Why A Breeder Needs So Many Animals

[SmeJack 5,798]

Correct corpses do not count toward the animal cap..however each corpse creates 10+ items which the server must then track....IF resources were not used tracking these items...more resources would be available to increase the animal cap.....thus one can conclude that hunters leaving their unclaimed goodies laying unclaimed all over the map contribute equally to a lack of animal population....

Not sure I see your logic here, though I could agree that it may contribute to lag

[Alyeska 2,621]

thus one can conclude that hunters leaving their unclaimed goodies laying unclaimed all over the map contribute equally to a lack of animal population....

I don't think you quite understand how it works. Animals and items are two completely different things, animals being capped becuase of their AI need, items aren't capped at all. A butchered corpse and the slaughterwaste will also decay in a week tops whereas a bred and penned animal can live for months if not years. There's plenty of measures in place on items to prevent them from lagging, it's not realistic to say "we can use server space dedicated for items to place animals". There's not a hard limit on how many items there can be on the server, unlike with animals.They're seperate and I really doubt Rolf wants to hand in server space dedicated to items to have one dog roam around somewhere.

Simply adjusting the hard cap with the playercount and tracking when a server is "full" (x amount of players) and then responding would be a reasonable answer, imo.

[Kyrmius 188]

Roman dislikes when players hoard like this.

Goodbye Southern Steppe on Celebration.

Same thing happened last summer when Deli opened up. Within a week it was hard to find a horse and I know of at least one ranch on Deli that had more horses than what you have in your pic from Celebration.

Sad but true. Kyrmius dislikes as well.

[Kraljtatov 34]

I have about 10 horses at any given time and I must say it's quite easy as far as skill and maintainence goes.

[Tinkerer 107]

To me the whole purely genetic randomness and length of time involved for each attempt is the biggest factor I can see. I don't care at all for breeding or hoarding - other than hoping to find and maintain a few cows for the paltry amount of milk therefore cheese that can be produced. (Though that is now greatly improved now that the milk isn't simply lost on a fail) - but I've digressed...

My point was that the whole trait system only applies at a genetic level. Why can't animals be "trained" to be better. Why don't their living conditions affect their traits?

Why not have allow good traits a chance to randomly occur throughout maturity - depending on:

a. what they are grazing on

b. how often they are groomed

c. how much penned space they have

d. possibly how much they are led or ridden

For example, have an internal counter, counting the number of times the horse tries to graze on a barren tile - every 'X' times in a row that occurs, it has a chance to develop a bad trait. SImilarly in reverse, with a chance for a good trait.

The fact that it is purely genetic regardless of how cramped they are in their pen - or if they are eating magically fertilized genetically modified grass, steppe, real grass, or crops while they grow up and mature seems somewhat odd to me. Creating anything else of a desirable quality in this game requires additional work after the initial creation. You don't create 50 pickaxes, hoping that one of them will be automatically crafted at 99ql. They all start lower and are imped. Let nature, tending and grooming help to imp horses.

Perhaps this will encourage players to care better for a few, instead of simply hogging hundreds which turn out to be duds.

Edit: This would still need to get tied to AH - providing some max number of traits that a horse could develop during maturity or something.

Edited June 14, 2012 by Tinkerer

[Wraithglow 787]

i like all of tinkerer's ideas with the exception of the "how much they are led or ridden" one. This one i dislike because either way it could be argued - a horse that is used more often would be better trained, but a free-roaming horse that isn't constantly being used would probably be healthier.

I particularly like the idea that if a horse grazes on a barren tile it becomes somehow worse. However since this would have little effect on the hording-just-for-the-sake-of-it player (as opposed to breeders for sale) perhaps horses could have some accelerated metabolism system - trying to graze on a barren tile makes them lose significant amount of fat, and if it happens too many times, it just dies of starvation (obviously grazing on farm/grass/ench tiles would raise the fat level up again).

[Tryfaen 709]

Horses aren't the only things that can be bread, any idea that involves changing breeding must work for all creatures.

There are creatures that can't be groomed, breeding those animals would be negatively effected by changes that required grooming to produce healthy offspring.

Also, almost every idea in these types of threads does nothing to solve the problem and only puts a larger workload on the breeder which is quite anti-fun.

