Decrease Vampire Bite Death cooldown time

[Dragon_Arbock]

Maybe it's just me, but I have a bunch of vampires, but there's no fun in even trying to use them. No other breed has such a penalty on the site for trying to reproduce. The chance of a successful bite is so low that around 75% of mine end in failure. Being locked out of an egg slot for 24 hours seems rough to me. I get that exists for stopping you from just killing CBs you grabbed, but 5 hours would be sufficient enough.

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

Honestly I agree with this. Whether it be in the form of upping the chances of a successful bite, or lowering the egg cool down, I definitely agree that something could be done about this. Even 12 hours death cool down would be better than the whole 24. I love Vampires and want more, but getting death almost every time has started putting me off using Bite.

[Shadowdrake]

At first I thought this idea was unnecessary, but since there's no other way to make or collect vampires, such a steep penalty for so little chance of success does seem like too much. Sure, they can also be grabbed from the AP but that just puts the burden on other players who may also end up disappointed by vampire rates and stop biting.

 

The other breeds that have a chance of death to make are also more lenient: zombies need hatchlings which can be starved or fogged or sickened or stabbed while frozen, and adults which only take kill slots. Neglecteds can have their chance of eggdeath decreased with teamwork or planning, and death by running out of time takes no further slots. Neither breed needs a person to waste a growing slot on an already dead dragon. Vampires are probably old enough that the majority of "breedings" would be a "no egg" in other dragons but here locks your former breeding slot for 24 hours, so if there's no way to invest time to catch them in-cave then at least don't add so much salt to the wound of trying to breed one.

[Moonlight_Eevee]

I support this. Before the ratios went out of whack for vampires, I barely had any deaths and now vampires are very scarce now that, to me, makes me afraid to bite eggs. Yeah, I know it's split three different ways, but now it feels like 98% of bites ends in cracks, 1% successful turn, 1% Successful turn while repulse. Why try to bite when I already know what it's going to end up being?

[Ruby Eyes]

Yeah, 5 hours is really enough.

[HeatherMarie]

I personally would rather see a change in success rate. Whenever you kill an egg, it takes up a slot for 24 hours. That's consistent. Earthquake, Bite, using the Kill action, all 24 hours. I don't think it makes sense to lower only Bite's 'cooldown' (and by so much!).

[purplehaze]

I think I agree with @HeatherMarie on this one. The reason I don't use Bite more often is that my Vampires are killers! I would just like a better chance of actually producing a Vampire. The 24 hour cooldown is the same as for anything that kills an egg and seems appropriate to me. As long as the kill rate is so high I won't use Bite no matter what the cooldown is.

[Fuzzbucket]

Yeah, me too. I've actually done rather well on successful bites recently - but to be honest I don't do it to get vamps - I have loads - I do it in the hope of getting rid of an egg via repulse. 

[olympe]

2 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

I personally would rather see a change in success rate. Whenever you kill an egg, it takes up a slot for 24 hours. That's consistent. Earthquake, Bite, using the Kill action, all 24 hours. I don't think it makes sense to lower only Bite's 'cooldown' (and by so much!).

I agree with HeatherMarie, it's more consistent this way while also allowing for better collection of vampires. Which I'd consider a win:win.

[Dragon_Arbock]

4 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

I personally would rather see a change in success rate. Whenever you kill an egg, it takes up a slot for 24 hours. That's consistent. Earthquake, Bite, using the Kill action, all 24 hours. I don't think it makes sense to lower only Bite's 'cooldown' (and by so much!).

 

I would like to point out there's a reason nobody uses earthquake or purposely tries to kill an egg either. The penalties are too high across the board. I say 5 hours because that's how long it takes before you are able to abandon a CB egg., there's no reason to ever choose to lock yourself for 24 hours vs 5 hours (and generally why you'd never use the 'kill' action on an egg either).

 

Sure it would be nice if odds got raised, but since that's based on ratios I don't think that'd happen?

[HeatherMarie]

(I recently used 'kill' on two eggs because I didn't want them in the parent's progeny... There are some uses for it.)  

