Flight Rising Discussion

With FR on the cusp of receiving what's assuredly its second ancient breed, I'm reminded of an old problem.

I don't like the way Gaoler genes were released. Not the lack of crossbreed compatibility or even the prices - I mean I don't like that they look exactly the same as the regular version with an A in one corner and a microscopic picture of a Gaoler head in the other. Even if you don't have vision problems, it's far too easy to mix up with something that appears in the same shop. And with the same number of items appearing from a growing pool each refresh, they can crowd out regular genes and decrease the chance of more widely used genes appearing.

And people totally play mind games with ancient genes on the AH - it's rare when I look up a modern gene with a parallel Gaoler version and don't see someone listing the Gaoler version just slightly below the modern version's LAH. I don't like how easy this is to pull off. It's predatory and it shouldn't be so easy to scam people.

This is only going to get worse with a second ancient. And as more get added still... the second problem will probably taper off somewhat as people get more used to ancients and checking what they're looking for, but the former is going to turn the specialty shop into a nightmare to traverse. Like you'll see the gene scroll you want, and there's a one in seven chance it's the one you can apply to your Spiral. And so on.

Do you guys have any solutions to this problem? I've heard 'color code ancient gene scrolls', like having Gaoler scrolls be pale blue to modern's parchment or a hypothetical nature ancient getting a rich green.* Another solution would be to create a second gene shop for ancient breeds, and keep the modern genes with everything else in specialty. But I'd like to hear other people's takes on this as we move towards getting more ancients.

*Edit: Point raised; this would still be a problem for anyone colorblind. Another, similar suggestion with more reach was to use different image borders for different ancients.

(I do think differentiating ancient genes from each other isn't as important as differentiating them from modern genes, because when you're buying an ancient gene, you're already going in with the mindset of 'I need this version of the gene', and less 'I need this gene' without really thinking of ancients. Though a way to differentiate them from each other is still important and could only benefit the game.)

To be honest, the only thing I can really hope for is a second 'specialty' tab for ancient breeds

Perhaps, Specialty and genes could be separated, so that there two two gene tabs (modern and ancient) and a single Specialty.

There isn't much that I think can be done about genes looking similar to their modern counterparts, except for sacrificing paralleled genes altogether and subsequently merging ancient parallel genes and modern genes into one item, but that, frankly, I see becoming a problem; especially with parallel genes already being in the game, and the potential economic impact(ancients going from needing their own genes to 'sharing' them with modern breeds, assuming modern/neutral genes stay at their current price).

Edit: Or, on the safer end the genes could be made to look drastically different (a brown , rocky frame, previewed on the ancient breed itself, etc.

And I, personally, like how ancient/modern genes are separate entities altogether, there just needs to be a way to organize them.

I think a solution to this might be and ancient specialty tab or maybe a filter, though somthing like that would mean an entire marketplace overhaul.

[quote name="Laluzi" date="2019-12-06 15:39:34" ] And people totally play mind games with ancient genes on the AH - it's rare when I look up a modern gene with a parallel Gaoler version and don't see someone listing the Gaoler version just slightly below the modern version's LAH. I don't like how easy this is to pull off. It's predatory and it shouldn't be so easy to scam people. [/quote] I haven't looked for a pattern in it, but I'd bet plenty of those bad listings are people confused or not paying attention when listing their own. Edit: forgot to add, that I have to make sure I slow down when dealing with genes that exist for gaolers and modern breeds. After seeing rainbow sprite listings, you can still convince that some could be scammers.

The different-colored parchment sounds like a really good idea, as it would be obvious right away with that that it's an ancient gene.

The 'growing pool' problem is unfortunately an issue everywhere I feel. Swipp's stand was getting grossly crowded (though its nice they made it so there are 3 offers full-time now), there's 2519 different items you can get out of a gilded decorative chest, they keep putting in baldwin recipes that need purple sludge, the new enemies for the coli overhauls means it takes longer to encounter the enemies you need for den tasks, etc.

[quote name="Dagomor" date="2019-12-06 16:06:25" ]I haven't looked for a pattern in it, but I'd bet plenty of those bad listings are people confused or not paying attention when listing their own. Edit: forgot to add, that I have to make sure I slow down when dealing with genes that exist for gaolers and modern breeds. After seeing rainbow sprite listings, you can still convince that some could be scammers. [/quote] There's probably some that are mistakes, but I see this so regularly and with such a pattern (when I say below LAH, it's often at prices that, for the regular version, would be barely breaking even if purchased with a dom discount) that I have to believe a good chunk of it is deliberate. I also see a lot of the same seller names. So much of the market is about making a buck off other people's hastiness; that's how the rush for any new item becomes so profitable. I doubt anyone thinks of themselves as scamming, what they're doing here isn't actually against the rules, and some of these might just be generic highballs hoping to get a pull when there's a drought of a specific gene. But I overall doubt that it's not intentional for some of these listings. And even if it was an honest mistake on every single count, it's still way too easy for a buyer to trip up on them thanks to the way the images were designed. Agree with the growing pool being a universal problem - coli, baldwin (this is entirely a design issue, just stop using the same materials for so many vital brews), and gathering being the areas where it's hit me hardest. And there's a reason why the umbral scale set is still so insane. (Gilded chests are also a bit of a weird place to put items because they generally favor newer players. Older players are likelier to have already used the [I]mostly[/I] finite, if slowly growing, number of chests one account can obtain. But I digress, because that's another problem altogether.)

[quote name="Rowdy" date="2019-12-06 16:17:05" ] The different-colored parchment sounds like a really good idea, as it would be obvious right away with that that it's an ancient gene. [/quote] This can still mess up color-blind people. I'd rather all the ancient stuff have it's own tab for ancient specialty items, especially if there's going to be a separate version of the same genes for each ancient version. Scrolls of Renaming have become less common just because there's more stuff in the specialty tab thus they don't come up as often. After refreshing for over an hour before they showed up, I ended up buying 50 of them as I was renaming every dragon that was going to be permanent in my lair and didn't want to have to wait another hour for them to show up again just because I didn't have enough for one or two dragons.

I have two ideas for this, that I would like to see used concurrently.

1- Have a larger number of different items stock in the MP specialty tab, increasing it as the number of different ancient species grows.

2- A filter for the MP. I'd like to see filters for each tab, but especially the specialty tab. You could sort out vistas, scrolls of renaming, breed change scrolls, ancient gene scrolls, etc.