Roll Back the Bans on MA/Non as Trading Guide Units [550+]

[BlueEyedKite]

-snip-

No I don't think this change was supposed to make values less confusing for the public. Demand and rarity are not so simple. Moreso it was a change to make determining if a player is misusing a trading guide for their own gain obvious.

No longer can a user claim they have never heard of Horror's guide while labeling their pets with Horror's specific guide terms: H. If Horror's guide lists a pet as worth .5 H they can't label the same pet 2 H. Not unless they explain to their trade partner that Horror's guide values the pet at .5 H but they value theirs at 2 H. They have to be transparent or they could run into trouble.

Believe it or not, before this change, there were ninja scammers labeling their pets higher in value than Horror's guide. But when confronted that they must know of Horror's guide because they were labeling their pets 2 MA, 1 Non, they would say "oh those are just generic terms. My own personal values". Ok buddy. Well that deception is no longer possible once the transition period passes.

Imagine if you traded 2 MAs worth of pets for a pet labeled 2 MA. Only to realize afterwards that, according to Horror's guide, it was actually worth 1 Old Rare not even an MA let alone 2. If you don't know what MAs means it's irrelevant. In this scenario the ninja trader profited off the trade and you were shorted. But it was hard to prove that the ninja trader was being intentionally misleading.

This rule change means using trading guide specific terms has meaning. They're not "generic terms" you can't "personal value" a Horror's guide trading term. And it's punishable if you are deceptive with Horror's guide values. This is why I don't support a rollback on this decision.

[divavolo]

-snip-

No I don't think this change was supposed to make values less confusing for the public. Demand and rarity are not so simple. Moreso it was a change to make determining if a player is misusing a player guide for their own gain obvious.

No longer can a user claim they have never heard of Horror's guide while labeling their pets with Horror's specific guide terms: H. If Horror's guide lists a pet as worth .5 H they can't label the same pet 2 H. Not unless they explain to their trade partner that Horror's guide values the pet at .5 H but they value theirs at 2 H. They have to be transparent or they could run into trouble.

Believe it or not, before this change, there were ninja scammers labeling their pets higher in value than Horror's guide. But when confronted that they must know of Horror's guide because they were labeling their pets 2 MA, 1 Non, they would say "oh those are just generic terms. My own personal values". Ok buddy. Well that deception is no longer possible once the transition period passes.

Imagine if you traded 2 MAs worth of pets for a pet labeled 2 MA. Only to realize afterwards that, according to Horror's guide, it was actually worth 1 Old Rare not even an MA let alone 2. If you don't know what MAs means it's irrelevant. In this scenario the ninja trader profited off the trade and you were shorted. But it was hard to prove that the ninja trader was being intentionally misleading.

This rule change means using trading guide specific terms has meaning. They're not "generic terms" you can't "personal value" a Horror's guide trading term. And it's punishable if you are deceptive with Horror's guide values. This is why I don't support a rollback on this decision.

couldn’t have said it better. everyone needs to read this reply!

[reaptherisk]

-snip-

No I don't think this change was supposed to make values less confusing for the public. Demand and rarity are not so simple. Moreso it was a change to make determining if a player is misusing a trading guide for their own gain obvious.

No longer can a user claim they have never heard of Horror's guide while labeling their pets with Horror's specific guide terms: H. If Horror's guide lists a pet as worth .5 H they can't label the same pet 2 H. Not unless they explain to their trade partner that Horror's guide values the pet at .5 H but they value theirs at 2 H. They have to be transparent or they could run into trouble.

Believe it or not, before this change, there were ninja scammers labeling their pets higher in value than Horror's guide. But when confronted that they must know of Horror's guide because they were labeling their pets 2 MA, 1 Non, they would say "oh those are just generic terms. My own personal values". Ok buddy. Well that deception is no longer possible once the transition period passes.

Imagine if you traded 2 MAs worth of pets for a pet labeled 2 MA. Only to realize afterwards that, according to Horror's guide, it was actually worth 1 Old Rare not even an MA let alone 2. If you don't know what MAs means it's irrelevant. In this scenario the ninja trader profited off the trade and you were shorted. But it was hard to prove that the ninja trader was being intentionally misleading.

