Extend Holiday Breeding

[AGYK]

If the point of this thread is to alleviate AP stress, doesn't a 2nd breeding put us back at square one?

Your suggestion and Lurstaahp's suggestion more or less counter each other, for whatever that's worth.

 

Longer season + same breedings = eggs spaced out more over the breeding season

Same season + more breedings = more eggs packed into the breeding season

 

I predict someone will make the natural progression of suggesting longer season + more breedings, but blah. I'd rather see a longer season with the same number of breedings we have now.

[cyradis4]

I personally think a longer season with the same breedings is the best way to go.

 

The wall formed within hours, this time. The current Halloween backlog is 11 hrs. That was extraordinarily quick for it to form like that. It'll be worse, next year. This past Christmas, the wall formed about half-way through the season. I predict that this Christmas, the wall will form within the first two days. Valentines has never been as popular a Holiday, but I think that even it will get a solid wall this time.

 

The walls will just keep getting bigger and bigger. At least if we had more time to breed in, we'd be able to spread it out more.

 

Cheers!

C4.

 

 

[Jazeki]

Would an extra scroll space or two during holidays help the problem any? I'm thinking it may be easier to keep the time the same but allow more room.

I was actually talking about this with another user over PM (before I saw your post). I think it could stand to be a suggestion in its own thread. I know I'd support it.

[Amazon_warrior]

I was actually talking about this with another user over PM (before I saw your post). I think it could stand to be a suggestion in its own thread. I know I'd support it.

This thought occurred to me, too. Would support a temp. increase in room for holiday breedings. Even if it were a split between caught eggs and self-bred eggs, c.f. the bred-egg slot we used to have.

[Lurhstaap]

Not necessarily - if the normal cooldown is intact then the second breeding will happen a week after the first one, meaning that the breeding season is automatically extended to two weeks since many people won't breed the very first day of the season and they may wait until the 31st to breed, meaning the second breeding could happen as much as a week after Halloween. And then that last wave of bred eggs would be in the AP for a while longer after all the second breedings were done, giving a significantly expanded grabbing period. Or if you did the 'extra' breeding in the week before Halloween as the original suggestion says, it'd work out the same way.

 

Or alternatively if you stick to the one week breeding season, if people breed once early in the week and then once later in the week, the holiday flood in the AP will last a lot longer and give people more time to grab stuff. I don't think there's an issue with too many eggs as it is, personally. Everything seems to get picked up sooner or later, whether by people who don't care about lineage or who want esoteric stuff or who want freezing fodder. And TBH if regular eggs are dying behind the wall, I'm not sure I see that as a problem. I guess I'm just coming at the issue from a different angle.

 

Honestly I'm starting to wonder if it might be a good idea to just have a separate AP for holiday eggs entirely, or have two piles, one for holiday eggs and one for normal ones. That would have a lot of benefits. Should I make a new thread for that, d'you guys think? It's aimed at solving the same problem as this thread but in a totally different way. (I still think extending the breeding season, in whatever form, would be a benefit.)

Edited October 26, 2015 by Lurhstaap

[Jazeki]

@Lurhstaap-As per the OP, the extra breeding time would only occur before the "standard" breeding week and all breeding preventions would stay in place (fresh bred and already bred Halloween adults) would be set to the 31st as their last bred date.

 

The idea of separate biomes/AP's for holidays was brought up in another thread. But it poses an issue for mobile users.

 

If you want to start another thread, I think that would be okay though.

[PolarVortex]

I like the idea of extended breeding (it means I could keep more of my own holiday offspring and work on more of my own projects!) but I don't think it will solve the "problem" of the holiday wall. In my opinion it will only extend it! The Halloween wall already lasts for a week after Halloween and that's the max time for a wall because after 8 days in the AP the extra holiday eggs will start dying. If you extend out the leading edge of the wall by making the breeding period longer you will extend the wall to more than two weeks.

 

Now, as I said in the other thread, I love the wall and would be happy to see it last even longer... but I believe that was the opposite of what the suggestion intended!

[aangs-sister]

I like the idea of extended breeding (it means I could keep more of my own holiday offspring and work on more of my own projects!) but I don't think it will solve the "problem" of the holiday wall. In my opinion it will only extend it! The Halloween wall already lasts for a week after Halloween and that's the max time for a wall because after 8 days in the AP the extra holiday eggs will start dying. If you extend out the leading edge of the wall by making the breeding period longer you will extend the wall to more than two weeks.

 

Now, as I said in the other thread, I love the wall and would be happy to see it last even longer... but I believe that was the opposite of what the suggestion intended!

Not quite.

 

The logic is if there is more time to breed, people will spread out the breedings so there will be less in the AP at any given time. If people can breed earlier, there will be fewer at the end of the season to cause a wall. There will also be more time to take eggs, meaning even fewer eggs to deal with.

