Limit AP eggs by breeder

[JavaTigress]

Here's an analogy I think works well in this situation.

 

You go grocery shopping every week. Depending on who you are, maybe you only go once a week, maybe you go everyday. Regardless, you purchase different items (i.e. eggs, milk, sugar, corn, etc.). Suddenly, the day you go to the grocery store (people who AP fish once a week), or one of the days you go to the store (people who AP fish more than once a week) the only product the store is selling is artichokes. If you want one artichoke, or maybe a few, this is a good way to fulfill that want/need; however, if you don't want more than one, or any at all, this artichoke only stock is a hindrance to you. Now, there will be artichoke lovers who will go crazy, and fill their basket (egg/hatchie slots) with artichokes, and be happy. But a good portion of the store's shoppers will be irked/annoyed/disappointed. Many will leave the store empty handed and hungry. If that is their only shopping day, it's a horrid deal for them. Even for those who shop twice a week, this is a bad deal.

 

Mass breeding is kind of like that. It's no big deal to some, or even awesome for some, but a really bad thing to others. Which is why I support a suggestion like this.

Your point is taken.

 

And YES, if it lasted any length of time, I DO see how it could be a problem. THING is that I got the idea what happened with the Neos was... unusual. I didn 't actually see it, BUT I had the idea that it isn't OFTEN an egg wall lasts as long as that. ALSO, I'm agreed that if we DO need a solution for this problem, well... we don't want to make the problem worse.

 

And like I said. The ratios will still make those eggs... one way or another.

Edited July 6, 2015 by Silverswift

[danicast]

No, I don't think massbreeding is such a problem, it never last for much time. Make TJ elaborate a complex coding to put eggs in a specific order and check who was the breeder to make the AP flows it only create a worst lag than we are experiencing at the top of the hour at the moment. We should keep the game coding simple for the sake of playability. It's not a big deal to wait a couple of hours while a wall is consumed by avid ap hunters. I also disagree with the example about grocery store, that's not what is happening in the AP. It just happens that sometimes there is a wall and that wall takes a couple of hours to disappear. It's not troublesome.

 

No support.

[AnanoKimi]

I think a better idea is to instead really drop the hatch time for eggs. A thread at some point proposed that the "add a day to AP eggs" thing should be left to eggs 3 days and under making them become 4 days and under eggs to allow for influence and such. another good thing is keeping eggs higher than 4 days from comming up in the AP or immediately dropping an eggs timer to 4 days and maybe 5-0 hours this way picking them up and hatching them isnt a giant hassle.

 

Some of the reason for mass breeding is to put those eggs out there into an area that drop their time and makes them hopefully desirable. and as limited as some people's schedules are I don't think grabbing an egg or two out of their usual hunt to incuhatch it and freeze it or raise it is gonna kill them. If it can help with ratios then why not.

 

Also if mass breedings are bugging people so much considering so many of the eggs are at around 5-4 days and xx hours what does that say about the potential to piss of players with the kick to the AP idea or any idea that tosses eggs into the AP in the hopes of making them incuhatchable desirable? If people cannot hand certain mass breedings or AP floods, if ideas like the AP kick statr flooding the AP with CB's of certain unwanted breeds, imagine the uproar and unhappiness that will flood the forums?

Just gonna bring this over to this page to get people's opinions on it instead of limiting eggs allowed in the AP by breeders.

[purpledragonclaw]

If mass breedings were more common I would consider this idea, but right now I would not support it. Since they're so infrequent I find the mass breedings to be an exciting time to look for species with nice lineages I normally would not pick up. I really enjoy catching/tossing each egg hoping to find one or two I'd like to keep.

 

AnanoKimi, I don't think your suggestion would solve the question of massbreeding posed by this thread. A mass bred wall of lower-time eggs will be cleared faster, but it will still be a wall.

