Cave blockages - AP

[osean]

I look at the ap as a thrift store or a treasure hunt. Sometimes you strike gold and other times nothing. 

[Stormcaller]

47 minutes ago, osean said:

I look at the ap as a thrift store or a treasure hunt. Sometimes you strike gold and other times nothing. 

 

It is that and that's a big part of what makes DC fun.  It's the hunt where you might just find something great.  That's as it should be.  It's when someone, or a group, create a wall that totally eliminates the possibility of finding anything you might be interested in that it becomes a problem. A short wall might be tolerable, but when it goes on and on, it's something else.  If you are looking for any of even 100 different species, you won't even find anything to click if a bred wall of Nocturns, or really anything, is in front of you all day long. And when you realize that this log jam could be the result of just one person exercising his or her right to play as they choose despite how it negatively effects so many other players, how can you support that?

 

IMHO, if there is no rule to stop individuals from blocking the AP, there certainly should be one made!

[Keileon]

No, there shouldn't be a rule to stop AP walls. Every time this topic comes up it just reads as "I don't like the ap for longer than an arbitrary amount of time so we need to make sure this other group of people doesn't like the AP either". Plenty of people *like* the walls, if the Discord commentary on it is anything to go by. And I've found I'm actually more likely to find interesting lineages mid-wall than I am to find one when the AP is all sorts of different breeds.

 

I support walls because they do good things for the AP, especially the longer they last. 48-hour walls are hella rare. Do you know how many dragons it takes to make a wall last that long? If the person breeding wants to spend actual hours breeding that many dragons, more power to them.

[Fuzzbucket]

30 minutes ago, Stormcaller said:

 

It is that and that's a big part of what makes DC fun.  It's the hunt where you might just find something great.  That's as it should be.  It's when someone, or a group, create a wall that totally eliminates the possibility of finding anything you might be interested in that it becomes a problem. A short wall might be tolerable, but when it goes on and on, it's something else.  If you are looking for any of even 100 different species, you won't even find anything to click if a bred wall of Nocturns, or really anything, is in front of you all day long. And when you realize that this log jam could be the result of just one person exercising his or her right to play as they choose despite how it negatively effects so many other players, how can you support that?

 

IMHO, if there is no rule to stop individuals from blocking the AP, there certainly should be one made!

 

But you might very well find something that interests you. The lineages I build are often inspired by something I found when idly clicking in the AP.

 

And a rule against individuals creating a wall ? - no way. No way at all. Even if they are just doing it to be annoying - they have the right to play the way they want - and it DOES ultimately help:

 

25 minutes ago, Keileon said:

No, there shouldn't be a rule to stop AP walls. Every time this topic comes up it just reads as "I don't like the ap for longer than an arbitrary amount of time so we need to make sure this other group of people doesn't like the AP either". Plenty of people *like* the walls, if the Discord commentary on it is anything to go by. And I've found I'm actually more likely to find interesting lineages mid-wall than I am to find one when the AP is all sorts of different breeds.

 

I support walls because they do good things for the AP, especially the longer they last. 48-hour walls are hella rare. Do you know how many dragons it takes to make a wall last that long? If the person breeding wants to spend actual hours breeding that many dragons, more power to them.

 

Exactly this. I once bred ALL my BSA dragons because people wanted them bred (they said). I have a mere 750 or so. By the end I was TOTALLY fed up. It really must take dedication.

Edited June 3, 2019 by Fuzzbucket

[Stormcaller]

1 hour ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 

...Exactly this. I once bred ALL my BSA dragons because people wanted them bred (they said). I have a mere 750 or so. By the end I was TOTALLY fed up. It really must take dedication.

 

OMG, Fuzzbucket!  I can't believe you actually bred that many at one go!  Maybe I should give it a try too.  I'm not sure I would have the patience, but perhaps sometime when there's nothing else to do...

[osean]

2 hours ago, Stormcaller said:

 

It is that and that's a big part of what makes DC fun.  It's the hunt where you might just find something great.  That's as it should be.  It's when someone, or a group, create a wall that totally eliminates the possibility of finding anything you might be interested in that it becomes a problem. A short wall might be tolerable, but when it goes on and on, it's something else.  If you are looking for any of even 100 different species, you won't even find anything to click if a bred wall of Nocturns, or really anything, is in front of you all day long. And when you realize that this log jam could be the result of just one person exercising his or her right to play as they choose despite how it negatively effects so many other players, how can you support that?

