❄ Gold Cones Need To Stay (and are here to stay), and Here's Why
[ The Grove Argument] ❄

{ Gold cones, a free to play enemies worst enemy and a pay to win players best friend }

Well, not exactly.

  One of the biggest arguments against Gold Cones that I've seen is that they make the game unfair and lock things behind paywalls... well... no, they really don't. Now, I know what you're thinking "But aren't all of those applicators and puppy stages locked behind a paywall? (So are territory slots, but we'll get to that later)" Well, yes, but there's a reason for it.
"What about custom decor?" Yes, but again, with reason.
"Immortal Wolves!" Yes-
"GROVE!" Oh hey, that's the first point on the list.


The grove is a store that is mostly reserved for those who pay to play and offers a variety of additional bonuses such as the wolf customizer, puppy stages, and different applicators and removers that can be used to customize your wolf (Guarana will be discussed later). Many free-to-play players have commented on the difficulty that comes with being able to obtain gold cones to spend in the grove, and due to its difficulty, it's often claimed that the grove provides an unfair advantage to those who pay. However, in regards to this, people don't often consider a few things.


_______________________________________________________


❄ The Grove as a Whole ❄


The Grove is a convenience and costmetic shop.
The grove offers many items that can at first glance seem to give an unfair advantage to those who pay for GC. After all, if you can just buy all of the bases and markings, or customize a wolf to look exactly how you want, doesn't that mean you can circumvent all of the difficulties of the game? Well, no! There are only 2 items in the grove (cosmetically) that can give you anything rare and those are Random marking applicators and Total Shuffle, as these have the chance to give rma exclusive and rare marking to your wolves. But that's really the keyword there. Chance. Though these items give a slim chance for special markings, the entire thing is left to RNG. Even if you are able to purchase these items, there is no guarantee that you will gain anything rare or pretty. In fact, in many instances, RMA's can have the opposite effect! Furthermore, you can obtain 1 RMA every 29 days Via rollover!

As for the other applicators in the grove, while they are pay to win (but not exactly) these are purely convenience items. You can change your wolf's skin, eye, nose, and claw color to a common color. You can remove your wolf's markings, but this is only at the cost of 1gc, something that can be obtained in a day with ease. Well, then there's the marking applicator, but again this only allows for common markings to be added. Base changer? This is the same situation. You only get access to common or "custom" bases. The wolf customizer? You aren't getting any tier 3's or rare markings out of this, and it won't change a wolf's lineage or stats. These are purely for convenience and cosmetics. Anything you can achieve through these can be obtained through breeding. Yes, it takes some time, but as I said before, these items are purely convenient. You pay extra for fast food because it's convenient, just like you do in this situation.

Not to mention you can get better applicators for everything through the events, which are not locked behind any kind of paywall (even with Guarana).


_______________________________________________________

❄ The Guarana Argument ❄


"Guarana are unfair!"

I wouldn't agree.

One of the most common complaints I've heard from people about Guarana is that it gives a completely unfair advantage to those who can afford it because it allows them to instantly refuel a wolf to 100% energy for the wonderful price of 5gc. For exploration, at first glance this seems like the ultimate way to have endless exploring- except it gets expensive very quickly and offers very little results. Let's say you buy 40gc ($20 USD). Every Guarana costs 5gc, which means at most, for every $20 you spend you can buy 8. It takes a little over an hour for 1 full bar of energy to replenish. Assuming you are exploring every day, every hour on the dot, this only makes up for the (average) 8 hours someone is asleep. For most people who are working, taking care of things in their personal lives, etc. They may not even get the chance to spend all of these effectively. Furthermore, even though it gives you more time to explore, it does not greatly increase your chances to obtain items or occurrences and is almost completely not worth it based on how high its price is. For those that are fighting in battles to increase stats, most of their energy will also go to fighting. Spending guarana on this (especially past level 12) yields such little results that nearly no one does this. I like to call guarana the "Impatient Item." You buy it when you're impatient.

Going back to before, let's say you spent $20 a day every day for 8 guarana.
By the end of a 30 day month, you will have spent $600. That's about as much as life insurance per month. And this is solely on guarana. No person in their right mind would spend that much for such a little impact. And if they do, well, I think that's hurting them more than anyone in this game.

