Hunting Expeditions- aka, hunting x5

Hello hello! This idea was inspired by my own struggle to get all my hunts in during the day, what with working 10 hour shifts and all |D Its my hope that it could be beneficial for others who have less time to play, or more casual players!

Hunting Expeditions

This would be a special option when sending out a party to hunt. Instead of the standard hunt, where they (hopefully) come back with one piece of prey, they would continue hunting for up to five pieces of prey, as if you had sent them out five seperate times.
> All wolves in a party going on an expedition must be at 100% energy, and a full 100% will be used for the expedition.
> A party going on an expedition must be fully staffed (aka have a full five wolves. No double roles)
> All wolves on an expedition will have 5 of their daily hunts consumed. If they have less than 5 remaining, they're not eligible for an expedition.
> An expedition takes 2.5 hours- 5x the amount of time as a standard hunt.

Wouldn't this just replace hunting entirely? The way I'm thinking about it, I don't think so! There would be a couple of drawbacks to the concept.
> The biggest- scent trails cannot be chosen by the player. The size of the prey hunted is entirely randomised, and the chances of actually capturing prey would be randomised too, as a result. This may prove especially off-putting to lower proficiency teams; though as far as I'm aware, larger trails only become available at higher proficiencies anyway? This ought to work the same.
> I think it would be fair to have this feature cost some GC to use- much like the Feed All Play All and Auto-Nesting features. GC could be paid for... Some kind of expedition licence, which unlocks this feature for a limited time.
> I'm hesitant to suggest the chance for illnesses after an expedition be boosted, given my own bad luck with hunting illnesses, but I suppose it might be for the best given its essentially five hunting attempts in one.

Additional ideas that might be fun to implement as part of the feature:
> Allow other teams on normal hunting trips whilst one is on an expedition?
> Allow expeditions to hunt a little further afield? Chance of bringing back prey from neighboring biomes?
> Allow users to customize the length of the expedition, rather than being fixed at 5x the effect and cost?

I'm open to further suggestions, of course, and any criticisms others may want to voice! Thank you for reading <3

Support! Perhaps it could be made even more useful (and not a replacement for normal hunting) if while one party is doing an expedition, another party can still be hunting. in this case, i would think the chance for illness would need to be increased simply because this expedition would provide the potential for more benefit from the players

that's more just food for thought, though— either way, big support!

BIG support! I am a busy girl on certain days of the week so this will be very helpful in the future.

ooh, i like this idea! its sort of like how you could get 10 RMAs, or you could get a total shuffle for essentially the same price. less clicks, same effect. i like it! definitely could also be super helpful for me, i play during nighttime since thats when im working so i could set up an expedition to happen between the end of my shift and actually getting home

Seems like a good idea for people who can't be online all the time, but with enough drawbacks that individual hunts still make sense. Support.

Support, though not for it to be locked behind GC as that would cut it off from the majority of players when the value of GC inevitably rises.

I could definitely see it being a good SC sink, though!

Support! I don't think it should cost GC, though. Perhaps it could unlock when a team reaches 100% synergy?

With regards to illnesses, here's an idea: at the "end" of each of the 5 "hunts," small injuries and illness etc is rolled as normal. If a wolf becomes unable to hunt as a result (runs out of HP etc) it gets left out of the next "hunt" and doesn't get XP for it, and the hunt has a lower chance of success. You can prevent this from happening by giving your wolves supplies to take on their expedition - namely, healing salves and open wound balms (let's just assume a hunter knows enough about their job to recognize an open wound) which they can use when necessary. There could also be a small chance that an item is lost or damaged. All the wolves would expend the same amount of energy and hunts even if they got injured mid-hunt.

The one thing it might mess with a little is the "balance"  of how many wolves you can send hunting in a day (since you could set a team to go on a hunting expedition just before you went to bed.)

I like this, but not the idea of it being locked behind GC. QOL features should never be behind paywalls.

Since this, to me, feels pretty similar to the feed all play all option in that it automatically performs actions for you (in this case, a number of hunts) to save time/effort. Its in no way a necessary feature and the game can be played without it. I stand behind my original suggestion to have it cost GC to unlock, though I do understand why others may not want that. Ultimately, I suppose, it would be up to the admins if they chose to implement this or a feature like it |D

@snow I'm not sure I like the idea of wolves being able to contract illnesses/drop out of the hunt for lowered chances midway through simply because I know my full proficiency, full synergy team even fails critter trails on a regular basis. Having lower chances than that just feels overly punishing for pure bad luck ;u; I like the idea better if the team can be equipped to avoid such scenarios, but even then, I'm not tooooooo crazy about the idea.