Fixing the Current CB Prize System

[Soulsborne]

Not joining the heated debate here completely but I wanted to point out (because someone said so) that CB prizes are NOT the rarest dragons in DC. That would be spriter's alts (not saying that everybody should have one because that would be silly and missing the point of their existence - just saying they're very rare!) or CB alts / CB Hybrids / CB female Hollies (that whole "Honorable mentions" stuff).

 

Also, YES to increasing the number of CB prizes given out but NO to punishing those who've won the raffle (even multiple times). Though, the one idea of "not being able to win the same kind of prize again" is something I would actually prefer...

[HeatherMarie]

31 minutes ago, Soulsborne said:

Not joining the heated debate here completely but I wanted to point out (because someone said so) that CB prizes are NOT the rarest dragons in DC. That would be spriter's alts (not saying that everybody should have one because that would be silly and missing the point of their existence - just saying they're very rare!) or CB alts / CB Hybrids / CB female Hollies (that whole "Honorable mentions" stuff).

 

 

CB Prizes are almost certainly the rarest *obtainable* dragon in this game. Obtainable to 'regular' users, in general, not a one-off like spriter's alts or something that no longer happens at all like CB hybrids. Those are misleading comparisons since no normal player will ever be able to obtain those things. 

 

Re increasing the Prizes given out.... There is no way that will make Prizes 'common' in any way shape or form unless upwards of 1,000 (probably way more) are given out every single month. Even doubling the amount given out each month, from 60 to 120, won't make any real difference in their actual rarity. Certainly not as huge as going towards 'common' status. (For comparison, there is currently 3,437 individual scrolls on AoND right now, and that definitely is not every single active scroll... 120 a month is still very rare, especially when you factor in repeat-wins so not all 120 will always be 'new' winners...)

[Amazon_warrior]

16 hours ago, DragonLady86 said:

Anybody can post in those threads just like everywhere else.  Every breed has a breeding thread, why shouldn't prizes? The only other "prize owner" thread is the CB owners guide which had a lot of useful info, about what could happen once you won.  Much of which is now out of date as I don't think prize owners are hounded for their offspring nearly as much.  It has nothing to do with "bragging".

 

 

Yeah... things have changed a lot since I started that thread, I'm glad to say!  When I unexpectedly became a CB Prize owner, it was.... intense. Even just PMs from people saying "congrats" were almost overwhelming.  Personally, I'm quite glad that things have calmed down and that new CB Prize owners (afaik) don't face the same trial-by-public-opinion as I and other early Prize owners did.  Since the monthly raffles, there has been a perceptible shift in the regular availability of low-gen Prizes, and what they trade for has also changed.  Ok, you can't necessarily trade a CB common for a 2G Prize (unless it has a great code and the Prize-owner you're talking to is me! 😛) but that's not to say there hasn't been progress.  And I think I prefer a gradual shift rather than an overnight one.

[olympe]

1 hour ago, Soulsborne said:

Not joining the heated debate here completely but I wanted to point out (because someone said so) that CB prizes are NOT the rarest dragons in DC. That would be spriter's alts (not saying that everybody should have one because that would be silly and missing the point of their existence - just saying they're very rare!) or CB alts / CB Hybrids / CB female Hollies (that whole "Honorable mentions" stuff).

The thing with these things is that they're so rare that it's literally impossible for any regular user to use these in PB or checker lineages, which is a lot of what people are attempting with prizes. Which is why these unobtainables are largely of no or very limited interest to most breeders. Unless, of course, it's something with nothing but SA in the CB generation or the like.

[animatedrose]

Yeah, really unfair and rather pointless to include SAs and HMs in rarity comparisons. Those are all 100% unobtainable to the user base. Only their offspring is obtainable and those don't hold the same rarity value. Adding those into the rarity scale is rather moot, imo. You can't get them. Ever. Those should NOT be used in comparison to a CB prize, which IS obtainable to the general user base, despite the low odds.

