Remove Sickness (or somehow change it drastically)

[HeatherMarie]

While I can't speak for Fuzz, I personally just think that 'getting rid of sickness completely' is something that will never happen, and we all know that because TJ has said that multiple times (very recently too), so it's something I've just accepted. Sickness is a thing. It will always be a thing. Tweaking the way it works so that other people can't deliberately kill your dragons so easily is something that's wanted by *many* people, but in general we just kind of need to accept that sickness itself will always be a thing.

 

(Also, although I don't really like this way of thinking, sickness *does* force a player to be a tad more involved in raising dragons, instead of simply shoving them into hatcheries the second they are laid and then forgetting about them for a week. Most players who've been around awhile will know that sickness is possible, and will make a point to check their dragons at least once a day or so to make sure they aren't sick. While I'm not saying it's a great way to get players more involved, from a purely business perspective anything that makes the player get on the game more is a plus.)

[Fuzzbucket]

4 hours ago, osmarks said:

I still don't see why you enjoy a mechanic which basically just allows people to kill your stuff easily while not involving that much actual gameplay.

 

I didn't say I enjoyed it. I said I didn't want it to go away. I'm not wild about it when something I have gets sick - but it does mean I pay attention. I think it is basically valuable - as HM says below.

 

19 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

While I can't speak for Fuzz, I personally just think that 'getting rid of sickness completely' is something that will never happen, and we all know that because TJ has said that multiple times (very recently too), so it's something I've just accepted. Sickness is a thing. It will always be a thing. Tweaking the way it works so that other people can't deliberately kill your dragons so easily is something that's wanted by *many* people, but in general we just kind of need to accept that sickness itself will always be a thing.

 

(Also, although I don't really like this way of thinking, sickness *does* force a player to be a tad more involved in raising dragons, instead of simply shoving them into hatcheries the second they are laid and then forgetting about them for a week. Most players who've been around awhile will know that sickness is possible, and will make a point to check their dragons at least once a day or so to make sure they aren't sick. While I'm not saying it's a great way to get players more involved, from a purely business perspective anything that makes the player get on the game more is a plus.)

 

[osmarks]

1 hour ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 

I didn't say I enjoyed it. I said I didn't want it to go away. I'm not wild about it when something I have gets sick - but it does mean I pay attention. I think it is basically valuable - as HM says below.

 

 

I mean, yes, it makes people view their eggs more (probably increasing ad revenue), but that doesn't make it a good mechanic.

[Fuzzbucket]

We differ, is all. I think it is; you don't.

[olympe]

As long as the sickness mechanic can be abused to kill other players' stuff or even kill off whole hatcheries, the mechanic cannot be a good one. Not the way it is.

 

Another option that's similar to "not going to the next stage while sick" idea would be to make the timer stop during sickness. It's a bit less logical, though, since you don't stop aging while sick - but the effect of stopping development is still there, you still get "punished" for getting your stuff sick, your eggs don't die from sickness any more and you can incu-hatch stuff (because once it hits 4 days left, the timer is where it needs to be). 

[Shadowdrake]

A mechanic that capitalizes on the fear of anonymous harassment is at best poorly conceived and at worst exploitative. I don't understand how people who insist on having next to no in-game interaction whatsoever can say that the threat of being harassed is fine and helpful simply because it's nonverbal and nameless. In no other game can I think of where working hard and saving up for a rare, otherwise unattainable item can lead to it being permanently destroyed in a few hours while you're offline simply because some other player mildly dislikes something you had to say.

