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cyradis4

Send Biome Blockers to the AP

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To Start: Wall of text. I'm sorry, I'm prone to such. If someone can post the idea in a succinct manner, I'll post it up here in blue.

 

Move eggs that sit in a Biome for 5 minutes to the AP

 

 

 

 

Ever since the AP began to have the delightful wonderfully low time eggs, I've all but stopped hunting the Biomes. Why get high time blockers when I can get low time blockers, with the occasional gem of a pretty lineage to boot? Answer: no reason.

 

But the other week, I decided to hunt the biomes anyway. I'd already gotten most of my fill of the new breeds. And what I found? I spent 5 minutes hunting all the biomes, rotating between all 6. And only one biome, out of all 6, moved. I was paying attention to the codes, moving from tab to tab (had 6 open) and refreshing. In those 5 minutes, Coast moved ONCE.

 

How. Boring.

 

So! This idea is to both move the biomes and help the ratios.

 

Idea Alpha:

Dump Eggs that sit Right to the AP

Basic idea:

If a CB egg sits in a biome for, say, 5 minutes, it's rotated to the AP, where it can loose time and hence become desirable 4 days later.

How it would work:

Lets say, there are only blockers in the Coast for an hour. That means 3 eggs, every five minutes, are sent to the AP.

A total of 36 blockers are sent to the AP that hour.

- The drop starts, and 3 eggs appear. Egg 1, 2, and 3 sit.

- 1 minutes: Egg 1 and 2 are sitting (both 1 min), egg 3 is taken to be replaced by egg 4 (0 min)

- 2 minutes: Egg 1 (2 min) is sitting, 3 is sitting (1 min), egg 2 is taken to be repalced by 5 (0 min)

- 4 minutes: Egg 1 (4 min) is sitting, egg 3 is sitting (3 min), egg 5 is taken to be repalced by egg 6 (0 min)

- 5 minutes: Egg 3 (4 min) is sitting, egg 6 is sitting (1 min), egg 1 has been dumped and replaced by egg 7 (0 min)

- 6 minutes: Egg 6 is sitting (2 min), egg 7 is sitting (1 min), egg 3 was dumped and replaced by egg 8.

Typically, after the first minute of the hourly drop, the egg in the 1st slot isn't moving anymore, and it keeps sitting. By dumping that egg (always the highest time anyway) to the AP after 5 minutes, the biomes will keep cycling.

 

 

Pros:

- The biomes move a little more. They really don't, now. Even if you have all blockers, one egg will be moving on average of every 90 seconds or so.

- The blocker is now in the AP, so it looses time. When it hits the AP, it'll have likely lost days already and will be picked up and hatched pretty quick.

- no fancy formula needed. The game mechanics already in place take care of the problem. If it's under populated (ie, not getting raised) it'd get dumped.

- Users already do this, they just have to sacrifice one of their eggs slots for 5 hours to do so. As such, it doesn't happen fast. This just speeds up the process a bit.

 

 

Cons:

- The time an egg sits might have to be adjusted down the road, as the ratios even out as more blockers are raised

- Runs the risk of the cave running out of eggs, as all the blockers are tossed to the AP. However, with the timer set pretty high (say 5 minutes) that means that at most 36 eggs are dumped to the AP in any given hour from any particular biome. And users already dump far more than that.

- Also, the biomes with lots of desireables are already run out of eggs on a pretty regular basis. So no change.

- Does require a bit of programming.

 

Probable objections and counters:

- Rares might go to the AP! Or other desirable eggs

Counter: So what? They'll get picked up then, in that case. And no egg that is wanted ever sits for more than a dozen seconds or so. In fact, most desirable eggs sit for less than 2 seconds.

- The cave might empty out of eggs!

Counter: They do that already, when a drop is particularly juicy. Only difference is, those blockers will be picked up in 4 days time and incu-hatched, and far more of said blockers will actually get raised. And if the eggs were already blocking the biomes, what difference is there really between an empty biome and a biome full of blockers you don't want?

 

 

 

EDIT: Removed the other idea, it wasn't getting any real interest in this thread.

 

 

Notes on the above:

- The Cave would likely be lively for the first week or two, then settle out as people adjusted to the new game mechanics. However, both by their nature would keep the Biomes cycling even afterward.

 

- The addition of a 2nd AP, basically identical to the one we already have just a 2nd place for eggs to go (ie, they are drawing from the same source of abandoned eggs, and it's random chance which one a particular egg goes into) has been discussed. In general, people are against a 2nd AP.

