Egg Circulation

[olympe]

That doesn't quite say much, because all of these eggs gained a day, so they might be anything between 0 and 24 hours old now.

 

Anyway, I see it coming, we'll need abandon limits like the freezing limits we have now.

[dragonpuck]

That doesn't quite say much, because all of these eggs gained a day, so they might be anything between 0 and 24 hours old now.

 

Not necessarily- a newly bred egg does not gain a day and if you watch the AP you will notice that once there ,the eggs age as if they were on a scroll , losing time as they sit there. When most of the eggs are 7 days the end is near.

[Nectaris]

That doesn't quite say much, because all of these eggs gained a day, so they might be anything between 0 and 24 hours old now.

 

Anyway, I see it coming, we'll need abandon limits like the freezing limits we have now.

Give it time before you start into panic mode. This always happens when cave block gets turned off for a while, and it always clears up. Every single time this happens, someone comes and suggests some sort of limit on breeding, but it always ends up clearing up without such limits.

[Fuzzbucket]

Give it time before you start into panic mode. This always happens when cave block gets turned off for a while, and it always clears up. Every single time this happens, someone comes and suggests some sort of limit on breeding, but it always ends up clearing up without such limits.

[KageSora]

but no chance to get any CB eggs...

There's plenty of chance to get CB eggs off the AP. Sure they won't be super-rare or really nice ones, but you can get 'em. I've tossed a few back because they were CB, and I was looking for messy-lineaged ones to freeze for my S1 collection. I was actually finding quite a few CB ones, actually. So depending on what you want, you can find it CB on the AP.

 

But then, without the backlog, you'll just have caveblockers to wait out to get nice CB's anyway, so it's kinda the same thing... Sorta. Ish. Maybe? /overtired

[keshaforever1]

YES I think more than half the people that want a egg that is a certain breed go to the caves but there is like two eggs of the same breed and all eggs are not what they want or in the Desert I have only seen one egg there ever or else it's just empty so I think this will make the game better =)

[KageSora]

No, it won't. See, everything is governed by the ratios.

 

Here's an example--please note, all the numbers are just made up off the top of my head for the sake of this example:

 

The top of the hour comes along, and the cave generates, let's say 200 eggs. Let's break those eggs down like this, and limit it to just a few breeds for simplicity's sake:

 

25 Pebbles

25 Balloons

25 Deep Seas

25 Nocturnes

20 Electrics

15 Greens

10 Blacks

10 Vines

10 Whites

5 Golds

5 Silvers

5 Cheeses

5 Chickens

5 Red Dinos

5 Blue Dinos

5 Purple Dinos

 

 

Now, let's say that those Nocturnes, and Balloons, and Deep Seas are clogging the cave, right?

 

So, those ones get cycled back.

 

Eventually, everybody has grabbed the other eggs, so the eggs left in the drop are as follows:

 

20 Balloons

15 Deep Seas

13 Nocturnes

 

Now, there are only 48 eggs left, and they're all cloggers.

 

 

That's exactly what will happen if we just cycle them through.

 

If the eggs are simply deleted, guess what? Next hour, the cave looks at the rations. It says "Oh no! There aren't enough Balloons and Deep Seas and Nocturnes to balance the ratios!" so then it just generates more of them, and you have the exact same problem.

 

 

 

what needs to be done is either tweak the ratios, or make the "unpopular" breeds more appealing--which can be hard, since what's popular and what isn't changes over time. BSAs might be a good idea....

[Cinnamin Draconna]

The ratios ARE the problem.

 

No clue exactly why they work like they do.. I don't think anyone except TJ knows for sure... but whatever the intention was, they need to be eliminated.

 

I've heard dozens of different reasons for why there are ratios, but none of them make any sense to me. Why should the cave produce more of something that isn't wanted in the first place???

 

So what if there are only 50,000 green/pebble eggs and over 500,000 blacks in the system. If people wanted more greens, they'd take more greens.. but they don't want greens, so the greens just sit there blocking the biomes.

 

Plus there's this supply vs. demand thing everyone talks about. Fine, the supply of greens is outrageous and the demand for blacks is getting LOUD. Sooooooo, instead of supplying what ISN'T wanted... supply what IS wanted, and folk will quit demanding changes.

 

And before everyone flames me for being greedy. I am NOT saying to make rares less rare.. I'm saying, make commons more common. Blacks are COMMON, Reds are COMMON, etc. etc. etc. They happen to be in short supply and the demand is NOT being met. There is no demand for greens, canopies, nocturnes, etc. so quit supplying them in such ridiculous quantities.

 

A common is a common is a common, and regardless of popularity they should be COMMON.! There are ways to track popularity of things, so use them to track which commons need to be produced and which should be produced less often.. don't stop production of the less popular stuff, just reduce their production.

