I'm kind of in waterline. I totally understand the need to balance the economy however, as stated above, the item limit for some items seems actually vreck the game. Building is what interests everyone and having limited stocks helps to keep items value true but items like food and vermillion... Maybe I'm pessimist but with some years on the belt, I just see so many ways things can slowly start to slip to the setting where no alternative ways of playing are gamewise rewarding.

I mentioned two exceptions, I see a bit problematic with the recouse limits. At least, with the limit of 999 units at time. Perhaps, if the limit was much higher. But to the arguments: as stated above seems like most players hoard vermillion to use it more at once. It has also been the one item which has kept it's value. Without the ability to research as many pets at time as needed, I'm afraid the traditional breeding is not much appealing anymore. It's slow by all means already (finding, researching, training, breeding and researching the ooffspring), if there will still be days of wating to be done only to try to collect enough vermillion for the project it's starting to get to the point where only really wise choice is to use far bred pets with as many known genetical generations as possible. This, obviously, can also make the newbies playing a lot harder since the markets for pets are already so narrow.

Then the food. Thinking situation player has 200 pets (stable lvl.4), each eating that 18 units per day, if even it's 3 units per day per food item they would consume 600 units of one type of food in one day. With the current limit, that would mean that each player with bigger stables have not only worked hard to build such things but also should spend possibly hours of gathering trying to refill the stocks before next day. Considering golems only craft 50 units and only four types from six even exists, doesn't this end up to situation where people either have to spend hours and hours each day trying to collect food or silver to feed the pets? Quests and exploring being the most reliable way to gain any coins, this means that newbies are again the struggling part of players, they and the players who doesn't happen to have the most commonly wnated pets to be sold for silver for possible food at times it's impossible to stock enough for bad day. Obviously, this also means that the gathering has to happen each day, instead of the possibility to focus some day only to one part of the game letting the pets eat from existing stocks.

I'm not saying everything should be offered on silver plate, but there are a limit how difficult or time consuming things can be made. I know it's problematic to try to keeping economy up while providing possibilities for all: challenges for old players yet environment where new players can start their game as well. But after that critical point the game may start to appear more straining than fun, feeling more like obligation than rewarding way to challenge. 

None of the new buildings have worked for me.

With this pet http://beastkeeper.com/pet/176518 I just got a message in the log "you have found Forest Alchemist" and then nothing happened.

It was the same for the shaman hut and copper idols, with different pets.

And this pet http://beastkeeper.com/pet/90232 found the dead tree altar and still nothing happened.

@Angel

http://beastkeeper.com/pet/257556

this pet, the cons supposed switched with strength but didnt, i had it open before change, and then refreshed after accepting, doesn't seem to be any change...well, except the bit where i leveled up on exploring but other than that...

well, unless if i understood something wrong...

Abrota, it's not enough just to find the building, you need to accept the offer and pay the price to get the effect. For Forest Alchemist the log entry will look like "{color_gene1} changed to {color_gene2}." I checked explore logs for two pets that you mentioned and I don't see that you have accepted any of the offers. You just entered the buildings and left them.

NightbaneWolf, we checked the logs, the stats were swapped as intended (75 Str and 69 Con were swapped to 69 Str and 75 Con). It's visible even after level ups: your pet has 72 Str right now which is lower than it was before swap.

Thal, feeding 200 pets is 3600 without any additional food. Townhall level 5 cover half of this sum. We assume that a high-level player with fully packed stable is able to earn the rest 1800 very easily. Daily quests provide a few times more coins, and exploring with high-level pets will cover this sum after 3-4 explores max. There's no challenge here. On the contrary, getting silver to maintain such horde is very easy for a high-level player.

Angel That's assuming everyone of that level has pets able to perform those quests. Even if they did, no one has every variable present in the quest requirements. Even with 100+ pets, it is not too uncommon for the quests to line up where there are only 1 or 2 low level quests. Some people will go for quantity rather than quality. I assume this change was made to get everyone on the same level for resources, but food, and to a lesser extent vermillion, are almost needed in those higher quantities. For as long as I've been watching the trades and auctions, I've only rarely seen someone put more than 20 of either of those up.  I also understand that coding wise, it was much easier to just lower everything to the same number than to manually change each item to different amounts.

What offer?

zezmeril, a mid grade player usually is able to fulfill all silver quests that give up to 4000 silver coins. It's enough to fulfill one such quest without exploring, gathering food, taking into account townhall income etc. to cover the costs for the whole 200 pets which is high level player costs, not mid one. It's impossible to have all these pets not to qualify for the most of the copper and silver quests. Quests are the main source of income, and a good advice for any player who want to get a steady silver surplus every day without any additional efforts is to focus on getting pets that have proper genetics for the gold quests too.

