Taratan wrote: -snip-
First, one has to note that the inability to catch the Pound doesn't necessarily say as much about someone's level of activity as it used to given Discord bots. You can be barely active otherwise and yet set remainders to Pound, hence why we have spikes in site activity shortly before opening. In theory, you can be also very active on the website and not use Pound as well, but seems to be rare as who wouldn't take a free pet, or at least have a shot at one (given failures in Pound dynamics described here, some of which have been addressed, like ).
Though, despite that, I would still say that Pound is one of main website drivers in activity overall - I know more than one person (including myself, who runs a small experiment of trying to catch every Pound this month, and this keeps me active at this website, in a way that nothing else could do in years - I was barely active for many of them) that checks out trades and trades with others more while coming to check the Pound. I would bet this would show in actual data, if such exists. And that's all even with Discord bots (perhaps they actually drove the overall activity levels higher, as now observing Pound times is much easier).
Second, the game that doesn't reward activity from their players usually doesn't live very long. Or at least lives very slowly (inactivity death). CS is already a game that overall doesn't reward activity much, hence it has drastic user count changes when it actually decides to do so (events, 18th December, pet releases each month) and is much more empty otherwise. When you decide to give "inactive users" a prize for inactivity anyway (so to equalize userbase), one of the main encouragements to be active disappears, because there is no game gain to visit this website up to a few times a day to check for Pound/L&F. The only option that's left here is trading and trading has several issues on this website as well, and is far less newcomer friendly than Pound.
This means that several of the actually active people today who see Pound as one of the reasons to come to the website will lose that reason. And it's not like people who are inactive are gaining any reason - they do however "get prizes" regardless of inactivity.
It's like approaching a swarm of vigorous Dota nerds and suggesting them that totally revamping the gaming system to suit "rarely playing players" so "they could have high rankings too" (eliminating the difference between someone who plays three times per day and three times in half a year) is a very good idea. Hint: it would kill Dota. Or like a teacher in a class who has two pupils: one who comes every second school day for a test and one who slacks and comes in every two weeks - who says that "Well, for you to have equal chances I'm going to make those tests bi-weekly so Simon can have a chance at equal grades. What do you mean Charlie, you don't want to come here as often any more...?".
In fact, the opposite should be approached: for CS to be more lively and have a more active, bigger userbase, and develop as a game, it should have more (both in amount and diversity), not less, opportunities that reward players for their activity. Right now from things you can do daily here there is Pound and potential gains from the trading system (I count pet, item and art trades in those). There is also a social side to the website, but this side is only somewhat connected to the game aspect (to the point that some people using the social aspect of CS aren't using the pet aspect at all), so I'm not factoring that in, although it is an activity drive semi-related to the game (but not the game itself, forums could function on its own, just with less activity). Events are irregular and pets adoptions are monthly, so those are not the reason for day-to-day gaming. By making Pound something "once a day" you will make many people who come here several times per day and drag activity alongside (consciously or not, with that bot timer or not) come here once a day at best (if not stop coming here because of how discouraging it is). CS should go to the direction of players - especially new players! - being able to expand their collections daily, to having more activities that people could find joy and participate in, and so forth. When you limit Pound, you limit one of the main ways - very few ways - for newer players to get over the account age difference (which is a huge factor in how much you have on CS), to have a shot at extremely rare pets (in fact, I would say that there have to be more ways for the newer players only that would give them somewhat more chances at doing so than for older players). And even for older players - if you have been inactive or someone stripped you of you treasures by ninja trading, Pound is the way you can catch up and make it up, if you have luck - though if you visit it often enough - as it's regularly open - you have more chances, and hence more chances for luck to shine. So your persistency and activity in that matter tends to get rewarded. And that drives all types of players in.
(This idea may cause Pound "clogging" as mentioned above as well. People just won't be willing to adopt more common left-over pets, fearing it will block their chances for more rare pets in the next Pound, and you will be stuck with Pounds with ~400 pets left going for ages. Now there is practically no drawback to go late and adopt that one Very Common, but with such changes there may be.)
This ^^
I feel like there being not much to do idlily on the website really is a drawback, and you can't deny that the pound brings in the most players outside of events. On websites like Flight Rising they have the Fairground where you can play games to gain rewards etc and I feel like something like that could benefit CS too. Just to give players something else to do if they don't really want to be constantly trading or waiting for either Pound or L&F to open.
