Abandoned Page Compendium - Display Suggestions

[olympe]

@VixenDra I'm confused by your statement. Could you clarify?

 

Personally, I prefer to display only a limited number of eggs per breeder - and 12 is way too high a number. We already have situations where one wall follows upon another in short order, and such a situation could already wall off 2/3 of the AP. It's not a stretch to imagine people easily being able to convince two other players to mass-breed at the same time as them in order to bring down AP times or whatever their motiviation for creating walls may be.

I think 6 is a generous amount that'll alert us all to the possibility of a wall behind those 6 same-breed eggs in a row, and do so at one glance. Although, personally, I'd still prefer 3. 

 

Also, if there is a row, we'll eventually see that there's a row of eggs with timers that are distincly lower than the timers of the other eggs, as wall eggs don't get displayed exclusively any more and no-one will be forced to only pick up those. So, the eggs sitting hidden behind the 6 displayed wall eggs will go down in time because they cannot be picked up until their older brethren found a home.

[tjekan]

14 minutes ago, VixenDra said:

I swear I'll just breed rares

 

Hahaha good luck with that.

 

Seriously, the reason most people massbreed in the first place is that the ratios make it IMPOSSIBLE to breed just rares. A wall of rares does not, and can not, exist. That's not even part of this discussion.

 

Anyway, none of these suggestions would seal lower-time eggs of yours behind higher-time eggs of yours, so there would be zero chance of your gold eggs dying while your common eggs lived. By the 5-eggs-per-breeder idea, if the gold eggs had lower time than the commons, THEY would be the ones showing. By the 5-eggs-per-breed idea, 5 of each would show.

I'd place a bet on it that no eggs will die from any of these methods anyway, because people are so attracted to extremely ER eggs and hatchlings. But if any eggs do die, then it'll be because hundreds, maybe even thousands of users looked at them on the main AP page and unanimously decided not to take them. If people breed eggs that are that undesirable, that's on them.

[Fiona]

I did think about @VixenDra's play style and how that would be affected by filtering by breeder. I think she's a less common pattern than most breeders.

 

I don't think the "failed to raise the dragon" eggs you have have anything to do with the state of the AP, nor would any of the proposed changes affect that much. Eggs are often picked up by newbies who don't take care of them, or careless people who forget about them. But yours is a valid argument. That kind of thing was behind my idea of only stacking eggs from a breeder if they're all the same breed. You aren't contributing to the problem of all the eggs being one breed. However, that aspect of the suggestion is more complex than simply only displaying X (3 to what, 12?) by any one breeder. It may be more work than is warranted.

[sashocirrione]

I did have another thought on #2, limit breeding per scroll. What if breeding large numbers of anything had "mass breeding slots" that you would use up, like freezing slots or kill slots, and then have to wait two weeks for more slots to show up?

 

For example, here's one way it might be worked out: more than 500 breeds in one week (holiday breeding would not count) will use up a "mass breeding slot". You only have two "mass breeding slots" to use before your per-scroll limit drops to 100 per week (once again, holiday breeding would not count in this 100). After two weeks of being limited to 100 breedings per week, both of your mass breeding slots would pop up again, and you could go as wild as you wanted for another two weeks. This way, one breeder's eggs could only dominate the AP half the month, or possibly every other week, depending on that player's choices. In order to encourage trading and gifting, let's say that eggs don't count for the 500 total until AP'ed. And, of course, any breeding resulting in a refusal, a lack of interest, or no egg would not count towards the 500 either. Conversely, a clutch of 4 eggs produced by breeding with a Celestial would count as 4 breedings, to keep people from using Celestials to get around the limit.

 

For a different example, here's a different way it could be set up: breeding more than 100 eggs of one species during a week would result in a message like this: "Your [ species's name here] dragons have been exhausted by your breeding requests and need to rest." After which, for a week or two, the chances of a "lack of interest" when breeding dragons of that species would go up to something pretty high like 75%. Then, after the "rest" period, you would get your "mass breeding" slot for that species back. Once again, holiday eggs would not count, and to encourage breeding and trading, eggs would only count toward the 100-egg limit once they had been AP'd. Also, similar to the first way I worked out for this type of thing to work, breeding would be unlimited for the week during which you broke the limit, so you could go wild with as much breeding as you wanted for a certain amount of time before being limited for a certain amount of time.

