Welcome new and old testers, so far I've looked through the new content and some of the old content and I must say a majority of it has had good improvement. I'm still unsure about farming (having to actively check back for the next 20 minutes sounds like a drag) but I'll see how that is once I've gone through my first crops.

hunting seems pretty solid, fishing having all its areas is going to be great, mining is mining, etc. Im definitely still missing any information on what goes on in a battle in terms of just a “X attacked Y” or what the status effects mean but there's enough time to work out those little issues.

LW still displays a bit too large at 100% zoom though and unfortunately at 90% zoom seems to cause things to look very crunchy in the campaign area :(

EDIT 08/12::

After having a few days hopping in and out due to being busy with my thesis, I can finally update my main post with my thoughts after playing for a few days. And… I must agree with a lot of the negative sentiments shared in this thread.

I noticed a lack of updates on some core things that this website needs. Most people have already stated the issues with the game so I won't be repeating myself… But I am severely disappointed in the lack of updates to the forum system, which is probably one of the most important systems to maintain and make ENJOYABLE to use.

Several issues are present with the forums:

• Too much wasted space. Why is the recent topics box and search bar taking up such a large column of space when you're viewing a thread. There's no point, keep that on the main forum page or even on the front page of the site.
• There should be a few pixels more of padding to keep the text away from the edges of a post. Right now posts feel a bit claustrophobic with how much everything is pushed together. Not a huge problem, but would improve user experience. Likely can be improved as well if posts get the full page width by removing the recent topics box from a full thread.
• Why is there still no reply button on every page. We still have to go to the last page to reply, this is just annoying. On top of that, having to specifically click the reply button to start writing a post feels counter-intuitive. Just have a rich text box reply area at the bottom of the page so someone can immediately start writing from the get go.
• On light mode, category names are the same color as category description. Differentiating this with even a slight color tint could do wonders for making it easier to read.
• More of a pet-peeve, but Im not a fan of the way categories are separated. I suggest the following structure for categories:
  • Site
    • This would contain news, patch notes, guides, Bug reports, Suggestions, QA. Stuff ONLY for official site things or gameplay questions.
  • Lorwolf General
    • Introductions, Lorwolf discussion, Pack private forum, Roleplay (its description text specifies Loria, so this suggests that the rp board is for lorwolf-related RP.)
  • Offtopic
    • General discussion, Art share, Writing share, Roleplay (if its desc text gets changed to not mention Loria)
  • Sales
    • All sales/giveaways can go here, but I'd put it below the main discussion threads to bring focus towards chat-related topics and grow the community activity.
• Use icons to separate forum categories, it'd just look nicer in general.
• Main forums also have a lot of wasted space. Frankly I think we could have the forums be structured in columns of categories, and have the recent thread activity be floating off the side next to the main page body. Same goes for the search. Or put it at the very top, Or include it in the columns. Idk. Just stop having so much empty space!
• STILL NO FORUM POST NOTIFICATIONS PLEASE…

Other random issues I have

• Arena still takes WAAAAY too long to play, and is still noticeably buggy. (next round timers ending at random, having to wait two straight minutes to start a game that becomes 90% bots anyway is annoying.
• Farming has been improved with crops not dying anymore, that's great, but why do i have to wait 10 seconds to till a plot? This isn't a mobile game. This random wait-time is pointless and annoying and does not make me want to actively go back to farming. Having to click and collect compost and water instead of it just auto-refueling itself is also… annoying. I can accept occasionally having to dip into the farm to give it some water and compost but the gathering of the water and compost should be able to just fill up on its own.
• I have not even bothered with hunting due to the requirements it has that are very unfriendly to earlygame. Adding some early-game friendly hunts would be nice.
• having to breed and THEN move to a nest is annoying. It'd be nice if I could select to auto-move to nest for a breeding, since I get that some people might want to control when their pups are born, but as someone who doesn't always care about it and would like to be able to put on a nest and leave for two days and come back to a ready nest it's annoying to have to consciously go back. Especially as you HAVE to be on the wolf's page to do this, and can't do it from the den or from the nest page. (A “Bring pregnant wolves to nest” button would be nice.)

Unfortunately my personal impression isn't good. There were definite balancing issues in the beta test period that I had hoped to see improved, but I would say across the board most things are worse than beta. Activity difficulties have been scaled up too sharply. Level one should be a hill, something that teaches you to climb while presenting just enough challenge to be fun. From there it should gradually build, along with your skills and resources, into a mountain that takes enough effort to feel like you really achieved something. I'm finding most things a mountain right from the get-go.

Farming is possibly the worst formatted activity I've ever seen in a pet sim. Fishing and cooking seem largely unchanged and are the most accessible. Crafting was difficult in beta and I'm getting even less resources now. The layout for hunting is confusing and I'm not sure it will be worth the loss of energy and resources once I have enough of them to try it. Campaigns are obviously supposed to be a challenge, but with two wolves I can barely get past the first ones (hill vs mountain again). There seems to be a lot of punishing gameplay elements. A casual game should offer rewards proportionate to the amount of time and effort spent, but this seems to be rather punishing in some areas for not spending an excessive amount of time and effort. I feel like this may not be a good game for casual players.

The friend I joined with has already quit and I'm considering stepping back for a while myself to see if things will improve at a future date. All in all I'm just very disappointed, because Lorwolf looked very promising at the outset.

It does seem scaled towards a large amount of hover-at-the-computer grinding so far, like only getting 1-3 xp max for each wolf and not a whole lot of loot (and as people are mentioning, the farming. I personally don't like being punished just for going afk or having to step away for a bit; more like casual play-at-your-own-pace but still feel rewarding enough to keep playing, you know?). I'm not expecting to have a bunch of stuff from the get-go since we just started (and are still in EA), but it's still a little disorienting having so little yet needing so much from the very beginning.