 

IMHO, if there is no rule to stop individuals from blocking the AP, there certainly should be one made!

I am against anything that would limit someone’s ability to play how they want. To build those massive walls takes usually at least a thousand dragons if not more. It takes many hours and dedication to breed that many dragons. They are not going to do it every week for obvious reasons. I just either hunt the cave, trade or ask people to breed me things I like during the walls. You would be surprised at the number of people who like to breed for others if asked to. I even breed for people who ask though not many people take me up on that. 

[Fuzzbucket]

1 hour ago, Stormcaller said:

 

OMG, Fuzzbucket!  I can't believe you actually bred that many at one go!  Maybe I should give it a try too.  I'm not sure I would have the patience, but perhaps sometime when there's nothing else to do...

 

I really wouldn't.  But doing it made me realise just what it takes to build a wall....

[HeatherMarie]

6 hours ago, Stormcaller said:

 

It is that and that's a big part of what makes DC fun.  It's the hunt where you might just find something great.  That's as it should be.  It's when someone, or a group, create a wall that totally eliminates the possibility of finding anything you might be interested in that it becomes a problem. A short wall might be tolerable, but when it goes on and on, it's something else.  If you are looking for any of even 100 different species, you won't even find anything to click if a bred wall of Nocturns, or really anything, is in front of you all day long. And when you realize that this log jam could be the result of just one person exercising his or her right to play as they choose despite how it negatively effects so many other players, how can you support that?

 

IMHO, if there is no rule to stop individuals from blocking the AP, there certainly should be one made!

 

The bolded line is completely subjective, and is exactly why there *shouldn't* be any rules like this. Users value different things, look for different breeds and different lineages, etc etc. Just because *some* people look at a wall and see nothing they want doesn't mean *all* people do. I think people get caught up in the idea of a one-breed wall somehow being less wanted in general, but that's simply not true. There can be 10+ breeds showing in the AP and not a single one that someone wants. Right now there are 30 people in the AP, according to the counter, and I can guarantee that at least one of them sees absolutely nothing they want. So, what are we supposed to do? The AP can't pander to *everyone*, that's simply not possible. Eliminate one-breed walls, there will still be plenty of people who can't find anything interesting in the AP! That won't change. 

 

6 hours ago, Keileon said:

No, there shouldn't be a rule to stop AP walls. Every time this topic comes up it just reads as "I don't like the ap for longer than an arbitrary amount of time so we need to make sure this other group of people doesn't like the AP either". Plenty of people *like* the walls, if the Discord commentary on it is anything to go by. And I've found I'm actually more likely to find interesting lineages mid-wall than I am to find one when the AP is all sorts of different breeds.

 

I support walls because they do good things for the AP, especially the longer they last. 48-hour walls are hella rare. Do you know how many dragons it takes to make a wall last that long? If the person breeding wants to spend actual hours breeding that many dragons, more power to them.

 

Exactly this. The whole idea that AP-walls need to be stopped or controlled is honestly just 'I don't personally like this so it needs to go away'. Other people do like it. I could make a topic saying that something should be put in place to stop the AP from being only 2nd-gen PBs, because that's not what I like and it's frustrating when that's all there is for hours on end.... Who would support that suggestion? Not many people I'm sure! The AP is a GARBAGE PILE, it's what people THROW AWAY, it's not *meant* to be full of variety and interesting lineages and stuff you want all the time.

[Stormcaller]

1 hour ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

...Right now there are 30 people in the AP, according to the counter, and I can guarantee that at least one of them sees absolutely nothing they want...

 

That's right!  It's not about instant gratification, it's all about the hunt! If there is a variety of eggs to check out, they will stay and play until they find something they do like. But, very few people want to click on one randomly bred egg after another and expect to find something they are seeking, especially if they all look alike and they can't tell one from the other.  Now, I recognize that some people collect all kinds of dragons. There are also newbies who are looking to get their scrolls going before they actually make up their minds about what they want to seriously collect or breed, and they will pick up a lot of them, so the wall will eventually end, but it won't turn over as quickly as a nice mixture would. Low time eggs might be some enticement but could also be the result of people leaving the game, and that wouldn't be a good thing.

