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Tears in Rain

Make Cool Downs More Flexible (count full days instead of exact time)

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I'm not sure how to phrase it properly in the title so I hope it becomes more clear if I elaborate here :lol: I'll use the breeding action in my example.

 

So, right now, breeding works like this: Say you breed your dragon on Monday at 17:20. You'll be able to breed it again next Monday at 17:20.

 

Now, the cool down is exactly 7 days and that's ok and all, but real life happens and ppl aren't always online on DC, so chances are every time you breed said dragon, the breeding time will keep being pushed forward more and more. Even if you keep checking the breeding page as soon as you can, eventually it will turn into Monday 17:21, Monday 17:22, Monday 18:15... Until eventually, you'll have to postpone breeding till Tuesday, and keep breeding the dragon every Tuesday. And so on.

 

What if, instead of the above, breeding worked like this: You breed your dragon on Monday at 17:20. Breeding becomes unavailable for the rest of Monday and the next 6 full days, becoming available again once next Monday starts, at the beginning of the day.

So, you can still breed your dragon every Monday, except you can do it at any time on Monday :) 

 

If I'm not mistaken this approach won't make it possible to abuse the system for overall shorter cool downs than intended (i.e. breeding can still be done only every 7 days, not every 6 days or whatever), but it will give players some flexibility!

If my suggestion makes sense, I'm thinking maybe all actions like BSA and stuff should work like that? :D 

 

Thanks for reading! :lol: 

 

 

 

P.S. I tried to make a pic to better demonstrate what I'm talking about using breeding as an example ^_^ 

fv9R0BP.png

Edited by Tears in Rain

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I’d rather just have the timers be precise (ie “Your dragon can breed again on Nov. 18th at 6:35 PM”). I’m aware of the creep effect, but I think it’d be more manageable if you could actually remember specific times without needing to dig through pages of action log.

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Yeah, for the record, I also definitely support precise timers for the current system! Tho I gave it a thought, and I would prefer a system where one doesn't have to bother that much with exact times at all, and that would get rid of said 'creep effect', so I figured I'd suggest :lol: 

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I really like this suggestion. I could really use that I'm starting a project and would love to just breed on the same day every week no matter what time I happen to get up that day. 

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I would be happy with either this suggestion or precise timers. Both are better than the current situation.

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Eh, I'm not too sure about this. It seems like it *would* be able to take advantage of this to breed, maybe not more often, but before 7 days for sure. Breed Monday night at 11:59pm, and then you only have to wait 6 days and 1 minute to breed again at the beginning of the next Monday. Obviously you couldn't *keep* getting that shorter time if you do choose to breed right when that next Monday starts, but for users who have thousands of breedable dragons that adds up to a *lot* of 6-day 1-minute breeding cooldowns. I'm not sure I like that idea.

 

Then again, I don't have any dragons that I breed every single week, and I'm sure others who do would like this suggestion.

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10 minutes ago, Marie19R said:

Eh, I'm not too sure about this. It seems like it *would* be able to take advantage of this to breed, maybe not more often, but before 7 days for sure. Breed Monday night at 11:59pm, and then you only have to wait 6 days and 1 minute to breed again at the beginning of the next Monday. Obviously you couldn't *keep* getting that shorter time if you do choose to breed right when that next Monday starts, but for users who have thousands of breedable dragons that adds up to a *lot* of 6-day 1-minute breeding cooldowns. I'm not sure I like that idea.

 

Then again, I don't have any dragons that I breed every single week, and I'm sure others who do would like this suggestion.

Yes, you can breed on Monday (for example) at 23:59 and then breed next Monday at 00:00, making the cool down just a little more than 6 days, but in case of regular breeding, it's impossible to keep doing it. Besides, if the user breeds their dragon on Monday every week, then in such a scenario, the 23:59 breeding would be a result of a longer break than 7 days before it anyway (or a chain of breaks longer than 7 days before it).

Basically, for regular weekly breeding, breaks between breeding attempts will end up being sometimes lower than 7 days and sometimes higher than 7 days :) So in the end, by playing with breeding times it's possible to push the cool down back by up to 23 hrs 59 mins 59 secs total in every weekly breeding chain, but not more.

 

So that advantage wouldn't really do anything special in case of weekly breeding because it would be followed by breaks exceeding 7 days eventually.