Edited July 27, 2018 by Shadowdrake

[HeatherMarie]

I don't think the sickness mechanic was ever meant to be exploited the way it has been.... It's like the loophole that allowed 'trading' through the AP 'get code' url, that was never something that was supposed to happen but it did. TJ eventually closed that loophole. The hope is that he will eventually do something about this loophole. I completely believe that the sickness mechanic *by itself* is not the issue, and could actually be an interesting part of the game if it weren't for those malicious attackers. The issue isn't that dragons *can* get sick, the issue isn't sickness *itself*, the issue is how quickly sickness can lead to death, especially when it's being done deliberately. I personally think there is nothing wrong with the idea of a dragon being able to get sick if you are careless with it; It's the *viewbombing* that makes sickness such a problem, since it's no longer about the user being responsible with their dragons, especially when a dedicated viewbomber can kill a dragon so ridiculously fast. If you take away the viewbombing issue, sickness isn't so horrible. Therefore, what needs to be tweaked/changed/fixed is the ability for viewbombers to cause dragon death so fast through sickness. That can be accomplished many different ways, while keeping the actual sickness 'feature' in place.

[Fuzzbucket]

4 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

I don't think the sickness mechanic was ever meant to be exploited the way it has been.... It's like the loophole that allowed 'trading' through the AP 'get code' url, that was never something that was supposed to happen but it did. TJ eventually closed that loophole. The hope is that he will eventually do something about this loophole. I completely believe that the sickness mechanic *by itself* is not the issue, and could actually be an interesting part of the game if it weren't for those malicious attackers. The issue isn't that dragons *can* get sick, the issue isn't sickness *itself*, the issue is how quickly sickness can lead to death, especially when it's being done deliberately. I personally think there is nothing wrong with the idea of a dragon being able to get sick if you are careless with it; It's the *viewbombing* that makes sickness such a problem, since it's no longer about the user being responsible with their dragons, especially when a dedicated viewbomber can kill a dragon so ridiculously fast. If you take away the viewbombing issue, sickness isn't so horrible. Therefore, what needs to be tweaked/changed/fixed is the ability for viewbombers to cause dragon death so fast through sickness. That can be accomplished many different ways, while keeping the actual sickness 'feature' in place.

 

*applauds*

[Aalbiel]

43 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

I don't think the sickness mechanic was ever meant to be exploited the way it has been.... It's like the loophole that allowed 'trading' through the AP 'get code' url, that was never something that was supposed to happen but it did. TJ eventually closed that loophole. The hope is that he will eventually do something about this loophole. I completely believe that the sickness mechanic *by itself* is not the issue, and could actually be an interesting part of the game if it weren't for those malicious attackers. The issue isn't that dragons *can* get sick, the issue isn't sickness *itself*, the issue is how quickly sickness can lead to death, especially when it's being done deliberately. I personally think there is nothing wrong with the idea of a dragon being able to get sick if you are careless with it; It's the *viewbombing* that makes sickness such a problem, since it's no longer about the user being responsible with their dragons, especially when a dedicated viewbomber can kill a dragon so ridiculously fast. If you take away the viewbombing issue, sickness isn't so horrible. Therefore, what needs to be tweaked/changed/fixed is the ability for viewbombers to cause dragon death so fast through sickness. That can be accomplished many different ways, while keeping the actual sickness 'feature' in place.

 

*applauds some more*

[olympe]

1 hour ago, HeatherMarie said:

I don't think the sickness mechanic was ever meant to be exploited the way it has been.... It's like the loophole that allowed 'trading' through the AP 'get code' url, that was never something that was supposed to happen but it did. TJ eventually closed that loophole. The hope is that he will eventually do something about this loophole. I completely believe that the sickness mechanic *by itself* is not the issue, and could actually be an interesting part of the game if it weren't for those malicious attackers. The issue isn't that dragons *can* get sick, the issue isn't sickness *itself*, the issue is how quickly sickness can lead to death, especially when it's being done deliberately. I personally think there is nothing wrong with the idea of a dragon being able to get sick if you are careless with it; It's the *viewbombing* that makes sickness such a problem, since it's no longer about the user being responsible with their dragons, especially when a dedicated viewbomber can kill a dragon so ridiculously fast. If you take away the viewbombing issue, sickness isn't so horrible. Therefore, what needs to be tweaked/changed/fixed is the ability for viewbombers to cause dragon death so fast through sickness. That can be accomplished many different ways, while keeping the actual sickness 'feature' in place.

