Ok so it's been a topic for a while and people have brainstormed about this thing many times before as well but not much seem to be happening around the problem yet.
(Thats I know off)

So I wanted to try and see if a bigger group of players here could come to an overal sort of agreement/plan we can then foreward to Krin to see if this is an actual option maybe?

Some ideas I have seen mentiond so far:
- Better rewards for releasing Sylesties
- Limiting breeding options in general (either by paying scales to breed, or to have max room in hatchery)
-Limiting active sales/pets up for breeding (you can breed what you want, but you can only put 10 pets up for sale at a time for example)

I noticed that when you start suggesting anything to limit breeding itself however you get a lot of protests. Which is a pity as that would be the most effective way to solve the problem. I do however understand the objections.

So to compensate the lack of breeding restrictions perhaps we can do a combination of other things.

-The better rewards for releasing sylesties seems like a good start. Maybe just like with breeding, you could get a scale for every pet you release. Make it so every pet after it's hatched keeps a piece of the scale or something, and when it moves on to a new part of it's life it gives the scale to you as a thanks for what you've done for it or something. Just a bit of story element to make it more fun. but yeah, getting 1 scale for every pet you release could be a nice way to have more pets released. Yes there is a chance people will breed to release for scales, but you know that should be fine. As breeding, then releasing, actualy takes more time then just nurtering an egg.. so it's not like people have a short cut to scales this way. And it doesn't add to overpopulation if the hatchlings are released anyway.

- A nicer message once the pet is released. Like ''enter name'' looks around in wonder at the lands of sylestia and seems eager to explore. (s)he gives your cheek a nuzzle, thanking you for taking care of him/her. Then ready to see what the world has in store, (name) takes of on his/her adventure keeping you in his/her memory.

Or whatever.. I'm sure something better could be made up. There could be like 4 different types of messages, that could be shown at random. Just some feel good notes so you feel good about releasing your sylestie. This could work because many sylestia players are real life animal lovers, and project releasing sylesties to releasing real life tame pets, which usualy means death and suffering and so releasing is associated with neglect or cruelty. This image should change for the game setting where released sylesties not only not suffer, they thrive.

- Pets already on sale could be timed just liked items are. Like if a pet is not sold in 3 weeks, it gets auto off sale again and you need to manulay put it on sale again. yes this is an extra efford. but take a notice of how many overpriced pets of not active players have been for sale for years on the advanced search... if players stop being active, and then their pet sales transpire, all those pets get instandly removed from the big line up of pets for sale. Especialy overpriced pets for sale that may once have been worth that, but not anymore.

- Another option could be not that pets are on timed sale, but that a pet that is unconcious/starving can not be put on sale. So if a pet starves, it basicly removes itself from the game. Only fed sylesties can be put on sale and stay on sale. If it's no longer fed, it automayticly goes off sale. It's a way of also making sure pets of not active players no longer stay on sale, while active players can keep on selling withoud the extra efford (except maybe properly feeding your pets, but that really should not be a problem if your active)

EDIT: Another idea I had
- A new currency for releasing pets, and a new shop to match it. Like maybe when you release a pet, you get freedom points/or good karma points/or just releasing points or whatever you would call the new currency. What would be in the shop can be further brainstormed over by the community. What would you like to see in the shop if there was one? provided you think a new currency shop is a good idea.

- Other idea mentiond is a mass release option (forgot to add this earlier as I had seen this suggestion before) to be able to mass release all pets in one tab and or stable.

I completely agree with this. Your release message was actually pretty good. And yes breeding should be limited. I dont know why so many people protest to that. People breed just for no reason sometimes. That just overpopulated the game. You could also have a mass release so people can easily release pets to stop over populating. If this is the case though, there should be no reward because then breeders will breed to get scales.

