Visual cues/reminders for BSA use

[FluffyPillow]

I had this idea for a while and was debating whether I should post it or not ^^; This idea came to mind when having to fog my growing things - you actually see the fog hiding what it needs to  So, I thought, "What if you could see when a BSA is used?" (I'm sure I'm not the only one who forgets when a BSA was used and on what (though I guess that's what the action log is for, actually....) ^^; )  

 

For example -

 

Ward is used:

• A magical barrier/force field/shield surrounds the egg

 

Stun is used:

• Sparks of electricity appear on the hatchling

 

Incubate is used:

• The egg is seen in a tiny nest (of leaves, grass, stones?)

 

Precognition/Influence is used:

• The symbol for male or female appears (above or beside?) the egg and/or hatchling (or just the egg for Influence) until it genders (This one might/might not work, depends if the coding is too difficult I guess ^^; )

 

These are just ideas (haven't thought how the other BSA would have visuals, like Fertility, Teleport, etc. though Summon would be the only exception and not have/need a visual) and I'm not sure if this would be considered "hand holding", but still wanted to suggest this anyways (I'm sorry if this whole thing sounds stupid, first time actually suggesting something) ^^;

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

Really approve of this! Since the Aeons and Bolts get a graphic when they use their BSA, it'd be really nice if the same could be done for all the eggs! It's kind of hard to keep track of sometimes, so this would be really useful

[HeatherMarie]

I would *only* support this if it was an *optional* thing we could turn off (or better yet, would have to deliberately turn on). I like looking at my eggs, especially certain breeds that have very pretty eggs, I do *not* want the egg's image crowded/changed with force fields and nests and such. It's bad enough that you can't see the egg when it's fogged, I do not want more of that. If what you are looking for is an easy way to tell if a BSA has been used on an egg/hatchling, I'd much rather have a simple icon or message on the dragon's view page.

[JavaTigress]

34 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

I would *only* support this if it was an *optional* thing we could turn off (or better yet, would have to deliberately turn on). I like looking at my eggs, especially certain breeds that have very pretty eggs, I do *not* want the egg's image crowded/changed with force fields and nests and such. It's bad enough that you can't see the egg when it's fogged, I do not want more of that. If what you are looking for is an easy way to tell if a BSA has been used on an egg/hatchling, I'd much rather have a simple icon or message on the dragon's view page.

I sortof agree with this.

 

HOWEVER I can understand how some sort of cue would be helpful.

 

I like the written cue myself.... like the cue we get when an egg or hatchling is sick.

I could see the usefulness of that, but I DO agree that some of the eggies are pretty enough that it is ALMSOT a shame to hatch them.... let alone clutter their sprites while we have them on our scrolls. I DO think that having the thing as an option... or perhaps even several different options on how it might appear ( I dunno how hard that would be to code tho...)...might be best. I am inclined to think I wouldn't like it being FORCED on anyone.

Edited March 12, 2018 by JavaTigress

[HeatherMarie]

The mention of the sick message is a good point. When our dragons are sick their sprites don't change, they don't get pale (or sickly-green) or skinny or anything, there is simply a little message on their view page. There is also an added part to the sick message if you use Ward on the egg.... Which means that there is already a text indicator for one BSA. I don't see why that can't be added for other BSAs.

[Whirlaway]

I wouldn’t mind a text indicator, like with Ward and sickness, as I do sometimes forget which eggs I have influenced and which I haven’t. And I am sometimes too lazy to check using my Aaron’s or other Pinks, haha.

Edited March 12, 2018 by Dorchet

[Ruby Eyes]

If I have to open each growing thing's view page to check if a certain BSA was used on it, it would be really faster to just open any old Pink's or Red's BSA page. Much faster that way.

 

So, for this to be useful, a little icon *next* to the growing thing while filtering for "Eggs/Unfroze Hatchlings" could work. A little campfire (incubate), a vague gender symbol (influence), a slightly less vague gender symbol (aeon), some lightning (stun), a nest of white cotton wool (ward)? I mean, don't change the egg or hatchling sprite itself, just put extra little symbols where currently the gender symbol is.

[HeatherMarie]

An icon next to the dragon would be fine with me, and yeah I guess it might be a pain to have to go to each dragon's view page in order to see the text. As long as this doesn't do anything to the dragon sprite itself I don't mind icons.

[Jenneta]

I am so for this, especially with Ruby Eyes' suggestion for a simple symbol next to all the other icons beside a dragon. I feel that would be more beneficial and less of a worry than the visual indicators on the egg. Great suggestion though! I was just thinking the other night that I wished there was some easier way to tell what had used it's BSA already/had a BSA used on it.

[Guillotine]

I wouldn't be opposed to icons, especially since eggs can't be named and there are far fewer BSAs that affect hatchlings/adults. So space is less of an issue.
 

[Stromboli]

Eh. Yeah. I'm also not a super big fan of adding to the actual egg or hatchling image to indicate BSA use.

Icons would be nice, for a quick visual reference of what's been done to the eggs/hatchlings.

 

It would also be really nice if we could filter the activity log to certain actions. Like, you could select to view just your influences and precog results.

[LadyLoki]

2 hours ago, Ruby Eyes said:

So, for this to be useful, a little icon *next* to the growing thing while filtering for "Eggs/Unfroze Hatchlings" could work. A little campfire (incubate), a vague gender symbol (influence), a slightly less vague gender symbol (aeon), some lightning (stun), a nest of white cotton wool (ward)? I mean, don't change the egg or hatchling sprite itself, just put extra little symbols where currently the gender symbol is.

