Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=55446&page=13#129 Author: Jennileigh25 Time Posted: 12/27/2017 at 11:29 PM We have been in debate on the region chat wondering why the snowmen take so many faces/hats/branches, could we possibly get an explanation? Like is it because each part of the face is only eyes, another is nose, another the smile?

It's just how everything was broken down.

It doesn't really matter how the numbers are spread - the final tally would have been the same.

Just seemed more interesting and fun than just a generic.... rarely... "You found a Completed Snowman". So instead, you find bits and pieces and kinda work them together into the full Completed Snowman.

But, the end result would have been the same.

These are also all newly built features. So they're kinda laying the foundation for next year if we decide to reuse it. And next year we'd probably add to these features to make them more interesting and in depth.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=55446&page=13#130 Author: Ladysatyr Time Posted: 12/27/2017 at 11:31 PM I received a lot of catalaysts in my stocking (all rare essences) but can't access them in snow slyesti building. and when I go to my inventory to try and maybe "use item' to unlock them, I can't. Any solution to this or are they not the right essences?

If they are actual essences, then they would be usable to generate new pets in the Generator.

Thanks Wonderfulb2uty.

I find it to be rather unfair that we need 27 (logistically speaking) small snowballs to make three large snowballs to make one snowman. Not to seem overly critical and ungrateful but why even bother putting in the small and mediums if all it'll take is the large ones?

80 snowmen attire
160 branches
120 accessories
1,080 small snowballs
= 1 majestic essence.

(240 snowmen attire
480 branches
360 accessories
3,240 small snowballs
= 3 majestic essences for the task list. )

30 snowmen attire
60 branches
45 accessories
405 small snowballs
= 1 fabled essence.

10 snowmen attire
20 branches
15 accesories
135 small snowballs
= 1 regular essence.

This is just insane. I'm not even expecting to be given anything like, for free. I know we have to work for the things we want but when ONE majestic essence is either all of that up there ^ OR 1,000 diamonds ($8.30 at the current sale price) with no way of even having the chance of getting them from the premium's anymore... I can't help but to feel as though Sylestia has become a hair away from pay-to-play. My "free-time/extra" money is already spread very thin. While I understand there are people who are willing to spend their or their parents hard earned money on pixels to obtain what they want, I cannot simply justify spending the money to simply purchase a majestic essence. I also cannot see how it is even possible to obtain all 3 just to tick it off the task list just by "grinding" in game. This really needs to change. You say it would be more fun to do it this way where we have to get x amount of this and that and whatever to make a single snowman but you don't realize that the vast majority of us (and I'm sure most feel this way but likely wont speak up about it for fear of not being heard and canceled out by those that seem to just blindly accept any and everything that happens) would find it more fun to be able to have a more simplified way of creating a snowman (I'm not saying just give it to us or make it stupidly easy but... just sensibly and reasonably easier). Every single fest, things become more and more expensive to obtain either through grinding, in game currency or the items in the festival shop or the diamond shop and it's being noticed by more than just a handful of people. It's hard to enjoy playing this game anymore.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=55446&page=14#134 Author: Elimini Time Posted: 12/28/2017 at 12:19 AM I find it to be rather unfair that we need 27 (logistically speaking) small snowballs to make three large snowballs to make one snowman. Not to seem overly critical and ungrateful but why even bother putting in the small and mediums if all it'll take is the large ones? 80 snowmen attire 160 branches 120 accessories 1,080 small snowballs = 1 majestic essence. (240 snowmen attire 480 branches 360 accessories 3,240 small snowballs = 3 majestic essences for the task list. ) 30 snowmen attire 60 branches 45 accessories 405 small snowballs = 1 fabled essence. 10 snowmen attire 20 branches 15 accesories 135 small snowballs = 1 regular essence. This is just insane. I'm not even expecting to be given anything like, for free. I know we have to work for the things we want but when ONE majestic essence is either all of that up there ^ OR 1,000 diamonds ($8.30 at the current sale price) with no way of even having the chance of getting them from the premium's anymore... I can't help but to feel as though Sylestia has become a hair away from pay-to-play. My "free-time/extra" money is already spread very thin. While I understand there are people who are willing to spend their or their parents hard earned money on pixels to obtain what they want, I cannot simply justify spending the money to simply purchase a majestic essence. I also cannot see how it is even possible to obtain all 3 just to tick it off the task list just by "grinding" in game. This really needs to change. You say it would be more fun to do it this way where we have to get x amount of this and that and whatever to make a single snowman but you don't realize that the vast majority of us (and I'm sure most feel this way but likely wont speak up about it for fear of not being heard and canceled out by those that seem to just blindly accept any and everything that happens) would find it more fun to be able to have a more simplified way of creating a snowman (I'm not saying just give it to us or make it stupidly easy but... just sensibly and reasonably easier). Every single fest, things become more and more expensive to obtain either through grinding, in game currency or the items in the festival shop or the diamond shop and it's being noticed by more than just a handful of people. It's hard to enjoy playing this game anymore.

