Items to consider when redoing pet breeding system.

1) First and most important DON'T make the parents advance a generation when bred. Babies should of course but not the parents.
2) Please lower the token cost of Bonding deeds. 50k is too high if you are training a lot of 1 slot pets.
3) Need gender change deeds. Few things as irritating as breeding 4 pets and all the babies are the same gender.
4) If possible allow numerals in pet name. M30 as a name for Male lvl 30 would be very helpful.
5) Important to make wiki information match actual system.

These are my early thoughts. Others please add items to consider.

Well the shard was successful at driving a stake through the heart of pet breeding. I came back from several weeks of being busy in real life to find all those dozens of lvl 30 pets I hunted for so diligently and spent hours training up are ALL now sterile.

I told you this was going to happen.  I even sent you a personal message to come back to the shard and be a tester since you like to breed, and I would replace many of the pets you had worked on to report how the system was working!

Again you were told and warned to stop breeding until the new system was in place, we also explained there would be hard caps to stop the expoiting.  All of your pets were on a path to eventually be exploited.  You know as well as I do there were flaws that you even pointed out to us!  We made a new system to fix every known exploit and problem and created a great new market for breeding pets that was not there before.

When I talked to you last night you were understandably upset, but when I asked you if you had read the info on the wiki or forums, you said NO! 

ALL my one slot pets which after I was told I kept ALL of them limited to 500 hits because they said they were going to change the cap back to 500 hits for one slotters are now sterile. Yeah I had some ice hounds over 500 before I was told the 500 hit limit was coming back. I had offered several times BEFORE this last change to have them lowered to 500 hits. To the best of my knowledge NONE of my other pets were over ANY cap.

Yes they were all max with spend points, unlimited breeds and can make unlimited max pets forever...you dont see an issue with this? 
Instead of deleting all the pets in game we decided to make them sterile so you can still use them, you just can no longer make more max, over-powered, over-capped, exploited pets?

Starting over after the revert was painful but starting over AGAIN on breeding is a deathblow for me. Making breeding take months of effort was bad enough but throwing those months of effort in the trash can was the last straw. I will just go back to shards where breeding is difficult vice impossible.

Again Im sorry you feel this way but I did offer several time to work with you...this was a major issue and had to be resolved

The caps have been in place for over a year, players ignored them and continued making, breeding and hiding over-capped pets.  The chart has clearly been on the wiki, same chart you posted below
It is interesting that there is no mention of the Health Caps in relation to the pet's "taming slots" on the wiki.  I do understand that this was the intention in the previous incarnation of the pet overhaul prior to the wipe, but it does seem excessive.  Because it is not mentioned on the wiki, I will enter what it appears to be here:

1 Slot Pet Max HP:  500
2 Slot Pet Max HP:  1000
3 Slot Pet Max HP:  1500
4 Slot Pet Max HP:  2000
5 Slot Pet Max HP:  ?


I feel that these numbers do not adequately represent the creature's max HP.  For example, why would a Beetle have the same max HP as say, a Nightmare, or a Dire Wolf to have the same max HP as a Chicken.  The chart just means that is the max a pet can ever have no matter how many times u breed it up, it will have a hard cap, to keep it in balance.  I understand that these changes are to nerf the effectiveness of low control slot pets with pack instinct, and to keep donation pets on a pedestal.  But donation pets were already vastly superior to high generation tameables.  Werewolves for example can cast, be ridden, and still do extraordinary base damage at a low control slot, even my high generation Ancient Firesteeds wouldn't have that type of versatility. Yes, the WW were a mistake that has cost us alot in terms of balance, they are becoming more rare and phased out over the next year.  The old ones will be grandfathered and new lesser versions will be added with balanced stats and abbilities

"Yes, the WW were a mistake that has cost us alot in terms of balance, they are becoming more rare and phased out over the next year.  The old ones will be grandfathered and new lesser versions will be added with balanced stats and abilities"
I understand that the donation pets should be special. But it is not just the werewolves. I of course do not have donation stats, but I would suspect that the most donated for pets are the werewolves, and royal steeds and than evo dragons. Even pre revert when there were more custom pets this was probably true.