 

Math example: Lets say you had 14 Halloween dragons you wanted to breed. Right now you would breed a batch of seven the first day, wait for them to hatch, breed a second batch, and maybe have enough time to catch a third batch from the AP if you had enough incubates and the right timing before the new release. 14-56 eggs would be produced because of multiclutches, but you can only raise 14-21 at best (not including the new release)

 

If you had two weeks, you could breed all 14 of your dragons and get two or three batches of AP eggs. That means for the 14-56 eggs you made, you could raise over 30. So, there would be fewer eggs BUT you would still probably produce more then you could take - meaning there is still eggs for AP hunters and newbies.

 

The last batch would also take 7 from the after Halloween wall, making it last a shorter time.

 

 

[PolarVortex]

But the reality is that I have 87 Halloween dragon so I can potentially produce up to 348 eggs for the AP. Plus I'm adding 29+ to my collection every year. Raising an extra 7 of my own eggs is great, but it doesn't really make a dent IMO.

[NotBambi]

There are people like me that do not care about collecting 2nd or higher Generation Holidays. Personally I've no intention of collecting anything but Holiday CBs, so, I'll be waiting until/if Holiday CBs are re-released :\ In the meantime, I'm bored and would love to see non-Halloween eggs/hatchies in the AP.

 

Back on topic: I like the idea of extended breeding. Not against "double breeding", kind on the fence. BUT, big BUT, I would be quite happier if all that would happen on the "Holiday AP".

 

 

[aangs-sister]

But the reality is that I have 87 Halloween dragon so I can potentially produce up to 348 eggs for the AP. Plus I'm adding 29+ to my collection every year. Raising an extra 7 of my own eggs is great, but it doesn't really make a dent IMO.

...but it wouldn't just be seven. If there was an extra week, you could raise double what you could now and so could everyone else. And the wall would be smaller since most eggs would be hatched by the end of the season, so they wouldn't contribute.

 

Let's use your numbers.

 

Let's say you bred all of your dragons, even if you didn't plan on keeping any eggs and got full muticlutches: 348 eggs. If people raised just your eggs and you keep the max you could (21), it takes about 15 people to clear your eggs. If people had 2 weeks they have more time and can take a second batch each AND you keep more. You could keep 42 that would never touch the AP and it would take only 7 people to clear the extras. More than 1/2 of them would be hatched before Halloween and thus wouldn't be part of the after-Halloween wall.

[silver_tiger]

I actually really like this suggestion, if only because of selfish reasons--I would like more time to find eggs I can use for my personal projects. People drop all sorts of lovely lineages and checkers at this time, and I can only get a fraction of the ones I'd like!

 

I'm also with the person who said this change should only be applied to Halloween. This is a season for stuffing yourself silly, be it with candy, pumpkin pie, or dragon eggs; Christmas and Valentine's are much more about giving and love.

[Rafaela22]

Support! There are 6 halloween breeds without counting vamps. Right now you can get one of each kind and a spare thing with each seven set if you are at gold. If you don't time it right or have many incubates you only get two sets before the new release wich can be hard if you want to save incubates for the new drop. So you can get a male and female of each kind each year easy. Next year you can get one of each every round, but after that you will have to pick and choose.

 

I have about 140 Halloween dragons. 1-4-0. It seems like a lot, but considering I've been here since 2008, that's 7 Halloween seasons and I've only missed one so far. That's about 20-25 new dragons every Halloween season. That's not much for an avid DC player. Heck, some people trade to get more CB of the Halloween release every year than that.

 

If I wanted as many eggs as possible and thus didn't breed my halloweens to other Halloween breeds, I could produce 140-560 eggs.

The AP can only show 30 eggs at a time, so I could block the AP over 18 times over with just my scroll depending on the muti-clutches. Even without muticlutches it would still be well over 100 eggs if I bred them all and locked myself, and single egg clutches are uncommon.

But the reality is that I have 87 Halloween dragon so I can potentially produce up to 348 eggs for the AP. Plus I'm adding 29+ to my collection every year. Raising an extra 7 of my own eggs is great, but it doesn't really make a dent IMO.

Holy cow! No wonder there's a wall after Halloween!

[PolarVortex]

Let's use your numbers.

 

Let's say you bred all of your dragons, even if you didn't plan on keeping any eggs and got full muticlutches: 348 eggs. If people raised just your eggs and you keep the max you could (21), it takes about 15 people to clear your eggs. If people had 2 weeks they have more time and can take a second batch each AND you keep more. You could keep 42 that would never touch the AP and it would take only 7 people to clear the extras. More than 1/2 of them would be hatched before Halloween and thus wouldn't be part of the after-Halloween wall.

I guess that's where it doesn't add up for me. Are there really 7 people breeding/raising none of their own eggs, but maxing out their scroll from the AP, for every 1 person breeding hundreds of eggs? That's the part that seems unlikely to me, but maybe there are!

