Dates don't matter that much campaign!

[WhiskeyFox]

I fully support this!

[musicgurl333]

One suggestion would be to actually have some people test this, and compare the prevalence of pets with the same rarity but different dates. I tried this when it came up on a different thread, so I can put that here.

Disclaimer: this was one very small sample with a few specific pets. By itself it means absolutely nothing, and it is completely anecdotal. Also, I saw someone else this with different pets and get totally different results. That’s why other people should run their own tests so we can see if we notice any trends.

Okay, so after I suggested it, I couldn't resist testing the experiment I mentioned. The three pets I chose and the numbers of them that I found are below. The rules I made for myself when choosing the pets were:

1. All pets must be the same species.
2. Basic line art only
3. No event pets (though you could do a different version with only event pets).
4. All pets must the same rarity.

Originally I wanted them all to be exactly 5 years apart, but I it took me a little while to find a common '10 cat, and then I didn't really want to go and change my other picks.


To do the experiment, I picked 20 people at random and looked at their open groups to see how many of each pet I could find. (The pets were all added to my WL for easier searching.)

I was actually really surprised by the results. I thought there would be a bigger difference in how many '20 and '15 pets I found, and I was expecting to find at least a couple more pets from '10.

Jan 2020- 23 found

Jan. 2015- 15 found

August 2011- 1 found

I realize this is only one test, but I feel like it supports the hypothesis that years matter...but not nearly as much as people seem to think (with the possible exception of very old pets, where date seems like it could matter more).

If someone else wants to try this with different pets, rarities, etc. I would be really interested to see if how it turns out. Looking back, I feel like it might be more accurate to try this with uncommons. Most '10 pets are uncommon and up, so the common cat I chose is probably on the less common end of the "common" scale.

[frye]

What an interesting experiment! I picked 3 monthly outcomes from April 12',14', and 16 and dug through 20 active accounts. I only looked in dog, common, and 2nd gen groups so it's possible I missed some. Despite the small sample size, I think this is pretty good evidence that dates (most rares/very rares are an exception) don't matter as much as we think they do : )

April 2012 - 16 found
April 2014 - 20 found
April 2016 - 19 found

Maybe when I have more time I'll do something similar with store pets or event rares

[Bilaz]

This is so cool!!!
Out of curiosity I repeated your experiment with two pets I knew were mass hoarded:

This one from 2012, who someone hoarded a whole litter of which reached the like 10000s, it's only a recent common, it was VC last year?
I found 5 of them
And this one:

From 2016, which is still VC and which *I* mass hoarded (I have 2000 of them)
And I found 4 of them

Hmmm
Maybe hoarding has way more of an effect than dates.

To add to the experimental data!

[Minimanta]

I throw old uncommons and below after people all the time to get missed outcomes, if I can't find a simple swap.

But it's different with rares and above. I know a recent vr and an old vr are both in the same rarity interval, but how big is this interval really? How many are there of a pet who just turned vr vs of a pet who are about to turn omgsr?
This uncertainty is enough to make dates matter a lot to me for rares and above.
If we just knew how many there are of each pet, then dates wouldn't matter at all and that would be nice.

I might join that experiment tomorrow with uncommons, but I'm off to bed right now so don't expect any results any time soon :D

EDIT:

Okay, finally got around to do the experiment! :)

Went with uncommon rats, added them to my wishlist and then went through 50 currently active accounts.
The result:

- August 2011
9 found

- August 2015
5 found

- August 2019
20 found

So far it certainly looks like dates do matter when it comes to uncommons. Would be interesting to see more of these experiments!

[ShrimpSundae]

i'm a bit iffy on how much dates matter when it comes to year gaps between pets of the same rarity (i couldn't care less about dates for commons & under, but i think the gap between uncommons+ can get pretty big, just not as drastic as it's currently treated) BUT the one thing i will never understand on CS is how an older common = a newer uncommon.

unless i'm missing something, the uncommon has to be rarer than the common, so how should a 1:1 swap between the two make any sense even if the common is older? it has to be more common than the uncommon due to rarity? i don't know, again maybe i'm missing something but it drives me nuts how that's a thing lol. same goes for an older uncommon being worth a newer rare, etc.

[Bilaz]

^I think that’s just a leftover from back when inactive accounts were counted
I deffo don’t think it’s fair this day and age

[Neoncherry64]

100% support everything said here!!! It’s kinda sad though, because things don’t seem to be changing in the economy anytime soon. The only thing that would 100% convince everyone into trading differently is if another rarity upheaval was introduced with like, a “uncommon+” rarity in between rare and uncommon. Or maybe a rarity in between R and VR. But that probably won’t happen.

[Shadow Milk]

I think I’m going to try this experiment with several pets from each rarity OMGSC-OMGSR. I’ll edit this post once I’m done, thank you for the very interesting post! Definitely got me thinking a lot. 🤍

[LilyHorse]

I personally say years do matter, but not that much. Rarities matter more than years. Species also matter, more people are dog fans than rat fans. Rats would probably be easier to get, but less people adopt them. For example, for one (1) 2014 rare dog = to about 6/7 2020 rare dogs (in my opinion). 1 2014 rare dog would probably be about = to 8/9 2020 rare rats. The 1=2 rule is kinda weird, and it's better for commons/uncommons than rares/above and vc/below. I think the 1=2 rule should be a rough guideline, but would anyone want to pay 128 2016 pets for 1 2009 pet? (if I did the math right)