Remove Sickness (or somehow change it drastically)

[Dragon_Arbock]

No matter what happens, I truly do not want stunting. I don't see why I should be punished by having a whole extra day added to my zyus, etc, just because some people would rather have that than death. Sickness has varying degrees of severity and to lose an entire day, and an incubate, just because something got a little sick is too much of a punishment.

[Dracaena]

exploit

noun Digital Technology.

5. (in a video game) the use of a bug or flaw in game design to a player’s advantage or to the disadvantage of other players.

 

* copied from Dictionary.com

 

 

Though this is not a video game, rather a browser game I think it still applies.  In some ways a little more difficult as the game owners can't simply ban the players who are exploiting.  But most companies work as quickly as possible to close exploit opportunities when they arise.  Why is it seemingly on the players with this one?!?!

 

Last year we had the dramatic muscle flexing by the bombers that took out Eggs Around the World.  This year they are apparently aiming for Allure of Neglected Dragons.  In case you missed it, there was an attack on the site last Saturday and this week the attack renewed yesterday and is currently ongoing.  There aren't as many hatcheries now as when I started as some closed for various reasons (not bombing related) and not replaced by new ones opening up.  What happens when the they are all gone?  It is starting to look like the bombers are patient (or maybe they have to save their allowance for a year to afford the tools) but systematic.  The personal bombers have been an issue for a very long time yet the whole thing seems to be ignored by TJ.  It is now very much a PvP game and if it had been this bad when I started I would have turned away and never made a scroll.  All over a badly designed part of the game that I gather isn't working as intended.  

[tjekan]

2 minutes ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

No matter what happens, I truly do not want stunting. I don't see why I should be punished by having a whole extra day added to my zyus, etc, just because some people would rather have that than death. Sickness has varying degrees of severity and to lose an entire day, and an incubate, just because something got a little sick is too much of a punishment.

 

The current suggestion, as I understand it, isn't to make someone lose a day just because something got a little sick, but only if it became sick enough that under the current rules it would die.

 

So your zyu wouldn't be stunted unless it would otherwise have died. If your zyus aren't currently dying of sickness, this wouldn't affect them.

[Cinspawn]

12 minutes ago, tjekan said:

 

The current suggestion, as I understand it, isn't to make someone lose a day just because something got a little sick, but only if it became sick enough that under the current rules it would die.

 

So your zyu wouldn't be stunted unless it would otherwise have died. If your zyus aren't currently dying of sickness, this wouldn't affect them.

Ooooh, this wasn't clear to me either. I thought with stunting you meant that sick = can't grow up. This changes things.

 

So a dragon would be sick, which would serve as a warning, and then become 'stunted' for a while?

 

(Still rather have the other options, but it does make this a little bit of a better idea imo)

Edited December 8, 2018 by Cinspawn

[tjekan]

9 minutes ago, Cinspawn said:

Ooooh, this wasn't clear to me either. I thought with stunting you meant that sick = can't grow up. This changes things.

 

So a dragon would be sick, which would serve as a warning, and then become 'stunted' for a while?

 

(Still rather have the other options, but it does make this a little bit of a better idea imo)

 

There were a few different versions being batted around. The one I like best is the one where "stunted by disease" replaces "dying by disease." So sickness works just like it does now, with no extra annoyances, but instead of dying if it gets bad enough, the egg gets stunted and you lose time raising it (a few different mechanisms for that part were suggested.)

Edited December 8, 2018 by tjekan

[Dragon_Arbock]

16 minutes ago, Dracaena said:

Last year we had the dramatic muscle flexing by the bombers that took out Eggs Around the World.  This year they are apparently aiming for Allure of Neglected Dragons.  In case you missed it, there was an attack on the site last Saturday and this week the attack renewed yesterday and is currently ongoing.  

 

I just want to say this- I almost exclusively use AoND and have not noticed anything abnormal happening to my items in it when I have used it both today, and the other day people ware claiming to have been bombed. Are you sure they're not just targeting the discord? Because that's what it seems like to me more than targeting AoND.
(beside the point of the whole thread, but I think it's a bit soon to say it's a target on the hatchery)

[olympe]

10 minutes ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

 

I just want to say this- I almost exclusively use AoND and have not noticed anything abnormal happening to my items in it when I have used it both today, and the other day people ware claiming to have been bombed. Are you sure they're not just targeting the discord? Because that's what it seems like to me more than targeting AoND.
(beside the point of the whole thread, but I think it's a bit soon to say it's a target on the hatchery)

I'm very sure. Both then and now, my dragons were and are affected. I have been on the discord maybe once, ages ago. So it's not only discord-related, although it seems that people on the discord happen to get their scrolls added to AoND without their knowledge.

