ANSWERED:Distributing New Prizes/Special/Limited Dragons

[KuroYukia]

I do think that there should be a limit for special types, such as prizes and cb hybrids (buy once or whatever limit, and its removed from the list of things you can get) as well as the already existing limits for cb holidays.

 

 

I don't like your suggestion for that one Quote I kept.

 

That and the shadowed part if the ratio is off, it would be a pain to always be refreshing unless theres a limit for how many an account could win. Though multiaccounters would be in abundance over that detail as well.

 

I don't like using real money, I'm unemployed and living with a parent who is on a fixed income. If anything Points should be free and earned ingame only.

[Moltres]

I honestly feel that a raffle is the most fair route. As, everyone has an equal chance..for the most part. I guess I see the unfairness in it too. At least with the contests, where some people had no chance because perhaps they were not as "artistic" (gingerbread house decorating, which I loved that)

 

But I think an actual raffle is quite fair. I've honestly always hated, with a passion, that people use that "putting effort into it". What about the people that -can't- "put the effort" in? The ones that have school or full time jobs or other such busy schedule? Who cannot sit there most of a day and play, for example, alchemy...or do not have the privilege of sneaking on their tablet/phone/whatever to play?

What about those people that have some sort of disability that prevent them from "getting" the game. Alchemy was not that hard, no..but I'm sure there are people out there that might not have gotten it or were just bad at it.

What about those people? Is it really right or fair to say that "oh well, that just means they didn't put in the effort and/or "didn't really want it bad enough"?"

 

In the past, across the internet..I've actually been brought to tears for people being down right nasty and mean about saying I didn't put effort into something, so I was not deserving...simply because I COULDN'T! Work, lack of good internet, restriction of computer usage.

 

I play on a site where, there are a lot of contests and such....and most all of them require art of some kind, and usually the people who win are those who are talented as hell at it. To people who have no artistic ability, or are not that good at it..or who don't have wonderful tablets or digital paint programs or such..or IRL means to be artistic, it's demeaning. It's disheartening. "OH, well..there goes my shot at yet another contest...can't draw/not artistic" (apparently they just didn't put in enough EFFORT, right?)

I love the site, but I hate that aspect of it. It seems geared toward people who are artsy, or perhaps even have the IRL/in game money to blow on these things.....

 

It's not a completely bad idea, but I feel a raffle is the most fair. At least a person knows that if they have a few simple things to do to get a ticket, that wouldn't require them to sit there all day...it's easier to work out if they are limited.

Last I checked, wasn't the tree and gingerbread house decorating things similar kind of to what's being suggested here? They weren't necessarily games, but they were competitive activities where the best won.

[Rally Vincent]

Wasn't this suggestion made to make it possbile for players to get special dragons

 

- without having to compete against other players

- without the random oddities of a raffle?

 

How come that this is now discussed as a competition and the prizes being chosen via a random drawing? Basically, this is built on the same elements that you guys wanted to avoid. Won't this will just cause the same 'problems' as the raffle itself?

 

Why not reduce it to a weekly raffle in the first place, then? Sometimes I don't understand this forum at all.

Edited January 12, 2015 by Rally Vincent

[Fiona]

Um, yes. That. (not trade-able)

 

AnanoKimi's point about not being able to just play the game all day and earn tons of points is good too. Perhaps if point system, there would be a daily cap on points you could earn. Then what prizes would be "buyable" with those points could be calculated using that cap.

 

so if a tinsel is the prize you want and the daily cap is set so that even if you meet that cap each day it would still take you most of a year to earn that many points. But points never expire so even if you don't hit the daily cap each day you could still win a tinsel, it would just take longer.

 

And I think I like TJ's cap of maybe two of each cb prize, and it's randomized which you get.

 

My only issue with the play for top or bottom scores and the winners are randomly chosen from those

is some of us aren't all that good at those kinds of games. It would be endlessly frustrating to always be playing and never getting scores good enough to be in the top X.

 

KuroYukia, Thuban wasn't suggesting buying with real money. What she's suggesting is an in-game points system. Earn points playing the game(s) and "buy" your reward with those points. I haven't seen anyone supporting a system of buying anything with real money. I know I'd be completely opposed to that too.

 

ETA: you guys need to not post so fast. My points get lost as they're not right after the post I was referring to.

