Ability to Mark Territory in Explore

Hello there!

I've had this idea for about a week, and I've thought long and hard about it!

The ability to mark territory in explore! The mechanic would only be available in the current biome your pack is living in, and after every certain number of steps you take in that biome, you could encounter a spot to mark territory. It could be about every thousand steps, every hundred, or it could be a gradual increase in steps to get that encounter. Either way, you walk your lead wolf along in explore for however many steps, and you get an encounter that says you could mark your scent there. 

Of course, there's a big chance that the territory you're marking for already has a pack living in it. If you click the option to mark, a battle with a wolf pack will start. If you win that battle, you get an adult slot! The level of the enemies will always be in the range of about 3 levels above or below to make it fair. Sometimes you're just not strong enough to claim the territory! There's also an option to keep walking, but the number of steps you take toward another adult slot doesn't increase until you win the battle with the wolf pack.

To keep players from accidentally clicking out of the encounter by misclick, this encounter could come along pretty often after the amount of steps has been reached so players won't miss it and have to search and search and search for it again. Or, alternatively, there could be a button somewhere on the explore screen that asks if you want to mark territory, no matter if you've kept exploring or not. It could be out of sight enough so players won't get annoyed by it, but still be visible enough so players won't forget about it. It could also let players heal up and prepare for the battle, being ready at any time.

There also could be a counter somewhere on the screen that shows how much progress you've made.

This mechanic could keep in play up until the 200 slot cap, with the increasing steps in play there too. Maybe once you get to around 150, you'd need like a million steps! An option for players who can't afford gc, but a hard enough grind so that the staff still have an import of money, with players seeing the gc option to buy slots as something easier and more tempting.

I thought of this because players have a hard time saving up sc and buying territory slots for their ever-growing pack with just quests and selling items, I've seen people in the chat say things like "lol i'm gonna lose like 5 wolves tomorrow cause i dont have enough space", or "i wish there was another way to get adult slots" and everything else along those lines. I'd also like to think of buying the slots as a second option, rather than a first, and have something else to do and work for rather than feed my wolves, explore a bit, then hunt the rest of the day.

Coding and a tad bit of writing would be required, but not much else if I'm not missing anything.

Thank you for checking out my post! 

I love this idea, it's really well thought out! It makes sense lore-wise, and if balanced properly, would be a neat way to occasionally get extra slots through hard work. SC is currently so hard to get and there are so many SC sinks, it can feel discouraging, as you outlined in your post. I am always in favour of extra features that reward player commitment and grind.

I would prefer the option where once you have triggered the encounter by meeting its criteria, a button appears on the explore screen to go into the territory battle. Maybe just above the explore button? I can just imagine a little peeing wolf icon, hahaha!

Oh my gosh YES! I really like this idea, I never have territory space and this would very much help me out :3 Maybe instead of always granting a territory slot, you could have a choice between the slot and some SC (around 20-40)? The text (if you win the battle) could be like

"The leader of the rival pack bows their head in submission, admitting that you are the stronger wolf. They offer you a choice of a gift or some territory space to appease you and your pack." 

Yessss this sounds amazing, it’s a much better and fair way to combat the SC drain