We need your feedback: Bigger, less frequent pound openings?

[Darni]

in my opinion the main "problem" with the pound is that we can see what pets will be available in the next opening. when people spot a high value pet in the upcoming opening alerts are sent out and a lot of people show up making the pound incredibly slow, making it almost impossible for us with slow internet to catch anything good. I don't think increasing the size is going to change this, but making adjustments so NO pets in the pound are visible until it opens would at least do something.

You can see the pet pool? How? Where?

here, you can see what will be available in the next opening

Just wanted to specifically thank this person for linking the pound pool. I didn't even know you could see the pound before it opened. That makes a lot more sense why sometimes it lags more since people can see really in demand pets coming up.

[ryuseitai]

i’ve seen a lot of negativity recently over the pound and i really wanted to weigh in with my thoughts. i think 1300 is fine, i don’t think we need to increase the pound by a lot. 2000 pets was nice! it was a good update for the event and i think we should continue that for future events as well, because of high traffic.

one thing i want to bring up is the existence of pound bots, by that i mean a few discord bots that remind people when the pound opens. i use these myself, so i’m not trying to say we need to stop using these entirely, but i think it’s important to take into account chicken smoothie doesn’t own any of the discord servers these run in, and cannot control them. they cannot control how many people are actively being reminded by bots/players in servers on when the pound will open and i think it’s pretty fair to say a server with almost 1.2k members Will empty the pound quickly, and that’s not something cs themselves can control unless these bots weren’t allowed, so i feel it’s very unfair to say the pound is getting worse overtime with updates and blaming it on the site itself when the community does have a part to play in this! i do also think hiding what pets appear in the pound before it opens is a good idea, i think being able to see what pets you might get heavily contributes to the negativity, getting your hopes up for something good and never getting it kind of takes the fun out of the pound in my opinion.

however, the pound has run this was (i assume) for the whole time it has been around (i am not an old player so please correct me if this is wrong), so maybe the pound needs a bigger update to work with the the way the community operates? like a set schedule instead of random openings. hopefully im allowed to discuss this as an example, but the website goatlings recently did an overhaul of their “giving tree” system which works similarly to the lost and found, every 10 minutes if the giving tree is empty, user donated items will appear, any items still in the tree after 10 minute rollover will stay until they’re all gone, and new items appear next rollover. they anonymized donator names and made other changes as there was an influx in negativity towards not getting any good items when someone in the discord server did a tree drop.

i don’t think this exact system would work for cs, however much smaller, more frequent pounds may be something to consider? so it’s less “i need to get here within 10 seconds or i’m out of luck” and more of “checking in on the pound every so often to see if there’s something cool, if not there will be new ones soon”

not sure if i’ve articulated this right, but hopefully this all makes sense! again please correct me on anything i got wrong or feel free to discuss anything i said ^_^

[Cloverstream]

What pets are on your page is random chance. Sometimes you get a rare if you’re lucky. Thats now it works and I don’t expect it to ever stop working like that, you do have the same chance of a rare as anyone else. No one is at a special advantage or disadvantage for what pets are shown.

The oldest pets being at the top is for the best for you if you’re a new player who can’t instantly recognize rares and list pets like experienced players can. Clicking the first pet gives you the highest chance of a rare.

There’s always going to be some factor of luck and being there when the pound opens involved, which you can easily set a timer for. I do it all the time. I don’t see what’s unfair about that, literally anyone can. I agree everyone deserves an equal chance but everyone has an equal chance unless lag is severe- but that’s a whole separate topic being addressed in a different thread. So is pet deletion.

Also. Getting mad at people for using the pound on time is silly. Yes that’s the cause of lag, but players are not at fault for playing the game. 😔


Also no less frequent pound openings, I’m not waking up at 4 am for the pound.

[BlingBling]

however, the pound has run this was (i assume) for the whole time it has been around (i am not an old player so please correct me if this is wrong), so maybe the pound needs a bigger update to work with the the way the community operates? like a set schedule instead of random openings. hopefully im allowed to discuss this as an example, but the website goatlings recently did an overhaul of their “giving tree” system which works similarly to the lost and found, every 10 minutes if the giving tree is empty, user donated items will appear, any items still in the tree after 10 minute rollover will stay until they’re all gone, and new items appear next rollover. they anonymized donator names and made other changes as there was an influx in negativity towards not getting any good items when someone in the discord server did a tree drop.

i don’t think this exact system would work for cs, however much smaller, more frequent pounds may be something to consider? so it’s less “i need to get here within 10 seconds or i’m out of luck” and more of “checking in on the pound every so often to see if there’s something cool, if not there will be new ones soon”

not sure if i’ve articulated this right, but hopefully this all makes sense! again please correct me on anything i got wrong or feel free to discuss anything i said ^_^

I see the vision here! I do not support a completely set schedule though because that would attract bots but I could see smaller and frequent or even fairly scheduled but still somewhat random (sometime within the first 10 minutes of a set hour, for example) working

