Improve Prize Breeding Ratios

[LadyFoxfire]

After reading and doing a tiny bit of commenting on the other threads about the prize dragons, this one seems like the best solution, to improve the breeding ratios AND to allow clutches. For those prize winners who want to keep their clutches, more power to them. There are still prize winners out there that would be more than happy to share the spoils. However, I do like the idea of the clutches working just like the holidays do, by going to the AP as fair game. I also agree that the breeding ratios should be higher across the board for both high and low gens.

 

I'm perfectly happy with lower gens, but I even love my high gens. They're still just as shiny to me and, with pretty lineages, they're even better. But I love the messy lineaged ones too so that I have hatchies to freeze in the cutest stages.

Edited March 4, 2014 by LadyFoxfire

[Slaskia]

Ya know, it seems to me (and I've suggested this before) that the biggest issue in all of this is the breeding ratio itself. Why not just abolish the breeding ratio altogether and just go with a flat percentage chance of what kind of egg you get based on how common/rare the breed itself is? Leave total population (within the last year) out of the variable's completely.

 

Heck, this kind of thing would help alleviate the cave blocker problem as well, as the cave will not keep throwing them at us due to low population.

Edited March 4, 2014 by Slaskia

[AnanoKimi]

Ya know, it seems to me (and I've suggested this before) that the biggest issue in all of this is the breeding ratio itself. Why not just abolish the breeding ratio altogether and just go with a flat percentage chance of what kind of egg you get based on how common/rare the breed itself is? Leave total population (within the last year) out of the variable's completely.

 

Heck, this kind of thing would help alleviate the cave blocker problem as well, as the cave will not keep throwing them at us due to low population.

I really do not know hoe breeding mechanics work but if this somehow alleviates the problem then I'm on board. Really if this helps me be able to toss prize babies at newbies and friends then I'm all down for this.

[whitebaron]

What makes you think that TJs arbitrarily defined percentages would make you any happier?

 

Just going ahed from what we know: TJ does not play favorites between breeds. So a fixed percentage would give 50% of each species egg. And how often? Well, lets say 20% for prizes, 30% for rares, 50% for uncommons, 70% for common, 90%for blockers.

 

Since we fixed it at 50% for which egg we get, have to use the lower % for totalbreeding.

thiswould mean: 6 prize babies (and 6 kin) a year no matter which mate. 9 rares + 9 fails. 13 uncommons, 13 fails.

 

Prizes currently do breed better than that, if you dont breed them to breeds that obviously have trouble with their ratios. And even then can always hoard and massbreed that species to influence ratios positively, which is a GREAT incentive itself and wouldbe lost, then.

[Guillotine]

It would be better than the cycle of floods and droughts we have now. As an example, right now you can't breed many recent releases with older ultra-commons without getting the newer dragon most of the time (i.e., Flamingo/Black Teas are hard to get flamingos from), and there was a long period where metals simply did not appear because of ratios, and there was the infamous release (I can't recall which one) where for months you could only find those dragons in the cave (and while this was partially fixed, it still happens on a lesser scale).

 

For the overall site, it is the better option.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Guillotine

[Mysthunter]

I would love to see the rate increase...mostly b/c I don't have time/fast enough connection to collect the CB golds or CB silvers or Coppers...or whatever most of the rares that were caught were gifted to me by a friend.

 

So it is very hard for me to get anything that I can trade to obtain a low gen prize dragon...so it would be nice to see more of them being made, maybe even multi egg clutches, not sure.

 

In the end though, it is not the biggest deal in the world. I mean they are just pixels on a screen and for me as long as I have at least one version of something on my scroll I am cool with it.

 

So either way I guess I am cool with it...but if I could get one thing done it would be to have CB prize dragons be able to breed more often or lay multi clutch eggs when they do give a prize dragon.

[Fuzzbucket]

What makes you think that TJs arbitrarily defined percentages would make you any happier?

 

Just going ahed from what we know: TJ does not play favorites between breeds. So a fixed percentage would give 50% of each species egg. And how often? Well, lets say 20% for prizes, 30% for rares, 50% for uncommons, 70% for common, 90%for blockers.

 

Since we fixed it at 50% for which egg we get, have to use the lower % for totalbreeding.

thiswould mean: 6 prize babies (and 6 kin) a year no matter which mate. 9 rares + 9 fails. 13 uncommons, 13 fails.

 

Prizes currently do breed better than that, if you dont breed them to breeds that obviously have trouble with their ratios. And even then can always hoard and massbreed that species to influence ratios positively, which is a GREAT incentive itself and wouldbe lost, then.

90% from blockers. So breed two blockers and...

 

Um....

[Red2111]

if the ratios remain as is, the idea of multi-clutching actually makes the problem worse.

 

the problem with the prize lines is too many people are breeding them. theres too much competition for the cap space of production.

 

mutli-clutching will only add more breeders into the mix.

 

 

edit - what use is it to give everyone easier chance to get a low gen prize (which is the idea behind the multi-cluth suggestion) if it makes breeding non-existant (like in 2011)

 

also, not everyone who would keep all of the clutch woudl sell them. theres a reason why i only have 1 CB Ribbon Dancer, 1 CB Heart Seeker, ect. thats so that when the holiday season rolled around, the previous limits wouldn't prevent me from catchign nice 2G's from the AP and gifting them to the Holiday thread.

