Changing how holidays behave

[Hawkster]

Sorry to disagree but people that put time and effort on creating suggestions are not the annoying ones. The ones that disagree "just because" or "just coz I don't like change" and never come up with an original one, those are the annoying, yawn-inducers ones.

I think you really misunderstood what I meant when I said that. I did not say, nor meant to imply that OP (or anyone for that matter) is annoying for making suggestions.

 

I meant that these suggestions will make things worse for far more people, so therefore more will be annoyed more than that are now.

[NotBambi]

I think you really misunderstood what I meant when I said that. I did not say, nor meant to imply that OP (or anyone for that matter) is annoying for making suggestions.

 

I meant that these suggestions will make things worse for far more people, so therefore more will be annoyed more than that are now.

I understood your point, I just happen to disagree with it. It is quite debatable that " these suggestions will make things worse for far more people", that's just your opinion and .... any of us got ... one. Hopefully TJ will be (is) reading and will make choices. Or not. In the meantime, I'll be doing my best to present my opinion.

Edited January 2, 2016 by NotBambi

[Sir Barton]

? No, they are not "pickier", they just want decently lineaged babies on their scrolls.

That is the definition of picker.

 

When I got her in 2010, I couldn't be happier. A random player decided to gift her to me. There was no teleport, so actually getting her on my scroll was a challenge because ANYBODY would have been thrilled to nab her off the AP before me. Now a holly like her will have a hard time finding a home. That is a change in attitude (pickiness) due to greater availability.

[NotBambi]

That is the definition of picker.

 

When I got her in 2010, I couldn't be happier. A random player decided to gift her to me. There was no teleport, so actually getting her on my scroll was a challenge because ANYBODY would have been thrilled to nab her off the AP before me. Now a holly like her will have a hard time finding a home. That is a change in attitude (pickiness) due to greater availability.

"picker"??? As in "tomato picker"?

It is not "pickiness", it is good taste.

I spent one week, sitting on the floor with several packages from Newegg, working on improving my workstation. Afterwards, I spent another week with little sleep and few bio-breaks, catching Hollies in the AP and dumping messies back? Am I picky? Am I picky refusing to go out and buy ugly polyester stuff to dress with? Nope. I exercise my right to have a taste. Messy Hollies are not that and if someone likes them, that's their problem, not my fault.

 

Edit: going back to the original subject... no, there is not greater availability. If the CB Holly owners leave, there is less availability, and that's just going to get worse. I bet there were a bunch of messies available every year.

And... BTW... when someone tells me "oh the good old times when we would accept whatever messy dragon"... that does not impress me much. I'm not responsible for whatever was accepted. I know what is acceptable for me and many others right now. Relatively short and clean lineages. Considering that there were more Holly CB owners active at the time, I expect that those were more available then.

Edited January 2, 2016 by NotBambi

[dragonstar]

Pretty much agree with everything Pokemonfan13 said except for the fact that I would really like to see an extended Halloween drop. We don't have school off, and when it's not a Friday there's still homework and stuff I have to do, plus actual Halloween things in real life, meaning that I don't have an hour to sit on the computer to compete with fast clickers and catch a few Halloweens with my slow-af Uni internet. I guess the business is my fault though, but whatever, I kinda assumed most people would be busy on Halloween anyway but I guess that's not the case here?

 

I like the idea of dropping old holidays because CB Hollies, for one, are now almost a decade old and that's just... ancient. Most of the userbase is NOT ancient so it doesn't make sense to keep something that old available to a small amount of people.

Edited January 2, 2016 by dragonstar

[Pokemonfan13]

Pretty much agree with everything Pokemonfan13 said except for the fact that I would really like to see an extended Halloween drop. We don't have school off, and when it's not a Friday there's still homework and stuff I have to do, plus actual Halloween things in real life, meaning that I don't have an hour to sit on the computer to compete with fast clickers and catch a few Halloweens with my slow-af Uni internet. I guess the business is my fault though, but whatever, I kinda assumed most people would be busy on Halloween anyway but I guess that's not the case here?

 

I like the idea of dropping old holidays because CB Hollies, for one, are now almost a decade old and that's just... ancient. Most of the userbase is NOT ancient so it doesn't make sense to keep something that old available to a small amount of people.

Technically two days allows for an elongated drop without increasing the number people can catch.

[bluesonic1]

I am strongly against the majority of your suggestion.

 

1. You mention the problem of sitting holidays preventing people from hunting other breeds without really giving a solution to it. Increasing the limit to 6 will not lead to 3 full days of hunting. Even with it being unlimited, the vast majority of people get what they want during the single day halloween drop as long as they actually come to pick up their eggs. You actually make the "only holidays" problem worse for halloween, since you increase the drop from 1 to 3 days. When I saw that as one of your points I expected you to suggest having special biomes for the holidays so the normal ones would still drop normal eggs, or something like that.

