Adding a second reply because I feel my first was a bit unbalanced and a bit confusing.

I should clarify that I am VERY hopeful for Lorwolf's potential and that I do truly believe it can be a great game. I had a BLAST in alpha and I'm not planning on going anywhere any time soon, and I would encourage those who are feeling unenthused to try again in the future at some point since I do truly believe in this game and believe it can become something very enjoyable. There's already lots to love!

My main issue is that it feels like the team has bitten off more than they can properly chew. I fully respect that they are keeping to the promises made in the kickstarter by adding so many mechanics, but as of right now it feels like they're spreading themselves too thin to properly develop each individual point. There's so many things going on and so little balancing and explanation to go with them. I really think that focus should be narrowed down to some of the more base components of the game; tutorial, breeding, campaign; and the rest brought in over time. I feel that if the team can get the core components balanced and fixed up then a lot of people's concerns will be minimized since the rest will just be fluff that will come as it may.

VERY hopeful to see where things will go. Didn't buy my thirty dinosaurs for nothing! <3

(Edit: Also, autobattling is fine but please please please please PLEASE let me tell them to focus on a specific enemy instead of just going wild and hoping for the best.)

We wanted to let y’all know that we've seen all of the feedback for a lot of gameplay and balancing issues, mainly the farming difficulty, xp scaling, campaign difficulty with limited wolves, and many other activity difficulty scaling. I know there's been a ton of confusion on how a lot of the activities actually work as well. Me and JimJim and our wonderful mods are currently working on improving the following things asap, and many we hope to have finished and shared in a patch notes soon:

• A fix to make low level crops never die (corn) and higher level crops only have a percentage chance of dying over time
• Adding more of all farming seeds and quantities to the Mole Market
• Equipped Companions can now be used at level 1 in all party areas
• A link to an activity’s guide at the top so new users can easily access a guide on how to play

In addition to all of the suggestions and feedback that we’re still sorting through and discussing. Please bear with us and our mess as we continue to work on our first update coming within the next day or so. And yes, the mass bug report list on the forums will be updated shortly!

Overall, my impression is positive. I signed up only yesterday, but so far I've been having fun exploring the site features and figuring things out. I really like the pacing of the game, and the fact that in many places, I can set my own pace. Even so, there are points where I need to stop and do something else while I wait for my resources to recuperate from the hours-long binge. This is not a complaint.

I will definitely continue to play this game, and be happy to celebrate the official launch.

Positive Impressions:

• So many activities! There's a lot to do in the game, which helps keep me engaged as I can always be doing something.
• Daily tasks and weekly events are fun, and help focus my attention to short-term goals that feel good to complete. The daily tasks refresh indefinitely, which at least is a source of constant short-term goals.
• Really love that I can design both of my starting wolves, as well as choose their eye colors. It's really interesting that their eyes have the same mechanic as the colors on their body.
• Fishing is actually pretty fun. Cooking being fun is actually a surprise. It's not only a vital mechanic to keep my wolves full of stamina, but also one that feels rewarding.
• The campaign is honestly pretty fun. I played through all four available campaigns until their cut-offs, and the story was interesting, the NPCs fun and unique (none felt like a carbon copy of another). I'm left wanting more in all of them, and wondering where the story goes from here, and how they might interconnect.
• The quest-specific scenarios did a good job of giving the necessary drops when it made sense to do so. No more chasing birds and not getting a single feather. The times this didn't happen, it made narrative sense as well as gameplay sense, in that most of these were later on in the quest and said to be difficult by NPCs.

