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Edit: For those unaware, the plans for the upcoming hatchery update are to limit the amount of pets within the hatchery. This means that ONLY hatchlings will be allowed in the hatchery - no longer adolescents - as pointed out below. Just to avoid further confusion on exactly why I made this suggestion. :3


Hatchery
-We plan on completely revamping the Hatchery. This will improve user friendliness and add new features.
-Allow various sorting to more quickly find the pet you're looking for.
-Allow nurturing directly on the Hatchery page instead of having to visit each pet's profile page.
-In order to improve the pet economy, Hatcheries will have limited space. However, you will be able to purchase infinitely more space similar to how you can purchase additional stables. With set space, Hatchery pets will also be able to be moved around.
-Pets will be able to be moved to Stables as a Hatchling.
-Pets will automatically be moved to Stables once they reach Adolescence.
-All of the above will help to prevent current situations where players have 10+ pages of Adolescents just sitting in their Hatchery priced at 1 gold.

-Krinadon

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I've been considering the upcoming hatchery update limitations for a while now, and I've personally decided not to keep sale pets past the hatchling stage. I value my stable space far too much for that, and I'm probably not going to be the only one.


My concern with that, however, is how it will effect potential buyers. Image codes are great! - for those who know how to use them. For those who don't, the only way they'll be seeing the older image of the hatchling before it's thrown into the void of auto-released pets will be using the preview generator, and no one has the patience to fill in 10 hex codes several times over just to find the right pet to buy.


Solution, and my suggestion: On hatchling profiles, when clicking the pet's image to make it larger, let it also show the older image {edit: visible mutations included.}That way whenever someone wants to see the older version of the pet before they buy it (or even just to see it out of curiosity for pet owners or random lookers) it takes only a quick click to see it.


Just a thought to help people find and buy pets they want, rather than picking up an adorable hatchling that grows up into an ugly mess. Like the example below.


(adorable hatchling)



(not-so-adorable-anymore adolescent)


(unhappy buyer when they see the ugly pet that just moved into their stable)





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Additional Edit:

I've also come to realize now how great of a disadvantage the revamp will be to players without genetic testing kits. Regardless of whether they'll intend to sell pets or keep them, they won't be able to make a proper decision on what to do with a bred pet until it has to be moved into the stable. Considering that the space of the hatchery itself will also be limited and that it takes hatchlings a full 216 hours (9 days) to turn adolescent while breeding cooldowns for most pets are as low as 3 days... That would seriously suck.

If they were to run entirely out of space and have a need to release certain pets in order to keep others, they would have no way on their own to know what their hatchlings will look like to base their decisions on. They would be forced to run a gamble of possibly releasing the wrong pet and keeping a hatchling that they later find out they don't like at all once it shows the older image.

So, again, since visible mutations would be naturally seen on a pet with time anyway, I think it'd be more fair to the players to implement this suggestion once the hatchery restrictions are in place. Lest there be unhappy faces all around for the numerous adorable hatchlings that grow up to be not-so-adorable.

Ahhhh...

Point taken, and would love to see this implemented! As one of those that can't seem to figure out how the coding works, this would make things "stupid" proof :P I like this! I want this!

Agreed.

So much support ~ <3

I support this!
It would help with pricing hatchlings to!

I wouldn't mind having this feature...

But I think the main problem with implementing this would be for users who do not genetically test their pets. Since the pets are not tested, what mutations the pet has (if any) is unknown until they become adolescents. I would think the adult preview for the pet would not show any mutations unless tested (else it kind of reduces the need to genetically test pets). So for players who may not fully understand how mutations work, they may assume that the adult form does not have mutations. Or they may acquire the pet, only to find later that it has traits that they may not like or expect.

Yes but that is always the risk when buying an untested hatchling. You never know what mutations it has, mutation colors that might affect how it looks, or even undercarries that might effect breeding down the line

"Or they may acquire the pet, only to find later that it has traits that they may not like or expect."


