Abandoned Page Compendium - Display Suggestions

[Uther_Pendragon]

But what happens under randomization when one breeder has 500 to 1000 eggs of one breed thrown to the ap, then another breeder breeds same? Won't we still be where we are now?

[Tawanda001]

1 hour ago, Uther_Pendragon said:

But what happens under randomization when one breeder has 500 to 1000 eggs of one breed thrown to the ap, then another breeder breeds same? Won't we still be where we are now?

I think that would be unlikely to happen if there were say a row of eggs at 5d7h, a row at 4d6h, another at 6d2h and so on and so forth (or some completely random mix of times). Hard to imagine you'd get many walls under those circumstances, although not impossible I suppose. I think it would make it difficult for players to work together to create 'event walls', which would probably upset some players while others probably wouldn't care. If such a thing is even possible. It feels kind of pointless sometimes to speculate on such things when we have no indication of what might or might not be possible for TJ to implement.

[HeatherMarie]

4 hours ago, GhostMouse said:

This raises another good point, which is that sometimes you'll see an egg go by in the AP, and refresh to see if whoever picked it up will drop it back in. If the whole AP shuffles with every refresh, or every X minutes, or whatever, you may never see that egg again, even if it is dropped back into the AP.

 

Ohh, yeah that's another great point! I actually do that fairly often, if I miss an Aqualis in the AP I'll sit there for awhile and refresh and hope that whoever picked it up decides to drop it back. I've probably gotten at least a dozen eggs so far this year by doing that. (I have no life, so why not just sit there refreshing and hoping?)

[darkladyselenity]

I actually had another thought, similar to the biome option. How about just adding something like a Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western cave to drop the eggs in?

 

And you toss in a 1 in 4 RNG when you drop the egg. The RNG would apply to each egg, so with multi-clutch breedings, each egg would go to a different AP. Maybe then, spreading the player base too thin, wouldn't be such a worry because there would only be four different spots for abandoned eggs instead of six. 

 

It wouldn't completely eliminate walls, but it might at least help some. And the RNG would determine which cave the egg shows up in. Leave everything else as is, so low time eggs display first, and what not. 

 

I know I've seen several dead progeny in my lineages with zero clicks and views. 

 

Limiting the number of breeder eggs displayed wouldn't help with this issue if the breeder's eggs are never even grabbed.

[Fiona]

On 11/13/2019 at 1:54 AM, TJ09 said:

Pagination/splitting/filtering: Others have already said this, but vastly increasing the surface area of visibility into the abandoned page will distribute people across that surface area. For biomes, this was good: the number of people looking at any particular egg went down to ⅙, and the number of breeds per-biome is still lower than pre-split levels. For the abandoned page, there's already 30 eggs visible (more than the biomes), and in order for any solution of this sort to have a significant effect, it'd have to increase that dramatically (based on the typical size of "walls"). This severely risks spreading people too thin, which I agree with others sounds like it'd make the AP much more of a "right place right time" game of luck than it currently is. "Cherry picking" is a one-time thing; even though I agree it's likely to happen, once the initial rush is gone, it comes down more to people happening to be viewing the right page/filters/whatever of eggs where a new "desirable" egg appears.

 

This was TJ's direct response to any idea of splitting the AP, or filtering it. (bold added by me) In short, if you split the AP into multiple APs, you spread the people hunting out in such a way that things will get picked up more slowly. You won't have enough people hunting in each area to keep things moving.

[Uther_Pendragon]

Lol, I often chant 'throw it back'! When I've missed an ap egg I wanted.

 

**Limiting the number of breeder eggs displayed wouldn't help with this issue if the breeder's eggs are never even grabbed.**
   We discussed that earlier in this big thread somewhere, and sure, it could affect the one breeder negatively, if they breed a ton of eggs and a lot end up dying, but, that's a choice they'll have to make if it goes to x eggs visible per breeder. (Which actually seems to be the least disruptive of the options, to most play styles)
   I've had some bred eggs die the last few holidays, both on scrolls and behind the wall, but that's something I know can happen when I breed them and am ok with that result.

 

Ppl earlier commented that as soon as eggs get low enough timed, they'll get grabbed anyway. If someone breeds *for* the ap, or for anyone really, they have to let go of expectations of what will be done to their eggs.

 

   IMO, It's not ok to either *force* the rest of us to take eggs we don't want, or wait for days for their eggs to pass-as said earlier hold everyone hostage-for one person's style of play.

 

Also somewhere earlier, or maybe prev thread? TJ said don't worry about if things are possible/impossible, he takes care of that at his end. I believe he reads along even if he doesn't always comment. 
 

I really appreciate everyone's ideas and the discussions. Seeing other points of view and logistics points is really cool.

