Not sure if this is where this would go, it’s technically a question/discussion thread for the community (at least my intention). But I had an idea for a suggestion, but I wanted to get some input/discussion on the topic to see if it’s even needed first.

When I look at the ms to pebble conversion rate and flea market, at a glance, I get the notion that there are way too many pebbles in the current lorwolf economy and that pebbles are terrible for player to player transactions because they are worthless. (But I’ve also come from a background of other games where they followed the 1:1000 or 1:100 ratio for common vs premium currency rates. So seeing lorwolf’s rates be so high and fluctuate so wildly is strange to me.)

Firstly, I’d like people’s input on this specific situation to better refine my possible future suggestion. I joined lorwolf not too too long after it went public, but I definitely haven’t been keeping up with it till recently. So I’m not 100% sure if there is just terrible pebble inflation going on rn or if the system for pebbles is like this for a reason I’m just unaware of.

Secondly, these questions:

How many pebbles do you have? (Don’t need to put an actual amount, generalizations are fine)

Why do you have that many? (Not how you earned them, but why they haven’t been spent on something yet, or vice versa, what have you been spending all of yours on).

For me I am FLAT BROKE pebbles wise because I’ve been playing catch up on upgrades, items, recipes, etc. with only a whole ~20k pebbles to my name

Lorwolf has only just recently celebrated its first anniversary, so I'm not too surprised to see that the ratio between site currency and premium currency is still fluctuating. Having mining and cooking expansions being moonstones in the beginning, I think, impacted the ratio in a big way, and there weren't very many things to buy with our pebbles. However, we're seeing more and more pebble items being added to the game. Direwolves, for example, plain patterns, and new recipes and items to buy. I personally went broke on Direwolves and plain patterns on several occasions.

Just the other day, I was looking up the conversion between pebbles and moonstones, and it was 35k to 1ms. Now it looks like it's 27k to 1ms. I do think that as the devs continue to add more items to purchase with pebbles, we're going to see the ratio balance out.

I have a little less than 2 million pebbles, but that's because I'm saving up for a big purchase. Otherwise all those pebbles would have gone straight to Direwolf breed changes.

While, yeah fluctuations are gonna happen, regardless of how old the game is (that is just basic economics, especially one where new things are introduced from time to time), I have to say that the pebble to moonstone ratio is incredibly unhealthy. There's too many moonstone sinks and not enough pebble sinks. They need to have an inherent value for people to want them. To answer you second question, I have over 70 million pebbles, (and all expansions already purchased) I am truly not trying all that hard, and I spent a couple million on the anniversary items last week. I do think the 'difficulty' of obtaining them is decent, it's just that there is too little reason to spend them. (And quite frankly, too many things to spend your moonstones on)

It has been a theme of feedback ever since the game was in beta, and while some improvements have been made, most of them are too small or released at the same time as a moonstone sink, sort of minimizing the effect of the improvement. (For example, releasing the direwolf breed change for pebbles, but then also releasing 3 new moonstone genes at the same time AND 2 moonstone companions....)

So yeah I think more stuff needs to happen to create a healthier economy

Definitely needs to balance out the other day it was like 12k pebbles to 1MS then went to like 30k the next day it's ridiculous.

Our perspective comes from someone who has never played these game before lorwolf( so please done think we're speaking from any sort of authority on the subject ) and while it may be inconvenient we're finding the fluctuations to make the game feel more fun and alive? we spent our first month here watching the market to get a feel for the ebb and flow of it.

for pebbles we could've hit 1ml a couple times now but we find a consistent amt to spend on and stay comfortably around 150K - the recent addition of direwolves being pebbles ( and also a moderately viable breed to pair with those that cost moonstones to be v welcome! ) (( an increase of apparel amount at mm tho - the dream - we are staring longingly at all the contacts )) we could see the item cap for ms items staying the same/ slight increase to as to not devalue them a ton - but thats going offtopic

The player above mentioned selling: we tend to only sell things ( on the FM ) for pebbles as we find people are more willing to part ways with them and we're not going to fight 15+ other people for a slice of the MS pie in a crowded economy / participate in a race to the bottom trying to undercut

As a more active than casual player that hasnt started trying to sell CA; things like a single ms gene change or heaven forbid a Volmyr breed change scroll feel unobtainable with out a brain numbing amount of grinding over months ((speaking from experience with leopard)) ( thats with the help the 5$ a mth subscription! ) Tldr: videogame economics 📉📈 :> Edit: sorry that it posted twice!