I hope this makes sense ;)

People tend to protest breeding restrictions because it punishes everyone alike. Project breeders that need to breed 100s of sylesti just to get one that has the right traits/stats? They now can't breed as much or it costs them more than they could earn to breed the projects. Players that like to breed pets for fun, but release all of their pets that no one else wants? They now get hit with the breeding payment as well. Players that breed for new players? Yep, they get hit as well.

Making massive changes to breeding, especially so long after a game has launched, only punishes the players who have gotten used to the way things are, and are NOT part of the problem (as they already realized that for their profit, they can't just mass breed or saturate the market with rejects) as well as those who breed for fun and dump the pets on the market.

That is why I never support huge changes to breeding, as I feel those changes should have been done very close to the beginning of the game (especially since at this point, you can pretty much count on overbreeding being a problem with any breeding game. Players like to see what results and thus are going to breed as much as they can).

Likewise I won't support a limit to the number of pets able to be listed for sale, or a limit on the time they are able to be listed. I have bought pets from long dead accounts and am hopefully going to 'give them new life' by dying them and then seeing if anyone wants them. If not, they will be released. I wouldn't be able to do that if the players were restricted by a number of pets they could list or how long the pets stayed listed. Likewise as a seller, I like listing pets I don't want, and if they sell, great, otherwise I release them. Sometimes the pets might be listed for months, until someone realized they need a trait the pet has, or a new player joins the game and finds out they liked that theme or like the colors of the pet and buys it.

This is why I always support revamping and encouraging ways to get pets out of the system. I honestly don't think that over breeding, even with sweeping changes to the breeding system, will ever be truly stopped, because on breeding games, surprise surprise, players like breeding pets. Some like project based breeding, to work towards a goal, others, like myself, tend to like throwing two pets together and see what results (not so much on sylestia, but on Gryffs and Flight Rising).

However, on Flight Rising and Sylestia, to be honest, the rewards for removing pets from the system are rather lackluster. I release sylesti, but many players don't even care about the lost grove, or about random eggs, so they don't have any incentive to release pets.

I would release a ton more pets if I felt the rewards were more worth it, not just a monetary reward, which wouldn't necessarily be good for the site, but item rewards, perhaps even exclusive themed egglings for higher release totals (ie, 5K released you start having a chance to gain an eggling with every release), consumable items, no non-consumable like avatar items (as players only need one of them so any extras gained just start becoming a problem, like overbreeding causes)

So, I feel that incentivizing releasing is a far better way to go than basically punishing breeders or sellers by putting measures limiting those activities.

I get the stance on breeding you have. I do. To a degree I also get the stance on selling. However I disagree that my idea on sales is in any way punnishing players of any kind, breeders included.

There are a HUGE amount of pets for sale. You will very very likely not miss out on anything if pets that have been on sale for years will stop being on sale. If they where so valuable to people, they would have been sold already. (note that I'm also only suggesting pets of inactive players not being for sale anymore, I never said they could no longer be up for breeding, provided of course your willing to feed them first)

I feel there is a limit to how long we must hold on to pets that likely nobody is ever going to buy.

Also there is a pretty solid amount of 111.111.111 mil and above pets for ''sale'' that really add to the clutter as well. Including a huge amount that belong to inactive players.

As I see it, active players do not in any way get punnished if pets of inactive players are no longer for sale. Simply because there are a huge amount of pets, more then the system can handle, still at our finger tips.

The fear to miss out on just 1 pet works against us in the quest to limit overpopulation. At some point you need to make some sort of sacrefises to make other things better. Also mass releasers like myself could very well end up releasing traits people are looking for as well. But by that mindset nobody can never release anything anymore.

Right now it's a mess. the huge amount of old overpriced pets for sale are as much of a problem as all the new pets that are being mass bred. Because releasers like myself can make an efford to sink some time into mass releasing cheap pets withoud it hurting our purse to much.

But the overpriced ones? Yeah they are kind of stuck in limbo forever. It would be great if at some point those pets nobody is ever going to buy (999999999 mil .. I mean come on. I get people did this just to show the pet is available for negotiation.. but when it's inavctive players it just adds to needless clutter) would dissapear from the market.

