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Thuban

Trader's Canyon

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I'm sorry but what 'official' RP are you talking about?

 

I do not have to RP to play DC. I do not have to describe dragons to play DC. Nothing I do on DC has anything to do with RP. Because if it did, I wouldn't be playing. If you mean on the forums, that is NOT official and is NOT part of the actual game. The front page has links to the AP and the Biomes.. links to recent News posts in the forum.. and a very bad map.. so what does any of that have to do with RP?

RP does not just refer to role playing, literally posting in a story. It also references the world in which a game is played. We used to not have a name for Dragon Cave's world, we do now: Valkmare. We now have maps. We now have moons. We now have descriptions of how magic works. We have threads to hash out lore. We have threads (started by TJ) to work out critters. We can create our own stories about our dragons via descriptions (which is role play!).

 

We have the Encyclopedia.

 

In short, over the last few years, the world of Valkmare has been greatly fleshed out. Some call it World-Building. Others call it lore. Sometimes its referenced as RP. In the end, its all the same thing:

New editions to the game need to take it into account, and can use it.

 

 

 

Now, please refute my point about why grinding is bad. You are saying no limits, but not answering the concerns raised by ADP and myself (and many others).

 

Cheers!

C4.

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Now before everyone gets their undies in a wad, let me explain my rationale about eliminating breeding as a point earner. Breeding happens to be my primary thing on DC and it is for a lot of others as well. BUT, I have over 4500 dragons and there are players with over 10k dragons.. that's a HUGE disadvantage to a newbie or casual player. I can breed a LOT of dragons, but I only have 21 slots for growing things and it takes 5 days minimum for an egg to become a dragon. That slot limit is the only limit that should be in place, because THAT is what will limit what we can catch/hatch/mature in a week.

 

I realize you may have missed my comment, while writing yours.. but just to make sure its pointed out:

Only 25% of whatever the weekly cap is set to, comes from eggs... the cap stays, because of exploitation. We had worked out the math for "the most someone can do in a week of aiming to raise as many dragons as possible through normal play" and went from there for the core earning of shards.

 

This was to account for people who hunt ers from the ap, those who breed a lot, those who search for specific types of eggs in the ap, who just catch and drop cave eggs every five hours. People wanted a cap, a cap was made to account for the most active of players, but still aimed to be low enough that people who dont play all day, every day can still reach it through casual play.

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Re-posting this since it might have been buried in my last long-post-is-long post:

 

Maybe, instead of limits, the following criteria could work:

  • Obtain an egg (via catching, breeding and maybe teleport): You only get the shard after the egg has spent 24 hours on your scroll. This stops people from grabbing and abandoning every egg in the AP over and over again to grind for shards.
  • Incubate, Influence: You only get the extra shard for this once the egg hatches on your scroll. Stops people with armies of reds or pinks from abusing the BSA to grind for more shards. (Catch AP egg, incubate, influence, abandon, catch another AP egg...)
  • Fertility: You only get the extra shard if you breed the dragon you used Fertility on.
  • Name, Describe: Only the first time a dragon is named or described will gain you a shard. (Describe might still be debatable, though, as it causes extra work for mods. Also, the shards for descriptions can only count once the description is approved.)
  • Stun: Should also be included in the list of BSAs that get rewarded IMHO. Yes, you could theoretically stun everything, but it will cost you scroll space, which, in itself, is limited already. Maybe use a similar mechanism to what I suggested for other BSAs: Only reward the shard once the hatchling grows up.
  • Breed: No shards for breeding itself, unless you keep the egg for at least 24 hours, in which case it counts as "Obtain an egg" (see above).

This pretty much takes care of most loopholes. Of course, it's still possible to catch/influence/incu-hatch an AP egg, stund and then abandon the hatchling and start the cycle anew, so that might still have to be taken care of. Otherwise, I think everything else is covered?

