Cave blockages - AP

[Keileon]

I grab my share of eggs whenever there's a Nocturne wall because I like Nocturnes.

 

Someone out there might like Neos. Someone might like Blacktips. Someone might like Turpentines. etc

 

If you're suggesting that wall-makers get banned for playing the game I'm going to give you a hard no in terms of support.

[purplehaze]

No need to ban people because you don't like the way they play. Just wait it out, as Fuzz suggests. Or do what I did and take as many eggs from the wall as you can hold and put them in the ERs, hatch them, and throw them back or give them away. Hatchies are always welcome!

 

Edited July 5, 2019 by purplehaze

[HeatherMarie]

Yeaaahhh, wanting to ban people because you don't like their playstyle is rather egotistical, imo. Just because you don't like something that's happening in the AP doesn't mean no one does. Plenty of people *like* common walls. There was an 'almost-wall' of Royal Blues a few days ago and I totally would've grabbed every single one if I could've (unfortunately I was actually locked so I couldn't pick up any at all). This game has plenty of different users playing different ways, and breeding to the AP is a completely legitimate way to play. While I sometimes wish something would be coded into the AP itself to allow different breeds to show during longer walls, I certainly wouldn't want anyone to get *banned* just because I don't personally like the way they play!

[purpledragonclaw]

10 minutes ago, blockEdragon said:

Who cares if they like the breed a lot? That doesn't matter. Everyone on DC has a favorite breed. Just because someone likes a breed doesn't mean they should purposefully force it on others by eliminating the ability to get anything else. Forcing the breed on others is not cute, it's narcissistic "I like this breed so everyone else has to either collect it or leave the AP empty handed". There's no functional difference between a fan-flood and a troll-flood, one is born of love, the other of malice, but both are also born of selfishness.

 

Just to be clear though, there's nothing wrong with breeding a few eggs to the AP for fun as long as you don't go out of your way to take away other people's options and disrupt the game. You can have fun, just enjoy it in reasonable moderation.

 

There are many dragons I would not collect unless I saw them walled in the AP. Nocturnes and Neos both fall under that category. Why? Because I don't like them enough to catch them as CBs, but I love what some people have done with them in lineages! Then the fun begins of catch-and-release until I find enough to lock. I see walls as opportunities to lineage-dive, whether or not I'd normally collect them. If they're breeds I would obsess over anyways, no matter the lineage, like Red-Finned Tidals and Guardians, it's more fun for me. I don't think it's narcissistic at all to "force the breed on others", I can always hunt the biomes if I don't want to bother with the wall. I also don't see how this is "taking away other people's options", unless all someone likes to do is hunt the AP for anything other than what's being walled. I also don't find it negatively disruptive, more like "Oh hey, I have a reason to hunt the AP when there's nothing in the biomes I want right now!"

 

5 hours ago, Keileon said:

I massbreed my Spinels pretty much every other week because I like them.

 

I must keep an eye out for your Spinel walls.  

 

6 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

Right on. We all have our own play styles. Live and let live. Breed and let breed

 

I'm printing this out and framing it on my wall. There's more than one way to enjoy the game. Massbreeds are one of those ways. 

 

5 hours ago, olympe said:

Well, there's always the option to do nefarious things to annoying wall eggs. Kill them. Vamp them. Neglect them. Zombiefy them. Name them stuff like "stop breeding these" or "i hate this wall" - and freeze them. Just to annoy the breeder. Maybe they will notice something and stop the shenanigans...

 

I've also gotten Vamps from these walls that I've enjoyed even more than the original species. They've tended to be ones I've caught and released that someone Bit and either repulsed or they chucked it back out of generosity. It's another fun way to enjoy the walls. 

