2. Regarding the inflated prices to the mystery egg caps and new habitats, which was mentioned by almost everyone (so I won’t tag or quote all the posts), this is Deca’s reply.
It's important to note that you might be too focused on the short term justification of prices. In the long run with more habitats and dragons players will be earning a lot of Etherium and the prices will become more justifiable. In other words, with the expansion, increases have to follow otherwise it would quickly become too favorable especially when there's already too much Ethereum available in the game currently compared to it's value and usage.
I'd like a better explanation from Deca about this issue, if they're willing to discuss it further. We've been given 20 new habitats, which increases our earnings by 36%. Yet they tripled the cost of mystery eggs. Something just seems off here, maybe I'm missing a key point in the picture. I would expect them to land around 15k or so. Where are we getting 3x the currency? If players don't breed and just buy mystery eggs, they used to collect 11k from 55 islands every couple of hours. Now they'll collect 15k from 75 every couple hours. It used to take 2 hours to buy an egg, now it's 4. And that's only for the very few who can save up the millions to upgrade to 75, I made it to 56 so far.
What am I missing? You know me, I love understanding the numbers and this one just doesn't make sense to me right now.
Edit: I'm also fine if they want to state that they're nerfing the rift because it was too easy, or provided too many dragons, and they want to make it harder. At least that would make sense and explain the new cost. I would just prefer to hear that as the answer if it's the case, and not have the feeling that they're ignoring basic math!
The rift prices of things have always been really unbalanced so I am not sure why they felt the need to nerf the mystery eggs beyond they just do not like them. I know people that can only check in once a day that still don’t have all the original habitats. It would cost me $120 real life money to buy a rift habitat with a 200 etherium max and this is during a DEAL and not even the most expensive one or I could spend $20 for a gem habitat. And like I said before I would much rather have a way to breed the dragons/pedestals I need anyway rather than buying the eggs, but they do not give a way to get twin rifts and some other dragon types besides the eggs.
Here is another graphical boo-boo that does NOT need to be fixed. I used to have pedestals on display where the Stone is now located at the top of the Apocalypse Theme dragon head. I like the Stone better. The scene just needs a habitat full of Quaa dragons at the bottom of the chute and the inevitable earthquake to trigger the Quaapocalypse.
Here is another graphical boo-boo that does NOT need to be fixed. I used to have pedestals on display where the Stone is now located at the top of the Apocalypse Theme dragon head. I like the Stone better. The scene just needs a habitat full of Quaa dragons at the bottom of the chute and the inevitable earthquake to trigger the Quaapocalypse.
I got jumpscared by a giant snek tail to the face yesterday, my olympus island sometimes comes with a blackholes attached, but you perma glitched your park??
The rift prices of things have always been really unbalanced so I am not sure why they felt the need to nerf the mystery eggs beyond they just do not like them. I know people that can only check in once a day that still don’t have all the original habitats. It would cost me $120 real life money to buy a rift habitat with a 200 etherium max and this is during a DEAL and not even the most expensive one or I could spend $20 for a gem habitat. And like I said before I would much rather have a way to breed the dragons/pedestals I need anyway rather than buying the eggs, but they do not give a way to get twin rifts and some other dragon types besides the eggs.
I still have no idea who they think is going to buy that. 2400€/$ to expand your rift? What? I'm sure someone will, but that's not going to offset the rarity of the someones.
2. Regarding the inflated prices to the mystery egg caps and new habitats, which was mentioned by almost everyone (so I won’t tag or quote all the posts), this is Deca’s reply.
I'd like a better explanation from Deca about this issue, if they're willing to discuss it further. We've been given 20 new habitats, which increases our earnings by 36%. Yet they tripled the cost of mystery eggs. Something just seems off here, maybe I'm missing a key point in the picture. I would expect them to land around 15k or so. Where are we getting 3x the currency? If players don't breed and just buy mystery eggs, they used to collect 11k from 55 islands every couple of hours. Now they'll collect 15k from 75 every couple hours. It used to take 2 hours to buy an egg, now it's 4. And that's only for the very few who can save up the millions to upgrade to 75, I made it to 56 so far.