 

1 hour ago, HeatherMarie said:

...So, what are we supposed to do? The AP can't pander to *everyone*, that's simply not possible...

 

So then why can it pander to just those people who want to breed walls?  How did this come about?

 

1 hour ago, HeatherMarie said:

 The AP is a GARBAGE PILE, it's what people THROW AWAY, it's not *meant* to be full of variety and interesting lineages and stuff you want all the time.

All right, you don't have to yell about it...  But, that really is a sorry attitude to have about the AP.  It could be a treasure trove if you look at it the right way. And the hunt can be a lot of fun.

[HeatherMarie]

42 minutes ago, Stormcaller said:

 

So then why can it pander to just those people who want to breed walls?  How did this come about?

 

 

But it doesn't. How often do solid one-breed walls actually happen? Yes, it's been happening more often lately, but it's still not the majority of the time. Again, the AP is for abandoned eggs. *All* abandoned eggs. Whether someone is breeding all one breed or twenty different breeds. They all end up there. The AP is certainly not pandering to one-breed walls, any more then it is to 2nd-gens. It's showing what it is given, that's it. To deliberately put a mechanism in place to control what's in it, *that* would be pandering to a specific set of users. 

 

 

42 minutes ago, Stormcaller said:

All right, you don't have to yell about it...  But, that really is a sorry attitude to have about the AP.  It could be a treasure trove if you look at it the right way. And the hunt can be a lot of fun.

 

I'm sorry about the 'yelling', just trying to emphasis without constantly using asterisks. The thing is, that's not actually how I see the AP. I personally *love* messy, chaotic, 'randomly bred' eggs, and I spend literally hours every single day combing through the AP to find what I consider 'messies'. It definitely can be a treasure trove! But that's not what it's *meant* to be, that's just how I see it because of how I play. It's *meant* to be a place where people dump unwanted stuff, that's all. That's the only function of the AP, game-wise. Abandoned Page. For abandoned eggs. The fact that me, and you, and others *see* it as a fun/interesting place to hunt is purely our specific viewpoint. And I don't think changing the functionality to align with any user's specific viewpoint is a good idea.

[Fuzzbucket]

3 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

But it doesn't. How often do solid one-breed walls actually happen? Yes, it's been happening more often lately, but it's still not the majority of the time. Again, the AP is for abandoned eggs. *All* abandoned eggs. Whether someone is breeding all one breed or twenty different breeds. They all end up there. The AP is certainly not pandering to one-breed walls, any more then it is to 2nd-gens. It's showing what it is given, that's it. To deliberately put a mechanism in place to control what's in it, *that* would be pandering to a specific set of users. 

 

I'm sorry about the 'yelling', just trying to emphasis without constantly using asterisks. The thing is, that's not actually how I see the AP. I personally *love* messy, chaotic, 'randomly bred' eggs, and I spend literally hours every single day combing through the AP to find what I consider 'messies'. It definitely can be a treasure trove! But that's not what it's *meant* to be, that's just how I see it because of how I play. It's *meant* to be a place where people dump unwanted stuff, that's all. That's the only function of the AP, game-wise. Abandoned Page. For abandoned eggs. The fact that me, and you, and others *see* it as a fun/interesting place to hunt is purely our specific viewpoint. And I don't think changing the functionality to align with any user's specific viewpoint is a good idea.

 

Exactly. It doesn't pander to anyone in particular. Some days - like yesterday, there will be loads of different breeds and not a single one that I want. Was that pandering to wall-avoiders ?  During that recent wall, I would have taken quite a few nocturnes I saw (I was looking at their lineages just out of interest, as I was totally locked with birthday things) but as I was locked, I couldn't. It would have started me on some new lineages; I am always looking for new ideas.

 

Heather's right; it's a garbage dump; that's not a sorry attitude to take - it's for anyone to dump anything they like. Some days I will clear out a whole cupboard full of interesting old books; other days my recycling bin contains massive piles of old newspapers. You might find one for the day you were born in there - but you'd have to look. That's how garbage is. To find a prince you may have to kiss a lot of frogs. But you will see it as a treasure trove the day you find something like this in there. NOT from the current wall, no, but still.

