Elitism in Trades [Constructive Discussion]

[ACat]

Hello, I want to preface this by saying that it's not intended as hateful at all just something I've picked up on a little bit. I've had wonderful experiences with CS users and seen so many helpful people!!

I'm a returning player who's been getting back into things since about November, I didn't really play at all before then despite my account being made in 2010. Something I've kind of seen/felt is that there's some negativity towards players for not knowing things like 'pet values' or holding things to a different worth when trading. I try to follow the Horror List when going about thing but I do still get confused and make mistakes and sometimes I've felt like I've been sort of backlashed for it. I use the fair trade forum often but recently it's felt a little...cliquey almost? At the very least I've felt more negative energy than usual. Not to say that's standard there's so many lovely people trying to help others <3, but it makes me a bit nervous to ask for help/give my own opinion as I worry about being scolded.

A common thing I get confused about is 'old rares/VRs'. I know the standard is them being worth 0.1 MA and 2 VRs = 1 Rare, so I tend to value an older VR as 0.2 MA myself but I've been told that's incorrect without much explanation as to why. The system can be confusing to new/returning players and I just think there should be a little more gentleness when explaining mistakes. We're all people at the end of the day.

Has anyone else felt similarly? Again, I don't mean to sound hateful/ungrateful but I was just curious if others had felt this way too.

Rules

- Please be respectful within this discussion
- No naming users/pointing fingers
- Feel free to share any positives too <3

[BlueEyedKite]

I haven't experienced much elitism, but then again I am usually the receiver of the trades and it's usually those sending who may not know Horror's guide or don't know the going rarity, for whatever reason. Sometimes I will cancel and gently educate, link Horror's guide, explain how to use it. I have gotten positive pms for doing so! People can't help what they don't know, I just cancel if I don't like a trade.

When I am sending trades I have this big wall of text that explains how I got to the value, link to successful trades xD the works! I have no idea what people think about all I shove into the trade message but I do get accepted trades hahaha.

It's just tough on the trading scene, no one wants to feel like they're getting the short end of stick. It's a different environment than back in the beginning of the site when it felt like everything was for fun! We're serious collectors now

[Wysterinka]

I feel like everyone who ever wrote a guide there for someone who needed help has felt that way at least once or twice. The negative experience you are describing is what most people experience when they write advice that they are unsure of. I try to completely dodge trades where I am not 100% sure (mostly with pets I don't trade that often like BW's or massive bulk trades of common/uncommon pets. Exactly because of what you say, I can get scolded or disagreed with.

Disagreements are fine ofc, there are at least 3 or 4 different value systems that some older users are using and sadly, people who are writing advice in FTT should only be using the new updated version of Horror's list and keep it simple to understand. It's fair to say that you are free to use any values you would like for your own pets when trading, just the advice for people in one thread should be solidified.
Best of advice I can give you when you try to help someone with their trade would be - if you are not 100% sure or even post a link sometimes to prove it, it's definitely better to write something like "I am not 100% sure, please get second opinion" on bottom of your advice. That way the person you are helping won't get that confused if someone suddenly disagree with you and then they have 2 different opinions not knowing what to pick

I wouldn't personally say it feels like "elitism" to me but usually giving advice to people on certain pets can get tricky due to demand. It's a factor that belongs to trading and has space in the advice you give (such as when you say spiders have very specific audience and therefore might have less demand for most people than dogs/cats ^^ - THIS is the correct approach and it does help people especially if you separate the advice by value + demand!)

About the old rares concept that you were confused about - you are not the only one there, don't worry about it ^^ It's due to a poll that was held and I believe maybe 200 or so participated. Because "old rare" used to be 09 pet and after the update and poll - it is not anymore. Now years 2010 and 2011 were merged together as same value and are classified as "old rares". Likely due to the amount of them in comparison to remaining 09 rares (there's really only few left). Personally I don't value them completely same in my own trades and I think giving someone 10x 2011 rare for 1 MA would not even be balanced and low. But this is not most shared opinion, it's just something I do. I either pick rares from those years 50/50, or only offer 2010...but still I don't do these trades very often.

