New Trading Standards Discussion (please join in!)

[Loelya]

The second major topic that was discussed in-depth here is the concept of how trading between different rarities can be accomplished "fairly" between users. Up until this major rarity overhaul, it was not uncommon to see players using a 2:1 rarity rule very similar to the previously discussed 2:1 date rule; wherein 2 pets of a lower rarity were considered a "fair" trade for 1 pet of the next highest rarity (ex: 2 common pets for 1 uncommon pet.)

The poll results for this topic were relatively inconclusive; players seem divided on a preferable metric, but we did have some very productive discussions on how much personal preference can factor into trades, especially when considering pets within the rarity brackets from commons to rares (and maybe factors in less when considering very high-value trades such as with ER or OMGSR pets.)

Poll-wise, there was a slight majority for retaining the 2:1 rarity rule, but users also discussed on the thread preferences for either using their own metrics or for following widely-established guides. In the future, cross-rarity trading may come down to a matter of personal preference rather than a hard and fast rule.

We also brought back a previous point of discussion around the idea that standardizing some trading definitions may help with clarity and straightforwardness for the community. I provided a rough outline of some ideas I've seen discussed from a few years back, and those participating in the discussion voiced some support for this outline:

Rarity - How many of a given pet exists per active user on-site. This is a built-in site mechanism and each pet has corresponding rarity bars.

Demand - How desirable the pet is. In addition to its base rarity, how likely are players to wishlist the pet, or actively trade towards this pet for their collection.

Worth - What a fair, quantity-based trade for the pet would be. For example, a higher-rarity pet might be “worth” 10 old rares. (more of a function of rarity than demand.)

Value - What a desirable trade for the pet would be. For example, players are likely to trade a store pet for another store pet, even if theoretically, a fair, worth-based trade could be achieved with a number of standard-release rares. (more of a function of demand than rarity.)

[Iwein]

Unlike other big rarity updates where we see big rarity changes from CS changing one part of the rarity system, with this update we know thanks to Nick’s information on the first post of the announcement thread that three parts of the rarity system were changed:
1 we got additional rarities, which led to
2 the benchmarks of what makes a pet fall into each category were changed, though we still don’t know the numbers behind each tier. Finally the big one that I don’t see getting much discussion
3 the way the system counts pets in inactive accounts was changed again. This last one is why we have weird things like a pet going from rare to extremely rare or uncommon to very rare with this update.

...

I honestly don’t think we’ll really be able to genuinely know more than the current rarity labels and demand until after the next Dec18 rereleases, where pets on the lower end of the rarities traditionally drop.

i wanted to highlight this and say that we'll likely need more data before we can "settle" on values. the discussion around terms and re-naming or changing them is interesting, though sadly a bit above my head ^^' wish i had more time to read through everything! I do try to vote on the polls at least c:
I've been here almost 10 years and just always been put off enough by high-value trading that i never attempted it, largely because i never, well, had the time to study it when i could be doing things that are fun for me.
I do think trying to divorce rarity/demand, worth/value is a worthwhile endeavour. there should be an easily accessible, visible post that explains it in easy, plain language. I'm specifically thinking about people for who english is a foreign language (it's me, I'm people for who english is a foreign language)

[Loelya]

Unlike other big rarity updates where we see big rarity changes from CS changing one part of the rarity system, with this update we know thanks to Nick’s information on the first post of the announcement thread that three parts of the rarity system were changed:
1 we got additional rarities, which led to
2 the benchmarks of what makes a pet fall into each category were changed, though we still don’t know the numbers behind each tier. Finally the big one that I don’t see getting much discussion
3 the way the system counts pets in inactive accounts was changed again. This last one is why we have weird things like a pet going from rare to extremely rare or uncommon to very rare with this update.

...

I honestly don’t think we’ll really be able to genuinely know more than the current rarity labels and demand until after the next Dec18 rereleases, where pets on the lower end of the rarities traditionally drop.

i wanted to highlight this and say that we'll likely need more data before we can "settle" on values. the discussion around terms and re-naming or changing them is interesting, though sadly a bit above my head ^^' wish i had more time to read through everything! I do try to vote on the polls at least c:
I've been here almost 10 years and just always been put off enough by high-value trading that i never attempted it, largely because i never, well, had the time to study it when i could be doing things that are fun for me.
I do think trying to divorce rarity/demand, worth/value is a worthwhile endeavour. there should be an easily accessible, visible post that explains it in easy, plain language. I'm specifically thinking about people for who english is a foreign language (it's me, I'm people for who english is a foreign language)

every little bit helps and I'm glad you've felt able to vote in the polls at least! ^^ I don't run any of my own guides anymore, but at whatever point I wrap up the discussion here, I'll include my quoted post above, and maybe players out there who do run guides will feel inspired to add it in for anyone who wants to use those definitions. I think it's probably true that a lot of the other stuff we've been discussing will be clearer once we see the dec 18th releases this year.

[SolarSonnet]

I'm really happy that you guys like my charts <3
I also like the new version SolarSonnet made!