 

Some of my best lines started with an accidental AP find. Some even from - gasp - WALLS !

[Fuzzbucket]

Um....

 

 

And many more. You want to stop them all ?

[Aalbiel]

(I realise this is not really contributing to the conversation but I suggest you change the title of this thread from Cave Blockages to AP Blockages or AP Walls or something.... It took me a bit of reading to realise this thread is about AP Walls, not Cave Blockers.)

[Fuzzbucket]

And please, while you are about it take out that apostrophe; it's so WRONG.

[Sazandora]

I'm not a huge fan of AP walls, but then again I don't do a lot of AP hunting. Not because of the occasional walls but because I'm an obsessive Siyat hunter typically there's nothing that interests me there, I might stick around for a refresh or two but then I move on. Usually when I see an AP wall I'm more like "Huh, would you look at that" and just move on, I find them pretty hilarious and impressive. And really, it's so much fun to just mindlessly mass-breed things. So therefore I am not in favor of restricting how much stuff people can breed at once.

[Firebirdwyvern]

You guys, it is not always about the search for CB or good lineage dragons, though you can find gems and you can find those that might be considered breeding failures. I personally don't care, I have dragons who classify as both. The AP is a place to dump unwanted eggs and hatchlings and, like the cave, should be a place with variety (that is literally how I roll, could never be a pokemon gym leader). But maybe we should have a bit more of a warning when a massbreeding is going to take place. In-Cave announcements? Just so people won't be taken by surprised and that might lower the negative feelings.

[Fuzzbucket]

Some of the mass breeders aren't even on forum, and do it just for fun, I believe.

[JavaTigress]

19 hours ago, osean said:

I look at the ap as a thrift store or a treasure hunt. Sometimes you strike gold and other times nothing. 

Yep, yep. That is more or less how I see it, too.

[Cinspawn]

I feel like a lot of people are zooming in on the "AP is supposed to be all kinds of stuff, its about the thrill of the hunt!" I don't think anyone is really arguing people aren't allowed to breed stuff like messies etc. But when people breed hours upon hours of messies, there's no hunt anymore. Because there's just one thing, and you can't refresh and hope for a glimmer of something else, because it's only 1 thing, it's 1 wall.

 

So when the AP is full of all kinds of things, you can go hunting, you can go refreshing, of course you toss back a lot of stuff if they're not your cup of tea, and that's all fine. I can do this for hours, because the AP keeps moving and treasures may show up. The fact that they can show up is what makes the hunt worthwhile.

But when there's a wall? After 3 of the same egg you usually know the next few hours are gonna be nothing but the same. Hunt over.

 

I think that's the real issue here, not necessarily that people think AP should only be clean lineages or whatever.

 

I also want to point out that breeding could be limited in a way that we'd still have small walls, just not 48hr walls. It's not black or white.

[Stormcaller]

1 hour ago, Cinspawn said:

I feel like a lot of people are zooming in on the "AP is supposed to be all kinds of stuff, its about the thrill of the hunt!" I don't think anyone is really arguing people aren't allowed to breed stuff like messies etc. But when people breed hours upon hours of messies, there's no hunt anymore. Because there's just one thing, and you can't refresh and hope for a glimmer of something else, because it's only 1 thing, it's 1 wall.

 

So when the AP is full of all kinds of things, you can go hunting, you can go refreshing, of course you toss back a lot of stuff if they're not your cup of tea, and that's all fine. I can do this for hours, because the AP keeps moving and treasures may show up. The fact that they can show up is what makes the hunt worthwhile.

But when there's a wall? After 3 of the same egg you usually know the next few hours are gonna be nothing but the same. Hunt over.

 

I think that's the real issue here, not necessarily that people think AP should only be clean lineages or whatever.

 

I also want to point out that breeding could be limited in a way that we'd still have small walls, just not 48hr walls. It's not black or white.

 

Cinespawn just summed up what I've been trying to say in a much more elegant way than I've been able to say it. Thank you Cinespawn. I agree with you 100%.

