Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=57990&page=1#10 Author: Amaya Time Posted: 2/22/2018 at 9:14 PM Oh ok that makes sense, for ease of understanding I would call it Incrementing Breeding Limits. I think paying for it as a permanent upgrade would be fine but if Krin didn't want to impose a monetary limitation it could I guess be linked to level, most veteran breeders would be at level cap.

It could also be linked to AP points, I suppose. I also think it makes sense for there to be some sort of card or license just within Sylesia's lore (using the word loosely, as I know we haven't seen tooo much of the story). In a world where finding a 1 vis pet is rare, it makes sense that there would be 'registered' breeders haha.

It's fine if the idea is used on another site~ so long as no one's actively recruiting for other sites, Sylestia's lax and doesn't mind the mentioning or discussion. Since it relates to how to improve the pet economy, you're good. :)

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=57990&page=2#12 Author: Imperium Time Posted: 2/22/2018 at 9:18 PM It's fine if the idea is used on another site~ so long as no one's actively recruiting for other sites, Sylestia's lax and doesn't mind the mentioning or discussion. Since it relates to how to improve the pet economy, you're good. :)

Haha, good, I always get a little nervous when bringing up other sites and the like >.<
We really need to just drag an economist on here lol

Thank you Imperium for making this! Gen chat was getting a bit too overflowed lol.

Huge shoutout to Zenaku for a breeding license idea!

I can't speak for everyone on here but I can put in my two cents. I've been an avid player of many an MMO and RPG and as a Pet-Breeding rpg game, the pets are going to be the center of the economy regardless and having a faulty system, while the site is still relatively new, will lead to dire consequences down the road.

Many people brought up a lot of valid concerns on both sides of the argument and while I loved reading those, may people were also quick to threaten to leave and other such things should the system be changed. We do encourage people, especially the avid breeders, to think long and hard about a better system or something to where we can talk about the skeleton of a new system.

I've stated before change is hard but it is necessary and we cannot go out of Beta with a system that has no checks or balances. Not everyone will be happy but we need something that the player base for the most part is satisfied with and can be worked with.

VVVVVVVVVV

I agree with Neuonce that a licence could be a permanent account upgrade but I also believe that for other users, those who aren't too into breeding or don't have the money to purchase one, could instead buy lower rank breeding passes for either gold or scales.


To touch on a few other things we need a pet sink and another point that was argued before was to exchange pets for scales however I believe in doing so would then ruin the market for philters.

A few ideas would be to:

- Exchange unwanted pets for gold based on their stats range and GP amount.
> In doing this we may need a few things to be put into place. There HAS to be a minimum sale price for pets so that way the exchange for gold would be lower than the minimum sale price either making players sell pets for more gold as they should be while also encouraging the quick removal of overflow.

-Exchange pets for scales
> This, I'm more weary about. Scales are pretty difficult to get if people aren't into the repetitiveness of grinding for them by nurturing and I fear an influx of scales would disrupt the philter/potion economy. Perhaps exchanging pets in would give us an alternate currency for philters and potions for items related to breeding that are non-tradeable and account-bound.

Buy-and-Release groups that we have on here can only do so much but with no limitations on breedings or agreed upon price ranges it does nothing to stop players from putting up pets for 1k or less in hopes that players will buy pets en-masse, release groups from will buy them up, or if Krin has another buy-and-release day for all cheap pets.

How to solve the problem of current adult pet overflow, however, is a secondary problem to the real issue of solving it at it's source: Breeding. Our main focus needs to be on the breeding aspect and hopefully then can we create solutions on the pets we already have!

I am highly in favor of limiting hatchery space

Again with Neuonce's Pokefarm-like license is an idea, and could very well e a solid one however as I mentioned above could be an account upgrade.
-it could allow for a certain amount of breedings per time period in order to control HOW OFTEN we breed OR could limit the amount of egglings we can make per time period in order to control HOW MANY we can breed.

Another thing to add onto that is that another possibility would be to possibly change how we breed and alongside with the points above, could implement a FlightRising style as in Females could possibly have a batch of 1-3 eggs in exchange for longer breeding times or if we were to limit the amount of times bred per time period with a license.

The license could also have tiers that can be bought with either diamonds, gold, etc. because I think a license based on account/player level is not a good idea. There are already a majority of us at max level ad so everyone would have the same "power" and the problem is not solved. If it were to be something we buy it is an investment and would make pets more valuable in my opinion

And before I forget licenses need to be RENEWED so a farmhand-type payment system is a good example for this but rather than paying for the length, you're paying for the breeding slots.

