DC Improvement discussion

[olympe]

Right now, there's a discussion in the Suggestions & Requests section that spans various topics. Many of these topics are suggestions for improving DC in some way or other, although the merit of each suggestion is, obviously, debatable.

 

What I'm trying to accomplish here is to start a thread where the various discussions can be put into one place. If you want to post your own view on things, please consider the following questions:

• Which features of DC do you hate?
• How can these features be fixed?
• What else could improve your DC experience?

If you know that one of the points you bring up is being discussed in another place, please provide a link to the topic so other people have an easier time to look up the suggestion or discussion.

 

~~~~~~

 

For me, I used to love breeding dragons and creating lineages. But with a scroll with literally thousands of dragons, finding the correct mate for a new dragon can be rather challenging. Unless you keep records off-site, creating lineages is a pain in the behind.

So, the first thing I'd need is a better sorting system, ideally a combination of tabs and tags. Although I'd be happy with any one system, as long as we get anything at all.

 

Another problem with breeding is that breeding anything but purebreds is rather one-sided. Which leads to another thing I feel is needed on DC: A change in how breeding works.. At least as far as it concerns which breed of egg is created, especially in older common x newer common pairings.

 

Third on my personal list - and I know that this isn't something many other players agree with - is my inability to get certain CB dragons. Sure, many players think of old CB holidays or CB prizes, but for me, it's more like the CB metals I still lack for my scroll goals. In any case, I'd love to see the Trader's Canyon (=in-cave NPC shop) get implemented.

 

Fourth, I wouldn't be averse to addidtional trophy levels that also affect the number of eggs and hatchlings we can hold. Or other ways to increase our egg/scroll limits. Ideally through TJ's very own suggestion of a time-based egg slot, possibly even with more levels to gain you more slots (1 year = first extra slot, 3 years 2nd extra slot, 6 years 3rd extra slot, 10 years 4th extra slot...) (Why is that topic marked as answered, anyway? There is no answer!) These trophies could either be based on the number of dragons on your scroll - see the new trophies suggestion thread, idea#1. Or the trophies (and corresponding egg slots) are based on other accomplishments, like some of those suggested in the badge and trophy suggestion thread.

[Fuzzbucket]

The ONLY thing I REALLY want changed is for breeding not to be such a pain. So many pairings that WILL not produce the breed you want - and I'm talking dirt commons, not rares etc.

 

https://forums.dragcave.net/index.php?showtopic=166130

 

Other than that - no problems really.

[Toyo]

The thing I want is an easier way to sort my dragons! I'm always considering doing a massive overhaul, but doing a custom sort (as it is) would take FOREVER.

[silver_tiger]

A better way to sort my dragons would be nice, though my current system is working fine for now. But I'd love to have tabs one day...

 

I do in fact keep records off site, some rather painstaking ones, in order to keep track of how many CBs of each breed I still need, along with my breeding progress.

 

I guess the main thing I dislike right now is how hard it is to find older dragons that used to be blockers. I sometimes hunt for hours to find a Stone. A Stone--it's totally ridiculous! Or a Balloon, or even Ocherdrakes! I have exactly two CB Ocherdrakes on my scroll at the moment, and I misclicked a Stripe the other day because I mistook it for an Ocherdrake. It's amazing that the cave is like this; three years ago I'd have been over the moon to get a Stripe, and while I still need some to finish my goals, I was actually disappointed it wasn't an Ocherdrake. Just ridiculous.

Edited October 9, 2016 by silver_chan

[Ruby Eyes]

What I'd love is if the API would tell an adult dragon's breed so that people could actually write tools for examining lineages. As it is, getting an overview on one's own breeding projects is a lot of manual administrative work.

[Amazon_warrior]

I remember a time when I used to love creating lineages with my pretties. At over 8000 dragons now on my scroll, my problem is partly one of scale, but also one of time and space - even assuming that a pair breeds a desired egg. Trouble is, with the substantial increase in breeds of late and peoples' experiences with tricky pairings, I suspect that it's a vicious circle - new breeds are "harder" to breed a mate's egg from, so people choose to breed them less, which makes the chance of breeding the mate's breed yet worse. And if people prefer to just pick up a sprite set and no more, that's not going to help much either.

 

