Big Rarity Update - read for details!

[blossom48625]

Nothing has changed? It's all the same. OMGSORARE has been around for a while, right?

[Faybell]

So now collecting 2008+ pets and list pets is practically impossible? Can someone explain why people keep saying it hasn't changed their rarities, because it has, it literally put most 2k8/9 pets to omgsr and very rare, which means they are so much harder to trade for now, especially since the bulk of trade fodder monthlies are now sorted into super lower rarities.

Ay not to mention the stupid system in trading where people look at the date (which adds no actual tangible value to the pet) and trade unequally based on that. E.g. A 2010 unc for a 2018 UNC.

Because the rarity of a pet is assigned based on numbers of pets on active members accounts, not a random rarity assigned by staff. Eg the “real” rarity didn’t change, the tags are just more accurate to reflect the amount of pets in circulation.

There is more members now then 5+ years ago. On top of that, older members quit over the years making the pets on their account not in circulation. That increases the rarity of each pet. It only makes sense current monthlies are lower rarity because there is much more current pets in circulation than older pets.


Honestly I wish there was even more rarity tags so we can get rid of the user made “rarity list” for older pets.

Edit:
The reason for people trading “unfairly” based on dates is because the rarity tags aren’t super accurate. There is most likely less pets of the 2010 uncommon pets in circulation then the 2018 uncommon pet. If rarity was more accurate the year wouldn’t be important. It’s a little more accurate now but still probably not as good as it could be if we had even more rarity tags.

[nickjr]

I think something that keeps tripping people up is vocabulary.

Rarity = what is (and was supposed to be) reflected by the rarity tags: how many of the pet are on active accounts vs. how many active accounts there are

Value or worth (interchangeable terms) = how much a pet can fetch in the market

Pets' actual rarities have not changed. Their displayed rarities have changed.

It sounds like pet values have changed because people often base pet values off of their displayed rarities.

Any pet X should be just as easy or hard to find as before (because their actual rarities have not changed) unless a lot of people who own pet X are suddenly locking or unlocking that pet.

[zyderm]

this is going to make it really difficult for new players, since most new pets arent worth anything anyway, and worth even less now with the rarity change. im not new but its still really hard to trade for older pets because everything from 2015 and up isnt worth a whole lot, and this just makes it worse. the values may technically be the same, but most users go by the rarity displayed. its easy for older players to say how great it is, because theyve already gotten a lot of older pets just from being on site for so long, plus theyve just gone up in rarity. trading is already hard enough on this site without this update.

also i do understand the difference between rarity and value, and im not disputing that. im only commenting most people go by the displayed rarity under a pet, and not necessarily the value. example. one of my chickens has gone up to rare. chickens arent worth anything, so i was able to get my collection from the pound and easy trades. but now i definitely would have had to trade another rare for it, even though in value a chicken isnt worth a dog or cat.

[Akele]

Thank you for this. Understanding rarities, and trading, can be difficult and intimidating, even to older users such as myself. Big fan of anything that makes the process easier to understand.

[Faybell]

this is going to make it really difficult for new players, since most new pets arent worth anything anyway, and worth even less now with the rarity change. im not new but its still really hard to trade for older pets because everything from 2015 and up isnt worth a whole lot, and this just makes it worse. the values may technically be the same, but most users go by the rarity displayed. its easy for older players to say how great it is, because theyve already gotten a lot of older pets just from being on site for so long, plus theyve just gone up in rarity. trading is already hard enough on this site without this update.

also i do understand the difference between rarity and value, and im not disputing that. im only commenting most people go by the displayed rarity under a pet, and not necessarily the value. example. one of my chickens has gone up to rare. chickens arent worth anything, so i was able to get my collection from the pound and easy trades. but now i definitely would have had to trade another rare for it, even though in value a chicken isnt worth a dog or cat.

It is fair... The number of pets in circulation didn’t change. The tags are just more acurate to reflect the real rarity.

The old tags were not acurate at all.

The tags are based on number of pets in circulation.

Let’s “pretend” that the old tags:
Disclaimer: these aren’t real numbers. Only Tess and Nick knows what these numbers truly were.

