Trader's Canyon

[olympe]

The idea thus far is to use golds as a benchmark for pricing and put the prices of all other breeds in relation to them. But what if we go the other route and do it the other way round? Let's start with commons.

 

Right now, the suggestion is for commons to cost 1 week's worth of points. Why was that again?

Personally, I think 1-2 days worth of points is enough. First of all, you'd still be unable to fill your scroll with store-bought commons all the time, so buying wouldn't replace catching/breeding. Second, they're commons. Sure, they should be easy to find - but many of us have spent hours on the search for a particular common. Not to mention that it's a good thing for the cave if people actually take more commons (no matter which breed) than they do now. Lower prices might encourage that.

 

Anyway, I'd like to propose a different pricing system.

 

Tier 1: Everything not mentioned elsewhere. Inlcuding drakes and pygmies. Also, purple dorsals and purple ridgewings. Cost: 1 day's worth of playing. (Or 1/7 of a weekly cap.)

 

Tier 2: Everything common, but not *very* common. Or those common breeds that are in slightly higher demand due to specialness.

• reds, pinks (random gender), purples and magis due to their useful BSA.
• antareans, golden wyverns, celestials due to shiny!/sparkly!
• vines, blacks, undines, gemshards and nebulas due to alts
• stripes, sunrise/sunset, glory drakes and seasonals due to special breeding behavior
• nocturnes and spirit wards for changing sprites
• (maybe?) CBs for breeding 2nd gen hybrids and the likes? (stone, pebble, water, deep sea, skywing, magi again, white, daydream, horse, hellfire, spitfire, purple again)?
• Everything else dropping in the cave that shares a description (flamingo/pink, sunstone/moonstone, skywing/horse/ochredrake

Cost: 5 days' worth of points.

 

Tier 3: Everything slightly harder to get.

• red dorsals, tan ridgewings for being the "rare" variety
• lunar heralds (special breeding behavior + shiny!)
• pre-influenced pinks (?)
• gemshards and nebulas of a pre-selected color
• terrae of a given egg type (for encyclopedia help)
• BSA starter pack I (available only once for any player below silver trophy): 1 red egg, 1 magi egg and two pink eggs (one male, one female). This should help get people started and raise awareness among newbies for the use of these three BSAs.

Cost: 2 weeks' worth of points

 

Tier 4: Truly uncommon stuff.

• trios.
• unbreedables
• xenowyrms
• blusangs
• almandines, spessartines and pyropes

Price: 8 weeks' worth of points

 

Tier 5: Rare metals, holidays, prizes. Graduated pricing.

• golds: 6 months
• silvers: 4 months
• coppers: 3 months (chosen color or random? Maybe increase price for chosen color by 1 month?)
• any holiday: 2-3 months
• prizes (bronze: 8 months; silver: 10 months; gold: 12 months?)

I know that golds trade for 3-4 silvers, but if the silver price got adjusted accordingly, we'd be handing out silvers way too easily. Edited May 13, 2016 by olympe

[NotBambi]

The idea thus far is to use golds as a benchmark for pricing and put the prices of all other breeds in relation to them. But what if we go the other route and do it the other way round? Let's start with commons.

 

Right now, the suggestion is for commons to cost 1 week's worth of points. Why was that again?

Personally, I think 1-2 days worth of points is enough. First of all, you'd still be unable to fill your scroll with store-bought commons all the time, so buying wouldn't replace catching/breeding. Second, they're commons. Sure, they should be easy to find - but many of us have spent hours on the search for a particular common. Not to mention that it's a good thing for the cave if people actually take more commons (no matter which breed) than they do now. Lower prices might encourage that.

 

Anyway, I'd like to propose a different pricing system.

 

Tier 1: Everything not mentioned elsewhere. Inlcuding drakes and pygmies. Also, purple dorsals and purple ridgewings. Cost: 1 day's worth of playing. (Or 1/7 of a weekly cap.)

 

Tier 2: Everything common, but not *very* common. Or those common breeds that are in slightly higher demand due to specialness.

 

reds, pinks (random gender), purples and magis due to their useful BSA.

