Suggestion: Killing on Halloween cannot result in a Dodge

[VixenDra]

As simple as that, self explainatory.

Oh, it's Halloween today? Use Kill action without any risk of getting a Dodge result on that day - a 100% death rate.

 

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I never understood why Kill Dodging is even a thing but if it must be so then oh well. But please, NOT on Halloween!

 

Halloween... Halloween is just once a year. It's the one day of the year when Zombie making has the highest of the super low success chance. And we are only limited to just 5 Kills on that day. A maximum of 10 adult attemps that give 0-4 zombies on Halloween (usually like just 1, sometimes 2). There are 16 unique adult Zombie sprites and there are a few more to come sooner or later. And success rate is hellishly low even on Halloween itself.

The Kill limit is one problem - we get max 10 adult attempts on Halloween. But why do we have to have Dodge make it even worse on that ONE day a year? Some subtypes are only made from pretty rare breeds that are very hard to have a fodder stock of... Halloween is the day those rarer types are best saved for because of their rarity. And then.. on 17th these few fodders Dodge. But then they also dodge on Halloween! Meaning, that you could end up with 2-5 alive fodders and 0 attempts left for that subtype that year - it's NOT unlikely that you will NOT have enough rarer type fodders to have ANY Revivable on Halloween... and you wait another year or take the risk on the even-lower-chance days which you may be unable to do because the given fodders are THAT hard to stock... Expecially as CBs, forget in the desired tombstone sprite.

 

Halloween Dodges just hurt the most and feel unnecessary. Undeads are more than enough of a waiting game without the Dodge risks...

 

This is not a "oh, but this doesn't really happen!" hipothetical situation. I just had all 4 fodders of an entire subtype I saved for Halloween just all Dodge. I also had all of another dodge on me for a 31st attempt. Another of my fodders was so hard to get that I only had 2 fodders - 1 dodged today, if the other doesn't turn and Dodges on Halloween, I'll have to wait another full year to try - they are too rare to try for a 31st.

 

(I'm sorry I won't partake in the discussion at all)

Edited October 17, 2019 by VixenDra

[The Dragoness]

I know that it's not a solution per se, but isn't killing before Halloween and stockpiling zombie fodder what most people do anyway? Even if kill was 100% effective on Halloween, that would only give you 10 dragons to attempt to revive. But fodders make that easier. I also don't really see how dodge rate ties into actually creating Zombies, as revive and kill are separate actions. Yeah, a dragon needs to be killed before you can try reviving, but reviving is really the deciding factor on whether you get a Zombie. Maybe a suggestion for 100% successful revival rate on Halloween is worth starting? That's just my 2 cents.

Edited October 17, 2019 by The Dragoness

[Sazandora]

Dodging itself is a really irritating mechanic and I'd much rather have it removed entirely, or reworked so that if a dragon dodges an attempt on its life, it won't be 100% immune to being killed for the whole day. Like, you could immediately try again without the result automatically being just another dodge. But I suppose I could like a half-measure such as this.

With so many unique zombie sprites being in the game, the insanely low success chances feel more like "fake difficulty" designed to dissuade people from trying to collect all those sprites... which is really freaking stupid for a game that is all about collecting dragons! So yes, I'd love just about anything that'd make zombiemaking feel less like an annoying chore that's entirely reliant on whether the game feels like ing with you or not.

[Fuzzbucket]

47 minutes ago, The Dragoness said:

I know that it's not a solution per se, but isn't killing before Halloween and stockpiling zombie fodder what most people do anyway? Even if kill was 100% effective on Halloween, that would only give you 10 dragons to attempt to revive. But fodders make that easier. I also don't really see how dodge rate ties into actually creating Zombies, as revive and kill are separate actions. Yeah, a dragon needs to be killed before you can try reviving, but reviving is really the deciding factor on whether you get a Zombie. Maybe a suggestion for 100% successful revival rate on Halloween is worth starting? That's just my 2 cents.

 

This. I have a huge stash of zombie fodder; however many dodge, there's no chance they all will - so not a real problem, I think.

