The issue with the FR eye changes were they were introduced seven years into the game, and the initial random eye vials were a half-hearted and extremely RNG-dependent patch for the fact existing dragons wouldn't otherwise be eligible to get the new eye types. (And that not all of the new "common" eye colors actually matched the old eye color for each Flight, which had a really undesirable effect on some people's dragons.)

Giving Lorwolf a more robust breeding system this early in the game would further distinguish it from FR and also prevent exactly this problem from occurring if the devs later decide to add more benefits to bred wolves. Everyone would be used to the idea that you can get some special things only through breeding, and it won't apply to wolves that were bred or found before the update.

"In fact, I think it's that mentality of "learning from experience" that in such a new game, you know that these low ID, WWs, regardless of how bad they look, might fetch you value one day in the future, even if you aren't into WWs."

This is in fact exactly the problem. There's no real other feature in the game right now to give any intrinsic value to bred wolves, and so a lot of pet site old hands are wholesale importing FR's focus on "gen 1"s. This is going to get baked into the culture of the site fairly quickly unless it gets a huge influx of players who have no reason to value WWs more than any other wolves... Which is darned unlikely to happen. This is what people earlier in the thread are referring to as "G1 brainrot" and the fact it's already completely devalued most bred wolves is not a great sign for the future.

Further, on FR, the fact you need to let a G1 grow up and gene it before it's as pretty as it can be was some barrier to them instantly destroying the market; here, WWs are often better than bred wolves because you get them as ready-to-breed adults who already have patterns and won't run into the inbreeding restrictions. Sure, a lot of them can be horrific, but enough are being generated and people's tastes differ enough that you're almost guaranteed to be able to find or afford one that's to your tastes (unless all you want is doubles/triples or monochromes or something).

There's really no reason for G2+s to become "more normalized" in this environment unless there's other incentives to making and having them, and right now there just are not.

Eh, somewhat support.

As in, badge? Yes, I'd love that. Better stats through breeding? Sure! I'm on a site that does that... for example there are snails that can race, and you can breed for better speed stats. I like that.

Edit: Especially since this could mean there could be Lupins bred with better health stats, I heard they're squishy?

Markings/mutations being breeding only and not available to existing wolves? No support. None. Nada. I was heavily affected by the original FR eye update and I don't want to do that again. I did not enjoy my 200+ dragons, dragons I had sentimental attachment to, being left out of the update except for an item that had horrible odds and could give you the same eye type 5+ times in a row if you were unlucky, and were only available for three days. Yeah. No. I don't want to deal with that again; some of those eye types work really well lore-wise, and I was very thankful when they released actual vials. No having to boot dragons who I loved, were g1s, old, special id (in one case is a special ID + special birthday), or were bred out of other special dragons. I couldn't just replace them.

At least with markings, I'd prefer if I could give them to existing wolves. Even if they're rare/expensive, as long as I have the option, I'm good. Mutations would depend, I wouldn't mind breeding for say, albinism, since that isn't something I'm gonna want as badly on my current wolves. Some mutations would work as breeding only, but overall I prefer the option to give it to existing wolves, especially depending on when it's introduced. And yeah, we have the bracchus, which is not something you can just get, but we did know they existed upon launch, instead of being added later.

OH, edit to add something on- If we can breed for different/mixed synergies, I am all for that. Currently, no wolves can get Rogue or Primal, which can be a heavy detriment with the Hunting profession, and who knows when we'll have a new wolf breed. Plus, other synergy/ability combos would be neat. I'd looooove to mix up abilities and those could be breed only. Like Jocols bred from Jocol/Kit pairs could have a chance to have Intersect instead of one of their other abilities.

I get that the eyepocalypse was a somewhat "traumatic experience" for a lot of people (a feeling I personally don't share, I was in hiatus when it happened and when I came back I just thought it was a cool new addition to breeding that made me start the "project" of breeding all the possible eyes of my element and then buy all the special ones of all the other elements. Then the scrolls came aaaaand it was a little like a slap in the face? XD But not once I was sad or angry because I couldn't give my old dragons new special eyes, I was still happy with them while having fun with new generations of dragons), but as other people here said all the hate was probably because the addition came seven years late (and it actually changed the original color of common eyes, changing dragons without the players consent), while Lorwolf is only months old. I think we're still in time to add stuff without all the backlash and anger, if are well fought additions to actually balance the different playstiles and build a bridge between them.

