Longer-lasting floods for big releases?

[solairehighwind]

2 minutes ago, Sylph264 said:

 

 

-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. 

 

Halloween is a holiday (like you said - the eggs aren't available at all for another year), not a regular release.  Not knowing how rare eggs will be isn't really a fair comparison to knowing for certain that they won't be here at all, especially since most of the time (again, this release is special, since we know xenos are uncommon/rare) people know that the eggs are probably going to be commons.

 

[Sylph264]

2 minutes ago, lolahighwind said:

Halloween is a holiday (like you said - the eggs aren't available at all for another year), not a regular release.  Not knowing how rare eggs will be isn't really a fair comparison to knowing for certain that they won't be here at all, especially since most of the time (again, this release is special, since we know xenos are uncommon/rare) people know that the eggs are probably going to be commons.

 

Halloween is a great example, because the drop lasts 24 hours and demand is extremely high- despite people know for certain that the Halloween eggs will be attainable again the next year in the holiday biome. The uncertainty of an egg's future rarity is relatively comparable to the year-long wait people know they're in for if they don't get eggs right away. Ignoring all my points to claim my example was totally inapplicable isn't helpful for furthering discussion of your suggestion.

[HeatherMarie]

4 hours ago, Shadowdrake said:

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.

 

100% agree.

Now, if TJ were to come in here and say ratios wouldn't be an issue, or say he is *finally* going to totally rework ratios in general, I would eagerly support a longer flood. But based on things that have already happened, having a longer flood *does* have negative consequences. Maybe a full 24hrs wouldn't screw things up majorly the way a 2-3 *day* flood would, but it will definitely make a difference. A negative difference. 

 

I get that people want longer floods to have a better chance of getting all the new breeds right away, but what about all the people who will *still* miss the longer flood, or people who want to collect more than a pair of each breed? Users are complaining about *this* release, how hard it is to get a new Xeno *now* after the flood... It will be worse than this if the flood is significantly longer! 

[Fuzzbucket]

6 hours ago, Shadowdrake said:

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.

 

This, so much - I remember the gold / silver drought. And even the BLACK drought - anyone remember that ?

[Maiden]

I completely support the 24 hour flood.  I wouldn't go over 24 hours for the initial flood, but maybe increase the drop rates for 2-3 days after the release if they are an uncommon/rare breed.  I'll reiterate the point that DC has users from around the world, so it seems only fair that everyone gets a full 'regular day' cycle to notice a release has happened and catch some eggs.

 

6 hours 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.

 

This.  So much this.  'It can't be done because it would completely break the ratios and mess up drops and breeding for years to come' isn't a good argument - it's a sad commentary on just how fragile the ratio system is and an indicator of how badly it needs revisiting.  The ratio issue is as old as DC itself, and I'm beyond tired of hearing how we'll break it when we come up with new ideas for the game.  Fix it.  If that's the conversation we need to have, let's run another thread about it.

 

5 hours ago, Sylph264 said:

Halloween is a great example, because the drop lasts 24 hours and demand is extremely high- despite people know for certain that the Halloween eggs will be attainable again the next year in the holiday biome. The uncertainty of an egg's future rarity is relatively comparable to the year-long wait people know they're in for if they don't get eggs right away. Ignoring all my points to claim my example was totally inapplicable isn't helpful for furthering discussion of your suggestion.

 

Okay, you're right - Halloween is an example of an extremely high-demand 24 hour release.  Let's compare it to a new breed release.

 

We know Halloween is coming and prepare for it by emptying our egg slots.  Can't really do that with a new release, there's not a specific day of the week or date they happen, and they don't happen every single month.  There's a good chance that users will have at least some eggs when the normal release happens, if not totally locked.  A 24 hour window gives more time to incu-hatch anything that is low-time enough instead of having to toss it, especially if you catch the release early on.  With holidays, you know in advance a release is coming and to do your best to pop on to DC that day.  If somebody sleeps from 11 PM to 8 AM, works an eight hour shift from 9-5, then logs in like they do every day at 6:15 PM, they won't even know that a Midnight - 3 PM flood has happened until it's already over.  A 24 hour flood would have given that user five hours to yeet whatever they had to the AP and catch at least a few new pretties.  If you miss a Halloween dragon, they come back every year, getting less difficult to catch each time.  If you miss a new release, maybe it'll be a common or hybrid that you'll catch or breed in short order.  Or maybe it will be an ultra-popular uncommon or an actual rare that you won't even see, much less catch, for 5 years or more.  Halloween is a single breed in its own biome.  Normal releases are 1-7 eggs (generally 2-3) that can drop in one biome, several biomes, or all biomes.  So they're really not the same.