What am I missing? You know me, I love understanding the numbers and this one just doesn't make sense to me right now.
Edit: I'm also fine if they want to state that they're nerfing the rift because it was too easy, or provided too many dragons, and they want to make it harder. At least that would make sense and explain the new cost. I would just prefer to hear that as the answer if it's the case, and not have the feeling that they're ignoring basic math!
I believe this may be a large part of the reason. I can most certainly understand why a developer would have serious concerns if the goals in their game are too easy. Deca has tons of data they can’t share with players and reps. If they find that players are reaching red fire or blue fire unusually quickly due to excessive egg purchases instead of breeding, then they’ll need to address the problem. Collecting in the Rift four times to buy a mystery egg isn’t too outrageous, and players will only arrive at this point after they’ve hit the cap; the previous eggs are more inexpensive (although the caps for the other permanent mystery eggs are extremely high, since the original caps were already too high). We’ve all played games where we reached the goal or the 'end' of the game, and didn’t have anything left to do, except quit.
I can’t speak for Deca, and I emphasise that they have not said this is the reason for the new mystery egg caps. But I do not believe Deca does things to purposefully upset players, and they have made corrections when they see an error on their part. So, I don’t think the new mystery caps are a mistake, but I will ask them to recalculate, especially for the new caps for rare, epic, and gem eggs.
Deca will not always tell players the various reasons for their decisions. It’s very understandable that we’re curious, but it's not always in their best interest to explain all their moves. They do have a responsibility to keep the game running for as long as possible, so their decisions are with this objective in mind.
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Did I read a post that someone at Deca thinks there’s already too much Etherium floating around in the Rift? Really?!?!? Following is a quick spreadsheet that shows the costs and implications of buying the next 20 Rift Habitats:
These are really ugly numbers. Unless you happen to have many millions of Etherium lying around, or are willing to spend a bloody fortune to buy the needed Etherium, or are willing to collect from the Rift habitats every few hours day and night, or are willing to wait years to gradually acquire the habitats, or can somehow hack the game to your benefit, you are unlikely to break even buying additional habitats in the Rift. And this does not take into account the cost to clear the Rift of Miasmic Ether, breed traited dragons, feed them up to a realistic level of income generation, buy EOMs, or use Etherium to solve the donation boards when they are in an event. The Rift economic model has been broken ever since it was introduced to the game. The argument that you can buy more habitats and breed more dragons to generate more income doesn’t work with a fixed cap of 200 Etherium per habitat while the expense side inflates to stratospheric levels. Deca has painted itself into a Rift corner with an unrealistic income-expense model, a dysfunctional breeding cave, and "Deals" - $20 for 33,705 Etherium - that aren't deals at all.
Speaking of the breeding cave: After going months with little to show for daily breeding attempts, my Rift Breeding Cave suddenly came to life during the Zodiac event and provided traited versions of the Geminian, Taurian, Sunstruck, Dusk, Midday, Zipzap, and Exandrew dragons. A traited Seraph was a dragon too far and the breeding cave shut down again during the last week of the event. I think the Rift breeding cave has an On/Off switch that is periodically triggered by some unknown method. There is no consistency at all compared to what I see in the Vale breeding caves.
Did I read a post that someone at Deca thinks there’s already too much Etherium floating around in the Rift? Really?!?!? Following is a quick spreadsheet that shows the costs and implications of buying the next 20 Rift Habitats:
These are really ugly numbers. Unless you happen to have many millions of Etherium lying around, or are willing to spend a bloody fortune to buy the needed Etherium, or are willing to collect from the Rift habitats every few hours day and night, or are willing to wait years to gradually acquire the habitats, or can somehow hack the game to your benefit, you are unlikely to break even buying additional habitats in the Rift. And this does not take into account the cost to clear the Rift of Miasmic Ether, breed traited dragons, feed them up to a realistic level of income generation, buy EOMs, or use Etherium to solve the donation boards when they are in an event. The Rift economic model has been broken ever since it was introduced to the game. The argument that you can buy more habitats and breed more dragons to generate more income doesn’t work with a fixed cap of 200 Etherium per habitat while the expense side inflates to stratospheric levels. Deca has painted itself into a Rift corner with an unrealistic income-expense model, a dysfunctional breeding cave, and "Deals" - $20 for 33,705 Etherium - that aren't deals at all.