Edited January 12, 2015 by Fiona BlueFire

[AnanoKimi]

I honestly feel that a raffle is the most fair route. As, everyone has an equal chance..for the most part. I guess I see the unfairness in it too. At least with the contests, where some people had no chance because perhaps they were not as "artistic" (gingerbread house decorating, which I loved that)

 

But I think an actual raffle is quite fair. I've honestly always hated, with a passion, that people use that "putting effort into it". What about the people that -can't- "put the effort" in? The ones that have school or full time jobs or other such busy schedule? Who cannot sit there most of a day and play, for example, alchemy...or do not have the privilege of sneaking on their tablet/phone/whatever to play?

What about those people that have some sort of disability that prevent them from "getting" the game. Alchemy was not that hard, no..but I'm sure there are people out there that might not have gotten it or were just bad at it.

What about those people? Is it really right or fair to say that "oh well, that just means they didn't put in the effort and/or "didn't really want it bad enough"?"

 

In the past, across the internet..I've actually been brought to tears for people being down right nasty and mean about saying I didn't put effort into something, so I was not deserving...simply because I COULDN'T! Work, lack of good internet, restriction of computer usage.

 

I play on a site where, there are a lot of contests and such....and most all of them require art of some kind, and usually the people who win are those who are talented as hell at it. To people who have no artistic ability, or are not that good at it..or who don't have wonderful tablets or digital paint programs or such..or IRL means to be artistic, it's demeaning. It's disheartening. "OH, well..there goes my shot at yet another contest...can't draw/not artistic" (apparently they just didn't put in enough EFFORT, right?)

I love the site, but I hate that aspect of it. It seems geared toward people who are artsy, or perhaps even have the IRL/in game money to blow on these things.....

 

It's not a completely bad idea, but I feel a raffle is the most fair. At least a person knows that if they have a few simple things to do to get a ticket, that wouldn't require them to sit there all day...it's easier to work out if they are limited.

Last I checked, wasn't the tree and gingerbread house decorating things similar kind of to what's being suggested here? They weren't necessarily games, but they were competitive activities where the best won.

Its for this reason that I would really prefer to see something like what we did this christmas where we played a game to fill a quota and once the quota was met we could sit back and not worry. Filling a week quota for a random drawing to win something over compete over scores or sitting for hours at a time to accumulate enough points to 'buy' a prize is much better. Buying rares and exclusives through points only makes them easier to obtain by people with rediculous amount of time. Its not fair to people with little to no time or disabilities. Disabilities might prevent someone from being constantly on a computer to play a game regardless of the amount of free time the disabled person may have.

 

I would like to see a mini monthly or weekly raffle. Equal chance for everyone participating, no having to scramble over other scores or sit endlessly at your computer racking up points to buy anything. Simple, straight forward, still fun, and fair.

[_Sin_]

Wasn't this suggestion made to make it possbile for mplayers to get special dragons

 

- without having to compete against other players

- without the random oddities of a raffle?

 

How come that this is now discussed as a competition and the prizes being chosen via a random drawing? Basically, this is built on the same elements that you guys wanted to avoid. Won't this will just cause the same 'problems' as the raffle itself?

 

Why not reduce it to a weekly raffle in the first place, then? Sometimes I don't understand this forum at all.

Yes, that what the suggestion was for. Personally, after reading posts after posts about all the issues relative to the raffle, the intention was to focus on a different mechanism. I'm not sure why to multiply the raffle-related issues for 12 or 52 would make them any better. Anyway the suggestion didn't ask for removing any other mechanism, it was not "instead of".

 

@Anano - While I don't agree with your proposal, I would suggest that you start a thread about weekly or monthly raffles. I've no idea of the effort needed on TJ's side but I suspect wouldn't be indifferent. Anyway that thread would be useful to gather input.

Edited January 12, 2015 by _Sin_

[stagazer_7]

I kind of like the idea of a simple mini game through which you'd collect points you could use to 'buy' a dragon of your choice, but I don't really like the idea of a raffle after collecting xxx amount of points. Why not have a little game store where you could get your dragon - for example, you collect 100 points, the price for a CB Tsunami, you free up an egg slot, go to the store and click on the egg you wish to collect - CB Tsunami. Egg appears on your scroll and that's that, no competition, no taking random chances in a raffle, easy and simple - how many points you collect depends solely on how much time you invest in playing.

 

Also a firm and absolute no to any real money involved in this whatsoever.

Edited January 12, 2015 by stagazer_7

[Thuban]

I don't like your suggestion for that one Quote I kept.

 

That and the shadowed part if the ratio is off, it would be a pain to always be refreshing unless theres a limit for how many an account could win. Though multiaccounters would be in abundance over that detail as well.

 

I don't like using real money, I'm unemployed and living with a parent who is on a fixed income. If anything Points should be free and earned ingame only.