What if the breeding mutations aren't something you can apply, but all the old wolves get a chance to have the recessive gene to breed it for free? Like if Albinism and Melanism were added, it would be cool if all the current active wolves have the chance to have the recessive gene rolled, so your old wolf can't be an albin, but its offspring may be.

Or just everybody get the chance to breed everything without the need of a recessive gene like in Wolvden, if you prefer to keep things more easy and accessible.

Another thing I thought to try to get everyone happy and breeding valuable is, beside melanism/albinism, what if the exclusive mutations you get trough breeding are just...variations of already existing patterns? Like "Type A" and "Type B" kind of thing?

Like you can only buy and apply "Merle Accent Type A", but breeding a wolf with Merle Accent Type A you get the chance to get a pup with "Merle Accent Type B" (with different odds if you breed two Merle A together, or even two Merle B maybe). The two patterns would be similar, but slightly different in size and position of the spots or something like that. And the same thing for all the patterns.

So us breeders wouldn't get something crazy different (aesthetically speaking, I'd still like to get something like boosted stats, different abilities and the like) from G1 only collectors, but it would at least be something to give bred wolf some value.

No support.

I would prefer if there wasn't anything that is exclusive to a certain playstyle to be able to obtain, such as markings only available through breeding. This limitation will not only make WWs unable to get them, but just... Any wolf that exists before the marking is implemented. Any wolf that is kept for sentimental reasons, ID reasons, or birth date reasons would not be able to be changed in the way players may want to, and that kind of limitation? No thank you. WWs wouldn't be the only ones affected by this...

But since the topic is WWs vs G2s, G2+ Wolves are really cool already, in my opinion? You can get wolves of certain colors much easier than just waiting for RNG to give you one (especially with the high number of colors and color slots we have), the wolves are typically cheaper so if you like to hoard pretty wolves, there you go, and it opens the door to cool lore inspirations regarding lineage and the like. I don't really understand this idea that G2s are lesser than G1s and therefore need some kind of leg up, because really it depends on the person?

I like G1s because it offers more of a challenge, it gives me more things to work towards. It's going to be more expensive because yeah, you have to play the odds at getting good colors, and then buying the markings yourself. And yeah, G1 collectors show off their wolves and there is a bit of pride in being able to work the wolf up from scratch, but I don't think that automatically makes it cooler than G2+s? Some people don't really care, and the "coolness" of it is rather subjective. I have a few G2s myself and I don't see them as lesser or anything in comparison to my G1s. They're all pretty wolves in my eyes.

That's what I like about Lorwolf. I'm able to create whatever wolf I want in whatever playstyle I want. Whether I want to breed or to beat the odds and find the wolf through RNG, I can get what I envision. And if my vision changes as new markings come out? I'm free to get my new vision as well. To restrict certain markings or even a breed behind a certain playstyle does not sit right with me, and I think that wouldn't bridge any sort of gap you may think there is between G1s and G2s, it'd only create a divide, heck it'd create a divide between older wolves and newer wolves. Which, again, some people don't care about how old a wolf is. So... It's not like the older wolf gets a fully equal treatment there either, in that scenario.

I don't think certain player's subjective takes on coolness being decided by what generation a wolf is should be a cause to give newly bred wolves such power above the rest. I know this is kind of a breeding game, but it's also a customization game. Yeah, it has a breeding component, but shouldn't the customization component be held in just as much regard?

Maybe it's because I never played FR, but I personally don't like WWs or understand why high IDs are valued. If a wolf is ugly, I don't want it and I don't want it breeding with my good looking wolves. I don't think I support exclusive markings through breeding because that sounds kind of annoying. But I like the idea of getting better stats through breeding and I was surprised that wasn't a thing. I like the generations badge idea too.

I am not surprised that the FR mentality has already heavily implemented the game, but people seem to be forgetting that FR is officially over 10 years old now; that's a huge lifetime in the world of online, and the reason old unbred dragons are worth so much, is because they are so rare... since, you know, it was designed as a breeding game so people bred their dragons lmao... The opposite is going to be true here! Old unbred dogs aren't going to be worth nearly as much, even in 10 years time, because there are still going to be so many of them.

On FR, my main focus is G1s, and I enjoy making them pretty and feeling accomplished for it. But I also love hatchery dragons, and have a few of those, too!

