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Breeding: TP Percentage Limit (REWRITE 2/16/11)

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This post has been updated to try to explain points more clearly, and bring in new ideas.

This came about due to this thread: Puppy mills on Ala.

What I propose, rather than coded checks for 'mill' behavior in player actions (which I retract now due to the coding nightmare involved), is something that should be fairly easy to implement and will bring a lot of unfavorable breeding and the resultant market flood of low-quality dogs to a halt:

A feature that tells you, if your dog is untrained, that the dog must have somewhere between basic and 25% training prior to breeding. A possible addition to this is that if you decide not to breed this way, it could be fairly easily coded in (I think) so your dog cannot be run in trials, for those who told me there are a lot of users who breed without training at all, strictly for looks. I imagine it would work similarly to the INBRED tag that I suspect will be coming back, and would utterly prohibit a dog from running. It would also mimic the real world. Breed only for looks and your line changes- in this case, making the dog inept at agility. The initial suggestion (train to breed) would help, and the users who breed for strictly appearance still get to do so without dealing with training. Any users who try to bypass training to mill, well.. They're probably not going to be breeding the prettiest dogs, and the pups would have a big glaring 'no trial' on top of it, putting mill users out of business. I'm NOT saying these two suggestions MUST go hand in hand. You can support one without supporting the other, just specify so. Users prior to this 2/16/11 update who supported were obviously doing so for the training to breed suggestion alone.

Another suggestion presented earlier in the thread, by Carni, was to make sell price of dogs a minimum of 3k. I'll put this up here so it can be more easily seen and discussed.

This isn't just about TP alone. It's about improving the quality of dogs and getting rid of the flood of Ala 'mill' dogs. I am not targeting any individual users. I am targeting a behavior that exploits the game and messes with the economy for everyone.

As mentioned.. more than once, I am not trying to make anyone play the game my way. I have worked on games before, I've had to knock kinks out of game mechanics before. I am not trying to take away anyone's fun.. I'm just trying to offer a suggestion to make the game more enjoyable for everyone. To make things run smooth and well, sometimes smaller things (like milling) need to be sacrificed. And on a site like Ala, letting the milling continue has unfortunate implications. This is Alacrity, where users try to breed the best dogs. This is not Alacrity, where users try their best to mimic a puppy mill.

And to finish up, while this grew out of a Debate thread, this thread is posted in Suggest Something. I will explain myself gladly and defend my points if I must, but I do not want a debate. Go to the thread linked above for that. If a discussion grows into anything even resembling a heated debate, I'll either stop responding myself or request you to take it to the debate thread. If you do not support, then do not support. If you do support, say so- and bring your own ideas to the table! More input can only help to make a suggestion like this work for everyone.

02-17-2011 at 4:56 AM

I'm going to have to agree with Geist on this one. I feel that at LEAST your dogs should be basic trained before breeding. Think about it IRL terms- Wouldn't you want a housebroken, trained (not agility, just basic) dog? This is an agility sim, and I don't think it's a lot to ask that someone train their dogs in basic before breeding. Honestly, it doesn't take that long even if you never buy another slot, and it's pretty easy to get lent a scholar collar even if you can't afford one. I have three (and I have not ever donated real money to this site, although I would if I could) and I often lend mine out to people if I see them asking in chat. It's not even about the TP to me - it's the time that it takes training up the dog. The more time spent training up the dog, the less the dog can be bred, which means less puppies, which means puppies are worth more. I retire many of the pups I get. I breed for both markings and TP, and I never breed a dog without maxing it first. I did when I first got here, but that's only because I didn't understand how breeding worked, really. I don't have any custom dogs or Chances or anything, so my TP grows very slowly, (no waterbowls either) as I hand-train each dog and then breed. I like it that way - I can enjoy my dogs for a while. Those 1k+ TP dogs don't seem to be worth it without a waterbowl - by the time you are done training, the dog is old. So anyway, even if you are breeding for markings, completing at least basic doesn't seem to be a stretch for me.

