Raising animals in Fields of Mistria isn’t as simple as in other farming RPGs. Not only can you collect animal produce from the livestock you adopt, but you can also breed animals to produce offspring. Animal offspring have a chance to be born with unique colors, with the rarest colors unlocking new animal cosmetic items. Collecting an animal of every color is an unspoken challenge in Fields of Mistria. While producing animals with new colors isn’t guaranteed when breeding, there are a few things to keep in mind in order to turn the odds in your favor. Here are the top five tips for breeding animals in Fields of Mistria.
1. Be Patient and Upgrade Your Ranching Skill
Breeding animals in Fields of Mistria is a long, drawn out process. Animals take several days to be born, and they don’t become adults for another set of days after. Animals (obviously) aren’t breedable until they’re adults. They also require at least two hearts to be eligible. It’s very time-consuming, even if you’re reloading saves to roll for new colors. By far the most arduous task is raising your animal’s heart level. You need 220 heart points to net two whole hearts on every animal, and at best you can accrue about 17 heart points daily. That is, if you don’t forget to let them back inside every night.
It’s probably best to save extensive animal breeding until you unlock a few Ranching perks. The “Close Bond” perk you can acquire at level one will slightly increase the heart points animals receive from being pet and fed. At level 15 ranching, “Welcome Home I” will start every animal bought or born with one whole heart! At level 30 ranching, “Welcome Home II” will start them with two whole hearts, removing the need to raise hearts entirely from the breeding loop. There’s an irony in waiting until level 30 ranching to start breeding animals. Your ranching skill will take a long time to level up without a menagerie of animals to begin with. At any rate, keep an eye on your ranching level and make sure to capitalize on these perks when you unlock them.
2. Breed Animals in the Same Tier
The roulette of colors animals can be born with are separated into various tiers. While it’s possible to get an animal of a higher tier from breeding animals of different lower tiers, it’s not guaranteed. For example, breeding a tier one animal with a tier two animal has a chance of producing a tier three animal, but it’s equally likely to produce another tier two. However, if two animals in the same tier breed, the offspring is guaranteed to be a higher-tiered color!
Given that tier one, two, and three have three colors each, you probably want to spend some time in the lower tiers. This way, you can collect all the colors available. Take your time when breeding, and focus on producing multiple offspring in the same tiers. Tiers four and five only have one color each, silver and gold respectively. Once you’ve obtained all the other colors, you’ll have plenty of animals to reliably produce those offspring!
3. You Can Buy New Tiers of Animal
Once you’ve bred a specific color of animal, it will become available for adoption (purchase) at Hayden’s shop. If you want to focus on advancing through the breeding tiers as fast as possible, this should be your preferred method. By your first Fall or Winter, you should have enough money to easily buy new animals. Breed into a higher tier, buy another copy of the animal you’ve just made, and then breed them together to get to the next tier! This method saves you a lot of time, but will have an impact on your funds. That being said, at the rate you’re breeding? The products from the animals you’ll have will quickly reimburse you for your investment.
4. Specialize Your Buildings, Sell Your Animals
Animals can only successfully breed if there’s space in the building they’re occupying. If you’re keen on having one of every color, your first barn is going to fill up fast! Get ahead of the space issue and buy a second building for the animals you want to breed. This way, you can use your first building as housing for animals you want to keep. Breeding for tiers with multiple colors means you might not get your desired outcome on the first try. But you want to keep repeats for the sake of breeding into higher tiers!
Once you’ve filled out all the space in your building, or have too many repeat colors, don’t be afraid to sell (or place in daycare) the animals you don’t need. Maintaining a second building for breeding and selling animals regularly will ensure you have enough space for the desired offspring. Just remember: the more animals you want to collect, the more space for building you’re going to need!
5. Tier 6 is Difficult to Obtain
Take everything you’ve learned about breeding animals in Fields of Mistria so far, and throw it out the window. Tier six animals are season-specific, making it the tier with the most possible color variants. Season-specific also means you can only obtain these unique colors while breeding during their unique season. With animal births taking four days, you have a limited window for acquiring the tier six color each season. Making matters worse, tier six animals are not guaranteed to be born from two tier five animals. As a result, getting your first and even second tier six animal might take some trial-and-error.
The best strategy for tier six animals is to ignore the season until you acquire two of them. In other words, even if you breed a tier six animal early in the season, keep breeding for a second one. Fields of Mistria’s loophole is that two tier six animals are guaranteed to produce a tier six offspring. Even if the parents are the same seasonal color, they will produce offspring of a different seasonal color during the respective season. It’s also good practice to collect two tier five animals to employ this strategy. A tier five and tier four have a chance to produce a tier six, but the odds are much lower.
Make Sure to Multitask
Hopefully the above tips will ensure a smooth breeding experience for you in Fields of Mistria. It may seem like a colossal task, but ranching actually takes very little time out of your in-game day. While the animals do their thing and you’re waiting for the results of your efforts, make sure you know How to Upgrade Your Farm in Fields of Mistria. If you’re unsure where to even get started with breeding, you should first learn How to Get a Barn in Fields of Mistria.
Fields of Mistria is currently available in Steam Early Access on PC.
Published: Nov 26, 2024 02:15 pm