Cave blockages - AP

[Keileon]

Pretty sure TJ is on record saying that the void is unintentional (or something of the sort-- I'll have to look through his posts on the forums and Discord alike, but at the very least he mentioned watching so it wouldn't get worse) and regardless, the void isn't a solution. I imagine no walls have appeared because of it, yes, but the void negatively impacts so many other things that I can't imagine that it's anything other than a bug possibly resulting from attempted implementation of another solution.

 

EDIT
Discord:

2:09 PM]TJ09:
I'll reiterate my bit about how you know they haven't been taken, but the average time of eggs in the AP is somewhere in the 5-6 day range, which for the AP being at 4 days left seems expected.


[2:10 PM]TJ09:
And if there were somehow a backlog of non-chronological eggs, I would expect that to skew the average.

 

Forums:
This thread--

Regarding the chronological issues--

 

So, nothing blatantly saying the void isn't intended, but lots implying it, because for there to be a void there does have to be eggs not appearing when they should.

Edited August 5, 2019 by Keileon

[olympe]

Who says I - or others - expect things to be nice? If you go to any kind of sale (goodwill sale, rummage sale, backyard sale - whatever), you expect to have different things to look at. Different kinds of things to browse. If you feel something is worth its price, you take it.

 

However, during a wall, the AP isn't anything like that. Then it's a sale that only has used underwear or something like that on sale, but lots and lots and lots of it. And you'll only get to browse whatever else is there once the underwear has been sold. Which is not what I'd expect when going to any kind of sale.

 

Regarding the time in the AP: The wall will still be there, just mostly hidden. Meaning, unless the eggs get picked up, they'll be low on time - and probably drop even lower than they do now. The difference is that only the wall eggs get to the extremely low-time stage.

 

Another thing that would need to be examined is whether lower AP times and walls coincide or whether walls actually are the main cause for low-time AP eggs. And I consider anything that's incu-hatchable as low-enough-time. Because lower AP times could also be caused by regular breeding that doesn't involve walls. The AP times are a result of supply and demand. That supply doesn't have to come in one variety only.

[Kastriia]

I skipped most of page 13, so correct me if I'm wrong-this is a neutral point

 

But the major problem I see with the "limited eggs shown per breeder" that i haven't seen brought up is " what if more than 10 people mass breed" now what? Hope to be lucky that your eggs will be the ones shown over someone else? Yours essentially enter a void at that point. A different line as opposed to the current first come first serve lineup we have. If 15 players mass breed, 10 have theirs shown, 5 do not. Then the problem remains

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

3 hours ago, Kastriia said:

I skipped most of page 13, so correct me if I'm wrong-this is a neutral point

 

But the major problem I see with the "limited eggs shown per breeder" that i haven't seen brought up is " what if more than 10 people mass breed" now what? Hope to be lucky that your eggs will be the ones shown over someone else? Yours essentially enter a void at that point. A different line as opposed to the current first come first serve lineup we have. If 15 players mass breed, 10 have theirs shown, 5 do not. Then the problem remains

 

I'd much rather see 10 peoples' stuff over just one person. Don't see the issue.

[RainDear]

4 hours ago, Kastriia said:

I skipped most of page 13, so correct me if I'm wrong-this is a neutral point

 

But the major problem I see with the "limited eggs shown per breeder" that i haven't seen brought up is " what if more than 10 people mass breed" now what? Hope to be lucky that your eggs will be the ones shown over someone else? Yours essentially enter a void at that point. A different line as opposed to the current first come first serve lineup we have. If 15 players mass breed, 10 have theirs shown, 5 do not. Then the problem remains

I imagine that if that happened, the number of each breeder's eggs could be reduced to make it fair for all.

 

I just hope to never again see what happened recently where eggs just vanished without the opportunity of being caught and hatching and growing up to the wilderness without even appearing in the AP ever again. At least if we know that only X number of eggs from a breeder will be shown, we know that it may happen that some of our bred eggs might hatch and grow up in the AP if the previous eggs aren't picked up, and those that breed large numbers of eggs can be prepared for that outcome.