 

But yes to the 100% revival rate (or at least a FAR greater chance.) I've not managed a single one on Hallow'en for a  couple of years now

Edited October 17, 2019 by Fuzzbucket

[VixenDra]

1 hour ago, The Dragoness said:

I know that it's not a solution per se, but isn't killing before Halloween and stockpiling zombie fodder what most people do anyway? Even if kill was 100% effective on Halloween, that would only give you 10 dragons to attempt to revive. But fodders make that easier. I also don't really see how dodge rate ties into actually creating Zombies, as revive and kill are separate actions. Yeah, a dragon needs to be killed before you can try reviving, but reviving is really the deciding factor on whether you get a Zombie. Maybe a suggestion for 100% successful revival rate on Halloween is worth starting? That's just my 2 cents.

 

Eh, let's make my 1st and last response in this thread before I stop checking it ever again:

That's only true for hatchlings that die a timeout death. For adults, you cannot have more than 10 fodders ready on Hallowen because they can only be dead if you use Kill on them - first 5 adults need to be killed exactly on 17th, the other 5 ON Halloween. If you killed on 16th and 30th, the 16th batch would vanish before Halloween(because on 30th). So no, people simply CANNOT have a majority of their adult fodder dead before Halloween if they plan well to maximize their on-halloween Revive attampts - otherwise they end up with only 5. Remember, timeout hatchlings are NOT relevant for Dodges, and one cannot possibly have 10+ Halloween-Revivable fodders without timeout hatchis.

And, well, I included a few example situations that actually happened to me recently🙄

Edited October 17, 2019 by VixenDra

[Fuzzbucket]

True - there is no way you can have more than 10 adults ready to try. But you can achieve that by having enough fodder that you always have spares to kill i the event of a dodge. I just did my 17th mass murder. Two dodged and I killed two others instead. I shall have plenty of adult fodder - including those two - to kill five more on 31st. I think I shall still have 7 adults by then,  and have time to grow more anyway.

[HeatherMarie]

I have over 500 zombie fodder. I *still* get very frustrated at the ridiculous amount of dodges, and I still don't understand *why* we need dodges in the first place when actual turn-rate is so low to begin with. I just have 5 dodges in a row, 3 of them body-types I really don't have many of to begin with despite my high general fodder number. I definitely support no-dodges on Halloween! The one day a year when zombie-making is *supposed* to be easiest. 

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

I support this suggestion tbh. Dodging is obviously an extremely annoying thing for many players - one day out of the year where dodging is exempt seems fair enough in my eyes.

[Stormcaller]

I figure this is just one of the little details that make the game seem more real so it doesn't bother me too much.  I wouldn't mind a day without it though.

 

[GhostMouse]

Support. I'd be happy if we got rid of dodging entirely, but at least no dodging on Halloween (or maybe even the month of October, to ensure successful kills for all 10 adults that can be tried?)

[Cyberr]

Full support. Unfortunately I love zombie dragons and hate everything that stands in a way to obtain them...

It can get very frustrating, especially if it comes to a dodge.

[MIGOR]

Full support from me too !

[Painter]

Support, or some similar working.

 

People are saying it's fine if you have lots of adult fodder... but people don't want to try just any dragon. I have some from specific lineages I was trying to turn... they ALL dodged on the 17th. Got 8 dodges in a row. I was really disappointed. I ended up just giving up and using some of my regular CB/non-zombie fodder to try to kill and bred some eggs from those guys instead. Still not a great feeling.

 

This guy dodged both times in 2017 I believe. And I missed 2018. So now it's 2 years later and it already dodged on the 17th. It would be nice to at least be able to try this year, but it may dodge again. I've got a 2G gold baby from it so it's important to a lineage. The zombie chance is bad enough, the dodge just adds another layer of difficulty that can make it take at a minimum, a whole year before you can even try again to even have the chance to revive it. That's a really long time. Not every lineage you can get a whole bunch of before Halloween. CBs aren't as big of a deal, but you can still have a high number dodge in a row.

