Bounty Board: Letting Users Help The Ratios

[Skadi]

So a huge reason cave blockers and breeding hogs are such an issue is because of ratios. But what if there was a way to help make the ratios a little more bearable, while supporting a fun playstyle for fans of the old Holly contest? Here's my pitch: every month, there's a "bounty board" that lists the 3 most overpopulated dragons for both the cave and breeding. Players can earn a score (not capped) for collecting and raising these dragons in ways that help with the ratios. The score does nothing but say "thank you for doing this!" and you can't redeem it for any other real prizes, but people can see your bounty score by looking at a trophy on your page.

 

The real benefit is weaponizing players like me, who are easily motivated by "number go up" and also helping other players with pesky ratio overpopulation. I am against tying anything more serious than an extra 100 shards a month for doing bounty stuff, and I really don't think even that is a great idea. I am super against tying prize dragons or extra raffle tickets to this. I'm even fine forgoing the Bounty Score, since the dragon count alone would be enough of a reward for me. However, anything more serious than a silly little trophy number would make the Bounty system feel too mandatory to players who don't like this sort of playstyle; the system as-pitched is more designed to help facilitate a common-hoarding playstyle while giving a bit of direction to it, not add a "grind" to the cave. After all, I started collecting Tercorns because I saw them in the biome all the time and now they're rarer than ever. I could be easily motivated to do the same to other commons, and having an objective data point of what commons I should be hunting would be super beneficial.

[blinkdog]

This sounds like fun! I would like to see it described in a lore friendly way, such as “These populations are surging this month” or something along those lines.

[jellystualy]

I'd like this as well as someone who's considering going for other dragons outside of Astraels such as Shumogas and the recent Jaw Splitters for example; and this sounds like a lot of fun honestly! I'm one of those players who likes "heehee big number go up >:)" so it'd be fun to see how many blockers could be yoinked in the course of one month by like some sort of challenge for those who want to participate

[inghelene]

Love the idea!

[Deus_Suetonius]

I think this is a great idea. I'm constantly frustrated by seeing the same eggs in the cave, of dragons I already have 5 or 6 of, and if there are users who don't care or in your cases like it, I wouldn't be against a reward, like shards for helping out

[seventeendeer]

I love this, I would definitely join in. Number-go-up minigames are the bomb.

 

As for adding an incentive, may I suggest a page for highscores? Like, you click a button on the page to add/update your highscore, and you can see how many of this month's blockers you've raised to adulthood compared to other players? I feel like some light optional competition would be fun and help motivate people to join in. There could be an option to remain anonymous on the scoreboard (to avoid drawing attention to your scroll) or to publically display your username (so people can come see your hoard), depending on player preference.

 

Though I'd be happy to join in for a couple of shards or something, I would personally be even more excited to join in if there was a competitive element instead. If we're looking for a high reward/low risk sort of prize for the minigame, public bragging rights might just be the way to go ... 😂

[Skadi]

8 hours ago, seventeendeer said:

I love this, I would definitely join in. Number-go-up minigames are the bomb.

 

As for adding an incentive, may I suggest a page for highscores? Like, you click a button on the page to add/update your highscore, and you can see how many of this month's blockers you've raised to adulthood compared to other players? I feel like some light optional competition would be fun and help motivate people to join in. There could be an option to remain anonymous on the scoreboard (to avoid drawing attention to your scroll) or to publically display your username (so people can come see your hoard), depending on player preference.

 

Though I'd be happy to join in for a couple of shards or something, I would personally be even more excited to join in if there was a competitive element instead. If we're looking for a high reward/low risk sort of prize for the minigame, public bragging rights might just be the way to go ... 😂

Yeah, I think a monthly leaderboard could be one of the best "no punishment for not participating" rewards. I'd definitely love to make it a competition as well, and if players don't care about the playstyle, obviously, they won't care about the leaderboard c:.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Skadi

[St0rmbringer]

This would be fun! It’s not my play style, but it’d be fun to watch/help others out with, and it’d reduce cave blockers a bit. Full support!

[Edenello]

Full support. Seeing numbers go up makes me happy, so even with no rewards aside from a thank you would make me happy. Leaderboards would be a great way to make it competitive for the people who want it to be, though I tend to not really care about them that much.

[_Charky]

I proposed something like this myself in another thread - happy to support it here, too. I think having something like a leaderboard would gamify it enough that people engage, but we can't have any accusations of "doesn't fit my playstyle" because you can just ignore it.

[CandraCat]

I think it sounds like a great idea!

there could be different leaderboard awards, like most dragons bred, most dragons hatched, most dragons gifted, I don’t know those are just ideas that came to the top of my head.

but a leaderboard that just gives notoriety or ‘bragging rights’ if you will, would be a fantastic way to foster more activity.

and if there are no extra prizes for it, those who choose not to participate wouldn’t feel irked.

or small prizes could be offered, like maybe something you can post in your sig or some shards for the store, but even just having a list and having the top players in each category listed, would be an way to encourage more activity 🤔 

 

or people could volunteer prizes even, like if someone can breed a 2G prize or Salt, or something….

 

I mean, if you’re considering prizes at all, like something people could donate? I don’t know…. I’m in a thinking and talking headspace…. 🤯

[Nakti]

I love this! It would give me some directionality too as I cannot choose what I want to do in the game.

 

I was also thinking of an "opposite" event, although somehow similar. An extinction, where a breed would become too rare in the cave, and we keepers would be required to release dragons to wilderness to repopulate them, so that they could produce caveborn eggs again. However that might screw with ratios ever worse. Also imagine repopulating stats... 

[TJ09]

Unfortunately, defining which dragons should be on a hypothetical bounty board isn't actually a simple task. "Underpopulated" isn't as meaningful as you might expect: unsurprisingly, the three most underpopulated breeds are going to be the most recent three releases.

It's not actually about population. There's a huge component of demand to it: few people would consider eggs that are common in the cave but also highly desirable to be a problem of any sort.

And since demand is subjective, defining it in any sort of quantifiable way to create meaningful bounties falls somewhere between nontrivial and downright impossible (see also: most discussions around "what is the trading value of this [egg/breed/etc]").

[OMGitsKairi]

I think the bounty board could be a fun addition. But as TJ said, demand/value is highly subjective. But an

idea just popped into my head about how to figure out what should be on the bounty board. What if users

were given the opportunity to "vote" for what would be on the board? Like, have a list and allow users to pick

5 (or some other number) breeds they believe to be the most over-populated, and then the 5 (or wharever

number) of breeds that get the most votes would be placed on the bounty board for that month.

[MissK.]

Alternatively, perhaps there would be a way of checking (periodically, not every day or anything) what breeds sit the longest in the biomes...? That could give an indication of both high numbers dropping and low demand. 

[Charity322]

You usually get a reward for completing a bounty though (in games or RL). Something like shards would at least incentivise people.

[Fuzzbucket]

I think this would probably work better as a player organised thread with players offering prizes - there are a few such threads already. Maybe each month someone could ask for x breed to be blitzed, and.... Because as TJ said - what's "not showing up" is so subjective. I recall a thread recently where someone said they hadn't seen a Tercorn in months - so - being a sweet and lovely person (not) I went to look and had three in no time flat. And it wasn't even on a 5 minutes.