Have Alts buyable from the market

[Charity322]

I know that some alts from different habitats are buyable, but ones that rely on random breeding/catching luck aren't. e.g Rigewing, Vespine, Black, Dark Green etc. I know that these are supposed to be harder to get, but so are golds and they're available in the market.

 

I suggest that these alts be available, but at a higher price than their more common counterparts, reflecting their relative rarity.

 

I know that you have a random chance of getting the alt when buying a normal egg, but to me the market is a chance for people to get eggs they can't catch and it can be a huge waste of shards only to get nothing.

[Fuzzbucket]

This would skew the ratios something awful, I fear. Everyone has an equal chance of getting an alt in the cave - it's one area where NOBODY is disadvantaged.

 

Blacks and Dark Greens have to be bred - so no to that; market eggs are CB.

[Brite]

Although I'd love a CB alt, I agree the ratios would go bonkers. Not in favor..

[Fishkeeper]

No support, sorry. Not least as alts are both technically already buyable, and generally are of breeds that aren't terribly rare.

[KageSora]

I wouldn't support breed-only alts in the market, but i absolutely still want to see alts with different CB eggs (Ridgewings, Vespines, etc.) in the market.  Especially as some dragons with different eggs are already in the market (Sonatas, False-Headed Hydras for example).

 

Essentially the market is gambling with a ridiculously steep price and it's utterly worthless to use for these dragons.

[OMGitsKairi]

1 hour ago, KageSora said:

I wouldn't support breed-only alts in the market, but i absolutely still want to see alts with different CB eggs (Ridgewings, Vespines, etc.) in the market.  Especially as some dragons with different eggs are already in the market (Sonatas, False-Headed Hydras for example).

 

Essentially the market is gambling with a ridiculously steep price and it's utterly worthless to use for these dragons.

 

I agree with all of this. Also the different colours of gemshard are available in the market, if one just buys the egg on the correct day.

[blinkdog]

7 hours ago, OMGitsKairi said:

Also the different colours of gemshard are available in the market, if one just buys the egg on the correct day.

 

8 hours ago, KageSora said:

Especially as some dragons with different eggs are already in the market (Sonatas, False-Headed Hydras for example).

 

Except that those eggs are alts from different biomes or based on time of day or date. Vespine, Dorsal and Ridgewing alts are distinctly different because you can’t predict if you will get an alt or not. It’s just luck. I don’t think its fair to compare these alts to the ones being discussed.

 

No support from me. Challenge is an essential part of collection games.

[OMGitsKairi]

1 hour ago, blinkdog said:

Challenge is an essential part of collection games.

 

I disagree. For me, collecting is the essential part of collection games. And I don't feel as

though pouring weeks or months worth of shards down the drain and hoping I get what I'm

looking for constitutes a challenge, either. 

[Keileon]

Support if the prices are accurate to how rare the alt is.

 

Ambivalent on bred-only alts if only because I would love to buy CB green Spinels, lol

[Cal-ifornia]

No support. If they're meant to be random, then they should be random.

And I'm not sure how you'd go about managing the price of the eggs. They're not just a rare egg, they're designed to be a luck-based thing. How do you put a price on luck?

[Charity322]

I forgot that Blacks and Dark Greens were breed only. I was trying to randomly come up with more alts as an example. I meant the non breed only ones.

 

The thing is that cave catching is random luck. That's not a challenge. And it severely disadvantages people like me who are not fast clickers. I thought that allowing things like Golds and Stateraes to be sold in the market was a nice way of making things fair for everyone. I have never caught a single Gold or Staterae. So, why exclude other eggs that are hard to catch?

 

Not everyone plays the game for a challenge catching things. Some people just like playing with their dragons. I find it extremely frustrating when I have to sit on the cave for ages and still get nothing. That isn't fun. At least with the market you can work for what you want and know that you can achieve it.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Charity322

[KageSora]

5 hours ago, blinkdog said:

Except that those eggs are alts from different biomes or based on time of day or date. Vespine, Dorsal and Ridgewing alts are distinctly different because you can’t predict if you will get an alt or not. It’s just luck. I don’t think its fair to compare these alts to the ones being discussed.

 

That's not challenge, that's gambling.  If I want gambling I can play any number of gacha games on my phone to wager fake currency to see if I pull the thing I want or not.