 

layign the blanket accusation that "they only want to keep the entire clutch to sell them) is discounting the charity and good will that is dominate in ths community.

 

 

which is why i suggested the idea of staggering the ratios.

 

give tinsels and shimmers peperate ratios.

 

seperate rations for dragons 6G+ and CB - 5G

 

 

this way the amoutn of shimmers in the system doesnt impact tinsel production (and vice versus)

 

this way people breeding longer gen lines (6G +) dont impact the production rate of the CB - 5G prize lines.

 

 

so prize lines would have 4 different breeding ratios in their species

 

CB - 5G Tinsels

CB - 5G Shimmers

6G+ Tinsels

6G+ Shimmers

Edited March 5, 2014 by Red2111

[Fuzzbucket]

mutli-clutching will only add more breeders into the mix.

Not more breeders - more dragons.l

[Red2111]

@ fuzz - semantics.

 

ie: a person gets a 3G tinsels from the AP, their going to breed the snot out of that dragon for trading fodder and glomping

 

you increase the pool of shimmers/tinsels, the amount of breeding lines increases with it; ergo, the more breeders you have breeding those lines

 

they go hand in hand.

 

 

edit - i breedher

 

she clutches 4 Tinsels. 1 goes to a person i'm glomping, the other 3 auto to the AP and are pounced on.

 

all 4 grow up, and are breed and mutli clutch 4 tinsel eggs each.

 

 

as it is now, without the mutli clutch, my 1 tinsel is only creating 1 more breedable line per week.

 

add in multi-clutch (at its greatest output) i'm greating 4 breedable lines, all of which have the abnility to creat 4 of their own. so in my Tinsels offspring could add in 16 new lines.

 

all of which go to scrolls, to people who will more than likely breed them, and each having the chance to produce 4 more tinsels. so that 16 has a chance to become 64 new breedable lines, and so on.

 

 

 

also, the only reason i see why Holiday's multi-clutch is because they only have 1 week a year were they can produce their own kind. because they're this limited on production, they multi-clutch to help with population numbers.

 

the rest of the year, they single clutch.

 

prizes are over bred, they have no reason (RP wise) on why they should multi-clutch.

 

edit 2 - and yes i mean severly over bred. otherwise we wouldn't be having this problem in the first place.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Red2111

[AnanoKimi]

Then why not increase the ratio/add multi clutch and increase prize breeding CD time? Week and a half to two weeks. I highly doubt we'd get lucky enough to get 4 eggs each breeding though it is possible. But we could try and limit that by having them breed only twice a month. Even if people do start trying to breed them asap, waiting two weeks is enough time for people to breed other stuff as well.

 

Staggered ratio was that higher gens bred better than lower gens no? why not also apply that in terms of multi clutching? Maybe make higher gens clutch better? that way the more their bred the less they produce to even out the odds. I don't know, just saying, I fail at statistics and math and all that good stuff. I'm throwing randomness out here so feel free to stab it at free will and correct me.

[Red2111]

Then why not increase the ratio/add multi clutch and increase prize breeding CD time? Week and a half to two weeks. I highly doubt we'd get lucky enough to get 4 eggs each breeding though it is possible. But we could try and limit that by having them breed only twice a month. Even if people do start trying to breed them asap, waiting two weeks is enough time for people to breed other stuff as well.

 

Staggered ratio was that higher gens bred better than lower gens no? why not also apply that in terms of multi clutching? Maybe make higher gens clutch better? that way the more their bred the less they produce to even out the odds. I don't know, just saying, I fail at statistics and math and all that good stuff. I'm throwing randomness out here so feel free to stab it at free will and correct me.

a longer CD time for breeding might actually work as it addresses the issue of over breeding and i actually like this option more than multi-clutch or adjusting the breeding ratios.

 

increasing the ratios is a temporary fix imo because eventually we'll always hit that cap. so its a bandaid approach and doesn't address the true issue (over breeding) i mean, whats the point of having them as rare dragons if we're just gogin to increase their output abilityes each time we hit the limit?

 

multi-clutching (even with just 2 prizes per clutch) will only cause us to reach that cap quicker; because your adding more breedable dragons to the pool.

 

even if you raise the limit with the addition of multi-clutches, you still deal with the problem of over breeding and will hit that cap each time (possibly sooner with the additional clutches)

 

 

edit - not to mention the adverse effects this will have on the trading market, where every egg in system is valued against Prize lines, CB Metal, Holly or ND eggs.

 

you make lower gen lines easier to get, you actually decrease their value on the market and have the exact opposite effect you're aimin to get. we've seen this shift in Tinsel costs.

 

pretty soon you'll limit the market to where only 2G Prize lines, CB Metals, ND's and 2G Hollys will be the only things tradable or worth anything.

 

the aim is to stablize the market and make the lines less exclussive, not create a more harmful strangle hold effect on the market.

 

this is why i say it will lead to more hostage marketing

 

 

 

edit 2 - why do i feel like i'm debating the pros and cons of lifting the debt ceiling in the USA

 

 

re-staggered ratios.

 

nah, my thoughts on that would be that higher gens wouldn't effect lower gens in terms of ratio count because they woudl have seperate ratios.

 

ie:

 

i breed my 5G Tinsel and my 6G Tinsel and the system sees this not as two tinsels being bred, but as two seperate breeds being bred.

 

yes there still tinsels, but to the cave (because of the generation difference) their treated as two seperate breeds.

