The genetics system in WolfQuest differs in its implementation across major revisions of the game.
In WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition, the game utilises a fairly complex system for wolf genetics. This system applies to adults and is tied into a number of gameplay mechanics including (but not limited to) diversity calculation, litter generation, determining pups' coats, tints, and ties into determining base disease odds (including companionship odds for assisted recovery) and more.
In WolfQuest: Classic, the genetics system is fairly simple. Adult wolves possess no calculations and litters always comprise of four pups. Pups themselves utilise a basic algorithm used to determine their coat texture and tinting at birth. Beyond this, the genetics system is not complicated.
In Legacy versions of WolfQuest, the genetics system is fairly simple. Adult wolves possess no calculations and litters always comprise of four pups. Pups themselves utilise a basic algorithm used to determine their coat texture and tinting at birth. Beyond this, the genetics system is not complicated.
K Locus[]
- See also: Genetics/Coats.
In the Anniversary Edition, K Locus is one of two known important factors used to determine a wolf's coat color between gray or black genotypes. A readout to help players identify color is indicated in the coat customization tab within the Customize Wolf interface as of 1.0.5e. An additional genome readout was added to the Bio tab in the Pack Info interface as of 1.0.8l for the player-wolf and another tab was added in 1.0.9 for the mate so that players can more easily (and independently) identify coats and genotypes.
There are three genotypes:
kk= GrayKk= BlackKK= Lethal/Fatal Black
K locus is often considered to be the core factor behind the frequency of offspring falling ill.
Which black genome a wolf receives is chosen at random, withKk generally having higher odds of being received and KK generally having much lower odds of being received. The player is able to re-roll this value for their own wolves in the Customize Wolf interface each time small gray-black tint changes or whole texture changes are made and saved. The player must then start a new game or load an existing save and check their wolf's Bio to see which K Locus their wolf has. If the player successfully rolls KK and wishes to keep it, they must not edit their wolf's coat or tint.In Classic, there are no genotypes for adult wolves. Pups do have a gene algorithm used to match their coats to their parents and/or ancestors, but the system used for it is no more complex than that.
In Legacy versions, there are no genotypes for adult wolves. Pups do have a gene algorithm used to match their coats to their parents and/or ancestors, but the system used for it is no more complex than that.
Alleles[]
The other important factor behind the Anniversary Edition's genetics system are alleles. Instead of the complex structure of real wolf genetics, the game uses a "simplified" structure consisting of 50 genes (25 allele pairs) responsible for determining:
- K Locus or coat color - gray or black (1 pair)
- Coat texture and tinting (9 pairs)
- Attributes (6 pairs)
- Personality (9 pairs)
Depiction In-game[]
- See also: Gray wolf pup/Coats.
In the Anniversary Edition, how the genotypes are depicted in-game differs based on the wolf's age.
Adult Wolves[]
In the Anniversary Edition, adult wolves' genotypes will vary depending on their base coat texture and tinting. Only the gray-black slider affects a wolf's genotype; the orange-brown slider does nothing to change it. For instance, a high-gray tinted gray coat is considered by the game to be a genetic gray coat unless tinted darkly enough to call it a genetic black coat, while all black coats will always be considered "genetic black" no matter how lightly or darkly the coat is tinted. Looks can be deceiving at first glance!
A "white" coat, light gray coat, or most coats with a predominantly gray base is almost always considered "genetic gray" with some exceptions. A gray coat that never changes from the black genotype does so because it is based on a genetic-black wolf during its elderly years as is the case for 42F "Cinderella" from the Founders set and 192M "White Wolf of Yellowstone" from the Cool Coats set among others. As of 2.0.0, some elder coats have received younger toggle-state counterparts to further help reduce confusion.
An adult wolf with theKK gene (whether it was a pup matured into adulthood or random luck during customization) will produce all-black litters. Even if they were a sickly pup grown into a playable adult, an adult wolf is always immune to diseases and presents no lingering symptoms.
Wolf Pups[]
In the Anniversary Edition, pups' genotypes are determined before birth and will influence disease resistance. The more disease-resistant, the less chance it has of falling ill. As is the nature of genetics, what pups receive is determined by the genes of the breeding pair.
A litter born to one black parent and one gray parent has a relatively even split with a 50% chance of producing gray (kk) pups and a 50% chance of producing black (Kk) pups. According to the referenced developer's blog, litters born to this pairing have the best potential for increased disease resistance and large litters provided other factors favor fertility.