[olympe]

18 hours ago, Kastriia said:

I skipped most of page 13, so correct me if I'm wrong-this is a neutral point

 

But the major problem I see with the "limited eggs shown per breeder" that i haven't seen brought up is " what if more than 10 people mass breed" now what? Hope to be lucky that your eggs will be the ones shown over someone else? Yours essentially enter a void at that point. A different line as opposed to the current first come first serve lineup we have. If 15 players mass breed, 10 have theirs shown, 5 do not. Then the problem remains

Not really. Because, imagine you and 14 others breed 10 eggs per minute every minute and at the same time. Each of you can only have 3 eggs displayed. However, once the first 10 eggs are taken, someone else's eggs are younger - and get displayed insted of your (now) younger eggs. So, if many people breed a wall, it still goes by age, and everyone's eggs get displayed in turn.

[purpledragonclaw]

On 8/7/2019 at 10:34 AM, MIGOR said:

Today me and few friends have destroyde Aqualis wall in one hour, now we are destroying Celestial wall. Maybe we should do an alliance: Destroyers of the wall So...which wall will be next?

 

I think turning this into a group or thread is a great way of tackling these walls, if enough people are on board to keep it going. We've had threads similar to it die over the years, but I'd love to see it revived.

[LadyLyzar]

Y'all be nice.  Once again, this thread was about potential AP changes to prevent it from displaying a wall.  Not on the merits of mass breeding.  A discussion on whether mass breeding is good or bad belongs in Site Discussion.

 

Closing while I go through it.  There will be a lot of off topic posts removed, so don't be surprised when it gets much shorter.

 

EDIT:  Topic reopened.  Again, be nice.  If this thread keeps devolving into a fight over mass breeding, it will be permanently closed.

Edited August 9, 2019 by LadyLyzar

[Shadowdrake]

Issue: AP is sometimes filled with eggs of one species due to a collector breeding their collection

 

 

Suggested actions:

 

Do nothing

+ Any eggs not from the wall will be highly visible and easy to catch due to lack of competition

+ If AP time is high, players will help mitigate that with a wall, forcing everything behind it to be lowered in time as well

+ Wall eggs will also be hatched and gifted or AP'd for other players

- AP occasionally has low variety and is unappealing

- Eggs are sometimes bitten or killed due to frustration

- Unhelpful for players with little time to play and specific needs who want AP-timed eggs

 

Limit by species

+ Prevents single-breed walls, guarantees some variety

+ Frequent single-breed massbreeds = frequent line of lower times fodder eggs

+ Less likely for eggs to be killed in anti-wall efforts

+ Less desirable commons even if not massbred will be stacked together to make space for other things

? Walls can still happen with massbreeds of multiple species

- Eggs from a coincidental breeder that happened to match a massbreed will be stuck behind the massbreeder's wall

- Might also block CBs behind massbreeds of the same species

- Nice species will be picked out, leaving commons to stack up

 

Limit by breeder

+ Prevents walls from one breeder

+ Less likely for eggs to be killed in anti-wall efforts

+ Frequent massbreeders = frequent line of lower-timed eggs in AP

? Can still wall with teamwork

- Good things within a large batch of undesirable commons will be prevented from appearing due to a much smaller funnel

- A varied breeder will be limited in their displayed AP eggs

 

Limit by last dropped player

? Slows initial buildup of walls, but doesn't prevent it

- Walls will slowly increase as players reabandon wall eggs and "ownership" passes to them, allowing more batches

- If dedicated, a waller can "hide" non-wall eggs by grabbing and dropping them so they are hidden behind "their" batch of eggs

 

Lower time of eggs reabandoned repeatedly

+ Makes previously undesirable eggs more appealing by lowering time

+ Can be explained as frequent climate/shelter changes causing eggs to be more likely to die

? Doesn't prevent walls, only decreases the time they stay up

? If implemented, should have a limit on how much eggs can drop and/or how much time is left

- Lowered eggs will probably need more views than undecreased eggs

- Overpowered if stackable with incubate; will be confusing if eggs freshly picked up are unincubatable or decrease by less than 24 hours when incubated, nearly useless if even a slight decrease makes it unincubatable

- Lowered eggtime cannot be undone

- Inaccurate gauge of the AP behind it

- Can be abused with a small team to lower AP egg times in general such as for neglecting efforts or bypassing need to incubate

- Already-lowered eggs will probably be picked up and dropped more often, leading to a cascade of lowered time for whatever eggs are lowered first

 

The Void (massbred eggs vanish from the AP and reappear at lower times)

+ Makes walls vanish faster than normal or less likely to appear

+ Frequent massbreeders = frequent lower-timed eggs in AP

- Indiscriminatory: if bred too quickly and too much, any eggs not picked up fast enough will vanish even if they are relatively appealing, varied and/or otherwise non-walling

- Can easily lead to eggs and hatchlings going too low to influence or growing up in wild without ever appearing in AP

- Unaffected AP will slowly increase in time while affected eggs decrease

 

 

 

Note: I am currently half-asleep and would be happy to add any more points others can think of.

