Changing how holidays behave

[pederino]

Yes, I mean that you could breed a holly anytime during the year, including July. ^^

 

/semi-serious suggestion, kinda curious on opinions

I like the idea overal, but it can be kind of complex.

On one hand you have the ability to get bred holidays any time of the year, on the other you have more possibilities of not getting a breed when pairing a non-holiday with a holiday out of its season (at the moment it either fails, refuses or gets you the non- holiday; now you would have to add the holiday to the mix).

On one hand you have more control over the offspring of your dragons, on the other new players may have a hard time getting specific lineage of holidays, and even messy holidays may be high-priced as there is no other way to get the sprite other than breeding it (multiclutches exist because they breed true only during a week plus 1 or 3 days).

For issue number one there are very few solutions, being one of them a BSA that favours a dragon over the other when breeding, and still being stackable with Fertility. For issue number 2 there are a few solutions; you can make them breed multiclutches of holidays during the holiday week, but this will just lessen the problem, or keep them multiclutching outside of season sometimes (this brings another issue: AP will fill with holidays eggs quite easily, and making a holiday wall on july would be easy even if you have just a few holidays), or make CBs of older holidays drop during the full actual breeding week of its season.

And those are the issues and solutions that came to my head.

[Pokemonfan13]

I think I could only accept holidays breeding true out of season if they still multiclutch during the breeding week. Otherwise we're losing way more than we gain.

[Riannon]

I just want a chance to get the holidays I missed, at this point I don't much care how it's accomplished. I can't help that I joined too late to get some of the older ones, and the ones I've missed since then were for darn good (or bad, depending on how you wanna look at it u.u) RL reasons. I get that everyone wants them to be some uber special one time thing because that was the intent when they were first introduced (and still is from what I understand), but I've never seen the point of that, especially with the perfectly-implemented built-in limits in place. It just seems like nonsense to me; I'm not trying to be insulting, it just doesn't make sense in my brain. I'm bad at wording things that confuse me sometimes. Anyway.

 

As far as expanding the breeding season, I'm going to have to say no. I've only recently (in the past few years) really started to get into lineage building and there are several I need, but I feel that anything longer than a week would give me time to get sick of it, which I really do not want to happen. I like the idea of the split AP so that normal eggs can be seen as well should a user so choose, so long as the current protections in place on eggs in that area don't go away. I'm not convinced they will be popular enough when competing with the holidays that a ton of them won't die, so it would be good to keep whatever protections are currently in place on them active.

 

I do have a bit of a suggestion about the cave. If you're dead-set on having the old breeds drop there, just create a new Festival biome for them to drop in during the appropriate time. All old breeds thrown in there in a mishmash for a week, and they don't impact the other biomes at all - well, I mean I suspect it will be crazy packed in there, but the other biomes won't be flooded with old eggs at least. Also, the last 10-15 minutes of every hour could see a clearing of the Christmas eggs so that others could drop. Would that be enough? Again, I'm not convinced that the non-holidays are going to be very popular during a new holiday release (especially since it only lasts for such a short time) so I really don't think this is necessary, but it's a suggestion to negate the need for an entire new set of biome pages.

 

All in all, I'm still more in favor of the store than having the old breeds drop, but I'll take them any way I can get them at this point. I used to think cave drops would be perfect, but I have had a great deal of time to think about this over the years I have been here, and with the sheer number of breeds we have already I just think it would be a problem, and that problem would snowball with each passing year as more breeds are added. For what it's worth, thank you for not shying away from discussing this. We need more discussion on these issues, not less. It's the only way sites grow & evolve, right?

 

 

 

I think I could only accept holidays breeding true out of season if they still multiclutch during the breeding week.  Otherwise we're losing way more than we gain.

Also, this. Thank you for pointing this out. I totally agree. Edited January 12, 2016 by Riannon

[lanette]

I am not fond of this concept except for a couple of things - making new CB Halloweens available for 2 or 3 days just as with the other Holidays, and tweaking the AP wall.

 

The whole CB Halloweens being available on just 1 day thing - yeah I get the reason why it was implemented, but having witnessed the drama surrounding the whole "1 day - take as much as you can" drama on here in the past several years now, I think anything that can improve that situation would be awesome.

 

Moving on to the next point, I can understand being bored during the AP holiday walls, and I think the suggestion to make a split AP is a really good one.

