Suggestions

[quote name="Serafin" date="2021-04-07 14:15:31" ] Eye vials would lessen the value of naturally-hatched dragons with rare eyes. Bottom line. If it's a cycling/MP item, then it becomes a game of sniping and flipping, heaven forbid it's a seasonal item like WC scrolls. [/quote] That's why I think whatever is done should have limitations, which exalting for a component + requiring treasure & a long brew time at Baldwin would do. Would the price of dragons go down? Yes, but not as dramatically as if the vials were available via the Marketplace. And dragons values are fluid. It's foolish for players to think that what is valuable to players today will always be valued at that same amount.

[quote name="Jessyta" date="2021-04-07 15:39:15" ] [quote name="Serafin" date="2021-04-07 14:15:31" ] Eye vials would lessen the value of naturally-hatched dragons with rare eyes. Bottom line. If it's a cycling/MP item, then it becomes a game of sniping and flipping, heaven forbid it's a seasonal item like WC scrolls. [/quote] That's why I think whatever is done should have limitations, which exalting for a component + requiring treasure & a long brew time at Baldwin would do. Would the price of dragons go down? Yes, but not as dramatically as if the vials were available via the Marketplace. And dragons values are fluid. It's foolish for players to think that what is valuable to players today will always be valued at that same amount. [/quote] and, honestly, this is why I am not really that worried about gen1 primals, or the value of various dragons. The value of gen1 primals could tank tomorrow because a new eye type comes out that is more desireable than primal. If it is an unnatural eye, then primal dragons will still be a bit more valuable than non-primal. If it is a natural eye, especially if it is as rare or rarer than primal, then primal will go down a lot, because there will be a new 'king' of the eyes. To be clear, I don't support eyes being in the MP, except as a last resort. If the eyes are available in ways no tied to existing dragons ,then those dragons will devalue, which honestly I don't really see as a bad thing, because most of the dragons with special eyes are already devalued and are just becoming more and more worthless above fodder value. However, in return, it will give another market, the one of the vials themselves. Is it a fair trade? who knows, because honestly, I don't subscribe to the nebulous idea of 'fair' because I feel that it is impossible to actually meet. If the eyes are tied to existing dragons, such as exalting for eye vials/components, then I would foresee the value of non-gen1 primals raising. Would it mean that it might only be those who can hatch their own or those who are rich can buy those dragons? potentially. However, it WOULD give the 'boost' that it seems the developers wanted for players when they breed dragons. Now, if someone gets a primal, it can sit on their account for ages until someone decides to buy it. If something like this happens, then that primal would be an indemand commodity and potentially be worth more than just double fodder price. I also foresee their prices being relatively stable, since there are a lot of existing dragons and even if every dragon that exists today gets primal, there will still be future dragons that the owners want primal on, so there will always be a demand. This would be true even if a new eye type came out that people liked better than primal. The price of primal dragons would go down, but there would still be demand for the vials, because there would still be people who need/want primal for specific dragons. The above is also why I sort of dislike the argument of 'we need more eye vials' as a response to people wanting primal on their existing dragons with the implication that with more eye vials, those people can be satisfied with an 'alternative'. Yes, we do need more eye vials, but that won't necessarily mean that people will no longer want primal. I mean, if I want iridescent on a dragon of mine, I am not going to settle for Fade. If I want veined, crackle isn't going to do. The same can be said of eye vials. There may be times when a new eye variant is something I want more than primal, but that won't necessarily be true in all cases, because it depends on the new variant and the reason I want primal on that dragon.

[quote]Eye vials would lessen the value of naturally-hatched dragons with rare eyes. Bottom line.[/quote] I doubt this is such a bad thing as it's made out to be. Especially if exalting for eyes or 1:1 eye transfers were the chosen methods. Those two would guarantee an increase in price for special eyed hatches. And if one market fluxes downward but another market opens up that fluxes upward...again, is that such a bad thing? Plus it's allowing accommodation for more playstyles. I see far more positives than negatives. [quote]Introducing the RNG-eye types for breeding has given bred dragons something to increase their value. [/quote] Except this has been refuted time and time again that it really doesn't. In the beginning, FR said dragons weren't meant to be valuable. And even if they go for fodder prices--then that's more money, considering dragons are generated for free. Heck, I pretty much bought my light sprite by breeding fodder and selling it, bonding with familiars, and selling the occasional item. [quote]Take the "Exalt for Vial" solution. At first I thought that would be a great idea but then I thought: This would only give the people with a lot of money the incentive to buy out the market to exalt the special eye dragons. This would lead to two possible things: a) if the vial is tradable the people who could affort to buy out the dragon AH would sell those for mad profit (since a lot of people use the vial for permas, those would be taken out of the game, leaving only the exalt for profit people to cater to the vial demand) b) if the vial is not tradable they'd apply it to desirable dragons and sell those for astronomical prices, essentially not fixing anything to the market (and only giving us those few vials to fix up our perma-dragons) but it would probably make the market for dragons worse. [/quote] So it's okay for people to sell the primal G1 hatch (or even a G2+) for mad dragon cash, but it's not okay for people to sell a primal vial or a primal-applied dragon for mad dragon cash? Um...okay then? That seems very...one-sided. [quote]What I would not like is for them to take away the RNG-mechanic from breeding. The game needs RNG to keep players playing. [/quote] That's fine. Both can coexist. People should be able to breed for eyes, and people should be able to put eyes on existing dragons. Like genes and breed scrolls. ~~~ I also agree with Mystiek that RNG does not keep all people coming back. For some people, it alienates them. ~~~ Also as said above, prices do fluxuate and it's asinine to expect one market to be steadfast forever. Even eyes themselves are already decreasing, vials or not. So why try to preserve something at the cost of thousands of players and millions of dragons? ~~~ No support for accountbound. On my thread, those who chimed in agreed it was the worst solution possible. It's not as if it could be kept account bound with people able to trade dragons. It just brings more risks, uncertainty, and disdain than it solves. I am also not too worried about the richest of the rich buying literally all the primal dragons and reselling them at a mark-up because dragons are an infinite resource and lair space is limited. Sure, the introduction of any new method for eyes would cause wild fluxes initially. But people would keep breeding and hatching dragons, and primal would keep popping up. Eventually it would hit a sort-of equilibrium, like all genes and breeds and dragons do. (I say sort-of, because new content always changes that, such as new breeds or new eye types or new whatever.)

