Cave Blockers and ways to deal with them

[Red2111]

as do i, but when tryign to find a solution to a problem all options must be discussed. its best to include it originally, and have a set stance against it, rather than people bringing it up as a great solution ever other page. when that happens, the discussion turns from finding a solution to debating over one solution and gets us no where in terms of solving the problem and givign TJ a good read of wht the users here suggest shoudl be done.

[Syphoneira]

I think that random shuffle should stay rejected. You'd just get a bunch of people refreshing a lot, swiping all the rares, then the cave would be blocked with junk.

 

 

And then the ratios would refuse to produce any more rares until enough commons were taken, and the biomes would stagnate even more so that nobody would bother with them at all...

 

Edited by - The Typo queen!

Edited August 8, 2013 by Syphoneira

[love_HP]

Anything that encourages the raising of blocker breeds helps the ratios, which indirectly helps the cave.

 

Yes, more hatchie slots would be phenomenal, if I had more I'd raise a lot more blockers.

 

Cheers!

C4.

That's true.

Perhaps we can have more hatchie slots for platinum trophy, ruby trophy, diamond trophy, etc. without adding egg slots? Or more freeze slots.

Desirable breeds seldom stay in AP to lose time (except accidental breeding-when-locked or people who want to "gift" the AP) which means those that don't take up egg slots for more than half an hour (and only takes hatchie slot) are almost all blockers. So hatchie slots are more like "for the blockers only". Uncommon/rare eggs stay on players' scrolls for the full 3 days, and blockers stay in AP to lose time.

Edited August 8, 2013 by love_HP

[yoyosoul]

I noticed that there is a problem with the cave blockers in the abandoned eggs section as well. Maybe they could take the cave blockers out of the cave when their numbers in the abandoned eggs section reaches a certain number. Then, when their numbers in the abandoned eggs section goes down they are available in the cave again. That way they aren't blocking the cave but players are still able to get one. This would also help thin out the abandoned egg numbers which is starting to get seriously over crowded.

[Rosedamai]

I noticed that there is a problem with the cave blockers in the abandoned eggs section as well. Maybe they could take the cave blockers out of the cave when their numbers in the abandoned eggs section reaches a certain number. Then, when their numbers in the abandoned eggs section goes down they are available in the cave again. That way they aren't blocking the cave but players are still able to get one. This would also help thin out the abandoned egg numbers which is starting to get seriously over crowded.

Didn't TJ say that breeding ratios are different from cave ratios? And anyways, that's assuming that every AP find is a CB, when plenty of them are not.

[Red2111]

i think the AP is moving rather nicely, and generally if i want a CB of any blocker breed it only takes maybe 10 minutes at most to find one.

 

as for nasty lineaged babies in there *grins* my vamps find those very tasty and send them right back to the AP to people who are looking for biters of their own one o my plans is to eventually get an army of those biters just for the AP

[love_HP]

I noticed that there is a problem with the cave blockers in the abandoned eggs section as well. Maybe they could take the cave blockers out of the cave when their numbers in the abandoned eggs section reaches a certain number. Then, when their numbers in the abandoned eggs section goes down they are available in the cave again. That way they aren't blocking the cave but players are still able to get one. This would also help thin out the abandoned egg numbers which is starting to get seriously over crowded.

If you'd like to help clear out the AP backlog, you can see the "hatching abandoned eggs" banner in my sig

Also, most people don't see the AP backlog as a big problem (at least not nearly as big a problem as the cave never moving), and it's certainly good to have an unending source of ER eggs.

 

@Red2111 messy-lineaged hatchies are always good for freezing, too. (Although I have a weird habit of freezing only gendered hatchies...)

[Syphoneira]

I noticed that there is a problem with the cave blockers in the abandoned eggs section as well. Maybe they could take the cave blockers out of the cave when their numbers in the abandoned eggs section reaches a certain number. Then, when their numbers in the abandoned eggs section goes down they are available in the cave again. That way they aren't blocking the cave but players are still able to get one. This would also help thin out the abandoned egg numbers which is starting to get seriously over crowded.