Wasn't there a BSA, like Ensnare or something, for vines, suggested to up the kill limit? Well if that can't be implemented to raise the kill limit, it could be implemented to prevent dodging maybe? The dragon is trapped and then you can 100% kill it. Or something like it, doesn't have to be that one. There are a lot of dragons that could have a type of Trap BSA. A dragon with time affinity could trap it frozen in time for example. 

Edited October 22, 2019 by Painter

[Fuzzbucket]

I would much rather see a much higher success rate for zombifying. The last success I had was  January 2018. Dodging is the least of my issues. Even if they don't dodge, they'll probably disintegrate! 

[tjekan]

I get that it's annoying when a dragon you want to kill dodges, but it would just be nonsensical for that not to happen. Why would a human be able to slay a dragon 100% of the time they try to? It's already stretching credulity that you succeed as often as you do.

 

Like Fuzzbucket, I'd rather see the undead raising success rate raised than the dragon slaying success rate be made automatic. The overall improvement to zombie creation would be the same, but without having to suspend our disbelief enough to believe that humans can always one-shot dragons at will!

Edited October 22, 2019 by tjekan

[HeatherMarie]

1 hour ago, tjekan said:

I get that it's annoying when a dragon you want to kill dodges, but it would just be nonsensical for that not to happen. Why would a human be able to slay a dragon 100% of the time they try to? It's already stretching credulity that you succeed as often as you do.

 

Like Fuzzbucket, I'd rather see the undead raising success rate raised than the dragon slaying success rate be made automatic. The overall improvement to zombie creation would be the same, but without having to suspend our disbelief enough to believe that humans can always one-shot dragons at will!

 

In the past it has been suggested that dodging could scale in relation to your kill experience, ie the more times you attempt to kill dragons, logically you would get better and better at it, so less dodges. Also, personally I think it's just as nonsensical to have 8+ different dragons successfully dodge in a row. The mechanics surrounding zombie-making aren't the most sensible things to begin with.

 

In general, I think the hurdles to zombie-making are simply too many and too high right now. If we had a bigger success rate on actual zombie-making with revivals, then maybe dodges wouldn't matter so much. If Halloween, the one day a year that is supposed to be prime zombie-making time, actually *did* give all zombie-makers at least one successful zombie, then maybe other restrictions wouldn't seem so bad. If the supposed increase in success on the 31st(s) were more productive and actually noticeably increased successes for most people, Halloween itself wouldn't be such a huge deal. Etc etc. 

 

But as it is right now, *one* day with no dodges doesn't seem like such a huge ask?

[tjekan]

6 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

Also, personally I think it's just as nonsensical to have 8+ different dragons successfully dodge in a row.

 

Why? I mean, what about dragons leads you to believe that if any random guy with a sword charges at them eight times, he'd be guaranteed to score a kill one of those times?

 

Maybe I've just played too many old-school tabletops, but failing eight times seems like a very possible outcome, yes.

 

6 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

But as it is right now, *one* day with no dodges doesn't seem like such a huge ask?

 

I don't know about a huge ask, but it's kind of ludicrous. If all dragons completely dropped dead every time anything tried to attack them on Halloween, there would be NO Halloween events at all, because all dragons would be in hiding the entire day.

 

I'm in favor of easing zombie frustrations, but it would help just as much to double the current undead raising success rates on Halloween as it would to make dragons insta-die on Halloween. And it would make a lot more sense (Halloween traditionally being a day for the thinning of the Veil and so on.)

Edited October 23, 2019 by tjekan

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

7 hours ago, tjekan said:

 

Why? I mean, what about dragons leads you to believe that if any random guy with a sword charges at them eight times, he'd be guaranteed to score a kill one of those times?

 

Maybe I've just played too many old-school tabletops, but failing eight times seems like a very possible outcome, yes.

 

 

I don't know about a huge ask, but it's kind of ludicrous. If all dragons completely dropped dead every time anything tried to attack them on Halloween, there would be NO Halloween events at all, because all dragons would be in hiding the entire day.

