ANSWERED:Recent breeding difficulties

[_Charky]

I don't have the energy to do exact statistics, but these are my observations from the breeds I've tried a reasonable number of (single pairings are a great way to get confirmation bias)

 

Quote

Not breeding well:
Blacks
Aeons (nothing new there)
Greens and Stones (keep breeding geodes)
Nillia
Black Tea & Script (Breeding incenses)
Ridewings
Nebulae
Reds

 

Breeding fairly averagely:
Magis
Dorsals
Arias

 

Breeding very well indeed:
Astraels
Bolts
Geodes
Vines (ESPECIALLY alts)
Alt Dorsals
Florets
Pinks
Spinel (Especially alts)
Incense

 

 

[Inutsume]

Adding to this, I have multiple projects I breed weekly who have very reliably produced eggs until a certain point (usually the wrong ones, but at least _something_) and now they don't even produce despite Fertility which is said to heighten the chance to receive an egg. This has been happening multiple weeks in a row and is getting frustrating, as my projects are already annoying enough as they are without hardly getting any eggs...

[laevsk]

I think providing the most info we can, if possible, is best. To that end, I've been keeping a simple list using abbreviations like these:

 

F - Fertility used

E- Egg produced

N - No egg

R - Refusal

NI - No interest

 

Those last three could just be considered "no egg" for these purposes, if preferred.

 

And I simply put down Blk X Blk etc for the breeds. Since I generally only breed 2G except for particular lineages I'm working on, I don't add the generations unless it's different than 2G.  Could the generations mean anything here? We have no way of knowing, so adding that info might help.

 

If this is a glitch or something that may have been adjusted and needs re-adjusted or changed, having as much information as possible could be helpful.  We have yet to hear anything that explains the current status quo, so until we do I encourage everyone to add in their experiences. 

[TJ09]

I've directly looked at the success rate of breeding across various breeds and I'm not seeing anything alarming (and notably, nothing looks significantly different from several months ago, which should disprove the notion that something has "changed"). I'll keep tracking, as I generally do, but a few points of note:

• If you're breeding overpopulated or rare breeds, you shouldn't expect the same number of eggs as breeding less populated dragons. Breeding red x gold has the same chance of getting a red egg as red x magi--the gap between those two pairings is filled with "no egg" breedings.
• You may believe a breed to be "common," but things fluctuate over time and there is no official meaning of the word, especially when user demand for a given breed is factored in.

[purplehaze]

Does that mean that Xenos became suddenly overpopulated and that is why they disappeared from the AP virtually overnight?

Edited November 19, 2023 by purplehaze

[trystan]

I've tried breeding a Pink x Pink for a few weeks now, and have never gotten an egg even with using fertility 

[TJ09]

53 minutes ago, purplehaze said:

Does that mean that Xenos became suddenly overpopulated and that is why they disappeared from the AP virtually overnight?

 

While the decline in abandoned Xenos is indeed measurable, it has happened on the timescale of months--nothing about it is sudden or "virtually overnight."

[laevsk]

TJ, thank you for your response. I really appreciate you taking the time.

 

I understand, roughly, the rarity of breeds and that the rarity may change depending on popularity of the breed. Is the value of a dragon as shown in the market considered a reliable measure of how common or rare a dragon is? I know the number of shards fluctuates at a times. 

 

Also, you mentioned overpopulation. So the breeding others do reflects on all of us as far as our own ability to produce any specific breed? Do mass breedings create problems, then, especially when it's of a single breed?  

 

And lastly, is there somewhere we can go to check current populations of each breed in order to understand how likely we are to have a successful breeding? 

[dracornithologist]

4 minutes ago, laevsk said:

And lastly, is there somewhere we can go to check current populations of each breed in order to understand how likely we are to have a successful breeding? 

 

Echoing Laevsk's thanks, and also, if there isn't anywhere in particular we as users can view the current populations / likelihood of an egg result from breeding, is there somewhere the information exists and is measured but we can't see it? For example, if a new dragon was proposed with a BSA that could access that information and predict the likelihood of an egg result for a particular pair at a particular time? 