 

 

Lol, at this moment, I have CB hatchies taken as ER eggs from the AP including: a Stone, a Waterhorse and 2 Neos, none of which (even though I love Neos) I would have picked up at this time, if not for the insta-hatchie status made possible by the AP backlog of Blockers.

 

And during a Release, I obviously wouldn't have picked up at full time and kept to hatch the Hellfire and White I also insta-hatched from the AP.

 

That's 6 of the eggs which would only be in the way in the Cave during a Release that are now in the process of growing up on my scroll, all of which I was able to hatch within hours - during a Release - without affecting my ability to miss catching new eggs or make misclicks for more than a very brief period of time.

 

It would, indeed, make sense for the system to automatically shift Cave Blockers to the AP as they block the Cave, but why suggest shifting them back again to still clog the Cave, when they could just stay in the AP and come up as low-time/ER desirables people will happily take?

 

 

 

Edit: I and many others don't find the egg-loaded AP a problem at all - to us, it's a treasure-house of short-time/ER commons and the odd pleasantly surprising find.

 

Frankly, it often seems to be about the best thing in DC these days.

Edited August 9, 2013 by Syphoneira

[cyradis4]

*snip*

 

Edit: I and many others don't find the egg-loaded AP a problem at all - to us, it's a treasure-house of short-time/ER commons and the odd pleasantly surprising find.

 

Frankly, it often seems to be about the best thing in DC these days.

As far as I'm concerned, the AP is the very best thing about DC right now. That, and breeding my own lineages.

 

The AP is the only reason I hunt eggs at all these days. I haven't the time or patience to refresh over the same 3 eggs for 15 minutes straight. So unless there's a release, I might do one or two passes through the Biomes, but that's it.

 

The other week, I didn't have time to sort through my lineage projects, but had an empty scroll. So, I grabbed 7 messies, hatched them, and froze them. Then I grabbed 20 or so CBs, and hatched and kept them.

 

Cheers!

C4.

[Troubletail]

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.

 

Other significant differences between Dragcave and Pokemon:

1. I may have to wade through a literal ocean of Magikarps to find a Feebas, but I can keep on wading as long as I can tolerate it. I don't have a limited number of battles per day (or per 5 hours) and run the risk of wasting my chance of a Feebas by accidentally battling a Magikarp.

2. My ability to encounter that Feebas isn't dependant on the willingness of myself and other players to spend our limited number of battles on Magikarps.

3. My battling Magikarps doesn't run the risk of giving my long-sought Feebas to someone else.

 

The combination of the latter two issues is essentially the source of the problem here- it's not just that some species are rarer and more desirable than others, nor the 5-hour wait, nor even the fact that the ratios are skewed to produce more and more of certain breeds even as they're demanded less and less (although that certainly doesn't help). The ultimate reason that we have cave blockers and stagnating biomes is that we have a game where players compete for a limited resource (ie, rares) that is completely and utterly reliant on users continuously engaging in an action (grabbing unwanted blockers) that significantly disadvantages themself while providing a benefit to their competition. The only winning strategy is not to play- that is, to obtain all eggs from the AP or from trades (or to cheat), which unsurprisingly is what we see happening more and more. This in turn causes the biomes to stagnate more, which makes cave hunting even less rewarding, which makes the biomes stagnate more- it's a vicious cycle.

 

And that's why my vote is ultimately going to the 'kick long-sitting eggs to the AP' option. While many of the other suggestions would help reduce the problem, this one is the only one (aside from abandoning or massively overhauling the ratio system) that solves the penalty/reward paradox and makes biome movement not dependent on players punishing themselves without running the risk of shutting out those with slower computers/reflexes.

Edited August 13, 2013 by Troubletail

[Syphoneira]

Is it just me, or does there actually seem to have been a little more variety among eggs in the Cave the past few days?

 

Though I suppose it could just be all the people picking up unwanted eggs to try to get the Cave moving, if that's it, it does seem to be having more of an effect than usual...

[Darth Krande]

"Other".

Somewhere I have seen a request for a "take next X eggs" button. If you click it, you would have to keep a lot of commons, but you have a chance to grab a rare in the lot. I think it is a brilliant suggestion.