So let's say a newer player has a bunch of personal pets they love and would like to breed them! They could spend gold, not too much, to buy a um.. Class D breeding license so they get X amount of breedings per week for say... a month or time period ( Not too much, not too long ) and with the offspring they have to consider "would my pet sell well?" "Would it be worth the minimum list price?" (Assuming we have one) If not then they can keep the offspring, release the offspring, or exchange them based, again, on GP points and stat range for perhaps a unique currency or scales to buy account-bound philters, etc. for their own personal use.

Higher rank Licenses would be for more breedings and a little more frequently during the allocated period and would have to e renewed with the same type of currency be it gold, diamonds, scales, or a combination of the two and would be a nice frequent gold-sink where needed rather than expecting new players to have the funds or drive of that equal to veterans.

I breed my 6vis themed pets for fun. It takes almost a year or less to get a 6-vis depending on how the GP we have on the pet and I know a good portion of other veteran layers rely on personal projects to fund their playstyle. So with the hardcore themed breeders, project breeders, and max-stat breeders these undertakings are too intensive for the ..what was it, up to 12 day cooldown for a single offspring. A project that would normally take a year would be almost tripled should the 1st system have been implemented and I am all for this hypothetical license proposal.

This is just my opinion and I am open to critique and more suggestions. I hope others will take the time to come to terms with there being need for a new system and for everyone to share their ideas!

I like the idea of limiting Hatchery space. It never did make sense that one must purchase Stable space but Hatcheries can expand to infinite size.

I also think maybe male pets should have a limit on how many offspring they can sire in a single day--perhaps a limit based on Health?

*imagines a male pet hitting his limit for the day and falling unconscious with a silly grin on his face*

(i'm burnt out from typing a lot,hopefully this makes sense. its getting late and i've been brain storming about this for 6 hours so i'm tired)

just fleshing out the vendor thing as i'm 95% certain its my idea being talked about.

krin said a few times(? maybe once?) a few years ago about implementing an NPC that took pets and gave..something. it was either gold or scales. my memory is sadly not that great but i personally asked about this npc so i know he said something at some point.

my idea is you could give a pet to this npc) you'd be given gold,scales, items unlocked to buy for AP,directly given wardrobe stuff,ect. so based on level,traits and species as well as maybe age (with really old ones giving bonuses) you'd be given things.

It would create a community based price limit. we as a community would decide if these pets are too low priced and thus things would be balanced (hopefully). but more importantly breed project/mass breeding rejects would have a place to go besides released or on sale for the super low price of why-did-you-even-bother-pricing-this?


maybe the pets in the sanctuary could have little to no data and thus ease server stress.

maybe on released pets there could be the option to give pets to the sanctuary to also remove stress on the server. really shouldn't give anything of value for this but it'd be nice to clean stuff up a bit by giving the option to move released pets to the sanctuary.





Would like to say i *really* like the idea of limiting hatchery space. whether you buy em with scales or ap. make it so participation in the site unlocks tabs. because really. before a certain point do you need more than 1 tab of hatchery space? don't make it so you need gold or diamonds though. you can use real money to buy diamonds to sell for gold which would defeat the purpose of learning how things work.

I"m gonna try and answer about what little I know about economics and based on the concept that knowledge is power

Okay so I think what Sylestia needs is more incentives to breed less and sell higher quality pets.

Limits, like extra fees for breeding more, restricted hatchery size, and longer cool down times are okay but usually result in unanticipated or negative outcomes.

If there's additional breeding fees, like already mentioned, it may deter new players from staying on Sylestia, and I feel like there's a lot of people that sign up on Sylestia but then quit because it is too hard for them to raise gold, and I feel like additional restrictions would not help that matter.

