Breeding Season: Alpha Version 5.3 [Update 11/3/14]

[Ironvein]

First let me say that I really, really like your game. The animations are smooth, the designs are cool and the breeding, client and cosumable system is really neat set up. I especially like the variety you have brought in the game, the many different traits and colors.

However, the game currently has two glaring issues. One is that it requires an ungody amount of luck (or save-scumming) to make it through the first few months, both in the bonuses you find in the monsters at the market and the luck you have in breeding. And given the low fertility of the monsters without pumping them full of holstaurus milk, adding pregnancy periods to the mix would make the first few months impossible to survive.

The other is a bug in the current build. The clients eventually start demanding more than two traits per monster, making it literally impossible to meet their requirements. The clients also quickly get unfair because the market is so random that it sometimes takes weeks to just find the trait.

A good solution for both the unfit offspring and the crazy clients would be to also have the possiblity to also sell your monsters in town, at the same price rates you have for selling and buying you have for consumables. This would allow to play a middle way between desperately looking for geysir (month 6 and have not found it yet) and constantly digging through the markets to satisfy clients.

Another solution for the clients would be to simply have more of them, say three per type. This means nine possible clients, making it a bit easier to sell something. The fact that you need to breed six specilized monsters to lower stats, taking up a fifth of your space, makes it difficult enough.

It's already well known how broken the client system is (always been a flawed idea from the get-go). As for the former, the payment doubling has already been stated that it is a 'place holder'. It is not going to stay that way, however making the payment isn't as hard as you make it out to be.

In the early stages, as long as you have 3 or more monsters, then you are usually good (2 can be breeding while 1 is being harvested every day). Remember to at least have sta+ in your monster mix and max their stats as much as you can. I've rarely have an issue making quota and as useful children are born your payout/consumable increases as well. I usually am working on a 6+ breeding and can still make payments even without Milk. Traits while powerful are unnecessary in the early months; having a clean (no minus) breeder for each stat was more important (to max the consumable value of a monster). I only used clients to sell off my maxed monster that I didn't need anymore (because I breed something better).

[Rakaziel]

In the early stages, as long as you have 3 or more monsters, then you are usually good (2 can be breeding while 1 is being harvested every day). Remember to at least have sta+ in your monster mix and max their stats as much as you can. I've rarely have an issue making quota and as useful children are born your payout/consumable increases as well. I usually am working on a 6+ breeding and can still make payments even without Milk. Traits while powerful are unnecessary in the early months; having a clean (no minus) breeder for each stat was more important (to max the consumable value of a monster). I only used clients to sell off my maxed monster that I didn't need anymore (because I breed something better).

I pretty much did the same. Tried to breed for Cha and Sta in the early months and bred in Breeding stock and Incorrigible as soon as I could. Currently I am breeding for All Night Long and Greased Lightning (no access to Geysir because the silver client started demanding 3 traits).

I also have two more ideas how to make money in the game.

One would be beauty pageants, which could, for a change, mainly look for colors and breeding modifiers.

The other would be tournament fighting, using the existing stats:

Strength, divided by 4, would determine the damage dealt with each hit.

Stamina, divided by 2, would determine the number of times each combatant can attack. The combatant with the lower stamina gets the first shot (if both stamina are equal, the first shot is decided randomly), then the combatants attack each other in turn till both have no attacks left. A weaker combatant with higher stamina has still a chance to win because at some point its opponent can no longer strike back.

The Dexterity of both combatants would be added and this sum would be used to calculate the chance to hit for each combatant.

Will, multiplied by 4, would determine the number of hp.

Charisma would have its usual impact, this time on the prize money.

Ferocity would be divided by 4 and added to the lowest of the first four stats at the beginning of the fight, after applying the breeding modifiers (your positive ones to yourself, your negative ones to your opponent, and vice versa, they would be some sort of multipliers) and racial bonuses (see below). If the two or more lowest of the first four stats are equal, the ferocity bonus is given to one of them at random. Or the player could decide where to place the ferocity bonus at the beginning of the fight, while the computer opponent decides at random.

You could also bet money on your fighter or the opponent, or any two fighters of other fights you watch, the initial prize ratio would be determined by comparing the stats, and then be affected by 1 point for each of the most recent wins and losses per trainer (easier to store than per fighter).
Betting in other trainer’s fights has no impact on your reputation, betting on your own fighter doubles the impact the win or loss has on your reputation and betting against your own fighter has the same effect on your reputation as a loss, even if your fighter wins. Prize money is paid independently from bets – in the end you get the sum, regardless if positive or negative.

