Protect freshly traded things from dying of Sickness (autoward)

[Stormcaller]

I'll be happy to send her a message and also PM her on Tales of Ostlea. 

 

Edit:  Messages sent.

Edited March 1, 2020 by Stormcaller
To update post

[Fuzzbucket]

Thank you - in that case, I will send you the link, and you can take care of it for me

[tjekan]

What if there was another BSA that would provide your scroll with a "zone" ward, warding everything growing on the scroll for six hours? That way if you have to go to bed with trade offers pending, you could use the zone ward to protect the whole scroll.

A GoN or Sinomorph could cast the zone protection.

 

It sounds really complicated to set up the game to automatically ward an egg that you just received in trade. Does the code even keep track of which eggs were received in trade versus picked up from the AP or something?

[DragonLady86]

2 hours ago, tjekan said:

What if there was another BSA that would provide your scroll with a "zone" ward, warding everything growing on the scroll for six hours? That way if you have to go to bed with trade offers pending, you could use the zone ward to protect the whole scroll.

A GoN or Sinomorph could cast the zone protection.

 

It sounds really complicated to set up the game to automatically ward an egg that you just received in trade. Does the code even keep track of which eggs were received in trade versus picked up from the AP or something?

Besides the "rare dragons will not get a BSA", why would you pick two super hard to get ones? What qualities do either of them have that would make them good protectors? A BSA has to fit the dragon not just be slapped on.

 

I wouldn't say no to a zone of protection, I think it should apply to all growing things on the scroll.

 

That is a very good question and really needs answered so we know more about what kind of solutions are even feasible.

[tjekan]

1 hour ago, DragonLady86 said:

Besides the "rare dragons will not get a BSA", why would you pick two super hard to get ones? What qualities do either of them have that would make them good protectors? A BSA has to fit the dragon not just be slapped on.

 

 

Yeah, it was their stated nature as protectors and wielders of powerful magic that made me think of them. It might not be the best idea practically due to their both being somewhat limited. But lore-wise, "what qualities do they have that would make them good protectors," well, read the breed text.   Especially the entire GoN text, but the sinomorph also has that " If the stories of the past are to be trusted, its appearance serves as a beacon of light in the face of looming calamity" thing going on.

It could be any other breed that's easier to get though. Or for that matter, the existing Ward power of the whites could just be extended to protect all growing things on the scroll for 6 hours instead of a single egg or hatchling. There's really no difference in difficulty involved between warding one egg and warding three, so it wouldn't matter if a person could ward more than one at once anyway.

[Stormcaller]

But how would a BSA work?  If you don't own the egg yet you can't ward it; you would have to depend on the trader to do the job.  If you could rely on that, you could count on them to just remove them from hatcheries before offering them for trade.  This is simply not going to happen.

 

4 hours ago, tjekan said:

It sounds really complicated to set up the game to automatically ward an egg that you just received in trade. Does the code even keep track of which eggs were received in trade versus picked up from the AP or something?

 

It sounds complicated to me too, but so does making any kind of change to the forum.  However, I trust that the clever folks who know how to do the coding are able to work miracles and will undoubtedly be able to figure it out.

[tjekan]

1 hour ago, Stormcaller said:

But how would a BSA work?  If you don't own the egg yet you can't ward it

 

The "zone ward" would simply protect all growing things on your scroll for six hours. Regardless of whether they were there at the time you cast the ward or arrived during the six hour span. Your whole scroll would have sickness deaths disabled for 6 hours, not just one egg.

[Stormcaller]

1 hour ago, tjekan said:

 

The "zone ward" would simply protect all growing things on your scroll for six hours. Regardless of whether they were there at the time you cast the ward or arrived during the six hour span. Your whole scroll would have sickness deaths disabled for 6 hours, not just one egg.

 

I thought as much, but even if it is a good idea, is it practical?  First, since sickness is, I understand, an essential aspect of the game, whole scroll coverage by a BSA might be too broad a protection to be allowed.  Also, 6 hours is not nearly enough time to offer the protection required.  Even at night it would take the entire 6 hours, or more, to get a good night's rest, let alone take care of a few personal activities before bedtime.  A  day at work is usually 8 hours or so and many people don't have access to a computer during this time. And not everyone can play games on their phones.

