New Trading Standards Discussion (please join in!)

[musicgurl333]

I have a question, and maybe this could be a topic for a future poll…how are people valuing store pets right now? Let’s say a store pet used to be worth an ‘09 rare. Is it worth an ‘09-‘12 rare now, using the 3:1 rule (which is what I’m using currently)? Since most ‘09 rares are VR now, and since most store pets are VR, should it also be worth an ‘09 VR? Or an ‘09-‘12 VR?

I feel like I’m pretty much settled on my trade values going forward (2:1 between rarities, 3 year rules for dates below VR, which VR+ determined on a pet by pet basis), and I don’t do much list trading, so that’s not a big issue for me at the moment, but I do a fair bit of trading in store pets and I’m a bit lost on how to value them right now. I’d be interested in hearing what other people think!

I use 1-year rule for pets above rare, so I might not be the person you want to receive advice from.

That being said:

Personally, for store pets, I start with the value of current store pets and relate it in my current C$ Chart.
So a store pet currently in the store rn, is 25 C$, which, for me, relates to a 2010 Extremely Uncommon. Then I go up from there until the vibes are wrong.
I'd say current are store pets in the store rn, + earlier this year.
So a current Store pet is like 25 C$
'22 would be 30 C$ making it an '11 rare
'21 is 35-40, probably putting it around an 09 EUC.
'20 you've got 40-45, making it more like an 09 EUC + a little add.
etc.

Overall its the vibes, but I'd call a current store pet solidly worth a 2010 EUC

I appreciate any input! Even if I don’t always agree, I still think it’s really helpful to see what other people are thinking.

Personally, I can’t see myself trading a store pet for a single EUC, regardless of year. For most store pets, that’s a gap of two rarities right off the bat. Considering a lot of the EUCs were uncommon before the update, I wouldn’t feel comfortable with that. It feels a bit more reasonable with rare store pets, until you consider that the lower rarity means more people bought them, which means more people want them, which usually means higher demand.

I would love to know what other people think too!

[lil rascal]

I might not be the best for getting advice on store pets from as I have always valued retired store pets much higher than non-store pets. However personally there is no way I would take a single pet, no matter the age, of a lower rarity for any store pet (yes I include the strangely overinflated Raven in that). Personally I feel this update shows how severely the community guidelines have undervalued many of the retired store pets so I think their trading values should go up a lot in light of that.

[Loelya]

I've got some longer form replies I wanna make at some point to other posts in the thread rn, haven't had the chance this evening because its been a lil busy for me. xD but hey I wanted to drop in real quick about the store pets!

before writing this post I genuinely had not yet considered how I might approach trading them differently from this point onwards, so this is what I've been doing up to this point the past few years, and take it with a grain of salt because I'm just now thinking about how I might approach it going forward.

my methods previously:
2 standard rare pets for 1 store pet if the store pet is rare (within the same year)
or 4 standard rare pets for 1 store pet if the store pet is very rare (within the same year.)
although ^ store pets are also one of the only types of trades I've required wishlist offers for.

I might consider sticking with this method rather than switching it to the 3 year rule that I'll be using for other trades, being that store pets are limited-release and do not get more added to the circulation pool each year, unlike other rare and very rare pets (and now ER pets) that are released in dec 18th boxes. I haven't really encountered a situation where I've been offered lower than a rare for a store pet; especially since I have them WL-locked and my WL is fairly sparse.

but instead of "doubling" the rares I'd consider fair for each year apart from the store pet's year I think I might use an idea mentioned earlier in this thread and simply (in theory) ask for 1 more rare to be added for each year of difference. so if I was trading a rare 2018 store pet, and someone offered me standard rare pets, I'd look for two 2018 rares, or three 2019 rares, or four 2020 rares, etc. and if it were a very rare store pet I'd do the same counting method, just starting with the 4 rares and moving up. so for a very rare 2018 store pet I'd look for four 2018 rares, or five 2019 rares, or six 2020 rares, etc. I do think I'd stick with my WL requirement though.

