Display egg sprites in Cave if encyclopedia is already filled?

[DraconianIgnis]

I've seen a couple browser adopt games where if you've never seen an egg before, it'll be shown as a egg with a question mark in it (like what Dragon Cave has now) but if it's an egg/creature you've already discovered, it'll display the actual egg sprite instead to show that you've already obtained it. I thought it would be cool if Dragon Cave could have something similar. Maybe the sprite would only change if the encyclopedia page was partially or completely filled out? (egg, hatchling, and adult sprites are filled out, not sure if the "observations" section should count)

 

With how many breeds there are it's hard to remember which dragon is which based on their description alone. I tend to google the dragon's description to find out which one it is (thank you wiki!) but if it's a rare or even an uncommon dragon, by the time I come back somebody else already took it. I also made an image just for fun lol

[blah]

I’ve wished for this so many times. 😄 However, every image that needs to load and that needs to be identified slows down the page loading and that’s the last thing I want. Also, I vaguely remember this being discussed in the past and there being some technical reasons not to do it but since I don’t understand any of that I don’t properly remember. 

[KageSora]

Strongly against this, personally.

 

It's easy to unlock images in the Encyclopedia without actually learning what the egg description is thanks to hatcheries, and this would give a MASSIVE advantage to anybody who has the sprite unlocked.

 

New players would basically never have a chance at getting anything uncommon, rare, or otherwise desirable because players with it unlocked would snap them all up instantly.  At least with being forced to read descriptions there's a chance for a new player just clicking eggs at random to get a nice thing that shows up.

 

This would also defeat the purpose of any situation where eggs share a description but have different sprites and it's an intentional gamble which you get.  (Though if a change like this were added I'd argue that you then HAVE to change the market so that users can purchase alts directly rather than gambling as it is now for several breeds)

[Fuzzbucket]

100%agree with @KageSora. The advantages we older players have already occasionally feel unfair....

[schenanigans]

8 hours ago, KageSora said:

Strongly against this, personally.

 

It's easy to unlock images in the Encyclopedia without actually learning what the egg description is thanks to hatcheries, and this would give a MASSIVE advantage to anybody who has the sprite unlocked.

 

New players would basically never have a chance at getting anything uncommon, rare, or otherwise desirable because players with it unlocked would snap them all up instantly.  At least with being forced to read descriptions there's a chance for a new player just clicking eggs at random to get a nice thing that shows up.

 

This would also defeat the purpose of any situation where eggs share a description but have different sprites and it's an intentional gamble which you get.  (Though if a change like this were added I'd argue that you then HAVE to change the market so that users can purchase alts directly rather than gambling as it is now for several breeds)

 

Your first statement is really contradictory? "It's really easy to do x thing so it's not fair that everyone can do it!" is kinda how that comes out to me

It really isn't difficult to unlock egg sprites and I daresay most players have them unlocked so it would actually even the playing field, imo. New players have to somehow memorize hundreds of egg descriptions they aren't familiar with, and I feel like that is much more difficult and unfair. Some of us have years of experience with the same descriptions. I don't think I have ever seen anybody "pick up a rare at random" so that's a wild scenario, those types of things get snapped up instantly anyway. I would even argue that egg sprites should just be automatically unlocked in cave (after all, they're not question marks for players in the AP, even if they haven't unlocked the egg sprites)

Having played a similar game that does show the egg-equivalent sprites, I rather enjoy being able to see the sprites. 

 

I feel that eggs that have an alt lotto (vespines, dorsals, ridgewings) could just show the "normal" egg and you only know if you got an alt on the "get" page like when you purchase from the market, and eggs that share a description in the same biome could use the ? sprite we have now. 

 

I don't feel strongly either way and am neutral to this, I wouldn't be upset if it got implemented. 