[pinkgothic]

On 3/2/2020 at 11:49 PM, darkladyselenity said:

How much work would it take to overhaul the AP in this way?

 

One thing I think the conversation is missing is how much time and effort would it take to implement something like this? And how exactly would it work?

Depending on the database behind it, it could be this easy (pseudocode, i.e. I probably have a syntax issue somewhere, and of course I don't know the actual DB structure):

SELECT * FROM abandoned_page ORDER BY timestamp ASC;

-- turns into:

SELECT
    *
FROM
    (
        SELECT
            *,
            ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY user_id ORDER BY timestamp ASC) AS row_number
        FROM
            abandoned_page
    )
WHERE row_number <= @per_user_limit
ORDER BY timestamp ASC;

...with all other AP related code staying exactly the same. This would be using something called a "window function". Whether it is performant enough or the AP would become very slow depends a bit on the database the site uses, but assuming the database is quick with window functions (or at least quick with window functions over result sets the size of the abandoned page, which should be fairly small as far as data sets goes), the code change could potentially indeed be that small.

 

Generally, I wouldn't worry about implementation difficulty. If I'm not misremembering, TJ's asked us in the past to leave those worries to him and focus on discussing the features we want to see independent from how hard we think they may be to implement. I think it's great that people pause to worry about it, it's polite to consider what this might do to TJ's time ❤️ but even professional web-developers can only estimate so much, since important parts of the site structure and tech stack is just guesswork.

 

--> Don't worry about it. 

[demonicvampiregirl]

On 3/3/2020 at 7:53 AM, Fiona said:

 

Absolutely no on this. For one thing, you would then have a lot of "CB" eggs that are breeds that are not intended to be CB, or are prizes when CB. Furthermore, one of the things many people look for in t he AP are specific lineages, most especially things like SAltkin, or Thuweds or possibly 2nd gen prizes. Or other similar things that lose their uniqueness if their lineages are wiped.

 

Also, @darkladyselenity TJ has said before not to worry about  how easy or difficult something is to code. He'll figure that part out.

 

@demonicvampiregirl If you read all the way down the first post you see that 7 has pretty much been ruled out by TJ. And 8 has been disliked as favoring one style of play over others.

I'm still allowed to show support for things as it can change either way as TJ has said no to a lot of things and it has changed later on.

[Stormcaller]

On ‎3‎/‎3‎/‎2020 at 8:01 PM, GhostMouse said:

it's frustrating to refresh over and over and still just see the same collection of eggs you aren't interested in (wall or not),

 

Let me address this quote in a somewhat roundabout way...  Earlier today, tjekan made the following comment and I thought would be more appropriate to respond to it here than in the thread it was originally posted in:

 

Quote

More users logging in more often = more site revenue, presumably. It's a free-to-play game, it's got to get paid for somehow.

 

If you will note, at the bottom of each page you will see a small advertisement.  This is what is paying for our free game play.  True, it's well known that Google doesn't pay much per view, but these views add up.  Every single time we refresh the AP it's causing another ad to appear and putting a tiny amount of money in TJ's pocket. In all fairness, you have to say that's a good thing.  This is a great game, it's constantly updated and well run in every way, so he deserves to make money from it.

 

However, if you look at things from a different viewpoint, you will see that by asking him to prevent the formation of walls we are asking him to cut off an aspect of the game that contributes a great deal to his income.  If we were to add up all the ads that appear in the course of breeding one egg and multiply that by the number of eggs in any particular wall, I'm sure it would be considerable. Then, add to that the number of times frustrated members refresh the AP during the existence of the wall...  

 

If we continue to debate this problem without addressing the cause of it, I fear we will never get it fixed.

[tjekan]

I dont think we can assume that the ads pay on every refresh. Many ad programs pay only on a unique visit, or even only on a click. We should leave the finer details of the site's finances to TJ, I was just pointing out that there *is* probably a benefit to encouraging users to check in on at least a daily basis. That doesn't necessarily mean theres also a benefit to refreshing lots of times. There could be, or there could not be.

[GhostMouse]

@Stormcaller Setting aside the good point that @tjekan raised that we don't know exactly how those ads pay out, I am so much more likely to stick around and refresh the AP when it's full of different eggs than I am with a wall. If I click the AP and see a wall of Celestials and some other breed I don't collect or want at the moment, I might refresh once or twice but then I'll find something else to do. If I see a big mix of eggs but nothing I immediately want, I'll refresh for a while to see what shuffles in when someone does grab something. So if the ads do pay for every refresh, then walls might actually be hurting the site's revenue.

[Stormcaller]

19 minutes ago, tjekan said:

We should leave the finer details of the site's finances to TJ,

 

Of course, but that doesn't mean we should ignore it as a factor that effects what we are asking him to do.

