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Who keeps breeding one egg to abandon? Massbreed

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I'd like to point out that not being able to influence an AP egg is not a deal-breaker for everyone. I acknowledge that some people may be put off AP-catching by such low times, but that's true for pretty much any AP scenario. There are still people hunting that don't care about lineages or see the opportunity to turn a rather plain lineage into something unique with wrong-gendered dragons. 

 

Ideally it seems like there should be an effort to not have *too* many people mass-breeding at the same time, but that's pretty much impossible as things stand unless *everyone* just stops mass-breeding, since it's impossible to know for certain if mass-breeds have actually happened around the same time you want to breed. 

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On the bright side, a number of us just bred our Siyats (though most of us don't have many) because if they happen to hit while times are still low it's easy blues and purples.

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3 hours ago, Tinibree said:

I would just like to point out they're not just to push the ap time down, they're also to help with ratios. It took me more than 30 breedings to get a dorsal from leodon, and that was only after someone was kind enough to breed a few hundred leodon for me just before that weeks attempt. Most of the walls have been from other breeds that do the same thing.

 

But couldn't part of the problem with the ratios be a result of breed fatigue? Seeing row upon endless row of certain breeds, especially blacktip and celestial, in the AP on a frequent basis has honestly put me off collecting those dragons or even breeding my own. I don't even bother picking them up anymore to check out their lineages, because my expectation has become that they will be messy and useless to me. I'd really rather not feel that way about perfectly nice breeds of dragon, but it's getting hard not to roll my eyes at some breeds when I see them in the AP. And my default expectation when I see a wall of one breed of eggs is that none of them are going to have lineages worth spending time checking.

 

Last week, there was a brief period when I didn't have any specific breeding or collecting plans of my own, and my housemate was bored, so we actually were picking them up -- to hatch and chuck back into the AP as fast as we could in an attempt to get something we actually wanted to appear in the AP -- but mass breeding puts a lot of onus on non-participants to play along with it.  The excitement of successfully getting a dorsal out of a dorsal/leodon pairing has probably been countered dozens of times over by other players' disappointment at not being able to find anything they want, whatsoever, in the AP while they have open scroll-slots, or finding a perfectly-lineaged mate for a specific dragon only to realize that it's going to gender wrong and there's nothing they can do about it.

 

3 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

I'd like to point out that not being able to influence an AP egg is not a deal-breaker for everyone. I acknowledge that some people may be put off AP-catching by such low times, but that's true for pretty much any AP scenario. There are still people hunting that don't care about lineages or see the opportunity to turn a rather plain lineage into something unique with wrong-gendered dragons. 

 

Maybe it's not a deal-breaker for everyone, but it's been a deal-breaker for enough players that the AP has been below 3 days for nearly a week now. Maybe that wouldn't be true if there hadn't been a new release during that time, but it still points to the fact that mass-breeding is a game play technique that implicitly requires enough other players who are willing to clean up the messes it generates. And at the very least, this time there haven't been. 

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8 hours ago, Keileon said:

 

Also, big massbreeds take time and effort to set up and it's very very unlikely that one person will do it "for weeks on end". This was a multi-person massbreed that was actually coordinated and planned ahead of time.

 

I'm honestly amazed the AP times are still so low and haven't really gained much ground for so long, even accounting for the new release smack in the middle of the "megawall." I'd been planning to breed my CB blacktips last weekend (fewer eggs, all clean PB 2G lineages, thus less obnoxious/shorter wall), but decided to hold off given the AP times. I cannot even begin to fathom the volume of eggs people bred and must still be breeding to keep knocking the time down. 😮 Usually the times rocket right back up after walls clear/new release mania subsides/etc, it's gotta take a ridiculous amount of eggs to counter that low-time rocket boost for this long.

