Suggestions

pleaseee bring back the old version. Even the Roundsey dragon looks way too busy now! The solid patch gave visual interest and was beautiful!


EDIT: Also changing a current roundsey dragon after the round has already started and people put money towards it is really disheartening…

[quote name="bullfrog" date="2024-02-19 02:31:37" ] pleaseee bring back the old version. Even the Roundsey dragon looks way too busy now! The solid patch gave visual interest and was beautiful! EDIT: Also changing a current roundsey dragon after the round has already started and people put money towards it is really disheartening… [/quote] this is so....... this so succinctly encapsulates my original post so well it makes it feel worse, actually. thanks @bullfrog for mentioning the roundsey dragon. i dont check roundsey so i had no idea they had even put a fern/paisley dragon up for the raffle, the same week this change went live... i really cant imagine how i'd feel if i won the dragon and the change went live [i]after.[/i]

[quote name="atalaeai" date="2024-02-19 02:28:16" ] Support for the old version. I would also appreciate large gene changes like this be mentioned in the Updates sidebar on the home page. [/quote] I want to put a personal pin in this, because while I wholeheartedly agree that there should be more open and broadcasted communication regarding specific changes, I am personally of the opinion that these types of stylistic changes should not be made post hoc whatsoever. Perhaps polling before a gene is released would be a great benefit to these types of discussions. Perhaps, in that theoretical, staff would be able to take more time regarding quality assurance rather than quantity, and there would be no confusion or upset when one style is preferred over the other. But I leave this as a personal reminder to revisit later (or for others to freely sit and think on,) because I want this to remain focused on revising/reverting the change made to the Auraboa fern/paisley; not staff coordination/communication.

Support. This isn't just a quick fix--the gene is completely redrawn, the swirls are thinner in the new version and the gene becomes far too busy. This reminds me both of Obelisk Flair and also how Jupiter/Saturn were completely redrawn post-release. The Auraboas have been out for months now and there was no real indication that this was an error. Other genes also leave the top part of the wing with just gradients, such as Diamondback: [center][img]https://www1.flightrising.com/dgen/preview/dragon?age=1&body=165&bodygene=0&breed=24&element=4&eyetype=2&gender=1&tert=162&tertgene=0&winggene=256&wings=54&auth=93ba2dab8fd5b3863f142c8ebef36de8ef7233b0&dummyext=prev.png[/img][/center] Just like Diamondback, old Paisley also had some gradient color changes on the wing that were clearly deliberately placed. This makes it seem like even less of an error and just a natural "sometimes the gene pattern doesn't affect the top part of the wings but there [i]are[/i] gradients." As proven in the thread, Paisley's not even consistent from breed to breed. There is also precedence for Ancients having completely different variations on a gene: Veilspun Runes affects the wings, which it literally does not do on any other breed: [center][img]https://www1.flightrising.com/dgen/preview/dragon?age=1&body=51&bodygene=0&breed=19&element=4&eyetype=2&gender=0&tert=157&tertgene=57&winggene=0&wings=51&auth=78e633a90da94d356e39ce52259a7997f3108d68&dummyext=prev.png[/img][/center] Auraboa Paisley should be reverted to its old version. If anything, the current version looks like an error with how the wing, crest and tail feathers all bleed into each other now, whereas they were nicely separated before.

Full support.

Getting rid of the top coat sheen made Paisley flat. I've checked it on multiple colors and theres nothing that makes it shine as it used to. It's also missing more highlights than moderns.

Honestly, the new version looks a lot worse and more low effort than the old apparently bugged version did....... Auras now don't get any of that secondary color that's supposed to go on the mane. None of it. They removed it from even the headcrests. I don't think I can see myself using this gene now, despite really liking it on pretty much every other breed - they've made it rather uniquely bad on Auras.
Now obviously, taste is incredibly subjective but this is a rather big change that really does majorly affect them - months after they released and people gened their dragons up. I don't think it's entirely fair. Especially when there was ZERO indication this was a bug, it looked 100% purposeful and well done, it was well-shaded and seemed to have some running logic behind the design choice. If you don't stalk the bug report forums, how were you supposed to guess that wasn't an entirely purposeful part of the genes design?

It's an ancient so no one outside here seems to be causing the same fuss we had with Obelisks, but it's honestly on the same scale of change to me.

EDIT: [cranky old man voice] AND ANOTHER THING--
I saw someone mention the Roundsey dragon above, I almost forgot about that but you're completely correct. It hasn't been released yet so you can maybe write me off as a bit nit-picky or bad faith, and I 100% accept that reading, but it doesn't feel awesome to somewhat quietly release this fix when people have already pitched in a LOT of money for a dragon that now looks incredibly different. I really liked it myself, I put in a few admittedly measly tickets, but I'd now be kinda unhappy if by some monkey paw's curse antics I managed to win the dragon.
They at minimum need to at least refrain from putting these supposedly bugged dragons in Roundsey, if nothing else. Because while false advertising is a bit of like... a cliche Karen phrase to throw around, it is... kinda what happened........

