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

[Khajiitcat]

I think its unfair to have the pound only open once a day. Because everyone is in different time zones it would cause half of the world to not have access to the pound without loss of sleep. Its not fair to people in other time zones. Maybe just have it open twice a day 12 hours apart and meet in the middle from how far you want to etxend the pound currently vs where its at now? Instead of it occasionally being three times a day or maybe two on occasions, it could just be two times a day solid?

[schlottis]

Two points to note in regards to the pound bot.

1. Yes, there is something right in mentioning that it is, functionally, similar to putting on a timer for the pound.
However, the bot is not something you, the user, have to maintain. It is done automatically for you: you just benefit from it. Setting a timer and not using the bot relies on the online user seeing that there is a pound about to open, and setting the timer for themselves. The bot means that inactive users can be conveniently told and quickly open the website for a short interval, open the pound, take something, and go -- all without any further interaction with the website. This is to the detriment of active players participating in the website.

2. There was a different post on the previous page from user (I don't remember how to only quote part of someone's message, apologies) that states 'there’s nothing wrong with coming on just for the pound, and then logging off again. there’s absolutely no harm in that. '.

I don't agree with this completely. Yes, I think it's on the individual user to come on for just the pound and go, that's their choice. I think it would be unreasonable to say otherwise. It is not up to us to decide how people should enjoy their time on this website; its down to the people who run it.

However, the massive influx of players who would not regularly be on the website at that time all refreshing the same thing at the same time has an impact on the egregious amount of lag we get when the pound opens. There are players who miss at least the first page or two from the lag alone, or their first page has almost all of the pets taken. It is not down to player internet speed, its how much the CS server can take in page requests in one go. It also damages availability of pets, regardless of pet quality.

I would argue that it could be considered harmful. Not in a very meaningful way as things go, but it still counters the player enjoyment. Whether the pound is seen as a 'rare dispenser' or not, it is a high demand feature on the site because it gives a player a chance to get something they regularly wouldn't be able to. You cannot convince me that the reason most people use the pound bot isn't because they want a chance at a rare. Otherwise, it wouldn't matter how quickly they got here. It might not be the purpose of the pound, but it is its most popular usecase.

But to circle back to the point of this post, and what I said in my previous post -- regardless of either implimentation of the pound, it does not fix the situation. With ease of access tools such as the discord bot (which is out of CS's control) that allow players of any activity level to pile onto the site in one go, there are not enough pets to go around for what the playerbase wants. The pound continues to close in minutes. It is a first come, first serve, sure, but it's also inherently competitive and potentially inaccessible for players who cannot access said quality of life tools.
Not everyone can or wants to use discord. Players should not be punished for not using a third party tool.

[Nicnova]

However, the massive influx of players who would not regularly be on the website at that time all refreshing the same thing at the same time has an impact on the egregious amount of lag we get when the pound opens. There are players who miss at least the first page or two from the lag alone, or their first page has almost all of the pets taken. It is not down to player internet speed, its how much the CS server can take in page requests in one go. It also damages availability of pets, regardless of pet quality.

I agree with this, but I don't think the solution is to make changes that would lower the amount of players on the site. That's detrimental to the growth of the site in general. We should WANT more players on the site, it's what keeps the site alive. The issue is that the site can't handle it, and these are the changes they need to make. They need to be able to handle a large influx of players coming online for the pound.

[avaloafe]

2. There was a different post on the previous page from user (I don't remember how to only quote part of someone's message, apologies) that states 'there’s nothing wrong with coming on just for the pound, and then logging off again. there’s absolutely no harm in that. :)'.

I don't agree with this completely. Yes, I think it's on the individual user to come on for just the pound and go, that's their choice. I think it would be unreasonable to say otherwise. It is not up to us to decide how people should enjoy their time on this website; its down to the people who run it.

However, the massive influx of players who would not regularly be on the website at that time all refreshing the same thing at the same time has an impact on the egregious amount of lag we get when the pound opens. There are players who miss at least the first page or two from the lag alone, or their first page has almost all of the pets taken. It is not down to player internet speed, its how much the CS server can take in page requests in one go. It also damages availability of pets, regardless of pet quality.

