Have Precog distinguish Alts

[High Lord November]

I was wondering about this. Since Precog can tell gender, I don't see it as that far a stretch for it to be able to tell if it's an alt or not. Maybe something along the lines of "The hatchling looks unusual." Or "This hatchling is revealed to look different from the others of its kind." Precog has another very useful tool (predicting gender) which makes it compete for space/useage, so people will have to pick and choose. Just throwing it out there that it could make thematic sense and be a neat function. It does make it faster to obtain alts though, which I hope doesn't make it seem like I'm trying to dumb down the game or make it easier/take less effort, which I think is the main point of discussion (outside of permissions to change it in the first place).

Edited September 22, 2017 by High Lord November

[Fuzzbucket]

There was a BSA suggested to do that and TJ said something I can't recall about the alt-ness being determined at the moment of hatching so it wouldn't work. The search function is Not What It Was, so I can't find the thread

[DigitalGarden]

48 minutes ago, fuzzbucket said:

There was a BSA suggested to do that and TJ said something I can't recall about the alt-ness being determined at the moment of hatching so it wouldn't work. The search function is Not What It Was, so I can't find the thread

 

I believe this is what we're looking for? 

The links inside the thread lead to errors, but at least there's a quote.

[Fuzzbucket]

The quote is the one I meant - as I recall there was suggestion about nebulas "gazing", and another for undines but yes, the quote is exactly it. Thank you "

 

How you DID that ?

Edited September 22, 2017 by fuzzbucket

[DigitalGarden]

1 hour ago, fuzzbucket said:

The quote is the one I meant - as I recall there was suggestion about nebulas "gazing", and another for undines but yes, the quote is exactly it. Thank you "

 

How you DID that ?

We're in the wrong thread to discuss that, hope the mods won't be upset with me answering this. :'D

 

You click the magnifying glass icon next to the search bar in the top right, so it sends you to various options. You have a "Content type" column on the left, select "topics" and then a new criteria pops up below: "Forums". You select which forum/subforum to analyze, for this specific search I chose "Suggestions/Requests" since the BSA subforum is out of sight now. Then typed in the vague keyword like "bsa" and just scrolled a bit to find the thread. c:

[High Lord November]

Didn't it used to be that the egg for an alt was different? It should be possible to revert/change how alts are calculated, although I don't know how much work it would be to do so.

 

I read his reply in the thread linked (thank you for that) and I'd argue that a BSA is a nice middle ground for determining alts instead of having different eggs. It brings in resource management (Aeon's BSA, or whatever other dragon would get it) so you probably couldn't check every single egg because you'd run out of BSA (and with Aeons you would want to save theirs for also for checking gender of non-alt eggs), but it would still give you a chance to narrow them down and not be completely locked by eggs for an extended period of time every time you want to breed for alts. 

Edited September 22, 2017 by High Lord November

[Fuzzbucket]

4 hours ago, Orchi'dea said:

We're in the wrong thread to discuss that, hope the mods won't be upset with me answering this. :'D

 

You click the magnifying glass icon next to the search bar in the top right, so it sends you to various options. You have a "Content type" column on the left, select "topics" and then a new criteria pops up below: "Forums". You select which forum/subforum to analyze, for this specific search I chose "Suggestions/Requests" since the BSA subforum is out of sight now. Then typed in the vague keyword like "bsa" and just scrolled a bit to find the thread. c:

 

Sadly that's what I did. The old style +this +that was so much better at targeting.. Well done you !

 

40 minutes ago, High Lord November said:

Didn't it used to be that the egg for an alt was different? It should be possible to revert/change how alts are calculated, although I don't know how much work it would be to do so.

 

I read his reply in the thread linked (thank you for that) and I'd argue that a BSA is a nice middle ground for determining alts instead of having different eggs. It brings in resource management (Aeon's BSA, or whatever other dragon would get it) so you probably couldn't check every single egg because you'd run out of BSA (and with Aeons you would want to save theirs for also for checking gender of non-alt eggs), but it would still give you a chance to narrow them down and not be completely locked by eggs for an extended period of time every time you want to breed for alts. 

 

AGES ago I think the egg for an alt VINE was different - not so sure about blacks. Not nebbies, though.

[High Lord November]

29 minutes ago, fuzzbucket said:

AGES ago I think the egg for an alt VINE was different - not so sure about blacks. Not nebbies, though.

 

I checked the wiki and the Black Dragon eggs did have a slight difference for alt, along with the Vine. To be fair that was almost 10 years ago. Nebulas never did true, same as Undine.  I would hope it wouldn't be that hard to change it though, I would think all you would have to do is reassign the alt determination from when the egg hatches to when the egg is created, and have the Aeons be able to check that value when using Precog. 

 

Prior to mid-November 2008, eggs for Alts and regulars were slightly different, allowing the user to tell before hatching whether or not the [Black] dragon was an Alt. This has since been changed, and now users must wait for eggs to hatch to reveal this. There is no known method for increasing your chances of receiving an Alt.

