More randomization in gene mixing

[RWsYiffyMind]

Recently, I got a kobold with a cool dick from an egg in the store, and I wanted to have it for my player kobold, but the kobold in question had no breasts, and I thought it would be faster to just breed an offspring that did, than to stuff them with watermelons. It took ages of producing eggs that EITHER had breasts OR the cool dick, before I sat down and read the source, and realised that all offspring are perfect clones that are blended perfectly halfway between the parents on some of their properties, but not all.

My first thought is: it might be more interesting if the properties that aren't blended, were randomly pulled from each parent on individual coin tosses, rather than all being pulled from the same one on a single coin toss.

But while I was at it, my other thought was: it might also be more fun if the blended properties were also more randomized -- if they picked a random weight between the two parents, rather than always being split exactly down the middle. I was always looking forward to the surprise of what the offspring would look like, and kept being disappointed that they all turned out so samey, no matter how many times I tried.... The mixing odds could still be weighted to skew to be more likely to be average, but there could still be room for surprises to happen now and then.... (And, for example, with that logic in place, breast size could also mix, but with a heavy skew towards either parent, but a small chance of landing in the middle, just to add some randomness?) (I'd even be tempted to say there could be extremely small chances of skewing outside of the range between the two parents, and maybe even a food that would increase that chance temporarily, but that might be defeating the purpose of the store eggs at that point...)

I'd be happy to set this all up, I just wanted to check if this sounded good, or if people are really attached to the "no surprises ever" approach to kobold breeding? (If so, maybe it could be an option?)

[naelstrof]

I've had a lot of complaints about the lack of RNG with genetics, however I ultimately decided that lack of RNG was better for the breeding aspect-- as it allows the player to make consistent plans and results.

With breeding RNG:

• Kobolds would inevitably gain breasts. Maybe there could be custom code to prevent this, but I think it'd be similar for all stats (luminosity, brightness, dick length, fatness, etc). I find this unacceptable.
• It becomes difficult to achieve kobolds with precise stats. For example optimizing for dick length would be frustrating if you had to tackle RNG breeding mechanics on top of RNG starting stats.

Without breeding RNG:

• It encourages the player to freshen up the gene pool! Kobold inbreeding becomes obvious, and making a run to the city can help things tremendously.
• Player can make plans and execute them without worrying about RNG beyond the coinflip. I was debating ways I could avoid even the coinflip, as it was really frustrating to make plans to have a kobold with a specific wiener and to get unlucky with the coinflip.

This is my extremely biased view on the RNG with breeding, and I want to say there's only one thing that really stops me from adding RNG: It'd be a shame to have even less of a reason to go to the city.

I know the city sucks and there's very little reason to go there-- but even with it being such a chore it feels important to the pacing of the game. Being frustrated at the lack of surprises sounds like you need to make more city runs!

[RWsYiffyMind]

Hmm, interesting! I can see your point about how the more powerful breeding becomes, the less reason other mechanics (store eggs, food) have for existing -- but I do think that just having the rare potential for individual properties to skew closer to the individual parents they came from could add some fun surprise to breeding without eliminating the need for new sources of genes or making it MUCH more difficult to achieve what you're planning. I guess it's a matter of taste, but I feel like having some amount of unpredictability in what it's going to be like executing a plan is actually what makes executing plans fun -- as soon as I realised that every egg would be exactly the same (besides exactly two breast/dick configurations), the whole mechanic started to feel a little dry, to me? Adapting my plan to the unexpected outcomes, and making new estimates based on what turned out to be available, was what made me eager for the idea of breeding a new body, until I realised that it was one-and-done and there was no spontaneity to respond to (other than a purely-random store egg, which would be TOO random to usefully plan around at all) -- at that point it just felt like going through the motions.

Also, to clarify a couple of points:

With breeding RNG: Kobolds would inevitably gain breasts.

To be clear, properties like breast size could still come directly from one of the two parents -- what I meant with that was more that it wouldn't necessarily always come from the same parent that the genital property came from. So there wouldn't be any change to the likelihood of breasts; just the likelihood of mixing and matching.

With breeding RNG: It becomes difficult to achieve kobolds with precise stats.

It becomes harder to achieve kobolds with a SINGLE precise stat -- but it finally becomes POSSIBLE to achieve kobolds with TWO precise stats! Under the current system, if you want to optimize for a second thing, there's just no option (besides food, which is already an option for the single-stat optimization anyway?)