[blockEdragon]

13 minutes ago, purpledragonclaw said:

 

There are many dragons I would not collect unless I saw them walled in the AP. Nocturnes and Neos both fall under that category. Why? Because I don't like them enough to catch them as CBs, but I love what some people have done with them in lineages! Then the fun begins of catch-and-release until I find enough to lock. I see walls as opportunities to lineage-dive, whether or not I'd normally collect them. If they're breeds I would obsess over anyways, no matter the lineage, like Red-Finned Tidals and Guardians, it's more fun for me. I don't think it's narcissistic at all to "force the breed on others", I can always hunt the biomes if I don't want to bother with the wall. I also don't see how this is "taking away other people's options", unless all someone likes to do is hunt the AP for anything other than what's being walled. I also don't find it negatively disruptive, more like "Oh hey, I have a reason to hunt the AP when there's nothing in the biomes I want right now!". 

 

Lots of people like hunting the AP and if there's only ONE breed to hunt it severely takes away from an entire part of the site that's arguably just as or more popular than the biomes, all because one dude decided to. Not everyone likes to hunt the biomes, the biomes are mostly static and don't have lineaged eggs, prizes, vamps, or hybrids. Not everyone wants to collect nothing but whatever breed one person decides what everyone needs to hunt.

 

There's zero need to hog the entire AP in order to get any of the results you listed, people will still hunt in the biomes if the AP is diverse, you could still learn to like breeds if the AP was not walled, and you can still find lineages without ruining the AP for so many people, you can still collect breeds en masse without walls, and you can still make a lot of one breed without taking the ENTIRE page for a lucdicrus amount of time. It's needlessly to other players.

 

 

[HeatherMarie]

1 hour ago, blockEdragon said:

 

Lots of people like hunting the AP and if there's only ONE breed to hunt it severely takes away from an entire part of the site that's arguably just as or more popular than the biomes, all because one dude decided to. Not everyone likes to hunt the biomes, the biomes are mostly static and don't have lineaged eggs, prizes, vamps, or hybrids. Not everyone wants to collect nothing but whatever breed one person decides what everyone needs to hunt.

 

There's zero need to hog the entire AP in order to get any of the results you listed, people will still hunt in the biomes if the AP is diverse, you could still learn to like breeds if the AP was not walled, and you can still find lineages without ruining the AP for so many people, you can still collect breeds en masse without walls, and you can still make a lot of one breed without taking the ENTIRE page for a lucdicrus amount of time. It's needlessly to other players.

 

 

 

As someone who almost exclusively hunts in the AP, I will say that walls do *not* affect me negatively. Yeah, sometimes I get annoyed if a wall contains only 2nd-gens, a little variety in lineages would be nice... But I don't see the AP as a 'right' that I have. I don't see it as something that 'should' be a certain way so that I won't be inconvenienced. Some users have called the AP a 'trash pile' or similar, and that's basically what it is. No one *deserves* to find what they want in the AP. No one should be allowed to say 'I don't like walls of this breed so it just shouldn't happen'.

 

And honestly, while I know some people deliberately mass-breed with the *intention* of making a wall, the truth is that AP 'walls' are simply a by-product of how the AP functions. Walls *can* be made by simply going on a little breeding-spree and not having any actual intention of making a wall. And why exactly do some walls last hours and hours? That's not just down to the breeder, that's down to the users who *aren't* picking up those eggs. The AP only shows 30 eggs at a time, so an AP wall could actually be made with like 35-50 eggs, and if no one picks them up that wall will just sit there. 

 

I really think people are focusing too much on 'punish the breeders!!!!' and not enough on actual changes to the AP itself. There have been multiple ideas talked about for tweaking the AP itself so that walls are less common. We really don't need to go on a witch-hunt and implement limits or penalties for certain users who play a certain way. Just tweak the *actual* AP. My favorite idea in that area is simply to limit how many eggs of a specific breed are *shown* at the same time, so no matter how many of that breed is sent to the AP, there will always be a line or two of other breeds. 

[Fuzzbucket]

5 hours ago, blockEdragon said:

 

Lots of people like hunting the AP and if there's only ONE breed to hunt it severely takes away from an entire part of the site that's arguably just as or more popular than the biomes, all because one dude decided to. Not everyone likes to hunt the biomes, the biomes are mostly static and don't have lineaged eggs, prizes, vamps, or hybrids. Not everyone wants to collect nothing but whatever breed one person decides what everyone needs to hunt.

