Snow Angel Breed

[Jazeki]

26 minutes ago, Marie19R said:

@Jazeki Well since we don't really have much info about SA's abilities or personality or anything we can only speculate, but I could speculate that wing-color is influenced by some chromosome-or-whatever and the adult SA would be able to use their magic to tweak it to display whatever color is available to be displayed (ie no purple wings, but any that are currently available). I definitely like the influence idea much better then waiting until they gender or alternating years, but I do think it could be done in a way that wouldn't make you *have* to rely on other users the first year (and possibly the second, until you get all three colors of adults).

 

I know that non-forum-users can't be the sole reason to turn down a suggestion, but I do think it should at least be addressed. Non-forum-users can see news posts, sure, but they can't connect with anyone on the forums in order to set up a trade. And it's not just the forum that I'm wary of, it's the fact that in ALL other ways DC is a very solitary game. Sure it's a *better* game in some ways if you have direct communication with other users, so you can trade for things you have a hard time catching, but you don't *have* to. There is no dragon currently available that you can *only* get by trading. If you don't want to interact with others at all you don't have to, and enough people drop wanted things in the AP that you can pick them up there without actually communicating with anyone. I just don't like the idea of having something implemented where you have to either wait multiple *years* to get all available colors or rely on some stranger's generosity. I mean if that was the only possible way this could be implemented i guess I'd have to deal, but I think there are better ways to implement it.

This is true. I guess we won't know until TJ decides what he is going to do or a spriter hops in and explains how snow angels get their wing colors.  I was just going on the logic that snow angels are influenced by the magic of other snow angels that you already have. Of course, I'm for whatever if it means I can have all the snow angel colors. 

 

And I I get where you are coming from, but there are other options than the forum to connect with people if you don't have friends on DC forums. TJ has "official" Facebook and Twitter pages. There is a community on DeviantART and on Tumblr. There's an IRC and a Discord Chat. Other pet sites have Dragon Cave threads, EATW has a trading market, and there are standalone fan sites/forums for people who are really into focusing on just DC. And no one is saying that you (general) have to interact with people at all to get the snow angel colors. You just need a snow angel to use a BSA if you're not interested in trying your luck at the AP.  I would like to see the implementation of some sort of in-game trading system, but that's an idea for a different thread. 

[olympe]

Well, that's why the combination of breeding true unless influenced otherwise is so perfect.

 

Through the "wing colors breeding true" mechanism, you'll easily be able to get all three varieties. (Spriters' alts would, obviously, have regular tri-colored offspring.) All within one year. Cool?

 

Now, with influence, you'll be able to change the future wing color of your baby dragon (while still in the egg). Of course, at first, you will only be able to influence stuff to your regular scroll color. Yes, it will take all of us a year to be able to influence Snow Angels willy-nilly. But: We'd finally be able to get more than just one variety. We'd be able to do so within just one breeding season (with careful picking). Aaaand - we wouldn't even need to cooperate. Or are you trying to tell me that it's better to not have more than just one Snow Angel variety ever than having to wait for one freaking year before getting full power over which variety an egg hatches into?

 

Seriously, why do some people have to bicker back and forth about the evil problem of enforced cooperation if the issue has already been resolved by at least four different suggestions? (yearly rotation, yearly rotation + BSA, breeding true, breeding true + BSA) Is it too much to ask to stop beating a dead horse and get on a live one to continue riding into the sunshine? (Sorry not sorry, but I'm seriously annoyed.)

[HeatherMarie]

Because many of those suggestions are not satisfactory for one reason or another. We are trying to figure out a suggestion that will please the most people (or at least that's what I'm trying to do). Yearly rotation alone is out because I doubt many people at all would be pleased with having to wait three entire years to get all colors. Breeding true alone is out because that would abolish the really pretty alternating-colors lineages that people have made. So we are trying to suss out the logistics of a combination of things. So far there has been *nothing* proposed that doesn't have a severe downside, and I keep posting in order to try to find solutions to those downsides. I do not think that is "beating a dead horse".

[Dragon_Arbock]

@Marie19R

I fail to see a severe downside to breeding + BSA. Wow, you might have to wait a year to influence- if you grab eggs from the AP on the first day of the event you more than likely will actually have adults to influence with the same year, even.
I have to agree with Olympe, and you're never going to get your 'perfect' solution you are looking for.

[Shadowdrake]

I honestly don't understand the rejection of breeding true for the sole basis of alternating lineages? Especially with the BSA caveat. The way snow angels are right now, they already need interscroll cooperation for any variated lineage, and having a BSA to influence instead of scroll colors would change virutally nothing for the first year, becoming even more convenient any years after.

What, exactly, is the downside to a BSA influence when an adult can grow in 5 days and we have 7 to breed, plus a minimum of 2 days (with incubate and a time constraint of over 3 days to influence) or maximum of up to 7 days (if no influence time constraint). If you're constrained to above 3 days only for influence, you can still grab snow angel eggs any time in the 5 prior days of breeding for their colors and still influence eggs bred on days 5, 6 or 7 if we're limited to above 3 days only.

