Abandoned Page Compendium - Display Suggestions

[_DeadPool_]

13 minutes ago, Shadowdrake said:

I'm not sure why this would be a problem?  Someone breeding their scroll would be contributing to the ap in a visibly varied way, unlike walls which will usually end up catering to only the few people who want the breed. Mixed "walls" will usually vanish far faster than equivalent-length single-breed common walls.

This. Unless people actually care who the dragons come from, at which point thats a little extra picky, imo.

[tjekan]

16 hours ago, _DeadPool_ said:

Massbreeding is fun for a lot of people. Negatively affecting their gameplay because someone else wants to see more pretty colors in the AP all the time seems a silly reason to change how people can breed or how their eggs are shown. 

 

Limiting people from massbreeding was only one of the suggestions in the original post, and was probably the least popular. Very unlikely that's going to be happening.

 

Changing how their eggs are shown, on the other hand, won't impinge on their ability to have fun breeding their dragons at all, and will increase the fun of other users significantly. There's nothing "silly" about that!

[HeatherMarie]

9 hours ago, olympe said:

I think this needs to depend on the actual numbers. If one breeder has up to 3 spots in the AP, I wouldn't mind them getting 3 extra spots for a 2nd breed - or even 3 more for a third breed. But even so, I think there needs to be an upper limit for each breeder, or people who breed their whole scroll will still be able to dominate/block the AP for a long time.

 

However, if each player could have 15 spots in the AP (=50% of what's visible), I don't think they should get another 15 spots for a second breed they bred - or they'd just block the whole AP with only two breeds.

 

Idea for a compromise:

What if every player could have up to 6 spots (= 20% of the AP), but no more than 3 per breed? So, if someone breeds only one breed, the eggs will only show up in three allotted spots. If someone else breeds 2+ breeds, the eggs will show up in 6 spots. Maybe even make it so that, if there are more than 3 breeds involved in a wall (bred by one player), there are only ever 2 eggs of the same breed shown at once...

 

I feel like this is getting into the 'too complicated, math' territory that TJ always says to steer clear of. I really don't see any reason to make it so complicated. The issue people get so upset about is one-breed-walls affecting the AP for hours and hours.... So put the limit on the breed, give a specific number, and be done with it. Limit of 6 (or 10, or whatever) eggs of one breed showing at once. 

 

 

4 hours ago, Shadowdrake said:

I'm not sure why this would be a problem?  Someone breeding their scroll would be contributing to the ap in a visibly varied way, unlike walls which will usually end up catering to only the few people who want the breed. Mixed "walls" will usually vanish far faster than equivalent-length single-breed common walls.

 

Very much agree here. It feels like that is once again steering into the 'limit breeders' territory... The *walls* are the problem. Breeders sending 20+ eggs of different breeds and different lineages is not the issue people get upset about. I don't think I've *ever* seen people complaining 'there are 10 different breeds in the AP but all by the same breeder and that's not fair'. (Full disclosure, I believe I *have* complained about something similar, but only in a 'these are all 2nd-gens no messies to be found' type of way!)

 

 

 

[Fuzzbucket]

8 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

I feel like this is getting into the 'too complicated, math' territory that TJ always says to steer clear of. I really don't see any reason to make it so complicated. The issue people get so upset about is one-breed-walls affecting the AP for hours and hours.... So put the limit on the breed, give a specific number, and be done with it. Limit of 6 (or 10, or whatever) eggs of one breed showing at once. 

 

Very much agree here. It feels like that is once again steering into the 'limit breeders' territory... The *walls* are the problem. Breeders sending 20+ eggs of different breeds and different lineages is not the issue people get upset about. I don't think I've *ever* seen people complaining 'there are 10 different breeds in the AP but all by the same breeder and that's not fair'. (Full disclosure, I believe I *have* complained about something similar, but only in a 'these are all 2nd-gens no messies to be found' type of way!)

 

Yes put a limit on eggs showing from one breeder. NO to a limit on breeds in general. If a load of different breeders all breed mints on one day and 42's mints are among them I don't want their mints hidden because of the other breeders.