All of these features are basically brand new this year and, obviously as you're all aware, are still being pushed out or just literally were pushed out.

With so many new things, we will always error on the side of caution at first with drop rates. You can always add more, but you can really never fairly take away. So we would much rather have things start a bit too rare and then adjust as needed to find the balance.

There are also still some missing components (Snow Wars, Winter Wonderland, Contest Pouches, etc), so adjustments won't be looked at until I can get all of the features made available.


For the Snowman Exchange, the 'prices' are a bit more inflated than usual because, at the moment, you can selectively pick exactly what you want. Honestly, I'd imagine obtaining exactly one of each Majestic Frost Essence is a lot easier than getting lucky and obtaining exactly one of each of the Majestic Brew Catalysts from the Fall Festival. Not only were Majestic Pouches not a guaranteed Majestic Catalyst, but you could also get duplicates.

So, because you can be specific with what Frost Essence you want from the Exchange, it costs a bit more to compensate for the less RNG.


As far as building the Snowmen, that's all just tweaking. The more numbers, the easier it is to tweak. I can break down ratios into fractions and micro adjust. If things are just a solid... 1...2...3, etc... Going from 2 or 3 is a massive increase. It makes it a lot harder to make small changes and try and balance.

Also, when the Festival began and I began putting together the database tables and such, I still wasn't 100% sure what I wanted and how I wanted it all to work. So I threw in what I had because it was already there.

As I said in an earlier response, I am sure, if these features return next year, they will be more flushed out and fine tuned. You can just think back to the original Sylesti Garden vs what the Garden is now. It's still basically the same, but has significantly evolved and lots of qualify of life changes have been made.


But, in the end, I go by the numbers. For the Summer Festival, you guys created 7,590 total Beach Themed Pets. For the Fall Festival, I got you guys to end up at 7,350 Brewing Themed Pets. So I will try to get you guys to about the same for Ice Sculpting Themed Pets as well. For reference, the last Sylesti Garden yielded 6,766 pets.

Once I get everything all pushed out, and I do apologize for the delay with everything, I'll check all the numbers and adjust to make sure things are on track with where they should be.