 

 

And no, it's not the variety. It's how long the eggs sit there. A few weeks ago, I was cave-hunting for a water egg. Not much of a rare breed, is it? But I needed one that was caught that day.... Only, I knew I wouldn't be back in 5 hours so I had to sit there at the shore and refresh for half an hour until there was some movement and FINALLY I could get the leaky egg I was hunting for.

[purplehaze]

"Other".

Somewhere I have seen a request for a "take next X eggs" button. If you click it, you would have to keep a lot of commons, but you have a chance to grab a rare in the lot. I think it is a brilliant suggestion.

 

I have seen that suggestion, too, and it never seems to get much comment. I think it is a great idea, too, and have said so whenever I see it. Sure, I would most likely end up with all common blocker eggs, but it would give me a better chance at a rare or uncommon than I will ever have with my slow reflexes!

[danicast]

I actually have nothing against of how the cave works today but to me it seems that the best suggestion is to auto-kick the eggs to AP after XX minutes. I like this suggestion better because I'm always hunting in the AP for CB blockers (I'm hunting neos right now while we speak) and this suggestion looks nice to me.

[olympe]

"Other".

Somewhere I have seen a request for a "take next X eggs" button. If you click it, you would have to keep a lot of commons, but you have a chance to grab a rare in the lot. I think it is a brilliant suggestion.

Yes, but that's been shot down quite violently by the crowd with the fast reflexes because they feel it's unfair because they will be deprived of a chance at the rares they never get to see. Never mind that other players with certain disabilities (like slow reflexes or bad internet) don't fare any better.

 

Personally, I would love such a button and use it excessively - even if the eggs gotten this way cannot be abandoned for a whole day or even two or three.

[TikindiDragon]

Is it just me, or does there actually seem to have been a little more variety among eggs in the Cave the past few days?

 

Though I suppose it could just be all the people picking up unwanted eggs to try to get the Cave moving, if that's it, it does seem to be having more of an effect than usual...

Ah, nope. I'll habitually pick up blockers to move it along when I'm hunting - and this morning I've taken 3 identical (lush green hue) eggs that popped up one after the other.

 

Honestly I think the real issue is the ratios system. It's totally broken. The system really needs to be changed so that dragons on people's scrolls are simply not taken into account. If the ratio only applied to the percentage of eggs dropped in the cave, rather than to everything that exists on the site as a whole, there would be a lot less problems.

[lyreel]

There should be a random shifting of rarity, it will help

[Cinnamin Draconna]

Honestly I think the real issue is the ratios system. It's totally broken. The system really needs to be changed so that dragons on people's scrolls are simply not taken into account. If the ratio only applied to the percentage of eggs dropped in the cave, rather than to everything that exists on the site as a whole, there would be a lot less problems.

FINALLY! Someone beside me said it... THE RATIOS ARE BROKEN!!!!! I've been saying it for years but everyone just keeps saying "TJ knows what he is doing." I say BULL! The ratios have been broken since TJ changed the black and vine egg sprites so that you couldn't tell which ones were ALTS just by looking. And things have just gotten worse and worse ever since.

[love_HP]

FINALLY! Someone beside me said it... THE RATIOS ARE BROKEN!!!!! I've been saying it for years but everyone just keeps saying "TJ knows what he is doing." I say BULL! The ratios have been broken since TJ changed the black and vine egg sprites so that you couldn't tell which ones were ALTS just by looking. And things have just gotten worse and worse ever since.

I say...not "TJ knows what he is doing." but "there's no-one that can convince TJ that the ratio is broken" and "if someone on the forum says ratio is broken, he/she is very likely to be scolded by other forum members for wanting rares to drop too easily"

/headdesk

 

P.S.My personal solution to the Cave Blocker problem is, I go to the AP and don't hunt in the cave. *shrugs*

[TikindiDragon]

FINALLY! Someone beside me said it... THE RATIOS ARE BROKEN!!!!! I've been saying it for years but everyone just keeps saying "TJ knows what he is doing." I say BULL! The ratios have been broken since TJ changed the black and vine egg sprites so that you couldn't tell which ones were ALTS just by looking. And things have just gotten worse and worse ever since.

