pound rarity odds.

[jprspereira]

Nick just let me know that we accidentally ran out of Very Rare pets because they were being given away too quickly (we still have pets for higher and lower rarities, this issue is specific to VR pets), we are going to need to adjust the rarity distribution in the pound openings to prevent this from happening again, so expect a change to the rarity distribution in future openings.

The reason there were 18 of the same dog is because the system registered those as being the closest pets to VR it had available. Apologies for the recent awkward pound openings.

Can you go into more detail on how you guys go with banned account's pets? I'm seeing several accounts that were banned more than 1 year ago with thousands of high-value pets still in them. Maybe this could be part of the temporary solution.

I don't personally handle these cases, but my understanding is that often people are banned for acquiring pets in a shady way, then they trade them off to others which creates a very complicated web of trades that need to be sorted out (this can often take a long time, can involve waiting for people to log in so we can talk to them, etc.) If we have any doubts, we stay on the safe side because we don't want to send pets to the pound that have rightful owners.

The main issue was that the rarity spread in openings weren't a true reflection of what was actually in the pound. Sure adding some pets from banned accounts might be a temporary solution but without adjusting the rates to be more accurate they would quickly run out again so the long term solution is fixing the spread to be more accurate. I think recently we were just getting a bit too spoiled with the frequency of rare pets - it's not sustainable releasing that many unfortunately.

The banned accounts' point is very valid and I appreciate the quick reply. Makes sense that you guys don't wanna take the risk. I 100% agree the formula needs to be changed to adapt to the Pound's reality, but I also understand people feel like they never get anything "good" from it either, so it's only going to get worse. In a way, you guys need to adapt to make the Pound as sustainable as possible, but on the other hand, people are not satisfied and that dissatisfaction is not good to CS.


One argument I've seen around is people wanting more pets, more events, more stuff. The answer I've seen from staff seems to be that the current team wouldn't be able to sustain more events, having the risk of getting overwhelmed and burned out. That wouldn't be good for CS either.

What I mean by this is: have you considered hiring a few more artists to make Pound-exclusive pets? I'm not necessarily saying more UR/OMGSR-level of pets. It could be a range between omgsc-omgsr. These pets would only be obtainable through Pound. They could be added to help balance what the Pound is missing at any given point. Considering that these would be exclusive for Pound, I think it would generate enough hype for people to be overall satisfied, because there would be a bigger abundance of more desired pets. People would care about that omgsc Pound-exclusive pet, not just rare+ pets.

[DragonSnake]

What I mean by this is: have you considered hiring a few more artists to make Pound-exclusive pets? I'm not necessarily saying more UR/OMGSR-level of pets. It could be a range between omgsc-omgsr. These pets would only be obtainable through Pound. They could be added to help balance what the Pound is missing at any given point. Considering that these would be exclusive for Pound, I think it would generate enough hype for people to be overall satisfied, because there would be a bigger abundance of more desired pets. People would care about that omgsc Pound-exclusive pet, not just rare+ pets.

Honestly I think this is a really fun idea, though idk how it would work in practice with multiples of those pets taking up space in the pound

[Juliamon]

I hate to interrupt, but

pets in the "adoptions" group as of feb 13 22:11 UTC

OMG so rare: 2 (0.15%) [orange grinner, dark heart rat]
extremely rare: 6 (0.44%)
rare: 15 (1.10%)
uncommon and below: 1300 (95.17%)
unknown: 43 (3.15%)

total count: 1366

there are 2 store pets in the group (0.15%):

[tigerlilly4352]

Hey jprspereira. I love your idea of pound exclusve pets! I would certainly make it more exciting and make ore people want them. I hope the cs staff consider this idea and are able to give it a go!

[Juliamon]

pets in the "adoptions" group as of feb 13 23:26 UTC

extremely rare: 2 (0.15%)
rare: 17 (1.27%)
uncommon and below: 1301 (96.87%)
unknown: 23 (1.71%)

total count: 1343

there is 1 store pet in the group (0.07%):

[ButterflyChaser]

That’s very interesting, thanks for letting us know Simon. I actually think that’s great news that the pound ran out of VRs! It means that the pound is doing it’s job to get them back in active accounts rather than just sitting in the pound.

Is it though? The pets go so fast, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had wrote some sort of a script. So they can sell the rarer pets for C$ or art. I’ve never seen pound act like it has recently and I’ve been here since 08. Before people didn’t used to grab anything because they didn’t want to be locked out of the next pound. With the adjustment you’re never locked out of the next one with the cool down.

I am very certain there are scripts used, bots, or browser extensions. For me it isn't just the rare+ but anything on the top two rows. I can refresh at my desktop, no lag, have the mouse hovered over the adopt button before it even loads, click as soon as the button is visible, and still missed. Not just the one I clicked for, but that whole row.

Seriously, Opera used to have an extension called snaplinks. I never used it for the pound, but I did use it on pet sites that required massive adoptables to be clicked on. The result was 100+ tabs opened at once and each adoptable "fed" one point.

Couple with the fact Opera had a setting you could set the page to refresh at whatever time you gave it. Set it to 1 second. The second the pound loads therewith be a higher chance of that computer getting first "dibs"

I believe this can easily be done to the pound if paired with fake accounts and VPN. So yes something needs to be done.

I suggest a second window, to be "are you sure?" And then click okay to get the pet. That way if someone is automating the adopt, they will get a series of tabs with this "are you sure?" To force player interaction.

[lil rascal]

I agree that there’s something wrong with the pound in terms of lag and how quickly it empties. I’ve never had great success with getting many valuable pets from the pound, I usually just get a recent missed outcome or design I like but I’ve never had difficulty even getting a pet until recently. I know nothing about coding, scripts etc but I think ButterflyChasers suggestion of a confirmation window sounds like a reasonable idea to try and see if it makes a positive difference. I also have noticed that the pound seems to open a lot more frequently than I remember, but maybe I’m wrong? I think a longer cool down period or something that stops you from adopting from 2 openings in a row is a good idea.

My comment about it being good that there’s not a huge collection of VRs just sitting in the pound wasn’t about the current issues though, it was simply a comment that it’s nice to know that the pound doesn’t have so many valuable pets locked up out of circulation as it used to

[bubblegumjello]

yall should check the spreadsheet ^^ 28k vr's have been adopted out since the creation of this thread. i agree its pretty neat seeing how many pets have been given out. of course we do not have all of them, but juliamon is pretty good about catching most of the openings (thank you for all you do fr) :3

[bubblegumjello]

oh also

pets in the "adoptions" group as of feb 14 04:50 UTC

extremely rare: 4 (0.31%)
rare: 20 (1.56%)
uncommon and below: 1235 (96.33%)
unknown: 23 (1.79%)

total count: 1282

there is 1 store pet in the group (0.08%):

[.Eko.]

I also have noticed that the pound seems to open a lot more frequently than I remember, but maybe I’m wrong? I think a longer cool down period or something that stops you from adopting from 2 openings in a row is a good idea.

I feel sometimes the pound opens a few times in a row close together and then switches to the Lost and Found for a few times and vice versa. It's not opening more per se, just in phases where it's more frequent(?)

But the pound openings aren't so close together that I am denied adopting because I've adopted too frequently, I can't really imagine this happening with the current timing of things... I agree, the adoption limit of once every 3 hours means nothing if the pound is gonna open 3.5+ hours apart each time (I could use a factcheck on that)...

my main point is if the pound could open more than once within a time frame that you can't adopt twice (whether the pound opens more often or this time limit is increased), then this should limit the amount of users (most likely the same users with scripts or fast internet) getting to every pound the first time.