[quote name="emeralddarkness" date="2013-10-09 21:00:47"]The thing here about the economy is whether or not it's functioning 'as expected' and whether or not prices were supposed to deflate and whether or not you expected this to happen, if perhaps not this quickly, the thing is that the game has becoming frustrating rather than fun for a lot of people. That's a problem.
Let's say you have a basic plentiful hatchling and want to turn them into a speckle/freckle pearlcatcher, this being one of the cheapest possible double gened common dragons. Now, Speckle is 125kt, Freckle is 90kt, and a Pearlcatcher Breed Change Scroll is 250kt. Assuming you got the hatchling for free and you got all three of the items at dominance discount, you'd spend 419.5kt getting those three items at the discount you wanted. Assuming you had the time and patience to sit around and grind up to the 75kt cap at the fairgrounds every single day, it would take you 6 days to earn that amount, or approximately 350 easy puzzles (easy puzzles being the most lucrative way to earn treasure). However, there are people who can't actually do this, whether or not they find it tedious! There are people who coli or fairgrounds gives migraines, there are people who are photosensitive, there are people working full time jobs who simply don't have the time to sit around grinding for hours every single day, and there are people whose internet is too slow for this to be a viable option, especially with the site's lag factored in. It's not just a matter of people not being willing to grind through 350 easy puzzles, some people literally can't.
This without factoring in the fact that coli and fairgrounds are unstable at best, and are frequently unusable due to not being up.
So let's assume that you cannot, for whatever reason, use coli or fairgrounds at all. This limits your methods of earning to: restocking the AH (which is a tricky game at best), selling random crap to Crim, or breeding and exalting dragons.
Let's say you don't have the treasure to restock, as it requires you to have funds in order to start. Let's say you're lucky with Crim and manage to sell 20k worth of junk to her. This would leave you with 399.5k treasure to earn through breeding and exalting hatchlings. With the average exalt price of 2.5t for level 1 dragons (as the hatchlings would by necessity be if you can't level in coli) you'd have to breed and exalt (or sell at the intended floor price) 160 dragons to create your perfect dragon.
Assuming a best case scenario of 5 eggs in every clutch you have, and assuming that you only have the 2 nests every account comes with and haven't bought more, but that they are both constantly filled (in that you have a new pair of dragons RTB as soon as a clutch hatches) and assuming you don't buy boons of fertility because you're trying to save treasure and cannot afford gems or just would rather use that money to buy a piece of pizza, it would take 80 days to breed and exalt enough babies to earn just those three items. And, again, that is assuming the best possible scenario. Something like 214+ days is a much more realistic figure - the better part [i]of a year[/i]. To assemble one dragon.
And here's the kicker! Assuming you're willing to put that much time and effort into a dragon, that you're willing to sink ~214 days and 160 hatchlings into getting that dragon, speckle/freckle pearlcatchers are currently going for ~12kt on the market. Assuming that price stabilizes and does not drop further than it already has (profoundly unlikely), you'd have to sell 35 hatchlings just to recoup your losses. Assuming you only had the one pair of pearlcatchers, factoring in the new higher cooldown, and assuming a 5 egg clutch every time, it'd take an additional 140 days [i]just to make back the purchase price[/i]. And, because you wouldn't get 5 eggs in every clutch unless insanely lucky, it would take even longer than that.
The draw of this game is supposed to be making and breeding pretty dragons. However, when you're faced with price discrepancies like this, where everything costs so much more than anything brings in, then buying genes and breed change scrolls ceases to be worth it. After all, even assuming you were willing to sink 6 days into getting that speckle/freckle pearlcatcher, it wouldn't change that he wouldn't ever make you money, which means all you'd be able to do if you wanted to change other dragons would be go back to grinding.
