2021-08-22 - August Dragon Release

[StarSea]

36 minutes ago, schenanigans said:

Personally I find visual representation to be far more intuitive than combing through encyclopedia information and descriptions hoping to not miss a tidbit. This doesn't REQUIRE anyone to go offsite; players themselves chose to do so for easy compilation. This is also by far not the most difficult mechanic to have been introduced to the site. 

Sure except for the fact that Copper, Brimstone, and Magi do not visually display any sort of flames, thus contradicting what had been stated, and is also why so many people feel it is inconsistent and "disregarding" of the lore, especially in the case of Spitfires and underwater breeds.

• Copper's result is based solely on the fact that copper burns in green hues, their sprite is not displayed to produce green flames.
• Brimstone's result is actually based on the fact that their description states they ingest sulfur and produce a gas from it rather than flames, in which case also something that is not displayed in the sprite but rather found in the description, and yet Spitfire's "brilliant blue fire" description has been passed over even after being brought to the attention of the artist.
• Magi produces green flame, also not based on the sprite but rather on a reference, which is not something people can just go and find information about onsite. So actually yes, people will have to go offsite to find and understand why on earth Magi gives green flames.

It's not so much an issue that these outliers exist as it is that the reasoning given against other breeds is completely contradicted by these instances. I understand that nearly 300 breeds is a LOT to look through, even without all of them being breedable with Pyros, but to give contradictory reasoning for not putting X or Y breed into the pool, and then even going as far as to blame TJ for having accepted it as-is, is incredibly frustrating.

It's okay to say "I didn't think of that", "I missed that", "Let's discuss that", etc. It's not okay to say "Well TJ accepted it as it is so it's on his hands" and brush it off like that. If you say you want your breed to only produce X alt from A, B, and C mates (who all happen to be, say, Earth element), is it his responsibility to understand your intentions were for all Earth-element dragons to give X alt? Sorry but TJ can't read your mind, if you miss something with your breed, it's not on him to catch it for you.

 

That's honestly the part that irks me the most...

[KageSora]

Hm, from what I'm gathering some people seem to be treating it as if "I made this because I felt like it and showed it to my friends/posted it somewhere so that people who also like this can see it" and "I made an asset for a game (even a free one) with the intent that users interact with it" are situations that have the same acceptable feedback range.  This is not the case.

 

The first it's natural to expect minimal--if any--criticism, especially if you didn't explicitly ask for it.

 

The second, it's completely unreasonable to expect the only feedback will be praise.  Users have a right to voice their concerns and opinions on assets in a game they are playing, even if it's a free to play game.

 

I'm not saying artists need to put up with people being cruel--and there sure have been plenty of those over the years.  If somebody is being a jerk that's not acceptable.  However, if an artist cannot handle feedback that is not praise, if they cannot take criticism or seeing people say "Oh, I don't like how it looks so I'll pass on it" or "Wow, I really hate the mechanic needed because it's not fun for me to play the game that way" then they may need to strongly reconsider creating assets for a game.

 

And users expressing "Oh, I don't like this one" or "I hate the mechanic implementation because it makes it much less fun for me to play" are not inherently being jerks.  Sure, they can express them in a nasty manner at which point it's fair to consider it a personal attack.  But not everybody expressing dislike for a mechanic-restricted breed has been a jerk about it.  In fact I'd say a fair number of people expressing dislike have done so within reasonable limits for an asset in a game they are playing.

[Guillotine]

Yeah, uh, I don't think users saying "this is implemented in a way that is confusing and inconsistent and having that altered would be nice" is the terrible attack on you that you seen to think it is. Because... it is; some dragons are based on sprites, some aren't, and there's absolutely zero indication of which it is before trying--and in one case it's actually impossible to understand the reasoning unless you know it's a reference. I know what floo powder does in HP; I still would not have understood why Magi gave green without reading that it was a reference.

[MissK.]

Wow what did I walk into lol. Was just coming here to check it there were any Pyro second breedings yet.

 

Personally I quite like their mechanism (so far at least since there are still things to discover). It was pretty intuitive to me to focus on flame-based sprites first, though of course also checking the rest that only mentioned something in the encyclopedia made sense. So by extention I do understand the Water dragon thing too. The Amarignis has a reasonable explanation for being an exception, so the way I see it is pretty simple: dragon visibly has flames = important. The Coppers , Brimstone and Magi are more like Easter eggs honestly, we already have obvious ways of getting all the colours, so who does it harm to have a few extra methods that might be more complicated to understand? 