 

To elaborate on my stance on making CBs available later - I don't have all the past CB Holidays either, so it's not like I'm speaking from the stance of someone who has it so doesn't care or don't want that others should have the chance to have past CBs. I'd love a chance to get a CB Holly and a Yulebuck and a Val'09, but I understand WHY I don't have them - I wasn't around for Hollies, and was too new to know how to catch Yules & Val'09s - but that is what makes them special to me. I strive to collect 2Gs (or longer in the case of Hollies) with pairings I like and breed/build lineages from there. The way the system works right now I think makes a good life-lesson - you don't always HAVE to have, or GET to have everything you think you SHOULD have, and you CAN build something beautiful out of what you DO have/get.

 

I am definitely absolutely against the suggestions of making Holiday events month-long things and that of making Holidays breed true outside the event window. What is so special about them if they end up being around all year long? The whole concept of these dragons is that they make an appearance during that particular holiday season, isn't it? Not to mention that it would get quite frustrating when you've arranged to get a Holiday-mate for one of your dragons and the off-season breeding ends up another Holiday.

 

Well, anyway, that's my two cents...

 

 

[Fuzzbucket]

I think I could only accept holidays breeding true out of season if they still multiclutch during the breeding week. Otherwise we're losing way more than we gain.

This. And if they refused out of season - would they still breed OK IN season - or would that whole wonderful guarantee be gone ?

[Hawkster]

I just want a chance to get the holidays I missed, at this point I don't much care how it's accomplished. I can't help that I joined too late to get some of the older ones, and the ones I've missed since then were for darn good (or bad, depending on how you wanna look at it u.u) RL reasons. I get that everyone wants them to be some uber special one time thing because that was the intent when they were first introduced (and still is from what I understand), but I've never seen the point of that, especially with the perfectly-implemented built-in limits in place. It just seems like nonsense to me; I'm not trying to be insulting, it just doesn't make sense in my brain. I'm bad at wording things that confuse me sometimes. Anyway.

I am going to assume that you mean getting past CB Holidays, because otherwise you can get all of them now by getting bred ones from the AP during that holiday.

 

Why is it uber special one time thing? I would guess for same reason that it is for most games when they do similar things like this. There are a few reasons which varies game to game, but one of the main reasons for all of them, it is like a reward for being around, an active player that is supporting the game. Without them the game wouldnt be around.

 

While I agree with that, however at same time I am not opposed to the Store idea either. I see that as also rewarding the highly active players which are helping to keep the game around. I guess it depends on how that suggestion is implemented, but I also see that as being able to get only a couple of the past dragons that you missed. Either not even playing back than OR for players (you are a great example) that were playing than, prolly even active players but just were busy in RL for wrong couple of days. I am sure there are several players just like you that have been playing forever, but missed out on a few.

 

I on the other hand am a great example of why I should not have CB Valentines. I have been playing since Apr 2012 and yet the only 2 CB Valentine I have is from 2014. For some reason or another I just simply have not been actively playing around that time. I would love to have all of those that I missed, but do not feel that I deserve to have any since I wasnt actually actively playing.

Edited January 13, 2016 by Hawkster

[Lurhstaap]

I just want to note that I have never played any other game where the holiday stuff was so exclusive. And I do mean NEVER. On EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. It was possible to get the EXACT stuff everyone else did even if you missed the holiday. Not offspring or something similar but lesser. The same identical things. It was definitely cheaper and easier to show up for them on the actual event and scarcity did become an issue over time, but re-releases on appropriate holidays along with new stuff for that year fixed that problem. DC is the ONLY game I play that supports the logic that only the people who show up on the right days get the actual event thing and everyone else misses out, period, full stop, no chance of recovery. IMO this is very poor game design and needs to change. I have long supported a variant of the store idea but to tell the truth at this point I don't really care a lot HOW it's done. But it needs to be done, badly, or G2 hollies will be effectively extinct soon.

 

And by the way it is a myth that only lineage breeders care about or need these changes. CBs and G2s matter to plenty of other types of player - for example, some people want only CBs even though they don't breed, and some people like to freeze hatchies but only G2s. A lot of my Christmas g2s this year were picked up by freezers, in fact. and I feel really bad for such people since they're very unlikely to get even one G2 Holly to freeze as things currently stand. It needs to be understood that this type of change would benefit a LOT of playstyles, not merely lineage breeders.

Edited January 13, 2016 by Lurhstaap

[Hawkster]

Which seems odd to me because most games I have played has limited time reward items, especially for holidays. Guess that just shows what all types of games one is attracted too or has played.

 

Zynga for example seems to love doing this for most of their games. I could list tons more including the other game I mainly play now.