Have a breeding training tutorial and acheivements
Jinxie should have a sister who introduces new players to the breeding system on Sylestia.
As it stands now, unless a player goes to a player guide on breeding, they usually don't know how to breed successfully, so they may use the shot gun approach, where they just acquire as many pets as possible and breed them.
She could go over:
How to breed pets
How to get a 1 vis pet
How to get a 2 vis pet, then additional objectives to get a 3 vis pet
A lesson on releasing pets: what happens to pets after they are released? why should I keep a pet or release a pet? ^{There are players who are completely opposed to releasing pets} Include that you can adopt the pet again by paying 50 diamonds later down the road
How colors work. If you breed two pets that have vastly different colors, what are the possible results?
How traits work and how to increase trait points
End the tutorial about starting a breeding project:
How to design a breeding project: picking traits, colors, etc through generator
What are essences and how to acquire them
How to start the project by using essences.
Etc, etc

Selling pets tutorial
Similarly, there could be another sister who goes over selling pets and buying pets
Things to look for when buying a pet: traits, colors, stats, etc
A guide on selling pets successfully. Go over stable space cost and breeding cost. Is it really worth it to sell that pet for 1 gold, or even 1000 gold, if it sits in your stable, getting fed and taking up space for other pets you could have there instead?
Go over selling pets that have no traits, or 1 or 2 carries.
Talk about the pets' colors. Are they white or look like laundry pets? Unless the pet has a lot of traits, it will be hard to sell them
Talk about releasing pets again, to try to lightly suggest releasing a pet if it is not worth keeping to try and sell.

Breeding Level
Increasing your breeding level by going through the tutorial and accomplishing objectives (breed a 1 vis, 2 vis, breed a pet with a 1 vis that doesn't have a different hidden trait than a breeding trait)
Successfully complete a 6vis project from Essences (maybe have a registry where you could design a project, and then put into the system that you want to do a project, after you successfully breed a pet that has mostly the same colors (color swing) and traits, you finish that acheivement
Important not to be able to increase breeding level just by breeding more pets. The player would need to be making progress by accomplishing objectives and/or increasing trait points, or stats
This will slowly increase the amounts of pets you can breed per day and after that you can buy more if you want
Would eventually have a cap, because you don't want it based on # of breeding, but rather on successful accomplishments

Incorporate breeding more with the battling side of Sylestia
Similar to Flight Rising
You can breed pets, and with pets you don't want, increase your pets battling level and then release it, and get compensated based on the level of that pet, either through scales, gold, or another new, earned form of currency.
Pros:
Incentives for releasing pets, to keep players from breeding a bunch and then selling for cheap
Incentives not based on trait points or value of the pet's genetics, so people won't just breed a bunch just to release and get additional currency - they would need to put in additional work
Minimum selling price no longer needed
Incentives for buying pets, raising their level, and then releasing them. An additional way for players to make gold

Add pet centers (or some other name) to towns in different regions
I think in the different regions, there are only certain pets available. For example, I think in Viridian Meadows, you can only catch qitari, draeyl, and I think the other starter pets.
You can make it so that players can only breed those species until they unlock Umbra Forest, where more species are available (not sure which ones), and then Astyrl's Vale, where even more species are available (Ny'vene, Nephini, Puffadore)
Players can go to the pet centers to register projects, unlock species to breed, etc.
You can add links to hatchery, pet stream, generator, breeding grounds, etc
Not sure what to do with the Festival species though, (like aeridini, griffi, ryori, and lighira) It wouldn't be cool to make new players wait around for that festival to be able to breed those species.
Pros:
Provides incentives to progress though sylestia storyline
It also just ties in the battling side of sylestia more with the breeding side of sylestia

Cons:
Restricts access to certain species
Makes Viridian Meadows species seem less valuable than other species

Daily Breeding Limits
Tied to breeding level,
Limits are increased when working through the tutorial and raising breeding level by accomplishing objectives
Later on you have the option of buying an increase in your limits

Pet Like/Dislike Buttons and Pet Ranks
Allows players to like or dislike other people's pets when going to their profile
Lets players know how others like their pets. Then the user can make better decisions on whether to keep, sell release, or if they are selling, helps them figure out how much to charge
To keep people from spamming for likes, make the likes private so only the owner of the pet knows
Pet Ranks could be calculated on Views over Likes
Not tied to anything financially on Sylestia

Create a stream where people can view pets
Maybe a stream where people could view pets that have recently hatched, bred, caught, or put up for sale
Pros
This will help others advertise their pets, to make it easier for them to be sold, viewed for likes/dislikes, etc
Would be fun to just scroll through when bored


I'm gonna go ahead and post this for now. I been working on this post for about an hour or so. But I just want to reiterate the importance of providing incentives, instead of just limitations. You don't want to scare off new players by making it too hard to climb the ropes, and you don't want to implement a bunch of limits to older players that really change the way they they play the game.

