Lengthen Flood And/Or Increased Drop Volume for New Releases

[Murkydepths]

1 hour ago, alyelle said:

 

My only concern for a solution along this line is that the NR biome (like the holiday biome) would see a huge amount of users compared to the other biomes, and people who are already on slow connections would struggle even more to catch the NR's.

 

 

Another potential issue with a NR biome is the biome is recorded when a dragon is picked up. At worst, it could mess up mechanics that take into account biome, and at least people would get sulky if they miss out on a 'NR biome' NR.

[Whiteberry]

9 hours ago, Jennivieve said:

A possible solution might be to have a special temporary NR biome, similar to how the holidays have their special biomes in order to get CBs. It could be a work around to get the 24 hr drop while not having to mess with the main Cave too much. Plus, since the temporary biome code already exists, it may be easier to implement. (Not a coder, so that's just speculation.)

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding, but wouldn't that make things even more competitive?  If there are, for argument's sake, currently around 35 people in each of the 6 biomes, having just one NR biome would put 210 people into one place, all of them trying to click on the 3 eggs on show at any one time.  You could have an extra line of eggs, as has been suggested previously, but if you're a millisecond behind another clicker on your chosen egg, by the time you've refreshed and returned to the cave, you've still missed out.

 

I whole-heartedly support the plea for a 24 hour flood to the biomes on release day.  As several others have said, if you're not on the right time zone, you are at a distinct disadvantage since the floods aways start at midnight cave time.  That's 5 am in the UK.  Of course, and I say this very tongue-in-cheek as I suspect it would be harder to implement,  another alternative might be for release times to vary.   Move each month forward by 2 hours - midnight one month, 2 am the next, 4 am the next and so on. 

 

 

Edited July 31, 2023 by Whiteberry

[KageSora]

I don't think the idea of a special NR biome would work so well, due to that making it harder to later figure out which actual biome the eggs show up in (especially if they all but vanish from the cave post-flood) as well as multiple mechanics relying on the biome an egg is picked up from (several dragons breed differently based on that--I would assume "NR" would be treated like "Cave" or "Market" for such purposes which...  May make flood NRs totally worthless for some lineages which would be unfortunate if, again, they were difficult to obtain post-flood).

 

There's also the way it would funnel players into one area which would be the exact opposite of fixing the current problem of "too many people in each area, not anywhere near enough eggs to go around".  Even if it were an additional biome with the NRs still showing up in their official biome(s) as well, it would still run into the issue of biome-based breeding mechanics.  (I assume biome-based variants would just all appear at random in such a biome?)

 

That said, the mention of a holiday-like biome for NRs reminded me that there already is a way to have a dragon drop for a set period of time, because otherwise the holiday floods would fade out before they're supposed to end--unless holidays are handled specially in the code in terms of ratios, I suppose.

 

Actually, since the floods seem to end at about the same time each release from what I've heard/seen people say, doesn't that already imply that they're flooding for a set amount of time now?  Otherwise for way more common eggs the floods would last longer and for rarer eggs the floods would be much shorter if it was purely based on ratios with no time-cutoff involved?

 

Logically speaking, based on those factors, I would think there should be a way to increase the flood duration that wouldn't be a nightmare to code, but since I'm not TJ I can't say for sure and it may be one of those "you'd think that, but actually you'd be wrong" type deals.  Sometimes what seems logical to somebody looking in from the outside doesn't actually work, after all!

 

I think the biggest concern with longer floods is, as somebody brought up, if it might imbalance the ratios for a while post-flood but since there's plenty of releases that become permanently on the scarce side post-flood as it is (hence the frustration of many not being able to get flood eggs)...  It's worth considering as a drawback to the idea, but not one I think that is enough of a drawback to completely negate any benefit there would be to increasing flooding.

[Starscream]

I support a full 24 hours to allow all timezones equal opportunity to have access to the flood.

[_Charky]

1 hour ago, KageSora said:

That said, the mention of a holiday-like biome for NRs reminded me that there already is a way to have a dragon drop for a set period of time, because otherwise the holiday floods would fade out before they're supposed to end--unless holidays are handled specially in the code in terms of ratios, I suppose.

 

I do have a sneaking suspicion that the ratio for holidays is just set so high that if we let it, the cave would just spawn those for a month straight before things evened out. That's how I'd do it if I didn't want to code a whole new system, at least 👀

 

I think this is one of those "we can only make so many suggestions and then wait to see if TJ wants to respond" situations.

[KageSora]

25 minutes ago, _Charky said:

 

I do have a sneaking suspicion that the ratio for holidays is just set so high that if we let it, the cave would just spawn those for a month straight before things evened out. That's how I'd do it if I didn't want to code a whole new system, at least 👀

 

I think this is one of those "we can only make so many suggestions and then wait to see if TJ wants to respond" situations.