 

[NotBambi]

Using your analogy, this suggestion would alter how the current system reacts to these massive artichoke floods in the following manner:

 

Instead of artichokes just flooding into the produce shelf, each supplier of the artichokes gets 5 or 10 spaces on the shelf. Any additional crates of artichokes waits in the back. As soon as the customer grabs a bunch of artichokes, those waiting in the back immediately fill up that spot. There is no chance for any other vegetable to fill that "reserved" slot until all the artichokes have been sold, thus freeing up the spot.

 

P.S. I don't think I like artichokes anymore ;-;

I understand your point (I think) but what if the other veggies

(not just artichokes) suppliers were to have priority? As in, artichoke suppliers earned priority but, afterwards, need to wait?

[blockEdragon]

idk

i think the biome blockers to the ap should be top of the list

mass breeding are pretty rare i mean the Neo was annoying but it is like a once a month tops sorta thing on a scale like that and they are pretty rare so i don't see the need

 

[Tawanda001]

On the whole "forcing people to pick up my eggs or leave the AP" thing - nonsense. No one is trying to force anyone to do anything. What they are doing, intentionally or not, is helping balance the ratios.

So if I want to hunt and I have no need for CBs what do I do while I wait for a wall to disappear? Yeah, I totally feel like I've been forced out of hunting. A couple of hours is frustrating if my time is limited by my schedule, but to have a day off and the wall lasts eight hours, at the whim of one player? I think there needs to be a way to lessen the impact one player can have.

Is there anything other than conjecture that these breeding have more than a negligible effect on ratios? And if it's true why are ratios still out of whack even though people have been trying this tactic for years, with no real discernible results?

[Fiona]

Because there are discernible results.

 

Think, when was the last time you saw a CB balloon? How often are you seeing CB mints as blockers? Those are just two off the top of my head. There are others whose blockers status has been changed by players' actions.

 

I'm sorry if your play today was impacted by the neo-wall but how often does that actually happen?

[shanique]

No support.

 

This can go both ways. What if the breeder didn't necessarily breed just one type of dragon and you happen to be hoarding the one they're breeding, but no one else wants to pick them up?

 

On the other hand, if a specific user massbred "useful" or in-demand dragons in the AP, there's a high chance that most of those 5-10 eggs are already taken before you can click on it, as opposed to a full wall of them and you can basically click from one egg to another and hope that it's still there.

 

It doesn't matter who the breeder is, or what they bred, but if it's a massbreeding event of the same egg, you're still bound to see a wall of the same egg whether or not this limit exists.

 

I agree with the statements above. We don't really need something that's really complex to add lag to the game, for a function that doesn't necessarily eliminate a problem.

 

[cyradis4]

Here's an analogy I think works well in this situation.

 

You go grocery shopping every week. Depending on who you are, maybe you only go once a week, maybe you go everyday. Regardless, you purchase different items (i.e. eggs, milk, sugar, corn, etc.). Suddenly, the day you go to the grocery store (people who AP fish once a week), or one of the days you go to the store (people who AP fish more than once a week) the only product the store is selling is artichokes. If you want one artichoke, or maybe a few, this is a good way to fulfill that want/need; however, if you don't want more than one, or any at all, this artichoke only stock is a hindrance to you. Now, there will be artichoke lovers who will go crazy, and fill their basket (egg/hatchie slots) with artichokes, and be happy. But a good portion of the store's shoppers will be irked/annoyed/disappointed. Many will leave the store empty handed and hungry. If that is their only shopping day, it's a horrid deal for them. Even for those who shop twice a week, this is a bad deal.

 

Mass breeding is kind of like that. It's no big deal to some, or even awesome for some, but a really bad thing to others. Which is why I support a suggestion like this.

Just one problem:

You are NOT at a Grocery store, you are digging in the dumpers *behind* the Grocery store. The Biomes are the Grocery store. The AP is for eggs that have been discarded. Yes, many people go there for low timed goodies, me included. But that doesn't change the fact: its a DUMPSTER, and as such there's no reason to think there will be good things there all the time. Quite the contrary! Often times, I go AP hunting and find nothing of interest. Other times, I find lots of prettys.

