Abandoning lowers fertility and drop rates

[lamoxlamae]

I hope this hasn't been posted yet. I tried search and nothing came up.

 

The cave is blocked due to a "massive pile of eggs", again, and has been blocked for days now. I have checked multiple times a day, bitten over 45 eggs, and refreshed like crazy but to no avail. There's just too many unwanted dragons, most of them being super commons like albino, mint, pebble, nocturne and storm. The problem breaks down simply into supply and demand: demand is really low on these breeds but supply is really high. An albino is an albino whether wild-caught or bred, and equally unwanted on the abandoned page and cave.

 

We need to lower the supply to meet the demand. A great way to do this is to use the numbers of a species in the Abandoned Page to regulate fertility and wild drops.

 

Basically, the abandoned page will start counting how many of each breed are there right now. If there are more than 5 of a breed there at a time, it deducts 10% from the normal fertility and drop rates of that breed. This means 15 storms in the abandoned page will cause no new storms to appear in the main cave or from breeding until a few existing storms are adopted. As a breed of dragon is adopted, the fertility and drop rates of that breed will slowly return back to normal. For example, if someone adopts three storms from the abandoned page the fertility and drop rates on storms will be up to 30% of normal due to there being 12 storms still in the abandoned page.

 

The only breeds that will not be counted will be holiday breeds. This will keep the tradition of Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine Dragons alive and healthy. Prize dragons and all caveborn dragons will be counted. Rarer dragons like tinsels and golds are going to be safe because unless someone abandons a ton of them at once they aren't likely to have any lowering going on. Even then, rarer dragons vanish pretty fast so any lowering won't last long!

 

How it will run behind the scenes

• A player abandons a dragon like a mint.
• The abandoned page goes "Mint +1", keeping tally of how many mints are there.
• When the number of mints in abandoned reaches 6 or more, it tells the rest of the site to lower fertility and drop rates on mints
• When someone takes a mint from abandoned, the page goes "Mint -1"
• When there are 5 or less mints in the abandoned page the fertility and drop rates on mints goes back to normal

What the players will see if the AP is too full of a specific breed

If a player breeds two dragons and the egg would have been a breed there are too many of in the abandoned page, they may get the "no egg" flavor text and no egg at all instead. It won't default over to the other parent's species; it will just be a fail. The seven day wait will still apply as it always does on a failed breeding. In the main cave it simply means less or none of that species will appear if there are too many of that species already in the abandoned page.

 

This is better than manually regulating the drop and fertility rates because it makes the supply shift in real time and it will self-regulate. For example, If someone abandons seven albinos they caught earlier that day, less albinos will appear in the main cave and less albino breedings will be successful because there are already existing albinos in need of homes right now. As the supply in the main cave and from breeding goes down, people will start looking in the abandoned page to pick up albinos. As albinos are rehomed more will appear in the main cave and from breeding.

 

This will be for all breeds so other blockers like earth will also be covered as will any future blockers that may arise. It's not always easy to guess which dragons will flop and which will be super popular. Even stranger, tastes can and will change over time! Did you know that black and vine used to be cave blockers? This way as tastes change the drop/fertility rates will keep up with the times.

 

The drop and fertility rates on all other dragons that aren't clogging up the abandoned page will remain unchanged. This keeps commons common, but decreases the number of "junk catches" used to rotate the main cave as the junk will stop spawning after enough have been abandoned at once. It will also help add more value to former "junk" breeds as it will help regulate their rate of appearance better.

 

What do you think of this idea? How can it be improved?

Edited March 14, 2013 by lamoxlamae

[Amur_Rama]

Hmm, intriguing. I actually like the method you've suggested of how the command should activate and regulate itself.

 

Obviously, in practice, the limit should be much higher than 6 before the block activates. But some kind of "hidden" limit on TJ's end of things would probably do a good job controlling blocker production without obviously hindering any particular play style.

