ANSWERED:Neglected Dragon Breeding

[Sazandora]

So maybe we should focus on thinking about some other thing to do with NDs (and/or other unbreedables) instead of making them breedable. You want something to do with the NDs? Fine. I'm sure we can come up with something that wouldn't break existing lore for the breed if it were to be implemented. Of course, that'd probably require making a new thread, but it's not that big of a deal, is it?

[Fuzzbucket]

Why - actually - do we need Things To Do with everything ? I have a Leetle Tree. It's nice. The end. The same applies to my unbreedables.

[Sazandora]

Not necessarily, to be honest. I don't really care about not having anything to do with my unbreedables, I just like the way they look and that's it. But looks like some people here want them to be more than just pretty sprites on their scroll. I'm fine with that, as long as it doesn't mean having to pull unnecessary retcons out of the unmentionable areas.

[Jazeki]

6 hours ago, Satospes said:

 

For sure, that response was mostly directed at Marie19R anyway. Also you kind of answered your own question, NDs should be made breedable (or better yet, given some other sort of BSA or means by which to interact with them) to make them more interesting. As is they just sit around and do nothing, and although I and most other people I think are fine with that (kind of like what you said, I'm not going to quit DC just because NDs are unbreedable), I still feel it would be better to give them some interactive purpose/use/feature, no matter how minor. That's the point of suggestions after all, to share ideas that you think would improve the game, even if only very minimally.

Please don't put words in my mouth. I don't care that my neglected dragons sit on my scroll. I already said before that I didn't see how feasible this suggestion is in terms of improving game play and I have yet to see a strong reason why I should support it. It just basically comes down to "because they aren't interesting enough right now."  I'm with @fuzzbucket here.

Edited December 3, 2017 by Jazeki

[Fuzzbucket]

What makes anything we collect "interesting" ? People collect stamps, and they don't do a single thing. Also coins. An unbreedable here is much the same. Something nice to have.

[olympe]

As far as I know (which probably isn't nearly as far as I wish it was), NDs weren't meant to be some super-rare, super-special dragon that's incredibly hard to get. Instead, they were probably intended as some kind of "punishment" for not taking good care of your eggs. That they've become some kind of favorite is more of a user-driven thing. Well, maybe because of their rarity. 

However, unlike CB golds - which not everybody can get their hands on - NDs are pretty easy to make. Sure, it doesn't work every time, but way more often than reviving a zombie. And it doesn't really take anything special (skills, hardware, connection) to make them - just time and dedication and, well, determination. Literally everyone can make their own NDs.

 

However, we don't need them to breed. It seems very much at odds with the lore surrounding them. Plus, it's not as if they were the only kind of unbreedable out there. Just look at all those chickens, dinos, paper and cheese dragons. Plus, being able to breed up more neglected dragons would kind of cheapen them in a way.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

While I don't think everything on site needs a purpose (heck, the majority of my dragons just sit around never being used), I see more of a case for NDs being able to do something precisely because they're so rare. Cheeses and papers are uncommon, but doable. NDs, on the other hand, are agony to get ( @olympe if you think they are easy to make, please enlighten me! Even the handful of people I know who are highly skilled at making them seem to have miserable success  ), so putting in all that work, either making or expensively trading, just to get a glorified scroll badge is kind of off putting. Giving them a way to create more NDs with either a better success rate or quicker turnaround would make them feel less useless. I don't want them to be super easy to get, even with a BSA or something they should be rare, but something. (It's also worth noting that while NDs are often touted as a way for all players to be able to get a rare with enough effort, how often does that happen? I don't think I've ever seen a noob trading an ND... so the great equalizer isn't that great, sadly)

[The Dragoness]

Honestly, this is why I don't collect Unbreedables or NDs. Sure, I have one that I won in a raffle a while ago and I'm all for having a complete scroll, but they're so hard to get and there's so little reward. So I stop once I have one of each. I would much rather have a 2G Prize or CB Metal than an ND that will just look pretty. That doesn't mean everything on the site should have an action like breeding or a BSA, but NDs are a pain. They're meant to be. It's part of what makes them so valuable to collectors rather than breeders. I'm okay with it staying that way. 

