We need your feedback on an update to the rarity system!

[piepinkpony]

For me the hardest thing about trading is these lists where older pets seem to have differing values between them despite being the same year and rarity. I think adding four extra categories would help by adding the nuance needed between pets. Also on this note I was a touch disappointed that almost all of the camping event pets were uncommon, and some were rare. Adding more categories may again add the nuance needed to separate these pets out.

[Audrey_Bee]

I also mean to ask if the pets in the update will be counted if an account has more than 1 of said-pet, or will it just flag the pet for being on the account, aka, hoarding being able to affect the 'amount in circulation' number?

I do like the idea of it being a one-per-account sort of flag. I'm not sure how it's really counted. If one user owns 4,000 of the same OMGSC deer, is it considering all 4,000 in circulation? Or just that an account has at least 1?

It counts every pet. I understand what you're saying about it only counting as 1 but everyone would hoard one kind of pet them to make it rare or very rare so that they own loads of old tags then they could trade them away with the rare tag to seperate accounts and they'll all turn common. It wouldn't be fair for trading that way!

[baking-bugs]

i can't really form nice neat words nor do i have much to say overall, but i'd just prefer if only the "very uncommon" rarity was added, as it'd fit in with the preexisting very common/very rare rarity labels & seems like a fair enough distribution for me. having more rarity labels other than that just seems like it'd be cluttered & a tad nitpicky -- too much for some pets whose only other intended purpose is to be dressed up or used as decoration for webpages/forums --, probably making trading a bit more of a complicated hassle because of how some people feel about rarites. i'd rather keep it simple, is all
{ i don't mean to sound rude or pushy or anything, i'm just voicing my own bland opinion & preference }

[piepinkpony]

Also my autistic self is really excited by the possibility of mass reorganizing all my groups

[lapfox]

i am terrified @ the idea of 4 new rarities.i already struggle with understanding the 1s we have now

[piepinkpony]

-snip-
I think maybe adding a specific pattern or shape for the rarities will be nice option to have in user settings if we end up deciding to have 4 more rarities, although I also do find it a bit confusing since my eyes are kind of wonky too. Even so, distinguishing between 11 different patterns and shapes will be quite difficult in my opinion.

If we do end up implementing 4 new rarities (not my preference but that's not relevant) maybe the indicator shape should just change for either the big category types (common, uncommon, rare, and OMG) or the subsections (very, extremely) and not for Every Rarity. 11 shapes is way too many I agree. This would be Toggleable of course. Accessibility is all about choice


(Img for reference of the current bar)

For example anything Common (common, very common, extremely common) could all have their shapes be a circle. Uncommons (uncommons, very uncommon, extremely uncommon) could be squares. Rares (rare, very rare, extremely rare) could be triangles. And OMG (OMG so common and OMGSR) could be stars.

Alternatively only the subsections (basic, very, and extremely) would have different shapes. For example the Basics (common, uncommon, rare) would be circles. The Verys (very common, very uncommon, very rare) could be squares. The Extremelys (extremely common, extremely uncommon, and extremely rare) would be triangles. And the OMGs (OMGSR and OMG so common) would be stars.

I really like this idea, particularly having different shapes for common, uncommon, and rares. This combined with notches also makes it more accessible to anyone who's colour blind and may struggle with just colours separating rarities.

[Blaubär]

-snip-
I think maybe adding a specific pattern or shape for the rarities will be nice option to have in user settings if we end up deciding to have 4 more rarities, although I also do find it a bit confusing since my eyes are kind of wonky too. Even so, distinguishing between 11 different patterns and shapes will be quite difficult in my opinion.

If we do end up implementing 4 new rarities (not my preference but that's not relevant) maybe the indicator shape should just change for either the big category types (common, uncommon, rare, and OMG) or the subsections (very, extremely) and not for Every Rarity. 11 shapes is way too many I agree. This would be Toggleable of course. Accessibility is all about choice


(Img for reference of the current bar)

For example anything Common (common, very common, extremely common) could all have their shapes be a circle. Uncommons (uncommons, very uncommon, extremely uncommon) could be squares. Rares (rare, very rare, extremely rare) could be triangles. And OMG (OMG so common and OMGSR) could be stars.

Alternatively only the subsections (basic, very, and extremely) would have different shapes. For example the Basics (common, uncommon, rare) would be circles. The Verys (very common, very uncommon, very rare) could be squares. The Extremelys (extremely common, extremely uncommon, and extremely rare) would be triangles. And the OMGs (OMGSR and OMG so common) would be stars.

Wouldn't that add even more confusion? Why does a circle stand for lower rarity or for a higher one at that? How would that make it easy to remember, when trading, which categories different shapes signify? (I do concede that the star would be a good indicator for higher rarities, since stars are always used for "special, rare, famous" etc.)

[felixforma]

i think this is dumb, if it's very uncommon then why even call it uncommon in the first place, just turn it into a common? i don't think there would be any benefits to adding a new rarity called "very uncommon" because it'll just change trading as it is and make things worse and then new people would have to come up with how to even try to value them because they're not at the same tier as uncommon but moreso valued as commons..

The problem is, there are so many pets, lumping them into the categories we currently have makes a HUGE scale. If the proposed naming convention is confusing, perhaps we can all discuss what would be a better term for the four new rarities.

Not to sound old, but way back when, we didn’t even have OMG so common and maybe not even very common? Adding more rarities back then helped tremendously. It will help here too!

Another edit: Keep in mind, back in 2010(?) when the new rarity system was implemented, there were only 3 years’ worth of pets on the site. Now there are 15!!! It was much easier to lump a bunch of commons or uncommons together when there were only, say 700 of them in total. Now, I don’t even want to know how many there are, lol! The system definitely needs an update to accommodate the pet number.

I appreciate this response. I initially felt like 4 rarities sounded like way too many and I would much prefer a mix of #2 and #3, where we get two new categories: Extremely Rare and Extremely Common.
If this is really the case though, I don't see why 4 new categories would be the end of the world.

[frogfan]

-snip-
Wouldn't that add even more confusion? Why does a circle stand for lower rarity or for a higher one at that? How would that make it easy to remember, when trading, which categories different shapes signify? (I do concede that the star would be a good indicator for higher rarities, since stars are always used for "special, rare, famous" etc.)

Totally fair point! It was just an example. Why is OMG so common blue? I think its just something you'd get used to and eventually it'd be second nature? I definitely don't think it's perfect, or that it would work for everyone, but that's also why itd be toggleable haha.

I personally would probably use shape variation for the "subcategories" (basic, very and extremely) as I could understand general rarity zones (like commons being blue/green) but after a certain point the colors might just start blending together.

Please keep talking about this, and changes you'd make to improve my comment! I want to give the cs team as many options as possible to chose from in regards to visual accessibility

I've updated some of my wording on the original post (im always editing my posts oops. I'm so indecisive)

Also wanted to add a big thank you to staff and gh. I appreciate the effort you put into keeping this site running

[Minimanta]

I like the idea of adding four new rarities. But why not call one of them scarce?