Also you can buy and recollor a huge amount of pets even withoud the pets from inactive players. I feel the game should be the game for the active players first and foremost. And when people stop being active it only makes sense their part in playing it is over. Including whatever pets they had for sale. This does not punnish anyone because again, there would still be masses and masses of pets to chose from.

Not being able to buy pets you would not have known where for sale to begin with is not punnishment. If you did know they where for sale, and wanted them, you should have bougth them when they where up.

But I do agree 100% that the reward is much to lackluster for releasing. I for example couldn't care less about the lost grove. I tried playing in it, didn't enjoy it. I dislike that you need different items there instead of just progressing naturaly. I don't care for finding eggs in the slightest either and I am not a themed pet collector, except for bandana nixi's, and not an item collector except for items for my dream avi's.

Not to say it needs to cater to me, but rewards should be universal, like a currency so people can chose what they want instead of being gifted random things they don't care for.



So here is another idea: a new release currency shop.

Maybe when you release pets (you did not breed yourself) you can save release/happyness/freedom/karma points (or whatever you would call the currency). And then there could be a new shop, with items you can buy with that new currency. They could include the same items as the hatchery shop, or some of them, and then some other new items not available in any of the other shops. Maybe indeed some avatar items, or even pet costumes, or more backgrounds for your character as backgrounds or wings (instead of helds as we have way to much helds compared to other items). What would be in the shop can be further discussed/brainstormed over. But giving releasing their own currency and shop could work, provided the shop has actual interesting stuff. Like perhaps a themed eggling of any theme ever, any species ever, but you don't know untill it hatches what it is. Or new kinds of philters, or items, or high end quest items, or a mix of these things if the shop is a big diverse one unlike the eggling shop which is a bit limited.

Maybe what is available in this currency shop can change per month. Like maybe new monthly items only avialable that month. Or Every once in a while there is a chance a diamond shop item is available in that shop, but then next month it could be gone again. Like a shop that changes contend every month, or perhaps every week depending on how good the stuff in it is. or some items are constand, some items are limited for a certain time.

Hey.

Yeah I still think limiting breeding in some way would be good even though I understand why people are against that. But people who are against limited breeding should not also be against overpopulation as you can't have one withoud the other. Make a choice and stick to it kind of thing.

That being said, Other ideas can also work, just less effective. I did come up with another idea in a reply to somebody else,

a new release currency shop. When you release pets (that are not bred by yourself to avoid mass breeding for yourself just to get the currency) you gain a new currency. And this new currency you can spend in a new shop.

What would be in the shop can be discussed further. Like what would people want to see in such a shop? Philters? Avatar items? Themed egglings? I do feel the stuff in such a shop needs to be better then the eggling shop, as people are actualy sinking gold into releasing pets. yeah you can buy a lot of cheap pets as well, but you could buy release 1000 gold and above pets as well. So the rewards should be a bit better to compensate that.

A release shop, or some way of adding rewards for releasing, has always been something I wanted.

One of my ideas would be, instead of another shop, have a tiered system of rewards.

IE, if you release 50 pets, you are now eligible for tier 1 items. Every pet you release, up to 100, would be eligible for obtaining an item (and this could include themed egglings) from that pool. The longer you go without getting an item from that tier, the more likely you are, up till 100 releases, which means you are guaranteed. Once you obtain an item from that tier, you then are removed from the pool, and have to start the process over again. IE, release another 50 pets to be eligible.

With multiple tiers, and the higher tiers having better items, I think it could incentivize releasing a great deal.

There could also be multiple tiers of pets. IE, if the goal is to make themed pets (whether first gen or purebred) more valuable, then make themed pets enter a different tier, that has better rewards.

