More season / time affected breeds

[angelicdragonpuppy]

Thought there was already a suggestion like this but can't find it D:

 

What would people think of making some of the already available breeds only available in-cave at certain times of the year, or having their rarities shift throughout the seasons? It doesn't need to be every breed, but a few might be nice. Obviously the creator(s) of the breeds would be contacted regarding which seasons they might be more prevalent in.

 

Perhaps there could also be more day vs night breed availability shifts as well. If "day" and "night" were done in broad 12 hour strokes, there should be enough time for everyone in every timezone to grab each.

 

I think it might be a nice way to cover a few issues the game seems to have, namely, lack of diversity in the caves, cave blockers, and worries that there might someday be too many breeds. While there will always be cave blockers, having distinct day / night cycles and seasonal cycles would always shake things up a bit. It's not uncommon to hear people complain that there ARE commons they want, it's just they can't get to them because some other common is always sitting in the cave, so stirring things up a bit could help there. Also, if breeds were seasonally limited, people might be more inclined to pick them up. The idea of rarity can itself be a compelling force. People who might not normally care for a breed might be spurred into getting some when they realize "Oh, I don't have very many of them, and if I don't get them now I might be waiting another year before I can..."

 

Also, breaking things up in such a way could create a lot more "space" for new breeds to fill. Right now, every single normally available breed in the game is competing for 18 egg slots. Whereas with this, there might only be a handful of breeds available in the desert at night in fall or whatever, which means more breeds could be put into that category without the numbers becoming overwhelming.

 

So... thoughts?

Edited December 9, 2013 by angelicdragonpuppy

[Obscure_Trash]

Were you possibly thinking of migration: http://forums.dragcave.net/index.php?showtopic=122023 ?

[TJ09]

If you're talking about new breeds that use time mechanics, the proper method is to suggest something in dragon requests. Such a suggestion isn't actionable by me; I can't use concepts I don't have.

 

If you're saying existing breeds should change, then Sock has you covered.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

No, not new breeds. Things we already have, like breeds listed as nocturnal--Blacks, Seragammas, Opals, etc.

 

Thanks for the link Sock, but that's not it exactly. Although the ideas are somewhat similar... (minus the day / night thing)

Edited December 9, 2013 by angelicdragonpuppy

[whitebaron]

Breed availability fluctuates anyway, as dragons tend to be a lot more common in cycles of 1 year/2 years etc after their release and then fade away again 2-3 months later.

 

I'm all against breeds that are only available at certain times of day, seeing as I can only hunt noon-early afternoon dc, and there's bound to be more people with tighter schedules.

[Fuzzbucket]

Also this is an international site; it's thrilling enough getting up at 5am for new releases; I'd hate to have any dragons that were only available when I ought to be asleep.

 

I'd say the same for times of year, actually - there are times I am on the road or without internet except for an occasional cybercafe for months at a time. I have had so much trouble with my seasonal lineages already that when they are done I shall NEVER do another.

 

No thanks.

[Rosedamai]

Also this is an international site; it's thrilling enough getting up at 5am for new releases; I'd hate to have any dragons that were only available when I ought to be asleep.

This. My time is completely different from EST-it would be difficult for me to ever breed anything without randomly getting up at 4 a.m.

[Nectaris]

If this were a game where we caught hatchlings only, I could see this making sense, but not eggs. The eggs we get from the cave have been abandoned by the mother, the mother isn't going to return at night and squirrel them away until the next morning. They would still be there when the mother goes to sleep, to me it is that, yes, they laid them during their period of activity, but you just don't find them until when you find them no matter what the species' activity time is.

 

It also isn't inconceivable that given these are young, inexperienced mothers, a diurnal dragon could get up in the middle of the night and be like "I have to get these out of me, NOW". And lay them outside of their normal activity times.

Edited December 10, 2013 by Nectaris

[xeyla]

I like the idea of hatchlings having different times they appear. But, how will we get the hatchlings to show up? In the AP at the specified times? I know eggs can hatch in the AP, so I don't see this as unreasonable. Maybe instead of going straight to the wilderness, they can stay for the determined times?

Edit: This could help with blocker eggs.

Edited December 10, 2013 by xeyla

[Syphoneira]

Actually, it seems to me that the problem is that we have too many of the same relatively small number of sprites among those we do have repeatedly appearing in the various biomes, and I'd hate to see this further intensified by reduction.

 

The more variety is reduced, the smaller the number likely to be visible in the biomes at any given moment; the lower the odds that anyone present might actually want any of the dragons showing; and the more Blockage.

 

Personally, I'd say that we need MORE variety available in biomes, so we have MORE variation in the dragons appearing, and therefore MORE of a likelihood that somebody will be able to find something they actually want/can use, rather than using their 2nd-last hunting spot to take a sprite they don't want for 5 hours before dumping it, in case something they would like might show up - and therefore less of an overload of the same types of dragons most people already have enough of showing up instead of something else.

[edwardelricfreak]

I actually like the idea of season/time based things.

 

However, instead of removing stuff COMPLETELY for certain seasons/times of day, why not just have them more common/rare at certain times, that way the variety isn't completely lost?

 

I think you brought up rarity shifts. I think I'd like that.

[HeatherMarie]

I've been thinking about this suggestion, and I just don't see it. The OP says only *in-cave* eggs of that breed would be affected... Well then, due to ratios, that just means that more of those eggs will be successfully bred, and end up on the AP, and how does that solve anything?

 

If you mean "in-cave" as in ALL of the cave, ie the entire game... I just can't imagine this going well. If Green Dragons aren't available in the cave for, say, 5 months, then when they *do* show back up that's all we will see. Green Dragons everywhere, because they have to get their ratio back to normal.

