Remove (okay) Egg Limits

[Pixxelation]

The issue with separating egg and hatchie lock is, if you have 21 hatchies and 7 eggs that are all about to hatch, what would happen when they do? Do they get auto'd, or do you get to have 28 hatchies?

[cyradis4]

I think seeing the hatchy lock potential go away, while keeping the exact same egg limits is feasible. Plenty of people have worked out how to maximize their dragon number growth rates, and for them, its the hatchy lock that becomes a problem. I have run into hatchy locks enough times to be annoyed that they are tied to eggs (but not often enough for it to be a huge issue for me).

 

The egg locks help keep things in check. The hatchys.. arent really so much of a problem in my mind. I dont want to see potential for egg farming at an unlimited rate, but most hatchys I see, tend to have enough views to grow without even needing to post them.

 

 

In summary: I think taking the hatchy limit and the egg limit, and keeping them separate (so that 21 hatchy lock isnt preventing picking up eggs) could be useful. But I am NOT in favor of unlimited eggs. Hatchys.. its right there in their descriptions that they can run off and find food on their own at s2, so logically, they could stop counting against hatchy limit once they have their wings.

Works for me.

 

The reason I don't trade metals for gobs of hatchies on a regular basis is because I often am close to hatchie lock, anyway. Get someone who gets after the IOU, and suddenly you're locked and have to wait a day or two to get more eggs.

 

Also, having a decoupled hatchling limit would let people AP stalk more.... moving them a lot faster.

 

So no support for unimited eggs.... but I would support unlimited hatchies, because after all.... Someone had to raise that egg to hatchie stage! Even if it wasn't you.

 

Cheers!

C4.

[Thuban]

The issue with separating egg and hatchie lock is, if you have 21 hatchies and 7 eggs that are all about to hatch, what would happen when they do? Do they get auto'd, or do you get to have 28 hatchies?

Well, with my thought pattern what happens is:

 

To make things simple:

*Anything s2 would be counted as an adult, as far as limits are concerned.

*If you have 21 ungendered hatchlings and a mess of eggs hatch, then you would simply not be able to pick up eggs until the count falls back to/under 21. This is the only time I am ok with hatchy counts affecting egg slots, as it is a bit of an exploit to get around established limits.

*You can have as MANY gendered hatchys as you want, its only the ones that haven't reached s2 that are counted against you.

 

(I am not sure if explaining this idea is taking away from the OPs intent. If it is, I apologize, I just wanted to offer a potential option based on the ideas that had been brought up in the comments. OP is totally welcome to take the idea if its something that appeals to them... or anyone else. I have no interest in maintaining another suggestion thread )

Edited March 28, 2016 by Thuban

[Kovia]

Against the idea of removing egg limits completely for previously stated reasons. I imagine that within an hour of the limit disappearing there would be scrolls with dozens or even hundreds of eggs.

 

I could see the hatchie limit being dropped. There are plenty of other adoptable sites that run with an egg limit but no hatchling limit and they do fine. It already takes a few days to get an egg to hatch, and even if you're dealing with a hatchable egg you found in the AP it is going to take a few minutes at least to hatch it, so the egg limit would still keep people from amassing hatchlings, especially since hatchies have a timer on them.

[olympe]

But we don't have a hatchling limit, we have a growing things limit...

[_Sin_]

Increase on eggs limit and no limits on hatchies, I like compromises

I would also like to suggest an increase on the eggs limit for newbies, 4 slots are not enough if there is a new release like the latest one. I would like something like this:

No trophy: max 6 eggs

Bronze trophy: max 8 eggs

Silver trophy: max 10 eggs

Gold trophy: max 12 eggs.

One would assume that, if a new member can take care of four eggs, would be able to take care of six.

[Thuban]

But we don't have a hatchling limit, we have a growing things limit...

yes, I had previously stated that I wanted to separate hatchy counts from egg counts... and the follow up comment was answering a specific question that came up.

 

With the system currently (gold trophy numbers):subtract the 7 eggs, you can have a max of 14 hatchys before capping out. If you give up egg slots, you can cap out at 21. However, there really arent any ways to ever have more than that. Lots of people suffer from hatchy locks eating their egg slots, and the compromise offered was to allow people up to 21 ungendered things in addition to keeping their egg slots. The idea of unlimited eggs isn't very popular, but it seems people are pretty ok with higher hatchling counts.

 

Since its explained on every hatchy page that once they get their wings (gender, essentially) they are generally left to fend for themselves, I felt that it was completely logical that s2 hatchlings NOT COUNT against the growing things count. They are old enough to fend for themselves, and therefore should not prevent you from picking up more eggs and hatchlings.

