Cave Blockers and ways to deal with them

[Red2111]

TJ has stated he would like to do new releases every month, or near enough. Right now, we all know that Cave Blockers are slight issue; an issue created by us users ofcourse, but an issues none the less. And while currently it is not a big enough issue to affect the enjoyment of catchign and raising Cave Borns, eventually i do see it becoming a big problem.

 

obviously, as the amount of breeds available in the Cave increases, the problem of Cave Blockers will increase with it; both with the older breeds that already exists as Cave Blockers and with new breeds as the newness wears off and more desired breeds are released.

 

so as we can see that this problem will be inevitable, i'd like to take a proactive discussion and approach this inevitable problem before it truely becomes an issue. I do know that this issue has been discussed many times before, but i'm hoping that in this thread we can come to some clear consensus and hash out the specific pros and cons of each option available to us on how to solve this; so that when the problem does become big enough, we are well prepared for it.

 

 

the poll includes some of the more popular solutions i've heard, and below i will list the pros & cons of each as i see them and have seen through recent discussion on another thread.

 

i will user the followig abberviation "CBers" for Cave Blockers in the rest of this post.

 

 

What is a CBer?

 

To begin discussing solutions to an issue, you must first understand what the issue is. CBers are common breeds of Dragons which produce in mass (drop a lot) and often create blockage or congestion in the cave.

 

The cause of this is simple; because the eggs are common and drop a lot, there is a lack of interest (for various reasons) among players to collect those eggs; most common among reasons is, due to the commoness of these eggs, players tend to focus on the eggs that drop less frequently because they are harder to catch.

 

 

Solutions

 

Option 1 - Breed Retirement

 

This option would remove the breed from Cave drops, making collecting any Cave Borns of the breed a non-option. However, you would be able to breed more of the Species on your scroll from any you currently have (so the lowest generation achievable would be a 2nd Gen of the retired breeds)

 

 

Option 2 - Altering Ratios

 

This option would alter the amount of eggs a breed drops into the cave. this would mean, for instance, instead of 100 eggs per hour for the pebble in the Volcano, there would only be 75. However, its undetermined if this would also effect the breeding rate for these breeds (whether TJ can divorce the drop ratio from the breeding ratio)

 

 

Option 3 - Migration / Seasonal Rotation

 

This option would introduce Cave Breeding Seasons. It would not effect scroll breeding. Basically, what we see with the Seasonal Breed, only incorperated with all dragons except Metallics, Prizes, and a few other rares/unbreedables. For instance, Pebbles only drop in the Spring, Waters only drop in the Summer; but you can breed a Water or Pebble all year roudn off your scroll.

 

 

Option 4 - Scheduled Droughts

 

A drought is when a Dragon is not breeds regularly but does not produce offspring and is near non-existant in the cave. Droughts happen most times when the ratios are reset due to the amount of dragons being dropped and bred to help keep the population of Breeds in check.

 

We've seen this with Tinsel and Metal breeding for near 6 months; before that Seasonals went on strike for a full year, both producing and dropping, and least we not forget the Alt Black maddness as well.

 

A scheduled Drought would be a season where a Dragon will not produce members of its own kind and will not drop in the cave; users would be told when the drought woudl occur and for how long.

 

 

Option 5 - auto kick

 

This option would give any egg in a bio-dome a set time limit before the egg is auto-kicked to the AP (Abandon Pile).

 

 

Option 6 - More Bio-Domes

 

This option is similar to the original option that was introduced and implemented a few years ago. Which is to introduce more Bio-Domes, maybe sub-biodomes into the cave.

 

 

Option 7 - Addition of another egg line

 

Instead of having 3 eggs to choose from in any Bio-Dome, you'd have 6.

 

 

Option 8 - Quicker rotation of eggs

 

Simply put, more frequent drops; with the cave recognizing it's been stagnet for a few minutes and shuffling or kicking the eggs itself.

 

 

Option 9 - Random Egg shuffle

 

Everytime you hit F5, the cave would shuffle the eggs set to release on that drop randomly; leaving you different eggs to choose from upon each browser refresh. Please note this has been tried in the cave before and rejected.

 

 

Option 10 - CBer projects

 

These are player run projects which give out rewards for catching and raising CBer's.