[gansey]

to be quite frank at this point im not sure if the pound is even a good option to continue. there is always lag, poor timing, bot reminders so theres an influx of users, and there are often more users online than there are pets in the pound. i think that there needs to be a better solution.

personally i think a lottery-type situation might be better. im sure there are other ideas too. but the pound the way it is now has been increasingly more difficult over the last few years and the update, i can see how it might be more rewarding, is also not necessarily a solution i feel like, nor are bigger less frequent openings

[.destiny]

being able to see what pets will be available in the next opening in a non-issue, in my opinion. it does not grant anyone an advantage as it doesn't magically allow me to get a pet that i want from the pool. i've missed out on pets that i knew were in the pool. having that knowledge or not doesn't put anyone at an advantage or disadvantage. an influx of players arriving at the pound due to x high value pet and making the site lag or whatnot is just more so a site issue as there should've been methods created to handle a high amount of users. can't really blame people who are excited that a specific pet is in the pound, even though there is a slim chance of even seeing it on the page.

the pound serves as a redistribution system. it can be a reliable way to obtain fodder of any rarity but to expect to consistently obtain rare+ pets is a bit of a high expectation, and quite unreliable. it's simply not what the function was meant to be used for. taken from data collected by these wonderful users, just below 7% of pets will be rare and almost 4% of pets will be very rare. so even just statistically speaking, the odds of obtaining rare+ pets are extremely low because again the pound doesn't function on guarantees. so to answer why people may not even see rares ? because it's a low chance to begin with. also worth mentioning, it is entirely possible to obtain a rare pet beyond just the first page due to the recent update. i've gotten a small handful of rares on the third or fourth page. sometimes it can be worth the wait.

i would be more in favour of having more frequent openings, but i also don't see the harm in increasing the amount of pets in each opening even by 100 or 200 pets. being given a randomized pet from the pound instead just leads to even more disappointment and i really don't think that solves anything.

[avaloafe]

being able to see what pets will be available in the next opening in a non-issue, in my opinion. it does not grant anyone an advantage as it doesn't magically allow me to get a pet that i want from the pool. i've missed out on pets that i knew were in the pool. having that knowledge or not doesn't put anyone at an advantage or disadvantage. an influx of players arriving at the pound due to x high value pet and making the site lag or whatnot is just more so a site issue as there should've been methods created to handle a high amount of users. can't really blame people who are excited that a specific pet is in the pound, even though there is a slim chance of even seeing it on the page.

the pound serves as a redistribution system. it can be a reliable way to obtain fodder of any rarity but to expect to consistently obtain rare+ pets is a bit of a high expectation, and quite unreliable. it's simply not what the function was meant to be used for. taken from data collected by these wonderful users, just below 7% of pets will be rare and almost 4% of pets will be very rare. so even just statistically speaking, the odds of obtaining rare+ pets are extremely low because again the pound doesn't function on guarantees. so to answer why people may not even see rares ? because it's a low chance to begin with. also worth mentioning, it is entirely possible to obtain a rare pet beyond just the first page due to the recent update. i've gotten a small handful of rares on the third or fourth page. sometimes it can be worth the wait.

i would be more in favour of having more frequent openings, but i also don't see the harm in increasing the amount of pets in each opening even by 100 or 200 pets. being given a randomized pet from the pound instead just leads to even more disappointment and i really don't think that solves anything.

thank you for putting this into such good words omg <33 went ahead and bolded the things i agree with most.

this 100%.

[Darkcloud!]

the pound serves as a redistribution system. it can be a reliable way to obtain fodder of any rarity but to expect to consistently obtain rare+ pets is a bit of a high expectation, and quite unreliable. it's simply not what the function was meant to be used for. taken from data collected by these wonderful users, just below 7% of pets will be rare and almost 4% of pets will be very rare. so even just statistically speaking, the odds of obtaining rare+ pets are extremely low because again the pound doesn't function on guarantees. so to answer why people may not even see rares ? because it's a low chance to begin with. also worth mentioning, it is entirely possible to obtain a rare pet beyond just the first page due to the recent update. i've gotten a small handful of rares on the third or fourth page. sometimes it can be worth the wait.

I think it's fair to expect to see at least 2 -3 rares offered to you each pound, especially with the new delay system. That 7% chance is to obtain the pet, which is fine. It should not be a 7% chance to even see one offered and it certainly should not be skewed so hard that multiple people have come forward and said that they do not ever/barely get a chance to try for that 7% grab. I would like to see transparency from staff on how the pound selects who gets to see the rares+, and what the criteria is. It's not really a grab bag-fair chance when there is hidden criteria on who and how gets the chance to view rares on their page(s).

A user should be seeing the chance for a rare or above at least every other pound their account attends.

[tea~]

hopefully this isn't getting too off topic but i want to share my thoughts on some more of the opinions here!