Yes, neither breeding true nor year rotation alone is satisfying or convenient, but that's why we have the BSA suggestion, isn't it?

Better than rng, anyway.

Actually on that thought, if CB snow angels are brought back, any opinion on how the colors for them should be generated? RNG or yearly rotation? Some other option?

[Dragon_Arbock]

41 minutes ago, Shadowdrake said:

Actually on that thought, if CB snow angels are brought back, any opinion on how the colors for them should be generated? RNG or yearly rotation? Some other option?

I really haven't thought too much about this. I figured the BSA would work on them, and otherwise they might default to your scroll color? But random or whatever else is also fine by me for CBs.

[HeatherMarie]

I'd think the most logical thing would be for CBs to default to scroll color, but the BSA would be usable on them (no idea why it wouldn't be). If it was random that could get very confusing and frustrating, and if bred-wing-color yearly rotation is unappealing then I can't see how CB-yearly-rotation would be any different in that regard. Of course that's *if* we get CBs re-released, but since it happened for Halloween I guess it's a good idea to plan for that too.

[Tehya Faye]

If we wanted to make things super easy we could give the BSA to the eggs/hatchlings themselves, letting users manually pick which color they want. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense in comparison to the Adopt BSA, however, so it'd be sacrificing lore strength for gameplay convenience. 

Edited November 21, 2017 by Tehya Faye

[Fuzzbucket]

5 hours ago, Shadowdrake said:

 

Actually on that thought, if CB snow angels are brought back, any opinion on how the colors for them should be generated? RNG or yearly rotation? Some other option?

 

Not not not not yearly rotation. NOT any which way that limits to one colour a year.

Edited November 21, 2017 by fuzzbucket

[LibbyLishly]

3 hours ago, Tehya Faye said:

If we wanted to make things super easy we could give the BSA to the eggs/hatchlings themselves, letting users manually pick which color they want. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense in comparison to the Adopt BSA, however, so it'd be sacrificing lore strength for gameplay convenience. 

 

Intriguing. It's not how literally any other breed works, so I have no idea how likely it is to fly, but perhaps an hatchling could determine its own wing color through some sort of activity. Drinkingn eggnog for gold wings comes immediately to mind, but that might be a little overly silly.  Nibbling evergreen needles for white-tipped? What could a hatchie do to change its developing wings?

 

Also would definitely hope that at least one of the artists would be willing to give us some hatchie wing recolors for the project. That would help immensely.

Edited November 21, 2017 by LibbyLishly
A word. Also, haaa, I accidentally made a pun.

[Ruby Eyes]

Nebula hatchlings look at the sky and take their colour from the stars they see, though a Nebula's owner cannot influence which stars they look at. So it's not without precedence that a hatchling determines its own future.

 

The Snow Angel hatchling could generally start out with scroll-locked wings (even if you get it from someone else), then reset to white , then develop gold, later red and green additions, by doing something once, twice or thrice? Means you could use the BSA as often as you like until you get what you want.

It could simply play in the snow - it's a Snow Angel, after all. Their elemental affinity is Ice, so the coldness of the snow could have a magical effect on their wings.

[LibbyLishly]

Ooo, good points all the way around. That would be simple - "Play in Snow" action, "This action can be performed up to three times to influence this hatchling's wing color". We can consider it special snow magic, a combination of the hatchling's affinity with the snow and the cold temperatures that affect its development.  Assuming we get artist support, maybe the wing color can change in real time, too, so they're never any doubt as to where you are with the color cycle.

 

Anyway this is my new favorite idea.

[Jazeki]

I'm tentatively ok with playing in the snow as long as we can tell right away what color the wings are. I'd still prefer to know before the snow angel hatches or genders, but I'll deal.

[Shajana]

On 16.11.2017 at 10:41 PM, TJ09 said:

So if I remember correctly, the snow angel behavior was my idea (8 years ago). There were several variants proposed, and I basically said, "why not all?" I still think the idea of scroll-related dragons is pretty cool, but it's also really obvious that it's not good for DC in practice (i.e locking people out of sprites is bad, also on a breed that's already pretty limited). Most things on the site have already been moving in a direction where things that were previously limited or impossible to get (past Haloween CBs, Frills/Arias) are becoming available again.

 

I think it's possible to reconcile these two things. Perhaps (and I'm throwing this out as an idea even though I know it's going to stay around forever as "T.J. seemed okay with X back in 2017, when is it finally going to happen?") It'd be relatively easy to allow the eggs to breed true, such that the CBs stay tied to a given account, but it's then possible to get all of the sprites.

 

Or, the eggs that each person gets are still consistent per scroll, but rotate every year.

