Abandoned Page Compendium - Display Suggestions

[Fuzzbucket]

I'm assuming dropping the hatchies ?

[tkt1780]

1 hour ago, olympe said:

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

. . .

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.

 

It was just a random example I threw out to demonstrate that you can do things with egg slots while you don't have them filled up. Even so, you can pretend that I had said that you do trade your rares for low-time hatchies. In 15 hours, you trade 4 rares for 5 low-time hatchies, which quickly grow up into adults and leave your hatchie and egg slots open. But you'd really rather want to be doing many rare-for-low-time-hatchie trades while also having a lot of other growing things on your scroll, so you use the incuhatchable eggs to fill out your slots. Your incuhatchable eggs quickly hatch, so you pick up more eggs, get to 20/24 hatchie slots, and look for rares and low-time hatchie trades on the side. That way, you've always got things growing on the side while you're still doing your trades. Having incuhatchable eggs freely available is faster no matter which way you put it.

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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.

This is a good point -- low-time eggs will still be available in that "mini-wall" -- though this still can never impact the greater AP, which is what I was saying. The goal isn't to have low-time wall eggs, it's to reduce the time of the entire AP. Although some do specifically appreciate having "wall hatchies" on-demand, wall-lovers celebrate the time after a wall, which is when the entire AP has a lowered time, and that is what people are after. Breeder limits as suggested will make this mostly impossible, so you are still eliminating low-time APs from the game (again, outside of holiday walls).

 

A single row of low-time eggs of a "wall breed" is a good compromise, and I support it, though I still maintain that it doesn't entirely satisfy the niche that walls provide for the game and for people who enjoy walls. Removing walls is removing low-time APs from the game, forever. If walls have to be removed from the game, fine by me, but I'd really like for that functionality to be replaced elsewhere.

Edited January 4, 2020 by tkt1780

[Confused Cat]

5 hours ago, tkt1780 said:

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.

 

I agree with most of what you said, I just want to add something here: it's not only the fact that they are "undesirable", but also that there are so many more eggs than there would be if the wall had not been bred.

If all the random-lineaged Blacktips of the past two (?) days had been magically turned into a variety of breeds and lineages, the AP time would still have gone down. Not by the same amount, because of course those eggs would have been picked up faster, but it has to go down when there are significantly more than the "normal" number of eggs being bred.

 

What I'm trying to say is we might be able to have a low-time AP even without walls if everybody sent more (desirable!) eggs to the AP. I certainly try to help with that. 

 

If I'm wrong, i.e. if a "maximum eggs per breeder visible" limit is introduced and it turns out we really never have a low time AP anymore, I'll be sad. But I would like to find out, so I still support that limit.

 

(I do hope the limit would be at least 6 eggs. I really like looking for interesting codes in those Blacktip walls.)

[Shadowdrake]

3 hours ago, olympe said:

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

It's called trading up for rares, freezing or gifting, duh. Anyway it was only a mathematical example, and if I more reasonably have 1 or 2 egg slots open for the next 30 hours I'd still benefit more after a wall than without (5 hatchies per slot instead of 2).

Edited January 4, 2020 by Shadowdrake

[tjekan]

8 hours ago, tkt1780 said:

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.

 

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. 

 

Wow. So you're saying the point of AP walls is to force other people to stop playing so that without their interference, the breeder can maximize the number of eggs they can get during that time?

 

Wow. Ok, it makes sense to me now, but that's bordering on a game exploit.

 

I think speeding up the game pace, either in one of the ways you suggest or another one, would be a good alternative. Why dont you start a new thread about it so we can discuss options? I'd much rather see an increased game pace available to all players, rather than taken by a few at the expense of many others having theirs torpedoed.

Edited January 4, 2020 by tjekan

[olympe]

6 minutes ago, tjekan said:

Wow. So you're saying the point of AP walls is to force other people to stop playing so that without their interference, the breeder can maximize the number of eggs they can get during that time?

 

Wow. Ok, it makes sense to me now, but that's bordering on a game exploit.

Very much this. However, this isn't just a game exploit. It's a way for some players to directly affect other player's play style for their own gain.

