One thing super quick — I’m approaching this topic as an individual with my own perspective/opinions, but I’m not planning to change/rearrange anything in the reference without consensus/support from a majority outside myself, so everything I write out is just one opinion among the rest!
Re: redefining non “value” and changing terms
I’m really encouraged to see that many people have said that somewhere in the 100-200 range seems a reasonable/realistic “value range” of a “non” in terms of ’09 rares. I started a thread a couple weeks ago where I was digging for trade data to back up that theoretical range and I’ve kinda neglected it so I need to get back on it. If I do end up posting anywhere about that “value range,” I’ll include disclaimers and trade data and hopefully make it clear it’s just one possible interpretation of the value unit.
I genuinely do think though that continuing to use the term “non” is just as or more confusing than choosing a new word for the value unit; mainly because as others have pointed out, the non-dogs themselves are not actually 100% equal in demand to each other. They are all quoted as having the same demand because their names are used as a basic currency unit. But if there were another name for the unit, one that maybe a majority of the community could agree would work well/is easy to understand, it would allow flexibility for the non-dogs as well as things that typically make fair “swaps” for non-dogs to move up or down in demand more freely.
Re: separating store pets from regular-release pets into a demand reference of their own
…this one makes me reeeeallly nervous. Ideally this would be a fantastic solution for the fact that store pets trade so differently from “regular” pets, and I definitely can see the pros if this were to go well — maybe more people would see store pets as “extras” and not ingrained in the game for one thing — but in my personal experience (as a veteran on another petsite with a conundrum very similar to the store pet phenomenon here), creating a visual separation between store pets and “regular” pets might very well lead to an eventual scenario where store pets cannot ever be traded for using “regular” pets. I sincerely worry that if there were two separate references, you’d eventually have players simply going “I value the store pet chart over everything else in the game.”
I’m not opposed by any means to making that visual separation if that’s what the majority agrees would be beneficial, but if anyone thinks my misgivings may be misplaced, I would super appreciate reassurance on that
Re: creating a new reference that takes both “demand” and “rarity” into account
in my personal opinion I think that this is unfortunately an unsustainable approach. I think it is of course very important to take both rarity and demand into account when making personal trading decisions. but to make a chart or reference that includes both in the placement of pets I think would ultimately prove to be more similar to the “old list” than anything else would be.
if you place pets with a blend of two different kinds of data, no matter how diligent you are about making things accurate, that blend unfortunately necessitates some kind of personal judgement with those placement decisions. It’s no longer objectively placing pets where the community agrees they should go, it’s making a personal judgement — even an informed, well-intentioned, conscientious judgement — about how things should be arranged.
you could put everything to a vote when placing or rearranging, but I think that would take so much time that trying to move anything would end up falling far short of the rapid fluctuations of the demand market. The fact that rarity doesn't come into play here is what allows the reference to rearranged as needed for quick demand fluctuations.
Basing one reference on facts, such as the rarity reference, and one reference on pure “demand” without taking rarity into account (such as this reference), and making sure players know they should refer to both when trading I think is a safer approach than trying to mix both sets of data into every pet placement in a chart-like format.
however, I don’t necessarily think that means you can’t present both types of data alongside each other! so I’m gonna move on to the last bit:
Re: Rearranging the reference to provide the same helpful information while avoiding the visual appearance of a recreated “list.”
yes oh my word. if there is some way, any way, to rearrange this information so that people get the same benefit from it but don’t default to treating it like a “list” I’m ready to hear any ideas anyone has to offer. I have some tentative ideas; I’m gonna show some quick visual guides, but if these all suck feel free to tell me haha. another thing though, all of these setups would probably remove the need to define the value of a "non" or even use the term at all in the reference itself.
idea 1) could this reference stay roughly the same, but have a very obvious visual aid present that shows the rarity values of the pets as well?
first thought: oh heck let's put a box of color around each pet that denotes their rarity
second thought: hmmm but rarity changes on some pets were earlier than others. maybe put a thicker box around each pet depending on how high up in that rarity value range it sits? using the lovely Aurora's rarity guide as the source for which higher rarity pets had earlier rarity changes.
so in the above example image, the purple boxes show "omgsr" tags, the red boxes show "very rare" tags, and the thicker the border is, the more valuable that pet is within that rarity range. so a super thick red border would still fall "below" a super thin purple border in terms of rarity value.
idea 2) could Aurora's rarity guide be "copied" and given notations that show the "demand" value within the rarity listing?
so in this example image, the placement of pets would simply be a mirror of Aurora's rarity list, but with special visual marks that show which pets may be trading for more than their "rarity" value, and the thicker the border is, the more that pet's demand has shown recent inflation. things that were trading for 5-6 times their rarity worth for example would have Big Beefy Borders. things that were maybe trading for 2-3 times their rarity worth would have thinner borders.
idea 3) ....data cloud.
every pet gets a "rarity" box (or other notation, maybe a colored underline?) and then the pets that have special demand value get another box/line/star/what-have-you. there is no visual hierarchy from "top" to "bottom."