[purplehaze]

47 minutes ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

I just want to say this- I almost exclusively use AoND and have not noticed anything abnormal happening to my items in it when I have used it both today, and the other day people ware claiming to have been bombed. Are you sure they're not just targeting the discord? 

I am not and never have been a discord user. My eggs were being bombed yesterday and today ONLY when I placed them in AoND. When I removed them, the rapid increase in views stopped immediately without fogging them. So it does not seem like anyone bombing my eggs for any personal reason.

Edited December 8, 2018 by purplehaze

[Shadowdrake]

1 hour ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

I almost exclusively use AoND and have not noticed anything abnormal happening to my items in it when I have used it both today, and the other day people ware claiming to have been bombed.

Do you use it for long periods of time or only for a few hours when you unfog your eggs when they're ER? Because in the course of several hours eggs with, say, 300 uv from a couple hatcheries ended up with 4500 ov and stayed at the 15:1 ratio despite not being ER. The eggs that I specifically added to AOND for testing ended up with 2k views in 4 hours, while my fresher eggs that I only added to VS and kept unfogged gained views at a very low, normal rate. Many other discord members noticed this trend and used it to give their non-ER but stubborn eggs a boost in views as well.

[olympe]

I may not be on discord, but I noticed the same thing and am doing the same - or use AoND to get my low-time stuff ready to go to the next stage. And, yes, I actually experimented with the three hatcheries I use. It was most definitely AoND. However, the attack is pretty low-key. Unless you have your eggs in there from very early on, you won't see the tell-tale 15:1 ratio for V:UV, because the views can't keep up if your UVs are pretty high already. Still, I've got a couple of eggs and hatchlings in the range of up to 11:1, one of them being a hatchling that I merely unfogged and viewed once to get it to grow up as I had had it in AoND, it got pretty sick and, well, got fogged for the last 24+ hours of being an egg. I also have an ER egg with a 14,6:1 ratio...

Normal ratios, for me, are around 4:1 up to 6:1, just in case you were curious.

Edited December 8, 2018 by olympe

[Dragon_Arbock]

6 minutes ago, Shadowdrake said:

Do you use it for long periods of time or only for a few hours when you unfog your eggs when they're ER? Because in the course of several hours eggs with, say, 300 uv from a couple hatcheries ended up with 4500 ov and stayed at the 15:1 ratio despite not being ER. The eggs that I specifically added to AOND for testing ended up with 2k views in 4 hours, while my fresher eggs that I only added to VS and kept unfogged gained views at a very low, normal rate. Many other discord members noticed this trend and used it to give their non-ER but stubborn eggs a boost in views as well.

 

The other day I had some things in for a few hours while I work. Usually if something can hatch/grow that day (within 12-15 hours) I'll put it in during the morning and keep an eye on it via mobile. Nothing of mine ever got sick the day people were saying AoND was being 'view bombed'. I don't consider having high view to uv ratios as bad so long as the uvs aren't extremely high as to be dangerous.

[olympe]

Well, stuff in AoND did acquire UVs at a higher rate than normal, but nothing like EATW last year around this time. Still, it's something to keep in mind when the holiday comes around. 

[Fuzzbucket]

11 hours ago, osmarks said:

It was apparently revoked after/during the attacks, to stop people adding dragons. So I guess it was because of that, though indirectly enough that whoever did it probably didn't predict that that much would happen.

 

It was revoked during the attack to PROTECT it. But ext said it would be too much effort to repair, and would rather shut it down as it would only happen again.

[deleted_account]

22 hours ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

 

And this is where the API and the hatcheries need to be changed- nobody but you should be able to add your scroll anywhere- but again if I'm properly monitoring my eggs and not unfogging them or adding them anywhere before 4 days, a personal attack cannot happen.

 

Also the ward page shows all your eggs unfogged, if you really want to see them unfogged. I'd like it if hatchlings could be there too, but I'm not gonna complain. Things only take 6 to 7 days to grow from egg to adult anyway. You can look at in unfogged when it's an adult, or you can freeze it.