 

Though I'm curious as to how it's supposed to behave on the user end. It's one thing to say the cave isn't going to drop those eggs in a drop, but would it also reflect on breeding? It shouldn't be that it lowers fertility, but that that egg simply won't be one that's bred; you get the "no egg" flavor text if the breed egg was going to be the blocker, not say, a trio or uncommon that would arguably be in greater demand.

 

 

 

Edited for sleep dep typos.

Edited March 14, 2013 by Amut un Rama

[lamoxlamae]

Though I'm curious as to how it's supposed to behave on the user end.  It's one thing to say the cave isn't going to drop those eggs in a drop, but would it also reflect on breeding?  It shouldn't be that it lowers fertility, but that that egg simply won't be one that's bred; you get the "no egg" flavor text if the breed egg was going to be the blocker, not say, a trio or uncommon that would arguably be in greater demand.

 

 

 

Edited for sleep dep typos.

It's OK, I'm sleepyderp, too.

 

But yes, this means it will be reflected on breeding. You would get the "no egg" flavor text it if was going to be a blocker. This won't make it super easy to breed a bazillion golds or something.

 

Edited main post for clarity. I hope it's not turning TL;DR.

Edited March 14, 2013 by lamoxlamae

[Coronaviridae]

I like this idea, actually. It seems to be a good dynamic addition to the ratios. c:

[olympe]

This seems iffy. In times of great backlog, you will have hundreds, if not thousands of eggs in the AP. (I think TJ once told us there were several thousands when the AP was awfully locked a couple of years ago.) This kind of backlog also happens during holiday breeding seasons. Now imagine 5 hollies dropping in the AP (because several people bred theirs at once), and the next few people breeding theirs a split second later will get the "no egg" message... I wouldn't want to be in TJ's shoes when the drama starts.

 

That being said, this is not only a problem for hollies, but pretty much for every other desirable breed, too.

[skauble]

I think this is an interesting idea, but I have two question.

 

First, since the AP blockage is contributed to by both breeders and folks in the main cave "grabbing and dumping", where is the disincentive to the latter behavior? Because this is something that is a double bonus for cave hunters while placing the cost on folks building lineages.

 

Take the Albinos, for example. If I'm a cave hunter and I know that grabbing and dumping Albinos will a. move the current drop faster and b. cut down on Albinos in my way in the future, then I'm rewarded for that behavior. But if I'm a breeder who is using Albinos in a lineage, then my breeding hits a wall. So even if I was never part of the problem of blocking the AP, and the cave hunter was, I bear the burden while the cave hunter gets all the benefit.

 

Second, if all the other ratios stay the same, so that we just reduce the number of dragons all together instead of swelling another common to take the Albinos place and keeping the ratios of commons steady, then why wouldn't people arrange consistent mass common breedings? Yes, you'd create an AP blockage that could last for months, but you would change the cave drops to almost all uncommons/rares and they would be over like they used to be - in a minute and a half - so the AP blockage wouldn't matter.

 

In fact, if you could get the drops to finish in under the 5 minute cut off, there'd kind of be an incentive to not pick up the blocker eggs from the AP.

 

ETA:

 

This will be for all breeds so other blockers like earth will also be covered as will any future blockers that may arise. It's not always easy to guess which dragons will flop and which will be super popular. Even stranger, tastes can and will change over time! Did you know that black and vine used to be cave blockers? This way as tastes change the drop/fertility rates will keep up with the times.

Just wanted to add a note here that the Black/Vine clear up wasn't about a change in taste or popularity, it was because the alt egg sprite was changed so that no one could tell which was an alt just by looking at them and because multi-clutches ended. That meant that people got one egg and then had to hold it for 3 days (later 2 with incubate) to see if it was an alt. And so both the number of eggs people were able to produce went down, and the desire to breed them diminished because of the time it took to play the "lotto".

 

So I don't know that we'd see the same kind of change with the current blocker breeds because we might not have the same kind of wide spread game changes effecting them (although BSAs are always an option).

Edited March 14, 2013 by skauble

[whitebaron]

no, just no.

this would result in massbreeding to get the cave to not contain various blocker breeds.

