Injuries

For cosmetic injuries or deformations unrelated to this system, see Customization.

Injuries are a possible condition applied to wolves as a consequence of taking damage.

• Anniversary Edition
• Classic
• Legacy

In WolfQuest: Anniversary Edition, Injuries are a new standalone system first revealed in the developer's blog posted on April 14^th 2022. They were first released via public beta and were released in Early Access version 1.0.8l. They serve as a reminder that life as a wild wolf is not without its hardships, and will prompt players to determine whether the risks involved in a dangerous activity are worth their rewards, and may further challenge us to re-evaluate our tactics when taking damage.

“	You can get a minor injury any time, with a small penalty, and then, while you have that minor injury and before it heals, you have a chance of getting a major injury.	”
—loboLoco

All wolves — player, mate, packmates (as of their Early Access version 2.0.0 debut), and stranger wolves — can receive injuries through conflict against each other or other competitors, and through hunting. The developer has confirmed injuries cannot be acquired through fall damage, for which the physics "moonjump" bug is partly responsible. He feels it wouldn't be fair.

Pack Info will display the player-wolf's condition under the Alias tab of Your Stats with a silhouetted wolf figure and gray areas representing the legs, body, and jaw. If an injury is received, this interface will reveal the affected area — yellow-colored to represent minor and/or red-colored to represent major — as well as the attribute and physical penalties on the right side of the silhouette. Their effects will last until the injuries have healed.

An injured packmate will have this information noted in brackets next to their name in the Pack Stats panel of the Pack Info interface. This applies to the mate in single-player, whose injuries will also appear on their health meter in the lower left portion of the wolf badge, along with other packmates who are yearlings or older. Other players' conditions can viewed from each respective wolf's overview in multiplayer. Rival wolves can be injured, but visible injury was extremely rare up until becoming more common post-2.0.0.

In WolfQuest: Classic, there is no standalone injury system.

In Legacy versions of WolfQuest, there is no standalone injury system.

Minor

• Anniversary Edition
• Classic
• Legacy

In the Anniversary Edition, minor injuries have a small chance of occurring at any time during any activities where a wolf receives damage, regardless of its health. They carry small but non-life-threatening penalties. The wolf will have to compensate for these injuries until they heal. They do not have physical manifestations.

Anniversary Edition • Minor Injuries

Type	Condition	Stat Penalties	Avatar Penalties
Normal		None	None
Jaw		-1 Strength	Slower eating
Leg		-1 Speed	None
Body		-1 Stamina	None

They tend to last for 1-2 days depending on how well-maintained the player keeps their wolf's and their affected packmates' health. The mate's heart meter in the wolf badge will appear with a single slash icon.

Major

• Anniversary Edition
• Classic
• Legacy

In the Anniversary Edition, major injuries have a chance of being applied to any wolf who already has a minor injury in effect and their health is below 70% while continuing to perform strenuous activities. They carry bigger penalties than their minor counterpart and certain areas will be affected by a physical manifestation.

Anniversary Edition • Major Injuries

Type	Condition	Physical Manifestation	Stat Penalties	Avatar Penalties
Normal		None	None	None
Jaw		None	-7 Strength	Slower eating Limited stamina when carrying objects
Leg		Limp	-7 Speed	Faster stamina drain when sprinting Unable to toggle Playful Trot
Body		None	-5 Stamina	Faster stamina drain when sprinting

They tend to last for 2-4 days depending on how well-maintained the player keeps their wolf's and their affected packmates' health. The mate's heart meter in the wolf badge will appear with a three slash icon. A mate or other pack member with an injured jaw may not carry pups until its injury has healed.

Multiple

• Anniversary Edition
• Classic
• Legacy

In the Anniversary Edition, all wolves can have both injury types active together at the same time. There is a hardcoded cap for injuries, which means wolves may only possess one minor injury and one major injury at a time. Any further damage received will not grant any new injuries until one of the existing injuries has healed. For example, if a minor injury heals while a major injury is still in effect, the wolf will keep its major injury and can then receive a new minor injury.

Major injuries gained under normal circumstances are not possible without first having been dealt a minor injury. An abnormal circumstance leading to an instant major injury is gained from ankle traps exclusive to the cattle ranch activity in the expanded Lost River add-on content.

A mate who has received both a minor and a major injury will have both icons overlapping in its heart meter on the wolf badge.

Mate with a minor injury.

Mate with a major injury.

Mate with both major and minor injuries.

Healing

• Anniversary Edition
• Classic
• Legacy

In the Anniversary Edition, injuries can and will heal over time. Minor injuries will heal much faster than major injuries, and both will heal faster if the player keeps their wolf's health above 90% and avoids risky activities and dangerous encounters with other animals to maintain good health. Resting and sleeping have no direct influence on healing other than the latter accelerating time. An injury can heal anytime whether the affected wolf is awake or asleep.