[Windnose]

I guess that's where it doesn't add up for me. Are there really 7 people breeding/raising none of their own eggs, but maxing out their scroll from the AP, for every 1 person breeding hundreds of eggs? That's the part that seems unlikely to me, but maybe there are!

You could also consider the amount of people who are new to the Halloween event. I already had enough dragons to have 7 egg slots by the time I actually decided to participate in the Halloween event for the first time.

 

Plus, there are plenty of new people joining all the time with 4 egg slots and no Halloweens to breed.

 

I'm not sure if this would completely even out or not, but surely it would help.

[aangs-sister]

I guess that's where it doesn't add up for me. Are there really 7 people breeding/raising none of their own eggs, but maxing out their scroll from the AP, for every 1 person breeding hundreds of eggs? That's the part that seems unlikely to me, but maybe there are!

If the point of this thread is 'to alleviate AP stress' like it says in the title, is 7 not better than 15?

 

(I apologize if I'm coming off as argumentive. I feel like points are being missed in the thread.)

[Gruff]

I would be against this.

 

If breeding starts even one day before it does now, it will not reduce the problem at all it would only exaggerate it. As it is now, each pair can only breed once, then the holiday is over. If breeding is started one day sooner, then the same dragon pairing can breed twice for the same holiday event.

 

So if breeding started on Oct 24, all the dragons bred on the 24 could then still breed another clutch of eggs on the 31s. A second breeding won't reduce the AP wall and non-holiday eggs would still die behind the screen.

 

If you want to get rid of the blocking wall, I could more easily see a ratio of say 90% holiday eggs, 10% non-holiday eggs to help things still move as not everyone wants holiday eggs.

 

Please use the edit button rather than double posting unless it's been a while (at least a day) or you're doing lots of coding (responding to lots of quotes).

Edited October 28, 2015 by SockPuppet Strangler

[pinkgothic]

I would be against this.

 

If breeding starts even one day before it does now, it will not reduce the problem at all it would only exaggerate it. As it is now, each pair can only breed once, then the holiday is over. If breeding is started one day sooner, then the same dragon pairing can breed twice for the same holiday event.

 

So if breeding started on Oct 24, all the dragons bred on the 24 could then still breed another clutch of eggs on the 31s. A second breeding won't reduce the AP wall and non-holiday eggs would still die behind the screen.

Gruff, this suggestion wouldn't allow for that. See this bit from the first post:

 

Now for the restrictions to prevent breeding from adding to the clog:

-all "old" adult holidays can still only breed once  during the entire breeding season.

-new CB holidays and newly grown holiday adults for the year still cannot breed until after the holiday breeding season is over.

[Gruff]

I can't even begin to imagine what type of coding that would need to be implemented for that suggestion to even take place.

 

Breeding right now is simple, each dragon ... 7 days cooldown. It isn't a toggle switch to just check and uncheck. To implement a system that would only allow a Holiday dragon to breed once, then also allow for any offspring to be illegible to breed, while not affecting the other dragons and then code in a way to make sure it can all be cleared away for the next holiday event to where breeding can happen again.

 

Sorry but ... no. I do not support this suggestion at all. I don't see it as feasible.

[pinkgothic]

I can't even begin to imagine what type of coding that would need to be implemented for that suggestion to even take place.

 

Breeding right now is simple, each dragon ... 7 days cooldown. It isn't a toggle switch to just check and uncheck. To implement a system that would only allow a Holiday dragon to breed once, then also allow for any offspring to be illegible to breed, while not affecting the other dragons and then code in a way to make sure it can all be cleared away for the next holiday event to where breeding can happen again.

 

Sorry but ... no. I do not support this suggestion at all. I don't see it as feasible.

Hmm, I'm a bit confused; is this perhaps your first event? Because it's not new at all that Halloween dragons that are raised in the Halloween breeding season cannot breed in the season. The site just pretends they bred a week before the end of the breeding season, essentially.

 

(Additionally, as a web-developer, I see no problem even with implementing a completely different system that doesn't use that flag in particular, though I don't think that's necessary at all. Just feasible. That being said, it's generally good form to leave the feasibility decision up to TJ.)

 

Edit:

 

If you want to get rid of the blocking wall, I could more easily see a ratio of say 90% holiday eggs, 10% non-holiday eggs to help things still move as not everyone wants holiday eggs.

There's a separate suggestion for that here: AP: 1 line of non-Holiday during Holidays. Go pitch in your support! Most people seem to think that it's a pretty good suggestion.

Edited October 28, 2015 by pinkgothic

[PolarVortex]

If the point of this thread is 'to alleviate AP stress' like it says in the title, is 7 not better than 15?

 

(I apologize if I'm coming off as argumentive. I feel like points are being missed in the thread.)

