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I don't know, somehow, I don't seem as badly affected by breeding trouble. I actually managed a silver about two weeks ago (with 6 metallics to breed), one trio this week (2 or 3 attempts to breed one), and a vine (2 attempts with fertility) but no black (1 attempt with fertility). Truth to be told, I haven't tried breeding stripes for a while, though. tongue.gif

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I have not had a whole lot of trouble with breeding either, except for metallics and stripes. I was even able to breed a black egg not long ago that I had been trying to get for months!

 

I do love the biomes. I agree that we all need to work at clearing the cave cloggers. The Alpine biome has been pretty much clear of the nocturne clog since the Common Collectors Competition started grabbing them. If we can do that with one breed we can do it with others. Giving up one egg slot at a time to uber-commons would help a lot if we would all do it!

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huh.gif

Well, if you wanna know what dragons need to be raised to fix the ratios just take a look at the AP and the Biomes. The species that's most abundant is the one that needs to be boasted. The problem is that no one is raising those eggs and it's messing up the ratios. I don't see why you need to know the exact population of every dragon to know which dragon species is causing problems.

 

Take a look at the Biomes. The reason some species are being produced so much and that they are clogging it is because no one wants them and there aren't enough in the system to balance the ratios.

 

So, basically:

Step 1- Raise over abundant eggs in AP and cave

Step 2- ???

Step 3- Profit!

I am truly sick of seeing these types of posts.....(nothing against this one in particular just all of them all together like this one)

 

Stop please!

 

I don't don't how many of these posts I have to see in regards to the question of what the ratios are that need to be up'ed etc., till someone gets the hint that we aren't asking for 'YOUR' opinion, we want an answer from TJ - the man himself. The person who knows the "EXACT' ratios.

It is these types of answers that ticks people off, the NOT wanting to answer from TJ and the 'Bragging' of people who can breed or catch, that makes people not want to stay/or just simply loose it.

 

*shakes her head*

 

 

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I haven't had trouble breeding. Even got a magma from a magma x ridgewing pair. I really like the biomes for the most part. It can be annoying though when they are blocked by the same three dragon types(different for each biome).

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I am truly sick of seeing these types of posts.....(nothing against this one in particular just all of them all together like this one)

 

Stop please!

 

I don't don't how many of these posts I have to see in regards to the question of what the ratios are that need to be up'ed etc., till someone gets the hint that we aren't asking for 'YOUR' opinion, we want an answer from TJ - the man himself. The person who knows the "EXACT' ratios.

It is these types of answers that ticks people off, the NOT wanting to answer from TJ and the 'Bragging' of people who can breed or catch, that makes people not want to stay/or just simply loose it.

 

*shakes her head*

I didn't intend my post as bragging, but as balancing. If only the people with problems post, the actual problem gets blown out of proportion because it isn't quite as bad as it seems. (If more frill-lovers had posted their *balancing* opinion in the rant thread that ultimately got frills retired, we might still have them.)

 

However, this does not mean I wouldn't like some stats from TJ, but he said it wasn't going to happen, so there isn't much we can do.

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I haven't been on much, but I have noticed more and more breeding attempts ending in failure...

 

Heh. I recall the days where multiclutches were more common than not, getting 4 eggs was average, and seeing several metallics in one clutch wasn't surprising.

 

I'm not too fond of the biomes, because I feel as though it makes seeing rares less likely (because they're spread out and you generally only refresh over one biome), and it hasn't helped the three-common-eggs block at all, in that each biome has eggs in it that nobody really wants. But I'm one of those old geezers that doesn't really like change and will wave her metaphorical cane at anything.

 

 

I'm not asking for anything, just stating what I believe - this is not a new problem. It's persisted for a very long time, for at least two years now. Measures have been made to circumvent it, but I feel as though the nature of the problem lies in the ratios themselves. Having more dragons of a breed appear than others becomes a larger and larger discrepancy as the population on Dragcave rises, and no matter what you do, no matter how pretty the sprites are, you are going to have more common-rarity dragons than people want. That's always been the case. The problem is now, instead of having a hypothetical and inaccurate ten purples to one gold, you now have a hundred purples to ten golds. Maybe a thousand purples to a hundred golds. The ratios are the same, but you now have ninety - or nine hundred - more of the common eggs. And most users aren't making armies of any given type, and don't want the same dragons over and over again.