Edited November 27, 2019 by Fuzzbucket

[StormBirdRising]

I am totally 100% opposed to limiting a player's ability to breed their dragons. We are supposed to be able to play the game any way we want as long as we follow the established rules and limiting breeding is not one of those rules. The remedy to the walls is to tweak the AP. My remedy would be to have 2 APs. After a certain amount of eggs coming from one scroll and from one breed, which would have to be established regarding the amount, the eggs should auto abandon to the second AP. Players can check both APs to find the eggs they are hunting for and no player would have to deal with a wall of eggs that lasts for hours and sometimes days if there is one wall after another. That remedy can only enhance game play for all players.

 

[_DeadPool_]

3 hours ago, StormBirdRising said:

I am totally 100% opposed to limiting a player's ability to breed their dragons. We are supposed to be able to play the game any way we want as long as we follow the established rules and limiting breeding is not one of those rules. The remedy to the walls is to tweak the AP. My remedy would be to have 2 APs. After a certain amount of eggs coming from one scroll and from one breed, which would have to be established regarding the amount, the eggs should auto abandon to the second AP. Players can check both APs to find the eggs they are hunting for and no player would have to deal with a wall of eggs that lasts for hours and sometimes days if there is one wall after another. That remedy can only enhance game play for all players.

 

Would this second AP be disabled for events like Halloween or Christmas? I like the idea of everyone seeing the same stuff all the time - it limits the whole "wrong place wrong time" or "right place right time" thing. I already miss Thuweds, Prizes, and other nice stuff because of work and school I don't want to possibly miss a whole other set of stuff because of a second AP.

[tjekan]

6 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 

Yes put a limit on eggs showing from one breeder. NO to a limit on breeds in general. If a load of different breeders all breed mints on one day and 42's mints are among them I don't want their mints hidden because of the other breeders.

 

I agree with this. I'd be worried about the eggs of one breeder being stuck behind such a large amount of unwanted eggs by another that they would drop down below influenceable time and they would have no way to control it.

 

If the only eggs ahead of yours in the display queue are your OWN eggs, you have control of the situation. You can breed eggs whose gender matters to you first, and PBs or messies afterwards. Or you can stagger your breeding. If other people's eggs get ahead of yours in a queue you'd just be at the whim of other people's actions.

 

Because there is so little inconvenience to a breeder from a display change that affects their own eggs only, I dont think any additional complications are necessary. Just 3 or 4 or 5 eggs by each breeder at a time. Simple and fair to everyone.

[purplehaze]

3 hours ago, tjekan said:

 

I agree with this. I'd be worried about the eggs of one breeder being stuck behind such a large amount of unwanted eggs by another that they would drop down below influenceable time and they would have no way to control it.

 

If the only eggs ahead of yours in the display queue are your OWN eggs, you have control of the situation. You can breed eggs whose gender matters to you first, and PBs or messies afterwards. Or you can stagger your breeding. If other people's eggs get ahead of yours in a queue you'd just be at the whim of other people's actions.

 

Because there is so little inconvenience to a breeder from a display change that affects their own eggs only, I dont think any additional complications are necessary. Just 3 or 4 or 5 eggs by each breeder at a time. Simple and fair to everyone.

Exactly. I think a per breed limit would adversely affect people who have nothing to do with AP walls.

[StormBirdRising]

21 hours ago, _DeadPool_ said:

Would this second AP be disabled for events like Halloween or Christmas? I like the idea of everyone seeing the same stuff all the time - it limits the whole "wrong place wrong time" or "right place right time" thing. I already miss Thuweds, Prizes, and other nice stuff because of work and school I don't want to possibly miss a whole other set of stuff because of a second AP.

 

My idea is that there would be 2 APs all the time, with one of them taking the overage from whatever the breed limit is for auto abandoned or abandoned eggs. For example, if the limit is four eggs to the first AP and a player breeds fifty eggs, the first four go to one AP and the next forty six go to the second AP. And players would be able to see both APs by clicking on "take one of these" (it would be there twice, two links, one to the first AP and one to the second AP) from the "The Cave" page. So players could either go to the individual biomes to hunt, or to either of the APs to hunt, and if nothing good is in there, then just go to the other one.

Players never see the same eggs at the same time because we are never all in the Caves at the same time. So we would all see what was available when we go hunting if we are on at the same time. There would just be two APs instead of just one.

I am actually in favor of anything that will prevent walls. I think my idea would be the easiest to implement.

[Fuzzbucket]

I think a limit on the number of eggs SHOWING per breeder is much the easiest; TJ has said it can be done, and I really don't see how a second AP would help at all.