I personally don't want Sylestia to ever be thought of as pay to win and I had hoped removing some of the RNG elements for this Winter Festival set up would kinda help you guys more easily obtain what you wanted and not have to rely so much on RNG.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=55446&page=14#135 Author: Krinadon Time Posted: 12/28/2017 at 12:51 AM [quote=1109336] All of these features are basically brand new this year and, obviously as you're all aware, are still being pushed out or just literally were pushed out. With so many new things, we will always error on the side of caution at first with drop rates. You can always add more, but you can really never fairly take away. So we would much rather have things start a bit too rare and then adjust as needed to find the balance. There are also still some missing components (Snow Wars, Winter Wonderland, Contest Pouches, etc), so adjustments won't be looked at until I can get all of the features made available. For the Snowman Exchange, the 'prices' are a bit more inflated than usual because, at the moment, you can selectively pick exactly what you want. Honestly, I'd imagine obtaining exactly one of each Majestic Frost Essence is a lot easier than getting lucky and obtaining exactly one of each of the Majestic Brew Catalysts from the Fall Festival. Not only were Majestic Pouches not a guaranteed Majestic Catalyst, but you could also get duplicates. So, because you can be specific with what Frost Essence you want from the Exchange, it costs a bit more to compensate for the less RNG. As far as building the Snowmen, that's all just tweaking. The more numbers, the easier it is to tweak. I can break down ratios into fractions and micro adjust. If things are just a solid... 1...2...3, etc... Going from 2 or 3 is a massive increase. It makes it a lot harder to make small changes and try and balance. Also, when the Festival began and I began putting together the database tables and such, I still wasn't 100% sure what I wanted and how I wanted it all to work. So I threw in what I had because it was already there. As I said in an earlier response, I am sure, if these features return next year, they will be more flushed out and fine tuned. You can just think back to the original Sylesti Garden vs what the Garden is now. It's still basically the same, but has significantly evolved and lots of qualify of life changes have been made. But, in the end, I go by the numbers. For the Summer Festival, you guys created 7,590 total Beach Themed Pets. For the Fall Festival, I got you guys to end up at 7,350 Brewing Themed Pets. So I will try to get you guys to about the same for Ice Sculpting Themed Pets as well. For reference, the last Sylesti Garden yielded 6,766 pets. Once I get everything all pushed out, and I do apologize for the delay with everything, I'll check all the numbers and adjust to make sure things are on track with where they should be. I personally don't want Sylestia to ever be thought of as pay to win and I had hoped removing some of the RNG elements for this Winter Festival set up would kinda help you guys more easily obtain what you wanted and not have to rely so much on RNG.

I appreciate the long and informative response. While I understand there are still elements yet to come, I just hope that me breaking it down mathematically helps you see that with these components that are being added, we need a better chance of actually being able to obtain them. The fear is that once they are released and tweaked, we still wont have enough. I do have the understanding and I accept that there is still more to come, I just am really hoping that this system that you're implementing this time around (with tweaks and such), we are actually able to achieve this.

Part of my being upset and misunderstanding, I guess, is just being shellshocked by the prices of this fest. They have been going up little by little over the past year of festivals and what I love is being able to play a game that I enjoy, one that allows me to escape the stresses of being a wife, mother, volunteer (which takes up a big chunk of my non-wife/mother duties time), and a caretaker to 3 elderly individuals, without having to pay a monthly fee which I already cannot afford elsewhere. We get regular content updates and regular site improvements (some that are frustrating to more than just me but, I digress) all for free. But I just really hope that with all that you're doing, those of us who have a lot going on outside of the internet are able to still love and enjoy playing it without feeling like we have to grind 24/7 or pay real money (which honestly, it does feel like we need to do both of the latter a lot of times). The diamond exchange helps some but that is also pretty tough at times. It's just starting to feel like the stuff we can buy with real currency are just going up in price every time and they're just harder to afford. Even those that cannot grind or leisurely play a fraction of what it takes to obtain even a quarter of what a fest entails are still struggling to enjoy some aspects of these festivals. That's due to a lot of the processes bring lengthy and the RNG on some things sometimes being a bit mindbogglingly difficult to really get everything we need/want and/or things being expensive.

Hopefully the criticism is constructive enough to maybe help out with improvements on features yet to come. A lot of people are going back to work/school/other soon after being on break for the holidays and I know they all would really love a shot at being able to do all that is intended, myself included.

AH thank you! Just was wondering. I understand how busy you are!

-sigh- This is probably going to come out much harsher than intended and im probably going to look like a complete jerk and get attacked for this >.>

I understand things being new. I'm not expecting things to be perfect right away.

