Jump to content
angelicdragonpuppy

ANSWERED:Change how breeding works

Recommended Posts

Disclaimer: I do not know fully how ratios / breeding works. Only TJ knows that information entirely. As such, the following is simply an educated guess gained from 5+ years of play as to how breeding currently works and how it might be improved!

 

I would like it if breeding had the same chance of yielding a certain breed no matter what the pairing. This could be done by adding a 50/50 roll between which breed is "rolled" for first, so, for example, you'd have the same chances of getting a Silver from a Royal Crimson as from a Gold Wyvern (but would get more Royal Crimsons than GWs still). The current system, in which certain commons can totally eclipse even other commons for dozens of breedings, is kind of counter productive; there are certain commons I'd love to breed with, but because they are so HORRIFICALLY bad at breeding the other breed I avoid them to favor more uncommon things--thus never producing enough of the super commons to satiate the ratios, causing the problem to remain for years... It's a vicious cycle! ;___;

 

So, to clarify how this would work, here's the above example illustrated. Note that parts of this (like how no eggs produced / vs eggs produced is determined, and general ratios) are just my guesstimates, but hopefully they will still get the point across!

 

1. You go to breed a Silver with a Royal Crimson. The roll for refusal fails, so the two can breed.

2. A 50/50 split is rolled to see which breed will be tried for first. In this case, Silver is selected.

3. There is a 1% chance of getting a Silver. You don't get one. Now, Royal Crimson is rolled for.

4. There is a 80% chance of getting a Royal Crimson. You get one.

 

So, what is the meaning behind this? Basically, it means that breeds will behave more according to their own current chances of being produced (based on ratios), rather than being dominated by the other breed's ratios.

 

Accordingly, let's say you breed 100 Silver x Royal Crimson pairs, and then 100 Silver x Gold Wyvern pairs. Let's throw out the idea that Gold Wyverns have, eh, maybe a 25% shot at being produced. The final numbers, with this added, should look close to this:

 

Silver x Royal Crimson: 1 Silver, 80 Royal Crimsons

Silver x Gold Wyvern: 1 Silver, 25 Gold Wyverns

 

So, aha! You still have the same chance of breeding that elusive Silver no matter what you do, but if you choose to breed with Royal Crimsons, you'll still get more metalkins then you might otherwise... which, in turn, helps balance out Royal Crimson ratios to make them less overabundant in both the cave and in people's breeding attempts (which tend to go to the AP).

 

I believe that implementing something like this would encourage people to use super common breeds more often in their breeding plans, allowing for more lineage creativity, less frustration, and hopefully above all else, an increase in common desirability! smile.gif

Edited by angelicdragonpuppy

Share this post


Link to post

Surprised to see that no one has commented on this suggestion yet.

 

As you said yourself ADP, no one here is educated enough to discuss the breeding mechanics in a detailed manner - except TJ. If you have an educated guess in terms of how breeding currently works it might be better for me & probably others to understand your viewpoint if I exactly knew how you think it works. And even then, discussing would be rather problematic in my opinion.

 

Regarding your final numbers for 100 breedings (breeding chances: Silver 1%, Royal Crimson 80%, Golden Wyvern 25%):

Silver x Royal Crimson: 1 Silver, 80 Royal Crimsons

Silver x Gold Wyvern: 1 Silver, 25 Gold Wyverns

A 50/50 roll between which breed is rolled for first means that each breed has a 50% chance of getting selected first in every single breeding => the possibility that a specific breed is selected twice in a row is 25%, three times in a row 12,5%, four times in a row 6,25% and so on. Thus, and with other percentages (do the dragons have interest or not, egg produced or not etc.) I am not sure the actual numbers would be close to your final numbers. However maths was never my favorite subject in school tongue.gif

 

Then, I personally use breeds in lineage projects which I deem useful or pretty (or just pretty together) no matter if the projects are hard to continue or not (I am stubborn enough to continue breeding until I get the breed I need). Changing the breeding mechanics would not necessarily encourage me to use (any) breeds I do not like, whether they're "supercommon" or "rare".

 

Overall I cannot support due to lack of information from my side. (Sorry!)

Share this post


Link to post

Mondat's right your end numbers aren't quite right. Your chance of getting a silver would be 100(tries)*0.5(chance of silver rolled first)*0.01(chance of silver successful) + 100(tries)*0.5(chance of RC rolled first)*0.2(chance of RC fail)*0.01(chance of silver successful). I think. Which is 0.6 silvers per 100 breedings, not 1 silver.

