Why breed imperial mane when bare minimum to breed from an imperial mother is an item 8GB more expensive than what I can sell mane imperial for

In other words I think there needs to be balance. This is a breeding game. I want to be able to breed stuff and have my effort be worth it. A crunchy worm is 50GB and most RLCs pass maybe one or two times throughout their lifetimes WITH LUCK. That's 8 crunchies at 400GB and if you sell one or both clones, you might get 300GB for them altogether. If you're lucky. This will lead to total market death because there won't be a point any more. Why breed nice thing if you cannot even recuperate the funds to keep your lines going? Having nice things is nice but it stops being nice when it interferes with your ability to grow your wealth and pride. I have like 7 RLCs all frozen on my partner's account because entirely none but one of them would sell for above 100GB in today's economy.

You have liked this post!

@Lizzie! 🌿

Totally fine! I know this a controversial topic in the community- but I will include a little further explanation on each of your points as well :)

Topic 1:
I realize that pass rates will continue to produce these cubs, I have no intention of suggesting a change in these passing rates for a variety of reasons. I included this example just to show an estimation of how many mutations are potentially being added to the market at any given time, its no accurate representation, especially considering the game stats of mutations living. I moreso meant to include this estimation to point towards a solution on where to alternatively filter these cubs that are being produced. (I can elaborate on this more but this is already a wall of text XD)

Topic 2:
My overall goal was to offer a feature that would eliminate the need to use energy and affect karma for players who do want to push this cause, not so much about karma itself. I was attempting to highlight that the only incentive as of current to nature reserve or kill a lion is to gain or lose karma which isnt a choice most players opt for since they can easily achieve their desired karma through explore encounters alone (I'm excluding neutral karma from this reply as chasing/abandoning is a neutral option that puts the lions back into the chase pool or tree, and contributes to the issue I'm addressing) I wasn't proposing that anything concerning karma changes, just that my suggestion would offer a way that does not affect karma or use energy when taking an action that deletes a lion.

Topic 3: Similarly to karma, I was highlighting the enclave as one of the only other ways to optionally eliminate lions, and it's not effective. I also do not believe changes to the enclave in terms of currency or amount of cubs able to be submitted per day would be efficient according to my suggested terms. I think how I worded the enclave portion of my forum may be struggling to support my point. I mentioned an enclave rework, which would have to be an isolated topic from what I suggested here, as I don't think that the ideas I put forward in this post would work in the enclave setting, just that the enclave would need to be reworked to be effective in population/market control.

All of these points were outlining what options we have to take action on the market, and why they aren't, in my opinion, balanced or efficient. I respect your decision and I truly appreciate your reply. This helps me see my argument from another perspective so I'm able to revise :)

You have liked this post!

Might be talking out of my ass here (thank the brain damage).

I feel like something a lot of people don't understand is that raising the prices/increasing the rarity of things like muties doesn't just help the people you're buying from, it also helps YOU when you sell things. Anybody's supposed to be able to stumble into a rare item/lion; in the current economy though, if you're broke and randomly breed a pie (something that's supposed to be rare & special), you're probably gonna struggle to sell it for more than a ball of lint and a chewed piece of gum, and thus will remain broke.
We NEED a year long portal equivalent so so bad. There shouldn't be muties or lions with "rare"/"special" bases selling for dirt, or claimed→chased→claimed→chased 0 mark lionesses filling the pool. Agree agree agree, thank you for posting!

You have liked this post!

@꒰kitwiings꒱

Yes!! Thank you, I feel the same,. Most people see it as they're situation will say the same and everything will just be more difficult, I don't want to simply "feed the rich" I want to make everything worth more for everyone, it's just very hard to explain every detail of that so it's perceivable by everyone.

And I agree! I often end up giving away or chasing most of my g2-g3 rare or special base lions because even selling them for dirt cheap takes forever.

You have liked this post!

I support! The tanking economy hurts everyone. It’s virtually impossible to make money off selling lions. I’ve seen hybrid Leopon cubs go for as low as 70GB. Just recently I wasn’t able to sell a blind lioness and dropped her to fodder price (100sb) just to get her to sell. This is a game about breeding lions and nobody wants to buy lions.

Unpopular opinion below:

There’s no point in using lion scrotes anymore as there’s no way anyone can recoup the cost. People are hoarding new RL as they know once they release one or own cubs with the markings the value of their RL tanks immediately. Who can blame them? If I ever get a RL I will probably just freeze her on a side just to retain her value. I’ve seen RLC with heats left sell for as low as 40GB.

Lioden is a long term game and no one is supposed to get their dream lions instantly. I don’t think it’s gatekeeping just for wanting things like hybrids and RLCs to be a long term goal. I’ve been playing for 5 months now and I’m nowhere near my dream king goal, but it’s the journey that has me hooked. I’m still on my potato starter king, and as much as I’d love to replace him I’m content to just wait naturally for him to die of old age while I accrue resources to breed my dream king.