 

[HeatherMarie]

49 minutes ago, Stormcaller said:

 

I thought as much, but even if it is a good idea, is it practical?  First, since sickness is, I understand, an essential aspect of the game, whole scroll coverage by a BSA might be too broad a protection to be allowed.  Also, 6 hours is not nearly enough time to offer the protection required.  Even at night it would take the entire 6 hours, or more, to get a good night's rest, let alone take care of a few personal activities before bedtime.  A  day at work is usually 8 hours or so and many people don't have access to a computer during this time. And not everyone can play games on their phones.

 

 

I could see the Ward cooldown time being extended as compensation for the broad protection. Or perhaps it's such a harder thing to Ward all the growing things that all of your Whites have to do it, and thus all Whites go on cooldown. That would make it much more of a 'use only if really needed' thing and would prevent most abuse I think. 

 

6 hours is what the current Ward is. A lot of us have asked to extend it to 8, or even more. But working with the current Ward details, any sort of Ward modification would indeed be 6 hours. More would be awesome, but...

[darkladyselenity]

To me, it seems that it may be easier to just allow protection for a traded egg without having to cancel the trade. 

 

In my case, I had already sent the trade link, and was just waiting for it to be accepted. Cancelling the trade, for me at least, was out of the question. So being able to cast ward on the egg, even though it was in trade, would have been preferable. 

 

Adding this function, and possibly extending the length of the protection would be helpful, and I don't think it would be game breaking, because at the end of the day, the user still has to pay attention. 

 

In my case, since the egg was on my own scroll, I was able to remove it from click sites, which (thankfully) saved it. However, as the OP said, her hands tied because of the *not accepting aid from others* rule. In this case, I do see how a general protection while in trade is warranted. 

 

At the end of the day, I don't know what the best solution is. Maybe the user who offered the egg wasn't able to access the site before the egg died (because of real life issues or whatnot), just the same as the OP wasn't able to check her scroll until after she'd woken up. 

 

Adding a mechanic that automatically protects eggs in trade removes responsibility from both parties, which may or may not be a good thing.

[Fuzzbucket]

3 hours ago, darkladyselenity said:

To me, it seems that it may be easier to just allow protection for a traded egg without having to cancel the trade. 

 

In my case, I had already sent the trade link, and was just waiting for it to be accepted. Cancelling the trade, for me at least, was out of the question. So being able to cast ward on the egg, even though it was in trade, would have been preferable. 

 

Adding this function, and possibly extending the length of the protection would be helpful, and I don't think it would be game breaking, because at the end of the day, the user still has to pay attention. 

 

In my case, since the egg was on my own scroll, I was able to remove it from click sites, which (thankfully) saved it. However, as the OP said, her hands tied because of the *not accepting aid from others* rule. In this case, I do see how a general protection while in trade is warranted. 

 

At the end of the day, I don't know what the best solution is. Maybe the user who offered the egg wasn't able to access the site before the egg died (because of real life issues or whatnot), just the same as the OP wasn't able to check her scroll until after she'd woken up. 

 

Adding a mechanic that automatically protects eggs in trade removes responsibility from both parties, which may or may not be a good thing.

 100% agree. Please can we be allowed to use actions while an egg is in teleport. Precog too, in case someone asks.

[tjekan]

9 hours ago, Stormcaller said:

First, since sickness is, I understand, an essential aspect of the game, whole scroll coverage by a BSA might be too broad a protection to be allowed.  Also, 6 hours is not nearly enough time to offer the protection required.

 

6 hours is what we've got with Ward right now, though.

 

And the only reason sickness is an important mechanism is to keep all the users interacting with their scrolls on a daily basis. Making them log in to cast ward on the scroll once accomplishes this just as well as making them log in to cast ward on the scroll four times.

 

In fact, I'd be cool with just changing the existing Ward BSA so that it covers the whole scroll for those 6 hours. It's still only 6 hours. The user still has to keep logging in to do it. Nothing is gained by making the user do four times as many clicks to accomplish the same thing, and if it protected the whole scroll when you did it these trade problems would be solved.

