General AP Options

[purplehaze]

The best thing about the current AP for most of us is the low-time aspect among the full variety of eggs/hatchies showing up there.

I agree with your whole post Syph, but this is the crux of it for me.

 

So far no one has explained how this idea would be helpful. The only "advantage" I can see is it allows users to cherry-pick the best and leave the rest. And I don't think that is a good thing.

 

Can someone please tell me why this is needed? Why overturn the current system? What makes it worthwhile to turn the whole AP system on its head?

[NotBambi]

While I can't say that I support the suggestion (or at least not yet) I can see a couple of advantages. For example, if someone mass-bred a wall of "green stuff" would be nice to sort by color and go search for non-green eggs. Or, going back to Thuban said:

If you know you will be missing a day, having a higher time egg is sometimes a better move.

 

[purplehaze]

The walls don't last that long. And if you won't be around to tend a low time egg then why not grab something from the cave instead?

[Vhale]

I don't see how the AP is any more or less fair than biomes. Adding sort options would not change my cherry picking habits or what I already pick up. So no issues with this for me.

[Thuban]

The walls don't last that long. And if you won't be around to tend a low time egg then why not grab something from the cave instead?

I do mostly grab cave eggs, and throw the ones i dont need to the ap if they havent hatched by the time im able to play again. However, a 5 day egg isnt going to die if you miss two days, but a 7 day egg isnt going to be ready to hatch after missing two days, unless you go through and use another dragon to force it to (yay incubate). The problem with cave hunting though is that unless there happens to be a release thing going on, I end up having to waste 4-6 slots to get one egg I actually want, in the time frame I play in. I get maybe three eggs I actually want to have a week, unless I choose to skip out on responsibilities and spend a day devoted to moving the cave and hunting.

_______________________________________________________________

The point of the thread really was to open the door for people to offer some ideas on how to make their AP experience better. I was aiming for a general thread, with options for different things that could potentially work with more discussion, or work.

 

I know time based hunting is twitchy. I'm twitchy, but I cant see any valid reason for it to not be a thing, other than "what about the rares" arguements. If it was limited to everything shows up /except/ official rares, which show up for EVERYONE regardless of sort, then I can see that causing complaints too (why are 7 day rares showing up in my ER sort?).

 

I know color sort is twitchy, because "we could sort for rares" but im sure with some math to work out how many breeds per group show up, we could minimize that a bit. Its why i was fine with changing the sort to splitting color sort in half.

 

I know there could be some options somewhere though, to allow a bit of a sort that would help people find things they are looking for, without it having to be a "what about the rares" thing.

 

 

 

[The Flash]

Sure, why not. Full support.

[cyradis4]

Pros and cons of this idea. Lemme know if I miss any.

 

Pros

• Lets people see around mass-breeds. Even though usually lasting just an hour or two, some people get really upset about them.
• Reduces time to find certain eggs. Some people go hunting for specific items, and it saves them time. Due to the Biomes being stagnant, its usually faster to find Commons in the AP than it is to take the time to find the same common in the Biomes.
• Will let people see past Holiday walls
• Fugly eggs would likely be ER before they get picked up, making it less of a sacrifice to get them.
• Would result in more metals for those who don't have them. (Many people, such as myself, won't bother with high time metals, we have other things to use our slots for. But we will grab the low time metals that turn up in the AP)
• Different people could see different eggs. It would let people find what they actually want easier.... but would mean some people wouldn't have a shot at the same eggs.

 

 

Con

• Will result in the nicest eggs being cherry picked out at high time. (note: they'll STILL have to wade through the exact same number of commons as they would now)
• The lowest time bracket will likely be almost all fugly eggs
• No low time metals in the AP.
• Will increase the stagnation of the Biomes
• Different people could see different eggs. It would let people find what they actually want easier.... but would mean some people wouldn't have a shot at the same eggs.

 

I still think that this would be best considered after something is done about the Biomes and out-of-control ratios.

 

Cheers!

C4.

 

[Syphoneira]

I strongly suspect that it would affect the ratios, which I'd personally place on the con side.

 

Speaking for myself, I'll pick up low-time Commons I may not really want if I have room, they're ER/Incuhatchable and I happen to pick one up while searching for pretty lineages and think weeeeeell, I might as well, it'll hatch right away and I have hatchy space for it.

 

If something like this were to be implemented, I wouldn't be in the ER section because I don't actually want the Commons I have enough of/am not fond of in the first place and really don't want any more of, lol, and I don't Freeze, so I won't be taking any fuglies.

