I feel my motivation to purchase monthlies got sapped away from this release. For casual players who do not have lots of potatoes sitting in the bank nor passive income from sellable customs, a sharp increase in both cost and number of collectible items is disheartening to the point of halting progress altogether. For casuals, the game currently does not have much reason to do dailies other than to spend on the monthly sets. This update feels like artificial inflation of this set to make "more things to collect" just for the sake of making a full set "harder to obtain".

Collectability is the single-most important feature of games like this. A collectible's value is not just about limited availability- there is value in effort to obtain as well. Legendary pets are a great example of this: they are harder to get but do not have FOMO due to unlimited availability. While their overall end price may not be as high as a limited-time item, they are still a collectible item with a fairly long shelf life in terms of desirability. Plus, there is always a need for them so long as your player base is growing.

TDLR; I don't think the solution to potato sink is not to make things more expensive to obtain, especially not by tampering with the core income of your game (a monthly premium set and a monthly potato set). It's just a side effect of the core issue. Make game fun. Player base will grow if gameplay fun. Players create the economy themselves. They sell art, they create accessories, they sell customs.