 

I really think the only way to alter this is to change the ratios themselves, to mild out the difference between commons and uncommons (going from a hypothetical 5:1 to a 2:1 ish type thing) but you know what? There's no point, because that would just dissolve into a crapload of complaints and arguments and nobody would be happy and everything would blow up in the end anyways. I don't envy TJ at the moment.

Edited by Dianacat777

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What I think is more likely to solve the problem is to eliminate the ratios between commons.

 

If both X breed and Y breed are common, who cares if there are 9000 of X breed and only 1000 of Y breed? Does it really matter?

 

I can see having a hard and fast ratio of, say, 5 commons to an uncommon, and 5 uncommons to rare (please don't challenge me on the numbers -- I seriously don't care), but do we really need strictness within a particular band? Maybe the cave should flex with the demand for particular breeds within a single band.

 

Yes, that'll mean that there are a lot more X breed dragons than Y breed dragons, in the above example. But there will still be 10,000 common dragons.

 

I think the ratio problem is self-reinforcing. If no one wants Y breed dragons, and the cave demands that Y breed dragons be produced, then there will be fewer and fewer commons, thus fewer and fewer uncommons, and thus fewer and fewer rares. It'll strangle itself. That doesn't seem like a good game mechanic.

 

Blahblah the above is all from hearsay may not fully represent the way the cave works may be totally off base etc., etc.

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I am truly sick of seeing these types of posts.....(nothing against this one in particular just all of them all together like this one)

 

Stop please!

 

I don't don't how many of these posts I have to see in regards to the question of what the ratios are that need to be up'ed etc., till someone gets the hint that we aren't asking for 'YOUR' opinion, we want an answer from TJ - the man himself. The person who knows the "EXACT' ratios.

It is these types of answers that ticks people off, the NOT wanting to answer from TJ and the 'Bragging' of people who can breed or catch, that makes people not want to stay/or just simply loose it.

 

*shakes her head*

Everyone is allowed to post their opinion and their experiences when relevant.

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drops used to last 5 minutes tops. Now drops are lasting the entire hour. There used to be no blockers because well, you were grateful for even an common egg. Any egg was picked up because people were that desperate for eggs.

 

We need to go back to that so things start moving smoothly once more.smile.gif No blockers. Maybe lower the amount of cb eggs dropped? If breeding success are now back to egg drought times, then cave drops need to shorten too. It's only fair. smile.gif Get people back in the mentality of of getting even an ubercommon cb egg is an achievement

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I haven't had much trouble breeding either. But I also haven't been trying to breed things like stripes because it's obvious they are worn out. Poor fellows. I have that pair or three I've been trying to get an egg out of for months that wont cooperate, but who doesn't? And I'm on a list for a tinsel that has yet to even make a common egg after weeks. But if I really want to, I've had no troubles egg-locking myself to the hilt. I've even bred some PB blacks.

 

I really like the biomes, I think I like that the desert one moves so fast. It adds a little variety.

 

Teleport is freaking awesome. And so are the new egg limits :3

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Since my ideas generally aren't so great, I don't expect many people (if any at all) to be a fan of this, but what if only eggs and growing hatchlings counted toward the ratios?

 

I haven't thought this out a lot, nor do I know much about coding so I'm sure there'll be reasons against it but just putting an idea out there. I'd actually appreciate being told why this may/may not be a good idea.

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Since my ideas generally aren't so great, I don't expect many people (if any at all) to be a fan of this, but what if only eggs and growing hatchlings counted toward the ratios?

 

I haven't thought this out a lot, nor do I know much about coding so I'm sure there'll be reasons against it but just putting an idea out there. I'd actually appreciate being told why this may/may not be a good idea.

So during the week of a new release the Cave would read there as being 0 old breeds? O.o

 

(exaggeration, but you see my point....)

