Accurate *Survival* Is Extremely Boring.

[The Moth]

TL;DR: I love WQ and I love its realism. I think the way illness is handled makes caring for sick pups extremely boring if you truly desire to do so. I'd love to see illness tweaked to either be more dependent on the players' skill in handling this disaster (like all others) or be more interesting for the sake of gameplay

Factors going in:
My wolf: Youthful prowess, Kk, strength-based
Her mate: Great personality, kk, never leaves pack due to den choice
Primary food: Beavers. I ambush them and stockpile when possible, and it all takes place on the same hex tile as our "den"
The den: A patch of grass by a very popular river, we technically had none
The territory: 2 hexes on each side of the central den hex. I stopped maintaining it later on out of conscious choice because it stopped mattering to me
The pups: 7 of them. 6 got sick, the vast majority were extremely close calls.
My primary issue: Doing nothing because I stubbornly wanted every pup to survive despite the odds, having a Kk/kk pairing
Things I learned: Pups' chance to fall ill doesn't change between difficulty settings apparently / Kk/Kk pairs are better for healthy litters / Less diversity ironically means less illness by way of less pups / RNGesus has a personal vendetta against me in this game

The original post:

Now, I thoroughly enjoy this game. It's fun alone, it's fun with friends, and it makes for some great stories. The gameplay is |*| varied and it forces me to coordinate, strategize, and take risks like no other game quite does for me. It's even pushed me to try harder difficulties, and that's been *fun*.
Easy was great for casual gameplay, and Challenging was great for, well, a challenge. I was excited to try Accurate because it felt like my sort of playstyle. Shorter, riskier hunts with more tension on the sides.
Except it wasn't.
And it's because of illness, of all things.
I think the illness mechanics sound great on paper, when I first tried the game I even thought pups didn't get sick enough (considering they're crowded together with travelling parents facing stress and cold all the time).

I started my Accurate run with a 4-star diversity mate (who has a GREAT personality) to increase the chances of my pups recovering when they, inevitably, fell ill, knowing that this would also increase my litter sizes. The increased litter size was a challenge I also *wanted* to face however, since it would make me hunt and run around more which would encourage territory marking, something I'm notoriously bad at remembering to do.
So I put my hands together and prayed for a 5-pup litter.
I got 7.
My luck, while terrible, made me determined to succeed this run. I was going to finish this with all 7 pups alive and mostly well. I stockpiled as many beavers as my health could handle at the den with my mate and marked territory that fell towards 80% so I would have some breathing room if I needed to stay at the den for a while. And for the first couple pounds, my pups were doing great. My territory was strong, my health was usually above 70%, and my pups were always well-fed. |*| At some point fleas made me really worried I was going to get stuck between a rock and a hard place, so I |*| moved my pack down to the river where I was getting the beavers to live nomadically. Then, the first illness hit. Thankfully, I was well-prepared, but sleeping would mean risking the pup's life (since it dropped quickly over that time and the benefits of being nearby didn't apply while sleeping). So, I had to wait. And wait. And wait. My territory was starting to suffer a bit when the pup finally recovered, so I took that chance, hunted a few more beavers, started marking territory, and felt refreshed by the freedom. Then, when I was finishing up a few of the last tiles, another pup got sick. So, I rushed back home and repeated the process. But the thing was, just before my second pup got better, a THIRD got sick. Then, the second got better and a fourth followed suit. Since my pups were ~8lbs there was not a moment of relief between illnesses. I have been home, not sleeping, hardly eating, never going out to mark territory. I have not gotten the opportunity to hunt, and for the vast majority of my playthrough |+| I've just been... sitting. At first it was very tense keeping an eye out for predators. And then predators became a joke. I didn't even need to bite most and just spun around growling to scare them off. Wolves were a constant presence due to my fading territory, but never a true struggle thanks to using my mate as a distraction. My biggest threat were herbivores, who decided that they COULD NOT CROSS the river unless they crossed DIRECTLY where I was. I have had several (2 cows, 1 bull) moose just stand in the water for DAYS, inching forward ever so slightly until they decided they could become aggressive towards me and my pups instead of moving 4 feet to the left. Of course, as there are no dens next to rivers as far as I'm aware, this was probably just buggy AI at work. My fault for stopping here.

