So I brought up the topic of the Daycare Center earlier in the Discord Server, sparking some conversation surrounding what improvements could be made to help breeding not be as utterly miserable as it currently is. The addition of the click-to-boost bar was certainly a welcome and necessary addition to the Daycare when it was implemented several years ago, however you must admit that there is always room for more improvement. The bar, while appreciated, was never where the improvements to the Daycare Center should be stopped.
At the current rate, most players get an average of one egg per day. Some more, and some less depending on what type of player they are and how much RNG hates them. With luck, you'll typically hatch a shiny pokemon every 375 eggs, however many players report hatching upwards of 800+ without a shiny, so again, RNG. This being said, if you were as lucky as possible, it very well will still take a player a full year to breed ONE shiny pokemon. This would also cost the player around half a million pokedollar.
To put this year into perspective, let's say you are in between being a casual player and a very active one. You adopt about 36 eggs (3 batches of 12) per day. This would mean in that year you would hatch 13,140 random pokemon, including around 35 shiny pokemon give or take.
That said, there is absolutely no reason that choosing to breed for a shiny pokemon via the Daycare Center should be so tedious and time consuming. That is why I have come up with a few ideas/suggestions for improvements that could be made. I'd also like the community's help in adding on to this as I obviously can't think of everything myself.
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Idea 1 : Increase Full-Bar Odds
From what I've tested, it takes between 1500-1800 clicks to fill the daycare boost bar. We are not aware of the percentage it actually boosts, however. I've been told 'quite a bit', but no percentages have been thrown around and honestly not that much of a difference can be noticed from my perspective.
One of my ideas is to raise the amount of clicks needed to completely fill the bar, and once filled, the next hour roll should have an incredibly high chance for an egg. I'm talking a 90% chance. In the Discord Server, I threw out the number 3k for clicks.
To prove that this would not be overpowered or ruin the rarity of certain shinies, I made the example of someone playing virtuadopt for 16 hours in the day, leaving 8 hours to sleep. they click 3k adopts to fill the boost bar every hour, and every hour they collect their egg. Assuming they're the luckiest bloke on the site and get an egg every hour that they play, and that the madlad gets 3k clicks in every hour, it would still take around 24 days and a whopping 1,152,000 clicks to hatch a shiny.
For a player like myself, someone who isn't casual but also can't be considered too hardcore, I play for roughly 4-5 hours most days a week, it would take me over three months to hit numbers like that IF i was religiously clicking. For particularly casual players, even longer. That being said, this kind of change should not affect the general odds for casual players who dont fill the boost bar- this should simply be a benefit to those who do a lot of clicking.
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Idea 2 : Stacking Eggs
Multiple eggs stacking in the daycare, that's about it. I can't say I'd be too fond of this idea in a standalone fashion- I think it would still need to come with some kind of odds boost, however it is simple and effective. You're away from the game for 8-12 hours because you're at work? Well boo on you if your daycare rolls an egg on hour 1. With this type of idea implemented, you can make the most out of being afk and maybe be lucky enough to stack a few eggs up by the time you check back in the game. Particularly positive for more casual players who may only check the game once a day.
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Idea 3 : Multiple Breeding Slots
Something I think would be very unique- the ability to buy or unlock extra breeding slots in the daycare. This essentially gives you extra hourly rolls for an egg, doubling, tripling, and even quadrupling your chances for at least one egg every hour. These slots could possibly be bought for a high price, however I think at least 1 or two extra slots could be earned, so more casual players have a chance at getting them, too.
Thinking up to three extra slots, making four breeding slots total. You earn one by ,say, fully completing the current national dex. Then the other two can be bought for like, 1 million pokedollar each. Obtainable, but difficult enough.
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Idea 4 : Egg Chance Items
Self explanatory- items that can be bought in the Mart and used from the Daycare screen, increasing your odds for an egg for a certain amount of time. There could be multiple of these items at different price points. You should probably be able to use multiple to stack the time.