 

"Once a hatchling’s wings grow in, it marks the beginning of maturation. At this point they are usually left alone by their mother and begin to hunt and survive on their own."

 

So, even with the numbers we currently have in place, just simply removing the s2 hatchys from counting against the total growing thing count does provide much more flexibility in how people play. More egg slots doesnt fix the problem (and instead introduces far more potential ones).. but removing the gendered hatchys from the counts can go a long, long way in making the game better for those people prone to being totally locked by hatchys. Make sense now?

 

 

[Starscream]

Rather like your Idea there thuban. I agree if stage 2's are able to fend for themselves, then it works.

 

[Saami]

I seem to recall a suggestion from years back similar to kicking eggs to the AP. But instead of putting them in the AP, sending them to the back of the queue so whatever's behind it can be seen.

 

Still, I do remember the mad dash for the hourly drops when there was only one cave. I also remember cave blockers and the cave stagnating when nobody wanted to lock themselves with the purples (or frills). So the problem persists regardless. I think unlimited egg slots could work if you limited the amount a person could pick up at any one time, which seems to be people's main complaint. For example say you snap up 10 eggs in the hourly drop. Fine. But then your scroll's in a cool down period. Five hours later, you can hunt again and keep your previously caught eggs. It at least hinders people from taking too many eggs at once and increases the chance for you to see something you really want.

 

I like a lot of the compromises here too. So whatever would work best. Honestly, I'd slap my mother for a viable (read: permanent) solution to the cave moving at a snail's pace.

[pederino]

This probably has been said before, as I havent really read the thread. I am very exhausted and have to work tomorrow (and its 11 PM here), but I will give my opinion anyway, just in case. Again, sorry if it has already been brought up, if it was, dismiss this and mark this as spam.

 

Point:

The reason the egg slots are so "limiting", is because they dont adapt to the dragons, when DC started there were around 10 to 20 dragons, maybe even less, and a max of 4 egg-slots (when breeding was introduced, then 5 pseudo-egg-slots if you take in account the only-bred one, though I dont know when this started).

Around 2010 or 2011 (I think), we got a ton of changes, I think it is even recognized as "the change" or something, here we got the trophy-based egg-slots system, in which according to the quantity of dragons you have you can get up to 7 egg slots. At that time we had around 50 or 60 dragons.

Now, in 2016, we have the same quantity of egg slots, but we are facing against over 120 dragons, most of them with different forms according to biome (pyralspites, coppers, xenowyrms, two-headed lindwurm...), time of catching or hatching (lunar heralds, sunset/rise, glory drakes, seasonals, ...), or even randomly (dorsal, ridgewing, gemshards, ...).

 

Idea:

The idea is to boost the quantity of egg slots every X quantity of dragons introduced. Making it so egg slots go, more or less, hand in hand with the dragons introduced.

 

Con:

This may be contraproductive, as users may still use their egg-slots for "rare" things, even when having "extra"-space, just for the sake of trading or something else.

 

Now, the reason I am suggesting this, is because is similar to OPs idea, but on a smaller scale; also, it will not harm the game that much (if it does, that is), because we all know what could happen with unlimited capacity of egg-slots... Oh, the horror it would unveil!

Edited March 29, 2016 by pederino

[NotBambi]

Around 2010 or 2011 (I think), we got a ton of changes, I think it is even recognized as "the change" or something, here we got the trophy-based egg-slots system, in which according to the quantity of dragons you have you can get up to 7 egg slots. At that time we had around 50 or 60 dragons.

Now, in 2016, we have the same quantity of egg slots, but we are facing against over 120 dragons, most of them with different forms according to biome (pyralspites, coppers, xenowyrms, two-headed lindwurm...), time of catching or hatching (lunar heralds, sunset/rise, glory drakes, seasonals, ...), or even randomly (dorsal, ridgewing, gemshards, ...).

 

Idea:

The idea is to boost the quantity of egg slots every X quantity of dragons introduced. Making it so egg slots go, more or less, hand in hand with the dragons introduced.

 

Con:

This may be contraproductive, as users may still use their egg-slots for "rare" things, even when having "extra"-space, just for the sake of trading or something else.

 

Now, the reason I am suggesting this, is because is similar to OPs idea, but on a smaller scale; also, it will not harm the game that much (if it does, that is), because we all know what could happen with unlimited capacity of egg-slots... Oh, the horror it would unveil!

Yes, the horror (add sarcasm here) , the horror when things change, when someone moves our (collective) cheeses.