These pets are obscenely overpowered for their slots (and its not cause of Hp's  ). Without even factoring in pack instinct they have high base top end dmg, on top of high skills (ex; 180 tactics).   

For high end mobs, Hp's do not matter and they will still die. DPS'ng the mob down is what matters. no one is going to want a 3khp 4 or 5 slot tank pet that does mediocre damage. Sure for a champ or Trash it might be cool, but 2 WW or 4 or 5 Royals is far superior

which brings me to player tamed and bred pets and the point of my post i suppose!

I wholeheartedly agree the 100+ resist pets had to go. I also have no issue with wanting to give a purpose to breeding etc etc.  The only thing I take minor exception to is what seems to be "HP" bias on pets, both player bred and donation. 

what I want to understand is how it is considered unbalanced to have for example, a 2 slot nightmare with 2k hps (still mediocre DPS).  no 2k bred pet is going to solo kill, or even allow you to easily farm any High end mobs. Take a 2k hp Cu, or even make it two,  and sick them on Rend with no interaction from you and see what happens. 

Obviously a to high HP cap would be unbalanced, but I feel it cheapens the argument that a 2 slot bred pet with 1.5 hps is somehow unacceptable,  but 10 1 slot very HIGH dps pets with pack instinct is not.

Just some observations and my opinion of course! Please do not take this as a complaint. You guys rock and I will deal with whatever changes happen. 

Edit: want to add that I believe it is the Pack Instict which pushes those pets over the top. Standalone without pack those royals and werewolves would still be awesome pets, Just not so over the top.

Yes this is exactly why we had to make breeding changes and why we dont have all the old donation pets available atm.  We are slowly balancing the breeding system, phasing out old op pets and adding in new ones with balance in mind...it's really hard to unring the bell, but we are really trying:)

TYVM for the Reply Dante

It is amazing so many people have such opinions and most have not tamed or breed a single pet yet. 

Ask anyone who has been dealing with me cleaning up the other systems, all you have to do is get with me and we can talk.  I code based on numbers and results because they never lie.  If you tell me all you get are sterile pets and I go spawn 10 in a row and get only 2 or 3 which numbers am I going to go with?  The previous system had so many flaws and exploits it was unplayable, in fact it was bad enough my first advice would of been remove breeding completely.  If you give me time I will make breeding not just usable but something no other shard has, you will be able to spend points on special abilities and such to create pets that do not exist.  If you want to taste at what I can code, go fight Spirilix.. if you want to find out how I work with players.. ask anyone doing Treasure Maps and Treasure Chests.  I think you will find my body of work speaks for itself and far out ways "assumptions".

I am done with the cheaters though.  The previous system was not perfect, this current foundation we are working on is not perfect but I am working on it.  I know some of the people who were dependent upon the exploits are quitting but I also know the people who want a better breeding system are actually talking with me to make that happen.  In the end Evolution will be better off...

Kane, I hope you are not referring to me in reference to the opinions of people who have not bred or tamed any pets, but since there are only two other members replying to this thread, I had the impression that you were.  No we are not pointing the finger at you, it's in general I'm not trying to piss in your Wheaties here, and I think (and have said numerous times) that you're work here is far and above what I have experienced on Evo in the past, and that your hard work, expertise and the shards general direction is to be applauded. 

I noticed that the pet HP caps were on the wiki (http://uoevolution.com/wiki/index.php/Animal_Breeding), but I had checked the wiki prior to my posting that comment with the max hp info (all from pets that I had tamed after the change), and I can honestly say that I did not see it.  Yes the chart was posted on the forums and the wiki.  I checked after your post and did update it to include the hard slot caps and hard stat caps to be more clear with the details. Perhaps because I had viewed it prior to being edited, or while it was being edited, as the notes at the bottom of the page indicate that it had been edited same day of my posting or I simply overlooked it (This page was last modified on 25 August 2014, at 06:56.). 