You can take place in tournaments of different scales, each fight you need to win to eventually get the prize money doubles the total prize money. It depends on the tournament rules if the third, or even the second, place is still awarded money.

Traits would have no impact, and neither would growth multipliers (except if you include caps), as both quickly can get too broken in a fight.

Another way to make things more interesting would be that each monster gets racial bonus in a fight, Catgirls to Dexterity, Harpies to Stamina, Holstaurus to Will, Butt Stallion to Strength and Dickwolves to Ferocity. A racial bonus to charisma would not really work as it would not increase the chances to winning the fight. Later races could have mixed bonuses, say a smaller strength bonus and a smaller stamina bonus to dragons.
For added strategy, let the actual racial bonus consist of three parts – 50% for the monster itself and 25% for each parent, thus making a difference if you bred your latest pitwolf with a catgirl or a holstaurus.

If I can have a look at the source code I may actually be able to program the tournament fighting.

[Ironvein]

I doubt this game will go the 'tournament' direction (too many new things to implement; as well as not fitting the concept of the world very well). It'd become at 18+ rated Monster Rancher if he did.

The game does need some flexibility of play. Currently the only real way to make money is consumables; and that wasn't intentional. But that's mostly game balancing than anything else; trail and error. The core of the game itself is shaping up pretty well though.

As a side note, one thing I noticed; that make me lose interest in a game is the lack of background music/sound effects. The game would not suffer any if you could add some.

Side Note 2: Just a thought that occurred, you seem to have a solid method for color selection for monsters; why not customize the rancher too? I mean, yeah, I'd rather have a male protagonist character option; but It'd think customizing the rancher shouldn't be difficult with what is there now.

[Rakaziel]

I could build the tournament code in Java and try a plaintext translation into Flash (except for the UI, though the one from the breeding pen menu contains pretty much all the parts needed). And I could make rendered 3D backgrounds (for the arena, the prize award stage and what ever else you want in 3D).

[Ironvein]

Trait question: What's the difference between 'Too Stronk' and 'Fertile'? I figure I'm not understanding one or the other, but don't they both up breeding chance?

[Oringlas]

Too Stronk affects the stat-change modifiers, not chance to breed.

[Ironvein]

Some thoughts: The combo of True Breeding, Incorrigible, and Mutagenic seems to be overly powerful; especially if gathered early in the game. Here's some alterations that might balance it out a little.

True Breed: Make it a rated value. Assuming the standard chance of a trait going to the child is 50%, each rank of True Breed adds 5% to that. Making True Breed 10 doing what it is doing now (But now you will have earned it.)

Incorrigible: Also make it a rated value. The Incorrigible rating reduces the 'incest' value by 10% times the rating at time of birth. Example: A child born has over the threshold for incest (say 120; normally Herp-derp assuming something like >=100 triggers it), but had inherited Incorrigible 5 so that value is reduced in half (50%) and is safe (incest rating 60 so safe). Same example, but only Incorrigible 1; modified value 108 (still herp-derp). Of course Incorrigible 10 does what it does now (but earned instead of given).

Mutagenic: Instead of adding a new random trait, make it BECOME a new random trait (of the same rating). Example: Say, Mutagenic 4 gave a child Added Value in current version; instead of inheriting Mutagenic 4 the child gets Added Value 4 instead. Mutagenic 10 should only have a 50% chance of doing this (so that if both parents have Mutagenic 10; child is guaranteed a new trait.) Nerfs Mutagenic a bit so that there's still reason to go to the monster shop (or at least keep the parents). Hmm, now reading over it seems a little strong to get a new trait at lvl 10; maybe half whatever the mutagenic rating was instead (above example Added Value of 2, instead). Probably needs more adjusting.

Other thought: I mention earlier a modification to the stat cap raising that is currently in effect and someone mentioned that the negative mod effecting it would be too much; thinking over it a bit, I'd have to agree. But I still think that having ALL the caps increase is messed up if you hadn't been training that stat any.

