Raising Limits on CB Holidays

[49ER]

I think this idea should be revisited.....I did support the limit of 2 of each per scroll when the old CB holidays became available in cave at Christmas and Valentines week.  Also, HW's but since they are unlimited, it is moot for this discussion.

I supported the limit of 2 because if not, then a lot of people would not have a chance of even getting 2 of them and would instead go to faster people.  But now, since it has been at least two years since the old CB holidays became available, I would like to suggest a compromise, to maybe raise the limit on the Christmas and Valentines to 4 CB's  (old ones only, not the new ones being released on day of holiday)  This would be really helpful to people who have long checker lineage projects.  

 And in another suggestion, perhaps make the CB Holies influenceable?  They were influenceable as HM Prizes and the bred ones also have been so I would like to see the CB's be influenceable as well.

[Sazandora]

Didn't we already have a thread for this...?

 

Oh well. I am in support of raising the CB limits to 4, but I do not want Christmas/Valentine dragons to become unlimited anytime soon. Otherwise the holiday biome would be emptied out in a nanosecond and there'd be massive amounts of drama and frustration everywhere and I do not want that.

As for influencable Hollies, I'm... neutral. I guess it'd be neat, but only if their original creator(s?) is/are fine with it.

[49ER]

Sazandora, if we had another thread, it must have been a looong time ago, because I did not see it.  As far as influencing Hollies, the spriter no longer plays DC, but there is a precedent by making the bred ones influenceable, as well as the HM Prizes.  

[Fiona]

I think the thread being referred to is

However, that was on page 3, and it may be beneficial to start a new discussion. Personally I'd like to see the limit on previous holidays and vals raised to 4. It keeps the initial release limit to 2 so most everyone can get them. I'd be ok too with a simple "you can have 4 of each cb instead of just 2" if that's preferable coding

[VixenDra]

1 hour ago, Sazandora said:

Didn't we already have a thread for this...?

 

Oh well. I am in support of raising the CB limits to 4, but I do not want Christmas/Valentine dragons to become unlimited anytime soon. Otherwise the holiday biome would be emptied out in a nanosecond and there'd be massive amounts of drama and frustration everywhere and I do not want that.

As for influencable Hollies, I'm... neutral. I guess it'd be neat, but only if their original creator(s?) is/are fine with it.

 

The Halloween Holiday biome was pretty relaxed this year nearer the end of the holiday season. Been there to witness. And Halloweens are unlimited. Also, the other 2 holidays block the biome quite often, especially near the end. And now most of the playerbase got their CB fill it wil only be worse. if not this year yet, then surely the next.

People panic over the darkest scenarios they can imagine (oh, I wont' be able to get my fill" - yeah sure, on release day 2 and 3 those eggs sit there for ages), which prove to not be a thing when you look at Halloweens plus consider the fact the winter and Valentine ones have a 3-day long release unlike Halloweens.

 

I personally insist on the limit to be 2CBs per year (so caugit in x year, if you collect 2 every single year after 10 years you end up with 20) instead of X total unless the total was at least 10 (personally needing 5, loads of people collect in 10s).

[49ER]

OH that is right, I did not even think of something else....I am guessing a lot of people would love to have 2 each of the types of Aegeis CB Dragons as well.  

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

Not trying to sound irritated here - it's a genuine question - but why don't people want to see the holiday limit be unlimited? As far as I'm aware Halloween seems to function just fine without limits, so why not have the sam for Val and Xmas? (Disclaimer: I know about the "Halloween spirit" being about stuffing your face, which is why it's unlimited, but there are sharing and gift-giving aspects of Val and Xmas too  I'm wondering about other reasons why people don't support unlimited other holidays). Either way, I definitely support it being raised, and even more so being unlimited  

[49ER]

I oppose them being unlimited because there are some unethical catching methods used sometimes, so without some limit, most people would not be able to catch the more desirable ones.  And we also want to give newbies a chance to get any they are missing, which would be made harder, if not impossible without limits.