_______________________________________________________

❄ Everything Else From The Grove ❄


Lightning Round

IBF: Another impatient item- if used in tandem with elk heart on every heat at most gives you 1-2 extra heats.

Elk Heart: Another Impatient item.

Elk Bundle: No one really needs this, its emergency food (that you can get in tc and in racoon wares)

Sex Changer: Sex majorly influences game mechanics. I can see this being potentially available during an event like the February event on Lioden for event currency to make it more available to the public (or added to the slots game)

Custom Decor Creator: As a custom decor artist, I make more selling my custom decor than buying the decor creator. This is well worth its price and helps to prevent GC inflation (like all of Grove does)

Jellyfish: This can be obtained via the slot machine. I predict this will be removed from the grove in a future update (It had to be in the grove for a while until the slots were added so that people could actually obtain them. Now that slots are there, I'm pretty sure this will become a mega premium item via slots. That's fair game for everyone, boys.).

Puppy Stages: This is completely cosmetic and unnecessary. Also, it's a one time payment.

Feed All/Auto Nesting: Convenience- You don't need these to play the game, they're just nice to have.

❄ Custom Decor ❄

I don't have much to say on the topic of custom decor, but I'll discuss it anyway.

Some people are upset that custom decor requires gold cones to purchase, but putting it simply, this favors everyone- especially free to play players. This, along with grove, immortal slots, and pack expansion, prevents the inflation of GC (and it helps to limit people from buying those pesky guarana!) Also, custom decor is purely aesthetic and there are plenty of decor made by the game developers that have just as much appeal that are attainable without spending any real life money or gold cones. Custom decor is purely optional.

Though I do agree with many people that the game can sometimes make costs for small things like earrings too expensive. So, Here's a link to a post that I think solves this problem perfectly. Here

❄ Immortal Wolves ❄

Once again, I don't have much to say on this topic.

Can it suck that immortal wolf slots must be obtained via gold cones? Sure, I can understand that. But here's a few simple points that I think help to cover for its bad reputation.

1. Too many immortal wolves could cause the servers to overload.
2. Once again, it prevents GC inflation.
3. You are keeping a wolf permanently.
4. I suggest if you're worried about getting a lethal mutie and not having the stuff on hand for it, purchase your lethal stuff in advance. The first thing I did once I got GC was purchase an immortal slot and a Jellyfish. Most people won't get lethal before they can obtain this, and if they do, there is nothing wrong with going onto a wolvden discord or setting up a forum page asking for donations to help. Most people are more willing to donate to the cause rather than let a rare lethal mutie die, even if it won't be theirs.

❄ Premium Currency Has To Say, and It's Okay If It Does ❄

Once of the most upsetting arguments I've seen in regards to premium currency is that it should be removed entirely.

This is the biggest mistake the developers could make.

Two simple reasons why:
It pays for the game.
People have already bought it.

For my first reason, it's fairly simple: You can't get rid of it, because without it this game wouldn't exist. The developers need some form of income in order to support the costs of the website, servers, management labor, coding, and the artists. With a game like this, you only have two options: You have to buy the game to play, or you have to have some form of purchasable in game currency. Of the two, I definitely prefer the latter. The game is completely playable without any of the GC transactions. It is purely a choice of where people want to spend their money. But it's people who are willing to spend their money and can spend money that are keeping the game running at all. These people should at least obtain some perks.

For my second reason: People have already bought it.
If Gold cones are completely removed, what about the people who have already bought them? Refunding them is a near impossibility, and compensating them is difficult. What do you give them? Wouldn't everyone have to agree to it? They can't just give out items from the grove to people who have bought things from the game. Not everyone will want that.

❄ How "Free To Play" Players Obtain GC ❄

From reading this so far, you've probably assumed I'm "pay to win"- well, nope! Actually, I've never spent a dime on this game! I, like many others, don't have the means to purchase GC. That being said, I obtain plenty of GC to purchase my needs and wants without having to spend. Since this is a suggestions post, I won't cover this too much, but here are ways you can obtain GC without having to pay.

