Right now, the Piranha can devour Crocs, Eels, Snapping Turtles, and more without any fear. Because, within a minute, they can probably regain everything. And that's if they lost and retreated.

Now, this is my first post and first attempt at contributing to the deeeep.io game. I was a Piranha main before the new system, and while it's nice it makes Piranha lose it's risk and dominate the swamp waters further than it already did.

The Piranha system.

I have 2 different suggestions here. Dependent on what you ultimately want to do with Piranha. They are both very different.

T10 Piranha Swarm

This first suggestion is aimed to reduce the Piranha swarms and buff the piranha. In it, the very first animal will have to be changed. Maybe a tadpole? I don't know enough about fish/frog babies to comment on this.

Basically, when you get the option for Hippo/Crocodile/Bald Eagle, you'll also get the option for Piranha. To regain piranhas, the swarm will require a lot more food. The exact number can be adjusted, but a good starting number might be 2k 3k for every currently owned piranha.

When evolving into a Piranha, you'll start with 8. The new cap if this happens should be raised to 14. While this can most likely dominate many animals like Crocs, Bald Eagles, maybe even Manotees, it will have to take time between attacks to replenish piranha count and it will also have to plan out it's attacks much more carefully. This makes it more strategic, as it can't just attack every single animal in sight without losing piranhas yet also being a formidable T10 foe at the cost of nearly never being able to leave the tiles of the ocean and being very exposed to poison and on contact attacks (anyone who's played piranha should fear those)

PROS

Less Piranhas lagging up the server.

Less Piranhas, letting several creatures underwater without constant fear of swarms.

Makes Piranhas stronger without having them dominate the server utterly.

More I am probably forgetting.

IDEA 2: Multi-tiered Piranhas

This one is similar to the current Piranhas system. However, once you choose piranha, you may not choose anything else other than Piranha. This is to reduce Piranha swarms to people that truely want to play Piranha, instead of using it to branch up to something else. Perhaps add some more fish types to fill in this void if you want.

First of all, increase the amount required to regain piranha's dramatically, probably something closer to 3k 1k for every piranha you currently own. That can be changed in development, like the last number I gave, though.

Next, make Piranha's scarier when in larger swarms. For every very close piranha, give a very tiny armor penetration boost and damage boost. Lower their initial damage and penetration, though. Along with that, for swarms above 7, give Piranha's notices on nearby kills/injured animals (taken from another piranha suggestion I forgot a while back). Max level Piranha swarms should boost slightly faster as well, to make them the kings of the underwater swamp.

However, with those huge boosts come drawbacks. Let Whales use their powers on them, lower their oxygen and salinity meters to kill them off quicker, and perhaps introduce some more Contact Damage and/or poison animals to the Swamp.

PROS

Harder to play early Piranha, making tier 10 swarms scary just by the fact a skilled player made it that far

Harder to regain Piranhas, meaning more risk and strategy involved.

The Swamp is more free to swim in, due to less Piranhas.