Cave Feedback

[Infinis]

Users are constantly being told to simplify their requests and here we have a breed with six variants that are all needed to summon a dragon (you need 12 if you want to hopefully have a male and female).

 

We tell people to "simplify" because most requests don't actually have any need for alts, and generally lack any real justification for them. Instead, they are most often born from an unwillingness to make a solid decision on which one to use. I've done that myself before.

 

The zyus share similar design elements to tie the theme together, but it's incredibly important to note that none of the adult sprites are recolors of the same line set and each sprite has unique elements to it. Even the black and vine alts have variances in the alt sprites that set them apart from the regulars.

 

Recolors are great for determining what color you want on the final, and for color practice. But if you want alts, we would rather see a logical justification for them as well as the effort put forth to really set the alts apart from one another and make them worth it.

[irrelevantindigo]

Oh boy. Feedback.

 

 

Raffles as well as new egg slot / trophy was a 10/10 addition/readdition. Totally great. No complaints.

 

New dragons were really fun to hunt. I haven't had that much fun hunting eggs in a while. I uh... never saw power rangers growing up so the reference was underwhelming to me. But the sprites were beautifully done, so that was exciting.

I kind of wish the sinomorph grew up like the GoN. Egg/hatchling sprites are underrated.

 

Groups are pretty useless to me-- when I rejoined DC I was aware of the sorting issues and decided to "group" my dragons using the sort alphabetically feature and I have each breed/lineage a prefix so I could group them on my scroll. Maybe this feature will be useful to me in the future though-- it's a good option to have.

 

Vampire update was cool! I'm happy to see them revamped. lol But I am also kind of upset at the fact a lot of non-cave artists were working very hard to update the vampires and it was all for naught. I understand why it happened that way, but it doesn't change how I feel about it.

 

Ward is... a fairly useless BSA. It prevents death for six hours which is... a sixteenth of an egg's average life span? Not to mention, iirc, it can't be used on hatchlings.

I personally haven't caught any white dragons yet and I am not inclined to any more than I was before. This BSA needs to be revisited by TJ at some point.

 

 

For next time, I hope the world and such is fleshed out more on the main site. Scrolling through the entire Lore AMA isn't exactly my idea of fun. I'd be nice to add more of the essential parts of the lore to the main site. (Also having pictures of the mana crystals would be a nice addition since they exist-- I've seen them in the wiki.) It would be a super nice addition to the main site.

[Jazeki]

We tell people to "simplify" because most requests don't actually have any need for alts, and generally lack any real justification for them. Instead, they are most often born from an unwillingness to make a solid decision on which one to use. I've done that myself before.

 

The zyus share similar design elements to tie the theme together, but it's incredibly important to note that none of the adult sprites are recolors of the same line set and each sprite has unique elements to it. Even the black and vine alts have variances in the alt sprites that set them apart from the regulars.

 

Recolors are great for determining what color you want on the final, and for color practice. But if you want alts, we would rather see a logical justification for them as well as the effort put forth to really set the alts apart from one another and make them worth it.

Yes, I understand the point of not having alts just to have them and I know these aren't just recolors like lunars or gemshards, but they are one breed with several variants (like the fire gems or xenos). To me, as a collector, it is complicated and time consuming to get all of the variants and I don't see the difference between "no alts for the sake of alts" and "these all fit a theme" once they hit the cave. I was just expressing that there seems to be a disconnect between the push for simplification of concepts and what is being released lately. I understand why TJ chooses these kinds of dragons to release (to keep everyone busy for the time being probably), but I wish they weren't released so often.

 

Excuse typos as this is a mobile reply.

Edited May 28, 2017 by Jazeki

[angelicdragonpuppy]

To be fair, I think several of the vampires would've had to be redone to meet cave standards either way. Yet at the same time, I do think reaching out to the artists involved and either guiding and collaborating with them or letting them know something else might be in the works would be better. There is a lot of feeling around the forums that only a few favored artists are getting most of TJ's attention when it comes to in cave releases, and keeping people who are working hard to help the cave in the dark doesn't help there. I think reformatting the way DR works is a nice step in that direction, but even more could stand to be done.

[Obscure_Trash]

I think reformatting the way DR works is a nice step in that direction, but even more could stand to be done.