 

What I definitely don't want to see rewarded is teleport. Of course, getting shards for gifting would be a nice little extra and maybe encourage gifting and trading - but there's a big downside. Even with a mini-army of magis (which can teleport every other day), you could earn lots of points rather quickly. Just teleport the same egg back and forth between two scrolls until you run out of teleports, and voilà, instant shards. In my case, I have a little over 40 adult magi. Partnering up with someone, I could easily earn 120 shards by teleporting one egg back and forth in 6 days.

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Re-posting this since it might have been buried in my last long-post-is-long post:

 

Maybe, instead of limits, the following criteria could work:

Obtain an egg (via catching, breeding and maybe teleport): You only get the shard after the egg has spent 24 hours on your scroll. This stops people from grabbing and abandoning every egg in the AP over and over again to grind for shards.

Incubate, Influence: You only get the extra shard for this once the egg hatches on your scroll. Stops people with armies of reds or pinks from abusing the BSA to grind for more shards. (Catch AP egg, incubate, influence, abandon, catch another AP egg...)

Fertility: You only get the extra shard if you breed the dragon you used Fertility on.

Name, Describe: Only the first time a dragon is named or described will gain you a shard. (Describe might still be debatable, though, as it causes extra work for mods. Also, the shards for descriptions can only count once the description is approved.)

Stun: Should also be included in the list of BSAs that get rewarded IMHO. Yes, you could theoretically stun everything, but it will cost you scroll space, which, in itself, is limited already. Maybe use a similar mechanism to what I suggested for other BSAs: Only reward the shard once the hatchling grows up.

Breed: No shards for breeding itself, unless you keep the egg for at least 24 hours, in which case it counts as "Obtain an egg" (see above).

This pretty much takes care of most loopholes. Of course, it's still possible to catch/influence/incu-hatch an AP egg, stund and then abandon the hatchling and start the cycle anew, so that might still have to be taken care of. Otherwise, I think everything else is covered?

 

What I definitely don't want to see rewarded is teleport. Of course, getting shards for gifting would be a nice little extra and maybe encourage gifting and trading - but there's a big downside. Even with a mini-army of magis (which can teleport every other day), you could earn lots of points rather quickly. Just teleport the same egg back and forth between two scrolls until you run out of teleports, and voilà, instant shards. In my case, I have a little over 40 adult magi. Partnering up with someone, I could easily earn 120 shards by teleporting one egg back and forth in 6 days.

 

That looks simple, but people are going to get very confused about what earns them points in short order. Where as "these earn you one point, and you can get 100 a week" is very simple, whereas yours has a lot of "this earns you a point only if you do x, y, and z". AND it also brutally heavy favors highly established players that unlimited has: by virtue of having 100 reds and pinks, I can cycle through "incubate, influence, hatch, wait 24 hrs and dump" far, far, far more than someone who has only 10 reds.

 

Why do you object to a limit?

 

Also, your criteria won't prevent people from abusing the system. Incubate and Influence: hatching ER eggs is simple, and it'll strongly encourage mass-breeding to drive the AP time down. Same with Fertility: I can breed easily every dragon I've used it on. All that'll do is spam eggs to the AP. Name and describe: with no limits, I could easily name the rest of the dragons on my scroll... and end up with 4,000 shards right off the bat. Talk about a huge boost! Same with descriptions.

 

Whereas with a hard limit anyone can reach each week, its kinda hard to abuse it. It also takes out grinding, which is a huge problem with other games and one of the reasons many, *many* people objected to this at first. Many also objected to the favoritism toward older users that unlimted results in. tongue.gif Unless you do the blocker stuff, and then you are helping *everyone*.

 

Cheers!

C4.

Edited by cyradis4

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Olympe, it's only possible to incuhatch and abandon an egg when it's below the 5 day mark. It's only down there when not too many people are picking up eggs. If picking up and hatching eggs earns shards, the AP is more likely to be hovering around the 6 day mark or higher (6 days is still better than picking up a CB egg or breeding it for shard-farming purposes). Loophole automatically closed.