Edited August 9, 2019 by Shadowdrake

[Sazandora]

Thank you, LadyLyzar.

 

I don't really think AP walls are a big-enough issue that the abandoned site itself has to be changed because of it. The wall eggs tend to be low-time or incuhatchable anyway so the catch-hatch-release-method is the best way to deal with the AP walls. But looking at all the options Shadowdrake so kindly compiled here, I'll throw in my thoughts for each of them.

 

Do nothing - Full support for reasons stated above.

Limit by species - No support, as it cannot filter out just the messy-lineaged eggs of the same breed, it will also filter out CBs and nicer-lineaged eggs as well.

Limit by breeder - I'm a little on edge about this one. It's very easy to get around it by just having more people massbreed at the same time, and as Shadowdrake pointed out, the nicer-lineaged eggs within that same batch of massbred eggs might get filtered out and be replaced by any messier eggs. But on the other hand, if SOMETHING has to be done to prevent walls, I think I like this the most.

Limit by last dropped player - No thanks. Too easy to abuse.

Lower time of eggs abandoned repeatedly - The second option I'd pick to "fix" the AP, though not very high on my favorite list either.

The void - Absolutely no support as it seems to be a glitch more than anything else, and is super indiscriminatory on what it hides and what isn't hidden.

[Fuzzbucket]

4 minutes ago, Sazandora said:

Thank you, LadyLyzar.

 

I don't really think AP walls are a big-enough issue that the abandoned site itself has to be changed because of it. The wall eggs tend to be low-time or incuhatchable anyway so the catch-hatch-release-method is the best way to deal with the AP walls. But looking at all the options Shadowdrake so kindly compiled here, I'll throw in my thoughts for each of them.

 

 

Yes - Thanks Lady L. And I agree with Sazandora.

 

Do nothing - Support

Limit by species - No thanks

Limit by breeder -  if SOMETHING has to be done to prevent walls, as Sazandora says - I suppose. But I don't like it one bit.

Limit by last dropped player - I don't like this, and I don't think it would work that well anyway.

Lower time of eggs abandoned repeatedly - MIGHT be OK.

The void - No no no no that was HORRIBLE.

 

I am very much in favour of "leave it as it is."

 

[RainDear]

My opinion, just my opinion. I have no intention of speaking for anyone else.

 

I don't think anything has to be done at all.

 

Many values being discussed here (messies, inbreds, undesirable) are totally forum driven values. They are not part of the game and most players not on the forum have no idea about them. Also, there are forum players who don't adhere to or believe in these values. When I joined one of my first dragons Pearlie Girlie(zI34) had a lineage that I found endlessly fascinating. I loved it. I wanted more like it. I wanted to look at all the dragons on it. To me, it was a type of history to see who that was part of it was still playing, look at their scrolls. My imagination was fired up at that. I still love her. I still wish I had more like her. But, I joined the forums and learned that she is "Undesirable". It changed a lot of how I collected dragons, colored my goals and to an extent changed my enjoyment of the game. When a large portion of the players have no idea of the values forum members hold so dear, it just feels wrong to me to keep harping on these values that aren't held by or even known by so many players. What you see as "messy", "undesirable", or "unwanted" may be the very things some players are actually breeding for because not everyone shares the same values. Due to the fact that many players are not represented here and cannot defend their opinions or desires, it seems really disrespectful to me to keep maintaining that your values on eggs in the AP are somehow "valid" or at least "more valid" than values that may be held by players that aren't members of the forums. 

 

I am against any steps being taken to tell others how they may play the game, limit how they breed or change the dynamics of the game. What other players do on their own scrolls, no matter what it may do to the AP is none of my business. Everyone plays their own way.

[Naraku]

Do nothing - Full support. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Limit by species - Nah.

Limit by breeder - Zero support. Average AP time will likely be higher.

Limit by last dropped player - I'm not sure if I understand this one?

Lower time of eggs abandoned repeatedly - Ehh. It can be either too complicated or can be abused easily. I'm ok with this being implemented if it's neither complicated or exploitable.

The void - The void was a mistake.

 

1 hour ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 

I am very much in favour of "leave it as it is."

Same.

