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Remove time limit for influencing BSA (Eggs with over 3 days left)

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8 hours ago, Commander Wymsy said:

It's a bit silly to me that apparently I can bite all of those low time eggs in the AP (provided they're the standard breeding group, of course) but not influence them right now. 

 

This is a good point. If the reasoning is the egg is already too developed to change via Influence, how can we totally change the breed like that

 

 

8 hours ago, Keileon said:

This is an instance where it makes more sense to separate gameplay from lore. Remove the limit altogether-- no reason to complicate it by tying it to views or cracks, especially as that comes with its own set of problems (like whenever Thuweds get hatcheried)

 

Agreed. I'm usually all for the lore aspects of this game, but this kind of limit doesn't really do anything to add to the experience of the game at all. It doesn't even really do anything lore-wise since (to my knowledge) it doesn't actually say anywhere *why* the egg is un-Influencable beyond 'not enough time' or whatever. I very much support favoring gameplay over lore in this case. Total support for removing the time limit (and no reason to make it complicated).

 

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Support. There are plenty of eggs I see on the AP that I need a certain gender of to balance my scroll...but I have no choice but to play the gender lottery if I can't influence them (then it's the game of 'can I swap it for the gender I need' if it goes wrong)

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On 8/28/2020 at 9:42 PM, Commander Wymsy said:

It's a bit silly to me that apparently I can bite all of those low time eggs in the AP (provided they're the standard breeding group, of course) but not influence them right now.

  

On 8/29/2020 at 6:17 AM, HeatherMarie said:

This is a good point. If the reasoning is the egg is already too developed to change via Influence, how can we totally change the breed like that

 

And Neglecteds? These usually get changed at an even later point in their lifetime, to the point that they can even remain genderless.

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I must say I'm a bit split regarding the situation.

I'd of course love to be able to influence those gorgeous Mistletoes that I mainly see in 'late AP' and prevent heartbreaks like this 😭 https://dragcave.net/lineage/uCu4w

But I also must admit that there is a certain joy when they DO turn right and you feel lucky and a bit of a thrill and suspense I enjoy when I catch a 'later'.

I also feel it is part of the 'win-some, loose-some' balance of this game (auto AP, runaways, miscolors etc) and the extra low time (instant hatch) compensate for the inability to influence. And then there would be those valuable lines PURPOUSEFULLY bred late in order to make you play loto and not decrease their value (since such lines seem to adore to misgender)

 

LSS: I'm not against since I would personaly gain from this, but I'm not exactly pro as I feel it messes balance

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It doesn't really do anything to balance the game, though. It's just an annoyance.

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If there was a need to 'balance' the game, imo, Influence would still have a fail chance. But it doesn't. If there isn't a need for a fail chance, ie if Influence is able to be 100% successful, then I really see no reason a time limit would act as a 'balance'. Especially since the vast majority of eggs raised aren't going to fall below that limit in the first place. 

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The holiday wall is currently at 5 days left-- a this rate, it may reach un-influenceable before Halloween. Kind of makes you want to massbreed everything you have as early as possible so AP catchers can still influence them. Which then exacerbates the problem...

 

Obviously nothing will be done for this year, but getting rid of the influence limitation is sorely needed. The problem's only going to get worse anyway, as the CB Halloween biome and increasing breed number pulls more eggslots from AP hunting.

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YES please! At least for Halloween dragons!

The AP is already at 3d 18 hours (with most players with their scroll badly locked), and it means that very soon the eggs will not be influencable anymore.

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I think part of the point of the age restriction on BSAs is that there is always some risk you will have to contend with the natural mechanics of the game. While it stinks that when the AP gets clogged people can't influence what they pull out of it, there was never any guarantee when those eggs were bred that they would gender right. They're in the AP - they're not yours to control. Using holiday walls as a reason to do away with a restriction on influence is kind of a weak justification.

 

I believe T.J. has said somewhere else, in relation to something unrelated(maybe fertility/refusals?), that if a BSA were capable of completely circumventing a base mechanic, then the base mechanic either shouldn't exist or the BSA should be a default ability. That may be a misquote and someone would have to double check the situation in which it was stated, but I think it is a valid thing to bring up here.

