Seasonal BSA: Sightseeing (out of season Seasonals)

[angelicdragonpuppy]

I've been rushing to collect all the Autumn lines I need before Autumn ends, and that got me to thinking how useful a BSA for out-of-season Seasonals would be. At the same time I want to keep the main feature of Seasonals--their seasonality!--intact, so I suggest making it a very much fallible BSA with a high cooldown:

 

Name: Sightseeing

Effect: Gives a Seasonal dragon a chance to breed an out-of-season Seasonal egg.

Text:

- Increases the chance that this dragon will produce an out-of-season Seasonal egg upon its next successful breeding.

> When clicked, you are asked "Would you like this dragon to travel to a climate that is currently in its Spring, Summer, Autumn, or Winter season?" (you choose from a drop down and confirm. You can choose the current season, but it obviously does nothing!)

- [Name] travels to a location lush with spring / sweltering with summer / vibrant with autumn / frigid with winter. During its next successful breeding, there is a chance that any Seasonal egg produced will match the season of the area it's visiting.

Mechanics: IF the dragon's next breeding produces a Seasonal egg, said egg has a 90% chance to be of the season chosen to travel to.

Cooldown: 30 days

 

So with the cooldown, you can at most try for 9 out of season Seasonals every year--and those eggs are entirely dependent on IF the dragon breeds at all, IF it breeds a Seasonal egg when it does, and IF the 90% odds are in your favor. So it does give people the chance to continue different Seasonal lines all year long, but there's still a huge incentive to do the bulk of your breeding during the appropriate season. And, of course, as far as CBs go you're out of luck.  

Edited November 20, 2018 by angelicdragonpuppy

[olympe]

Yes, there are a long cooldown and the chance of failure - but I'm still not too fond of doing away with what makes seasonals seasonals. I guess that makes me neutral?

[Ruby Eyes]

I'd make the cooldown 30 days, to match Bite and Corporealize.

[Guillotine]

I'm fine with this; if the cooldown were shorter I might suggest a higher failure chance, but with about a month of cooldown and a fair chance that no Seasonal is produced it seems fair.
 

[HeatherMarie]

My knee-jerk reaction is 'but this defeats the entire purpose of having season-based dragons!' ....But I'm not actually opposed to it. I like the reasoning of going to a different climate to breed, and the long cooldown + fail chance and odds of not producing a Seasonal at all make it seem more acceptable and less like totally doing away with the seasonal mechanics.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

@Ruby Eyes whoops, I thought their cool down WAS 31 days and based it on that, haha! Fixed it.

 

@ Everyone else: I do like the way Seasonals work--it's unique and definitely makes you pay attention--but sometimes things get overlooked, or you get a cool lineage right at the end of the season and dragons don't cooperate to make a mate for it, or you pick up a fantastic Valentine x Fall line and have to wait 6+ months to breed anything from it, etc etc. There are a lot of situations where it's possible to end up waiting 9 months for a certain season no matter how much you thought you were on top of things. I thought this would be a nice compromise--you still have a MASSIVE incentive to focus on projects in-season (and it's the only time you can get CBs to begin with), but it also gives you a slim chance of being able to do stuff the rest of the year if you're devoted to it.

 

[Shokomon]

Maybe you can have the effects of the travel last for a couple days to a week (like how coporealization lasts for a week) to give people time to breed the Season in case they forget or something distracts them.

 

I like this idea so far though! 

 

I feel like the wording for the travel portion is kinda weird though. Like usually people think of places and weather when they travel, rather than seasons. So maybe you could use places of certain weather/climate patterns or seasonal events instead when picking a season.

 

Maybe something like this:

Quote

"Your dragon, [insert name here], decides to travel..."

1) to that ice scuplting contest held in the dead of winter. (Winter)

2) to the balmy tropics for the beach! (Summer)

3) to that famous cherry blossom festival when all the trees are in bloom. (Spring)

4) to that autumn harvest countries over for some apples and pumpkins! (Fall)

 

[You pick from these options.]

Or something like this?

 

Though if Valkemare functions anything like Earth, then seasons are determined by the tilt of the planet will be something like this:

- The tropics on the equator always relatively summer like weather (yhough being either really dry or really wet.)

- The polar areas are always cold, but one side will be locked in all daytime for the 6 months while the is locked in darkness for the said time.

- And for all the zones in between the tropics and poles, the northern hemisphere regions are always the opposite season compared to the southern regions. (Ex: It's Fall now in the US, so it's Spring in Australia.)

 

So, you could say something like:

Quote

"Your dragon, [insert name here], decides to travel..."

1) to literally the other side of the world to get away from everything. (Opposite season from the current one)

2) to the tropics for some rays. (Summer)

3) to the pole to see the aurora. (Winter)

 

Not as many options though. Mostly 'cause I can't think of a good one.

 

I hope this helps though!

 

[angelicdragonpuppy]

@Shokomon but would a Seasonal dragons first priority not be... seasons?  

Jokes aside I don’t think TJ takes text from suggestions like this verbatim, so I’m not gonna fuss too much over the current wording.

 

And I imagine the BSA lasts until the next breeding, like fertility. So if you end up never breeding the dragon after all, it enjoys a permanent vacation! Oh the joys of being a carefree dragon... 