Speaking of the breeding cave: After going months with little to show for daily breeding attempts, my Rift Breeding Cave suddenly came to life during the Zodiac event and provided traited versions of the Geminian, Taurian, Sunstruck, Dusk, Midday, Zipzap, and Exandrew dragons. A traited Seraph was a dragon too far and the breeding cave shut down again during the last week of the event. I think the Rift breeding cave has an On/Off switch that is periodically triggered by some unknown method. There is no consistency at all compared to what I see in the Vale breeding caves.
I haven’t heard anyone at Deca say there’s 'too much Etherium floating around the Rift'. I’m not sure where you read that, but as far as I know, no Deca employee has said anything close to that, so unless you have a quote, this is pure speculation.
Some players can’t collect frequently, others can. For Backflip, and now Deca, they can’t cater to the player who logs in once a day. A big reason why Backflip set the habitat caps at 200 Etherium is because they were trying to encourage players to login more frequently. If there’s no effort to increase activity, then there’s no way DV will continue on.
The prices to buy Etherium have never been reasonable. It does not appear that Backflip or Deca want players to simply buy Etherium. They want players to login and play. In the same way, they also don't want players to just buy the dragons. That’s why they cost a ridiculous amount of gems / cash.
I think raising the Rift habitat Etherium cap is a clear path to resolving a lot of the problems without causing an imbalance. But I’ve never seen the Rift numbers and data that shows where most players are at. I was able to buy the new habitats, because I had millions of Etherium saved. It’s been so long since there’s been any new habitats, so I had nothing to spend Etherium on except breeding.
I understand everyone is upset about the Rift prices. The complaints were already relayed to Deca last week. Don’t worry, I'll let them know everyone is still angry. But unless I hear anything new from Deca, I don’t have anything else to post about it.
Edit: I’ve seen no indication of a 'switch' that allows limited dragons to be bred / not bred in the Rift. It sounds like your fortune has changed. I did predict in the event thread several weeks ago, that 'even if you’re blessed with a run of sensational luck, it won’t change your mind about the Rift.' My prediction came true. 😄😁😄
Last Edit: Sept 11, 2022 22:26:08 GMT -6 by adlerist
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Hi, New to the forums, relatively, been playing DV for many years now, although casually, but am at level 163. With the new Rift expansion extravaganza going on right now I saw that you can expand your space in the Rift. As far as I know I expanded as far as I could in the past, I couldn't get rid of any more "cloud" stuff and was at the cap of 55 islands (I see now it's up to 75 max, but I just saw that so I don't know how long that's been available)
But when I go to my Rift to clear more area, there is a strip of "clouds" I cannot clear with a row and a half of "clouds" I can clear behind it, on two sides. Is this on purpose?
Sorry if this is the wrong place to post the question, I couldn't see a button to start a new thread.
Last Edit: Sept 12, 2022 6:27:29 GMT -6 by mes2370
Welcome! If you look back a couple pages here you’ll see that we are all confused by that strip of unclearable ether too. No word from Deca yet (i don’t think) on why it’s there. I’m thinking it’s a mistake that will be corrected. The increase to 75 is new with this expansion, so your 55 was the most you could have until this event started.
Hi, New to the forums, relatively, been playing DV for many years now, although casually, but am at level 163. With the new Rift expansion extravaganza going on right now I saw that you can expand your space in the Rift. As far as I know I expanded as far as I could in the past, I couldn't get rid of any more "cloud" stuff and was at the cap of 55 islands (I see now it's up to 75 max, but I just saw that so I don't know how long that's been available)
But when I go to my Rift to clear more area, there is a strip of "clouds" I cannot clear with a row and a half of "clouds" I can clear behind it, on two sides. Is this on purpose?
Sorry if this is the wrong place to post the question, I couldn't see a button to start a new thread.
Oops…. I just posted a response to you but accidentally did it as a new post. It starts out “Welcome”.
