The AP Problem and How to Fix it

[KageSora]

Hm...  Alright, not entirely sure how the AP works exactly but there's a "12 displayed at once per abandoner" limit, right?  Which obviously does less to help if the same eggs are being repeatedly picked up and dumped over and over by different people, though does help if it's just one person dumping a bunch of stuff.

 

Is there a limitation based on the original breeder for bred eggs?  Obviously CB eggs don't have any kind of tracking attached to them, but bred eggs you'd presumably still have the parents on your scroll unless you released them right after abandoning the egg...  So is there a current limit of "only X eggs that have been bred by dragons that originate on the same scroll can show at any given time"?  If not that might be worth considering?

 

(Since it would then not matter how many other people picked up and tossed back an egg, it would still mean one person's 500 eggs couldn't take over the AP, regardless of if they were a single breed or were many breeds)  ((I assume it would be more complex to code in since you'd have to check if an egg was bred, then you'd have to check both parents to see if they're on the same scroll, but IDK anything about the coding of the site so...))

Edited April 16, 2023 by KageSora

[Thorn4]

Current AP for me:

 

The only reason I'm breeding Xenos at the moment is for a Staterae. Once I obtain one, I'll be able to buy the eggs from the market so I won't have to breed for it.

I just finally unlocked it in the market and the egg sells for 4,700 shards!!! No wonder people mass-breed instead, that might be the issue. I have to wait until my dragons cooldown before breeding again, but sheesh even Thunder dragon eggs are only 2k and I always thought those were one of the most valuable in the game (aside from prize dragons, and holiday dragons).

Edited April 17, 2023 by Thorn4

[birdzgoboom]

1 hour ago, missy_ said:

I can see that what I said here was completely misunderstood. I never said the Sweetlings issue didn't matter. It did. But the players proposed a good solution and it was completely ignored by DC. There is no reason to think that DC learned anything from that decision, or that DC will make better decisions in the future because of it. I am a cynic and I don't believe they will. This is why I stated it wasn't relevant. Because DC learned nothing.

 

While the players learned something from that debacle, we have not been given any indication DC learned anything. It doesn't matter if the players know full well what a mistake that was if DC does not. And if DC does not, it means they can make the same kind of mistake again. Whatever happens with Xenos, DC is not going to base it on Sweetlings, even though we'd like them to take previous debacles into account.

Taking note of what I highlighted in red: The sheer fact that you feel like this (and I am certain there are no small few players that feel the same way) is exactly why it's so relevant.

 

It should be the goal of the individual(s)/team(s) responsible for a product to foster an environment where their users are having a good experience with their product.

The sheer lack of faith here is disheartening for me to read. At the same time, I completely understand and even agree. If I was running the site, it'd break my heart to see players frustrated enough that they'd have such a lack of faith in the leadership, and assume that their feedback doesn't matter because nothing will come of it. It bothers me enough as the artist of the Xenowyrms and Staterae, because my hands are tied.

 

I realise I'm just one Artist, here, and realistically I don't have any power to make changes at the level needed to improve the experience of the game for you guys. I notice you said "they," but really only one person on DC has that level of power.

 

So, as someone that works in User Experience on a daily basis, I'll use what techniques I have to try to root out why people are unhappy, or why issues like this seem to crop up so regularly-- because that's all I can do. That's why I've taken hours writing up the posts I have to dissect the site gameplay, and even write up what the actions to take should be. I am trying to advocate for a better gameplay experience for you and others that are aggrieved by the current state of the game. I'm a player too, and I have the same difficulties that you do, and would like to see changes made to accommodate the amount of growth it's had over the years.

 

Quote

As birdzgoboom stated, "The solution that was applied did not solve the core issue with the Sweetlings, and the playerbase was understandably unhappy. This then would make the changes applied to Sweetlings an objective downgrade to the original gameplay." And it did. 

 

But that still leaves us fumbling around in the dark when it comes to Xenos and trying to predict what, if anything, DC will do to fix the ratios problem. The old adage comes to mind "those that failed to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

 

Like I also said, threads that devolve into talking about Sweetlings usually always end up CLOSED. It is NOT a good idea for us to travel down that path. 

 

"Those that failed to learn from history are doomed to repeat it" is absolutely correct. So, with that in mind, I'll ask you this: How are we supposed to learn from history if we don't objectively look back on it and determine where things went right or wrong? Avoiding drawing from historical examples of where choices were made that hurt the players isn't exactly going to help "DC" learn anything. That's why I pulled the example and have stressed using the word objectively so much.

