@Sorrel

Your input has been well thought out and valuable, as has most people's here; even many of the ones I disagree with. I do think a few PoV's have been swayed to some degree by the creeping normalization of more predatory game practices outside of Lorwolf, especially those prevalent on the mobile market. But as much as I would love to have that conversation with those folks, it is beyond the purview of this modest game balance thread.

You make perfectly salient points! A pittance of apology tokens that you have to grind excessively for is not enough of a “mild dopamine hit”, as it was being defended as before the launch of the system, to make up for the immediate feelings of disappointment of losing out on an already rare chance encounter. 10-20 tokens were viewed negatively before this was implemented; starting at the requirement of 100 and quickly rolling it back to 50 feels like it was an intentional move to set the requirement at an exorbitant rate while still making it look like a compromise/ like the team was listening to outrage that they have been chugging along manufacturing since at least the Beta.

I'd love to see Lorwolf improve a lot of its systems for the benefit of player retention long term, this just happens to be the area that wasn't getting much else in the way of attention at the time. Gaia, regardless of us not agreeing on this topic at all, has the beginnings of a great thread about the lack of game balance and poor implementation of tiered rarity items and the way it interacts with the leveling system as a whole-- I'd also like to see that conversation gain more traction too.

@Reave You mentioned you were curious to hear the thoughts of Pro-Token players regarding the recent update. Admittedly, I actually haven't been very active the last few days because I've been playing other things, but I popped by when I heard of the update.

I am, admittedly, not happy with it in the slightest. 50 seems to be far too high of a number. We were throwing around rough estimates of perhaps 10? And we were initially met with 100? And then lowered to 50?

20 is the absolute maximum for me, but 10 or 5 would be ideal. When I was voicing my support for tokens I was doing so with the expectation that they would not take a person weeks to save up, but instead could allow a player who spent an entire day grinding to confirm at least one or two WWs or more.

WWs on Lorwolf should not be as rare as G1s on Flight Rising, seeing as the randomness for them to look decent is amplified dramatically by a larger colour-wheel and additional colour slots.

Such a high token requirement does not actually take advantage of the strengths of the token system at all. All the stuff I mentioned about player control really goes out of the window when they're suggesting that players have to grind for days in order to gain that control.

I still feel the token system isn't inherently flawed and balanced correctly would be the best option, but this application of it is a little disheartening and plays barely any differently to not having one at all. Your comment to another user about the low token reward failing to deliver a ‘dopamine hit’ is incredibly valid also. 1/50 is not a percentage that gives people hope. “Great, now I've gotta do that 49 more times…” is such a mind-numbing feeling. “Great, now I've only got to do that 9 more times!” Is enough to actually feel rewarded, I think. I still believe that 5 would also have been a perfectly decent number as well, honestly. 50 tokens reminds me too much of the pity systems in Gacha games. And whilst I brought up Pity in my previous comments (I believe) there is a distinct difference between Pity that rewards you with something after 5 or 10 failed attempts and a Pity system that rewards you after 50 or 100 failed attempts. And the higher the bar for the Pity to actually take effect, the more player-unfriendly the game ultimately leans, I would say. Pity systems have been in video games decades before Mobile Market games existed and brought them to the forefront of player consciousness. Pity systems exist hidden away in many video games, even if you do not realise it. They have been proven to work through these games, their negative reputation is because Gacha/Mobile Market games have taken them to extremes. And it is this level of extreme (100 then 50) that Lorwolf seems to be imitating, I think.

Overall, I remain Pro Token. But absolutely not Pro 50 Tokens… 5 or 10 (or 20 at a push) was what my entire argument was built around. If they don't lower the number then I'm not sure I'll stick around, honestly. I don't have the time to grind for 50 Tokens, unfortunately.

