Pink Sapphire mechanism

[purplehaze]

I wouldn't mind the pink's mechanics so much if they would at least breed true. That way once you struggle to get a CB pair or two or four you could build your own lineages without having to worry about needing other players and a tremendously unlikely amount of luck to keep a lineage going.

[Nalyua]

But how to get a CB? This right now is Insane.

 

@Fuzzbucket I'll be giving them away via TGT. Seems like the best place for it since I can ask for folks without any yet. 

 

Like I said it does not make sense for me to keep Non CB.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Nalyua

[heyninja]

So my thought on this, and I mean no disrespect to anyone here, but if we assume the mechanics don't change:

 

Clearly there's enough people here who are interested, maybe make a group that's devoted to catching, yeeting, breeding, hatching, etc. pink sapphires?

 

If the worry is that the "greater good" won't hold out across the board, then linking up and working together may be the best option.  It's how people have been getting rarer lineage completions, wishlist and moonshot goals this whole time?  And there's the forums and discord too, doubling chances?

 

I love this game as much as anyone, maybe lifting each other up and working together is the change we could absolutely make instead of pinning hopes on mechanics change?

[Nalyua]

Well quite frankly I have been trying to trade multiple CB rares for in CB since Release Day. Zilch. 

[ArgentiAertheri]

On 5/24/2021 at 10:21 AM, Velvetie said:

For this Sapphire variant, I simply suggest that instead of having eggs turn Pink upon abandoning only, you could possibly have an egg turn Pink if you neglected it.. now when I say to neglect, I don't mean to the same lengths you would do it to a future Neglected Dragon egg.. simply have it have under 10 (? number could change though) overall views by the time it is past the time for hatching (so basically 10> OVs by the time it hits 3d23h.. or a lower time, should be up to the creators of the dragon). This would still make sense lore-wise.. as the Pink Sapphire is supposed to be a result of loneliness, right? Not giving it much attention, keeping the egg hidden would basically mean you isolate it from the rest and have it live in loneliness. This would highly benefit us players as Pink Sapphire lineages would be easier to build.

Yes please!

[Sundew]

I'm in support of Infinis's post suggesting ND-like experiments as one method of getting pink Sapphires

 

For the last couple years on DC, I've preferred to play by creating lineages & especially lyric lineages. Sapphires are my favorite breed and I love the new sprites but I don't think the current difficulty for lineages is reasonable for the pinks. Any lineage is going to be difficult, but lyric lineages especially can't be reliably made if you don't have control over what the names are. ND-type difficulty is better to me, I like that AP would still be the primary mechanism, and would also have the option to make lineages the way I like to

[DitzySpitze]

Support!

 

I’ve never had as much difficulty getting a dragon as the pinks. And they’re so beautiful!

[lexi_]

On 5/28/2021 at 10:04 AM, Atalante said:

Adding onto the "making it difficult to toss pretty lineages with Blue Sapphires into the AP" thing: yes, the breeder can fill up their slots so the egg will be auto-abandoned, but if someone picks up the egg and for some reason doesn't like the lineage or whatever and decides to abandon it, poof! Blue lineage is gone, the egg will turn pink.

 

On 5/28/2021 at 10:04 AM, Atalante said:

But in terms of lineages, where most of it is pretty much up to everyone's individual taste, it's different. If I pick up a lineage from pairings I don't like, I can throw it back into the AP without ruining it for someone else, no problem there... except for this particular case.

 

I don't think this is the biggest issue with the mechanic, the biggest problems have already been mentioned and discussed here, but it's yet another problem to add onto what's already been said.

 

this is the exact point i came here to make. its my biggest issue with this, alongside HAVING to rely on others to get pinks and make lineages with them.

even if the pink aspect were changed, which i would be VERY grateful for... this would still be a major problem. which bums me out. it sucks to have such a pretty breed (honestly, i think the blues are still the prettiest out of all the sapphire sprites now...) become very snuffed out because of this. not completely gone, but MUCH harder to find nice lines of that suit your tastes. i can be pretty picky with what i keep, but i'd feel obligated to keep/hatch a blue sapphire i pick up (locking myself out of an egg spot for however long it takes to hatch and THEN still locked out a total spot for as long as it takes for someone to pick it up if i give it away), or abandon it and ruin it for someone else who may have wanted it if it were blue. 

 

i wanted to let you know you are not alone in your viewpoint on this. i have a major problem with how this works now and am very bummed out about the way things have turned out. 