*stands up applauding*

 

The question, though, is how to close that loophole. Any suggestions there?

[Laryal]

Was reading some of the post an you talk about getting rid of sickness right? Well i have been a victim of view bombing myself an i have wished it gone.But myself it took a while but i have none that get sick no more.How you ask lok at my scroll i have one fogged hatchling seven days old .I will come back when the hatchling is at least 3 days old unfog an then put in other sites.The more views then i get the better an faster my eggs or hacthlings grow after the 3rd day.:).It is a simple solution i found works i know allot of others may do this as well.:)

 

Edited July 28, 2018 by Laryal

[olympe]

With up to 24 growing things, that's quite a hassle. Especially on mobile. Plus, it's quite stupid to have to fog everything until it's ready to be viewbombed and viewbomb it then.

[Yubelchen]

On 7/24/2018 at 8:59 PM, Fuzzbucket said:

Sickness is the mechanic to make sure we don't just dump eggs in hatcheries and do nothing else. It means we have to pay attention to our scrolls.

 

Just saying, i do acually nothing else. I wait a day or two and dumb my eggs in one single hatcheries. They hatch on time and i never worry about them.

The only time i have to worry is when they are in a trade or when holyday season is there, because then all viewbombers are on the hunt.

 

The last time a egg of mine got sick was last christmas, but i could solve it quickly.

[Fuzzbucket]

56 minutes ago, olympe said:

With up to 24 growing things, that's quite a hassle. Especially on mobile. Plus, it's quite stupid to have to fog everything until it's ready to be viewbombed and viewbomb it then.

 

 

 

 

[Guillotine]

Yeah, I hate to break it to the people saying that sickness prevents "dump and forget" raising, but... that's how I've been raising my dragons for years. Sickness still literally only happens with stubborn breeds (rarely) or malicious viewbombing for me.

 

Ultimately, the current sickness setup does not work as anything but a harassment tool. It needs to be rebuilt entirely to function as a way to keep players frequently interacting with the site.
 

[Alrexwolf]

I agree. I literally just dump my eggs in a hatchery and sometimes they even grow up into adults before I even check on them again. I try to wait for a day but sometimes I just don't, sometimes I put them in straight out of the AP/biomes/clutch - and I have never lost an egg to sickness that wasn't caused by viewbombing. 

 

I'm not saying that some sort of sickness would be a bad mechanic; but this sickness needs to go. All it does is let people troll/harass/erase others' work. I'm not really sure why TJ is so adamant about keeping it around when it doesn't... really do anything beneficial or add anything interesting to the game. You can say it makes people check their eggs all you want, but no, most people don't have to. Most eggs/hatchlings never get sick, even if put into hatcheries very early on. All it does is make people afraid of others killing their stuff and it's entirely unfair. 

[HeatherMarie]

While I agree that right now sickness is exploited too much and needs to be changed in some significant way, I'm not sure it's totally unsalvageable, as in having to completely rebuild it. Over the last 6 months or so people around here have proposed *many* changes that could work to curb the viewbombing effects while not having to 100% redo the entire sickness mechanic... Things like a simple cap on how many views in a certain time period, or sickness not being able to actually cause death until it's been sick for a certain amount of time (sort of like Ward, but automatic), or sickness simply stunting growth instead of actually killing... To my knowledge none of those things would require a complete rebuild, just some significant changes.

[Sazandora]

I support the idea of sickness freezing the timer. With the timer "frozen" eggs can't hatch and hatchlings can't grow up until sickness fades, so it'd combine the stunted growth-option into one nice package.

[Tomato_Juice]

I've actually been thinking about a solution the past few days, and I don't know if someone has already mentioned it. And I agree with Fuzzbucket that sickness should stay, it makes sure you're consciously taking care of your creatures and it adds a bit of strategy to the game. 