Edited December 18, 2023 by schenanigans

[Moriaty]

Fairly neutral on this as well, visual is honestly easier to remember than text, so yes people with faster reflex might have an even easier time catching rares since taking in description might take longer than glancing and seeing a familiar color scheme...but I'm not sure why making cave eggs difficult to recognize is a preferred thing vs make it easy to recognize? It's more difficult for new players to memorize the rare descriptions than to click around the hatcheries for a couple of rare eggs and memorize the color, I'd even say they have a fairer chance of getting rare eggs if they go that route. So fairly neutral on this, if it gets implemented fine, if not that's fine too im used to the current way already (shrug)

[04uni]

Neutral, leaning against

 

I agree with Schen that I would think this actually helps new players, but I think part of the fun of the game is learning these codes and racing for the dragon; with the images the cave would feel very similar to the abandoned page.

 

The other reason I'd be against would be because then it's harder to code-hunt on more popular breeds- right now you can maybe see a code before it gets snatched up because it takes time for people to process the description - if we add images getting nice codes on rarer breeds would be more of a luck thing than being able to check.

[CandraCat]

STRONGLY Opposed if implemented as stated in the opening post, hesitantly neutral if everyone gets to see all the egg sprites, regardless of if they’ve ‘seen’ them before…..
I feel that few people are going to agree with my gut feelings on this…..

 but I think that if you’re gonna show the egg sprites, just always show the egg sprites to everyone, regardless of if you own or have owned the egg.

or maybe if you’ve seen the egg in the biomes, even if you didn’t grab it, you get to see the egg sprite next time you come across it? You’ve technically ‘seen’ it, right? It’s not like you’re gonna be able to grab it with all the people with their encyclopedias full grabbing at it before you can even read the first 2 words of the description 🤦‍♀️ 

if that sounds ridiculous, it’s only because it’s hard to avoid a touch of ridiculously with this topic 🤷‍♀️ 

 

for anyone, (first day on the site, or 20 year veteran) who is having trouble remembering all the descriptions, I use this site

https://dragcave.fandom.com/wiki/Gemshard_Dragon

I know that page is specifically gemshards, but you can search out any breeds, and I believe just a list of all the eggs and their descriptions, so you can pick a couple breeds you’re looking for, make a note of their descriptions and grab em if you see em. 😊 

 

I guess I feel that if something is going to be done to make finding rare CBs easier, it’s only fair that it benefits the noobs just as much as the OG players, especially considering the fact that OG players have had significantly longer to learn what descriptions match which egg 🤷‍♀️ 

It’s almost like if you’ve already won the lottery, you get to know what the winning numbers are ahead of time, and your only challenge is to be the first person to the store to buy the winning ticket 🤔 

 

I’m guessing  the general feeling of the people who are pro this idea (who appear to be in the minority) is kinda like ‘I’ve played this game for a long time and I’ve dedicated a lot of time and effort here, therefore I deserve certain perks!’ along the lines of more dragons means a better trophy which means the ability to have more younglings, maybe?

I mean, this idea only benefits experienced players and is detrimental to new players, right?

 

Im assuming that everyone realizes that this would likely start off with no one being recognized as having ‘seen’ anything, I remember when I was not able to access DC for a couple years and when I came back a bunch of the dragons I had, showed as owning or even as having seen 0 of the breed in the encyclopedia……but I’m assuming the people who want this already have the rare dragons they can look at so they can have ‘seen’ one….

or since the first post specifically said you’d have had to see the ‘egg’ so maybe looking at an adult wouldn’t do anything? 🤷‍♀️ 

 

I see a likely possibility of this creating a greater discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots in this game.

I’ve seen a lot of noobs quit games before because it’s just too hard for them to play with/against more experienced players, and I don’t want to see this happen.

but maybe it’s still fair though….. the experienced players who grabbed rare eggs just cos they’re valuable could charge a noob like 40 CBs of the grabbers choice so the noob could get the egg they want and don’t have and will have an even lower chance of obtaining on their own if this is implemented.

