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Now that I have livestock, there is another frustration (it exists in many areas, not just livestock, but livestock makes it more pronounced): Delays between clicking something and success/failure messages make it very hard to tell if I successfully clicked or not.

I am guessing that the delay is caused by the JS sending the data to the server and waiting for the response. But what you might do while it is waiting is give immediate feedback that it registered the click and is waiting for the server response. Something such as changing the color of the button/lin, so the player knows it is processing. This would also hopefully help reduce server load from players who get lagged and "spam click" things until they get feedback, thus causing more load and lag.

Another thought I had is what if you opened the API to let people create a game client (for PC/Mac/Linux, since I assume the iOS/Android app makes it not useful on mobile)? There are several ways to handle detection and throttling of bad behaving clients (or bots), including certificate signing of "acceptable" clients and player accounts. Decades ago, the MUD I coded for did something like this with great success, if you are interested in how it might work.

Do you have the loading spinner turned off in settings?  Most/all buttons will cause a loading spinner to run by default to indicate the server is doing something. 

No. The spinner setting is on. It behaves as described in settings -- It shows up when changing menus. But it does _not_ show up when clicking many other links or buttons. One example is when petting chickens/cows. (Also, sometimes I have to move my pointer for a second off the hotspot, and sometimes even completely outsider my browser window, then back.) When I click, there is a short delay with no feedback before it displays "You petted your ...." message. At that point, it _does_ show the loading spinner because it is moving back to the previous menu to select another chicken/cow. But the delay I am pointing out is the first delay, _before_ getting the "You petted ..." message.

Other examples including adjusting my buy/sell/craft amounts. Clicking the up/down spinners works as expected, but clicking the [+] and [-] buttons sometimes does not "register". Same for the action button (the one that displays the cost in Silver), or the the [Lock] button to lock/unlock. (Side note on that one: Sometimes, when viewing the library sub-page on an item, locking an item from there and then using the [< Back] link does not update the locked status.) What I am hoping for is some kind of visual cue/feedback that the button/link was registered as clicked, but is still being processed. Something like the "Lock" icon turning from green to yellow, and finally to red once it has completed updating.

One more example is the "Continue ..." link/button while exploring. Sometimes, there is a delay after clicking it before it displays the results. I am often uncertain during the delay if it actually detected/registered my click, or if I need to do the whole "move my pointer away and then back again" routine before trying again. Some of this is likely beyond your control, such as delays while the browser updates the DOM, but some of it, I presume, is caused by the UI delay in sending a XHR request and waiting for the server response. Simply changing the background color to a dark grey immediately on click even before it tries to do the XHR send/recv cycle, then back to white (or black, since I use the Dark theme) once the server responds, would give me the feedback I am looking for.

Related to exploring in a different way... I recently had another idea: make it so players do not need to reset their effectiveness (at least only rarely), by adding an amount option to "Continue ...", such as "Continue X times ...", where X can be adjusted from 1 to their max effectiveness. (It might even display zero when they have no more stamina.)

Right now, I have been working on a spreadsheet to aid me in crafting and selling: It will let me know how many I should (or not!) use/craft/sell to maintain my target inventory levels -- Not only of the item currently being considered, but also of the components used to craft. Something like my previous idea of using lock counts instead of boolean "all or nothing" locking, would greatly facilitate that. As well as helping manage needed goods for the quest lines, dailies, etc.

Related, what country are you in and what device are you playing on mostly?  I am not seeing the delay in buttons, etc, as you describe on any of my test devices.  I test on iphone 12 pro, pixel 5a and an ipad mini 6.  

Desktop PC with Debian Linux OS, Firefox as my browser. I.E., I am not playing via the mobile app normally. I did add the mobile app (Android) because fishing is a little less troublesome on mobile, but I still mostly play via browser. The mobile app does not seem to be affected by the same issues for me. Likewise, starting Firefox in "safe mode" (all extensions disabled) does not help.

I have noticed more often that lately, as another example, I can "Harvest All Crops", and it will first show the activity spinner, and then... It does nothing obvious for several seconds. If I wait a little longer, it will eventually show the activity spinner again and complete the action. On occasion, it will do it all very quickly without pause, but that is less common than the pause.

I also recently noticed that sometimes, when switching to my Farm sub-screen, it takes a few moments to even "activate" the "Harvest All" button (or he Plant All, or even let me click on a crop to see how long before it is ready).

I can try to see if I can make a video of one of my play sessions to show you, but that may take awhile as I do not have anything installed currently for doing so.

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I do not know if it makes much difference, but I have noticed something else. I have been running a continuous ICMP ping to 8.8.8.8 in shell terminal, and when I have bad problems with the game accepting and processing my clicks, I also notice no ping reply in the terminal. Could it be that the game tried to send an update to the server and is awaiting a reply, but the packet(s) to or from the server had been dropped/lost, so the game gets stuck in a loop waiting for something that will never come?

Another suggestion:

Since even boolean values in JS are still numeric, instead of "locking" items from selling at the market, allow locking "Count X" items (with 0 meaning "none", -1 meaning "all", and possibly a negative number less than -1 meaning meaning "All but the last N"). This way, players can do things like "Sell all but 10 locked items". It would also be handy to be able to sell multiple, such as "Sell 10 of everything".

Agreed on idea.  Probably will add in future update.  Mid-game you can save items in your Storehouse to prevent selling all, but it's not the best solution.

Now that I have played for awhile...

Farming skill and crafting skill advancement seems well balanced: I'm about level 10 in each.

Exploration skill, however seems overpowered: I'm already at level 25. In addition, the drop rates could use some improvement, a least for "common" items.

Fishing skill levels are okay in balance (I am about level 12 there), but the game mechanics are very difficult...

First, I have to be quick to move my pointer and click on a fish; But the click sometimes does not register, is delayed in registering, and/or it ends up being a "click and drag" instead of just a click. This is more of a problem outside your control, depending on the both the OS load and browser load (All the JS running, especially with multiple pages open, may slow it down a bit).

Second, I have to quickly move my pointer to the second area and click on the marker moving back and forth. This has the same problems as above -- Clicks being missed or not registering and triggering until after the marker has zoomed beyond that point. Worse, if the first step turned in to "click and drag", it would drag the fish on top the marker, and before I could click to release and then click again to hit the marker, it is too late. The marker itself sometimes moves too fast, and/or does not stay on screen long enough to "correct" these issues and properly hit it.

I would suggest the first part lasts a little longer to give the player a chance to try re-clicking on the fish. Eliminate the second part entirely, or make it appear closer to where the fish is/was. Another option is simply "click rapidly enough", so that the "catch" depends on how rapidly the player can click up to ten times (and make it so *too rapid*, such as trying to use an auto-clicker, get penalized...) There are many variations based on the same concept, of course.

Another option wold be (if browsers can do it), click and hold to try catching the fish, and releasing when the marker is near the end area. (And going back towards the start if the player holds too long.)

Most everything else seems pretty well balanced and fun.

We appreciate the detailed feedback very much!  Will fully review and consider changes.

Suggestion: Create a "Demo" account for people to give it a try before signing up. (Yes, I understand things like "email" are optional, but signing up is still an extra step that some will just decide it's not worth it.)

Thank you for the feedback.  We will look at adding that option to let people try the game.