As a suggestion, the child could carry over the caps of whichever parents caps are larger and then the stat caps of the corresponding plus breed modifiers are increased. But by how much? .... How about the amt of the MOD of the other parent? So if the child inherited a father's stat cap and that stat has a plus breed mod then the cap is increased by the MOD of the mother's stat and vice versa. That would have an added benefit of making Catsquirt useful again rather than just for money. This will almost certainly need to be balanced as well though. I can foresee a lot of Catsquirt spamming to get the caps to 1000 instantly, but then again the MODs were only upping by .5 per consumable when the stat base was 1000 so it may be faster to breed still.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts and opinions of the direction the game would go if I was doing it. Feel free to disregard if you don't like it; I'm just providing input as I'm thinking about it. Keep up the good work.

[Ironvein]

And the thoughts just keep coming (dammit, trying to sleep ). In regards to the negative breed mod lower a cap and that being too much. Instead, if the breed mod is negative, then the cap inherited is the lower of the two parents instead. That's much less harmful than my original idea and would still make sense. That way if both parents caps were 1000 then it wouldn't matter what breed modifiers were inherited.

[Oringlas]

for traits - Instead of just an integer scale of 1 to 10, represent it (internally at least) as a decimal scale from 0 to 10.0 and work it like the following

Code: Select All Code

value < 1 :- trait is not active
value > 1 :- trait is ranked at floor(value)
value == 10.0 :- trait at full strength (or 'on' for traits that don't have

Then have the child inherit 66% of each parents trait value

Code: Select All Code

child.value = (ma.value + pa.value) * 0.66

This will let traits grow through breeding, while still players to use the store to shop for triats or risk inbreeding. (A child born of a 1.0 + 0 will have a trait at 0.66 (thus not active), to get a child with > 1.0 would require breeding with the parent (assuming the gender coin-flip goes the right way ) )

This could also solve the mutagen exploit - make this trait "Mutagen X - trait has an (X * 10)% chance of turning into something else when creating offspring"

(you can skip this code fragment if you want )

Code: Select All Code

// assumes the child's trait values get set to zero before this point

// this bit goes before the child's trait values get worked out
if (ma.mutagen active) {
choose random trait 'X' here
tval = max((original value of 'X'), (value of mutagen trait))
child gets tval as its value for 'X'
set a ma_mutagen_trait flag to identify trait 'X'
}
if {pa.mutagen active) {
choose random trait 'Y' here
tval = max((original value of 'Y'), (value of mutagen trait))
if ('X' != 'Y')
     child gets tval as its value for 'Y'
else
     child's value = value + tval
set a pa_mutagen_trait flag to identify trait 'Y'
}

// following to go in the inheritence loop,
// working on triat 'T':
if ('T' == mutagen) {
    // using a c++ constuct here - forgive me :) ( "foo = test ? herp" : derp sets foo=herp if test==true, else foo=derp )
    ma_val = (ma_mutagen_trait != null value) ? 0 : ma's mutagen value
    pa_val = the same just swap 'pa' for 'ma' :)
    child's tval = ma_val + pa_val
}
else {
    // if the parent did the mutagenic tango - the child already has the corresponding bit of it's inheritence :)
    if ('T' != ma_mutagen_trait)
        child's tval = value + ma's tval
    if ('T' != pa_mutagen_trait)
        child's tval = value + pa's tval
}
child's tval = value * 0.66 // inheritance mod value

// go back to doing the rest of being born

This way Mutagenic could still be a stat that could be strengthend through breeding - but as it get stronger it has a greater chance of turning into something else, thus making a Mutagenic 10 a rare beast indeed.

( math nerd moment - the minimum value that both parents need to get a child with 10.0 is 7.58 which would give a 9% of an offspring having Mutagenic 10.0, this gets smaller until both parents have Mutagenic 10.0, at which point the child won't. It will get two random traits at a 6 or higher - or (rarely) a 10.0 in one - instead. (extra nerd bonus - this might just Mutagenic 10.0 if both the Mutagenic 10.0 on the parents mutate into Mutageic 10.0 and by god I am sick of typing Mutagenic right now )

[Justapuppet]

I've been reading a lot of the previous comments since the last update, and I'd like to try and address everything I haven't already said elsewhere at once (though I could be forgetting something).
(I'm just gonna be general as to what I think the problems are and solutions would be, so I don't end up trying to dictate this game )