• I want the AP to be low-time, so I'll inundate it with countless eggs most players don't want to force the issue. Who cares if way too many players don't want to take my eggs? They'll have to!
• I want the ratios for [common of choice] to be lowered, so I'll breed them ad nauseam. Who cares if someone will have to raise these eggs? They'll have to!
• I want to breed as many eggs as I can. Who cares if someone else will have to raise them? They'll have to!
• I want to breed A x rare lineage checkers and only keep the rares. Who cares if someone else will have to raise all the fails? They'll have to!

Does anybody else see a pattern here?

[Confused Cat]

I'm starting to get worried this thread will be closed any minute because we've gone from "which changes do we want to see on the AP, if any?" in the direction of "are mass breeders evil?"...

Can we try to go back and just post support or concerns (as I believe @tkt1780 meant to do) regarding the suggested changes?

[tjekan]

It does sound like the per-breeder display limit would partially address the issues of the bored maximizers while still allowing everyone else to play. If there were like 5 messy lower-time celestials and 5 inbred lower-time aqualises on the AP along with a bunch of higher-time eggs moving faster because users actually want them, then the maximizers could still grab the intentionally undesirable lower-time eggs at the right time in their plan.

 

But it would be a more systemic fix to find a way to adjust gameplay a little to give such players more to do. I do understand the issue with feeling bored of this game sometimes--the run-up to Christmas was very dull for me as I already had my limit of holiday CB breeds and trading was very sluggish, but once the decorating games opened, it was a lot more fun. A positive improvement would be better than just closing the loophole (though I still think the loophole needs to be closed, being as how it unfairly affects others.)

 

9 minutes ago, Confused Cat said:

I'm starting to get worried this thread will be closed any minute because we've gone from "which changes do we want to see on the AP, if any?" in the direction of "are mass breeders evil?"...

 

No one said "evil." tkt1780 said "forcible," which I think is a fair description of the gameplay exploit being described-- especially since it's the word choice of a person who's in favor of it.

 

I'm definitely not in favor, but I'd still like to see some of the "less forcible" alternatives tkt1780 suggested--or other alternatives in the same vein--be considered. Anything that improves gameplay for users enough that they no longer WANT to sabotage other users would be the best long-term solution.

Edited January 4, 2020 by tjekan

[Stormcaller]

17 minutes ago, Confused Cat said:

I'm starting to get worried this thread will be closed any minute because we've gone from "which changes do we want to see on the AP, if any?" in the direction of "are mass breeders evil?"...

Can we try to go back and just post support or concerns (as I believe @tkt1780 meant to do) regarding the suggested changes?

 

You're right Confused Cat; we have gone off topic...  But, this is an incredibly interesting discussion.

 

But I just want to go on record that it's another day and the same wall is ongoing.  Right now it's gone back to Celestials.

[RAAMIsABeast]

Just now, Stormcaller said:

 

You're right Confused Cat; we have gone off topic...  But, this is an incredibly interesting discussion.

 

But I just want to go on record that it's another day and the same wall is ongoing.  Right now it's gone back to Celestials.

 

Those may be the prizefails from Oseans prize breed. There's only about 140 of them. *shrug*

[Stormcaller]

Yay!  There are some mixed eggs breaking through the wall!   Oh how I hope they continue!

[Shadowdrake]

41 minutes ago, olympe said:

Very much this. However, this isn't just a game exploit. It's a way for some players to directly affect other player's play style for their own gain.

• I want the AP to be low-time, so I'll inundate it with countless eggs most players don't want to force the issue. Who cares if way too many players don't want to take my eggs? They'll have to!
• I want the ratios for [common of choice] to be lowered, so I'll breed them ad nauseam. Who cares if someone will have to raise these eggs? They'll have to!
• I want to breed as many eggs as I can. Who cares if someone else will have to raise them? They'll have to!
• I want to breed A x rare lineage checkers and only keep the rares. Who cares if someone else will have to raise all the fails? They'll have to!

Does anybody else see a pattern here?

That you're condemning every reason to breed that isn't sheer altruism, and that you'd probably call sheer altruism selfishness once your fellow players have picked out all the rares in a mixed breeding wall anyway?

