Bilaz wrote:I'm going to be ignoring the store pet issue for just a moment, because I think that's something we as users just have to learn to accept. I won't be getting a skelebun, just like I won't be getting a rainbow smoothie, a DIY cake set, a TD Moonswirl or that custom pet rock that was once in the pound. That's just how things are, sadly we can't all get everything.
Custom pets are not part of the issue. They are a unique perk that don't count towards collection completion, and as such don't contribute to the demand/inflation issue. They don't have rarities.
I don't feel that simply just accepting the insane value inflation is healthy for the long term health of the site. That's what we've been doing. For years. The things you mentioned never used to be this difficult to get. Skelebuns are now impossible to get or find. Extremely limited items like the DIY cake set and rainbow smoothie are basically nonexistent now with the lack of player retention. True dates are an entirely different debate, but they have a similar 'rarity scaling' like the limited items as they'll never be released with those dates again.
The trading and value economy is unsustainable as it is now. Economies like this break and ruin games with player based trading, like with Neopets, or the many Roblox games. CS is already heading that way, and without adjustment and without an influx of returning or new players, it will continue to inflate to even more insane amounts, or crash entirely.
Bilaz wrote:However, I think one of the main issues on the site currently is the massive massive gap between current pets and old ones. The non stores I mean, all the free pets. I think the current adoptable pets are just seen as, well, not very useful fodder? A set to complete? Nobody is discussing the individual pets anymore, and the current pets are no longer interesting. Yet, whenever something really rare suddenly pops up the site goes wild, like the gold gacha dog. Am I saying every litter should have a really rare outcome? No, I think that would do the economy more harm than good. However, I do think there's an in between road to go.
Ever wondered why the old advent T7s were worth so much more than the other advent 2008 pets? It's because of how they were released. It was a very large litter, and you could only adopt 2 of them, on several different dates. I notice that these moderately limited pet seem to have a lot of appeal, another good example would be the new years dogs. They're released in a limited manner, but not crazy limited. People have fun swapping for the other outcome if they missed it, and I always get people offering on mine even months later.
So here's my proposal: create more interest in individual pets again! I saw several suggestions for daily log in rewards, well how about something like this. Every month one large litter is released in an 'adopt one a day' format. They'll all be equally rare, so even if you don't have time to adopt every single day you will still get something of moderate value. Only getting one at a time might give the individual pet more of a spotlight too! Rather than a whole bulk of newborns to wait for.
Just an idea
I'm still against daily log in rewards in general - they tend to ruin the casual atmosphere of a game, and encourage an addictive play style that isn't healthy for younger audiences. However, I think you bring up a really good point here with the smaller litter sizes and multiple outcomes. Maybe releasing batches with smaller adopt numbers to encourage trading could be a potential idea? It wouldn't have to be every batch is smaller and limited in numbers, but having one or two with limited adopt numbers could be something to try.
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