 

yay for only rares to be seen in a biome as everything else got massbred just before the drop.

[DarkEternity]

this would result in massbreeding to get the cave to not contain various blocker breeds.

Erm. The cave would be blocked so it kinda defeats the purpose of massbreeding in the first place.

[skauble]

Erm. The cave would be blocked so it kinda defeats the purpose of massbreeding in the first place.

Not if you could eliminate enough of the blocker breeds. The drops used to end well before the 5 minute limit we have now. So people could clog the AP to their heart's content as long as the AP block trimmed the drops down enough, time-wise, because of the lack of stalling.

[StormWizard212]

Erm. The cave would be blocked so it kinda defeats the purpose of massbreeding in the first place.

But it's always unlocked at the top of the hour with the main drop, so I can see the point. If you're planning on hunting in a certain biome that has only a few blocker breeds, someone could just mass breed and abandon theirs to free up the cave of them.

 

I think that is a pretty valid concern, actually, and I can't really think of a good way to counter it.

 

I'm not sure how I feel about this concept overall though. I mean, it's always frustrating when you see the AP blocked with breeds you don't want, but I think reducing the supply would just make things a little too easy. If the breeds we don't want reduce dramatically (and I think this would make for a dramatic reduction) then it'd be too easy to get everything else.

 

When it comes to blockers, the approach I'd rather see would be to increase the demand. I think there are plenty of ideas out there that do this. More benefits for grabbing AP eggs that have been sitting around for ages, mossy eggs, ascension for overly common breeds, etc.

 

But that's just my opinion. No one has to agree with me.

[KageSora]

I'm concerned for the above reasons as well.

 

Hell I could be spiteful and decide that no Reds or Pinks should drop and mass-breed my BSA dragons.

 

Besides--then it could be an annoyance to people who are working on lineages with common dragons.

 

Now, I've finished my lineage, but a while back I was working with Greys and Electrics, trying to breed a 5th even-gen checkerboard. Now, if a few people decide they don't want greys dropping because they don't like them, they could have just breed-spammed the AP with whatever they had. Suddenly, my lineage using common dragons would have been impossible to complete and I'd be screwed out of breeding for another week.

 

Which would also have screwed me over because if it just automatically gave no egg, I couldn't even get the other breed of egg that I needed--since I was using both breeds, the child would usually wind up in the lineage unless I already had all the dragons of that breed I needed for that generation.

 

So, it would at the very least have to default to the other parent's breed, because otherwise it's just even more of a mess. But then, people could just mass-breed a common, then mate a rare to the common, guaranteeing no egg or a rare, so... Though that wouldn't be any different than people who mate rares to out-of-season holidays or frills, so...

 

But this has the potential to royally screw over anybody who plays by building lineages with commons or blockers--and destroying their playstyle isn't okay.

[skauble]

But that's just my opinion. No one has to agree with me.

Well I'm going to agree with you anyway, darn it!

 

I think that the Mossy egg plan has a lot of potential. Also, why can't abandoned eggs lose a day instead of gain one? Maybe the place where we leave them all is right next to the Volcano biome and the heat from the Volcanos and the fact that the eggs sit in a pile causes their warmth to increase and incubate them. That automatically makes them more attractive.

 

Also, maybe if you pick up a full load from the AP the lack of being exhausted from having to sneak around dragons to swipe eggs or trying to coax all your dragons to breed could allow the dragon tender to take an extra egg because they'll be able to take care of another without feeling "overburdened". Which would be great for people trying to win various trophies (in fact, if frozen hatchlings stopped counting for the trophies and people got the extra spot instead, there'd probably be tons of people grabbing AP eggs).

 

Whether those would ultimately work or not, who knows, but I think that you're right that there are ways that we can make taking these eggs a positive for people.

[Fuzzbucket]

I'm concerned for the above reasons as well.

 

Hell I could be spiteful and decide that no Reds or Pinks should drop and mass-breed my BSA dragons.

 

Besides--then it could be an annoyance to people who are working on lineages with common dragons.