[purplehaze]

Do nothing - My choice. I don't think the walls are enough of a problem for most players to make it worth changing AP dynamics.

Limit by species - No. Not all eggs of the same species are equal. I am often looking for one species, but a very specific sort of lineage. If only a few eggs of that species were allowed to show at once I would probably not have the patience to sit around and wait for the right one to show. No way to know if there are more in the queue or not.

Limit by breeder - No. All breeders are not equal either. Enough said.

Limit by last dropped player - I think this would be too easy to exploit and would end up causing a real mess.

Lower time of eggs abandoned repeatedly - This could work, if there were a limit on how low an egg can go, but they should not drop below the level where they can be influenced. Perfectly good eggs are often dropped many times, just because they are not what the masses are looking for at the moment. I have occasionally picked up and dropped the same egg several times because it was a breed I wanted, but not the sort of lineage I needed. Would that count against it two or three times?

The void - Never, ever again! That was awful!

[cyradis4]

I support doing nothing to the programming of the AP. I feel that mass breeding does not cause any problems, does help, and that changing the way the AP works will alter the very nature of the AP. 

 

However, mass breeding has 2 primary causes: 

1. The AP gets too high in time, so people mass breed to drive the AP down in time

2. People want to form a wall for some other reason. 

 

Now, in the case of 1, if the time in the AP is low, then they won't get formed. In the case of 2, if the time in the AP is low then the wall can be cleared pretty fast. In either case, the player-driven solution is to keep the time in the AP low. The time in the AP rises when there are more people wanting eggs from the AP than there are eggs bred. So the easy solution is to breed more eggs. If a few dozen people bred 10 eggs each to the AP every day, that should work to drive down the AP times and keep walls from sticking around much. Checkers are often much desired, too. 

 

So.... I'd support (and probably even participate in, some) a thread where people did just that: Organized to breed a dozen nice commons to the AP every day, with the specific goal of keeping the AP time down. 

 

Cheers!
C4. 

[Fiona]

I am in support of #1: Do nothing. I don't think it's broken.

I am not opposed to #5: Lower time of repeatedly abandoned eggs. I think some limits need to go with that, such as a limit on how much total time can be taken off.

 

All other suggestions I am opposed to for the AP. I don't think they will be improvements and could be harmful. Especially the Void. Please, not the Void!

[Keileon]

Do nothing - My favored solution, this is the only one I can support 100% and the only one I particularly want. Yes.

Limit by species - I can maybe get behind this, but I'd rather it not be this. Maybe.

Limit by breeder - No.

Limit by last dropped player - This seems convoluted and exploitable, if I'm even interpreting it correctly. No.

Lower time of eggs abandoned repeatedly - Another I could sort of get behind, but only if there's a cap so it doesn't go below, say, 3d6h. Maybe.

The void - No, absolutely not, the void is probably one of the worst things to do.

[JavaTigress]

2 hours ago, cyradis4 said:

I support doing nothing to the programming of the AP. I feel that mass breeding does not cause any problems, does help, and that changing the way the AP works will alter the very nature of the AP. 

 

However, mass breeding has 2 primary causes: 

1. The AP gets too high in time, so people mass breed to drive the AP down in time

2. People want to form a wall for some other reason. 

 

Now, in the case of 1, if the time in the AP is low, then they won't get formed. In the case of 2, if the time in the AP is low then the wall can be cleared pretty fast. In either case, the player-driven solution is to keep the time in the AP low. The time in the AP rises when there are more people wanting eggs from the AP than there are eggs bred. So the easy solution is to breed more eggs. If a few dozen people bred 10 eggs each to the AP every day, that should work to drive down the AP times and keep walls from sticking around much. Checkers are often much desired, too. 

 

So.... I'd support (and probably even participate in, some) a thread where people did just that: Organized to breed a dozen nice commons to the AP every day, with the specific goal of keeping the AP time down. 

 

Cheers!
C4. 

I MOSTLY like theis suggestion.

 

My ONLY gripe is that, for myself, personally... I like to have the ability to use BSAs ( like... Influence , for example) AND if the Time lof the Eggs in the AP gets TOO low, you really can't.

Fact. i am actually less likely to pick up an egg if I KNOW I can't influence it. I would guess I am not alone in that feeling.

[Natayah]

Created a Starting Player Activity Thread, I will clear it up over the Weekend, Feel free to use it if you wish in the meantime:Player Breeding & Hatching & Clearing Activites & Events

[Chaosdawn]

I support: Do nothing.  Don't fix what ain't broke. 

