Why are there trade limitations?

Why are we only allowed to pursue 2 trades for each character? Personally, I'm having a hard time on deciding exactly which two fit my character the best, and I think it would be really nice/motivational to be able to earn every trade... y'know, as long as it was realistically done; Some characters don't have the "personality" of Caregivers or Scouts. And trades are more for personal character gain rather than for making them "better" or more powerful than others. Trades don't seem to account for anything in fights, so I largely think it would be fair to allow more than two.

As further suggestion to go with my idea, trade icons should be centered beneath our avatars, and when you hover over them you could see what specialties (if any) a wolf has in that trade. That would eliminate the need for two icons in each trade -- I'm guessing the larger ones are for those that have achieved a mastery level. Mastery requirements should change too. For example, 5 to 10 threads demonstrating EACH specialty would make you a "master" of that trade, and instead of listing 1 or 2 specialties when you hover, it would just say "Mastered" or something to indicate that all specialties have been earned within that trade.

OR, when you hover, you can see how advanced they are in said trade. For example, a Novice would have 0-1 specialties, and for a Hunter it would say something like "NOVICE: Fisher". And for 2-3 specialties -- depending on the trade -- they would be Intermediate (i.e. "INTERMEDIATE: Fisher, Birdcatcher") and a MASTER would of course, have all specialties listed. HOPE I'M NOT BEING TOO CONFUSING. 

I just think it would be cool to be able to build up a single character as thoroughly (or not) as one wishes.

It's for diversity in a pack and between characters. It's not a lot of fun having two characters with the same trade, or having six Hunters in a pack which makes your trade feel less important, etc.

We don't use hovers because many users are on our site mobilely and hovers don't work so well there, but I think @Dante has the most to say about that since she coded it!

I'm not opposed to this, I do think it would end up messy and hard to keep track of in the end, though. Personally I wouldn't pursue every single trade or every specialty even if I had the opportunity! It's just too much for me. On a personal level I also just don't like the idea of a character being able to master or even pursue everything, just because it is impossible to be good at everything, but that is only my opinion.

Ah, I see! Except, not so much for diversity reasons because most of  the characters I see with trades are either Mercenaries or Hunters or Scouts. I don't think it would necessarily make someone feel less important being in a multitude of Hunters or the like either, because (realistically) all wolves should be able to hunt, fight, instinctively predict weather anyway. It's more of a matter of if you (the player) wants to spend time advancing the personal (specialty) affects of your character.

 I, personally, wouldn't seek them all either. But there are at least three categories into which I can fit Diane, and I was just frustrating myself trying to do eeny-meeny-miney-moe and not feeling satisfied with what I landed on lol

As for impossibility, I think we all know our own characters and should be able to accurately gauge what they would and wouldn't be good at. Like, I don't see Farstep being a Counselor, but he could definitely be a Novice Caregiver by pupsitting or the like. Except, he wouldn't be able to pursue this trade (even if you did threads relating to pupsitting) since he's already a Guardian and Scout, you see.

I just think you should be able to earn trades through IC demonstration and not be limited to what you can actually achieve in that manner.

Personally I like the two, though mainly for selfish ease of layout purposes ^^.  Like Chels said, I avoid hover whenever physically possible because I am a mainly mobile user and I know others are too! And hover is unreadable on most touch screens.  Laying out the trade/specialty combos is a huge challenge and what we have currently is workable, but it was challenging even with two lol!

That being said, I'm not completely against it and wouldn't shoot it down entirely for that reason haha! :). Trades are supposed to be super specialized skills however.  Every wolf can hunt, and every wolf can fight, so it's a skill level above to hold the mercenary or hunter trade.  They are the best of the best and practice often.  It isn't just something you achieve and bam, done.  

So realistically I see two being a good number.  That's just opinion! And if people disagree I don't mind looking at changing it :)

The trade system was discussed a while back with the community, and this current system was what was decided on. I am not keen to change it again so soon.

The suggestion to earn a mastery by earning each specialty is interesting, but not wholly functional. Some trade specialties have nothing to do with one another, and some trades have more specialties than others. It would work well for a trade like Hunter, but not for a trade like Naturalist because a character that is a geologist is not necessarily going to be a toxicologist. Meanwhile, to earn Hunter mastery would require many more threads than to earn Mercenary mastery.

Part of the reason the trades were broken down is because it is far less interesting to have two characters that are hunters than to say that both are hunters but one hunts birds and the other hunts small game. It's a more compelling story, and more interesting for packs to balance their skills that way.

To quote Starr, a lot of these trades are skills that almost every wolf possesses in some capacity, the trade simply represents a higher degree of skill in doing it. I would liken it to the difference between a casual home cook and a chef at a gourmet restaurant. Both cook, but there are different skill levels and mastery. You often see the same handful of trades primarily because they are the easiest to earn.

Your character can still perform duties outside their trade, their trade is just what they prefer to do or are best at doing. You can also change trades later for a change of pace, if that helps. :)

*sage nod* O I C. Yeah, I didn't consider the difficulty level of each trade for my idea -- I think I just naturally assumed that some things were just harder to do in terms of realism. Becoming a Naturalist should be harder to achieve than Hunter. But then that doesn't make it fair for everyone, so the way you guys put it makes more sense than me. I was just kinda lookin' around at some of these characters with 1,000 posts give or take and wondering why only two skills were allowed when in all that time if the character had wanted to master more trades in all that time, then they could have. I'm not very (overly) ambitious myself, but I see now the benefit of ease when restricting it to two. I was taking it away from the basics, ee .>.


SKILL TRADING HELPS YES -- but if you want to change back to a previously earned trade, do you need to re-earn it?

I'm just parroting at this point but I'm not keen on adjusting the system at this time. Between the number of trades and specialties, I think we've struck a good balance.

SKILL TRADING HELPS YES -- but if you want to change back to a previously earned trade, do you need to re-earn it?

I wouldn't think so, though you may have to dig up the former proof and re-present it.