COMMUNITY POLL: Rare Monthly Pets

[Calix]

I'm in support, it's a nice way for newbies to get a head start.
It's a little hectic trying to trade for the rare outcome during the month when demand is high- but afterward it's usually a lot easier.

I do wonder whether a notice similar to Dec 18th would be warranted if it's going to be more frequent, though. It seems like it might be easy for newbies to be tricked into a 1:1 litter swap.

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For those not supporting because they aim for a full collection and find these types of litters frustrating-

I don't understand why rarer monthly outcomes would be a problem, when the main barrier to a complete collection is in the older releases?

I mean this in a respectful way, but complete collections are never ever happening for a majority of players, and those older pets are the main reason why. I joined in 2011 and I've amassed a decent collection over the years- but completing it feels as improbable as it did when I joined. Not impossible- but comparable in my eyes to something like, a full shiny pokedex; more of a badge of honor than a required checkbox, y'know?
Personally, I take this as a positive, and it removes the completionist stress, but I get that others may see it different.

[PowerYetUnknown]

Hi, I'm someone who has as of this year managed to collect every single pet that has come out, and my opinion is, I really don't want this.

Logging in once a day and sorting through my growing pets and seeking out new ones is fun, and easy to complete and I'm someone who has a lot of time on my hands. I do not mind occasional events and things that last a couple of weeks because I love doing them and token events are fun and easy to grab the rares while your going because it's really just about collecting enough tokens to get them all.

The one event I have mixed feelings about is the advent calendar event, it's fun but the outcomes and some being rarer than others stresses me out. I find the advent calendar event makes me so stressed that I often end up spending hours online refreshing trade threads, there is no "casual fun" for me during those times.

I'm afraid that if rares are added into monthly mixes (more often than they already are) chicken smoothie will be too stressful to keep up with and will no longer be fun to me. I saw someone bring up the Valentine's lion as an example and I completely agree, the Valentine's lion took me several hours of refreshing the site until I eventually lucked out, I remember being very stressed and annoyed and overall just very not mentally healthy. I'll repeat this is the opinion of someone who struggles with a lot of stress and things of that nature, despite that I love chicken smoothie and try to take things easy while playing it, but I can't imagine dealing with that once a month would be very fun at all. I know my limits and that is it, I'm sure many people have the same issue as I and will also have limits to that point as well but I also know many people don't deal with the same issues and this post will not apply to them, purely speaking from personal experience.

[ShorahNagi]

I like the idea of more, but think it should happen on a set schedule (ex. Every 3 months) so that players can know when to expect litters like that.

[Akronite]

huge support for this!!! I think this would be a positive change for the site and make regular litters more exciting, as well as hopefully improve the trading landscape a bit for newer players!

I would say focus on releasing more extremely uncomons and rares, rather than vrs and up though! I think something like the august pps should only be released maybe once or twice a year at most.

Additionally, while I support this, I would like to say that I don't think this will be any kind of bandaid for most of the issues with the trading on CS. I think the most effective thing staff could do in that regard is release pet numbers, which would give the community a lot clearer idea of how rare pets really are.

[Bronze!]

I think something like the August PPS Lion (or May/July lionesses before) should be a once or twice a year thing. It's exciting to have a surprise extra rare pet to keep mid-level trading lively, and I think it's good for general new user morale to still have the chance to get something special. But things like that wouldn't be special if they happened every month, or even every other month. However, I do think *every* month should have one outcome that's extremely uncommon, maybe even rare.

[Squecca]

For those not supporting because they aim for a full collection and find these types of litters frustrating-

I don't understand why rarer monthly outcomes would be a problem, when the main barrier to a complete collection is in the older releases?

I mean this in a respectful way, but complete collections are never ever happening for a majority of players, and those older pets are the main reason why.

Because I know that even though I may never get some of the older pets, I can count on getting all the new pets from the point my account was made and onwards, instead of having to worry about having an incomplete collection with both old pets and new pets.
Also, "I can't seem to get this pet because it's so old" is a lot different than "I can't seem to get this pet because everyone's inflating it because it's new and everyone is desperate to get it right now".
It's also fun to focus on each month as a little project to ignore the unachievable, impossible full collection with all the older pets (except when I want to).

[ticked tabby]

It's fun to trade for a slightly rarer outcome, not a "significantly" rarer outcome.

also I just think it's fun when a pet is rare suddenly in monthlies-- as long as they're not super rare. more like last year's October rats, that was a lot of fun XD ♡

My thoughts exactly! I think a few Rare pets every few months could be fun, but Very Rare+ would just be a total nightmare. Rares are challenging but not impossible to collect, and still would help newbies because lots of people overpay. Very Rares+ would create too much stress in my opinion.

[flippedside]

It’s fun to occasionally have litters that have less common pets. Having a litter with a rare pet a few times a year makes for some interesting trades (and surprise litters, which I like). But I wouldn’t want to see this every month; it would make the rare pets less interesting to trade for because there would be such an increase in them.

[gamer]

I have to agree with a common thing I've seen said here. A very rare or above outcome every litter would be a bit much, so limiting it to once or twice a year or around that much seems like a good idea. And then we can have an extremely uncommon or rare outcome for every litter or just a lot of litters!

[aelius]

For those not supporting because they aim for a full collection and find these types of litters frustrating-

I don't understand why rarer monthly outcomes would be a problem, when the main barrier to a complete collection is in the older releases?

I mean this in a respectful way, but complete collections are never ever happening for a majority of players, and those older pets are the main reason why.

Because I know that even though I may never get some of the older pets, I can count on getting all the new pets from the point my account was made and onwards, instead of having to worry about having an incomplete collection with both old pets and new pets.
Also, "I can't seem to get this pet because it's so old" is a lot different than "I can't seem to get this pet because everyone's inflating it because it's new and everyone is desperate to get it right now".
It's also fun to focus on each month as a little project to ignore the unachievable, impossible full collection with all the older pets (except when I want to).

personally, speaking as someone who has a couple complete species collections, collecting gets really boring. as soon as i've collected all the older releases of those species i have nothing else to work towards. i want more regular rares so i can feel motivated to continue my collections! it gives me something i can work towards once i do get up to date with my collections. swapping the low-value monthlies gets really redundant and i don't have much motivation to keep up my collections when it comes to continuing the monthly adopts.