[SolarSonnet]

My response is kind of mixed towards all of the posts just above about the store pet stuff, so I won't quote anybody directly. I really don't wanna deal with snipping all the quotes rn lol. I will include a lil @ though!

@musicgurl333

Personally, I think EUC 'replaced' where Rares were before in terms of like, the kind of value they have. So I value EUCs where Rares were at, if you value Rares at where Rares were at before, then that makes the store pet worth a 2010 rare, which is fair and about where they were at before anyway. I'd still trade a 2010 rare for a recent store pet, esp if I liked the store pet enough.

Also keep in mind most 2010 pets are rare now, anyway, so 2010 EUC is basically just a "Yeah, around here." kind of number. From a quick look through the archives (like 2 minutes) the only 2010 EUCs I came across were from regular releases, and only a few of them in each month. In essence, its worth "a 2010 pet". And I'd say like 90% of 2010 pets are rare+ now.

I also totally get not wanting to swap an EUC for something that's guaranteed Rare or VR, and I also agree with the fact that rare store pets mean that more people wanted that pet and bought it specifically, so I may re-evaluate my own ideas on how to value them.

I have to wonder if a recent store pet will ever hit EUC if its popular enough, I was actually worried about that happening with some of the ones I had that were regular rares.

--

@lil rascal

Agreed! Store pets haven't been valued as high as they're worth, unless they're the super popular ones. (PPS Dragoncat, Raven, Skelebun, etc) and Skelebun only got popular because it hit OMGSR and then everyone wanted it because it hit OMGSR and skyrocketed in Demand.

Even some of the store pets from 2013 hit OMGSR, and outside of special releases, no other categorization of newer pets have done that (to my knowledge, I haven't looked).

I was always so surprised to see the basilisks being traded for so little. When I got my hands on my set, I never wanted to trade them away after that, ever. And now two of them are OMGSR and one is on the cusp of it. Granted, I traded my PPS Dragoncat for them, but I genuinely think that the set of Basilisks all-together could be worth more than the Dragoncat post-overhaul.

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@Loelya

Before the overhaul, I don't think I'd take a couple of newer rares for a store pet. Thinking about it now, I still don't think I would.
You have to buy them for C$ in the store, and once they're out of the store, they're gone forever.

I think Store pets are worth much older rares, as well as just being worth more rares in general, because of their exclusivity and the fact they will never be re-released.

The Sundog will have more of its babies scattered throughout the site until the site shuts down or the sun envelopes the Earth if the site never shuts down, but the Raven only has so many copies and there will never be another Raven added to the site, ever.

So, that being said, I take the same approach to 2018 Store pets. There will never be any more of those added, but you know what there will be more of added ? Random 2018 pets that are rare+.

I've seen offers of 150 C$+ for Store Pets that released in 2017. (some of the gryphons, mainly) I even was offered 300 C$ for one of my (not pps) Gryphons at one point (which I accepted at the time). I literally think they're worth that much. Right now. Not what they "could be worth" in the future, I think that's what their worth right this second. I go onto the C$ buy and sell thread and laugh at all of the offers of C$ for store pets that I think are being severely undervalued.

I have store pets shoved away in my locked folders because I don't think that people are offering nearly enough for them. They've been super undervalued for a really long time. I remember going to the person who had an insane offer of any 4 rares for a recent store pet, and I cleared them out of the PPS Store Snakes, now I have a bunch of them and are waiting for them to be worth something, because the PPS pets are always worth some kind of demand in the future.
I even have one of the 2019 Flower PPS Lions, the PPS Gryphon, the PPS Tiger from 2017 and 2 of the 2015 Manticore PPS.
I expect them to be worth a lot in the future, more than they are now, and I am willing to hold onto them like, forever, until I feel that their value matches the worth I've give them in my head.

Edit to Add:
If you have a 2023 store pet, that is worth 25 C$. If you trade it for 4 2023 rares, 4 2023 rares are only worth 5 C$/per for some of the most recent C$ charts. You're just scamming yourself out of 5 C$, go buy the 2023 rares from someone instead.

