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Expand Pair bonding Using Personality

Expand Pair bonding Using Personality
Posted 2022-10-27 12:23:30
Wolvden's pairbonding feature is dreadfully under utilized.
It definitely expanded breeding, and the adoption feature is great(and would be greater if not limited to the enclave system alone, though that's a different discussion entirely), but feels like a missed opportunity.
Similarly, the personality system's only function at the moment is in hunting.
It would be interesting to expand both(thus feeding two birds with one scone), by allowing overlap between them.

My suggestion is simple: I propose introducing a synergy system to pairbonding, similar to the one implemented in hunting.

Firstly, how would this system effect gameplay?

Mood: If a pair's synergy is below a certain percentage, perhaps 25%, they will both lose and extra 10% off of mood each rollover.

Pups: The higher the pair's synergy, the higher their pups stats and survival chances would be upon birth.

Breeding/adoption: If a pairbond's synergy is below a certain percentage, they may refuse to breed or adopt.

Performance: In pairs with low synergy, the wolves may have a lower chance of successfully completing a task, and/or may take longer to complete it. They could also have lower stat/experience gains from tasks.
Conversely, wolves in pairbonds with high synergy could have higher chances of completing a task, may take less time to complete it, and may get better stat/experience gains from it.

The pairbond itself: If the pair's synergy reaches 0%, they would disband automatically.

Secondly, what would cause an increase or a decrease in the pairbond's synergy?

This is where personality comes in.
Pairbonds where the wolves have contrasting personalities would have more difficulties than pairbonds with compatible personalities.

Let's say at each rollover, in the daily rollover summary, each pair bond will have a brief report. There could be negative ones(loss of synergy), neutral ones(either small gain of synergy or no gain or loss), and positive ones(gain of synergy).

Some examples (very rough, not great ones ((except the sunset one it's actually pretty cute))):

[Wolf 1] and [Wolf 2] haven't talked to each-other all day. Let's hope they can sort things out!
- 5 synergy

[Wolf 1] and [Wolf 2] shared a carcass at mealtime.
+ 5 synergy

[Wolf 1] and [Wolf 2] have made a daily ritual of watching the sunset together. How cute!
+ 10 synergy


Wolves with conflicting personalities would have a higher chance of negative interactions while wolves with complimentary personalities would have a higher chance of positive ones.

Breeding and adopting could also give a small synergy gain to the pair, while losing a pup during birth or after would result in a small decrease in synergy.

Another user also suggested a "date" or "excursion" feature for pairbonds, which I think could make an excellent chance for synergy gains or losses in a pair bond. Here's the link to that.

Finally, how difficult would this be to implement?

I'm not really qualified to say how long or how much work this could take, but I can imagine it would take a good deal.
However, I think it would be great for a more interesting experience with the pairbonding feature.

It would give the personality feature a good deal more weight in the game, seeing as it could affect another system and even impact things such as stats and survival chances in pups.

It would also add more personality to the wolves and make them feel more real, creating an enhanced sense of immersion.

Overall, that's my rough idea for a pairbond synergy system based on personality. Please feel free to add suggestions and thoughts as well as criticism. I feel pretty knowledgeable as far as wolvden's mechanics, but there could be a myriad of specifics I didn't consider.
πŸ’™ The Posh Ace πŸ€πŸπŸ’™
#70735

Posted 2022-10-28 13:44:19
I definitely like the idea of personality playing a part in pair bonding, but there are some things I somewhat disagree with. The idea of refusing to breed or adopt altogether if synergy is too low is one of them. With hunting, you can still hunt if their synergy is low, they just may be only able to hunt critter and small trails. With pair bonds right now, you already have a limit on how many bonds can breed per month and heat cycles fall in a limited window. I personally think a better idea would be to make successful breedings more difficult if synergy is low. That makes it to where you can still get puppies from a conflicting pair, but with the catch that the pair will have to spend more energy in order to get pregnant (and the puppies having lower stats and lower survival chance at birth). Doing this will cause less harm to pairs that were bonded before the change, and it will still allow somebody to have a variety of personalities/colors in their pack without having to always utilize outside studs. On adopting I can't really comment, as I don't use the enclave often.

Other than that, I think it would be an interesting thing to implement!

LittlePuppy
#2787

Posted 2022-10-28 14:43:53
@LittlePuppy Thanks for the suggestion! I think you bring up a great point.
πŸ’™ The Posh Ace πŸ€πŸπŸ’™
#70735

Posted 2022-10-28 18:08:27 (edited)
I agree with everythingΒ  @LittlePuppy said.
And I agree with you about the underutilisation of personalities at the moment, however, I feel like there's enough limitation on pair bondings as it is. Not just with heat cycles and amount of times your pairs can breed per month, but also long cooldown periods after breaking up a bond (which also happens if one mate dies). So the fact that it would "disband automatically" at 0% synergy (which I assume was the same percentage as when you first bonded them) is very undesirable. If such a feature were to be implemented, I would at least expect a warning message in the Daily Rollover Summary, encouraging the player to save the pair bond before it's too late - all of which I imagine can easily be averted if you purchase a personality changer from the personality snake.

I do like the idea of daily reports or unique activities that pairs could do once a day, which would give them a small boost in Mood/HP/Energy, especially for roleplaying purposes. After the activity, you could get a small text describing what went on (kind of like what we get after puppy lessons, which I love).
To expand on your idea of speedier and more efficient task completion, compatible pairs could do unique things, like accompanying each other on tasks, which could be done only once a day, but could speed up an activity e.g. a Herbalist's mate could accompany them while making medicine (kind of like moral support), but only once a day. (The mate may or may not get EXP, but that's a separate idea). These unique activities pairs can do may be determined in their success by synergy. The building of that synergy could have a positive effect on future pups, like increasing litter size, stats, survival.
However, there's also the question of same-sex pair bonds. Since they cannot reproduce, neither benefits from breeding boosts/penalties from synergy levels. What do you propose in that case? And what about elderly couples, where the female is unable to breed anymore?

Basically, what I'm saying is that I don't think compatibility/clashes between bonded pairs should have any passive effect on breeding, adoption or mood/energy awards/penalties per rollover. I do support the idea of mates having a more important role, via the option to do unique activities together in which their synergy does matter, but is ultimately up to the player to play with. Relationships are something you build and strengthen over time, so I think it's a great idea to implement a variation of what you're proposing. (I added my support for the link page you provided)

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#51433

Posted 2022-10-28 19:58:31
Ok! I just wanted to throw some ideas out there, but I do agree that something like what you both proposed might be better.
πŸ’™ The Posh Ace πŸ€πŸπŸ’™
#70735

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