We Need New Drop Mechanics. It's Just A Fact.

[AzureWyrmsblood]

1 minute ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 

But there won't BE any more rare things, just another row.....

That's a fair point, but being able to see 6 eggs in the current pool as opposed to 3 does make it more likely that you'll be able to see a rare at any given time and especially at refresh.

[yieldy]

14 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 

But there won't BE any more rare things, just another row.....

Doesn't matter, it will still increase some peoples' chance of getting a rare.  And there will be more commons which is good, too.. with so many breeds now sometimes you have to wait for quite a bit for a scpecific common to drop.

[KageSora]

18 minutes ago, yieldy said:

Doesn't matter, it will still increase some peoples' chance of getting a rare.  And there will be more commons which is good, too.. with so many breeds now sometimes you have to wait for quite a bit for a scpecific common to drop.

 

Not really?  What's going to actually end up happening in practice is you'll have 6 blockers sitting there endlessly most of the time, the way we currently have 3 blockers sitting.

 

It's not actually going to make rares appear more often.  The exact same amount of rares will show up, they'll just have an extra row to show in, however that will still result in the same number of people having a shot at them (and, as now, will heavily favor those who can speed-read and memorize specific bits of description to quickly snap up the rares).

 

Adding an extra row won't change the ratios and generate way more eggs.  It'll just show an extra row of the already generated eggs.

[yieldy]

11 minutes ago, KageSora said:

will heavily favor those who can speed-read and memorize specific bits of description to quickly snap up the rares

This is the one I disagree on, with 6 eggs it's harder to move as quickly and click, so luck may have a bit more to do with whether you get it or not, depending on where your cursou's at. This I believe will give users with slower connection a better chance at the rares.

[pegasi1978]

How many of you asking for a second row actively hunt the cave on mobile/phone? If a second row is added then something needs to change with the layout of the page or else people who hunt on that way won't be able to see the text under the second row of eggs. 

[Guillotine]

It came up earlier, but any extra eggs added innately involve rearranging the biome page layout on mobile.

 

...That said, visibility issues are why I still prefer extra biome pages. Does more to spread out the commons that exist, because ultimately the biggest pain point here is that dragons that are by all indication meant to be commons are hard to find, and not that rares are hard to find.

 

 

[Fuzzbucket]

TJ has said many times that we must all be viewing the exact same cave page, for fairness, so I can't see a second biome page flying.

[KageSora]

12 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

TJ has said many times that we must all be viewing the exact same cave page, for fairness, so I can't see a second biome page flying.

 

However, one could argue that it's no different than people seeing different eggs by viewing different biomes.  If I'm in the Alpine then I'm not seeing the exact same page as somebody in the Desert--essentially biome pages would function that way.  Everybody on page 1 would see the same thing the way everybody in the same biome does now, and everybody on page 2 would see the same thing as each other, etc.

 

That said, though, again I figure it'll end up the same as an extra row of eggs will almost certainly end up--just multiple biome pages full of blockers.

[Fuzzbucket]

I get that - but two versions of Alpine is different from Alpine vs Coast. @TJ09 - what's your view on this one ?

[KageSora]

One could argue that it isn't all that different, though, depending on how you look at it is what I mean.  The point of view you have will determine if you consider it too different or more of the same thing we already have with different biomes.

 

It really ultimately depends which perspective TJ has on the matter

 

I know a sub-biome option was also floated at some point, where the different sub-biomes would have different mixes of eggs.  Thay might be different enough to warrant different pages, though that adds complexity in trying to remember if the Alpine breed you want is in Alpine 1 or Alpine 2 (or whatever the sub-biome pages would be called)

Edited August 31, 2023 by KageSora

[AzureWyrmsblood]

14 hours ago, pegasi1978 said:

How many of you asking for a second row actively hunt the cave on mobile/phone? If a second row is added then something needs to change with the layout of the page or else people who hunt on that way won't be able to see the text under the second row of eggs. 

I think this is a pretty fair argument against two rows unless someone has a straight solution to the lack of space.

