by Pyromaniacal » Mon Nov 18, 2024 5:03 pm
Been lurking for a bit and I have some thoughts on the discussion so far.
TLDR; I like UR items and would like to see them again. What form that release should take depends a lot on what gameplay purpose CS wants UR items to primarily serve. I think UR items should be somehow denoted more clearly than they currently are, although I'm not convinced that item ninja trading is nearly as big of an issue as pet ninja trading. I have complicated thoughts about a hypothetical item rarity system but A) such a system seems to be off the table and B) it's a discussion of wide enough scope that it would surely need its own discussion space.
I like the idea of UR items in theory. Specifically, I really like that there's an item rerelease, and because of how the pet rerelease has begat new UR pets pretty much since day 1 afaik, it seems totally consistent for there to be UR items too. It's really exciting to know that you have a chance of getting an entirely new, yet-before-seen pet/item when adopting from the rerelease. I think they're fun.
I do appreciate concerns that it may be hard for players who aren't really deep into item trading to know what they've gotten, though. I definitely agree that adding a signifier in the UR item names is 100% necessary. Something along the lines of "UR Dragon Cake (Special Release)" is both the simplest and clearest way to do it. The "*!*!* UR Dragon Cake *!*!*" thing we have going on right now is cute, but doesn't effectively indicate that the items are special and valuable imo. Same goes for bolding the item name, if that's even possible in the backend. Directly stating that it's a special release in the item name is the least confusing way to do it.
As far as what the items should actually be... I'm of two minds. I don't mind the items being on the more mundane end, as long as the artwork is polished and they aren't easily confused for a prior release (the biggest weakness of the cakes imo. I do agree with the prior sentiment on this thread that if a UR item design is something big, flashy, or special—basically anything that'll generate demand for reasons beyond just being a UR—it should have a wider distribution. I would be happy with either more mundane or more special UR items, but a flashy rare item will be a nightmare to trade for while a common boring UR item will just seem lame, so aim for either a flashy item that is actually relatively common so people can dress up their pets with it, or a mundane one on the rarer side for collectors to trade for that casual players don't have to worry about.
I think a lot of it comes down to what the gameplay purpose of UR items, and frankly items as a whole, is actually meant to be. Obviously players can do whatever they want with their items, but the way CS approaches them will influence what many players will do. Are players primarily meant to use items to dress up their pets with only a secondary goal of collecting them, or are they primarily meant to collect them with the added bonus that they can be used for dressups? Based on CS's history, I would guess that the former is the case, which might suggest that the flashier, more common UR items are the way to go. But with CS trading culture how it's been for the past few years, you could argue that perhaps the primary gameplay purpose of items has shifted to the point that they're really more used for trading fodder and collection purposes than for dressups nowadays, a culture that would be better served by a rarer UR. Or, you could argue that, while items as a *whole* are primarily used for dressups, UR releases specifically are a collector's thing. I think whichever of these gameplay objectives is true, or at least is meant to be true, should inform the way UR items are released (or if they are at all—while I personally would be disappointed to see them go, you could argue that, assuming items are really primarly for dressups, special release items just fundamentally run counter to that purpose).
As far as a hypothetical item rarity system is concerned... I'm not sure how I feel? My understanding is that implementing item rarities would necessitate an entire rewrite of large portions of CS's backend, which one could argue needs to be done anyway but is an issue entirely beyond the scope of just "should there be new UR items this year." Even if an item rarity system were to be implemented somehow, I don't think I would want it to be nearly as involved as the pet rarity system is. Item trading has always been less popular than pet trading; my impression is that most people really only trade for items they want to use for dressups, as opposed to pursuing a complete item collection. Some way to indicate the rarest items would be nice, so people don't have to rely so entirely on user-created guides to know what they've got, but I fear an 11-tier rarity system like we've got for pets would turn item trading into something much more complicated.
Granted, I haven't done much high-value item trading, so maybe my impression of the scene is misplaced. But it seems to me that, at least for items that aren't the crazy valuable stuff, item trading is generally treated as pretty casual and flexible compared to pet trading. It's much like how swapping monthly missed outcomes feels before the rarities come out—you're probably not gonna randomly swap monthlies for the EU outcome, because anyone paying attention to the swap thread can tell that one's on the rarer side, but people will happily swap around pets that turn out to be anywhere from EC to UC. Sure, you might occasionally trade a pet that turns out to be UC for a VC, but just as often you'll be on the other side, so it all evens out in the end... but once the rarities come out, most people become a lot stricter with how they want to trade those same pets. It's a casual swapping culture that comes about specifically because we don't know the rarities yet, so everyone's a bit more open to just swapping for missed outcomes rather than maintaining perfect value equilibrium in every trade.
And just to be clear—I really like the 11-tier rarity system for pets! I think it was really necessary, especially for older and rarer pets. But a lot more people are pet collectors looking for rare pets than item collectors, and I sort of appreciate the fact that, right now at least, there are two separate trading cultures. Again, going back to the gameplay purpose thing—pets are primarily meant to be collected, so an in-depth trading system makes a lot of sense! A complicated item rarity system would just serve to make item trading conform a lot more to the rules and style of pet trading and enforce a gameplay purpose on them that is much more focused on collecting than on dressups. Assuming items are generally meant to be for dressups first, I personally don't think a hypothetical item rarity system should have more than a few tiers of distinction (maybe common+uncommon+rare?) so that it can denote the rarest items without sacrificing the relative flexibility in item trading or items' primary role in gameplay.
I also just sort of wonder... how often do people actually get ninja'd out of valuable items like the UR cakes? We know rare pet ninja trading is a big problem from how many people post about recieving and/or regretting accepting deeply unfair offers, especially after December 18th. But—and maybe I just haven't been paying enough attention, I dunno—I don't remember seeing a whole lot of that with the UR cakes? I remember seeing some disagreement about what they were actually worth in the days after the item rerelease, as happens for all new rare releases, and then... not really hearing about them at all after that. A lot of people hardly trade items at all, and even have their item trades closed entirely—I could believe that a pretty big portion of the people who got one of the UR cakes without realizing what it was just don't trade their items. Someone else earlier in the thread brought up that a lot of ninja traders find targets by searching through pet IDs after the rerelease—so since items don't have IDs, it's much harder for ninjas to find targets if they aren't posting about what they got to the forums—and once they're posting on the forums, they're much more likely to know (or be quickly informed) that they have something valuable. Again, maybe I have this twisted or haven't been paying enough attention, and I'm sure item ninja trading happens at least *sometimes,* but it doesn't seem to be nearly as big of an issue as pet ninja trading is.
That's my two (...hundred...) cents on the discussion anyway.
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✧ ANIMAL: Wukongopterusx
✧ GAME: Terra Nilxxiixxxxiixi ---------------------------------------- Friend ✧ Trades ✧ Simas ---------------------------------------- IF THE WORLD CHOOSES TO
BECOME MY ENEMY, I WILL
FIGHT LIKE I ALWAYS HAVE!✧ ------------------------------------------ ✧
