1: Did you miss me? :D (mostly a joke)

2: For the breeding grounds update and the additional fee...

Any thought for letting us "pass" on creating the pet to avoid paying? I really want to get back into projects when the update hits, but since I usually just breed and toss 70-90% of my bred project pets since the results aren't good enough for progress, that fee on what is literally just void fodder is very unappealing. Like I'll be paying for something I'm just going to release, repeatedly, 70-90% of the time. That bites.

I've released 68,967 pets (currently own 6,957 and if I had the time to sort through them, I'd probably release about 20% of those) and 27,538 of those pets I have released are offspring eggs and hatchlings, 9,793 are adolescent offspring, so likely pets I was just delayed on giving the boot due to time constraints. Project breeding begets a lot of fails.

I honestly don't like that I have to breed so many pets to get a good one, so having the chance to look at the result and choose "pay to make" or "don't even create" would be nice. I'd mentioned this back when there was a forum to discuss the breeding grounds, but never got an answer on it. So... asking again now.

1. Is there any possibility that AP and/or Scales will, in the future, be able to be used for any additional things? Im mainly thinking/requesting that they be used as another way to get additional Stables, or at the very least, to add tabs to existing Stables.

Having to use coins to keep all my pets fed or, alternatively, hire a stable hand to do so (Though I have never used that option personally.) consumes that currency so quickly that I have found it pretty much impossible to save up enough to buy additional tabs for the Stables I have. Yet I have several thousand unused AP points & scales, because the options for how they can be used are currently so limited. Something to consider, maybe :).

2. Im pretty sure at one time, the Exploration Zone for each seasonal festival remained open for the entirety of the festival in question. Assuming I am right about that, would you ever consider going back to that? If certain items continuing to drop even after the feature of the festival those items were used for ended is the issue, would it not be possible to create & activate a script or bit of coding that would stop the dropping of those items after a certain point, while leaving the likelihood of getting the others still intact?

Just a heads up, the stablehand gives a SIGNIFICANT discount for feeding, I believe up to 80%! You'd save a lot with her. I would never be able to feed my pets otherwise.

Edit: It's minimum 50%, maximum 95%, based on number of pets

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=110784&page=4#31 Author: Xavion Time Posted: 11/7/2025 at 2:22 PM 1: Did you miss me? :D (mostly a joke) 2: For the breeding grounds update and the additional fee... Any thought for letting us "pass" on creating the pet to avoid paying? I really want to get back into projects when the update hits, but since I usually just breed and toss 70-90% of my bred project pets since the results aren't good enough for progress, that fee on what is literally just void fodder is very unappealing. Like I'll be paying for something I'm just going to release, repeatedly, 70-90% of the time. That bites. I've released 68,967 pets (currently own 6,957 and if I had the time to sort through them, I'd probably release about 20% of those) and 27,538 of those pets I have released are offspring eggs and hatchlings, 9,793 are adolescent offspring, so likely pets I was just delayed on giving the boot due to time constraints. Project breeding begets a lot of fails. I honestly don't like that I have to breed so many pets to get a good one, so having the chance to look at the result and choose "pay to make" or "don't even create" would be nice. I'd mentioned this back when there was a forum to discuss the breeding grounds, but never got an answer on it. So... asking again now.

1. Hehe. Of course! I miss all who leave and am always excited and happy when I see a familiar name return down the road. I imagine it's very similar to how teachers feel when they see an old student years later.

2. At this point in time, I am gonna release the Breeding Grounds with the Breeding Fee as I've calculated it so far. I spent a good amount of time settling on it and I feel it will be a net positive for the economy over the long-term. In the least, I want to see it in action for a few months so that I can get real data on it and then I can adjust from there.

