Getting your dragon XP and growing him/her up is all well and good when you have an abundance of quests, but what do you do with a newly hatched dragon when you've exhausted all the quests available in game? Here are a few tips to help you with just that.
TIP 1 - Games
Play games with your dragons! Play Eel Roast, Alchemy Adventure, the better your performance, the more XP you'll get and these are a good way to chase the boredom of not having any quests to do. I recommend playing these games on mobile since you can swipe directly (Alchemy Adventure), or directly tap on the eel you wish to target (Eel Roast), saving you a good few precious milliseconds. If this isn't an option for you, don't worry, playing on a computer can still get you pretty good scores (I personally also play on a computer).
Update: The new SOD update has nerfed these games, you can no longer earn more than 10 XP from a single game no matter how many levels you do.
TIP 1.1 - Pros of Mobile Gaming
So apart from the couple of pros I mentioned about playing the games on mobile, here's a couple more. On mobile, you have the option, after playing games or a battle event, to watch an ad in order to double your rewards. This will pop up in the screen where your final score is shown and a list of high scores amongst you and your friends. It will probably get a bit tiresome if you do this too often, but it's easy to play the game/do the battle event, then put the phone aside while the ad is playing.
TIP 2 - Stable Quests
Certain stable quests require baby dragons, make good use of them! If it's not one of your current stable quests, just have them replaced, wait 10 minutes, and check again. Stable quests are not only good at giving XP for your baby/teen dragons, but the prize can also include coins and/or mystery box and/or UDT points (?).
TIP 2.1 - Non-Baby Stable Quests
As Kasane commented on my journal thread on the SoD forum, just because your dragon is a baby/teen doesn't mean it can't go on other stable quests. Certain non-baby stable quests still allow for your baby/teen dragons to be chosen as part of the team. This can be extremely beneficial for quests that have large amounts of XP as awards.
So, assuming you have 4 slots which is the average, you can use 3 of them to increase the chance of winning up to high numbers, 80%+, and then use the single card remaining to have the baby/teen dragon as part of the team. That way, if the quest is a success, the baby/teen dragon will get a lot of XP. Even if the quest fails however, you still get a bit of awards, XPs, and though it will be a smaller amount, it will still be helpful.
TIP 3 - Battle Events
If your current active dragon is a baby, chances are (from my experience) that you will not get a notification when a battle event starts. I'm not sure whether this is true for teen dragons too. To bypass this, go into a battle event with an adult dragon and do the event with that dragon. It is important that you hit the ship at least once to be considered into the list of participants for the battle event. Then, according to how quickly the health bar is dropping, land your dragon at around 500-700 range and change your dragon to the baby/teen dragon in need of XP to grow.
Some useful keyboard shortcuts to make the transition process faster:
R - get on/off your dragon
V - access your list of dragons (where you can change your active dragons)
Tips on landing:
idk how much people know but, this took me a while to figure out
while landing, if you dive headfirst into the ground, chances are you won't be landing
instead, you approach the ground at a flatter angle so you must not be diving when you touch the ground
you should also slow down when you approach the ground
to slow down, press the shift key as needed
all the above will help your landing be successful and as quick and efficient as possible
These shortcuts and tips will help a lot in how quickly you land, get off your dragon, and change. You don't need to have already changed your dragon before the "Way to go!" message. If you're on the list of dragons panel when the "Way to go!" message comes on, the change will still work and the XP will go to the dragon you change to.
TIP 3.1 - Different Dragon, Different Landing Experiences
As Kasane commented on my journal thread on the SoD forum, landing a dragon depends hugely on what kind of dragon you're landing. So certain dragons are easier to land than others and this, I think, is due to the dragon's physique.
(I don't mean the developers individually coded different landing algorithms for each dragon, maybe they did but it would be inefficient. Maybe they have a general landing algorithm following certain parameters that refer to what's coded into the dragon, using that as a reference to control the landing and since the landing algorithm is general, it is not specifically coded to each dragon type to make landing for said dragon smooth and following the laws of physics, etc. If you didn't understand my spiel just now, don't worry about it, I just didn't want to start up any debates and confusions about certain assumptions/hypotheses I'm making.)
Anyway, regardless of how it was coded to be, fact of the matter is that different landing experiences still exist for different dragon breeds. You might want to consider this as a factor when choosing your battle event dragon, but in my opinion, I don't think it's that important of a factor. My usual go-to dragon for battle events is the Elder Sentinel and these dragons are very hard to land if you don't know how to land properly. As explained in the tips above, I use those techniques and shortcuts to land my Elder Sentinel, and I have no trouble landing him in the first try. So at the end of the day, I'd say it's all about knowing how to approach at a flatter angle with a slow speed to land your dragon and this can be practiced!
My personal go-to favourite method for leveling up my dragons is the one using battle events. I have pretty good dragons for battle events, and manage to score a gold nearly everytime. As a result, it only takes about 3-4 battle events for my dragon to reach level 10 at which point he/she is an adult and can now fly.
I hope you've learnt something new from some of my tips, I wish you a happy time growing your dragon. If you have any confusion or anything, don't hesitate to get in touch with me!
- Yaxmi