[Jazeki]

57 minutes ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

While I don't think everything on site needs a purpose (heck, the majority of my dragons just sit around never being used), I see more of a case for NDs being able to do something precisely because they're so rare Giving them a way to create more NDs with either a better success rate or quicker turnaround would make them feel less useless. I don't want them to be super easy to get, even with a BSA or something they should be rare, but something.

ADP,  how many people will get to experience and benefit from a feature change like this though? You would have to make or acquire an ND to be able to have one to breed or BSA though.  And with such a small  success rate, what would be the point except to say "I can breed/BSA neglecteds now." 

Edited December 3, 2017 by Jazeki
word choice.

[Fuzzbucket]

8 minutes ago, Jazeki said:

ADP,  how many people will get to experience and benefit from a feature change like this though? You would have to make or acquire an ND to be able to have one to breed or BSA though.  And with such a small  success rate, what would be the point except to say "I can breed/BSA neglecteds now." 

 

Exactly !

 

Quote

NDs are a pain. They're meant to be. It's part of what makes them so valuable to collectors rather than breeders. I'm okay with it staying that way. 

 

This too. Leave them be. Poor sick things. They are already pathetically grateful for their weedy existences. Don't stress them out any more by making them WORK ! (If we can pull these sob stories, that is as good a one as any !)

[Done]

4 hours ago, Jazeki said:

Please don't put words in my mouth. I don't care that my neglected dragons sit on my scroll. I already said before that I didn't see how feasible this suggestion is in terms of improving game play and I have yet to see a strong reason why I should support it. It just basically comes down to "because they aren't interesting enough right now."  I'm with @fuzzbucket here.

 

Not putting words in your mouth... Just making an observation, there's definitely a difference. You're right, that is what it comes down to. If you don't see it as enough of an issue to warrant adding new features or whatever that's totally cool, I just feel some (like myself) would appreciate it. Players like yourself who don't really mind the way things are now could choose whether to utilize said features or not.

[Fuzzbucket]

If it's there and it is used, it affects everyone. Not least - ratios. Those of us working to neglect an egg could have that all work ruined if enough people had bred theirs to skew the ratios so that it didn't turn.

[Jazeki]

35 minutes ago, Satospes said:

 

Not putting words in your mouth... Just making an observation, there's definitely a difference. You're right, that is what it comes down to. If you don't see it as enough of an issue to warrant adding new features or whatever that's totally cool, I just feel some (like myself) would appreciate it. Players like yourself who don't really mind the way things are now could choose whether to utilize said features or not.

When you said that I answered my own question and implied that I felt ND's should be more interesting, that's not exactly an observation.

 

Moving on, Fuzz is right that doing this sort of thing affects gameplay for everyone. It changes  lore and how neglecteds are made, it could change ratios, it affects people who do trade. People have a hard time with prizes. These are like green prizes. It's a big step to take just to make something more interesting. It also opens up questions about all the other unbreedable species.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

2 hours ago, Jazeki said:

ADP,  how many people will get to experience and benefit from a feature change like this though? You would have to make or acquire an ND to be able to have one to breed or BSA though.  And with such a small  success rate, what would be the point except to say "I can breed/BSA neglecteds now." 

 

The difference is that once you got the first one, you'd have a (slightly) easier time getting more. I traded for all of the 35 NDs I own. It was a huge investment of resources to pay for them all, just so they could sit around as glorified scroll trophies (yah, I chose to get that many for my own scroll goals, still stunk though ). But for those who are still collecting, or have yet to get one, knowing that they'd have a slightly better chance to get more after the first would be a relief... and make paying so much to get one feel less wasteful. It's similar to the curse BSA I suggested for zombies. Yes, getting the first would still be hard, but knowing things would get a bit  easier from then on, that you're not going to go through the same exact frustration over and over as you work on collections, would be nice.

