Biome Day/Night Cycle

[Digital Decay]

I was originally going to post this as an answer in a thread, but I think it's more fitting here. I hope it's not a resuggestion.

 

So, currently all the biomes aren't moving along very much. I had the idea that it would maybe help if the number of breeds that are available at a time could be reduced, similar to the biomes that were introduced because things were blocking up the main Cave, if I remember correctly.

 

My idea is that the biomes would have a day/night cycle, meaning that some breeds would only be dropping at night, some at day. It would even fit some of the descriptions, where it is stated that some breeds are only active during a certain time period, so why shouldn't we be able to find their eggs at a time when they would actually be awake? Or maybe it could be the other way round, one could only manage to steal eggs of a certain breed when the mother dragon is sleeping.

 

Possible downsides could be:

- Players that are living in a different timezone might not be online when it's DC day/night.

- It might only be a temporary solution before the problem resurfaces.

 

Any opinions?

[Oddsoxdi]

I'm not sure I'd care to get up in the middle of the night to capture that elusive *Breed Name Of Your Choice Here*. Especially if it's something I think is good - like a Nebula.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

...This would actually be legit cool. I'm not even thinking of current things, I'm thinking, like, crazy glowy awesome nocturnal dragons in the future that only show at night. That'd be WICKED.

 

I think this is a nice idea! I mean, if it was combined with seasonal migration as well, that'd be effectively cutting down the amount of breeds present at any one time by... 1/8th, if my maths are right (they probably aren't)? I think it'd be a great way to see some movement in the biomes and also address the looming future problem of there being ever more and more breeds. The more niches the breeds have to fill, the better.

 

As for different timezones, well, I figure there's two possibilities:

- Rather than making things only present at one time or another, simply make them exceedingly rare during the other time. What's common in one time is rare in the other and vice-versa. This would encourage people to swap with others in different timezones who can get them easily and encourage communication and collaboration and friendships and blah blah blah pokemon.

- Or simply don't do anything about it. I mean, we already have things that one can only get at certain times (Sunset/Sunrise, Day Glory/Night Glory) and I've never seen anyone making a big fuss over it, so maybe people already have ways to deal with timezone issues. Then again, two breeds is probably much less of an issue then a big day/night split would be...

 

@oddsoxdi: I imagine day/night definitions would probably be treated pretty liberally. 12 hours of night, 12 hours of day, likely coinciding with when Nocturnes switch over (which is from 9 PM to 9 AM, I think?). So nocturnal ones wouldn't be all that hard to get anyway, at least not for the average timezone. Heck, even if someone lived somewhere where DC's daylight was their absolute night time, most people are awake 15+ hours in a day, that gives them at least 3 hours of overlap time without even having to stretch it...

Edited May 31, 2013 by angelicdragonpuppy

[Fizzix]

If the eggs we're finding are castoffs, does it matter what time of day we find them? Their parents have ignored them, rejected them. I think this would be an interesting idea, but I'm not sure how much it's needed.

[cfmtfm]

Your possible downsides are pretty much the reasons why I'm against this; especially the first one. Sure, we can all trade, but there's multiple reasons why some of us don't (not their playing style, nothing good to trade, not on the forums, etc).

 

Also, technically the eggs are never awake or sleeping, so it wouldn't fit the breed's description anyway. Your suggestion would make more sense if the bred eggs were only available during a certain time of day (because the parents were asleep during the other times), but that would only help in the AP rather than the biomes.

 

Another thing is that it wouldn't necessarily help the Cave move along quicker. Sure, there are less breeds in the Cave during x time, but that doesn't mean they'll be picked up quicker.

Edited May 31, 2013 by cfmtfm

[5icky]

I have insomnia... TOTALLY FOR THIS!

 

ANd it could go through with the breeding patterns.. like how nocturnes change, and sunset dragons can only be sunsets during 6PM-12AM if hatched correctly....So saying 6 PM means you WILL NOT have to be up that late...

[Digital Decay]

I'm not sure I'd care to get up in the middle of the night to capture that elusive *Breed Name Of Your Choice Here*. Especially if it's something I think is good - like a Nebula.

I wouldn't want it to be too complicated. The way I've imagined this, the cave would only have two different 'states', like Day (hours 6-18) and Night (18-6), so there would be a time window large enough that everybody could access a biome at night without having to get up at 2 AM, no matter where he/she lives.