I would argue that it could be considered harmful. Not in a very meaningful way as things go, but it still counters the player enjoyment. Whether the pound is seen as a 'rare dispenser' or not, it is a high demand feature on the site because it gives a player a chance to get something they regularly wouldn't be able to. You cannot convince me that the reason most people use the pound bot isn't because they want a chance at a rare. Otherwise, it wouldn't matter how quickly they got here. It might not be the purpose of the pound, but it is its most popular usecase.

hi, that was me. as a full time working adult, i’m really ONLY on this site for the pound and pet adoptions/events for my pet collections. why is that a bad thing for users to log on for the pound, do some trading then log back off? we don’t HAVE to use the forums. we don’t have to use oekaki boards. we are allowed to sign on for adoptions and JUST the pets only. there’s no harm in that. i’ve gotten one ER and one rare pet in the past like 25 openings. everything else has been EU and under. so no, i see no harm in people coming on for a few minutes whenever the pound/l&f open up :)

[schlottis]

hi, that was me. as a full time working adult, i’m really ONLY on this site for the pound and pet adoptions/events for my pet collections. why is that a bad thing for users to log on for the pound, do some trading then log back off? we don’t HAVE to use the forums. we don’t have to use oekaki boards. we are allowed to sign on for adoptions and JUST the pets only. there’s no harm in that. i’ve gotten one ER and one rare pet in the past like 25 openings. everything else has been EU and under. so no, i see no harm in people coming on for a few minutes whenever the pound/l&f open up

I did not say that it was a bad thing -- do not put words in my mouth. I said it was up to the individual player, and it is not on us (the userbase) to say how players should enjoy their time on the site. It should be down to the people who run the site, the ones who make the rules for how it works.

But what I did say, and the part that's relevant to your point, is that it's a harmful tool in as much as it causes an influx of players, lag, and the pets go too fast. Does that happen because so many people come in at once off the discord tool? In part, yes.
Is it those users fault? Not really, no.

The point that I was making, and I think is clear in my post, is that the way the pound works, and the possible solutions, do not fix the issues that players are having off of the back of this. What people want -- easier access to actually getting a pet from the pound -- will not be fixed by more pounds with less pets or less pounds but more pets, partly because of how large the desire to get the pound is.

The numbers stipulated are not enough to accommodate for the desire for the pound. The players all arriving on one chunk and refreshing is a large impact on lag and are why it empties so fast. These are not the fault of the user, they are an intrinsic issue with the way that not only the pound works, but the site operates as a whole. Servers are expensive. This website is, to my understanding, a side project to Tess and Nick's real lives as opposed to an overt business. But there are enough players on here that reasonable accommodations need to be made to the functionality of this site as a whole.

Though it is technically irrelevant to the poll's question, but relevant to your comment on how people can just come here for the pets, I think there's also problems there. December 18th causes a high demand chaos that they try to account for on the day itself, but it still has issues. The pound feels a hundred times slower when the player base is increased during events with banners. This is something else they should be addressing. This website cannot cope with a higher than average active playerbase.

My remark at the end about how players should not be punished for not using the discord is as it says -- they shouldn't be. But they are, because they can't know as quickly. Again, I am not blaming the discord bot or the people using it, I am saying it is an unfair advantage to people who do not use it. That is something that, in my opinion anyway, should be accommodated or addressed in some way by CS staff. Not necessarily by requesting the bot is banned, but they should at least evaluate the whole context.

I agree with this, but I don't think the solution is to make changes that would lower the amount of players on the site. That's detrimental to the growth of the site in general. We should WANT more players on the site, it's what keeps the site alive. The issue is that the site can't handle it, and these are the changes they need to make. They need to be able to handle a large influx of players coming online for the pound.

I also agree with this, it also covers some of my above points. It's not the players fault that the site cannot handle the way the players interact with it. It needs to be adapted. It is an important part of getting regular player attendance and interaction on the game. I will say that there should be more than just the pound to come for, that's maybe suited for discussion on another board, though. I wonder how the pound drive affects advertising revenue.

[Teekl]

Not in response to anyone in particular, but: Banning the Discord bot won’t change much. People would still use Discord servers and probably just manually ping everyone that a pound is about to start. You’d still get that same influx of people. Some Discord servers already have manual pinging. The people it would hurt the most are the individuals who just use CS Pound bot in a private server and have no actual person to ping them. Which I highly doubt is the majority of people flooding the Pound.

And again, the pet group in the Pound is publicly accessible. Sure, not everyone knows about it, but I don’t think the solution to that is “get rid of Pound bot” I think the solution is “Make information more accessible to newbies.”
When players don’t know about a feature, you don’t just say “Oh well” and get rid of the feature. What you do is try to inform and educate people so they DO know about it.