 

Pretty much *any* suggestion that messes with how dragons are obtainable runs into the problem of ratios. And I personally hate that excuse, but it's the truth. Remember when metallics we so dang easy to get, but it wasn't supposed to be that way, and then when TJ fixed it there was a *huge* drought of metallics for a looong time.

 

I also definitely agree with Syphoneira.

[WraithZephyr]

I've been thinking about this suggestion, and I just don't see it. The OP says only *in-cave* eggs of that breed would be affected... Well then, due to ratios, that just means that more of those eggs will be successfully bred, and end up on the AP, and how does that solve anything?

 

If you mean "in-cave" as in ALL of the cave, ie the entire game... I just can't imagine this going well. If Green Dragons aren't available in the cave for, say, 5 months, then when they *do* show back up that's all we will see. Green Dragons everywhere, because they have to get their ratio back to normal.

 

Pretty much *any* suggestion that messes with how dragons are obtainable runs into the problem of ratios. And I personally hate that excuse, but it's the truth. Remember when metallics we so dang easy to get, but it wasn't supposed to be that way, and then when TJ fixed it there was a *huge* drought of metallics for a looong time.

 

I also definitely agree with Syphoneira.

I thought that TJ said ratios were no longer connected ?? i.e. no matter how many of any given breed is bred, it won't affect how many CBs show up in the cave and vice versa.

[whitebaron]

I thought that TJ said ratios were no longer connected ?? i.e. no matter how many of any given breed is bred, it won't affect how many CBs show up in the cave and vice versa.

That's a user-based theory. TJ never stated this.

[platedlizard]

I'd like to see breed availability fluctuate. I don't think existing breeds should disappear entirely until their 'season' but I think it would be good if some common breeds were to become rarer during their 'off' season. I also think it should be staggered, so the cave is constantly changing in what's available. So for example mints are uncommon from March to July, and Neotropicals are uncommon from April to August, etc.

[Syphoneira]

I had thought that I'd recalled that at one point, (years back now, I suppose,) TJ had stated something in a thread to the effect that Cave and breeding ratios were separate at that point, but I believe it was Socky who lately posted a far more recent quote from TJ, (if I recall correctly,) from March of this year, indicating that they were linked.

 

So we now know that, as of March, 2013, breeding and Cave Drop ratios were indeed linked.

 

Whether they've varied in this at times is something that only TJ can tell us.

 

 

 

I really, really think that we need not less, but more, variety and better ratios more responsive to what people will willingly take, regarding the various sprites, to sort out an ongoing problem which has demonstrated over the years that nothing humanly possible done by players can adequately cope with an overload of certain dragon types with which the players - the system - cannot cope.

 

As matters stand, we're always going to have particular breeds out-producing demand for them and Blocking the Biomes to prevent play.

 

Periodically reducing various dragon types increases the numbers of other specific Blocker sprites appearing in the biomes and potentially creates new Blockers out of other commons then more frequently appearing in the biomes, while reducing variety in what appears in the biomes.

 

If the ratios aren't adjusted to reduce excess numbers of those sprites becoming Blockers, we will continue to never see the variety of dragons that exist and of which not everybody already has enough, which should be available and yet rarely seem to show.

 

And instead of playing a game where we can pick from a variety of dragons because the biomes move, since the variety so often provides something that somebody present is likely to want, we're either using precious spots inadequate to the purpose of holding enough Blockers to get them out of the way to hunt, or waiting for someone else to.

 

This in a situation where many people already no longer hunt the biomes regularly except when looking for recent New Releases, and where the biomes often have very few - or sometimes even no - people registering as being on them in the DC night which is playing time for many on different shifts or in different time zones than is DC.

 

 

Migration, if I recall correctly, applied to all types of dragons, making dragons which people do variously want/need difficult or impossible to catch at various seasons of the year, and therefore fouling up some of the people all of the time, even more than they already are chronically fouled with the Blocker issue.

 

Why not try to have the game made overall more fun for more people, rather than less so?

[pinkgothic]

but I believe it was Socky who lately posted a far more recent quote from TJ, (if I recall correctly,) from March of this year, indicating that they were linked.

 

Technically, indicating that they used to be not-linked in a way he considered a bug (or unintentional behaviour, at least) sometime well in the past and that he fixed that bug, also in the past. It wasn't a statement about how things are at current.

 

...I'm not following you around to post that, I swear.

 

Either way, though, whitebaron's statement is what's important: TJ didn't say that - the notion that they might have been unlinked (around February 2013, when the cave got the metal, black and stripe flood) is a theory in parts of the community.

Edited December 11, 2013 by pinkgothic

[Syphoneira]

Technically, indicating that they used to be not-linked in a way he considered a bug (or unintentional behaviour, at least) sometime well in the past and that he fixed that bug, also in the past. It wasn't a statement about how things are at current.

 

...I'm not following you around to post that, I swear.

 

Either way, though, whitebaron's statement is what's important: TJ didn't say that - the notion that they might have been unlinked (around February 2013, when the cave got the metal, black and stripe flood) is a theory in parts of the community.

 

 

Lol, pinkgothic, you can follow me anywhere - I need a lot of clarification!

 

And facts are always appreciated, even when I don't like them.

 

 

But I'm still pretty darned sure (with, as always, the caveat of my cruddy memory ) that at some (uncertain) point in the past, (I seem to recall) TJ commenting on a thread that, (at that point in time,) the breeding/Cave ratios were unrelated, so that at THAT particular point, (assuming this memory to be accurate,) such a rumour would have been factually based on something TJ had stated.

 

It does seem to me to have been long previous to this past year, although a lot's been going on the past few years, I've been off a lot the previous year or so, and I still have that pesky sleep disorder making both brain cells tired...

 

I do wish we'd get more elucidation on such questions (and suggestions) from TJ...