[wobster109]

31 minutes ago, RealWilliamShakespeare said:

Not trying to sound irritated here - it's a genuine question - but why don't people want to see the holiday limit be unlimited? 

 

I personally don't want to see holidays be unlimited because I'm worried that there won't be enough eggs for the people with slow connections.

 

Some simple calculations could settle that. Without limits, each person new release limit is 16 taken from the cave. Take 8 the first day, incubate, hatch after 48 hours, then take 8 more. (I'm only counting eggs taken from the cave because any gained through AP or trades would be eggs that other people willingly parted with.) So, if each active scroll takes 16 eggs from the cave, would there be enough for everyone? I don't know.

 

I'm even more concerned about previous holiday dragons like hollies which only drop in one biome. They are fewer and far between. There definitely wouldn't be enough for everyone, if each scroll grabbed 8 or 16 of them.

 

However, I do agree that the cave slows way down after a couple days. What if holiday eggs that have been in the cave for X amount of time get sent to the AP, where they could be taken by anyone regardless of limit? Basically I'm proposing that the limit apply to the cave biomes but not the AP.

[VixenDra]

20 minutes ago, wobster109 said:

 

I personally don't want to see holidays be unlimited because I'm worried that there won't be enough eggs for the people with slow connections.

 

Some simple calculations could settle that. Without limits, each person new release limit is 16 taken from the cave. Take 8 the first day, incubate, hatch after 48 hours, then take 8 more. (I'm only counting eggs taken from the cave because any gained through AP or trades would be eggs that other people willingly parted with.) So, if each active scroll takes 16 eggs from the cave, would there be enough for everyone? I don't know.

 

I'm even more concerned about previous holiday dragons like hollies which only drop in one biome. They are fewer and far between. There definitely wouldn't be enough for everyone, if each scroll grabbed 8 or 16 of them.

 

However, I do agree that the cave slows way down after a couple days. What if holiday eggs that have been in the cave for X amount of time get sent to the AP, where they could be taken by anyone regardless of limit? Basically I'm proposing that the limit apply to the cave biomes but not the AP.

 

Easy fix: rise the spawn rate. In general. For all new releases, holiday or not. Though on Val and winter the eggs are sitting there unpicked and I bet they won't go as crazy with the longest release period (regular releases having just few hours of flood, Halloween with 24h but stopping spawning, 72h is long compared to those). 

Halloween works just fine. Its only flaw is 1 day to obtain without trades in the release year. The other two holidays have 3 days of release - it does make a difference. Also, gifting, AP, and tradign are all a thing. And the more people can store on their scroll the more they can share with the latecomers. Even Halloween was followed by a CB wall.

I myself need 2CBs per breed, and would collect 5CBs per single-genederd holiday (like I did with the chickens - 3 are frozen hatchies) - right now I acctually only use 1 CB per single-gendered and keep the 2nd as a spare just in case. I always give all CB Halloweens I won't trade to my bf. I never give him the spare CB val or winter though, even though I don't actually need them with the current limits not allowing me the full CB set of 5. I would give him those if I could catch a scrollfull though.

 

Notice that in the scenario you described, day 2 is pretty relaxed.

Edited December 5, 2019 by VixenDra

[wobster109]

17 minutes ago, VixenDra said:

Notice that in the scenario you described, day 2 is pretty relaxed.

 

Not necessarily! I described the 16 egg scenario for people with the fastest connections (and the most free time). On day 2 it would be other players grabbing 8 eggs each, such as people who couldn't get online on actual Christmas day, and these players would "only" be able to get 8 new dragons instead of 16. There's still the question of whether there are enough for the slowest players.

Edited December 5, 2019 by wobster109

[49ER]

Well just to be clear, my proposal is about the older CB Holidays.  I still think the new ones released that holiday should be limited to 2, until the next year where they could go up to 4.  

Since there are 10 years of old Christmas dragons, it would take a lot of diligent hunting, and incubating, to actually accumulate 2 more each of every holiday in one week.