Support, and I'm not even all that into aura's/doubt I'll ever use any with this gene. The previous version just looked so much more pleasing and interesting. A little gradient like that helps break up the design and prevent it from being too samey across the whole wing, which is something I actually think other breeds suffer from and is a reason I don't use this gene much. I think staff get a little too hung up on genes being consistent across breeds when to a degree I don't think it matters much, in particular with ancients. Of course they still need to be similar enough that they are very obviously the same gene, but different breeds with drastically different anatomy are going to [i]have to[/i] present things differently. Ancients in particular are a great opportunity to do something a little different with a gene! To me one of the appealing aspects of ancients is how they provide a really unique spin on things compared to every other breed. Both in terms of how they have genes completely unique to them, but also the different ways they approach existing genes. The example above with runes on veilspun is a good example, and I'd like to provide another. Cherub and Seraph are pretty different on Sandsurges to other breeds. The implied feathery aspect of the gene is pushed even further in cherub with the shoulder and thigh sections looking like actual wings, and in seraph with the detailed feathers of the innermost section. And it looks great! It isn't consistent with other breeds, but that doesn't make it bad and is actually one of the things I love about sandsurges. Allowing ancients to have a different take on genes makes them stand out that much more, and provides extra incentive for people to actually own them. [img]https://www1.flightrising.com/dgen/preview/dragon?age=1&body=146&bodygene=190&breed=23&element=6&eyetype=0&gender=1&tert=164&tertgene=0&winggene=190&wings=8&auth=a54a99ff174f1610c98c56072574a693394bf09e&dummyext=prev.png[/img] [img]https://www1.flightrising.com/dgen/preview/dragon?age=1&body=146&bodygene=10&breed=8&element=6&eyetype=0&gender=0&tert=164&tertgene=0&winggene=5&wings=8&auth=e71f26eac3f7b56334b8655a81d1e1c2dcbe74e6&dummyext=prev.png[/img]

Support. I don't have Paisley auraboas but I do like the old version much better, and tbh I don't even get the issue about the consistency - why can't it look a bit differently on different breeds or even on different genders?

People liked it enough to gene their dragons, and it has been around for three whole months already. This one even had gradient and such, it didn't look like a gene mistake to me (if those areas were solid color, that would have felt different as it would have looked weird and incomplete).

I remember the issue with Saturn(?), we were notified very shortly after the release of the gene that there was a mistake, in a separate announcement asking to hold off the purchases/application, and it was fixed pretty fast, in a week or less. Inconvenient, but understandable, mistakes happen. Here, I don't even get it, it worked fine for literally months and there was nothing in the news stating that a fix was in the plans. Everyone knows that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I'm pretty annoyed when such random "fixes" happen, as it can change a lot in the dragon. Like when they decided to change the color of the basic eyes for "cohesiveness" when new eye types appeared and a very different eye type ended with the color I specifically looked for, bought a dragon for and changed the genes for. And this type was released much later, too, so for a while I was stuck with a dragon I spent money and effort on, purchased art and so on, that suddenly stopped looking the way I designed it to look with no warning or compensation. It had big eyes, too, so you couldn't miss the fact that their color stopped matching the tert, and it was a permababy so I couldn't even cover the eyes with apparel. So I get why people are upset with the current change, it's really, really annoying. Yes, I'm still salty about that old eye change.

Other random "changes for cohesiveness" ruin the plans and old dragons all the time, too, like these random gene changes, the rarity "fixes" that ruin breeding pairs, redrawing the old apparel in a very different way, etc. I wish they stopped messing with the old content.

here to get in the comments :salute:

but on a more serious note, i'm honestly surprised to see that this version of fern/paisley was considered a bug. it certainly looked like a deliberate stylistic choice that took into consideration the unique anatomy of auroboas (by having contrasting colour/texture on the fluffy/coverlet part of the wingarms).

i really appreciate when different breeds get to be, well... different. it strikes me as odd that there's so much emphasis on consistency between the breeds when we started this game with having unique bits for more than a few dragon breeds (tundra primaries and snapper feet come immediately to mind) and these unique features have continued to be part of dragon design moving forward (bogsneak necks and obelisk manes, even beyond flafla). some similarity is to be expected, but it shouldn't just all be the same, particularly when that push to standardisation ignores unique features of the actual dragon design (like flattening and diminishing the multi-layered look of auroboa wings).

i remember prior to when obelisk flair was revealed to be a glitch, i fell madly in love with the unique contrast afforded obelisk manes with flair. when it was changed, i was honestly very disappointed -- not only because my dragons i'd just spent a lot of time and currency geneing were now effectively ruined, but because it was just so shocking. granted, we'd had no warning at all about obelisk flair, and the auraboa paisley was "at least" mentioned in a gene error thread for some time prior to this update... but iunno. as vabam put it (i think it was vabam anyway, sorry if i misremember), it's really not reasonable to expect the userbase to keep track of every glitch and bug and misfire of every gene for every breed while just trying to play with their dragon dolls on dragon dressup game.

i don't think "it's on the tracker thread" is enough, especially when "glitched" items are allowed to be used in good faith by the userbase during their "broken" period with no overt warning that these items aren't functioning as intended by the site's perspective. that doesn't feel good, especially when it keeps happening over and over with what feels like increasing frequency (or at least in tandem with all the ancient releases of 2023). i don't have any auroboas with this gene, but i have been here with obelisk flair, and i feel bad that this is happening to my auraboa-enjoying comrades and that it keeps happening and will unfortunately probably happen again to some other unique iteration of a gene and breed combo.

i definitely think it's worth reconsidering this change (and beyond that, definitely for another post, how the site deals with "glitched" items in general).