Please Let Us Choose Where Stats Go

Or at least change where stats go in a way that makes more sense.

I'm having several issues with my pack as my wolves level, and this issue will become especially prominent farther down the line. Currently, when a wolf levels up, they generally earn the most stats in the two highest abilities that they have. The problem with this is that it severely limits the learning potential of any pup whose parents had specific roles.

Example:

My wolf, Nightcloud, is level 9 and has only ever been a Chaser, save for briefly being a Scout and earning Speed points via Deciduous Forest.

Unfortunately, when I got him, his two highest stats were Strength and Agility -- meaning that, as he levels up, he mostly gains points in those two fields. This means that the only times his Speed ever levels up is when he gains one after a hunt, and rarely when he levels up.

His potential to be a good Chaser is limited in this regard. Because he's only mostly gaining points in Agility, he doesn't do as well as his other Chaser peers who level up earning tons of Speed and Agility.

Later down the generations, this will become even more difficult to combat as pups designated Finisher for example instead earns points in Agility and Speed because its parents were Chasers. This shouldn't be the way it works. Why does a wolf who only trains to be one role end up learning things as if it were another role?

My suggestion would be allow us to choose what two stats have more weight to them. It can simply be another tab in the den, or an option somewhere on the wolf's page. All you'd have to do is check off the two stats that should be weighted when the wolf levels, and let the leveling do its course. 

Allowing us to choose what roles to give more weight would help solve the problem of wolves learning the wrong things for their job, and will prevent us from abusing stat gains while still giving us fair control over the future of our wolves.

Nightcloud is not the only wolf out there who's learning stuff he doesn't need to. I'm sure others have wolves just like him.

I think this might actually be intended as a feature, not a bug? So that folks can breed bloodlines of Chasers, or Stalkers, or what have you. I'd be really down for implementing a feature that allows you to train your pups or adolescents in specific stats, but I don't know if the mod team - or the player base - will be interested in changing how the level-up stats work.

I did see a mod post confirming it was an intended feature, which is why I was suggesting it be changed.

It would actually be easier to breed pups specific to a role if we had more control, most specifically, on the first gen. Changing this doesn't make it harder to breed pups designed for specific roles.

I should give some further examples on why the current implementation is a problem, using some of my wolves:

1. Redtail is a Chaser, but everytime he levels up he keeps getting Strength and Speed points because they're his highest.

2. Shadowstreak is gaining Strength and Agility points everytime he levels up even though he's also a Chaser.

3. Dunestrider is gaining Strength and Wisdom even though she's a Stalker, which is especially damaging to her and her hunting team because it limits the amount of exp (in the form of available trail sizes) the wolves can get.

The current leveling system limits the potential of those going against what stats are already the highest, and it makes choosing wolves from TC unnecessarily more difficult because now you have to watch for the two highest stats that'll automatically be favored over whatever stats they're getting for their role. It's easier to combat this system when you have an NBW with equal stats, or a pup whose parents both had the same role.

But it becomes extremely more difficult if the pup comes from parents who had different roles. If a Finisher and Stalker breed, you'll likely get a pup who's proficient in Strength and either Wisdom or Smarts, making their potential as anything other than a Finisher extremely limited.

There's a difference between a pup coming from 2 Chasers struggling as a Stalker, and a pup coming from (for example) Finisher x Stalker struggling as a Stalker and a Chaser. The first one makes sense. You might pass on a bit of your body fitness to your children, whose body might be more tuned to whatever role their parents had. But that's not the case with the current system. The current system forces you to either pick fresh, balanced-stat wolves, or wait until your pup levels up enough and gets to the point where stat gains far exceed the points they get from leveling up.

As a stat breeder, i can tell you one of the things we dislike most is the rng,

the mosy annoying part about stat allocation is that it doesn’t even quite work half the time eg, i had my most recent finisher seem to favour wisdom and speed when it has overwhelmingly high strength

so yea definitely a support from me 

also i made a post tying the control of stat favourtism to pup training that you may wish to look at https://www.wolvden.com/chatter/topic/301065

[Warning: there is some brittle humor mixed in with some serious recording/relating. Reader discretion and a desire to be amused strongly advised.]

I personally level my wolves up to ~8 or so to reveal their genetics in terms of stat leanings.  Due to the fact Finishers require only 1 stat, and the others require 2 stats to function on a hunting team, this can lead to a small issue.  At the end of the day, I still keep wolves with stat leanings toward, say, wisdom and speed (see: Mud Burst), because I can (and have!) bred it out of them.

In his case, his mother was a true finisher.  Mud Burst's father was useless to a hunting team because his leanings were wisdom and speed.  Even before hunting stats mattered more than proficiency/synergy and before I personally started actively recording stat leanings, I could tell Mud Spine (hurr, this is father's name) was better off puttering about as a herbalist so he didn't ruin hunts with his ineptitude.

That sounded harsher than I meant it.  Sorry, Mud Spine... or your memory, rather.  Anyway, what you're describing is bad luck running into finishers.  You can see Mud Burst still has his father's leanings so I have to breed to another strong wolf to offset this leaning again.  The problem with that is I don't care to do that.  Mud Burst is going to breed with a true Stalker and I'll probably get something even more interesting.

I also bred a true Finisher used as a Chaser with a true Stalker and produced... this.  You can see she has some hilarious level one stats.  That was done entirely on purpose, with full knowledge of the leanings and that I should not breed wonky hunters.  I did it anyway.

Initiative, on the other hand, was a true Finisher and a true Finisher used again as a Chaser (I'm so sorry wolves... no, actually, I'm not) and we still got a strong puppy. 

Use it to your advantage or toss out the wolf.  For those not wanting to be at the mercy of such a system, fair enough.   I went on a Befriending spree myself and found so many Stalkers it is horrendous (guess who needs Chasers?).  I wouldn't mind re-allocating a future Mud Spine if I desperately needed a proper Chaser or Stalker instead of a goofy wolf masquerading as both rather foolishly.

A long time ago I suggested a new grove item "Acorn of Aptitude" that would let you swap two stats. I think something like that, with a limitation e.g. "can only be used once in a wolf's lifetime" would help relieve some of the aggravation that Zeraki wrote a perfect example of above- it can be pretty frustrating to have to level a wolf almost halfway just to discover out they are unsuited to their role lol

I don't want a change that would invalidate all the effort that goes into stat breeding, just a way to alter completely pointless stat distributions into something actually useful.

Now maybe if there were more roles added to the game 👀 that made all the stat pair combos useful for different things.. That could be cool too! But as it stands the wise + fast wolves of the world are just doomed to pupsitter duty XD ;P