I don't see why they have to be account bound, nothing else you can craft or buy on the site is. I don't mind there being a market, or even an expensive market for them, as long as they're accessible and able to be put, with certainty, on specific dragons. And there will always be new primals and multis being born, so more people will gradually have access to it even if they are all bought up initially.

[quote name="Anjoulas" date="2021-04-07 16:15:30" ] Not gonna quote the whole lot but after comparing my arguments with yours, Jemadar, I am inclined to agree more that Exalting for Vials might be a thing, tho I'd still argue, that maybe there needs to be some lock that makes vials not tradable because I still fear that a small group of the richest just rally up, buy out the Market and then sit on the vials for incredibly inflated prices. I'd be ok with account bound tbh, since I only want those eyes on permas. People did it with Goat-Vials before. If you have vials you don't want, maybe "sell" them by applying them to a dragon sent to you for payment. I could see this as some form of middleground that wouldn't exclude people who can't afford to buy exalt-vials from the AH from those eye types. [/quote] Having clanbound vials is interesting, but I’m not sure it’s a good solution? For one, it doesn’t really stop people from charging high prices to give others the vials. Sure, it prevents hoarding and flipping, but it wouldn’t stop people from charging a high price and excluding people who can’t afford it anyway. If the typical price of a primal vial in this way is say, 1kg, you still exclude everyone who can’t afford to pay 1kg for a vial. Being on the auction house would be pretty much the same, if you can’t afford the lowest price there you have to wait until it goes lower or get one yourself. Then you have the issue of potential dragon theft, and of course you can’t do anything about that. So that would probably put off some people too? So while clanbound is an interesting idea, I’m not sure if it would actually be better than being an item you can throw on the auction house? Maybe I’m wrong and I completely missed some benefit to it being clanbound, but personally I don’t really see it.

The problem with clanbound vials is that FR doesn't have any supported mechanism of dragon lending. People would still sell the vials (I've considered selling my two goat vials in this way, because that whole thing still leaves a bad taste in my mouth so I doubt I'll ever want to use them on my own permas) but unlike with the AH there would be a risk of scamming/dragon theft. It also wouldn't be nearly so useful to progens, who cannot be traded at all. I don't really see the benefit to making them clanbound and I think it creates potential issues.

[quote name="BlueJaysFeather" date="2021-04-07 17:18:28" ] The problem with clanbound vials is that FR doesn't have any supported mechanism of dragon lending. People would still sell the vials (I've considered selling my two goat vials in this way, because that whole thing still leaves a bad taste in my mouth so I doubt I'll ever want to use them on my own permas) but unlike with the AH there would be a risk of scamming/dragon theft. It also wouldn't be nearly so useful to progens, who cannot be traded at all. I don't really see the benefit to making them clanbound and I think it creates potential issues. [/quote] one other thing to note, is that by making it so they can't be listed on the AH, there would be no real way to 'price check' the vials. As an example, another game I play, until recently, had no way to sell items except by sending the item to the other player and the other player sending money back. (or tossing the items onto a pet, since most of these items were apparel items, and pricing the gryff for that amount). Not only did this have the potential issue of theft (not sure it ever occurred, the site is small and the community really tight knit), but it also made it VERY difficult to find out prices, because there was no way to check what everyone else is selling the items for. BAsically you had to ask in chat, and then hope someone with a clue could tell you, or just go by your instinct. Here, on FR, I feel this would work against buyers, because it would be like gems right now, People can list their gems for whatever price they want, and there is no real direct competition that is easy to find. On the AH, when someone lists something, anyone else wanting to list that item can look for all items of that type on the AH, and then price their items accordingly. It isn't as easy on the forums, because you have to go through multiple threads, so prices can stay much higher for much longer for these vials, because as said, even clanbound they would still be sold, because there would be no direct competition for them, like there is on the AH.

[quote name="Anjoulas" date="2021-04-08 02:58:05" ] I do agree that dragon theft can be a main problem for clanbound because there's some mechanism missing on FR (same with nest renting tbh). In the end I guess having it be clanbound could just end up making the currently fodder-priced dragons go up in price for people to buy, so finally special-eye-dragon value increases again. So either way, there's plussides and probable downsides to any fix, the question is just how big and long that downside is gonna be and if we're gonna hear the same outcry over it as with the current state of being. [/quote] I don't think I understand how making them clanbound increases value of fodder-price special eyes over not making them clanbound tbh. Either way they're going to be bought for vial creation, and either way some people are going to decide they want to breed their own (whether as a project or just breeding their own fodder special eyes)