 

Option 11 - Other

 

Which includes the following other Ideas which are being discussed indepth in other areas

 

- Mossy Eggs

- More Releases

- Alts/BSA additions to CBer Species

 

 

Edited March 11, 2013 by Red2111

[Red2111]

i'm still updating the OP to explain the poll options but feel free to chime in, list your own Pros and Cons for each (i'll update the OP to include those i missed) and list your thoughts on the issue

[skauble]

Unless you massively increase the amount of players at the same time as adding lots of new breeds, I would think that all of the new releases themselves would lower the number of cave blockers.

 

For instance, let's say that we have enough players to absorb 1000 eggs a day. If you add new dragons and not a lot of new players, then you still have only enough players to absorb that 1000 eggs every day. If you increase the amount of breeds from 20 to 30, then the amount of other eggs will have to come down some or soon we'll end up with too many eggs that no one can take.

 

That decrease itself may make older, blocker breeds more desirable.

 

I also think more biomes are a good idea. If nothing else then I think it adds to the fun by creating new parts of the DC world to explore.

[Fiona]

You missed a popular suggestion for helping blockers get picked up. Mossy Eggs

Edited March 7, 2013 by Fiona BlueFire

[kerrikins]

1. Absolutely not. Frills and bright pinks are already a source of jealousy and regret for users, retirement would just worsen this issue.

 

To be honest, I'm not sure that I like or think that any of these would work. Blockers are blockers because not enough people pick up, raise and breed them. I think that projects like 'breed the commons for rares' are better ways for us to combat this than trying to hamper other people's playing style with droughts or scheduled no cbs dropping. That's just going to foster a lot of resentment and anger. At least now we all know that it's due to ratios and general behaviour of people in the cave that's causing the problem, not 'because people want to hunt in the cave, I have to give up my right to create lineages'.

[TwilitProphet]

I'm for any option as long as it never ever EVER requires a breed of dragon that is considered a blocker to be retired and removed from being Cave Born.

 

I think it's extremely unfair to the spriter as well as the dragon itself to just have their breeds removed from the main cave just because people get annoyed at seeing that breed's eggs as opposed to the other 'prettier' dragons' eggs.

 

Heck, if I knew what all was 100% considered a cave blocker, I'd go around and start collecting them since my scroll goals are almost completed. I've been collecting spitfires for a long time (I only have 2 or so that are not cave born, and that's because my UVs gave me the spits), and I would eventually like to start doing this with other blockers since other users don't want them!

[Red2111]

it wont let me edit in Mossy Eggs into the poll so that can be in the "Other" option *nods* i'll make sure to specify that in the OP when i get done updating it.

 

 

Kerri - one thing wrong with that line of thinking is that, in Real Life there are plenty examples of "Blocker" or "Nusance" species being culled or regulated by humans. this is why we have hunting seasons.

 

for isntance, here in the States the Deer population and Alligator populations can get over whelming, so they are kept in check with hunting seasons to make sure the population does not over step itself and harm the eco-system. essentially, what these Blocker breeds are, are nuscances species which disrupt the eco-system of the cave.

 

yes its a player induced problem, but given that this game is based in "catch and raise" breeding ratios and population are determined by desirability. if a breed is being discarded or is being a CBer (a nusance in terms of comparing to Real Life situations) then the population of that dragon shoudl be adjusted to resimble is desireableness.

 

 

 

honeslty, i dont think this issue is a one size fits all sort of thing. i like a combination of the following 3

 

Altering Ratios - to match disierableness with breeding, still keeping common/uncommon/rare statuses in mind (will help the most)

 

Scheduled Droughts - for rares only; which forces a switch of focus off of rares onto more commons at certian points, will effect the trading in better favor for newbies, and will solve the problem that we see saw last year (seasonals, bad breeding tinsels, metals, ect)

 

more reward projects for hoarding commons and CBers. because a good amoutn of people will collect them if they get soemthing out of it, and this gives newbies a chance to get rare dragons for trading.

 

 

 

and yes, of peopel will balk at a scheduled drought, but frankly and bluntly put; Metals and Tinsels (and liekly Shimmers) are gogin to go through breeding drought, they already do each year. i'd much rather know WHEN these will happen rather than being suprised by them.