[Tinkerer 107]

Yes, horses aren't the only things that can breed, but they just about are the only creatures where traits really mean anything useful.

i like all of tinkerer's ideas with the exception of the "how much they are led or ridden" one. This one i dislike because either way it could be argued - a horse that is used more often would be better trained, but a free-roaming horse that isn't constantly being used would probably be healthier.

True.. I was reaching somewhat.. but I was just thinking of the 'can carry more' or 'strong body' type traits and how they would be 'encouraged'.

While some I believe could still have a chance to be gained at birth due to genetics ('tough bugger', 'legs of different length', 'malformed hindlegs', 'keen senses') others can be 'encouraged' (not 'trained') through good rearing.

If an animal's AI pathing can move the animal more than 'X' tiles in a line (i.e. the penned area is large enough) then there is a small chance each time that the animal could develop a speed trait. ('fleeter movement', 'lightning movement'). If pathing results in being unable to move more than 1 tile, then perhaps it has a chance to develop 'unmotivated'.

If it tries to graze on a tile which already has another animal on it, then there is a small chance to gain 'overly aggressive'

If it tries to graze on a barren tile, then a hance for 'constantly hungry' or 'feeble and unhealthy' etc

Seldom (or never groomed) when needed could develop 'usually strong willed'. Whereas well groomed can help to encourage the development of other traits.

Perhaps 'grooming' could reset any counter used to generate the chances of developing negative traits.

Sure.. these are just suggestions for how to tie the various traits to their environment when reared and could probably be better designed, and yes to get an animal with a good set of traits would require more work and care on that particular animal while it matured. Why should it just be purely random at birth?

However, given that you could raise a couple of horses with good care and a decent pen to have good traits, you would not need to keep and look after a whole herd of animals to breed in a 'hit and hope' style. So while the maturity of the animal might need more work from the breeder, they would not need to spend so much work looking after all the parents.

A few, fairly simple to check, conditions that naturally occur could be used to traits to develop. I mean, why would a horse raised in a 1x1 pen ever have 'lightning movement' when it has been unable to ever use its legs?

Also, almost every idea in these types of threads does nothing to solve the problem and only puts a larger workload on the breeder which is quite anti-fun.

I fail to see how this would put a larger workload on the breeder. Instead of grooming and breeding loads of animals and then culling all the foals/calves/whatever without the desired traits you would only need to groom and breed a few and have good conditions for them.

[Ayes 3,715]

Ok then, if there are people who enjoy breeding animals to get the best traits possible for whatever reasons, here is another way to help reduce the hoarding of excessive animals, which at the present time is too easy to do.

Enable disease to kill animals on the following basis. One week after the "grooming" label shows up on animals they will get the diseased effect, if they are not groomed within a week after that they will immediately die. In this manner people who want to have huge herds of animals must put the additional time into grooming them and others who simply leave their herds of animals for periods of time longer than stated above will have them die off. With this system in effect we will no longer see huge pens of animals held by people who rarely log onto the game or have quit playing unannounced to anyone.

Also, grooming a diseased animal will immediately remove the diseased effect, so if people do have them at the diseased stage they can eliminate it quickly. Cared for animals will be immune from this whole disease contagion and cycle, so that people who only have their limit of cared for animals will not be in danger of having them die off if they do not log on to attend to them for a longer period of time. With this immunity alts should need to have 15 AH skill to care for their first animal to prevent alts used as easy horders and 21 AH skill would be needed to care for a second animal which would exempt them from the option.

Yes, this system would require that animal breeders groom all their animals at least once per week after the grooming option shows up, perhaps even stretching it to almost another week before grooming after the diseased effect has shown up; but I think this is a reasonable requirement that animal breeders should have imposed upon them for having animals in excess of those which are cared for. Anyone who only has their few cared for animals would in effect need have no concern for this whole grooming-disease system as they would be immune from it. Problem resolved! Next.....

=Ayes=

[Vroomfondel 1,128]

Ok then, if there are people who enjoy breeding animals to get the best traits possible for whatever reasons, here is another way to help reduce the hoarding of excessive animals, which at the present time is too easy to do.

Enable disease to kill animals on the following basis. One week after the "grooming" label shows up on animals they will get the diseased effect, if they are not groomed within a week after that they will immediately die. In this manner people who want to have huge herds of animals must put the additional time into grooming them and others who simply leave their herds of animals for periods of time longer than stated above will have them die off. With this system in effect we will no longer see huge pens of animals held by people who rarely log onto the game or have quit playing unannounced to anyone.