That's not fun. 350 easy puzzles to fund a dragon that will earn you almost nothing, leaving you nothing to do but go back and do another 350 easy puzzles, that's [i]not fun[/i]. Nobody likes to feel like they're wasting their time, and that's what buying breed change scrolls and genes has almost become - because honestly? If it's just about making pretty things? A lot of us here are artists. I could draw a pretty picture in a lot less time than it would take me to make a pretty dragon, and it would be a heck of a lot more productive than 18 hours doing easy puzzles.
Whether or not breeding was 'intended' to be the focus of the site, that's what it's become. It was sold as a focus and it's how a [i]lot[/i] of the players are playing the game - so could it be treated as such, please?[/quote]
All of this. The way things are now, getting a dragon that's not an Imp is way too easy to do (and thus not fun), and getting anything you need other than a dragon, like food for your dragons, a lair expansion, genes, scrolls, boons or another nest, is too tedious and thus also not fun. This site is a GAME. The more it stops being fun and rewarding, the more people will keep leaving for greener pastures.
Above all, I can't see why the tiered exalt level (whether the example value of 20% of scroll prices or 10% or even 5%) cannot be introduced as a temporary experiment - say, for a month or so - to see if it will work. It can hardly screw up the economy any further. Even if it leads to the devaluing of treasure as some fear (not guaranteed, since a huge draw of it would be creating an incentive to exalt non-starters and thus remove dragons from the system, combating the 'dragons are an unlimitless resource' overpopulation issue!), it could be cancelled again and the system left to re-stabilise.
emeralddarkness wrote on 2013-10-09 21:00:47:
The thing here about the economy is whether or not it's functioning 'as expected' and whether or not prices were supposed to deflate and whether or not you expected this to happen, if perhaps not this quickly, the thing is that the game has becoming frustrating rather than fun for a lot of people. That's a problem.
Let's say you have a basic plentiful hatchling and want to turn them into a speckle/freckle pearlcatcher, this being one of the cheapest possible double gened common dragons. Now, Speckle is 125kt, Freckle is 90kt, and a Pearlcatcher Breed Change Scroll is 250kt. Assuming you got the hatchling for free and you got all three of the items at dominance discount, you'd spend 419.5kt getting those three items at the discount you wanted. Assuming you had the time and patience to sit around and grind up to the 75kt cap at the fairgrounds every single day, it would take you 6 days to earn that amount, or approximately 350 easy puzzles (easy puzzles being the most lucrative way to earn treasure). However, there are people who can't actually do this, whether or not they find it tedious! There are people who coli or fairgrounds gives migraines, there are people who are photosensitive, there are people working full time jobs who simply don't have the time to sit around grinding for hours every single day, and there are people whose internet is too slow for this to be a viable option, especially with the site's lag factored in. It's not just a matter of people not being willing to grind through 350 easy puzzles, some people literally can't.
This without factoring in the fact that coli and fairgrounds are unstable at best, and are frequently unusable due to not being up.
So let's assume that you cannot, for whatever reason, use coli or fairgrounds at all. This limits your methods of earning to: restocking the AH (which is a tricky game at best), selling random crap to Crim, or breeding and exalting dragons.
Let's say you don't have the treasure to restock, as it requires you to have funds in order to start. Let's say you're lucky with Crim and manage to sell 20k worth of junk to her. This would leave you with 399.5k treasure to earn through breeding and exalting hatchlings. With the average exalt price of 2.5t for level 1 dragons (as the hatchlings would by necessity be if you can't level in coli) you'd have to breed and exalt (or sell at the intended floor price) 160 dragons to create your perfect dragon.
Assuming a best case scenario of 5 eggs in every clutch you have, and assuming that you only have the 2 nests every account comes with and haven't bought more, but that they are both constantly filled (in that you have a new pair of dragons RTB as soon as a clutch hatches) and assuming you don't buy boons of fertility because you're trying to save treasure and cannot afford gems or just would rather use that money to buy a piece of pizza, it would take 80 days to breed and exalt enough babies to earn just those three items. And, again, that is assuming the best possible scenario. Something like 214+ days is a much more realistic figure - the better part of a year. To assemble one dragon.
