Is Wolvden Pay-To-Win?

Is Wolvden Pay-To-Win?
Posted 2021-11-27 06:25:31 (edited) #570069 Hello all, and happy black Friday weekend! Zea here. You might recognize me from the stats leaderboard or from my pride and joy lead wolf, Advesperascit. He is a fox base private line G2 melanistic with 10 rare marks (either combo colors or RMA exclusive shapes), all event features (eyes, skin, nose, claws), and at time of posting, 2,156 stats. You might take a look at him and wonder - Wow. How much IRL money did I spend on that??? The answer is: NONE. Not a single cent of real life cash was spent on making Advesperascit the way he is. How is that possible? The answer is slowly but surely; by saving the GC I had earned, and being extremely stingy about spending it. I have been playing pretty regularly for over a year. Before Advesperascit I didn't do much of note. I am not a good artist who can make GC with custom decor sales or commissions. I didn't cash in on the T3 introduction, mass breed, or have an early high value or popular stud; Advesperascit is my first T3 stud. I rarely do TC flipping (buying items cheaply and selling them higher) or currency exchange. What I did do was have a small pack, concentrate on stats, play on and off throughout the day, send 25+ hunts out daily, and sell the assets I had earned to other players. I went through my currency log and manually counted all the GC I had earned before Advesperascit was made stud on 26 August. The results are below. Remember, this was before Advesperascit was my stud, so he had not earned a single GC in this total. You probably know this already, but GC that enters the game has to be bought at one point by purchasing it from the grove for real currency (with the small exception of contests and raffles held by site admins). Then it can be freely traded among users. So I made all of my GC by selling the listed items on the trade center to other players. As the graph shows, I made the majority of it by selling amusement items I got through explore and rescounting, and food from having high stat hunters and sending out almost all of their hunts daily. I was able to have so much extra because I had a small pack and rarely bred my wolves. Only wolves that could fill a role (scout, hunter, herbalist) stayed in my pack - if I needed pupsitters I befriended NBWs that I didn't feed and had them pupsit until they ran away, then I befriended more. I basically just went hunting, exploring, and fishing, and spent a rather tedious amount of time each night creating trades in the TC. I was actually surprised at how much GC I made selling pups; I didn't think it was that much. However, I had the highest stat female for quite a while, and the last litters of my high-stat hunters sold pretty well. So while I didn't sell many wolves, the ones I did were high value. My studs also were high stat hunters or had generally decent stats and unpopular lineages, so they provided a small but steady trickle of income. While I made a bit by selling NBWs, I also don't have much luck in finding chased NBWs. Throughout the data collection time, I had not found a single chased T3. (since then I have found one fox that I gave away, and one pyrope that I found, purchased a pairbond for, trained them, then sold both of them for a small profit when my plans changed). All of the NBW GC I made was through selling T2s or generally unremarkable chaseds with a few special marks for no more than 10 GC each. With all the GC I earned, you are probably wondering how much it took to make Advesperascit happen. I counted up all that as well: This should give you an idea of what you might need to create your own G2 stat monster. Keep in mind that I trained his parents for about 4 months prior, and got lucky that they had a melanistic wolf on their last litter (which I used a white sage on). I also purchased a lot of the fox parts a while ago when they were much more valuable. However, no matter how much GC you spend, it still takes quite a lot of time to grind a lead's stats up. Even guarana is marginally helpful; I averaged about 0.5 stats per guarana used, so it can get a little disheartening. These figures were also from before he was made stud; I have subsequently spent a lot more on guarana. But to get high stats, the most important thing you need is consistency (and to win battles in explore). If you are interested, I tracked his stats here. Now, it's unrealistic to think all I spent GC on was Advesperascit, so here's where all my earned GC went: The "Feature Changer" category are things like skin and eye changers, while the "breeding" category is breeding items like elk hearts and sages. I am very stingy in real life and this carried over to Wolvden. I am very careful about what I spend GC on, because I treat it as investments that I could use to make more GC down the line. Most of the "Wolves" category are Advesperascit's parents, but the others are high stat pups unrelated to mine that I trained and pairbonded. I only used RMA's on my studs or base changers on hunter pairbonds so they would be more likely to make T2 pups, which I could sell for more. I very rarely splurged on decor or IPDs (instant pup deliveries) unless it was a very valuable female and I could get another litter out of her if I did so. So that's how I was able to make a popular leaderboard stud without spending any real money. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So is Wolvden pay to win? Hopefully I convinced you that the answer is no, not necessarily. Did I "win" wolvden? I don't think there is an answer for that. There are no true goals in this game. I accomplished what I wanted to do, so maybe? But I will die on the hill that there is no "correct" way to play, and the only "incorrect" way to play is if you aren't having fun or getting satisfaction from it. So am I having fun? Well. That's debatable. I'm pretty burnt out, ngl. I am definitely going to take a break after this, and I am not going to try so hard with my next lead or stud ~~if i come back at all~~. The fun and interesting thing about Wolvden is that people can play however they want. This is simply how I choose to play the game. If your goal is to breed pretty wolves, I am doing quite a bad job of it. If you don't care about stats, my wolves are worth much less. If you choose to buy GC, that's great! You are supporting the site and keeping the game free for others. If you choose not to buy GC, or if you can't buy GC, that's fine too! You can still accomplish a lot, as I have hopefully demonstrated, but it will take a lot more time and effort. This post was made mainly to encourage people to go for their goals and not get discouraged before they even start. There will always be people who are able to invest more time and money into any hobby and do better than a regular person, so it's important to be realistic about what you can do and not compare yourself too harshly to other people. I also wanted to try and reverse the stigma around discussing how much GC you have or don't have. It seems in this discussion no one can win; if you don't have much you get blamed for begging, but if you have too much people accuse you of bragging. I am trying to stray away from that and present this as an example of what you can do through gameplay only, without being obscenely lucky or rich.	Zea #27549