I developed a formula. Sit, tab out into a browser and watch youtube, pray for a Recovered Pup jingle. Get one, feel excited, sleep for the first time in several days, and then stare in dismay as a Sick Pup jingle played in my sleep, marking the next long, long wait. Reopen youtube, rinse, repeat.

Obviously, this wait was not how the game was meant to be played, and I was hinging this playstyle on features (denless living, biting but letting go before doing damage to predators, etc) that probably weren't meant to be features. Except this *WAS* how the game was meant to be played, according to the tutorial boxes at least.

When a pup gets sick, you're told that to increase chances of it recovering you can stay with it to increase chances of recovery, which is displayed as a glowing pawprint on your HUD. But it "may just die" anyways.
So, in order to ensure the most likely survival of your pups, you *SHOULD* stay near your pups. The survival of your pack is the point of the game. And it's not like illness is a sign of weakness so you can just let the frail perish for the good of your pack either, no. I've never had a small or weak pup get sick before any of its siblings. Not in Easy, not in Challenging, and not in Accurate. So, logic follows: Stay. With. The pup.
If you don't, it's *your* fault it dies in the end. Because you didn't put the effort in to save it.

And if you don't give in and let the sick pup die of illness? You, not your wolf (although it gets it fair share too), YOU get to suffer for it. You sit and let the hours tick by, you watch your territory fade, you watch your hunger worsen. As pup after pup after pup gets sick and starts a train of decay that never seems to end.
And at the end of it all, your pup may just die anyways.

The realism in this game is commendable. I like that a lot in video games. I like the brutality and the depth it gives them. I like how the kicks hurt and make you retreat to lick your wounds and really think about the scenario you've been placed in. I like watching other creatures also contend with that reality.
But the way illness works in this game is NOT realistic. Unless my pups are all contracting sentient, genetic brain rot that moves from host-to-host to evade their immune systems. If all of my pups are to get sick (which 6/7 have as of time of writing), they should probably catch it somewhere around all at once, since they're all stuck in their disease pile together as I woof them away from predators. I don't understand why the game's RNG feels the need to do this song and dance one at a time. Perhaps so I could just pick my least favorites and let THOSE die? But what if I'm still trying to NOT kill any of my pups? And if some are supposed to, absolutely unavoidably, die, then WHY? Why is it essential for this mote of realism to shine through? Some wolves break their legs too badly to walk after falls or being attack and never recover, eventually starving to death. Sometimes those injuries make way for dangerous bacteria that kill the wolf through its weakened immune system. I don't think that's making it into the new injury update. Because it's not fair, and it's not fun. You could be the most skilled, elderly ironwolf in the land and one instance of RNG could wipe all of that. Just like in real life.

So why is it that pups' illness can do the same? Why does it not matter the skill of the wolf, the dedication of the parent, if some pups will die regardless of the amount of time you put into being there for them? Why does this mechanic require you to sit around a stagnant nest watching the same animations and chasing away the same predators when you could be hunting, exploring, and living the life of a wild wolf?
If illness is so absolute and unavoidable in the survival of your pack, why is nothing else?
You can be great at hunting, managing territory, chasing away predators, and handling disasters as your den and pack faces them. But you can't be good at illness. Illness is, in the current state of things, doing nothing and having a tiny chance of failing anyways.
In Easy you can ignore it entirely. In Challenging you know that at least it will probably pass quick enough for you to get plenty done in between bouts, or kill slowly enough to take time away from sick pups.
But in Accurate mode survival, if you really want to succeed, you never hunt, run, or live the life of a wild wolf. You probably sit and watch youtube while it plays in the background. Either that, or you feel |*| the direct responsibility of your pup's death.
It's so, terribly boring. This will be the last Accurate run I do in this patch of things, and I will save it for when Tower Fall comes. I loved the gameplay, but I hardly ever got to experience it.
And yeah, sometimes in the wild pups don't make it. It's not the parents' fault, that's just how life is. But this is a video game meant to simulate that real world, not envelop it. You don't feel the bitter cold through your computer. You don't feel the pain of preys' hooves on your arms and legs. And it's not fun |*| to sit around and fail because the world told you so. Good challenges don't mean that you'll win the game less; it means that you'll have to work harder to succeed.

TL;DR/j: Someone please tell me pup sickness is being changed in the future I've run out of rainworld let's plays to watch

UPDATE: I finished the game. All seven pups survived, the lowest having gotten to 6% health before recovering from illness. [Insert tired noise here]

Bonus Key:

• |*| - Times I stopped during typing this to chase away predators.