 

 

Shockingly, that's the nature of a multiplayer game: that what a person does affects others and there's nothing you can do about it short of getting an admin to do something. Someone grabbing all the rares you want and leaving only commons? Too bad, hunt more or breed some commons to help change that. Someone killed a dragon in your lineage? Too bad, guess you'll have to remake everything upwards. Someone vamped or killed eggs you bred and abandoned but still care about? Too bad, you shouldn't have abandoned them. Someone filled the AP with dragons you're not interested in? Too bad, hatch some or do something else to waste time until they leave. Or hope for TJ to make a change sooner instead of later, I suppose.

 

Yes, breeders can be selfish--so are cave catchers and dragon hoarders. Do you keep every egg you breed or catch that you don't want?

 

Do you also hate people who breed often but always have decent, interesting lineages and varied breeds when they fill half the AP? Do you hate it if a breed is popular and appears in the ap frequently because many people breed them?

 

Also your complaints against ratio affecting or rare-keeping are pointless because that's literally the nature of the game. Blame TJ for making ratios be able to be affected by players, not the players who are trying to make the game enjoyable in their own way.

[olympe]

Shockingly, I have no problem with things like competing for eggs and the like. Not at all - even though I'm pretty much always at the losing end of the competition. People doing things to eggs I bred and abandoned - whatever these things may be - I'm fine with. Their scrolls, their dragons, their choice. That's always been the case. However, one person's choice of breeding thousands of Celestials (or whatever common they fancy) is affecting other people's ability to play - sometimes for days on end. That's why I'm very much in favor of having the AP mechanics changed. Preferably so that no single breeder gets a chance to throw a wench in everybody else's playing style.

[tjekan]

1 hour ago, olympe said:

Shockingly, I have no problem with things like competing for eggs and the like. Not at all - even though I'm pretty much always at the losing end of the competition. People doing things to eggs I bred and abandoned - whatever these things may be - I'm fine with. Their scrolls, their dragons, their choice. That's always been the case. However, one person's choice of breeding thousands of Celestials (or whatever common they fancy) is affecting other people's ability to play - sometimes for days on end. That's why I'm very much in favor of having the AP mechanics changed. Preferably so that no single breeder gets a chance to throw a wench in everybody else's playing style.

 

Completely agree, but let's ALSO address the game flaws that are causing certain players to prevent other people from playing in the first place.

 

1) They do it to try and change ratios. So fix the ratio system. Ratios are broken right now. You can't even make most common-common checkers because breeding will yield 90% of one common and 10% of the other.

 

2) They do it because they get bored of sitting there for two days waiting for their eggs to hatch. So maybe a gameplay improvement to give them something else to do in the interim besides block other players? It could be an incubate buff or other pace change as tkt1780 suggested, it could be a mechanic to let people keep hunting while egglocked and choose which egg to discard, it could be the market eggs arriving at 4 days so they can use shards to get things at the right time, it could be keeping a permanent minigame to earn a few shards every day...

 

I mean, I still think that overall, limiting the number of eggs per breeder in the AP will solve the current problem. It will let people massbreed and skew ratios without ruining the game for anyone else, and it will ensure at least some lower-time eggs in the AP (though only the massbred eggs themselves, not more desirable ones "forcibly" trapped behind them--nonetheless, there will still be some there to take at the desired time, so maximization will still be possible.)

 

But another seam will just pop open eventually anyway, so I think we also need to address the root problems.

 

Edited January 4, 2020 by tjekan

[HeatherMarie]

I really feel the need to point something out here, with all the negative words floating around in this thread: AP walls are *not* an issue with mass-breeders. By that I mean, the 'problem' of AP-walls is not the fault of mass-breeders. Likewise, mass-breeders are *not* deliberately affecting other people's play, at least not in any underhanded or manipulative way. 

 

Before anyone jumps all over that paragraph: AP-walls are a completely okay and acceptable thing *in the game*. That's what most people seem to forget. The game itself has no bias against AP walls. The game itself doesn't even *make* AP walls, AP walls are really just a product of many different variables that happen to line up (many eggs being bred in a short time, low amount of people taking AP eggs *before* the wall, limited eggslots, etc etc). Personally, I think a huge flaw in this whole thread/suggestion/idea is coming at it from the view that AP walls are inherently bad. They aren't. It's *users* who *decide* that they are bad. There is nothing *objectively* wrong with the same breed filling the AP for hours and hours. 