 

Yet, you're right - in both instances, often people don't get all the eggs they want.  We only get so many egg and hatchie slots to work with, competition is fierce for new and/or popular eggs, some users have slow computers/connections, or have very limited time to spend hunting.  If you give 24 hours on a well known single-breed release that people prepare for and sometimes users still don't get all the eggs they want, why increase the difficulty for users on multi-breed surprise releases by shortening the Cave flood from that standard?

 

 

2 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

Users are complaining about *this* release, how hard it is to get a new Xeno *now* after the flood... It will be worse than this if the flood is significantly longer! 

 

I've been complaining about this issue since April of 2009, when I faced down the first seven breed release with four egg slots.  It took 11 months to finally catch a CB Stripe because I chose wrong about which egg to miss.  And it was several years before they evened out completely.  That release was 11 years ago.  Yes, the June release was bad, and it prompted this topic, but the problem isn't specific to the June release.  Just best exampled by it.

 

Everyone in this thread is addressing the ratios, and they're relevant, but the point I'd like to make is holy cow, why seven breeds at once?!  Any user that doesn't have a Gold or Platinum trophy has to choose which ones they're going to miss out on the original release of, and possibly struggle to catch for the foreseeable future.  For the June release, if you'd taken those eggs and released two of the uncommons each month followed by the grand finale 'flow' egg at the end by itself... that would have been amazing Xeno saga.  So part of this discussion, if you ask me, needs to be about not including uncommons and rares in mass releases.

 

Seven commons is great.  Four commons and three hybrids is great.  Two uncommons with a different morph for each biome is not great.  Six uncommons and a rare with a short and erratic flood window is worst of all.  It's really easy to not do this to us again without ever changing the flood time period.  Let's talk about that.

 

Edited June 29, 2020 by Maiden

[Ruby Eyes]

All of your draughts haven't really happened right after release, have they? They were years LATER.

 

Nowadays, we're having the opposite issue, especially with breeding. So if they BREED like rabbits just to catch up on ratios, why can't they also DROP like rabbits to catch up on the SAME THING?

 

I happen to have been renovating this release day, so should I be screwed out of a REASONABLE CHANCE to catch new things just because I had to do ACTUAL work? Instead I spent the better part of a Sunday camping at 5 minute drops hoping for a GLIMPSE at the new release eggs and most of the time NOT EVEN SEEING any.

 

And yes, wasting my SUNDAY for futile attempts at catching stuff has made me somewhat GRUMPY, if you hadn't noticed. Those short drops are a great way to spoil an otherwise really pretty release for me.

Edited June 29, 2020 by Ruby Eyes

[olympe]

8 hours 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.

And for how long did the gold and silver flood last? Was it weeks? Or months? Maybe over a year? (From what I recall other people telling me, it must have been months at the very least. Personally, I joined shortly after the drought began. FML)

 

Also, since ratios are so important - it should be possible to mee the initial, new release demand by a flood and not counting the eggs caught within the first period of time (be it one day, three days or one week) towards the ratios of the newly released breeds. Just to name one more possible solution to the ratio quandary.

Edited June 29, 2020 by olympe

[Sylph264]

To be clear, I'm not at all against something changing when it comes to new releases- but this suggestion is specifically for making the flood longer with no other co-occurring changes. I don't think that alone would be a good solution. Other suggestions popping up may well make a longer flood feasible (ratio changes, causing flood eggs not to effect ratios, etc), but if the OP wants this thread to only be about longer floods I think they need their own threads.

I absolutely get that the current floods can end up wildly unfair even to people who play daily, but at the "wrong" time of day because of work, time zone, random chance (if I hadn't gone blueberry picking early in the morning on my day off, I would've slept through the flood), and more. I think something should change. But I don't think a longer flood alone is the solution. 

[Nakeisha]

I would also like to see a longer flood for new eggs, especially when there are more than two/three breeds and/or the new eggs are uncommon (as with the new Xenos). I would favour a three day flood as that would allow people to get two lots of the new eggs, which would be great. I've been playing long enough to remember the days when the new eggs did drop continuously for a two/three days, which was great. After all, we get a three day continuous drop at Christmas and Valentine when we can only get two eggs and whilst the Halloween drop is only for a day, they are the only type of eggs that drop. Thus, why can't we have a longer period for new eggs?  Just my two penn'orth.

[Ruby Eyes]

I would like to see a FLOOD in the first place.

On the FIRST DAY of that last release, I saw no flood at all.

This cannot be how a release should be.

[Darkrat]

I do not support the new releases flooding any longer than a day, I would like to look for other dragons as well once I get the new releases. Especially as releases with only one or two dragons make the other biomes unusable. 

[olympe]

3 hours ago, Sylph264 said:

To be clear, I'm not at all against something changing when it comes to new releases- but this suggestion is specifically for making the flood longer with no other co-occurring changes. I don't think that alone would be a good solution. Other suggestions popping up may well make a longer flood feasible (ratio changes, causing flood eggs not to effect ratios, etc), but if the OP wants this thread to only be about longer floods I think they need their own threads.