 

 

Another explanation of this from in the thread:

Zafire:

"The Ratios" refers to the governing ratios behind the Cave. The Cave generates eggs based on how "underpopulated" or "overpopulated" a particular breed is compared to its ideal numbers.

 

So, for example:

Carmines are currently way under-populated compared to the Cave's hidden target level. So, each hour, it generates a lot of Carmine eggs for the Biomes. Now, the Userbase isn't nearly that interested in Carmines, and doesn't take the Carmines. At the end of the hour, the un-taken Carmines (which is most of them) get deleted, and the Cave goes to itself, "hmmm.... Carmines are still way under target, lets generate more of them!" And those Carmines fare the same as the ones the previous hour: they do not get taken.

 

So you get an endless cycle of Carmines as the Cave tries to force the users to take eggs that the users just don't want. And it'll keep doing that, until Carmines are at or above the desired ratio to the other breeds. Which, from experience, won't happen any time soon, because the Carmines keep falling further and further off of their ideal ratios.

 

Now, this idea is targeted at making those Carmine eggs that no one wants more desirable. Its doing that by taking those undesired high time Carmine eggs, kicking them to the AP where they become low time Carmine eggs, and get snapped up real quick. Those Carmine eggs (which are currently deleted at the end of the hour) have now entered the ratios in the Cave, bringing the Carmine breed closer to target. So the Cave generates less of them. Which moves the Carmines closer to its target, which makes them less of a blocker breed.

 

 

ETA:

Whiptails and Terrae are meant to be COMMONS. In fact, before they were displaced with other breeds, both were chronic blockers. The ratios shift with time and user-preference. The underlying problem here is that people can't find breeds that are COMMONS in the Cave because they are being crowded out by one or two super-blocker breeds who's ratios just aren't leveling out.

 

Cheers!

C4.

 

 

Lol, we've been begging TJ to adjust the ratios forever, and it's not going to happen, which is why people keep trying different suggestions to help with it.

 

And it's not going to happen in part because player demand/dragon availability changes over time, which is why we need something player responsive, such as this.

 

But if enough people read this thread and the explanations herein by people like cyradis4 in order to gain enough general understanding of how the system works and how this suggestion would help make the game better for members, both in the Cave and AP, maybe it might happen.  smile.gif

 

 

Let the Games Begin!

 

*sits back to watch the fireworks, hopes there are fireworks. Really likes fireworks!

 

Cheers!

C4.

Edited by cyradis4

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I'm absolutely for this idea biggrin.gif Hunting would be so much more fun if the biomes actually DID move smile.gif

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I like this idea. I've also stopped hunting in the biomes because they never move (and I can never remember when the top of the hour is...). It's way more fun to watch the AP, which actually shuffles the eggs.

 

A related suggestion might be to rotate the eggs back into the biome after a set amount of time.

 

What happens to eggs if they aren't picked up at the end of the hour? Are they moved to the AP then or do they just disappear? Moving them to the AP at this point wouldn't help much with the boring-ness of the biomes, but might help with the ratios a bit (ie, after a while, there would be fewer blockers because they are moved to the AP after the hour). It would also drop any rares in the backlog into the AP, which would be fun too!

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I'll support anything that gets the biomes moving. I barely play anymore because I can't get the caveborn eggs I need/want.

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If I'm understanding the suggestion correctly, if an egg hasn't been picked up after 5 minutes it goes straight to the AP, where it mixes in with all the other eggs sitting in the AP that users have tossed there.

 

I foresee the lowest time eggs in the AP ending up being ER by the time people pick them up, at least often. I don't know as that's a bad thing though. We'll just fluff up our numbers of dragons on our scrolls with them, rather like we do now from the AP. We just wouldn't have to use an incubate on them.

 

This idea could also be combined with Thuban's idea of a "pound," as in it would be like a second AP, and these blockers would either go there or go to the actual AP, randomly.

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I could get behind this. I'm more likely to pick up blockers and commons if I can hatch them instantly and have the egg space needed for metal/uncommon hunting.

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I love this idea so much!! I'm in the group that doesn't hunt much anymore because staring at the same three eggs for 20 minutes is no fun at all.

 

Wonder how difficult that would be to code/implement?

Edited by MindsEye

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I like it!

 

Although the OP talked about 5 minutes, I have sat and refreshed for a half hour, till my fingers were practically bloody, and not had the biome I'm in move.

 

I picked up a mess of Flamingos and Waverunners from the AP, when I had only had one of each, and I like them and have several lineages planned, but I never take them from the biomes because I know the CB eggs I find in the AP will hatch much sooner.