If you've any ideas towards the structure of requests, we're open to hearing them.

[stagazer_7]

Adding my thoughts on the 11th DC birthday celebration:

 

- New Trophy + Egg Slots - awesome, been waiting fir this for years!

 

- Raffle - while I'd still vastly prefer to have the shop implemented and not having to rely on luck (which, in my case, s pretty much nonexistent ), new mobthly Prizes are a very welcome addition and will perhaps make the market a bit more ballanced

 

- Ward - was really excited for this one, but now not really all that much. First, its duration is too short, if you ward yor eggs and go to sleep/work/whatever, 6hrs is not really all that much time; 2nd, it can only be used once and this further limits its usefulnes, because eggs take a bit more then 6 hrs to hatch (shocking, I know ) and can get sick on multiple occasions; 3rd, the effect wears off immediately after hatching, but the sickness remains, so now we have an unprotected sick hatchie that may still die. Basically, a good idea for a BSA, but needs some modifying for it to be truly useful.

 

- New Vampires - the sprites are lovely and I like them a lot. The circuimstances of their creation not so much... I understand the reasoning and the need for secrecy in releases such as this, but it's not really nice to have 2 groups of people working on updating the same sprite, especially when knowing only one's work would actually be implemented. A short post on the non-official-artist's thread along the lines of: "If we ever decide to update the Vampire Sprite it will be done by in-Cave artists.", would let people know they can focus on other projects and not bother with creating a sprite that would never have a chance of being implemented, while also keeping an element of surprise. Yes, there would probably be unhappy people then, but one can't make everyone happy.

 

- Groups - another welcome and awesome addition, but needs a couple of more updates to make it easier to use (for example, beibg able to add multiple dragons, having the dragons in 'Select a dragon' section of gropus match the order of dragons on one's scroll - I have no idea why all dragons are mixed there ... there's probably more I could suggest, but I'm waiting to see what Custom sorting brings).

 

- New Dragons - They're ok, not my cup of tea, but the spriters did a fine job and the new dragons look nice. The Power Rangers theme does nothing for me as I never watched the show growing up (not that it wasn't on TV, but it never caught my attention), but DC had many differently themed dragons and variety is what makes the game for me. I hope this type of creativity is also allowed to shine in Dragon Request section.

 

Overall, it was a major release with a ton of added features, thank you to everyone involved!

[Obscure_Trash]

I wonder if people aren't jumping the gun in calling Ward useless? TJ knows the mechanics of sickness and death from sickness better than we do. Who's to say that six hour protection from death - as long as you're on to ward your dragons, which requires people to still have some sort of eye on DC, something TJ did mention for a reason for not wanting to get rid of sickness completely - won't help prevent the majority of sickness deaths for active and careful users (disregarding any viewbombing issues)?

 

Maybe it's not that ward is useless but just that it's not what you were looking for (sounds like something to heal sickness completely)?

[Aurora-Silver]

To heal a sickness completely, or to let Ward not wear off after the dragon hatched, does indeed sound lovely.

 

My dragons rarely get sick, this time it was a huge exception, due the new release.

I also don't see a thing how people could "misuse" that Feature. If you're running out of dragons with that BSA, then you can't use it, anymore, and careful Users barely will have to use the Healing Sickness BSA, if it gets implemented.

[olympe]

I pretty much agree with everything the OP said, save for the new dragons. I like most of them a lot, only two of them are merely in the "alright" category for me.

[FoxintheBox4]

To be fair, I think several of the vampires would've had to be redone to meet cave standards either way. Yet at the same time, I do think reaching out to the artists involved and either guiding and collaborating with them or letting them know something else might be in the works would be better. There is a lot of feeling around the forums that only a few favored artists are getting most of TJ's attention when it comes to in cave releases, and keeping people who are working hard to help the cave in the dark doesn't help there. I think reformatting the way DR works is a nice step in that direction, but even more could stand to be done.

I agree and I don't understand why such revamps of sprites can't be done publicly where everyone can see and point out issues - where at the end with a voting poll we end up with a compromised sprite majority of player base will like ~

Now we were like BAM here is the new one you all better LIKE it because your voices don't mean a thing.