 

However, if there was an oversight with Astaarus because they hadn't been created yet, I do think that it would make sense for it to be added in. Same for new breeds in the future. It is not unreasonable to make suggestions about improvements, or even explain why something does not appeal to you because that should still be useful feedback to TJ about what the userbase wants. 

[schenanigans]

31 minutes ago, StarSea said:

Sure except for the fact that Copper, Brimstone, and Magi do not visually display any sort of flames, thus contradicting what had been stated, and is also why so many people feel it is inconsistent and "disregarding" of the lore, especially in the case of Spitfires and underwater breeds.

• Copper's result is based solely on the fact that copper burns in green hues, their sprite is not displayed to produce green flames.
• Brimstone's result is actually based on the fact that their description states they ingest sulfur and produce a gas from it rather than flames, in which case also something that is not displayed in the sprite but rather found in the description, and yet Spitfire's "brilliant blue fire" description has been passed over even after being brought to the attention of the artist.
• Magi produces green flame, also not based on the sprite but rather on a reference, which is not something people can just go and find information about onsite. So actually yes, people will have to go offsite to find and understand why on earth Magi gives green flames.

It's not so much an issue that these outliers exist as it is that the reasoning given against other breeds is completely contradicted by these instances. I understand that nearly 300 breeds is a LOT to look through, even without all of them being breedable with Pyros, but to give contradictory reasoning for not putting X or Y breed into the pool, and then even going as far as to blame TJ for having accepted it as-is, is incredibly frustrating.

It's okay to say "I didn't think of that", "I missed that", "Let's discuss that", etc. It's not okay to say "Well TJ accepted it as it is so it's on his hands" and brush it off like that. If you say you want your breed to only produce X alt from A, B, and C mates (who all happen to be, say, Earth element), is it his responsibility to understand your intentions were for all Earth-element dragons to give X alt? Sorry but TJ can't read your mind, if you miss something with your breed, it's not on him to catch it for you.

 

That's honestly the part that irks me the most...

 

Nobody is blaming TJ. Doha presented a concept with the intended mechanics to TJ and TJ accepted it. Seeing as Doha says it's working as intended currently, then TJ did not miss anything with his breed. There is no disconnect between TJ and artist in this particular instance. I was merely stating that TJ has chosen for this dragon to exist in the realm of Valkemere. Therefore "but the looorrree!" arguments become moot, as this now becomes a part of that same world - assuming everything is cannon. 

 

Doha already acknowledged that he wasn't going to go through everything and didn't know everything about every breed. He actively already addressed the exact phrasing that I bolded in your quote. 

 

Aside from only three outliers (two being nods to science and one being a reference), the mechanic is relatively straightforward. I'm honestly struggling to understand why there's such an issue with it, and I'm not trying to be rude when I say that. I am a visual person, so this makes a lot of sense to me. Maybe a Pyropellis and a Spitfire only had a brief fling and thus no fires were spat by said Spitfire; maybe they did use their flames on the Pyropellis and maybe they are blue. But we can't see the spitfire flames and that's totally okay. But suddenly people are affording description and imagination luxury to other dragons, while simultaneously not affording that luxury to the Pyropellis. Again, this was just Doha's way to make the lore represented in the sprite; he coulda just put that in the description and left us with one sprite. 

 

I guess we should steer away from Easter eggs in the future if it's just going to cause an uproar though? Nothing is forcing any players to go off site to figure these out either. Yeah sure, in order to understand the reference as to why magis go green, you have to go off-site. But nothing is forcing you to do that; the community just collectively threw everything at their pyros to see what stuck. People without forum, discord, etc access can just as easily do the same. 

 

Doha just tried to create something fun and unique. And I do understand the merits of criticism and feedback, I just don't feel like this turned out to be conducive or constructive. 

Edited September 2, 2021 by schenanigans

[Silverwatermist]

I would like to point out one part from one of Dohaerys' posts, but will not be tagging them as they said they were going to sleep a while back, so I don't want to ping them.

"I've seen a lot of valid concerns voiced perfectly reasonably here that have essentially been addressed as personal preference or attacks when that is clearly not the case.  Valid, constructive criticism like 'this is confusing for new or even continued players' and "I think this might be helpful to add in for x reasons" are not attacks or harsh.  If absolutely zero criticism can be applied without the spriter,  artist, or writer feeling attacked, they again, this may not be a platform that said person is ready for.

 

You are using a slippery slope fallacy here. There is a huge difference between 'this is confusing for new or even continued players' and "I think this might be helpful to add in for x reasons" - which are absolutely AMAZING as far crits go - nowhere in this thread have I ever seen anyone calling those crits too harsh? What is less pleasant is implying that there is no pure logic, or that it is a failure. Remember, artists are humans - it might be constructive, but if it framed in a rude way, someone will feel bad."