Here? I would absolutely love recessive and dominate genes! I think that would be so much fun!I would absolutely LOVE to be able to actively breed for certain appearances/traits that are specifically recessive, it would be so much fun! And way more interesting (to me) than manipulating the colour wheel to get 'pretty' dogs.

Alternately, you could 'weight' all the various aspects of each wolf - breed, what sex they throw as pups (IRL this is a male specific thing but ~fantasy~ -- I mean, most irl dogs aren't pink XD ), colours and patterns, combat, synergies, base combat points etc.

If making things available to WWs/Older wolves is important, toss two items in the market place: Add Weight and Subtract Weight. You can toss it on something. The 'heavier' something is, the more likely it is to be passed on to the offspring, the lighter, the less likely. Include something in their profiles that shows what they were born with, vs what they've been altered to, for the people that like a 'naturally occurring' trait vs something manipulated (eg, in FR speak: natural born primal vs vial primal). It would also be cool (to me) to add a Sprinkle Counter haha. Shame those sprinkle-holics :) :P

Generational identifying badges would be of interest to me, but mostly because I would take it as a challenge to produce a dog with the least number of generations while still being pretty, preferably while avoiding Progens XD;;

I'll say, the G1 and ID number craze is genuinely baffling to me. I never got into FR and all the pet sites I've played lacked that G1/ID obsession completely. It's odd to me to see people avoid breeding when they're playing a breeding game, and personally it's even odder to me that people demand all markings/breeds be available as "scrolls" or what-have-you so that existing wolves always have access to new looks. I've always found that to be a weird shortcut to expect, imo it takes all the challenge out of a breeding game. To each their own though, I know that everyone has had different experiences and expects different things. Of course it's fine if Lorwolf doesn't want to be a breeding game. At the end of the day, different games are made with different audiences in mind. But it does have a breeding mechanic and seems to present itself as a game based around breeding new, cool wolves.

I think it's fair enough to want Lorwolf to cater to ever single playstyle, but there's also considerations to be made there. It's an incredibly difficult thing to do, and more than likely someone will always be shafted. I think Lorwolf just needs to decide exactly what it wants to be and focus on prioritizing and encouraging that. If it's going to be a dress-up game in the same vein as FR, then go for it (though, their stance on official apparel seems to be against that). If it's going to be a breeding game, then it needs to make some changes to encourage it properly. If it's going to be a mix of the two? Then good luck, there's a lot of work to be done.

Ooookay there's a lot to unpack here, but I gotta say I dont think forcing everyone to play the game only one way is a good thing. Everyone is different, everyone has different preferences and different circumstances. Not everyone is going to play the game the same way as someone else, and they shouldn't be forced to.

If this game was supposed to be entirely about breeding and players were not supposed to hang onto any pixel pets, we wouldn't have immortal wolves or infinite breeding. Why even have a campaign/storyline with persistent characters/any lore if breeding was the entire focus? If this wasn't supposed to be a dress-up game, we wouldn't have CAs or apparel at all. The beauty of Lorwolf is that there are multiple avenues that allow a variety of playstyles to coexist- we can focus on special wolves we love for whatever reason or artificial value we place on them, or we can treat them as expendable pixels to achieve the end result we want. Lorwolf is flexible, and that's fantastic! One player can focus on breeding pairs for themed wolves, one can build a lore lair, and one can collect nothing but wolves with IDs that have repeating numbers, and all have equal access to customize OR breed for those wolves if they so choose.

The breeding discouragement is a multifacted problem, and I dont think that giving anything 'special' to gen2+ wolves is the best fix for this. Anything given to one wolf but not another, especially on grounds of artificial value that will change with time and playerbase, seems to me to be a rash move and a bandaid that will only make the perceived division not only worse, but real. You'll have punished and discouraged an entire playstyle solely for the benefit/promotion of another. As it is, a lot of the issues perceived here will probably get much better with time, once more players join and content is added.