As for the rewards, whether for a shop or for tiers? Consumable items first and foremost. VERY few avatar items, because you only need one copy of those, and once that copy is obtained, the avvie item is no longer desired. While there would be new players all the time that might want a copy, they could obtain the copy themselves by simply releasing pets. I don't really know what items would be good, just that they need to be desireable and consumable. While I would love to see pet dyes (lesser ones) available, I can understand that might not be a good idea, but perhaps there can be new items, only available from the shop/tiered area, that do different things. Examples: Taking a page from FR: Color Scatter vials. It just randomly changes the colors of the pet, all trait slots. With as many colors avialable and as many slots? Chances are you are going to get a really ugly pet, but maybe you will get color combos you never realized worked. Perhaps trait scatters as well, only able to work on 6 vis pets, non-bred, and only able to get non-restricted traits. Things like that, mainly for fun, not available anywhere else, etc..

Themed egglings would be something I would like. While I would LOVE to be able to obtain egglings of retired themes, I realize that will not happen, especially due to black friday stuff, so instead there could be contests centered around certain ideas that could be used for themes. (ie, for the first contest to get the initial themes, the 'theme' that players are given are 'natural' so that Krin and Fai are looking for 'natural' colored pets such as browns blacks and greys. For the second one maybe it is 'pastel' where they want light colored pets and so on) Different species would be available at different tiers. Egglings, for the tier idea, wouldn't be guaranteed drops, so you might not get one for ages, but it is always possible when releasing pets.

I know these things would make me more likely to release pets, and I think they would hopefuly make others release as well.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=87107&page=1#5 Author: EraNime Time Posted: 3/20/2020 at 4:30 AM Hey. Yeah I still think limiting breeding in some way would be good even though I understand why people are against that. But people who are against limited breeding should not also be against overpopulation as you can't have one withoud the other. Make a choice and stick to it kind of thing. That being said, Other ideas can also work, just less effective. I did come up with another idea in a reply to somebody else, a new release currency shop. When you release pets (that are not bred by yourself to avoid mass breeding for yourself just to get the currency) you gain a new currency. And this new currency you can spend in a new shop. What would be in the shop can be discussed further. Like what would people want to see in such a shop? Philters? Avatar items? Themed egglings? I do feel the stuff in such a shop needs to be better then the eggling shop, as people are actualy sinking gold into releasing pets. yeah you can buy a lot of cheap pets as well, but you could buy release 1000 gold and above pets as well. So the rewards should be a bit better to compensate that.

But people who are against limited breeding should not also be against overpopulation as you can't have one withoud the other. Make a choice and stick to it kind of thing.


I feel the need to step in on that comment.

Hi, big-time stats breeder here, and I'm going to explain to you real simply how someone can be against both.

I deal with so many RNG factors in my breeding endeavors that literally 90% or more of the pets I breed are immediately given the boot (which is my way of saying I mercilessly release them into the wild because I have no use for them.) I would boot them as eggs, but Krin took that feature away so now I have to wait for them to hatch -__- It is a pain in the butt to deal with and I hate it... Doubles up on the time I have to wade through hundreds of failed results each week...


For the best example I can give, take this pet, a legendary themed Lunemara from The Lost Grove.
https://www.sylestia.com/view/pets/?petid=5038169

Currently he has 225 offspring, all of which were a breeding between him (110 health, 200 mana, and 8-14 str/dex/etc) and a sub-mana maxed stats Lune (2,000 health, 100-ish mana, and all 100s in str/dex/etc.)

When breeding for stats, the results can be ANYWHERE between the parent's stats. So my goal in all of those 225 breedings?

Health
110 - 2000: I need 1800+

Mana
100-200: I need 190+

Str/Dex/Int/Agil
8-100: I need 90+

And I don't mean "1850 health, 110 mana, 20-30 str/dex/agil/int is okay because the health is good"

I mean "1800 health, 190 mana, 90+ strength, dex, agility, and intel ALL ON ONE PET" so I can make it a maxed superstats pet with 1 prismatic philter.