Negative Impressions:

• On the subject of quest-specific scenarios, it was sometimes frustrating having to go through multiple scenarios during the quest lines that had nothing to do with our current quest. There were times where I'd have to feed my wolves up to 3 times while working on a single quest, because the quest-specific scenarios simply didn't happen. These weren't the higher level quests, but the lower level ones that were the most frustrating.
• Hunting has soft-locks in the form of many requiring specific materials or trinkets, where I'd have no idea where to get those items or how. The fact that I could have 2 hunting options that were both locked to me for the same reason was extremely frustrating and discouraging. It was pure luck that I discovered that one material was found during the campaign of another pack, and so far as I can tell, that's the only place to get it.
• Farming isn't fun. With every other activity, I can set it and leave to do something else on the site - other activities, campaign, Gauntlet, etc. With Farming, I feel like I have to have a separate tab open with the mechanic so I can keep an eye on it so my crop doesn't wither and die.
• Once I figured out how Mining works, it wasn't so bad. I don't mind that it's extremely slow before you can get your upgrades, but I don't like how quickly the upgrades degrade when compared to how little you get, especially in the early levels. It feels like all I'm doing with mining is checking off a daily task and using my mining and smelting trips to replace the pickaxes and wheels I go through in order to do it with any sort of efficiency.
• I'd like for the icons under my wolves to tell me what each does when I hover over it. As it stands, I've completely forgotten what some of them mean, and while I know where to find the information, it's still frustrating that I have to either navigate away from the page or open up a new tab in order to figure out what the icons mean.

Thanks for the update, Alaunis!

Wanted to mention, now that it’s been ~3 days and the initial dang, this is hard impression has worn off/settled in— Definitely still think the campaigns are unbalanced, but I’ve been having better luck cycling between them instead of trying to 100% one at a time. I’m not sure if that’s the intended way to approach this, and if so maybe there could be some hint or incentive to check out other packs’ campaigns? And/or I’ve just readjusted my expectations, so instead of it feeling like a grind I’m just pleasantly surprised whenever I notice my woofs leveled up :V

Also, I have discovered a love for Fishing. Crafting is okay, ditched Farming after the first yield was eaten by a bug (and having seen feedback about it being generally unrewarding I’m not inclined to go back unless/until I hear it’s been tweaked), and haven’t touched the other Professions yet for lack of wolves. I think I am just being particularly slow with everything, tbh.

All that said, my less negative revised impression is that I was still disappointed out the gate, but I think I’m settling in? Have other assorted thoughts that I’ve been jotting down in some personal notes, will have to put those together some time ~soonish. Regardless, I’m excited to see what changes are ahead (and have my fingers crossed on the technical jank)!

edit: Oh, just noticed the Patch Notes! So I guess I’ll be back again later as things keep changing, hehe.

Okay, the patch definitely helped a lot! I will say the Campaign still has a weird unbalance though. There’s no way collecting Raspberries, which is a guaranteed success if you know the pattern, should give the same EXP as defeating a LV 6 Moonbear. Maybe the battles could reward a bit more EXP?

I’m also torn on the autobattling. On the one hand, it saves my wrists. On the other, I really wish we could turn it off; I hate autobattling as a general rule – it’s pretty boring for me, and frustrating when your wolves done do what you want. i don’t like the lack of control.

I'm coming back to this thread to offer my revised opinion, since there was a patch.

Farming is a LOT less punishing and feels much more in line with the pacing of the game. I can do my farming without feeling like I have to budget my IRL time and have a tab open to watch. It's really rewarding when you do keep up with it, but if you find yourself easily distracted (like I do), then you still get something for your efforts.

While I don't benefit from the update to Mining where we all start with a Copper Wheel and Copper Pickaxe recipe, I'm thrilled with this update. It's going to make it so much easier for new players starting out to get ahead with mining. They'll still have to deal with the extreme slowness of their first few forays, but I don't think that's a bad thing.

Also, I didn't realized companions could join our wolves in the Gauntlet or in the Campaign until they reduced the required levels for them to do so. This has been such a boon! It makes doing some of the Daily Activities (like Explore Kills) so much easier with another creature there to take some hits, and as they level along with our wolf, do some damage as well.

And more to the point, I really appreciate that Lorwolf's staff saw our complaints and implemented a fix for them. This makes me incredibly hopeful for the site overall, and really excited to be part of it so early on.

Pre-Patch Perspective: Been here for only a few days but I think I pretty much agree with most of the sentiments expressed here. EXP gains feel unbalanced, the difficulty curve is pretty intense, and professions can be hard to understand from the get-go and come off as a bit inconsistent. (For instance, why is it so easy to level fishing while I'm still at level 1 on crafting? Sure, I haven't really crafted much besides bone paste but jeez I would hope to be at least halfway to level 2.)