 

2. TJ specifically designed the holiday breeding season to be exactly one week so that each holiday dragon can breed true once a year. Increasing the time to a month would, granted, make CB holly owners very happy since they could trade as many as 5 (6?) times if they were careful about timing. However, making the holidays not be guaranteed to breed true is not a good idea. It would cause a flood of holidayXholiday (or other unbreedable) pairs from the ones that don't want to put up with the risk of not getting a holiday egg and a lot of frustrated users who stick true to their commonXholiday lineage projects and don't get the eggs they need. I think a month is also just plain too long. Many people get sick of a week of nothing but holidays, imagine the boredom with a full month.

 

3. Don't MIX holidays and non-holidays in the AP. This issue would be better solved by having two AP pages, the one reached by the AP link showing holidays and then another one reached by a link from the holiday filled AP that has the normal eggs. This prevents eggs from dying during the week, which they currently would unless TJ does something to save them, and allow people who don't want to get more holiday eggs to scour the AP for treasures and low time eggs. The AP used to act exactly as you described, and people were in an uproar about not being able to catch any bred holidays because so many regular eggs were in the way. They didn't WANT to catch the eggs they could get the rest of the year, they wanted the ones they could only find that week. There are a few exceptions, but they aren't enough to clear the AP to make room for the holiday eggs if they're all on the same page.

 

4. Past holidays as free handouts is a very controversial idea. Many people are only barely willing to tolerate them as being available in a "shop" where it would take a long time to earn the points necessary to "buy" them, and are very much against having them easily available as CBs. At the very least they shouldn't be unlimited, but should have the same limit as the rest. So IF the CB limit is increased to 6 as you propose, the CB limit for all former breeds would be increased to 6 as well. Otherwise you could very well end up with a problem where the most sought after breeds end up being hoarded by the really good catchers and the "rich" that can trade for them, while other users end up with nothing. The point of the holiday dragons is for everyone to get something nice, and this needs to be especially so if old holidays are made available in the cave. It is also unlikely to be a fun hunt at all, since the cave would be even more blocked than usual by the blockers (and even dragons that aren't normally blockers) since NOBODY would want to waste a slot on an egg they don't want to get the cave moving. The only way it would work is if a new biome (or a duplicate set of biomes?) was added for the duration of the old holiday drop for that purpose. The existing biomes would act as usual, dropping normal dragons and nothing but normal dragons.

 

5. A 3 day drop for halloweens is a really bad idea. It doesn't matter for the limited ones if the drop is long enough for people to hatch an early batch before the drop is over, since they can't catch any more anyways. It does matter for Halloweens, since suddenly it goes from a caught limit of 7, where you can only get more by trading hatchlings around, to a caught limit of 14. It also makes the difference between new players and experienced ones even more extreme, since the newbies have a catching limit of 4 and are unlikely to have the four available incubates needed to get to 8 before the drop ends. So that means 14 can be raised by the gold trophies, and most likely 4 by the newbies, which is really unfair. It also means that all collectors who want to get their maximum must lock themselves on the first day and then lock themselves again on the last day, leaving the middle day rather desolate in catchers. It's the day that all people who don't want to get the maximum should strategically hunt, but how many people aren't going to know that and needlessly compete on the frenzied first or third? And it would be a competition, much more so than the one day drop now, since there would be fewer eggs on each day because of the drop lasting a total of three.

 

If you change your mind about something based on comments, change the original post. It doesn't help to have a bad idea with a somewhat better idea underneath. It's the main part of the post people will pay attention to, which is why I responded to your idea as stated, not the blue section under it.

All of this. I especially love the 2 APs idea.

 

Adding to that, I'm super opposed to increasing the chances of not being able to produce a holiday egg during the holiday season. It completely defeats the whole purpose of holiday breeding, and I would be so annoyed having come up with the perfect pairing to breed, waiting a whole year, only to find out that they bred the non-holiday breed instead.

[pederino]

Responding to each point of Pokemonfan13:

 

1. You mention the problem of sitting holidays preventing people from hunting other breeds without really giving a solution to it. Increasing the limit to 6 will not lead to 3 full days of hunting. Even with it being unlimited, the vast majority of people get what they want during the single day halloween drop as long as they actually come to pick up their eggs. You actually make the "only holidays" problem worse for halloween, since you increase the drop from 1 to 3 days. When I saw that as one of your points I expected you to suggest having special biomes for the holidays so the normal ones would still drop normal eggs, or something like that.

 

This is a fair point overall, although I really think that extending the new release drop for halloween to, at least, 2 days is the best because of what dragonstar said. From your last comment I can see you understand it. For holiday and valentine the only sollution I can think of is boosting the limits to 8, 10, or 12; a rather significant number where people migth be busy the 3 days, but then thats forcing a player to play... never good, another way of solving it is reducing the days to only 2, also not as good because, at least the holiday (winter holidays more specifically), most people are extra-busy, but one final way I have thought of is keeping the limits at 4-8, and adding a function for the biomes, one which I give more details in the response of the point 4 of your list.

 

2. TJ specifically designed the holiday breeding season to be exactly one week so that each holiday dragon can breed true once a year. Increasing the time to a month would, granted, make CB holly owners very happy since they could trade as many as 5 (6?) times if they were careful about timing. However, making the holidays not be guaranteed to breed true is not a good idea. It would cause a flood of holidayXholiday (or other unbreedable) pairs from the ones that don't want to put up with the risk of not getting a holiday egg and a lot of frustrated users who stick true to their commonXholiday lineage projects and don't get the eggs they need. I think a month is also just plain too long. Many people get sick of a week of nothing but holidays, imagine the boredom with a full month.

