Abandoned Page Compendium - Display Suggestions

[Lullakai]

Day 2 of the Blacktip/Celestial wall. 🙄 I don't mind walls that last a few hours but when it crosses 24+ hours, it's just a big pile of no thank you. I'm all for limiting the amount of eggs from one breeder being displayed. Let people breed what they want, when they want, but not at the cost of blocking off part of the game for other players.

[asutoro]

dang, is this huge is massbreed pretty unnecessary. what an amazing start of the year! 😕 

Edited January 3, 2020 by asutoro
added "is" rhee

[olympe]

Ditto. Please do something about this, TJ!

I wouldn't be averse to actually take some Blacktips or Celestials, but I have absolutely no use for those messy lineages. God, why can't we go back to the days of eggs killed by EQ not counting towards your scroll limits?

[HeatherMarie]

(Now that I know there are messies in this wall, I'm combing through it to see what I can take!) Even I have to admit that this wall is excessive. Still 100% against anything that limits breeder's play, but a limit on eggs-by-breeder displayed is seeming more and more useful.

[OMGitsKairi]

6 hours ago, olympe said:

God, why can't we go back to the days of eggs killed by EQ not counting towards your scroll limits?

This is a whole mood. 

 

It's been at least two days. At which point does it become okay for the (likely single) breeder's play supercede that of the other nearly 400 players online at the time of this post?

Edited January 4, 2020 by OMGitsKairi

[RAAMIsABeast]

One thing you have to take into account for the walls length is the time the AP was at when it hit, which was at the same time I had seen reports of 6 day eggs occasionally popping up.

 

Which thus means, the eggs were not incuhatchable when they hit. 

 

Now they are, and so will the eggs behind them.

 

In my opinion, an amazing start to the year! Especially if the eggs go under 4 days, but stay over 3. Instant hatchies with no use of incubates. 

 

One can tell I like walls, but I understand some people (or the more vocal ones in this thread) do not. Limiting visible eggs by breeder seems the best option, which will of course need live testing to find the sweet spot between too much and too little.

 

Anyway, have a good day all and enjoy the low time eggs afterward! 🙂

[olympe]

21 minutes ago, RAAMIsABeast said:

One thing you have to take into account for the walls length is the time the AP was at when it hit, which was at the same time I had seen reports of 6 day eggs occasionally popping up.

 

Which thus means, the eggs were not incuhatchable when they hit. 

 

Now they are, and so will the eggs behind them.

And guess why the AP was full of high-time eggs? Because there were very few low-time eggs available. Most people tend to not breed eggs as long as the holiday wall is still ongoing.

[Stormcaller]

It is nice to have incuhatchable eggs, but not at the cost of the loss of two days of game playing.  This also means there is an ongoing gap in game play due to the fact that there will be no maturing hatchlings for this period of time.  Well, except of course, if you like to collect overbred Black Tips and Celestials

[tjekan]

2 hours ago, RAAMIsABeast said:

In my opinion, an amazing start to the year! Especially if the eggs go under 4 days, but stay over 3. Instant hatchies with no use of incubates.

🙂

 

It's only amazing if other people do all the work for you. That is to say, if you spend those 2-3 days happily breeding your own stuff and ignoring the wall until some other put-upon players bite the bullet and pick up the unwanted stuff, enabling you to swoop in behind them and pick up lower-time stuff.

 

It's a pretty bad mechanic. If everyone was putting in an equal amount of work, then you'd get exactly the same number of low-time eggs by picking them up at 6 days and letting them go down to 4 on your own scroll as you would by letting them go down to 4 on the AP. It only benefits you more than that if you count on other players to do the scut work of clearing the wall for you while you do other things.

Edited January 3, 2020 by tjekan

[RAAMIsABeast]

34 minutes ago, tjekan said:

 

It's only amazing if other people do all the work for you. That is to say, if you spend those 2-3 days happily breeding your own stuff and ignoring the wall until some other put-upon players bite the bullet and pick up the unwanted stuff, enabling you to swoop in behind them and pick up lower-time stuff.

