tldr: I think its on a timer.

Hello, so I've been sick in bed playing this silly little wolf game for a few days now and the wild wolf encounter event is obviously a really rare event but I've noticed some patters.

I'll start out with saying, no I don't know the odds. I've probably had the event happen like 10+ times now and they all failed.

but some other things I have noticed is when the event happens you will get it a second time not long after.

What I've also noticed, is regardless of if you are constantly exploring and burning through events like crazy or if you just hopped on for the day and have been through a couple energy bars of exploring. It always takes at least a few hours since you're last encounter with the event.

And this makes since game balance wise.

On Lorwolf you can explore constantly, you earn back enough food while exploring to maintain said wolf's energy (and then some). There's nothing really to stop you and take a break. So this means that a player who's able to spend a lot of time exploring would experience way greater odds at not only encountering this event but eventually being successful with the event when compared to some one who can only spend a couple hours each day.

But now when you put the event on a timer and give it a bit more rare odds than the other events. Now both these players are on even footing as to how often they could possibly recruit a new wolf.

I'd also argue the event isn't actually even that rare, its just a timer making it feel that way.

sadly I haven't gone the spread sheets deep into this trying to figure it out, especially how long the timer is but I suspect its anywhere from 1-3 hours with 2 hours being my safe guess if you want to try farming this with the timer in mind. I could be totally off too and it could be closer to 4-5 hours, Ive been sick the past few days so my concept of time passing is messed up.

Another random thing about it I noticed is that my first day playing this, I never got the event. The second day I got twice right away in the morning. This kinda reinforces the timer theory too as it would discourage players from spam making accounts just to farm this encounter.

If any one wants to try farming it with the timer in mind I would recommend waiting 2-3 hours after you last got it and if you get it once keep going because you should encounter it again a second time soon after!!

If anybody happens upon this and reads it I would love to know your thoughts and experiences, Ill likely try and add updates too if we get some more solid feedback / research.

I'm not too sure on this theory, especially with my encounters yesterday. So, generally like everyone else, getting WWs has been a struggle, with me sparsely seeing them and getting like one a day. Yesterday, however, I got 3 wolves all within about an hour, with two of them being practically back-to-back encounters-wise. After those three last night, I have yet to get another yet, so it does feel more like pure RNG to me.

I like how much thought you put into this post, however, I can say with certainty it is definitely not on a timer. As far as most grinders can tell, it's mainly based on how many encounters there are in a zone (the fewer there are the higher chances it has of showing up) though it is also likely weighted to be rarer. Those that grind the campaign can get several ww encounters within an hour if they're lucky. Or none within a few hours. Rng is cruel that way.

I myself, had a ww encounter, 5 other encounters, another ww encounter, 1 other one, then three ww encounters in a row. I was shocked because I couldn't believe my luck. And one of them I did end up bringing the wolf home. I've also seen people take wolves home within minutes of each other, repeatedly. So even the successes aren't timed.

As for success rates, based on people tracking their successes/encounter ratio, the odds seem to be about 1/10. Again this can be better or worse for people because of how RNG works. It's also been stated by mods that the options to choose for these encounters is just flavor text, so there's no worry about getting the wrong answer. The encounters are predetermined when we get them.

I'm not sure if you're in the discord server or not, but this is where a lot of the info and stats come from. Because of all the testing and talk there.

I thought it was actually verified to be a 1:100 chance to get the encounter and that the success rate is not verified but seems to be 5-10% based on user-gathered data.

While I have also noticed the trend of one encounter often coming shortly after another, I just ran 30 minutes of campaigning in Goldsea's Zanthous, and encountered 8 WWs. (Though none came home)

My encounters were at minutes:

7, 8, 12, 19, 19, 21, 24, 28

The two 19s were back-to-back encounters.

Maybe there's a timer for definitely seeing the encounter, but it certainly doesn't seem to prevent it from occurring in between.

Seconding what bunnerfly says - I just got 4 failed encounters within 20 minutes.

If the WW encounters were based on a timer, then surely that would surely mean that your first encounter in the campaign every day (if you started at the same time eah day) would be a wild wolf one. That's definitely not the case.

Potentially the ‘second encounter soon after’ is based on personal bias. Yes, I have noticed this too, but our brains are built to find patterns. If I found a WW encounter within 10 minutes of the last it would still feel very recent if I'm skipping all the other encounters.

Definitely food for thought though! An interesting idea for sure.

EDIT: 27 more minutes and 5 more encounters today. AND no wild wolves :( lucky and unlucky

I don't think it's on a timer, but it's a neat theory. I find I weirdly have better luck in the evening, which would be roughly early morning server time.

I've managed to get multiple encounters within 10 minute time spans, up to about 4. I also miraculously got two WWs to join me, with only one failed encounter in between in under that amount of time. Some days I'll be grinding the explore for hours and not even get one, so it's really up to luck.

I saw in another thread that you have a 1:100 encounter chance while exploring, and then a 1:10 chance of getting the WW to join. The options are just flavor text and don't effect the outcome.