Skip to main content
Main Content

is there an "ultimate idiots guide to breeding cool pups" or anything?

is there an "ultimate idiots guide to breeding cool pups" or anything?
Posted 2024-01-05 17:02:30 (edited)
#1130530
not talking about the grouse house genetics guides or anything; those are great! but not as simple as im hoping for

so ive recently returned to the game, and when i played before i could never wrap my head around how to game the genetics to produce interesting looking puppies. i figured it had been a year or two so id look over the info and guides again and maybe understand it better this time, and i feel like i kind of do, but i dont entirely follow how to get good results, still?

it seems like the only way to get particularly striking or interesting looking pups is for both parents to have 100% opacity markings in every slot, and even then its kind of a crapshoot with the base tiers and everything. is there a way to go about doing this as someone who doesnt want to do a ton of research on tiers and calculating pass rates and opacity for every single marking? or are the options basically that and "throw two wolves together and let fate decide"? lol

it just seems weird to me that breeding my lead wolf and my breeding male could produce such a plain puppy as this random one from the scrying stone.
wolftofu
#13204
Posted 2024-01-05 21:58:40
#1130681
I mean, honestly, I tend to take the strategy of making sure the two wolves I'm breeding have similar colored markings (base sometimes too, if I'm being really picky about it), so then I know the pup will roughly have a similar design. For me this is a lot easier by the fact I tend to like the same combo of white, black, and one additional (so like brown, red, gray, etc.) color in my wolves. The more variety in your color scheme, the more you'll have to rely purely on luck (luck has a huge part, no matter what).

There's a lot of pure RNG luck with getting the markings to pass; you could have two parents with the exact same markings and still get a pup with no markings. Even with the strategy I use, I still get a lot of crap pups, but honestly, that's kind of helpful in its own way. On average, I get maybe 1-2 pups from a single female her entire life that I consider nice looking enough to keep; in some cases, like project females, I will keep more, but it's pretty few and far between. If I was getting really nice looking pups every time, well, I'd run out of room pretty quick lol

The tldr for the guides on breeding base:
-The more matching characteristics of the two bases, the more likely the pup will have the same base or a base of the same characteristics (ex Monochrome Dark II + Monochrome Dark III is more likely to get a Monochrome Dark III pup than Monochrome Dark I + Monochrome Dark III) or at least how I understand it lol (I'm not an expert myself.)
--Two parents with the same base get an added bonus to produce the exact same base.

As for markings:
-Luck, pure, sheer, brutal, unbiased luck lol There is actually some means to increase the chances (parents have the same marking in same slot with similar opacity), and the formulas exists, but all that's going to do is tell you the chances. When the breeding is actually run, you'll have no idea if the odds were in your favor until after the pups are born.

Also, generally speaking, the scrying stone is only going to give an idea of what is possible, not what you will get. In some ways it is a helpful tool, but in others it is not because it can lead to disappointment if you scry a pairing, see nice pups, and then get bad luck and end up with all crap pups.
Darklily
#1058
Posted 2024-01-05 22:15:01
#1130683
It's easier to get a low tier base than a high tier, and it's never possible for a marking to spontaneously appear if neither parent had a marking in that slot, while it IS possible for a marking to not be passed even if both parents had markings in that slot. This means that, all things being equal, wolves will ultimately tend toward no markings and low bases. Even when you are breeding nice-looking wolves with ten marks each, you'll get plenty of puppies you don't want.

So no, there's no secret, really. As you mentioned, all the information you need is available to you, but if you don't want to research it, you won't be able to use it. Also, like Darklily said, it's largely luck.
Katie
#28191
Posted 2024-01-05 23:33:10
#1130702
i mean, research doesnt really seem like its going to make much of a difference, if even having the same marking in the same slot both at 100% could still end up as nothing. orz

honestly im kinda coming to the conclusion that im not breeding as much "as i should be" so that might be part of my problem. with results generally being more lackluster i tend not to bother, but id probably end up with more pups im excited for if i had more coming around to begin with. i guess thats why we get so many pup slots compared to adults!
wolftofu
#13204
Posted 2024-01-06 10:56:25
#1130869
This is why I chose to be a stat breeder instead. Higher stat parents give higher stat pups and as long as the numbers keep rising, I'm doing something right. Very simple.
spotpc
#9204
Search Topic