Streamline AP hunting

[blah]

I rarely hunt in the AP and it's not because I dislike the eggs there but because it is such a hassle.

 

1. you click the egg, it takes you to its get-code-page - for which you have no use right now

2. you click the egg again, it takes you to its view page - which you're not interested in right now either

3. you click the lineage link - and finally get to the page you actually wanted to see

 

If you want to keep the egg that's fine now, with two clicks you're back in the AP. But if you don't want to keep it, it gets annoying again now.

 

1. you hit the back button

2. you hit the Actions button

3. you hit the Abandon button

4. you click the bit where you type in your password

5. you type in your password

6. you confirm it

7. you confirm it again

8. you hit the Back to dragons button - which is probably not where you want to go since you abandoned the egg and are likely to continue AP hunting

9. You click the Cave button

10. You click the AP button

 

All of that just to have a quick look at the lineage of an egg. I'm not dead set on how or where to streamline the process, maybe we can discuss that here, but right now it seems excessive to me. I don't know about these things but I assume more clicks and therefore more ads that are displayed are an advantage for TJ, but I'd argue that the clumsiness of AP hunting tends to put people off altogether (it does me); but even if it doesn't people have still got the same amount of time to spend on DC and will accordingly generate the same amount of clicks, just doing different things.

[Stromboli]

Half of those steps are just the process of abandoning any egg, regardless of where you got it from. 

 

The only thing I can think of that would cut down on navigations to reach the AP would be to include a link to the AP in the top nav, but y'know, that only cuts like one step out of the process.

Or maybe making the actions a dropdown on the dragon page, but again, that only removes maybe one navigation from the list. It sounds like most of your problem is with abandoning validation.

[Fuzzbucket]

Why do you have to confirm your password more than once ?

 

But I would like a direct link to the AP along with those to the biomes. But when I want an AP egg I right click > open in new tab which - leaves the page open. NOTHING puts me off it.

 

You can cut a few steps by disabling javascript, though.

[Fiona]

You eliminate a couple key presses by using Fuzz's method or by holding ctrl when you click to get an egg, which also opens it in a new tab. You never have to reopen the ap page because you never leave it.

 

Unless you're  hunting on a phone.

[olympe]

18 minutes ago, Fiona said:

You eliminate a couple key presses by using Fuzz's method or by holding ctrl when you click to get an egg, which also opens it in a new tab. You never have to reopen the ap page because you never leave it.

 

Unless you're  hunting on a phone.

Which quite a few people actually do these days.

 

I certainly like the idea of going straight to the lineage page instead of the get/code/supersecretcode page, as the former is much more useful to me. If you don't want to view the lineage, just close the tab and you're done. (Yes, I use the same method as fuzzbucket. On a phone, hit the back button to go back to the AP.) But I'd also like to see a little change to the lineage page when you get there straight from the AP: A direct link to the egg's actions page and another one back to the AP. (Would this work with referrals?)

 

And a big yes to not have to type in your password, confirm your password, confirm that you really want to perform the chosen action... It gets so annoying, especially if you go on an AP hunting spree. *sigh* Can't we have a feature where we use our password once, and don't get asked for it again for a full hour?

[HeatherMarie]

5 hours ago, olympe said:

And a big yes to not have to type in your password, confirm your password, confirm that you really want to perform the chosen action... It gets so annoying, especially if you go on an AP hunting spree. *sigh* Can't we have a feature where we use our password once, and don't get asked for it again for a full hour?

 

(bolded for emphasis) I'm usually very wary of any type of change to password confirmations, it's almost a guarantee that people will complain about the sudden/unexpected/unknown change when they inevitably screw up. But having an optional account setting to not ask again for a certain amount of time sounds like a pretty good compromise. 

 

I've been using my phone for DC more and more, now that I actually can, and I would *love* some sort of direct link to the AP in the menu. Actually I'd love an AP link for regular computer browsing as well, I think it'd be great to have an AP link up at the top where the Cave link is.

 

I also agree that being sent directly to the 'get code' page when picking up an egg is not very useful, it was (kind of?) understandable back before hatcheries were such a big thing, back when most of us used forums or livejournal or whatever to grow our dragons. Those codes were needed then. They aren't needed now, you don't need them to use hatcheries. It's good to *have* that page if you want those codes, but I don't think getting sent there automatically is helpful anymore.

[blah]

On 10/3/2019 at 5:56 PM, Fuzzbucket said:

Why do you have to confirm your password more than once ?

I hit enter and then have to confirm the pop-up that asks me if I really want to do that, too.

 

I know workarounds like disabling javascript but I feel that it shouldn't be my responsibility to know them.