I'm still exploring and learning my way around, of course, but that's the only criticism I can think of offering for the time being!

I will say, I’m not a huge fan of Farming so far. The rest seems similar to what I remember from beta, but Farming seems very… punishing if you forget about it for too long.

I agree with pretty much all of JCStitches' post, unfortunately. :(

There are so many very basic features missing for a game in early access. Can't update your account's email still, can't preview forum posts, can't import wolves into the demo, can't make profile comments, etc etc etc…

I'm really hoping that the devs consider hiring someone that specializes in game development or something to help make these game mechanics more fun and rewarding rather than frustrating.

What I'm mostly noticing is the conspicuous lack of dailies. It feels like the activities were supposed to be, but they just…keep going forever. Clearly defined dailies are what keep me active and invested in petsites like this one.

I've only been here a day and wasn't here for beta, but I can give my early impression.

I'm having fun, but yeah, the difficulty scaling is… hard. I'm really struggling with the campaign stuff, even just the second one feels so incredibly difficult. My two wolves are level 3 and still getting bodied.

Fishing is nice. Big fan. I like the idea of cooking at least, though how it works could be a bit better.

I think Lorwolf has potential to be very good! Some adjustments to the difficulty scaling to make things more balanced and less punishing to casual players would really help.

I was here for beta and unfortunately beta seemed better formated than EA currently is. It feels like a lot of the suggestions weren't implemented, or even considered.

Farming, I don't really think anyone would have something positive to say about it. I work from home so it's easier for me but I feel awful for anyone else. I understand that once you can make the pies it'll be easier, but to have the most basic crop die so easily and so quickly at starting level is.. a bad idea. Not to mention having the only items able to give you the boon from Tiny and Big be locked behind a significant wall was not thought out properly. You should be able to give them lower quality items starting out, that'll not give the full 12 hours obviously but any help at all is better than.. this.

Hunting is awful if you start with Lupins. I can't say anything else on it. Maybe I just don't fully understand it yet, and maybe my percentage luck has just been awful but it's not fun and doesn't seem worth it.

The gauntlet seems a lot less balanced now than before, but I also didn't do gauntlet until my progens kid was grown in beta and I could use him, so I can't give a solid opinion on it.

For the campaign, it feels almost impossible unless you buy the beginner bundle. I bought it in beta, and it was the first thing I used my credits on for EA because I knew it would be terrible without the water. I understand it's supposed to be difficult but for random events could go every single time and not give you anything at all food wise starting out, which having no way to get energy beyond sheer waiting for hours is a horrible way to do things for a starting area. Fishing helps but you can't cook the koi without burning them until you got a higher level, and I get more koi (or trinkets) than anything else. A lot of people said this in beta that it needed balanced instead of sheer rng, and that is obviously still an issue. To be frank, I'd have just not bothered playing at all if I couldn't get the beginner bundle from the premium shop. The waters let me grind for two hours straight to get my two wolves to high enough levels to finally get to the ends of campaigns and thus get a lot of food and crafting supplies from it as well. That's the only saving grace. I couldn't imagine not having that boon and trying to campaign.

Yeahhh, unfortunately I’m agreeing a lot with JStitches so far. Granted, I’ve been playing “solo” (no reading guides or consulting the Discord when stuck) so I’ve probably been progressing especially slowly, but so far it has felt like a lot of grinding & waiting for minimal gain. I’m a-okay with Lorwolf being a casually-paced game where patience pays off, but it’s a little disheartening this early on.

Forums are janky and there’s a handful of technical snags I’ve encountered, especially on mobile/iPad. Somewhat expected, with this being effectively Beta 2, but… idk, I didn’t think it’d be quite this rough? I think/hope most of those can be fixed with minor code tweaks, though. Those and some quality-of-life improvements about UI and gameplay, lots of which has already been suggested, would be great to see by public release.

Ultimately there’s a lot I want to love about Lorwolf (auto-battling, a gift to my wrists!), so I’m sticking around and really want to see a rebalance & technical polish make the game shine. It’s clear a lot of love has gone into the site as-is, the art’s gorgeous, but the gameplay’s been a snag & I can absolutely see how that’d drive people off before they get a full foot in the door.

edit: Update on page 5; still more or less agree with this assessment but feeling much less disappointed/negative as I get used to it.

Was here for beta and I've been having fun with early access but it has felt kind of slow and grindy at times.

Postive:

• Love the qol changes to the forums - great to see that the topics now bump to the top of the subforums - it makes it much easier to see where discussion is happening
• The campaign is super addictive, the auto battling is great!
• The additions of the new campaign encounters have helped make grinding feel less repetative
• The new volmyr breed looks fantastic!
• Still super impressed with how well Lorwolf works on mobile

Negative:

• Farming having a mechanic where crops die and how that works has really put me off the profession
• Alot of the professions at a low level still feel very grindy - looking at you crafting
• The sell price of items to the vendor seems to have gone down massively - an iron bar only sells for 6 pebbles
• XP gain in later campaign levels is still pretty low

The is so much potential for this game, I have high hopes and it seems that the devs are really passionate about making the game the best it can be. I hope that the issues with balancing can be resolved as I think that is going to be something that could push players away from the site.

I would love simple and short tutorials for each aspect of the game as currently I'm a tad lost on what to even do. I've started the campaign and love the afk combat but wasting all of my stamina and having to feed my wolves without even seeing the enemies I needed to fight was a tad disheartening. I thought that I was doing something wrong! I also have no clue how to buy things like a pickaxe for mining. Overall there's great potential here but a bit more guidance would be useful