[Metax]

Reposting my post from Horror's new thread. Bit late here, but I'd love to join the discussion! I don't think anything has been set in stone yet.

Long post incoming. Looking for feedback c: It's time we revamp the trading system, and that's only achievable as a community.

I agree with replacing the 2009 rare standard with 2010-2011 rares, as per sky,'s post.

Question 1 -

I think this would involve newer players exponentially. Especially with the rarity change allowing for more existing rares. This way, it is so much easier for newer players to gain more valuable pets and be able to participate in the "higher trading" platform. That was one of the biggest grievances with newer users. (As I saw on multiple discussions about the trading environment on cs) That it was near impossible to trade for one of the more popular pets, especially when their only chance was to either buy tons of C$, get super lucky on December 18th, or just grind for years. This would at the very least, double the opportunity, while making trading much easier to understand. Fantastic idea. c:

I'm impartial @ the division of nons - however, as it pertains to nons and former mas, I'd like to suggest dropping the ranges and sticking to one solid number to serve as a baseline, as well as dividing nons into 10 straight-up "mas"/advents for ease of use in trading. Again - I'm suggesting this as a baseline, for pets with equal demand. Rats will probably go for less, same with equines. There are other exceptions as well - the sunback may still go for more. You know the deal. (I suggest a google form to ask the community about demand values - eg. is a sunback worth 1 - 1.5 - 2 - 2.5 - 3n?; is a coontail still worth 2n or should it be equal to other nons now, at 1n?)

The .25/.5/.75 division seems to be in the lead, so:

1 non = 100 old rares = 10ma
.75n = 75 old rares = 7.5ma
.5n = 50 old rares = 5ma
.25n = 25 old rares = 2.5ma

It's difficult to say what the new "ma" will be, which is why it's hard to say how many "old rares" one would be worth.
I'll use the previous meaning of ma to give an example -

1 ma = 10 old rares (seems fair enough, given how many there are, and how many more very rares there are as well. one could offer 5 2010 rares and 2-3 2011 very rares for a ma)
.5ma = 5 old rares

I must pose the question - which pets are we now going to use as standard metric? As per Horror's post, the new non tier is under mid OMGSRs. Does that mean the formerly 3n sunback is now 1n? How much do we take demand into account? If their actual rarity is roughly the same, I think a 3x increase in value is nuts. Same goes for the ur tiger dog and unickorn - they're the same rarity, but you'd have to trade 6 unickorns for 1 tiger dog, as per the previous list. That's pretty crazy, but... That's a talk for later.

We have to try and think in actual trading terms as well - how do we start valuing these pets in relation to one another?

High omgsrs - july tier - 2-3n?
old ur tier - 1.5-2n?

Middle omgsrs - non tier - 1n? Is this our new baseline?
Kirin, legacy tiers - .75n?

Low omgsrs - .5n?

How much are extremely rares worth? Are these our new advents? Could we do 5 extremely rares for a low omgsr, or is that too much? Could these have a baseline value of 10 old rares, as I suggested above?

Could a base demand extremely rare - blue scarf dog, or pink cookie - trade for 7 2010 rares and 2 2011 very rares? I think people will always take years into account when it comes to trading, which is why I'm anticipating that 2011 rares will be seen as lower value.
Of course, the BA would go for more, and rats for less, etc.

Lower extremely rares - .75ma? Is a white rainbow leopard worth 7-8 2010 rares?

We have to consider that there are a LOT more very rares now, which should give access to a much larger player base to high value trading, which is why I don't think increasing an ma/advent's worth would be a problem, especially if we are to try to make it make sense.

I think the biggest issue with changing how much a "non" or an "advent" is worth.. is that people who have those pets now, don't want them to be worth less than what they paid for them.

You will end up with a bunch of people who say, "I value nons at what they used to be valued at. If you're not paying 100 09 rares for my non, you're not getting it. That's what I traded for it, and that's what everyone else can trade for it when they're trading with me."

[...]

