"Wonder Trade" function

[Guillotine]

I've been mulling on this idea for a while, but the recent discussion about egg descriptions got me off my butt.

 

The basic idea is similar to the Wonder Trade of recent Pokemon games, where you send off something without knowing what you'll get in return. To account for DC being Not Pokemon, DC wonder trades would instead consist of trades being specifically chosen to be wonder trades that are initiated every 60 minutes/72 hours/1 week (or whatever other time frame TJ deems appropriate to minimize server stress). When the time to trade happens, trades are randomly assigned a partner to trade with and whatever happens, happens.

Normal scroll limits would still apply, so you couldn't go over limits this way, and the offered thing(s) would still take up slots on your scroll until the trade finished.

 

This is being proposed mostly because I'm overly fond of the idea of giving people surprise nice things and the current gift-teleport isn't quite meant for that sort of thing.

Suggestion from Zeditha:

Quote

A thought on categories: categorizing the dragons based on lineage seems wrong, but there is one internal categorization that could be made: eggs vs hatchlings. If that distinction was made internally, where egg offers are matched with egg offers and hatchies are matched with hatchies, then you could sidestep the problem of someone being egg-locked and offering a hatchie getting an egg.

 

(obviously the final product would not be called wonder trade, but i'm tired and can't come up with anything better to call it. teleport roulette maybe?)

Possible limits:
- Only one trade item per WT?
- Possibly occasional rather than a constant thing. In this case, the trades would possibly occur a certain number of times during the duration of the event rather than during set time periods?

Problems:
- Possibly too much for the server to handle, even on a very infrequent basis?
- How would leftover teleports be handled? (two suggestions: generate a random egg to give to the outlier, or build the capacity for three-way trades into the system. both have potential problems but are pretty solid solutions.)


 

Edited July 9, 2017 by Guillotine

[Ninetails]

Woaaaah. This would be too cool. I support! 

[Paradisiske]

i would love this!!!!

[spencersmith]

very fun idea :3 i like it!

[Moonlight_Eevee]

I'm having trouble seeing this being doable. While yes, it could be fun, would it be in the use with Magi dragons? What if I'm trying to trade a very rare egg for another rare egg and I don't pay attention and use the Wonder Trade instead of the trade link? Not to mention it would be rough for the servers. 

Also, what if you put up something good on Wonder Trade and get something bad? There are people out there that could abuse this (if at all possible). I'm sorry, but while this may seem like a fun idea, it doesn't have my support

[Paradisiske]

well people already abuse the wonder trade system in pokemon by just putting slowpokes in it but its not game breaking. 

[Obscure_Trash]

I have no idea what Pokemon Wonder Trades are, so I have questions for fleshing this out:

So is this something that is automatically sent out or something that appears, if you are off cooldown, as a trade option for you?

If this is only an option that randomly appears for some people every few days (as opposed to something anyone can do with a day's cooldown or something), how is it advertised that the option is available? How long do you have to participate before it disappears? (I'm a little confused on the availability of this option in general.)

What if you're not scroll locked, but you're egg locked when you initiate a trade but your partner offers you an egg in return? Is that an option? Will those automatically bounce and the teleport get canceled or the person who's locked lose their 'gift' to the AP? Will the trade auto-accept once you're finally unlocked?

Can your randomly assigned partner only be assigned if they are not scroll locked and/or egg locked?

What happens with the cooldown if your partner rejects participating in the trade? Can they reject participating in the trade?

Will the trade auto-cancel if it doesn't get a response in x amount of time or just when the egg hatches/hatchling grows up?

Would this be something where an opt-in/opt-out feature would be a useful setting?

Are there any limits on creatures you receive in the trade? IE, can you kill or bite or abandon the creature if you don't like it, don't want it, or simply want to bite it?

I don't really have an opinion, yet. I might participate if sent a trade, but probably wouldn't ever initiate them. Sending mystery gifts is something that has been suggested time and time again, though.

