rude but devices that use voice control do not solve the issue because 

A) Not everyone is using a device that has voice control? Cool if it works and is there but it does not help those that do not have access to it at all. They are still stuck as it is, having to spend a tedious amount of time caring for their wolves.

B) It's yet another work around that the player has to go out of their way to use.

It would be nicer if the game provided accessible QOL options for those that need it, instead of them always having to put in the extra effort to be able to play a better or similar level of ease as someone that doesn't have problems.

@coyotric....

I mentioned it because as of right now at this very moment FAPA is not changing. If it doesn’t change it’s good info for people to have if they don’t know about it. If it does change it’s good info in the meantime until it changes. 

@Siren,

You can always bury food you don’t want to use which would be the same thing you’d have to do with FAPA, and unless they add a select all feature is probably more of a pain in the butt than feeding from the hoard. I need to check if there’s a suggestion for that or not. I do think hoard feeding and item usage could be set more efficiently and I wonder if that would be easier to get the devs to approve than changing FAPA. 

I'm gonna be blunt here. While workarounds CAN be beneficial, they also defeat the purpose of asking for something to be changed to accommodate disabled, mentally/chronically ill, and neurodivergent players.

Also a simple quality of life feature behind a paywall in general? That'd be discouraging to a LOT of people in general. The current system for FAPA is flawed, and people are trying to suggest solutions to said flaws.

Wanted to come back and throw in some of my personal experience as a neurodivergent person (this isn't directed at anyone nor is it all that relevant to the conversation above me, I wanted to share this as a random thing to this conversation) xD

So I have ADHD, I'm also the kind of person that when playing video games, I'll accept grinding an absurd amount for the sake of avoiding failing and/or not going the "easy route" of spending my own money/resources (RLC or not)

This absurd amount of grinding is a combination of me hyperfixating, and thus having better endurance as well as simply being obsessed with saving as much money and hoarding items as possible. 

The caveat to all this? I get extremely burnt out, really early game sometimes. To the point where I'll drop a game from months to years. I've barely beaten most of my video games because I'll play, get burnt out, pick it up later, start over the game, repeat the process.

So while I'm willing to "grind" (click buttons a bunch of times in a row) for now, I can't promise I'll be feeling like keeping it up forever, especially as I increase my pack size. I'll inevitably burn out, that's a me issue, not the game's, but having all this extra busy work will only ensure that I get burnt out faster and harder. Maybe to the point where I may not bother playing some days just because I don't feel like clicking through each wolf to feed and play with them. That's why video games where a large amount of grinding is necessary turn me away so much, it should be the player's choice to spend the extra time to grind. If I grind to the point of burning out too soon, it should be my fault, not the game's. 

There's absolutely no chance I'm personally going to purchase the FA/PA button, because why should I do that when I can just do more clicks for free, even if it does cause me to burn out? As long as I'm saving my money, I can take whatever, though it still bums me out from being mentally blocked from a game because I went into it too hard. However for a lot of people, especially to those who are in this thread right now also talking about their experiences, they may not have a choice. For some, it literally, physically pains them to not use it. But they may not even be able to afford it if they tried, and even if they could, it'll only be for a month or so. 

Maybe I went on a weird tangent, if anyone feels like this is too off-topic lemme know and I can edit it out :> I just figured since I haven't seen much neurodivergent experiences in this thread that I'd add on my own!

Certain QOL changes make a huge difference, to the point where they may be necessary to make the game function and not frustrate players, or even not lock some of them out of of playing entirely 

I feel a bit late and underhanded to the argument, but I agree that it should DEF be a one time payment. I also think it'd be nice if there was an option to pay in SC as well as GC- you can do whichever works better for you. 

Normally, in these kinds of games I'd tell people to deal with it but usually it isn't a vital part of gameplay but rather an Optional part of game. Here it's very much an important aspect of gameplay that can impact your pack so it's not really fair to disabled or neurodivergent players that they can't really interact with the game as effectively because of this one small thing that IS very much an important thing. I understand the staff need to have a source of income though- that's why I said it should be a one time payment. You pay once you keep the feature forever, like the bonus puppy stages. And again, give an SC option even if said option IS expensive so players who can't spend money still have a chance to get it. 

I don't think making it for SC is really relevant since currency can be traded freely among players. This makes it technically have an SC price, even if that price is subject to change by player supply and demand. If we couldn't trade GC it would be different.

I just want to add on here that I agree with this. I have depression, anxiety, and ADHD, and I've already reached a point where one bad day = I'm still struggling to fix it. Especially when the stress of possibly losing wolves or puppies adds on top of the stress you are already feeling. Just look at my pack now lmao, at rollover today I have 20 wolves about to leave, and this is with me actively trying to grind the past few days just struggling to fix the one day where I didn't feed and play everyone 100%.

An alternative suggestion I have for the FAPA is to have some sort of vacation mode or toggle where your wolves do not gain experience, cannot breed, but can still age up, in exchange for hunger/play not decaying. You can even lock players out of gaining items that aren't directly food or toys, like decorations, trophies, etc and from selling items on the trading center. This way, wolves aren't immortal, they can still die from old age and puppies can still age out (and potentially leave from overcrowding), players can't use it to farm items that are more valuable, they can't farm skills/levels, and they can't just use it to resell their food and toys. Hell, if you're still worried about it being abused, put that feature behind a one-time grove cost.