 

the last breeding drought took me by surprise, and theres more than a few Shinies on my scroll i thought i would do better by making myself some lovely dragon purses and casserols over rather than continuing to breed and get laughed at by them. as it stands now, the drought for these breeds is unpridicatble, volitile and near enought o make me not want to breed them ever again; i knwo i'm not alone in this feeling.

 

if my metals and tins have to go on birth control at some point during the year, i'd much rather know when, rathe than having to worry week to week "is another drought gonna hit"

Edited March 7, 2013 by Red2111

[Varnayrah]

I'm really against migration or schedults droughts where CBs of certain breeds ar plain not pbtainable. It would be sad to be so limited especially lineage-wise.

[Pokemonfan13]

If migration was done it would make sense to make them rarer during the off season, not nonexistant. That way people who really want them could still get them.

[Nectaris]

If migration was done it would make sense to make them rarer during the off season, not nonexistant. That way people who really want them could still get them.

This. I am not a great fan of migration in general, but if it were to happen I wouldn't want them to be completely unavailable as CBs. If they did become completely unavailable, I fear that unless breeding of them stopped as well, we would have a similar problem to the blacks, where tons of breeding has caused CB blacks to be rare.

 

I am completely against more breed retirements. I don't think it is necessary, and creates more problems than it solves.

[DragonNighthowler]

I do not like most of this proposals. I know this has become a serious problem, you tell me, I have trouble hunting for CB terraes, but making these common eggs unbreadable, retiring them, making them seasonal, I don't think that is the solution. Those of us who get enjoyment in breeding and creating lineages, most of the time choose commons for their ease at breeding. For us, specially if you've got two left hands and can't hunt, or a terrible connection you share with 5 other people and their computers (I haven't got a single new release egg after 3 days of hunting nonstop using all tricks I know, you get the idea), it would be a nightmare. As soon as the season changes and they start dropping again, the craze would push those like me to a pointless, frustrating and impossible hunt we can rarely win by sheer luck, taking all the fun from the game.

Not to mention during the no-breeding season, we would have nothing to do as hunting frustrates me (having a white screen for 20 seconds every 2 refreshes is not fun), and I don't like trading at all.

 

IMO, shuffling would help, and a lot. It has been proposed before and rejected under the premise that people would take all the nice eggs and leave out the undesirable ones, but I see a greater advantage than a large disadvantage. Many times, those of us who do lineages are looking for blockers, which happen to be hidden under other blockers. It might not solve the issue, but it sure does help clean out the cave a bit.

This, along with altering the ratios in conjunction with desirability (of commons, please, no rares here), might help a bunch.

 

Seasoning, retiring... it would add unnecessary drama.

 

Edit to add; So, what about the AP? It's not only blockers blocking the cave and ruining hunters. The wall of eggs we've got right now is amazing, and reminds me of the one we had after Christmas.

Based on that experience, and how quickly lowtime eggs went, I have been thinking of late that it might benefit the AP to have eggs either not gain an extra day when dropped, or to loose a day when dropped (which would make sense RPG-wise as you're abandoning an egg to its luck but might encourage multi-scrolling or egg bouncing amongst players). Lower time eggs go faster, the cave would empty more quickly.

 

I know it will be royally rejected but, adding more egg slots will also help the issue. The more eggs we can gather, the faster they rotate.

Or maybe add something so eggs/hatchlings grow faster freeing slots. The faster the slots get freed, the faster we will pick up eggs, and faster does AP empty and blockers go.

 

I don't know, just tossing in ideas.

Edited March 7, 2013 by DragonNighthowler

[angelicdragonpuppy]

I like the idea of seasonal rotation (so long as it only affects CBs!). If certain things were only available at certain times, it would probably make a lot of them more desirable, in the same way that Seasonals, which aren't really that uncommon, are more sought-after because they're limited in when you can get them.

 

However, the two things I'd really like to see done are:

- Set ratios rather than fluctuating

- Auto-deletion of eggs that sit too long

 

In other words, if an egg sat there for too long (maybe 1-3 minutes?), it could delete, and since the cave's ratios would be a fixed 'dice roll' as to what's produced rather then a quota system, another blocker wouldn't have to be generated in its place.