Small Poke-Spray $ 1500 - Slightly increases the chance for your pair in the Daycare to produce an egg for 12 hours.
Great Poke-Spray $ 5000 - Significantly increases the chance for your pair in the Daycare to produce an egg for 12 hours.
Ultra Poke-Spray $ 10.000 - Greatly increases the chance for your pair in the Daycare to produce an egg for 12 hours.
I think an idea like this should be implemented alongside an idea like Stacking Eggs. Perhaps the items could even be found through Congrats.
Edit:
ColarFX also suggested an item to boost your shiny chances- this could also potentially be used in the mart or as a Congrats, and simply be quite expensive. Should be able to use it in tandem with the egg boosting sprays. Also stackable so people don't have to click to use the next one.
Sparkling Poke-Spray $50.000 - Significantly increases the odds for your pair in the Daycare to produce a shiny offspring on the next breeding.
Obvioulsy this item implies that it wears off as soon as your Pokemon produce an egg, which I think is fair. This also depends on how hatching works- this is under the assumption that the type of Pokemon and whether that Pokemon is shiny or not is decided as soon as the egg is created on the server. If that's not how it works, the idea can pretty easily be tweaked to fit how it does.
Example: spraying individual eggs once in your box. Also then can be used on random Pokemon.
I would think the odds should be brought up to around 1/100 chances. If you wanted to breed and hatch 100 eggs with this boost, you would be spending 5.000.000 pokedollar. Which at that point, you honestly deserve that shiny.
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Idea 5 : Chaining
I'm only just a beginner in web development, so I do not know how the code for this works. However, implementing a chaining system would be fun and rewarding for users who enjoy shiny hunting. Could always require that users buy a 'Pokeradar' and a 'Battery' for it from the mart to be able to start their chain, and require that they buy a new battery should they break their chain or hatch a shiny. The downside to this sort of idea is that there still needs to be an incentive for those users to click- as they won't be able to hatch random eggs. This is where Idea 1 could potentially come into play. Rewarding the user for continuing t click though they aren't adding much to their collection of pokemon in the moment.
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Those are all the ideas I've got so far. If you guys have anything you want to add or comment on, feel free. Sorry I wrote a novel.
At the current rate, most players get an average of one egg per day. Some more, and some less depending on what type of player they are and how much RNG hates them. With luck, you'll typically hatch a shiny pokemon every 375 eggs, however many players report hatching upwards of 800+ without a shiny, so again, RNG. This being said, if you were as lucky as possible, it very well will still take a player a full year to breed ONE shiny pokemon. This would also cost the player around half a million pokedollar.
To put this year into perspective, let's say you are in between being a casual player and a very active one. You adopt about 36 eggs (3 batches of 12) per day. This would mean in that year you would hatch 13,140 random pokemon, including around 35 shiny pokemon give or take.
That said, there is absolutely no reason that choosing to breed for a shiny pokemon via the Daycare Center should be so tedious and time consuming. That is why I have come up with a few ideas/suggestions for improvements that could be made. I'd also like the community's help in adding on to this as I obviously can't think of everything myself.
-
-
Idea 1 : Increase Full-Bar Odds
From what I've tested, it takes between 1500-1800 clicks to fill the daycare boost bar. We are not aware of the percentage it actually boosts, however. I've been told 'quite a bit', but no percentages have been thrown around and honestly not that much of a difference can be noticed from my perspective.
One of my ideas is to raise the amount of clicks needed to completely fill the bar, and once filled, the next hour roll should have an incredibly high chance for an egg. I'm talking a 90% chance. In the Discord Server, I threw out the number 3k for clicks.
To prove that this would not be overpowered or ruin the rarity of certain shinies, I made the example of someone playing virtuadopt for 16 hours in the day, leaving 8 hours to sleep. they click 3k adopts to fill the boost bar every hour, and every hour they collect their egg. Assuming they're the luckiest bloke on the site and get an egg every hour that they play, and that the madlad gets 3k clicks in every hour, it would still take around 24 days and a whopping 1,152,000 clicks to hatch a shiny.
