Animal Congestion Fix

[Ecrir 887]

Sure, it's true that people could breed with their neighbours and that way they won't need more horses. But that also means that they are then dependent on their neighbours. What if they only have one other neighbour and he quits playing? Yeah, you got a problem then since you might just have lost all access to his horses and you don't have enough of your own to breed without inbreeding because you were depending on him to prevent that.

People simply like to be independent when it comes to that because long term dependence on others simply has risks, and if risks can be avoided then why take them? Due to that the inbreeding has resulted in people using more horses.

Changing the behaviour of your players is very very hard once they are set in a certain way, if you make it so you need animals from different farms for special traits then I can just trade 50% of my breeding horses with my neighbour once and then keep going as if nothing changed, right? So that doesn't facilitate anything in the long term because with the care for feature you can keep certain horses (the ones you got from the neighbour in trade) alive for a very long time.

People will simply look for the easiest way to use the change without really changing their behaviour. I really don't see a way to facilitate long term cooperation between players on breeding, most of it would only have to be done once and then never again due to the existence of the Care For option.

I do agree it would be great if other animals could also get more use, like the wardogs you mention and the hunting dogs, but if people start breeding those in big numbers too for the good traits (so they can have the best dogs for what they are good at) then that's probably going to cause huge problems with the system as it is right now (even more slots taken up by breeders, even less for hunters). The amount of horses should be decreased first to make room for such things, removing inbreeding would be one of the most effective ways to do that since it doesn't contribute anything positive, it just requires people to use more horses because people like to avoid risks.

The different kind of horses also sounds interesting, but it wouldn't suprise me if people just started breeding for both lines because in the end they need both kinds of horses. That just increases the amount of horses they need for breeding then, some times simplicity is actually good there, especially when the system itself can only handle so many animals. Of course a test could certainly be done first to see if people increase their amount of horses or if they work together with their neighbours where one breeds warhorses and another breeds other kinds of horses, but I'd be suprised if that really happens. I had a neighbour who did breeding for quite a while, in the end he quit and now I don't have any really close. Imagine that we had been splitting the types of horses like that, then I'd have had a problem when he quit. Though in that case I could have taken over all his horses, but then I could just as well have started breeding both lines from the start.

That's the real problem with a system that's quite limited on how many domestic animals there can be, with changes you have to be very careful that people don't start using even more of them because eventually they might reach the cap and then breeding will be impossible (has happened before).

Edited July 31, 2012 by Ecrir

[Keldun 335]

Cooperating with your neighbours only helps with inbreeding, but you can do that already with 3 horses and being careful.

It doesn't help at all with the need to have many females to get enough foals regularly.

[ReaverKane 363]

Nerfs are not bad things.

That said, what I'm seeing a lot of in this thread is, "Well, now I need to keep even more horses to breed because [etc, etc..]" and the first thing that pops into my mind is, "Why aren't you cross-breeding your horses with your neighbors?" It's not like you don't have neighbors. I'm a new player, and I'm married to Epic, but even over here it took me a good long time to get out and away from highly developed areas that, yes, did have several people logged in through the local. Each town usually had multiple farms with horses and cattle.

The number of domesticated horses should be much lower -- the ratio of "crap to awesome" should be such that, yes, a truly diligent breeder could make a name for themselves by selling quality animals. And by "truly diligent", I mean someone who logs in very regularly and whose main skills are aligned to animal breeding.

The game needs to facilitate cooperation between players for better breeding. Right now, it is simply easier and more straight-forward to shove 50 horses onto a small parcel of land and breed them into insanity. There are NO incentives for going out of your way and arranging for a proper breeding program with another player, paying for stud, or requesting foals from known quality mares. One possible way is to allow ownership to be established through the use of individual brands, which can be used to identify a new horse with a given farm (of course, you'd have to keep players from creating multiple brands willy-nilly..it's just an idea) -- animals bred from differently-owned farms/stables/kennels will have a chance at unique, positive traits that can only be attained this way.

