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

[ButterflyChaser]

I'd say these last few times I haven't been able to get much of anything from the pound. I am lucky if I can get any wishlist much less an uncommon. Or days like today I miss out completely because I am 10 minutes late and it closed up within 5 minutes of opening again.

I wonder if anything can be done to make the drip of pets much slower so the pound can stay open longer than 10 to 15 minutes and all good pets aren't grabbed within the first 30 seconds?

[Kecko]

The last 10 or so pound openings, I either don't see a rare at all, even when I arrive on time/early, or I'll see one but it's already gone. I've been getting OMG so Common- VUC or nothing at all. I'd really prefer the larger openings. I did see a Store pet and clicked to adopt it three times but it wouldn't take my clicks and someone else took him.

Also, I've noticed that bot accounts, like the CS Store account, have TONS of pets. That account has loads of old Stores Pets that are highly sought after and rarer pets like Toxics etc. When I went through the other bot accounts, I found more pets on their accounts. Why would that be? What if those pets got moved to the Pound to help with larger openings? A bot account with highly sought after pets that no one has access to makes no sense to me and could help with the increased Pound size

Edit:

Link to CS Store account to show proof of pets (Read their trade rules. Supposedly no people actually check the account so how did these pets end up there and why?)

accounts/viewgroup.php?userid=35343&pageStart=600


Pertaining to the Lost and Found, this current one opened 4 hours ago and is still open. Either the Lost and Found needs a shorter cool down time, like an hour, or the variety needs to be fixed so it's not 500 tiny items (pieces of sets, coal, candles, pebbles, etc) at the end. A lot fewer people care about the Lost and Found than the Pound, even less people want those items, so making the variety better or just lowering the items to 1000 with a lower cool down time would help a lot

[bark]

^ Was wondering about that too, plus I've noticed accounts that were banned (even for years) don't have their pets confiscated to the pound. I thought pets/items from banned accounts gets sent to the pound?

[Kecko]

^ Was wondering about that too, plus I've noticed accounts that were banned (even for years) don't have their pets confiscated to the pound. I thought pets/items from banned accounts gets sent to the pound?

Exactly. If their reason for not doing bigger Pound openings is because the Pound will run out, then confiscate all pets from banned accounts and these bot accounts that shouldn't have them to begin with.

I asked a General Helper why the CS Store account has pets on it when it's supposedly a bot account but they never answered. I'd like to hear from the staff ( like Tess, Nick, etc) to know why the accounts that aren't even people have pets and why banned accounts still haven't been emptied out literal years later

[Buck Ruffler]

^ Was wondering about that too, plus I've noticed accounts that were banned (even for years) don't have their pets confiscated to the pound. I thought pets/items from banned accounts gets sent to the pound?

Exactly. If their reason for not doing bigger Pound openings is because the Pound will run out, then confiscate all pets from banned accounts and these bot accounts that shouldn't have them to begin with.

I asked a General Helper why the CS Store account has pets on it when it's supposedly a bot account but they never answered. I'd like to hear from the staff ( like Tess, Nick, etc) to know why the accounts that aren't even people have pets and why banned accounts still haven't been emptied out literal years later

Youre question seemed familiar to me so I found an answer from a moderator (here)

Some of them are refunded if users accidentally bought too many because of a lag in the internet or an accidental double click. The trade is reversed by staff, giving them their C$ back.

Some of these also may be related to scams. If a user gets C$ for art, and then buys a bunch of store pets so that they cannot refund the user, staff may reverse these trades so that user can get their C$ back.

Basically, they are pets which should never have existed in the first place because people bought them accidentally or in an attempt to rip off other players.

Also some accounts could only be deactivated, or some banned accounts can still appeal (though i dont know about ones that have been banned a long time, if theres a "time limit" or anything)... (also here)

Yes, users who ask for their account to be deactivated by choice get to keep their pets in case they ever choose to have the account reactivated.

Users who have been banned don't always have the transfer happen right away. Bans can be appealed in certain cases, so nothing would be moved immediately, and since the pound already has so many pets there's no urgency to move them all over. Be assured that when they are needed the admins can get those pets where they need to be c:

[LaceWhiskey]

I'd just like to drop this here for those that haven't seen it yet. The Pound rarity odds tracking thread.

Let's take the first two posts on the 29th December 2023


extremely rare: 10 (0.74%)
very rare: 39 (2.9%)
rare: 84 (6.24%)
uncommon and below: 1,118 (83%)
unknown rarity, including dec. 18th pets: 96 (7.13%)

total count: 1,347
(here are two store pets in the adoptions group, giving a 0.15% chance of receiving one)

extremely rare: 6 (0.4%)
very rare: 54 (3.9%)
rare: 75 (5.4%)
uncommon and below: 1,177 (84.8%)
unknown rarity, including dec. 18th pets: 76 (5.5%)

total count: 1,388
(there are four store pets in the adoption group, giving a 0.29% chance of receiving one)



To the last post two posts on the 10th June 2024


OMG so rare: 1 (0.08%) [white tinsel tess horse]
extremely rare: 8 (0.61%)
very rare: 55 (4.23%)
rare: 94 (7.23%)
uncommon and below: 1121 (86.16%)
unknown: 22 (1.69%)

total count: 1301
(there are 5 store pets in the group (0.38%))

extremely rare: 2 (0.15%)
very rare: 55 (4.12%)
rare: 108 (8.10%)
uncommon and below: 1139 (85.44%)
unknown: 29 (2.17%)

total count: 1333
(there are 5 store pets in the group)



I really don't see the whole "there's less rares in the pound" thing, unless I'm missing something? All rarities will fluctuate with each pound opening, but there being "less of x" seems more down to other factors not what's in the pound itself. Be it lag on the server side or user side, users potentially being slower to pick or adopt, or how (I believe I read somewhere) they've implemental the system where the pets are more eventually distributed per page and you can't spam the first pet.

