From the first day you joined, how long did it take you to start making gold steadily and "easily"?
Did you have a certain method(s)?
I'd really like experiences/tips from people who have NOT spent real money on the game as I'm trying really hard to avoid doing so, but people who have are welcome to share also :)

It actually took me a couple of months before I really got the hang of things, mostly because I was too shy to ask for advice haha.
The best tip I can give you for making gold is do as many missions as possible. If you don't want to spend money on diamonds then missions are your best option to make gold.
If you're not familiar with missions yet, here is a really great guide by Flute that can explain it very well. (And of course, you can ask me as well if you have questions!)

I remember that it was really, really hard to earn gold in the beginning, aha. My pets kept dying and healing them was soooo expensive and it was terrible.

(I've noticed that this is much less expensive now - pets can be revived from your stables for a whole lot less gold than the healers usually charge.)

As I recall, things got significantly better when I got three pets to level 50+ because a) they stopped dying and b) they started winning consistently, and gear can sell for a decent amount.

As far as scoring gold now goes, I mostly just send out mission pets all the time. I have two sets of pets specially groomed for missions - one from each set is devoted entirely to a certain stat, so they're ideal for doing the 12 hour missions of their stat, if that makes sense. I also do the Sanctuary of Saerielle daily quests, and try to run through the two dungeons regularly. At this point I can make ~100k daily without trying too hard, and ~150k if I'm really motivated.

I've never spent real money on a game before (though if I did, it'd def be Sylestia,) but the above methods work well enough to allow me to buy diamonds on the exchange frequently enough to do whatever I need to do.

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Darn, I thought healing with healers was the same cost as through stables. I will need to try that out as you are right, it drains my gold since all I really do is battle.
Do you have any advice on how to train pets so high when you don't necessarily have an infinite amount of gold to keep healing them? I find it to be a vicious circle. Can't battle without the gold to heal them and can't earn gold without battling or doing missions, which in turn, can't be done with untrained pets :/

Thanks for the guide, I read through it and bookmarked it for future use :]

You're welcome!
Also to answer your question, (I don't know if it was directed at me but I'll try to help anyways) I recommend missions again (missions are the answer to all problems! haha). Each mission you complete gives your pet experience, and can help level them up pretty quickly. It's also a great way to save money on healing, as sometimes you can get healing potions/elixirs as mission rewards. I can't remember the last time I had to spend gold getting my pets healed because I just have a huge stockpile of elixirs that I got for free from missions.
Start out with the easy missions, as they're easier to complete with untrained pets. They won't give you the best rewards but they'll level your pets up so they can eventually do the harder ones.

Yeah I've been doing missions, I just find it takes forever to wait them out since I don't really have that many trained pets yet, I don't have "mission pets" yet.

Haha yeah the waiting can be a pain. You get used to it after a while though xD
Another good way to level your pets up quickly, is to put a low level pet on a team with a high level pet and go battle with them. The high level pet will protect the weaker one, and the low level pet will gain experience rapidly by fighting higher level opponents. (Just be sure that the higher level pet is in the middle, or "tank" position in the party so it takes the most hits. Otherwise the weaker one will die lol)

That's actually what I just started doing :3
I'm just really eager to start on a breeding project and have no means to get there currently XD

I understand the feeling, it can be frustrating when you're just starting out. But don't worry, once you get all your pets trained up and get into the swing of things, you'll end up with more gold than you know what to do with. ;D Just try to be patient, and you'll get there!