Per-scroll breeding limit

[Fuzzbucket]

Well, there we go - it really isn't sheer cussedness, people. And if it works - um - can you do it for pipios, please ? they are driving me to drink.

[Stormcaller]

34 minutes ago, Firefury Amahira said:

It is extremely possible, I've sent over 1500 blacktip eggs (out of a total batch around 2000- the rest were celestials) to the AP on multiple occasions this year. It's not easy, it takes me several hours to corporealize over 900 celestials and breed over 1000 blacktips to do it, but it is very much possible. Especially when breaking the work up across multiple days (corporealize the celestials a day or two before, breed about 600 pairs in one sitting, another 600 pairs a few hours or a day later...), the thing can definitely be done for anyone with a large horde of commons, a large horde of celestials, and the time to breed it. For anyone curious, I keep pretty meticulous stats on my mass-breeding, which can probably give folks an idea of what scale of effort is required to generate one of those super-massive walls.

.

 

IMHO, your dedication is absolutely amazing!  I mean not just the breeding, but the record keeping involved.  Wow!  It almost makes me wonder if I could do it too.

 

Unfortunately, I still must say that as much as I admire your work, I hate the walls that result from it.  Also, I don't believe it's right for one individual to be able to manipulate the ratios. If TJ set them a certain way, how can you justify players being able to tamper with it?

 

[random_dragon_collector]

2 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

Well, there we go - it really isn't sheer cussedness, people. And if it works - um - can you do it for pipios, please ? they are driving me to drink.

 

[_DeadPool_]

2 minutes ago, Stormcaller said:

 

IMHO, your dedication is absolutely amazing!  I mean not just the breeding, but the record keeping involved.  Wow!  It almost makes me wonder if I could do it too.

 

Unfortunately, I still must say that as much as I admire your work, I hate the walls that result from it.  Also, I don't believe it's right for one individual to be able to manipulate the ratios. If TJ set them a certain way, how can you justify players being able to tamper with it?

 

If I'm correct, TJ may set the initial ratios, but they will change naturally over time by people breeding those dragons. No reason why poking the ratios shouldn't be possible. and if you look at Amahira's records, it's only changed that ratio by like...4%. So while it helps them with their breeding ratios, isn't drastically changing the way the game is meant to be played.

Edited November 12, 2019 by _DeadPool_

[Firefury Amahira]

23 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

Well, there we go - it really isn't sheer cussedness, people.

I mean, I won't lie- the nonstop viewbombing attacks that finally forced me to hide my scroll contributes a certain level of pure spite to the entire endeavor, but that's not the primary reason.

 

21 minutes ago, Stormcaller said:

If TJ set them a certain way, how can you justify players being able to tamper with it?

Less that I'm trying to tamper with it and more that I'm trying to bring the population in line with what TJ's ratios say it's supposed to be. That's why it's so hard to get something other than blacktips from a blacktip x whatever pairing; they're underpopulated and thus the game is trying to compensate by making them the more likely result of a breeding involving one.

 

... Which, before the mods yell at me, is starting to drift from the topic of "HOW FIX AP?!" Any thoughts on the "split the AP into biomes" idea? Everybody would still see the same AP (only there'd be 6 of them, 7 during holidays), but they could hunt a particular biome to try and find a preferred breed just like hunting the cave biomes. No actual filtering, metallics (or prizes) would go randomly to a particular AP-biome same as metallics do in the main cave, the main difference would be making it harder to render the AP completely clogged and increasing the number of abandoned eggs visible at any given time.

 

EDIT TO ADD: And for clarity, these AP-biomes would NOT merely show 3 eggs at once like the regular biomes. Ideally I'd like to each one to be a full 30-egg AP page, for a total of 180 (210 during holidays) abandoned eggs showing across the AP biomes at once.

Edited November 12, 2019 by Firefury Amahira

[Stormcaller]

20 minutes ago, _DeadPool_ said:

If I'm correct, TJ may set the initial ratios, but they will change naturally over time by people breeding those dragons. No reason why poking the ratios shouldn't be possible. and if you look at Amahira's records, it's only changed that ratio by like...4%. So while it helps them with their breeding ratios, isn't drastically changing the way the game is meant to be played.

 

It seems that it is indeed possible if  Firefury Amahira is correct.   Even so, is such a small change worth the situation that results for so many of the other players, i.e. they are hindered from using the AP in a regular manner because it is monopolized by one person.

 

Quote

... Which, before the mods yell at me, is starting to drift from the topic of "HOW FIX AP?!"

