Increase (or remove) the monthly restriction of pair-bonded breedings

Ayyy!! I 10000000% support this idea! While I love love LOVE that we got pair bonds, I really don't quite like the limits. I'm so super happy that the admins listened to the players, and began to implement something that a large portion of us vied for, so strongly. I do hope that over time, they plan to increase the cap. As some of everyone's concerns (in this thread at least) is the bonds taking up memory and space, a simple solution/compromise would be having the cap increase by 1 each month? That way it wouldn't over load the serves (not that I think they would anyways) all at once, and give the servers and admins a month inbetween to get used to the amount of wolves.

As for the flooding the market, it's quite already flooded. With people overselling or underselling their pups, be them potatoes or not, selling them in bulk, misleading their pups and wolves as mutation carriers, etc. Adding more breeding wolves will not oversaturate the market, at least not more than it already is. If anything, it may help curb it a little, at least for lore players, who limit themselves on how much space they have, having a reason to keep these wolves, or keep their gender instead of sex changing them. (Take me for example. My custom, tier II she-wolf was bred to a custom, tier II stud (before the pair bonding). She gave birth to three tier IIs, all males, all gorgeous. The females she gave birth to were tier Is, and fugly as hell, despite being the children of two customs. I sex changed the males, and I'm waiting to chase the tier Is. Had those pups been born after the pair bonding update, I would've kept their sex, and bred them to some other tier IIs that would've eventually come into my pack)

And, about the realism thing! Most real life wolf packs are families, full of sons and daughters, with the mom and dad leading the pack. So obviously they won't really do much in pack breeding. Yeah, it's true that a pack isn't gonna send their daughter out to get pregnant and come back, but you also have to remember, that wolves statistically have a 1/12 chance of a successful hunt- all together (Here's a link for one article and for another one as well) . So tell me, is it realistic that a single wolf can take down a caribou herd, as we often see them in explore?

Also, wolves typically breed for life- they mate for life. Sometimes, if a male dies in a pair, the female will go off and find another, but that isn't always the case. As well, wolves usually reach breeding age around 2 to 3 years of age, so the fact that they can almost immediately start breeding at 1 year old isn't very realistic. (Here's a link- it mentions alphas, which is iffy on its own but you get the jist)

Enough of the realism, let's hop onto genetics. More pairs equals more bloodlines. More bloodlines means more "clean" wolves for the clean line breeders, and more chances for the inbreeders to "corrupt" a bloodline. More bloodlines means more chances of mutations to arise, be them secondary or primary.
Ontop of this, breeding projects will be so so so much easier to accomplish. More diverse bloodlines and genetics equates to more chances of tier IIs, tier IIIs and rarer markings and special bases (need I remind you, we still aren't sure how to acquire the special bases).

I understand that not everyone is a mass breeder, or a lore player! Some people don't like playing that way, and that is so so fine! Personally, I am a lore player. I like the pair bonding for a multitude of reasons. I'm not a serious base or marking breeder, but I do have my goals. I can't really tell what kind of player you are, but that's not really all that important rn. The game is open play for a reason- holding other players back because you find this implement too easy, is kind of cruel and not cool. If you find it too easy, challenge yourself. It's not that hard to hold yourself back. I'll use myself as an example here.
As I said, I'm a lore player. For lore reason, I only allow myself 25 spaces. Sure, it would be so nice to just keep adding spaces, but it's also not that hard to just not buy spaces. Saying that they shouldn't increase the cap size because it makes it too easy is just kinda BS in my opinion. If you want it to be challenging, challenge yourself. A lot of people actively decide to play hard more (what ever that mode is, I haven't looked deep into it). Keeping others from having a function in the game just because you don't want it is kinda of weird, not gonna lie.

Ok, and last point (ish). The earning the ability to have pair bonds. How would we earn it? A paywall? Reaching a certain level? A quest? How exactly would we "earn" this?

@Ghostie

Most likely, the more males able to breed the fewer people will send out stud requests. While there will be males sought after for their mutations/stats/etc, the outcome is likely to be less stud requests overall. In my opinion, that is a bad thing, so I do not support the suggestion. I think it is well balanced as-is.

Misontic, how is it well balanced if individuals who don't want to use the stud mechanic are forced to inbreed their wolves? Also stud requests for high tier and rare bases will still come in. Unless you're only playing this game for profit, I'm afraid I don't see your point :) 

I don't necessarily think it's going to be as big of an issue as you're afraid of. People will only be breeding the pairs together, that's true, but they may not have every wolf in their pack pair bonded. Plus, people will still stud to other people for new blood/bloodlines in their pack in order to create new pair bonds. 

Support! I agree with you that the limitation is unfair and increasing the cap would not solve many issues so instead removing the cap entirely would be preferred. If I am creating breeding pairs for life then I would want breedings for life instead of limitations for life. I do not understand the point of making them mate for life if their lives spent breeding together is limited.

There's also the fact that people who would heavily use this type of feature likely aren't the kinds of players that will be using the stud market at all. There is neither gain nor loss for the players like myself they're not interested in the stud market to begin with.

The features being penalized won't go forcing them to use studs or go to the market, either. I know I plan to find a workaround so that I never have to touch a stud if I can help it.

Kat, "I do not understand the point of making them mate for life if their lives spent breeding together is limited" is a lovely quote, very succinct and well put uwu

@ Goose

I do mainly play the game for profit. I breed wolves I like as a side gig.
/jk

When tier 3s are more common and special wolves are out, nothing is stopping me from getting a bunch of special wolves and breeding my females to them and never studding to a special based wolf. It probably would save me SC and GC in the long run, and I can make them how I want. The limit prevents that to some extent, which is why I like it.

I like that the mechanic gives me some freedom to pick a male and female I want to pair, but that it keeps me from doing that to an excess. It is very well thought out.

I also think hurting studs makes it harder for players to make SC/GC which is not good.

Also, now that the pair bond are out, you do not have to inbreed your wolves without studs... so I am not quite understanding.

@Ghostie

You are right, I don't know how big of an issue it would be. It may not be at all. But, anecdotally, I chose not to stud a female this morning and instead pair bonded her, so it is reasonable to think others would do the same. Which is the point of the mechanic, and it is nice to have choices now. The limit is just there to rein it in a bit.

Yess Jessi! The stud market is all fine and dandy, but really the only studs consistently being studded out are leaderboarders and rare bases. While I do plan on using studs in the future for lore, and bloodline purposes, being forced to stud out because of limitations is BS

And Kat, first of all, amazing wording, I just met you and I love you. There is no real reason (that I can see) for males to have such a drastic cooldown, if they can only breed with their paired female, and the female already has a cooldown from breeding, after having her pups.

Misontic, it's not that I'm looking to hurt studs. I'm not using them now, and I won't be using them ever, so your argument that it would "hurt player interaction" goes out the window. Player interaction is up to the players and shouldn't be forced. And the mechanic isn't very well thought out if it essentially does nothing for a majority of the wolves. If anything, the cap should be increased. I'm not saying remove it entirely. And yes, with only 2 breeding pairs a month, the blood lines are *still* going to get mixed, especially with the territory limitations. Having more breeding pairs going than 2 a month will help keep that from happening.