 

It's a pretty bad mechanic. If everyone was putting in an equal amount of work, then you'd get exactly the same number of low-time eggs by picking them up at 6 days and letting them go down to 4 on your own scroll as you would by letting them go down to 4 on the AP. It only benefits you more than that if you count on other players to do the scut work of clearing the wall for you while you do other things.

 

 

I'm one of those people who take things from the wall most of the time. Just not this time as I am collecting Val mates (including 8 Aranoas from Mutamores for a big lineage plan~).

 

I know it's not pleasant for others, but I quite like walls. It'll be something many disagree on. Walls or no walls. 

 

In fact, high AP times put me off the AP, and make me spend time breeding my own things or just bingeing TV programmes I love. 

 

As said, I'm not against "fixing" the AP to show a certain number of eggs per breeder. 

 

Alas, doesn't mean I want it either. 

[tjekan]

I don't follow the logic... If you don't want to take a high-time egg, so you go away and binge watch TV for 24 hours till the eggs are lower time and pick some up, what is the difference between that and taking the eggs when they are higher time and waiting 24 hours for them to become lower time? Just the pleasure of feeling like you're picking up a bargain?

I ask, not to be contrary, but because I wonder whether there's any way of achieving what you want while still achieving what the many people frustrated by the walls want too. It's clear that few if any people actually like the walls themselves, because otherwise the walls would be picked up more quickly instead of lingering for days to block others from playing. Some people like them because they think it's good for ratios, and that benefit would not be changed under the new system. Some people like them because they just like mass breeding, which would not be changed under the new system either. And some people like them because they believe it gives them lower time eggs, but I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around why you think that and what benefit it gives. If an egg is going to hit 4 days 0 hours on Tuesday at 6PM, that's when it's going to happen regardless of whether it's on your scroll or on the AP at the time... right?

Edited January 4, 2020 by tjekan

[TheScorpionKing]

Something needs to be done already about the AP walls.

I usually bite as many as I can 

before I use up all my egg slots with dead egg shells.

But this is ridiculous,

three days of garbage

that isn't even worth biting,

and that's saying something.

[HeatherMarie]

1 hour ago, tjekan said:

I don't follow the logic... If you don't want to take a high-time egg, so you go away and binge watch TV for 24 hours till the eggs are lower time and pick some up, what is the difference between that and taking the eggs when they are higher time and waiting 24 hours for them to become lower time? Just the pleasure of feeling like you're picking up a bargain?

I ask, not to be contrary, but because I wonder whether there's any way of achieving what you want while still achieving what the many people frustrated by the walls want too. It's clear that few if any people actually like the walls themselves, because otherwise the walls would be picked up more quickly instead of lingering for days to block others from playing. Some people like them because they think it's good for ratios, and that benefit would not be changed under the new system. Some people like them because they just like mass breeding, which would not be changed under the new system either. And some people like them because they believe it gives them lower time eggs, but I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around why you think that and what benefit it gives. If an egg is going to hit 4 days 0 hours on Tuesday at 6PM, that's when it's going to happen regardless of whether it's on your scroll or on the AP at the time... right?

 

(bolding for emphasis) Honestly, nope. Even if a good number of players were to *love* this wall, you'd still see exactly the same thing as you are seeing now, because players have at most 8 eggslots to work with. This wall started rather high-timed, so even if say two dozen people were to grab as many Blacktips as they can hold, they can only get at most 8 and then have to wait a good 24 hours or so for those to hatch before they can pick up more. No matter how much we hypothetically might like the eggs in the AP, there is only so much we can grab (just look at all the times I've whined in the bad luck thread about my lack of space during Aqualis walls!). 