(I apologise if this is a little rambly, I wrote it quite late and only just read the update now, so these are my initial, sleepy thoughts. I edited the message a lot, I hope it doesn't tag you multiple times, if so I am really, really sorry. It doesn't on FR so I'm hoping it's the same here because I am a serial comment editor haha.)

@lyu

Indeed I do, it's valuable to discern if this system is meeting the expectations of the people that were either for it completely, or wanted to take a wait & see approach to the situation. The comparative numbers, if nothing else, are great to accrue data for. So thanks for your participation in the discussion!

Contextually, I was indeed referring to the implementations of pity systems in the mobile markets that made them more deeply unpopular rather than the historical concept as a whole, because it seemed more relevant here now that the system is live. Their historical context, while interesting knowledge, was definitely more useful as a conceptual argument before the current implementation; apologies for not seeing a few days ago, when the discussion of that facet of it would have been more interesting and useful to you. ):

You might find it of value to hear, since you are a pro-token player-- the 20 tokens you list as your absolute maximum is close to what the “market” often ultimately bears in terms of pity systems and layered rng goofiness without losing an unsustainable amount of players. It has been found via marketing testing that a profitable enough subset of people will tolerate and sometimes still choose to engage with a pity system that comes close to 1.5-2x the effort of winning the prize in the first place to hit a parity in frustration/reward. So your instincts are pretty good on that front! Lower numbers or no layered RNG at all fared better for retention long term, but those were admittedly less profitable since the lack of frustration didn't lead to a player base that wasn't frustrated enough to leave, but was frustrated enough to spend premium currency to alleviate how the game made them feel.

Seems like a weird choice for Lorwolf though, since its monetization style is quite different than the implementation of its game systems would lead you to believe. Sleep well, don't worry about rambling; that is half of the purpose of these discussion threads.

50 losses on a chance encounter (that is beyond difficult to GRIND FOR, let alone a casual player to come across naturally) feels extremely condescending. It's like telling a kid that 50 failed tests in a row guarantees a single A+ on their report card- that means essentially nothing by that end point, and the randomness of the WW doesn't even guarantee it'd be worth it to grind for even if you Can. Imagine someone spending a month on getting a wolf, only for it to be everything they hate, so they just… release it, for no reward except wasted time.

If the wolf gotten from the QUEST is worth 50 knucklebones to the devs, it would be a simple kindness to allow 3-5 rerolls for one you stand a chance of liking, or even selling. I have been playing since launch, grinding most days, and found maximum 10 wild wolf encounters, and while the ones you find that way should stay totally random, the “pity prize” of having to do a quest for the same result feels like an insult, if I'm being honest.

I too think 50 is quite steep. However, wild wolves are supposed to be a rarity, and I think the need/desire for them will soon lower once more breedable wolves flood the markets as a few generations have passed. (And dens start to fill up, and people no longer wish to have ugly coloured wild wolves). So all in all I do think that a high requirement such as 50 is required as to not flood the market and make wild wolves completely worthless.

That being said, I am kinda irked by the way it is implemented. Other than the knucklebones, you also need 15k pebbles, but not just that. You also need to add at least 1 wolf, eat up all their 100 stamina, and add another 100 stamina to the hunt. And then wait an hour!

Plus right now, I'm just gathering knucklebones, for a rainy day I guess, or a special date. Maybe my birthday in two days. But because the wild wolf hunt will always show up if you have the required ingredients, for me that means that one precious hunting slot is always wasted on it. Leveling up hunting, with how unbalanced it is, already was difficult, but now it is made even more difficult for me.

Finally, the one hour wait also makes it impossible to do a sort of mass summoning, similar to mass hatches on FR, which are often a fun event to do and watch. I would've much rather see this being implemented as some sort of crafting thing. A recipe that, like bonepaste and moonstones, are automatically known by each account, that require the knucklebones. Heck I wouldn't mind if crafting the actual summoning token would take 1, 2 or even 8 hours. But then once I have it, let me use it, whenever I want to, instantly from the inventory.