Split, clean or revamp the “Available for BSA” group

[inghelene]

Whilst I love the delta and astrael BSA, I feel like the convenience of the “Available for BSA” group is being able to quickly access the BSA’s that I am likely to use on different eggs/hatchlings on my scroll.

 

I’m not really looking for pollinators unless I catch an astrael egg, and for deltas, it’s likely I know which specific dragon I want to shrink/enlarge, instead of wanting to shrink/enlarge any whenever the bsa is off cool down.
Instead I feel their inclusion in the “Available for BSA” group discourage me from creating a massive hoard.

I would therefore like bsas that affect multiple species separated from those that only target a singular breed.
 

My suggestions as to how:

1. Keep all BSA’s that only target a single breed out of the “Available for BSA” group.

2. Split the group between wide BSA and alt-mechanic BSA (has been suggested before, and would make painted rays and celestials included in the alt group.)

3. Make another page display every available bsa, picking one dragon for its usage. (Basically the way you can create a teleport from the trade page, making the list only as long as your Bsa options, but not as long as every dragon you have of each bsa.) 

Note that the last option requires a bsa to list for each effect, ie. Pinks listing twice if you have both genders available.

[KageSora]

Ehhh...  No support.  Seems like it'd be a lot more work for something any player who has a problem with it can solve themselves with very little effort just by manually making their own group for BSA dragons that only includes the breed(s) they want and excludes the one(s) they don't.

[Kith]

This is actually what I use groups for. I have one for every BSA that I may need to use several of at once (fertility, incubate, etc).

[seventeendeer]

Support! As we get more breeds with various BSA's, I think this is only going to become more and more needed.

 

Expanding on option 3 - how about a list of available BSA's, each of which link to a separate page with every dragon available to perform said BSA? That way, it's easy to find the BSA you're looking for, and you also get to have control over which dragon to use.

[04uni]

Support on 2 but not for the others- I use the BSA page to get to the individual BSAs too, and while I know which specific dragon I sometimes want to use, it's still easier to go to the BSA page. I know where all of the reds/pinks/purples/aeons/greens/etc are within the BSA option (which page), so it's never really bothered me. That being said, I can understand how it can be annoying for people with larger hoards of these dragons, but I would still like some kind of BSA page for individual BSAs.

[KageSora]

1 minute ago, seventeendeer said:

Expanding on option 3 - how about a list of available BSA's, each of which link to a separate page with every dragon available to perform said BSA? That way, it's easy to find the BSA you're looking for, and you also get to have control over which dragon to use.

 

For the record, I've been able to pull up every single dragon on my scroll that can perform a specific BSA that I pick whenever I want since they added groups to the game.

[inghelene]

Yeah, I feel it currently still works perfect for me, but I bring it up because I see it becomming more prominent when I properly collect the new dragons.

It is not a problem I see that immediately needs fixing, but something I think we could address before we get 3-4 more breeds added in at a later point.

Honestly, I'd be entirely fine with the system staying as-is, with the oldest of the "alt-BSA's" continiously being removed when a new is added.

 

But personally, I love how the “Available for BSA” group work, being able to overlap other custom groups, making me think I'd adore the option of having one for "alt-bsa" that also include the BSA's that currently are included in neither summon nor regular BSA-group.

The ideas with making a group for specific BSA's is a pretty neat one once you have engough to never run out of cooldowns, but it's a lot less convenient for users still building their BSA pool, as they need to continiously add to the group. It is how I started just using the default group by itself.

But yeah, at the end of the day, it is not a mechanic that must happen, but it is a suggestion for possibilities I would love to see implemented for even smoother daily life.

[OMGitsKairi]

Support for #2 on the list but not the others. Maybe in the way that the "available for BSA" is separated from the "available for summon."

 

I can also see how the list will become more and more crowded as more dragons with BSAs are added.

[seventeendeer]

I do also think #2 could work, though it might become a problem later if a BSA is introduced that doesn't fall neatly into either category?

 

I really do think some compact, easy-to-navigate menus might be more helpful. BSA's have become such a big part of the site's mechanics over the years, some nice, tidy navigation could really improve the gameplay experience, in my opinion. Little control panel for everything.

 

2 hours ago, KageSora said:

For the record, I've been able to pull up every single dragon on my scroll that can perform a specific BSA that I pick whenever I want since they added groups to the game.

 

Not sure why you're quoting me on this, but I'm glad you found a system that makes it easy for you! If it works it works, am I right? 👍

[inghelene]

I think a separate group for BSA’s that only work on a single breed would be so specific that it wouldn’t be hard to separate where future BSA’s would go.  

It would cover both pollinate and corporealize, despite one being for eggs and the other being for the dragon itself.

 

Though another could be between what affects the dragon itself and what affects eggs. That would leave pollinate in, but still make a group and working filter for the two BSA’s that are currently excluded. 🤔

Feeder the first of the two though.

[dracornithologist]

I've been thinking of suggesting some revamps to groups in general, but would a dropdown menu on group pages to view "Available for BSA" in a similar way to the dropdown appears on the main /dragons page (a list of options including, "Available for BSA", "Available for Summon", "Available for breeding", for example) be easy to do/helpful to this issue?

[Kith]

2 minutes ago, dracornithologist said:

I've been thinking of suggesting some revamps to groups in general, but would a dropdown menu on group pages to view "Available for BSA" in a similar way to the dropdown appears on the main /dragons page (a list of options including, "Available for BSA", "Available for Summon", "Available for breeding", for example) be easy to do/helpful to this issue?

 

Custom groups do work like this, actually. If I have a batch of eggs I need to incubate, I go to my Incubate group and select "Available for BSA" in the dropdown and there they are.