 

Well, here are 2 points, more or less: only a week for breeding out of 52 (or 7 days out of 365) is not too much, can be enough if you plan it very very carefully, but those plans can go wrong, and 4 weeks out of 52 (which is, technically 1 week out of 13) is just a little below enough; specially in a big site like DC, and where things have to be very carefully planned (I almost lose a blue-winged solstice for collection this year because I kept forgetting to breed my solstice in a certain hour; and I wasnt paying attention to lineage or anything). What we need to do is balance between holiday and non-holiday, making the first plenty enough for everyone, and the second available enough not to make everyone fed up with the first.

 

As for the clutchs giving or not a holiday or non-holiday... yes, I went full derp with that, sorry to all for suggesting something like that.

 

3. Don't MIX holidays and non-holidays in the AP. This issue would be better solved by having two AP pages, the one reached by the AP link showing holidays and then another one reached by a link from the holiday filled AP that has the normal eggs. This prevents eggs from dying during the week, which they currently would unless TJ does something to save them, and allow people who don't want to get more holiday eggs to scour the AP for treasures and low time eggs. The AP used to act exactly as you described, and people were in an uproar about not being able to catch any bred holidays because so many regular eggs were in the way. They didn't WANT to catch the eggs they could get the rest of the year, they wanted the ones they could only find that week. There are a few exceptions, but they aren't enough to clear the AP to make room for the holiday eggs if they're all on the same page.

 

This is actually a very good idea! At first I didnt know what to do with the AP, but opening another AP is a really good idea.

 

4. Past holidays as free handouts is a very controversial idea. Many people are only barely willing to tolerate them as being available in a "shop" where it would take a long time to earn the points necessary to "buy" them, and are very much against having them easily available as CBs. At the very least they shouldn't be unlimited, but should have the same limit as the rest. So IF the CB limit is increased to 6 as you propose, the CB limit for all former breeds would be increased to 6 as well. Otherwise you could very well end up with a problem where the most sought after breeds end up being hoarded by the really good catchers and the "rich" that can trade for them, while other users end up with nothing. The point of the holiday dragons is for everyone to get something nice, and this needs to be especially so if old holidays are made available in the cave. It is also unlikely to be a fun hunt at all, since the cave would be even more blocked than usual by the blockers (and even dragons that aren't normally blockers) since NOBODY would want to waste a slot on an egg they don't want to get the cave moving. The only way it would work is if a new biome (or a duplicate set of biomes?) was added for the duration of the old holiday drop for that purpose. The existing biomes would act as usual, dropping normal dragons and nothing but normal dragons.

 

About the limit... I dont think keeping the limits is a good idea, I suggest them being only available for 4 days (someone mentioned a week), in which they drop as very common (would say almost cave-blocker common); when almost everyone gets their fill of holidays (which someday will occur), then what? You will have a ton of holiday eggs that will sit for 4 days to a week and that only the very new will take. Of course, imposing a limit of how much a user can catch each year, while lifting the CB limit entirely for past holidays makes them willing to catch them but also gives new users a chance to get theirs. It could be a simple limit of not more than "X" number of "Y" CB dragon from the year "Z" per player (example: no more than 4 CB heartseeker dragon from the year 2015 per player, which means a player can not have more than 4 CB heartseekers from the year 2015, but can get more on 2016 because they are not from the same year), of course, at the moment it only applies to holidays and valentines, I dont know if it should apply to halloween too (because they are unrestricted when first released), and no one has said anything about it.

 

Having a duplicate of the biomes sounds like a good, but complex, idea. Though maybe each biome, during that period, can show 6 eggs, one upper row of past holidays and one lower row of non-holidays. Is still complex, but is another way to solve the issue. In fact, one of those ideas can be used to solve the issue number 1 of your list: since the CB past holiday drop will end just before the CB new holiday release drop, the function can keep working, giving people the option to catch the new release and non-holiday dragons.

 

5. A 3 day drop for halloweens is a really bad idea. It doesn't matter for the limited ones if the drop is long enough for people to hatch an early batch before the drop is over, since they can't catch any more anyways. It does matter for Halloweens, since suddenly it goes from a caught limit of 7, where you can only get more by trading hatchlings around, to a caught limit of 14. It also makes the difference between new players and experienced ones even more extreme, since the newbies have a catching limit of 4 and are unlikely to have the four available incubates needed to get to 8 before the drop ends. So that means 14 can be raised by the gold trophies, and most likely 4 by the newbies, which is really unfair. It also means that all collectors who want to get their maximum must lock themselves on the first day and then lock themselves again on the last day, leaving the middle day rather desolate in catchers. It's the day that all people who don't want to get the maximum should strategically hunt, but how many people aren't going to know that and needlessly compete on the frenzied first or third? And it would be a competition, much more so than the one day drop now, since there would be fewer eggs on each day because of the drop lasting a total of three.

