I'm not sure if this belongs in the new pet thread, but what about hybridization? Breeding specific breeds together that could combine into a new breed or one of the parent breeds. Such as

nytekrie + ny'vene = some kind of feathered dragon

The hybrid breed could have any of the parent breed's genes.

While I greatly support this, and feel that it would be an amazing addition to the site; I realize how incredibly difficult this would be on Fai and Krin. They would have to hire artists and create a new species for every pairing there could be, not to mention having to put genes and mutations on them. Overall it would take more time than we can possibly imagine and a ton of money for them to pay the artists. So I love this idea a ton, but I believe that it is not possible sadly.

I'm not suggesting every species hybridization. I am suggesting that only specific breeds can hybridize. Just specific breeds hybridizing.

Like only Ny'vene and Nytekrie or Zolnixi and Quitari.

and the genes would only be from those two parent breeds so

Ny'vene/Nytekrie= only genes that these two have
Zolnixi/Quitari= only genes these two have

or just specific genes from the two breeds

(these pairings are hypothetical)

As I said, it is a wonderful idea. But even just a few different pairings would still be an enormous amount of time. It take quite a while for them to even revamp the species, so creating new ones is of course longer and more tedious.

This has been suggested before and it always gets a thumbs down. On top of it being far too much work for Krin and Fai, we have far too small a team to design all of the artwork for hybrids. On top of that, an entirely new system would have to be created in order to figure up what traits would be passed on. Plus, just recreating and repixeling all of those traits onto a new creature would be an enormous amount of work for our team. It took a long time for them to revamp species like the Qitari and the Zolnixi, so imagine how long it would take for them to completely redo all of the traits of two different species. Sketching, scanning, linework, coloring, shading, pixeling, and layering, and I'm sure that I don't know about a number of steps that must be taken.

It's a neat idea, but it's just not realistic for Slyestia right now.

This has been suggested before as mentioned. And I did have an idea I think I might have mentioned before as a way to kinda still have hybrids. I've thought more and more about this idea over time so it might be a bit different at this point anyway. It involves of instead of getting hybrids via breeding it would be through the crafting system combining essences.

I was thinking that with each perhaps at least one of the essences used should be from a fabled species but not necessarily. I like the idea of creating even greater demand for essences though which might be a nice way of making more money for the site. There could be a recipe for each species. Some of them might demand more essences from more species than others. And the quality of the essences would also make a difference in the final outcome as well. The recipes could perhaps be rewards from special challenge quests or could be bought for diamonds. Overall, these would be very expensive pets to craft. There wouldn't have to be a species for each fabled combo, either. It could just be something added to over time. For story purposes, there could just be a special npc who over time discovers a new recipe that she'll then sell.

A problem I see with the crafting idea though is what to do about the prices of the pets declining as they're bred. I think this is something we do naturally see with any new species introduction, but I think with these it would be nice try to preserve the rarity since the recipes themselves and the essences can cost diamonds to begin with making the generated pets for these particularly expensive. Perhaps longer breeding periods could help or even that if you breed them you won't necessarily even get an egg but there'll still be a cooldown.

That, or there could be a chance of getting a regular species (one of those involved in the recipe) Instead of the crafted species?

For when bred? That could work. Though I was kinda thinking that the traits might not really line up between the chimeras and "parent" species. Perhaps if when bred, that one of the parent species pops up instead it can use the colors exactly as it would normally but traits could be randomized. That way we wouldn't have to worry about chimeras/hybrids only having like 5 traits in slot 1 vs. 15 for a parent species. Just not sure how possible it would be with the coding. It's definitely an interesting idea regardless. So perhaps it would be the possibility of nothing, possibility of one of the species that the essences came from, or much more rarely one of the chimera.

Oh, another thought could be to also have the offspring turn out predominantly male as well. Though I can't think of why there'd be a good in world explanation for there to be so many more males for these.

Hmm perhaps. I was thinking that it could just give a trait in that slot that is either the letter equivalent of the chimera parent's trait, or the nearest available letter or some such thing. Not the same traits, but the same slot, you know?

Hmm the mostly male thing would likely help because then either breeding them would be rare or more gender swaps would be purchased. Maybe both.

Oh, the nearest available letter is a neat idea.