 

1 minute ago, GhostMouse said:

So if the ads do pay for every refresh, then walls might actually be hurting the site's revenue.

 

You might well be right.  Also, they might be discouraging to new players which keeps them from staying around.

[darkladyselenity]

1 hour ago, GhostMouse said:

@Stormcaller Setting aside the good point that @tjekan raised that we don't know exactly how those ads pay out, I am so much more likely to stick around and refresh the AP when it's full of different eggs than I am with a wall. If I click the AP and see a wall of Celestials and some other breed I don't collect or want at the moment, I might refresh once or twice but then I'll find something else to do. If I see a big mix of eggs but nothing I immediately want, I'll refresh for a while to see what shuffles in when someone does grab something.

 

I agree with this so much. I never stick around the AP for long if there's a wall.

 

Whatever gets decided, I support, because honestly, doing something is better than leaving things as they are. 

[olympe]

18 hours ago, GhostMouse said:

@Stormcaller Setting aside the good point that @tjekan raised that we don't know exactly how those ads pay out, I am so much more likely to stick around and refresh the AP when it's full of different eggs than I am with a wall. If I click the AP and see a wall of Celestials and some other breed I don't collect or want at the moment, I might refresh once or twice but then I'll find something else to do. If I see a big mix of eggs but nothing I immediately want, I'll refresh for a while to see what shuffles in when someone does grab something. So if the ads do pay for every refresh, then walls might actually be hurting the site's revenue.

This, unfortunately, is very, very true. If there's a wall of 1-2 breeds I don't want to collect, I won't refresh more than a handful of times. Then, I'm off doing something else.

[random_dragon_collector]

Is it my imagination?  Or do the walls hit on weekends a lot?  Blacktips today--didn't we have a wall last weekend?  Hard to remember with new release.

[Stormcaller]

3 hours ago, random_dragon_collector said:

Is it my imagination?  Or do the walls hit on weekends a lot?  Blacktips today--didn't we have a wall last weekend?  Hard to remember with new release.

 

I'm pretty sure you're right.  Saturdays have been walls lately.

[random_dragon_collector]

And just when you'd like to hang around in the AP so that you can gather festival eggs comes the celestial egg wall...sigh...maybe this well be a quick one--

Edited April 12, 2020 by random_dragon_collector

[Fuzzbucket]

I see no wall.....

[Chaosdawn]

13 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

I see no wall.....

 

I saw it, was a quick one.

[subwoofer]

Yep, the wall was there briefly.

[meeps114]

I could do with never seeing another celestial wall

[Fuzzbucket]

Well, if it was that short - surely no biggie ?

[snoesiepoes]

@Ladylizard I have another suggestion that might help RIGHT NOW, because

1. it lets everybody who really wants to breed more eggs, breed more eggs

2. anyone who wants to breed specific eggs to gift to ap, let them,

3. it's not a HUGE implementation, code-wise

 

My suggestion for now, is to make abandoning, a MANUAL action.

I see a lot of people thinking now "but it IS a manual action 🤔". But actually, when it comes to walls, it's NOT a manual action anymore. Because once you own 8 eggs (or total limit), the eggs abandon AUTOMATICALLY. Making it so much easier for the people who go "hahaah! Let's block the AP with MY eggs 😁😁😁".

Because when they are locked, they could breed 1 more clutch wich would get a "you have too many eggs, choose ...keep... or it will abandon...5h..." message. After this clutch you would get a "first abandon clutch..." message.

 

And yes, it would put limit on a certain playstyle. But only a small one. Because if they really insist on breeding for no other purpose then to send eggs to the AP page, it gives just that little extra action: abandon eggs.

 

As for "but then I can't breed to gift randomly". Yes, you would be able to still gift randomly to the AP, if the eggs are treated like a multiple clutch. You choose wich egg you want to abandon. In this case, every time you breed OVER your limit. Also there would be a limit on that, for 1 clutch. Because otherwise they would still just breed untill there are 500 eggs on the scroll that would be simultaniously abandoned after 5h.

 

Personally I vote for a certain nr of eggs per breeder. I think that's the best middle way.

Edited June 26, 2020 by snoesiepoes
For clarification

[snoesiepoes]

Also, in stead of discussing, wouldn't it be easy enough to set up a poll on the ap to see more oppinions?

AP, because not everybody reads the forums.

[Fuzzbucket]

When there were polls on the cave way back when, they didn't really work; that's why they were abandoned. And TJ said ages ago that he doesn't value polls as they are never representative and he'd rather see what people are thinking. (I wish I could FIND that post again; then I'd bookmark it !)

 

Oh wow...

 

 

 

Edited June 26, 2020 by Fuzzbucket