Also, grooming a diseased animal will immediately remove the diseased effect, so if people do have them at the diseased stage they can eliminate it quickly. Cared for animals will be immune from this whole disease contagion and cycle, so that people who only have their limit of cared for animals will not be in danger of having them die off if they do not log on to attend to them for a longer period of time. With this immunity alts should need to have 15 AH skill to care for their first animal to prevent alts used as easy horders and 21 AH skill would be needed to care for a second animal which would exempt them from the option.

Yes, this system would require that animal breeders groom all their animals at least once per week after the grooming option shows up, perhaps even stretching it to almost another week before grooming after the diseased effect has shown up; but I think this is a reasonable requirement that animal breeders should have imposed upon them for having animals in excess of those which are cared for. Anyone who only has their few cared for animals would in effect need have no concern for this whole grooming-disease system as they would be immune from it. Problem resolved! Next.....

=Ayes=

I like this idea, and I think it should have been this way a long time ago. And if, like myself, you are grooming daily to grind your skill, it should not have any affect on you. When Rolf first introduced disease, it was set too high and he killed most all livestock in a day. After that he nerfed it down so that it didn't really mean anything, it was just a tag. I tried it and you could leave a diseased animal sick a long time and it would not die. Now I guess it does kill them, but when still seems a bit random, and generally too long between sick and dying. And I don't think we need to hear from casual players about how this would affect them. If you cannot be bothered to play at least once every couple of weeks and care for your animals, then you are playing this game way too casually.

Edited June 15, 2012 by Vroomfondel

[Pinta Dragon 5]

Edit: I'm an idiot, the post was already moved lol

Edited June 20, 2012 by Pinta Dragon

[DrenDran_Azjherben 1]

I honestly don't think AH skill should be tied to traits at all.

How does me having groomed a lot of animals make my horses genetic makeup better?

It makes no sense. It just doesn't.

...

sorry, didn't realize this was an old thread

there really should be a "too old" error

Edited August 3, 2012 by DrenDran_Azjherben

[Reylaark 1,100]

Hi, my name's Reylaark, and I'm a grown man who enjoys caring for virtual little ponies... there, I said it.

I groom them often, not just for the xp, but because I like my horses and want them well tended to. I keep a close watch on the tiles they live on to make sure there are no barren spots. They get a mix of grass tiles, at least one of each grain type, and some steppe tiles for a diverse diet. When a mare is pregnant, I hand feed it grains to make sure she's always well fed aside from her free grazing.

I keep them in an enclosed specially built stable as sturdy as it gets with an atrium to allow pasture.

If anything, I would love to see all these things make a bigger difference in having strong, healthy, willing horses. I would really hate to see AH watered down for the sake of skill grinders. No offense to anyone, just how I see it.

I know some people will claim "chores!" to the notion of having to take a more active role to caring for the animals they keep but it's not a chore at all to people who enjoy it.

There are a lot of horses out there penned up and not looked after at all with no consequences. I tend to think someone with 15 horses who never grooms them and doesn't look after their food supply has less of a right than someone who has 100 horses but puts a lot of effort into maintaining them.

+1 to Tinkerer's ideas.

I would just say that "tough bugger" can be increased post-breeding IRL. I've gotten very nervous horses that jumped at their own shadow to confidently cross streams just by treating them the way they needed to be treated. Same with "keen senses." A horse can be habituated to recognize what is worthy of attention, and what isn't.

There are genetic limitations and genetic advantages, but one can't discount the importance of environmental factors including treatment from humans. As a horrid example, I saw a horse down in Mexico that had previously been owned by the army. I have no doubt it was born of great stock, but with cigarette burns all over it, the poor thing was an absolute wreck of nerves and neuroses.

The way we treat horses should play a greater role in husbandry.

[Kamikazifly 70]

Thanks Stacia...Knew I had read it then posted it to notebook to peruse again at a later time...then couldn't find the OP again..Best explanation I have seen....!

One of the things I haven't seen really addressed is why people keep so many animals. I have been breeding horses for about a year. On Deli I have bred 5 speed horses from the original spawned horses without the use of any fo spells. Here is my take on it and suggestions for fixing the problem:

1. Its takes 40 animals to skill grooming if you want to grind the AH skill nonstop due to the 45 minuite timer. Its easier to do this then groom wait groom wait so people will continue to do it.