 

Probable number of offspring of breed with chance A from pairing with breed with chance B from T tries by ADP's suggestion is:

 

0.5*T*A + 0.5*T*(1-B)*A

 

Again, might be missing something there but I think that equation should cover it. Or 0.5T*(2A-AB) which should be the same but less painful to type into a calculator.

 

From 100 tries 0.6 Silvers and 79.6 RCs or 24.9 GWs and 0.875 Silvers.

 

I don't know enough to speak on this outside of the maths of it.

 

Edit: the difference between my maths and ADPs would be more significant for less extreme pairings - RCxGW would give 15 GWs and 70 GWs. In fact ADP's 'error' may simply be an issue of rounding, this clarifies that you wont always get 80/100 if the chance of success is 0.8

Edited by ObsessedWithCats

Share this post


Link to post

No matter how exactly breeding works at the moment, the system is skewed. For one, even if you breed two very common breeds, you're almost guaranteed that an egg you get is of the younger breed. Which greatly hinders a great number of lineages.

 

So, yes, I support changes to the breeding mechanics as they currently are so you can still breed "old common" x "new common" and have an about equal chance to get either one.

 

However, even some "old common" x "old common" pairings can be quite challenging. Try getting a pebble from vine x pebble... xd.png It took me almost four months to breed this pebble.

Share this post


Link to post

Ha, I was just thinking about poking this last night! Looks like my prayers were answered. xd.png

 

I think the way breeding currently works is that whichever breed the ratios deem more underpopulated is always "rolled" for first. This explains why you can breed two commons together and, as Olympe said, still always get mostly the "newer" one, or the one that's just more common at the moment. For example, consider this Black Dragon. I was breeding him to pink, and only got 5 Blacks in all of 2014--and four of those were within the first three months of the year. AKA, got one Black in the nine months following it. Meanwhile, I can breed Black x Black or Black x Holiday or Black x most normal things and get Blacks more often than not. Also of note is how he bred BEFORE 2014, which was a much better mix of pink / black. The sudden change in ratios suggest, well, that ratios are behind it.

 

Again as Olympe said (might as well just refer people to your post instead, lol), though, it doesn't matter how breeding currently works (which only TJ knows) so much as, are people content with it?

 

What I want is a system where you have about the same odds of getting an egg of breed Y whether you breed it to breed X, Z, A, B, C, D, E, or any other dragon out there!

Since this system relies still on the odds of getting Y to begin with, it would still allow for individual rarity fluctuations in breed. The difference is, again, I'd have the same (low) odds of getting a Silver from a Royal Crimson as from a Gold Wyvern, just as I'd have the same (high) odds of getting a Royal Crimson from a Silver or a Gold Wyvern.

 

Right now, there are many commons that people complain are being very stubborn to work with, whether it be for metallics, prizes, or even other common dragons. I keep rehashing the example of Royal Crimsons and Black Teas because I really like them so I've seen firsthand how stubborn they can be. I would LOVE to work to make lineages with these guys (which would in turn produce lots of eggs, hopefully making these guys less ratio all consuming to begin with!), but because they can be so freakishly stubborn, I avoid them, I don't breed any eggs at all accordingly, and the problem remains as strong as ever.

Edited by angelicdragonpuppy

Share this post


Link to post

I'm one of those who avoids working with breeds that are super common. I get frustrated when week after week, I have 8 eggs of the same breed... In a blocker x blocker pairing.

 

It doesn't really matter HOW the ratios are changed, exactly, so long as we set an end goal:

Have the same chance of getting a Silver from a Crimsons as a GW

 

I agree with ADP, right now it seems like its always rolling the odds of the under populated breed FIRST. I've posted some tests I've done, where I've paired new blockers with older blockers. These were all super common breeds, and what I found was that breeding went over-overwhelmingly in the favor of the newer (and presumably most-underpopulated, because it is newer) breed.

 

Cheers!

C4.

Share this post


Link to post
I'm one of those who avoids working with breeds that are super common. I get frustrated when week after week, I have 8 eggs of the same breed... In a blocker x blocker pairing.

 

It doesn't really matter HOW the ratios are changed, exactly, so long as we set an end goal:

Have the same chance of getting a Silver from a Crimsons as a GW

 

I agree with ADP, right now it seems like its always rolling the odds of the under populated breed FIRST. I've posted some tests I've done, where I've paired new blockers with older blockers. These were all super common breeds, and what I found was that breeding went over-overwhelmingly in the favor of the newer (and presumably most-underpopulated, because it is newer) breed.

 

Cheers!

C4.

AND it occurs to ,me that IF people get frustrated at working with them, few people breed them.

 

IF That happens doesn't it just make the whole under population problem stay as it is?