On a side note, that’s not important to why I’m opposed, 

it’s also another way to dumb everyone down. Remember when you were a kid and you had like 20+ phone numbers memorized? Now your phone remembers em all for you so you just have to remember you friend’s name….. 😂 

I know I’m showing my age with that thought….... prolly some people in this game who’ve never had to memorize a phone number 😂 ☎️ 

[KageSora]

4 hours ago, schenanigans said:

Your first statement is really contradictory?

 

Not really, though I seem to have forgotten a sentence or two for context that would clarify that--so I see where you're coming from.  It's extremely easy to unlock them if you know how to do it and are actively using the resources needed.  Believe it or not, but there's actually still new players who don't immediately come to the forums or the discord to read everything they can and then immediately go to hatch sites to raise their dragons.  If they're not on the forum or the discord and they don't already know about the hatch sites (and how you can unlock sprites using them) from whoever introduced them to the game then they are not going to know to be able to spend the hours or days needed to unlock every egg sprite.  If, however, they do then they can knock it out pretty easy.

 

It's actually part of a set of advantages anybody who uses either official or unofficial communities has over those who don't even lurk in such communities and play totally solo.  Some players disdain these advantages and prefer figuring everything out for themselves, others aren't allowed to because they're too young and their parents won't allow them into these communities, others simply don't realize how much information and how many resources are available if they at least lurk.  There's not really anything you can do about that, though--even if you deleted all official communities players could form unofficial ones and such so it's not like you can remove all of the advantage that keeping tabs on a community can confer.

 

But you can take steps to try and mitigate things so that there's no one group that has the biggest possible advantage over others to the point where if you're not using certain resources you might as well not even play from how disadvantaged you are.  (DC is pretty decent in that you don't have to frequent the forums or discord to play the game and have fun with it for the most part)

 

4 hours ago, schenanigans said:

I don't think I have ever seen anybody "pick up a rare at random" so that's a wild scenario

 

*waves hands*  Hi!  I managed to pick up a Silver at random twice this year!  I was cycling the biome both times and not really reading the descriptions super carefully since it didn't matter what egg I grabbed I was just trying to move them along in the hopes one of them would be one of the dragons I was after.  Since I was hunting other dragons specifically by the time I registered what the flavor text said and that it was a rare dragon I'd already clicked on it anyway because I was just clicking randomly to try and get see if I could find any of the much more common dragons I needed for lineages.

 

I don't really consider "Scenario that happened twice in under a year to the same person and which could easily be repeated by anybody else who was doing the same actions and happened to get super lucky on timing" to be a "wild scenario".  Unless Silvers aren't considered rare anymore?

 

4 hours ago, schenanigans said:

I may even argue that egg sprites could just be automatically unlocked in cave (after all, they're not question marks for players in the AP, even if they haven't unlocked the egg sprites)

 

That I could get behind, as it doesn't block new players who don't yet know or haven't managed to access enough to unlock all the sprites from seeing them.

 

 

[schenanigans]

2 hours ago, KageSora said:

*waves hands*  Hi!  I managed to pick up a Silver at random twice this year!  I was cycling the biome both times and not really reading the descriptions super carefully since it didn't matter what egg I grabbed I was just trying to move them along in the hopes one of them would be one of the dragons I was after.  Since I was hunting other dragons specifically by the time I registered what the flavor text said and that it was a rare dragon I'd already clicked on it anyway because I was just clicking randomly to try and get see if I could find any of the much more common dragons I needed for lineages.

 

I don't really consider "Scenario that happened twice in under a year to the same person and which could easily be repeated by anybody else who was doing the same actions and happened to get super lucky on timing" to be a "wild scenario".  Unless Silvers aren't considered rare anymore?

 

Sorry but this is an incredibly anecdotal point and still doesn't change how wild that scenario is. Certainly not something, within the context of your argument, that I would go about recommending to newbies (especially with their limited slots and all) to just "yeah go in there and start clicking blindly, surefire way for a rare!" 

I have friends who do similar (and I do myself) and this has never happened to any of us. One person's experience =/= an average experience. 

 

Would be a fun party story, though!