 

Edited to add: All of the concern also rests on the erroneous assumption that a dragon on this game can end up the "wrong" or "right" gender. If you like checkers, a dragon gendering opposite may be bad for you, but it may be the perfect mate for someone else's dragon. If you pull something out of the AP and it's not going to work for you and you can't influence it to work for you, then it's not that the dragon gendered wrong - it's that the dragon is now not the dragon you need. It will probably be better kept in the hands of someone who does need it.

Edited by Odeen

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To be honest, after 12 years (and with everything else going on in the world) I don't care too much about what game balance is supposed to be on DC these days. I just want to have my fun and that fun involves customizing lineages to continue them in peculiar ways so I'm gonna give a 1+ to this suggestion. If it makes more sense to just make it a default action at that point then I don't see much downside especially since the chance of failure was removed - influence (and teleport) really seem like basic mechanics to me. I'm not sure if gate-keeping those two is still necessary, it's been nearly a decade since they were implemented and DC has changed in many ways since then. I still agree with removing the influence age limit regardless.

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7 hours ago, Odeen said:

Using holiday walls as a reason to do away with a restriction on influence is kind of a weak justification.

 

No weaker than saying that an age restriction is necessary... just because. I'm not entirely sure what the justification is. If it's that BSAs shouldn't circumvent base mechanics completely (even though BSAs like Teleport, Fertility, even Expunge do that), then doesn't Influence accomplish that anyways by being restricted to eggs?

 

I think if you wanted to change Influence to be usable on both hatchlings and adults, just a glorified gender-changer, you'd have a point about it circumventing a game mechanic.

 

Arguing that "AP eggs aren't yours" and "there's no right gender" is just petty semantics, otherwise we wouldn't be able to influence AP eggs at all.

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15 minutes ago, Nine said:

 

No weaker than saying that an age restriction is necessary... just because. I'm not entirely sure what the justification is. If it's that BSAs shouldn't circumvent base mechanics completely (even though BSAs like Teleport, Fertility, even Expunge do that), then doesn't Influence accomplish that anyways by being restricted to eggs?

 

I think if you wanted to change Influence to be usable on both hatchlings and adults, just a glorified gender-changer, you'd have a point about it circumventing a game mechanic.

 

Arguing that "AP eggs aren't yours" and "there's no right gender" is just petty semantics, otherwise we wouldn't be able to influence AP eggs at all.

 

AP eggs are not yours, and there IS no correct gender. I find that very important to mention in a suggestion people are making due to the fact that they might pick up an egg 3 times out of the year and find that it's not useful to them because its default gender does not work with their personal breeding plans. There are a lot of people who do not mind misgenders, and would be happy to have those misgendered eggs/hatchlings.

 

A fundamental aspect of how a BSA functions should not be changed simply because three times a year that restriction becomes inconvenient to users trawling the AP for low-time grabs. It made much more sense to remove influence failure, which was a year-round quality-of-life problem especially for hard to obtain dragons. It makes sense if you're going to spend the BSA that you reap the benefits of the BSA. It also makes sense that you should be able to re-influence an egg if you want to change its gender after you've already influenced it; I would support the ability to reinfluence. But what is honestly wrong with there being eggs in the AP that you cannot personally use for your own projects? Isn't that already the case for 99.9% of eggs in the AP?

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4 minutes ago, Odeen said:

A fundamental aspect of how a BSA functions should not be changed simply because three times a year that restriction becomes inconvenient to users trawling the AP for low-time grabs.

But it doesn't only happen three times a year- this suggestion was made in the first place during a time where the AP wall got times so low they could no longer be influenced. It also doesn't just have to do with AP eggs- Siyats have to go below 3 days to hatch purple. Sometimes people forget to influence and let their eggs fall below that limit. It's a weird, arbitrary limit, and IMO there's not really any reason to "punish" the player by keeping it in place 

 

The semantics about "right gender, wrong gender" is weird and doesn't really belong here, in my opinion. Influencing eggs isn't just for projects- some people need to freeze a certain gender, some casual players might even just want a certain gender of a dragon and not care about the lineage, or countless other scenarios. A lot of people want this for project eggs they pick up from the AP, sure, but it's a general inconvenience for almost all players in a situation where the AP falls below three days, and frankly I don't see why it's a bad idea to be added.