 

IF I am understanding how ratios work correctly that is.

Share this post


Link to post

Full support for this.

 

I would like to make to breed checkers with Cassares but at the moment because of this problem I don't own any Cassares because I know trying to use them for a checker is a nightmare.

 

And don't get me started on Day Glory/Glaucus Drakes.

Share this post


Link to post

This sounds like a good idea. It would also help those who want to make checkers when a new breed comes out (if its an uncommon breed you stop seeing that egg after a few weeks, common good luck getting the other egg).

 

As far as I know (and I could be wrong) breeding ratios are supposed to be seperate from cave ratios. If this were implimented perhaps breeding should no longer account for ratios at all? (meaning ratios would only be based of CBs)

Share this post


Link to post

Support from me!

 

Personally I don't use rares in lineages but even common x common pairings can get frustrating when you keep getting the same breed week after week. (Those are just a few examples from my own experience. Though I'm sure others have similar stories.)

 

Plus this suggestion doesn't seem to be trying to "make rares less rare", since the chance of breeding one would still be low, and instead aims to balance out breeding in general. Something that I think would encourage more people to use commons in breeding/lineages, which in turn would lead to more being taken from the Cave, and that would further balance out the commons' ratios. (At least that's my own limited assumption of how the ratios work.) ... Just realized that I basically said what's already in the OP oh well. :3

Edited by Denwayasha

Share this post


Link to post

I support this as well. I do not like how the current system behaves when it comes to breeding. Since we usually get a new dragon every month, that's another dragon that will dominate the breeding cycle, and push the previous ones out.

Share this post


Link to post

Support! I've never understood why the system makes rares easier to get from rares than from commons, or some commons impossible to get from other commons.

Share this post


Link to post

Hmm, seems I'm the first to say no. Oh well

 

The breeding isn't that hard, though the ratios are unknown, normally i troll around the hatcheries before breed rare X commons, if I see a lot of rares of what I want to breed, then I hold off.

 

it works for me, i rather not do rolling of anything since its gambling in a way.

Edited by KuroYukia

Share this post


Link to post

I'm not sure I support the idea that commons are "rolled" first or whatever.

 

to me, it seems a lot more likely that common breeds are just bred that much fewer than the rares. Yes, we have single-scroll anecdotes about breeding, but the royal crimson thing is not something you can, for example, set in stone:

 

http://dragcave.net/lineage/m6DR7 http://dragcave.net/lineage/pclKk http://dragcave.net/lineage/51wqK http://dragcave.net/lineage/PZHb3 http://dragcave.net/lineage/tdjKh http://dragcave.net/lineage/MNEKI http://dragcave.net/lineage/Qe0O5 http://dragcave.net/lineage/S6A6b http://dragcave.net/lineage/aDUV4 http://dragcave.net/lineage/fshV1 http://dragcave.net/lineage/ENMpU

 

 

It may be tough to get a Rare from Common, but has anyone ever given Rare x Rare Breeding a proper tryout? I have. 6th gen EG, takes around 2-3 Years to accomplish, something that I probably could have done with crimsons too, if I had set my mind to it. It is BY FAR easier to get more CBs for such projects, and thus, to try more often. Getting 32 CB for a project that needs 32? that's a failure. get 64, and see what happens. It's around 1 week of trading to get those commons, anyway.

 

 

---

oh, @kuroyukia: it's rolling a random number generator every time you breed, you are basically gambling every breeding. its just not presented like that.

Edited by whitebaron

Share this post


Link to post

No matter how exactly breeding works at the moment, the system is skewed. For one, even if you breed two very common breeds, you're almost guaranteed that an egg you get is of the younger breed. Which greatly hinders a great number of lineages.

 

I'd like to present exhibit A and exhibit B (or, well, exhibit whichever number, given Denwayasha provided similar progenies), just because it's hit the point where I am now annoyed. laugh.gif I don't even want to do much with those two breeds. This is exactly about a single 2G electric from a brute x electric pairing so I can mate it with a gift I got from a friend to make a checker. I wouldn't even mind if the final checker only ever produced brutes. I just want a mate.

 

Maybe it would already help if there was a very slight bias toward producing the breed that one didn't get last time(s) one bred the pair; sort of like how one gets a slight boost for one's summoning chances with each subsequent pair of trios. I'd be totally fine if rares (as in, the breeds that are meant to be rare by site coding; not the ones that are just rare because of user demand) were exempt from this boost, and if the boost was small. (I'd even be fine if I had to keep the offspring on my scroll for it to count.)