 

No. Worst idea ever that will NOT solve the viewbombing problem, because viewbombers don't limit themselves to our slow hatcheries, forget it. Besides, you're asking for making players' lives even more pesky, without preventing viewbombing whatsoever😕 You think that EATW was killing eggs because EATW was added to all hatcheires? NO. Viewbombers have other methods - as you see... Forcing a login to each hatchery won't do a thing for experienced viewbombers, only to amateur ones acting like you wrongly think actual viewbombers do - but those amateurs probably never managed to kill an egg, maybe except for a very young prize or Zyu. 
edit: just tried to viewbomb my freshly caught egg... I added it to all non-login hatcheries except for the currently targeted AOND (because it doesn't have its regular traffic and would falsify the results - though I'm considering adding to it for a minute at a time)
egg caught at 7:07 am EST and immediatelly added everywhere I could without registration/loging in, had 4 normal views. Right now after half an hour, at 7:48 it's just 52|29|1 and not sick. See? this method is just not efficient! This just CAN'T be how viewbombing happens, really... They just NEED non-hatcheries to kill stuff...
Edit2: added to AOND at 7:52 57|32|1 , honestly, I decide to leave it there since at 7:54 the egg was just 61|32|1. I seriously doubt my young egg will die at all despite being in all non-login hatcheries, including AOND.

Edit 3: At 7:57 (stats 62|32|1) I started running viewers myself - lots of eggs at a time(all in some, a few thousands on others), refresh every minute or less where possible. At 8:34 my self-targetted egg reached 137|57:1 and is still healthy, forget dying. 
Edit4: at last, at 8:57 my egg finally got sick. 196|77|1. Almost 2 hours to just get it barely sick with this method...
Edit5: 9:43, 310|112|1, still alive.
Edit6: 10:10,  over 3h old and 3h of viewbombing attempts with hatcheries. 374|134|1, sick for a bit over 1h, still alive.

 

Oh, nice, but did you know that if you're targetted,  your offer will be up for so short you won't get offers or accept them in time before it changes stage? Honestly 6 days of egg and the remaining hatchling time is too short at times, forget a few minutes that are left if you're properly targetted. 

That's you only. Others seem to prefer to see what they own and watch their things grow, not to mention being able to see the hardly ever seen holiday eggs on their scrolls, maybe add to hatcheries without loging in, and to trade using the maximum of the timeframe. Me included. My gf included. Not to mention we often need to have a look at each other's scrolls as we collaborate on things. Other thing is we were never targetted, and so far we never needed to fog so we don't, except for deliberately killing hatchies with a timeout - which has nothign to do with sickness and viewbombing. The worst that happened, was people hatching an egg in a trade which I wanted to have a chance to trade for the maximum of the timeframe but someone unable to offer what I ask for but wanting what I offer just couldn't live without ruining things for me and hatching or growing those 4ds and unders... And fogging does NOT prevent this, nor remove things form all hatcheries (not to mention the necessity of cancelling the trade link), just from some, not to mention the case if someone really wanted to viewbomb and used a non-hatchery to achieve that, as they definitely do whenever trying to actually kill and knowing how. 

Edited December 9, 2018 by Meh

[Pilauli]

I can attest that hatcheries do not efficiently kill eggs.  I had some eggs (they were not all that rare, admittedly) that I wanted to kill, so I put them in all the hatcheries I knew, right after breeding them.  They got sick but didn't die.  After they hatched, I left them in there until they were just about to grow up.  Then fogged them the rest of the way to death, because things can't grow up while fogged.

 

I think I saw a suggestion floated around that the timer counts backwards while it's sick.  This has many benefits, at least in theory:

Spoiler

• It gains more time the longer it's sick.
• Linking the "time until hatching" timer to the "time until death" timer (as incubate does) would mean that nobody can kill eggs by stunting them to the point where they won't be able to "hatch" until after the timer kills them.
• Because it takes more views to make it sick once it's existed longer (proof: incubated eggs at 6d get sick, non-incubated ones don't so much) and doesn't need more views to hatch, then it should eventually reach a point when it's no longer sick, time goes back down, and it has enough views to hatch and enough time to hatch.
• If something was viewbombed, I don't know if it would be able to go over 7d or not, but then the player could decide whether to abandon it for a fresh egg or keep it fogged until it gets back to a reasonable time left.