 

 

As for this suggestion:

No support. For multiple reasons:

 

1. If a breed CAN mass-breed enough eggs to block the AP for more than 10 minutes... Then that breed *needs* to be mass-bred. Try making a wall of Shinies, it just won't work. The ratios will stop you long before you get enough eggs out there to form a wall.

In short, mass breeding helps. Anything that suggests that its frowned upon is A Bad Thing.

 

2. The AP is the Abandoned Pile. Its what's been discarded. Anything that attempts to alter what's seen to make it "better" is running contrary to what it is. Its not a thrift store where you go for deals, its not a place where you go for shiny new stuff. Its not even a yard sale! Its a place where people have discarded things they do not want. A landfill for eggs as it were.

 

3. Very few people are willing, normally, to take the time needed to breed enough eggs to block the AP for any appreciable amount of time. Its a very RARE occurrence that the AP gets walled for more than an hour or so. I just tried, it took me on average 10 seconds to breed a dragon and move to the next. To breed 100 dragons, that's 1,000 seconds.... or 16.7 minutes. And you won't get 100 eggs from that pairing. To breed 700 pairs, you're looking at about 2+ hrs of nothing but breeding dragons. Its rather infrequent that someone sits down and *does* something like that. So its not a big problem, at all. The time it takes to breed dragons ensures that!

 

 

tl;dr

Why waste effort on "fixing" a "problem" that actually helps (long term) and happens once in a blue moon?

 

Cheers!

C4.

 

 

[Tawanda001]

Because there are discernible results.

 

Think, when was the last time you saw a CB balloon? How often are you seeing CB mints as blockers? Those are just two off the top of my head. There are others whose blockers status has been changed by players' actions.

 

I'm sorry if your play today was impacted by the neo-wall but how often does that actually happen?

But is it actually due to mass breeding or simply because those are older dragons? Few of the older dragons seem to be blockers anymore whether mass bred or not.

 

As someone who basically only hunts the AP other than for new releases it happens on a somewhat regular basis. Obviously it's not a world class problem but it is highly frustrating to only have an hour or two to hunt before doing several back to back shifts and and the entire time the AP is flooded with massbred eggs of one kind.

 

If it is for ratios then it seems there are other ways to do it without blocking the AP for hours at a time.

 

Cyradis these aren't unwanted eggs someone dumped because they got the wrong breed or whatever, they are deliberately bred to be dumped so I think we will have to agree to disagree about the AP being a trash pile only meant for 'discards'

Edited July 6, 2015 by Tawanda001

[Jazeki]

As long as this suggestion doesn't actually limit what I can mass breed, but limits what shows up, I'm meh about it.

[dothefreddy]

No support. This wasn't an issue, and was generally laughed at for the most part, until today when an unpopular breed wall hit. This isn't necessary and all it does is limit things that really don't need limiting.

 

This is rather silly and quite an overblown reaction.

[Syphoneira]

So if I want to hunt and I have no need for CBs what do I do while I wait for a wall to disappear? Yeah, I totally feel like I've been forced out of hunting. A couple of hours is frustrating if my time is limited by my schedule, but to have a day off and the wall lasts eight hours, at the whim of one player? I think there needs to be a way to lessen the impact one player can have.

Is there anything other than conjecture that these breeding have more than a negligible effect on ratios? And if it's true why are ratios still out of whack even though people have been trying this tactic for years, with no real discernible results?

 

 

 

 

 

These are all good points.

 

Some people have very limited time here and it won't encourage them to keep coming back if the biomes and AP are both likely to be pretty much blocked up with eggs they don't want when they arrive and until they have to leave.

 

The more varied mass breeds which have been recently arranged are not so bad and are even enjoyable for those who like any of the breeds and lineages supplied.

 

The problem is generally with those breeding messy lineages/all of one breed (other than pretty lineages of especially Pinks, Reds or other useful/popular breeds) in large quantities, something likely due to simple ignorance or, in a few cases, malice, and which we can do little about, apart from general education for those on the forum who simply don't know better.