 

I wouldn't be in the full-time section very much and I certainly wouldn't be taking Commons I don't want more of in the first place at full-time; I'd probably look through it for pretty lineages I could use but I wouldn't be able to take many at full time, so I'd be pretty selective.

 

The Blocker types would age into an ER section full of fuglies - seriously, who's going to bother with it?

 

I expect that many of the eggs there would die and be recycled, likely into the Cave; many of us would probably not see it and frankly, I wouldn't Drop everything to go save the fuglies.

 

Granted, they may not be recycled as fuglies, but they'd still be eggs most people have enough of already - and they'd be Blocking the biomes at a higher rate than ever.

 

 

Most people won't spend time specifically hunting in the picked-over fugly/Blocker AP section for yet more unwanted eggs at low-time when they will be missing all chance of seeing the decent eggs entering the high-time AP section.

 

 

With the current typically Incuhatchable AP and a single egg-space free, I can fill my scroll with hatchies.

 

With this, a single full-time pretty Common worth keeping, and I'm done for up to two days.

 

 

I'll bet you could multiply that by an awful lot of players...

 

 

Not to mention that the suggestion of the biomes shuffling untaken eggs into the AP only works if there are a lot of people taking a lot of ER/Incuhatchable CB Commons to raise/Freeze because they're there and they might as well, so implementing anything of this type would kinda stymie any chance there might be of that ever happening...

[Nectaris]

Another thing, the reason I have abandoned the biomes is because I don't like having to choose what to hunt. The AP offers everything right there in one convenient place. This suggestion ruins that break of having to hop between biomes, only now to get anything you have to hop between filters.

 

And yes, with this suggestion, it would practically FORCE you to use them unless all you want is blockers(which I doubt many will). It is like handing someone two computers, one is new and fast, but relatively cheap and has poor graphics while the other is old and slow, but in its day was a really nice computer. You are told both are yours and you can use either one. No matter how pretty the graphics, are you really going to use the old computer? Likely not. With this, the old computer is the default sort.

Edited September 24, 2015 by Nectaris

[Kovia]

I agree that the potential to abuse this to only grab rares is too high.

 

Random idea, for those that hate massbreedings, maybe just add an option to block a specific breed from sight? As long as you limit how many diff breeds someone could hide at once it shouldn't be able to be abused for rare hunting.

[Obscure_Trash]

However, a 5 day egg isnt going to die if you miss two days, but a 7 day egg isnt going to be ready to hatch after missing two days, unless you go through and use another dragon to force it to (yay incubate).

A 4 day egg (pretty much the lowest the AP gets) also isn't going to die if you miss two days. o:

[Sextonator]

I vote yes, if the way it's sorted now is default.

 

I think having the color sort would be cool, since if you're looking for a certain breed, or at least a certain color, you don't have to wait to find one. I'm actually currently filling out my encyclopedia and am grabbing eggs from the ap, and I was able to grab three eggs each of two breeds. If there comes a point where I need more of those breeds, having the ability to easily find it without having to constantly refresh or memorize the description would be nice, since I don't egg hunt often, and don't always recognize descriptions. And if I choose a breed that's easier to find via ap than the cave, I'd much rather use the ap, since I don't have enough tolerance to sit and refresh for what I'm looking for, since I tend to multi task while at the computer and often miss drops. It'll also reduce any straying from the objective, since seeing an egg I like available would be too tempting to pass up.

 

And I think having the option of a high or low time egg is nice, just for the added option. You never know, maybe someone would actually want a 7 day egg, if for no reason other than just because.

 

This could also be helpful for those that miss out on a release, and resort to searching the ap for new breeds that have been bred.

[Thuban]

I agree that the potential to abuse this to only grab rares is too high.

 

Random idea, for those that hate massbreedings, maybe just add an option to block a specific breed from sight? As long as you limit how many diff breeds someone could hide at once it shouldn't be able to be abused for rare hunting.

Sure, I'll add that to first page list

 

[SkylerFarrier]

I only agree if it's a time-based sort, and then only the normal(lowest)/highest option.

 

A colorsort might be nice, but it would have to be very broad to keep the rares somewhat evenly spaced out. What if I'm looking for a bunch of Whiptail freeze fodder, or some Black Teas?