[Seriva Senkalora]

I love the sprites but hate the pink mechanics. I am really into some challenges since they keep a game alive, but this is not a challenge, this is frustrating...

 

My sister tried to help me and abandoned a lowtime CB sapphire egg for me while I was stalking the upper left egg of the AP. Well, needless to say someone else snagged it.

 

So you can't gift them to someone and it all becomes just a greedy snagging-game or trading your liver and half a lung for one CB pink sapphire... 😕

 

Please give us a second way to obtain them!

 

---

 

EDIT: Okay, we went for another run and now I got my pair with her help.

 

But we "lost" 4 CB sapphires and unfortunately I only snagged the ones she bought from the Market so I can't give one of them back to her until I've restocked my shards.

 

 

Edited May 31, 2021 by Seriva Senkalora

[Nalyua]

Anyone still in need of a Pink Saph and will take a Gen 2 shoot me a PM, it's gonna grow soon

 

MODERATOR EDIT: suggestions threads are not the place to offer eggs. trades and giveaways go in the trade subforum.

Edited June 3, 2021 by Infinis

[lexi_]

the part that doesnt sit right with me the most about this is that... sapphires are supposed to be commons. and now i'd honestly go to say that a cb pink sapphire rivals a cb gold. they were supposed to bring something fresh to the game, and that they did, and they were supposed to be difficult to obtain, but THIS difficult seems... too much. far too much.

[Charu]

Buckle up because my thoughts are long and I'm going to try and explain my view as clearly as possible. Summary down below in green if you don't feel like reading a book.

 

I think it's clever to try and make a common sprite more desirable by introducing mechanics to force rarity for different sprites. But I've mentioned this in the release thread and I agree a lot that there are problems with the release. I'm happy to see that the creator has popped by to give their opinion on why they chose what they did (yay transparency support transparency!) I am a bit sad that they don't seem to understand the problems with the release. I love the sprites. I especially love the Yellow Sapphires because the dragon carries my favorite color combination ever. It's bright, it's colorful. I love it. But it, too, has problems.

 

My main problem with CB Blue Sapphires not being available via the AP anymore is that this is a release that is 5 years old (March 2016). People who have been active have had the opportunity to collect what they want from the AP and amass an army of Blue Sapphires from the AP. I took a multiple year break, missing a lot of major releases (check my posting history and scroll history). I think I stopped playing in 2014 (?) and started playing again in November last year. I've had to catch up on 6+ years of releases. I'm mainly an AP hunter and I don't like CB hunting because it requires a lot of time. The AP, for the most part, always moves and you might find a diamond in the rough. I couldn't have known to start amassing a collection of CB Blue Sapphires ASAP because a permanent mechanic was going to be added into the game to change how they work. I don't have a CB Blue Sapphire at all and this isn't really an outlier because I have a lot of breeds I just haven't collected at all. I'm basically a new-old player and this release does affect me negatively.

 

Every CB Sapphire in the AP will be pink if someone hasn't viewbombed it to give it 4k views. This is a problem for people who collect CBs and for people who want lineages. This is terrible for people who like lineages because the importance of collecting lineages is just as important as people who like to invest in collecting sprites. Lineages can already be challenging to people who are trying to build holiday lineages or rare lineages and those don't have an abandon mechanic added on. As mentioned in the thread, someone might be awesome and auto-abandon a cool blue lineage, but the next person might dislike it and BAM, it's a pink now. 

 

I'm okay with borderline neglecting a Sapphire Dragon to make it turn pink, but I still feel like it should not automatically turn pink just because it was abandoned. I suggested in the release thread that it should be a chance, which would allow for cool blue lineages still still exist in the AP, CB Blue Sapphires in the AP will be somewhat rare, and the original color isn't just kinda phased out because of the nature of gameplay in the AP. Unless you trade for it or hunt the cave, will you really find Blue Sapphires anymore? That's my concern and I lean towards "no." This means that the name might no-longer make sense, as well as the descriptions. It's not a "sapphire" dragon if it's pink most of the time. 

 

Yellow Sapphires are the most fine, mechanically. But 4,000 views is very easy to get. I only use AoND as my hatchery most of the time and I usually cross 4k views before my dragons grow up. Out of 50 of my recently raised dragons, it looks like only 5 stay under 4,000 views. In my opinion, the view requirement should be lowered and it should be made egg-only. I do not think hatchlings should turn. Otherwise, the view requirement should be raised if hatchlings are still allowed to turn. To me, it seems like you can easily create Yellow Sapphires on accident, rather than deliberately, which also adds more fuel to the fire on asking if a Sapphire Dragon is still a Sapphire Dragon if it's not really blue most of the time. 