 

While I know that I am often discouraged by having the AP fill up with a breed/messy lineages I have no interest in or use for and that this also adversely affects many others, I'm not so sure that I like the idea of messing with the way the AP presents eggs.

 

I personally feel that it's just unfortunate that the mass breeding threads were unearthed after so long without such issues, causing so many to apparently think that breeding tons of even messy-lineaged dragons to the AP all at once was a good idea...

 

 

The ratios are so out of whack with what Commons the members can willingly support that nothing we've tried over the years has been able to adequately cope with this issue.

 

The biome-to-AP dump would gradually help on a player-responsive basis, but in the end, there's really nothing players can do about the blockers unless we all dedicate our fun time to raising dragons we don't want, sacrificing the collecting, relaxation, achievements and fun we come here for to instead slog for a bit before going to do something we actually enjoy.

 

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear likely that dragon sprites will ever be produced on a player-responsive basis, so about all we can do is to hope that the issue will be addressed by something such as the above-mentioned biome-to-AP dump.

 

 

The Abandoned Page actually always has been the place for people to dump eggs they don't want but which someone else might.

 

Because the Cave was so long Blocked by the AP, many people turned to hunting there, in great part because prior to Teleport, gifts and trades once passed through and were snipe-able, and sometimes people bred nice eggs or abandoned UnCommon/rare dragons to randomly gift there.

 

Since the biomes are still often stalled by Blockers, many still preferentially turn to the AP for hunting as it typically moves more and is less boring than hunting the often unmoving biomes, importantly, because the eggs tend to be of lesser time and Incuhatchable/ER just about anything will be snapped up, and because people breed pretty lineages for AP hunters from time to time, while low-time CBs may often be found there as well.

 

So the purpose of the dump has long since expanded, although it has always been the place we could pick through for unwanted eggs we might be able to use.

[Vhale]

/support

I don't think I'd even know that 10 or 20 of my eggs were in the AP instead of 30. I don't watch mass breeds that closely. And it sounds like this wouldn't hinder mass breeding in any way, just ensure walls are less annoying. From what I've seen of walls, once the wall "breaks" the remaining wall goes lower in time until it gets close to hatching, then all gets snagged. So I don't think this suggestion would hinder anything being raised. They all get snatched now anyway.

So if it's easy to code, seems simple enough and thoughtful to other players.

[Stormcaller]

I support angelicdragonpuppy's idea. In fact, I would go along with any plan that would stop the walls and enhance the ability of the AP to contain a wide variety of bred and CB eggs.

 

Mass breeding inhibits that ability, even if it is just for a few hours and, since not everyone can play at any given time, their needs should be respected too.

[Windra]

Eh, can't say I support this. Like many people have said, it's simply not big enough of an issue to implement the restriction.

 

I find walls a fun way to influence what dragons I get at the time. Tons of Royal Blue dragons? Get a Royal Blue dragon or two. Neotropicals (like there were earlier)? Same thing. Worst case scenario, you don't use the AP for a while. Now don't get me wrong; it's frustrating when you don't like the breed. But... I don't know, I guess that walls just don't bother me that much. I'll abstain.

[Tawanda001]

For me it is not about the breed at all. It could be a solid wall of metals or prizes and I would still find it every bit as frustrating.

It's the fact that for hours the hunting is restricted to single breed that another player has decided to breed. I really am not thrilled that one single player or a small group of players can have that kind of impact over so many others.

[StormBirdRising]

It could be a solid wall of metals or prizes

Good Grief. I dream about a solid wall of metals or prizes. That wall would last a few seconds at most.

[Fuzzbucket]

I'm quite opposed to this suggestion. I believe it's major effect would be to discourage people who are mass-breeding breeds that need their numbers raised. Breeds that are low in population need people who are willing to breed them and any move to restrict that would send a negative message.

 

Really, I've seen a lot of people enjoying mass-breeds. It's only today when someone chose a less popular breed that this comes up. Just because you don't happen to like that particular breed doesn't mean suddenly something needs changed. It didn't really last that long in the big scheme of things.