One of the biggest problems in every single one of these threads, is this: During these types of discussions, there is a lot of crit that I, personally, believe is constructive such as the examples both posters gave above *in the quote I provided. But a few people slip in with rude comments or they provide legitimate critique but their tone is ... questionable ... and it just ends up being aggressive, accusatory, or demeaning. It's often only a couple comments within the longer stream; sometimes, I imagine, because the moderators delete the worst of the worst (thank you for modding and dealing with this sort of thing, seriously). Then at some point, because of those negative/rude comments, a mod or site artist pops in with a reminder to keep the thread civil, treat artists with respect, and to "be kind" because the art is from volunteers--all great instructions, except that many times, no one knows which comments are being referred to specifically as "going too far". Perhaps the offending comments don't exist anymore, as they were deleted for being truly awful. Or perhaps they were left in the thread, because the mods thought they were more borderline and thus issue a warning rather than delete. But the problem is, no one reading the thread knows which of those it is. No one knows which comments are being referred to as problematic, because obviously mods don't want to signal-boost them. Some rude comments are dead obvious, yes ... but we can't tell if these reminders and warnings are referring to one or two rude things we as an individual happened to notice, too, or if the net is cast wider, maybe wide enough to hit most of the critique in the thread. So every single person reading those reminders and warnings wonders if their critique (no matter how nicely worded) was part of the problem. Therefore, everyone who critiqued the art or mechanic believes they specifically are being told to "be nicer". And if you were already being nice, then it sounds like the entire thread is being told "any and all critique is rude". I'm sure sometimes there are streams of comments where most of it is rude, and most of us can tell. But not all the time, so from the user end, it's unclear who's being spoken to and what is allowed.

I am not asking mods to leave up terrible comments or signal-boost them. But the same exact thing happens every time there is a stream of critiques in a thread. So, the reason you aren't seeing anyone "calling those^ critiques too harsh" is because none of the comments or critiques are *specifically, publicly, being called too harsh, and usually, the good critiques with an acceptable tone are also not addressed or responded to, since it's not anyone's (artists or TJ's) obligation to do so. The mods can ignore the "good critique" comments like any other comment, but they're mixed in with negative critiques, too, so when negative ones are called out in a vaguer, blanket-statement way, *and the positive ones weren't remarked on either, the thread gets heated because no one knows what part of the critique was too much.

I have no solution for this, but I genuinely believe that this disconnect is causing problems in all of these threads, and that it is burying constructive discussion and feedback about these lovely dragons and many others over the years.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Silverwatermist
trying to make some sentences clearer, sorry for multiple edits...

[HeatherMarie]

52 minutes ago, StarSea said:

Sure except for the fact that Copper, Brimstone, and Magi do not visually display any sort of flames, thus contradicting what had been stated, and is also why so many people feel it is inconsistent and "disregarding" of the lore, especially in the case of Spitfires and underwater breeds.

• Copper's result is based solely on the fact that copper burns in green hues, their sprite is not displayed to produce green flames.
• Brimstone's result is actually based on the fact that their description states they ingest sulfur and produce a gas from it rather than flames, in which case also something that is not displayed in the sprite but rather found in the description, and yet Spitfire's "brilliant blue fire" description has been passed over even after being brought to the attention of the artist.
• Magi produces green flame, also not based on the sprite but rather on a reference, which is not something people can just go and find information about onsite. So actually yes, people will have to go offsite to find and understand why on earth Magi gives green flames.

 

This is all pretty confusing and honestly it only got more confusing when the spriter tried to explain certain aspects, because as has been pointed out those explanations seem very inconsistent. I will save a screenshot of the breakdown of the flame-changes, the same way I did with the new Gemshard color days, for convenience and to refer to every single time I forget what needs to be bred to produce which flames. Personally I don't care what dragons make what flames, it doesn't matter to me as I don't plan on making any specific lineages based on those flames... But it is confusing to explicitly be told something like 'Waters extinguish flames because there is water in the sprite' but then also see that water in the sprite *doesn't* mean extinguishing flames for a different breed that has water shown, and yeah if the general idea was to be sprite-based then Magis and Coppers especially don't make sense at all. 

 

I can accept that this specific breed just has wonky mechanics that are caused by many different factors (the actual sprite, the description, some random outside knowledge that doesn't actually appear on DC at all....), but I will say that it's confusing that the different breeds/flames aren't consistent.  I'll mention again how bad I feel for the people who aren't on the forum and don't have access to all these extra explanations and data, those users must be way more confused than any of us when it comes to new mechanics like this. 