Posted 2021-11-27 06:25:31 (edited)

#570069

Hello all, and happy black Friday weekend!

Zea here. You might recognize me from the stats leaderboard or from my pride and joy lead wolf, Advesperascit. He is a fox base private line G2 melanistic with 10 rare marks (either combo colors or RMA exclusive shapes), all event features (eyes, skin, nose, claws), and at time of posting, 2,156 stats. You might take a look at him and wonder - Wow. How much IRL money did I spend on that???

The answer is: NONE. Not a single cent of real life cash was spent on making Advesperascit the way he is.

How is that possible? The answer is slowly but surely; by saving the GC I had earned, and being extremely stingy about spending it.

I have been playing pretty regularly for over a year. Before Advesperascit I didn't do much of note. I am not a good artist who can make GC with custom decor sales or commissions. I didn't cash in on the T3 introduction, mass breed, or have an early high value or popular stud; Advesperascit is my first T3 stud. I rarely do TC flipping (buying items cheaply and selling them higher) or currency exchange. What I did do was have a small pack, concentrate on stats, play on and off throughout the day, send 25+ hunts out daily, and sell the assets I had earned to other players.

I went through my currency log and manually counted all the GC I had earned before Advesperascit was made stud on 26 August. The results are below.

Remember, this was before Advesperascit was my stud, so he had not earned a single GC in this total.

You probably know this already, but GC that enters the game has to be bought at one point by purchasing it from the grove for real currency (with the small exception of contests and raffles held by site admins). Then it can be freely traded among users. So I made all of my GC by selling the listed items on the trade center to other players.

As the graph shows, I made the majority of it by selling amusement items I got through explore and rescounting, and food from having high stat hunters and sending out almost all of their hunts daily. I was able to have so much extra because I had a small pack and rarely bred my wolves. Only wolves that could fill a role (scout, hunter, herbalist) stayed in my pack - if I needed pupsitters I befriended NBWs that I didn't feed and had them pupsit until they ran away, then I befriended more. I basically just went hunting, exploring, and fishing, and spent a rather tedious amount of time each night creating trades in the TC.