 

I know you're saying that all those eggs would eventually hit the AP, but again, I think this sends the wrong kind of message to people breeding large numbers of dragons to the AP. On the whole "forcing people to pick up my eggs or leave the AP" thing - nonsense. No one is trying to force anyone to do anything. What they are doing, intentionally or not, is helping balance the ratios.

I'm with Fi. Even this rather impressive if irritating neo wall lasted a whole 24 hours. Does no-one but me have a life ?

[TJ09]

I suspect this thread aims to solve a problem that exists only in theory.

 

Data seems to indicate that the vast majority of people who have abandoned eggs currently (that have not been picked up) would be entirely unaffected by this change.

 

I suppose this could be used as an argument both for and against this proposed change. On one hand, if it only applies to a few people, then it wouldn't really change much visibly about the AP, while purportedly improving one of its pain points.

On the other, being such a rare case means that it's potentially not worth the effort to implement and maintain (and protect against bitrot, work around, etc).

[JavaTigress]

Honestly, I never thought of egg walls as more than an eyeroll level of annoyance. THOUGH I do get if you ONLY AP hunt and have limited time. What occurs to ME is that often times I see plenty of eggs of less popular breeds sit in the AP as it is, egg wall or no. What might work BETTER, if we need to change the AP to do something about those, would BE to have the AP take extra time off of a n egg if there were over a certain number already in backlog. THAT would be useful for a number of things and not JUST mass breeds by making them more desirable to pick up.

 

If, as it seems, the problem is that the breed in question was unpopular ( AND i have heard about massbreedings before without this much fuss over them... though granted many of those did not last as long as I understand this one did)... why not make those eggs MORE popular.The ABILITY to massbreed on that scale is the ratios way of saying that there SHOULD be more of those dragons. Part of the SOURCE of the problem is probably their very unpopularity. Demand for breeds is a funny thing. It can make apparent rares out of dragons that were never meant to BE that scarce, AND because of the ratios, lack thereof can make 'blockers' out of common breeds. ( THOUGH thank TJ, the AP cannot literally block off the cave anymore) IF you tried to breed an egg wall of a popular/desireable breed, I bet you couldn't do it... or even if you could the eggs would disappear fairly quickly. IF those Neo eggs had been incuhatcheable, they might have gone more quickly.

Edited July 6, 2015 by Silverswift

[kitsune93]

No support.

I just doesn't seem like a big enough problem.

[Tawanda001]

IF those Neo eggs had been incuhatcheable, they might have gone more quickly.

Actually they were incuhatchable. I and many others hatched as many as we reasonably could. The problem was the sheer volume of eggs and the fact that they lasted so long with only an occasional egg of any other breed popping up. People were not rushing in to grab these just because they were lower time.

Maybe if they had been below four days and instantly hatchable it may have made a difference, but even then I doubt they would have been cleared from the AP in less than several hours.

[JavaTigress]

Actually they were incuhatchable. I and many others hatched as many as we reasonably could. The problem was the sheer volume of eggs and the fact that they lasted so long with only an occasional egg of any other breed popping up. People were not rushing in to grab these just because they were lower time.

Maybe if they had been below four days and instantly hatchable it may have made a difference, but even then I doubt they would have been cleared from the AP in less than several hours.

O.o Good GRIEF that'd have to be a LOT of eggs.

 

That said.... how often is someone ACTUALLY able to produce a wall that lasts that long?

Not often I bet as it would take an INSANE number of pairs of dragons to breed that many eggs.

 

I'm sure that I couldn't... I don't have enough of anything to make a wall of that kind.

 

As to your point... I guess I had in mind reducing the time so they were ER... more or less instantly hatcheable.

 

My thinking being that some breeds sit in the AP a while, even IF they aren't forming a wall. For example... I have noticed a fair number of mint dragon eggs in the AP this morning and they seem to be going NOWHERE.

 

ETA- My GUESS'd be that PART of the problem was the timing of this wall. MY Bet is that too many people are still hunting for Xenowyrms to be interested in picking up low time Neotropicals... just my thought.

Edited July 6, 2015 by Silverswift