 

It would only come up again for events, like a release when most people abandon most of what they have and then lock themselves with CBs for 2 days or more, or a holiday when the wall blocks the AP eggs from being picked up.

 

I still don't like the no-limit system. Even with reasonable restrictions (like an egg having to be on the scroll for 24 hours to count as an egg point), a player who is doing it to grind could still probably get at least double or triple the shards a person who is playing the game to play the game could (picking up/breeding eggs and raising them to adults because they want those dragons on their scroll). And that would put pressure on people who want shards to stop playing the game and start grinding instead.

 

Edit: Sure, it would be heaven for people like me whose scrolls sit mostly empty between releases, but it would be hell for the people who love to build breeding projects. They'd have to choose between getting shards more efficiently to get that prize or holiday or the breeding projects they've put years into and still have plenty of work to go. Because you can't grind with eggslots that are actually being used to raise eggs.

Edited by Pokemonfan13

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Maybe earning shards for the use of BSAs is a bad idea anyway. Just spam a BSA (fertility...) and you're done. :/

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Maybe earning shards for the use of BSAs is a bad idea anyway. Just spam a BSA (fertility...) and you're done. :/

With the 100 point limit, all you've done is waste BSAs because you'd have hit the limit anyway from just playing. tongue.gif

 

The reason for the BSAs being there is so those who have smaller scrolls or aren't quite as active have a much easier time of hitting the limit.... and not having their play style penalized.

 

Cheers!

C4.

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That's what makes the limit nice. Without a limit you have to do all kinds of individual things to close loopholes, and even then you still have problems. The limit simply turns all those loopholes into alternate play styles. Don't like to raise extra dragons? You can breed for the AP or hatch AP eggs and re-abandon them or catch CB blockers and abandon them after the 5 hour wait. For those who never were much into naming before, they can get quite a few weeks* worth of points naming their existing hoards. And that's the nice thing about having odd little things in the limited version that would just be exploits in the unlimited one, if someone knows they're just a little short they can name a few dragons or describe some and they've bumped up their points to the limit.

 

The whole point of the limit is to let people play however they like to play. Sure, some people (like me) would have to do more than what they normally do to reach the limit, but ANY form of shard earning by play would force that. At least with the limit there isn't the pressure to spend maximum amounts of time doing various things that earn shards like there would be with an unlimited system. DC is a laid back game. I just feel that an unlimited shards system would take that laid back quality away, and that would be a shame.

 

*I don't have a strong opinion on the 7 or 8 day cycle. I don't really see how they make much difference. I'm just saying "week" for convenience's sake. Although it would be nice to get the moons stuff into more regular play than just the heralds.

Edited by Pokemonfan13

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As someone who has lurked in this thread and posted here maybe twice, I have to speak up in favor of limits. It's simple, it's straight-forward, and extensively limits abuse. I haven't yet seen a "no limits" suggestion that is actually simple or easy to remember.

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In regards to requests for more pricing discussion:

I trust that TJ knows math. He can pick any number he wants as how many shards a GOLD egg is worth, and then math it back from there to work out about how many points it takes if you are grinding for max points every window. Its really not hard to figure out using the layout that Cyra had suggested (using the 7 day scale with the 100 total because yay percentages...)

Gold egg = 35875 (my son provided a random number for us)

6 months = 182.5 =26 weeks = average of 1376 a week needs earned to get it RIGHT at the 6 month mark

25% of those points come from catching/breeding an egg

30% from hatching an egg into a hatchy

30% from hatchys growing into adults

15% comes from using BSAs

There is a bit more math needed (like how many dragons a person needs to raise to get the full amount) I imagine this is behind the scene info, something that he can/will tweak as needed until he is satisfied. We provided a baseline for how the points earned from the core thing of actually raising dragons, he has room to apply it however he needs to to make it work.