[VixenDra]

5 minutes ago, 49ER said:

Well just to be clear, my proposal is about the older CB Holidays.  I still think the new ones released that holiday should be limited to 2, until the next year where they could go up to 4.  

Since there are 10 years of old Christmas dragons, it would take a lot of diligent hunting, and incubating, to actually accumulate 2 more each of every holiday in one week.

That's why the sooner the limit is raised/removed the less of a fuss it will be now we're after 2 rounds of re-releases.
Also, the more CBs we can obtain in the release year, the less disproportionate the demand for it will follow. Right now during the Halloween season, the most demanded breed is always the latest year's - because some people miss the 1 release day, and others have less of the latest year's breed in their larger collection compared to the older breeds, often max 8, sometimes more thanks to trades and AP CBs. Arcanas were most demanded this year, Kohraki will replace them in 2020 because there are the fewest of them in the userbase (past breeds had as much as a week of spawning, allowing a few scrollfulls and raising the poll considerably compared to a previous year).
Now, on the average, people usually have 6-8 of the latest Halloween, some have more than that. The demand is rather high in the following year's rerelease (as I could see). Now think of the Vals and winters. People have only 2 of the latest breed. That's a few times more of a demand in the following year once the "old" breeds are not so limited. If the raised/removed limit is only applied to past breeds but not the new breeds, the latest year's breed will be in an a few times higher demand than Halloween's latest breed. If the limit is raised/removed for all, the demand will be comparable to that of Halloween's, maybe a bit smaller because no genders(less potential project options, less breeding poll needed - probably half of the halloweens'). If the limit is raised to 2 born in the given year as I suggested(as an alternative to no limits which I actually favour), the demand for the latest year's breed will be lower than for the latest year's halloween because everyone will only be able to get 2 per year of each breed, the most recent included. It's sort of a compromise and a lower unbalance risk thank only changing the limits for past breeds.

Also, if the limit is actually to be raised to as few as 4CBs total, the release year won't get noticeably busier - considering how day 2 and 3 are pretty much dead with half of that limit...

[Keileon]

I support bumping the limit up to 4. I'd much rather have the context and see the effect of that before raising it any higher.

[DragonLady86]

I support upping the limit, but I also agree that just getting rid of it would be better.   Halloween shows us that such a system does work.  Yes, the first year it becomes unlimited (or even just raised) SOME breeds will be hard to get.  cough/hollies.  But the upside, is that that means that many more are in circulation for the next year, making them easier to get.  Regardless of how much the limit is raised, it will take, at a guess a minimum of two years to sort out the hype. 

 

 +2 a year has been nixed in the past by TJ.  would rather remove limits, because it was easier, but as of yet, has not been convinced of the need for that either.  So, choices are a flat increase or no limits.  (or do nothing).

 

quoting myself from another topic:

Quote

Just flat out raise the limits. Easy. No extra fuss.

Pros:

More dragons for everyone.

Larger breeding pool of CBs.

More ability to  craft lineages.

More people  able to catch and gift.

No ap blocking where players can't pick up eggs.

More Christmas spirit.

And the site has long proclaimed that  hording is not a thing and everyone should be able to breed and raise whatever they want in whatever  quantity they desire, so, consistency!

No extra rules/coding needed.

 

Cons.

With the holiday biome and ability to pick up older eggs that were missed are there really  any?

The idea that its more generous has proven to be a falsification. People  are far MORE generous with Halloween's because they have extras. No need to choose  between your own lineages and breeding to gift. And always  easier to catch for others without limits.

"Hoarding": already  covered.

 

[tjekan]

I don't think making holidays unlimited would make them difficult or impossible to catch or make the biome empty out in a nanosecond, because Halloweens are unlimited and we didn't see that happen on Halloween.

 

I would be happy to see the limits removed completely, because I think they're having the opposite effect to what was originally intended. People are hoarding their own Holiday breedings because they have so few CB's they can breed. If they had more available to breed, they would have more offspring to share with others, like on Halloween.