 

Besides, the Sweetling example was one aspect of my entire post. Others aside from yourself are not choosing to fixate on it in the same way and have instead used its inclusion as it was intended to be used: as an example of where "DC" made the wrong choice and how we can try not to do it again. Because to make the same mistake over and over again would be silly.

 

As long as discussion is kept civil and objective, rather than slipping into being emotional and subjective, it should not be considered an issue. If the participants of discussions in the past were unable to keep the discussion objective, that is not the fault of the subject matter. 

 

That is as far as I am going to go with this line of conversation in this thread, however. I've said all that I can and any further going down this rabbit hole is not going to do anything good as far as the point of this thread is concerned. 

 

 

----

 

Back on the original topic:

 

@Guillotine thanks for the link. Already seeing a lot of good discussion that's entirely relevant to the issue here in that old thread.

 

 

Regarding the updated OP:

Quote

Add a filter option so that way if there's a wall, people can toggle the breed that's currently walling the ap 

Hm... I am not sure if this is a misinterpretation of what I had written, but having a toggled filter is not what I suggested. I suggested expanding the current behaviour of the filter TJ has already put in place that applies to Holiday Dragons during holiday seasons, as well as dragons from a single abandoner, to include dragons of a single breed (or group of breeds). That's a passive feature that should just make things inherently work better without any need for user action.

 

I'm no fan of a second abandoned page. Adding a second page when the first one doesn't even work as it should isn't really going to help and is a clunky solution to the issue at hand. It would also make it harder for people to hunt if there's two separate pages. I'd still rather see the current AP fixed as the best solution.

 

 

9 minutes ago, KageSora said:

Hm...  Alright, not entirely sure how the AP works exactly but there's a "12 displayed at once per abandoner" limit, right?  Which obviously does less to help if the same eggs are being repeatedly picked up and dumped over and over by different people, though does help if it's just one person dumping a bunch of stuff.

 

Is there a limitation based on the original breeder for bred eggs?  Obviously CB eggs don't have any kind of tracking attached to them, but bred eggs you'd presumably still have the parents on your scroll unless you released them right after abandoning the egg...  So is there a current limit of "only X eggs that have been bred by dragons that originate on the same scroll can show at any given time"?  If not that might be worth considering?

 

(Since it would then not matter how many other people picked up and tossed back an egg, it would still mean one person's 500 eggs couldn't take over the AP, regardless of if they were a single breed or were many breeds)  ((I assume it would be more complex to code in since you'd have to check if an egg was bred, then you'd have to check both parents to see if they're on the same scroll, but IDK anything about the coding of the site so...))

 

This is another possibility as well. Though that seems to not be the issue in the thread which was an overabundance of one type of dragon walling the AP.  At least if someone is mass-breeding their entire scroll, it's going to be a variety of dragons that are bred. Have there been any instances where someone mass-breeding a wider variety of dragons has been regularly problematic? If so, then it's definitely worth looking into.

[KageSora]

12 minutes ago, birdzgoboom said:

This is another possibility as well. Though that seems to not be the issue in the thread which was an overabundance of one type of dragon walling the AP.  At least if someone is mass-breeding their entire scroll, it's going to be a variety of dragons that are bred. Have there been any instances where someone mass-breeding a wider variety of dragons has been regularly problematic? If so, then it's definitely worth looking into.

 

I don't think I've seen anybody complain regularly about a mass-breeder if they were breeding a variety of things, but the idea of limiting what can be displayed that you bred would impact both people who breed large numbers of single breeds and large numbers of mixed breeds.  It wouldn't make sense, IMO, to limit it to only a single breed because I would assume that would involve additional work to make it happen with extra layers of filtering and such vs just "yeah anything they bred, max of this many items regardless of type".  But maybe it would be better to limit it to "max of X total, with a secondary lower max of Y per breed".  That, in the end, would be up to TJ to decide if such a solution was something he wanted to pursue.

 

Partially related, but...  Okay, so what is the specific dev structure of DC?  Because based on what I knew from back when the game was smaller in scope, and how everything feels like it's run I have a feeling about it but as I'm not a mod, or an artist, I'm not in a position to say exactly how things go.  It's obviously not the same as a large company, nor even like a small indie company that does the game as their entire focus.  Basically, a thing I've noticed for ages across many topics now is that it feels like some people might be under the impression there's a larger team involved in working on the site than there actually is, which can contribute to feelings of users being ignored.  (And, well, yeah, some stuff definitely gets ignored--or at least, if it's not being ignored there's little to no transparency so it feels like it's being ignored when it's not.)