 

I dont really see whats the matter... I mean, yes, you have an advantage over new players, but is your rigth as a long-term player, and is not like they will miss the breed anyway, they will be able to get it next year, I mean, this is taking in consideration the previous point as valid (CBs of past holidays will drop), if not, then yes, its a problem. And also yes, there will be more competition in the first and third day of release, but thats supposed to be the "spirit of halloween", or so I heard. Of course, I am more than willing to leave it to just 2 days, specially since most people prefer it over 3 anyway.

Edited January 2, 2016 by pederino

[Pokemonfan13]

TJ has already rejected any limits idea that involve math in any way. This came up when we were discussing increasing the bred limits, and many ideas involved increasing limits by the year. Even though I understand your suggestion in the above post to be a set limit of, say, 4 of breed x per year with no carryover of unused slots, it still leads to the kind of confusing thing that TJ wanted to avoid, if I'm not mistaken. It basically limits limit raising to set numbers that never change or unlimited, which is what we discovered by trying every possible "no math" permutation of an increasing limit and having them all rejected.

 

All I know is mixing the dropped holiday CBs in with the regular eggs would lead to a royal mess. They need to drop from a separate feed from the normal eggs, but preferably not preclude the normal eggs like the new release holiday drop since that's just too much for all those who aren't interested in collecting old holidays en masse.

 

Also, if there is an increased limit on the CBs the players would have to curtail their catching of bred and CB former holidays a full 2 days before the drop to be able to catch their limit. So if the CB drop is to be any time, it should be at the beginning of the season, not right before the new release. People should not be torn between getting their fill of the new dragon and stocking up on old ones. [this would be less of a problem with the same limit on CBs in place for old dragons as new, but would still cause problems for halloween]

 

Older players already get a lot of perks simply from being older players. Granted, your suggestion of dropping CBs of old holidays does take away one of those perks, but I don't think making the halloween drop even more unfair for newer players is right even so. A two day halloween drop is probably the best balance between having a longer drop and not allowing a double catch. [although even with a 3 day drop people still missed this xmas dragon by not managing to get on to catch any, so it's impossible to please everyone]

 

I was taking each point separately, since I can't believe TJ would make that drastic a change to the holiday system. It took a lot just to get him to drop the hard limit of 2 holidays of each breed period, bred or CB. Even if it is implemented as a whole, "they can get more next year" is not a good solution to any problem, since there are other goals that they would rather be spending their slots on.

Edited January 2, 2016 by Pokemonfan13

[aussieJJDude]

Ok here me out.

Some CB owners from past holiday dragons might/will complain that they would lose their uniqueness. People have the option of collecting 2 - 4 CB dragons from past holidays only - so I already have 2 ribbon dancers; I could collect up to 6 but if I have 0, I have the option of collecting up to 4.

 

In my mind, this would allow people to have their uniqueness (after all, they can have "more" than some players); while the newer players still have the option of collecting their favourite dragons (after all, I would mind the option of getting some holidays that I missed) and at the same time, help increase the lineage pool as the older players of the holidays "quit" every year newer players "take" their place by raising their own CB draggies and then breed then the following year. (if that makes sense) Plus old holiday owners that never knew that we could hoard 2G still allow the option of having having 2 hatchies (freezed) and 2 - 4 CB adults to raise and breed! (Not to mention numerous 2G to freeze/breed.)

 

I wouldn't think it would be too hard to code - after all, TJ already has the limit - all TJ has to do is code the limit one year for the max of 2 and then the following year limit could be "classified" as a different dragon.

 

haha, this all sounds fabulous in my mind but at 12am anything sounds wonderful. I probably re-read this and be all like "WTH is he on about?"

Edited January 2, 2016 by aussieJJDude

[Hawkster]

I understood your point, I just happen to disagree with it. It is quite debatable that " these suggestions will make things worse for far more people", that's just your opinion and .... any of us got ... one. Hopefully TJ will be (is) reading and will make choices. Or not.  In the meantime, I'll be doing my best to present my opinion.

I fully agree with you, it is debatable. Yet I fail to see how this reply adds anything to this topic. How about trying to tell me what I commented on was debatable and more importantly why it was debatable. Can you elaborate more on your opinion? For example tell me what bits I say below is debatable and how.

 

1) Very limited CB cap - suggestions to increase cap.

This is fairly straight forward and has been suggested elsewhere so doubt we have anything to debate here other than possibly what number cap might be increased too.

 

2)Boring AP wall during a week - couple suggestions, (a) extend for whole month (b.) as well as intermix both holiday and non-holiday priority to lowest time © change multiclutch

This section is prolly the most debatable, for both the OP suggestion as well as my own reply. But could you possible explain what for example was debatable about my replies?

Personally I fail to see how extending from week to whole month will make this less boring though. Yes part b and c adds to it though.

 

3) Sitting new holiday breed during the last day of drop without availability to get other breeds. - suggestion increase all from 1 day drop to 3

Sorry but I fail to see how this is debatable at all. If it is boring one day, how is making it 3 days going to be any less boring (or even 2 as OP has commented about later in thread).