 

 

alternatively i breed my 4G Tinsel and 4G Shimmer, the cave sees two seperate breeds being bred instead of 2 Prize breeds.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Red2111

[AnanoKimi]

Well by making 2nd gens a bit more common and easier to obtain, they will be worth less wouldn't they? thats kinda some of the aim, to stop them from having this horrible strangle hold on the market. To make them so their not worth so much their the only thing every wanted in the DC trading forums.

 

I don't really mind having prize babies everywhere, if it helps those who talk about lineages anc collections to get their hands on what they want/need. Its better than tossing CB prizes at everyone in my opinion >w>

 

I don't know how to get around this though, or at least how to find a way to make the situation better.

[Red2111]

Well by making 2nd gens a bit more common and easier to obtain, they will be worth less wouldn't they? thats kinda some of the aim, to stop them from having this horrible strangle hold on the market. To make them so their not worth so much their the only thing every wanted in the DC trading forums.

 

I don't really mind having prize babies everywhere, if it helps those who talk about lineages anc collections to get their hands on what they want/need. Its better than tossing CB prizes at everyone in my opinion >w>

 

I don't know how to get around this though, or at least how to find a way to make the situation better.

very true, but what then takes the place value wise of the 2G prizes?

 

2G's from Spriter Alts? ND's? CB Metals?

 

 

imo this just shifts the problem that people have with the current trading market off of CB Prize owners and onto

 

- ND expermentors

- CB Metal miners

- Spriter Alts owners.

 

 

there will always be a vacuum in the market, becuase the markets value system.

 

 

so when the "gold standard" for the market shifts to the other standard setters?

 

do we ask that spriters alts be unbreedable or demand they produce more so everyone has a fair chance at getting one?

 

do we demand TJ breed his dragosn more frequently or limit the number of 2G thuweds a person can have?

 

do we increase the drop rate of CB metals so that everyone has a fair chance of getting them? (there by making them more common and losing their rare status)

 

do we take away the ability to create an ND dragon or make it easier to create one?

 

 

you do realize that, becuase the economy in this game is based on the intrinsic value of a select few dragons, that if you inflate the value of those dragons you will collapse the economy right?

 

 

 

it seems like people are less conserned with imporving tinsel and shimmer production and more concerned with the trading market. and my question is, if you've got such a problem with the value system in the economy, where do you draw the line when you're basing your complaints on "fairness"?

 

 

edit - i dont mind spreading the shiny love either. i love swaping and glomping and will breed my lower lines for the AP when i'm locked and boared and they dont have lists.

 

but i'm not interested in collapsing the trading economy just because people want "fairness".

Edited March 5, 2014 by Red2111

[AnanoKimi]

Hey That is really all I've hear from people who started posting here.

 

Lineage makers: Not enough gen 2 from mates I want to make something pretty

Traders: Their too expensive, make them more accesible

Others: Their too expensive, we cant work hard to get something else to trade for rares because all they want are Gen 2 Prizes, we want to get rares too.

 

And we prize winners are sitting here with people yelling "Release them into the cave!" "Get rid of them all together!" "Give them to EVERYBODY!!!" and really what are we to do? I want to make certain people happy and personally from there NDs require work, anyone can try to experiment, Sprite alt owners sre sometime gracious enough to breed for free, Metal miners catch their things, others can get lucky and those who dont can build up something. All of those can be obtained in some way in cave. The only two that dont are spriter alts and Prizes.

 

Heck even if they can breed slightly better, not like rabbits, just a little better. A little chance to get a prize more than a common or nothing at all. Really its a pain but all in all to me it doesnt matter. So long as we can keep prizes here to keep raffles and contests exciting then I'm ok.

[Fuzzbucket]

HM prizes for winners from now on would help a lot - and add the existing prizes to the available HM choices in a couple of years. The "trading market", together with associated "values" is a horrible thing that breeds greed from SOME players, and unreasonable demands/offers made to try and get around it all; it has been getting unpleasant for a while, but the prizes have made it a million time worse.

 

When I started playing it was not bad at all - people actually traded for what they wanted/needed - I offered 2nd gen silvers for greys from shadows, for instance. But the perceived NEED for low gen shimmers has skewed things horribly.

[Red2111]

Hey That is really all I've hear from people who started posting here.

 

Lineage makers: Not enough gen 2 from mates I want to make something pretty

Traders: Their too expensive, make them more accesible

Others: Their too expensive, we cant work hard to get something else to trade for rares because all they want are Gen 2 Prizes, we want to get rares too.

 

And we prize winners are sitting here with people yelling "Release them into the cave!" "Get rid of them all together!" "Give them to EVERYBODY!!!" and really what are we to do? I want to make certain people happy and personally from there NDs require work, anyone can try to experiment, Sprite alt owners sre sometime gracious enough to breed for free, Metal miners catch their things, others can get lucky and those who dont can build up something. All of those can be obtained in some way in cave. The only two that dont are spriter alts and Prizes.

 

Heck even if they can breed slightly better, not like rabbits, just a little better. A little chance to get a prize more than a common or nothing at all. Really its a pain but all in all to me it doesnt matter. So long as we can keep prizes here to keep raffles and contests exciting then I'm ok.

i feel your pain, i really do. and like i said, i really like the idea of a longer CD time for breeding on prize dragons as it hits the problem that creates poor breeding dead on. and if it feels liek i'm targetting you, i'm not and i'm sorry if it is comming off that way

 

 

breeding droughts are a real problem (especially where Metals and Prize dragons are concerned). its been a valid problem since the 2011 metal drought.