As mentioned in their own respective sections, minor injuries can take anywhere between 1-2 in-game days to heal, while major injuries can take anywhere between 2-4 in-game days to heal.

While the player-wolf is injured, their mate will kill hares. If their pack is on the move, they will pick up and carry their kill until their pack comes to a halt. While their pack is stationary, they will deposit their kill near the player-wolf in a show of affection and a good will gesture to contribute towards the healing of the player-partner. This behavior is not believed to be tied to any particular personality or mix of traits; it will cease when the player's injury or injuries have healed.

When an active injury does heal, it plays its own unique jingle to give the player an auditory cue to signify that one of their wolf's injuries has run its course. The player will also be notified in single-player when a packmate’s injury has healed.

Minor injury heal notification

WQ-AE Injuries Major-Healed.png

Major injury heal notification

Audio

• Anniversary Edition
• Classic
• Legacy

In the Anniversary Edition, when a wolf receives an injury, it has a distinct yelp. It is unclear if hearing one of these yelps without receiving an injury means it is chance-based and the player did not roll an injury. When an injury is rolled, an effect is displayed along with a notification, and the corresponding sound is played all at the same time.

Anniversary Edition • Injury Audio Clips

Type	Clip
Minor
Major
Recovery

Gallery

• Anniversary Edition
• Classic
• Legacy

Anniversary Edition Gallery

Contributions for Injuries in the Anniversary Edition are welcome in this gallery!

Minor injury: Leg wound

Minor injury: Bruised jaw

Major injury: Fractured jaw

Major injury: Fractured rib

Mate suffers a minor injury

Mate suffers a major injury

Packmate suffers a minor injury

WQ-AE notifications injuries-major packmate.png

Packmate suffers a major injury

WQ-AE injuries jaw-carry.gif

Stamina drain demonstration

WQ-AE injuries jaw-eating.gif

Eating with a jaw injury demonstration

Injured left foreleg demonstration

WQ-AE injuries foreleg-left.gif

Injured right foreleg demonstration

WQ-AE injuries foreleg-right.gif

Injured left hind leg demonstration

WQ-AE injuries rearleg-left.gif

Injured right hind leg demonstration

WQ-AE injuries rearleg-right.gif

Various minor injuries in Pack Info

Various major injuries in Pack Info

Pre-Release

This gallery houses pre-release teasers and early previews. They are sampled from developer's blogs and videos posted by the developer.

Minor injury message from New Injury System (Welcome back, Limpy!)

Minor injury to the jaw

Major injury message

Major injury to the leg

Notification about a fractured leg

Injured left foreleg

Injured right hind leg

Injured right foreleg

Trivia

• Anniversary Edition
• Classic
• Legacy

Anniversary Edition Trivia

• Geo (George) Schaller came up with the idea of a tier-based injury system in the summer of 2021.
• The hardcoded restriction is a blessing from the development team. It exists to prevent miserable situations which would otherwise severely impede progress and could prevent hunting or eating under the right circumstances.
• Injury data is stored in the game map .sav file. They are independent of the .wolfsav file. This means an injury only takes effect in the game map being played; restarting, migrating, or switching to another game map will effectively remove or "insta-heal" the injury from the player-wolf.
  • Similarly, injuries received in multiplayer don't carry over to single-player or vice-versa.
  • Since its introduction, injuries would persist even after the time-skip that occurs between newborn pups and mobile pups emerging from the den for the very first time. Four weeks have passed since the pups were born, meaning those old injuries should have healed by the time the player regains control of their wolf. This was addressed in Early Access version 1.1.0d.
• This system reintroduces Limpy into the game after a long hiatus.
  • It is a temporary override available for as long as the affected wolf has a major leg injury. It is not available as a permanent customization and it will eventually heal.
• This system does not apply to pups. However, it affects yearlings and other NPC adult offspring.
• Major injuries appear to be the only way for attributes to temporarily exceed the normal -2 base value and the -3 perk and elder values.
• This system is unaffected by difficulty and will be consistent throughout all available options.
• A major jaw injury reuses the eating audio clip from Classic and Legacy versions.
• If the player-wolf is injured (particularly with a major injury), their packmates may make an effort to prioritise feeding the player-wolf before feeding itself. They may drop food at the player-wolf's feet and walk away, or walk away from carcasses, even if their own hunger is lower than that of the player-wolf's.
  • Results may or may not differ according to their personality traits.^{[citation needed]}

Changes

• Anniversary Edition
• Classic
• Legacy

Anniversary Edition Changes

• During public beta testing for 1.0.8l, the penalty for a major body injury was changed from -7 to -6 to avoid a situation where a total of -10 would grant infinite stamina. It was subsequently lowered to -5 in Early Access version 1.0.8m to include elder wolves.
• In 1.0.8l, healing reused the Pup Recovery audio clip. In Early Access version 1.0.8n, it was given its own unique sound effect.