Note that while it might interfere with hatching stubborn things, it shouldn't (in theory) make it impossible, because you could wait for a few hours past 4d before giving it views, and then it has the following time in which to hatch: the time it takes to get sick, that much time again, and however long you waited past 4d.  NDs shouldn't become impossible whether or not they usually get sick while hatching, because eggs would still being able to hatch and the timer would actually give it more time until death if it got sick.

 

While this would give consequences to even mild sickness, it would at least partially neutralize the viewbombers, because they can't kill something in minutes, nor send it back to 7d in minutes.  And it can't kill things at all.

 

As that list probably shows, I favor this solution.  However, I support any compromise that would make it harder to viewbomb eggs to death (my own attempted ovicides notwithstanding).

[Fuzzbucket]

Yes - I like that one too. Seems to cover everything - and as long as a neglected experiment doesn't get sick., it won't even affect that.

[Sazandora]

Seems good to me too. Anything to make sickness not kill eggs/hatchlings, takes a lot of the power away from viewbombers. But I have to ask -- if sickness is changed to not be able to kill eggs/hatchlings, what happens to Ward?

[Dragon_Arbock]

3 hours ago, Meh said:

[snip cause too long]

 

You do understand that they add eggs to a hatchery, then they direct a lot of traffic to a hatchery, right? It would be a lot more inconvinient for them if they had to manually add eggs than if they can just put in scroll names and mass add everything.

Adding to a hatchery alone isn't doing it, but they attack a hatchery, flooding it with traffic, and then add your eggs.. which they shouldn't be allowed to do, and TJ was considering changing the API to prevent that.

[deleted_account]

38 minutes ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

 

You do understand that they add eggs to a hatchery, then they direct a lot of traffic to a hatchery, right? It would be a lot more inconvinient for them if they had to manually add eggs than if they can just put in scroll names and mass add everything.

Adding to a hatchery alone isn't doing it, but they attack a hatchery, flooding it with traffic, and then add your eggs.. which they shouldn't be allowed to do, and TJ was considering changing the API to prevent that.

And you think they don't have or can't make their own hatchery-like sites themselves? In ways to avoid all the precautions TJ can possibly make himself? Hackers are a thing you know, they are smarter than you want to think. Did you know that people's eggs gain views if you simply refresh their scroll link and that you don't need a hatchery to? And in what way would that prevent things users added themselves safe, huh? *Cough* EATW case *cough*. They have their ways now and they will have their ways later for as long as viewbomb death is posisble. Just open your eyes, being this stupborn doesn't make you right, viewbombers WILL remain a problem with API changed or not... You seem to be saying all that just for the sake of not admitting you're mistaken on that. If you manage to viewbomb my egg yourself, then I may think better of your point and assume you may know what viewbombing takes to be successful - because right now I have no reasons to believe you do. 

Sorry, but I refuse to be part of login requirement and if TJ is stupid enough to rather do that than fix the useless troll-enabling game mechanic itself, I won't even feel sorry to leave then. I don't need anyone to force extra precautions on me while I don't need nor want them, no thanks. My eggs, my risks. Not hiding my scroll, not paranoically fogging my eggs, not using login-hatcheries - and that will never change (even if that means leaving DC).
You're free to hide your scroll if hatcheries bother you. If you're all fine with bothering to login to hatcheries every single moment you need to hatch things, or fog-unfog every single thing, then you can certainly play the hide-unhide game available now, you have that choice. I'm not interested in that myself. Don't force your ways onto others while you're free to play your way yourself just as we speak. Living on the edge for the sake of comfortable gameplay is my thing, and I don't approve of being forced any extra steps -and for the sake of a broken mechanic being kept instead of fixed.


Not to mention a regular user can't harm my eggs anyway. My hatchery-viewbombing attempt egg is over 4h old,  495|167|1, still alive.

Edited December 9, 2018 by Meh

[Wahya]

I guess I'm the only person who does stick my eggs in a hatchery then disappear. I have next to no issues with sickness/death unless I forget about them entirely. I do primarily fish in the AP though, so I almost never have 7 day eggs.

