personally, I felt the changes and the dev update were phenomenal. We went from a 1ms:18kp+ ratio down to 1ms:10kp ratio within a few hours of the profession additions and the new items. Is this a temporary adjustment while people gather up the new stuff? possibly! but what it does show is that they clearly have ideas in mind, and with new professions/etc. will come more things like this! To expect a game to have a perfect economy out the gate is a bit unfair. They have done things to balance pebble spam (i.e., reducing food drops / making bosses harder to grind so you need to spend more food on them and can't just spam food-efficient builds) and they have introduced new (and honestly really exciting for me) boosts to professions. They aren't necessary to game play, but they add a new way for people to spend site currency, which means people who would rather have MS for CA or whatever else can trade their pebbles for MS.

They have shown that they are going to inject even more MS into the site through the achievement system, that they have SO MUCH STUFF coming down the line. This is a pet site, and things do take time to get through. expectations are a bit too high for the site imo and I simply don't understand those expectations. From what I've seen, people want to be able to have Everything Right Now, even if they only play a couple hours a day. The gameplay is what it is - FR casuals have even fewer things to do than LW casuals do. FR's game play is: do dailies, grind coliseum for items or leveling for exalting (which generally requires something to start with), flip items on the auction house, dress up/reinvent/breed dragons. LW has an unlimited gameplay loop that you can get through pretty consistently/easily. Will you get a WW every day if you only play an hour a day? no, you won't, but you can still earn money and then buy KB to get one. People are buying back into the site after offloading initially for other sites - its possible (and ok) if the game just isnt for you, but check your expectations and make sure they are actually reasonable for a game that's only been out for a month with literally 2 (now 3) whole staff members.

hi everyone, OP here. thank you all for contributing to the discussion. I just wanted to clarify a few things about my original post since I wrote it when I was emotionally in a bad state.

first of all, yes, my original post is very emotionally charged. like I said, I was emotionally in a bad state. I am frustrated and tired in regards to this site, especially since campaign, the only thing that feels rewarding in a significant way because of the chance of wildies, burns me out on it very quickly. so, when we got an update that didn't address what I hoped it would address, I gave up and made this post.

however, and I really should've said this in my original post, I am very happy with the things we did get! as you can see, I'm already using rainbow apparel. I love the new companions and I like the other changes that were mentioned in the update. it's good stuff!

second thing I should've said in my original post: yes, my phrasing is very bad at times, even when we disregard the emotionally charged condition I was in. I'm bilingual, but English is still my second language and sometimes I simply can't find the words because my vocabulary isn't quite as expansive as I would like. words are hard, y'all! please don't take anything the wrong way because I promise it wasn't intended as such.

I won't apologize for sounding accusatory, because I am accusing staff of avoiding questions. that's what my post should've boiled down to, really. I think my thoughts got away from that point a little too much. anyway. we as a community have concerns that aren't being addressed, and that is bad news for the site. I do not feel like we are being heard and listened to, and as far as I'm able to tell there are quite a few people who agree. this is the sort of thing that leads to a site's downfall. as someone has already stated either here or on a similar thread (I can't even keep track anymore...), "player apathy is a silent killer". staff needs to start talking. even if it's just a "hey, we see your concerns, we will be doing this and this to address it in the future" or even a "this is not something we will be addressing over the next month", I would be fine with that. anything but silence.

as I've said several times before: I love this site. I'd love to see it develop further. but the way it is now, I worry that it won't have the chance to do so before a large portion of players leaves. let's give staff a chance to set this right, though: the dev timeline looks promising, and while I dislike the current poll (I think it should've waited another month), I do like that we have one. let's just hold out for the next month and see what happens.

@Loki

no, it's in the shadow fixes they've been doing-- which to be clear, though minor, they Should note them. i'm not in disagreement with there being a communication issue, but like.