 

Edited September 22, 2017 by High Lord November

[HeatherMarie]

While it *was* a long time ago, there was obviously a reason why the eggs were changed so we can't tell the difference that way. The change wouldn't have been made unless there was some reason TJ didn't want us to know just by looking at the egg. I personally think not being able to tell until it hatches is kind of a nice challenge, it adds a little something to the game. You have to take a little time and effort (making it hatch) in order to find out if it's "special". If we could just use a BSA to find out immediately, many users would never keep the "regular" eggs on their scroll for more then a few minutes. I personally like the fact that you can sometimes find "regular" Black/Vine/etc hatchies in the AP because they hatch normal and the user doesn't want it. I'm not totally against this idea, I just like the game better without it.

[Draconiusultamius]

I agree with Marie on this.  I personally would rather hatch AP eggs and see whether they are normal or alt.  It makes the game more interesting, I guess.

[purplehaze]

I remember back in the day when you could tell alts by the egg. The AP was flooded with black and green eggs that were abandoned because they weren't alts -- and no one wanted to pick them up because of course we all knew they weren't alts or they wouldn't have been tossed there. The situation is a bit different now with so many more breeds and a different dynamic for the AP, so I doubt that would happen again, but still . . . I don't see any real need for this change.

[The Dragoness]

Alts are a total pain sometimes. However, AP hunting is already a challenge as it is. Adding a couple hundred non-alt eggs a day is a recipe for chaos. I do, however, think it would be really helpful to be able to use precog on Nebulas and Gemshards. Both are fairly common and not necessarily "true alts" like Blacks, Vines, and Undines. I'm sure they would get snatched from the AP pretty fast, regardless of whether or not they miscolor. 

 

So it's a no from me on Blacks, Vines, and Undines, but a definite yes on Nebulas and Gemshards.

Edited September 23, 2017 by The Dragoness

[Draconiusultamius]

10 minutes ago, The Dragoness said:

Alts are a total pain sometimes. However, AP hunting is already a challenge as it is. Adding a couple hundred non-alt eggs a day is a recipe for chaos. I do, however, think it would be really helpful to be able to use precog on Nebulas and Gemshards. Both are fairly common and not necessarily "true alts" like Blacks, Vines, and Undines. I'm sure they would get snatched from the AP pretty fast, regardless of whether or not they miscolor. 

 

So it's a no from me on Blacks, Vines, and Undines, but a definite yes on Nebulas and Gemshards.

I agree.  Since it's not going to affect what people will do with the egg drastically.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

I wish the BSA section hadn't been destroyed. There were good ideas in there :/

 

Anyway--what if precognition was usable on Alts, BUT had a chance of failure? Aeons won't tell the future to people if it has negative consequences, so perhaps sometimes they refuse to give a reading knowing you'll dump the egg. Heck I'd even be ok with a fairly low chance of success, but a little something extra would be nice. Precog isn't terribly useful right now since unless you're trading for random hatchies you can just influence.

 

Maybe something like...

Gender: 100% success

Non-rare alts (gemshards, nebulas): 80% success

Rare alts (blacks, vines): 20% success

 

So there'd be a risk reward element in deciding if you want to waste a week's cool down on such low odds. Especially when most of us don't have a ton of Aeons.

 

[Fuzzbucket]

11 hours ago, purplehaze said:

I remember back in the day when you could tell alts by the egg. The AP was flooded with black and green eggs that were abandoned because they weren't alts -- and no one wanted to pick them up because of course we all knew they weren't alts or they wouldn't have been tossed there. The situation is a bit different now with so many more breeds and a different dynamic for the AP, so I doubt that would happen again, but still . . . I don't see any real need for this change.

 

15 hours ago, Marie19R said:

While it *was* a long time ago, there was obviously a reason why the eggs were changed so we can't tell the difference that way. The change wouldn't have been made unless there was some reason TJ didn't want us to know just by looking at the egg. I personally think not being able to tell until it hatches is kind of a nice challenge, it adds a little something to the game. You have to take a little time and effort (making it hatch) in order to find out if it's "special". If we could just use a BSA to find out immediately, many users would never keep the "regular" eggs on their scroll for more then a few minutes. I personally like the fact that you can sometimes find "regular" Black/Vine/etc hatchies in the AP because they hatch normal and the user doesn't want it. I'm not totally against this idea, I just like the game better without it.

 

I agree with both these.

 

1 hour ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

I wish the BSA section hadn't been destroyed. There were good ideas in there :/

 

The threads are still there. And you can make more of course - but there were SO many that were plain silly - way more than useful ones - and so many that had sat for literally years and nothing ever happened. As for requests for changes to teleport that kept ending up in there even though THEY DIDN'T AFFECT THE BSA AT ALL - I'm OK with it being gone !

[olympe]

Well, it would be nifty if precog would at least work on non-rare alts (currently nebula, gemshards, glory drakes and maybe also snow angels and solstices). However, I'm pretty sure this would be a bad idea for the rare breed-only alts (black, vine, undine).

[Guillotine]

I do recall that it used to be that you could tell an egg's alt by how it sorted, so it's not that it was determined at hatching so much as the user could only see it by then (although it's probably been altered since then).
 

e: I do agree that for rare alts it wouldn't be a great plan... But for nebs and the like it'd be nice.
 

Edited September 23, 2017 by Guillotine