 

Whether it is poor design, guess is debatable. I actually see pro's and con's either way. All I can say is it seems fairly common to me with games I have played. However I also like Store idea as well. In my opinion it is kinda like best of both worlds, it rewards active players but not for limited special time periods. Yet the one con about it, it has nothing to show off, to say Hey yea I have been around since near the beginning (Which I fully admit has both pro's and con's about that as well ). But that can be fixed to small degree with little trophy icon at top of players scrolls when they make purchase in store, plus fact they should already have several anyway to indicate that, like 2010 Egg Basket for example.

[pinkgothic]

Bump.

 

I'd still love to see some kind of change to the way holiday breeding works, time-wise. This Valentine was absurdly stressful for me - so stressful that I've decided not to take most of my lineages any step further. That doesn't sound like much of a loss and indeed I'm not at all aching over the decision, but given one of the reason I bother breeding my Valentines is so that I can help others with their lineages, it seems like a bit of a shame. Now my stock won't expand by any further generations on most of the lines, because I can't fit all of them into the breeding window.

 

Two weeks would help, though I admit this isn't my favoured solution as it threatens to be a moving goalpost.

 

I really like Socky's idea for this - that holiday dragons can breed true all year 'round, like any other dragon has a chance to breed true - with the added footnote that as others have mentioned it would be nice to have a window where the offspring is guaranteed to be of the holiday variant, and multiclutches happen, though.

 

My suggestion's also grown on me by now - that holiday dragons can breed true once a year, but whenever the breeder wants to breed them - though I understand if others are less eager, since it would be a fairly radical step, and it's not quite as convenient for IOU trading as Socky's idea. (Some perhaps recurring questions are answered here.)

Edited February 21, 2016 by pinkgothic

[High Lord November]

I'm fine with how the holidays currently work. I've missed some, and that's my fault, because I wasn't playing the game on those days. I'm against any sort of all-catch freebie "get all the CBs you've missed here" thing.

 

 

 

The only valid complaint I've seen here is that CBs become less and less accessible through breeders as players phase out from DC. One solution I can think of is that we release old breeds one year at a time along with the new ones - like Pokemon. An example would be:

 

-Next year we'll have Valentine 2017

-Along with Valentine 2017, Valentine 09 will be cycled through the cave. It would not be common, it would introduce new CBs to the pool at a limited rate, and each player is still only allowed a total of 2 CBs on their scroll.

-Year after that we'll have V2019, and V2010 will be cycled through.

 

 

The other one would be holding more raffles in general for holiday CBs. But I don't know how difficult or time-consuming setting up and organizing raffles are. I think this option is the better of the two, because it leaves most things unchanged, is restricted in number, and is up to chance, while still introducing some more CBs to the pool.

[danicast]

I love the holiday season as it is. I love the walls, I love hunting new dragons to my scroll, I love the games, I simply love it. I just had a very satisfying season, I got nice halloweens, I made some zombies, I got nice christmas dragons, I loved that christmas game so much, I had a good valentine (my rosebud collection is growing each year).

I don't think it need any change, actually I think the suggestions in this thread will ruin the holidays. No support.

[olympe]

I'm fine with how the holidays currently work. I've missed some, and that's my fault, because I wasn't playing the game on those days. I'm against any sort of all-catch freebie "get all the CBs you've missed here" thing.

 

 

 

The only valid complaint I've seen here is that CBs become less and less accessible through breeders as players phase out from DC. One solution I can think of is that we release old breeds one year at a time along with the new ones - like Pokemon. An example would be:

 

-Next year we'll have Valentine 2017

-Along with Valentine 2017, Valentine 09 will be cycled through the cave. It would not be common, it would introduce new CBs to the pool at a limited rate, and each player is still only allowed a total of 2 CBs on their scroll.

-Year after that we'll have V2019, and V2010 will be cycled through.

 

 

The other one would be holding more raffles in general for holiday CBs. But I don't know how difficult or time-consuming setting up and organizing raffles are. I think this option is the better of the two, because it leaves most things unchanged, is restricted in   number, and is up to chance, while still introducing some more CBs to the pool.

I don't think releasing an old breed alongside a new one every other year will work in the long run, to be honest. It would have to be every single year (and then some).

 

Otherwise, you'll see the following phenomenon happening:

2017 will re-release Val '09s. Sweetlings will be the Val breed that hasn't had a release in the longest time, which will be 7 years by then.

2019 will re-release Sweetlings. Rosebuds will be the breed that hasn't had a release in the longest time, which will be 8 years by then.

2021 will re-release Rosebuds. Heartseekers will be the breed with the longest time since a CB release, which will be 9 years by then.

 

See what I mean?