A litter born to two gray parents will only produce gray (kk) pups which will mature into gray adults. Litters from this combination are less resistant to disease than pups born to a black-gray or black-black pair, and the size of the litter may be variable depending on fertility factors.
A litter born to two black parents has a 75% chance of producing black pups. There is a 25% chance of gray (kk) pups, a 50% chance of black (Kk) pups, and a 25% chance of lethal black (KK) pups. As this is a random factor, the inclusion of the lethal KK gene can reduce the size of the litter born into the pack. Litters from this pair have the highest resistance to disease but they will be more likely to produce small litters.
KK pup who survives the gestation period and is born into the world is most susceptible to disease and, in all difficulties with Pup RNG Deaths set to "None" as of 2.0.0 and newer, will be at the highest risk of their disease being fatal.In Classic, wolf pups don't appear to possess much (if any) tinting. They can only roll one out of eleven (11) possible coats, with the coat texture often matching up to one of the parents' coats.
In Legacy versions, wolf pups don't appear to possess much (if any) tinting. They can only roll one out of seven (7) possible coats, with the coat texture often matching up to one of the parents' coats.
Fertility Factors[]
In the Anniversary Edition, other fertility factors that work alongside genetics include the diversity rating of the mate, age of the parents, use of the Youthful Prowess perk, and RNG. Elder wolves are generally less fertile and will have a higher chance of producing small litters and a lower chance of producing large litters.
Technical[]
Dave Explains
In 2018, Dave posted a developer's blog titled Genes Behind the Scenes in which he discusses the workings of the K Locus in the Anniversary Edition.
| “ | ''Most of the wolf’s genome has not yet been analyzed, but in 2009, scientists discovered a gene variant that controls coat color. This got a lot of press at the time because they found that it comes from dogs, many thousands of years ago, meaning that wolves and dogs have cross-bred in the past. They named this gene variant the “k locus.” Every wolf has two copies of this gene which, using standard genetics terminology, is indicated by a small “k” for gray coats or a capital “K” for black coats. Other genes presumably affect the lightness or darkness of the coat, as well as the gray/brown tint, but these have not been discovered yet. (Genetics is expensive and there’s not a big financial payoff for sequencing the wolf genome.) Keep in mind “white” is tint of gray and is not caused by albinism. Because there have been no known albino wolves in Yellowstone there will be none in WolfQuest (we get a lot of requests for albino wolves). So the K locus determines the wolf’s coat color:
|
” |
— loboLoco
|
On May 7th 2022, Dave posted the following:
| “ | A bit more info about wolf coat genetics in the game
A quick post about the K locus in the game, now that it's exposed in the Pack Info wolf bio in the public beta for 1.0.8l. If you don't know what the K locus is, watch this devblog before reading the rest of this post. Research by Yellowstone biologists (including one of our advisors, Dan Stahler) into wolf genetics revealed that wolves with KK alleles were greatly underrepresented in the Yellowstone wolf population, presumably because KK wolves are more vulnerable to disease. Biologists don't really know when KK mortality happens -- is it mostly in utero, or when the pups are young, or sometime later before adulthood? So in the game, we spread it out, with some KK pups dying in utero (leading to smaller litters), and some being born but quite vulnerable to sickness and thus most are likely to die. However, there is some chance of KK pups surviving. In their survey of Yellowstone wolves between 1998 and 2009, biologists found this distribution: kk: 54% The game reproduces this (somewhat roughly) with pups, but also with adult wolves. We use this distribution to set the odds of dispersal wolves being kk, Kk, or KK. Furthermore, if you create a wolf with a black coat, it will have the same odds: 90% chance of being Kk and 10% chance of being KK. So your wolf can (unknowingly until now) be KK. There was a quirk in the Wolf Customization functionality: Each time you click the Modify Wolf button, these kK/KK odds were rerolled, even if you didn't change the coat or tint. We've now fixed that (in 1.0.8l beta 41), so the odds are rerolled only if you change either of those things. |
” |
—loboLoco | ||
Cited from the KK and kk, Okay! Steam Hub News post and Discord #announcements post.