 

Now, I've finished my lineage, but a while back I was working with Greys and Electrics, trying to breed a 5th even-gen checkerboard.  Now, if a few people decide they don't want greys dropping because they don't like them, they could have just breed-spammed the AP with whatever they had.  Suddenly, my lineage using common dragons would have been impossible to complete and I'd be screwed out of breeding for another week.

 

Which would also have screwed me over because if it just automatically gave no egg, I couldn't even get the other breed of egg that I needed--since I was using both breeds, the child would usually wind up in the lineage unless I already had all the dragons of that breed I needed for that generation.

 

<snip>

 

But this has the potential to royally screw over anybody who plays by building lineages with commons or blockers--and destroying their playstyle isn't okay.

This - very much. I spent YEARS working on an 8th grey EG lineage - I plan to try for 9th in the end ! It was hard enough with ordinary refusal at high levels (as the base layer was patterned with shadows there was limited scope for divorce and remarriage). It would have been almost impossible with that added hurdle. And by breeding for that lineage - I would have been HELPING unblock as the numbers of KEPT and LOVED greys on my scroll was rising fast !

 

Do not support, for that reason, I'm afraid.

Edited March 14, 2013 by fuzzbucket

[love_HP]

Why can't abandoned eggs lose a day instead of gain one?

Because what if someone get an egg, abandon it, and then goes to AP to re-catch the egg? Can be applied to lineaged commons or any uncommons - rares are too risky for that

[QAndais]

Because what if someone get an egg, abandon it, and then goes to AP to re-catch the egg? Can be applied to lineaged commons or any uncommons - rares are too risky for that

actually if i am recalling this correctly you can't catch an egg you just abandoned someone else has to pick it up and then abandon it for the original owner to get it

 

[whitebaron]

actually if i am recalling this correctly you can't catch an egg you just abandoned someone else has to pick it up and then abandon it for the original owner to get it

that's correct. you can't find the egg (similar statement, dont have the full text) if it has not been picked up in between.

[PointOfOrigin]

I'm also going to add that a number of commons in the AP changes constantly. Lots of people are picking up eggs, checking the lineage and then dumping it if it isn't to their liking. All of that happens very fast. It would be almost impossible for the cave to keep track of so many things. And we already have a lag at the top of the hours. People scheming and trying to ease rare hunting would just put more strain on it.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

Do not support. There are much better suggestions for AP control (time removal on eggs that sit too long, sending things to the wilderness, AP-only egg slots...) that do NOT mess with how the cave or breeding works. With your suggestion a few people with common armies could cripple not only the cave, but also everyone's breeding projects to boot--not to mention kick the ratios out of whack when the hourly drop only produces rares.

[gistofeverything]

I'd prefer egg deletion after 30 minutes.

 

I don't mind this, as I thought this was already implemented anyway.

[purplehaze]

I am afraid I am against this for all of the reasons already stated. Plus it seems to me that this would just hopelessly mess with the ratio system. If more of a common dragon is needed to satisfy the ratios, but the cave is being told not to produce them and breeding them is likely to fail . . . . what then?

 

There are much better solutions being offered out there for TJ to consider.

[Obscure_Trash]

With the arguments brought up, it seems some things need addressed. If they can be addressed, I'm not completely against this, but I'll have to think on how they can be addressed myself. x3

[lamoxlamae]

This seems iffy. In times of great backlog, you will have hundreds, if not thousands of eggs in the AP. (I think TJ once told us there were several thousands when the AP was awfully locked a couple of years ago.) This kind of backlog also happens during holiday breeding seasons. Now imagine 5 hollies dropping in the AP (because several people bred theirs at once), and the next few people breeding theirs a split second later will get the "no egg" message... I wouldn't want to be in TJ's shoes when the drama starts.

 

That being said, this is not only a problem for hollies, but pretty much for every other desirable breed, too.

Hollies are Holiday dragons and aren't counted in the limit. This protects holidays dragons so people breeding holiday dragons during holidays aren't hit.