That's precisely why I made the suggestion to let players see these traits earlier on. (You saw the example Puff, right? XD)


With the update, pets will no longer remain in the hatchery past the hatchling stage. Rather than ADULTS being set to auto-release, it will be ADOLESCENTS. Meaning as soon as these traits are able to show, the pet is gone.

The entire intention of showing the older pet would be to reveal any visible mutations on the adolescent/adult form before it's too late and the pet is lost to the void. It curbs the risk of disappointing results from having to buy pets as hatchlings, and it also curbs the risk of not buying a pet you want and letting it be sent into the void out of fear of what mutations the pet might show.

All in all, hatchlings would have a much better chance to be sold, and to not cause some heartache afterwards and possibly lead to countless instances of "I now want to return this pet because the mutations are horrible," if the update lets us see the older image (visible mutations included) from the hatchling profile.


For now, of course, it isn't a big deal. All you have to do is wait a few days since adolescents stick around in the hatchery until adulthood. When this changes however and adolescents are set to auto-release..? I can foresee this aspect being an issue for the market. Perhaps not a major issue (there's no real way to predict how people will change their setup of selling pets, after all), but whatever problems may arise from it, this suggestion would help settle them.


And I don't feel it would make the genetic testing kits any less useful; the visible mutations would be showing on the adolescent/adult regardless of testing. It just takes time - the time that auto-released adolescents would no longer have with the update. Testing kits remain the only way to see carried traits as well as recessive traits and maturity shown in hours; their use was never limited to getting an early peek at a hatchling's visible mutations.

I guess the issue for me would be whether or not the admins decide to make the mutations visible in the adult preview if they choose to implement this suggestion. =P


I think they would not be shown unless the pet is tested, since the preview should only work with what is currently known of the pet and just change the maturity of it. Else I feel it is redundant to make mutation traits and colours unknown as a hatchling.

And I say it might make genetic testing less useful because there are instances where people are only concerned with visible traits, so all they need to know is whether the mutations they want are visible or not. So if one wanted to know earlier they would have to test the pet, else they have to wait till it grows up, which like you said, isn't much of a problem now. (My sister does this since she doesn't have a unlimited testing kit and she's lazy to set up her pets for others)

So if mutation traits are visible in the preview without the need for genetic testing, this would mean in the cases like my sister where they are in the later stage of their project and only care for visible traits, they can breed as much as they can, knowing they can preview the babies and only need to keep the ones that are successful, with no need to ensure they have enough stable space for all the future adolescents to check their mutations.


So if the admins implement this suggestion, and if they do not make mutations visible in the adult preview regardless of whether the pet is tested, then the issue of unhappy buyers is unsolved if some people do not test their pet.

And (assuming mutations are not visible in the preview without testing), I think the issue with unhappy buyers would be greater with the preview. Since if you make the effort to change the image url, or input the colour hexes into the generator to see the adult form, you would know the mutations are unknown for untested hatchlings. And if you don't check the adult form before buying, it should be known that adult forms look different from hatchling forms, so it should be expected that there would be changes in looks. Whereas if the preview does not show mutations if it's untested, then there might be some confusion if people preview the pet and decide to buy, since they did not expect any changes from the preview they saw and think that what they saw in the preview is what they will get, especially for newer players.

So to resolve the potential issues, the suggestion is more of add an adult preview and make all visible mutation traits and colours known in hatchlings regardless of genetic testing.

As to issue pointed out in the last section of the first post...I think this problem could be solved fairly easily, provided that the ability to test other people's pets from the pet profile without having to own the pet, would significantly speed things up for people offering free testing to others. Cutting out a lot of the back and forth in the process of testing other people's pets would make it easier for people without test kits to test to get their adolescents tested.

If this change was implemented before the new hatchery, I think it would make things simpler. It's not a perfect solution by any means, but it would make the problem more manageable.