Updates to Pack Roles

Changes in Role Mechanics!

Today we'd like to announce several changes in how roles work, hopefully to make them easier to obtain and understand, resulting in a more interesting and fun game (since really that's all we're here to do). Here's a quick break down of all the change we're going to be rolling out. This is a huge announcement, so please bear with us. Feel free to click on the individual items of the list to be taken to that part of the announcements.

• how claims work
• a comprehensive list of activities for each role
• more leader activities for demonstration claims
• removal of lookout, sentry, moved "disciplinarian" to guardian
• removal of teaching/practicing LP
• reclaiming a role in a new pack
• obtaining a role point clarification
• yearlings taking roles
• role tiers
• lone wolves

How Claims Work

Previously there was some ambiguity on what kind of context a role demonstration could take place in. Being that they are "pack" roles, some members felt that any demonstration should be related to the pack a wolf is in: i.e. healing a random lone wolf wouldn't be an acceptable demonstration of the healer pack role. Others felt that the role was independent of the pack, and that any time a wolf demonstrates healing they should be able to claim for the healer role. To help eliminate grey areas, we are officially going to use the second interpretation of the roles which means that any demonstration listed in the claimable activities portion of any role in the Pack Wolves & Pack Roles Guide will be eligible for skill LP.

A Comprehensive List of Activities for Each Role

Additionally, sometimes there was a lot of confusion about what a specific wolf could do that would be considered part of their role. For example, a hunter can clearly hunt, but what else can they do? What sorts of things can an advisor do? The previous guide to pack roles touched upon some of these things, but there were times when it was quite vague. To further alleviate any ambiguity, we have edited the Pack Wolves & Pack Roles Guide to list all the different activities you can take part in that can result in you being eligible to claim skill LP. You can see that certain roles have more activities than others, but often the roles with fewer kinds of activities also happen to have the broadest types of activities: the advisor, for example, only has three basic activities, however "advice" is a pretty broad category.

All roles were designed to have minimal overlap so that every role felt "distinct" from one another.

If there are any activities not listed that you feel should be listed, feel free to PM SoW and your suggestion will be taken under consideration. We hope this will make demonstration threads easier to participate in.

More Leader Activities for Demonstration Claims

Previously, there were only a few activities leaders could use for demonstration points. We have decided to add a few more activities based on things that only leaders can do. If you think that there should be more, again, feel free to PM SoW and we will consider your suggestion.

Removal/Changes of Certain Advanced Roles

You will see in the Pack Wolves & Pack Roles Guide that there is no "sentry" or "lookout" roles, and that "disciplinarian" has moved from the teacher section to the guardian section. The removal of sentry and lookout roles was done because we felt that the roles were fairly redundant and were already mostly encapsulated in the regular "guardian" role. Additionally, disciplinarian was moved under guardian because we felt that the role had more to do with enforcing rules than teaching them, necessarily.

If you would like to suggest other advanced roles feel free to PM SoW. Keep in mind that we will not consider adding any advanced roles that we feel would result in encouraging unrealistic behavior in wolves. Roles should encapsulate specific behaviors naturally found in wolves.

Removal of Practicing/Teaching LP

These skill points were the source of a lot of confusion for people. The original intent was for any time a wolf was learning about a role from another wolf they would be "practicing" and the wolf that was imparting the knowledge would be "teaching." However, practicing is, in a sense, just another type of "demonstration," and often the inclusion of a teacher just became an extra requirement that made this particular type of skill LP hard to claim for.

In addition, the "teaching" points ended up stealing thunder from the actual teacher role. It became completely unclear if a wolf teaching someone about a particular concept would be "teaching" points or "demonstrate role: teacher" points. Teaching was mostly relegated to story-telling, which was never our intent.

Therefor, we are removing both of these types of skill LP. From now on, you will only need to claim demonstration points. Any time your wolf is "practicing," regardless of whether or not a teacher is present, the thread will be considered a demonstration. Any time your wolf is teaching another wolf about anything they can claim demonstration points for the teacher role.

Reclaiming a Role in a New Pack

Previously, if a wolf held a role in X pack, left, and then later on joined Y pack, they would have to participate in an additional 5 threads to get their role back. Out of fairness to players, we have decided to make it easier for a wolf to get its role back when joining a new pack. Only two threads may be required to earn back a role. However, since packs can have their own requirements for obtaining a role, this number could be higher or have other stipulations about what must happen in those threads. Leaders, please update your Pack Role Masterlists to take this into account.