I get it's frustrating to not get a high value pet, but making the pounds larger and less frequent openings isn't going to help that issue any more than smaller and more frequent. All less frequent ones are going to do is alienate people from being able to adopt in the first place.


~ + ~ + ~




I have been attempting to gather some statistics on pound openings and user activity when I have been online.
Below is my best attempt to transcribe the information from my current screenshots. Take note please of the amount of registered and hidden users, as that is most reflective of the player base.
Took the information down when there was no pounds as a comparative to when there is.



April:
On the 26th April, no pound, 22.10 UK time : 1150 users online. 253 registered. 126 hidden. 771 guest.
On the 30th April, no pound, 22.12 UK time : 892 users online. 240 registered. 98 hidden. 554 guest.

May:
3rd May:
Pound 1 minute from opening, 03.12 UK time: 1070 online. 498 registered. 197 hidden. 375 guest.
During pound, 03.18 UK time: 1574 online. 893 registered. 266 hidden. 415 guest.
100~ left in pound, 03.25 UK time: 967 online. 448 registered. 162 hidden. 375 guest.
Pound closed, 03.36 UK time: 1187 online. 316 registered. 118 hidden. 753 guest.

7th May:
Pound open, 02.38 UK time: 1563 online. 648 registered. 215 hidden. 700 guest.
During pound, 02.45 UK time: 1964 online. 939 registered. 294 hidden. 732 guest.
29 pets left, 02.46 UK time: 1262 online. 469 registered. 165 hidden. 628 guest.
Pound closed, 02.51 UK time: 1011 online. 382 registered. 128 hidden. 501 guest.

8th May:
No pound, 22.32 UK time: 1129 players online. 236 registered. 114 hidden. 779 guest.

9th May:
Pound open, 02.35 UK time: 1434 online. 461 registered. 156 hidden. 817 guest.
Pound open, 02.36 UK time (refreshed for activity reset): 1954 online. 880 registered. 260 hidden. 814 guest.
74 pets left, 02.45 UK time: 909 users online. 411 registered. 133 hidden. 365 guests.
Pound closed, 02.58 UK time: 776 online. 296 registered. 120 hidden. 360 guest.



All of this to say -- the user influx is noticable when the pound is open, and the drop off massive. It doesn't matter how many pounds or how much is in there, its going to be a problem. The bigger issue is addressing the site's capability to manage that many players all arriving at once for the same purpose. The lag will not go away by changing the amount of pounds. The speed pets are taken at and the player frustration will not change by adding more pounds.
There needs to be a more suitable solution to the wider problem surrounding the pounds.



Agree with this completely

[Ricoro]

in my opinion the main "problem" with the pound is that we can see what pets will be available in the next opening. when people spot a high value pet in the upcoming opening alerts are sent out and a lot of people show up making the pound incredibly slow, making it almost impossible for us with slow internet to catch anything good. I don't think increasing the size is going to change this, but making adjustments so NO pets in the pound are visible until it opens would at least do something.

This! I agree with this so much!

[Darni]

^ Was wondering about that too, plus I've noticed accounts that were banned (even for years) don't have their pets confiscated to the pound. I thought pets/items from banned accounts gets sent to the pound?

Some of those may be hacked. I'm going to say that last year when the hacking issue happened (and previous hacking issues) had people getting into other people's accounts. They would trade away pets and c$ and cause tons of issue so I can see why banned accounts are not having their pets taken as there's a chance it's an old user's account that had gotten hacked. The staff previously stated they will also not use inactive accounts to add to pound. So my guess is they just do not want to touch those accounts as it could cause tons of issues like when people went negative c$ because hackers traded away c$ on stolen accounts OR them having to reverse trades and people losing their dreamy because it was actually a hacked account that traded them and the owner reclaimed the account.

Edit to clarify: The incident last year effected TONS OF PEOPLE even though only like 5-10 accounts were hacked (if I remember correctly idk how many were actually hacked because staff wouldn't say) the hackers made sure to do as much trades as possible as fast as possible. They hit every angle including Oekaki adopts and drawings. One single hacked account can trade as much as possible and then be banned and staff have to completely reverse every single trade they did. Then there's a chance the owner might come back and reclaim the account otherwise they have to just keep it banned because otherwise the hackers will just get into the acc again since they already know the password. So if those accounts just had all of their pets dumped in there and the original owner comes back not knowing a hacker got in and they were banned then CS would have to CREATE THE PETS FROM NOTHING (which they have hard stated they will not do) or take the pets away from anyone who adopted from the pound.

[guccii]

the main issue I have with the pound is its so hard to actually get something you want because it gets snagged right before your eyes.. not sure how this could get fixed but its but been so long since ive actually gotten something good because by the time you refresh once there's only 700 pets left.. and all the rares and above are gone. This time when the pound came around there was a warrior cat I adopted then got a message saying "this pets already been adopted" that was very disappointing because I ended up with this


An extremely common and 300 pets remaining, that's just my point.

[Kecko]

I thought events would have an increased number of pets in the Pound. It may help a bit with lag as the past 3 or 4 Pound openings, 400 pets are gone before it even loads and that's when I've refreshed it with 1 second until opening. I could've misunderstood that though