4 minutes ago, Dalek Raptor said:

I'm having trouble seeing this being doable. While yes, it could be fun, would it be in the use with Magi dragons? What if I'm trying to trade a very rare egg for another rare egg and I don't pay attention and use the Wonder Trade instead of the trade link? Not to mention it would be rough for the servers. 

Also, what if you put up something good on Wonder Trade and get something bad? There are people out there that could abuse this (if at all possible). I'm sorry, but while this may seem like a fun idea, it doesn't have my support

I would think of it like leave-an-egg; take-an-egg. By participating in one of these, you are accepting the risk that you get something you don't like in return, similarly to how you are accepting the risk that someone may not pass it forward with another gift with lae; tae.

[KrazyKarp]

Pokemon has a lot. There is the pokedex; wonder trade can help complete the dex, or at least in the beginning of completing it. People with competitively bred Pokemon wonder trade those; egg moves, hidden abilities, IVs, etc. That makes wonder trade a nice place to try for some new competitive Pokemon to work with. Also, hacked shinies have become a part of wonder trade. There's enough good things to go around, making wonder trade something that's been able to survive through generation six to generation seven.

 

DC is much simpler in nature. There isn't as much of a variety of things in the game that would keep wonder trading fun. Perhaps sections for lineages, e.g. "Staircase Wonder Trading', "Even-Gen Wonder Trading". Or perhaps generation sections, e.g. "Second Gen", "Third Gen". Maybe even a combination of both? I don't know, I'm doubtful of this suggestion happening.

[Guillotine]

Getting something common for a rare is part of the risk of the system (see: people flooding WT with bad-IV rattata), and we currently have one-ways as a potential issue for making trade links (which I have only barely caught in time myself). You don't need to participate if you don't want to.

 

And yes, the server thing was the major concern for me, which is why I'm leaving frequency up to TJ. I don't know what the servers can handle.

Quote

So is this something that is automatically sent out or something that appears, if you are off cooldown, as a trade option for you?

If this is only an option that randomly appears for some people every few days (as opposed to something anyone can do with a day's cooldown or something), how is it advertised that the option is available? How long do you have to participate before it disappears? (I'm a little confused on the availability of this option in general.)

What if you're not scroll locked, but you're egg locked when you initiate a trade but your partner offers you an egg in return? Is that an option? Will those automatically bounce and the teleport get canceled or the person who's locked lose their 'gift' to the AP? Will the trade auto-accept once you're finally unlocked?

Can your randomly assigned partner only be assigned if they are not scroll locked and/or egg locked?

What happens with the cooldown if your partner rejects participating in the trade? Can they reject participating in the trade?

Will the trade auto-cancel if it doesn't get a response in x amount of time or just when the egg hatches/hatchling grows up?

Would this be something where an opt-in/opt-out feature would be a useful setting?

Are there any limits on creatures you receive in the trade? IE, can you kill or bite or abandon the creature if you don't like it, don't want it, or simply want to bite it?

1. It automatically appears when active, is how I'm conceiving it.

2. IF it is treated as an event, I feel like it would be announced in some way on the site. You have until, say, five? minutes

3. That's something I've been mulling over; I'm not sure how to handle it. I feel like the system would reroll to get another, and if unable to get a match it just would cancel the trade? That, or participation would put a "ghost" egg on your scroll to prevent this? Again, I'm not sure how to handle this issue.

4. Depends on how it's implemented. If the limit of one trade item is set (which I'm increasingly thinking is the only reasonable way to do it), scroll limits wouldn't be an issue, but if they're egg locked they might need to reroll.

5/6. You can only cancel out before the processing begins, and if a egg hatches/hatchling grows up it cancels it out, the same as a normal trade. Response time wouldn't be an issue on the user end.

7. This would not be a thing where opt in/out would be useful, as you actively have to choose to join the wonder trade and can cancel if you accidentally join.