 

Has anyone started doing second-breedings to see if flame-color changes, or did I miss those posts?

[ealbiest]

Please dudes, I'd rather have this thread as the enormously practical link to finding out about how new species work and what experiences people have had with it - than see it turn into the kind of loud and nastyish struggle that is so easy to do in internets when you don't actually see the people you're addressing; in which case the thread will be shut. And I'd dearly love to hear also news on the further mechanics of skittish Shumogas - do they always need to be EQed one by one or can skittish ones breed skittish ones directly (as e.g. Black Alts can)?

 

I'm liking these August arrivals because they're not simple but skittish and complicated and a puzzle. And thanks to all those breeders who did that incredible research on what pairing produces what. That's playing!

 

 

[Tehpikachu]

2 minutes ago, ealbiest said:

Please dudes, I'd rather have this thread as the enormously practical link to finding out about how new species work and what experiences people have had with it - than see it turn into the kind of loud and nastyish struggle that is so easy to do in internets when you don't actually see the people you're addressing; in which case the thread will be shut. And I'd dearly love to hear also news on the further mechanics of skittish Shumogas - do they always need to be EQed one by one or can skittish ones breed skittish ones directly (as e.g. Black Alts can)?

 

I'm liking these August arrivals because they're not simple but skittish and complicated and a puzzle. And thanks to all those breeders who did that incredible research on what pairing produces what. That's playing!

 

 

you always gotta EQ or force-hatch by killing in order to make the skittish ones, or else they're the white ones by default owo b neither variant is mechanically attached to heritage

[HeatherMarie]

2 minutes ago, ealbiest said:

And I'd dearly love to hear also news on the further mechanics of skittish Shumogas - do they always need to be EQed one by one or can skittish ones breed skittish ones directly (as e.g. Black Alts can)?

 

While I can't say for *sure* that Skittish would never breed skittish, it doesn't seem likely. I have a regular non-skittish hatchling from two Skittish parents. It does look like the only way to make a skittish is to force-hatch, whether by EQ or Kill.  (Though not necessarily 'one by one', lots of people have been filling their slots and EQing whole batches at once.)

[Myoukin]

17 minutes ago, ealbiest said:

And I'd dearly love to hear also news on the further mechanics of skittish Shumogas - do they always need to be EQed one by one or can skittish ones breed skittish ones directly (as e.g. Black Alts can)?

 

 

Yup, it definitely seems like Shumoga (Shumogas? Shumogi?) behave in a similar fashion to Motus Cantors; you have to perform the same action you used on the child as you did with the parent.

 

Edit: I'm also interested in whether we have any second-round Pyropellis breeding flame information.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Myoukin

[Shadowdrake]

Second-round pyro breeder here. They can change on each breeding and it's pretty straightforward. Results I've had;

• green pyro + blue fire mate = change to blue fire
• colored pyro + orange fire mate = change to orange fire
• bald pyro + fire-less mate = no change

Edited September 2, 2021 by Shadowdrake

[MissK.]

3 minutes ago, Shadowdrake said:

Second-round pyro breeder here. They can change on each breed and it's pretty straightforward. Results I've had;

• green pyro + blue fire mate = change to blue fire
• colored pyro + orange fire mate = change to orange fire
• bald pyro + fire-less mate = no change

Thank you for sharing! That's pretty much what I expected so far, great to have confirmation. It seems logical then that bald pyros will be relit when bred with a fire mate, but I wonder what happens with pyro x pyro of different colours... 

[Dinala1641882]

So I've updated the spreadsheet to have a column for untested unchanged and confirmed unchanged. I've also pulled out ones that I think will change the flames to orange and moved them to the untested column.

[Infinis]

1 hour ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

While I can't say for *sure* that Skittish would never breed skittish, it doesn't seem likely. I have a regular non-skittish hatchling from two Skittish parents. It does look like the only way to make a skittish is to force-hatch, whether by EQ or Kill.  (Though not necessarily 'one by one', lots of people have been filling their slots and EQing whole batches at once.)

wild shumoga must always be force hatched, they don't breed true ^^

[Myoukin]

48 minutes ago, Shadowdrake said:

Second-round pyro breeder here. They can change on each breeding and it's pretty straightforward. Results I've had;

• green pyro + blue fire mate = change to blue fire
• colored pyro + orange fire mate = change to orange fire
• bald pyro + fire-less mate = no change

Hmm... I think this might be why majority of the site's dragons seem to be in the fireless category... if the theory I'm thinking about is correct, then only a specific number of dragons changing color would still allow colored Pyros to keep their color through the majority of lineage patterns without having to specifically lock them into a color permanently; it still leaves some specific breedings unavailable without changing the color, but I think this might still salvage most lineage-building as long as the breeder remembers to keep their dragon away from certain breeds once they have the desired color.