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Anything shorter than one year tends to make releases do bad things. You're effectively suggesting that it be changed to two weeks.

 

Because you'll be surprised how quickly one year's worth of a new release drops.

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drops used to last 5 minutes tops. Now drops are lasting the entire hour. There used to be no blockers because well, you were grateful for even an common egg. Any egg was picked up because people were that desperate for eggs.

 

We need to go back to that so things start moving smoothly once more.smile.gif No blockers. Maybe lower the amount of cb eggs dropped? If breeding success are now back to egg drought times, then cave drops need to shorten too. It's only fair. smile.gif Get people back in the mentality of of getting even an ubercommon cb egg is an achievement

I too, remember these days, and while I feel it would cause a lot of users to cry foul, it might be a change for the better in the end xd.png I can recall when catching an umpteenth gen inbred mint was worth celebrating, because HOLY CRAP I MANAGED TO GET AN EGG. And that wasn't just poor catching or internet, that was because there really weren't that many eggs to go around. I remember really wanting a purple egg back then, and that it took me weeks to get one. Unfortunately, I'm not sure we could go back to that without causing a lot of problems just because of the sheer number of breeds.

 

I do rather like the idea of allowing there to be less of common one and more of common two and common one not becoming a blocker because they're both commons. Sort of like the idea proposed some time ago (don't know if it's still floating around somewhere) that the relative ratios of common spawns within the bubble of all commons would be based on how long they sat in the cave. Same number of common eggs, but those breeds that have a higher demand become more common to meet that. I don't know if there was ever anything said by TJ or a mod or a real strong opinion against it, but it seemed like an okay way to get those blockers moving. And when they become rare enough that they do get picked up quickly, or popular breeds are common enough they start to sit, the ratios within the umbrella of common would flop again.

 

Also, to the person who commented about the frill drama and IF ONLY THE SUPPORTERS HAD SPOKEN UP, I personally loved frills. I'm extremely sad they were discontinued even if only because they were super important to my holiday breeding pairs. But that's besides the point. I don't mean to bring that up. What I meant to say is that even though I only came back toward the end of that fiasco from a hiatus, while there were a lot of people who spoke against frills, there were also plenty that spoke up for them and for their artist. There were a number of frill adopting groups and frill love groups in addition to upset parties. I do appreciate the sentiment that everyone should feel free to express their opinion and their experience, but that doesn't mean that ever people have totally withheld even if it was contradictory smile.gif

 

I do, however, also sympathize with whoever was raging at the just raise blockers folks. While that works eventually, it does make one feel a bit more confident they're doing the right thing if they have trending data, which, unless I missed a post, TJ *did not* outright shoot down. Numbers, sure. But he did say he might be open to trending data, and at least a few of us expressed that we would appreciate what he was willing to give us, if anything, no matter how vague.

 

Also I'd like to add that the common collector's competition does do a great job clearing up whatever breeds they focus on for the month. But there's a darn good reason, and that's the prize that has everyone filling all their slots to try to get. I know that for the first couple weeks of the competition, until I realized I was too far behind to win, I was raising a nocturne in every slot, and incubating all of them. And I was still far behind the forerunners. That's not "It makes a difference if you give up even one slot!" level. That's, if one hundred competitors use all their slots it makes a difference level. Not to say that everyone using one slot wouldn't make a difference, or even one person devoting a slot to blockers over time, but it does take a lot to make a difference in a game so big. And as soon as the blocker changes at the end of the month, the problem comes right back.

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I actually have a theory as to why the imbalance gets worse and worse all the time. It's very simple.

 

It's "Pokemon Syndrome". A lot of people really only want to "catch 'em all" (varying case by case; some want one of each breed, some want one m/f pair, some want one adult/hatchling/S1 set, some want one of each sprite, etc.) and that throws things off because it leaves x number of commons/uncommons homeless. DC is not like Pokemon where you can run away from the billionth Bidoof you find and never have it affect anything in your game. That "Bidoof" has to find a home somewhere or it will be reincarnated and come back to haunt us until it does.