While I can understand the fear that those "others" will catch and hoard all the "good eggs", you're right: the number of egg slots is not even close to be proportional to the number of existing sprites. Far from me to suggest, as the brave OP did, to remove the limits. I'm too much of a coward. But to double the existing limits, since the number of sprites doubled, seems quite reasonable.

[KageSora]

I'd suggest increasing the limits significantly before removing them entirely. See how it goes over with, say, 20 egg slots. Then increase it again if it goes over well.

[Obscure_Trash]

I used to play Valley of Unicorns for a while, where you can get up to 100 slots (egg/hatchie - or the equivalent thereof). And I quickly realized that things would get boring pretty quickly. 100, compared to the measly limits we have here, sounds like paradise and unlimited catching. Well, it was almost unlimited catching, that's true. But it also meant almost unlimited catching of the same 100+ commons. It became old very quickly and only really made sense during holiday events.

Upon reading this, I think the only way removing limits completely would really work is if we changed the nature of how DC was played - perhaps from time/view based to something more "involved" (such as click sites without a time limit that require more specific forms of interaction to grow creatures). And I like how DC is played. xP

 

Also yes, welcome back, Nin! Glad to see you again. There's another user with tilde's in their username and I kept confusing them for you, so I honestly thought you were them when I first replied to this. =o

 

I'd suggest increasing the limits significantly before removing them entirely.

 

A better compromise between these, though I'm not sure I want that great of an increase. (No, really - I am undecided.)

[AGYK]

Upon reading this, I think the only way removing limits completely would really work is if we changed the nature of how DC was played - perhaps from time/view based to something more "involved" (such as click sites without a time limit that require more specific forms of interaction to grow creatures). And I like how DC is played. xP

At that point, what differentiates DC from any of the other billion adoptables sites out there? No support at all for this. Like you, I like how DC is played.

[AppleMango]

I like the idea of more egg slots - but I think removing the limit completely would be a little too much.

[StormBirdRising]

I think removing the egg limit entirely would be very problematic. I'd rather have a fourth trophy with an egg limit of 8 and a total limit of 24.

[KageSora]

A better compromise between these, though I'm not sure I want that great of an increase. (No, really - I am undecided.)

Honestly, 20 was just a large number I tossed out there, haha. I'd rather not see THAT many at once myself. I personally would rather see it increased to maybe 12 with a gold trophy to start, 15 max for a first "large" increase. See how things go from there.

[Fiona]

I don't believe the number of eggs slots is in any way related to the number of breeds of dragons, or should be. In my opinion egg slots are a function of game pace. That is, how fast do you want the game to proceed for any average player? The answer for DC is: not fast. It's always been a slow paced game, a game of making choices and longer planning. Take that away by hugely increasing the number of egg slots and pretty soon I think you start losing players because they've gotten bored. It would become no longer then a matter of picking and choosing what you raise right now versus what you get later because if you can find or breed them you can have them all right now! Which takes away a lot of the challenge.

 

So, absolutely no support for this suggestion, nor the modifications being proposed. I wouldn't mind an increase to max of 8 eggs in some way because Yay! even numbers. No more than that. Let's keep the game pace slow.

[Fuzzbucket]

I don't believe the number of eggs slots is in any way related to the number of breeds of dragons, or should be. In my opinion egg slots are a function of game pace. That is, how fast do you want the game to proceed for any average player? The answer for DC is: not fast. It's always been a slow paced game, a game of making choices and longer planning. Take that away by hugely increasing the number of egg slots and pretty soon I think you start losing players because they've gotten bored. It would become no longer then a matter of picking and choosing what you raise right now versus what you get later because if you can find or breed them you can have them all right now! Which takes away a lot of the challenge.

 

So, absolutely no support for this suggestion, nor the modifications being proposed. I wouldn't mind an increase to max of 8 eggs in some way because Yay! even numbers. No more than that. Let's keep the game pace slow.

This (because I too would love an EVEN NUMBER )

[Xasora]

I think the only way this could feasibly work, in a way that is fair for everyone, is to then add scroll limits for the rare dragons. Like, once you have caught 10 (50, 100, whatever) CB golds, then you can't catch anymore.

 

It might also work if you do something like "you have unlimited egg slots for common/uncommon dragons, but only 5 slots for rares, and 1 slot for super-rares" or whatever the numbers work out to be. Because otherwise, like it's already been said, the people with the fastest connections will be able to grab every single egg and weed out those that aren't rares, which will make the rares harder for everyone else to acquire.

 

I am overall against this idea, just because I think it'd be a nightmare and generally unnecessary.

[xeyla]

I think the only way this could feasibly work, in a way that is fair for everyone, is to then add scroll limits for the rare dragons. Like, once you have caught 10 (50, 100, whatever) CB golds, then you can't catch anymore.