And it was the same with Silvers... There were so many better revamps than the set that was chosen and why did that happen? Because one of TJ's favorite artists did them yet again :L But back then I didn't even see the thread until after we've gotten the updated sprites ~ this vampire one was more known to the community I believe.

This might have gotten across as rude, but it's how I feel from all the facts shown in the past and recently.

[Fuzzbucket]

I agree and I don't understand why such revamps of sprites can't be done publicly where everyone can see and point out issues - where at the end with a voting poll we end up with a compromised sprite majority of player base will like ~

Now we were like BAM here is the new one you all better LIKE it because your voices don't mean a thing.

And it was the same with Silvers... There were so many better revamps than the set that was chosen and why did that happen? Because one of TJ's favorite artists did them yet again :L But back then I didn't even see the thread until after we've gotten the updated sprites ~ this vampire one was more known to the community I believe.

This might have gotten across as rude, but it's how I feel from all the facts shown in the past and recently.

A poll can never work. VERY few of the player base - very few forum members even - show up to vote. There were a few hundred voted on the silvers thread - out of many thousands of players. And another issue is that you might change your mind - and there's no way top do that. And to be blunt, many vote for their friends - even if that art work isn't as good. Some of the art work in the DR section is not up to scratch. Some of it is plain bad. That's the way it is. It is something of a learning forum. I would rather there were no DR section, and have good looking dragons than try and make everyone happy by having their friends' dodgy art work up there on my scroll.

 

I never wanted the silvers updated at all - but given that they were being. Lady L's were MUCH the closest to the originals. they were the only ones that I - and many others who posted in that thread - could have learned to live with. I think the new vamps are great. I don't care who did them. It is a shame if people in that thread are upset - but it's a risk you take trying to update someone else's artwork. But there's always the Vampire Expansion thread where a lot of their work would fit. And we never did hear if the original artist was OK with it - maybe THEY wanted any update done by someone specific and didn't choose to say so in the thread.

 

 

[angelicdragonpuppy]

If you've any ideas towards the structure of requests, we're open to hearing them.

Aside from the aforementioned greater communication between in cave artists and new, I'd like to see:

- Periodic, perhaps biannual CL wipes. I think things were improving on this front, but the more defined a timeline, the better. One of the biggest frustrations of submitting a dragon here is having to watch it sit for years, unused, wondering when the heck you'll either be approved or given back your concept to try again or take elsewhere. Having a dragon in the cozy mystic land of approved for years is very different from not knowing if it's even wanted at all, but not being able to do anything in the meanwhile.

- PLEASE EXPLAIN HOLIDAY REQUEST RULES BETTER. Is there a timeline for sending them in? Do new artists need to be around to sign the artist agreement slip? Should we send the slip in with the request? I've asked various holiday spriters and everyone and their mom seems to have a different answer on it.

- Somewhat related, but I think it would make a lot of sense to ask people to submit artist's agreements somewhere upon completion of a topic, rather than upon being approved. Now this WON'T be an issue if regular CL wipes are initiated, but if they aren't, then time after time you see people vanishing becuase it's been years since a topic was finished and then whoopsie, whole thing has to be done over, even when the artist presumably would have given permission because why would they do the concept if they didn't want their art used.

 

Also re:Ward, I already know it's useless for one of the main things I would use it for, and it seems fairly useless for the other too.

> Trying to incubate and hatch prize / GoN / Zyu eggs almost inevitably makes them sick. I've never actually had anything DIE, but at least one poor person lost such an egg this way during the new release, and either way it'd do a lot for peace of mind. ...Except Ward wears off instantly when an egg hatches, so that's useless.

> Viewbombing: 6 hours is not enough for someone to ward, go to sleep, and wake up knowing their eggs are gonna be ok. A viewbomber could hit as soon as you leave and make the eggs sick for 8, 9 hours easy, after which Ward will expire and they'll be free to be dead. And with ward limited to once per egg, it's not even going to protect them every night, just... 2/3 of one night.

