Starting to dislike this game

I decided to give this game a chance, and I can say it's been a relatively mixed experience.

I like the way that explore works. It's nice to have it be more interactive, and with actions that require fore-thought. But the random events that chip away at your health are pretty rough to start out with. Battles are okay. I like the bleed element that was introduced. It adds a bit more challenge. The 'low energy' thing can be grating, but I'll get around it. I enjoy how new zones are discovered, and it's a good use of side wolves.

I'm only just now learning about the disease issues that people are having, and frankly? Dreading it.

When I heard this was supposed to have a difficulty curve, I suspected just that: difficulty you overcome via strategy.

Instead, what I'm seeing is a ton of RNG. Merciless RNG, no less. Making things random doesn't necessarily make a game harder. It makes it more tedious. Tedium doesn't translate to enjoyable gameplay. Thus far, there's a ton of reading to do, and while I don't mind it, it's hard to enjoy the game when you have to reference so many guides. Doable? Yes. But it diminishes the quality of life when so many things can go wrong because you didn't read a guide.

Personalities conflict while hunting. Alright, I get that. But that's on top of waiting for a hunt to finish, a hunt there's a large chance when starting that will fail anyways even if you do everything right. Part of me doesn't care about pups, extra wolves and doing any real gameplay until I have a large store of items to combat anything that's thrown at me. Because extra wolves is extra risk. And truthfully, I can just feed my main male and his companion with stuff found in explore.

I've gotten lucky with snake quests so far, but I can see how it'd be hard to accomplish the hunt quests. Doing math while protecting pups isn't something I'm looking forward to.

There's one game. It's fishing. It's more a time waster than an asset. Slots and Lotteries are not games, it's more RNG. And... why was so much effort put into the Anthro Wardrobe rather than another game?

Iunno. This is a mixed experience. I went in knowing this would be harder, but I'm disappointed to learn that 'hard' translates to 'RNG is weighed against new players'. I'll keep trying it, but so far I only do this in between other games while I'm waiting to do something else.

I do just want to say Nadir, this is a suuper old thread and a lot of the complaints have been somewhat fixed (or attempted to be). illness has been tweaked, RNG battle system also. things have actually improved, and consequently I'd now take the issue brought up here with a pinch of salt as its not *as* bad as it used to be. people will still have gripes with it 100%, but I can genuinely say devs have taken on board advice, and things have been tweaked c':

this thread is from right around the time wolvden became public, and thus it was to be expected there would be some teething issues in terms of balancing.

I actually haven't really had an illness in a while, usually its an open wound once a week or so. which is a vast improvement. & I'm usually sending out hunts 10+ times a day.

personalities conflicting with hunting is really easy to fix/manage tbh with you - the grouse house has a guide on what personalities conflict, and what personality type falls under what category. off of the top of my head, friendly & aggressive conflict, romantic & stoic conflict. avoid those in the same hunting party and your set. you don't have to wait and see if your hunts turn out bad - you can very easily figure it out prior to that happening c:

you can also pay 100sc to change a wolves personality if they don't work out, to make them fit with the rest of the team.

the hunt quests are difficult when you start off but quickly become easier as your wolves stats become higher as does synergy and proficiency. if I have one tip: stay in a starter biome (mountains, grassland, forest). don't jump to a harder biome because you will indeed suffer, esp with lower statted wolves. I manage a pack of around 20 adults (at its peak) with little issues these days.

but the game is certainly geared towards people taking it slowly. the game isn't built for somebody to join and in 3 days have 20 wolves & be fine. the game isn't meant to be for mass breeding.

& as your wolves get better, food becomes easier, and you can make an easy surplus of SC selling the food. put it up on the TC at 2sc a use, and you can easily make bank. I think just recently I netted around 400sc selling the surplus of food I have. granted I'm selling things like bison & moose, but even back in the mountains I was still able to grab a few hundred SC selling extra elk etc ^^ meat chunks etc can be sold to the racoon to make money too (rule is, if its under 4 uses, sell to the racoon, over 4 use, sell on the TC. racoon prices are abysmal for larger use items!)

the reason why wolvden feels so hard to start off is because you start at the bottom (as most games) and there's a huge curve in terms of lower stats & how hard the game becomes. as your wolves become stronger, the game becomes easier. which I think is what the devs were going for, a more 'generational' playstyle to the game. as your wolves level up, you breed those wolves, then level up their offspring, you slowly create higher & higher statted wolves & things become easier.

& ofc you can easily avoid the waiting & just purchase high stat wolves! 300-400 stat wolves aren't very expensive now, and are of a decent starting point.

pups can be scary but they're fairly easy to manage also - there really isn't as much math as it seems! pups start off with a base survival and pup sitters can boost that. the game will tell you, x survival with x boost from pupsitter once assigned. for notice, pups get a 7% boost at RO if mom is 100% mood & food, and this rolls before the death/injury chance! so if a pup is at 94%, they will 100% survive RO c:

befriend some NBW's to watch pups, chase em when you're done is usually what I end up doing.

& as for working out how much protection a pupsitter will offer .. pupsitting tab > total protection. divide that by the pups you'll assign to her. iirc they start with 60% base? so two pups, 30% protection each, & so forth

anyway, I'd def give wolvden a chance if you're willing to work your way up, or, purchase higher stat wolves (tc pups can go for cheap, 5sc for 300 stats or so isn't bad). genuinely things get much easier, but there is a huge curve in terms of difficulty when you start out ^^

I do agree the game is pretty scary with *a lot* to learn, I felt that way when I joined, esp as I joined at public release. nobody really was sure of what they were doing LMAO. there is a lot of reading to do, but once you look past that you may find its something you enjoy, who knows!

majority of the community is very newbie friendly too - many giving away items & wolves to users to help get them started! keep an eye out for those :]

Didn't notice the original age. So far, the impression I get at first glance isn't stunning, but maybe I can tolerate it if those changes have been put in place.

The tedious nature of it with not much to do just is off-putting, mostly. The abundance of timegates seem like they exist solely to generate site traffic. So many extra steps to everything, and a focus on art instead of legitimate content feels frustrating.

I'll give it a shot and try the advice out.

Thanks for the reply though, BW.