 

Most of us seem to play Pokemon, so I'll use it as an example of how I think the system should work. In Pokemon, as in DC, there are many more commons than rares. You have to work to get those rares. However, the difference is that you don't feel forced to collect masses of commons to ensure that you can still find rares, because no matter how many commons you have to knock aside first, there'll always be a set chance of finding a rare... as opposed to DC, where if everyone refused to pick up commons, the entire cave would die. I think the former system is much nicer than the latter.

Edited March 7, 2013 by angelicdragonpuppy

[Cinnamin Draconna]

My favorite option has always been 'shuffle with every refresh'. It's what other similar sites do, and I don't see why it wouldn't work here either. The chance of rares dropping would not increase or decrease, nor would catching them be any harder. But if the 3 eggs changed with every refresh, there is much less chance of the same 3 eggs just sitting there for many minites at a time. And a much greater chance of seeing/catching what you are looking for.

[DragonNighthowler]

My favorite option has always been 'shuffle with every refresh'. It's what other similar sites do, and I don't see why it wouldn't work here either. The chance of rares dropping would not increase or decrease, nor would catching them be any harder. But if the 3 eggs changed with every refresh, there is much less chance of the same 3 eggs just sitting there for many minites at a time. And a much greater chance of seeing/catching what you are looking for.

Adding to this, the cave would be more dynamic, thus more people would hunt and more eggs would be picked up. I kid you not if I say I have been hunting, looking at the same three eggs for 20 full minutes until someone got an egg and moved it, only for it to stay still another 20 minutes. It is boring, frustrating and annoying, and many people do other things than go hunting due to this.

Actually, I usually hunt in the AP because there is a good chance I'll eventually find CB blockers people pick up to move the cave, or missclick, and drop later, and also because, as I am hunting, the AP rarely stops moving for more than one minute and there is a finite chance something nice (nice in my eyes is a cool lineage) will drop by.

[Pokemonfan13]

My favorite option has always been 'shuffle with every refresh'. It's what other similar sites do, and I don't see why it wouldn't work here either. The chance of rares dropping would not increase or decrease, nor would catching them be any harder. But if the 3 eggs changed with every refresh, there is much less chance of the same 3 eggs just sitting there for many minites at a time. And a much greater chance of seeing/catching what you are looking for.

I really don't see how that would work. Think about it. Sure, you see a new egg, but in about 5 minutes [or less] all the desirable eggs would be cherry picked out and all that would be left is blockers.

[Nectaris]

I really don't see how that would work. Think about it. Sure, you see a new egg, but in about 5 minutes [or less] all the desirable eggs would be cherry picked out and all that would be left is blockers.

Would that honestly be any worse than what we have now? Right now, there are biomes that just about never move, and when they do, it is oftentimes just another blocker that takes its place. Other than maybe desert and alpine, where things move fairly quickly, I don't think such cherrypicking would be a bad thing.

[Pokemonfan13]

It would be for two reasons.

 

1. Unless the way the ratios work is changed to a flat chance the number of rares compared to the number of blockers would be completely out of wack and nothing but blockers would drop until it evened out, and it would never completely even out.

 

2. Nobody would hunt past the first hour rush because there wouldn't be anything good left in the cave until the next time new eggs are generated.

[DragonNighthowler]

The problem is people believe everyone will go hunting for rares until drying out the cave, which I don't say won't happen at all. But there are those who might be hunting for Caveblockers too, certain ones, specific ones like BBW or terraes or such, yet can't because there are a bunch of whiptails blocking the path. I have had to resort to attempts of trading to get terraes because the biome was constantly blocked by other breeds I did not need, and thanks to the rare increase and the new release, the biomes seem to be moving a bit again and I have been lucky to stuff myself to terraes (some I bred myself to continue the project, but still).

This will help people like me and many others that use certain blockers to breed lineages, and who have the same issues finding what they need as those hunting for rares.

 

By keeping the cave static, it benefits nobody, rare hunters can't hunt for rares and common hunters with specific needs can't hunt for what they need.

 

Like Nectaris said, the situation as it is right now is benefiting no one.

[Pokemonfan13]

True, some people will take specific common breeds they need, but I guarantee it won't balance the number of rares taken.