[Long_Before_Sunrise]

11:40 pm DC time - 24 Xenos, 12 commons

[StarlightLion]

First off, @birdzgoboom I respect the absolute heck out of the sheer level of effort you've just put into breaking down the structure of the problem and the potential solutions. It helps that I agree with you But even if I didn't, the work is intense. (Also, on a personal note, thank you for outlining the Sweetlings because I honestly didn't know any of the details and at this point I'm too afraid to ask )

I'd also be very curious about the disparity between Xenos and alt Blacks/Vines versus the Red Dorsal/Tan Ridgewing variants and whatnot, because I've never considered the differences beyond CB availability. Which now that I type it seems like it could be the reason in itself, but it's still interesting, particularly because there's never been any emerging problems, to the best of my knowledge, in the balance of those rarer variants being obtained by players and the more common variants being mass discarded.

 

On a totally different note, it strikes me as redundant (and possibly even inflammatory) to keep just posting screenshots of the AP. The variance in each user's individual experience is, at the point, irrelevant - some of us experience only the Xeno wall, some of us don't experience it at all, and some of us experience fluctuation between wall and no wall. Just because any one user doesn't see the wall does not negate the fact some do, and the fact some users only experience the wall doesn't mean there aren't periods where the wall diminishes.

And either way, I'll say it again, it does not matter because the fact remains that the wall does happen, similar walls for different breeds have happened in the past, and similar walls for future breeds will happen in the future if the underlying system isn't changed. Can we move on from 'the wall doesn't exist, see,' 'yes it does, see,' and focus on analysing the problem (although birdz has very succinctly done that for us) and considering solutions?

[KageSora]

59 minutes ago, Long_Before_Sunrise said:

11:40 pm DC time - 24 Xenos, 12 commons

 

Time:  12:49am DC time.  9 Xenos.  21 commons, 7 of which are Storm dragons.  There's nearly as much of one other breed (which has no alts or anything) as there are of 4 different sub-species of Xenos combined.

 

 

Time:  12:59am DC time, so 10 minutes later.  Now there are 7 Xenos, 23 non-xenos.  Of those 23, 6 of them are purple dorsals.  Literally one less than the xenos, which are at least spread across 3 sub-species.  5 of them are Celestials.

 

1:09am DC time, there's 7 xenos, 23 other dragons of which are 6 purple dorsals, and 6 are celestials.

 

 

One final check, 1:19am DC time.  5 xenos (3 variants), 25 other dragons.  Of those 25, 6 are purple dorsals, 5 are celestials.

 

I don't feel like continuing to monitor it but that's an entire 30 minutes where xenos have accounted for less than 1/3 of the AP (at one point a mere 1/6 of the AP), and are nearly or tied with other breeds for number of eggs in the AP at once.

 

If you've got the really bad luck that whenever you try to check the AP you happen to sync up with somebody's mass-breeding hitting it, then I am very sorry to see that because yeah that is frustrating.

 

The wall exists, yes.  The wall is frustrating, yes.  The wall will return sometime after I've posted this, yes.

 

But it is not "[...]straight constant xenos with minor breaks for months."

 

It may feel like it's constant, but it just...  Isn't actually.  It's still a very real problem, and still needs to be addressed.  But it's not actually endless with only the rare breather.

 

1 hour ago, StarlightLion said:

On a totally different note, it strikes me as redundant (and possibly even inflammatory) to keep just posting screenshots of the AP.

 

I actually think it's helpful--the sheer amount of user variance is important, IMO.  It shows both that there is a wall (which none of us doubted), but also that the wall is not quite as constant as some users have claimed--both directly and indirectly.

[Moonlight_Eevee]

3 hours ago, KageSora said:

If you've got the really bad luck that whenever you try to check the AP you happen to sync up with somebody's mass-breeding hitting it, then I am very sorry to see that because yeah that is frustrating.

It might just really be bad luck for me

 

8 hours ago, birdzgoboom said:

This is another possibility as well. Though that seems to not be the issue in the thread which was an overabundance of one type of dragon walling the AP.  At least if someone is mass-breeding their entire scroll, it's going to be a variety of dragons that are bred. Have there been any instances where someone mass-breeding a wider variety of dragons has been regularly problematic? If so, then it's definitely worth looking into.