 

Right now NDs are worth 1:1 with CB Golds, potentially more. It's been this way for years. Yet it must feel rather annoying for people who want to collect all dragons to pay that much not for a CB Metal, which can breed for trading and lineage creating, but rather for a dragon that'll just sit around not doing anything ever and basically be forgotten.

[Fuzzbucket]

But still - it risks spoiling the joy of trying for those of us who want to do it the traditional way.

[Done]

1 hour ago, Jazeki said:

When you said that I answered my own question and implied that I felt ND's should be more interesting, that's not exactly an observation.

 

Moving on, Fuzz is right that doing this sort of thing affects gameplay for everyone. It changes  lore and how neglecteds are made, it could change ratios, it affects people who do trade. People have a hard time with prizes. These are like green prizes. It's a big step to take just to make something more interesting. It also opens up questions about all the other unbreedable species.

 

By your logic you're putting words in my mouth, seeing as you seem to know what I was implying. I was not implying that you felt NDs should be more interesting, and if you still have trouble seeing that I invite you to reread my original reply, I was simply saying that you somewhat ironically gave the reason why I feel NDs could have some interactive feature added when posing your question. Your question included what my answer would've been regardless of how you phrased it (and thus you answered the question), that is all I was saying.

 

4 hours ago, Jazeki said:

ADP,  how many people will get to experience and benefit from a feature change like this though? You would have to make or acquire an ND to be able to have one to breed or BSA though.  And with such a small  success rate, what would be the point except to say "I can breed/BSA neglecteds now." 

 

As for this point, I actually agree somewhat with this. Perhaps if NDs were given a BSA (not even considering breeding at this point) it wouldn't serve the purpose of creating more NDs, but would serve some other practical purpose, like Red Dragons incubating eggs. Since NDs are so rare I feel like the BSA couldn't be too powerful, since there are many players who don't have a ND or just aren't interested in putting in the time/effort it takes to create or trade for one, but it should still useful.

 

2 hours ago, fuzzbucket said:

If it's there and it is used, it affects everyone. Not least - ratios. Those of us working to neglect an egg could have that all work ruined if enough people had bred theirs to skew the ratios so that it didn't turn.

 

This is an interesting point, I wasn't actually aware of these ratios you speak of (which isn't really surprising to me, I still have a lot to learn about DC). Are they set by the game so that the balance of common to rare dragons never becomes too unbalanced due to people hunting specifically for more prized dragons? Also I know you keep asking why NDs have to be changed at all, but at the same time why not? I'm not talking about breeding or BSAs to create more NDs or anything like that (seeing as I feel like some valid arguments have been raised against those), but, as I said above, something nice and useful. Perhaps NDs always look so glum because they lack purpose.

 

8 hours ago, Sazandora said:

So maybe we should focus on thinking about some other thing to do with NDs (and/or other unbreedables) instead of making them breedable. You want something to do with the NDs? Fine. I'm sure we can come up with something that wouldn't break existing lore for the breed if it were to be implemented. Of course, that'd probably require making a new thread, but it's not that big of a deal, is it?

 

This is what I'm leaning towards as well. Once I've given it some more thought I probably will create a new thread about it, seeing as the discussion in this thread is repetitious and is pretty difficult to follow.

[olympe]

1 hour ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

Right now NDs are worth 1:1 with CB Golds, potentially more. It's been this way for years. Yet it must feel rather annoying for people who want to collect all dragons to pay that much not for a CB Metal, which can breed for trading and lineage creating, but rather for a dragon that'll just sit around not doing anything ever and basically be forgotten.

If only that were true. I made three in my time here, put all of them up for trade. Two went for a couple of CB uncommons (trios/coppers?), the third got only one offer that was so bad I eventually decided to keep the ND (despite not exactly being fond of the sprite). 

 

And, yes, overall NDs are easy to make. Just like zombies are easy to make. Only the odds are never in your favor.  So, yes, it takes a lot of tries to get even one of them. But it is still true that anyone can make them, no matter how fast their internet/computer/reflexes/reading speed. Which is why I think they're fine as is.