 

antareans, golden wyverns, celestials due to shiny!/sparkly!

 

vines, blacks, undines, gemshards and nebulas due to alts

 

stripes, sunrise/sunset, glory drakes and seasonals due to special breeding behavior

 

nocturnes and spirit wards for changing sprites

 

(maybe?) CBs for breeding 2nd gen hybrids and the likes? (stone, pebble, water, deep sea, skywing, magi again, white, daydream, horse, hellfire, spitfire, purple again)?

 

Everything else dropping in the cave that shares a description (flamingo/pink, sunstone/moonstone, skywing/horse/ochredrake

 

Cost: 5 days' worth of points.

 

Tier 3: Everything slightly harder to get.

 

red dorsals, tan ridgewings for being the "rare" variety

 

lunar heralds (special breeding behavior + shiny!)

 

pre-influenced pinks (?)

 

gemshards and nebulas of a pre-selected color

 

terrae of a given egg type (for encyclopedia help)

 

BSA starter pack I (available only once for any player below silver trophy): 1 red egg, 1 magi egg and two pink eggs (one male, one female). This should help get people started and raise awareness among newbies for the use of these three BSAs.

 

Cost: 2 weeks' worth of points

 

Tier 4: Truly uncommon stuff.

 

trios.

 

unbreedables

 

xenowyrms

 

blusangs

 

almandines, spessartines and pyropes

 

Price:  8 weeks' worth of points

 

Tier 5: Rare metals, holidays, prizes. Graduated pricing.

 

golds: 6 months

 

silvers: 4 months

 

coppers: 3 months (chosen color or random? Maybe increase price for chosen color by 1 month?)

 

any holiday: 2-3 months

 

prizes (bronze: 8 months; silver: 10 months; gold: 12 months?)

 

I know that golds trade for 3-4 silvers, but if the silver price got adjusted accordingly, we'd be handing out silvers way too easily.

I'm seeing quite a bit of inconsistency between this^^ and this:

My main request is that you guys respect the fact that RATIOS and RARITIES are NOT to be accounted for in final pricing (by any official means). Golds are to be considered the standard, as they are the Official Rare that can be obtained in cave.

 

While I'm not against different approaches, how do we make this work?

Edited May 13, 2016 by NotBambi

[olympe]

Personally, I think that Thuban's main request is impossible to fulfill in the first place. If the pricing is supposed to be independent of ratios and rarities, what are we supposed to base the prices on? Every building - even the "building" of a pricing system - needs a firm base. But removing both rarities and ratios from the equation leaves us with a building floating precariously in mid-air.

 

Also, re gold standar: It's possible to build this thing from the bottom up, or from the top down. In either case, we could declare golds a standard, all it takes is a little math for the bottom-up approach. I'd be quite willing to supply said math. However, in order to create a scale (for pricing), I'd rather have two standards to work with, one high (gold), one low (common).

[Fiona]

Actually I think both Olympe's and C4's tiers are based on logic and method more than rarities and ratios, so in my opinion they do fit the bill. Also remember that we are essentially setting rarities for these by where we place them.

 

I don't think Olympe is charging enough for the bottom two tiers, really. It seems too close to making this a major source of eggs instead of a supplemental one. How about split the difference? And we can pull out the specific breeds that are different from C4's list and discuss those. Splitting the difference would make Tier 1 eggs around 4 days' worth of points, and Tier 2 eggs worth around 9 days' worth.

 

Also, let's stick out of season Seasonals somewhere. Maybe Tier 4? Thu did mention she'd like to see those in there somewhere.

 

 

I think chosen color on coppers. The current method of obtaining them has essentially nothing random involved. You always know what color you're getting unless you're breeding two bred coppers together. And then it will be one or the other of the parent's color.

[olympe]

If out-of-season seasonals are a thing, I'd say only offer the opposite season to what is currently available in the cave. In summer, offer winters, in spring, offer autumns - and the other way round. This way, we could at least offer the explanation that the trader got his out-of-season egg from very far away, where the seasons are opposite (from the other hemisphere, obviously).

