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Refuse to Have Refusals!

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Oh yes. I agree with you completely, Ananokimi. My policy isn't a solution, it's a personal work-around. I would much rather either refusals have a chance to be reset or that refusals be ended as a game mechanic. My policy works for me because I'm not going anywhere and even if it takes awhile I do replace even rare dragons. Not everyone would be willing to do so, and of course they shouldn't be pressed to do it.

 

My policy is what it is because I also find refusals completely frustrating and disappointing. I can't change the game mechanics so I do what I can to ameliorate people's frustration and disappointment.

 

I wouldn't expect others to replace irreplaceable dragons for me, but I was holding my breath when I bred 2nd gen prizes I traded for to their prizekin mates. None refused, thankfully, but I was certainly nervous about it. (I have three such pretty checkers. You can imagine the stress)

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I'm quite legitimately getting 2+ refusals a week on average. Some of them are easy to replace (I own the parents, or they are pretty common breeds). The others, though, are just beyond frustrating. It's getting pretty ridiculous. sad.gif I'm not sure if refusal amount has been turned up for some reason, or if I am just being incredibly unlucky.

 

Not very interested in each other is already frustrating enough without destroying all hope. Not everyone is kind enough to rebreed in the case of a refusal. I've only ever had dealings with one person who I had traded for a mate that refused. They required something else to do a rebreed (wasn't even that rare of a dragon), and then THAT mate refused, too! After that, I decided it's just not worth trading again and again for more chances of refusals.

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It's extremely frustrating when you go through a ton of effort to acquire the perfect mate for that one awesome lineage on your scroll, only for them to refuse each other.

 

Or when you're trying to breed that perfect lineage, and it takes nine months to get to a specific point, and then REFUSAL.

 

Here is a perfect example of this.

 

2nd gen white stripe from sweetling, bred January 3, 2014. I had decided to make an EG of these, with pure whites.

 

Big mistake.

 

3rd gen progeny list example #1

3rd gen progeny list example #2

 

Notice how they both have exactly one white stripe each? The younger of the two was laid on October 14th. Over 9 months. Someone could've gotten pregnant and had a BABY before I got to the next gen. They were laid within two weeks of each other. Perfect, right?

 

GUESS WHICH TWO REFUSED. It took me from January 17th until OCTOBER 14TH to breed the second of the two 3rd gen stripes, with a huge amount of color fails. And then the little censorkip.gif refused. It took only a month to replace one of the mates, and another month to finally breed a second 4th gen. Why did I go through all this effort to breed this lineage, in such a specific way? As a mate for This really cool AP grab. I decided on stripes since they would look very nice contrasted with the dark of the dorsals. So my story isn't done! I had decided long ago that the 5th gen would be a black stripe as the mate for this dorsal. Oh look! I bred one! Perfect!

 

REFUSAL.

 

Notice what color I haven't bred since.

 

I am now past a year and two months with this.

 

Nine months is a long freakin' time to work on a lineage only to be hit by a ridiculous refusal. Fortunately I had several friends willing to help me out with more 2nd gens from sweetling, and THOSE babies cooperated. But still. I ragequit DC for about a week. Then I decided, I worked that hard on it, I'll be darned if I give up now!

 

Another example, though not nearly as disastrous, is this particular red. Notice how I've made a spiral with every single valentine throughout the years? Guess who this red refused.

 

Yep! One of my heartstealers! Fortunately the other one was more cooperative and gave me a baby. And this wouldn't have been much of an issue given that reds are super easy to breed and I could've replaced him quickly, but I did owe a couple people this lineage and I didn't want to make them wait even longer. (Had to wait until after Valentine's day for obvious reasons, then a week or so for the heartstealers to grow up)

 

 

But anyway, tl;dr, refusals suck and we need a way to negate them. I'm not sure if I'd be interested in getting rid of refusals altogether, since it does add some sort of risk to it, but if there was, say, a BSA that could negate it, or at the very least give you another chance (I'm in favor of 3 strikes you're out) it'd make the game more fun and less of a chore.