 

Even just knowing each brute I'm producing is going to make it more likely for me to get an electric rather than having the exact same chance the next time I breed them would really help. (I know this is sort of what the ratios provide, but that's on a scale where I have no hope in hell (as a self-identified casual breeder and someone who doesn't really want to hoard any dragon breeds) of really contributing to a shift of ratios; or, at the very least, certainly not feeling like I am.)

Edited by pinkgothic

Share this post


Link to post

Well, I have a hunch regarding site mechanics which only TJ might verify or falsify.

 

Remember the midwinter madness release? The cave produced only the 3 new breeds (not the bluna for obvious reasons) for months on end. TJ then told us that it was a ratio thing and he'd fiddle with it - something about the age of all dragons counting towards the ratios. (Back then, he changed this age threshold to either to 1 year or reduced it from 1 year to something else, if I remember correctly.)

 

However, breeding still seems to work with that old mechanic in, uh, mind.

Share this post


Link to post

WhiteBaron, no one is denying that you can get metals from Crimsons. IF..... you try long enough or get lucky.

 

But it is a simple fact:

You get more rares from Rare x Uncommon then you do from Rare x Blocker.

 

It is a simple fact:

New Blocker x Old Blocker breeds bias overwhelmingly in factor of the new blocker.

 

*pokes dragon*

http://dragcave.net/progeny/WshmX

 

In 2 days, that'll almost certainly be named "30 Olives", because Olives is all I ever get. And its not just from that pair. About a year ago, I was getting 50/50 Olives Albinos. Then, it changed and I was getting ALL Olives.

 

Cheers!

C4.

Share this post


Link to post

I have to agree with C4. I thought it might be just really unlucky - so I tried to breed an albino to make up. ALL olives - and I'd already done this once before, seeing that sorrow...

 

I also recall socky and the black tea x green thing. Black teas were winning over and over and over.

Share this post


Link to post

This would help so much! There's a lot of pairings I'd like to do, but can't do because they will never breed correctly. This would make it at least seem PLAUSIBLE for me to get a Silver from my SpeckleThroat, or a Shimmer from my Hellfire.

Share this post


Link to post

In case nothing else pans out, wasn't there a Suggestion about a BSA which would either (think both were actually suggested on the thread itself, but don't recall too much about it,) increase the chances of one breed being produced, (still in accordance with ratios, of course,) or prevent one breed from producing, or some such thing?

 

Just so people could have the frustrations people on this thread speak of reduced.

 

Does anyone remember enough about that one to identify or search for it?

Share this post


Link to post
In case nothing else pans out, wasn't there a Suggestion about a BSA which would either (think both were actually suggested on the thread itself, but don't recall too much about it,) increase the chances of one breed being produced, (still in accordance with ratios, of course,) or prevent one breed from producing, or some such thing?

 

Just so people could have the frustrations people on this thread speak of reduced.

 

Does anyone remember enough about that one to identify or search for it?

Was it this one ?

Share this post


Link to post

My last post in that thread was about how we could change the BSA so it would change which breed rolled first. So far, no replies to that idea. tongue.gif

 

Cheers!

C4.

Share this post


Link to post

Skipped all the discussion about the details and numbers how this could work, but I definitely do support changing something in the way breeding works.

 

Here zaverxi reports that it's impossible to breed a horse from nhiostrife. A horse! Quite a while ago someone asked me to try to breed them a balloon from bleeding moon, which is close to impossible as well. For some pairings, the way breeding works now is really yielding ridiculous results.

 

If people stop breeding newly released commons because it's frustrating, the problem gets even worse.

 

So yes, anything that makes it easier to breed certain commons together and get both breeds out of the pairing has my full support.

Share this post


Link to post

Skipped all the discussion about the details and numbers how this could work, but I definitely do support changing something in the way breeding works.

 

Here zaverxi reports that it's impossible to breed a horse from nhiostrife. A horse! Quite a while ago someone asked me to try to breed them a balloon from bleeding moon, which is close to impossible as well. For some pairings, the way breeding works now is really yielding ridiculous results.

 

If people stop breeding newly released commons because it's frustrating, the problem gets even worse.

 

So yes, anything that makes it easier to breed certain commons together and get both breeds out of the pairing has my full support.

"Impossible" is a gross over-statement, but.... It does get ridiculous:

http://dragcave.net/progeny/WshmX

 

Eventually, I'll get lucky and get an Albino. Eventually....

 

And there were a couple more No Interests, and several of the Olives were killed (but not counted). I've been breeding more or less weekly / biweekly for an entire year.

 

Cheers!

C4.

Edited by cyradis4

Share this post


Link to post
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.


  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.