 

My only problem is one that can't be fixed this way - not being able to even see desirable eggs most of the time, anyway.

 

Hmmmm. With the blockers, I do sometimes have a chance in a biome with one empty slot, at the 5-minute drops. Not with really precious eggs, but maybe with Trios, and an occasional Tsunami or Bloodscale.

 

But there are occasions where in between refreshes, all the new eggs are taken but the blockers, anyway.

 

At any rate, if it wasn't really hard to code it'd be a fun experiment!

 

 

 

 

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Definitely support blocker kicking to AP. I do something similar when I have free slots, taking blockers and abandoning them 5 hours later.

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+1 from this dude.

This is actually a really neat idea! :D

 

I like NEVER use the cave biomes anymore because nothing ever MOVES. This sounds like a nifty way to get things in motion!

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Nope, I don't like this idea. Grab the blockers and boot them to the AP when they're off cd, don't just sit there and refresh. If EVERYONE did that the caves would move faster. I often lock my scroll before I got to sleep to help move the cave.

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Nope, I don't like this idea. Grab the blockers and boot them to the AP when they're off cd, don't just sit there and refresh. If EVERYONE did that the caves would move faster. I often lock my scroll before I got to sleep to help move the cave.

Well, for most people, egg slots are far too precious to do that, and you can't clear them away right away if say, something you've been hunting for pops up AFTER you filled your egg slots with blockers, if someone fufills an IOU you forgot about taking (I dunno, it's happened to me, during the anniversary of all times), or whatnot.

 

The nice thing about the AP eggs is that they not only don't have CDs, but you can incuhatch them in about fifteen minutes to a half hour, so you don't even necessarily have to abandon them to free up egg slots.

 

I mean if someone really wants to do something like that and join the Evil Project or whatever, great! Most of the eggs I pick up in the AP, CB or not, have 0 views, 0 UVs, and no clicks anyway, so I have a feeling that some people are doing that quitely, anyway. But it shouldn't be something that a player should feel obligated to do.

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I like this idea very much, and would like to see it combined with another, quite necessary idea: Multiple AP Parts. It helped the maincave to split, now it's time for the AP to do so too.

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Well, I really love this idea.

Since the AP eggs will be low-times anyways, they'll be picked up. Even I take cave-blockers of actually non-desired breeds...

 

It's a very good solution!

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Instant support (I prefer idea alpha, though). Biome hunting has become way to boring - I rarely do this anymore.

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Nope, I don't like this idea. Grab the blockers and boot them to the AP when they're off cd, don't just sit there and refresh. If EVERYONE did that the caves  would move faster. I often lock my scroll before I got to sleep to help move the cave.

But then it would mean, everyone HAS to have free slots before they go to sleep everyday ohmy.gif which is not possible for many people, I believe. Thus, the efficiency of this method won't be as high as it could be (ideally)

 

While blockers being sent to the AP seems to be a healthy way to deal with several problems:

1. it will help eggs in the cave to rotate faster, and thus, the hunting process won't be as boring as it is now :3

2. it will become more comfortable to hunt for rares even then, where there're only few people in a biome.. which means, rares will be easier to catch for those who have a relatively slow internet

3. low-time cave-blockers are always desirable items :33 even for those who would rather not grab them in the cave.. saving slots, say, for more important eggs

 

So, why would anyone dislike this idea?

Could you, please, elaborate a bit more on this subject?

Thanks!

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This idea could also be combined with Thuban's idea of a "pound," as in it would be like a second AP, and these blockers would either go there or go to the actual AP, randomly.

yes ,yes, yes

the combination would be wonderful

 

if the 5 minute boot is nixed, I think the shorter CD has been needed for a long time

 

add another egg slot( I know TJ said no way) perhaps a breed only and I think we'd all be happy campers biggrin.gif

 

The best of all worlds-- biome, AP and scroll

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Yes, please, boot them to the AP to become desirable short-timers!

 

Only make it 1 or maybe at most 2 minutes, so that we can actually see different eggs!

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Yes, please, boot them to the AP to become desirable short-timers!

 

Only make it 1 or maybe at most 2 minutes, so that we can actually see different eggs!

I think 1 minute or possibly even 2 is unreasonably short. There are people who actually like those commons, and if they are not there at the top of the hour, everything they want will already be booted to the AP.

 

I could only support lower timings if a) more eggs dropped on 5minute drops and cool.gif if they could be found in their own part if the ap - cbs only.

