Does anyone else feel like Demand is killing CS?

[amarok.]

The thing is there's really no incentive for users to not take as much as they can for their high demand pets, to get as far as they can to achieve their dreams and goals. A site wide auction is a fitting name for the current system as it is. Overall I agree that pushing the rarity only list will help in the right direction

they won't get bids if nobody is willing to bid the amounts they're asking for. and i think if people start realising that pets aren't worth what people ask, they will start refusing to pay that much.
ye, that's about the size of it. and the easiest way to do so is to encourage rarity-biased advice on the ftt, pet worth thread, etc, like i went on about a few pages back. it'll take a while but people do listen to what the helpers say and spread the message.

[Loelya]

there's a lot of people out there who, despite having the means to get and even technically overpay for a pet, they are disregarded because they're not always the ones who can overpay "the most". cs has essentially turned into a site-wide auction for the highest demand pets over these last few years

(hope it’s okay for me to quote this smaller part of your post) — I feel like this is a really good description of what people’s current concerns are. I’ve had numerous trades, all of them technically overpay by varying amounts, declined in the past year with a message equivalent to “I’ve been offered more.” that can be extremely discouraging and it definitely wasn’t as much of an issue when I was active in ‘15 and ‘16, at least by my personal experiences with trading. Not that there’s anything wrong with wanting to trade your pets for a high value, but... the idea that someone is being “unfair” because they’re not overpaying as much as someone else did is a problem.

[Shinryu]

but there's a lot of people out there who, despite having the means to get and even technically overpay for a pet, they are disregarded because they're not always the ones who can overpay "the most". cs has essentially turned into a site-wide auction for the highest demand pets over these last few years

I think that sums it up super well. There's really nothing wrong with a pet having good demand. It's natural that if you have something that you know is very coveted, you'll want that extra slice of profit.
But the mindset of having to get more out of it than the previous person, or specifically expecting potential traders to match the overpay someone else got, gets messy petty fast.

And it's not even just a case of "well, that's what people are willing to pay for the pet, nothing wrong with expecting it", because I've seen my fair share of cases where people weren't willing to pay that much, their trade partners just wouldn't budge for anything less. Only so much you can do if neither side is willing to compromise at all, and in most cases the users who want the pet are the ones who do, however begrudgingly.
I guess the problem here is that obviously a pet's owner has as much of a right to say they want x price for their pet, as the searching user has to only be willing to pay y price. Whether one thinks they're being reasonable or not, in the end it is their pet.

It's still true that with patience and some effort you can find people who are more open to your offers, but in my experience, often that means more or less combing through random people's trade groups hoping to get lucky, rather than being able to just check for who's advertising on the forums. So that can easily induce some frustration, because it's a hassle.

[FOUND VERDICT]

i feel like even if you offer an fair trade your partner likes, as soon as the other person posts in the ftt for advice, a dozen other people take their chance and try to "outbid" you.

so really that thread is both a blessing and a curse in my opinion ^^"

[amarok.]

there's a lot of people out there who, despite having the means to get and even technically overpay for a pet, they are disregarded because they're not always the ones who can overpay "the most". cs has essentially turned into a site-wide auction for the highest demand pets over these last few years

(hope it’s okay for me to quote this smaller part of your post) — I feel like this is a really good description of what people’s current concerns are. I’ve had numerous trades, all of them technically overpay by varying amounts, declined in the past year with a message equivalent to “I’ve been offered more.” that can be extremely discouraging and it definitely wasn’t as much of an issue when I was active in ‘15 and ‘16, at least by my personal experiences with trading. Not that there’s anything wrong with wanting to trade your pets for a high value, but... the idea that someone is being “unfair” because they’re not overpaying as much as someone else did is a problem.

precisely this. when we cite an issue with demand, this is what we mean. i don't really have an issue with people preferring certain pets to others - of course not - because that's what pushes the whole economy. why would we trade if we didn't want other pets more than our own? i'm also okay with overpaying for pets i want. i just paid perhaps the equivalent of a low september list demand-wise for a little bunny from the advent list because i couldn't find it and i wanted it badly enough to overpay for one from somebody's collection. ngl it's a sunjewel bunny. i've got a problem, i know.
however there's a line and people being told their offer of overpay is "unfair" because somebody else got offered x is about five miles past it.




also guys pls stop quoting me i just noticed a grammatical error and i can't deal with that. oh the shame. that should have said, "are disregarded", not "they are". or i mean correct it in the quote. that's fine too.