I think the thing is they've been broken for so long that there's not all that many of us still playing that remember it pre the alt-egg change. Hourly drops used to finish in 10 minutes - and everything got picked up, from just the one Cave. Now? No one wants the eggs at all, so they just.... sit there for an hour. I see less people hunting now than I ever did even a year ago. It's not even 5 minutes past the hour as I'm typing this, and yet there are only 103 people across all 5 biomes - that compares to 68 in the AP. It's 10pm my time, Stateside ought to be well awake and into hunting.

 

At some point it's going to have to be addressed that dragons are dropping that a lot of people really don't want. And insisting that there need to be masses of dragons that people don't want alive and on scrollsjust so the dragons people do want will drop... yeah, there's an issue there.

 

As a side note to that - I collect sprites I like, regardless of rarity. I like Terraes, for instance, I have 52 and counting. But I shouldn't *need* to have those in order for the site to drop rares, or even uncommons. I shouldn't *need* to feel like I have to hatch and keep several a week just for the chance to see a rare in a drop.

 

I'm fine with the idea that only one rare will drop in the cave for every 10 commons (or something like that, pulling figures out of my head here). I'm not fine with the idea that there need to be 10 commons in the whole history of DC for every rare in the history of DC.

 

Besides anything else it requires the site to check the status of every dragon in existence before it can work out which eggs to drop. Which seems like unnesecary work for the server. I guess that was fine back when there were less dragons, but it's going to cause bloat as more and more are created.

[Syphoneira]

I think the thing is they've been broken for so long that there's not all that many of us still playing that remember it pre the alt-egg change. Hourly drops used to finish in 10 minutes - and everything got picked up, from just the one Cave. Now? No one wants the eggs at all, so they just.... sit there for an hour. I see less people hunting now than I ever did even a year ago. It's not even 5 minutes past the hour as I'm typing this, and yet there are only 103 people across all 5 biomes - that compares to 68 in the AP. It's 10pm my time, Stateside ought to be well awake and into hunting.

 

At some point it's going to have to be addressed that dragons are dropping that a lot of people really don't want. And insisting that there need to be masses of dragons that people don't want alive and on scrollsjust so the dragons people do want will drop... yeah, there's an issue there.

 

As a side note to that - I collect sprites I like, regardless of rarity. I like Terraes, for instance, I have 52 and counting. But I shouldn't *need* to have those in order for the site to drop rares, or even uncommons. I shouldn't *need* to feel like I have to hatch and keep several a week just for the chance to see a rare in a drop.

 

I'm fine with the idea that only one rare will drop in the cave for every 10 commons (or something like that, pulling figures out of my head here). I'm not fine with the idea that there need to be 10 commons in the whole history of DC for every rare in the history of DC.

 

Besides anything else it requires the site to check the status of every dragon in existence before it can work out which eggs to drop. Which seems like unnesecary work for the server. I guess that was fine back when there were less dragons, but it's going to cause bloat as more and more are created.

 

 

Dear TikindiDragon & Cinnamin Draconna,

 

THANK YOU!

 

 

If we had the full, and thankfully increasing, variety of dragons available *in relation to what the environment/user base will support*, the biomes would move and people could hunt through eggs for various dragons they want/can use with a reasonable expectation of seeing at least some dragons they might be interested in and reduce the danger of people endlessly refreshing the Cave only to wake up with their noses stuck in their keyboards, likely to eventually decide not to bother with the Cave any more...

 

Not that I liked the Cave emptied in 10 minutes, lol, just would be great to have an actual hunt with no chronic Blockers making what ought to be fun a boring and too-often fruitless task.

 

Even if you typically can't catch them, if you at least SEE eggs that you'd like, it lends you hope that they haven't gone extinct, lol.

[Pokemonfan13]

Even if the ratios were reduced to simple probabilities, I would still not support a rotate eggs with refresh system that Syphoneira seems to be eluding to in her post. It leads to a mad grab for the rares on the hour, with only people looking for a specific common hunting the rest of the time. People with slower computers would have no chance at all at that CB gold and other super desirables, as they'd be competing with 100 other people for it. They at least have a chance at something nice at off hours now by picking up blockers to see what's underneath when nobody else is around to snatch it away.