Plus, there's still the issue of motivation. Right now, people pick up AP eggs even if they wouldn't pick up the same egg with 7 days left because these eggs are incu-hatchable (or close to it), so they're like extra dragons we can have without losing our regular scroll space. This takes care of countless blockers and messies and is a very good thing for the almighty ratios.

Better phrased than I could have done.

 

 

With holidays on my mind, I think it could be interesting to just have holidays automatically claim the top two lines, regardless of how things are sorted, for however long they dominate being first in line. That would allow everyone equal chances at those, regardless of sort, and still allow for hunting behind the wall too. Mixed sort would probably get messed up but it could be ok.

I believe I've commented on that suggestion thread(s) before. I strongly disagree with forcing the AP to be split during the Holidays. Having more than 2 rows of Holidays means that the slower-computer players can click multiple ones each reload to try and grab something. The option to toggle between Holidays-first-then-low-time-in-leftover-space and low-time-only-no-Holidays enables the two seemingly-most-prominent groups of players to continue their own playstyle, rather than forcibly limiting the Holiday grab opportunities for the former group.

 

 

Thing is, in order for people to raise/Freeze CB Blockers/fuglies because they're low-time, *people have to go to the low-time AP in quantity* and pick through the eggs in order to see the 'might-as-well-because-they're-here' eggs they otherwise wouldn't bother with.

Probably most of us pick through Blockers looking specifically for pretty lineages and only pick up CB Blockers we otherwise wouldn't keep because we are there, they're ER/Incuhatchable and we've already picked them up.

It has been a very long time, since I had a bunch of inactivity, but there's at least one thread that has a raffle of sorts for AP cleanup.

 

Please keep it the way it is, unless for correcting the Holiday "problem".

...It helps the ratios.

better ratios <-> greater chance to see rares

[pinkgothic]

Con

 

The lowest time bracket will likely be almost all fugly eggs

 

 

Hmm. I'd go as far as to consider that a feature, not a bug, honestly. Less desired eggs become more desirable because they're incuhatchable, and more desired eggs are... well, already more desired, so it was never really necessary that they were also incuhatchable. I mean, you sort of mention that in the 'Pro' section, but my point is that I don't see it as a con at all.

 

I like this idea. I don't really AP hunt at all outside of holiday seasons, because I'm usually looking for common species I like the sprite of, and I don't have a lot of patience refreshing over walls of species I don't care for. Being able to filter a little bit to increase the chance of coming across e.g. a Coast species I like (deepseas, waterwalkers, ...) by picking the 'blue' filter would be pretty neat and would inspire me to pick up a lot more messies. (I have a whole section on my scroll dedicated to those that I haven't tended to in ages even though I really ought to.)

Edited September 24, 2015 by pinkgothic

[Thuban]

Note: First post is getting updated with ideas as they come up

 

Will go back and update the purple areas with more details regarding discussions soon (probably tomorrow while kids are at school, as i have company showing up soon)

[Daydreamer09]

I have to agree with a lot of other people on this thread, having options to filter out the ap would lead to players abusing the system. If it were restricted to filtering between eggs with the lowest time and eggs with the highest, or maybe an option to mix the two that may help. The color sort option in particular I feel would be the easiest to exploit.

 

Maybe the option to sort eggs in different ways can be a system you'd have to pay for. Not actual money, but possibly by accumulating mana to cast spells and magic to influence the ap or the eggs? A dialogue along the lines of "You cast the ___ spell and notice eggs that seem (closest/too young/?????) to hatch glowing.

 

Spells that would resonate with dragon eggs with a certain element affinity might be interesting. But I think is pretty similar to the color sort idea, which I'm not a fan of.

Edited September 25, 2015 by Daydreamer09

[Syphoneira]

Hmm. I'd go as far as to consider that a feature, not a bug, honestly. Less desired eggs become more desirable because they're incuhatchable, and more desired eggs are... well, already more desired, so it was never really necessary that they were also incuhatchable. I mean, you sort of mention that in the 'Pro' section, but my point is that I don't see it as a con at all.

 

I like this idea. I don't really AP hunt at all outside of holiday seasons, because I'm usually looking for common species I like the sprite of, and I don't have a lot of patience refreshing over walls of species I don't care for. Being able to filter a little bit to increase the chance of coming across e.g. a Coast species I like (deepseas, waterwalkers, ...) by picking the 'blue' filter would be pretty neat and would inspire me to pick up a lot more messies. (I have a whole section on my scroll dedicated to those that I haven't tended to in ages even though I really ought to.)