 

With these things in mind Ward is basically useless. Does nothing for sick hard to hatch eggs, and fog is much better protection against view bombers. Leaving the point as... what, exactly? To cover people who just accidentally make an egg sick when it's not super vulnerable anyway and it'll heal in like ten minutes of fog? It's just not very useful. If the time was extended to 12 hours and lasted on hatching, THAT would be far more useful, while still providing limitations (no use directly on hatchies so you have to be careful with them, only usable one time so you'd still have to make choices about when to use and when to fog)

 

OR, give Whites an actual HEAL BSA that drops views back to before the dragon was sick, and give Guardians a Guard BSA that's basically 12 hour Ward. Much better. And proposed in the much neglected BSA section for a long time.

Edited May 28, 2017 by angelicdragonpuppy

[Aurora-Silver]

> OR, give Whites an actual HEAL BSA that drops views back to before the dragon was sick, and give Guardians a Guard BSA that's basically 12 hour Ward. Much better.

 

 

 

That sounds like a great idea. And after the views are dropped back, just fog it so it won't get more views for a while.

[Fuzzbucket]

ACTUALLY - I have just found a MAJORLY valuable use for Ward as it stands.

 

You have a sick egg with lots of views, whose time is dropping fast and you are afraid it will die while fogged., Ward it (you can ward a fogged egg), let it out and hatch it while it cannot die, and then fog it again. That is one HUGE usefulness.

[Jazeki]

ACTUALLY - I have just found a MAJORLY valuable use for Ward as it stands.

 

You have a sick egg with lots of views, whose time is dropping fast and you are afraid it will die while fogged., Ward it (you can ward a fogged egg), let it out and hatch it while it cannot die, and then fog it again. That is one HUGE usefulness.

I think people had posted in the birthday thread that they tried to do this an their hatchlings died nearly immediately or a short time after hatching. It might be relative to the number of views though.

[Fuzzbucket]

Oh. Well, it was a thought that worked for someone I know...

[Jazeki]

Oh. Well, it was a thought that worked for someone I know...

It worked for me too, but I'm not sure how effective it is.

[RainDear]

I have been waiting almost as long as I have been a member for White dragons to get the "Heal" BSA. Well, finally they got --- well it isn't "Heal". It isn't as helpful or useful as "Heal" was expected to be, and it fails in one major respect - it doesn't protect hatchlings. At least if the 6 hour window also covered hatchlings until the 6 hours is up we could fog the hatchling and attempt to keep it alive even if it does hatch sick. I have been looking forward to "Heal" for years, and this isn't it. I feel disappointed and just a bit cheated.

[pinkgothic]

I have been waiting almost as long as I have been a member for White dragons to get the "Heal" BSA. Well, finally they got --- well it isn't "Heal". It isn't as helpful or useful as "Heal" was expected to be, and it fails in one major respect - it doesn't protect hatchlings. At least if the 6 hour window also covered hatchlings until the 6 hours is up we could fog the hatchling and attempt to keep it alive even if it does hatch sick. I have been looking forward to "Heal" for years, and this isn't it. I feel disappointed and just a bit cheated.

 

Eh, same. For me this is like the display of user-approved dragon descriptions all over again (that thing where you can opt-in to seeing user-approved dragon descriptions, but the average cave user still never gets to see them while they're in the queue, meaning it's a feature that lets the description writers play amongst themselves as they basically already were doing) - it's kind of nice that an effort was made? But it doesn't appear to address the problems people wanted to solve with it.

 

*shrug*

[angelicdragonpuppy]

Yesss thank you for adding filter and sort to groups, it just made them 1000% more useful for trade and project management, as I can quickly tell if any of the dragons I need to breed are actually able to breed without checking individual pages or hunting them down via filtering my main scroll! Big big thanks for this. <3

[ludwig8989]

And to be blunt, many vote for their friends - even if that art work isn't as good. Some of the art work in the DR section is not up to scratch. Some of it is plain bad. That's the way it is. It is something of a learning forum. I would rather there were no DR section, and have good looking dragons than try and make everyone happy by having their friends' dodgy art work up there on my scroll.