1 - i'm not a fan of just being given a random pet. often times when i catch a pound opening, and i don't manage to get a rare+ (which is most times lol), i can still snag something common off my wishlist. if it was random, i feel like most people would just end up with something they don't even want.

2 - yes people can set timers for when the pound opens, but still a lot of the time it would be opening at a time where we can't log on. for example i can't be on my phone most of the time when i'm at work, or i'm driving, and lots of people at school can't be on during class either. also, there could be younger players with limited screen time. less openings would put anyone in these circumstances at a disadvantage.

3 - i don't think getting rid of the pound makes sense at all? i don't really get this idea. yes it can cause some issues but that seems a bit drastic...? the whole point of it is to redistribute pets from banned accounts - i don't think just letting those pets disappear would be a better option

i guess in all i think it's more important to have more opportunities for users to catch a pound opening vs. have less but those who do catch it having a higher chance at getting a rare pet.

[Adamented]

being able to see what pets will be available in the next opening in a non-issue, in my opinion. it does not grant anyone an advantage as it doesn't magically allow me to get a pet that i want from the pool. i've missed out on pets that i knew were in the pool. having that knowledge or not doesn't put anyone at an advantage or disadvantage.

Right so a new player knows right away when a rare is in their pool and wont miss it then, when a more experienced player will click it right away? That's not true at all. New players more easily skip over pets of value, if they don't know how to recognize one since there is absolutely no indicator of it. Knowing what's coming up is definitely an advantage over someone who doesn't know, considering that if you see something in your pool that you know is valuable you're going to grab it... a newbie wouldn't even know to do that. I'd bet that most new players have no idea you can see what's coming up, to even know which pets are valuable, to even know to click them when you do get one in your pool.

That's not a non-issue. That's an obvious advantage.

If someone who knows antique clocks well goes into an auction and is presented 10 items, they're going to jump for the most valuable one, which they know well because they've been doing it so long. Someone less experienced will see a line up of old clocks and have no idea what their value is, they might be disappointed by everything they see, or choose something that looks nice but has virtually no value.

Isn't that a clear advantage? It's basically the same thing. Except even in that situation, there's a chance even the experienced person won't know value when they see it, however... in this situation, experienced players also know exactly what to look for because they check what's coming up in the pound and what it's worth while a newbie won't know to do that in the first place.

an influx of players arriving at the pound due to x high value pet and making the site lag or whatnot is just more so a site issue as there should've been methods created to handle a high amount of users. can't really blame people who are excited that a specific pet is in the pound, even though there is a slim chance of even seeing it on the page.

We can definitely fix this, by making them not visible at all! Then you don't get more people crowding over a pool with good value pets and lagging the site as much. I'd bet that less people would be inclined to snap up what they can right away if they didn't know a good thing might be there to grab, and it was just random chance that they might get something good.

the pound serves as a redistribution system. it can be a reliable way to obtain fodder of any rarity but to expect to consistently obtain rare+ pets is a bit of a high expectation, and quite unreliable. it's simply not what the function was meant to be used for. taken from data collected by these wonderful users, just below 7% of pets will be rare and almost 4% of pets will be very rare. so even just statistically speaking, the odds of obtaining rare+ pets are extremely low because again the pound doesn't function on guarantees. so to answer why people may not even see rares ? because it's a low chance to begin with. also worth mentioning, it is entirely possible to obtain a rare pet beyond just the first page due to the recent update. i've gotten a small handful of rares on the third or fourth page. sometimes it can be worth the wait.

Right but when experienced users are consistently snapping up the higher value pets because they recognize them instantly when they do appear in their pools while a newbie will likely pass on them just by accident, that creates an imbalance. I'm not sure how many users are really invested in grabbing OMGSC through Common fodder, which is most of it. It's not really a good system of redistribution if the ratio of value from experienced players' grabs compared to newbie players' grabs are so drastic.

i would be more in favour of having more frequent openings, but i also don't see the harm in increasing the amount of pets in each opening even by 100 or 200 pets. being given a randomized pet from the pound instead just leads to even more disappointment and i really don't think that solves anything.

It's only disappointing because experienced players until now have known exactly what they wanted from the pound, what it's for, how to recognize value etc, while newbies have no perspective of that. In fact, I'd argue that for newbies it basically is randomized, they have little to no knowledge of pet value still.

Why favor a specific group of people while leaving the new user base grappling with the disappointment instead? If CS wants to remain a growing site, respect for newer users has to be a big consideration for the changes they make going forward.

The best solution as a compromise would be to make it no longer possible to see what will be in the next drop, it's still not totally fair since newbies can't usually recognize value even when it is in their pool, but at least then we don't have to deal with potentially whole discord servers of players who are all trying to grab the rare pets expected to drop next opening all at the same time. It's perfectly reasonable to hide that, and many players new and old don't even know that it exists in the first place.