Fun with Breeding "Advice", "Tips", Tricks and Superstitions :)

[Liriel Garnet]

(09-25-2012 06:24 AM)Sara Franco Wrote:  

(09-25-2012 06:13 AM)Kayleigh McMillan Wrote:  

(09-25-2012 06:09 AM)Sara Franco Wrote:  OMG Anna LOL
And yes I get toys and teacups now waaaaay more than before dunno about others!

Hm,... I feel a discussion coming about randoms and odds

*giggles* See rareness of these sizes for example must be managed somehow, their rareness can't be random and probably they made them less rare now .

Actually, this is one area where I do believe that they 'influence' the odds, and it's only in the initial 'setup' of starters plus the 'random' birth events like teas, toys, and gems. Please note that this is my opinion only, based on observation from a year of breeding.

We all know that starters are guaranteed to hide a minimum of six non-genesis traits (fur, eye color, ears, tail, whisker shape, whisker color). As an example, there are currently 38 non-retired eye colors on Saga's chart. Do we really believe that 1 in every 38 new starter boxes carry Ody Bellini? Or that 1 in every 4 starter boxes hide Blonde-streaked whiskers?

As for the non-guaranteed traits, while it's possible that there's a 50/50 shot for each of the eye traits, there are three unretired shades. If it was a random chance for any of the four (the three plus natural) then 75% of starters on average would hide a shade. My experience says they don't. Even if they calculated it by 50/50 shot at a shade and then a three-way tossup for which shade... I don't see that 50% of my starters hide shades (at least the ones that weren't guaranteed, like the Ambrosias).

Size-wise -- I know there are lines and cats that seem to give me more small ones, but even this I'm not sure of any more. It's possible there's just a random calculation at the end of a box's calculations (whether it's a starter determining its initial population of traits or a bred-out box) that says something like 'roll a d20, if you get a 1, i'm a tea, a 20 i'm a toy, anything between is normal'. (Please don't take this as a true representation of the odds, it's just an example i pulled out of thin air to explain what I'm thinking.)

The last facet is the 'random' things that happen when a box is bred. Most times this is limited to jewels, which one assumes is a 1/1000 chance or something similar, another calculation done when the box is populated and if so, the little rezzer thing rezzes a jewel along with the box. The other is the 'random special costumes' like the Mardi Gras kitties, the Lucky Irish kitties and the recent Olympics Team kitties. In both cases, we *know* that these are calculations which can be and are biased in the programming somehow. Fancie cats give a jewel every box as opposed to a 1/xxx chance. The specials are limited to one per AV, so whatever the initial odds are, once your cats birth one, the odds drop to zero.

There are some odds that they *do* influence. I simply don't believe that the timing of traits passing from a starter or the apparent tendency of some cats to throw hidden traits and others shown traits is one of them.