[Keileon]

Support. Would be more a time-saver than any real advantage; especially if, say, you wanted to do a Winter x Halloween checker and had to rush to get the mates you want during October.

[Fuzzbucket]

Actually - as one who lived through the year there were almost NO WINTERS AT ALL, I still can't entirely support this one. Seasons are seasons. With dragons attached

 

Then I think - I was just on vacation in Australia... where it was spring. Maybe with a scroll limit as well as a long CD. Like "Wintry  dragon cannot travel, as your dragons have travelled 4 times already this season" - to match the DC season change dates.

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

Hmm I’m really siding with Fuzz on this one. The whole point of Seasonals is that you only get them at one point in the year, and doing away with that really feels like defeating the purpose. Personally I’m not supporting this as of yet, because I don’t think that this BSA justifies nulling the unique feature of a species ^^;

[Fuzzbucket]

Would you perhaps feel differently if you lived in the Antipodes and were currently getting fall eggs while the daffodils come up in your yard ?

 

I do sometimes feel for Australian players  on this one !

[Ruby Eyes]

Eh, you are already roleplaying being a dragon collector, you might as well roleplay being a dragon collector in a different climate

[purplehaze]

I'm not totally against this suggestion, but it sort of feels like cheating in seasonal lineages like this one. On the other hand it could be a lifesaver for such lineages if you somehow were unable to breed the next step in its proper season.

[Ruby Eyes]

Oh for sure it would be! I've forgotten for years now to get that Spring from Sweetling - by the time I remember, Spring is *just* over.

[purplehaze]

Ditto for my Arsani x Spring!

[Shokomon]

12 hours ago, angelicdragonpuppy said:

@Shokomon but would a Seasonal dragons first priority not be... seasons?  

Jokes aside I don’t think TJ takes text from suggestions like this verbatim, so I’m not gonna fuss too much over the current wording.

 

And I imagine the BSA lasts until the next breeding, like fertility. So if you end up never breeding the dragon after all, it enjoys a permanent vacation! Oh the joys of being a carefree dragon... 

*ba da pish* lol

That's fine then.

 

So, like the dragon is on vacation the entire time and then comes back to breed? But, how would you call it back to breed? 

 

 Maybe it could be like everything, but "Sightseeing" on the action page would be grayed out because the dragon is literally not there for you to do anything to it.

 

And then, you could go to the sightseeing bsa page, and get a prompt like this:

"Call your dragon back from sightseeing?

Yes/No

Cofirm yes?"

 

Or something like that and then breed it?

 

Because, it doesn't makes sense for the effects to linger so long once the dragon returns home. It's like the Seasonal version of jetlag. Maybe it lasts a couple of days after the person returns home, but you shift back eventually.

 

Seasons are light based after all, determined by how much light from the Sun hits the planet and when. 

 

So, I feel like a time limit makes more sense even if annoying to deal with. Because you can't breed a dragon if it's not present.

 

Another way around this is adding an additional prompt to all the actions if "sightseeing" is active. Like maybe you click "Breed" and get:

[Insert Dragon Name]/Your dragon is out sightseeing. Call the dragon back home? 

Yes/No

Confirm yes.

 

And then you go back to the breed page? Or whatever other page?

 

You'd still need a time limit if you bring it back on your own though.

 

[Ruby Eyes]

Just now, Shokomon said:

So, like the dragon is on vacation the entire time and then comes back to breed? But, how would you call it back to breed? 

It could just return with its egg!

[Fuzzbucket]

Yeah. Holiday Romance

[RealWilliamShakespeare]

Yeah, the “taking a trip” logic doesn’t really sit right with me, considering it’d have to somehow bring the egg back, and it’d be gone for a long time to have to get to a different part of the globe and back again. I know this is probably one of those “it’s game logic, ignore it!” situations but I’m not sure I can

[Ruby Eyes]

There's teleportation magic ...

[angelicdragonpuppy]

I don’t think we need to worry too much about specifics. TJ rarely inputs things exactly as suggested (see: trader’s canyon versus the market). Maybe you have to pick another dragon to go on a week long “trip” with them and they have a chance to bring an egg back, maybe the effect lasts a week for normal breeding, maybe... who knows, something like that.

 

The bigger question is if something like this is wanted.  

TJ can hash out the details later, as long as the general idea is sound and wanted by users.

[Fuzzbucket]

I am rather into NOT pulling the magic card here. IF this were to happen, why shouldn't the dragon fly back with its egg in ins paws ?

 

If this has to resort to magic, I lose interest

[Ruby Eyes]

That's no darn card to pull, that's what we ARE USING already day in, day out. So if we're worried about getting the parents and their egg back and forth in a timely manner, just let it cost a Magi charge.

[angelicdragonpuppy]

I say don’t fuss the details. How do vampires bite eggs without puncturing them so they drain out dry? How do purples do anything with fertility whatsoever? Compared to half of what we have in the cave, dragons that lay different eggs based on climate going to different climates to lay different eggs is pleasantly logical. The hows and whys of the wording and specific mechanics are easy enough to figure out later, and I imagine TJ will implement them in his own way regardless of what we do figure out. So what we need to do is—

 

Confirm this is actually WANTED first. 

 

People here have a tendency to get stalled up on small details, I think.

Edited November 20, 2018 by angelicdragonpuppy