Hey, ive been playing her for probably about a week, and i thought id put my two cents in. I think having been someone who plays pet sites regularly, I have the right to point out that as it stands, Lorwolf's balancing and gameplay issues sometimes discourage me to even play.

first, Moonstones and Pebbles. It was already alarming that, right upon checking out a new game, I had merch flashed in my face. Then, upon playing the game, finding that the premium currency is basically the only currency with how useless pebbles have become. I should not have to buy things to progress or enjoy myself on a pet site, and I'm not fond of how ive been told such things as “its only 99 cents for 10!” when stating this. This not only causes a serious rift between p2p and f2p players, but for casual players like myself, can make the game almost annoying.

second, wild wolves. This is the hot debate right now, and I absolutely agree with why. Not only were WW encounters already so rare, now theyre RARER, and harder to farm with food nerfs. Not to mention the 100 knucklebones pricetag.. why would you make the token price so steep, but the encounters even rarer and harder to find? what is the gameplay benefit? if anything, this makes me not even want a wild wolf, its become such a hassle. this doesnt feel like a balancing update, this feels like a worsening update, and is sure to drive many from the site.

third, lack of a real gameplay loop. usually in a game, recurring gameplay such as mining, farming, cooking, etc comes with a reason to want to level up your skills, usually because they will become easier. in lorwolf, this isn't present. sure, if you level cooking you get more recipes and speed, but whats the point of leveling up things like mining if all it does is take longer to get to a location, but still get.. copper? same with fishing and hunting. why would i fish if the later fishing levels have uncookable fish, and why would i hunt when later levels start demanding so much from me for not great rewards.

all in all, i feel like this game came out of the oven raw. i was someone who had no idea about lorwolf until it launched, and this isnt great first impressions. The game is grindy with no real reason to grind, wild wolves have become so rare that theyre too much a hassle to even try for, and the game is demanding money from me at every turn. it needs serious improvements, and i hope it does get these improvements, because despite it all i can see potential.

@WeirdScience the devs have updated the Wild Wolf encounter thing so that the encounter is back to its original appearance rate and only 50 tokens are needed. definitely a lot better. still not ideal, but definitely better.

I agree with the point about moonstones. slot unlocks on anything should only ever cost pebbles and I will stand by that.

I am glad staff took player feedback concerning WW into account and I appreciate + thank them for being open to change with that (though I still do have some issues with it tbh). I agree with you, however, that the moonstone to pebbles rate is quite worrying, especially considering that during beta, the expansions were changed to pebbles, which worked well from what I remember. I do really like this site but I'm worried about longevity concerning the moonstone to pebbles rate and expanding/progressing being locked behind premium currency.

I've not been here quite a week yet, and I'm not hugely knowledgeable on game play and pet sites and all that, but I'd like to echo the moonstone/pebbles issue for sure. I'm a person who when I have the funds I don't mind to spend for games I enjoy, and its probably a good thing for my impulsivity (mental health conditions AMIRITE) that I'm currently unemployed. I agree that too much on this site is locked behind a paywall at this point. It feels like so many people are stagnant because they can't afford to spend pebbles on MS for upgrades, and its a possibility that those seeking more pebbles by selling MS are stagnant as well because it takes quite a while to grind out enough pebbles just to afford 10 MS. It's incredibly discouraging to even bother because 10 MS is only really enough to buy a new den or some undesirable wolf pups for 1 or 2 MS (that you may not even have the space for to begin with because you can't afford the new den, and +1,000 pebbles for a new SLOT every time feels like manipulation to cough up the $$$$$ D:) I hope that things are able to be balanced better very soon so that players don't feel like they're being robbed but the devs still get fairly compensated for their hard work at their jobs. I like it here overall, it seems like it has great potential in my opinion.

All I want to say is what I learnt from other pet sites like this. Premium currency should be only usable to change for site currency. Everything on the site (except FEW exclusive things like SOME items, breed change scrolls etc.) should be for pebbles. Pebbles chould be bread and butter of this site. We, as players, should be encourage to farm pebbles and buy Moonstones only if we have some money to spare and no time or will to farm pebbles. This is the most healthy pet site economy.
At this time pebbles are worthless and day by day I see how Moonstones to Pebbles exchange prize only rising in crazy speed.
If devs don't stop this, if they don't make pebbles worth farming and exchenging Moonstones for them this site will become Pay 2 Win and most players will leave because there are many other options with good economy to choose. Flight Rising, Goatlings or Chicken Smoothie for example.

I agree with the pebbles/moonstones point. It's extremely discouraging to see that everything worth getting is available only through a premium currency--and it's pretty unavoidable. There are limited apparel options available for purchase for pebbles and expansions in the professions are premium-locked. I enjoy that you can craft moonstones through shards found via professions and exploration; however getting enough necessitates a lot of grinding that honestly? Not everyone has the time for or should have to have the time for to succeed.

Additionally, I feel that it misses the mark to have the site at PG-13 and encourage things to be child-friendly while also having such a p2p geared system in place. I think it creates problems in onboarding members who are minors. If the goal is to have a site that people of many different ages and playstyles can enjoy, then tying in premium gates to every single aspect of gameplay is maybe not the best practice.

I feel that expanding on what can be done with pebbles (allowing expansions to the mine cart for pebbles up to a certain point, more stock available in the shop for pebbles, etc) would even things out a bit more. There's a lot of genuinely good concept work and worldbuilding at play on the site, so I would very much like to see it achieve longevity.

Sadly despite being assured this would be addressed in the June Dev Update, that did not happen.

@Coop7011 I think they tried to address it somewhat, because one of the first items on the artist list in the dev roadmap was mentioning more Pebble items would be added throughout June and July. I hope this will help to correct the pebble:ms ratio which is swiftly becoming absurd. However, I am also disappointed that nothing was said to address players’ concerns that locking profession progression behind MS made the game feel pay to win, as well as other complaints that the game felt pay to win in other aspects. Staff did mention that their first item of priority on the dev roadmap was to implement community suggestions here, so I can only hope one of the suggestions to implement is economy balancing....

@Rebel

Yeah my concern with the roadmap is the image was talking about achievements and stuff? I dunno, it just doesn't feel concrete enough to ease ANY of my worries and if anything I'm just more concerned and admittedly feel a bit deceived considering we were told that this would specifically be addressed. Adding a few more pebble companions and apparel won't solve the overarching issue.

I think they considered the achievements awarding moonstones to be a form of addressing it. I guess we'll have to see how that works out, because if it is balanced correctly, it could actually help a lot. I still don't think these upgrades should cost MS to begin with, but it'll at least help.

If that's the case, I wish they'd say it? Cause right now it just feels like we got ignored and distracted by 'oooo shiny!'