 

That's definitely a possibility!  I would think it should be possible to temporarily set the ratios to something ridiculously high for the duration of a flood then adjust them back, though, which might be a way to do that?  It would depend on how things are set up, of course, but I'd imagine at least some tweaks are possible in the event of an error making a dragon too rare or common or something?  Heck, that might even be how it's handled now which would explain why floods seem to end at about the same time regardless of how common or rare the eggs end up being post-flood.

 

It seems like a potential approach in theory, though dunno how feasible it'd be in practice.

 

(Or it could be doable on a technical side but the math on how badly it would wreck the ratios might actually make it a poor idea, but then that goes into the ripple effect of the ratios being the cause of a lot of player distress nowadays and discussing a rework on those is a different matter)

[BringsTheSnow]

Support for 24 hour NR drops! 

[TJ09]

On 7/30/2023 at 12:52 PM, KageSora said:

Mostly I figure S&R for an area where players can discuss things they'd either like to see or things they find to be an issue with the game as well as possible solutions which, naturally, can only come from our limited perspective as we don't have all the coding knowledge of the game to know what's feasible and what isn't.  It's then up to TJ to take a look at requests, suggestions, and proposed solutions to problems in the player experience and decide either the "issue" isn't worth addressing or to find a way that actually works on his end to implement some form of change--that doesn't always have to be in the way we users come up with ideas, either!  He might come up with something totally new to address it as well.

This is exactly it. Not every thread is going to get a response, and not every suggestion will get implemented (as described or otherwise), but I read almost every post in this section and take all of the feedback given into account (combining qualitative feedback with quantitative data) when making decisions.

 

And sometimes the changes that are made aren't visible (nor are they easily describable without knowing technical details), or change so gradually people don't even realize it. I've described in the past that a lot of changes to how the cave makes eggs, how dragon populations are balanced, how breeding works, etc are only visible in aggregate, and many of them are intentionally rolled out over long periods of time (months) to avoid sudden and jarring shifts.

[KageSora]

1 hour ago, TJ09 said:

This is exactly it. Not every thread is going to get a response, and not every suggestion will get implemented (as described or otherwise), but I read almost every post in this section and take all of the feedback given into account (combining qualitative feedback with quantitative data) when making decisions.

 

And sometimes the changes that are made aren't visible (nor are they easily describable without knowing technical details), or change so gradually people don't even realize it. I've described in the past that a lot of changes to how the cave makes eggs, how dragon populations are balanced, how breeding works, etc are only visible in aggregate, and many of them are intentionally rolled out over long periods of time (months) to avoid sudden and jarring shifts.

 

Thanks for the insight, TJ!  It's honestly reassuring to know even if you don't respond to every topic that you're checking in on the section.

 

And that also makes a lot of sense, doing behind the scenes fiddling and slow tweaks to avoid overwhelming things.

[meeps114]

2 hours ago, TJ09 said:

This is exactly it. Not every thread is going to get a response, and not every suggestion will get implemented (as described or otherwise), but I read almost every post in this section and take all of the feedback given into account (combining qualitative feedback with quantitative data) when making decisions.

 

And sometimes the changes that are made aren't visible (nor are they easily describable without knowing technical details), or change so gradually people don't even realize it. I've described in the past that a lot of changes to how the cave makes eggs, how dragon populations are balanced, how breeding works, etc are only visible in aggregate, and many of them are intentionally rolled out over long periods of time (months) to avoid sudden and jarring shifts.

 

 

Thank you for the insight, I really appreciate you taking the time to reply! Would you be open to doing an occasional "state of the union" type post where you would let us know what issues you're currently implementing changes for? The actual solutions don't have to be provided for us, and replies wouldn't even need to be turned on. I just personally would feel a lot of relief to know that certain issues are being addressed, even if I don't how any specifics about how it's being addressed.

Edited July 31, 2023 by meeps114

[Freima]

Thanks TJ.

I support the idea of a 24 hr release. Being several hours behind Cave Time I often find it a struggle to be online at exactly the right time of day, especially since the releases tend to be on Sundays, which is the only day every member of my household is free to do something together.

For the current release, I spent the morning failing to catch an egg because so many others were competing for them, and come early evening the release had stopped completely.

If we had a full day of 24 hrs Cave Time it would give people more of a chance and reduce a great deal of frustration.

 

 

[D-wing]

Thanks TJ for the insight.

---

I don't think a special NR biome would work so well too. The question is would it cause more confusion? Such as this NR, how to decide their colour? random? Also if more then one egg descriptions like the birthday NR, would it be easy to mis-click for somethings you don't need? It almost didn't help if you're finding a specific NR, so I don't think it is a effective way to solve the problem. 

Edited August 3, 2023 by D-wing

[deleted_account]

Support for the OP.

Timezones. Much bigger playerbase.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Bialy

[Dragon-Firy]

I "accidentally" (or miraculously ) caught a NR while trying to get another egg. Would be nice a 24h release, tho. Support! 

[Darth Krande]

I agree 24 hours should be the norm. DragCave is ideally a game for people in all time zones. 