 

Thinking more about this over the past couple of days, I would love if clicking an egg took us to its lineage page directly. If you miss the egg you would get the normal message you get now. In an ideal world, there would be a "keep" and a "discard" button at the top, the latter one taking you back to the AP (though I'm not sure where the "keep" button should take you?). But I would certainly be very happy with only being taken to the lineage page directly.

 

The whole password business - I get why people are reluctant and I get why people might forget. But maybe we could switch on an "AP hunting mode" or something where we explicitly disable that? With a little pop-up that reminds us what that entails?

[purplehaze]

4 hours ago, blah said:

Thinking more about this over the past couple of days, I would love if clicking an egg took us to its lineage page directly. If you miss the egg you would get the normal message you get now. In an ideal world, there would be a "keep" and a "discard" button at the top, the latter one taking you back to the AP (though I'm not sure where the "keep" button should take you?).

I actually like this idea very much. No password needed to discard. In most cases I would like the "keep" to take me back to my scroll, but other times I would like to go back to the AP to keep hunting. Either would be an improvement.

[Fuzzbucket]

5 hours ago, blah said:

I hit enter and then have to confirm the pop-up that asks me if I really want to do that, too.

 

But the popoup doesn't require anything more than a click - no password.

[olympe]

3 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

But the popoup doesn't require anything more than a click - no password.

It's still annoying as heck.

[blah]

20 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

But the popoup doesn't require anything more than a click - no password.

Well, yes? I did say confirming it twice, not entering it twice? And counting clicks/steps was the point of my first post? I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying, maybe confirming doesn't mean what I thought it means.

 

Reading the other responses again and only really registering this now: yes, I'd love an AP link at the top!

[Fuzzbucket]

I thought you meant you had to confirm - as in put in - your password again. No prob.

 

Though I have to say - taking that pop-up out for anything other than AP hunting would mean a LOT more errors - you've only to look at help threads "I abandoned/killed the wrong dragon; how can I get it back ?" "I influenced/incubated/stunned the wr....." and  the like. And those are WITH the pop-up...

[olympe]

On 10/6/2019 at 4:33 PM, Fuzzbucket said:

I thought you meant you had to confirm - as in put in - your password again. No prob.

 

Though I have to say - taking that pop-up out for anything other than AP hunting would mean a LOT more errors - you've only to look at help threads "I abandoned/killed the wrong dragon; how can I get it back ?" "I influenced/incubated/stunned the wr....." and  the like. And those are WITH the pop-up...

I don't think that the pop-up really helps with that, as we're all pretty much conditioned to simply click on it to go ahead using mere muscle memory. No higher brain function (like reading/understanding) involved. In other words: It's superfluous, so why not get rid of it altogether? If people don't bother to read what the original action they want to perform is, and don't read the flavor text asking them if they're sure they want to perform x action, what makes you think they'll read what's in the pop-up?

 

And, yes, there'll always be people who make mistakes - like performing any action, breed-specific or not, on the wrong egg. Or using Earthquake with fatal results. Or like breeding important stuff while locked. We're all human, we all make mistakes. If we refuse to be more careful, we have to live with the consequences of our actions.

[blah]

I agree with Olympe. I remember plenty of mistakes I've made but I don't remember a single time the pop-up stopped me from making one.

[Aniia]

I like having the password there - it helps me double check what I'm doing, otherwise I would have accidentally abandoned a lot of eggs I meant to keep! It's my safeguard against misclicking, and I would slightly lose my mind if it wasn't required. If the password mechanism changes, it should be optional and highly publicized to prevent confusion and misclick angst.

 

The idea of clicking on an egg in the AP and then going directly to the lineage page is interesting, though :)

[olympe]

1 hour ago, Twimm said:

I like having the password there - it helps me double check what I'm doing, otherwise I would have accidentally abandoned a lot of eggs I meant to keep! It's my safeguard against misclicking, and I would slightly lose my mind if it wasn't required. If the password mechanism changes, it should be optional and highly publicized to prevent confusion and misclick angst.

 

The idea of clicking on an egg in the AP and then going directly to the lineage page is interesting, though

Well, starting this Halloween where I expect to catch a lot of the same breed(s) of eggs, I'll probably keep my eggs safe by putting them in (non-public two-way) teleports... Should raise all the right flags if I have to cancel a teleport in order to abandon.  

 

I agree with you that password protection shouldn't just be taken down, but do we really need that extra step where we need to re-confirm our decision in a pop-up? And I'd really like to be able to opt out of password protection for limited amounts of time (1 hour?) when I hunt the AP intensely. Alternately, I'd be quite happy to be able to abandon eggs I've had for less than 5 minutes without password verification.

 

[Aniia]

It took me a few minutes to figure out what the pop-up is that everyone's talking about. I'm so used to it! I don't mind the pop-up, but for players on mobile I can see how it would slow things down. Maybe it can be part of the optional settings...