[Fuzzbucket]

I'd agree with that too.

 

6 hours ago, KageSora said:

That said, though, again I figure it'll end up the same as an extra row of eggs will almost certainly end up--just multiple biome pages full of blockers.

 And yes. What's the improvement with two rows of blockers ?

[KageSora]

IIRC, the proposed solution to the "you won't be easily able to see 2 rows on mobile, especially on smaller screens" was "move the bioke flavor text to below the eggs"

 

But unless something like that was done, it really wouldn't work well for a lot of devices to add another row due to mobile stuff.  I suppose you could swap the 2 columns of 3 rows for the biome links for 3 columns of 2 rows instead?  Condense some space there?  It'd still be crunched, though.

[Skadi]

I've mentioned before that it is actually very easy to shift things on mobile screens on the backend, and TJ, who definitely knows more than I do, would be able to do it. It's a level of coding you learn in 101 classes today, it's not hard at all. If TJ couldn't do mobile coding, the site wouldn't function on mobile at all. My technical solution is either not display the flavor text on mobile devices, or change it to a grid and change the positions of the grid on mobile devices. There might be even more sophisticated ways with nicer code.

 

That being said, 6 eggs doesn't change the underlying issues of ratios. Would I like more options? Yeah. Would it make it easier to catch rares? No. Would it be just 6 of the same dragons we already see? Probably. Also, I'm fine with rares as they are, and see no reason to change them. This is why I'd prefer a bounty system or a "common community day" solution to handle my issues with Common hunting. I will often catch 1-3 rares just while common hunting and miss another 2, and still not have the commons I want.

Edited August 31, 2023 by Skadi

[AzureWyrmsblood]

53 minutes ago, Skadi said:

I will often catch 1-3 rares just while common hunting and miss another 2, and still not have the commons I want.

 

I think one of the points is that there's a portion of the player base that just doesn't have this luxury which is why people want to push for better opportunities. It's a fair bit harder to have the same 6 eggs blocking the cave than it is to hit 3, not impossible but far less likely. Having 6 eggs refresh instead of 3 gives people with limited time to sit and watch refreshes a chance to see more eggs; a higher chance of seeing a rare. E.g you have 10 minutes on your break to check eggs, would you have a better chance with 6 unique eggs or 12?

Personally I'm team alt/sub biome for a wider variety of eggs than straight plus to the egg count with less flavour but either would be a boon i'd imagine.

[KageSora]

1 hour ago, Skadi said:

I've mentioned before that it is actually very easy to shift things on mobile screens on the backend, and TJ, who definitely knows more than I do, would be able to do it. It's a level of coding you learn in 101 classes today, it's not hard at all. If TJ couldn't do mobile coding, the site wouldn't function on mobile at all. My technical solution is either not display the flavor text on mobile devices, or change it to a grid and change the positions of the grid on mobile devices. There might be even more sophisticated ways with nicer code.

 

I don't think anybody is arguing it would be too hard on a technical level, the issue is on a design level that doesn't end up looking odd or making no sense.  The intro flavor text being moved to the bottom, for example, doesn't really make sense due if the intro flavor text is meant to be there first.  TJ could hide the text or make it toggleable, too, but that would depend on if he wants to do that or if having the flavor text always there is part of the way he wants the formatting to look.  Ultimately it's something that comes down more to aesthetics and would need TJ to weigh in on how he feels about it since it would be up to him if he wanted that appearance or not.

 

35 minutes ago, AzureWyrmsblood said:

It's a fair bit harder to have the same 6 eggs blocking the cave than it is to hit 3, not impossible but far less likely. Having 6 eggs refresh instead of 3 gives people with limited time to sit and watch refreshes a chance to see more eggs; a higher chance of seeing a rare. E.g you have 10 minutes on your break to check eggs, would you have a better chance with 6 unique eggs or 12?

 

But right now you regularly see the same 2-3 eggs sit there until the refresh, then another 2-3 eggs sit there until the next refresh unless somebody is actively cycling the biome hunting for something.