 

I'm in favor of easing zombie frustrations, but it would help just as much to double the current undead raising success rates on Halloween as it would to make dragons insta-die on Halloween. And it would make a lot more sense (Halloween traditionally being a day for the thinning of the Veil and so on.)

 

Explanation could be that the sun sets earlier on Halloween and the dragons are all asleep when you sneak up on them to stab them. It's pretty likely you'll kill them all if you do it in the dark while they sleep. Or maybe on Halloween the moons align strangely and make dragons more woozy, so they're pretty out of it when you stab them. There could be many ways to make this work with a bit of lore. We aren't asking for much - I'm sure we'd all agree that a higher turn rate would be great, but straight-up changing the turn rate might seem like a bigger ask to TJ, and maybe changing the dodge rate is a smaller ask instead.

[tjekan]

They're canonically all out trick or treating and having parties and getting into various hijinks on Halloween, not lying in a paralyzed stupor. I can't think of ANY even vaguely plausible explanation for how they could both participate in Halloween events and be incapacitated enough to be helpless against any attack.

 

But at the end of the day it's a game, not everything in it needs to make any sense. I'd rather see TJ adjust zombie success in the more sensible way, and have no idea why that would be a "bigger ask" than the more ridiculous way, but if it's easier to code for some reason I'm sure we can all suspend our disbelief.

[Shadowdrake]

There's no plausible explanation for us raising dragons for eternity either, or having multiples of various god-dragons per user when canonically there's one in the world, but that doesn't change the fact that we can. The explanation could be simple as the same ambient death magic that makes zombies giving us a boost to kill things, or that they're caught off guard by someone they trust pretending to join the festivities only to actually murder them instead of what they thought was a spooky harmless joke.

 

Anyway, sure, why not. It would allow people to not have to waste slots on gathering way more specific-type fodder than necessary just to avoid the dodges.

[Fuzzbucket]

Whatever, however, even if nothing dodged, you'd still, if you are me, end up with ten disintegrations. Sure, nice if nothing does dodge, but  it's no improvement at all if they none of them revive as zombies, is there?

[Haloclimb]

3 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

Whatever, however, even if nothing dodged, you'd still, if you are me, end up with ten disintegrations. Sure, nice if nothing does dodge, but  it's no improvement at all if they none of them revive as zombies, is there?

Honestly, I'd still love it to be a mechanic similar to summoning GoN's; the more you have, the easier it is. Mostly by the reasoning of, the more you practice raising the dead, the better you get at it! If this was bolstered by much, MUCH more improved odds for zombies on Halloween, making zombies would end up being an actual goal you can work towards instead of a 'kill dozens of dragons for the slim hope of getting a zombie'.

 

But I would 100% support no dodging on Halloween, or just no dodging in general. It's such a bad mechanic that really doesn't add to gameplay at all.

[Maladjust]

I'm for anything that gives us a better chance to collect all the different zombie sprites--hatchlings included--a lot faster. I usually get only one successful zombie attempt per year. It's my goal to have a male adult, female adult, one gendered hatchling, and one ungendered hatchling of each type. I just counted, and at this rate, it will take me FIFTY-THREE YEARS to collect the sprites I don't have yet! Even if I wanted only one adult of each type, plus the gendered hatchling and ungendered hatchling, it would still take thirty-nine years to complete my zombie collection. That's really just...laughable. Why have so many different sprites if there's virtually no chance of ever collecting all of them?

[Fuzzbucket]

While I support the suggestion on the whole  - though even more for a MUCH higher chance of turning - you do realise you can try all year round now ? And some people HAVE managed to get a full set (though I'm not bothering with male and female of each, as the sprites are identical !)

 

I have got nothing the last couple of Hallowe'ens, but today I got a good few.

[Maladjust]

Yes, I'm aware of that, but the chances are supposed to be best at Halloween, right? Quoted from DC Wiki: "Undeads can now be created any time of the year again, with a scaling chance of success based on the time or date (lowest to highest success: day time, night time, 31st of a month, and Halloween)" So, if I'm only getting one zombie per Halloween, and the odds are supposed to be best at this time, then that probably means I'd have no success for the rest of the year.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Maladjust