And here's the kicker! Assuming you're willing to put that much time and effort into a dragon, that you're willing to sink ~214 days and 160 hatchlings into getting that dragon, speckle/freckle pearlcatchers are currently going for ~12kt on the market. Assuming that price stabilizes and does not drop further than it already has (profoundly unlikely), you'd have to sell 35 hatchlings just to recoup your losses. Assuming you only had the one pair of pearlcatchers, factoring in the new higher cooldown, and assuming a 5 egg clutch every time, it'd take an additional 140 days just to make back the purchase price. And, because you wouldn't get 5 eggs in every clutch unless insanely lucky, it would take even longer than that.
The draw of this game is supposed to be making and breeding pretty dragons. However, when you're faced with price discrepancies like this, where everything costs so much more than anything brings in, then buying genes and breed change scrolls ceases to be worth it. After all, even assuming you were willing to sink 6 days into getting that speckle/freckle pearlcatcher, it wouldn't change that he wouldn't ever make you money, which means all you'd be able to do if you wanted to change other dragons would be go back to grinding.
That's not fun. 350 easy puzzles to fund a dragon that will earn you almost nothing, leaving you nothing to do but go back and do another 350 easy puzzles, that's not fun. Nobody likes to feel like they're wasting their time, and that's what buying breed change scrolls and genes has almost become - because honestly? If it's just about making pretty things? A lot of us here are artists. I could draw a pretty picture in a lot less time than it would take me to make a pretty dragon, and it would be a heck of a lot more productive than 18 hours doing easy puzzles.
Whether or not breeding was 'intended' to be the focus of the site, that's what it's become. It was sold as a focus and it's how a lot of the players are playing the game - so could it be treated as such, please?
All of this. The way things are now, getting a dragon that's not an Imp is way too easy to do (and thus not fun), and getting anything you need other than a dragon, like food for your dragons, a lair expansion, genes, scrolls, boons or another nest, is too tedious and thus also not fun. This site is a GAME. The more it stops being fun and rewarding, the more people will keep leaving for greener pastures.
Above all, I can't see why the tiered exalt level (whether the example value of 20% of scroll prices or 10% or even 5%) cannot be introduced as a temporary experiment - say, for a month or so - to see if it will work. It can hardly screw up the economy any further. Even if it leads to the devaluing of treasure as some fear (not guaranteed, since a huge draw of it would be creating an incentive to exalt non-starters and thus remove dragons from the system, combating the 'dragons are an unlimitless resource' overpopulation issue!), it could be cancelled again and the system left to re-stabilise.
[quote name="Darketernity" date="2013-10-10 05:18:08"]You guys said you were pleased that your rares/limiteds bred like plentifuls at 100% occurence. You never wanted a breeding mechanism like Dragon Cave's (egg production is tied to the population of eggs of that breed produced in a timeslot). No eggs - a huge chance when breeding.
You had plenty of chances to support a system like that. But no. [/quote]
Quoted for truth. You can't have it both ways- either they breed like rabbits til they're a dime a dozen, or it's rare to get eggs from them and they remain valuable for a much, much, longer time. There is no logical middle ground.
@Die That overview screencap says the main focus of the game is breeding. It does not say the main source of income in the game is breeding.
Darketernity wrote on 2013-10-10 05:18:08:
You guys said you were pleased that your rares/limiteds bred like plentifuls at 100% occurence. You never wanted a breeding mechanism like Dragon Cave's (egg production is tied to the population of eggs of that breed produced in a timeslot). No eggs - a huge chance when breeding.
You had plenty of chances to support a system like that. But no.
Quoted for truth. You can't have it both ways- either they breed like rabbits til they're a dime a dozen, or it's rare to get eggs from them and they remain valuable for a much, much, longer time. There is no logical middle ground.
@
Die That overview screencap says the main focus of the game is breeding. It does not say the main source of income in the game is breeding.
Just wanted to let everyone know that we are still reading through this thread and appreciate every bit of feedback.
