As mentioned in my previous announcement last weekend, I would like to take a moment to talk about the Breeding Grounds revamp that I am currently working through. I was hoping I could showcase some screenshots of the new system, but it's full of placeholder assets and I'm still fiddling with a lot of the layout, so I don't think it'd be beneficial to share screenshots right now. Instead, I will go over the basic new features and what players can expect with all of the changes.



The new Breeding Grounds will grant players with the following main features:
- Enhanced information about pets which will include easy-to-view genetic information.
- Easily navigate your own stables to find pets to breed with.
- Utilize a new 'Market' system where players can browse other players' pets listed for breeding.
- Create Breeding Pairs and manage Breeding Projects.


Enhanced Information
When viewing or selecting pets to breed with, players will now be able to see detailed information for the pet's traits and colors. This should make it easier for players to make sure they are breeding with the correct pets and to better gauge what the potential offspring will look like.




Improved Navigation
Instead of having drop down menus of just every single pet you own of a specific species/gender, players will now be able to easily navigate their stables to find the pets they are interested in. This should hopefully make it a lot easier on players to find what they are looking for.




Breeding Market
Instead of setting pets up for breeding via their profile page and breeding via profile pages, the entire Breeding Market will now be located inside of the Breeding Grounds. Players will be able to add/remove pets to the market or for private service to individual players. Players will also be able to set limitations, such as a time duration or breeding limit. When browsing the market, players will be able to search by a wide array of parameters to find exactly the pet they're looking for.


Breeding Pairs and Projects
When selecting two pets to breed with, players will now be able to save them as a Breeding Pair for quick access to breed them in the future. I would like to add additional tools so that players can take various saved Breeding Pairs and save them as a Breeding Project, making it easy for players to organize and track their Breeding Projects.

This still hasn't begun development yet, so I can't really go into further details. Right now, this is only a concept that I will have to work on.


Breeding Fee
Lastly, a flat breeding fee will be implemented with the new Breeding Grounds. It will be a nominal amount that hasn't been fully set in stone yet, so I can't say its exact cost right now. The purpose of the fee is to give a baseline value to every pet that's bred. Right now, there are too many instances where players are breeding literally thousands of pets just to breed them because there is literally no reason not to. This is not healthy for the game, it's a waste of database space, and it just clutters everything up. Having a small baseline fee should greatly deter this unabated breeding as players would now just be wasting their gold to breed for nothing.

I believe that having a baseline fee will help to keep a lot of "dishwasher" pets out of the market. The fee will be nominal enough that it won't really hurt the bottom line of project breeders and will be inconsequential for probably about 98-99% of the entire playerbase.

In the future, there will be additional Stablehands - or some sort of similar feature - where players can hire caretakers to give them breeding benefits, one of which could be a reduction in breeding fees if players breed enough to want such a bonus. I do not have an ETA for this, but it is definitely part of a lot of long-term additions I'm wanting to get implemented into the game.


Conclusion
All in all, I don't have a definitive ETA of when the new Breeding Grounds will be released, but I am actively working on it and I am wanting to get it released as soon as I can. I think that the new Breeding Grounds will be a massive upgrade and a big step forward for Sylestia. It will be a much needed upgraded to a very vital component of the game.

Please comment any feedback you may have down below and thank you for your patience!

Ooo, liking the plan so far! The breeding pairs will be very helpful for my unnamed pets pairs lol.
& would it be possible to have a toggle to switch between the old & new navigation?
The current navigation is a lot more helpful to me whenever my stables are a mess/unorganized, so it'd be nice to have that option ^^

I love all these changes! Ive actually been hoping for these kind of changes would take place eventually because trying to remember what pairs your breeding is tricky. I do have a few questions though. First is, will we still be seeing our own pets when they are up for public breeding in the new menu, like they do for breeding and selling in the advanced search? That has always thrown me that we can see our own along with others. And second, Will this improvement on seeing the genetics possibly make way for us to see the inbreeding percentage as well in the breeding menu? Ive slipped a bit but generally I try to keep my pets inbreeding percentage on the lower side or zero. so Im curious if that would eventually be added.

Otherwise I love the changes that are being made and cant wait to see them in action! Also cant wait to see what other awesome improvements that will continue to be made!

These changes sound great, I've been waiting for a better breeding game to start some of my projects and this sounds perfect. I cannot wait to see the new navigation and enhanced info.
Especially excited about the new breeding grounds and hoping the fee will help reduce a lot of the pets randomly bred that have really tanked my desire to do nurturing.

I was totally going to ask/suggest this.

I like being able to have a list of a species (was hoping for the ability to sort by species/theme personally) because I rarely get the stables fully org'd.

Otherwise this looks very cool and exciting :D
And omg yes to the fee lol.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=109949&page=1#2 Author: Wistirio Time Posted: 2/28/2025 at 2:20 PM Ooo, liking the plan so far! The breeding pairs will be very helpful for my unnamed pets pairs lol. & would it be possible to have a toggle to switch between the old & new navigation? The current navigation is a lot more helpful to me whenever my stables are a mess/unorganized, so it'd be nice to have that option ^^

There won't be an option for that, no.

But you can use the 'browse' feature to browse for your own pets as well.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=109949&page=1#3 Author: Tamaran Time Posted: 2/28/2025 at 2:31 PM I love all these changes! Ive actually been hoping for these kind of changes would take place eventually because trying to remember what pairs your breeding is tricky. I do have a few questions though. First is, will we still be seeing our own pets when they are up for public breeding in the new menu, like they do for breeding and selling in the advanced search? That has always thrown me that we can see our own along with others. And second, Will this improvement on seeing the genetics possibly make way for us to see the inbreeding percentage as well in the breeding menu? Ive slipped a bit but generally I try to keep my pets inbreeding percentage on the lower side or zero. so Im curious if that would eventually be added. Otherwise I love the changes that are being made and cant wait to see them in action! Also cant wait to see what other awesome improvements that will continue to be made!

I can try to add an option to include, exclude, or only search by your ownership.

I can see if I can fit Inbreeding % somewhere in there. At the moment, that is not displayed though.