That said, a lot of the site activities are quite enjoyable. Fishing is my favorite thing in the world and exploring is always fun to me! Cooking is also pretty easy to get into and I'm so full of cooked fish all the time. Yum.

Outside of that, I think the other gripes I have so far would be some site layout/aesthetic choices that I'm sure I'll either get used to or can suggest changes to if I get around to it. One thing I will say here is that WRT making information more readily available when it comes to learning professions, I think it would be more preferable to just have a tooltip somewhere that'll explain the very basics of how to play rather than link a guide (or have both shrug). I mostly say this because of my experience with trying to figure out the arena was basically like,

“ok let's try out the arena” > “what am I supposed to do” > “time to read a guide” > “none of this information is relevant to me IDC about how the page layout or synergies i just want to know what I'm supposed to be doing” > “oh okay gameplay is aaaaall the way down..”

THEN AGAIN, this might just be more of a personal issue I had with that particular guide's formatting. Admittedly I haven't felt the need to look up any other guide since I've been able to decently intuit what I'm supposed to do in other activities.

That wraps it up I think? Will likely come back for post-patch impressions (especially since now I feel I can try out farming without fear lol) so yeah, it's a neat start and I'll probably stick around for more.

I am so excited to be back for EA after beta and get to test some of the new gameplay mechanics and see some new companions and other items and I think that Lorwolf has SO MUCH POTENTIAL, especially since Alaunis and JimJim are so responsive to feedback.

Here are some of my first impressions after playing for a couple of days:

Campaign: Was super difficult and slow moving with only my two starter wolves. I had to go through like 3 full energy bars to complete the first mission, which was discouraging. Though I will say that I do like that the campaign is more difficult than during the beta. During beta, it didn't feel like you were actually working for anything, and I was able to get through all of the pack campaigns in a matter of a couple of days, which didn't feel like an accomplishment. I really like that companions are available to be added to the party at lvl 1 vs lvl 3. This makes the campaign feel a lot more balanced in my opinion. I will also echo that it feels like you should get more EXP for defeating higher level enemies vs lower ones. Getting like 1 or 2 EXP per enemy defeated feels a little grindy.

Fishing – Great stuff. Not much has changed since the beta other than the new locations which I am totally stoked about. I do think that it is frustrating that players can get koi and other fish that have a high burn rate in the first pond. I think that the fishing levels and the cooking levels should be more in sync with one another where if you're fishing at lvl 1 or 2, you're able to cook all of the fish that you can catch at those levels. Its irritating to have a bunch of koi sitting in my inventory that I can't make until I reach lvl 5

Mining – I really like mining. I think that it is great to have an activity that I can just set my wolf in the background and then check on them whenever I remember. I do think it would be helpful to have some kind of notification that lets me know that my wolf is done mining and ready to go back to the furnace, or done smelting and ready to go back to mining. I also really like that the recipes for copper axes and wheels are provided to new players. This makes obtaining these items a lot more feasible.

Cooking – I love cooking. It is one of my favorite activities to do in the game. I don't have much feedback about it other than that I love Thumbs, I think he's a cool dude, and I wish that we were able to cook all of the fish that we are able to catch. I do think that having a little marker that lets a player know when there is a high burn chance is super helpful. This was something implemented during beta which is a HUGE help (rip all of the pies I burned).

Farming – I love the concept of farming, I'm super happy that its in this game. I will echo what others have said about it: It's hard to have to sit and babysit my crops (sometimes for a full hour) so that they are successful. I do like that the lower level crops won't die, I think that's a big improvement, though I still dislike that crops have a chance of dying at all even at higher levels (but maybe that's a just a personal preference thing). I also think that if Bigs and Tiny could ask for more reasonable snacks in the early game that would be helpful. Like I'm sorry my dudes but I literally cannot bake two pumpkin pies for you right now and then that means I have to sit and babysit my crops. This mechanism feels punishing for new players because I'm not able to easily go to other tabs or leave to do a real life activity without fear that my crop yield will suffer because I can't make the higher level recipes that Bigs and Tiny ask for.