[Confused Cat]

I hope TJ will implement the "only [number] of eggs shown per breeder" thing soon because it's beginning to feel like we're repeating the same ideas and opinions over and over again here.

... Which is probably not a good reason to do something as opposed to doing nothing, but if something has to be done, then I hope it will be that.

 

(I'm probably also repeating myself: I prefer a breeder limit over a breed limit because it would also solve the - less visible, but equally annoying - problem of "messy lineage walls", "boring 2nd gen walls", "boring checker lineages bred by a confused cat walls", and whatever other undesirable effects an AP full of one breeder's eggs can have. Oh, and "aaah why is the AP full of eggs I bred myself, if I wanted these I would have kept them!"   I just wouldn't want it limited to only 3 eggs. 6 - 12 would be good enough to poke holes into the "problematic" walls.)

[HeatherMarie]

4 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

I think a limit on the number of eggs SHOWING per breeder is much the easiest; TJ has said it can be done, and I really don't see how a second AP would help at all.

 

Yeah, I'm not understanding how a second AP would be beneficial at all? If the 2nd AP is just going to be filled with 'extra' wall eggs, which people don't want in the first place (hence this thread...), what would people actually go there for? And why would it be needed at all, all the eggs are eventually going to be shown in the main-AP anyways, as the first ones are picked up. What would the advantage be in creating a new AP for walls when walls are what this thread is trying to fix?

[Stormcaller]

4 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

.... What would the advantage be in creating a new AP for walls when walls are what this thread is trying to fix?

 

While I'm very happy that TJ has acknowledged that there is a problem here, I'm also confident that he will make a good and fair decision about how to resolve it.  I don't have the overall information to judge which of the numerous solutions would be best, but I'd like to put my two cents worth in just to say that I, personally, hate the idea of having multiple APs. As it is, with my slow, old computer, I have a hard time competing for the goodies in the one AP we already have, let alone try to bounce back and forth between two or more of them. That would be just nerve wracking.  Oh please, TJ, don't do that to us!

[wobster109]

The only option I have a strong opinion on is, I’m very opposed to players choosing their AP filters, e.g. a player choosing to see only CBs or only rare breeds. In my opinion that changes the core of what the AP is. It’s an antique mall, where the player has to search. The searching is the fun of it. It’s not a curated collection.

 

However I’m not opposed to filters that are across the board, such as showing only X eggs per breed or parent scroll, for everyone’s view.

 

There is one thing that I wonder about the option to limit what’s shown per scroll. Would those eggs eventually get taken, or would they run out of time and die? For example, @Firefury Amahira breeds hundreds of blacktips at once. It’s an intentional effort to change the population ratios. If the eggs just died, then that would have the practical effect of eliminating that play style. Even though it would still technically be possible to breed those eggs, there wouldn’t be any point.

[purplehaze]

13 minutes ago, wobster109 said:

There is one thing that I wonder about the option to limit what’s shown per scroll. Would those eggs eventually get taken, or would they run out of time and die? For example, @Firefury Amahira breeds hundreds of blacktips at once. It’s an intentional effort to change the population ratios. If the eggs just died, then that would have the practical effect of eliminating that play style. Even though it would still technically be possible to breed those eggs, there wouldn’t be any point.

I think, although it is hard to prove before the change is actually implemented, that once the timer gets to insta-hatchable the eggs will be taken and none will die.

[tjekan]

8 hours ago, wobster109 said:

There is one thing that I wonder about the option to limit what’s shown per scroll. Would those eggs eventually get taken, or would they run out of time and die? For example, @Firefury Amahira breeds hundreds of blacktips at once. It’s an intentional effort to change the population ratios. If the eggs just died, then that would have the practical effect of eliminating that play style. Even though it would still technically be possible to breed those eggs, there wouldn’t be any point.

 

I think that would actually be impossible, not just unlikely. Eggs with less time left would still always show before eggs by the same breeder with more time left, so it wouldn't be possible for lower-time eggs to get stuck behind higher-time eggs and die.

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by tjekan

[olympe]

20 hours ago, wobster109 said:

There is one thing that I wonder about the option to limit what’s shown per scroll. Would those eggs eventually get taken, or would they run out of time and die? For example, @Firefury Amahira breeds hundreds of blacktips at once. It’s an intentional effort to change the population ratios. If the eggs just died, then that would have the practical effect of eliminating that play style. Even though it would still technically be possible to breed those eggs, there wouldn’t be any point.