[Fuzzbucket]

10 hours ago, raindear said:

My opinion, just my opinion. I have no intention of speaking for anyone else.

 

I don't think anything has to be done at all.

 

Many values being discussed here (messies, inbreds, undesirable) are totally forum driven values. They are not part of the game and most players not on the forum have no idea about them. Also, there are forum players who don't adhere to or believe in these values. When I joined one of my first dragons Pearlie Girlie(zI34) had a lineage that I found endlessly fascinating. I loved it. I wanted more like it. I wanted to look at all the dragons on it. To me, it was a type of history to see who that was part of it was still playing, look at their scrolls. My imagination was fired up at that. I still love her. I still wish I had more like her. But, I joined the forums and learned that she is "Undesirable". It changed a lot of how I collected dragons, colored my goals and to an extent changed my enjoyment of the game. When a large portion of the players have no idea of the values forum members hold so dear, it just feels wrong to me to keep harping on these values that aren't held by or even known by so many players. What you see as "messy", "undesirable", or "unwanted" may be the very things some players are actually breeding for because not everyone shares the same values. Due to the fact that many players are not represented here and cannot defend their opinions or desires, it seems really disrespectful to me to keep maintaining that your values on eggs in the AP are somehow "valid" or at least "more valid" than values that may be held by players that aren't members of the forums. 

 

I am against any steps being taken to tell others how they may play the game, limit how they breed or change the dynamics of the game. What other players do on their own scrolls, no matter what it may do to the AP is none of my business. Everyone plays their own way.

 

I agree with every last word of this post.

 

[Felinor]

~Edited to keep this on topic~

 

And on topic, I believe the AP is fine as it is, sans void (if that is still going on). No support for other ways of dealing with walls, since the benefits (Low time eggs after it, common breeds having a lower chance of breeding) are way better than having just mixed, high time AP at all times. I hunt from both AP and Cave, and oftentimes I haven't found cool stuff in a mixed AP than in a wall AP. There's no "right" way of playing this game, so just let everyone do their thing, imo. 

Edited August 10, 2019 by purpledragonclaw

[Fuzzbucket]

LadyLyzar asked us to stick to concrete suggestions and specific thoughts....

[cyradis4]

10 hours ago, JavaTigress said:

I MOSTLY like theis suggestion.

 

My ONLY gripe is that, for myself, personally... I like to have the ability to use BSAs ( like... Influence , for example) AND if the Time lof the Eggs in the AP gets TOO low, you really can't.

Fact. i am actually less likely to pick up an egg if I KNOW I can't influence it. I would guess I am not alone in that feeling.

 

Its rare for the AP time, even when there's a wall, to hit 3 days. After all, it'd have to drop 2 full days in time (while incu-hatchable and ER'able) to hit the not-influencable stage. Most walls will start to clear really fast at 4 days. Though successive walls can cause issues. 

 

For myself, I'll pick up an egg, influencable or not. I have no trouble freezing hatchies, and will ER an egg then toss it back so it hatches in the AP. So while you definitely have a point, I think there are (normally) enough AP hunters who do pick up not-influencables to keep it above 3 days. 

 

Cheers!
C4. 

[Sazandora]

It's really hard to try and stay on topic when the discussion is trying to shift itself towards the amount of people using the AP itself. The AP is, again, fine as it is now. There's no need for any drastic changes to it. The walls do help, and people who make those walls do not do so just to troll others. Almost all of the "fixes" suggested here would do more harm than good, which is why I am in full support of not changing anything about the AP itself. People have found use for that place since day 1, the number of people viewing it at a time is highly flexible. Sometimes I've seen, like, just 2 or 3 people viewing it, sometimes I see 50 or more. Dragon Cave has a pretty large amount of players from all over the world. One moment there could be dozens of players viewing the AP, in the next just a small handful. I've picked up plenty of nice things from the AP over the years, and while today I'm more of a biome hunter I still check the AP regularly when I can't find anything interesting from the biomes. So I'd say the abandoned site still has its uses, even if it's not monitored 24/7 by hundreds of people.

 

Walls often have lots of messies in there, but I've also seen lots of pretty second-or third gens in there. I've gotten lots of lineage ideas from eggs I caught from the AP. And even if the place is full of 30G+ messy inbred whatever's, remember: beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

 

And obviously I was making a joke in my last post. Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

Edited August 10, 2019 by Sazandora