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[quote name="Lychen" date="2024-02-20 22:33:23" ]Oh, and for anyone who's not actively stalking the Gene Error thread, you should know they're now planning to alter Breakup and Hypnotic as they've done with Paisley. [/quote] I questioned exactly this a few pages back in reference to some of the genes that used the mane section: [quote name="Senya" date="2024-02-19 20:33:08" ]Should we be concerned that **ANY** gene that has a distinction between the top and the bottom section of wing might get changed? The mane treatment on Paisley was clearly a style choice when the art was made, just as these are. If those choices are subject to be changed MONTHS down the line, then that puts so many more existing dragons and plans/scries in jeopardy. [/quote] Guess what I'm hearing is that all Aura projects should just be halted or abandoned since clearly everything they had at launch is wrong and getting made ugly and flat now. I have SO many unstarted Auraboa projects, they were one of my favorite breeds - but if it's all just going to end up looking as awful and stamped on as Paisley then what's the point? I don't want a dragon that looks like a 2D paper doll. I want a dragon that looks like a 3-dimensional creature. It is legitimately heartbreaking to watch my favorite ancient be actively downgraded in real time. None of these genes should have been released if staff couldn't agree on style - to sweep in and make such drastic changes after so long is a straight up betrayal to anyone and everyone who has already invested in these genes and gotten attached to the results. Absolutely appalling. I'm just not going to get excited about ancient releases going forward and I think I'm going to stop buying gems. I've pretty much lost faith in whatever release and review process is going on behind the scenes here. Clearly nobody is on the same page, or this wouldn't keep happening.

I'm not reading through 33 pages of thread, so forgive me if I repeat points! I just got back from a bit of a hiatus due to work stuff and was really confused why some of my boa scries looked off... First of all, I'm one of those people who stalk the gene bug reports, ESPECIALLY for new breeds, because I've been burned before and swore not to make the same mistakes again. I thought the issue with fern/paisley were the highlights being potentially on the wrong blending mode since they were too harsh. NOTHING in that thread, last I checked it, insinuated that the entire top "coverlets" section of the wings were incorrect. Second of all, HOLY HECK was it a battle actually finding any sort of announcement that there was a change, and I'm well aware of how to navigate the FR forums. There was no sidebar announcement that fixes had gone in - I had to go sorting through the dev tracker and it wasn't even the first post in there (and I believe paisley in particular was "under the cut" and required a click through to the original thread to find). All gene fixes should get an announcements sidebar, but ESPECIALLY one this big, it should not have been nearly so difficult to figure out what felt "off" about my dragons. Deliberate artistic decisions are not bugs. If a gene requires an entire re-draw (which is what this is), there should be announcements, pop ups when selecting the gene, ANY sort of communication around it. If we're talking about consistency, there are much bigger and more obvious fish to fry imo, has anyone talked about tundra paisley yet? [img]https://www1.flightrising.com/dgen/preview/dragon?age=1&body=19&bodygene=82&breed=6&element=9&eyetype=0&gender=0&tert=61&tertgene=97&winggene=136&wings=27&auth=70b202af258a16704148e58370987e67245eff30&dummyext=prev.png[/img] [img]https://www1.flightrising.com/dgen/preview/dragon?age=1&body=19&bodygene=82&breed=6&element=9&eyetype=0&gender=1&tert=61&tertgene=97&winggene=136&wings=27&auth=1fff8b22a7914500abd7b8552f13f7eecb71bbc2&dummyext=prev.png[/img] It's disappointing to see an artistic choice completely redrawn when tundras have had paisley bugged since the gene came out - the males are missing any sort of sheen on their manes at all.

@handdrawnviolist i brought the tundra m mane up earlier in the thread! it made me upset because like, hello?? why are they focusing on completely arbitrary "consistency" issues when tundra males are over here with naked manes with the gene, completely inconsistent when compared to literally every other breed, INCLUDING TUNDRA FEMALES??? they need to work on fixing actual issues before going in and updating things that did not, for any reason, need to be changed!! i'm glad someone else noticed too!