My plan for when I eventually get my dream king if the economy remains like this: chuck all my lionesses away or keep the pretty ones frozen on a side. It’s just not worth the effort or sb/gb breeding supposedly valuable lions because they don’t sell unless they’re priced at fodder prices.

Something needs to be done about the lion economy :(

You have liked this post!

Support! I have been on Lioden for the past 9 years and have seen how the lion & item markets have crashed totally since about late 2018-2019 or so, but especially in the last few years. I became Orchid breeder over five years ago, when even a dirty Orchid cub could sell easily for 20-40 GB even without a lot of BO traits, more when it was clean and had a lot of desirable traits. Now? Gen 2 Orchid cubs go for 5-15 GB at TC and rarely get sold.

I remember when the first pie MODs came out, you could sell yours for hundreds of GB like I did few times. Now? Only the rarest and most desired ones sell and for much lower prices than few years ago. I am hoarding my breeding items, have a few pie MODs from like 2020, and other stuff that was valuable in the past. I could easily get 400 GB from few days of grinding in February, now you have to be even more online in TC to see the right day to sell to get even close to that amount, since in the past you could sell in a specific month on any day and bam, you got rich.

Hybrids? Yeah no, jaglion market is so low and I don't even own one. I bought my tigon early last year and then young clean breedable tigons were going for around 250+ GB a piece. Now some don't even go for 100 GB, which is the lowest hybrid prices I have seen ever. And I have played almost the entire time Lioden has been up.

We definitely need a place to yeet our potatoes etc. during the year. I don't care if we don't get more than like a feather for every 10 lions yeeted or something, I just think we desperately need a place to get rid of all aged lions that is not gorilla/tree or chased to be claimed by others. Maybe a random roll of random new kind of decor/other item for every 20 lions? Or very small amount of points for every lion/for specific number of lions that you can use to buy stuff/get a random item. I don't know, we just need this suggestion desperately. I have not sold any lions in like a year since the market is so bad.

Sorry for my English, I am typing this on my phone which, well, sucks. But had to throw my support!

ETA: I bought G2 pie two days ago for 5 GB. They used to go for 20+ GB only a few years ago. Having a pie/patches king was desirable since the cubs also sold. Now I usually have to chase/kill/reserve dud clean short gen pies since they don't sell and I can't keep all. The same with short gen ferus. I bought mine in early 2021 for 25 GB, now they are dirt cheap. And no, I am too scared to use breeding items since they cost more than what they can produce, especially if you end up with achromia etc. Not even gen 1 hybrids are getting much anymore, they used to go for thousands of GB, the same for raffle lionesses.

You have liked this post!

I'm just not supporting mainly the whole mutant aspect for kings. Breeding isn't just making a lion look pretty, it's the stats and skills that yes can be bought but they're not cheap.

You have liked this post!

i do support this, but i don't know if the staff can implement anything more than a year-long murder stone. i think a good solution would be not sb rewards, but something like feathers, special stone-craftables, rare decor (like w/ trivia), and otherwise.

this is ultimately the cost of a higher population of players ; and its not really a moderation issue, it's a playerbase issue. y'know? everyone says to buy x or x, so x goes lower.

with rlcs, everyone is breeding them, but nobody is exactly buying them due to the cost of crunchies -- which is, by the way, overpriced, and that is a PLAYER ISSUE.

so i dont really know what the staff can do, but still, i support this wholeheartedly :)

You have liked this post!

Proposal: we already have minimum stud fees per marking. Why do we not have minimum sale fees per marking? This would create a hard limit to the amount of undercutting that was possible on lions in the marketplace selling for SB or GB-- undercutting barter trades would still be possible for those willing to take them, but would be less incentivized because they are more involved trade interactions that take more time to complete than buyouts.

This would not unduly penalize newer/poorer players (I am one myself!) There are already plenty of free ways to access lions with lots of interesting markings through both the Giving Tree (if you get lucky) and the Giveaways, which in my experience have always been abundant and generous, and through diligent checking of potential (chased) NCLs in explore. And as rising tides lift all ships, the minimum sale fees raising the value of all lions would create new and more reliable SB sources for new/poor players (like myself, again!) who are trying to sell cubs or NCLs.

Edit: Forgot to add! It would also provide a useful baseline for players who are just entering the marketplace as to how to price their lions above the minimum threshold. As it stands, it's extremely difficult when you're just entering the market to figure out how you should be pricing lions to move them (especially if you're low on lair space) and most of the guides for figuring it out are years out-of-date on pricing. This makes undercutting substantially seem like the smartest and easiest move.

You have liked this post!