 

Or, there could be some other "breeding limit per scroll" solution roughly based on one of the two above, but with numbers tweaked and details worked out differently. In any case, this would avoid having a permanent breeding limit per scroll, because a certain amount of unlimited breeding is contained within the concept of having "mass breeding slots" that can be used up per scroll and eventually return, either overall across all species, or per species.

[HeatherMarie]

I think 6 would be a perfectly reasonable number, but no lower. 6 eggs of one breeder/breed at a time still gives the majority of the AP for 'other' eggs. 

[tjekan]

32 minutes ago, Fiona said:

II don't think the "failed to raise the dragon" eggs you have have anything to do with the state of the AP, nor would any of the proposed changes affect that much.

 

I think that's true. It's always been the mantra on DC that you can't control what people do with your eggs once they leave your scrolls. Being turned into vampires or zombies, killed, frozen, given awful names, or just forgotten about and dying is something we risk whenever we breed and drop something. I think it will continue happening exactly the same regardless of WHAT happens with the AP. I suppose the only way to really be sure of avoiding that is to line up an adopter yourself who agrees to continue your lineage properly.

 

I can't see how your eggs being presented 3 or 5 or 6 at a time would change that, though. People looking for fodder would still grab them to bite/kill/freeze either way. Newbies who don't know what they're doing would still pick them up and let them die either way. And as I said earlier, they couldn't possibly run out of time and die unseen on the AP this way--the only thing in front of them would be your own other eggs, which would necessarily be lower-time than they are, so if those eggs are alive to block them, your other eggs would still be alive as well.

Edited November 13, 2019 by tjekan

[Uther_Pendragon]

Mass breeding slots is interesting, but it looks like it still could result in long, one-breed walls happening quite often, possibly daily, depending on who's breeding what, which is where we are now.

 

It sounds like VixenDra, you breed similar to how TerraFreaky does, not all one breed all at the same time. Those don't seem to block the AP like one-breed mass breeds do, as Fiona states.

so the quotey thing is acting weirdly for me, so:

I'm giving nods to Olympe and Fiona's posts up there ^^ very well sums up how I feel.

[tjekan]

I'm still not seeing the downside to only 5 (or 3, or 6, or whatever number) eggs of one breeder showing at once. If the eggs are all of different breeds and nice lineage, they will be picked up more quickly and new eggs by that breeder will take their place. If they are all inbred mints, they will probably sit there till they reach ER time and then be picked up a batch at a time, but in the meantime everyone will have been able to hunt while they wait rather than having to just go away and come back when the wall was lower-time.

 

It would be a win-win really.

[VixenDra]

52 minutes ago, tjekan said:

 

Hahaha good luck with that.

 

Seriously, the reason most people massbreed in the first place is that the ratios make it IMPOSSIBLE to breed just rares. A wall of rares does not, and can not, exist. That's not even part of this discussion.

 

Anyway, none of these suggestions would seal lower-time eggs of yours behind higher-time eggs of yours, so there would be zero chance of your gold eggs dying while your common eggs lived. By the 5-eggs-per-breeder idea, if the gold eggs had lower time than the commons, THEY would be the ones showing. By the 5-eggs-per-breed idea, 5 of each would show.
 

 

You took my words out of context and gave them a new, nonsesical meaning I never spoke. I refuse to partake in this subforum exactly because of people like that.

I wrote that I will breed my rares last, so they are always hidden by all the common breeds I breed, i just wasn't sure how to breed them to hide them behind my commons because I was in too muhc of a ush, now I see commons need to be bred first so they have lower time than the rares I breed, to to get my rares, people need to first take my commons.

Please stop putting things into my mouth...

 

 

Also, what I was saying is that I breed 1 pair per breed and variant. All variants. and I fail to see why I should be anyhow limited and what kind of harm my scroll-wide breedings do.. except for taking my time.

Edited November 13, 2019 by VixenDra

[Uther_Pendragon]

VixenDra, I don't see it as putting words in your mouth, more as confusion to what you were suggesting. I admit I was confused at first, as I could read it more than one way, until Fiona clarified your point on this page.

 

Each view presented here is valid, because every person appears to play the same game in a large variety of ways.