I was actually surprised at how much GC I made selling pups; I didn't think it was that much. However, I had the highest stat female for quite a while, and the last litters of my high-stat hunters sold pretty well. So while I didn't sell many wolves, the ones I did were high value. My studs also were high stat hunters or had generally decent stats and unpopular lineages, so they provided a small but steady trickle of income.

While I made a bit by selling NBWs, I also don't have much luck in finding chased NBWs. Throughout the data collection time, I had not found a single chased T3. (since then I have found one fox that I gave away, and one pyrope that I found, purchased a pairbond for, trained them, then sold both of them for a small profit when my plans changed). All of the NBW GC I made was through selling T2s or generally unremarkable chaseds with a few special marks for no more than 10 GC each.

With all the GC I earned, you are probably wondering how much it took to make Advesperascit happen. I counted up all that as well:

This should give you an idea of what you might need to create your own G2 stat monster. Keep in mind that I trained his parents for about 4 months prior, and got lucky that they had a melanistic wolf on their last litter (which I used a white sage on). I also purchased a lot of the fox parts a while ago when they were much more valuable.

However, no matter how much GC you spend, it still takes quite a lot of time to grind a lead's stats up. Even guarana is marginally helpful; I averaged about 0.5 stats per guarana used, so it can get a little disheartening. These figures were also from before he was made stud; I have subsequently spent a lot more on guarana. But to get high stats, the most important thing you need is consistency (and to win battles in explore). If you are interested, I tracked his stats here.

Now, it's unrealistic to think all I spent GC on was Advesperascit, so here's where all my earned GC went:

The "Feature Changer" category are things like skin and eye changers, while the "breeding" category is breeding items like elk hearts and sages.

I am very stingy in real life and this carried over to Wolvden. I am very careful about what I spend GC on, because I treat it as investments that I could use to make more GC down the line. Most of the "Wolves" category are Advesperascit's parents, but the others are high stat pups unrelated to mine that I trained and pairbonded. I only used RMA's on my studs or base changers on hunter pairbonds so they would be more likely to make T2 pups, which I could sell for more. I very rarely splurged on decor or IPDs (instant pup deliveries) unless it was a very valuable female and I could get another litter out of her if I did so.

So that's how I was able to make a popular leaderboard stud without spending any real money.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So is Wolvden pay to win? Hopefully I convinced you that the answer is no, not necessarily. Did I "win" wolvden? I don't think there is an answer for that. There are no true goals in this game. I accomplished what I wanted to do, so maybe? But I will die on the hill that there is no "correct" way to play, and the only "incorrect" way to play is if you aren't having fun or getting satisfaction from it. So am I having fun? Well. That's debatable. I'm pretty burnt out, ngl. I am definitely going to take a break after this, and I am not going to try so hard with my next lead or stud ~~if i come back at all~~.

The fun and interesting thing about Wolvden is that people can play however they want. This is simply how I choose to play the game. If your goal is to breed pretty wolves, I am doing quite a bad job of it. If you don't care about stats, my wolves are worth much less.

If you choose to buy GC, that's great! You are supporting the site and keeping the game free for others. If you choose not to buy GC, or if you can't buy GC, that's fine too! You can still accomplish a lot, as I have hopefully demonstrated, but it will take a lot more time and effort.

This post was made mainly to encourage people to go for their goals and not get discouraged before they even start. There will always be people who are able to invest more time and money into any hobby and do better than a regular person, so it's important to be realistic about what you can do and not compare yourself too harshly to other people.

I also wanted to try and reverse the stigma around discussing how much GC you have or don't have. It seems in this discussion no one can win; if you don't have much you get blamed for begging, but if you have too much people accuse you of bragging. I am trying to stray away from that and present this as an example of what you can do through gameplay only, without being obscenely lucky or rich.

Zea
#27549

Posted 2021-11-27 06:31:39

#570070

This is really interesting, thank you!

Iona
#22199

Posted 2021-11-27 07:26:51

#570081

Hey Web. As another leaderboards player with a record breaking wolf I'd also like to chip in.