I totally disagree with this. When a suggested change needs some additional changes in order to work, it's more than valid to bring up those points and look for solutions there, too. Or we'd drown in almost identical threads. That's how discussion and brainstorming work.

[solairehighwind]

1 hour ago, olympe said:

I totally disagree with this. When a suggested change needs some additional changes in order to work, it's more than valid to bring up those points and look for solutions there, too. Or we'd drown in almost identical threads. That's how discussion and brainstorming work.

Haha, yeah, I didn't really intend this thread to be about longer floods only - imo it's more helpful to say "we could make this suggestion work if we do X" than to say "this suggestion won't work".

Your idea of not counting the first eggs towards the ratios is really cool; idk if it's actually possible (I know nothing about how DC is coded), but it sounds helpful.

 

I've actually learned a lot about ratios and such from the replies in this thread, so this has been a good discussion so far ^u^ 

[olympe]

@lolahighwind Well, nobody but TJ knows for sure how ratios work. However, about... 10 years ago (I think) he mentioned that the ratios only take into account dragons born/hatched/raised/frozen during a certain time interval. At the time, he was experimenting with said interval, which then had a direct effect on the length of initial drops or "floods".

 

There was the midwinter madness release (end of 2009/early 2010) where the cave produced hardly anything but the new release eggs for literal weeks on end. Afterwards, around April 2010, we got the Mod Mayhem release, which was the opposite. The new eggs were about as rare as, well, rares. Or so it seemed due to the high demand. And that despite the fact that all four breeds released were and still are commons (BBW, hellfire and sunsong) or uncommon (nebula).

 

So, it's reasonable to deduce that shifts in the interval or exclusion of a certain interval (first x days after the new release) should do the trick.

Edited June 29, 2020 by olympe

[Naruhina_94]

7 hours ago, olympe said:

And for how long did the gold and silver flood last? Was it weeks? Or months? Maybe over a year? (From what I recall other people telling me, it must have been months at the very least. Personally, I joined shortly after the drought began. FML)

 

Also, since ratios are so important - it should be possible to mee the initial, new release demand by a flood and not counting the eggs caught within the first period of time (be it one day, three days or one week) towards the ratios of the newly released breeds. Just to name one more possible solution to the ratio quandary.

 

I'm afraid this sums up this entire topic. Floods can't be changed without changing how the ratio works.

We already have a "value" for each breed extablished by the market. It could be helpful to create fixed classes of rarity and categorize every breed as either very common, common, fairly uncommon, uncommon, rare and super rare in-game wise. Caveborns would appear as many times a day their rarity class categorizes them, no matter the amount of bred eggs and pre-existing dragons of the same breed that exists in game. And if TJ suddenly decides ballons shall be uncommon for whatever reason it would be both clear and kinda easy to set, at least regarding their spawning in biomes.

It would even make more sense lore wise: why wild gold dragons should have their fertility influenced by those bred in captivity?

[HeatherMarie]

I really don't see the Market as an accurate representation of 'value'. Just looking at the Trios, which *all* cost more than *Golds*, shows that something is off there. (And I know it's likely that way because Trios can create GoNs or whatever, but the point still stands.)

While I agree that fixed rarity classes might help the ratio issue in general, I feel like that's up there with 'completely rework ratios' in terms of likelihood of it actually happening. People have been complaining about the ratios for over a decade with no results. 

To me, looking at this thread and past threads, the only flood-suggestion that I could actually see happening would be to flood for longer and not count flood-eggs into ratios. Just in terms of the probability of it actually happening, to me it seems more likely to implement a no-ratio period than to completely overhaul how ratios work...

I'd be completely supportive of *that*, longer floods wouldn't screw everything up if they simply didn't count towards ratios. 

[olympe]

2 hours ago, Naruhina_94 said:

I'm afraid this sums up this entire topic. Floods can't be changed without changing how the ratio works.

However, there are at least two easy to semi-easy fixes possible.

 

1 hour ago, HeatherMarie said:

I really don't see the Market as an accurate representation of 'value'. Just looking at the Trios, which *all* cost more than *Golds*, shows that something is off there. (And I know it's likely that way because Trios can create GoNs or whatever, but the point still stands.)

Actually, Trios have been classified as rare from the very beginning. Remember when people reported a 100% refusal rates for trios that were bred to other trios, metals, holidays or geodes. Remember how incredibly short the drop was - and how hard they were to get after.

[Awdz]

I hate mega-releases for the very reason the OP describes, except that for me it is because I need 2 breeding pairs of each type to meet my scroll goals. I am lucky to have gotten a mana egg from each biome, and a second from two of them. I did not know there was the special flow egg until too late to grab one.