[Sazandora]

1 hour ago, Cinspawn said:

I also want to point out that breeding could be limited in a way that we'd still have small walls, just not 48hr walls. It's not black or white. 

This really sounds to me like a suggestion to put a limit on how much stuff you can breed at once, which is something I do NOT want and will never support. Sure, fix the AP to always have a variety of eggs in there and not just a wall of a single breed, go ahead. But do NOT put an arbitary "you can breed X amount of dragons but then no more because you for 'ruining' the game for everyone else" limit on players.

[Keileon]

I'm very much against limiting a player's ability to breed things.

 

I also don't think the argument of "nothing but messy commons" is valid. The cave can't differentiate between messy and clean lineages, especially because that's subjective. When BSA walls happen nobody complains about them because they're useful, BUT ALSO the cave can't differentiate between desired breeds or not.

 

Solutions posed would make half of users happy while angering the other half. That's not how you compromise, that's how you upset people.

[Cinspawn]

4 minutes ago, Sazandora said:

This really sounds to me like a suggestion to put a limit on how much stuff you can breed at once, which is something I do NOT want and will never support. Sure, fix the AP to always have a variety of eggs in there and not just a wall of a single breed, go ahead. But do NOT put an arbitary "you can breed X amount of dragons but then no more because you for 'ruining' the game for everyone else" limit on players.

I guess it wouldn't work anyway cause people could just make walls together.

 

I'm gonna quote myself from a page earlier for a possible solution:

 

Quote

I'd love it if we could have a way to keep the walls, but also limit them. If the timer gets lower, it should be able to get REALLY low - otherwise future 72 hr walls will just become the 48 hr walls of today, if that makes sense. So I feel there shouldn't be a cap on how low the timer gets or on how fast the timer lowers - because then the same problem will eventually come back. Because the idea of enough users picking it up making the timer lower is abuseable and/or not effective (not enough users doing this - wall persists) perhaps an automatic lowering of the timers? The bigger the wall, the faster they age. No idea if this can be coded easily, though. 

 

[Fuzzbucket]

59 minutes ago, Sazandora said:

This really sounds to me like a suggestion to put a limit on how much stuff you can breed at once, which is something I do NOT want and will never support. Sure, fix the AP to always have a variety of eggs in there and not just a wall of a single breed, go ahead. But do NOT put an arbitary "you can breed X amount of dragons but then no more because you for 'ruining' the game for everyone else" limit on players.

 

59 minutes ago, Keileon said:

I'm very much against limiting a player's ability to breed things.

 

I also don't think the argument of "nothing but messy commons" is valid. The cave can't differentiate between messy and clean lineages, especially because that's subjective. When BSA walls happen nobody complains about them because they're useful, BUT ALSO the cave can't differentiate between desired breeds or not.

 

Solutions posed would make half of users happy while angering the other half. That's not how you compromise, that's how you upset people.

 

I'm with both these. I think the only way is - gasp - to leave it as it is. And I have no doubt at all that if there were some arbitrary limit people would get together to create walls. Heck - I might even join in one of those myself. I've said it before and I'll say it again - some days there are walls, which annoy some people but not all. Some days there are a huge variety of eggs and no-one wants any of them. And some days you might get a 2 gen gold  prizekin - as someone did just yesterday. That's what mining a garbage dump does for us all.

[HeatherMarie]

Yes, *any* kind of 'limit' on breeding is a no. A definite no. People seem to be arguing that one-breed walls screw with their playstyle/fun.... So their answer is to deliberately screw with other user's playstyle/fun with some arbitrary limit just because *they* don't personally like what's being sent to the AP? Nope, nuh-uh, no way.

 

(Also, I hunt the AP almost exclusively and I can tell you from experience that even long one-breed walls are *never* 100% that one breed, every so often a couple other-breed eggs *will* crop up, whether because other people have abandoned low-time eggs or because a different breed egg resulted from the wall-breed... The Nocturne wall was crazy long, possibly the longest wall I've seen in years, and yet I still sat there refreshing because every so often there *was* a different breed!)

 

The only suggestion I've seen here so far that I'd even *consider* supporting is lowering time on AP eggs. That hurts no one, as long as it's done in a completely unbiased automated way (ie, by how long it sits in the visible AP or something, *not* by people grabbing and tossing it back).