 

4) Only one day to attend Halloween for new breed - suggestion increase to 3 days (or 2 days)

Once again I fail to see how what I posted was debatable. I agree this WILL resolve that issue, just that it conflicts with issue above. So I was more expecting solution to address both. Or at least suggestion that did not conflict with other one above.

Edited January 2, 2016 by Hawkster

[pederino]

TJ has already rejected any limits idea that involve math in any way.  This came up when we were discussing increasing the bred limits, and many ideas involved increasing limits by the year.  Even though I understand your suggestion in the above post to be a set limit of, say, 4 of breed x per year with no carryover of unused slots, it still leads to the kind of confusing thing that TJ wanted to avoid, if I'm not mistaken.  It basically limits limit raising to set numbers that never change or unlimited, which is what we discovered by trying every possible "no math" permutation of an increasing limit and having them all rejected.

 

All I know is mixing the dropped holiday CBs in with the regular eggs would lead to a royal mess.  They need to drop from a separate feed from the normal eggs, but preferably not preclude the normal eggs like the new release holiday drop since that's just too much for all those who aren't interested in collecting old holidays en masse.

 

Also, if there is an increased limit on the CBs the players would have to curtail their catching of bred and CB former holidays a full 2 days before the drop to be able to catch their limit.  So if the CB drop is to be any time, it should be at the beginning of the season, not right before the new release.  People should not be torn between getting their fill of the new dragon and stocking up on old ones.  [this would be less of a problem with the same limit on CBs in place for old dragons as new, but would still cause problems for halloween]

 

Older players already get a lot of perks simply from being older players.  Granted, your suggestion of dropping CBs of old holidays does take away one of those perks, but I don't think making the halloween drop even more unfair for newer players is right even so.  A two day halloween drop is probably the best balance between having a longer drop and not allowing a double catch.  [although even with a 3 day drop people still missed this xmas dragon by not managing to get on to catch any, so it's impossible to please everyone]

 

I was taking each point separately, since I can't believe TJ would make that drastic a change to the holiday system.  It took a lot just to get him to drop the hard limit of 2 holidays of each breed period, bred or CB.  Even if it is implemented as a whole, "they can get more next year" is not a good solution to any problem, since there are other goals that they would rather be spending their slots on.

 

I dont think it is too confusing you said it plainly rigth, and even if it is, why would a suggestion not be implemented just because its confusing? Thats barely a reason to dismiss something.

 

I dont think mixing would be that royal of a mess, for new players maybe (and I am talking about very new players, like 1 week before the holiday new kind of player), and it should have info of what will happen, like TJ does with the new release, he says the release will drop X day during Y amount of days, the same could apply: "During X to Y of december/february/october the biomes will have another row made of past holiday eggs, you can grab up to Z of each breed this year, so make sure to get a full batch of these". But if it really is that bad of an idea, a duplicate of the biomes is good enough.

 

I disagree here, 4 days is plenty of time to grab 2 full stacks of past holidays and incu-hatching them, and you have at least one week to get as many holidays bred eggs from any of the holidays before even the supposed former holidays drop, and for holiday and valentine you have a 3 day drop, so even if you grab former holidays the last day of drop, you still have a chance to grab some new holidays on their last day of drop without incubate. What we can do here is leave the limit for new CBs as 4 and no more, so everyone can get a full batch even if they fill themselves the day just before the release started. For halloween of course, there is a problem, even if you can still have a chance of getting some after you filled yourself the day before it started dropping, it would left you with very little time to grab them (thats it if the new halloween is boosted to 2 days instead of one, of course), so what can we do? boosting the former halloween drop to a week will damage the catching of bred ones (although just a little); putting a restriction on past holidays seems like a more sensible step, but then it contradicts with the "grab as many as you can" halloween we "know", and if we add the limit, should it be the same as the other holidays, should it be more, or should it be less. Another solution is making past halloween drop at the start or middle of october, but thats a bit far away from their day.

 

I agree here now that you mention those points, a 2 day drop for halloween seems like a good compromise, not too much, not too little. But is also true that people still stop managing to get the holidays despite being a 3 day drop, but is also true that that kind of events are less likely to happen the more days they drop.

 

Yes, I know, we all in the suggestion thread know. Many years have passed and only a handful of suggestion have been implemented. But we can still try to reach the stars.

 

I fully agree with you, it is debatable. Yet I fail to see how this reply adds anything to this topic. How about trying to tell me what I commented on was debatable and more importantly why it was debatable. Can you elaborate more on your opinion? For example tell me what bits I say below is debatable and how.

 

1) Very limited CB cap - suggestions to increase cap.

This is fairly straight forward and has been suggested elsewhere so doubt we have anything to debate here other than possibly what number cap might be increased too.

 

2)Boring AP wall during a week - couple suggestions, (a) extend for whole month (b.) as well as intermix both holiday and non-holiday priority to lowest time © change multiclutch

This section is prolly the most debatable, for both the OP suggestion as well as my own reply. But could you possible explain what for example was debatable about my replies?

Personally I fail to see how extending from week to whole month will make this less boring though. Yes part b and c adds to it though.