I was the owner of Khatvana, the NBW realgar who broke the record for highest ever stat NBW (before DreamWalker came along). She still holds her record for highest ever NBW str. At death, her stat total was 1360 and her str was 550. Her stats when she was originally found were 200, which is on the far lower end of what a chased NBW can roll. I did not have her as a lead wolf until fairly late into her life, and had to use a very large amount of Guarana to get her past her original guarana-less target of 1200 to the much harder 1300. I had a similar Guarana to stat ratio as Websteak reports.

I did not buy any GC to do this.

I was an early access player; I did buy a small early access package originally
This included, I think, maybe around 50gc. I spent 10 of it on FAPA, 30 on customising a wolf, and the rest on who knows what. That is the only paid GC I ever received.

Unlike Websteak, I do have custom decor providing a small but steady income, which has helped me a great deal. I also found some t3 NBWs, a few of which I sold for profit. This profit was almost entirely used to buy t3 NBWs for breeding projects, which are still ongoing now. Generating enough income to fuel Khatvana's growth was much harder, and I was struggling towards the end of her life. Like Websteak, I got a great deal of income by selling amusement and food for GC, and this was one of the largest sources of my income. I also made a good amount of GC from Khatvana's stud requests in her final weeks.

In all, while I've had a few more income sources than Web, I have still managed to do the following on wolvden without spending any real money on GC:
Buy Khatvana, and raise her to record breaking proportions.
Buy Anhacari, a G1 pyrope, and raise her to leaderboards.
Buy four other warm dark 3 NBWs, now in breeding projects: Koramiza, Mizava, Ibrevisa, and Agilata.
Pay other users in GC to train wolves for me or to grind their stats, so I can raise more good breeding wolves by proxy than can be done with my own daily hunts and scouting.
Spend GC relatively frivolously on custom decors and grove items to decorate wolves or work towards breeding projects.

I've had more luck in some areas than Web to be sure, and custom decor for income, but I'm also free to play. I have not needed to buy GC to get where I am in the game. I play the game enough to do around 23 hunts daily, if that's a good measure for anyone.

Spontaneite
#2993

Posted 2021-11-27 07:35:40

#570082

This is such a good post. Thank you for that :]

Dunewind
#6985

Posted 2021-11-27 09:08:26 (edited)

#570108

This is very well worded and I appreciate all the statistics

I'd like to add my two cents and agreement that wolvden is not pay to win-

I've been playing for a handful of Months. In that time I have bought gc but I'm no big spender- I may have bought a 10$ bundle once or twice or so to spend on custom decor or blow on rma's

But for the majority of my play all my currency is self earned. Like Web most of my gc comes from selling items (amusement and fox/wolf trophies are my most often sellers)

I sell all my pups, even the high gen fodder, if they don't sell i enclave or chase when they start to starve. I've found that if you have a bit of patience most pups will sell for 30-60sc, not much of a difference from 15-20sc fodder prices but it does add up. (And as an added benefit you may find more of your pups find homes than become enclave fodder)

Also events are extremely good for making money or just generally improving your own wolves. My current stud was actually one of my starter wolves- a boring caramel guy with red dorsal and white bottoms. I spent a lot of event grinding and earned currency rma'ing him and applying marks and losna base. He's one of my most prized wolves now- and maxes out his stud slots pretty reliably- which is another nice source of extra income

paying to win is not necessary to achieve your goals so long as you're prepared to actually work on earning currency in other ways. Of course there is still nothing wrong with buying currency and it's a great way to support the site and fancy up your own wolves, but tbh overall I don't believe that buying currency really puts you all that ahead

Even if you could buy all the gc you wanted an expensive wolf won't necessarily pay for itself every time. You'd still have to put in the work- whether through stud ads or what have you- otherwise you just have a pretty wolf that you spent money on

Tl;dr buying currency is not a necessity and even if you did it's not really a "win" since playstyles vary so much the very definition of winning is hard to pin down in this context. Make goals, spend time doing sells, and love your wolves

🔮 Divineclaws 🔮
#47465

Posted 2021-11-27 15:56:21 (edited)

#570385

Greetings, Steak. From your speech and my experience, it looks like grinding might be an alternative to paying which makes us easier achieve our goals. Though even if I was active just several hours daily, I think I'd be able to earn thousands of GC in months.