 

Especially with prizes, and especially the new prize winners who seem to be plagued by them. It doesn't seem fair that they have to win this awesome thing but it keeps refusing every mate they throw at it when people are counting on them to bless them with a shiny.

 

Also just as a suggestion, make GoNs incapable of refusing pleaseandthankyou. Considering the fact that you're limited to only 3, and chances are one of them will be a different gender than the other two, well. The odds of both of one gender refusing that equally difficult to replace dragon on your scroll is rather soulcrushing.

Edited by zaverxi

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To be totally honest, I won't be against this at all. At first I thought, "But this is so critical to the game," but I've come to realize it's exactly the opposite. It's frustrating and unneeded, and since I've started to experience more and more really irritating refusals, I'd also support its removal.

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Suggestion: Action page addition. "Re-familiarize."

 

Objective: Potentially removes refused mating relationship. User is shown a list of refused mates, and may select one to attempt the action on.

 

Cooldown: 1 week. Can be performed in place of 'breed' action, if a user chooses. Performing 'Re-familiarize' removes breed action for the week.

 

Nerf: Set chance of success/failure, after performing action, user is informed of outcome by appropriate flavor text.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I admit, I didn't read more than the first page of this thread. Shoo me if this has already been proposed. I like this idea better than a BSA, and tying 'taking our dragons out on dates to make them learn to appreciate each other' to the breeding cooldown makes the action appropriately time-consuming. If your heart is set on rekindling the romance between two dragons for the sake of a cool lineage, what's four or five weeks of Re-Familiarize attempts? As always, the numbers are out of our hands. /2cents

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That sounds good to me, Marri. In my head at least everything on it makes sense.

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Thanks, Fi. I like it because it allows lineage folks to have a happier outcome without totally obliterating challenges. It's a good middle ground. :>

 

Also bonus points if the action generates a picture of the two dragons with like a pile of meat and ugly wilted flowers laying between them. I have no idea what a dragon date would look like, but I imagine it's ridiculous.

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Ooh, I really like that solution, Marri! I'll add to the OP later tonight. It definitely is a great middle ground, and eliminates the issue of a BSA for such a crucial game feature forcing users to collect a certain breed. Plus, it makes pretty good sense ^^

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If you omit the part about the pile of meat and ugly wilted flowers I will be disappointed, Pie.

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I think that's a great idea, Marionetta! I know a few different BSAs have been proposed to deal with refusals, but I believe that is the best one I have seen thus far. I don't mind giving up the breed action for a few weeks to remove a refusal for a dragon that is really hard to get a mate for. For a common, I would still probably just breed another one (which I think is part of the idea behind refusals?), but for something harder to get, it would be invaluable.

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Suggestion: Action page addition. "Re-familiarize."

 

Objective: Potentially removes refused mating relationship. User is shown a list of refused mates, and may select one to attempt the action on.

 

Cooldown: 1 week. Can be performed in place of 'breed' action, if a user chooses. Performing 'Re-familiarize' removes breed action for the week.

 

Nerf: Set chance of success/failure, after performing action, user is informed of outcome by appropriate flavor text.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I admit, I didn't read more than the first page of this thread. Shoo me if this has already been proposed. I like this idea better than a BSA, and tying 'taking our dragons out on dates to make them learn to appreciate each other' to the breeding cooldown makes the action appropriately time-consuming. If your heart is set on rekindling the romance between two dragons for the sake of a cool lineage, what's four or five weeks of Re-Familiarize attempts? As always, the numbers are out of our hands. /2cents

Oh wow. I love this suggestion! Full support to Marri's suggestion from me. :3 To me that's a heck of a lot better then getting rid of them completely plus it's not another BSA dragon people will have to collect.

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Settling for a lesser, unnecessary annoyance in place of a larger, unnecessary annoyance is still settling for an unnecessary annoyance, though. I believe that the true "annoyances" that balance breeding come from no egg/interest failures, while the refusal part is just a separate punch in the face.