The way the game is set up at the moment, players *must* prioritise how they use their egg slots. A bit of constraint and a need to manage resources is definitely *not* a bad thing in a game and I don't think I would want no limits at all, but I think that DC may be reaching the point where the resources of players who would like to collect CBs *and* breed them into attractive lineages are stretched too thin - even for gold trophy players with plenty of BSAs, trading resources and scroll management skills to hand. As I've said elsewhere, I fear that a push towards a "2 CBs and I'm done" attitude is really damaging to the game and the community as a whole, since more often than not people who play like this do not tend to help biomes move between releases, or breed contributions to the ratios, or contribute much to the forum community outside of a comment or two in a new release thread. However, with the way the game has increasingly gone, I really feel I cannot blame anyone for playing like that.

[silver_tiger]

I refuse to give up trying to collect my 10 CBs + 2/3 frozen hatchies of each dragon, but yeah... right now it feels like it's going to take me 3 more years to finish up the dragons we have now...

 

But hey that's my choice. Still, ngl that an extra egg slot or two would really help me out /laugh.

[olympe]

The way the game is set up at the moment, players *must* prioritise how they use their egg slots. A bit of constraint and a need to manage resources is definitely *not* a bad thing in a game and I don't think I would want no limits at all, but I think that DC may be reaching the point where the resources of players who would like to collect CBs *and* breed them into attractive lineages are stretched too thin - even for gold trophy players with plenty of BSAs, trading resources and scroll management skills to hand. *snip*

Hmm. Do you think that a couple of "new" breed-only egg and hatchling slots would help? Like the 5th breed-only egg slot we used to have before The Change?

 

(Speaking for gold trophy users here...)

Right now, you can have 7 eggs of any kind on your scroll. What if you could add 7 more self-bred eggs to the mix?

 

Of course, you'd approach hatchie-lock that much faster - unless self-bred hatchlings didn't count towards your limits. After all, the parents would take care of them, at least in theory. (For the breeds with little to no parental instincts - their offspring usually know how to take care of themselves, or the breed wouldn't be able to survive in the wild.)

 

This would serve two different purposes: Promote breeding (and also trading of low-time hatchlings...) as well as give us more egg slots.

 

[silver_tiger]

Hmm. Do you think that a couple of "new" breed-only egg and hatchling slots would help? Like the 5th breed-only egg slot we used to have before The Change?

 

(Speaking for gold trophy users here...)

Right now, you can have 7 eggs of any kind on your scroll. What if you could add 7 more self-bred eggs to the mix?

 

Of course, you'd approach hatchie-lock that much faster - unless self-bred hatchlings didn't count towards your limits. After all, the parents would take care of them, at least in theory. (For the breeds with little to no parental instincts - their offspring usually know how to take care of themselves, or the breed wouldn't be able to survive in the wild.)

 

This would serve two different purposes: Promote breeding (and also trading of low-time hatchlings...) as well as give us more egg slots.

I would love this, especially if self-bred hatchies didn't count toward the limit. I could actually do some breeding for others or gifts for once instead of constantly having to put most of that on the back burner.

[Amazon_warrior]

Hmm. Do you think that a couple of "new" breed-only egg and hatchling slots would help? Like the 5th breed-only egg slot we used to have before The Change?

 

(Speaking for gold trophy users here...)

Right now, you can have 7 eggs of any kind on your scroll. What if you could add 7 more self-bred eggs to the mix?

 

Of course, you'd approach hatchie-lock that much faster - unless self-bred hatchlings didn't count towards your limits. After all, the parents would take care of them, at least in theory. (For the breeds with little to no parental instincts - their offspring usually know how to take care of themselves, or the breed wouldn't be able to survive in the wild.)

 

This would serve two different purposes: Promote breeding (and also trading of low-time hatchlings...) as well as give us more egg slots.

Yeah, I think that'd help a lot - in fact, I think I even suggested something similar one time, although right now I really can't recall where! My logic was that, given I _also_ have the parents of an egg/hatchie on my scroll, why aren't _they_ looking after their baby, hmmm? Why am _I_ doing all the work? Although a bred egg reclaimed after being dropped the AP or passed to another scroll ought to count towards picked-up eggs, not bred any more (assuming we're rolling with the blurb at the top of the AP...)

[silver_tiger]