That said, I do not think the fee is all that much and I do not think it will have a major effect on players' bottom line. Obviously, yes, it will be a new Gold sink. But I do not think it will account for a significant percentage of a player's total spending month to month. It will be a very small percent of that unless the player literally just doesn't play the game anywhere outside of breeding endless pets. Sylestia has always been a comprehensive game and I have always worked to tie all of our different systems together. So that is always going to be the goal. While I have no issue for players to focus on the one or two systems they personally enjoy, it's always at least expected of every player to have to interact with the game as a whole and the economy as a whole. There's usually plenty of avenues for players to accomplish that. Breeders can purely make their Gold from selling Breeding Projects. Battlers can purely make their Gold from battling and exploring. Nurturers can purely make their Gold buying from the Scale Shop and selling philters. So on and so forth. However, I will always strive to tie all of the systems together where they always depend on each other.

I also have lots of plans to give players more control over breeding - something that has never existed before. This will make it easier for players to have higher rates of success when breeding by potentially targeting specific genders, traits, or getting more offspring per breeding attempt. This, alone, will absolutely counteract any nominal increase in a Gold sink for the Breeding Fee.

I also plan on adding in some sort of Release-For-Scales feature when I revamp the Scale Shop - which is why I am wanting to do that immediately after the Breeding Grounds is finished. This will allow players to offload unwanted pets for a small kickback in Scales and then they can use those Scales to buy boosts for future breeding.

All in all, you know I am always looking to make adjustments to keep things fair, fun, and balanced. I always have and I always will. I just ask that you give these changes a chance, let things settle, and see how it ends up in practice. I truly am confident that this will be a huge improvement to the game long-term once everything is implemented and everyone gets used to the changes. And, if for whatever reason it doesn't hit the mark, you can always count on me making additional changes to fix it and make it right.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=110784&page=4#32 Author: Earthprotector49 Time Posted: 11/10/2025 at 7:20 AM 1. Is there any possibility that AP and/or Scales will, in the future, be able to be used for any additional things? Im mainly thinking/requesting that they be used as another way to get additional Stables, or at the very least, to add tabs to existing Stables. Having to use coins to keep all my pets fed or, alternatively, hire a stable hand to do so (Though I have never used that option personally.) consumes that currency so quickly that I have found it pretty much impossible to save up enough to buy additional tabs for the Stables I have. Yet I have several thousand unused AP points & scales, because the options for how they can be used are currently so limited. Something to consider, maybe :). 2. Im pretty sure at one time, the Exploration Zone for each seasonal festival remained open for the entirety of the festival in question. Assuming I am right about that, would you ever consider going back to that? If certain items continuing to drop even after the feature of the festival those items were used for ended is the issue, would it not be possible to create & activate a script or bit of coding that would stop the dropping of those items after a certain point, while leaving the likelihood of getting the others still intact?

1. Yep! Absolutely to both. After the Breeding Grounds is finished, I am going to work on revamping the Scale Shop. With it will come many new things to spend (and even earn) Scales on. This should dramatically increase the demand of Scales.

I have long wanted to create an AP Shop as well. I don't have an ETA on this, but it's definitely planned to be a thing at some point down the road. This would allow players to purchase temporary boosts, cosmetics, titles, maybe other unique things like special Themed Pets or something, etc.

2. So, you are correct in that the Zone used to be open until the Festival ended. However, that still is effectively what we do now. The extra week w/ the Zone closed is literally just that - an extra bonus week. In the past, the Festival would just end and that'd be it. Now, I give a bonus week for players to wrap things up once the main features close. So you're still getting the same amount of time to use the Zone as you would have before (even more, actually, as Festivals used to only last like 3-4 weeks instead of the 4-5 weeks they do now). But you now also get that one extra week to finish sculptures, use limited resources, etc.

Adjusting the drop tables to not drop certain items and whatnot would actually be a considerable task and make messy code even messier. So, unfortunately, that is definitely not something I'd like to do lol. The loot tables for the Festival zones are always beyond a headache to manage. Adding in additional conditionals to them would just make things even more crazy to keep track of.

1. Thanks, good to know :). Ill be looking forward to that 8).
2. Oh really =o? Interesting. It feels to me like the duration of the seasonal festivals is shorter now than it used to be, for some reason. Weird. Thanks for sharing the info, though :). *Nods*

I figured something like that was the reason nothing like I described has been implemented. *Nods again* Makes sense why such a thing hasnt happened. *Nods again*

hihi!
This is awesome of you to do :D

1: Are there plans to expand the selection of backgrounds in game or even add an option just to have a background color? There are very few and many of them are recolors of each other and their rare releases make collecting more than a handful a pain. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining because I usually submit bg to the avi contests, it's just always struck me as odd that we don't even have like backgrounds from the story as we unlock locations.

