by Aurora Storm » Thu Nov 07, 2019 3:34 pm
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Rarity Explained
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What are rarities?
The CS pet rarity system was first introduced in October 2009. Rarities are calculated based on how many of each pet exists on active player accounts, and therefore how many accounts would be trading to obtain each pet. Pets adopted without an account or pets that exist on inactive accounts are not included in rarity calculations, as they are effectively unavailable to trade for. Pets that exist on most active accounts are considered common, while pets that only exist on a few accounts would be considered rare. Rarities are typically updated every month during the Mid Month Update (around the 15th), where pets from the previous month will be assigned their rarity tags and older pets may increase or decrease in rarity.
Why do rarities change?
Rarities can go up or down as pets become rarer over time, when more are put into circulation (such as after the December 18th re-release that takes place during the Advent Calendar event each year), or due to fluctuations in the number of active accounts. Sometimes adjustments are made to the way rarities are calculated, and this can cause a bunch of pets to suddenly shift up or down at once. The biggest updates have been; August 2012 when inactive accounts were first excluded from calculations and the "OMG so common" tag was introduced; the early months of 2014 where multiple drops in rarity occurred after an influx of spam accounts created in 2013; the January 2019 overhaul; and the most recent September 2023 update where four new rarity categories were added to spread rarities out more evenly.
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. Rarity tag abbreviations
You will likely see people using these terms when trading/discussing pets:
★ OMGSC = OMG so common!
★ EC/XC = Extremely common
★ VC = Very common
★ C = Common
★ UC = Uncommon
★ VUC = Very uncommon
★ EUC = Extremely uncommon
★ R = Rare
★ VR = Very rare
★ ER = Extremely rare
★ OMGSR = OMG so rare!
2010-06-01....................2021-03-29
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Even though two pets may share the same rarity tag, that does not always mean they are equal in value. Older pets are generally considered to be more valuable than more recent pets of the same rarity (particularly for pets that are rare and above), because the userbase has grown over time and there could arguably be less older rares than newer rares. However, we cannot know for certain where a pet sits on the "scale" of its rarity (whether it is close to the rarity below it, above it, or if it's in the middle) and so the difference in trade value for pets with the same rarity tags is largely dictated by demand.
What about store pets?
Store pets cannot accurately be included alongside other pets in a rarity list. These pets are only available to purchase through the C$ Store for two months at a time, and they are not re-released, meaning their value only increases slowly over time. How you choose to value them in comparison to general release pets is up to you. Generally, store pets are considered to be more valuable than general release pets even if they share the same rarity tag - and tend to be traded for older rare pets to compensate for their higher value status.
Last edited by
Aurora Storm on Thu Jan 04, 2024 8:35 pm, edited 44 times in total.