Loelya I don't really get why people are talking about rares anymore in terms of highly valuable pet trades. We now have VR, ER and OMGSR. Rares, even old ones, shouldn't really be entering the equation anymore. If you look at the early 09 rares that were originaly used for these calculations (early 09 being worth a lot more than mid and late), most of them are VR/ER. So these are the rarity labels we should be referring to if we want to keep the old values consistent, no?

Also, a side note - a lot of 09 Easter pets have similar rarities to 08 Advents. That seems important but it's too late at night for me to write anything sensible about it, so I'll have to check in again tomorrow.

I totally get where you're coming from, yeah! I keep seeing others talk about "09 rares" - despite the update significantly reducing the presence of 09 rares - so I thought maybe it would make sense to have them in the poll options, moreso to indicate there's proposed changes rather than to encourage continued use of them.

but to attend to the idea that it shouldn't just be "old rares" instead of "09 rares," do you think potential poll options should include "09 very rares" or "old very rares" instead? if you were going to put a poll together in that regard how would you go about structuring it? I would really love to hear what your (or anyone's!) thought processes would be

updated poll brainstorming:

- keep nons/MAs but change 09 rares to “old rares”
- keep nons but change MAs to “ER advents” and change 09 rares to “old rares”
- keep nons/MAs but update the "base unit" from "09 rares" to "09 very rares," adjusting higher value terms accordingly
- keep the term "non" but change MAs to “ER advents” and update the "base unit" from "09 rares" to "09 very rares," adjusting higher value terms accordingly
- keep the same system but reassign previous values to different rarity-specific terms (example: “non” changing to “mid omgsr” or “MA” changing to “upper extremely rare”)
- keep the same system but change all of the value terms to something else that falls along some kind of common value system (example: gold/silver/bronze)
- change the system and value things in one type of “currency” rather than multiple different terms
- I do not want to keep the “currency” system

I wanted to mention that whenever I've said "09 R" recently, I've either been referring to them as they were pre-rarity update, or am lumping them in as a "general value" kind of term. I wasn't meaning 09r in the current state of trading, I was meaning 09r in the old state of trading.

Previously, I was of the mindset that my 09vrs are now worth "double" what they used to be, but I actually don't think that's the case. Because most 09s are now VRs and the whole rarity system has been turned on its head and uh.. yeah.

Not going to lie, I don't know where I stand anymore. I think I'd be happy enough keeping the old terms and stuff myself, but I also would like things to change?

I feel rather neutral now. Whatever the values change to, everybody has to adapt to them so everybody is losing or gaining value, some more than others, depending on whatever it is we decide. I feel like I've been a major part of this conversation, and I'm.. just another user on this site of thousands of people.

The only strong opinion I have is that if we're switching to Old Rares, I want it to be 2010-2011 and not include 09 rares/vrs, or vrs in general. I think 09 very rares are worth more than '10 rares. Specifically, I think 09 VRs are worth at least 3 '10 rares, so lumping them in would be weird.

Like, saying something is worth 10 Old Rares, and meaning 09-'11 Rares to VRs, to me means that it's worth anything from 10 2011 rares, to basically the value of 30 2010-2011 rares. Which is what we're trying to get away from. (Imo)

I think that my trading date system is more complicated when it comes to older pets as well. I might 1:1 swap an 09 for a 10 rare but probably not most of the time. Meaning that technically, while my "1 year for rares" chart works most of the time, when we start getting into 09, 10, 11. I probably wouldn't 1:1 swap unless they're in the same year, and that's just personal preference for age. There's no doubt in my mind that the pets from November or December 09 that're still regular rares, are closer to being VR than a December 2010 Rare, so I wouldn't swap them. But I might swap them for a January 2010 rare. 3-Month rule I think still applies to the oldest regular rares and vrs, for me.

So my "exception" to my chart would be "Any Rare+ pet older than December 2012 I still use the 3-month rule for as opposed to the 1-year rule."

Which makes my trading so much more complicated, and I'm not a huge fan of that, but it's really about trying to put "vibes" into hard "rules". Which is really difficult, requires a lot of introspection on why some trades that are technically "fair" have "bad vibes", and gets really complicated.

And while I feel like moving away from pet-based "currency" words is the best idea for future-proofing (What happens when X pet isn't worth Y anymore and we have to change it again?) My opinion on that isn't super strong, I was just throwing out ideas

I'm glad people like my chart and my input, I guess I just hope to not have too much weight put onto what I say, because I'm just a person with a single person's opinions, and not even the chart that I made is 100% accurate to how I trade, so if people are using it as their trading rules, I guess I'd want them to consider if they're using it because it looks the best to them out of the options at hand, or if they're using it because they genuinely think that's what their pets are worth.

It's why I put it out there that if somebody has another valuation of pets in mind, and they can explain it to me, that I'm more than happy to make them a chart. I don't want people to use any given chart because its "the best they've got" or anything.

