Hi all, 

For those who aren't into breeding primals or primal variations, I'll go over first what pennyroyals are and what they do. 

Pennyroyal is an Oasis-only item costing 1GB. The item description is as follows:

"Give to a stud with the Primal, Primal (Felis), Primal (Ferus), or Primal (Smilus) mutations before breeding to boost the chances that a Primal variation will be produced in their immediate litter. If given to a Primal (Ferus) stud before he breeds to a Primal (Ferus) lioness, the chance of a Primal (Ferus) cub being produced is boosted." 

The Issue with Pennyroyal

My issue is that it can only be bought with GB, which costs real money, without any transparency of how much it actually improves your chances at all. 

For me, any item that costs real money and doesn't have transparency feels... icky to me. To use a pennyroyal, we are are spending 0.50$, without having any information to know if it's worth it for each individual. It's essentially no different than a lootbox in any number of mobile games. 

To summarize, I think all items in the game should fill one of two conditions.

1. Be transparent about how much the item improves your chances.

2. Have the item be obtainable through normal gameplay.

Lioden is usually very transparent about these types of things (which I think is admirable and ethical), even the RMA has a clear breakdown of the percent chances of getting any tier of marking. For other items, like the Lion Scrotum, it clearly states "Give to a mutated lioness before breeding in order to have a 25% chance per cub to pass down her mutation." Other items, like crunchy worm, have a similar level of transparency. 

There are two main solutions that I think would make this situation more ethical.

Option 1: Add Pennyroyal to Other Gameplay Mechanics:

This can be done in any number of ways. 

Prize in the 3500-4000 range in Serengeti Shuffle, like the black stallion, catnip, honeycomb, etc. 
Make it it a fairly rare encounter in explore.
Make it purchasable with sb in Monkey Businesss
Make it purchasable with monkey teeth in the Gorilla Enclave.
Make it purchasable in certain events- maybe the November event as that event already focuses on herbs and the power they have. 
 
Option 2: State how much Pennyroyal Increases Your Chances. 

"Pennyroyal increases your boosts your chances of having a primal varation in your litter by x%" Easy.


I've talked about this in chat before and here are some questions I've had asked. 

"You don't have to buy Pennyroyal with your own money, you can trade for GB!"

There's really no difference between whether I buy 2GB and buy two pennyroyal with it, and whether someone else buys two GB, buys a 2GB cub from me, and I buy two pennyroyal with it. Either way, 2GB is purchased from Lioden, and then removed from the lioden economy for this item. At the end of the day, 2 pennyroyal is worth 1 US Dollar. 1 US Dollar must be spent in order for someone to obtain two pennyroyals.

"Other items like the cotton root bark, GMO cow, and Lion Meat don't state how much they improve your chances!"

I, personally, wouldn't mind if CRB, Lio Meat, and GMO cows did state how much they improve our chances. That being said, I have less of an ethical issue with that because Lio Meat, GMO Cows, and CRB'd-NCLs can be found throughout normal gameplay. Sure, there will be people who spend real-life money in order to get these items, but it's not necessary. Having a percent transparency would be nice though, especially on CRB. 

RNG and luck is just part of the game! 

Yeah, true. Lots of the game *is* essentially gambling with in-game currency. When I bred my first two hybrids, I knew that it could take many heats (and a lot of Yohimbe and Buffy Balls) to get them. Again, things like hybrids or hybrid heats can be purchased through gameplay without spending any real-life money. Regardless, how would you feel if it turned out that you spent 10GB (five us dollars!!) on 10 pennyroyal, and the boost was only 5%? You would be well within your rights to think: "If I knew the boost was only 5%, I would've saved those GBs for something else."

"Don't you want to support Lioden financially?!"

Yeah, I do! I'm in no way upset about the fact that there is an oasis that uses currency bought with real-life money. Other items in the Oasis have transparency about what they do, or how good your chances are (see the random marking applicator chances). If I decide to buy the "Eye Applicator: Lavender" for 1GB, I know what it does: changes a lion's eye color to lavender. If I decide to buy the "Cub Sex Changer", I know what it does.

"I like the randomness of the game/not knowing exactly what my chances are of a primal variation!"

That's fair! I'm not saying that Lioden should release the pass rate of the variations themselves. Just something like: "Pennyroyal increases your chance of getting a primal variation by 25%."


Please let me know what you guys think, and if you like it, let me know which solution you prefer? Or, if you have another idea on how to add pennyroyal into the game, let me know!