[💫Fable💫]

Escrito originalmente por Luna Tenebris-Flos:

Man this post is making me realize I might just have the worst luck. I've had quite a few easy runs, and I've never had more than 3 pups fall ill in them. In challenging runs I always run somewhere closer to 4 or 5, but I happen to get 6/7 on Accurate despite no apparent shift between difficulties. Ugh.

Thanks for the info though, everybody! I re-checked and my pair is Kk/kk, for some reason my brain filtered KK pups being extremely rare/thought to die before birth = more illness?? Brain issue on my end.

I was however taking care of essentials, of course, don't worry! My issue in the post was that with most other options becoming non-priorities it made the gameplay FAR less engaging. I think I agree with a lot of what cutecabaret said above, especially.

Ah, brains, not always the most useful when we need em. :'D I actually have had a litter where 6/6 got sick, so it's not just you!! and one got sick a second time. Miraculously, everyone survived. A pair of pups often got sick at one time. I think i also had Youthful Prowess. :P

[The Moth]

Escrito originalmente por 🦊Fabled_Fox🦊:

Ah, brains, not always the most useful when we need em. :'D I actually have had a litter where 6/6 got sick, so it's not just you!! and one got sick a second time. Miraculously, everyone survived. A pair of pups often got sick at one time. I think i also had Youthful Prowess. :P

I also have youthful prowess on my wolf. Guess the game saw us and chose violence. My condolences to your poor litters and your wolves' dwindling sanity.

[valintriva]

I remember my first ironwolf run (4 star mate, youthful prowess), every single one of them fell ill except the runt, you'd at least expect the runt to fall ill. My pups almost starved several times and I eventually had to turn mate permadeath off because I got attached and I couldn't keep hunting for all of them. they all survived but yeah.

[Wylloh]

I go into every run of Slough Creek expecting all of my pups to fall sick at some point, whether like a wave one-by-one or nearly all at once. From what I've heard, if you keep your sick pups separated it's supposed to help prevent your other pups from getting sick, but I've found that it only staves off the inevitable and draws out the sickness for much longer. I'd rather all of my pups get sick at once so that when it's over, it's over (for the most part). There have been times where I've had to choose whether to take care of a sick pup or the rest of the litter, due to that sick pup getting sick just after another one is healthy again. And unfortunately I can't afford to spend as much time with them as I normally do. More often than not, they pass away.

[Loach]

Escrito originalmente por Wylloh:

From what I've heard, if you keep your sick pups separated it's supposed to help prevent your other pups from getting sick, but I've found that it only staves off the inevitable and draws out the sickness for much longer.

This is not true. Sickness does not 'spread' among pups in the game.

[Wylloh]

Escrito originalmente por Loach:

This is not true. Sickness does not 'spread' among pups in the game.

Really? Interesting. From what I've experienced (and maybe read?), sickness spreads, but perhaps I'm just unlucky :P. To be honest, I wish it did actually spread -- it'd be much more predictable to deal with. But knowing that it doesn't explains at least a little bit of the weirdness around pups getting sick.

[Sightless]

Hello I thought I would give my strategy. I usually pick mates because of coats and personality so often I get 4-7 pups sick per run. My ocd also hates the fact that I lose a pup. Hope any of it helps!

Knowing the foe
A pup can get better at 78% or as low as 1% and in theory could probably get better even quicker but I have not seen it. There are what I like to call two kinds of sickness. The creep (slow and takes its time, easiest to deal with but can waste the most time), and then what I call the surge (super fast and thus time is more of an issue, often runts have this). I do not believe the sickness type has to do with genetics but I would need to record more specific data. No matter the speed of the illness the pup still has the same strength depending on its genes. Healthy genes means they're a better fighter. Spending time with them can slow the progress of the illness. I believe how it works is, or the best way to explain it, is that its an illness that trickles to a halt. It's not that your pup beats it, its that your pup lasted long enough for the numerical numbers to 'lower' (work with me) enough to 'fade' and I think this is important to register in such a way to help get you in tune with recovery times and behaviors. Also I believe once pups hit 15lbs they are better at resisting (this might be anecdotal). You should have alarm bells going off when your pup dips below 30% (that's when you really need to try to stick to em like glue).