Hi, New to the forums, relatively, been playing DV for many years now, although casually, but am at level 163. With the new Rift expansion extravaganza going on right now I saw that you can expand your space in the Rift. As far as I know I expanded as far as I could in the past, I couldn't get rid of any more "cloud" stuff and was at the cap of 55 islands (I see now it's up to 75 max, but I just saw that so I don't know how long that's been available)
But when I go to my Rift to clear more area, there is a strip of "clouds" I cannot clear with a row and a half of "clouds" I can clear behind it, on two sides. Is this on purpose?
Sorry if this is the wrong place to post the question, I couldn't see a button to start a new thread.
WELCOME BACK, mes2370!
You are posting in the correct place! Here are some links to follow up on harwood’s posts.
The inaccessible strip of Miasmic Ether is a bug. It’s been reported and Deca is working on it.
The Rift Expansion started on Thursday. Here’s a post that lists the new additions and prices that arrived with the expansion.
Thank you so much for joining us. If you have any more questions, please do not hesitate to ask. Many cheers!
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PSA: If you’re planning on taking advantage of the Expansion Extravaganza’s free removal of trees and rocks, be aware Islands 11 - 34 take 60 hours to summon. You’ll want to purchase the islands now, so they’ll arrive on time for free clearing. Kairos can also help you speed up the summoning process.
Island 34 before any yard work
Location of Island 34 in the Vale (bottom left by the gargantuan-sized islands)
🎃 All winners of The Spoiler Contest will have the animated ghosts on my mini-profile added to their profile for a month. G’luck! 👻
Did I read a post that someone at Deca thinks there’s already too much Etherium floating around in the Rift? Really?!?!? Following is a quick spreadsheet that shows the costs and implications of buying the next 20 Rift Habitats:
These are really ugly numbers. Unless you happen to have many millions of Etherium lying around, or are willing to spend a bloody fortune to buy the needed Etherium, or are willing to collect from the Rift habitats every few hours day and night, or are willing to wait years to gradually acquire the habitats, or can somehow hack the game to your benefit, you are unlikely to break even buying additional habitats in the Rift. And this does not take into account the cost to clear the Rift of Miasmic Ether, breed traited dragons, feed them up to a realistic level of income generation, buy EOMs, or use Etherium to solve the donation boards when they are in an event. The Rift economic model has been broken ever since it was introduced to the game. The argument that you can buy more habitats and breed more dragons to generate more income doesn’t work with a fixed cap of 200 Etherium per habitat while the expense side inflates to stratospheric levels. Deca has painted itself into a Rift corner with an unrealistic income-expense model, a dysfunctional breeding cave, and "Deals" - $20 for 33,705 Etherium - that aren't deals at all.
Speaking of the breeding cave: After going months with little to show for daily breeding attempts, my Rift Breeding Cave suddenly came to life during the Zodiac event and provided traited versions of the Geminian, Taurian, Sunstruck, Dusk, Midday, Zipzap, and Exandrew dragons. A traited Seraph was a dragon too far and the breeding cave shut down again during the last week of the event. I think the Rift breeding cave has an On/Off switch that is periodically triggered by some unknown method. There is no consistency at all compared to what I see in the Vale breeding caves.
I haven’t heard anyone at Deca say there’s 'too much Etherium floating around the Rift'. I’m not sure where you read that, but as far as I know, no Deca employee has said anything close to that, so unless you have a quote, this is pure speculation.
Some players can’t collect frequently, others can. For Backflip, and now Deca, they can’t cater to the player who logs in once a day. A big reason why Backflip set the habitat caps at 200 Etherium is because they were trying to encourage players to login more frequently. If there’s no effort to increase activity, then there’s no way DV will continue on.
The prices to buy Etherium have never been reasonable. It does not appear that Backflip or Deca want players to simply buy Etherium. They want players to login and play. In the same way, they also don't want players to just buy the dragons. That’s why they cost a ridiculous amount of gems / cash.
I think raising the Rift habitat Etherium cap is a clear path to resolving a lot of the problems without causing an imbalance. But I’ve never seen the Rift numbers and data that shows where most players are at. I was able to buy the new habitats, because I had millions of Etherium saved. It’s been so long since there’s been any new habitats, so I had nothing to spend Etherium on except breeding.
