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Blind wolves should have (at least some) roles

Posted 2022-11-13 20:44:19
I've definitely been thinking a LOT that blind and deaf wolves should be allowed to be healers.

A blind wolf can still feel for injuries and smell (and listen), which should be enough to diagnose. Herbs have different smells so that they could still work with all the herbs. The Warriors series has a REALLY cool blind medicine cat.

A deaf cat could still see and smell. Some packs may have a form of sign language, which may not work as well in the rush of hunting, but could work for medicine work. But really as long as they can see and heal that's what matters.

Also it's not like your herbalist can do anything WITHOUT THE BEAR ANYWAY!!!! The bear double checks everything they do, so in theory they could help any blind or deaf wolves.

Slothie
#2938

Posted 2022-11-15 18:31:01 (edited)
I like the idea of them being able to be stalkers or herbalists but I think it's more immersive that they do have some restrictions on what they can do. So support for adding them some roles but not all of them, and I'd rather if the hunting was limited to stalkers only.

Flavien⭐Bouchard
#52221

Posted 2022-11-29 19:09:20
i only noticed recently just how horrible the text for blind wolves is written and can be read as. it's extremely gross and offputting to claim that bc the wolf is blind, it's basically useless and can't be used for roles or anything.

while i understand the argument of "a blind animal in the wild would surely die", this game is not tied down strictly to realism. there is magic, there are clothes, etc. and not to mention that, as humans who use these wolves and often develop characters from them, we, without realizing, humanize them. putting such a hurtful statement like " Unfortunately, she can never lead the pack, participate in training, become an apprentice or perform a role" implies that blindness = useless. it's a frequent problem irl with ableism and it's extremely hurtful. there is no right excuse for something like that to be in this game where we value the wolves we own and use them for tasks. this is a game that young folk also play, and some can easily read that and put those assumptions upon blind people irl.

i really hope developers take into consideration how hurtful this is!

ottermeal
#19430

Posted 2022-11-29 19:09:44
I feel that for herbalism that mixing the wrong medicine would be to much, they have the bear to help remember? As for forging I think that sometimes maby they bring back less herns and it takes them a but longer to mix medicine.

For hunting I think they should be limited to the stalker because its easier to keep track of an animal that way, otherwise its dangerous for a blind wolf to be on the team for all wolves involved because they cant see what their fighting.

For pupsitter I think they should only be able to gave 2 pups at a time so they cant slip away. Nothing else.
⛧𓆏Moon𓆏⛧
#49592

Posted 2022-11-30 15:56:56 (edited)
I think herbalists and MAYBE pupsitting should be allowed for blind wolves. It would make sense to make their pupsitting abilities slightly more impeded though since certain aspects of pupsitting would be difficult, like predators. Keeping puppies from hurting themselves is more or less simple enough since wolves have good hearing, but fighting off a predator is very difficult. So I think having the ability to pupsit but giving less of a bonus to the pups makes sense.

As for herbalism, they should be perfectly capable of it since every herb has a unique scent. Of course realistically speaking wolves are actually not able to smell every herb very efficiently but there's not an extensive list anywhere in the world on what wolves can and cannot smell, so it's best to assume they can smell every herb strongly for gameplay purposes. Plus as others mentioned, the bear helps herbalists anyways, so the few limitations there could theoretically be (which I really don't think there are any) could be fixed with the bear. As for diagnosis, a large portion of it is just hearing what the patient is struggling with. On the rare occasion the wolf needs sight- again- the bear is there to help. The wolf's apprentice, if it has one, can help too if it's sighted. All other times, listening, smelling, feeling, and testing would allow the wolf to succeed. Even in human society, blind people CAN and DO become doctors. And with the wolves, herbalism is essentially the same as being a doctor.

There are lots of things blind people can do, and given that the wolves in this game are in themselves people due to their intelligence, it doesn't make sense to limit them quite as much as they are limited currently. A hunting wolf... the only way I can see it helping is through tracking but it would step on sticks, be quite noisy, and serve little purpose OTHER than the tracking. So I'm going to say either no hunting, or the blind tracker debuffs the hunt and makes success less likely.


As for deaf wolves... Pupsitting should take a very minor hit since they can't hear the puppies crying if in danger, meaning if any separate from the wolf it'll struggle to keep them safe. Fighting off predators when they arrive should be easy, though noticing them soon enough can be somewhat difficult but sight and smell is still very efficient. I think deaf wolves should take either a smaller or equal hit to their capabilities in pupsitting as blind ones, but probably not a BIGGER hit.