 

There's zero need to hog the entire AP in order to get any of the results you listed, people will still hunt in the biomes if the AP is diverse, you could still learn to like breeds if the AP was not walled, and you can still find lineages without ruining the AP for so many people, you can still collect breeds en masse without walls, and you can still make a lot of one breed without taking the ENTIRE page for a lucdicrus amount of time. It's needlessly to other players.

 

For a relatively short time. Chill, breed, write descriptions, watch TV. The longest I have ever seen was the nocturnes - a breed I don't collect as a rule - but I got some beautiful stuff, which will have started me on new lineages I had never thought of.

 

Nothing wrong with this:

 

https://dragcave.net/lineage/haczf

 

Examine those walls. You may find gems. Or not. Big deal. The AP is a garbage dump. That's what it's for. If some -one makes like a house clearance and fills the skip - it will come to an end.

[purplehaze]

Keep in mind also that even when there are a variety of breeds in the AP, it is quite possible that none of the eggs will be anything you want. I often go away from a mixed AP just as empty as I do when there is a wall -- or emptier!

Edited July 6, 2019 by purplehaze

[Aalbiel]

3 hours ago, purplehaze said:

Keep in mind also that even when there are a variety of breeds in the AP, it is quite possible that none of the eggs will be anything you want. I often go away from a mixed AP just as empty as I do when there is a wall -- or emptier!

 

Yes, often the AP can be a completely immobile mess of various cave-blockers with lineages that nobody seems to want.... It's not all one breed, it's not all one breeder.... And yet it's honestly worse than a wall.

 

 

[RainDear]

This whole thread is kind of funny. Would any of us go to a garage sale expecting to find new, unused items that are just what we want? I usually go hoping to find something I will like, but not expecting to. I certainly wouldn't berate the person having the garage sale for not having better stuff on sale. He is likely trying to get together enough money to get something he really wants, what he no longer wants he's selling. The AP is our garage sale. If something someone else didn't want doesn't please us, well just wait awhile. Other things are going to show up.

[Fuzzbucket]

6 hours ago, purplehaze said:

Keep in mind also that even when there are a variety of breeds in the AP, it is quite possible that none of the eggs will be anything you want. I often go away from a mixed AP just as empty as I do when there is a wall -- or emptier!

 

God yes - I was there earlier - very varied - and nothing I even wanted to click on to see !

 

31 minutes ago, raindear said:

This whole thread is kind of funny. Would any of us go to a garage sale expecting to find new, unused items that are just what we want? I usually go hoping to find something I will like, but not expecting to. I certainly wouldn't berate the person having the garage sale for not having better stuff on sale. He is likely trying to get together enough money to get something he really wants, what he no longer wants he's selling. The AP is our garage sale. If something someone else didn't want doesn't please us, well just wait awhile. Other things are going to show up.

 

That is a BRILLIANT post - thanks.

[Aalbiel]

10 hours ago, raindear said:

 The AP is our garage sale.

 

Thank you for my new favourite quote 

[angelicdragonpuppy]

The AP has been almost completely clogged for days on end. I don’t know how people don’t think this is a problem.

 

I have limited time to check in to DC and most of it is spent peeking at the AP. When it’s a boring wall of sameness, I leave. It’s just a minor disappointment for me (...although this multi day one is becoming more annoying...), but anything that makes people spend less time on the site (and thus, generates less ad revenue for the game) isn’t a good thing, it’s an issue.

 

I still like the idea of either stacking a breeder’s eggs of the same type once they hit a high enough amount in the AP (over 30?), or reducing how well that breed is produced on their scroll for an hour if they breed more than 30 in that time (would NOT raise the amount of other breeds being produced; results that would yield the restricted common just have an additional chance of turning into “no interest” instead). Mass breeds would still be possible and users wouldn’t have restrictions on their breeding in both cases, but it would reduce the increasingly common incidents of a single breeder blocking the AP with a single breed for literally days on end.