8. No limits, same as an ordinary trade.

[Guillotine]

5 minutes ago, KrazyKarp said:

Pokemon has a lot. There is the pokedex; wonder trade can help complete the dex, or at least in the beginning of completing it. People with competitively bred Pokemon wonder trade those; egg moves, hidden abilities, IVs, etc. That makes wonder trade a nice place to try for some new competitive Pokemon to work with. Also, hacked shinies have become a part of wonder trade. There's enough good things to go around, making wonder trade something that's been able to survive through generation six to generation seven.

 

DC is much simpler in nature. There isn't as much of a variety of things in the game that would keep wonder trading fun. Perhaps sections for lineages, e.g. "Staircase Wonder Trading', "Even-Gen Wonder Trading". Or perhaps generation sections, e.g. "Second Gen", "Third Gen". Maybe even a combination of both? I don't know, I'm doubtful of this suggestion happening.

I feel like creating sections would defeat the purpose of the wonder trade as a truly random trade system. Lineages create a lot of variety in DC, after all; limiting them would cause problems and likely increase server strain for a suggestion that's already a big concern for.
 

[-Frost-Fire-]

This seems like a good idea BUT we must consider a few things:

Pokemon is a mostly offline game. Therefore, it's possible to hack perfect IV, shiny Pokemon that are seemingly legal (i.e, correct met location, correct memories and event ribbons etc.) and put them in Wonder Trade, which is what cancels out the people Wonder Trading random bad early-route Pokemon in order to cheaply get good IV shinies.

Additionally, most people Wonder Trade their breedjects that don't have 6 perfect IVs, or are not shiny. Therefore if they are trying to breed for a shiny Pokemon (the chance of which is less that 0.2% i believe) the vast majority of the Pokemon bred will not be shiny and might be chucked into Wonder Trade. The only similarity DC has to this is color variant dragons, hybrids, or alts. This probably won't be enough to cancel out people dumping random AP eggs into Wonder Trade.

TL;DR because DC isn't as complex as Pokemon, and because there is not that much of a chance of failing to get exactly what you want by breeding, I don't think Wonder Trade could be anything more than a way to get random eggs. 

[Zeditha]

So, before I start my long post: +1 support.

 

Many people seem to be comparing this idea to Pokemon and by extension, comparing DC to Pokemon. No, the two games aren't exactly the same. But that doesn't mean the idea can't work; it just has to be tweaked to fit this style of game.
DC, like Pokemon, has many different breeds/species. DC, like Pokemon, has a record of which breeds you've collected. (The Encyclopedia actually requires more work than the Pokedex does.) DC, like Pokemon, has additional aspects to creatures that will make them desirable or not. (IVs/ lineage) DC, like Pokemon, has a userbase who will be willing to throw in all sorts of things, from low-IV ratattas and messy Drakes to Shiny Legendaries and CB Golds. And in DC, like Pokemon, many players end up with creatures they don't want - whether a breeding resulted in the wrong breed (Other people's fails are good for Neglecting :3) or something failed to alt, there would be wonder trade fodder.
So yes, the two games are different, but the core aspects that Wonder Trade works on are present in both.

 

The way I thought this would work when I read the OP is that when you set up a trade (or possibly through a new BSA?) you can select 'wonder trade', which will limit you to one egg or hatchling. The egg or hatchling would then stay on your scroll until the next Wonder Trade interval (say the top of the hour), at which point all the submitted Wonder Trades would be allocated partners and the traded dragons would switch places. (No need for a notification; you don't get one when any other trade is complete, so...)

A thought on categories: categorizing the dragons based on lineage seems wrong, but there is one internal categorization that could be made: eggs vs hatchlings. If that distinction was made internally, where egg offers are matched with egg offers and hatchies are matched with hatchies, then you could sidestep the problem of someone being egg-locked and offering a hatchie getting an egg.

Also, a thought on dealing with odd numbers. Perhaps a bot could generate some random CB dragon (using the same ratios as the cave, perhaps) to give to the users who weren't allocated a partner. That, or their egg is held either on their scroll or in a limbo until next round, when they can finally get their partner. (anyone left out should be given a higher priority for a partner.)

