I agree with Holone, who I recognize from frantically setting prices when I get sniped again. :)

I kid, I kid. All good points.

Still think the way to go is to get some kind of occasional bonus from releasing pets. It doesn't have to be frequent. But it has to be at least as predictable as breeding. Still pushing the idea of occasionally catching a better version of the pet you just released because it was attracted and distracted by the one you just let go.

First I'm really impressed and happy to see that we're asked before any changes would be made. I will share my opinion in a really long post. My intention is to help to make this game be successful and fun to play. If my words come through as rude, I'm sorry, I didn't intent to.

Let me tell you - as a retired "mass breeder" - why any of the options in the OP won't help. This all seem to be pointed at the users who have hundreds or even thousands of pets and breed them in a high quantity. I can tell you it's not the "mass breeders" who flood the market with all the commons. I release all commons immediately and sometimes I even release the uncommons too. Why? Because selling 67 common unis for a laughable 10-20 FC each doesn't worth the trouble to move them to my stall and let them rot there for eternity, because they won't sell anyway.

Do you know how long it takes to breed 100 pets? It's between 40-100 minutes depending on your setup. And what do you get out of it? About 95 commons, 2-3 uncommons and a rare IF you're lucky. Oh, you wanted a super rare? Lol no way! And let's be honest. Why would anyone breed masses of pets if not for the super rares? There's no other way to get them in a timely manner other than mass breeding them.

Now imagine this struggle to get a super rare with the above suggestions:
1.) Breeding charges. This would solve nothing, because we would still have the same amount of commons cycling in the economy but now they're completely useless, because of their depleted breeding charges. On the other hand we would introduce another level of unneeded hassle to keep track of your charges and when you need to swap your pets out. Also breeding rares and super rares takes soooo much time. Making them worthless without the possibility to get another one before you run out of it's breeding charges will just upset users.

2.) Stable limits. This again would solve nothing, because you can just swap out the pets and keep most of your breeding stock mainly in your stall, because it's cheaper to upgrade than the inventory. Okay this would surely limit the amount of pets that is created each day, but still those "limited amount" of pets created would still be commons. Again we all already have commons so they would still be tossed around like now. There's no way to take them out of the system, so there would still be a ton of them all around the site, not solving anything.

3.) Breeding limits. Let's add another layer of frustration to the already frustrating system by limiting how many pets you can breed so there's absolutely no way of getting any super rare in less than 3 months except if you get really lucky and get one drop in the first few breedings. I can tell you with 0.5% you'll nearly never be lucky enough. You want to focus on more than 1 species? Well you'll probably breed them all for more than a year, because of the odds. If there's absolutely no reward for a really long time for the continuous effort you have to put in, players just leave way before they would even get close to getting their desired pet.

Add a mixture of the above suggestions and you'll get an unplayable, over restricted system that no one would deal with who seriously wants to collect pets.

Now after stating why any of these suggestions wouldn't solve anything. Let's talk about the suggestions that would solve it and hence even maybe make the game more enjoyable.

First the problem is NO ONE wants the commons. Everyone and their cat has all the commons now (and future players will never have a serious problem getting them). Any time you breed anything you more than likely breed a common than anything else and there's nothing you can do about it in the current system. So we either need to:

1. Increase the chance to breed rarer colors and lower the chance of commons. This would cut out the need to breed hundreds of unwanted commons just to get one super rare.

1. b) If you don't want to increase the percentages site wide then introducing a new item that increases it when applied on pet or on the breeding itself would still help a lot. This way again less unwated pets are produced.

2. Make a way to take unwanted pets out of the system. Sellback is not an option here, because it's ridiculously low and disheartening. There's a lot of great suggestions here to make such a system. Like giving points for pets and let you turn those points in for USEFUL things. The 'useful' word is really important here, because if the rewards are not something that is wanted then players won't use this system. Great rewards would be limited coloration of the pets that's exclusively available there, or special potions that increases the chance to get rarer pets.

I think by implementing a mixture of the 2 would completely solve the problem. But be WARNED! If they're not implemented in the right way could create new problems. So it's really important to create a balanced system and not just trowing up some random numbers and hope they would work.

If you really want to add restrictions ON TOP of the suggestions that would really solve the problem, then go ahead. But I think it would create a more healthier and happier user experience if this would be solved without limiting even further the way players can play the game.