 

Anyway, however, there are already dragons that you can buy in the market despite being up to luck if you can obtain them in the cave.  Sunstone/Moonstone dragons are both exclusive to the desert biome and have the exact same egg description.  Far as I know you can get them both any time of day--at the very least you can buy them both in the market at the same time (which would indicate that they're in the cave at the same time).  So any time you pick one of those up it's down to luck which one you get.

 

Other dragons that fall into the "when you click it in the cave it's down to luck if you get the one your wanted or a different dragon breed yet you can buy them in the market" breeds:

• Pink dragons overlap with Flamingo Wyverns biomes
• Xenowyrm sub-species have 2 different ones per biome but identical egg descriptions
• Frilled and Horse overlap biomes
• IIRC Blue and Purple Dinos have the same egg description and share the same biome?

While these are different breeds rather than the same breed with different alts, the fact remains that there's the exact same "challenge" of getting what you want from the cave since clicking any of those listed eggs could result in obtaining the opposite egg from the one you were after.  And yet, these are listed in the market despite that getting entirely around the "challenge" of getting the correct egg.

 

The Pargulus Pygmies are also an anomaly in that you can take all the "challenge" out of it by catching your egg in the biome, but if you grab one from the market then it's a gamble which color it'll hatch into.  (The artist has weighed in on their vision for why that is on this one, I'm merely bringing it up as another currently existing example of "the 'challenge' is not the same between cave and market")

 

(This also, of course, ignores the fact that to get any rare dragon such as a CB metal or a CB Stat requires tremendous luck to even see one at all, but you can simply save up shards to buy them in the market--one could argue the entire market should be removed because it circumvents the "challenge" of the game by letting anybody get almost any dragon as long as they're patient enough.)

 

4 hours ago, OMGitsKairi said:

I disagree. For me, collecting is the essential part of collection games. And I don't feel as

though pouring weeks or months worth of shards down the drain and hoping I get what I'm

looking for constitutes a challenge, either. 

 

Same.  There's already plenty of challenge if you want to do things like build lineages or set your own goals such as "only non-market CBs".  But I'd rather spend 17 weeks of shards on an Aeon than throw them all at Vespines only to end up with 8 yellows in a row (prices based off current market rates, cost ratio of aeon:vespine subject to change).  Essentially, it renders the market utterly useless for those breeds except to the people who already don't really use the market to begin with and thus are either sitting on a stash of shards or wouldn't be using their shards for anything else anyway.

 

And then, if you do get the alt but you actually wanted the more common one...  You can't even trade it off for the more common variant, you're just straight up out your shards entirely.  Which has to be even more frustrating than not getting the alt you wanted.

[seventeendeer]

While I totally get the argument that the types of alts discussed in this thread are intended to be random chance and being able to purchase them from the market defeats that purpose, I'm also majorly biased in favor of making them available anyway. I'm at a disadvantage when cave-hunting for a multitude of reasons, so I largely rely on the market to get the CB's I want (outside of new release floods). I like that the market is there as a backup for those of us who simply suck badly at cave-hunting for whatever reason, it's nice that CB's are available from multiple sources, so there's some level of choice.

 

I don't personally think alts are necessarily lacking from the market - the "random chance" logic is perfectly sound - but I sure would appreciate if they were added anyway. Either option makes sense to me, but I'm leaning toward the one that would help me finally get that CB alt Vespine ...

[StarlightLion]

Support. Not just for the sake of making those alts readily available (although that is very nice) but also because it's a gamble on whether you get the alt right now and the Market is such a limited resource because of the shard cap that, IMHO, it should be guaranteed when you spend shards that you're getting the exact egg you're purchasing. Gambling in the cave is fine and good, because gambling in the cave is the whole premise of the cave. But the Market is not the same. That's why we can see every different Xenowyrms or Copper or Zyumorph variant as separate, purchasable options. Because when we pay for an egg, we should get what we're buying.

The list of variants available as individual, guaranteed eggs in the Market goes on and on, too. Astral, Baikala, False-Headed Hydra, Floret, the Fire Gems and Gemshards cycle to match their availability, as do the Lunar Heralds and Sonatas. Pyralspites. If the difference between variants is visible in the egg, then it's purchasable with shards.

Except for Dorsal, Ridgewing, and Vespine.

[Hawaiianbabidoll]

I'm pretty torn on this to be honest.

Definitely no to bred only anything being in the market, but that's not the primary debate.