Ultimately, getting rid of the Pound bot makes the Pound less accessible to people. And I don’t think making the Pound less accessible to certain groups makes it fairer. Faster, yeah, but if the idea is to give everyone a chance to grab a pet that they want, then no, getting rid of the Pound bot is counterproductive.

[Buster2918]

My remark at the end about how players should not be punished for not using the discord is as it says -- they shouldn't be. But they are, because they can't know as quickly. Again, I am not blaming the discord bot or the people using it, I am saying it is an unfair advantage to people who do not use it. That is something that, in my opinion anyway, should be accommodated or addressed in some way by CS staff. Not necessarily by requesting the bot is banned, but they should at least evaluate the whole context.

Thank you for clarifying your previous post, and I agree with the statement that the servers are the heart of the problem regarding the website slowing down under a large load of players at once; that's a given. I wish CS would do something about it in the future for events (mostly December 18th for obvious reasons).

The people who willingly do not use alarms or notification bots are putting themselves at a disadvantage (ignorance of the fact that those things exist does not apply here). Nothing wrong with them choosing to not utilize these features because it's their gameplay experience and not mine, but if they choose to not use them, that's on them and they do not really... have a valid complaint unless for whatever reason, their electronics won't let them run it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Most people can set an alarm on their phone and I always do that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And again, the pet group in the Pound is publicly accessible. Sure, not everyone knows about it, but I don’t think the solution to that is “get rid of Pound bot” I think the solution is “Make information more accessible to newbies.”
When players don’t know about a feature, you don’t just say “Oh well” and get rid of the feature. What you do is try to inform and educate people so they DO know about it.

This. ^

[avaloafe]

My remark at the end about how players should not be punished for not using the discord is as it says -- they shouldn't be. But they are, because they can't know as quickly. Again, I am not blaming the discord bot or the people using it, I am saying it is an unfair advantage to people who do not use it. That is something that, in my opinion anyway, should be accommodated or addressed in some way by CS staff. Not necessarily by requesting the bot is banned, but they should at least evaluate the whole context.

that is a users choice then. it truly isn’t unfair as it is available for EVERYONE to use. i have it in my own private server to get pinged. anyone 13+ can have a discord account and then have access to the bot :) anyone who is also under 13 would have more than enough time to check out the site and “stalk” when the pound opens. i think, however, the majority of people complaining about the pound AND then about the bot, are part of the older user base.

and yes, i know you said “not everyone can or wants to use discord.” then that’s their choice. but people simply cannot complain about a tool that is available for all to use because they don’t want to utilize it. if they CAN’T access discord, then they can check CS every few hours and set alarms on any mobile device ^^

the staff has also responded to the bot in this thread.

If admins felt that the pound bot were an exploit or against our rules, it would be removed. If you'd like to make a suggestion regarding it please use the suggestions board - otherwise please try to kind to everyone and stay on topic to the question at hand regarding the size of openings. :)

if CS is unable to make their servers handle a high influx of people coming online at one moment in time, they can’t create their own “bot” on the website because that would again, cause more strain on the servers. i know you say you aren’t blaming the bot or us, but it truly does sound like it. /gen

[The Last Raven]

If admins felt that the pound bot were an exploit or against our rules, it would be removed. If you'd like to make a suggestion regarding it please use the suggestions board - otherwise please try to kind to everyone and stay on topic to the question at hand regarding the size of openings.

Not sure why people are continuing to argue against the pound bot when clearly staff does not see it as an issue

[Darkcloud!]

that is a users choice then. it truly isn’t unfair as it is available for EVERYONE to use. i have it in my own private server to get pinged. anyone 13+ can have a discord account and then have access to the bot :) anyone who is also under 13 would have more than enough time to check out the site and “stalk” when the pound opens. i think, however, the majority of people complaining about the pound AND then about the bot, are part of the older user base.

COPPAs can't post in forums, so yes, the discussion here is going to be older adults. Kids under 13 are in school, often are in activities outside of school, and have time-restrictions on internet usage. Additionally, you must be 15/16 in some locales to access discord. Highschoolers/children on this site have about as much free time as a working adult, with the exception of summer/winter breaks (which often see kids having to travel/going to camps/other activities that take up their time anyways). The bot gives adult players, who already have access to advantages (money for c$, ability to form off-site groups to control trading and set prices...).... more advantage. So no, it's not available for EVERYONE on a site supposedly geared towards a playerbase of kids.

just because staff sort-of says it's fine, doesn't make it fair, doesn't mean it's not actively contributing to the pound problem that changing opening size/times won't fix.