Did you think of an option of feeding the animals?

Usually, petsites limit either the slots for pets but have free feeding or no feeding implemented; or if petslots are unlimited, there is some kind of feeding needed, so users need to maintain their pets and can not own as unlimited pets as in theory possible. Right?

You could add seeds that grew into food plants and the need of feeding animals that stay in stables.

That way, breeders would either need to maintain their animals with notably more effort, or exchange animals in stables rather often (and still maintain them, as if the cycle out unfed pets, they'd still need food before being bred again).

You could also add other uses for existing plants; add a "pet chef" career or whatever. That way plants would get a second use and that might add to their value too, in case you need that. (Not sure about plants' values at the moment. )

Just another idea, very basic, my apologies if it came up before already.

Hopefully there is a solution found soon. =)

I really like #2 and #3 really, so that pets never become worthless and can't be manipulated in a mean way (I.e. promising to sell stuff with charges, when it actually has none). I also feel that'll just increase the amount of unwanted critters, while just putting out a general limit will make people pick and choose and can then give out what others need when they wanna move on!
Thanks for talking to us too, it's very appreciated ;w;
(though I am also a bit confused--common and uncommon shouldn't have much value to begin with, hence being known as "common/uncommon". Although, if you were to implement a bonus ability with minpets when attached to a villager, you could have some common minipets have a rarer chance of a really good buff! Example:
A SR pet has a buff of +50% explorations, but there's a SR chance for a common pet to also have that same opportunity! This makes it so that people who like the common pets have a reason to breed them, and by having minipets have variance in the bonuses (like a common pet can usually have +1% explores, +1% domestication chance, +1% gather rate, but it's entirely random) allows that every minipet can be unique and still have their own unique value! Even going so far as to be able to help increase the chance of getting a good % bonus by breeding two pets of the same bonus (a male + female explore bonus = higher chance of getting a bigger explore bonus) this would ensure that most pets (even most males!) will have a purpose in being bred/existing.
Sorry that went on longer than I thought--I haven't shared this idea for feedback, so I'm sure it needs to helping, but I would really love to see something like this done!

I'm a big fan of option 3. It's really cool to see you guys reaching out to your userbase on an issue like this!

So, is it more important to reduce the number of pets entering the economy or is it more important to make pets more expensive?

If simply reducing the number of pets being bred is the goal, tweaking the sex distribution of pets is the simplest way to do this; 90% or more of pets being born are male and the current breeding potion is removed from the site. Combine with limited breedings to keep population manageable.

If the idea is to increase the value of pets then raise the sellback price or add a mechanic to removed them (send them to the circus, dismember them for parts to make decorations for homes, whatever) that gives players something desirable that isn't necessarily FC or FD.

If nerfing the high earners is the goal then limiting breedings per hour/day is probably your best bet. It worked for herbalists and it worked for people with more than 10 villagers. If all FV wants is a site of casual users then this seems like the way to go.

My vote for which ones to go with are 2 and 3. Limiting the stable space makes sense and that would be similar to what has already happened with the Herbalist. I would suggest if there is a limit to the stable space maybe also make it so that unused stables that players have on their Animal Husbandry don't loss durability while not in use. And having that with 3 would be a good way to limit breeding overall. Limiting the amount of breeding per day should help with keeping the number lower than it is now and that combined with the cool down periods for breeding in the first place seems like it should keep breeding under control.

I don't like idea 1 or having the Breeding Potion be required to breed a pair of animals. If another idea is needed for Alchemy maybe a potion that would make it easier for an Animal Husbandry to find rarer animals or increase the chance of breeding a rarer color, make it so that it increases the chance but does not make it a 100% thing. I could see people being more willing to use a potion that increases their chances of getting a super rare species or a super rare color than wanting to use a potion to just breed the pets that they already have.

I like option 3. Simply for the fact that with the rest of these options certain pets are still going to be bred in mas because they can be bought, and gathered in mass. Limiting an account's breeding ability seems the most logical choice, at least to me, because with the account limitations it limits mass bass breeding in all animal husbandry villagers, and it also gives other breeders who are breeding the same animals time to breathe and get their stock ready for selling or whatnot.

luvloveless Perhaps the pet would only become unbreedable for that one owner and would still be breedable for other accounts?

I like the idea of combining #1 and #2 best.