The WolfQuest Saga is now released!
The most important thing: Treat the Saga like it's a new game! While much of the game is the same, the Saga brings many changer to existing gameplay and features, along with the new Saga quests and gameplay. Don't assume that everything works exactly how it did before. Please peruse the Game Help (now available in the main menu of the game), especially the new About the Saga section. It's pretty long, but if you're wondering if something you're seeing in the game is a bug or intentional, that's a good place to check. The Game Help is also much improved in general, with better entries about various gameplay features.
Similarly, even if you have logged hundreds of hours logged in the game, be sure to enable Tutorials and Common Notifications in Game Settings, as those will give you important information when you reach something that's new or different.
SOME TIPS
* You really want to prioritize your wolf's health. Without good health, everything else becomes much harder, including keeping your pups and packmates alive and healthy.
* Your yearlings and subordinates are not duplicates of your mate. They won't help much with marking territory (that's the job of the pack leaders). They will help hunt, but if they see enough other wolves taking on the risks, they're happy to freeride and get an easy meal without taking damage.
* Your packmates will eat regurgitant if they're hungry, but they'll wait until the pups of the year have mostly filled up. They're pretty polite about that, but not totally polite.
* Sickness and low health is extra dangerous for pups now. Sick pups move slowly, as do pups with low health -- they're not speedy if you woof them into the den during a pup raid, and can be picked off by predators more easily.
* Don't expect all of your pups to survive, even on Easy difficulty. That's not the way of the wild.
* You can load a saved game in Loaf at Rendezvous Site or Endless Summer quests and carry on into the Saga quests -- but it's not a bad idea to start a new game to try out the Saga, and we don't recommend playing on Accurate difficulty this first time either. (And if you do, expect that things can get hairy.)
FEATURE CHANGES AND ADDITIONS
General
• New IK system for better foot placement on terrain. (Phase 1 completed, more improvements to come in future.)
• Some whiter coats now have young versions of their coats. These are toggleable in customization menu.
Menus
• New “Pup RNG Death” option in Game Settings. This controls random (RNG=Random Number Generator) deaths for pups. These settings only affect future litters, not the current pups of the year. There are three choices with this setting:
-All Types: Pups can die of sickness and can also possibly get lost and meet unknown fates. Maximum litter size on this setting is seven.
-Sickness Only: Pups can die of sickness but not unknown fates. Maximum litter size is six.
-None: Pups cannot die of sickness or unknown fates. Maximum litter size is five.
• New double-pawprint icon in pack stats for packmates about to leave on excursion.
• New single-pawprint icon in pack stats for packmates who are on an excursion away from the homesite.
Packmates
• Affinity is now gained by eating together, rather than killing together. Applies to all packmates.
• Mates and other packmates have their own opinion about whether to join player on excursions.
• When woofing at a packmate to tell to go home, you must target them before woofing.
• Pack Rally added to Single-Player. Just before starting an elk hunt (and when with packmates away from homesite), start a pack rally by howling twice. This will boost everyone's stamina and also prevent younger packmates from getting distracted and falling behind the leaders during the hunt.
• To complete the Loaf at Rendezvous Site quest, pups must grow to 25 pounds instead of 20 pounds.
• Playbow at packmates and then run to invite them to chase you.
Pup Sickness
• Companionship now has a cooldown after two game-hours.
• Sickness is now in effect on ALL difficulties.
• Pups now are visibly weaker when they are sick or low on health or food.
Prey
• Mothers of newborn ungulates may now flee from you, even if you haven’t found their baby.
• Elk mothers may now abandon their calves to stay with the herd.
• Beaver population depletes from overhunting. They recover as time passes.
Predators
• Predators can now startle pups out of tall grass.
• Growling repeatedly at predators has diminished effects on Flee meter. Damage them to reset it (prove you aren’t all bark and no bite).
• All wolves can now sustain major injuries.
• Predators can’t be lured as far from a carcass during carcass disputes.
Territory
Rival packs only have home sites in the same seasons the player does.
• Territory now has 4 strength levels:
-Recent [80-100%, 2 rings)
-Strong (51-79%, 1 ring)
-Fair (25-50%, no ring)
-Weak (1-25%, hatching)
Achievements
• "Soulmates" achievement will only unlock with new games started in the Saga. (If you have a wolf who has already gotten a mate before the Saga, that won't unlock this achievement when reaching age 8.)
Age Perks
• Youthful Prowess: no longer provides recovery boost for pup sickness.
• Fun Parent: no longer removes social cooldown, just extends it.
• Elder Authority: reduces but doesn't completely prevent pups from emerging from den or grass during pup raids.
Emotes
• To send packmate home: target them and Woof.
• During Younger Hunter quest, tll low-health pups to back off during hunts and fights: get close to them and Woof. All within 4 meters of your wolf with low health should obey.
• Playbow: Playbow at packmates and run away to invite them to play chase with you.