Yeah, I think that'd help a lot - in fact, I think I even suggested something similar one time, although right now I really can't recall where! My logic was that, given I _also_ have the parents of an egg/hatchie on my scroll, why aren't _they_ looking after their baby, hmmm? Why am _I_ doing all the work? Although a bred egg reclaimed after being dropped the AP or passed to another scroll ought to count towards picked-up eggs, not bred any more (assuming we're rolling with the blurb at the top of the AP...)

I completely agree, even if the egg is then passed back to your scroll. That's a good limit on the mechanic, I think.

[olympe]

Well, plus there should be limits to how many self-bred eggs you can hold "for free", so to speak. Or people would breed half their scroll and keep hundreds or even thousands of eggs...

 

Is anybody here interested in creating a suggestion thread for this idea?

Edited October 10, 2016 by olympe

[silver_tiger]

Well, plus there should be limits to how many self-bred eggs you can hold "for free", so to speak. Or people would breed half their scroll and keep hundreds or even thousands of eggs...

 

Is anybody here interested in creating a suggestion thread for this idea?

Oh yeah, I was assuming that your seven bred egg suggestion was the one we were working with Hundreds of eggs would be a bit much!

[HeatherMarie]

For me, I used to love breeding dragons and creating lineages. But with a scroll with literally thousands of dragons, finding the correct mate for a new dragon can be rather challenging. Unless you keep records off-site, creating lineages is a pain in the behind.

So, the first thing I'd need is a better sorting system, ideally a combination of tabs and tags. Although I'd be happy with any one system, as long as we get anything at all.

 

Another problem with breeding is that breeding anything but purebreds is rather one-sided. Which leads to another thing I feel is needed on DC: A change in how breeding works.. At least as far as it concerns which breed of egg is created, especially in older common x newer common pairings.

 

Third on my personal list - and I know that this isn't something many other players agree with - is my inability to get certain CB dragons. Sure, many players think of old CB holidays or CB prizes, but for me, it's more like the CB metals I still lack for my scroll goals. In any case, I'd love to see the Trader's Canyon (=in-cave NPC shop) get implemented.

 

Fourth, I wouldn't be averse to addidtional trophy levels that also affect the number of eggs and hatchlings we can hold. Or other ways to increase our egg/scroll limits. Ideally through TJ's very own suggestion of a time-based egg slot, possibly even with more levels to gain you more slots (1 year = first extra slot, 3 years 2nd extra slot, 6 years 3rd extra slot, 10 years 4th extra slot...) (Why is that topic marked as answered, anyway? There is no answer!) These trophies could either be based on the number of dragons on your scroll - see the new trophies suggestion thread, idea#1. Or the trophies (and corresponding egg slots) are based on other accomplishments, like some of those suggested in the badge and trophy suggestion thread.

I'm totally with you on all of those points. Tabs/tags/*something* really needs to be a bigger priority... I'm working with 3.5k dragons right now and it's freaking impossible to sort them the way I want, I can't imagine how many players with larger scrolls have just given up on it. I've tried custom sort but it always freezes when I try drag-and-drop, and with legacy custom sort I constantly have to go in an re-arrange dragons.

 

I don't breed much except to send goodies to the AP, but I'm well aware of the struggle breeders have with acquiring certain commons from certain pairings. I think it's ridiculous how off-balance the ratios seem to be in general, though, but from past experience I really doubt that's ever going to get "fixed".

 

I completely support the 'store'/Trader's Canyon idea. I myself probably wouldn't use it much, if at all, but it's something I have been passionate about and I can see how it would be so valuable to so many players.

 

I've never understood why TJ himself suggested a time-based egg slot, it got lots of support, and yet was never spoke of again or implemented by TJ. As I've said in a few suggestion threads (the Larger Releases thread especially), for the game, and a lot of current suggestions, to be fair and keep up with the times, we really do need some more egg slots. There are well over 100 different breeds on DragonCave, and yet the most you can have is 7 eggs? And I really feel for the people with no/lower trophies, I struggle myself to get enough New Release eggs, I can't imagine how they must feel.

 

I really like the idea of self-bred slots that don't count towards the limit!

 

[Jazeki]

I would like more egg slots (and support a breed only slot) to be able to do more with catching and breeding. I also would like a more in-depth way to sort through my dragons to find what I want. Custom sort is time consuming. I also would like better communication regarding releases, updates, etc. It's a pain to be left in the dark until "Tada! Update." or "Tada! Release."