 

I'm not arguing that this is a good/productive/fun wall, not at all. I do, very clearly, see why this is frustrating for so many people, and something really should be done to balance things better. But there is really no point in trying to claim that no one likes the wall, or it's clear that no one is enjoying them, etc, because there is simply no way to know that for sure. Even people who love this wall can't really make a dent in it, grabbing-wise. (And that saying comes to mind, the squeaky wheel gets the grease... The people who don't like the wall are often the ones posting about it, while the people who *do* like the wall may not be seen posting because they know it's not a popular opinion around here. *raises hand*)

[tjekan]

Well, the holiday glut was even bigger than this and it moved fast, whereas in a deposit like this one the same egg will sit there for 24 hours. So although you're probably right that it's overstating the case to say few people like the walls for their own sake, it's definitely at least accurate to say that the supply is far outpacing the demand on that count.

 

In any case, I've got nothing against anyone who loves the walls, I'm just trying to figure out why. The argument that it will make other eggs lower-time makes no sense to me-- the eggs would have been lower-time on the same hour with or without the wall. What do you like about the walls, HeatherMarie, and will the proposed new system wreck that? Maybe we can think of a way to accommodate that. I mean, we've got nothing to do till the AP clears anyway ;-D

[cerimonster]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned or not, but taking into consideration some of the stuff the TJ has said, and then also having multiple pages sounds awful, why not do something similar as to what the biomes do, every five minutes the eggs at the front rotate around (I think?) What if, every 5 or so minutes, the AP Rotates the eggs around? It's a system that's already in use within Dragcave, and so should be able to be applied to the AP. It should have a modification that anything below 3.5 days for example shows up more frequently at the front, but still regularly rotates around as well. This would mix up the breeds, the times, and what you are seeing on the front page, but users don't have to worry about multiple pages or seeing a different thing that everyone else is seeing. This should help prevent to a degree "walls". Also, every time someone takes an egg, another egg replaces that one anyway, so really, the time of scramble could even be extended out to 10-15 minutes.This gives people time to pick through the eggs and whatever gets replaced. 

 

@LadyLyzar

[Stormcaller]

Well, it's getting close to midnight again and there's still no sign of the wall breaking up.  I can only hope it's gone by morning.

 

Thank goodness we have the old Holiday games to enjoy for a little longer.

 

Edit:  My mistake!  It's not a wall of Celestials I saw; now it's a wall of Aqualis.   Anyway, it's still a solid looking wall. 

Edited January 4, 2020 by Stormcaller

[Fiona]

7 minutes ago, Stormcaller said:

Well, it's getting close to midnight again and there's still no sign of the wall breaking up.

I'm not sure that's really accurate. The wall they were complaining about yesterday was black tips and celestials. Right now the wall is aqualises. It seems more like a succession of walls rather than one wall.

 

Not saying that's much better. Just, let's be accurate on what we're seeing.

[Stormcaller]

4 minutes ago, Fiona said:

 

Not saying that's much better. Just, let's be accurate on what we're seeing.

 

Look closely, I saw my error and corrected it before you posted.   It's OK. 

[Fiona]

lol.

 

I must have started writing while you were  posting. Anyway, we're all good.

 

[Duskwing472]

Have you guys ever considered making more than one abandoned page?

[Fiona]

@Sacred_DuskRose TJ addressed that earlier in the thread. Short version: it wouldn't fix the problem. What it would do is spread the hunters out between the different APs which wouldn't help get things picked up.

[Duskwing472]

4 minutes ago, Fiona said:

@Sacred_DuskRose TJ addressed that earlier in the thread. Short version: it wouldn't fix the problem. What it would do is spread the hunters out between the different APs which wouldn't help get things picked up.

Ohhh. that makes a lot of sense thank you. it just seems like the only somewhat fair option would be to put a cap on the amount of eggs people see from a certain breeder. i don't pay attention enough to the thread but i hear a lot from other people that walls are a big problem. 