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30 minutes ago, Paintra said:

But it doesn't only happen three times a year- this suggestion was made in the first place during a time where the AP wall got times so low they could no longer be influenced. It also doesn't just have to do with AP eggs- Siyats have to go below 3 days to hatch purple. Sometimes people forget to influence and let their eggs fall below that limit. It's a weird, arbitrary limit, and IMO there's not really any reason to "punish" the player by keeping it in place 

 

The semantics about "right gender, wrong gender" is weird and doesn't really belong here, in my opinion. Influencing eggs isn't just for projects- some people need to freeze a certain gender, some casual players might even just want a certain gender of a dragon and not care about the lineage, or countless other scenarios. A lot of people want this for project eggs they pick up from the AP, sure, but it's a general inconvenience for almost all players in a situation where the AP falls below three days, and frankly I don't see why it's a bad idea to be added.

 

I find it unusual for someone to say the BSA age limit punishes users because sometimes they can't use the BSA. Your BSA doesn't go on cooldown when you try to use it on an egg that's too old; you still have full ability to use it, just not on that dragon. I've forgotten to influence plenty of dragons, and having a lower age limit or no age limit would not have helped me avoid that because I ER my eggs at 3d23h. I would pretty confidently guess that is the situation most of the time, as most dragons that aren't neglecteds, purple siyats, or tortured sunrise/sets hatch well before the lower limit of BSA viability. With that in mind, the only thing that would truly prevent someone from being "punished" by forgetting to influence would be to allow a growing dragon to be influenced up to the point of visibly gendering. Maintaining your scroll and making sure you remembered to influence your dragons is part of the gameplay, just like monitoring your eggs and hatchlings for sickness is part of the gameplay.

 

There are certain aspects of the game that are significantly affected by the existence of the age limit. There is more urgency to trading an egg because it must be traded before that limit or it may lose value. There is more urgency to manage the AP times because it benefits the playerbase to keep those times within a certain range. People collaborate with one another to lower the AP times so that they can reap greater benefit from incubate. People collaborate with one another to plumb the AP so that they can continue reaping the benefit of influence. That is part of the ecosystem of the site, whether intended or not, and removing the lower limit on BSAs will have an impact on that.

 

Having an age limit on Influence benefits users who do not care about lineages or people who are not the best at catching, because that means some really nice-looking eggs will be thrown back by users who care more about those lineages being perfect for them. It benefits people who want to freeze dragons without guilt, because if a checkered lineage is going to misgender then they are less likely to feel like they're taking a nice dragon out of the breeding pool. It benefits people who are waiting for that guy to get back to them on that trade, because at least if the thing goes below 3 days they know they should just pull their offer instead of continuing to let it rot. There are very few incentives toward urgency in this game, and maintaining those sources of urgency is, in general, a decent idea, as it can encourage active engagement and repeat visits.

 

If a person pulls an egg out of the AP that can't be influenced and it's going to be the wrong gender for their needs, there are way more eggs where that one egg came from, usually. They are not being punished by having to throw it back any more than you would be getting punished by the game for breeding a Tercorn x Gold and getting Tercorns 46 weeks in a row before you ever see your first gold out of the pair. As I stated earlier, maintaining your scroll by remembering to incubate, influence, and hatch your eggs timely is part of the gameplay. Failing to do so comes with consequences that are also part of the gameplay.

Edited by Odeen

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I mean, is it not a form of consequence that punishes the player? If you forget to influence an egg, and it falls below the three day limit, the consequence is that you can no longer influence the egg. I don't really see what's unusual there, considering you yourself call it a consequence.

 

But to be honest, I don't really care that much. I'd like this to be implemented, but not enough to split hairs over whether or not a game mechanic is "punishing" a player- I just think since building lineages is an mechanic of the game, making it easy to build those lineages without an arbitrary limit would be helpful. 

 

Another small thought; back when I joined, and probably before that, as well, it was rarer for the AP to wall as hard as it does nowadays- I don't think the AP ever hit below 3 days outside of holidays then. I can only assume the 3 day limit was more accurate to promptly maintaining your scroll when it was very rare for eggs to reach that low in the AP; as the site grows, mechanics that are effected by the site's number of players (specifically number of people breeding to the AP) should be able to be tweaked if it's relevant.

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I'd like to throw a +1 in for this on holiday dragons specifically.