I think there has been small cases of this every now and then? I am unaware if they breed most of their scroll or not, so might be something to look into.

 

Quote

Hm... I am not sure if this is a misinterpretation of what I had written, but having a toggled filter is not what I suggested. I suggested expanding the current behaviour of the filter TJ has already put in place that applies to Holiday Dragons during holiday seasons, as well as dragons from a single abandoner, to include dragons of a single breed (or group of breeds). That's a passive feature that should just make things inherently work better without any need for user action.

I forgot to comment on this but you mean the ap filtering out a single breeder to where they aren't clogging the ap? (Excuse my tired brain for still not understanding >.>)

Edited April 17, 2023 by MoonlitEevee

[Fuzzbucket]

3 hours ago, KageSora said:

 

Time:  12:49am DC time.  9 Xenos.  21 commons, 7 of which are Storm dragons.  There's nearly as much of one other breed (which has no alts or anything) as there are of 4 different sub-species of Xenos combined.

 

 

Time:  12:59am DC time, so 10 minutes later.  Now there are 7 Xenos, 23 non-xenos.  Of those 23, 6 of them are purple dorsals.  Literally one less than the xenos, which are at least spread across 3 sub-species.  5 of them are Celestials.

 

1:09am DC time, there's 7 xenos, 23 other dragons of which are 6 purple dorsals, and 6 are celestials.

 

 

One final check, 1:19am DC time.  5 xenos (3 variants), 25 other dragons.  Of those 25, 6 are purple dorsals, 5 are celestials.

 

See above for many non-xeno walls. Right now there are a total of 5 Xenos in among all sorts of other stuff.

 

3 hours ago, KageSora said:

I don't feel like continuing to monitor it but that's an entire 30 minutes where xenos have accounted for less than 1/3 of the AP (at one point a mere 1/6 of the AP), and are nearly or tied with other breeds for number of eggs in the AP at once.

 

If you've got the really bad luck that whenever you try to check the AP you happen to sync up with somebody's mass-breeding hitting it, then I am very sorry to see that because yeah that is frustrating.

 

The wall exists, yes.  The wall is frustrating, yes.  The wall will return sometime after I've posted this, yes.

 

But it is not "[...]straight constant xenos with minor breaks for months."

 

It may feel like it's constant, but it just...  Isn't actually.  It's still a very real problem, and still needs to be addressed.  But it's not actually endless with only the rare breather.

 

 

I actually think it's helpful--the sheer amount of user variance is important, IMO.  It shows both that there is a wall (which none of us doubted), but also that the wall is not quite as constant as some users have claimed--both directly and indirectly.

 

Broken up so as not to hide these points at the bottom.. These screenies ARE valuable given that others only post them when they see a xeno wall. Both scenarios count. MY experience is much like @KageSora's.

 

Yes there is a problem with ratios and has been for years - but xenos are not the primary issue.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Fuzzbucket

[KageSora]

3 hours ago, MoonlitEevee said:

It might just really be bad luck for me

 

Or good luck for those of us often not seeing walls.

 

What might be happening is that you just happen to overlap with some people who regularly breed a bunch of xenos in terms of when you play (give or take a few hours) so when they breed and dump...  A few days later the stuff hits the AP around the same time you're playing.  And if you don't have the time to just walk away for an hour or two to see if the wall dissipated all you'll end up seeing are the walls themselves.

 

The variability of it is part of what makes it such an annoying problem, I think--it's definitely an issue, but it's not a constant universal issue with a definitive, simple "it's JUST this breed, and willy only ever be this breed" cause we can point to for a comparatively easy, targeted fix.  It's just the most recent and most visible (and somewhat more frustrating) symptom of the underlying issues with ratios and how the AP functions in general.

 

Something needs to be done, though.

[TJ09]

Just wanted to chime in and confirm I'm aware of this thread.

 

At the time of the last "big" adjustment to the AP, I explicitly stated that stopping the AP from being full of any one breed was not a goal:

This is largely still true, but I'm not set on that stance. Before formulating an opinion and weighing in more concretely, I plan to gather some actual data. I called out the same issue in the above-linked post that I'm seeing here: sharing misleading data points to try to exaggerate a point ("look, the AP is all the same breed at this exact moment in time! it must be a pervasive issue"). However, real data doesn't lie, and that's what I'll be looking for: clear evidence that not only is the balance of breeds in the AP off, but also that this imbalance impacts the AP meaningfully. It doesn't matter if there's a lot of the same breed in the AP if people want those eggs--as an extreme example, I'm sure a lot of people would love to see a massive wall of rare eggs.