@LouckyKoneko

you were also accusing them of taking advantage of neurodivergent kids, which is a) a bold claim with no actual evidence & b) kinda ableist, lol. yeah of course there's people who agree. people are way too hysterical. this game is new, like NEW new.

the doomsaying's getting old to me. "they're going to start losing members, the site will die!" no it won't, lol. anyone who leaves due to frustration now will likely return after they address the big issues. this has happened on multiple other pet sites. i wonder if the people freaking out were there for the comeuppance of these sites............ like Flight Rising.

@Fieryblood

these are good points. the MS/pebble ratio will keep improving as long as they keep adding pebble sinks.

I'm concerned this thread is becoming more about butting heads with each other instead of discussing our feelings and concerns about the site.

I mean, people are just having different ideas about what's truly problematic about the site or not.

I don't think the MS expansions are all that outrageous in the context of pet sites. Plenty of sites like Lioden and Subeta and Aywas and Neopets and yes Flight Rising all have 'paid advantages' in some way that players can help themselves to, and Neopets doesn't even have any premium currency that you can buy from other users. I get that it's not popular with players, but to call this site "inherently problematic" is not understanding how pet sites function and is quite unfair to LW to single it out like that. I do agree that it's not a good look for LW when its biggest competitor, FR, has fewer 'in your face' paid advantages and I think that more can be done to improve the optics.

But the money has to come from somewhere. FR seems to get the money when they get people opening their wallets to buy items worth thousands of dollars in premium currency, and I think it's entirely possible to also single that out as 'predatory' or 'unfair' (and I have indeed seen many say so from my many days of following FR forum threads)

And honestly the calls for "more communication" seems a bit like "hey explain yourselves right now" sometimes. What if they're still on a 'wait and see' approach, like 'ok will they continue to be mad if we don't make some more changes'. Yes it would be great to know what exactly they're planning on the whole MS expansion issue but considering the tone of these posts, they can literally be throwing themselves to the wolves here. Yes DV staff was really notorious and awful for it and went too far in shrugging off any kind of accountability but it's not like FR staff are really transparent about things either.

@sparx

Thanks for clarifying, I was mostly asking in case I had missed them saying something somewhere. I really worry if they continue to do these stealth fixes, players who already stopped playing due to performance issues aren't going to come back because it was never acknowledged while they had issues.

I will say, the sheer amount of doomsaying in this thread is very sad to me. It's a NEW site, like...VERY VERY VERY NEW. It's going to be bumpy and rocky at the start, it's going to be unbalanced, not run very well, shakey on its new baby legs ect. Those things take time and money and people.

They are already addressing the time part with the new road map, we have an idea of where things are going. That's a good start.

They are already addressing the people part. with the hiring of the new coder and possibly more staff, things will pick up, things will get better and easier on us, and faster.

Money? Thats hard. Right now, moonstones are what pay for this game we enjoy. Yes, the economy is going to be hard to figure out at the start as starting up something like this, takes way more resources than I think a majority here really know. I do agree however that I would love a definitive answer to the question, what's up with the currencies? Just tell us if you can't afford to move things over to pebbles, that would be very nice to know! Even if it's not what we were hoping for, just let us know where that stands and if it could switch in the future!



I agree also on the parts that staff DOES need to be more vocal about things, don't hide things, just let us know! People LOVE knowing how things are going, we are a curious species and when we love something, and see it's not working well, but the creators refuse to give us updates on it, we get antsy!

But we also, as a user base we have to know, some answers we are looking for just may not be able to be answered yet. It could take another couple of months or longer, we just need to stay patient!