 

 

 

Thing is - other than people looking to Freeze random hatchies irrespective of lineage or type, how many people would bother to even go to a separate AP with nothing but fuglies and some CB uber-Commons?

 

We already know that most people won't sacrifice an egg-slot to take the Blockers at anywhere near full time, although some (like myself) will, at times, take low-time CBs they really don't need/want if they have lots of hatchy-space and are around to maybe even by accident pick up an ER CB of a type they wouldn't normally bother with, because they might not much like the sprite or already have tons.

 

But who will go looking in a separate area for ER fuglies and Blockers, to risk missing out on dragons they could use which won't make it past the full-time AP, that being where people will snag any incoming shinies, generally useful CBs and pretty lineages people may donate?

 

 

These full-time, more desirable eggs will take up egg spaces for the full time, rather than being ER/Incuhatchable, *forcing people to be more selective in what they take from the AP, with far fewer egg spaces opening up far less quickly than with insta-hatches, so that far less, overall, will be taken from the AP to be raised into the ratios, and what WILL be taken will predominately consist of useful dragons, not uber-Commons many people already are loaded with or perhaps don't much like or use in lineages*.

 

 

The AP works so well now because people looking for one thing may come across different things they 'might as well take' which turn over quickly at low-time, enabling them to come for more and far more frequently, and they may often wind up taking a number of eggs they otherwise wouldn't have spent an egg-slot on, since they can be ERed immediately to clear the egg-spaces.

 

This would be why the AP is designed as it is: the lower-time eggs showing have to be taken before the others appear - and when ER/Incuhatchable, this helps enormously with the ratios, since at least some of the people hunting quite frequently WILL raise/Freeze dragons they don't really want or need, if they have hatchy-room/extra Freezes.

 

If this orderly process can be bypassed by going to different areas/seeing specific dragons, the benefits to the ratios are lost - and far fewer dragons can be taken at full time than when insta-hatchies.

 

 

The AP is actually a place for people to dump dragons they don't want themselves, in case anyone else could use them; the more desirable dragons are typically added by kindly people to give the garbage-pickers a nice surprise.

 

Splitting the AP up into divisions so that people could cherry-pick more easily, with only the most-useless unwanteds clustering in the ER section, would be completely altering its function as a repository for unwanted eggs which will sit there, blocking new entries until they're taken or they die (any such change as Suggested offering people the option of simply going to the AP section with incoming dragons of all kinds, if at full time only) and now as a fairly constant source of ER/Incuhatchable (or close to) variety of potentially every sort of dragon - which eggs are currently invariably taken for one purpose or another by one person or another *because everyone entering it sees the same things, increasing the odds that someone will, for one reason or another, eventually take ANY egg in the AP, no matter how fugly, once the time's low enough*.

 

If enough people see different sections and can pick what they happen to be looking for without even seeing forlorn ER fuglies or Blockers or other than specific colours or whatever - why would they go looking for what they aren't hoping to find and don't even really want in the first place?

 

 

 

TLDR:

 

The AP as it currently is forms a major asset, with an almost continual supply of low-time eggs in which many people happily hunt, eventually taking all dragons which land in there.

 

This suggestion removes that AP with the generally low-time variety of eggs, reduced instead only to fugly/uber-Common ER/Incuhatchable eggs most of us wouldn't go looking for and, for many of us, replaces it with essentially only a section to find full-time eggs, (who's going to hunt fuglies and miss all chance of not only missing any possible miracle catch, but of finding a pretty Common lineage mate for that long-lonely dragon or any other needed dragons which might pop up?) cutting back enormously on AP and other hunting capacity due to egg-space restrictions.

 

It also removes any real chance of our taking 'might as well' uber-Commons to raise into the ratios, due to egg-space considerations, since they'd be full-time as well where we'd be actually hunting.

 

 

I really think this concept needs to be thought out a little more carefully with regard as to what will be lost, which seems to me to be far more than would be gained, both by AP hunters in general and by the numbers of uber-Commons which I suspect would wind up dying in their isolated ER AP to be recycled back into additional Blockers, with fewer of the less-common dragons also produced as a result.

 

 

 

 

Another thing is that a number of us are hoping for the untaken biome eggs to be shuffled into the AP, the idea being that they'll be taken and raised at low-times when they won't be at full times, helping to reduce the numbers of Blockers endlessly recycled in the biomes at a user-responsive rate, both helping to move the biomes more freely and increasing the variety of eggs appearing in them.