@Ode

I do agree, but wouldn't there be people who get around this rule by making "refunded" sales? IE: A lion with 10 marks is a minimum 100sb, but they say they'll refund 50.

Would there be a site limitation against this?

You have liked this post!

@Revenant

Well, the thing is, we already have people doing that for studs-- it's not (currently!) a limited interaction, but it doesn't really need to be, because what we're actually looking to do by creating mandatory minimums is less about implementing mechanical restrictions, and more about shaping player behaviour. (Economics is, generally, about behaviour adjustment. Unholy hybrid child of math and sociology.) Setting stud minimums, even accounting for refunded stud costs, raises the value of studding. It can be reasonably inferred that it would do the same for selling.

There are a few reasons for this:

Player refunds are an unsupported promise transaction. You do not sign a contract with your trade partner, and no authority is going to enforce the refund if they fail to provide it. It is an inherently risky deal, and one that risk-averse people will naturally shy away from. More risk-tolerant people will of course take the chance! This allows generous (or mercenary) players to sell at refunds, but to a smaller pool of potential buyers.

The minimum fee still has to be paid at some stage of the proceedings, meaning the requisite number of SB or GB is moving around the site. Even at a 50% refund, this redistributes wealth around the economy, albeit not as efficiently as selling at the mandatory minimum without a refund.

Players who truly want to give away a lion for free or next-to-nothing will still be able to do so, through either cheap trade (take this 10-marking lion for a blue diadem caterpillar!) or through giveaways. Cheap trades would still be a supported transaction, so safer than SB or GB refunding, and giveaway culture on this site is strong already.

If a truly mechanically-enforced method to discourage sale refunds is necessary-- implement account-to-account gift limiting. Just as newly-acquired lions can't be traded until a cooldown period, accounts which have recently traded for lions cannot send each other gifts until an appropriate cooldown has passed.

Refunds will still be possible for the determined, of course! Aside from banning the practice and setting a whole team of moderators to comb through for refund offers and shut them down, there is no practical way to ban that.

But economics aren't (usually, ideally) about bans. They're about incentives. If you make it incentivized to sell lions for a set minimum buyout price, many players who want simple lion trades with minimal interaction or delay will use them, and few players with higher tolerances for risk and more patience will engage in riskier player-to-player transactions.

You have liked this post!

I believe the minimum stud price is 25sb per mark. So that'd make it 250sb for a 10 marked lion, which I feel okay with.

Would you say that the minimium sales price should follow this ratio? And ; lets say, if you sell unweaned cubs with their mother, would ALL marks be counted?

I really like this idea and think it should maybe become its separate suggestions thread :)

You have liked this post!

@Revenant

Fair enough, lol, I don't want to derail this suggestion topic. Moving here: https://www.lioden.com/topic.php?id=304429550976

You have liked this post!

This may be a little off topic OP, but I was wondering what your view point is on the suggestion to add multiple RLs per week instead of the single one we have now. I wonder how that would affect the economy? I’ve been here 10 years and own some clones but have never won one myself, and seeing how the player base has grown substantially (I mean literally I started with a 5 digit ID so to me it has haha), I just wonder what your take on this would be regarding the economy of LD.

You have liked this post!

@mousecouch🕷️

Honestly, I don't necessarily mind the state of the RL feature as far as one/week goes. That being said, I have limited experience with RLs and RLCs, so I don't have much ground to stand on as far as talking about the work that goes into RL and RLC breeding/projects. I do wish there was more limitations on attempting to impress them, as we've seen several RLs go to inactive players with traits that never resurface on the market. I don't believe more raffle lionesses per week would do anything besides saturate the RL market more, and hypothetically that's where you see the value drop over time. Maybe if there was a feature during certain holidays, events or once/month or so there was chances to impress an addition themed lioness (or something along those lines) it would work but I don't think I would support more raffle lionesses being added weekly as it is. That's just my take.

As far as the other suggestions, assuming you we're talking about Blue [Full BO dawn] (#73123)'s Forum, I lean toward disagreement, as I mentioned before, the more of these traits available, the less they're worth. When they referenced the amount of people attempting to impress a lioness in comparison to previous years, and many players not having they access they want to RL traits, I actually think this is a good thing. It is one of the only markets that hasn't completely plummeted, and that's where I bring in another controversial perspective; I don't at all blame people who keep private lines to increase the demand and value, I actually think it is the most efficient tactic to keep the market where it is. I could do a deeper dive on the pricing and value trends of limited lines and widely available lines to support my point, but that is more irrelevant to my original argument.

I do however like their idea of introducing new traits through a weekly "raffle stud." but that would be a huge development and would require a LOT of work; a limitation on amount of players able to stud, items used and qualifications to "attempt to impress" would definitely require their own argument and breakdowns, but it is a good dev suggestion!

You have liked this post!