Suggestions

[quote] *I am no longer participating in the Suggestions forum after this for mental health reasons but considering I was one of the most vocal people on the eye subject for a bit I felt it necessary to stop by and say something on this thread.[/quote] Completely understandable and I believe my time here on any of the eye threads is done for the suggestions forum unless someone pings me with a question or something. I won’t mind sharing my opinion on the discussion forums occasionally though but I don’t think I’m going to put much effort into it I’ll just drop a short paragraph and link to this thread.

[quote name="beautifulglitter" date="2021-04-03 20:50:16" ] I feel a mention of the Legacy eyes is also an important part of the story. A lot of the debate about eye types tends to center on the "special" eyes, particularly Primal. However, the 5th anniversary also brought with it the change in eyes from Legacy to Common. In some flights/breeds, this didn't make too much of a difference; however, some had their shading, highlights, color, and sclera color dramatically changed. What's more, some (but not all) of these changes would be able to reverted back to an approximation of Legacy eyes through tints... which are inaccessible. So not only did the eye type system lock us out of further customizing/improving dragons (as we are free to do with every other content update), but it also locked us out of simply recreating the look of dragons that have already had years of time, effort, and $$ put into them. [/quote] This is the main reason why the whole eye debacle bothers me, truthfully. If they [i]hadn’t[/i] “standardized” all of our dragons without warning, I would have been perfectly happy to keep my dragons with their original default eye types. They were all perfect as-is with their original eyes. But the eyes all got changed- drastically, in cases like Noc babies, PCs, and Tundras- which ruined a couple of my favorite dragons. And I can’t even attempt to fix them because 1) Legacy probably isn’t coming back, and 2) there’s no way to give them any of the new tints. :( At the very least, since I don’t think we’ll ever get the old eye art back, I wish we could have a way to change our dragons’ eyes to Uncommon, Unusual, or Rare. I get why stuff like Primal is locked behind hatch RNG (though I don’t necessarily agree with it), but... why tints? I don’t see why it should be so impossible to change a Shadow dragon’s eyes to a different shade of purple.

[quote name="JonSnOwO" date="2021-04-04 20:34:08" ] *I am no longer participating in the Suggestions forum after this for mental health reasons but considering I was one of the most vocal people on the eye subject for a bit I felt it necessary to stop by and say something on this thread. [/quote] You will be missed; even when I don’t agree with you, your contributions are thoughtful and useful. I totally understand the need to withdraw, though. I just hope that a time may come sometime in the future when you feel you’re able to return without impacting your wellbeing.

The more that I think about it a treasure marketplace tint only scattersight vial would be a nice addition. There are some more tints I’d love to see added across the board such as pastel/pale, dark/desaturated eyes (some flights already have some of these). Ironically since one of the reasons they changed they eyes in the first place was to standardize them, the various different ranks of tints aren’t standardized. Earth & shadow, uncommon for example is lighter than common but plague, wind, water, lightning, ice, light, arcane and nature uncommon is darker than common. Fire uncommon however is more two-tone with an orange base with a reddish highlight. Rare in plague, lightning, nature and fire are more two tone (especially plague and lightning) while other flights don’t really have a two tone version [quote name="ceiswyn" date="2021-04-04 21:37:09" ] [quote name="JonSnOwO" date="2021-04-04 20:34:08" ] *I am no longer participating in the Suggestions forum after this for mental health reasons but considering I was one of the most vocal people on the eye subject for a bit I felt it necessary to stop by and say something on this thread. [/quote] You will be missed; even when I don’t agree with you, your contributions are thoughtful and useful. I totally understand the need to withdraw, though. I just hope that a time may come sometime in the future when you feel you’re able to return without impacting your wellbeing. [/quote] I agree. I’ll be certain to look for you when I venture out of the suggestion forums and if you ever venture back in I’ll look forward to future debates.

[quote name="DragonSage" date="2021-04-05 03:21:04" ] The more that I think about it a treasure marketplace tint only scattersight vial would be a nice addition. There are some more tints I’d love to see added across the board such as pastel/pale, dark/desaturated eyes (some flights already have some of these). Ironically since one of the reasons they changed they eyes in the first place was to standardize them, the various different ranks of tints aren’t standardization. Earth & shadow, uncommon for example is lighter than common but plague, wind, water, lightning, ice, light, arcane and nature uncommon is darker than common. Fire uncommon however is more two-tone with an orange base with a reddish highlight. Rare in plague, lightning, nature and fire are more two tone (especially plague and lightning) while other flights don’t really have a two tone version [/quote] I also find this very strange. IMHO, an example of "standardization" would mean all common is a medium color, all uncommon is paler than that, and rare would be darker than that, and unusual would be dual tone--this is only an example. I don't understand why some dragons have an easier time making their eyes lighter (uncommon) while others have an easier time making their eyes darker (rare). I actually like arcane rare being so pale, but what's the point in even scrying it on my dragons when gambling for it is approaching the cost of a gem gene? I also don't understand why tints are so vital to be kept breeding only. I don't understand why we aren't getting new tints and white sclera.