 

This is what I propose:

Sickness should not kill your eggs/hatchlings, but rather, increase the time taken for them to hatch/mature. How much the hatching/maturing time is delayed depends on how long your egg/hatchling has been sick. So if your egg has been sick for 6 hours, it will only hatch at 3 days 18 hours instead of 4 days. 

 

To me, this makes sense. Right now in the game, if your egg/hatchling has not enough views, it cannot hatch/mature at 4 days, instead you have to wait longer until it gets enough views. With my suggestion, too many views will make your creatures fall sick, and this will also force you to wait a longer time. So, to get your creatures to grow up as soon as possible, you need to hit that sweet spot for views in a certain amount of time.

 

Of course, this isn't a perfect solution, but I feel that it will remove the incentive to viewbomb someone's scroll. If you want to harm someone or hurt their feelings, the most effective way is to kill their eggs or hatchlings. This suggestion won't let you do that. If I were a viewbomber, and this were implemented, I wouldn't bother attacking other people's scrolls anymore. I'll be thinking, "So their eggs will just take longer to hatch? That's it? Ugh. I'm not gonna bother."

 

I like this because there's still a 'punishment' for giving your creatures too many views, but the severity of it has been lessened.

Edited July 29, 2018 by Tomato_Juice

[osmarks]

8 hours ago, Tomato_Juice said:

I've actually been thinking about a solution the past few days, and I don't know if someone has already mentioned it. And I agree with Fuzzbucket that sickness should stay, it makes sure you're consciously taking care of your creatures and it adds a bit of strategy to the game. 

 

This is what I propose:

Sickness should not kill your eggs/hatchlings, but rather, increase the time taken for them to hatch/mature. How much the hatching/maturing time is delayed depends on how long your egg/hatchling has been sick. So if your egg has been sick for 6 hours, it will only hatch at 3 days 18 hours instead of 4 days. 

 

To me, this makes sense. Right now in the game, if your egg/hatchling has not enough views, it cannot hatch/mature at 4 days, instead you have to wait longer until it gets enough views. With my suggestion, too many views will make your creatures fall sick, and this will also force you to wait a longer time. So, to get your creatures to grow up as soon as possible, you need to hit that sweet spot for views in a certain amount of time.

 

Of course, this isn't a perfect solution, but I feel that it will remove the incentive to viewbomb someone's scroll. If you want to harm someone or hurt their feelings, the most effective way is to kill their eggs or hatchlings. This suggestion won't let you do that. If I were a viewbomber, and this were implemented, I wouldn't bother attacking other people's scrolls anymore. I'll be thinking, "So their eggs will just take longer to hatch? That's it? Ugh. I'm not gonna bother."

 

I like this because there's still a 'punishment' for giving your creatures too many views, but the severity of it has been lessened.

As I have already said, most people's interaction with sickness is as a new player and due to viewbombing, and it basically just makes them put eggs in hatcheries later; not much care or strategy.

 

I do agree with this, though, as long as there was some hard limit (2 days perhaps) at which an egg with enough views would hatch regardless of sickness, to prevent them dying.

[HeatherMarie]

9 hours ago, Tomato_Juice said:

I've actually been thinking about a solution the past few days, and I don't know if someone has already mentioned it. And I agree with Fuzzbucket that sickness should stay, it makes sure you're consciously taking care of your creatures and it adds a bit of strategy to the game. 

 

This is what I propose:

Sickness should not kill your eggs/hatchlings, but rather, increase the time taken for them to hatch/mature. How much the hatching/maturing time is delayed depends on how long your egg/hatchling has been sick. So if your egg has been sick for 6 hours, it will only hatch at 3 days 18 hours instead of 4 days. 

 

To me, this makes sense. Right now in the game, if your egg/hatchling has not enough views, it cannot hatch/mature at 4 days, instead you have to wait longer until it gets enough views. With my suggestion, too many views will make your creatures fall sick, and this will also force you to wait a longer time. So, to get your creatures to grow up as soon as possible, you need to hit that sweet spot for views in a certain amount of time.