 

Anyway that's my thoughts, idk

[Aleoleo]

Well I know nothing about Pokemon or Wonder Trades... but this seems like a more fun version of TJ's Take an Egg, Leave an Egg page. With the added bonus that it wouldn't be possible to "cheat" (except by offering AP crap, of course). I would totally participate, so: support!

11 hours ago, Dalek Raptor said:

While yes, it could be fun, would it be in the use with Magi dragons? What if I'm trying to trade a very rare egg for another rare egg and I don't pay attention and use the Wonder Trade instead of the trade link?

How about a warning message when using this option? IF the idea is to use Magis for this (is it?). Or create a brand new BSA.

4 minutes ago, Zeditha said:

A thought on categories: categorizing the dragons based on lineage seems wrong, but there is one internal categorization that could be made: eggs vs hatchlings. If that distinction was made internally, where egg offers are matched with egg offers and hatchies are matched with hatchies, then you could sidestep the problem of someone being egg-locked and offering a hatchie getting an egg.

I like that. (and I love this multi quote feature so much)

[Guillotine]

7 hours ago, Zeditha said:

So, before I start my long post: +1 support.

 

Many people seem to be comparing this idea to Pokemon and by extension, comparing DC to Pokemon. No, the two games aren't exactly the same. But that doesn't mean the idea can't work; it just has to be tweaked to fit this style of game.
DC, like Pokemon, has many different breeds/species. DC, like Pokemon, has a record of which breeds you've collected. (The Encyclopedia actually requires more work than the Pokedex does.) DC, like Pokemon, has additional aspects to creatures that will make them desirable or not. (IVs/ lineage) DC, like Pokemon, has a userbase who will be willing to throw in all sorts of things, from low-IV ratattas and messy Drakes to Shiny Legendaries and CB Golds. And in DC, like Pokemon, many players end up with creatures they don't want - whether a breeding resulted in the wrong breed (Other people's fails are good for Neglecting :3) or something failed to alt, there would be wonder trade fodder.
So yes, the two games are different, but the core aspects that Wonder Trade works on are present in both.

 

The way I thought this would work when I read the OP is that when you set up a trade (or possibly through a new BSA?) you can select 'wonder trade', which will limit you to one egg or hatchling. The egg or hatchling would then stay on your scroll until the next Wonder Trade interval (say the top of the hour), at which point all the submitted Wonder Trades would be allocated partners and the traded dragons would switch places. (No need for a notification; you don't get one when any other trade is complete, so...)

A thought on categories: categorizing the dragons based on lineage seems wrong, but there is one internal categorization that could be made: eggs vs hatchlings. If that distinction was made internally, where egg offers are matched with egg offers and hatchies are matched with hatchies, then you could sidestep the problem of someone being egg-locked and offering a hatchie getting an egg.

Also, a thought on dealing with odd numbers. Perhaps a bot could generate some random CB dragon (using the same ratios as the cave, perhaps) to give to the users who weren't allocated a partner. That, or their egg is held either on their scroll or in a limbo until next round, when they can finally get their partner. (anyone left out should be given a higher priority for a partner.)

 

Anyway that's my thoughts, idk

Basically my thoughts on the matter! They aren't the same game, but the core idea of the suggestion works for both because they're both collecting games.

 

That's actually a really good way to sidestep the egglocked issue! I'll add it to the OP.

Generating a CB egg for the unlucky outlier was actually my thought on the matter, but I wasn't sure if that would cause problems since usually eggs generated like that have a Cave biome.

 

[olympe]

Uneven numbers are very easily sidestepped. After all, you can't only trade one on one, but also in some sort of triangle. Player A gets their egg from player B, player B gets their egg from player C, and player C gets their egg from player A. Problem solved.

[Sunfeathers]

I would love to have this! I like wondertrading in pokemon and I see no reason why I wouldn't also like something similar here. Personally I'd probably use it as an easy way to send nice eggs out without having to go to the forum and post in one of the gifting threads or just dumping things into the AP.