 

And for my current major pet peeve.. GET BREEDING BACK TO NORMAL!!!!!!! I am so sick of 'no eggs' and 'no interest' that I"m tempted to quit playing all together. Expecially when the biomes are constantly blocked or empty, and the AP is nothing but a wall of junk. Breeding is why I'm still playing.. lineages, projects and breeding requests are pretty much all i do anymore. I don't mass breed.. I don't breed rares to abandon.. I breed to fill requests, continue lineages and complete breeding projects.. usually the only thing I abandon are cave hunting misclicks that I had to hold for 5 hrs. I need caveborn eggs to fill project baselines, or to be mates to lineaged dragons.. and I can't find them, if the biomes are blocked or empty.

[KageSora]

The ratios are important, becasue I assume that without at least some kind of ratio system, there is no way to define common and rare.

 

It may be that without some sort of ratio system, golds would be as common as greens or something.

 

Like you said, though, nobody but TJ probably knows exactly how these ratios are set up... But we can take some basic guesses as to how they might work, to get an idea of what to suggest...

 

 

If it's set up like BreedA:BreedB kind of thing where there are X of A needed for every Y of B, or if it's Breed A = X% of Total Population of All Breeds Y, there's still some kind of a ratio that is required to govern how common or rare any given species is.

 

 

I agree that it would be nice to figure out how to do something for Supply/Demand, but eliminating the rations entirely won't work, I don't think. Maybe there could be something in place that tweaks those ratios so they change as the Supply/Demand alters? That would allow for the ratios to remain in place, but allow them to be more flexible to permit what people want to be obtained without a surplus of what people don't want.

[HeatherMarie]

I definitely think there is a problem with the ratios and such, but I really don't have any idea how to change it. I definitely don't think getting rid of the current ratio-method altogether is a good idea.

 

Sure, supply and demand should count. But that's not the only thing that counts. Just putting it out there, it may not be a very accurate comparison but it's all I can come up with: There are different breeds of spiders. Some can be kept as pets. Some people hate *all* spiders, some like the smaller "non-scary-looking" kinds and some even like the scary-looking kinds. Obviously, the scary/poisonous spiders are *not* going to be very "wanted" by the human population, as a whole. But does that mean that because they aren't wanted, their numbers should decrease? Does that mean that nature should stop them from reproducing or stop them from having the numbers they do, just because we don't like them?

 

I think common dragons are common for reasons. Maybe we don't *know* the reasons, but I'm sure there are reasons. And just like in real life, some species are going to be *too* common, and people aren't going to like that. That doesn't necessarily mean the species need to change or stop growing in numbers.

 

Personally, I think that we, as users, could do a *lot* more to help the whole egg-problem then we are. Not breeding rares to super-commons is one, because most of those super-common eggs will land in the AP. Picking up more AP eggs, more *common*, unwanted cave-blockers, is another. I think we could do a lot, and I see "change the entire way the site works" as an absolute last-resort.

[KageSora]

I do agree that putting something in place for supply and demand could be a problem. And it doesn't make 100% sense.

 

Especially since rares will always have a demand that far outstrips the supply. But maybe something could be done to tweak the rations just slightly--not to the point of making the desirables super-common and the undesirables all but unheard of, but to make the wanted ones a little more common and the unwanted ones a little less common. That way people who do actually like those "unwanteds" still have a good chance of getting them, while people who want other things have a chance to get the other stuff, too.

 

But there should be something that keeps certain things from changing. Perhaps rares and uncommons could be exempt from a supply/demand tweak to the ratios, and it would only be done for the breeds that there is a large overabundance of?

 

 

Of course, I have no idea how possible any of this is, lol.

Edited June 18, 2011 by KageSora

[hazeh]

What about preventing two or three of the same egg in one cave at the same time? If an egg gets generated, it'll have to take into account what eggs are currently sitting in that biome and not be able to generate that breed, or at least until that breed of egg is snatched.

This way three (or two) of the same egg isn't sitting there for hours on end, and different eggs have a chance of appearing. If the ratios need that specific breed, then there simply won't be another egg in that slot until that breed becomes available again.

[bbik]

Maybe there could be something in place that tweaks those ratios so they change as the Supply/Demand alters?  That would allow for the ratios to remain in place, but allow them to be more flexible to permit what people want to be obtained without a surplus of what people don't want.

Availability category: COMMON

Breeds in category COMMON:

* Albino

* Balloon

* Pebble

* etc

 

Availability category: UNCOMMON

Breeds in category UNCOMMON:

* Paper

* Dino

* Cheese

* etc

 

Availability category: RARE

Breeds in category RARE:

* Gold

* Silver

* etc

 

Then take those categories and set percentages. For example:

* Commons should account for 65% of all dragons produced.