My comment there wasn't about using real money. I made a separate thread to better explain the concept of what I was saying there. It takes the idea of using mini games from this post to earn points that can be saved up to buy stuff.

 

That thread is slowly being updated (as there are discussions happening in multiple locations at once about it) but, if you pick through it, you'll see that Im hesitant on adding prizes to that, but if prizes are added, I want them to be expensive and limited to 1 or two of each sprite "purchased". Previous Prize winners would still be allowed to purchase the full limit that anyone else is (so they could have three instead of two of whatever sprite they won originally) which keeps them special. Honestly, I gotta wait and see what happens with this years raffle though, before I decide how I would deal with them, IF they were to be added.

 

 

You are right about the shadowed thing. I think if they cant be bought at the time, they should be removed

[_Sin_]

I kind of like the idea of a simple mini game through which you'd collect points you could use to 'buy' a dragon of your choice, but I don't really like the idea of a raffle after collecting xxx amount of points. Why not have a little game store where you could get your dragon - for example, you collect 100 points, the price for a CB Tsunami, you free up an egg slot, go to the store and click on the egg you wish to collect - CB Tsunami. Egg appears on your scroll and that's that, no competition, no taking random chances in a raffle, easy and simple - how many points you collect depends solely on how much time you invest in playing.

 

Also a firm and absolute no to any real money involved in this whatsoever.

Agreed. Honestly I've no idea where the raffle part came from, that's not what the suggestion is about. I like the idea of the store as well and I'm all for Thuban's suggestion. I'm pretty sure she didn't mean using any real money, just points.

[stagazer_7]

I believe that having a store is the simplest way - collect points, earn enough for a specific dragon, buy the dragon, repeat. Simple and fun.

Edited January 12, 2015 by stagazer_7

[Vhale]

I personally don't want to see Dragon Cave cluttered with useless timesinks. I played MMOs for 15 years. I'm pretty good at gaming. But I also appreciate that there are people that are good at gaming that can, and will, spend 12-14 hours a day farming a system. Or writing a script to do it. And I hate daily quests.

/hellno

[TJ09]

Wasn't this suggestion made to make it possbile for mplayers to get special dragons

 

- without having to compete against other players

- without the random oddities of a raffle?

 

How come that this is now discussed as a competition and the prizes being chosen via a random drawing? Basically, this is built on the same elements that you guys wanted to avoid. Won't this will just cause the same 'problems' as the raffle itself?

 

Why not reduce it to a weekly raffle in the first place, then? Sometimes I don't understand this forum at all.

I think it's mostly "without having to compete against a random dice roll" that was the issue. The raffle isn't really "competing with other users" in any way.

 

My thinking is that getting rare/exclusive/whatever dragons through any sort of minigame should be hard. One way to do that is to actually make whatever game it is hard. But that makes things really involved, and probably time-consuming. Using a high score system artificially inflates the overall difficulty, such that the minigame can be less difficult to complete.

[TJ09]

I personally don't want to see Dragon Cave cluttered with useless timesinks. I played MMOs for 15 years. I'm pretty good at gaming. But I also appreciate that there are people that are good at gaming that can, and will, spend 12-14 hours a day farming a system. Or writing a script to do it. And I hate daily quests.

/hellno

You're making assumptions.

 

I don't think there was ever any chance of ending up with a system where farming it for 12 hours will yield linearly more reward than one hour.

[cyradis4]

Thuban's idea of a store is a lot closer to what I was envisioning with something like this, anyway.

 

However, I don't see why we couldn't do both? Have the store for people who collect points.... Then have Prizes awarded based on the high scores/ x number from top y scores.

 

Same scroll limits as what you'd get from the store, it'd just be a way to short-cut getting said store dragons.

 

Or perhaps instead of winning dragons directly... You win store points?

 

Cheers!

C4.

[stagazer_7]

I personally don't want to see Dragon Cave cluttered with useless timesinks. I played MMOs for 15 years. I'm pretty good at gaming. But I also appreciate that there are people that are good at gaming that can, and will, spend 12-14 hours a day farming a system. Or writing a script to do it. And I hate daily quests.

/hellno

I completely agree with you on daily quests, I don't like them either as there are days you simply cannot get online. But an optional minigame you can choose to play if you have time (or not if you don't feel like it) and happen to also get points with which you could get that one dragon you're having trouble catching? I don't see why not as long as there is no time limit in which you have to spend points you earn. Points you ears should stay until you choose to spend them - in my opinion, these are just theories in my head.

 

And there will definitely be those that will farm the system - or try to, but it's their time they're spending, other players would not really be affected by this.