What lately bothers me more is the amount of people who are spamming trade forum asking for trades and then proceed to decline all of the trades incoming without stating reasons. I am not only one who finds this little bit mean from the other person even if they did so because they are not sure of some value. It's always better to ask someone for help or negotiate with the person trading. So the amount of people who would actually edit the trade and try to spend some time on it or work something out is extremely low and therefore, people sometimes don't even send out trades...also some people just got "scammed" of their good pets too many times, which is why we should always ask and always help each other. I have been returning user at some point too and all of my pets were from 2008-2011. I lost majority of my pets right after return. Mostly because I wanted complete collection for the years missed and then things like trading 2009 VR for few new uncommons happen. It might be sad but it also made me learn from my mistakes and learn more about values and demand over the time. The fact that my trade fodder was filled with rats and ponies was my proof to it xD

I just hope we get more and more people who try to be nice to each other and communicate, rather then turning this site into "point and click" trade action. ^_^

[ACat]

I feel like everyone who ever wrote a guide there for someone who needed help has felt that way at least once or twice. The negative experience you are describing is what most people experience when they write advice that they are unsure of. I try to completely dodge trades where I am not 100% sure (mostly with pets I don't trade that often like BW's or massive bulk trades of common/uncommon pets. Exactly because of what you say, I can get scolded or disagreed with.

Disagreements are fine ofc, there are at least 3 or 4 different value systems that some older users are using and sadly, people who are writing advice in FTT should only be using the new updated version of Horror's list and keep it simple to understand. It's fair to say that you are free to use any values you would like for your own pets when trading, just the advice for people in one thread should be solidified.
Best of advice I can give you when you try to help someone with their trade would be - if you are not 100% sure or even post a link sometimes to prove it, it's definitely better to write something like "I am not 100% sure, please get second opinion" on bottom of your advice. That way the person you are helping won't get that confused if someone suddenly disagree with you and then they have 2 different opinions not knowing what to pick

I wouldn't personally say it feels like "elitism" to me but usually giving advice to people on certain pets can get tricky due to demand. It's a factor that belongs to trading and has space in the advice you give (such as when you say spiders have very specific audience and therefore might have less demand for most people than dogs/cats ^^ - THIS is the correct approach and it does help people especially if you separate the advice by value + demand!)

About the old rares concept that you were confused about - you are not the only one there, don't worry about it ^^ It's due to a poll that was held and I believe maybe 200 or so participated. Because "old rare" used to be 09 pet and after the update and poll - it is not anymore. Now years 2010 and 2011 were merged together as same value and are classified as "old rares". Likely due to the amount of them in comparison to remaining 09 rares (there's really only few left). Personally I don't value them completely same in my own trades and I think giving someone 10x 2011 rare for 1 MA would not even be balanced and low. But this is not most shared opinion, it's just something I do. I either pick rares from those years 50/50, or only offer 2010...but still I don't do these trades very often.

What lately bothers me more is the amount of people who are spamming trade forum asking for trades and then proceed to decline all of the trades incoming without stating reasons. I am not only one who finds this little bit mean from the other person even if they did so because they are not sure of some value. It's always better to ask someone for help or negotiate with the person trading. So the amount of people who would actually edit the trade and try to spend some time on it or work something out is extremely low and therefore, people sometimes don't even send out trades...also some people just got "scammed" of their good pets too many times, which is why we should always ask and always help each other. I have been returning user at some point too and all of my pets were from 2008-2011. I lost majority of my pets right after return. Mostly because I wanted complete collection for the years missed and then things like trading 2009 VR for few new uncommons happen. It might be sad but it also made me learn from my mistakes and learn more about values and demand over the time. The fact that my trade fodder was filled with rats and ponies was my proof to it xD

I just hope we get more and more people who try to be nice to each other and communicate, rather then turning this site into "point and click" trade action. ^_^

Yeah I agree 'Elitism' probably isn't the best word choice on my part I just wasn't sure how to phrase it haha!