 

And just to add to this as a massbreeder, a full blacktip army massbreed (including corporealizing the celestials) takes me a grand total of at least 8 hours, usually closer to 10 and if the site is being really laggy as many as 12. I'm already butting up against the upper limits of what a single massbreeder can realistically accomplish, even with breaking the work up over 2-3 days. (Generally set the celestials up the day or so before breeding, so the massbreed itself "only" takes 6-8 hours.) One-man walls are inherently self-limiting because of that time sink, and ultimately self-defeating in the long-term because the ratios start to shift. (Rather clearly shown in my massbreed stats as the ratio of blacktips to celestials is steadily turning in favor of the celestials. Couple years ago, only about 1/4 of the eggs produced by a massbreed were celestials, and 3/4 blacktips. Nowadays it's closer to 1/3 celestials, and heading toward an even 50/50 split.)

 

If these un-influencable times continue to persist or become more frequent though, think we'd have a case to argue over in Suggestions that maybe the influence time limit should be removed. Seems to me that would be the solution that doesn't impinge on breeding while also resolving the issue a lot of folks have with the super low AP times and not being able to influence desirable lineages.

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2 hours ago, Ardath Rekha said:

 

But couldn't part of the problem with the ratios be a result of breed fatigue? Seeing row upon endless row of certain breeds, especially blacktip and celestial, in the AP on a frequent basis has honestly put me off collecting those dragons or even breeding my own. I don't even bother picking them up anymore to check out their lineages, because my expectation has become that they will be messy and useless to me. I'd really rather not feel that way about perfectly nice breeds of dragon, but it's getting hard not to roll my eyes at some breeds when I see them in the AP. And my default expectation when I see a wall of one breed of eggs is that none of them are going to have lineages worth spending time checking.

That's not really how the ratios work. Regardless of the lineage, eggs will eventually be picked up, and they will count towards the population ratios. Massbreeds help skew the ratios for that reason, walling common breeds to make them less common. As seen with Amahira's massbreeds and the stats she keeps on them, this is proven to work. The fact that we need massbreeds to skew the ratios in the first place means that the underlying system is as much the problem as player actions.

Edited by Keileon

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2 hours ago, Firefury Amahira said:

If these un-influencable times continue to persist or become more frequent though, think we'd have a case to argue over in Suggestions that maybe the influence time limit should be removed. Seems to me that would be the solution that doesn't impinge on breeding while also resolving the issue a lot of folks have with the super low AP times and not being able to influence desirable lineages.

While narratively making some sense (with a supposedly "too far developed creature inside the egg"), that evil time limit has been nothing but hurtful - I don't think it's ever done ANY good.

At the very least, it should be changed to say "cannot be done when below x days and already x times cracked" (aka developed).

 

I've been using some of my eggslots to hatch AP things, but really ... I'm tired of it.

The only options to get rid of all the extra hatchlings (because of constant HATCHLOCK!) are

- freeze (limited slots)

- re-abandon (they'll grow up wild right now)

- gift in departures (limited Magis)

- trade? Mhuahaha - nope. With so many instant-hatchies easily available, nobody WANTS them anymore, no matter if lineaged or CB

None of those options are really appealing anymore.

 

Tiny break? Only breed pairs where there's a tiny chance you *might* keep the outcome?

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The abandoned page is just that, abandoned eggs/hatchlings; it's not the cave and it's not a guarantee of finding 'nice' stuff either. If you (general 'you') want to make sure your own dragons' offspring doesn't grow up wild or misgender then gift instead of abandoning, and as for other people's lineages going to "waste" that's not up to you really. I don't care what happens with my auto'd eggs so I'll keep breeding my Xenos for example, either someone picks them up and likes them or not, no harm either way. There are more things to do in the game if the current wall is not to your liking, but personally I find that even when the AP is kind of monochrome it's fun to snag the random things that pop up in between (especially alt lotteries).

 

However I do agree the limited freeze slots can be an issue, and never understood why Influence has a time limit anyway in terms of game design.

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There will be always two sides ( teams, kind of people, what ever you understand it ) of like and don't like AP times under 3d ( generally because of no influence and incubate, some people like ND experimenting whit AP eggs ). Personally i do not like this times, between 4d and 3d is fine, but not be able to influence when i grab pretty checker, or other kind of pretty line, is killing me. Influence and incubate, limited to some time, is no help, more like harm. 