Edited January 12, 2015 by stagazer_7

[Rally Vincent]

I think it's mostly "without having to compete against a random dice roll" that was the issue. The raffle isn't really "competing with other users" in any way.

From what I got, the suggestion was so that people with slower connections/reflexes would not have to compete in the cave. That's why it baffles me that they now shall compete in the mini game for a score.

 

Or was that another of the five threads that are around just now?

Edited January 12, 2015 by Rally Vincent

[stagazer_7]

I don't think there was ever any chance of ending up with a system where farming it for 12 hours will yield linearly more reward than one hour.

Maybe I'm the only one, but I don't really see the issue with farming. If someone chooses to invest 12h of their time on this minigame (not that a lot of people would and I'm definitely not among them, just speculating here) all their effort should in theory be awarded with more points.

 

Of course, there could be limits on how many rares you'd be able to get per year and it the case of Prize dragons there could be limits on how many CB's there could be on the scroll (with current Prize owners treated equally, like other players - if everyone else could get let's say two new Prizes they could too, so they would have three in total with their existing prize). Because rares would be the main objective for farming - remove that and there's no point in farming either if this is a concern.

Edited January 12, 2015 by stagazer_7

[TJ09]

From what I got, the suggestion was so that people with slower connections/reflexes would not have to compete in the cave. That's why it baffles me that they now shall compete in the mini game for a score.

 

Or was that another of the five threads that are around just now?

That's probably this one. But I don't see where the issue is.

 

Even with a "high score winners" system, on a game like mana alchemy, you can take your time. You don't need to have broadband internet, reflexes, or a responsive computer to play.

 

I don't think the idea of competition is what people are averse to, given the response in this thread.

 

(Which, your argument is a bit of a meta one which invalidates itself. You're claiming that, given the premise of the thread, people shouldn't like the idea of competing. But that doesn't matter; if they like it, they like it. Comment based on your own opinions of whether or not it has merit)

[AnanoKimi]

Personally I don't mind the competition. There are some that seem adverse to it and thus the whole idea of maybe play to meet a weekly quote and raffle it off from there but I like the whole top score thing especially if there is a cool down between wins for more involved people. So even if someone is really good at the game and wins, a 1-3 week cool down would be sufficient to allow someone else to win the game.

[TJ09]

Maybe I'm the only one, but I don't really see the issue with farming. If someone chooses to invest 12h of their time on this minigame (not that a lot of people would and I'm definitely not among them, just speculating here) all their effort should in theory be awarded with more points.

 

Of course, there could be limits on how many rares you'd be able to get per year and it the case of Prize dragons there could be limits on how many CB's there could be on the scroll (with current Prize owners treated equally, like other players - if everyone else could get let's say two new Prizes they could too, so they would have three in total with their existing prize). Because rares would be the main objective for farming - remove that and there's no point in farming either if this is a concern.

It depends on what level of interaction is with the system.

 

If it's a zero-sum system, where someone who invests more time means you get less (e.g. there are 10 eggs, someone who invests 12 hours gets 12 tickets, you put in one hour and get one ticket. There's a 12/13 = 92% chance they get chosen for any individual egg, and a 0.92^8 = 51% chance they get all ten eggs), then farming can be problematic and push out more casual players.

 

If someone putting in 12x as much time as you is not detrimental to your efforts, then sure, farming is fine; if they want to do so, they aren't harming anyone else.

 

The thing is, because there's user interaction points elsewhere on the site (e.g. trading, breeding, etc), the whole thing should probably be zero-sum to prevent there from being inflation.

 

EDIT: edited for math.

Edited January 12, 2015 by TJ09

[cyradis4]

These effort-raffles would give random codes, right?

 

So the only way to get a custom code is through the big yearly-raffle?

 

I think that would be a good way to handle it. The prize list isn't that different, but if you can pick your own code then those dragons won in the big raffle are still special.

 

And the effort-raffles would relieve the pressure on the yearly-raffle.

 

Cheers!

C4.

[Rally Vincent]

That's probably this one. But I don't see where the issue is.

 

Even with a "high score winners" system, on a game like mana alchemy, you can take your time. You don't need to have broadband internet, reflexes, or a responsive computer to play.

 

I don't think the idea of competition is what people are averse to, given the response in this thread. 

 

(Which, your argument is a bit of a meta one which invalidates itself. You're claiming that, given the premise of the thread, people shouldn't like the idea of competing. But that doesn't matter; if they like it, they like it. Comment based on your own opinions of whether or not it has merit)

The issue - as I imagine it to be - is that introducing a 'new' way of acquiring eggs that draws on basically the same underlying mechanisms as the one that are the root of the perceived problems now will lead to the same complaints in the future.