Just wanted to let everyone know that we are still reading through this thread and appreciate every bit of feedback.
Flight Rising Developer
Project Management | Engineering Team Cheerleader | UI Designer
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gladesong I know, I can read. There were quite a few people on this thread claiming that breeding wasnt the main focus, however. They are wrong.
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gladesong I know, I can read. There were quite a few people on this thread claiming that breeding wasnt the main focus, however. They are wrong.
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Die apologies, I misunderstood your meaning :)
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Die apologies, I misunderstood your meaning :)
I just wanted to chime in with EmeraldDarkness, I've stopped doing everything but familiars and feeding my guys, I had about 175K just sitting there because to buy a gene or scroll was pointless as I was sitting on shimmer gene'd pearlcatchers and rigdies that weren't selling for even 1/3 of what I paid to give the female of the pair that produced the shimmer gene in the first place (not to mention the breed changed scroll). I was honestly fed up with grinding, What I had hoped for (finally being able to have common breeds with genes to sell to work up to making more money to change my other dragons) wasn't happening, not even close.
Anyway I sat on that 175, ended up checking the AH and low and behold I could buy a skydancer, I had thought it would be awhile before I could afford even a single gened one so I also checked Imps and when a bit more money I could buy one, now I know for a lot of people buying an Imp was the goal, and honestly without any work at all I could have one, I could also have the latest released breed (I do, and she is double gene'd and I still had money left over for a 70k scatterscroll)
tl;dr Theres nothing left to work for imo, if I want a Imp I don't have to gene my commons, make pretty babies and sell them to slowly work up to 750k anymore, I can grind the coli for a little bit and BAM Imp, possibly double gene'd Imp.
I'll still feed my dragons till I finish leveling my current familiars but after that I don't know if i'll bother logging back in.
Edit : I've posted about my achievement issues many many times ( I don't know if they were disabled or not) but I don't even have those to work for since I still haven't been credit for some.
I just wanted to chime in with EmeraldDarkness, I've stopped doing everything but familiars and feeding my guys, I had about 175K just sitting there because to buy a gene or scroll was pointless as I was sitting on shimmer gene'd pearlcatchers and rigdies that weren't selling for even 1/3 of what I paid to give the female of the pair that produced the shimmer gene in the first place (not to mention the breed changed scroll). I was honestly fed up with grinding, What I had hoped for (finally being able to have common breeds with genes to sell to work up to making more money to change my other dragons) wasn't happening, not even close.
Anyway I sat on that 175, ended up checking the AH and low and behold I could buy a skydancer, I had thought it would be awhile before I could afford even a single gened one so I also checked Imps and when a bit more money I could buy one, now I know for a lot of people buying an Imp was the goal, and honestly without any work at all I could have one, I could also have the latest released breed (I do, and she is double gene'd and I still had money left over for a 70k scatterscroll)
tl;dr Theres nothing left to work for imo, if I want a Imp I don't have to gene my commons, make pretty babies and sell them to slowly work up to 750k anymore, I can grind the coli for a little bit and BAM Imp, possibly double gene'd Imp.
I'll still feed my dragons till I finish leveling my current familiars but after that I don't know if i'll bother logging back in.
Edit : I've posted about my achievement issues many many times ( I don't know if they were disabled or not) but I don't even have those to work for since I still haven't been credit for some.
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Valvaren: Certain achievements were turned off, it's not a glitch. Reposting threads will not get your point across more.
There is a fine line between boring, and interesting. All I do is grind the coli because I find it incredibly fun and engaging -- I realize not everyone does, and that's perfectly fine, but I don't even have a goal on his game, aside from getting full lair upgrades for my flight and letting them pay me in food to house their dragons for an exalt push, if they'd so choose. If they don't want to do that, they can collect dragons. That's okay, and if it's what they choose to do, so be it.