Any kind of breeding limits would only delay, not solve, the problem of having the market flooded with low value pets. And it would make breeding less fun and more tedious, which seems counter-productive to making a petsite people want to play. The hatchery limits/long breeding cooldowns on other breeding sites I play only make breeding take longer, and they still have tons of pets at super low prices. It's pointless making breeding take longer when not many people are buying those cheap pets anyway. Eventually, the market will be flooded again because the real issue is that pets aren't being bought. Give players a good reason and the ability to buy those pets, and prices will rise on their own.

Breeding limits would only encourage more people to breed everything they can as soon as they can, which kind of defeats the purpose of the limits in the first place, and all it does is delay the influx of low value pets for a few months, if that. Having released pets gain you a set amount of gold or scales will inevitably just raise the lowest price to whatever that set amount is, and then there will still be tons of pets for sale at that amount instead. It isn't that breeding is too easy - no matter how tedious it is, eventually, the pets for sale will be greater in number than pets being bought. Stable space is just too limited for people to keep or buy many things they like but not love, and there's too little incentive to remove pets from the game completely.

The same goes for sites with stuff that unlocks after you reach a certain level - locking core game features behind a license/gold sink, site-wide breeding fee, or AP amount will just discourage new players and make the site feel pay to win, where winning would be having actual fun breeding on a breeding game. Even just an AP level would mean newbies would have to grind away until they reached that level, meaning until then the game would be boring and leave little reason for them to stick around. Making breeding more tedious would also take a lot of the fun out of just breeding to experiment, and deter those who play casually or who don't have time to plan out big projects. If pets stop being able to breed after a certain age, it could make all the hard work put into them feel worthless - unless there's an item to make them breedable again, and then it's really only a tedious time/gold sink.

Site-wide events to get rid of pets for rewards would encourage people to buy up cheap pets, but this tends to be limited to however long the events last. So, regular events might help keep the lowest priced pets that aren't selling from sitting for sale forever. Making stable space easier to get (perhaps for AP as well as diamonds) would enable people to make more casual purchases without having to prioritize the pets they really love over ones they just like. It would also mean people might be less likely to sell something they like if they don't have to choose between stable space and new projects.

I also love the idea of an NPC/sanctuary, which would address the issue without making the game tedious or a stressful gold sink. Maybe there's a group of naturalists creating a sylesti sanctuary, or just a group of NPC trainers looking for specific species/traits that change what they ask for every few hours. A way to move released pets to the sanctuary sounds fantastic, especially if the rewards for removing pets from the economy is variable and not entirely gold-based. Getting scales, avatar items that perhaps cycle in and out on a regular or seasonal basis, level-appropriate draughts/elixirs/XP orbs or traps, essences, perhaps even the chance to get restricted sanctuary-only trait disruptors depending on what's being sent there - basically things of varying value with a good dose of randomness, where everything you get is at least worth a little something. Maybe sending in a certain amount of certain pets unlocks the chance at a rarer item. Or during fests particular species or traits give a better chance of seasonal-appropriate goodies.

Giving players an incentive to remove pets from the economy for rewards, I feel, would be a much better solution than limiting breeding. Because no matter how long or tedious it is to breed, if not enough people are buying those pets, the best any breeding limit is going to do is just delay the problem, not solve it.

Just wanted to post and say that we greatly appreciate all the lengthy ideas and passion everyone has about 'fixing' the pet economy of the game. All of your posts are being read and Krin and I will be doing a lot of brainstorming and thinking the next few days regarding this topic. So please keep providing feedback and ideas! :)

Rather than licenses, what about a potion to be able to breed, or a breeding fee each time a pet is bred?

This would force both veteran and novice players to choose wisely when breeding. Veterans will focus on projects they really want/find valuable, while beginners can still breed a handful of their favorites without getting to the "hundred of 1g randoms" stage.

If the breeding fee itself is high enough to act as a price floor, then it also makes bred 6vis projects a true achievement, as valuable as max stats right now.

I know most breeders breed hundreds of "duds" per project (I certainly do), and paying to breed each one would add up. But I support this, as it makes breeding something valuable, and a project that requires a lot of duds should be a worthwhile project.

There is a glut of too much cheap selling on the market, but there is also too much price-free breeding (0g right now), which devalues breeding projects and makes ordinary breeding (and ordinary wild caughts!) less than worthless. It also turns high value breeding projects into mediocre in value over time.