Flight Rising Discussion

Yeah I agree with everyone saying they'd have just released the vials much much sooner. If I intro'd something that got THAT much backlash upon its conception, with otherwise not having.... really had much big trouble with updates before then to my knowledge, I would have added the vials within the first few months of the release. Maybe put them in a bunch of dif places though.

Otherwise, if I was still working 3 years later on this:
-Exalt for components in a Baldwin brew eye vial system.

I'd made a big elaborate suggestion on this before, but I think we should have been able to collect a special component from exalting dragons with different natural eye types that would have then been used as part of a high level recipe in Baldwins Brew. Boosts the fodder special eyes market, the Baldwin market, and encourages exalting while introducing eye vials to the market! It would have still relied on RNG too so those players would have had something! It just seems like it would have been a better system with more balanced difficulty and engagement with mechanics on site that doesn't take away from an established market too much.

from what I've seen a lot of upset is from the more special eye types (multigaze and primal) no longer being as exciting to hatch due to them being obtainable outside rng now, so I'd just not have released vials for primal and multigaze, or maybe at least make them gem vials.

of course I could be completely off the mark and this would've made things worse XD

Honestly? I only wish the multigaze and primal vials specifically were gem-exclusive and in the $10-$15 range or given maybe ~2 to each player for free and that's it. For the latter approach, I know it would end up like imperial scrolls but I feel like that's the whole point. You look at a g1 imperial and are struck with awe in how old they are and/or the value of them, I feel so sorry to the players who were excited for a g1 primal/multigaze to hatch or paid a fortune for one. 500k treasure (or 425k dom discount) is laughable, it's massively undervaluing the time, money and rarity of players that had dragons with special eyes naturally or using scattersights.

However that being said, I really don't agree that they should have never introduced the primal/multigaze at all and simply "re-released scatters" because the rng involved for scatters is absolutely cruel. I remember using over 6 scatters just trying to get rare eyes, the guilt and buyers regret from wondering if it was even worth spending so many gems to get a slightly different shade of pink was unbearable, I can't even imagine the players who spent hundreds of dollars worth on scatters for primal/multi just for staff to say "oh yeah you can have the eyes 100% guaranteed for a measly 500k treasure now lol".

Lastly I wanted to mention the pain of anyone hoarding the scatters for profit. I've noticed a lot of people saying they wish they had a heads up so they could have sold them (personally I had 9 saved, ouch) but I prefer having to deal with the regret of losing a few hundred gems rather than someone buying them, using 9 scatters on a dragon they bought for me, still not getting the eyes they wanted, AND staff announcing they could have saved all those gems if they simply waited a few days.

Or as many others have said, simply had the vials in the first eye update, but I'm talking hypothetically how they could have handled the most recent update after 3 years has passed. Also sorry for the wall of text but as someone who's spent a good $30 on multigazes and was extremely proud of my primal hatches, they just feel so worthless now, they've completely lost that special uniqueness. But again, I can't even begin to imagine how the g1 multigaze/primal collectors feel, I really do empathize with those who are quitting because of it.

edit: actually reading through the comments I love the idea of re-releasing the scatters but giving them a REALLY HIGH droprate (or even a much lower gem price), kind of like the smirch scroll kind of droprate, that would still retain that special uniqueness since you'd have to work for it and battle with rng, but it wouldn't cost a fortune.

OK, here goes. This gets rambly because hi ADHD and it's late and I have no filter when it gets late, sorry.

I would have made all eye types vials from the very start. When the eyepocalypse happened in 2008 I was very confused WHY this wasn't done. There would have been no scattervial.