People are invested in "Nons" being "100-150 09 rares" because that's what they traded for them. Nobody wants their accounts to be worth less than they were pre-update, or feel like they got scammed in hindsight. "If only I'd made that trade after the update came out." Is going to be a really big "bad" feeling for a lot of people if/when changes like this go through.

If, as a community, we change the way trading works, even remotely - this should not be a problem. Yes, they would be worth "less", but if the same principle applies to everyone, then things should be pretty equalized.

Assuming everyone followed the same rules in trading, then everyone should be suffering from the same "loss" and we should make an effort to shift trading in the right direction - even if that means lowering the values of our high value fodder.

TLDR; I come to y'all with 3 questions.

1. Can we possibly equalize the trading system?

eg. 1 non = 10 ma = 100 old rares (= 50 old very rares?)
1 ma = 10 old rares (= 5 old very rares?)

I think this offers much more freedom to the community, and the ability to play with trading and make it more fun. With the introduction of so many new rares and very rares, as well as the 3 year rule going around, this should allow newer users to join the high value trading community.

Examples of trades;

Nontag (mid omgsr - non tier - 1n) for pink mini husky (low omgsr - .5n?) + pps cocoon (upper extremely rare - the new ma?) + pink heart advent (upper extremely rare - 1ma?) + 30 2010 rares (or 15? 2010 very rares?)

Halloween koi (upper extremely rare - 1ma?) for 2 2009 very rares (4-5 2010 rares? 6?) and 3 2010 very rares (another 5-6 2010 rares?)

2. How much is a very rare worth?

2 rares of the same year? 1 rare of the previous year + 1 rare of the same year? 1 2009 VR = 2 2009 rares? = 3-4 2010 rares?
That would put an extremely rare (the new ma?) as being worth perhaps 3 2009 VRs, which seems fine to me. I used to use the 1:2 rule for vr to rare trading, so the old rule - 3 2009 vrs = 6 2009 rares = 1 ma coincides with the proposed new one - 3 2009 vrs = 5-6? 2009 rares = just about 10 2010 rares = 1 new ma

3. Which pets are our new nons and mas?

Should we use the non tier, mid omgsrs, as a non?
Can upper extremely rares be our new mas/advents?



I will also reiterate, that I think a google forms should be posted (after we decide how much a non/ma is worth, and which ones they are), to re-evaluate high value pet demand.

[auroraphoenix]

@Metax
As per your first question I think equalizing would improve QOL (quality of life) in so many ways. Firstly, obviously for trading. Knowing exactly what to expect is ideal. Having ranges previously I think made it a bit difficult to evaluate whether a trade was fair or not. I think it also might potentially help decrease demand causing pet values to get crazy so quickly. Of course, I think there is no way to fight the fact that people will likely always prefer dogs/cats over horses/rats, but to say that 1 "MA" or "Non" - regardless of species - is worth ~10 [year here] rares, might help combat that. I also think it just might help clear up trading definitions. I had mentioned earlier on I feel as though people don't have one *agreed upon* standard definition of what everything means, so having values be more standard/equal might help keep everyone in the know of what things like value, demand, etc are, as well as help those new to high-value trading learn. Though of course, this also has the potential to make things really frigid, but starting way too frigid and getting more lax is always easier than the opposite. (At least on an individual trading basis!)

[Metax]

@Metax
As per your first question I think equalizing would improve QOL (quality of life) in so many ways. Firstly, obviously for trading. Knowing exactly what to expect is ideal. Having ranges previously I think made it a bit difficult to evaluate whether a trade was fair or not. I think it also might potentially help decrease demand causing pet values to get crazy so quickly. Of course, I think there is no way to fight the fact that people will likely always prefer dogs/cats over horses/rats, but to say that 1 "MA" or "Non" - regardless of species - is worth ~10 [year here] rares, might help combat that. I also think it just might help clear up trading definitions. I had mentioned earlier on I feel as though people don't have one *agreed upon* standard definition of what everything means, so having values be more standard/equal might help keep everyone in the know of what things like value, demand, etc are, as well as help those new to high-value trading learn. Though of course, this also has the potential to make things really frigid, but starting way too frigid and getting more lax is always easier than the opposite. (At least on an individual trading basis!)