 

My idea for the very low pricing of commons was to

encourage people to pick up commons (by making the commons they're actually looking for) easily available), yet not do away with the main ways to get eggs, namely catching and breeding.

 

True, with my suggestion, you could get a common egg every single day. That's 2 eggs in two days, while we can take care of 14 in that time. More if we go for low-time eggs in the AP, less if someone has a trophy level below gold. No matter which way you look at it, this is only every 7th egg you'd get from the store (unless you keep your trophy level low for whatever reason), for in order to buy eggs, you'd need to do some regular playing - which obviously included raising dragons.

 

Despite these points, I'm not hell-bent on making commons that cheap, although I'd like to see what other people think about it.

 

Also, all tier 2 things from my list are still very common and easy to come by.

 

Edited May 13, 2016 by olympe

[Fiona]

By my math, it's currently 7 in two days, not 14. Since even with Incubate it takes 2 days to hatch a cave egg.

 

So you're not talking about 2 in 14 from the store but 2 is 7, which is just shy of a third of your eggs. Newbies could, in fact, have half their eggs from the store rather than the cave or AP. That's too much, in my opinion, for a supplemental source.

[olympe]

By my math, it's currently 7 in two days, not 14. Since even with Incubate it takes 2 days to hatch a cave egg.

 

So you're not talking about 2 in 14 from the store but 2 is 7, which is just shy of a third of your eggs. Newbies could, in fact, have half their eggs from the store rather than the cave or AP. That's too much, in my opinion, for a supplemental source.

Sorry, of course you're right, I must have mixed things up rather badly.

 

However, I don't think newbies would be able to afford that many eggs to begin with, depending on how you define "active play". Since active play seems to be determined by actions performed on your scroll - catching/breeding, hatching, raising/freezing, naming, BSA-use - and, as a new player, you can neither name, breed, nor hatch, raise or freeze as much as someone with a higher trophy. The same goes for the use of BSAs. Unless there's a supplemental way to earn points (mini-games...), I doubt a new player will be able to reach the weekly cap regularly. Maybe half of that, if they're lucky.

Edited May 13, 2016 by olympe

[Fiona]

Well, since I believe the intent was not to set the cap so high that only gold scrolls could hope to reach it, I bet they could, with a long term player as a coach...

 

 

and I think my point is made in any case, just with the potential for a new player to get half their eggs from the store.

[_Sin_]

It will not be easy to find the right balance to avoid having people abandoning the biomes to use only the store. Unless there's a new release, the biomes are already too quiet.

[olympe]

Well, since I believe the intent was not to set the cap so high that only gold scrolls could hope to reach it, I bet they could, with a long term player as a coach...

 

 

and I think my point is made in any case, just with the potential for a new player to get half their eggs from the store.

With a long-term player as a coach, they'd probably know better than to spend all their shards on commons...

[SullenCat]

I'm a member of the (looks like) minority that does not miss raffles. At the same time, I see your point.

May I suggest adding another type of raffle? You use points to earn points. For example, you use 1 week of points but you can earn N months.

Support.

 

Instead, I think that the number of months suggested to earn metals and prizes is too high. Would be possible to reach a compromise that would be shortening the time for the first egg? This is because I think we need an influx of CB Prizes right now to mitigate the issues with the trading market. If people think that they can earn their first CB Prize in 4/6 months, they will be quite less motivated to engage on crazy trading to obtain a 2G.

[olympe]

That could only work two ways: Either with limits on how many CB prizes you can buy, or with increasing prices for prizes.

 

Like...

Prize #1 of a kind costs 6 months' worth of points.

Prize #2 (of the same kind) costs 9 months' worth of points.

Prize # 3 (of the same kind) costs 1 year's worth of points. And so on.

[Fuzzbucket]

That could only work two ways: Either with limits on how many CB prizes you can buy, or with increasing prices for prizes.

 

Like...

Prize #1 of a kind costs 6 months' worth of points.

Prize #2 (of the same kind) costs 9 months' worth of points.

Prize # 3 (of the same kind) costs 1 year's worth of points. And so on.