In-breeding is bad, but only after serveral successive generations (after which, you start to see spontaneous, truly cripling genes pop up). While I get the suspicion this goes way more into the feature than Rolf may actually like, there needs to be real support for pedigrees and lineage tracking. I mean, that's what breeding is really all about -- its getting desired results through attentive matching over a period of time, not pick A & B and C & D just because they're unrelated. Maybe one day, this can be taken a step forward to allow for purposeful breeding -- those crappy wild horses who would sooner kick your face in than let you ride them can be transformed into effective, highly prized (and rare/sellable) warhorses or sturdy, serviceable draft horses that can pull even the heaviest of carts without pitching a fit about it (but obviously, not out of the same line!). Once you have that in, you can make it so its desireable to have these animals (go hitch a wild mustang to a cart and tell me what happens). Other animals would then become useful -- dogs into writ- and deed-aware guard- and wardogs, or fast, responsive hunting hounds. Cattle and pigs that produce higher quantities of high-quality meats and are far more docile (easier slaughter).

Well, about breeding with neighbors, you should talk after you get to a point where what you're breeding matters, not when the best you've got was a 2-traiter.

Don't have any one with remotely the same lvl of AH as me for at least 1/3 of the server's length. Its way easier to just keep a extra 2-3 couples than walking 15 minutes each way with 3 horses at a time to get stuff bred.

About what you wrote after, you're going exactly into my point. Instead of just nerfing, why not make new features that are an incentive to have less, but more prized animals.

[darthryan 588]

Rolf doesn't get it..... "Let's make it so people keep less horses.... take away horses living forever...... make animals attack your horse..... WTF?!?! Why do they have more horses?!?!??"

[Masochist 3]

Rolf doesn't get it..... "Let's make it so people keep less horses.... take away horses living forever...... make animals attack your horse..... WTF?!?! Why do they have more horses?!?!??"

Nice assumption...makes you sound like a jerk lol

Also comments like that are what makes people who develop stuff not look at the forums. How would you like to create something for people and have to sift through non constructive insults? Not like your making the game any better by developing anything...

Edited July 31, 2012 by Masochist

[darthryan 588]

Rolf's not making the game any better, either, woman hater.

[BobMcKnob 46]

So, let's face it, animal hoarding exists and it's going to stay, it's just how people are. Even if we could get every hoarder to kill of 10%, or even 5% of their herd, it's never going to change.

However, I keep coming back to the idea of a server wide animal sweep to help reset them, And here is just another example of why:

Last night a friend of mine informed me of a cave with some critters in it, I promptly dispatched myself to remove the issue and found this:

Nearly 25-30 greenish goblins in a single cave along with several other critters.

I am of the opinion that the code needs changed to allow them to exit passively, otherwise they will just keep piling up and another reason for us to run around clearing them out.

[ReaverKane 363]

So, let's face it, animal hoarding exists and it's going to stay, it's just how people are. Even if we could get every hoarder to kill of 10%, or even 5% of their herd, it's never going to change.

However, I keep coming back to the idea of a server wide animal sweep to help reset them, And here is just another example of why:

Last night a friend of mine informed me of a cave with some critters in it, I promptly dispatched myself to remove the issue and found this:

Nearly 25-30 greenish goblins in a single cave along with several other critters.

I am of the opinion that the code needs changed to allow them to exit passively, otherwise they will just keep piling up and another reason for us to run around clearing them out.

Serverwide reset is a bad idea. Then months of breeding for a 5 trait breeding pair would go down the toilet.

[BobMcKnob 46]

Just had a random Idea, we could possibly organize a server wide hunting trip, killing off, say unicorns, or anything that moves, and see if the spawns reset. Place some boats at good spots ahead of time to easily cross places en masse, load the boats with cotton and healing covers, see what happens.

See above for better understanding.

[ReaverKane 363]

See above for better understanding.

Dumb AI isn't a reason for a serverwide reset.

If it was then when all the animal pop in Inde was stuck on mountain tops or mountain sides, game's animal pop would have been reset tons of times.

This needs a AI improvement, not a reset.

Its like nuking a city because there's a terrorist living there.

[Keldun 335]

They managed to resolve the pit issue, they just need to take care of the mines and fences against slopes as well.

[BobMcKnob 46]

Dumb AI isn't a reason for a serverwide reset.

If it was then when all the animal pop in Inde was stuck on mountain tops or mountain sides, game's animal pop would have been reset tons of times.

This needs a AI improvement, not a reset.

Its like nuking a city because there's a terrorist living there.

A little more reading on your part would provide a far better understanding of what is being said.

Just had a random Idea, we could possibly organize a server wide hunting trip, killing off, say unicorns, or anything that moves, and see if the spawns reset.

However, I keep coming back to the idea of a server wide animal sweep to help reset them,

[KaiH 1,126]

The following suggestions part was split off to this topic:
/>http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/65441-split-off-from-animal-congestion-fix/