Explain about Breeds with Limited Availability

[UnicornMaiden]

There are a number of breeds/variants which are only available under certain circumstances. Holidays and Seasonals are only available at certain times of the year. Different colored Lunar Heralds are only available at certain times of the lunar cycle. Sunrise/Sunsets and Glory Drakes are only available at certain times of the day. And a number of dragons such as hybrid breeds, colored Stripes, and certain Alts are only available through breeding.

 

Anyone who has played the game for a while knows these, and anyone who is on the forums can ask if they're not sure. However, I can't find anywhere on the main site where it explains about this. I don't see anything in the Help section, and individual breeds' encyclopedia pages don't explain it. Newer players and those who don't frequent the forums/discord/wiki don't seem to have any way to find out about this.

 

I bring it up because while browsing through the Trading Hub I sometimes see trades requesting things like CB alt Blacks or Lunar Heralds of a certain color at a time when that color is not possible. Since we can't message through the Hub there is no way to explain to those users that what they are asking for is not possible, and they are probably confused and frustrated about why they can't get what they want.

 

I suggest there should be a page in the Help section which explains breed availability fully. There should also be a link to that page which is shown when setting up trades with a message telling to people to check there before saying what they want.

[Paradisiske]

This isn't in the encyclopedia? I think that's the first thing that should be fixed. Just a little blurb like this (bred only) next to the corresponding adult sprite. For lunar heralds something like (moon cycle this and that)?

Edited April 16, 2021 by CellyBean

[Jazeki]

I support this. I think I've seen a little blurb on the site about the seasonal/time changes, but my memory is fuzzy. I'd rather it be as clear as possible for users, since many seem to ask for things that are not available.

[HeatherMarie]

Yes. Support. Much support. 

 

I remember when the Hub was fairly new there was a suggestion to hide the out-of-season breeds in the dropdown filter as a way to show that they aren't actually available at this time. It does seem strange to me that you can filter for dragons that literally aren't available in any way at the time. But also, yes, having it mentioned in a breed's Encyclopedia would be great, just a simple 'breed-only' or 'limited holiday breed' or something would be enough. Things like Lunars are a bit more complicated, but that's all the more reason for it to be actually mentioned somewhere. 

[Ruby Eyes]

13 hours ago, Jazeki said:

I think I've seen a little blurb on the site about the seasonal/time changes, but my memory is fuzzy.

Help -> Time Reference

Doesn't tell you anything about which breeds are affected by those time changes, though.

Maybe time-limited breeds could have a link on their Encyclopedia page to the Time Reference page.

(You know, just like breed-only things would have that "breed-only" blurb on theirs.)

That would tell players at least what direction to go to when trying to figure out how to get them, without too many spoilers.

[DigitalGarden]

There are still people who ask for holiday breeds outside of their season, and because there's no messaging system on the site, there's no way to tell the poor soul that they need to wait... Any kind of guide would be nice to see.

[missy_]

Back when dear Sock was here, she would gently guide new users with questions—like me—to The Mentoring Project. I loved learning all the dragon lore, as there was so much to learn. I truly felt that I “graduated.” Even then, there was still so much mystery on the site and so much to be learned. (I haven’t seen a “glomp” posted in a long time. That thread looks dead. But I digress...)

 

I kind of like the mystery of some things on the site that people have to discover for themselves. And they can still get mentors, if they want to learn more.

 

Your point is taken. I understand why people would want certain things spelled out. But I am from an era of gaming where nothing was spelled out, where you had to figure out everything for yourself. There were no manuals for a game, no online notes or cheat sheets. You simply had to keep doing it until you got it right.  So I really don’t mind the game having some mystery, like a good throwback-style game should.

[Fuzzbucket]

People - mods and others - do send others to the mentors' thread - and people also sue the mentor link in sigs and make contact.

 

As to glomps - a glomp is usually done privately by PM. There's no point dropping one in a thread and it's a bit rude if it's aimed at a single individual (which for me is what glomps are all about.) For random gifts you can just drop things in the departures thread.

 

But yes - I don't mind not everything being immediately obvious.

[HeatherMarie]

I remember waaaay back when the forum itself was 'spoiler-free' and we weren't really allowed to even talk about what eggs became what adults. That was a long, long time ago though, and both DC and gaming sites in general have come a long way since then. 

 

Not everyone is on the forums. Not everyone *can* just come to the forums for information. Of course there is always going to be a learning curve, you figure out more about how the game works as time goes on, but especially with things like limited breeds it could be so much more helpful if there was actually information on-site. (What especially miffs me is the Hub drop-down listing holiday dragons year-around, that goes beyond 'no information' into downright misleading information....)