This rule change means using trading guide specific terms has meaning. They're not "generic terms" you can't "personal value" a Horror's guide trading term. And it's punishable if you are deceptive with Horror's guide values. This is why I don't support a rollback on this decision.

thank you. this is what i have been trying to get people to see as well. it is a very simple change that will have extremely positive effects going forward.

in addition, some may say that scammers will still use MA/non to circumvent the rule, but the staff said that they will go through trading history to make sure - even trades with no message. this is basically a guarantee in my eyes that people using horror's guide can be implicated in scams. mods can likely now use their own discretion and ban obvious scammers.

that is absolutely not to say it's not a shame that obvious scammers couldn't be punished in the past, but in my opinion this is a good compromise by the staff who don't want to make any values official and wish to leave that up to the community.

[divavolo]

I genuinely am not chronically online enough to care. I never learned what MA actually means, and when I looked it up to read it, it's just referring to old event stuff that doesn't matter lmao.

If you wanna try to trade smth for 1 non or 100-150 rares, I would immediately just block you because I don't care what you think your pet is valued, you're not taking a ton of my rares for that, I'd rather trade with 10 other people instead lol.

CS can do whatever they want to their site and it would help newcomers, not affect them negatively. To learn the whole MA, Non language is dumb, and they dont realize that they're essentially trading away a ton of valuables to someone who is seasoned. Seasoned people can con newbies so easy with these terms and likely do ALL the time.

YUP. i feel 1000% the same way, and im sure a non vocal majority feels the same way too. after i returned from a 6 year hiatus, i had some of the worst trades of my lifetime on CS sent to me by people who joined in 2020+, claiming it was fair under horror’s guide using all these letters and abbreviations i do not care about. they’d block me when i told them the trade wasn’t fair no matter what guide or letters they are trying to use to justify it, trying to con me as a veteran! this new rule will help the website as a whole and if you can’t see that, you are the exact people CS is trying to prevent from conning people.

[Sharpy]

I genuinely am not chronically online enough to care. I never learned what MA actually means, and when I looked it up to read it, it's just referring to old event stuff that doesn't matter lmao.

If you wanna try to trade smth for 1 non or 100-150 rares, I would immediately just block you because I don't care what you think your pet is valued, you're not taking a ton of my rares for that, I'd rather trade with 10 other people instead lol.

CS can do whatever they want to their site and it would help newcomers, not affect them negatively. To learn the whole MA, Non language is dumb, and they dont realize that they're essentially trading away a ton of valuables to someone who is seasoned. Seasoned people can con newbies so easy with these terms and likely do ALL the time.

YUP. i feel 1000% the same way, and im sure a non vocal majority feels the same way too. after i returned from a 6 year hiatus, i had some of the worst trades of my lifetime on CS sent to me by people who joined in 2020+, claiming it was fair under horror’s guide using all these letters and abbreviations i do not care about. they’d block me when i told them the trade wasn’t fair no matter what guide or letters they are trying to use to justify it, trying to con me as a veteran! this new rule will help the website as a whole and if you can’t see that, you are the exact people CS is trying to prevent from conning people.

I feel like these responses are verging on hateful towards people who have legitimate concerns, just fyi.

[Candycrystal]

I genuinely am not chronically online enough to care. I never learned what MA actually means, and when I looked it up to read it, it's just referring to old event stuff that doesn't matter lmao.

If you wanna try to trade smth for 1 non or 100-150 rares, I would immediately just block you because I don't care what you think your pet is valued, you're not taking a ton of my rares for that, I'd rather trade with 10 other people instead lol.

CS can do whatever they want to their site and it would help newcomers, not affect them negatively. To learn the whole MA, Non language is dumb, and they dont realize that they're essentially trading away a ton of valuables to someone who is seasoned. Seasoned people can con newbies so easy with these terms and likely do ALL the time.