1. Sell Art on wolvden (Not everyone can do this, but it's a good way to make money!)
2. Sell writing services (Again, not everyone can do this, but it's a bit more accessible)
3. Create custom decor (You don't necessarily have to be the artist. If you pay an artist to make it, and they agree to let you sell it for profit, you can definitely make good income on this [I make roughly 10-20 gc a day myself])
4. Breed and sell wolves (Anyone can do this)
5. Create and sell craftable decor {Anyone can do this)

❄ Silver Cones Are Too Hard To Get!❄

For silver cones, it is a constant argument that getting silver cones is too difficult, and in some ways I agree. While I do think it's important to make things a challenge in order to keep interest, grinding games can become tiresome fast. The biggest issue I've seen overall is the cost of territory slots.

_______________________________________________________

❄ Territory Slots Take All of My SC! ❄

Every day players are able to obtain 100sc from quests and 100sc from fishing for a total of 200sc. While there are other methods of obtaining sc such as exploring (capped at 5000sc), the daily raffle, slots, and enclave, these methods are unstable and offer varying amounts of gc, thus they will be overlooked for this portion. Furthermore, I will not be including wolf sales as every player earns varying amounts. This is the baseline for slots.

It takes approximately 28 days to obtain the full required currency for territory slots up until GC from fishing and Quests alone. This isn't including rollover, slots, raffle, enclave, exploring, and trading sales. In the grand scheme of things, this really isn't that long. But, I understand the frustration. Especially once we get to GC slots which cost 15,400sc (with a rate of 1gc=350sc) total, which take approximately 2 and a half months to obtain on fishing and quests alone. In total, it would take you around 3 and a half months to obtain a full 200 wolf slots without spending any currency on any other thing.

Though I can understand this, as it prevents servers from being overloaded, I think one way that is beneficial to fix this is through a suggestion made by @Derpy [Puppy Landfill]#6646 on this thread ----> Here
In short, the idea is that rather than paying for slots, we complete quests for slots. I personally love this idea as it differentiates from the battling of Lioden while allowing SC to go towards other uses. That being said, in order to prevent the server from being overloaded with wolves, I think keeping slots past slot 51 as being paid in GC would be best. It lowers the costs substantially, and while it makes these slots more of a "premium" privilege, they're still not impossible to obtain. This also allows the game to have goals to strive for. Additionally, a pack of 50 is already difficult to manage so it will discourage players from upgrading too soon and potentially losing hard-earned wolves due to neglect.


_______________________________________________________



❄ Additional Changes to Improve the gain of SC ❄

Lightning Round

The reward for quests could be upgraded to 200sc per day to help players earn a bit more on their daily tasks.

Achievements could give an sc reward for accomplishing them with the sc reward being equivalent to the difficulty of the Achievement. This also provides more purpose for achievements other than just "Oh, I did this"

❄ Give The Economy Time To Stabilize ❄

"The economy is in shambles'" - Every Wolvden Player right now.

And, they're really not wrong.

Even I can't argue this one, right now the Wolvden economy is a bit of a mess. It's hard for people to settle on pricing for anything and with sc being difficult to attain, Wolvden is undergoing a little bit of a great depression in its own right.

However! Fear not fellow players, this isn't for long.

This biggest error many of us make when looking at the Wolvden economy is that we are quick to compare Wolvden's economy to Lioden's economy- the issue with this is that Wolvden has been around for 1 year and is still in the process of adding its major features, meanwhile Lioden has been around for many years and has most if not all of its major features.

Simply put: Wolvden has some growing to do before it can walk.

Wolvden is in its infancy and with events coming in the upcoming months and new features being added almost weekly. These features could not only add more opportunities for SC, but also create a more stable economy.

❄ Additional Suggestions and Absolute Rejections ❄

❄ Additional Suggestions ❄

1. Adding $5 and $10 options for GC in order to make it more accessible to those who can only shell out a little at a time. At least then it would be a bit easier and it would allow the game to receive more funding.

2. This is a suggestion made by @🌠 Ꮗ𝘺𝘳𝘥𝘸𝘶𝘭𝘧 🌌#27999 linked here ----> Here
This suggestion was just too cool not to ignore! Plus, if any GC costs were removed from slots or otherwise, this could help compensate for the sake of circulation.

