Hello, everyone! I hope that everyone had a great holiday weekend and a great start to their Fall Festival!

I know that I had mentioned something about this a few months ago, but things kinda slid by and I never got around to it. So, I figured now's a good time to do it.

I know that Sylestia's development has been a bit sluggish as of late and I do sincerely apologize for that. I promise that I have zero plans to stop development on Sylestia and I am still fully planning to rework the game to someday reach my completed vision. I feel very confident in saying that Sylestia has something very magical and I think it has a ton of potential for significant growth.

A lot of the reason for our lower active playerbase has been due to me intentionally pulling basically all advertisement for the game for awhile now (last few years). This has saved me a lot of money (tens of thousands of dollars) and has greatly helped to keep the costs of running the game low while I rework so many core systems. But unfortunately, it also means that Sylestia gets very few new players and so attrition has kind of slowly decreased the playerbase year over year. However, I am still seeing great activity and interactions from our active players, so I do not have any concerns on that front. Even if our total active numbers are a lot lower than many years prior, we have a very solid core playerbase and you guys are amazing for that.

As most of you know, I am currently working on the Breeding Grounds update. It is a massive update that has now spanned many months of the year. I am getting close to its completion and am going to try and make the final push now over the next few weeks.

With all of that out of the way, I'd like to open this thread up to all of you to ask me whatever is on your mind regarding Sylestia! There are a few basic 'rules' I'll list below just to keep things within reason. I will do my best to answer all of your questions as quickly as I can.

Thank you all for your continued support of Sylestia's development and future. <3


Rules

1. Please ask no more than 3 questions. Please try and keep each question somewhat simple. Don't expect me to write a 1,000 word essay to a single question.

2. Please ONLY ask questions related to Sylestia.

3. Please read through the thread before asking your questions. If someone has already asked your question, please DO NOT ask it again. If you ask a repeated question, I probably won't answer you.

4. Please PING ME with your questions. Yes, this is the one time I am asking to be pinged! You are free to converse in this thread (staying on topic, of course) outside of asking your questions so I will only be looking to respond to posts that ping me.

5. Be nice, be civil, have fun, and thank you for participating! =)

Oh wow, this is so great! I'm very excited to see everyone else's questions, as mine are fairly simple, so maybe someone else will have something more exciting!

1. top page navigation
-I've noticed that Sylestia seems to have 2 different top page navigation systems as compared to other sites like chickensmoothie.com or flightrising.com, with their sidebar navigation. Although they both offer the same direction on sylestia, the visuals and interactive styles are different. Do you, at some point, have a plan or idea to rework this?

2. Max stat pets
-Do you ever plan to raise the bar on the max stats again, as you progress through the world map? With the difficulty of the lost grove being set higher than ever, I can't imagine going higher for new areas without this, unless you have ideas for new additions to stats.

3. Pet themes
-We have so many themed pets in the game currently. Do you think we will get to the point where you can no longer release new themes? If so, do you have plans or an idea for when it comes that?

I love this! Youre a great admin, I hope you know that Krinadon! Appreciate all youve done with Sylestia, past present and future. Here are my three questions!

1.) New Pet Species.

My question is, with the occasional redesigns of currently existing pets which I love, and I adore all the pet species we have now but is there any plans for a new pet species to be released sometime in the near future?

2.) Next Pet Redesigns.

This kind of goes a little bit with my first question but is there any redesigns planned to be worked on or possibly launched in 2026?

3.) Stables.

I love the stables current design but Im curious if, other than the stable hand changes mentioned a while back, is there going to be any other updates to the stables design/system?

Hi Krin! I can't think of 3 questions, but I do have one.

Fests are so much fun! I really do love catching themes, games, growing pets (brew, make, etc!), and battling! Is there any way that the mechanics for fest battles could be the same as Lost Grove? I feel that fighting in the fest zone takes away from my time maxing out the Proficiencies. Thanks for answering questions!

Hey.
This is a awesome idea :)

1; Why not make "mass release" available from stables too it would make it so much easyer if you are going to release pets, doing it maually pet by pet is very time consuming if you dont have much playtime.

2 Maps over event zones would be nice.

3: I have a "golden scale" from a event how do i use it ?

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=110784&page=1#2 Author: Marwarilove809 Time Posted: 11/5/2025 at 8:16 AM Oh wow, this is so great! I'm very excited to see everyone else's questions, as mine are fairly simple, so maybe someone else will have something more exciting! 1. top page navigation -I've noticed that Sylestia seems to have 2 different top page navigation systems as compared to other sites like chickensmoothie.com or flightrising.com, with their sidebar navigation. Although they both offer the same direction on sylestia, the visuals and interactive styles are different. Do you, at some point, have a plan or idea to rework this? 2. Max stat pets -Do you ever plan to raise the bar on the max stats again, as you progress through the world map? With the difficulty of the lost grove being set higher than ever, I can't imagine going higher for new areas without this, unless you have ideas for new additions to stats. 3. Pet themes -We have so many themed pets in the game currently. Do you think we will get to the point where you can no longer release new themes? If so, do you have plans or an idea for when it comes that?

1. Yep, absolutely. One is the old, original page layout that we launched with back in 2012. The other is the newer system that I would like the entire site to use. The reason why the whole site hasn't been switched over to the new is that both use entirely different back-end systems. I can't just simply update the layout because then basically everything would break on that page. So what I've been doing is, as I revamp a feature, I take that opportunity to just rebuild it entirely from scratch using the new layout and newer system. Eventually though, yep, the goal is to have the entire site on the same layout.

2. I can't say this for 100% certain because something like this could always change down the road. But, for now, I have no intention of raising the cap on Base Stats or changing how Wild Stats work. However, I do plan on adding perhaps a third element to Stats when I get around to revamping the entire Exploration System. I can't provide any details on this though atm as it's still in the very early brainstorm phase.