What to do first
The minute you hear that ominous sound, wake up (interrupt your sleeping) and go hunt. Because of this I often try to sleep at half wakefulness so I have some steam left to pull some magic. Hunt probs around two elk. You should put icons in areas you encounter elk so you can have destinations to check instead of wandering around to find a scent thats downwind or too far. In the beginning of the season elk are weak so this is good. Beaver take too much time on accurate unless you dogpile them and that takes more health than you should spare. If you notice the illness is a surge/aggressive variant then try to cut corners where you can with all this preparation and get to them asap or at least until the illness slows down.

If it's later in the season, go hunt a bunch of babies and bring them back. I say 3 or 4 bodies. If you and your mate need food I recommend hunting doe mule deer that are defending their babies. They run when theyre around half health and by that point its easy to catch up with them. At this point beaver could be useful to dogpile to get quick bodies.

Territory should be marked in the beginning of the illness and then thats it. You can always remark or steal back territory later, full stomachs are far more important. If everything is around 80-90% you can ignore this. I recommend to always have at least around 17-18 hexes. Depending on how close you are to a rival pack's main hex will depend on how fast your territory will deplete so be prepared for that.

Making a choice
After doing all the grunt work, spend time with the sick pup. Once all the pups are tired send them to the den and then stay with them. I never send them in right away because if a predator comes the pups are less likely to wander out of the den and be nosy if theyre tired I've noticed. Now once all your wakefulness is gone you have to make a choice. Stay up to boost the pup. This will almost always guarantee success, to the point the game will try to off the pup multiple times later. I never have the same pup get sick twice (or thrice) unless I do this and I have some theories about it that I'm not ready to comment on yet. You put the rest of your pups at risk with this because youre fighting off all foes with no stam and will have to rely on your mate for all future hunts. When I pick this route I often put up a youtube vid on my second monitor or phone and just watch some videos and chill, checking the pups stomachs on occasion. I like to feed them around 80-70 hunger. Idk if it does anything but I like to have the pups well-fed. This can take a long time.

The safer option for your whole litter is to just sleep and keep sleeping every time youre at 0 wakefulness. It's more of a risk for the sick pup but I tend to take this when I have the perk 'youthful prowess' on. Plus I can't just focus on one pup, gotta think about the care of all of them (you bet 5 bucks I will do the other option for my fave children tho).

Edit:
Just want to say I get how its boring and unfair but I believe thats the punishment for playing the game the way it was not intended. It's true they could not make it that realistic as they have in other areas, but genetic issues are a problem with wolf pups and this game is about education. I find it important to bring awareness to the subject. I kinda wish all of this stays the same but they just speed it up so what happens in two hours takes place in like thirty minutes personally. I mean in theory it can with sleep but the player is forced not to for the possibility of being rewarded.

[пьяный дракон]

something that you could try to do to make it more interesting is challenges.

examples:

attempt to claim territory from other packs, have 25 squares of territory, always keep them above 70%.

only kill certain animals in different maps.

attempt to raise all of the pups without one dying

try to explore every part of the map

etc

this was all i could think of, my brain is very un-wrinkley. (meaning im not that smart :^)

[The Moth]

Escrito originalmente por Sightless:

Hello I thought I would give my strategy. I usually pick mates because of coats and personality so often I get 4-7 pups sick per run. My ocd also hates the fact that I lose a pup. Hope any of it helps!

Read through, and yeah, I generally agree with what you have here! I generally risk a nap when the pup first gets sick and then go off on a little hunt to bring more back to the "den". However I must add that I'm using the ambush strategy for beavers- it does a TON of damage (~150 per tick IIRC) so it made hunting beavers very efficient for me, especially since I could carry each beaver back (which means I could regularly feed my pups without leaving the sick ones and didn't need to risk enemy territory for ungulate hunts). This also meant I could hunt on as little as ~10-20 health. My wolf had youthful prowess throughout this run as well.
And I get what you mean about education, but my mate had 4-star diversity with my wolf and 6/7 of the pups got dangerously ill. It seemed a little skewed at that point. I was expecting 4-5 given circumstances but... augh. And all one after the other. I think that in real life they would all get ill in a similar block of time due to the natural contagiousness of most viral/bacterial infections in the wild. I think my little rats all got aggressive food poisoning from their pure beaver diet.

Escrito originalmente por lettucefrog:

something that you could try to do to make it more interesting is challenges.

Thank you! But my issue in this thread is regarding illness and not leaving my pups due to that illness, which created the boring grind. I'll be sure to mess around with some of these tips regardless