If anything, I worry that with precise breeding, it's TOO easy to achieve certain goals? I was looking forward to having long-term breeding goals; reaching them right away because the results were too predictable, made me feel like there wasn't anything left to shoot for at that point.

Besides, somewhat 'muddying' the genes actually just lends more reason to turn to the food mechanics to finish optimizing, if anything -- the shuffled offspring would just give you more starting points to choose between, before switching to finishing the job with food. (And any kobold could still clone themselves to clear their metabolism without risk of mutation, since the "randomness" in that case would be between a range of zero width...)

Without breeding RNG: Kobold inbreeding becomes obvious, and making a run to the city can help things tremendously.

This would still be the case, if we limit the randomness to just skewing either way between the two parents.

Without breeding RNG: Player can make plans and execute them

Players can only make CERTAIN plans; RNG would make a wider variety of plans possible (if making some plans slightly harder -- which just sounds like extra gameplay, to me?)

Without breeding RNG: it was really frustrating to make plans to have a kobold with a specific wiener and to get unlucky with the coinflip.

Obviously a taste for surprise vs predictability is always going to be subjective, but, this feels like a weird complaint to have while then giving the game a dedicated casino area :)

[Godeken]

Sorry to put my Random comment in... but this is not Ark Survival Evolved... your basically asking for the same coibflip RNG that is built into Mutations. I agree with Naelstrof - keeping it simple provides you an accurate goal and not a randomized one

[Ratcha7]

I've been playing this game and lurking around the github since version 440 released, and decided to make an account after reading all of what RWsYiffyMind proposed and Naelstrof's answer.

I feel that a bit of RNG in this sense would help bring more gameplay and more fun to the game, as it would make reaching the perfect Kobold one wishes to make harder, but definitely more entertaining. After all, it's the journey to the destination that matters, and having a hatchling's stats skew around the two parents would add newfound challenge on making the desired Kobold. But, at the same time, I find myself enjoying the game as is, knowing exactly what I'm going to get from a egg and all that (Though I 100% agree breast size should always be related to the two parents and not the one whose genitals are the same as the hatchling. I even thought it was a glitch. If one doesn't desire breasts in their Kobold, just use the new boob-shrink drink).

I think if the option of adding RNG was toggleable in the settings (or whenever someone is making a new save if it would be impossible otherwise), it would be a fun addition that could even add replayability to the game.

Otherwise, or to add to that, it would also be neat if you could feed a growing egg the cum / love of one of its parents, and that would make it grow more akin to said parent with a lesser bit of its partner. This is just an idea from someone who has no clue on how to read the code and all, so I don't know how something like this could be done, especially the part of checking if the cum / love fed to the egg is indeed from one of the parents.

To finish, just want to say that I really enjoy this game, and I hope it continues to grow the way it has been. I've never found a sex game half as good as this one, especially one that actually has the game part of it and not just the sex.

[GeminiSquishGames]

I'm constantly thinking of Wobbledogs when I play, so genetics variety is certainly appealing to many of the players I'm sure. IMO this kind of feature might better be as a later game genetics mechanic. A detailed genetic engineering Mod would be great. What did humans do when they realized wolves didn't have the features they needed? We made dogs. Having it limited at first fits well with that kind of early game situation where you breed with limited aesthetics but obvious specific functions and have to roll a lot to get what you want, cashing in the runts. Later, one can single out genes and splice however you want with a machine. #143 touches on something like this too, where you can even change what their fluids produce.

Also, play or at least watch play of Wobbledogs if you haven't yet!

[PonemanTL]

I'm with RWSYiffyMind. The lack of randomness means I can select for one trait max, but never two. I can get "more like the father," or "more like the mother" but there's no way to to get some traits of one with different traits of the other.

It makes my breeding program frustrating and feel like a waste of time, because the only way to get where I'm aiming is just to buy a whole bunch of eggs and hope the characteristics I want pop out of one of them, or close enough that I can adjust by reagents or a short breeding line. It's feels less like I'm running a kobold breeding operation, and more like I'm running a gacha mill.

Also, I'd like if eye color had a gene and wasn't tied directly to skin tone. I have a buxom orange lass who'd be a pretty close match for Horridus from Savage Dragon, minus the spikes, if only she could have green eyes.