"Casanova" role for male wolves

Hey all,

Now I know the devs want to keep an element of realism and as such have one breeding male only. However, I thought of a way to incorporate having more than one breeding male while limiting it slightly. The idea is a role like hunter, scout, etc. and so the wolf cannot have another role.

Casanova role traits:

Automatically is unsorted and cannot be sorted into a cave, this adds an increased disease risk which would be a real concern with wandering male wolves.

Can attempt to breed females in the pack. Let's say the Casanova male has x% chance of breeding per 20% energy. This roles after the female's fertility chance roles. This add a difficulty level to breeding with the casanova. (Fun flavor text like "Uh-oh, your breeding male ____ caught Casanova trying to breed one of the females in his pack. Casanova was chased off before the female was bred. Better luck next time.")

Similar to a re-scout perhaps they can be sent out to retrieve "courting gifts" which could be something like a critter carcass or amusement item to gain experience. It would take energy and function just like a scout re-scout including making the area unavailable to be explored.

Casanova slots could possibly be unlocked by sc and GC options to allow players to decide which they'd rather pay with.

This features gives another use to male wolves while keeping some of the game mechanics the devs want to keep as a working wolf pack. Casanovas would not be able to be studded out, only females of your own pack would have a chance to be bred by them. This is something that happens in real wolf packs where a daughter of the "alpha pair" may be bred by an outside male.

I like this bc irl wandering males do like to fanagle with a pack, i think it's realistic enough

I like it! It would definitely give male wolves more of a use, while not over flooding the stud market

I'd back this, yeah. 

I like this idea!

Gonna be a no for me on this one, I think.

If a wolf is going to take up a territory slot, food and toys in my pack, then I want to be able to sort it. Like what would even happen?? If you assigned Casanova to a wolf you have? It just gets booted from the cave you put it in? Sounds like a sorting nightmare when switching pack roles in the long run. No thanks.

While it would allow other males in a pack to breed, it does not solve the problem of female to male ratio in a pack. I can still see people keeping a majority of female wolves for all other roles to maximize the amount of pups they can make with both their breeding male, studs, and however many 'casanova' wolves they can have. Males would still have very little worth imo.

Most other pack roles are also more task first, interpretation second/up to the player. Casanova - by definition and nature - gives the impression of something very flirtatious. I don't want some role to subtly try and shoehorn a personality or behavior trait on any of my wolves. I want to be able to do that on my own with their own stories and lore.

I'd really, honestly rather just let males breed and have cooldowns. It's simple, it's boring, but imo gives the males more use than a role that'd let them breed, but make them function more or less like an outcast scout. IRL roots or not, it does not sit right with me.

Interesting outlook. And yes outcast scout would more or less be how they would function in the pack. The thing is you could also have them set to a role such as hunter etc. and only switch them to the breeding role when you had a female in heat you would want to breed to. I was trying to give them a use that made sense with how it makes sense to set the role up.

Also by your thoughts nothing would increase the male/female ratio because the exact same argument could be made for all males being allowed to breed. People could still own a pack full of females and just have 2-3 males they breed. Either way that is an issue and the only solution would probably be to give males specific boosts etc. rather than giving females penalites. Or having male only specific roles in the pack.

And if you've read flavor text for cub injuries and things like that there are things included there. Like your scout accidentally injuring a cub, whoops it must not be pupsitter material. That forces a personality trait onto my wolves which isn't accurate but I ignore it because I know it isn't accurate for my wolves personalities.

It also doesn't have to be viewed as flirtatious although it could be, it's open to interpretation. You may just be stuck on the name there. Since males in the pack are unable to breed it could be argued they're infertile so perhaps they don't make the breeding male chase them away. Vs. with a casanova type role (the name could be anything) it could be they are fertile so they keep space between them and the lead male because they'd fight over females in heat. It adds an element of realism to the game which doesn't have to equal a wolf being flirtatious. There are a lot of story lines you could take with the wolf if RP elements are a worry.

The main argument that I was seeing with the Devs is that they want to keep it pseudo-realistic and this is honestly more realistic than having one breeding male for the entire pack.

My other thought was to be able to have multiple packs but that just makes things a ton more complicated although it could have a lot of fun playing strategy to it.

No support from me, I'm afraid!

I agree with a lot of what coyotric said - the lack of sorting would honestly be a nightmare for me and is my biggest concern/thing I disagree with, and it doesn't fix the male-female desirability ratio thing. (Which all-males-breeding-capable would, if cooldowns were implemented, because you wouldn't be able to breed a male with multiple females.)

i think it would be funny if we could casanova other people's packs like the PVP territory in lioden. the only problem i see with this one is the sorting issue, but unsorted wolves don't bother me. and i don't really care if a role "assigns a personality" to a certain wolf. the feature could always be titled differently

if it isn't added as a role, it could be an interesting valentines event!

The thing is you could also have them set to a role such as hunter etc. and only switch them to the breeding role when you had a female in heat you would want to breed to. 

Sounds more like cheesing the current system when put that way. 

And you can't just move wolves around like that in their roles, or at least not with hunter role. Taking a wolf off a hunting team and then putting them back on lowers the team's synergy. Even if it is the same wolf that was on the team before, it still goes down. 20% or more of a team Synergy bar is not a price I'm willing to pay to let a male I have breed, personally.

One could argue to just keep males for scouting, or herbalist, or sitters, but it doesn't seem satisfying. I personally would like both males and females to be totally equal across the board for all roles. So I'd prefer a system that doesn't impact their ability for any role they can use.

Shuffling wolves from one role to another just to breed also just feels like far too much maintenance work just to achieve that one thing. Sure, it should have limits. Sure, it can have rules. But it shouldn't be needlessly complicated as manually swapping around a wolf's role. Something more streamlined and easier is preferable.

Also by your thoughts nothing would increase the male/female ratio because the exact same argument could be made for all males being allowed to breed. People could still own a pack full of females and just have 2-3 males they breed. 

Any playstyle can lean to having more females if the player wants, even if males get something that'd make them have more value. The problem is the current system is indirectly encouraging higher preference to females over males since only 1 male per pack is allowed to breed. I simply do not think this proposed role for males will tackle that part of the problem. It'll let males breed, but will it really up their value? I've seen solutions proposed in other topics that sound a lot more simpler and easier to use and in ways that address the issue within the system itself.

This one only covers that partially. Not as a whole.

And if you've read flavor text for cub injuries and things like that there are things included there. Like your scout accidentally injuring a cub, whoops it must not be pupsitter material.

I view that as different than the flavor text this role is suggesting. While some of the flavor text I would like to live without, it is occasionally entertaining.

"X and Y got caught by breeding male and was chased off." is funny but not very entertaining. Not in the long-run, at least. I can see it becoming a source of frustration pretty quickly.

It also doesn't have to be viewed as flirtatious although it could be, it's open to interpretation. You may just be stuck on the name there. Since males in the pack are unable to breed it could be argued they're infertile so perhaps they don't make the breeding male chase them away. Vs. with a casanova type role (the name could be anything) it could be they are fertile so they keep space between them and the lead male because they'd fight over females in heat.

It is open to interpretation, and flirtatious is how I interpret it. The whole role structure - rescouting for items as 'gifts', breeding attempt flavor text being caught in a tryst and chased off, etc - even supports it as well. There isn't much for me to interpret it as when it's presented the way it is.

I'd simply much rather not have such a coded role like that and instead have something that makes males able to breed regardless of role. I do not feel I should have to boot a wolf into some outcast-type role just for them to breed. That's all there is to it.

"They'd fight over females in heat." No thanks.