Are Sick Pups More Likely to Die Now?

[ThomasBoy]

Is this just me? I recently started playing again after a long hiatus, with four previous wolves who didn't lose a single pup to illness. In the past month, I've had three different wolves who have lost exactly 1 pup to illness, no matter how much I interacted with that pup. It was with 2 "challenging" mode wolves and 1 "accurate" mode wolf, with both parenting traits.

Edit: The four previous wolves were 3 challenging, 1 accurate. I didn't mean to sound like a dumbass who went to harder difficulties and got confused why they were dying later on lol. Also, I spent more time on the ones that died that any previous one from the old four. All seven of my litters have contained 5-7 pups with four-star parents too.

[kenkelyinger01]

I think that it is just you because I just had a wolf have a sick pup and her pup fortunately healed. But here are some tips to help your sick pups survive.

1. Stay with your sick pup as long as you can. Try to spend less time away from the den as possible. I know it is hard because your territory could be bad or you can be starving, but try to stay with your pup. The more time you spend with your pup, the paw print will glow at the top left. This indicates that you are spending time with your pup and will give your pup a better chance of survival.

2. DO NOT SLEEP!! Unless it tells you to sleep, stay awake no matter how low your wakefulness is. If you sleep your sick pup will get sicker as the time passes by. However if it tells you to sleep I recommend sleeping.

I hope this helped and good luck at keeping your pups alive!!! Have fun!!!

[Anthracite]

Sickness death rates have not been altered, no. You say "interacted" with the pup; you don't need to interact with the pup to get companionship bonus, you just need to be within range of them for the pawprint to glow. Playing with them doesn't improve their odds (and in reality sick pups would need to rest, not play). Also if you were playing on easy before, pups never die of illness on easy.

Have to disagree with the above, prioritise territory and food over sick pups, especially on accurate. Sickness doesn't get worse when you sleep, it's just that you don't get the companionship bonus + time passes faster.

[kenkelyinger01]

Pups tend to get sick if their are more fleas in the den. Sick pups there is not much you can do about, however spending more time with that pup will increase their chances of survival. If you are spending time with that pup their icon at the top left will glow. Their health usually drops to 10% before they get healthy again. But it is not guaranteed that they will survive. DO NOT SLEEP!!! If you sleep, your pups health will drop faster. You can only sleep if the game tells you to or if all of your pups wakefulness is 0% and your wakefulness is 0%. Usually sick pups will lag behind (especially if you are travelling), be sleepier than normal, and even refuse to eat. They may even spend more time in the den than they normally do.

[kenkelyinger01]

Yes I agree with you Anthracite!

[Amberzerine]

Originally posted by kenkelyinger01:

Pups tend to get sick if their are more fleas in the den. Sick pups there is not much you can do about, however spending more time with that pup will increase their chances of survival. If you are spending time with that pup their icon at the top left will glow. Their health usually drops to 10% before they get healthy again. But it is not guaranteed that they will survive. DO NOT SLEEP!!! If you sleep, your pups health will drop faster. You can only sleep if the game tells you to or if all of your pups wakefulness is 0% and your wakefulness is 0%. Usually sick pups will lag behind (especially if you are travelling), be sleepier than normal, and even refuse to eat. They may even spend more time in the den than they normally do.

Pups absolutely do not get more sick if there are more fleas at the den, it is a random timer that is set as soon as they are born, as you cannot prevent it from happening to them and there seems to be no direct cause other than randomness (as far as I can tell from my years of experience playing the game and seeing the changes made to sickness over time).

As for tips on how to deal with sick pups? While I spend time with them at the den, I do prioritize making sure everyone in the pack is fed and the territory is well kept, as I play in Accurate and therefore if a pup gets sick, its chances are already pretty bad for survival.

[AbelWolf076]

Coming from a Veteran WolfQuest player who plays on Challenging/Accurate pretty often!

Pups dying from sickness will happen more on these difficulties as Easy will always be 100% recovery from sickness. Accurate is brutal, you will always lose at least one to two pups. As the wiki states...

"on Easy, survival is guaranteed (pups will never go below 10% health due to sickness). On Challenging and Accurate, recovery is not guaranteed; afflicted pups have a chance of succumbing to the undisclosed disease responsible for their illness."

Also, Amber is right about the fleas. They DO NOT make the pups more sick, I have no idea where the person stating it got that from, if anything it's misinformation as the wiki in the trivia area states...

"A common misconception is that disease is tied to flea load. While that may apply in real life, it does not apply to WolfQuest. In-game flea load does not contribute to pup illnesses.
In-game illness is tied to genetic factors."

As to how to handle sick pups? Stay at the den as much as possible and prioritize that along with keeping pups well-fed and protected. Territory starts to become second or third priority and when the pup gets sick, immediately mark territory up to 100% so you don't have to leave for any other reason.

However, this will not always work and it depends purely on luck. You will always lose at least one pup on Challenging/Accurate, sometimes two on Accurate.

If you're curious to know sleeping counts as spending time with the pup, no it doesn't. The paw indicating that specific pup will stop glowing as soon as you sleep. I suggest sleeping around when it starts to turn to night, think about having a normal human sleep cycle.

Stay awake up until it starts to turn dusk so the rest of the day is spent you spending time with the sick pup(s).

