Longer-lasting floods for big releases?

[solairehighwind]

Hello!

So I've been thinking about this for a while now, but this latest release has given me a good reason to post about it.

Whenever there's a new release, the floods of new eggs last for similar amounts of time, whether there's only 2 kinds of eggs to collect, or 7 (like this release). The floods also don't last the whole day, so if you're asleep while the floods drop, you'll have a harder time catching the new eggs. Since there's more eggs to collect, one would logically need more time to grab all of them (especially when there's more kinds of eggs than can fit on a scroll at once).

I'm not sure how it would work programming-wise, but I think it might be a good idea to make floods of new eggs last longer (that is, keep old eggs from mixing back in for a longer period of time) when there's big releases, maybe at least 24h, or more depending on size?

 

What do people think of this?

(Also this isn't necessarily specific to the June release; it's also something with birthday releases, which are the main time that a ton of new dragons are released at once.)

 

[Astreya]

Actually I would even prefer the new eggs to be dropped with preference for about 3 days or so if there is an all-biome release with 6+ new eggs as then one would have the chance to get two "fills" of them. Particularly new users who only have 4 or maybe 5 egg slots otherwise are really disadvantaged when there are so many new eggs. (And yes, I want more of them comparatively easily, too ^^)

 

Edited June 28, 2020 by Astreya

[Suzumiya]

I absolutely agree with this. I have tried to get a new flow egg and a Desert/Jungle new Xeno for five hours now. Haven't seen a flow egg and keep getting "already taken" messages for the others. I wish the caves would flood again, instead of just the 1 egg per five minutes.

[dragonico]

Strong agree for me. I think maybe some time of floods, to mixed, to back to floods or something that doesn't lock people who aren't interested in new releases and want some older breeds out of the cave? It's not vital for me personally, but I feel like some may not want a constant flood for say 3 days straight but I personally would appreciate that, especially when the eggs are going as quickly as they are.

[BreRo]

Agree. Dragon Cave has a lot of players from all around the world, and there are such an issue as timezones, not even mentioning that every player has their own life and different amount of time they can spend on pet sites. I would vote for 1-2 days "floods" for every release, maybe even longer for big releases, but not less than full 24 hours.

[StormBirdRising]

I like the 3 day flood suggestion, that is the best one. In the alternative, if the 3 day flood is not possible,  I would suggest a 24 hour flood with an hourly flood after the 24 hour period, so every hour, on the hour,  there would be a 5 minute flood.

[HeatherMarie]

Because so many users lately have complained about the flood length, I guess I support this. However, how would this actually work without totally destroying the ratios? Brand-new releases must adhere to their specific ratios, however common/uncommon/rare they are meant to be. It seems logical that if a breed floods for *that* much longer than usual, it will screw all that up. Whenever the longer-flood ends the new breed will become much *harder* to get than even this June release is proving to be. We will go from 'shorter flood then getting harder but still appearing regularly' to 'longer flood then almost totally absent'. I'm not sure a longer flood is worth that consequence. Similar to what happened with Coppers, for a few months after the release they were nearly impossible to find. 

 

I have seen a few similar suggestions say that maybe the flood-eggs could just 'not count' towards the ratios, but I have no idea if that's even possible and I don't remember TJ ever commenting on it.

[DragonLady86]

Not saying it wouldn't be nice, especially with giant releases like this, but to play devil's advocate the Midwinter  Madness from Jan 2010 did go for three days and people all over the forums threw a fit that it was too much. Of course that was 10 years ago.

Edited June 28, 2020 by DragonLady86

[olympe]

First of all, full support.

27 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

Because so many users lately have complained about the flood length, I guess I support this. However, how would this actually work without totally destroying the ratios? Brand-new releases must adhere to their specific ratios, however common/uncommon/rare they are meant to be. It seems logical that if a breed floods for *that* much longer than usual, it will screw all that up. Whenever the longer-flood ends the new breed will become much *harder* to get than even this June release is proving to be. We will go from 'shorter flood then getting harder but still appearing regularly' to 'longer flood then almost totally absent'. I'm not sure a longer flood is worth that consequence. Similar to what happened with Coppers, for a few months after the release they were nearly impossible to find. 

 

I have seen a few similar suggestions say that maybe the flood-eggs could just 'not count' towards the ratios, but I have no idea if that's even possible and I don't remember TJ ever commenting on it.

Emphasis by me. How would this work? By not making common x common breedings with newer pairs give almost exclusively the new breed for a year or two or more. Two problems, one solution. Adheres to the KISS principle, too.

Edited June 28, 2020 by olympe

[Fuzzbucket]

38 minutes ago, olympe said:

First of all, full support.