I guess that's the big question here. Will they be taken or not? I think that, eventually, it boils down to what's available in the AP apart from that blacktip wall, how big that wall actually is and how many people are willing to pick up their eggs. However, Amahira could still breed lots of Blacktips and increase their chances of getting picked up if things go south - all she'd have to do is either breed a smaller amount of dragons each day to spread them out further, and maybe make sure she breeds various lineages that people are willing to pick up - whatever kind of lineage that may be.

 

However, even if the occasional wall dies, all it does it prove that some players are literally abusing the AP (and their fellow players' collective scroll space) to affect the ratios in their favor. Just saying.

[HeatherMarie]

13 hours ago, tjekan said:

 

I think that would actually be impossible, not just unlikely. Eggs with less time left would still always show before eggs by the same breeder with more time left, so it wouldn't be possible for lower-time eggs to get stuck behind higher-time eggs and die.

 

 

This. I'm really struggling to figure out how that would even be possible. So, someone breeds a ton of Blacktips (or whatever) to the AP, but the AP will only show, say, 6 at a time. Theoretically that could mean the top row in the AP is all low-timed Blacktips while the rest are higher-timed others, but since the lowest time is always shown first, the only way a wall would actually lead to the eggs dying would be at the very very end of the wall, when the last few eggs are at the lowest-possible time, if no one picks them up and they just stay sitting in the top row of the AP. From what I've seen over years of hunting the AP, that doesn't seem likely to actually happen at all. Even under-Influencable-timed eggs get picked up eventually. I really can't imagine there would ever be a situation where eggs with only hours left *wouldn't* be picked up.

[wobster109]

 

17 hours ago, tjekan said:

 

I think that would actually be impossible, not just unlikely. Eggs with less time left would still always show before eggs by the same breeder with more time left, so it wouldn't be possible for lower-time eggs to get stuck behind higher-time eggs and die.

 

3 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

This. I'm really struggling to figure out how that would even be possible. So, someone breeds a ton of Blacktips (or whatever) to the AP, but the AP will only show, say, 6 at a time. Theoretically that could mean the top row in the AP is all low-timed Blacktips. . . I really can't imagine there would ever be a situation where eggs with only hours left *wouldn't* be picked up.

 

I'm thinking that there is some threshold where there would be more eggs than people willing (or able!) to take them, like with the Halloween wall where the eggs got down to 18 hours left. People were simply out of slots. I think that next year, there's a good chance it will actually run down to 0. 

 

With the blacktips, let's say 1000 people use the AP each day, but not all of them want blacktips. Some people are willing to take 2. I'm describing myself here, actually. I tend to use 2 of my egg slots for low-time hatching regardless of breed, but I won't take 8 blacktips at once, not even if they were immediately hatchable. So you add up all the blacktips that people have "room" for, and at some point, everyone who looks at the AP would say, "Even though those eggs have 18 hours left, I already have enough, so I'm not interested."

Edited December 5, 2019 by wobster109
typo

[tjekan]

1 hour ago, wobster109 said:

With the blacktips, let's say 1000 people use the AP each day, but not all of them want blacktips. Some people are willing to take 2. I'm describing myself here, actually. I tend to use 2 of my egg slots for low-time hatching regardless of breed, but I won't take 8 blacktips at once, not even if they were immediately hatchable. So you add up all the blacktips that people have "room" for, and at some point, everyone who looks at the AP would say, "Even though those eggs have 18 hours left, I already have enough, so I'm not interested."

 

Presumably there would be SOME number of blacktips for which that would be true, but if so, it would happen with or without an AP fix. If people just rebelled and refused to take any more blacktips no matter whether they were at emergency times or not, then they would die off en masse right now, too.

 

In fact, if somebody managed to breed 10,000 messy commons that all users refused to take, then with the current system, not only would they die, but it would cause the actually wanted eggs waiting behind them to go down below incuhatchable time, which would be a shame. With the proposed fix the excess unwanted eggs would still die under such an extreme scenario, but at least nobody else's eggs would also be ruined by it.

I think that AP fix or no AP fix, though, massbreeders would never reach such an apocalyptic level of egg breeding in the first place-- because breeding past a certain point would stop advancing their goals, so they would never waste their time going past that point!

