The Ratios

[whitebaron]

Liking ratios reeeeeally isn't a good reason to keep a broken system (and flood/drought cycles do indicate that it's not working). :/ And setting the ratios means he's already making decisions about how rare a dragon is, just with massively less control over preventing flood/drought cycles, which is what this suggestion is supposed to prevent.

First off: Ratios are not "broken", just not because they are not working the way you want them to. Yes, they do boom/bust cycles, but thats not the worst that can happen to a game. Why are you so sure, that TJ does not even like boom/bust cycles?

 

Secondly: TJ does not actively set any ratios, except for maybe an initial starting value. Anything else is user-dependant.

Coppers, Blusangs, Blacks and Vines are prime examples of the playerbase massively overbreeding and overcollecting. Same goes of course, and even worse, with rares and prizes.

 

I do not agree with a full ratio system as the base for a game - but it is NOT as broken as you think it is. It works astonishingly well, considering how old TJ was and how little about economics he must have known back then.

[Fuzzbucket]

The current system doesn't bother me.

QFT. TJ does what he wants and that's fair enough. We don't know what he does and that's his privilege. He may use rations in a way he simply does not choose to share, and it is tiring when everyone tries to second guess it all.

 

It's like when you can't buy the cheese you want because it's out of stock everywhere - something you live with till there are new stocks. I can remember when blacks were like golds; when various eggs that are now hard to find were blockers. It evens out over time. Patience is of the essence.

[Guillotine]

First off: Ratios are not "broken", just not because they are not working the way you want them to. Yes, they do boom/bust cycles, but thats not the worst that can happen to a game. Why are you so sure, that TJ does not even like boom/bust cycles?

 

Secondly: TJ does not actively set any ratios, except for maybe an initial starting value. Anything else is user-dependant.

Coppers, Blusangs, Blacks and Vines are prime examples of the playerbase massively overbreeding and overcollecting. Same goes of course, and even worse, with rares and prizes.

1. The playerbase dislikes the boom/bust cycle enough to make this suggestion. I said nothing about TJ's preferences besides that liking a system of boom/bust is not a very good reason to keep this system given how it flies in the face of other statements he's made. Never put words in my mouth again.

 

2. You don't understand how ratios work, do you? If he assigns a breed to be X percent of the current population (note: this is not the same as "X percent chance of egg being produced", which is what i'm suggesting), he is not only making that breed a certain rarity (even if he doesn't want to think of it that way), he is making the production of all breeds reliant on other breeds being produced and raised.

 

3. Why should the playerbase not be allowed to prefer certain sprites? "Overcollecting" and "overbreeding" should not be concepts in a game that TJ has said does not have hoarding (and he has said this several times). As-is, hoarding has a noticeable impact on the game. Someone who wants to hoard should be able to do so without impacting other players (outside of getting the egg first) if TJ actually holds to that statement.

 

Just because a system functions doesn't make it a good system.

Edited March 18, 2014 by Guillotine

[olympe]

First off: Ratios are not "broken", just not because they are not working the way you want them to. Yes, they do boom/bust cycles, but thats not the worst that can happen to a game. Why are you so sure, that TJ does not even like boom/bust cycles?

 

Secondly: TJ does not actively set any ratios, except for maybe an initial starting value. Anything else is user-dependant.

Coppers, Blusangs, Blacks and Vines are prime examples of the playerbase massively overbreeding and overcollecting. Same goes of course, and even worse, with rares and prizes.

 

I do not agree with a full ratio system as the base for a game - but it is NOT as broken as you think it is. It works astonishingly well, considering how old TJ was and how little about economics he must have known back then.

Define "not broken". I've been playing DC for almost 4.5 years now. And I've seen countless examples for ratio problems that would suggest some kind of broken-ness.