_______________________________________________________

❄ Absolute Rejections ❄

Note: This section isn't to offend anyone who may have suggested these things. Everyone is valid in how they feel and the title of this segment was purely for the flow of the section's title <3

Right now the only thing that I believe shouldn't be added is a fixed rate of GC to SC set by the development team. My reasoning is as follows:

If you don't allow a market to shift in value, you end up with inflation and deflation. Now, a little bit of inflation is normal- this just means the value of money as a whole is rising. That being said, major inflation could cause GC to become undervalued leading to a lack of purchases. Remember, GC purchases are the singular thing that keeps this game online. Without the revenue from it, affording the servers alone (not including the coders and artists involved) would become too overpriced too fast.

Furthermore, by setting a singular solid rate for gold cones, you run into a MAJOR issue:

The amount of GC in circulation changes drastically every single day/month/year.

The amount of GC available in the game depends on two things:
1. How much people buy
2. How much and where people spend it

Let's say you set the price of conversion to 1GC=100SC and only one person buys a 40 pack of GC

This 40 pack is the only GC in the game, thus making its demand extremely high. This 40 GC would go for 4000sc.

However, the user only sells 20 of that GC for SC, instead using the other 20gc to buy grove items. That 20gc now no longer exists in the game's circulation.

Now you only have 20gc remaining in all of wolvden, however, despite its now high demand and value, it is still only 1gc=100sc.

This automatically decreases the value of the GC as a whole- why would someone pay real-life money for currency that can easily be obtained by playing the game?  If they can achieve the same results just by earning sc, they wouldn't buy the gc.

The game needs to have a constant supply and demand for a healthy economy. Setting a fixed rate for the prices would limit user autonomy, lower the value of currency, crash the mark, and eventually, it could even lead to the game being shut down if disinterest in GC grew to that extent.

❄ The TL; DR and Overview of Suggestions ❄

Because let's face it, i'm the only one who's really reading all of this.

❄ The TL;DR ❄

The wolvden economy may be in shambles for now, but give it a few months and it'll mostly sort itself out. SC is hard to obtain, but there are methods of obtaining it. GC shouldn't be removed because 1. It funds the game, 2. People have already bought it, 3. It doesn't impact the game that much, 4. Anyone can get it, it just depends on your method and how much you want to work. A fixed rate shouldn't be added for GC to SC or else the value of GC will drop and become over all useless as its amount in circulation is not at a fixed number but a fluctuating number.

❄ Overview of Suggestions ❄
Because the Devs don't need to read a rant

1. My preferred method of fixing the tax on Custom Decor: Here

2. Potentially adding Sex Changers to the Slots Game

3.  @Derpy [Puppy Landfill]#6646 on this thread ----> Here
In short, the idea is that rather than paying for slots, we complete quests for slots. I personally love this idea as it differentiates from the battling of Lioden while allowing SC to go towards other uses. That being said, in order to prevent the server from being overloaded with wolves, I think keeping slots past slot 51 as being paid in GC would be best. It lowers the costs substantially, and while it makes these slots more of a "premium" privilege, they're still not impossible to obtain. This also allows the game to have goals to strive for. Additionally, a pack of 50 is already difficult to manage so it will discourage players from upgrading too soon and potentially losing hard-earned wolves due to neglect.


4. The reward for quests could be upgraded to 200sc per day to help players earn a bit more on their daily tasks.

5. Achievements could give an sc reward for accomplishing them with the sc reward being equivalent to the difficulty of the Achievement. This also provides more purpose for achievements other than just "Oh, I did this"

6. Adding $5 and $10 options for GC in order to make it more accessible to those who can only shell out a little at a time. At least then it would be a bit easier and it would allow the game to receive more funding.

7. This is a suggestion made by @🌠 Ꮗ𝘺𝘳𝘥𝘸𝘶𝘭𝘧 🌌#27999 linked here ----> Here
This suggestion was just too cool not to ignore! Plus, if any GC costs were removed from slots or otherwise, this could help compensate for the sake of circulation.