Hunting – I really like hunting. I like that it gives a purpose to all those little trinkets that you find during the campaign or that Marvin will gift to you at his store. This was missing during Beta and I really like that there's an actual use for those items beyond just selling them for more pebbles. I do wish that it did not take 100% of my wolf's energy though for a 50% chance of success (or maybe I just don't know how to increase my odds of success which may be another issue). I think having hunting take like 25% energy, like mining, makes more sense. That way you can get in a couple of hunts without having to use all of your food/water on your hunters.

Update after the update and after I got lucky and got some Wild Wolves - the difference between having just two Lorwolves and having a full party of three Lorwolves and two Companions, plus one extra Lorwolf to do the professions, is night and day. Suddenly everything feels a lot more balanced and enjoyable. I can survive a Gauntlet round now!

Which I think only underlines the point that it's very important that new players are given access to additional party members. Even just one Companion and one additional random wolf from tutorial quests would help a bunch in pointing players in the right direction and giving them a way to stand a chance in the Campaign and Gauntlet.

I'm a player that was SUPER active during Beta, and now that the patch is out I'd like to put some thoughts I had together here. I chose not to redeem my KS items/support bundles to see what it'd be like as a new player from day 1 (as much as I possibly could, I will admit that I super know what I'm doing as far as maxing out stamina/professions/etc from beta)

the TL;DR is the beginning of the game is SUPER frustrating. I went from being an hours daily player having Lorwolf just kinda active in the background while I worked from home (I love the auto battles, it's a great fidget toy!) during beta to… not really picking Lorwolf up at ALL the past week. The beginning of the game is very punishing - the addition of companions at level 1 for gauntlet helped, but it DOESN'T help everything else that's balanced around having more wolves, like having stamina for fishing and mining. I found myself completely running out of food for even finding wild wolves at all, much less befriending them (and it took me 20 encounters to find the first one, and I'm on 17 encounters now without another one)

I don't particularly mind the game being balanced around having a lot of wolves. In fact, I think it's healthy for the game! But SOMETHING has to give for the first round of players on launch. I don't know if that needs to be a free nest hatch at the beginning with faster aging for the pups, I don't know if that needs to be a guaranteed wolf encounter (perhaps at the beginning of all four quest lines?), but something has to give.

This is less of a problem in the FUTURE when people will be able to just buy a full party of wolves from the flea market with starting funds, but as it is right now I can see Lorwolf losing a TON of players at launch with how slow the beginning of the game is. I'm not convinced that the balance is too hard at the beginning once the game is mature and it's easy to grab puppies/companions from the player run market, so I think a “hey, thanks for playing the first two weeks of the game” boost would be more helpful in the long run (and I know Flight Rising did something similar in their first few weeks to mitigate that issue)

I agree that more things need some explanation. I've purposefully stayed kinda far away from the Discord and Forums until now so I could see if info was easy to find and it super isn't. Hunting is kind of unintuitive - I have no idea if the loot pool for the different activities is worth the HUGE stamina cost of at least a full bar (the missions I have available now all require a second bar's worth of food to pack along for the rest of the journey). The crops I've been harvesting (the change is much appreciated to the mechanics, but I would like that if it IS possible to lose crops that it be clearly stated. I was blindsided the first time) don't seem to be showing up in cooking? So what are they even for? Player made guides are helpful (sometimes players explain things in a way that makes more sense than the official guide and I love that!) but basic knowledge about the site and the site's mechanics should be easy to find.

I still wish it was easier to import a wolf into the demo or even dress wolves there. I would love to dig into customizing my wolves, but the barrier to getting a wolf into the demo is HUGE as someone who has ADHD and sometimes plays on mobile and can't remember every characteristic in one go. I think the apparel being more expensive is a really good thing, but now things cost quite a bit of cash and I don't want to drop big bucks on an apparel piece without knowing it'd look really good on my little dudes.