Woes of the Market

I don't necessarily think we need all males able to breed. Wolfplay has that mechanic and the pup/wolf market is worse then ours. What we need is a new male centric role. Something only male wolves can fill and there isn't a limit or if there is we aren't limited to 1 or 2 males in this role.

I think simply being able to switch your breeding male whenever you'd like would be a start. 

@Burrito,

I just wanna say that I love that idea, especially because I made the mistake of not waiting to get a better stud, lol- :,)

I don't agree with the switching breeding male idea. Its not a normal role like hunters or pupsitter which wolves could easily be swapped in and out of. Breeding male is a special role like the leader role and I agree with the mechanic they have up for that right now. Its to avoid people just quickly swapping males out for a different male willy nilly. Its to encourage players to think seriously about who they want their breeding male's to be as it is a lifelong role for the wolf it is given to so you better make damn sure that is the wolf you want to breed to for a while

That doesn't necessarily make it a good mechanic. It thematically makes sense for lioden, because 1 or 2 males lead a pride that is otherwise female.

On this game it doesn't make sense and it's unnecessarily punishing.

Keld, Scarlet, and Chaotic summed it up really well.
I've been playing pet/breeding sims since 2001, this is always an issue. Critters are free and easy to produce so they do end up being the most abundant but least desirable commodity unless something specific gives them value.

It's became an issue very quickly on Wolvden because SC is harder to get, den space is expensive, caring for a large den can be a chore, the profession system incentivizes keeping skilled wolves, wolves' have a clear genetic rarity system, many people are breeding their females every time they are in heat, and many people are hesitant to chase because the mechanic implies death and/or provides no benefit other than not having to care for them.

Supply and demand.
Infinite supply of wolves so only those with some limiting factor curtailing supply will retain some value. Demand is there, even for tier I, but doesn't come close to the number of pups shoved onto the market every day.

More genetics and mechanics are only a bandaid, the issue seems to me to be one of supply.
An incentive to remove them from the game may at least set a soft floor on the price. (something more appealing to those chasing upsets and rewarding for everyone else, like the Enclave on Lioden.)

I don't think it will do too too much, but if a way to get rid of pups besides chasing shows up it might help out a bit.  Like something that would reward the player for removing a pup from the system, that way instead of selling every pup people will get rid of a lot more pups and only sell their more valuable pups, theoretically.  The reward would have to be something that isnt linked to a specific playstyle though, but rather something thats useful to any player so that it really incentivizes deleting excess pups.  It would also drive the base price up for pups, so no matter what every pup can sell at at least x price(depending on the value of the reward for discarding).  IDK what kind of reward system would work well here, but maybe it could be a gamble, like giving you an item out of a pool that all have uses for different playstyles(so if they get one that's irrelevant to them they keep gambling, sinking more pups than they would if it was just all around useful to everyone)

It's really interesting hearing this from the perspective of others who have played pet sim games before. I haven't, so I don't have that insight, but as a newcomer I find it's really not worth it to breed pups. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of other things to do here so I've been happily playing this game for around a month now, but I've only had one litter outside the tutorial babies. I have no clue how people with big packs manage. I don't know how much I can contribute, just a few rambling thoughts and adding my two cents as a player unbiased by what other games do.

I was a little disappointed that I delayed creating my account for over a week because I dawdled with the beginning wolf designer and grouse house genetics guides trying to get my starting pair "perfect" (without knowing what was going on of course) only to find out they were very undesirable in-game, and their tutorial babies were extremely plain with abysmal stats. Thinking back on it, that makes complete sense, everyone's first "free" wolves shouldn't be OP. But because of that, I decided to wait until I had a much better breeding female before I tried again. Seeing ads everywhere saying things like "I'll take anything! Just need them gone!" and "Chasing soon, will accept any buyout!" further confirmed this decision.

That's actually how I got my first hunting packs, simply by buying wolves that no one wanted for super cheap with the sc I earned from the tutorial quests. But now that I have those roles filled, there's no real incentive (and in fact a large disincentive) to switch them out. I am also lucky enough to be able to log in here and there throughout the day, so I would complete most of my daily hunts and get a few explore rounds in, then sell my extra supplies to slowly earn enough SC to buy GC and den slots.

Then since even really decent wolves are dirt cheap, I bought a good female and stud (!), and still for not that much I customized them well enough. I don't like the "loot box" style of the RMA so I used regular marking applicators to put compatible markings in each of their slots that could breed combo colors, and their first/only litter was honestly just meh. I'm still debating if I am going to try and sell them at all. I wanted to wait until they grew up to chase because that's a nice idea but I encounter chased wolves so infrequently and am thinking about all the food and toys they will use during their 20-ish rollovers to adult thinking... is it really worth it?

