Increase male wolf value by letting them mentor adolescents

To give male wolves more of a purpose in game, I would love to see a mentor mechanic that is useable by male adult wolves exclusively. This would encourage players to invest in male wolves and keep male pups from being automatic fodder under the current harem-esque pack set up. It also gives us something to do with our adolescents.

My idea is that adult males can each take one adolescent wolf at a time under their wing to train them in whatever role they are most proficient in. 

Mentoring would mean that upon rollover an adult male would impart to their mentee a low daily % proficiency in whatever role the mentor currently has the highest proficiency in. I.e. if the adolescent is being mentored by a high proficiency hunter, the adolescent would gain a small amount of hunting proficiency each day. There would also be a small chance of a stat boost for the adolescent upon rollover. 

This could work one of two ways: 1) as a new role category with its own proficiency meter like the other roles, or 2) as a temporary slot assignment that can be toggled from either the male's page or maybe a new tab in the nesting/pupsitting section of the den.

Either way, males would need to have a minimum proficiency in an existing role, maybe 40% or higher, before a they could take on a mentee. This is especially true if going with option 1 due to role proficiency deterioration, but either way it would make sense that a newbie scout would not be able to teach a young wolf how to scout, for example. This would encourage players to train up male wolves for a while in various roles, thus taking up den slots with fewer breeding females and de-saturating the puppy market some.

Option 1: New Role

If this mechanic is implemented as a new role of its own, then there would be more involved coding possibly, but also more opportunities for player strategy. The greater focus required to take full advantage of this role would also possibly encourage players to focus more on getting good males in their packs and elevating their value across the board.

Since mentors would gain proficiency in mentoring on each rollover, but lose proficiency in other roles, this could encourage players to invest in multiple males so that at least one male can mentor a favored adolescent at all times while the other males work on their skills so they can have a high enough proficiency to mentor the next litter. This would create a rotating system of mentorship.

To balance out role deterioration, maybe mentor proficiency could have a high daily growth rate but a slow deterioration rate (i.e. -1 mentor prof. point per day not in mentor role, but maybe +5-8 points per day spent in mentor role). Males with a higher mentoring proficiency would incur a higher stat increase chance for the adolescent upon rollover to encourage players to utilize the role. This way by the end of adolescence, the chance of stat increase for the adolescent has gone up if they have been mentored from puppyhood. This makes logical sense too since the longer the adolescent trains to be a hunter, for example, the more likely they will be better at it toward the end of their training.

Option 2: Slot Assignment

If the mechanic is not a role but instead a temporary slot assignment, then it would mostly be a flavor text in the daily rollover summary.

Rollover would incur steady daily growth of the adolescent in whatever role the mentor has highest proficiency in as well as having a low chance of a small stat boost. This is a more passive alternative that likely would require less coding while still giving males more value, but is also less strategy for the players. It still solves the problem of raising male value, but being more of an afterthought might make players feel less motivated to focus on having more males in their den slots. Time would tell.

Either way, I think male mentoring would be a valuable addition to the game to solve the "useless male" problem and give players a way to train adolescents beforehand in the roles we plan to put them in instead of just having them taking up space doing nothing for weeks. 

Edit:
In response to some concern about making this feature exclusive to males: In my view, the market is unbalanced because female wolves have more value than males in this game. This is largely due to their gender-exclusive abilities to go into heat/bear pups, and because breeding projects are the main player focus. The market reflects this. I'd like to see those scales balanced, and it seems to me that giving males their own gender-exclusive ability that also impacts offspring value is one easy way to solve it. 

While, yes, mentoring as a general non exclusive mechanic would be fun, it would do nothing to solve the males-are-basically-useless problem that is linked to the over-saturation of pups on the market. Helping to solve those two issues is my main purpose in wanting this feature in the first place. Without males being able to uniquely impact offspring in some way, I do not believe males will be valued like females unless the main focus of the game turns away from breeding for rare visuals. Allowing more males to breed would not change the necessity of the gendered abilities the females have and I fear it would only increase over-saturation of breed only marked pups because players could breed multiple customs without being limited by stud fees.

Thank you everyone for your input and discussion about making males more useful. :)

Ooh I am very interested in this idea 

I like this idea!

very interested in this!

i really love this idea! 

I love this idea!

Maybe stats would also play a part with the role too?

This is an amazing idea! I love it!

Yes! A million times yes, especially because you were so thorough thinking everything through. I'm not a game developer, but it all makes sense to me and would definitely be something I would implement, personally. Because it solves two issues - useless males and useless adols. I have a bunch of pretty pups and adols, but you're right, they sit there until they can be utilized in a role as an adult (or unfortunately chased, due to the high as heck price of buying another territory slot).

A+ idea.

That's a really good idea!