New Trading Standards Discussion (please join in!)

[SolarSonnet]

I was in the archives updating my wishlist, and came across a good litter to give an example of how common / uncommon pets have changed.

This chameleon litter from 2019 was previously a range of common - uncommon (I don't recall exactly which). Now they range from common to extremely uncommon.



When I was trading for them, especially trying to get the last two PPS chameleons, I found that the difficulty of finding them correlated pretty accurately to the rarities as they're depicted now - but at the time, they were all just common / uncommon. There were also almost no rare monthlies in 2019 as well (according to my collection count there were none, but I may have misremembered), and after scrolling through the first half of the year, I've found several, and a number of extremely uncommons - and this for 2019, which to me personally doesn't feel like that long ago.

I state this mostly because as I scroll through the 2019 archive, I find countless examples of this, which makes me feel like the rarities now are much more likely to accurately represent the pet's rarity. For someone who used date rules primarily to compensate for rarity disparities like this, I no longer feel as much an inclination to use them to get a fair trade.

(Edit: this in comparison to something like the litters in June 2022, which primarily range from very common - uncommon, whereas these 2019 litters primarily range from common - extremely uncommon)

Not only are the PPS ones rarer, but PPS Pets tend to have a visibly higher demand than the "regular" pets of a litter. So it makes a lot of sense that it'd be hard to find the PPS ones if they were actually rarer (and you were right, they were) as well as having a higher demand than the rest of the litter. Especially since they're star-themed (lots of people like star-theme) and eggs are really popular.

I'd imagine that it could even be that a few hoarders got their hands on the pps pets from that litter in 2019, and have gone inactive since then, bumping their rarity a little more.(Maybe not a whole tier, but I've seen a lot of people where a new litter comes out and they hoard it, and people definitely have gone inactive since 2019)

This is super cool and really interesting, thanks for sharing!

[OriginalStar]

Im struggling what to say, I have probably rewrote this maybe four times trying to figure out what to say.
Its mostly to do with the "list" pets, or in other words pets that are worth more than 4 09 rares, pets that get more than usual.
Its really conflicting to me because I cannot see a world where everyone accepts that OMGSR = OMGSR regardless but a world now feels confusing and fustrating if not outragious. How because of "demand" the value of a pet could go from a resonable amount to outragiously high in just a year.
But isnt that supply and demand? I dont know.
I dont really know how to fix it and prevent pets from being overly priced but also not undervalue them.
The new rarities feel as if they could help, having more pets be visably shown to be rarer than others, therefore putting more trading options out there
But how would we even value those? How do we even value the pets that were already "rare" and/or "in demand"
Its conflicting for me because I feel many people have a certain mindset on what their pet could get, so they decline every offer until they get it. I heard the UR Lion could get up to 3-4n, but most trades I was given were 2.5. Leading me to believe thats the true worth, what the people would pay for it, not what a person would pay.
If people think a pets value is too much, and a pet regularly is offered that value, perhaps it should be worth that much. Not what one person whos either rich or desperately seeking it wants to pay.
I could see an argument on people "lowballing" for rarer pets, but again if most trades are that lower option to begin with, is it truly lowballing? Why does the exception feel like the norm?
I dont even know how to fix it, or if its even fixable. I question the successful trade threads because it could be powered by overpays, that in order for that one successful trade to be successful, they had to go though dozens of slightly lower offers. Whos to say those lower offers isnt fair if thats what the masses are willing to pay?
Pet worth is important yes, but I feel what people are willing to offer is more important. Rather then deciding values based on what people have already accepted (In which case you allow overpayers to determine worths since duh, people are going to accept an overpay over a fair trade)
It should be more of deciding values in what people are willing to offer. If 200 people state they wont trade more than 2.5 for a pet and 50 people state they wont trade more than 3 for a pet, the worth should be 2.5. That thats its "normal value" and anything more is just overpay and not to expect it
But sadly, I dont think people would listen and as good as I think it sounds, I dont think it would actually work.
People will still expect that higher trade. That they'll decline every 2.5 trade until they get that 3 because they want one of those 50 people to offer. And given time, all those people offering 2.5 are forced to offer 3 because thats the only way they can be accepted.
And thats where I am lost, I have no idea how to fix it or if its possible
For all I know its just something to deal with, that certain pets are going to be worth 6-10n and its not going to go down anytime soon since nobody wants to accept less then what they could get. It does suck but I do have hope that with the rarity change it can help make trading easier for these "rarer" pets and maybe even make accepting trade easier maybe?
Cause idk if its just me but if I offer a fair trade to a pet multiple times and declined every time, I am gonna be fustrated and feel forced to overpay lol

[Lacuna]

Since I'm sorta quoted in the front page of this thread, I wanted to throw my 2 cents in. First, to clarify that any statement I made was as a user and not staff, as will continue to be the case here.