For a player like myself, someone who isn't casual but also can't be considered too hardcore, I play for roughly 4-5 hours most days a week, it would take me over three months to hit numbers like that IF i was religiously clicking. For particularly casual players, even longer. That being said, this kind of change should not affect the general odds for casual players who dont fill the boost bar- this should simply be a benefit to those who do a lot of clicking.
-
-
Idea 2 : Stacking Eggs
Multiple eggs stacking in the daycare, that's about it. I can't say I'd be too fond of this idea in a standalone fashion- I think it would still need to come with some kind of odds boost, however it is simple and effective. You're away from the game for 8-12 hours because you're at work? Well boo on you if your daycare rolls an egg on hour 1. With this type of idea implemented, you can make the most out of being afk and maybe be lucky enough to stack a few eggs up by the time you check back in the game. Particularly positive for more casual players who may only check the game once a day.
-
-
Idea 3 : Multiple Breeding Slots
Something I think would be very unique- the ability to buy or unlock extra breeding slots in the daycare. This essentially gives you extra hourly rolls for an egg, doubling, tripling, and even quadrupling your chances for at least one egg every hour. These slots could possibly be bought for a high price, however I think at least 1 or two extra slots could be earned, so more casual players have a chance at getting them, too.
Thinking up to three extra slots, making four breeding slots total. You earn one by ,say, fully completing the current national dex. Then the other two can be bought for like, 1 million pokedollar each. Obtainable, but difficult enough.
-
-
Idea 4 : Egg Chance Items
Self explanatory- items that can be bought in the Mart and used from the Daycare screen, increasing your odds for an egg for a certain amount of time. There could be multiple of these items at different price points. You should probably be able to use multiple to stack the time.
Small Poke-Spray $ 1500 - Slightly increases the chance for your pair in the Daycare to produce an egg for 12 hours.
Great Poke-Spray $ 5000 - Significantly increases the chance for your pair in the Daycare to produce an egg for 12 hours.
Ultra Poke-Spray $ 10.000 - Greatly increases the chance for your pair in the Daycare to produce an egg for 12 hours.
I think an idea like this should be implemented alongside an idea like Stacking Eggs. Perhaps the items could even be found through Congrats.
Edit:
ColarFX also suggested an item to boost your shiny chances- this could also potentially be used in the mart or as a Congrats, and simply be quite expensive. Should be able to use it in tandem with the egg boosting sprays. Also stackable so people don't have to click to use the next one.
Sparkling Poke-Spray $50.000 - Significantly increases the odds for your pair in the Daycare to produce a shiny offspring on the next breeding.
Obvioulsy this item implies that it wears off as soon as your Pokemon produce an egg, which I think is fair. This also depends on how hatching works- this is under the assumption that the type of Pokemon and whether that Pokemon is shiny or not is decided as soon as the egg is created on the server. If that's not how it works, the idea can pretty easily be tweaked to fit how it does.
Example: spraying individual eggs once in your box. Also then can be used on random Pokemon.
I would think the odds should be brought up to around 1/100 chances. If you wanted to breed and hatch 100 eggs with this boost, you would be spending 5.000.000 pokedollar. Which at that point, you honestly deserve that shiny.
-
-
Idea 5 : Chaining
I'm only just a beginner in web development, so I do not know how the code for this works. However, implementing a chaining system would be fun and rewarding for users who enjoy shiny hunting. Could always require that users buy a 'Pokeradar' and a 'Battery' for it from the mart to be able to start their chain, and require that they buy a new battery should they break their chain or hatch a shiny. The downside to this sort of idea is that there still needs to be an incentive for those users to click- as they won't be able to hatch random eggs. This is where Idea 1 could potentially come into play. Rewarding the user for continuing t click though they aren't adding much to their collection of pokemon in the moment.
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-
Those are all the ideas I've got so far. If you guys have anything you want to add or comment on, feel free. Sorry I wrote a novel.