Feather <3 wrote:I'm a bit bummed (but totally understand) that more people aren't in favor of using more lighthearted rarity descriptors to help lighten the mood of the game/trading to help address trading stress (ie., Forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=4833465).
That said, if we're going for simplicity above all else, I want to +1 to the various opinions mentioned that super/very/extremely is quite confusing for a few reasons:
1. People can't fully agree on how much strength adjectives like super or very or extremely add to a word
2. It's confusing that the flipping of "very/super" etc. happens at the common/uncommon breakpoint
3. "OMG" as a descriptor is a bit uncomfortable
For the same reasons people are saying no to whimsical names, perhaps we should also say no to tons of adjectives?
What about a naming system like:Very Common
Common --
Common
Common ++
Uncommon --
Uncommon
Uncommon ++
Rare --
Rare
Rare ++
Very Rare
Perhaps this would help reduce confusion even further, accomplishing a bunch of goals at once:
1. Making it crystal clear at a glance that there are three base "categories" for describing rarity.
2. More friendly to ESL speakers.
3. For everyone, at a glance makes adding more rarities look like a simplification of the old system, not a complication, because fewer words and categories are involved.
4. For the casual user who isn't reading the explanations on the forums, reduce the worry that their pets on the surface look like they're losing value with a big site change (a common point of stress even in the comments on this thread).
5. No misunderstanding about what "very" or "extremely" means. Nobody feeling like "extremely" is such an intense descriptor that the gap between "extremely uncommon" and "very uncommon" must be a big deal, while others don't think so... overall increasing the worry and scrutiny surrounding trades and the fear/confusion of unfairness. Uncommon vs. Uncommon ++ seems quite objective and not loaded with individual interpretation.
6. A nice plus is that it makes "Uncommon" the dead center of the rarity scale, not "Very Uncommon".
Thoughts?
I have mixed feelings about a system like this. I agree that it's straightforward and I wouldn't say no to implementing it, but at the same time I see some issues:
1. I already mentioned this in my previous post, but putting the common labels in the same order as uncommon and rare with the same intensifiers simply doesn't make sense. "Common ++" would logically be understood as more common than "common", and "common --" as less, especially as people would be seeing these all mixed together in groups/trades and not neatly lined up like this to visualize the symmetry.
2. "++" and "--" would be quite difficult to distinguish in the small font of the rarity labels even for those with perfect vision. If we were to go with something like this, I would favor using numbers instead, but then that would still raise the issue of point #1^.
3. I have to disagree about your 5th point. The perceived distance between the rarities levels is going to be very subjective regardless of what they're called. Unless the exact rarity thresholds were revealed (I can't speak for or against that point as I would have no part in that decision), different people would still have very different interpretations of how much rarer an "uncommon ++" is from a regular uncommon. Just like it is now, some would perceive the gap as significant while others wouldn't. Adjectives are far from objective in their intensity, but in this context so are pluses and minuses, numbers, or alternative symbols. I don't understand how this would lead to more agreement and/or less stress in that regard.
- - Using a naming scheme that makes it appear that there's an equal distance between each level wouldn't change that the actual thresholds are very unlikely to be set at equal intervals. (Disclaimer: I have no involvement in that or access to the numbers. I just feel that that's a safe assumption given how incredibly high the quantity of the most common pets must be compared to the rarest.)
4. I also strongly dislike this scheme for aesthetic reasons, but that could just be me and alone isn't a reason to veto it.
I personally wouldn't be opposed to changing the "OMG" wording to something else for religious consideration, though. I'd like to emphasize that this is entirely just me quickly brainstorming as a user and not a staff representative, but maybe "WOW so common/rare" could be suitable as a replacement without having to completely scrap the familiar names?
Arlecchino ♡ wrote:Adding more rarities is likely to cause people (myself included) to quit, as someone who is autistic, it's already had to keep track of the ones that exist.
As an autistic person myself, I empathize with this. For me, though, I feel the opposite way. The fewer and less precise the rarity labels, the more uncertain I feel about trading because it means more significant variation in quantity between pets within the same category with generally no reliable way to distinguish them besides guessing that older corresponds to scarcer.
