I am so frustrated with Confettis I wish I was seeing Red!

[Charmayne Brentley]

(01-05-2021 12:25 PM)Tad Carlucci Wrote:  Well, that's why I keep adding comments about Chaos. But that's jumping too far down the road.

Let's just take your basic question: Can we adjust the probability of a Confetti appearing so that we avoid certain death or explosive growh (seen as certain death in pricing)?

Technically, the answer is: yes, but only if we don't want a playable game and, intead, want a simple production machine.

So, the answer, for us, is: NO!

If the production per parent is some random factor less than 1 we get the Confetti's we have now. The population will eventually die. We can adjust how quickly it will die, but death is certain.

If the production per parent is some factor more than 1, we get the non-Confetti's we have now. The population will eventually grow to consume all of Second Life (or, in this case, all of AWS, since we only need an online database of living cats and boxes, and eventually delete all non-breeding and menagerie cats to make room for more). We can adjust only how quickly that will happen.

To get the production to be exactly 1 we have two choices.

We can simply eliminate all randomness and give it to you. Choose a rule. The easiest is "the first offspring will be Confetti, then no others." But that's not a game. It's boring. And we have that game, already, every season with the Special Offspring. Another easy fix simply says "Confetti is just a breedable fur trait, like Red Tabby or any other." But that eliminates the "Confetti Game" entirely.

Or we can try to add feedback where we're keeping it close to 1. As it moves up and down, we adjust the lambda to counter the offset.

And THERE is where Chaos enters the picture.

We really can't tell if the adjustment we're about to make will help or hurt. And if it hurts, the countering change might help too much, not enough, or hurt more. There is no way to know. Maybe our feedback will settle down. Maybe it will cycle. Maybe we'll crash. Maybe we'll explode. Maybe the result will be so chaotic we have no idea what to do next. All we can see is large changes will generally have large effect. While Chaos Theory tells us that small changes might have little effect, but can have surprisingly large effect. We just won't know until we commit to doing so. And, then, when we find out, it's too late: either we don't have any Confetti to work with, or we have so many we have kill a HUGE bunch off just to have a managable set to work with. Neither is very acceptable.

Tad, You make my head hurt/giggles

[Coverboytoy Resident]

I finally broke down and will give confetti a try. However, I'm only doing 1 pair and have put them in the corner in my land and just let it do it's own thing. My goal is to give them a try and hope I at least get an Apple Berry in the end.

In regards to the frustration, it is very understandable to feel that way esp. when breeding with confettis, and the odds are just not in our favor. However, look at Evolving's records...she has probably been breeding those confetti for YEARS! Can you imagine all that hard work, time, effort, and money that has been invested into them? So her frustration I do sympathize and also understand completely.

In my perspective, for those who want to get into confetti, understand the project is a long one, and expect frustrations. However, try to have fun with it if you can lol. This is why I am just starting with one pair and see how it goes.

In addition, if the results are not in our favor, do you honestly feel people will continue with Confettis? Until something is done to make it better (which I feel is kind of impossible), then more people will opt to not doing them, and in my perspective, there a few breeders that are working with confetti as it is because of it's "frustrating" reputation.

Furthermore, most buyers and new breeders don't buy the colored confettis because their high price tags which sometimes make them hard to sell because most breeders don't want to get into them.

Possible solutions:

Remove some of the gen traits on starter confetti.
-Make the eyes default to Mysterious/Small
-Make the default shade start with Flair
-Have 1 or more traits be shown already on starter confetti.

To be honest, I would never ever start with 2 confetti starters because of the impossible lol so I would use the most highest traited confetti breed with the starter confetti.

[Luckylady Llewellyn]

I am still hanging in with trying to work on my Confetti and get very aggravated when I hear people expect to get more than 1 or two per 120 day cycle. The reason confetti were traditionally expensive to buy was the fact that so few made a colored confetti cat as compared to genesis or even regular fur birth. The reason it's a SPECIAL challenge is that the results are so low ... that said, I feel that I've taken 8T over and over again and they always seem to back down to 0, 1, or maybe up to 4T cats, which is unlikely but happens again and again. Some truly dont work with a certain partner or other but it just "is" that way. I'm about ready to quit on mine as well since they clearly are not operating on the proper rules for "one from mom, one from dad" as the non-confetti. I also have had a few that gave me NO confetti per 120 days of trying. Not amused either.

