Something's up with the pound

[50blessingzz!]

overt issues when attempting to access the pound due to login influx, lag, and overall lack of updating

yeah i was just about to bring that up. i completely missed the pet i was trying to get because when i clicked the adopt button it loaded for like 10 solid seconds. i'm not sure the cs servers are equipped to properly handle such an extreme and sudden influx of users

[homura]

10 minutes before the pound opened there were ~700 users online. when the pound opened, there were ~1,200 users online and only 745ish pets in the pound. 10 minutes after the pound closed (it was only open for maybe 2 minutes), it's back down to ~700 users online.
like... does anyone else see the problem here? at the very least, it would be fairer for there to be more pets available per pound opening.

[nezumistar]

honestly i cant really blame people for using the bots that are offered to them on discord and just logging on for the pound. i dont think anyone is really a serious and hardcore cs gamer, collecting rare pets is basically the only part of this game other than posting on forums every now and then, obviously some people are just going to log on for that. if anything something should probably be done about the lag since it isnt really fair to go "how dare you log on just to get pets on a game thats just for getting pets" because thats just how the game works

[Pyca]

Since I'm super passionate about the pound, I will just copy and paste something I said in another forum

I support it being date randomized, but I do not support removing the wishlist feature. That just seems silly to me; I have thousands of pets. I don't know which ones I do and don't have. I'm trying to complete my pet collection, or at least all the non rare ones. I don't want pets I already have. Those saying that the pound isn't meant to complete your wishlist... Then what IS the pound for then? Because I can't really think of any other reason people use it. I guess to get trade fodder? At the end of the day that's still trying to complete your wish list.

I have tracked every single pound catch I have gotten, over 600 at this point. You can find them here. Most of these catches were done in the last 12 months, as I have been only really active in the last year due to getting a PC. 90% of the time my catches are done on PC, however I never use the "click the oldest one first" method, I've found that doesn't always work out in my favor. I just have a good eye and a quick hand. For example, I got the Marionette dog. That wasn't in the oldest spot. It was in the third.

I have also noticed the pound openings have been awfully small in terms of the adoption pool. most of the time it is under 900 pets, while rarely having over 1000. Pound openings usually summon about 700~ people during times CS isn't having a big event, and if there's theres more players on than pets in the pound the limit needs to be raised somehow. I think every pound opening should have over 1000 pets. Sure, it'll be open for a little bit longer, but that can get more rares out there and ultimately help the "economy" too.

The pound is one of the biggest reasons I'm active on CS. It's my favorite part of the site. I have gotten several great catches in the last year (I wasn't super active on this account from 2018-mid 2021) and it makes me really happy, but I want others to experience that too. The pound has over 800,000 pets in it right now, and I can't even imagine the amount of items. I think maybe separating the pound and lost and found would be a good idea too. That way we don't have to wait for one close and the other to open.

This is just my two cents and opinions. I'm no coder so I have no idea how easy it would be to implement my idea, but I can't imagine it'd be impossible. Thanks for reading.

----------------------------------------------------

To add onto this; I agree with this a lot:

I didn't know you could view the adobtable pound pets before I joined the discord, and the discord is not for everyone; it can feel very exclusive. (I personally left the discord shortly after joining.) Even if people do know how the discord bots work, it can still feel like cheating to the users who don't use discord or aren't a part of the server, but I do not think they actually are cheating in any way.

To add on, part of this is that you can view which pets are in the pound even without using the bot, believe it or not. The group that holds the pets is available to everyone and can be found here. Of course, not everyone knows this, but anyone can access it to see which pets are there for the upcoming opening, even without using the bot.

In my opinion, using the bot isn't cheating for this reason-that its readily available to all. The people arguing that it is cheating because people can see what pets are in there and using a timer are misguided-the bot is more of a quality of life thing than actual cheating. I don't use the bot myself, nor will I because I'm content with logging onto the site and checking the timer myself (I'm on here anyways most of the time, what's a couple clicks more?). If I remember correctly, the bot doesn't let you select pets to claim for your own while being offsite, so there is no cheating in that regard either.

I think the "bots are cheating" argument really just comes from the frustration of not being able to get a good pet from the pound most of the time and/or the fact that there are overt issues when attempting to access the pound due to login influx, lag, and overall lack of updating. I've already made my points in other posts on this thread so I won't reiterate to sound like a broken record, but I think I can speak for most people when I say that the userbase would be appreciative if there were some changes made overall.