 

Some of us will raise duplicates when we've collected all we need of everything to satisfy our collections, but when it comes to balancing the cave as a userbase, some of us will have to bite the bullet and raise blockers. And some of us do; others find ways to get more people to join in.

Edited by Lythiaren

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drops used to last 5 minutes tops. Now drops are lasting the entire hour. There used to be no blockers because well, you were grateful for even an common egg. Any egg was picked up because people were that desperate for eggs.

 

We need to go back to that so things start moving smoothly once more.smile.gif No blockers. Maybe lower the amount of cb eggs dropped? If breeding success are now back to egg drought times, then cave drops need to shorten too. It's only fair. smile.gif Get people back in the mentality of of getting even an ubercommon cb egg is an achievement

I also remember the times when the AP and the cave were empty all the time, and I do not want those times back. I don't see what'd good about an artificial shortage of eggs. This'll be "grab what is left" instead of "grab what you need" all over again. And if I had to chose between "wait for an hour because nothing is there" and "maybe wait a few minutes til something changes" - I take the latter.

 

As it is now, there is a wide variety of eggs to chose from, and I usually catch eggs I want and need. Much better then before, and before that.

 

 

 

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I think that with the increase in scroll space, it'll either be extremely rare rares or no dragons at all much in the caves.

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What I think is more likely to solve the problem is to eliminate the ratios between commons.

 

If both X breed and Y breed are common, who cares if there are 9000 of X breed and only 1000 of Y breed? Does it really matter?

 

I can see having a hard and fast ratio of, say, 5 commons to an uncommon, and 5 uncommons to rare (please don't challenge me on the numbers -- I seriously don't care), but do we really need strictness within a particular band? Maybe the cave should flex with the demand for particular breeds within a single band.

 

Yes, that'll mean that there are a lot more X breed dragons than Y breed dragons, in the above example. But there will still be 10,000 common dragons.

 

I think the ratio problem is self-reinforcing. If no one wants Y breed dragons, and the cave demands that Y breed dragons be produced, then there will be fewer and fewer commons, thus fewer and fewer uncommons, and thus fewer and fewer rares. It'll strangle itself. That doesn't seem like a good game mechanic.

 

Blahblah the above is all from hearsay may not fully represent the way the cave works may be totally off base etc., etc.

Exactly what I think.

 

Right now, we have some commons which are so high in demand - especially as CBs - that it's hard to get them at all, much less from the cave. (In the trading threads, CB blacks are offered for CB or low-gen metallics!) At the same time, there are other commons which are not in low demand that tend to block the caves. All of them.

 

But, if something like my beloved canopies would become harder to get - which they were for some time - people would be more inclined to pick up the ones that do occur in the cave, or breed them for others. If the numbers could go up in any significant way if the demand is there, the ratios of commons (within their group) would even themselves out, and people would get the common dragons they want the most.

 

Still, I don't know if the "time sitting in the cave" mechanism is the best to work with. But there are other options:

1) Decide cave ratios on ratios of bred eggs: People breed what they like and can't get in the cave, so this might help discern which breeds should be more common and which one should be rarer.

2) Number of growing things on all scrolls: TJ has access to said trending data, so he could use it to create an algorithm to balance the ratios according to the demand as represented by the things that grow on scrolls.

 

What I definitely do not want is to go back to a situation where catchin any egg at all will be an accomplishment.

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I also remember the times when the AP and the cave were empty all the time, and I do not want those times back. I don't see what'd good about an artificial shortage of eggs. This'll be "grab what is left" instead of "grab what you need" all over again. And if I had to chose between "wait for an hour because nothing is there" and "maybe wait a few minutes til something changes" - I take the latter.

 

As it is now, there is a wide variety of eggs to chose from, and I usually catch eggs I want and need. Much better then before, and before that.

This. ^^^^ In bold face.

 

I don't want to go back to those 'Good old days either!

 

I'm learning to love the Biomes - despite the looooooong waits til thoe same three Uber-Commons change. Am DEFINITELY loving the new egg/hatchy limits and everything else.