 

AP walls, much like the raffles and trading and etc etc, are a topic that many people have strong opinions on. But they are not inherently bad. They are only 'bad' in the sense that some (many?) users don't like one breed dominating the AP for so long, want more variety, don't like being 'blocked' from hunting the AP, etc. And okay, totally valid feelings there. But those are feelings, opinions, not objective facts. 

 

Okay, getting off my soapbox now, I really believe the only suggestion in this thread (and other threads of the same topic) that really seems feasible and fair is limiting how many eggs per breeder are shown in the AP at once. Multiple APs, AP pages, etc won't help the general issue and would destroy the 'everyone sees the same thing' idea of the AP. Any actual limits on breeding would be unnecessary punishment, especially when there could be other options. (Personally I prefer a limit per *breed* shown, instead of per breeder, since the actual issue at hand here is walls of one or two *breeds*, but it seems that's not as popular an option.)

[tjekan]

1 hour ago, HeatherMarie said:

(Personally I prefer a limit per *breed* shown, instead of per breeder, since the actual issue at hand here is walls of one or two *breeds*, but it seems that's not as popular an option.)

 

The problem with it is that that then a really wanted egg, like a 2g mint from an upside down mint and a spriter's alt, could get stuck behind a tsunami of deliberately undesirable eggs, like 3000 inbred mints, and potentially lose the ability to be influenced due to no fault of the breeder.

If the only eggs stuck behind the wall are those bred by the same person, then they can prevent eggs that they want to be influenceable from suffering such a fate by breeding them first.

 

 

1 hour ago, HeatherMarie said:

Personally, I think a huge flaw in this whole thread/suggestion/idea is coming at it from the view that AP walls are inherently bad. They aren't. It's *users* who *decide* that they are bad. There is nothing *objectively* wrong with the same breed filling the AP for hours and hours.  

 

This is true, but also true of absolutely everything else in the game, so kind of pointless. The is nothing OBJECTIVELY wrong with viewbombing, or naming your dragons dirty words, or a glitch that messes up your scroll display. Yet we report and complain about all these things, because as a game community, we've decided those things are problems. We can most certainly decide that the AP being repeatedly blocked by a tiny fraction of the userbase is also a problem in need of a solution.

Edited January 5, 2020 by tjekan

[Kastriia]

1 hour ago, HeatherMarie said:

Okay, getting off my soapbox now, I really believe the only suggestion in this thread (and other threads of the same topic) that really seems feasible and fair is limiting how many eggs per breeder are shown in the AP at once. Multiple APs, AP pages, etc won't help the general issue and would destroy the 'everyone sees the same thing' idea of the AP. Any actual limits on breeding would be unnecessary punishment, especially when there could be other options. (Personally I prefer a limit per *breed* shown, instead of per breeder, since the actual issue at hand here is walls of one or two *breeds*, but it seems that's not as popular an option.)

I agree 100% with everything posted before hand, thank you Heather Marie for a well constructed post.

Although, my only concern about limiting by breeder is it hurts those who breed in varieties such as Catzrules and TerraFreaky. It would almost need to be a combination of Breeder x Breed. Limit how much of a singular breed from a single breeder is shown at one time. So example, if I bred all my Pillows and created a mini wall, they would be limited, but my follow breeds of various things would not be. As you stated, the "Variety of breeds" seems to be the main problem that some people have with walls, this would allow a variety but still allow mass breeders to breed.

Personally, I am still of the school of thought of no change, but this would be a change I would accept as a compromise

[Stormcaller]

1 hour ago, HeatherMarie said:

I really feel the need to point something out here, with all the negative words floating around in this thread: AP walls are *not* an issue with mass-breeders. By that I mean, the 'problem' of AP-walls is not the fault of mass-breeders. Likewise, mass-breeders are *not* deliberately affecting other people's play, at least not in any underhanded or manipulative way. 

 

Walls are not the fault of mass-breeders?????   What???  Of course they are!    Do you mean to say that these people don't know how their behavior effects so many other players?  Or that they know but just don't care?   Can you explain how this is acceptable?