[Dragon_Arbock]

17 minutes ago, Meh said:

[snip]

 

*shrug* I'm not forcing my ways onto anyone. I'm playing the game just fine with what I have and nobody has ever been able to hurt me. You're the one asking for the site itself to change for you because managing sickness is just too much for you. Adapt. As long as there's a way to prevent it, I see no reason to rewrite the entire system, and make extra work for TJ when he could be doing other things.

Also, every time you give these bombers attention, you're incentivising them to do it more. If you protected your stuff, they'd get no more joy out of it.

Also there's a big difference between ddosing a hatchery and ddosing the site itself. If TJ notices abnormal amounts of traffic from a certain IP he can block the IP address from accessing the site itself.

I've been here since 2009, I've got a lot of issues with this archaic game, but sickness isn't one of them.

[deleted_account]

16 minutes ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

 

because managing sickness is just too much for you.

what the heck... Am I not basically saying that I DO NOT have problems with sickness myself? and that I DON NOT want to have sickness managed for me by TJ forcing hatchery log-ins?

 

Quote

If you protected your stuff, they'd get no more joy out of it.

 Funny, because I've never been bombed and never tried to protect myself from themxD I DON'T NEED forced protection, I don't even need a voluntary protection. I choose a smooth scroll management over paranoic precautions - And you're basically asking for me to not have that choice anymore! 

 

Quote

I've got a lot of issues with this archaic game, but sickness isn't one of them.

Honestly, I also never har problem with sickness myself! That's the entire point! Sickness is a useless mechanic that brings no benefit to DC what so ever, and that's the problem of it! Literally, sickness >kills< ONLY if properly maintained viewbombing happens! No newbie (or Platinum torophy user like myself TRYING to viewbomb my young egg) can accidently viewbomb their stuff, which I'm just proving with my experiment (11:33, 552|187|1, still alive)... You're denying facts at all cost and that's undeniable at this point. I'm done with this "discussion" because you're basically covering yourself with an anti-fact forcefield.

Edited December 9, 2018 by Meh

[Dragon_Arbock]

@Meh If you have no problem then why are you coming after me? If it's never hurt you, why do you even care? I'm not gonna play the altruist- I don't care about other players's troubles if there's already a way to avoid the problem and they won't use it.

Eggs can get sick and die without view bombing. You'd have to be pretty neglectful to do it, but they can. Also, try your experiment with a zyu or prize. Certain breeds are more susceptible than others. Also hatcheries were not even the intended way to play this game. I had eggs get sick when I used to play the correct way, as in, on forums.

But really, truly, sickness, a core game mechanic, isn't actually going to go anywhere, so this topic is a waste of breath.

[deleted_account]

8 minutes ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

@Meh If you have no problem then why are you coming after me? If it's never hurt you, why do you even care? I'm not gonna play the altruist- I don't care about other players's troubles if there's already a way to avoid the problem and they won't use it.

Eggs can get sick and die without view bombing. You'd have to be pretty neglectful to do it, but they can. Also, try your experiment with a zyu or prize. Certain breeds are more susceptible than others. Also hatcheries were not even the intended way to play this game. I had eggs get sick when I used to play the correct way, as in, on forums.

But really, truly, sickness, a core game mechanic, isn't actually going to go anywhere, so this topic is a waste of breath.

*facepalms* to all of it...
"there's already a way to avoid the problem and they won't use it." if so, then do exactly this and hide your scroll, why even demand all hatchieres to be login-required (if you can already prevent others from adding your things there and with even less bother than login reguirement would cause) -  nobody needs that nor would it solve ANY problem.... but why am I even trying...
I'll just ignore the rest because you're still denying facts, hence it's a waste of time. I'm basically saying my avatar is blue but you're still claiming it's all grey...

Edited December 9, 2018 by Meh

[olympe]

7 minutes ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

If you have no problem then why are you coming after me? If it's never hurt you, why do you even care? I'm not gonna play the altruist- I don't care about other players's troubles if there's already a way to avoid the problem and they won't use it.

Probably because they don't want to have to log into a hatchery every time they want to add their eggs? It would be highly inconvenient. They don't care about sickness because it has never hurt them, they care abuot not having to jump through any additional hoops. There already is a way to avoid the problem - fogging, hiding your scroll, watching your eggs, not adding them when they're still susceptible for sickness and so on. A forced API login for hatcheries won't change anything, really. Instead, you could simply hide your scroll, and have the same kind of protection. Save for hatcheries that also allow you to add egg codes, of course.