I'm not one of the ones screaming mutiny, and I'm putting faith in the staff that everything will turn out for the better.
Yes, there is no issue with discussing the changes or giving constructive criticism, this is what makes this a great community and helps improve your shard:)

@Kane,
You left out bods man. I for one have enjoyed what you have done there so far and look forward to what is coming. Also can we mention the golems?


@Everyone,
I will go on the record to say that Kane does talk and listen to what players have to say about things. For me it has been the boding system, and I am thankful. I know of no other game that "I" have played where the staff listens, let alone, comes into the teamspeak channel to ask if there is questions.


 

I've been taming... will try breeding... actually will just let Draco breed because he has the high luck.


 I sulked for a good 10 minutes last night over a Cu... but got over it and will try again at getting a breedable one

I beg to differ.  I was NOT told to stop breeding until the changes came out. All I was told was I would love the changes that were being worked on. I WAS told the caps per pet slot were coming back.  As soon as I knew that I carefully limited hits to what the caps used to be and would be again.
 
I offered to have you test breed for me since you were a dedicated breeder?  I also offered to replace some of the hard pets, again to test the system...

So those 10 gen 1 hell hounds, 10 blood scorpions, 8 ice hounds  I sent countless hours finding, taming and training to lvl 30 and then breeding represented a lot of time invested. Not to even count the 10 ridgebacks and 10 frenzied ostards I had trained part of the way to 30. Being able to use them is pointless when the time invested to train them is all null and void. I would have been good with you putting limits on how many times you could breed a pet. Making it ZERO breeds for all existing pets was not well considered.

All the pets still work and are high level?  They just cant be exploited now...did you even read the info about the systems?  Last time we talked you said no?

The other changes may or nay not work but as long as it takes to train a pet to max level and as short of a time as you are now allowing for it to be bred and the extremely limited life span of the pet ie it will now get old and feeble and not usable would appear to make pet breeding pointless. You spend months to years getting usable pets and then they get old and have so many large stat losses you have to start over from scratch. If your intent was to make pets and breeding pointless, you are there. All you needed to balance pets was to limit times they could breed. The best I can tell the other changes have made pet breeding an endless treadmill for no gain. That's my opinion. Like they say, everyone has one.

Most of the complaints you have about the system have not even been implemented yet?  Why so negative?  You have time to discuss and test this with the staff...

I realize  staff has control of the shard. What happened happened. Staff however can't make me like it or continue to start over. I think in the long run you will find you lost more people than you gained with this change.  It is a pity. I had such high hopes for this shard. No longer.
Again Im sorry you did not give the new system a chance before you left...

  Bye.

Kane, I love the fact that you're working on the new breeding system.  The ideas for special attacks which actually work and special pets able to be created only through breeding sound amazing.


Here's my feedback based on what I have encountered the last week.  A friend and I have failed each attempt at breeding generation 1 white wyrms.  I'm running about 3800 Luck, 120 taming, 145 Lore.  It seems like breeding success would be about automatic in those conditions.  I can add some taming jewelry if needed, just trying to get an idea of what exactly is needed to succeed with the new system.  I'm assuming the system averages the numbers from the 2 players involved, and then it is either double success or double failure?  Are taming/lore/luck the only things involved, and if so is one or more of the 3 more important than the others?


The other thing I'd like to suggest is that pet leveling xp be tweaked so it doesn't take so long to level up a fresh pet.  Maybe just reduce the xp needed per level.  The first 10 levels are not bad, but then it quickly becomes a grind, especially in a new system where we're experimenting with new creatures.


Thanks for the work you do, as always.

Ty for the input, I will discuss this with Kane asap