When it comes to the caveborn alts, while I understand the frustration of trying to get them, and that the whole point of the market is to help you collect the things you're struggling to collect, I also feel like it goes against the idea of certain breeds to be able to just buy the alt. For the alts that are available in the market, the thing that creates the alt is controllable - the day, the biome, the time. All things you as a player can keep in mind when hunting in the cave so you can catch the specific thing you want by hunting during the correct window or in the correct place.

 

But the Dorsal, Ridgewing, and Vespine are asymmetrical chance. Their whole gimmick is the surprise of getting a shiny. This is different from the other rng dragons like alcedines and flare tails, since for those breeds its the same chances for either color.

 

TLDR I fully get that when you spend shards, you want to get what you pay for and that the market is to help you collect what you can't collect, but I'm also hesitant about erasing a breed's primary gimmick and think this would take away specifically from the breeds with asymmetrical outcomes.

[Fuzzbucket]

8 minutes ago, Hawaiianbabidoll said:

TLDR I fully get that when you spend shards, you want to get what you pay for and that the market is to help you collect what you can't collect, but I'm also hesitant about erasing a breed's primary gimmick and think this would take away specifically from the breeds with asymmetrical outcomes.

 

Exactly this. It was tough wasting all those shards only to get yellow Vespines - OTOH it was fun finding a red dorsal in the cave the day I got my first - I had no idea they existed.

[Diggie]

After consideration, firm no support. It just defeats the purpose of the random chance to get an alt, which is the whole point of the cb alts in question (dorsal, ridgewing, and vespine)--encouraging you to risk a spot for a pay off of a more desirable alt. Yes, the point of the market is primarily to collect the breeds you can't in the cave, but you can still collect these alts from the market. You just can't specifically select that you want the alt, which is not a problem at all, but is the point of the alt. It's random and it's less likely than the "normal" egg.

I've noticed nobody mentioned the alcedine/flare-tail eggs not being separate--I genuinely think the only reason this would get support for implementation is because the alcedines and flare-tails are pretty solidly 50/50 (market or cave) and therefore neither alt is more "valuable". Which is to say, I think that adding the alts separately into the market to bypass the breed's mechanic would make the alt less valuable in terms of cb specimens, and that the only reasoning behind adding them would be because someone wants to bypass the mechanic. Which I personally don't support, because then the mechanic is pointless for cb dragons and I'd rather not take away from the uniqueness of obtaining the alt. 

 

As for getting alt vespines, it will take time for them to be easier to grab in the cave, but they will get there. Ridgewings and dorsals sit around for minutes at a time--vespines will get there. They're just popular right now because they're new. 

 

(I really hope none of that came off as rude and that it's coherent--it's midterm week and I'm exhausted right now!)

Edited October 10, 2023 by Diggie

[KageSora]

3 hours ago, Hawaiianbabidoll said:

TLDR I fully get that when you spend shards, you want to get what you pay for and that the market is to help you collect what you can't collect, but I'm also hesitant about erasing a breed's primary gimmick and think this would take away specifically from the breeds with asymmetrical outcomes.

 

26 minutes ago, Diggie said:

After consideration, firm no support. It just defeats the purpose of the random chance to get an alt, which is the whole point of the cb alts in question (dorsal, ridgewing, and vespine)--encouraging you to risk a spot for a pay off of a more desirable alt.

 

Then what of the case of dragons that are different breeds (or sub-species in the case of Xenos) but it's a gamble every time you click them in the cave which one you obtain?  You can already use the market to circumvent the game of chance when it comes to which breed you obtain for several dragons that have both identical egg descriptions and overlapping biomes.

 

One could make the argument that back in the day the entire point of there being multiple dragons with the same egg description was to make it a game of chance (at one point there were four different breeds, one of which is a Drake, that shared the same description which all appeared in the cave back when there was only one)--yet the introduction of biomes and the splitting of some of those drags up changed that and made it easier to get the specific breed you wanted.

 

Perhaps some dragons ought to be replaced in the market with a Mystery Egg that will randomly give you one of the possible breeds that shares a description and biome in the cave, in order to preserve the gamble gimmick inherent to that situation?  If their shard prices vary the cost of the egg could be the average between them or something.  More complex, yes, but it preserves the gimmick instead of making it annoying that some eggs that have a "click in the cave for random chance" are obtainable via the market while others are not.

 

38 minutes ago, Diggie said:

I've noticed nobody mentioned the alcedine/flare-tail eggs not being separate

 

I think that's mostly to do with "there's no way to tell which one you get until it hatches and/or genders", whereas the alts most focused on here are ones you can tell immediately via the egg.