Edited December 5, 2019 by tjekan

[Firefury Amahira]

Heck, if TJ is willing to do some AP science (and if doing so is at all feasible from an implementation standpoint), let's just test the "show X eggs of Y breed from one player" idea, get some actual sample data on "would a mega-massbreed result in eggs dying behind a breeder display limit?" Absent that, everything is just pure shot in the dark guesswork.

 

I volunteer my blacktip army as tribute. If it's possible to do a test run of the idea with one/a few specific players affected (whether me or some other willing massbreeder), let's do it. Hook me up, I'll unleash one of my 1000+ blacktip x celestial floods (typically yields roughly 1500 blacktip and 500 celestial eggs), see if the change in display kills a bunch of them. FOR SCIENCE! 🤣

[tjekan]

11 minutes ago, Firefury Amahira said:

Heck, if TJ is willing to do some AP science (and if doing so is at all feasible from an implementation standpoint), let's just test the "show X eggs of Y breed from one player" idea, get some actual sample data on "would a mega-massbreed result in eggs dying behind a breeder display limit?" Absent that, everything is just pure shot in the dark guesswork.

 

I volunteer my blacktip army as tribute. If it's possible to do a test run of the idea with one/a few specific players affected (whether me or some other willing massbreeder), let's do it. Hook me up, I'll unleash one of my 1000+ blacktip x celestial floods (typically yields roughly 1500 blacktip and 500 celestial eggs), see if the change in display kills a bunch of them. FOR SCIENCE! 🤣

 

Good idea. We should do it!
If any of them die, the mechanic needs tweaking. It shouldn't be possible for that to happen based on the idea as described. If eggs get trapped in the back of the AP and die there, then it means something isn't working right and needs to be adjusted.

[Confused Cat]

10 hours ago, wobster109 said:

 

So you add up all the blacktips that people have "room" for, and at some point, everyone who looks at the AP would say, "Even though those eggs have 18 hours left, I already have enough, so I'm not interested."

 

I think there are always people who just want hatchlings for freezing to get the next trophy level. And even if nobody has any freeze slots left, there would be users who hatch those blacktips and send them back to the AP. And when they're hatchlings, they will not die. Worst that can happen would be that many of them grow up behind the visible AP eggs (if the AP time is low enough).

 

... Which raises the question: should hatchlings be treated the same as eggs? If for example 300 of @Firefury Amahira's Blacktips are eggs with 3d 12h left, and at the same time 20 from a previous breeding phase (that were hatched and re-abandoned by other users) are 4d 1h hatchlings, should the hatchlings be hidden behind the eggs? They would be if the new mechanism was simply "only [number] things per breeder visible at the same time", and then it's possible those hatchlings grow up without being seen.

I would prefer "only [number] eggs per breeder", because I think nobody would mind a hatchling wall, even if they were all Blacktip and Celestial hatchlings.

 

(If the general AP time - not just the group of eggs from a massbreeding - is below 4 days, of course hatchlings can always grow up before the reach the AP. The new mechanism would not change that. The above is just about not making it worse for hatchlings that were born in a massbreeding.)

[cbussiere]

I think the AP is fine as it is. Still don't understand why "come back later" isn't a viable option if there's a wall and you don't want wall eggs. I don't see why anything about the AP should be guaranteed, and I like it as an unregulated dumping ground.

 

Very against splitting the AP in any way. That would slow the whole thing down by splitting the active users, and depending on if it were done with pages/filters/etc, would either accomplish nothing or be open to abuse.

 

Against breeding limits, as I'm generally in favor of player freedom. Even if a player's mass-breeding influences ratios, I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to do that.

 

If limiting which eggs are shown causes some eggs to die - I think that's fine. When you abandon an egg, you're accepting that anything may happen to it.

 

If we're going to regulate the AP, I think the best option is to limit how many eggs can be shown from one breeder. Limiting by species is similar, but I think many people enjoy community massbreeds. Limiting by breeder would prevent walls caused by one person, which seem to cause most of the frustration, but still let multiple users make a red/pink wall before a holiday if they want. Walls could still happen, but only if multiple people were on board with it, which I think is less about disproportionate influence and more like a community event.

[Stormcaller]

IMHO, this might be a good time to get this thread going again...

 

As much as I enjoyed the Holiday AP,  I was ready to get back to normal once it was over.  Unfortunately, someone thought what should have was a wall of Black Tips and Celestials.  I don't know just when it started, but it was up when I came online this morning and it's going on midnight now and it's still going strong.  Give me a break!