 

3) Sitting new holiday breed during the last day of drop without availability to get other breeds. - suggestion increase all from 1 day drop to 3

Sorry but I fail to see how this is debatable at all. If it is boring one day, how is making it 3 days going to be any less boring (or even 2 as OP has commented about later in thread).

 

4) Only one day to attend Halloween for new breed - suggestion increase to 3 days (or 2 days)

Once again I fail to see how what I posted was debatable. I agree this WILL resolve that issue, just that it conflicts with issue above. So I was more expecting solution to address both. Or at least suggestion that did not conflict with other one above.

 

For point 2, the idea is to lessen the stress that comes with holidays and also make non-holidays available during most time of the month, multiclutch change is to not obliterate the AP, and even then is a minimun change (for example: 50% 2 eggs, 25% 1 egg, 20% 3 eggs, and 5% 4 eggs). Now, if we apply Pokemonfan13 suggestion to divide the AP into 2, then I think there is no need to change how multiclutch works.

 

For point 3. Actually... I didnt suggest to raise it from 1 to 3 days for holidays and valentines, they have been like this for at least 4 years if I am correct (maybe 3 years, dont remember).

 

For point 4. It just barely conflicts with the above issue if we up it to only 2 days and gives the opportunity to grab some eggs before or during halloween.

 

Edit: main post has been edited.

Edited January 2, 2016 by pederino

[olympe]

For point 2, the idea is to lessen the stress that comes with holidays and also make non-holidays available during most time of the month, multiclutch change is to not obliterate the AP, and even then is a minimun change (for example: 50% 2 eggs, 25% 1 egg, 20% 3 eggs, and 5% 4 eggs). Now, if we apply Pokemonfan13 suggestion to divide the AP into 2, then I think there is no need to change how multiclutch works.

There are different kinds of stress involved with the holiday breeding week: Planning ahead, getting bloodswaps or other trades organized, getting giftees and trade partners show up on time, finding the eggs you need in the AP... Most kinds of stress are mostly an issue for older players, who already are at an advantage. The most important kind of stress for newer players - as they can neither breed, gift nor trade old holidays - is getting what they need in the AP. You will surely help older players (who have something to trade and lots to breed) by extending the breeding period for holiday dragons, but at the same time, you make things worse for those relying on the AP. Fewer holiday eggs in the AP, anything less than a wall will result in more stress for the AP group as it results in more competition for the few eggs that show up there. Also, with a prolonged breeding period, people will breed more for themselves and less for the AP. (For the record: I bred most of my holiday dragons for the AP if I couldn't keep an egg for myself. But if I could keep and hatch more for myself, I'd totally do that.)

 

Overall, your suggestion helps those players who already have more than enough and put the newer players at a further disadvantage.

 

For point 3. Actually... I didnt suggest to raise it from 1 to 3 days for holidays and valentines, they have been like this for at least 4 years if I am correct (maybe 3 years, dont remember).

As far as I remember - which is back to Winter 2009 - Winter Holiday ("Christmas") Dragons have always dropped for three days in the cave, while Valentines have always been 24 hours until 2013. Only Radiant Angels and Heartstealers had a three-day-drop for Valentine's Day. (I actually checked the news announcements to make sure I got it right. Arsani Announcement 2013, 24 hour drop; Radiant Angel Announcement 2014, 3 day drop)

 

For Point 4: Increasing the drop time for Halloweens to 48 hours is fine, everything else isn't because it puts older players (with 7 egg slots and enough incubates) at an even greater advantage. (I say that as one of those older players.)

 

I dont think it is too confusing you said it plainly rigth, and even if it is, why would a suggestion not be implemented just because its confusing? Thats barely a reason to dismiss something.

It was reason enough for TJ to do so. He said something like, "If you want a new rule, you need to be able to put it into one simple sentence without resorting to maths." (This is not a direct quote, mind you. But I'm sure other people remember the thread where it was, and how many of us tried to find a way to get the "+2 every year" rule to work while adhering to those guidelines. I was one of them, too.)

 

I disagree here, 4 days is plenty of time to grab 2 full stacks of past holidays and incu-hatching them, and you have at least one week to get as many holidays bred eggs from any of the holidays before even the supposed former holidays drop,

This week is cut in half if there's a 4-day period where old holiday CBs can be found in the biomes.

Day 1: catch and incubate bred eggs.

Day 3: same as before.

Day 4: Start of the old cave drops. You're egg-locked, though.

Day 5: catch and incubate a batch of old CB holidays.

Day 7: Same as Day 5.

Day 8: Start of the new drop.

Day 9: Get your new CB holidays and as many old bred ones as you can.

Day 11: Hope to still catch some bred holidays in the AP.

 

The two days colored in red are currently used this way for bred eggs.

[Pokemonfan13]

I was assuming people wouldn't want to risk only having the last day of the three day drop to catch the new release. And it only works for the ones with a three day drop.

