🔥 Tweak the Heat/Pregnancy Rollover Counters to Match ❤️

Hi, devs! I thought this was a bug, but apparently it's a feature, so here I am in the game development to try and plead my case.

On the first day of a female wolf's pregnancy, the pregnancy is listed as lasting "4 rollovers". Meanwhile, on the first day of a female wolf's heat, the heat is listed as lasting "3 rollovers". Naturally, you would expect that heat lasts three days, and pregnancy lasts four days, right? Well.. No.

The pregnancy counter counts down from 4 rollovers, to 3, to 2, to 1. Roll over on 1 rollover remaining, and bam, there's your puppies, right on schedule. Meanwhile, the heat counter counts down from 3 rollovers, to 2, to 1... But when you roll over on 1 rollover remaining, what do you get?

0 rollovers remaining!

But... Shouldn't her heat be gone by now if you have 0 rollovers remaining? That's why I propose a simple change—make the pregnancy and heat rollovers match for the sake of consistency. Four pregnancy rollovers makes sense, so why can't heat rollovers follow suit? This simple change (3-0 ➔ 4-1) would certainly make the rollover terminology less confusing, and it would make more sense in general. (Plus then I wouldn't have to keep reminding myself that it's okay not to breed on one rollover remaining, because in actuality, I have two rollovers remaining.)

Thanks for listening to this suggestion! :)

I agree completely! This trips me up every time my girls go into heat. I'd rather breed on the last day, for max stats, but even though I know that their last day will be listed as 0 rollovers I always end up breeding with 1 day left because I just... can't convince myself. Everything else with '1 rollover' as its countdown means it will be done at rollover, and I don't understand why heat is different. 

I also find it quite inconsistent that the last day of heat is "0 rollovers left" and the last day of pregnancy is "1 rollover left".

On the other paw, when I think the suggested consistency might help new players to understand the periods, the old players who've already got used to how it currently works might get confused with the change. If both periods are fixed to "0 rollovers left", those who are used to nest wolves on the last day will be caught by surprise that they need to wait another day with nested wolf. If both periods are fixed to "1 rollover left" as you suggested, those who are used to have females bred on their last day of heat will be caught by surprise that the heat is gone too quickly. I know it can be announced but some users might not read announcements and some might be temporarily not playing Wolvden then come back unaware of this change.

I believe that announcements remain in your inbox until you read them, so members who took a hiatus would see this change at some point if it were to come about. But I have to say that not reading an announcement is not the fault of the devs, it is entirely the fault of the member who chose not to. Every change has the potential to catch someone by surprise for the first time, but even so, they will learn from their mistake. 

Inbox reminder sounds like a good idea and you're right about who might be responsible for mistakes, though I'm certain those will definitely happen, even by users who forget about the change. Alternatively, I've been thinking if an alerting message could be shown on wolf page when the female is on the last day of heat.

Perhaps there could be a temporary notification banner on the den page about the change, though honestly I do think it would be unnecessary.

I support this. Though I have it figured out now, it was a bit confusing, especially when I was a newer player. This change would also make things a bit more consistent. 

I agree! I want to schedule the birth of my pups and consistency with the countdowns would make scheduling and managing so much easier. 

Support! I thought this was super weird too. Either use zero-indexing or don't lol

As a new player, the whole rollover counters are very confusing. If I can suggest, instead of trying to get all the counters matching and potentially causing confusion and frustration for older players, what if they used date and time. So for example it would “ heat cycle: ends Feb 1st 23:59 (wolvden time), heat cycle: starts month/ date / time, etc same would would apply for pregnancy. “Pregnancy ends: month/date/time? 

I think this would be easier for new and older players to understand, especially since the WD date and time is next to your lead wolf picture.