[Diggie]

3 minutes ago, KageSora said:

some eggs that have a "click in the cave for random chance" are obtainable via the market while others are not.

 

 

I think that's mostly to do with "there's no way to tell which one you get until it hatches and/or genders", whereas the alts most focused on here are ones you can tell immediately via the egg.

I agree partially with this, that part of why people don't push for alcedines, nebulas, flare-tails, etc. is because you can't know what alt you have until it hatches--or genders--but it's the principle of "there's x% chance to get this alt" that underlies both situations. The primary reason that alt dorsals, ridgewings, and vespines are valuable is not because you can tell the alt by the egg sprite, but because they're less common than the other pattern. Otherwise, it would be notably less of an issue if the latter eggs were just 50/50 alt/regular when bought in the market.

 

Xenos, however, are separate breeds/subspecies and as such get separate spots in the market. I think this is good--being able to pick the breed you can get--because they are separate breeds entirely. I like that the market separates by breed and by situationally controllable alts, but I wouldn't support being able to split apart breeds that have random chance alts.

 

My thoughts overall are essentially this: using the market to circumvent chance when the chance is between 2 separate breeds is one thing, but circumventing chance within alts of a breed that cannot be done in the cave itself (like false headed hydras and ciriax--pargulus being an odd one out here because they are not separated in the market) is a different situation; one that I personally don't support.

[Hawaiianbabidoll]

4 hours ago, KageSora said:

Then what of the case of dragons that are different breeds (or sub-species in the case of Xenos) but it's a gamble every time you click them in the cave which one you obtain?  You can already use the market to circumvent the game of chance when it comes to which breed you obtain for several dragons that have both identical egg descriptions and overlapping biomes.

 

One could make the argument that back in the day the entire point of there being multiple dragons with the same egg description was to make it a game of chance (at one point there were four different breeds, one of which is a Drake, that shared the same description which all appeared in the cave back when there was only one)--yet the introduction of biomes and the splitting of some of those drags up changed that and made it easier to get the specific breed you wanted.

 

Perhaps some dragons ought to be replaced in the market with a Mystery Egg that will randomly give you one of the possible breeds that shares a description and biome in the cave, in order to preserve the gamble gimmick inherent to that situation?  If their shard prices vary the cost of the egg could be the average between them or something.  More complex, yes, but it preserves the gimmick instead of making it annoying that some eggs that have a "click in the cave for random chance" are obtainable via the market while others are not.

The market does cut the gamble in the cave for shared description breeds, but as far as I know none of those breeds are particularly rarer than the others so if you must compare them to dragons with alts, they'd be more comparable to alcedines/flares/nebs. Also breeds vs alts isn't the same thing. The market gives you access to almost every cave born breed, and in doing so, gives you access to their alts as well via breeding. You can't breed a horse because you picked up a frill if you don't have any horses, but you can breed a white vespine if you only have a yellow.  As a cave born collector I understand that a bred alt isn't what everyone wants, but it doesn't change the fact that the market still gives you the tools to get the alts by giving you breeding stock so you technically only need to buy a breed once before you have access to all its forms.
 

5 hours ago, KageSora said:

I think that's mostly to do with "there's no way to tell which one you get until it hatches and/or genders", whereas the alts most focused on here are ones you can tell immediately via the egg.

I agree with Diggie, the important thing there is the '% chance you get X alt' being why they don't have all their variants available. I consider it a kindness that the creators of the breeds with uncommon alts made it so we can tell right away if we got the alt and we shouldn't use that against them to take away their breed's gimmick if other market breeds that happen to not have different eggs for their alts get to retain it.

 

Again I'm gonna reiterate, I'm on the fence on this because I do feel it goes against the spirit of Vespines/Dorsals/Ridgewings.
Though if their conceptors and artists came in and said they'd be ok with it, then I'd also be fine with it and support it. But I do think if one gets its alts added, then they all should, for consistency.

[Moonlight_Eevee]

No support on this at all. If you buy a dorsal/ridgewing/vespine from the market, you do have a small chance of getting the alt color. It's based on luck and adding them into the market would skwer their ratios tremendously I think. 

[Naraku]

I'm not gonna act like an expert on a topic we know practically nothing about, so I'll save the pointless sermon.
 

I support this suggestion with the following conditions:
1. Artist(s) is/are okay with their breed alt being added to the market. This is particularly important to me.
2. The said alt is available at a higher price in proportion to their ratio and alt rarity.