I'm not usually a big advocate for eye change, but the exalt for eyes idea seems like an excellent solution! I'm placing my support on that one.
But, I don't support any rare eye vials in the marketplace. The more common ones are fine, but it just seems too easy to just slap something on a dragon and make a huge profit, no matter if it costs 1kg or 2kg.

I only support "Baldwin Brew using a component that drops from exalting" as a method for giving eyes to older dragons. It's challenging enough while still being doable for most players, it keeps the rng aspect alive, it acts as a treasure sink, and encourages exalting.

While there is a very vocal group that absolutely do not care for the rng aspect of the eyes, there are players that do, and obvious staff does as well. I think the rng aspect also helps level the playing field a bit between also: everyone, regardless of account age or level of wealth has the ability to hatch a dragon with a rare/expensive eye type.

(I do think an opt out feature for the rng would be nice, but it's not mandatory for me personally..)

I think simply throwing eye vials in the gem marketplace is too easy for some, which would have a more dramatic impact on the economy, and frankly it's just a bit too boring for me.

Very balanced and comprehensive. The longer the staff put this off, the worse the problem will get. It's time to rip off this bandaid.

I support the quaternary gene method.

Added a statement about "standardization" of common eyes at the end of the Sitewide Effects of the Update.

Jon, please take care, I'll miss seeing your takes in here but look forward to seeing you around other parts of the site :)

I maintain that the natural eye system is, in no uncertain terms, currently the worst part of the site experience, for all the reasons outlined at the top of the thread. It works against every other aspect of Flight Rising as a game. Nothing else as core to customizing dragons is even a fraction as much out of the player's control. It has broken the dragon diversity in the AH (hi, I'm an XYZ breeder, and finding starters is indeed an absolute nightmare now), and it has changed targeted breeding projects from a fun challenge to an exercise in bashing one's head against an incredibly obnoxious RNG.

I don't believe and will never believe that pushing players who want to have That Perfect Dragon to breeding up to seventy clone dragons that they mash into each other ad nauseum is a reasonable thing to do, especially with how lairspace works on Flight Rising.

I do not believe that propping up tiny markets like Gen One Primals is remotely worth hamstringing so many other parts of the site and so many players' playstyles. I see it as exactly the way Eliminates were before Galore gave them out and they were added to various venues, most critically the Mire. Crashing the Eliminate market was necessary for the good of the site, and I say that as someone who lives in the Coli when I'm playing who was therefore technically negatively affected by the change. So I feel confident in saying that yes, crashing any markets the natural eye status quo currently supports is also necessary for the overall good of the site.

I started a thread about my current efforts to get a Primal on an Imperial. I've currently got 63 dragons related to the project in my lair, and I haven't even hit the point of breeding a bunch of clones.

After getting a Primal on a completely unrelated dragon, I just. I can't. That hatch is everything wrong with this broken system in a nutshell to me. It didn't feel like a special bonus, even though it somehow managed to come from a pair that did mean something to me (the dragon is the grandchild of my progenators). It just felt like the site was mocking me. And I know that it wasn't, it was a case of bad luck.

Yeah. Hatching a Primal felt like bad luck.

Fundamentally, if the natural eye system is meant to add value to the play experience, it is not doing that for me. I would support almost anything else besides this, as long as it gives me the ability to put eyes on existing, already-hatched dragons, no matter how old and no matter their Gen One status.

I have a slight preference for exalt-for-vial solutions and direct eye transferals, but mostly only because it seems to me like they have the highest chance of being implemented. Really, I don't care, as long as it isn't RNG on top of RNG like a new roulette item, set of roulette items, or exalting for a chance at a vial. But even then, those solutions would be better than what we have now, so I would put up with it while still agitating for change in that case.

I've hit the point of throwing in the towel and taking another hiatus from Flight Rising over this. I might stick around long enough to answer any responses to my comments on this thread, but otherwise, I'm out for the next month and a half, at least. This frustration also factored into my decision to not buy anything from the Gem Marketplace cycle-in.

And it stinks, because Flight Rising is otherwise my favourite pet sim. I love the immortal pets, I love that they're dragons, I love how I can take years-long hiatuses without fear if I have to, I love writing lore for them and drawing fanart. I love how I can make my little fandragons, or I did, until the natural eye system corked it up.

I love customizing my dragons on this dragon customization game. Wild.

I am trying really, really hard to keep my temper here, but frankly it feels like no one who matters is listening. And hey, no one has to listen.

No one has to play Flight Rising, either.