 

If the penalties are 'too high' across the board, then they should be lowered across the board. Not just on one scenario. It doesn't make sense to lower Bite to 5 hours, but keep Earthquake and Kill at 24 hours. All of them are deliberate actions killing an egg, all should have the same penalty, whatever that may be. (Personally I think the penalty is just fine at 24 hours, you are *deliberately* taking action that *kills* an egg. Something like that needs to have a consequence. 5 hours is nothing.)

 

(These opinions do not take into account the fact that Bite doesn't actually *say* there is a chance of death, I've spoken of the need to fix that elsewhere...)

[Starscream]

I have about 1600 vamps.

 

Bite cool down is fine. I get periods of great success, and then periods of fails or repulses. its all part of the RNG its not going to look perfect, but it works. Its high risk - you're doing something that is a high risk action. the rewards is awesome, but you're gonna get a stiff penalty if it fails.  This is one reason I love vampires -  entirely unpredictable. Its great to be able to turn cool codes into a cool vampire. Also the same note the AH dangit! when it fails. If I recall success is 50% fail is 50% (divided into 25% repulse and 25% kill)  And when I am doing a lot of biting, that is what I see.

 

I take high risk by taking rare eggs with gorgeous lineages and turning them into beautiful vampires. I do not see the point in making them easy-peasy -  they should not be.

[Dragon_Arbock]

2 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

(I recently used 'kill' on two eggs because I didn't want them in the parent's progeny... There are some uses for it.)  

 

..if you didn't want then why did you breed them?

 

And @Starscream why do you want everything in this game to be hard? It's not supposed to be a hard game.. Regardless I think the fact that it can be repulsed is even more of a reason to lessen the death penalty, because the BSA has two negative outcomes, not one.

[HeatherMarie]

(I was trying to breed a color variant, got the wrong color, want the parents to only have the one correct offspring.)

 

Games aren't fun if they are too easy. A lot of people agree with that, I've seen it talked about in plenty of Suggestion threads. Games are most fun when they are challenging, when there are risks and randomness and things you have to work for. I know I wouldn't still be playing DC after 10 years if everything was easy to get and there were no risks. Vamp-making is a bit of a Big Deal, it's the *only* way to get Vamps nowadays... They are special. They aren't meant to just be handed to you. They come with risks. One of those risks is killing the egg. You do the action, you accept the risk in exchange for the possible reward. 

 

 

[Dragon_Arbock]

@HeatherMarie The killing is the risk, yes, but even if it is successful you can still lose the egg. I would think that's punishment enough. It also means I'm not willing to 'breed' for others because I could very well lose a whole day of progress on something else.

 

Killing itself needs a rework anyway. Chances of reviving zombies aren't high enough. Killing a GoN makes you permanently unable to summon a replacement.. etc

And as far as not wanting the wrong color dragon in a progeny goes, just reminds me of those people on FR who complain about unnamed offspring. Doesn't change anything about the dragon itself. But killing a hatchling isn't as bad as killing an egg. I'm usually never at my hatching limit. Egg limit is a lot bigger of a deal. And again, you could have fogged it to death, or killed it as an adult. Kill action is almost unnecessary for anything that isn't an adult.

Edited January 23, 2019 by Dragon_Arbock

[purpledragonclaw]

10 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

I personally would rather see a change in success rate. Whenever you kill an egg, it takes up a slot for 24 hours. That's consistent. Earthquake, Bite, using the Kill action, all 24 hours. I don't think it makes sense to lower only Bite's 'cooldown' (and by so much!).

 

Please yes. I don't Bite anymore because it usually kills, let alone the chance of repulsion for a successful bite. 

[Shadowdrake]

On 1/22/2019 at 6:46 PM, HeatherMarie said:

They are special. They aren't meant to just be handed to you. They come with risks.

Metals and prizes and holidays and unbreedables are special too, but they usually make you play more when trying to get them, not less, and if you end up locked without getting one that's usually by your own choices or your mistakes rather than pure RNG.

 

@Starscream the last few months of the Vampire Statistics thread suggest that for whatever reason, bites are now more along the lines of 1:1:2 in keep:toss:kill.

 

On 1/22/2019 at 8:15 PM, Dragon_Arbock said:

Killing a GoN makes you permanently unable to summon a replacement

I believe TJ either fixed that or has it on his to-do list. Either way he's addressed it on the forums.