 

While I'd love to get a Thuwed or maybe a 2g prize from the raffle, it would definitely be a letdown to many users. And the raffle already has letdowns as is. No need to make it worse. Also, if you added 2g prizes...where would the raffle get them? Randomly plunder prize-winning scrolls and shut them down on breeding for a week because they got robbed of a 2g prize egg? I doubt TJ will just randomly generate 2g prizes because...they kinda have to have parents. That's why they're 2g, not CB.

 

TJ has already stated that booting previous winners from the raffle pool doesn't change the odds of a non-winner winning. Past winners have just as much a chance as you of winning. The difference is too miniscule to bother with, from what I understand. All it would do is make non-winners feel better.

Edited October 21, 2018 by animatedrose

[KrazyKarp]

In terms of rarity, CB Prizes and everything else, I think making things equal to or less than the rarity of CB Golds/CB NDs is a pretty good standard to go by. The exceptions being more "out-of-the-ordinary" things like SA offspring, HM offspring, thuweds, etc. because those are in a whole other league of their own and not very comparable to other dragons. If we were to work on a figuring out a method that would use CB Golds/CB NDs as a rarity guideline that would be perfect.

[olympe]

@KrazyKarp Truth to be told, CB status doesn't really matter much for NDs anyway, as they're unbreedable. And, considering that making NDs is the same process for both CB and bred eggs, just count all NDs in your little maths game.

[Fuzzbucket]

On 10/21/2018 at 4:56 PM, HeatherMarie said:

Prize owners are not at fault here, they've done nothing wrong by being randomly picked in a raffle. Sure, some prize owners only ask for swaps or super-rare things, but that's true of everything. Some people have a ridiculous ability to catch CB Golds constantly (how omg how on earth) and they can do the same thing, trade them for high prices... While it's sometimes frustrating to see things you want being traded for things you don't have the ability to offer, there is nothing wrong with that. It happens with trading in general, it happened before Prizes were a thing and will happen regardless of whether Prizes exist. 

 

The problem is that so *few* CB Prizes exist, and so few are added each month, there is simply not enough out there to spread the 2nd-gens around. Regardless of what those 2nd-gens trade for, or if they are given away, whatever, there simply isn't enough. We all know that active forum-goers probably make up a rather small portion of actual active players in this game, and it's most likely the same with the trading hub, and trading in general... Not all Prize winners are going to trade/gift their 2nd-gens at all, heck not all Prize winners will breed their Prize at all. With such a tiny group of CB Prize owners, some of whom may never breed their Prize at all, 2nd-gens are still fairly hard to obtain (add to that they are sometimes very difficult to obtain even for the Prize owner, stubborn breeding...). 

Agree with all this.

15 hours ago, Gruff said:

I still fall into the category of never winning a prize, but even with that ... I say leave the system as it is.

 

Is it fair, no. Neither is life. Congrats to the lucky ones that have won multiple prizes and condolences for those of us who have not. If it is truly random, then no, I don't think previous winners should be banned from winning another random prize.

 

I would say though that one thing that could be done ... keep the current prizes as they are, but throw in a Thuwed. Five people get a random Thuwed egg.

 

14 hours ago, DragonLady86 said:

Actually, the raffle IS fair.  It does not favor any players over anyone else.  And while I don't have actual numbers, TJ has posted that the amount won by repeated winners is statistically insignificant and would make little/no difference to how many prizes are available.

Exactly. The odds totally suck, but it is fair. It is just a constant running sore that needs fixing.

13 hours ago, DragonLady86 said:

That's kind of the point?  To get them out from being the rarest thing in the game?  Also, the "value" is lessened every month as it is.

Yes. We need many more out there, and the store, for lots and lots of shards, is the most obvious solution.

[Soulsborne]

8 hours ago, olympe said:

@KrazyKarp Truth to be told, CB status doesn't really matter much for NDs anyway, as they're unbreedable. And, considering that making NDs is the same process for both CB and bred eggs, just count all NDs in your little maths game.