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2011-02-16 20:59:41 by #5085

02-17-2011 at 4:33 AM

I would be for requiring basic training. I breed for coats in GSDs now, it's not hard to train a 200 TP dog to breed it for it's coat. I do that with Aussies on my side as well, I don't produce "high" TP pups, but they're average and decent. I don't think you'll hurt the breeding for coats if all that is required is basic training to breed. As for the set price, I'm a little leery on it. I like the idea of setting my own prices and after some experiences on another site with their "random" raises in the set price to benefit the site's economy, it makes me nervous. In fact that killed the economy over there, although it is a different set up. It would be nice to see that people couldn't sell for less than the retiring price, I suppose that would also stop people from selling to fake sister's accounts and so on for $1. Still, iffy on this. I would love to see a limit on the puppy kennel. I know you haven't suggested this, but it's something I think could seriously help with the situation on Alacrity. Like give everyone a set amount of time to sell off/retire their dogs/buy more dog slots and then tell them you can only have 20 dogs in your puppy kennel. Which seems like a lot of puppies for anyone to have to me. But then again there are those with many, many more puppies than that. I think if you've got more than 20 pups under 2 months on an account, that you're probably doing the economy a disservice with the amount of pups you're breeding/selling, regardless of TP/Coat color. Edit: I should add that I see the benefit of having a "set price" for dogs. It would mean that from any breeding, you receive x amount of dollars and don't have to lower to a crazy price just to sell. But wouldn't that also benefit the puppy millers? If you have 50 dogs you can sell for $3k versus my 4 dogs selling for $3k, the chances are you will still sell your dogs before mine since you're flooding the market and you will make more profit.

edit history

2011-02-16 20:49:14 by #1511

02-17-2011 at 4:11 AM

Post marker. Posts prior to this were made before the rewrite.

02-13-2011 at 1:06 AM

I support. I breed so that the borzoi breed can maintain diversity and quality in the future. So many of the dogs I've sold have been bred without even finishing basic, that it renders my efforts useless.

02-10-2011 at 9:57 PM

Definitely support. Getting sick and tired of seeing awesome borzois and GSDs with 40TP.

02-10-2011 at 9:24 PM

I don't fully support this. The idea is good but I'd prefer if it was just basic training that has to be done before breeding. Some reasons are what Blix and Mags said plus with high TP dogs (1000+) you already get pups with not too bad TP when the dog is only for let's say 10% maxed. Also I think (however I could be wrong) that those "bad" unfavorable dogs help the economy. You know that a high TP dog with good lines etc is worth a lot/at least something because there is so much garbage out there.

02-10-2011 at 9:08 PM

Rasdashan; please read my reply to Kaeli. :)

02-10-2011 at 8:51 PM

Definitely support! I don't see how it restricts anyone, at least not in a detrimental way, since it's a simple percentage (rather than, say, setting a TP minimum for breeding, which would be problematic). I like the idea of setting a (reasonable) price limit, too, as Carni mentioned - as long as it is in Ala dollars, not bones!

02-10-2011 at 8:41 PM

I disagree. Some choose to breed for beauty over performance and that is a perfectly valid selection criteria. I choose to breed for both, but that is my choice. Pups with low TP must be beautiful to sell and plainer dogs must have high TP. The system is working.

02-10-2011 at 8:36 PM

Kaeli: "I don't really agree with this... there are stated multiple objectives with this game - firstly to breed higher TP and secondly to breed beautiful dogs. Players can attempt to achieve just one or both of these objectives, but that's their decision." I fully agree. "I feel like forcing someone to train to achieve higher TP is forcing someone to conform to someone else's idea of "good" game play. The way that players play this game is totally up to them." I am not forcing anyone to play in any certain way. If you have a dog with 5TP, well.. Training that to 25% isn't exactly difficult. I am not trying to force people to conform to my idea of 'good' game play. I am trying to improve the mechanics of the game to make them more beneficial to everyone, as is Carni. I understand a bit about economics. I've had to deal with them in games before under an administrator position. Trust me, I'm not just pulling this out of my behind and trying to be a killjoy, lol. :) "The slippery slope argument: if we set the minimum at 25%, who's saying we should stop there? Why not 50%? Or, heck, let's go for the full blown 100% or greater!" No. No no no. I think that would be a horrible idea and I absolutely would never suggest that. No one would. Also, err.. "In debate or rhetoric, a slippery slope (also known as thin edge of the wedge, or the camel's nose) is a classic form of argument, arguably an informal fallacy. A slippery slope argument states that a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant effect, much like an object given a small push over the edge of a slope sliding all the way to the bottom. The strength of such an argument depends on the warrant, i.e. whether or not one can demonstrate a process which leads to the significant effect. The fallacious sense of "slippery slope" is often used synonymously with continuum fallacy, in that it ignores the possibility of middle ground and assumes a discrete transition from category A to category B. Modern usage avoids the fallacy by acknowledging the possibility of this middle ground." Moriarty: "I don't fully support this. The idea is good but I'd prefer if it was just basic training that has to be done before breeding." I actually think anything between basic and 25% would be excellent. 10/15% might make a nice middle ground. Also Carni's suggestion, or both together. ------- I would like to point out again, for the umpteenth time, I am not trying to force anyone to play -my- way. I am not doing this for my own personal benefit; I have over 600k sitting in the bank right now, I have bones, I have a large.. large amount of dog slots, and I am happy with my dogs. I don't need the money from selling dogs. I want to help improve the game for everyone.