If I had not gone that route, or had been on a development team that decided in favor of the way things went down in 2008, I would have seen the outcry and tried to rectify things within six months or less. Preferably less, but I understand it took time to come up with a reasonable, balanced solution. (I also understand some people find the current solution neither reasonable nor balanced and you have the right to your opinion.) While I am beyond freaking thrilled that all eye types are now available in vials, I am less thrilled that this took three years to rectify. We were all pretty much universally under the assumption that the eye issue was never, ever, ever going to fixed and thus some playstyles developed from it including:

-breeding challenges, trying to hatch a primal from one or more breeding pairs. Some people found this a nightmare (hi Sparkylurkdragon, congrats again on Aku), some people found this a fun challenge. I have had a breeding challenge for COLORS ONLY (no eyes) that took me the better part of two years to produce a viable, non-related-to-each-other breeding pair, and it would have taken much, much, much longer if a very nice fellow Icicle hadn't decided to also try to breed for it and sell me the resulting spawn. I didn't even want to bring eyes into it when I scried my dream dragon because I thought that was a lost cause, and like I said, it took about two years and only because I had help, otherwise I'd still be trying and pulling my hair out. If I had tried for eyes I'd still be trying and I'd be crying. I enjoy certain kinds of challenges, but breeding projects are TO ME more of an exercise in pain. Be that as it may there are people who really like it and more power to them, and now those people who are trying to breed for eyes have had something taken from them, and while I don't really understand the mindset that thinks that sort of "hard mode" challenge is fun, I do understand to a certain point that challenging oneself keeps one motivated to play so I sympathize with the frustrations of people who feel like they lost out.

-people who hoarded scattersights for stonks. Because we were all under the assumption nothing was going to be done, scattersights were seen as one of the few sound investments a player could make, especially players who are "mid-range" veterans (not here since the beginning but also not brand new) and can't afford a Light Sprite but were planning on paying for big-ticket items like a Light Sprite or a Skycat by selling their scattervials at the right time. The market crashed and while yes, it was gambling, again it was also seen as a sound investment at the time so some people are devastated and I do understand that.

-people who are serial egg hatchers and finally got lucky with a primal but it had hideous colors but they put it on the AH anyway at jacked-up prices. I will admit 100% that I snarked about y'all and saw 8kg for a Carrot / Swamp / Fuchsia monstrosity as highway robbery. After reading through these threads I've calmed down and I owe an apology, because yes, I get it, after you hatch so many eggs you want to recomp your losses, and it's like sniping: people are willing to pay more to have something right now. There are people who don't have much to do in the game BUT go on an epic scatterquest and see how many times it takes to roll less ugly colors. You guys lost something too and I feel for you and I'm sorry I got snarky about it.

These are just three examples of playstyles that were formed out of the eyepocalypse not being rectified immediately, like something burning to ash and trying to build with the ashes. Taking those playstyles in mind, my rectification would have looked somewhat more complex than it does currently. There was a suggestion on the forums that if you exalted a dragon with eye type X, you would receive a vial of eye type X, or a component to brew eye type X in Baldwin. This handles the treasure sink we need (Baldwin), allows someone like me to insta-exalt eye types we dislike without feeling like I'm taking a loss (I dislike Faceted and Goat) because no "just put Common on it" doesn't work for breeding fodder to sell on the AH, and still keeps rare eye types rare and special. I liked that suggestion. In lieu of that, I'm OK with this - I don't think primal and MG should be gems because we do need more treasure sinks in the game, inflation got bad - but the "exalt for eye types" would have been my preferred mechanism to incentivize exalting and still keep the specialness intact for people who like the challenge.

Also, I would have done more along the lines of communication. The people who were holding onto scattervials and didn't sell in time are gutted, and again, understandably so. If they had gotten a heads up like "hey we're gonna fix the eyes, we don't know how yet" they might have been able to sell off and get better prices than they will when the prices go up again. IDK.

So anyway, tl;dr would have done something slightly different but the solution we have here and now would be my second choice. I respect the opinion of those who disagree, and I hope those of you who feel like you lost something with the update can find something else to enjoy. I think it would be nice if the devs released some sort of game feature that gives people something to work towards (like a 2mt-5mt price tag) and isn't wholly RNG based (which would be potentially years of frustration), but I'm unsure what that would be.