[Solloby]

Could I suggest that we use this thread to discuss VR or ER and below trading, and the OMGSR thread to discuss the most valuable pets (ER & OMGSR)? That way we can minimise overlap of conversations. Just a suggestion c:

I know a lot of traders aren't as interested in talking about commons and such, but I really do think coming up with some charts together, then having users poll to let us know which most people think is best, would be really helpful to newer users. New users may not know where to start with pet trading across rarity tags, or realise that age of pet matters. So providing some basic guidelines will give them a solid place to start.

[SolarSonnet]

Could I suggest that we use this thread to discuss VR or ER and below trading, and the OMGSR thread to discuss the most valuable pets (ER & OMGSR)? That way we can minimise overlap of conversations. Just a suggestion c:

I know a lot of traders aren't as interested in talking about commons and such, but I really do think coming up with some charts together, then having users poll to let us know which most people think is best, would be really helpful to newer users. New users may not know where to start with pet trading across rarity tags, or realise that age of pet matters. So providing some basic guidelines will give them a solid place to start.

I think it's gunna be hard to organize everyone. So I'mma put everything in a neat little box here.

If you want to discuss ER/OMGSR+ Pets

These are the threads for you:
✨ Trading New OMGSRs Discussion
[🐝] Guides to Trading Every Pet on CS -* Discussing! *

If you're looking to discuss anything VR and BELOW
This is the correct thread! Congratz!🥳

Everyone please shuffle around

If there are any other threads I'm missing, post 'em down below (and I'll add them in to this post?)

I know I'm not the owner of the post or anything, but with the above post I wanted to make sure everyone could get to where they wanna be.

[Loelya]

Could I suggest that we use this thread to discuss VR or ER and below trading, and the OMGSR thread to discuss the most valuable pets (ER & OMGSR)? That way we can minimise overlap of conversations. Just a suggestion c:

I know a lot of traders aren't as interested in talking about commons and such, but I really do think coming up with some charts together, then having users poll to let us know which most people think is best, would be really helpful to newer users. New users may not know where to start with pet trading across rarity tags, or realise that age of pet matters. So providing some basic guidelines will give them a solid place to start.

I think it's gunna be hard to organize everyone. So I'mma put everything in a neat little box here.

If you want to discuss ER/OMGSR+ Pets

These are the threads for you:
✨ Trading New OMGSRs Discussion
[🐝] Guides to Trading Every Pet on CS -* Discussing! *

If you're looking to discuss anything VR and BELOW
This is the correct thread! Congratz!🥳

Everyone please shuffle around

If there are any other threads I'm missing, post 'em down below (and I'll add them in to this post?)

I know I'm not the owner of the post or anything, but with the above post I wanted to make sure everyone could get to where they wanna be.

I would still really like to cover value terminology here, mostly for the sake of vocabulary and seeing if there's any broad opinions being formed yet or if those things are still in the works. ^^ I said in an earlier post that I'd run a terminology poll and then the "final poll" would be about what values those terms had, but I'd be totally happy to drop that last poll idea and bring things back to general non-omgsr trading. also in the time since I've said that, the discussion on Horror's thread has delved deeper into the breakdown of values & trade equalization on that higher end of trading, so I can fully agree that it's being covered thoroughly elsewhere. but the sort of vocab and keywords thing, naming stuff that has to do with higher-end trading is something I'd really be invested/interested in seeing on a larger scale, even if we don't try to get into the specifics and intricacy of how that trading will work beyond just what sort of words we use to describe it if that makes sense?

[SolarSonnet]

I don't really have any takes on what words are being used to describe the values that I haven't already expressed.

Something like Non Units or OMG Units or whatever I don't care what we call them, equaling 100 Old Rares rather than using pets as a benchmark.

And then some other kind of unit to equal 10 old rares. So that they don't get outdated in the future.

Alternatively I saw something that was like Bronze/Silver/Gold but Idk if those were units or a proposal for a way of organizing like "Bronze Star OMGSRs" or something like that. I just remember seeing the words mentioned in a post and think it could be applied to something like this.

[Loelya]

Alternatively I saw something that was like Bronze/Silver/Gold but Idk if those were units or a proposal for a way of organizing like "Bronze Star OMGSRs" or something like that. I just remember seeing the words mentioned in a post and think it could be applied to something like this.

yes that was me! i saw your post about picking "units" to use to remove the problems with singling out specific pets as value terms, and thought that bronze/silver/gold might be a good example of value indicators that are kind of universally understood and would work for something like that. I don't necessarily think that should be the exact thing we move to if we went that route but I just wanted to use it as an easy-to-understand example.

[Solloby]

Whatever units are used, rares shouldn't be part of the equation. Even VRs probably don't need to be included, we should be valuing OMGSRs in terms of ERs, not lower rarities. If someone wants to go with lower rarities, they can use VR -> ER valuations to work out how many VRs for an OMGSR.

If you do Gold/Silver/Bronze, maybe something like this?

Diamond = high UR pets & high July 08s
Platinum = low UR pets & low July 08s (so Nons would live here)
Gold = Aug 08s (Sorbets live here, but so do Toxics & Tribals)
Silver = Late 08s (Sept, Oct, Nov & Advent 08s)
Bronze = higher value 09+ OMGSRs
Copper = lower value 09+ OMGSRs