 

 

[olympe]

1 hour ago, VixenDra said:

I wrote that I will breed my rares last, so they are always hidden by all the common breeds I breed,[snip] to get my rares, people need to first take my commons.

Who cares? Nobody will even know there are rares hidden behind your commons. 

 

Besides... With rare stuff being hidden behind the commons, the following thing applies: The early bird catches the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. And, in this simile, the rares are the cheese. You need someone else - or rather, a lot of others - to sacrifice scroll space in order to reach the rares. So, picking the commons up yourself is not going to work in your favor.

Edited November 13, 2019 by olympe

[tjekan]

26 minutes ago, VixenDra said:

 

You took my words out of context and gave them a new, nonsesical meaning I never spoke. I refuse to partake in this subforum exactly because of people like that.

I wrote that I will breed my rares last, so they are always hidden by all the common breeds I breed, i just wasn't sure how to breed them to hide them behind my commons because I was in too muhc of a ush, now I see commons need to be bred first so they have lower time than the rares I breed, to to get my rares, people need to first take my commons.

Please stop putting things into my mouth...

 

I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be mean. Nuance is fairly easily lost online. I thought the smiley face would show I was trying to be funny, not insulting, but apparently I guessed wrong.

 

However, the point I made was actually an accurate one. Other than the humorously intended comment about good luck just breeding rares, nothing else was taking your words out of context. If you did manage to breed a bunch of commons first and a bunch of rares second--though in truth the ratios really do make that nearly impossible--but if it did happen, then still your rare eggs could not die because of it, because they would always have higher time than the commons which were still alive.

 

Except for the holiday walls, which none of these suggestions would resemble at all, the only way for an egg to die on the AP would be if it actually sat on the front page of the AP without anyone taking it till it got all the way down to 0 hours. Every single person who visited the AP for days would have to take a pass on it, despite it being instant-hatchable in less than an hour on AoND. I can't even imagine an egg undesirable enough for that to happen.

Edited November 13, 2019 by tjekan

[Uther_Pendragon]

And, we already don't know what's coming up next in the AP, which, at least to me, is part of the fun of hunting there. You never know what surprises may pop up. (Besides the reasons of my molasses internet speeds, and others I stated previously)

 

I'd still dislike a wall of all rares, if it lasted for hours to days at a time, and having the ap controlled by one person, if it's happening more than once in a while.

 

[LadyLyzar]

Hey.  Tone it down.

 

How I envisioned the "3 eggs per breeder" was that it would ONLY come into play if a breeder has more than 3 eggs in the lowest timed 30.  The AP would always be primarily sorted by time left.

 

3, of course, is negotiable.  However I think 10% of the visible eggs is a fair percentage of shared space for a large userbase.

 

CBs would sort independently.

 

[Uther_Pendragon]

^^^Agreed!

 

 

[TJ09]

14 hours ago, Ruby Eyes said:

I think it really depends on how high that limit is.

If it were, say, max. 24 eggs, that would leave 6 eggs from other sources and thus break any overly solid wall while still prominently displaying the current majority-building group of eggs.

 

I think 24 eggs isn't aggressive enough--given the distribution I mentioned in my post, only providing a guarantee that you'll see at least two peoples' eggs on the AP halves the problem. But it doesn't seem terrible to start with a (relatively) smaller change and see if it feels better before doing even more.

 

8 hours ago, tjekan said:

I do think there's a large inherent difference between a glitch, which accidentally withheld breeders' eggs beyond the time users wanted them, and an intentional mechanic, which would distribute breeders' eggs at the rate users DO want them.

 

In the case of eggs with desirable lineages that people care about influencing, they will get picked up at a steady clip and not suffer from that problem. I mean, you know, the first 5 Thuweds will get picked right up, and 5 more will immediately appear--they will never become severely ER. In the case of a wall of inbred mints, those will probably indeed drop down to uninfluencable ER times, but that's a GOOD thing, because then people will be less unwilling to take them and the gender of an inbred mint hatchling is not relevant to most people in the first place.

 

I think you're misunderstanding my point. Eggs dropping down to uninfluencable times was the biggest complaint before--low time eggs are good, but uninfluenceable eggs actually drop off in value to many people. If a "wall" of eggs is condensed far enough that they aren't picked up fast enough before they drop too low in time, that's potentially bad; slowing things down is the explicit goal, but also a problem when taken too far.