 

They wont necessarily be pretty numbers, but someone who can pull them every window will be able to get their gold egg RIGHT at the 6month mark, if that is their goal.

 

Using that same price for the gold, and applying the ratios you guys had agreed on for the tiers.. gives the price for each type of egg. This (to me) is why it hasnt mattered what the things actually cost in exact numbers, because it can all be broken down by the time it takes to /earn/ them.

 

 

I've gotten some questions on this breakdown I had thrown together, and wanted to clarify it farther. First, the numbers I used as percentages come from the first post. Cyra had been using 100 points as the caps, and it made sense to translate those to percentages as a baseline.

https://i.imgur.com/QChG0Zv.png <~~reasons for the numbers are there...

 

A normal player should be able to hit those numbers in an average week of play without having to do any serious hoop jumping or trading. I used those as a baseline for how the numbers work out for normal players. While yes, you could hit the cap simply by spamming fertility, or just hunting the ap and throwing back eggs you dont like, ideally the strain of hitting the cap would be eased out by the other things that help add up to the full total (whatever that total ends up being set to). The whole idea is that without changing anything about how YOU THE PLAYER specifically play, it should be pretty simple to reach the cap without having to do a lot of things you wouldnt normally do.

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OK, maybe I'm seeing things a little clearer now that we've actually started discussing things again and not constantly just saying we've already discussed that. My search skills are awful, so finding that 'one post' that someone keeps mentioning but I don't remember can be VERY frustrating.

 

You've convinced me that we need limits.. OK? Can I be forgiven now? But until we are actually have the Store operational, can we at least set the limit a bit higher and then adjust as needed?

 

About the catching, hatching, raising process.. I think rather than earning a point for every stage, we should limit it to dragons that we actually keep on our scroll. Catching/hatching/freezing earns you 2 points.. catching/hatching/maturing earns you 3 points. This way you can't catch/abandon after 5 hrs or catch/hatch/abandon hatchlings.. you only earn points for the dragons you actually keep. Plus, doing it this way we could also breed/hatch/mature for points if we keep the dragons we bred.

 

My previous request to add Teleport... forget it.. I was only thinking about how I use Teleport, and after reading how easily it can be expolited, just forget I ever mentioned it. I don't think Stun should count either because it's really only useful for eggs/hatchlings that will be Teleported off your scroll.

 

Influence, Incubate, Fertility - I think these should only count on dragons that you keep as they are part of the catch/breed, hatch, mature process.

 

Other BSAs..

Splash - maybe - but only until you earn your Magicarp badge, after that it's rather redundant anyway

Earthquake - ???

Expunge - ???

Bite - only if the bite suceeds AND stays on your scroll

Summon - ??? - I'd lean towards yes because getting your 3 GoNs can be a really annoying process, and this way you at least get something for all those failures (doesn't even apply to me because I already have all 3 of mine)

Enrage/Pacify - ???

Corporealize - ???

 

Other ways to earn points...

I can't really think of anything else that doesn't fall under 'fluff' to be added later.

 

@ cyradis4 - I think your definition and my definition of RP do NOT mean the same thing. Most of what you specified as RP is what I call 'setting or background info' and has no effect on gameplay. To me RP is actual role-playing.. Descriptions fall under RP... Naming is sort of RP, but I don't consider it so because to me it's just a way to better separate one dragon from another for breeding purposes... breeding unnamed dragons can be confusing and cause inbreeding when you don't intend to inbreed, so I usually name my breeding stock. Using the moon phases would be considered RP because it doesn't follow the game mechanics. Our dragons breed on a 7 day cycle... Holiday events last 7 days... many BSA's follow a 7 day cycle, or 14 which is two 7 day cycles. So using the moonphases is just more FLUFF and definitely NOT needed.