 

I think that Moonstones/Sunstones already work that way.

Edited May 31, 2013 by Digital Decay

[olympe]

If you have only 2 timezones (night and day), this might actually work. Because each time would last for 12 hours, and hardly anybody is asleep/at work/at school for 12 hours in a row. The only downside I see to this is that there's a lot of dragons on DC that seem to be diurnal, and only a few like sunsets? night glories, nocturnes, nebulas and maybe even deep seas (as daylight might disturb them) can be considered nocturnal. Everything else is more likely to be diurnal.

[cfmtfm]

I think that Moonstones/Sunstones already work that way.

They don't, actually; Moonstones and Sunstones are available all the time.

 

Also agreeing with olympe; not all the breeds have descriptions about when they're awake/asleep. Every little helps, I guess, but I'm not sure by how much this will help at the moment. (Might be reconsidering this if there's only 2 timezones.)

[Rally Vincent]

My idea is that the biomes would have a day/night cycle, meaning that some breeds would only be dropping at night, some at day. It would even fit some of the descriptions, where it is stated that some breeds are only active during a certain time period, so why shouldn't we be able to find their eggs at a time when they would actually be awake?

The result of this suggestion - apart from disadvanting people with fulltime jobs - is that instead of Blocker breed A and B in the biome, there'll be just twice as many ofBlocker Breed A during day and twice as many of Blocker breed B during night.

[Sarcastra]

I like this idea for breeding, and we already have that. The sunrise/sunsets, glory drakes..and the sprites that change at night, the nocturnes. This is more a game play suggestion and not really a blocking solution. Like the post above, making certain breeds drop only at certain times would result in different sets of blockers. And there is the timing issue as well.

[Princess Kiara]

I am so for this!

I don't think the eggs are castoffs, since they are simply 'far enough away for you to steal one'. That, to my mind, would mean that their careless parents accidentally left them alone for just long enough for us to snag them.

[Ashes The Second]

Not interested in this, since I am not one for staying up all night. I do have an existence outside of the cave, and the minute I am at a disadvantage, I am leaving.

[BlueEyesWhiteDragon]

The result of this suggestion - apart from disadvanting people with fulltime jobs - is that  instead of Blocker breed A and B in the biome, there'll be just twice as many ofBlocker Breed A during day and twice as many of Blocker breed B during night.

Exactly, I doubt that this idea would work any better than this. It has more disadvantages than advantages to offer.

 

In short, summarizing what has been said above this post:

 

- Most of the breeds in cave are NOT nocturnal, which requires a whole rework on the descriptions of almost all available breeds.

 

- Comparing the fact that glory drakes and sunrise/set dragons aren't causing much problem (as stated above) with how it would turn out if this idea was applied is completely wrong.

 

- Trading won't simply workout things, it will make things even harder for those who are at a disadvantage.

 

- Timezones, as stated in your post, if this would be applied will put many people who don't share the same timezone with the cave at a big disadvantage and not everyone is obsessed enough to stay and wait for the overlapping hours in order to grab what they need, I go on DC for the fun and excitement of having the chance to grab whatever breed is offered if i am quick and lucky enough to do so, doing it your way will only ruin the thought of being able to catch or at least try to catch whatever we are after.

Edited May 31, 2013 by Dark

[Pink]

Not interested in this, since I am not one for staying up all night. I do have an existence outside of the cave, and the minute I am at a disadvantage, I am leaving.

Pretty much this except for the last bit.

I know technically I would be awake for about half of the night cycle, but I still can't get online during the day most of the time (which would cut me off from catching most dragons, going with Olympe's point), and that's just not cool.

 

[egwenna]

I get online really randomly, so it wouldn't put me at a disadvantage, but it would hinder many of the players I socialize with. So... while I deeply empathize with the desire to find a way to make the biomes move (sometimes even just one freaking egg) I'm afraid this isn't it.

[pinkgothic]

Fulltime job person here.

 

Gotta say I'm to equal parts alarmed and intrigued by this. Alarmed for the obvious reason - during the week I have a five hour window where I can do Dragon Cave hunting, and I'm in Europe, so I'll probably only ever get to see the daytime dragons (during the week!) - intrigued because at the end of the day, I don't know how this would affect gameplay, either for me or others.

 

I'd be willing to give it a shot, I think.

[KageSora]

I'm not terribly fond of this.