2: Will there ever be a way to add wild stats to other pets? I'm not sure if I actually suggested this once or talked about it in region chat and forgot but I think like some sort of potion that gave a 1 time roll for wild stats for non lgwild tagged would be a huge boon.

3: What is your favorite animal (real or fantasy) that isn't represented in game yet that you think would be awesome inspo for a sylesti species? (personally torn between seahorses and a small rodent like mouse or hedgehog)

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=110784&page=4#36 Author: Earthprotector49 Time Posted: 11/11/2025 at 6:13 AM 1. Thanks, good to know :). Ill be looking forward to that 8). 2. Oh really =o? Interesting. It feels to me like the duration of the seasonal festivals is shorter now than it used to be, for some reason. Weird. Thanks for sharing the info, though :). *Nods* I figured something like that was the reason nothing like I described has been implemented. *Nods again* Makes sense why such a thing hasnt happened. *Nods again*

Hehe. Here's an example from way back in 2014: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=18237#1

The 2014 Fall Festival only lasted 17 days lol. But yea, I've slowly been stretching them out year over year to try and fill the empty space between Events/Festivals.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=110784&page=4#37 Author: Isri Time Posted: 11/11/2025 at 8:31 AM hihi! This is awesome of you to do :D 1: Are there plans to expand the selection of backgrounds in game or even add an option just to have a background color? There are very few and many of them are recolors of each other and their rare releases make collecting more than a handful a pain. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining because I usually submit bg to the avi contests, it's just always struck me as odd that we don't even have like backgrounds from the story as we unlock locations. 2: Will there ever be a way to add wild stats to other pets? I'm not sure if I actually suggested this once or talked about it in region chat and forgot but I think like some sort of potion that gave a 1 time roll for wild stats for non lgwild tagged would be a huge boon. 3: What is your favorite animal (real or fantasy) that isn't represented in game yet that you think would be awesome inspo for a sylesti species? (personally torn between seahorses and a small rodent like mouse or hedgehog)

1. Yes. I would very much like to put Backgrounds into their own category in the Wardrobe and then also allow players to select different backgrounds for their little Avatar headshot display. I can't provide an ETA on either of those though, as they are kind of low priority at the moment. But I definitely would like to do both of those someday.

The main reason that we rarely create new Avatar Backgrounds now a days is due to their time/cost. They take a very long time to produce relative to everything else. Some of our backgrounds literally cost me ~$1,000 to create at times. Unfortunately, it's just hard to justify spending that much money and that much artist time on a single Avatar Item.

2. Wild Stats, in their current iteration, most likely no. Those will probably stay dedicated to Wild Lost Grove pets. However, once our Exploration systems are all revamped, there will probably be some changes to how Stats work and that might be a time where Wild Stats are tweaked a bit, in addition to maybe another layer of Stat growth. But until then, I doubt there will be any changes at all to the current Stat systems.

3. That is a great question. I'm not sure I would quite say it's my favorite animal, but one species I've always wanted to add is a turtle species. I think it would be perfect for our Sylestia. We actually even created one way back right before the Lost Grove launched, but it was right as we were changing our art style and by the time we shifted gears, the artwork just wasn't remotely up to where we moved to so it was never released. It was basically done in the same style as our original species and not where we are now after species revamps / the Ferrikki.

But yea, I think a turtle species would be a ton of fun. One mutation slot could be dedicated to different shells. We can easily have G1 be body, G2 be shell, G3 be accents/runes. I'm sure we'd throw on some fantasy flare to it so it's not just a legitimate turtle. So I'd say that's what I'd like to see added.

My other answer, that I will refuse to elaborate more on, is a legitimate full dragon. Someday. =)

So, this is a really stupid question, but I'm stuck in The Forgotten Tomb. How do I activate the seals? I've tried everything I can think of.