* Uncommons should account for 25% of all dragons produced.

* Rares should account for 10% of all dragons produced.

 

The specific numbers for each breed can then be determined by how many are picked up/bred, and how fast. If many are picked up, produce more. If fewer are, spread that breed out amongst the others instead.

 

This would almost certainly wind up with some commons becoming essentially rare, but other commons would become undesirable because they were blockers. So demand for the 'rare' breed would go up, demand for the blocker breed would decrease, and supply could readjust to fit the new demands, while still keeping the overall common numbers within the common ratio's requirement, and while also keeping commons generally common, albeit with cycling that could cause periods of less-common or more-common.

 

The same fluctuations would also happen for uncommons and rares, but to a lesser extent, because there would be fewer of them produced in the first place, to keep them uncommon/rare at all times.

 

 

I suspect something like that would require a complete recoding of the entire backend of DC, though, so it probably won't ever happen...

[Cinnamin Draconna]

Meh.. this is a GAME, NOT a nature preserve. Thinking the game should follow 'natural laws' is BULL.

 

There's no RP in the game either... the RP takes place totally separate and has NOTHING to do with the game itself, nor should it.

 

The game has grown beyond it's original limits and expectations and needs to modernize with the player population.. not the dragon population. The dragon population should no longer be a consideration, not if it limits game play. Why should the newbies have to do without commons like blacks, reds, vines, etc. they're bleeding commons, but these days the cave thinks they're superrares.

 

I've been here almost 3 yrs and there is no way in hell, that i'm trading a 2nd gen gold for a cb black.... and the newbies shouldn't have to either.

[KageSora]

What about preventing two or three of the same egg in one cave at the same time? If an egg gets generated, it'll have to take into account what eggs are currently sitting in that biome and not be able to generate that breed, or at least until that breed of egg is snatched.

This way three (or two) of the same egg isn't sitting there for hours on end, and different eggs have a chance of appearing. If the ratios need that specific breed, then there simply won't be another egg in that slot until that breed becomes available again.

This has been suggested, but the problem is that eventually, all the eggs but the blockers will be taken. Then what? We just have one or two eggs of the same type, and that's the only type that will stay there, replaced by another of that type if picked up?

 

If that could be worked in place with something that says that if there are only that kind left, all thee slots would be that kind ,that could work maybe--and then we'd have the added benefit of being able to tell "Oh, that's the only kind left in this biome" and could take one instead of waiting for something better to show up?

 

 

@bbik: That sounds like a good idea, but I agree that it'd probably be either an entire recoding of the site, or at least massive alterations... But if it was possible, that could be a really good thing. :3

 

 

 

@Cinnamin Draconna--I agree that it's ridiculous, but completely abandoning the way the game is isn't the answer. If the game is just going to morph into something that has little relation to how it was originally, we might as well all just go place a different game. I do agree that it's ridiculous how rare some commons are, but still..,.

[HeatherMarie]

Why should the newbies have to do without commons like blacks, reds, vines, etc. they're bleeding commons, but these days the cave thinks they're superrares.

Are you talking about "the cave" as in the ratios, or "the cave" as in Cave-Bred? Because I see vines and reds on the AP all the time. No, I'm serious. I counted eight vines pass through the AP in one hour earlier this morning (yes, I was counting, for reasons not important).

 

Sure, people *want* more CB blacks, vines, etc, but are they needed? No. Are vines/blacks/etc rare? heck no. Mine still breed just fine. CBs are scarce, sure, but that doesn't matter *in-game*. In-game all that matters is the overall ratio.

[KageSora]

Mmmm, perhaps something could be done, then to tweak the ratios so that the amount of eggs dropped are split between CB and bred--sure, that would mean more fails for breeding, but it would also mean more chances to see those things as CB.

[bbik]

Mmmm, perhaps something could be done, then to tweak the ratios so that the amount of eggs dropped are split between CB and bred--sure, that would mean more fails for breeding, but it would also mean more chances to see those things as CB.

I do think it would be reasonable (and nice!) if there were some hard control over CB vs bred.  I think a split that favors one over the other will only cause trouble, and even a 50/50 split might be going too far, but perhaps guaranteeing some percentage.  Say, 20% (just to toss a number out there) of a breed will definitely be CB, and 20% will definitely be bred.  The remaining 60% would then be open to either side, and supply/demand could take over from there.  That way there would still be CBs available of the currently overbred breeds, but they wouldn't suddenly turn common, either.  Nor would people become unable to breed them.  And conversely, there wouldn't be a huge flood of CBs because of people refusing to breed them, either.

 

...

 

Whether the two numbers (CB/bred) should be equal, and whether guaranteed bred eggs are really even necessary, I don't know, but for the sake of alleviating "but why does XYZ get preference?!?" I tossed matching percentages at both.