 

Back to normal dragons: when was the last time you saw more than five of a desirable breed like Nebula or Lindsang in the abandoned page for very long? Even very messy ones get adopted pretty fast. This is because they are desirable!

 

I actually spent some time snagging single common and uncommon breeds from the AP just to get a feel for abandon rates. In general you don't see more than fifteen of a breed at a time unless they are the extremely unwanted blockers. Under the proposal 15 in abandoned is when you start getting "fail" 100% of the time; any less means some CB/bred ones can still happen. This means of those thousands clogging the abandoned page are usually all the same unwanted breeds: nocturne, albino, storm, earth and mint.

 

In short, this is not likely to hit rares or popularly kept and hatched breeds, just the "throwaways" from the main cave or breeding that clog up the abandoned page.

 

With your suggestion a few people with common armies could cripple not only the cave, but also everyone's breeding projects to boot--not to mention kick the ratios out of whack when the hourly drop only produces rares.

People are already doing this. It's pretty obvious when the cave is clogged for days with a single breed and that most of them have been bred that people are breeding and dumping armies! If anything it will actually help shut down people who breed and dump armies to mess with the rest of us because after 15 abandons, they can't mess with us anymore.

 

This does not count commons you keep for your own. The ratios I suggested can be altered. It's the principal that once there are too many of a single breed in abandoned there shouldn't be more made in order to prevent 100+ unwanted of a single breed from clogging the main cave for days.

 

The main cave ratios are a mess that does not reflect actual wants and needs and further adds to the problem. Something that messes with breeding and drop rates based on number currently in abandoned (an indicator of supply versus demand) is something that will make it easier to find something more than blockers when you go egg hunting.

 

I think this is an interesting idea, but I have two question.

 

First, since the AP blockage is contributed to by both breeders and folks in the main cave "grabbing and dumping", where is the disincentive to the latter behavior?  Because this is something that is a double bonus for cave hunters while placing the cost on folks building lineages. 

 

Take the Albinos, for example.  If I'm a cave hunter and I know that grabbing and dumping Albinos will a. move the current drop faster and b. cut down on Albinos in my way in the future, then I'm rewarded for that behavior.  But if I'm a breeder who is using Albinos in a lineage, then my breeding hits a wall.  So even if I was never part of the problem of blocking the AP, and the cave hunter was, I bear the burden while the cave hunter gets all the benefit.

 

Actually, in this case you just need to visit the abandoned page to gather your albinos instead of hitting the main cave. Those eggs will still be there and still be easy to snag! As the people who actually want albinos grab them from the abandoned page, they will appear in the main cave again. It's not a permanent change to ratios when someone dumps a lot of a single breed, it's a temporary one that makes it so a current behavior (dumping commons) that already has the same reward (cave moves forward, get rarer dragons) now is more effective while being less likely to seal off the main cave for days on end.

 

Yes, this may make the rarity and desirability of formerly worthless CB breeds like albino go up, but considering how unwanted they are now, this isn't really a bad thing. It finally will give these dragons some value!

 

Second, if all the other ratios stay the same, so that we just reduce the number of dragons all together instead of swelling another common to take the Albinos place and keeping the ratios of commons steady, then why wouldn't people arrange consistent mass common breedings?  Yes, you'd create an AP blockage that could last for months, but you would change the cave drops to almost all uncommons/rares and they would be over like they used to be - in a minute and a half - so the AP blockage wouldn't matter.

 

If you reduce the ratio of dragons all together you still have the problem of unwanted commons being the most common. The blocks from unwanted bred and dropped eggs will still happen.

 

There are over 50 breedable dragons right now. Even if all the most common blockers stopped dropping and others took their place, the AP would fill up and block the main page long before it would make a mass breed dump by a single player useful.

 

If enough people did a common mass dump of a single species, then at least it would have a chance to clear instead of making the main cave dead for days due to people breeding and dumping even more of the same unwanted dragons while the main cave is out of commission. Currently there is nothing stopping people from keeping the AP clogged for weeks via calculated breeding and dumping of a handful of breeds. At least this is something that can help!