[tkt1780]

 

3 hours ago, tjekan said:

In any case, I've got nothing against anyone who loves the walls, I'm just trying to figure out why. The argument that it will make other eggs lower-time makes no sense to me-- the eggs would have been lower-time on the same hour with or without the wall.

I'll challenge this and explain why this isn't true.

 

You seem to be ignoring the fact that we have limited egg slots. For as long as we let the eggs sit on our scroll, there is an egg slot being occupied for that amount of time, and that is a cost that you must pay in order to reduce egg timers by yourself, as opposed to letting it happen in the AP. It is much more convenient to have the AP "pre-warm" the eggs for you, so that you can do other things in the meantime. Notably, there is a 5-hour cooldown for picking up eggs in the cave before you can abandon or trade them.

 

Let's say the eggs are at an atrocious 5d15h. You're not interested in them while they're at this time, but if they were at 5d0h and became incuhatchable, you'd be very interested.

 

Scenario one: You pick up 8 eggs from the AP to let them warm up on your scroll. They get down to 5d0h in 15 hours.

Scenario two: You don't pick up the eggs from the AP, and instead you do nothing with those egg slots. Let's assume that miraculously, no one picks up any AP eggs during this time, allowing the eggs to naturally go down to 5d0h in 15 hours. Now that they're at the time you like, you pick up 8 of them to fill up your slots.

 

Scenario one and scenario two are basically the same (ignoring that scenario two is basically impossible without a wall, but okay). These two scenarios are what you're saying are basically the same. Let them warm up on your scroll, let them warm up in the AP. What's the difference?

 

Well, here's theoretical scenario three: The AP eggs are currently at 5d15h. You're not going to pick them up while they're at this time, so you go to the biomes and pick up some rare eggs instead. In 5 hours, the cooldown on those eggs wears off, and in 5 hours after putting the eggs up on the hub, you're able to trade a copper egg for 3 hatchies, a gaia xeno egg for 2 hatchies, and a blusang egg for 2 more hatchies. The AP time is now 5d5h, so you're able to squeeze in another round of hunting in the caves, and by the time the AP hits 5d0h, you've managed to fetch another rare to trade for 2 hatchies. Now you abandon all the excess eggs you weren't able to trade off and you fill up all your egg slots with 8 incuhatchable AP eggs.

 

There's a lot you can do with egg slots, and they are incredibly valuable. Playing at maximum efficiency may not be interesting to many people, but this is the kind of play that allowed me to reach my platinum trophy. The net change between scenario one and scenarios two/three is 9 hatchies. And the primary difference between scenario three and scenario one? You had your slots open because you let the eggs warm up in the AP rather than on your scroll, and because of that, you were able to get a lot of value of those slots.

 

Back to this little bit: 

Quote

the eggs would have been lower-time on the same hour with or without the wall.

It is true that if you are looking at the individual eggs, then sure, time moves just as fast for one individual egg whether it's on your scroll or in the AP. But time moves slower in the AP. (I think I'm stating the obvious here, but I suppose this is a statement that has to be made.) And this is why theoretical scenario number two and number three are basically impossible, except if there's a wall.

 

Waiting 5 hours means an egg on your scroll loses 5 hours on its timer. But in the case of the AP, however, waiting 5 hours does not mean the AP loses 5 hours.

As people pick up desired eggs, the AP time moves up. Waiting 5 hours would usually not affect any sort of permanent change on the AP time. It usually hits a "stable point" and then just fluctuates a few hours up or down from where it is. If the AP time is at 5d12h, waiting 5 hours doesn't necessarily mean the AP is going to be at 5d7h. It's more often that it'll end up somewhere between 5d10h or 5d14h. Who knows. But in 5 hours time, the AP only moves 2 hours. That's important. If the AP time is at 5d15h and you want it to be at 5d0h such as in our theoretical examples two and three, you could be waiting forever and it'll never happen. The AP time will just fluctuate up and down and up and down. Here's where walls come in.

