Why are CB eggs significant?

[sinsofthetongue]

Delete if not allowed, I guess, but I can't seem to find an answer anywhere: on the trading threads, why do people specifically ask for cave-born eggs or hatchlings or super specific second generation tinsel dragon (or whatever)? I don't get it. What does it matter? It's an egg, right? So who cares what the lineage is?

 

If this isn't allowed please point me in the right place this needs to go because I'm really curious. Thank you!

[irrelevantindigo]

The way I see it, after collecting dragons for a while people ask themselves "what do I do with all these dragons?" and so they start making pretty lineage patterns like https://dragcave.net/lineage/XzYYM or https://dragcave.net/lineage/rld5l 
But to create these patterns or contribute to them you need a first generation dragon or a really specific dragon, that's why CBs and lineages matter.

[Mangrit]

I've been here for years without caring about lineages or CBs so it's not an eventuality for everyone, but I like to keep in mind what most people like when gifting and trading. Caveborns are just cleaner and pretty much all you can use to make pretty lineages. After a while I decided not to breed messy lineages unless I was going to keep or kill them because then you're just affecting the breeding ratios for the breed while creating a dragon that most people won't want. Basically what I'm saying is even if you don't join the masses in their thinking it's worth getting used to how they think and learning to work with them, because after all lineages are a huge & official aspect of the game.

[HeatherMarie]

 There are many things on DC that people aren't required to do, but may like to do anyways, like describing their dragons, naming their dragons, etc. Lineages is another one of those things, some people like making what they consider to be pretty lineages by breeding certain breeds in certain patterns. Unless you are really lucky in the AP and find an egg with a lineage you specifically want to continue, the easiest way to make lineages is to start fresh, with CBs. That way you can control exactly what it looks like. There are many of us that don't care at all about CBs or lineages, but the trading threads are overwhelmingly dominated by those who do.

[blockEdragon]

It's completely subjective but with most people it mostly has to do with lineages and breeding

They're better for breeding, CBs are the foundation of the linage, one CB can be the start of 100+ special lineages, a lineaged dragon can't really make new lineages, only expand on the existing one.

 

And on top of that most (if not all) dragons are easier to breed then hunt so they are slightly harder to get and as said above a CB is worth more to lineage makers unless they find the EXACT lineage they want so that makes CBs worth more.

 

Although a site like magistream has NO lineage page and streamborns sell for three times what a bred creature goes for so the second reason might be the real motive behind it.

It's kinda hard to explain this behavior with 100% certainty.

[Ruby Eyes]

Here are some samples of lineages people can do with CBs or "super-specific 2nd gen" dragons:

https://forums.dragcave.net/topic/124902-lineage-terminology/

You can say, people like to "paint pictures" with the dragon sprites they have.

 

Other people simply like to collect caveborn-only dragons for whatever reason one could think of. Caveborn dragons don't have parent information attached - "cleaner" view page. They also don't have other players involved (as in, nobody who bred them).

Whatever floats your boat, really.

[VixenDra]

I have very limited goals: an adult pair per breed (alts of any sorts counting as separate breeds) and 3 frozen hatchlings bred from each of these pairs bred monogamously. At first I was collecting without looking at the lineage, I didn't get the idea like you. It didn't take me that long to finish with exception of the rare alts. Ofc I was there for new releases and only missed 2 breeds released after I started playing (Brown Copper and Green 2-headed Lindwurm). Very soon after I started playing I decided I want to promote monogamy by mass breeding my pairs to AP pretty often. I realised that what I'm breeding is considered trash by many players, so soon I took up the challenge and replaced all my pairs with CBs or PB 2gens or stairsteps (in case of Prizes and Hollies, gosh I nearly failed to get matching Hollies, was extremelly lucky to find an offer and be able to pay it) so my monogamy-promotion was not garbage and the results could be possibly enjoyed instead of hated, especially since I decided to expand the progenies of my pairs to as big as possible, or to 100 each at the very least, which is my current goal as I'm nearly done with my scroll (atm I only miss a frozen sitting alt Black from my Alt pair, holiday frozens and quite many Zombies, nott counting recnt releases frozens). Breeding is like the last thing I'm left to do and what kind of promotion is that if many people consider the results trash? I did it for challenge and for others to not curse my frequent scrollful breedings more than people absolutely have to complain about things (though I see very few of my clean-lineaged products are bred on neatly:( I'm most sad when they are used for Biting and Zombie attempts... mostly because such offspring disappears from the progeny later:(). Also all my zombies are CBs from particular biomes because of the tombstones.

CBs and neatly lineaged also feel more rewarding on the longer run:) It  just feels satisfying that you achieved sth and can't do it better

Edited October 12, 2017 by VixenDra

[angelicdragonpuppy]

People have covered most of it but I wanted to add a few more reasons as yet unmentioned.

 

Part of the reason also has to do with rarity. You can find every dragon, in bred form, quite cheaply--even rares like golds and prizes. People hand them out for free! In contrast, CBs (or for prizes, 2gs) can be extremely hard to find. If you collect dragons without a thought to lineage, then it's quite simple to get the vast majority of them, but after that you might grow bored and want more of a challenge. That's where CBs come in.

 

CBs also have a few other special attributes going for them. CB Zombies get cool biome based tombstones while bred ones only get plain ones. Certain CBs also have better chances of breeding particular copper and xenomorph colors, among others, because breeding results are based on the biome attached to them. Only CBs have biomes, so they often give more controlled results in those special pairings than bred ones do.

 

Then, of course, there's the ever important lineage making. People have explained why this matters, but there's also another reason behind it: trading power! Due to both rarity and their own lineage plans, the vast majority of players on the forum want to trade for nicely lineaged dragons, not messy ones. This means that if you have such dragons to offer, you have more trading power! I've been able to get extremely rare CBs like metals and neglecteds (a special dragon that's quite hard to obtain) by offering low gen Prizes. I wouldn't have been able to obtain the same results if I only had messies to offer. 

[XiziX]

I'm one of those weirdies that only collects CBs unless a lineage is pretty enough to grab my attention. There's really no rhyme or reason as to why I do it, I guess. Sometimes I do get bothered by a messy web of a lineage on an egg that is so large it can barely fit in a browser tab. As many mentioned, it's just personal preference. If I ever decide to start making pretty lineages though, having all the CBs helps.