For sure! Trading will never truly be frigid since it's all so subjective imo, and everyone values pets and their demand differently. Having all species be worth the same would be ideal, although it'll never work like that haha.

I'm wondering if certain extremely rares (looking at you, august pps) will still fetch more than some new omgsrs (pink mini husky? hello? what are you doing here?). Is demand enough to surpass the very obvious difference in actual value?

[Lacuna]

edit before I post: sorry if this is jumbled, I wrote it on mobile and it’s hard to move paragraphs around

As someone who did very little trading of “list” pets prior to this update, I see little utility in the terms “non” and “MA” because when I think of them I only picture a literal non dog or a literal 2008 advent dog. And if we want new people involved in upper tier trading, then it needs to be more accessible. Personally, I view ~4-5 tiers of OMGSR existing based on previous rarity change knowledge, with the largest being the newly christened (non-store) ones and one of the tiers just being about the oldest store pets that have been OMGSR for a while that are never going to be able to be properly integrated into a system where all the other pets are rereleased (which is why they are not considered part of a full collection by the archive).

I’d rather see “you need x number of 2023 update OMGSR to get into the middle tier of OMGSR” (what I read suggests this is nons?) and then x number to trade for the highest tier OMGSRs (ones that have never dropped rarity and went OMGSR a long time ago). I don’t think I would ever trade 10+ extremely rares for a low/2023 update OMGSR because I don’t feel the gap is that large based on these updates (disclaimer I don’t know any more about this than any other user/have no staff knowledge) and if we’re basing it on very rares or rares instead that seems counterintuitive to me because the whole point of new rarity labels (in my opinion) was to make that less necessary. We know what’s between VR and OMGSR now, it’s extremely rares and the new OMGSRs.

The fact that I didn't agree with old values that were even more extreme (like 1000+ rares for an OMGSR) is why I never participated in that kind of trading. After the reform it was still too high for me, so I continued to not participate. And I say this as someone who owns and has owned a lot of OMGSR pets, especially those that changed in this update. I feel like there might be an echo chamber of people willing to discuss this and give it so much granularity that is not considering people who have opted out/given up due to the level of complication and value inflation. Also, consider that especially with the window for time since accounts were active being decreased the utility of the minor gaps (like this one went OMGSR in March versus September 2013, for example) in old rarity change data has decreased because it factored in pets that don’t exist (in the eyes of the rarity system) anymore.

I don’t see concrete evidence (in numbers not trades) that any non dog is worth 100 other pets close to its rarity. I understand if it’s like 3 very rares are needed to jump to an extremely rare (instead of like 1:2 at lower tiers) because they are just harder to find/get, which means if it then takes 3 extremely rares to jump to OMGSR it’s about 10 very rares that are needed to get to OMGSR, but I wouldn’t then make it a multiple of 5 or 10 to continue up through the OMGSRs (once again, exceptions like store pets exist). While this is just based on vibes and how often I see people get these pets (especially at rerelease) I feel like that’s how the majority of players will see things.

Obviously I’m missing context of the discussions that people had to make the lists, but that’s kind of my point. Almost no one possesses that context and it was based on deals made between a very select group of people. I don’t want the fact that people traded that way for years mean that we can’t reform the system now. To make a kind of silly comparison, it’s like if you paid off your student loans and then got mad other people got forgiveness even though that was the right thing all along.

[Loelya]

okay this post is gonna be super long xD I'm sorry it's overdue! I want to refer back to some points being made over the last few pages but it'll end up really convoluted if I go and pick out/quote the specific things I'm referring to so I'm just gonna let this be my contribution to the discussion rather than a reply to anyone in particular.