Deaf wolves definitely could help to hunt, especially in tracking. Depending on the role a hit to the hunt's success rate would be necessary but I think a tracker would not matter whatsoever. To begin with wolves use a lot of body language. If you're stalking prey, you can't be using noise to communicate. So a tracker needs to be sneaky and the pack needs to be silent for it.

Deaf wolves should be able to take on a tracker role unimpeded. Herbalism obviously can also be done by deaf wolves, kind of a no brainer.

What you'll notice overall is that blind wolves struggle more in my opinion. In human society, being blind doesn't limit you too much in what you're capable of doing so long as you are in a good financial situation and have good people around you. But in a wolf society, it's survival of the fittest, and the smallest things can screw you over. Sight is VERY important to large predatory animals, hence their keen eyesight and forward facing eyes. Blind wolves absolutely can be useful, but most roles will either be impossible or less efficient than in the case of deaf wolves. Deaf wolves should be incapable of few things, if any, and stunted in many more. Blind wolves should be either incapable of a lot of things, or take very heavy hits to their efficiency.

Seranner
#6798

Posted 2022-11-30 22:02:57
Deaf wolves definitely could help to hunt, especially in tracking. Depending on the role a hit to the hunt's success rate would be necessary but I think a tracker would not matter whatsoever. To begin with wolves use a lot of body language. If you're stalking prey, you can't be using noise to communicate. So a tracker needs to be sneaky and the pack needs to be silent for it. ~ Seranner

I agree about Stalking, but what I think we're missing is that the Finisher doesn't need to hear the prey. When the team's run it down or cornered it all the Finisher needs to do is go in for the kill.
To achieve this: They should be able to train as an Apprentice with a specific team, then join it so that team works as a whole without a proficiency hit. If instead an adult wolf joins a team without the Apprenticeship, the team would take a huge hit because the dynamic changes until a certain period of adjustment has expired.
Especially true if the adult wolf is also new to the pack.

Celtic Ravens
#31620

Posted 2022-12-04 04:10:55
Big support

Definitely agree that blind/deaf wolves should be able to have some roles, as said before their having the ability to have no functions is rather hurtful since that gives the message "Blind/deaf people can't do anything" which isn't true in the slightest while they have obstacles they can do things that some people with hearing or sight can't do whatsoever, in 2012 in the reality show "MasterChef" a woman called Christine Ha won, Christine is blind and lost all her vision by the time she turned 28, while these are fictional animals people with these obstacles can achieve new heights, so I can't see why WD is enforcing that these mutations are a hindrance it's just very yucky and shortsighted

Again I get the notion "Oh realistically XYZ" but since this is a game with magic, demons, and a hippie bear I don't see the problem with giving these guys a few roles to actually be useful and not just be "magic medicine" fodder

🐸AngyFrog🐸
#3122

Posted 2022-12-11 15:13:20 (edited)
I keep reading this thread and got a little confused with a couple of posts, I'm not sure if I understand them clearly but I feel those don't follow up the thread.

This post mentioned that an argument of "a blind animal in the wild would surely die" had been brought up when nothing about death was mentioned in this thread. Moreover, blindness is one of very few mutations available in the game that lets a wolf live for the whole lifespan, wolves don't die for being blind here.

And the last post trying to counter an argument "Oh realistically XYZ" when this whole thread actually has used realism only to reason why blind wolves should have some roles available.

Dżanek
#24018

Posted 2022-12-18 21:55:52 (edited)
Support! I think it's also important to recognize that Wolvden, though known to strive for some sense of realism, is not at all realistic. Realistically, wolf herbalists don't exist — there's no reason to make blind wolves practically useless just for the sake of realism when there's nothing realistic to be seen in much of the site's content.
If a wolf can be green and have glowing red eyes, then a blind wolf can mix some herbs!
Also, at least with hunting, I'd venture to say they're nearly never the only wolf in the hunting party. They'd have seeing support from party members, so I think they still could be stalkers at least and still leave engaging with the prey to seeing members. And herbalists have Herbert, which I just realized others have already mentioned (woops!). Jobs not done alone mean jobs done with support.

Eulalie
#87410

Posted 2023-02-04 12:34:27
Hey there!  This has already been suggested on this topic (blindness is mentioned in the comments), so we'll be locking yours as a duplicate.  Please be sure to use the Search feature before posting a suggestion in the future to avoid duplicate topics!

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