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Either Fix Levelup RNG Or: The Stat Ceiling Is Too Low

Posted 2022-04-19 12:50:42
As someone who doesn't stat breed and is content living with maxed-power hunts in the starter biomes, I support. I didn't realize this was a thing, but it made me glad I never got into stat breeding. The only reason to not go for G1s and it apparently loses value further down the line... It's meant to be a long-term goal, is it not? To comfortably live in the hardest biomes? Then why does it get worse the longer you go on? So much work and no payout, it sounds like.

Whirligig
#11137

Posted 2022-05-01 01:38:06
Long-term breeding projects is the charm of games like WD. Making it so that breeding projects for high stats are pretty much impossible/irrelevant takes away a big reason why I (and many others) enjoy this type of games. Please make it so that we can improve our pups with every generation, year after year. Otherwise I don't really see the point of stats.
Eelai
#1355

Posted 2022-05-15 13:20:46
I used to stat-breed. I was creating my own lines from NBWs with the intent of hunting medium and large prey in the Rainforest. I was so excited when I got my first small trail, and when I'd heard about another playing finding a medium trail!
But as I watched other stat-breeders, I saw them begin hitting walls, and suddenly the effort I had been putting in felt kinda wasted. Several of these players worked harder than I did, were meticulous about their breeding and being sure to get in every hunt every day, and still they hit a wall. If they couldn't accomplish it, I certainly couldn't. And the wall was hit very early, in the grand scheme of things (usually about generation 3).
And for a game where the main draw is Make Pretty Wolves and Make High Stat Wolves over many generations, it's really weird that there's such an issue with actually accomplishing the stat part??

Chirp
#2670

Posted 2022-05-17 15:46:21 (edited)
Ive been gone for about a year, a large part of it because of how the stat breeding of this game was handled, for it was the main reason i played

When puptraining was on the horizon, i suggested that pup training affect the way stats are distributed instead of giving extra points of stats like it did in lioden because us stat breeders are in for the long game and wish for consistency and because i hypothesized even if we could not get past the stat ceiling, we could still slowly move more and more of our stat points into the stats we wished to specialise to as the generations went by and as an added bonus, it would not cause stat creep, rendering older players work invalid cause of it. Of course, there were few individuals crying out as i was then because most had not dedicated as much of their time as i had into such stat specialisation projects as i had at that point and this has not become a problem to them yet.

But as the update came nearer and nearer, it seemed increasingly clear that my cries would not be heard so i walked away from the game to pursue other ventures where my efforts would be rewarded. Coming back a year later, I see my predictions coming true, and other players are crying out and burning out the same way i did back then.

I probably was one of if not the first to encoubter medium trails at glacier/rainforest and at that point with the difficulty of obtaining the stats to see medium trails, theorized that puptraining either had to add a lot of stats or allow for much higher levels of stat allocation to reach that goal of seeing large trails there. Coming back, i see neither has been done and getting large trails is either impossible, or so improbable it may as well be

Unlike lioden, wolvdens core mechanics has been built in a way to make their stats matter far more, our creatures food security is dictated by our wolves hunting odds which is dictated by our creatures stats, the games tutorial quests tell us to 'pick a wolf with X rolls stats so it does better in the job' several times to drill in the idea that good stats are important and good

So if this is such a large part of the game why is it so badly handled? You say you all do not want us to compare this game with lioden as wolvden is supposed to be its own game and own thing, and yet here is of the biggest differences between lioden and wolvden getting shafted, getting poorly balanced mechanics that were clearly grandfathered in from lioden with little thought on how it affects the game

Just some simple balances would satiate us, we stat breeders are pretty much the easiest most loyal group of players keep because all we want are some numbers and percentages to be moved around so our work gets properly rewarded and we can spend an excruciatingly long time playing and spending our money on items such as guarana whether you give us updates or not

And if you cant think of easy fixes to this issue, here are some of ours:

1.Give us better control over how stats are allocated during level up

Building this to be part of pup training is an easy way, continue saving the pup training tab as an adult so we can see how heavily it favours certain stats

an even easier way is to make the level up stat distributions be directly proportional to the ratio of the wolves stats  eg u have 1 speed 1 strength 2 wisdom 4 smarts on your wolf, if on level up its  supposed to gain lets say 16 stat points, it should be distributed as 2 speed, 2 strength, 4 wisdom, 8 smarts with very small 1 point variations here n there

2. Increase but make the stat ceiling more gradual,  currently most of us breed for like 3 generations and we slam face first into the stat ceiling and are left with little methods to surpass it other than guarana on our leads, and even if we pass it that way, we know our next generations will not obtain the stats of their parents discouraging us from doing this as we know we get no reward for doing so

Derpy
#6646

Posted 2022-05-17 21:22:45 (edited)
@#6646 Derpy

I do agree with ya for both 1 and 2 I think if we had better system for level ups or stats ceiling being tweaked would help a lot most of my projects are litterly raise and chase breeding projects cause I gave up on stats s long time ago the fact that 1+ year of irl time passed and we still can't see large on rainforest is a little harsh especially when the highest stalker we had last I saw was 900+ combined stalker stats. Now that we can send hunts to anywhere we have unlocked I think this be a good time to have better stat system.