Generation has no effect on gameplay, and it shouldn't. With the way this game is currently, breeding is an option for those who like to engage in it. WWs/progens are not any 'better' than gen2+ wolves, and gen 2+ are not 'better' than wws/progens; just as gen2s from progenitors are no more valuable than those from WWs, nor is any generation wolf more valuable than any other- they all get released for 10kp and a KBT at lvl10. All wolves are equal, and all wolves can be special for a different reason the player chooses. Giving gen2+ wolves something special is going to swing the pendulum the other direction; we'll be right back here having a suggestion to give WWs/Progens something special too, because there'll be no reason to keep/have them nor breed them, since they wont be high enough gen to get the 'special' stuff. Nevermind the outcry over existing/low gen wolves missing out on things bred/higher gen wolves would have. The inequality would definitely create a highly divisive issue moreso than what we see here, as these suggestions would force a once optional playstyle on everyone in order to progress.

Right now, I've found in my own experience that breeding is just.. well, limited due to a number of reasons (most of which are understandable, given the infancy of the site) but for me, definitely lead to frustration and discourage me from breeding:
- Very few genes. This will change with time, but right now the gene pool is very small, which makes it boring after a while. I can aim for color combos, and I do, but there's not a whole lot of variety that makes me want to breed my doggos, nor purchase any (nevermind that everything is priced for ms).
- No relation checker. I refuse to purchase wolves past gen2 at this time PURELY because I cant check without legwork and many tabs if two gen2+ wolves are related. If they're a ww or gen2, I can see that immediately. If we had a relation checker, I wouldn't even have to worry about that.
- No ability to preview a potential pair/their puppies. If I see a wolf for sale I think might pair well with one I already have and want a mate for, there's no tool to see how their range/puppies looks. I have to utilize a third party offsite resource, which only gives me a visual of their color range- not puppies- ahead of time. I have to manually and very slowly use the demo to randomly pick possibilities for a visual example. I wont chance buying a wolf I cant use.
- No ability to seek female studs. Seriously, in this day and age we're going to limit the 'stud' ability to only the males? I need females too! And I dont want to have the incredible stress and anxiety of borrowing someone else's female and having any accidents happen. Let my males 'expect' the puppies and hog a nesting den! PLEASE! **On this note, I also often find I lose track of what wolves have been bred, and I'm gonna be honest; I'd much rather the puppies were tied to the nests and both parents were somehow shown so I could keep better track. This might also make it more possible for our males to be the ones 'using' the nest so we could have female studs- I thought somewhere someone said that as it is right now, the females are what the pregnancies are tied to, which is why they couldn't stud them mechanically?? I cant remember for the life of me though, and I could be entirely wrong.**
- No ability to search for wolves. We cant look through all the wolves onsite in any way, meaning we cant find any we might need for breeding projects. There should definitely be a way for players to opt out of being searchable (an 'Invisible' mode perhaps, to not show up in searches?), but for those who are fine with it, it could allow us to find others willing to sell or breed wolves we need for projects. Which leads me to the next issue.
- No private studding. We have no way to actually safely stud arranged breedings. You chance some other player snagging the stud while using the clunky messaging system and trying to get around timezones or interruptions to your playtime thanks to real life being what it is.
- Limited uses for wolves. Right now, there's only so many ways you can even use wolves, regardless of generation. I dont need more. I dont want more. I cant afford more.

As for things I do agree with:
+ I will say as much as I've heard people harp on any kind of gen tracker, I actually really love it. I played Khimeros for a couple years and there was a whole market for 100+ generation creatures or special gen numbers that matched themes (lucky 7, unlucky 13, double number gens, highest gen full opacity color projects, infinity 8s, etc.). I personally wouldn't mind a gen tracker if it was optional to even see and did nothing to alter or give arbitrary advantage to the wolf. Just a number, no special badge or anything because again, that just leads to complaints of unfairness or difference of taste. If we just had a number, players could make badges of their own to suit them to display in the wolf's bio.
+ I also wouldn't mind if size/weight was inheritable, as that has no impact on gameplay and is purely for funsies/lore. Breeding tiny lupins or giant zerdas would be hilarious. xD Battle stats/synergies tho? ... Ehhhhhh I dont know. That opens a whole mechanical can of worms I dont even think the site can do with the way its set up? Not to mention how complicated it could get trying to find and buy a Kit for its breed synergies, only for it to have the wrong ones because it was specially bred.
+ Breeding preleveled wolves I could take or leave. It'd be nice to not have such a steep climb to level wolves by breeding maxed parents, and I suppose the pups could have some value in that? I haven't seen where levels actually made any difference in pricing though, but who knows how that might change? I'd imagine leveled wolves would be much cheaper, actually, if pups could be born leveled, so I dont know if that would really help here. Having more reasonable level grinding would probably be a better solution.
+ While I totally disagree with breeds/genes only obtainable as bred wolves, what I wouldn't be averse to would actually be genes/breed changes earned as bonus rewards for breeding. Opening a nest having a chance to reward a gene or breed change that can only be obtained from opening nests (thus, breeding) that could be sold on the FM (making it more accessible for those who dont engage in the breeding aspect/make breeders some cash) would be awesome! If that was included with the ability to breed 'mutants' of those genes, I dont think I'd mind- as long as we could opt out of our nests having mutant pups (while retaining the bonus chance for genes/breed changes). I dont want mutant genetics popping up in a pair I made specifically to produce a certain look.