And if we're talking about isolated breeding attempts (someone breeds a bunch of dragons one minute before midnight, breeds them again in 6 days 1 minute, and then forgets about them for 10 days or whatever), then tbh I don't really see any problems with that (if I'm not missing anything) coz the shortened break is compensated for by a long wait in the end :lol:   So such a situation wouldn't do anything much 'worse' than weekly breeding of the same dragons would do for instance - in terms of dragon population or anything else that might seem concerning, I'm thinking. I understand your point though! :)  

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47 minutes ago, The Dragoness said:

I would be happy with either this suggestion or precise timers. Both are better than the current situation.

I agree with this. Anything is better than guessing or constantly updating offline records.

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20 hours ago, The Dragoness said:

I would be happy with either this suggestion or precise timers. Both are better than the current situation.

 

Very much true. Since I'm very aware of the "creep effect", I'd rather have a cooldown that goes by day, not by exact time.

 

And, yes, you could shorten your breeding time to 6 days 1 minute if you time it right (meaning: if you breed at 23:59) - but you can only do it once for every dragon involved. It won't work for regular breedings, though, unless you compensate by breeding after 7 days 23 hours 59 minutes (and a couple of seconds - wouldn't want to cut it too close. ;))

Edited by olympe
edited for clarification

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Initially I was in favor of this idea.  Was even going to suggest make the cool down 6 day 23 hour.  Then I thought about the holiday breeding weeks.  With this idea it would be possible to get two breedings in one week from the same holiday.  We all know that would be unintended behavior.  I think the best we can hope for is getting the exact time displayed when we check our dragon's cooldown.

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@Dracaena

 

But that wouldn't happen with the way things would work according to my suggestion. If I'm not mistaken holiday breeding lasts for a week. For example, the season starts on December 19 00:00 and last until the end of December 25, 23:59: say you breed your Holidays right at the start of December 19 - according to the mechanics I'm suggesting you still won't be able to breed them again until December 26 :) 

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18 minutes ago, Tears in Rain said:

@Dracaena

 

But that wouldn't happen with the way things would work according to my suggestion. If I'm not mistaken holiday breeding lasts for a week. For example, the season starts on December 19 00:00 and last until the end of December 25, 23:59: say you breed your Holidays right at the start of December 19 - according to the mechanics I'm suggesting you still won't be able to breed them again until December 26 :) 

I see now what you are saying.  Took studying a calendar to fully get a handle on it.  I think this could work but there needs to be a concise, easy to understand description to explain it to others if this idea were to be considered for implementation.

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This would be great imho. :D Either this or precise timers that tells us when exactly a dragon can breed again. I have a dragon now I'm waiting to breed again. Says in a day. When exactly? I have no clue lol

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In the action log you can get the exact minute when you last bred, if you really want to know and don't write down a breeding log of your own. Personally, I prefer to write down a breeding log as there you have the exact time, which dragons I bred and what result I got, e.g. like this:

Quote

 Fr 2018/02/02
   01:07 - Alaxtaia (LHeraldT cF) + Alaxtaion (LHeraldT cM) = 1 egg (LHeraldS)
   01:17 - Spiritvocirsia (Shadow 3F) + Spiritvocirsion (LHeraldS 3M) = 1 egg (LHeraldS)
   01:18 - Alcirseia (LHeraldS cF) + Nebuleion (PNebula cM) = 1 egg (LHeraldS)
   01:19 - Viscaia (XMas2014 cF) + Vocirsaion (LHeraldS cM) = 1 egg (LHeraldS)
   01:22 - Visca'vocirseia (XMas2014 2F) + Visca'vocirseion (LHeraldS 2M) = 1 egg (LHeraldS)
   01:22 - Spirit'vocirsia (Shadow 2F) + Spirit'vocirsion (LHeraldS 2M) = no egg
 . 12:32 - Viscasylvaia (XMas2014 3F) + Viscasylvaion (Silver 3M) = 1 egg (Silver)

That way you can keep your records indefinitely and can even do statistics etc easily.

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@Astreya While that's true, it's a very cumbersome work-around for something that should be fairly simple. Depending on how much you play DC, you may need to go through 20+ pages on your action log before finding the log of when you bred that dragon. And while keeping an off-site, personal log is fine and dandy, it *is* extra work that really shouldn't be needed. If the exact time you bred is recorded in the action log, it seems that it could just as easily be recorded elsewhere on-site, like showing the exact time on the breed action.

