Breeding broken, or ym I just not getting it?

[chi]

So I tested breeding.
First thing I thought I noticed, negfative traits don't breed true - or so I thought, may be random.
Then I read up on it and apparently, traits of the parents should combine.
Since my merci hit didn't get copied I tried other stuff. Managed to get artisan + nocturnal on a Pal, but it caught a negative in the process. Then I bred that pal with another for a 3rd positive (and a hope the negative would vanish) - that didn't happen at all.
I got weird combinations.
So I thought I'd start with something simple again and tried to combine swift+runner. I got runner.
So what gives? If it's that unreliable, how can people even stomach breeding?

[Terminus_X]

...I mean, if you're aiming to max-rank a pal you'll be breeding over a hundred of them (116... I think, not including the one you're upgrading).

I think it works with the parents' traits having a larger chance to manifest, but with new or no traits being random chances.

I got one beast of a Frostallion Noct, but trying to get a good Xenovader ended up with a compromise after over a hundred eggs. Sometimes luck is just a pain.

[Nicodemous52]

Breeding shouldn't be seen as A + B = C. That's not how it works. Everything on the back end is still RNG, the way you breed can help you manipulate the RNG, but it's still RNG.

[hotaru251]

Originally posted by Terminus_X:

...I mean, if you're aiming to max-rank a pal you'll be breeding over a hundred of them (116... I think, not including the one you're upgrading).

I think it works with the parents' traits having a larger chance to manifest, but with new or no traits being random chances.

I got one beast of a Frostallion Noct, but trying to get a good Xenovader ended up with a compromise after over a hundred eggs. Sometimes luck is just a pain.

it took me 400 eggs to get a nocturnal, artisan, work slave, serious Orserk....extremely bad luck trying that 1 (and i had both parents having 2 of the passives from the start)

currently breeding some lumber pals and aroudn 100 done and not seen a serious passsive on a single one. breeding is the true end game

[Nigolasy]

I saw a video where someone used a spread sheet to calculate the likelyness of a trait getting passed down to a child.

The best odds where with parents that had only 2 traits.
So if you want to combine 4 traits into one pal, your best chances are if you take one parent that has exactly 2 traits and those two are 2/4 you want to end up with and the other parent has exactly the other 2 traits you want. So your parents have a total of 4 traits.
There is still a big chance for "mutation", where the child will gain a random new trait instead. It might have 2/4 traits from the parents and 1 or 2 "new" unwanted traits. That is intended.

Also traits don't cancel out. I'm pretty sure I've seen trait combinations where my pals had one trait giving +10 work efficency and another giving -5% work efficiency.

The point of the breeding randomness is that people don't get insanely overpowered pals immediatly.
Personally I'd like to see a setting to fine tune breeding rates, like ARK has. So that everyone can choose for their singleplayer or server, how fast breeding is supposed to be. Currently, only egg hatch speed can be adjusted afaik.