[dracornithologist]

2 minutes ago, Kith said:

 

Custom groups do work like this, actually. If I have a batch of eggs I need to incubate, I go to my Incubate group and select "Available for BSA" in the dropdown and there they are.

 

....today I learned ! 😅 The the stumbling block after that would be the onus on each user of creating the custom group to filter out the unwanted breeds. 

[meeps114]

Support for suggestion #2. I've been thinking about making this suggestion myself, although I was wording it as aesthetic changes. Either works IMO.

 

@KageSora I don't really see how it's relevant at all that users can just create their own separate groups. Summon BSAs were split out as a nice QOL improvement. Yes, obviously there are workarounds but the point of adding in that separation is that there's hypothetically a fair amount of users that would find this convenient. Also, we don't know whether it'd be "a lot more work" for TJ, and there's no point in speculating on that as an argument for or against a suggestion.

[inghelene]

13 minutes ago, dracornithologist said:

I've been thinking of suggesting some revamps to groups in general, but would a dropdown menu on group pages to view "Available for BSA" in a similar way to the dropdown appears on the main /dragons page (a list of options including, "Available for BSA", "Available for Summon", "Available for breeding", for example) be easy to do/helpful to this issue?

I think this is already in effect.
 

Edit: sorry, updated too slow.  

 

There are workarounds with the current system in place. The suggestion is simply a change I’d see implemented as an improvement so you wouldn’t have to rely on several long lists you’d manually have to expand every time you grow a new bsa dragon.  

Edited April 3 by inghelene

[Frej_the_Gold]

Support 1 and 2 for me, but 3 seems overkill as far as I'm concerned.

[Fuzzbucket]

I have my own group of BSA dragons in which I have ONLY red, pink., aeon, white, bolt and purple (on the grounds that I'm not very likely to want EQ in a hurry, and Magis show up when you go for "trade". Then I just filter by "available for BSA.". And it is the work of under a second to add a new one to that group.

[11th]

Support for #2 -- I also have a custom group of wide use BSAs, but I use it more for counting/breeding dragons & keeping my Ungrouped filter clean because the default BSA filter saves me a page load. (Group filters takes you to the group, then you still have to filter BSAs.) Astraels and Deltas thankfully aren't a huge problem on my scroll (yet), but with them and my Purple hoard, sometimes my Reds do get bumped to the second page now. |D

 

Given that Summons already have their own filter, I don't think adding a third BSA subgroup would take much work, and it would also allow easier searching for breeds that aren't currently covered by the filters. Celestials and Painted Rays have been mentioned, but also Aegides and Glysteres.

[purplehaze]

21 hours ago, 11th said:

the default BSA filter saves me a page load. (Group filters takes you to the group, then you still have to filter BSAs.)

This is my argument against groups as a solution to this. So I would favor #2 as long as it doesn't require an extra click to indicate which class of BSAs you want to show (both should show in the drop-down to allow you to choose the one you want with one click.)

[Fuzzbucket]

Actually it occurs to me (having just gone to use one) that in the pulldown BSA filter, they are ordered as they are on my scroll - so I suppose one way would be to put all the "silly" ones lower down your scroll ?

[UnicornMaiden]

I like the idea of a separate filter for alt mechanic BSAs. I don't use them nearly as frequently as things like Influence and Fertility. And it makes sense since we already have a separate filter for summoning BSAs.

[Skadi]

Support for option 2. I usually play on mobile, so i simply have which mobile page my reds are on memorized. But option 2 wouldn't be too bad. I also like the idea of including celestials and painted rays that option 2 would allow.

Edited April 6 by Skadi

[lou-meow]

I've been thinking about this too, and recently made a group for BSA I use most and I never use the group. It annoys me to have to select the "available for BSA" option anyway. I was thinking if it could be set in advance, from the edit group page for example, I might use the group more.

Would be nice for breeding groups to be set to display "available for breeding" as default too.

Yeah, it's a matter of a fraction of second, still bugs me... mostly when I forget to set it and scroll away.

[LadyMadonna]

Fully understand the OP's rationale.  It does seem kind of odd to have breed-specific BSAs like Pollinate and Shrink in the available listing, whereas others like Corporealize are absent.   On a personal level, it doesn't bother me  because I know which pages to go to for my Pinks, Purples, Reds and Whites when on my mobile and roughly where they sit on the scroll bar of my laptop.  I do have separate Groups for each of these, but that doesn't tell me which ones aren't on cooldown, without an additional search.

 

What I do think would be immensely useful and maybe needs a different thread (if there isn't one already?), would be to have BSA Actions listed under Actions for each individual dragon.  There's plenty of empty space on each dragon's Action page.  So, for example, I want to breed a particular dagon.  If I press Breed on its Action page, it will tell me if it already has added Fertility.  However, if I want to give it Fertility, I have to come out of its page and go to see what Purples I have available at that moment to fertilise it.  Then I have to search for it in my full list of dragons, by which time I may very well have forgotten which one it was and, of course, there's no option to click the dragons within the list to check.  A separate window needs to be open for me to double-check.    The same could be true of Influence, Incubate and Ward (although you can at least check the dragon is the right one on the same page before committing to use the BSA).

Edited April 9 by LadyMadonna

[Munin]

I feel like just adding the filter options we have when creating groups everywhere relevant would solve this problem and so many others. Give me a filter option at the top of the page that is always available, whether I just want to filter my scroll as is, or when seeing the "available for bsa" view, or when selecting a mate for breeding. Don´t need fancy filter options for BSAs when you can just filter your list for "red dragon"