My main source of income is asset flipping in the TC: putting LF trades for items/currency offering less than I'm willing to sell. I've always considered no taxing system to be absurd - since the beginning I've been feeling I could literally sell all my items then just buy them for the same price or even less when I needed. On the third day of my gameplay I thought "Why do I need herbs if my wolves can't get sick yet? Gotta sell them for 40-60 SC each. If I ever need them, I can buy for the same price and exactly as many as I need." This was just pledging: I thought TC was my third storage (hoard was first, burial was second) that simply gave me currency for storing items. I could simply take them out of there when I had brought the savings.

On the 3rd day, I got my first 2 GC - premium cones which were created by somewolf paying real money - so shiny and in my paws! Even though it was difficult to part with them, I sold it for 80 SC and higher so I could buy another one for 70 SC. And this is how I started generating profit from my first premium cones. I was like "What's the point of burying cones if I can store all of them in the TC? I can always withdraw them from there whenever I need and I earn interest if I keep storing!"

On the 10th day, I got attracted into MoscoMoon's thread where the highest stat pups were being auctioned. I bought not 1 but 2 of the 3 wolves for 116 GC in total. That was a decent amount of currency but I still had some to flip and I started stat breeding.

After 6 weeks, as soon as I got 1000 GC in my pockets, I didn't feel the purpose of spending cones so I stopped thinking about how to maximize profit and started experimenting with the TC. In spite of popular belief that GC value would increase over time, I tried to drop the value by creating 1000 underpriced trades offering 1 GC each. This attempt didn't work as great as I thought because there were several users who bought out majority of these trades to re-sell for normal prices.

That experiment wasn't a great idea also because after another week, a fox base was released and we started being able to own T3s. I had around 1250 GC worth of currency (when I could've had more) when I felt the purpose to invest it to craft the fox base applicator. The fox race had begun. I was hunting for affordable trades offering fox materials while actively currency flipping. The circumstances weren't encouraging: some competitors got materials by offering refunded breedings to future fox studs. Somewolf offered 2000 GC just for the recipe! Pay-to-win, free-to-play - who would win? On the 2nd day of fox release, the first fox base applicator was used and there was a stud. The first app was crafted, and by that time I had bought a skull, most of canine claws and fangs but not a single pelt, tail or recipe. I felt so grieved and so discouraged but I didn't give up. Even though I couldn't have the first fox, it would be a great achievement to have one and as prices for materials drastically dropped, I had a chance if I kept trying, and I did. On the 3rd day of fox release, I learnt the recipe. I kept offering more and more as I earned from currency flipping until I got my first tail, my first pelt - and kept going. On the 12th day, I had all the materials, a few of them dropped from foxes, almost all of them purchased with my own cones. I paid 1594 GC and 16750 SC for all of them (GC was worth ~65 SC at that time). I had some spare cones to buy background and decors.

It was Saturday. I had the fox base app crafted. Item Catalogue hit a positive count specifically for this item I owned. I wondered about applying it on Toshiro's descendant Goliath since I had been stat breeding him. I thought it could be a great income for all the costs I had taken. Not the first but the greatest fox - yes... but... I didn't care about maximizing my income from studding. I was currency flipping and it was my main source of income - I didn't need anything else. I didn't need the No. 1 fox of anything. This is when I decided that my first fox would be the starter wolf - Sango. I didn't consider him more profitable choice, but he was funnier because he was so hated. So why wouldn't I make him a fox that others would love? Sango - the fox of love and hate - perfect!

Sango was my first stud and I had no experience in handling stud requests. I set a competitive price of 20 GC (according to stud prices of other foxes related to stats). Within the last 2 days of the week I got swarmed with requests. Sango studded to 29 females from other packs, I could get the 30th if I hadn't procrastinated. I exhausted all 30 studding slots for the next 7 weeks, charging 20 GC per request and 15 GC after 3 weeks. It usually took 3-5 days per week. Traditional studdings weren't as effective. In the remaining weeks, even though I was getting less requests, I still had a decent amount that I had to purchase slot refreshing. At some point I tried to mess up with pup lineages and temporarily named my stud with default name: New Befriended Wolf. It was inspired from Faelor changing his name to Dick. I thought it'd discourage players to send stud requests due to ugly and confusing name but it was the opposite - I got requests quicker and more frequently and I was surprised. From what I could count, disregarding traditional breedings (there were really few of them), I earned 102605 SC and 5110 GC.