 

however, imo, the complaints over the trading market are not valid.

 

for the top complaints you posted, all of those are user created and has nothign at all to do with influencing the breeding of Tinsels and Shimmers. majority are imo unrealistic expectations that users have.

 

these are, after all, the rarest dragons that exists. by their nature, any generation of a prize dragon should be harder to get than a CB gold, and CB Prizes should breed worse than CB Metals *shrugs* i think people tend to forget that when dealing with them, because of how many there are (not only CB and Low Gen, but all gens site wide)

 

 

for Lineage makers ... focus on something else. why do you have to make a lineage out of prize dragons? theres loads of pretty dragons out there that make gorgous lineages. you want to aspire to it, great! but there needs to be a level of realistic expectations when your setting out to make a lineage out of a ultra rare dragon.

 

for Traders - why do you need a 2G? be happy with a lower gen and set realistic expectations for what you can trade for. you know what the 2G's go for, and you know what you're able to produce as tradding fodder; instead of tryign to tell the CB owners how they should trade their babies know your limitations and work to improve them

 

for the others - on rares, lets be a bit realistic here. if special lineages and prize lines didn't exist, CB golds would only trade for gender swaps or 2 CB Silvers or multiple new release hatchies and halloween IOUs or Holly IOUs. (or if a semi rare goes poof in the cave like Blacks and Stripes did for a while). trading for a rare is gogin to be hard because their rare. and very few peopel woudl trade a CB gold for an IOU of CB mints unless it was an absurdley high number of mints.

 

 

as for what people are yelling now, and i know what your talking about and dont support any of those options, i say CB owners should just ignore them tbh. that is your dragon, requardless of how you got it. we non-winners only have lines to play with because you winners decide to breed your shinies and spread the love, not because you're forced to but because you want to. anyone who PM's you expecting you to trade at all with them or get gifted a shiny is rightly out of their mind imo

 

 

HM prizes for winners from now on would help a lot - and add the existing prizes to the available HM choices in a couple of years. The "trading market", together with associated "values" is a horrible thing that breeds greed from SOME players, and unreasonable demands/offers made to try and get around it all; it has been getting unpleasant for a while, but the prizes have made it a million time worse.

 

When I started playing it was not bad at all - people actually traded for what they wanted/needed - I offered 2nd gen silvers for greys from shadows, for instance. But the perceived NEED for low gen shimmers has skewed things horribly.

 

discontinuing the prize dragons in the raffle for a few years wont do anything to alieveate the current problem. every year when the raffle releases new prize blood, my tinsels and shimmers seem to breed better as far as shiny vs kin production. the closer to Dec we get, the worse my dragons breed. its a cycle i've noticed since the 2011 drought.

 

infact, the 2011 breeding drought ended when the raffle winners were announced if you recall.

 

imo, the breeding ratio caps are already % based, determined by the rarity TJ assigns a dragon breed and the # of total CB's in the cave; so the ratio adjusts or resets ever year when TJ releases new CB's to users.

 

if thsi is the case, and to me it seems the most logical, then not releasing new CB Prizes each year just means we get to the breeding drought faster each year

 

 

and releasing them as HMs (though i do like the idea, especially if TJ introducing new prize breeds), aside from having the same effect on ratios and breeding as doing them as raffle prizes (because what HM winner woudln't pick a tinsel or shimmer if given the chance) has its own can of worms thats been discussed in another thread.

[AnanoKimi]

discontinuing the prize dragons in the raffle for a few years wont do anything to alieveate the current problem. every year when the raffle releases new prize blood, my tinsels and shimmers seem to breed better as far as shiny vs kin production. the closer to Dec we get, the worse my dragons breed. its a cycle i've noticed since the 2011 drought.

 

infact, the 2011 breeding drought ended when the raffle winners were announced if you recall.

 

imo, the breeding ratio caps are already % based, determined by the rarity TJ assigns a dragon breed and the # of total CB's in the cave; so the ratio adjusts or resets ever year when TJ releases new CB's to users.

 

if thsi is the case, and to me it seems the most logical, then not releasing new CB Prizes each year just means we get to the breeding drought faster each year

 

 

and releasing them as HMs (though i do like the idea, especially if TJ introducing new prize breeds), aside from having the same effect on ratios and breeding as doing them as raffle prizes (because what HM winner woudln't pick a tinsel or shimmer if given the chance) has its own can of worms thats been discussed in another thread.

I at some point tried offering a sort of plan that went a little something like

 

2014= New Prize ('14) & Shimmer, Tinsel HM

2015= '14 & Shimmer, Tinsel HM

2016= '16 & '14, Shimmer HM, Tinsel retired but breedable

 

and people screamed to high heaven when they saw I wanted to retire the breed altogether. Tinsel would be running as a prize for about 5-6 since their release, At that point I think they've been around long enough and should make room for new prizes to go to HM. Also, if every Prize went to HM without retiring, nothing else would get picked out of the pool but shiny prize dragons (and 95% of them would be gold I bet) and nothing else. Things like CB hollies and Frills, and other dragons that can be obtained HM would only be picked by a very select few and we would have tinsels, shimmers, and other prizes all over the place. With more prizes breeding I think we would hit that cap much faster than we already do.