 

So while it might not be 6 of the exact same breed, it'll still be 6 blockers nobody wants instead of having more actual chances for rares.

[Fuzzbucket]

8 hours ago, AzureWyrmsblood said:

 

I think one of the points is that there's a portion of the player base that just doesn't have this luxury which is why people want to push for better opportunities. It's a fair bit harder to have the same 6 eggs blocking the cave than it is to hit 3, not impossible but far less likely. Having 6 eggs refresh instead of 3 gives people with limited time to sit and watch refreshes a chance to see more eggs; a higher chance of seeing a rare. E.g you have 10 minutes on your break to check eggs, would you have a better chance with 6 unique eggs or 12?.

 

The number of rares dropping would be the same; the opportunities wouldn't change. My grandson, with better eyesight than me and far better reflexes, would still snag the rares before I could. My aged eyes would just have to clock 6 eggs instead of 3 - actually HARDER. I can take in the text on 3 eggs easily enough; on 6 it would take that fraction longer and I'd miss those in  the second row before someone else had snagged anything good there.

 

7 hours ago, KageSora said:

 

I don't think anybody is arguing it would be too hard on a technical level, the issue is on a design level that doesn't end up looking odd or making no sense.  The intro flavor text being moved to the bottom, for example, doesn't really make sense due if the intro flavor text is meant to be there first.  TJ could hide the text or make it toggleable, too, but that would depend on if he wants to do that or if having the flavor text always there is part of the way he wants the formatting to look.  Ultimately it's something that comes down more to aesthetics and would need TJ to weigh in on how he feels about it since it would be up to him if he wanted that appearance or not.

 

Yes. I think he likes the biome text, so I suspect that won't fly.

 

7 hours ago, KageSora said:

But right now you regularly see the same 2-3 eggs sit there until the refresh, then another 2-3 eggs sit there until the next refresh unless somebody is actively cycling the biome hunting for something.

 

So while it might not be 6 of the exact same breed, it'll still be 6 blockers nobody wants instead of having more actual chances for rares.

Exactly this.

[Chaos Rider]

7 hours ago, KageSora said:

But right now you regularly see the same 2-3 eggs sit there until the refresh, then another 2-3 eggs sit there until the next refresh unless somebody is actively cycling the biome hunting for something.

 

So while it might not be 6 of the exact same breed, it'll still be 6 blockers nobody wants instead of having more actual chances for rares.

But you would have more chances for rares, in effect you'd be pulling 6 eggs out of a random grab bag of eggs instead of 3.  I agree it's much more likely you'd just end up with 6 blockers instead of three though.

[KageSora]

22 minutes ago, Chaos Rider said:

But you would have more chances for rares, in effect you'd be pulling 6 eggs out of a random grab bag of eggs instead of 3.  I agree it's much more likely you'd just end up with 6 blockers instead of three though.

 

It's not really more rare chances, though.  Suppose there's 100* eggs that drop, which get deleted and refreshed every 5 minutes, and on the hours.  In that 100, suppose there's 5* rares.

 

With 6 eggs, there's still only going to be 5 rares.  You simply have 3 more slots one of those 5 rares might show up in--but, again, which will in practice spend most of their time filled with blockers while those 5 rares wait in the queue and get refreshed on the drop because nobody was able to grab them.

 

Then, too, there's still going to be the same amount of competition in the biomes and the human brain can only focus on so much at a time.  If you can only glance at one description at a time (even if very briefly), right now you have a 1/3 chance to look at the correct slot for a rare before it gets snapped up by somebody else by the time you registered the description.  With an extra row, you now have a 1/6 chance of spotting the rare first and grabbing it before somebody else snaps it up.  You might have a chance for more rares to show up at once (but odds are there will never be more than one at a time), but you have less odds of reading the description first and clicking it before anybody else.  And if you're just clicking anything there, you again are reducing the odds that the space you're clicking to cycle the biome will have a rare.

 

(*numbers picked at random, since I obviously don't know the exact ratios.  Heck, it's possible there could be 0 rares in a given egg queue!)

