[Long reply, I'm sorry! Might have repeated things in it, but I kept on getting thoughts and ideas and whatnot. Hopefully it's not too much of a bore ;D]

That's part of the problem; if a Barbary king's perfect heir fails to X Y Z, you can just change the mane shape to Barbary if that's what you're going for. Same for Diabolic/Blade/Hellraiser, if only slightly limited by being [incredibly common] event items.

As much as I'd be willing to pay 10, 20GB to turn a perfect Heir to Savage/Tsavo/Pariah, I can't. There's nothing to do but swallow the frustration and keep breeding. I know it's the same situation for, say, Dawn eyes or rare bases; the thing is these have stayed roughly the same since implementation [barring big overhauls that, as far as can remember, always resulted in people going 'hey, maybe a head's up next time?'].

People get into breeding for Dawn eyes or Sunset knowing that there is a reduced pass rate and that they can fail to X Y Z and plan their project accordingly; when your near-perfect heir doesn't have Dawn eyes, it's expected. Sucks, but you knew what you were getting into.

Manes were one of the few 'guarantees' we had to work with; bases and eyes have fails, markings can not pass and so on, so though sudden changes to any of these are no fun... at least we could have more control over the manes in our prides.

Though it wouldn't have nearly the same effect due to how common these are, think of suddenly adding a pile of fails to Sunglow and Starshine eyes; it'd be a crummy blow to people breeding for full Celestials or Skywards, or really anyone who just wants a full pride of Starshines/Sunglows. Again, a crummy example, but if half of your Starshines failed to grey/blue/white/etc after one update you had no warning about... eh. Ehhhhhh.

I can understand wanting these special manes to be rare, but like Jax said; they're fairly easy to obtain in the first place [breeding to the Savages studs] and given that, after Pariah didn't quite take off, many Raffle lionesses popped up with the mane [and I think I recall a handful of Savage, maybe even Tsavo Special ladies] I think their goal is moreso to spread it than anything

[that brings up the topic of the August event though; will the Savages studs have only a really small chance of passing their manes and, possibly, whatever new mane may be introduced? It wouldn't be worth the currency to breed them if cubs only had, say, a 20% chance of having their dad's mane... ]

It'd be nice if we could at least get a head's up when they're about to make changes [think of the whole Medium breeding uproar]; at least giving the community a chance to voice their opinions before tweaking things would be at least respectful to those who have, and will continue to, spend money on their game. But there's a different suggestion for communication improvements, so I'll leave it at that.

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I agree that when its such a tweak, they should at least communicate with users, but it only makes sense in my mind that if everything else, ie bases, mane colors, eyes, etc, follow a sense of true genetics, mane shapes should as well.

All I can say is that Ochre Saltlicks are definitely going to be a wanted item now.

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Granted, the community DID want this for some menhit-forsaken reason, but maybe Staff should've taken the initiative to say "hey maybe lets not touch BO manes".

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@Kat
"Personally, I don't know anyone who prices a lion on the fact that its base/mane may or may not fail when breeding cubs, but that wasn't an argument I was making, rather just an addition to my comment on the worth of lions who display BO manes. "

Excuse me? I sold first pariah sunset on site for about 200 gb, yes BO mane adds to the value.

Also this: "This way, more effort is needed to get a BO mane."
Can you please describe that to me? The effort i need to put into my breeding project? Like showing a saltlick down the throat of every one of hundreds of breeders, is that effort?

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@Anthrax, the attitude/hostility is not necessary. And you misunderstand.

What I said was that I don't know anyone who prices a special base/mane/anything BECAUSE it fails. They price it because it HAS that special whatever. You sold the Pariah sunset because it had pariah and sunset, not because pariah fails to some other mane, and sunset fails to some other base.

And I mean more effort than a straight up 50-50 chance.

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More effort like what? I'm very curious what else can i do besides rolling a dice.
I already put a lot of effort into making my pride into what it is, i used like 20 saltlicks just to eliminate all the chances of manes i don't want and now all of them lost their value.
I bred to August studs like... gazillion times, that lost value too.
What more effort i can put into it?