 

But everyone is gonna be completely against it because "That's not fair, if their retired their gonna be even more rare and harder to get and no one is gonna have one and I want one too. At least a gen 2, gen 2 for everybody!" and we'll have a revolution. I completely agree with realistic expectations. I've played this game for 3-4 years now and even I knew back then that I would probably have a hard time getting a gold or silver. The ones I got where from generous people who gifted them to me in exchange for breeding IOUs. Even then my silvers and golds are messy as heck but still lovely none the less. Its all about knowing who to trade with, knowing what to look for, and slowly building your way up while being happy with the scraps you get along the way. Eventually it wont be scraps but you gotta take time and patience.

 

Personally if there is another raffle and no new prize dragon, I would totally wanna win HM. I want a CB hellhorse ;D I love me dem hellhorses~

[HeartJacker13]

Maybe I'm just retarded, but I'm not understanding what the topic is about.

When it comes to lineage and other dragon stuff, you'll have to explain it to me like I'm five.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

Maybe I'm just retarded, but I'm not understanding what the topic is about.

When it comes to lineage and other dragon stuff, you'll have to explain it to me like I'm five.

Lineage is a record of a dragon's ancestry. While to some people this ancestry doesn't matter, for many players it's as important as the dragon itself, with nicer looking lineages being worth far more. For example, even though these two winters, Winter A and Winter B, are of the same generation, the second one is far more valuable to me and to most players because the lineage has a neat, tidy pattern while the first one's lineage looks random and messy (plus it's inbred).

 

There will always be less low generation, nicely lined dragons because of how breeding works. While a CB (caveborn, or a dragon without a lineage) dragon can only breed once per week, every offspring it breeds can breed once per week as well, so the higher generations quickly stack up. It also is much easier to make a messy dragon than to create a careful, tidy lineage. So low generation dragons with nice lineages tend to be more valuable in part for rarity as well as looks, and can trade for better stuff.

 

For most dragons, CB ones can be caught in the cave by anyone, and anyone can make just about any lineage they like. However with Prize dragons (Shimmerscales and Tinsels), there is only a very, very small group of players who can get them as CBs, and everyone else has to collect offspring of these original ones. Since there are so few of them and there are so many people who want low generation offspring from them to build lineages of their choice with, or to trade rare eggs from, they have become much rarer than just about any other dragon in the entire game. This had led to frustration for some users because they can't get Shimmerscales and Tinsels with lineages they like, or with short, pretty lineages, and because the entire trade market seems to revolve largely around those low generation prize eggs, leading to inflation and stagnation (people offer really huge prices, like multiple CB Gold dragons, for prizes because sometimes it's the only way to attract prize winner's attention; CB Golds and Silvers rarely trade for anything but low gen prizes anymore, leaving players who want a chance to trade for them in the dark).

 

Because of all this, some people (myself included) would like to see Shimmerscales and Tinsels breed true more often, increasing the amount of those desirable low gen eggs around and hopefully making lineages with them more possible (and making the trade market more balanced to boot). While some Shimmerscales and Tinsels breed true often, a lot of the CB prizes only seem to breed true every few months or so, which is quite a low rate.

Edited March 6, 2014 by angelicdragonpuppy

[Red2111]

I at some point tried offering a sort of plan that went a little something like

 

2014= New Prize ('14) & Shimmer, Tinsel HM

2015= '14 & Shimmer, Tinsel HM

2016= '16 & '14, Shimmer HM, Tinsel retired but breedable

 

and people screamed to high heaven when they saw I wanted to retire the breed altogether. Tinsel would be running as a prize for about 5-6 since their release, At that point I think they've been around long enough and should make room for new prizes to go to HM. Also, if every Prize went to HM without retiring, nothing else would get picked out of the pool but shiny prize dragons (and 95% of them would be gold I bet) and nothing else. Things like CB hollies and Frills, and other dragons that can be obtained HM would only be picked by a very select few and we would have tinsels, shimmers, and other prizes all over the place. With more prizes breeding I think we would hit that cap much faster than we already do.

 

But everyone is gonna be completely against it because "That's not fair, if their retired their gonna be even more rare and harder to get and no one is gonna have one and I want one too. At least a gen 2, gen 2 for everybody!" and we'll have a revolution. I completely agree with realistic expectations. I've played this game for 3-4 years now and even I knew back then that I would probably have a hard time getting a gold or silver. The ones I got where from generous people who gifted them to me in exchange for breeding IOUs. Even then my silvers and golds are messy as heck but still lovely none the less. Its all about knowing who to trade with, knowing what to look for, and slowly building your way up while being happy with the scraps you get along the way. Eventually it wont be scraps but you gotta take time and patience.

 

Personally if there is another raffle and no new prize dragon, I would totally wanna win HM. I want a CB hellhorse ;D I love me dem hellhorses~

i've seen that idea mentioned and part of me actually likes it, to include eventually retiring the ability to get CB's of the current prize babies.

 

i agree that if you pull them to HM status, thats all majority of HM winners will choose. whats more, theres also the arguement of value, meaning that you're now putting the Tinsels as equal value to a CB Holly; and your now putting all Tinsel verietys as equal to eachother.

 

which could help in the long run as far as trading values and decreasing peoples intrinsic value for the dragon *nods*

 

 

tbh, this entire complaint that "everyone should get a CB Prize at some point" is belly achining and being nothign more than a spoiled brat imo. the Raffle is a Lottery! saying that everyone shoudl win a CB Prize is like saying everyone should win the mega millions jack pot *smh* you just aint being realistic here.

