We need your feedback: Bigger, less frequent pound openings?

[Gamezelle]

in my opinion the main "problem" with the pound is that we can see what pets will be available in the next opening. when people spot a high value pet in the upcoming opening alerts are sent out and a lot of people show up making the pound incredibly slow, making it almost impossible for us with slow internet to catch anything good. I don't think increasing the size is going to change this, but making adjustments so NO pets in the pound are visible until it opens would at least do something.

I agree with this, I love taking a peek at the contents and looking at the pound odds thread, but it easily sways users.
"Oh there is a 2016 store pet ! I should ready myself to click on the second row !"
"An OMGSR ??? I absolutely have to be logged on when it opens !"

Probably controversial but having no dates like the Lost and Found would also help.
Once you're past the first few refresh, it just becomes a game of who can get the most value out of an uncommon.

Another idea : RAMDOMIZE pet order. This will prevent people from mindlessly spam clicking on the first row. It's a Pound, not a Test-Your-Reaction-Time-And-Your-Internet-Speed.

Overall I'd say to open the pound more often, with less pets. It gives us all a chance of getting something, especially during low traffic (less than 600 online users). I just hope this won't hurt the Pound economy in the long term.

[avaloafe]

TLDR: SCATTER all the pets. don’t keep them in year order.

i can honestly say i’m not the biggest fan of this update. i honestly wish that the pets were COMPLETELY randomized. aka, there could be a 2008 pet in the middle of the page while a new monthly pet is at the top. that way it would make users stop and LOOK at what they’re getting instead of clicking one of the first pets on the page and “winning” due to internet speed.

and yes, i can see how this can cause a problem for newer users not knowing what old pet designs look like but that’s why cs has TRADING. they can trade up their pets and get lucky with the pound. it’s still a race in who’s ping is better.

don’t get me started on how slow and irritating the mobile version is. >n< that’s just my two cents on this. i seem to have gotten more luck with the old pound than the new one.

side note: anyone remember back when you could see ALLLL the pets in the pound? i LOVED that. honestly made me excited to see what valuable and rare pets could be in each pound opening.

[Squecca]

I like the more frequent openings. When it’s less frequent, it’s frustrating because I often miss them from being asleep or busy.

[noteworthy]

TLDR: SCATTER all the pets. don’t keep them in year order.

i can honestly say i’m not the biggest fan of this update. i honestly wish that the pets were COMPLETELY randomized. aka, there could be a 2008 pet in the middle of the page while a new monthly pet is at the top. that way it would make users stop and LOOK at what they’re getting instead of clicking one of the first pets on the page and “winning” due to internet speed.

and yes, i can see how this can cause a problem for newer users not knowing what old pet designs look like but that’s why cs has TRADING. they can trade up their pets and get lucky with the pound. it’s still a race in who’s ping is better.

don’t get me started on how slow and irritating the mobile version is. >n< that’s just my two cents on this. i seem to have gotten more luck with the old pound than the new one.

side note: anyone remember back when you could see ALLLL the pets in the pound? i LOVED that. honestly made me excited to see what valuable and rare pets could be in each pound opening.

this!!! and the first page suggestion of not being able to see any adoptions.

side note: yes I do 😆 I went on hiatus and came back to not being able to see in the pound's pets without a group and I was a bit bummed ngl

[Tindraake]

Much like a lot of others, I'd rather keep the smaller but more frequent openings. Actually catching a pound opening already is a coin toss, I don't see a reason to make it even less frequent.

[.destiny]

i don't really see the point of having less frequent but bigger pound openings, it feels like the end result would most likely remain unchanged since the pound is popular these days as stated. considering that rare+ pets would increase in proportion, i'm sure there will be a fair number of people who would still set reminders and alarms just for a chance at a high value pet.

i would be in favour of having the selection be randomized instead of following a year order, as others have mentioned above. i really don't see the need to make the pound less frequent as i'm sure it'd be difficult for people in wildly different time zones to be available for an opening as a result.

[Aldersnap]

I preferred when they were bigger and wouldn’t mind having them be less frequent. It’s very stressful to have pounds where it’s halfway gone before my page even loads, and I got rare pets much more when the pound was bigger

[Cryptic6914]

in my opinion the main "problem" with the pound is that we can see what pets will be available in the next opening. when people spot a high value pet in the upcoming opening alerts are sent out and a lot of people show up making the pound incredibly slow, making it almost impossible for us with slow internet to catch anything good. I don't think increasing the size is going to change this, but making adjustments so NO pets in the pound are visible until it opens would at least do something.

seconding this. i wasnt aware pound pets were visible! it seems much more interesting for the pound's contents to be a mystery and it would prevent this kind of issue!

i enjoy the pound's current opening frequency as well. more chances for everyone!

Since when have people been able to view what pets are in the pound? I've never heard of this nor known how to do it myself? I also agree it should be a complete mystery. What if adopting from the pound were just a click on a mystery box with a randomized selection of a pet from your WL? Maybe that's too large of an algorithm.

[Starfalling]

I personally would rather keep the more frequent and smaller pounds openings. I'd rather have more of a chance to get at least *something*, and for those of us who work it feels like it'd be easier to completely miss all openings, and 500 honestly doesn't feel large enough to make a huge difference considering discord bots, outside communities announcing openings etc (no judgement towards those, the ones I know of I see as no different than setting a timer, I just don't think larger openings would make the pound stay open all that much longer in comparison)

I do agree with the person that sugested sugessted said (I apparently can't spell today) it may be more beneficial if there is any way to make it so that we can't see what will be in pounds ahead of opening

ETA: Personally I feel like I'm not a huge fan of randomizing page order. While it can help potentially, it stll feels like a "test your reaction time", just in a different way. As someone who's dyslexic, it's already hard to read the years quickly enough to decide to take a pet or go to the next page

[Buster2918]

I feel as though we should not change the fact we can see what pets are in the pound, at least not until we make smaller changes first to see how it goes. A good step in the right direction (in my opinion) is what many others have said as well regarding ACTUALLY randomizing where pets show up on each page instead of the older ones being in the top left. I always click the oldest pet (I briefly look at the design of the neighboring pets if I can to determine if one is better than the other off the top of my head.) This forces tryhards in the pound (like me ) to ACTUALLY take a breather and PICK rather than immediately snatch.

Regarding the lag, it's not the fault of the users because the pound is a feature meant to drive traffic for those wanting a chance at a free pet. The problem is the lag on the server due to the jump in players and traffic. One day I noticed the player count immediately jump from 1,711 to 2,366 when the pound opened. That's insane if you think about it.