YUP. i feel 1000% the same way, and im sure a non vocal majority feels the same way too. after i returned from a 6 year hiatus, i had some of the worst trades of my lifetime on CS sent to me by people who joined in 2020+, claiming it was fair under horror’s guide using all these letters and abbreviations i do not care about. they’d block me when i told them the trade wasn’t fair no matter what guide or letters they are trying to use to justify it, trying to con me as a veteran! this new rule will help the website as a whole and if you can’t see that, you are the exact people CS is trying to prevent from conning people.

Sorry to disappoint you but this isn't really going to change that at all, except that the letters people use are going to change. I understand that this is all confusing if you don't really play the high level trading market--heck, I myself don't really so the MAs and H's and nons are all a bit of an abstraction for me--but people who DO put a lot of time and effort into figuring out which old pets have more demand, lower numbers, etc, even within a rarity bracket. And I think that's neat! I think if that's how they want to play the game, more power to em and it's a service to the wider community who also wants to play at that level to basically bootstrap a whole economy out of very vague information. And I think calling that a con just because you don't want to engage with it is kind of uncharitable. People all play this game with their own level of engagement and involvement and that's fine, we all have to exist on the same website together regardless.

[reaptherisk]

I genuinely am not chronically online enough to care. I never learned what MA actually means, and when I looked it up to read it, it's just referring to old event stuff that doesn't matter lmao.

If you wanna try to trade smth for 1 non or 100-150 rares, I would immediately just block you because I don't care what you think your pet is valued, you're not taking a ton of my rares for that, I'd rather trade with 10 other people instead lol.

CS can do whatever they want to their site and it would help newcomers, not affect them negatively. To learn the whole MA, Non language is dumb, and they dont realize that they're essentially trading away a ton of valuables to someone who is seasoned. Seasoned people can con newbies so easy with these terms and likely do ALL the time.

YUP. i feel 1000% the same way, and im sure a non vocal majority feels the same way too. after i returned from a 6 year hiatus, i had some of the worst trades of my lifetime on CS sent to me by people who joined in 2020+, claiming it was fair under horror’s guide using all these letters and abbreviations i do not care about. they’d block me when i told them the trade wasn’t fair no matter what guide or letters they are trying to use to justify it, trying to con me as a veteran! this new rule will help the website as a whole and if you can’t see that, you are the exact people CS is trying to prevent from conning people.

Sorry to disappoint you but this isn't really going to change that at all, except that the letters people use are going to change. I understand that this is all confusing if you don't really play the high level trading market--heck, I myself don't really so the MAs and H's and nons are all a bit of an abstraction for me--but people who DO put a lot of time and effort into figuring out which old pets have more demand, lower numbers, etc, even within a rarity bracket. And I think that's neat! I think if that's how they want to play the game, more power to em and it's a service to the wider community who also wants to play at that level to basically bootstrap a whole economy out of very vague information. And I think calling that a con just because you don't want to engage with it is kind of uncharitable. People all play this game with their own level of engagement and involvement and that's fine, we all have to exist on the same website together regardless.

agreed - these values don't come out of nowhere, they evolved over time based on demand and such. i dont understand the issue with a community.. having agreed upon values for a massive catalogue of virtual pets? it'll be the same on any other collection/trading site. and the same for like just about any collection activity in real life. you can feel the way you want about it and disregard 90% of the site's historical values for things but it's lost on me why that is deserving of a block and strong criticism. horror's guide is very well researched too. perhaps this site isn't a good fit for you at the end of the day OPs

and to circle back to the point of the topic yeah values aren't changing at all it's just the terminology

[Cartier]

