hi!! ive been on FR since 2013, heres my best attempt at answering your questions! i'm not super actively involved in the community side of the site anymore so there may be a few things that i dont know about either, but i hope this helps you find a starting place!
1. What is the current economy like ? ( What sells a lot, what doesn't with dragons and items )
Flightrising has definitely faced Pet Site Economy :tm: over time, so dragons don't typically sell for a lot anymore unless a few specific conditions have been met:
1)
Generation 1 Dragons - (Hatched from scavenged or event eggs, these dragons don't have any parents listed in their lineage) if they have a pretty color combination or are XXX, XXY, XYY (These letters represent the pattern of the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. An example of an XXY dragon would be orca/orca/antique - the first two colors are the same and the last color is different) they will likely sell for more. Unhatched dragon eggs tend to sell for more than most G1 dragons, though.
2)
Old dragons - Dragons that are older tend to sell for more, and dragons that are older have less digits in their ID number. For example, my custom progenitor dragon has an ID of 111850, which is only 6 digits. 6 or 7 digit dragons are considered very valuable and have a specific market of collectors for them, though you may have better luck selling them on the forums than the auction house
3)
Dragons with newly released genes or breeds - This one's self explanatory, you can see which releases are newer by looking through the latest news!
4)
Particularly unique or pretty color schemes - This doesn't matter AS much any more, especially if you try to sell through the auction house more than the forums. You will find "hatcheries" on the forums who sell very pretty and often themed dragons for a much higher price, but it's a lot of effort / organization / marketing that goes into a successful hatchery. Having genes other than "basic" in the primary, secondary, and tertiary spots also helps with the value but those genes also should work well together
Things like dragon breed used to matter a LOT more (Ex: Imperial dragons used to sell for a hefty price!), but since there's just SO many dragons on the website now a lot of traits have been devalued due to supply being way higher than demand.
The good news is you can get very beautiful dragons for very cheap! But trying to make your primary income selling dragons is tough; If you really like playing the website economics game then getting into selling dragons is definitely for you. Otherwise, there are some other ways to make money that I'll talk more about later. For items, older and limited time items (such as the Elemental Festival items) have a lot more value. There are also valuable materials that you'll learn about over time.
2. What do all the items do..? I have gathered, hunted, and fished before but I have no idea how to use those or what to do with them?
The items are probably one of the hardest things to learn in the game, just because there's so many of them and it's mostly something you'll figure out over time. First and foremost I recommend looking up items on the
Game Database if you have any questions on where you got it from or what it's used for!
Here's some general information on what the bars below some items mean:
If there is a
yellow bar with a scroll under the item (when looking at your hoard), it means the item can be used for your Hibernal Den. The Hibernal Den is basically extra "storage", and your dragons don't lose energy in there. You have to unlock slots by completing mini-quests and delivering items AND/OR by purchasing them with gems. If you're not concerned with having a ton of storage space, you probably don't need to worry about it. However, if you're interested in selling these items Hibernal Den quest items (with the yellow bar) tend to be worth more, so consider selling them on the Auction House instead of selling through your hoard!
(When dealing with your hibden or even just your regular lair, as a general fyi SLOTS allow for more dragons, TABS allow for more organization of dragons - some players get these confused and think tabs will give them more space!)
If there is a
purple bar under the item, it's a Swipp material: You can trade these in for items at
Swipp's Swap Stand, which is a rotating stock of item trade-ins. Swipp materials and swipp trade items tend to be more valuable, and the materials for all the current Swipp trades will be in high demand on the auction house if you have the energy to keep up with that (I certainly don't xD but it is an option!)
If there is a
green bar under the item, it's a Baldwin material. This means it gets used in a recipe for
alchemy, which is a separate passive skill you can level by transmuting items and making new items from recipes. Baldwin can be very profitable, but it was added when I was taking a break from the game so I don't know as much about it
TL;DR for items - If an item has a colored bar underneath it when you're looking at your hoard, you should probably save it or figure out what it does specifically and sell it on the auction house. For all regular items, feel free to "hoard sell" (Selling straight from your hoard instead of the AH), transmute at baldwin, or convert it to food points for your dragons if it's food.