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Of course right now assimilating certain traits into the player's group of monsters can very quickly give one a huge advantage, but it's also worth noting that until you get some of these traits, the game is pretty grueling as it stands and it's absolutely necessary to get at least some of them to keep up with the combination of rising prices/debt payments, client demands, and the need to expand your monster selection at least somewhat. Until you happen upon some of these traits (like Fertile and incorrigible, for example), breeding to increase stats or even just to breed in new traits can be a nightmare - in my experience I end up wasting a couple weeks just trying to get one child that I need (and without incorrigible, anything less than exactly what you need won't do because you can only go so many generations with passing the trait down without inciting the wrath of herp-derp). Holstauri help, but at that point in the game the DEX on them isn't going to be that high, so unless you dedicate quite a few days just to gathering milk to get the chance close to 100%, the somewhat increased chance from the milk hardly offsets the time to get it. Maybe these traits do need to be nerfed because of how dramatic the shift is once you get them, but I think maybe there should be some way to be able to more safely at least get yourself started in getting the traits you really want without playing critical restock-lottery at the shop (or doing like a billion silver clients' requests). Besides Mutagen, I mean. Having a more reliable way to get them would both make it easier to get things running more smoothly early on and also make nerfing the traits a better option to keep the game challenging later on... or there could be alternative ways to do this, such as adding new types of consumables that give have similar effects to the traits - as holstaurus milk is to Fertile, ____ would be to ___... or something else entirely that could be obtained to give benefits similar to weaker versions of those oh-so-necessary traits.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

I also think that it's not JUST that clients end up being a not-very-viable way to get money later in the game as opposed to MASS consumable production (which... wow, so much semen, so little time), but it also becomes pretty tedious and boring in general after a point; as it stands, at least at some point most players I imagine would end up having to spend all the rest of their time in the game just clicking over and over and over (and over and... yeah) to get those consumables (or maybe clients, if and when they get tweaked to more realistically match what the player needs and can do) and the great fun it is at first becomes... pretty boring. And repetitive. Even if it's properly rebalanced, it'd still be like that at SOME point in the game.
Of course I'm not saying it won't get more interesting in later builds - of course every new addition or change to the game can serve to make it more fun for longer (give players new reason to save up larger amounts of money for new types of monsters, or keep them busy with other new changes), but... well 12 months in this game is a long time. Like, several hours if you play the whole thing without hibernating for a couple months at some point. This may be a note that you might wanna just ignore for a bit and get back to when the game is at a further stage already, but if you want to make this thang fun, interesting, and yet challenging for the full 12 months in the game, there would probably need to be some point at which the player ends up shifting focus from selling consumables or monsters to... breeding and specializing monsters for some new, higher-dollar focus (saw a few suggestions for this, but there's loads of ways you could go with that, so I'll just leave it on that note).

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

One thing I also failed to mention on my posts (at the actual page of the game) is I don't think monsters at the shop need to get so trait-crazy late in the game. If you ask me, it's preeeetty ridiculous how it is right now (in the very late game, even spamming the restock button, I almost couldn't find monsters that DIDN'T have a certain trait, and... seriously, EVERYBODY has cruel and albino? ). It's good that they get more likely to get traits as the game goes on, but late in the game I think the rate of increase should slow down and... not reach that point of craziness (makes me wonder if it's due to the fact that you end up making your hometown the world's leader in selling monsters with Mutagen 10).

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

As for what some of the previous posters have suggested as for making stat caps for children only increase if it has a positive breeding modifier in that stat.... Wouldn't that mean that, early in the game, you'd struggle twice as much trying to get your monsters to have increased STA and DEX caps (which is arguably much more necessary in the first couple months than afterward), and then a little later on you'd be struggling to meet client demands when they request high OTHER stats (like FER, depending on how you do it) because then you have to go through breeding a monster specifically just with high FER through several generations (and hoping the children inherit that modifier)? And late in the game, when traits are a bit more freely available and breeding for children is a lot easier, it's much easier to get monsters with positive modifiers in many stats, so it would have less of an impact at that point... meaning it would increase the difficulty of the early game probably more than the late game... and the way I see it, the early game is precisely the part that's at risk of becoming too difficult.

EDIT: didn't realize I could do that, shrunk size of post

[FruitSmoothie]

You guys know you can put shit in spoilers to not force everybody to scroll past your wall of text that they don't want to read, right? Something like:

Game Ideas:

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Here is why my ideas are better than everyone elses ideas
WLL O TXT

It's just polite to not spam the thread up. Honestly I think past a couple of paragraphs people should be doing this.

[Oringlas]

I thought spam was short messages with not much content?

Oh well, wel'll try not to four-course meal the thread in the future, to save excessive scroll-wheel wear and tear.

[napsii]

It's not spam to make a long post per se, but I would agree that it's polite to use proper spacing and formatting so your comments are easier to read. Bricks of text are harder to sift through than properly spaced paragraphs, but they're not against the rules.