Second, context: I was already trading on a 2-3 year gap prior to the update for lower rarity/more recent pets in the main trades I did, which were for my hoard pets. Sometimes this throws a wrench in the mix because I somewhat undervalue older or rarer pets on purpose because I'm a quantity hoarder and looking for the more recent or more common ones to fill my hoards (and I did a lot of work in the past to get the now rarer ones when they were less rare). However, I never subscribed to the 3-month rule for any trades, and found 1 year rules that went 2:1 a little silly especially since those pets could easily be within three months of each other if they were early/late in the year. I also offer to swap for things not on my WL for what's in my trade groups and leave them without locks on them, and never really had an issue with people offering me copious unfair trades. Since those trade group pets are ones I don't want, I will often take a lower demand lineart for a higher one because there's not much I'm looking for anyway, so I'd rather another user get a fair trade and have the pet they desire.

Therefore, I suggested a five year rule to broaden my own trades, but I think it makes sense in a lot of ways. Observing my own rarity sorted groups post update, I could defintely see that a group of uncommons, for example, had turned into mostly commons/stayed uncommon for the first few years, then slowly increased in rarity down to the bottom where everything (back to 2010/2011 or so) was extremely uncommon/rare. This is what really solidified my stance on broadening to five years for general trades/possibly everyone. Personally, for my hoard pets (none older than 2015) I'm using 2013-2017 and 2018-2023 as my five-year 2:1 trade ranges for very and extremely uncommon rarities. For uncommon and under I'm going fully 1:1 from 2013 onward.

I definitely think we can see 2008-2010 as more special, as there are many fewer uncommons and below in that spread anyway. Then we could use 2011-2015/2016-2020/2021-onward (until 2025 probably) as different ranges when dealing with lower value trades. For the OMGSRs, this update did give us the data already to say which are the "legacy" or more valuable OMGSRs from before the update, and with the exclusion of rerelease (where users can help new players who get the pets in question) most traders dealing in these pets will know that. I also really hope we can move away from the "non" terminology because I truly have never been able to understand it, especially when you start using decimals. But that's just a personal thing from someone who doesn't do much high-value trading.

I will say this update has encouraged me to do more trading, especially trying to get some pets I want that are quite valuable because I feel like I have a better grasp of what I might be able to offer without having to figure out the above terminology. I'm excited by it!

This is kind of just a jumble of thoughts, but I wanted to end on something I feel is really important to the discussion: I don't think rare should be considered the floor under which everything is meaningless. I really think we should /use/ these new rarities and see value in the uncommon pets, especially the very and extremely uncommons. The word rare and the value people assign to it (and therefore do not assign to uncommon) is a barrier I honestly didn't know how to solve when making suggestions about this update, because going to a completely overhauled system with 11 new words to learn or just numbers seemed so user-unfriendly. It is going to be the work of users to give value to these words, and I hope you will.

[-MOOSHROOM-]

Just me putting my 2 pence in hehe

I have been a player since 2011, took a big break in 2014 and have recently come back, so my opinion may be a bit outdated but it's just things i've noticed since being gone and then coming back during the changes. I must say I really appreciate the new rarities.

My hope is that people will start to realise the 'true value' of some of their VR/Rare pets. I know demand and need will always have an effect on this, but I personally think: more in circulation = lower value, less in circuation = higher value. There will always be a personal bias on this that we are all guilty of, but it would be nice to see more free-flowing trades where the actual rarity is considered more than what the community baseline says it's worth.

I've found a lot of trades currently are still basing off old values, so I'm looking forward for it to settle down a bit. I've seen a lot of the 'well it only just turned OMGSR, so it's not worth as much'' logic over the past few days, but clearly for it to get that status there has been less in circulation for a while now, and it's likely they were previously being under-valued.