 

to me, people should be happy by that fact that we all have prize lines at all, as we only have these babies to breed because the raffle winners agreed to trade their babys offspring in the first place.

 

the only legit complaint agsint retiring the breeds is the one i have, which is how it will effect the breeding ratio once new blood isn't released into the cave. we dont reallly know how the ratios work, so while we all assume that Shimmers and Tinsels are all in the same ratio, TJ could have the ratios seperate. which means that no new CB Tinsels could mean breeding drought come faster with Tinsels. and a breeding drought does more to drive up value on a dragon than being retired imo

 

 

Because of all this, some people (myself included) would like to see Shimmerscales and Tinsels breed true more often, increasing the amount of those desirable low gen eggs around and hopefully making lineages with them more possible (and making the trade market more balanced to boot). While some Shimmerscales and Tinsels breed true often, a lot of the CB prizes only seem to breed true every few months or so, which is quite a low rate.

 

well said about lineages

 

to the bold though. this is still better than 99% of the CB Silvers and CB Golds breeding rates out there. (heck its even better than high gen golds and silvers as far as mine are conserned)

 

which is rather good considering Tinsels and Shimmers are supposed to be rarer that Golds and Silvers. imo, we should be happy that they breed that well, and that there offspring breed as well as they do.

 

 

flooding the market wont balance it, it will lower the value of all the other dragons while keeping the focus of trades (rares for prize lines) the same.

 

look at what happened to the market with the gold boom last march, when CB's were dropping like hot cakes. a 4G tinsel line would trade 1:1 for a CB Gold, all of a sudden that same 4G line was goign for 4 CB Golds.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Red2111

[angelicdragonpuppy]

@Red: I play games to relax and to feel, well, an easier sense of "yes I can reach the top" then I can in the real world. Adding one-in-several-thousand odds of getting a CB version of a dragon to a game that used to be all about patience and luck and being able to build or catch anything you wished (more or less) has hurt the game a lot for me. I get to see people more famous and rich than myself and know I can never catch up to them every day in real life. I don't want to see it in my games, too.

 

I am also adamantly against the retirement of CB Prize releases. You think people are frustrated with the situation now? Try cutting off the new blood and see how that goes.

 

I've also never seen anything that says prizes have to be rarer than golds and silvers, and honestly, it makes more sense that they wouldn't be. Having a super ultra rare shiny dragon that everyone wants shiny babies from is a lot less exciting when said dragon only breeds true about twice a year. We also have a continual new supply of metallic blood, which isn't true of prizes, further justifying that they breed better to spread out the limited bloodlines more throughout the user base.

 

I also think your argument actually counters your argument. When CB Golds were more common, they were worth less. Ergo, if 2g Prizes were more common, they should also be worth less. Of course they will always be rare, but if people could reasonably believe that getting a CB Metal would let them trade for a 2g, I think things would be a lot more balanced. While prize winners will and do take far cheaper trades, in general several of the cave's naturally rarest dragons are required to attract their attention, and that's an unhappy system.

 

And so what if things beyond 2g were devalued a bit more? Anything above 4g is already practically worthless for trading. If 3gs and 4gs came down a bit and became more accessible to others at the same time, I don't think it'd be a bad thing.

 

 

 

[AnanoKimi]

@Red: I play games to relax and to feel, well, an easier sense of "yes I can reach the top" then I can in the real world. Adding one-in-several-thousand odds of getting a CB version of a dragon to a game that used to be all about patience and luck and being able to build or catch anything you wished (more or less) has hurt the game a lot for me. I get to see people more famous and rich than myself and know I can never catch up to them every day in real life. I don't want to see it in my games, too.

 

I am also adamantly against the retirement of CB Prize releases. You think people are frustrated with the situation now? Try cutting off the new blood and see how that goes.

 

I've also never seen anything that says prizes have to be rarer than golds and silvers, and honestly, it makes more sense that they wouldn't be. Having a super ultra rare shiny dragon that everyone wants shiny babies from is a lot less exciting when said dragon only breeds true about twice a year. We also have a continual new supply of metallic blood, which isn't true of prizes, further justifying that they breed better to spread out the limited bloodlines more throughout the user base.

 

I also think your argument actually counters your argument. When CB Golds were more common, they were worth less. Ergo, if 2g Prizes were more common, they should also be worth less. Of course they will always be rare, but if people could reasonably believe that getting a CB Metal would let them trade for a 2g, I think things would be a lot more balanced. While prize winners will and do take far cheaper trades, in general several of the cave's naturally rarest dragons are required to attract their attention, and that's an unhappy system.

 

And so what if things beyond 2g were devalued a bit more? Anything above 4g is already practically worthless for trading. If 3gs and 4gs came down a bit and became more accessible to others at the same time, I don't think it'd be a bad thing.

The problem is the fame part is user percieved. The Exclusivity thing, well sasdly its part of real life and eventually makes its way into games regardless.

 

When I would join other places like for example World of Umbria, ToD, MagiStream, where you had those paid monthly pets, Yeah I would look at them and be like "Dang, if only I joined earlier and had money..." But that never stopped me from playing the game. When I came on here and saw how hard it was to catch anything remotely rare, I took a realistic stance and figured I'd never get the ND or CB Gold, I would have to stick to collecting only what I could get my hands on. I still cant catch them, not quick enough. I don't let it get me down, I don't let it affect my game, I just keep playing and collecting what other things I do like, for example bloodscales and hellhorses.

