Breed page remake (+mate maintenance page?)

[Shadowdrake]

The current breeding page no longer seems adequate for how DC is. I think it could be massively improved the way the scroll pages and dragon sorting have been, as the breed page remains relatively unchanged from its original iteration.

 

Current problems:

• no pagination: has to load up half a scroll every time (all breedables of one gender)
• no control over mate order
• only accessible when dragon is off cooldown, preventing planning mid-cooldown
• mobile-unfriendly
• difficult to find a new mate

 

 

Ideas for breeding page (not all mutually inclusive or exclusive)

 

Pagination

pros:

-- easier and faster to load

-- more consistent with the rest of dragon pages

 

cons:

-- harder to search for a new mate at first

 

 

Pre-breeding filter option

pros:

-- easier to find a new mate, or a certain mate out of multiple

-- makes breeding page faster to load

-- filter is faster to load, due to not loading all at once

 

cons:

-- unable to check lineage or dragon page if using a filter like the ones for fertility or group

-- will have to load most of the dragons in the filter anyway

 

 

Filter by group option

pros:

-- only have to load a specific group

-- can still check lineage/dragon like regular breed page

 

cons:

-- only loads one specific group, unless tj does a "check all groups included" deal

-- useless if you don't use groups

 

 

Show only previous/specific mates option

pros:

-- very fast load

-- useful for dragons of specific lineages

 

cons:

-- useless for people who don't care to keep track

-- doesn't help with finding new mates or the loading involved

 

 

Remove dragons from breeding pool

pros:

-- prevent accidental breeding with dragons that the owner doesn't want to breed, either because of lineage or for exclusivity

cons:

-- may prevent breeding with them at all unless exceptions are made (or allow it if started from the excluded dragon's own breed page?)

 

 

Mate maintenance page (or past breeding history) suggestion

- Always accessible even when dragon is on breeding cooldown

- Displays all former mates, both compatible and rejected

- Add new dragon to potential mates, putting it up with prior mates on the breeding page. (will still be rejectable)

- Can increase or decrease mate priority, raising or lowering a dragon on breeding list.

--- Low enough priority (like 0) will place the mate back in the regular scroll order (but will not remove it from progeny page or list of former mates). Useful to stop accidentally breeding a dragon with the wrong mate.

--- Negative priority will place it in the rejected area, but still breedable.

- Would help several issues with the current breed page. May be redundant with a new and improved breed page, I dunno.

 

 

New additions (Dec 7 2020):

Pin new mates

- Breed-page version of increasing mate priority

- Pins above other past mates as well

 

 

Reset mate history

- quick version of "remove incorrect mates" idea

Cons:

- will probably reset refusal history too (not very bad, just annoying)

- may feel misleading that mate compatibility isn't reset

 

 

Feel free to comment or suggest more ideas. I will edit this post as needed.

Edited December 12, 2020 by Shadowdrake

[HeatherMarie]

Just to see a little of what has already been talked about:

..... Basically people have been asking for modifications to the breeding page for a looooooong time! I definitely very much support being able to filter the breeding page by group, and a general filter where you can put in breed names or key terms would be nice, the same type that Fertility has. Actual pagination isn't something I've thought much about before but I can definitely see the advantages to that. 

 

The idea of a 'mate maintenance page' is very interesting, I think that could potentially be very helpful for a lot of people. Especially people who are planning lineages, the ability to prioritize new/possible mates on the breeding page would be awesome.

[MoonShark]

This idea has my total support. Having trouble finding the right mates is one of the reasons my massive spring breeding project is on hold probably for at least another year.

 

Pagination and a search method (like the one they have for groups' "add dragons") would be AMAZING. Then you can search by name or breed and you also don't have to wait for 1000+ dragons to load (if you have a big scroll like me at least.)

[GhostMouse]

I definitely agree that the breeding process needs some updating, and I like the ideas proposed here. Removing dragons from the breeding pool and filtering by groups would help me the most, personally. I can see why group filter would be a hindrance to those who don't use groups, but it might actually make groups useful enough for those people to start using them. At the very least, making a temporary group for your ongoing breeding projects wouldn't be the worst option (and most importantly, it would be optional).

I'm not sure about being able to breed an unbreedable dragon from its own actions page. I can see why it sounds appealing, but if you misclick a messy that's sorted right next to the CB you wanted to breed, and there is nothing to stop you from breeding it, the "unbreedable" feature can't help you. Instead, I think marking a dragon unbreedable should happen from the actions page, via checkbox. If you go there to breed and the "Breed" action is greyed out (with text saying something like, "This dragon cannot breed because it has been marked unbreedable.") all you have to do is hit the checkbox to make it breedable again and then the action will be available. It will add literally one click, and will prevent mistakes, but still allow you to breed it from its own page if you really want.