 

Don't worry, Firefury Amahira, an important part of solving any problem is getting a good understanding about what exactly is happening as well as why it is happening.  Sharing your information has definitely helped me see that you are a nice human person, not some ogre sitting in a cave somewhere who is  trying to rule the world and starting out in Dragon Cave. 

[tjekan]

Just for the record, it would also be perfectly legitimate for Firefury to breed 1500 blacktips just because he/she had a personal goal to have bred more blacktips than any other player. I mean, this is a game. It doesn't matter why people want to play it the way they do.

 

I just want to find a solution so that other people can still play the game the way WE want to, for any reason WE want to. And if that means not wanting to pick up and raise somebody else's messy blacktip eggs --again, for any reason--we should still be able to do that.

 

Pagination: It sounds like maybe pagination out to 70 pages (2100 eggs) would be better than 1500, if we went the pagination route. Just enough so that people who really wanted to could either reach the other end of a large massbreed, or be close enough that they'd only have to wait for a few screens of eggs to cycle to get there.

Biomes: I'd support the idea of AP biomes as another way of offering choices to AP hunters--presumably only one or two biomes at a time would be blocked by a wall--but I'm not sure how that would work since bred eggs have no biomes and most eggs in the AP are bred.

 

Limiting breeder eggs per page: Firefury Amahira, as a massbreeder can you weigh in: would limiting your eggs to five on the front page at a time cramp your style? If your primary goal is manipulating ratios, it'd be just as good if your eggs were picked up a bit at a time as all in a lump, right? As long as they don't die (which I really don't believe any of these three options would cause them to do, but definitely not this one.)

[Uther_Pendragon]

""Sharing your information has definitely helped me see that you are a nice human person, not some ogre sitting in a cave somewhere who is  trying to rule the world and starting out in Dragon Cave."" --Except for those times to get back at viewbombers 😂 😂 (that made me lol)

 

That amount of eggs from one player really is impressive, and wow, a lot of work!

I *do* understand and respect the why's of the mass breeds, to balance ratios, or to help breeding, and I've not had issues when they happened once in a while for a couple hours. It's the ap becoming walled every couple days now-for increasing longer periods-that's disruptive to my personal game style.

 

The 6-7 biomes feels huge, almost like adding a second game on top of the game.

As you stated, it would be harder to coordinate having all 6 ap's walled concurrently, though I do still see the potential to have frequent long walls, just across 6 main ap's instead of 1, depending on who's breeding what to each.
Unlike the X visible eggs per breeder idea, which wouldn't allow for walling as easily, if at all.
(Eta: I'm still firmly in the 3 visible eggs, 4 at most per breeder camp- 3 allows 10 ppls eggs to be represented, or a mix of bred and dropped cbs or auto'd vampires etc, giving the most variety)

Edited November 12, 2019 by Uther_Pendragon

[Stormcaller]

If there is some general problem with ratios, could there be a simpler way of solving the problem, possibly like asking TJ to change them?  Would that stop the mass breeding?

[Firefury Amahira]

I the main issue with "If the ratios are the problem, why not fix them?" is that TJ doesn't seem inclined to do so. And even if he was... well, HOW do we fix it? Some breeds will always be more common, either because they're supposed to be or because they're not as popular. If I recall right, he already did tweak the ratio system to only look at a relatively recent span of time instead of the entire site's dragon population, thus making it possible to budge the ratios at all instead of being stymied by the inertia of ten years of people collecting dragons.

 

And fixing the ratios might fix some one-breed walls, but still doesn't necessarily address "one person has bred a boatload of random stuff that's clogging the AP" flavor AP clogs. I think the AP-biome idea addresses the most issues in a most in-universe logical sort of way. Still theoretically possible to clog it, but much more difficult to do while also adding increased functionality to the AP.

[Uther_Pendragon]

Breeders Gonna Breed, lol

As they should, it's a main part of the game! (Especially now, as we are blessed to get new and amazing dragons released so often, woo!)

 It's finding the balance between the ppl who do mass breeds and those who prefer finding dropped cb's, or getting to choose from an assortment of abandoned eggs, instead of just one breed.

 

What about a mixture of the AP biomes with the x visible eggs per breeder ideas? I could see going to 5 eggs per, if it's across 6 biomes.

 

 

[_DeadPool_]

2 hours ago, Stormcaller said:

If there is some general problem with ratios, could there be a simpler way of solving the problem, possibly like asking TJ to change them?  Would that stop the mass breeding?

I doubt that TJ would change ratios just to "stop the massbreeding". I honestly think that massbreeding to change ratios it totally loreful. Think about our breeding of dogs to get specific phenotypes out of them - it's the same thing we're doing in dragon cave. We are breeding our dragons with specific mates to get a desired outcome.