Apparel is always fairly sought after, but some apparel is worth more than others - Consider using the auction house or looking up how to get the item on the database before transmuting or selling apparel if you don't want to use it on your own dragons. 3. Buying dragons from the auction house, what to look out for? Lookout as in if there is a random fodder dragon posted that's worth a lot (guess that ties into question 1,) or if there is a dragon posted for a lot but isn't worth that much? I'd like to know what kinds.
Unless you want to make your income selling dragons, just look out for whatever dragons you like the most! :] Ideally try to find dragons that are cheaper (you can get some VERY pretty fodder dragons). You can search for color and gene combinations that you find pretty on the auction house to compare prices with similar dragons. GENERALLY unless you just really love a specific color combination or don't really care about the money side of the game, for most dragons you should avoid "Gene projects" AKA buying gene and breed change scrolls to customize your dragon with. The scrolls are expensive, so most people wait until they have a pretty G1 dragon they want to customize. You'll basically never get the money you put into a dragon with gene scrolls back, whether you're trying to make a G1 dragon more valuable or if you're trying to make a pretty breeding pair to sell the hatchlings of, so it's good to keep that in mind.
Of course, it's all just a game so you should do whatever you find the most fun! I've used gene and breed change scrolls on dragons that are very low value just because I love them and wanted to make them prettier LOL, even if I could almost certainly find an identical dragon that already has the genes for much cheaper it doesn't really matter to me.
4. Guides: I have read some guides on the game itself but on the FR forum and its hard to navigate still. Are there any on CS?
I'm not sure if there are any guides on CS unfortunately! here's some guides that may help you either now or later on:
Coliseum Leveling GuideAlchemy GuideGlimmer and Gloom guideExalt Payout GuideI know the guides section of the forum can be overwhelming, but if you're interested in looking through it I'd keep an eye out for guides with keywords like "fairgrounds", "coliseum", "elemental currency", "festival", etc just to see what you can learn!
5. Any tips or tricks for a newbie?
Aside from gene scrolls, generally the
marketplace is more expensive than just searching for the item on the auction house. Try to save it as a last resort, especially for apparel and familiars which are often possible to obtain for cheap or for free elsewhere
Glimmer and gloom is a super fast way to hit the 75k treasure fairgrounds cap, there are many different guides for how to solve it on hard mode (which is the most efficient). I can get an easy 75k treasure a day just by spending ~20 minutes on glimmer and gloom! I recommend learning about and trying all the fairgrounds games just to see if there's one you're very fast at. If you feel up for hitting the 75k max at the fairgrounds every day, you can get around 2 million treasure in a month!
Coliseum is one of the biggest ways to make money (either by exalting dragons, or just selling the item and familiar drops you get), consider making a team of dragons to level through the game with if you find it fun!
During festivals, if you go to Joxar's spare inventory there is an item you can get for 80,000 treasure called a Spare Inventory Crate. You can only get one per festival, and they have a chance of dropping some incredibly rare old festival items that are normally limited; If anyone offers to buy your crate for 80,000 treasure don't let them - it's a scam that some older players try to do on newer players who don't realize the value of the spare inventory crate
Oh! also adding I REALLY like rosette dragons I'm seeing (I guess from my lioden days xD) but are they worth a lot or anything ?
Not in particular! They are very pretty though, I agree ^_^ If you want, you can open the auction house and just search for rosette dragons by going to the secondary gene (modern) dropdown and selecting it! You can select multiple filter parameters at a time, so you can also add all ancient breeds that have rosette on them as well (I recommend typing rosette in the search bar for the ancients so you're less overwhelmed by scrolling through all the options)
In general, try to practice with the auction house dragon search engine! It's a little intimidating (When they first made it really fancy with a bunch of options I was SUPER overwhelmed LOL, I imagine it might be a lot for a new player) but once you get the hang of it and what you're looking for you can find a lot of dragons you'll like! Messing around on
Predict Morphology will help you get familiar with all the genes and colors, and maybe even find a color combination you want to try for!