As for claims of nobody purchasing/valuing gen2+ wolves, I feel like that is a bit of a misconception and a symptom of other issues that are compounding that have absolutely nothing to do with bred wolves/generation. We have limited space that's gatekept by rather steep premium currency; FTP players are not going to have the space those fortunate enough to have disposable income will, and even those players eventually reach their cap if they aren't super picky. Everyone is listing their wolves for premium currency, which is already difficult to get and doesn't go far. It's hard to breed with little to no supportive tools to plan for projects. Releasing wolves is inefficient; it takes too long, and isn't worth the energy/food used to do so, meaning wolves that breed fast forever are stacking up with nowhere to go. We cant have multiple wolves doing things like fishing or mining, but hunting takes an entire energy bar and has weird synergies preventing 100% success. We need more ways to utilize and interact with our wolves in general, especially in a passive way that gives them EXP, and we need less premium locks on basic gameplay mechanics. More ability to afford more space means more wolves bred and purchased, more balanced currency means more wolves bred and purchased, more ways to use wolves means more wolves bred and purchased- there's no simple fix, we need a lot of things changed/added to help with this, but it certainly doesn't need to involve cutting out other playstyles to elevate one.

Ultimately, players will decide what they value individually, according to their preferences, and the trends will change. The value of any wolf is totally up to the seller and the buyer, and the complaints I see most seem to be coming from a place of not being able to sell their wolves/make a profit from breeding. Is making a profit from other players the point of a breeding game, or is it the actual combination of mixing genetics to make pretty doggos that you like? If it's the former, then it's not a breeding sim, it's a market sim, and you're fighting an uphill battle against supply/demand. People are going to look for any and every reason to make their wolves uniquely 'valuable', and right now the large portion of loud/noticeable advertisement is for, of course, those WWs, IDs, and gen 2s. We haven't even hit three months being open yet- I think we need to give it some time, at least let the devs introduce more genes and breeds first.

Hadn't posted here before because I have very mixed feelings on the subject, and wasn't really sure how to put it into words. But Caribou's post above is well put, and I agree with a lot of it. More importantly though, it got me to think of some ideas that I would be okay with seeing, so now I have something constructive to contribute.

Next is the 'breeding mutation' style suggestion. Thinking on it, I've come to the conclusion that I would actually be completely okay with breeding exclusive stuff, provided there was an option to TRANSFER that feature to another wolf. Maybe dunking both wolves into the water of Mistvale lets chaos happen and there's a chance for the feature to swap wolves. Could be a good pebble sink too; maybe you have to pay a guide to lead you in safely. This lets old and wild wolves still have access to these exclusives, but still requires someone to breed them in the first place and keeps random wolves born with the feature valuable. I would actually really love random mutations if implemented this way.

And finally, the 'breeding for stats' aspect. I do think completely changing or replacing stats/synergies might be too confusing for new players and difficult to balance for devs. But thinking on it, what if you could breed in HALF of one ADDITIONAL synergy? Arena would be unaffected, and if you're buying wolves for synergies you'd always still get their base 3. For things like gauntlet and campaign, a team full of 5 wolves could only gain 2 additional synergy dots, and a typical 2 or 3 wolf team would only gain 1 max. A single wolf team wouldn't gain any. It'd theoretically be a fairly minor bonus, but might open the door for some fun combos that otherwise weren't possible. It does lead to the potential con of a meta forming and any wolves without the 'right' bonus synergy being devalued. On the flip side, the somewhat randomness of hunting requirements might still make oddball synergies useful there. This idea is a bit half baked and I'm somewhat neutral on it, but it feels like it could maybe be fun without being overpowered.