Wild stats diminish with every generation; what I want is a direct son/daughter from him with maxed stats so it has the best possible wild stat bonus. 225 breedings and I still haven't gotten the result I need because the chances of that are literally astronomical. I've gotten some that were passable enough to keep as a "skip" generation whose offspring would then be bred back to the legend, but I have yet to reach my goal.


For what I'm doing, specifically me, I'm breeding every viable maxed stats lunemara I can to this guy. Unlimited breeding is a MUST-HAVE if I am to ever reach that RNG jackpot. What I DON'T do, however, is overpopulate the rest of the community with hundreds of failed lunes.

I boot them.


Am I against breeding limits? Yes.
Am I against overpopulation? Yes.

How?

... by breeding responsibly. I plan my projects carefully and get rid of the excess. No ";__; buy these 50 failed lunes please!" - they are given the boot. When a breeder has served its purpose? It's also booted. Just because other players don't have the capacity to do something worthwhile with their breedings and feel like every dishwater mess they breed deserves to be sold even if it's for a single gold, that doesn't mean I should be punished for it with limitations and restrictions that would turn a 1-year project into a 10-year project.

Results like this take work, and hundreds if not thousands of failed breedings.
https://www.sylestia.com/view/pets/?petid=5341606
And even he is 1 generation off from being a perfect result.


And if you're still not convinced or don't want to take me at my word, I'm sure my release count can speak for itself.

Pets Found: 54,990

That number is likely going to grow here soon; I have projects to sort and pets to boot.



I can also say that for various reasons, I don't like the idea of limiting how many pets a player can have for sale at a time. I've got a stats empire to run here. Usually as soon as a festival kicks up I go from having ~200 stats pets for sale since I try to maintain 1 of each being available, to suddenly having a series of requests for "Hey, you're out of ___, can you breed one for me?" And I'll be like "Yup, on it! Had to restock after the festival rush but the new batch should hatch in a couple of days!"

Put a limit on how many pets I have for sale and my inbox is going to be FLOODED with purchase requests. And it's busy enough already with reserves and negotiations, etc.


I hope this gives you a little more insight on why there's so much backlash to these kinds of suggestions. You're focusing too much on the problem-causers and completely overlooking those of us who are actually making something worthwhile here. I take pride in my projects and the work I put into them, the years of work I put into raising the number of visible traits and boosting stats, the time and care I put into every design and the ridiculous amount of currency I spend on pet dyes to make it happen.

I don't deserve to be punished for someone else's "no one buys my dishwater pets ;__; " drama; I've got gorgeous powerful battle beasties to breed.




As for a possible solution I can agree with... Rewards for releasing. I've always been like "scales plz" since they can be traded for pet dyes. Release the ugly dishwaters, get dyes, dye high-trait dishwaters into prettier project pairs, and tadah, boosted pet values across the board.

First of all thanks for taking the time to explain in detail what your point of view on things are. I apriciate that.

That being said I can mostly see where your comming from. However you seem to think when I say breeding limits that there is only one way to do so. There are ways breeding can be limited withoud affecting responsible breeders like yourself. My problem when I made that statement is more with people who refuse to consider even the slightest bit of compromise, even if the offerd suggestion affects breeders rather little if at all.

Like for example the suggestion somebody made to reduce base hatchery space and being able to purchase extra space like with stables. Responsible breeders can invest in the extra hatchery space and make their money/gold back and breed as much as they always have.

Casual breeders, who just do it to see what fun comes out of the egg to then sell them because they have no incentive to release, would be less fast to invest a lot in extra hatchery space as they don't earn it back as easely as they don't offer well bred pets. If this tactic was combined with good rewards for releasing I think that could help a lot.


When I say that I feel it's strange when people are agains overpopulation but also against any and all limits to breeding, I mean that in terms of suggestions like this as well. Suggestions that should not impact serious breeders, but does discurage casual breeding more. Or at least encourages it a bit less.