Emphasis by me. How would this work? By not making common x common breedings with newer pairs give almost exclusively the new breed for a year or two or more. Two problems, one solution. Adheres to the KISS principle, too.

 

YES PLEASE. (whatever happens about floods, we need this.)

[Shadowdrake]

This is not a very good idea because either the drops will have to be really really small to even out ratios, or there will be an indefinite drought hitting instantly after the flood is over to ruin plans for literally everyone. If you make the flood not count for ratios, it screws with breeding the other way; I'm sure everyone breeding xenos has noticed how difficult it is to get a new release or flow result, and there's been a trend of the very first growing new releases not throwing their own breed, which would be further extended by a non-ratio flood.

[animatedrose]

As much as I'd love a longer flood (I missed the flows completely because I was snoring, RIP me), it makes sense that this one would be shorter than some we've seen. Xenos are a known high uncommon to rare tier derg and the flows proved right away to be pretty much Gold-tier rare when trying to breed for them. The longer the flood, the worse their post-flood ratio will be. I'd love to support this because I'm a very slow player so longer floods (24 hours would be bomb!) would definitely help me...but the ratios are a thing to be concerned with. I wasn't here for the long metal drought that hit a long while back but I wouldn't want that to happen again.

 

Yes to a longer flood...but no to the consequences that the ratios would hit us with for it. *torn*

[Stormcaller]

3 hours ago, Astreya said:

Actually I would even prefer the new eggs to be dropped with preference for about 3 days or so if there is an all-biome release with 6+ new eggs as then one would have the chance to get two "fills" of them. Particularly new users who only have 4 or maybe 5 egg slots otherwise are really disadvantaged when there are so many new eggs. (And yes, I want more of them comparatively easily, too ^^)

 

 

This sounds like a good idea to me too.  I never remember DC being so stingy with the new eggs before this.  I've been working hard but still haven't been able to collect all six of them, let alone get a Flow egg, and I'm feeling very disappointed and sad.  Forget about the idea of having to buy them later, if someone is here from the first day, they should be able to catch their fill rather easily. Not every one wants to settle for bred dragons later since many people prefer CBs.  There are also those who specialize in first day born dragons.  Then too, some of us have older equipment and/or slower internet that makes us have to get at the back of the line, so to speak.  Everyone should be able to catch their share of new releases when they first come out.

 

Please make the initial drops longer.

[HeatherMarie]

1 hour ago, olympe said:

First of all, full support.

Emphasis by me. How would this work? By not making common x common breedings with newer pairs give almost exclusively the new breed for a year or two or more. Two problems, one solution. Adheres to the KISS principle, too.

 

I totally agree that common/common breeding should be fixed, but I'm not really sure how that will solve the issue I was pointing out? Breeding isn't the only thing that will be negatively affected. And if it's an uncommon/rare release (as this one might be) the breeding thing doesn't apply at all. Let's see if I understand this idea correctly: People want longer floods for new releases, but that amount of flooding will lead to later scarcity of the breed for weeks or months. What does breeding have to do with it? How would getting less new-breed from common/common pairs have anything to do with the initial increased flood? Even if breeding were completely fixed, a flood this long would still wreck havoc on their dropping in the *biomes*. I get that maybe for weeks/months/etc after the first few days, if they weren't being bred constantly, that might help even the ratios out in the future. That doesn't change the fact that flooding for 24hrs, (or my goodness 3 days!) automatically means there will be a lot less in the biomes after that point. 

.... Unless TJ just completely overhauls the entire way ratios work in the first place. Or allows all new-release flood eggs to not count towards ratios. Neither of those sound very likely.

[Paintra]

Full support.

 

I'm not sure why a longer flood would be an issue? There have always been issues with ratios immediately after releases, and a longer flood may actually help balance the ratios. Even if they do have an unwanted effect on the ratio, I really don't see why that downside outweighs the benefits of giving more people an opportunity to grab the eggs, since the current 6-12 hour flood time can be completely covered by someone's work/sleep schedule, while a 24 hour schedule would give the majority of the playerbase a chance at getting a new egg.

[Tini]

The christmas and valentines dragons flood for 3 days, and we can only ever grab two of them. I don't get why we can't get a solid day for new release with multiple eggs. That's all I personally want, none of the 3 day stuff, that gets old fast at those holidays, 2 days would be a bit annoying for people working on other stuff. At least garuntee them dropping for the first 24 hours (on the hour or 15min, at least one new egg), even if they don't properly flood. People who go to sleep early or don't think there's a release coming up get a bit cheated, especially with rarer new releases. If its okay to flood for half a day what's so wrong with a full day?