Officially, Sango always costed 15-20 GC per stud request and SC was adjusted according to currency conversion rate. As long as asset flipping was my main source of income, I didn't care that much about income from other sources including studding. The reason why I didn't underprice studding was because I respected competitive foxes and their efforts and I didn't want to ruin their businesses. Another reason why I held a decent price was to discourage breeding fodder. I understood that players sending stud requests paying seriously came with a serious intention to keep some Sango pups and they were more likely to be sold or studding for serious prices. Sango was the highest stat G1 fox after all and I consider him the best long-term stud in the game. Maybe he wasn't the most popular wolf in the game (I must admit his pup counter was inflated and 1/3 of his pups came from my pack of female NBWs that I tried selling) but at least he didn't owe anything to anywolf - no obligations in terms of refunded breedings - he was an independent stud, being sometimes able to fall off the radar as "non-popular" stud. He took 84 guarana throughout his life. And one last thing I had done before Sango died was changing his base to default one he had before (later I realized his original base was marengo, not gray, ahhhh), just so he doesn't die like other foxes - I like surprising.

Sango's daughter, Gabre, was the next fox lead. I didn't plan on getting another stud because I didn't feel I could get as successful one as Sango. Gabre started having taken 50 guarana for scouting missions - she didn't take any guarana since she became the lead. She reached leaderboard fairly quickly. I didn't care about taking first places but I liked boosting stats because this was the only aspect in the game that couldn't be bought so I fought enemies never letting the energy bar be depleted as long as I was active. Anyway, somehow for awkward reasons Gabre ended up in the first place. She bred the highest stat NIB pups such as the best G3s or the first 700+ stat pups (without pup/adol training) including foxes. Maybe she wasn't as profitable as her father but at least selling her pups I earned 24987 SC, 1673 GC in raw currency and some items such as event base apps, white sage from these I remember. I retired her before she reached 2000 stat points because I like surprising as mentioned before and I wanted to give others a chance to be the first in something, Gabre had already achieved a lot along with her pups.

All I've been doing with the main intention of profit was asset flipping - I've been offering the highest amount of SC among trades offering SC and the lowest GC price among trades selling GC. For items, I was offering the most among LF trades and selling for the least among sales. And this is my most reliable profit in Wolvden. Every other kind of profit is just extra - studding, pup selling, daily activities (fishing, questing, etc.) If I charge, there might be another reason behind it. I don't deplete currencies for RMAs or guarana but I spend them in other ways that I might consider fun, such as casually studding (despite demanding price) to roleplay, throwing out raffles without profiting (losing 746 GC to get 107800 SC then losing 907550 SC to get 719 GC?), getting into a trading brawl just because there are 3 players bidding for rare wolf/item.

I mentioned in the beginning that grinding helps in achieving goals. What I mainly meant is that if I was active just an hour daily or so, I'd be most likely unable to compete for stats that requires a lot of playing. However, I would still be able to get a lot of profit because it doesn't take long to create enough trades for a day knowing hotkeys, although it wouldn't be that much, especially that there would be less advertising.

Edit:// Forgot to add that despite setting demanding prices for Gabre pups I haven't sold any T3 chased wolves I've befriended even though they've been quite valuable. Instead, I gifted them to random players who might or might not be particularly interested in that T3. I usually wanted to give Gabre pups to somewolf who might have great plans with them. Those who could afford high prices of Gabre pups most likely could afford further investments into them that would be no smaller. Regarding chased T3 wolves I didn't care about their fate. They could be re-sold, fodder, chased, whatever.

Dżanek
#24018

Is Wolvden Pay-To-Win?

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