Wait - nobody's currently shouting at the post? That's new.

I actually...kinda like this idea! Now, i'm not actually very sure on how this would impact some people, mainly breeders, because I'm not a breeder and my breeding grounds has cobwebs all over it. However, I do know that breeders would tend to nurture their pets more than people who are not breeders, because of the perks it gives those pets, so they're usually already prepared. Plus, if the breeding price wasn't too high, i dont think it would be that much big of a deal with the nurture function in the hatchery and the thread on the forums for easy access. Just grab a few scales and go! It'd be nice for the scales to have a new function and it seems good for it to be linked with breeding because it comes kinda, with breeding.

Nope.

No way.

I would riot.


The ONLY way to get scales? Nurturing.

I'm a stats breeder. And do you know what stats generally relies on?

RNG.

Cold.

Cruel.

RNG.

Over 90% of what I breed? FAILS. So I have to breed en excess to HOPEFULLY get a decent result that's actually worth keeping.

I spend HOURS already on project management.

Breed pets - 10-20 minutes for ~3 species. Or more if it's a species I have to use the advanced search for to keep track of stats. (ie, female lacking strength? track down male with better strength.) For those, it can take an hour or MORE all it's own to breed ~60 pets which, again, 90% or more will be FAILED results anyway thanks to RNG.

Hatching eggs? 10-30 minutes for ~3 species.

SORTING these pets? Hours. Guaranteed. I have to go over EVERY pet in the project, check EVERY trait I have to see which of these 10-30 pets kept in the gene pool has the highest stats, and weed out everything that's fallen below. That means for every pet I'm checking all 6 traits to see if there's at least one other pet that has those traits, but with higher stats. And I do this same process for SEVERAL species, so that's countless hours spent on this every week.


And you're telling me that on top of all of this, you want me to spend EVEN MORE HOURS nurturing pets JUST so I can breed?

NO. I don't have time for that. I have literally 0 minutes to spare on nurturing, or battling, or anything else on this site; project management is pretty much all I can do.

This won't fix the dishwater issue, but it sure as hell would be discouraging projects which rely on RNG gambles and numerous failed, wasted attempts. Project-centric people may as well stop breeding entirely. Congratulations, that's even less projects for the site!!




* Still believe the best solution for less dishwaters is getting scales for releasing pets - the sheer OPPOSITE of this idea. Scales = dyes = prettier pets AND incentive to release dishwaters and no-traits.

Here is my take on overbreeding:

1. It will happen on any site that encourages breeding. Period.

2. If the site started out with 'free' breeding, adding restrictions to that breeding will only punish players who are doing long term projects.

The only site I have been on that encourages breeding and doesn't seem to have an overpopulation problem is Gryffs. However, the culture of that site is so far from the other sites (sylestia, Furvilla for their mini-pets, and Flight Rising) I have been truly active on, it is hard to compare them.

I have seen complaints on all three of the mentioned sites, and all three focus on the breeding portion of the problem to 'fix' rather than focusing on trying to remove those pets from circulation faster than they already are.

If a site starts with heavily restricted breeding, then that is one thing, Players join that site knowing that is how breeding is, and are obviously fine with it, if they are still playing. However, changing how a core mechanic of a site works, years after it comes out, often will feel like punishment to many players and will be very much hated and not well received at all. While sometimes it does take drastic changes to 'fix' something, I would keep in mind whether the problem actually is a problem (as in, is over breeding truly a problem, or is it just the natural order of things to slowly become less valuable over time when you do have unrestricted breeding), and whether the solution is actually worth it. (ie, will trying to fix the problem result in many players quitting because their favorite part of the site is now impossible for them to enjoy due to new restrictions that weren't there before, and they always released their failed breedings, so they weren't part of the problem anyway, thus they feel like they are being punished for other player's transgressions)

Sadly, most of the proposed solutions to the overbreeding problems that many sites like this feel they have are more focused on punishing breeders, and making it harder to breed pets than they are on actually removing the pets that are already there.

I personally like sites where there are very cheap pets along with very expensive pets. It allows me to satisfy my hoarding side, while still having longer term goals to work towards (in specific sylestian case, it allows me to grab six visible dishwater pets for cheap, while still having themed multivis pets more expensive and more of a long term goal)

I also think that rather than just trying to blanket remove pets, perhaps a more targeted approach might be worth while: since themes seem to be the most popular of pets, rather than non-themed, make a mechanic that allows players to toss themed pets, whether purebred or tagged, for some sort of bonus. The species of pet and the theme would make a huge difference, so that if you don't need to bring up the price of themed nephs, you can make it so no one wants to toss their nephs at the mechanic, but maybe themed qitaris are below the point you want, so themed qitaris are now worth more at this particular mechanic. If you feel a specific theme needs a boost, then make that specific theme worth more.

This would potentially leave the dishwater random breeding pets still cheap for players like me, but for players who want their themed purebreds to be worth something, it might help raise the price of them.

(I have already given ideas of what I would like to see, but none of them are like this mechanic, which I have no idea what would be a good thing that would get players to want to toss themed pets at it, while still not being overpowered for what it does.)

what! breeding is the only way animals is brought into the game! and i personaly think that the more,the better

no, they can be tamed, essence generated, fest grown, or ( rare ) forum prizes too. more is not always better. project breeders cant make back their losses when the economy is so bad.

I think this could work under a few conditions:

Releasing pets should give you the same number of scales as you spend from breeding. This way, project breeders aren't punished too harshly for having bad luck, but you can't constantly breed dishwaters without releasing.

I also think this should apply to players of any level. Newbies tend to overbreed the most, so it should absolutely apply to them.