[HeatherMarie]

1 hour ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

The AP has been almost completely clogged for days on end. I don’t know how people don’t think this is a problem.

 

 

Really? At the moment there is a Nocturne wall that's been there a good handful of hours, but it certainly hasn't been 'almost completely clogged for days'. From 11pm last night to roughly 9am this morning (in my time zone) the AP was just as varied as could be. I saw some great Avatars, and even a couple Golds sometime in the middle of the night. I have a rather bad memory when it comes to time-sensitive things, so I can't say for sure what exactly was in the AP 2-3 days ago, but I do know that I've caught Aqualises in the AP every single day for the past week, so the walls haven't been *that* long/bad. 

 

1 hour ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

 

I still like the idea of either stacking a breeder’s eggs of the same type once they hit a high enough amount in the AP (over 30?), or reducing how well that breed is produced on their scroll for an hour if they breed more than 30 in that time (would NOT raise the amount of other breeds being produced; results that would yield the restricted common just have an additional chance of turning into “no interest” instead). Mass breeds would still be possible and users wouldn’t have restrictions on their breeding in both cases, but it would reduce the increasingly common incidents of a single breeder blocking the AP with a single breed for literally days on end.

 

(bolding mine) Those two sentences seem rather contradictory. You want to screw with breeding results if someone is mass-breeding for awhile, and then say users wouldn't have restrictions on their breeding? I think 'punish them if they breed too many of one type' is certainly a 'restriction'. 

 

I'm still *highly* against anything that punishes mass-breeders just because some don't like the way they are playing. Let's change the *AP itself* before we go around slapping random restrictions on people. Personally I think that simply coding the AP so no one breed can dominate it would help a lot, something like 'no more then 15 of one breed showing at a time' or something.

[Aalbiel]

It really hasn't been that bad? The only wall I got annoyed at was some weeks ago, a Nocturne wall lasting over 24h, that was excessive.

 

Otherwise, there's really been plenty of movement, even the brimstones didn't last that long. And have you seen AP times? They're constantly hovering around 4d, which I cannot express enough gratitude for. If we're talking time "lost", I'd much rather and come back a couple hours later to pick up something I like more, than hunting the AP at over 5d12h (which used to more often than not be the times in AP, except in the couple days after a release) and lose half the time advantage of hunting in AP.

 

I'm mostly in favour of no restrictions on AP, it's my trash heap and I love it. I'm am definitely against any kind of user restriction. I wouldn't completely hate HM's idea of coding the AP itself to break up walls a little, that would be... alright.

[Ardath Rekha]

Something really needs to be done, because this has gotten quite obnoxious. I wouldn't mind so much if there were some decent lineages in this Nocturne flood, but most of it's useless for anyone who does patterned breeding. I grabbed a pair of 2Gs crossed with shadow walkers -- those are of some actual use -- but I got sick of looking at the wall of Nocturnes really quickly.

 

It's a shame, because I'm working on some complex seasonal lineages, so i'm scroll-locked most of the time with eggs I've bred and kept. Hitting the AP right after a round of eggs has hatched is about the only way I can get much variety going on right now, and these floods ruin that.

[Haloclimb]

7 minutes ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

Oh look, all Nocturnes, again. 4th time this week.

Just in time to push the AP back to the 4 day mark! Can't wait to be able to catch instahatchable eggs again

[pinkgothic]

Just for the record, re: not minding the prize wall... I might be highly unusual, but maybe the people who minded just aren't speaking up? I've kept out of this for a while, but yes, I minded, and that even despite not seeing any of the wall, for complex reasons (i.e. several) that I'm not willing to debate on.

 

You haven't heard about this before now because I try not to dictate how other people play this game (not to mention I just don't want the organisers to feel disrespected - just because I disagree with their decision doesn't mean they're a bad person in any way, but unfortunately sometimes that's what people assume you mean when you criticise something that they're doing) - but that doesn't mean I necessarily like what I see.

