to avoid another post titled about ligers in particular this thread is about site mechanics of implementing these hybrids in the first place. I am open to suggestions. I think they should wait until a major game anniversary to launch any hybrid tied to a mechanic other than standard breeding so since it was last the five year anniversary we should not be seeing any of these until at least the tenth anniversary.

so far my opinion is to tie these hybrids to core game mechanics taught in the tutorial to get a first gen. explore being a primary one but other threads have suggested sub male patrols picking one up

the primary issue with implementing these hybrids is since we cannot take say a tigress or a leopardess into our pride to do the deed with how are we supposed to get the hybrid?
the explore route options are
option A we encounter the female tiger, leopard, ect in explore we already have a leopard encounter that fits the bill just to confirm they are in the area. a lot of stray lions we fight them in explore all the time so in theory at the same odds with the rng we would attempting to get a first gen pon or gon we can find the adult offspring of these unions claiming them like we would a lioness not knowing we got that until we first see the hybrid when we click claim which I believe is when the rng kicks in and fills in the usually lioness but possibly the first gen hybrid...
option b we find out our submale was fooling around with a tigress or a leopardess but something happened to the mother and we have the chance to take the cub into the pride then.
option c our king is in the same position as the sub male and we fooled around with her and something happens her last act is to get her cub to you to care for as a last ditch effort to see her cub through. We already all have fooled around with the leopardess.
a third darker option is to stumble across the dying female and take the cub in there no heritage at all like an ncl. Lot of ways for a big cat to just die in the wild. like the mukemburku or whatever encounter in march the odds would be insanely low for this encounter to happen.

the submale patrol route. he just brings back the cub and explains the situation, his genetics are not factored in, it looks like a classic gen 1 of that form of hybrid. Face it we cockblock our sub males hard with the game rule of not allowing them to breed. He's probably got a sweetie from another pride or a stray lioness he's seeing on the side but we never hear about her or we look the other way as long as he doesn't do anything with the lionesses in the pride.
the sub male could also find a dead mother and bring the cub in because well he doesn't know what to do with the cub, add flavor text regarding the submale's personality if you want like a good or kind personality just couldn't leave the cub there alone, neutral wanted to be sure of what to do, snarky plays it off as the neutral option, and the evil one says something about expanding the pride or getting a strong minion.
edit 1 I initially did not mention a reverse breeding situation because well when I suggested it the first time people just spammed downvotes at least corrupted hyena offered a reason.
edit 2 Starling has a post about the submale options in a bit more detail giving them credit for that. https://www.lioden.com/topic.php?id=304429510861
edit 3 Renxion had an idea that the submale just drops the hybrid cub on a lioness who just gave birth and she doesn't notice at first and well then you have a new hybrid
edit 4 if the submale or huntress brings back an orphaned cub it would have a blank pedigree like an rng generated lioness with the same stats or modified hybrid stats, (ligers are huge once they start growing so maybe a slightly higher strength stat?) all of this balanced out to match the rates we can breed a gen 1 gon or pon to keep it balanced, after a gen 1 it would pass at the same rate to get gen 2.

that's as far as I got on this one and am compiling other's ideas and criticisms from other threads into this. please don't silently upvote or downvote give a reason and wait for me to address it and see if I can find a work around. I actually count on feedback to flesh out my suggestions