Discussion of Holiday Limits (NOT suggestion to change them)

[Lurhstaap]

So, I'm sure I'm not the only person who's noticed that the stated reason for having limits isn't how things are working out in practice.

 

In theory, the point of having a two-per-person limit on CB Christmas and Valentine's is to keep people from hogging them, so everyone is guaranteed to have a chance. In theory, that makes sense, and I have no intrinsic problem with it, nor am I suggesting it be changed. I'm simply observing that doesn't seem to be what's actually happening, and I'm wondering why.

 

Compare the Christmas biome with the Halloween one. By this point, the Halloween biome was never empty and picking up ANY breed, including Marrows and Pumpkins, was pretty easy. Whereas the Christmas biome is still emptying very quickly and people are still finding it difficult to get Hollies and Yulebucks. I expect a similar situation to play out at Valentine's with that re-release. If that DOESN'T happen and the Valentine's release looks more like the Halloween one, we can safely assume the limits aren't the problem and it's just that the oldest Christmas dragons are more popular than the oldest Halloween or Valentine's dragons. But if the Valentine's re-release plays out along the same lines as the Christmas re-release, it will seem to confirm that the limits are actually making it harder for people to get the eggs rather than easier. 

 

On the surface, that seems to make no sense. So I'm puzzled by what we're seeing here. Thoughts?

[LibbyLishly]

I have wondered if the limit-two ratios have played into the perpetually empty Holiday biome.

 

There is the argument that fewer people even have Hollies and Yulebucks - the oldest Halloween that was obtainable by the Halloween biome was released the same year as the Snow Angels - and that may be all that's happening here, since TJ made adjustments to cause more Hollies and Yulebucks to be available. It's also possible that since, in the past, people have been able to get 8+ of each Halloween release, they were able to focus on whatever breeds they were missing and/or liked best (which is what I did - I didn't bother catching any of a few breeds over Halloween - but then, I also only needed five breeds from Christmas). 

 

There is also the plain fact that, though I have no idea what percentage of players do this, gifting is simply harder when you're only allowed to pick up two. You can't help nearly as many slower catchers that way. I don't know if or how that's affecting the drop rates, but it does need to be considered. (Also frustrating:  I'm staying in a place with crap internet over Christmas and am no longer able to give away more CB Hollies.)

[Guillotine]

Yeah, you need to keep in mind that Hollies had a particularly chaotic release (from what I understand of it), so even if you were there in the first place, you probably wouldn't have managed to get one. I don't know much about the Yulebuck release, but I think that was about the time that a lot of data problems were occurring so some that were caught then may have been lost.
 

e: Also, when they were released you could only get the one!
 

Edited December 25, 2017 by Guillotine

[Lurhstaap]

I'm not talking about Hollies only, though. I'm talking about all of them. It's not just Hollies disappearing fast. Again, the biomes are EMPTYING. 

[Guillotine]

TJ also edited the ratios to favor the oldest breeds. It was being blocked by Snows early on.
 

[Shadowdrake]

I'm not sure if this is true, but someone said TJ's stated that egg generation is based on how many people are online incave. I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking that Halloween drops had more eggs than this Christmas biome did all week, but if the egg-generation-ratio thing is true, then it makes some unfortunate sense that there are fewer eggs created during this week when many people are busy and there was no online event to keep others with spare time and locked scrolls playing incave, whereas Halloween had both the traditional trick-or-treat and the hourly unlimited hatchling check. As things are now what few eggs there are seem to just disappear despite the breed limits, and don't even pop up in the AP that often.

 

If Valentine has a timed/interaction event like Halloween did, there might be more eggs generated?

[LibbyLishly]

2:45 AM in the Holiday biome: eggs are actually lasting the full five minutes and moving the whole time.

 

3:30 AM: Back to the biome emptying within a minute.

 

???????

Profit

[Jazeki]

Well, there are more Christmas breeds than Valentine's or Halloween breeds and even way back when, Hollies had a limit of one. So if any of those users are still playing, they may be going after their second holly as well. Hollies are also popular due to how sought after they are. I'm sure if they weren't as desired for trades or breeding lines, the eggs wouldn't go as fast. The Yules are also a love or hate breed and many currently active players seem to have joined after they were released, so they probably need them for scroll completion.

 

TJ adjusting ratios probably affected how full the biomes are as well. If the eggs that people want pop up on a frequent basis, they have no reason to stay in the cave once they are done catching them. And if the number of eggs is determined by the number of people, well you get the picture.

 

If the two-egg limit stays for Valentine's day, there will probably be a lot of competition for Valentine's '09 and Sweetling eggs because of age and scarcity. The Valentine's 2009s were some of the last mixed cave releases and people had trouble with catching sweetlings.

 

Personally, I hope the two egg limit stays through the Valentine's 2018 drop since competition is still very fierce and I'd rather not be competing against people gathering holiday extras when I'm just trying to catch my first eggs. 

[Karobb]

Never mind, I thought you were talking about the AP   I am sure there were less eggs because of the limit of 2 per.  Personally I am glad there was a limit, I am sure you noticed how the AP went on forever on Halloween as more people were getting cbs then lineaged dragons, this xmas AP never went under 5d 3hr, whereas a couple of days into Halloween things were already incuhatchable.  I am sure we will see the end of the xmas AP a lot sooner than Halloween!

 

Personally I like the limits as xmas is pretty busy time of year for most people, it alleviates a lot of stress!

Edited December 26, 2017 by Karobb