I think I'm missing something but just for clarification, you can only get money for 5,000 beach supplies or is the maximum amount of gold 5,000?

The system might be broken, but to have it affect our existing stashes feels like a massive kick aimed straight at the game's most dedicated players. There was no warning last year, so I spent a very long time working towards what I thought would be a solid investment for my future self. I'm not suggesting action shouldn't be taken, but to just flat out delete our efforts... it feels like there should be a more gradual way to do this that doesn't make weeks of grinding over multiple festivals completely pointless. It's like saying "There is too much money in-game; let's just put a limit on how much gold you can have and delete everything players over that limit have earned."

I am no economist - I can't point out some great, solve-all-problems alternate methods. But as a player who loves Sylestia and grinds a lot during festivals to earn gold for the rest of the year, this move just devalued two-thirds of my efforts. Three-fourths, if this continues to effect the other festivals.
Alternate uses for festival tokens, super-expensive bonus items from an all-year dead token store, whatever you have planned to help us spend tokens in mass is fine, but deleting them outright is actually punishing the ambitious, hard-working players who collected them in the first place.

With all due respect, I disagree. While the numbers are staggering, your logic assumes that the tokens are inherently valueless until they were sold the next year. If this were true, you would be right in your assertion that players would net a profit of several mil. However, tokens are NOT valueless during fests. They can be easily turned into avatar items/fest products that can then be sold for profit. Tokens are then, arguably, worth as much the other items can be sold for. Avatar items, for example, that are bought with tokens have their price directly correlated to the 500g price tag for tokens. With your devaluing of the token currency, those items are now worth less. Your fest items are all worth less. Players will, instead of investing their money and risking the chance that you'll steal their gold again, just transform their tokens into items to sell for profit. This won't act as a gold sink as you think it will. It'll just move cash flow from 1 year from now to now.

5k tokens, Cece. So the max you can get from saved items is 2mil.

like the cata thing, this might of been better if we had more warning.. i see now its a problem but i was counting on my 40k ( i think ) tokens from last spring to give me a gold boost. it means i waisted my time gathering all those? for me theres nothing i wanted from the fest shop. i dont use most av items, i got supplys by trading or battles in the zone, the seeds werent worth it to me. so they sat in my invent. any trades i accepted for tokens means i got nothing out of it. someone paid 400 t for a nephini seed? i basicly got 0 from that trade.

it would of been nice to see a ' ok tokens from this fest forward wont become gold, ' so ik i shouldnt hoard this fest and in the future, instead of ' guess what 90% of those tokens you got are worth nothing now. '

ill be spending this next fest trying to get rid of all tokens i get. im guessing so will alot of other ppl.

I do believe this seems to be a lose-lose situation. Making such changes is good! I always thought it was a ridiculous thing that players did - hoarding these tokens for more money later. It seemed so unfair. But taking that away from people who had already done that and mitigating their work towards it also seems ridiculous. They've made an investment.

I've noticed that decisions like this aren't really talked about on the forums or at least offered to the community for suggestions and negotiations. It's clearly becoming a problem. Krin, I adore you. I really do. I understand exactly what you're trying to do. But in doing so, you're angering your main players.

I'm not saying give them the gold. I'm saying negotiate. Compensate. Like you did with the AP, there could have been something offered to replace the lost gold. Perhaps an item or pet for those over the cap? A one-time release of a theme just for them to respect what they've done. Perhaps something like a Dragon Hoard Ny'vene or something lol. Something to validate the work they've put in while still making the necessary changes for incoming new players to have an easier time.

I do believe, seeing this, that this could be a huge reason on why prices are so terribly inflated. As a new player it was daunting to see the prices on things. I felt it was so unfair to new players and it was one of the reasons I let the game fade from my mind until I remembered it again about a year go.

So oldies, please try to see reasoning behind it. Getting angry and defensive won't change anything. Realize that for the game to grow, sacrifices have to be made. ^-^

I will contemplate alternatives overnight and write up a response tomorrow.

Don't get me wrong, I greatly appreciate the feedback. I absolutely hate doing things like this. I am just trying to do what I think is best for the long-term health of Sylestia. I am seeing a problem that is growing exponentially every 3 months and I staunchly do not want to see it continue while I just turn a blind eye for another 9-12 months and then hope a solution makes things better.

So. I'll think of alternatives and post tomorrow with what I've come up with.

I'm sorry, but I'm with Xovinx on this. I personally have invested HEAVILY into tokens - spending gold, spending time, spending effort and energy - to save up tokens for each festival.

My situation is different in that I genuinely do treat the investment as such. I am spendthrift and I know it. By tying up large amounts of gold in festival token form, I guarantee that I CAN'T spend it all at once, that I'll be able to start the next festival with a nice decent amount of capital. Which, I'll have you note, I spend almost in its entirety.