I think having it be always one thing offered up and matching eggs:eggs and hatchies:hatchies would make the most sense to avoid scroll limit problems. I don't if having it every hour would work out or not, but I'm sure that could always be adjusted easily if needed after implementation. It's hard to estimate the amount of people who would be using it at any given time without any data.

[Sazandora]

I think this could be pretty fun. +1 support.

[SheridanCharon]

Huh...I would've never have thought about using WT in conjunction with DC, but it actually sounds like it could be quite a fun idea.

[Sundew]

This could be fun as a monthly or holiday event, but I don't think it's something I'd want to see constantly available.

 

If it were to become a monthly event, I think we should have the option to receive up to the same number of eggs/hatchlings that we donate, so that if someone is given an egg with a messy lineage, they can just give something else and get another shot at a nicer gift.

However, if it was something that could be done at any time (or if it happened every week instead of every month), I don't think that would be necessary. If it could be done at any time, I think receiving the egg should work similarly to Thuweds, in that you can't decline, and if your egg slots are all full, you're out of luck for that specific gift.

[Guillotine]

TBH I kinda feel like having it be a bit more common would be better just to reduce bad feelings, but making it a weekly thing sounds like an excellent compromise between frequency and specialness. I'll probably edit the OP so that's more clear.

 

On Friday, July 07, 2017 at 4:15 PM, olympe said:

Uneven numbers are very easily sidestepped. After all, you can't only trade one on one, but also in some sort of triangle. Player A gets their egg from player B, player B gets their egg from player C, and player C gets their egg from player A. Problem solved.

 

 

I guess my only problem then is if that'd be reasonable to implement or not, and only TJ could answer that. I'll add it to the OP as a potential way to deal with it, though!
 

[AnubisMoon]

I like this idea, support!

[Fiona]

This is something I simply wouldn't use. As far as I see, lineage builders are looking for specifics when they trade. People who are interested in random hunt the AP and find plenty of random there. Your chance of finding something rare with this sort of system depends on what other people throw out there, and frankly, most of what will show up in the "wonder" trades will be super common, something you could easily get from the cave or with a spot of AP hunting.

 

Now, I don't play Pokemon, so I have no idea how this sort of thing works there. But DC is not Pokemon. Pokemon is not DC. I just don't see this adding anything to DC.

[Zeditha]

I think some of the excitement (in pokemon WTs at least) comes from having to give something, and then getting something that's a complete mystery in return. It could be a lvl 3 rattatta or a shiny Arceus. It could be a messy Cassare or a 2G Prize. In the AP or Cave, you always know what you're getting because you get to choose what you click on; there's no mystery. (Yes there are description clashes and alts but those are small things.)

So there's a fairly high chance that, especially at the beginning, there will be many users who want to participate in this. I know I would, both to give out my Prize stairs and spirals, and to dump in yet more commons.

 

Only time will tell how many users would want to participate, but a weekly event at launch seems very reasonable, and that can be upscaled or downscaled as the data comes in.

[The Dragoness]

I'm not a major fan of this idea. While it would be fun to give something nice and receive something random but equally nice, that probably wouldn't be the case 90% of the time. It wouldn't take much work to grab a messy AP egg, toss it into the Wonder Trade, and get a rare egg back. Feelings would be hurt. I just can't see DC taking on this idea.

[cyradis4]

2 hours ago, The Dragoness said:

I'm not a major fan of this idea. While it would be fun to give something nice and receive something random but equally nice, that probably wouldn't be the case 90% of the time. It wouldn't take much work to grab a messy AP egg, toss it into the Wonder Trade, and get a rare egg back. Feelings would be hurt. I just can't see DC taking on this idea.

 

Pretty much this. It was a problem with take an egg, leave an egg, too. If you want to swap something nice for something nice, put up a nice egg in a teleport in a trade thread and say "Suprise me!" or some such. 

 

Cheers!
C4.