Why is this even necessary? Just as you don't pay more for the second of anything else in life...

[_Sin_]

I agree with fuzzbucket here. SullenCat is also right, we need an influx of CB Prizes . What about if instead of shortening the time needed to earn a CB Prize, we just give an "enrollment bonus" to everybody? Basically, instead of starting with zero points, everybody starts with the equivalent of (i.e.) 4 or 6 months and can choose to spend or save those points.

[olympe]

Because it might have an immediate effect like people buying CB golds en masse, thereby affecting the ratios?

[SullenCat]

Because it might have an immediate effect like people buying CB golds en masse, thereby affecting the ratios?

If your assumption is that everybody will rush to buy CB Golds, the same will happen anyway, just a few months later.

 

ETA:

Personally, I will not, I prefer to save for a CB Prize.

Edited May 14, 2016 by SullenCat

[olympe]

It's a matter of instant gratification, I'm afraid. Plus, don't forget that most people might get something else before they've saved up for a gold. In essence, there wouldn't be quite as much of a rush for golds (or silvers...), it would be more drawn out.

[_Sin_]

It's a matter of instant gratification, I'm afraid. Plus, don't forget that most people might get something else before they've saved up for a gold. In essence, there wouldn't be quite as much of a rush for golds (or silvers...), it would be more drawn out.

If the problem is instant gratification, make the bonus one month shorter than what will be needed for a CB Gold. Frankly, I'm against with prices increases. If someone wants to get 4 CB Silver Tinsels and no Bronze or Golds because they prefer that color, they should not be penalized.

[SullenCat]

It's a matter of instant gratification, I'm afraid. Plus, don't forget that most people might get something else before they've saved up for a gold. In essence, there wouldn't be quite as much of a rush for golds (or silvers...), it would be more drawn out.

I think people are smarter than you give them credit for. If they want a CB Gold (or Prize), they will pursue the CB Gold (or Prize) and not be distracted by less valuable items. Fact is, the ratios will be affected one way or another. And if I recall correctly, the ratios are re-calculated annually.

[Fiona]

#1: no raffles, please. I'd as soon there never be another raffle in any form here.

 

#2: I don't care for the idea of rising costs for additional prizes either. Yes, you could start with lower costs, but by its nature it would effectively be a limit on how many prizes one could get. If you're going to do that, just have a limit. Which I also don't favor.

 

#3: I'd be ok with some sort of "introductory" points on the raffle. I'd like to see less than 6 months' worth though, but people could either choose to buy something right away for the instant gratification or save them to get a major thing sooner.

 

#4: to lower the amount of time needed to buy things like prizes I'd rather see something like the bonus points for raising blockers idea that was suggested earlier. We're not ready to hash that out yet but some way of earning bonus points rather than lowering the costs would be my preference.

[Thuban]

(note: I apologize ahead of time because the comment I wrote is a bit scatter brained. Im on lots of meds, but I did try really hard to be clear... I'll throw a tl:dr at the bottom to be safe...)

 

At the bare minimum, anything on that lowest tier is going to cost 3 days of points. I believe we agreed that store dragons themselves would NOT count toward ratios overall (their offspring however, will as they should). Loading up on commons from the store should not be able to affect the way things drop in cave.

 

In my mind: everything that is deemed more common than a gold can cost anything from 3 days of points, to 6 months, regardless of placement tierwise, but the prices should fall within the tier levels more often than not. (Personally, I see prizes as commons. The CBs are the only rare ones, the rest breed like commons since I get shinies more often than not...so I can totally support them being cheaper, BUT there is the issue of prize owners that will feel like their prizes are no longer special as a result.. which is why the prices kept getting set so high to begin with...)

If people agree they breed like commons, and should be considered as a common, then I am PERFECTLY happy deeming cb golds as the highest priced item, until a more rare, official (catchable) rare comes along.