 

However, I concede that going from a 2-dragon limit to an unlimited number might be too sudden of a move and might cause temporary shortages, so I would be delighted with simply raising the limit from 2 to 4 this year. If that goes well we would then have the option to remove them completely the following year (no one being able to grab more than 8 eggs at a time anyway.)

[49ER]

14 hours ago, DragonLady86 said:

+2 a year has been nixed in the past by TJ.  would rather remove limits, because it was easier, but as of yet, has not been convinced of the need for that either.  So, choices are a flat increase or no limits.  (or do nothing).

 

I don't understand why coding it would be difficult.  He already codes the CB's to be limited to 2, so changing that number to 4 really should not be an issue

[olympe]

14 hours ago, DragonLady86 said:

I support upping the limit, but I also agree that just getting rid of it would be better.   Halloween shows us that such a system does work.  Yes, the first year it becomes unlimited (or even just raised) SOME breeds will be hard to get.  cough/hollies.  But the upside, is that that means that many more are in circulation for the next year, making them easier to get.  Regardless of how much the limit is raised, it will take, at a guess a minimum of two years to sort out the hype. 

 

 +2 a year has been nixed in the past by TJ.  would rather remove limits, because it was easier, but as of yet, has not been convinced of the need for that either.  So, choices are a flat increase or no limits.  (or do nothing).

 

quoting myself from another topic:

 

Well, TJ has been known to change his mind if the occasion warranted it.

 

Just now, 49ER said:

 

I don't understand why coding it would be difficult.  He already codes the CB's to be limited to 2, so changing that number to 4 really should not be an issue

 It's not because he can't code it, he was against this option because it's maths, and users are bound to get confused. Because, apparently, maths is confusing to way too many people.

 

To avoid the maths thing (+2/year, after all, is maths), we could always go for a limit of (still) growing CB holiday dragons. This way, we have something very similar to +2/year, but without the maths issue. Sure, if you insist on collecting, let's say, hollies and make them your top priority, you might be able to raise 4 in a year (day 1: grab two, incubate. They grow up on day 6, so you can grab an extra two.) Or, if you prefer, you could freeze 4 and raise 2 (grab 2 on day 1, incubate. They hatch on day 3, freeze and catch 2 more, incubate. They hatch on day 5. Keep them another day so they gender, then freeze those on day 6 and grab 2 more for raising/freezing/whatever.)

But that also means that you cannot gorge your scroll on 16 hollies a year because you're way more limited. In order to get as many CBs as possible, you need to branch out over the various breeds - which I think is a good thing, too. Plus, it is pretty much guaranteed to spread the joy. Of course, we all know that there are power traders around who might be able to get more - but that's pretty much part of the game, and has been for a long time. I remember one player with 70+ CB Shadow Walkers after their initial release... Kudos to that!

[Fiona]

What DragonLady was talking about is an old proposal to add two per year for each of us. TJ's objection wasn't the coding but trying to explain to a new person why he can only have two of those CB Hollies (or whatever breed) while this other person has 4, or 6 or... He was concerned it would be  confusing to people.

 

I actually don't care for that idea myself as I'd be one of those who felt they had to get two new ones of each cb dragon or somehow miss out, and that's just too much stress for me.

[49ER]

Well I remember when the limits were two of every Christmas or Valentine period.  Whether they are bred, CB or frozen.  So he has changed his mind on that issue before.  I am just hoping he can be persuaded to just up it to 4 CB's of each for everyone. This is the 3rd year I believe since he started releasing old CBs I believe?  The limit of 2 made sense at first, but I don't think it should be a huge thing to make at least a small incremental change.

[Haloclimb]

On 12/6/2019 at 7:39 AM, VixenDra said:

 

The Halloween Holiday biome was pretty relaxed this year nearer the end of the holiday season. Been there to witness. And Halloweens are unlimited. Also, the other 2 holidays block the biome quite often, especially near the end. And now most of the playerbase got their CB fill it wil only be worse. if not this year yet, then surely the next.