1. When I started playing, it was as good as impossible to get any metals (gols and silvers) at all. Even breeding had a very low chance of success. This metal drought lasted for about 2 whole years. I can understand fluctuations of a month, or even half a year. But two whole years? And after that, we had a short-time spree where breeding a metal almost guaranteed a metal egg.
2. I've seen event dragons bred during the last days of their breeding window produce not a single egg.
3. Some non-rare breeds fluctuate on a scale that's way too long. CB vines, blacks and stripes used to be considered uncommon by the player base because they were so rare - and hard to get. Now, some of them tend to block biomes. (I've seen the jungle locked with CB vines just yesterday.) Or imagine that CB seasonals, which used to be pretty common (not blocker-common, but common enough) as good as stopped being produced after the introduction of a number of new breeds in the alpine biome (where the then-active winter seasonals could be found). For over a year, CB seasonals could be traded in the rare trading center, and breeding seasonals was almost unheard of, too.
4. Let's not forget "alting sprees", where pretty much every single bred black egg turns alt. *shudders*. The last time that happened, I actually clicked every non-alt black hatchie I could find in the hatcheries. (Not for hours, but a very good number of them.) Every single one of them was CB. And after that, they become very rare again.

Really, there is a lot that's not fine with our ratio system. As far as I can see it, we have too many breeds (that differ greatly in demand by the player-base) for such a system to work well.

[Ashes The Second]

I'm indifferent because I collect a particular type of dragon in large quantities. If that changes and I cannot collect that dragon, then I will take a new look at this thread.

 

I don't really pay much attention to lineages either -- I often build very tiny ones out of a whim.

[HeatherMarie]

3. Why should the playerbase not be allowed to prefer certain sprites? "Overcollecting" and "overbreeding" should not be concepts in a game that TJ has said does not have hoarding (and he has said this several times). As-is, hoarding has a noticeable impact on the game. Someone who wants to hoard should be able to do so without impacting other players (outside of getting the egg first) if TJ actually holds to that statement.

There's a huge difference between "prefering certain sprites" and "I like this sprite so it should be more common" or "I don't see these enough so lets change the ratios". My very favorite sprite is the Copper, but that doesn't mean I have reason to demand that they be easier to get.

 

Imo, hoarding and overbreeding/overcollecting are *not* mutually exclusive. You have an "uncommon" dragon where many people love the sprite, so everyone starts making armies of said dragon. *Obviously*, enough people building armies means that tons and tons of this dragon are being bred, which means sooner or later you start seeing less and less of them, because they aren't meant to be super-common. It does *not* mean that anything is "broken" just because the ratios are reacting to the userbase pouncing on the dragon.

 

I'm sorry but I just don't understand the idea that no one should ever have to be patient about breed cycles. You overbreed, you have to wait for the population to even out. Cause-effect. It happens in nature, why shouldn't it happen here? Why should everyone be able to go "hey, why is this breed suddenly not being seen as much? RATIOS BORKED!"

[olympe]

Well, even if DC is supposed to be like the real world - and that's a big if - bred dragons don't need to affect the ratios of CB dragons.

 

I mean, the fact that some people breed hundreds, if not thousands of gold fish doesn't mean that these fish stop appearing in the wild (in their natural habitat) - does it? So why does it have to be that way for dragons?

[cyradis4]

There's a huge difference between "prefering certain sprites" and "I like this sprite so it should be more common" or "I don't see these enough so lets change the ratios". My very favorite sprite is the Copper, but that doesn't mean I have reason to demand that they be easier to get.

 

Imo, hoarding and overbreeding/overcollecting are *not* mutually exclusive. You have an "uncommon" dragon where many people love the sprite, so everyone starts making armies of said dragon. *Obviously*, enough people building armies means that tons and tons of this dragon are being bred, which means sooner or later you start seeing less and less of them, because they aren't meant to be super-common. It does *not* mean that anything is "broken" just because the ratios are reacting to the userbase pouncing on the dragon.

 

I'm sorry but I just don't understand the idea that no one should ever have to be patient about breed cycles. You overbreed, you have to wait for the population to even out. Cause-effect. It happens in nature, why shouldn't it happen here? Why should everyone be able to go "hey, why is this breed suddenly not being seen as much? RATIOS BORKED!"

Up to a point, I agree with you. I like the cyclical nature of breeding (up to a point).

 

I don't think its the ratio system that's borked. I think its the damping in the system that's off, that is a highly technical observation from an engineer very familiar with both control systems and vibrational analysis.

