Yes, yes, this is kinda dissapointing for me. I agree with PastelBurnt a lot on this suituation. Not to trash talk the devs, I admire their effort on this game, but this isn't what the devs should be monetizing IMO.

I agree largely with vihuff and pastelburnt here.

the profession expansions should not be moonstones at all, and it's a huge shame to see this happen to them. pebbles honestly feel like they don't have much of a use right now outside of mole market and that's not exactly great for the economy of the site

I do like the option of letting people choose either or. Being able to create premium currency isn't a feature I've seen anywhere else, and it's interesting and somewhat magnanimous of the team to be doing so, so having the option to use moonstones is fine if you don't want to spend a large quantity of pebbles, but having it be user choice seems wisest to me.

It gave me confidence for the direction of the site, to see that this feedback was taken and implemented when it was first brought up in the beta. To see it suddenly and silently reverted now in the full release is disappointing and worrying, and I hope it's addressed with something more complete than the total dodge that was given to @Loki when they tried to directly address the issue.

agreed, it feels a tad strange that so many things are moonstones and so few things are pebbles, including profession things that maybe shouldn't be so expensive?

BIG agree !!! don't get me wrong, this game is very lovely to play and its very clear that theres lots of love put into the development in this game. but when i saw those prices it was almost a little disheartening >.>

Seconding everything here. The quiet switch from pebble expansions back to moonstones feels really scummy. I was under the impression as a KS backer pre-beta that the devs' priority for the game was to reduce paywalls while retaining revenue. And I see no issue with big ticket items like custom apparel, patterns, sex changes, and perma puppy items to be moonstone exclusive, since they are highly sought after but didn't heavily negatively impact the experience of the casual player.

But as it currently stands, I have little to no reason outside of den slots and moonstone conversion to use my pebbles. In the long term, I don't see things looking good if there remain so few desirable places to spend pebbles. As a player who can't afford to spend on games often… that means the currency I can attain will also hold less and less conversion value and may eventually become impossible to trade for the currency I need to make meaningful progress. As others have mentioned, a balance of paid vs. free currency is something seriously overlooked in this decision. Both in terms of players in a healthy economy specifically buying paid currency to convert to free currency, and for the casual or low-spending player who will lose interest as monetization becomes more hostile towards them. I really hope the devs are willing to listen and make more player-friendly adjustments to profession upgrades, as well as to implement more pebble sinks.

agreed :( i saw alaunis say in another thread that it should be easy to obtain 3-5 moonstones per day….huh? for a casual player, absolutely not. not for how many shards you need to craft a single moonstone.

features that require moonstones should be limited to cosmetic things such as custom apparel, besprinklers, pose changes…..making the expansion of gameplay elements locked behind moonstones just feels incredibly scummy and makes me so nervous about the direction of a site that i really want to succeed.

Agreed! I was quite taken aback to find expansions were entirely locked behind a paywall. I wonder if this is one of the reasons playing into a very heavy skew towards Moonstones for everything in the Flea Market that did not seem as predominate in Beta and EA?

i was the creator of the post Loki linked, and i backed down in there because i had a long week and didn't want to ruffle feathers. but i agree with everything being said there and here, especially the fact we got NO patch notes on what changes from EA to now, which is…extremely disappointing as well. finding changes that are downgrades from EA are frustrating and makes the game less fun.

as voiced by others, expanding professional inventories is a basic part of gameplay and putting it behind a paywall leaves a bad taste in my mouth. it was not only a shock to see (because we were not informed of what changed), but they're expensive to buy nonetheless.

also for campaigning, in EA the second ‘sword’ areas in each clan used to give food encounters. now they don't, only the first ‘sword’ area has food encounters. where was this announced? but that's a discussion for another topic :')