 

Of course, this isn't a perfect solution, but I feel that it will remove the incentive to viewbomb someone's scroll. If you want to harm someone or hurt their feelings, the most effective way is to kill their eggs or hatchlings. This suggestion won't let you do that. If I were a viewbomber, and this were implemented, I wouldn't bother attacking other people's scrolls anymore. I'll be thinking, "So their eggs will just take longer to hatch? That's it? Ugh. I'm not gonna bother."

 

I like this because there's still a 'punishment' for giving your creatures too many views, but the severity of it has been lessened.

 

I'd support this change. Annoying enough to be an incentive to 'cure' the sickness instead of just ignoring it, but won't allow viewbombers to do so much irreversible harm. 

 

 

1 hour ago, osmarks said:

 

I do agree with this, though, as long as there was some hard limit (2 days perhaps) at which an egg with enough views would hatch regardless of sickness, to prevent them dying.

 

I'm not sure why that would be needed? The point here is to stop viewbombing from killing a dragon before you can do anything about it, not make it so no one needs to do anything about the sickness. There should still be a reason to *do* something about the sickness, like fogging/Warding. If the dragon will just grow up anyways regardless, *and* can't die from the sickness, there is absolutely no reason to check the dragon or care about the sickness at all. Most sickness, if not already way too severe from viewbombing, will clear up in 12-24 hours. The only way a dragon would *die* this way would be if someone simply never even tried to cure the sickness. 

[osmarks]

6 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

I'd support this change. Annoying enough to be an incentive to 'cure' the sickness instead of just ignoring it, but won't allow viewbombers to do so much irreversible harm. 

 

 

 

I'm not sure why that would be needed? The point here is to stop viewbombing from killing a dragon before you can do anything about it, not make it so no one needs to do anything about the sickness. There should still be a reason to *do* something about the sickness, like fogging/Warding. If the dragon will just grow up anyways regardless, *and* can't die from the sickness, there is absolutely no reason to check the dragon or care about the sickness at all. Most sickness, if not already way too severe from viewbombing, will clear up in 12-24 hours. The only way a dragon would *die* this way would be if someone simply never even tried to cure the sickness. 

Possibly a severity cap of some sort instead, then, so that as long as you do something your dragon won't die just because it got a stupid amount of views very fast.

[olympe]

Well, let's assume that people will have a look at their dragon at least once a day, roughly every 24 hours. Yes, an egg can get viewbombed into the thousands in that time, even tens of thousands of views. However, even severe sickness should be cured in way less than 6 days (before the egg would run out of time). So, unless you really are careless or unable to look at your eggs for extended periods of time, you should be fine.

[Fuzzbucket]

1 hour ago, HeatherMarie said:

The point here is to stop viewbombing from killing a dragon before you can do anything about it, not make it so no one needs to do anything about the sickness. There should still be a reason to *do* something about the sickness, like fogging/Warding. If the dragon will just grow up anyways regardless, *and* can't die from the sickness, there is absolutely no reason to check the dragon or care about the sickness at all. Most sickness, if not already way too severe from viewbombing, will clear up in 12-24 hours. The only way a dragon would *die* this way would be if someone simply never even tried to cure the sickness. 

 

52 minutes ago, olympe said:

Well, let's assume that people will have a look at their dragon at least once a day, roughly every 24 hours. Yes, an egg can get viewbombed into the thousands in that time, even tens of thousands of views. However, even severe sickness should be cured in way less than 6 days (before the egg would run out of time). So, unless you really are careless or unable to look at your eggs for extended periods of time, you should be fine.

 

Exactly. The sickness is an incentive to pay attention, at the very least.

[olympe]

Not to mention that low-time eggs can take a lot of views without getting sick, much less staying so. (You can always experiment with a low-time sunrise/sunset outside their hatching windows...)