⛧🖤 ꫝꪖᦔꪊక𓆏 Salty Hat🕷
#1428

Posted 2022-05-18 04:27:36
I dont breed for stats, I breed for markings and Im seeing the same thing with markings.  Super bad pass rates.

Motivate people to play by offering rewards equal to effort.

Did the player earn stats?  Then let those efforts be reflected in the breeding!

Did the player work hard at leveling?  Then let that be reflected in battles! (Lvl 1 should not beat a lvl 15...ever!)

Player work hard to get marking apps or breed for markings? Actually make pass rates worth breeding!

I feel like ignoring the issues with RNG and gating so much of the game play has become very unattractive.  There isnt enough dopamine from rewards to keep players addicted.

Mustang 🐎
#3314

Posted 2022-05-27 14:28:26 (edited)
Revisiting this now that my hunters are getting old and I need to find mates for them.... I happened upon a perfect illustration of how the current system is problematic.

I was one of the fortunate bidders for one of the highest stat pups ever born, from Elismir and Ero, both over 2400 stats. As they so strongly favored strength, I thought their baby would make a finisher for the record books. After being fully trained (by Naike, since I didn't have anyone strong enough!) my beloved finisher Yzma grew up with 326-137-191-156-174=984 stats (Strength-speed-agility-wisdom-smarts). She was destined for greatness. But despite me meticulously tracking each of her hunts and putting her on pup training duty until she got her stats for the day, that didn't really happen.

*but Web, why are you complaining? She's #2 on the strength leaderboard! AND Yzma is younger than Minouri! She'll probably catch up when she's the same age.*
And indeed she is!

But hear me out:
Yzma was born with 285 strength, Minouri 270. Rye with 215. All were perfectly pup trained. But as I said before, Yzma was the best of the best at birth, from two lead wolves who spent their entire lives in the glacier in pursuit of Strength. Ero, Yzma's mother, is immortalized (in the dynasty I guess but that doesn't sound as good) with 932 strength. Let me say that again, for effect. Nine Hundred Thirty Two. Minouri's mother Ciyavi, immortalized for real (because you can't immortalize leads for some reason) had only 611.

Now perhaps I shouldn't say only six hundred eleven. That's a mighty fine number for a pack member. But stat breeders know what a huge difference 321 stats is. From data I took from my late lead Advesperascit, you earn a stat about 20% of every battle you win. And, again using more data from my boi, for the enemies that drop strength most often (bears and walruses), you get a strength about 90% of the time. So bridging that gap of 321 stats equates to about 1,783 more battles won against enemies level 15+. That's number is absolutely unfathomable, considering Advesperascit could find and win about 25 of those battles on a RO, when I was constantly logged in and exploring all day.

And even worse, the difference between the total combined strength of Rye and Yzma's parent's was 812. Eight Hundred and Twelve stats. That's more strength that any singe pack member is ever able to get in their lifetime. It equates to 13 IRL months of bonus stats (impossible) or 4,500 battles won. I know this isn't exactly equivalent and it's a bit like comparing apples to oranges due to the many other factors involved, but it's a good illustration of how absolutely bonkers Yzma's parents were and the sheer dedication, time, and guarana spent to elevate them to such crazy levels. The fact that Rye is catching up and nipping at her heels invalidates everything Naike and Ru did to get them there.

To have that completely erased by the hard stat ceiling (more of a brick wall honestly) and terrible level up RNG is a gut punch. I am looking for suitable suitors for my hunters and am very close to tossing my hands up in exasperation and saying, why bother! Because this was Yzma's stat level-up distribution vs. Rye, another long-gen finisher whose parents and grandparents also had the same role in my pack. (Minouri isn't my wolf so I don't know hers, but I am guessing it looks a lot like Rye's.)

Each time, for each level up, strength was the #1 stat. These wolves have been trained and bred to be Strong. So why did Yzma get nearly 25% more stats in Agility? We have been told that this is working as intended, but I hope this illustrates why this system is ill conceived. Why is there a difference of 46 stat points in level ups alone? Or to put it in perspective, that's nearly twice the bonus from pup training, a full month of bonus stats from hunting, or about 256 battles won.

*but Web, why are you complaining? Surely you should be happy and proud of Rye, then?*
Well, not really. Because even though I cared for this lineage for over a full IRL year, his success was only partially due to the tedium and dogged persistence of sending hunts out, all day, every day, and making sure he got his numbers. He's doing to well on the leaderboard now mostly because of his insanely lucky little green button clicks. So instead of feeling accomplished, I feel nothing. I feel like I didn't contribute much to his success, like a lottery winner who is bad with money, blows it all within a year, then goes right back to where they started.