 

The breeding problem is a whole different beast imo.

[Paintra]

10 minutes ago, Tinibree said:

The christmas and valentines dragons flood for 3 days, and we can only ever grab two of them. I don't get why we can't get a solid day for new release with multiple eggs. That's all I personally want, none of the 3 day stuff, that gets old fast at those holidays, 2 days would be a bit annoying for people working on other stuff. At least garuntee them dropping for the first 24 hours (on the hour or 15min, at least one new egg), even if they don't properly flood. People who go to sleep early or don't think there's a release coming up get a bit cheated, especially with rarer new releases. If its okay to flood for half a day what's so wrong with a full day?

 

The breeding problem is a whole different beast imo.

 

That's what I was thinking! We already have barriers that limit the amount of dragons a person can get (egg limit, hatchling limit, and also just the hard 2-3 day timer from stealing to hatching). I don't think a 24 hour flood would cause any significant discrepancy in the actual ratios themselves. 24 hour releaaes does not give a single player the time to hatch a new release egg, so it's not as if that amount of extended time would allow a player to get double the usual amount during a flood.

[Sylph264]

Many people are already having trouble finding the new Xenos and mystery eggs after they flooded for just 8-12 hours. A 24 hour flood would be two to three times longer than that, and would result in two to three times the number of Xenos being picked up (assuming demand and scroll space allowed for all eggs dropped to be picked up). 

...does that not sound like it would have made the Xenos much more difficult to get once the flood was over? In a longer flood their initial population spike would be much larger, and it would take a longer period of greater scarcity for their ratios to balance out to their intended rarity. Sure, everybody who played during the flood might be set (or might not, depending on their trophy level, ability to incubate, and CB goals), but the people who couldn't play during the flood, the people that this suggestion is meant to help, would be even more screwed over.

 

This flood isn't that unusual compared to others, in length or the number of people who are unhappy because they missed it. People miss floods for any number of reasons. I've certainly missed my share, including holidays back when they weren't re-released. But unless you play a game constantly, you always run the risk of missing things. It sucks, but it happens. 

 

I think this suggestion would have a neutral impact at best (more people happy immediately following the release, more people unhappy in the weeks/months following the release) and is an ineffective solution. 

Edited June 29, 2020 by Sylph264

[Tetelestai]

Total support of this though no longer than 24 hours. This game has grown a lot since it first started and there should be some ratio adjustments to allow for the growth so that the site doesn't get bogged down with people fighting the biohomes over 3 eggs. If this was a more rare release, then I can understand there not being an adjustment. I love this game and I love collecting, but my first initial response when I see so many eggs to catch is a loud groan rather than excitement. Some people would just say "Well then it's time you stop playing." I disagree, because if I didn't care about this game anymore I would have stopped playing years ago. Please, adjust the drop times for new releases ❤️

[Shadowdrake]

2 hours ago, Paintra said:

I'm not sure why a longer flood would be an issue? There have always been issues with ratios immediately after releases, and a longer flood may actually help balance the ratios.

It really wouldn't. In fact it might make things even worse. Breeding ratios are almost completely divorced from CB ratios: what we would get is a sudden drought of cave dragons and the same problem as always for bred dragons, because there are too many new CBs in the CB population and not nearly enough bred dragons in the lineaged population. Instead of there being trickles of new CB eggs into the population to keep things balanced, the population would be be overflowing until ratios finally get to kick in and shut down production of new eggs.

 

Historically, DC has already seen this happen before; way back in the early days, CB golds and silvers were dropping commonly enough you could barely give them away. After this got fixed, there was a drought of metals for years. So this isn't just "what if" opposition, this is a "we have already seen what happens when things flood for too long" opposition.

Edited June 29, 2020 by Shadowdrake

[Paintra]

17 minutes ago, Shadowdrake said:

Breeding ratios are almost completely divorced from CB ratios: what we would get is a sudden drought of cave dragons and the same problem as always for bred dragons, because there are too many new CBs in the CB population and not nearly enough bred dragons in the lineaged population. Instead of there being trickles of new CB eggs into the population to keep things balanced, the population would be be overflowing until ratios finally get to kick in and shut down production of new eggs.

 

I wasn't aware that CBs were separated from bred ratios! Thank you for the info- that certainly effects things more than I thought!

[Stormcaller]

22 minutes ago, Shadowdrake said:

Historically, DC has already seen this happen before; way back in the early days, CB golds and silvers were dropping commonly enough you could barely give them away. After this got fixed, there was a drought of metals for years. So this isn't just "what if" opposition, this is a "we have already seen what happens when things flood for too long" opposition.