I think I will likely go forward in my trades with the 2:1 rarity math for anything up through VR, including 2 EUCs = 1 rare (not 4 EUCs = 1 rare), because we now have that extra specificity, I don't feel like I need to increase that "jump up" in pets to make the perceived "difference" between uncommon/rare. like even though in theory maybe this tightens the value math rather than makes it more lenient - at least in this specific way - I do also think that now it could be very stable and feel less like guesswork to be estimating how many of what rarity equal the next one. but I also do plan to do my best to be flexible with others' preferred trading rules.

so as of right now, I'm planning to adopt the "3 year date rule" and keep the 2:1 rarity math in my personal trades, and use a +1 rule combined with my previous "double WL rares" rule for store pets. I'm aware this is a very unusual rule for store pets though and I'm not saying it needs to be anyone else's standard, it's just a personal preference. (I do also feel a bit differently about store pets from 2017 or earlier, given that the idea behind store pets ever-increasing value is dependent on the size of the active userbase, which has not increased since 2017.)

regarding our base value system:

I do understand that if we tried to re-define pet values by something other than "Non" or "MA" or what-have-you, we'd just be repackaging these definitions under different words, especially if we stuck with the idea of a "currency" system with some things being worth a defined number of rares, and so on. but the reason I think it's worth thinking about has more to do with just moving away from old terminology that doesn't serve us anymore, rather than it necessarily being a revolutionary change to call things by different names. I think there's a potential problem in referring to certain pets as always "the" currency pets (Non/sorb/MA), because then it could get confusing over time if those pets perceived values never increased in order for our "currency" system to remain functional, even as those pets become older and rarer the longer the site goes on. so in theory, maybe if we were able to define the ideas behind our currency values on categories of valuable pets rather than by specific individual pets, we'd have less of a struggle with maintaining that system in the long-term.

but that being said! it does seem like most people are in favor of keeping the "currency words" we've been working with the last few years. I saw some discussion over on Horror's new thread referring to the idea that we may want to at least tweak the name of "mid advent" since they're definitely not "mid" anymore due to a) old list being defunct and b) increasing drastically in rarity. I like an idea I saw presented there that we go to calling them simply "ER Advents." tbh I really hope this becomes "ERAs" heh bc I like the way it sounds. Nons/ERAs

I also agree with the idea that we should either move to considering a broader category of "old rares" for our most basic value unit, like Nons/ERAs/Old Rares, or we should move to "09 VRs" and halve our previous "values" to adjust for that rarity difference. there's almost no "09 rares" left in the CS system anymore at all, and I think keeping the "09 rares" term around would be confusing and difficult to work around.

I think it's likely the community will end up sticking with the previous valuations of whatever our highest "currency" term is being worth in that 100ish rares range, just because it does seem like a system that works smoothly & predictably enough in working out values between the different units (I mean, who doesn't love an even 100 when doing mathematical calculations? I don't event think this is a result of inflation I think we probably just love a round number), but I think we shouldn't necessarily dispose of the idea out of hand that maybe that number is too high and should come down a bit. if there was a community-wide effort to adjust our value preconceptions across the board, then having the same principle applied everywhere should keep things roughly equal and not drastically reduce value at just one end of the scale.

I would love to direct attention especially to this post by Metax on another thread; I think some excellent questions and propositions are raised here, both regarding re-assigning currency "terms" as well as notes about possibly equalizing the system, and think these things would be worth discussing here (as long as Metax is okay with that of course, please feel free to let me know if not!)
EDIT: JUST REALIZED you put this here as well!! that's excellent, thanks so much for bringing that over.

[Palimpsest]

it does seem like most people are in favor of keeping the "currency words" we've been working with the last few years

I'm not pitching in to this discussion because I do not trade at that level, but yeah, as someone who has tried to engage with it a few times, it is pretty inaccessible to me. I'm not even commenting on the other higher rarity trade threads cause, what could I say? I really don't understand what people are talking about well enough (even though I do know what MAs are and other things).

As Lacuna says, I think it's important to keep in mind that these discussions are mostly getting people who frequently trade at that level, and not really engaging with people who may have given up on understanding or engaging with that system. It's kind of hard because, I don't think I can contribute, other than "I hope whatever is decided I can understand it and enter into it."

So while I trust y'all to have those conversations, I also feel that "most people" is probably more like "most people who already use and understand it" and it's just important to be aware of that.