Additionally, why do we seem to all be in unanimous agreement to overpay for store pets? Seeing people ask for 1500C$ for pets that are high in circulation and initially went for 25C$ continues to be absolutely wild to me. I used to understand it back in the day, because really were not using C$ ever in trades, so if you had to pay real life money for something from the store it made sense for people to overpay in pets to get it, but with how much C$ is circulating now and how much it gets used/offered it seems crazy to me to value a store pet at like 60-80 real life dollars/pounds (wherever you are from).

I think we could all benefit from clearer distinctions also on what is actually unfair, and what is just a trade your personal biases don't appreciate. Someone offering you an OMGSR rat for example, just because it is a rat or other species you don't like doesn't make it unfair in a trade. It's totally cool to have a bias but I'd appreciate more people being upfront about that rather than calling everything unfair

It will be interesting to see how everything plays out though, I do just think it needs to settle down a bit first<3

[Wysterinka]

1) For the current poll question: I still think years matter to most users, especially if they are active longer and spent more time collecting pets over the years. For myself I can say that my pricing for pets is more or less similar to what it was before rarity update (year-wise). I value pets from 2023 + 2022 more or less same but usually I make them into groups by 2 years difference when it comes to lower values (up to extremely uncommon) and 1 year maximum when rare. From what I know I did with uncommon, I did group up 2011 all the way to 2009 uncommon because I really didn't have many of those anyway but 3 years is the maximum I went for, even for common pets.

Everyone will most likely have a bit different rules, especially when it comes to rare+ pets. I still think I will implement 2:1 rule if I ever trade rares for other rares at least in some cases.

2) For 2:1 rule question: I agree with everything pretty much up to: 2 extremely uncommons = 1 rare, but I know that when it's about anything above such as:
2 rares = 1 very rare
2 very rares = 1 extremely rare
I don't agree with it and wouldn't trade in the same way as with the previous rarities. As for 3:1, never heard of it and never did that either, most I know about was 4:1 for some people.

3) "old pets valued by x '09 rares" - do you have ideas for how you might go about valuing your pets?
About year ago or so I started valuing my pets based on C$ prices since I almost stopped trading and focused more on just selling. By how many 096 rares something was I only ever calculated up to 1MA or 1.5MA but C$-wise it doesn't make much sense either.

4) I don't think the new OMGSR pets are all same value and never will and even if multiple puts now gained a lot of value, it doesn't have the range we need for the pets that were "special release" or always OMGSR. I think this category needs at leas 2 tiers if not more and so do extremely rare pets. I do hope we can keep some of the older list values and even though we gained some more rare+ pets, we gained way too many OMGSR pets for them to be considered OMGSR anyway. I am missing some sort of Legendary tier there, that would determine the pets that are actually extremely hard to get. I certainly don't think some of the new OMGSR bunnies are hard to find at all, like Joker bunny that I haven't seen for trade for so long and everyone wanting overpay for it regardless. Maybe they are from same litter, year and event but certain bunnies were VR for so long and some were OMGSR for years now, so claiming they are same value now because there is same amount of them seem a bit strange to me, especially when I can see the other ones scattered everywhere around trades and couldn't find any of the real OMGSR ones. However they did show this in the graph where people voted on what rarity update they would like and most probably did vote for this one dues to the raised amount of these pets, rather than the other options. I didn't vote for this one but I can get used to it as long as we get some new guide on these pets. I definitely won't agree though that just like before, UR grapes just won't swap equally with UR cat and the new OMGSR rats won't either.

[♥Princess of Lions♥]

If anything, list pets are the least likely to change in value as a result of this update because the list is a primarily demand based system to begin with and less of a rarity based system. List pet values run on their own “currency”, that being nons, regardless of their rarity labels. Since nons still exist to be used as a currency label, I don’t see why list pet values will change very much. Sure some people will use the update as an excuse to try getting more for their pets that turned OMGSR but that’s happened before, such as when store pets would turn VR to OMGSR before the update. The overcharging always dies down in the end and prices go back to normal. The only pet I can really think of as an exception is the Skelebun but those were hard to find before they turned OMGSR and even now with their value being really high the low demand still makes them very difficult to sell.