40 minutes ago, Ruby Eyes said:

 

The only options to get rid of all the extra hatchlings (because of constant HATCHLOCK!) are

- freeze (limited slots)

- re-abandon (they'll grow up wild right now)

- gift in departures (limited Magis)

- trade? Mhuahaha - nope. With so many instant-hatchies easily available, nobody WANTS them anymore, no matter if lineaged or CB

None of those options are really appealing anymore.

 

I am totally agree whit this.

The way i do it is keeping 3-4 slots for wall cleaning, grab,hatch and abound to the wildness. Some people may not like their offspring to be Wild dragons, but this is only a consequence of their mass breed, and walls making. Gifting the hatchlings do not work anymore ( i have like infinity teleports, so Magi limits is no problem to me ), no one adopt them ( most of the people are out of freezing slots ).  

So i will ask again, as polite as i can, please stop mass breed, and making walls, let;s slow down a bit. AP times under 3 for 1 mount or may be 2 won't be fun. 

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The problem with dragons going to the wilderness, as far as I know,  wilderness dragons do NOT count for ratios.  If the idea is to help ratios the ones who run to the wilderness are not helping and are counterproductive.

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I wish there was a mechanism that would help remove persistently unwanted eggs from the AP. That is, eggs that have been picked up numerous times and tossed back because nobody actually wanted them. Possible mechanisms could include:

 

After X returns to the AP (say, 20?), the egg experiences a random possible alteration, somewhat akin to being earthquaked. For example, a ratio of some of the following possibilities:

  • 10% chance that it transforms into a Neglected.
  • 10% chance that it stays as is, but becomes a "freebie" that doesn't take up an egg/hatchie slot on the scroll of the person who keeps it, or can be frozen without taking up a freeze slot.
  • 10% chance that it is stripped of its lineage and becomes functionally a CB (probably more attractive) with maybe some kind of annotation that it originated in the AP (as opposed to a biome or the Marketplace)
  • 10% chance that it turns into a frozen egg/hatchie that, when picked up, simply stays in its egg form permanently and takes up no egg/hatchie slots and uses no freeze slots (and can be released to the Wilderness if the person who catches it in this form doesn't want it).
  • 10% chance that it dies and goes to the Graveyard.
  • 10% chance that it lives but gets shunted to the Wilderness.
  • 40% chance that it remains unchanged.

And every 10 or 20 abandonments after that, the lottery repeats. Actual holiday eggs would be exempt, since those tend to get handled a lot for different reasons.

 


Alternatively, at least let us see which eggs we've already handled in the AP. Right now, there's no way to tell which eggs we've already picked up and discarded. My housemate and I used to be able to use a browser mod that would allow us to see, but that stopped working after TJ added the /xyzpdq1 tag (which I guess is to prevent people from stalking a specific egg without actually seeing it in the AP?) after the egg's IP address. If I pick up and discard an egg, and then look at several other eggs (or several other people look at that egg) my inability to pick up the egg again wears off and I find myself looking at the same lineage I already rejected, all over again. That's part of why the walls are such a turn-off for me, because I know that I'm very likely to find myself rejecting the same egg over and over while trying to find something I can actually use in the pile. Being able to consistently avoid the eggs I already looked at and rejected would make hunting through a monochrome wall a lot less unattractive.
 

 

We've had other kinds of "walls" in the Cave's history, with other solutions implemented. When you could actually tell which eggs were Alt blacks and Alt vines, there was a period of time when users were breeding their blacks constantly and dumping all of the regulars into the AP. Lots of users complained about that. Some users, my housemate included, started assembling "hatchling armies" of unwanted blacks and vines in response, since there was no limit to freezing back then. Then TJ made the egg forms for the alts indistinguishable from the regulars, and almost overnight, the AP went from a wall of black and vine eggs to a much more colorful setup. Soon after, the ability to easily make hatchling armies was lost because freeze limits were introduced. There was a time when too many eggs in the AP would shut down the ability to get anything from the Cave itself -- "cave blockers," we called those walls. Users complained bitterly about that, and now egg floods in the AP don't result in the Cave being blocked. That's why doing a mass-breed only results in some complaints now, instead of having the whole Cave out to get you. There was a time when tossing an egg back into the AP added a day to its countdown, so a formerly low-time egg could suddenly be influenceable again, and a group of players kept handing back and forth one particular egg to see how long they could keep it from hatching. That went away, to the relief of some users and the disappointment of others (especially those involved in passing the egg back and forth).