However, i've also been here long enough to know exactly how things are going to play out this fest. and that would be that nothing is going to change. You say it takes tweaking etc to balance things out, but that does nothing for the here and now. Because i know well enough that usually that means that either changes are going to happen within the very last part of the fest, or not at all until next year. When there is no promise that features or current themed are going to return in following years, that is not something that sits well with me. I'm not saying i want everything handed to me. I'm not saying i think everything should be an immediate "here you go!" (because i know well enough that's exactly what is going to be said to any of this) I'm saying that when you /don't know/ that there is going to be a future opportunity for these things, it becomes a "get it or never do" situation. Working for something is one thing, questioning if you even can get it at all is another. If things are too difficult to get, then it really does become a question if you even can get things at all without shelling out money.

And i know the very next thing I'm going to get for that is "well the site needs to make money." Thats well and good. I wholeheartedly understand that, which is why in the past i've been all for throwing what little spare money i have at the site. But it feels like every single fest, as Eli said, it has been leaning more and more towards pay to win. For example. I've been grinding since day 1 in the zone. After all that time spent, i was able to make a grand total of /2/ snowmen. Its winter break. i dont have school to deal with for a little more than another week. I have tons of free time to grind. But if im going to get so little? Why should i even bother? I could be doing soemthign much more productive with my time. Meanwhile, someone buys that $100 bundle in the diamond shop. Instant 20 snowmen. Thats enough to get a fabled essence from the snowman shop. IN ADDITION, this person also gets multiple fressences that contain a random either fabled or majestic essence. This person now has /minimum/ of 6 frost essences. Meanwhile, someone like me who have been working super hard in the zone, still has /none/. Ok, fine, they have the money to shell out for that type of instant gratification. Go for it. I'm not against the bundles if people want to spend their money on it. tats their business, not mine. What bothers me is that it puts someone at such a ridiculous advantage. Thats pay to win to me. at this point, you basically /have/ to spend real money to get he frost essences. And i've heard it said, man times before, that mid fest is "too late to change it now." So i don't foresee it changing anytime in the near future.

So where does that leave the free to play players? Well, hopefully they don't like the frost themeds. Otherwise, hopefully they dont like to eat or sleep. In the past, ti has always been possible to get to the same level of the pay to win players by spending gold on diamonds etc. Hard work gets rewards after all. But with maj fressences costing 1k dia, thats not entirely possible. I remember saying for eons when i started to get my exceptional test kit, back when i didnt have a way to spend real money on the site. I worked for months, daily, to get that test kit. /Months/. A fest doesnt have months to save. Getting 1 maj fressence is like a impossible to reach dream for any free to play player. I'm sure others feel the same when i say that stuff like that doesnt make me want to spend money. it makes me want to run far away. I started spending money on this site because i felt that it was money well spent, and because i knew i didn't /have to/. I'm not going to spend money on something because i have to in order to get anything good. I'm going to find other places to spend my money on that actually reward hard work.

Next I know you are going to mention those /lovely/ prem fressences available in the fest shop. Great. im glad to see them there. However. Once again, grinding since day 1. I have just over 2.5k frost tokens. There is no way to get even half the fabled by the end of the fest at those rates. You've said in the past that you want to reward hard work. well, ive put in tons of hardwork, as have many others, and what do i have to show for it?

And then we go back to the whole "things are still being pushed out." I understand coding takes time, and its the holidays and all that. But it seems like all we've been hearing lately is "in the future..." "when this is released...". I'm sitting on so much stuff in my inventory that i /cant even use/ that im probably going to have to shell out my hard earned gold to buy /another/ tab. I've been told i'ma very patient person, but my patience is wearing thin on all of this waiting. We are nearly a week into the fest and things still arent fully done. And thats not even taking into account that it was already pushed back from this original start date. Its not fun /at all/ to explore the zone when everything you do is completely worthless since nothing drops what you need to do anything else. I'll go find other things to do if all syl is going to give me is more and more waiting. I understand being one person. I understand coding is rough. I'm getting my bachelors degree /in coding/. But this is also a business. Leaving clients /waiting/ for things like this is...not at all ok.