 

The better way to solve the problem of not being able to find the common you want would be to introduce a page similar to the Pound that Thu suggested, either being similar layout to the biomes or similar layout to the AP. It would either have one of each blocker breed or change eggs on refresh. Blocker breeds could pretty easily be determined with some statistics on how fast on average different breeds are picked up in the cave. Ideally eggs picked up from this location would be at 4 days, since this would give some incentive to grab from there. The eggs generated could be just automatic, since they're the ones that people don't really want to raise. And every egg taken from there would mean one less of that common that appears in the normal biome drops, also helping the blocker problem to some extent.

 

 

I think the best solution to the ratio problem is to keep the ratios, but make them fluid. Commons would change in rarity based on how popular they are, so supply would better match demand. It wouldn't solve the blocker problem completely, but there would be fewer of the unpopular commons to have to deal with and more of the better liked ones. The rarity of uncommons and rares would stay fixed, of course.

 

 

 

The solution to blockers that would work the best is the booting them to the AP after x amount of time sitting one. It would also help the problem of not finding the common you want, since lots of caveborn commons would be sent to the AP, as well as them being easier to find in the cave itself because of the increased turnover.

[Cinnamin Draconna]

The 'mad dash' for rares as you call it could be solved by having MORE THAN ONE drop time per hour. Instead of JUST at the top of the hour, you have multiple drops...every 10 mins would be nice.

 

Plus you add MORE eggs.. instead of 3 in a biome, remove the egg text, show the actual egg and rearrange the layout to have 9 eggs... or 12 eggs... or even 20 eggs. Shuffle the eggs like the AP so you can't hover over the same spot, and like the AP you might not always ID every egg on every refresh, so more folk have a chance at getting that good egg that shows up out of nowhere.

 

The biggest problem with ratios is that somewhere there is an arbitrary number saying the system has to have this many of that before it can produce one of those. Currently those ratios are totally whacked because too many unwanted eggs are being produced.. and with every unwanted egg produced the ratios get more whacked and more broken.

 

And as much as most of us LOVE all the new releases, they may be adding to the problem. Will the new breed wind up being a blocker breed or super popular? Unless TJ figures out some way to adjust the ratios based on popularity, the problem will just get worse.

[Syphoneira]

Even if the ratios were reduced to simple probabilities, I would still not support a rotate eggs with refresh system that Syphoneira seems to be eluding to in her post.  It leads to a mad grab for the rares on the hour, with only people looking for a specific common hunting the rest of the time.  People with slower computers would have no chance at all at that CB gold and other super desirables, as they'd be competing with 100 other people for it.  They at least have a chance at something nice at off hours now by picking up blockers to see what's underneath when nobody else is around to snatch it away.

 

The better way to solve the problem of not being able to find the common you want would be to introduce a page similar to the Pound that Thu suggested, either being similar layout to the biomes or similar layout to the AP.  It would either have one of each blocker breed or change eggs on refresh.  Blocker breeds could pretty easily be determined with some statistics on how fast on average different breeds are picked up in the cave.  Ideally eggs picked up from this location would be at 4 days, since this would give some incentive to grab from there.  The eggs generated could be just automatic, since they're the ones that people don't really want to raise.  And every egg taken from there would mean one less of that common that appears in the normal biome drops, also helping the blocker problem to some extent.

 

 

I think the best solution to the ratio problem is to keep the ratios, but make them fluid.  Commons would change in rarity based on how popular they are, so supply would better match demand.  It wouldn't solve the blocker problem completely, but there would be fewer of the unpopular commons to have to deal with and more of the better liked ones.  The rarity of uncommons and rares would stay fixed, of course.

 

 

 

The solution to blockers that would work the best is the booting them to the AP after x amount of time sitting one.  It would also help the problem of not finding the common you want, since lots of caveborn commons would be sent to the AP, as well as them being easier to find in the cave itself because of the increased turnover.

 

 

Good heavens!

 

I'd NEVER suggest 'a rotate eggs with refresh system', lol, precisely for the reasons you state.

 

 

When I said:

 

'If we had the full, and thankfully increasing, variety of dragons available *in relation to what the environment/user base will support*, the biomes would move and people could hunt through eggs for various dragons they want/can use with a reasonable expectation of seeing at least some dragons they might be interested in and reduce the danger of people endlessly refreshing the Cave only to wake up with their noses stuck in their keyboards, likely to eventually decide not to bother with the Cave any more...'