'

[tkt1780]

23 minutes ago, Stormcaller said:

 

Walls are not the fault of mass-breeders?????   What???  Of course they are!    Do you mean to say that these people don't know how their behavior effects so many other players?  Or that they know but just don't care?   Can you explain how this is acceptable?

'

@HeatherMarie may correct me if I am wrong, but I think she is saying that it is the fault of an flaw in the system that results in the conflict of interests between wall-lovers and wall-haters. It is not productive to reprimand massbreeders for being "immoral" or "selfish" when, with the current way the system works, the system practically necessitates walls because walls are the only way to produce the effects that they desire. They aren't wrong for desiring those things, but it's unfortunate that, with the way the system works, there will always be at least one group of people who will be dissatisfied. That doesn't seem to me to be an issue with being selfish. Even if you believe that massbreeders are selfish, or even if they are objectively selfish, it's irrelevant because it won't solve anything or go anywhere. It's a systemic issue and that is what we're here to discuss.

Edited January 5, 2020 by tkt1780

[Stormcaller]

41 minutes ago, tkt1780 said:

 ...Even if you believe that massbreeders are selfish, or even if they are objectively selfish, it's irrelevant because it won't solve anything or go anywhere. It's a systemic issue and that is what we're here to discuss.

 

Please note that I'm not calling anyone names or trying to stir up trouble.  However, I can't go along with the idea that if something like wall being can be done, it's acceptable to do it at the expense of so many other players.  I do really hope that TJ puts an end to this problem soon.

[Kaini]

 

Quote

 

1. This thread is for AP functionality and/or display suggestions only.  Feel free to discuss any current suggestions or come up with some of your own.
2. This thread is NOT about whether mass breeding is good, bad, whatever.  Any such posts will be considered SPAM.
3. Discussion of why users mass breed belongs in Site Discussion as that is not a suggestion.
4. Attacks on other users will NOT be tolerated, nor will any snarky comments.  These will be removed.
5. This thread will be closely watched by the mod team, so please follow the rules and get along!
6. If the thread turns into a fight, it will be closed.

 

Not my section, so another mod may drop in, but general reminder. We're getting off the subject.

[purpledragonclaw]

What Kaini said, x100. Please keep this discussion about the suggestions from the first post, not criticizing those who massbreed. 

 

We don't want to close another thread down about this because the topic keeps getting derailed. We will only drop thread warns so many times before we shut a thread down.

[tjekan]

If it's off-topic to also talk about the root problems causing people to want to create AP blockades (thus far identified as ratio problems and frustration with the slow pace of the game,) then would the people who brought them up mind starting new threads about solutions for those? tkt1780 has suggested a buff to incubation or a reduction in cooldown to dropping newly caught eggs as remedies for the latter. I had a few possible ideas on that front too. The ratios I know have had already had multiple threads pleading for relief on that front, and it may not be a possible fix code-wise, but could also be worth revisiting.

I do think that the currently favored proposed action in this thread, limiting the number of eggs per breeder visible at a time, will at least do no harm on either of those fronts (since they won't prevent massbreeders from skewing ratios and since there will still be at least some lower-time eggs on the AP at any given time for players frustrated with pacing to pick up at the right time.) But I think continuing to discuss how to actually help those issues will benefit everyone.

Edited January 5, 2020 by tjekan

[olympe]

6 hours ago, tjekan said:

If it's off-topic to also talk about the root problems causing people to want to create AP blockades (thus far identified as ratio problems and frustration with the slow pace of the game,) then would the people who brought them up mind starting new threads about solutions for those? tkt1780 has suggested a buff to incubation or a reduction in cooldown to dropping newly caught eggs as remedies for the latter. I had a few possible ideas on that front too. The ratios I know have had already had multiple threads pleading for relief on that front, and it may not be a possible fix code-wise, but could also be worth revisiting.

I do think that the currently favored proposed action in this thread, limiting the number of eggs per breeder visible at a time, will at least do no harm on either of those fronts (since they won't prevent massbreeders from skewing ratios and since there will still be at least some lower-time eggs on the AP at any given time for players frustrated with pacing to pick up at the right time.) But I think continuing to discuss how to actually help those issues will benefit everyone.

Well, there are so many topics about the ratio problem, some of them dating back to... 2011? 2012? Something like that.

[Fuzzbucket]

Start a new one ?