 

I've bitten the Uber-Common bullet and picked up one of those *&^%$#@!D!!! Guardians blocking the Volcano Biome - not sure what I'll do with it yet - but yeh. I'm just not real fond of HAVING to grab a dragon I don't really want just to 'move things along'.

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I actually have a theory as to why the imbalance gets worse and worse all the time. It's very simple.

 

It's "Pokemon Syndrome". A lot of people really only want to "catch 'em all" (varying case by case; some want one of each breed, some want one m/f pair, some want one adult/hatchling/S1 set, some want one of each sprite, etc.) and that throws things off because it leaves x number of commons/uncommons homeless. DC is not like Pokemon where you can run away from the billionth Bidoof you find and never have it affect anything in your game. That "Bidoof" has to find a home somewhere or it will be reincarnated and come back to haunt us until it does.

 

Some of us will raise duplicates when we've collected all we need of everything to satisfy our collections, but when it comes to balancing the cave as a userbase, some of us will have to bite the bullet and raise blockers. And some of us do; others find ways to get more people to join in.

This, exactly.

 

I've been... really not helping the problem, in that I pick up commons, but then I bite them into vamps, which isn't helping the ratio at all.

 

When I'm done with the new release, I should start making an army of something. People seem to be upset at Guardians at the moment, but I think they're gorgeous. Hm...

 

I don't want to go back to those 'Good old days either!

 

Hah, I do, but it's completely impossible so nobody should bother trying to push that point. Things have just changed too much.

 

Part of the 'good old days' mystique is your own nostalgia. You can't get that back, period.

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Yeah, I guess I'm a victim of "Pokemon Syndrome" (great term btw) myself; because I don't want more than a certain number of each dragon on my scroll.

 

What I do is I usually grab a couple of caveblockers and hatch them, then I abandon the hatchlings. Because there is always someone willing to pick up hatchlings even of the über-commons. The new limits probably helps with that wink.gif

 

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I've committed myself to hoarding 100 nocturnes, 50 balloons, and after that I'll probably switch to guardians or pebbles (both of which i like, but never got around to catching). I have to admit, before I started collecting them, I wasnt a fan of any of the breeds, but im starting to see that the more i have, and the closer i get to the end of each project, the more I like them. I'm starting to see things about each one that I missed before. I figure, inbetween my seasonal projects whatever i see the most of dropping i'll grab at least 50 of, or at least as many as i can until the next part of my seasonal project can be worked on or until my Space Chickens actually start breeding again.

 

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I just wish I could bear to hoard Whiptails.....

 

And that I could FIND some balloons !

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I actually have a theory as to why the imbalance gets worse and worse all the time. It's very simple.

 

It's "Pokemon Syndrome". A lot of people really only want to "catch 'em all" (varying case by case; some want one of each breed, some want one m/f pair, some want one adult/hatchling/S1 set, some want one of each sprite, etc.) and that throws things off because it leaves x number of commons/uncommons homeless. DC is not like Pokemon where you can run away from the billionth Bidoof you find and never have it affect anything in your game. That "Bidoof" has to find a home somewhere or it will be reincarnated and come back to haunt us until it does.

 

Some of us will raise duplicates when we've collected all we need of everything to satisfy our collections, but when it comes to balancing the cave as a userbase, some of us will have to bite the bullet and raise blockers. And some of us do; others find ways to get more people to join in.

I can see why you're saying this, but I don't think that expecting a large group of players to change their behavior for a theoretical future benefit is a good game mechanic.

 

If we were cooperating for a clear benefit to every player, like with Esme's chest in Unicreatures, that would be one thing. But trying to convince everyone to raise cave blockers so that some of them might be able to get rares -- I don't know how practical that is. I think more people are likely to get disappointed and leave.

 

Yes, I know that some people participate in the efforts to raise cave blockers. I'm just not sure it's significant enough to keep the game running smoothly given the current limitations.

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For some users, it's not even "gotta catch 'em all," but more "I want to hoard the rare ones," which causes even more problems.

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