Remove the timer. FIxes that reason.

2. You can't breed parents, children and siblings. Means you keep more horses. Maybe not many but you keep more.

Remove the additional bad trait for breeding related animals.

3. It takes 5 irl weeks before a horse is old enough to breed. I also never ride a horse till its mature cuz it just looks stupid. Never seen anyone else ride one either. So, I breed at 5 but don't really use them till they are 8 weeks. 2 months of waiting for them to get old enough to be really usuable.

Make a horse adolescent at 3 weeks, breedable, and the size of a mature horse.

4. Now here's the big one. At AH 50 then at 60 it takes massive amounts of breeding to produce 5 speed horses. After 8 months of keeping about 30 horses pregnant at all times I have 18 5 speeds, 12 of them are still too young to do anything with. This number was due to the randomness of bad traits. I killed 80% of what I bred. The only thing the skill level seems to effect is number of traits, not whether or not you got good traits or bad traits.. I am breeding for 5 people to each have 2 5 speeds. Then I need to breed enough to replace the ones killed or lost. So, to get keep us in usuable horses I will need 10 breeding stock plus 10 growing old enough to be used plus several spare.

Getting bad traits should be tied to AH skill so the higher you are the less chance you have of bad traits and the lower you are the more bad traits you will get regardless of the traits of the horses you are breeding. Right now anyone at AH 30 can breed fleeter, lightening, carry more and have a pretty fast horse. I know of no other crafting skill where a 30 quality anything has any real value. A AH 50 should have very few bad traits show up.

Most breeders would be quite happy to have smaller herds but the numbers you have to breed to get good horses makes us keep far more than we want.

I think the whole enchant grass nerf is to get abandoned horses to die so there are less horses. The above fixes and expanded disease will fix that problem more long term then nerfing enchanted grass

I would add to the above the math that with 5 possible speed traits....that is equal to 120 potential combinations....x 4 colors is 480 combinations...one male one female of each is nearing 1k horses...then add beyond that desired fighting traits and the picture of combinations is ungodly huge....

Don't forget that the number of horses double when you want to breed 5 trait war horses, in addition to speed horses. With the recent changes of ridden horses being killed, this also increases the incredible need for EVEN MORE horses.

Therefore we need about 40 horses for speed horses, 40 horses for war horses, and double or triple that due to horses gaining agro. Thats between 160 to 240 horses. The horses gaining agro has increased the NEED for more horses by 160 more breeding horses.

My suggestion to remedy this is: to cause off deed named horses to gain disease after 2 weeks of non grooming nor riding. And start taking rotting wounds when diseased. (Path of insanity can heal rotting wounds, showing they are wanted and not left out in the cold to die. And it gives insanity a use on the PvE servers.) Currently, SICK HORSES DON'T DIE. There is no known reason a sick horse should be taken care of.

Wurm is a VERY complex game, and quick 'nerfs' cause serious problems to the ecosystem. Which is entirely shown by nerfing enchanted grass and the longevity of named horses on deed. Nerfs make everyone mad. Fix the real problems, dont nerf cause the real problems are not understood. Nerfs should have their own suggestions thread so that the community could inform of why the nerf is a bad idea, and suggest a better idea.

In summary, my suggestions are as such:

1. Give sick horses random light rotting disease wounds.
   
2. Make shoed horses have less chance for disease.
   
3. Decrease the bad traits for 35+ AH.
   
4. Increase the named animal cap by 40x
   
5. Give all bred animals a special or generic name, for example "pet pig" or "pet bear" or "pet troll".
   
6. Make spawning horses regionally modified. (Fewer horses/pigs where there is already a horse/pig farm.)
   

[KaiH 1,126]

Interesting.. with every additional suggestion post on this thread the amount of animals needed rises exponential..

No, you don't need 240 horses to breed 5 speed or 'war horses'... not now and not before any other fix that has happened.

Stop overexaggerating numbers, look in the game first how the good breeders do it - i haven't seen anyone using more than 40 in ANY case (and those are the high end breeders who sell or give away horses).

Step back a little, breathe, check your numbers and think about it.

But don't throw out imaginary numbers to visually increase the importance of your suggestion.