I understand everyone is upset about the Rift prices. The complaints were already relayed to Deca last week. Don’t worry, I'll let them know everyone is still angry. But unless I hear anything new from Deca, I don’t have anything else to post about it.
Edit: I’ve seen no indication of a 'switch' that allows limited dragons to be bred / not bred in the Rift. It sounds like your fortune has changed. I did predict in the event thread several weeks ago, that 'even if you’re blessed with a run of sensational luck, it won’t change your mind about the Rift.' My prediction came true. 😄😁😄
Thank you, adlerist, for your response. All of your answers about how you do things in the Rift have been especially helpful. The obvious follow-up to your post about Deca needing players to log in to DV as often as possible is:
What does the Rift have to offer that would keep a player engaged and logging in multiple times a day? What do you use the Rift for in the larger context of the overall game that keeps you engaged and coming back?
To me the Rift has become just another high-priced mini-game that offers few of the rewards and opportunities available in the Vale. Clearing miasmic ether and collecting Etherium from islands isn’t something that keeps me logging in. New islands are prohibitively expensive. Most EOMs are now prohibitively expensive, especially given the likelihood that I will be given a dragon I already own. Decorating beyond themes and moving the islands around is not possible. Acquiring additional traits does nothing to increase Etherium income and is another drag on the expense side. The Rift breeding cave has its uses when it is ”on” or “lucky”. When the cave is “off” I can waste a lot of Etherium very quickly for weeks at a time hoping the next breeding attempt will be “lucky”. I try to maintain a stash of 1,000,000 Etherium in order to take advantage of any Rift opportunities that might come along (and I depleted part of the stash during the Zodiac event when it became apparent the breeding cave was “on”).
My entire point is that there is not enough Etherium in the Rift to support Deca’s inflationary cost structure. It would help a lot if the island income cap was increased or allowed to inflate the way expense items inflate. Maybe that point will be driven home when Deca reviews the results of this week’s Rift expansion. The Rift is being strangled to death. Am I missing something here?
I think my 2023 New Year’s Resolution might be not writing any more posts about the Rift! In the meantime, I wish Deca would fix the Rift income and expense structure in order to make the Rift a useful and viable part of DV again.
2. Regarding the inflated prices to the mystery egg caps and new habitats, which was mentioned by almost everyone (so I won’t tag or quote all the posts), this is Deca’s reply. It's important to note that you might be too focused on the short term justification of prices. In the long run with more habitats and dragons players will be earning a lot of Etherium and the prices will become more justifiable. In other words, with the expansion, increases have to follow otherwise it would quickly become too favorable especially when there's already too much Ethereum available in the game currently compared to it's value and usage.
Where does Deca get the idea there's too much Etherium available in the Rift? The reality is that there's nowhere near enough!
2. Regarding the inflated prices to the mystery egg caps and new habitats, which was mentioned by almost everyone (so I won’t tag or quote all the posts), this is Deca’s reply. It's important to note that you might be too focused on the short term justification of prices. In the long run with more habitats and dragons players will be earning a lot of Etherium and the prices will become more justifiable. In other words, with the expansion, increases have to follow otherwise it would quickly become too favorable especially when there's already too much Ethereum available in the game currently compared to it's value and usage.
Where does Deca get the idea there's too much Etherium available in the Rift? The reality is that there's nowhere near enough!
I still believe this was a calculated move to kill mystery egg purchases specifically.
They are right, however, that at max cap logging in three times a day still gives you enough e to breed and buy one mystery egg. I agree this is an acceptable nerf. DECA is a company with self interest, after all.
However, it completely glosses over the fact that most people will never have all habitats to achieve that state of balance. The rift is hence practically completely screwed up with no way out.
Their goal was acceptable, but the method ruinous. Adlerist doesn't believe this was on purpose, I'm not sure. Running the numbers, the scheme is just a little too precise and smart. Nothing is better than making the player believe they /choose/ to give up on mystery eggs to expand the rift. Expanding your park for the sake of it is what the game is about.
The 3x logins a day number is interesting, too much for me, but completely on par with what I've seen other apps push. I'm not sure why. But, companies really, really like that number.