3. That actually is a very legitimate concern, yes lol. Sylestia originally launched without any concept or plans for Themed Pets. The entire system just kinda came from a spur-of-the-moment fun idea we had way back shortly after launch. You guys loved it, so we did it again and again and just continued refining it and building upon it and 13 years later, here we are lol. At this point in time, there is no plan to stop our current pattern of Themed Pet releases as players still seem very excited for them and heavily invested into the whole concept. However, perhaps down the road as the game evolves, we may transition to something else and reduce the use of Themed Pets just to try and prevent a situation where we literally just end up with hundreds of Themed Pets per species. Obviously though, we will continue to focus on what players want. So for now, the Themed Pet train will continue.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=110784&page=1#3 Author: Tamaran Time Posted: 11/5/2025 at 8:52 AM I love this! Youre a great admin, I hope you know that Krinadon! Appreciate all youve done with Sylestia, past present and future. Here are my three questions! 1.) New Pet Species. My question is, with the occasional redesigns of currently existing pets which I love, and I adore all the pet species we have now but is there any plans for a new pet species to be released sometime in the near future? 2.) Next Pet Redesigns. This kind of goes a little bit with my first question but is there any redesigns planned to be worked on or possibly launched in 2026? 3.) Stables. I love the stables current design but Im curious if, other than the stable hand changes mentioned a while back, is there going to be any other updates to the stables design/system?

1. Yep! Definitely. There's a few reasons why we haven't released a new species in a long time, but it mostly boils down to production limitations at the moment. I consider Sylestia to kind of be in a "low power mode" right now and part of that includes reducing my expenses to run everything to as low as I can. With our current art style and species depth, new species are very time consuming (and very expensive). It just isn't really viable at the moment. We also still have a few more revamps to get through which takes priority for the time being. My ideal vision would be that, once things are fully revamped and Sylestia is back to full steam, I would love to release 1-2 new species every year.

2. I would love to get the Bulbori revamp going. Going into 2025, that was the plan. But it just didn't quite work out that way. I am hoping we can get started on it come early 2026 though.

3. The Stables were one of the very first features ever revamped. So at this point in time, they are a bit old. It's not a super high priority, but I imagine at some point I'll take a look at them and see if I can give them some new QOL and update them a bit. I have no time table for when this will happen though.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=110784&page=1#4 Author: GoldGryphon Time Posted: 11/5/2025 at 10:48 AM Hi Krin! I can't think of 3 questions, but I do have one. Fests are so much fun! I really do love catching themes, games, growing pets (brew, make, etc!), and battling! Is there any way that the mechanics for fest battles could be the same as Lost Grove? I feel that fighting in the fest zone takes away from my time maxing out the Proficiencies. Thanks for answering questions!

I assume by mechanics, you're referring to earning Expertise?

So, the main reason for the differences is that those exploration systems use entirely different back-end code. When the Lost Grove was built, it was built with Expertise in mind. The Expertise system was calibrated all around enemy difficulty, battle length, encounter rates, etc. It's a much different experience from battling anywhere else and I would imagine most players, who have reached the Lost Grove, would agree with that. So besides the issue of just having entirely different back-end systems where the Expertise system doesn't exist in the older zones, they also aren't really calibrated to that type of battling. I fear adding it into older zones would make it entirely way too easy to level it up.

Perhaps now with the addition of the Zone Difficulty Tier, I could maybe add it in based on Zone Tier, but it isn't something high on my to do list at the moment. I do think it adds value to the Lost Grove and I do still want players to feel somewhat invested in participating in it from time to time - especially during down time between Festivals.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=110784&page=1#5 Author: Hebs Time Posted: 11/5/2025 at 11:18 AM Hey. This is a awesome idea :) 1; Why not make "mass release" available from stables too it would make it so much easyer if you are going to release pets, doing it maually pet by pet is very time consuming if you dont have much playtime. 2 Maps over event zones would be nice. 3: I have a "golden scale" from a event how do i use it ?

1. Just simply due to not having spent the time to develop it. It would require me adjust the interfaces to put it in, then coding all of the front-end scripting to make it work, and then coding all of the back-end stuff to make it work. I do agree though, it should exist and I'd love to build it for you guys at some point.

2. Unfortunately, I don't really have a way to easily build an in-game map. So that would have to be coded from scratch. Since I plan on having an entirely new exploration system down the road, I don't think this is something I would spend developmental time on just for it to be tossed out in the near future. There are, however, player-made maps for all of the Festival Zones that can usually be found somewhere on the Forums.

3. The Golden Scale is one of a few Artifact items. Once possessed, its effects are permanently active. Ideally, there would be some standalone Artifact feature where you can view these Artifacts. But alas, there is not. So for now, they just chill in your Inventory.

Lovely idea to make an AMA, I keep remembering questions I have :9

1. Will we ever get more frequent non-restricted traits? I think all the new restricted traits and sets have been fun, and I am aware the disruptors probably help fund Sylestia, but sometimes it's nice to dream about all the nice contest entries for single traits people have entered and could naturally occur on Sylesties.

2. Also I think you mentioned sometime you'd make a thread or post about your process to choose themes for festivals. I'm sure a lot of it is personal taste, but through hearsay I heard that you also consider the names, of course if it is similar to an existing theme, etc. but well, that's just hearsay. Is that still on schedule, or any chance you could expand on it in some way? I am sure I am not the only one looking to consider possibly important aspects during theme submission creation!

3. Also also on that note I think more Grove themes could be fun again, especially to hunt between fest downtimes, even though I only encountered like a handful myself. Any chance there will be any more additions in the future?