WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition News

[p]Bison herds are here! They're ready and waiting for you...but are you ready for them?[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]Some basics: [/p][p]* Bison herds are persistent (like elk herds). Each map has six herds, and each herd is reliably found in a particular area of each map. Like elk, they generally are in the highlands in the summer and lowlands in the winter. There are still those small groups of old bulls here and there.[/p][p]* These herds are about the size of elk herds in the game -- nowhere near the size that real herds can get. We would love to have huge herds, but we're limited by computer performance constraints. [/p][p]Bison are the most dangerous animals in Yellowstone (except, of course, for humans). They are not too impressed with wolves. Every other ungulate will flee if they think that wolves pose a threat, but not bison. They do want to protect their calves, though, so if wolves approach, they group up, forming a circle with their calves in the middle. [/p][p]So as a wolf, you need to disrupt that formation and hope to draw a calf out of the safety of that circle. The way to do that is by harassing the adults, especially the cows. If you can lure a cow bison away from the herd, then its calf will probably follow it, and that's your opportunity. You and your packmates can swarm it, trying to get in enough bites to kill it, while avoiding the hooves and horns of its mother. And, hopefully, not many other adult bison will come to the aid of the calf before you succeed.[/p][p]The emphasis there is on "packmates." Wolf biologists have found that the optimal number of wolves in an elk hunt is only four -- but it takes more than that to hunt bison. Biologists have found that optimal number of wolves when hunting bison is nine to thirteen, because you need a lot of wolves to harass the bison and spread out the damage that bison deal out. [/p][p]We've built the bison hunting gameplay on that finding, along with many other observations and insights by wolf biologists. The book "Wolves on the Hunt" has been an important source. It has dozens of observations of wolves hunting bison, which give you a new appreciation for the patience of a wolf. In most of these hunts, wolves spend most of their time just hanging around near the herd, waiting for something to happen, for some bison to wander away from the group, or to make a mistake. One thing we learned from this, then confirmed in some email correspondence with Dan Stahler, one of our advisors and the head of the Yellowstone Wolf Project, is that bison rarely flee from wolves. Not that it never happens, but it's rare, and usually brief. Bison understand their power, both individually, with their massive size and strength and their pointy horns, but also the power of the herd. They're much better off grouping up rather than fleeing. They form that circle around their calves and dare any wolf to come and bite a calf. [/p][p]So instead of a brute force attack, wolves have learned to tease and coax individual bison away from the herd in hopes of getting a calf out of that protection as well. That's the main tactic to use. But if you're patient, you can also wait. Bison have to eat, and every so often, they'll start moving along to find another grazing spot. You can hang back and watch for an opportunity then. Maybe a cow or calf will fall behind, losing the immediate protection of the herd.[/p][p]Calves in summer and fall are the wolves' primary targets in a bison herd – but almost every herd has one or two weaker adults who, due to sickness or whatever, are not thriving. They often have half or even less of the normal health of adult bison. You can identify them by their protruding ribs and pelvis -- that's the sign of an emaciated bison who, again with some help from packmates, offers a reasonably good chance of a successful kill.[/p][p]So, the bison herds are here in the new public beta for the next update, v2.0.4. It's out now on the Steam public beta branch! This update also has the new difficulty level, Unforgiving, along with Critical Hits for Adult NPC Wolves and Packmate Health display. We are still tweaking and tuning all of these new features, and we look forward to getting feedback from everyone who opts into the public beta![/p][p]See the build notes for v2.0.4, and how to opt into the public beta on Steam.[/p]

