Fleas should give the plague

no support pls i'm so tired of trying to buy medicine especially when people sell it 100 for 2 use.

Support, it feels a bit cheat like right now with the fleas.

Also, Chibiterasu - how about getting a herbalist and a second cave to keep sick wolves in? If you keep them in a separate cave (not unsorted) the illness will be contained to that cave only.

I'd be okay with this!

@Chibiterasu
You can buy 9 ginger for 90-135 sc which is enough to make any medicine in the game (because of the herb exchange) and that cost doesn't include any herbs you find yourself.

I do get it is annoying if you get bad RNG with serious illnesses, but using fleas to exploit a game mechanic is something that needs to be fixed. Like any other exploit in video games that throw out the balance/abuses game mechanic.

Your wolves are meant to get sick once in a while, and with the Open Wounds update - things are so much better now. And if you avoid certain actions (like rolling on poo, licking frogs or eating rotting food, you can only get sick from RNG). But if you keep performing those actions, you can only blame yourself for getting your wolf sick. 

It's also pretty easy to get enough herbs for cures too from just exploring and using forage & herb exchange. You don't lose anything if you exchange common herbs for rarer ones. You don't exactly need to cure influenza either immediately on the first day, you have a little time to scramble together enough herbs to make a cure yourself before the wolf dies. Originally in beta, we didn't have forage or exchange system. But they were added to balance the game and make getting cures easier, as you don't need to rely on herb bundles to maybe get pineapple leaves. 

hey, so im actually the biggest player in exploiting fleas right now, at least when it comes to making myself known and making a profit off of them. I get where this thread is coming from, and why people support it, but let me explain my side so that people aren't jumping down my throat for "breaking the game."

wolvden is a difficult game. that's the entire point of it - that it's tougher than lioden, and as a result more immersive. that's great! I love that certain aspects require more attention and thinking than any other rpg site I've seen. I love that you can customize your experience to your own playstyle as well: people who enjoy investing all of their time into a single game always have something to do on wolvden, while more casual players can just pop on occasionally, take care of their wolves, and not rollover for another few days if they feel like it. that's the best part of the game in my opinion - you make it your own! 

but on the flip side, because wolvden is a "play-how-you-want" game, it relies very heavily on rng. I'm sure the admins did this intentionally to make the game fair for everyone, but what it actually does is create a rift between the casual players and the hardcore players. I'm someone who plays moderately casual - I rollover every day, send my hunters out on about 10 hunts, send out my scouts, send my herbalist foraging, and check the art forums. I explore maybe once a day if I remember, but for the most part, I don't really care about being on any leaderboards and having the biggest and best pack isn't that important to me. I've bought gc quite a few times because I enjoy investing in games I like and it makes me happy to pretty up all of my wolves, but that's pretty much my only source of income besides 50sc a day max from selling whatever eggs and tiny prey I have lying around from scouting or exploring.

now, I also have a friend who grinds heavily and invests more time into her pack than money, and she's been around since early access and has been on the stat leaderboards. she has a huge pack, hundreds of gc, and explores every time her lead's energy is refilled. to her, the game isn't nearly as difficult, because she puts enough time into the game that any bad rng that comes her way doesn't have a major impact on her. bad luck with hunting? no problem - her lead will bring back plenty of prey from explore, and she can buy food off the tc to make up for the rest. illnesses have little impact on her because she can afford to cure them immediately because she can afford to invest that much time into the game to do so.

now, going back to my playstyle: I invest maybe a few hours a day at most in this game. on any other site, that would be enough for the game to still be enjoyable without being stressful because my wolves aren't going to keel over and die because I forgot to take care of them once. but on wolvden, there's no way around the stress of the game, because your lead is going to get diarrhea at some point, and your hunters are going to get open wounds. you're going to have scouts bringing home influenza no matter how casually you play, because that's how rng works - no matter how often you hunt or explore or scout, the odds are still there. a single hunt has the same chance of resulting in open wounds no matter whose account it is and no matter how many hunts they have left. 

