Pound "very rare drought" discussion

[Unbeknownsk]

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[PolarAzulTigris]

Popping in to say we will never remove pets from inactive accounts, that's something we are firm about. You would be surprised how often people return to very old accounts.

Why tho

I know plenty of users who would drop off the face of the earth for at least a decade and then return when their friends or other people return to the site. I've been inactive since early 2017. There were reasons, but I have some very old, I suppose they're called omg rares now. Old galaxy, etc, that I put in a lot of work to save up for and collect. I would be very upset if my life became busy because I'm also a mother now and then came back and all my pets I worked my butt off for are now gone. I agree with the staff on this fullheartedly and don't think they should be removed unless banned. Even then, it's very time-consuming because of all the tape they have to go through to ensure the ban is justified.

To answer the poll, I think anything from common to uncommon and under would be fine, but maybe withhold very rare or omg rares till some could be released. Without the means of anyone knowing when they'd be released. That gives an unfair advantage. Though I've done only basic coding and have no idea how much manpower this would take, it is an interesting concept.

Maybe someone can answer a question of mine, with the latest news, they mentioned people being able to see what pound pets were going to be released before it happened? How in the world? I know I'm old school, but that doesn't seem right either.

[Neisha]

Maybe someone can answer a question of mine, with the latest news, they mentioned people being able to see what pound pets were going to be released before it happened? How in the world? I know I'm old school, but that doesn't seem right either.

You used to be able to do this simply by going to the Pound account and clicking ‘pets’. Now it’ll just redirect you to the front page, but before the update you could click through the ‘adoptions’ group, which would show all the pets that were in the pool for the next pound opening. Years ago you could also see all the other pets on the Pound’s account as well, but at some point that group was hidden from view.

It was pretty useful when it came to knowing what to look out for, when to hold off on adopting and wait for the next refresh and when to cut your losses and adopt the next best thing (lots of people, including me, would keep tabs open on the pets they were hoping for to see if they’d been adopted yet.) But admittedly, it did give an unfair advantage to people who were aware of this trick vs people who weren’t + there were a lot of rumours about botting floating around as well, which this change seems to be helping to prevent.

[PolarAzulTigris]

Thank you for clarifying Neisha. I can see the pros and cons of that especially if used the way you mentioned. Though if botting really was occuring I can see why they wouldn't want you to know. I've been blind adopting the first design I like usually. 😂 But admittedly there are a lot of pets I've missed in 8 years.

[Neisha]

Thank you for clarifying Neisha. I can see the pros and cons of that especially if used the way you mentioned. Though if botting really was occuring I can see why they wouldn't want you to know. I've been blind adopting the first design I like usually. 😂 But admittedly there are a lot of pets I've missed in 8 years.

No worries Although getting rarer pets using this method would still depend on a) the pet showing up on your page and b) being fast enough to click it, it still gave some people an advantage, so this change will ultimately even the playing field. It’s more exciting to not know what’s in there imo, you never know what you might find!
(And same, especially recently with the updated rarity distribution in the pound I’ve mostly just been going for whatever design I like the most)

[Juliamon]

While it's definitely more fair this way, it'll be interesting to see how lag is affected. I noticed lag got a lot better when there were fewer high-rarity pets at stake, especially compared to last year's Easter where they had to artificially boost pound sizes to compensate.

[elleminnowpee]

Popping in to say we will never remove pets from inactive accounts, that's something we are firm about. You would be surprised how often people return to very old accounts.

Just wanted to chime in as another oldie that goes inactive for years, that I am still grateful for CS's stance on this.
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As for solving the Pound drought... the Pound has come a very long way over the years and there is always room for improvement - keepings bots out, hiding the Pound accounts groups, etc. But I don't see having less rare pets in the Pound as being something that needs to be solved. It should be seen as a nice bonus to have the chance to get a rare+, but not a requirement. The fact that they've actually been managing the % of rarities released each time is crazy to me.