 

The same things that are said about the raffle right now (not enough prizes, people winning multiple times, 'trade power') will be said about eggs that are raffled away for mini game high scorers.

 

Similar things that are said about catching right now will be said about playing for high scores (not as much time as others, psychological impairments preventing from playing as good as others etc.). The reasons may shift, but as long as it means competing against others, the results will make a percentage of players unhappy. Many threads reveal what more than a few players think about competition, otherwise there wouldn't be as many threads to make things 'more fair' (whatever that means).

 

The complaints won't decrease, especially when mini game eggs cannot be found in the cave and vice versa (as is proposed elsewhere). My take on this was that a solution was to be found to counter the perceived flaws of the cave as it is now. I don't believe introducing a system that is so similar will accomplish that.

Edited January 12, 2015 by Rally Vincent

[olympe]

It depends on what level of interaction is with the system.

 

If it's a zero-sum system, where someone who invests more time means you get less (e.g. there are 10 eggs, someone who invests 12 hours gets 12 tickets, you put in one hour and get one ticket. There's a 12/13 = 92% chance they get chosen for any individual egg, and a 0.92^8 = 51% chance they get all ten eggs), then farming can be problematic and push out more casual players.

 

If someone putting in 12x as much time as you is not detrimental to your efforts, then sure, farming is fine; if they want to do so, they aren't harming anyone else.

 

The thing is, because there's user interaction points elsewhere on the site (e.g. trading, breeding, etc), the whole thing should probably be zero-sum to prevent there from being inflation.

 

EDIT: edited for math.

Actually, your math might still be off. I gather that every ticket that won is taken out of the box. If you only enter one ticket, you can only win one prize, right?

 

If that's the case, the first drawing is indeed as you put it: 12/13 chance for player A (who entered 12 of 13 total tickets).

The drawing for the 2nd egg, though, would be 11/12 (since the winning ticket got removed: There are now 12 tickets total, 11 of them from player A who had 12 to start with).

And so on.

 

Eventually, this leads to a chance of (12*11*10*9*8*7*6*5*4*3) / (13*12*11*10*9*8*7*6*5*4) = 3/13 = 23% chance to win all 10 eggs.

Edited January 12, 2015 by olympe

[lorimmel]

I think it's mostly "without having to compete against a random dice roll" that was the issue. The raffle isn't really "competing with other users" in any way.

 

My thinking is that getting rare/exclusive/whatever dragons through any sort of minigame should be hard. One way to do that is to actually make whatever game it is hard. But that makes things really involved, and probably time-consuming. Using a high score system artificially inflates the overall difficulty, such that the minigame can be less difficult to complete.

 

Honestly, if I was given an ultimatum, I'd rather have a hard game than high scores and competition against other users. But to keep rarity, I would prefer very high "prices" (in points) instead of very difficult games.

 

I think chillout is one of DC's best features that makes it competitive (lol) for other games out there. At least in my case. Any pressure - either financial, or high scores, or daily quests, or exclusives that appear and then vanish forever - makes me quit the other games after a while.

 

The problem with non-competitive people like me is, some of us feel "forced" to compete, and we are even good at it sometimes, but ultimately we don't like it. I could name at least two games I quit after repeatedly getting high scores (and prizes) in mini-games. It's nothing dramatic, but after a while all the pleasure is gone, and you do it only because you "have to" (or at least this is how you feel). Then you go on hiatus ... and then ... you don't want to come back, because there is so much to catch up, or some exclusives are gone forever, or you are so far behind other people that it feels just meh.

 

I think simple accrual of points, with weekly / monthly limits of how many points you can get, would be the best way to go. Then you spend the points in the store. To maintain rarity, I would suggest very high "prices". Maybe it sounds boring, but it seems the least invasive solution that wouldn't change DC as we know it and love it.

 

[Tawanda001]

Honestly, if I was given an ultimatum, I'd rather have a hard game than high scores and competition against other users. But to keep rarity, I would prefer very high "prices" (in points) instead of very difficult games...

 

 

 

I think simple accrual of points, with weekly / monthly limits of how many points you can get, would be the best way to go. Then you spend the points in the store. To maintain rarity, I would suggest very high "prices". Maybe it sounds boring, but it seems the least invasive solution that wouldn't change DC as we know it and love it.

I agree with this. It also gives me the choice of how hard I want to work for something.

If I really, really want something I can spend hours and hours a day, or an hour a day for months or whatever, without giving up in frustration because I'm not fast enough, smart enough, whatever enough.