 

Since this wasn't something I could readily divine from what I already have, it'll be a little while before I can make any conclusions.

 

However, I can address a few things up front:

 

* I agree with others here that focusing on any single breed is not the answer.

  

On 4/15/2023 at 6:31 AM, MoonlitEevee said:

The current problem the ap is facing right now:

• People massbreed
• People pick eggs up, then tossing the egg back into the ap of they don't like the lineage

* This is not true, insofar as I disagree that it represents "the" problem (or even "a" problem). There is not a significant difference in the number of unique "abandoners" (people who clicked abandon--the thing the AP limit currently applies to) and the number of unique "breeders" (owners of the parents of the eggs in the AP), even among the most common breeds currently in the AP. Thus, I would not draw the conclusion that picking eggs up and re-abandoning them, "bypassing" the per-abandoner limit, represents a significant problem.

[birdzgoboom]

@TJ09 That sounds great, and I appreciate seeing your input on the matter. 🙂

 

I'm also in agreement regarding the quality of the data presented in the thread/previous threads (screenshots, text statements, etc) and would be super curious to know what you find during the discovery process. Since the Xenos/Stats were part of why the subject was brought up in the first place just let me know if there's any way I can assist at all, and I'd be more than happy to.

[KageSora]

I was thinking it would be useful to do a, like, systemic examination to try and get a better idea of how frequently the walls occur, how long they last, etc. but I know that'd be hard for average users to pull off even if we work together so it's good to know TJ'll be looking at the data, too (I assume he can track it better and has access to more stuff than users can do by just taking periodic screenshots).

 

Especially since the bias in screenshots can go both ways--we can all wait until just the right moment the AP shows what supports our argument to do it rather than just getting lucky that it's full/empty of a given breed at the time we go to check.  (I'm not saying anybody here has done that to skew their case, because I don't think anybody did!  It's just that it's possible and thus something that needs to be taken into account about how easy it is to get skewed data.  It's also possible to get skewed results without intending to do that because if we're just grabbing screenshots randomly when we get on rather than doing, say, an hourly check at the same time every hour it's not unlikely that we'll just kinda see similar results multiple times in a row if we tend to have the same window of playtime each time we do.)

[Fuzzbucket]

5 hours ago, KageSora said:

I was thinking it would be useful to do a, like, systemic examination to try and get a better idea of how frequently the walls occur, how long they last, etc. but I know that'd be hard for average users to pull off even if we work together so it's good to know TJ'll be looking at the data, too (I assume he can track it better and has access to more stuff than users can do by just taking periodic screenshots).

 

Especially since the bias in screenshots can go both ways--we can all wait until just the right moment the AP shows what supports our argument to do it rather than just getting lucky that it's full/empty of a given breed at the time we go to check.  (I'm not saying anybody here has done that to skew their case, because I don't think anybody did!  It's just that it's possible and thus something that needs to be taken into account about how easy it is to get skewed data.  It's also possible to get skewed results without intending to do that because if we're just grabbing screenshots randomly when we get on rather than doing, say, an hourly check at the same time every hour it's not unlikely that we'll just kinda see similar results multiple times in a row if we tend to have the same window of playtime each time we do.)

 

This - I only posted my screenies because of the people implying there was never anything but Xenos - which, improbably, has not been something I have experienced; I've only seen a wall occasionally

[Guillotine]

On 4/16/2023 at 9:00 PM, KageSora said:

Partially related, but...  Okay, so what is the specific dev structure of DC?  Because based on what I knew from back when the game was smaller in scope, and how everything feels like it's run I have a feeling about it but as I'm not a mod, or an artist, I'm not in a position to say exactly how things go.  It's obviously not the same as a large company, nor even like a small indie company that does the game as their entire focus.  Basically, a thing I've noticed for ages across many topics now is that it feels like some people might be under the impression there's a larger team involved in working on the site than there actually is, which can contribute to feelings of users being ignored.  (And, well, yeah, some stuff definitely gets ignored--or at least, if it's not being ignored there's little to no transparency so it feels like it's being ignored when it's not.)

It's just TJ as the code-toucher, unless that's changed very recently. He brings on help for event games like the little RPGs as i understand things, but the site itself is a one-man job.

[StarlightLion]

It's awesome to see TJ in this thread! Good luck with the data-gathering ^-^