 

Granted AoND is probably the most popular hatchery, but this is also another mechanic that allows for griefing with viewbombing. People have asked for sickness to be removed because viewbombing is a problem. I've had my eggs randomly viewbombed right before an ND experiment, which completely ruined the results because I unfogged about a half-hour early. People have had their eggs killed from viewbombing. An entire hatchery (EggsAroundTheWorld) got shut down because of viewbombing. It's now mostly a quiet problem, but it apparently pops up if you ever pop your head out and respond negatively to it or talk about it. This is an open secret that people discuss about here because I've seen people say multiple times on this forum that they have gotten targeted if they talk negatively about viewbombing. 

 

In summary:

- It's good to force rarity to a common species. This is refreshing for long-time players.

- It's bad that CB Blue Sapphires are cave exclusive, especially when you could get them from the AP for 5 years before. Veterans greatly benefit from an opportunity that new/returning players will never have. I strongly feel that Blue Sapphires in general will become an AP rarity because of how the AP is generally played. In my opinion, this makes the name not make sense since most eggs in DC are going to be AP eggs in one way or another.

- Pink Sapphires are difficult to control for lineages and there needs to be a way to build lineages WITHOUT hoping that the person that finds your egg is super nice and knows how to find you. Because of the problem of how the AP is played, cool Blue Sapphire lineages instantly become changed if the first person that grabs the egg doesn't like the lineage. The suggested mechanic to neglect the egg so that it hatches with minimal views is a good idea. 

- Yellow Sapphires are very easy to accidentally make, even if you only use 1 hatchery. Most of my dragons that I've raised recently with only AoND cross 4,000 views easily. I think increasing the threshold from 4,000 views will make creation of Yellow Sapphires less accidental. Another suggestion I have is to make changing into yellows only possible from the egg stage, and lowering the requirement. Additionally, this is a mechanic that can unfortunately be abused by viewbombers. 

[GalacticNovie]

My biggest issue with how pink sapphires work is, well... This is what the AP looks like to me most of the time. Kinda impossible to even look for pink saphs. (Warning, lots of big images)

Spoiler

I'm uh... Really not sure how people with slow internet are supposed to be able to get these given how we're nearly 2 weeks into this release and not only is AP is still averaging 50-80 people at any given moment but CB eggs are still going for Stat-tier prices.

Edited June 3, 2021 by Dragonalassa
my sense of time is broken

[Daypaw]

On 5/31/2021 at 7:58 AM, Seriva Senkalora said:

I am really into some challenges since they keep a game alive, but this is not a challenge, this is frustrating...

 

This x1000

 

Even if I did have someone to help with bouncing a few eggs around at low time, my internet is VERY slow and I'd never be able to catch what got dropped. It usually takes me hours just to catch enough new release eggs to fill my egg slots, and that's when I'm there early and refreshing like mad at every 5 minute drop during the initial flood. There's no way I can compete with half of the people in the AP looking for these, and I can't catch rares to trade for them. The absolute best I can do is a second gen silver tinsel (if she's feeling cooperative) but those aren't really high in demand these days - so even that probably wouldn't be enough. 

 

I'm feel like I'm basically being forced into a position where I'm going to have to rely on charity or sign on for an absurd IOU just to get a single CB pair, and I don't want to do either of those things. It's only going to get worse months down the line when people lose interest in tossing sapphires to the AP. At present, I feel like my only option is to just give up on them - which is a shame, because the sprites are lovely. 

 

I'd be very much on board for an adjustment of any sort that would allow us to get them without having to rely on other people and sheer stupid luck. Keep it at less than 10 views for a solid week until it's an hour from death? Sign me up, I'll do it. At least then I'd have a shot at getting one. 

[MissK.]

7 hours ago, lexi_ said:

the part that doesnt sit right with me the most about this is that... sapphires are supposed to be commons. and now i'd honestly go to say that a cb pink sapphire rivals a cb gold. they were supposed to bring something fresh to the game, and that they did, and they were supposed to be difficult to obtain, but THIS difficult seems... too much. far too much.

 

Indeed, I've seen far too many trades of a CB gold for example, asking for a CB pink sapphire. Even CB NDs. I do think their rarity will eventually decline, but it's already been a while since the release and things have hardly changed at all. I don't enjoy having to wait ridiculous amounts of time to even have a chance to get something (unless there's a seasonal variant or so). Plus, since a lot of the sapphires people throw to the AP are from the market, trading them is impossible. So the pool of pink sapphires one can get through trading is even more limited. 