 

In any case, it would have to be every year that an old breed gets a re-release if the site will go down that route. However, after another 8-year-cycle, it will have to re-release two old breeds. (Meaning: In 2025, Val '09s and Val '17s will have to be re-released - or we'll be in the same situation with Val '09s (and the future Val '17s) that we have right now, at least regarding CB scarcity.

 

Personally, I still think that a one-week breeding period is a good thing, especially for newer players. Those of us caught up in lineage projects will be busy doing those instead of hunting the AP, and at least some of us will breed some pairs exclusively for the AP because we cannot keep them all. Which means more eggs and less competition in the AP.

Edited February 21, 2016 by olympe

[mo7]

I just want to note that I have never played any other game where the holiday stuff was so exclusive. And I do mean NEVER. On EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. It was possible to get the EXACT stuff everyone else did even if you missed the holiday. Not offspring or something similar but lesser. The same identical things. It was definitely cheaper and easier to show up for them on the actual event and scarcity did become an issue over time, but re-releases on appropriate holidays along with new stuff for that year fixed that problem. DC is the ONLY game I play that supports the logic that only the people who show up on the right days get the actual event thing and everyone else misses out, period, full stop, no chance of recovery. IMO this is very poor game design and needs to change. I have long supported a variant of the store idea but to tell the truth at this point I don't really care a lot HOW it's done. But it needs to be done, badly, or G2 hollies will be effectively extinct soon.

 

And by the way it is a myth that only lineage breeders care about or need these changes. CBs and G2s matter to plenty of other types of player - for example, some people want only CBs even though they don't breed, and some people like to freeze hatchies but only G2s. A lot of my Christmas g2s this year were picked up by freezers, in fact. and I feel really bad for such people since they're very unlikely to get even one G2 Holly to freeze as things currently stand. It needs to be understood that this type of change would benefit a LOT of playstyles, not merely lineage breeders.

Just want to say 2G hollies are not at risk of going extinct any time soon. While I haven't counted how many are active, I know there are at least 722 in existence, over 400 of which were bred in the last 3 years.

 

CB hollies on the other hand are another story.

Edited February 24, 2016 by mo7

[pederino]

Just want to say 2G hollies are not at risk of going extinct any time soon. While I haven't counted how many are active, I know there are at least 722 in existence, over 400 of which were bred in the last 3 years.

 

CB hollies on the other hand are another story.

I think she meant the production of 2 gen hollies, not 2 gen hollies in itself, meaning for example, that in a year or two, it will be nearly impossible to get 2 gen holly from a dragon released in 2017 or 2018, because there would be very few holly owners active on DC. Leading people to only build hollies with relatively old breeds because its the only thing they have available. This of course will not happen in a year or 2 (at least I think, and hope, so), but will surely happen anyway.

[PewterEyes]

The actual system just does not work for someone like me: I care only about cave born. I got some second generation Holidays and Valentines but they were not worth the effort. I'll not waste my time breeding them on December 2016 or February 2017. I do not think I want to waste time then hunting for more second generations and I will be breeding only CBs.

[mo7]

I think she meant the production of 2 gen hollies, not 2 gen hollies in itself, meaning for example, that in a year or two, it will be nearly impossible to get 2 gen holly from a dragon released in 2017 or 2018, because there would be very few holly owners active on DC. Leading people to only build hollies with relatively old breeds because its the only thing they have available. This of course will not happen in a year or 2 (at least I think, and hope, so), but will surely happen anyway.

That makes more sense. While I don't think all the CB owners will leave, there is a rapidly shrinking pool. But I highly doubt people like Pokemonfan13 or DarkEternity or myself will leave any time soon, but I do know of others who are closer to the edge.

 

As for relatively old species being used. Roughly half of all existing species that could possibly be bred with hollies have been at least once.

 

As for old species being used, that's happened despite the dwindling pool of holly owners. Out of every time hollies have been bred that have been accounted for in the data sheet, whites, golds, and old pinks are excessively commonly bred to hollies. So I don't think we'll really see all that many new breeds as mates, even if we see more hollies.

 

Honestly though, I do try to breed my holly with newer species. 2014 I bred her with a pyrope, 2015 with a gaia xeno.

[Fuzzbucket]

The actual system just does not work for someone like me: I care only about cave born. I got some second generation Holidays and Valentines but they were not worth the effort. I'll not waste my time breeding them on December 2016 or February 2017. I do not think I want to waste time then hunting for more second generations and I will be breeding only CBs.

That's a shame, as people like me would welcome your 3rd gens. But I have to say - if I ONLY wanted CBs, I probably wouldn't start on a game like this, where there will always be some you can't get.

[PewterEyes]

That's a shame, as people like me would welcome your 3rd gens. But I have to say - if I ONLY wanted CBs, I probably wouldn't start on a game like this, where there will always be some you can't get.