[Fuzzbucket]

59 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

I remember waaaay back when the forum itself was 'spoiler-free' and we weren't really allowed to even talk about what eggs became what adults. That was a long, long time ago though, and both DC and gaming sites in general have come a long way since then. 

 

Not everyone is on the forums. Not everyone *can* just come to the forums for information. Of course there is always going to be a learning curve, you figure out more about how the game works as time goes on, but especially with things like limited breeds it could be so much more helpful if there was actually information on-site. (What especially miffs me is the Hub drop-down listing holiday dragons year-around, that goes beyond 'no information' into downright misleading information....)

 

This I agree with - GoNs are also in there.

 

But anyone can go to the wiki. And before you say it - I found that LONG before I found the forum.

[dragongrrl]

A note about the Holidays and GoN being in the list year round: if someone is looking for a 2g from a Holiday or GoN , the filter will pull up any posted that way. The filter list is good as it is.

 

And yes, as frustrating as it is to use, I do still go to the Wiki for some breeding info. It would be nice to see some of that info in the Encyclopedia, but the learning curve is definitely a major part of the game. I still don't expect TJ to turn all my eggs to gold.

Edited April 24, 2021 by dragongrrl

[Tini]

2 hours ago, dragongrrl said:

A note about the Holidays and GoN being in the list year round: if someone is looking for a 2g from a Holiday or GoN , the filter will pull up any posted that way. The filter list is good as it is.

 

What are you talking about? It only filters the dragon actively in the trade. If you filter celestial it shows you any celestial egg/hatchies, not anything from a celestial. 

[Fuzzbucket]

It will show any trade box with the word celestial in it. Here's an example I just trawled for - offering a shimmer from celestial.

 

[Wymsical]

3 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

It will show any trade box with the word celestial in it. Here's an example I just trawled for - offering a shimmer from celestial.

 

That's only if you do a search in the wants filter. If you just use the breed dropdown, you will only be given results containing that breed. The dropdown option doesn't check for whatever is written in wants. I checked just now and this is indeed the behaviour, so I think that's what Tini meant.

[HeatherMarie]

3 hours ago, dragongrrl said:

A note about the Holidays and GoN being in the list year round: if someone is looking for a 2g from a Holiday or GoN , the filter will pull up any posted that way. The filter list is good as it is.

 

 

I believe we are talking about the drop-down, not the text box. The drop-down with the list of breeds to filter by *only* shows the actual breeds in the trade, not any parents/ancestors/etc. So the drop-down having holidays year-round is useless, it will not give any results the majority of the year and is rather confusing and misleading to have something listed that isn't actually available at all.

Edited April 24, 2021 by HeatherMarie

[Fuzzbucket]

Fair enough. But I wonder how easy it is to make the drop-down vary according to time of year. Certainly GoNs should be taken out of it - that's an all-the-time no-no.

 

[UnicornMaiden]

19 hours ago, missy_ said:

Back when dear Sock was here, she would gently guide new users with questions—like me—to The Mentoring Project. I loved learning all the dragon lore, as there was so much to learn. I truly felt that I “graduated.” Even then, there was still so much mystery on the site and so much to be learned. (I haven’t seen a “glomp” posted in a long time. That thread looks dead. But I digress...)

 

I kind of like the mystery of some things on the site that people have to discover for themselves. And they can still get mentors, if they want to learn more.

 

Your point is taken. I understand why people would want certain things spelled out. But I am from an era of gaming where nothing was spelled out, where you had to figure out everything for yourself. There were no manuals for a game, no online notes or cheat sheets. You simply had to keep doing it until you got it right.  So I really don’t mind the game having some mystery, like a good throwback-style game should.

 

As I said in the first post, many users are not on the forums, so the mentoring thread does them no good. I've been playing the game since 2008, but I only joined the forums a couple years ago, and that was only because I wanted to make a suggestion.

 

Back when nothing was spelled out there were maybe a dozen different breeds in the cave, and there were no limitations on getting them aside from rare breeds being difficult to catch. There weren't even different biomes. You could go into the cave and have a chance of finding any dragon at any time. The only exceptions were alt Blacks and Dark Greens being bred-only.

 

Now there are many limitations on certain breeds and variants being available at certain times or under certain circumstances, and with literally hundreds of breeds figuring out the particulars of each one through trial and error is way more time-consuming than is reasonable for most people.