 

There have been a number of game functions that got turned off, as well, because they were being abused. For a hot minute, it was possible to catch wild-bred eggs and hatchies in the Wilderness before TJ switched that off (sadly, I only heard about that being possible when people started complaining that they could no longer do it). Freezing used to be unlimited, and while it did go away when some other changes were implemented, I also remember a whole lot of griping from people who objected to frozen hatchling armies shortly before that change was made, especially because many no longer considered them "necessary" once the floods of black and vine eggs subsided. Kill slots used to be very different, too... you had a lifetime limit of 5 and then your scroll would BURN... until people convinced TJ that collecting zombies was important enough to them that he ease up on that. 

 

So here's the thing... if it keeps being a problem, and becomes a big enough one for enough players that something has to be changed... the solution may be one you think is awesome, or it may not be one that you like at all. Maybe hitting a little bit more moderation wouldn't be amiss? I mean, no, the AP isn't a place that I can just expect to find amazing things just waiting for me... but in that case, why is it any better for someone else to treat it as their personal junkyard?

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54 minutes ago, Ardath Rekha said:

 

 

After X returns to the AP (say, 20?), the egg experiences a random possible alteration, somewhat akin to being earthquaked. For example, a ratio of some of the following possibilities:

  • 10% chance that it transforms into a Neglected.
  • 10% chance that it stays as is, but becomes a "freebie" that doesn't take up an egg/hatchie slot on the scroll of the person who keeps it, or can be frozen without taking up a freeze slot.
  • 10% chance that it is stripped of its lineage and becomes functionally a CB (probably more attractive) with maybe some kind of annotation that it originated in the AP (as opposed to a biome or the Marketplace)
  • 10% chance that it turns into a frozen egg/hatchie that, when picked up, simply stays in its egg form permanently and takes up no egg/hatchie slots and uses no freeze slots (and can be released to the Wilderness if the person who catches it in this form doesn't want it).
  • 10% chance that it dies and goes to the Graveyard.
  • 10% chance that it lives but gets shunted to the Wilderness.
  • 40% chance that it remains unchanged.

 

Very good idea! I think you have to take this to the suggestion section!

Totally agree that AP must not me someones junkyard. You have my admiration for the long post, ideas, and everything else you say including compering to old times, and different way of solutions whit this kind of problem in the past.  

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2 hours ago, Ardath Rekha said:

Alternatively, at least let us see which eggs we've already handled in the AP.

Has been shot down:

  

2 hours ago, Ardath Rekha said:

If I pick up and discard an egg, and then look at several other eggs (or several other people look at that egg) my inability to pick up the egg again wears off

Has nothing to do with what you do in the meantime. If you're able to pick up the same egg again, the egg has gone through somebody else's hands since you last dropped it.

 

2 hours ago, Ardath Rekha said:

10% chance that it is stripped of its lineage and becomes functionally a CB (probably more attractive) with maybe some kind of annotation that it originated in the AP (as opposed to a biome or the Marketplace)

Personally, I like this option the most. It also makes the most sense - after all, "lineage" is only what the humans keep track of! But how is that tracking still attached to something that has been carelessly dropped somewhere? After being handled X times, that sheet of paper or whatever is attached to that egg MUST have become unreadable! Probably long crumbled to dust!

