Talk:Game Updates/@comment-13406147-20131024174003

'''RE: Breeding Rule Change. Got this email this morning from BFS.'''

Bryan Mashinter  (BACKFLIP STUDIOS)

Hi there,

We received your email expressing frustration with the recent changes to the breeding rules in DragonVale. Please allow me to explain why, as the game's developers (and personally as the Producer on the game), we felt it was an important and necessary change.

The truth is the old breeding rule that allowed 100% chance of breeding Rainbow + Rainbow = Rainbow was a bug that made it into the game. We refrained from fixing the 100% bug mostly because of the belief that it would make the community angry.

So why decide to change it now? Why risk the anger of the community? We believe it's important for the overall health and fun of the game, as well as an important step for the future. Let me explain...

When a player has unlimited access to Rainbow, Leap Year or Panlong Dragons (as an example), they essentially have access to unlimited resource generation. Not everyone does this, but a number of people then get rid of every other dragon and habitat and churn out DragonCash so that it becomes a semi-useless resource. Then they can make as much food as possible, quickly level all dragons and then the fun of collecting, raising and nurturing the dragons is diminished.

Secondarily, one of the most fun things about the game (in my opinion) is breeding. You mix a Plant and a Fire Dragon...and who knows what you'll get. Forest? Poison? Flower? The not knowing is part of the fun. When we guarantee a result we're essentially removing the fun from breeding.

<span style="color: rgb(43, 46, 47); font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;">Lastly, changing the automatic breeding rule was an important first step toward allowing Epic Dragon Breeding. Imagine the cool combinations of allowing a Rainbow + Sun Dragon to breed. Gold Olympus + Leap Year? We have plans for the future of DragonVale to allow for some really cool new combinations and possibilities...but the only way to make that possible is to break the 100% rule.

<p style="margin: 9pt 0in; line-height: 13.2pt;"><span style="color: rgb(43, 46, 47); font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;">We understand that a number of players have become accustomed to the 100% chance breeding rules and planned around them. We would like to find a way to help those players feel better about the current changes, but in order to do what we have planned for the future, we can't guarantee that X + X = X. I encourage you to submit some feedback and engage in the discussion of how to solve this issue by writing an email to [mailto:DVBreeding@backflipstudios.com DVBreeding@backflipstudios.com ]

<p style="margin: 9pt 0in; line-height: 13.2pt;"><span style="color: rgb(43, 46, 47); font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;">I can't promise we'll use everyone's ideas, but I can promise we'll listen to the community and try and find a solution that both benefits the future of the game as well as the amazing community of players we have built.

<p style="margin: 9pt 0in; line-height: 13.2pt;"><span style="color: rgb(43, 46, 47); font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt;">Cheers,

<span style="color: rgb(43, 46, 47); font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">BRYAN MASHINTER PRODUCER BACKFLIP STUDIOS