Remove Combo Markings from RMA's

As someone who has spent a LOT of GC on RMAs and total shuffles and gotten bupkis can those of you who are having such great frequency luck share some of that? LOL

I personally don’t support reducing the frequency rate because for some of us it’s already truly dismal and our only hope at having certain markings on a G1 or G2 wolf is to be able to afford to snatch a perfect chased wolf off the trading center. And taking away combo marks that are already attainable through them seems unfair since it’s been this way for so long, but I can definitely understand and get behind new markings/colors not being made available through RMA and being obtainable only through breeding.

Support. Like how you can only get breed-only bases from breeding and not the customizer, it would make sense that you should only be able to get combo marks from breeding. I have a breeding project going trying to breed for combo marks but... it's more to see if I can get anything versus trying to make a special wolf. Since combo marks aren't really special, given how you can just RMA them on.

No support. I agree with KiloNiner, it's already a huge pain in the ass to try and RMA for combo marks, especially if you're looking for specific ones. The difficulty really doesn't need to be upped. Combo marks are still less common than regular color marks and still have more value, in my experience. Also, this unfairly penalizes people who want to have wolves with combo marks but also want to remain low-gen, as it would make it almost impossible to get a G1 wolf with a combo marking unless you found a chased who already had it (and finding chased wolves, and especially a chased wolf who isn't just a recycled shitty NBW, is hard enough). There are already a lot of hard to obtain marks in the game, like the raffle stud marks, or event marks, that could be incentive for breeding and breeding projects. Or bases that are hard to obtain, like Tier IIIs! There's plenty of reasons to breed for wolves already without removing combo markings from RMAs. Making things more exclusive makes the game less fun for people who don't want to put all their time and effort into it just to try and get one little thing.

I will note that both event and raffle stud marks ARE in RMA's currently! There is no mark in the game that can't be obtained via RMA - which is why I think out of any markings, combos should be the ones to go from it. I personally think it is more interesting to have some breed-only markings actually be, well, breed-only, as their name suggests. Right now, high generation wolves have basically nothing that a low generation wolf can't have, which creates very little incentive to breed past gen 3 or so. In a breeding sim, this basically encourages us all to constantly be starting new lineages.

Dropping a ton of RMA's into one low generation wolf is still a lot of money and effort, and breeding certain markings exclusively through lineages I would say is arguably less money, although it is more work. But... well, you have to put work into getting money too, so the game is getting you in effort no matter how the system is set-up. I would argue that this is more friendly towards free-to-play players who want to be able to make money through desirable traits. Right now, combo markings are only moderately desirable, because it is much easier to get them on a wolf by rolling dozens of RMA's on them than through actually breeding them. 

Still, I think those who are against this suggestion have valid points, even if I personally disagree with them. <3 I know we are quite far into the game - but as I understand it, the game is still considered to be in early development. I think if combo markings were removed, it should be done with a head's up advance and have new RMA-only markings added at the same time the combo markings are removed.

Support! I'll be honest, I originally came into this topic to disagree, but the arguments in here have convinced me. I think Websteak said it really well:

"Higher-gen wolves are already valued lower than NBWs because of their long family trees, and one way to re-ignite interest in them and make them worth something again is by making more incentive to breed them. [...] Making combo marks special and something you could breed for would help a lot!"

I also agree with everything Naike said in their last post.

Support! I'm glad raffle marks are in RMAs, since they otherwise have a very limited distribution and can't be "gotten on your own" so to speak, but for combos it makes sense that one should breed for them. RMAing them completely overshadows breeding for them, and isn't cheap enough to be accessible to most players anyway. So what you end up with is combo marks being an "RMA treat" for wealthy (IRL or in game) players to apply en masse to a stud for like 400 GC worth of RMAs, whilst the combo marks bred intentionally (which is much more accessible to set up) are economically meaningless and an "invisible achievement", broadly speaking. Compare this to how it feels to breed a new line of het eyes on to a valuable wolf.

In general, I think the over-emphasis on generation will be damaging to the game long-term, incentivizing luck/gambling or throwing money at lucky people on the TC over planning and developing longer lines (and I say this as someone who had the first G1 pyrope stud, collects G1 merles and plans to buy a pair of category-matched NBW T3s as soon as it becomes economically viable to do so.)