[MitsuruKirijo06 Resident]

Should you not expect at least 4 confetti for every pair over 120 days? The odds and the math would say so. If you get 16 boxes and the odds should be 1 in 4 boxes is a confetti than that is 4. Anything less is unacceptable and makes me think there is some kinda error in the programming.

[Tad Carlucci]

My estimate of the odds is around 1:8 (perhaps 1:10 or 1:12).

There is no error in the programming.

1:4 odds would defeat one of the purposes of Confetti: to have a low-enough birth rate that the population does not explode and drive prices down.

Perfect balance would be a bit more than 1 Confetti offspring per parent (or, a bit more than 2 in the 121 days, since you need a pair). But, remember: it's random. So even if the odds were perfectly set, there would be some people getting none, or only one, and some people getting more than two. The maths get complex. As I said above, you really only have a choice of being too low (leading to extiction) or too high (leading to explosive growth and crashing prices). And trying to tweak things is probably much worse than leaving them as they are.

[MitsuruKirijo06 Resident]

(01-09-2021 08:50 PM)Tad Carlucci Wrote:  My estimate of the odds is around 1:8 (perhaps 1:10 or 1:12).

There is no error in the programming.

1:4 odds would defeat one of the purposes of Confetti: to have a low-enough birth rate that the population does not explode and drive prices down.

Perfect balance would be a bit more than 1 Confetti offspring per parent (or, a bit more than 2 in the 121 days, since you need a pair). But, remember: it's random. So even if the odds were perfectly set, there would be some people getting none, or only one, and some people getting more than two. The maths get complex. As I said above, you really only have a choice of being too low (leading to extiction) or too high (leading to explosive growth and crashing prices). And trying to tweak things is probably much worse than leaving them as they are.

The Tigers and the Cheetahs have already driven the confetti prices down near rock bottom in my opinion. At this point to breed them for profit is a bad idea. Just do it for fun or to try and be first at 9T. It is a lot easier to trait up a Cheetah or tiger and you pretty much have any color you want now to choose from. Also its impossible to get say blueberry eye on the blueberry fetti or apple on an apple which is a real shame and a missed opportunity.But matchy matchy or doubles are easy on those other furs and much less frustrating.

[Coverboytoy Resident]

(01-10-2021 02:22 AM)MitsuruKirijo06 Resident Wrote:  The Tigers and the Cheetahs have already driven the confetti prices down near rock bottom in my opinion. At this point to breed them for profit is a bad idea. Just do it for fun or to try and be first at 9T. It is a lot easier to trait up a Cheetah or tiger and you pretty much have any color you want now to choose from. Also its impossible to get say blueberry eye on the blueberry fetti or apple on an apple which is a real shame and a missed opportunity.But matchy matchy or doubles are easy on those other furs and much less frustrating.

Yup that's what most people do and new breeders are doing oppose to investing with confetti's.

[Aubreygrace Starlight]

(01-09-2021 04:47 PM)MitsuruKirijo06 Resident Wrote:  Should you not expect at least 4 confetti for every pair over 120 days? The odds and the math would say so. If you get 16 boxes and the odds should be 1 in 4 boxes is a confetti than that is 4. Anything less is unacceptable and makes me think there is some kinda error in the programming.

I just started breeding them again after a break and i get about 1-2 boxes of confetti babies per pair. I get 99% brown boxes. My luck has been absolutely horrible. It seems like certain breeders get them all the time, while others don't.

[ShannonSpoonhunter Resident]

(01-10-2021 02:22 AM)MitsuruKirijo06 Resident Wrote:  The Tigers and the Cheetahs have already driven the confetti prices down near rock bottom in my opinion. At this point to breed them for profit is a bad idea. Just do it for fun or to try and be first at 9T. It is a lot easier to trait up a Cheetah or tiger and you pretty much have any color you want now to choose from. Also its impossible to get say blueberry eye on the blueberry fetti or apple on an apple which is a real shame and a missed opportunity.But matchy matchy or doubles are easy on those other furs and much less frustrating.

This is exactly why I've never been remotely interested in Confettis. Given enough time, patience, skill, and luck, I can eventually get any 8 traits I want on a Cheetah or a Tiger or an Abyssinnian or a Gen Bandit or anything else -- my end game is to get a pixel cat that looks exactly like I want it to. There is no similar end game for Confettis, so I have no interest in devoting all that time and expense when the end game is to get as many of a random combination of non-starter traits as possible. This is obviously just my opinion -- we all amuse ourself with pixel cats for different reasons, and my reasons are no more or less valid than anybody else's -- but that just doesn't sound like fun to me.