 

This would work nicely enough in the current AP, but it certainly wouldn't in a situation where most people would be hunting in the full-time one, locking themselves on full-time eggs and more rarely bothering to go out of their way to hunt CB uber-Commons in the ER AP, because they aren't right there, at low-time, to be 'might as well' keepers.

[Obscure_Trash]

Color sort is an interesting idea and far more fair than the others, I think (although there may still be little cherry picking that harms the overall AP). It isn't something I can see myself using, though.

[olympe]

I don't know, I think that color sort is just as bad (or good, depending on your view) as sorting by age or a reverse sort.

[Thuban]

I don't know, I think that color sort is just as bad (or good, depending on your view) as sorting by age or a reverse sort.

It could work though. There are more than enough breeds that if you were to take say, red-green and shuffle them off to one side, then put greenish-blue, purple, blacks greys and whites in another, there /might/ be enough breeds, and common eggs to sort of drown the rares out a bit. There has to be a way to break up the colors that would even it out enough that it will limit cherry picking rares, while still narrowing down what you see. I tend to like red, green and blue range dragons. If I wanted a red dragon, I would have to deal with seeing:

Vamps, red, flamingo, those pink two headed, carmines, and every breed that shows up in a color sort, until male undines (roughly.. for ease, all undines to green side, everything between male and females goes to blue, whatever comes after male undines all go to the blue sort). Thats a lot of breeds to deal with. * quick count pulled 81 sprites on the red sort, not including frills, but counting holidays. However this number includes 3 seasonal sprites, and individual neb and stripe colors counting as one each... TJ might have to assign the neb (and other breeds that do not have an identifying egg) a color in order to sort them as eggs.

[dragonpuck]

TJ might have to assign the neb (and other breeds that do not have an identifying egg) a color in order to sort them as eggs.

that would be interesting, then we could figure out what our eggs were-- and isn't that why he changed the alt green and black???

 

Any way , I really don't have an opinion . I'd probably utilize a filter system ,but most of my AP hunting is for codes---

and holidays-- which are up at the top any way

[zaverxi]

I like the option of filtering unwanted eggs, but I also agree that it needs a limit to how many can be filtered. Say, a max of 10 filtered out. There's what, over 100 dragon types now? That's still 90 breeds you need to go through, so it doesn't really give too much of an advantage given that everyone else can also sort those exact breeds.

 

And on the other side of things, with people filtering out those breeds, it'd make it easier for those who hoard them to grab them since people are grabbing everything else haha.

 

 

I can see a complication for those 'unwanted' eggs sitting and not getting picked up, so maybe have the filtering work only on specific age ranges. Like, if it's below 3 days or whichever, they show up anyway.

 

 

I also like the option that allows people to hunt for normal eggs when holidays are going on. Sometimes, you just have enough solstices or yulebucks and want some of those low-time eggs that don't show up until after the event. I mean I personally wouldn't use it, but I know how many people complain about exactly that during holidays.

 

The third option I like is sorting by biome. Really, why isn't this an option already? Make the AP look like the Cave, where you can click specific biomes and see eggs that are only available in those biomes. A lot of rares are available in all biomes anyway, so it wouldn't really affect that. But if people are hoarding tsunamis for instance, and want to find tsunamis, right now they have to go through every single other egg available, rather than limiting it to the coast AP.

[olympe]

I also like the option that allows people to hunt for normal eggs when holidays are going on. Sometimes, you just have enough solstices or yulebucks and want some of those low-time eggs that don't show up until after the event. I mean I personally wouldn't use it, but I know how many people complain about exactly that during holidays.

That's pretty much the only filter I'd like to see. Everything else seems wrong somehow.

[Thuban]

that would be interesting, then we could figure out what our eggs were-- and isn't that why he changed the alt green and black???

 

Any way , I really don't have an opinion . I'd probably utilize a filter  system ,but most of my AP hunting is for codes---

and holidays-- which are up at the top any way

No, not what i meant at all.

 

ALL neb eggs (and things with alts, outside of stripes anyhow, share the same image, therefore that image would get a color assigned to it. Green neb HATCHYS would show up in the green sort, but a green neb, still in the egg, would show up wherever the color assigned to the egg tells it to go. Same with Undines, and Vines, Solstices (when they come back, if time was a factor for breeding...) since they share eggs between various sprites.

 

Honestly, if a color sort were going to happen in the AP, it would be better to have it use the egg/hatchling colors anyhow across the board. That might mix them up a bit better.

Edited September 25, 2015 by Thuban