Obtaining a Role Clarification

Because of the change above that makes it easier to re-claim a role, we are changing the amount of times you can claim for obtaining a role. Previously, since we required wolves to do 5 threads any time they wanted a role, even when they were getting it again for a new pack, they could claim the +70 skill points for obtaining a role again. However, since it is now easier we are only allowing you to claim +70 skill points once for every role. You may still claim +70 if you obtain a new role entirely (i.e. you were a hunter, then completed 5 healing threads and became a healer instead).

Yearlings Claiming Roles

Recently, we ran into an issue where a leader went inactive and there were no eligible adult wolves either in the pack or as recruitable lone wolves. We do not want to force any pack to disband unless it does not meet the 4 adult wolf membership requirement, and so we have created a new policy that will take effect if there are no eligible adults to step up to leadership so every pack has two leaders.

In the future, we will allow yearlings to assume leadership of a pack in dire conditions only. This should only come up in cases like the one above, where there were no eligible adults within either the pack or to be recruited. Yearlings cannot start a pack or challenge up to obtain leadership. Yearlings will only be promoted after discussion with staff, and will automatically be bumped back down in rank once there is an eligible adult member in the pack.

Because we are allowing yearlings to lead in certain circumstances, we are also going to start allowing yearlings to obtain the other roles. If you have yearlings with enough thread demonstrations to obtain a role, you may now petition your leader. Packs may still choose not to give roles to yearlings if they so desire, however they will not be allowed to prevent them from stepping up to leader if the situation requires it.

Role Tiers

This is probably one of the most significant changes. We are now providing members with a means of tracking their progress towards obtaining various roles. A wolf that completes:

• 0 threads will be considered untrained
• at least 1 thread towards their role will be a novice
• at least 2 will be a competent
• 3 for a practiced
• 4 for a skilled
• and then on the 5th thread they will be awarded their role as a master, and they may claim +70 skill points for obtaining a role

Your progress will show up if you click on your wolf's Pack and Rank (it's a link now!) and it will take you to a list of the available roles and your wolf's proficiency. This will be updated by your pack's leader. (Leaders, you can update this field in the roster). The various tiers are still subject to any additional rules a pack leader has added on. Leaders should feel free to update their rules in the Masterlist (especially if any of the existing rules are in conflict with the tiers or something of the sort).

This means that you will have to notify your leader when you complete a demonstration thread that contributes towards your role. You can choose to either PM them or post in the Masterlist (please remember to tag them, though. Remember that editing in tags afterwards will not notify them with an alert).

This change allows wolves to be considered experienced in a number of roles while also working towards a particular one. For example, wolf X could be a novice healer, scout, and teacher, while being a competent guardian and a full advisor.

Lone Wolves

Given all these changes, we'd like to make it clear that lone wolves may not claim demonstration points and work towards a role. The idea behind this is that these wolves will be more focused on surviving and meeting the bare minimum as opposed to refining nonessential skills (like advising). Lone wolves will not, however, lose any progress they have made towards roles in their previous packs.

Addendum for Hunters

Realized there was also some confusion with regards to hunters. From now on, Hunters should claim demonstration points, rather than successful/unsuccessful hunt points for any hunt they participate in. Successful/unsuccessful hunt skill points will remain primarily for lone wolves. We will allow existing successful/unsuccessful hunt points to count towards progress at half cost. This means if your wolf has participated in 5 successful/unsuccessful hunts they can claim the 3rd tier for hunter. Pack hunts will be considered part of progress as long as the wolf is leading the hunt or assigning major jobs in the thread.

Could the new system possibly work retroactively? Karina completed a lot of skill threads when she was in Hearthwood River, but since she's now a lone wolf her new "Pack and Role" link shows she is completely unskilled (definitely a misrepresentation of the character).  I know that if she were still in HR, these threads would count toward her total moving forward, so it seems as if they should still benefit her as a lone wolf now as well, in the spirit of these changes. Does that make sense?  

(Oct 10, 2016, 02:32 PM)Karina Wrote:  Could the new system possibly work retroactively? Karina completed a lot of skill threads when she was in Hearthwood River, but since she's now a lone wolf her new "Pack and Role" link shows she is completely unskilled (definitely a misrepresentation of the character).  I know that if she were still in HR, these threads would count toward her total moving forward, so it seems as if they should still benefit her as a lone wolf now as well, in the spirit of these changes. Does that make sense?  

I can add the various role proficiencies for you if you PM me :)

Awesome, thank you! I really love these updates. Thanks for all your hard work!