 

But anyway, I don't actually have strong feelings on the wall topic, likely because I'm not primarily an AP hunter. The few times I do AP hunt, they're very annoying, I recognise they've gotten more frequent, I do in fact wish they wouldn't happen (for me, especially with species I like to collect*), they're clearly disruptive for various people who have posted about this fact in this thread... but they're also entirely survivable. I figure chances even are they'll get out of fashion again at some point.

 

That said, I do like the idea of shaving time off eggs each abandonment (with or without a cap, be it at 1d, or 3d 1h for Influence purposes, I'm really not at all fussed).

 

And I do like the idea of egg stacking. Make it more than one slot, even. Make it a whole row, for all I care. Heck, even if it's most of the AP except for the last line, that's also entirely neat levels of stacking that would help the people who know they're not collecting that particular breed. (That last one might mesh nicely with the suggestion "one line of non-holiday AP eggs", actually, which I also support, despite not being interested in non-holiday dragons during holiday events - even if the case for that one is certainly potentially stronger, what with the dying AP eggs.)

 

But, eh, honestly, if it doesn't happen, that's OK too.

 

Mostly I wanted to speak up because no one else dared mention they disliked the prize wall.

 

 

(* A partial exception to this statement are single-species holiday walls. I mind those only in the sense that they're frustrating someone else - which is still a good deal of minding, but means "especially" no longer holds. I'm equally frustrated by a full-on Arsani wall (<3) as I am by a full-on Heartseeker wall.)

[Fuzzbucket]

To be perfectly honest, I think people are walling at the moment because of this thread.... Human nature, kinda ! "Oh look people are cross with me. How dare they mind; let's do it again !"

[Aalbiel]

Definitely, Fuzz. I have witnessed at least 5 people voice this sentiment. 

 

Anyway any "in-game fix" that is going to raise AP times is going to be more of an annoyance than any walls to me. 

[angelicdragonpuppy]

I mentioned this before, but I like the idea of after, say, five unique user abandonings, eggs start losing an hour for each subsequent one. Could have a limit placed on how low if it was a concern, but I think it’d be hard to abuse. Walls would still exist, but hopefully would clear faster.

[olympe]

Personally, I don't think the limit thing will fly. Because it'd be an exception to the "take one hour off" rule - and TJ has proven tmie and again that he's not big on exceptions.

[Fuzzbucket]

I wouldn't say I'm in FAVOUR of walls as such, though I do think they help with time and ratios. But I'm not particularly against them either. We all have our own playstyles, and if some people's involve walls, I don't see why those as don't like them should get to stop them doing that. Just as they don't stop the rest of us doing anything WE want to do. (And before someone says it - at times, yes,  those of us who like a varied AP can't hunt in the way they would like. So wait. The majority of the time the AP is varied.)

 

The rights of wall-builders are the same as everyone else's. Just as the rights of those who choose to inbreed are equal to those who asked - a while ago now - for it to be made impossible.

[HeatherMarie]

6 hours ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

I mentioned this before, but I like the idea of after, say, five unique user abandonings, eggs start losing an hour for each subsequent one. Could have a limit placed on how low if it was a concern, but I think it’d be hard to abuse. Walls would still exist, but hopefully would clear faster.

 

This is a pretty good idea and one I can totally support, though just from what I've seen during holidays I'd say the time-loss shouldn't go below 3 days, since non-influenceable eggs can be pretty frustrating for lineage-makers. However, this idea doesn't really address the 'main issue', ie the AP being blocked with one breed that no one wants to pick up. If there are 30 people hunting the AP and none of them like Nocturnes (for example), the time left might not make much of a difference. They don't want that breed, period. (This is really just me playing devil's advocate here, based on the posts I've seen against walls, not my personal opinion.)

 

 

[Tish]

I can try spacing them out a bit more so there isn't a full wall so often at least while the ap is low time.

 

As for the walls, if you can find something that will keep the ap times low and stop them then I'd be happy with that but I have to agree with what Aalbiel said...

9 hours ago, Aalbiel said:

Anyway any "in-game fix" that is going to raise AP times is going to be more of an annoyance than any walls to me.