 

I agree it's not a 100% analog, but it does demonstrate that there's a fair amount of nuance.

 

6 hours ago, Confused Cat said:

But what if a massbreeder has friends and asks them to breed their armies at the same time?"

Then that happens, and we get a wall. What if we set the limit to 3, but they have 9 friends? I think we should just find a reasonable way to alleviate the problem, not try to get rid of it completely.

 

The likelihood of that happening is much much lower than the likelihood of one or two or three people doing it (either in coordination or not). I don't think we need to hold out for a perfect solution that completely prevents the possibility of a "wall" from ever hitting the AP; moving things in the right direction should go a long way.

 

3 hours ago, sashocirrione said:

I did have another thought on #2, limit breeding per scroll. What if breeding large numbers of anything had "mass breeding slots" that you would use up, like freezing slots or kill slots, and then have to wait two weeks for more slots to show up?

 

There's a big difference between breeding 500 eggs over the course of a week and breeding 500 eggs in rapid succession. Limits on breeding would have a hard time differentiating those.

But this nonetheless amounts to the "don't let people mass-breed" suggestion that has received pretty thorough disagreement, because the eggs eventually do get picked up, so we probably don't want to stop them from being abandoned to begin with.

 

1 hour ago, LadyLyzar said:

3, of course, is negotiable.  However I think 10% of the visible eggs is a fair percentage of shared space for a large userbase.

 

Three eggs doesn't sound like much, but framing it as "10% of the visible eggs" does definitely present a different perspective.

If I do anything, though, I'd probably start with a higher number and slowly tweak it downwards, as mentioned above.

[olympe]

47 minutes ago, TJ09 said:

Three eggs doesn't sound like much, but framing it as "10% of the visible eggs" does definitely present a different perspective.

If I do anything, though, I'd probably start with a higher number and slowly tweak it downwards, as mentioned above.

That sounds like a very reasonable approach. And - if 3 turns out to be too low - scale it upwards again. Even if we had all the numbers, it'd be hard to predict what would happen - there are just too many variables.

[purplehaze]

Thanks TJ, for your comments and your consideration of the best way to handle this.

 

I think limiting the number displayed per breeder seems to be the most agreed-on proposal and is definitely my favorite. I do think 3 eggs is too few, though. I believe that 6 is a far more reasonable number, but as you say it may need to be tweaked no matter what number it starts with. It is hard to predict how it will all work itself out.

[Uther_Pendragon]

Thanks from me as well, TJ!

 

And also, thank you to everyone else who's been discussing this. I appreciate getting to see things from different perspectives.

[StormBirdRising]

23 hours ago, LadyLyzar said:

1. Do nothing. 
2. Limit breeding per scroll. 
3. Limit the number of eggs one breeder has displayed. 
4. Limit the amount of eggs of one breed being displayed. 
5. A way to filter what you see in the AP.
6. Paginate the AP
7. Split the AP into biomes

 

 

I like all of the suggestions except Number 1, Number 2, and Number 7. I don't like Number 1 because there is a problem with just one breed being displayed for hours and hours and sometimes a whole day, no matter how they got there, it is disruptive to gameplay and needs to be remedied. I don't like Number 2 because it would have a chilling effect on players who love to breed their dragons.

Between Number 3 and Number 4, I like Number 4 better because the blockage and frustration is caused by the same breed of egg being available exclusively and not by the breeder, so I think limiting the amount of one breed is the better option.

I love the idea of a filter in Number 5. It could be a drop down like the one in the trading hub. If a player is looking to play the Alt Black lotto they can pull down the breed list and see if Black eggs are available and scoop them up. As far as Number 6 goes I never thought about pagination for the AP, but it really would be fabulous to see the whole selection of available eggs at one time and choose the ones you want.

Number 7, I can't even imagine how that would work and I just envision a nightmare of refreshing the page to see what's available next.

 

So, what I would like to see implemented is Number 4, Number 5, and Number 6.

[Emerald01]

This doesn't suggest a direct change to the AP, but possible ways to help alleviate the AP issues.  I don't know how feasible these things are within the site. These are just my initial thoughts on how to, hopefully, reduce the number of abandoned eggs without limiting breeders.

