Hey,

Don't know if it's been brought up before but I have noticed something a little concerning about the amount of sylesti on the game. About a week ago I calculated that there was around 1,006 sylesti per player. Prices for sylesti are ridiculously low and I don't see where any value is in them. Even the themed don't seem to have much value unless they are really rare themes that people are selectively breeding.

All this is to say that I think there should be some way to cut down on breeding or at least make it harder to mass breed. I know at one point there was going to be a system in place for "re-homing" sylestis to an NPC but that was a few years ago when it was brought up.

I know it's going to be an unpopular opinion but I'm thinking that there should be a cost per breeding. Not necessarily a high cost but like 100g for regulars and 500g for fabled/themed/purebreds (random numbers).

The way I look at it is, if a person pays for a breeding then they are going to want at least that much back which will put more value on sylestis. It will also cut down on mass breedings. And yes I am just as guilty of that too. If it costs 100g for each breeding then it can get pretty expensive and people will want to be more selective on which sylesti they breed. Also it will force players to increase the costs of sylestis in the sales.

Other options include: using breeding items that can be bought easily, aging out sylestis (I personally don't like this one), limiting breedings per day, etc.

Granted I don't have the answers but I feel like something needs to be done to change the way we breed & sell sylesti. As is I have multiple pairs of sylesti in my cave that I don't really expect to sell any because they are not themed.

Sorry for the long page but I don't know what a good solution would really be in this case I just feel like there is no value to sylesti anymore and something should be done to prevent that, in doing so also prevent the sylesti market from staying in a crashed stage.

thanks for listening.

Overbreeding, pet values, limit caps, etc. have been discussed various times over the years. There was an experimental breeding feature put into place a while back when the Ferrikki was introduced, there are The Releasers of Sylestia who purchase low value pets to release to bring up the pet economy and there are Pet Release contests during some festivals. The experimental feature was scratched due to how unpopular it was - and while the latter two ideas help they in no way get to the root of the problem.

I have a lot of thoughts about this but I'm abhorrently bad at voicing them. Whenever this issue comes up the first thing that pops into my mind is the serenity prayer: "To accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference."

To even begin to form the solution of a problem, one must first get to the root. From there, one must also understand cause and effect as well as price and demand. Both of these are sorely lacking in both newer players and older players alike. I'm constantly reading about issues of selling offspring but I just don't seem to have that issue and most of the offspring I sell aren't even themed. Some of them end up released sometimes but quite a few end up being exactly what I've breed them to be: a pretty, well thought out pet that someone liked enough just to want in their stables.


I don't think minimum breeding fees or limits are the answer. To be honest, this issue is something I think about a lot and although I have an idea formulated I just don't have the time nor the resources ready to implement what I believe to be a helpful, player run solution.

In these types of situations, I always feel people want to 'attack' the problem from the wrong end: they always want to limit breeding, or punish people who breed, instead of encouraging people to help solve the problem and remove pets.

I feel that the best time to try to restrict breeding is when a site first starts. After that, massive changes to breeding will only tend to drive away people who have played and if the measures are extreme enough to help the issue, then it can also drive away new players, especially because sylestia seems to be focused on 'breeding your sylesties' (ie you don't have a fully customizable starter pet, you can't get a six visible pet without breeding and you can't change traits reliably on existing pets etc..), so they are told 'breed for the sylesti you want' only to find out that they have to pay money to actually breed those pets.

Then there are the six visible breeders, and max statters whose entire playstyle *requires* they mass breed, and often, to my understanding, they don't contribute to the issue, because they release all their own failures. But, it would affect them the most.

Instead of making huge changes and potentially ruining other player's playstyles, I feel the best way to 'attack' the issue is to encourage players to remove pets from the site. When the patriotic even rolls around, with the releasing event, pet prices raises, because people are actively releasing pets and searching for pets to release.

I also feel that there should be a distinction between 'themes' and 'non-themes'. IE, I don't think that non-themes particularly need to be very expensive, because they are very easy to obtain and easy to breed, plus, I Feel it helps a site, from a new player perspecive, to have cheap pets so that, at first, a player can feel like 'oh, look at all the pretty pets I can obtain' (even if from an experienced player's perspective, they aren't all that pretty') so they become engaged in the site, then after they get used to playing, they can realize that there are even MORE pretty pets, but they cost more. Themes, on the other hand, due to their often limited time they are available, or difficulty in obtaining them, can be more expensive and 'valuable'.