Maybe it's weird that I don't get much enjoyment from breeding, but a lot is because I have no idea what to do with the pups. Chase is probably the answer, but it is very unfulfilling to get literally nothing from a litter. Even moreso, paying for a stud fee when I know for certain I won't be able to make it back just doesn't make any sense. Even if the stud has very desirable qualities, it's never certain you'll get what you are looking for. In most cases I am concerned that I won't break even on the cost of the nest! And outside of game mechanics, chasing newborns implies setting the poor things out on the side of a hill to die from exposure or get murdered by a passing predator, which just feels sad. I know it's just a game, but people also feel very strongly about writing lore or inbreeding, which influence how they play. Those have no basis in game mechanics either, so those feelings shouldn't be dismissed.

Floating the idea of new rare markings or TIIIs is nice, but I agree with others on here that it won't solve the basic problem of having too many wolves that are essentially worthless. Let's say a new RMA marking pops up - only the players who are already rich will be able to RNG their way to popularity by applying RMA, marking remover, RMA, marking remover ad infinitum on their stud until they get one they want. I also like the idea of NBW-only markings, but I was unable to sell two female NBWs, one with shaded and one with points, for 20 SC each! I even enabled offers and tossed an few ads on the sales chat but chased them after two days. People just don't want to buy wolves, and having to constantly bump ads or go through the effort of making an auction post seems very tedious.

I hope that was useful in some way? Like I said, I have no ideas or suggestions, this has just been my experience as a person new to this genre of games.

My experience with breeding sims has always been the same; I like to start from the ground up and make my way from there. The strategy part of breeding sims like these are second nature to me, maximizing every pack member's potential was exactly how I started, and breeding was an afterthought at first. Since I have this mindset of improving my pack gradually, mostly on my own, I see the mechanics of the game as a tool to progress. The most efficient way to progress for me is breeding. In case you didn't know, studding is dirt cheap in comparison to the market and what studding actually does. Studding your wolves gives you a huge pool of genetic diversity (markings, carrier mutations, eye color, claw color, etc.) to start out in the game, with added benefits like lesser chances of inbreeding. All you have to do is be completely brutal about what wolves to keep and what wolves not to keep. Keeping wolves with higher base stats than what your beginner wolves started with is the best idea in my opinion, because you will progress quicker and quicker every time you do it. Kind of like a prestige in an idle clicker game. After I've achieved the specific stats in the wolves I have, I move on to selecting the pretty ones, or the ones with rare markings that I can fix up to make more desirable pups in the future. All this for the reward you get from a single quest, if you convert your SC and pay the stud fee with the GC option (always the cheaper option). The best part about it is that the studding fee would only hurt you if you couldn't make that SC back with something else, or if you wanted to sell your wolves.

As you can see, my playstyle removes pretty much all emotion from the game entirely, yet I still do write some lore around my pack, in a little notebook. I care about all my wolves enough to train them, feed them, and keep them amused, and chase wolves who will contribute nothing and bring down the pack as a whole. I personally don't get why people are opposed to chasing useless puppies when they are useless to helping out in the pack in the future. It will just be a deadweight. So you either keep a bunch of worthless puppies around to slowly kill off the wolves that actually have a function, or you keep the pack healthy. I probably shouldn't be talking since I have some very useless wolves lying around, but I'll get around to getting rid of them. All in due time. But the minute I can't feed or play with all of my wolves, those deadweights will be gone.

I also feel like one thing that hasn't gotten through to everyone yet is that you can't keep every wolf just because the thought of potentially killing them makes you uncomfortable. If the pups don't actively contribute to the pack's improvement, then there is no point in keeping them around. Even if a pup has 10 markings, all rare or breed-only, and a Tier III base to boot, it will just drag the pack down with it's 120 stats. It won't be worth anything on the market with stats like that, people will get rid of it immediately if RNG on it's stats wasn't good to them after being befriended, and it will not sell on an auction. If no one will ever want the wolf, then you should do the right thing and kick it to the curb. The harsh reality is that this game is harder than a lot of breeding sims. It won't be forgiving if you can't manage your wolf pack correctly. Wolves would die from waiting around for deadweight pups to become useful in the wild, and it works the same way here. Either you get rid of those no good pups, or the pack will suffer from foolish sympathy. Criticize me all you want, but nature takes no prisoners.

That's not to say some sympathy can't be accepted every now and then, but you know you have a problem when wolves are starting to run off. That would be the time to evaluate your wolves, if not any other time. Do it right, and you can even have spare items left over to sell! Items that are actually useful and valuable.

@Lakia quick correction. As explained in the Grouse House guide stats are randomized for chased wolves

https://www.wolvden.com/chatter/topic/410