I haven't really been online here for the past realistically couple of months, but coming back to see the pet values that I've been using for years have changed is a bit frustrating to say the least.
I honestly cannot help but feel that this is only going to confuse and hurt the less experienced traders in the long run. I think finally cracking down on the scamming/ninja trading of the site is a really wonderful thing, but now people are going to be confused as to which guide to follow, they're going to see pets labeled in MAs, Ns, Hs, and what ever else people decide to come up with. Yes, we have one main guide that we follow, but I don't see how this helps new users, inexperienced traders, or even experienced traders in the long run.
It also doesn't feel like it addresses the rampant and constantly increasing demand for certain pets. If I can say that I follow x guide, but I can still label the pet as 10H +5H(PV) then what exactly does this fix? The scammers will play nice for a week, and then go back to scamming because the rules feel like they essentially didn't change, all that changed was the wording. Also the vagueness of the "within reason of value" doesn't sit well with me.
Within reason does awknowledge personal values, which is great, but does it account for things like demand? If I have a pet that I traded 30 whatevers while it was valued at 25 whatevers. Am I going to be ousted for wanting my 5 whatevers? Or is that just personal value? Also, it doesn't help for pets that are rarely traded, items that have undetermined vlaue because of their scarcity, or generally speaking pets that have undetermined values due to high demand. It also absolutely doesn't address the known scam of "hey trade? " while offering commons for high-value pets because the person is inexperienced. I understand that creating a fix-all for these likely isn't possible, but the trading vocabulary itself wasn't a problem. Using MA, Non, old rare, or whatever else was not what we really complaining about when it came to trading, we're upset that there are a handful of scummy scammers/account multi-ers/value pushers who have essentially ruined the cs economy.
The way these rules are written, either values will come entirely to a standstill with no room for natural growth, or this update will be entirely ignored. Truly, it feels like this was a bandaid on an open wound, and not the real solution that everyone was asking for. At this point, why not recognize an official guide, or idk. just ban the couple of open-secret scammers? So yeah, as of now I fully support a roll-back, at least until they create a better system or rules that will actually help.

[emmiedee]

No I don't think this change was supposed to make values less confusing for the public. Demand and rarity are not so simple. Moreso it was a change to make determining if a player is misusing a trading guide for their own gain obvious.

No longer can a user claim they have never heard of Horror's guide while labeling their pets with Horror's specific guide terms: H. If Horror's guide lists a pet as worth .5 H they can't label the same pet 2 H. Not unless they explain to their trade partner that Horror's guide values the pet at .5 H but they value theirs at 2 H. They have to be transparent or they could run into trouble.

Believe it or not, before this change, there were ninja scammers labeling their pets higher in value than Horror's guide. But when confronted that they must know of Horror's guide because they were labeling their pets 2 MA, 1 Non, they would say "oh those are just generic terms. My own personal values". Ok buddy. Well that deception is no longer possible once the transition period passes.

Imagine if you traded 2 MAs worth of pets for a pet labeled 2 MA. Only to realize afterwards that, according to Horror's guide, it was actually worth 1 Old Rare not even an MA let alone 2. If you don't know what MAs means it's irrelevant. In this scenario the ninja trader profited off the trade and you were shorted. But it was hard to prove that the ninja trader was being intentionally misleading.

This rule change means using trading guide specific terms has meaning. They're not "generic terms" you can't "personal value" a Horror's guide trading term. And it's punishable if you are deceptive with Horror's guide values. This is why I don't support a rollback on this decision.

This is an excellent summary. It seems that most users complaining about the change struggle to understand both the wording and the practical utility of this new rule when enforcing anti-scamming policies. The shift to H=Horror's list neatly addresses one of the commonly exploited scamming loopholes–-not all of them, of course, but it's a good start & precedent.

I've been following this thread for a while and have watched numerous iterations of the same questions and complaints come up that can be addressed through this explanation. IMO it's unreasonable to expect that the scamming problem can be completely addressed in either one singular rule change or without some degree of "frustration" from having to re-orient the way that you trade and value pets.

[King Andre]

Support.

Also, terms like non and MA predate horror's guide by many years, so any scammer attempting to justify their logic isn't necessarily basing it off of that. Those terms come from CS trading culture that has been a thing longer than I've been on the site, when I first started in 2011 those terms were already a thing. They come from the old rares list which the community voted to shut down in 2019 (a decision I think had both good and bad effects) and gave way to things like Horror's guide a few years later. But all horror did was repurpose those terms because they they were convenient to use as the community at large already had familiarity and comfortability with them.