 

As was stated, you'd just have a crapload of certain blockers during the day and during the night rather than a mix of both.

 

That aside... No, not everybody would be able to get online during both windows of time.

 

Regarding the school/work/etc. 12 hours a day thing...

 

I've a friend who works 10-hour shifts at times, and factoring in driving time that's around 12 hours he's unavailable. He's not a DC player, but it's hardly impossible for other DC players to have similar situations. Sure, he gets a few breaks/a lunch, but he actually uses those for things like eating/going to the bathroom.

 

Also factor in other commitments. Back when I was still in classes, it wasn't unheard of for me to have a 30-minute window or so to get online from my phone during a 12-hour block of classes, internship, travel time, and other obligations that didn't involve DC. And that was if I felt like focusing on my phone rather than eating.

[Vhale]

Night Glory and Day Glory drakes haven't given me any catching problems. So /support

 

Full time job. Worked at least 1 day every weekend for 6 months and min 10 hour shifts last year.

 

/hunt for 10 minutes on the hour over breakfest = win

same in the evening.

Edited June 1, 2013 by Vhale

[purplehaze]

I'm sorry, but I can't really see this working like you think it will. You would still have blockers, you would just have less variety in the blockers for each time period, so even less chance that the people who were able to be on at that time would want them.

 

The breeds that naturally fall into either day or night categories only are very few. So the others would just be randomly divided?

[HeatherMarie]

1. Disadvantage for MANY people who want "enter breed here" but are in opposing timezones. Users can't control where they live. We already have plenty of people complaining when they can't get limited-holidays, or when they can't get new releases on the *first* day (because yeah, that's important to many people). It's one thing to say "these few very special breeds have specific hatching times", it's a WHOLE different thing to apply that to the majority of breeds.

 

2. But even bigger then that.... Why? What's the logical, in-cave reason for certain eggs only appearing at night (or in the day)? We have eggs that *hatch* by day/night, but to my knowledge we so far have NO such thing as a breed of EGG that *only* appears during certain hours. And I see no logical reason for it.

 

As you trudge through the scorching desert, you see many large dragons scattered about, some with hatchlings. Nearby, there is a pile of several eggs.

 

You don't want to disturb the dragons, but some of the eggs are far enough away that you could steal one.

 

What it says in every biome (except the desert part). So, there are dragons lying around, some hatchlings maybe playing, and a pile of several eggs. ....... Why would that change depending on the time of day? You *could* say that maybe a certain dragon likes to go hunt at night, and so hides their eggs away so no one can see them at night.... You *can't* make a blanket statement for tons of breeds about that. When a biome has 10-15 breeds in it, I see no realistic reason that ALL of those dragons and ALL of those eggs would suddenly disappear at a certain time.

[Syphoneira]

As repeatedly pointed out by others:

 

Some people have very limited playing time and would be unable to hunt the dragons restricted to their time zone.

 

Why would further reducing the variety of dragons available make the biomes move faster?

 

Wouldn't this vastly increase the likelihood of a single Blocker spamming the page for endless periods?

 

And vastly reduce the possibility of someone at any particular point seeing something that they WOULD like, therefore making space for the next egg to move in?

 

If we had MORE variety among Commons in a pool, this would increase the probability of more biome movement.

 

If Blockers were to roll off the heap after a set period of 'sitting' time to the bottom of the AP to resurface down the road as desirable Incuhatchables,

 

rather than everyone endlessly refreshing the same unwanted eggs until their eyelids close

 

and they give up in boredom and disgust, or have to go, having wasted their 'fun time',

 

or continue waiting for somebody with perhaps more than one free spot to grit their teeth and sacrifice a spot they need for hunting for 5 hours - generally to dump the unwanted egg into the AP anyway -

 

this would help to get the biomes moving more without restricting anyone's access to dragons or their recreational playing-time.

 

Sorry, absolutely do not support this suggestion and actually can't see any upside at all...

 

 

[Darth Krande]

Considering how I almost never caught (or bred) a night glory, I am against the idea.

[airaani]

Yeah I am really not in favor of this one. It makes it even harder than it is to get the breeds you want

[platedlizard]

I don't think so. We have an international player-base, it would be unfair to people in different timezones if they had to get up in the middle of the night to catch their favorite dragon. The day/night thing is pretty much why I don't bother catching glories, because I almost always only catch night glories due to when I usually play, instead of day glories which I like better.