[Fuzzbucket]

What I want MOST is to be able to see who was refused even if thy are on CD. Searching for alternative mates always has to wait a week of your memory - like mine - doesn't work...

 

Yes I have a database because of this - but if my memory fails me when it comes to adding new refusals...

[olympe]

Apart from all mates past (refused and successful and disinterested), I'd like to see only one representative of each breed. This, in my mind, has two advantages:

If you don't know what kind of mate you want (breed-wise), it's much easier to scroll through all eligible breeds and have a look at their sprites.

If you know which breed the intended mate is - and let's be honest, most of us probably know that - you can click on the sprite representing the whole breed. This will lead you to a filtered breeding page with only potential mates of that breed shown. (Please also add a back button or link both on top and on the bottom.)

 

Even better: If, on top of the various breeds on the first page, there was a list of all groups you have.

[Shadowdrake]

Bumping this bc at 7k dragons my phone browser lags terribly every time I press breed. Anything to cut down the size of the breed page would be great.

[Shadowdrake]

Bumping again bc breed page is still big and unwieldy for anyone past plat or on mobile.

[Kastriia]

I would love a dedicated breeding manager to do things like

-Linking mates together for easy finding and breeding

-A search bar when you want to breed something

-pagination and/or group selectors

-showing the cooldown on your dragons for breeding in a quick and easy location

- "Scheduling" breeding to better remember those dragons you breed on a regular basis

-heck, something like our wish lists and contact info can be added in a small section here as well instead of naming a hand full of dragons. Think alternative profile page for breeders.

 

So many things could be added, tweaked, improved on in a dedicated place globalized around breeding, since it is also just as much a major part of the game as raising dragons are ^^

[Sazandora]

Yes, please. Pagination on the breeding page would be awesome, plus the ability to remove dragons from an individual dragon's breeding page. Trying to breed stuff on mobile is a pain because it's so slow to load the huuuuuuuuuge breeding page all in one chunk.

[Keileon]

I support a filter system along the lines of Fertility, WITH a way to check the lineage of the mate. Whether this manifests as a link to the lineage when the dragon is selected, or some other manner, I don't care as long as it works.

 

Pagination is also something I support but not necessary if the breed page gets a filter.

 

Uninterested in group filtering unless it comes from the filter system in general being able to search by group name.

 

Supporting the removal of dragons from the breeding pool if the filter system still sorts previous mates at the top.

[purplehaze]

I would like a filter system something like Fertility, but agree that there must be a way to see the lineage of the potential mates in order for it to be of much use.

 

It would be lovely to be able to remove certain previous mates from the top of the list, but I wouldn't want them marked as unbreedable. Just move them back to their regular place on the list.

 

Pagination would not be an advantage to me by itself, since it complicates searches. I often search the breed page for the mate I want and having to find the right page first would make it cumbersome. A search filter would be much more useful.

 

Group filtering doesn't really seem that useful to me because of the way I use groups.

 

I would also very much like to be able to see the lists even when the dragons are on cooldown. Please!

[Astreya]

Agreed I would so love to be able to delete dragons from the top of the breeding mate list, too!

 

By the way, what about only showing the full list for the first time a dragon is bred and for later breeding only show the mate(s) one chose so far with the full list available only by clicking on some button or so? That way one would have a shorter loading time and less unnecessary data traffic.

 

Other than that I support the rest of the suggestions, too, of course.

Edited August 25, 2019 by Astreya

[The Dragoness]

I would love all of these features. I only 2.8K dragons and it still takes at least a minute for all of the available dragons to load on the breed page. Most of those dragons are bred mates that I rarely use, so they serve no purpose showing up for my other dragons. Even just a search bar for breed at the top would make me happy.

[Nakeisha]

Personally I would hate pagination on the breeding page as it would make life much harder for anyone who likes to use an in page search to find a particular dragon or breed of dragon by a naming scheme. (In fact I find having our scrolls paginated at all somewhat irksome and frustrating, even though I understand most people prefer it/need it.)

 

That said, I would love to be able to remove a dragon (or dragons) from the breeding pool or even simply to remove it from the top of the breeding list. Like others I've accidentally bred dragons to the wrong mate and also have bred as one-offs for gifts or for trading, etc. and won't breed that pairing again. Thus to be able to get rid of it from the top of the breeding list would be great.

 

Being able to have some kind of 'breeding/mate maintenance' even when a dragon is on cool-down would be a wonderful. But in all honesty I'd be happy to simply have an option to remove a dragon from the breeding pool or just from appearing at the top of the breeding page.

 

Maybe this could be done at the time of breeding where you get asked if you want to 'show priority to this mate for future breedings'. Or something like that.