Hearing that event markings are in the RMAs is upsetting. They have no business being there because they are event only markings. What's the point of trying to breed for them or grinding all week to get the applicator if you can just RMA it? Personally, I think it would be good to remove the event only markings from there. The raffle markings are fine since there's such a limited way to get them and I'd rather RMA those than breed with the raffle studs because their stats s u c k.

I think many people would be upset if combo markings were removed from RMAs. It might be better to just introduce new marking shapes or colors that are truly breed only. Maybe markings that have colors like the T3 bases? Opal markings, Mojave markings, etc. I know some people would be happy to have more diverse colored markings! Currently, the only way to make pink markings is to put white over red and lower the opacity. The removal of combo marks paired with new RMA only markings like Websteak suggested might be a good idea too.

I also agree that the over-emphasis on Generation is going to be damaging in the future. It's already damaging now because wolves can be gorgeous and then they'll be seventh or eighth gen and worth absolutely nothing. We need something to make longer gen wolves more valuable as well as inbred wolves. Most people avoid inbred wolves like they're the plague. 

I know it's never popular to take away previously available things on a sim, but I'd ask those against this suggestion to consider it from the angle of wolf bases. There's no Random Base Applicator. If one was added, would you support a RBA being able to roll a Breed-Only T2 base (Isabel, Jacinthe, Auburn, etc) as much as 10% of the time? And what about being able to roll T3 bases .5% of the time? 

Quoting @29533: "Also, this unfairly penalizes people who want to have wolves with combo marks but also want to remain low-gen, as it would make it almost impossible to get a G1 wolf with a combo marking unless you found a chased who already had it (and finding chased wolves, and especially a chased wolf who isn't just a recycled shitty NBW, is hard enough)." [post]

What about people who want to breed T3 bases and low gens? They already have to rely on chased wolves if they want a G1 that matches their goal. Anyone who wants a breed-only base color G1 needs to rely on chased wolves. Why not breed only markings as well? And people already do and will continue to chase wolves with combo markings. If you search for "Chased" in the wolf market search, you always find some pretty wolves for a wide range of price points that have nice marks and bases. Tbh, having only 1 combo color doesn't really increase the price of a Chased wolf much - if this suggestion went through, it would actually raise the value of all Chased wolves with combo markings, which imo is a good thing for free to play players because anyone can stumble on one. The extremely frustrating rate of finding rechased 1-star NBWs as Chased is something I agree should be solved, but for reasons unrelated to this suggestion.

To paint an example of how this would help higher gen wolves: let's say a casual player has a few modest T1/T2 wolves who are gens 2-4 that didn't cost too much, and maybe a nice T2 chased wolf they found on their own but it doesn't have any special markings. What can they currently do with these wolves to breed pups that have good market value? Raising them to level 15+ for high stat pups is always good, but they might not have that much free time so they'll never reach level 20s. They can try using T3 studs to get T3 pups, but they have to pay for that and gen 4+ T3s aren't worth much anymore. However, one low effort thing they can try is setting up their wolves in pair bonds with a marking slot that could produce a combo color marking. That's exactly what my first breeding goals were, cuz it sounded fun! Unfortunately, gen 3+ wolves (which is the best they can do) with combo markings aren't worth much because any G1 stud can roll combo markings from RMAs.

What we're hoping for with this suggestion is giving some actual value to the act of breeding for combo colors. Imagine if seeing one of your pups inherited a Sepia marking meant you'd actually be able to sell it for a much higher value. Imagine if instead of just matching up base colors for your best chance at valuable wolves, you could also look to match colors in the parents' slots to have a chance at combo colors to get a much more valuable pup.

Sorry I rambled, but to conclude: as Naike said, the game is still "in development", and it's clear that RMAs were not as fleshed out from day 1 as was planned. By that I mean, there's only two Tier 7 RMA-only markings which are Inuit Unders and Tamaskan Unders, and until recently there were only two Tier 2 RMA/raffle markings which are Merle and Merle Patches. It feels like it was always the plan to add more marking shapes to RMAs. The combo colors being available in RMAs for a while made RMAs worth doing, but once there are more than 4 markings to be rolling for with RMAs, the combo colors in RMAs will no longer be necessary to make them worth it.

I also fully support the compromise of making combo color markings much rarer in RMAs. I think that's good middle ground if the dev team doesn't want to handle the backlash to fully removing color combos from the rolls.