[pederino]

@Olympe, you have raised many good points, and now that I look at my suggestion I can see how it neglects the new players almost entirely... I keep thinking that the "just because it has math it should not be added because its confusing" is completely unreasonable, specially if you are a programmer (they eat math for breakfast). And finally, the example you give is for an holiday breeding "week"; but for what I propose (a holiday breeding "month") things would behave very differently, lets take february as an example as it is the one that has the least time between the start of the month and the festivity:

 

Day 1: catch and incubate bred eggs.

Day 3, 5, 7, 9: same as step 1.

Day 10: past valentines start to drop, if you did the Day 9 as described here then you may be egg-locked.

Day 11, 13: catch and incubate a batch of old CB holidays.

Days 14: release of new breed.

Day 15: get your new CB holidays and as many old bred ones as you can.

Day 16: end of release.

Day 17: same as step 1.

Day 19: the new release should have become an adult, so it should be able to breed. Basically the same as step 1.

Day 21, 23, 25, 27, (29): same as step 1.

A few days after february ends the AP should still be able to have some holiday eggs, therefore you can keep catching old bred ones.

 

Of course, this is for a full february that is pretty condensed into getting holidays.

 

@Pokemonfan13, I also dont think people would want to risk only having the last day to catch the new release, but its a possibility. Though it also works for a 2 day drop, the problem is that the risk is even more: you will only have some hours to catch the new release, and its very dependent on when you grabbed the eggs, meaning you can have from 12 to only 1 hour to grab the new release.

Edited January 3, 2016 by pederino

[Pokemonfan13]

I assume TJ is concerned about the users, not himself. Anything complicated enough to involve math has the ability to confuse users unnecessarily. It may seem a bit patronizing, but remember that there are rather young users who play this game, if nothing else. I think we can assume the no math policy on limits still applies until and unless TJ makes a post that states otherwise, no matter how nonsensical it may seem.

[Hawkster]

I dont think it is too confusing you said it plainly rigth, and even if it is, why would a suggestion not be implemented just because its confusing? Thats barely a reason to dismiss something.

Whether it is reason or not is debatable. We could debate that back and forth. Which I view as irrelevant for simple fact that TJ has shot down suggestions couple of times implying it would be too confusing to the players. So this really should be answered by TJ directly. All I know, is it has seemed pointless to bring up any suggestions to TJ which could be deemed as confusing to the players as that will more than likely be his answer.

 

For point 2, the idea is to lessen the stress that comes with holidays and also make non-holidays available during most time of the month, multiclutch change is to not obliterate the AP, and even then is a minimun change (for example: 50% 2 eggs, 25% 1 egg, 20% 3 eggs, and 5% 4 eggs). Now, if we apply Pokemonfan13 suggestion to divide the AP into 2, then I think there is no need to change how multiclutch works.

 

For point 3. Actually... I didnt suggest to raise it from 1 to 3 days for holidays and valentines, they have been like this for at least 4 years if I am correct (maybe 3 years, dont remember).

 

For point 4. It just barely conflicts with the above issue if we up it to only 2 days and gives the opportunity to grab some eggs before or during halloween.

 

Edit: main post has been edited.

For point 2. I understand part of your idea is to lessen the stress. I just think that taking all your suggestions into account overall will not really accomplish this. In fact I believe it will just make it worse. I could be entirely wrong, but way I see it panning out is initially the AP will have nothing but non-holiday dragons for several days. (anywhere from 4 days up to 14 days). After that initial period, in part due to your suggestions, but mainly in part due to players typically start breeding lots of Holidays anyway as soon as that season starts, all those Holiday eggs will take over and will remain filling the AP until several days after they can be bred. IF way I see it happening is true, than all that has been accomplished is stressing everyone for longer periods. Without actually implementing your suggestions, I fully admit I could be wrong. For example I can possibly see around 3 weeks in that it could become mixed, really depends all on the players habits, but I rather kinda doubt it. If anything I would guess it would be more in clumps here and there. Maybe players will get bored breeding holidays for such extended period of time and if so than yes will definitely be mixed, once again though I rather doubt it.

 

Regardless, I just dont like the multi-clutch change idea at all. As others have expressed, I think it will encourage more eggs being hoarded instead of being gifted out and or allowed to go to AP.

 

For point 3. Someone else has already answered.

 

For point 4. Agreed, it is barely in conflict, but it still is. Personally changing it to 2 days I love. However, 3 days for Halloween I am strongly opposed too.

 

Also personally I have always disregarded that complaint about it being boring for day or couple days not being able to hunt in cave anyway. Sorry but it is how I feel. I dont see it much different than being egg locked anyway. Since these dates are always known, it is easy to plan ahead and be egg locked or leave 2 spots, than be egg locked anyway. Even in worse case scenario, you can go breed some of your own eggs.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Hawkster

[Riverwillows]

Ok, I'm not a hacker/computer genius type, but I do know something about coding, and this, while a good idea, sounds like a LOT of extra coding, time, and effort....not sure TJ will want to or even have the time (he's a working stiff now, lol)

 

Good luck tho, would be interesting to see if it goes thru.

[Fuzzbucket]

I was assuming people wouldn't want to risk only having the last day of the three day drop to catch the new release. And it only works for the ones with a three day drop.

No indeed. Most people also want them caught ON THE DAY.