I've always treated it as a fun way to complete a litter that I missed an outcome from without having to hunt through the boards or grab something off my WL. Maybe I'm just weird and using it wrong though *shrugs*

[GreatWhiteDragon_1]

some people have been tossing up the idea of the L&F only thing, but im honestly against the idea unless free items are removed from the pool. its incredibly annoying opening up the L&F and being blasted with a page full of items that you can literally go get for free from the store at any time 😭 it makes grabbing an item from the L&F feel like a chore instead of anything fun

Just saw this and I am going to have to correct you. With the free items the Store has, all of those free items are items you can only get Once. Those that make you pay for them with C$ you can get at any time. Some free items are only there for a limited time, then go away after a certain length of time. Many of the free items are from events and Advents current and past, yet those you cannot get again, unless you trade with someone or find them in the L&F. Also... some of those free items (Red Rose *held in mouth*) garner the equivalent to an '09 Rare.

So, no... the way things are for the L&F are fine. The way it's now set up for the Pound vs many years ago (2008) is questionable. Compared to the way it was, Rare pets were mixed so that only like 1 or 2 could be found on each adoption page of the Pound. It's now changed to where there are too many pets with lowered rarities and that keeps a lot of players from getting the pet they really want from the Pound.

Would a welcomed change for the way the Pound is operating be good? Oh yes! Is the current way of operation good for all? No, it's not. The ratio is too unbalanced. It was balanced years ago, but not now and it's been more than 2 years that that unbalance has proliferate.

A big change would be needed for it to be seen as fair as currently... it's not.

[LadyoftheGeneral]

i dont know if this has ever been brought up before, but it popped up in my mind the other day and i just feel the need to ask: what about pets that were adopted without an account? since they have no owner, and can never be traded, why not send them to the pound so they can be reintroduced into circulation? my apologies if this is already something thats been shot down before, im just curious ^_^

You know. That's not a bad idea - but I think there would need to be a limit on how many 'off account' pets could be sent per person (maybe by IP address) just to prevent people from doing a mass dump of pets to the pound and skewing numbers

For example: I have one of the ER Christmas Zebras I got as an off account adopt that's just in my bookmarks serving no purpose. It would be nice if there was a way to at least let someone get him as opposed to just sitting there.

Anyhow, I think the main problem of rarity drought for pound pets also comes from donations and the like. Sure, people who are quitting may donate their Rare+ pets. At te same time however, I suspect a lot of people probably also use the pound as dumping ground to get rid of excess commons OR pets they just don't like.

One other thing - I see a lot of players with a giant wish list of just rares+ with notes in their trade rules as being 'Just for pound' for the purpose of being able to quickly identify a rare (as pound pets have the ☆On your Wishlist note similar to browsing a person's trade group).

In theory, it's possible that it's not a true drought, but rather players with wish lists like that are quicker to snap up the Rare+ pets because they can tell quicker than those of us who don't have every pet bookmarked. [Suspected unpopular idea: remove the Wishlist tag from pound pets to give people who genuinely know what a rare+ Wishlist pet they want looks like a chance versus those just watching for that ☆Wishlist tag to get trade fodder]

TL/DR: The pound isn't exactly broken, or having true droughts of rare+ pets, but it does need some refining now that there's more pets than ever

You know, it never occurred to me that people might exclusively wishlist rares and higher for the sake of grabbing from pound. I have wishlisted any horses I don’t have, all birds I don’t have, and outcomes I don’t have—I don’t wishlist exclusively by rarity but by pets I hope to collect. I don’t think it ever occurred to me people might do otherwise. And that would definitely explain how easily they can identify a UR. The dates also don’t help as older dates tend to be rarer.

I think removing dates permanently, and maybe even doing a trial period of removing the wishlist indicator, would be a good idea.

[Katsumi-Luna]

I fully support the removal of dates and wishlist tags for the pound. The pound being even more of a potluck sounds great