From CB to Bred egg ratio within each breed.

Not that discussing overall ratios is exactly on-topic for a thread about speeding up egg cycling rates in biomes, either, but at least I know that thread exists!

[Cinnamin Draconna]

Are you talking about "the cave" as in the ratios, or "the cave" as in Cave-Bred? Because I see vines and reds on the AP all the time. No, I'm serious. I counted eight vines pass through the AP in one hour earlier this morning (yes, I was counting, for reasons not important).

 

Sure, people *want* more CB blacks, vines, etc, but are they needed? No. Are vines/blacks/etc rare? heck no. Mine still breed just fine. CBs are scarce, sure, but that doesn't matter *in-game*. In-game all that matters is the overall ratio.

The cave as in the biomes, not from breeding.

 

Trying to find a black egg in a biome is practically impossible.. whites, vines and reds are hard to find.. and even pinks, purples and magis are scarce. Those are all supposed to be commons, but even at their best they're only showing up on rare occasions.

 

As for breeding...

 

I haven't bred a black or a stripe in over 2 months.. not since the release of the black stripes, of which I have 0.

 

But the ratios SHOULD NOT MATTER.. only the percentage of commons/uncommons/rares released each hour. And those percentages should be regulated by popularity, not how many have already been produced.

 

As I understand the ratios, newer eggs will always be generated more often because there are fewer of them in the game. Which is fine for the first 2 or 3 months, but after that, they shouldn't show up any more often than any other egg of the same rarity. So what if there are already X blacks in the game.. they are still COMMON, and they are very popular, so there should be more of them produced, NOT LESS.

[rebelgoddess19]

I like this idea - when I was trying to get a egg from the Alpine - the eggs stayed there for 5-10 minutes at a time- with only 8 people watching the eggs. Either way, changing the ratio or doing this idea something has to be done for the area's that don't have many rares in them.

[HeatherMarie]

I don't get the whole "popularity" thing. If ratios were based on popularity, golds/silvers/dinos/etc would be dropping like candy! It simply *can't* be based on popularity, unless we give up on the concept of rares altogether.

 

If you mean that rares, uncommons, and commons should each be dealt out according to popularity... I still don't see that working. There are *always* going to be some breeds that are more popular then others. Always. Magis are always going to be more wanted then Daydreams, at least for the time being, because they have Teleport. But they are both *supposed* to be common. Daydreams shouldn't be dropped any less just because people don't grab them as fast.

 

I just... don't get it. Sorry. Maybe just because I *like* that the cave is governed by this overall ratio, because it's a nice certainty. And I like certainties. I like knowing that I'll always be able to find certain breeds in the AP, and I like knowing that I have to work hard for a rare.

[KageSora]

I like this idea - when I was trying to get a egg from the Alpine - the eggs stayed there for 5-10 minutes at a time- with only 8 people watching the eggs. Either way, changing the ratio or doing this idea something has to be done for the area's that don't have many rares in them.

But doing this idea is a bad thing. If we just circulate the eggs, then eventually all that will be left are the ones nobody wants, and we'll be back where we started. If we delete them, well, then the cave will just make more. :|

[rebelgoddess19]

That is true... but waiting 10 minutes for a egg? D:

[Lythiaren]

If ratios were based on popularity, golds/silvers/dinos/etc would be dropping like candy! It simply *can't* be based on popularity, unless we give up on the concept of rares altogether.

This is exactly why the ratios need to exist. TJ's ratio thing on the site is really just RP justification for why some eggs are always there.

 

If people keep advocating that TJ changes the ratios to drop things according to popularity, you have the exact situation that led me to retire the frills. I just did it manually. Unpopular breeds would simply go extinct and they will all but cease to breed because the ratio says "You're not allowed to make eggs, nobody wants your garbage". And then they'll be rare all of a sudden, but this time people won't notice because they're all focused on what used to be popular.

 

Besides, once it comes time to axe your personal favourite breed from the popularity contest, you will come right back here to demand that he changes it back. And anyone who remembers people who supported the popularity contest will gleefully fill the thread with "I told you so".

Edited June 18, 2011 by Lythiaren

[elynne]

I actually think that the occasional common breed -should- be retired--once or twice a year, if not every four months or so. It would keep people on their toes; there might be more of a demand for certain breeds if people knew they were in danger of disappearing. And it would give people who have them on their scrolls something nifty, kind of a way of saying "I was there back in the day..." I have several frills on my scroll, I actually liked them, and I wasn't playing when they were retired. I was sad to see them gone when I came back. But I really think it would be the best thing for, say, whiptails, at this point. Unless they're given new sprites or an alt version or -something-, they are going to be the "frill" equivalent until they're retired. Albinos are close.