[Chaos Rider]

36 minutes ago, KageSora said:

It's not really more rare chances, though.  Suppose there's 100* eggs that drop, which get deleted and refreshed every 5 minutes, and on the hours.  In that 100, suppose there's 5* rares.

I agree with everything you're saying except this. Imagine we play a game where we each have our own deck of cards. First person to draw an ace of spades from their deck wins.  I draw 6 cards from my deck and you draw 3 from yours. If neither of us draws the ace we shuffle the cards we drew back into the deck and draw again. Who's more likely to draw the ace first?

[deleted_account]

egg section is about 100px

I made rough mobile mockup and it saves about 150 -160px (all red); biome description moved to (green) drop down menu next to active biome

➡️ 

 

I got more space for 2nd row than needed, so biomes menu can be a bit taller!

If this is not a longest egg description in game,  then previous mockup is fine

 

bonus: I reduced accessibility issue for "fat fingers" people with better spaced out layout in the biome menu and urls in big buttons. Still takes less vertical space

 

So I don't worry about mobile. TJ has room to find his way.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Bialy

[KageSora]

1 hour ago, Chaos Rider said:

I agree with everything you're saying except this. Imagine we play a game where we each have our own deck of cards. First person to draw an ace of spades from their deck wins.  I draw 6 cards from my deck and you draw 3 from yours. If neither of us draws the ace we shuffle the cards we drew back into the deck and draw again. Who's more likely to draw the ace first?

 

See, I would define "winning" as getting the rare not just watching somebody else make off with it.

 

It'd be like you drew your 6 and got the ace except somebody else yelled it out first so you have to just watch them make off with the winnings.

[Chaos Rider]

21 minutes ago, KageSora said:

 

See, I would define "winning" as getting the rare not just watching somebody else make off with it.

 

It'd be like you drew your 6 and got the ace except somebody else yelled it out first so you have to just watch them make off with the winnings.

Ok, that one's one me. I should have mentioned I was just about the rare thing actually showing up. 6 at a time would make it slightly more likely to appear (the thing we're talking about is rare after all). You're right that actually grabbing it is a different matter altogether

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by Chaos Rider

[11th]

I feel like the drop rate of rares leans more towards being a ratio issue than a drop mechanic issue. As has been mentioned, you can add more slots/pages/whatever, but it won't change the fact that there will only be so many rares & won't necessarily make them easier to catch. Even encouraging users to pick up CB commons more often would only help with so much, since it won't actually change the number of rares being generated.

 

The real benefit of adding more visible eggs to the cave would be to the variety of commons. We currently have at least 170 breeds that I would call "common" and that do appear in cave with some regularity, but because they all have to go through the same three slots it is possible to hunt for some time and not see the specific common that you want. That doesn't mean that it wasn't generated at the top of the hour, just that it isn't getting lucky enough to be shuffled to the front. It's especially bad for breeds that can drop in all biomes, since their drops are split between all six compared to single biome breeds.

[KageSora]

17 minutes ago, Chaos Rider said:

Ok, that one's one me. I should have mentioned I was just about the rare thing actually showing up. 6 at a time would make it slightly more likely to appear (the thing we're talking about is rare after all). You're right that actually grabbing it is a different matter altogether

 

To be fair they're both distinct issues--it's just solving one doesn't necessarily make the other better, and rares will always be hard to get anyway.  If they started being too easy to get with 6 slots I'd imagine ratios would get tweaked to drive their appearance rate down.

 

There's also the issue with mobile where you may not even be able to fully see the description of the bottom row unless the the page layout got altered so having those 3 extra slots wouldn't be helpful for mobile users without other changes anyway.

 

14 minutes ago, 11th said:

The real benefit of adding more visible eggs to the cave would be to the variety of commons. 

 

Personally, I remain unconvinced that this would actually lead to a variety of commons and not just the same handful of blocker breeds taking up all 6 slots.

 

You'd need something else in place to limit the number of identical breeds that could show up at once, maybe.

 

A ratio tweak would be needed on top of an additional row of eggs if you want a genuine variety of commons showing up.