So, there's that. I'm still kind of angry, mainly because they lied. And continue to lie. If they stated their goals clearly (and the numbers line up ok assuming a 3x/day login. It really is alright)... It'd just suck. But, I'd suck it up. If they let us buy rift habitats with event currency I wouldn't even be mad at all.
2. Regarding the inflated prices to the mystery egg caps and new habitats, which was mentioned by almost everyone (so I won’t tag or quote all the posts), this is Deca’s reply. It's important to note that you might be too focused on the short term justification of prices. In the long run with more habitats and dragons players will be earning a lot of Etherium and the prices will become more justifiable. In other words, with the expansion, increases have to follow otherwise it would quickly become too favorable especially when there's already too much Ethereum available in the game currently compared to it's value and usage.
Where does Deca get the idea there's too much Etherium available in the Rift? The reality is that there's nowhere near enough!
I thought about your last line a bit... and, you have a stash, right? If most people have a stash, it would look like we're all sitting on useless e.
So I am supposing the expanded rift clearing area and new habitats, as well as giant sun and moon habitats are permanently available features, not just what we can do in this week, like the regular island sale and free clearing, right? So we don't have to feel like we have to do as much as we can asap? My etherium and gem supplies took a big hit in the last event, and I'd rather build them up a little so I can have a little if I need it for breeding in the next event rather than start out the next event with no gems and no etherium (I already bought some gems in the last event, some of those darn limiteds were so stubborn!) I have plenty of dragoncash and don't NEED the giant sun and moon habs. I am looking forward to the extra rift income from new islands, (I was at an equilibrium where I could breed up to 5,000 and almost collect that much if I remembered to collect a few times, but not really able to save much toward the "I really want it" desperation breeds I sometimes find necessary) but am resigned to having to build it up slowly. (I tend to ignore the mystery eggs, once I got breeding pairs of snowflakes and monoliths, so their price isn't relevant to me.)
Deca has responded to the flurry of questions that arose after the release of the Riftspansion Extravaganza.
jrmur24 said:The cost of my egg of mystery increased to 29150. I was at the previous cap. I would hope it would not be more than this.
1. Deca confirmed this is a bug. Players who were at the old cap should not have been automatically pushed to the new cap. They should’ve been able to purchase more eggs to reach the limit. The DV Team is looking into the glitch.
The EOM glitch that immediately pushes players to the new cap is probably the same bug (or related) that immediately pushes players to the maximum game level (currently 170) whenever that cap is raised.
So I am supposing the expanded rift clearing area and new habitats, as well as giant sun and moon habitats are permanently available features, not just what we can do in this week, like the regular island sale and free clearing, right? So we don't have to feel like we have to do as much as we can asap? My etherium and gem supplies took a big hit in the last event, and I'd rather build them up a little so I can have a little if I need it for breeding in the next event rather than start out the next event with no gems and no etherium (I already bought some gems in the last event, some of those darn limiteds were so stubborn!) I have plenty of dragoncash and don't NEED the giant sun and moon habs. I am looking forward to the extra rift income from new islands, (I was at an equilibrium where I could breed up to 5,000 and almost collect that much if I remembered to collect a few times, but not really able to save much toward the "I really want it" desperation breeds I sometimes find necessary) but am resigned to having to build it up slowly. (I tend to ignore the mystery eggs, once I got breeding pairs of snowflakes and monoliths, so their price isn't relevant to me.)
Yeah, they're permanent. Also, the giant sun/moon habitats are 8x8. I've messed around a fair bit and there's really no reason to buy them... unless you like their look. They're so large, they're inefficient in terms of dragon slots.
I've done a design each for moon/sun assuming 23 slots and one giant. That covers about 3/4 of space and is very walkable for visitors.
To get to 23 slots, I needed a ton of small sun/moons to make up for the lack of space. Consequently, the bigger storage of the giant is easily lost if you care for dragon slots.
You're losing out on 2 potential large ones if you want it to look good. If you want to /work/ with it as a centerpiece, being a single, you end up with many smalls easily :/
There's a few exceptions in shape (like a crescent moon, or a full moon shaped island that doesn't have to be walkable). I generally just find 8x8 habitats really hard to work with when maintaining efficiency. Maybe it's just me
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