[auroraphoenix]

This is kind of just a jumble of thoughts, but I wanted to end on something I feel is really important to the discussion: I don't think rare should be considered the floor under which everything is meaningless. I really think we should /use/ these new rarities and see value in the uncommon pets, especially the very and extremely uncommons. The word rare and the value people assign to it (and therefore do not assign to uncommon) is a barrier I honestly didn't know how to solve when making suggestions about this update, because going to a completely overhauled system with 11 new words to learn or just numbers seemed so user-unfriendly. It is going to be the work of users to give value to these words, and I hope you will.

This is a really great mindset Lacuna, thank you for your input! I honestly really like this idea, especially because I agree that uncommon and under were basically valueless. The clearest example I can think of that probably proves exactly what you're describing is the idea that basically no one is/was willing to trade their rares into uncommons. I admit - I am and was guilty of it. But I think that's really interesting because -- if we're talking about line art and desirability only -- there are some really, really gorgeous uc and below pets. I mean, I mentioned it before, but there were some pets I was trying to get that were extremely difficult because of the desirability factor, and they were uncommons.

At the very least, I really hope to see something happen with the range of uncommons now as they were/are kind of the grey area. If we start to see more value in uncommons, then maybe that will start to happen with even lower rarities!

[Loelya]

The thing I'm finding so wild is that people are making claims a lower rarity pet is worth multiple higher rarity pets based purely on date despite how granular our rarity system is now. I had no idea people were using a 2:1 year system before, that seems crazy to me given how many years there are to get through.

very much in agreement here

Guideline suggestion:

A pet is worth another pet with:

Same rarity tag
Similar age (within 3 years)
Similar demand (species/line edits)

I’m struggling a little bit to understand the rest of the suggestions but I think this first bit is an awesome starting point!

Since I'm sorta quoted in the front page of this thread, I wanted to throw my 2 cents in. First, to clarify that any statement I made was as a user and not staff, as will continue to be the case here.

love to see it! I did look for your post to officially quote you but I couldn’t get to it in the digging I did. ^^’ I really appreciated seeing your perspective, but I understand the concern that it could potentially come across differently coming from ‘staff.’ I could take out the mention of your staff position and just leave it as your name if you think that’d be better?

I think we could all benefit from clearer distinctions also on what is actually unfair, and what is just a trade your personal biases don't appreciate. Someone offering you an OMGSR rat for example, just because it is a rat or other species you don't like doesn't make it unfair in a trade. It's totally cool to have a bias but I'd appreciate more people being upfront about that rather than calling everything unfair

Super agree with this! I’ve felt the community could benefit from this too for a while now.

If anything, list pets are the least likely to change in value as a result of this update because the list is a primarily demand based system to begin with and less of a rarity based system. List pet values run on their own “currency”, that being nons, regardless of their rarity labels. Since nons still exist to be used as a currency label, I don’t see why list pet values will change very much. Sure some people will use the update as an excuse to try getting more for their pets that turned OMGSR but that’s happened before, such as when store pets would turn VR to OMGSR before the update. The overcharging always dies down in the end and prices go back to normal. The only pet I can really think of as an exception is the Skelebun but those were hard to find before they turned OMGSR and even now with their value being really high the low demand still makes them very difficult to sell.

I feel like this thread is mostly to address standard pets and general trading standards rather than the really high-demand pets that can go for so much. ^^ that’s obviously a discussion worth having too, but I think it might benefit the userbase to have two different discussions, especially considering they trade differently anyway. I mentioned “excluding high-demand pets” in the poll and also tried to get a convo going for “OMGSRs” on this thread.

[Selznick]

Is there any numbers for how the rareities are classified? Because I feel like understanding that would help to classify if 2:1 is still viable, at least for trading pets between rarities.

For example, if 1 in 2 pets makes it omgsocommon, and 1 in 4 is extremely common then a 2:1 trading rule of 2 omgsocommons for 1 extremely common would make sense. Obviously idk the actual numbers or if this would actully make sense as an option. Plus, i'm bad at maths, so this probs doesn't make sense.

Also, how are pets counted? Like are pets in nft groups counted or pets on an account that hasn't been online for over 5 years? Because if they are then using a 2:1 rule for years would still make sense to me.

[Lacuna]

@Loelya - I’m on my phone so it’s hard to pull out just one quote, sorry. But I don’t feel the need to be credited in any way for the 5 year idea, others agreed with me on the thread so you can just say it was presented/discussed if you want.