Breeding Limits Discussion
Posted by Admin-Mat on 2 Nov 2016, 6:08 pm
It's no mystery from looking at the Giving Tree and the User Shops that many common and uncommon animals have lost their value due to overbreeding. In animal husbandry, players should still be able to sell their common animals and make money from their breeding. It appears that exponential growth of animals, overbreeding, and unlimited breeding charges have devastated the value of animals, and will continue to do so as more players join animal husbandry and continue breeding.
So, the question is, how do we curb overbreeding to reduce the amount of animals entering the economy? There are a couple of good suggestions that have popped up over the last weeks and months which can be boiled down into the following:
1) Using the breeding charges. Some may have already noticed that the contest prize animals have breeding charges. This feature is built into all animals, and limited breeding charges ensure that animals cycle out of the economy and do not continue to produce more animals indefinitely. Common animals should have low breeding charges (say, 2-5) so they cycle out fast, while rarer animals should have more (upwards of 100 for Super Rare animals) so they can be used for a long time, as they took a while to be earned.
2) Stable Limits. It's been suggested that stable limits would help with the economy as players would no longer be able to farm animals of every type, and instead would be encouraged to focus on their favorite animals. This encourages trading as players focusing on one type of animal would trade with another player focusing on another, as both players cannot focus on all animals. Disrupting the massive breeding farms ensures that there isn't a large amount of commons being born and devaluing animals as well. One common suggestion has been limiting each villager to 50 Stables.
3) Account-wide breeding limits. Another suggestion has been simply to limit the amount of breedings a single account can perform per day. One common number has been 50-100 breedings per day. Similar to stable limits, this helps disrupt large breeding farms and limits the amount of animals entering the economy, while also encouraging players to focus on their favorite animals.
Our opinion is that some combination of #1 #2 and #3 would help the value of animals immensely. What would you change to ensure that common/uncommon animals retain their value?
Another idea: revamp the Breeding Potion to be required to breed a pair of animals. This would give Alchemy a good new kick in value. The Breeding Potion could use some adjustments like making the ingredient list simpler, but it would add a dimension of complexity to breeding and connect Animal Husbandry to Alchemy.
@<OD-Poltergeist I have no idea why, but your summary made me think of Dragon Quest Monsters. Where you fuse Monsters to get stronger/better monsters. Some combinations yield better monsters, some yield completely different ones... Granted I doubt we'll get a new monster fusion profession of any kind sometimes soon, but maybe some option to fuse critters (like mix medicine)?
Might be particularly useful if #1 is implemented, combine two of the same species to get one with more breeding charges than both had on their own? You got rid of a pet but your stud is useful for a while longer.
(I know you're not a dev but I also know you guys sometimes mull it over together so I'm glad you're keeping tabs on suggestions XD)
I feel that options 1 and 3 will work the best without being overly frustrating
Stable Limits and having to use Potions just seems ... a bit to much.
I agree some changes are def needed but let's not make it so hard that people will throw away attempting AH altogether.
1, 3 or a mix of 1 and 3 seem like a good idea!
Honestly? It takes a LONG time and a LOT of breeding to get an uncommon color on an animal. And even if you breed uncommon or rare colors together, there is a RIDICULOUSLY high chance of just getting another common. If you don't want commons and uncommons flooding the market and being literally thrown away, cap the number of breeding per day but substantially raise the rate for a better color to be passed down to the offspring. Then it'll make this less of a "breed 100 blue octis toghether until I get another blue octi" and more of a long term waiting game.
Absolutely no on the first one.
Love option 3.
I like the idea of requiring a Breeding Potion. However, Breeding Potions should have several forms! It would suck if you had to be from a certain village to encounter the seeds needed, so each village should have their own recipe which includes seeds from that village.
I don't mind the idea of daily or hourly breeding limits. I also think that a form of breeding potion that can be made in any village would be bad. As for limiting the number of times an animal can be bred, I'm not a huge fan. Some pets cost more than I have ever had on here. It wouldn't feel worth it to save up for one if it wasn't going to last long. That probably wouldn't be to big of an issue if there was some form of potion or something to help get back some of the breeding charges. I do like the idea of a place to trade pets for points, as long as it doesn't suggest a horrible fate for the poor things. I wouldn't want to trade them in if it made me feel bad. I think Again's suggestion for the kennel is a really good one!
i would definitely go with idea #1
we wouldn't have to overbreed if the rarity rates weren't so ridiculously low. and once again, you can't judge the deflation of items and currency when we get an average of 200 active users a day.
Don't force us to use breeding potions. I don't like the idea of breeding limits either. What I would like changed, is when we release pets, that we get a little bit of treasure from it. Or, let us be able to sell pets that aren't fully domesticated yet. (not in the stalls, but just sell them for a small amount). None of your suggestions will help, and only will frustrate players.
If you do some sort of a breed limit, you should do something that will help us gain rare pets more, like if we have mates of the third color rarity, that the fourth color rarity chance is higher. I really do not want Animal Husbandry messed with. It's the only thing that's been keeping me playing.