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Five minutes is a perfectly reasonable time to wait before booting blockers, although I don't think a cb-only section of the AP is needed; if you grab an egg you don't want, it's not like you're stuck with it for hours before you can abandon it again.

 

I think reducing the CD would be ideal in either case; five hours is way too long to be stuck with an egg you may not want, but an hour is both short enough to be reasonable and long enough to make you consider grabbing the egg first.

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All we would get from an hour cooldown would be an AP chokka wih CBs....

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All we would get from an hour cooldown would be an AP chokka wih CBs....

 

 

Lol, yes, indeed, an AP chokka with short-time CBs and biomes that move at least a bit more than they do now.

 

But if the ratios can't be adjusted to something closer to what the environment can support/player willingly take, this seems to be about the only option to at least alleviate a long-running problem spoiling many people's playing time and causing much boredom and frustration over the years.

 

 

Edit: that would be with the reduction to a 1-hour dump time for CBs, in addition to dropping eggs sitting in the biomes more than 5 minutes into the AP, to become low-timers.

 

People want to hunt, not just refresh the same few blockers until they get bored and give up, or load up with eggs they don't want, to end their chances of hunting until the next day, lol.

 

 

Edited by Syphoneira

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Yes, please, boot them to the AP to become desirable short-timers!

 

Only make it 1 or maybe at most 2 minutes, so that we can actually see different eggs!

 

*rolls up sleeves*

 

Never ask an engineer in love with her job to crunch numbers. Never never never, you'll be drowned in them. tongue.gif

 

 

 

 

If one egg goes every 5 minutes, and there are 3 eggs in the biomes.... That means that on average, the biomes will move once every 1.66 minutes.

 

Ie, it'll be like one user picks up an egg every minute and a half. Which is why I said 5 minutes. Anything shorter, and the biomes will probably empty out far too fast. As it is, using 5 minutes and assuming every biome has only blockers, that means:

 

60 minutes / 5 minutes: 12 times each slot dumps it's egg

Each biome has 3 slots, so...

12 dumps x 3 slots = 36 eggs to the AP per biome

36 eggs per biome x 6 biomes = 216 eggs an hour sent to the AP

 

That's a lot of eggs. A very large number, really.

 

60 / (interval) x 3 x 6 biomes = number of eggs sent to the AP each hour. Or:

1080 / (interval in minutes) = number of eggs sent to the AP

(interval in minutes) / 3 = how fast in minutes each biome moves

 

 

If you don't like Maths, read below for the summary:

 

So, if the (interval) was dropped to, say, 2 minutes, that means:

Number of eggs to the AP: 540 eggs total each hour

Minutes between Biome moves: 0.666 minutes, or 40 seconds.

 

If the (interval) is set to 5 minutes:

Number of eggs to the AP: 216 eggs total each hour

Minutes between Biome moves: 1.66 minutes, or 1 minute 40 seconds.

 

If the (interval) was increased to, say, 10 minutes:

Number of eggs to the AP: 108 eggs total each hour

Minutes between Biome moves: 3.333 minutes, or 3 minutes 20 seconds

 

 

Only TJ can say how many CB eggs hit the AP each hour at the moment, or how many eggs move from the AP in said hour. Or how many CB eggs would, indeed, move from the AP in an hour if this was implemented. Some trial and adjustments would probably be needed.

 

Cheers!

C4.

Edited by cyradis4

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Though I do like the idea of unblocking the biomes, I don't really like the idea of sending the blockers to the AP.

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I remember some concern about popular eggs getting kicked to the AP [not that that's a problem, since they'll be a nice surprise for some AP hunter!]. I'd like to counter with the fact that with guaranteed movement in the cave people will be hunting at any time, probably all through the hour [until the biome empties, of course]. And people who don't hunt the cave often because they're frustrated with sitting and refreshing the same 3 blockers for 10 minutes will hunt again.

 

 

 

Though I do like the idea of unblocking the biomes, I don't really like the idea of sending the blockers to the AP.

Why not? And where would you suggest they go?

 

Sending them to the AP is the only viable way to get rid of blockers. The AP no longer blocks the cave, so it doesn't matter if lots of eggs get sent there. They'll sit around until they're ER [or close to it] and get picked up and hatched. No problem with the ratios, and it would probably get MORE blockers raised than the current system does.

 

Rotating the eggs in the cave would just cause people to pick out the rares and other desirables and leave the blockers to rot, totally killing the ratios.

 

Deleting the blockers would also kill the ratios.

Edited by Pokemonfan13

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