[Ironvein]

As for what some of the previous posters have suggested as for making stat caps for children only increase if it has a positive breeding modifier in that stat.... Wouldn't that mean that, early in the game, you'd struggle twice as much trying to get your monsters to have increased STA and DEX caps (which is arguably much more necessary in the first couple months than afterward), and then a little later on you'd be struggling to meet client demands when they request high OTHER stats (like FER, depending on how you do it) because then you have to go through breeding a monster specifically just with high FER through several generations (and hoping the children inherit that modifier)? And late in the game, when traits are a bit more freely available and breeding for children is a lot easier, it's much easier to get monsters with positive modifiers in many stats, so it would have less of an impact at that point... meaning it would increase the difficulty of the early game probably more than the late game... and the way I see it, the early game is precisely the part that's at risk of becoming too difficult.

You running under the flawed assumption that the game flow is going to remain the same (payment doubling, and client as is). It had already been mentioned (at least with the payment doubling) that they are just placeholders; something that's just there until he can think of something better. In case of the client, well that's still buggy as heck so don't expect that to stay the same either.

Our breeding comments are looking forward to the future of the game, which probably won't have these difficulties and without them, the game may become too easy again. They may or may not be a good thing for the game; in my case, I'm just pointing out something that didn't make sense to me and provided an idea that might correct it (as opposed to just bitchin about it being broken).

[b00m]

this game is amazing. i only have 1 resuest (sort of) more friendly random rolls, OR some things rolling better if BOTH perents have it. for example both perents with green+ on the breeding trait stamina, you would expect a huge chance of the ffspring havving the same or better.... not worse!

MY RAGE:

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

im getting SERIOUSLY stressed at this game, when BOTH perents have a breeding trait of green+ or blue+ there should be extra chance of the offspring having it too. when you breed a perfect pair together you would expect a better than evarage offspring.

other than that im holding back on donating because i dident expect there to be many updates... sadly i was correct...

[Justapuppet]

You running under the flawed assumption that the game flow is going to remain the same (payment doubling, and client as is). It had already been mentioned (at least with the payment doubling) that they are just placeholders; something that's just there until he can think of something better. In case of the client, well that's still buggy as heck so don't expect that to stay the same either.

Our breeding comments are looking forward to the future of the game, which probably won't have these difficulties and without them, the game may become too easy again. They may or may not be a good thing for the game; in my case, I'm just pointing out something that didn't make sense to me and provided an idea that might correct it (as opposed to just bitchin about it being broken).

Spoiler alert: more than a paragraph!

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Of course I don't expect the game to have the same flow. I realize I posted that more from the perspective of the current build (still not convinced it would help in the long run much other than just make the game feel slower, but whatevs), but I have other reservations about it as well.... Primarily, I feel like if new restrictions or challenges would be implemented, it would blow if it was stuff that made it feel like the game was restricting you just for the purpose of restricting you, and I feel like that would end up making it less enjoyable as a result. Maybe the idea of reworking the way stat caps are raised is still a good one, but I don't think the way it's been described would really make the game more fun (too easy is less fun, but too annoying is pretty bad too).

I'm also aware that I'm offering only criticism without that much suggestion as to solutions, but I'm only doing so because I see A LOT of suggestions for content, reworks, etc. going on in here and I'd rather just keep possibilities open (because there are so many ways you could solve most of these issues).

[Stazza]

Does anyone know when the next update is due?

[Ironvein]

Does anyone know when the next update is due?

Oyi, Oyi. We are talking about a single person who is doing this on top of his real job. It amazing that he's done so much already, cut him some slack. He'll let us know when there'll be an update.

[Stazza]

Does anyone know when the next update is due?

Oyi, Oyi. We are talking about a single person who is doing this on top of his real job. It amazing that he's done so much already, cut him some slack. He'll let us know when there'll be an update.

I wasn't asking because i'm inpatient or I feel the game should be progressing quicker, I was only curious because i'm eager to see how the game progresses

[Ironvein]

I wasn't asking because i'm inpatient or I feel the game should be progressing quicker, I was only curious because i'm eager to see how the game progresses

I'd give it a month and even then, probably not a major update. It depends on what he's actually working on currently (weither it's just a new monster, finishing up animations of the older monsters, game tweaks, and whatnot). The biggest mystery really is his priority list. That I wouldn't mind knowing.