New Trading Standards Discussion (please join in!)

[Aurora Storm]

I mean, in THEORY that's a nice, simple rule, but it's not something that's realistic. Some species are just more liked. Most people are not going to swap a their lion for a rat, for example. Also, some pets are more popular...maybe they have a pretty design, or line art edits, or they're just extra adorable. Those pets are less likely to swap evenly for pets that people don't like as much. Plus, there's the date factor. I think dates should have MUCH LESS WEIGHT than the did pre-update, but they do still make a difference. Most people aren't going to swap a '10 rare for a '23 rare, even though the rarity is the same. That's because, ON AVERAGE, the '10 rare is going to be harder to find, and ON AVERAGE there's a better chance that it will turn VR before the more recent pet.

So yeah, swapping same rarity pets on an equal 1:1 trade, regardless of date/demand/species, is just not a thing that will ever happen. Sure, you might get lucky from time to time, and find someone who will swap their '10 uncommon dog for your '23 uncommon pony, but that's never going to be the norm.

Oh yeah, you’re right about that. Forgot to take that into consideration.
Maybe somebody could edit this rule so it could be more feasible or something…? I’m clearly not qualified enough to be on this thread, lol

To be fair your theory works very logically to a certain point, the difference in "value" based on a pet's species or design is purely controlled by demand and is subjective/community driven. I do agree there should be a slight difference in the value of older vs newer pets of the same rarity, but as others have said before in this discussion, the new categories have pinpointed rarities so much more and I think these "gaps" between years could be made smaller.

A simple 2 star = 2 star rule would be a very easy-to-understand guide for newer and less experience traders as a base for learning values. How to "calculate" the difference between each rarity, I'm not sure. It'd be great if we could use the stars for that as well (3 star extremely uncommon = 2 star uncommon + 1 star very common) but sadly it doesn't work very well once we get to the higher rarities.

[Panne]

I definitely agree that dates shouldn't be as big of a decider of value as before. The new update not only made rarities more exact, it also tightened up the criteria for an account being counted as inactive for calculations, meaning that most of the pets accounted for are going to be in circulation (yes, hoards and collections exist, but those happen with pets of any age and rarity). With both of those combined, I think that, while something like a '23 rare will still be less rare than a '10 rare, it's a much smaller gap than ever.

With the new system, I just really don't see MOST pets having a huge enough gap in rarity that will warrant paying double or triple it's rarity tag. There are, of course, outliers with demand due to species and design that will make certain pets more sought after, thus more valuable in the community's eyes. But I see little reason why a random 2011 rare that has no special demand should be worth double digits of 2022 rares solely on the basis of date, when the factual, number based data put them in the same rarity bracket. I'm not opposed to having old rares be slightly rarer since they are more likely on the higher end of the given rarity, but since we don't have exact numbers out there, we can only speculate where on the spectrum a certain pet is. The old rarity changes aren't as reliable as they were before either, since the criteria for assigning rarities was changed. The only solid date we have to go off of is that pets that stayed in their pre-update bracket are likely to be mid to high tier, and pets that went from, say, uncommon to rare are probably on the lower end. But until we go through more rarity changes over months and years, it's still not exact.

Plus, what about pets on the cusp? A high end rare vs a low end vr? by number, they'd be pretty similar in value, yet no one would ever consider doing a swap or near swap because of the perceived rarity difference. I dunno, it seems like the consensus on rarity trading by when a pet turned rare goes out the window as soon as a pet goes up in rarity.

I think a good medium between the two extremes, for pets that hold no special demand, would be to add on something like one pet of the rarity underneath it per an established "year" rule? So if you're wanting to trade for a 2015 rare, you could pay a 2016 rare + a 2016 extremely uncommon to make up the "gap?" Or a 2021 rare plus 6 2021 extremely uncommons (for the 6 year gap, with each year adding +1 euc)? And depending on what "rule" any individual user goes by, those 6 euc could be swapped for 3 rares (if going by 2:1) or 2 (if going by 3:1) etc? Or perhaps instead of +1 pet on per year gap, it could be stretched out to +1 per every 2 or 3 year gap? I'm sure there's probably a better idea, but I wanted to introduce a proposal as a starting point.

I'm very open to discussing opinions regarding my thoughts, I just really think that the tired mentality of "old pet instantly means it's much rarer" needs to go, and it has to be toned down in some way.

And just as a last note, this is purely for pets within their rarity tiers that don't have any special demand driving their community values. I do not intend for this to apply to store pets since those will never be re-released and will only go up in value. Store pets (especially the rarest of them) will always be very subjective from individual to individual. Nor do i intend for this idea to cover the traditional "list" pets that, no matter what, will always have inflated values due to how long they've been regarded as the most sought after pets on the site. I know it's unrealistic to try to shift to a system where I can trade a 2012 VR dog for a 2008 advent dog. But for anything else, there's just no inherent demand that would make a random old rare worth SO much more, imo.

[GravityTheWolf]

I've read some bits of this thread but it is too technical for me.
PRIOR to the rarity update, my trading habits were: DON'T. The majority of the user base is just not flexible enough in their thinking. They can't even explain the worth of a "rare+" pet without using words like "non", "sorbet", "advent", mid-advent", etc. WTH does that mean?
I gave up trying to trade when people kept saying they liked their non-WLed pets better than my WLed offer. Why are they in a trade group then? & why are the pets they don't like as much on their WL?