• Playful Trot: Toggle on/off with B key (for "bouncy"). Player-wolf also does "chase invite" version of playbow when in this mode.
Achievements
• Survival of the Pack Achievements now requires completion of Young Hunters, not Loaf Quest.
• Iron Mom & Iron Dad: now require completion of Young Hunters, not Loaf Quest.
• Bad Parent Achievement renamed to "Sad Parent," since hunger is a bigger threat and not always preventable.
• Eighteen new achievements, distributed among various sections of the Achievements panel.
MULTIPLAYER
• The Saga has not come to multiplayer yet. We have some plans for it and will focus on those after the Saga is released.
GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS
• Substantially reduced struggle damage dealt to wolves by grizzlies.
• Elk herds will wander much shorter distances from their seasonal homes (so should remain decently distributed across the map -- more in highlands in summer, and more in lowlands in winter.
• Increased territory decay when pack has disbanded.
• Added toggle in Game Settings: Show Quest Intros. When disabled, only a brief non-pausing quest title is displayed at the start of each quest.
• Reduced odds of player-wolf and mate death during each sleep after reaching age 8 (to have better chance of living another year or so).
• All pups are marked as "experienced" after finishing Young Hunters, so they skip Learn to Hunt when made into playable wolves.
• Family Tree snapshots are now non-pausing corner notifications (unless there is a conflicting newer snapshot that would be overwritten.)
• Some refinement to rival wolf behavior: they won't hunt in rival territory, they'll hurry when moving through rival territory
• Prevent longer roaming music tracks from looping.
• Improvements to urine stream positioning and appearance.
• In Family Tree, use wolf's number-name as nickname if it has no nickname.
• Made wolf eating animations more consistent (shorter animation when eating regurgitant or in a fight, longer animation when eating raw meat).
• Player-wolf can now drop objects when moving.
• Added FT snapshots at beginning and end of Raise Pups.
• Optimized wolf spawning to reduce or eliminate spikes when rival wolves spawn.
• AI: Made wolves less likely to initiate social exchanges when they have their mouth full.
• Adjusted litter sizes so they can a bit larger than previously at each diversity rating.
• Coyotes and foxes will be a bit less bold against multiple wolves.
• In family tree, pup name+number now shown under preview image.
• New logic for courtship attraction: now dispersal flocks are more proactive in seeking out non-dispersal packs (including player-pack).
• Hellroaring: Wolves act startled when they hear rifle shots north of the Hellroaring border.
• Wolves can die now from starvation (even when health is not zero).
• Two more entries for territory hex colors (might be needed in certain scenarios with pups dispersing).
• Territory quality is divided into four levels (1-24%, 25-49%, 50-79%, and 80-100%). Each has a different icon on the territory map. Rival packs treat all hexes that are 50% or stronger as the same in terms of pup raids and hex invasions. And Hex Percentage toggle is 3-way now: None, Current hex, All hexes.
• Reduced chances of mother elk losing track of calves.
• Family Tree now displays the text about the fate of a pack after the player-wolf dies (if the player did not do pack succession).
• In Pack Info, new pawprint icon next to packmate name indicates if they've decided to go on an excursion but haven't left yet.
• Changed name of Bad Parent achievement to Sad Parent.
• Added a cooldown period to Companionship: Doing companionship speeds up recovery, but you can only do it for two game-hours per game-day (so now very similar to the emote cooldown).
• The whitest wolf coats will have a "young" alternative version. All NPC wolves will get the younger version automatically when they're 4 months old, and will change to the original/older/whiter version when they turn age 5. In Wolf Customization, players can choose either version and switch to the other version at any time to represent the aging of that wolf.
• When pups (from May through September) get sick or very low on health or hunger, they act more obviously weak: Moving slowly, not romping around. Slow and painful when standing up and walking.
Music: "Wild and Free" music track is now the quest music when playing as a dispersed pup. (Previously was when escaping from a wolf fight.)
• Pups can be spooked out of tall grass patches when raiding competitors come close to the grass.
• Competitors should only run a short distance when you try to lure them away from a carcass.
• Made the Original Black coat to be genetically black regardless of tint, to avoid confusion about it.
Lost River: Ranch herd now includes yearlings: Lots of meat but less health than full-grown adult cattle.
Lost River: Ranch cattle now wander periodically. Watch and wait for one calf or yearling to drift away from the group.
GENERAL BUGS FIXED
• When courting a pack wolf, siblings instantly become hostile at end of courtship.
• Various minor issues with terrain, water, and dens.
• Occasional invisible obstacles on some maps.
• Hellroaring and Lost River: Early Spring and Fall seasons have green grass on Basic Sky & Veg mode.
• On World Map, rendezvous sites are shown by default rather than respecting previous user action.
• Slough Creek: No bull elk herds spawn in fall season.
• Hellroaring: Shot in body causes leg limp.
• Hellroaring: A few areas have low-resolution texture splotches.
• Lost River: One house starts celebrating Christmas season way too early.
• Many other minor things.