Common= 1,000,000 pets in circulation
Uncommon= 500,000 pets in circulation
rare= 250,000 pets in circulation
Very rare= 100,000 pets in circulation
Omg so rare= 50,000 pets in circulation

Is it fair for the uncommon with 500,000 in circulation to be traded for the uncommon with 251,000 in circulation just because it’s still labeled uncommon? Would it really be fair for things to stay the same just to make trading easier for new players when old members have been around longer?

[zyderm]

this is going to make it really difficult for new players, since most new pets arent worth anything anyway, and worth even less now with the rarity change. im not new but its still really hard to trade for older pets because everything from 2015 and up isnt worth a whole lot, and this just makes it worse. the values may technically be the same, but most users go by the rarity displayed. its easy for older players to say how great it is, because theyve already gotten a lot of older pets just from being on site for so long, plus theyve just gone up in rarity. trading is already hard enough on this site without this update.

also i do understand the difference between rarity and value, and im not disputing that. im only commenting most people go by the displayed rarity under a pet, and not necessarily the value. example. one of my chickens has gone up to rare. chickens arent worth anything, so i was able to get my collection from the pound and easy trades. but now i definitely would have had to trade another rare for it, even though in value a chicken isnt worth a dog or cat.

It is fair... The number of pets in circulation didn’t change. The tags are just more acurate to reflect the real rarity.

The old tags were not acurate at all.

The tags are based on number of pets in circulation.

Let’s “pretend” that the old tags:
Disclaimer: these aren’t real numbers. Only Tess and Nick knows what these numbers truly were.

Common= 1,000,000 pets in circulation
Uncommon= 500,000 pets in circulation
rare= 250,000 pets in circulation
Very rare= 100,000 pets in circulation
Omg so rare= 50,000 pets in circulation

Is it fair for the uncommon with 500,000 in circulation to be traded for the uncommon with 251,000 in circulation just because it’s still labeled uncommon? Would it really be fair for things to stay the same just to make trading easier for new players when old members have been around longer?

i didnt say once that it wasnt fair. i said it would make it difficult for new players. and every site wants to expand its user base,so why implement something that makes it daunting or dissuades new players from joining/staying? if you feel like you cant get anywhere or make headway on a site, you generally leave, ive done this on other sites before. and i just checked my own folders, and many of the recent months pets have gone down to very common and omg so common, which are generally impossible to trade off. i imagine if i joined this year or last year, i very likely wouldnt have remained on site at all. yes, older players have been on site for longer, but that does not mean that you should alienate newer parts of your user base to cater to them.

as i said before,i understand the difference between value, rarity, and circulation. thats not the point i was making. though i do want to point out that some pets have higher value based on aesthetic appearances and not how many are in circulation. the point im making is that like with my now rare chicken, if i attempted to trade for it now, someone would expect a rare cat/dog/fox in exchange for it, even though in terms of value, chickens are some of the least wanted pets on site, so ie overpaying simply based on a rarity tag. theres a lot to learn because trading is so complicated on cs, a new player wouldnt know a chicken wasnt worth a cat/dog/ect .

[Lacuna]

I think it's important to consider that very common and omg so common pets are not necessarily "useless" or "without value" in the same way they used to be perceived. Before, there were so few that people wrote them off or couldn't find another pet with the same rarity that they liked in order to swap them around. So many pets are at those rarities now, though, that they actually have a place in trading again. You can swap your very commons for other very commons without having to hunt. They're good for swapping monthly pets. Over time the opinion about them will likely adjust, and new users don't have the ingrained stigma against those rarities. Don't write off your very and omg so commons yet!

Also, allowing the system to remain broken and confusing just to keep new people joining isn't what I want personally.

[Faybell]

You implied we should keep the inaccurate trading tags just to keep newer players interested. The new system is more fair.

The motto of this site has never been to collect every pet so why would this change alienate new players? I can’t trade 2010 rares/very rares for 2008-09 pets so I don’t see how this is any different. I didn’t quit just because people weren’t trading me older pets.

There are plenty of new pets that are just as great as old pets that they can trade for. If rarity is important to new players they can participate in events, watch for the pound to open, and work towards trading for new store pets. Plus every December 18th we get a chance at getting older rares to trade.

Pets in circulation is much more important than value. Value can change and varies from player to player. If someone loves chickens and wants to trade their rare dog for a rare chicken then that’s determined by them not the community.

[Wolfumus]

Yay I’m so happy about this! I was starting to get annoyed with how literally every new pet was being listed as an uncommon but this makes it all better!