[kenkelyinger01]

How do you cure a sick wolf pup?

I know that treating a sick wolf pup in WolfQuest can be very stressful and hard, but there are ways you can work around it giving your pups a better chance at surviving. According to google, when I looked up "how to heal a sick pup in wolfquest 3", it stated,

"While one or more pups are sick, the player should keep them well-fed and spend as much time close to the sick puppy as possible; doing so is visually represented on the afflicted's health indicator, causing it to glow and steadily pulse with a yellow aura to indicate time being spent with them."

Each pup has a health indicator that glows and pulses in yellow if the pup is sick when players keep them well-fed and spend time with them. There is an invisible bubble around each wolf pup. If a pup is sick and if you enter into the wolf pup's bubble it will start to glow.

Lots of people have been wondering if sleeping helps cure the sick pups. No, it does not usually help. If you sleep, your pups health will go down lower. In my opinion I recommend sleeping when it is night or dusk so then when it is day you can spend time with your pups instead of at night when it is dark and hard to see. Usually the pups health will go down to 10% until it heals.

According to Wiki it states, "Sleeping will have no effect whatsoever on pup recovery rates."

When your pup heals it will give to the notification that says "Pup Recovered". This indicates that your pup is healthy again. However, it will take time for their health to go back up again.

It is not guaranteed that your sick pup will survive. This just gives you a guide on how to deal with a sick pup. It is purely luck.

The higher difficulty you are on, depends on your sick pups survival. For example, if you are on accurate, or possibly challenging, your pups have a greater chance of dying to sickness.

Wiki also states, "Recovery appears to be influenced by the active difficulty setting; on Easy, survival is guaranteed (pups will never go below 10% health due to sickness). On Challenging and Accurate, recovery is not guaranteed; afflicted pups have a chance of succumbing to the undisclosed disease responsible for their illness."

The amount of pups you have can also change the chances of one of them getting sick or increase/decrease their survival.

According to Wiki, it states, "Smaller litters of two or less pups will be less susceptible to sickness compared to larger litters."

Fleas must not affect the health of pups, but it does in deed make you pack more itchy and it could become more annoying.

I hope this guide helped y'all!! I hope that all of your pups survive.

[Thicket Reaper]

I've felt like more pups have been dying too, a while ago a had two accurate ironwolves get to age 8 and 10 and not a single pup died to illness.

[Kvitravn]

Sickness used to be pretty much of a non-issue but this was quite long ago (well over a year ago if not longer. IW wasn’t even a thing back then iirc) but has been changed at one point to make pups more likely to die of sickness. Unless you’re playing easy you can expect at least one pup to die of sickness each playthrough.

The only things you can do to improve the odds your pups will survive is staying close to them so their health paw glows, using the youthful prowess perk and making sure your pups have Kk genetics. Nothing else affects sickness. Play, sleep, fleas, stomach fulness all does absolutely nothing to increase or decrease the chances your pup will die. If you want to guarantee recovery you’ll have to switch to easy when their health drops dangerously low and then wait it out. You can’t get certain achievements then but hey, the pup won’t die. Not from sickness at least lol.

[ThomasBoy]

Originally posted by Kvitravn:

Sickness used to be pretty much of a non-issue but this was quite long ago (well over a year ago if not longer. IW wasn’t even a thing back then iirc) but has been changed at one point to make pups more likely to die of sickness. Unless you’re playing easy you can expect at least one pup to die of sickness each playthrough.

The only things you can do to improve the odds your pups will survive is staying close to them so their health paw glows, using the youthful prowess perk and making sure your pups have Kk genetics. Nothing else affects sickness. Play, sleep, fleas, stomach fulness all does absolutely nothing to increase or decrease the chances your pup will die. If you want to guarantee recovery you’ll have to switch to easy when their health drops dangerously low and then wait it out. You can’t get certain achievements then but hey, the pup won’t die. Not from sickness at least lol.

Yes, this is what I'm afraid happened. I feel like they changed the sleep as well, as I don't think I've ever been this stressed playing accurate wolves lol.

[ThomasBoy]

Originally posted by Thicket Reaper:

I've felt like more pups have been dying too, a while ago a had two accurate ironwolves get to age 8 and 10 and not a single pup died to illness.

This is what I'm talking about!!! Really kills my motivation to play, but I guess death is a part of life. Or "wolf life."

[crys]

Sometimes you just get unlucky but I haven't noticed any increase in puppy death from illness. It is recommended though that you keep sick pups well fed, as I'm pretty sure, it does actually help.

[Thicket Reaper]

Originally posted by ThomasBoy:

Originally posted by Thicket Reaper:

I've felt like more pups have been dying too, a while ago a had two accurate ironwolves get to age 8 and 10 and not a single pup died to illness.

This is what I'm talking about!!! Really kills my motivation to play, but I guess death is a part of life. Or "wolf life."

On the other hand it makes it feel way better when no one dies of illness.

[ThomasBoy]

Originally posted by crys:

Sometimes you just get unlucky but I haven't noticed any increase in puppy death from illness. It is recommended though that you keep sick pups well fed, as I'm pretty sure, it does actually help.

I made sure they were fully fed each time :(

[Anthracite]

Keeping them fed doesn't make any difference, unless they're in the starvation zone. It does in reality but the game doesn't go that in depth.