 

@ Thuban - I didn't mean to ignore all the background work you've put into describing the settings. Once the Store is actually integrated, all that story art will be awesome. But none of it really affects how the Store works, that's the only thing I was trying to say.

 

Did I miss anything? I may be a stay-at-home type, but I still have other things to do in RL.

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I know I at least wasn't directing my posts specifically at you, Cinnamin. People were talking about what it would be like to not have limits, so I added my two cents. =3

 

Personally, I prefer points for each stage. The problem is, not everyone wants to collect oodles of random adults, and part of the goal is to not force play-styles on to others. Limiting the raising points to dragons that end up permanently on your scroll either forces people who have limited scroll goals to raise dragons that they don't really want or cuts them off from that point source almost completely. If I can get a point for hatching an egg and then I can dump the hatchling, that lets me earn points and other people can have a nice AP treat by being able to pick up a hatchling.

 

And points for grabbing then abandoning CB eggs is nice for everyone, as it encourages that behavior. That means more movement in the cave and more lower time CB eggs in the AP.

 

I can see figuring out a way to avoid giving points for grabbing and abandoning AP eggs. That seems like it might be too much like an exploit, even with limits. But AP eggs that are kept long enough to hatch should give the egg point.

 

I like the idea of Fertility only counting for a point when you breed the dragon you used it on. But I'm not so sure about also being forced to keep the egg to get the credit for it. It's a nice additional way to get extra points from breeding for those who would prefer to mainly get their points that way.

 

I do agree that you should only get points for incubate and influence if you keep the egg. I agree that giving points for the other BSAs are kind of iffy, but at the same time I don't really see why not.

Edited by Pokemonfan13

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You've convinced me that we need limits.. OK? Can I be forgiven now?

*thinks*

 

Yeah, OK xd.png

 

Summon - ??? - I'd lean towards yes because getting your 3 GoNs can be a really annoying process, and this way you at least get something for all those failures (doesn't even apply to me because I already have all 3 of mine)

 

BRILLIANT thought. I concur absolutely - as one who had to wait almost 3 years with regular summoning for my first, credit for the suffering would have been nice laugh.gif

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*thinks*

 

Yeah, OK xd.png

 

 

BRILLIANT thought. I concur absolutely - as one who had to wait almost 3 years with regular summoning for my first, credit for the suffering would have been nice laugh.gif

I can get behind credit for Summoning. In the long term, it won't make any difference for an active user, but for one who isn't very active it can help.

 

And Cin, yea, I thought we had different definitions hence why I listed everything out. I've seen RP used to refer to everything I listed, not just the very specific stuff you've listed. Technically it should all be called world-building and lore-building.

 

Cheers!

C4.

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I also made one ~

user posted image

 

Use it or don't use it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[url=https://forums.dragcave.net/index.php?showtopic=165916][IMG=https://i.imgur.com/SpvmyqE.jpg][/url]

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I like this idea. It'd give people with slow internet or reflexes a way to get rare eggs still and not be at the mercy of trading.

This. I fully support this because it rewards users for dedication rather than being lucky with fast internet or the reflexes of a hyper 10-year old - no offense meant to fast people, lol!

 

I just wonder about having a limit on the CB silvers and golds, being 2 per scroll. I don't think that's right.

Edited by SlyFox

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I think those limits have been thrown out the window and are - kind of - implied through pricing. Sure, you could get more golds than 2 or 4 or whatever arbitrary limits people proposed - but it will take a lot of time.

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This. I fully support this because it rewards users for dedication rather than being lucky with fast internet or the reflexes of a hyper 10-year old - no offense meant to fast people, lol!

 

I just wonder about having a limit on the CB silvers and golds, being 2 per scroll. I don't think that's right.

Honestly I wouldn't mind limits if it meant I got any CB Golds at all. Also a second Silver would be nice (I still can't believe I caught one...)

 

Don't get me wrong I'm glad there aren't any hard limits, just a kind of soft limit, but getting any at all would be a plus.