[Stormcaller]

7 hours ago, tjekan said:

6 hours is what we've got with Ward right now, though.

 

That's fine right now because you use Ward to prevent sickness or protect a sickness from killing. It's only used when needed and then it's used to pinpoint and resolve an identified problem.

 

7 hours ago, tjekan said:

And the only reason sickness is an important mechanism is to keep all the users interacting with their scrolls on a daily basis. Making them log in to cast ward on the scroll once accomplishes this just as well as making them log in to cast ward on the scroll four times.

 

That is true, but how often does that happen to a careful player?   While making a ward to cover an entire scroll is an interesting idea, we are straying for the immediate problem of protecting eggs and hatchies while they are in trade.

[DragonLady86]

Please explain how sickness is needed?  Making people log on everyday? I don't. I chuck my eggs into sites, come back when they hatch and either freeze or put them in again to grow. I do not micromanage my scroll and I can't be the only one.

 

What benefit does it even have? I'm all for better protection, but only because we can't simply lose a completely useless mechanic that is only good for frustration and viewbombers.

[Sylph264]

3 hours ago, DragonLady86 said:

Please explain how sickness is needed?  Making people log on everyday? I don't. I chuck my eggs into sites, come back when they hatch and either freeze or put them in again to grow. I do not micromanage my scroll and I can't be the only one.

 

What benefit does it even have? I'm all for better protection, but only because we can't simply lose a completely useless mechanic that is only good for frustration and viewbombers.

 

I don't remember the reasons given by TJ for it being needed, but he has said it will never be removed. 

You can definitely suggest it again if you think you've found an argument that can sway him, but that would need to be its own suggestion. I think VixenDra specifically avoided making that suggestion so we wouldn't be covering something that's been suggested and shot down before. I think there may still be one or two suggestions asking for sickness removal open, though, so you'd want to check for those before starting your own.

[tjekan]

19 hours ago, Stormcaller said:

That is true, but how often does that happen to a careful player?   While making a ward to cover an entire scroll is an interesting idea, we are straying for the immediate problem of protecting eggs and hatchies while they are in trade.

 

How often does an egg dying of sickness EVER happen to a careful player? Only when you're being viewbombed, which isn't supposed to be part of the game at all.

 

The problems mentioned in this thread are that viewbombing is especially annoying when eggs are in trade, because they can't be fogged or warded by the owner and the person who's trading for them can only protect them manually once the trade finishes, which people aren't always able to be instantly present for.

 

Broadening the effects of warding would solve that problem. And not cause any new ones, except for viewbombers.

 

5 hours ago, DragonLady86 said:

What benefit does it even have? I'm all for better protection, but only because we can't simply lose a completely useless mechanic that is only good for frustration and viewbombers.

 

More users logging in more often = more site revenue, presumably. It's a free-to-play game, it's got to get paid for somehow.

Edited March 5, 2020 by tjekan

[Stormcaller]

1 hour ago, tjekan said:

Broadening the effects of warding would solve that problem. And not cause any new ones, except for viewbombers.

 

True, but if TJ has already prohibited it, it's probably pointless to keep going back to it in a thread that addresses a specific problem.

 

1 hour ago, tjekan said:

More users logging in more often = more site revenue, presumably. It's a free-to-play game, it's got to get paid for somehow.

 

This is also true, but I was hesitant to bring it up.  I do think it might be a good subject to explore more thoroughly in the "Abandoned Page Compendium - Display Suggestions" thread. 

[tjekan]

Well, TJ hasn't yet shot down the possibility of being able to Ward more than one thing at once, so I think it's still a reasonable suggestion to make. What he said would never happen would be eliminating sickness, or any improvements to Ward that would have the practical effect of eliminating sickness. I don't think this would do so--since it would still only last for 6 hours users would still have to keep logging in to actively manage their sickness issues. All it would do would be saving them some clicks if their whole scroll was getting viewbombed and in need of protection, and solving the problem of traded eggs dying before they can be helped. Neither viewbombing nor trading deaths are intentional features of the game, so making them less problematic shouldn't be undercutting whatever the game value of sickness is, I don't think.

 

I'm not sure how this relates to the abandoned page at all, though, can you elaborate?