But you should never penalize others for things they weren't able to do, or money they weren't able to earn. It's a universal issue -- the poor have to work to become the rich. Believe me, it's either I'm in the 1% or the 99% with only 35K to my name.
It's simply a balancing act between dragons and genes.
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Valvaren: Certain achievements were turned off, it's not a glitch. Reposting threads will not get your point across more.
There is a fine line between boring, and interesting. All I do is grind the coli because I find it incredibly fun and engaging -- I realize not everyone does, and that's perfectly fine, but I don't even have a goal on his game, aside from getting full lair upgrades for my flight and letting them pay me in food to house their dragons for an exalt push, if they'd so choose. If they don't want to do that, they can collect dragons. That's okay, and if it's what they choose to do, so be it.
But you should never penalize others for things they weren't able to do, or money they weren't able to earn. It's a universal issue -- the poor have to work to become the rich. Believe me, it's either I'm in the 1% or the 99% with only 35K to my name.
It's simply a balancing act between dragons and genes.
Is there any way to lessen the cost of Lair Expansions? I feel like people wouldn't be in such a rush to sell dragons that they kind of like if they were able to make more room in their lair. Feasibly, people would have to stop expanding when they can't feed their dragons any more, so I'm not sure why lair expansions are so costly. I know I personally have some dragons I would love to keep, but I need to make room for more nests that are hatching.
Is there any way to lessen the cost of Lair Expansions? I feel like people wouldn't be in such a rush to sell dragons that they kind of like if they were able to make more room in their lair. Feasibly, people would have to stop expanding when they can't feed their dragons any more, so I'm not sure why lair expansions are so costly. I know I personally have some dragons I would love to keep, but I need to make room for more nests that are hatching.
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DragonLover3 the admins have recently said they are willing to look into adjusting expansion costs at some point.
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DragonLover3 the admins have recently said they are willing to look into adjusting expansion costs at some point.
I don't even know where to start. I have so much on my mind and am afraid I'll blabber, but let's try.
One cannot deny that the economy is broken. I won't say that it wouldn't have come to that point sooner or later, but I think we've hit it faster than normal. I'm not sure why, maybe the closed registration played a role in it. At the same time, I don't think reopening it will help us anymore. Maybe I'm just pessimistic.
Some have the opinion that breeding was never the main focus of the site (despite the screenshot of the site's encyclopedia one or two pages earlier stating otherwise). If that were the case, why was such a thing as breed rarities ever introduced? There must have been an intention behind it, they were meant to be special and to be set apart from plentifuls, in regards of breeding and selling. Three months ago, it made a difference if you were selling Guardians or eg. Ridgebacks. Today the nest of nearly every breed will bring you the same result: Hatchlings that won't sell. Rare breeds are starting to loose their allure, or even have already. You can see for yourself what you can find below the 10k mark. Even Imperials and WCs are crawling below the 100k mark, and prices will continue to fall.
One could say this could be half-decently balanced with the exalting feature, but when I joined the site three months ago, the exalting came off as something that only would happen occasionally. Achievements aren't easy to earn, right? Well, the first exalting achievement (if it weren't disabled at the moment) starts at 5 exalts, the last counts 15 exalts. I've been LONG past this point, and I have four more exalts waiting for me, because the ungened plentifuls hardly sell anymore. Back then, I also thought I would never use that option, because even a plentiful hatchling cost several thousand treasure. You don't just exalt something you spent so much time earning money for.
The other day I saw someone complaining about having spent "so much treasure" on a double gened hatchling. They were talking about 50k.
I remember playing Jigsaw for hours to earn 65k, which were spent on a non-gened Mirror hatchling. Sure, it was hard work, but it felt GOOD, because in the end, I felt like I accomplished something. Back then, I never saw it as a bad thing that Imperial prices would start at 600k or more. It was the goal to work for. I wasn't even sure if I would ever make it to that goal. Today, you can get them for 90k on the AH.