 

I continue to hope that something like this is put into place, one day...

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A way of limiting rare dragons (I'm not thinking golds, but things like prizes or caveborn hybrids(yeahIknowTJsaidnotothem)) without a hard limit is to double the price for each bought. So you can get as many as you want, but it's will take longer each time.

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A way of limiting rare dragons (I'm not thinking golds, but things like prizes or caveborn hybrids(yeahIknowTJsaidnotothem)) without a hard limit is to double the price for each bought. So you can get as many as you want, but it's will take longer each time.

I really can't see why that kind of restriction would be necessary or desirable. You don't have to pay more for caviar every time you buy it.... You still have to save up to do so, though.

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I really can't see why that kind of restriction would be necessary or desirable. You don't have to pay more for caviar every time you buy it.... You still have to save up to do so, though.

This, very much so. Even if raising prices for any kind of dragons should be a "thing", I think doubling the price is way too much of an increase.

 

Besides, I think that the prices themselves are limiting enough. Add the "no trading/no abandoning" rule to the mix, and you already make sure that the person buying an egg will do so because they actually *want* that egg for the dragon inside, not as a way to obtain in-cave currency (CB golds for trading purposes). Considering that there are a whole lot of very desirable dragons available - ideally all kinds of prizes, metals and holidays (during their respective season), neither of which come cheap... I honestly think we're limited enough already while being given as much freedom of choice as possible.

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I really like how it is in the OP right now. With the limits, with favouring variety of regular gameplays while not discrimitationg others..

here it doesn't matter if one is hoarding infinite numbers of dragons OR tries to balance the game OR ... OR like me, collects very limited numbers of dragons while not wanting any spares on scroll - we both will earn 100 shards per 14 or 16 days period sooner or later.

e.g. I could continue on rising just 2 per new release breed/alt, breeding and freezing 3 each, and just scroll-wide breed all my pairs to AP(even if first I needed to have them for a second on my scroll, it'll add a bit more effort to me though, I'd have to waste additional time abandoning every 7 eggs that could earn me the shards...) and sometimes holding eggs or hatchies for my bf or to Zombie fodder. My gameplay could still stay as it is with the current idea, and I wouldn't be forced to e.g. rise plenty of dragons just to release them right afterwards or other nonsense JUST to catch up with players with a different playstyle...

 

I'm against no limits. It will put owners of larger scrolls or sth in huge advantage no matter how you try to avoid that. Please, no...

The current idea seems to be best so far, it's simply the most fair of all, respective of various gameplays, time available etc.

also the limit isn't too riddiculusly high and it won't take 24/7 of active playing(Flight Rising lost it for me for it required all day of active mini-game playing to reach the limit of the daily income, not to mention that farming this income was boring as hell after 2 days, I left the game very soon and this was 1 of the reasons, it didn't even matter that it was so difficult to finally get into the registration window...)

 

 

Just I'm not sure I'd be interested in using the store anymore when it's implemented at last... if my scroll things go too far I think I won't be willing to replace stuff to keep my scroll's idea while getting what I'd like to have from it now. But still, would be nice if it got implemented as in the current OP.

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Considering that there are a whole lot of very desirable dragons available - ideally all kinds of prizes, metals and holidays (during their respective season), neither of which come cheap... I honestly think we're limited enough already while being given as much freedom of choice as possible.

Keep in mind that we placed CB Golds as being the most expensive dragon to purchase (6 months of points). The prices are listed at the bottom of the wall of fluff.

 

I had meant to finish breaking things down and editing the "fluff" in the first post to update the info (like the arbitrary limits that were listed) but I simply havent had the time. It will happen, as soon as life calms down.

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Keep in mind that we placed CB Golds as being the most expensive dragon to purchase (6 months of points). The prices are listed at the bottom of the wall of fluff.

Pricier than prize dragons ?

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