Just throwing my two penneth worth in on this one sorry 😅

 

I really think the suggestion of no DR is unlikely and unecessary. It is true not all of the art is up to scratch yes but that doesn't mean none of it is. A lot of it is done by in cave artists as well e.g. The Green Drake that was on Sock's Rainbow Drake's thread (RIP I loved that thread) was done by Infinis and that was absolutely beautiful. Closing DR would mean that those who have the ideas but are unable to sprite them have no input whatsoever into what goes into the cave, so the Green Drake as mentioned before wouldn't exist. One of the best things about this site is how everyone has worked hard to put it together and everyone can be a part of what goes in cave (yes, not everyone's work will be used in cave, but everyone's has equal opportunity to be). And I wouldn't say bad dragons from the CL are ending up on your scroll at the moment (possibly because not many are coming from the CL) nor will they ever. TJ makes sure of that. But there is definitely talent on that forum. We can't have a DR for as long as we've had it and go "right we've crafted enough amazing artists now we don't need any new ones" because that is beyond unfair. Anyway, sorry, there's a separate thread for this so I'll stop typing now I can see where you're coming from yes but I'm afraid I strongly disagree

 

As for the Vampires: I like them but think it maybe could have been handled a little better. Not sure what I'd suggest though! I haven't used Ward get so I can't possibly comment. Also help! I love the Zyumorphs so much!

Edited June 4, 2017 by ludwig8989

[Fuzzbucket]

Just throwing my two penneth worth in on this one sorry 😅

 

I really think the suggestion of no DR is unlikely and unecessary. It is true not all of the art is up to scratch yes but that doesn't mean none of it is. A lot of it is done by in cave artists as well e.g. The Green Drake that was on Sock's Rainbow Drake's thread (RIP I loved that thread) was done by Infinis and that was absolutely beautiful. Closing DR would mean that those who have the ideas but are unable to sprite them have no input whatsoever into what goes into the cave, so the Green Drake as mentioned before wouldn't exist. One of the best things about this site is how everyone has worked hard to put it together and everyone can be a part of what goes in cave (yes, not everyone's work will be used in cave, but everyone's has equal opportunity to be). And I wouldn't say bad dragons from the CL are ending up on your scroll at the moment (possibly because not many are coming from the CL) nor will they ever. TJ makes sure of that. But there is definitely talent on that forum. We can't have a DR for as long as we've had it and go "right we've crafted enough amazing artists now we don't need any new ones" because that is beyond unfair. Anyway, sorry, there's a separate thread for this so I'll stop typing now I can see where you're coming from yes but I'm afraid I strongly disagree

 

As for the Vampires: I like them but think it maybe could have been handled a little better. Not sure what I'd suggest though! I haven't used Ward get so I can't possibly comment. Yay updates tho

I don't think it should go away at all. What I DO think should never happen is VOTING for the release of dragons from it. Many of which might end up released just because of friends voting for friends, regardless of standard. (See also "I voted Democrat because I always have." "I voted for Trump because my dad told me to.")

 

THAT is the point at which I would rather see an end to DR. But absolutely not close it down on principle, just rather than the awfulness that would happen with voting. Please make sure to include the CONTEXT when quoting me

 

[ludwig8989]

I don't think it should go away at all. What I DO think should never happen is VOTING for the release of dragons from it. Many of which might end up released just because of friends voting for friends, regardless of standard. (See also "I voted Democrat because I always have." "I voted for Trump because my dad told me to.")

 

THAT is the point at which I would rather see an end to DR. But absolutely not close it down on principle, just rather than the awfulness that would happen with voting. Please make sure to include the CONTEXT when quoting me

Whoops sorry for misunderstanding you! I wasn't cherry picking quotes I think I got the wrong end of the stick. Sorry! Yeah I understand you but I think on a massive site like this that is quite unlikely to happen and if it does it won't be enough to sway the vote. But yes I can see voting is a bad idea but it would be nice to have another way of hinting sprites/dragon concepts we'd like to see in cave. Like a way to nudge TJ saying "the Oracle Wyrms are to die for please consider them". But I don't really know how that would work and might end up upsetting people so I'm going to drop the idea hehe

Edited June 4, 2017 by ludwig8989

[taliaangeni]

I don't really know where to post this or even if it's been brought to attention but it really irks me. The Dark Lumina description says, "This egg shines coldly in the moonlight." How does something shine coldly?!

[Corteo]

In light terms there is either "warm" light (orange hue) or "cold" light (blue hue). Since the egg is reflecting moonlight the lighting is "cold".