[Fuzzbucket]

2 hours ago, Satospes said:

 

This is what I'm leaning towards as well. Once I've given it some more thought I probably will create a new thread about it, seeing as the discussion in this thread is repetitious and is pretty difficult to follow.

 

I can't honestly say it seems that hard to follow. You seem troubled by not being able to interact with your unbreedables, particularly (for some reason) your neglecteds. Many of us don't feel the same way, but a few do. Some of us are entirely happy with the way things are right now. What's so hard about that ?

Edited December 3, 2017 by fuzzbucket

[Done]

Just now, fuzzbucket said:

 

I can't honestly say it seems that hard to follow. You seem troubled by not being able to interact with your unbreedables, particularly (for some reason) your neglecteds. Many of us don't feel the same way, but a few do. Some of us are entirely happy wit the way things are right now. What's so hard about that ?

 

Sorry, why are we arguing about this? It seems like you're intentionally trying to pick fights. I just mean there are a lot of replies to read through for someone just coming to the thread, and the views of some (myself included) have evolved throughout the discussion.

[HeatherMarie]

4 hours ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

Right now NDs are worth 1:1 with CB Golds, potentially more. It's been this way for years. Yet it must feel rather annoying for people who want to collect all dragons to pay that much not for a CB Metal, which can breed for trading and lineage creating, but rather for a dragon that'll just sit around not doing anything ever and basically be forgotten.

 

I'm not sure I'm understanding this. People can choose whether or not to pay big for a ND. If someone doesn't think a ND is worth a CB Gold because it just sits around and does nothing, they certainly don't have to trade a CB Gold for it. People trade what they believe things are worth. No one is going to go to the trouble of finding, catching, and trading something that's very difficult to get in order to get something they don't like or don't care about or think is worth less because it just sits around. Scroll-completionists may want to have every dragon available even if they don't really care for the dragon much, but that's their choice, and they get to decide how hard they want to work to get that thing that they don't really care for.

 

Like others said, suddenly being able to breed NDs would change a lot about this game, from the already-established lore to the already-established method of making them to the ND ratios. NDs are supposed to be difficult, and different, to get. I don't think an idea to have Undeads breed their own kind would fly, and I'm of the same view about NDs. They are both created by a different method then breeding, and I don't really think that should change.

 

I'd be much more likely to support some sort of BSA or somesuch that has nothing to do with breeding. But even then, why NDs? What is so special about them that they should get some extra action, when the other unbreedables don't? The only reason I've seen here is that they don't do anything, they just sit there, we should be able to interact with them, but the same goes for Dinos and Cheeses and Papers and Chickens as well. NDs are not the only things on DC that don't do anything, and I'm not understanding the push to give only them something extra.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

The main difference is that NDs are several magnitudes of order rarer than cheeses and papers, and even chickens, dinos, and leetle trees. There's a more compelling reason to make them do something precisely because they ARE so rare.

 

Also you are right that people pay only what they are willing to pay, but I see it like this:

- Many people play DC to collect dragons

- So they want to collect NDs...

- But NDs are very hard to get...

- So to fulfill their collecting goals they trade handsomely for them, even if NDs pay off a lot less in the long run then CB Metals / 2g Prizes / Insert other ultra rare here.

- This is further compounded by the fact that NDs have three different sprites with very minor differences (seriously, whoever thought THAT was a good idea, may their eggs never turn! A curse upon thee!  )

 

Basically it boils down to them being super rare... but feeling super worthless compared to every other rare in their bracket.

 

So while I'm out of the rat race, I see where people are coming from.  (And while we're here, my zombie idea wasn't that they would breed, but that they could spread the curse with a vampire-like BSA. Would make dealing with the huge amount of zombie sprites and crappy turn rates more manageable... but I digress!)

 

 

@olympe wow, I'm sorry you had such bad luck! In my own experiences they've never traded so poorly, but I guess mileage will vary.  