 

I meant *variety in the dragons being Dropped rather than too many of specific types that virtually everyone already has enough of*, as with the following portion of the post I quoted and was thanking Tikindidragon for:

 

'... At some point it's going to have to be addressed that dragons are dropping that a lot of people really don't want. And insisting that there need to be masses of dragons that people don't want alive and on scrollsjust so the dragons people do want will drop... yeah, there's an issue there. ...'

 

 

So when you said:

 

'... I think the best solution to the ratio problem is to keep the ratios, but make them fluid. Commons would change in rarity based on how popular they are, so supply would better match demand. It wouldn't solve the blocker problem completely, but there would be fewer of the unpopular commons to have to deal with and more of the better liked ones. ...'

 

we're actually saying very similar things in some respects, lol.

 

[Mordeth]

I think the thing is they've been broken for so long that there's not all that many of us still playing that remember it pre the alt-egg change. Hourly drops used to finish in 10 minutes - and everything got picked up, from just the one Cave. Now? No one wants the eggs at all, so they just.... sit there for an hour. I see less people hunting now than I ever did even a year ago. It's not even 5 minutes past the hour as I'm typing this, and yet there are only 103 people across all 5 biomes - that compares to 68 in the AP. It's 10pm my time, Stateside ought to be well awake and into hunting.

 

At some point it's going to have to be addressed that dragons are dropping that a lot of people really don't want. And insisting that there need to be masses of dragons that people don't want alive and on scrollsjust so the dragons people do want will drop... yeah, there's an issue there.

 

As a side note to that - I collect sprites I like, regardless of rarity. I like Terraes, for instance, I have 52 and counting. But I shouldn't *need* to have those in order for the site to drop rares, or even uncommons. I shouldn't *need* to feel like I have to hatch and keep several a week just for the chance to see a rare in a drop.

 

I'm fine with the idea that only one rare will drop in the cave for every 10 commons (or something like that, pulling figures out of my head here). I'm not fine with the idea that there need to be 10 commons in the whole history of DC for every rare in the history of DC.

 

Besides anything else it requires the site to check the status of every dragon in existence before it can work out which eggs to drop. Which seems like unnesecary work for the server. I guess that was fine back when there were less dragons, but it's going to cause bloat as more and more are created.

There are a few of us still playing, but we dont always frequent the forums due to certain animosities that have cropped up from time to time, not to mention the reputation that these forums get from time to time.

 

Sadly, with the caveblocker situation, as others have said, the ratios are pretty stuffed - I didnt even know there was a "drought" on the metallics in cave drops or breeding, i just thought I was unlucky... a years worth of unlucky sucked

 

I dont like the idea of a "random shuffle on refresh" i can imagine all the issues that would raise, but they have been aired already. though Im not sure if the idea of scripts has been raised? the idea being that someone can leave their computer on with an auto refresh and a little program designed to pick up on the descriptions of the rare eggs, meaning that they have the best chance of getting up to 7 rare eggs in a day (assuming that many actually drop) from one biome. which is cheating, but how would it be countered? through an auto block form the site, but if you are unlucky enough to be sitting a F5'ing away and get banned for the system assuming you are a spam bot or using the script i mentioned, it would cause a lot of people to whine.

Minor issue I guess since the idea - although popular in the vote, appears to be shot down.

 

more player run project to clear blockers is nice, but not everyone wants to participate, and the "prizes" can be hard to get as people would rather trade their rares for other rares, and the "value" of the prizes is not always very high - 12th gen shimmers - while useful to fulfill a collection, is not very easy to trade off the offspring for others one may wish to get to fulfill said collection (example only Im not saying that the generosity of those who do gift to these projects is wrong or.. not appreciated, just showing an example) that also being said not everyone wants to play their game like that.

 

The mossy eggs idea appears well thought out, and hopefully TJ will consider implementing it into the cave at some point...hopefully before too many years have passed.

 

- I apologise if any of this have been brought up previously in the past 9 odd pages, I will freely admit I didnt read them all.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Mordeth