Food doesn't play any role in economy or breeding. It can be easily removed from the game with no harm and no need for rebalancing, but we decided to have it just for fun and some visual sugar.

I also have to remind that constant maintain of economy and pet genetics quality are necessary for game success. Before just grabbing first available 200 pets, a player needs to learn how to maintain his manor without loosing silver. Usually a player who spent so much time in the game already knows how to do this, otherwise it would be impossible even to save enough silver for building construction.

We have a bit different genre than pet collecting games that don't require constant maintaining and upgarding of your pets and focus just on collecting images without interacting with them. We plan to continue developing the game in this direction by adding new gameplay features and types of interaction instead of just focusing on expanding image base.

Abrota, please make sure that you have popups enabled for beastkeeper.com in your browser. All building that require player decision use overlay windows, as well as pet group add / edit areas and expedition popups.

Angel

Actually I still after 100+ pets and many quality ones have days I make 300 silver from quests. For new players with no previous silver reserves to keep things going for those days, that is a possible huge problem. Also, it is true that townhall does offer silver supplies, but especially new players have to prior. It's easy to end up situation where one building exists and is upgraded way before others are even built, and with recourses harder to go by this is most likely going to come more common in future.

Also, the best way to lern is usually by experience, for new players not quality pets may often be the best companions. If the old community significally turn to focus on narrow goal in breeding, the actual good pets may well be unreachable at all times, even after new players have learnt. And at the same time, the projects they might be able to cook up turn worthless. This is probably the most common problem of SIM games, while the game is unrewarding if the gab between old and new players is too wide, at the same time the older community will always remain as the more dominant part of the economy. The wider the interests of the old community, the more likely it is for new players to find their footing and oldies with coins to fund new players development.

@ANgel

hmm well...i'm still confused about the new buildings then, lol XD

I think that, getting rid of high amounts of resources can also be helped by making them useful in multiple ways, instead of an item being used exclusively for a single purpose/building, which in turn requires introduction of new (types of) resources all the time. I do not think having a cap is a disadvantage (like a physical limit of what a building can store). If new items/resources are going be introduced, then warehouse limits may need to be changed, or a new, larger type of warehouses introduced as well.  

Ohh my so many fancy new things! :D Thank you so much! :D * Rushes off to explore*

Thal- Quests aren't just about level (of course they are important for stats!). I find this list of requirements very helpful when trying to make sure I get the most from the daily quests... http://beastkeeper.com/thread/3381

As for food I never really feed my pets, I just suck up the fee unless I get to explore. I've been using my phone and borrowed internet connections (In the process of moving) so I haven't been exploring much. They days I can't make it on my pets don't need food, and when I am I just pay for it with silver. Quests net me anywhere from 100-16,000 (really lucky day) silver per day. It varies. 

Also I'm just trying to play devils advocate, and I'm not saying it's fun; neither am I trying to come off as "elitist"- but games are supposed to be a bit difficult. Nothing is supposed to come super quick or easy. If it did then games would not be able to maintain integrity in the long run and people would quickly lose interest. So from a game mechanics stand-point, it should take time to acrue money. 

The vermillion cap... as much as I would -love- to have an unlimited supply it makes sense... It is an important item that needs to remain somewhat limited to keep that item valuable. It sucks to us players, but is important for game mechanics... So yeah, I'm torn in that sense, but I see the logic and reasoning. 

Most sites have some sort of caps, or inventory limit... but usually they are set when the game opens, since we just barely "opened" I still think it is an acceptable time frame. For future users this will not be such a big "shock". It will take getting used to for us of course! 

I'm happy with the updates. :)

Very true. The most common resources (including food) are very easy to obtain, yet very difficult to get rid of, once one has more than he needs. It is because not all materials are allways needed and because the exchange market does not always flourish. The only perceived effect of this material amount cap on the gameplay is reluctance and unwillingness for explorations of any new islands, because there will be less and less items to be picked. The cap is there for a reason, yet I think it might help, if it could be slightly raised and at the same time acquiring of any new materials could be made more challenging.    

I can understand Thal's opinion, but in other view. If you have more than enough material and can't get rid of them, then your new throdamas wont have their pheromones. You should just destroy it? I dont realy like this option.... I would prefer to have something like puond, but just for unwanted materials. I wouldn't mind if I would get nothing for desposing, just do not want to destroy them.