ANSWERED:Change how breeding mechanics work

[angelicdragonpuppy]

I'll start by saying I do not have anywhere near a full understanding of how ratios and breeding mechanisms work--only one person on the site does, and that's the creator. However, looking at various things has led me to the conclusion that breeding currently works as so: the odds of the more common breed being produced are, in some manner, decided before the odds of a less common breed being produced. If this is wrong, hopefully TJ can step in and correct me.

 

My reasons for believing this is that many people have reported breeding two breeds together that, while both pretty common on their own, consistently have one breed dominate the breeding results. It's also shown in different rare x other pairings where some breeds produce plenty of rares while others produce none at all, showing the rarity of the partner is more influential than the rarity of the rare.

 

Examples (please suggest more if you have any--I think Crimson x Albino has been hard to deal with?):

 

Common x Common

 

- Black Tea x Waterhorse: http://dragcave.net/progeny/V0H0n - 10 eggs / 1 waterhorse (10%). Waterhorses are easy to breed, yet Black Teas still dominate them. Here's another example from the same type of pairing, showing the same results: http://dragcave.net/progeny/QHcWp

 

- Ridgewing x Specklethroat: http://dragcave.net/progeny/gYaDG - 10 eggs / 0 ridgewings (0%). Ridgewings aren't hard to breed, either, and yet again one breed is dominating. Another example from the same type of pairing: http://dragcave.net/progeny/TRfUd

 

Rare x Various

 

- Gold x Mint: http://dragcave.net/progeny/JdnF - 51 eggs / 1 Golds (2%) versus Gold x Ice: http://dragcave.net/progeny/mJV6T 13 eggs / 5 Golds (38%)

 

Gold x Mint first egg: Dec. 20th, 2012

Gold x Ice first egg: Mar 15th, 2013

 

Gold x Ice had 3 months less breeding time and is still producing many more Golds.

 

- Gold x Sunstone: http://dragcave.net/progeny/WNuSk - 42 eggs / 2 Golds (5%) versus Gold x Harvest: http://dragcave.net/progeny/krwWF - 20 eggs / 5 Golds (25%)

 

Gold x Sunstone first egg: Mar. 13th, 2013

Gold x Harvest first egg: July 30th, 2013

 

Harvest had 3.5 months less breeding time and is still producing many more Golds.

 

Rare x Holiday

 

- Silver Tinsel x Rosebud: http://dragcave.net/progeny/r5E6f - 5 eggs / 5 Tinsels (100%) versus Silver Tinsel x Ridgewing: http://dragcave.net/progeny/gWT7H - 5 eggs / 0 Tinsels (0%). I'll admit these are newer breeding pairs and thus don't have a lot of results yet, but that's still a pretty clear example of how not having to compete with a common breed can drastically influence how rares breed.

 

- Bronze Tinsel x White: http://dragcave.net/progeny/VTsIf - 47 eggs / 14 Tinsels (30%) versus Bronze Tinsel x SW: http://dragcave.net/progeny/oL7nj - 15 eggs / 15 Tinsels (100%).

 

Tinsel x White first egg: May 8th, 2012

Tinsel x SW first egg: Feb 1st, 2013

 

SW had 8 months less breeding time, yet still managed to produce more Tinsels than the other pair.

 

---

 

Hopefully what I've shown from this is that the chances of getting a less common breed are hurt by breeding to common partners--the choice of mate DOES influence the success of breeding rarer things. I think it would be better if people could work easily with all breeds (common x common things shouldn't be so hard to get one of the breeds from; people who fancy a rare with a certain common shouldn't get less rares for doing so).

 

In order to do this, I'd like to see one of the following things (or some variation of them, depending on the specifics of how breeding is determined) happen in the breeding process:

- Either the odds of which egg will be "rolled" for first are 50/50, or

- Roll the rarer breed first (less preferable, as in cases of two commons, like waterhorse x black tea, you'll probably see a complete flip of the original problem--too many of the other common)

 

This would produce some more rares, but commons would still definitely be common. A 5% flat chance of getting a Gold or such is likely to not get a Gold, after which the much higher chance of getting a Mint would come into play, ensuring more commons are produced as is appropriate.

 

Again, there is a ton of guesswork involved here, but I figured the overall issue (some breeds dominating others) was worth bringing up and discussing. If things are different, hopefully TJ can either tell us so fresh brainstorming can happen. Because I do feel there's a problem here--there should not be situations in which commons like Ridgewings and Waterhorses are extremely difficult to produce <;

Edited May 28, 2014 by angelicdragonpuppy

[Wahya]

I have a pair you can add to your examples if you feel the couple to be worthy; I've bred them a total of 48 times, and out of 41 offspring produced, only 6 are Shimmer-scales. The pair is the Silver Shimmer-scale Tobias Vincent and the Tri-horn Wyvern Aisling Naomh. Here is a list of their progeny.

 

Sure, this particular couple's percentage isn't as low as the others you've mentioned, but considering the number of eggs produced, 14.6% success is still relatively low xP

[TheGrox]

I ... feel like they're okay as they are at the moment. If you stick at it, you'll get the breed you want out of a pairing in the end.

[TJ09]

Your sample sizes are way too small to be statistically significant. Especially when randomness is involved.

 

I've looked at the numbers across literally thousands of attempts, and they work out at scale.

 

Based on those two observations, I'm going to close this.