 

Either way, I'm not here to argue more about such hypotheticals. Have seen the effects of this in similar games and personally enjoy it, and others are totally okay to prefer the opposite. 

Edited December 18, 2023 by schenanigans

[CandraCat]

I’ve also accidentally got rares from the biome…… not the same situation as Kage, but I’ve got at least one silver when I was hunting saphs, and another time, perhaps a touch more similar to Kage’s situation - one time I was almost falling asleep on my tablet and got an unbreedable but I wasn’t even really trying to click on anything, I was more forcing myself to stay awake beyond my body’s capacity and trying to keep my nose off my tablet 😂 I can’t remember if it was a Dino or paper or cheese, not a chicken, but for sure one of the other unbreedables, so while it’s certainly a ‘rare’ occurrence to accidentally grab dragons that hard to come by, perhaps even in the ‘wild scenario’ category, but so is having a scroll with 8 CB Aeon eggs and I’ve seen that….. so ‘wild scenario’ or no, it still happens 🤷‍♀️ 

 

beyond that I’ve already said my piece….. either get the coding changed so that everyone sees all the egg sprites, full encyclopedia or no, or leave it how it is….
I’m far more in favour of leaving it how it is than showing absolutely everyone all the egg sprites. While the latter would be the way for this to be implemented in the least harmful way, I see no way for this to be helpful for the broader player base, so it seems like a pretty bad idea….😬

 

 

Edited December 18, 2023 by CandraCat

[pegasi1978]

No support. At least with the question egg the sprites all load at the same time, with each individual egg it could take longer, especially on slower internet if you haven't seen the egg recently so it isn't in your internet cache files.

[KageSora]

3 hours ago, schenanigans said:

Sorry but this is an incredibly anecdotal point and still doesn't change how wild that scenario is. Certainly not something, within the context of your argument, that I would go about recommending to newbies (especially with their limited slots and all) to just "yeah go in there and start clicking blindly, surefire way for a rare!"

 

Sorry but you're gonna have to point out where I said "suggest this to newbies" and "this is a surefire way to get a rare" rather than merely providing 100% proof that it's possible to obtain rares this way.  It not being average is not the same as it not being possible, which was my point since your wording seemed to indicate you thought it was an entirely hypothetical scenario that had no chance of happening in reality that I pulled out of thin air.  It's not, since it's an argument based on my actual experience playing the game.  If we're including things like Dinos in the "rares" category then this has happened to me no less than 3 times this year alone (possibly more, I don't keep Dinos these days so I don't recall every single one I traded/gifted/dumped), more than that if you want to go back further though I wouldn't be able to tell you how often in any given year it happened outside this one.

 

Reading descriptions doesn't matter one way or another for getting a rare aside from the fact that if you don't know them or you take too long to read them then you're not going to be the first person to click it unless you're literally the only person in the biome.  So, if a user is just clicking at random they have a chance that they'll click the egg before anybody who's reading the description.  There's plenty of reasons users might click at random including being a new user that's just trying to get a bunch of eggs regardless of species.  I know that's how I played back when I first started, just grabbing anything I could because I wanted to just collect a bunch of dragons.  Carefully weighing slots vs breeds and having specific goals or hunting for certain things came later.  I've seen multiple new users over the years express similar sentiments to "I just want to collect as many dragons I can", therefore it's not unreasonable to think that at least some of them are just grabbing from the cave at random.  (The AP is faster for building up a collection, yes, but not all of them will be going for the AP all the time)

 

However, changing it to show images for some users (aka those who've unlocked them) but not all means that those users have a faster way to register what's on the screen and click.  Since there's less pause than if they have to scan a description for keywords they've memorized then rares will last even less time (and as you point out they already last very little) which means even less chance for users who aren't paying attention to descriptions but just clicking (such as, say, a new user who is just trying to get a bunch of dragons) to be the first to click on it.

 

It merely makes the existing advantage experienced players have even more stacked in their favor.