 

1. Incentivize grabbing AP eggs with the monthly raffle.  That is a very temporary solution, mind, but could still be beneficial.
2. Allow for extra egg slots to be available specifically for eggs taken from the AP.
3. Bring back the extra slot(s) available for bred eggs to perhaps get fewer abandoned eggs.  Again, I know it's not a lot of difference, but I feel every bit counts.
4. I can't quite tell if it is still possible to get multiple eggs from one breeding.  If it is possible, and the breeder has the egg slots available, allow the breeder to keep all bred eggs up to the limit.

 

 

[purplehaze]

48 minutes ago, Emerald01 said:

This doesn't suggest a direct change to the AP, but possible ways to help alleviate the AP issues.  I don't know how feasible these things are within the site. These are just my initial thoughts on how to, hopefully, reduce the number of abandoned eggs without limiting breeders.

 

1. Incentivize grabbing AP eggs with the monthly raffle.  That is a very temporary solution, mind, but could still be beneficial.
2. Allow for extra egg slots to be available specifically for eggs taken from the AP.
3. Bring back the extra slot(s) available for bred eggs to perhaps get fewer abandoned eggs.  Again, I know it's not a lot of difference, but I feel every bit counts.
4. I can't quite tell if it is still possible to get multiple eggs from one breeding.  If it is possible, and the breeder has the egg slots available, allow the breeder to keep all bred eggs up to the limit.

 

 

Unfortunately I don't see any of these having enough effect to be worth the change.

1. Might have some effect for one or two days a month and at least doesn't change any game mechanics, but unlikely to help much and would be pretty boring as a raffle entry requirement if done every month.

2. How many egg slots would we have to add to really have any effect? Also sort of rewards one play style over another.

3. Most of the mass breedings are done with the specific goal of dropping eggs to the AP. They are not eggs the breeder wants to keep.

4. Same as above. And the only breeds that allow multi-clutching are Celestials and holiday breeds during their own holiday season.

[Tawanda001]

20 hours ago, TJ09 said:

There's a big difference between breeding 500 eggs over the course of a week and breeding 500 eggs in rapid succession. Limits on breeding would have a hard time differentiating those.

But this nonetheless amounts to the "don't let people mass-breed" suggestion that has received pretty thorough disagreement, because the eggs eventually do get picked up, so we probably don't want to stop them from being abandoned to begin with.

 

Would it be possible to 'slow down' breeding? We have the wait limits on killing, freezing, abandoning freshly caught eggs, etc. Couldn't the same principle be applied to breeding? If you breed x amount of eggs in a specified period some kind of cool down comes into play. It wouldn't have the ability to stop breeding but it would require more effort as more eggs were bred.

[Emerald01]

47 minutes ago, purplehaze said:

Unfortunately I don't see any of these having enough effect to be worth the change.

1. Might have some effect for one or two days a month and at least doesn't change any game mechanics, but unlikely to help much and would be pretty boring as a raffle entry requirement if done every month.

2. How many egg slots would we have to add to really have any effect? Also sort of rewards one play style over another.

3. Most of the mass breedings are done with the specific goal of dropping eggs to the AP. They are not eggs the breeder wants to keep.

4. Same as above. And the only breeds that allow multi-clutching are Celestials and holiday breeds during their own holiday season.

I know that the impact would be relatively small, but it might be enough to ease things a little?  And no, I wouldn't want that to be a raffle requirement every month, which is why I know that would be a very temporary help. I'm sort of an "every bit helps" kind of person.

Thanks for clarifying on the multiple eggs situation.  Curious that Celestials are exempt.

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

35 minutes ago, Tawanda001 said:

Would it be possible to 'slow down' breeding? We have the wait limits on killing, freezing, abandoning freshly caught eggs, etc. Couldn't the same principle be applied to breeding? If you breed x amount of eggs in a specified period some kind of cool down comes into play. It wouldn't have the ability to stop breeding but it would require more effort as more eggs were bred.

 

I think any suggestion that limits how frequently breeders can breed will likely be shut down, but I could support this tbh. I suppose it could have its issues, such as if someone wants to breed immediately for a trade and can't do so for another x hours, then they could miss out on the trade they've been searching for, etc. Perhaps a limit could kick in after breeding 100 eggs or so, but like I say, suggestions of this sort probably won't be received very well ^^;

 

I'm still in favour of Lyz's suggestion as it still seems easiest - only showing 3 eggs per breeder.