Allow Clicks to Boost Growth Speed

[Lushwave]

So, it's great that clicks are not mandatory for the survival of a dragon. A view-based growth system allows folks to "do their part" in hatcheries without spending lots of time or straining their wrists with much clicking. However, being nothing but small "boosts" to growth, without which the dragon will grow just fine anyway, there is little incentive to want clicks beyond wanting to simply acheive a higher number of them.

 

So, why not sweeten that "boost" effect a little and incentivize clicks?

 

The crux of this mechanic is: the more clicks a hatchling has, the earlier it can mature to adulthood before its usual 4 days 0 hours mark.

 

Mechanical details:

• This speed-up should NOT apply to egg hatching. Especially since Incubate is a thing.
• There should be a "maximum" soonest time a hatchling can mature this way, something like up to 12 hours before the usual mark. Nothing crazy.
• Much like how sooner gendering requires more views, sooner maturation should require more clicks. 0 clicks means maturation at the usual mark - no difference from how we've always been playing - while n clicks means maturation at m hours early. Substitute n and m for values most reasonable for game balance.
• The relationship between clicks and hours early should be linear (each 1 hour early requires x amount of clicks) but if all this already feels too overpowered, I also propose a logarithmic relationship (each 1 hour early requires double the amount of clicks).

 

The one pitfall to this I can think of is that incentivizing clicks may perpetuate sickness. Barring the difficulty of getting a hatchling to die of sickness anyhow, I offer an easy measure: just don't count clicks towards sickness. I'm honestly not even sure that they currently do.

 

In addition to the aforementioned benefit of adding flavor to clicks: while I don't necessarily have a finger on the pulse of the community, I can't be wrong in assuming that click threads and click exchange sites don't get nearly as much popularity as hatcheries do. Of course, this isn't inherently DC's problem to solve. But for those who do enjoy threads/sites, sweetening clicks this way can serve as a boost to activity on those threads/sites, from which all participants can benefit in the form of, well, more clicks on their dragons. A positive feedback loop, if you will.

 

Again, I don't want to mandate clicking as part of gameplay, I want to make it more rewarding for those who do choose to spend the time - the same way nobody is "mandated" to camp at the caves for a long time to catch something rare, among other effort-for-reward aspects already present in the game.

 

Thoughts, ideas, complaints - fire away.

[seventeendeer]

This is an interesting idea. It would be nice if clicks gained a little more importance in the game, since, as you say, hatchlings can normally grow just fine without them. I think it would also be a neat way to help hatchlings grow faster without implementing a hatchie-version of Incubate.

 

I can't quite imagine how this particular suggestion might affect gameplay on a larger scale, but I at least like it in theory! Curious to see what others think.

[MissK.]

1 hour ago, Lushwave said:

The one pitfall to this I can think of is that incentivizing clicks may perpetuate sickness. Barring the difficulty of getting a hatchling to die of sickness anyhow, I offer an easy measure: just don't count clicks towards sickness. I'm honestly not even sure that they currently do.

 

Just for the record, I'm relatively sure they do. At some point I had an egg that got viewbombed with clicks. It had 130, same as the number of UVs, and the overall views were not even maxed out I think. The rest of the stats wouldn't justify sickness without the clicks, and definitely not lasting as long as it did. 

 

Interesting suggestion on the whole, I don't mind it. Honestly any way that lets us raise hatchlings a bit faster without breaking the game would be great imo.

[Skadi]

Reasonable suggestion if there's a cap on how many clicks it takes and how much faster the egg/hatchie can grow.

 

OP already covered this, tho, so I support it with 12 hours max.

Edited March 9, 2023 by Skadi

[KageSora]

So, basically taking the "clicks boost growth speed" mechanic that's already in place for eggs and hatchlings, and adding a secondary incentive to hatchlings themselves?

 

I wouldn't be opposed to it though I'd rather just see some sort of "incubate" type ability added (even if it didn't take a full day off the timer for hatchlings), since you can at least control that meanwhile you're stuck praying other people will give you enough clicks to mature faster with this proposed system...

[D-wing]

Interesting! Another pitfall I can think is:  How about trade? You know when we try to trade something, we don't want them to grow up too fast.

 

My suggestion is add a BSA to let us stop the boost or it won't get boost when it's in trade.

[AnthillDragon]

This is a really interesting idea in theory! In practice though, I will unfortunately have to say, I do not think it should be an automatic change that happens on its own, exactly because of what D-wing says - if you have something up for trade, it often gets clicks, and it would suck to have stuff grow up too quickly. Sometimes I want to keep a dragon for a while even if it's not actively in a trade, because I'm waiting for the right trade to come along, and that could be ruined if it had gathered clicks in the meantime. Having stuff grow up quicker is not always a good thing!

 

I think if there was a way to manually activate the boost, whether via BSA or a special state or another third thing, it could work though!

[PrincessLucy]

Interesting, but some people purposely try to grow up their dragons with no clicks. This would mess things for them as helpful people would be clicking to try to boost what they don't want clicked.

 

[inghelene]

I’m a bit uncertain how I feel about this.

I think there’s a beauty in not demanding clicks, as it makes the view gathering outside of the click-sites a quiet process.

At the same time, the fact that clicks are counted makes me think it is a shame they don’t have enough of an effect to be measured. 
I guess I’d like to see some beneficial effect from the clicks, whilst still keeping it so low that you’d not benefit from pestering strangers for clicks on your eggs. 

[D-wing]

Oh, I've think another pitfall just now. Will it let ND become harder to get? They always turn in last few mins before die and the boost might let the egg die. 

 

suggestion: bsa to stop/active it again.

[Shadowdrake]

It sounds fun, I wouldn't mind incentive to get this game known in outer sites like the old days.

 

I think a BSA just to prevent clicks only is totally unnecessary. We already have an action - it's called hide - and trade could use a general hide equivalent, not just for clicks. With how few clicks eggs get even on an interesting trade (maybe 30-50?) I doubt it would subtract more than a few hours, and I'd rather have a solution for trade viewbombs at all over TJ implementing something overly specific. 

 

Regarding 0 click gameplay, since it's just a personal way to play, I don't think the site needs to cater to this overly specific way any more than it caters to pb-only pairs or inbreed-avoidance or whatnot. But I also doubt it will have an extreme effect on clicks, as I don't think multilink add-ons like Snaplinks give clicks (I may be wrong) and mobile users have no easy way to give many clicks, so aside from click-based areas hatcheries won't get tons of clicks. 

 

3 hours ago, D-wing said:

Oh, I've think another pitfall just now. Will it let ND become harder to get? They always turn in last few mins before die and the boost might let the egg die. 

 

No, the point of this is it doesn't change the death timer, it just decreases minimum grow time.