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Just more breeding, smarter breeding, and yes, the use of a saltlick if you really want to. Using a saltlick would still increase the chance of getting the mane you want, so I fail to see how saltlick's lost value.

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More and smarter, got it.

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*Takes the salt from this convo and puts it on my french fries* Yummy.

I reiterate my original points: Manes were never meant to be a pain in the ass to get, not shape or color. Christ, can you imagine if manes had fail COLORS?

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Be hostile and passive aggressive all you want, but you aren't contributing to the conversation so I don't know what I've done wrong other than apparently voice my opinion and thoughts.

Smarter meaning breed the combinations that increase your likelihood for the mane or a fail, which should be obvious but I see people complain about cubs without realizing that they didn't breed the best combinations possible.

More meaning, don't expect to get the desired results from a small handful of litters.

I've got nothing else to say, so either take it or leave it I guess.

@Jax, I can see it being a thing in the future, I wouldnt be surprised if it's in the works. And we can't say whether or not how things were "intended" or "supposed" to be, as we aren't the creators. -shrug- Idk.

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If I may;

Had this update happened sometime around September, when Ochre Saltlicks are available, this change would be a little less harsh on everyone. A little.

However, given that no one usually needs OSs and instead buys GMOs and Ochre Gnawrocks [both of which sell very easily and for big piles of GB], there are currently only a handful in the game. Just above 400 total, compared to the two-thousand-ish Ochre Gnawrocks. No clue how many of those are on active accounts.

It does make sense for everything to follow genetic rules, I'll give you that, but this whole thing with staff implementing things out of the blue like this is really... eurk. Couldn't they have, say, put this project on the backburner for a while, until we'd be closer to September and the item they're [presumably] encouraging us to use more?

Lioden isn't challenging due to game mechanics or jumping through hoops to breed X Y Z; it's a game of chance, from applicators to most of battling to breeding, and no matter how many odds we try to sway in our favor it feels like they're trying to add more shifts to make what many of us stick around for -a goal, a dream lion, a cool breeding project- more difficult and out of reach.

There is no way to breed smarter when even Savage x Savage, or Tsavo x Tsavo, will produce fails that no one wants. Even when breeding two identical lions [say, two full Celestials with non-Starshine eyes] you've already got so many undesirable outcomes. At least if my Celestial breeding fails to Vandal or Black, they're in the same base group and stand a tiny chance of increasing the likelihood of their breedings to Celestials of getting the desired result[ being Black Dark Countershade and all is better than, say, Gold Light Solid].

But there's no way that breeding a Tsavo to a Scarce stands any chance of increasing the likelyhood of Tsavos; the fails aren't even useful for breeding back to the parent or similar studs.

I honestly have no idea what to say anymore; I'm just frustrated by this whole thing. It's the one variable we could control nearly completely [hell, even fertility varies from generation to generation slightly] and many worked hard to make their prides all Tsavo, or all Savage, or Pariah... Eurg.

EDIT: oh no, more blocks of text =//// sorry all!

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Agryo, that's what i mean by breeding smarter. Dont breed Tsavo x Razor and whatnot. Gives more chance for the main you don't want.

I agree that the userbase should have at least had warning, or the implementation should have better timing. Not arguing that.

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But there's no way that breeding a Tsavo to a Scarce stands any chance of increasing the likelyhood of Tsavos; the fails aren't even useful for breeding back to the parent or similar studs.

All of the this. This is my fundamental problem. Correct it and perhaps many of us would be a little less upset.

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You mean better combination than savage x savage?
Which gives you a sideward and you cant even use that as a breeder as it adds even more chances of a fail.

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"Dont breed Tsavo x Razor and whatnot"

You may have misunderstood the basis of our complaints. I'm certainly not mad that Tsavo - Crested (or Tsavo - Reagent or whatever) doesn't throw all Tsavo. I'm frustrated that Tsavo - Tsavo doesn't have a high chance to throw Tsavo and that none of its fails have an increased chance to throw Tsavo over breeding a Tsavo with, say... Wavy.

In fact! It's even worse. If I breed Tsavo to Crested (one of its own fails)... I get Crested fails too. Woo!

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