Cave blockages - AP

[Fuzzbucket]

 

3 hours ago, Tish said:

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...

 

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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. 

 

 

I'm with you, Tish. IT DOES get times down and I like that.

[Aalbiel]

For a couple days the AP has no longer been sorting strictly chronologically..... Has something been changed about the AP maybe?

 

Spoiler

[olympe]

@Aalbiel: I can't view your pic.  But just in case - it's always happened that eggs in the AP sometimes get sorted slightly wrong - there may be a 4 day egg mixed in with eggs that have 4 days 1 hour left. But it's pretty minor.

[Shadowdrake]

4 hours ago, olympe said:

@Aalbiel: I can't view your pic.  But just in case - it's always happened that eggs in the AP sometimes get sorted slightly wrong - there may be a 4 day egg mixed in with eggs that have 4 days 1 hour left. But it's pretty minor.

It was a little more drastic than a 1-hour difference.

it seems to have gone away for now, but we'll see if this returns.

[Aalbiel]

Okay, now it's for sure, something has /definitely/ changed in AP. Eggs are simply no longer showing up in AP as soon as they hit "AP time". For instance it's now possible to breed an egg, abandon it, and have it be several hours under AP times while still not appearing there. It's sort of "in limbo". 

 

Has this got anything to do with preventing walls? Perhaps, perhaps not. It does not entirely prevent them, anyway, as evidenced by the Neotropical wall going on right now. But yesterday someone bred an Aqualis "wall" which did not wall but instead sunk below AP times and trickled through a few eggs at a time.

 

@TJ09 Please, do you feel like letting us know what you did to AP? It would be greatly appreciated, just, y'know, so we know.

[TJ09]

3 hours ago, Aalbiel said:

Okay, now it's for sure, something has /definitely/ changed in AP. Eggs are simply no longer showing up in AP as soon as they hit "AP time". For instance it's now possible to breed an egg, abandon it, and have it be several hours under AP times while still not appearing there. It's sort of "in limbo".  

Do you have an example of an egg you think should be appearing in the AP right now (and how you know it hasn't already been taken)?

 

The average time left of the eggs currently in the AP is somewhere around 5–6 days left, which for visible eggs at ~4 days seems like exactly what I'd expect. If there were a backlog of eggs that have less time left "in limbo" then that would mess with that average.

 

Nonetheless, if you believe something isn't working as expected, the Help section is the place to make a thread.

[Aalbiel]

Unfortunately the examples I had of eggs that for sure should have been appearing and weren't taken have already passed.

 

Thanks for your input, seeing as you have confirmed this is not intended behaviour I will probably go and make a Help Thread!

[HeatherMarie]

1 hour ago, bloodyneptune said:

I mean, I spend all day in the AP (don't judge my life) and walls kinda kills my day....which is fine because the AP isn't just for me.

 

Very well said! I too spend much of the day in the AP (I have no life...), and I'll totally admit to getting annoyed by walls sometimes because hey, what else to do with my day besides constantly refresh the AP? But my personal frustration with the AP does not in any way mean the AP needs to be changed. I mean, I'm also frustrated when all I find are 2nd-gens, but plenty of other people love 2nd-gens. For every single 'I don't like this' reason, there *will* be others who do like it. 

[Fuzzbucket]

17 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

Very well said! I too spend much of the day in the AP (I have no life...), and I'll totally admit to getting annoyed by walls sometimes because hey, what else to do with my day besides constantly refresh the AP? But my personal frustration with the AP does not in any way mean the AP needs to be changed. I mean, I'm also frustrated when all I find are 2nd-gens, but plenty of other people love 2nd-gens. For every single 'I don't like this' reason, there *will* be others who do like it. 

 

Sums up the whole thing.

 

Live and let live.

[pinkgothic]

2 hours ago, _DeadPool_ said:

And notice that the people that dislike walls only show up when it's not Halloween time. When it's Halloween time and they want to hoard all the Halloween eggs they can get they don't mind at all but there's a wall. 

So, I apologise for yet another post coming from the side-lines, I know I don't browse the Suggestions forum very much in general and post here rarely on average, but whenever I come across generalisations that on first reading strike me as uncharitable, it tends to get under my skin and sometimes I feel the need to say something.

 

I like the event dragon wall (nevermind that comparing those two kinds of walls is probably a little weird - you can wall nocturnes/mints/ridgewings/whathaveyou all year long, but you can only wall marrows/Arsanis/wintermagi/the likes for a fairly short time every year, and the event dragon walls can't really appreciably affect ratios), but I'm also very much in favour of there being at least one line of non-holidays in the AP, and have been for a while, precisely because not everyone is fond of it.