And as many have said and I've said before, the AP is not meant to be a treasure trove of great stuff for people to choose from. It's a trash heap where *sometimes* one can find stuff they want/find useful.

[Confused Cat]

AP pagination, AP biomes:

Please no. This is purely my personal taste, but for me it would add so much stress to the game. Which AP biome or which page do I refresh now? Where is something good most likely to show up, and where might the lowest number of other players be? It would be just the same as the cave biomes. Sure, the biomes are useful and I wouldn't want to get rid of them, but as for the AP, I like that everybody sees the same. I still have to be lucky enough to refresh at the right moment, have the mouse cursor at the right position, and click fast enough. That's all the decision-making and excitement I need on the AP. I don't want to think about what I might be missing because I clicked the "wrong" page. (Again, I can already have that in the cave!  ) Please no AP pages or biomes.

[Keileon]

Updating my personal preferences:

 

Inaction is, well, still the "action" I'd prefer. However...

 

AP biomes are a novel idea and, despite probably an initial outcry (didn't we have an outcry when the real biomes were introduced?), would probably be looked upon favorably once the userbase gets used to it. Even outside of being a wallbreaking suggestion I wouldn't complain if it was implemented. I actually really like this idea, and it's the only real action that hasn't made me go "well okay MAYBE but I still don't really like it".

 

Limiting display by breeder still falls into that last bit. If AP biomes can't be a thing, I'd accept this, but... eh...

 

Did I say no to pagination yet? I forget. No pagination.

[Haloclimb]

AP biomes does sound like a decent idea- heck, if you can't split by biome, you could incorporate some of the filtering ideas posted here and have the AP split between CB/ bred eggs. Not sure how it would work with lore, but eh. That way, if the bred biome is blocked, people can hop over to the CB biome and have a browse.

I do like the idea of basing what biome AP an egg would be in though by where CB versions of that egg are found.

No to pagination because that's just letting people cherry pick, and while I really would not like limiting eggs by breeder viewed, if it HAD to be that it would be tolerable if it could be a whole row or two per breeder. That would absolutely impact gameplay for Thuwed, SAlts and prize mass breeds though- you'd just have to figure out where the line of breeder specific eggs is and then bingo, you only have to look at three eggs or one row for those eggs instead of the whole page. If that would be a good thing or a bad thing, I'm not sure.

[Sazandora]

I say no to pagination, and no to AP biomes -- that'd make AP hunting way too confusing as you'd have no idea which one to stalk for the things you're looking for. I rarely bother with the AP outside of holidays, and when I do, I'm usually looking for things I hoard which is mainly Kingcrownes and Siyats. Kingcrownes spawn in all biomes, so where exactly would they show up if we had AP biomes? And Siyats, they spawn in three biomes, where would they end up in?

 

Again, I personally prefer the option of limiting how many eggs from a single breeder are visible in the AP at a time. It doesn't put restrictions on how much stuff users can breed, and could help prevent AP walls.

[tjekan]

5 hours ago, Haloclimb said:

I do like the idea of basing what biome AP an egg would be in though by where CB versions of that egg are found.

 

Many eggs are found in more than one biome though, so that would be terribly confusing.

 

What about mana types? Does every breed have just one of those? I forget... 

 

I still really don't understand the disdain for cherry picking. Cherry picking is just a nicer sounding synonym for dumpster diving. You're sorting through tons of stuff you dont want looking for the happy experience of finding one thing you do. Why do people keep acting like this is a bad thing? 

[Fiona]

Have you ever been in a store near the end of a clearance sale? The goods have been picked through to the point where there's nothing left anyone really wants. What I'm envisioning for a paginated AP is that the stuff on the front page is like the end of the clearance sale. Nothing worth having in there. The difference between the AP and the store though is that they send that picked over nobody wants stuff back to the warehouse for credit. We can't do that. There are people who would take some, for freezies, because they feel bad that the eggs are dying, for hatch and release, for whatever. But not because they actually want those things so much. Right now people take some of the "unwanted" eggs to get to what's behind them. Pagination would eliminate that reason for taking some of the less desired eggs.

[purplehaze]

7 hours ago, Confused Cat said:

AP pagination, AP biomes:

Please no. This is purely my personal taste, but for me it would add so much stress to the game. Which AP biome or which page do I refresh now? Where is something good most likely to show up, and where might the lowest number of other players be? It would be just the same as the cave biomes. Sure, the biomes are useful and I wouldn't want to get rid of them, but as for the AP, I like that everybody sees the same. I still have to be lucky enough to refresh at the right moment, have the mouse cursor at the right position, and click fast enough. That's all the decision-making and excitement I need on the AP. I don't want to think about what I might be missing because I clicked the "wrong" page. (Again, I can already have that in the cave!  ) Please no AP pages or biomes.