 

Even if it is only an issue twice per year (Halloween & Christmas -- all current Val breeds are gender locked), that's still a big problem because... those dragons only breed true once per year. :s Life got in the way before you could influence? Didn't find the egg to continue your line until the AP was below three days? Well, it looks like you're stuck waiting another full year to try again if it's not the gender you want. You can try trading for eggs from that pairing that have time left to influence, but finding swaps above 2G becomes difficult very quickly if it's not one of the super popular pairings. (So Gold, Silver, or whatever handful of breeds a lot of people happen to like with that specific holiday breed.)

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I do support this decision but I'd also be happy if this was changed just for holidays (or even just halloween), because that's where it gets really heartbreaking for me personally.

 

Edit: I know this is not the place to talk about walls but I would just like to point out this limit and scroll limits were set during time when the AP didn't wall (as much). Ever since then DC has gained many users and those users own many dragons they breed. Even without extreme massbreedings more dragons are constantly being picked up/bred than the scrolls can hold. Yes, the issue is more prominent during holidays, but it happens all year round.

Edited by Alwerien

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4 hours ago, 11th said:

Even if it is only an issue twice per year (Halloween & Christmas -- all current Val breeds are gender locked), that's still a big problem because... those dragons only breed true once per year. :s Life got in the way before you could influence? Didn't find the egg to continue your line until the AP was below three days? Well, it looks like you're stuck waiting another full year to try again if it's not the gender you want.

This so much. Exactly that has happened to me.

Last year I hunted the Halloween wall constantly for a mate for one of my dragons and never found it. Finally, when the eggs in the wall were down to 2 days or less I found the perfect egg! I was ecstatic -- until I did a precog on it and discovered that it was destined to be the wrong gender. :( I was able to find someone who could breed me one this year, fortunately, but I lost a whole year for that lineage.

I am sure the same has happened to many other people as well.

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Imo how often AP times fall under 3 days shouldn't really matter. This would be a 'quality of life' change, as some people say.... The time limit is rather arbitrary, I haven't seen any actual *reason* for the time limit beyond basically 'BSAs have to have some sort of downside/restriction', which isn't really a valid argument since we already *have* BSAs without these arbitrary restrictions. Does the time limit actually do any good for the site or the userbase? Is there any actual downside to lifting the time limit? Regardless of the reason, whether it's AP times or forgetting to Influence earlier or trading for a low-time egg or whatever, there are plenty of different scenarios where this time limit messes things up for players for no real reason imo. (And I'm one of those players who doesn't care about lineages and doesn't care if a gender is 'wrong' for a lineage, but I still think being able to influence to the gender you *want* is a very important thing in this game at this point in time.)

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But once I pick up an AP egg, it IS mine.

Once I accept a gift, it IS mine.

Once I accept a trade for an egg, it IS mine.

Once the other trader accepts my offer, their egg IS mine - even if they did it JUST AS THE DARN EGG GETS DOWN TO 3 DAYS.

(YES, I'm STILL miffed about this one: https://dragcave.net/view/Inixi)

 

So why would I not be allowed to influence it according to my wishes, just because of the time at which the egg reached my scroll?

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On 10/30/2020 at 9:25 AM, Odeen said:

AP eggs are not yours, and there IS no correct gender. I find that very important to mention in a suggestion people are making due to the fact that they might pick up an egg 3 times out of the year and find that it's not useful to them because its default gender does not work with their personal breeding plans. There are a lot of people who do not mind misgenders, and would be happy to have those misgendered eggs/hatchlings.

I don't follow this. If you don't mind what gender the eggs you're getting from the AP are then being able to influence low time eggs won't matter. But it will for those that do care

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Gender doesn't really matter to me, but support for this suggestion. If someone wants to use their influence when they're very close to hatching an egg, let them.

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I'd like this. I ran into this problem when I incubated my eggs before influencing them, only to find out I couldn't influence them because they were too low on time after the incubate! Oops. For gameplay purposes I don't see why 3 days is the limit for pinks, I support just removing the limit all together. 

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I support this suggestion. It doesn't feel like a reasonable limitation, just an inconvenience in the few scenarios where it is relevant. And it's not like there's going to a downside - Halloween walls and the occasional huge massbreeds already happen, even though they push the AP down to uninfluenceable times. If anything, they'll be more tolerable and maybe even pass quicker if people can get eggs with the gender they want out of them.

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Suddenly I am in favour.

 

In the 2 days AP, I have just found no less than three (so far) perfect mates for my lines - and they were the wrong sex.

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