[Falorni]

10 minutes ago, Infinis said:

wild shumoga must always be force hatched, they don't breed true ^^

so if they dont breed true.... you're saying this would be possible OHOHO

both of these releases have so much lineage potential, tysm infi and doha again!!!

[HeatherMarie]

 

@Falorni  😮 That's a gorgeous lineage idea!

Edited September 2, 2021 by HeatherMarie
misunderstood something

[Tehpikachu]

3 minutes ago, Falorni said:

so if they dont breed true.... you're saying this would be possible OHOHO

both of these releases have so much lineage potential, tysm infi and doha again!!!

👀 that is so hot

[Myoukin]

4 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

@Myoukin That does make sense, though it also means that the *only* option for making an unlit-Pyro lineage would be with Waters. That's the sprite I personally like best, so the fact that it's the sprite with the least options is sad. 

Actually, my running theory is that as long as it's not a flame-type, it wouldn't affect a Pyro's flame at all; that would mean as long as the bald/flameless Pyro steers clear of default flame or color flame dragons, every other breed (which I categorize for simplicity's sake as fireless) would let the Pyro stay bald/flameless.

 

Edit: Of course, it might be too soon to say for sure, but the 'bald x fireless mate = no change' result seems to point in that direction.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Myoukin

[deleted_account]

We're interested here if breeding e.g. green Pyrop x green Pyrop keeps them green as everything suggests, or it's something else again? I'm also curious what happens when two different color Pyrops (e.g. purple x cyan, blue x bald) breed too.

 

[Tini]

3 hours ago, paradoxangel said:

The game's survival is actually contingent on it driving enough profit that TJ remains incentivized to keep it running.  This would require an active userbase, which I would suggest implies the userbase itself being happy and interested in playing the game is crucial to the game's survival.

 

Given TJ has a donation post for server costs, I'm not sure that I can believe he's making any kind of profit on it. If there are times he's making profit off ads, I imagine that's just going into paying for the months he's in the red instead. Holiday releases are about the only time I could buy him making a profit, just from sheer traffic.

[Myoukin]

3 minutes ago, Meh said:

We're interested here if breeding e.g. green Pyrop x green Pyrop keeps them green as everything suggests, or it's something else again? I'm also curious what happens when two different color Pyrops (e.g. purple x cyan, blue x bald) breed too.

 

All speculation, but I would think the same colors together would stay the same color since there's nothing present to change the color to something else (though one or both might also change to orange since that was their default). For different color Pyros, I'm not sure how it would play out; maybe they would switch flames, or maybe they would stay the same since they could cancel each other out? For a color and a bald, I would assume the bald inherits the color's flame while the color retains its flame, seeing as the bald has nothing to pass over to its partner (then again, it could be a 'default to orange' situation again).

 

Needless to say, I'm very curious how things are going to pan out as we get more results.

[Charity322]

I hate breed variants that can only be got by risking killing your eggs. Just lost 3 Shumoga eggs and the 4th survived two earthquakes and stayed in its shell. I wonder if incubate would count for getting them out early.

[deleted_account]

10 minutes ago, Myoukin said:

All speculation, but I would think the same colors together would stay the same color since there's nothing present to change the color to something else (though one or both might also change to orange since that was their default). For different color Pyros, I'm not sure how it would play out; maybe they would switch flames, or maybe they would stay the same since they could cancel each other out? For a color and a bald, I would assume the bald inherits the color's flame while the color retains its flame, seeing as the bald has nothing to pass over to its partner (then again, it could be a 'default to orange' situation again).

 

Needless to say, I'm very curious how things are going to pan out as we get more results.

 

That's why I posted the question, because of the descriptions and sprite recolors in the game, I expect them to keep colors for green x green, ignite the bald for bald x blue, and no change or one of the mates change for purple x cyan (change to orange would be too out of the blue), but what is actually coded in is not always possible to deduce like this.

We have nothing to breed to check in person, so we can only wait for info from players who can test those pairings.

 

 

  

5 minutes ago, Charity322 said:

I hate breed variants that can only be got by risking killing your eggs. Just lost 3 Shumoga eggs and the 4th survived two earthquakes and stayed in its shell. I wonder if incubate would count for getting them out early.

I killed about 10 so far for just ONE alt (+one escaped, so it doesn't even count) 😕 (they all had big holes and good timers)

I'd definitely not be interested in ever using them in a lineage for this.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Meh