In fact, if you could get the drops to finish in under the 5 minute cut off, there'd kind of be an incentive to not pick up the blocker eggs from the AP.

Actually, people don't really pick up the supercommons from the AP already. At least this prevents more from spawning and blocking the main cave while there are still dozens unwanted sitting right there. On the flip side, there are people who will want to grab these dragons anyway for breeding projects, zombies, and vampires. I bite only cave blockers.

 

Just wanted to add a note here that the Black/Vine clear up wasn't about a change in taste or popularity, it was because the alt egg sprite was changed so that no one could tell which was an alt just by looking at them and because multi-clutches ended.  That meant that people got one egg and then had to hold it for 3 days (later 2 with incubate) to see if it was an alt.  And so both the number of eggs people were able to produce went down, and the desire to breed them diminished because of the time it took to play the "lotto".

 

So I don't know that we'd see the same kind of change with the current blocker breeds because we might not have the same kind of wide spread game changes effecting them (although BSAs are always an option).

Actually, I remember a common feeling of "blacks and vines are ugly!" back in the day. Lately I see blacks and vines being called "pretty" and used in breeding projects popularized by assorted lines. For example, black x gold and vine x tinsel are huge! This increased demand even if the eggs aren't alts. This is most of the reason you don't see abandoned non-alt hatchlings like you used to.

 

Alts and BSA can help, but aren't a cure-all. Earth still is a clogger even with an arguably useful BSA because the ratios simple make way too many of them. Even though geode was turned breeding only there still are CB stone clogs on occasion. This ideas is meant to attack the root of the problem (supply and demand) and will complement any other changes made to dragons later on.

Edited March 14, 2013 by lamoxlamae

[love_HP]

Just wanted to add a note here that the Black/Vine clear up wasn't about a change in taste or popularity, it was because the alt egg sprite was changed so that no one could tell which was an alt just by looking at them and because multi-clutches ended. That meant that people got one egg and then had to hold it for 3 days (later 2 with incubate) to see if it was an alt. And so both the number of eggs people were able to produce went down, and the desire to breed them diminished because of the time it took to play the "lotto".

Not sure if it's relevant, but I remember clearly the first months when I joined DC. Black and vines have no alt egg sprite at that time, and there was no multi-clutches. (Probably already changed before I registered.)

But I recollect seeing the AP always filled with black and dark green color for quite some time.

[skauble]

The main problem here is that this is a plan that only takes into consideration people whose form of gameplay relies heavily on main cave hunting. It fixes that problem by shifting all of the frustration to folks like those who build lineages.

 

Actually, in this case you just need to visit the abandoned page to gather your albinos instead of hitting the main cave. Those eggs will still be there and still be easy to snag! As the people who actually want albinos grab them from the abandoned page, they will appear in the main cave again. It's not a permanent change to ratios when someone dumps a lot of a single breed, it's a temporary one that makes it so a current behavior (dumping commons) that already has the same reward (cave moves forward, get rarer dragons) now is more effective while being less likely to seal off the main cave for days on end.

 

Yes, this may make the rarity and desirability of formerly worthless CB breeds like albino go up, but considering how unwanted they are now, this isn't really a bad thing. It finally will give these dragons some value!

 

I'm not talking about people needing CB Albinos to begin lineages. I'm talking about people who need to breed Albinos in order to actually create a lineage. Those people – who are breeding and keeping their commons and helping with the ratios, and so aren't the problem here – will have their projects slowed or even shut down all for the benefit of the players who want to main cave hunt more.

 

Because, let's face it, as soon as Albinos start showing up in the cave again, people will dump them in the AP because it's a bonus for them, and then breeding slows down. This plan doesn't really change anything with Albinos. We'll all know that they're just waiting to surge back into ultra-common status, so I don't think that they'll gain any kind of rarity value. This is just a way to perpetually suppress their numbers – again, benefit for cave hunters, loss for lineage builders.

 

If you reduce the ratio of dragons all together you still have the problem of unwanted commons being the most common. The blocks from unwanted bred and dropped eggs will still happen.