[11th]

There are three categories when it comes to alts:

 - Non-random, where there is a guaranteed way to get it. (ex. Lunar Herald, Gemshard, Fire Gem (time); Cantormaris, Sapphire, Shumoga, Xol (BSA/Action); Baikala, Copper, Pyralspite, Zyumorph (biome); etc.)

 - Semi-random, where there is some way to limit outcomes, but not guarantee a specific one. (There are two Xeno types per biome plus Staterae, Xeno offspring is determined by mate breed + biome; Lumina and Sonata odds shift over time.)

 - Random, with no way to influence it at all, though results may have unequal odds of occurring. (ex. Alcedine, Dorsal, Nebula, Ridgewing, Vespine; Terrae eggs; Pargulus & Magnesium when bred**.)

 

These categories apply to both breeding and the cave with the exception of Pargulus & Magnesium**. Both breeds lack alt-specific egg sprites -- the color of CBs can be determined by biome they were caught in, but they throw random colors from breeding, making them lean closer to "random" than "non-random" for market purposes.

 

Currently, alts that are fully random cannot be found on the market specifically. Because catching and breeding are always random, I don't really mind them being random from the market as well, though it would not hurt to indicate on the market page that they will be randomly colored.

[zippuzzle]

16 hours ago, Hawaiianbabidoll said:

TLDR I fully get that when you spend shards, you want to get what you pay for and that the market is to help you collect what you can't collect, but I'm also hesitant about erasing a breed's primary gimmick and think this would take away specifically from the breeds with asymmetrical outcomes.

I feel like this is a much better summary than what I could words out. While it might be pretty cool to just save up and buy the Tan Ridgewings for my project, the fact that they're meant to be a rare surprise is kind of fun? I was honestly much more frustrated trying to get the right color Flare-Tails, partially because that didn't feel like it was meant to be hard (RNG please I beg) but getting the rare alt egg feels a bit like finding a Shiny Pokemon. I worry that some of the special excitement would be diminished if I only needed to save up a few shards.
 

41 minutes ago, 11th said:

Currently, alts that are fully random cannot be found on the market specifically. Because catching and breeding are always random, I don't really mind them being random from the market as well, though it would not hurt to indicate on the market page that they will be randomly colored.

I do agree that perhaps an indicator might be beneficial here, having a clear warning might help folks who were confused avoid 'wasting' shards?

 

14 hours ago, Diggie said:

As for getting alt vespines, it will take time for them to be easier to grab in the cave, but they will get there. Ridgewings and dorsals sit around for minutes at a time--vespines will get there. They're just popular right now because they're new.

I see plenty of Ridgewings and Dorsals sitting in the cave. It's been pretty easy for me to pick one up here or there, though I haven't gotten many alts I admittedly also haven't been hunting for them particularly actively. It's been getting easier to pick up Vespines too, though they do still go fairly quickly. I'd be disappointed if the super special rare alts cost much less than, say, a Silver in the Market? Which would be 5ish months of saving up shards. With how long the older breeds' eggs sit there, I'm pretty sure you'd find more CB alts in 5 months of checking the Cave eggs than you would saving all your shards to buy just one? I obviously haven't tested it and I'm not great with math, but... I do know I've picked up 3 alts in the course of a year of playing and I wasn't even especially dedicated to hunting for them. I've also had some decent success trading for alts, so if 'gambling' is the issue, you could always try to trade for the egg you want? Much easier than trying to get a Neglected or Stat in a trade, I'd say it was somewhere between getting CB Trio eggs and a CB Silver.

Hard no from me personally on the bred alts being in the Market, though it does look like OP just misremembered coming up with an example list and wasn't intending to ask for that.

Apologies if any of this feels rude or rambling, I'm kind of tired and I promise I don't mean any offense.

[Charity322]

I've tried trading. People are asking for CB Golds or Stateraes in a trade for white vespines. That 100% rules me out of ever getting one in a trade.

 

I really don't get the difference between rare alts and rare breeds like Golds. Why would it be bad if a market alt cost the same as a Gold? Noone is saying that the market is ruining the fun of having it be really difficult to get a Gold from the cave.

 

But then I'd honestly prefer every breed to be accessible. Having hard to catch breeds just isn't fun at all for me. If I can sign a waiver saying that I don't want to compete at all can I just have access to all the breeds lol?