I thought I had replied but I do not see my post.

Please take chat, including breeding offers, to PM. This is not the thread for that.

When I started the game, I didn't know that I could not get a lot of stuff. Once I learned that my interest on the game decreased. Significantly. I show up in DC when I have nothing else to do and/or if a friend tells me that there are new releases.

Edited March 14, 2016 by SockPuppet Strangler

[pederino]

I thought I had replied but I do not see my post.

When I started the game, I didn't know that I could not get a lot of stuff. Once I learned that my interest on the game decreased. Significantly. I show up in DC when I have nothing else to do and/or if a friend tells me that there are new releases.

I think your comment got deleted randomly, because I did see that comment. That or I am going crazy for reading this almost exactly the same o_0 (well, only the second sentence was the same, overall is quite different, though the idea was the same).

 

Anyway, back to topic, there is... no update. At the moment, I think the idea has been very fleshed out, I mean, not that it could have had real changes since it is almost only extending the time of an eventful mechanic already established in-site and adding one or three more things that have been done or can be done quite easily (I think at least). Also, I dont have new real ideas for the topic, aside from letting holidays breed like normal dragons any day of the year, but that is being discussed right here on this topic started by SockPuppet: Holidays Breed True All Year Round. I have some "other suggestions" hanging there made by some users, but no one has been in favor or against them, so I dont know if taking them away or putting them in the suggestion itself over another similar suggestion. So... thats it right now, bye .

Edited March 14, 2016 by SockPuppet Strangler

[Nakeisha]

I would love to see an extended breeding period for Holiday dragons (another user & I were discussing this during Valentine's and saying how much we would like it).

 

Given we can only breed Holiday eggs during the Holiday period, limiting it to a week is really, really stressful. It's not quite so bad during Valentine & Christmas as we are only allowed to grab two new eggs, but during Halloween it's far more stressful as the two new eggs limit doesn't apply. It takes forever to complete lineages.

 

I would also welcome an extension on new eggs dropping during Halloween.

[jessabelleanna]

Something I think would be nice to help people get their valentine/woliday dragons:

 

Allow people to get 7(max) valentine/woliday eggs but once 2 of them grow up the rest "run away" to the AP. Until then you can give/trade them to those who missed out on the release?

 

[olympe]

The problem with that is that there'll be walls of "What happened to all my holiday babies?" in the help section.

 

Worse: Someone decides to freeze the first two CBs they have been able to hatch, and the other five run away. Can you imagine the pain a player feels in such a situation, especially if they had no idea this would be happening.

[PewterEyes]

I think your comment got deleted randomly, because I did see that comment. That or I am going crazy for reading this almost exactly the same o_0 (well, only the second sentence was the same, overall is quite different, though the idea was the same).

 

Anyway, back to topic, there is... no update. At the moment, I think the idea has been very fleshed out, I mean, not that it could have had real changes since it is almost only extending the time of an eventful mechanic already established in-site and adding one or three more things that have been done or can be done quite easily (I think at least). Also, I dont have new real ideas for the topic, aside from letting holidays breed like normal dragons any day of the year, but that is being discussed right here on this topic started by SockPuppet: Holidays Breed True All Year Round. I have some "other suggestions" hanging there made by some users, but no one has been in favor or against them, so I dont know if taking them away or putting them in the suggestion itself over another similar suggestion. So... thats it right now, bye .

Oh my, I've been away for quite a bit, haven't I? Are there any updates on the subject?

[irrelevantindigo]

I would love to see an extended breeding period for Holiday dragons (another user & I were discussing this during Valentine's and saying how much we would like it).

 

Given we can only breed Holiday eggs during the Holiday period, limiting it to a week is really, really stressful. It's not quite so bad during Valentine & Christmas as we are only allowed to grab two new eggs, but during Halloween it's far more stressful as the two new eggs limit doesn't apply. It takes forever to complete lineages.

 

I would also welcome an extension on new eggs dropping during Halloween.

I really prefer the idea of extensions. As much as I jump at the idea of holiday dragons breeding true year round, I still remember way way back in like 2011, being a tinier version of myself, being excited for the holidays around here because lots of people sent holiday dragons into the AP. And that still holds true for me in a way, when something is available year around, it loses it's seasonal specialness in a sense.

 

TL;DR two weeks would probably be a good extension of time for holiday dragons. Maybe seven days leading up to as well as after the holiday itself.

As for extending when eggs drop, I don't know how long that should be extended to, but I think it should also be extended.

Edited April 11, 2017 by irrelevantindigo

[Paradisiske]

bumping this