New BSA - Adoption / Foster

[saarkin]

I'd love to be able to keep multiple eggs when I breed certain pairs.  Whenever I have one that I would have kept both right now the only options is to see if the new owner will trade it back.  I think the idea of a new BSA called Adoption would be a really handy way to let you keep a second egg if you produce twins. It could and should have limits imposed. 

 

What limits I'm not sure.  Maybe only one egg ever or a longer cool down similar to other BSA of 28 days. 

 

Or maybe it should be called Foster so as not to have to mix up lineage.

 

Thoughts?

Edited October 4, 2018 by saarkin

[Pilauli]

I don't have all that much to say, but you did ask for thoughts.  I have a bad habit of pontificating.  Uh, I prefer foster over adopt.

 

I think part of the motivation behind only letting you pick one egg is to make sure there are some for everybody else.  I suppose that's why you mentioned limits.

 

What if each of these BSA dragons can have one fosterling growing on your scroll at once, and only one egg from a batch can be fostered?  That would mean something like this:

Breed, oh, a gold/celestial pair.  Get three eggs.  Pick out one nice one, and also use whatever interface to designate a foster parent for another of them, but you've got no way to keep all three eggs.

Now, if you trade away the egg you fostered out, you can have that dragon foster a different egg, or if it grows up.

 

I suppose the problem with that is, what happens if you trade one fostered egg temporarily away, assign a new egg to that foster parent, and then have whoever you sent the first egg to send it back.  If teleporting cleared fostering, it would be ruthlessly exploited.

 

I suppose they could keep fostering data, and when you try to trade, it only lets you obtain a fostered dragon if its foster parent isn't currently occupied on your scroll or if you trade away the parents current fosterling.  For a different, possible more lore-friendly solution, what if you couldn't trade or abandon them?  Something like "[Foster Parent] wraps its wings around [Baby Dragon] protectively, refusing to let go.  You don't have the heart to abandon it."

Edited October 5, 2018 by Pilauli

[saarkin]

Wonderful thoughts.  Thanks for replying.  Yes I would not want to have this exploited.  Once a parent fosters then I think it should be nice and simple. It starts the clock on a nice long cool down so you can't foster another until it is over.  Maybe even have it so you can only foster 2 eggs at a time no matter how many foster parents are available.  I love the Foster parent verbage you typed up and the idea of having the egg locked to your scroll.

Edited October 5, 2018 by saarkin

[HeatherMarie]

Keeping more then one egg from a multi-clutch has been suggested multiple times in the past. A lot of people have said that it defeats the purpose of a multi-clutch, which has always seemed to be the idea of spreading around the resulting eggs. The thing is, there are only two actual situations in which we can even get a multi-clutch anymore: Celestials, and holidays. Long ago there used to be a chance of getting multiple eggs from any and all breedings (and we've always only been able to keep one), but now it's not really a 'thing' anymore. Celestials are the only normal dragon that can multi-clutch, and I really don't see a huge reason to change the way things have always worked just for that one specific dragon. (I certainly do not support anything like this for holidays, since holiday breeding is so very very limited anyways and decreasing the amount of holidays sent to the AP is not a good idea.)

 

Here is one of the older threads, where TJ actually replied, and mentioned that keeping extra eggs would probably include some sort of 'tradeoff' (which many of us were not too keen on). 

 

[saarkin]

HeatherMarie,  I appreciate the info.  I did key word searches to look for similar topics and didn't find anything probably because I didn't think to use the word clutch. 

 

I think this might be up for consideration still since I believe a BSA is very different than a whole game mechanic change and could solve the Lineage Building issue while not allowing people to hog every egg they ever make.   it would definitely have the trade off TJ mentioned built in to the limits while not affecting the game as a whole.  I agree that Holiday or Event dragons should be excluded from this idea if it were to get past the initial stage of discussion.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

If this wouldn’t apply to holidays (and I’m adamantly against it applying to holidays), the only breed it would apply to is Celestials. I don’t think it makes sense to add a mechanic that exists only to negate the whole point of the Celestial’s breeding mechanic.

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

Ahhh lol, I remember my multi-clutch thread. To be honest, I do still support being able to keep two eggs as opposed to just one. If you produce a 3 or 4 egg multiclutch, that’s at least one or two eggs still headed to the AP. Still sharing the love undeniably!

 

Fostering would be an interesting way to do it, but I’m unsure of how it would work. Perhaps you have to use the Foster BSA like Fertility - you activate it and then when you next breed a Celestial you get text saying “[Dragon] takes an interest in one of the discarded eggs. Which egg has caught its attention?” and then you click a second one. 

 

I think making it so that this BSA isn’t too... Overpowered, as it were, would be necessary seeing as it’s a change to a mechanic. I suggest only one dragon breed is able to Foster - the Pillows could be a good choice as it’s mentioned that they look after other dragons. Downsides could include:

- Significant fail rate, either when taking the egg, and maybe even when activating the BSA. “[Dragon] attempts to foster the egg, but the parents snap at it, and the egg rolls to the Abandoned Pile.” / “You ask [Dragon] if it would like to foster an egg, but it rolls away from you, disinterested.”

- Obviously does not apply to Holidays, as many people have voiced against

- Only one fostered egg on a scroll at once

- Long cooldown, perhaps four weeks like the Celestials

- Some other sort of trade-off like TJ mentioned

 

I would really like to be to be able to keep an extra egg, but given the downsides everyone states, a number of downsides might make a fair compensation.

 

I’ll mention that I don’t support the egg being added to the foster parent’s lineage.

 

Having a BSA for just one dragon mechanic has been brought up a couple of times here, so I’ll just point out that it has been done before, with Expunge.