Oh yes, I'm not arguing that! (I don't mean to sound argumentative either, just elaborating on my view hopefully). 7 is way better than 15! I'm just not so sure its enough to stop a wall from forming for an additional week. That's my only thing. Given how many older holidays are out there (and how the number increases every year) I'm thinking you'd probably need like a month of breeding to actually stop a holiday wall from forming. Actually... that sounds pretty good to me... older holidays can breed for the whole month of Oct/Dec/Feb! That would be a huge relief.

[AGYK]

Given how many older holidays are out there (and how the number increases every year) I'm thinking you'd probably need like a month of breeding to actually stop a holiday wall from forming. Actually... that sounds pretty good to me... older holidays can breed for the whole month of Oct/Dec/Feb! That would be a huge relief.

Absolutely no support for this unless each dragon is allowed to breed multiple times - which rather defeats the point of your suggestion, I suspect.

 

I stalk the AP, as I'm sure many others do, for very specific lineages, and very specific things I find pretty. Right now, there's a period of a week where I have a pretty good chance of finding what I'm looking for. Everything is clumped up and I can nose through the eggs until I find what I'm looking for. If we thin the eggs out to a period of a month, that's 1/4 the wall to look through, and the chances of finding what I'm looking for boil down to being lucky enough to see that one specific pairing fly through the AP.

 

You're correct that the overall number of holidays is increasing. However, the number of CBs is not, the number of people breeding their CB holidays to other CB dragons is not, and finding 2gs (let alone 2gs from pairings I love) is getting harder. Please don't make that full-on challenge mode.

[cyradis4]

I can't even begin to imagine what type of coding that would need to be implemented for that suggestion to even take place.

 

Breeding right now is simple, each dragon ... 7 days cooldown. It isn't a toggle switch to just check and uncheck. To implement a system that would only allow a Holiday dragon to breed once, then also allow for any offspring to be illegible to breed, while not affecting the other dragons and then code in a way to make sure it can all be cleared away for the next holiday event to where breeding can happen again.

 

Sorry but ... no. I do not support this suggestion at all. I don't see it as feasible.

As it stands, you cannot breed a new Holiday dragon in the same season it grew up. Every year, I have many Halloweens grow up before the end of the season... And the earliest I can breed them is November 1st, which is after Halloweens stop being bred. A common that grows up in this time interval can be bred immediately. Christmas and Valentines have the same sort of coding in them, as well.

 

So the coding needed already exists.

 

TJ has in the past asked us not to worry about the coding parts of it. As any coder knows, how easy or hard something is to implement is highly dependent on the existing site code (which only TJ know) and the skills of the coder (TJ is very skilled). For instance, I can think of a couple of fairly easy ways to implement this suggestion and I'm just an amateur programmer.

 

Cheers!

C4.

 

 

[aangs-sister]

...

I stalk the AP, as I'm sure many others do, for very specific lineages, and very specific things I find pretty. Right now, there's a period of a week where I have a pretty good chance of finding what I'm looking for. Everything is clumped up and I can nose through the eggs until I find what I'm looking for. If we thin the eggs out to a period of a month, that's 1/4 the wall to look through, and the chances of finding what I'm looking for boil down to being lucky enough to see that one specific pairing fly through the AP.

 

You're correct that the overall number of holidays is increasing. However, the number of CBs is not, the number of people breeding their CB holidays to other CB dragons is not, and finding 2gs (let alone 2gs from pairings I love) is getting harder. Please don't make that full-on challenge mode.

As I post, the eggs in the AP are 6 days, 16-17 hrs. That means eggs are sitting 7 hrs in the AP. I looked at the lineages just 'cus I like seeing what pairing people do (I looked at 10ish at random) and about 1/3 of the ones I checked were 2nd gens.

 

I really don't think there is any issue of 'challenge mode' if we spread the eggs.

 

However, I also think a month is a little extreme. I'd rather see a 2nd week.

[cyradis4]

As I post, the eggs in the AP are 6 days, 16-17 hrs. That means eggs are sitting 7 hrs in the AP. I looked at the lineages just 'cus I like seeing what pairing people do (I looked at 10ish at random) and about 1/3 of the ones I checked were 2nd gens.

 

I really don't think there is any issue of 'challenge mode' if we spread the eggs.

 

However, I also think a month is a little extreme. I'd rather see a 2nd week.

Actually, they are sitting for 24 hrs + 7 hrs in the AP. Remember, the AP adds a full day the *first* time an egg *shows up* in the AP.

 

But! Other than that minor technicality, you are correct: the wall has been in existence since the event started. And in fact, I'm finding it a lot harder than usual to find the lineages I want, because its so clogged with eggs no one is taking because they are uglies... And I have no way to see what eggs I've already picked up at least once.

 

Cheers!

C4.