 

If you come in to a game and you let the fact that you cant get everything annoy you, then thats you letting it happen. DC may have been about patience but it isnt about patience for everyone. To some, that Blusang, that gold, that cheese, that ND, will more than likely never be obtainable, and their ok with that. Some may be kicking and screaming to TJ "Its too hard! Make it easier!!" but honestly to me its fine. There will always be things in life that you just sometimes can't get. You gotta learn to let it go and deal man. I really wanted that X and Y limited edition 3DS XL, Dun have the money, prolly won't for years, and I'll never get one. I'm ok with that.

 

The fame only happens out of hype of how people see these ultra super rare shinies. When they where first released, I didn't fawn over the users that had them anymore than the ones that did. They where users to me, and they won something nice, and good for them. A pat on the back and well enjoy. When I won this raffle, I squealed for like the first 2 minutes, calmed down, and eventually kinda got over it. Not to say I wasn't happy. I was, just you know, you won and you cant be acting like you're the king/queen of England all the time for winning a pixel dragon.

 

And I think most of the attention Prize winners get is purely self interest. If someone has something shiny that they can share a part of, wont you go brown nosing them to see if you can get in? Of course most will. I know some want pretty lineage babies, I know others just want a baby, others are obsessed with 2Gs and it must be 2Gs, and others want the shiny trade fodder. People still only make them as popular and rare as they wanna be. The ones like me who wanna gift them are doing what we can to even out this market but its not even the 2Gs that go for a lot, its 2-5 gen. And with all this "I want, I want, I want" madness, prize breeders are over breeding them and we are contsantly hitting cap if I consider red's logic correctly.

 

I think if people could calm down, give the poor prize breeders a break and the poor tinsels too, we might see some improvement. If people quit constantly demanding for things and treating high gen prize breeders like their supposed to spit out a shiny every time their dragon finds a mate then maybe the market could also even out. And the few Metal Miners that have some consideration for the rest of the DC community could try to give people a break and quit asking all the time for 2G-4G shimmers/tinsels. With so many other dragons, ask for something else. Go in the metal Gifters, Breed some nice metal lineages, but quit adding all this pressure on prize winners and the DC community for some dang 2g prize babies.

 

People need to calm down and just take things one step at a time. Everyone is rushing so bad for this that their only making things worse, and all the pressure is stressful. I don't blame some prize winners for killing their dragons, leaving DC, or simply not trading out their babies at all. I wouldn't want to deal with the community either, and I kinda don't. Everyone is so "Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie," thats its stressful. The people are the ones that make this game stressful, not the way its run. The people are the ones that make the DC market really unbalanced, not the pixels in the game. Really the only problem I've ever seen here is people and how stressful they make this game for others and for themselves.

[Red2111]

@Red: I play games to relax and to feel, well, an easier sense of "yes I can reach the top" then I can in the real world. Adding one-in-several-thousand odds of getting a CB version of a dragon to a game that used to be all about patience and luck and being able to build or catch anything you wished (more or less) has hurt the game a lot for me. I get to see people more famous and rich than myself and know I can never catch up to them every day in real life. I don't want to see it in my games, too.

 

I am also adamantly against the retirement of CB Prize releases. You think people are frustrated with the situation now? Try cutting off the new blood and see how that goes.

 

I've also never seen anything that says prizes have to be rarer than golds and silvers, and honestly, it makes more sense that they wouldn't be. Having a super ultra rare shiny dragon that everyone wants shiny babies from is a lot less exciting when said dragon only breeds true about twice a year. We also have a continual new supply of metallic blood, which isn't true of prizes, further justifying that they breed better to spread out the limited bloodlines more throughout the user base.

 

I also think your argument actually counters your argument. When CB Golds were more common, they were worth less. Ergo, if 2g Prizes were more common, they should also be worth less. Of course they will always be rare, but if people could reasonably believe that getting a CB Metal would let them trade for a 2g, I think things would be a lot more balanced. While prize winners will and do take far cheaper trades, in general several of the cave's naturally rarest dragons are required to attract their attention, and that's an unhappy system.

 

And so what if things beyond 2g were devalued a bit more? Anything above 4g is already practically worthless for trading. If 3gs and 4gs came down a bit and became more accessible to others at the same time, I don't think it'd be a bad thing.

 

the difference between this game and others is that its economy is mimics the RL economy in many ways. for example, many of the complaints people have with the DC economy are the same people have with the RL economy. the parallels are intriguing and make the social scientist in me squee with absolute glee.

 

the similarity between the two is one of the draws for me in this game. even though i'm not rich, i can tinker in this economy and trade on the DC stock market; where as IRL, i have neither the expertise nor the income to do so

 

/nerdism

 

 

Re-raresness. This is defined in game by how the dragons are obtainable and how easy it is to obtain them. CB Golds are considered the rarest of the CB’s because of how infrequently they drop in cave and how quickly they get nabbed.

 

Black and Vine Alts are considered rare because of the low chance of success of an egg alting. Everyone can try and make one, but the chances of that egg alting is already low.

 

By this standard of value; Prizes are rare than CB Golds because there is even less chance of obtaining one. instead of depending on the cab to pop it out, you have to depend on the Raffle and CB owners to breed them. This sets them as rarer, value wise and breed wise, than Metals. Its simple logic. And logic that most agree with, otherwise we wouldn’t have 2G’s being valued at multiple CB Golds on the open market.