[Sundew]

I would be fine with pagination on mobile, but it'd be a hassle on desktop. I'd prefer a filter like the Fertility page, modified to be able to view lineage, than anything that would involve removing dragons from the breeding list (I'd rather not fuss around with another thing to keep track of). Sorting a recently bred dragon back to its default place on the breeding list would be cool, though.

[Alwerien]

I wanted to post a new suggestion on this topic but managed to find this one so decided to chime in and bump this. As Marie's post up there shows, people have wanted the breeding page fixed FOR A LONG TIME. Yet...

 

As it exists, the current breeding page is ages behind many other features on the site. It is in dire need of some filtering or a way to at least differentiate dragons of the same generation/CBs. I do agree with most of Shadowdrake's suggestions except perhaps the pagination. 

 

As for the filtering - the way current filter like groups/fertility have is likely not perfect because at least me (and I'm sure other people) like to check the lineage of the breeding partner just to make sure it's the correct one and the current filtering does not allow for that.  It would therefore need a different way of filtering the dragons - only TJ knows what's possible and what isn't here.

 

One of possible solutions I was thinking of would be using the filtering by existing groups our scroll pages can use. As mentioned that sadly doesn't at all help people that don't use the group feature. Alternatively a few pre-set filters based on the generation of dragons would go a long way as well. 

 

If the page isn't completely redone to work different way, much needed would be the option to remove a certain previously bred dragon from the top of the list back into the neutral middle (rather than completely from the breeding pool) - Example: You accidentally bred your perfect checker to a messy dragon and now that messy partner is always up there and you may have accidentally bred them together again, especially if they are the same breed as the intended partner. Being able to remove them from the top of the list would help a lot.

 

The mate maintenance page (likely linked from dragon's Actions) idea is also interesting and would be a potential way of solving most problems current breeding has. If that would be the way to go, I think it should have options to only allow breeding with specified dragons (and not show anyone else), remove accidental partners from otherwise unedited list, perhaps view a history of refusals. 

 

This is not related to filtering per se, but I think something needs to be done about holiday breedings still being able to refuse out of the season. I'm not talking about changing that as that would be a rather different suggestion but I was thinking that if the dragons have a chance of refusing again because of this, they SHOULD NOT appear at the top of the list along with other previous breedings. 

 

Edited February 22, 2020 by Alwerien

[angelicdragonpuppy]

I’d love some sort of way to organize or restrict mates. I have a lot of matched checkers who only ever breed with one other dragon; being able to deselect everything else would make most of my requests breed much faster. It would also let me get rid of past “oopsie” breedings, which with the current mechanics I often unwittingly pick assuming it’s a fitting mate only to make yet another oopsie.

[Confused Cat]

I would love to be able to remove "accidental mates" from the top of the list.

 

And also sort of the opposite, for holiday x holiday pairs. Since they can only breed during the holidays, and that doesn't do the "first breeding compatibility check" anymore, they are never placed among the previous mates. I would like a way to put a holiday dragon's holiday mate at the top so I don't have to go through their offspring pages again every year to find out what the best mate was.

(This wouldn't really need a mate maintenance page though, it could also be automatic by making holiday x holiday breedings count as a non-refusal. I think they did count before the change regarding hidden refusals during holiday breedings.)

[stagazer_7]

I'm adding my full support and request for the implementation of any useful features (especially since "search" ability already exists for Fertility BSA, so I imagine implementing at least that one wouldn't be too difficult). It would make breeding a LOT easier for mobile users as the breeding site in its current state is laggy and super clunky to navigate if you have a large number of dragons to choose from. 

Edited February 25, 2020 by stagazer_7

[Ruffledfeathers]

Thinking about it, removing mates from the page and linking mates would be amazing as has been suggested.
 

If you could just click breed and the dragon you want automatically breeds to it, wrong mates wouldnt be an issue in cases where specific dragons have specific mates. 
 

It would be nice to be able to sort by groups too I think; I have a CB group who mostly have tags- even with tags I misclick sometimes! But itd be nice to remove non-CBs, for example. 
 

[Fuzzbucket]

How could that possibly work ? How often are you going to want to breed one dragon to the SAME mate ? (Am I missing something ?)

[Ruffledfeathers]

If its a specific lineage, like this one for example:

 

https://dragcave.net/lineage/ZhDSP

 

I pretty much exclusively breed this pair to each other now  stuff like that is what I refer to. 
 

I know some dragons the mates change tho, so having the link could be an optional thing. 

[Fuzzbucket]

But then the two of them are at the top of each other's list anyway - my inbred lines all are !

[Ruffledfeathers]

Yeah, its just some pairs have wrong mates at the top, and I was thinking it could be a way around the lagyness of loading the page. That was the thought behind the idea