 

In layman's terms, I think the ratios aren't updating frequently enough. This is creating massive boom / bust cycles in some breeds that are not getting better (not all breeds, but some). And with the interval between updates appearing to be so long, the boom / bust cycles for those breeds can't get better.

 

Lets take the alt black example.

 

Current System:

 

They went from being highly rare, to being the only ones produced, to being very rare. What happened, you asked?

The ratios updated in January (January 4th, actually, if I remember the date correctly. Yes, we can pin-point it to the exact DAY the flood started).

Before the update: there weren't enough Alt Blacks

After the update: the system forced all blacks to alt to catch up the ratios.

 

The next ratio update occurred in April. Again, we can pinpoint an exact day.

The day before: Everything was alting. But because of 3 solid months of Alts, Alt Blacks are now extremely over-populated.

The day after the update: Nothing is alting. Because Alt Blacks are way over-populated due to 3 solid months of nothing but alts.

 

A Faster Updating System:

 

There are a lot fewer alt blacks than there should be, due to I dunno, a big breeder stopping breeding.

 

The ratios update.

There aren't enough Alt Blacks, so they start alting.

 

The ratios update a week later

There are now a lot more Alt blacks, so they start alting less.

 

The ratios update after another week

There are enough blacks, so their new ratio is about what they should be.

 

 

 

There's a fine line between a system that updates too fast (and puts strain on the system) and a system that doesn't update fast enough, causing huge boom / bust cycles. In technical terms, the first is referred to over-damping, and the second is referred to as under-damping.

 

For breeds that are bred pretty consistently (no spikes in breeding), the long time till ratio updates isn't a big deal. For breeds that can have big shifts in who's breeding them, it can be very problematic. For example... Right now, Crimsons are quite common. But a lot of people have started breeding them, and there's a notable player who's collecting tons of CB Crimsons. That's creating a spike in demand, and could well end up with Crimsons going from very common to rare at the next ratio update.

 

This can also be dealt with by using hard caps on the ratios, which I've explained previously. Or by what I've outlined above, increasing the frequency at which the ratios update. (from the evidence of the Alt Blacks, it seems they update every 3 months or so, sometimes longer sometimes shorter).

 

Note: This is what I, personally, have observed from the ratio system and a model I've found that works to explain how they work.

 

Cheers!

C4.

[Fuzzbucket]

There's a huge difference between "prefering certain sprites" and "I like this sprite so it should be more common" or "I don't see these enough so lets change the ratios". My very favorite sprite is the Copper, but that doesn't mean I have reason to demand that they be easier to get.

 

Imo, hoarding and overbreeding/overcollecting are *not* mutually exclusive. You have an "uncommon" dragon where many people love the sprite, so everyone starts making armies of said dragon. *Obviously*, enough people building armies means that tons and tons of this dragon are being bred, which means sooner or later you start seeing less and less of them, because they aren't meant to be super-common. It does *not* mean that anything is "broken" just because the ratios are reacting to the userbase pouncing on the dragon.

 

I'm sorry but I just don't understand the idea that no one should ever have to be patient about breed cycles. You overbreed, you have to wait for the population to even out. Cause-effect. It happens in nature, why shouldn't it happen here? Why should everyone be able to go "hey, why is this breed suddenly not being seen as much? RATIOS BORKED!"

I'm with Marie here. Not to mention (so hit me) that I find it quite interesting (in terms of interesting play) that we have to struggle at times. I needed a few CB WATERHORSES a FEW days ago. None to be seen. Same thing with albinos. Even within DAYS I got them - but it did take a few days - improbable but true. Other breeds take a little longer. Some are positively painful. Big deal...

Edited March 19, 2014 by fuzzbucket

[Ashes The Second]

I'm with Marie here. Not to mention (so hit me) that I find it quite interesting (in terms of interesting play) that we have to struggle at times. I needed a few CB WATERHORSES a FEW days ago. None to be seen. Same thing with albinos. Even within DAYS I got them - but it did take a few days - improbable but true. Other breeds take a little longer. Some are positively painful. Big deal...