Agree! Especially the part that I have bolded.

Ap Biomes sort of sounded good to me until I really thought about it and realized that it would just make certain things harder to find because you wouldn't know which biome they might pop up in this time. There are lots of breeds with more than one biome in the cave. How would that be dealt with in the by-biome APs?

[Ruby Eyes]

1 hour ago, tjekan said:

What about mana types? Does every breed have just one of those? I forget... 

Some have 2 types, but I suppose one could just use the primary type - the one that defines the Avatar result.

[11th]

Here are my thoughts on the suggestions thus far.

 

Filters for breeds: I'm staunchly against anything that allows an individual user to change how the AP is seen. Everyone should see the same things so that hunting is fair.

CB/Bred pages: Against because it's pretty obvious that the CB page would be prioritized by many. That's what the cave is for, and plenty of breeds already sit in the biomes.

Pages: Against because it's both way too much to keep track of and would allow users to clean out the most "desirable" lineages and breeds.

Biomes: Not against, but I do think that 6-7 pages would be a bit too much too keep track of, and it may be a problem for breeds that drop in all/no biomes. (Prizes, metals, certain BSAs, etc.)

Max slots per breeder: Not against, though I do worry that to would be too difficult to implement. Walling would technically still be possible, but it would take a coordinated effort by multiple users. Even then, each one could breed different types of lineages depending on their preferences or what they have, so there would still be a bit of variety.

 

And one more that I'm not sure has been mentioned. (Probably, but I don't feel like re-reading the whole thread to check.)

 

Max slots per breed: Not against, even though I do find single breed walls a bit fun to see. It should be easier to implement than max slots per breeder because the breed of an egg/hatchling can't change (excluding Vamps & Neglecteds) and is already kept track of, and would also work for CBs, which don't have a breeder. It would also be nice for Holiday breeding seasons, as it would prevent the AP from being overtaken by a single breed. (ie. The oldest holidays.) The only issue I can think of is that someone could wall the AP with multiple breeds, but at least that seems preferable to a single breed wall...? /:

[JavaTigress]

21 minutes ago, 11th said:

Here are my thoughts on the suggestions thus far.

 

Filters for breeds: I'm staunchly against anything that allows an individual user to change how the AP is seen. Everyone should see the same things so that hunting is fair.

 

May I point OUT tho, that EVERYONE would have the option to filter by breeds. Therefor while I agree that if ONLY one person ( or a select few...) had that power, it would be unfair and problematic... I fail to see how it gives anyone an unfair advantage to filter by breed IF everyone can do it. I mean... we have that option for the tradehub, don't we? Ditto for the Bred/CB toggle. Everyone would have the option and I THINK that there generally Aren't LIKELY to be very many CBs in the AP... and what ones there are would likely be picked up fairly quickly. 'Camping' on the CB toggle would have diminishing returns, after a while, I would think... though perhaps I'd be surprised.  AND bear in mind, too... not all users DO prioritize CB dragons. Some like 'em messy! 

 

Personally... i kind of LIKE the idea of being able to filter for breed...or BARRING that, showing so many of a breed at a time? Maybe a combo of both?

Edited November 12, 2019 by JavaTigress

[Justie]

10 minutes ago, 11th said:

Max slots per breed: Not against, even though I do find single breed walls a bit fun to see. It should be easier to implement than max slots per breeder because the breed of an egg/hatchling can't change (excluding Vamps & Neglecteds) and is already kept track of, and would also work for CBs, which don't have a breeder. It would also be nice for Holiday breeding seasons, as it would prevent the AP from being overtaken by a single breed. (ie. The oldest holidays.) The only issue I can think of is that someone could wall the AP with multiple breeds, but at least that seems preferable to a single breed wall...? /:

 

A quick scrolling back of this thread - I think this method referred to by @11th makes the most sense. Seeing this issue is clearly not going to go away, let's make it work for everybody. I think it is the lack of choice that so offends and frustrates those who are against walls. 

 

I know it entirely changes my method of playing, for the worse in a dozen ways, so I am desperate to see a solution. So far this seems to be the best I have seen. 

[JavaTigress]

8 minutes ago, Justie said:

I think it is the lack of choice that so offends and frustrates those who are against walls. 

 

 

Yes, I agree. That is why I'd almost favor a combination of options... give USERS some ability to determine what they see in the AP. So long as everyone has the power... I don't see that as gamebreaking.

[blah]

I haven't read through this thread but I think the OP sounds very reasonable.

 

And if not - just get rid of the freeze limit again so we can go back to freezing and releasing.