Edited by Ruby Eyes

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1 hour ago, Ruby Eyes said:

Has been shot down:

  

I find that answer absolutely laughable. The only reason we can't see which links we've already followed, right now, is because when TJ added an identifier code to the links, he used a / function rather than a ? function. If he'd used a ? function, anyone who cared could use a very simple CSS override to make followed vs. unfollowed links display differently. He chose to confound us. And now argues that it would be too much work to "customize" something that would normally be extremely easy to do. 

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Why would he want to give a few technically skilled users any advantage over everyone else?

 

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1 minute ago, Ruby Eyes said:

Why would he want to give a few technically skilled users any advantage over everyone else?

 

I agree that it wouldn't be an even playing field. But it would also be easy at that point for him to roll out the feature sitewide and/or make it optional.

 

Originally, to pick up an egg, you just needed a simple address: dragcavesite/get/eggcode -- people traded those back and forth to facilitate trades, back when the only way to trade was to toss an egg into the AP and hope that the person who you were trying to give it to used the link before anyone watching the AP could click on it. Since the different part of the link was at the very end, browsers instantly recognized when a link had already been followed or not. All anyone would have to do is block DC's CSS from displaying (losing all the pretty formatting in the process, of course) to see which links they'd already followed. But now that the address is dragcavesite/abandoned/eggcode/identifier browsers treat the /identifier level as the "unique" element (and it keeps changing) rather than recognizing which /eggcode/ you've already looked at. If TJ had configured it as dragcavesite/abandoned/eggcode?identifier=##, the basic address would have been unique to each dragon, and suppressing the CSS (or adding a distinctive look to already-visited eggs IN the CSS) would have had the same effect as before. In point of fact, a technically skilled user COULD write a browser plugin that identifies visited links based on the /eggcode/ level and overrides the CSS in order to make that visible. For all I know, someone has already done it  and is taking advantage of that capability right now, so in a way, TJ probably HAS unintentionally given a few technically skilled users an advantage that the rest of us don't have.

 

All TJ would have to do is reconfigure the links from dragcavesite/abandoned/eggcode/identifier to dragcavesite/abandoned/eggcode?identifier=### and create an alternative, opt-in (or opt-out) stylesheet that highlights already-clicked-on eggs in the AP, to give users the option of choosing to be able to tell which eggs they've already looked at. It's the exact opposite of "difficult -- if not unfeasible."

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Not to break up the dialogue that is going on right now, but I think someone had mentioned that many/some users don't care about the gender of an offspring. I'm not one to make/collect pretty lineages so my unhappiness with eggs being uninfluencable is due to being unable to ensure I obtain the male/female specific forms. I haven't played in about five years so I've been trying to collect all the dragons I missed in the meantime. I like the AP page because it's like treasure hunting, and I don't mind hunting for eggs that pop up in between the walls, that's part of the fun to me. If the walls get super annoying, I just log back in later. The AP is a good way for me to find hybrids I can't breed (maybe I'm missing a parent or my dragons refuse to make babies), potentially more uncommon or even rare dragons etc. It just gets frustrating when I see an egg in the AP that I need a male of, it's time is <3, and it's pretty uncommon in the cave. I end up having to stalk the cave for it like the AP doesn't even exist. I still don't play super seriously, so it's more irksome than anything to me and I'm sure there are quite a few people in my boat. I don't have a problem with the walls, I'd rather the limit on influencing disappear. Maybe there'd be less abandoned dragons hanging around. 

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*pokes Albino wall* If you be Stone I'd break you, wall.

I'd been adopting like crazy but I'm nearing my hatchling limit...

 

Does anyone have an idea whether there's still more walls to come from pre- or during-release massbreeds? Or are we nearing a return to normal now?

 

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Well, the AP eggs aren't influenceable ... again. *sigh* I'm just taking three at a time, plugging them into a hatchery, and tossing them back after a cursory look at the lineage. 

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On 8/28/2020 at 1:33 PM, Ardath Rekha said:

I find that answer absolutely laughable. The only reason we can't see which links we've already followed, right now, is because when TJ added an identifier code to the links, he used a / function rather than a ? function. If he'd used a ? function, anyone who cared could use a very simple CSS override to make followed vs. unfollowed links display differently. He chose to confound us. And now argues that it would be too much work to "customize" something that would normally be extremely easy to do. 