 

The AP time-reducing qualities of a wall are attributed precisely to the fact that the eggs are undesirable (to most people), and so much less people pick them up, and thus the AP is able to reach a critical point where the passage of AP time is much closer to the passage of real time. That is to say, you wait 5 hours and the AP time actually moves by 5 hours. Not 2, not -2.

 

5.

 

This is the only reason why the incredibly low AP times can exist. It basically puts the AP in a stasis state so the eggs can warm up, by making everyone hold their horses and go somewhere else while the AP gets sweeter and sweeter. This is also why, if you implement any kind of limit to how many of a particular breeder's eggs are visible at a time, impacting the AP times like this will always be impossible. Always.

 

If there's just one row of crappy eggs, there will be little to no net change in the AP time, because people can just completely ignore that row of crappy eggs. Walls work so well at reducing the AP time exactly because no one wants to touch them. Now, this is not to say anything of my personal views on walls, but to merely explain what they do and why the phenomenon of reduced AP times and AP walls are practically inseparable. If you abolish walls—whether by reducing how many of a particular breeder's eggs are visible at a time, to reducing breeding limits themselves—you'll never get massively reduced AP times. Ever. (With the exclusion of holiday walls, although people are talking about bringing those down, too.) And that is a fair point in favor those who enjoy low AP times to consider something else.

 

Point 1: Part of the reason why walls are done is to reduce AP times. They do so forcibly by making the AP less desirable, but that's kind of the point, and it's also why AP walls are able to impact AP times in the first place.

Point 2: Time is a very critical aspect of this game, and so are egg slots. The limitations of time and egg slots are annoying, so annoying that people make walls to make these things less annoying and also why certain people like walls so much. 

Point 3: Abolishing walls by way of any method discussed thus far would forever remove the playerbase's ability to directly impact AP times ----- BUT, if time is no longer "annoying," then the ability to impact AP times would no longer be missed.

 

Suggestion number 1: In addition to whatever suggestion is implemented to reduce walls (a limit to the number of visible eggs by any one breeder on the AP seems most likely), ALSO buff incubate. Perhaps from a 1 day reduction in the egg timer to a 1.5 day reduction.

Suggestion number 2: Same as above, but instead of buffing incubate, reduce the 5 hour cooldown to abandon/release eggs down to 3 hours.

 

What this does: Makes time less annoying, therefore reducing the need for walls in the first place. You'd abolish walls (by way of whichever suggestion ends up being implemented), and also replace their functionality ... by, again, making time less annoying. This, I feel is important. If you give away the playerbase's primary tool to make time work in their favor because the only way this method could ever do what it does is to be restrictive to other people, you should also replace that tool by solving the root problem in the first place.

 

These are drastic changes because they impact the most core aspect of the game... again, time. Either of these changes would dramatically change the pace of the game, and would most definitely require other adjustments as well—for example, in the case of reducing the abandon cooldown, the biome rarities may have to be adjusted, as all eggs would become more common as more catching overall will be possible by the entire playerbase.

 

Either way, I'd like to simply bring up the issue of time, since I feel that it's really integral to this entire discussion.

Edited January 4, 2020 by tkt1780

[Shadowdrake]

A similar reason to ^ on why walls are useful: 

 

If eggs are at 5d15h I can hatch 8 eggs in 15 hours, whereas if eggs are incuhatchable (5d0h) and take 3 hours to hatch after ERs, I can hatch up to 40 eggs in 15 hours. In the next 30 hours, if there's no wall I can hatch 2 sets of 5d15h eggs, or, with a wall lasting 15 hours and leaving 15 hours to hunt, I can hatch up to 5 sets.

 

Mathematically, walls are good for you if you can get on frequently. Obviously some people can't so I won't argue against a display limit if TJ decides to implement it, but until he does I'm going to enjoy the aftermath of walls.