Trading is always a bit of a grey area in aspects I suppose since 'demand' is subjective to a point. Like I personally value stores higher than average just as they don't return and are more of a C$ exclusive thing (obviously you can trade for them etc!), but store values can be a bit everywhere.

Unfortunately I've seen in the FTT a couple of times in the last few weeks things that felt more like petty arguments than actual advice and that can overshadow the actually useful information being given

I haven't experienced much elitism, but then again I am usually the receiver of the trades and it's usually those sending who may not know Horror's guide or don't know the going rarity, for whatever reason. Sometimes I will cancel and gently educate, link Horror's guide, explain how to use it. I have gotten positive pms for doing so! People can't help what they don't know, I just cancel if I don't like a trade.

When I am sending trades I have this big wall of text that explains how I got to the value, link to successful trades xD the works! I have no idea what people think about all I shove into the trade message but I do get accepted trades hahaha.

It's just tough on the trading scene, no one wants to feel like they're getting the short end of stick. It's a different environment than back in the beginning of the site when it felt like everything was for fun! We're serious collectors now

Yes I try to explain myself sometimes too if I think it's unclear why I sent something!! I think that's a smart thing to do tbh so at least you're giving reasoning, even if the other person disagrees.

[LionKingdom]

Agreeing with Wysterinka here.

There has been quite a lot of negativity at least from what I've been seeing. And yeah as a person that doesn't really know values too well especially when it's high worth pets, I completly avoid on giving my own opinion. Not only to just avoid creating havoc in the forum, but also because I don't like risking giving false/bad advice for others. Even though I agree that if a person isn't sure if their opinions about the trade are solid then they shouldn't give advice on that trade, I feel like if someone actually does give bad advice that they should be pointed to the right direction instead of completly being shut down. (Of course there are exceptions like a person who has been told continuesly that their advice is not correct, but they keep going).

Also as a person who follows the recent Horror's list for pet worths, it's quite 50/50, because a lot of players follow it, but there's also a lot of older players who don't. So it's quite the barrier of pet worth opinions.

I feel like there should be way more encouragement and explaining instead of shutting down people or backlashed for it. Which is also why I avoid doing big worth trades or trying to get very high value pets unless it's a pet I reallyyyy want.

I also think it's easier to respect people's values, if I'm the one sending a trade, I won't be pushing my own personal values onto my trading partner, But if it's someone trading me, I expect them to follow my values.

[Anya-chan]

I am also a returning player, I came back two months ago and I really have a lot of trouble with these new systems, I just cannot understand it. The game is quite different from the time I used to play before (2011-2012).

I understand that things kinda evolved with the years, but still, this a game nonetheless. It is supposed to be fun. The game has a free market system, economically speaking, so people can trade the way they want to, and I think that's how it should be, as long as both parties consider it fair. People are free to value things differently. If you don't agree with how the other person values the pets, simply don't trade with them.

It's the same in real life. If you go buy a second-hand car and the person asks for xxxx$ and you think it's too much, you may try to negotiate and if you are not willing to give that money, you simply don't buy it to that person and go look for someone else selling a car that interests you.

Yesterday a person sent me a trade, and the difference in dates was more than five years. Before replying, I decided to check that person's trading guidelines and found out that they didn't care about dates. So I edited the trade and in the message explained that for me dates are important. The other person canceled the trade, but answered me respectfully. No need to be rude or shame other people.

What I have been doing since I came back is avoiding "serious" forum threads and mainly avoid trading with people who follow the new systems too strictly or have very complicated trade rules. It is easier to simply find someone else who has trading guidelines more similar to yours.

(P. S.: Sorry if my english is not good or weird, it is not my first language.)

[ACat]

I agree with you both that it's good to trade with people who follow similar trade rules/values! Makes things a bit smoother

At the end of the day the 'rules' were made by the community. They only hold as much value as we let them. Everything is subjective and ultimately it's a silly (/pos) pet collecting game that shouldn't really be a source of stress