 

Really, this is a bit extreme.  A day or two of flooding for a six egg or more release is not excessive, I believe.

[solairehighwind]

 

52 minutes ago, Sylph264 said:

Many people are already having trouble finding the new Xenos and mystery eggs after they flooded for just 8-12 hours. A 24 hour flood would be two to three times longer than that, and would result in two to three times the number of Xenos being picked up (assuming demand and scroll space allowed for all eggs dropped to be picked up). 

...does that not sound like it would have made the Xenos much more difficult to get once the flood was over? In a longer flood their initial population spike would be much larger, and it would take a longer period of greater scarcity for their ratios to balance out to their intended rarity. Sure, everybody who played during the flood might be set (or might not, depending on their trophy level, ability to incubate, and CB goals), but the people who couldn't play during the flood, the people that this suggestion is meant to help, would be even more screwed over.

 

This flood isn't that unusual compared to others, in length or the number of people who are unhappy because they missed it. People miss floods for any number of reasons. I've certainly missed my share, including holidays back when they weren't re-released. But unless you play a game constantly, you always run the risk of missing things. It sucks, but it happens. 

 

I think this suggestion would have a neutral impact at best (more people happy immediately following the release, more people unhappy in the weeks/months following the release) and is an ineffective solution. 

 

Tbh, I think if having even 1 full day of releases would mess up the ratios, ratios need to be reworked so that they can actually function while still having flood times that don't put people with certain timezones/schedules at a disadvantage. Also, 1 day isn't enough for people to hatch their new eggs; people have limited scroll space. It would just serve the function of letting almost everyone get a full scroll of eggs, rather than just most people.

 

Also - like I said, this suggestion isn't specific to this release; in fact it would probably be better for other releases, since commons becoming a little more rare after the flood isn't as big an issue as rares becoming nearly impossible to find. It's more applicable to, say, birthday releases where the new breeds are commons, since otherwise we don't usually have huge releases.

 

This isn't a "I'm having a hard time catching xenos so I think the floods should be longer" suggestion, I caught a full 8 the morning of the release, lol. It's more about giving people a chance to collect every egg, and also about not forcing people to drop as many eggs the moment new ones start flooding (if we're going to have unpredictable releases like this one).

 

 

[Tini]

Eh, I'm firmly in the 'tj needs to revisit the ratios' camp, but that's a whole different issue with trying to breed what you want and failing for years, with commons, vs wanting to be able to get the new dragons. One day lets most everyone fill up so long as they look at the site to see its happening. People that find out there is a release after noon are sorta screwed out of the eggs atm and that's not exactly fair.

 

Comparing the metals being easy for (months?) to a 24hr period isn't the same thing.

[Sylph264]

24 minutes ago, lolahighwind said:

Tbh, I think if having even 1 full day of releases would mess up the ratios, ratios need to be reworked so that they can actually function while still having flood times that don't put people with certain timezones/schedules at a disadvantage. Also, 1 day isn't enough for people to hatch their new eggs; people have limited scroll space. It would just serve the function of letting almost everyone get a full scroll of eggs, rather than just most people.

 

-I don't disagree that maybe the ratios need touching up, but that would be a totally different suggestion.

-I know that people can't incuhatch their eggs in one day- my point was that demand and scroll space in the first day of a release (normal or holiday) generally allows all new eggs to be snatched up as soon as they drop, meaning doubling or tripling the length of the drop would mean doubling or tripling the amount of that dragon in the game. Since that's a large increase in the number of dragons, that would likely have a dramatic impact on the ratios. I wasn't intending to imply that certain people would still manage to "steal away" all the new eggs away from others or somesuch thing.

-I don't agree that a 24 hour flood would allow even "almost everyone" get a full scroll of eggs. Let's use Halloween drops as an example. They last 24 hours, and everybody knows when they're going to happen. People have limited scroll space and all day to hunt, so everybody should get eggs since the faster people fill up immediately, right? ...but that's not what happens. The eggs move fast in those 24 hours because when people know the Halloween egg won't be available for another year (and in the case of a regular release drop, the eggs move fast because people don't know how rare the egg will become), the biomes are often empty, and when they aren't, competition for the eggs can be fierce. People with poor internet or who happen to get bad lag sometimes don't get a full scroll of eggs or any eggs at all, even if they're playing all day. Plenty of people get their full scrolls, of course. But plenty don't, and a mandatory 24 hour flood for regular releases wouldn't ensure everybody gets all the new eggs they want, same as it doesn't ensure everybody gets all the Halloween eggs they want. And it would certainly mess with the ratios, especially with uncommon and rare releases.