People panic over the darkest scenarios they can imagine (oh, I wont' be able to get my fill" - yeah sure, on release day 2 and 3 those eggs sit there for ages), which prove to not be a thing when you look at Halloweens plus consider the fact the winter and Valentine ones have a 3-day long release unlike Halloweens.

 

I personally insist on the limit to be 2CBs per year (so caugit in x year, if you collect 2 every single year after 10 years you end up with 20) instead of X total unless the total was at least 10 (personally needing 5, loads of people collect in 10s).

I'm still all for 2 CB's per year, but honestly I think even if they went unlimited people would still be able to catch eggs, even with slow connections. I have fairly crappy rural internet (in australia, no less!) and I don't have too much trouble catch new releases, even on Halloween- though I do also have the advantage of being online during DC's dead times.
While I have missed drops in the past (even limited CB drops, like the original sweetlings) the cave has changed so much now that catching on the holidays is fairly doable. And we do also now have the actual problem of the holiday biome getting clogged up on limited events because no one can pick up another '09 Val, regardless of if they want to or not.

[Fuzzbucket]

As I said somewhere, I support a limit of four, but not no limit. In an ideal world, two the fist year and the other two later, but TJ said no math !

[MIGOR]

On 12/6/2019 at 5:49 PM, tjekan said:

I don't think making holidays unlimited would make them difficult or impossible to catch or make the biome empty out in a nanosecond, because Halloweens are unlimited and we didn't see that happen on Halloween.

 

I would be happy to see the limits removed completely, because I think they're having the opposite effect to what was originally intended. People are hoarding their own Holiday breedings because they have so few CB's they can breed. If they had more available to breed, they would have more offspring to share with others, like on Halloween.

 

However, I concede that going from a 2-dragon limit to an unlimited number might be too sudden of a move and might cause temporary shortages, so I would be delighted with simply raising the limit from 2 to 4 this year. If that goes well we would then have the option to remove them completely the following year (no one being able to grab more than 8 eggs at a time anyway.)

I agree with you 100%

[pinkgothic]

On 12/6/2019 at 9:19 PM, olympe said:

To avoid the maths thing (+2/year, after all, is maths), we could always go for a limit of (still) growing CB holiday dragons. This way, we have something very similar to +2/year, but without the maths issue. Sure, if you insist on collecting, let's say, hollies and make them your top priority, you might be able to raise 4 in a year (day 1: grab two, incubate. They grow up on day [3], so you can grab an extra two.)

I do like this solution. ❤️ However, for completion's sake I do need to point out that you could actually raise way more than four if you make IOU trades beforehand, and you stagger your receiving trades (all on the third day of the drop, necessarily) so that they're only on your scroll as hatchlings for a few minutes or hours.

 

Possibly, "you're allowed to pick up 2 CBs this year" might the best solution (like e.g. VixenDra has suggested). No maths - if you miss a year, you're never going to be able to get the 2 CBs from that year by simply trying to catch more in future years, you will only ever be able to have two CBs from <year> on your scroll.

 

...in any case, please let me have more than 2 CB Arsanii and 2 CB Winter Magi, I'm dying here.

 

(For the record, I suppose I'd also support unlimited CB valentines and CB holidays, although it might be best if those then are (unusual for the cave) given an infinite drop in the cave, i.e. one that cannot dry up. There'd still be some skew in that there are only ever three species visible in the Holiday biome - although we've had multiple rows in the cave before, so maybe just having more slots in that biome, one infinite egg per species, would solve the availability issue per species. Would quite possibly be too easy-peasy then, but, throwing the idea out there anyway. *shrug* )

[Auriene]

I support the idea of raising a CB limit to 4. I would love to have two enraged CB Aegis... although that would mean that during at least one year, I would not be able to raise bred holidays, raising CBs instead (assuming I would be able to catch them soon enough to raise two batches during one holiday).