[Naraku]

Out of 264 xenowyrms bred primarily to holidays, they produced only 42 xenowyrms and 1 staterae. That's only 16%. I'm not convinced that nothing changed.

Edited November 20, 2023 by Naraku

[Fuzzbucket]

35 minutes ago, Naraku said:

Out of 264 xenowyrms bred primarily to holidays, they produced only 42 xenowyrms and 1 staterae. That's only 16%. I'm not convinced that nothing changed.

While I too am having issues, after so very many xeno walls, about which we have complained much, they may well now be overpopulated.

 

I do wish blacks weren't being so hard, though. And not with new or rare ones - with storms. I get storms, if anything, EVERY TIME....

[MissK.]

Honestly, if nothing has changed deliberately, that's more concerning. The AP has been noticeably higher time for a long while, even when there are walls of some breeds. I get way fewer prizefails when breeding my prizes to commons, not from any one specific breed. If this is a matter of overpopulation of a few breeds (obviously including xenos), surely that would balance out by other breeds still producing more. But it doesn't show in the AP, and people have been having issues with a lot of different breeds, not just xenos. So...idk, if we're all seeing changes, I'm inclined to think that something is going on even if it wasn't a deliberate change. I know it's not very helpful to cry The Ratios!! but yeah.

[Aqub]

My prize has been no egging me for almost three months now when bred to a holiday mate. That definitely wasn't the case before, it used to take 1-2 tries to get a prize from a holiday mate. Something is definitely different? 

[Starscream]

9 hours ago, dracornithologist said:

 

Echoing Laevsk's thanks, and also, if there isn't anywhere in particular we as users can view the current populations / likelihood of an egg result from breeding, is there somewhere the information exists and is measured but we can't see it? For example, if a new dragon was proposed with a BSA that could access that information and predict the likelihood of an egg result for a particular pair at a particular time? 

I am going to hazard a guess that this is all on his end of the system designed to monitor things and make sure its running in what he sees as optimum, and I somehow doubt that info would be available to us (Though I could be wildly wrong, he might) When it comes to how the site functions, how things breed etc. If TJ says, its all good and is working as it should, then it is. He's the one who built it, he knows how it should be functioning- essentially he's the game's version of god. We are mere mortals trying to understand how his magic works. If I understand right, newer breeds are by default under populated, so they will breed easier than older breeds. However when a sort of balance is reached these breeds will drop off. However its not to say older breeds don't suddenly find they are out of balance and then they might start throwing eggs easier.  What we have is merely observations, and TJ has the hard data.

 

A dragon census, once  a year, might be interesting.  At least to see the general population of dragons, hatchlings, alts... even wilds. Even if there was data regarding hatchling and egg deaths. But provided only as a year end sort of thing. Folk might use anything more "live" to reverse engineer how the site works.

 

A BSA predict the chance of conception might be interesting; I did hope fertility would ensure a breeding happened. I don't use it because, in my eye, it's pretty pointless- I've never had much luck using it. Again, I have my doubts that this sort of BSA would be approved.

 

anyhow. Busy day ahead of me (joy oh bliss)

Edited November 20, 2023 by Starscream
removed a comma

[Kaini]

16 hours ago, TJ09 said:

I've directly looked at the success rate of breeding across various breeds and I'm not seeing anything alarming (and notably, nothing looks significantly different from several months ago, which should disprove the notion that something has "changed"). I'll keep tracking, as I generally do, but a few points of note:

• If you're breeding overpopulated or rare breeds, you shouldn't expect the same number of eggs as breeding less populated dragons. Breeding red x gold has the same chance of getting a red egg as red x magi--the gap between those two pairings is filled with "no egg" breedings.
• You may believe a breed to be "common," but things fluctuate over time and there is no official meaning of the word, especially when user demand for a given breed is factored in.

 

Closing this as it has been answered by TJ, and nothing is wrong help-wise. If continued discussion is wanted, perhaps the thread on site ratios in SD?