 

I have no doubt that he used the / function deliberately to make sure it couldn't be overridden by tech whizzes. And he has always said that we all need to be seeing the same thing in the AP. If a user were to use a SCSS override, it would be a breach of the TOS anyway.

 

 

Quote

 

Cheating

You agree that you will not attempt to "cheat" or bypass any site restrictions in any way. Cheating includes, but is not limited to:

  • Attempts to force or trick users to click your eggs, hatchlings, or dragons without their consent.
  • Abuse of any unintended behaviors in the site’s code.
  • Using browser addons, scripts, or other tools that modify pages on the site in order to give users of said addons an advantage over other users.

 

 

 

 

On 8/28/2020 at 1:37 PM, Ruby Eyes said:

Why would he want to give a few technically skilled users any advantage over everyone else?

 

Right on.

 

On 8/28/2020 at 11:16 AM, Ardath Rekha said:
  • 10% chance that it is stripped of its lineage and becomes functionally a CB (probably more attractive) with maybe some kind of annotation that it originated in the AP (as opposed to a biome or the Marketplace)

 

No thanks - just look at the great lineages found in the AP thread to see why not. I quite often breed pretty things for others to find. And I quite often find lines that inspire me to continue.

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2 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

I have no doubt that he used the / function deliberately to make sure it couldn't be overridden by tech whizzes. And he has always said that we all need to be seeing the same thing in the AP. If a user were to use a SCSS override, it would be a breach of the TOS anyway.

And that makes perfect sense, although that's a policy decision rather than a programming impossibility. My only question, as someone who has dabbled in PHP coding and knew it was not merely possible but easy to accommodate the request, was why it was presented as "we can't do it" and not simply "we don't want the game to work that way." *shrug*

 

2 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

No thanks - just look at the great lineages found in the AP thread to see why not. I quite often breed pretty things for others to find. And I quite often find lines that inspire me to continue.

This wasn't about the cool lineages, though. This was about eggs that are picked up and tossed back to the AP over and over again because nobody's finding them attractive. When there's a wall of messies that nobody is willing to take up, it would be nice if something could happen to eggs that have been repeatedly rejected to make them more attractive to spend a scroll-slot on.

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27 minutes ago, Ardath Rekha said:

This wasn't about the cool lineages, though. This was about eggs that are picked up and tossed back to the AP over and over again because nobody's finding them attractive. When there's a wall of messies that nobody is willing to take up, it would be nice if something could happen to eggs that have been repeatedly rejected to make them more attractive to spend a scroll-slot on.

 

But you can't make it just about messy lineages - you'd lose them all that way. And there are lots of people here who deliberately collect messies - the messier the better. @HeatherMarie where are you ? :lol:  YOU don't want them. Others might. It's another case of some people wanting the game to fit their playstyle at the expense of other people. The AP display changes suggested in that other thread are a more inclusive way to go..

Edited by Fuzzbucket

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And so we kind of come back full-circle. Inclusive or not, we're apparently not going to get the display changes. And when someone, or a group of someones, decides to breed two thousand ultra-commons that are unwanted enough that it takes several days to clear them off, and clearing them depends on uninvolved users contributing scroll and freeze slots that they might have had other plans for... then what? Inclusive is an interesting word to bring up because mass-breeds feel like exactly the opposite.

1 hour ago, Fuzzbucket said:

YOU don't want them. Others might. It's another case of some people wanting the game to fit their playstyle at the expense of other people.

And mass-breeds have become a prime example of a small number of people's playing style coming at the expense of everyone else. QED.

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We don 't know that we won't get the display changes. TJ seemed very amenable.

 

 

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53 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

We don 't know that we won't get the display changes. TJ seemed very amenable.

 

 

Ah, you were talking about different display changes than I thought you were referring to. It took some hunting around in those topics to figure out which ones you meant. So the pagination/splitting/filtering ideas are currently looking the most feasible, sounds like? It's good to know that something will probably be done, at least.

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