[tjekan]

I wish password protection could be optional. I'm in my 40's, I don't have a roommate or sibling trying to mess with my dragon adoptables account.   But I do find it extremely frustrating to have to keep typing my password when I'm on the phone. My fingers slip and I hit the wrong key a lot. For me, it's an unpleasant waste of time to keep having to do every time I want to take any action. I wouldn't want to just do away with it because some people do share a computer with a vengeful tween sister or something like that, but making it optional would save me personally a world of hassle.

 

I think what would really be great would be if whenever you picked up an egg from the AP, not only did it take you straight to its lineage page, but gave you option buttons right there to keep or drop it. At the holidays, in particular, people like to drop cool lineages to the AP and it's fun to look through them for something interesting but when I'm on my phone I don't even bother. It takes forever to pick each egg up, look at it, and then either drop it or influence it.

 

Being able to mouse over AP eggs and see their lineage before clicking would also be really nice, though that wouldn't work on my phone either.

[olympe]

15 hours ago, tjekan said:

But I do find it extremely frustrating to have to keep typing my password when I'm on the phone. My fingers slip and I hit the wrong key a lot. For me, it's an unpleasant waste of time to keep having to do every time I want to take any action.

It's your age that's at fault. I'm closing in on 40 and have the very same issues with my fingers and my phone.  

[tjekan]

I don't mind when my fumble fingers cause me to miss an egg, that's the challenge of the game-- but having to correctly type my password into the little box every 10 seconds is both frustrating and completely pointless. 🙂

Edited October 10, 2019 by tjekan

[Fuzzbucket]

I'm 75 and I don't  

[tjekan]

Does your 70 year old sister use your computer and mess with your Dragon Cave account, though? I mean I may be overgeneralizing, but that seems like pretty much a teen/tween kind of problem. 😉 Once I use my password once to log onto DC, I'm the only one who has access to it, so I really never need to enter it again. For me, it's a pointless time-waster... especially if I'm on my phone and/or want to influence and incubate 8 eggs or something like that.

 

That's why I'd love for password protection on individual actions to be a settings option. If it's useful to other people then great, but it's useless and unpleasant for me, so I wish I could turn it off!

[Pilauli]

What I would want, if I could only have something theoretically simple and easy to code, would be two extra links on the "you got the egg" page:

 

-Link to lineage

-Link to "abandon" action

 

If I could have more, I'd like a (potentially shrunken) form of the lineage and a reminder of how long the egg has left and (if it's a hatchy) what gender it is.  On the "you got the egg" page.  And either a link to the "abandon" action or tjekan's

18 hours ago, tjekan said:

option buttons right there to keep or drop it

(Or just a button to "discard" down under the lineage/other stats, with it assumed that if you want to keep it, you just close the tab.)  I'd definitely prefer to avoid any sort of "are you sure you want to grab this egg" type popups or routing through a lineage page before you can even grab the egg, though.

 

But for me, the optimum ratio of benefit to probable work to implement is just the3 two extra links on the "you got the egg" page.

[Fuzzbucket]

32 minutes ago, tjekan said:

Does your 70 year old sister use your computer and mess with your Dragon Cave account, though? I mean I may be overgeneralizing, but that seems like pretty much a teen/tween kind of problem. 😉 Once I use my password once to log onto DC, I'm the only one who has access to it, so I really never need to enter it again. For me, it's a pointless time-waster... especially if I'm on my phone and/or want to influence and incubate 8 eggs or something like that.

 

That's why I'd love for password protection on individual actions to be a settings option. If it's useful to other people then great, but it's useless and unpleasant for me, so I wish I could turn it off!

 

Hell no - my sisters are younger than me !

 

No, but on occasion I have almost forgotten what I was going to breed/influence etc - and the pop-up has saved me. In terms of AP hunting - I do get that it would save effort - I'd much rather see the "got it" page go to the lineage - I'd find that much more useful and gratifying than saving a few seconds.

[pegasi1978]

38 minutes ago, tjekan said:

Does your 70 year old sister use your computer and mess with your Dragon Cave account, though? I mean I may be overgeneralizing, but that seems like pretty much a teen/tween kind of problem. 😉 Once I use my password once to log onto DC, I'm the only one who has access to it, so I really never need to enter it again. For me, it's a pointless time-waster... especially if I'm on my phone and/or want to influence and incubate 8 eggs or something like that.

 

That's why I'd love for password protection on individual actions to be a settings option. If it's useful to other people then great, but it's useless and unpleasant for me, so I wish I could turn it off!

Since you don't have to worry about anyone else around you getting onto your DC account you can always have your internet browser store your username and password. I do that with mine and all I have to do is click on the password box and it auto-populates the password for me. No typing needed.