 

Some people (like me) don't like to add bred stuff to their scroll when there is a CB version obtainable (except if it's for a checker project ❤️). So, CB ND or not does make a difference to a few of us. I'd rather not have a ND than having a bred one. (Just for that peace of mind... damn perfectionism - it is a curse or at least making things a lot more complicated than they'd have to be)

[Ruby Eyes]

I wouldn't count NDs for this at all since the userbase itself has the biggest influence on their creation. With Golds, it's only the cave generating them.

[Amazon_warrior]

The thing that concerns me most about the current raffle system is the effect that multiscrollers may be having on it.  I recently reported some rather suspicious-looking activity to a mod - if it *is* multiscrolling, it would mean that ONE person managed to end up with (at least!) four prizes from a recent raffle, which I personally find DISGUSTING.  The trouble with multiscrollers, though, is they're usually caught *after" the damage has been done. 

[olympe]

But either way, cheaters will always cheat - and I don't see any way of changing the raffle that would discourage multi-scrollers from cheating. The only thing that can be done to prevent cheating is more vigorous controlling - and maybe adding some auto-control mechanisms to DC itself.

 

Like... make CB golds/silvers drop simultanously in at least two biomes and auto-check if they end up on the same scroll. If they do, it's very likely the "lucky catcher" was more skilled at scripting than manually catching because it's humanly impossible to be in two biomes at once. (And you'd have to be in both biomes at the same time, or you'd be too late to get both golds/silvers.)

 

Or auto-check which accounts use the same IP on the same day - and have that raise red flags, too.

[Amazon_warrior]

@olympe - I think TJ does already have some systems in place for detecting suspicious activity, it might already include some checks like those you describe.  I just find it really sad that cheaters can have such an impact - I really love seeing familiar names posting wins in the Raffle thread.

[Soulsborne]

5 hours ago, Amazon_warrior said:

The thing that concerns me most about the current raffle system is the effect that multiscrollers may be having on it.  I recently reported some rather suspicious-looking activity to a mod - if it *is* multiscrolling, it would mean that ONE person managed to end up with (at least!) four prizes from a recent raffle, which I personally find DISGUSTING.  The trouble with multiscrollers, though, is they're usually caught *after" the damage has been done. 

 

I completely agree with you here but can we also take a second to think about how immensely lucky sb has to be for that to happen 🤯 like wtf.. this person should take their luck to real life raffles and lotto

 

1 hour ago, olympe said:

Or auto-check which accounts use the same IP on the same day - and have that raise red flags, too.

 

I'm all for controlling and fairness but please keep in mind that some players life in the same house (in my case 3 people: my sister, my boyfriend and myself - poor students 🙄) and not all of them are multiscrollers

[Amazon_warrior]

35 minutes ago, Soulsborne said:

 

I completely agree with you here but can we also take a second to think about how immensely lucky sb has to be for that to happen 🤯 like wtf.. this person should take their luck to real life raffles and lotto

 

Possibly!  Assuming I'm right about it, too.  But.... "properly" random generators tend to produce quite clumpy results, so I could actually believe that several tickets very close together could have been drawn.  In an ideal world, each ticket would belong to one person, but... if one person has multiple scrolls and enters each into the raffle in quick succession, then I could see that there'd be a chance of multiple wins.  For practical purposes, it's no different to someone having bought several strips of RL raffle tickets and having more than one of their numbers drawn - I've certainly seen that happen often enough!

[Fiona]

CB Prizes are scroll locked now, right? So I don't know what someone having 4 recent CB Prizes has to do with multi-scrolling.

[Amazon_warrior]

2 minutes ago, Fiona said:

CB Prizes are scroll locked now, right? So I don't know what someone having 4 recent CB Prizes has to do with multi-scrolling.

 

These were on separate scrolls, but I saw enough to make my spidey senses start tingling about it.

[Ruby Eyes]

4 minutes ago, Fiona said:

CB Prizes are scroll locked now, right? So I don't know what someone having 4 recent CB Prizes has to do with multi-scrolling.

The same person, but not on the same scroll. I think that's what AW is referring to.