@sparx

I said in my initial post that I did not want to be dragged back into the discussion, and that I would rejoin at my own pace. that request still stands, even if I did not repeat it in my second comment. I do not appreciate being pinged in this thread. if I did not address something, it is because I was not ready to do so and needed more time to get my thoughts in order. congratulations, you cared so much about a stranger's written-in-the-moment opinion on the internet that you chose to 'contribute' to the discussion in a non-constructive way, mocked them, and ignored their wishes. very helpful.

obvious sarcasm is obvious, or at least I hope it is, internet discussions can and do unfortunately often miss the intended tone. I hope you'll excuse the sarcasm; I am quite upset about being dragged back into this discussion. think about your actions, please. be a little more considerate. it goes a long way. to be clear, because I know I will be misunderstood if I don't say this, I don't hold anything you said in your comment against you - internet discussions are messy and emotionally charged by nature, tone is hard to read over text, and, honestly, you were right to call me out on my poor phrasing. it is the manner in which you did so that bothers me. ironically, your phrasing comes across as just as rough around the edges as mine. I hope you'll forgive me for poking at it.

- but since I'm here anyway, okay, I'll clarify. is this going to sound weird and misphrase things? probably. I do not feel ready to address this, but I don't want to have to return to this thread another time to clarify even more, so this will have to do. again, please do not get me wrong. I do not hold this against sparx, and comment section, please do not hold this against sparx either. again, they were right to call me out on my poor phrasing.

so what's up with the neurodivergent comment? well, it was a heat of the moment comment because I, speaking as a neurodivergent person, feel taken advantage of because of the fact that I am more likely to get strongly invested in something to the point where it demands a large chunk of my time and energy. hyperfixations be like that! if they are particularly strong, they may drive me to spend a lot of real money on them if I don't hold myself back (I have a self-imposed rule that I am not allowed to spend money on browser and mobile games, the exception being for starter packs if they are cheap enough, to keep myself from losing control over my wallet). my comment was not intended to be ableist, on the contrary, it was intended as self-aware in an exaggerated sarcastic kind of way that did not come across well over text. as I said: "do not take anything the wrong way, I promise it was not intended as such." it was a poorly written statement written from personal experience and emotional charge, and that is that.

anything that costs large amounts of time and/or real money in a game is, in a way, exploitative - it's a big word to put on something like this, and I do use it too liberally. by this definition, all petsites are, by nature, some level of exploitative. that's the nature of the beast (hehe pun). and I don't mind that things cost time in games! the problem is not in this practice, as most petsites, while slow, still feel rewarding to play and are generally only inconvenient for casual players. the problem is that LW is incredibly painfully obvious about it and disadvantages the casual players more than seems reasonable. don't want to spend three hours a day grinding for maybe 5 knucklebone tokens and 2 and a half moonstones? too bad, you gotta, or you'll fall behind even more than you already are. you can't get more mining or cooking done without paying moonstones, and with mining already being a very inconvenient and not-rewarding system as it is, it feels like a waste of time and energy. as for cooking, with how much stamina some things cost and how long it takes to get anything done in campaign, you're gonna run out if you don't cook for that good food. also farming, if you don't want to stalk the tab or set alarms to maintain crops for the best crop harvest, costs food for the farmer... and said food takes a relatively long time to cook, takes up a lot of cooking pot space, and generally isn't worth making for any other purpose. it feels as though everything inconveniences everything somehow.

I do not care about waiting for things in video games. I play Fire Emblem Heroes, I'm used to having to wait for things or being only able to do a few little things at a time, mobile games be like that. I can excuse slow progression in browser games, but there has to be progression to be made. I do care about major progression being locked behind something that will take me, as a casual player, weeks of grinding to obtain. grinding campaign isn't fun after the first half hour. grinding professions isn't fun. arena is fun, but it doesn't give me anything really useful unless I rank in the top 4, the rewards it gives feel meager compared to the amount of time it costs to get them, and arena doesn't give wildies so it isn't really worth grinding out anyway if I can spend that same amount of time trying to get a wildie. arena feels like contests in pokemon; fun enough to do on occasion, but not rewarding enough unless you really care about the minigame itself.