I'm going to have to agree with fuzz here -- what exactly is stopping the ratios from just being the way they should be for this game? We aren't implying that this game is a systematically correct real-world "economy" (in a loose sense) are we?

[olympe]

I don't think it's a bad thing if you cannot get the common breed you want within minutes. Far from it. But - since we're talking about commons - a couple of hours spent hunting should be enough IMHO.

 

However, what about breeding - like breeding for alts, or metal floods/draughts - these cycles can literally take years to complete. Which is too much.

 

@cyradis: You know, looking at the dates... I think the actual dates for updating the ratios might be the first day of January/April/July/October each. It usually takes a couple of days for eggs to hatch, and a little longer for people to actually notice new alting trends. Just saying, though.

[cyradis4]

Went and checked my alt blacks, and I remember the dates a little off.

 

I've got non-alts clear to January 20th 2012, but everything after that till mid April are alts. Same with their offspring. However, I don't have anything bred between January 20th and early February (I'm not a big black breeder).

 

I've got alts clear up to April 15th, and regulars after April 17th. I've got 3 alts bred on the 12th, 13th, and 15th. And about 4 non-alts bred between the 17th and the 20th.

 

Someone who breeds Blacks allot can probably pinpoint the start better, but it was clearly not on the 1st of the months.

 

Cheers!

C4.

[Obscure_Trash]

I also do not like commenting on ratios when we have no idea how they work, but I do wish something could be done about breeding new breeds. It's very frustrating. The newer they are, they more they dominate lineages. I had people try over 40 pairs of male black tea x pebble pairs for me and not a single pebble. Those are very bad odds. (Now that black teas are a little older, I can breed them with other breeds and end up with dozens of black teas, but try to purebreed them and end up with dozens of no interests. Whaaaaaaat. Y u.)

 

Lineages are a big part of this game when you have to breed for months from a handful of pairs to get a common, that's not cool.

 

So, like, it seems like breeding might work like when dragons are released and they try to catch up with a year's worth of the other dragons rather than just a x percentage this type is gotten/y percentage this type is gotten or something. Something. I dunno. 3x

 

I don't know. I would just like to be able to do checkers that mix old and new dragons. x3

[CNR4806]

If the ratios are kept separate, though, I don't see how this would happen. Also, if breeding were to become percentage based, I'd love to see the percentages adjusted somewhat frequently to maintain the spice, as you put it, when breeding, and keep things interesting.

In this case then yes, I can see it working, and makes sense as captive dragon population being tied to wild dragon (well CBs are wild before you steal them) population is a little absurd if we think about it.

[whitebaron]

I also do not like commenting on ratios when we have no idea how they work, but I do wish something could be done about breeding new breeds. It's very frustrating. The newer they are, they more they dominate lineages

I can not confirm this for Brutes or Fevers, however Had no Trouble getting Blacks or Coppers out of them thus far.

 

 

[_Sin_]

I'm a bit confused. I saw a few posts assuming that the cave and breeding ratios were kept separated. Is that an assumption based on something that TJ explicitly stated? If yes, my apologies, I must have missed the reference.

BTW not trying to be a pain, would really love to know.

[whitebaron]

I'm a bit confused. I saw a few posts assuming that the cave and breeding ratios were kept separated. Is that an assumption based on something that TJ explicitly stated? If yes, my apologies, I must have missed the reference.

BTW not trying to be a pain, would really love to know.

TJ never gives out flat facts like that, sadly. But he did make a statement, last year, that he changed how it worked which many took to assume cb and bred ratios to be not-linked anymore, or at least only loosely related.

 

 

But there are prime examples to the truth of that theory: coppers and blusangs.

 

Coppers never dropped much after their initial release. But they breed very well, even with very common dragons.

 

Blusangs, on the other hand, still breed badly, but can be seen a lot more in the cave now.

 

I take this to mean that:

- Blusangs are present in many lineages and thus bred a lot.

- Coppers are few and between, and thus are still mostly sought after as CBs. Those that do lineages, enjoy rather easy breeding but hard times to find fresh blood to build them any longer. (without inbreeding)

Edited March 27, 2014 by whitebaron