[skauble]

I still don't understand why it wouldn't work out that a monthly release of two new breeds won't end up diluting the cave blocker pool. Some of the old commons will have to thin out to make way for what it going to be mostly new commons - otherwise we'd end up with a bajillion eggs. And it doesn't seem like there can be a huge, week long egg push for new releases if they occur that often, so there would have to be a good mix of them in the drops, which also means less of the current blocker breeds.

 

Let's say 80% of eggs have to be commons of one kind or another. The more breeds we add to that, the less of each breed needs to be produced. So if Pebbles are a blocker, then you'd get less Pebbles once we added a few new breeds to that biome. And once there were less of them, those that are there might very well fall into the range of what the current desire for them is and they'd get taken much quicker.

[DragonNighthowler]

True, some people will take specific common breeds they need, but I guarantee it won't balance the number of rares taken.

It never does, but it certainly would do more than to have the cave blocked with 3 whiptails for 20 minutes, not letting common and rare hunters hunt at all. When the AP is empty, I use to go hunting after the rush hour simply because there are usually no more than 3 people in a biome and I can peacefully look for what I'm looking. So the whole problem about people not hunting after the rush hour is happening already (the desert is usually empty anyways) because there is nothing interesting to see. I frankly see the issues you believe this will cause are actually happening already with the system as it is. I'm not sure we can "break" it more by implementing something like this, and I do believe it will help. It is not a magical solution, it won't make the cave the perfect hunting ground, but it will help.

 

Anyways, I just had an idea, how about only having 1 specie of eggs at a time? That is, instead of having the biome blocked with 3 of the same specie, have it with 3 of different species. It might help move the thing a bit.

[Pokemonfan13]

People don't hunt after the rush partially because of the AP blocking the cave. They can't be sure they'll even be able to get to the CB eggs, so they don't bother.

[HeatherMarie]

I do NOT support any of the more drastic, play-limiting suggestions, like forced droughts, retirement, or altering breeding ratios. They present plenty of problems on their own and even if they "helped" cave-blocking, they would most definitely *hurt* the game, user's playing, etc, as well.

 

The other things... I honestly don't see many of them doing much good. I agree with PF about the 'shuffle with every refresh' idea. I'm unsure how more biodomes would help since any breed already in-cave (or Completed, which means already assigned a bio) won't be affected. I don't understand how "quicker rotation" is meant to be different then "shuffle on refresh". Auto-kick to the AP won't *help* the problem, it will only *move* the problem; Instead of cave-blockers, they will become AP-blockers.

 

I'm always interested in more "raise blockers for reward" type of projects.

[DragonNighthowler]

People don't hunt after the rush partially because of the AP blocking the cave. They can't be sure they'll even be able to get to the CB eggs, so they don't bother.

The times when the AP has been empty, after the rush hours, Desert was totally devoid of eggs, and the rest of the biomes were practically empty and static. That is why I like hunting at those hours, it is easier for me, away from the rush hour madness. I still don't see how things will drastically be different if we introduce shuffle. It is not like a hoard of gold eggs will appear all of a sudden, and if I remember correctly, overbreeding has done more harm to the ratios than hunting ever did (like the blacks mass breed brilliant idea, and the black striped mass breeding, which has produced a year through drought on blacks and striped alike).

[Cinnamin Draconna]

Before condemning the idea totally without real reason, why not let TJ try it. It works for other sites, and their sites aren't broken. You never know, it might be EXACTLY what we need.

 

I get sooooooooooooooooo bored trying to hunt the biomes. At the top of the hour everything resets.. everyone shows up to hunt.. the drops starts.. then freezes for about a minite before starting again.. then it's pretty lively for the first few mins.. but then 1 blocker egg will drop and be shuffled to the far left spot.. then another into the middle slot.. until finally all 3 slots are filled with blocker eggs that just sit and sit and sit and sit. If you're patient someone might have pity and take one, and eggs start moving again for another min or so... but it's just as likely to be filled by yet another blocker, and nothing would really change.

 

At least with the 'shuffle with every refresh' method, you'd see different eggs.. and who knows, maybe while you're sitting there refreshing, you'll get an idea and decide to take the next _________ you see for a project you just thought of. But when the same 3 eggs sit there forever, you don't get ideas, you just get bored.. and 9 times out of 10, I'm gonna leave and go do something else... and those blocker eggs are still gonna sit there, because I'm not gonna take them when I don't need/want them.