02-10-2011 at 8:10 PM

I don't think you quite understand the details/nuances of economics.

02-10-2011 at 7:38 PM

That makes no sense, buying dogs always helps economy.

02-10-2011 at 7:32 PM

$5k is extremely reasonable, and it would probably be best that puppy collectors/millers -stop- buying dogs for a while, anyway, since the more those types of players buy and breed, the more they contribute to Alacrity's economic problems. If you're not even willing to pay $5k for a well-bred, high TP dog, then you should just save your money. Even when the site breeder was still around, dogs in there sold in a range of $5k, sometimes a bit less, sometimes more. Setting a base sale price of $5k would make people be more picky about what dog they spend their money on, and help curb over-breeders and puppy millers, because they're only hurting this game.

02-10-2011 at 6:54 PM

5k? Eh, that is way more than I would pay for most well bred dogs right now. I was more thinking minimum/maximum price could depend on the TP

02-10-2011 at 6:17 PM

The thing is that, even if the junk dogs never get bought, they are still being mass-produced and taking up space on Ala's servers. Alacrity has a cache of every single dog image on Ala, no matter if the dog is alive or dead. I think an alternative to the training limit could be implementing a minimum sale price, like you can't sell a dog beneath a certain amount. Say $5k. That way, if people are only breeding for looks, they still have to sell for -at least- $5k, so there's less of an issue of newbies throwing their money at a ton of super-cheap dogs, and it still gives marking-dogs a base value that can more fairly compete with TP-dogs.

02-10-2011 at 5:30 PM

02-10-2011 at 5:29 PM

I don't really agree with this... there are stated multiple objectives with this game - firstly to breed higher TP and secondly to breed beautiful dogs. Players can attempt to achieve just one or both of these objectives, but that's their decision. I feel like forcing someone to train to achieve higher TP is forcing someone to conform to someone else's idea of "good" game play. The way that players play this game is totally up to them. The slippery slope argument: if we set the minimum at 25%, who's saying we should stop there? Why not 50%? Or, heck, let's go for the full blown 100% or greater! While it is my personal opinion that breeding for TP is important, I just don't feel right forcing others to make the same decision.

02-10-2011 at 4:52 PM

Borzoi Kennels: I addressed your main concern in my comment to Maggots. I'm not trying to take breeding for markings away from you. You do not have to use high TP dogs for beauty breeding. I am sorry you hit the wrong button and sold your dog. You should have either messaged the player or brought it up to a mod or admin- you might have gotten you dog back. "Let people breed for what THEY want not what YOU want! " I am trying to help the site and fellow players. Altering gameplay mechanics is almost always necessary in new games, which Alacrity is. So.. this comment is a bit uncalled for. I am not trying to stop people from breeding what they want. I am not trying to force them to breed what I want.

02-10-2011 at 4:51 PM

Totally against. I do not need to train any pups I never plan to throw on the market to begin with, and it would just deter from training the dogs I really need to train. Plus I have some dogs just for breeding to retire. It does not affect anyone, so why should I be forced to waste precious training sessions on them?

02-10-2011 at 4:39 PM

I support :)

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