I think I may have seen recently something like that, too: a few monthly-raffled CB Prizes with rather similar long and "story-telling" names, all with the same stair lineage (same mate's breed), too. (I mean, I saw these CBs in lineages of that sort.)

Edited October 22, 2018 by Ruby Eyes

[Fiona]

Ah. Yeah, it makes sense. Suspicious, but not proof of multis, because separate people do sometimes name with similar styles and breed in similar patterns.

[Ruby Eyes]

The only one who ever can have proof is TJ himself anyway.

Not that it really matters - there would still not be enough Prizes available overall, even if multiscrollers were not involved.

[Starscream]

I know I speak for myself - and possibly other mods, but I would really like to see multi-scrollers better handled - primarily because they get 1 +N entries per month where regular honest users get 1 entry per month. although the prizes are scroll locked, the benefits are not. To me, reducing the multi-scroller issue may improve the odds for those who play honestly. Sure cheating will happen, but if we don't fix the muilti-problem, then people will feel its okay to do.

[Amazon_warrior]

27 minutes ago, Fiona said:

Ah. Yeah, it makes sense. Suspicious, but not proof of multis, because separate people do sometimes name with similar styles and breed in similar patterns.

 

I kinda don't want to go into specifics because 1) this isn't the place and 2) I fully realise I could be very wrong (hence I'm not spilling names), but... it really didn't look like scrolls run by different people, or for any reason other than gaming the raffle system. 

 

21 minutes ago, Starscream said:

I know I speak for myself - and possibly other mods, but I would really like to see multi-scrollers better handled - primarily because they get 1 +N entries per month where regular honest users get 1 entry per month. although the prizes are scroll locked, the benefits are not. To me, reducing the multi-scroller issue may improve the odds for those who play honestly. Sure cheating will happen, but if we don't fix the muilti-problem, then people will feel its okay to do.

 

Definitely! (Although I'm not a mod and have no desire to be!)  I recall reporting some suspicious-seeming activity some years ago, at about this time of year.  The person's scrolls did eventually get burninated, but not before they'd won a Tinsel in the Christmas raffle that year.  😕  But then again, I have no idea how long it takes TJ to check scroll and IP activity and confirm multi-scrolling rather than, say, several people playing individually but using the same IP address.

 

Edited October 22, 2018 by Amazon_warrior

[The Dragoness]

The fact that people can cheat their way into getting multiple entries sucks, but I don't it's the main problem here. With or without multiscrollers, most players will never own CB Prizes and 2Gs will remain difficult to get. That's because 1) people can win multiple times. 2) CB Prizes given out each month can die or not be bred at all, which doesn't help the issue surrounding 2Gs. And 3) so few are handed out to begin with. 

[Ruby Eyes]

10 minutes ago, The Dragoness said:

With or without multiscrollers, most players will never own CB Prizes and 2Gs will remain difficult to get. That's because 1) people can win multiple times.

I think the numbers between the two are equally tiny, with effects on chances for others. Said chances at winning would still be miniscule without either of those happening.

[olympe]

12 minutes ago, Ruby Eyes said:

Said chances at winning would still be miniscule without either of those happening.

And that's the root of the prize dilemma. Incredible rarity that leads to all the effects we see - drama, discussion (or heated debate), frustration, greed, prize owners getting harrassed, people resorting to multi-scrolling in order to improve their chances...

Of course, we could address the resulting issues, but wouldn't it be so much more effective to take care of the main problem - the rarity of CB Prizes?

 

ETA: 

2 hours ago, Soulsborne said:

I'm all for controlling and fairness but please keep in mind that some players life in the same house (in my case 3 people: my sister, my boyfriend and myself - poor students 🙄) and not all of them are multiscrollers

I'm well aware of that, as my daughter and I happen to live together, too. And, after a long-time semi-hiatus (only coming on for holidays) and now hiatus (not coming on at all), today she decided to glomp someone she met on another site with an egg... Could look suspicious, right?  

Edited October 22, 2018 by olympe