Lore-Writer's Blog: Nesting For Genetics (Patreon)

It's late, and I'm tired, but I just finished the new nesting changes so I want to write it down before I go to bed. 

The main change to nesting Genetics is the introduction of Recessive Genes. Recessives are something I wanted to do in Legacy but couldn't as it would have required a wipe of all dragons, and I didn't want to do that, so I decided to wait until 1.0 to implement it. Recessive Genes will be a part of each Dragon in Update 1.0.0. The Dominant Gene is what is used by the game to grant your stat bonuses, the Recessive Gene is strictly for nesting and only exists to be passed down to your eggs, but it allows for a more in-depth nesting system. 

When a player spawns into the game, the game will assign one of 3 dominant genes (E, D-, or D) and one of 6 recessive genes (E, D-, D, D+, C-, or C). This equates to anywhere from 0-2% stat bonuses for a fresh spawn-in, keeping new players pretty equal in stats, and through nesting, they could pass on up to the +5% genes in their first generation nests. So the random spawn stats have been lowered to make fresh spawns more equal and to make spawn cycling for better stats not something worth while. 

So how does it work?

Bloodline Quality is more important than ever. The first step in upstatting will be to increase the bloodline quality by nesting unrelated dragons with points invested in the Nesting (formerly Breeding) tree. The more points, the higher your chance of increasing the bloodline quality. It is no longer automatic E+E=D. You now need (E+E) + 1-3 points in Social (formerly Fertile) by each parent + a good dice roll to = D. Once you have a D+D nesting pair, you can upstat your Genes, but with changes. Before stats would auto-upstat if D+D were combined, but now, D+D will only = D+ if the BQ tier is D or higher. In other words, Bloodline Quality acts as a clamp for upstatting. Dbq won't be able to upstat D+ and D+ health to C-, that requires Cbq. The best Cbq can upstat is C+. 

A++ is still possible without the nurse dragon, but requires Abq for both parents, A+A genes, and maxed out Nesting tree for both parents, and even then, you need a crit. You can further increase this chance with the crafting pearl. 

So your first step in upstatting your dragons will be nesting for better bloodline quality to increase your cap. Then focus on increasing your Social prowess by investing points in the Nesting tree. Make sure to only nest with a player who has also invested points in the Nesting tree. Then you can begin upstatting your genes and bloodline quality even further.

Recessive genes are a bit of a wildcard, they do not require points in nesting to pass on, and can become dominant in your offspring, but the downside is that they are hidden and you don't know what they are. There are plans for the Brood Watcher to be able to see recessive genes, but we'll see. 

One other thing I want to mention, the Lineage UI in the Character Panel will eventually be able to display the Genetics card of your parents and grandparents on mouse hover. I'm hoping to have that in by 1.0.2 or 1.0.3.

I hope you all enjoy the info. As Yoda once said, "Pass on what you have learned."

-Rhino