[h2]v2.0.4 - PUBLIC BETA[/h2][p] [/p][p]NOTE: Game saves are NOT backward compatible with v2.0.3d, so if you switch back to that version, any saves made with this beta will be hidden (until you switch back or until v2.0.4 is released). Multiplayer games are also NOT backward-compatible with that last patch, so you can only play with those who have this beta version. [/p][p]See instructions at bottom of this page for opting into the public beta.[/p][p][/p][h3]BETA 22[/h3][p][/p][h3]IMPROVEMENTS:[/h3][p]* Killing an adult bison boosts territory strength.[/p][p]* Foxes steer clear of bison herds.[/p][p]* Tweaked size and positioning of Packmate Health display.[/p][p]* Prevent "Hunting Bison" tutorial tip from appearing when approaching old bull bison groups.[/p][p]* Made bisons aware of carcasses longer (so they won't wander over while you're still eating).[/p][p]* Allow pups of the year to go to bison carcass even if bison are still somewhat close.[/p][p]* Added bison herd names to individual bison scent readouts.[/p][p][/p][h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3][p]* Winter/early spring bison calf is labeled "Bison cow carcass" when dead.[/p][p]* Packmates won't eat meat chunks when bison are nearby.[/p][p]* Bison sometimes fail to go help each other.[/p][p]* Sometimes bison walk into each other.[/p][p]____________________________[/p][p][/p][h3]BETA 21[/h3][p][/p][h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3][p]* Packmates walk in circle around carcass holding meat chunks, not eating.[/p][p]* Packmate won't help attack prey animal.[/p][p]* Pack Rally very hard to complete.[/p][p]* Pups often won't follow player during Move quests.[/p][p](All bad bugs introduced with in Beta 20 with new packmate sensitivity to player intentions during bison hunt, sorry!)[/p][p]* Wrong texture on bison bull carcass at maximum consumption.[/p][p]____________________________[/p][p][/p][h3]BETA 20[/h3][p][/p][h3]IMPROVEMENTS:[/h3][p]* When hunting bison, made packmates more sensitive to which bison the player is attacking, and come help.[/p][p]* Added Ctrl-N for Packmate Health to Keyboard Controls map graphic.[/p][p][/p][h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3][p]* Winter bison calf carcass says Bison Cow in scent view.[/p][p]* Fall bison calf carcass has both summer and fall coats simultaneously.[/p][p]* Some bison make surrounding grass disappear when they die.[/p][p]* Rear leg bite points on cow bison are not aligned correctly with leg.[/p][p]* Bison hair is blocky. (Apparently a shader glitch during build process, hopefully won't happen again!)[/p][p]____________________________[/p][p][/p][h3]BETA 19 [/h3][p][/p][h3]NEW: Bison Herds[/h3][p]* Six somewhat large herds of bison are found on each map.[/p][p]* Most herds have one or two emaciated adult bison, who are much weaker than healthy adults and are recognizable by their protruding ribs.[/p][p]* To hunt bison: try to disrupt the herd to isolate calves or emaciated adults from the protection of others. Best done with large packs of eight or more wolves.[/p][p]NEW: Unforgiving Difficulty Level. This is similar to Accurate, but:[/p][p]* Damage dealt to every NPC (except pups) by every NPC (including pups) is increased.[/p][p]* Modestly increases damage dealt to player's pups from competitors and prey.[/p][p]* Slows NPC wolf health regeneration.[/p][p]* Increases player's pups' food requirements.[/p][p]* Increases chance of sickness among players' pups -- but also increases chances of recovery.[/p][p]* Increases difficulty of chasing off eagle during pup raids.[/p][p]* Increases initial competitors' Fight meters a bit, and decreases their Flight meter. [/p][p]* Pup raid and hex invasion frequencies are same as in Accurate.[/p][p]* Note: Ironwolf players can switch between Accurate and Unforgiving difficulty levels at any time.[/p][p]* Note: All the Accurate achievements are also unlockable on Unforgiving.[/p][p][/p][h3]ALSO NEW:[/h3][p]* New Gameplay Option in Game Settings: Critical Hits for Adult NPC Wolves. When enabled, all NPC wolves (packmates, rivals, dispersals) have a very small chance of receiving severe (potentially fatal) damage from prey or competitors during hunts and fights. Enable this if you don't like how your packmates are invulnerable once they survive their first year.[/p][p]* New Packmate Health onscreen display: A column of pawprint icons showing the health of your packmates. Press Ctrl-N to toggle it on/off. (Remappable in Game Settings: Controls)[/p][p][/p][h3]IMPROVEMENTS:[/h3][p]* Some measures to prevent rival pack names from being reused.[/p][p]* Refinements to packmate positioning when gathering in a circle around the player.[/p][p]* Full Saga Multiplayer: Automatically update family snapshot when a client player renames a packmate.[/p][p]* Restored "You're Pregnant" notification after fixing bug which can break the game in rare circumstances in multiplayer games. [/p][p]* Added a smooth camera movement to return to default position when getting kicked off prey. (Was an abrupt snap before.)[/p][p]* Add a multi-day cooldown for rivals moving to different maps before being allowed to reemerge.[/p][p]* Adjustments to frequency of several coats.[/p][p][/p][h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3][p]* Multiplayer: Client player (but only client player) can get the achievement "Me Time" during roaming quests.[/p][p]* Multiplayer: Packmate can disappear or not acting fully as a packmate.[/p][p]* Multiplayer: Pack Rally state not saved for clients.[/p][p]* Age seven is a death sentence for many rival wolves.[/p][p]* After joining a rival pack, some pups in that pack have weight of zero pounds.[/p][p]* NPC wolves cannot eat carcass on a bridge. [/p][p]* Survival of the Pack achievement can be unlocked after joining a rival pack midway through the year.[/p][p]* Bull elk will bugle at each other but will not fight.[/p][p]* If trying to court a wolf after being rejected, the trial fails instantly because Affinity is at zero. (Now will be set to 25%.)[/p][p]* Wolves sometimes do Ferris Wheel rotation when in Photo Mode.[/p][p][/p][h3]TO GET THE BETA BUILD[/h3][p]1) In the Steam app, go to your Library, then right-click on the WolfQuest: AE name in the left column and choose Properties. 2) Then go to the Betas tab and select the WQ current Beta option in the pulldown. No password is necessary. Steam should then start downloading it. Later you can switch back to the public version in that Betas tab, by selecting NONE in that pulldown.[/p][p] [/p]