 

I would like to see new releases be at least 1/2 the eggs dropped for [1 day for each egg included in the release]. That would mean for this release, up to day 7 would have 50% of the eggs dropped be new release. Given how long they sit there, I do not think too many people are going for older commons in the cave, but (I think/hope) 50% may give those still trying for new eggs a chance to at least see them. Maybe the percentage should be even higher for the new eggs; I'm frustrated enough to want 95% new eggs for the days-per-egg-released.

 

Best would be to only release 1-2/week, with the initial drop rate staggered to allow folks to grab them for at least the 1st 24 hours. That would eliminate the frustration of people who collect multiples to meet scroll goals and allow for those with conflicts to have a chance at them.

 

Actually, problem is with so many breeds of dragons, they are all harder to catch than they used to be. Maybe  make each rare breed 5x more available just for the month of their release each year, that folks have a chance of seeing them in the cave at least once a year?

Or make all breeds only available in the season of their release, making it 4x more likely to see them during that time than it is now - though there will have to be some adjusting, as most mega-releases I think happened around dragon cave b-day.

Edited June 30, 2020 by Awdz Bodkins

[Corseiss]

21 hours ago, Ruby Eyes said:

Nowadays, we're having the opposite issue, especially with breeding. So if they BREED like rabbits just to catch up on ratios, why can't they also DROP like rabbits to catch up on the SAME THING?

I feel the same way! Like it is one of the faster ways to balance the ratios of older and new releases if people still catch older breeds in the cave during floods.

2 hours ago, Awdz Bodkins said:

 

Or make all breeds only available in the season of their release, making it 4x more likely to see them during that time than it is now...

I would LOVE to see this implemented. Makes catching more interesting too!

[PrincessLucy]

I'd like to see new releases exclusive for at least a day. 

 

So many people in the Facebook group couldn't get any as the cave was already mostly older eggs by the time they logged on.

[Fuzzbucket]

7 hours ago, Awdz Bodkins said:

I hate mega-releases for the very reason the OP describes, except that for me it is because I need 2 breeding pairs of each type to meet my scroll goals.

 

Count yourself lucky. My "requirements" are 8 of each breed....

[Arkee]

I agree with flooding for 24h at least.

New releases come out in the middle of the night for me, so I like catching them in the hourly drops of the following day. Have I not been awaken by chance to see this one, I'd have missed the 6 regular Xenos. Even then, there are egg slot limits (could only get 4 pairs of 4 breeds) and sure, you can trade for more of them, I've done that... but then there's the Flow.

 

I wasn't around for the elusive "flow flood". When I got back to the cave again the next day people where already trading them for things I couldn't give (new releases) and it only got worse since then. (Lots asking for metals and 2G prizes/SAs now.) Wouldn't even be aware they exist if it wasn't for the forum because I can! Not! Even! See! Them! Dropping! (They weren't dropping at release hour either)

 

When the coppers released, I could at least grab a pair of each. 

 

I've seen people reporting seeing several CB metals but not a single Flow. That's not supposed to be normal on a release day, especially one with already too many breeds where people will egglock quickly before the hidden cat is out of the bag. I've seen someone who hunted for 8.5h just to see a Flow.

 

Like, I really like seeing so many new shinies on big releases but the time window's too small. Especially this time around. Especially after having an equally big release last time.

[redwolf]

I 10000% support this. This release didnt even flood for 24 hours. 

[olympe]

On 6/29/2020 at 9:47 AM, Fuzzbucket said:

 

This, so much - I remember the gold / silver drought. And even the BLACK drought - anyone remember that ?

There also was a stripe drought. And a vine drought. And geodes used to be quite rare, too.

 

And when blunas came out, waters and skywings (and, to some extent, deep seas) were pretty hard to come by for a while. 😛 

After Midwinter Madness, anything but the new eggs was rare.  Things tend to cycle around here.

[Naruhina_94]

On 6/29/2020 at 10:25 PM, olympe said:

However, there are at least two easy to semi-easy fixes possible.

 

Actually, Trios have been classified as rare from the very beginning. Remember when people reported a 100% refusal rates for trios that were bred to other trios, metals, holidays or geodes. Remember how incredibly short the drop was - and how hard they were to get after.

 

I agree there are many ways to fix it, I just hope one gets picked

Quick question, I'm not sure about this myself: would it help to have a limited number of eggs that can each player can catch during their relase? So for example in this case the June relase happened on saturday and until the end of monday everyone could only have max 4 eggs of the same breed (I'm considering each xenowyrm to be an indipendent breed).

This breed limit would be removed after Monday, giving everyone free access to hunt whatever they want. This way there would be less competition, same number of eggs and fair chances both during the relase and after it ended.

Edited July 1, 2020 by Naruhina_94