 

Holidays, I'm more than happy to price at 2-3 months of points. You are working to earn them and they are only available once a year anyhow. Now, I am a fan of the idea of these holiday eggs showing up a full week before the breeding window officially started (but want them tied to the existing rule that they can not breed the same year they were raised, for fairness sake). This would allow you to raise them without sacrificing your precious holiday slots. I'm also cool with them sticking around a week after the holiday, but at a higher price (as last bred/caught holidays grow a week after holiday, in smaller and smaller numbers )

 

Im even happy to have holidays available all year, out of season at a much, much higher price, as I imagine its very, very rare to see them outside of their holiday windows.

 

 

 

TL:DR

*The cheapest an egg will ever be is three days of points.

* If you believe Prizes are essentially commons outside of cbs and second gens, then lets go ahead and turn cb golds into the HIGH price. Everything is cheaper than the official rarest Rare, until something newer, rarer, and most importantly "catchable" comes along.

*Holidays can be as low as 2-3 months of points. Thu votes they show up a week before the event, through the event.. and the week after the event (but the last week should be more expensive as they get more "rare" to find...)

[Ruby Eyes]

I like Thuban's purple points.

[SullenCat]

#1: no raffles, please. I'd as soon there never be another raffle in any form here.

 

#2: I don't care for the idea of rising costs for additional prizes either. Yes, you could start with lower costs, but by its nature it would effectively be a limit on how many prizes one could get. If you're going to do that, just have a limit. Which I also don't favor.

 

#3: I'd be ok with some sort of "introductory" points on the raffle. I'd like to see less than 6 months' worth though, but people could either choose to buy something right away for the instant gratification or save them to get a major thing sooner.

 

#4: to lower the amount of time needed to buy things like prizes I'd rather see something like the bonus points for raising blockers idea that was suggested earlier. We're not ready to hash that out yet but some way of earning bonus points rather than lowering the costs would be my preference.

Which raffle are you referencing on #3?

I'm against bonus points for raising blockers and I much would prefer mini-games. Let's not force people to modify their playstyle and instead, let's offer them choices.

 

TL:DR

*The cheapest an egg will ever be is three days of points.

* If you believe Prizes are essentially commons outside of cbs and second gens, then lets go ahead and turn cb golds into the HIGH price. Everything is cheaper than the official rarest Rare, until something newer, rarer, and most importantly "catchable" comes along.

*Holidays can be as low as 2-3 months of points. Thu votes they show up a week before the event, through the event.. and the week after the event (but the last week should be more expensive as they get more "rare" to find...)

Thuban, you are my hero.

Edited May 14, 2016 by SullenCat

[Thuban]

Which raffle are you referencing on #3?

I'm against bonus points for raising blockers and I much would prefer mini-games. Let's not force people to modify their playstyle and instead, let's offer them choices.

Mini games are things that are intended to be fleshed out later. (edit: I honestly feel they should be there as a just for fun thing, rather than as a "earn shards" thing)

 

Mini games are something that i expect will have to be done, outside of this specific thread, as they often need art, formatting and other things. When games are the topic, we can flesh here, but it seems best to do that behind the scenes honestly.

 

Raising blockers would be something completely optional, just like the games are meant to be. So would the raffles.. everything this thread is trying to pull off here, is all about letting people play by their specific styles. You can earn these things by never doing anything different, or you can do more. I'm a huge fan of the challenge of taking complicated ideas and twisting them to allow for multiple styles of play.

Edited May 14, 2016 by Thuban

[SullenCat]

Mini games are things that are intended to be fleshed out later. (edit: I honestly feel they should be there as a just for fun thing, rather than as a "earn shards" thing)

 

Mini games are something that i expect will have to be done, outside of this specific thread, as they often need art, formatting and other things. When games are the topic, we can flesh here, but it seems best to do that behind the scenes honestly.

 

Raising blockers would be something completely optional, just like the games are meant to be. So would the raffles.. everything this thread is trying to pull off here, is all about letting people play by their specific styles. You can earn these things by never doing anything different, or you can do more. I'm a huge fan of the challenge of taking complicated ideas and twisting them to allow for multiple styles of play.

So... raising blockers would be something optional AND a mechanism to earn shards.... minigames would be optional but NOT a mechanism to earn points.... And that is not meant to influence people playstyle?