[p]One of the interesting challenges with a game like WolfQuest is that some players play the game a lot, hundreds or more hours, becoming quite skillful at the gameplay in the process. So what seemed like the ultimate difficulty level initially eventually becomes rather straightforward, lacking challenge. We've gotten quite a few requests to add a higher difficulty level to the game, and we are now working on just that.[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]First, since the Saga released late last year, it's become evident that once your pups survive their first year, they're practically invulnerable. As is your mate (unless you get some bison involved). So we're adding a new option in Gameplay Settings: Critical Hits for NPC Adult Wolves. If you switch this on, then all NPC wolves (your packmates as well as rival and dispersal wolves) have a chance of getting a critical hit -- a large, possibly fatal, amount of damage from a bite or a kick during a hunt or a fight. The odds of this are extremely low each time, but over the course of a game-year or two, they add up. This new option is optional, but if you don't like how your packmates never die, or just want some more grist for your role-playing and storytelling, it might be for you.[/p][p][/p][p]We think this is a valuable addition to the game, but it's not the same as a new difficulty level. For that, we brainstormed ideas with the team and with our private beta testers and came up with a plan. But what to call it? What's harder than Accurate? Fortunately one of our moderators and private testers, Circiinus, suggested the perfect name: Unforgiving. Life is unfair. Nature is not on your side.[/p][p][/p][p]In some respects, Unforgiving is the same as Accurate. Pup raid and hex invasion frequencies are unchanged. But we realized that Accurate difficulty did have a few gaping inconsistencies. Primarily, your wolf does more damage to NPC wolves and NPC wolves do a lot more damage to your wolf, but your packmates do not. They're still playing on Challenging difficulty, which is odd.[/p][p][/p][p]So now in Unforgiving:[/p][p]* All NPC wolves deal more damage (the same 1.5x multiplier that your wolf deals to NPC wolves) to other NPCs: wolves, other competitors. (This is still less than the player wolf takes in damage, which is the same as in Accurate). Making all NPC wolves on the same in terms of damage dealt and damage received works quite nicely to make hunts and fights feel more dangerous to your pack as a whole, and more interesting.[/p][p]* Pups take a bit more damage than at lower difficulties.[/p][p]* NPC wolves regenerate health more slowly on Unforgiving (not quite as slowly as the player-wolf, but slower than on lower difficulty levels).[/p][p]* Pups need more food to fill up. This should make pup quests, especially Growing Pups in late summer, more challenging.[/p][p]* Pups have a somewhat higher chance of getting sick -- but also a higher chance of recovering from sickness. So they're more likely to be sick during predator raids, and slow to get to safety.[/p][p]* Competitors are a bit more Fighty, and a bit less Flighty.[/p][p][/p][p]This combination of modifications has been working nicely in testing for players who want to live on the edge, with more twists and turns and ups and downs in the life of their pack.[/p][p][/p][p]One more thing: since packmates are now more vulnerable during hunts and fights, you might want to keep a closer eye on their health. We've added a new optional onscreen display, showing Packmate Health.[/p][p][/p][p]We're still testing and tweaking these new features but expect to have a new public beta ready soon, so stay tuned![/p]

[h2]2.0.3d - RELEASED 23 AUGUST 2025[/h2][p][/p][h3]CHANGED:[/h3][p]* Temporarily removed the new Pregnant! notification because in certain situations it would prevent saving in 2-Player Multiplayer games.[/p][p][/p]

[h2]2.0.3c - RELEASED 19 AUGUST 2025[/h2][p][/p][h3]BUGS FIXED:[/h3][p]* Multiplayer: Typing in chat is interrupted when a player joins or leaves the game.[/p][p]* Quest panel: The number in the circular countdown clock does not change.[/p]