But one thing I feel strongly about right now is actualy working towards a solution instead of everyone going back and forth debating about the things that are not even the main plan.

What you replied to was a personal opinion which does not really influence the overall discussion of actual ideas now on the forefront.

Because the most prominent Ideas I have been putting forth (both my own and ideas by others) are ones focused on rewarding releasing better, making releasing feel good instead of something to feel guilty about for high empathy players and targeting selling more then breeding.

And the biggest idea towards limiting sales is one that again should not affect active players/breeders/salespeople. And that is making sure your pet is fed before selling. A pet that is starving can't stay on sale. This way the huge amount of pets still on sale by players that have been gone for years will be cleaned up. There are more then enough worthwhile pets for sale by active players even withoud the pets belonging to inactive players.

Which is in part because of the great breeders we have as well. In fact sales for good breeders might increase if pets of inactive players leave the market automaticly after a while.

Note that I speak of sales only. Pets up for breeding by inactive players can work as they do now. Unable to breed untill fed, then breedable again.

But yes the mean idea for now on my side of things is either scales for releasing so you can buy things in the scale shop. Maybe have an occasional drop of something else nice.

Or a new currency shop with items of it's own, perhaps also including pet dye and philter of anmnesia and for the rest new stuff or something.

That combined with teaching sylestia players that released sylesties are not neglected or dying or sad, but living happy digital lives in freedom could work with the moral dilemma of releasing which is a thing.

i know, because I had it myself when I started :P

Having a nice message to ease your concious could do a lot for people. It might even stimulate people to release for the good feeling of it. Not even for te rewards. though rewards should def be a thing so everyone can benefit.

To avoid to most conflict with everyone, I think the feel good solutions should be tried first.

More rewards for releasing, a nice message when you release a pet and maybe limiting hatchery space.

or combine it. Maybe by releasing pets you can gather a new currency in which you can buy more hatchery space with.. or is this to weird? :P

Hmm, maybe avi item problem can be solver by making them none trade items. But even if items are a thing I don't think it's a problem if at some point everyone has one of the new items, as long as there are also other rewards to stimulate people.

I still thing scales could work very well. It seems in balance with the scales you get for nurtering as well.

While I do like the idea of tiers, I think a shop would be most clear for people. they can open the shop see for themselves whats in there and be like ohhh I want that.. lets go release pets to get the currency for it.

Regardless if it's tiers, or shops, for everything goes that it can be resold.. which means everything will lose value after a while. Themed pets available trough releasing included.

So thats why I figured maybe a shop that changes it's products every month could work.

Every start of the month the shop respawns it's rewards save a few set ones.

Set ones could be same as scale shop like pet dye's (so like mentiond by somebody else people can make more beautifull project pets better instead of ''dishwasher'' pets) and amnesia philters.

But the shop could also have a few avatar items because a lot of people love those (maybe 1 set, like wings, background, back etc.) and it's only around for a month before it leaves (the set could come back, sets could rotate or pop up at random), it could have an eggling from a theme (either brand new, or an old one that has not been around.. like maybe during springtime you could get the oldest themed that where not even tagged then. like the springtime zolnixi. They could be available as a springtime reward for releasing pets, but you'd have to release a 1000 or more pets to get an egg that 1 visible. Mabe if you release 3000 pets you get an egg with 3 visible traits.)

And like wise, the themed pets could rotate with every month. A random old theme could pop up, or a new one, but either way it sticks for a month before going again. So there will always be incentive to release pets for themed collectors because there are always new collectors, and new collectors love their chances to the older themes/new themes/themes they missed.

So I suppose even in a shop a tier sort of thing could apply. As only when you released a lot of pets can you get the egg.

i do think a shop works better then bare tiers, because shops give people a known goal to work towards instead of a vague chance. Not everyone will sink time into a maybe. But most would bewilling to sink time into a certainty.

I like your idea of collor scatter vials. they seem like a fun way to try and play around with pets collors and inspire new ideas.