So, my ideal way of dealing with 'overpopulation' would be to overhaul releasing so that it is more rewarding to do so (not just a flat 'you get X gold to release'), and that the pets that are wanted to be valuable, AKA themes, would give better/more rewards for releasing them.

It doesn't even have to be a 'release one pet get a reward' type deal, but can be along the lines of what we have now, where you need to release multiple pets in order to get the reward.

So, there could be 'tiers' where you release between 1 and 50 pets, you get the low tier reward (you have a low chance at first, and as you get closer to 50 pets released, the chance goes up, until you actually get the reward, then the chances are reset and you have to relelase another 1 to 50 pets to obtain that reward again). If you release between 50 and 100 pets, you are able to obtain a different reward, because you have entered a different release tier. (these numbers are just being thrown out there, the actual numbers would probably be vastly different).

There could be low tiers that give low level rewards (the rewards should either be themed pets, designed explictly for the releasing rewards, or consumables, but no wardrobe items, because they will soon start flooding the site, due to players only needing one copy of each item for their wardrobe, perhaps there could even be a 'pet companion' available through releasing), medium level tiers, and then high level tiers (in which you need to release like 10K pets or more etc...) You can be eligible for multiple rewards at once (ie, you don't lose out on the opportunity for the first level tier reward once you reach 100 pets released and are now on that particular tier).

There could also, as said above, different rewards for themed releases and non-themed releases (or different tiers, ie, to reach the lowest level tier for themed, you need to release more)

The rewards would be consumable items like pet dyes (not necessarily pet dyes, but like them) or themed pets designed for releasing or as said, pet companions.

Ideas:
Scatter Dye: A dye that randomly dyes the color slot a different color. This would be something that would probably be 'niche' but I think it could be a fun consumable, and it could help with dye projects when you aren't sure what color to use, use one of these then have to design the rest of the colors around that one :P

Single trait scatter: I think I saw this idea a while ago, but it would be a consumable that would simply scatter one trait slot, while leaving the others alone. The pet would HAVE to have a trait in that slot, it wouldn't 'add' a trait or change the trait slot used. It also couldn't give restricted traits. it would also remove 'hidden' traits. It would just be a way to change a trait when the rest of the pet was 'perfect' but one trait just won't go away. It could be used on any pet, including offspring, though having the pet not be bred might be a restriction (like the others where you can't use them on pets that have been bred)

Whole Pet Scatter dye: Like the scatterdye, but one that will scatter all colors to random ones. You might get something gorgeous, or more likely, you will get a horrible abomination :P

themed pets - These would be pets that were designed explicitly for this. Some would be meant to be 'valuable' and thus associated only with the highest tier releases, while others might not be meant to be as valuable and be associated wit hthe lower release tiers.

Pet companions - Pretty much what it says, they don't have to be low tier rewards, so they don't devalue a lot, or flood the market, but I think it would be nice to get a couple of simple pets (and recolors of them) for our pets.

Pet outfits - I am not sure that Krin wants to do more costumes, but I personally like them, and feel that releasing could be a good way to introduce more.

There could be other rewards as well.


There are also other ways that releasing could be revamped, and encouraged, this is just my preferred method, because I feel that it would encourage players to release, and if there were a limit on how old the pets had to be, it wouldn't be that cost effective to mass breed in order to release (because you would have to hold those pets somewhere until they are old enough to be released for rewards which costs money for food, and also space)

I just wanna say I love the release tier idea sooooooo much

Agree with Watercolors, Release Tier sounds so cool!!

6v and maxer view on things. Needing to pay to breed my own pets would likely drive me from the site tbh. I do projects cause i like them and want to max stat them or are doing them for friends. To pay to breed them would restrict me doing these projects. I release all of my rejects unless they are max stat and those dont leave unless they are infertile. I am working on super stats and i have more breedjects than i get to sell. The cost of breeding to max costs more to do than i sell already. Adding breeding fees to this as well would make projects just not worth it anymore. The release tiers sounds cool but for someone like me that gets 200+ breejects when i breed supers, it would be too easy for me to cap the rewards. I am fine with just rewards from releasing in the form of LG eggs