[Ruby Eyes]

49 minutes ago, RealWilliamShakespeare said:

“You ask [Dragon] if it would like to foster an egg, but it rolls away from you, disinterested.”

Does the egg or the dragon roll away from you?

 

50 minutes ago, RealWilliamShakespeare said:

- Long cooldown, perhaps four weeks like the Celestials

Since it would probably only apply to Celestials, that isn't really a trade-off, is it? I think it should be twice as long, kind of like Fertility has a two-week cooldown when breeding only has one week.

 

I'm not saying I support this, but I wouldn't really mind. Just pointing out tiny flaws because my brain is in error-searching mode right now

 

1 hour ago, RealWilliamShakespeare said:

Having a BSA for just one dragon mechanic has been brought up a couple of times here, so I’ll just point out that it has been done before, with Expunge.

That, plus you never know if there won't be more multi-clutch non-holiday breeds in the future.

[Fuzzbucket]

10 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

Keeping more then one egg from a multi-clutch has been suggested multiple times in the past. A lot of people have said that it defeats the purpose of a multi-clutch, which has always seemed to be the idea of spreading around the resulting eggs. The thing is, there are only two actual situations in which we can even get a multi-clutch anymore: Celestials, and holidays. Long ago there used to be a chance of getting multiple eggs from any and all breedings (and we've always only been able to keep one), but now it's not really a 'thing' anymore. Celestials are the only normal dragon that can multi-clutch, and I really don't see a huge reason to change the way things have always worked just for that one specific dragon. (I certainly do not support anything like this for holidays, since holiday breeding is so very very limited anyways and decreasing the amount of holidays sent to the AP is not a good idea.)

 

Here is one of the older threads, where TJ actually replied, and mentioned that keeping extra eggs would probably include some sort of 'tradeoff' (which many of us were not too keen on). 

 

 

I can,'t see a good reason for this, and much prefer the spreading the joy side. I absolutely would not support it for holidays.

7 hours ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

If this wouldn’t apply to holidays (and I’m adamantly against it applying to holidays), the only breed it would apply to is Celestials. I don’t think it makes sense to add a mechanic that exists only to negate the whole point of the Celestial’s breeding mechanic.

 

There could be future multi-clutchers. But honest!y, why not just gef another egg from the same pair later?

[osean]

I do not support as multi clutches are really not a thing anymore other then holidays and celestials. Also, Tj has said that there would be consequences to allowing it a long time ago. It seems like much risk for such little reward especially since you could breed the pair again to get the egg you want at a later date.  

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

1 hour ago, Ruby Eyes said:

Does the egg or the dragon roll away from you?

 

Since it would probably only apply to Celestials, that isn't really a trade-off, is it? I think it should be twice as long, kind of like Fertility has a two-week cooldown when breeding only has one week.

 

Lol, the dragon rolls away. That was an example of a message that pops up when you attempt to use Foster on the [Pillow] Dragon. You ask it if it wants to foster an egg, but it rolls away. Because I picture Pillows always lying down x)

 

Whatever the cooldown time, it should be long. Maybe even 8 weeks if you’re suggesting it should be twice as long as the Celestial cooldown. That’s fine by me if it means we get this suggestion lol. I think a trade-off brought up by TJ’s suggestion was that the Celestial’s breeding partner shared its 4 week cooldown, which I’d be fine with too.

 

And like I mentioned above, @Fuzzbucket, in 3 and 4 egg multiclutches, you’re still giving away at least 1 or 2 eggs!

Edited October 5, 2018 by RealWilliamShakespeare

[Ruby Eyes]

And if the breeding results in only 1 egg or none, you've wasted the BSA, just like Purples go on cooldown no matter the result of the breeding.

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

34 minutes ago, Ruby Eyes said:

And if the breeding results in only 1 egg or none, you've wasted the BSA, just like Purples go on cooldown no matter the result of the breeding.

 

I’m unsure as to whether you’re saying this as a good or bad thing.

 

Plenty of BSAs can be “wasted” - Fertility as mentioned, Vamps can kill or AP toss instead of turn, Earthquake can kill everything, we’re still of the impression that Influence has a fail rate, Summon fails. If the breeding produces one egg or none, oh well, it fails. But so can most BSAs.

[Ruby Eyes]

Just saying that being (or rather, attempting to be) slightly less generous than usual (by sending one egg less to the AP) still makes you spend that BSA, no matter if you actually get something or not.

That's not good nor bad, it's just how it should be.

[HeatherMarie]

12 hours ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

If this wouldn’t apply to holidays (and I’m adamantly against it applying to holidays), the only breed it would apply to is Celestials. I don’t think it makes sense to add a mechanic that exists only to negate the whole point of the Celestial’s breeding mechanic.

 

This is basically how I feel. Celestials are special for their breeding mechanic, it's a big part of what Celestials *are*, and I just think it seems weird and counter-productive to have a special-mechanic dragon and then introduce a BSA that takes the special-mechanic-ness away. Expunge is different, since it's basically just replacing a normal action by allowing us to get a dragon off our scrolls that can't be 'released' the way others can. Every other dragon we can get off our scrolls by releasing, and that's all Expunge is actually doing; This, in contrast, would be something that has never been allowed before and something that basically nullifies the special-mechanic of the Celestials. (And sure, IF the clutch had 3-4 eggs there would still be at least one going to the AP, but that's a big if and not something that should ever be counted on.)

[UnicornMaiden]

If this were to be implemented I think Guardian Dragons would be a perfect breed to have the ability. Their description says, "they will guard the eggs and hatchlings of a nest while others are away."