 

Even if you don't think this is a counter-point to what you're saying, it does at least imply the existence of people that aren't fond of holiday walls. I'm sure some of those, in turn, are fond of non-holiday walls, because they're bound not to be a uniform group, but I can't imagine that applies to all of them. Probably some of them just generally don't like walls.

 

Relevant thread (and yes, the majority of people posting in that thread are not against the holiday wall - you'll have to read the thread for a while to trip across those that are) -

 

 

Can we collectively (i.e. everyone posting who has considered using this, used it, or might use it in future, my indeterminate future self very much included, since I don't know with certainty what she may or may not do) please try to stop using accusations in the rough form "funny how <people who disagree with me> all have one uniform opinion that I find hypocritical"? It's almost always wrong.

 

(For the record, the current state of the AP has inspired approximately no regret in me, either. I'd vastly prefer a different solution, but I already posted that earlier. And because I already posted that, I don't see why I or anyone else that's "anti-wall" should feel responsible for it. Unless I managed to gloss over it (entirely possible, to be fair), no one in this thread has said "just hide the eggs for hours on end until they stop being influenceable". I get that this is a frustrating situation and I hope it's resolved, but there's no need for anyone to imply blame lies on people who didn't actually ask for it.

 

To make a deliberately exaggerated analogy why I think this is a poor idea: If someone were to pour gasoline on a fire, implying the blame lies with the people who said "do something about the fire!" is not productive. Similarly, "do something about the walls!" does not imply 'something' should be 'anything at all', especially since much of this thread has been far more specific than that.)

 

And just in case someone's reading this having come to the party a bit late: Hi, I'm pinkgothic. I don't like walls and I like some of the proposed ways to reduce their impact on people who don't like the walls, but I'm also okay if things stay as they are (or were, before the AP mishap). I generally post in a frivolous attempt to raise the sanity waterline and thereby sadly often make things worse; I am basically incapable of learning of my past mistakes, though. Pleased to meet you.

[_DeadPool_]

2 hours ago, pinkgothic said:

So, I apologise for yet another post coming from the side-lines, I know I don't browse the Suggestions forum very much in general and post here rarely on average, but whenever I come across generalisations that on first reading strike me as uncharitable, it tends to get under my skin and sometimes I feel the need to say something.

 

I like the event dragon wall (nevermind that comparing those two kinds of walls is probably a little weird - you can wall nocturnes/mints/ridgewings/whathaveyou all year long, but you can only wall marrows/Arsanis/wintermagi/the likes for a fairly short time every year, and the event dragon walls can't really appreciably affect ratios), but I'm also very much in favour of there being at least one line of non-holidays in the AP, and have been for a while, precisely because not everyone is fond of it.

 

Even if you don't think this is a counter-point to what you're saying, it does at least imply the existence of people that aren't fond of holiday walls. I'm sure some of those, in turn, are fond of non-holiday walls, because they're bound not to be a uniform group, but I can't imagine that applies to all of them. Probably some of them just generally don't like walls.

 

Relevant thread (and yes, the majority of people posting in that thread are not against the holiday wall - you'll have to read the thread for a while to trip across those that are) -

 

 

Can we collectively (i.e. everyone posting who has considered using this, used it, or might use it in future, my indeterminate future self very much included, since I don't know with certainty what she may or may not do) please try to stop using accusations in the rough form "funny how <people who disagree with me> all have one uniform opinion that I find hypocritical"? It's almost always wrong.

 

(For the record, the current state of the AP has inspired approximately no regret in me, either. I'd vastly prefer a different solution, but I already posted that earlier. And because I already posted that, I don't see why I or anyone else that's "anti-wall" should feel responsible for it. Unless I managed to gloss over it (entirely possible, to be fair), no one in this thread has said "just hide the eggs for hours on end until they stop being influenceable". I get that this is a frustrating situation and I hope it's resolved, but there's no need for anyone to imply blame lies on people who didn't actually ask for it.

 

To make a deliberately exaggerated analogy why I think this is a poor idea: If someone were to pour gasoline on a fire, implying the blame lies with the people who said "do something about the fire!" is not productive. Similarly, "do something about the walls!" does not imply 'something' should be 'anything at all', especially since much of this thread has been far more specific than that.)

 

And just in case someone's reading this having come to the party a bit late: Hi, I'm pinkgothic. I don't like walls and I like some of the proposed ways to reduce their impact on people who don't like the walls, but I'm also okay if things stay as they are (or were, before the AP mishap). I generally post in a frivolous attempt to raise the sanity waterline and thereby sadly often make things worse; I am basically incapable of learning of my past mistakes, though. Pleased to meet you.

You make a fair point, and I should've been more careful about generalizations. It just frustrates me because so many people in the Unofficial Discord (and I assume official, but I don't spend much time there) spend a great deal of time and effort to either massbreed BSAs or pretty, neat lineages to share with others, it's a shame to see them swallowed up by a black hole. I know sometimes the walls may be messies or less desirable dragons or what have you, but I think a few hours of ignoring the AP is a small price to pay to have times stay hatchable/incuhatchable.