 

 

anyways, i'm about to be blunt, because this is part of the problem a lot of people have imo. If you get offended, well the truth is the truth and its not always inoffensive *shrugs*

 

First off, no one said that a game would be relaxing. How many of us have chucked our controllers because of a simple game like Mario Bro.? have you ever tried to play Dark Souls that game is made to be unfair. and its not like this game is stress free outside of trading and prize lines. That paniced feeling of needing to get your fill of a new release because it might be like coppers or blusangs? The frustration of missing that CB you’ve been looking for and mis-clicking a common and being scroll locked for hours now. Or the frustration when a certain dragon refuses a 3rd hard to find/build mate or your Silver once again produces nothing but air. Or the anger you feel when you finally manage to nab a CB copper and some spiteful SOB tries to kill it

 

Yeah those aren’t exactly stress less aspects of the game and they exists outside of the trading market and prize fiasco. So to lay all the stress this game has at the feet of prize babies is looking at the game through beer goggles.

 

Tbh the fact that you see this game as stressful is your own fault, not the games and not the raffles and not how other people play.

 

no part of the game forces you to trade dragons and be part of the trading market (infact the trading market is technically outside of the game and an unintended creation from the teleport BSA edition).

 

nothing in the game stipulates that you need a CB of all dragons to be successful. nothing forces you to catch all or any of any breed in the cave. success is defined by the individual in this game as are what constitutes being rich. The entailment people feel to having a dragon of each breed (or multiple and the lowest gen they can) is player created.

 

If the trading market is stressing you out, then don’t participate in it. nothing aside from your own ambition says you need a prize line at all.

 

 

Infact the entire problem with the trading system that people are complaining about is USER CREATED. The only reason why CB Prize owners accept these offers of multiple rares is because PEOPLE ARE WILLING TO PAY THEM.

 

This market is consumer driven; people say the CB owners hold the market hostage, but you know what if the consumers refuse to pay 3 CB golds for a 2G Tinsel, either the 2G tinsel owner will lower their price or be stuck with the 2G Tinsel on their scroll. I mean look at your own siggie ADP

 

“Will trade CB Metals, CB Coppers, Spriter's Alt lines, 25+ BSA hatchlings, artwork, or other goodies for a 2g Shimmer from male Silver Shimmer - please PM me!”

 

You’re willing to pay an arm and a leg for a 2G shimmer your self. Why should a CB Shimmer owner accept less than what you’re willing to pay to meet your demand?

 

My point is, if people weren’t willing to pay so much in the first place for the 2G shimmer, then they wouldn’t be going for so much on the market.

 

The way I see it, its not that CB owners need those rares to attract their attention, its that they’re not willing to undersell and undervalue their prize dragons; and rightly so.

 

I mean, why should I sell my CB Gold for 10 CB Green Hatchies, when I can get 2 CB Silvers for it?

 

You want the price of the 2Gs to go down, then get the community as a whole to stop offering fortunes on the trades.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Red2111

[angelicdragonpuppy]

Telling people to stop offering fortunes (or to stop breeding shinies) just... doesn't work. If 99% of people complied, it would still only take one person breaking the "rule" to go and profit and get everything else while all the honest folks miss out. The only way to balance it is, in my opinion, to have more supply to meet the demand. Nobody's paying three CB Metals for a Neglected because, as rare as they are, there's sufficient amounts that people know they can find someone else willing to trade 1:1. Add more low gen Prizes to the mix, things balance, people won't feel obligated to offer crazy prices because they know someone else will sell cheaper. But right now, as far as I can see, the trend goes:

 

1) New prizes distributed. Lists fill up immediately for 90% of prize winners.

 

2) Prizes breed like crap. Lists take years to empty out. No one else can get on prize lists in the meanwhile, but people still desperately try by offering exceedingly crazy prices in the hopes of a chance.

 

3) After seeing how crappy prizes breed, prize owners become reluctant to trade them for anything but the rarest of rare things. If they already have their fill of CB Metals by then, as many do, the rarest of the rare is only other prize swaps or 2gs from spriter's alts. Everyone else is excluded from the lists. People again offer crazy high prices hoping for a chance all the same.

 

The only things that can shake up that system are adding more prizes, which seems unlikely to happen, or ensuring prizes breed better, which helps ensure lists don't stagnate and there's more to go around in general.

 

There is a difference between being frustrated with an aspect of the game and being truly stressed over it. The fact that I'm still here and glutting on pretty commons after three years of prizes shows I'm not morbidly disenchanted with DC. Still, to me an ideal collecting game is one where everyone has a reasonably good chance of getting everything with patience and hard work (and, believe it or not, most rares do fall into this category--anyone can make NDs, they tend to trade 1:1 for CB Metals, and even without you can find reasonable trades for or even catch CB Metals if you put the time in). Prizes have changed the game away from that into a system in which the top tier is decided by sheer, one-in-a-few-thousand luck. I dislike this, as I dislike almost all exclusivity (I regularly campaign for the re-release of past Holidays as CBs, and I still sorely miss Old Pinks / Frills), and so when the chance comes up, yes, I will argue for changes.

 

Because while it's true that you can never make everyone 100% happy, I still feel the current prize system has done more to hurt DC than any other change ever has.

Edited March 6, 2014 by angelicdragonpuppy