 

It might also work if you do something like "you have unlimited egg slots for common/uncommon dragons, but only 5 slots for rares, and 1 slot for super-rares" or whatever the numbers work out to be. Because otherwise, like it's already been said, the people with the fastest connections will be able to grab every single egg and weed out those that aren't rares, which will make the rares harder for everyone else to acquire.

 

I am overall against this idea, just because I think it'd be a nightmare and generally unnecessary.

I think a lot of people would leave if they ouldnt get any more CB rares. What about the people who trade for them? Why punish those that want CB rares? I dont think this would work, simply because some dragons have an artificial "rare" status from being popular.

 

The only thing I want is an extra egg slot and 3 extra hatchling slots. I do not need any more than that.

[PKfreeze]

I think the idea of more egg slots to fit proportionally with the amount of dragons is reasonable, but personally I don't know if I'd want it that way. I kind of like having 7 egg slots, I think I would feel too overwhelmed with more (and while I know I'd never be forced to have a locked scroll, I think I always would anyway) Having a fairly limited amount of eggs adds some excitement to the game for me, and I feel like that factor would be missing if there were more slots or no slots at all. While having a locked scroll is sometimes frustrating, I don't think it's detrimental to the enjoyment of the game and it's all a part of what makes DC fun. Of course, this is just my opinion.

[purplehaze]

I complain a lot about egg limits, but really I think they do serve a purpose and keep the game a bit more challenging. I just hate a 7 egg limit because it is uneven. I would be happy enough with 8.

 

I think all my reasons for opposing this have already been mentioned.

 

And it really is good to see you back, Nin!

[~!~]

Let me explain my point with this suggestion. This is the scenario I'm going for:

It's 11:59. The biomes are all empty. You're in the Jungle, looking at zero eggs. The clock hits 12:00 and you refresh the page, and suddenly there are three eggs. They are three different eggs, and none of them are eggs you want. You refresh the page again and one of the eggs is already gone. Still you don't want any of the eggs, so you keep refreshing. You see lots and lots of different eggs go by, and they actually get picked up. Like, quickly. You yourself pick every egg that vaguely interests you, because you can. You see rares go by, but someone else has always clicked them before you. (That's to be expected. Very occasionally you get lucky and manage to snatch one, but not this time.) Eventually, within five or ten minutes, all the eggs have been picked up. There are no more eggs. You have to wait until 1:00 before you can get eggs again, or you can try to get one of the five-minute drops, which only last for a minute or so because there aren't many eggs.

 

This is how the cave worked when I first joined DC, and this is what I imagine for a world where there is an appropriate demand for eggs. If this sounds like a fundamentally worse game than the DC we have right now, there can't be a compromise between us. We fundamentally disagree on how the game should work.

 

On the other hand, if you agree that this is a good scenario but you don't think removing egg limits will cause us to get here, we've got something to talk about.

 

You guys have brought up a lot of valid issues with this suggestion. Chief among them is "fast clickers" getting all the good eggs without being limited in their catching. Dragon cave becomes a game that you have to have a powerful computer and internet connection to have a hope of playing successfully. I'd argue that this is already the case. I recognize that there are certain users who have lots and lots of high-demand dragons, as compared to the rest of us. How those people get all those eggs when they're so hard for the rest of us to get, I can only guess, but I accept that "fast clicking" is one way to get an edge over other players.

 

Ideally, removing the egg limits will encourage people to pick up commons, not just continue to hoard rares indefinitely. I think a fair compromise would be to time how long an egg sits in the cave, and if it's been there for more than some agreed-upon maximum, it no longer takes up an egg slot if you want to grab it. This would mean that if you are egg locked, you can still pick up eggs, but only eggs that have been available for the taking for long enough for someone who's not locked to grab them. I don't know how this would be implemented, though - it seems pretty difficult.

 

You also bring up the issue of 50 commons for 1 rare trades no longer being viable. I propose that such trades will no longer be necessary because people will actually be able to get rares on their own. (If anyone claims this is "making rares less rare" I'm gonna kick you. Making rares actually available to all players isn't making them "less rare," in fact it's increasing the competition for rares, effectively making them more rare for the select few players who were able to reliably get them before.)

 

I don't like the fact that some players are better off in DC than others just due to how good their computers are, but the only way to fix it (satisfactorily) is to eliminate user competition over eggs and that would suck imo. Competition over eggs is one of the things that makes DC cool. However I wouldn't object to alternate non-competitive ways of obtaining eggs being added in addition to the ways we have now. (For instance, the runners-up in the Prize dragon lottery getting a free egg. Not bad.)