 

I did think that at the same time TJ said an absolute no to Math, he also nixed re-releasing CB past holidays - not to mention some of the spriters weren't happy.

 

ALL I would support would be upping the limit from new holidays from now on to 4 CBs.

[pederino]

@Pokemonfan13, Yeah, I thought that, and understand it too. I just think its really a shame to shut down ideas just because they might be confusing or involve math, but oh well.

 

@Hawkster, It may not be boring for you, but there are others that would actually like to hunt for non-holidays in the AP, for those, its a week of no productivity on a certain lineage. Not that they cant accept that fate, as you say, with enough planning you can get the most out of the week, but it would be nice to have both options, wouldnt it?.

 

@Riverwillows, I went to see my suggestion again, and, taking in account I have middle knowledge about programming, I dont think it has that much of extra coding (cant say much about the effort and time though, as it depends how TJ structured his code):

• The holiday breeding week will be expanded to a month, pretty sure the code is there, is just editing it.
• The re-release of the past holidays in-cave during 4 days is basically the same as the release of the new holiday during 3 days so the code is there, is just reusing it.
• Boosting the CB limits of wolidays(winter holidays) and valentines to 4; I think this is the one that has the least extra code, effort and time in it.
• The extra AP and extra Biomes are almost the same thing, do it for one, and you did it for both (reusing the one you did first), this is of course, the one that needs the most coding of all the parts of the suggestion.
• The CB limit for past wolidays and valentines I suggest (4 x Each CB Holiday Dragon x Year), is the same as a CB limit for new releases, just adding the year of getting it, so the code can also be re-used, though it should also be edited.

So, overall, he would just have to edit and reuse the code for most part of the suggestion, and only one part of the suggestion really demands completely new code. Of course, TJs code for the site may not be as easy to reestructure or as reusable as I imagine, and depending on that I may or may not be wrong about its easiness. Of course, the part of the time and wanting is another story (a suggestion may be super easy, but if he doesnt have the time or dont want to... oh well), but he hasnt commented about it yet, so until then.

 

NOTE: I have reedited the main post.

[Fuzzbucket]

NO WAY would I support holiday breeding lasting a month. There are MANY dragons out there that need breeding too. Some to - shock horror - holidays, and to be sure NOT to get a holiday !

[stagazer_7]

I agree with fuzz on the above - a month long period of breeding is way too long, many of us have non-holiday projects we try to focus on in between all the Holiday and new releases and also use that extra bit of time for some last-minute prepping and getting mates for our Holidays before the breeding week begins. I'd also miss the AP wall, where it's mostly pretty easy to pick up eggs due to their sheer number, since we only have a week to breed them and so do it en masse.

 

I don't mind extending the Cave drops, nor increasing the number of CB's one can have or re-releasing old holidays (although I much prefer the store idea here) or the separate AP for non-holiday eggs, but not a full month breeding, I feel that a week is enough.

[Guillotine]

I love the holiday dragons and I'm fully against a month-long breeding period. I'm all for extending cave drops, a separate AP for non-holidays (or some way for non-holidays to appear in the AP during breeding season), or a boost to the number of CBs, or a some way of obtaining old CBs... but not extending the breeding to a month. A week works fine, and i honestly get a little fatigued by the final day. A month would be exhausting.

[Hawkster]

Actually to the boring aspect, I was only talking about cave hunting during the 1 - 3 day drop for new holiday release.

 

AP hunting is entirely different, I completely understand someone getting bored not being able to AP hunt for non-holidays. This is made even worse during the cave drop period. For one to three days, they have no means of hunting for non-holiday at all in both cave as well as AP.

[pederino]

I can see how a full month can be too much. But lets look at it this way:

 

You have a full month to do whatever you want with that specific holiday (be it woliday, halloween or valentines), in which you can do what you can do in a week, and more, with more patience. You dont have to be egglocked with holidays all month, you can be for only a week, or even mix with non-holidays all month.

About the NH (non-holiday) dragons X H (holiday) dragons which must result in NH dragons, well, you still have other 11 months to try (if you want a non-holiday from a valentine, then you have all months minus february to get it).

About the re-releasing of old holidays in-cave, I can see how a store is much prefered (not relying on luck is a really good thing), but I am sure this can work with the store: the store is to make sure you get that CB holiday you are desperately looking for, this suggestion is so you can grab some, if you are lucky you might even find what you are looking for! (though with every release it will become more and more difficult to get a specific holiday egg, not that it matters, as it still gives you the chance to get some holidays).

Of course, if a month is still too much, we can still just extend it to 2 weeks, which is necessary for part of the suggestion to work, because, if you take in account that the re-release of old holidays takes away half the breeding week, that would mean that the stress would be even worst because the schedule is even tighter.

 

@Hawkster, I see, though there are people that grab what they need on their first day and have to wait 3 full days before the cave starts working normally (only for wolidays and valentines). Thats when the "duplicate of the biomes" comes in. Nonetheless you are right, people do not complaim its boring, only that those eggs sit there for hours and is unfair we cant grab more than the 2 CBs limits.

Edited January 5, 2016 by pederino