Tommi Explains
Here's the full technical breakdown offered by game designer and developer Tommi Horttana in the Pupdate: Behind the Genes[1] devblog about alleles:
| “ | We made a mini-genetics system for the game. Instead of the around 20,000 (functional) genes a real wolf has, yours has 50 (25 allele pairs). They code for black vs gray (1 pair), coat selection and tinting (9 pairs), your stats (6 pairs), and personality (9 pairs). This means all these traits are inheritable to your pups! When we create your pups, we apply the Punnet Square law on each of your pups, on each of these pairs. Then we take this newly formed genome and find the right coat, the right tints, the right stats, and the right personality for everyone. Now, you may remember from school that allele pairs like this have "dominant" and "recessive" alleles. However, we only applied this to the black vs gray pair (or "K locus" as the experts call it): kk is gray while Kk, kK, and KK are all black (blackness is "dominant"). All the other genes are simply summed up with no concern for dominance, so to be very bold, your pup will need to have BB + BB + BB in the Cautious-Bold triplet. Conversely, a very cautious pup has bb + bb + bb. An average pup would have something like Bb + BB + bb. This is realistic enough for our purposes, since many genes do work in this manner. (The K locus is the only "real" gene in our genome - everything else is just a simple model we made up.) When it comes to stats, we ended up kind of accidentally representing something that comes up in genetics a lot: tradeoffs. Each of the six genes boosts one stat while reducing another. So, for example, SS would boost strength by one while reducing stamina by one, while conversely ss would reduce strength and boost stamina (and Ss would leave both alone). This means your pups will be just as balanced, stat-wise, as any new wolf you create. Unless they got unlucky and rolled KK on the K locus, which is known to be a bad combination: if that doesn’t kill the pup before birth, it has a significant impact on its health and vitality, making survival even more difficult than usual. |
” |
—Tommi Horttana | ||
Tables[]
In past Anniversary Edition developer's blogs, genetics were discussed using Punnett square tables to break down the genetics of the parents and how they are passed down to offspring.
Black (K) is a dominant gene. Gray (k) is recessive. One uppercase K is all a wolf needs to be considered genetic-black.
K |
K
| |
K |
KK Lethal Black |
KK Lethal Black |
K |
KK Lethal Black |
KK Lethal Black |
K |
K
| |
K |
KK Lethal Black |
KK Lethal Black |
k |
Kk Black |
Kk Black |
K |
K
| |
k |
Kk Black |
Kk Black |
k |
Kk Black |
Kk Black |
K |
k
| |
K |
KK Lethal Black |
Kk Black |
k |
Kk Black |
kk Gray |
K |
k
| |
k |
Kk Black |
kk Gray |
k |
Kk Black |
kk Gray |
k |
k
| |
k |
kk Gray |
kk Gray |
k |
kk Gray |
kk Gray |
Gallery[]
Anniversary Edition Gallery
Contributions for Genetics in the Anniversary Edition are welcome in this gallery!
Bugs[]
Anniversary Edition Bugs
- Prior to 2.0.0e, the game would re-roll the K Locus genotype randomization when toggling between coats with elder counterparts applied via toggle states. This affected the player toggling between states and the automatic Age 5 young-to-elder toggle. This patch is currently in the public beta branch on Steam and has not yet rolled out to everyone in the public Early Access branch. Be careful when modifying existing
KKwolves! - Prior to 2.0.0, there was a rare (25%) chance of at least one black pup being born to two gray parents.
Trivia[]
Anniversary Edition Trivia
- Whether ancestors' genetics (e.g., grandparents) are factored in or taken into account when generating pups is unknown.
- "White" wolves aren't true white; they are a light shade of gray. Genetic-black "white" coats are based on elderly wolves who were black in their youth and whitened with age the older they got.
- Gray pups are never born if at least one parent has the lethal KK gene, as their litters are guaranteed to all-black.[2]
- If both parents have the lethal KK gene, there may be a higher chance either of KK pups or of tiny litters.[citation needed] (Unconfirmed.)
- KK adults are rare. There are very low odds of encountering an NPC dispersal wolf or having a mate with the gene, and around a 25% chance of pups being born with the gene through two black parents.
- The player can randomly receive the KK gene on a wolf created or edited in the Customize Wolf interface. There is a 10% chance of receiving KK instead of Kk, making it rarer and much lower than NPCs' unknown odds and pups' 25% odds. This roll only occurs if the player-wolf is black (coat texture or tint). It can be rerolled anytime by editing the wolf.
Classic and Legacy Trivia
Changes[]
Anniversary Edition Changes
References & External Links[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cited from the wolfquest.org • Genes Behind the Scenes and wolfquest.org • Pupdate: Behind the Genes developer's blogs.
- ↑ Official WolfQuest Discord Server, message by Loach in channel
#wq-game-mediaon 24-Nov-2022. Message permalink - ↑
#bugs-glitches-and-issueschannel, Official WolfQuest Discord server - Message permalink