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Not to mention that if you play on mobile it is seriously hard to maintain.

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I don't like the idea of counting-from-midnight because I feel like it wouldn't be equal for players from different time zones. I prefer the idea of a countdown clock. Even showing hours without minutes (like we have for eggs and hatchlings) would be an improvement!

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11 minutes ago, Aie said:

I don't like the idea of counting-from-midnight because I feel like it wouldn't be equal for players from different time zones.

Could you pls elaborate, if any possible? I'm not sure I follow :blush:

I don't think I understand how it can be a disadvantage if it's a whole 24 hr window XD It's not like ppl from the DC time zone are active all 24 hours from midnight to midnight and thus benefit from it :D 

 

If you're at DC time zone, then you have time from 12 am to 11:59 pm to breed your dragon with this system. If midnight DC time is 3 pm your time, then you have a window from 3 pm to 2:59 pm the next day; if midnight DC time is 7 am your time, then it's 7 am to 6:59 am the next day, and so on. It's a whole day no matter what, which seems like more than enough room for flexible breeding no matter where the player is, I think :) 

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16 minutes ago, Tears in Rain said:

Could you pls elaborate, if any possible? I'm not sure I follow :blush:

I don't think I understand how it can be a disadvantage if it's a whole 24 hr window XD It's not like ppl from the DC time zone are active all 24 hours from midnight to midnight and thus benefit from it :D 

 

If you're at DC time zone, then you have time from 12 am to 11:59 pm to breed your dragon with this system. If midnight DC time is 3 pm your time, then you have a window from 3 pm to 2:59 pm the next day; if midnight DC time is 7 am your time, then it's 7 am to 6:59 am the next day, and so on. It's a whole day no matter what, which seems like more than enough room for flexible breeding no matter where the player is, I think :) 

I just find it frustrating when it's already a certain date here and I have to wait and wait for DC to catch up XD Plus the temptation to stay up VERY late to be able to breed as soon as a dragon's off CD might be too great for me... But yeah, I agree that there wouldn't be any actual in-game advantages for other players, and I'm not opposed to the idea per se. It'd definitely be better than what we have now, especially as I never have the patience to go through my action log to find out when exactly something was bred.

Edited by Aie

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3 minutes ago, Aie said:

I just find it frustrating when it's already a certain date here and I have to wait and wait for DC to catch up XD Plus the temptation to stay up VERY late to be able to breed as soon as a dragon's off CD might be too great for me... But yeah, I agree that there wouldn't be any actual in-game advantages for other players, and I'm be opposed to the idea per se. It'd definitely be better than what we have now, especially as I never have the patience to go through my action log to find out when exactly something was bred.

Ah, lol, I see now! :lol: Yeah, I understand now what you're talking about! Thanks very much for clarifying :wub: 

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I think this would be pretty advantageous as when I'm breeding if it's not ready when I hop on on that day, it usually goes another couple of days before I can be bothered to hop on and try again. For a casual player like myself I don't see any advantages other than convenience. And like someone said in another thread, the hard core players are always going to take an edge and use it to their advantage every chance they got, but seems like they wouldn't get much leeway anyway

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This is a great idea. I'd love to be able to "Oh I bred that day so I'll breed on this day." rather than having to check the breed option repeatedly, especially if it's a dragon I need to breed (for an IOU for ex.)

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I support this Idea too.

 

the creep effect is really annoying.

especially when you try to breed for an IOU and keep having to delay the breeding a day each week 

 

 

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I can see how this provides a system that "just works" (you breed your dragon on a day and that same day a week later you can breed them, without fussing about time creep or any of that).

 

But it seems like doing so in a manner that is intuitive is the actual challenge. It's clear even from this thread that it takes some mild mental gymnastics to understand why/how this actually does work. Especially since the likely scenario is that the action timers would stay vague instead of the request to make them more precise—"You can breed this dragon on Wednesday, February 21" is technically sufficient here because you don't actually need to know "when on Wednesday," even though that's the natural follow-up question.

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But at the moment it says "you have to wait one day" right up to the SECOND you can finally breed. I have one I can breed in one day. I could actually breed it in about an hour. I know this from my action log. It would be nice not to have to check that every time I want to breed. It's not the time creep that bugs me, it's the hanging around when you know it WILL be possible TODAY.

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