[olympe]

4 hours ago, tkt1780 said:

Well, here's theoretical scenario three: The AP eggs are currently at 5d15h. You're not going to pick them up while they're at this time, so you go to the biomes and pick up some rare eggs instead. In 5 hours, the cooldown on those eggs wears off, and in 5 hours after putting the eggs up on the hub, you're able to trade a copper egg for 3 hatchies, a gaia xeno egg for 2 hatchies, and a blusang egg for 2 more hatchies. The AP time is now 5d5h, so you're able to squeeze in another round of hunting in the caves, and by the time the AP hits 5d0h, you've managed to fetch another rare to trade for 2 hatchies. Now you abandon all the excess eggs you weren't able to trade off and you fill up all your egg slots with 8 incuhatchable AP eggs.

 

There's a lot you can do with egg slots, and they are incredibly valuable. Playing at maximum efficiency may not be interesting to many people, but this is the kind of play that allowed me to reach my platinum trophy. The net change between scenario one and scenarios two/three is 9 hatchies. And the primary difference between scenario three and scenario one? You had your slots open because you let the eggs warm up in the AP rather than on your scroll, and because of that, you were able to get a lot of value of those slots.

Actually, this doesn't quite work as you want.

1) You had your last batch of 8 eggs hatch, so there are 8 hatchlings on your scroll.

2) During the 15 hours the AP timers go down: You catch and trade some rares, gaining 9 hatchies.

3) You cannot catch more than 7 incu-hatchable eggs now until you hit your limit of 24. 

4) You can incu-hatch your eggs, resulting in 24 hatchies on your scroll.

 

Alternately, if you keep the AP eggs on your scroll:

1) You had your last batch of 8 eggs hatch, so there are 8 hatchlings on your scroll.

2) During the 15 hours the AP timers go down: You catch 8 AP eggs and hatch them until they're ready. Since you had 15 hours to put them in hatcheries, ERing them won't take all that long. You gain 8 hatchies.

3) You go back to the AP and catch 8 incu-hatchable eggs until you hit your limit of 24.

4) You can incu-hatch your eggs, resulting in 24 hatchies on your scroll.

 

The only difference there is - and it is a slight difference, really - is that your hatchies are (slightly?) lower-time in the first scenario than in the second.

 

However, if you want to raise as many dragons as you can in a limited time - you don't even want incu-hatchables. Because the hatchies take 3 days to grow up. You want to trade valuable stuff for low-time hatchies around the clock. Because low-time hatchies can be raised that much quicker.

 

4 hours ago, tkt1780 said:

This is the only reason why the incredibly low AP times can exist. It basically puts the AP in a stasis state so the eggs can warm up, by making everyone hold their horses and go somewhere else while the AP gets sweeter and sweeter. This is also why, if you implement any kind of limit to how many of a particular breeder's eggs are visible at a time, impacting the AP times like this will always be impossible. Always.

I doubt that. If there are, let's say, only 6 eggs shown by a breeder and people tend to ignore that mini-wall (for whatever reason) just like walls are ignored these days - these "wall eggs" will go down in time. People will start picking them up to uncover more wall eggs at a low time. However, there will also be other eggs with higher timers available for those who don't want the wall eggs. But the ignored low-time eggs will also be there for you to pick up.

 

2 hours ago, Shadowdrake said:

A similar reason to ^ on why walls are useful: 

 

If eggs are at 5d15h I can hatch 8 eggs in 15 hours, whereas if eggs are incuhatchable (5d0h) and take 3 hours to hatch after ERs, I can hatch up to 40 eggs in 15 hours. In the next 30 hours, if there's no wall I can hatch 2 sets of 5d15h eggs, or, with a wall lasting 15 hours and leaving 15 hours to hunt, I can hatch up to 5 sets.

 

Mathematically, walls are good for you if you can get on frequently. Obviously some people can't so I won't argue against a display limit if TJ decides to implement it, but until he does I'm going to enjoy the aftermath of walls.

How many scrolls do you have to put the 40 eggs/hatchies on?

Edited January 4, 2020 by olympe