[Shinryu]

they won't get bids if nobody is willing to bid the amounts they're asking for. and i think if people start realising that pets aren't worth what people ask, they will start refusing to pay that much.
ye, that's about the size of it. and the easiest way to do so is to encourage rarity-biased advice on the ftt, pet worth thread, etc, like i went on about a few pages back. it'll take a while but people do listen to what the helpers say and spread the message.

Yeah, I think there's more potential to this than might be obvious at first glance, really.
The attitude that people giving advice on the forums take can be quite influential.
You can't exactly censor high overpay trades, but even just a shift in wording could put in a fair amount of work. It'd be worth a try to put a foot down sometimes and say "this pet has gone for x price before, but that's above the average and I wouldn't recommend expecting it - here's my opinion of an average good offer to work with". Specifically pointing out that a previously seen overpay isn't the average value the pet goes for, and giving a gentle nudge to not set your heart on having that high offer matched, could actually be a helpful attitude to pass on.
You can't deny that high overpays happen, but you can comment that it may not be reasonable to expect the same.

[Law]

@amarok. If it helps, the sunjewel bun and the other advent list bunnies are rarer than most september list pets (src: VR rarity guide, and the second page of the thread contains when the bunnies and septembers/advents turned VR)

There appears to be two mentalities being tackled here:
(1) Sellers who won't budge and want to sell for at least X
(2) Buyers who agree to to match that price

(1) can't really be fixed unless (2) is addressed (as noted by amarok). The question is how can other users stop the buyers from offering what the sellers want?
- Censor certain information (e.g. only give rarity info in the FTT, don't mention the current selling price of those pets)
- Show that it's not a hassle to get those pets for less (show trades where those pets were traded for at a better price)
- other ideas?

I think the first suggestion is a bit immoral though

[Brackensnake]

I know this might be a bit off topic but I want to mention something regarding the ‘low demand’ rats. They are worth a sorb and from my experience you can get that value. No you won’t get a direct swap and you won’t trade your rat for the value of a sorb but when trading your rat up with other pets, from my experience it hasn’t been to hard to get the value out of those rats. People are ok to take them at sorb value if you are adding up for bigger value.

E.g Actually was offered this twice by seperate people

I think the most attainable solution is if someone is asking too much to go find someone else. It might be tricky and take longer but in the long run i think it will be worth it because if you look hard enough then you can probably get that raven for a good deal. Then once others see you can do that then they will follow.

[amarok.]

I know this might be a bit off topic but I want to mention something regarding the ‘low demand’ rats. They are worth a sorb and from my experience you can get that value. No you won’t get a direct swap and you won’t trade your rat for the value of a sorb but when trading your rat up with other pets, from my experience it hasn’t been to hard to get the value out of those rats. People are ok to take them at sorb value if you are adding up for bigger value.

E.g Actually was offered this twice by seperate people

I think the most attainable solution is if someone is asking too much to go find someone else. It might be tricky and take longer but in the long run i think it will be worth it because if you look hard enough then you can probably get that raven for a good deal. Then once others see you can do that then they will follow.

They're worth a lot more than a sorbet (in fact most are worth at least a non) but thank you for your contribution anyway.

And yes, that's essentially what I've been saying. People aren't aware that they're paying too much to start with and because people are getting away with daylight robbery they're continuing to do it. If a large group of people (temporarily) refuse to trade for a certain pet and only rarity values are referenced in the ftt/pet worth threads, I'm certain the value will eventually go down. There'll still be people insistent on making a profit but if we collectively use our influence to say "no, I don't think so. That one's an outlier" we might be able to avoid snowballing of demand values. It'll still affect stuff, for sure, but we won't be seeing as many random '14 store pets trading for sorbets.

[Shian]

If you're looking for solutions, I'd say an "easy" way to fix this would be to have a site-wide auction house like the myriad of other pet collecting games.

A place where we can set up offers: "I have this pet, I want this/these pets" and the system would be semi-automatic so you wouldn't have to wait for a trade partner to come online. Just put pets in slots and as long as the id matches (this dog is a pink sorb and the other is a grinner), the trade goes through automatically.

That way, if you're looking for a sunjewel, you can see every sunjewel that is up for trade in the auction house at the same time and take the one that has the lowest payment.

People asking for ludicrous amounts wouldn't even be considered because there was always someone who will trade a pet for cheaper.

No more hidden deals between players, no more behind the scenes trading. Everything would be largely public. We wouldn't need rarity guides, dozens of "what is this worth" threads because anyone at any given time could look up what a sunjewel is going for or even what the last 5 trades that included a sunjewel was.

It would radically change CS from a casual pet collecting site of course.