Having a bot to auto remind is really a quality of life thing for sure. It's free and accessible to everyone. I know discord can be confusing to learn, but once you do it starts to make a lot of sense. I honestly really appreciate that discord exists because trying to have a conversation about CS on CS is really hard

[iHolli]

{just chiming in as someone who does have the Discord bot in my personal server: it's not cheating XD all it does is notify me when the Pound is opening [it used to have a feature that would show some of the rares, not even all of them, but I can't figure out how to do that anymore]. I have it set to tell me 2 minutes before the Pound opens. Except it's imperfect: often the reminder comes in late [open the Pound, 45 seconds till opening], it doesn't show up at all [the bot is frequently down], or I miss the notification for hours and don't get into the Pound at all [my notifs are visible but silent]. It only actually works if I'm already paying attention to the Pound. Setting myself a timer when the countdown drops under 2 hours is way more efficient than the Discord bot, at the end of the day. Even that's imperfect, my timer might be off or more often I turn it off and then forget immediately. The lag of trying to get into the Pound [as long as 10 seconds to load the first page] and then actually trying to get a pet [again as long as 10 seconds to load] is a way bigger problem, especially with 500 or fewer pets per opening. I'm stuck waiting on lag and over half the pets are gone before I even see the first page. That's not on bots or even the userbase. The site can't handle the influx of people. CS needs upgrades.}

.Holli.

[Pathetic]

ive been having this intense glitch where ill click a pet then the pet will literally just disappear not even ' somoene else got this pet ' like it just leaves and i didnt restart the page either ? is anyone dealing with this or am i lame lol

[ButterflyChaser]

Does anyone have the problem that after the one second countdown and the pound loads, they get logged out? This is super annoying when it happens. I mean, it isn't every time. It is random.

[joe cool]

10 minutes before the pound opened there were ~700 users online. when the pound opened, there were ~1,200 users online and only 745ish pets in the pound. 10 minutes after the pound closed (it was only open for maybe 2 minutes), it's back down to ~700 users online.
like... does anyone else see the problem here? at the very least, it would be fairer for there to be more pets available per pound opening.

Totes agree with this here. I had already mentioned influx, lag, and lack of updates irt the pound being the bigger issue, but I think this post shows that retention is also a major issue, as people log in and out immediately after pound closing.

Some people take CS kind of seriously for the pets they have here-some people have spent money on this site in order to collect the pets that they like (namely store pets, but C$ isn't only spent in the store). I think that it is a bit unfair to say that there aren't any "extreme" CS users when there clearly are, so much so that there is a list to determine value on pets that these collectors have accrued over years and years of trading (if not, how much time and money they've invested in the site) in order to assess the value of their collections, should they wish to trade with people. There's much to say about the "worth" of C$ and trading at the current state but that's for another thread to be honest.

The pound is one such way to get some of those more valuable pets, even with the lower chances being apparent. Newer players almost stand no shot to get the pets they want without the pound, as more veteran players are less likely to trade with them unless it is getting a missed outcome. With the post I quoted, as well as other people giving their testimonies on people logging in and immediately logging out after the pound closes, this is more than something that is just a recurring issue. An update to the pound in addition to somehow boosting retention so that the pound doesn't devolve into what the current state of it is again would be certainly welcome.

[cats135]

A recurring theme I see here is "Only hardcore players can use the pound" ie, those who are dedicated enough to set timers, stalk the site and see, and be willing to refresh and be *into* it.

Doesn't this automatically isolate the new or casual players? Who hop on and see "Oh the pound is open!" Only to get nothing since it closes in 3 minutes (if they're lucky?)

I fully agree with more pound selection, and fewer pets per page. If I were a newbie and had no idea, and just lost out time and time again, I'd quit too. The current system doesn't *feel* welcome to new or casual players (and to me that adds a sense of tension).

Before anyone says anything, I'm a veteran here, and have had luck in the pound, but it is few and far inbetween and I TRY with it. I just feel it is unusable to anyone less than obsessed...

[TANKMEN]

i absolutely agree with everything said in this thread, and i throw my support in for all of the following:

- increasing the pound's output massively - CS has changed, and there are more users than there was for a good time! even if you adopted out 1000 pets every turn, it would take 800 pound openings to get rid of all of them. with 600, it'd take about 1300. sure, that's a loss of 500 adoption rounds (assuming no other pets are donated) but.. maybe thats fine? maybe if we reach a day that the pound is empty.. that's an okay thing? and we can just wait for it to fill again? 800,000 pets sitting in stasis is kind of completely ridiculous. and i say this as someone whos had list pets of their own donated to the pound before. i want those things to GO somewhere! i wouldnt be surprised if theyre still sitting in that account B/

- more frequent pound openings so more people have more chances

- randomizing the order of the pets (im a 2009 player and i swear that they used to be? what happened here?) as well as obscuring dates and potentially even rarities (im a bit iffy on this as id like new players to have a good chance to grab something good, so maybe just obscure the date?)

- lower the amount of pets visible - we see too many at once and its absolutely making the pound drain like nobody's business

- i also agree hugely with the suggestions to increase player retention. while CS is primarily a forum game more than anything, some actual engagement would be refreshing to see!

im glad this thread is up so we can all have a discussion about it B]