Flight Rising Discussion

Going to be basic and suggest what everyone else is: unretire scattersights.

I wish I could've been a fly on the wall with staff to understand their rationale behind retiring the vials in the first place--I understand wanting to make eyes a special part of breeding, but scattersights could have been something akin to tricolor scatterscrolls--if you wanted to roll the dice without the odds in your favor, go right ahead. Re-introducing them as a coli drop with the same rarity as something like Eliminate, or having them be a common NoTN/festival drop, would have given people a way to get new eyes on existing dragons without tanking the market. Vial prices might have taken somewhat of a hit, but it wouldn't have devalued them completely, and primal G1s would have remained at the same level as doubles.

The issue with that premise would be that staff blatantly went back on their word--time and time again they assured the playerbase that scattersights were never coming back. In our current situation, staff kept the letter of their promise but not exactly the spirit of it. Scattersights, while still technically retired, are now largely useless. Some people might have been mad had they been brought back since it would directly contradict what staff had previously said, but I still think vials being worth 500g instead of 1000g would have been better than what we've got now.

But let's say staff kept true on their word to never return scattersights. I would have made primal/multigaze vials harder to get--something like a super rare coli drop, a trade in for a bunch of tokens at Joxar's, etc. Tints can stay in the marketplace--imo, they should have been in the marketplace to begin with, there was no reason to lock those rather unremarkable eye colors behind RNG. But for the rarer eye types, I would have loved a way to get them that increased engagement in the site. As it stands now, they are a great treasure sink, but I think that staff missed an opportunity with making them just a "buy it now." I never looked at eyes before--I don't have the patience for breeding projects, and I don't have the wallet for primal G1s. So Eyepocalypse 2: Electric Boogaloo didn't decrease my engagement with the site, but it didn't increase it either. Which I think is a shame. But, hey. C'est la vie.

[quote name="@Kapow" date="2021-05-09 09:09:37" ] [quote name="Empedocles" date="2021-05-09 09:02:54" ] I woulda made new eye types for treasure but left the old ones alone (at least left goat/facet/Multi-Gaze/primal alone). I don’t mind treasure vials but with the types I listed, they have lost their magic now. So if I ever hatch one of em again, they’d be exalted as usual. [/quote] goat isnt an old eyetype, it came out later and you couldnt get it with scattervials. it was only obtainable through the galore gifted clanbound vials or hatching. It came out the same time as Swirl they even went out of their way to mention eyetypes from scattervials remain unaltered in the goat/swirl update and that they updated the scattersight tooltip to indicate which eyetypes could be obtained. [/quote] Ah. I think goat special due to clan bound so a gem version of that or a coli version woulda been better in my opinion than treasure as it’s hard to hatch.

[quote name="Empedocles" date="2021-05-09 09:12:31" ] [quote name="@/Kapow" date="2021-05-09 09:09:37" ] [quote name="Empedocles" date="2021-05-09 09:02:54" ] I woulda made new eye types for treasure but left the old ones alone (at least left goat/facet/Multi-Gaze/primal alone). I don’t mind treasure vials but with the types I listed, they have lost their magic now. So if I ever hatch one of em again, they’d be exalted as usual. [/quote] goat isnt an old eyetype, it came out later and you couldnt get it with scattervials. it was only obtainable through the galore gifted clanbound vials or hatching. It came out the same time as Swirl they even went out of their way to mention eyetypes from scattervials remain unaltered in the goat/swirl update and that they updated the scattersight tooltip to indicate which eyetypes could be obtained. [/quote] Ah. I think goat special due to clan bound so a gem version of that or a coli version woulda been better in my opinion than treasure as it’s hard to hatch. [/quote] thats a good idea for goat, a coli vial would have made a lot of sense, swirl is coli exclusive and not obtainable in any other way, (but the drop rate is sort of high)

I'd have had vials up to pastel released in the treasure mp, had faceted and multigaze either as expensive Baldwin recipes or cheaper gem mp items. Primal vials would have been holiday exclusive items costing either a few hundred festival currency or 10+ prismatic tokens.

What I would have done depends on when we are talking about.

Before the first eye introduction: I would have made an item that would have unlocked the ability to breed 'natural' eyes in a nest, either per dragon, or perhaps per nesting and I would have made an item (or items) to add the natural eyes to existing dragons. Those were the two biggest 'no unless' things in the various mutation suggestions.

After the first eye introduction, I would have just kept scattervials and updated them as the new natural eyes came out.

Before the eye update: I would have tied it to exalting so exalting a primal eyed dragon would give a primal eyed vial, exalting an uncommon eyed dragon would only have a chance to give an uncommon vial.



As for creating an 'alternate' primal, that wouldn't have worked. Imagine liking the swirls of the water primal and thinking it goes great with your dragon. A water 'alternate' that made like droplets of water flow from the eye wouldn't work. It might be gorgeous, but not what you wanted for that particular dragon. (though I do think more line breaking eye variants might have taken the pressure off of primal, but it wouldn't have replaced the need for a primal vial for older dragons)

I think the issue with keeping the scattersights was the introduction of new natural eyes. They were never going to be added to the vials.. so over time that would exacerbate the issue. Pastel and bright would never have been part of the vials, just like goat isn't.

I think they did the best they could. While I would have loved to see a dom shop or some other way of buying vials, I can also appreciate that this is a great treasure sink which we needed badly.

For every clever solution we come up, I can't imagine staff hasn't considered it and decided against it for their own reasons.

When I saw the backlash at the very beginning of the release (and there was a massive outcry during the eyepocalypse itself) I would have done something fast, or at least told the playerbase that I was planning on making a change. I wouldn't try to wait for the drama to go away, double down on my original stance (stirring up more drama), and then change my mind after I made a promise.

I am happy that eyes were made more accessible. I just wish they were this way from the start, or were changed shortly after the backlash of the update, so players who spent a lot on eyes didn't feel betrayed.

They should have literally just left it alone. No scattersights, no taking back their word on making what were previously natural only eye-types applicable. No. If anything, they should have overwhelmed us with new unnatural types so that there were a whole pile of new options for projects.

Would have done the same, why make genes changeable with scrolls but eye type not?

Eyes are basically nothing but a 4th gene, thats it.

My only issue is how long it took really but I assume that's because they've just been debating on how they were going to handle it and if they were going to sacrifice their vision entirely or try to compromise more than the two clanbound vials. There's a reason there's been no natural eyes between now and Goat. The big gap of no new eyes at all made me think they were going to do something about the system so I was surprised at this update but at the same time not surprised.

I am surprised they put Primal/Multigaze as treasure vials though with how rare they are! And they're all a little cheaper than I was expecting too. I've always been a fan of the idea of Primal vials rarely dropping in the coli during fest weeks so I might have done that if I were staff. Multigaze I think I would have made a high level, more expensive Baldwin recipe. Though 500kt per dragon is a good treasure sink. That's 5.5 mil if you want a set of "manmade" flight primals.

If I could go back in time knowing all this and I were part of the dev team I would either have done this from the beginning (random breeding but also vials) OR if the randomness was that important I'd keep the scattersights as a fairly common permanent coli drop and include future natural eyes in them.