I like the fact that people are trying to work out a fairer, more (new) user-friendly "system" BEFORE this all hits the fan. Sure there is going to be a period of adjustment for many to accept the new rarities. However I cannot contribute anything of value beyond the fact that I got scared off trading here (other than monthlies & sometimes even those) a LONG time ago because of the inflexible mindset of the trading community as a whole.
I wih you all luck with finding a middle ground between "lists" & ... whatever it is people are afraid of with flexibility.

Dude I feel this. This makes absolutely no sense LMAO. I tried reading it to. Sorbet, advent , mid advent makes no sense ;-;. I just came back to and saw trading is more complicated then ever. Why not just go based on the raity itself and if u like the design ? I always just traded by Dates, The design and the label it has
So for example: i actually would trade a very rare lion for a very rare rat that I like the design in. I think that’s simple! I rlly just wanna trade and I can’t even read half the posts with the trading info bc it’s so hard to understand

[TANKMEN]

Here's a revised chart I made that I think I'll be using for myself!



And if you want to make a copy of it to revise on your Google Sheets, you can find it Here

I personally didn't feel comfortable assigning a set value for Rares with a 9-year difference or VRs with a 6-9 year difference, so I just put "varies" as its value. The above part of the chart could be used as a guideline for around what to offer, but, for example, for one of my 2009 Rares, I don't think I'd take only 3 2019 Rares. It'd depend on the 2019 rare, since the fae event definitely had pets I would 1:1 swap an 09 rare for, or offer more than an 09 rare for, and I have definitely done that before so I've put my money where my mouth is, lol.

as a bystander, i really really like this chart, and this approach in general. it factors in both age and the concept of the 2:1 rule without spiralling off into exponential insanity. honestly, short of just bringing back the list again, something like this might be the best bet.

[Solloby]

I love the data we are collecting from the current poll, we will definitely have to save a copy of it in this thread before it's taken down.

Going back to the charts I made, for the first chart I didn't really see anyone saying they wanted to change it? It would be nice to know if this is a good guide for trading across rarity tags or not.


For this chart, we have 2 versions already, thank you Solar Sonnet for your version:




Looking at some of the other discussion threads as well, some people still think 1 older rare is still worth multiple newer rares despite the increased granularity in rarity tags. So maybe this chart needs to be further adjusted. Another thread had 1 rare valued at 12 rares. That seems like an awful lot. It's very far away from our charts here, so I think we need to do some more work to find out how much the community wants to value older pets vs newer pets.

It would be good to find out how many new rares people think an old rare should trade for, keeping in mind most of the old rares are now higher rarity tags - there are no 08 rares anymore, and very few 09 ones. Perhaps we could put some examples up of new and old rare pets so people can see what sorts of pets would be involved in such trades, and maybe a poll to see what they think the maximum cap should be. What do you guys think?

[lil rascal]

I don’t really think I’m qualified to have an opinion on trading rares for lower rarities as it has been many years since I made those sorts of trades, in either direction, so I’m going to leave that discussion for people who actually do those types of trades.

I think the 5-11 newer rares for an ‘09 rare might have come from me in response to some rarity math saying ‘09 rares should be 23+ newer rares (and that was the lowest rarity math figure I’ve seen). It came about due to my suggestion that if people insisted on having a math like system then maybe it could be based on their C$ value (5C$ for a newer rare and 25-55C$ for an older rare). I actually agree and said at the time that 11 x is a lot for an older pet of the same rarity and would personally prefer much more flexibility in trading than any math system gives. Once again though I don’t really feel qualified to have a strong opinion on an old rare for new rare system as I have a complete’09 rare/VR collection so am far more likely to trade my spares for pets I really like than someone who has only a few old rares. I do wonder if it would be helpful for people to remember that many of the pets that are currently ‘09 rares were uncommons until recently?

[Solloby]

Speaking of C$, given the new price of store pets, C$ values may need an overhaul.
Honestly I never liked how C$ prices didn't match with regular pet trading prices. That always seemed wrong to me.

I agree that it will be helpful to remind people that 08 rares don't exist and 09 rares are not the pets they are thinking of. A quick scroll through the 09 archives shows that all of the valuable old 09 pets are now VR or ER, as they should be. It's pretty hard to find an 09 rare, and the ones that are there were previously uncommons, as you say. I feel like that's been missed in some of these discussions.

Early 09 Rare was a value marker a long time ago, when the pet valuations were roughly UR > July > Aug > Sept > Advent > Oct/Nov > Early 09. But those pets are no longer rare and many haven't been for some time.

[lil rascal]

I agree that the C$ system needs an overhaul along with the general trade system. It never seemed right to me that any rare would be priced as low as 5C$ while ‘09 uncommons would sell for 3x that. Would love to see a system where C$ values line up with general trading values.

[ButterflyChaser]

One thing that really confuses me is this thing about nons and ma's, especially when decimal points are involved.

Could we just ditch those terms for something more user-friendly? When I think of those terms I go back to 2008, which I doubt that is intended.

[Goblin Gamer]

I love the chart that iv seen! it feels so much more easier to grasp, compared to the whole non/ma thing. it actually feels like there's a chance to achieve those pets with that chart in mind and feels so much more fair compared to something like 20+ rares or vrs for something that's a 2010 rare.