[quote name="Lychen" date="2024-02-20 22:33:23" ] Oh, and for anyone who's not actively stalking the Gene Error thread, you should know they're now planning to alter Breakup and Hypnotic as they've done with Paisley. [/quote] I try to find humor in these sort of things whenever I'm affected and try to go easy on staff because yea it is hard to manage a site and fanbase. But wow... I think this is the first time I'm truely dissapointed in staff?? Instead of communicating with the users and coming up with a compromise, they're doubling down on ruining Auraboa secondaries that have had an established and consistent style for the breed since their release. What the heck is going on???

[quote name="NefariousKing" date="2024-02-20 23:41:44" ] I try to find humor in these sort of things whenever I'm affected and try to go easy on staff because yea it is hard to manage a site and fanbase. But wow... I think this is the first time I'm truely dissapointed in staff?? Instead of communicating with the users and coming up with a compromise, they're doubling down on ruining Auraboa secondaries that have had an established and consistent style for the breed since their release. What the heck is going on??? [/quote] Not just Auras, Sandsurges also got hit by a totally unnecessary and jarring change tonight. Guess nothing is safe. Feels laughably like a ploy to keep us from investing in genes at this point.

[quote name="Lychen" date="2024-02-20 22:33:23" ] Oh, and for anyone who's not actively stalking the Gene Error thread, you should know they're now planning to alter Breakup and Hypnotic as they've done with Paisley. [/quote] [color=440272]I guess staff are doubling down on marking any stylistic difference as a bug then. That's disappointing This whole thing is making me glad I'm someone who procrastinates for months before completing projects. If I spent a ton on projects only to have them changed out of the blue months down the line because staff decided that the genes were actually wrong even though there's no indication that they are and no one has complained about it I would be very upset right now I really hope they rethink how they handle quality control and consistency checks for new releases because this is a bit ridiculous and it really makes it seems as if there's no communication at all between artists

[quote name="Zenzic" date="2024-02-20 14:10:12" ] [quote name="Mynia" date="2024-02-20 13:24:12" ] Every breed that has a tail with fluff, or feathers etc at the end, consistently has this - including Skydancers, which are one of the breeds that was cited as one they matched for 'consistency' Now we get to the fixed Auraboa version (I'm using the Male pose as its easier to see the tail on this one) The gradient/shiny aspect is gone and replaced with the Paisley patterning, which is not featured this way on ANY other version of the gene. [/quote] Well... Consistency has less to do with comparing body parts than it does to comparing which areas on the dragon have been designated for certain patterning for that breed. The tails on those other breeds are designated as "mane" patterened areas, and that's why they all share that similar look. The tail on Auraboas isn't a "mane" patterned area, so it actually [i]shouldn't[/i] have that colouring. (But the coverts and first layer of the head crest are designated as mane areas and [i]should[/i] have that "tail fluff" style of pattern!) The problem with the Paisley fix is it ignores the designated "mane" patterned areas on the Auraboa base as seen across all other Auraboa genes. [/quote] This was sort of my point :P The issue seems to be, they need to decide whether or not it should act like a mane. It actually seems to be inconsistent over many Auraboa genes, and honestly if they change them all where there is no separate definition in the wings/crest, honestly? It might ruin the breed for me :/ As it has been mentioned, their silohette and lines are very complex, giving them extra definition in the wings & crest actually helps - which is why the Paisley change looks so much worse than before and much flatter. The tail struck me as very inconsistent, as it now looks entirely separate from every iteration of this gene where the tail displays part of the secondary, intended or otherwise if its not 'mane', you can't ignore that it now looks inconsistent compared with other versions of the same gene. I actually thought this was the purpose of the 'mane'; even if its not an overly obvious one like on Obes, designating it as a mane actually allows for more definition and visual interest in the breed. As I say, if they decide to change it to not acting as a mane, and change every gene that does seemingly do this, a lot of their genes are going to look flat and bad as a result - which would ruin the breed in my opinion.

Echoing a lot of other players' sentiments that 1. I liked the old version of Auraboa Paisley better, and 2. I am really, really disappointed with the way staff has handled this.