And as far as the holiday wall thing goes, it seems extremely picky and hypocritical to only be OK with one type of wall, but try to say no one is allowed to do walls otherwise.

Mostly though, I was incensed by the comments accusing people of being malicious with their walls, as if the massbreeders are attacking someone in particular.

 

Nice to meet you, I'm Deadpool. I have no filter and often cause more drama than we started with because I am blunt with my opinions.

[Fuzzbucket]

7 hours ago, _DeadPool_ said:

You make a fair point, and I should've been more careful about generalizations. It just frustrates me because so many people in the Unofficial Discord (and I assume official, but I don't spend much time there) spend a great deal of time and effort to either massbreed BSAs or pretty, neat lineages to share with others, it's a shame to see them swallowed up by a black hole. I know sometimes the walls may be messies or less desirable dragons or what have you, but I think a few hours of ignoring the AP is a small price to pay to have times stay hatchable/incuhatchable.

And as far as the holiday wall thing goes, it seems extremely picky and hypocritical to only be OK with one type of wall, but try to say no one is allowed to do walls otherwise.

Mostly though, I was incensed by the comments accusing people of being malicious with their walls, as if the massbreeders are attacking someone in particular.

 

I'm with you; I am OK with walls, even if sometimes they mean that I read a book till they are over. I do understand that some people find the wait-out frustrating/ I do object to anyone who says they are done to be malicious. It's silly and petty - we know many of those who do this stuff, and that is not their motivation at all. Walls do lower times; they do swing ratios and they do keep the place moving. I am alarmed by the current AP situation - I think there has to be something wrong - you'd expect it to be back to normal by now, from what TJ said two days ago - but it still isn't. IF (and he says not) he tried ANYTHING to "fix" walls - which don't need fixing BTW - and this is the result - it is far far worse than the issue.

 

Meanwhile, if I want to "breed to the AP", I shall do it to the departures thread instead.

[Sazandora]

Hi y'all. I'm Sazandora and I'm a big bad drama monster. Nice to meet you folks.

 

I still don't really mind AP walls as I'm mostly a biome hunter. Heck, sometimes I spam-breed my (CB!) Celestials for the joy of seeing them produce a ton of eggs that go straight to the AP. I even participated in the Midsummer Massbreed event here on the forums. I understand that walls that last for hours or days are frustrating, but you could always just go do something else while waiting for the walls to come down. And while I do admit I'm a hypocritical meanie who dislikes it when just one holiday breed dominates the AP during holidays, I'm not throwing a hissy fit about it, I just go do something else or wait for some other breeds to show up in the wall.

[animatedrose]

Since we're now doing intros and stuff, may as well chuck my hat in. Hi, I'm animatedrose and I get too emotional with salt and say things I shouldn't with examples that usually only make sense to me because my IRL life is odd. I apologize for this. I'm bad at avoiding salt and telling myself to ignore it. Nice to meet you all.

 

I rather like AP walls for the lower times, as well as just to see what hoards others have. I mostly just want to see the AP glitter with my shimmerscales one day, though I only succeed with Celestials atm. I can see the perks of both walls and a variety AP but, as someone said earlier, you can easily walk away from both without seeing anything of interest in there for you. Walls are temporary. Unless you have zero IRL life, you can surely find something else to do until the AP returns to normal.

 

At least, that was applicable before the AP broke. Now...I'm not sure. You could 50/50 it, I guess? Up to you. *shrug*

 

The AP is a garbage heap. Do you scream at the guy for bringing only wood to the dump, versus the person who brings various bags of household garbage? No, because that person won't care because it's their trash so unless you plan to take their trash home yourself, you probably won't say anything directly to them. Kind of like what happens here. I've seen maybe two instances of people directly calling out the wallers themselves. The rest of the time, they just complain about the wall by breed and usually suggest some AP-imposed punishment that results in lots of egg death because "that is justice for their horrendous efforts to touch my AP!!!". Not to say you should call out the breeder every time you see a wall but if it bugs you that badly, you can always contact them. Most wallers are rather nice and I've yet to really cross one being "malicious", as we seem to be labelled now.

 

As for holiday walls...nothing you can do about that when you only have a week to breed those dragons. I dig through those because I'm still hoarding madly. Maybe it'll become annoying in seven years when I'm a ten-year DC player and have everything. Who knows. lol

[DarkEternity]

The AP is a reject garbage pile and no one should expect to find anything remotely valuable, unless you like to gamble. If someone's breeding walls chances are that person won't have bred anything remotely valuable to the AP in the first place.