[Tini]

Honestly I'm not sure many of those trades are actually getting offers. Unless you can tell the eggs have moved I'd assume they aren't going through. I don't think CB pinks are remotely worth any of those things lol, and even if they are that just means people with CB pinks are less likely to be trading them away.

[Fuzzbucket]

MAYBE if it just changed that TINY bit @Infinis - so that CB blues tossed to the AP just have a CHANCE to turn ? even a 50/50 chance ?

[Seriva Senkalora]

7 hours ago, Dragonalassa said:

My biggest issue with how pink sapphires work is, well... This is what the AP looks like to me most of the time. Kinda impossible to even look for pink saphs. (Warning, lots of big images)

  Reveal hidden contents

I'm uh... Really not sure how people with slow internet are supposed to be able to get these given how we're nearly 2 weeks into this release and not only is AP is still averaging 50-80 people at any given moment but CB eggs are still going for Stat-tier prices.

Same here. Even after several refreshes there are still some images not shown.

 

[Infinis]

27 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

MAYBE if it just changed that TINY bit @Infinis - so that CB blues tossed to the AP just have a CHANCE to turn ? even a 50/50 chance ?

cb blue sapphires being in the ap is a matter of convenience, not necessity. i think i said this in one of my prior posts here: i don't think it's terrible that people have to catch cb blue sapphs from biomes or buy from market. i still don't see any particular actual problem with cb blue sapphires no longer being available in the ap - perhaps an annoyance at having to find or buy and then raise a 7d egg, but that's not actually a problem, as it were.

 

unless tj wants to change that, i'd prefer it remain as is, with blues limited to biomes/market and pinks to AP.

 

---

 

ultimately the only suggestions i had to offer re: pink sapph mechanics were posted earlier: ultra low views or chance of breeding true. whether tj wants to make any changes at this time - my suggestions or something else - i don't know.

as for the yellow sapphire mechanic, i still think it's fine as is. blues can change to yellow as hatchies, so you don't need to risk your egg unnecessarily to turn it yellow.

Edited June 3, 2021 by Infinis

[Fuzzbucket]

I do agree about the yellows. And yes of course, blues are available in the cave. So the way to spread the love there would be the hub. 

 

That screenie of what people with very slow internet is awful - but the problem would apply to ANY AP egg. I remember it well.

[MissK.]

19 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

I do agree about the yellows. And yes of course, blues are available in the cave. So the way to spread the love there would be the hub. 

 

That screenie of what people with very slow internet is awful - but the problem would apply to ANY AP egg. I remember it well.

 

That is absolutely true, but that's the issue isn't it? CP pink sapphires can only be acquired through the AP, or trading but only for non-market ones, so it's impossible to cave-hunt for them instead. Unless images load and at a decent speed too, you can't hunt for them at all.

 

I really hope we can get an alternate mechanism at some point, even if it's only marginally better than ND odds.

[reddof-f6]

(sorry if this has been said. a lot to read through and i just wanted to throw out this option)

i feel pinks should be possible without abandoning by going the neglected route in a way. depriving them of views until they reach something like 1-2 days left (close, but not as extreame like with neglecteds). would make sense with yellows needing a ton of views that a pink would get the opposite without need to abandon.

it allows players to also keep their linage breeds without all the gambleing in AP or trade. along with market/ CB being worth hunting for pinks becuase you can actually keep them.

[Kestra62]

i very much dislike the fact that i have to rely on others abandoning sapphires just for me to get one even if i go out of my way to go hunt for CB sapphires im forced to dump them with the chances of never seeing those cb sapphires i found 

 

i much more like the idea of making them work like a neglected dragon or basiclly have them not get any clicks till like the last day or two for them to turn pink i really dont like the idea of relying on users dumping cbs just for me to actually obtain some otherwise im doomed to gen 2+

 

honestly id be happy if its a very rare breed between two other sapphire colors i just really dislike how the pink sapphires were handled

i liked all the other releases beacuse they seem fesable except these dang sapphires 

[Fuzzbucket]

Infinis has explained her reasoning and they are her creation  - but t would be good to have a second option, even if it is a very tough one.

[Nalyua]

As for trading: I have tried to trade ven multiple CB Rares for just one CB Pin Saph, got nothing. Been trying since Release Day.