I spent 500K on a ticket and got nothing from the winter wonderland thing. :| Glad I didn't waste my diamonds. lol

I dont mind the change to the growing of essences but im really upset about the snowman exchange being gone. I want to do a rikki project but getting your hands on any particular fabled/myth frost essence is like finding a kidney. i mean yeah i will find one but will i need to sell my car to afford it? Maybe i can just drug a homless person and take... ok getting off course what were we talking about? Oh right i might want to do a maj qit/griff project too. I loves me some maj projects xD I really hope you change your mind about snowman exchange Krin cause it helped us all get the essences we wanted instead of battling rng. RNG doesnt play fair <.< stop giving me rys ok

Ugh, why do all the festivals have to be the same slow way to get the themed pets? I really really liked that Winter was instant, and you could choose the pets you wanted even if it cost more to work toward them. I don't have nearly as much time to grind around the holidays, and this fest just seems frustrating now.

So I see that there are quite a lot of complaints regarding some of the changes. It was stated earlier, but I'm not sure how many had the chance to see it so I will just reiterate a few things for everyone.

So firstly, because of the circumstances, I just couldn't quite mold the Winter Festival to where I had intended to. So quite a few corners had to be cut otherwise it wouldn't have been 'ready' until like mid January lol. That obviously is not something that would be possible for anyone.

So the corners I had to cut were leaving a couple things out and also not being able to customize the Ice Sculpting feature. It took a bit longer than I intended just to simply set it up properly and by the time I had all that done, I had already left home and was out of town working basically around the clock just to get things going before the 25th.

What I intended was for Ice Sculpting to be more like an improved Sylesti Sand Sculpting feature. I didn't really want it to be a long growth period like Spring and Fall are. I wanted it to be a bit more direct, but I wanted it to offer the full spread of customization/upgrade options that Spring and Fall offer. I just didn't/don't have the time available to physically do that. But it definitely is my intention and I will see what changes I can make during this Festival to improve it, but definitely will improve it for future iterations. Now that the foundation is built, that time can be spent improving it instead of just getting it functional.


For the Snowman Exchange, I wanted to move away from the 'Build a billion Snowmen' mechanics. I found it to be quite messy and felt it didn't really add too much. It was just kinda another thing to clutter Inventories with and loot tables with. So I opted to remove it to clean things up a bit - especially now that we're adding in a full 'growing' feature and its supplies.

However, what I did/still do want to add is the Exchange part. But instead of building an arbitrary army of snowmen, I wanted to offer players the ability to take the Melted Frost Essences and allow players the option of instead of getting an RNG Essence back, they could use a larger amount to exchange for an Essence of their choice.

Since this has been such a big complaint in the first day, I will do my best to get this available to you guys this Festival and as soon as possible. Just keep in mind, I am out of town through the 1st. So not only are my resources limited compared to when at home, but I am also relatively busy visiting family and doing the whole 'social' thing. =P But I will do what I can.


For the Frozen Key/Temple thing, that was removed because again, I intended to replace it with an actual feature for it. It's kinda last on the totem pole at this moment, but I still would like to try and see if I can get it pushed out early January instead of putting it back on the shelf for next year. Essentially, you'd collect the Frozen Keys and they'd grant access to a little feature/map thing you can 'explore' via the keys. As you delve deeper in, you earn more rewards. It'd just essentially be a simple Key => Rewards little mini game. By explore, I do not mean with pets. There would not be any battling. It'd literally just be like a little game board type thing. Something just kinda nice and casual where players would try and earn more keys to get more free rewards.


Lastly, for drops, as always, I will be doing what I can to monitor and tweak and improve them. Again, there were a lot of changes and it's hard to really replicate mass dynamic player traffic to pre-balance things before I see it in action. And as you know by now, I opt to error on the side of caution; don't want a repeat of Luff Bunnies. =P

The Avatar Item stuff is completely a brand new set up. It's gonna take a little bit of time to adjust it and tune it properly.

Winter Wonderland is basically using the same rates that the Haunted House did, as the Haunted House was exceptionally popular last festival so I tried to match them rate for rate.

Snow Wars needs some loot table improvements, I 100% agree with that. I just literally had 0 time available yesterday morning to dive too deep into it. I intend to sit down and adjust it later this week.


I only have a handful of hours this morning to code before I pretty much will be tied up until Thursday. So my goal today is to get in the Pet Traits, or at least as much as I can, the Restricted Themed, and the Themed Pet Design List.

Thursday through next Wednesday, I'll do what I can with tweaks and adjustments.

Then after January 1st, I'll be home and able to tackle the bigger projects.


I hope this will help to alleviate some concerns. I most definitely hear ya guys. I will do my best to make improvements. I wish everyone a happy and safe holiday week. =)

For the exchange to work now does that mean that the number of essences dropped will be more common? Cause so far.....nada....>.>

Will you be putting out a themed pets list?

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=84170&page=6#56 Author: SylvarRose Time Posted: 12/24/2019 at 8:22 AM For the exchange to work now does that mean that the number of essences dropped will be more common? Cause so far.....nada....>.>

Drop rates for Frost Essences should be consistent w/ the Fall Festival unless something isn't working properly.

Either way though, I will see how things go and adjust.

The Fall Festival ended up with over 12,000 Brew Pets created - which was a record amongst all growing features all time since like 2014 when we added the original one. So I am aiming for about 11-12k for this Festival. Depending on if/when the Exchange is added, I'd then be aiming for probably 10-11k.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=84170&page=6#57 Author: Minifang2006 Time Posted: 12/24/2019 at 8:24 AM Will you be putting out a themed pets list?

Yes. I am going to try and get that released today before I have to leave.

Thanks Krin, that'll make it easier for us collectors to see what we are going to hoard this fest =3