 

I never breed walls but I also ensure that nothing good of mine ever hits the AP intentionally. Eggs that go missing and die are frequent, when simply leaving a one way teleport link solves the problem of finding eggs a good home. How are people surprised that the vast amount of eggs in the AP is rubbish when no one gets any more shards for breeding valuable dragons over rubbish is beyond me? You are looking  for goodies in the wrong place. 

 

Once the AP had valuable dragons in it because you could literally snipe someone's trade in progress, because teleport didn't exist so people had to use the AP. That's no longer the case. 

[LadyLyzar]

Even though it sounds cliché, please remember to attack the topic and not each other.

 

My personal $0.02 - I do not think any one player should be able to significantly change the composition of the AP.  I think there should be  a maximum number of AP eggs per user visible, queued by the time they have left.  Also, IMO it should show at least a few different breeds at all times regardless of composition (unless less than that number of unique breeds are present - unlikely.)

 

As for mass breeding, I think it's fine as there are no restrictions on how to play.  Breed as much as you want.  That being said, I don't like the idea of sharply restricting other players who aren't looking for that specific breed in the AP.

 

That's just me, though.

[JC_Denton]

Sometimes you get what you want, sometimes not, that's the nature of AP. All you folks can do is to wait and see if there's something nice in there. If not, too bad, try again later. Eventually you might find something you like.

[Nightwalkerkey]

I like how @LadyLyzar put it: I don't think one person should be able to significantly change the composition of the ap. 

I don't mind walls 90% of the time, but when it lasts for 12, 24, 48 hours like the nocturnes did once... Not okay in my opinion, and that's where I would call it significantly changing the ap.

Edited August 1, 2019 by Nightwalkerkey

[DarkEternity]

The only real use of the AP is instant hatchlings from lowtime dragons (because really, how often are valuables going to drop in there?) and that's the whole point of walls. 6d times or more are quite useless as one would much rather hunt or get someone else to breed stuff directly if they are that high. Just because the AP is blocked, it doesn't mean that you are forced to hit your head against the wall over and over again. Take a break and go outside or hunt in the cave. Having eggs age on your scroll in the meantime and by the time you come back the lowtime goodies means that you never had to block your scroll in the first place to get them. 

 

[BrazenChase]

The benefits of a lower timed AP are undeniable, and shared by everyone when it gets down to it.

 

I see people planning massbreeds as community events here on the forums, or in other channels. It's a fun way to bring people together, and help fix horribly skewed release ratios too.

 

This hostility is really not necessary.

[DarkEternity]

There have also been suggestions in the past that one row of the AP is dedicated to stuff, like one row dedicated to nonholidays when the holiday walls

[Sazandora]

Exactly. The ratios are crazy messed up and so far haven't shown any signs of improving, so naturally there will be people doing mass-breeds to try and fix them. The AP is like a flea market; one man's junk is another man's treasure.

 

But having said that, I do like @LadyLyzar's idea.

[JC_Denton]

If a single person could significantly alter the composition of the wall, there would be chaos when people undo previous changes and replace them with their own.

Showing a few different breeds at all times, like @LadyLyzar said sounds pretty good, that way more people have a chance of getting something they like or need even when there's mass breeding going on.

[BrazenChase]

After seeing the recent issues with the AP swallowing and spitting up eggs, I'm gonna have to say I would prefer we leave the AP alone as it is. Walls aren't a bad thing, people just need some perspective tbh.

 

Seeing eggs and hatchlings go completely missing was not fun for anybody. And then there's Thuwed hunting, or trying perhaps to recover a missing egg for someone that got auto'd.

[LadyLyzar]

1 hour ago, DarkEternity said:

The only real use of the AP is instant hatchlings from lowtime dragons (because really, how often are valuables going to drop in there?) and that's the whole point of walls. 6d times or more are quite useless as one would much rather hunt or get someone else to breed stuff directly if they are that high. Just because the AP is blocked, it doesn't mean that you are forced to hit your head against the wall over and over again. Take a break and go outside or hunt in the cave. Having eggs age on your scroll in the meantime and by the time you come back the lowtime goodies means that you never had to block your scroll in the first place to get them. 

 

I do disagree with this statement.

 

I've found many interesting things on the AP - lineages I hadn't thought of, and unique things that clearly took a long time to produce.  I don't think it has any one specific purpose and people use it to play many different ways.

 

However I still maintain that it should remain variable regardless of what is in it.  A single breed wall, while amusing to look at, really isn't much fun after awhile.  It also isn't realistic if eggs of all breeds are being tossed in there.

 

Even if I went through my scroll and bred every dragon I own successfully - thus every possible breed - it would be kind of crummy to everyone else if my dragons' eggs were the only ones visible.  Cap it to 3 at a time or something, lowest time first.

Edited August 2, 2019 by LadyLyzar