I think the more important thing to look at here is the answer to this question: what is it that people so badly want moonstones for? Why do you feel you're at a disadvantage right now? @Ninetales

You bring up apparel and customisation, which is definitely something I think a lot of people do want moonstones for. This is partly a dress-up game for our wolves, it makes sense that folks would want to have access to related items that facilitate that aspect of the game. And personally, I think the purchasing of wolves and items on the Flea Market will eventually calm down soon enough that using moonstones and pebbles for that won't be a problem anymore.

Where there IS an actual disadvantage is the expansion cost for Mining and Cooking. Mining primarily feeds into Crafting, where players can either sustain themselves for apparel or use it to sell items on the Flea Market. So, as you progress further in Mining, you become more and more disadvantaged as your cart fills with uneven amounts of ore. I'm an all-day grinding kind of player, but I cannot imagine what it would be like for a casual player to send your wolf off to a higher mining area and coming back 1-2 hours (or the next day) and to find that you can't smelt anything, so you either remove enough ore to hopefully fill with an even amount that happens while you're playing, or you continue that over days until you do and can send your wolf back to smelt. This problem only gets worse the higher you go in Mining, because you'd obviously want the higher-tiered ores, but you'll be flooded with copper that you'll have to micromanage. This becomes less of an issue if you expand your cart of course, and that totals 175 moonstones (over $10 USD). The further you progress, the less annoying it'll be to outright unplayable for a casual player.

Cooking practically feeds into stamina, which you absolutely need to refill if you want to complete any set of activities within a shorter time of play. The fewer slots you have, the more often you have to keep returning to Cooking in order to keep playing the game. I'm sure a lot of casual players would like to 'set and forget' a good chunk of fish or meat, since there isn't a penalty for not micromanaging it, but over time that won't be possible the more wolves and levels in Cooking you get. I think it's possible to skirt by without upgrading Cooking for longer because the rate of it becomes quicker, but it's another 175 moonstone expense that's tied directly to gameplay.

I think there are a lot of ways that could solve the problem. The problem isn't however ‘I can’t afford to buy fancy wolves or fancy things', free-to-play players genuinely have a severe disadvantage vs pay-to-play ones. It's going to take weeks to months to gain access to the same game as those who can dump over $30 USD, and that is for people who grind and play all day, who have the time-resource to spend that players can pay to avoid with real-life currency. Casual players may never earn enough moonstones, and I'm sure at some point when they reach a high enough profession level, they'll hit the expansion wall and stop playing altogether.

I'm a more casual player, albeit one willing to put some money aside into the game to see it grow over the long period, especially as the custom apparel aspects here have me very hooked, so my opinions may be slightly biased especially as I wasn't here during early alpha or beta to see how things were balanced then. That said, I've played a lot of different pet games over the years.

I do think right now there are very few sustainable long term sinks for pebbles outside of den slots, making pebbles generally seen as a less useful currency. It's fairly easy to grind pebbles as well with sustained effort in completing activities, so I think it would help the overall long term health of the game and make things more accessible to the average f2p player.

I'm not sure if core gameplay aspects (such as crafting, mining, etc) should be monetized especially as many players cannot even participate in the custom apparel market due to lack of start up funds for CATs or lack of art skill, so this shouldn't be the expectation to make sustainable amounts of MS. That said I don't think these upgrades should be so easily obtainable to be done without some grind.

I've heard the suggestion around before of implementing the ability to pay for those upgrades in either MS or pebbles and it is something I think could be a viable and workable solution for much more of the playerbase.

I do also think removing the moonstone daily cap might be a good idea to consider as there will always be massive MS sinks in this game by way of custom apparel, as yes, this is largely a dress up game, and I think opening more players up to being able to purchase that apparel will help the long term player engagement and economy of the game

Making pebbles applicable to more places on site also incentivizes those among the custom apparel artists to be more willing to price things for pebbles as moonstones would be slightly more common and artists wouldn't be trapped into constantly trying to make back the MS to relist their items or afford new CATs if MS is more readily available from other players and pebbles would always have a purpose on site in terms of game progression and viable trade.

I think this is something that will even out over time, but it is something worth keeping a careful eye on now.

Dappervolk has a potato max you can earn per day. I think having a daily pebble max would help combat inflation a lot, even if it's super high ouo

/I haven't read the rest of the thread yet but I'll catch up after work!

@DetectRascal

rip quoting not being in yet, your response in bold:

Where there IS an actual disadvantage is the expansion cost for Mining and Cooking […] This problem only gets worse the higher you go in Mining, because you'd obviously want the higher-tiered ores, but you'll be flooded with copper that you'll have to micromanage.

This, I agree with. However, I don't think the root of the problem for Mining in particular is the moonstone upgrades: it's the fact that even though you can unlock a zone at level 100, you're still getting first zone ores. You basically never need to visit any other location unless you really want to maximize your copper output for some reason since wheels and pickaxes speed things up significantly, effectively making the zones beneath your profession level useless.

I am still team “expansions should be pebbles,” don't get me wrong! At the very least, the first upgrade for professions should be pebbles so new players have more to work with.

I agree with the rest of your post as well. I wish I could throw more food into the Cooking pot to run as I'm working, for example. I just also think it's a good idea to open up the main issues about why people feel disadvantaged, because that helps steer direction for further game balancing. It's a lot more beneficial to bring up the too-many-ores situation than saying “give me 1 moonstone a day when logging in because I'm F2P" (and since this one had FR brought up, a lot of people give FR more credit than reality has it. FR is friendly to F2P players after you get off the ground, but you still need to grind for things to get basically anything. You aren't handed gems constantly like people make FR out to; new players won't be getting gems regularly for low-effort/time-sink until a few months in, and that's assuming you bond with familiars daily or have a huge fodder breeding farm).

I’m seeing a lot of discussion of moonstones in passing, & while I think there’s definitely an issue to be addressed there, I want to make it clear; thats not the ONLY problem. F2P is one issue, ‘casual’ playing is another.

It’s very difficult to even make pebbles just playing casually, and earning exp is an incredibly slow, grueling process. Though I think the latter would be harder to address without punishing people who play more, it remains as an example of how much lorwolf wants you to pour constant time into playing the game, which I personally cannot afford.