 

I see a lot of trades with people asking for CB alt Blacks, CB colored Stripes, holiday breeds, et cetera. Trial-and-error play isn't going to help people learn that something isn't possible. They see the breeds exist, so they don't realize that the availability is limited . Letting new players figure things out as the go keeps a game interesting, but they should have all the basic information available to them.

[HeatherMarie]

@UnicornMaiden Makes a very good point. It was a lot simpler to figure things out back when there were only a few dozen breeds. Back when we had less than 50 breeds it wasn't a huge deal if one or two breeds had some mystery mechanic that wasn't spelled out on-site. It was a very small minority and we had a rather limited pool of breeds anyways. Things have changed significantly over the years. With 276 breeds now (wait, 278 with the newest release!) we are getting more and more breeds that require very specific information (like Cantors) or have specific limitations that aren't apparent unless you are active on the forums. Not just breed-only alts, but things like Siyats, and green Spinels, and Fire Gems... We have more and more breeds with 'secret' mechanics that aren't mentioned anywhere on-site and I can see that being very frustrating for newer users. Especially those that don't have the option to just come to the forums. 

 

(And yes, we have the wiki, but that is unofficial, not always up to date, and honestly we shouldn't have to rely on a user-kept site for such basic information about the game.)

[Tini]

You mentioned green Spinels and that made me remember my friend, who's been around for years, only happened upon the Spinel thing in the ap last year and was baffled (and excited). There are some things we end up taking for granted without realizing its not common knowledge. 

 

There's been a few help threads about alcdines, thinking the red and blue are a dimorphism thing rather than alts, as well.

[kitty41188123]

I would actually love something like this, I haven't played since 2013 (maybe a little after but either way, it's been quite a long time!) and with all the new dragons and other stuff added to the site I feel like I'm almost starting completely back over. Before biomes it was extremely easy to figure things out, but now I'm still trying to figure out why it says none of the breeds I own are updated in the encyclopedia. Heck even the OG pink dragon returning was quite the surprise! I'd love to see more info on HOW to get most of the dragons other than having to google each one to figure out if it was a limited time, special event, etc. 

[Tini]

11 hours ago, kitty41188123 said:

I would actually love something like this, I haven't played since 2013 (maybe a little after but either way, it's been quite a long time!) and with all the new dragons and other stuff added to the site I feel like I'm almost starting completely back over. Before biomes it was extremely easy to figure things out, but now I'm still trying to figure out why it says none of the breeds I own are updated in the encyclopedia. Heck even the OG pink dragon returning was quite the surprise! I'd love to see more info on HOW to get most of the dragons other than having to google each one to figure out if it was a limited time, special event, etc. 

The encyclopedia doesn't include things that existed before the encyclopedia. So nobody would have an advantage due to a horde. 

 

There's the encyclopedia helpers thread, which has a couple sheets with links to frozen hatchies and adults to unlock encyclopedia stuff too.

 

This is mostly just to help you rather than anything about the thread itself ^^;

 

edit: thanks fuzz, can never track down where that thread is when i want to

Edited April 26, 2021 by Tini

[kitty41188123]

9 minutes ago, Tini said:

The encyclopedia doesn't include things that existed before the encyclopedia. So nobody would have an advantage due to a horde. 

 

There's the encyclopedia helpers thread, which has a couple sheets with links to frozen hatchies and adults to unlock encyclopedia stuff too.

 

This is mostly just to help you rather than anything about the thread itself ^^;

Would you be willing to link that forum for me? Thank you in advance!

[Fuzzbucket]

10 hours ago, kitty41188123 said:

Would you be willing to link that forum for me? Thank you in advance!

It doesn't tell you which are holiday only, etc, though.

Edited April 26, 2021 by Fuzzbucket

[Ruby Eyes]

On 4/25/2021 at 8:53 AM, HeatherMarie said:

(And yes, we have the wiki, but that is unofficial, not always up to date, and honestly we shouldn't have to rely on a user-kept site for such basic information about the game.)

Plus, when someone is not on the forums, there is a chance they don't know about the wiki either.

[Fuzzbucket]

This is true. It should say in the encyclopaedia under each holiday one: "can only be found at x time of year." (The seasonals are kind of self-explanatory.) As to GoNs and hybrids saying simply: 

• Found in: Unknown

I'm not sure that's enough info for people with no knowledge. Then again, they probably wouldn't have unlocked them so can't access that stuff anyway.

 

But none of that helps with just finding the breeds when you have just signed up and have a scroll with half a dozen dragons on.

 

That said, I found the wiki before I found the forum (yes there's a link on the cave page. But I'm more of a googler than a link clicker !)

Edited April 26, 2021 by Fuzzbucket