 

I'd rather completely omit being punched in the face, and since I've still got those regular breeding annoyances to deal with, Schadenfreude can still rest easy.

 

(If it comes down to the two, I'd obviously prefer the lesser evil, yes)

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Settling for a lesser, unnecessary annoyance in place of a larger, unnecessary annoyance is still settling for an unnecessary annoyance, though. I believe that the true "annoyances" that balance breeding come from no egg/interest failures, while the refusal part is just a separate punch in the face.

 

I'd rather completely omit being punched in the face, and since I've still got those regular breeding annoyances to deal with, Schadenfreude can still rest easy.

 

(If it comes down to the two, I'd obviously prefer the lesser evil, yes)

This. I would rather see refusals done away with because why sacrifice a breeding for something that will still end in a possible refusal when we already have no egg/no interests. I mean if it cant be done away with completely then yeah Marionetta's option is better but all in all lets just be done with refusals and lets just get rid of them.

Edited by AnanoKimi

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I heavily support removing refusals entirely, but Marri's suggestion would be a nice compromise if we can't be rid of them.

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I do agree that I'd rather see the mechanic completely done away with, but compromises are definitely to be considered; the more options we have, the higher the chance of something being done about Refusals.

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I believe that refusals are kind of a "normal" part of the game and the dragon's life. They have thier right to not wanting to be with an specific mate. They don't like each other, they'd be miserable if you'd try to get them together.

Sometimes you don't like someone and that won't change no matter what that person did. Even if they saved your life, you still wouldn't see them as a future relationship.

 

However, I also know that there are this people we don't like at first but wins our heart with time.

If you want to end with refusals, I'd try for a BSA that needs to be done x amount of times to have effect on the dragon (kinda like winning the Magikarp badge)... Maybe. Yes. It might happen that after trying 10 times, de dragons still don't like each other. That's it, giving a little chance, a very little chance... Because in real life, with people, that's a very little chance too. And I even think that would be even harder for dragons, since they're not rational, but instinctive.

 

Yeah, there was the sand. Please don't throw me from a 15th floor.

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Dragons have been mentioned to have from the same level of intelligence to more than humans. Why couldn't we try to get them to rekindle a relationship? Have you ever had a beautiful lineage planned, just for the last pairing to refuse? I like the idea of "Re-familiarize" action.

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I heavily support removing refusals entirely, but Marri's suggestion would be a nice compromise if we can't be rid of them.

I MUCH prefer Marri's idea to completely doing away with refusals. While they really are a PIA at times, I think they are an interesting mechanic which makes us think a bit....

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Because in real life, with people, that's a very little chance too. And I even think that would be even harder for dragons, since they're not rational, but instinctive. Since dragon lore seems to place them anywhere from the level of intelligence of a dog to that of a human, I think Marrionetta's idea works very well.

More instinctual would make it more likely to work, not less likely. Instinct tells creatures to mate and reproduce. That's how we can do things like create purebred breeds of dogs and horses. They don't usually refuse the mate humans pick for them.

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I MUCH prefer Marri's idea to completely doing away with refusals. While they really are a PIA at times, I think they are an interesting mechanic which makes us think a bit....

But the thoughts that go through my head aren't fit for polite conversation, and honestly the only one that is runs the line of "why am I playing this censorkip.gif game?!!??" Not generally the object of a game mechanic. wink.gif

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I have to admit that refusals are the one thing I genuinely hate about the game. I lucked into an amazing female gold, a perfect heartseeker/gold checkerboard, and hunted really intensely during the Valentine event to get her a mate and get their future child a mate... only to have her refuse him. There's nothing I can do about that for, at minimum, a year... and that really puts a pall on the game. A refusal also ruined one of my pygmy/pumpkin checkerboards and it'll take me a few years to fix it. I will... unless all these refusals end up driving me away first.

 

And just sayin', I didn't come to the game for real life... kinda came to the game to get away from it... so the realism argument is meaningless as far as I'm concerned. I get plenty of that from my day job, thankyouverymuch.

