The idea for this came from another thread about pet imbuing, an idea I actually hated, but someone in it suggested pet breeding, which is an idea I actually like. This is a development of that basic idea. This actually probably belongs in the Tamer forum, but I want the devs to see it, and I'm not sure they visit all the individual profession forums. So if a mod wants to move it, I don't mind as it will still have the link here in the forums for a short time.
First off, the main goal of pet breeding is fun, and a way of obtaining a pet you are looking for, without having to endlessly farm for them. However the goal isn't to make the process any easier, or at least not markedly easier. The primary goal is simply to add another fun sub system, similar to the plant breeding system.
So without further ado, here is my proposal:
1. Every pet is assigned a sex, male or female.
2. To breed a pet you right click on a pet, and select "Breed" from the menu. You can then stable the pet.
3. You can then take the pet you wish to breed the first pet with out of the stable, and once again you right click it and choose the "Breed" option, at which point you get a little window that says something to the effect. "You have chosen [name] for breeding, [name] is the right sex and species, do you wish to breed them? [y/n]" For simplicity's sake choosing "No" will clear all breeding flags on any pets you may have.
4. If you accidentally choose a pet of the wrong species or sex you will get a message to the effect, "This pet cannot be bred with [name], do you wish to clear the breeding request for [name] and select this pet to breed with another pet? [y/n]"
5. Once you have successfully chosen two pets to breed they must both be stabled for a period of 1 week per control slot the species requires. You make take them out of the stable during this time, but you cannot issue them a "kill" or "guard" command, and if they are out of the stable for more than a five minute period of time the breeding attempt will fail. When you successfully choose the second of the pair for breeding you will get a message to this effect. You must also have a free slot in your stable before the breeding attempt is accepted and once the breeding attempt is accepted that free slot is reserved and may not be used for the duration of the breeding attempt.
6. You can check the status of the breeding attempt at any time by taking one of the two parents out of the stable right clicking on them and choosing "Breeding Status". At that point you will get a message stating that "Both the mother and father are doing well." Or "Your breeding attempt has failed."
7. The chance of a successful breeding attempt is equal to the number of control slots required for the species X -20 + 120. The check for the successful breeding is performed one time during the process on a randomly chosen day.
8. Once the time is expired, if the breeding attempt is successful, a new pet will be placed in that reserved stable slot with the label [newborn] on it. All it's skills will be 0 and all it's stats except for strength and hit points will be 1 (the reason for this exception is that raising str changes hit points). For each skill and stat the cap will be randomly chosen between the two parents (or it will be 100 for skills or 125 for stats, whichever is higher), with a variation of 5% in either direction (but of course it cannot go over the maximum allowed for the species after taming). The same applies to resists but of course they won't change with training.
9. For pet colours there is a 20% chance that the pet will be the colour of either parent, divided evenly between the parents, and an 80% chance that it will be randomly assigned as normal for the species, with the exception of blaze cu sidhe. The normal colour chance for each parent is 10% but for a blaze cu sidhe that number will only be 1%. And in future if there are any similarly rare colours for a given species, they will be treated in a similar fashion.
10. Pets which do not spawn anymore, or pets that have stats outside the normal range for the species type, cannot be bred. I'm thinking here about dread warhorses, the old super nightmares, silver steeds, black forest ostards, or pets that have been tamed using the evil omen/curse trick.
I think this system is fun, without making it easy to breed super pets.
edit: Added a couple of thoughts I posted below so that they are all at the top of the thread.
First off, the main goal of pet breeding is fun, and a way of obtaining a pet you are looking for, without having to endlessly farm for them. However the goal isn't to make the process any easier, or at least not markedly easier. The primary goal is simply to add another fun sub system, similar to the plant breeding system.
So without further ado, here is my proposal:
1. Every pet is assigned a sex, male or female.
2. To breed a pet you right click on a pet, and select "Breed" from the menu. You can then stable the pet.
3. You can then take the pet you wish to breed the first pet with out of the stable, and once again you right click it and choose the "Breed" option, at which point you get a little window that says something to the effect. "You have chosen [name] for breeding, [name] is the right sex and species, do you wish to breed them? [y/n]" For simplicity's sake choosing "No" will clear all breeding flags on any pets you may have.
4. If you accidentally choose a pet of the wrong species or sex you will get a message to the effect, "This pet cannot be bred with [name], do you wish to clear the breeding request for [name] and select this pet to breed with another pet? [y/n]"
5. Once you have successfully chosen two pets to breed they must both be stabled for a period of 1 week per control slot the species requires. You make take them out of the stable during this time, but you cannot issue them a "kill" or "guard" command, and if they are out of the stable for more than a five minute period of time the breeding attempt will fail. When you successfully choose the second of the pair for breeding you will get a message to this effect. You must also have a free slot in your stable before the breeding attempt is accepted and once the breeding attempt is accepted that free slot is reserved and may not be used for the duration of the breeding attempt.
6. You can check the status of the breeding attempt at any time by taking one of the two parents out of the stable right clicking on them and choosing "Breeding Status". At that point you will get a message stating that "Both the mother and father are doing well." Or "Your breeding attempt has failed."
7. The chance of a successful breeding attempt is equal to the number of control slots required for the species X -20 + 120. The check for the successful breeding is performed one time during the process on a randomly chosen day.
8. Once the time is expired, if the breeding attempt is successful, a new pet will be placed in that reserved stable slot with the label [newborn] on it. All it's skills will be 0 and all it's stats except for strength and hit points will be 1 (the reason for this exception is that raising str changes hit points). For each skill and stat the cap will be randomly chosen between the two parents (or it will be 100 for skills or 125 for stats, whichever is higher), with a variation of 5% in either direction (but of course it cannot go over the maximum allowed for the species after taming). The same applies to resists but of course they won't change with training.
9. For pet colours there is a 20% chance that the pet will be the colour of either parent, divided evenly between the parents, and an 80% chance that it will be randomly assigned as normal for the species, with the exception of blaze cu sidhe. The normal colour chance for each parent is 10% but for a blaze cu sidhe that number will only be 1%. And in future if there are any similarly rare colours for a given species, they will be treated in a similar fashion.
10. Pets which do not spawn anymore, or pets that have stats outside the normal range for the species type, cannot be bred. I'm thinking here about dread warhorses, the old super nightmares, silver steeds, black forest ostards, or pets that have been tamed using the evil omen/curse trick.
I think this system is fun, without making it easy to breed super pets.
edit: Added a couple of thoughts I posted below so that they are all at the top of the thread.
An alternative [breeding method] is that you have to select the male first (doesn't necessarily have to be the male, it's just a thought) and then you receive an inactive breeding token. Once you stable the pet the token becomes active and you cannot remove the pet from the stable until the token is either destroyed (by dropping it), or the breeding attempt fails or succeeds. If the token is not used within a week it is also destroyed and the token has a time stamp on it like peerless keys.
You can use the animal lore skill on the token and it will give you the father's stats as per the normal animal lore skill, plus a picture of the pet so you can tell the colour, or if that is too difficult just a colour box with the colour of the pet in it. To use the token you double click it and target a pet of the same species and the opposite sex. This would allow players to sell the services of their pets as breeding stock, or friends to breed their pets together.
I would suggest that tokens with less than a day's time left on them no longer be able to be bought from a vendor.
I just had a bad thought, what about inbreeding... The easy way around that is that you can only breed pets that were tamed from the wild.