I totally support something like this here for this suggestion! I would, actually honestly love it because I'm among those that question if I influenced/incubated an egg or something a day later. lol And just knowing at a glance instead of going to a new Pink/Red and going to their actions to see which is already influenced/incubated, or going through my actions, would be quite nice.

 

33 minutes ago, Stromboli said:

It would also be really nice if we could filter the activity log to certain actions. Like, you could select to view just your influences and precog results.

Also this would be pretty nice too.

[The Dragoness]

I would like this! Several times in the past I've thought that I used a BSA on a growing dragon, but didn't realize until it was too late that I hadn't. An option to turn it off would be a must though. 

[StormWizard212]

13 hours ago, Ruby Eyes said:

So, for this to be useful, a little icon *next* to the growing thing while filtering for "Eggs/Unfroze Hatchlings" could work. A little campfire (incubate), a vague gender symbol (influence), a slightly less vague gender symbol (aeon), some lightning (stun), a nest of white cotton wool (ward)? I mean, don't change the egg or hatchling sprite itself, just put extra little symbols where currently the gender symbol is.

 

I like this idea.

 

I personally don't really see the point in having text on the dragon's page itself, since if you're going to click away from the main page to see it, you might as well go to the action log where you can access information about all your dragons in the one place rather than opening multiple pages.

 

I really like Ruby Eyes' suggestion of little icons/visuals next to the dragons, rather than an overlay on the existing egg/hatchling. I also like the idea that they'd only show when you filter for growing things, since I personally don't really want lots of icons showing up on the main page. I think this suggestion is a nice compromise and one I could definitely get behind.  

[Fuzzbucket]

Where would these icons/markers appear ? On our scrolls ? Talk about clutter.... I use influence and incubate on pretty much everything. Add ward and stun on occasion, and that would be three to four next to each egg. For that reason alone, I would want the option not to show this. If people want it, I am not against - as long as we don't have to see it. But in the sense of do I think it's a good idea in itself - nope.

[StormWizard212]

5 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

Where would these icons/markers appear ? On our scrolls ? Talk about clutter.... I use influence and incubate on pretty much everything. Add ward and stun on occasion, and that would be three to four next to each egg. For that reason alone, I would want the option not to show this. If people want it, I am not against - as long as we don't have to see it. But in the sense of do I think it's a good idea in itself - nope.

 

Agreed about it creating potential clutter. That's why I'd support this idea if there was a specific filter for it or if it was only available when using the growing things filter.  Would that make the feature more appealing to those who are concerned about clutter?

Edited March 13, 2018 by StormWizard212

[Fuzzbucket]

It would make it less unappealing if it only showed in the page when filtered to show growing things.

[Shadowdrake]

We could also have it set in account settings where we have a list of which ones we want to see and which we don't:

✓influence

☐incubate

☐stun

✓teleport

✓ward

✓sick(?)

 

Precog is probably not an option because you can do it repeatedly so it doesn't look like anything sticks for that info.

Edited March 13, 2018 by Shadowdrake

[Fuzzbucket]

That would refer more to the action log; I would LOVE that to be filterable. Mine reads mostly "hid..unhid...named...hid..."

 

But precog would be useful for those who want this, just as the action log shows "precog (sex)"

[Ruby Eyes]

It would be max. 3 symbols per growing thing anyway, just 1 more than you can see currently on gendered frozen hatchlings.

On eggs: incubated 🔥, influenced, precognized gender (maybe even only one of those two? whichever happened last, I guess)

On S1 hatchlings: influence and/or precognized gender, stunned 🗲or ⚡

On S2 hatchlings: gender, stunned 🗲or ⚡

Edited March 13, 2018 by Ruby Eyes

[Fuzzbucket]

Still clutter. Remember all those badges that used to line up ?

[StormWizard212]

Could I propose an alternative? What if it was something that showed up when you hovered over the egg? The badges at the top display a banner of information when you hover over them, but they are still clickable. This could potentially work in the same way. If it would be too distracting when hovering over the image of the dragon, then perhaps over some of the existing text (the code or the 'egg/hatchling' under 'type'). Just a thought.

[Ruby Eyes]

14 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

Still clutter. Remember all those badges that used to line up ?

How many more BSAs do you expect to be introduced? Because 2 symbols ARE already a thing on your scroll (gender and frozen). What I outlined above would still be 2 symbols (3 if both influence and precog would be shown, which I don't think is necessary).

[Fuzzbucket]

1 hour ago, StormWizard212 said:

Could I propose an alternative? What if it was something that showed up when you hovered over the egg? The badges at the top display a banner of information when you hover over them, but they are still clickable. This could potentially work in the same way. If it would be too distracting when hovering over the image of the dragon, then perhaps over some of the existing text (the code or the 'egg/hatchling' under 'type'). Just a thought.

 

Better MUCH better.

 

1 hour ago, Ruby Eyes said:

How many more BSAs do you expect to be introduced? Because 2 symbols ARE already a thing on your scroll (gender and frozen). What I outlined above would still be 2 symbols (3 if both influence and precog would be shown, which I don't think is necessary).

 

No more BSAs I expect. But little images all over the place are irritating. If we have to have this, AT LEAST only on the growing things page, and why IMAGES. (I also hate the big (and totally out of character for the site !) ones that show up for sick eggs, for "you have unlocked all the." and so on as well as the cog and the chain links on the action page, and have disabled the lot of them... )

Edited March 13, 2018 by Fuzzbucket

[Ruby Eyes]

Those aren't images, those are unicode symbols, actually.