 

I'm in favor of doing away with them altogether... but I'll settle for a way to reset if that's as much as we can get. Something to take the nasty aftertaste away. Disinterest and no egg are already annoying enough.

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More instinctual would make it more likely to work, not less likely. Instinct tells creatures to mate and reproduce. That's how we can do things like create purebred breeds of dogs and horses. They don't usually refuse the mate humans pick for them.

That's true.

That's why dragons doesn't refuse most of the pairings you give them

However, when an animal doesn't like something or someone, it doesn't like it and that's it. Trying to make them change their mind is almost impossible! (I've had a dog, a cat and a rabbit. I'm also familiarized with chickens, gooses and ducks! They're stubborn, every single one of them xd.png)

 

Btw, I mentioned the instinctive because earlier on the topic were discussions about their smartness. I believe some doesn't reach the human's intelligence and some goes beyond ours.

That's why I suggested something that had to be done several times before it works, like it was trying to win the other dragon's heart. That's it.

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That's true.

That's why dragons doesn't refuse most of the pairings you give them

However, when an animal doesn't like something or someone, it doesn't like it and that's it. Trying to make them change their mind is almost impossible! (I've had a dog, a cat and a rabbit. I'm also familiarized with chickens, gooses and ducks! They're stubborn, every single one of them xd.png)

That's debatable... I'm literally getting 1-2 refusals EVERY week lately. Considering that I only am starting up 1-4 new pairs a week, that is most of my dragons. It's quite ridiculous how bad it is. I've had to rebreed, retrade, or just give up on lines so darn many times, it's not even remotely amusing. In one month's time, I had a thunder refuse her prize mate, an ice refuse its lineaged mate, a purple refuse its mate, a magi refuse its valentine mate (meaning I'm going to have to wait two whole years to get the generation of vday that I otherwise could have gotten next Valentines, since I have to take a step back in generation and have my other pair produce the non-vday and this pair produce the vday while refusals are turned off), a silver refuse its mate, and a black refuse its gold mate. Those are just the ones I can remember because they were important or difficult enough to make me want to tear my hair out. That's 6 refusals in 4 weeks time, plus however many I forgot about already (I know there were some commons that, while frustrating, were not bad enough to make me remember them specifically).

 

As far as making animals change their mind, that's also debatable. As both a biologist and a former breeder of rabbits, chickens, quail, ducks, and dogs, if you know well how the biology and psychology of the species works, it's pretty surprising how many things you can get around, especially if you're talking about reproduction rather than just making two animals be friends for life. Really, these dragons DON'T mate for life. We can, at a whim, throw a different mate at them. They only have to tolerate each other long enough to lay an egg. They don't even take care of them! We raise them. Even if you go with DC lore, which basically says that we have to have a lot of dragons to help raise the offspring, the individual dragons that produced the egg don't necessarily have to work together to help raise it; it's a community thing. Many animals won't tolerate each other save for when it comes time to breed. You don't see (most) tarantulas living together to raise offspring, many birds and mammals raise offspring on their own, even many humans raise children on their own, sometimes by choice. Reproduction and love/friendship aren't the same things.

Edited by harlequinraven

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I'd like to reiterate that dragons are creatures with nearly infinite lifespans, and likely change a lot over the courses of their lives. Permanently refusing to go near another dragon is rather silly, as a dragon will likely become more mature and grow as it ages. In addition to that, I'd like to again point out that, even though refusals are slightly realistic--not highly realistic, though, for the reasons just stated--there is a reason for distinction between lore and actual gameplay. Look at the scrolls that have thousands of dragons, for example, or really, any scroll that has more than a handful of adults. TJ has stated that, if Valkemare was real, dragonkeepers would not have nearly as many dragons as we can raise in the game, but that there is a need for separation of gameplay and lore to keep the game interesting and fun--otherewise, there would be nothing to do. Refusals are outdated, being from before lineages were a part of the game, and really should be done away with or tweaked to become less game-breaking.

Edited by PieMaster

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^^^ It could not be stated any better...thank you for expressing how so many of we DC players feel.

Edited by bigbite100

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