All of that being said, i do appreciate that the RNG elements have been reduced. I did find that very nice. Until i looked at the prices and saw how low everything was dropping vs how much was needed, it felt like it was very very possible to get what i wanted/needed. I also have noticed, as i said in region before, that the avi drops do seem to be a bit increased. it does kinda feel like they been lowered since the snowmen items were put in, as most of what i have i got earlier in the fest. But i'm going to give that the benefit of the doubt for now and assume its because of RNG. That i am finding very nice compared to last fest. I've already found more this fest than i did all of last fest. That is major improvement, and thank you for that.

"But, in the end, I go by the numbers. For the Summer Festival, you guys created 7,590 total Beach Themed Pets. For the Fall Festival, I got you guys to end up at 7,350 Brewing Themed Pets. So I will try to get you guys to about the same for Ice Sculpting Themed Pets as well. For reference, the last Sylesti Garden yielded 6,766 pets."

I am not going to weigh into the rest of the conversation, don't feel like dragging myself down and I have only been here for the end of the last fest so I am not as knowledgeable. However this comment had me wondering how has the active player base changed during that time.

Because if there were only 6000 players at Summer then 7,590 is very different to now (My sidebar says 8,470). I think it would be better to go by ratios or percentages. For example, pet numbers were 110% of active players (meaning every player got at least one in a fair and equal world).

At the moment the numbers would indicate that if we all shared equally almost 1000 players still wouldn't get any pets. And I know that many of us are making tens of pets. As I said, I don't know the active player numbers previously so you may still be working on a similar ratio, however straight numbers worry me where a ratio would not as much.

"I personally don't want Sylestia to ever be thought of as pay to win and I had hoped removing some of the RNG elements for this Winter Festival set up would kinda help you guys more easily obtain what you wanted and not have to rely so much on RNG."

...Unfortunately, Sylestia has honestly never felt nearly as pay to win as it sorely does right now. The phrase is getting thrown about quite a bit this fest by a number of people. I honestly feel like this removal of RNG by raising the price of making a pet through the roof and making the elements to get them without needing to throw snowmen at the shop just to pick a gender instead of buy a pet making item, has made it more of 'Those with hefty wallets can get exactly what they want. Which.. for the big spenders, they already usually got eventually anyway. Everyone else can just be more greatly disadvantaged for not being able to buy it.' I would personally rather get something random than walk away from the fest with very little ability to make anything at all.

I did more with Fall Fest this year than I have with a fest in eons. The Task List felt like the first fresh step in a better direction that the site had taken in a long time. Diversity. More goals. Not just slanting everything at the battle boards like always happens. I wanted to walk into Winter fest cautiously optimistic, but all that renewed optimism has just gotten shot to pieces by this fest. Someone uttered the words "This fest.. what even." the other day, and that was about the best way to describe things that I have heard yet. I went from feeling the best about Sylestia that I had in a long time, to seriously wondering why i'm here, and mostly spending my time on my other pet sites, where the holiday events are great. I have nothing in my heart for those sites, but the site I have anything in my heart for just keeps stripping more and more away from events.

Now you're talking about taking our themes away too in the future so I can't even remotely look forward to the site revamp since there won't be a purpose to fests to me with all of about four themes a fest. What would we even -do- for those fests. 95% of the entire Fest events on Sylestia revolve around themes. How on earth can you be planning to basically strip 95% of the fests content out for revamp? (Is that not also 90% of your income? Themes? And you want to drastically reduce them to near nothing?). Feels bad, man. Feels real bad. Future isn't looking very bright at all.

Amaya makes a very good point as basis of numeric figures instead of ratios on a non-static populace is less than ideal.