Sure, we have a little more control over it in the form of pup training, but I think the feature was intended to be more about training pups than training adults. But. um......

that's how I use pup training, because players have so little control over stat distribution and all we can do is sit there and take it when RNG fucks us over.

Why train your leads to obscene stats when it doesn't actually matter?  When all that effort will be erased in the next generation and you'll end up no further than before? Why breed anything past gen 3 or 4 when it comes down to a coin flip as to whether or not they'll die with more stats than their parents? It's wild to me that the level up RNG swings so far in proportion to  the amount of control we have over it. Stat breeders have almost no agency in our preferred aspect of the game. Beauty breeders have marking, base, and eye apps up the wazoo, but we have absolutely nothing. For a while I thought we would at least have something to make longer generations worth... something... but that's dwindling too.

And yes, I get there should be a stat ceiling, otherwise newer players will never catch up. although not even high stat pups sell for much anymore so they could probably easily buy good ones But topping out shouldn't be achievable so soon, and when "endgame" content isn't even unlocked. My leaderboard group of hunters, including Yzma here, still hovers around a 50% chance of success on medium trails in the glacier and rainforest. Severin, currently #1 on the pack member leaderboard in both wisdom and smarts, with a total of 941, still hasn't found a large. Stat breeders like me are very rapidly running out of things to do, because there's only so many times you can shove hundreds of guarana down your lead's throat without anything to show for it before you get absolutely and utterly worn out. Stat items would help. Tweaking the formulas would help. Stats mattering more would help. I'm just feeling mega burnt out and this is contributing to it a great deal.

Zea
#27549

Posted 2022-07-17 21:33:54
It's harder and harder to get joy out of playing the game when it seems like I'm constantly fighting a losing battle with the shitty, randomized levelup RNG that half the time barely makes my wolves better at their jobs. Especially when it comes to Strength and Finishers.

I have a NBW in my den right now, Hyacinth, who I've been having train puppies to build her strength so it would be her highest stat. And it is! The levelup RNG, supposedly, favors a wolf's highest stat... which as of the time of writing is Strength. At level 3, Hyacinth's stats were 72 STR / 54 SPD / 54 AGI / 61 WIS / 57 SMT.

So if the levelup RNG favors highest stats, surely her highest gain would be strength, right?

Nope. From my user log, we can see that she gained...
Leveled up Hyacinth (#4999583) from 3 to 4. Gained +1 Max HP, +1 smarts, +2 speed, +4 wisdom, +1 agility. HP was fully refilled.


Everything except strength??? How does this make sense? Why has a levelup RNG that is supposed to prioritize the wolf's highest stat given me not even ONE point in her highest stat? I've seen this happen all the time in wolves, where a levelup favors a stat the wolf is extremely low in while giving miniscule gains towards their highest... or in this case excluding the highest stat entirely. This... isn't really encouraging to me at all. What's the point of stats if you can't control them at all, because no matter what you try you might get a levelup that doesn't even stick to Wolvden's self-proclaimed levelup RNG favoring the highest stats.

Thistle ⭐ [He/Him]
#29533

Posted 2022-07-18 03:54:13
@Thistle ⭐ [He/Him] #29533 the level up system favours the second highest stat, devs have confirmed this in the bug reports we submitted when the issue with the rng was first brought up. (Supposedly it's to balance the top two stats... why do they need balancing??) All they say is it's "working as intended"... and then a finisher doesn't even get any strength.

I'm sorry about your wolf, the system doesn't work half of the time anyway but finishers always get the worst level ups =(

Embers
#3501

Posted 2022-07-18 11:11:55
Huh. Well, thanks for letting me know that, I assumed it was the highest stat favored because that's what would be most intuitive, so I didn't know it favored the... second highest stat? That... does make it make a bit more sense that a highest stat STR wolf didn't get any strength on levelup, but... it also only cements my point that levelup RNG needs to be changed and that it's not fair how it impacts finishers. "Balancing" the top two stats only makes sense for smarts/wisdom and speed/agility, not strength... I might understand if there was any role in the game that would favor having strength in addition to another stat, but given that the only real roles strength is good for are high strength scouts (for unlocking Rainforest) and finishing, both of which favor specializing only in strength... you could argue that a scout might use high wisdom also, for Glacier, but since there are two scout slots the generally accepted strategy is to have one high WIS scout and one high STR scout. So effectively roles only really favor strength on its own. Making the second highest stat always the favored one in levelups might be fine for stalkers, herbalists, chasers, etc... but it screws over finishers and strength-focused scouts. Maybe the algorithm could be tweaked to favor the wolf's highest stat rather than second-highest if the highest stat is strength?

And unfortunately, even for chasers and stalkers on my hunting teams the levelup RNG feels like an unfulfilling gamble on whether it's actually going to put the points into their useful stats or not. It's better, because there's two, and if it favors second highest then that means their second highest is still probably one of their stats used... but it's still not great.

Thistle ⭐ [He/Him]
#29533