Last festival, I was unlocking sculpting slots as fast as I earned the tokens, was paying gold to upgrade pearls as fast as I earned it. If I hadn't had the influx of millions of gold at the beginning, I would not have been able to buy nearly as much.

I collect avatar items, but rarely have enough time to grind them all out from the zone as I'm personally more focused on the breeding and collecting sides of things. Thus, I'm buying them from other players. I buy catalysts from other players, buy philters from the diamond shop. I am an active participant in the economy - I buy and sell a great many items, buy pets, buy purebreds, buy festival pets.

I've spent millions on these tokens, specifically because they were a STABLE CURRENCY! We could trust them, could tie up capital which would become available at a given time. And, yes, make a profit. But still, the amount of gold I've SPENT to get those tokens, specifically because we KNEW they would hold the value, is astronomical. The other players from whom I've bought tokens already spent the money, have been using it all along.

You're basically punishing those of us who were willing to be patient and foresightful. You are saying, in essence, 'nothing has stable value in my economy. I don't want you to rely on items to be worth anything. Keep all your gold in gold form and at least for now I'm not going to delete it.'

But, quite frankly, I'm beginning to doubt even that premise. The lock and cap on AP - which at the time seemed reasonable - has begun to show its sinister roots. You can't keep punishing your most dedicated players, can't keep STEALING FROM US what we have worked VERY HARD to earn over months and years of effort.

I have dedicated an insane amount of effort to this game. I have come back again and again, year after year, and what I'm hearing is 'veteran players are playing too much, go away we don't want you here.'

I'm getting close, Krin. I'm getting very very close.

Did you learn NOTHING from the debacle at the end of the Summer festival? You can't just spring these things on us with no warning! We are your players, not your serfs. We trust you because you've proven yourself in the past to be trustworthy, to listen and not just act against our best interests. But this?

I'm sorry. But this is not going to fix the economy. This is only going to destabilize it. You think people horde now? Wait until the message gets through that anything they have can be taken away with no recourse. What next, an actual gold cap to prevent the most dedicated players from ever surpassing the newcomers?

I have INVESTED millions and millions of gold into festival currency, trusting that it would hold its value. New players sold me their currency, wanting and needing the money up front.

This is not going to correct the economy. This is going to strangle it. The festival tokens were inherently worthless apart from their potential as a time-delayed commodity of value.

I thankfully didn't have much invested in the Fall festival, so while I may have taken a loss it wasn't a significant one. Winter though, is going to be another matter. I have over 60,000 tokens, many stacks of which I spent millions of gold for. Precicesly because I could not trust myself to avoid spending my gold, but I could trust that in token form it would hold its value and be waiting for me at the start of the next festival when I'd need it.

What you're saying is 'don't trust the game'. Things can change without notice at any time. Trust nothing. Value nothing.

You have a wonderful, beautiful, generous, helpful community. Don't give me this garbage about it being 'too hard' for newcomers to get started. The number of people willing to go above and beyond to welcome people and help them get going in this community is higher than anywhere else. Don't throw that away. Don't spit in the faces of those of us who put in the effort to earn our way to the top.

I usually only have tokens left when I forget to use them :') Hopefully I remember to buy everything I want before the festival ends... but school ^{Which i'm failing} ;'(

One further point, last festival there was NOTHING in the festival shop to spend tokens on outside of the Sculpting minigame. I know some players do not care for sculpting pets, and I personally would always spend a lot on the Shop avatar items. Without those there, I spent a fraction of the tokens compared to what I usually do.

If you want to make changes, then do so gradually. If you tell us 'this time next year, I will be DELETING extra festival tokens, so don't save them' you know what we'll do? We'll stop buying them. We'll spend them. The players act out of reasonable self-interest, and knowing that next year's tokens won't have any value, we'll refrain from collecting them.

But this is too sudden, too abrupt, and too harsh. You're adding instability and chaos without warning. Sound decisions six months ago are foolish risks now, and people have had no time to adjust. Decisions made a year ago are suddenly punished.


And what is this talk of inflation, anyway? Pet prices are plummeting. Avatar items are at rock bottom. If anything the economy is easier now for newcomers than ever. If there's inflation, it's not just gold or tokens - it's everything. The game is TOO easy, that's the problem. Even max-stat purebreeds with restricted traits have basically no value!

When I first joined, the cheapest avatar items were 50,000. Now? You can pick them up for a few hundred! Come on, Krin, look at reality!

What you need is to add more things to SPEND on, make things WORTH having, not throttle income. All these changes you're making, they're not going to change anything. They're providing a momentary glitch which you interpret as good, but once people adjust and recoup from the staggering losses, the same problems will arise just without the festival tokens as an intermediary currency.