 

 

[Jazeki]

28 minutes ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

The main difference is that NDs are several magnitudes of order rarer than cheeses and papers, and even chickens, dinos, and leetle trees. There's a more compelling reason to make them do something precisely because they ARE so rare.

 

Also you are right that people pay only what they are willing to pay, but I see it like this:

- Many people play DC to collect dragons

- So they want to collect NDs...

- But NDs are very hard to get...

- So to fulfill their collecting goals they trade handsomely for them, even if NDs pay off a lot less in the long run then CB Metals / 2g Prizes / Insert other ultra rare here.

- This is further compounded by the fact that NDs have three different sprites with very minor differences (seriously, whoever thought THAT was a good idea, may their eggs never turn! A curse upon thee!  )

 

Basically it boils down to them being super rare... but feeling super worthless compared to every other rare in their bracket.

 

 

 

I don't know. I still need an ungendered neglected, but I did not trade an arm and a leg for the ones I have. One was a gift because I didn't have one and the other I traded either a prize or a bunch of hatchies for. I don't remember, but the user made it easy because they knew I didn't have a ton of "arms and legs" to offer. I'm pretty okay with the fact that I may never get an ungendered neglected because I refuse to pay for it when I could try for other things that I can breed instead. Not everyone will trade handsomely or bend to the market just to get their hands on something they need. It's much better to hold out than to change something because it's rare and sits there. 

 

I agree with all of what @Marie19R posted. 

[HeatherMarie]

But the thing is, NDs only "pay off a lot less" if you are really into breeding, or breeding in order to trade. DC is a collecting game, yes. So many people who see DC as a collecting game would see getting a ND as an end-game, not getting it in order to make pretty lineages. I don't have over 1,000 Royal Blues because I want to breed them, I have them because they are pretty, even though they do nothing but sit on my scroll. I totally get that there is a large community of users who are in it for the breeding, who wouldn't stick around if it weren't for lineages and breeding and such, but that's just one aspect of the game, it's not the entire game. And if "many people play DC to collect dragons", there is no reason to assume that those same people who play specifically to *collect* would want NDs less because they can't *breed*.

[Done]

2 hours ago, Marie19R said:

But the thing is, NDs only "pay off a lot less" if you are really into breeding, or breeding in order to trade. DC is a collecting game, yes. So many people who see DC as a collecting game would see getting a ND as an end-game, not getting it in order to make pretty lineages. I don't have over 1,000 Royal Blues because I want to breed them, I have them because they are pretty, even though they do nothing but sit on my scroll. I totally get that there is a large community of users who are in it for the breeding, who wouldn't stick around if it weren't for lineages and breeding and such, but that's just one aspect of the game, it's not the entire game. And if "many people play DC to collect dragons", there is no reason to assume that those same people who play specifically to *collect* would want NDs less because they can't *breed*.

 

In response to your other reply, I've actually said a couple times in this thread that I wouldn't mind most of the unbreedables getting BSAs of some sort (I don't think the Leetle Tree needs one though, for example), I'm certainly not singling out NDs. Also I don't really get this "some people are happy with it as is" argument, are you directly opposed to NDs having a BSA? I'm not talking about breeding anymore, I understand now that most people are pretty strongly against that and I even feel some good arguments have been raised as to why that wouldn't be a good idea. But otherwise, even if you are happy with NDs as is, would you not at least think, "huh, neat," if your NDs had some practical use (even if it were only a rather minor one)? I'm not expecting everyone to be crying with joy at the thought of NDs having a BSA or whatever, far from it... But I find it hard to believe that anyone would be directly opposed to the idea, assuming the BSA was useful and balanced. The result is some people are made happier and others can continue on not caring, there's no real downside there in my eyes.

[LibbyLishly]

I wouldn't be opposed to a vampire-style BSA (as was mentioned for zombies) that helped create more NDs. I'm really not a fan of them breeding, but a "Harass" or "Infect" BSA that increased the chances of an experiment egg turning wouldn't be a bad thing, I think. I hope. Always gotta worry about those doggone ratios.

Edited December 4, 2017 by LibbyLishly
A word.