Suggestions

I know myself as well as many other users have unknowingly scried and applied glitched genes to our dragons, only to be surprised weeks or months later when the fix is implemented (as evident by the recent fern/paisley debacle). While I understand that their is partial onus on the players to be mindful of glitched genes, I myself have missed out on some of them (e.g. auraboa blend) despite semi-following the auraboa bug report thread.

I think having an indicator next to the names of genes that are under investigation and/or will be changed to due a glitch in the scrying workshop would help prevent a lot of this frustration. Hovering over said icon shows text saying something like: "This gene is under investigation and/or is known to be glitched and may have its appearance changed in the future."

This is a very elegant way to do it. Support.

Support! This would be a great way to handle gene issues going forward. Not everyone keeps up with the bug update threads, and even the users who do check those threads might forget or miss something.

Oh agreed—this would be quite intuitive and not put such a heavy onus on users to keep up with bug report threads which they (especially in the case of newer users or people who tend to avoid the forums) may not be aware of to begin with.

So: support for sure.

I also would like to see it in some form in the Marketplace or other locations where these genes can be bought. I don't know about the Auction House, but I feel like it may need to be more explicit beyond the scrying workshop. Support for this still though.

Support!

It’s so important that issues like bugged genes are properly communicated. You can direct people to a gene error thread as best you can, but unless there is some indication on the gene itself and in the scrying workshop, there are always going to be people caught unawares. And while that might be ok for small fixes that pass by most users unnoticed, such drastic changes and obelisk flair and auraboa paisley need to be very visibly warned about as soon as possible.

Scrying and geneing dragons is what this site is about. Nobody likes the rug pulled from under them when they’ve invested so much into their perfect dragon.

Notifying users that a gene is bugged can be done in obvious locations that lets users know that they should check out the gene error thread:

• A little warning symbol (won’t display but the exclamation point in the yellow triangle) in the corner of the gene icon
• A tag <!> at the end of the name in the scrying workshop
• A short message in the tooltip saying “this gene has been found to have an error, please visit the gene error thread for more information”
• A warning message in the scrying workshop when a bugged gene is selected: “ one or more of the selected genes has an error. This scry may not reflect how this dragon will look in the future.”

There’s no reason that knowledge of a bugged gene has to be hidden in the forums and not displayed at important steps leading up to a user obtaining and using that gene.

Support, but half in half out.

Auraboas debuted with Fern/Paisley, and they were coded with the intention that those parts of the gene acted with the intended pattern and colors. To call it an error would be a fabrication. It would be the same as calling the mane for Obelisks an error, when it was not, and was designed with the intent to be unique to that breed. These changes are not fixes, they are semantic preferences that have taken priority over glaring errors in other breeds.

On a half in perspective, I think this would be very useful when looking at modern breed issues. There's some in house maintenance that I believe needs to be done regarding the speed of which Ancients are released, but there are some very long standing errors that have not been addressed with modern breeds. There are people who have long since had dragons with errors that they might have already planned around and grown attached to, more so than the time it took to form preferences for Auraboas.

What if only one color on a given gene is glitched, how do you imagine that being indicated? Because if the entire gene is marked as "bad", then it will be frustrating from another side, when someone might be expecting changes and waiting and then finding out that they were waiting for nothing.

@RedWillia I quite like MagpieShrike's idea of the <!> indicator. It could potentially be coded to appear only on the colors that are known to be bugged.

This is a question that is more easily answered if you know already know about x=true y=false coding mechanics.

For example:
If [breed: skydancer] + [primary gene: tapir] is bugged for all colors, then there is an error indicator next to the tapir selection.

But if [breed: skydancer] + [primary gene: tapir] + [color: obsidian] is bugged, but only for obsidian, the error indicator appears next to the obsidian selection.

Hope this helps!

@Vabam
A bit condescending answer that is only half-relevant to the discussion as other replies below OP also speak about MP and other places where you can buy the items, where combinations of when to show what are not always possible.

While I'm not against "bugged" markings, I kinda want temporary "beta" marking more - since new breeds frequently come out with multiple errors in multiple genes (unfortunate side effect of the high number of options), a softer "beta" warning for a few months might be more useful than a strict "bugged", and "bugged" might be better used on truly problematic cases, such as outright missing genes or Iridescent/Shimmer size problems. Overuse of "bugged" ("glitched") might also give impression that everything is broken or significantly broken, when the situation very rarely is that dire.