am I being unreasonably harsh on the moonstone problem? yes. I am. I'm fully willing to admit that. here's my reasoning: in my opinion, seeing actual progression (profession related expansions), in contrast to conveniences (FR's hibernal den space) and cosmetics (moonstone genes, apparel), locked behind premium currency, is incredibly discouraging. it effectively forces the audience to either take for-floofing-ever to get anything done (which, in a newly growing game, can be a killer because burnout and apathy take hold very quickly if it feels like there's no progression being made) or to spend real money.

the real real problem, of course, is that it's very easy to feel like no real progression is being made (this needs more emphasis than I can be bothered to give it, really). but that is caused in part by the moonstone problem since progress costs moonstones and moonstones feel very difficult and chore-like to obtain with normal progression. in addition to that, everything the community has that is worthwhile is measured in moonstones. if you're not a companion collector, the only big thing worth saving for is den slots, and what use are those if you can't get wolves to fill them? it's a self-perpetuating cycle that should not have existed, had the devs thought to make pebbles more useful from the start. would we still have a problem if pebbles had been useful from the start? yes! everyone still wants moonstones! but it would be easier to make noticeable progress, which would solve a decent part of the problem.

but none of that is the intended main point of my original post. my intended main point was the lack of communication, and that point stands.

yes, we got a lot of good stuff with the last update. the roadmap is awesome to have. but it isn't what I was expecting (or, really, hoping) to see.

the comparison to FR that some people have made is accurate; FR's devs have become more talkative in regards to updates in the less than two years I've been on the site. they made some major blunders in that time, too (the Flair debacle comes to mind...). point is, however, they are working on it. we can see they are working on it. they are communicating more, explaining more, and addressing concerns that they should in hindsight have addressed a long time ago (such as Beastclan lore) as well as new matters that pop up, and they apologize when they make huge mistakes (Flair debacle again). they went from mostly silent developers to a healthy level of actively communicating about their decisions and acknowledging when they did things wrong.

one would think that LW, as a new and growing project, would have seen players' dissatisfaction with the lack of communication on other platforms, and choose not to be like that. one would think that being honest and transparent with their community would be important to them, as they need the community's trust to grow. one would think that a new and growing project would address concerns quickly - even if it's just an acknowledgment, a "hey we see you, give us some time to sort this out and we'll get back to you". not getting that feels like we're being ignored. I have said it before and I will say it again, I don't care if we don't get answers right away. I'm not asking for long elaborate explanations, I'm not asking for the problem to be fixed yesterday, and even though I may come across as though I want miracles I promise I do not want miracles. I only ask that staff, not the community manager but the dev team and the founder, directly and publicly acknowledges our concerns. that shouldn't be too much to ask.

now please do not ping me in this thread ever again. this reply isn't ever going to be perfect or even good, I know my phrasing is not great, but hopefully it's good enough and the gist of it still comes across properly. words are hard.

OP i wasn't going to sift through your whole opening post again, so i did not recall you saying not to ping you. my intention wasn't to drag you back & demand a response when you didn't want to, it's merely a habit to ping people i'm speaking to for visibility's sake.

my directness is easily mistaken for aggression over text & i have been aware of this for a long time now, but i don't intend to be. openly disagreeing & criticizing someone doesn't mean i'm being mean, emotionally charged or unconstructive. it's just how i speak when i happen to disagree with someone. i will choose to largely ignore the venom in your reply, OP, because as a bipolar haver i get it– though it's still not constructive or appropriate. (& y'know, i'd like to Not make this any worse).

all i was trying to say is like. i get being frustrated & that's valid, i've been frustrated too. but reacting so emotionally & insisting the site will die despite there already being efforts to improve it is unhelpful, imo.

@Nekoda it's practically impossible to do the latter without the former when people are already in a tizzy. i personally have no issue with opinions clashing (in fact it can be healthy) so long as it doesn't devolve into aggression, passive or not.

Alright, I don’t like to shut down discussion, but this thread has become too heated. More importantly, the forums are not an appropriate place to address the staff directly. For that, please email support@lorwolf.com.

Please see point 16 from the Code of Conduct.

I’m locking this thread.