Edited December 18, 2023 by KageSora

[Fuzzbucket]

7 hours ago, CandraCat said:

I’m guessing  the general feeling of the people who are pro this idea (who appear to be in the minority) is kinda like ‘I’ve played this game for a long time and I’ve dedicated a lot of time and effort here, therefore I deserve certain perks!’ along the lines of more dragons means a better trophy which means the ability to have more younglings, maybe?

I mean, this idea only benefits experienced players and is detrimental to new players, right?

This is how I feel about it too. It's fine as it is, and there are so many qol things that would actually improve the game that would make better use of TJ's time.

 

Also agree about it dumbing things down. There is so much too much of that in the world already.

Edited December 18, 2023 by Fuzzbucket

[schenanigans]

6 hours ago, KageSora said:

 

Sorry but you're gonna have to point out where I said "suggest this to newbies" and "this is a surefire way to get a rare" rather than merely providing 100% proof that it's possible to obtain rares this way.  It not being average is not the same as it not being possible, which was my point since your wording seemed to indicate you thought it was an entirely hypothetical scenario that had no chance of happening in reality that I pulled out of thin air.  It's not, since it's an argument based on my actual experience playing the game.  If we're including things like Dinos in the "rares" category then this has happened to me no less than 3 times this year alone (possibly more, I don't keep Dinos these days so I don't recall every single one I traded/gifted/dumped), more than that if you want to go back further though I wouldn't be able to tell you how often in any given year it happened outside this one.

 

Reading descriptions doesn't matter one way or another for getting a rare aside from the fact that if you don't know them or you take too long to read them then you're not going to be the first person to click it unless you're literally the only person in the biome.  So, if a user is just clicking at random they have a chance that they'll click the egg before anybody who's reading the description.  There's plenty of reasons users might click at random including being a new user that's just trying to get a bunch of eggs regardless of species.  I know that's how I played back when I first started, just grabbing anything I could because I wanted to just collect a bunch of dragons.  Carefully weighing slots vs breeds and having specific goals or hunting for certain things came later.  I've seen multiple new users over the years express similar sentiments to "I just want to collect as many dragons I can", therefore it's not unreasonable to think that at least some of them are just grabbing from the cave at random.  (The AP is faster for building up a collection, yes, but not all of them will be going for the AP all the time)

 

However, changing it to show images for some users (aka those who've unlocked them) but not all means that those users have a faster way to register what's on the screen and click.  Since there's less pause than if they have to scan a description for keywords they've memorized then rares will last even less time (and as you point out they already last very little) which means even less chance for users who aren't paying attention to descriptions but just clicking (such as, say, a new user who is just trying to get a bunch of dragons) to be the first to click on it.

 

It merely makes the existing advantage experienced players have even more stacked in their favor.

 

I also didn't say it wasn't possible but that it was a wild scenario and not something common or reliable (or even something that we should really be banking on because obviously outliers and funny happenstance happen in situations regardless). But you definitely said "the way it is now the newbies have a chance!" That's just not logic I follow 

 

But all this to say it literally wouldn't matter if someone is clicking blindly and just grabbing as they grab, egg sprites shown or not. If they aren't paying attention and happen upon a rare as they cycle the biomes then this would still theoretically be possible. The more important factor in your situation was you are the person refreshing and actively grabbing - you had the proper time and place. The only way you would get beat out is if someone happened to be refreshing the same biome at the exact same time you uncovered one and then also had a faster reaction time than your methodic clicking. And that same exact refresh time and place requirement would need to be in place for someone to see that rare even if the same scenario happened WITH egg sprites. 

It's kinda like hunting the AP for a specific egg (Thuweds anyone?) And not even seeing it because of the way refreshes happen. 

 

I can assure you in my game with egg-equivalent sprites shown newbies have the same exact chance as anyone else to get a rare.

But for that to happen, again, I would only support a change to EVERYONE sees the egg sprite if this got implemented, encyclopedia unlock or not. 

Having experienced that, I'm done arguing. I'll just leave it at that. 