Another thing about making treasure: Like I said, in the beginning it was fine to earn digital coins with Jigsaw and other fairground games. But after being 3 months in the game, it's boring. I'm mostly making treasure with sales (ITEMS, mind you, since dragons won't go) and the occasional chest from familiar bonding (which thankfully does work again). I haven't touched the games in weeks.
Introducing new games could make earning treasure fun again. I'm sure you guys have things planned, but no estimated time. Atm I feel like taking a break from the site until things get interesting again.
There are a few other thoughts that I'd like to throw in: I wish you wouldn't have turned off the egg rot option. It made things "realistic" and exciting. It kept the number of eggs at bay, if a user wasn't online to care for them, hence made you think twice before you bred a clutch. Also: Lowering lair expanding prices won't change anything, because the main problem is that you can't make treasure, not that things are expensive.
I still fully support you guys. You're doing a great job and I love the site. That's why seeing it go down the tube hurts so much. But something is broken, and I'm not sure if there's a way to fix it.
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Edited for english failure.
I don't even know where to start. I have so much on my mind and am afraid I'll blabber, but let's try.
One cannot deny that the economy is broken. I won't say that it wouldn't have come to that point sooner or later, but I think we've hit it faster than normal. I'm not sure why, maybe the closed registration played a role in it. At the same time, I don't think reopening it will help us anymore. Maybe I'm just pessimistic.
Some have the opinion that breeding was never the main focus of the site (despite the screenshot of the site's encyclopedia one or two pages earlier stating otherwise). If that were the case, why was such a thing as breed rarities ever introduced? There must have been an intention behind it, they were meant to be special and to be set apart from plentifuls, in regards of breeding and selling. Three months ago, it made a difference if you were selling Guardians or eg. Ridgebacks. Today the nest of nearly every breed will bring you the same result: Hatchlings that won't sell. Rare breeds are starting to loose their allure, or even have already. You can see for yourself what you can find below the 10k mark. Even Imperials and WCs are crawling below the 100k mark, and prices will continue to fall.
One could say this could be half-decently balanced with the exalting feature, but when I joined the site three months ago, the exalting came off as something that only would happen occasionally. Achievements aren't easy to earn, right? Well, the first exalting achievement (if it weren't disabled at the moment) starts at 5 exalts, the last counts 15 exalts. I've been LONG past this point, and I have four more exalts waiting for me, because the ungened plentifuls hardly sell anymore. Back then, I also thought I would never use that option, because even a plentiful hatchling cost several thousand treasure. You don't just exalt something you spent so much time earning money for.
The other day I saw someone complaining about having spent "so much treasure" on a double gened hatchling. They were talking about 50k.
I remember playing Jigsaw for hours to earn 65k, which were spent on a non-gened Mirror hatchling. Sure, it was hard work, but it felt GOOD, because in the end, I felt like I accomplished something. Back then, I never saw it as a bad thing that Imperial prices would start at 600k or more. It was the goal to work for. I wasn't even sure if I would ever make it to that goal. Today, you can get them for 90k on the AH.
Another thing about making treasure: Like I said, in the beginning it was fine to earn digital coins with Jigsaw and other fairground games. But after being 3 months in the game, it's boring. I'm mostly making treasure with sales (ITEMS, mind you, since dragons won't go) and the occasional chest from familiar bonding (which thankfully does work again). I haven't touched the games in weeks.
Introducing new games could make earning treasure fun again. I'm sure you guys have things planned, but no estimated time. Atm I feel like taking a break from the site until things get interesting again.
There are a few other thoughts that I'd like to throw in: I wish you wouldn't have turned off the egg rot option. It made things "realistic" and exciting. It kept the number of eggs at bay, if a user wasn't online to care for them, hence made you think twice before you bred a clutch. Also: Lowering lair expanding prices won't change anything, because the main problem is that you can't make treasure, not that things are expensive.
I still fully support you guys. You're doing a great job and I love the site. That's why seeing it go down the tube hurts so much. But something is broken, and I'm not sure if there's a way to fix it.
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Edited for english failure.