 

There are over 50 breedable dragons right now. Even if all the most common blockers stopped dropping and others took their place, the AP would fill up and block the main page long before it would make a mass breed dump by a single player useful.

 

If enough people did a common mass dump of a single species, then at least it would have a chance to clear instead of making the main cave dead for days due to people breeding and dumping even more of the same unwanted dragons while the main cave is out of commission. Currently there is nothing stopping people from keeping the AP clogged for weeks via calculated breeding and dumping of a handful of breeds. At least this is something that can help!

 

Again, the focus here is entirely on how to tilt the game for the goals of main cave hunters.

 

And the fact is that it would be painfully easy to organize mass breeds of all the commons every week. We have a zillion projects aimed at clearing the AP by taking dragons. Why wouldn't people just quit those in favor of one project that continuously suppresses the number of commons produced by keeping the AP constantly jammed thus opening the main cave and creating drops with only uncommons and rares that will complete before the cut off time?

 

There also seems to be the idea here that people are breeding mainly with the intention to block the main cave and that this is a way to stop that kind of “calculated breeding”. But, really, where's the benefit for people in doing that? Other than to be jerks which, yeah, some people are, but a very tiny amount. This plan has a much, much larger chance of encouraging player manipulation than the current system does, because there's no actual game gain to clogging the AP as things stand.

 

Actually, people don't really pick up the supercommons from the AP already. At least this prevents more from spawning and blocking the main cave while there are still dozens unwanted sitting right there. On the flip side, there are people who will want to grab these dragons anyway for breeding projects, zombies, and vampires. I bite only cave blockers.

 

Yes, but why would people bite blockers under this plan or take them for Zombies? Leaving them in the AP ensures that their numbers go down and they don't show up in the cave anymore. So, instead of the current system where raising cave blockers effects the ratios and helps reduce commons in the cave, people who want the cave open more are actively encouraged not to touch any of the commons in the AP.

 

And why would people take them for lineage building when lineage breeding would become so difficult with commons that they wouldn't need extra starters?

 

Alts and BSA can help, but aren't a cure-all. Earth still is a clogger even with an arguably useful BSA because the ratios simple make way too many of them. Even though geode was turned breeding only there still are CB stone clogs on occasion. This ideas is meant to attack the root of the problem (supply and demand) and will complement any other changes made to dragons later on.

 

Actually, Earthquake is an almost useless BSA for most people, and even more so now that the kills actually take up egg slots. A better example would be the ultra-common Pinks that used to clog things and now don't.

 

I agree with you that things need to be changed, I just don't think that something that is all about catering to cave hunters is the way to do that. Especially with a system that can be more easily manipulated.

 

Not sure if it's relevant, but I remember clearly the first months when I joined DC. Black and vines have no alt egg sprite at that time, and there was no multi-clutches.  (Probably already changed before I registered.)

But I recollect seeing the AP always filled with black and dark green color for quite some time.

 

Actually, the majority of the huge Black/Vine cloggage cleared up shortly after the egg sprite change. There were still more Blacks and Vines in the AP back then simply because people had lots of them and there were a lot fewer breeds. Also, with Blacks, they were the most common metal mates given that there were fewer choices back in the early days, and since so many bred metals started with that pairing, people continued with it. That's no longer the case, as once the massive metal drought to fix the ratios was through we started seeing more metals with other breeds, which has also cut down on production.

 

There were just a lot of things happening then, in regard to those breeds, that probably won't occur again, and so I'm not sure that we can draw accurate comparisons between their overbreeding and eventual clearing up and the mass commons now.

[love_HP]

For alts and BSA, it doesn't solve the root of the problem in my opinion.

for example, if we give mints a welcomed BSA (mail for example), they may stop blocking the cave&AP, but albinos&dorsals will still block, and it's not very pratical to give every single blocker breed an alt or a BSA.

 

Edit:

skauble you're right, I was a newbie then and probably didn't fully recognize the whole situation in DC at that time.

Edited March 15, 2013 by love_HP