But no, Horror did not come up with those terms and anyone using them isn't basing their values on their guide.

If you can do enough research to have cursory knowledge of Horrors guide or terms like MA, then you can do a little bit more (usually by just reading the first few pages of the thread your're following) to determine whether or not that new UR you got is worth a few last year rares, 54 uncommons and 2 items.

There was a post made on the original thread that echos my sentiments exactly.



I'm still blown away by the crack down on this.
No other pet site/sim I've encountered cracks down on player based economy like this, not even the "ninja trading".

Player based economy is exactly that, player based, its not an official rule or policy, so banning certain things without having an official rule or policy in place to replace it doesn't make a lick of sense.

And then you have the whole ninja trading issue, which, while I understand the premise for why everyone is so upset about it, doesn't make sense from an official standpoint because its not the same as outright scamming someone. Now before you all come for my throat let me explain. Outright scamming someone would be if I said that your pet is worth 1MA and offer you 1MA value when in reality its worth 5MA, that is a flat out scam. If I just make an offer to you, no words exchanged, no discussions on values and you accept that offer point blank, that is not a scam. It sucks, yes, but that is not a scam.

Every other pet site/sim that I play has some form of "ninja-trading" in the sense that if you screw up and don't check the values of your own pets/items before you trade them away you're just outta luck because all values are player based and not official. You just have to accept the loss and deal with it. This happens on Lioden, Wolvden, Aways, Wajas, Flight Rising, FelisFire, Alacrity, Dappervolk etc etc. This even happens in real life when you consider collectibles such as Pokemon cards, Magic the Gathering cards etc - If you don't do your own do-diligence and make sure you know the value of your item you're gunna get ripped off.

To put it bluntly, Chickensmoothie has a weird 'half ass' approach to ninjaing. Either its exactly the same as scamming (even though, technically its not) and you ban the people doing it, or its not scamming and you allow the player base to have their player made economy and values where its the responsibility of each player trading to make sure they know the values of the pets/items they are trading. Removing the player based economy/values without implementing an official alternative while also not banning legitimate scammers doesn't make sense. You can't have it both ways.



I'll reiterate the central point; you cannot punish people for "ninja" trading without implicitly saying that you DO have a value system for the non-C$ currency on the site.

Wanting to protect newer or inexperienced users is fine, but in doing so you are saying that there IS an objective value to SOME degree on these pets that you feel like it is needed to punish people for knowingly "short-handing" other users. If it was completely subjective, then ninja-ing isn't a scam, and everyones personal value system matters equally the same. But to say that short-handing even is a thing you are acknowledging that there is some degree of objective value in regards to these pets.

And here's the kicker; I don't believe the staff have an actual objective value system in regards to these things. In effect; this probably looks like punishing players who offer less rare pets for pets that are likely to be very rare and or very sought out, to newer players, especially those who have a history of doing it. In that way, its more so based upon vibes, but you are still making an objective statement when you put out rules like this.

CS doesn't need to designate an official guide, they've already said that rarer pets are more valuable (in their eyes) with this move, such to the degree that players will be warned or punished for making perceived deliberate efforts to "get" more than they "give" so to speak. Designating or creating their own list or values would go against the nearly 2 decade long player driven economy and culture that has been established up to now, and like has been stated numerous times before, that would carry a host of problems far larger. Although I think everyone would be appreciative if they were more detailed with exactly how rare the rarest pets are especially in relation to each other, as opposed to leaving that work up to the community where nothing is concrete.

More relatedly, this rule isn't going to stop someone from labeling their pets 5 MAs, and if they were appealing to horror or anyone else's list before then that would be scammed person could easily find out they were lying, and if they are simply using personal values (which is the implicit and current meaning) then an unfamiliar user still isn't going to make a decision based off that because they frankly would have no clue what those terms mean.

With that said, you don't need to put a moratorium on the usage of MA in order to crack down on perceived ninjas; if they were actually referencing specific guides and lying then that's not ninja'ing, thats scamming, and if they weren't then the user making that trading decision will either be familiar with the terms and spot it or won't have a clue and it won't influence their decision at all.