but remember when I mentioned that my income mostly stems from having bought gc and selling what little I have left to the raccoon? yeah, that's a major factor in the difficulty of the game. I make just enough money from my playstyle to be able to support my pack in terms of food and amusement, which isn't that much. on any other game, that would be enough, because food and mood loss are daily occurrences that happen at the exact same speed for every player across the entire site. it's predictable and simple to manage, and wolvden is designed to make it so that even the newest members should have little issue with taking care of their pack. now throw in a random chance for your wolves to get injured or sick simply for playing the game as intended, only you need items that aren't as easy to get or money to buy the cures with just to cure them. hunting is essentially my only food source, so when my hunters come back with open wounds, if I don't cure them immediately then im screwed for the rest of the day in terms of my ability to feed my pack. I'm at a point now where im starting to get backup hunters, but that just means more mouths to feed, and more chances to get hurt. my hunters aren't my source of income in cones, so I have to explore more frequently to make up for that - which I can't do, because I don't have the time to with my job, and mental illness zaps my motivation and enjoyment of the game if I play for more than an hour straight or so. 

fleas, although causing my pack to lose mood twice as fast at each rollover, allow me to actually enjoy the game. I can play how I want without stressing out about my hunters getting injured or one of my puppies contracting a deadly illness on each rollover, so I'm not having to lose sleep just so that I can explore more and afford to take care of my pack in the most basic sense. I finally feel like I can begin to progress in the game, because I can actually keep what little spare money I have to spend on things that make me happy rather than the basic necessities. the game has become so much easier for me, because I've forced my experience to rely less on rng and more on my own skill as a player by "exploiting" the illness function. 

now, I fully agree that the flea loophole should be fixed. however, it shouldn't be fixed without changing the illness system as a whole. there's a reason people are excited about the possibility of never having another illness in their pack again, even if the wolvden staff isn't happy about it. something needs to change, and one small loophole to make the game more enjoyable for players isn't the way to go about it. 

i support! would definitely make the game more realistic.

Oh man, this is neat. Ok so have blood-sucker problems can LEAD to other illnesses, honestly that's superb. I love more challenges for my herbalist and keeping my wolves healthy! I honestly feel like herbalist is...is missing something.

Not only do I Support, but I'd like to openly ponder another function with you here that is in support of your idea, if that's ok? I almost posted my add-on thought but I didn't know if it would be considered thread-hijacking.

@Tay that's why I've also supported a suggestion to reduce the game's reliance on RNG. a lot of the RNG makes the game very difficult at times, so, as the thread said, adjusting that so the odds aren't so heavily stacked against you would be a great help and might make the fleas giving bubonic plague instead of being an exploit a better chance.

@ [489], [6449], [476], [2759], [2754], [6601], [25114]



Thanks for your support! :D

@ [740] 



Yep, if this gets added, I think the other minor illnesses should get tweaks alongside this. I can understand why people are using the exploit, but it just seems broken. Thanks for the support!

@ [3122]

Thanks for your input! Yeah, with how the illness system currently is, I don’t think the game is quite ready for this yet. Maybe when things are a bit more stable, and more stuff gets added.

@ [15797]

Understandable. I also hate how expensive people are making medicines. It’s like the U.S.A healthcare system in here.

@ [13638]

The flea exploit is honestly a smart thing to do, considering how the illness system currently is.

With how quickly influenza and distemper spread, it can make it extremely hard for newer players and casual players to keep their wolves healthy and alive. If this gets added, and when the minor illnesses get tweaked, I think there should be a way to ward off sickness within your pack.

While cure-for-alls work as a solution for keeping your lead wolf healthy for a while since it gives you a 3-day immunity, it’s also expensive. You can’t heal all of your pack members with a cure-for-all each time they get sick just for the grace period it gives. An immune system booster is something that needs to come in the next herbalism update. It could be a mish-mash of herbs that can provide your wolves with a temporary resistance to illness. There could also be a slightly more expensive immune system booster that gives your wolves that same multi-day immunity to illnesses that cure-for-alls provide. It should be made out of common herbs and not stuff like pineapple leaves and guaiacum so that casual and new players can have access to it.

Overall I agree with you. The illness system shouldn’t be so punishing that it completely wards off people who like the play the game casually. Thanks for your input!

@ [1635]

I’m all for hearing other ideas! My main thing is just fixing the exploit; feel free to post your add-on! Thanks for the support!