 

There's definitely options. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You could make the wing colours random (not random per scroll but per egg) if we could catch the old CB Christmas dragons this year.

[HeatherMarie]

No no no not random! Unless the hatchling sprites are tweaked, random would mean no way of knowing what the wing color is until the dragon turns into an adult, and that'd certainly cause a huge uproar. I honestly don't think this should happen at *all* if the wing colors are just going to be random, that would do way more harm then good.

 

I could totally get on board with a "playing in the snow" thing for hatchlings. It does make sense in so much as we already have an established breed in-cave who influences their own appearance as a hatchie. It may be a little annoying to have to wait until an egg hatches to use that action, but I think that would totally be worth it. That's probably the best idea I've seen so far in this thread.

[Fuzzbucket]

There's no point to ANY of this if there isn't a way to be sure what you are getting.

[LibbyLishly]

3 minutes ago, fuzzbucket said:

There's no point to ANY of this if there isn't a way to be sure what you are getting.

Very true. It'll just be a crapshoot like we get with alts.

 

Are the artists are active? Can they weigh in on their thoughts regarding hatchling wing colors?

[Dragon_Arbock]

I don't know that we should be giving the power to the hatchlings. Anything else that can alt, we have no control over, after all. Gemshards being perhaps the best comparison since they also have three varieties. It would be nice if we had a BSA that not only influenced SAs, but Nebulas and Gemshards as well (not Blacks, Vines, or Undines cause those alts are supposed to be significantly rarer). But that power should still be something an adult dragon does to influence an egg or hatchling, rather than the dragon being able to do it itself.

[Ariento]

@LibbyLishly I just checked, and none of the three have been on the forums within the last year or so, it seems.

[LibbyLishly]

6 minutes ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

I don't know that we should be giving the power to the hatchlings. Anything else that can alt, we have no control over, after all. Gemshards being perhaps the best comparison since they also have three varieties. It would be nice if we had a BSA that not only influenced SAs, but Nebulas and Gemshards as well (not Blacks, Vines, or Undines cause those alts are supposed to be significantly rarer). But that power should still be something an adult dragon does to influence an egg or hatchling, rather than the dragon being able to do it itself.

As pointed out, there already is a breed where the hatchling does have that power (we just can't harness it... yet).  "We" aren't the ones giving power to anything, really. If TJ ultimately decided he liked the hatchling-in-the-snow idea (unlikely, but still), are you seriously saying that you would be upset about it?

 

I'm all for BSAs that will influence other alts, ftr. But you're in here all the time looking at ways to change gameplay and not basing suggestions on how things currently work, instead looking to improve. Why not here?

Edited November 21, 2017 by LibbyLishly
Typos bad. Correct words good.

[Ariento]

I would love a BSA that influences SAs, Gemshards, and Nebulas, but the spriter of Gemshards has rejected being able to influence or predict the color of an egg iirc.

[Dragon_Arbock]

3 minutes ago, LibbyLishly said:

As pointed out, there already is a breed where the hatchling does have that power (we just can't harness it... yet).  "We" aren't the ones giving power to anything, really. If TJ ultimately decided he liked the hatchling-in-the-snow idea, are you seriously saying that you would be upset about it?

 

I'm all for BSAs that will influence other alts, ftr.

Yeah, nebulas can do it themselves, but from a gameplay perspective, giving a player the ability to control that with no other outside, limiting force (another adult dragon) is overpowered. It would make more sense to have another adult nebula dragon to somehow'influence' its decision, and once that decision is made, it definitely shouldn't be allowed to change.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Dragon_Arbock

[Ariento]

2 minutes ago, Ariento said:

I would love a BSA that influences SAs, Gemshards, and Nebulas, but the spriter of Gemshards has rejected being able to influence or predict the color of an egg iirc.

 

Yeah found it.

 

 

[Dragon_Arbock]

Not gonna assume anything, but Odeen hasn't posted since May 6th (last visit July 1st). What happens to that statement if they're gone? (not that gemshards matter too much to this).

[LibbyLishly]

1 minute ago, Dragon_Arbock said:

Yeah, nebulas can do it themselves, but from a gameplay perspective, giving a player the ability to control that with no other outside, limiting force (another adult dragon) is overpowered. It would make more sense to have another adult nebula dragon to something 'influence' its decision, and once that decision is made, it definitely shouldn't be allowed to change.

But we're not talking about a potential BSA for the nebulas. It's already been established how their breed works, and so far the lore says the adults aren't involved.

 

Like I've said before, I genuinely don't care how getting all the variants is achieved as long as I can actually get them and build lineages accordingly. Giving the BSA to the hatchlings answers every objection raised on this thread to other suggestions - and so you declare it overpowered. There clearly cannot be any way to make everyone happy. Anything has my vote as long as it fits the very simple criteria I already stated. However, I still think the hatchling BSA would make the MOST people happy and is certainly the cutest, most fun idea put forward yet.