[StormBirdRising]

A 24 hour flood would be fabulous and would give every player a chance to grab some new releases on release day' 👍

[Seriva Senkalora]

While I am lucky enough to live in a time zone which is 6 hours ahead of the cave and new releases start at 6am for me, I totally understand the frustation from people, who aren't in such an comfortable situation. I can sleep to 10am on sundays and still have enough time so catch from the flood.

 

So I support the idea of 24-hour-floods, to get equal chances to all the players around the globe.

 

Cheers

Seriva

Edited August 5, 2023 by Seriva Senkalora

[zippuzzle]

I support the idea of 24 hour releases. I feel like every timezone should have the same opportunity to catch the new eggs on the flood day.

[StarlightLion]

On 7/31/2023 at 3:06 AM, Tiira said:

I know that it's not a must to get any new dragons on the first day.

Honestly, at this point I think it is. I missed the Astrael flood entirely (due to my timezone, I was asleep for the entire duration) and I've seen a very small number of them and only caught three total. Missing the flood is devastating to my chances at collecting any new releases within a reasonable timeframe (in this case, I use 'reasonable' to mean fast enough not to be scrambling to play catchup still when the next new breed releases) - and I say my chances because I have a lot more free time than the average player, and I still can't reach my scroll goals for any release before the next one. It's significantly worse with huge releases like the Astraels or the birthday dragons, too. I've only now started to see Flare-Tails often enough to even catch them semi-regularly.

 

All that to say, support. The system needs updating. It's going to cost me thousands of shards and/or excessive months of time to get even close to my scroll goals for the Astraels. Half a day's flood (I don't know the exact number of hours they last) followed by ratio-messed up scarcity that may get better or may get worse is far from ideal.

[Tiira]

1 hour ago, StarlightLion said:

On 7/30/2023 at 6:06 PM, Tiira said:

I know that it's not a must to get any new dragons on the first day.

Honestly, at this point I think it is. I missed the Astrael flood entirely (due to my timezone, I was asleep for the entire duration) and I've seen a very small number of them and only caught three total. Missing the flood is devastating to my chances at collecting any new releases within a reasonable timeframe [- -] Half a day's flood (I don't know the exact number of hours they last) followed by ratio-messed up scarcity that may get better or may get worse is far from ideal.

 

I just want to say that quoting that one sentence of my comment alone makes it sound really different from what I meant with it. I feel I may have chosen my words badly, since this is the second time I see it quoted. The point of my comment was that I think it shouldn't even matter why someone wants to get their eggs while the flood lasts - everyone who comes here for the new dragons on the release day deserves a real chance to grab something. I believe and hope that less frustration would also make the atmosphere around releases much, much more positive again.

 

That's why I started my comment with suggesting that I would support a 24-hour non-stop flood, to give players all around the world not only an equal access to the flood, but also a true opportunity to get something out of it. I'm saying this based on my own experience of the latest release, which was that our lovely new dragons weren't easy to catch even during the flood, and even though some have said they had no difficulties, I feel I can't have been the only one to struggle either.

 

Of course not everyone would still be able to come here on that one day and get their eggs from the flood, whether they wanted or not, but the difficulty of finding the new dragons in the cave later, or of catching eggs of any specific breed in general, is maybe another discussion.

 

I used to think of release days as kind of "you're guaranteed to get them" days, and I can see no harm in making them such. So, more time and more eggs, please. I hope I put my opinion clearly enough this time. 😸

[StarlightLion]

12 hours ago, Tiira said:

I used to think of release days as kind of "you're guaranteed to get them" days, and I can see no harm in making them such. So, more time and more eggs, please. I hope I put my opinion clearly enough this time. 😸

I agree!! Apologies for taking your quote out of context ❤️

[MusicalMaladies]

Support wholly. It's so difficult sometimes to catch a flood if you aren't in the right time zones.

[Tiira]

@StarlightLion Ah no worries, just wanted to make sure I won't be misunderstood. 😸 I really hope we'll see a 24-hour flood with increased number of eggs as soon as possible!

[Freima]

I'm glad I read the whole discussion! I've realised that I've already posted here that I support a 24-hr release, so I don't need to do so again.

(Except that I just have...  )

 

[Tiira]

My apologies if it seems ungrateful or disrespectful of me to write this so soon after the latest release (I'm excited as always, those new dragons look wonderful), but I would absolutely love to read some sort of a response here, from the staff - are longer or bigger release floods something that could ever be considered? I still think that a 24-hour non-stop flood would be a fantastic improvement for future releases, it would make things equal and easier for many, and likely lead to less frustration and disappointment, and more fun. Everyone deserves a chance to grab new eggs. I also can't believe any player would complain on NR threads for the pure joy of it, people are just sad because they wanted to join the hype, tried their best and failed, or woke up after it was already over. However, it's not nice to see so much negativity there, not for us ordinary players but probably even less for the artists.

 

If the answer is no, then fine, that's something all who decide to keep playing will have to accept. But I fear that releases will get more and more difficult as the game grows, if nothing is changed. Of course I don't know a thing about coding but I believe that TJ is enough of a wizard to be able to try something, maybe not today, but at some point of time. 😸