Edited December 18, 2023 by schenanigans

[_Charky]

If we stop and look at the biome egg sprite, for just a little while... It's a question mark. It's supposed to be a surprise.
 

Way back when in the early days, you weren't allowed to discuss which eggs grew up into which dragons. The number of breeds was so small that sometimes the cave (singular) would have three completely different eggs with an identical description and absolutely NO way to tell what you were grabbing. That was half the fun! These days we have the wiki and the encyclopedia and the market... and I'm not mad about any of those because it's great for collecting, but I miss the mystery. I think the mystery added something, and just having the egg sprites there for all to see would remove the last traces of that mystery.

So, no support from me on this one. In fact, I might go and make a suggestion for a "mystery pile" where the eggs don't even have descriptions.

Edited December 18, 2023 by _Charky

[Corteo]

8 minutes ago, _Charky said:

I don't think this is as straightforward to code as you're expecting it to be. It would be quite a lot of effort for something which would mostly just introduce even *more* lag to what can already be a very slow loading experience to some.

Source needed.  Honestly it should be fairly easy to actually implement.

 

Anyway, I do support this idea.

[_Charky]

Deleted because I can't even remember what my original point was

 

Edited December 18, 2023 by _Charky

[Jazeki]

Neutral overall to the idea, but no towards it being tied to the encyclopedia. 

[Corteo]

39 minutes ago, _Charky said:

I'm not saying it's going to take endless hours of work, it's less effort than a lot of things but it's hardly a flick-of-a-switch situation either and not what I'd prefer that time to be spent on.

 

My source is thus;

although I am not TJ and do not know how the cave works, I can tell you that it is not possible to view an image of an egg before it is picked up in the cave. If you try, it shows as being fogged. So for one,  he'd need to change that entire mechanism. He'd then need to plan implement test and debug the change to the biome screen. After that he'd need to plan and deploy the change, and monitor for performance issues while fielding complaints about the change / people having caching issues / people having lag issues. That's certainly now how I'd define "fairly easy".

My point is that for you it wouldn’t be an effortless change and I’m saying that for me it’s negligible.  Like that’s less than an afternoon of work for me.   So since neither of us is TJ, any argument based on burden of coding work isn’t super relevant.

[Estellux]

Agreed that I would like images available but disagree that it should be tied to the encyclopedia. I think it’s just an unnecessary extra step.

[Fuzzbucket]

If anyone can see them, everyone must be able to. Level playing field and all that.

[dracornithologist]

I don't support this. As others have said, the mystery, to me, is part of the point. Lore wise, I feel like it enhances the feeling of frantically grabbing eggs among the chaos of other dragon rearers and the dragons themselves. Not to mention how it would totally alter the process of getting cave born alts. I'd prefer not radically changing the cave in this way!

[meeps114]

I agree with dracornithologist, also this change would render egg descriptions useless. There's no point in having them at that point. IMO that's a pretty big difference in gameplay, and there are so many other changes that would be beneficial. This one would just be changing the game for the sake of changing the game.

[Ashlynnii]

I find that I'm neutral on this. If it happens, it happens, if it doesn't, it doesn't. 🤷

 

I don't really care about "integrity" of finding CB alts, though I know (as seen on this very thread) a lot of people do, though I would rather not try to rally behind a mechanic that actively aggravates me. People already snatch up rares the second they load in, I don't really believe that added images would make it any faster when I've seen multiple times over the decade of me being on this site that people will grab up rares frame-one of them appearing, images-or-not. And I have good, speedy internet! People already get screwed by frame-one speed-snatchers and/or accidental grabs even with the text-based identification system the site's had for over a decade.

 

It'd also be useful for dealing with eggs that have the exact same description within the same biome (i.e. Frilled Dragons and Ochredrakes both have the same description of "This egg has strange markings on it." and are both found in the Jungle, but they're both completely different creatures [dragon and drake]. Seriously, that always annoys me: Memorizing description and biome combos doesn't help when two eggs in the same biome have the exact same description. Redundant/same descriptions between completely different eggs in general should probably get fixed.).