 

Another problem: Suddenly people will be able to get zillions of low-demand dragons that no one wants really quickly! So what? The 50-for-1 trade deal is shot, yeah, but otherwise, why do we care if you can get a lot of common dragons? They're common. You can get a lot of them. No big deal imo.

 

Another problem: People vacuuming up all the eggs in a drop just for giggles. I think Saami's solution from page 1 was a great compromise to solve that problem:

I think unlimited egg slots could work if you limited the amount a person could pick up at any one time, which seems to be people's main complaint. For example say you snap up 10 eggs in the hourly drop. Fine. But then your scroll's in a cool down period. Five hours later, you can hunt again and keep your previously caught eggs. It at least hinders people from taking too many eggs at once and increases the chance for you to see something you really want.

Another solution to this problem would be to extend the period of time you have to hold on to the egg before you can abandon or otherwise get rid of it, but honestly that might not matter in a world with no egg limits.

 

You guys have also suggested a few compromises.

One compromise people have suggested is raising the egg limits rather than doing away with them entirely. I fear that merely changing the egg limit will not have any effect. Now everyone will just be locked with 10 eggs instead of 7 and the problems inherent in the egg limits will persist. On the other hand, if the limits are raised to 100 or something, we'll end up with all the problems of the no-limit scenario. It's possibly a happy medium can be reached, though, and I would highly support experimentation on TJ's part in trying to find that medium.

 

I've also seen suggestions for removing or altering the hatchie limit, and while I support such things, I don't think any changes to the hatchie limit will fix the problems I'm trying to fix with removing the egg limits.

 

Also:

Far from me to suggest, as the brave OP did, to remove the limits. I'm too much of a coward.

Have I been gone so long that I've lost my reputation for ridiculous suggestions?

[pederino]

I don't believe the number of eggs slots is in any way related to the number of breeds of dragons, or should be. In my opinion egg slots are a function of game pace. That is, how fast do you want the game to proceed for any average player? The answer for DC is: not fast. It's always been a slow paced game, a game of making choices and longer planning. Take that away by hugely increasing the number of egg slots and pretty soon I think you start losing players because they've gotten bored. It would become no longer then a matter of picking and choosing what you raise right now versus what you get later because if you can find or breed them you can have them all right now! Which takes away a lot of the challenge.

 

So, absolutely no support for this suggestion, nor the modifications being proposed. I wouldn't mind an increase to max of 8 eggs in some way because Yay! even numbers. No more than that. Let's keep the game pace slow.

 

You have to take in account, that at the moment DC is a very slow paced game, and every year it becomes slower, since the amount of dragons overtakes by a lot the amount of egg slots; therefore, nobody wants to waste egg slots in common breeds because they could be wasting them on rarer breeds, and then here is when the breeds overwhelm others and doesnt let them breed true, since nobody catches many of those breed, not many of them are bred, also when you breed an egg you are occupying an egg slot, meaning you have to be careful when breeding and catching... Ok, they definitely seem to be "tied".

 

Now, say for example:

 

You have 4 base egg slots with no trophy, plus 1 for every trophy until 7.

 

Now, for every 75 (I think it should be higher, but lets put it as example) dragons released (not taking in account hybrids, alts, different forms, created, unbreedables and holidays), every user gets an extra egg slot overall (meaning 5 egg slots with no trophy, up to 8 with trophies, if we have around 127 -random number biger than 75 and smaller than 150- dragons; and if we reach 150 dragons, then we would have 6 egg slots without trophies and up to 9 with trophies).

 

This will give many advantages:

• Every dragon release can feature more than 3 releases without upsetting the vast majority of users (after 150 dragons, even newcomers could grab a pair of each of that release if they know enough of the game).
• The biomes will move more everytime a newcomer enters the cave since now they will have more egg slots to use and grab more CB commons/ubercommons (newcomers are good for the site, as they have to get some CB commons because they have nothing, be it they get them themselves, or they are given them by a more veteran player that caught them, meaning that their arrival means movement in the cave, sooner or later), this is of course, if they decide to make lineages or decide to collect CBs, this depends a lot on their playstyle, though we can safely assume that most of the newcomers wil become lineage builder as that is one of the favorite things in the game.
• The biomes will move a bit more overall, since now players would be a bit more careless when choosing dragons in the cave (often times, when I didnt have eggs I grabbed around 3 to 4 commons I liked before breeding or cherryPicking for uncommons or rares. With 8 egg slots I would not care wasting 4 to 5 of them in things I dont really need at the moment, or think they are valuable, but I like).
• There is something else... But I cant remember what D:>.

Edited March 30, 2016 by pederino